Why was Yeats so into the occult and magic and /x/ stuff?

It's what all the cool kids were doing at the turn of the century

he knew what was up

>>9539177
It's because he was looking for a more pervasive underlying magic with which to plaster his work.
Words are magic, so it makes sense to look into the occult arts etc to try to improve.

According to himself, metaphors. A system of metaphors. If I recollect, but it's been awhile since I've read A Vision, and related materials.

>>9539177
he was seeking truth

>>9539430
I don't understand that explanation. There's no such thing as absolute truth so was he just looking for a subjective experience, curios, bored...?

>>9539402
>It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles man, but what comes out
Words are magic, indeed. Learning the dangers or the dangerous ways to use words can be a risk worth taking.

>>9539476
Honestly, I feel like a prerequisite for it is going slightly insane in a deluded, anti-objective way. I have no clue where to find a manifesto or something to learn about this kind of stuff though. Would be handy...

H needed memes to spice up his poetry.

>>9539466
>there's no such thing as absolute truth
Funny how teenagers accept this axiom blindly.

>>9539177
just like /lit/ is only one level of irony away from /x/ tbqh.

>>9540058
Why are you assuming it was blindly accepted?
Since truth is subjective, transient, and has been proving to not only change over time but also exist in a plethora of dimensions depending on the allocated faith/support, I can safely say absolute truth is a Platonist delusion. Honestly, I probably understand truth far better than you do. If you have anything to say that justifies your ignorant assumption, I'm listening.

>>9539177
>I believe in the practice and philosophy of what we have agreed to call magic, in what I must call the evocation of spirits, though I do not know what they are, in the power of creating magical illusions, in the visions of truth in the depths of the mind when the eyes are closed; and I believe in three doctrines, which have, as I think, been handed down from early times, and been the foundations of nearly all magical practices. These doctrines are—

(1) That the borders of our minds are ever shifting, and that many minds can flow into one another, as it were, and create or reveal a single mind, a single energy.

(2) That the borders of our memories are as shifting, and that our memories are a part of one great memory, the memory of Nature herself.

(3) That this great mind and great memory can be evoked by symbols.

I often think I would put this belief in magic from me if I could, for I have come to see or to imagine, in men and women, in houses, in handicrafts, in nearly all sights and sounds, a certain evil, a certain ugliness, that comes from the slow perishing through the centuries of a quality of mind that made this belief and its evidences common over the world.

--- "Magic," Yeats

In my opinion, his embrace of occult studies is twofold: 1) a belief in a grand tradition, a collective unconsciousness that is ineffable in direct, scientific terms but reveals itself to us in symbols, poetry, and hallucinations, and 2) a reaction against the techno-materialist future the world around him was turning towards, which relates to this: >>9539267

>>9540085
interesting

1 and 2 seems okay but idk about 3

>>9540083
If you think platonism is a delusion then you missed out on two thousand years of confirmation of his theories.

>>9539466
>There's no such thing as absolute truth

People were dumber back then which is why their art is worse too. If we told the modernists there was no such thing as absolute truth we would have been saved from their godawful painterly 'experiments'

>>9540307
>t. inbred redditor who failed to start with the greeks and thinks rick and morty is deep

>>9540410
Do you see anything Greek in Pollock's period blood and shit on canvas?

he communicated with Zoroaster, iirc

thats impressive, i didnt know people could do that

>>9540297
We have 1500 years of confirmation of the Bible's rhetoric, does that mean it's true?
Also, you can't "confirm" philosophical theories, you can merely support them. I admit, they have a pretty big fan base, but the 20th Century offers some more convincing truths such as the postmodernist rejection of absolute truth and the simple, common sense notion that since truth is inconsistent, transient, and solely dependent on faith, it cannot possibly allow for an "absolute" truth unless you mean objective reality.

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15KB, 309x174px

>>9542062

>the 20th Century offers some more convincing truths such as the postmodernist rejection of absolute truth

not gonna make it

>>9540058
>blind acceptance is bad
t. platonist