Deities And Spirits

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

"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."

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

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

"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?"

"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."

"Nature's self's thy Ganymede."

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

"O dii immortales! ubinam gentium sumus?"

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

"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."

"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."

"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!"

"Speak of the gods as they are."

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

"Great is Diana of the Ephesians."

"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."

"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."

"Habitarunt Di quoque sylvas."

"Vocat in certamina Divos."

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

"Heu nihil invitis fas quemquam fidere divis."

"Incessu patuit Dea."

"Volente Deo."

"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."

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

"Adoro te devote, latens deitas,"

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

"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..."

"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...?"

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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?""

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

"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"

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

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