/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.22475208]

I would like to read some books about wizards that are not Harry Potter tier. Please recommend.

[Anonymous No.22475217]

[Anonymous No.22475249]

>>22475208
The Dying Earth books by Jack Vance, starting with the short stories in The Dying Earth/Mazirian the Magician.

[Anonymous No.22475396]

[Anonymous No.22475401]

Crowley shite
Moonchild

[Anonymous No.22475449]

Clear your mind. Think of nothing.

A long exhaling of breath.

But behold! “Nothing” cannot be thought of, for Nothing is void, the absence of all thought. Thus, all thought reveals itself to possess being.

An extended, slow inhalation.

So, think of being, pure being. Avoid all determinacy of thought!

Another exhalation.

What is left my friend? What is this pure, indeterminate being? Can anything be said of it? Nothing? So, in truth, it is contentless — nothingness. So… “pure being” reveals itself to be the very “Nothing,” we had originally sought out.

Eyes closed, the young man shifted between poses as he inhaled. He stretched his arms overhead as he stood up on his left leg, extending out of a deep one-legged squat, his right leg held out straight before him. As he rose, his right foot moved up to meet his right hand until he was holding his leg out at full extension above his head. Sweat sloughed off the man, but his deep, rhythmic breaths betrayed no indication of exertion.

So, do you now think of Nothing?

The man's head turned upward on another long inhalation.

But how can thought, which “is,” be “of nothing,” which is not? So, the “nothing” we have grasped is not the true Nothing. Thus, this thought is not the true Thought we seek. Above this thought of “nothing,” below it, behind it, preceding it— there lies the true Nothing. Ain Zoph. The Darkness Above the Light. The Unground.

Fathom then, how your thought of “nothing” inevitably collapses into pure, abstract Being. But such Being is contentless, “of” northing, and so it collapses back into nothingness itself.

Slowly, the man released his right leg to the floor. Now he stood erect, legs together, hands held up above his head, head slightly upturned.

Nothing begets Being and Being begets Nothing. The “what is” of the present continually passes away into the “what has been” of the past. Being? Nothing? Both continually give way to —give birth to — our world of Becoming.

The man is perfectly still now, eyes shut tight.

But behind all things, there is the true Nothing, the Unground, the Darkness Above the Light. From this silent potentiality issues Becoming, the Ground of all that is. This Ground then, is the First Principle, the Father of All Things.

The man’s eyes snap open. His cell is small. He stands in the middle of the stone room, facing away from the iron grate door. A lone small window, set high in the wall, casts its light down around him. Through the window he can see only the unbroken brightness of the cerulean desert sky. His eyes immediately focus on a lone mote of dust, floating in the cone of the window’s light.

But why should the Ground beget one thing and not another? What shackles the torrent of possibilities that might break forth from the Unground? What determines what becomes and what does not?

[Anonymous No.22475454]

>>22475449
Another long exhalation. The man lowers his hands to his chest, pressing them tight together. His eyes still fix on the glimmering mote. It floats upwards at first, then drops to the left, pausing in mid-air. A second later it dives back up to the right.

The mote appears to dance of its own accord. And yet the man knows it does not. His breath, the movements of his heart, the drafts coming through the gate door, and the air seeping in through the window… these are what cause the mote’s dance.

The Logos. That is what gives form to these possibilities. Logos, cause, universal law.

The man remains focused on the mote. And yet he knows it is not the mote he sees, not in truth. His thoughts flash to Meisterin Aliza explaining the inner workings of the eye to him when he was a young oblate.

In truth, he does not see the mote, merely the sunlight that reflects off of it. Any thing is seen only through the light that reflects off that thing, just as all that is heard is heard only through the way that thing disturbs the air. For what can be seen in the absence of light?

Logos, the First Begotten of the Father, the Symbol through which the Ground is known. This is the Second Principle.

Driven on by a rogue gust of wind, the mote surges forward towards his right eye.

Lastly, for a thing to Become, to exist outside the Unground, it must be seen, felt, fathomed. Otmon, the I that is eye of the soul, that which interprets, Spirit. Spirit, which proceeds from the Ground and the Logos — this is the Third Principle.

Each potential within the Unground is drowned out by other, inverse potentials. Each potential strives to become actual, and yet each blocks the path of its fellows. Only through the interaction of the Three principles are some potentialities made manifest.

This knowledge is the foundation of all sorcery. For we can determine what becomes actual. In our own way, each of us, even those that lack the Gift, help to determine what will be. We shape our world with every breath, even as we are shaped by it. Each of us, in our own measure, can shape the Ground, and manipulate the Symbol. Each of us has a portion of Spirit, for we are the very soil from which Spirit grows.

[Anonymous No.22475463]

>>22475454
The man shifts his gaze, becoming aware of myriad other motes floating in the air. He begins to chant now, low, barely audible. The cant begins rhythmically, repetitively. As the man sings, the dust motes begin to shift, as if moved by a new wind. They are shepherded together as if by an invisible hand, grouped into an oblong sphere that rotates upon its axis.

The cant continues unbroken, repetitive. Yet the repetition is not stagnant. It begins to evolve, building upon itself, generating ever more complex patterns as it progresses. As the cant unfolds, smaller segments of melody come to reflect the overall structure, creating an overarching unity and harmony, even as the cant begins to continually shift and change. Always it is changing, yet always it is self-similar.

Likewise, the shining motes begin to form into a pattern, clustering into sets of threes, tiny glittering triangles rotating in the air. As the cant continues, the triangles link into ever more complex chains. Yet these chains are themselves made up of smaller triangles, creating a fractal pattern of glimmering light. These chains continue to revolve around the axis of the original sphere, the aggregate never losing its original shape.

The man’s voice rises and then falls, creating an ebb and flow whose self-similar pattern blends into the arcane muttering. The motes, while maintaining their geometric patterns, now begin to resolve into a larger picture. A man’s face comes into view, then his body. Next his outstretched arm, holding a candle lit at both ends. The chant rises in intensity, then ebs as the patterns of dust form into a table in the foreground of the man. Upon the table, a sword, a cup, a pentacle, and a rod begin to take shape.

The Magician. The man sighs, recognizing the Major Arcana. Suddenly he shifts his tone. The cant continues to follow the original pattern, but takes on a new direction. New harmonies and complex rhythms emerge from the mix of rhyme, the setting of syllables against one another, and the rising and falling of the man’s voice.

The outline of a nude woman emerges from the frantic, fractal patterns of gleaming dust. Clockwise around her form the heads of a man, an eagle, a lion, and an ox— the four faces of the Cherubim. This then was the World arcana.

The man changes the cant again, introducing new resonances, new deeper tones he had not used before. Now the dust rearranges itself more rapidly. A man blowing a trumpet blooms out of the gleaming vortex, great billowing wings extending from his back. Below naked people look up in a mix of awe and terror as flood waters build around them. Judgment.

---

Realizing you really do lose something without the italics lol.

[Anonymous No.22475467]

>>22475449
>>22475454
>>22475463
damn nigga that's cool but i don't see any books about wizards in that gibberish

[Anonymous No.22475480]

this stuff was decent. bit normie/classic but has that nice 80s heavy metal vibe.

[Anonymous No.22475491]

>>22475467
Hegel was a sorcerer.

[Anonymous No.22475504]

>>22475449
>>22475454
>>22475463
Source?
t. i am

[Anonymous No.22477011]

>>22475491
not Hegel though, Hermes

[Anonymous No.22477755]

>>22475449
>>22475454
>>22475463
What books have magic that's similar to real esoterica like this?

People say Bakker, but while I enjoyed Bakker, the whole "magic as philosophy," part is fairly shallow and consists of a few bits of shadowy exposition over three books.

[Anonymous No.22477775]

>>22477755

[Anonymous No.22477814]

>>22477755
>People say Bakker
Who?

[Anonymous No.22477842]

>>22477814
Fantasy author. Great stuff but the guy gets too grim dark and edgy for his own good and the work suffers for it.

Basically Dune meets Berserk meets LOTR, with some gritty realism of Game of Thrones injected, all based quite closely on the history of the First Crusade.

[Anonymous No.22477850]

>>22477842
Is Bakker an initiate?

[Anonymous No.22477874]

>>22475449
I agreed until thhe
>What is left my friend? What is this pure, indeterminate being? Can anything be said of it? Nothing? So, in truth, it is contentless — nothingness. So… “pure being” reveals itself to be the very “Nothing,” we had originally sought out.
Just before there was the admitence to the impossibility of nothing by the very idea even making it a thing. so nothing is just a part of the wider catagory of thing which includes itself and nothing.

[Anonymous No.22477875]

>>22475208
Monday begins on Saturday

[Anonymous No.22477993]

>>22477874
>Just before there was the admitence to the impossibility of nothing by the very idea even making it a thing.

That's Hegel's point. Pure indeterminate being doesn't get you to "nothing" in any absolute sense. It collapsed into nothing but then this thought of nothing reveals itself not to be true void, but pure indeterminate being. Thus the two continuously collapse into one another.

Hegel formalized this best but you see echoes of it in the early esoterica, particularly Boehme.

[Anonymous No.22478014]

>>22475208
Try Vance's Dying Earth stories...

[Jon Kolner No.22478015]

>>22475208
How Stella Got Her Groove Back

[Anonymous No.22478059]

>>22475208
Where is that image from?

[Anonymous No.22478335]

>>22475208
Discworld, look up books that center around the Unseen University. Likeable characters and interesting world bulding, plus a great sense of humour.

[Anonymous No.22478376]

A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula LeGuin is a nice read.

[Anonymous No.22479728]

>>22475504
You'll have to wait for it to get published. Working title is: "The Darkness Above the Light," from the mystical writings of Pseudo Dionysus (Saint Denys (Dennis) in medieval Latin mystical theology).

It's sort of inspired by the Reformation and the European Wars of religion, although for the warfare I'm drawing more from the Italian Renaissance because I find the era of the great companies and the advent of bombards, before man portable fire arms were effective, a bit more interesting. Pic related is a classic and sort of my sourcebook, while McCullough's The Reformation and Manschreck's compilation of Reformation era primary sources is my guide of theology. I'm using Dupre's "Light From Light," for direct examples of mysticism to draw from, but I'm fairly familiar with that area.

I decided to set it in a fantasy world though to avoid giving religious offense to audiences. Plus, a core plot hook is that the characters end up moving through timelines, where the last decades of history have been different, and so I couldn't follow history closely anyhow. Sort of a hobby project born of really appreciating Bakker, parts of GRRM, the Black Company, Berserk, real esoterica, and actually, Chrono Cross, which I think was not a great game but had a very inventive story.

The key part of the magic system is to base it on the metaphysics of famous real traditions, but to split it largely into an Inner Realm, Astral magic based on summoning archetypal forces and supernatural beings, and an Upper Realm based on abstraction and philosophy.

This roughly follows the romanticist and rationalist traditions in mysticism and esoterica.

[Anonymous No.22481134]

>>22477755
Don't accept imitations.