Tag Archives: george gurdjieff

Fifth International Conference of the ASE on Jun 19-22nd, 2014 at Colgate University

The Fifth International Conference of the Association for the Study of Esotericism on June 19th–22nd, 2014 at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York. The conference schedule has recently been posted and you will find quite a few presenters and presentations of interest including a couple by Hermetic library fellows:

· Mark Stavish, Israel Regardie and the Theory and Practice of the Middle Pillar Exercise
· Joscelyn Godwin, Esotericism in a Murky Mirror: Strange Practices in Central New York.

Do check out the whole schedule, but a selection of the other presentations, that catch my eye, includes:

· John L Crow (Thelema Coast to Coast), The Theosophical Shift to the Visual: Graphical Representations of the Human Body in the Literature of Second and Third Generation Leadership in the Theosophical Society
· Simon Magus, The fin de siècle magical aesthetic of Austin Osman Spare: Siderealism, Atavism, Automatism, Occultism
· David Pecotic, Building Subtle Bodies — Gurdjieff’s esoteric practice of conditional immortality in the light of Poortman’s concept of hylic pluralism in the history of religions
· Richard Kaczynski, Inventing Tradition: The Construction of History, Lineage and Authority in Secret Societies
· Wouter Hanegraaff, The Transformation of Desire in Machen’s & Waite’s House of the Hidden Light
· Sarah Veale, Disenchantment of the Vampire: Balkan Folklore’s Deadly Encounter with Modernity
· Gordan Djurdjevic, “In Poison there is Physic”: On Poisons and Cures in Some Strands of Esoteric Theory and Practice.

Witchcraft

Hermetic Library fellow T Polyphilus reviews Witchcraft It’s Power in the World Today by William Seabrook.

William Seabrook Witchcraft

This 1940 work is a decidedly chatty melange of memoir, folklore, occultism, and parapsychology. Seabrook insists on his materialistic skepticism throughout, but towards the end provides powerful anecdotes to test it.

He compliments the laboratory parapsychologists for taking the matter seriously, while suggesting that they are unlikely to succeed with their clinical approach. He points to Sufism, particularly the Mevlevi Order, as a repository of disciplines which might lead to genuinely “supernormal” power. “Dervish dangling” becomes his shorthand for the inducement of visionary states through physical stress, which he observes in “games” with a girlfriend, and in a shamanistic eskimo ceremony.

The book provides eminently fair (some might say generous) sketches of three prominent occultists who were the author’s contemporaries: George Gurdjieff, Aleister Crowley, and Pierre Bernard. The chapter which covers this ground (ch. III of part three, “Our Modern Cagliostros”) is alone worth the rest of the book to read. Seabrook was personally acquainted with the first two, and his account of the I Ching elsewhere in the book shows traces of Crowley’s unacknowledged instruction.

There are some basic factual fumbles, like the “pentagram” that has seven points, or the “57 varieties of the mystical hexagram” from the I Ching (p. 147—even while the illustration on p. 148 shows all 64). Long pieces of text have been relegated to appendices, which seems like an odd choice in a book that is basically a topical survey without a sustained argument or chronology.

In any case, it is a quick and entertaining read, and Seabrook’s sincerity seems unimpeachable. It’s good amusement for anyone interested in the occultism of the first half of the 20th century. [via]


The Three Dangerous Magi

Hermetic Library fellow T Polyphilus reviews The Three Dangerous Magi, The: Osho, Gurdjieff, Crowley by P T Mistlberger:

P T Mistlberger's The Three Dangerous Magi

 

The Three Dangerous Magi exceeded my expectations. As it was subtitled “Osho, Gurdjieff, Crowley,” I expected a book that would discuss the notion of a dangerous magus, and then provide an account of each of the three men named in order to demonstrate the phenomenon in the 20th century. The actual structure of this text is a lot more complex (some might accuse it of lacking focus), and I’ll describe it below.

Author Mistlberger is a therapist and workshop facilitator who has studied and practiced the teachings of all three of his titular magi. Of the three, his earliest but loosest connection seems to be to Crowley. As a reader, that was fine with me. I expected to be relatively critical of his treatment of Crowley, but I was interested in learning about the other two. The book is big — a 700-page doorstop — and it took me a while to get around to reading it after I picked it up.

The book is addressed to a popular audience, rather than a scholarly one, to the point where I sometimes found it a bit condescending. (Was it really necessary to define “neologism” for the reader?) Still, the prose is accessible, and it’s clear that the author has done his homework. There are three bibliographies in the end matter: an annotated listing of the main doctrinal texts produced by the magi themselves, followed by a catalog of relevant biographies with extensive commentary, and finally a general bibliography of works referenced. There are extensive endnotes, but alas, no index.

After an introduction in which he establishes his credentials and characterizes his interest in the material, Mistlberger jumps right into short biographies, one per chapter, for each of his three figures. Then he provides another triad of chapters to summarize the teachings of each of these three roguish spiritual leaders. I found these summaries pleasantly concise and accurate to my current understanding. The third and longest section of the book is called “Commentaries,” and it consists of nine thematically-oriented comparative studies of all three men, on such topics as sex, drugs, rivalry, community, and legacy. A further section provides a chapter for each magus describing the practical work they prescribed. And the last three chapters fade out towards the end matter (there’s no bracing conclusion) with discussions of cultural precedents for the three teachers’ work. There are a few appendices that supply more restricted and tangential comparative essays: Crowley-Osho parallels, Crowley and chess, Gurdjieff and Zecharia Sitchin, and Osho’s bibliomania.

While the comparative treatments were more ample and detailed than I had anticipated, my own knowledge of Crowley’s work enabled me to draw many connections that Mistlberger overlooked, especially in the “historical influences” section. The chapter on “Magical Warfare” includes a thorough and critical account of the personal interactions between Crowley and Gurdjieff, which I found quite interesting and useful.

Throughout the book, Mistlberger takes care not to minimize the faults and failings of these “dangerous” men, but his general gist is clearly sympathetic. His overall project is to popularize and rehabilitate these obscure and/or notorious figures, and he does credible work in that vein. As I got a better sense of how these three magi (and Mistlberger cops to the biblical allusion on p. 449) interrelated in the author’s mind, I couldn’t help but imagine Osho as a spiritual phallus for whom Crowley and Gurdjieff were the testes! [via]

 

 

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Overthrowing the Old Gods

Overthrowing the Old Gods: Aleister Crowley and the Book of the Law by Don Webb, from Inner Traditions, is scheduled to be published on Oct 15, 2013.

Don Webb's Overthrowing the Old Gods from Inner Traditions

“New commentaries on Aleister Crowley’s Book of the Law reveal how it is connected to both Right- and Left-Hand Paths

• Examines each line of the Book of the Law in the light of modern psychology, Egyptology, Gurdjieff’s teachings, and contemporary Left-Hand Path thought

• Explores Crowley’s identification with the First Beast of Revelations as well as his adoption of the Loki archetype for becoming a vessel of love for all humanity

• Recasts the Cairo Working as a text of personal sovereignty and a relevant tool for personal transformation

• Includes commentary on the Book of the Law by Dr. Michael A. Aquino, who served as High Priest of the Temple of Set from 1975 to 1996

Received by Aleister Crowley in April 1904 in Cairo, Egypt, the Book of the Law is the most provocative record of magical working in several hundred years, affecting not only organizations directly associated with Crowley such as the Ordo Templi Orientis but also modern Wicca, Chaos Magic, and the Temple of Set.

Boldly defying Crowley’s warning not to comment on the Book of the Law, Ipsissimus Don Webb provides in-depth interpretation from both Black and White Magical perspectives, including commentary from Dr. Michael A. Aquino, who served as High Priest of the Temple of Set from 1975 to 1996. Webb examines each line of the Book in the light of modern psychology, Egyptology, existentialism, and competing occult systems such as the teachings of G. I. Gurdjieff and contemporary Left-Hand Path thought. Discarding the common image of Crowley formulated in a spiritually unsophisticated time when the devotee of the Left-Hand Path was dismissed as a selfish evil doer, Webb unveils a new side of Crowley based on his adoption of the Loki archetype and his aim to become a vessel of love for all humanity. In so doing, he shows how the Book of the Law is connected to both Right- and Left-Hand Paths and reveals how Crowley’s magical path of mastery over the self and Cosmos overthrew the gods of old religion, which had kept humanity asleep to dream the nightmare of history.

Providing in-depth analysis of Crowley’s sources and his self-identification with the First Beast of Revelations from a profound esoteric perspective, Webb takes his views out of the Golden Dawn matrix within which he received the Book of the Law and radically recasts the Cairo Working as a text of personal sovereignty and a relevant tool for personal transformation.” [via]

Lords of the Left-Hand Path: Forbidden Practices and Spiritual Heresies

Lords of the Left-Hand Path: Forbidden Practices and Spiritual Heresies by Stephen E Flowers, from Inner Traditions, was published back in June, recently went into reprint, but I haven’t mentioned it previously. The book covers quite a few topics that may be of interest and are related to the subject matter in the library.

 

“From black magic and Satanism to Gnostic sects and Gurdjieff’s Fourth Way, the left-hand path has been linked to many practices, cults, and individuals across the ages. Stephen Flowers, Ph.D., examines the methods, teachings, and historical role of the left-hand path, from its origins in Indian tantric philosophy to its underlying influence in current world affairs, and reveals which philosophers, magicians, and occult figures throughout history can truly be called “Lords of the Left-Hand Path.”

Flowers explains that while the right-hand path seeks union with and thus dependence on God, the left-hand path seeks a “higher law” based on knowledge and power. Following a carefully crafted definition of a true adherent of the left-hand path based on two main principles—self-deification and challenge to the conventions of “good” and “evil”—the author analyzes many famous and infamous personalities, including H. P. Blavatsky, Faust, the Marquis de Sade, Austin Osman Spare, Aleister Crowley, Gerald Gardner, Anton LaVey, and Michael Aquino, and reveals which occult masters were Lords of the Left-Hand Path.

Flowers shows that the left-hand path is not inherently evil but part of our heritage and our deep-seated desire to be free, independent, and in control of our destinies.”

 

Beelzebub and the Beast

Beelzebub and the Beast [also] by David Hall is a “an engrossing comparative study of two of the Twentieth Century’s most colourful gurus, George Gurdjieff and Aleister Crowley.” The title is due to be available in October from Starfire Publishing with a deluxe edition available in November. Pre-orders are available in the US and Canada through J D Holmes and elsewhere directly from the publisher.

 

 

“David Hall, who died in 2007, will be a familiar name to many as one of the founders and editors of SOTHiS, the substantial and diverse Thelemic magazine which was published from the United Kingdom in the 1970s. David was passionately interested in the work of Gurdjieff as well as that of Crowley, and in the early to mid 1970s he wrote this penetrating study comparing the work of both men. Unfortunately it failed to find a publisher at the time, although publication was referenced as forthcoming in Kenneth Grant’s Nightside of Eden. (Muller, 1977)

Crowley took an interest in the work of the Greek-Armenian occultist G. I. Gurdjieff, and visited Gurdjieff’s Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man in Fontainebleau in 1924 and 1926. There have been other comparative studies of the work of the two men, the most recent being The Three Dangerous Magi by P. T. Mistlberger (O Books, 2010).

Examining in turn the life and work of the two men at various levels, the author discerns a common source. Commenting circa 1919 on the first chapter of The Book of the Law, Crowley wrote ‘Aiwaz is not as I had supposed a mere formula, like many angelic names, but is the true most ancient name of the God of the Yezidis, and thus returns to the highest Antiquity. Our work is therefore historically authentic, the rediscovery of the Sumerian Tradition’. Similarly, the author here shows that the roots of Gurdjieff’s work can be traced to the same source.

With a full-colour wrap-around dustjacket, a substantial Foreword by Alistair Coombs, plates, tables and line-drawings throughout the text, a Bibliography, a comprehensive Index, and an Afterword about the author, this book will be of considerable interest to many.” [via]

 

“Limited Edition of 750 copies only. A Fine Hardcover Volume, illustrated end papers, and in a custom full color dust jacket based on the painting, MELEK TAUS by Stuart Littlejohn, which features the Peacock Angel emerging from a Yezidi arch, plus a substantial Foreword by Alistair Coombs, with plates, tables and line drawings throughout the text. Michael Staley has constructed a comprehensive index and bibliography, and has also written an Afterword about the author. 350 pages. Octavo.” [via]