Religion ~The incipient magician will confess his faith to a universal religion. He will find out that every religion has good points as well as bad ones. He will therefore keep the best of it for himself and ignore the weak points, which does not necessarily mean that he must profess a religion, but he shall express awe to each for of worship, for each religion has its proper principle of God, whether the point in question be Christianity, Buddhism, Islam or any other kind of religion. Fundamentally he may be faithful to his own religion. But he will not be satisfied with the official doctrines of his Church, and will try to penetrate deeper into god's workshop. And such is the purpose of our initiation. According to the universal laws, the magician will form his own point of view about the universe which henceforth will be his true religion...
Franz BardonRelated topics
awe bad best buddhism christianity church express faith faithful find form good incipient initiation islam kind magician mean official ones point principle proper purpose question religion try universal universe view well workshop worship laws pointsRelated quotes
The animating purpose of James was, on the other hand, primarily moral and artistic. It is expressed in his phrase, "block universe," employed as a term of adverse criticism. Mechanism and idealism were abhorrent to him because they both hold to a closed universe in which there is no room for novelty and adventure. Both sacrifice individuality and all the values, moral and aesthetic, which hang upon individuality; for according to absolute idealism, as to mechanistic materialism, the individual is simply a part determined by the whole of which he is a part. Only a philosophy of pluralism, of genuine indetermination, and of change which is real and intrinsic gives significance to individuality. It alone justifies struggle in creative activity and gives opportunity for the emergence of the genuinely new.
John Dewey
Well it wasn't a formal hanging. It was kind of subtle. I had covered him ... his first press conference. He dropped down into the press room and started taking questions and everyone asked about the tax cut and I sort of - Ari Fleischer later told me I blindsided him because I said to him, "Mister President, why don't you respect the wall of separation between church and state?" Well, there's a video of him that is so funny. He jerked back as if he had been hit! I mean both barrels! And he said, "I do respect-" I said, "Well if you did, why would you have a religious office in the White House?" (I'm exaggerating, but anyway) and "you're a secular official." And he said "I am secular." Well, anyway, I got a call from Ari after that. After that there was a formal news conference and I did ask him a Middle East question and it wasn't the question per se. They just don't like my boorishness.
Helen Thomas
A genuine first-hand religious experience like this is bound to be a heterodoxy to its witnesses, the prophet appearing as a mere lonely madman. If his doctrine prove contagious enough to spread to any others, it becomes a definite and labeled heresy. But if it then still prove contagious enough to triumph over persecution, it becomes itself an orthodoxy; and when a religion has become an orthodoxy, its day of inwardness is over: the spring is dry; the faithful live at second hand exclusively and stone the prophets in their turn. The new church, in spite of whatever human goodness it may foster, can be henceforth counted on as a staunch ally in every attempt to stifle the spontaneous religious spirit, and to stop all later bubblings of the fountain from which in purer days it drew its own supply of inspiration.
William James
It has always been my ambition since childhood to live such a life that one day my fellow citizens would call me to membership in this popular branch of the greatest lawmaking body in the world. Out of their confidence and partiality they have done this. It is now my sole purpose here to help enact such wise and just laws that our common country will by virtue of these laws be a happier and a more prosperous country. I have always dreamed of a country which I believe this should be and will be, and that is one in which the citizenship is an educated and patriotic people, not swayed by passion and prejudice, and a country that shall know no East, no West, no North, no South, but inhabited by a people liberty loving, patriotic, happy, and prosperous, with its lawmakers having no other purpose than to write such just laws as shall in the years to come be of service to human kind yet unborn.
Sam Rayburn
Third Theory.-According to this theory, there is nothing in the whole Universe... that is due to chance; everything is the result of will, intention, and rule. It is a matter of course that he who rules must know. The Mohametan Ashariyah adhere to this theory, notwithstanding evident absurdities implied in it. ...The Ashariyah were therefore compelled to assume that motion and rest of living beings are predestined, and that it is not in the power of a man to do a certain thing or to leave it undone. ...It follows also from this theory, that precepts are perfectly useless, since the people to whom any law is given... can neither do what they are commanded nor abstain from what they are forbidden. ...According to this theory, it must also be assumed that the actions of God have no final cause. All these absurdities are admitted by the Ashariyah for the purpose of saving this theory.
Maimonides
