/fringe/ - Fringe

>>134209

Everyone loves the Hermeticism but…

The book that has the most famous depiction of Baphomet?

What are you, Crowleyphilic?

I actually haven't delved in that direction all the good stuff has already been said, it just all seems regurgitated to me but I just furiously looked into it and found this much

>The Sabbatic Goat, from the Ritual of Transcendental Magic, by Éliphas Lévi, who identifies it with the Baphomet of Mendes, and does not regard it as connected with Black Magic, but as "a pantheistic and magical figure of the absolute.

So seems legit, I guess. Levi was certainly instrumental in the resurgence of esotericism in the modern era, but so was Crowley and he's a bumfucking faggot!

Anyways I can't imagine the need to use such imagery when there's no affiliation with satanism, transgeders, etc.

The principles of Polarity and Gender/Generation (btw half assing this look up will lead to the principles in the wrong order. I can't believe the principles are listed in the wrong order all over the internet. Godamned travesty)

Baphomet as a representation of alignment with the principles, or something, is not inaccurate and obviously show that Levi knows what he's talking about, but it just doesn't seem human, but I'm saging because now I really am using a whole bunch of words to say nothing

>>134227

You let mundie politics dictate your thoughts. Sad.

>>134246

What the fuck does any of this have to do with politics?

>>102875

I agree. There are literally ZERO primary texts on that list. No Corpus Hermetica, no Aesclepius, not even the De Mysteriis of Iamblichus which is the foundational text on theurgy! The closest there is is The Kybalion, that is if you want the McDonald's version of Hermeticism.

>>102850

>/fringe/ is about training people to be magicians not occult historians.

Your idea of a magician is someone who read 16 books and conducted a few rituals?

>Besides Plato, Buddha, and Christ are known to all and don't need to be recommended.

People know of them, but the vast majority have not read them.

>Plato

Unless they are a philosophy graduate, or read excerpts from The Republic in a polysci or a survey course on philosophy, most people have not read a single word of Plato in their free time. The type of people I've listed above except for the phil grads have a superficial understanding of Plato at best.

>Christ

Most Christians haven't even read the Bible in full, and they mainly just quote verses out of context to feel morally superior.

>Buddha

The West's understanding of Buddhism is just embarrassing. Either they think it's some philo-psychological scientism stripped of all spirituality to improve brain functionality (like Sam Harris), or it's some nihilistic death cult (thanks Schopenhauer and Nietzsche!). Most of them don't know of any Buddhist works outside of the Dhammapada or the Tibetan Book of the Dead (no offense >>102837) What's worse is people adopt the meditation and mindfulness techniques so they can temporarily relieve the burdens of modern living, instead of trying to outright cure them. Even worse still, you have corporations recommending their employees to practice mindfulness meditation for the purpose of keeping them content with their shitty work conditions, squeezing more productivity out of them, all the while having them think are solely responsible for their own misery. Seeing spiritualism, the last line of resistance left against capitalism and modernity, being appropriated by capitalists and used against itself, fills me with feelings of abject terror, anger, and disgust.

>>134345

What is buddhism really about, according to you? To me, it seems kind of gay.

>>134201

I'd just like to mention that although Fringe Knowledge in it's entirety is legitimate, it's understandable to be skeptical as even when I was reading it I knew there would eventually be some crazy alien shit going on but it's only near the end that there is some detail of the human control matrix that has basically enslaved us…

I would say that this stuff is still basically within acceptable rhetoric, and totally accurate and valid, technically, but it's actually just an incredible exaggeration and really just wholly over-sensationalizing it…

The book starts out awesome and over all is great though

Also the Gnosis section of the website is incredibly wild… But if you don't have any background knowledge in Alchemy then it's all just gonna be really fluffy; a really fun long read regardless though

>>134349

>What is buddhism really about, according to you?

To cease to suffer and desire, and reach Nirvana. What else would it be? The irony is, people use it as a coping mechanism to live with modern capitalist society, instead of abolishing their dependence on it, and if they would just stop and think about the core teachings of Buddhism, the Four Noble Truths, and the Eightfold Path, they would realize how antithetical Buddhism is to Capitalism. And then you have the people who meditate to gain supernatural powers for entertainment or to carve out some small dominion in manifested existence, which completely misses the point

>>134377

What do you think Nirvana means, and why should anyone try to attain such a thing? People who want Nirvana tend to not understand what it really means, or if they do they have no interest in the physical realm and should just leave now.

>>134392

What are you implying here, that Nirvana is some void or nothingness, and Buddhism is some nihilistic death cult? Because, it's not.

>People who want Nirvana tend to not understand what it really means, or if they do they have no interest in the physical realm and should just leave now.

There are people who have reached enlightenment called Boddhisatvas, who choose to stay in samsara to help other people reach enlightenment, and it is the most selfless and compassionate act one can do. What do you think Nirvana is? If there is something to you that's worth staying in this funhouse called samsara, what is it?

>>134426

>If there is something to you that's worth staying in this funhouse called samsara, what is it?

Existing? Being alive?

I asked you questions and you did not answer them. You are full of shit

>>134429

To be alive and exist for what?

>>134431

Being able to have experiences, and to learn from them.

If you want to end your life, just do it faggot

>>134432

>If you want to end your life, just do it faggot

And there it is! What is your beef against Buddhism anyway? Also, suicide will only earn you a one way ticket to Naraka.

>>134433

I didn't say suicide. Nirvana means you stop existing. if you want that, then do it. Stop trying to get people to join your dumb cult

>There are people who have reached enlightenment called Boddhisatvas, who choose to stay in samsara to help other people reach enlightenment, and it is the most selfless and compassionate act one can do.

P R E T E N T I O U S

>>134434

I never said I was a Buddhist. I't just annoys me to see legit spiritual pathways to be stripped of substance and appropriated for consumerist and profiteering ends, especially when it causes misconceptions in how that religion is understood.

IDK WTF is up with Buddhism, but ZEN is awesome.

HOWEVER I have an interpretation that can save the nonsense of Buddhism, and it may be something that was closer to what the original proponents had in mind

I consider Samsara as repetition, and Nirvana as creativity. Samsara is grounding, and Nirvana is inspiring.

Absolute Nirvana would break all cycles of Samsara and thus would end existence.

You need some Samsara to exist.

This is why I say that the illusion of Duality is necessary, and it is a Gift that Unity has created so that us lowly illusions called egos may exist.

Without any illusion, there would be no existence as existence is itself an illusion. Only the mind of God is real, and all else is an illusion allowed to exist through the will of God.

Growth requires Experience, which requires Existence, which requires Illusion.

Because we experience things through consciousness, it is the consciousness (without any ego) that is real, aka the mind.

Therefore, arguably, experiences are actually real. It's our responses to all this illusion that we experience,

God lives through us vicariously, and we through him. That's the realness in the duality of yin yang, and we and God are connected through spirit, which is the whole circle. Or maybe I mixed something up there; whatever it doesn't really matter but all religions, philosophies, schools of spirituality, etc, can be aligned to a certain truth or another, and if your lucky it might be the actual truth…

Also there is some sort of 'energy' or 'vibration' that is essentially some flavor of consciousness that allows us to have our unique sovereign identities.

>>134440

It's illegitimate and I explained many times way, and I asked you questions which you didn't answer. If you don't know what you're talking about, then why are you even getting triggered? It's like you're just here to shit up the board. Whatever, go ahead, stay triggered. You're just making a fool of yourself

Terence McKenna wrote a few interesting books.

I find his explorations into ICHING and the mapping of creative energy, quite fascinating.

>>134442

I did answer your questions, but you came off as an interrogatory jackass trying to catch me in some sort of linguistic "gotcha", who isn't interested in discourse, which turned out I was right.

>>134449

>What do you think Nirvana means, and why should anyone try to attain such a thing?

What do you think Nirvana means, and why should anyone try to attain such a thing?

?!?!?!?!?!?

>>134452

I think the best way for me to describe Nirvana is apophatically: unqualified, unconditioned, unlimited, unbounded, timeless, etc. To think of it as nothing is a classical mistake, which leads to misunderstandings that Buddhism is a nihilistic religion and life-denying. Nirvana means to snuff out, as in completely and totally eradicating all desire, ego, and movement of thought, including the seed or germ which causes them to arise. People who have managed to achieve this apotheotic state report feeling infinite, unfathomable bliss beyond words (not to get confused with happiness or sensory pleasure), un-attachment, and stillness of thought. The reasons why someone would want to reach Nirvana is because, you escape samsara and not have to suffer through the cycle of death-and-rebirth again, and so you can be reunited with the Absolute Reality that transcends the Manifest and the Unmanifest that I described at the beginning.

>>134453

Suffering is a state of mind that can change as your perspective changes.

But you are saying that the only way to end suffering is to cease existence and "reunite with the Absolute Reality"

This is a death cult. Humanity must continue to exist, FUCK OUTTA HERE

>>134453

https://medium.com/@sasha.manu95/there-and-back-again-the-unity-of-samsara-and-nirvana-in-tantric-and-zen-buddhism-d525df878de1

>Nirvana is attained when dualistic thinking is transcended, and the mind is freed from all karmic conditioning.

>While these states seem diametrically opposed, their inseparability is postulated in many occult texts, particularly those belonging to the Vajrayana and Zen Buddhist schools.

>While both traditions hold that Samsara and Nirvana are fundamentally inseparable, the journeys from ignorance to realization are vastly different. I will argue that the journey of a Tantrika is a transformative process of experiencing the realm of duality in its fullest, and then transcending it. Whereas the Zen journey immediately attacks the misconceptions of Samsara and aims to quickly transcend all forms of dualistic thinking. Zen is taught from the perspective of Nirvana, teachings are predicated on Buddhahood being inherent within us. While Tantra is taught from within Samsara, with mastery of the phenomenal world leading to transcendence of it. This leads to the Tantric path being gradual and immersive, while Zen is simple and direct.

zen is superior

>>134454

>But you are saying that the only way to end suffering is to cease existence and "reunite with the Absolute Reality"

That's not what I said. If you read what I said carefully, the people who described the ontological state of Nirvana achieved it while they were alive. Also, you are forgetting that humans are not the only species going through samsara, and they can be reincarnated as humans. Second, if you are born a human, that means you are relatively close (with heavy emphasis on the word relatively) to reaching Nirvana.

>Suffering is a state of mind that can change as your perspective changes.

That is because you are at the mercy of the whims of maya and lost in the world of multiplicity. There are times where people reach mystical states of clarity for a few moments and slowly come back and lose it, but Nirvana once reached never goes away since you have integrated truth.

>>134455

I don't disagree.

>>134458

>If you read what I said carefully, the people who described the ontological state of Nirvana achieved it while they were alive.

Feel free to quote yourself to show where you said this, because it sounds like you are just going back on your own words.

And the rest of what you said is completely irrelevant.

>a once reached never goes away since you have integrated truth.

So what is the point of talking about it?

IT IS COMPLETELY TOTALLY AND UTTERLY CONDESCENDING TO ASSUME WHO HAS ACHIEVED NIRVANA AND WHO HASN'T

Who the fuck are you to say who is suffering and who isn't?

And furthermore

You were literally are asking what the point of living in Samsara is!!!!!!

This is completely antithetical to what you are saying now. What you are saying now is that anyone who has reached Nirvana while they are alive are always in that state. IF THEY ARE ALIVE THEY ARE STILL EXPOSED TO SAMSARA. So how fucking retarded is your question now?

>the Zen journey immediately attacks the misconceptions of Samsara and aims to quickly transcend all forms of dualistic thinking.

Master race

>>134460

>Feel free to quote yourself to show where you said this, because it sounds like you are just going back on your own words.

I said it here.

>People who have managed to achieve this apotheotic state report feeling infinite, unfathomable bliss beyond words (not to get confused with happiness or sensory pleasure), un-attachment, and stillness of thought.

It logically follows that the only way these people can give these reports is if they are alive, don't you think?

>Who the fuck are you to say who is suffering and who isn't?

I was merely explaining the difference between the ontological states of mystical experience and enlightenment, and I was only stating usual reported feelings of those who are living it. I was not pontificating at all.

>This is completely antithetical to what you are saying now. What you are saying now is that anyone who has reached Nirvana while they are alive are always in that state. IF THEY ARE ALIVE THEY ARE STILL EXPOSED TO SAMSARA.

Nope. Their minds are unconditioned and are no longer influenced by samsara through subject-object distinctions. They see everything as it really is.

>So how fucking retarded is your question now?

I have answered these questions several times already. You are deliberately being obtuse.

>>134467

You said that just now, not way back when you were asking me what the point of Samsara was. You didn't know what Nirvana was until I explained it and baby fed you, because otherwise we wouldn't have been arguing all this time. It's sad your ego is so big that you are STILL arguing

Posting in ignorance facilitates the spread of ignorance. I have to point out the distinctions in the way you're talking. Before it was basically disinformation. Misdirection through omission.

Getting a nuance incorrect completely warps and corrupts the entire teachings; this is why Zen warriors are so zealous in clarifying all misconceptions of Samsara.

>>134467

>Their minds are unconditioned and are no longer influenced by samsara

>They see everything as it really is.

Yeah yeah that's basically what I've been saying all this entire time

>through subject-object distinctions.

don't pretend to know what that means. Most philosophers, academics, etc don't seem to know or rather can't seem to agree on those terms like subjectivity and objectivity. It is quite sad actually

>>86958

This is actually top tier list of books.

>>86960

>James Joyce

I literally can't see that in the picture, or am I blind

>>134490

>I don't know what this term means, so you're full of shit.

I haven't posted on /fringe/ in years and I see the same old 4/x/ list of books is here. Not that I have a problem with them but I'm surprised that modern authors are never discussed on image boards. There are different types of magic to chose from so this neophyte list, even by its very name, is catered towards Hermetics. I don't care how you choose to categorize the names but folk/pagan magic and chaos magic have different entry level books compared to ceremonial magic. There is also considerable overlap between traditions, like Agrippa's role in Appalachian Christian magic, but not everyone on /fringe/ is going to be purely into Hermetics. Then you have some traditions with no English presence at all, like Thai folk magic and whatever else goes on in obscure jungles around the world. I don't remember where I was trying to go with this post now but I always thought of Kraig as being the most entry level as his books are made for beginners, although I never read any of them but I hear him recommended often.

To get to the point of thread now, I have not read any of Atkinson's, Bardon's, or Bruce's books, but I have read books that use Bardon and more as sources. Bruce's Psychic Self-Defense is a book I always wanted to read, but Fortune's book of the same name was helpful at the time. I read some of Crowley but I didn't care for his books either just because he is not my cup of coffee. I read some of Montalk many years ago but I can't remember it now.

My successful magic is led by psychic instinct I suppose would be an easy way to describe it. Intent with good karma in combination with sigils and/or candles works for me. I am not a summoner or ceremonial magician. Despite this pagan route, The Kybalion has been insightful and I partly began through alchemy books. Icelandic magic is more medieval magic than pagan magic in many ways but this is where my magic really began. Flowers of course is the most entry level here for all things runes. Before this, I was into martial arts energy work, so I really began not with books at all. After this, I eventually found Targ and Swann, which are great for beginners as we all grew up in an atheistic school system where material is all that is taught and even big religion has been turned into a belief system without true spirit. I grew up Christian but half of my church didn't believe in magic. Magic was something I just assumed to always be real, even before having paranormal events. So to answer your question is difficult because I don't know how advanced I should say I am. I've been moving more towards shamanism and animism, which is very different from the Hermetic path.

(Post continued after this one)

For beginners, I would recommend they learn about defense, healing, and psychic intuition first. This is what I needed in my life first but I think it's a good step to take. The Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram and protection spells should be first to purify the magician's environment. Learning to interpret their psychic thoughts should also be taught early on, from vibes to avoid bad people and accidents to dream interpretation. This should be followed up with Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, Jordan Peterson's lectures, and Plato. Curses, vampires, evil demons/djinn, and more are everywhere and Abrahamic religions reinforce trauma which increases these things. Self-protection of the magician should come first.

After this, The Kybalion and related works are a good place to start on esoteric philosophy, but like >>102837 stated, the original sources should be foundational to a beginner's list on magic. Agrippa's four books on occult philosophy are also foundational material. There are several books that try to condense practices for new magicians, so Kraig, Dubois, and Skinner all have books with the same images. Kraig's is more practical, Skinner's is more reference, and Dubois's is more complete in explaining. Mathers, Regardie, Read, Waite, and Frater U.D. are good for starting magicians to read. I haven't read McLean but skimming his books now looks like they could be important. I don't know of any books on the tarot but the Watie deck and an understanding of divination, symbolism, and synchronicity should be known, even if the magician has no interest in cards. Likewise, grail myths should be familiarized with.

Gnostic literature is useful in addition to the Bible, but to include these means you need to include how they were taken from prior sources like Buddha, Greco-Egyptian, Sumerian, Roman, and Zoroastrian. Also good to include with this is Medieval Monasticism by Lawrence and books about Christianity's origins. I never read Mircea Eliade but I should. Just learning about prehistory to modern history in general is going to be useful to build the setting around when grimoires were written and why certain beliefs were around different time periods.

I've wanted to arrange magicians' books in some kind of logical order or graph for some time now or make an essentials list but it really is a difficult task. Practicality reduces understanding, lack of understanding reduces magic potential, and lack of magical results makes magic impractical. People just really need to take years to get around to reading and practicing. Looking for a fast path will only slow people down by pushing off what they need to learn. Even if you do leap ahead to some godlike events, then you will likely look back and see you need to go back to do life in order.

Mat Auryn's Psychic Witch is a good book for beginners that is not pretentious nor rooted in Golden Dawn magic.

There is also a surprising amount of good information on intuitive/psychic magic in books written by regular TV-type healers, psychics and mediums, but I don't have those references at hand right now. I doubt they would be appreciated here anyway.

>>134558

I've seen that book over a dozen times on Amazon but I never bothered to click it. I've never heard of that author before but I'm surprised to see it has 235 ratings and 5 stars when it released just this year. Even all the reviews listed in the description are from authors I've never heard of. They seem to all be from Llewellyn I'm assuming. The only recent Llewellyn book I own is The World of Shamanism by Roger Walsh, which I really liked but it reads more like an anthropology book. If you use Amazon, now is a good time to order books because lots of them have been on sale lately.

I never watch television anymore but I do own one book that was sold to go with a documentary long ago. It was bought used and is actually older than me by a year. The book is called Healing States by Alberto Villoldo and Stanley Krippner. The authors are not healers themselves but they write about shamans in the Amazon rain forest who use strange techniques, like rubbing guinea pigs over the bodies of people in the belief that guinea pigs are sensitive to curses and will die if one is present in the body. It's a small book but very fascinating.

It was just this year that I ordered several books about American witchcraft, which is said to come from German Christianity with mixture of Irish and Cherokee traditions. I only started reading into of them so far. People claim there are no pagan influence on these practices but I don't know how true that is and I find that doubtful. There was a large exchange of knowledge and practices when Christianity began to blend with folk traditions over in Europe. From what I've read and heard in interviews, is that the Bible appears to be used as a book of spells rather than seen as a book on philosophy and history. Appalachia is a strange place where the Bible is the grimoire. Many of these traditions are quickly vanishing though.

Podcast interviews is more of what I've been into lately, especially those involving authors.

>>134576

I haven't read them.

>>134737

This list seems good.

>>106681

>Funny how in your attack on philosophy you present your own

One cannot speak of a philosophy or direct anything at it without asserting some philosophy of their own (according to philosophers at least). It is for sure an attack, but more so an attack on Hume and the standing of similar philosophy in relation to the rest of thought (and reality perhaps). Thus your statement is dishonest or misconceived and redundant, its connotations or significance erroneous.

> I think the type of analytical and critical thought philosophy can require to be quite useful in many practical ways for a variety of things.

Tree states how Hume's philosophy is practically useful so I'm not sure what contradiction you think you're stating or what you thought Tree was stating.

>I also don't think reading or practicing philosophy limits your perception, if anything doing the opposite is what makes you ignorant, pushing everything off and just calling it a load of crap but still going on your own personal philosophy.

<Philosophy itself is already a limiting perception. Its bias is purposeful, of course.

Same story. Misreading Tree. One cannot get away from bias. Fundamentally one biases or focuses their attention always, always shifting their attention from one thing so that it leaves it, and biases their consciousness and is biased by what they perceive by the act of focusing, unfocusing, shifting, et cetera. Even keeping your consciousness still and clear and encompassing is a bias. So fundamentally he is correct that philosophy is a bias, and a purposeful one. All things are. All acts of consciousness bias and are basically purposeful or teleological. Tree states that Hume's philosophy is useful and how, so I am not sure what contradiction you are sloppily and bluntly trying to contradict.

So far you just seem defensive without engaging with the thought of Tree's posts. It seems he's saying that the philosophy's use and reason it had an impact on European thought at the time is in the usefulness of the act of questioning temporal reality (object reality), which Tree interpreted as likely being relevant to Hume's people and nation: Scotland; or of a people governed in general. But he is making a general statement about it's usefulness, not just a specific case:

<Be self-aware about this being totally relative to the necessity of the circumstances however. Each specific thing about it isn't very important, but rather its total impact. The oppressed Scotland, under the British Sun, wishes for tulips.

<Questioning cause and effect… I'm sure this was incredibly relevant to his situation and those of his countrymen.

>What's wrong with poetry as well?

I don't think he was criticizing poetry. I think he was calling impractical philosophy the realm of opinion, taste and subjectivity. He even says something poetic in his second post.

>I find good philosophy is not when you come out of it knowing more but knowing less than you did when you went in. There are a lot of truths within philosophy they are just different kinds of truths, and maybe you are right, who knows, and the entirety of philosophy, completely inavoidable as it may be, may have just been an entire waste of time and nothing.

Once again, the difference in thought between you and Tree is more nuanced than you're giving credit.

<"Why expect the sun to rise tomorrow?" is just a gateway to questioning common patterns in your life

He even says what you are, in other words.

>Not sure what you are on about with the Scottish and the British (even though they are in a sense one in the same and the United Kingdom was formed by Scotland themselves) bit of a loose tangent don't you think?

I'm not sure how aware you are of Scott-English animosity, but it seems to be null.

>I really have no idea where you are going with that.

Jesus f. Christ

>>134201

I don't recommend Montalk or any Alien/Reptilian stuff. UFOs and all exist but I don't trust Montalk or any others to interpret reality. Stick to UFO/strange phenomena, crop circles (as communication and/or knowledge) and some high quality witnesses/researchers.

The reading list should be more about physics, vortice physics/mathematics, gravity engines/power generators, water power generators, electricity, meridians/chi, martial arts/fitness to cultivate chi force/projection, electrodynamics of the body (based on meridian stuff), cia declassified documents, memory and reading techniques, logic, et cetera. Instead we get this gay jew magic. This reveals how very little anyone here knows anything, willing to gobble down anything they can find. Egyptian pyramids were electrical generators. If any were initiated into astral projection in it, it was because of it's highly charged interior, and that is speculation next to the very real electrical generation of the place.

bump

>>140075

Does it give the ability to intellectually btfo mundanes?

>>140082

It allows you to sound like an absolute autistic misfit to mundanes AND occultists.

NAOS by o9a

The Nexion journal on archive.org is very insightful as well. Specifically 5.1, 6.1 and 7.1

>>106591

You cannot be an occultist if you cannot fathom Hume’s idea of necessary connection being not much more than a promise of the mind.