/lit/ - Literature

>>6996251
I've read quite a bit of it, but I'm not sure what you're looking for. Potentially workable systems of magic? Insight into the evolution of modern ritual magic sects? Musing on the otherworldly/sacred? Media analysis?
I've marked the ones I've read. Most are worth the price of admission, but don't have any earth-shaking wisdom to impart, but it's been a long time since I read some.

>>6996251
Jung should be the first thing you read so you don't actually believe in the other stuff

>>6996357
Whoops, there we go.

>>6996251
>Occultism

Literally individualism and wish fulfilment. You should study an actual religion instead.

>>6996365
Tell me about Finnegan's Wake

Ever read Harry Potter, OP?

>>6996379
It's an endless stream-of-consciousness reverie using endless puns, often a half-dozen or more within a line, and words/jokes in every language I know of and more. I did it in a grad class, so I had lots of help, but even then it was hell. I'd say the best things you can do are grab Joseph Campbell's Skeleton Key to the Wake, Vico's New Science, and listen to audio readings of sections online by people with the right accent. The book is incantatory and can't be properly explained or apprehended, but it has a lot of profound beauty. I still don't understand the fucker, though.

>>6996403
Sauce on that pic?

>>6996510
I took it a decade ago. Why?

>>6997262
Post the whole set.

I've read most of those books.

The list isn't bad. Has some nice works of fiction. Seems a bit overly concentrated on modern esotericism however.

Personally I think modern esotericism is bullshit. Crowley was a con artist and an addict and a horrible prose stylist. Castaneda is similarly full of shit. McKenna and RAW are friendly stoners but no more insightful than your stoner friends. Chaos magick is postmodernism taken to its ugliest extreme.

I would recommend reading up on neoplatonism, gnosticism, and rennaissance hermeticism. Maybe pick up some writings of paracelsus or iamblichus or ficino. Maybe read some scholarly works by Yates on the relationship between magic, philosophy, and science.

I've read a lot of that, the one I recommend most is Aleister Crowley. If you don't get it, keep reading it again and again. If you still don't get it, your conscious probably isn't large enough to ever reach enlightenment

>>6997515
crowley could fucking write m8

>>6997511
This.

I like the sea and I like women

>>6997515
>>6996357

Thank you for the recommendations and advice.
I've studied religious works and philosophical texts, alongside anthropological papers.
Just meaning to broaden my perspective, but reviews of these fringe books can be misleading in the public space, hence the question.

>>6997528
Yeah, he obviosly just watched a BBC documentary on him and has never even glanced at his enormous body of work.

>>6997548
I've read the book of the law, the book of lies, the vision and the voice, liber aba, gems from the equinox, etc.

Crowley's writing is for pretentious fools who think that saying thou art instead of you are makes for highbrow literature.

>>6997574
And let's not even get started on how boring moonchild and diary of a drug fiend are.

>>6997574
>>6997586
>no 777
>no lectures on yoga
>no goetia

his translation of the daodejing is really odd.

>>6997515
Thanks for the advice man. I'm interested in this stuff but afraid of falling prey of role playing fringe bullshit.

What do you think of Evola's Introduction to Magic?

>>6997650
777 is nice. Is lectures on yoga the same as yoga for yahoos? I've never read his daodejing or goetia.

TBH, you can probably learn a lot from his work if you don't fall prey to his bullshit but I've seen too many braindead thelemites on /x/ to have faith that most people can do that.
>>6997681
Intro to Magic is ai'ight. I like his books on yoga and buddhism and alchemy as well.

>>6997541
>>6997511
Ah, most are not acceptable for /lit/ (too much nudity)

>>6997843
Drop us an imgur link, brother

>>6997883
Well, here's a small set (dozen pics).
file dropper
dot com
/ sunset

>>6998592
Nice.

>>6997574
It's like you haven't even read The Drug and Other Stories, -- you know what scratch that

It's like you don't even understand anything at all about the...

Ugh. Anyway it's not for everyone and if he trolled you into thinking you're smarter than him I dunno what to do with you but be sure to check out the anthology if you wanna comment on his literature and not technical manuals and the like.

Magic without tears isn't at all a bad read either as correspondence between a teacher and pupils.

>>6997515
>>6997547

This first guy is a either a complete jackoff or trolling you, second guy.

Agreed with the first guy. Crowley sucks. Read Austin Osman Spare.

>>6998592
I liked these.

>>6999654
gay

>>6996251
ITT: hippie conspiracy theorist reading

and you don't even have rudolph steiner. shame on you you dirty hippie.

>>6999739
And?

>>6999765
lesbian sex is boring

>>6999767
says the white bread hetero, you lack an imagination

>>6999767
how to spot a porn addict.

>>6999767
I agree. I liked it when I was twelve but after I got over seeing another person's dick lesbian porn got boring. I only like lesbian porn when a mature big titted lady is plowing a young girl with a strapon.

>>6999767
Some lesbians have penises.

>>6999820
no..........no.....they don't. sorry you think that, but you're wrong :/

>>6999838
Sounds like your metaphysical approach to social reality has floundered upon the rock of female dicks.

>>6999850
no, i just realized that lesbian refers to women of the female SEX who prefer women of the female SEX not women of the female GENDER who prefer women of the female GENDER

like a true literateur, i don't forget what words fucking mean

>>6997515
>Personally I think modern esotericism is bullshit. Crowley was a con artist and an addict and a horrible prose stylist. Castaneda is similarly full of shit. McKenna and RAW are friendly stoners but no more insightful than your stoner friends. Chaos magick is postmodernism taken to its ugliest extreme.

Agree with all of this. Crowley has a lot to answer for - worst thing to ever happen to esotericism, Castaneda was a pathological liar and cruel psychopath, and McKenna and RAW are just mushy-headed stoner nonsense. Chaos Magick... garbage. Its presuppositions are already outmoded/irrelevant at this point to the point of being corny (and were just plain wrong from the get go).

Rudolph Steiner might jibe well with alot of you.

>Chomsky and Blavatsky in one reading list
At least you got something right.

>>6999820
Nope

>>6996251
why isnt "The secret of all ages" on that list?

>>7000238
>Its presuppositions are already outmoded/irrelevant at this point to the point of being corny (and were just plain wrong from the get go).

Oh my. Well, I call garbage on your post even though I agree in measures, Castaneda WAS lying, trickstering as it were, Crowley was the worst thing to happen to western closed esothericism since he opened it up and calling McKenna and RAW mushy-headed confims you being out of touch with humour and intuituion, as well as not having read Illuminatus!

In any case I'd like you to detail which Chaos Magick presuppositions are outmoded/irrelevant/corny and plain wrong or perhaps you simply would prefer to scamper off or if you reply this post with anything else than the presuppositions you might as well

>>7000440
nevermind I didn't see it

My recs for esoteric readings:

>Ignatius Donnelly - Atlantis. The Antediluvian World
>Ignatius Donnelly - Ragnarok the age of fire and gravel
>Codex Magica
>A Little Book of Coincidence in the Solar System (2000)
>Elements of Music (Wooden Books)
>Invisible Eagle Nazi Occult History
>Jordan Maxwell - Matrix of Power (probably a shill with fragments of truth)
>Music and Esoterism
>Not in his image - Gnostic Visions
>Picatrix Ghayat Al-Hakim Volume One - Ouroboros Press (2002)
>Q.E.D. Beauty in Mathematical Proof (Wooden Books)
>Ringmakers of Saturn
>Saturn - A New Look at an Old Devil
>TechGnosis_ Myth, Magic & Mysticism in the Age of Information(2005)
>The Greatness of Saturn A Therapeinic Myth
>The Divine Plan of the Ages and the Great Pyramid
>The Occult Roots of Nazism
>The Pythagorean Plato and the Golden Section
>The Occult Origins of Science
>The Nag Hammadi Library (probably fake or not complete)
>The Epic of Gilgamesh
>Ramayana
>Geometrical Pshychology or the Science of Representation
>Gnostic Studies - The Gnostic Handbook II, Gnostic Theurgy
>Corpus Hermetica
>Fabre d-Olivet - The Golden Verses of Pythagoras
>Francis A. Yates - Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition
>My Voice Will Go With You -The Teaching Tales Of Milton Erickson by Sidney Rosen
>Adrian Kuzminski - Pyrrhonism How the Ancient Greeks Reinvented Buddhism
>A Manual of KHSHNOOM

also i confirm whatever this guy >>6997515
said. all those he named are confirmed shills.

>>7001089
I know we are on /x/ But for me and my journey this is the book .Yes the others in the thread have gravitas ..But this ...This is the only book i will ever rec let me know and i will send pdf file

>>7001969
>I know we are on /x/
Check again, buddy

>>7001977
OHH sheeet Im a knobber Nevermind it was meant in the right way Me be forgetful oldfag

>>6999850
an amazing sentence

>>6996251
Some of the stuff that has its heritage in Gnostic or Neo-Platonic interpretations of Plato and Aristotle ends up missing the actual esoteric/exoteric material in their texts.

A nice history of philosophical esotericism is Arthur Melzer's "Reading Between the Lines".

Leo Strauss's "The City and Man" is a good introduction to the philosophic esoteric/exoteric material in both Plato and Aristotle, in particular, the former's Republic, and the latter's Politics.

Allan Bloom's interpretive essay in the back of his translation of the Republic, along with books by Stanley Rosen (on Symposium, Sophist Statesman, Republic) and Seth Benardete (on Republic, Theaetetus, Sophist, Statesman, Philebus, Gorgias, Phaedrus, the Laws, and numerous shorter articles and essays on other dialogues) work out a lot of the details of how the esoteric/exoteric work in Plato.

For Aristotle, look into books by Ronna Burger (on the Ethics), Michael Davis (on the Politics), David Bolotin (on the Physics), and Christopher Bruell (on the Metaphysics).

>>7001969

pls link to pdf

>>6996251
I don't like how in Cosmic Trigger RAW sets himself up as this skeptical, educated STEMfag and then does drugs a few times and immediately starts believing that aliens from Sirius are contacting him.

>>7001969

Giv pdf

>>7002314

GIV PDF

bump

>>6996251
I read some of those, but most of them a long time ago, I'll do my best though

>prometheus rising
it's shit

>Everything by Carroll, Crowley, Bardo and Regardie
it's magick stuff, if you are ineterested it's worth a read, if you actually believe any of that you belong on /x/ rather than /lit/, or possibly a mental asylum. although some interesting philosophical positions are hidden in there too

>Alan watts - Psychotherapy East & West
I didn't read this book, but 3 or 4 of Alan Watt's other books and they were all great (especially if you're interested in eastern philosophies, Watt's makes them easily understandable for western people)

>>7003685
http://www.principiadiscordia.com/downloads/00%20Cosmic%20Trigger%20Vol%20I.pdf
Anon delivers.

>be 14
>be reading about chaos magick because chuunibyou
>read that they key to doing magick is altered states of consciousness
>mfw

A lotta ignorant opinions in this thread. Man, I hate it when /lit/ brings up one of my favorite areas and a lot of nineteeners come in and wreck it. I hope anyone interested in any of this stuff read for themselves and make up their own minds and dismiss any and all of the weak categorical denouncements ITT.

All hail Eris.

>>7007639
Unfortunately that is impossible.
It is impossible to read these literary works without an already existing framework of reference.

You can't read the Principia Discordia before you read the Principia Discordia.

Interpretations will differ, and opinions will be influenced.

>>7007875
I am sorry little buddy but what was it that I wrote that you are stating is impossible?

>>7002207
Why do you say that the Gnostics and Neo-Platonists were wrong and the Straussians right?

>>6996251
>umberto eco
a satirist of most others included

>>7008404
The Gnostics and Neo-Platonists simply don't pay enough attention to the written material of Plato as it is, which already provides plenty of esoteric material to work through. Their take on Plato relies much too heavily on ignoring the contexts of passages in order to develop doctrine, and working too hard to syncretize Plato with Pythagoreanism (which for all of its clear influence, is in itself when considered against all of his writings a very questionable claim), Aristotelianism (which doesn't even work with Pythagoreanism), and Paganism (and it's incredibly questionable as to how much Socrates, Plato, or Aristotle subscribed to the Paganism of Greece).

The Straussians in contrast just keep pointing back to the texts, which provide everything necessary.

>>7009360
If it's well done I don't think any single one of them'd mind, do you?

>>7002207

Great post