the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

So, I've actually come across some pretty good books lately as far as the esoterica of the taoist inspired thought that makes internal gung fu so rad.

So, I just thought I'd throw a few of these out here that I'm reading over and over right now and you guys can throw up stuff that you've got something out of.

The ones I'm reading right now are "the eleventh wing" by Khigh Alx Dhiegh. I reveiwed this one a bit ago for Mike Strong...I really like it. It's one of the most lucid descriptions of the functionality of the i-ching that I've read. Very meaty.

"How to know god": The yoga aphorisms of Patanjali trnslated by swami prabhavananda and christopher isherwood. Once again, very good "functional" commentary on Patanjali. Makes what you need to be doing very much more clear.

"The Book of Do-In": Exercise for Physical and Spiritual Development by Michio Kushi. The first thing I thought was "8gua/Derek would really like this. Like many books of this nature I think it's got some stuff that's a little suspect...or at least simply coming from the headspace of the author...I really believe you have to look for this kind of stuff. The initial response of most people when they find something crazy in a tome of learning to throw the whole thing out because if one is wrong then it's all wrong. I think that's a bad way to learn things.

Anyhoo, the good parts of this book are very, very good for people looking for some of the more traditional ways to reprogram the brain and get a bead on the way this wacky world of sensory experience works.


Anyhoo, I look forward to hearing any other good books.

Best,

S

I liked "Crystal and the Way of Light" by Namkai Norbu rinpoche.
and "Healing with Form, Energy, and Light"" Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

http://video.thirteen.org/episode/show/216

https://www.ligmincha.org/store/

shawnsegler wrote:The ones I'm reading right now are "the eleventh wing" by Khigh Alx Dhiegh. I reveiwed this one a bit ago for Mike Strong...I really like it. It's one of the most lucid descriptions of the functionality of the i-ching that I've read. Very meaty.

Sounds pretty cool. Btw, didn't he used to be on Hawaii Five-O?

I'm reading Chi Gung by L.V. Carnie, I like it.

A practical guide to Qabbalistic Symbolism, Gareth Knight
Tarot, Paul Foster Case
The Secret Teachings Of All Ages, Manly P. Hall
Spiritual Centers in Man, Manly P. Hall
The Key, Grace Gassette
Three Magic Words, U. S. Anderson
The Golden Builders, Tobias Churton
The Golden Bough, J.G. Frazer et al
The Hiram Key, Knight and Lomas
uhhhh, that's all that comes to mind immediately.

Well, for Far Eastern esoteric subjetcs, Taoist Mysteries and Magic by John Blofeld. Also The Tantric Mysticism of Tibet by the same author. Other great volumes are Taoist Master Chuang by Michael Saso, Magic and Ritual in Tibet by Stephan Beyer, and Oriental Magic by Idries Shah.

For other esoteric works, The Secret Teachings of All Ages by Manly Hall is worthy of a great deal of study. Cosmic Trigger: Final Secret of the Illuminati by Robert Anton Wilson is excellent, Portable Darkness, an Aleister Crowley Reader edited by Scott Michaelson is a very good volume on Mr. Crowley's works. The Mystical Qabalah by Dion Fortune is an excellent intro to the Qabalah as it's used in modern esoteric practice. Initiation Into Hermetics by Franz Bardon is the most impressive curriculum of practical training exercises for altering one's mind and perceptions that I've ever encountered. The Voudon Gnostic Workbook by Michael Bertiaux and all three of the "Typhonian Trilogies" of Aleister Crowley's disciple Kenneth Grant are probably the most interesting far-out, brain-bending works on Occult practices around.

And, well... I could go on forever. So let's just leave it at that...

The Collected works of John Dee.

cerebus wrote:Well, for Far Eastern esoteric subjetcs, Taoist Mysteries and Magic by John Blofeld. Also The Tantric Mysticism of Tibet by the same author. Other great volumes are Taoist Master Chuang by Michael Saso, Magic and Ritual in Tibet by Stephan Beyer, and Oriental Magic by Idries Shah.

For other esoteric works, The Secret Teachings of All Ages by Manly Hall is worthy of a great deal of study. Cosmic Trigger: Final Secret of the Illuminati by Robert Anton Wilson is excellent, Portable Darkness, an Aleister Crowley Reader edited by Scott Michaelson is a very good volume on Mr. Crowley's works. The Mystical Qabalah by Dion Fortune is an excellent intro to the Qabalah as it's used in modern esoteric practice. Initiation Into Hermetics by Franz Bardon is the most impressive curriculum of practical training exercises for altering one's mind and perceptions that I've ever encountered. The Voudon Gnostic Workbook by Michael Bertiaux and all three of the "Typhonian Trilogies" of Aleister Crowley's disciple Kenneth Grant are probably the most interesting far-out, brain-bending works on Occult practices around.

And, well... I could go on forever. So let's just leave it at that...

The only caveat I'd whisper is that Robert Anton Wilson writes FICTION, and Aleister Crowley only writes to prove how much smarter he is than the rest of the world, so take it for what it's worth.

TaoJoannes wrote:The only caveat I'd whisper is that Robert Anton Wilson writes FICTION, and Aleister Crowley only writes to prove how much smarter he is than the rest of the world, so take it for what it's worth.

Well.... yes, Robert Anton Wilson DID write fiction... AND nonfiction. Have you ever read Cosmic Trigger? And as for Crowley, you seem to either entirely misunderstand him, or perhaps you haven't read much of his work? Check out Portable Darkness, it's a well-balanced look at his esoteric writings.

Darth Rock&Roll wrote:The Collected works of John Dee.

Dee's works are fascinating, though a person would probably want to begin with something which lets them know what Dee was writing about first. Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition by Frances Yates, and John Dee's Occultism, Magical Exaltation Through Powerful Signs by Gyorgy Szonyi are both quite good, as is John Dee, The World of an Elizabethan Magus, by Peter French.

cerebus wrote:

TaoJoannes wrote:The only caveat I'd whisper is that Robert Anton Wilson writes FICTION, and Aleister Crowley only writes to prove how much smarter he is than the rest of the world, so take it for what it's worth.

Well.... yes, Robert Anton Wilson DID write fiction... AND nonfiction. Have you ever read Cosmic Trigger? And as for Crowley, you seem to either entirely misunderstand him, or perhaps you haven't read much of his work? Check out Portable Darkness, it's a well-balanced look at his esoteric writings.

I've read him, he's got some great stuff, did a lot for getting the info out there, but at the same time, his personality comes shining through in his writing and it's repulsive to me. I don't trust it a bit. I get the clear impression that what he may not know, he'll make up simply to save face. And in keeping with the theory that "by their fruits they shall be known", well, it seems like quite a bit of bad seed has been sown with his plow. Speaking with Thelemites, well, they seem to be confused as to the true nature of the great work.

I never actually read Cosmic Trigger, I thought it was just more of his fiction, but I suppose I'm wrong. A friend loaned it to me and I let it sit on my desk for a year without opening it. I sort of put him in the same group as Dion Fortune, good info at times, but the line between fiction and non-fiction seems to get a little blurry sometimes. I was going to mention "Psychic Self Defense" but figured it's just too misleading by and large for folks new to the studies.

Well, CROWLEY knew exactly what Crowley was talking about. Unfortunately, many who claim to follow his teachings don't really know what he was saying. People will often claim that Crowley's writings have incorrect information or deliberate "blinds", but they just don't get that Crowley had a sense of humor and often would phrase things in ways that he found to be funny. He never deliberately gives incorrect information (at least not in the works I've read, which have been many).

I too was going to mention Dion Fortune's Psychic Self Defense, which I enjoy myself, but yes I agree some things can be misleading in it.

You're definitely better read than I am in this area, and maybe one day I'll come back around to him, but like I said, I just don't trust it. "Incorrect" is such a poor term for what I don't like about it, it's more that, while it may be correct, it may not be the best for where I want to go with it.

I mean, there is "wrong" in these studies at a certain level, but once you get past that, everything is right, you know? But just because it's right, doesn't mean that it's right for all maps. Based on what I know of Crowley's own life, and what I've seen of pretty much every serious emulator of his methods, I know that it isn't where I want to wind up. So while I'll delve into his work for perspective, I have no desire whatsoever to seriously practice his system. I think he was too smart for his own good, and had too many blockages, or body thetans, or parasitic attachments, or whatever, when he caught on to the good stuff, and it wound up owning him and causing him despair.

"Tibetan yoga and the secret doctrine" edited by Even- Wentz

Fun to read it- don't know anything about Tibetan stuff. It is interesting.

Also "Tao The Great Liminant" Huai Nan Tzu - translated by Even Morgan
I think this is a abridged work

Undoubtedly Crowley had many personality issues, and these greatly affected certain aspects of his teachings. I'm not into his Thelemic religious stuff at all, and this is mainly where the less appealing aspects of his personality shine through. But his straight teachings on magic (not his "sex magick", which was derived from the O.T.O. as well as his own theories and experiments) are directly from the Golden Dawn (check his "Liber O" and compare that to the same material in Regardie's "Golden Dawn". AC's magick was technically straight from his G.D. days), and his teachings on mysticism are straight up Yoga (his text "Liber E" is a very clear, concise instructional paper on the subject).

Evans-Wentz wrote some very valuable texts on Tibetan Buddhism and mysticism. He also wrote The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries if you have any interest in legends and folklore (as I do). Great stuff...

yeah he did some good stuff- some good books though I think he took to much of the credit as editor from his Tibetan translater can't remember his name but he was quite a scholor.This Tibetan Translater* did a lot of work for western writers and did not get enough credit.. I will find his name later you may know it.. Also some of his (E-W's) Buddhist connections to Christian doctrine don't ring true to me..

Anyway you are right- he put out a lot of very good books and was a very interesting guy. Why they don't do some screen plays about people like him- david neel and others is a mystery... mayby politics??

On the Editor, Dr. Evans-Wentz

Dr. W. Y. Evans-Wentz
The famous anthropologist Walter Yeeling Evans-Wentz was born on February 2, 1878 in Trenton, New Jersey. He attended Stanford University where he received his B.A. and his M.A. Afterwards he travelled extensively in Mexico, Europe, and the Far East.
In 1907 Dr. Evans-Wentz began to journey through Brittany, Cornwall, Scotland and Ireland to interview people who had encountered fairies. Evans-Wentz recounts reports in a book he wrote, The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries [LINK]. Later he lived in India and in Sikkim and spent several years studying hidden doctrines intensively. He became a Buddhist monk as well.
He was a pioneer in the field of Tibetan Buddhism and edited several books on it. Four volumes specked with insider comments, were published on Oxford University Press. Below are salient points from one of them.
The scholar lived towards the end of his life on a mountain in California, and passed away in 1965.

I think Tricycle mag. did a long article on him some years back

* Dawa-Samdup

http://www.payer.de/neobuddhismus/neobud0406.htm

The above link has a pretty good bio on WY.. just a little bit down the page- German research? so should be good..
Other good bio's IT on the above link as well.