Tag Archives: annihilation

These misconceptions may be summed up as follows:—Firstly, that Buddhism is a ‘heathen’ doctrine, whose adherents worship idols and pray to stone and wood; Secondly, that it is a mysterious sort of affair, connected with miracle-mongering and ‘esotericism’; and, Thirdly, that it is a backboneless, apathetic, pessimistic manner of philosophy, with annihilation as its goal and aim, tending to the subversion of all useful activities, well enough for ‘the dreamy peoples of the Orient,’—as those who know them least delight in calling them,—but totally unsuited to the more active and energetic nations of the West.

Allan Bennett, The Faith of the Future, The Value of Buddhism

Hermetic quote Bennett The Faith of the Future The Value of Buddhism misconceptions heathen miracle-mongering esotericism  backboneless apathetic pessimistic subversion dreamy unsuited active energetic

“Pathology of the Sublime” from Problems on the Path of Return by Mark Stavish, M.A. in Vol 3 No 1 of Caduceus.

“While the four major existential fears of annihilation and death, responsibility and freedom, aloneness, and meaning, (Existential Psychotherapy, Yalom) are the fears most deeply rooted in the ego (Assiah/Malkooth) and can be said to be a result of the transient nature of the Elements from which it is created, these conflicts are not the result of internal instinctual strivings, or of encounters with our internalized images of significant adult authority figures during the infantile stage of our development (as in Freudian work), but with inescapable givens of our existence in the world.” [via]

Egyptian Magic in Egyptian Magic by Florence Farr.

“Now, if an Egyptian failed in standing such tests as these, in the ceremony of his initiation, he was regarded as a man liable to become an evil KHOU if his power was developed: and in their Wisdom the Priests rejected him and left him in that ignorance which led to oblivion and the annihilation of the incarnating Ego. Not only this, but if he, by underhand means, found out magical formulas and was able to use them effectively, the punishment was death.” [via]