Esoteric Secrets of Meditation and Magic. Volume 2: The Early Writings by Paul Foster Case (PDF)

In 1924, Paul Foster Case expanded his First Year Course by developing two advanced lecture series which he entitled Section C: ‘Concentration’ and Section D: ‘Magic’. The lectures built upon the material in the ‘First Year Course’(which had become known at this time as Section A:‘The Life Power’ and Section B: ‘The Seven Steps to Spiritual Unfoldment’). The Fraternity of the Hidden Light has recently published both of these lecture series as “Occult Fundamentals and Spiritual Unfoldment - Volume 1: The Early Writings.” This current volume provides the two additional lecture series that complete the original fundamental course structure of Paul Case. Section C, ‘Concentration’, expounds the esoteric secrets of Meditation. This section is a very advanced series of lessons that not only develops the essential skill of concentration but commences the student upon the‘Path of Return’ with a series of powerful “Qabalistic Meditations.” These Meditations have a tendency to facilitate deep spiritual experience in those who are prepared and chose to participate. This lesson series indeed represents some of the most advanced material written by Paul Case. Section D, ‘Magic’, provides the esoteric secrets of Magic in a very rare exposition of the fundamental tenets of magical practice by one of the greatest occultists of the 20th century. Here again is material published by Paul Case that cannot be found in any of his later developed lesson series and provides insight into the “tools of the trade” practiced by Golden Dawn enthusiasts today.

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Occult Fundamentals and Spiritual Unfoldment. Vol. 1: The Early Writings by Paul Foster Case (PDF)

Shortly after leaving the Alpha et Omega (MacGregor Mather's reformulation of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn), Paul Foster Case developed a lecture series entitled "The First Year Course". The purpose of the lectures was to provide students with a firm foundation in spiritual science and practice and to prepare them for Paul Case's rendition of the Golden Dawn Order.

When this coursework was expanded in 1924, the contents of the "The First Year Course" became known as Section A, `The Life Power', and Section B,`The Seven Steps of Spiritual Unfoldment'. The `Life Power' provided a firm foundation of Occult Fundamentals and the `The Seven Steps of Spiritual Unfoldment' utilized the Major Arcana of the Tarot to communicate the stages of Spiritual Evolution.

The early writings of Paul Foster Case are exceptionally clear and represent some of his finest work. Anyone approaching these lessons for the first time are encouraged to spend at least two weeks on each before proceeding to the next. This is precisely the manner in which the lectures and lessons were intended to be assimilated. Paul Case utilizes images in addition to words to communicate principles. Proceeding in such a manner will allow the corresponding ideas to take root and mature and thus facilitate understanding of the next lesson in the series.

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Bright Lights and Cats With No Mouths — The Art of John Balance Collected

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Kabbalah: A Neurocognitive Approach to Mystical Experiences by Arzy Shahar and Moshe Idel (PDF)

In this original study, Moshe Idel, an eminent scholar of Jewish mysticism and thought, and the cognitive neuroscientist and neurologist Shahar Arzy combine their considerable expertise to explore the mysteries of the Kabbalah from an entirely new perspective: that of the human brain. In lieu of the theological, sociological, and psychoanalytic approaches that have generally dominated the study of ecstatic mystical experiences, the authors endeavor to decode the brain mechanisms underlying these phenomena. Arzy and Idel analyze first-person descriptions to explore the Kabbalistic techniques employed by most prominent Jewish mystics to effect bodily reduplications, dissociations, and other phenomena, and compare them with recent neurological observations and modern-day laboratory experiments. The resultant study offers readers a scientific, more brain-based understanding of how ecstatic Kabbalists achieved their most precious mystical experiences. The study further demonstrates how these Kabbalists have long functioned as pioneering investigators of the human self.

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Needle: A Treatise on Obsessive Magick ::: Chapter Four

Chapter Four ::: The Guide

"The knower of truth should go about the world outwardly stupid like a child, a madman or a fool." - The Mahavakya Ratnamala

Had I not met my mentor I too may well have looked at life in the same light as Thomas Hobbes; a rather unpleasant occurrence whose main attributes appeared "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short".  Yet I knew, even from that young age, that there was something more, that life was some type of unfoldment and that any attachment to nihilism merely reflected entrapment in a specific trance. 

We surely are all trapped between two mysterious worlds; one of outer 'normality' and another of inner feelings, torments, joys and emotions.  Both of these 'realities' feed on each other and both are locked in a kind of continuous struggle.  Nobody ever quite adjusts properly to this two-world existence.  People wear masks that cry out 'I am adjusted', 'I am happy', 'I am normal', but just beneath the mask there is always that turmoil of uncertainty.

Religion has kept its appeal because it helps to alleviate the uncertainty of existence.  Religion has never truly centered itself on truth but rather on fear, and even today it maintains its merit with vapid words like 'hope' and 'faith'.  The more the fear the more the believer believes.  Given the right circumstance and the appropriate amount of fear, the deeply religious (fearful) will meet doubt with guns and mockery with knives.

To the fearful, killing over cartoons is as pleasing as bowing for a prescribed number of times a day to keep the deity from punishing (or forgetting).  Punishment and fear, murder and intolerance; as natural and predictable as dogma and genocide.

It's difficult territory to travail, this mysterious path to awakening, and the more one consults the masters and guides that have gone before the more they seem to suggest a hidden and skewed path. As one moves closer to the mystery indeed one also becomes increasingly filled with doubt, and yet this 'lost' stage appears not only important but in fact signals a kind of breakthrough.  In the Apophthegmata of the Desert Fathers we hear and can well understand the voice of a fourth-century monk when he tells us, "Truly, Abbot Joseph has found the way, because he has said: 'I do not know.'"

I had to know.

I first met my guide in a book.  I cannot remember the title now but it was one of those typical 'Great Mysteries of the World' type volumes.  Big foot was there and UFO's, and the usual chapters on strange rains of fish, Jack the Ripper and ghosts.  But none of these Fortean curiosities really interested me.  They were fascinating topics to be sure, but once you have read one of these types of books you have read them all.

There was one chapter however that did catch me and its subject was occultism and 'magick'.  At that young age it was the first time I had seen the word magick with its peculiar spelling.  A black and white photograph jumped out at me, it depicted a man dressed in a robe, in front of him on a table were placed a sword, a mysterious looking book, what looked like a crystal ball, a small vial of oil, and a large old-looking Egyptian stele.  The man held a wand and his head was crowned with a snake motif and upon his chest lay a necklace depicting some sort of cross.  

I looked closely at the photograph and read the inscription beneath.  'Aleister Crowley', that was the man's name, and the book referred to him as a 'ritual magician'.  I had no real understanding what any of this meant but a peculiar feeling told me that this person was to play a crucial role in my life.

I knew then and there that I had to make a decision.  Something was pulling me towards this man and a choice had to be made: close the book, walk away and forget I had ever seen this strange character or find out everything I could about him.  Had I taken the first choice then you, my dear reader, would most certainly not be reading this book.  But I chose the second option and from that moment I knew that this figure would act as some type of strange attractor forever leading me deeper into initiation.

I had to find out everything I could about this person and so I began to read.  I visited every library, sat hidden in every bookshop that would allow me hours of undisturbed reading, poured over every detail about this man.  The basics were easy enough, born Edward Alexander Crowley on Tuesday, October 12th, 1875 between the hours of 11 p.m. and midnight.  His parents were members of the Plymouth Brethren, an ultra conservative Christian sect famous for its strict adherence to a literal interpretation of scripture and its harsh dishing out of physical discipline and punishment.  This ensured Crowley's early life would be punctuated with beatings for even the mildest of misdeeds.

He suffered through a difficult upbringing until at last, in 1893, at the young age of eighteen, he declared himself not only a magician but promised to raise Magick from its then current fallen state and into a legitimate science.  Right from the beginning he referred to this ancient science using the old English word 'magick' and his choice for doing so he tells us was "in order to distinguish the Science of the Magi from all its counterfeits."

It did not take long for Crowley to first encounter doubt and this 'lost' stage thrust itself upon him with great force. In his masterpiece recounting of Crowley's life and spiritual achievement titled Aleister Crowley and the Hidden God, Kenneth Grant documents Crowley's quick rise and his struggle with the trance of futility:

"Within a year of his initiation into the Order of the Golden Dawn, Crowley's advance had been so swift that he attained the highest grade, and according to an unpublished autobiographical note (1924, by the year 1903, Crowley was the most advanced Adept (as distinct from Master) in the world.  But as at Cambridge, when he had undergone the Buddhist Trance of Sorrow and realized the futility of earthly ambition and achievement, so now, when almost at the summit of mystical attainment, he was overwhelmed by a similar sense of futility.  It was so acute that he abandoned the Great Work itself."

This trance of doubt and futility scared me greatly when I first read of it and yet I knew that such a trance was already familiar to me.  It had been thrust upon me on that road, by that van, by that girl, by her death.

In the 16th century a Spanish Roman Catholic mystic commonly named Saint John of the Cross titled his famous poem The Dark Night of the Soul (La Noche Oscura Del Alma), in it he details a tumultuous process as the soul ascends from its bodily form and unto God. Was I ready for the dark night?  Are any of us ever truly ready?

Aleister & Adolf by Douglas Rushkoff (PDF)

Media theorist and documentarian Douglas Rushkoff weaves a mind-bending tale of iconography and mysticism against the backdrop of a battle-torn Europe. In a story spanning generations, and featuring some of the most notable and notorious idealists of the 20th century, legendary occultist Aleister Crowley develops a powerful and dangerous new weapon to defend the world against Adolf Hitler's own war machine spawning an unconventional new form of warfare that is fought not with steel, but with symbols and ideas. Unfortunately, these intangible arsenals are much more insidious and perhaps much more dangerous than their creators could have ever conceived.

"Rushkoff is a cultural treasure and an eccentric author of big, strange ideas, never less than fascinating and always entertaining." -Warren Ellis, author of Gun Machine, Red, Trees, and Transmetropolitan

"Douglas has been one of my personal heroes, and I've been a most attentive reader of anything he cares to put between covers, knowing that his combination of a cold eye and a warm heart is guaranteed to astonish and embolden my own thinking about what's possible in the world--about what's possible to enact in the space between one human being and another. He occupies the ground of our most immediate perplexities, and his reports of what he finds are breaking news." -Jonathan Lethem, author of The Best American Comics and The Fortress of Solitude

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The Equinox

Equinox I (01).pdf
http://sh.st/2OzUU

Equinox I (02).pdf
http://sh.st/2OzWe

Equinox I (03).pdf
http://sh.st/2Ozvd

Equinox I (04).pdf
http://sh.st/2Ozdi

Equinox I (05).pdf
http://sh.st/2OzrT

Equinox I (06).pdf
http://sh.st/2Ol7R

Equinox I (07).pdf
http://sh.st/2Ol2z

Equinox I (08).pdf
http://sh.st/2OlXV

Equinox I (09).pdf
http://sh.st/2OlGm

Equinox I (10).pdf
http://sh.st/2OlUj

Blue Equinox.pdf
http://sh.st/2Oljo

Equinox Vol III Number 4 Eight Lectures on Yoga.pdf
http://sh.st/2Ok2E

Initiations and Initiates in Tibet by Alexandra David Neel (ePUB, MOBI, AZW Reader)

Nestled amid the high peaks and eternal snows of the Himalayas and other mountain ranges, Tibet is home to a centuries-old Buddhist tradition, rich in mystic rites and rituals aimed at helping adherents achieve spiritual bliss. In this fascinating volume, a noted authority delves into the nature and sources of Tibetan mysticism, providing readers with a wealth of information regarding Lamaic rites of initiation and the teachings given to initiates, both during and after the initiation ceremonies.

The author first defines Tibetan mysticism and examines the role of the spiritual guide and the choice of a master. This is followed by a discussion of the nature of the esoteric doctrines and traditional oral instruction. Madame David-Neel then recounts in detail the various kinds of initiations and their aims, including initiations with and without “activity,” the “Mani” initiation, and the different meanings of Aum mani padme hum! Also covered are the magic rites known as dubthabs, the “gymnastics” of respiration, daily spiritual exercises, the contemplation of sun and sky, the dalai lamas, different kinds of morality, and many other topics.

Alexandra David-Neel was a historian of religion and a resident of Tibet for 14 years. As a practicing Buddhist, she participated in many of the spiritual rites and practices described in this book, which gives her account a special immediacy and authenticity. Lucid, objective, and highly readable, Initiations and Initiates in Tibet is a treasury of fact and lore offering valuable insights and information to students of religion and Tibetan Buddhism in particular.

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Magic and Mystery in Tibet by Alexandra David Neel (ePUB, MOBI, AZW Reader)

For centuries Tibet has been known as the last home of mystery, the hidden, sealed land, where ancient mysteries still survive that have perished in the rest of the Orient. Many men have written about Tibet and its secret lore, but few have actually penetrated it to learn its ancient wisdom. Among those few was Madame Alexandra David-Neel, a French orientalist. A practicing Buddhist, a profound historian of religion, and linguist, she actually lived in Tibet for more than 14 years. She had the great honor of being received by the Dalai Lama; she studied philosophical Buddhism and Tibetan Tantra at the great centers; she meditated in lonely caves and on wind-swept winter mountains with yogi hermits; and she even witnessed forbidden corpse-magic in the forests. Her experiences have been unique.

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Tantra Magick - An Amookos Manual by Shri Lokanath Maharaj & Michael R. Goss (PDF)

In this book you will find the first three sets of instructions for the Tantrik group AMOOKOS (the Arcane and Magickal Order of the Knights of Shambhala). For the first time, we reveal publicly the methods, rites and philosophy pursued by an inner group of initiates within the Order.

This book shows how the esoteric strands of east and west are fused together into a practical system which has as its purpose the unveiling of the spiritual potential latent in every individual. We take as starting point the assumption that within each and every human is a divine spark or spirit. These exercises are a means by which this spirit may be released from the bonds of ignorance and can shine free

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Pharmako/Poeia: Plant Powers, Poisons, and Herbcraft by Dale Pendell (PDF)

This is the first volume of North Atlantic Books updated paperback edition of Dale Pendell s "Pharmako" trilogy, an encyclopedic study of the history and uses of psychoactive plants and related synthetics first published between 1995 and 2005. The books form an interrelated suite of works that provide the reader with a unique, reliable, and often personal immersion in this medically, culturally, and spiritually fascinating subject. All three books are beautifully designed and illustrated, and are written with unparalleled authority, erudition, playfulness, and range.

"Pharmako/Poeia: Plant Powers, Poisons, and Herbcraft "includes a new introduction by the author and as in previous editions focuses on familiar psychoactive plant-derived substances and related synthetics, ranging from the licit (tobacco, alcohol) to the illicit (cannabis, opium) and the exotic (absinthe, salvia divinorum, nitrous oxide). Each substance is explored in detail, not only with information on its history, pharmacology, preparation, and cultural and esoteric correspondences, but also the subtleties of each plant s effect on consciousness in a way that only poets can do. The whole concoction is sprinkled with abundant quotations from famous writers, creating a literary brew as intoxicating as its subject.

The "Pharmako" series is continued in "Pharmako/Dynamis" (focusing on stimulants and empathogens) and "Pharmako/Gnosis "(which addresses psychedelics and shamanic plants)."

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Sacred Trickery and the Way of Kindness: The Radical Wisdom of Jodo by Alejandro Jodorowsky (PDF & ePUB)

Enter the mind of Jodo and follow his initiatory saga from Zen disciple to revolutionary filmmaker to spiritual teacher

• Explores the sacred trickery of shamans he encountered, including Carlos Castaneda, and how intention and action matter more than notions of “true” and “false”

• Explains the Way of Kindness and how small acts of generosity and goodness can have a profound effect on your spirit, infusing life with a wealth of happiness

• Includes contributions from friends and students of Jodorowsky on their experiences with him, including his son Adan Jodorowsky

Known for his surrealist films, his unique approach to tarot, his symbolic comics, and his shamanic therapeutic method of psychomagic, Alejandro Jodorowsky has accomplished an extraordinary amount in his more than 80 years. In this book, we get an intimate look into the inner workings of the cult figure of Jodo. What is revealed is a man who has evolved since his groundbreaking films of the 1970s, El Topo and The Holy Mountain, a man who has grown from a sacred trickster, a shaman of psychomagic, into a brilliant spiritual maverick of the 21st century. We get to see Jodo’s own reflections on the rich tapestry of his remarkable life, including the initiatory failure of the Dune film project, which combined the talents of a multitude of creative greats, including Moebius, Salvador Dali, Orson Welles, Mick Jagger, and H. R. Giger. We learn about Jodo’s years with Marcel Marceau and with great masters such as Ejo Takata, whose Zen training featured strenuous physical and mental ordeals; the sorceress Pachita, who performed psychic surgery on Jodo; and the mysterious Carlos Castaneda, whose sacred trickery reveals how intentions matter more than notions of “true” and “false.”

Discussing the Way of Kindness that he now follows, Jodo reveals how intentionally practicing small acts of generosity and goodness can have a profound effect on your spirit, infusing life with a wealth of happiness.

From sacred trickery to the path of kindness, Jodo’s radical wisdom discerns the timeless within the immediate and gauges the everyday by the measure of eternity.

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Suicide Forest #1 by El Torres and Gabriel Hernandez (CBR)

Just outside Tokyo lies Aokigahara, a vast forest and one of the most beautiful wildernesses in Japan… which is also the most famous suicide spot in the entire world. Legend has it that the spirits of the suicide victims are still roaming—haunting those ancient woods. This series, from the creators of the acclaimed “The Veil,” examines the lives of Alan, an average-joe from Tokyo, his girlfriend Masami, and Ryoko, a forest ranger who recovers the suicide victims’ bodies from the woods, hoping to find his father. After their experiences with the Suicide Forest, their lives will never be the same again.

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Nankin 1937 by Nicolas Meylaender & Zhou Zongkai (CBR)

Nanking 1937, the first ever cartoon book on the Nanking Massacre, saw its copyright introduction meeting held in the Belgrade Book Fair. The book was written by a famous French playwright Nick Meland and drawn by Professor Zhou Zongkai of Sichuan Fine Arts Institute (SFAI) along with his son Zhou Weizong.

Nanking 1937, planned by the French FEI Publishing House to be presented in a style of woodcut, tells the true story of Xia Shuqin, a survivor from the Nanking Massacre, revealing the anti-human crimes committed by Japanese troops from the angle of a survivor.

On 13th December, 1937, Xia's grandparents, parents, 2 elder sisters and 1 younger sister were killed by Japanese troops, leaving behind only Xia and a 4-year-old sister. At that time, Chairman of the Nanking International Safety Zone, Rabe, kept Xia's story in his diary. An American missionary videoed the miserable conditions of her home located at No. 5, Xinlukou in Zhonghuamen, Nanking.

Zhou Zongkai got in contact with Nanking 1937 in 2010, when the Chinese reprisentative in charge of FEI Publishing House, Xu Gefei, came to SFAI for a visit and had a talk with Zhou in his studio in Huxi Commune (Huxi Gongshe), known as the largest domestic Village of Artists in China.

Xu told Zhou about her intention of adding more Chinese material to the publishing industry, and due to the lack of knowledge of Chinese history around 1937 among European society, it would be informative to put forward her idea.

After viewing the pictures drawn by Zhou for the book of The Diaoyu Fortress, Xu decided to have Nanking 1937 drawn by Zhou.

Nanking 1937 was written by Nick Meland, a famous French playwright. When asked why a foreigner was chosen to write a Chinese story, Xu stated that a foreigner could tell the story in a more objective manner, enabling readers to gain a more balanced impression.

In August 2010, Zhou received the manuscripts of Nanking 1937.

For an entire month, Zhou and his 25-year-old son Zhou Weizong, a young cartoonist, worked on the drawings in his studio for over 10 hours every day.

In 2011, the French Edition of Nanking 1937 was put into the markets in France, Belgium, Luxemburg and Switzerland. On the memorial day of the 7th July Incident of 1937 in 2014, the book’s Chinese Edition was published by the Sichuan Children's Publishing House.

In 2012, the book's French Edition was awarded the Best Painting prize in the Amiens Animation Festival.

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https://yadi.sk/d/m8d_dzEntZoHA

Aleister Crowley – Wandering The Waste by Martin Hayes & RH Stewart (CBR)

England’s finest Magician? Scoundrel? Occultist? Mischief-maker? Explorer of realms? Or simply, as he’s often remembered ‘the wickedest man in the world’? Hayes and Stewart tell a very human story of an extraordinary man, and leave the final decision to the reader. Master magician or deluded manipulator? Read on….

Do you believe in magic? Do you reckon Crowley was the real deal? or just a deluded fool? Whatever you think, there’s no denying that there was little that was simple about the man, or his life, and this fool may well have been a genius. Believe in magic or not, the life of Crowley the man is far too interesting to be cast to history a simple cartoon character, the evil magician. Crowley’s ambition seems to have been to transcend his life, to have his mortality wiped away by journeying to other realms and live on after other men have long gone… in so many ways he has.

One thing this graphic novel does leave you with, no matter what you believe, no matter what you think of Crowley the legend… he lived a life that can only be described as rich and full, epic even. Healthy, sensible, good… perhaps not, but certainly epic. He travelled, he shocked, mastered chess, an accomplished mountaineeer, travelled the globe, influenced so many, rubbing shoulders with the greats of his time. Epic indeed.

And it’s dutifully and entertainingly detailed by writer Martin Hayes and artist RH Stewart in this graphic novel that concerns itself primarily with Crowley the man, at the end of his days, 72 years old, terminally infirm, living in a guest house, the man in room 13, more concerned with consulting his tortoiseshell sticks than consulting a doctor.

Immediately Hayes and Stewart strip away some of the mystique, after all it’s hard to truly hate the dying, and we begin to look at Crowley the idea, the legend through the story of Crowley the man, as we venture right back to the beginning, Crowley detailing his life to a visiting writer, intent on chronicling the life of the famous occultist.

Looking back over his life, we see the boy born into the Plymouth Brethren, religious zealots more concerned with preparing for the imminent reappearance of Jesus than looking after a child. His nickname of Beast came not from newspapers or enemies, but from his own mother, faced with evidence of the boy finding pleasures of the flesh too inviting as adulthood approached.

With such an upbringing, it’s small wonder that the boy grew to become a man with unusual ideas, indoctrination failed, religious ideals overthrown, a conviction to embrace his name as Beast, after all … if Mother believed him truly to be the Anti-Christ incarnate, is it any wonder he played up to it?

That’s one way to look at it certainly, but alternatively, he was just bad. Very bad. Evil? We may never know. But at least Hayes and Stewart’s tale is always clever enough to leave both options open. As we read of mother’s obvious religious madness in casting her son as the devil for having sex a few times, the final lines on the page immediately reveal an alternative viewpoint….

    “Oh, and then there was the incident with the cat.”
    “The cat?”
    “Well, I had been told that a cat has 9 lives…”

So as we travel through Crowley’s life there’s a sense of getting a measured view, granted it’s from the viewpoint of Crowley himself, but there’s opportunity aplenty for Hayes to have Crowley present all manner of ideas, to present the man as a flawed thing, capable of great acts, and just as capable of the worst human traits. Proud, strong, intense, passionate, driven, ambitious, selfish, spiteful, jealous, kind, generous…. all aspects of Crowley come through across the years. And above all, the idea that Crowley, no matter what, genuinely believed in his magic, as he ascended the ranks of the magical elite, even as he acknowledged that many of their number, indeed most of their number, could be classed as mere “charlatans and non-entities“.

The problem here is that Hayes’ words work a lot better than Stewart’s artwork, which feels out of time, something akin to early McKean, feeling just that little dated and a case of seen it done better many years back, this mix of scratchy figurative work, cut and paste collage and digital effects here and there. It’s by no means terrible, and at its best it succeeds in creating the required atmosphere of the magician’s life.

Where the early parts of the book are all concerned with a strict biographical narrative, this structure breaks down as the adult Crowley immerses himself in his own magical world, events come thick and fast, and there’s an unfortunate (although somewhat necessary) reliance on simply throwing a list of events at one of Stewart’s collage like pages at times. It means we’re jettisoned from the narrative at this point, and that’s a real shame, as the wotrk done early on to immerse us in Crowley’s life was really well done.

However, just as this approach is getting too tiresome, the finale, detailing the final hours of the great magician’s life, break free from this structure and veer into the realms of speculative fiction once more, with Hayes composing a possible end involving something as magical as the practices Crowley convinced himself were oh so real.

The ending really is something quite interesting and special, Hayes and Stewart finding a really involving, and yes, a magical way to end their tale, to end Crowley’s life. But the thing the graphic novel leaves us with, as it should, is that Crowley’s desire to transcend death, and to live in the imagination and the memory of the world, was accomplished. Death took the man, but his legacy lives on.

Wandering The Waste succeeds in putting this legacy into context, and although there’s a fair few faults here, there’s nothing that really spoils the story, nothing that stops the message from coming through, and does it damn enjoyably to boot.

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https://yadi.sk/d/PoPhb5eYtZoF8

Monastery of the Seven Rays Year 1 to 4 Study Course

This is a private study course to be read before the Voudon Gnostic Workbook practicum. It was originally published as a mail order study course and is yet to be reprinted in book form.

    Monastery of the Seven Rays, Year 1, Student Degrees (1967).
    Monastery of the Seven Rays, Year 2, Sexual Magic (1969).
    Monastery of the Seven Rays, Year 3, Esoteric Engineering
    Monastery of the Seven Rays, Year 4, Esoteric Magic

For students of the Monastery of the Seven Rays

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https://yadi.sk/d/hFM1Y3u6tVWNg

The Penguin U.G. Krishnamurti Reader Edited by Mukunda Rao (ePUB & mobi)

My teaching, if that is the word you want to use, has no copyright. You are free to reproduce, distribute, interpret, misinterpret, distort, garble, do what you like, even claim authorship, without my consent or the permission of anybody.' Thus spoke U.G. Krishnamurti in his uniquely iconoclastic and subversive way, distancing himself from gurus, spiritual 'advisers', mystics, sages, 'enlightened' philosophers et al. UG's only advice was that people should throw away their crutches and free themselves from the 'stranglehold' of cultural conditioning. Uppaluri Gopala Krishnamurti was born on 9 July 1918 in Masulipatnam, a coastal town in Andhra Pradesh. He died on 22 March 2007 at the age of eighty-nine in Vallecrosia, Italy, at the villa of a friend. The effect that he had, and will continue to have, on legions of his admirers is difficult to put into words. With his flowing silvery hair, deep-set eyes and elongated Buddha-like ears, he was an explosive yet cleansing presence and has been variously described as 'a wild flower of the earth', 'a bird in constant flight', an 'anti-guru' and a 'cosmic Naxalite'. UG gave no lectures or discourses and had no organization or fixed address, but he travelled all over the world to meet people who flocked to listen to his 'anti-teaching'.

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https://yadi.sk/d/yweNiYRjtQ3ec

Metaphysics of War by Julius Evola (ePUB & AZW3)

This is the thoroughly revised edition of a collection of essays that Julius Evola originally wrote for Italian periodicals during the 1930s and '40s, having to do with the transcendental aspects of combat. It represents the development of Evola's thinking on war during the period of the Second World War and its aftermath.

These essays constitute what is certainly the most radical attempt ever made to justify war. This justification takes place essentially on two levels: one profane, the other sacred. At the profane (meaning simply “non-sacred”) level, Evola argues that war is one of the primary means by which heroism expresses itself, and he regards heroism as the noblest expression of the human spirit. Evola reminds us that war is a time in which both combatants and non-combatants realize that they may lose their lives and everything and everyone they value at any moment. This creates a unique moral opportunity for individuals to learn to detach themselves from material possessions, relationships, and concern for their own safety. War puts everything into perspective, and Evola states that it is in such times that “a greater number of persons are led towards an awakening, towards liberation” (p. 135).

According to Evola, the ancient Vedas held that there are two paths to enlightenment: contemplation and action. In traditional Indian terms, the former is the path of the brahmin and the latter of the kshatriya (the warrior caste). Both are forms of yoga, which literally means any practice that has as its aim connecting the individual to his true self, and to the source of all being (which are, in fact, the same thing). The yoga of action is referred to as karma yoga (where karma simply means “action”), and the primary text which teaches it is the Bhagavad-Gita. Evola returns again and again to the Bhagavad-Gita throughout The Metaphysics of War, and it really is the primary text to which Evola’s philosophy of “war as spiritual path” is indebted. The work forms part (a very small part, actually) of the epic poem Mahabharata, the story of which culminates in an apocalyptic war called Kurukshetra. On the eve of battle, the consummate warrior Arjuna (the Siegfried of the piece) surveys the two camps from afar and realizes that on his enemy’s side are many men who are his friends and relations. When Arjuna reflects on the fact that he will have to kill these men the following day, he falters. Fortunately, his charioteer–who is actually the god Krishna–is there to teach him the error of his ways. Krishna tells Arjuna that these men are already dead, for their deaths have been ordained by the gods. In killing them, Arjuna is simply doing his duty and playing his role as a warrior. He must set aside his personal feelings and concentrate on his duty; he must literally become a vehicle for the execution of the divine plan.

One might well ask, what’s in it for Arjuna? The answer is that this following of duty becomes a path by which he may triumph over his fears, his passions, his weaknesses–all those things that tie him to what is ephemeral. Following his duty becomes a way for Arjuna to rise above his lesser self and to connect with the divine. This is not mere piety or “love of God.” It is a way to tap into a superhuman source of power and wisdom. The result is that Arjuna becomes more than merely human.

In fact, Krishna puts Arjuna in a situation in which he must fight two wars. One, the “lesser” war is external–it is the one fought on the battlefield with swords and spears. The other, “greater” war is internal and is fought against the internal enemy: “passion, the animal thirst for life” (p. 52). Evola places a great deal of emphasis on this distinction. What Krishna really teaches Arjuna is that in order to fight the lesser war, he must fight the greater one. Really, unless one is able to conquer one’s weaknesses, nothing else may be accomplished. This opens up the possibility that there may be “warriors” who never fight in any conventional, “external” wars. These would be warriors of the spirit. Evola believes that one can be a true warrior without ever lifting a sword or a gun, by conquering the enemy within oneself. And he mentions initiatic cults, like Mithraism, which conceived of their members on the model of soldiers.

In combat one is lifted out of one’s ordinary self and, more specifically, out of one’s concern with the mundane cares of life. One enters into a state where one ceases even to care about personal survival. It is at this point that one has ceased to identify with the “animal” elements in the human personality and has tapped into that part of us that seems to be a divine spark. This is not, however, an intellectual state or “realization.” Instead, it is a new state of being, which pervades the entire person. The ancient Germans called it wut and odhr. And from these two words derive two of the names of the chief Germanic god: Wuotan and Odin. Odin is not, however, conceived simply as the god of war; he is also the god of wisdom and spiritual transformation.

Evola never was particularly interested in biological conceptions of race, because he believed that human nature as such was irreducible to biology. He opposed reductionism, in short, and believed in a spiritual (i.e., non-material) component to our identity. What Evola was most concerned to combat was a racialism that reduced heroism or mastery to simple membership in a race defined by certain biological characteristics. For Evola, heroism is really achieved in a step beyond the biological, and in mastery over it.

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A Traditionalist Confronts Fascism by Julius Evola (.ePUB & AZW3)

This volume, a companion to Evola’s Fascism Viewed from the Right and Notes on the Third Reich, contains many of his occasional essays on the topic of fascism as understood from a traditionalist perspective which were written between 1930 and 1971, thus comprising both his contemporary and post-war assessments of the fascist phenomenon. Here we find Evola’s views not only on Italian Fascism and German Nazism, but also his discussions of other movements such as the Spanish Falange and the Japanese Imperial ideal, as well as his commentary on such diverse subjects as Nazi esotericism, the idea of a new spiritual Order to lead Europe, and the reasons for his rejection of Nazi biological racism. Also included are interviews Evola personally conducted with Corneliu Codreanu, the leader of the Iron Guard, and Count Coudenhove-Kalergi, the founder of the Pan-European Movement (the forerunner of the European Union), and the full text of ‘Orientations’, the famous essay Evola wrote in 1950 concerning the proper approach of the European Right in the post-war era which he further developed in Men Among the Ruins. These essays show Evola to have been an unsparing critic of fascism, always urging traditionalists to aspire for something higher than the merely political.

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Aleister Crowley: The Beast in Berlin: Art, Sex, and Magick in the Weimar Republic by Tobias Churton (ePub & mobi)

A biographical history of Aleister Crowley’s activities in Berlin from 1930 to 1932 as Hitler was rising to power

• Examines Crowley’s focus on his art, his work as a spy for British Intelligence, his colorful love life and sex magick exploits, and his contacts with magical orders

• Explores Crowley’s relationships with Berlin’s artists, filmmakers, writers, and performers such as Christopher Isherwood, Jean Ross, and Aldous Huxley

• Recounts the fates of Crowley’s friends and colleagues under the Nazis as well as what happened to Crowley’s lost art exhibition

Gnostic poet, painter, writer, and magician Aleister Crowley arrived in Berlin on April 18, 1930. As prophet of his syncretic religion “Thelema,” he wanted to be among the leaders of art and thought, and Berlin, the liberated future-gazing metropolis, wanted him. There he would live, until his hurried departure on June 22, 1932, as Hitler was rapidly rising to power and the black curtain of intolerance came down upon the city.

Known to his friends affectionately as “The Beast,” Crowley saw the closing lights of Berlin’s artistic renaissance of the Weimar period when Berlin played host to many of the world’s most outstanding artists, writers, filmmakers, performers, composers, architects, philosophers, and scientists, including Albert Einstein, Bertolt Brecht, Ethel Mannin, Otto Dix, Aldous Huxley, Jean Ross, Christopher Isherwood, and many other luminaries of a glittering world soon to be trampled into the mud by the global bloodbath of World War II.

Drawing on previously unpublished letters and diary material by Crowley, Tobias Churton examines Crowley’s years in Berlin and his intense focus on his art, his work as a spy for British Intelligence, his colorful love life and sex magick exploits, and his contacts with German Theosophy, Freemasonry, and magical orders. He recounts the fates of Crowley’s colleagues under the Nazis as well as what happened to Crowley’s lost art exhibition--six crates of paintings left behind in Germany as the Gestapo was closing in. Revealing the real Crowley long hidden from the historical record, Churton presents “the Beast” anew in all his ambiguous and, for some, terrifying glory, at a blazing, seminal moment in the history of the world.

“As soon as I opened this book I knew I was in for an exceptional treat, and I was right. This is Churton at his best. His book focuses, with some broader contextualization, on Crowley’s intermittent sojourns in Berlin between 1930 and 1932, which climaxed in a sensational exhibition of his paintings in October 1931. We follow Crowley as he strolls through the city, dressed in a knickerbocker suit, proclaiming his gospel of Thelema, exploring Berlin’s extensive demi-monde, playing chess, painting, writing, fornicating, spying for British intelligence, and mingling with a remarkable constellation of artists, writers, philosophers, and occultists. One of his friends at the time was Christopher Isherwood, who fictionalized his own Berlin experience in the novel that later became the musical Cabaret. Churton, in his vivid, witty style, superbly captures the atmosphere of the city during that feverish, decadent, but immensely vibrant and creative era, which ended abruptly with the catastrophe of 1933. Move over, Isherwood. From now on we should be talking about ‘Crowley’s Berlin.’” (Christopher McIntosh, Ph.D., author and Honorary University Fellow and Western Esotericism lecturer)

“Yet again, Tobias Churton shows a unique ability to combine an approachable writing style with scholarly research and the result is an authoritative book on Crowley, the artist, a person who deserves to be re-assessed rather than be relegated to the dustbin of history.” (Sanda Miller, Ph.D., research fellow, History of Art, Southampton Solent University)

“A remarkable account of Baphomet in Berlin, full of fascinating new information on Crowley’s decadence and discipline as a Berlin Boy as Germany spiraled down into its apocalyptic picnic. Tobias Churton has uncovered much that is new and marvelously expands on and clarifies that which was already known. A wonderful evocation of the darkness becoming visible--a truly Manichæan history.” (David Tibet, founder of Current 93)

“Aleister Crowley: The Beast in Berlin is magic! Churton opens box after box of secrets in a dazzling display of research, erudition, and insight. Aleister Crowley is revealed in all his jaw-dropping splendor, plus warts. A genius forced to suffer fools, able to transcend misfortune, an adventurer in the worlds of art and war. His wisdom is both light and deep; the book is thrilling.” (Vanilla Beer, artist)

“It’s hard not to empathize with Crowley as portrayed in the book—a man possessed of more radical intelligence than most before or after, who probably came off a bit autistic in his time, dealing with constant trouble, power games and consistently overestimating both people’s intelligence and integrity. Though he stands so far above both the Theosophical movement and its heirs in the New Age and Neopagan Revival, much of Crowley’s life was overshadowed by his troubles with money, students, the press and local governments—all of which consistently seem to thwart him in his latter years. Despite all that, he left a body of work, and philosophy, of unparalleled clarity and value. But in Aleister Crowley: The Beast in Berlin—Art, Sex and Magick in the Weimer Republic, we get a better look at Crowley not as a symbol, but as a man of his time. Highly recommended.” (Ultraculture, Jason Jouv, August, 2014)

“The Beast in Berlin is an inspiring and engaging narrative of Aleister Crowley in the turbulent and cathartic years of Berlin in the early 1930s. Meticulously researched and filled with just enough biographical fact, informed speculation, dirty gossip and esoteric philosophy to keep you riveted from first word to last, Crowleyan scholar Tobias Churton has spun an entertaining and eye-opening tale documenting the reckless life of outsider artists living on the edge in a city on the brink of Apocalypse. Along the way we see the Beast play chess with Fernando Pessoa, correspond with Aldous Huxley, night crawl with Christopher Isherwood, spy, paint, incant, exorcise and interact artistically and sexually with a wide range of colorful, bizarre and nondescript characters—the absolute dregs of Berlin society. Perhaps the most readable and interesting book to catch the true spirit of Frater Perdurabo.” (John Zorn, Musician, July 2014)

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