Western esotericism

Elaborate on what you mean by esotericism, and specifically WESTERN esotericism

It's fucking based

>>1472088
Basically it means I believe my train of thought has become so fanatical and factual in a particular subject that when I speak about it I sound insane. My train of thought in particular has been on human nature, which is the nature to survive.

It's regarded as "discarded knowledge" or can be summed up as any scientific theory not accepted by the mainstream science community.

>>1472091
Why do you think that though? What do you like about it?

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>>1472101
>I believe my train of thought has become so fanatical and factual in a particular subject

But what is that 'particular subject'? Have you just spent too much time on /x/ or is there a descriptive word for your belief system?

>>1472196
well I believe in enlightenment through discovery of ones self

Esoterics are basically people that seek to obtain deeper knowledge about the world, life, metaphysical processes in order to utilize their knowledge to transform the environment. They seem to have benign intentions which stem from their belief, mainly in that the body is the reflection of the world and vice versa, so to keep the world healthy you need to purge the body.
They are often associated with magic and mysticism simply because all of them utilize similar tools to achieve their purposes, namely the use of mind altering techniques to enter states of consciousness where brain processes change in such a way that allows the individual to gain visions, revelations and deeper knowledge about subject matters, knowledge which is often difficult or impossible to achieve in normal everyday life.
These people were often misunderstood and deemed "crazy" because their practices had this very obvious intoxicating side effect which scared people.

>>1472298
Wow that's a really good explanation. Yeah that's what I believe, because I have experienced it myself.

>>1472313
care to share your experience(s)?

>>1472083
>esotericism
so you're into the new age movement?

>>1472325
no fuck that they believe in angels and shit

>>1472323
I inquired deeply into the nature of myself, that is who I am and what I do and why I do all those things. Came to find out it stems from desire, pleasure, pain, etc all complex feelings. So I regarded these feelings as a mechanism ingrained in me to survive, as all my mechanisms are. But I always assumed I could be a slave to survival, that I would always be this way because I was.

Until I destroyed the 'me', the controller, that very survival instinct. I destroyed it because I overcame all fear, I knew what fear was and abolished it inside me. And the moment I did that I had my mystical experience, that I describe that as for a mere instant, I experienced what it meant to truly be nothing. In that moment I was nothing. And the next instant I came back to right where I was last instant and realized yes, I truly am nothing and so is everything I've ever seen, believed or experienced. And I was enlightened, liberated. I don't suffer from depression anymore like I used to.

>>1472335
Interesting. What is your outlook on life as a whole, is it optimistic or something else?
In my "realization" moment that transformed me, what I understood was that life is a complex machine, and I am part of it. That's it, that is all it took to change me. Suddenly I had no more fear and worries. It meant that what I was doing, what everything was doing, was just what it was supposed to be doing from the beginning. Everything is working just fine, just as intended. It was like a reassuring pat on the back from life itself, as if saying "haha everything is ok bro just keep living". I felt that things are falling into place, concepts became much more connected and "whole".

>>1472335
experienced something like this myself

it's legit

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>Basically it means I believe my train of thought has become so fanatical and factual in a particular subject that when I speak about it I sound insane. My train of thought in particular has been on human nature, which is the nature to survive.

>>1472357
I would have to agree with you, since I agree that everything is nothing and you are also nothing, so you are a 'part' of nothing but really that's silly because nothing is always whole, even when exposed to time.

Yeah I know I sound nuts but I agree with you.

I feel at peace. I feel I know everything I've ever needed to know. And now all I want to do is share the truth I have found with other people. But if people don't want to hear that truth than that is okay too, because everyone should be able to do as they want, right?

It's definitely positive. I feel unconditional love for life. And never any fear unless I get lost in 'myself'.
>>1472361
It is but everyone calls us crazy when we mention it. Why is that?

>>1472101
>My train of thought in particular has been on human nature, which is the nature to survive.

That's false. Evolution only created us to be able to produce and ensure the survival of offspring, which often does but does not always mean ensuring our own survival. Parents will risk dying to save their children. Men will risk dying to save their women. Hell, the very fact that we die is because we are programmed to do so so we don't suck up our kid's resources.

>>1472369
it hit me when I realized I am "it" and "it" is me, what else could I be? now I'm like metaphysically cooling

i want to share it with everyone too but words can't do the job. not gonna lie being completely alone with these kinds of experiences can really suck too

>>1472373
Nobody dies unless they believe they are dying for a greater cause, which is survival of that cause. For example dying for your children is to ensure their survival that you view as more valuable than your own. And yes, we die because we are conscious inside an immortal vessel. All in the name of survival.

>>1472373
you're like a baby to me, man

>>1472375
yeah but you and I aren't alone even if we describe it differently because written language is hard to use to describe it. It's impossible to always not be 'me', and 'me' feels fear. I was scared that I was the only one who knew the truth to, but thanks to the joys of the technology of the internet we know we are not alone.

>>1472369
>It's definitely positive. I feel unconditional love for life. And never any fear unless I get lost in 'myself'.
Yeah that's expected. We are humans after all.

>It is but everyone calls us crazy when we mention it. Why is that?
Because people fear that which is strange, and for good reason. When one of your species is "acting up" - showing abnormal behavior - it triggers emotions which tells people that you are "strange", hence you are labelled crazy. Since you cannot convey 100% of your experiences to people, there is a barrier which does not allow them to interpret what you are saying in a way that they can understand by integrating their current knowledge with your experience. Nobody is faulty here really.

>>1472388
You speak in truths, very clearly and very well. That means you must think like I do. I didn't even know people like me were called esoteric until I spoke to a guy who was familiar with spiritualism.

I always identified myself as nobody, but no one truly understands what you're saying when you call yourself nobody.

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>>1472101
>>1472083
Esoteric refers to religious knowledge not readily available to the layman (or at least, not made so by the religious authorities). This would include things such as Jewish Kabbalism and the "feminine aspect of Yahweh".

You can't really "be" esoteric. You can be studied in one or more esoteric aspects of one or more religions, but it isn't a religion or belief system unto itself.

>>1472401
Yea people like us are out there. Some are called mystics, some priests, others occultists. In past time they were called prophets and seers. Esoteric does well in that it is a more broad term.
Anyway, I'm going to bed, It was good talking to you my man.

>>1472335
u had a few moments like that when i went through puberty and in college. I think a lot of people have a personal revelation around that time.

>>1472335
>>1472361
i experienced this, too. i am pretty sure it was ego death. it's a temporary experience but one that leaves a lasting mark.

OP has returned if anyone has any questions. I like to inquire with others into the seeking of truth.

>>1474425
Do you subscribe to any system? What are your personal views on the big questions? Have you read any esoteric philosophy?

If I remember to later I'm going to bump with passages from my favorite esoteric writings

>>1474453
I do not claim to be a label or part of any organization, system or allegiance. I am nobody, and nobody cannot have any relation to anything.

The big question, if I may clarify, is then what is true? Right? We all want to know what the absolute truth is. That absolute truth is nothing, the eternal, the timeless. It is that everything is actually nothing, because everything is something and nothing is something. I know that makes no sense to you, but its true.

No I have read no philosophy, I came to find out I was esoteric after I had my mystical experience. Please do post your favorites passages, I'd like to see them.

>>1474466
I will as soon as I get home.


That said, nope, that makes perfect sense to me. it's exactly the same truth I've arrived at myself. Everything else is an emptiness and a fullness, emptiness because we are not the absolute ourselves and are subject to causality, fullness because we are expressions of the truth in our own way.

You're not alone.

>>1472083
what esotericism exactly
medieval hermeticism? 19th century occult? neo-shamanist/pagan practices? post-modern chaos magic? Christian mysticism?

Personally I've read Liber Null and Psychonaut and found the philosophy behind chaos magic very interesting, as well as the scientific theories surrounding it.
Carroll's idea is that magicians of the modern age use maths instead of totems in order to influence the tides of causality.

Traditional man considered every object as a symbol, and every action as a ritual.

>>1474580
Every symbol is an object as an object created within the mind. Every action is a ritual based on knowledge the mind has accumulated. So as I'm saying, it's all in your mind.

>>1474576
All that is 'real' that you see IS math. It is nothing but the human perception of math. The very study of math is to uncover how the universe works. I am OP and I used to be a mathematician.

>>1474595
I find it interesting how if we are math we must inquire into the nature of math. Because math is so much more vast than our knowledge, which must be acquired through time. But math occurs and has been occurring at a much faster rate than we can possibly as humans achieve knowledge. But we know that knowledge is essential to our survival as a species. Isn't it all so incredibly liberating to think about?

>>1474595
yes and no
math is just a representation, an abstraction of reality into a form we can understand and play with.
now I've never taken higher maths, that is the truly advanced stuff but from what I have seen of it it borders on philosophy but with formula in the place of ideas.

this is why I find Chaos Magic interesting, at least from the philosophical side, it does away completely with the mysticism and boils things down to the basic components.

I've never tried it myself but I'd like to soon.

here's a good intro into it.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLD00734E0C2F7E9D5

>>1474622
Higher level math requires a fundamental understanding of critical thinking skills. That is if we have an entire class of theories, and we say x is equal to these theories. Then we are asking is x true of y is true? Where y is a separate set of theories, then you have to understand entirely what the actuality of x and y are to be able to discriminate whether they are the same or not, that is true.

It allows very complex ideas to be represented as one idea of symbol, then to work with that compressed idea or symbol in its full actuality but actually realize what you are doing with it. It is on the spectrum of higher level thought and its why we think mathematicians are so smart, or even a little crazy.

>>1472083
Western Esotericism is the continuation of the truth given to us by Plato of the Archetypal reality underlying our material existence. Through the further synthesizing of this current by Plotinus, Augustine, Jung, Joseph Campbell, we realize that we are but a shadow of the true metaphysical reality of Form.

This truth allows us to pull back the veil and see the infinite divinity of existence as personified by the Angel of light, our guide and ascended brother.

We can transcend this existence and become the Nietzschean Overman through our apotheosis and experience of the divine light.

Simply put, Western Esotericism is the continuation of the teachigs of the Mystery Schools from ancient Egypt (some say it goes back to the dawn of man, a la Snake in Eden) that seek to bring Man away from his lowly position to become one with the infinite. In a more pragmatic fashion, it is the desire for full spectrum dominance of manifest existence.

>>1474637
Math is Platonic as well, which is why it ties in with Esotercism. Geometry is the study of shapes that have never existed in the material world, they only exist in the Archetypal reality we can access through the human mind. We then apply the knowledge we glean from this metaphysical source to adapt our flawed reality and create our own Garden of Eden.

>>1474576
It's the stream of light coming to us since the dawn of man as carried in the Form of Plato, the Transmigration of Plotinus, Augustine's Theology, Jungs Archetypes, and Campbell's Monomyth. It is the method of tearing back the veil to see the true and pure underlying reality of which we are a shadow.

>>1474800
>>1474815
>>1474826

I agree with you but you speak very theosophical while I prefer to make my own definitions which are not 'beings' but forces.

>>1474834
I love that man, well said.
I use anthropomorphization as a tool to gain access to certain states, but they are undoubtedly flawed. I believe their is a conciousness there, but at such a state of existence that it would be inseparable from a force. The forms of divinity are simply symbols that let one access these forces to a greater or lesser degree. Similar to how modern qabalists work.

>>1474847
It's weird, because I used to be a scientist. A scientist of truth. A philosopher. And now I am enlightened, spiritually at peace. But I don't believe in the spirit, only the eternal nothing that I am. I tried to tell my parents what happened to me once and they tried to have me locked up in a mental ward.

>>1474875
I've posted about my experiences and have been laughed at. I used to be an edgy fedora and now I'm sitting pretty on the other end of the spectrum. I'm not at peace with myself and my station in life, but I'm at total peace with the big picture and so grateful for existence

>>1474875
The infinite is neither being nor non-being, some struggle with this. However, I would be careful not to dip into nothingness just yet. Tie yourself to existence for a good while longer. It's just too much fun.

>>1474889
I believe in existence with observation. If I'm dead than I can't observe, but to me what I observed that was eternal was nothing. That I was nothing, and through that I perceive everything.

>>1474885
You say it as if you are glad to be from yourself, but that you can't actually be anyone but yourself so sometimes you are confined in the illusion.

>>1474826
>Form of Plato, the Transmigration of Plotinus, Augustine's Theology, Jungs Archetypes, and Campbell's Monomyth

So...gnosticism?
Put Sophia on the phone when you visit anon.

>>1474901
Gnosticism generally has a negative view of existence. Hermeticism is closer but they are still slightly pessimistic about life. I see the Platonic forms and giving a numinous quality to existence not as a reason to deny existence itself.

But, yes brother, Sophia is the light of the world, for she taught the sexual secrets to Eve through which life ascends.

I've always found the tantric conception of the universe as the "play" or "dance" of the immortal divine principle very illuminating.

So we exist because we can, and everything's gonna be okay cause there's nothing to fear and nowhere to go

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>>1474800
this post makes the most sense to me in this whole thread. I have a hard time understanding the rest of the thread.

I'd ask OP to recommend some esoteric texts that I could read and did he derive his explanation of esotericism from these text and what passages in particular.

but I have feeling hes just making shit up and just assuming his own thoughts are truth which is self evident.

>>1474940
Sure brother, but a lot is my conception, that's the point of esotericism, the gnosis of divinity.

I'll give you the academic sources though.

Western Esoteric Traditions by Clarke
-best I troduction there is and probably what you're looking for.

Corpus Hermeticum
-The cornerstone of Western Esotericims

Gnostic Texts
-A good understanding of Gnosticism is important.

Plato/Plotinus
-there's too much to say, but understand the theory of Forms and the transmigration of the soul

Augustine
-He applies the Platonic view to Christianity and forever changes western theology.

Jung
-modern master, once again too much to say, but start with "Man and His Symbols."
-understand archetypes, collective unconscious, active imagination.

Joseph Campbell
-Hero with a Thousand Faces, a continuation of the Platonic truth as manifested in myth. All stories are one, the Perennial Philosophy.

-Alchemy, Astrology, Greek and Egyptian Myth is good, Christianity, Gnosticism, a good bit of Eastern thought.

-Theosoohy is alright with Blavatsky.

-You'll run into a fair bit of Crowley in this line of thought so it's good to be familiar with him.

That's a good basis achademically speaking. But like I say, you gotta experience it or it's just words on a page.

>>1474967
You really need some Guenon, Evola, and Schuon

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>>1474967
ok thanks. sorry if i misunderstood you. ive read some of corpus hermeticum online, wish i had a print copy. I know a good amount of the leads in your post.

ever come across Lesser keys of solomon or Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie?

>>1474984
Thanks brother.
I haven't had any experience with the Traditionalist School at all, but I identify deeply with the Perennial Philosophy as manifested in Western Culture.

Where would you recommend I start.

>>1474998
Definitely get the Corpus translated by Copenhaver, it's the best out there and comes with an excellent introduction.

Eliphas Levi and the Lesser Keys are really important modern Hermetic magicians. You'll most often see them in connection to Diabolist types who want to summon demons and such.

It's kinda funny, cause Levi was a hardcore Catholic but influenced a huge current of Satanism in modernity, especially with his Baphomet.

Both are important to metaphysical and esoteric studies, no occult library would be complete without them. Not great starting points but important texts.

An interesting side note, Crowley believed himself to be Levi reincarnated. He also played around with the Lesser Keys. So if this stuff draws your attention I would give Crolwey, Regardie, etc. a look.

>>1475005
Honestly, man, if you feel you got a good handle on this stuff is recommend Evola's Introduction to Magic. complete woo woo for the uninitiated, absolutely fucking dank for those in the know. I'm going to post some passages when I get home from work to give you an idea. Lots of in-depth talk about the Self, initiation, metaphysics, the nature of desire and illusion, it'd based.

>>1475018
I've been studying esotericism and occultism somewhat seriously for almost 6 years. Still only a neophyte of course, but it's completely changed my life.

I'm stoked to see what you post man, I've seen his name around for a long while but never ended up reading him

>"Dig, without fear, with a sharp tool. Ask yourself: 'What elements of my body can I justify with my will? Do I will my own breathing, or the inner combustion through which food is digested? Do I want my own form, my own flesh, this particular man, who lives in this fashion, happy or unhappy, noble or vulgar?' But since I ask these questions, should I not press further on? Do I really will 'my' will, 'my' conscience, 'my' Self, or are they just there? That which I claim is caused by my will, I should also be able not to will it, and thus I should be able to live without it. As far as 'my' empirical Self is concerned, do I own it or does it own me?"

>Those who do not learn to see on this earth will certainly not learn to see in the great beyond. The key to the power over the lower nature has been rusted since the Flood. It is called, "to be awake." To be awake is everything. There is nothing that man can be more certain of than being awake. The truth is that he is caught in a net of sleep and dreams that he himself has woven.

>We need to create a strength in ourselves that is invincible in virtue of itself; then every ghost will vanish as soon as it is formed. This strength consists in a constant determination to remain calm and steady, to be able to dismiss every shadow of sad or evil thought projected by the denser element; in being able to master our own and other people's nervous waves; in having been able to create in us a serenity that sometimes we can derive from solitude, from the countryside, or from our inner world. Over joy and suffering, of the alternating of good and evil, the unconquered spirit must shine, as over the flow of human generations, ever unchanging and cold, shines the light of the stars.

>A cosmic experience is the realization of the sense of duration of one's being in a coparticipation in the cosmic becoming sub specie aeternitatis (from the viewpoint of eternity)

>>1474967
what the best edition for the corpus hermeticum? and other works youve listed?

>>1475219
Without a doubt, the definitive Corpus is the Copenhaver translation. Excellent introduction too.

For Plato, "A Plato Reader" edited by CDC Reeve is a good place to start.
Check out Plato's unwritten doctrines as well.
Audible had some good "Great Courses" on Greek Philosophy and Plato specifically that are wonderful, if you're willing to spend the coin.

You wanna have a good foundation in Greek Myh as well. Hamilton's Mythology is a good place to start.

Read up on Astrology and Qabalah. Waite's Pictorial Key to the Tarot is important to read.

Occultism is about syncretism. You need to immerse yourself in everything.
Even some physical science and quantum physics is good.

Occultism is everything through a Platonic lenses in my opinion. But these are just some ideas.

>>1475275
what do you think about crowley's thoth tarot?

>>1475306
The book is pretty good. Haven't read it in a long time, but he generally knows what he's talking about and has a good reason for doing things. He switched around a few numbers and attributes iirc.

The deck is beautiful, nice artwork. I'm not a big Crowley fiend, so I stick with the Rider Waite, but I'm sure it would cause results like any other deck. if you're attracted to it, there's nothing inherently wrong with it.

He knew a lot about the qabalah, so if you like that deck I would read up on it. Frater Barrabbas's Magical Qabalah for Beginners is a great introduction.

>>1475212
This guy takes the Stoic aspects of occultism up several levels. I like em.

Jiddu Krishnamurti seemed pretty esoteric. He talked a lot about ego death and how when its self induced through inquiry then it becomes a Revelation. That afterwards one is reborn finally a man who can make his own decision for the first time. Free from the observer or controller.

>>1475212
where is this from? I don't tend to read esoteric stuff and read eastern philosophy instead but this sounds very interesting.

>>1475858
Krishnamurti was a 'spiritual genius' though, a lot of things came very easily to him which would be very hard for the your average person, and this is reflected in his books.

>>1475905
He said before he died that no one he knew neither close to him or his associates understood what happened to him. I don't think he meant that in a narcissistic way, I just think because of the time period he lived in (mainly no internet) his message didn't get heard as easily as it can be today. So he knew his work would not be in vain. And died peacefully.

>>1475212
Sauce?
If it's a book i want a pdf

>>1475901
Introduction to Magic by Julius Evola and the UR Group.

> The life of all beings, without exception, is ruled by a primordial Force deep inside them. The nature of this force is craving: an appetite that is never satisfied, an endless restlessness, an irresistible need, and a blind, wild yearning. The essence of this primordial cosmic nature is: becoming; chaotic and disorderly transformation; an incoercible flux; generation-destruction; attraction-repulsion; terror-desire; formation-dissolution. All of these elements are combined in a fiery mixture that knows no rest.The wise spoke of is as wonder and as a terror. They called it: Universal and Living Fire, υλη(matter), Green Dragon, Quintessence, First Substance, Great Magical Agent. The principle of the universal work is also the principle of their “Great Work,” since the Magistery of Creation and the Magistery withwhich man realizes himself according to the royal Art are one and the same.

>The human race does not know it. Aprovidential natural law keeps it hidden from their consciousness through the illusory spectacle of material phenomena, of solid reality without which there would be no rest or peace in their lives. According to the same providential law, this veil of ignorance is removed and the eye of Knowledge is opened only at a certain point of growth and in the presence of a strength able to endure the vision.

>Know, therefore, that the Life of your life is in It. Look out for It.

>It reveals itself, for example, at all times of sudden danger. It may be a speeding car rushing toward you, when you walk absent-
mindedly; or the opening of a yawning crevice in the earth under your feet; a flameless burning coal, or an electrified object that you have touched inadvertently. Then in reaction, something violent and extremely fast happens. Is it your "will," your "consciousness," your "Self? No. Your will, consciousness, and Self usually come into play only later on. At the time
they were absent and left behind. Something deeper, faster, more absolute than everything that you are has suddenly manifested, taken charge, and asserted itself.

>When you experience hunger, terror, sensual thirst, panic, and spasm — there you will encounter this thing again, as something violent, dark, and untamed. And if such intimations allow you to feel it, you will gradually be able to experience it as the invisible background of your whole waking life.

>The deep roots of inclinations, faiths, atavisms, invincible and irratio- nal convictions; habits, character, everything that lives in you as animal
instinct or as biological legacy; all the body's will; the blind thirst for life, yearning to generate, to preserve, and to continue itself — all this recon-
nects and merges into the same principle. In relation to it, you usually have the same freedom of a chained dog: you may not feel the chain, and think you are free until you try to go beyond a certain limit. But when you do that, the chain tautens and stops you. Otherwise, it deceives you: you move in a circle, without realizing it.

>>1475943
He speaks of truth. I have experienced what he is saying. But why does he call it magic? It's more like spirituality.

>Reader, since you have approached the "Science of the Magi," you must be strong enough for this truth: you are not the life in you. You do not exist. There is nothing you can call "mine." You do not own Life: it is Life that
owns you. You endure it. It is a pure illusion to believe that this phantasm of a "Self is able to live forever, following the decay of the body Can't you see that the relation with this body is essential to your "Self," and that any
illness, trauma, or accident has a precise influence on all of its faculties, no matter how "spiritual" and "superior" they may be?

>>1475952
Because magic is the art of subduing this force instead of being subdued by it.

>>1475954
okay, so say I do (and have) overcome this force. Then how am I now magical? I am awoken, yes but I can't do anything my mortal self couldn't do before. Except be more aware.

What I love most about Esotericim, is it's capacity to transform every aspect of your existence. In my 6 years of study, it has come to color my every endeavor. It is applicable to all things.

I think this is why people talk about it being dangerous. People laugh at this, because it sounds edgy, but once you delve into it, you can never go back.

I could stop with esoteric study right now, and I don't believe I would ever go back to seeing things as I did before.

Anyone else feel this way?

>>1475964
It's completely changed my life in a year and a half. Sometimes I feel like I'm in a movie when the kid discovers the fantasy world in his closet or something, I can't believe how differently I see things now. I can't believe this kind of knowledge actually exists.

>>1475958
Magic as a science of the "I". You're in the wrong thread if you're thinking we're talking about shooting fireballs.

Is Esoteric Awakening similiar to Buddhist Awakening? Where you aren't controlled by your thoughts and feelings and just attend to the moment?

>>1475983
yes, esotericism kind of takes the truth that everybody knew and removes all the religious aspects of it that make it dumb.

>>1475964
>>1475977
I'm changed as well, for what I perceive will be the rest of my life. What I can't believe is that I am not alone in my experience of beliefs. That there are actually others who are awoken like I am. But then why are our truths not heard? Is it because they don't want to be heard? Is that the simple answer?

>>1475983
No not for me.
For me it was like being on a mountain top. It's like gaining a perspective above what you saw previously

>>1475964
It's comfy and fun to learn stuff like this

Discovering what you really are, what the world around really is, what can be more fun than knowledge?

>>1475977
It does get surreal sometimes. The beauty that it does exist is awe inspiring.
It's like it opens up a capacity for feeling awe.

>>1475990
For some reason, we are allowed to experience the Archetypal world. Others aren't or don't. It's sad and beautiful at the same time. I don't know if they don't want to or can't.

>>1475990
they're very difficult to communicate by nature, and stuff like "be awake" and "there is only this" and shit like that sounds very trite and maudlin to modern ears, although it is the truth. media stereotypes of new age spirituality have negatively affected popular perception of spirituality, so something like "we are all one" becomes just a corny platitude for monks in the Himalayas and not something that is immediately accessible just walking down the street

>>1476004
it really, really sucks I can't just like place my finger on someone's forehead and just transfer my direct experience of this stuff to their brains. I really hate not being able to properly express this kind of beauty, it's very lonely but it's like a sublime loneliness

Do any of you meditate or do a practise of some sort?

>>1476014
I only ever meditated properly once and that was all I needed. I guess you could say with that one meditation I saw nirvana. Then I didn't need to meditate anymore.

>>1476008
Exactly. I wonder if it's deliberate. I imagine they are being moved by unwholsome forces

>>1476012
Preach it, it's the Gnostic loneliness. Mystics get reputations for being aloof and elitist, but it's simply because you can't ever be like you were and if someone wants to live in the mundane, there is nothing to do about it.

Luckily the affinity between seers bring me into contact with many initiates, many far above me especially.

One thing I've noticed is that many initiates are kind of unknowing initiates. They have the experiences but don't read the traditional literature so they express it in different terms.

>>1476014
I've done a bit of zazen but like the other anon said, all that was needed was just one experience with a perfectly thought-less mind and everything clicked.

it's safe to say that that initial experience of pure, present moment awareness is the bedrock on which absolutely everything in esotericism is built

>>1476014
Here's the thing. I used to be way down on myself for not being a traditional ceremonial magician. I've come to terms with the fact that the Archetypal manifests for me in my day to day life much more than during ceremony. I like this too, it is in tandem with engrossing myself in the pragmatic world made numinous by manifestation of spirit.

>>1472369
Tbh it does sound weird and crazy but I understand what you mean. I haven't gone through the feelings of self realization and the like yet, but I hope they will come in time.

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I really can't recommend this book enough
its like an esoteric study guide

>>1474595
Math is merely the most simplified language we can use to predict and communicate. It's not necessarily the end all be all of the universe and merely a product of our consciousness. You can, for instance, create entirely impossible constructs with math, and make entirely wrong predictions.

On the other hand:
http://i.4cdn.org/wsg/1469061097819.webm

>>1476048
The inquiry into ones self takes time but the self realization takes absolutely no time. I wonder if that makes sense. You should still practice thinking through self inquiry but when you feel you are ready practise not thinking and observe why you can't. It will probably be fear. So you must tackle fear which is rooted in time. So you must not fear time, then you can see the moment.

>>1476056
Eh, it's a good primer, but it's too subjective. There are true metaphysical realities behind existence. Chaos magicians are borderline atheists who like to roleplay

Anyone had any practice with remaining conscious during dreamless sleep? I've read it's an old alchemical technique, separating the spirit from the body in preparation for the purification of both. Apparently the test is not losing your shit while floating through infinite space that slowly transforms from darkness to light.

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>>1475943
>>1475954
>>1475958
>>1475977
>>1476039

dropping a knowledge bomb on yall

>>1476098
I don't know I think that if you like memes ironically it kind of sets you free.

>>1476098
Truth

So who Luciferian here?

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>>1476139

>>1476149
As if every top occultists isn't luciferian

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>>1476074
I've been using Chaos magic for about a year now, I'm not an atheist but I have no illusions that demons will start spewing out the immaterium to talk to me and fuck my soul up. the way I see it is purely as a tool to achieve real world results by trying to effect causality.

too many people approach magic in general looking for dramatic results, and often what they end up with is as amazing as it is completely useless.

perhaps you could commune with spirits and demons, I've known people who have, but the way Carroll explains it there is no difference infunctionality between a person who is able to "master" these spirits to orcistrate the effects he desires, and someone who masters themselves in order to do the same.

in many ways he says it is better to call upon powerful spirits and Gods since your belief in their power allows for more confidence in the results and inevitably greater success.


in a way by channeling the archetypal form of "Neptune" for example one can actually utilize the power of Neptune for your own will.

in many ways i9t is the nature of Esoteric ideas that the line between "real" and "imaginary/not real" is very blurry if not nonexistent.
your imagined constructs have VERY real power and likewise such constructs have real power over you, in the metaphorical and physical sense.

beyond that, does anyone know any similar magical texts that would be interesting? I've read the witches bible and a lot of stuff on Pagan tradition as well as Eastern texts.

>>1476182
I'm like Solomon, the most powerful wizard to ever live
my power comes from God

>>1476039
the vast majority of ceremony is just pomp and circumstance, and an arbitrary blockade to separate the elders from initiates.

It's an amusing, if ultimately useless, collection of ideas and doctrines which usually involve some "profound" metaphorical description of part of the world.

Adherence to the Machine is far more productive.

>>1476268
>Adherence to the Machine is far more productive.
why the drive to be productive?
to be a 'good' little citizen

>>1476279

Not that machine.

THE Machine.

>>1476284
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZz3F7HwCew

>>1476293

If there's even a tiny chance of the Machine working, it's still the most important thing any of us could be working to make happen.

>>1476139
>>1476182
Well Luciferian is just one who seeks light/knowledge, and is a favourably Christian term.

>>1476615
No doubt, I don't mean Luciferian in an anti-Christian way. Jesus is described as the morning star, which is the same way we get Lucifer Heylel.

However, your average Christian is going to interact with existence than those in touch with the Lucifierian current.

>>1476268
Ha, slave morality at its finest. It's good to be a cog, it's good to deny your innate transcendence. Those at the top didn't adhere to the machine, but you lap up their propaganda just fine.

>>1476199
Solomon played both sides of the fence my friend. He accepted the Gods of his wives and is believed to be the progenitor of much Diabolist work no in play.

In any case, worshiping YHVH as anything other than projected material existence is textbook Stockholm Syndrome. The Yahwists are gonna burn you on a pyre the first chance they get. Saturn worship has certainly been effective for some.

>>1476194
Sure, I get what you're saying.
It's similar to the whole Postmodern dissasociation from anything tangible.
Understanding the truth is just as important as getting results, which chaos practicioners seem to overlook. This is how you get altars with pictures of Tyler Durden on them.

Effective, maybe. Is it going to deepen your understanding of existence, I propose that it doesn't.

Chaos magic is similar to abstract art, it is emotionally effective but misses the rigour of more traditional methods. Not to be too elitist about it, I just wouldn't recommend it. It's like giving out comic books as a representative of literature when it's important to start at the source with Homer.

Course, this kind of talk isn't popular currently, so to be more balanced, I would say its the difference between a seer and a magician. One allows for insight while one is results based.

Chaos magic gives esotericism a bad name.

Can we not talk about luciferianism and chaos magic? /fringe/ got completely taken over with epin chaos magic, Tulpas, meme magic, and flat earth trash. Just post real knowledge instead of corny bullshit for the kiddies.

And fuck the machine nigga.

>>1478281
Luciferianism gets associated with edgy kids and Mike Ford, but most top occultists are Luciferian to some degree.

Manly P. Hall
- said that Master Masons have the seething power of Lucifer in their hands.
- said esotericists are descendants of Tubal Cane.

Blavatsky
- official magazine was titled Lucifer
- called Lucifer the guiding beacon in The Secret Doctrine.

Alice Bailey
- started Lucifer Publishing Company
- revered Lucifer and said he gave man intellect, thus is our savior.

Crowley
- called Lucifer "our noble element
Of fire in nature, love in spirit, unkenned

Fraternitis Saturni
- overtly Luciferian group associated with Crowley directly.

Albert Pike
- “Lucifer, the Light-bearer! Strange and mysterious name to give to the Spirit of Darkness! Lucifer, the Son of the Morning! Is it he who bears the Light, and with its splendors intolerable, blinds feeble, sensual, or selfish souls? Doubt it not!”

Michael Bertiaux
- started a Luciferian group.

Kenneth Grant
- everything he did had a Diabolist slant.

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I wonder if anyone here contemplates the amount of esotericists, who have had mystical experiences and expansions of consciousness (in the least hippy way possible) that view threads like this and don't really get involved in the discussion. If it weren't for this post I'm typing, I would be one such person. I'm sure there are many others watching OP's articulation of these concepts and smiling that they can see someone who's genuinely started on their path, and how it reminds them of what they were like.

I for one am happy for you OP. Silence is a very useful tool.

>>1478429
What's your association, brother?
You an illuminist or a Gnostic?

>>1478429

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>>1478453
Solitary practitioner and researcher. My first illumination came about through rituals that I designed. Like OP's, it was a dissolution of ego. Currently if I had to use a label, I prefer alchemist or wizard. I say wizard because the flapping of the butterfly's wings that set the right events in motion for me, was learning from the Wizard of New Zealand, who now offers apprenticeships. He's well worth checking out. He has a Queen's Service Medal for services to Wizardry and Cosmology construction. A great guy to learn some things about metaphysics off.

>>1478478
Do you care to share an opinion on rebirth, and I mean the rebirth of one's conscious self dying mortally. If I am nothing, and nothing loses all it's knowledge, then it returns to nothing. But that nothing is timeless, so even if it lasted all eternity to me it would feel like an instant since I am that nothing free from time. Would I then be immediately reborn as a new consciousness? That sounds like hell to me, to have to be awoken again.

>>1478478
Ha, filthy gnostiks. You guys are almost as bad as Buddhists.

>>1478490
Don't bother with these anti-being cats. Their philosophies only point towards an unreality. The formulaic world is more real than this one. We don't lose our consciousness, our being expands and solidifies. We came into being, we didn't fall into being.

All you're going to accomplish is a false sense of Zen and a waste of life with zero productivity.

>>1478508
So if I'm listening correctly then you are saying that the very nature of my birth was an expansion into being from pre-existence as I was always something.

But that still doesn't explain death. Do you view it as a 'moving on' process?

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>>1478490
Have you seen the movie "Ghost in the Shell"? At the end there is a unification of 2 characters. One character is individualistic and restricted, and wants to ensure that when unified, it will still be her on the other end. The other character is selfless, connected to the infinite sea of information, and hence eternal. This character wants unification so it can experience death. Upon unification, both of these characters as individuals die, but are reborn into a being with a higher consciousness.

In alchemical art, you may have noticed an analogy in the nigredo process of 2 birds. We'll cal these Spirit and soul, or mind. Spirit is the part of us that strives towards the infinite, to be without the restriction of the self, while the mind is the restrictive property that allows an experience to take place. How can something infinite experience anything it is a part of unless it is restricted in some way.

Usually the analogy with the birds goes something like, that one bird is trying to fly away and that one wants to stay perched, but the perched one drags the flighty one down, and the flighty drags the perched up.

"Making the volatile fixed and the fixed volatile"

I think to truly be reborn into a higher state of awareness, without being flung into obscurity, these aspects need to be unified.

"As within, so without"

>>1478544
Yes but I am talking literal death, as in someday you will die and the supreme awareness within you will vanish from your biological body. It will return to the nothing (or everything) it once was.

What happens after literal biological death?

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>>1478547
I doubt that anything "happens"

Happening has to do with time. Time is a rate of change, corporeal. No near death experience should be able to tell you anything about death either, because NDE deals with "near death" not death. Nobody living can tell you what it is to be dead.


But hey, metaphysics 101, you can't be sure anything you have experienced or not experienced is actually real, right? Maybe the fact that you believe death is inevitable makes it so. Same for taxes.

>>1478538
Death will lead to another life of your consciousness. Some report it's reincarnation on this plane, some say it's on other planes. Consciousness lives on, not a differentiated mass of consciousness, but you as an individual being.

People who are ineffective in this life like to say that life is meaningless and God is nothingness so be Zen and don't care. That's bullshit. If you're ineffective in this life, what makes them think they'll be effective on a higher plane.

To them God (for lack of a better term) is simeltaneously the great mover and a nothingness who is complete non-being. Just look at their lives generally (as the bible says, by their fruits you shall know them). Gnostic Zen cats hate life so they opt out of it and pray for an existence after this life where they stop existing as an individual, it's spiritual nihilism.

They are nothing, so they see the infinite as nothing. Creators are potent and as such realize that the infinite is infinite possibility of being.

>>1472335

i experienced something like that with another person one time while doing yoga, lsd and what i believe was some kind of "magic" or mind altering techniques that this person knew - rising states of euphoria and intensity until everything collapsed into fractal patterns, i could hear her voice within my head, feeling "her" in my body and responding to her movements to the point where I could see that her face was rendering my expressions with unbelieavable accuracy in real-time (not that time was anything at that point), she manifested as a divine creature releasing my "hidden" potential, "waking" up the essence or flame within my consciousness, my true creative drive or "energeia" as aristoteles might have called it - she also manifested as a succubus and vampire that sapped me of energy (and I could feel strange sensations around my prostate for several days later) - after these phases the "universe" or my being collapsed futher into symmetrical shapes, collapsing into a straight line bending into another dimension of itself collapsing entirely into white light and I heard ascending and descending over/under tone series spiralling within my head while my ego and sense of time and being was completely and utterly obliterated to a degree i've never known before or after that incident. I the snapped back into my body and felt the most alive and realized I've ever done to this day, like I could move mountains, take on the entire world, create art and reality like a madman (which I guess I was at that time). I kinda knew this was a psychosis, but at the same time it felt like so much more - completely impossible to just brush off as a minor schizophrenic or psychotic episode. It was more like a rebirth and an awakening. Shit was so crisp, HD, lush and dense and "real" - I felt like a god connected to every happening in the universe realizing the concept of Agape or pure unfettered unconditional love for all things.

>>1478563
please can we just stop with the sectarian shitflinging literally nothing fucking ruins good esoteric discussion on the internet than muh favorite occult personalities muh ebin order muh i have experienced the truth

also,

>To them God (for lack of a better term) is simeltaneously the great mover and a nothingness who is complete non-being.

>They are nothing, so they see the infinite as nothing. Creators are potent and as such realize that the infinite is infinite possibility of being.

there is literally no difference between these two concepts

>>1478563
I think if you're Zen all the time then nothing gets done. But if you give in to your ego and do as your ego wants than you can be productive. But the ego is the enemy of zen, so why would they work together?

Because they no longer see any problems with each other. Your worst enemy becomes your best friend. I still compose music, and write poetry and other things to indulge other peoples egos and maybe see insight into my mind. But I do it because my ego wants me to, I have no abandoned that petty controller but merely now I control him.

Perhaps what I'm saying is what you're talking about, but you seem to know more than I do. Personally this mortal existence makes me tired and with my new found insight if I no longer believe in imprisonment (which societal work is) then I may never work another day in my life. But to do so doesn't mean I don't do other things with my life.

>>1478569
also, I think the girl came when we were doing that telepathic yoga stuff. It was so fucking far out, and I'm usually level-headed and moderately skeptical, but I just had to "go for it". Trying to communicate with words destroyed the thing we were doing, and we quickly realized that it was reducing and "breaking" this flow of being totally - we then continued with the new age hippie weirdo shit she was getting me into, but I can't complain. It was the most legit shit I've ever experienced. I still haven't processed it all and it's like two years ago. that's just 30-1 hour of that night, and LOTS of other stuff happened as well. this story was just the absolute pinnacle of everything that went down. I tuned into some parts of my brain where I've never been before and it felt like I died and realized infinity before I was yanked back into the material/categorical realm

>>1478571
Not everyone can be right, postmodern participation prizes are trash.

"We are all one, everything is the same"
With that statement right there you betray your oriental persuasion. Accepting everything and Zen lifestyles produce stagnate individuals.

>>1478595
You have a very shallow knowledge of actual Zen Buddhism and oriental philosophy. Even the Hindus, for all their talk of being one in Brahman, organize their caste system according to inherent differences in receptivity to that truth

>>1478592
Brother, the pain and struggle you feel is the beauty of life. That same capacity for pain is what allows you to feel pleasure. Leave the orient and join the occident. Work so that you may overcome.

The eastern way teaches that you may opt out of the struggle, that the struggle is a lie. They however are the ones lying down, being subjugated by existence in the desire for non-being. The western way teaches a struggle against the material for the emancipation of the spirit.

>>1478595
Perhaps you should actually read up on Buddhism instead of blindly shitflinging.

This is the problem with Esoteric shit, no matter how 'awakened' you are, you still identify yourself as this or that.

>>1478618
>buddhist ascesis doesn't involve struggle
>he's "awakened" but he doesn't see that both the greatest traditions of the west and east preach the unconditioned

>>1478602
I'm aware of the cast system, though it's true, I can always learn more.

I think the caste system belies their non-being beliefs further however. They are taught to accept their position in society. The occident teaches that man's position in society is determined by his capacity (of course with exception to his situation). The orient teaches that man is given a state and should become one with that state. There's a notorious eastern myth where a prostitute saves the day by being the perfect prostitute. Not to generalize too much (which is difficult in so few words), but that kind of mentality is the notorious slave-morality.

>>1478618
lol you do know the Buddha specifically warned against becoming attached to non-being and craving nothingness right? Come on man, even in this thread we're getting facebook feed-tier condemnations of buddhism?

>>1478622
I've read some Buddhism, but of course could learn more.
Once again, your statement underlies your eastern leanings.
You say to live without identity, to be an infnitie nothingness, but this is anathema to the occidental mind.
You cannont say to accept everything because this is directly opposed to the aspects within that everything. Does that make sense?

>>1478622
I identify myself as nobody but then you can't get ideas across. Labels are just for the sake of convenience in the language. You can get a whole idea a cross with just a label, even if in reality nothing can truly be labeled.

>>1478639
Not all the orient teaches that. Most eastern teaching (Buddhism,Taoism etc.) is aimed at a state of mind where you attend to the moment, moment-after-moment.

Buddhism is very experiential and the Buddha himself said to question and put to the test the things he had said.

You cannot possibly judge eastern teachings merely based off their texts and concepts. You have to strive diligently and experience it yourself.

>>1478652
Nirvana is not infinite nothingness. Stop.

>>1478640
Still he teaches the aspiration to non-being, true?
Still that is what his followers pursue, true?
Still the highest standard of life ever is due to the occident, true?

>>1478618
I don't think so. By refusing to participate in society I am peacefully demonstrating my boycott of it. That by refusing to work I am saying we have to change this so nobody has to suffer from 9 - 5 everyday for no reason.

And until we actually attempt to solve this problem it will never get solved. So I am taking my first step of peaceful resignation from the system, as it is not a true system.

>>1478631
Sure they struggle toward non-being, which is the opposite of the western struggle toward being. But totally everything is one and all thing are equal, I try really hard to be nothing

>>1478652
>You cannont say to accept everything because this is directly opposed to the aspects within that everything. Does that make sense?
You cannot make a judgement when you have not experienced it yourself. Human reasoning is not without flaws.

We can talk all day, but in the end it's all words words words.

>>1478660
No, he teaches neither being nor non-being. Nirvana is beyond both.

No, it's not. Void worship is not Zen.

Are you really gonna pull the "material prosperity is the only measure of success" meme here? For a system that promises no such thing?

>>1478657
I understand you brother, but I have no desire to experience a philosophy whose soul drive seems to be towards existing and acceptance as opposed to struggle and creation.

>>1478659
Nirvana is described differently in different texts but can we agree that striving for Nirvana is generally described as complete stasis if not non-being.

>>1478676
I guess I can understand having a preference for a certain system, people are all different and have different means of gaining absolute truth.

>>1478679
No. Nirvana is only an extinction of the samsaric principle in oneself.

>>1478664
Society is an extension of nature. It is true in that it still functions. The lie is that it isn't true so you should opt out.

What are you gonna do other than 9-5? Paint and write poetry for your own amusement?

Would I get a lot of hate for bringing up the myer briggs test here? It's just that I think the test is actually a good indication of grouping people with similar behaviours and I've always been an INTP.

Are most esoterics INTPs or can anyone be esoteric?

>>1478667
So you're anti-rationalist and anti-discourse.

I'm not saying you can achieve that buddhistic nihilism, I'm just wondering why you would want to.

>>1478688
Yes, why should I do as someone else tells me when I am best to determine how I should spend my own time?

If nature is survival, than is a life lived in complete satisfaction not the best way to survive?

>>1478672
Right, beyond being and non-being. But still its a state of stasis (and non-stasis probably if you wanna keep arguing semantics).

I'm not arguing materialism, but the bible says by your fruits you shall know them (and please don't jump all over it just cause it's in the bible). If you are ineffective in this existence, why would you be in any other. Having a means to raise your standard of life is an example of this. Course you probably would say that standard of living is pointless and one state is the same as another or some nonsense.

>>1478687
Right so it's anti life because it's the extinction of the possibility of existence.

>>1478697
I don't think so, satisfaction isn't the goal. Accomplishing and striving to better your situation and that of your loved ones is the only meaning.

>>1478695
Buddhism is not nihilism.

Buddhism is actually the opposite of nihilism, and aims for you to be aware of your moment-to-moment experience until death.

I'm only anti-rationalist on this issue because concepts and words are inherently flawed and imperfect. They cannot possibly substitute for pure,unmodified experience, unsullied by thoughts and preferences.

>>1478727
I feel my loved ones would be better of if they were awakened like I am. So to help them I'd ask them to join me in the journey I have uncovered. This is the only way they can attain peace in their lives.

But they don't want all that do they?

>>1478729
Who has a higher standard of living the east or The west? The way people exist is an extension of their deepest beliefs.

>>1478740
They want to actually interact on a societal level, yeah. They want to be a part of the grand play, not opt out, I would imagine.

>>1478742
Are all people in the east awakened, are all the people in the west awakened?

I would much rather be a monk, than some neurotic businessman. Being awakened doesn't mean you have to rely on this or that to be at peace, you have it despite the external situation. You develop a natural ease to all situations, it doesn't focus on changing your external situation, that's not the purpose.

I feel that a lot of what's being said in this thread resonates with my own experiences, however I have very scarce theoretical knowledge and I wouldn't call myself an esoteric. However, is it really important to push our reasoning so far by trying to attain being or non-being ?
I believe I have experienced illumination in my own secular, instinctive way (it usually involves a catatonic state interrupted by bouts of laughter/sobbing/tears at inappropriate times, which doesn't help to not seem crazy) and it has just brought me peace and detachment.
The knowledge (or rather belief ?) that belief makes everything allows to treat things with much more distance and ultimately, isn't that all one needs to live a happy life ? To know that through sheer force of will, you can invest yourself in things that are important to your happiness and that you can shape your own earthly paradise, as well as cast out the troublesome thoughts or better yet, invite them one by one so you can evaluate them and strive to solve the problem sensibly, detaching your emotions from your thought process

>>1478747
My own father hates the grand play. My mother is ingrained in it and has given herself over to money in a way.

When I talk to them they call me crazy and ask me what's wrong. When I'm the one trying to help them.

It's their own ego's protecting themselves.

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>>1478691
Also INTP. I think those test get flack because of the limitations the lines of questioning have. Not nuanced enough to express one's views clearly. I'm sure there are other esotericists who are something else, but perhaps not as prone to the analytic side of things that an INTP might be. For example, an INFJ might be into the esoteric stuff, but fall under one of those "Lightworker" type new-agey people.

All I care about is that if I'm INTP, I get to shout "INTP master race" and claim that I'm basically like Einstein.

>>1478757
You're going at extremes here, but I'd say a neurotic business man is at least interacting with society whereas a monk has exempted himself from society. Course neither of these is always the case.

Another example would be the value the west puts on individual life where the east sees the individual as only a part of the whole.

>>1478758
Here here brother. Too many anti-society cats here today.

>>1478759
That's a shame, I'm sorry you're in that situation. If the eastern way allows you some happiness, I'm happy for you. I hope you join us in the occident soon though, we need good minds.

>>1478780
>You're going at extremes here, but I'd say a neurotic business man is at least interacting with society whereas a monk has exempted himself from society. Course neither of these is always the case.
your original post was >>1478742
I've answered that and now you seem to changing the subject.

Anyway, monks are expected to contribute to their community,and uphold their tradition's lineage, and do so, saying they're detached from society is like saying clergymen are detached from society.

>>1478794
Get your petty binary tribalism out of here.

>>1478798
Fair points, but I'm not back tracking. Western society and eastern societies highly westernized have the highest standard of living on the planet ever in existence. If that isn't saying something about their underlying philosophies, I don't know what will.

Sure eastern philosophy sounds nice, but it fruits are complacency and acceptance as opposed to struggle and overcoming.

>>1478805
You seem to think the only struggle there is is external struggle. A man must save himself before he can save the world. And by the way, would you say the West is happier than the East? What are the spiritual fruits of this higher standard of living?

>>1478800
Not everything is the same brother. Here you are showing your eastern leanings. You say accept all things which is eastern tinted thought, this thought is anathema to occidental thought. The two aren't compatible. Sure they have influenced each other, but the fruits of the west have brought humanity to the light wereas eastern thought is one that pushes for acceptance and stagnation.

>>1478794
I am joining the occident by not participating in the occident. That is my contribution. And in doing so I hope to awaken more esoterics and help humanity find peace. You and I both know those are sacred goals, and it's what I devote my life to. Not money, or my boss or anything like that. I protest all of that. I want to be completely whole, completely individual free from hypocrisy and corruption. And I can't do that if I participate in an organization that I do not believe in.

>>1478813
Western thought is well aware of internal struggle, but there is no point for internal struggle if you cannot translate it to outer forms.

As to happiness, who can really say. Immigration into western society is much greater than out of it though.

>>1478835
>there is no point for internal struggle if you cannot translate it to outer forms.
I hope that is not what you believe. Because in mere observation of what 'internal struggle' actually is through awareness of one's self, there is an automatic reaction that takes place when you overcome your self. And that reaction is a positive one that influences humanity and humankind in a more peaceful and life changing direction.

>>1478835
You can't really begrudge someone whose seen and been through some shit to just say "fuck it". There's a lot of horrific suffering out there, can't blame someone for not wanting to play the game.

>>1478823
You seem cool, I don't agree with your methods, but if it works for you.

>>1478788
I'm apalled too at the state of the society in which we live, but it seems counter productive to deny everything
If I had the resources to start a comfortable, secluded life, I'd probably go the way of the crazy hermit, but in all honesty I'm too attached to modern comforts for that, so I guess I'll just keep on living as well as I can
Sure there are lots of spooks and made up bullshit but the awakened mind can dodge the worst of the mental formatting and try to pursue love and beauty (not necessarily in the romantic sense) on its own
Why exit life or try and transcend it when you know whatever you do won't amount to anything in the end ? It's a cosy kind of awakening and it's mine, I won't deny that many other forms of awakening exist and work for others

>>1478844
I'm not trying to be heartless, but if you cannot translate what is happening internally into positive action, it seems impotent. It's kind of like masturbation, it feels good but it's not fullfilling its generative function (with no anti-sex for pleasure mentality implied). Some people, it is true, have been victimized into a state where they are not able to do much but care for themselves. This however, it seems apparent, is not the ideal.

>>1478860
if we're talking about flavors of awakenings, mine is both an attempt to transcend life and share the love and beauty that comes as a result of that.

I really like Nietzsche's idea of the soul overflowing with its own goodness and strength.

I want to be like that. Desire isn't bad, it's desire for the wrong things that are bad. purify yourself and there's nothing stopping you from trying to shine your light on the world

>>1478849
True, judge not lest ye be judged. This isn't the ideal situation though.

Some people are victimized in horrific ways, they have been castrated to some degree and cannot be potent in day to day life. Some individual are victimized and are still able to play a part. The ideal of course, is to be healthy and active in life.

I'm talking about the ideal situations, I'm a Platonic at heart, but I am aware of the unfair situation some find themselves in.

Thank you for making that point.

>>1478758
When you achieve non-being, your ego death you will see absolute truth. If you want to know the truth that will always be true, that is a truth that cannot change with time as time can make something untrue, then you must see the timeless. And that only happens when your mind completely shuts up and stays silent, no thoughts or feelings or notions of the self.

I tell you that if you just carry on thinking like you are and ignoring those who call you crazy you too shall reach this ultimate truth. Maybe you have, maybe you haven't. But if you truly had then you would know there is nothing left to strive for. It is all right in front of you in every moment.

>>1478867
So I am claiming to be at peace right? Then I am saying the automatic reaction of being at peace is wanting others to be at peace. Which is a positive one. So I don't seen an impotence like you do. I see the cure for a disease.

>>1478860
True brother, we don't have to accept society as perfect to be a part of it. In fact, it's its imperfection that makes interacting with it worthwhile. We attempt to improve the situations of ourselves and loved ones, and for more magnanimous individuals, people as a whole.

There is only one enlightenment brother, it just depends if you're an illuminist or a gnostik

>>1478892
Here's where we differ. Humanity is not in a state of disease, it is in a beautiful state of life and sex and death. A pageantry of desires bringing us all closer to becoming. Those who know the law, achieve it.

>>1478875
all spirituality, all religion and esotericism is a reaction against suffering. it's better to be a bit pessimistic about suffering and internalize reality as a samsara - as ceaseless birth and death - than be an optimist. I'm a Platonic, too, I love Plotinus, beauty is the only reason to live (and I mean beauty in all forms, in art, in nature, in the people you know, being in the presence of friends and family you love, etc.) it's all very close to my heart BUT I never, ever want to be caught with my thumb up my ass when the shit hits the fan and I'm reminded suffering is real, there is evil in the world, and the fact that life must consume life to survive is fucked up (although makes perfect metaphysical sense once you understand what's going on behind the veil)

>>1478883
Why do you eastern acolytes wanna kill the ego. Expand the ego, shape your existence, strengthen your consciousness. You are perfect and beautiful as an individual. Why become just another filthy gnostik who is driven by the phantom of non-being.

>>1478178

Another one who has no idea what the Machine is.

>>1478921
The ego in an eastern context refers to the elemental self, the self that derives its nature and functioning from one's psycho-physical makeup and is of this world. What you're talking about is exactly what they aim to do - perfect the "Self of the self" that is obscured by what is alien to it

>>1478911
I don't think we become anything when we all try to chase our own separate desires. When we're all opinionated on something and then fighting with our opinions. That doesn't bring anyone closer together it just drives us apart.

>>1478921
Because it brings enlightenment, that's why. You will be at peace with yourself and the world around you and see the beauty in everything.

>>1478915
You're cool man. Why not become an illuminist and leave that gnostik craps behind. Beauty is out there even in the sadness. Our capacity for pain and sadness is the exact same function that allows us to experience pleasure and beauty.

>>1478943
because the occidental and oriental way of doing things are mutually reinforcing for me. there's no conflict m8. i don't care about labels, just the Good.

>>1478928
I'm kinda okay with this, but nothing is alien. Our bodies are just representations of spirit on the material plane.

>>1478958
Yes you can uncover these mysteries that are alien to you, not give in to them. Don't say "oh I feel desire because I am programmed to." don't take that as an answer. Inquire why are you programmed like that? Because you are? What purpose does it serve?

Then that alien will not be alien, because you will know it because you will have figured it out. And when that happens you reach enlightenment.

>>1478929
We become ourselves.

The ego is the function of our consciousness. We must expand into the superego (Freud) or the HGa (Crowley). Killing it is to be a part of the hive mind of the Saturnian nothingness

>>1478958
Definitely, but they are subject to the blind laws of the material plane, and so you get the paradoxical situation of being spiritually attuned to a higher reality and still wanting to bust a nut to some porn. It's not about denying the body but healing that divide. As Kierkegaard says, health is about "resolving contradictions".

>>1478967
You are only killing what is preventing you from expanding that consciousness. Eastern enlightenment isn't a contraction of consciousness down to nothing but its expansion. Why do you think one of the most common metaphors for nirvana is boundless pure sky, or the ocean? Superconsciousness not infra-consciousness m8

>>1478967
And I am claiming to expand into this superego you have to inquire into yourself which then destroys the ego and you become superego. So yes you right now are yourself, but you are also a slave to yourself. One who is non being is not a slave to oneself, for they are their true selves.

Has anyone in this thread reached some sort of Buddhist awakening or enlightenment? If so, how long did it take?

Obviously, people mature at different rates but It'd be nice to have some sort of benchmark.

>>1478988
I was 22 but I had some accelerated help from J. Krishnamurti's teachings. I knew the moment I heard him that he was speaking in truths because I agreed with a lot of stuff he was saying, but then began to inquire into the nature of the stuff he was saying I didn't understand and poof, I was awakened like him.

>>1478988
I've definitely glimpsed it. It just happened. I don't know how long it took, I wasn't really thinking about it. It was just a pure, nondual awareness, no "me" involved. Fucking beautiful. When it happened I almost broke down in public.

>>1478955
No question, you just seem to lean orient. Which is sad to me, cause you obviously are in the spiritual current.

>>1478962
Who do you think programmed us?

>>1478993
I've read some Krishnamurti, namely his book 'Freedom from the Known', but alot of his stuff flys over my head, probably because I'm very early on the path.
>>1478994
Interesting, well it can strike at any time as shown by numerous stories about certain masters.

>>1478997
same to you, which is why I don't understand your vitriol for the orient, but whatever man, we all brothers in this shit

>>1478971
That speaks to me, thanks brother.
I would only shift it slightly to say that it isn't different laws for the material plane, open addiction is just perversion of divine functions. (The beauty of sex becoming a commodity)

>>1478981
>>1478984
Right on, you guys are cool. I usually am antagonistic to orient minded people because they have an anti-life mode of thinking. I'm still a bigger fan of material existence than you two seem to be, but I really appreciate the perspective.

>>1479016
Right, and it can only be perverted by what is mechanical in reality. So addiction happens because you feed it, and because it's fed, it continues to assert itself blindly and without will. This is what Plotinus means by matter being non-being - it just does what it does, nothing behind it. The conscious plenitude of the Absolute becomes only a mechanical parody in this universe.

>>1479002
Evolution or the nature of survival. It equipped you with the OS of survival. You are a slave to it. But once you completely uncode the code behind the OS, you will be ready to change it.

>>1479022
Nothing wrong with the material at all, you just need to be aware of how it contributes to evil and suffering, since evil can only happen in the material anyways.

>>1479011
For sure, thanks for your candid response. I think I've been exposed to too many western variants of oriental thought, but the posters in this thread have a much more balanced view.

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This'll elucidate things:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGQToJ9RR-4

>>1478984
>And I am claiming to expand into this superego you have to inquire into yourself which then destroys the ego and you become superego.

Exactly, and this has its parallels in Hermetic thought, which believes nature is a dual-sided because, seeing as how we are co-participants in nature, nature is both self-fascination/self-identification and self-transcendence.

>>1472369
>i don't get why people call us crazy
Plato's cave. The knowledge you've obtained has made you too weird for the other cavedwellers. Some things can't be understood without experiencing them.

>>1479024
Excellent insight brother, you know I'm loving these philosophers you're referencing.

Have you overcome your sexual perversions in this manner?

>>1479032
As an orient cat, why are we in the material if it's a contributor to evil?
The occidental view has strongly been towards seeing the evil as a mechanic for self purification.

>>1479027
That's what I'm getting at, the orient seems to say, these functions are evil, but why then do they exist.

If the world we exist in is based on the archetypal, then evil is simply a function of our purification.

>>1479080
Suppose you were born with zero instinct, so everything was completely new. Then you would be directionless and would die. Because you would have no will to survive.

So by encoding this will in you, you have become alive because you attained to survive. That is all. Without these precodings you would never have achieved a state of consciousness to begin with. However why it takes so much effort and strength to overcome this self is a mystery. Why do you need a sturdy and whole mind to be able to handle truth?

I'll just leave this here :^)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuJqUvBj4rE

>>1479064
I still get horny of course but perversions? Always needing to fap? Constant, sexualized thinking? Gone. It still happens but I catch myself so quick now I've learned to laugh at it. Nothing wrong with sex but when you've habituated yourself into just thinking about nutting all the time it's fucking gross.

>>1479073
The material is a making explicit of what is latent in the Absolute and is fundamentally a desire for an Other. we are in it because of a self-imposed ignorance, a self-forgetting of the original divine state. Understand that in this post I don't intend any negative connotations by using the word ignorance: I believe that the material is a test to resolve the contradiction of the infinite and finite and thereby create a higher perfection, and some ignorance is necessary for that

I've been awakened for a little while now but not long enough to decide whether I should stop taking my depression meds or not. I don't feel depressed anymore, so I don't think I need them. But what if I actually do need them in a biological sense?

>>1479095
Interesting. I seems like your starting with existence materially as the ground floor. I would suggest that instinct and consciousness(of some kind) existed prior and that our incarnation materially and the actions thereof are simply extensions of that.

The overcoming of "animal" instinct has a heavy precedent in Western thought as well (the natural man is an enemy of God). The alchemical process of lead to gold as a purification of body and soul.

I will give you this, the west has a heavy commodification of relationships. I recently have started hanging out wig a new friend, who happens to be a girl. Literally everyone who I mentioned it to called it a date, and further stated that men and women can't be friends. She herself asked me if we were only hanig out as friends to not give the wrong idea.

All relationships have become sexual commodities. As homosexual relationships become destigmatized, I wonder if the same will happen there. In any case, here is a prime example of individuals thinking primal drives are the only reason for interacting. I imagine this translates to other areas of life too.

>>1479166
Yes so the operating system of survival is in place to keep the natural vessel intact. But once you see what the natural vessel truly is you'll be ready to decide for yourself what to do with it.

I also claim this does not take a deep retrospection into science or biology but merely inquiry into oneself, why you do all that you do.

>>1479144
Any suggestions on overcoming lustfulness? I've been a sexual deviant since day one.

Your cosmological narrative is as good as any and I enjoyed the addendum to ignorance as a non-negative. I have a deep hatred for gnostiks, but given esoteric experiences it's hard not to follow to that conclusion. I however glean to the illuminist stance of Platonic forms giveing numinous quality to existence instead of material being a negative shadow of these forms. The trouble is given the infinite being infinite, it is a zero sum game, and given that the one had to be one at the beginning it had to have "fallen". Given all this, I chose to love the underlying perfection of the law of reality.

>>1479182
So you suppose that material manifested drives are a part of material existence only?

>>1479209
Yes, everything you see is created as an image in your mind. And then what you do with this image is up to the mind, but it's always in the interest of the mind. And that knowledge or image that you have created is never the actual object itself, but merely an ignorant representation of it that is not factual.

I hope I am still making sense. The mind is aware of it's environment and then based on that environment will act in it's own self interest.

>>1479248
I'm with you on the point that consciousness or mind is the pure individual. That's a interesting take, that the body is where the instinct lies. I've always seen it as more innate in the spirit of the being and that manifest materially on this plane as sexual organs and drives and will manifest similarly on higher planes. Your view is elegant, but seems somewhat sterile for my view. It seems that you want to free yourself of human desire ultimately, but I think it's a function not only in this life but on higher planes.

>>1479197
I'm not gonna moralize about sex but if you have trouble with porn and shit: don't be a slave to your dick, don't let what is ultimately a biological response dictate your activities, remember all those times you orgasmed and how silly and pointless it felt immediately afterwards. Feel how good it feels to not blow your essence on a Kleenex everytime you get the urge. It's cuck shit. It's being controlled by something that isn't you, because I'm sure you don't think your self is equivalent to your sexual preferences. Feel how small you sex drive feels in the presence of beauty and nature, how animalistic and base it feels to be thinking about anal walking around in the sunshine. Not to mention the boost in creativity and energy levels after you haven't masturbated in awhile.

One day I was sitting at a red light on the way home and trying to desperately not to think about this porn I wanted to whack off to. And as soon as my defenses and my thought control techniques and shit would slip, I'd go right back to being horny. And then it clicked: I was lying to myself. I was missing the point of all these esoteric techniques: there's no point in putting this shit out of sight, out of mind if it still makes you horny, that's just ignoring the problem. There needs to be a real shift in consciousness. Think about it: people who are the worst kind of deviants, it doesn't happen in a vacuum, the very "texture" of their consciousness, everything about their internal experience, their self-concept, how they process the world, etc. is what makes it possible for them to get as horny over depraved shit as we do over a girl with a big ass. It wasn't about suppressing desire but becoming a consciousness for whom that desire wouldn't even apply in the first place. Actual, no-shit self-overcoming. Hard as fuck to do but it's the truth

>>1479281
I want to be free from borders, from limits, I want to be absolutely and unconditionally free. That doesn't mean I have to stop being human, as long as I am alive I shall be human. But what kind of human that is is an important question. And to me right now that human is the superego, or awoken. So I still behave in a human manner, but not one that I see as superficial anymore. As by living by someone elses word, that someone else being my ego.

I'm saying you can still be awoken and remain a human being, because what else would you be?

>>1479284
Beautifully put brother. I imagine it's something like changing the fabric of your being. I enjoy your perspective.

>>1479308
If we don't continue to have sexual human desire past human incarnation, what do you say to all the myths about higher beings lusting after and coupling with human beings? Metaphor?

>>1479335
Human beings mating with other human beings is just drive given to us by our ego's, or the controller. When one is in superego, the old ego is not abandoned completely. For example I still like movies, and music and all the things that my ego likes. But I am able to see past my ego and so now I have my own desires that are separate from his.

He still yells at me to jack off, but I know that ultimately that desire is pointless so I don't get bothered by it. I still indulge in it as we all do, but it is nothing more than a way to pleasantly spend my time.

>>1479362
Got any texts you'd reccomend?

>>1479327
Yeah, it's a project. On a side note, I'd recommend Julius Evola's Doctrine of Awakening if you want a more in-depth and nuanced perspective on Buddhist Praxis that's light years ahead of the pop dreck on the shelves now. Even I can't stomach that shit anymore

>>1479380
None unless there's a book called "The Nature of Yourself" that will tell you every truth about what you really are. I claim that the truth is not found in a book, but found inside yourself. You have to know yourself fully and entirely to understand truth. And it will all begin when you set yourself free from fear, which is to be free from time. Freedom from fear IS freedom from time. But I can't teach you how to not have fear can I? That is something you must teach yourself. And only you can do it.

>>1479411
>Freedom from fear IS freedom from time.

Real shit

>>1479392
Oh righteous, were you the one posting Evola earlier in the thread?

Gotta read him, I'm a right winger myself.

>>1479428
Yessir. I'm going to post some thought control techniques derived from both eastern and western traditions when I get home later. Very helpful stuff.

>>1479448
please do, sounds very useful.
it's nice to interact with traditionalist occultists. Most I meet are hardcore leftist for some reason.

>>1479411
Ha, gotta read it in the aether I guess.

>>1478281
I was talking about how chaos magic is interesting, even if it gets utilize by a lot of materialist morons looking for some quick boons.

I think it makes a strong basis to build upon however you like, and the detachment from identity is a powerful tool to avoid being bogged down in ceremony

>>1478429
Mystical experience doesn't often mean a whole lot if that's all the person has, if someone has a breakdown of identity and is bombarded by spirits or other ghosties then they have failed as a magician.
All these things are mere tools for managing the natural forces, which we ourselves give shape and identity to, and in turn they give themselves.

my BIG issue with a lot of these esoteric works is their complete focus on the "other" world, and denouciation of this one as "evil" or unimportant.

These ideas should help you build yourself up, strive to create the overman within you, not throw yourself down and denounce this world for gains in the next.
That's why I enjoy chaos magic, it's entirely neutral on the "other" world and essentially offers a barebones template for us to build upon. It works on its own, but also offers us an addendum to compliment our other practices so long as we don't get carried away in materialism/transcendentalism

>>1479562
But once you see how unimportant everything really is you will call it unimportant. That is what the esoterics are saying, that they have seen beyond what was meant to be seen and now they see the old as trivial and pointless, because it is.

After having practised Esoteric stuff, do you react to things in the same way as other people?

For example, how would you react to torture or a situation that provokes intense fear?

>>1479584
If one was aware in that moment then there would be no fear, surely they would still feel physical pain but there would be no fear of it. If one is scared than one is not aware in that moment, and gives in to the self. Then the self becomes more and more scared as it regains more and more control over you. So how you react in that situation depends on how aware you are.

Some people will claim violence does not stop violence and die for that.

>>1479592
How do you gain that kind of pure awareness, where your mind is like a mirror though?

>>1479607
First you must be able to silence thought. Silence the mind and merely observe, the birds, the cars, the city sounds or the country sounds. Observe it all without prejudice and don't think about it just be aware of it. Once you have done this you will wonder why the mind never shuts up, why its always trying to think and judge. And you will eventually silence it enough you'll say "What is left? Why have I not reached enlightenment?" and the answer will be rooted in fear, in attainment or desire. And you will have to understand that all those things, rooted in time are not to be feared. Because the answer you want to know can only be known now, right now in the instant. And that instant is devoid of time. You cannot have fear of seeing the truth or else you will never see it.

>>1479620
Interesting, have you read the works of Jiddu Krishnamurti? This kind of self-inquiry seems similar to his teachings.

>>1479644
I love Krishnamurti, bless his soul as it is within all of us. Krishnamurti tried to teach that he was human and you are human too, so you two are fundamentally capable of the exact same things. That you are humanity, not a part of humanity. Then he tried to teach enlightenment as "total awareness" and how when the mind is totally aware, it stumbles upon that which is eternal or nameless, I personally call it 'the nothing' or 'the everything' as they're synonymous. If you go through Krishnamurti's quotes he makes a couple about being absolutely nothing, a truth most of us have claimed to experience ourselves through similar methods to Jiddu's.

I finally understand the difference between you claiming to be illuminate and those who are gnostics.

Gnostics see no reason to do anything, and so they don't. But illuminates see manipulation of the material world as a means to an end, in order to awaken more people. The two sides are both doing what they believe they should to awaken more people, but take about it in two totally separate directions.

>>1479701
I get it. Active vs. passive enlightenment

>>1479710
While I still believe active enlightenment is a subcategory of the ego, that is that one finds satisfaction in doing the 'work of the enlightened'. It's stroking the own ego that it has helped coach a being greater than itself. While gnostics or passive enlightenment people are firm in their representation to do nothing as a means to enlighten. So one form of enlightenment is ego centered, while the other is superego centered. Bizarre isn't it?

>>1479701
Yup, that's what I mean.
Another aspect is that illuminist see material existence as a positive thing and a sign of advancement.
Gnostiks see material existence as a fall, if not a wholly negative mistake or prison.

>>1479780
Why can't I be label free and choose to be both? Why can't I have my stance that to be enlightened one must simply be nothing, but then manipulate this faulty game whenever I can just to see if it benefits my own ego's causes and desires? After all if I am everything, and then I play with everything, I am manipulating that which is myself.

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>>1472083
I don't know why anyone would describe themselves as esoteric? Unless you're just into weird obscure hokum

>>1472083
What is Hermeticism and what are some good books about it?

>>1479811
I'm skeptical that you are everything.

I enjoy labels, most westerners who aren't orient esotericists do. I'm a Platonic Manichean by nature, but a kind of reverse Manichean.

For me, there are those who hate life and try to escape it, and those who love life and relish it. A great deal of esotericists fall into the former class, espeecially orientalists, and I think that's a great tragedy.

>>1479866
But they don't actually withdraw from life because they hate it they do so because they no longer feel conflict. I get what you are saying that playing the game sometimes does feel fun and life should be fun, but why do I have to pick one or another? If I am nothing than I am everything, and so by manipulation of this everything I am changing nothing. That is myself. Since I am everything and nothing. It sounds good to me.

>>1479862
Corpus Hermeticum is the basis of Western Occultism.
Emerald Tablet of Hermes came much later but all very influential.
Kybalion, a modern text very influenced by new thought than traditional hermeticism, but great starting point.

You're gonna want to know, Gnosticism, Judaism, Christianity, Platonism, NeoPlatonism, Alchemy, Astrology, Greek Myth, Egyptian Myth, some Tarot is Good.

For a short and great introduction to the whole lot:
Western Esoteric Traditions by Clarke

Cannot recommend it more highly.

>>1479890
Alright, thanks. Can using Hermetic techniques fuck me up in the head or is that other traditions?

>>1479888
"If I am nothing than I am everything"

I don't know about that, sounds like a lame oriental koan.

You can do whatever you like, but you definetly seem to lean towards the gnostik side. With that being the case, there's not a whole lot I can say. Either you worship the Enki or you are crushed by Enlil. This is how it's always been. Some souls are squeezed out of existence by their own actions, it's their choice to do so and I imagine they gain some satisfaction from it, as masochistic as it may seem to me. Or maybe I'm the masochist and Gnostiks are opting out of a raw deal.

Listen, I understand you, it's just hard for me to relate and it makes me sad for individuals who seek dissolution. I don't believe you are nothing, I believe you have a beautiful soul that is being tormented by material existence. Not that I'm great, Ive met potentates, they are intense. But all these individuals I've wanted to be like have every time been illuminists.

>>1479926
Everything is a non exclusive process. There is nothing to be excluded. That means that in everything, one has what one is and then one also has it's antithesis. That is that if I have everything I also have nothing, and nothing is something. But everything is something. So nothing and everything are one and I claim that through my inquire I saw that nothing was everything.

I believe you understand me, I believe we are thinking about the exact same thing but I approach it separately from you. See if the ego likes labels, and then we destroy all labels by destroying the ego, then why do we label the super ego?

Is it better to act or not act simply if one feels inclined to do so or not? Is that not the simple answer?

>>1479913
Sure it can fuck you up. Be especially careful with the Gnostiks. Once you get into esotericism, it comes to color every aspect of your life.

You're going to run into a ton of anti life philosophies in occultism especial when Gnosticism or orientalism is the basis.

If you stay positive and follow the light it will lead you to illuminism which is supreme love of existence and the knowledge of potent action. I've met potentates who are like this. That's my goal.

But yeah, I've met several people who were directly fucked by calling up things with occult study that they weren't prepaired to handle. On The other hand, for lots of people, it's just texts and they have no real effect at all.

>>1479945
What can fuck you up? What should be avoided?

>>1479953
lol avoid it all if you want to be 'normal', or simply read but have no comprehension of what you're reading.

>>1479942
I don't think we agree at all.
I also think that this everything is nothing is a self defeating philosophy.
Not acting is choosing to be a passive player.

I assume you get satisfaction from this. That's fine, the two pillars of Solomon's temple cannot stand alone.

>>1479953
It's hard to say Exactly.
As funny as what >>1479957 says, it's pretty accurate.

It can cause individuals to develop supreme egotism and alienating tendencies. It can relatedly be a short cut to thinking. These two generally manifest as edgy Satanists or new agers who talk to crystals.

As with anything, you wanna go to the source. Read the Corpus.

Read some Jung and Plato. This way you can talk about your experiences in Secular terms. Be very careful about ever talking about explicit spiritual experiences.

It's a lot of fun and if you're drawn to it I imagine you have little choice.

Best to keep silent, that's how most people duck themselves up, social stigma.

On the more spiritual side. You can literally align yourself with spiritual currents that are deliberatley anti human. You can find yourself engaging in very negative practices (drugs, sex, depression).

>>1479448
Are you still here anon? I'm interested in this.

>>1479972
It does defeat the self, you've got that right. But If I flat out come and say 'I'm gnostic." then you assume I won't do anything about it. But I will, through not actually doing anything. Which is that if I act on society, that counts as not doing anything because I am doing nothing. I can't harm nothing if I have no opinion on it, but if I start playing with it I could. But if I know what all those bad things are and then I have the power to stop them, should I not? And I would say yes, but that doesn't necessarily require an action. But I will give you one.

I will join the side you want me to, from the observation of the complete opposite side on which I belong. I will be both, as that is the only correct answer.

>>1480031
Sure you can say on a universal or even societal scale, we can do nothing, but this is the same problem atheists have. Spirituality as such, centralized consequences of life on the individual (call it Karma since you seem to be partial to the orient; even though this is a bastardized usage).

Sure action and non-action are the same, but not really. We can meditate on Koans all night about how life is meaninglessness in its meaningful meaninglessness, but truth be told you will suffer the consequences of your actions spiritually. Life has meaning, you have a purpose, this is the Garden of Eden and all you need to do is eat the fruit of Good and Evil and you will be like into God.

>>1480065
But what if I believe I already am God and that God's knowledge cannot be taught? Only discovered for ones self?

>>1480113
I consider your dialogue to be without basis and would look better on a tie dye shirt than in a discussion of esotericism. You should be the poster boy for gnostiks who blow their brains out with low grade eastern philosophy.

>>1480128
I like to think I am still sane and rational. If I wasn't I would be insane, which is not healthy. But I feel very healthy, I am healthy. I just don't know why you fear nothing so much. Nothing is nothing to fear, it's the only absolute truth that is timeless. Nothing when exposed to time creates everything. I am not attacking you in anyway I just want to help you understand a little.

>>1480138
I don't fear it, I just don't think it's actual. Musing on nothingness is for existentialists and depressives.

I can't be proven to be true and further has no affect on life as we strive to create. Obsessing over nothingness is most often a justification for one impotency.

>>1480158
So suppose I don't dwell on nothing as the depressives do but instead focus on the everything as the optimists do. Then what has changed? What in your eyes is the fundamental change? I ask because I want to understand from your view.

>>1480168
You create. You become a part of the Archetypal order of the universe. You experience the Platonic Forms behind existence. You experience the fullness of the infinite and lust for it with more passion than was ever expensed on your greatest infatuation.

Then you work, you build, you purify. You grasp onto the scepter of life and channell it's truth through your being. You aspire for the all that is unachievable.

You create a better state of being for your loved ones and progeny.

>>1480158
not him but 'nothingness' or 'emptiness' is often a translation mistake, a more apt word for the sanskrit/pali word used in buddhist texts is 'boundlessness'.

>>1480180
To be quite honest, the state you propose seems to be one notch above true enlightenment, where you no longer feel a desire to attain or know because you know all you need to, which is the truth. But you seem to be saying that you want to lust for the truth for all eternity if possible to better the world. I say that is silliness why not just know the truth now then decide what to do?

>>1480184
I believe you are making a gamble that you are correct. You believe you have the truth, perhaps you do. Let's suppose you are wrong and live according to this meaningless factor, I see that as a waste of life.

Let's now say that I am wrong, as you suppose, I feel that attempting to be as efficacious (however that may be as I know you will argue this point) as you can, constant change, constant becoming, is a life well spent. If it is true that all is meaningless, then I fall back on the existentialist subjective meaning.

True I may never grasp truth, certainly not in this life, so I content myself with the pursuit.

>>1480182
Thanks for your clarification. I still feel like eastern philosophies point towards a stillness of life, like a pool of water, where I advocate for a dynamic existence.

>>1480216
If you saw the truth and became truly enlightened, awoken, then you would not stop being you. For example if you are a a great scientist, you don't suddenly stop being a great scientist because you fundamentally know all there is to know. The absolute truth. You will still see that the materialistic world can be uncovered and if that has brought you joy in the past, as a poet does with his poetry or a musician with his instrument, then you will keep doing it.

Ego death kills no humanity. It only lets you see past it and you can still participate in humanity if you choose to. We all can.

This thread needs better music
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUCoYcxNMBE

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ _/¯(ツ)¯\_ ¯\_(ツ)¯\_ _/¯(ツ)_/¯

>>1480235
I can get behind that. I generally hate the term ego death because of how it's often used by western orientalists, but as you've used it here I agree.

I'm an occidentalist and a illuminist, the great men I've met have always been this way. The people who talk the way you do, in my day to day life, are always ineffective.

I am skeptical of ever having complete knowledge, but I'll entertain the thought. If your philosophy translates into an improved capacity, I endorse it.

>>1480225
>I still feel like eastern philosophies point towards a stillness of life,
It's actually the opposite. Buddhism is a reaction against suffering and how to deal with it. The whole thing simplified in a single line would be
>'Pain is inevitable.Suffering is optional'
Walking the path of Buddhism, or similiar eastern philosophies like Taoism, removes our self-added layer over pain.

When you are hit by an arrow, don't add a 'second arrow' by adding your personal narrative to it. Through this we can live and interact with the word much better than being dictated by our thoughts and preferences about what should be, instead of what is.

Eastern philosophy is actually incredibly dynamic and interpreting it as advocating for stagnancy and stillness is merely a surface level reading of it.

>>1480262
Yeah this thread has shown me I need to read up on eastern thought more, most people I meet advocating for it usually use it as an excuse to do nothing.

People seem really big on eastern thought here.

>>1480346
>most people I meet advocating for it usually use it as an excuse to do nothing.
It's usually because the terms used to describe certain concepts in eastern philosophies are very specific and the translation removes the whole meaning.

For example in Taoism a key concept is 'Wei wu Wei' translated as 'action without action', people use it as an excuse to do nothing whereas the actual meaning is closer to being incredibly absorbed in the present activity, without the interference of the ego.

There's a lot of misconceptions about eastern thought so I don't blame you.

>>1480391
I dig it my man. Ingnorance always causes issues, throw in misunderstanding and shoddy translation, that's prime for conflict.

Esotericism is fantastic but please make sure you've read the essential texts before you go down the rabbit hole. Follow /lit/'s Greek chart, then read Plotinus' Enneads, the Bible, the Corpus Hermeticum and the main Kabbalah texts. Also make sure you keep in mind that esotericism goes hand in hand with religious mysticism.

what are some good intro texts?

>>1482020
what edition would you rec for the enneads? is lots of different ones

>>1482020
any book you can recommend for the main kabbalah texts?

>>1482113
Penguin Mackenna translation.

>>1482115
Colin Lowe's introduction to Qabalah is available online. Mystical Qabalah by Dion Fortune for the big boys.

>>1481456
Do you have any resources on this illuminist-gnostic dichotomy? I knew about it before but never seen it expressed in those terms

>>1482020
>Follow /lit/'s Greek chart, then read Plotinus' Enneads, the Bible, the Corpus Hermeticum and the main Kabbalah texts
I can understand the Greeks,Plotinus and the Corpus Hermeticum but why would knowledge about the Bible and Kabbalah be needed?

>>1482759
It's terms that fit based on what their representatives do. It's ultimately just a distinction between those who see life as good versus those who see life as bad.

Gnostics see life as a prison, this is pretty apparent with minimal study.
Illuminist is someone who is illumined, to me that means someone who acknowledges and accepts the state of existence as good.

>>1483511
Both the Kabbalah and Christianity have a huge influence on occultism. Occultism is at its base Hermeticism, Gnosticism, Kaballah, and NeoPlatonism.

>>1483524
If you're only studying Hermeticism specifically would they still be important?

>>1483555
Hard to say, depends on exactly what you're going for.

Gnosticism, NeoPlatonism, and Hermeticism heavily influenced each other in the first few centuries.

The Corpus Hermeticum is the cornerstone of all Western Esotericism so you'll be getting a lot of similar ideas.

It's a good place to start because it has most of the aspects you'll find elsewhere. Alchemy, Astrology, Magic, Emanations, Monadism, etc.

Hermeticism influenced every western occultists.

Hope that helps some.

>>1483575
Yeah, that has helped. I'll probably read Corpus first before anything else. I haven't really been interested in the western traditions until this thread, so I should probably go straight for the source.

>>1483588
To be honest, it's pretty dense reading. I love it, no doubt, but it might turn you off.

For a great overview I recommend:
Western Esoteric Traditions by Goodrick-Clarke.
It's my favorite book of all time.

Kybalion by Three initiates, is also an excellent starting point. It's a modern book of New Thought as applied to Hermeticism, but will introduce you to most of the major concepts in the Western occult Tradition.

File: Yggdrasil.jpg (83KB, 357x448px) Image search: [Google]

83KB, 357x448px

>>1483588
They're all the same truths expressed in different systems and their associated terminology. For example, the Sephira of Beauty in Kabbalah is analogous to the solar gold in alchemy. Both represent the pure Self that is the core of personality but not OF it.

The better feel you get for these ideas, the more you're able to see them everywhere, even in the Bible. For example, Jacob wrestling with the angel through the night is symbolic of the struggle to spiritualize oneself in the "night" of matter/the body. This also has parallels with the Mithraic iconography of the figure, Mithra's, (the Self) riding the Bull (the vital force of the body that keeps one fettered to instinctual, biological drives) until it is exhausted, after which he slays it and undergoes a kind of death and is reborn as wholly spirit

>>1483645
True brother, perennial tradition. The Platonic Forms manifest to all who can see. The archetypes reveal the metaphysical reality behind the physical world.

>>1483712
Even postmodern philosophy tangentially refers to similar ideas, like the Deleuzian "origami cosmos" that is in an endless flux of creation-destruction is essentially Buddhist Samsara. Even Derridean "difference" has its echoes in tantra, were ignorance is essentially an exclusive awareness of this as opposed to that, which is the source of suffering.

Maybe I'm forcing the parallels but the point is there is a very full and dense holistic model of realm in esoterica that is endlessly fascinating and well-supported

>>1483762
That's cool, I've been pretty anti postmodern for awhile now due to their seemingly helpless additude to knowledge.

Truth is truth though, the religionists have been saying it forever. It's expressed in different words, but the view and experience is the same or it wouldn't be truth. But that's what you've already said.

>>1483793
We can all find this similar truth if we inquire deeply and seriously into the nature of the truth.

>>1475964
It's amazing.

"The method of science, the aim of religion"

>>1482434
but isnt the penguin edition an abridgment?

>>1483871
Blavatsky was right about so much

>>1484074
It is but it's the more poetic translation.

>>1484239
does the abridgment leave out anything important?

>>1484242
You get his most iconic treatises and I think only the really dense and systematic ones are left out.

Think it's time to make a new thread, fellas

>>1484264
how important are they tho

>>1484267
Do it brother.