“In the face of ridicule the Secret Tradition becomes more secret, the goal of the Alchemists reduced to a mere impossible material quest to turn lead into gold, its real aim forgotten. Paradoxically, modern science moves closer to the manipulation of basic molecular structure & processes like cold fusion largely without benefit of a congruent spiritual transformation. The results, when realized, are almost certainly doomed to either be put into the hands of those unlikely to dispense them with altruistic motive, or else be twisted into horrors & dispensed in genocide.
The truth of the matter is that no revelation can survive barren earth. If you saw a genuine fairy or a ghost or the Philosopher’s Stone or a UFO, it would not do you one whit of public good. In fact it would probably ruin your life— unless you kept your mouth shut.”
rbadac, The Shock of the Numinous: Arthur Machen’s “The White People” (2000)
