Earlier quoted context omitted.
your link just takes me to my amazon prime log in page....do you have the title of the documentary please?
Sorry, it’s called “The Ritman Library - Amsterdam”
thanks!
3,500 Occult Manuscripts Will Be Digitized and Made Freely Available Online
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Re: 3,500 Occult Manuscripts Will Be Digitized and Made Freely Available Online
#52The Ritman library is absolutely wonderful, and open to the public without appointment; if you find yourself in Amsterdam, it's absolutely worth it to go ring their doorbell and look around. It was the highlight of my post-high-school Europe trip.
Re: 3,500 Occult Manuscripts Will Be Digitized and Made Freely Available Online
#53> “pre-1900 texts on alchemy, astrology, magic, and theosophy, I don't understand, what's really the use of any of this stuff except for their insight into history and as precursors to science. There's no way any of this stuff has any meaningful application today. I also don't understand how anyone can find this stuff interesting, they're often boring, hard to read, and filled with obviously erroneous information
You just said it, for the history. It's just interesting to read about people who think so differently and their culture. Sort of like historical science-fiction.
Re: 3,500 Occult Manuscripts Will Be Digitized and Made Freely Available Online
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you're interested in the study of religion at all (at least as a human affectation), it can get pretty interesting to get into the Hermetic and Gnostic texts. Some of the traditions and proposed knowledge exists on a timeline parallel to popular history going back thousands of years. It's really quite something. It combined with other mystic traditions ultimately informed the theosophical movement of the 19th and…
What do you mean "knowledge exists on a timeline parallel to popular history going back thousands of years"? Are you just saying that Magicians believe events occurred differently than popularly understood? Or are you saying that secret knowledge comes from a parallel version of reality, where the timeline is different, but somehow makes its way into our universe and is effective. To illustrate what I am asking, Did…
This could best be described as a "Ketamine Timeline"
Re: 3,500 Occult Manuscripts Will Be Digitized and Made Freely Available Online
#55> “pre-1900 texts on alchemy, astrology, magic, and theosophy, I don't understand, what's really the use of any of this stuff except for their insight into history and as precursors to science. There's no way any of this stuff has any meaningful application today. I also don't understand how anyone can find this stuff interesting, they're often boring, hard to read, and filled with obviously erroneous information
It's all part of understanding the culture of the time. Manuscripts generally are quite hard to read: the language, the script, etc.
> It's all part of understanding the culture of the time.
Fortunately it's not all that -- there are quite a few techniques inside that one can employ (e.g., meditation) to achieve, with practice, certain mystical results
Re: 3,500 Occult Manuscripts Will Be Digitized and Made Freely Available Online
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
I really like these old texts because it's interesting to try and get into the mindset of the authors. To the medieval occultist, that plant over there is growing well because Saturn is ascending or whatever, and if a rabid dog bites you, you should apply the plant to the wound because the melancholic nature of Saturn will counteract the mania of the rabies, etc. Why did such-and-such happen? A demon did it. It's a c…
There's a parser text game called Hadean Lands in which you're on board a "spaceship" fueled by alchemy. You start the game by learning some basic rituals, then progressively you have more and more components missing for what you have to do next and have to hack together something based on concepts you learn progressively like planetary or elemental associations. As weird as it is, everything makes perfect sense as y…
Just thought about this game when I read the first comment, scrolled and here I was! But I concur.
Re: 3,500 Occult Manuscripts Will Be Digitized and Made Freely Available Online
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you're interested in the study of religion at all (at least as a human affectation), it can get pretty interesting to get into the Hermetic and Gnostic texts. Some of the traditions and proposed knowledge exists on a timeline parallel to popular history going back thousands of years. It's really quite something. It combined with other mystic traditions ultimately informed the theosophical movement of the 19th and…
What do you mean "knowledge exists on a timeline parallel to popular history going back thousands of years"? Are you just saying that Magicians believe events occurred differently than popularly understood? Or are you saying that secret knowledge comes from a parallel version of reality, where the timeline is different, but somehow makes its way into our universe and is effective. To illustrate what I am asking, Did…
Nothing so fantastical as that. There were sects of Christianity that followed more ancient traditions alongside their Christian beliefs. One popular set of knowledge (Christianity) and one arcane (Gnostic/Hermetic). You had to be initiated into the knowledge by a mixture of ancient and adapted rites. There were a number of disparate groups working from a similar or similar range of corpora.
The mystical timeline is parallel. There's a layer and then another layer. So what your common Catholic would have believed in 1500 was childish elementary mystical understanding to the arcane society member who knew the "real" or Gnostic truth.
I'm doing a terrible job at actually explaining this well. I'm giving you the very-diluted roundabout explanation of what I meant.
For a better understanding have a quick read through some Wikipedia articles. If your history of Christianity is not very thorough, then I recommend brushing up on that as well for a more rounded understanding. If you get into some of the reading, you'll understand 100% of those wacky conspiracy videos on YouTube and why people should read more, and how important context is.
My references are generally western-centric, though some of these topics make inroads to China and India (which has its own gnostic traditions IIRC).
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Down the rabbit hole you go:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_religion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Semitic_religion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermes_Trismegistus (read many of the links)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosticism (read many of the links)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Roman_mysteries
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theosophy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleister_Crowley
And down the Judeo-Abhrahamic-Christianity path:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrahamic_religions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabbalah
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_mysticism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catharism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sufism
and just keep going.
Re: 3,500 Occult Manuscripts Will Be Digitized and Made Freely Available Online
#58Whatever happened to that giant library of scanned books that Google created?
Re: 3,500 Occult Manuscripts Will Be Digitized and Made Freely Available Online
#59Anyone else reminded of the The Laundry Files series by Charles Stross? Am now expecting ICOs for occult based startups . .
Re: 3,500 Occult Manuscripts Will Be Digitized and Made Freely Available Online
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It combined with other mystic traditions ultimately informed the theosophical movement of the 19th and 20th century through to the magick of Aleister Crowley. His sex magick informs a lot of the modern incel, red-pill, and proud boy ideas that you must refrain from "spilling your seed"—that your reproductive emissions contain some of your essential energy. The result being that you have to abstain or otherwise be r…
Incels don't practice noFap. If you actually check incel forums, they heavily ridicule the idea and the Redpill types who do.
That this is even a sentence one can utter is :face-palm: