Alternate headline: two ostensibly smart people waste time on nonsense.
Aleister Crowley and William Butler Yeats get into an occult battle (2016)
81–90 of 123 posts
Re: Aleister Crowley and William Butler Yeats get into an occult battle (2016)
#82I dunno man. They both seem kinda intellectually obsessive. All that writing.
I dunno man. That Usain Bolt. Seems kinda obsessed with running really fast. Also that Magnus Carlsen. All he does is play chess. W.B. Yeats was a literal writer by trade. Of course he did “all that writing”. For people who are unfamiliar with his work, W. B. Yeats was an absolutely extraordinary poet. I would encourage you to check out “The Second Coming” for example[1]. It’s amazing for such a short poem how many t…
A pimp's love is quite a different thing from a square's love
Re: Aleister Crowley and William Butler Yeats get into an occult battle (2016)
#83What are Yeats?
It's a pre-oatmeal breakfast cereal. Invented by the Romans.
Re: Aleister Crowley and William Butler Yeats get into an occult battle (2016)
#84Alternate headline: two ostensibly smart people waste time on nonsense.
Let me explain to you in 20,000 words about how you are spending way too much time in your head.
Re: Aleister Crowley and William Butler Yeats get into an occult battle (2016)
#85For anyone insterested in reading Crowley, I was told Liber four is the most straightforward writing of his. His collection of poems "White Stains" is just amazing as well - mostly speaking about human secretions of all kinds and ingesting them. Edit:"White Stains, a collection of Crowley's poetry praised by W.B. Yeats, published in paperback for the first time, has been called 'the filthiest book of verse ever writt…
Book 4 isn't a bad place, but Magick in Theory and Practice is more approachable as a first read. It was written as a series of letters to a female student, and Crowley's Victorian attitudes about the intellect of women made it so it was basically an ELI5.
Magick in Theory and Practice is 'part 3' to the 'Parts 1 & 2' of Book 4, and it is dense and hard to read. I wouldn't recommend MiTaP to most people. The compilation of letters you're thinking of is 'Magick Without Tears'[1].
Personally, I think Book 4, Part 1[2] is one of the best explanations of what Crowley was about. It's essentially an argument for meditation, and will be very familiar to anyone who has read Swami Vivekananda's Raja Yoga. It helps a lot that it was a collaboration between him and Mary d'Este Sturges rather than a solely 'Crowley' writing.
Re: Aleister Crowley and William Butler Yeats get into an occult battle (2016)
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a substantive difference between a religious argument on Twitter and proper theological argument which leans into philosophy. The problem is that people aren't typically exposed to the good stuff because teachers and the media don't know it either. Sadly even local religious leaders; that's a serious issue.
It's still all make-believe. And I say this as someone who has had an interest in Fortean and occult lore for years - it's just folklore people choose to pretend is real.
No its not. Its metaphor for truth which is unable to be expressed with precise language - because we lack understanding.
Re: Aleister Crowley and William Butler Yeats get into an occult battle (2016)
#87Re: Aleister Crowley and William Butler Yeats get into an occult battle (2016)
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
I avoided Sam Harris for the longest time due to some interviews of him that I had heard before, but I started listening to his meditation instruction recently, and it's by far the best I've ever heard for bridging the gap between traditional mysticism and modern secularism.
I've not heard of him - I'll have a look. This may not apply to him, but what I'm wary of is anything that makes the practice a personal improvement exercise - it has to reach for the heavens and encourage empathic love for other people, or it'll end up in the wrong place, IMO.
You should listen to him then, he talks exactly about this - that meditation is not meant to be a personal improvement practice, but to fundamentally change your life. He also covers metta, which is "loving-kindness" meditation, which is basically empathy practice.
Re: Aleister Crowley and William Butler Yeats get into an occult battle (2016)
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
I avoided Sam Harris for the longest time due to some interviews of him that I had heard before, but I started listening to his meditation instruction recently, and it's by far the best I've ever heard for bridging the gap between traditional mysticism and modern secularism.
I recommend Shinzen Young in addition.
He's great as well, yes. One of the leaders in making buddhist meditation accessible to a western audience. Also Michael Taft.
Re: Aleister Crowley and William Butler Yeats get into an occult battle (2016)
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's still all make-believe. And I say this as someone who has had an interest in Fortean and occult lore for years - it's just folklore people choose to pretend is real.
No its not. Its metaphor for truth which is unable to be expressed with precise language - because we lack understanding.
How can theology be a metaphor for truth when the core of what it's trying to reason about is unknowable?
"Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief" [1]. The latter part I get, lots of people and groups (and regions) have religious beliefs and differences, so it's definitely worth some effort to figure out (from a sociological or anthropological view) what's going on within and between groups of people.
I also get the ethics and philosophy parts, trying to what it means to be "good" etc. But this study of the divine is pure horses*t - even if it's not all just made up, then by definition it's still unknowable. If it's something that someone has just concocted on a whim and claimed it was dictated to them by the Almighty, then it's at best a 2nd or 3rd hand source and a dubious one at that.