Occultism and Magick: Sloane Manuscripts

>Keep 'em comin'
Dude, I'll post any Sloane MSS you can find that I don't already have.

I guess it should also be noted that my copy of the Grimoire of Arthur Gauntlet comes from the Sloane collection as well, it's over in Chumbley>Cultus Sabbati, and probably the Euro folder as well, I don't recall if I doubleposted those.

in the last centuries there was a growing gap between western and eastern christianity for what concerns misticism.
one of the results is the skepticism of the Catholic Church towards a lot of miracles, is like they don't want you to really see the presence of God on this Earth

The only interest I have in the Eastern Orthodox tradition that I haven't already explored is the role of Esdras in the Slavonic Orthodox Bible.

Other than that I'm more of an Oriental Orthodox sort of guy if we're going to talk about churches with possibly valid lineal claims.

I dunno, the Ophites look cool when you couple the bride chamber ritual with the other ophidian practices, as well as other misc., early Gnostic factions...Mandaeans too but the more I look into it the less I can seriously apply the term "christian", it rather looks like a rather different Abrahamic transmission entirely.

What do you think about Mandeans?

I dunno what to think other than that it appears MUCH of our middle esoteric notions of like evokation and invokation appear to have derived from some Mandaean source.

I also dunno why they're so often referred to as Gnostics when they're the only Gnostic outfit to outright reject Yeshuah.

mandaean sources were pretty present in the Italian Renaissance, which was a fertile period for what concerns OC so maybe it could be that the passage

Do you know why do they hate abraham?
I think ive read that somewhere but it might as well be a "yazidis worship the devil!" meme.

>present in the Italian Renaissance
I hate go full autist but [citation dearly needed].
If this is the case suddenly I have a link between the Mandaean usage of Mahazhael and the Agrippan usage as the latter was hanging around during the whole "Warrior Pope" Julius II debacle.

there you go my Ape
ibs.it/code/9788842081791/garin-eugenio/zodiaco-della-vita.html

Eugenio Garin
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenio_Garin

Ape I've got a question you might be able to answer. A friend of mine is deeply into the occult and he recently told me that one of the first texts to be spread by the printing press was the Emerald Tablets (or maybe corpus hermeticum, can't recall), thus helping usher in the enlightenment

I like hermeticism, and I'm a bit of gnostic, and I'd like for it to be true, but it sounds like bullshit to me

>abraham
Why do you need Abraham when you have Shem.

Wiki says it's something to do with circumcision.

>tfw no qt mandaean gf

Um the iteration of the story he's passing is 99% likely bullshit with no further detail...BUT...

While the big thick pile of trash that is Dr. Doreal's Theosophist fanfiction is indeed horseshit, the Emerald Tablet has an irl history tied to the expansion of science.

The oldest documentable source of the text is the Kitāb sirr al-ḫalīqa (Book of the Secret of Creation and the Art of Nature), itself a composite of earlier works. This volume is attributed to "Balinas" (or Pseudo-Apollonius of Tyana) who wrote sometime around the eighth century. In his book, Balinas frames the Emerald Tablet as ancient Hermetic wisdom. He tells his readers that he discovered the text in a vault below a statue of Hermes in Tyana, and that, inside the vault, an old corpse on a golden throne held the emerald tablet.

Following Balinas, an early version of the Emerald Tablet appeared in Kitab Ustuqus al-Uss al-Thani (Second Book of the Elements of Foundation) attributed to Jabir ibn Hayyan. The Smaragdine Tablet was first translated into Latin in the twelfth century by Hugo von Santalla. The text is also in an enlarged thirteenth century edition of Secretum Secretorum (also known as Kitab Sirr al-Asrar).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretum_Secretorum

Obviously I should research it myself and trust what I feel to be true, but I do also want to know if this is even a well known claim

A translation by Isaac Newton is found among his alchemical papers that are currently housed in King's College Library, Cambridge University:

Tis true without error, certain & most true.
That which is below is like that which is above & that which is above is like that which is below to do the miracles of one only thing
And as all things have been & arose from one by the mediation of one: so all things have their birth from this one thing by adaptation.
The Sun is its father, the moon its mother, the wind hath carried it in its belly, the earth is its nurse.
The father of all perfection in the whole world is here.
Its force or power is entire if it be converted into earth.
Separate thou the earth from the fire, the subtle from the gross sweetly with great industry.
It ascends from the earth to the heaven & again it descends to the earth & receives the force of things superior & inferior.
By this means you shall have the glory of the whole world
& thereby all obscurity shall fly from you.
Its force is above all force. For it vanquishes every subtle thing & penetrates every solid thing.
So was the world created.
From this are & do come admirable adaptations whereof the means (or process) is here in this. Hence I am called Hermes Trismegist, having the three parts of the philosophy of the whole world
That which I have said of the operation of the Sun is accomplished & ended.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerald_Tablet

colourcountry.net/secretum/

That thing in English anywhere or should I pick up a slab of gabagool along with a new italian/english dictionary?

Thanks. Side note, first time I saw you I was on my phone and only saw Ape, so I thought you were the Ape of Naples

amazon.com/Italian-Humanism-Philosophy-Civic-Renaissance/dp/B0006BNPC8
there you go Ape, I hope you find it in a public library as well.
the language barrier is bad, try to gogle translate this link to see how interesting is Garin's work for what concerns occultism and the evolution of science in the renaissance

>Ape of Naples
Nope.

here is the link
treccani.it/enciclopedia/eugenio-antonio-garin_(Dizionario-Biografico)/

>amazon.com/Italian-Humanism-Philosophy-Civic-Renaissance/dp/B0006BNPC8
Nice, thanks. Looks like I'll need to actually buy the hardcopy too. Rare these days when it comes to relevant documentation but I'm still missing some stuff I'd like to present.

...

lyl
(Also, shoutout to the Jack Parsons Lab for successful entry of Juno into Jupiter's orbit)

(bump)

>implying a guy wearing a Foo Fighters shirt has friends

>tfw

What do you guys think about Albert Pike being a Christian? What about Free Masonry? What about Morals and Dogma?

>what about Albert Pike
Cornerstone of American Freemasonry, not well liked by the UGLE proper, from what I understand.

Freemasonry's fine, I've got a folder jam-packed with ritual scripts.

>morals and dogma
What about it? A hilarious number of quotes attributed to it cannot be found in older editions.

I mean, you're talking to a guy who founded local bodies of the highly irregular quasi masonic Ordo Templi Orientis, you can't expect me to get the spoops over Pike.

Aside from just Freemasonry is fine. What can you tell me about it in general terms aside from stereotypes and their obscure descriptions? From your perspective.

What do you think about him being a Christian?

Bump before resh and morning contemplation.

I dunno what you want me to tell you; it's essentially a series of revealed morality plays that are most commonly rooted in Biblical allegory. Most local lodges in America are far less political than you'd imagine.

As far as self transformation, there's something there, but you kind of have to forge your own way as I often hear many folks have simply forgotten occult aspects of the system, for example folks doing squares of power without realizing what it is. Like everything else in the world it's a mixed bag.

I don't care about his Christianity.

Guys, I have stumbled, in the course of my own research, in evidence and claims which led me to believe that Leonardo da Vinci was into some form of Gnostic or quasi gnostic persuasion, personal or not, which advocated the primacy of John the Baptist. I realize this claim is impossible to prove so I keep it to myself. But if there is proof that there was Mandaean sources available in the Italian Renaissance, than it would make it more probable. What do you think?

Leonardo was no mere secular humanist.

>One writer, the "Anonimo" Gaddiano, claims that in 1480 Leonardo was living with the Medici and working in the Garden of the Piazza San Marco in Florence, a Neo-Platonic academy of artists, poets and philosophers which the Medici had established.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonic_Academy_(Florence)

It's a tenuous link but he was in the correct places and times.

Jump forward about 100 years and we get Salvator Rosa who absolutely knew more than he let on.

...

...

...

>ywn be a member of a Neo-Platonic academy of artists, poets and philosophers

You may want to contextualize these images; dates, locations, and your interpretation of the highlighted portions.

...

>ywn learn at the feet of Zoroastrian, Platonic, and Buddhist masters within the walls of the City of Lady Moon along the shores of the Oxus

I can't provide dates or go into detail as I'm on the phone right now, but for a general overview...
Virgin of the rock. Jesus and John, but Mary is holding John and the angel is pointing his finger at him!
The adoration of the magi. The magi worship Jesus on the forefront, looking down, but the people at the background stare at John under the tree (tree of life?) and he's pointing upwards (remember that painting of the philosophers with Aristotle pointing down and Plato pointing upwards?). Pic related is a "reconstruted" version, not by Leonardo.
John the Baptist as Bacchus, the Orphic "savior".

>Crowley
lol

>Varg
Kek.

Also, nice contribution to the thread, appreciate the reply.

In light of the new info provided by our Italian fluent friend, I'd say a Mandaean connection's not out of the question.

I still gotta like read the book tho.

I high jacked this thread enough already, but my greatest tin foil theory, and which I have found nowhere on the internet, is about the Mandean connection with... Wagner! I might make a thread about this some day.

I've seen more evidence of high strangeness from Goethe.

How many of you shitpost on /fringe/.

I forgot I posted a library update thread over there.
I tend to avoid it. There are a stunningly high percentage of half literate white nationalists who buy anything BUT historical materials, folks telling my I'm going to wreck myself working with Thuban (I haven't, and the tell me Thuban has a planet, which we've not detected, but over in the dragon's Spine is another story, but still entirely irrelevant to stellar worship), Bardon shill when any cursory reading of the rest of the historical Western transmission and/or Saivism derascinates his assertions, etc., etc., etc.

But there are some decent folks from time to time.

Bump.

Any good introductory texts on astrology in the library?

Honestly no.
The closest I have is "Stellar Theology and Masonic Astrology" over in the Freemasonry folder.

Warning: The forward and afterword were written by a batshit Christfriend. Ignore them. The actual body of the text is a reprint of an older neutral explication of astrological symbolism in Freemasonry.

That'd be a good springboard to explore Golden Dawn and Agrippa from.

Interesting questions. Can i ask where they're coming from?

My guesses, in order of likelyhood:
>direct paranoia
>proxy paranoia (heard from x, y, or z)
>devout Christian interested in Freemasonry but skeptical
>any other reason

Bump.

Your pic interests me, where did you find it?

Ok Ape Man. As a matter of introduction, this is Father Huc (pseudonym). I am not here to discuss the Reagent of Lhasa or the Whore of Babylon. Nor am I here to discuss doctrinal or financial matters related to the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

I have two questions. I will handle them in two posts.
ONE

There is a table at the completion of Chap LXXIV at the end of Book One of Agrippa’s “Three Books of Occult Philosophy” (1651 London). I am looking at the Old English Text pdf file. The Table is similar to the one printed in modern editions (and actual Hebrew Characters are used throughout the rest of the text instead of that weird Hebrew substitution in other editions).

Anyway. The Table shows the Correspondences between Hebrew characters and the Elements, Planets, and Zodiacal signs. They aren’t right. They do not match the commonly accepted modern attributes one would find in the Golden Dawn knowledge lectures.
>pic related (Table between pgs. 162-163 in 1651 and other editions)

I will be going through Book Two and comparing it to Common GD Material (I use the compiled 4 Volume Regardie Hardback Book, The Golden Dawn) but, the Question is:

Where did Agrippa come up with this stuff? Does he use correct attributes in the written material, charts, table and images in Books II & III? Has his source material for this table ever been explained? When I looked at it, the table instantly seemed utterly out of place in such a respected work.

ONE

Father Huc TWO

I am looking for source material on the attributes of the original (for lack of a better term) Jewish Tree of Life and Paths. I have recently reviewed the Sepher Yetzirah (this time with supplements), but I have never seen a document showing the Jewish Tree drawn with an accompanying explanation. Before I sit down and try to figure this out, can you point me to source material (Is it buried in the Zohar?).
(i.e. what is the first known drawing and subsequent development of the Jewish Tree?)

Part two of this TWO thing.

Given the “Jewish Tree of Life”
At what point and for what reasons did the Hermetic (or GD / Modern Tree) develop? I am looking for source documents and/or a coherent scholarly explanation of when and why the change was made.
OR did they develop independently?

Thank you

TWO

>Has his source material for this table ever been explained?
Ignorance?
AFAIK the man's not a Kabbalist as much as a synchretist of the work of others in fragmented variations, practically none of which survive through today.

>Is it buried in the Zohar
Bingo, and it's not attributed as a diagram as such but rather upon the body of an bearded anthropomorphic sky daddy. The "original" tree you see there is a later Lurianic convention.

Some Hebrew materials glean the Tree from more biblical sources and make attributions via the biblical source text onto geometric figures or sometimes concentric circles, not unlike Enochian's notion of cosmology.

As always, Thank You

Yeah mate, no problem, the Agrippa thing's a good question, there are a fuckload of historical puzzles in there which we've been unable to parse, that's just one of many.

^

...

Cozy.

I try mate.

What's up? I have a question but I didn't want to start a new thread about it.

When and why did alchemy become associated with hermeticism? Besides the emerald tablet mentioning something about separating the volatile from the gross, that is.

Because I can't seem to find any connection between the philosophy laid out in the late-antique hermetic corpus, with such texts as the poemandres, etc., and medieval and renaissance alchemical texts. In the ancient texts there is a very clear doctrine and in the alchemical texts is mostly just rubbish...?

Either the late Neoplatonic period (Julian) or around the flood of Arabic texts on astrology and naturalism started to hit Europe, considering our earliest record of the Emerald Tablet comes from an Arabic source.

>rubbish
A lot of folks want to look at alchemy and assert that it's a matter ONLY of either experimentation, sexual metaphor, or self transformation. In reality it appears to have been all three at once, with the first part, experimentation, likely contributing to a seeming inconsistency.

>Either the late Neoplatonic period (Julian) or around the flood of Arabic texts on astrology and naturalism started to hit Europe, considering our earliest record of the Emerald Tablet comes from an Arabic source.

I get that, but my question was more in the sense of, to put it more clearly, what does alchemy have to do with hermeticism, like, at all? I read the hermetic texts, then I read the alchemical texts, and I see no apparent relation. Perhaps I'm missing something?

>Perhaps I'm missing something?
>the operation of the Sun
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suns_in_alchemy

What does it mean?

Right there on the page, mate:
>Suns can correspond to gold, citrinitas, generative masculine principles, imagery of 'the king' or Apollo, the fiery spirit or sulfur,[1] the divine spark in man,[2] nobility, or incorruptibility.

If alchemy's not 'clicking' with you nobody's forcing you to spend time with the alembic and a jar full of your own piss.

Figured as much, but thought I'd ask anyway.

Rude. And you didn't answer my question. Perhaps you don't know yourself and you're full of it.

There are no stupid questions.
Only stupid people ;3

>respond in a friendly neutral manner that if the information as presented doesn't click with you then that's fine as well
>accused of being rude and full of shit.

Not sure how much more clear I can be other than "it's symbolic allegory for the following concepts". If you want the recipe for projection powder or something, I wouldn't be posting on a Mongolian yak husbandry vBulletin.

May you find what you're after, Seeker.

bump

Do you know of any good introductory texts to astrology?
Does astrology work?

>Do you know of any good introductory texts to astrology?
>Any good introductory texts on astrology in the library?

So what are you guys trying to do with this stuff? I'm completely ignorant to these things but it sounds interesting.

Depends on tradition and specific praxes.
There's a lot in the library, and I certainly don't use every last bit of it.

"Occult" simply means hidden. "Magick" can have a few definitions, but I tend to stick with anthropological or Thelemic definitions for simplicity's sake. "Mysticism" in this case means contemplative experimental methods for inducing religious experience.

Specifically, my goals are Knowledge and Conversation with the Holy Guardian Angel, and lately I've been using Chumbley's "Dragon Book of Essex" to facilitate this goal. In the last few days I've been working on the toad-bone amulet as described by The Leaper Between and ONE: Grimoire of the Golden Toad.

Pardon my crudeness, but how do you know it's not a waste of time?

>Specifically, my goals are Knowledge and Conversation with the Holy Guardian Angel
And what would that entail? Who/what is this angel?

>As we have already indicated, the earliest references to toad-bone charms occur in Pliny’s Natural History, XXXII XVIII (circa 77 AD). Amidst various magical prescriptions, Pliny relates the wonders of the ‘Rubetae’ or red ‘bramble- frogs’. He describes these as the largest of frogs and identifies them with the so-called ‘toads of the ancients’. Aside from magico-medicinal recipes which relate the use of the frog’s right and left eyes for healing purposes, Pliny gives a version of a weather-related formula, a form of which also occurs in Apuleius (Armstrong, 1979, op.cit.). This formula speaks of placing a toad inside an earthenware pot and burying it in a field in order to avert storms. Although this does not concern the bone-charm explicitly, the formula contains elements relevant to later bone orientated praxes. In fact, from this formula we can extract three initial motifs, or recurring themes of bone-charm praxis; namely : 1) the internment of the toad in a vessel; 2) the burial of the interned toad; and 3) the toad in relation to weather magic.

>toads of the ancients
????

Not in the slightest. I've gained a staggering about of information in anthropology (my degree was in Archaeo), comparative religion (which I'm considering for a Ph.D), history, etc., well beyond classroom learning and personal background.

Moreover, I'd much rather spend my days in mindful contemplation in my Blood Acre or home-shrine than spending ten hours a day playing this or that MOBA.

In a post-scarcity economy, there's no such thing as "wasted time".

>And what would that entail
Traditionally? Ars Paulina and/or Abramelin. More recently you've got Crowley and his breakdown of Liber Samekh. Personally I've shifted off of the aforementioned older materials and have been working Dragon Book of Essex's rites which involve the placement of various body fluids (blood, semen, menstrual fluid) into a vessel that's cast into fire, the ash and debris thereof goes into a different more permanent iconic/talismanic vessel.

If I had personal answers w/r/t the Angel I'd not be seeking contact. Here's one of Crowley's final comments on the class of entity called HGA:
hermetic.com/crowley/magick-without-tears/mwt_43.html

So you're seeking a contact with and the sense of a being of a different... plane?

>I've gained a staggering about of information in anthropology (my degree was in Archaeo), comparative religion (which I'm considering for a Ph.D), history, etc.
Sounds exciting.

>I'd much rather spend my days in mindful contemplation in my Blood Acre or home-shrine than spending ten hours a day playing this or that MOBA.
I empathise with that feeling.

>In a post-scarcity economy, there's no such thing as "wasted time".
Yes. Perhaps a better question would be... in which way is it meaningful to you?

Actually it may be pertinent to note that Levinas' concepts of "face" in Totality and Infinity seem to mirror the concept of HGA quite well.

>in which way is it meaningful to you
With respect to contemplative practices I often feel more 'in tune' and 'aware' of my surroundings than many material rationalists.

It's meaningful to me because, to borrow the concepts of various alt-right Evola types, we've utterly lost all sense of spiritual nourishment, and people aren't getting it in the vast majority of traditional religious praxes. You try to tell me that the clueless Baptist hosting the fuckin' hell simulation in given town X, Y, or Z is spiritually fulfilled. That Constantine actually has a relationship with the forces that created him, be they YHVH or any other. That your average Salafist has heard the voice of the Supernal and will taste the fruits of Paradise.

Man is, for better or worse, a spiritual animal, and this does not mean religious or theistic, but to my eye, post-post modernity isn't cutting it in terms of knowledge acquisition, despite having the internet, civic mindedness despite social networking, or spirituality despite yoga centers where latte swigging upper middle class white girls have delusions of Attainment whilst doing downward dog.

I see. What are your opinions on Jung, and Confucius' ideas of ritual, if you have any?

>An interest in both Eastern religion and the occult tends today to be associated with a broad range of ‘alternative’ thought, and in general with radical, or at least mildly left-wing, politics. This was certainly not the case in Ungern’s time. Although plenty of radicals and socialists could be found in occult circles, at least as many occultists were reactionaries or fervent nationalists. One reason was the innate elitism of occultism.
>George Orwell, considering advertisements for astrologers in a French fascist magazine, brilliantly noted how ‘the very concept of occultism carries with it the idea that knowledge must be a secret thing, limited to a small circle of initiates. [. . .] Those who dread the prospect of universal suffrage, popular education, freedom of thought, emancipation of women, will start off with a predilection towards secret cults.’

Which one are you, Ape?

>Jung
Pic infinitely related

>Confucius
I'm not a Confucian so I have no real opinion thereof...I do understand Confucian and Daoist skepticism of dogma, though, and appreciate the sentiment.

In the end, though, we all bend to the whims of the winds that drive us. Ritualists gonna ritual. Faggots gonna fag. Seculars gonna secularize.

>Ungern
Ick.

Personally speaking I consider myself a "hard centrist" Integralist with a streak of globalized federalism, essentially meaning that I can't get onboard most other folk's programs....the Left has a fundamental misapprehension of how to deal with violence, developing economies, and social betterment while the Right has fundamental misapprehension of how to deal with race, socioeconomic class, and in most cases, domestic finance.

I'm a policy oriented person. I don't care what side of the aisle a policy proposal comes from provided it's remotely sane.

Do you believe ritual/religious experience should/could be used as a form of creating social cohesion, or ought it be a primarily personal endeavor?

I think it's too risky to favor any one particular doctrine beyond serious and devoted practice. One size does not and will not fit all.