• Ritual in a way is an anti-machine, even though the industrial world is not totally devoid of the practice of ritual.
  • It is not possible...to associate the hasty, grinding wheels of the machine culture as the echoes or soundings of ritual. /Ritual is not compatible with the rapid rhythm that industrialism has injected into life./ So whenever ritual happens in a place commanded by or dominated by a machine, ritual becomes a statement against the very rhythm that feeds the needs of that machine.
• Those serving the culture don't have the option to slow down and address the issue of what to do with their own needs, or how to get in touch with their own unexpressed powers. For they are too caught up in the speed and motion that is required by the Machine to feed its overt power. But some ultimately become so distraught that they figure out a way to take care of themselves rather than to take care of something that can never be satisfied.
• 
  o regroup against the Machine is to get out of control.
• Technology was sent into Africa as an instrument of terror. Colonization could not have happened without it--followed by much destruction. I do not know why it feels to me that the Christianization of the Third World is fueled by guilt, but somehow the often violent zeal with which indigenous people were pulled away from their traditions, the lingering fear of sinning, going to hell, failing to pay dues, were all projections of a filthy Shadow.
  • The colonizers called this a "pacification mission." Then they came to console those terrified by technology and converted them to Catholicism. My experience with Christianity in Africa is that its power does not come from Christ but from technology--and its corporate profile. Missionaries built churches, schools and industries and stirred a vibration, created a disharmony that displaced the indigenous person. Christianity is a technological Machine that ravaged and continues to ravage the indigenous world in Africa. The Church is unfortunately a part of it. It is the place where people are psychologically processed--even corporate people. And so I repeat, what powers you possess put you at risk of becoming a victim of them.

Things that really pissed me off in this book

• People with "real" or hidden power, that is, power derived from spirituality and the practice of ritual, don't experience mood swings and are emotionally balanced
• People with excessive corporate power need more help than their casualties (poor people, the marginalized)
• Paying too much attention to your physical needs can get in the way of your spirituality/connection to the gods/ability to be a warrior
• Everything is fucking gendered
• So maybe the West is emotionally repressed, but here the expression of emotion is governed by rules and forced to come out in specific ways at specific times
• Blood sacrifice no thank you I'm over it
• No