The Winged Bull Quotes

“The gods of men's worship were not things in themselves, but the creations of the created - the forms under which man represented to himself his ineffable Creator and Sustainer, the form changing as man's power of understanding increased. The forms did not matter; peppery old Jehovah with his long white beard and golden crown could go into the discard without anybody being damned; and, equally, those who liked him could go on worshipping him still, without being damned either. You could help yourself to the kind of god that suited you, so long as you realized that he was only a dramatization. The real thing was behind all the gods, and no man had ever dramatized it.”
― Dion Fortune, The Winged Bull

“When I called on Pan in the fog out there, I touched something.’ ‘What was it?’ ‘I've no idea.’ ‘What did it feel like?’ ‘Like alcohol on an empty stomach.’ ‘Ever get that feeling in church?’ ‘Only once. In the school chapel, when they had a farewell service to a party of us who were joining up. A different kind of force, but it came through with a rush in just the same way. The old padre was crying while he prayed. I've never felt anything but the draught in my brother's church, though.”
― Dion Fortune, The Winged Bull

“Does Pan appear in person?’ ‘How would you define Pan?’ ‘Ah, you have me there. I haven't any idea on the subject, save that he gave his name to panic.’ ‘Panic is what he produces in the unprepared, but in those who are prepared for his coming he produces a divine inebriation.”
― Dion Fortune, The Winged Bull