What are you reading at the moment?

Discussion on literature other than by the Star of Azazel.
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Seferoth
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Re: What are you reading at the moment?

Post by Seferoth »

Soon i will be reading "Ars Diabolica", a book i have waited over a month. It will be my most prized possession.
Asuradūta
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Re: What are you reading at the moment?

Post by Asuradūta »

I'm currently reading G. de Purucker's The Esoteric Tradition (the first chapters of the second volume currently), a wonderful work.
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Smaragd
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Re: What are you reading at the moment?

Post by Smaragd »

Asuradūta wrote: Tue Jul 05, 2022 11:46 am I'm currently reading G. de Purucker's The Esoteric Tradition (the first chapters of the second volume currently), a wonderful work.
I'm interested to hear more of your opinion of the book when you get further on it. It is a unfamiliar tome for me.

I'm trying to find time to go back to the Secret Doctrine, and after that I think I'll grab the Secret Teachings of All Ages by Manly P. Hall. Uncommonly I have a thirst to make more vast, rather than specialized excursion to the world of knowledge. Something has cracked inside me and sees more value in more general points of view than before. It is not necessarily a sole quest for vain trivia to lost oneself in; seeing the bigger picture again may also have many functions that neatly keeps the whole together.
"Would to God that all the Lord's people were Prophets”, Numbers 11:29 as echoed by William Blake
Asuradūta
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Re: What are you reading at the moment?

Post by Asuradūta »

Smaragd wrote: Wed Jul 06, 2022 7:01 pm
Asuradūta wrote: Tue Jul 05, 2022 11:46 am I'm currently reading G. de Purucker's The Esoteric Tradition (the first chapters of the second volume currently), a wonderful work.
I'm interested to hear more of your opinion of the book when you get further on it. It is a unfamiliar tome for me.
Judging by the first volume alone, the book offers interesting perspectives and elucidations on the Secret Doctrine and theosophical ideas in general. Although I am a bit bummed, because due to a massive misprint my copy is missing at least a couple of dozen pages and the only .pdf-file I can find online is of the abridged edition. Interestingly, the issue of missing a good chunk of a book due to a misprint also plagues my copy of Bailey's A Treatise on Cosmic Fire :lol:
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Polyhymnia
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Re: What are you reading at the moment?

Post by Polyhymnia »

Smaragd wrote: Wed Jul 06, 2022 7:01 pm

I'm trying to find time to go back to the Secret Doctrine, and after that I think I'll grab the Secret Teachings of All Ages by Manly P. Hall. Uncommonly I have a thirst to make more vast, rather than specialized excursion to the world of knowledge. Something has cracked inside me and sees more value in more general points of view than before. It is not necessarily a sole quest for vain trivia to lost oneself in; seeing the bigger picture again may also have many functions that neatly keeps the whole together.
Maybe we can proceed with SD together and do Secret Teachings as the next Phanes reading circle? I have that one on my list as well. Hahahahaha I realize that Hall is a massive work, and judging by our SD pace may take years to go through, but I think it will be less energetically heavy than SD. What say you?
"Limited love asks for possession of the beloved, but the unlimited asks only for itself." -Kahlil Gibran
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Smaragd
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Re: What are you reading at the moment?

Post by Smaragd »

Asuradūta wrote: Thu Jul 07, 2022 9:32 am Although I am a bit bummed, because due to a massive misprint my copy is missing at least a couple of dozen pages and the only .pdf-file I can find online is of the abridged edition. Interestingly, the issue of missing a good chunk of a book due to a misprint also plagues my copy of Bailey's A Treatise on Cosmic Fire :lol:
I wholeheartedly recommend archive.org for finding old books. There are ~35 million books in their archives. You can register for free and then borrow the books in virtual format. Here's The Esoteric Tradition, which seems like quite an early print so hopefully it fits your needs to cover those missing pages.

I've also found an early print of Secret Teachings of All Ages there. Those early ones are very beautiful, the art and the text go well together and the original artwork commissioned for the book is present, unlike in many of the cheap reprints where even the non-commissioned images alter quite a bit from the original or are missing altogether. It is a luxury to have access to these early prints or fascimiles of books that would otherwise cost from 2000 to 6000 euros in the current market.
Polyhymnia wrote: Thu Jul 07, 2022 6:00 pm Maybe we can proceed with SD together and do Secret Teachings as the next Phanes reading circle? I have that one on my list as well. Hahahahaha I realize that Hall is a massive work, and judging by our SD pace may take years to go through, but I think it will be less energetically heavy than SD. What say you?
As I wrote in our PM exchange, I'm 100% with you on the first one. I think I'll have to check the content of Halls book if it makes sense to burden ourselves with such a large tome again and if a reading circle seems fruitful approach to the nature of the book. I'm more on my toes on these kinds of things after taking upon ourselves the weight of SD, which is in general best as a kind of dictionary, although it is recommendable to read through it atleast once or twice. I have often thought and written about occult topics and found it immensely helpful to use the Secret Doctrine Index book to find what Blavatsky said about the topics in SD to mirror the two points of view. Reading circles on dictionary type of books is hell. Secret Teachings of All Ages could be a good book to read on a bus or somewhere with small bites and not stress about it, although I will have to take a closer look before saying anything too definitive.
"Would to God that all the Lord's people were Prophets”, Numbers 11:29 as echoed by William Blake
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Polyhymnia
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Re: What are you reading at the moment?

Post by Polyhymnia »

VERY good points.
"Limited love asks for possession of the beloved, but the unlimited asks only for itself." -Kahlil Gibran
gunslinger
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Re: What are you reading at the moment?

Post by gunslinger »

First of all thank you very much for mentioning archive.org. I had never heard of it before, but knowing myself, there will be some serious digging in the archives soon.

What comes to topic of this thread : I am reading about modern esoterism and occultism in Finland. Name of the book is : Moderni esoteerisuus ja okkultismi Suomessa. I picked it up from the library just because it was interesting and then I was surprised when I noticed that one of the writers is Johannes Nefastos and SoA was also mentioned in the book. It has been interesting read and only few articles left. First I thought that it would be too heavy to read in the summer with kids running around the yard, but it's actually quite easy to read and I would recommend it to everyone interested in the subject of the book.
Asuradūta
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Re: What are you reading at the moment?

Post by Asuradūta »

[Edit: reposted due to a downright embarrassing mistake in quoting a message, feel free to delete the post I've previously made in the thread with the same content]
Smaragd wrote: Fri Jul 08, 2022 12:51 am
Asuradūta wrote: Thu Jul 07, 2022 9:32 am Although I am a bit bummed, because due to a massive misprint my copy is missing at least a couple of dozen pages and the only .pdf-file I can find online is of the abridged edition. Interestingly, the issue of missing a good chunk of a book due to a misprint also plagues my copy of Bailey's A Treatise on Cosmic Fire :lol:
I wholeheartedly recommend archive.org for finding old books. There are ~35 million books in their archives. You can register for free and then borrow the books in virtual format. Here's The Esoteric Tradition, which seems like quite an early print so hopefully it fits your needs to cover those missing pages.
Sadly it was but the first volume, but I thank you for the resource, brother. But I should have looked closer though, found the .pdf-file of the second volume by doing some very light digging on the website of the Point Loma Theosophical Society.
Asuradūta
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Re: What are you reading at the moment?

Post by Asuradūta »

Put aside The Esoteric Tradtion for a while and started doing some catching up on Feuerstein's Tantra.

Also started The Lord of the Rings-trilogy as bedtime reading.
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