/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.17519783]

Occultist literature sounds interesting, but I don't really kneo where to start. Any good recommendations?

[Anonymous No.17519791]

My bad, know*

[Anonymous No.17519804]

Anything but Crowley. Rudolf Steiner is a good one, or even Franz Bardon.

[Anonymous No.17519806]

Should we tell him?

[Anonymous No.17519825]

Horror’s Call.

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.17519834]

Depends on the form of occultism you want. Something like the corpus hermeticum, Arbatel, agrippa’s work, Paracelsus, boehme and trithemius would be good for western hermetic stuff but Here’s a random bunch of texts from a lot of different avenues since occultism is a large field. These aren’t written in order, just pick one up.
>Western
Sefer Yetzirah, commented by Aryeh Kaplan (particularly chapter six)
Book of Enoch
Thunder: The Perfect Mind all of Rudolph's Gnostic material
Chaldean Oracles of Zoroaster
The Black Brick (Complete Golden Dawn)
Liber ABA
Liber 65
Liber 7
Liber Stellae Rubeae
The Vision and the Voice
AHA (Crowley)
Agrippa's Second Book of Occult Philosophy
Complete Austin Osman Spare (including artwork)
The first Typhonian trilogy (MAYBE the second)
Additional MSS 36674 (Sloane)
Liber Asassiel (see above)
Sacrificial Universe (David Chaim Smith)
Kabbalistic Mirror of Genesis
Complete Magician's Tables
Strong's Concordance, Godwin's Qabbalah,Numberman.net, Bill H.'s tables, etc.

>Eastern (Near/Far)
Gathas/Yasna (or the Avesta, these are Zoroastrian scriptures. The material of most note is related to Zahak and/or various dragons)
A King's Book of Kings (see above)
“Yezidism: Its Background, Observances, and Texts”, I think some of the Yezid influence comes via the hymns in this book.
Anything that will give you a basic foundational understanding of Arabic astronomy/astrology/astrotheology, etc.
Kali Kaula by Jan Fries
Kaulajnananirnaya
Kiss of the Yogini
Triadic Heart of Shiva
Anandalahare
Hevajra Tantra
Shri Yantra and the Sidereal Astrology (Lokanath)
Tantraloka
Paratrisikavivirana

>Afro-Carib material:
African Divination Systems: Ways of Knowing
Way of the Orisa
Kindoki
Palo Mayombe: The Garden of Blood and Bones
Pomba Gria and the Quimbanda
Exu
At the Crossroads

>Sabbatic Background:
Xoanon and most of Three Hands.
All works of Carlo Ginzberg
All works of Emma Wilby
Various early witchcraft manuscripts


Also here’s a bigger list (with some crossover) it has literature I would even be against but it’s worthwhile for a larger sample.

The zohar
The bahir
Sefer HaTorah (Books of the Law), so-called “Five Books of Master Mosheh”
Sefer HaShmoth (Book of the Names) of Master Adam
Sifra Detzniyutha (Book of THAT Which is Concealed)
Idra Rabba Qadusha (Greater Holy Assembly)
Idra Zuta Qadusha (Lesser Holy Assembly)
Ma'aseh Merkabah (“Work of the Chariot”) material from the Nabiyim
Seferim HaChanokh (Books of Enoch ben Yared)
Shi'r Qoma (Measure of the Divine Body) from the Sefer HaGadol (Book of the Secrets of Raziel the Great)

Liber ABA – A. Crowley
The Middle Pillar – Regardie
The Tree of Life – Regardie
Garden of Pomegranates – Regardie
Three Books of Occult Philosophy – Henry Cornelius Agrippa
Collected works of Frater Achad
Liber 777


Cont

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.17519847]

>>17519834
Taoist master chuang - michael r. Saso
the tibetan yogas of dream and sleep tenzin wangyal rinpoche


Kiss of the Yogini – David Gordon White
Sexual Magic – Paschal Beverly Randolph
Liber Agape & Liber AZOTh – Secret O.T.O. documents.
Liber 24 – Secret O.T.O. document.
The Sacred Magician - William Bloom
Gargantua & Pentagruel - Rabelais
Cults of Shadow - Grant, Kenneth
Veneficium - Shulke
The works of C.F. Russel
Angeletics - R. Capurro
The Holistic Inspiration of Physics - Val Dusek
Astrolabium Planum - Johannes Engel
Beyond Telepathy - Puharich
Dream Telepathy - Ullman & Kripper
Fundamentals of Esoteric Knowledge - Jean Dubuis
Arbatel of Magick
Collected works of Frater Achad
Nightside of Eden - Grant, Kenneth
Cult of Tara - Beyer
De Vita Tripliciti - Ficino
Arbatel de Magia Veretum
Raja Yoga - Swami Vivekananda
Shiva Samhita
Hathayoga Pradipika
Konx Om Pax
Spiritual Guide - de Molinos
Rituel et Dogma de la Haute Magie
Tannhauser
Sword of Song
Book of Abramelin
Daodejing
Secret Rituals of the O.T.O. – Francis King
The Voice in the Silence – Blavatsky
the Agamas
Kularnava Tantra, and the Tantraloka.

And many others since I didn’t even scratch the service of the different kinds of occultism.

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.17519874]

>>17519804
Crowley’s fine if you want to see a bunch of western occultism made edgy and made into a mush with some interpretations/keys thrown in. He’s fundamentally not different/separate from eliphas Levi’s model+Nietzsche+His own mythology+GD+basic yoga.

As for Steiner, for Steiner’s full philosophy you’ll need the context of Goethe’s work to truly appreciate it fully. Franz Bardon while I don’t dislike him as others claim they do, I do admit while practical and having his own unique system, he’s very different from what traditional hermeticism would shill and reading him you won’t be able to tell what is his innovations, developments, idiosyncrasies and so forth and what is traditional. So I wouldn’t shill him as your absolute foundation.

[Anonymous No.17519879]

>>17519834
>>17519847
Thanks bro, I'll be sure to check these out

[Anonymous No.17519885]

>>17519874
In terms of actual practice and not filling one's head with garbage, both are better options than Crowley.

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.17519956]

>>17519885
Theory and practice are both Good and if you get bound/stuck into Crowley’s cult/bullshit you kinda deserve it. Know what I mean.

>>17519879
I’d shill googling them and seeing which books catch your fancy

[Anonymous No.17519987]

>>17519956
>Theory and practice are both Good and if you get bound/stuck into Crowley’s cult/bullshit you kinda deserve it. Know what I mean.
It's and far more fruitful to reccomend actually useful materials, if you get my drift.

[Anonymous No.17520023]

>>17519791
I clicked on this thread from the catalogue just to mess with you for that one but you had it covered.

[Anonymous No.17520035]

Don't listen to the tripfag he spams every occult thread. Listen to secret history of western esotericism.

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.17520041]

>>17519987
I feel ya friend. The biggest crime I have against Crowley (other than outright lying, obscuring common things, making things edgy for no reason while internally still shilling basically Christian mysticism and basically being a special snowflake) is that the dude is so unimaginative. The guys actual developments and theories are basically just stapling Masonic/GD/OTO ideas together, invert a male and female pair here or there etc. also his fusion of Buddhism and Nietzsche at higher levels is pretty ridiculous. I will say though it filters people because it’s designed to be crazy, surreal, delirious and feel conspiracy tier, I would always recommend Kenneth grant’s work, even if they’re half way between fiction and half way between occult philosophy. Dude applies Dali’s art method to occultism, fuses western occultism with proper tantra before anyone else did and just was very creative. I wouldn’t shill grant to the beginner but he’s a million times more imaginative than Crowley.

Probably the best Crowley book for the beginner is, funny enough, the soldier and the hunchback which teaches how to have skepticism.

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.17520077]

>>17520035
Ah, apologies if my recs and posts aren’t of a high enough quality for ya anon. Any critique is valued in order to correct my knowledge.

[Anonymous No.17521947]

bump

[Anonymous No.17521957]

Prometheus Rising by Wilson is the standard into to occult.

[Anonymous No.17522021]

>>17520077
I took up your recommendation on reading Understanding Reality, and it has been a breakthrough on my study of alchemy. Liu Yiming's commentary practically spells out the meaning behind every symbol, but I'm not going to accept his take to be the final say either. I'm a bit disappointed that he didn't go into further detail on the alchemical process. For instance, how are you supposed to invert the seats of innate and real knowledge?

[Anonymous No.17522037]

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.17522082]

>>17522021
Taoist Yoga: Alchemy and Immortality is more of a step by step process outline and for its simplicity the secret of the golden flower is still highly valuable.

I’m glad you enjoyed the knowledge of the book and did not stop your interpretation at it, but this is also why I give a group of texts and not just one, alchemy is a beast you won’t tame with one or two books, contemplation, practice , study and personal idiosyncratic breakthroughs will be needed to fully tame that beast.

[Anonymous No.17523184]

>>17520041
>Probably the best Crowley book for the beginner is, funny enough, the soldier and the hunchback which teaches how to have skepticism.
Yeah, this clicks with my belief that Crowley was a better philosopher than occultist.
Liber OS Abysmi vel Daath is another one in the skeptical class, more a list of reading recommendations. His essay on knowledge in Little Essays Toward Truth shows the operative principle: undermining knowledge (Da'ath) is required for crossing the abyss.
Also, I simply can't relate to all his Judeo-Christian'ing, even though he once said in the Equinox that the symbols don't need to represent any objective reality.
I actually find Bardon's IIH more to my style -- simple, direct, non-elaborate -- but I haven't been able to track the source of his teachings. I have some material from the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor that's in the same spirit, along with AMORC shit. None of it ever worked for me.
Over 20 years ago, I borrowed a book in a library that was similar to IIH. It contained exercises for occult development, including astral projection. I never got to read it, and I've been unable to track it. It was a dark blue hardcover book -- couldn't have been written later than the '80s. It wasn't Steiner, and I don't think it was from one of the usual Theosophy or New Thought suspects.