As for pfding it... Well, I do have a scanner, but it's horribly slow and it would take forever to scan every page, and I just don't have the patience for that kind of thing. I don't even know how to make pfd documents as it is. However, if someone has a faster scanner and would be willing I could loan you my copy if you'd like and you can do it. It's a really thick book though so you'd probably have to unbind it to get the pages in a suitably flat position to scan.
I'm almost done reading it and hope to write a review soon. There aren't many details about this book which accounts for the air of mystery around it. For now here's a summarized version of the table of contents, so maybe you can see what the book's about and decide if it's worth your while to investigate. The workbook is split into four parts (I presume that each part represents a course in Bertiaux's 4 year course system, though I may be wrong). These parts are broken down into chapters, which in turn are broken down into "lessons", most of which are 2-4 pages but generally fall into the three page range. There is also a glossary at the end with 29 entries (not in alphabetical order). Sadly, no index. I should also point out that it appears that the book is unedited as there are many typos throughout the text, though this may be the typist's fault, I don't know.
Part One is called "Voudoo Energies" and it is split into eight chapters. Chapter one is called "The Power of the Spirits" (contains :Who can be a big lucky hoodoo, the most lucid section and my introduction to this work), chapter two is called "Ghuede Grimoire", chapter three is "The Magickal System", chapter 4 is "Heavy Hoodoo Spells (HHS)", chapter 5 is "Guzette Outlines of Esoteric Voudoo", chapter 6 is "The Genuis of the IFA", chapter 7 is "Experimental Theology of Osiris-Legbha", and chapter 8 is "Voudoo and Atlantean Research". Lessons deal with how to be a lucky Hoodoo, the lwa families, "hot points", the Ghuedhe Grimoire, astrology, Good UFOs and Bad UFOs (Invisible fans should find that section interesting in light of Jim Crow), Angelic Germatria, Neo-Pythagoream Gnostic Reduction, Aiwaz-Physics, the I-Ching, ojas, Atlantis, and the IFA (I don't know what the IFA stands for but Bertiuax thinks it's important... In fact, easily over a hundred pages throughout the book are devoted to it). This Part is probably the easiest and most enjoyable to read.
Part Two is called "Gnostic Energies". Chapter 1 is "Zothyrian Metapsychology", chapter 2 is "The Physics of the New Aeon of the Gnosis", chapter 3 is "Gnostic Energies in Esoteric Hinduism", chapter 4 is "A Magickal Technology", chapter 5 is "Magnetic Materials and Gnostic Genetics", chapter 6 is "Zothyrian Physics and radio-Psychology", and chapter 7 is "The Technology of Applied Gnosis". Topics and lessons include: The Zothyrian Empire, lattice systems, the Meon, the Logos, Computer Programming, Gnostic Physics, the Aeon of Maat, Transyuggothian Powers, Vudutronics, Gnostic Zoology, Aracheometrical Biology, Gnostic Genetics, esoteric Healing, Choronzon, Null Spaces, Yuggothian Matrices, The Stanzas of Dzyan, Lovecraftian Great Old One color codes, and a lot of other bizarre stuff.
Part Three is called "Elemental Sorcery". Chapter 1 is "Zothyrian Topology", chapter 2 is "The Theory of teh Magickal Heat", chapter 3 is "The Erotic Function of the Future Aeon", chapter 4 is "The Shintotronic System of Gnostic Magick", chapter 5 is "Imagination and Physics in Shintotronics", chapter 6 is "The Magician is always a medium", chapter 7 is "Applied Sorcery and Erotic Magick", and chapter 8 is "The occult powers and the elemental energies". Lessons include Zothyrian Toplogies, Magickal Heat, Shintotronics, Occult Atoms, Plutonian Magick, Hiroyuki Fukuda, and the world of Oerg-8, a biohuminoid who lives in a futuristic world controlled by "The System" and powered by neo-orgonomy, in which humans are bred for the sole purpose of generating orgone energy to power the Gnostic computers are servo-mechanisms that control society (shades of the Matrix, or, as Bertiaux sometimes spells it, the Ma'atrix). This particular section reads like out-and-out science fiction with it's talk of cloning, weird genetics, mutants and computer-controlled societies.
Finally, Part Four is "Elemental Theogony" and chapter 1 is called "Mystical Theogony and the occult imagination", chapter 2 is "The occult kingdom of the holy spirits", 3 is "The kingdom of the spirits and the becoming of the gods", 4 is "The esoteric roots ofthe Gnostic Powers", 5 is "The Acualization of the Gnostic Powers", 6 is "Finality: Angelic languages", 7 is "The Gnosis of the Spiritiual Life", 8 is "Finality: The Sanctuary of the Gnosis", and 9 is "Finality: The Eternal Battleground of the Gnosis". I haven't read all that much of this section but it seems to be more along the lines of traditional Gnosticism and Gnostic Cosmology.
That's a lot of text to slog through. Kenneth Grant's books seem like a walk in the park now by comparison. There IS some very good stuff here, it's just buried under page after page of repetition. It's probably best to read it in small doses. I've read about 100 pages these last two days and gotten a bastard of a headache for my troubles. Certain words appear over and over again: Dialectical, Phenomenological", "Radio-Topology", "transyuggothian", "Hylomorphic Ontology", "Neo-Pythagoream", "Vudutronics", "Hyperspatial", "Necronomicon Physics", and the like. Not that this is a bad thing, mind (I love bizarre sounding pseudo-scientific occult words and at times it all seems quite poetic) it's just that 500+ pages of these words gets very tiring afterwards. I don't know how many times the word "computer" is used either, but he uses it a lot and I'm not quite sure exactly what type of computer he's talking about, but my gut tells me it's not the kind you can buy at Staples. |
