John McGahern Quotes

The evergreen played an influential role in the spiritual life of early societies throughout the world. Archaeological and anthropological evidence indicates that veneration of the tree dates from at least 4000 years before Christ … These pagan beliefs survive to this day embedded in religious rituals and myths as well as secular customs, legends and fairy tales

The worlds of folklore and religion were so mingled in early twentieth venture German culture that even families who didn't go to church were often deeply Christian.

Superficial similarities exist between Christianity and some ancient pagan religions. But careful study reveals that there are far more dissimilarities.

All culture must have arisen from cult.

The ancients recommended us to sacrifice to the Graces, but Milton sacrificed to the Devil.

If you go back far enough and get a wider enough picture of history, we have let go of many things that follow a religious narrative. We don't burn witches anymore. Most people would consider that barbaric. We don't sacrifice human beings, which was a religious act practiced by numerous cultures on this planet.

Mythology works... because Indians have been bred on myths.

Paganism is infectious, more infectious than diphtheria or piety.

Authors as diverse as Rudyard Kipling, E. Nesbit, and J. R. R. Tolkien have shaped modern paganism as greatly as any theological underpinnings.

Banish afar the foul worship of idols. On their alters let the blood of animals smoke no more, nor the soothsayer look for omens in warm entrails, nor the meaningless augur attend to the song of birds. Let all the images of the gods be smashed to the ground.

A woman playing God in a passion play is tantamount to paganism.

All religions, all indigenous traditions, all origin stories provide a large map of where you are.

I have a hard problem, being some part Native American - being a Christian: do you get burned, do you get cremated, do you get - let the sharks eat you? How do you die?

There is a danger in monotheism, and it's called idolatry. And we know the prophets of Israel were very, very concerned about idolatry, the worship of a human expression of the divine.

I think that we need mythology. We need a bedrock of story and legend in order to live our lives coherently.

Everyone has this notion of the Middle Ages - certainly the early Middle Ages - as being this very superstitious era. I think that all eras are superstitious. We all have our magical thinking.

The quarrels and divisions about religion were evils unknown to the heathen. The reason was because the religion of the heathen consisted rather in rites and ceremonies than in any constant belief.

I don't believe in voodoo.

Sun-worship and pure forms of nature-worship were, in their day, noble religions, highly allegorical but full of profound truth and knowledge.

We must get back to a very strong Christianity... Christianity shaped America and England, and we need to get back to those moral foundations that made us great.

The working-class black Southern Christian culture I come from still nurtures me, and I mean directly, daily.

The virtue of paganism was strength; the virtue of Christianity is obedience.

Medical training taught me the art of breaking down the complex maze of stories, symbols and rituals into clear systems. You could say that it helped me figure out the anatomy and physiology of mythology and its relevance in a society more incisively. How is it that no society can, or does, exist without them?

I believe in mythology. I guess I share Joseph Campbell's notion that a culture or society without mythology would die, and we're close to that.

Superstitions and belief in magic are perennial in just the same way as religion, and something near to being universal among mankind; and why this is so may be interesting, but in most cases the beliefs themselves are devoid of interesting content, at least to me.