/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.21849505]

God is…… le everything……….

[Anonymous No.21849511]

>>21849505
>since things exist and interact, everything must be like...the same thing... but also it has parts and modes eve though it's one thing...and it's also this old Jew God
BRAVO BARUCH

[Anonymous No.21849543]

>>21849511
Come up with better

[Anonymous No.21849554]

>>21849543
>if 2 things can interact they have to be the same substance. Why? Because...because they just do!?

[Anonymous No.21849767]

>>21849505
Christians literally end every prayer with "gay men"

[Anonymous No.21850050]

>>21849554
>All things are made of particles
Yes

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.21850074]

The nuance is that God to spinoza partakes of the entirety of nature as we know it which is only two attributes, extension and Thought, but this does not encompass the totality of deity, for rather deity has infinite attributes, we only have access to two of these. So God is not simply nature, he is to spinoza infinitely more vast.

[Anonymous No.21850100]

>>21850074
Saying God has infinite attributes is just as nonsensical as Spinoza. If He had infinite attributes it would mean he had every antithetical attribute to every one, thus both omnipotent and impotent, gnostic and ignorant. Makes zero sense

[Anonymous No.21850125]

Existence as substance.
Existence taken alone, pure.
Existence as uncreated.
Existence as absolute (independent)
Existence as self-subsistent
Existence as seamless & limitless.
Existence as the eternal.
Existence as the primordial thought of nature.
Existence is the material idea of itself.

One of the Primary Characteristics of the Godhead.

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.21850138]

>>21850100
You misread my post, spinoza is the one saying god has infinite attributes, these infinite attributes are beyond the domain of thought and extension being other to these two, Gnostic and ignorant would be but categories of thought to spinoza.

[Anonymous No.21850156]

>>21850074
Who are you, Frater Asemlen? Are you in some kind of religious order or is this some kind of roleplay?
No disrespect, just haven't come here in a while and I like to keep track of the tripfags.

[Anonymous No.21850167]

>>21850125

The other qualities of the Godhead being Self-Awareness and Love.

Because existence is also knowledge, there is a self-knowing, or self-awareness. Because this awareness exhibits harmony, there is the quality of bliss or love.
God is infinite existence-awareness-love.

How can everything be God?
All existing phenomena are a part of Reality.
Reality is One, a Unity. From the dimension of the Godhead, there is only God.
All phenomena possess the quality of existence. God is the totality of existence. All that exists is God.

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.21850171]

>>21850156
About to hop off so I’ll make it brief, just a lone dude, very much into study of esotericism/mysticism, continental philosophy and poetry. The Frater name is on account that back on irc (over like, 10? Years ago?) we had a group of dudes who were all very dedicated to studying occultism and we all shitposted on 4chan, so in order to keep track of each other we took on frater names, just as for fun, I only keep the name on account of I’ve used it so long, and also archival purposes, I make a lot of long posts and ask/get a lot of recommendations, so the name makes it easier to spot, I’m not a new tripfag, I just have periods of lurking/being busy with irl stuff, that + I don’t really have any drama so there’s nothing to really meme about me, not much to talk about!

[Anonymous No.21850180]

>>21849767
It’s “Amen” you sick apostate

[Anonymous No.21850195]

>>21850138
I think he's just rephrasing Russell's paradox

[Anonymous No.21850831]

>>21849505
>God is...... le dialectic.......

[Anonymous No.21850834]

>>21850831
Would

[Anonymous No.21850838]

>>21849767
I can't believe this made me laugh

[Anonymous No.21850844]

>>21850100
That doesn't follow, infinite doesn't necessarily mean every possible attribute. As an analogy you can have an infinite series that doesn't contain every number on the number line, e.g. [2, 4, 8, 16, ...].

[Anonymous No.21850875]

>>21850100
But isn’t ignorance, impotence forms of lack? How’s lack of something an attribute?

[Anonymous No.21851028]

>>21850171
Not that anon, but I never really get where to start with occultist and esoteric stuff. If you see this, could you compile a rccomendation/reading list about it? Who better to ask than a /lit/ veteran, I guess. (I'm somewhat familiar with the continentals, so relating occult concepts to continental thought may help.)

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.21851066]

>>21851028
The problem with the question is esotericism/occultism goes across multiple religious traditions and cultures and can be absolutely unrelated to each other.

But here I’ll give recs for a few different traditions.

First Renaissance magic/hermeticism

The Arbatel, The corpus hermeticum, Boehme’s Clavis and Paracelsus’s Archidoxes of magic and Agrippa’s 3 books

Read the following reading order to easily digest boehme.

Clavis, Threefold Life, The Aurora, Questions Concerning the Soul, Theosophical Theses, Mysterium Magnum (commentary on Genesis/Exodus).

The following are good for Chinese alchemy and Taoism in general.

If you know Chinese or have a friend that can help translate, ABSOLUTELY read the Daozang(it’ll be difficult even with knowledge of Chinese due to the age of the text)
Obviously you want laozi, Liezi and chuang Tzu.

For alchemical purposes I would recommend “ Taoist Yoga: Alchemy and Immortality” which I know sounds horrible, but it’s just a title, it’s actually a translation of a Taoist manual designed to take you from basically ignorance to adepthood with alchemy.

Also the alchemical classic “understanding reality” is very good as an introduction.

Holding the three ones is a very old text but I know it can be found online, so I highly recommend it.

But chief among the alchemical and metaphysical literature is ge Hong’s baopuzi especially the inner chapters (which there haven’t been new translations of for years but it does exist in translation.) his traditions of divine transcendence is also a phenomenal read.

I would also recommend the divine farmer’s classic of materia medica and also the Classic of Mountains and Seas.

Finally for purely ritual purposes I would recommend two pieces of literature.

The taoist master chuang which is a scholars work who was taught, first half of the book explains lineages and how he came to such knowledge second half is a grimoire tier explanation of how they actually work their magic with seals and how to draw and everything.

Also “mao Shan, tradition of great purity” is another excellent ritual-meditative text.

For pure meditation I would recommend the secret of the golden flower and the Zuowanglun

Here’s the Baopuzi, it’s the only difficult one on this list to find with a google search. http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=C774D46BA327AE36B18579830CDEF4B9

For hindu alchemy, the Mantrikabheda tantra is the best, but won’t be understandable without context, this is my reading list for tantra.

Cont

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.21851069]

>>21851066
Shiva Sutras
Shiva Samhita
(Optional=abhinavagupta commentary of the gita)
Bhairava tantra (112 meditations )
The secret supreme:Kashmir shivaism (very simplified but still good.)
Kali Kaula(skip if you don’t want Neo-tantra+ historical analysis of tantra and its relations to stuff like Taoism and the general arising of Vedanta and Buddhism from the Upanishads and other such )
Tantra Illuminated (Skip if you don’t want modern lit)
Kaulajnananirnaya
Kularnava Tantra
Anandalahare
Matrikabheda Tantra
Spandakarikas
Paratrisikavivirana
Tantraloka (You can also read when you feel up to it the Tantrasara which is a condensed normie friendly version of the tantraloka written by abhinavagupta to give people a tldr)

As for Middle East, ibn Umail, ghazali, the Shams al-Ma'arif and the writings of Subrawardi will be essential, I would also recommend hallaj and Quzati if you’re inclined. Arabi is a popular option as well.

Note, umail’s the origin of Jung’s alchemical interpretations so if you’re interested in Jung, umail’s work especially with the Marie commentary is worth your reading. There’s also the picatrix.

But really, there’s a ton of alchemical text and especially in the west it was by design not all the same but rather each book and magician had largely the same and similar themes but expressed subtly different philosophy, methodology, theology and imagery. So you will gain from pretty much all of the books on the levity website which has a ton of alchemical texts.

Boehme was historically the interpretation key many of our alchemists and masons would use, Agrippa is foundational also, same with Paracelsus. The corpus hermeticum is the bedrock of our alchemical tradition.

https://www.alchemywebsite.com/texts.html

Cont

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.21851081]

>>21851069
If you want to go even deeper, it is good that you should read the works of Ficino especially his De vita libri tres and also the writing of pico della mirandola beginning with the oration on the dignity of man. From here you should study the Rosicrucians in general, I do not say it lightly when I say the Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz is one of my favorite books of all time.

Also if you’re willing, you should check out the writings of John Dee especially the hieroglyphic monad, and the writing of his son Arthur dee and then after this read the alchemical writings of Thomas browne. Note many consider browne to be one of the best prose stylists in the English language, check out his Religio Medici to understand his religious life/conception prior to his actual occult work.

Now as to Buddhism, though I know it’s a large thing to ask, you ought to read the Pali canon, you ought to read the heart sutra, the Diamond sutra, the lotus sutra, the Lankavatara sutra, the teachings of Linji and of Bankei, and if you’re interested in Vajrayana you ought begin with the The Concealed Essence of the Hevajra Tantra: With the Commentary Yogaratnamālā after reading the above works and consider also reading the entire tantric list because Vajrayana is tantric Buddhism and will use Hindu texts when the need arises. If you want the core teachings of dzogchen, read the seven treasuries of Longchenpa, but if this is too much reading for you, you can read JUST the The Precious Treasury of the Basic Space of Phenomena. Which is around 150 pages and encapsulates the entire dzogchen view of ultimate reality.


There’s much more things I didn’t cover and many things you’ll come across by reading, for example I didn’t really elaborate in depth on Kabbalah which is essential (read all of aryeh kaplan, all of gershom scholem’s work, gikatila, and everything by Moshe idel, then finish up with David chaim smith. Each of these men will introduce you to a hoard of literature and hold your hand on how to process it.) it’s a very large field so you have to work your way through based on your specific interests, Stuff like the PGM which contains some of the oldest Greco Roman and Egyptian spells we have and stuff like Akkadian spell tablets are things I feel all of us should eventually read but it depends on what your specific interest in occultism is. Use your right intellect and pick a field, ya know?

[Anonymous No.21851378]

>>21851066
>>21851069
>>21851081

Thank you, Frater! One of the rare effort posters with actual insight and experience!
I have a more personal question: what have you gained from these texts, what can one expect to learn from reading these old masters?
Also, how does all this ties into more formal continental philosophy?

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.21851485]

>>21851378
>I have a more personal question: what have you gained from these texts,

This is a multifaceted question on account that I do not just study but practice, and on account of that I have a variety of religious, mystical and material results as a result of practicing these, I will say however it is foolish to believe someone’s claims of such without your own personal verification of mystical and occult methodology so I will explain what can be gained from an empirical point of view.

For a fact you will grasp various world cultures and your own culture better, you will gain exposure to models of the world and religion alien both to the modern conception and the most spiritual of philosophers, you will gain methodology which is empirically demonstrated by various studies to induce visions, states of bliss, controlled hallucination both auditory and visual and sensation, greater control of the mind, exposure to various art you’d never normally come across such as the ripley scroll, and the capacity to analyze your own phenomenological experience at a much greater degree.

>what can one expect to learn from reading these old masters? Also, how does all this ties into more formal continental philosophy?

This is case dependent, but for example, Hegel is not shy to say that an extremely significant part of his ontology is a copy paste of Boehme, husserl elaborates in depth on how his model has parallels to the Jhana meditations and overlaps significantly with their phenomenology, and that is just thee most basic form, obviously their more advanced modes like Vajrayana continue the analysis, you will find in the likes of chumbley and spare elaborate models which take the same routes as ponty but go further, you’ll see models which reconcile a metaphysical flat plain approach to multiple ontological models while still demonstrating a hierarchy, such as in Kenneth grant and bertiaux’s work, extreme analysis of self, other, causation and the relation of God to these among others such in Kabbalah and tantra and Taoism, and many more and much more. These traditions are all massive. I cannot do Justice to how much they contain in a single thread ultimately.

[Anonymous No.21851527]

>>21850074
>we only have access to two of these
This would be wrong per the definition of attribute, which is what the intellect perceives.

It should be noted for readers who put so much weight in the Ethics that Spinoza in other works (the TTP and the introduction by his friend, which Spinoza carefully oversaw, to his summary of Descartes's principles) rejects the approach of the Ethics as not philosophical. The solution to what looks like a fundamental change of mind is that it's meant for a rationally inclined but unphilosophic audience trying to figure out how to behave given the seeming transformation of understanding of both god and nature in light of Enlightenment thought up to that point.

(To summarize what's philosophical, he says a philosophical account requires a "natural history", starting from examination of motion and rest, and from which axioms and definitions are deduced, see TTP chs. 7 & 15; for the critique of starting from a Euclidean approach, which Spinoza and his friend Ludwig Meyer call "synthetic", see the intro to Principles of Descartes' Philosophy; for evidence that Spinoza read Meyer's preface with care and didn't disagree on that point, see Spinoza's letter dated August 3 1663.)

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.21851557]

>>21851527
When I say man only partakes of these two I am speaking of Letter 64
> Therefore (same Axiom) the idea of this
idea involves knowledge of God in so far as he is considered under the
attribute of thought, and not under any other attribute. It is thus clear
that the human mind
- i.e., the idea of the human body
- involves and
expresses no other attributes of God except these two.

[Anonymous No.21851641]

>>21851557
I would point out again that attribute is defined with respect to what intellect perceives, and as per the note to bk. I prop. XVII, Spinoza denies that intellect, along with will, appertain to God. He does speak of an infinite intellect, but it's thorny to work out. So with respect to the letter, it would seem that Spinoza either contradicts his definition intentionally, has forgotten his definition, or is modulating how he speaks about the subject according to his interlocutor.

(Aside: it is interesting to consider his comment re: motion, taken together with his comment in TTP about method and the placement of the treatment of rest and motion in bk. 2 of the Ethics.)

[Anonymous No.21851726]

>>21849511
He got close. Just remove the jew god part.