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WHo keeps their swords in a shed?
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Nov 30, 2015 21:57
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precision posted:Have you ever read any Robert Anton Wilson? Humor is the sharpest sword in the shed sometimes. I read one of his nonfiction things when I was like 15 and it was ok I guess but it also had a bunch of crap about discordianism and dated counterculturral wank.
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Dec 1, 2015 01:31
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CestMoi posted:WHo keeps their swords in a shed? And for that matter, why a duck?
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Dec 1, 2015 02:05
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No love for Dion Fortune?
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Dec 1, 2015 12:26
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Mad Hamish posted:No love for Dion Fortune? Do it up! Mystical Qabalah is on my wishlist but I'm still digging thru 777 and Liber ABA/Book 4.
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Dec 2, 2015 02:55
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There's a really good YouTube series I watched once but can't remember the name of. It didn't have more than a few hundred views, but each video was this really mellow guy doing kind of "metaphysics 101" and I recall thinking it was an absolutely terrific intro to the subject. It's driving me nuts that I can't find them now. Anyone know what I'm talking about?
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Dec 7, 2015 04:10
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OP do you know anything about currents of western occultism that don't use the Qabalah? There's a couple of left hand path satanist groups I've come across that don't seem to use it, but I'm not sure where that came from or how recent it is, the history of it.
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Dec 8, 2015 14:58
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A human heart posted:OP do you know anything about currents of western occultism that don't use the Qabalah? There's a couple of left hand path satanist groups I've come across that don't seem to use it, but I'm not sure where that came from or how recent it is, the history of it. Not the OP but the groups like that I've seen are using a bastardized mashup of Crowley's version of Astrum Argentum, neo-paganism and sometimes Anton (loving) LaVey (puke).
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Dec 8, 2015 18:16
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1EXeurb4lI
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Dec 8, 2015 18:31
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Satan Takes a Holiday already convinced me that LaVey should have just been a musician.
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Dec 8, 2015 18:54
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precision posted:Not the OP but the groups like that I've seen are using a bastardized mashup of Crowley's version of Astrum Argentum I guess they edit out all the parts from Crowley's writings where he says you shouldn't be an egomaniac moron if you're going to mess with magick.
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Dec 8, 2015 19:30
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Soft Shell Crab posted:I guess they edit out all the parts from Crowley's writings where he says you shouldn't be an egomaniac moron if you're going to mess with magick. They do indeed. As I said, Crowley is pretty widely misunderstood even among people who should know better.
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Dec 8, 2015 20:13
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How do people involved in Hermeticism and Thelema justify what appears to be a strong numerological underpinning to their practices? Is there any justification?
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Dec 10, 2015 23:45
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I guess there is as much justification as there is in the use of the rest of kabbalah.
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Dec 10, 2015 23:50
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Hate Fibration posted:How do people involved in Hermeticism and Thelema justify what appears to be a strong numerological underpinning to their practices? Is there any justification? I guess it depends on what you mean by "involved in" but it also begs the question of why it would need to be justified.
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Dec 11, 2015 00:01
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Hate Fibration posted:How do people involved in Hermeticism and Thelema justify what appears to be a strong numerological underpinning to their practices? Is there any justification? Why would they need to? Numerology is a pretty well established thing in a lot of traditions.
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Dec 11, 2015 00:06
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Hate Fibration posted:How do people involved in Hermeticism and Thelema justify what appears to be a strong numerological underpinning to their practices? Is there any justification? Numerology is different from Qabalah but to an outsider looking in I would suppose they look very similar. Numerology gets a bum rap and I'm not all that versed in it but as for the numerical correspondences in Qabalah some are based on very reasonable connections and others can be pretty arbitrary. Think of Qabalah as like a filing system for the universe, a way for your brain to try and wrap itself around the divine and unknowable. The main purpose is to overload your intellectual mind to the point that you transcend it and reach a spiritual consciousness where the great mystical oneness of everything sorta just falls into place, making you realize and accept the nature of your existence as being a part of Diety or the Universe, instead of separate from. Eastern mystics accomplish this by going into oneself and removing all attachments until they are left with the silence of ultimate truth. Qabalists do this by connecting everything in the universe (especially the universe inside them with the physical macroverse) until everything means nothing, thus reaching that perfect emptiness of the eastern mystic. The end goal is the same though: enlightenment. If your mind were a literal computer, then Goetia magic would be altering the source code and Qabalistic study the operating system. The ideas underpinning magick can seem bizarre and ridiculous but when you trace those esoteric teachings back through history, a lot of those far out ways of thinking is exactly what pushed science forward. Crowley is adamant about using science and reason and mastering all known observable and proven phenomena. He just also refused to close his mind to thinks he couldn't fully understand, because at the end of the day Magick produces results within consciousness and Crowley felt like it was important to find out why and how these things happen, and modern occultists are still on that same journey. Lil Mama Im Sorry fucked around with this message at 20:12 on Dec 11, 2015 |
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Dec 11, 2015 18:33
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A human heart posted:OP do you know anything about currents of western occultism that don't use the Qabalah? There's a couple of left hand path satanist groups I've come across that don't seem to use it, but I'm not sure where that came from or how recent it is, the history of it. Most currents of western occultism aren't necessarily linked with Qabalah, ie a lot of "magic" comes from ancient practices in Africa and the Middle East and predate it by millenia. Qabalah has just been used as a way to unify all the different schools of thought (since it's based on the Hebrew alphabet which encompasses both math and words in their letters, you can pretty much filter anything through Qabalah). You can definitely find older material that doesn't have any connection to the Qabalah, but pretty much everything post-Golden Dawn is Qabalistic in one way or another. edit: There's a bunchof different types of Thelemites, ie; Voodoo Thelema, Christian Thelema, Satanist etc etc and they all seem to make those prefixes the main focus of their work while using Thelemic principles as well. Most left-hand path followers that I've encountered have been pretty intolerable to talk with and tend to have an over-inflated ego. Lil Mama Im Sorry fucked around with this message at 19:47 on Dec 11, 2015 |
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Dec 11, 2015 18:42
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Lil Mama Im Sorry posted:The ideas underpinning magick can seem bizarre and ridiculous What I don't much get is how people can think magick is weird without giving any thought to how weird consciousness, observation and sentience at all is.
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Dec 11, 2015 21:04
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its turtles all the way down man
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Dec 11, 2015 23:34
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precision posted:What I don't much get is how people can think magick is weird without giving any thought to how weird consciousness, observation and sentience at all is. This. I always felt drawn toward occultish things because reality always seemed to have something else going on beneath the surface that I could never really wrap my head around. The greatest thing reading occult literature has done for me is that it has restored my childlike wonder with the world. Everything is suddenly really amazing and new and interesting. Lil Mama Im Sorry fucked around with this message at 00:32 on Dec 12, 2015 |
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Dec 12, 2015 00:29
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Earwicker posted:here is a cool book: I got this a week ago on this recommendation, just wanted to repeat this. It's 500+ full-color, glossy pages. Not a lot of hard info, but it's really beautiful and for $25 including shipping, it's worth it even as just a nice coffee table book.
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Dec 17, 2015 06:27
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Invisible Ted posted:I got this a week ago on this recommendation, just wanted to repeat this. It's 500+ full-color, glossy pages. Not a lot of hard info, but it's really beautiful and for $25 including shipping, it's worth it even as just a nice coffee table book. Just came in the mail today with some other goodies  
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Dec 17, 2015 21:09
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Watch out for that black one, bad things happen to people that read it.
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Dec 18, 2015 11:03
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Lil Mama Im Sorry posted:Just came in the mail today with some other goodies An English bible that isn't the new oxford annotated bible. A bad bible.
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Dec 18, 2015 13:22
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Earwicker posted:here is a cool book: If you are interested in Alchemy (and have a lot of time) you should really check out Adam McLean's Alchemy Website. Alchemy website posted:457 megabytes currently online of information on alchemy in all its facets. Divided into over 2500 sections and providing tens of thousands of pages of text, over 3000 images, over 300 complete alchemical texts, extensive bibliographical material on the printed books and manuscripts, numerous articles, introductory and general reference material on alchemy. For more recent/current writers, if you haven't read any Ramsey Dukes I thoroughly recommend everything he's written. He is generally seen as an important part of the Chaos Magic movement of the 70s and 80s but I'd say that his well thought out humorous and philosophical approach is much more widely applicable.
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Dec 20, 2015 16:24
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EmptyVessel posted:If you are interested in Alchemy (and have a lot of time) you should really check out Adam McLean's Alchemy Website. I have his How To Read Alchemical Texts study coursebook. I haven't truly dug into it yet but I'm happy with my decision to purchase it.
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Dec 20, 2015 20:26
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Lil Mama Im Sorry posted:Numerology is different from Qabalah but to an outsider looking in I would suppose they look very similar. Numerology gets a bum rap and I'm not all that versed in it but as for the numerical correspondences in Qabalah some are based on very reasonable connections and others can be pretty arbitrary. Think of Qabalah as like a filing system for the universe, a way for your brain to try and wrap itself around the divine and unknowable. The main purpose is to overload your intellectual mind to the point that you transcend it and reach a spiritual consciousness where the great mystical oneness of everything sorta just falls into place Oh okay. What I see as a bug, you see as a feature. So the whole point of numerological practices is that you can establish a correspondence between almost anything?
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Dec 21, 2015 08:48
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Hate Fibration posted:Oh okay. What I see as a bug, you see as a feature. So the whole point of numerological practices is that you can establish a correspondence between almost anything? That's the point of Qabalistic correspondence. Again, I can't speak on Numerology which is its own art separate from Qabalah. Since the Great Work of a mystic is Union (Yoga) aka dissolving the self with the non-self, and occultism is a mix of science and art, I assure you that there is esoteric meaning behind correspondences that may appear to be completely arbitrary to someone who isn't versed in the occult teachings behind the numbers. The neat thing is that there really isn't a clear set of rules or directions with this stuff. You're encouraged to study it and apply it to your life and find your own meanings in these things, as that's truly the only way to absorb and understand these things. It's very much encouraged for you to carve your own path thru spiritual initiation. Discard what doesn't apply, but always keep an open mind because there may be somewhere down the road where it takes on new meaning to you. Take none of this as fact, as it's also taught that knowledge itself is just an illusion of the Truth. But, you must have knowledge in order to transcend it. That's why I try to put the emphasis on the art of these teachings. The aim/goal is Science but done by the method of Art/Religion (and vice versa). Lil Mama Im Sorry fucked around with this message at 15:29 on Dec 21, 2015 |
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Dec 21, 2015 14:21
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Just transcribed this from a podcast interview with Lon Milo Duquette: LMD: I wouldn’t even be here, I wouldn’t even by conscious that I am a seemingly independent entity, of the fact that I’m seemingly separated from you and everything, UNLESS I had some function that was necessary to execute in this grand scheme. And people over the centuries and history and so forth have posited that there’s this “Will of God” that we’re in and it’s not really that far off the mark. But what I’m saying is that, um, I’m still here talking and squawking, because there’s still something necessary for me to do that only I can do. And when it’s done I won’t be here anymore. It’s what a star does it’s what a planet does. A planet needs to be where it needs to be in order to fulfill its function in the cosmos, and when its function is over it goes. That is your “Will”. If you’re a planet, that’s your orbit. Interviewer: That’s a beautiful way to look at the world and I’m really interested in this idea of looking at the universe to read signs, but I think I’m going at it all wrong. Here’s an example: When I was a kid I would say to the universe something to the effect of, “Okay, if I make this basket then Jenny likes me,” (like an impromptu magic 8-ball) and so I’d shoot a basket and I’d make it and I’d ask Jenny to the dance and she’d tell me to go gently caress off and I remember thinking, “well that’s the last time I ask the universe for any guidance.” Was my method wrong? Or is there some type of more accurate way of going about reading signs? LMD: Uhh, well the minute you start asking the universe for a sign you’ve already separated yourself from the universe. You’re short-circuiting the whole thing from the very beginning. Do you think there’s a ‘quid-pro-quo’ about all of this? No, you just do it. When I said I’m trying to work from micro-second to micro-second, I really meant that. I have never made a goal in my life. Please don’t think I’m recommending this philosophy, but I’ve never had a goal, I don’t set out to do anything. When people say “set goals for your life and then shoot for that,” I say “gently caress that!” I can’t do that. I don’t set goals, I don’t even set a goal for what I’m going to do today and it’s not that I’m just reacting. Here: if you are PRESENT in mind, from second to second, there’s only ONE thing for you to do at any given moment. And the more PRESENT you are, the more you go along with the program. The second you start to THINK in any way, more than that one thing in front of you, you’re already walking on quicksand. Because there’s always a factor infinite and unknown-- There is no FUTURE, there is no PAST. You’re in an eternal NOW. And anything that you do to change yourself in that “nowness” it changes not only the future, it changes your past. That’s how consciousness works, it’s really big stuff. A physicist will tell you there is no time as we know it, okay? Just flat out, it doesn’t exist. So we’re trying to wrap our meat brains around a great universe where this idea of space and time, that seems to dominate absolutely everything in our consciousness, doesn’t even exist. Changing yourself NOW, changes your past. It changes your future. And the ultimate change in your consciousness changes everything to such a degree that you see that you’ve been everybody and everything all along. That’s what you’re shooting for. That’s the emptiness of Zen, the fullness of Qabalah. That is illumination. That is Enlightenment. And the magician is somebody that uses absolutely everything in his/her outer world as a metaphor for this great adventure; uses a stick as a wand as a metaphor for the Will, and a cup as a metaphor for the Understanding. The rituals themselves are just like little songs, little vignettes, that are played to set the mood for consciousness change. Does that make any sense at all?
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Dec 31, 2015 20:34
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Thanks for starting this thread! I really love this stuff - it's just catnip to me - since I got into Robert Anton Wilson's nonfiction in the mid-nineties, and then Grant Morrison's wo. I've more recently gotten into Kenneth Grant's Typhonian material - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magical_Revival - which basically interprets Lovecraft's fiction as being "actual insight into what's really going on out there." It is my understanding that Grant is considered a kind of goofy, misguided character as a result of that, but I love reading it almost as a philosophical/literary exercise more than anything. One of my biggest hurdles with all of this stuff is that it seems like every single person writing about it feels like they have to adopt a "high sage" persona wholesale and the actual prose and communication instantly suffers as they affect a sort of turgid, overwrought, Academic "high speech" approach. I love people who just write about this stuff in plain speech instead of like a Renfaire Character Cosplaying William Blake. Verily I do decree that it is preferable to me! Calm down, Grand Wizard, you're writing this on Tumblr.
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Jan 29, 2016 18:54
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Transistor Rhythm posted:One of my biggest hurdles with all of this stuff is that it seems like every single person writing about it feels like they have to adopt a "high sage" persona wholesale and the actual prose and communication instantly suffers as they affect a sort of turgid, overwrought, Academic "high speech" approach. I love people who just write about this stuff in plain speech instead of like a Renfaire Character Cosplaying William Blake. Verily I do decree that it is preferable to me! Calm down, Grand Wizard, you're writing this on Tumblr. I'm not sure what you are talking about to since none of the books or authors mentioned in this thread are like this at all and have nothing to do with tumblr. IIRC Kenneth Grant was once described by Crowley as "the most boring person ever to live" or something like that.
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Jan 29, 2016 19:02
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This thread just reminded me that I found a copy of Magick (Book 4) among the donations/discards at the library. There was some other interesting looking esoteric stuff that I snagged too, like The Yoga Of Power. Has anyone read any Gurdjieff or Ouspensky? I'm hoping to get into In Search Of The Miraculous at some point this year.
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Jan 31, 2016 05:46
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Juaguocio posted:This thread just reminded me that I found a copy of Magick (Book 4) among the donations/discards at the library. There was some other interesting looking esoteric stuff that I snagged too, like The Yoga Of Power. I think I've read most of their stuff but ages ago. E: One possible starting point could be Ouspenky's Tertium Organum. He wrote it before coming into contact with Gurdjieff so you could see how his thinking changed after the fact. It deals with higher dimensions and stuff like that. True Detective and Interstellar kind of reminded me of the book. Though I read it long ago so I might be off on that but at least I remember I enjoyed reading it. Soft Shell Crab fucked around with this message at 09:04 on Jan 31, 2016 |
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Jan 31, 2016 07:22
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Transistor Rhythm posted:Thanks for starting this thread! I really love this stuff - it's just catnip to me - since I got into Robert Anton Wilson's nonfiction in the mid-nineties, and then Grant Morrison's wo. I've more recently gotten into Kenneth Grant's Typhonian material - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magical_Revival - which basically interprets Lovecraft's fiction as being "actual insight into what's really going on out there." It is my understanding that Grant is considered a kind of goofy, misguided character as a result of that, but I love reading it almost as a philosophical/literary exercise more than anything. I've actually never read Bob Wilson or Kenneth Grant but I'm fascinated by Grant Morrison's hypersigil working. As far as the high speech and pretension of people who talk about this kind of stuff, now this is only a guess, but I'd bet it has to do with them adopting a magical persona (which is advised in nearly every magic society), which is just all part of the imagination building that this stuff requires. I'd also bet they imagine their magic personality as having some super eloquent fancy schmancy grammar or whatever (probably also an attempt to have people take them seriously, thought it seems to have the opposite effect. Crowley's magic name/slogan was Frater Perdurabo, which roughly translates to "I will endure" I think. All the famous Golden Dawn peeps had these alter egos.
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Feb 7, 2016 21:05
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Also, I realized a few weeks ago that the OP is sorely lacking the works of Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, which I intend to correct as soon as I get the chance. Also, a little occult trivia for ya: Crowley actually borrowed the 'k' on the end of "magick" from Agrippa's 15th century work Three Works of Occult Philosophy. So for anyone who thinks AC just whimsically threw that K there for the gently caress of it, my condolences because the spelling has a long tradition within the occult.
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Feb 7, 2016 22:47
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Lil Mama Im Sorry posted:Also, I realized a few weeks ago that the OP is sorely lacking the works of Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, which I intend to correct as soon as I get the chance. We have an effort poster around somewhere by the name of Mithra6 who claimed to be working on a new translation of De Occulta Philosophia. Dunno how that went or if he's still around.
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Feb 7, 2016 23:21
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Lil Mama Im Sorry posted:As far as the high speech and pretension of people who talk about this kind of stuff, now this is only a guess, but I'd bet it has to do with them adopting a magical persona (which is advised in nearly every magic society), which is just all part of the imagination building that this stuff requires. I'd also bet they imagine their magic personality as having some super eloquent fancy schmancy grammar or whatever (probably also an attempt to have people take them seriously, thought it seems to have the opposite effect. Technically this is only one of the Old Crow's magickal mottoes. You get to/have to choose a new one with each 'degree', Perdurabo was his Neophyte motto. See here: http://www.thelemapedia.org/index.php/Perdurabo#Magical_mottoes A lot of the complicated language use is just simple pretension in my experience (as in pretending to be something one is not) - or put it another way it's odd that all these magical personas are quasi-academic fonts of complex language, like everyone being reincarnations of royalty and never an average joe. Also, read R.A.W. just don't take it too seriously, he certainly didn't.
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Feb 8, 2016 15:35
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EmptyVessel posted:A lot of the complicated language use is just simple pretension in my experience (as in pretending to be something one is not) I think you are missing something here. Pretending to be something one is not is often anything but simple, and at times can be a rather important practice. In fact it can, at times, be a major step towards actually becoming something one is not (or was not), at least in terms of how your actions and thoughts are present in the world. When this involves the trappings of authority that is especially the case. Earwicker fucked around with this message at 23:38 on Feb 8, 2016 |
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Feb 8, 2016 23:36
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Also especially in older occult stuff complicated language is just one of many things that writers used to make sure that only initiates could know what a text was actually about.
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Feb 8, 2016 23:59
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