the moon's favors: Fascination is a force which...

2012/06/02

Fascination is a force which...

Fascination is a force which, emanating from the spirit of the fascinator, enters the eyes of the fascinated person and penetrates his heart. Spirit is therefore the instrument of fascination. It emits from the eyes rays resembling itself, bearing with them spiritual quality. Hence, rays emanating from eyes that are bloodshot and bleary, on meeting the eyes of the beholder, carry with them the vapor of the spirit and of tainted blood, thus spreading the contagion to the beholder's eyes. ~Agrippa of Nettesheim (1486–1535)

Words whisper, carrying more than one might know, hypostases, rather than mere understanding. Words grow from roots, spawn families, travel and mingle, get lost, get found, and often marry the strangest bedfellows. Like our bodies, our ideas, and our culture, words evolve, handed down to us from a place beyond memory. As the warp and woof of language, words possess the magic to shape the immaterial into the solid things of psyche ~From my intro to AO's The Archives of the Heart

The Platonic tradition may be likened to an underground river that from time to time sends up a spring; wherever its waters flow, the soul is reborn, and with it the conception of intellectual form, the beautiful, and true art.~ Kathleen Raine