/lit/ - Literature

>>17365578
I have biases towards Rosicrucianism and Golden Dawn magic since I am an (esoteric) Christian, I am pretty mad at him for causing the end of the Golden Dawn. But from a magical point of view he is misunderstood and talented, though this is hampered by the fact that he was an edgy mad spoiled fuccboi who wrote complete bullshit a lot of the time, he also brought the misunderstanding on himself by making himself look like an evil satanist for sake of causing controversy. Claiming himself to be the reincarnation of Eliphas Levi was utterly retarded and disrespectful towards Levi. The guy also ate his own shit.

Yeats kicking him down the staircase was funny though.

>>15424205
Aleister Crowley

>>12293703
Crowley also claimed to have killed some woman simply by this operation:
>I once found it necessary to slay a Circe who was bewitching brethren. I merely walked to the door of her room, and drew an Astral T (“traditore”, and the symbol of Saturn) with an astral dagger. Within 48 hours she shot herself.”

Even though many here want to say that magick is just subconscious influencing and mind games, Crowley had a very different view on the subject.

Crowley also never claimed "Book of the Law" was some sort of automatic writing produced from his subconscious: he claimed that he had clearly heard the voice of Aiwass/Aiwaz who dictated the book to him, not only he also got physical impression of this (astral) being that dictated the whole book to him in 3 days.

>>11567502
>No cheap horror or certified mystic loones

>>10770750
it was never good.
Before the meme war and kek it was just pure reddit.
Leary, RAW, Thornley, Spare, Crowley, were all clowns and not in the funny way, in the pathetic way.

Add in some Crowley and you're Golden (Dawn).

Probably your archytypal occultists. In terms of modern western esotericism, he is only eclipsed by Helena Blavatsky. Still, he is a big part of the reason we see the mishmash of new age eastern and western beliefs.

Influenced L ron Hubbard, Jimmy Page, The Beatles, etc. A student of his, Jack Parson was a big name in jet propulsion and has a crater on the moon named after him.

Crowley was a record setting mountain climber, decent chess player, and some say very good poet. Hung out with various high society types.

Red pill on him? He was rascist, aristocratic, but also encouraged degeneracy. Some claim he sexually abused kids, Iwouldn't be suprised.

He could be described as a syncretic satanic black gnostic illuminist, if you like. Some put him in the pagan Pan worship camp.

Some claim he was a spy during WWII, but that aspect never interested me much.

Had a lot of sex with men and women, did a lot of drugs, spent a lot of money, had a massive corpus of writtings, did a lot of "Magick." Obviously he was very driven.

Pretty interesting figure, but there is a lot of hype.

Personally I find his literature to be super dense and esoteric such that it is a chore to read.

What are some essential serious books to read on the occult and practical magic?

Aleister Crowley

Best books for an intro to the occult?

I've been thinking lately that maybe I should give an attempt to read the Bible from strictly a moral perspective, leaving out any theological interpretations. Though raised a Christian I have been, for the better part of my life, a strong Agnostic (which I believe to be epistemically the most correct, but ffs please don't let this thread devolve into debate on epistemology), but at this difficult point in my life that I face I simply feel Godless, lost.
Still, being impartial to the text should not be too much a problem.

In the throes of hardship I very naturally experience self-pity, but often a thought arises--"Am I really the center of all experience?"

Is this what Jesus was about? Is the Bible just some tome of parables riddled with ontological questions? If I were to read it simply as if it were fiction, could I better understand human nature, could I better understand what it means to be charismatic?

If anyone has ever read the Old Testament or at least a good bit of it, please tell me whether it was done with/without an exegesis and how difficult it was. I'm just trying to get a feel for how to about reading such a large text.

Inb4 OP reads the Bible and becomes a redevout Christian