informant38
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...But of these sophisms and elenchs of merchandise I skill not...
Milton, Areopagitica

Except he had found the
standing sea-rock that even this last
Temptation breaks on; quieter than death but lovelier; peace
that quiets the desire even of praising it.

Jeffers, Meditation On Saviors


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11.11.02

By capturing the unfathomable dislocations induced by an altered consciousness, ''Breaking Open the Head'' reminds us that we usually enter reality through only one door, and that there are others. What we think about those doors may depend, as William James argued, on our individual temperaments. We may believe that they reveal a deeper spiritual realm, as Pinchbeck does, or that they are a byproduct of neurochemistry, or something in between. But just knowing they are there makes the world a bigger, more mysterious place.

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