/lit/ - Literature

>>22152235
>Each post of yours has been absent of any anchor to the original matter
The original matter is your inability to think and your hard work to avoid thinking through autistic appeals to concepts like "proof" which you don't understand either.
>you can't provide proof
Every post you make is proof of my original point that you can't consider different perspectives. The idea is still completely baffling you, like you said, you genuinely do not understand the idea.
>It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. – Aristotle
>this is literally all you ever say
To you and I will always call you out retard. Read my first posts before you revealed yourself as the cancer you are. >>22149724
>you begin with the strongest possible kind of verbal abuse
You know this is false. I you're replying to a post pointing out the documented evidence that this is false. I call you the worst braindead cancer on the planet when you consistently behave like the worst braindead cancer on the planet. Not before that.
>you're desiring to provoke others to petty name-calling in order to avoid the subject itself
You avoided the subject for like 10 posts before even the first insult. You can go read the interaction yourself instead of making up fantasies.
>I've patiently always asked you in every response to clarify and explain your case
And I've repeated the claim, clarified it and now experimentally proven it beyond a shadow of a doubt. The claim is you work hard to avoid considering different perspectives. That's all you've done since I made that claim.

>>22072158
You're very welcome, my Brother in Christ; may others find it so, as well.

>>22072426
Offhand, I don't really know of any sort of singular "magic bullet" resource(s) to help with understanding Ye Olde Englishe; tbqh, I don't find the KJV english difficult to understand at all, but I also don't just speed-read through it: I quietly read in silence, deliberately, resonating with each & every single word, savoring its poetic flow. Even the "boring" parts of Leviticus & Numbers, such as when the building of the tabernacle or the complements of each tribe are detailed, I savor, imagining assembly of the temple in my mind according to its instructions -- which I feel is an important, secret means of attaining deeper connection with the divine here, as *imagining* building the temple (in your mind) is actually *building* the temple (*within*/inside your mind)...

...thusly preparing your mind to receive deeper wisdom.

>protip: carefully read every word, savor every sentence, and imagine construction of the temple within your mind in order to prepare your mind to receive deeper wisdom

Back to your question: there are so many resources; although I'm not terribly multilingual, I am aware of a variety of translations of certain words between the languages used over time, and the way phrases turn, and certain allusions.

For example: when God commands us not to "commit adultery," it's not "adultery" in the sense of extramarital sex; it's "adultery" as in when you "adulterate your wine" (by pouring water or juice into it), this making it no longer *PURE* wine.

God hates that. He goes on & on about how you should never wear a garment of two different fabrics, or plant two different species of crops together. This is largely to set the tone on the big one:

"Do not commit adultery" means "DO NOT RACEMIX!"

How many times did someone offend God or his Chosen People by marrying a filthy Canaanite or other alien? God hates that. It may not be very "progressive" in today's distorted popular perspective, but, hey, God's a champion breeder, and doesn't want to ruin these choice bloodlines with muttery. This is *not* my call; these are some of the rules God set forward.

Sad... this totally invalidates Steven Anderson. :/

....HOWEVER, Moses did marry a Midian, which pissed off Aaron's wife, but then God smited her (clearly taking the side of Moses and his niggerwife), so IDK man, OT God seems a bit inconsistent, as discussed already in this thread; maybe she was a special case, genetically, or something.

I had further thoughts; I'll post them if they return soon.

>>22064164
This stems from an inability to contextualise yourself in the world. You need to realise how big the world is and who you really are. I know this sounds like a cliché but it’s important. Try that one Stoic ‘zooming out’ meditation technique. It made me go from constantly angry at God and the world to one of the calmest people when I was in my teens. Also lift, spend time in nature, put your phone down, learn to breathe diaphragmatically, get your testosterone level up. Not for any other reason than the fact that your body needs to be in good shape in order not to cloud your mind and judgement. What you call being upset at God is really just resentment. Truth is you don’t really even know God until you a deep sense of calm and are able to look past your worldly ills. As for literature, start with the Greeks and then read The Enneads. If you’re Christian, Kierkegaard will probably help you.

>>22057231
>I can recall today no instance of my admiring some or another work of self-referential fiction, much less of my trying to write such a work. (I will explain briefly in the following paragraph why this present work of fiction is not self-referential, although it may have seemed so already to a certain sort of undiscerning reader.) The more extreme examples of their kind repelled me. The narrators of these works would sometimes pause in their reporting and would affect to be unable to decide which of several possible courses of events should follow from that point or, as an undiscerning reader might say, what should happen to the chief characters. And yet, I myself was not discerning enough at that time to be able to explain to myself why I turned away instinctively from such writing.

>The narrators who postured in front of their readers and who wondered aloud, as it were, what fates to assign to various characters, were deriving enjoyment, so I now believe, from what they supposed was the dispelling of an illusion held by most, if not all, of their readers. The illusion is that the characters described in fiction are, if not actual persons of the same order as the readers themselves, ideal persons, so to call them, who live out their lives in the same sorts of place as are depicted in films while their authors are required merely to report on them in the way that the makers of films observe their characters. It is not for me to guess how many readers of fiction might be under the illusion mentioned or how many of the deluded, so to call them, might have revised their beliefs after having read that the subject-matter of fiction depended on the mere whim of some or another belittler of the long-held trust between reader and narrator. All that I can do is to state here what seems to me self-evident: while the writer and the reader, together with the words that they write or read, may be seen to exist in this, the visible world, what they are pleased or driven to write about or to read about – their subject-matter – is nowhere to be seen: those seeming persons and seeming events and the seeming scenery behind them are present to one writer alone or one reader alone in the cramped foreground of somewhere vast and vague; and while I would never presume to understand the laws or principles operating in either of the two places – the visible or the invisible – I could never doubt that those in the one differ greatly from those in the other and could never consider any writer claiming otherwise to be anything but a fool.

Pernicious nonsense wrapped in twiddle twaddle ramblings while easily being one of the most influential books published in the 20th century. This is the most different of all of Nietzsche’s books while simultaneously epitomizing all of his other writings even to the point of making this book seem unoriginal, something that I’ve never felt with any of his other books. It’s clear that a lot of this book were notes from his other books, and the rest were notes for what would become this book. There is one thing that struck me about this book, overall it was the most unoriginal of all of Nietzsche’s writings because he had for the most part said it elsewhere in his writings but says it here in such a way that it will appeal to the proto-fascist and soon-to-be Nazis who will lap this stuff up.

Ayn Rand loved Nietzsche and was going to use his quotations as chapter headings for ‘The Fountainhead’ until she realized that she misunderstood him; she obviously agreed with his fascism but wasn’t able to understand his philosophy beyond the superficial and I suspect it was this book that originally hooked her. Heidegger wrote an incredibly influential book explaining this book that influenced Derrida, Foucault and Rorty, but, most importantly, Oswald Spengler explicitly cites Nietzsche and Goethe as his major influences for volume I of Decline of the West (by all means read that God awful book if only to understand why one can call Trump a fascist), and lastly in Hitler’s autobiography, Nietzsche with Goethe, Luther and Fredrich the Great were Hitler’s acknowledged greatest influences. BTW, within this book I would say that Goethe was equally praised by Nietzsche as Hitler and Spengler praised him.

Make no mistake. This book is vile. The ‘always conniving Jew uses their knowledge against the ignorance of the other’ or whatever nonsense Nietzsche wrote, hysterical women never can learn or write good literature, the German is superior, Machiavelli was a great thinker, and so on and so on. But, that’s not my real problem with this book since it’s easy to dismiss that has nothing but prejudices.

All of the perniciousness of fascism lurks within this book. All of Donald Trump and what he is trying to do against humanity is within this book. Equality is anathema for them. Humanism is irrelevant and dangerous to them. A great leader, according to Nietzsche is required in order to save us. Spengler made Julius Caesar his great leader while in this book Nietzsche did too, but also Napoleon would do, or until a Hitler comes along or a Trump. Trump has anointed himself as the self-appointed uber-mensch for our time. Nietzsche is really saying ‘stop thinking and follow me and let your feelings be your guide’. There is no being, there is only becoming and a great thinker will be needed to rise above the herd.

>>21989029
It's odd that the "left" want to hand over Spengler to the "right". He is as important and influencial as Marx. I hope no one takes that as me assigning him to one or the other "side". I'm merely commenting that they probably just haven't read either.
So, Spengler's Decline is clearly a good call. For a "right-leaning" perspective, I can recommend you check out (in order):
>Decline of the West [vol 1 and 2] (Oswald Spengler)
>Imperium (F. P. Yockey)
>White Power / This Time The World (George Lincoln Rockwell)
Make no mistake, Yockey and Rockwell are biased. Commander Rockwell was the leader of the "American Nazi Party" and Yockey was an important component to pushing third positionist ideas (The people who don't fully grasp the worldview will refer to it as "far-right")
These books cover the decline (White Power starts off as an especially bleak one, regardless of your personal politics.) but also solutions to these declines.
I do not have any recommendations for a left-leaning perspective because to the general left, there is no such thing as: decline, dysgenics, etc. except as rhetoric against their perceived enemies.
There are pure liberal perspectives, but these are mostly done with way too much bias. This wouldn't be a problem (as per my recommendations above) but liberals pride themselves on their "non-partison" view and tend to delude themselves in this way.
You can see this with things like: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, and so on. With that being said, those two would be a decent recommendation, provided you understand that they are interpreting these with both a presentivist lens and attempting to meet in the middle between what is politically correct and what is correct.
Anyways, I hope this was generally helpful. Good luck

>I write when I can and I don't write when I can't; always in the morning or the early part of the day. You get very gaudy ideas at night but they don't stand up. I found this out long ago . . . I'm always seeing little pieces by writers about how they don't ever wait for inspiration; they just sit down at their little desks every morning at eight, rain or shine, hangover and broken arm and all, and bang out their little stint. However blank their minds or dim their wits, no nonsense about inspiration from them. I offer them my admiration and take care to avoid their books. Me, I wait for inspiration, though I don't necessarily call it by that name. I believe that all writing that has any life in it is done with the solar plexus. It is hard work in the sense that it may leave you tired, even exhausted. In the sense of conscious effort it is not work at all. The important thing is that there should be a space of time, say four hours a day at least, when a professional writer doesn't do anything else but write. He doesn't have to write, and if he doesn't feel like it, he shouldn't try. He can look out of the window or stand on his head or writhe on the floor. But he is not to do any other positive thing, not read, write letters, glance at magazines, or write checks. Write or nothing. It's the same principle as keeping order in a school. If you make the pupils behave, they will learn something just to keep from being bored. I find it works. Two very simple rules, a. you don't have to write. b. you can't do anything else. The rest comes of itself.
t. chandler

>>21925344
He also trained his body strenuously for years precisely to overcome his limitations. He was in fact incredibly healthy during his productive period, and to say his health failed is some indictment against this is absurd. It's no more sensible than to say because someone died, obviously their training was a waste of time.

"In order to understand this type, you must first be quite clear concerning its fundamental physiological condition: this condition is what I call great healthiness. In regard to this idea I cannot make my meaning more plain or more personal than I have done already in one of the last aphorisms (No. 382) of the fifth book of the Gaya Scienza: "We new, nameless, and unfathomable creatures," so reads the passage, "we firstlings of a future still unproved—we who have a new end in view also require new means to that end, that is to say, a new healthiness, a stronger, keener, tougher, bolder, and merrier healthiness than any that has existed heretofore. He who longs to feel in his own soul the whole range of values and aims that have prevailed on earth until his day, and to sail round all the coasts of this ideal 'Mediterranean Sea'; who, from the adventures of his own inmost experience, would fain know how it feels to be a conqueror and discoverer of the ideal;—as also how it is with the artist, the saint, the legislator, the sage, the scholar, the man of piety and the godlike anchorite of yore;—such a man requires one thing above all for his purpose, and that is, great healthiness "

I swear none of you niggers have even read Nietzsche.

Where do I start with Horror’s Call? I know this is the biggest book series from /lit/ but there are 15 books in it now. This seems really long. Is there any particular order the books should be read in? Are some better than the others?

>I was away from /lit/ for awhile, and when I came back F. Gardner had 17 new books.
Kek. He's such a prolific world famous author of Call of the Crocodile and other books from the Horrors Call series which are books set in Chicago that are connected but can be read in any order.

>>21856363
Relevant

>There are differences between diaries, journals, and notebooks, just as there are differences between chronicles and memoirs and travels and testimonies, between half-a-life and slice-of-life and whole-loaf lives, and these differences should be observed, not in order to be docile to genres, to limit types, or to anally oppose any mixing of forms (which will take place in any case), but in order that the mind may keep itself clean of confusion, since to enjoy a redolently blended stew, we are not required to forget the dissimilarity between carrots and onions, or when composing our apologia, the differences between diaries and letters and notes to the maid.
>The diary demands to be entered day by day, and it is improper to put down for Tuesday a date who closed your dreary eyes on Saturday. Its pages are as circumscribed as the hours are, and its spaces should be filled with facts, with jots, with jogs to the memory. Diary style is staccato, wirelesslike. “No call from Jill in three days. My God! Have I lost her?” “Saw Parker again. He’s still the same. Glad we’re divorced.” “Finished Proust finally. Champagne.” And you are already disobedient to the demands of the form if you guiltily fill in skipped days as if you hadn’t skipped them.
>The journal still follows the march of the calendar, but its sweep is broader, more circumspect and meditative. Facts diminish in importance and are replaced by emotions, musings, thoughts. If your journal is full of data, it means you have no inner life. And it asks for sentences, although they need not be polished. “I was annoyed with myself today for hanging about the phone, hoping for a call from Jill, who hasn’t rung up in three days. She said she would call me, but was she being truthful? Dare I call her, though she expressly forbade it? I don’t want to lose a customer who spends money the way she does.” “Parker came into the shop, what gall! And ordered a dozen roses! I couldn’t believe it! I know he wants me to think he’s got another woman. God, he looked gaunt as a fallen soufflé. I think I’m happy we’re no longer together. He never bought roses for me. What a bastard!” “Today was a big day, a memorable day, because today I closed the cover on Proust, I really read the last line, and ‘time’ had the final word, no surprise there. I feel now a great emptiness, some sort of symbolic letdown, as if a soufflé had fallen.” You may revise what you have already written in your journal, but if you revise a passage prior to its entry, you are already beginning to fabricate.
>With the notebook we break out of chronology. Entries do not require dates. I can put in anything I like, even other people’s thoughts. The notebook is a workshop, a tabletop, a file. In one of mine you will find titles for essays I hope one day to write: The Souffle as a Symbol of Fragile Expectation.
William H Gass, "On Autobiography"

>>21719802
Kerry Bolton:
https://counter-currents.com/tag/breaking-the-bondage-of-interest/

Werner Sombart's German Socialism (horribly translated, read in German or any language other than English because they almost certainly have more idiomatic translations)

Othmar Spann, The True State

Spengler:
“The coming of Caesarism breaks the dictature of money and its political weapon, democracy. After a long triumph of world-city economy and its interests over political creative force, the political side of life manifests itself after all as the stronger of the two. The sword is victorious over the money, the master-will subdues again the plunderer-will. If we call these money-powers 'Capitalism,' then we may designate as Socialism the will to call into life a mighty politico-economic order that transcends all class interests, a system of lofty thoughtfulness and duty-sense that keeps the whole in fine condition for the decisive battle of its history, and this battle is also the battle of money and law. The private powers of the economy want free paths for their acquisition of great resources. No legislation must stand in their way. They want to make the laws themselves, in their interests, and to that end they make use of the tool they have made for themselves, democracy, the subsidized party. Law needs, in order to resist this onslaught, a high tradition and an ambition of strong families that finds its satisfaction not in the heaping-up of riches, but in the tasks of true rulership, above and beyond all money-advantage. A power can be overthrown only by another power, not by a principle, and no power that can confront money is left but this one. Money is overthrown and abolished only by blood.

Yockey:
“Two ideas are opposed — not concepts or abstractions, but Ideas which were in the blood of men before they were formulated by the minds of men. The Resurgence of Authority stands opposed to the Rule of Money; Order to Social Chaos, Hierarchy to Equality, socio-economico-political Stability to constant Flux; glad assumption of Duties to whining for Rights; Socialism to Capitalism, ethically, economically, politically; the Rebirth of Religion to Materialism; Fertility to Sterility; the spirit of Heroism to the spirit of Trade; the principle of Responsibility to Parliamentarism; the idea of Polarity of Man and Woman to Feminism; the idea of the individual task to the ideal of ‘happiness’; Discipline to Propaganda-compulsion; the higher unities of family, society, State to social atomism; Marriage to the Communistic ideal of free love; economic self-sufficiency to senseless trade as an end in itself; the inner imperative to Rationalism.”

>>21706405
>Twain
Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is my fave Twain. Still funny to this day. Pretty sure Micheal Moorcock used it as the basis for Behold the Man.

>Howard
Most stories made for serialization, so as detailed a world as REH writes, you can jump right in. You're going to get a fast paced, historically rich story in any of them. Frost Giant's Daughter, Tower of the Elephant, and Red Nails are mt fave. Just get an omnibus, either the big all-in-one, or if you prefer a lighter reading weight you can get the stories in 3 paper back volumes. Check out Solomon Kane for more horror like pulp.

>CL Moore
Adding her because she basically invented Red Sonja as a character in Jirel of Joiry, even if RE Howard came up with the name. Her pulp is set in alternate history of France however.

>Lieber
Lankhmar was his most famous works, you can get all the short stories of Fafhrd and Grey Mouser in 2 paper back volumes. The second book (in vol 1) is where he hits his stride, but the 1st book only gets better as you read. I wouldn't call it pulp, as the stories, characters, and places are quite connected, even if you don't have to read them in order.

>>21644285
In this first post Nietzsche describes the classification of the castes and agrees that 1) hierarchical order of society is important and natural; 2) men who are not distinguished intellectually nor in ''muscular strength and temperament'' are the majority and duly remains below in such a hierarchical society.

>The superior caste—I call it the fewest—has, as the most perfect, the privileges of the few: it stands for happiness, for beauty, for everything good upon earth [...] Nothing could be more unbecoming to them than uncouth manners or a pessimistic look, or an eye that sees ugliness—or indignation against the general aspect of things
Here, Nietzsche is either inserting his own values and ideals (of an elite class) into the nature of the superior caste of India (because, in fact, the priestly class is all the time performing purificatory rituals, fighting against evil, condemning certain human (which includes natural) behaviors, delimiting their natural expression) or he's employing a more general description of this social structure in order to support his own values and ideals.

>''The world is perfect"—so prompts the instinct of the intellectual, the instinct of the man who says yes to life.
Would a Brahmin priest utter ''Maya is perfect''?

>>21644288
In this second post, Nietzsche begins describing the first two castes of India. Inferring that thus Nietzsche wants to bring back an exact copy of the social structure of India is a narrowness of intellect befitting a Guénonian.

>The order of castes, the order of rank, simply formulates the supreme law of life itself
This is the key part of the quotes.
Nietzsche is simply lauding the structure of division of a society, what he values is order of Rank.

>the separation of the three types is necessary to the maintenance of society, and to the evolution of higher types, and the highest types
Confirming what I wrote above and making an open statement about higher types.

The other post with a quote adds nothing.

There is no praise of the Brahmin caste, but a praise of hierarchical division of society, ordering by rank. That's it. Now open any other book of his and you'll see scathing attacks against the priestly caste.

>>21643472
>Dionysian mystery school
Have you read what Nietzsche wrote about this?

>For only in the Dionysian mysteries, in the psychology of the Dionysian condition, does the fundamental fact of the Hellenic instinct express itself—its “will to life.”
>What did the Hellene procure in these mysteries? Eternal life, the eternal recurrence of life; the future promised and made sacred in the past; the triumphant yes to life beyond death and change; true life as collective survival through reproduction, through the mysteries of sexuality.

Exactly like what Guénon manifested in his writings, right?

>>21544514
>Call of the Crocodile
apparently you can read the books in any order!

>>21519150
Bookstores are dead.

In the current year you either took the ebook pill, or you order your books online.

>b-but MUH BOOK STORES!

Really? Do you really want a fucking bookstore when the internet does everything better? Hell, if there are a few important books, a lot of people want, they can simply be put into a Walmart or whatever store people visit.

The reason book stores existed was because there was no internet and people who wanted a book had only the book store in their area. Especially because publisher weren't shipping stuff if you call them just as a random dude.

But, and that's why Amazon was first a book store, books have no real aging and can be stored extremely easy. They are perfect for online selling.

If you would ask me, I would say make a "Netflix like" online site for books where you
>can read any book you want for free digitally on any device
>can listen to all the audiobooks for free
>can buy all books physically
>can buy SPECIAL EDITIONS (the most important thing) with signatures of the author and other exclusive stuff
Sure, it should have some kind of restrictions for access, but overall this would solve the whole book market. Sure, all physical book stores would be gone, but this wouldn't be a problem.

Until a book Netflix happens, the book stores are garbage because they are at this point just an empty room for selling what the publishers rented.

>>21398992
Knowledge or "knowing" in the esoteric sense means having experienced, it is an order of knowledge superior to memorizing facts or "theories". I'm pretty sure Guenon talks about this but I can't remember which book.
You're wrong, I have read quite a bit of Guenon, just not his overtly metaphysical books, since I'd rather wait and avoid becoming a fart-huffing pseud who thinks he's enlightened and superior because he memorized some pajeet theories on states of being.
>Yeah I said "Jesus", what are you gonna do? You gonna call my pastor?
I'm just surprised that you would use your Lord's name in a negative context, profaning it. I am offended by it, more than I am offended by "racism".

Idk, your post sounds like some bitchy tween girl taking everything personally, like
>Awww, sorry I was mean to you. Did I hurt your feelings?
instead of realizing that I was just refuting your claim that I'm the one throwing the tantrum. On the contrary, it is you who are behaving in this way, which is what I was demonstrating.

Start arguing any time, 80% of your post is just snarky immature BS that I don't care for, you're projecting so hard rn.
>I'm having fun, post another one
You sound more like you're in pain but enjoying it. Watch out for that.

>>21394158
>Ok...so since God is not a material entity would you agree that we can't come up with a physical test to show that he exists? In other words, we can't build a machine that could measure the quarks, electrons, protons etc... that would make up God.
True.
>If that's the case then all you have is faith. And friend - I don't have that faith. I've read too many stories of people calling on God - and nobody answers.
That's fine. I believed the exact same thing for the vast majority of my life. God cannot be proven or disproven under any system, be it logic or science. Obviously there is no way to "know" and certainly not if one believes that all there is in this world is the material. However, assuming there is an immaterial supernatural deity, it is possible for a phenomenon to exist that the Christians call "revelation." That would be the bestowing of a supernatural intuition which allows one to understand and intuit the existence of God and the metaphysical order without require empirical proof or explanation. This phenomenon is an experience which can occur to one, in which we have firsthand accounts from witnesses to revelation(many millions or over a billion), a science(theology) and a body of academically verified historical accounts of the phenomenon of internal revelation.
Just as a person with tritanopia cannot "understand" the perceptual experience of yellow and blue, someone who has not yet experienced revelation cannot understand it and can only guess at the experience through the testimony of those who have.

>>21275649
>I think you're smart

I appreciate your cordiality and politeness.
With these types of things very rarely does anyone convince anyone of anything. But it is good as a type of fencing with both side learning more of the opponents moves.

I think the thing that separates us is our view of what technology is. My main point in the master slave thing was to dissolve the conception that you have of technology. The situation we find ourselves in isn't actually all that new. If we base our understanding of our current system only on the past 200 years or so I think we will miss the bigger pattern and fail to diagnose what is really going on.

Our current system attempts to control every aspects of its citizens lives and hides many of its attempts to do so in order make it harder to distinguish. It attempts to destroy rural simple lives and force people to live complex lives in cities as city life seems to demand this type of totalitarian system.

>He has no problem with cities in any practical sense

He should the practical nature of the city creates certain bad incentives

We live in a giant empire that attempts to coordinate and control billions of very different people. It desires to create a world where there is only one city and it's the entire world.

To say this poetically or schizophrenically I would call it Babylon.

>I recommend you re-read ISaiF
I might because skimming through it there is some interesting stuff there(I forgot how good he is at describing leftists) and it's something to do in the interim between doing stuff. But I don't think it'll change my opinions much. Many of my opinions are reactions to John Michael Greer and Nick Land both of whom I think make similar mistakes as Uncle Ted.

Be well anon

>>21231152
Charles Luk’s “Ch’an and Zen Teaching” (Vols. I - III)

(Some will automatically respond, “But Zen and other Far Eastern teachings are not about not being an NPC; they in fact are about turning you into a dull NPC who automatically obeys everything in the teachings, becoming a quietist, flat, dull, carbon-copy replica of other Orientals.” This is utterly false!)

P.D. Ouspensky’s “In Search of the Miraculous”

The recommendation of Plato’s complete works is also a very good one.

You could also pick up some Idries Shah books, such as “The Sufis”, “The Way of the Sufi”, “A Perfumed Scorpion”, “Learning How to Learn”, “Knowing How to Know”, “The Commanding Self”, and his collections of Sufi teaching stories like “Teachings of the Dervishes,” “The Magic Monastery,” the Mulla Nasrudin corpus, and so forth.

You could also throw in some of Robert Anton Wilson’s best nonfiction works, like “Cosmic Trigger,” “Prometheus Rising,” “The New Inquisition,” and “Quantum Psychology.”

You could read these in any order or pick and choose and will probably get something out of it at least a little close to what you’re asking for.

(Some may also automatically be going, “These are too strange, dissonant, kooky, far-out, and irreconcilable from each other. You can’t study them all and make anything coherent out of them. They are nothing alike, and potentially heretical and impossibly blasphemous.” This is also silly, as reading and studying a well-thought-out philosophy does not necessarily mean dogmatically “converting” to it wholesale, and one of the best methods of provoking the awakening of the higher intellect is through the absorption of massive discontinuities from the settled cognitive system, which provokes and up-ends the normal fixed paradigms, hopefully leading to what one might call a “paradigm shift”, or even a full-blown “reality shift”comprised of multiple paradigm shifts or coming about from repeated paradigm shifting.)

>>21058680
>the moralistic focus of Zoroaster looks
it's clear you haven't read Zarathustra
go read the intro by his sister at least

>“Zarathustra” is my brother’s most personal work; it is the history of his most individual experiences, of his friendships, ideals, raptures, bitterest disappointments and sorrows. Above it all, however, there soars, transfiguring it, the image of his greatest hopes and remotest aims. My brother had the figure of Zarathustra in his mind from his very earliest youth: he once told me that even as a child he had dreamt of him. At different periods in his life, he would call this haunter of his dreams by different names; “but in the end,” he declares in a note on the subject, “I had to do a PERSIAN the honour of identifying him with this creature of my fancy. Persians were the first to take a broad and comprehensive view of history. Every series of evolutions, according to them, was presided over by a prophet; and every prophet had his ‘Hazar,’—his dynasty of a thousand years.”

>Already at the beginning of this history I hinted at the reasons which led my brother to select a Persian as the incarnation of his ideal of the majestic philosopher. His reasons, however, for choosing Zarathustra of all others to be his mouthpiece, he gives us in the following words:—“People have never asked me, as they should have done, what the name Zarathustra precisely means in my mouth, in the mouth of the first Immoralist; for what distinguishes that philosopher from all others in the past is the very fact that he was exactly the reverse of an immoralist. Zarathustra was the first to see in the struggle between good and evil the essential wheel in the working of things. The translation of morality into the metaphysical, as force, cause, end in itself, was HIS work. But the very question suggests its own answer. Zarathustra CREATED the most portentous error, MORALITY, consequently he should also be the first to PERCEIVE that error, not only because he has had longer and greater experience of the subject than any other thinker—all history is the experimental refutation of the theory of the so-called moral order of things:—the more important point is that Zarathustra was more truthful than any other thinker. In his teaching alone do we meet with truthfulness upheld as the highest virtue—i.e.: the reverse of the COWARDICE of the ‘idealist’ who flees from reality. Zarathustra had more courage in his body than any other thinker before or after him. To tell the truth and TO AIM STRAIGHT: that is the first Persian virtue. Am I understood?... The overcoming of morality through itself—through truthfulness, the overcoming of the moralist through his opposite—THROUGH ME—: that is what the name Zarathustra means in my mouth.”

>>21058680
>the moralistic focus of Zoroaster looks
it's clear you haven't read Zarathustra
go read the intro at least

>“Zarathustra” is my brother’s most personal work; it is the history of his most individual experiences, of his friendships, ideals, raptures, bitterest disappointments and sorrows. Above it all, however, there soars, transfiguring it, the image of his greatest hopes and remotest aims. My brother had the figure of Zarathustra in his mind from his very earliest youth: he once told me that even as a child he had dreamt of him. At different periods in his life, he would call this haunter of his dreams by different names; “but in the end,” he declares in a note on the subject, “I had to do a PERSIAN the honour of identifying him with this creature of my fancy. Persians were the first to take a broad and comprehensive view of history. Every series of evolutions, according to them, was presided over by a prophet; and every prophet had his ‘Hazar,’—his dynasty of a thousand years.”

>ion to present only seven copies of his book according to this resolution.

Already at the beginning of this history I hinted at the reasons which led my brother to select a Persian as the incarnation of his ideal of the majestic philosopher. His reasons, however, for choosing Zarathustra of all others to be his mouthpiece, he gives us in the following words:—“People have never asked me, as they should have done, what the name Zarathustra precisely means in my mouth, in the mouth of the first Immoralist; for what distinguishes that philosopher from all others in the past is the very fact that he was exactly the reverse of an immoralist. Zarathustra was the first to see in the struggle between good and evil the essential wheel in the working of things. The translation of morality into the metaphysical, as force, cause, end in itself, was HIS work. But the very question suggests its own answer. Zarathustra CREATED the most portentous error, MORALITY, consequently he should also be the first to PERCEIVE that error, not only because he has had longer and greater experience of the subject than any other thinker—all history is the experimental refutation of the theory of the so-called moral order of things:—the more important point is that Zarathustra was more truthful than any other thinker. In his teaching alone do we meet with truthfulness upheld as the highest virtue—i.e.: the reverse of the COWARDICE of the ‘idealist’ who flees from reality. Zarathustra had more courage in his body than any other thinker before or after him. To tell the truth and TO AIM STRAIGHT: that is the first Persian virtue. Am I understood?... The overcoming of morality through itself—through truthfulness, the overcoming of the moralist through his opposite—THROUGH ME—: that is what the name Zarathustra means in my mouth.”

>>21053146
>paid per word
> overly verbose
There is a difference that people can't often seem to spot between that of writing in detail and with exact precision, and that of merely superficial over-embellishment; you'll find the exact same criticism from the same type of person no matter whether you're writing in detail and using words properly or whether you're not.

>>21053164
>"muh simplicity",
exactly this; you can't present a detailed map of something using crayons and only a few lines.

There's no point to dumb down for a dumb person who can't read or think anyway, whilst at the same time to come across as stupid yourself by the intelligent one or two people in the country that you're writing for, who can read.

>>21053199
>Victorian writing
They've been 'teacing' this as almost the only thing they do bother to teach for a long time now. You'll notice,of course, that the 'rambling prose' is commonplace in virtually all literature prior, the roman or middle ages or 1700's author covers one thing then another then another in order to detail every angle of the thing they're writing or speaking about; in many ways it allows the speaker or author to preemptively nip in the bud any refutation or fault finding before it's made, by "going off an a tangent" about a seemingly unrelated thing; which would then be brought up as the first and last attempt to refute the book or speech later on.

>>21053322
>poetic elements (aesthetics of language, metaphor, aesthetics of imagery)
Yeah now 'this' is over-embellishment. A little funny metaphor is good to work in somewhere toward the end of a larger text, maybe, in an overly technical address; to "end in good humor", as t'were.

>>21053360
>>21053397
Autism is over simplification and the person becomes angry and confused when their rehearsed format is disturbed; this describes the person whose brain collapses when they read or listen and can't understand the structure of a sentence - if it isn't just simply poor education or mental retardation on their part which has aggrandized their own idiocy and rendered them barely literate in their own native language; doomed to stagger through life in a fog of discombobulation. Whereas a person fluent is able to make sense of even the most poorly worded or broken English with no great sense of annoyance to have to do so all the time as the denizens of the lower middle class drag themselves around speaking badly and thinking worse, nay e'en struggling to write in simple verse.

Indeed,
"i could not call their manner of discourse 'conversation', but rather something practiced in imitation of it,"
Addison

>>20965681


Next thing I remember we was all of us back on the ground beside our horses and it was early morning and nothing to be seen when I looked around for some clue as to what had happened. It seemed safe to assume that whatever I had gone through the others had likewise but nothing was said and no-one was showing much interest in anything beyond the ground in front of his feet. Even Glanton seemed a little uneasy and let me tell you this was not a man given to that particular emotion. I felt somewhat stiff as I recall. Like I'd been riding six weeks instead of six days. I did notice every man lowered himself very carefully into his saddle. Much as you might set a crate of eggs down and your life depended on not cracking a single one.

He smiled and Westray matched the expression in wry confederacy. The horses were where you'd left them? he asked.

They were. You want to know did they get the same attention as the rest of us? The thought did cross my mind and I dare say some others too but there warn't any way to know.

I guess not.

They was somewhat skittish for a day or two afterward I'll grant you that.

Westray included the bartender in his glance and gestured and the bartender moved forward and replenished their glasses and when he had stepped back the man continued.

There was no sign of the Apache. They could hardly have failed to see what we saw. I imagine they decided it wasn't anything they wanted any part of. Maybe they'd been taken too. Either way we never saw trace of 'em again. Took us another two days hard riding to reach a place with anything growing but finally we struck water and made camp and you could feel the same thought in the mind of every man there. Glanton gave voice to it.

I see no reason why this need be spoken of again, he said. Well the whole company supported that motion almost without acknowledging it existed. Like the words was resting atop something they didn't want waking. I went along with it although I still had no better recollection than before. Then the judge speaks up.

The judge?

Our second-in-command I guess you could call him although I'm not quite certain what he was. He never gave an order nor took one. Glanton asked his advice from time to time. Anyway there was a fellow with us, Chamberlain, used to keep a journal. I'd never read it. Couldn't read nor write except my name when this all took place. I learned some since. The judge asked this Chamberlain how long back did he leave off making entries and Chamberlain said the night before last. So he had three four pages describing the desert and the Apaches. Are you planning to let that stand, says the judge.

Chamberlain says he hadn't even got around to considering the matter.


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