A Booklist for Thelemites: Section 1

To see what we've been doing, visit The Change Page!

The Tao Teh King
at Amazon

"The Tao Te Ching (also called 'The Tao', 'The Dao' or the 'Dao De Jing'), by Lao Tzu, one of the most influential books in history. It is the source of famous Chinese sayings such as 'Those who know do not speak, those who speak, do not know' and 'Even a 1,000 mile journey starts with a single step'."

The site itself (http://www.thetao.info/) has some very interesting information and discussion of Taoism, as well as a complete English version. (Note for those on slower links -- it has a lot of animations and ActiveX.)

Online Version maintained by the Gutenberg Project.

This book is a must-have for yoga practicioners that want to go beyond simple asanas. This is a wonderful way to learn of hatha yoga's roots as a holistic system, and even put it into practice, since this book is a modern compilation of ancient Indian lesson-texts put into modern English. Hatha Yoga Pradipika means "Light on Hatha Yoga" (not to be confused with modern and lesser imitations that use that title). Holding this book in my hands feels like direct access to a rich history of the roots of hatha unscathed by "new age" ideas. Basically the book is about classical postures, breath control, and cleansing.
Interestingly, the book does not talk about food intake--basically says that it is not important to spend too much time thinking about what food to eat, how much, etc. (this is a nice change in a modern world that obsesses over food). However, it does go into length on the subject of cleansing the body using several methods, some of which are extreme, but some of which a novice could do with some courage.
Another interesting thing about the texts in this book is that although they are traditional, the focus isn't spent on spiritual concepts such as chakras, kundalini, or meditation, etc, it even rarely mentions relatively popular yoga terms such as prana or nadis. As it is well-known about hatha, the people who practiced these ancient rituals believed that persons could not reach enlightenment through stillness and meditation, but instead, through physical asana and purification. There are interesting and clear ideas concerning this inside the book as well.

A timeless classic. The Inquisition ordered this book to the Church's "Index Expurgatorius," and warned that anyone caught with this book would be excommunicated. Molinos was condemned to life imprisonment for writing about a personal relationship with God through intense devotion, internal reflection and meditation. After all, what would happen to the Church if the people didn't feel they needed it anymore?
A table of contents was added in front of this edition rather than at the end like the original. Additionally chapters are displayed on top of each page to make the text easier to navigate.

Molinos's Spiritual Guide may be the first Western discussion of the technique known in Hindu teachings as "Raja Yoga." For teaching that to know God, one must empty one's mind, quieting all other thoughts, and God will fill your mind and soul. This approached Gnosticism and thus caused Molinos to be branded a heretic.
This edition of Molinos is the first print edition to appear in years. It's a reprint of a 1688 translation of the original Italian; thus the language seems rather King James-like, although by no means inaccessible. Gerald del Campo's introduction shows the high level of scholarship expected by this serious scholar of Scientific Illuminism. My only (slight) regret is that there is no modern translation of the work. Perhaps with the publication of this volume, other scholars will be inspired to do so.
This is an indispensible addition to the library of any student of mysticism, esoterics, or gnosticism.

Wright enjoys describing the weirdness of Fuller's first published book - The Star in the West (1907), a study of the sexual and philosophical ideas of Aleister Crowley, the notorious occultist - and notes its sinister relationship to Fuller's later transfer of allegiance from the 'Great Beast' to Sir Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists. Anti-semitic, anti-homosexual, a devotee of the Tannhauser legend and a believer in 'survival of the fittest', Fuller was obsessed with ideas of decadence and national decline, with the 'intellectual and moral rottenness' he saw wherever he looked. Crowley, Fuller's hero and partner, had 'seized the social harlot and hurled her from her throne . . . forced open her jaws, and administered a sharp emetic, a mental purgative, a rouser! Let us hope it will clean her out, and do her good.' The 'social harlot' - contemporary England - was to be purified by a religion of free love, pure and uncalculating, which would triumph over the teachings of that 'unfortunate fakir', Christ.

Kabbala Denudata
at Amazon

'Konx Om Pax: Essays in Light is a publication by British occultist Aleister Crowley, first published in 1907. The name Konx Om Pax is a phrase purportedly used in the Eleusinian Mysteries. Its companion is Khabs Am Pekht, which in the Egyptian language means roughly "Light in extension" or "Light rushing out in a single ray", used pointedly in the Golden Dawn Vernal and Autumnal Equinox ceremonies.

Jack Finnegan writes: "In contrast with the fourth book in Codex Askewianus, where the revelation takes place immediately on the day of the resurrection, i.e., the third day after the crucifixion, here at the beginning of the first book (Chap. I, Page 1 in Till) we read that after Jesus was raised from the dead he spent eleven years with the disciples (mathetai), and in his discourses with them taught them only as far as the places (topoi) of the first commandment and as far as the places (topoi) of the first mystery (musterion)."
J. J. Hurtak writes: "The Pistis Sophia teaches us that humanity has inherited from the First Space of the Divine an indwelling divine power. The Savior is directed by the Ineffable to assist in the extension of the Divine powers into the human kingdom according to the desires of humanity, and to reveal the efficacy of the highest mysteries of salvation to humankind."

Attributed to, but probably not of Chaldean origin; not oracles (in the sense of prophecies); and definitely not Zoroastrian; this is a famous collection of aphorisms cherry-picked from classical sources. The earliest editions of the COZ were published during the renaissance, when Chaldea was a land of mystery to Europeans. Many of the cryptic 'Oracles' seem to reflect Neo-Platonism, the Kabbalah and Gnostic views, which would have been considered heretical at the time. Claiming an ancient Chaldean origin might simply have been a flag of convenience.
The main text here was translated by the 19th century Neo-Platonist Thomas Taylor, and I.P. Cory in his Ancient Fragments. This edition was published and introduced by the Theosophist W. W. Westcott in his series Collectanea Hermetica in 1895. Despite the twisted background of this text, it has a definite resonance which students of the Esoteric will enjoy. Indeed, W.B. Yeats, who moved in Theosophical circles, was an admirer of this text.
This is the first complete transcription of this edition of the COZ at sacred-texts. This version supersedes an earlier etext, prepared by a third party, which was incomplete and defective.

The Dream of Scipio (Latin, Somnium Scipionis) is a dream-vision by the Roman philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero in which Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus meets his grandfather by adoption, Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus (236 BC - 184 BC), hero of the Second Punic War against Hannibal's Carthage. The Dream of Scipio forms a digression within the sixth book of Cicero's De re publica, (English: On the Republic), his treatise on the laws and polity of the Roman republic. Comparisons have been drawn between this concluding section of Cicero's work and the Myth of Er which appears in Plato's 'Res publica', to which, it is said, 'De re publica' was a response. In the brief but compressed work Scipio Aemilianus travels through the planetary spheres. Digressions upon cosmology, dream-interpretation, prophecy, time-cycles, geography and doctrine upon the nature of the soul are included in it as well as advancing Pythagorean thought and the idea of the Music of the Spheres. Somnium Scipionis was studied by the Roman philosopher Macrobius (395 - 423); his Commentary upon Scipio's Dream was valued throughout the Middle Ages. The Dream of Scipio was known to the early Christian era philosopher Boethius. Chaucer was also acquainted with it, referencing the work explicitly in his Parliament of Foules and the Nun's Priest's Tale. The 16-year old composer Mozart wrote a short opera entitled Il sogno di Scipione (K126) based upon Scipio Aemilianus's inter-planetary journey through the cosmos.

There is a nice biography at the Nordic Library Society's site. (There's a nice translation of Dante into Finnish, too, if that rings your chimes...)

This extended essay on fertility worship in the Classical period was written by Robert Payne Knight (1750-1820), a distinguished English scholar, parlimentarian, writer, and antiquarian. Published in 1786, this book shocked English society to such an extent that Knight took it upon himself to surpress his own book. Subsequently this became a very rare book until it was republished in several editions in the mid-twentieth century. Although the study of the history of religion has vastly advanced since Knight's day, this was one of the first books to deal with the issue of sexuality and religion.
Production notes: Thanks to Eliza Fegley at Sacred Spiral for proofing the body of this text. To reduce bandwidth usage, I've broken the main body of the text down into somewhat arbitrary sections. The 'Parts' do not occur in the original book. In addition, the typesetter of the edition I used apparently did not know Greek, and consistently confused 'upsilon' and 'nu'. I've corrected these errors where I spotted them. --J.B. Hare

• 1996 Paperback
• 2002 Hardcover

The Canon was written by William Stirling and first published in 1897. The Canon is teeming with information, more then most would want to hear, yet in-between Stirling's extreme correspondences lay some true gems of applied Qabalah. This is an important book with many details that relate to the works of Aleister Crowley, Frater Achad et al. Much of the book discusses: measurements and associations between holy structures, temples, churches; and celestial, as the orbits of planets; as well as mythic proportions like the body of god as that of man. Strangely to contemporary culture, the forward states that, 'The Canon when it appeared anonymously in 1897, attracted little attention and very few buyers.' Today even the paper back R.I.L.K.O. version is going for an outrageous price; luckily, Weiser is publishing a hard back version soon at a reasonable price. The chapters include: The Holy Oblation, Cabala, Noah's Ark, Names of the Gods, Holy Rood, Tower of Babel, Temples, Freemasonry, Music of the Spheres, Ritual, Geography, Rhetorical.
"I believe that the lead character in the movie Pi was based partly on the life of William Stirling, as he too experienced a self-inflicted tragic end to his life, after stretching the envelope of perception."

[...]invented a gun used in baseball batting practice. [Harper's Weekly, Mar. 20, 1897, 301-2.] He is also known for his speculations on the fourth dimension. He married a daughter of logician George Boole, but was forced to leave England after a bigamy conviction. An instructor of mathematics at Princeton (fired) and assistant professor at Minnesota, he served at the Naval Observatory and as patent examiner in Washington. There he died suddenly when asked to give a toast to "female philosophers" at the Society of Philanthropic Inquiry meeting.

"Huxley's achievements are pertinent today in helping us understand our own culture, for example, on these issues of immediate concern, especially in the U. S. Here's a list of problems of today that interest or afflict people throughout the world–problems which THH helps us understand and perhaps solve:

• the role of the government in advancing the academic program of the population, in supporting museums, in supervising health;
• the contest between religious fundamentalism and secularism, e.g., the use of the Bible in public education, the validity of scripture as a historical, scientific, and ethical guide;
• the assertion of the reality of demons and witches, and of other irrationalities;
• the credibility of materialistic language in mapping reality;
• the attack on science as being not an analysis of reality but an expression of the scientist's racial, gender, class and other prejudices;
• the movement to abolish the canons and traditions of a liberal education;
• the promotion of cultural illiteracy;
• the movement to replace a search for facts in historical survey with a search for that which will satisfy idiosyncratic, racial, gender, class and other credenda;
• the necessity of vivisection;
• the trustworthiness of natural selection as an explanation of evolution;
• the scenario of evolution, particularly of human evolution;
• the inherited or acquired features that distinguish among the races and between the genders;
• the relevance of race as a classifying system for the human species;
• the importance of knowing about cultures other than the western;
• and the danger to the species of global over-population."