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“A self must learn. The body is. The body knows. A self learned to act as if it is real, and learned to ignore what the body knows. The body transcends the self and not, as religions have it, the other way around; even when they posit a stand-in for the self called the soul, the idea is that a personal transcendence is possible and ought to be sought after. Begin with that orientation to the divine, and one can talk all one wants about charity, generosity, brotherhood—it's every man for himself. Even before there were religions there was religious war.”

—Richard Hoffman, “Like Never Before,” in Remembering The Alchemist