Sunday, March 20, 2011

MAGIC IN ANCIENT EGYPT - Geraldine Pinch

MAGIC IN ANCIENT EGYPT Geraldine Pinch


MAGIC IN
ANCIENT
EGYPT
Geraldine Pinch


Magic in Ancient Egypt" makes a welcome reappearance in this revised and updated edition. The Egyptians were famous in the ancient world for their knowledge of magic. Religion, medicine, technology and what we would call magic co-existed without apparent conflict, and it was not unusual for magical and 'practical' remedies for illness, for example, to be used side by side. Magic was resorted to by everyone, from the pharaoh guarding his country with elaborate magical rituals to the expectant mother wearing amulets to safeguard her unborn child. The book examines the fascinating connections between myth and magic, and the deities such as Bes and Isis who had special magical importance. It discusses the techniques of magic, its practitioners and the surviving magical texts, as well as the objects which were used in magic: figurines, statues, amulets and wands. A chapter is devoted to medicine and magic, and one to magic and the dead. Finally, it shows how elements and influences from Egyptian magic survived in or were taken up by later societies, right up to the 21st century. 

Cause, Principle and Unity: And Essays on Magic - Giordano Bruno



Cause, Principle and Unity:
And Essays on Magic 
Giordano Bruno


Giordano Bruno's notorious public death in 1600, at the hands of the Inquisition in Rome, marked the transition from Renaissance philosophy to the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century. In his philosophical works he addressed such delicate issues as the role of Christ as mediator and the distinction, in human beings, between soul and matter. This volume presents new translations of Cause, Principle and Unity, in which he challenges Aristotelian accounts of causality and spells out the implications of Copernicanism for a new theory of an infinite universe, and of two essays on magic, On Magic and A General Account of Bonding, in which he interprets earlier theories about magical events in the light of the unusual powers of natural phenomena

The Tao of Physics - Fritjof Capra


The Tao of Physics Fritjof Capra

The Tao of Physics
Fritjof Capra


Quote from book - "I also hope to find among my readers many physicists with an interest in the philosophical aspects of physics, who have not come in contact with the religious philosophies of the East. They will find that Eastern Mysticism provides a consistent and beautiful philosophical framework which can accommodate our most advanced theories of the physical world"

Originally published in 1975 this book was the first of its kind, and its findings still apply some thirty years later.

Fritjof explores eastern mysticism in the from of Hinduism, Buddhism, Chinese thought, Taoism and Zen, with devoting many pages to introduce them and provides the reader with a good insight into these religions.

Fritjof does not inject much humour into his work, but does have quite an interesting take on discoveries in that discoveries, most often come to people in an almost daydreaming state, as did this book come into being. His writing is clear and at times concise, at others, elaboration on the subject is very well included and there is little in this book to get bored with.

What Fritjof does is take excerpts from the different schools of thought and shows how this correlates with scientific findings of the 20th century; he does this with ease and grace. The main thing to be taken away from this book is the idea that some of those things were written 1000's of years ago, and science has been playing `catch up' with the mystics. Definitely worth reading if you like science or not, but more so if you like science. 

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THE BOOK OF PLEASURE (SELF-LOVE) - Austin Osman Spare

THE BOOK OF PLEASURE (SELF-LOVE) THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ECSTASY By Austin Osman Spare


THE BOOK OF PLEASURE (SELF-LOVE)
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ECSTASY
By Austin Osman Spare

Quite simply the most important contribution to the western esoteric tradition during the 20th century. There are those who will claim Crowley was the best - but among many circles he is regarded as a showman, not a shaman.
The work of Austin Spare has never been allowed to shine because it nestled in Crowley's shadow, but his work is outstanding - he is the 'Real Deal'

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Saturday, December 18, 2010

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray  by Oscar Wilde


The Picture of Dorian Gray 
by
Oscar Wilde


A lush, cautionary tale of a life of vileness and deception or a loving portrait of the aesthetic impulse run rampant? Why not both? After Basil Hallward paints a beautiful, young man's portrait, his subject's frivolous wish that the picture change and he remain the same comes true. Dorian Gray's picture grows aged and corrupt while he continues to appear fresh and innocent. After he kills a young woman, "as surely as if I had cut her little throat with a knife," Dorian Gray is surprised to find no difference in his vision or surroundings. "The roses are not less lovely for all that. The birds sing just as happily in my garden." As Hallward tries to make sense of his creation, his epigram-happy friend Lord Henry Wotton encourages Dorian in his sensual quest with any number of Wildean paradoxes, including the delightful "When we are happy we are always good, but when we are good we are not always happy." But despite its many languorous pleasures, The Picture of Dorian Gray is an imperfect work. Compared to the two (voyeuristic) older men, Dorian is a bore, and his search for ever new sensations far less fun than the novel's drawing-room discussions. Even more oddly, the moral message of the novel contradicts many of Wilde's supposed aims, not least "no artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style." Nonetheless, the glamour boy gets his just deserts. And Wilde, defending Dorian Gray, had it both ways: "All excess, as well as all renunciation, brings its own punishment."