HoO Website Quote

[yepooda]

I've been looking at the quote on the HoO website and noticed something...

"We place no reliance on virgin or pidgeon. Our method is science, our aim is religion."
-Aleister Crowley

pidgeon is spelled differently from how you would expect to spell it if it was the bird (pigeon). so I looked it up, and here's what I found...

Pid·geon –noun
Walter, 1898–1984, U.S. actor, born in Canada.

That just doesn't make any sense at all to me, and I really think that it is some kind of clue. I'm just not much of a puzzle solver...

Anyone have any ideas??

[kallekelly]

I ran a search on that quote, and found that 'pidgeon' is how Crowley orginally spelled it. Here are two sites that might have useful information (I didn't read very much of what was in them)- the other sites seemed pretty useless.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/U172698

http://www.benpadiah.com/otherstuff/Spare/ZOS.html

This page has this quote on it - "Remember that the slogan of the OTO, printed on every Equinox, states: 'We place no reliance on virgin or pidgeon. Our method is science, our aim is religion.' " (the OTO is the masonic group that Crowley was in charge of for a long time)

[deagol]

If you google the "pidgeon" version of the quote you get 9 results:
- HoO main site
- HoO myspace
- a HoO-related YT video
- 2 links to this forum
- a possibly independent link titled "The Book of THOTH" which doesn't have the quote anywhere (don't know why).

What's left is
- a user-submitted quotes listing
- a random myspace blog
- an apparently more serious blogger, http://www.jesuslist.com/blog/page/26/

When you google the "pigeon" version you get 120 results, and I didn't see a single one related to HoO. Sure, there's a few random people quoting it, but still...

For whatever reason Google didn't find the 2 links found by the previous poster, so this can't be a definitive conclusion. But in relative terms, it's clear that there are much more references to the grammatically correct quote. I guess the only way to prove it either way would be if someone had a real, physical issue of that 1st number of the 1st volume of his magazine Equinox.

[Elizabeth]

if you look at the cache on google at the Book of THOTH it spreads random quotes by Crowley and is very into his teachings. It's just a random quote they use.

[GenocideInMyMind]

Well, if this is their claim, if they follow this quote, than Bree doesn't have to be a virgin to do the ceremony. It implies that they didn't want a virgin, and therefore explains that the purity bond is just a vow of trustworthiness.

[K23239]

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0682074/

All I could find. Look at the years though, compared to Aleister Crowley's life.

[Elizabeth]

They are probobly talking about the immaculate birth of jesus and mary the virgin mother.

[Elizabeth]

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0682074/

All I could find. Look at the years though, compared to Aleister Crowley's life.

I don't get it. Explain a bit more. I see that Crowley was cambridge and Pidgeon was Boston. Most of Crowley's life was lived before Pidgeon was in the movies.

[garnet]

This could be stating the obvious, but:

Based on Judeo-Christian theology, a dove can be offered as a sacrifice as a means of salvation / forgiveness of sins. Pigeon is sometimes used as a term for a small dove. Both doves and pigeons are members of the Colmbidae family. Furthermore, pigeon rhymes with religion, while dove doesn't.

Jesus (believed by many to be the product of a virgin birth) was also considered a human sacrifice whose death resulted in the salvation of his followers.

In addition, ancient polytheistic societies were known to sacrifice female virgins to the gods as a means of obtaining favor or atoning for past wrongs.

I am not by any means an expert on Crowley, but my interpretation of the quote was that he and his followers would not rely on human or animal sacrifice to obtain favor. Rather, they would use science as a sort of substitute for religious ritual. By striving for a closer understanding of the universe through science, they would be bettering the world and fulfilling their True Will, thereby eliminating the need for sacrifice and atonement.

This is just my interpretation, but that's how it struck me when I first saw it on the website. It leads me to believe that the ceremony Bree is / was to be involved in would not involve killing or blood-letting as a means of sacrifice. Rather, it would involve some sort of dangerous scientific experiment.


Additionally, pigeon is a term sometimes used for one easily duped. Crowley may have felt that he did not want "pigeons" among his followers. Mere numbers were not as important as intelligence. To take this a step further, virgins are often seen as naive and lacking experience. One could go so far as to say that Crowley preferred worldliness in his cohorts.

I really think that pidgeon is just an alternate spelling, especially because it is not capitalized.

ETA: Again, I'm not an expert, but based on the little research I've done, Crowley seems like the kind of guy who would affect archaic spellings to give his words a more weighty tone.

[Cleo]

Crowley's quote is a dig at Catholicism. The "virgin" is Mary and the "pidgeon" is the dove. The dove is a symbol for the Holy Spirit in the Catholic faith, the third part of the Holy Trinity. In calling the Holy Spirit a "pidgeon," Crowley trivializes it. Crowley's contrasting what he supposes to be blind faith in Christian superstition with what he supposes to be wise faith in Gnostic science (his teaching). I'm certain that this is the meaning of the original Crowley quotation.

As for the quotation's use on the HoO website, there may be more to it. I enjoy garnet's interpretation, contrasting pagan sacrifice with modern cult science (hardly obvious, smarty garnet). That would be a perfect new context for this quote and quite brilliant if that's where the writers are going with this!

[JustAnotherLonelyGirl.]

I thought pidgeon is the British spelling of pigeon.

[loobylou]

No - we spell pigeon the same way as you guys!

[Nieriel.Manwathiel]

wow. lookie what i found on dictionary.com

pi·geon 2 (pĭj'ən) n.

An object of special concern; an affair or matter.

[Alteration of pidgin.]

(emphasis mine)
Bree IS a chosen one... and there has been talk of a ceremony (some day!!!! )


btw, yep, if this is of any use...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Pidgeon

[Cleo]

ETA: Again, I'm not an expert, but based on the little research I've done, Crowley seems like the kind of guy who would affect archaic spellings to give his words a more weighty tone.

I agree with garnet here. Alternate spellings are typical of English writers like Spenser and MacPhereson who were attempting to align themselves with past traditions of magic and bardhood. Some scholars believe that even the Anglo-Saxon scribes affected earlier Old English dialects in order to gain authority, which accounts for the previous too-early-dating of Beowulf. Anyway, what I'm saying is, writers, particularly English ones such as Crowley, often add e's to words where they don't belong just to sound old, mysterious, and authoritative.

[Lurker]

Anyway, what I'm saying is, writers, particularly English ones such as Crowley, often add e's to words where they don't belong just to sound old, mysterious, and authoritative.

You mean "olde, mysterious and authoritative."