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Quote by Elaine Pagels

“What matters to me more than whether we participate in institutions or leave them is how we engage the imagination – dreams, art, poetry, music – since what each of us needs, and what we can engage, obviously differs and changes throughout out lifetime.”

Quote by Elaine Pagels

Work

Why Religion? A Personal Story

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Author

Elaine Pagels
Elaine Pagels

Elaine Pagels is a renowned American religious historian and professor. Born on February 13, 1943, she is known for her research on ancient religious texts, particularly those of early Christianity and Gnosticism. more

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“She’d had unsettling dreams like this. 'I’m wandering through Miryoku, but it’s not Miryoku. Or it is, but it’s been abandoned and overgrown, like no one’s lived here for decades. It’s become a dense forest with pieces of buildings showing through in spots. I hardly recognize anything. Fae and animals have moved in—there’s a raccoon family looking at me from an apartment window, a cluster of mushroom fae crawling all over a café sign—and it smells like wild plants and earth and flowers. It feels both familiar and unsafe, and it makes me so, so sad.”

“[...] Another groggy patron wrote, about a night of clubbing: the bartender 'brought me some Benedictine and the bottle was right. But the liqueur was curious -- transparent at the top of the glass, yellowish in the middle and brown at the base . . . Oh, what dreams seemed to result from drinking it . . . That is the bane of speakeasy life. You ring up your friend the next morning to find out whether he is still alive.”