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John Dee and the occult in California
11–20 of 47 posts
Re: John Dee and the occult in California
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please re-read the site guidelines. Hacker News is about interesting things. Not everyone will find this story interesting, but that's true of any story. The post certainly isn't off-topic.
How is posting this article any different than handing out a thinly disguised pamphlet for a religious organization ? If someone were posting material here about how some people in California are into "accepting jesus as their personal savior" I would find it every bit as boring and off-topic
This is a historical sketch. Pretty sure the author isn't trying to convert followers for John Dee, Alastair Crowley, or L. Ron Hubbard. (The Hubbard-Parsons-Crowley link is fascinating, btw. Who knew?)
It's pretty rare that someone would be interested in all 30 items on the front page, so if complaining about personal boredom were the thing to do, it would quickly dwarf everything else on the site. Therefore it's not the thing to do.
Re: John Dee and the occult in California
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
How is posting this article any different than handing out a thinly disguised pamphlet for a religious organization ? If someone were posting material here about how some people in California are into "accepting jesus as their personal savior" I would find it every bit as boring and off-topic
This is a historical sketch. Pretty sure the author isn't trying to convert followers for John Dee, Alastair Crowley, or L. Ron Hubbard. (The Hubbard-Parsons-Crowley link is fascinating, btw. Who knew?) It's pretty rare that someone would be interested in all 30 items on the front page, so if complaining about personal boredom were the thing to do, it would quickly dwarf everything else on the site. Therefore it's no…
shrug. That parsons-hubbard connection was trotted out not too long ago here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7641580
I'm not trying to hate on it, post whatever you find interesting, just saying to me it reads more like a phamplet for a particular 'society' or religion, see the last paragraph.
Re: John Dee and the occult in California
#14Re: John Dee and the occult in California
#15What does this have to do with technology or "hackers" ? Real wizards code in Lisp.
The history of Queen Elizabeth's court astrologer, John Dee is a very interesting chap.
He was well versed in Western Astrology, as well as the joint creator of a symbolic magic called Enochian Magic. He was also considered as Elizabeth's spy.
For what there is in the occult, I really am surprised that more technologically minded people don't dabble. Things like Chaos Magic and the like are well suited for applying scientific method to the esoteric.
Re: John Dee and the occult in California
#16I don't particularly like the OTO because of the distortion of Enlightenment Era groups and Freemasonry. Crowley and some of the esoteric philosophies are interesting but there's not many concrete ideas there.
John Fleming wrote a great book related to this called The Dark Side of the Enlightenment: Wizards, Alchemists, and Spiritual Seekers in the Age of Reason.
There's a distinction between Freemasonry, philosophy, and DMT; and the speculative ideas of John Dee, the OTO and mystical reasoning. A lot of the most fascinating things are polluted with ridiculous claims and beliefs.
Re: John Dee and the occult in California
#17What does this have to do with technology or "hackers" ? Real wizards code in Lisp.
The history of Queen Elizabeth's court astrologer, John Dee is a very interesting chap. He was well versed in Western Astrology, as well as the joint creator of a symbolic magic called Enochian Magic. He was also considered as Elizabeth's spy. For what there is in the occult, I really am surprised that more technologically minded people don't dabble. Things like Chaos Magic and the like are well suited for applying s…
I suppose what I mean is that I don't think it's fair that fundamentalist christians don't get to post on HN about how they have a savior who performs miracles but yet it's relatively socially acceptable to have posts about "Magic" which is a reference to the same type of thing as miracles but yet it's considered "esoteric" instead of "religious" and is therefor socially acceptable. I mean lets not forget that with the discussion of Dee and Kelly we ARE talking about the scrying of the same Archangels from the old testament, so in some way it is related to the abrahamic religions. That's why I don't see why it gets a special category instead of being labeled 'religious'
Re: John Dee and the occult in California
#18What does this have to do with technology or "hackers" ? Real wizards code in Lisp.
The history of Queen Elizabeth's court astrologer, John Dee is a very interesting chap. He was well versed in Western Astrology, as well as the joint creator of a symbolic magic called Enochian Magic. He was also considered as Elizabeth's spy. For what there is in the occult, I really am surprised that more technologically minded people don't dabble. Things like Chaos Magic and the like are well suited for applying s…
The guys I know who stuck with this stuff got themselves involved in the modern OTO or gnostic ceremony or whatever. They aren't exactly what I'd call focussed people, they might not make great programmers. In all honesty, I couldn't get my head around it. They vocally rebel against their Catholic upbringing yet replace it with... dogmatic rituals based on Catholicism.
It's notable about John Dee that he was doing this stuff as part of the British elite inner circle, royalty, rather than of a rebellious clique (Crowley, Yeats) or of privileged, decadent society (like the Hellfire Club).
His life was pretty tragic though. His partner in scrying was clearly a chancer and serial bullshitter, who used Dee's obsession to take everything from him - including his wife.
Re: John Dee and the occult in California
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please re-read the site guidelines. Hacker News is about interesting things. Not everyone will find this story interesting, but that's true of any story. The post certainly isn't off-topic.
How is posting this article any different than handing out a thinly disguised pamphlet for a religious organization ? If someone were posting material here about how some people in California are into "accepting jesus as their personal savior" I would find it every bit as boring and off-topic
Occultism is based around personal experiences and beliefs. I know of no occultist or pagan that actively recruits in the way like Christians and Moslems do. In a way, I don't want you to be an occultist. You be the way you are, and I'll be mine.
Now, I don't mind talking about various occult facets. It is a very interesting area of study, wether you believe or not. And some phenomenon, like the Icelandic guy who can stay warm no matter what does seem remarkably similar to the Tibetan art of tumo.
Re: John Dee and the occult in California
#20I hope this was horribly mangled by some chthonian sub-editor, because I hate to think that this rambling disconnected potpourri is considered acceptable output from a PhD candidate as the bio claims.