/mysticism/
who here is a fan of mysteries and mysticism? truly it is the highest form of philosophy and theology and poetry! who are your favorite authors? i enjoy rumi, hafez, pseudo-dionysius, meister eckhart, boehme, paracelsus, lao tzu, zhuangzi, etc.
anything mystical you're reading? recently, on the occult side of mysticism, i have been reading kenneth grant's nightside of eden -- what a fabulously insane author
This is kind of silly but I really like exploring mystic/occult stuff after reading Gravity's rainbow. All the references to kabbalah and tarot got me interested.
I mostly just dive into wikipedia and read the history of this stuff (which is way more complex and detailed than I expected) but I also bought the satanic bible (LaVey's version) and I flip through it once and a while. It's actually pretty agreeable
I'm reading Revolt Against The Modern World by Evola if that counts.
How exactly does Evola account for the failure of Tradition if it's so pure and crystilline? Why does degeneration happen? Is it because of individualism inherent to humanity that is strengthened when given false, worldly knowledge? When the mediation between the metaphysical and material world (in the form of the priest-king) abandons his post?
As I've been reading I felt that some of Evola's more batshit theories could be habituated or stripped away without problem if you blended him -- and his idea of Traditional governance -- with Plato and his Republic. Any thoughts?
>>7974098
>truly it is the highest form of philosophy and theology and poetry!
really.
how old are you? i'm guessing somewhere shy of twenty.
>>7975109
>not realizing that the symbolic language of mysticism and the occult is the only way to reach beyond the veil
>>7974098
Pretty interested in hesychasm, ariosophy, esoteric hitlerism/hyperboreanism, animism/shamanism and perennialism.
Think occultism, the kabbalah, witchery and so on is quite uninteresting, the kabbalah in particular I understand as purely materialist.
reading my first book by jung at the moment
>>7974536
Decline is bound to happen, myths of Golden Age, Kali Yuga or Ragnarok anticipated it.
I think this is best understood in a somewhat Heraclitean sense: all things come and all things go, only the transcendental beingness remains eternally (cosmic fire for Heraclitus)
Fall from Tradition can also be understood as the triumph of historical life over traditional-archetypal life. Hope this makes some sense
>>7975132
What is the veil? Are you saying that symbolism is truth? Isn't that the opposite of what a symbol is? It may be a representation of the truth but it is objectively not the truth.
>>7975185
if I'm sitting on a chair and I say "I'm sitting on a chair" I have spoken the truth, despite the fact that the word "chair" is not a chair and the word "I" is not me.
lay off the philosophy for a minute lad
>>7975146
most occult hitlerism makes for an amazing read at the very least tvh
>>7975222
bootlicking edgebabble
>>7975209
to someone who doesn't speak English you haven't said anything at all, so I wouldn't call that objective truth. language does its best to convey what exists in our minds but it isn't perfect. no symbol ever is.
If you're not interested in the occult or metaphysics, even if not a believer, you're probably boring.
>>7975248
"objective truth" doesn't mean "immediately understandable to all possible persons," retard
>>7975235
you could just have called it problematic
>>7975263
sure, but objective truth definitely isn't a bunch of random sounds coming out of your mouth, and it definitely isn't a symbol of any kind.
i'm not trying to start an argument. I just want to know what this is supposed to mean:
>not realizing that the symbolic language of mysticism and the occult is the only way to reach beyond the veil
>>7975289
wouldn't have expressed how I felt.
you say what you want to say and I'll say what I want to say.
fucking sjws
>>7975257
Not even him but you should shut the fuck you whiny little cunt and go back to tumblr or reddit.
>>7975291
>>not realizing that the symbolic language of mysticism and the occult is the only way to reach beyond the veil
that's just some bullshit to make occultists feel important.
>>7975297
maybe you should read some jung probably some gnosticism as well
then come back to those texts
im sure you will find them interesting when you can understand them
also I don't even know why we are having this exchange since its clear you only skimmed it and wrote shitpost based on your worthless political ideals
>>7975303
:^)
if there are some people actually intersted in the occult here I would suggest reading prometheus rising
a good intro for le rational millienial
>>7975132
> not realizing that the Veil is illusion, also
keep struggling with that dream diary and trying to contact your HGA, kids. while you're all becoming omphaloskeptics, i'll be over here, enjoying myself.
>>7975146
>Pretty interested in hesychasm, ariosophy, esoteric hitlerism/hyperboreanism, animism/shamanism and perennialism.
>Think occultism, the kabbalah, witchery and so on is quite uninteresting, the kabbalah in particular I understand as purely materialist.
as long as you understand it's no more relevant to the real world than minecraft or WOW. if any of that shit worked, the world would be run by Animists.
and, NO, it ISN'T.
Does anyone actually have any book recommendations? Got nighside of eden so far
inb4 crawley, he's a bit of a hack
>>7975603
Shamanism certainly works, it's just that those that practice it live outside civilization and have no will to power. I don't know its exact nature, and as a christian it fascinates me.
Hesychastic techniques I think are also a very powerful tool for the disciplined adherent, but again, part of it is to entirely reject the world.
As for ariosophy, hitlerism and so on, that is more of a historic curiosity that I find very interesting. However I do believe there may be some merit to the archeological and anthropological claims found in ariosophic thinking.
>>7975749
>Shamanism certainly works
What do you base this statement on?
>>7975769
It is certainly very simple to observe, as we have for years that rhythm, sound, chanting and dancing can induce altered states in humans, that is all shamanism really is.
Now personally, I believe that it is also relevatory, and that one somehow approaches God, even those who do not know Him, and this is where my interest in perennial religion appears, but that claim is again harder to prove.
>>7975603
Letting people realize the veil is illusion is part of their personal journey
There are no shortcuts
>>7975257
> hurr u cant read dis book because /pol/ does
Absolute faggot detected, kill yourself immediately
>>7974536
Evola's works on magic were much more interesting than his political works imo, you really get the impression when reading them that ditching political and worldly concerns and writing solely about mysticism is actually what he wanted to do, given that when writing about politics he can't help but inject mysticism into it, and when writing about mysticism he almost never mentions politics
>>7974447
The Qabalistic Tarot by Robert Wang is a fun book which combines the two.
>>7974536
Material technology eventually overcame spiritual technology. Think Hegel's Life and Death Struggle / Lordship and Bondage with the arms race.
>>7975146
Occultism isn't all bad. Qabalah and alchemy and goetia and theurgy are all linked back to Greek and Egyptian techniques.
>>7975174
Good luck, brother!
>>7975179
Eliade talks similarly in The Myth of the Eternal Return. He identifies Judaism and Christianity and Messianism as introducing linear / historical time instead of cyclical / traditional time.
>>7975330
Prometheus Rising = DUDE WEED LMAO + new age
>>7975603
What is the real world? What is the harm in a pleasurable simulation like minecraft or magic?
>>7975684
It depends on if you want modern or medieval or ancient. Or even the postmodern. I like Grant but he is a disciple of Crowley in some ways.
>>7976452
Ya. I hear there's supposedly there's two more volumes by Evola / The UR Group in the Introduction to Magic series. Someone needs to translate :(
>>7976589
>Prometheus Rising = DUDE WEED LMAO + new age
which is why the average poster here might like it
I started getting into Christian mysticism after reading the Bible cover to cover and seeing it mentioned in In The Dust of This Planet (don't judge). Never been particularly religious and just about to finish a STEM degree so my interest in this stuff took me by surprise. Have read the complete works of Pseudo-Dionysius, currently on The Cloud of Unknowing. Going to move onto the works of St John of the Cross and Meister Eckhart afterwards.
Also finished reading VALIS recently and found out about Christian Gnosticism. Plan to read the Nag Hammadi collection. Any other recommendations?
any1 read this?
>>7974098
Not sure if this it's quite what your looking for but Terence Mckennas lectures are quite nice
>>7976786
I'm getting a STEM degree too bro
I actually don't think it's that surprising that a significant subset of STEM dudes begin looking into mysticism
A lot of STEM fields are subsumed under this really memey MUH RATIONALISM MUH SCIENTISM HURR culture, and it's not surprising at all that some people would want to rebel against that
Not to mention that the more you get into STEM, the more aware you are that science and empiricism, powerful as they are, are simply not capable of a perfect one to one mapping between reality and perception, so you can begin to wonder about alternative methods
Not to mention being bombarded by technical details all day it can be nice to read about this stuff and get into meditation
>>7976786
>hasn't read Origen
Shit nigger, what are you even doing, that's like christian mysticism 101
Also get something that has the acts of Thomas, as well as of course pseudepigrapha and apocrypha, as well as eventually the Philokalia.
>>7976810
Yeah, I have a lot of friends who try push the scientism and 'rational' line hard. It's pretty nauseating, I could never get on board with it. I was discussing this with another guy a while back, for me science felt like a method of skeptical inquiry into the nature of our environment and a means for constructing knowledge that's tailored to our basic perception. The assertion of some things as absolute, unchangeable fact seems entirely contrary to this skepticism and acknowledgement that our knowledge of something in a given context may be limited. History has demonstrated that various scientific paradigms have been overturned in favour of others which adapt to new evidence.
And yeah, gradually you start to see not all aspects of what we experience can be reduced to empirical data and the scientific method. Georges Bataille actually make a pretty good point about this when he discusses the Kinsey Reports in Eroticism (if I remember correctly).
>>7976816
I had Origen and the Philokalia on my list, should I get through Origen before I move on to the other stuff?
>>7977184
I would definitely suggest reading Origen first, he's in every way the original Christian mystic.
St. John I would also not necessarily bother with, very talented poet, wrote very beautiful things, but not that interesting as pertains to mysticism.
>>7977217
Should have been St. John of the Cross, sorry.
>>7977184
That's the thing man
Like, there's science and empiricism, which are incredibly powerful (but not unlimited) ways of looking at the world
And then there's the "Science and Empiricism" culture, which says that the only REAL way of looking at the world is through that lens
And there are some places where that lens simply FAILS. Like, a good example is the hard problem of consciousness. How do you explain the qualitative experience of conscious life?
The Science and Empiricism culture says "LOL materialism it's just an illusion"
Which okay, sure, that's a possibility, but you have literally no proof, the "illusion" part is often not really explained, and you dismiss alternative explanations or even THINKING about alternative explanations because you're so convinced that scientism has the answer regardless of whether or not it can be proven
>>7976760
True. I just associate it more with /x/ as opposed to the (relatively) more sober participants here.
>>7976794
Scholem is great. He was friends with Walter Benjamin. Made jewish kabbalah accessible for the masses. Directy reaponsible for Madonna (jk?)
>>7976799
Love McKenna. His lectures on hermeticism and alchemy are much underrated.
>>7974098
super interested in this thread. Thanks for making it op
recently bought this trying to get into mysticism and the occult
is this a good book?
Who do you like more, Catherine of Siena or Teresa of Avila?
>>7977963
neither
Hello mysticbros I've just read Hero With a Thousand Faces and am intrigued by Jung's ideas. What's the best entry point into his philosophy?
>>7976589
If material technology overcomes spiritual technology, why is spirtual technology superior? Doesn't power (and thus Tradition) reside within the results of struggle and its subsequent? hierarchy.
I understand Evola would say that the failure of Tradition is inevitable and the victory of machines is a facet, but in that case how is Tradition worth following if it is bested by technology?
>>7978170
By the way, while I'm very open to mysticism and was very impressed by what I read in Jung's "Man And his Symbols", a lot of Evola's reasoning sounds bizarre. I do agree with a lot of what he says about the modern world but I'm having trouble making sense of his metaphysical positions and his reasoning for them... are there any good annotated versions of his stuff online, or chapter-by-chapter analyses? I wish I could have a discussion group for the book.
>>7978156
Man and His Symbols, easily. It's the most direct approach to Jung's ideas and what's great about him is that he uses the language of a scientist to help today's materialist readers (like me!) to understand perennial philosophy and the Truth that exists in man's primordial state.
Can I suggest that people read Hegel? He was a hermetic alchemist, and though he doesn't explicitly mention it much it is definitely influenced by it and it shows through. Everything is unities and singularities and trinities and all interrelated.
He also inspired Marx, whose philosophy is inherently Hegelian, and yeah yeah cultural marxism or whateverthefuck, but there's a distinctly occult strain in Marxism -- Pynchon makes a very perceptive comment about (in GR I think) Marxist-Leninist magicians. And some later Marxists like Debord take the play of symbols into seriously occult places.
>>7978207
>Man and His Symbols, easily. It's the most direct approach to Jung's ideas and what's great about him is that he uses the language of a scientist to help today's materialist readers (like me!) to understand perennial philosophy and the Truth that exists in man's primordial state.
Thanks man, I was thinking of getting this anyway if no one replied.
>>7978170
Material technology and spiritual technology, in Evola's view, aren't necessarily "competing."
Imagine that everyone completely stopped reading books in favor of television. It's not that television is inherently bad, but there are a lot of subtle things books can do that television can never do. Important, even vital things. But people are so wrapped up in television that they invent a sort of cult around it, where they think that television is the ONLY way to absorb stories and ideas, and that, in fact, any idea described by a book is false for the mere fact that it's in a book.
That's sort of the idea of material technology triumphing over spiritual technology. It's not one product beating out another in direct competition. It's one way of looking at the world gaining dominance and trying to discredit all others.
>>7978345
I've only read Society of the Spectacle. Where does he get into occultism?
>>7980270
Society of the Spectacle is subtly occult. If you're interested in overt occultism in situationism then try The Revolution of Everyday Life.
Any other /lit/ Freemasons here?
>>7981348
Are you an actual freemason? Do you go to meetings inside a lodge? There's a lodge near where I live (in a small, insignificant town south of mexico mind you) and I've been wondering if I should show up there one day to see what's up. A friend of mine said his father is a lodge member and that he entered the lodge in the past. He has told me a little bit about how the place looks (I recognized a lot of symbolism when he did, like the checker board floor, and, of course, the compas and square). However, when I asked him what did they talk about inside the lodge he was very quick to tell me that he couldn't tell. He says his father has a freemasonic book in his house and I've jokingly said that he should steal it for a bit or take some pictures of it so I can read what's on it and he supposedly said he'd do it, though I doubt it. He may, of course, be completely pulling my leg here; but I think I believe him.
>>7981371
Oh and he told me there's a secret knocking pattern at the door for members.
>>7981371
>>7981376
Yes, I'm a member of a lodge in Illinois. I go to lodge meeting there every month. I've only been a mason for ~1 year so far, but am familiar with it because my grandfather and great grandfather were masons as well.
If you guys are curious about masonry, just ask your friend's father. He will be happy to explain more. 2B1ASK1
>>7981396
Don't you guys make an oath of secrecy or something a long those lines? Or is there information that you're free to give out to people who are not initiated?
>>7981413
There are secrets in Freemasonry but it's mainly just the methods of recognition.
We also do make oaths but nothing in them conflicts with duties already held by a man to their religion, family, country, etc.
Normally I wouldn't recommend this series of books, but "Freemasons for Dummies" is actually really accurate and informative.
>>7981348
enjoy getting your ass torn apart by 60 year old men. It's a ring of communists and pedophiles, Hitler was right when he threw pedomasons in concentration camps desu.
Do you guys know about /x/'s Mystic Library? This is a link to it - https://mega.nz/#F!AE5yjIqB!y7Vdxdb5pbNsi2O3zyq9KQ
If anyone's got a good list of books to get into mysticism for beginners, please share it.
>>7982713
oh damn, thanks anon
>>7982713
this is one i've found.. no idea if its any good or not
>>7982713
I'm currently pursuing a BA in Jewish Thought with a focus on Medieval sources
The dumbest part of pop Kabbalah crap is that it acts as if kabbalah and rationalist Judaism are separate entities. Kabbalah is a facet of Judaism as much as keeping kosher or being anxious and neurotic, trying to sell kabbalah independent of the rest of Judaism is nonsense
My brothers, remember not to take the humid path of replacement, but to instead free the gold from the stone and take the dry path.
>>7976589
>Ya. I hear there's supposedly there's two more volumes by Evola / The UR Group in the Introduction to Magic series. Someone needs to translate :(
Shit really? I may have to learn Italian just for these.
anyone interested in discussion about Persian-Islamic mysticism?
I just sort of read things at random. The Dhammapada, High Magic: Theory and Practice, a couple of chaos magick books, Seven Sermons to the dead, The Analects, Myths to Live By and Hero of a Thousand Faces, Corpus Hermeticum, Tao Te Ching, The Portable Jung, Portable Darkness, and the Bhagavad Gita are what I've read so far. A few other things. I'm just a common lunatic though. I made a thread on /x/ once and /x/ rejected me for being too crazy.
>>7986320
Sure, although I'm pretty unfamiliar with it. Got any book recommendations?
>>7986336
of course, it was kinda shocking for me since I didn't find anything on this subject.
In Persia, Islamic mysticism started in tenth century AD, but because of political turmoil after Mongol and Turkish attacks it became widespread. It became only way to endure the situation outside and also to save Persian culture.
I'm a Persian and Rumi is perhaps our greatest and most famous mystic and poet in west. but other than that the works of Attar (especially Conference of the birds) and Sana'i are good (both of them were before Rumi and influenced him very much, in fact The Great Mathnavi was what one of his followers asked to write in answer to those works). The works of Ommar Khayyam could also be interpreted as mystic, but in west people mostly think of him as an Epicurean.
Hafiz is the greatest mystic if you're Persian. his works are ambiguous, they could be both interpreted as mysticism or earthy love between lover and beloved. It worth to learn Persian only to read Hafez.
Unfortunately not so much prose is translated in English, but there are also some deep and beautiful prose writings I would have suggested.
>>7975185
you missed the point you kookster
>>7986387
Does Islamic mysticism take influence from Hermeticism or similar ancient esoteric paths? I've been reading Rumi and noticing parallels but I'm not sure if that's coincidental.
>>7990241
Hermeticism and Islamic mysticism are both influenced by Platonism/Neoplatonism.
>>7990685
What are the most important neoplatonic works?
>>7991167
The Gospel according to John.
>>7991167
Proclus, Plotinus & Iamblichus
fuck all of you.
How would you define the esoteric meaning of the interplay between Apollonian and Dionysian energies and ideals? This is something I've been trying to conceptualize lately, and I need more perspectives
>>7992101
Read into mythologies and mystery cults.
bum[p
