“
Haec ego non multis (scribo), sed tibi: satis enim magnum alter alteri theatrum sumus. I am writing this not to many, but to you: certainly we are a great enough audience for each other.
”
”
Epicurus
“
He grinned. “Busted. I’m a monster. Jev is my deceptively harmless — and shockingly handsome — alter ego.”
“And I’m on top of it,” she announced with witty triumph.
“Is that a Freudian slip?”
His bluntness caught her off guard. A self-conscious blush rose in her face.
”
”
Becca Fitzpatrick (Silence (Hush, Hush, #3))
“
Bill: Superman didn't become Superman. Superman was born Superman. When Superman wakes up in the morning, he's Superman. His alter ego is Clark Kent. His outfit with the big red "S", that's the blanket he was wrapped in as a baby when the Kents found him. Those are his clothes. What Kent wears - the glasses, the business suit - that's the costume. That's the costume Superman wears to blend in with us. Clark Kent is how Superman views us. And what are the characteristics of Clark Kent. He's weak... he's unsure of himself... he's a coward. Clark Kent is Superman's critique on the whole human race.
”
”
Quentin Tarantino (Kill Bill)
“
Busted. I'm a monster. Jev is my deceptively harmless-and shockingly handsome-alter ego.
”
”
Becca Fitzpatrick (Silence (Hush, Hush, #3))
“
Hey, you created me! I didn't create some loser alter-ego to make myself feel better. Take some responsibility!
”
”
Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club)
“
A man's alter ego is nothing more than his favorite image of himself.
”
”
Stan Redding (Catch Me If You Can: The True Story of a Real Fake)
“
Nice words and nice appearance doesn't conclude that someone is nice, i believe that the nicer you look, the more deceptive you appear.
”
”
Michael Bassey Johnson
“
[the abject] is simply a frontier, a repulsive gift that the Other, having become alter ego, drops so that the "I" does not disappear in it but finds, in that sublime alienation, a forfeited existence.
”
”
Julia Kristeva (Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection)
“
Literature is humanity's broad-minded alter-ego, with room in its heart for monsters, even for you. It's humanity without the judgement.
”
”
Glen Duncan (Talulla Rising (The Last Werewolf, #2))
“
Dorothy was in that state human beings passed through at the beginning of a love affair, in which they desire to say anything and everything to the beloved, to the alter ego, before they have learned what the real Other can and can't understand, can and can't accept.
”
”
A.S. Byatt (The Children's Book)
“
Superman didn’t become Superman. Superman was born Superman. When Superman wakes up in the morning, he’s Superman. His alter ego is Clark Kent. Clark Kent is how Superman views us. And what are the characteristics of Clark Kent? He’s weak... he’s unsure of himself... he’s a coward. Clark Kent is Superman’s critique on the whole human race.
”
”
Quentin Tarantino
“
If you really want to be different, you'd better keep quiet and be a good person on the inside.
”
”
Michael Bassey Johnson (The Book of Maxims, Poems and Anecdotes)
“
Moartea vine din noi, nu din afară, e umbra noastră, e alter ego-ul pe care îl purtăm în cârcă și cu care ne conversăm atunci când ne simțim singuri.
”
”
Cristina Nemerovschi (Sânge Satanic (Sânge Satanic, #1))
“
A MAN’S ALTER EGO is nothing more than his favorite image of himself.
”
”
Frank W. Abagnale (Catch Me If You Can: The True Story of a Real Fake)
“
A friend is our alter ego.
”
”
Zeno of Citium
“
In a corner of my soul there hides a tiny frightened child, who is frightened by a corner where there lingers something wild.
”
”
Shaun Hick (The Army of Five Men)
“
The First [Friend] is the alter ego, the man who first reveals to you that you are not alone in the world by turning out (beyond hope) to share all your most secret delights. There is nothing to be overcome in making him your friend; he and you join like raindrops on a window. But the Second Friend is the man who disagrees with you about everything. He is not so much the alter ego as the antiself. Of course he shares your interests; otherwise he would not become your friend at all. But he has approached them all at a different angle. He has read all the right books but has got the wrong thing out of every one. It is as if he spoke your language but mispronounced it. How can he be so nearly right and yet, invariably, just not right? He is as fascinating (and infuriating) as a woman. When you set out to correct his heresies, you will find that he forsooth to correct yours! And then you go at it, hammer and tongs, far into the night, night after night, or walking through fine country that neither gives a glance to, each learning the weight of the other's punches, and often more like mutually respectful enemies than friends. Actually (though it never seems so at the time) you modify one another's thought; out of this perpetual dogfight a community of mind and a deep affection emerge.
”
”
C.S. Lewis (Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life)
“
Haec ego non multis, sed tibi: satis enim magnum alter alteri theatrum sumus.
”
”
Epicurus
“
In the later part of his creative life Nietzsche suffered acutely from loneliness. Like his alter ego, Zarathustra, he found himself alone on a (Swiss) mountain top. But, intellectually at least, he accepted this condition. Since, he reasoned, a radical social critic, a 'free spirit' such as himself, sets himself ever more in opposition to the foundational agreements on which social life depends, he reduces the pool of possible comrades, and so of possible friends, to vanishing point.
”
”
Julian Young (Friedrich Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography)
“
Our culture, self-toxified by the poisonous by-products of technology and egocentric ideology, is the unhappy inheritor of the dominator attitude that alteration of consciousness by the use of plants or substances is somehow wrong, onanistic, and perversely antisocial. I will argue that suppression of shamanic gnosis, with its reliance and insistence on ecstatic dissolution of the ego, has robbed us of life’s meaning and made us enemies of the planet, of ourselves, and our grandchildren. We are killing the planet in order to keep intact the wrongheaded assumptions of the ego-dominator cultural style.
”
”
Terence McKenna
“
Who is a friend?" his answer was, "A second self (alter ego).
”
”
Epictetus (Stoicism and Epicureanism: Sources and Interpretation)
“
From: Beth Fremont
To: Jennifer Scribner-Snyder
Sent: Thurs, 09/30/1999 3:42 PM
Subject: If you were Superman …
… and you could choose any alter ego you wanted, why the hell would you choose to spend your Clark Kent hours — which already suck because you have to wear glasses and you can’t fly — at a newspaper? Why not pose as a wealthy playboy like Batman? Or the leader of a small but important nation like Black Panther? Why would you choose to spend your days on deadline, making crap money, dealing with terminally crabby editors?
”
”
Rainbow Rowell (Attachments)
“
Well," Mr. Cheeseman interjected. "Perhaps there's an easy solution to this. Maybe Captain Fabulous has an alter ego."
"What's an alter ego?" asked Gerard.
"It's a superhero's true but secret identity," said Chip. "You know, the way that Superman is really Clark Kent." "Superman is really Clark Kent?"
"It's pretty obvious," said Penny. "To everyone but you and Lois Lane."
"Okay," Gerard conceded. "Captain Fabulous's alter ego will be...Teddy Roosevelt.
”
”
Cuthbert Soup (Another Whole Nother Story (A Whole Nother Story))
“
Speaking of names and all-time favorite romances, Bailey told me you write under a pen name. I've been really curious about that."
Fern groaned loudly. She shook her fist toward Bailey's house. "Curse your big mouth, Bailey Sheen" She looked at Ambrose with trepidation. "You are going to think I'm some stalker chick. That I'm totally obsessed. But you have to remember that I came up with this alter ego when I was sixteen and I was a bit obsessed. Okay, I'm still a bit obsessed."
"With what?" Ambrose was confused.
"With you," Fern's response was muffled as she buried her forehead in his chest, but Ambrose still heard her. He laughed and forced her chin up so he could see her face. "I still don't understand what that has to do with your pen name."
Fern sighed. "It's Amber Rose."
"Ambrose?"
"Amber Rose," Fern corrected.
"Amber Rose?" Ambrose sputtered.
"Yes," Fern said in a very, very small voice. And Ambrose laughed for a very, very long time.
”
”
Amy Harmon (Making Faces)
“
The ego might resist change until a person’s level of discomfort becomes unbearable. A person can employ logic to overcome the ego’s defense mechanism and intentionally integrate needed revisions in a person’s obsolete or ineffective beliefs and behavior patterns. The subtle sense that something is amiss in a person’s life can lead to a gradual or quick alteration in a person’s conscious thoughts and outlook on life. Resisting change can prolong unhappiness whereas implementing change can establish internal harmony and instate joy in a person’s life.
”
”
Kilroy J. Oldster (Dead Toad Scrolls)
“
It comes over me that I had then a strange alter ego deep down somewhere inside me, as the full-blown flower is in the small tight bud, and I just took the course, I just transferred him to the climate, that blighted him once and for ever.
”
”
Henry James (The Jolly Corner and Other Tales (Penguin Classics))
“
Cary Grant once said, “I pretended to be somebody I wanted to be until finally, I became that person. Or he became me.
”
”
Todd Herman (The Alter Ego Effect: The Power of Secret Identities to Transform Your Life)
“
Normality? Keeping one's insanity a secret.
”
”
Ljupka Cvetanova (The New Land)
“
No more creepy online alter egos in the name of love.
”
”
Elizabeth Rudnick (Tweet Heart)
“
The Man of Steel never rests. Or maybe that's Jose the yard boy. I get my alter egos confused.
”
”
Huntley Fitzpatrick (What I Thought Was True)
“
Did you learn anything, at least?"
"I learned that Rey'azikeen is just as good at coitus as his alter ego.
”
”
Darynda Jones (The Trouble with Twelfth Grave (Charley Davidson, #12))
“
The best way to ease your anxiety while waiting for a decision is to move into your alter ego.
”
”
Tapan Ghosh
“
What people saw when he appeared before them, then, was not really him, but a person he had invented, an artificial creature he could manipulate in order to manipulate others. He himself remained invisible, a puppeteer working the strings of his alter-ego from a dark, solitary place behind the curtain
”
”
Paul Auster (The Invention of Solitude)
“
I am not my opinion of myself, I am not anything I can describe to me. I am only a part of a large system that cannot describe itself fully; therefore, I relax and I am in the point source of consciousness, of delight, of mobility, in the inner spaces. My tasks do not include describing me nor having an opinion about the system in which I live, biological or social or dyadic. I hereby drop that "responsibility".
I am much more than I can conceive or judge me to be. Any negative or positive opinions I have of me are false fronts, headlines, limited and unnecessary programmes written on a thin paper blowing about and floating around in the vastness of inner spaces.
”
”
John C. Lilly (The Center of the Cyclone: Looking into Inner Space)
“
„Mi-am plâns ochii din orbite de atâtea ori încât am epuizat toată apa pe care o aveam în organism. Simțeam nevoia să mă hidratez cu votcă, să îmi umplu toate golurile cu fum și să mă fut fără să știu cum îl cheamă, câți ani are și ce dracu' vrea el de la viață. Să fiu egoistă, infectă, egocentristă, așa cum au fost și ei.
”
”
Ana Mănescu (alter.ego.)
“
This is the day I give birth to my liberation.
”
”
Helen Edwards (Nothing Sexier Than Freedom)
“
When I was twenty-five, I went on exactly four dates with a much older guy whom I’ll call Peter Parker. I’m calling him Peter Parker because the actual guy’s name was also alliterative, and because, well, it’s my book and I’ll name a guy I dated after Spider-Man’s alter ego if I want to.
”
”
Mindy Kaling (Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns))
“
…she immediately heads towards the revolving doors and I follow behind her like a lost puppy. Fuck, Dylan, show some dignity man! I hear my alter ego screaming at me. And where the fuck was he earlier anyway? Fuck that. I want her.
”
”
Ella Dominguez (The Art of Submission (The Art of D/s, #1))
“
here’s a reminder that playfulness doesn’t stop at eight years of age; it’s a pathway to handling life with more grace.
”
”
Todd Herman (The Alter Ego Effect: The Power of Secret Identities to Transform Your Life)
“
The fact is that Santa and Satan are alter egos, brothers; they have the same origin.
”
”
Phyllis Siefker
“
Remember that we can become twinned with an enemy and come to resemble him. Our hatred may become an alter ego, a part of our identity.
”
”
Karen Armstrong (Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life)
“
Bree is no imaginary playmate, no overactive pituitary, no alter ego, moving in. Hers is the face I wear
”
”
Ellen Hopkins (Crank (Crank, #1))
“
A man's alter ego is nothing more than his favorite image of himself.
”
”
Frank W. Abagnale (Catch Me If You Can: The True Story of a Real Fake)
“
Când o viață ai fost singur, începi să-ți socotești singurătatea ca pe cel mai fidel companion, chiar ca pe-un alter ego.
”
”
Ileana Vulpescu (De-amor, de-amar, de inimă albastră)
“
it is urgent that my chemical alter ego, so in love with digressions, get back on the rails, which is that of fornicating with matter in order to support myself
”
”
Primo Levi (The Periodic Table)
“
And so, though Smith was not at all the man Knight would have deliberately chosen as a friend—or even for one of a group of a dozen friends—he somehow was his friend. Circumstance, as usual, did it all. How many of us can say of our most intimate alter ego, leaving alone friends of the outer circle, that he is the man we should have chosen, as embodying the net result after adding up all the points in human nature that we love, and principles we hold, and subtracting all that we hate? The man is really somebody we got to know by mere physical juxtaposition long maintained, and was taken into our confidence, and even heart, as a makeshift.
”
”
Thomas Hardy (A Pair of Blue Eyes)
“
I come stumbling back into the apartment, dropping a few boxes on the way in and looking like a complete pussy-whipped bellboy. Seriously, what the fuck? This is such bullshit. My alter ego is irritated at me for even going this far with this woman. I ignore him and pick up the boxes and lay them out in the bedroom.
”
”
Ella Dominguez (The Art of Submission (The Art of D/s, #1))
“
When experiences or emotions become too overwhlming, the mind clevely encapsulates the material and stores it for safe-keeping. Many people respond this way in the face of trauma, but the additional step that occurs in this process, in the case of DID, is the formation of distinct ego states that carry the experience.
”
”
Deborah Bray Haddock (The Dissociative Identity Disorder Sourcebook)
“
Jaenelle opened her mouth, closed it, and finally said timidly, “Do you think, when I’m grown up, I could wear an outfit like that?” Daemon bit his cheek. He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Buying time, he looked down at himself. “Well,” he said, giving it slow consideration, “the shirt would have to be altered somewhat to accommodate a female figure, but I don’t see why not.” Jaenelle beamed. “Daemon, it’s a wonderful hat.” It took him a moment to admit it to himself, but he was miffed. He stood in front of her, on display as it were, and the thing that fascinated her most was his hat. You do know how to bruise a man’s ego, don’t you, little one? he thought dryly as he said, “Would you like to try it on?” Jaenelle bounced to the mirror, brushing against him as she passed.
”
”
Anne Bishop (Daughter of the Blood (The Black Jewels, #1))
“
Many people of our time reason along the following lines: The religions—or the differing spiritual perspectives within a given religion—contradict one another, therefore they cannot all be right; consequently none is true. This is exactly as if one said: Every individual claims to be "I," thus they cannot all be right; consequently none is "I." This example shows up the absurdity of the antireligious argument, by recalling the real analogy between the inevitable external limitation of religious language and the no less inevitable limitation of the human ego. To reach this conclusion, as do the rationalists who use the above argument, amounts in practice to denying the diversity of the knowing subjects as also the diversity of aspects in the object to be known. It amounts to pretending that there are neither points of view nor aspects; that is to say, that there is but a single man to see a mountain and that the mountain has but a single side to be seen. The error of the subjectivist and relativist philosophers is a contrary one. According to them, the mountain would alter its nature according to whoever viewed it; at one time it might be a tree and at another a stream.
[No activity without Truth] - Studies in Comparative Religion, Vol. 3, No. 4. (Autumn 1969)
”
”
Frithjof Schuon
“
All names have been omitted to prevent undeserved infamy...
”
”
Elle (The Fall: An Autobiography of an Alter Ego)
“
The Core Self is where possibility exists. It’s this deep inner core where a creative force resides waiting to be activated by the power of intention.
”
”
Todd Herman (The Alter Ego Effect: The Power of Secret Identities to Transform Your Life)
“
Ancient philosophies were entranced by the order of the cosmos; they marveled at the mysterious power that kept the heavenly bodies in their orbits and the seas within bounds and that ensured that the earth regularly came to life again after the dearth of winter, and they longed to participate in this richer and more permanent existence. They expressed this yearning in terms of what is known as the perennial philosophy, so called because it was present, in some form, in most premodern cultures.11 Every single person, object, or experience was seen as a replica, a pale shadow, of a reality that was stronger and more enduring than anything in their ordinary experience but that they only glimpsed in visionary moments or in dreams. By ritually imitating what they understood to be the gestures and actions of their celestial alter egos—whether gods, ancestors, or culture heroes—premodern folk felt themselves to be caught up in their larger dimension of being.
”
”
Karen Armstrong (Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence)
“
As fate would have it, we talked about literature; I fear I said no more than the things I usually say to journalists. My alter ego believed in the invention, or discovery, of new metaphors; I, in those metaphors that correspond to intimate and obvious affinities and that our imagination has already accepted. Old age and sunset, dreams and life, the flow of time and water. …
”
”
Jorge Luis Borges (The Book of Sand and Shakespeare's Memory)
“
The biggest anachronism, usually, in a historical movie is, again, the author doesn’t want to be thought to in any way share the social conventions or whatever of the time, so there’s always this auctorial alter ego. So you have a movie set in the 1830s where you’ll have a female character who has the attitudes of a twenty-first-century screenwriter. And that to me is a true anachronism.
”
”
Thomas E. Woods Jr. (Real Dissent: A Libertarian Sets Fire to the Index Card of Allowable Opinion)
“
We used the word “heuristics” to describe aspects of software development that tip toward the liberal arts. Its counterpart, “algorithms,” was its alter ego on the technical side. Heuristics and algorithms are like two sides of the same coin. Both are specific procedures for making software do what it does: taking input, applying an operation, and producing output. Yet each had a different purpose.
”
”
Ken Kocienda (Creative Selection: Inside Apple's Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs)
“
De fapt, niciunul nu mai are ceva nou de spus, dar din moment ce lumea nu este ideală înseamnă că mesajul încă nu a fost transmis cum trebuie, așa că încercăm. Tu o faci prin muzică, eu prin scris. Până la urmă, amândoi suntem narcisişti. Niște narcisiști cu intenții bune, dar totuși...
”
”
Ana Mănescu (alter.ego.)
“
See, that divine plan shite is what the pulpit-hucksters feed you when things start to go wrong. After they've passed around the collection plate, of course. When your crops fail or your cancer spreads or whatever else you've begged him for doesn't come to pass. That's the solace they'll offer. It's God's will, they'll tell you. Part of the divine plan.
What they don't point out is, if he has a plan? There's no sense praying for anything. If His will be done is the golden rule, then God's going to do what he wants, regardless of how hard you beg him. And imagine, just for a second, the sense of entitlement it takes to ask him for anything in the first place. The fucking ego you'd need to think that this is somehow all for you. What if you ask for something that's not his will? You want him to alter the course of the divine plan? For you? See, that's the grift of it all. That's the genius. You get what you pray for? Huzzah, God fucking loves you. But your prayers go unanswered? Just wasn't part of the plan.
”
”
Jay Kristoff (Empire of the Vampire (Empire of the Vampire, #1))
“
Captain Midnight is always careful.” “It’s not just Captain Midnight I’m worried about it. It’s his alter ego.” “And who might that be?” “My Love Muffin.” Myron grinned into the receiver. “Hey, Jess, did you know Joan Collins was on Batman?” “Of course,” Jessica said. “She played the Siren.” “Oh yeah? Well, who did Liberace play?
”
”
Harlan Coben (Drop Shot (Myron Bolitar, #2))
“
And then there was Joss. I met him in a dimly lit office, where he regaled me with tales of adventure, swashbuckling, shootings, spaceships, and narrow escapes. Um, where do I sign? He gave me a new identity, a costume, a gun, and a long brown duster for a cape. I remember that meeting so well; it was like a superhero "origin" issue. I remember Joss looking at Polaroid photos of my first costume fitting, holding up the one with the duster and gun saying, "Action figure, anyone?"
Never in my wildest. Like some sort of super-team benefactor, Joss made superheroes out of all of us, complete with a super-hideout spaceship. During filming, we'd all retreat to our dressing room trailers and emerge like Supermen with our alter egos. The boots, the suspenders, gun holstered low on my hip... with a flick and a spin of that wicked awesome coat over my shoulders, I became someone else.
”
”
Nathan Fillion
“
You can survive but not live with a single identity.
”
”
Tapan Ghosh
“
It’s critical to understand that at our core, we are a force for creative possibility,
”
”
Todd Herman (The Alter Ego Effect: The Power of Secret Identities to Transform Your Life)
“
Persistence is the devious alter-ego of perseverance. Perseverance provides us the stamina to realize our visions, whereas persistence drives us into self-destruction.
”
”
Joan Marques
“
They say I don’t exist. They say I am an extension, an indulgence, imagination of a schizophrenic person.
”
”
Faiz Shaikh
“
The Socialmedialite was so much braver than Annie Catrel. I sorta had a girl-crush on my alter ego.
”
”
L.H. Cosway (The Hooker and the Hermit (Rugby, #1))
“
My first draft is very short-lived. It goes directly to the process of re-writes and to the hands of my alter ego. The part of me that is a military officer evaluating what I expect to be crap.
”
”
Omayra Vélez
“
By developing a partnership with your computer alter ego in which you teach each other and each do what you do best, you will be much more powerful than if you went about your decision making alone.
”
”
Ray Dalio (Principles: Life and Work)
“
Amazing, life-altering anonymous picture quotes on FaceBook: Are they created by graphic designers who steal quotes or don't bother to research the author, or are they original and just have exceptionally less ego than I do? Cos if I ever write something that brilliant it's gonna have flashing headlights.
”
”
Fierce Dolan
“
Why not a novel that’s actually an autobiography, one written not by the Billy Summers who reads Zola and Hardy and even plowed his way through Infinite Jest, but one written by the other Billy Summers? The alter ego he calls his dumb self?
”
”
Stephen King (Billy Summers)
“
About Parlabane, Brookmyre says:
"To fully acknowledge the extent of the debt I owe Douglas Adams - as a reader and a writer - would very possibly crash this server, so I will merely cite one significant example. I am frequently asked who was the inspiration for my investigative journalist Jack Parlabane; whether he has some real-life antecedent or represents some indulgent alter-ego of mine. The truth is that Parlabane was entirely inspired by Ford Prefect: I always adored the idea of a character who cheerfully wanders into enormously dangerous situations and effortlessly makes them much worse.
”
”
Christopher Brookmyre
“
Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent, [...] came to teach [the ancient inhabitants of Mexico] the benefits of settled agriculture and the skills necessary to build temples. Although this deity is frequently depicted as a serpent, he is more often shown in human form--the serpent being his symbol and his alter ego--and is usually described as "a tall bearded white man" ... "a mysterious person ... a white man with a strong formation of body, broad forehead, large eyes and a flowing beard." Indeed, [...] the attributes and life history of Quetzalcoatl are so human that it is not improbable that he may have been an actual historical character ... the memory of whose benefactions lingered after his death, and whose personality was eventually deified. The same could very well be said of Oannes--and just like Oannes at the head of the Apkallu (likewise depicted as prominently bearded) it seems that Quetzalcoatl traveled with his own brotherhood of sages and magicians. We learn that they arrived in Mexico "from across the sea in a boat that moved by itself without paddles," and that Quetzalcoatl was regarded as having been "the founder of cities, the framer of laws and the teacher of the calendar.
”
”
Graham Hancock (Magicians of the Gods: The Forgotten Wisdom of Earth's Lost Civilization)
“
Crezi că lumea este o junglă în care nu supravieţuiesc decât cei puternici. Sentimentele sunt o slăbiciune, aşa că le eviţi pe ale tale şi le foloseşti pe ale celorlalţi. Ai impresia că dacă te străduieşti poţi manipula pe oricine. Susţii că e vina lor fiindcă te joci tu cu ei, pentru că sunt fraieri. Nu stai să te gândeşti că unii îţi permit să-ţi faci de cap pentru că te iubesc.
”
”
Ana Mănescu (alter.ego.)
“
Mental obsession, or going over and over something, is a part of the addictive cycle. It is also addictive in itself. I mentioned earlier the ego defense called “isolation of affect.” By focusing on a recurring thought you can avoid painful feelings. You can also avoid feelings by ruminating, turning thoughts over and over in your head. You can be addicted to abstract thinking. One of my degrees is in philosophy. I spent years of my life studying the great philosophers. In itself this is not harmful. For me, the reading and teaching of philosophy was a way out of my feelings. When I was reading the Summa Theologia of Thomas Aquinas or Emmanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason or Wittgenstein’s treatise on logical positivism, I could completely mood-alter my toxic shame. Intellectualizing is often a way to avoid internal states that are shame-bound. One’s very way of intellectualizing can be addictive. Generalizing and universalizing keep one in categories so broad and abstract that there’s no contact with concrete, specific, sensory-based reality. Abstract generalizing is a marvelous way to mood-alter.
”
”
John Bradshaw (Healing the Shame that Binds You)
“
It doesn’t matter where, providing it’s out of the pull of Roger Kylmerth.”
“My alter ego?” I queried. “He and I are not a scrap alike, you know.”
“Alter egos never are,” he said. “Mine is a long-haired poet who faints at the sight of blood. He’d dogged me ever since I left medical school.
”
”
Daphne du Maurier (The House on the Strand)
“
The Kinsey staff asked questions of children, learning about sexuality in the family. And other psychologists, psychiatrists and paediatricians, including Benjamin Spock, explored this burgeoning field. As a result, it was known that children will naturally touch their genitals to experience a sense of pleasure. It was also known, from working with victims of childhood incest that small children will act in inappropriate sexual ways with adults if they are trained through abuse to do so. The methods used on Cheryl and the other 'lab rats' were meant to create an Alter personality that would both perform and tolerate sexual acts that are only appropriate for consenting adults. More important in their thinking, by limiting the experience to just one personality (ego state), the personality normally seen would behave like any other child who had not been sexually abused in any way.
”
”
Cheryl Hersha (Secret Weapons: How Two Sisters Were Brainwashed to Kill for Their Country)
“
You get used to it. And that surprises me. You get used to diminishment, to a body that is stalled, an impediment? Well, yes, you do. An alter ego is amazed, aghast perhaps--myself in the roaring forties, when robust health was an assumption, a given, something you barely noticed because it was always there. Acceptance has set in, somehow, has crept up on you, which is just as well, because the alternative--perpetual rage and resentment--would not help matters. You are now this other person, your earlier selves are out there, familiar, well remembered, but you have to come to terms with a different incarnation.
”
”
Penelope Lively (Ammonites And Leaping Fish: A Life In Time)
“
The lack of understanding of our emotions lead to the creation of narratives that alter our thinking, awakens ego and fear and result in self-sabotage. Without becoming emotionally intelligent and mature, we will live in our shadows, lose ourselves and succumb to unhealthy coping mechanisms which become lifestyles.
”
”
Kemi Sogunle (On Becoming Restored)
“
Tennis is the sport in which you talk to yourself. No athletes talk to themselves like tennis players. Pitchers, golfers, goalkeepers, they mutter to themselves, of course, but tennis players talk to themselves—and answer. In the heat of a match, tennis players look like lunatics in a public square, ranting and swearing and conducting Lincoln-Douglas debates with their alter egos. Why? Because tennis is so damned lonely. Only boxers can understand the loneliness of tennis players—and yet boxers have their corner men and managers. Even a boxer’s opponent provides a kind of companionship, someone he can grapple with and grunt at. In tennis you stand face-to-face with the enemy, trade blows with him, but never touch him or talk to him, or anyone else. The rules forbid a tennis player from even talking to his coach while on the court. People sometimes mention the track-and-field runner as a comparably lonely figure, but I have to laugh. At least the runner can feel and smell his opponents. They’re inches away. In tennis you’re on an island. Of all the games men and women play, tennis is the closest to solitary confinement, which inevitably leads to self-talk, and for me the self-talk starts here in the afternoon shower. This is when I begin to say things to myself, crazy things, over and over, until I believe them. For instance, that a quasi-cripple can compete at the U.S. Open. That a thirty-six-year-old man can beat an opponent just entering his prime. I’ve won 869 matches in my career, fifth on the all-time list, and many were won during the afternoon shower.
”
”
Andre Agassi (Open)
“
There is a sense in which Arthur and Barfield are the types of every man's First Friend and Second Friend. The First is the alter ego, the man who first reveals to you that you are not alone in the world by turning out (beyond hope) to share all your most secret delights. There is nothing to be overcome in making him your friend; he and you join like rain-drops on a window. But the Second Friend is the man who disagrees with you about everything. He is not so much the alter ego as the anti-self. Of course he shares your interests; otherwise he would not become your friend at all. But he has approached them all at a different angle.
”
”
C.S. Lewis (Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life)
“
Maybe you are a dancer
moving to the sound of your own future;
or a musician
banging strumming bowing plucking
blowing into,
creating soundtracks
for dream trains chugging along
through thick night;
or a painter
spilling and splattering confessions
across the face of stretched canvas;
or an actor
praying at the altar
of your alter ego;
or a photographer,
finger on the button
like a quick-draw cowboy,
shooting
not to kill anyone
but to preserve forever;
or maybe even
a writer
for some strange reason,
writing expert books,
pages of good intention
and rah-rah and fantasy
and sometimes truth,
or maybe even letters to people
you don't know but
do know you love.
”
”
Jason Reynolds (For Every One)
“
An anticathexis of this kind is clearly seen in obsessional neurosis. It appears there in the form of an alteration of the ego, as a reaction-formation in the ego, and is effected by the reinforcement of the attitude which is the opposite of the instinctual trend that has to be repressed—as, for instance, in pity, conscientiousness and cleanliness.
”
”
Sigmund Freud (Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety)
“
There are two of you in you, let both coexist.
”
”
Tapan Ghosh
“
Na minsan, ang manunulat ay hindi lang ang manunulat kundi ang tauhan din ng kanyang kwento. Ang tauhan ay ang puso't kaluluwa, ang sarili, ng isang manunulat.
”
”
Lualhati Bautista (In Sisterhood—Lea at Lualhati)
“
We wear masks not to be something different, but to deny the ‘something different’ that we are without the mask.
”
”
Craig D. Lounsbrough
“
If you want to achieve the goals you have, then you need to master what’s happening inside of you,
”
”
Todd Herman (The Alter Ego Effect: The Power of Secret Identities to Transform Your Life)
“
Devaluation of the Earth, hostility towards the Earth, fear of the Earth: these are all from the psychological point of view the expression of a weak patriarchal consciousness that knows no other way to help itself than to withdraw violently from the fascinating and overwhelming domain of the Earthly. For we know that the archetypal projection of the Masculine experiences, not without justice, the Earth as the unconscious-making, instinct-entangling, and therefore dangerous Feminine. At the same time the projection of the masculine anima is mingled with the living image of the Earth archetype in the unconscious of man; and the more one-sidedly masculine man's conscious mind is the more primitive, unreliable, and therefore dangerous his anima will be. However, the Earth archetype, in compensation to the divinity of the archetype of Heaven and the Father, that determined the consciousness of medieval man, is fused together with the archaic image of the Mother Goddess.
Yet in its struggle against this Mother Goddess, the conscious mind, in its historical development, has had great difficulty in asserting itself so as to reach its – patriarchal - independence. The insecurity of this conscious mind-and we have profound experience of how insecure the position of the conscious mind still is in modern man-is always bound up with fear of the unconscious, and no well-meaning theory "against fear" will be able to rid the world of this deeply rooted anxiety, which at different times has been projected on different objects. Whether this anxiety expresses itself in a religious form as the medieval fear of demons or witches, or politically as the modern fear of war with the State beyond the Iron Curtain, in every case we are dealing with a projection, though at the same time the anxiety is justified. In reality, our small ego-consciousness is justifiably afraid of the superior power of the collective forces, both without and within.
In the history of the development of the conscious mind, for reasons which we cannot pursue here, the archetype of the Masculine Heaven is connected positively with the conscious mind, and the collective powers that threaten and devour the conscious mind both from without and within, are regarded as Feminine. A negative evaluation of the Earth archetype is therefore necessary and inevitable for a masculine, patriarchal conscious mind that is still weak. But this validity only applies in relation to a specific type of conscious mind; it alters as the integration of the human personality advances, and the conscious mind is strengthened and extended. A one-sided conscious mind, such as prevailed in the medieval patriarchal order, is certainly radical, even fanatical, but in a psychological sense it is by no means strong. As a result of the one-sidedness of the conscious mind, the human personality becomes involved in an equally one-sided opposition to its own unconscious, so that actually a split occurs. Even if, for example, the Masculine principle identifies itself with the world of Heaven, and projects the evil world of Earth outwards on the alien Feminine principle, both worlds are still parts of the personality, and the repressing masculine spiritual world of Heaven and of the values of the conscious mind is continually undermined and threatened by the repressed but constantly attacking opposite side. That is why the religious fanaticism of the representatives of the patriarchal World of Heaven reached its climax in the Inquisition and the witch trials, at the very moment when the influence of the archetype of Heaven, which had ruled the Middle Ages and the previous period, began to wane, and the opposite image of the Feminine Earth archetype began to emerge.
”
”
Erich Neumann (The Fear of the Feminine and Other Essays on Feminine Psychology)
“
When Pat gave her ‘criminal-hero’ Tom Ripley a charmed and parentless life, a wealthy, socially poised Alter Ego (Dickie Greenleaf), and a guilt-free modus operandi (after he kills Dickie, Tom murders only when necessary), she was doing just what her fellow comic book artists were doing with their Superheroes: allowing her fictional character to finesse situations she herself could only approach in wish fulfillment. And when she reimagined her own psychological split in Ripley’s character — endowing him with both her weakest traits (paralyzing self-consciousness and hero-worship) and her wildest dreams (murder and money) — she was turning the material of the ‘comic book’ upside down and making it into something very like a ‘tragic book.’ 'It is always so easy for me to see the world upside down,’ Pat wrote in her diary– and everywhere else.
”
”
Joan Schenkar (The Talented Miss Highsmith: The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith)
“
There are, as you have just seen, two agendas being pursued here tonight," the Countess lectured amiably. "The political one of the old men—an annual renewal of the forms of the Vor—and the genetic agenda of the old women. The men imagine theirs is the only one, but that's just an ego-serving self-delusion. The whole Vor system is founded on the women's game, underneath. The old men in government councils spend their lives arguing against or scheming to fund this or that bit of off-planet military hardware. Meanwhile, the uterine replicator is creeping in past their guard, and they aren't even conscious that the debate that will fundamentally alter Barrayar's future is being carried on right now among their wives and daughters. To use it, or not to use it? Too late to keep it out, it's already here. The middle classes are picking it up in droves. Every mother who loves her daughter is pressing for it, to spare her the physical dangers of biological childbearing. They're fighting not the old men, who haven't got a clue, but an old guard of their sisters who say to their daughters, in effect, We had to suffer, so must you! Look around tonight, Mark. You're witnessing the last generation of men and women on Barrayar who will dance this dance in the old way. The Vor system is about to change on its blindest side, the side that looks to—or fails to look to—its foundation. Another half generation from now, it's not going to know what hit it.
”
”
Lois McMaster Bujold (Mirror Dance (Vorkosigan Saga, #8))
“
Il crimine non era l’unica opzione per Vision. Esistevano altre possibilità da prendere in esame. Si sarebbe potuto rivolgere ad amici e famiglia. Ma era stanco, si sentiva abbandonato e [Jeffrey] Normington era convincente. Un’altra svolta, un altro errore.
Max Vision, un bravo ragazzo sotto tutti i punti di vista, si ritrovò di nuovo in fondo al baratro. Al suo posto emerse Iceman, un cattivo ragazzo sotto tutti punti di vista, anche se con un alter ego, Vision, che aveva precedenti come collaboratore dei federali.
”
”
Misha Glenny (DarkMarket: Cyberthieves, Cybercops and You)
“
God, how I love it all. And who am I, God-whom-I-don't-believe-in? God-who-is-my-alter-ego? Suddenly he turn table switches to a higher speed, and in the whizzing that ensues I lose track of my identity. I act and react, and suddenly I wonder "Where is the girl that I was last year?... Two years ago?... What would she think of me now?" And I remember vaguely tolstoi's argument about fate and inevitability and free will. As an act recedes into the past and becomes imbedded in the network of one's individuality it seems more and more a product of fate - inevitable. However, an act in the immediate present seems to be more a product of free will.
”
”
Sylvia Plath (The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath)
“
Despite its dislike of fame and its evasiveness, the Chronicler's virtual persona was loved on the psychic network. The Champions Alter-ego was an exhibitionist personality who fearlessly put its wits to the test against rather bizarre creatures, calling themselves human, in a form of combat based on interview with the contestants.
”
”
Rachel Armstrong (The Gray's Anatomy)
“
մահվան շեմին կանգնած մարդն ուզում է մանկության օրերի աղոտ մի պատկեր հիշել, զինվորները, որ ուր որ է մարտի մեջ պիտի մտնեն, խոսում են ցեխի կամ սերժանտի մասին: Մեր իրավիճակը եզակի էր և, անկեղծ ասած, մենք պատրաստ չէինք: Դժբախտաբար, գրականությունից խոսեցինք. վախենամ, թե այնպիսի բաներ ասած չլինեմ, որ սովորաբար լրագրողներին եմ ասում: Իմ alter ego-ն հավատում էր նոր մետաֆորներ հորինելուն և հայնտնաբերելուն, իսկ ես՝ նրանց, որոնք համապատասխանում են համընդհանուր և իրար մոտ ընդհանրություններին, որոնք մեր երևակայությունն արդեն ընդունել է. մարդկանց ծերությունն ու մայրամուտը, երազն ու կյանքը, ժամանակի ընթացքն ու ջրի հոսքը: Արտահայտեցի նրան այս կարծիքս, որ տարիներ անց ինքն էր արտահայտելու որևէ գրքում:
”
”
Խորխե Լուիս Բորխես, Մյուսը
“
The story is told in fragmentary narratives written by a Doctor and a Lawyer, culminating in Jekyll’s own full statement of the case. As well as creating a sense of mystery as each narrator witnesses a series of inexplicable events that is only finally explained by Jekyll’s own posthumous statement of his experiments, this structure is also symbolic of the fragmentary personality that Hyde’s existence reveals. For Jekyll is careful to note that Hyde is not simply his own ‘evil’ alter ego – rather he is just one facet of Jekyll’s personality, increased to the maximum. If Hyde is completely evil, it does not necessarily follow that Jekyll is entirely good – he always had the capacity for evil within him, but has repressed it in order to live a socially respectable life. It is this capacity for evil, lying beneath the socially acceptable face of society, that Hyde represents. This has made the novel open to all kinds of intriguing readings that suggest that the Jekyll/Hyde split is symbolic of the divergent experiences of ‘respectable’ Victorian society and their less respectable ‘others’ – a commentary on the hypocrisy of a society that condones certain kinds of behaviour so long as the mask of respectability is maintained. This subtext means that the novel fits easily into the Gothic genre, which is typically concerned with the chaotic forces lying beneath the pretence of civilisation.
”
”
Robert Louis Stevenson (Collected Works of Robert Louis Stevenson)
“
Our insistence on being different from everything around us is one of the greatest mistakes of mankind. We stubbornly maintain an illusory distinction that sets us apart from rock and ice, water and fire, plant and animal. Both religion and rationality try to explain it through an elaborate vocabulary of separation—soul, atman, spirit, ghosts in the machine or simply the idea of selfhood. We have dreamed up gods so that we can reassure ourselves that somewhere, someday, somehow, after this life is over, something awaits us: a presence that recognizes who we are. But if we approach a mountain instead, accepting that we are nothing more or less than an integral part of its existence, our ego merges with the nature of the mountain. In
”
”
Stephen Alter (Becoming a Mountain: Himalayan Journeys in Search of the Sacred and the Sublime)
“
Most of us though have this image of a badass as being a trouble maker. We can mistake rebellion and thinking outside the square as not being a team player. That's where we get it wrong. Along with owning ourselves, being a badass means accepting responsibility for our world. It means being willing to drop our armor and feel things. Brené Brown, the epic researcher who blew the world away with her TED talk on vulnerability, describes the ingredients even further saying that the qualities of being "tough and tender" equal "badassery". We can use our badassness like an alter ego super hero. Someone who gets things done because she's the one to do it. She might be afraid, but that doesn't keep her from honoring who she is and what she's meant to do in the world.
”
”
Susan Paget (Gray Hair Adventure: Things I Learned About Life When I Stopped Dyeing My Hair)
“
In summer, most ramen restaurants in Tokyo serve hiyashi chūka, a cold ramen noodle salad topped with strips of ham, cucumber, and omelet; a tart sesame- or soy-based sauce; and sometimes other vegetables, like a tomato wedge or sheets of wakame seaweed. The vegetables are arranged in piles of parallel shreds radiating from the center to the edge of the plate like bicycle spokes, and you toss everything together before eating. It's bracing, ice-cold, addictive- summer food from the days before air conditioning.
In Oishinbo: Ramen and Gyōza, a young lifestyle reporter wants to write an article about hiyashi chūka. "I'm not interested in something like hiyashi chūka," says my alter ego Yamaoka. It's a fake Chinese dish made with cheap industrial ingredients, he explains.
Later, however, Yamaoka relents. "Cold noodles, cold soup, and cold toppings," he muses. "The idea of trying to make a good dish out of them is a valid one." Good point, jerk. He mills organic wheat into flour and hires a Chinese chef to make the noodles. He buys a farmyard chicken from an old woman to make the stock and seasons it with the finest Japanese vinegar, soy sauce, and sake. Yamaoka's mean old dad Kaibara Yūzan inevitably gets involved and makes an even better hiyashi chūka by substituting the finest Chinese vinegar, soy sauce, and rice wine.
When I first read this, I enjoyed trying to follow the heated argument over this dish I'd never even heard of. Yamaoka and Kaibara are in total agreement that hiyashi chūka needs to be made with quality ingredients, but they disagree about what kind of dish it is: Chinese, Japanese, or somewhere in between? Unlike American food, Japanese cuisine has boundary issues.
”
”
Matthew Amster-Burton (Pretty Good Number One: An American Family Eats Tokyo)
“
Основной категорией художественного видения Достоевского было не становление, а сосуществование и взаимодействие. Он видел и мыслил свой мир по преимуществу в пространстве, а не во времени. Отсюда и его глубокая тяга к драматической форме.[38] Весь доступный ему смысловой материал и материал действительности он стремится организовать в одном времени в форме драматического сопоставления, развернуть экстенсивно. Такой художник, как, например, Гёте, органически тяготеет к становящемуся ряду. Все сосуществующие противоречия он стремится воспринять как разные этапы некоторого единого развития, в каждом явлении настоящего увидеть след прошлого, вершину современности или тенденцию будущего; вследствие этого ничто не располагалось для него в одной экстенсивной плоскости. Такова, во всяком случае, была основная тенденция его видения и понимания мира.[39]
Достоевский, в противоположность Гёте, самые этапы стремился воспринять в их одновременности, драматически сопоставить и противопоставить их, а не вытянуть в становящийся ряд. Разобраться в мире значило для него помыслить все его содержания как одновременные и угадать их взаимоотношения в разрезе одного момента.
Это упорнейшее стремление его видеть все как сосуществующее, воспринимать и показывать все рядом и одновременно, как бы в пространстве, а не во времени, приводит его к тому, что даже внутренние противоречия и внутренние этапы развития одного человека он драматизирует в пространстве, заставляя героев беседовать со своим двойником, с чёртом, со своим alter ego, со своей карикатурой (Иван и чёрт, Иван и Смердяков, Раскольников и Свидригайлов и т. п.). Обычное у Достоевского явление парных героев объясняется этою же его особенностью. Можно прямо сказать, что из каждого противоречия внутри одного человека Достоевский стремится сделать двух людей, чтобы драматизовать это противоречие и развернуть его экстенсивно. Эта особенность находит своё внешнее выражение и в пристрастии Достоевского к массовым сценам, в его стремлении сосредоточить в одном месте и в одно время, часто вопреки прагматическому правдоподобию, как можно больше лиц и как можно больше тем, то есть сосредоточить в одном миге возможно б
”
”
Mikhail Bakhtin (Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics)
“
There’s just no owning any success you achieve and stacking it in your win column. The force just won’t let it happen. What happens when imposter syndrome has you in its grip? You become terrified you’ll be found out. Despite all her acclaim and success, this is what Maya Angelou feared. “I have written 11 books, but each time I think, ‘Uh-oh, they’re going to find out now. I’ve run a game on everybody, and they’re going to find me out.’”1 You might be surprised to find out how many accomplished people think to themselves they’ll be “found out,” then ostracized and ridiculed. However, it’s irrational. It would only happen if you actually did have no skill, no ability, or no knowledge, but that isn’t the case for most people. This is the ultimate fear, isn’t it? Being found out and kicked out of our tribe? By nature, we’re tribal. Humans survived through the millennia because we were part of a tribe that hunted, gathered, sheltered, and protected one another from the elements, from predators, and from other tribes. You couldn’t be out hunting and watching the fire simultaneously. You needed other people if you had any hope of surviving through the night. If your tribe finds out you’re a fraud, it triggers that primordial “Uh-oh, they’re going to kick me out! I’m going to be caught in the wilderness alone!” When plagued by imposter syndrome, people don’t take themselves, their abilities, or their accomplishments seriously. If you don’t take yourself seriously on any Field of Play, you most likely won’t be getting the results you want.
”
”
Todd Herman (The Alter Ego Effect: The Power of Secret Identities to Transform Your Life)
“
My interest in comics was scribbled over with a revived, energized passion for clothes, records, and music. I'd wandered in late to the punk party in 1978, when it was already over and the Sex Pistols were history.
I'd kept my distance during the first flush of the new paradigm, when the walls of the sixth-form common room shed their suburban-surreal Roger Dean Yes album covers and grew a fresh new skin of Sex Pistols pictures, Blondie pinups, Buzzcocks collages, Clash radical chic. As a committed outsider, I refused to jump on the bandwagon of this new musical fad,
which I'd written off as some kind of Nazi thing after seeing a photograph of Sid Vicious sporting a swastika armband. I hated the boys who'd cut their long hair and binned their crappy prog albums in an attempt to join in. I hated pretty much everybody without discrimination, in one way or another, and punk rockers were just something else to add to the shit list.
But as we all know, it's zealots who make the best converts. One Thursday night, I was sprawled on the settee with Top of the Pops on the telly when Poly Styrene and her band X-Ray Spex turned up to play their latest single: an exhilarating sherbet storm of raw punk psychedelia entitled "The Day the World Turned Day-Glo" By the time the last incandescent chorus played out, I was a punk. I had always been a punk. I would always be a punk. Punk brought it all together in one place for me: Michael Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius novels were punk. Peter Barnes's The Ruling Class, Dennis Potter, and The Prisoner were punk too. A Clockwork Orange was punk. Lindsay Anderson's If ... was punk. Monty Python was punk. Photographer Bob Carlos Clarke's fetish girls were punk. Comics were punk. Even Richmal Crompton's William books were punk. In fact, as it turned out, pretty much everything I liked was punk.
The world started to make sense for the first time since Mosspark Primary. New and glorious constellations aligned in my inner firmament. I felt born again. The do-your-own-thing ethos had returned with a spit and a sneer in all those amateurish records I bought and treasured-even
though I had no record player. Singles by bands who could often barely play or sing but still wrote beautiful, furious songs and poured all their young hearts, experiences, and inspirations onto records they paid for with their dole money. If these glorious fuckups could do it, so could a fuckup like me. When Jilted John, the alter ego of actor and comedian Graham Fellows, made an appearance on Top of the Pops singing about bus stops, failed romance, and sexual identity crisis, I was enthralled by his shameless amateurism, his reduction of pop music's great themes to playground name calling, his deconstruction of the macho rock voice into the effeminate whimper of a softie from Sheffield.
This music reflected my experience of teenage life as a series of brutal setbacks and disappointments that could in the end be redeemed into art and music with humor, intelligence, and a modicum of talent. This, for me, was the real punk, the genuine anticool, and I felt empowered. The losers, the rejected, and the formerly voiceless were being offered an opportunity to show what they could do to enliven a stagnant culture. History was on our side, and I had nothing to lose. I was eighteen and still hadn't kissed a girl, but perhaps I had potential. I knew I had a lot to say, and punk threw me the lifeline of a creed and a vocabulary-a soundtrack to my mission as a comic artist, a rough validation. Ugly kids, shy kids, weird kids: It was okay to be different. In fact, it was mandatory.
”
”
Grant Morrison (Supergods: What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human)
“
From strange alter-egos, to the occult concept of androgyny, and of course including references to Aleister Crowley and his Thelema, David Bowie did decades ago what pop stars are doing now. “Bowie’s alter-ego named Ziggy Stardust was a representation of the “illuminated man” who has reached the highest level of initiation: androgyny. There was also a lot of one eye things going on. Drawing the Kabbalistic Tree of Life The difference between Bowie and today’s pop stars is that he was rather open regarding the occult influence in his act and music. In a 1995 interview, Bowie stated: “My overriding interest was in cabbala and Crowleyism. That whole dark and rather fearsome never-world of the wrong side of the brain.” In his 1971 song Quicksand, Bowie sang: “I’m closer to the Golden Dawn Immersed in Crowley’s uniform of imagery” (Golden Dawn is the name of a Secret Society that had Crowley as member). These are only some examples of the occult influence on Bowie’s work and an entire book could be written on the subject. Since the main antagonist of Labyrinth is a sorcerer who also happens to enjoy singing impromptu pop songs, David Bowie was a perfect fit for the role.
”
”
Vigilant Citizen (The Vigilant Citizen - Articles Compilation)