I recognized it by the first sentence, but then I have read it several times. (For those of you that haven’t heard of it, it is probably the most famous American sermon, delivered in 1741.)
… the mysterious (tablet)…is surrounded by an innumerable company of angels; these angels are of all kinds, — some brilliant and flashing , down to . The light comes and goes on the tablet; and now it is steady...
And now there comes an Angel, to hide the tablet with his mighty wing. This Angel has all the colours mingled in his dress; his head is proud and beautiful; his headdress is of silver and red and blue and gold and black, like cascades of water, and in his left hand he has a pan-pipe of the seven holy metals, upon which he plays. I cannot tell you how wonderful the music is, but it is so wonderful that one only lives in one’s ears; one cannot see anything any more.
Now he stops playing and moves with his finger in the air. His finger leaves a trail of fire of every colour, so that the whole Aire is become like a web of mingled lights. But through it all drops dew.
(I can’t describe these things at all. Dew doesn’t represent what I mean in the least. For instance, these drops of dew are enormous globes, shining like the full moon, only perfectly transparent, as well as perfectly luminous.)
…
All this while the dewdrops have turned into cascades of gold finer than the eyelashes of a little child. And though the extent of the Aethyr is so enormous, one perceives each hair separately, as well as the whole thing at once. And now there is a mighty concourse of angels rushing toward me from every side, and they melt upon the surface of the egg in which I am standing __, so that the surface of the egg is all one dazzling blaze of liquid light.
Now I move up against the tablet, — I cannot tell you with what rapture. And all the names of __, that are not known even to the angels, clothe me about. All the seven senses are transmuted into one sense, and that sense is dissolved in itself …
You had a Bad feeling about two Christian quotes that mentioned Hell or demons/hellfire. You also got a Good feeling about a quote from Nietzsche that didn’t mention Hell. I don’t know the context of your reactions to the Tarot and Wicca, but obviously people have linked those both to Hell. (See also Horned God, “Devil” trump.) So I wanted to get your reaction to a passage with no mention of Hell from an indeterminate religion, in case that sufficed to make it seem Good.
The author designed a famous Tarot deck, and inspired a big chunk (at minimum) of Wicca.
I hadn’t considered that hypothesis. I’d upvote for the novel theory, but now that you’ve told me you’ll never be able to trust further reactions that could confirm or deny it, which seems like it’s worth a downvote, so not voting your post up or down. That said, I think this fails to explain having a Bad reaction to this page and the entire site it’s on, despite thinking before reading it that Wicca was foofy nonsense and completely not expecting to find evil of that magnitude (a really, really strong feeling—none of the quotes you guys have asked me about have been even a quarter that bad). It wasn’t slow, either; unlike most other things, it was almost immediately obvious. (The fact that this has applied to everything else I’ve ever read about Wicca since—at least, everything written by Wiccans about their own religion—could have to do with expectation, so I can see where you wouldn’t regard subsequent reactions as evidence… but the first one, at least, caught me totally off-guard.)
I know who Crowley is. (It was his tarot deck that someone gave me as a gift—and I was almost happy about it, because I’d actually been intending to research tarot because it seemed cool and I meant to use the information for a story I was writing. But then I felt like, you know, Bad, so I didn’t end up using it.) That’s why I was surprised not to have a bad feeling about his writings.
Bad? I think Bad, but wish I had more of the quote.
That moderately surprises me. It’s from “Sinners in the hands of an angry god” by Johnathan Edwards.
I recognized it by the first sentence, but then I have read it several times. (For those of you that haven’t heard of it, it is probably the most famous American sermon, delivered in 1741.)
I think it’s this.
Huh! How about this:
… the mysterious (tablet)…is surrounded by an innumerable company of angels; these angels are of all kinds, — some brilliant and flashing , down to . The light comes and goes on the tablet; and now it is steady...
And now there comes an Angel, to hide the tablet with his mighty wing. This Angel has all the colours mingled in his dress; his head is proud and beautiful; his headdress is of silver and red and blue and gold and black, like cascades of water, and in his left hand he has a pan-pipe of the seven holy metals, upon which he plays. I cannot tell you how wonderful the music is, but it is so wonderful that one only lives in one’s ears; one cannot see anything any more.
Now he stops playing and moves with his finger in the air. His finger leaves a trail of fire of every colour, so that the whole Aire is become like a web of mingled lights. But through it all drops dew.
(I can’t describe these things at all. Dew doesn’t represent what I mean in the least. For instance, these drops of dew are enormous globes, shining like the full moon, only perfectly transparent, as well as perfectly luminous.) … All this while the dewdrops have turned into cascades of gold finer than the eyelashes of a little child. And though the extent of the Aethyr is so enormous, one perceives each hair separately, as well as the whole thing at once. And now there is a mighty concourse of angels rushing toward me from every side, and they melt upon the surface of the egg in which I am standing __, so that the surface of the egg is all one dazzling blaze of liquid light.
Now I move up against the tablet, — I cannot tell you with what rapture. And all the names of __, that are not known even to the angels, clothe me about. All the seven senses are transmuted into one sense, and that sense is dissolved in itself …
Neutral/no idea.
This is it
Huh. Odd.
Yes, I was trying to figure out how much of the feeling had to do with lack of Hell (answer: not all of it). The Tarot does fit the pattern.
? I’m confused.
Good for you. ^_^
You had a Bad feeling about two Christian quotes that mentioned Hell or demons/hellfire. You also got a Good feeling about a quote from Nietzsche that didn’t mention Hell. I don’t know the context of your reactions to the Tarot and Wicca, but obviously people have linked those both to Hell. (See also Horned God, “Devil” trump.) So I wanted to get your reaction to a passage with no mention of Hell from an indeterminate religion, in case that sufficed to make it seem Good.
The author designed a famous Tarot deck, and inspired a big chunk (at minimum) of Wicca.
I hadn’t considered that hypothesis. I’d upvote for the novel theory, but now that you’ve told me you’ll never be able to trust further reactions that could confirm or deny it, which seems like it’s worth a downvote, so not voting your post up or down. That said, I think this fails to explain having a Bad reaction to this page and the entire site it’s on, despite thinking before reading it that Wicca was foofy nonsense and completely not expecting to find evil of that magnitude (a really, really strong feeling—none of the quotes you guys have asked me about have been even a quarter that bad). It wasn’t slow, either; unlike most other things, it was almost immediately obvious. (The fact that this has applied to everything else I’ve ever read about Wicca since—at least, everything written by Wiccans about their own religion—could have to do with expectation, so I can see where you wouldn’t regard subsequent reactions as evidence… but the first one, at least, caught me totally off-guard.)
I know who Crowley is. (It was his tarot deck that someone gave me as a gift—and I was almost happy about it, because I’d actually been intending to research tarot because it seemed cool and I meant to use the information for a story I was writing. But then I felt like, you know, Bad, so I didn’t end up using it.) That’s why I was surprised not to have a bad feeling about his writings.