Deities and spirits

"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?"

"Science seeks to explain everything—but maybe we don't want everything explained. We don't want all the magic to go out of life. We want to remain connected to the secret parts of our inner beings, to the ancient mysteries, and to the most distant outposts of the universe. We want to believe. And as long as we do, the fairies will remain."

"Up the airy mountain, Down the rushy glen, We daren't go a-hunting For fear of little men; Wee folk, good folk, Trooping all together, Green jacket, red cap, And white owl's feather!"

"It is frightfully difficult to know much about the fairies, and almost the only thing known for certain is that there are fairies wherever there are children."

"When you were a bird you knew the fairies pretty well, and you remember a good deal about them in your babyhood, which it is a great pity you can't write down, for gradually you forget, and I have heard of children who declared that they had never once seen a fairy. Very likely if they said this in the Kensington Gardens, they were standing looking at a fairy all the time. The reason they were cheated was that she pretended to be something else. This is one of their best tricks."

"Do you believe in fairies? If you believe clap your hands."

"When the first baby laughed for the first time, the laugh broke into a million pieces, and they all went skipping about. That was the beginning of fairies."

"Whenever a child says "I don't believe in fairies" there's a little fairy somewhere that falls right down dead."

"FAIRY, n. A creature, variously fashioned and endowed, that formerly inhabited the meadows and forests. It was nocturnal in its habits, and somewhat addicted to dancing and the theft of children. The fairies are now believed by naturalists to be extinct, though a clergyman of the Church of England saw three near Colchester as lately as 1855, while passing through a park after dining with the lord of the manor. The sight greatly staggered him, and he was so affected that his account of it was incoherent."

"Bright Eyes, Light Eyes! Daughter of a Fay! I had not been a married wife a twelvemonth and a day, I had not nursed my little one a month upon my knee, When down among the blue bell banks rose elfins three times three: They griped me by the raven hair, I could not cry for fear, They put a hempen rope around my waist and dragged me here; They made me sit and give thee suck as mortal mothers can, Bright Eyes, Light Eyes! strange and weak and wan!"

"This is not the considered dogma of schoolmen or of sages in council, but the whirring utterance of a poet, and it is with some such answer that we must affirm our belief in the fairy world. For this belief […] is so inconsiderable that it will never harden into a creed; so tiny and humble a thing that the wise of this world have never tried to preserve it as a talisman or to use it as an artificial symbol of contention. So that it has been left from the beginning to grow free like the daisies, and children from the morning of time have woven it into happy coronals and into flower-chains."

"Faeries lead us astray to show us the way."

"There are fairies at the bottom of our garden! It's not so very, very far away; You pass the gardener's shed and you just keep straight ahead— I do so hope they've really come to stay.[…]The King is very proud and very handsome, The Queen—now can you guess who that could be (She's a little girl all day, but at night she steals away)? Well—it's ME!"

"Then take me on your knee, mother; And listen, mother of mine. A hundred fairies danced last night, And the harpers they were nine."

"Nothing can be truer than fairy wisdom. It is as true as sunbeams."

"Most nature-spirits dislike and avoid mankind, and we cannot wonder at it. To them man appears a ravaging demon, destroying and spoiling wherever he goes... He wantonly kills, often with awful tortures, all the beautiful creatures that they love to watch; he cuts down the trees, he tramples the grass, he plucks the flowers and casts them carelessly aside to die; he replaces all the lovely wild life of nature with his hideous bricks and mortar, and the fragrance of the flowers with the mephitic vapours of his chemicals and the all polluting smoke of his factories. Can we think it strange that the fairies should regard us with horror, and shrink away from us as we shrink from a poisonous reptile? p. 143"

"Nicht die Kinder bloss speist man mit Märchen ab."

"It is for fear of the grown-up, or at least out of respect towards them, that a chapter must be given to fairies. If the children do not care very much for fairies, they must be made to care. "Who is to care if they do not? Who is to be properly childlike if they are not?""

"It may well be doubted whether children are generally credulous.{…] For children do not believe in fairies a jot. I have just asked my youngest daughter whether she believed in them, and she said "Of course not—only I liked the stories." Fiction to children is fiction and not fact."

"The pretty game of calling on the children of the audience of "Peter Pan" to declare their faith in fairies seemed to me disastrous—a game of men and women at the expense of children, a cumbersome frolic at best and an artificial, a tyrannous use of the adult sense of sentimental humour against the helpless. I could with better conscience use my superior physical strength upon them than exploit them for love of my own condescension. (And yet Sir J. Barrie has written the most adorable "pretending" story ever written about a child.)No, children love a fairy story not because they think it true, but because they think it untrue, and because it makes no fraudulent appeal to their excellent good sense. That sense they are delighted to put aside while they "pretend." That is their own word.[…] "Let's pretend," not "Let's believe." Their mother does not put "Let's pretend" into the child's mouth; she finds it there. Without it there is no play. But the pretending is always drama and never deception or self-deception."

"I took it for a faery vision Of some gay creatures of the element, That in the colours of the rainbow live, And play i' th' plighted clouds."

"Or fairy elves, Whose midnight revels by a forest side Or fountain, some belated peasant sees, Or dreams he sees, while overhead the Moon Sits arbitress, and nearer to the Earth Wheels her pale course; they, on their mirth and dance Intent, with jocund music charm his ear; At once with joy and fear his heart rebounds."

"The dances ended, all the fairy train For pinks and daisies search'd the flow'ry plain."

"This is the fairy-land; O spite of spites! We talk with goblins, owls and sprites."

"Fairies, black, grey, green, and white, You moonshine revellers, and shades of night."

"They are fairies; he that speaks to them shall die: I'll wink and couch: no man their works must eye."

"Set your heart at rest: The fairyland buys not the child of me."

"In silence sad, Trip we after night's shade: We the globe can compass soon. Swifter than the wand'ring moon."

"O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you. She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes In shape no bigger than an agate-stone On the forefinger of an alderman."

"Where the bee sucks, there suck I; In a cowslip's bell I lie; There I couch when owls do cry. On the bat's back I do fly."

"Her berth was of the wombe of morning dew And her conception of the joyous prime."

"But light as any wind that blows So fleetly did she stir, The flower, she touch'd on, dipt and rose, And turned to look at her."

"The weakness of the attack lies in its lack of discrimination. It is possible that psychic surgery is a hoax, that plants cannot really read our minds, that Kirlian photography (photographing the "life-aura" of living creatures) may depend on some simple electrical phenomenon. But to lump all of these together as if they were all on the same level of improbability shows a certain lack of discernment. The same applies to the list of "hoaxes." Rhine's careful research into extrasensory perception at Duke University is generally conceded to be serious and sincere, even by people who think his test conditions were too loose. The famous fairy photographs are quite probably a hoax, but no one has ever produced an atom of proof either way, and until someone does, no one can be quite as confident as the editors of Time seem to be. And Ted Serios has never at any time been exposed as a fraud — although obviously he might be. We see here a phenomena that we shall encounter again in relation to Geller: that when a scientist or a "rationalist" sets himself up as the defender of reason, he often treats logic with a disrespect that makes one wonder what side he is on."

"Adoro te devote, latens deitas,"

"Rememberest the gods, and that they wish not to be flattered, but wish all reasonable beings to be made like themselves"

"Some of the truths, now called “exploded superstitions,” will be discovered to be facts and the relics of ancient knowledge and wisdom. One of such “degrading” beliefs — in the opinion of the all-denying sceptic — is found in the idea that Kosmos, besides its objective planetary inhabitants, its humanities in other inhabited worlds, is full of invisible, intelligent Existences. The so-called Arch-Angels, Angels and Spirits, of the West, copies of their prototypes, the Dhyan-Chohans, the Devas and Pitris, of the East, are no real Beings but fictions. On this point Materialistic Science is inexorable. To support its position, it upsets its own axiomatic law of uniformity in the laws of nature, that of continuity, and all the logical sequence of analogies in the evolution of being. The masses of the profane are asked, and made, to believe that the accumulated testimony of History, which shows even the Atheists of old — such as Epicurus and Democritus — believing in gods, was false; and that philosophers like Socrates and Plato, asserting their existence, were mistaken enthusiasts and fools. If we hold our opinions merely on historical grounds, on the authority of legions of the most eminent Sages, Neo-Platonists, Mystics of all the ages, from Pythagoras down to the eminent Scientists and Professors of the present century, who, if they reject “gods,” believe in “spirits,” shall we consider such authorities as weak-minded and foolish...?"

"Is there no difference between the belief of the peasant and that of the Western heirs to the Rosicrucians and Alchemists of the Middle Ages? Is it the Van Helmonts, the Khunraths, the Paracelsuses and Agrippas, from Roger Bacon down to St. Germain, who were all blind enthusiasts, hysteriacs or cheats, or is it the handful of modern sceptics — the “leaders of thought” — who are struck with the cecity of negation? The latter, we opine. It would be a miracle indeed, quite an abnormal fact in the realm of probabilities and logic, were that handful of negators to be the sole custodians of truth, while the million-strong hosts of believers in gods, angels, and spirits — in Europe and America alone — namely, Greek and Latin Christians, Theosophists, Spiritualists, Mystics, etc., etc., should be no better than deluded fanatics and hallucinated mediums, and often no higher than the victims of deceivers and impostors! However varying in their external presentations and dogmas, beliefs in the Hosts of invisible Intelligences of various grades have all the same foundation. Truth and error are mixed in all. The exact extent, depth, breadth, and length of the mysteries of Nature are to be found only in Eastern esoteric sciences. So vast and so profound are these that hardly a few, a very few of the highest Initiates — those whose very existence is known but to a small number of Adepts — are capable of assimilating the knowledge. Yet it is all there..."

"Gods are condemned to live the dream of the imperishable."

"Men change their gods, and when they have changed them often enough they cease to fear their power."

"It was lately suggested to me, by a man with longer experience of the gods than I can rightly imagine, that the reason the gods do not show our paths more plainly is that They do not know either. I haven't decided if I find this reassuring or the reverse. It does hint they do not torment us solely for Their amusement, at least."

"Gods are like that. It isn’t enough for them to run everything. They want to be famous, too."

"Before the gods that made the gods Had seen their sunrise pass, The White Horse of the White Horse Vale Was cut out of the grass."

"Gods are fragile things, they may be killed by a whiff of science or a dose of common sense."

"Much of the power of biblical preaching from Moses to the time of the Exile comes from its stark either-or choice between Yahweh and the ‘other gods.” The great ninth-century B.C. contest at Carmel in 1 Kings 18 between Yahweh and Baal regarding control of the rain, hence of deity, contains the challenge of Elijah: “If the Lord is God, follow Him, but if Baal, then follow him.”"

"These are fools that men adore; both their Gods & their men are fools. This verse establishes uncompromisingly that all Gods — G capital, that is to say, 'true Gods' — and all men deified by legend or deceit — that is to say, false gods' — are fools. How come? It is a key. Distinction is clearly made between the two types: one are Gods; the other is men."

"Between the gods of light and darkness, of Order and Chaos, Elric knew there was little to choose. The capricious nature of immortality and omniscience played little part in the way of character-building. Too much time—and too little with which to fill it—made the Great Ones no less obstreperous and objectionable than a spoiled tavern brat with a bellyfull of cheap ale and an itchy sword-hand. Thus, just as he would strive to avert his gaze from the local folk in the numerous hostelries he came upon during his travels, so, too, did he rarely look into the sky, the distant plateaus beyond which the gods lazed, their milky eyes scouring the land below for any potential amusements."

"This fellow Paul has convinced and led astray large numbers of people here in Ephesus and in practically the whole province of Asia. He says that man-made gods are no gods at all."

"I do not know whether there are gods, but there ought to be."

"The gods were different, the suffering was the same."

"With ravish'd ears The monarch hears, Assumes the god, Affects to nod, And seems to shake the spheres."

"Philosophy instructs us to pay homage to the gods, not through hope or fear, but from veneration of Their superior nature."

"The heathen in his blindness Bows down to wood and stone."

"Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child."

"Nature loves to hide her secrets, and she does not suffer the hidden truth about the essential nature of the gods to be flung in naked words to the ears of the profane…"

"Choose your friends, then treat them as friends; do not regard them like slaves or servants, but associate with them frankly and simply and generously; not saying one thing of them and thinking something else. See how distrust towards friends has damaged yonder heritor. Love your subjects as we love you. Let respect toward us take precedence of all goods: for we are your benefactors and friends and saviours. … we shall be with you everywhere, I and Athene and Hermes here, and with us all the Gods that are in Olympus, and Gods of the air and of the earth, and all manner of deities everywhere, so long as you are holy toward us, loyal to your friends, kindly to your subjects, ruling and guiding them for their good. Never yield yourself a slave to your own desires or theirs."

"August Nibru! No deity excels like your lord and lady! They are powerful princes; they are brilliantly revealed deities. No deity excels like Enlil or Ninlil!"

"That swarm of ants that I observed, each one following the one ahead, have every one been Indra in the world of the gods by virtue of their own past action. And now, by virtue of their deeds done in the past, they have gradually fallen to the state of ants."

"To that large utterance of the early gods!"

"There are no gods! Just voices in your head. They tell you to do what you already want to do."

"I don't classify gods as far as their power goes. I classify them as far as their personality goes. Each god, if he used his power right, could defeat another god. If I used my power right I could defeat anyone on Earth if I wanted to. As a man, if I used my physical strength at its best, I could overpower anybody I wanted to. If I did it right. It's the same way with the gods. If they used their super-powers right, they could defeat any other god."

"A man agrees with god as a raindrop with the storm."

"If there are gods, they made sheep so wolves could eat mutton, and they made the weak for the strong to play with ... If you can't protect yourself, die and get out of the way of those who can."

"Who knows not Circe, The daughter of the Sun, whose charmed cup Whoever tasted, lost his upright shape, And downward fell into a groveling swine?"

"That moly That Hermes once to wise Ulysses gave."

"Le seigneur Jupiter sait dorer la pilule."

"Nevertheless they could never be imagined save in the most radiant bloom of youth. For the Hellenic idea of god this is very significant and serves as a symbol of their peculiar essence. Other peoples have felt no compunction in thinking of their deity as old, indeed as very ancient; no image could more forcefully suggest the venerable wisdom they possessed. But for the Greek his inmost feelings resisted such a notion. For him old age was a condition of the weariness, impoverishment, and darkening of nature, that vital and holy nature from which he could never at all separate the spirit. Even the highest wisdom must belong not to a region beyond life but to life's most buoyant energy, and knowledge must dwell not on the hoary countenance turned away from the world but on the bright and youthful brow and the blooming lips of Apollo."

"Still I hear a voice saying that the gods cannot be deceived, neither can they be compelled. But what if there are no gods? or, suppose them to have no care of human things."

"Concerning the gods, I have no means of knowing whether they exist or not or of what sort they may be, because of the obscurity of the subject, and the brevity of human life."

"The basest horn of his hoof is more musical than the pipe of Hermes."

"As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; They kill us for their sport."

"The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices Make instruments to plague us."

"This senior-junior, giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid: Regent of love-rhymes, lord of folded arms, The anointed sovereign of sighs and groans, Liege of all loiterers and malcontents."

"Cupid is a knavish lad, Thus to make poor females mad."

"Wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods? Draw near them in being merciful; Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge."

"And now I will try to defend myself against them: these new accusers must also have their affidavit read. What do they say? Something of this sort: — That Socrates is a doer of evil, and corrupter of the youth, and he does not believe in the gods of the state, and has other new divinities of his own."

"I will obey the god rather than you, and as long as I draw breath and am able, I shall not cease to practice philosophy."

"A person should steadfastly proclaim the exaltedness of his god. A young man should devoutly praise the words of his god; the people living in the righteous Land should unravel them like a thread. May the balaj singer assuage the spirit of his neighbour and friend. ... Let his mouth shaping a lament soothe the heart of his god, for a man without a god does not obtain food."

"Volente Deo."

"Incessu patuit Dea."

"Heu nihil invitis fas quemquam fidere divis."

"Jamque dies, ni fallor adest quem semper acerbum Semper honoratum (sic dii voluistis) habeo."

"Vocat in certamina Divos."

"Habitarunt Di quoque sylvas."

"Oh, meet is the reverence unto Bacchus paid! We will praise him still in the songs of our fatherland, We will pour the sacred wine, the chargers lade, And the victim kid shall unresisting stand, Led by his horns to the altar, where we turn The hazel spits while the dripping entrails burn."

"His followers called him Mahasamatman and said he was a god. He preferred to drop the Maha- and the -atman, and called himself Sam. He never claimed to be a god. But then, he never claimed not to be a god. Circumstances being what they were, neither admission could be of any benefit. Silence, though, could."

"Great is Diana of the Ephesians."

"The Ethiop gods have Ethiop lips, Bronze cheeks, and woolly hair; The Grecian gods are like the Greeks, As keen-eyed, cold and fair."

"Speak of the gods as they are."

"And that dismal cry rose slowly And sank slowly through the air, Full of spirit's melancholy And eternity's despair! And they heard the words it said— Pan is dead! great Pan is dead! Pan, Pan is dead!"

"The Graces, three erewhile, are three no more; A fourth is come with perfume sprinkled o'er. 'Tis Berenice blest and fair; were she Away the Graces would no Graces be."

"Two goddesses now must Cyprus adore; The Muses are ten, and the Graces are four; Stella's wit is so charming, so sweet her fair face, She shines a new Venus, a Muse, and a Grace."

"Omnia fanda, nefanda, malo permista furore, Justificam nobis mentem avertere deorum."

"O dii immortales! ubinam gentium sumus?"

"Never, believe me, Appear the Immortals, Never alone."

"Nature's self's thy Ganymede."

"Creator Venus, genial power of love, The bliss of men below, and gods above! Beneath the sliding sun thou runn'st thy race, Dost fairest shine, and best become thy place; For thee the winds their eastern blasts forbear, Thy mouth reveals the spring, and opens all the year; Thee, goddess, thee, the storms of winter fly, Earth smiles with flowers renewing, laughs the sky."

"Cupid is a casuist, a mystic, and a cabalist,— Can your lurking thought surprise, And interpret your device, * * * * * All things wait for and divine him,— How shall I dare to malign him?"

"Either Zeus came to earth to shew his form to thee, Phidias, or thou to heaven hast gone the god to see."

"I, Phœbus, song those songs that gained so much renown I, Phœbus, sang them; Homer only wrote them down."

"Say, Bacchus, why so placid? What can there be In commune held by Pallas and by thee? Her pleasure is in darts and battles; thine In joyous feasts and draughts of rosy wine."

"Some thoughtlessly proclaim the Muses nine: A tenth is Sappho, maid divine."

"Though men determine, the gods do dispose."

"There's a one-eyed yellow idol to the north of Khatmandu, There's a little marble cross below the town, There's a broken-hearted woman tends the grave of Mad Carew, And the yellow god forever gazes down."

"Who hearkens to the gods, the gods give ear."

"The son of Saturn gave The nod with his dark brows. The ambrosial curls Upon the Sovereign One's immortal head Were shaken, and with them the mighty mount, Olympus trembled."

"Shakes his ambrosial curls, and gives the nod, The stamp of fate, and sanction of the god."

"The ox-eyed awful Juno."

"Yet verily these issues lie on the lap of the gods."

"Where'er he moves, the goddess shone before."

"The matchless Ganymede, divinely fair."

"Jove weighs affairs of earth in dubious scales, And the good suffers while the bad prevails."

"Nec deus intersit nisi dignus vindice nodus."

"Junctæque Nymphis Gratiæ decentes."

"Di me tuentur."

"Neque semper arcum Tendit Apollo."

"Quanto quisque sibi plura negaverit, A dis plura feret."

"Scire, deos quoniam propius contingis, oportet."

"Of Pan we sing, the best of leaders Pan, That leads the Naiads and the Dryads forth; And to their dances more than Hermes can, Hear, O you groves, and hills resound his worth."

"Nam pro jucundis aptissima quæque dabunt di, Carior est illis homo quam sibi."

"High in the home of the summers, the seats of the happy immortals, Shrouded in knee-deep blaze, unapproachable; there ever youthful Hebé, Harmonié, and the daughter of Jove, Aphrodité, Whirled in the white-linked dance, with the gold-crowned Hours and Graces."

"Le trident de Neptune est le sceptre du monde."

"Hoeder, the blind old god Whose feet are shod with silence."

"Janus am I; oldest of potentates! Forward I look and backward and below I count—as god of avenues and gates— The years that through my portals come and go. I block the roads and drift the fields with snow, I chase the wild-fowl from the frozen fen; My frosts congeal the rivers in their flow, My fires light up the hearths and hearts of men."

"Estne Dei sedes nisi terra, et pontus, et aer, Et cœlum, et virtus? Superos quid quærimus ultra? Jupiter est, quodcunque vides, quodcunque moveris."

"A boy of five years old serene and gay, Unpitying Hades hurried me away.Mbr<Yet weep not for Callimachus: if few The days I lived, few were my sorrows too."

"Apparet divom numen, sedesque quietæ; Quas neque concutiunt ventei, nec nubila nimbeis. Aspergunt, neque nix acri concreta pruina Cana cadens violat; semper sine nubibus æther Integer, et large diffuso lumine ridet."

"No wonder Cupid is a murderous boy; A fiery archer making pain his joy. His dam, while fond of Mars, is Vulcan's wife, And thus 'twixt fire and sword divides her life."

"Deus ex machina."

"Man is certainly stark mad; he cannot make a flea, and yet he will be making gods by dozens."

"To be a god First I must be a god-maker: We are what we create."

"Expedit esse deos: et, ut expedit, esse putemus."

"Vilia miretur vulgus; mihi flavus Apollo Pocula Castalia plena ministret aqua."

"The god we now behold with opened eyes, A herd of spotted panthers round him lies In glaring forms; the grapy clusters spread On his fair brows, and dangle on his head."

"Jocos et Dii amant."

"The Graces sought some holy ground, Whose sight should ever please; And in their search the soul they found Of Aristophanes."

"Di nos quasi pilas homines habent."

"Cui homini dii propitii sunt aliquid objiciunt lucri."

"Miris modis Di ludos faciunt hominibus."

"Keep what goods the Gods provide you."

"Dum homo est infirmus, tunc deos, tunc hominem esse se meminit: invidet nemini, neminem miratur, neminem despicit, ac ne sermonibus quidem malignis aut attendit, aut alitur."

"Themistocles told the Adrians that he brought two gods with him, Persuasion and Force. They replied: "We also, have two gods on our side, Poverty and Despair.""

"Thamus … uttered with a loud voice his message, "The great Pan is dead.""

"Or ask of yonder argent fields above Why Jove's satellites are less than Jove."

"Of the Gods some are of the world, cosmic, and some above the world, hypercosmic. By the cosmic I mean those who make the cosmos. Of the hypercosmic Gods some create essence, some mind, and some soul."

"The arts of prophecy and of healing, which are part of the cosmos, come of the good providence of the gods."

"Mundus est ingens deorum omnium templum."

"Me goatfoot Pan of Arcady—the Median fear, The Athenian's friend, Miltiades placed here."

"A glimpse of Breidablick, whose walls are light As e'en the silver on the cliff it shone; Of dark blue steel its columns azure height And the big altar was one agate stone. It seemed as if the air upheld alone Its dome, unless supporting spirits bore it, Studded with stars Odin's spangled throne, A light inscrutable burned fiercely o'er it; In sky-blue mantles, Sat the gold-crowned gods before it."

"Speak to Him, thou, for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit can meet; Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet."

"But a bevy of Eroses apple-cheeked In a shallop of crystal ivory-beaked."

"Here comes to-day Pallas and Aphrodite, claiming each This meed of fairest."

"Or sweet Europa's mantle blew unclasped From off her shoulder backward borne; From one hand drooped a crocus: one hand grasped The mild bull's golden horn."

"Or else flushed Ganymede, his rosy thigh Half buried in the Eagle's down, Sole as a flying star, shot thro' the sky, Above the pillared town."

"Atlas, we read in ancient song, Was so exceeding tall and strong, He bore the skies upon his back, Just as the pedler does his pack; But, as the pedler overpress'd Unloads upon a stall to rest, Or, when he can no longer stand, Desires a friend to lend a hand, So Atlas, lest the ponderous spheres Should sink, and fall about his ears, Got Hercules to bear the pile, That he might sit and rest awhile."

"The world has lost its happiness, because happiness is in the spirit. Those who have turned away from the spirit must endure unhappiness, because why else would they return to the spirit? Therein lies the meaning of great events. To seek happiness through lies and through murder! One may rejoice that degeneracy is hastening evolution. Crimes are fanning the fire of an extinct world."

"The Spirits of thy Lines infuse a Fire Like the Worlds Soul, which makes me thus aspire"

"SPIRIT. — The lack of any mutual agreement between writers in the use of this word has resulted in dire confusion. It is commonly made synonymous with soul; and the lexicographers countenance the usage. This is the natural result of our ignorance of the other word, and repudiation of the classification adopted by the ancients. Elsewhere we attempt to make clear the distinction between the terms "spirit" and "soul." There are no more important passages in this work. Meanwhile, we will only add that "spirit" is the nou'" of Plato, the immortal, immaterial, and purely divine principle in man — the crown of the human Triad; whereas, SOUL is the fuch , or the nephesh of the Bible; the vital principle, or the breath of life, which every animal, down to the infusoria, shares with man."

"...we hold beliefs beyond ourselves. When this spirit of citizenship is missing, no government program can replace it. When this spirit is present, no wrong can stand against it."

"Teach me to do your will,"

"[T]here are patient naturalists, but they freeze their subject under the wintry light of the understanding. Is not prayer also a study of truth,—a sally of the soul into the unfound infinite? No man ever prayed heartily, without learning something. But when a faithful thinker... shall... kindle science with the fire of the holiest affections, then will God go forth anew into the creation. The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common. ...To the wise... a fact is true poetry and the most beautiful of fables. ...So shall we come to look at the world with new eyes. It shall answer the endless inquiry of the intellect... Then shall come to pass what my poet said; 'Nature is not fixed but fluid. Spirit alters, moulds, makes it. The immobility or bruteness of nature, is the absence of spirit; to pure spirit, it is fluid, it is volatile, it is obedient. Every spirit builds itself a house; and beyond its house a world; and beyond its world, a heaven. Know then, that the world exists for you. For you is the phenomenon perfect. What we are, that only can we see. All that Adam had all, that Caesar could, you have and can do. Adam called his house, heaven and earth; Caesar called his house, Rome; you perhaps call yours, a cobler's trade; a hundred acres of ploughed land; or a scholar's garret. Yet line for line and point for point, your dominion is as great as theirs, though without fine names. Build, therefore, your own world. As fast as you conform your life to the pure idea in your mind, that will unfold its great proportions. A correspondent revolution in things will attend the influx of the spirit. So fast will disagreeable appearances, swine, spiders, snakes, pests, madhouses, prisons, enemies, vanish; they are temporary and shall be no more seen. The sordor and filths of nature, the sun shall dry up, and the wind exhale. As when the summer comes from the south; the snow-banks melt, and the face of the earth becomes green before it, so shall the advancing spirit create its ornaments along its path, and carry with it the beauty it visits, and the song which enchants it; it shall draw beautiful faces, warm hearts, wise discourse, and heroic acts, around its way, until evil is no more seen. The kingdom of man over nature, which cometh not with observation,—a dominion such as now is beyond his dream of God,—he shall enter without more wonder than the blind man feels who is gradually restored to perfect sight.'"

"God is Spirit, certainly. It stands written in the fourth chapter of John, verse twenty-four. But let us not oversimplify! If God is spirit, then my soul must be something else; or if my soul is spirit, I must find another name for God. St. John means the same thing, for when he says "spirit," like St. Paul, he has the Holy Spirit in mind. In other words, by comparison with the Holy Spirit, body and soul, matter and spirit, person and thing are all "carnal." Between all these and the living God lies […] the distance between Creator and creature.[…] Before this bottomless ravine, the difference between earthly body and soul shrinks to insignificance."

"The purity of the spirit is dependent upon truth. A spirit is pure when it makes clear-cut distinctions between great and little, good and bad; when it refuses to bend yes into no and no into yes, but keeps them undistorted by a straight either-or. This doesn't mean that with the resultant clarity the good is also already accomplished and the bad avoided; it means something much more elementary: that virtue is never called vice, and vice virtue. Purity of spirit lies at the beginning of things, there where the first stirrings set in, where conceptions of being and doing are formed. It is that initial authenticity in which the true meaning of words is grounded and their relation to each other is corrected, their edges are trimmed. Spirit becomes impure through essential dishonesty. When it attempts to call evil good, it becomes essentially corrupt. A lie is always evil, but worse than its conscious evil is loss of the fundamental sense of truth. The spirit that errs is not yet impure—for example when it judges facts falsely, uses words incorrectly, confuses images. It is impure when it is indifferent to truth; when it no longer desires to think cleanly or to measure by the standards of eternity, when it no longer knows that that the dignity and honor of truth are its own dignity and honor; when it besmudges the sense of words—which is the sense of things and of existence itself—robbing them of their austerity and nobility."

"When your spirit no longer shines, you crave gems."

"The heart's wave would not foam up so beautifully and become spirit, if the ancient, mute rock, fate, did not stand opposed to it."

"During the prehistoric age of mankind, spirit was presumed to exist everywhere and was not held in honor as a privilege of man. Because, on the contrary, ... one saw in the spirit that which unites us with nature, not that which sunders us from it."

"We said that the perceptive-ability of the animal, when compared with what is in plants, is a more far-reaching way of relating to things. Would not, then, the peculiarly human manner of knowing — for ages past, termed a spiritual or intellective knowing — in fact be another, further mode of putting-oneself-into-relation, a mode which transcends in principle anything which can be realized in the plant and animal worlds? And further, would this fundamentally different kind of relating power go together with a different field of relations, i.e., a world of fundamentally different dimensions? The answer to such questions can be found in the Western philosophical tradition, which has understood and even defined spiritual knowing as the power to place oneself in relation to the sum-total of existing thngs. And this is not meant as only one characteristic among others, but as the very essence and definition of the power. By its nature, spirit (or intellection) is not so much distinguished by its immateriality, as by something more primary: its ability to be in relation to the totality of being."

"To label Seth as a spirit guide is to limit an understanding of what he is . . . The minute I found out after my first book was published that this automatically put me in what people called the psychic field . . . I was so humiliated I could hardly hold my head up. I'm using my writing [and] my life to transform intuitive, sometimes revelationary material into art, where it can be enjoyed, understood to varying degrees, and stand free of the stupid interpretations . . . The whole psychic bit as it is, is intellectually and morally psychologically outrageous as far as I'm concerned and I want no part of it or the vocabulary or the ideas."

"The life of the mind, although supremely excellent in itself, can not bring health into the life of instinct ...it is, as a rule, too widely separated from instinct... to afford either a vehicle for instinct, or a means of subtilizing and refining it. Thought is in its essence impersonal and detached, instinct is in its essence personal and tied to particular circumstances: between the two, unless both reach a high level, there is a war which is not easily appeased. ...Thought which does not rise above what is personal is not thought in any true sense: it is merely a more or less intelligent use of instinct. It is thought and spirit that raise man above the level of the brutes. ...Thought must achieve its full growth before a reconciliation with instinct is attempted. ... When refined thought and unrefined instinct coexist, as they do in many intellectual men, the result is a complete disbelief in any important good to be achieved by the help of instinct. According to their disposition, some such men will as far as possible discard instinct and become ascetic, while others will accept it as a necessity, leaving it degraded and separated from all that is really important in their lives. Either of these courses prevents instinct from remaining vital, or from being a bond with others; either produces a sense of physical solitude... so long as this sense of unity is absent, instinct and spirit cannot be in harmony, nor can the life of the community have vigor... The life of the mind, because of its detachment, tends to separate a man inwardly from other men, so long as it is not balanced by the life of the spirit. For this reason, mind without spirit can render instinct corrupt or atrophied... On this ground, some men are hostile to thought. But no good purpose is served by trying to prevent the growth of thought, which has its own insistence, and if checked in the directions in which it tends naturally, will turn into other directions where it is more harmful. ...But the opposition is not irreconciliable: all that is necessary is that both thought and instinct should be informed by the life of the spirit. ... In order that human life should have vigor, it is necessary for the instinctive impulses to be strong and direct; but in order that human life should be good, these impulses must be dominated and controlled by desires less personal and ruthless, less liable to lead to conflict than those that are inspired by instinct alone. Something impersonal and universal is needed over and above what springs out of the principle of individual growth. It is this that is given by the life of the spirit. ... The life of the spirit demands readiness for renunciation when the occasion arises, but is in its essence as positive and as capable of enriching individual existence as mind and instinct are. It brings with it the joy of vision, of the mystery and profundity of the world, of the contemplation of life, and above all the joy of universal love. It liberates those who have it from the prison-house of insistent personal passion and mundane cares. It gives freedom and breadth and beauty to men's thoughts and feelings, and to all their relations with others. It brings the solution of doubts, the end of the feeling that all is vanity. It restores harmony between mind and instinct, and leads the separated unit back into his place in the life of mankind. For those who have once entered the world of thought, it is only through spirit that happiness and peace can return."

"Hegel called it spirit, we call it culture. Culture is a negative definition, a jumble of things, made for the most varied purposes, not to provide us with a concept of spirit. Ernst Cassirer wrote “For a Philosophy of Culture,” but it was a masked, reduced, debased philosophy of spirit."

"Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep. Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you do call for them?"

"Black spirits and white, Red spirits and grey, Mingle, mingle, mingle, You that mingle may."

"Spirits are not finely touched But to fine issues."

"The spirit, Sir, is one of mockery."

"There is neither spirit nor matter in the world; the stuff of the universe is spirit-matter. No other substance but this could produce the human molecule. I know very well that this idea of spirit-matter is regarded as a hybrid monster, a verbal exorcism of a duality which remains unresolved in its terms. But I remain convinced that the objections made to it arise from the mere fact that few people can make up their minds to abandon an old point of view and take the risk of a new idea... Biologists or philosophers cannot conceive a biosphere or noosphere because they are unwilling to abandon a certain narrow conception of individuality. Nevertheless, the step must be taken. For in fact, pure spirituality is as unconceivable as pure materiality. Just as, in a sense, there is no geometrical point, but as many structurally different points as there are methods of deriving them from different figures, so every spirit derives its reality and nature from a particular type of universal synthesis."

"One of the unfortunate consequences of the intellectualization of man's spiritual life was that the word "spirit" was lost and replaced by mind or intellect, and that the element of vitality which is present in “spirit” was separated and interpreted as an independent biological force. Man was divided into a bloodless intellect and a meaningless vitality. The middle ground between them, the spiritual soul, in which vitality and intentionality are united, was dropped."

"Therefore, all the spirits and demons have one half from man below, and the other half from the angels of the supernal realm."

"The sword conquered for a while, but the spirit conquers for ever!"

"Never the spirit was born; the spirit shall cease to be never; Never was time it was not; End and Beginning are dreams! Birthless and deathless and changeless remaineth the spirit for ever; Death hath not touched it at all, dead though the house of it seems! knoweth it exhaustless, self-sustained, Immortal, indestructible,—shall such Say, "I have killed a man, or caused to kill?" Nay, but as when one layeth His worn-out robes away, And, taking new ones, sayeth, "These will I wear to-day!" So putteth by the spirit Lightly its garb of flesh, And passeth to inherit A residence afresh."

"If that vital spark that we find in a grain of wheat can pass unchanged through countless deaths and resurrections, will the spirit of man be unable to pass from this body to another?"

"I am certain that after the dust of centuries has passed over our cities, we, too, will be remembered not for victories or defeats in battle or in politics, but for our contribution to the human spirit."

"Why, a spirit is such a little, little thing, that I have heard a man, who was a great scholar, say that he'll dance ye a hornpipe upon the point of a needle."

"Not of the letter, but of the spirit; for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life."

"Some who are far from atheists, may make themselves merry with that conceit of thousands of spirits dancing at once upon a needle's point."

"A Corpse or a Ghost—… I'd sooner be one or t'other, square and fair, than a Ghost in a Corpse, which is my feelins at present."

"I am the spirit of the morning sea, I am the awakening and the glad surprise."

"Ich bin der Geist stets verneint."

"Aërial spirits, by great Jove design'd To be on earth the guardians of mankind: Invisible to mortal eyes they go, And mark our actions, good or bad, below: The immortal spies with watchful care preside, And thrice ten thousand round their charges glide: They can reward with glory or with gold, A power they by Divine permission hold."

"The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak."

"Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth Unseen, both when we wake, and when we sleep."

"Teloque animus præstantior omni."

"Ornament of a meek and quiet spirit."

"Know then, unnumber'd Spirits round thee fly, The light Militia of the lower sky."

"He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city."

"A wounded spirit who can bear?"

"After the spiritual powers, there is no thing in the world more unconquerable than the spirit of nationality…. The spirit of nationality in Ireland will persist even though the mightiest of material powers be its neighbor."

"Of my own spirit let me be In sole though feeble mastery."

"Boatman, come, thy fare receive; Thrice thy fare I gladly give, For unknown, unseen by thee, Spirits twain have crossed with me."

"There are times in the history of men and nations, when they stand so near the vail that separates mortals from the immortals, time from eternity, and men from their God, that they can almost hear the beatings, and feel the pulsations, of the heart of the Infinite."

"Hands of invisible spirits touch the strings Of that mysterious instrument, the soul, And play the prelude of our fate."

"Millions of spiritual beings walk the earth unseen, Both when we wake, and when we sleep."

"It may be that at this moment every battlement of heaven is alive with the redeemed. There is a sainted mother watching for her daughter. Have you no response to that long hushed voice which has prayed for you so often? And for you, young man, are there no voices there that have prayed for you? And are there none whom you promised once to meet again, if not on earth, in heaven?"

"Do we not hear voices, gentle and great, and some of them like the voices of departed friends,— do we not hear them saying to us, "Come up hither?""

"Yes, thank God! there is rest — many an interval of saddest, sweetest rest — even here, when it seems as if evening breeze; from that other land, laden with fragrance, played upon the cheeks, and lulled the heart. There are times, even on the stormy sea, when a gentle whisper breathes softly as of heaven, and sends into the soul a dream of ecstasy which can never again wholly die, even amidst the jar and whirl of daily life. How such whispers make the blood stop and the flesh creep with a sense of mysterious communion! How singularly such moments are the epochs of life — the few points that stand out prominently in the recollection after the flood of years has buried all the rest, as all the low shore disappears, leaving only a few rock points visible at high tide."

"It is said that the Creator gathered together the four sacred elements and breathed life into them to give form to Original Man before setting him upon Turtle Island. The last of all beings to be created, First Man was given the name . The Creator called out the name to the four directions so that the others would know who was coming. Nanabozho, part man, part manido—a powerful spiritbeing—is the personification of life forces, the culture hero, and our great teacher of how to be human. In Nanabozho's form as Original Man and in our own, we humans are the newest arrivals on earth, the youngsters, just learning to find our way."

"Nanabozho did not know his parentage or his origins—only that he was set down into a fully peopled world of plants and animals, winds, and water. He was an immigrant too. Before he arrived, the world was all here, in balance and harmony, each one fulfilling their purpose in the Creation. He understood, as some did not, that this was not the "," but one that was ancient before he came."

"Above the Apsû | Dwelling place that you occupy; | As a copy of the Ešarra | Which I myself built for you, | But further down: in a place | Of which I have consolidated the base, | I want to build myself a Temple | Which will be my favorite home, | In the midst of which | I will plant my Sanctuary | And I will assign my apartments, | To establish my kingdom there. | When you leave the Apsû, | To go up to the Assembly, | That will be your stop, | To receive you all together; | When you leave Heaven | To go down to the [Assembly]; | That will be your stop, | To welcome you all together! | [I] will give it the name "Babylon: | The Temple of the Great Gods"."

"That nothing has changed | Of what I will have. | And that every order uttered by my lips | May it remain irreversible and irrevocable!"

"I want to condense some blood, | Building a framework | And thus create a human prototype, | Who will be called "Man"! | This Prototype, this Man, | I want to create it | So that the labors of the gods may be imposed on him | And let them have free time.""

"Marduk redeemed the gods following Tiāmat from slavery, he freed them from slavery by creating men and making them carry the burden of serving the gods. That is, Marduk, to spare the vanquished gods from serving the other victorious gods, forms humanity which is therefore destined by original and natural disposition to serve the gods, to religion. Humanity is therefore the subject of redemption, it is not to be redeemed, but a part of the gods is redeemable: men redeem the gods. (Giuseppe Furlani)"

"Among all the gods of the Babylonian-Assyrian pantheon he was the one who had the most widespread and long-lasting cult. It is already mentioned in the private documents of the ancient dynasties of Babylon, from which it appears that the god was venerated together with Sin and Samas. All the monarchs of the Babylonian empire competed in paying homage to him."

"The cult of Marduk flourished again during the Persian lordship through the work of Cyrus II of Persia, who with fine political understanding was able to make the powerful priests of the deity favorable, who remained even in the period of decline of the Chaldean empire- Babylonian the chief deity of Babylon. Cambyses, following his father's example, held the ancient god in great honor, whose city continued for a long time to be the capital of the new empire founded by Cyrus. The great sanctuary of Marduk was then sacked and destroyed by Xerxes I of Persia; which marked the end of his cult."

"Originally he was a solar god in general, in the local aspect the sun-god of Eridu, and his cult connected with the worship of the sun. Then when the concept of the sun in its entirety was concretized in Samas, then in Marduk the morning sun and at the same time the spring sun were seen. He later passed from Eridu to Babylon, rising to the honor of the local and tutelary god of the great metropolis. As the political and religious importance of this city grew, Marduk simultaneously rose higher and higher in the celestial hierarchy; until at the apogee of Babylon's power he appears as head of all the Mesopotamian gods."

"His nature was exuberant; | His withering gaze; | He was a made man from birth, | And full of strength from the beginning.""

"Its shapes are incredible, | Admirable: | Impossible to imagine, | Unbearable to watch. | Four are his eyes, | And his ears are four. | When he moves his lips, | The Fire blazes! | Four ears | They're ticked off, | And his eyes, in equal number, | They inspect the Universe!"

"Oh Marduk, only you emerge | Among the Great Gods! | Your destiny is unmatched, | Your command, sovereign! | From now on, | Your orders will be irrevocable! | Raise or tear down | It will be in your power! | What comes out of your mouth will come true, | Your command will never be deceptive! | None, among the gods, | It will go beyond the limits you set! | And like our places of worship | You will have your assigned seat | In all our sanctuaries! | Oh Marduk, to you alone, | Our avenger, | We have conferred Kingship | On the totality of Universality around!"

"I have a talent that I am very ready to put to the test, that there is no one in here who eats his food faster than me. (Snorri Sturluson)"

"If people paid more attention to the words they use, they wouldn't dare compare themselves with Loki, the wisest, the most brilliant, the most cunning, the most intelligent, the most beautiful... (Neil Gaiman)"

"Mass genocide is the most exhausting activity there is, on par with football."

"No harm, no foul."

"That poem, the Walrus and the Carpenter, is an indictment of organized religion. The Walrus, with its corpulence and goodness, represents either the Buddha or with its tusks the Hindu Elephant God, Ganesh. This settles the Eastern religions. Now, the Carpenter is an obvious reference to Jesus Christ; he was the son of a carpenter and thus represents Western religions. Now, in the poem, what do they do? What are they doing? They snare a bag of oysters to get followed and then with large thrusts they shuck and devour those helpless creatures en masse. I don't know what you think, but to me all this says that following these faiths, based on mythological figures, favors the destruction of a person's interiority. Organized religion destroys who we are by inhibiting our actions, inhibiting our decisions for fear of an intangible father figure who has been pointing the finger at us for thousands of years now and saying, "Do it! Do it! I'll fucking split you in two!""

"Among the Aesir is also counted what some call the slanderer of the Aesir or the origin of deception and the misfortune of all gods and men, he is called Loki or Loptr, son of the giant Fárbauti. His mother is Laufey or Nál, his brothers are Býleistr and Helbindi. Loki is handsome and handsome in appearance, evil in character and very changeable in behavior. He possessed much more than other men the science which is called cunning, and he achieves everything through deception. He always led the Aesir into great difficulties and often got them out of trouble with deceptive designs. (Snorri Sturluson)"

"You were angry with him even when you owed him deep gratitude, and you were grateful even when you hated him."

"Loki is very handsome. He is very persuasive, convincing, nice, and is by far the shrewdest, most subtle and most sagacious of the inhabitants of Asgard. Therefore it is really a shame that inside him there is a sea of ​​darkness: so much anger, so much envy, so much greed. [...] He is more intelligent, sharp and cunning than any other god or giant. Not even Odin is as cunning as Loki. [...] The other gods tolerate him, perhaps because his stratagems and plans have saved them as many times as they have gotten them into trouble."

"Loki was handsome, and he knew it. Everyone wanted to love him and believe in him, but he was at best unreliable and self-centered, and at worst malevolent or even evil. He married a woman named Sigyn, who at the time of their courtship and marriage was beautiful and happy but after a while she had the face of someone who is always waiting for bad news."

"Loki makes the world more interesting but less safe. He is the father of monsters, the author of suffering, the evil god."

"When I don't have my hammer, you're better than me at getting people to do things. (Thor)"

"When something bad happens the first thing I think is, "It's Loki's fault." It saves a lot of time. (Thor)"

"When the god Loki did an incredibly bad thing, the other gods took him to a horrible, dark cave, and there they chained him to three sharp stones. Over him they hung a disgusting serpent, so that its venom would drip, drip, drip forever on Loki's face."

"That scoundrel, that impostor. The suffering of men is a joy to him."

"Suffering and pain were his bread and his nectar."

"Fenrir, son"

"Hel, daughter"

"Miðgarðsormr, son"

"He has all the attributes of a very high God, because he is omniscient, very wise, guardian and defender of his creatures, inaccessible to deception because he sees and knows everything, creator of light, of men and of the so-called primeval heifer which is, as will be seen, the living symbol of the strength and productive virtue of nature. His throne is in the highest heaven, and he sits there surrounded by the celestial hosts. This last concept is common, one can say, to almost all religions; but the attributes now enumerated are of a philosophical and theological nature, such that they bring Ahura Mazdao closer to the Semitic god, to the Yahveh in particular of the Jews, while distancing him from every other Indo-European god to whom, usually, they are always, or almost always, accompanied anthropomorphic attributes. (Italo Pizzi)"

"Zarathustra's god is a unique god. This is a concept that is not only foreign to the entire Iranian tradition, but is in absolute contrast with it. For it Zarathustra inaugurates a new era in the history of the Iranian people. He is the prophet of Ahura Mazda, and Ahura Mazda is the only god. (Raffaele Pettazzoni:)"

"The name Ahura, like the name of Yahveh that the Bible gives to the God of Israel, means the Being, that is, the Being par excellence; and it is obvious to understand that such a concept, high and sublime, a mere and pure metaphysical abstraction, can only proceed from a select speculative mind and cannot belong to the order of ideas proper to naturalistic religions. And did this idea perhaps come to Zarathustra from the Semites, or rather from the Jews? (Italo Pizzi)"

"All this I have done according to the will of Auramazda: may Auramazda protect me, together with the gods, and (protect) my lordship and what was built by me. May Auramazda protect me together with the gods; and that which was built by me, and that which was built by my father, king Darius, that also shall protect Auramazda. (Xerxes I of Persia)"

"Auramazda brought me help, and with it the other gods that are there. Therefore Auramazda and the other gods that are there brought me help, because I was not evil, I was not deceitful, I was not arrogant, neither I nor my family."

"By the grace of Auramazda I am king: Auramazda gave me the kingdom."

"A great god (baga) (is) Auramazda, who created this earth, who created that sky, who created man, who created abundance of goods for man, who made Darius king, the 'one (made) king of many."

"And moonèd Ashtaroth, Heav’ns Queen and Mother both, Now sits not girt with Tapers holy shine,"

"[...] With these in troop Came Astoreth, whom the Phoenicians call’d Astarte, Queen of Heav’n, with crescent Horns; To whose bright Image nightly by the Moon Sidonian Virgins paid their Vows and Songs, In Sion also not unsung, where stood Her Temple on th’ offensive Mountain, built By that uxorious King, whose heart though large, Beguil’d by fair Idolatresses, fell To Idols foul. [...]"

"We bid those spectre-shapes avaunt, Ashtaroth and Termagaunt!"

"And now, as the night was senescent And star-dials pointed to morn— As the star-dials hinted of morn— At the end of our path a liquescent And nebulous lustre was born, Out of which a miraculous crescent Arose with a duplicate horn— Astarte’s bediamonded crescent Distinct with its duplicate horn."

"Where are they, Cotytto or Venus, Astarte or Ashtaroth, where? Do their hands as we touch come between us? Is the breath of them hot in thy hair? From their lips have thy lips taken fever, With the blood of their bodies grown red? Hast thou left upon earth a believer If these men are dead?"

"Or that young god, the Tyrian, who was more amorous than the dove Of Ashtaroth?"

"When in a Syrian treasure-house she pours, From caskets rich and amethystine urns, Dull fires of dusty jewels that have bound The brows of naked Ashtaroth around."

"Baal sits (enthroned) like the sitting of a mountain, Haddu ... like the (cosmic) ocean, In the midst of his mountain, divine Sapan, In [the midst of?] the mount of victory, (With) seven lightning-flashes, Eight store-houses of thunder A tree-bolt of lightning.[..] His head is adorned (?), With dew between his eyes ... at his base, ... the horn[s] ... on him (?), His head with a downpour from the heavens ... is watering, His mouth like two clouds (?)... Like wine is the love of his heart..."

"And it came to pass on the morrow, that Balak took Balaam, and brought him up into the high places of Baal, that thence he might see the utmost part of the people."

"And Israel joined himself unto Baalpeor: and the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel. [...]And Moses said unto the judges of Israel, Slay ye every one his men that were joined unto Baalpeor."

"Your eyes have seen what the LORD did because of Baalpeor: for all the men that followed Baalpeor, the LORD thy God hath destroyed them from among you."

"And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD, and served Baalim:And they forsook the LORD God of their fathers, which brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods, of the gods of the people that were round about them, and bowed themselves unto them, and provoked the LORD to anger.And they forsook the LORD, and served Baal and Ashtaroth.And the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel, and he delivered them into the hands of spoilers that spoiled them, and he sold them into the hands of their enemies round about, so that they could not any longer stand before their enemies."

"And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD, and forgat the LORD their God, and served Baalim and the groves."

"And it came to pass the same night, that the LORD said unto him, Take thy father’s young bullock, even the second bullock of seven years old, and throw down the altar of Baal that thy father hath, and cut down the grove that is by it: 6:26 And build an altar unto the LORD thy God upon the top of this rock, in the ordered place, and take the second bullock, and offer a burnt sacrifice with the wood of the grove which thou shalt cut down."

"Then Gideon took ten men of his servants, and did as the LORD had said unto him: and so it was, because he feared his father’s household, and the men of the city, that he could not do it by day, that he did it by night.And when the men of the city arose early in the morning, behold, the altar of Baal was cast down, and the grove was cut down that was by it, and the second bullock was offered upon the altar that was built.And they said one to another, Who hath done this thing? And when they enquired and asked, they said, Gideon the son of Joash hath done this thing.Then the men of the city said unto Joash, Bring out thy son, that he may die: because he hath cast down the altar of Baal, and because he hath cut down the grove that was by it.And Joash said unto all that stood against him, Will ye plead for Baal? will ye save him? he that will plead for him, let him be put to death whilst it is yet morning: if he be a god, let him plead for himself, because one hath cast down his altar.Therefore on that day he called him Jerubbaal, saying, Let Baal plead against him, because he hath thrown down his altar."

"And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the LORD, and served Baalim, and Ashtaroth, and the gods of Syria, and the gods of Zidon, and the gods of Moab, and the gods of the children of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines, and forsook the LORD, and served not him."

"And the children of Israel cried unto the LORD, saying, We have sinned against thee, both because we have forsaken our God, and also served Baalim."

"Then the children of Israel did put away Baalim and Ashtaroth, and served the LORD only."

"And they cried unto the LORD, and said, We have sinned, because we have forsaken the LORD, and have served Baalim and Ashtaroth: but now deliver us out of the hand of our enemies, and we will serve thee.And the LORD sent Jerubbaal, and Bedan, and Jephthah, and Samuel, and delivered you out of the hand of your enemies on every side, and ye dwelled safe."

"And Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the LORD above all that were before him.And it came to pass, as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that he took to wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Zidonians, and went and served Baal, and worshipped him.And he reared up an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he had built in Samaria.And Ahab made a grove; and Ahab did more to provoke the LORD God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him."

"Now therefore call unto me all the prophets of Baal, all his servants, and all his priests; let none be wanting: for I have a great sacrifice to do to Baal; whosoever shall be wanting, he shall not live. But Jehu did it in subtilty, to the intent that he might destroy the worshippers of Baal."

"And it came to pass, when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said unto him, Art thou he that troubleth Israel?And he answered, I have not troubled Israel; but thou, and thy father’s house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the LORD, and thou hast followed Baalim.Now therefore send, and gather to me all Israel unto mount Carmel, and the prophets of Baal four hundred and fifty, and the prophets of the groves four hundred, which eat at Jezebel’s table.So Ahab sent unto all the children of Israel, and gathered the prophets together unto mount Carmel.And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word.Then said Elijah unto the people, I, even I only, remain a prophet of the LORD; but Baal’s prophets are four hundred and fifty men.Let them therefore give us two bullocks; and let them choose one bullock for themselves, and cut it in pieces, and lay it on wood, and put no fire under: and I will dress the other bullock, and lay it on wood, and put no fire under:And call ye on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the LORD: and the God that answereth by fire, let him be God. And all the people answered and said, It is well spoken.And Elijah said unto the prophets of Baal, Choose you one bullock for yourselves, and dress it first; for ye are many; and call on the name of your gods, but put no fire under.And they took the bullock which was given them, and they dressed it, and called on the name of Baal from morning even until noon, saying, O Baal, hear us. But there was no voice, nor any that answered. And they leaped upon the altar which was made."

"And Elijah said unto them, Take the prophets of Baal; let not one of them escape. And they took them: and Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon, and slew them there."

"Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him."

"Ahaziah the son of Ahab began to reign over Israel in Samaria the seventeenth year of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, and reigned two years over Israel.And he did evil in the sight of the LORD, and walked in the way of his father, and in the way of his mother, and in the way of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin:For he served Baal, and worshipped him, and provoked to anger the LORD God of Israel, according to all that his father had done."

"And Ahaziah fell down through a lattice in his upper chamber that was in Samaria, and was sick: and he sent messengers, and said unto them, Go, enquire of Baalzebub the god of Ekron whether I shall recover of this disease."

"Now Jehoram the son of Ahab began to reign over Israel in Samaria the eighteenth year of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, and reigned twelve years.And he wrought evil in the sight of the LORD; but not like his father, and like his mother: for he put away the image of Baal that his father had made.Nevertheless he cleaved unto the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which made Israel to sin; he departed not therefrom."

"And Jehu gathered all the people together, and said unto them, Ahab served Baal a little; but Jehu shall serve him much.Now therefore call unto me all the prophets of Baal, all his servants, and all his priests; let none be wanting: for I have a great sacrifice to do to Baal; whosoever shall be wanting, he shall not live. But Jehu did it in subtilty, to the intent that he might destroy the worshippers of Baal.And Jehu said, Proclaim a solemn assembly for Baal. And they proclaimed it.And Jehu sent through all Israel: and all the worshippers of Baal came, so that there was not a man left that came not. And they came into the house of Baal; and the house of Baal was full from one end to another.And he said unto him that was over the vestry, Bring forth vestments for all the worshippers of Baal. And he brought them forth vestments.And Jehu went, and Jehonadab the son of Rechab, into the house of Baal, and said unto the worshippers of Baal, Search, and look that there be here with you none of the servants of the LORD, but the worshippers of Baal only.And when they went in to offer sacrifices and burnt offerings, Jehu appointed fourscore men without, and said, If any of the men whom I have brought into your hands escape, he that letteth him go, his life shall be for the life of him.And it came to pass, as soon as he had made an end of offering the burnt offering, that Jehu said to the guard and to the captains, Go in, and slay them; let none come forth. And they smote them with the edge of the sword; and the guard and the captains cast them out, and went to the city of the house of Baal.And they brought forth the images out of the house of Baal, and burned them.And they brake down the image of Baal, and brake down the house of Baal, and made it a draught house unto this day.Thus Jehu destroyed Baal out of Israel."

"And all the people of the land went into the house of Baal, and brake it down; his altars and his images brake they in pieces thoroughly, and slew Mattan the priest of Baal before the altars. And the priest appointed officers over the house of the LORD."

"And they left all the commandments of the LORD their God, and made them molten images, even two calves, and made a grove, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served Baal.And they caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, and used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger."

"For he built up again the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed; and he reared up altars for Baal, and made a grove, as did Ahab king of Israel; and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served them."

"And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, and the priests of the second order, and the keepers of the door, to bring forth out of the temple of the LORD all the vessels that were made for Baal, and for the grove, and for all the host of heaven: and he burned them without Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron, and carried the ashes of them unto Bethel.And he put down the idolatrous priests, whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the high places in the cities of Judah, and in the places round about Jerusalem; them also that burned incense unto Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the host of heaven."

"And the LORD was with Jehoshaphat, because he walked in the first ways of his father David, and sought not unto Baalim;But sought to the Lord God of his father, and walked in his commandments, and not after the doings of Israel."

"Then all the people went to the house of Baal, and brake it down, and brake his altars and his images in pieces, and slew Mattan the priest of Baal before the altars."

"And it came to pass after this, that Joash was minded to repair the house of the LORD.And he gathered together the priests and the Levites, and said to them, Go out unto the cities of Judah, and gather of all Israel money to repair the house of your God from year to year, and see that ye hasten the matter. Howbeit the Levites hastened it not.And the king called for Jehoiada the chief, and said unto him, Why hast thou not required of the Levites to bring in out of Judah and out of Jerusalem the collection, according to the commandment of Moses the servant of the LORD, and of the congregation of Israel, for the tabernacle of witness?For the sons of Athaliah, that wicked woman, had broken up the house of God; and also all the dedicated things of the house of the LORD did they bestow upon Baalim."

"Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem: but he did not that which was right in the sight of the LORD, like David his father:For he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, and made also molten images for Baalim.Moreover he burnt incense in the valley of the son of Hinnom, and burnt his children in the fire, after the abominations of the heathen whom the LORD had cast out before the children of Israel."

"For he built again the high places which Hezekiah his father had broken down, and he reared up altars for Baalim, and made groves, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served them."

"Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem one and thirty years.And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, and walked in the ways of David his father, and declined neither to the right hand, nor to the left.For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father: and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places, and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten images.And they brake down the altars of Baalim in his presence; and the images, that were on high above them, he cut down; and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten images, he brake in pieces, and made dust of them, and strowed it upon the graves of them that had sacrificed unto them.And he burnt the bones of the priests upon their altars, and cleansed Judah and Jerusalem.And so did he in the cities of Manasseh, and Ephraim, and Simeon, even unto Naphtali, with their mattocks round about.And when he had broken down the altars and the groves, and had beaten the graven images into powder, and cut down all the idols throughout all the land of Israel, he returned to Jerusalem."

"They joined themselves also unto Baalpeor, and ate the sacrifices of the dead."

"The priests said not, Where is the LORD? and they that handle the law knew me not: the pastors also transgressed against me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal, and walked after things that do not profit."

"How canst thou say, I am not polluted, I have not gone after Baalim?"

"Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye know not;And come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations?Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, even I have seen it, saith the LORD."

"Who is the wise man, that may understand this? and who is he to whom the mouth of the LORD hath spoken, that he may declare it, for what the land perisheth and is burned up like a wilderness, that none passeth through? 9:13 And the LORD saith, Because they have forsaken my law which I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice, neither walked therein;But have walked after the imagination of their own heart, and after Baalim, which their fathers taught them:Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink."

"For according to the number of thy cities were thy gods, O Judah; and according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem have ye set up altars to that shameful thing, even altars to burn incense unto Baal."

"For the LORD of hosts, that planted thee, hath pronounced evil against thee, for the evil of the house of Israel and of the house of Judah, which they have done against themselves to provoke me to anger in offering incense unto Baal."

"And it shall come to pass, if they will diligently learn the ways of my people, to swear by my name, The LORD liveth; as they taught my people to swear by Baal; then shall they be built in the midst of my people."

"Thus saith the LORD, Go and get a potter’s earthen bottle, and take of the ancients of the people, and of the ancients of the priests;And go forth unto the valley of the son of Hinnom, which is by the entry of the east gate, and proclaim there the words that I shall tell thee, 19:3 And say, Hear ye the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah, and inhabitants of Jerusalem; Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will bring evil upon this place, the which whosoever heareth, his ears shall tingle.Because they have forsaken me, and have estranged this place, and have burned incense in it unto other gods, whom neither they nor their fathers have known, nor the kings of Judah, and have filled this place with the blood of innocents;They have built also the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings unto Baal, which I commanded not, nor spake it, neither came it into my mind:Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that this place shall no more be called Tophet, nor The valley of the son of Hinnom, but The valley of slaughter."

"And I have seen folly in the prophets of Samaria; they prophesied in Baal, and caused my people Israel to err."

"How long shall this be in the heart of the prophets that prophesy lies? yea, they are prophets of the deceit of their own heart;Which think to cause my people to forget my name by their dreams which they tell every man to his neighbour, as their fathers have forgotten my name for Baal."

"Then came the word of the LORD unto Jeremiah, saying,Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh: is there any thing too hard for me?Therefore thus saith the LORD; Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the Chaldeans, and into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, and he shall take it:And the Chaldeans, that fight against this city, shall come and set fire on this city, and burn it with the houses, upon whose roofs they have offered incense unto Baal, and poured out drink offerings unto other gods, to provoke me to anger."

"And they built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire unto Molech; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin."

"Plead with your mother, plead: for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband: let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight, and her adulteries from between her breasts;Lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she was born, and make her as a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and slay her with thirst.And I will not have mercy upon her children; for they be the children of whoredoms.For their mother hath played the harlot: she that conceived them hath done shamefully: for she said, I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink.Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths.And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them: then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now.For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal. [...]And I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, wherein she burned incense to them, and she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, and she went after her lovers, and forgat me, saith the LORD.Therefore will I return, and take away my corn in the time thereof, and my wine in the season thereof, and will recover my wool and my flax given to cover her nakedness.And now will I discover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and none shall deliver her out of mine hand.I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days, her new moons, and her sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts.And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees, whereof she hath said, These are my rewards that my lovers have given me: and I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them.And I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, wherein she burned incense to them, and she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, and she went after her lovers, and forgat me, saith the LORD.Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her.And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope: and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.And it shall be at that day, saith the LORD, that thou shalt call me Ishi; and shalt call me no more Baali.For I will take away the names of Baalim out of her mouth, and they shall no more be remembered by their name.And in that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground: and I will break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the earth, and will make them to lie down safely."

"I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness; I saw your fathers as the firstripe in the fig tree at her first time: but they went to Baalpeor, and separated themselves unto that shame; and their abominations were according as they loved."

"As they called them, so they went from them: they sacrificed unto Baalim, and burned incense to graven images."

"When Ephraim spake trembling, he exalted himself in Israel; but when he offended in Baal, he died."

"I will also stretch out mine hand upon Judah, and upon all the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and I will cut off the remnant of Baal from this place, and the name of the Chemarims with the priests;And them that worship the host of heaven upon the housetops; and them that worship and that swear by the LORD, and that swear by Malcham;And them that are turned back from the LORD; and those that have not sought the LORD, nor enquired for him."

"But what saith the answer of God unto him? I have reserved to myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal."

"Peor, and Baalim, Forsake their Temples dim,"

"And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail, And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal; And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword, Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!"

"The Baal-adorer bows on Sinai’s steep;"

"Elohim was, in logical terminology, the genus of which ghosts, Chemosh, Dagon, Baal, and Jahveh were species. The Israelite believed Jahveh to be immeasurably superior to all other kinds of Elohim. The inscription on the Moabite stone shows that King Mesa held Chemosh to be, as unquestionably, the superior of Jahveh."

"Why should God be so jealous of the wooden idols of the heathen? Could he not compete with Baal? Was he envious of the success of the Egyptian magicians?"

"In Physicia Baal is still worshiped as Bolus, and as Belly he is adored and served with abundant sacrifice by the priests of Guttledom."

"Hamilcar the Suffet, my father, the servant of the Baals!"

"He consulted all the soothsayers in the army one after the other,—those who watch the trail of serpents, those who read the stars, and those who breathe upon the ashes of the dead. He swallowed galbanum, seseli, and viper’s venom which freezes the heart; Negro women, singing barbarous words in the moonlight, pricked the skin of his forehead with golden stylets; he loaded himself with necklaces and charms; he invoked in turn Baal-Khamon, Moloch, the seven Kabiri, Tanith, and the Venus of the Greeks. He engraved a name upon a copper plate, and buried it in the sand at the threshold of his tent. Spendius used to hear him groaning and talking to himself."

"“Never! Do you not know that it means death? The hermaphrodite Baals are unveiled to us alone who are men in understanding and women in weakness. Your desire is sacrilege; be satisfied with the knowledge that you possess!”"

"As soon as Hamilcar turned away he began to cry aloud and invoke all the Baals. It was not his fault! he could not help it! He had watched the temperature, the soil, the stars, had planted at the winter solstice and pruned at the waning of the moon, had inspected the slaves and had been careful of their clothes."

"Down fell the huge beasts, falling one above another. It was like a mountain; and upon the heap of dead bodies and armour a monstrous elephant, called “The Fury of Baal,” which had been caught by the leg in some chains, stood howling until the evening with an arrow in its eye."

"They were waiting for the thrice holy festival when, from the summit of a funeral pile, an eagle flew heavenwards as a symbol of the resurrection of the year, and a message from the people to their Baal; they regarded it as a sort of union, a method of connecting themselves with the might of the Sun. Moreover, filled as they now were with hatred, they turned frankly towards homicidal Moloch, and all forsook Tanith."

"From the position of the sun above the moon he inferred the predominance of Baal, of whom the planet itself is but the reflection and figure; moreover, all that he saw in terrestrial things compelled him to recognise the male exterminating principle as supreme."

"In order to retain the genius of the gods within the town their images had been covered with chains. Black veils were placed upon the Patæc gods, and hair-cloths around the altars; and attempts were made to excite the pride and jealousy of the Baals by singing in their ears: “Thou art about to suffer thyself to be vanquished! Are the others perchance more strong? Show thyself! aid us! that the peoples may not say: ‘Where are now their gods?’”"

"They were considered as cruel masters, who were appeased with supplications and allowed themselves to be bribed with presents. All were feeble in comparison with Moloch the Devourer. The existence, the very flesh of men, belonged to him; and hence in order to preserve it, the Carthaginians used to offer up a portion of it to him, which calmed his fury. Children were burned on the forehead, or on the nape of the neck, with woollen wicks; and as this mode of satisfying Baal brought in much money to the priests, they failed not to recommend it as being easier and more pleasant."

"These were the Chanaanitish Baalim, offshoots of the supreme Baal, who were returning to their first cause to humble themselves before his might and annihilate themselves in his splendour."

"Then came all the inferior forms of the Divinity: Baal-Samin, god of celestial space; Baal-Peor, god of the sacred mountains; Baal-Zeboub, god of corruption, with those of the neighbouring countries and congenerous races: the Iarbal of Libya, the Adramelech of Chaldæa, the Kijun of the Syrians; Derceto, with her virgin’s face, crept on her fins, and the corpse of Tammouz was drawn along in the midst of a catafalque among torches and heads of hair. In order to subdue the kings of the firmament to the Sun, and prevent their particular influences from disturbing his, diversely coloured metal stars were brandished at the end of long poles; and all were there, from the dark Neblo, the genius of Mercury, to the hideous Rahab, which is the constellation of the Crocodile. The Abbadirs, stones which had fallen from the moon, were whirling in slings of silver thread; little loaves, representing the female form, were born on baskets by the priests of Ceres; others brought their fetishes and amulets; forgotten idols reappeared, while the mystic symbols had been taken from the very ships as though Carthage wished to concentrate herself wholly upon a single thought of death and desolation."

"At last the Baal arrived exactly in the centre of the square. His pontiffs arranged an enclosure with trellis-work to keep off the multitude, and remained around him at his feet."

"The hierodules, with a long hook, opened the seven-storied compartments on the body of the Baal. They put meal into the highest, two turtle-doves into the second, an ape into the third, a ram into the fourth, a sheep into the fifth, and as no ox was to be had for the sixth, a tawny hide taken from the sanctuary was thrown into it. The seventh compartment yawned empty still.Before undertaking anything it was well to make trial of the arms of the god. Slender chainlets stretched from his fingers up to his shoulders and fell behind, where men by pulling them made the two hands rise to a level with the elbows, and come close together against the belly; they were moved several times in succession with little abrupt jerks. Then the instruments were still. The fire roared."

"Night fell; clouds accumulated above the Baal. The funeral-pile, which was flameless now, formed a pyramid of coals up to his knees; completely red like a giant covered with blood, he looked, with his head thrown back, as though he were staggering beneath the weight of his intoxication."

"He presented himself as a saviour with six thousand men all carrying meal under their cloaks, and forty elephants laden with forage and dried meat. The people flocked quickly around them; they gave them names. The sight of these strong animals, sacred to Baal, gave the Carthaginians even more joy than the arrival of such relief; it was a token of the tenderness of the god, a proof that he was at last about to interfere in the war to defend them."

"And he led them down from the Mount of Olives and looked wrathfully upon the angels that keep hell (Tartarus), and beckoned unto Michael to sound the trumpet in the height of the heavens. And Michael sounded, and the earth shook, and Beliar came up, being held by 660 angels and bound with fiery chains.And the length of him was 1,600 cubits and his breadth 40 cubits, and his face was like a lightning of fire and his eyes full of darkness. And out of his nostrils came a stinking smoke; and his mouth was as the gulf of a precipice, and the one of his wings was four-score cubits."

"Belial came last, then whom a Spirit more lewd Fell not from Heaven, or more gross to love Vice for it self: To him no Temple stood Or Altar smoak’d; yet who more oft then hee In Temples and at Altars, when the Priest Turns Atheist, as did Ely’s Sons, who fill’d With lust and violence the house of God. In Courts and Palaces he also Reigns And in luxurious Cities, where the noyse Of riot ascends above thir loftiest Towrs, And injury and outrage: And when Night Darkens the Streets, then wander forth the Sons Of Belial, flown with insolence and wine. Witness the Streets of Sodom, and that night In Gibeah, when hospitable Dores Yielded thir Matrons to prevent worse rape."

"[...] On th' other side up rose Belial, in act more graceful and humane; A fairer person lost not Heav'n; he seemd For dignity compos'd and high exploit: But all was false and hollow; though his Tongue Dropt Manna, and could make the worse appear The better reason, to perplex and dash Maturest Counsels: for his thoughts were low; To vice industrious, but to Nobler deeds Timorous and slothful: yet he pleas'd the eare, [...]"

"Or, my scrofulous French novel On gray paper with blunt type! Simply glance at it, you grovel Hand and foot in Belials gripe: If I double down its pages At the woeful sixteenth print, When he gathers his greengages, Ope a sieve and slip it in't?"

"The Sixty-eighth Spirit is Belial. He is a Powerful King, and was created next after Lucifer. He appeareth in the Form of Two beautiful Angels sitting in a Chariot of Fire. He speaketh with a Comely Voice, and declareth that he fell first from among the worthier sort, that were before Michael, and other Heavenly Angels. His Office is to distribute Presentations and Senatorships, etc., and to cause favour of Friends and of Foes. He giveth excellent Familiars, and governeth 80 Legions of Spirits. Note well that this King Belial must have Offerings, Sacrifices and Gifts presented unto him by the Exorcist, or else he will not give True Answers unto his Demands. But then he tarrieth not one hour in the Truth, unless he be constrained by Divine Power. And his Seal is this, which is to be worn as aforesaid, etc."

"And thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the LORD."

"And I will set my face against that man, and will cut him off from among his people; because he hath given of his seed unto Molech, to defile my sanctuary, and to profane my holy name.And if the people of the land do any ways hide their eyes from the man, when he giveth of his seed unto Molech, and kill him not:Then I will set my face against that man, and against his family, and will cut him off, and all that go a whoring after him, to commit whoredom with Molech, from among their people.And the soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards, to go a whoring after them, I will even set my face against that soul, and will cut him off from among his people."

"Then did Solomon build an high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, in the hill that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech, the abomination of the children of Ammon."

"And he defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the children of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech."

"And they built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire unto Molech; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin."

"Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves."

"Then God turned, and gave them up to worship the host of heaven; as it is written in the book of the prophets, O ye house of Israel, have ye offered to me slain beasts and sacrifices by the space of forty years in the wilderness?Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Remphan, figures which ye made to worship them: and I will carry you away beyond Babylon."

"And sullen Moloch fled, Hath left in shadows dred, His burning Idol all of blackest hue, In vain with Cymbals ring, They call the grisly king, In dismall dance about the furnace blue;"

"First Moloch, horrid King besmear’d with blood Of human sacrifice, and parents tears, Though for the noyse of Drums and Timbrels loud Their childrens cries unheard, that past through fire To his grim Idol. Him the Ammonite Worshipt in Rabba and her watry Plain, In Argob and in Basan, to the stream Of utmost Arnon. Nor content with such Audacious neighbourhood, the wisest heart Of Solomon he led by fraud to build His Temple right against the Temple of God On that opprobrious Hill, and made his Grove The pleasant Vally of Hinnom, Tophet thence And black Gehenna call’d, the Type of Hell."

"Moloch! Solitude! Filth! Ugliness! Ashcans and unobtainable dollars! Children screaming under the stairways! Boys sobbing in armies! Old men weeping in the parks! Moloch! Moloch! Nightmare of Moloch! Moloch the loveless! Mental Moloch! Moloch the heavy judger of men! Moloch the incomprehensible prison! Moloch the crossbone soulless jailhouse and Congress of sorrows! Moloch whose buildings are judgment! Moloch the vast stone of war! Moloch the stunned governments! Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood is running money! Moloch whose fingers are ten armies! Moloch whose breast is a cannibal dynamo! Moloch whose ear is a smoking tomb! Moloch whose eyes are a thousand blind windows! Moloch whose skyscrapers stand in the long streets like endless Jehovahs! Moloch whose factories dream and croak in the fog! Moloch whose smoke-stacks and antennae crown the cities! Moloch whose love is endless oil and stone! Moloch whose soul is electricity and banks! Moloch whose poverty is the specter of genius! Moloch whose fate is a cloud of sexless hydrogen! Moloch whose name is the Mind! Moloch in whom I sit lonely! Moloch in whom I dream Angels! Crazy in Moloch! Cocksucker in Moloch! Lacklove and manless in Moloch! Moloch who entered my soul early! Moloch in whom I am a consciousness without a body! Moloch who frightened me out of my natural ecstasy! Moloch whom I abandon! Wake up in Moloch! Light streaming out of the sky! Moloch! Moloch! Robot apartments! invisible suburbs! skeleton treasuries! blind capitals! demonic industries! spectral nations! invincible madhouses! granite cocks! monstrous bombs! They broke their backs lifting Moloch to Heaven! Pavements, trees, radios, tons! lifting the city to Heaven which exists and is everywhere about us!"

"He consulted all the soothsayers in the army one after the other,—those who watch the trail of serpents, those who read the stars, and those who breathe upon the ashes of the dead. He swallowed galbanum, seseli, and viper’s venom which freezes the heart; Negro women, singing barbarous words in the moonlight, pricked the skin of his forehead with golden stylets; he loaded himself with necklaces and charms; he invoked in turn Baal-Khamon, Moloch, the seven Kabiri, Tanith, and the Venus of the Greeks. He engraved a name upon a copper plate, and buried it in the sand at the threshold of his tent. Spendius used to hear him groaning and talking to himself."

"The temple of Moloch was built at the foot of a steep defile in a sinister spot. From below nothing could be seen but lofty walls rising indefinitely like those of a monstrous tomb. The night was gloomy, a greyish fog seemed to weigh upon the sea, which beat against the cliff with a noise as of death-rattles and sobs; and the shadows gradually vanished as if they had passed through the walls.But as soon as the doorway was crossed one found oneself in a vast quadrangular court bordered by arcades. In the centre rose a mass of architecture with eight equal faces. It was surmounted by cupolas which thronged around a second story supporting a kind of rotunda, from which sprang a cone with a re-entrant curve and terminating in a ball on the summit.Fires were burning in cylinders of filigree-work fitted upon poles, which men were carrying to and fro. These lights flickered in the gusts of wind and reddened the golden combs which fastened their plaited hair on the nape of the neck. They ran about calling to one another to receive the Ancients.Here and there on the flag-stones huge lions were couched like sphinxes, living symbols of the devouring sun. They were slumbering with half-closed eyelids. But roused by the footsteps and voices they rose slowly, came towards the Ancients, whom they recognised by their dress, and rubbed themselves against their thighs, arching their backs with sonorous yawns; the vapour of their breath passed across the light of the torches. The stir increased, doors closed, all the priests fled, and the Ancients disappeared beneath the columns which formed a deep vestibule round the temple.These columns were arranged in such a way that their circular ranks, which were contained one within another, showed the Saturnian period with its years, the years with their months, and the months with their days, and finally reached to the walls of the sanctuary."

"Then further back, higher than the candelabrum, and much higher than the altar, rose the Moloch, all of iron, and with gaping apertures in his human breast. His outspread wings were stretched upon the wall, his tapering hands reached down to the ground; three black stones bordered by yellow circles represented three eyeballs on his brow, and his bull’s head was raised with a terrible effort as if in order to bellow."

"All were placed facing the sun, in the direction of Moloch the Devourer, and were stretched on the ground on their stomachs or on their backs, those, however, who were sentenced to be flogged standing upright against the trees with two men beside them, one counting the blows and the other striking."

"They were waiting for the thrice holy festival when, from the summit of a funeral pile, an eagle flew heavenwards as a symbol of the resurrection of the year, and a message from the people to their Baal; they regarded it as a sort of union, a method of connecting themselves with the might of the Sun. Moreover, filled as they now were with hatred, they turned frankly towards homicidal Moloch, and all forsook Tanith."

"“Moloch, thou burnest me!” and the soldier’s kisses, more devouring than flames, covered her; she was as though swept away in a hurricane, taken in the might of the sun."

"They were considered as cruel masters, who were appeased with supplications and allowed themselves to be bribed with presents. All were feeble in comparison with Moloch the Devourer. The existence, the very flesh of men, belonged to him; and hence in order to preserve it, the Carthaginians used to offer up a portion of it to him, which calmed his fury. Children were burned on the forehead, or on the nape of the neck, with woollen wicks; and as this mode of satisfying Baal brought in much money to the priests, they failed not to recommend it as being easier and more pleasant."

"But on the second day the springs diminished, and on the evening of the third they were completely dried up. Then the decree of the Ancients passed everywhere from lip to lip, and the priests of Moloch began their task.Men in black robes presented themselves in the houses. In many instances the owners had deserted them under pretence of some business, or of some dainty that they were going to buy; and the servants of Moloch came and took the children away. Others themselves surrendered them stupidly. Then they were brought to the temple of Tanith, where the priestesses were charged with their amusement and support until the solemn day."

"Part of a wall in the temple of Moloch was thrown down in order to draw out the brazen god without touching the ashes of the altar. Then as soon as the sun appeared the hierodules pushed it towards the square of Khamon."

"Out of deference to Moloch they had adorned themselves with the most splendid jewels. Diamonds sparkled on their black garments; but their rings were too large and fell from their wasted hands,—nor could there have been anything so mournful as this silent crowd where earrings tapped against pale faces, and gold tiaras clasped brows contracted with stern despair."

"Hamilcar, in a red cloak, like the priests of Moloch, was beside the Baal, standing upright in front of the great toe of its right foot."

"The brazen arms were working more quickly. They paused no longer. Every time that a child was placed in them the priests of Moloch spread out their hands upon him to burden him with the crimes of the people, vociferating: “They are not men but oxen!” and the multitude round about repeated: “Oxen! oxen!” The devout exclaimed: “Lord! eat!” and the priests of Proserpine, complying through terror with the needs of Carthage, muttered the Eleusinian formula: “Pour out rain! bring forth!”The victims, when scarcely at the edge of the opening, disappeared like a drop of water on a red-hot plate, and white smoke rose amid the great scarlet colour.Nevertheless, the appetite of the god was not appeased. He ever wished for more. In order to furnish him with a larger supply, the victims were piled up on his hands with a big chain above them which kept them in their place. Some devout persons had at the beginning wished to count them, to see whether their number corresponded with the days of the solar year; but others were brought, and it was impossible to distinguish them in the giddy motion of the horrible arms. This lasted for a long, indefinite time until the evening. Then the partitions inside assumed a darker glow, and burning flesh could be seen. Some even believed that they could descry hair, limbs, and whole bodies.Night fell; clouds accumulated above the Baal. The funeral-pile, which was flameless now, formed a pyramid of coals up to his knees; completely red like a giant covered with blood, he looked, with his head thrown back, as though he were staggering beneath the weight of his intoxication."

"The Carthaginians had not re-entered their houses when the clouds accumulated more thickly; those who raised their heads towards the colossus could feel big drops on their foreheads, and the rain fell.It fell the whole night plentifully, in floods; the thunder growled; it was the voice of Moloch; he had vanquished Tanith; and she, being now fecundated, opened up her vast bosom in heaven’s heights. Sometimes she could be seen in a clear and luminous spot stretched upon cushions of cloud; and then the darkness would close in again as though she were still too weary and wished to sleep again; the Carthaginians, all believing that water is brought forth by the moon, shouted to make her travail easy."

"Now Ahaziah fell through the lattice of his upper room in Samaria, and was injured; so he sent messengers and said to them, “Go, inquire of Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron, whether I shall recover from this injury.” But the angel of the Lord said to Elijah the Tishbite, “Arise, go up to meet the messengers of the king of Samaria, and say to them, ‘Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are going to inquire of Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron?’ Now therefore, thus says the Lord: ‘You shall not come down from the bed to which you have gone up, but you shall surely die.’ ” So Elijah departed."

"Then one was brought to Him who was demon-possessed, blind and mute; and He healed him, so that the blind and mute man both spoke and saw. And all the multitudes were amazed and said, “Could this be the Son of David?”"

"A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for a disciple that he be like his teacher, and a servant like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more will they call those of his household!"

"Gospel of Matthew 10:24-25 NKJV."

"Now Israel remained in Acacia Grove, and the people began to commit harlotry with the women of Moab. They invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. So Israel was joined to Baal of Peor, and the anger of the Lord was aroused against Israel."

"They joined themselves also to Baal of Peor, / And ate sacrifices made to the dead. / Thus they provoked Him to anger with their deeds, / And the plague broke out among them. / Then Phinehas stood up and intervened, / And the plague was stopped."

"I found Israel / Like grapes in the wilderness; / I saw your fathers / As the firstfruits on the fig tree in its first season. / But they went to Baal Peor, / And separated themselves to that shame; / They became an abomination like the thing they loved."

"Like Freud and Jung and Rudolf Otto, all of whom contributed deep strands to his work, Eliade argued boldly for universals where he might more safely have argued for widely prevalent patterns. Yet many of the patterns that he identified in religions that spanned the entire globe and the whole of human history — a span that no one has ever known as well as he did — inspired an entire generation of both scholars and amateurs of the study of religion, and they still prove useful as starting points for the comparative study of religion and still hold water even after the challenges posed by new data to which Eliade did not have access. His concept of hierophany, the sudden irruption of the sacred in the profane world, sacred time opening to the transcendent, resulting in radical discontinuities, has proved a far more widely applicable and heuristic term than the older, narrower term "theophany," denoting the manifestation of a god."

"[Jesus says to John the Baptist:] It becomes me to be baptized with this baptism for the present, and afterwards to bestow the baptism of the consubstantial Trinity upon all men. ... Baptize me, who am destined to baptize those who believe in me with water, and with the Spirit, and with fire: with water, capable of washing away the defilement of sins; with the Spirit, capable of making the earthly spiritual; with fire, naturally fitted to consume the thorns of transgressions. (Hebrews 6:8)"

"In antiquity, the revelation of a new religious insight or system was not described in terms of human inspiration or innovation but rather as a divine revelation associated with a theophany. The theophany was the typical motif used to explain the origin of something new and meaningful. But something new can only become meaningful if it is also expressed and described in terms and analogies that are already well-known to everyone concerned. Despite its religious novelty, the Sinai covenant Moses delivered was readily intelligible to these ex-slaves because it employed well-known concepts and images, in this case concepts and images drawn from the familiar world of Late Bronze Age international politics. Naturally, they were adapted so that they now served religious as opposed to political ends, providing a basis for a community whose cohesion did not require any political enforcement mechanism or monopoly of force."

"Yet, man cannot fully forget his inner being, his theomorphic nature, for however hard he tries to float on the surface of his being and run away from the Centre, he carries the Centre within him and sooner or later the Centre manifests itself in one way or another in the periphery and the surface. For to be made in the image of God in the sense of being the theophany of His Names and Qualities is a reality that lies in the human state itself. Islam affirms the primordial character of man's theomorphic nature and his special situation in the cosmos and vis-à-vis God by referring to a covenant made between God and man even before the creation of the world. For as the Quran states: "And (remember) when thy Lord brought forth from the Children of Adam, from their reins, their seed, and made them testify of themselves, (saying): Am I not your Lord? They said: Yea, verily." (VII; 172). In this yea is to be found the secret of human destiny because by iterating it man accepted the burden of trust (amanah) which none in creation but he dared accept. "Lo! We offered the trust unto the heavens and the earth and the hills, but they shrank from hearing it and were afraid of it. And man assumed it." (XXXIII; 72)."

"There is nothing [...] that can be said with greater certainty about these gods than the fact that they, indifferent to any happiness or pain in the world, live in the fullest bliss. Precisely this character brings us closest to the divinity of the Olympians. And precisely this spirit of celestial intangibility and silent bliss is what still breathes so happily and freely from the figures of the Greek gods today."

"Democracy is a great spiritual force evolving itself from men, utilizing each, completing his incompleteness by weaving together all in the many-membered community life which is the true Theophany. The world today is growing more spiritual, and I say this not in spite of the Great War, but because of all this war has shown us of the inner forces bursting forth in fuller and fuller expression."

"All pantheism must ultimately be shipwrecked on the inescapable demands of ethics, and then on the evil and suffering of the world. If the world is a theophany, then everything done by man, and even by animal, is equally divine and excellent; nothing can be more censurable and nothing more praiseworthy than anything else; hence there is no ethics."

"It has been said that man is a rational animal; while this formulation is insufficient and ill-sounding, it nonetheless points to an undeniable truth, though in an elliptical fashion, for the rational faculty actually serves to underscore the transcendence of man in relation to the animal. Man is rational because he possesses the Intellect, which by definition has a capacity for the absolute and therefore a sense of the relative; and he possesses the Intellect because he is made "in the image of God", which, moreover, he demonstrates physically by his corporeal form and his cranial form, as well as by his vertical posture, then by language and his productive capacity. Man is a theophany in his form as much as in his faculties."

"Tustari states in regards to Surah An-Najm verse 18 "Verily he saw some of the greatest signs of his Lord.That is, those of His attributes that became manifest through His signs. Though he saw them, he did not let slip [his gaze] from his witnessed Object (mashhūd) [of worship], and did not withdraw from the vicinity of his worshipped Object (maʿbūd), but rather [what he saw] only increased him in love (maḥabba), longing (shawq) and strength (quwwa).God gave him the strength by which he could bear the theophany (tajallī) and supreme lights (anwār ʿaẓīma). This was out of his being favoured above the other prophets. Do you not see how Moses fell down in a swoon at the theophany. Yet twice as much did the Prophet ﷺ penetrate it (jābahu) in his contemplation, through a face-to-face encounter with the sight of his heart (kifāḥan bi-baṣar qalbihi), and yet remained firm due to the strength of his state, and his elevated station (maqām) and rank (daraja). His words, Exalted is He:""

"I]n the theophanies of Ezk.8.2, Rev.4.3, two different tints are alluded to (a bright white and a glowing red), which have been thought to suggest the two aspects of God's moral nature, light and fire, mercy and justice; or love in its two aspects of pardon and correction. ...[T]he colours of the Bible convey in many cases more than the literal meaning..."