[Atkinson and the A B C s of Magic, Modern Science is Based on NOTHING, Mental Science or Empirical Mysticism? The 7 Principles of the Kybalion, Occult Equations For Manipulating the Public and More!]
Bravo Rurik, fantastic discussion and most important subject --- so many great people here on substack: Theodore, Librarian, Citizen, Carter, Lily, The Straight Juice, Anonfamous, Edward, you and so many others....it is so good - to find people who, after long time, give us truth and things which are the most important to learn from the beggining, again. God bless you all, good people of the world. Thank you
Librarian denounced me as an anti-you-know-who-ite. Citizen also dislikes me, although I don't know why, I sent hundreds of subs his way and he never reciprocated. Probably some ideological issue same as Librarian.
Theodore, JC, Edward are true comrades-in-ink.
I don't know who Lily, The Straight Juice or Anonfamous are. Could you tell me more about them?
Interesting point about the language used to communicate mystical ideas. Perhaps there is a connection btw decreasing susceptibility to mystical insights, and the need to be more direct or even literal.
I once asked Michael Hoffman (the entheogenic theory of religion guy, not the Christian conspiracy theorist, though the connection is amusing) why he never used Asian materials, and he said "I can't make any sense out of it. It's all 'and then the Great Dragon enters the Lily' or such, and I scream 'Just tell me what happens!'"
As myself a child of my Age, I prefer New Thought texts, like the Kybalion, which boil things down into Do This to Get That. My book, Mysticism After Modernism, is built around this as the common feature of writers like Crowley, Neville, Alan Watts, Colin Wilson, etc., a link which makes their "homespun" systems more respectable by giving them a pedigree, while also making the traditional esoteric traditions more understandable.
BTW, The Kybalion Study Guide is the text with Mitch Horowitz' introduction and commentaries throughout, very useful.
Lily A Bit and Juice are ex-military, they write good things from analitic point, about everyhing - maybe systematic overview from inside, somehow. Anonfamous is, I don't know, maybe I can say historian. He wrote long texts about Trump, persecution of christians, Tim Ballard, and other stuff. I never wrote a comment here on Citizen site, because I feel and I don't know why - that he don't take care about noones opinion so much. Maybe I'm wrong. About Librarian - he wrote something about Septuaginta, not so long ago....and as I understand - this text, at the end, was very similar with your explanations in that subject. Always, I can be wrong - and this are just my expresions and views. I don't care - at the end - I like your texts, I read your book - and again, you are really - one of the best here. For me. Bye
Looking forward to more about this subject. I ll listen to those 2 podcasts tomorrow and read kyballion over the next week. Really excited to hear your thoughts.
Atkinson's sources, and also the topic of how to present these ideas:
Mitch Horowitz writes:
"I should add a further word about the historically important 1906 translation [of the Hermetica] by G.R.S. Mead. If you read it, or parts of it, I think you’ll see that it is rendered in almost leaden Victorian prose, which seems to adopt the language of the King James Bible. I think Mead, a truly gifted scholar and translator, miscalculated that this literary device would bring gravity to the text. He was a great intellect but his translation proved impersonal, difficult to read, and somewhat violative of the spare language of the original. Mead was, I believe, among the sources Atkinson (himself an acolyte of Theosophy) drew upon—and from this turgid translation he mined certain gems, which he combined with his own interest in New Thought." From the chapter on Atkinson in his 2023 book Happy Warriors: The Lives and Ideas of the Positive-Mind Mystics
These concepts are by far the most refreshing, enjoyable, enlightening, adjective ad nauseum aspects of this blog. Having attended a hippie college and having known many New Age enthusiasts, I have always been repulsed by the new ubiquitous soft-spoken, perpetually grinning, grooming-a-child-for-molestation comportment of said freaks. Not a single one of them laid it out in a conversational tone. It always struck me as some sort of litmus test, that if I wasn't prepared to abandon my true persona and adopt that of a groovy flower child I wasn't ever going to be receptive to "the message." Now it is slowly, SLOWLY dawning upon me that this is an intimate endeavor that I can choose to either share with the community at large or merely practice in private and prepare my own frickin' soul for the imminent psychic turmoil to come. Just the contemplation of all of this has been liberating. Again, I thank you sir for this forum.
One question, sorry. Can you visualize things in a space in front of you or only in the minds eye? My uncle can do the former, but when I asked him how he said his father taught him and it cant’t be learned as an adult. I think I’m brain damaged from growing up with computer screens and video games.
1. When I was little, I had a fear that if I visualise too much, I will expend the "mana" and break my brain. Were the Lemurians/insectoids messing with me? (xd)
2. I have checked, and the statistics on aphantasia say - 3% of the population. How is it the case that you claimed a much higher percentage? Or did you mean something else?
3. I do remember that I did make a Hakenkreuz appear in my eyelids when I was bored and little.
4. Are these visualisation techniques related to lucid dreaming, or other dream states such as hypnopompic? I never really bothered, but whenever I chanced to get into it, it was super conducive to imagination ("finishing the dream" when half-awake). The Russian cult Goy Gaya is super into dreams - and Castaneda.
2) i've never heard sucha low number ive seen multiple studies that put poor visualization at 80%. i used to be friends with one guy like that but he wasnt dumb. 140 IQ. but he was unable to even read fiction because he couldn't visualize the story in his head. couldnt read a map either.
3) the next step is to hallucinate with open eyes
4) yes they are related, it is simply a question of depth and of the exact wavelength that you are on. castenada calls these states "assemblage points". i use the terms alpha theta beta. lol tell me more about these goys or just give a link
I'm obsessed with maps, and whenever I think or loiter (or dream), my mind easily drifts to the familiar contours of the places in my life - be it my hometown, or schools, or the Battlefield 1942 maps from 2003, or that one Nokia game I played in 2010 (jumping over lava), or the Lumia Island from Eternal Return: Black Survival.
Maps are definitely the shapes I can visualise with utmost ease and pleasure.
"Assemblage points"... So that's where Goy Gaya have translated it from! I wondered what the English term is! Should add Castaneda to my reading list.
Bravo Rurik, fantastic discussion and most important subject --- so many great people here on substack: Theodore, Librarian, Citizen, Carter, Lily, The Straight Juice, Anonfamous, Edward, you and so many others....it is so good - to find people who, after long time, give us truth and things which are the most important to learn from the beggining, again. God bless you all, good people of the world. Thank you
Librarian denounced me as an anti-you-know-who-ite. Citizen also dislikes me, although I don't know why, I sent hundreds of subs his way and he never reciprocated. Probably some ideological issue same as Librarian.
Theodore, JC, Edward are true comrades-in-ink.
I don't know who Lily, The Straight Juice or Anonfamous are. Could you tell me more about them?
Interesting point about the language used to communicate mystical ideas. Perhaps there is a connection btw decreasing susceptibility to mystical insights, and the need to be more direct or even literal.
I once asked Michael Hoffman (the entheogenic theory of religion guy, not the Christian conspiracy theorist, though the connection is amusing) why he never used Asian materials, and he said "I can't make any sense out of it. It's all 'and then the Great Dragon enters the Lily' or such, and I scream 'Just tell me what happens!'"
As myself a child of my Age, I prefer New Thought texts, like the Kybalion, which boil things down into Do This to Get That. My book, Mysticism After Modernism, is built around this as the common feature of writers like Crowley, Neville, Alan Watts, Colin Wilson, etc., a link which makes their "homespun" systems more respectable by giving them a pedigree, while also making the traditional esoteric traditions more understandable.
BTW, The Kybalion Study Guide is the text with Mitch Horowitz' introduction and commentaries throughout, very useful.
Thanks for reminding me to finish your book.
Your guest is wrong about his pseudonym. It does not mean adorer of God, but gift of God.
Regarding materialistic physics, Jorjani claims that Descartes was paid by the Jesuits to promote such an idea.
If you are interested in how physics and metaphysics combine you might like the videos of Ken Wheeler at Theoria Apophasis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRAgXVJ5fMM
(He has a video about Aristotle on Magic also.)
Lily A Bit and Juice are ex-military, they write good things from analitic point, about everyhing - maybe systematic overview from inside, somehow. Anonfamous is, I don't know, maybe I can say historian. He wrote long texts about Trump, persecution of christians, Tim Ballard, and other stuff. I never wrote a comment here on Citizen site, because I feel and I don't know why - that he don't take care about noones opinion so much. Maybe I'm wrong. About Librarian - he wrote something about Septuaginta, not so long ago....and as I understand - this text, at the end, was very similar with your explanations in that subject. Always, I can be wrong - and this are just my expresions and views. I don't care - at the end - I like your texts, I read your book - and again, you are really - one of the best here. For me. Bye
Looking forward to more about this subject. I ll listen to those 2 podcasts tomorrow and read kyballion over the next week. Really excited to hear your thoughts.
Love this podcast format. There are so many interesting topics covered in all of these episodes!
Great conversation guys, very clear and succinct ideas and you had a great energy and flow together. Hope this is the first of many.
Atkinson's sources, and also the topic of how to present these ideas:
Mitch Horowitz writes:
"I should add a further word about the historically important 1906 translation [of the Hermetica] by G.R.S. Mead. If you read it, or parts of it, I think you’ll see that it is rendered in almost leaden Victorian prose, which seems to adopt the language of the King James Bible. I think Mead, a truly gifted scholar and translator, miscalculated that this literary device would bring gravity to the text. He was a great intellect but his translation proved impersonal, difficult to read, and somewhat violative of the spare language of the original. Mead was, I believe, among the sources Atkinson (himself an acolyte of Theosophy) drew upon—and from this turgid translation he mined certain gems, which he combined with his own interest in New Thought." From the chapter on Atkinson in his 2023 book Happy Warriors: The Lives and Ideas of the Positive-Mind Mystics
These concepts are by far the most refreshing, enjoyable, enlightening, adjective ad nauseum aspects of this blog. Having attended a hippie college and having known many New Age enthusiasts, I have always been repulsed by the new ubiquitous soft-spoken, perpetually grinning, grooming-a-child-for-molestation comportment of said freaks. Not a single one of them laid it out in a conversational tone. It always struck me as some sort of litmus test, that if I wasn't prepared to abandon my true persona and adopt that of a groovy flower child I wasn't ever going to be receptive to "the message." Now it is slowly, SLOWLY dawning upon me that this is an intimate endeavor that I can choose to either share with the community at large or merely practice in private and prepare my own frickin' soul for the imminent psychic turmoil to come. Just the contemplation of all of this has been liberating. Again, I thank you sir for this forum.
Are you from an eastern catholic family, rurik?
No I’m from a Soviet family
One question, sorry. Can you visualize things in a space in front of you or only in the minds eye? My uncle can do the former, but when I asked him how he said his father taught him and it cant’t be learned as an adult. I think I’m brain damaged from growing up with computer screens and video games.
These are different levels. At first it is just minds eye but then you learn to move it to the backs of your eyelids. This is advanced
Curious. A few points.
1. When I was little, I had a fear that if I visualise too much, I will expend the "mana" and break my brain. Were the Lemurians/insectoids messing with me? (xd)
2. I have checked, and the statistics on aphantasia say - 3% of the population. How is it the case that you claimed a much higher percentage? Or did you mean something else?
3. I do remember that I did make a Hakenkreuz appear in my eyelids when I was bored and little.
4. Are these visualisation techniques related to lucid dreaming, or other dream states such as hypnopompic? I never really bothered, but whenever I chanced to get into it, it was super conducive to imagination ("finishing the dream" when half-awake). The Russian cult Goy Gaya is super into dreams - and Castaneda.
1) the visuals can be scary so maybe fear
2) i've never heard sucha low number ive seen multiple studies that put poor visualization at 80%. i used to be friends with one guy like that but he wasnt dumb. 140 IQ. but he was unable to even read fiction because he couldn't visualize the story in his head. couldnt read a map either.
3) the next step is to hallucinate with open eyes
4) yes they are related, it is simply a question of depth and of the exact wavelength that you are on. castenada calls these states "assemblage points". i use the terms alpha theta beta. lol tell me more about these goys or just give a link
I'm obsessed with maps, and whenever I think or loiter (or dream), my mind easily drifts to the familiar contours of the places in my life - be it my hometown, or schools, or the Battlefield 1942 maps from 2003, or that one Nokia game I played in 2010 (jumping over lava), or the Lumia Island from Eternal Return: Black Survival.
Maps are definitely the shapes I can visualise with utmost ease and pleasure.
"Assemblage points"... So that's where Goy Gaya have translated it from! I wondered what the English term is! Should add Castaneda to my reading list.
Their links:
https://dooch.ru/?cat=23
https://www.youtube.com/@goy_gaya/streams
https://www.youtube.com/@doochdoble/videos
https://www.youtube.com/@moptuk/videos