I am a big believer in constant re-assessment of discarded things, and opening myself to new ones. I am especially into looking at things I may have discarded because of snobbery or bias.
Gordon for instance, had the temerity to suggest that Sylvia Browne might be a person with real powers and psychic worth. I would bet money that if he told this to himself 10 years ago, he would laugh his ass off at himself. Another good friend of mine saw enough from a vortex healer that it caused him to toss aside all occult snobbery about it being a Merlin/Jesus Lineage teaching extraterrestrial magic that installs wizard thread in your gut and sign up for the training. He claims that after years in the occult, studying with many Tibetan Lamas, and doing all sorts of traditional things all over the globe.
Even RO, after reaching the 8th sphere started re-examining the things he had left behind and found them much more valuable from his new perspective.
As the new year approaches I have a few suggestions for you. The first of which is to break out of your shell magically just a little bit. If your idea of magic is pretty well confined to Renaissance Europe, take some New Age crap out for a spin. If you are a “do whatever I feel like it in the moment” type of mage, take a page out of Bryan Garners book and do something as meticulous and by the book as possible. I can almost guarantee you will learn something worthwhile from the experience.
While you are at it, don’t just do it with magic. Take the opportunity to move up in the world a bit:
- Dress it up a little bit. Toss on a jacket. Start wearing a tie even when you don’t need to. While we are at it, learn how to tie one: no one over the age of 17 weighing more than 200 pounds should be sporting a four-in-hand knot. If you are overweight go Windsor, if not go Shelby. Trust me on this.
- Read Literature. By literature I don’t just mean novels. I have been to the homes of too many Witches and Occultists that have nothing but fantasy series book on the shelves. Happy Potter is great. Dune is Great. Twilight is… well its complete shit, but you know what I mean. Read some real authors. Just have to read about magic? Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Salmon Rushdie, Mikhail Bulgakov, and Arturo Perez-Reverte are great starts. You are in luck! there is a current trend of “genre-slumming” going on: Glen Duncan’s wrote what is probably the best werewolf story in decades and Colson Whitehead’s takes on zombies”Zone One”. If you get the Coleson bug, move on to “Apex Hides the Hurt”.
Well, you get the idea. Want a new you in the new year? Break out of old patterns. Try on something new.
Especially try good old Umberto Eco! He might be a skeptic himself, but he writes beautifully about the kind of thinking that underlies all our traditions in magic. Magicians would get a great start with “Foucault’s Pendulum” and go from there.
These are excellent recommendations. I recently remarked that spiritual hubris, or what you call “snobbery” sometimes causes people to dismiss whole traditions without realizing what wonderful nuggets could be found in them.
Reassessing your life and practice is one of the healthiest things that one can do. It cleans out the cobwebs, shakes up the dust, and can really help reinvigorate you.
And New Year’s is a great time for it too!
I second the Umberto Eco rec. I also think every occultist should read Leslie Marmon Silko’s /Ceremony/ and Thomas King’s /Green Grass, Running Water/ just to rearrange their brains.
I second the recommendation for Green Grass, Running Water. Also, an immensely FUNNY book.
Yes!, Silko’s “Ceremony” is EXCELLENT and much better than most of what people read about Native Americans. If someone wants to better understand Native American ways (spirits, magic, religion, ethics, etc.), a good nonfiction overview intro is “The Sacred” by Beck and Walters (published originally by Navajo Community College).
Mmm…now I want to go dig out my Italo Calvino books…both Invisible Cities and The Castle of Crossed Destinies have some wonderful themes and imagery applicable to magick.
Hmmm. Maybe I’ll take another look at the Hindu guru who came up with a Higgs-Boson mantra along with Egyptian deity mantras.
SO on board with the literature suggestion. *eyes Kindle sitting under the Christmas tree.*
Einstein’s Dreams is an amazing book that imagines visions of the universe Einstein had as he came up with the theory of relativity. Each mini chapter is a different universe with different laws of time. Way more engaging, page-turning and mind expanding than the description might sound =)
I really loved reading Salmon Rushdie’s “Haroun and the Sea of Stories” for a college course on fairy tales. It is a very enchanting and wonderful novel.
I highly recommend “Candide” by Voltaire, and Thomas Mann’s “The Magic Mountain.” I am just starting James Baldwin’s “Go Tell It On the Mountain.”
For those who don’t think they can do Christianity, I highly recommend:
Kathleen Norris, in no particular order: Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith; Acedia & Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer’s Life; The Cloister Walk; Dakota; A Spiritual Geography.
And also Thomas Moore’s The Soul’s Religion: Cultivating A Profoundly Spiritual Way of Life; and Dark Nights of the Soul: A Guide to Finding Your Way Through Life’s Ordeals. (He’s written a lot of other books, but these are the only two I recommend highly.)
And also Thomas Lynch. Start with The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade. I am not sure why I recommend him here; partly for Christianity partly for the deep contemplation of death that’s not Tibetan Buddhist, but when I do recommend him to people who have dismissed Christianity, I get universally good feedback.
For those who think they are not interested in the Tibetan Buddhist path, I highly recommend Eliot Pattison’s fictional series (the Inspector Shan series) beginning with the Skull Mantra. (I am not so crazy about his other writings either, btw.)
For those who think they understand they fundamental physics of the Universe, I recommend the study of Homeopathy, an alternative medicine modality, that will challenge everything you thought you knew about reality. Begin with two books: Impossible Cure, Amy Lansky and then Homeopathy: The Great Riddle, Richard Grossinger.
For those who would like to stretch their conception of the metaphysics and the Martial Arts Path, or for those who think they are not interested in Martial Arts (but are interested in Sorcery) I highly recommend Glenn Morris. His first is by far the best: Path Notes of an American Ninja Master.
I myself think its time I should stretch my boundaries about poetry. Poetry is one genre that has always made me wheeze, sigh and roll my eyes. It’s always seemed like SUCH an affectation and its proponents and practitioners so insufferable. However, I know there’s power there… so I would gladly accept any recommendations on where to start, anything coming out of this group should be interesting!
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and The Waste Land are particularly connected to magic.
Thanks, Abobymous, for the recommendations. I have looked at both poems on the web and all I can say is “wow” and maybe “epic.” Either poem could have an entire university class taught about just that one poem; both have an entire wikipedia page dedicated to just the explanation of the poem, not even the poem itself! I have heard of both authors, and of the poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, but not The Waste Land, although it is obviously famous in poetry circles. I think these are both over my head at this time, especially The Waste Land. I think I have to start smaller, shorter, more contemplative, I think. Two of the authors I recommend above, Kathleen Norris and Thomas Lynch, are poets. Thomas Lynch especially writes the most beautiful prose, lyrical and flowing. Both Lynch and Norris carry me into a contemplative space with their prose, but I have not really felt the same about their poetry, although I admit, I have not read their entire opus, just a few from both. I am hoping I find a poet whose poetry appeals to me as much as the prose of Norris or Lynch. Thanks again.
I would recommend The Essential Rumi translated by Coleman Barks and The Gift by Hafiz translated by Daniel James Ladinsky. Both incredible examples of truly engaging spiritual poetry that accounts for the body, mind and spirit in the writing. Also Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself and I Sing the Body Electric, and in the same vein Allen Ginsberg’s Howl and one of my personal favorites — Sunflower Sutra (all available online).
For less spiritually oriented poetry, I would recommend Bukowski’s book “What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire”, especially The Crunch (2).
Finally, here’s a fun video of James Broughton’s poem — This Is It:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2EpQ028vjI
Thank you, Hathos, for the recommendations. I will look into them with interest. I have actually tried to read Howl before because I met Ginsberg once at a Buddhist retreat in 1994. I didn’t know who he was at the time. I knew he was a “somebody” because most everyone around him seemed in awe. I had become friends of a friend of his and so spent a few meals in his company. Then towards the end of the week he recited Howl for the Sangha at the request of the Gelek Rinpoche. At the time, I was not impressed with the poet or the poem and could not slog through it in written form either. So I figured if someone like Ginsburg recites the poem that arguably defines a generation, or at least a generation’s angst, and one is not impressed or “connected to the lineage” as it were… well, maybe one is just not a fan of the genre. I have subsequently had a number of experiences that convinced me of the power of language when arranged in the poetic form, I just have not managed to get connected to the form/lineage…. Thank you again for aiding me in the effort.
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