“Taboos lie within taboos, like the skin of an onion.”
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The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are (1966)
Context: There is always something taboo, something repressed, unadmitted, or just glimpsed quickly out of the corner of one's eye because a direct look is too unsettling. Taboos lie within taboos, like the skin of an onion.
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Alan Watts 107
British philosopher, writer and speaker 1915–1973Related quotes
“Let onion atoms lurk within the bowl
And, scarce suspected, animate the whole.”
Recipe for Salad
Source: All for Australia (1984)
Nobel lecture (2005)
Source: The Log from the Sea of Cortez (1951), Chapter 8
Context: Among primitives sometimes evil is escaped by never mentioning the name, as in Malaysia, where one never mentions a tiger by name for fear of calling him. Among others, as even among ourselves, the giving of a name establishes a familiarity which renders the thing impotent. It is interesting to see how some scientists and philosophers, who are an emotional and fearful group, are able to protect themselves against fear. In a modern scene, when the horizons stretch out and your philosopher is likely to fall off the world like a Dark Age mariner, he can save himself by establishing a taboo-box which he may call "mysticism" or "supernaturalism" or "radicalism." Into this box he can throw all those thoughts which frighten him and thus be safe from them.
Source: They'd Rather Be Right (1954), p. 109.