/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.10157777]

what does /lit/ think of her

[Anonymous No.10157956]

>>10157777
bump

[Anonymous No.10158048]

A charlatan and a spook who never wrote anything worth reading.

[Anonymous No.10158142]

A grave misleader of many seekers

[Anonymous No.10158164]

She's the Occult History shit tester. If someone hearkens back to this fraud you know they too should be ignored.

[Anonymous No.10158414]

>>10158164
who is the occult canon?
>zoroaster
>pythagoras
>plato
>hermes trismegistus
>nag hammadi library
>chaldean oracles
>plotinus
>kabbalah
>plethon
>ficino
>mirandola
>agrippa
>bruno
>paracelsus
>weigel
>bohme
>st. martin
>rosicrucian manifestoes
>fludd
>weishaupt
>swedenborg
>mesmer
>levi
>guenon
>evola
>jung
>blavatsky
>j. krishnamurti
>ug krishnamurti
>steiner
>golden dawn
>crowley
>gurdjieff
>ouspensky
>mckenna

[Anonymous No.10159793]

>>10158414
you forgot "Stang".

[Anonymous No.10159825]

>>10158048
>>10158142
>>10158164
This, OP.

>>10158414
Steiner was a charlatan like Blavatsky, Gurdjieff too. Honestly, the occult canon should not include actual philosophers like Plato, Plotinus and their students. Jung was a mystic but he was more legitimate than all the rest of the 19th century turds you have there. Occult practice is literally philosophy for brainlets who are satisfied with aping true gnosis.

[Anonymous No.10159890]

>>10159825
>occult canon should not include actual philosophers like Plato, Plotinus
Neo-Platonism is worth studying for its place in the history of science imo

[Anonymous No.10159895]

>>10157777

Women can't write.

[Anonymous No.10159936]

>>10158164
>>10159825
>>10159890

That being said I'm still interested in reading her work soon for her writings on the Greeks specifically, namely Pythagoras.

Still, anon are right: you should avoid taking her work too seriously.

[Anonymous No.10159940]

>>10158164
>>10159825
>>10159890

That being said I'm interested in reading her work soon for her writings on the Greeks specifically, namely Pythagoras.

Still, anon are right: you should avoid taking her work too seriously.

[Anonymous No.10160123]

>>10157777
If you're interested in truth then simply read the actual Vedic texts yourself, or commentaries on them by authorized gurus and not some western interpretation of them by unqualified persons like her. Even when she is correct, her words are shrouded with this veil of western occultism that makes it difficult to understand. It's auspicious that she did point people in the correct direction, but don't take her work to absolute.

[Anonymous No.10160156]

>>10158414
Take Steiner and Gurdjieff out
Put Mani and John Dee in

[Anonymous No.10160166]

>>10157777
Very fun to read but seems to be completely full of shit.

I prefer Manly P. Hall

[Anonymous No.10160191]

>>10160156
>Take Steiner and Gurdjieff out
you're insane, remove crowley and his clown shit though

also OP Blavatsky is legit, her way is just too deep for most people though

[Anonymous No.10160416]

>>10159825
>Gurdjieff too.

>>10160156
>Gurdjieff out

I say this not to convince you two but for other people who may be reading this: no, there is no good reason to take Gurdjieff out.

[Anonymous No.10160441]

>>10160191
>>10160416
is Gurdjieff's "Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson" a good place to start with him?

[Anonymous No.10160451]

>>10160441
That's where Gurdjieff himself recommends you start with his work. It's heavily coded though, so enjoy the ride.

[Anonymous No.10160519]

>>10158414

>crowley
>canon

>hermetic fanfiction author
>enlightenment via masturbation marathons and menses + semen cookies
>even more basic bitch syncretic ripoffs than Blavatsky

[Anonymous No.10161162]

why is there so much disagreement about this stuff

[Anonymous No.10161170]

>>10160156
>leaves Blavatsky in
>"Take Steiner and Gurdjieff out"

Kill yourself. Steiner was one of the greatest thinkers of the 20th century, and Gurdjieff is a hundred times better than Blavatsky even if he's a failed guru too.

>>10160441
Try reading about him in Colin Wilson's The Occult / Beyond the Occult

[Anonymous No.10161181]

>>10161162
Because occultists are by nature divided in why they are interested in occultism to begin with. There are everything from /x/ types who are only interested in "practice" like summoning demons ASAP, to true blue cultlike guru-worshipers who would do anything their chosen master told them to, to practicing mystics who think you should just join a tradition, any tradition, ASAP, to people who are interested in the occult as the neglected hermetic-symbolic side of Western philosophy, and many others. And each of these different subsets has its philosophical divisions as well.

[Anonymous No.10161182]

>>10161181
im in the last camp - is that a good list for those people

[Anonymous No.10161229]

>>10161182
It's pretty good and you'll encounter a lot of other figures along the way in reading it. It leaves out more of the perennialist tradition than you probably want, if you're into that last description. But also be careful about the perennialists, because they are a cult and you can end up reading Frithjof Schuon's 857 books your entire life.

I would say give Wilson's two books a look, and also look into Wilson's spiritual semi-successor and friend Lachman. He has a book on Hermes Trismegistus for example. Also add Emerson, William James, Coomaraswamy to that list maybe.

If you really want to delve into that stuff, I would recommend you get:
- this general skim of the esoteric tradition over the last 200 years, plus its reception of earlier figures like Bohme etc.
- a good knowledge of philosophy, especially Greek + German idealist + phenomenological and Heideggerian + maybe postwar French (if you're into modern philosophical issues, like overcoming dualism and "applying" perennialist/hermetic thought to the current crises in human self-understanding)
- acquainted with perennialism, through a thorough reading of Guenon and maybe Coomaraswamy, Evola if you like the political side, and as many other perennialists as you feel necessary, but avoid getting trapped in doctrinaire perennialism and seriously avoid mind-bending ascetic practices. Harry Oldmeadow's book, Light from the East: Eastern Wisdom for the Modern West, is also good
- start delving into perennialist "fellow travellers," like Jung - check out the book on Eranos for a touchstone of many figures involved in weird shit, who tried to bend the disenchanted Western mainstream toward the possibility of other grounds of being

That's my personal and biased take on it, as someone who is heavily biased by German idealism and not very interested in Guenonian "static" hermeticism. If you want to understand "the Tradition", you should understand the mainstream as well, and your ultimate goal should be advancing mankind's self-understanding, not just reading insular and self-referential traditionalist discussions of Paracelsus and being a dilettante. But again, just my opinion.

[Anonymous No.10161239]

>>10157777
Weininger said you can tell a lot about a person by their relationship to Christ. Blavatsky hated Christianity.

[Anonymous No.10161247]

>>10161229
thanks for the info

[Anonymous No.10161250]

>>10161239
you can tell a lot about a person from their relationship with weininger

[Anonymous No.10161255]

>Kind of want to look more into mysticism
>all the classic texts are page after page of the driest shit ever mixed in with stupid and weird for the sake of weird
Fuck, is there no better way? I wish these influential crackpots lived in an age of video seminars and powerpoint.

[Anonymous No.10161276]

>>10161247
Np also read Huxley's Perennial Philosophy as a sourcebook and starting point for many figures not mentioned by that list

>>10161255
You too maybe

Alan Watts is also an OK starting point and he has Youtube lectures

[Anonymous No.10161370]

>>10160441
>is Gurdjieff's "Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson" a good place to start with him?
I don't know. I myself read Ouspensky's In Search of the Miraculous first, and then moved on to Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson. I don't think I would've had the drive to finish Beelzebub if Gurdjieff's philosophy wasn't already expounded for me in Ouspensky. Beelzebub is the superior work, but much harder to understand.

[Anonymous No.10161608]

>>10161370
do you think there's something to gurdjieff worth reading?

[Anonymous No.10161648]

>>10161608
It depends on who you are. If you are the type of person who can benefit from it, you will benefit from it.

[Anonymous No.10161671]

>>10161648
did you benefit from it?

[Anonymous No.10161674]

>>10161671
Yes. If you were shrewder, you would ask in what way I benefited from it.

[Anonymous No.10161690]

>>10161674
in what way did you benefit from it? please forgive my unshrewdery

[Anonymous No.10161723]

>>10161690
You can find out by reading the book and trying to understand it and apply it to your life. Here's the preface to it, the last sentences of which are exactly what I want to say:

F R I E N D L Y A D V I C E
(Written impromptu by the author on delivering this
book, already prepared for publication, to the
printer)

According to the numerous deductions and conclusions resulting from my
research concerning the profit contemporary people can obtain from new
impressions coming from what they read or hear, and also according to the
thought of one of the sayings of popular wisdom I have just remembered,
handed down to our days from very ancient times,
"Any prayer may be heard and granted by the Higher Powers only if it is
uttered thrice:
First—for the welfare or the peace of the souls of one's parents,
Second—for the welfare of one's neighbor, And only third—for oneself
personally," I find it necessary on the first page of this book, now ready for
publication, to give the following advice "Read each of my written
expositions thrice First—at least as you have already become mechanized to
read all your contemporary books and newspapers,
Second—as if you were reading aloud to another person, And only third—try
to fathom the gist of my writings Only then will you be able to count upon
forming your own impartial judgment, proper to yourself alone, on my
writings And only then can my hope be actualized that according to your
understanding you will obtain the specific benefit for yourself which I
anticipate, and which I wish for you with all my being

[Anonymous No.10161739]

>>10161723
how versed in history of philosophy are you

[Anonymous No.10161871]

>>10161739
Why do you ask?

[Anonymous No.10161976]

>>10161871
why do you ask why ask? jesus fucking christ dude

[Anonymous No.10162632]

>>10161976
Well now I don't want to answer to such a rude person who doesn't know why they're asking a question. What relevance does it have to subject of Gurdjieff?