Books on occultist beliefs: paging Marty

[Razgovory]

I'm curious in finding out what certain occultists believe, I was thinking of writing a short story with occultist characters.  Note I don't want to become an occultist of any type, I don't really believe in that, but I only have a cursory knowledge of what they believe and what they believe they are doing.  I'm thinking of wide over view, Thelemists, Wiccans, Kabbalists, Christian mystics etc.  What do they believe reality is, what do they believe magic is, what do they believe they can do with magic, etc.  I know Marty has an interest in this sort of thing, so maybe he can help out a bit.

[Martinus]

Crowley's "Magick - Liber ABA - Book Four*" (second revised edition) (aka the "big blue brick" as it is pretty hefty and unfortunately quite costly) is pretty much the authority (even if with a Thelemite slant) on mysticism and magic, including Western Hermeticism, Qabalah, Yoga, and Christian Mysticism (which Crowley, unsurprisingly, considers a stunted offshoot of the True Art (tm)).

*It's called Book Four due to numerological significance - there are no books 1-3.

If you are interested in Western Hermeticism only, I'd recommend Israel Regardie's "The Golden Dawn" which basically explains the entire doctrine of that late 19th/early 20th century order that is considered the cornerstone of the Western occult thought (Crowley was a member but was kicked out for fucking guys which was a no-no at the time; he went on to popularise most of their secret doctrines to spite them which ended with him fighting an occult battle with William Buttler Yeats ). It's another brick, which just got the seventh edition published earlier this month.

For something lighter (but still very informative), on Qabalah but also a lot of Western occultism, I'd recommend Lon Milo Duquette's "The Chicken Qabalah of Rabbi Lamed Ben Clifford". Duquette is one of the rare occultists who writes in a very modern and humourous way - the book is also much shorter than the other ones I mentioned. If I were to recommend an intro to "practical Western occultism" (as in, written from a perspective of someone who believes in it) for someone, this would probably be it.

Finally, for a more scientific approach - there's James Frazer's "Golden Bough" (the bible of anthropology) and something by Carl G. Jung (whose later writings really veered into trying to explain occultism/mysticism, especially the Christian one, in a psychological terms - he became a sort of Christian mystic late in life), especially "Man and His Symbols" and "The Red Book - Liber Novus".

[Razgovory]

I'm more looking at a broad overview of practices and beliefs and their histories rather then books penned by the occultists themselves.  By an analogy a book on the world religions rather then the Koran or Suma Theologica.

[Martinus]

Then the first one is probably the closest.

[PJL]

It would have been more appropriate to put 'channeling Marty' on the thread title.

[Razgovory]

The idea came to be when I read about the Kabballah concept of the 4 worlds, and I wondered what it would be like if someone went hopped from the one we live in to the spirit one, which I thought of as like the Theosophist concept of the ethereal.  Think Baron von Munchhausen meets the Divine comedy.

[The Brain]

Ask Madonna.

[Razgovory]

Ask Madonna.

I directed it toward her Languish analogue.

[The Brain]

Ask Madonna.

I directed it toward her Languish analogue.

True. Don't let him get insufferable though.

[Martinus]

The idea came to be when I read about the Kabballah concept of the 4 worlds, and I wondered what it would be like if someone went hopped from the one we live in to the spirit one, which I thought of as like the Theosophist concept of the ethereal.  Think Baron von Munchhausen meets the Divine comedy.

I wouldn't necessarily call any of the other worlds the "spirit" one. The 4 worlds are more similar to neo-Platonism - you have Aztiluth (the archetypal world), Briah (the creative world), Yetzirach (the formative world) and Assiah (the material world). It is supposed to be the blueprint for how the "God" created everything.