/lit/ - Literature

>Tao Te Ching
>Stephen Mitchell
OH NO
That chart looks incredibly stupid

>>18404417
What is this? Everytime I think I've understood everyone's beliefs there's some new pill that gets added. What the fuck is Esotericism?

>>18404423
All the charts are kinda dumb but I just assume the most frequently mentioned books and authors are the ones worth checking

>>18404443
It's an old meme newfag

>>18404423
tao te ching is fucking based, the chart in the OP is good
>>18404459
this is tin foil hat shit

>>18404467

>>18404443
>What the fuck is Esotericism?
Hidden knowledge basically, all these charts are more or less about figuring out the nature of reality and the truth for yourself.

Who dude
I'm like
Did you know fractals repeat?

>>18404589
>Did you know repeating things repeat
*Mind* absolutely fucking *blown*

>>18404467
If you think Stephen Mitchell's interpretation is good than idk what to tell you

>>18404546
>figuring out the nature of reality and the truth for yourself.
You could spend your whole life reading all these books. Or you could meditate on one sentence that will unlock the secret.
>There's no God but God

>>18404603
Reading a smorgasbord of Buddhist lit and westerners fetishising mystical words to make up for their lapsed Catholicism won't bring enlightenment.
What will is reading Spengler and realizing that different cultures have different truths, hence why Zen will always be alien and flat to the Westerner and you will never meet anyone who's read all these books who wasn't unhinged and a failure at life.

>>18404625
>What will is reading Spengler and realizing that different cultures have different truths
In what way?

>>18404625
I agree that westerners taking up eastern faiths doesn't work well.
I disagree that reading books makes you a failure and that enlightenment can't be attained.

>>18404637
Read Spengler and find out :')

>>18404652
Enlightenment is a thoroughly eastern concept

>>18404749
Which book?

>>18404757
It has western equivalents, I used that term for convenience.

>>18404760
Decline of The West lays it out perfectly. He shows that there are different worldviews, even different mathematics per culture and that our worldview has been warped largely by viewing ourselves as "inheritors of the Classical world when in reality we are merely it's admirers"

>>18404839
>Decline of The West
Anyone else annoyed by these decline of the west type titles? People have been writing this for hundreds of years and so far the west is still here

>>18404839
Thanks, anon. Though I'm not sure what is meant with "different mathematics per culture" as mathematics is universal, but I guess I'll find out in the book.

>>18404417
What the fuck is the green pill?

take meds

>>18404897
acquire soul

>>18404614

>Tao te ching is shit
>X interpretation is shit

So which one is it ? Tao te ching is shit or someone's interpretation of tao te ching ?

>>18404977
I never said the Tao Te Ching is shit, it's one of the most profound books I've ever read.
I just don't want people to look at the chart, think they're meant to get Stephen Mitchell's interpretation and go away thinking they're reading a translation of the text.

>>18404849
Yeah it's a shit title which even Spengler admitted to. The German literally translates as "Undergoing of the West" (Untergang) and if you've studied Thus Spake Zarathustra, you'll know of the philosophical implications of using that word. Something which many modern scholars seem to overlook

>nobody answered the OP questions so far

Esotericism threads used to be more active, what killed them?

OP you should read The Western Esoteric Traditions: A Historical Introduction

>>18405344
Thanks, is it the best book to give an overarching view of esotericism? There's also Manly P. Hall's book, it's often recommended
Are eastern traditions also worth studying for the sake of breadth of understanding?

>>18405362
Bump.

>>18404987
What's the best translation of the Tao Te Ching?

Bump for an actual answer to the OP

Don't waste your time with the "Green Pill." Pic related makes one immune to any "beholdeness" that one might have clinging to them. The only people who enjoy these books are willingly spooked. They are in awe of a bunch of things that simply do not exist, to say nothing of existing "higher or lower" than oneself. Spooks. Imaginary shit that masquerades as "nonfiction." It's actually worse than fiction! It is a lie! Like "Schindler's List." Fiction that wants to lie to you about its genre.

Maximize the value of your property. Quit separating mind, body, and soul. Quit striving for an "ideal" that is only a few hundred years old, an "ideal" that has to be focus-grouped by European parliamentarians, and then watered down for Americans, is no ideal of my mine.

Take the ecopill instead

>>18406342
>hundred
Thousand you mean

>>18406423
Political philosophy is boring

>>18406486
And what ideal is that?

>if we get on our knees and chant some mumbo jumbo to this totem pole, JDSAHFLKHAGDFH the War God will bless us with many gifts (vague)

Hmm I'd choose somebody like Stirner any day of the week.

Scribbling into the dirt might make you feel like you did something, but at the end of the day, you just scribbled into the dirt and murmured (probably even mispronounced) some new-age garbage in order to try and cheat your way out of work. Even entertainment magicians who pull rabbits out of his hat for a living has more "magical credibility" than anyone in this thread mongering for power via channels that are meant to deceive and waste one's time.

>>18406342
>>18406609
Filtered and also very embarrassing

>>18404417

>>18407156
>Crowley
Seriously?

>>18407246

>>18407246
Pic rel King Solomon

>>18407352
>>18407371
I know about Raildex and FGO but recommending Crowley seems weird since the guy was mostly full of shit IRL

>>18407352
Why does Aleister have tits?

>>18406177
I like Victor Mair

>>18404417
Greenpill is just Robert Anton Wilson (extended edition).

>>18406177
Any translation that's an actual translation done by someone who can read Chinese

>>18408247
How many of you found the trilogy dull?
They should have wrote a great book with all the good ideas instead of 3 unnecessary volumes.

>>18409052
>reading anything by a CIA plant in 2021