"It is on the basis of a certain degradation of the feminine -- but each essence is responsible for its own modes of degradation -- that the charm of sorcery would function: appearance in the very heart of the real, dissolution of reality through the ungraspable resources of appearance, the non-real received in its unreality, as a trace of the surreal; equivocations perceived as enigmas; and, in the `fling' experienced as an ecstasy of the sacred, the law suspended."

....

"Nothing is identical to itself any longer. That is what sorcery is: the modern world; nothing is identical to itself; no one is identical to himself; nothing gets said for no word has its own meaning; all speech is a magical whisper; no one listens to what you say; everyone suspects behind your back a not-said, a conditioning, an ideology.

from Nine Talmudic Readings, Emmanual Levinas