East of Eden ..John Steinbeck   1952

You can boast about anything if it's all you have.
It is argued that because they believed thoroughly in a just moral God, they put their faith there and let the smaller difficulties take care of themselves. But I think that because they trusted themselves and respected themselves as individuals, because they knew beyond doubt that they were valuable and potentially moral units - because of this, they could give God their own courage and dignity and then receive it back.

He was born in fury and lived in lightning.

The proofs that God does not exist are very strong, but in lots of people they are not as strong as the feeling that He does.

Most children abhor difference. They want to look, talk, dress, and act exactly like all of the others.

I think the difference between a lie and a story is that a story utilizes the trappings and appearance of truth for the interest of the listener as well as of the teller. A story has in it neither gain or loss. But a lie is a device for profit or escape. I suppose if that definition is strictly held to, then a writer of stories is a liar - if he is financially fortunate.

What freedom men and women could have, were they not constantly tricked and trapped and enslaved and tortured by their sexuality! The only drawback in that freedom is that without it one would not be a human. Only would be a monster.

The free exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual.

Maybe we all have in us a secret pond where evil and ugly things germinate and grow strong. But this culture is fenced, and the swimming brood climbs up only to fall back. Might it not be that in the dark pools of some men the evil grows strong enough to wiggle over the fence and swim free? Would not such a man be our monster and are we not related to him in our hidden water?

It takes great courage to back truth unacceptable to our times. there's a punishment for it, and it's usually crucifixion.

People are only interested in themselves. If a story is not about the hearer he will not listen. And I here make a rule a great and lasting story is about everyone or it will not last.

The greatest terror a child can have is that he is not loved, and rejection is the hell he fears. I think everyone in the world to a large or small extent has felt rejection. And with rejection comes anger, and with anger some kind of crime in revenge for the rejection, and with the crime guilt- and there is the story of mankind. I think that if rejection could be amputated, the human would not be what he is. Maybe there would be fewer crazy people.

Couldn't a world be built around accepted truth? Couldn't some pains and insanities be rooted out if the causes were known?

Sometimes a man wants to be stupid if it lets him do a thing his cleverness forbids.

He and all around him was immortal. When real death came it was an outrage, a denial of the immorality he deeply felt and the one crack in his will caused the whole structure to crash. I think he had always thought he could argue himself out of death.

Some dark deep problems are examined, rejected or accepted. Such activities are sometimes concern facets a man does not know he has. How often one goes to sleep troubled and full of pain, not knowing what caused the travail, and in the morning a whole new direction and a clearness is there. I believe there are techniques of the human mind whereby, in its dark deep, problems are examined..

Hate cannot live alone.It must have love as a trigger, a goad, or a stimulant.

When you are a child you're the center of everything. Everything happens for you. Other people? They're only ghosts furnished for you to talk to. But when you grow up you take your place and you're your own size and shape. Things go out of you to others and come in from other people. It's worse, but it's much better too.

The sixteen verses of the forth chapter of Genesis..
The story is about Cain and Able and the gifts they give to the father..one he accepts and one he is not pleased with.  The story troubled me..There was only one place the bothered me. The King James version says this - it is when Jehovah has asked Cain why he is angry. Jehovah says, "If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and `thou shalt' rule over him."
Now  the new American Standard Bible has a different passage it says, `Do Thou' rule over him. Now this is very different. This is not a promise, it is an order. And I went to stew about it. I wondered what the original word of the original writer had been that these very different translations could be made.  So he studies Hebrew.. and finds the word.. Actually he takes it to the wise old men of the Chinese and they smoke their two pipes of opium in the afternoon and it rests and sharpens them, and they sit through the night and their minds are wonderful. I guess no other people have been able to use opium well.. After two years we felt that we could approach your sixteen verses of the fourth chapter of Genesis...the old gentlemen felt these words were very important too. Thou shalt and Do thou. And this was the gold from our mining: `Thou mayest' thou mayest rule over sin.  The American Standard translation orders men to triumph over sin, and you can call sin ignorance. The King James translation makes a promise in "Thou shalt" meaning that men will surely triumph over sin. But the Hebrew word, the word `timshel', "Thou mayest" - that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on man. For if `Thou mayest', it is also true that Thou mayest not. Do you see?
There are many millions in their sects and churches who feel the order, "Do thou" and throw their weight into obedience.
And there are millions more who feel the predestination in "Thou Shalt" Nothing they may do can interfere with what will be. But Thou mayest? Why that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness, and his filth, and his murder of his brother, he has still the great choice.
He can choose his course and fight it through and win. It is easy out of laziness, out of weakness, to throw oneself into the lap of deity, saying, I couldn't help it; the way was set. But think of the glory of the choice!
That makes a man a man. A cat has no choice, a bee must make honey. There's no godliness there. And do you know, the old men who learned Hebrew..old over ninety..these old men believe a true story and they know a true story when they hear it. They are critics of truth. They know that these sixteen verses are a history of humankind in any age or culture or race. They do not believe a man writes fifteen and three-quarters verses of truth and tells a lie with one verb.
Confucius tells men how they should live to have good and successful lives. But this - this is a ladder to climb to the stars. You can never lose that. It cuts the feet from under weakness and cowardliness and laziness. 

I take my two pipes in the afternoon, no more and no less, like the elders, and I feel that I am a man. And I feel that a man is a very important thing - maybe more important than a star. This is not theology. I have no bent toward gods. But I have a new love for that glittering instrument, the human soul. It is a lovely and unique thing in the universe. It is always attacked and never destroyed because "Thou Mayest"!

There is more beauty in the truth even if it is dreadful beauty.


To go from Steinbeck to Crowley is quite a jump.. or is it?

Crowley's Tao

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.  Do what thou wilt. I wonder what my true will is? Is there really such a thing at all?
Mathematics tells me that there must be. However many forces there may be at work, one can  always find their resultant.



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