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The "What Occult Books are you currently reading" thread

  
  

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illmatic
23:40 / 28.11.03
Inspired by the perennially popular "What are you currently reading thread" over in books, I thought it would be fun to have a thread here for mini reviews and comments on occult (and related) tomes - the various reading lists on here, while normally pretty good, do tend to stick to the "canon" of well known occult works ie.Pete Caroll, Crowley etc - and, as an unrepentant biblophile, I would like the opportunity to be able to find out about books that might slip under my radar, that aren't part of the normal reading list. So, feel free to include antropological works, mytholgy, self help, even fiction.

I'll go first:

Been flicking through Dina Glouberman's excellent "Life Choices are Life Changes Through Imagework: The Art of Developing Persoanl Vision". I really, really like this book - it's guide to working with visualised images, skrying basically but taken a step further - she gives techniques for really woking with the images, something you don't find in most material on skrying - for instance interrogating the images about their history etc. It's very comprehensive as well, with chapters on Relaxation and sleep, relationships, resentments and mourning, finances, health, dreams and a lot more besides. not being a scary "occult" book, it's writen in a very unpretentious, warm, open style. Great stuff, hope I can work some of the idea in to my "toolbox" - and I was surprised to find this, in a section on "releasing":

My ten-year old daughter Chloe says putting (a visulaised image of )what she wants in a bubble does work well for her but only when shes is wishing for something that is good for other people as well as herself, and only when she is wanting it "for it's own sake" rather than to please put other people. That makes a lot of sense to me.

In a nutshell there, they've summed up the whole "without lust of result" aspect of sorcery (the tricky "letting go/forgetting" side of sigilisation) as well as addressing issues of selfishness, much discussed in threads on sorcery round here lately. I told ya it was a great book!
 
 
Boy in a Suitcase
11:31 / 29.11.03
"Occult" books I am reading:

Collected works of St. Teresa of Avila
"The Cloud of Unknowing" by Anonymous
"The Subject of Semiotics" by Kaja Silverman
The Fucking Bible (Uh that, is "The [Fucking!] Bible")
The Fucking Zohar
The Fucking Qu'ran

and my recommended book of the year for Greatworkists:

"The Tower of Alchemy" by David Goddard
 
 
illmatic
15:22 / 29.11.03
Reviews, BiaS, reviews! What did you make of David Goddard's book, I heard him lecture at Talking Stick ages ago andwasn't very impressed.
 
 
macrophage
17:20 / 29.11.03
I'm flicking thru':

"Concious Dreaming" - Robert Moss (shamanism and dreams)

"The Mayan Prophecies" - Adrian Gilbert (sunspot cycles and
astrogenetics)

"Yoga for the Athlete" - Harvey Day (straightforward asananas)

Nothing too much radical - keep meaning to start on a book on the Alexander Back Technique!!!!!!!
 
 
trouser the trouserian
11:14 / 30.11.03
Well I keep pickin up the Disinfo Book of Lies and then putting it down again. I think the fact that it's got the fuckin' Splinter Test in it means I won't be able to read it. At least it'll look good on a coffee table but that means I'll have to buy a coffee table first.
 
 
--
15:19 / 30.11.03
In the last 24 hours I've read all 45 issues that Grant Morrison wrote for "Doom Patrol". Not quite occult but my brain definetly feels a little bit warped at the moment.
 
 
adamswish
18:34 / 01.12.03
Making my way through Crowley's "Book of Thoth" for a more indepth appreciation of the tarot system I use and looking forward to pouring through DisInfo's Book of Lies once I've finished.
 
 
C.Elseware
02:29 / 02.12.03
Been reading Promethea (Quantum made me...) 'tis very good. No big revelations but some nice phrasings of things I already knew. And a comic guide to the spheres of the tree of life is pretty cool.

Other than that, I've been spending some time in the world, living, looking and listening.
 
 
Quantum
09:08 / 02.12.03
Been reading Pseudonomicon (Elseware made me) and changing my opinion of Mythos magick. Hine phrases it more as taking GOOs as totems and working with Mythos spirits, as opposed to summoning Evil Things from beyond a la Dexter Ward (although there is some of that).
It's a booklet rather than a book though, so it's a bit meaning-dense, good because it bears deeper scrutiny but difficult because you have to read it carefully.
There's a lot of stuff packed into a few pages and it relies on your knowledge of other systems and other works a bit, but then I suppose it's not a beginner's text so fair enough. I like it, but I need to read Prime Chaos and some Grant and Carroll to put it in context really. I definitely recommend it to anyone thinking about Mythos though, in fact I'll go to the Mythos thread and do that now...
(Elseware, we need to switch back- I move soon and need to reference Promethea for an article, I'll PM/text you so we can meet up for a book exchange and leaving party)
 
 
illmatic
09:26 / 03.12.03
Started reading "The Beginning Was the End" by Oscar Kiss Maerth which is a crazy book about how man came into being through apes eating each others brains. According to the O.K.M., they did this because they found it sexually gratifiying and the result was an enlarged but diseased and unatural intelligence (ie us). Explains a lot when you look at the world around us. It's okay so far but I'm wondering whether I can actually be bothered to finish it, once the "this is weird" novelty value wears off. No references or index, a lot of it appears to have been channeled. This book was an influenc on the band Devo ie Devolution, rather than evolution. If anyone knowa anything else about him, please let me know.
 
 
trouser the trouserian
09:40 / 03.12.03
Well Burroughs has characters using brains as botty lube, but eating brains for sexual gratification? The mind boggles...
 
 
macrophage
09:58 / 03.12.03
Eating brains???? Reminds of seeing the 'Animals' film for the first time abroad, what with some folks chowing down to monkey brains - yeeeucchhhh!!!!!!! Ever heard of Kuru - y'get it from snorting brain matter, some of the cannibal tribes where into it. I think ther's some sorta link from Kuru to CJD??!!! There will always be a special place in my small head for Burroughs - 1st author I independently read in my teens apart from the usual horror (puberty essential?!) - blew me away duw to its other-wordliness. I can't believe I sold all my old stufff of his, and that I lost all the spoken word tapes I used to have boo hoo!!!!! I'm interested in getting a hold of 'City Magick' - is it any good?????!!!!
 
 
Frater Pontikos
12:11 / 03.12.03
So a group of friends and I started working our way through the exercises in Quantum Psychology a few months ago... It has been illuminating. I first read the book several years ago in High School, but since I lacked discipline or occult friends, I never even started the exercises. I remain fairly convinced that RAW's admonition to to do them in conjunction with reading the book presents than merely reading the book. Once we finish QP, we plan to start on a group discussion of Prometheus Rising or The Invisibles (with the Disinfo guide, of course!)
 
 
illmatic
12:21 / 03.12.03
People say "City Magick" is good. I had a look through it in the bookshops and it didn't look fantastic to me, but maybe I'll give it another go sometime.
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
12:33 / 03.12.03
I thought City Magick was a bit crap to be honest. Some interesting ideas here and there, but I felt that the author kept diluting his ideas by being too prescriptive and derivative of other sources. If you can imagine Michael Harner's 'Way of the Shaman' material applied pretty directly to an urban context and mixed up with a few formulaic riffs on the situationist derive. It's OK I suppose, but pretty basic stuff. I think the mistake he makes is trying to write for an audience unfamiliar with magical ideas, so a lot of it is presented very simply in a 'beginners guide to the occult' way - which is a bit frustrating because too much page space is given over to that aspect at the expense of the relatively under-exposed urban shaman material.
 
 
EvskiG
13:21 / 03.12.03
I've been reading The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage in conjunction with 21st Century Mage. Both books deal with the Abremelin operation, an intensive six-month program for obtaining the "knowledge and conversation of your Holy Guardian Angel."

The first book is surprisingly sane and reasonable for a supposedly 15th Century magical treatise. "Abraham the Jew" seems to have been the chaos magician of his time. He states that almost anyone, male or female, of whatever occupation or religion, can complete the Abramelin operation, and repeatedly encourages the aspirant to create and use his or her own rituals and invocations. The operation itself requires a lot of focus, and is fairly time-intensive, but seems totally doable in 2-4 hours a day over the course of six months.

The second book fleshes out and updates the Abramelin operation for modern times. Again, very sane, reasonable and flexible.

If I were single, had a bit more free time, and a lot more willpower and focus, I'd love to do it.
 
 
trouser the trouserian
13:51 / 03.12.03
evskig
there are some who say (Pete Carroll, for one) that "Abra-melin" was created by Magregor Mathers.
 
 
EvskiG
14:49 / 03.12.03
From what I understand, German editions of the Abramelin text date back to 1608.

There's a modern German edition published by George Dehn that's much more comprehensive than the Mathers edition, incorporating at least eight different versions of the original. Unfortunately, I can't read it.

More info on the German edition is at:

http://www.esotericarchives.com/abramelin/abramelin.htm
 
 
illmatic
14:51 / 03.12.03
What did you make of "21st Centurt Mage"? There's a thread on it somewhere round here.
 
 
Quantum
15:11 / 03.12.03
City Magick- I liked it but agree with Gypsy, there was too much basic stuff and not enough 'How to summon a steel elemental'.
I like Penczak's style though, he also wrote 'The Inner Temple Of Witchcraft' which is a good intro/intermediate level general book. I'd give a copy to someone just starting into magick, but it's kind of like the magick equivalent of Harry Potter, accessible but populist.

On the Abramelin, to do it properly don't you have to go out into the desert at the finale and fuck Crowley in the arse and go mad? Or maybe take some poor sap into the desert and sacrifice him so you can complete it (and get fucked in the arse..)
There's easier ways to get to the same state IMHO. ('Gonna take you to a gay bar, gay bar, gay bar...)
 
 
EvskiG
17:08 / 03.12.03
21st Century Mage is quite good. It starts by dispelling all sorts of myths about the Abramelin operation, including the idea that you have to go out into the desert (or fuck Crowley in the ass) to succeed.

Basically, all you need is (1) a reasonably clean and quiet room, or part of a room, where you can work uninterrupted; (2) a few props, most of which probably could be dispensed with; (3) time, ranging from roughly two hours a day toward the beginning of the operation to roughly four hours a day toward the end; (4) a huge amount of willpower and a fair amount of intelligence and imagination; and (5) a reasonably stable personal life for the space of six months.

The operation itself essentially involves purification, prayer, confession and contemplation, and gradually becomes more and more intense (and takes more and more time) over the course of six months. The author of 21st Century Mage offers several examples of how the work can be done with conventional religious prayer, yoga, ritual magic, the Bornless ritual, or a variety of other techniques. From a review of the original Abramelin text, all of these methods seem acceptable.

Personally, I don't think I currently have the time, willpower, or stability necessary for the operation. But perhaps someday.
 
 
The Fourth
20:10 / 03.12.03
I'm reading 'Kundalini, the secret of life' by Swami Muktananda. I really like it, best of all it is only 45 pages long. The material is presented really simply but actually contains some complex ideas, or it puts ideas simply that are usually explained complexly! It describes Kundalini experience and awakening as something divine that can happen to anyone spontaneously, that can be arived at through various techniques such as meditation, devotion, yoga etc or can be initiated by the intervention of guru. It is achievable, it will not send you mad or make you into a egotistical Siddha toting mega tantric or get you millions of quids quick. The book describes various peoples experiences of Kundalini and tells some nice myth and legend type stories too. Ooh, and I'm not sure but I think it might be saying that Kundalini is shiva consciousness awakened into a shakti state, or at least that is my understanding. As you can see I've being quite touched by it. And there was I thinking it was a slim volume I could manage over several nights read without too much trouble... I will let you know more when I've finished it, if I'm still here so to speak!!!
 
 
farseer /pokes out an i
13:27 / 04.12.03
I've been reading Katsuki Sekida's Zen Training, in order to provide me with more meditative techniques and control.

I've also had a blast doing the group exercises in Quantum Psychology (which I look at as pretty much the same mystery school information presented in a 'westernized' format...)
 
 
EvskiG
18:07 / 05.12.03
Lately I've been running through the A.'.A.'. student syllabus: the books Crowley recommended reading for a solid theoretical background before commencing ritual work:

The Writings of Chang-Tsu
The Tao Te Ching
Raja Yoga, Swami Vivekananda
The Shiva Sanhita or The Hathayoga Pradipika
The Spiritual Guide, Miguel de Molinos
The Goetia
The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage
The Dogma and Ritual of High Magic, Eliphas Levi
777, Aleister Crowley
Konx Om Pax, Aleister Crowley
Tannhauser/The Sword of Song/Time/Eleusis, Aleister Crowley
The Equinox, Aleister Crowley et al.

But I wonder -- now, almost 100 years later, is this syllabus really the best set of books for an all-around introduction to magic and the (historical and modern) esoteric tradition? What would a modern introductory syllabus look like?

Limiting the series to 12 books, here’s what I'd choose:

The Yoga Sutras, Patanjali (B.K.S. Iyengar translation)
The Tao Te Ching, Lao Tsu (Jonathan Star translation)
The Three Pillars of Zen, Kapleau (or The Way of Zen, Alan Watts)
The Golden Bough, J.G. Frazer (single volume edition)
The Essential Golden Dawn, Chic and Tabitha Cicero
Book 4 (parts I and II), Aleister Crowley
The Tree of Life, Israel Regardie
Drawing Down the Moon, Margot Adler
Prometheus Rising, Robert Anton Wilson
Condensed Chaos, Phil Hine
Promethea (Volumes 1-4), Alan Moore
An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural, James Randi (or the debunking book of your choice)

Any thoughts?
 
 
Salamander
18:28 / 05.12.03
"The Hermetic Tradition" by Julias Evola
 
 
rizla mission
20:27 / 05.12.03
I'm having a bash at a hardback edition of Crowley's "Magick", which I found in a charity shop for a sweet £4.

I've long been under the impression that Crowley's work is largely power-tripping obscurist abstract bollocks (I suppose starting with 'the Book of Lies' does that to you), but I'm actually finding it really straightforward and enjoyable. He goes through the same stages as all the modern magick manuals - concentration exercises, meditation etc., but with a strangely refreshing old fashioned British Empire sort of tone.. none of that "hey, anybody can do magick, it's fun" stuff, he's more like "do this for four hours everyday for a fucking YEAR and then maybe you'll be getting somewhere and can move onto step 2". Somehow I find that a lot more honest and encouraging, which is strange I know, but there you go.. he also goes into really, really precise detail about what problems and effects are likely to be encountered at every stage of the process.. which is nice.
 
 
EvskiG
20:38 / 05.12.03
Wait until you get to the bit with the razor.
 
 
Adam Shame
21:18 / 05.12.03
Three Books of Occult Philosophy Henry Cornelious Agrippa
Sepher Yetzirah:Book of Formation
Nightside of Eden Kenneth Grant
The Book of Raziel
The Hemetica
Kabballah for the Modern World
Sephira of Numbers
The Book of Enoch the Prophet
Liber CXI: Liber Aleph - The Book of Wisom or Folly
Isis Unveiled / The Cosmic Doctrine H.P. Blavatsky
Sepher Denudata Mathers
 
 
The Fourth
20:57 / 06.12.03
glad to read someones scanning Book of Thoth and listing it here. This is one of my desert island books. That along with Thundersqueek. Don't make me choose, please. One has the knowledge the other the attitude!!! Both are utterly correct., stand up straight at the back! Kundalini Mukta geezer's starting to piss me off. Telling a lot of stuff about the needing of guru which wasn't at first apparent (to me) and which I don't plumb a line with. Hmm.... Nope have thought about it, and don't hold with it. Guru is cool, but don't ned it, especially when in same book it is recognised that the spontaneous factor is valid (apparently needs guidance of guru tho') but what happens if you don't don't have one or are rockin' ur cosmos without one? Sit o my finger .... oh I so get angry with these 'you need my knowledge/lineage types...' still havent't finished those 45 pages yet tho' aybe I'll re-convert before the end! ha ha...

Don't just read the The Book of Thoth, I presume you doing tarot work too? With attributable deck.
 
 
illmatic
11:26 / 08.12.03
Riz: What edition have you got? I assume it's one of the editions with the raja yoga stuff at the front. I think this known as "Book 4" part one. You've got a bargain if you've got RKP edition with notes by John Symonds and Kenneth Grant, I found their notes very useful. It does get very obscure in the third section, lots of Crowley's qabalistic codings. I like his severity at times,esp in these days of po-mo slackness, but think you can fuck yourself up with it. I buggered up my toe for a few days doing his stupid suggestion of sitting in really uncomfortable meditation postures. There's no need to half kill yourself.

Eveskig: I always thought that list of Crowley's was a bit ridiculous. It'd take you too long to assimilate and think through that material, though they are good books to have around to refer to as and when inspiration takes you. Good books in your subsitute syllabus, will post if I think of anymore.
 
 
rizla mission
12:41 / 08.12.03
You've got a bargain if you've got RKP edition with notes by John Symonds and Kenneth Grant, I found their notes very useful. It does get very obscure in the third section, lots of Crowley's qabalistic codings. I like his severity at times,esp in these days of po-mo slackness, but think you can fuck yourself up with it.

Hey, it is the RKP with Symonds/Grant notes. Gear.

And obviously I'm still taking Crowley with a pretty massive pinch of salt (the "if a dog barking should disturb your meditation - SHOOT IT!" bit is pretty funny), but then I'm not really looking to undertake an intense course of magickal development at the moment either - just dabbling, as ever.
 
 
ghadis
14:44 / 08.12.03
Dipping in and out of Disinfos' BOOK OF LIES. Some good stuff but, as others have mentioned, a lot of stuff thats been seen before. Liked Orridges Magic Squares essay and Hakim Bey is always worth re-reading. Also really enjoyed the extract from Daniel Pinchbecks' BREAKING OPEN THE HEAD. Got hold of a copy of the book soon after and it's really good. It follows Pinchbecks explorations into Shamanism and psychedelics such as Iboga,DMT,Ayauasca and others in such diverse locations as Gabon, New York, Mexico and the Burning Man festival.

This caused a bit of a spurt of drug related reading and i'm just finishing up Rick Strassmans DMT: THE SPIRIT MOLECULE. Facinating book. Strassman was the first doctor in the US to gain DEA approvel for clinical research into the effects of psychedelics on humans for 20years. In this case he chose to use DMT on 60 subjets at the University of New Mexico. DMT is endogenous and it's Strassmans theory that it is produced in the Pineal gland (amongst other places) in order to release a high dose at certain stress points of a persons life. This includes birth, death and spiritual experiences (as well as 'accidental' alien abductee scenarios). He sees a parallel between the Pineal and Sahasara (or crown cakra). One of his theorys that i found particauly interesting is that the pineal develops in the fetus at 7 weeks along with either male or female organs. This ties in with the 49 days it takes for a soul to find and enter a new body according to the Tibetan Book of the Dead and other buddist thoughts. He suggests that at 49days the newly developed pineal lets loose a burst of DMT that draws the soul into the body acting almost like a radio transmitter. I find that idea quite beautiful for some reason. Some of the case studies are facinating, full of all the 'elves', 'aliens', and 'death/rebirth experiences' you'd expect from reading mckenna et al. Not sure that i agree with some of the stuff he suggests and his role as 'scientist' in the studies start to look slightly dubious at times when his desire to 'prove' a spiritual basis for the drug comes to the fore. Still a great book and much needed if any kind of research is ever going to get past current draconian idiotic approches to drugs.

Also read '21st CENTUARY MAGE' as mentioned by others above. To be honest i wasn't that impressed. Some interesting bits of history on the Abramelin i suppose but what it seemed to boil down to is that you can gain access/contact to your HGA through a pronlonged period of work consisting of an Oath, Yoga, Prayer, personal Ritual and a few hours set aside each day without worrying about all that old-fashioned stuff about not sleeping with your wife when she is 'unclean' and shunning all society exept your servents. Well like Duh!

SEX MAGIC, TANTRA & TAROT by Hyatt and DuQuette was also pretty disapointing. There seems to be a bit of a cash cow thing with these at New Falcon endlessly regurgitating the same pages through a number of books. They also seem to have sussed that they can sell the same book again if you add the words SEX on the cover. Best thing about it is an essay by Phil Hine on Sexual Magic: A Chaos Perspective.

Re-reading KUNDALINI TANTRA by Swami Satyananda Saraswati and working through some of the cakra exercises. Good stuff if proberly a bit advanced for me to be honest.

As for fiction i finally got hold of THE ARABIAN NIGHTMARE by Robert Irwin which i'm just a few pages shy of finishing and it's become one of my favourite books ever! It follows Balian, a Christian pilgrim in Cairo in 1486 and his encounters with various characters in a story within a story, dream within a dream Arabian Nights way. He's pursued by the Father of Cats, who has knowledge and mastery of the Nine Dream Zones of the World of Images or Alam al-Mithal, and his disciple the sinister english alchemist Michael Vane. He meets Fatima The Deathly, Yoll The Storyteller and the prostitute Zuleyka who teaches him serpent techniques such as Karezza, the Dolorous Kiss and the Abyssian. Throughout the book hangs the spectre of the sleeping disease The Arabian Nightmare and the coming of the 5th Messiah. An absolute stunning book full of Sufi magick, weird drugs, sinister dwarfs and talking apes. Like Borges, Calvino and City of the Red Night era Burroughs. If you like them you'll love this. I'm raving i know.

Next up is Kenneth Grants last two books of fiction, Snakewand and Gamaliel.
 
 
adamswish
16:58 / 08.12.03
Don't just read the The Book of Thoth, I presume you doing tarot work too? With attributable deck.

Don't worry I dip into my crowley deck ever now and then. Amazing what you find when you take a magnifying glass to the designs and see the little details you've just read about.
 
 
Quantum
10:00 / 09.12.03
Looked at my pile of books to read, there's Magick (that same hardback edition, cool!) that I've been dipping in for quotes, Breaking open the head (ditto) and Cynthia Giles' Tarot near the top, which is extremely good.
The Arabian Nightmare sounds great, I'm going to ask for it for Xmas

Anyone read any Ramsay Dukes?
 
 
trouser the trouserian
10:15 / 09.12.03
Anyone read any Ramsay Dukes?

Yeah, he's, well ... just the bollocks, really!

There's an article by him here and a load more here together with info on his books 'n' stuff.
 
  

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