"The pious pretense that evil does not exist only makes it vague, enormous and menacing"
About this Quote
Crowley’s line is a slap at polite society’s favorite magic trick: trying to banish darkness by refusing to name it. The phrasing matters. “Pious pretense” doesn’t just mean ignorance; it’s willful, performative goodness, a posture that treats moral complexity as bad manners. Crowley, who made a career out of offending Victorian and Edwardian respectability, is calling out the way sanctimony turns into a kind of censorship - of desire, violence, cruelty, even ordinary selfishness.
The punch is in the chain of consequences: when evil is denied, it becomes “vague, enormous and menacing.” That’s psychology and politics in one sentence. What you won’t look at can’t be measured, argued with, prosecuted, or contained. It swells into a mythic force - the boogeyman, the conspiracy, the “monsters” who conveniently explain away systemic failures. Denial doesn’t eradicate; it externalizes. It pushes responsibility outward, where it becomes easier to fear than to understand.
Crowley’s context sharpens the intent. As an occultist and cultural antagonist, he distrusted conventional morality precisely because it hid appetites behind lace curtains. His jab isn’t “evil is cool”; it’s that moral hygiene campaigns create their own pathogens. The quote anticipates a modern dynamic: institutions that brand themselves as virtuous often become most vulnerable to the abuses they refuse to imagine. Naming evil is not indulgence. It’s containment.
The punch is in the chain of consequences: when evil is denied, it becomes “vague, enormous and menacing.” That’s psychology and politics in one sentence. What you won’t look at can’t be measured, argued with, prosecuted, or contained. It swells into a mythic force - the boogeyman, the conspiracy, the “monsters” who conveniently explain away systemic failures. Denial doesn’t eradicate; it externalizes. It pushes responsibility outward, where it becomes easier to fear than to understand.
Crowley’s context sharpens the intent. As an occultist and cultural antagonist, he distrusted conventional morality precisely because it hid appetites behind lace curtains. His jab isn’t “evil is cool”; it’s that moral hygiene campaigns create their own pathogens. The quote anticipates a modern dynamic: institutions that brand themselves as virtuous often become most vulnerable to the abuses they refuse to imagine. Naming evil is not indulgence. It’s containment.
Quote Details
| Topic | Ethics & Morality |
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