Aldous Huxley on the Areligiosity of Absolutist Zeal
Just a Quote
This Aldous Huxley quote jumped out at me from The Devils as being very relevant to the series on analyzing belief and spirituality in the birth chart. This is just an aside and this post contains no astrological analysis of Huxley’s chart.
But looking back and up, from our vantage point on the descending road of modern history, we now see that all the evils of religion can flourish without any belief in the supernatural, that convinced materialists are ready to worship their own jerry-built creations as though they were the Absolute, and that self-styled humanists will persecute their adversaries with all the zeal of Inquisitors exterminating the devotees of a personal and transcendent Satan. Such behavior-patterns antedate and outlive the beliefs which, at any given moment, seem to motivate them. Few people now believe in the Devil; but very many enjoy behaving as their ancestors behaved when the Fiend was a reality as unquestionable as his Opposite Number. In order to justify their behavior, they turn their theories into dogmas, their bylaws into First Principles, their political bosses into Gods and all those who disagree with them into incarnate devils. This idolatrous transformation of the relative into the Absolute and the all too human into the Divine, makes it possible for them to indulge their ugliest passions with a clear conscience and in the certainty that they are working for the Highest Good.
– Aldous Huxley, from The Devils of Loudon
Image attributions
Aldous Huxley (cropped, featured image): By Thierry Ehrmann [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
This quote really knocks it out of the park, but I don’t see any analysis of Huxley’s chart. Am I messing up somehow, or are you working on this? Stunning work with this website, btw. I have come across your page before, but I had no idea the depth of knowledge and insight you offer here. Don’t stop!
Hi Joanie, Thank you for the supportive comments. Yes, this is just a quote. No astrological analysis. I thought it was too good a quote not to share. I just updated the post to clarify this though. Also, I included a link to the first post in a series on the astrology of religion. A few of the charts analyzed in that series, both of spiritualists and atheists, indicate that inclination toward zeal. Best wishes, Anthony