Where to begin?

[K.J]

For those who are just beginning their studies on esoteric philosophy and occultism, where should one begin? Is there any particular books that would be a good start?

Jeremy

[bonezooth]

I've been fortunate enough to find some excellent introductory materials that i can whole heartedly recommend:
The Tree of Life, by Israel Regardie
The Mystical Qaballah, by Dion Fortune
A Garden of Pomegranites, by Israel Regardie

All of these are in print and easily obtainable...

[daniel]

Here are my recommendations:

The Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism - Lama Govinda

The Hermetic Tradition - Julius Evola

The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light - William Irwin Thompson

How to Know Higher Worlds - Rudolf Steiner

In Search of the Miraculous - PD Ouspensky

Some other favorites:

The Holy Teaching of Vimalakirti - trans Thurman

The Cosmic Doctrine - Dion Fortune

On the Geneology of Morals - Nietzsche

The Great Triad - Rene Guenon

Also if you want a non-esoteric overview of modern society:

One Dimensional Man - Herbert Marcuse

[Osiris]

Misterbeanz

The MOST prized book in my Library to date.I still have yet to find anyone in my travels,including some Collage professors I know who have heard of it.The web sight has much to offer also.I found it by chance,or,rather it found me.I found the Pythagorean sections to be the most riviting and mind expanding words I've ever had the plesure to read.It's worth every penny.

THE SECRET TEACHINGS OF ALL AGES:

An Encyclopedic Outline of Masonic, Hermetic, Qabbalistic and Rosicrucian Symbolical Philosophy

By Manly P. Hall

http://www.prs.org/secret.htm

[ November 22, 2002, 04:40 PM: Message edited by: Osiris ]

[K.J]

Thank you everyone for your suggestions. I have allot of reading to do! Please keep me posted if you think of any others.

Jeremy

[daniel]

Jeremy,

I'm reading William Irwin Thompson right now. He is brilliant and capable of synthesizing incredible amounts of information. Check out:

The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light

and

Coming into Being: Texts on the Evolution of Consciousness

Actually, if John Hoopes is out there, I wonder if he has checked out Thompson.

[Scott]

In my opinion, the floodgates of modern esoteric research and the New Age as we have come to know it, officialy begin with the publication of H. P. Blavatsky's book, "The Secret Doctrine" in 1888. All the great occult and esoteric writers of the twentieth centure were heavely influenced by this book and acknowledged their debt to Blavatsky. Steiner, Manely Hall, Dion fortune, to name just a few.

The entire book is online at:
http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/sd/sd-hp.htm

Here is a good Blavatsky site: http://www.blavatsky.net/

What is significant about this book is that it claims to be but a fragment of the Original Cosmology held in trust since the dawn of creation on this planet.

Scott

[daniel]

Hi Scott,

I have a hard time with Blavatsky - maybe it is the stern and unappealing pictures of her or the packaging of her movement or ... something. I just can't take her seriously. How do you find the actual texts? Have you compared her to Steiner or to Dion Fortune or others?

Does anyone have any thoughts on the Urantia stuff? I don't dare venture there...

[K.J]

Daniel,

I myself have never read the Urantia book. But I once met a guy who was crazy about it. I know nothing about the actual belief system, but this guy gave me the impression that it was just as dogmatic as Christianity. I didn't pursue it much more than skimming the book, which I don't recall now.

Jeremy

[imported_saoirse]

i've been lurking on the message board for a few weeks, dying to get involved but constricted by work and relationship commitments [stimulating and tempting as the discussions are, phone calls from riker's island etc had to take precedence]. i was finally about to get involved in the discussion going on in the 'transformations' thread, but i, as usual, was procrastinating by checking out all the new posts. when i read the post from scott about blavatsky i had to get involved - as i've told daniel, i came to his book and website via a series of synaesthesic moments.[ if your out there daniel, i know i've already mentioned some of these to you in a private email]. anyway, to cut a long story short, i came to this country from ireland in 1993, spent the summer working in wild wood nj, then 5 yrs in philly in the restarauant business, then to nyc [ft greene brklyn], bartending/cuny law school, now legal aid crim defense. however, while in philly i waited tables at a restaraunt for 2 and a half years on 3420 sansom street. i learned more in those two and a half years than the prior 25 - i went in there a naive and insecure 'meat and potatoes' hard drinking irish g.a.a. boy [ i still play and love hurling] and came out on the road to who i really want to be. i have a great love for the white dog cafe and the people i met there. i'm not saying it was perfect, but working there was definitely a turning point in my life. anyway, i digress [excess turkey and pinot noir; forgive me] - the point is that each day, as i worked, i was confronted by blavtsky's 'stern and unappealing' beady eyes following me around the small dining room as i pretended to like the ivy league brats i was serving [ a photograph of her hung on the wall]- you see, the ownwer of the restaraunt was a big admirer of hpb: she [blavatsky] had lived in the building at one point, and, moreover, her philosophy was somewhat in synch with the ethos of the restaraunt [check out .www.whitedogcafe.com] (http://www.whitedogcafe.com). of course, i borrowed some of her books from the restaraunt book shop, but didn't get much out of them. i just [unsucessfully] attempted to re-read one of them a few months ago, ended up trashing it, but, in light of my recent reading and experiences, i'm tempted to give it another shot. anyway, i have to go. hope to pick up tomorrow, as i definitely have some thoughts to post in the 'transformations' thread, especially re marihuana, and in 'globalization and the occult' re the idea of 'catostrophic bifurcation'. peace, and happy thanksgiving to all. kevin.

[ December 02, 2002, 05:54 PM: Message edited by: saoirse ]

[Scott]

Hi Daniel,

Kevin's story of the White Dog cafe is really remarkable. A great piece of Blavatsky trivia I was not aware of. Thanks for the post.

The is a huge amount of static and smoke surrounding HP Blavatsky. The moment she arrived on the scene she was viciously attacked by both the press and the Church. The controversy around her has never abated and immediately polarizes people to this day. It's impossible to remain neutral about her. She is perceived to be either the spawn of Satan or a Cosmic Revelator of the highest order. I myself am in the latter camp. You'll find it interesting to know that this was the unexpected result of three consecutive nights of ayahuasca ceremonies last year with a master shaman from Peru. For some reason, in these three journeys, the yage give me intimate knowledge which proved to me beyond any shadow of a doubt that Blavatsky was what she she claimed to be an: emissary of the Mysteries and the one responsible for initiating their restoration in our era. This knowledge came crashing down on me like a piano from a 20 story building. I could go much deeper into this in future posts if you wish. Unfortunately, I personally cannot convey this realization to anyone else. Ultimately one has to let the words of HPB and especially the 'Secret Doctrine' speak for themselves.

The book itself is structured as a commentary on a selection of Stanzas which she claimed were transmitted to her while in Tibet. "The Stanzas of Dzyan" are said to be but a small portion of the root text of cosmology for our planet. For over a hundred years people have searched in vain for the original sources of the Stanzas. Only recently has their been an apparent breakthrough in this quest. A modern researcher and Sanskrit scholar, David Reigle, believes he is hot on the trail that leads to the source of the Stanzas. He believes it to lie in hidden parts of the Kalachakra tantra of Tibetan Buddhism. Here is a link.

http://www.blavatskyarchives.com/reiglecon.htm

The yage showed me that Blavatsky represents the esoteric nucleus or embryo of the Mysteries. She gave it birth. When extended, it has two poles bounded by a spectrum of sacred knowledge.

As to Steiner, I believe he extended it's Western or Christ pole. It is historical fact that he was a die-hard Theosophist and Blavatsky student. He actually founded the German branch of the Theosophical Society, but broke with them after the movement became corrupted by the Krishnamurti scandal in the 1920's

I put Steiner right up there next to Blavatsky in importance. He was one of those responsible for resurrecting major components of the hidden esoteric data base as preparation for the full restoration of the Mysteries, which by the way, I believe is shortly to come. But in terms of lineage, which is important when tracking the re-emergance and unfoldment of the Mysteries, Blavatsky was first, Steiner came next.

As to the Urantia Book, I recall many years ago when I first encountered it that there was a rumor floating around that it was originally discovered in a garbage can. Whether or not this is true, I believe this is where the Urantia Book belongs.

Scott

[chi]

For anyone who needs a good place to "start," I would recommend reading anything by Ouespensky, who was a student of Gurdijief, who eventually broke ties with him. Ouespensky's content is written in a rational, unemotional yet probing and highly curious way so that he is able to present very difficult ideas in a manner that is at once digestible. As his words are not shaded by intense emotion and his approach is scientific, I found it easier to accept his concept of another world and other dimensions.

[daniel]

A story I have heard, perhaps apocryphal, is that the only person Steiner would not let inside his Goetheaneum was: Gurdjieff.

However, I feel many of Steiner's and Gurdjieff's ideas can be mapped onto each other successfully. I would like to see a more profound consideration of the congruencies and differences in their thought.

[chi]

I can't blame anyone for ostracizing Gurdjieff. I've read all of his material, and he seems to have started out with a clear, true vision and ended up falling through a black hole of egoism. Ouespensky on the other hand kept himself on track and did not get caught up in the celebrity of being a teacher. Although sadly, he ended his life alone,perhaps insane with thousands of cats around his apartment. Personally, I feel he actually transformed and reincarnated backward in time so that what everyone saw was just the shell of the man, who was really no longer there! As I have not yet read Steiner, it would be difficult to map out the connections between the philosophies. However, Gurdjeiff, or the Fourth Way philosophy is basically a reinterpretation of Sufiism--Man is asleep and unaware of his possibilities. As he exists now, he has no powers and cannot "do" anything. Only through transformation and the making of a soul can man reach higher dimensions and have access to the laws of higher dimensions.

[Erric]

Hi Chi - Daniel forwarded me your message. "Erric" is misspelled due to my total ineptitude as a typist. Regarding reading material on esoteric studies, I would highly recommend the following eclectic resources:

Manly P. Hall Philosophical Research Society)
Ouspensky, Bennett & Gurdjieff (The Fourth Way)
Idries Shah(Sufism)
Autobiography of a Yogi(Paramahamsa Yogananda)
early Woody Allen (for comic relief)

[daniel]

erric, chi,

have you read Bennet's analysis of "The Sermon on the Mount" using the Enneagram? And if so, what did you think of it?

[ouroboros]

Colin Wilson has written some of the best surveys of esotericism to date. His 1971 classic "The Occult" is still one of the best introductions, in my opinion. He later supplemented it with further volumes: "Mysteries" and "Beyond the Occult." Check out my Colin Wilson Web site. (http://www.lsa.umich.edu/~jbmorgan/cwilson.html)

I also highly recommend Antoine Faivre's "Access to Western Esotericism." It's very recent and covers everything from Swedenborg and Sufism to Rene Guenon and Aleister Crowley.

[ericg]

Regarding the Urantia book (Urantia is purportedly the real name of our planet), I would rate it as a very interesting (though long-winded) piece of science fiction. To each his own, but I would not give it much credence.

[ericg]

I likewise would recommend the writings of Colin Wilson, not just on the occult and paranormal, but also his first book The Outsider, which deals more with metaphysics, philosophy and psychology.

[ericg]

I have not read Bennett's book on the enneagram, but will look for it. I very much enjoyed his analysis of the Gurdjieff system in Gurdjieff: Making of a New World and one other which I lent out and has disappeared into the ether.

[sidecross]

Some of the best advise I ever received was from a horse trainer who when asked a similar question about "where to begin", replied "you start at the beginning".

All of the books so far listed are ones I have at least paged through, and the reader must judge for themselves about their worth. I did notice an absence of any books on some of the recent findings of quantum mechanics and astrophysics.

Some of the recent findings on entanglement, communication between paired sub particles that communicate outside of our time space continuum to be worth an inquiry. The latest findings that the universe is expanding much faster than previously thought and a large portion of universe is now said to be composed of "dark energy" is also an interresting new bit of data to wonder at.

Alas, as Terrence Mckenna might have advised, nothing is as powerfull as an actual experience as compared to a thought experiment. For these explorations we all begin with a first step.