“Yes, we had one and all left our native planets in order to discover whether, regarding the cosmos as a whole, the spirit which we all in our hearts obscurely knew and haltingly prized, the spirit which on Earth we sometimes call humane, was Lord of the Universe, or outlaw; almighty, or crucified. And now it was becoming clear to us that if the cosmos had any lord at all, he was not that spirit but some other, whose purpose in creating the endless fountain of worlds was not fatherly toward the beings that he had made, but alien, inhuman, dark.”

— Olaf Stapledon , book Star Maker

Source: Star Maker (1937), Chapter VI: Intimations of the Star Maker (p. 71)

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Olaf Stapledon 113

British novelist and philosopher 1886–1950

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“Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”

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Variant translations:
Jehovah is the Spirit, and where the spirit of Jehovah is, there is freedom.
2 Corinthians 3: 17 NWT
Second Epistle to the Corinthians

“On my native planet, whenever I had been dismayed by the suffering and the futility of individuals, I had taken comfort in the thought that at least the massed effect of all our blind striving must be the slow but glorious awakening of the human spirit. This hope, this certainty, had been the one sure consolation. But now I saw that there was no guarantee of any such triumph. It seemed that the universe, or the maker of the universe, must be indifferent to the fate of worlds. That there should be endless struggle and suffering and waste must of course be accepted; and gladly, for these were the very soil in which the spirit grew. But that all struggle should be finally, absolutely vain, that a whole world of sensitive spirits fail and die, must be sheer evil. In my horror it seemed to me that Hate must be the Star Maker.”

Olaf Stapledon book Star Maker

Source: Star Maker (1937), Chapter III: The Other Earth; 3. The Prospects of the Race (pp. 44-45)

“In the service no distinction should be made between man and man. We have to serve all, be he a Christian or a Muslim, or a human being of any other persuasion; for calamities, distress and misfortunes make no such distinction but afflict all alike. And in serving to relieve the sufferings of man, let it not be in a spirit of condescension or mere compassion, but in the true spirit of our dharma of surrendering our all in the humble service of Lord who abides in the hearts of all beings.”

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“It's like there's this predator energy on this planet, and this predator energy feeds upon the essence of the spirit, feeds upon the essence of the human being, the spirit. This predator energy can take fossil fuel and other resources out of the Earth, turn it into fuel, to run a machine system. But in order for there to be a need for that system, and in order for that system to work, they have to mine our minds to get at the essence of our spirit. In the same way the external mining takes place, it pollutes—we see now, people understand how it poisons the environment, the water, the air pollution—the mining of the essence, the mining of the spirit, mining our minds … the pollution from that is all the neurotic, distorted, insecure behavior patterns that we develop. That's the pollution. Because in order for this predatory system, this disease, to work, we must not be able to use our minds in a clear coherent manner. Because if we use our minds in a clear coherent manner, we will not accept the unacceptable.”

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“Maybe those nihilist philosophers are right; maybe this is all we can expect of the universe, a relentless crushing of life and spirit, because the equilibrium state of the cosmos is death…”

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“The Lord gives his whole innocent spirit to the Father and keeps only our own sinful spirit back for himself. In this way he can carry sin as if he himself had committed it.”

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