Novelists interested in occultism

Discussion on literature other than by the Star of Azazel.
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Jiva
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Re: Novelists interested in occultism

Post by Jiva »

The last couple of weeks I've been obsessed with Yevgeney Zamyatin's We. This book often gets mentioned in relation to Orwell's 1984 as he pretty much took the basic plot but changed the nature of the oppressive society. While Orwell's Oceania is a brutal dystopia, the One State of We is instead a utopian society obsessed with intellectualism and basically removing the animalistic and unpredictable characteristics of humanity. It really reminds me of the panoptic institutions described by Foucault compared and contrasted with Jung's mandalas. Like I said, I've got slightly obsessed with this story and have already written something like 3,000 words of notes that focus on it :P.

Even when translated into English, Russian novels always have a linguistic beauty that tears at my heart. I can vividly remember the feeling the 16 year old me felt when I read Dostoevsky's The Gambler for the first time...
'Oh Krishna, restless and overpowering, this mind is overwhelmingly strong; I think we might as easily gain control over the wind as over this.'
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Jiva
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Re: Novelists interested in occultism

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While not being an occultist influenced author, I couldn’t think of anywhere better to mention Tom Holt who wrote books in the style of Terry Pratchett that, early in his career, focussed on interpreting various mythologies. I don’t think I can recommend a particular one, but remember reading through a lot of his books when I was in my early teens (and maybe a little before). Some of the quirks he adds to traditional mythology stayed with me and are things I often find myself thinking about. A key example of this is the supposed real reason Prometheus was punished by Zeus, namely a sense of humour and therefore an ability to ridicule the gods. Another is Thor’s supposed ability to grab hold of reality and twist it slightly to switch between normal, everyday reality and the underlying nature of things. Nothing amazingly profound, just stuff I keep daydreaming about :P.
'Oh Krishna, restless and overpowering, this mind is overwhelmingly strong; I think we might as easily gain control over the wind as over this.'
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Jiva
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Re: Novelists interested in occultism

Post by Jiva »

Just curious to ask if anyone has read Harry Mulisch's The Discovery of Heaven? I've never read it, but I understand there's a Biblical or Kabbalistic aspect within the book even if it's perhaps not the main focus of the story.

I've staved off my curiosity as I'd actually like to get to the point where I'm able to read it in Dutch. The temptation of English is great though :P.
'Oh Krishna, restless and overpowering, this mind is overwhelmingly strong; I think we might as easily gain control over the wind as over this.'
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Smaragd
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Re: Novelists interested in occultism

Post by Smaragd »

Nice to see Terry Pratchett mentioned, although incidentally, as it reminded me of a dream from couple nights ago, where I read some book of his and felt like his writings have finally come available for me. The dream is based on a memory of seeing the awesome cover art of his books in the library, but feeling frustrated by the unability to handle anything more than a comic book at that age.

I'd like to recommend The Sea Priestess by Dion Fortune for anyone interested approaching the moon by reading a novel. The occult influences are brought so clearly to the surface that a judgeful mouth might call it banal, but I liked it. I guess the book was written as a kind of an introduction to occultism for the storyline sort of lures the every-day in to the night side of things, and there's even more or less distantly blavatskian style rambling on metaphysics while the characters and the events blur back to the background.
"Would to God that all the Lord's people were Prophets”, Numbers 11:29 as echoed by William Blake
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Cancer
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Re: Novelists interested in occultism

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David Foster Wallace. I have not read any of his monstrous novels, and on the surface he seems pretty much the direct opposite of an “occult“ writer (artistically rooted in the most obsessive American post-modernism, studied analytical philosophy, “treasures [his] regular-guyness“...), but some of his short fiction has hurt and changed me so as to make me briefly forget that there even is such a thing as spirituality, separated from the rest. See especially “Good Old Neon“ and some bits from Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. The former can be found as pdf by googling.
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