Books that have been most influential on you

[alysa]

Rimbaud's 'Illuminations', is that all, honesty demands me that I didn't read that book yet, though have one question over, "is that all", I have no real business with your life, but I wish to know is there really not one book more that might have been a little elevating for you as well, just an honest question.

[alysa]

"The Eye In The Triangle", "The Complete Golden Dawn System Of Magic", "The Tree of Life", by Israel Regardie, "Psychic Self Defense" by Dion Fortune, "The Law Is For All" by Crowley, these books were The Eyeopeners for me, ofcourse I read other books as well, though, do not yet know which place I have to give them in my life yet.

[Danica]

Liber Legis
.....

A.C. - Liber ABA
A.C. - Liber Aleph
A.C. - The Book of Thoth
J.A.E. - The Mystical & Magical System of the A.'.A.'.
Patanjali - Yoga Sutra
John Blofeld - I Ching/The book of Change (the first version of I Ching I encountered)
Swami Vivekananda - Raja Yoga; Jnana Yoga

[ EDIT - Jun 30th 2010 --> ]
Israel Regardie's ''Middle Pillar''
I'm re-reading it now, and am suprised to see how years ago, when reading it for the first time, some of his words activated me to start doing regularly daily LBRP - and later to quit smoking, so I could breath properly (and later to do Pranayama etc)... - all in order to prepare myself for the MP exercise! this was the first serious book on magick I bought, without any reference or advice, I saw it on a street sale and just pick it up guided by pure intuition!.. and it was only couple of years after this that I encountered Crowley's works

[Uni_Verse]

Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche
Book of Lies by Aleister Crowley

[Mobs Consistent]

Interesting to see what bookish influences one has!

William Blake's Illuminated Works
Austin Osman Spare's Book of PLeasure
Sefer Yetzirah
Kierkegaard's Concluding Unscientific Postscript

[Tinman]

Calvin & Hobbes

[Corvinae]

lol TinMan, I do hope you are referring to Bill Watterson's.

My son has devoured the entire collection this month,
he has learned more from those two characters then all of his grade school teachers combined.

I have a great t-shirt with a Calvin running nude....Life is Short, Play Naked....

[Tinman]

An homage I did a long time ago:

www.bluestwave.com/flash_work/calvin.html

(has sound)

[gurugeorge]

Hmm, so many books ...

AC of course - mainly 8 Lectures on Yoga and Magick Without Tears, they're probably my favourites.

Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy - very inspiring to get you into philosophy, even though it's idiosyncratic as a history.

All the works of Daniel C. Dennett, Karl Popper, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche (my main fave philosophers)

Friedrich Hayek's works (re. economics and the structure of liberal society).

American comics were very influential on me as a child, and I still retain something of their sunny spirit and wild, liberal imagination.

I guess that's a pretty good cross-section, but there are tons of things that have influenced me, and new books keep influencing me too - for instance recently I've been very inspired by the work of the scholar/mystic Peter Kingsley (a book called Reality).

[Mephisto]

@alysa said

"Rimbaud's 'Illuminations', is that all, honesty demands me that I didn't read that book yet, though have one question over, "is that all", I have no real business with your life, but I wish to know is there really not one book more that might have been a little elevating for you as well, just an honest question."

As far as influence is concerned, Rimbaud's method of rational derangement is most akin to my ideology, yes.

And yet this is no different than that selfsame process described by all great poets: the bycoming of Light by passage through Darkness.

As all true poetry proceeds from a single Source, 'tis a bit silly to make distinctions methinks.

"Nothing yet stirred on the face of the palaces. The water is dead. The shadows still camped in the woodland road. I walked, taking quick warm breaths, and gems looked on, and wings rose without a sound.

The first venture was, in a path already filled with fresh, pale gleams, a flower who told me her name.

I laughed at the blond waterfall that tousled through the pines: on the silver summit I recognized the goddess.

Then, one by one, I lifted up her veils. In the lane, waving my arms. Across the plain, where I notified the cock. In the city, she fled among the steeples and the domes, and running like a beggar on the marble quays, I chased her."

Sound like anybody we know?

[alysa]

Yes?, JPF, very much first rate poetry, thanks for your answer, agreed all great poetry proceeds just from one Great Source, at times for some persons like me t'might take a little more time (and literarture) to understand just that. . . . .

[underabloodredsky]

First off, let me say "hi" to everyone.

Mystical Quaballa
Tree of Life
ABA
Kybalion
Transcendental Magic

Lately I have been immersed into the Carlos Castaneda's, don Juan books. I am finding much value there now.

[Mephisto]

@nderabloodredsky said

"
Lately I have been immersed into the Carlos Castaneda's, don Juan books. I am finding much value there now."

As have I! How co-incidental.

I read his first book a few times this summer, as a supplement to my experimentations. I find his naivete strickingly familiar: how many a young soul has entered realms so far beyond there ken, and emerged transformed? It's an interesting archetype: the initiation of a "normal" soul into the wierd realm of psychedelic madness.

I find it of note that he took potentially fatal doses of Jimson Weed. It's no wonder he ended up with a psychic schism. I think his attitude towards psychedelics could use a bit more Scientific Illuminism, and less "Because."

As far as the massive doses of datura as a road to enlightenment: I'd rather stick to methods with a wee bit more...predictability.

[JoeRDollar]

So many books have influenced me so much :

A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
Ecstacy- Irvine Welsh
TImequake and Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut
Myths to Live By - Joseph Campbell
Twilight of the Idols- Nietzsche
A Man in Full and Bonfire of the Vanities - Tom Wolfe
The Works of Dr. Suess and Shel Silverstein
On the Road and Desolation Angels - Jack Kerouac
Junky, Queer, Wild Boys, Naked Lunch and selected correspondence w/ Allen Ginsberg - William S. Burroughs
Tales of Ordinary Madness - Charles Bukowkski
Fight Club, Survivor, and Choke - Chuck Palahniuk
The Bible- Various
The Koran
Open Heart, Clear Mind- Thubten Chodron.
The Book of the Law, Konx Om Pax, MITP, Magick Without Tears, and The Law is for All -Aleister Crowley
Norse Magic- Conway
The Dark Tower Series, The Stand (everything else) - Stephen King

[Frater SOL]

@JoeRDollar said

"Kurt Vonnegut...Ginsberg...William S. Burroughs"

nice.

729

[DarkStar]

The Book Of The Law- Aiwass
777, Magick W/O Tears, Book Four- Crowley
The Golden Dawn -Regardie

[underabloodredsky]

@JPF said

"
@nderabloodredsky said
"
Lately I have been immersed into the Carlos Castaneda's, don Juan books. I am finding much value there now."

As have I! How co-incidental.

I read his first book a few times this summer, as a supplement to my experimentations. I find his naivete strickingly familiar: how many a young soul has entered realms so far beyond there ken, and emerged transformed? It's an interesting archetype: the initiation of a "normal" soul into the wierd realm of psychedelic madness.

I find it of note that he took potentially fatal doses of Jimson Weed. It's no wonder he ended up with a psychic schism. I think his attitude towards psychedelics could use a bit more Scientific Illuminism, and less "Because."

As far as the massive doses of datura as a road to enlightenment: I'd rather stick to methods with a wee bit more...predictability. "

Definitely!

I have really think there is some thing to his descriptions of things-I find a lot of hints and occult parallels, but from a different perspective and tradition, which I think is beneficial. For example, the descriptions of the nagual and tonal in "The Fire Withing" and "Tales of Power" correspond with some Qabalistic theories, and even some Thelemic theories with regard to the infinite and unkowable, yet ever present. It is not overt, by any means, and could probably be interpreted many different ways, but I think that is a good thing.

My attitude toward drugs as a spiritual and psychological tool has changed a lot, from the argument that it's all bad or all good, to one of balanced respect, pretty much like any other potent tool- it must be respected, but also, *perhaps *a very necessary part of the path.

I have been very frustrated with the situation here in AZ and in the USA in general. I don't trust street stuff anymore: I had some really bad experiences and I cut myself off from all the people I knew involved in that scene, and so I am pretty much NOT high, but very dry. And it would be nice, for a change....

[Mephisto]

@nderabloodredsky said

"I have really think there is some thing to his descriptions of things-I find a lot of hints and occult parallels, but from a different perspective and tradition, which I think is beneficial. For example, the descriptions of the nagual and tonal in "The Fire Withing" and "Tales of Power" correspond with some Qabalistic theories, and even some Thelemic theories with regard to the infinite and unkowable, yet ever present. It is not overt, by any means, and could probably be interpreted many different ways, but I think that is a good thing."

I found a great deal of correspondences between the two approaches as well. Though, at times, Castaneda strikes me as a buffoon, I still applaud him for his documentation of his experiences. It is his documentation, not his analysis, that I value. He failed to understand that it is of paramount danger to "make any difference between one thing and any other,"--especially in the realm of psychedelics. As soon as one thinks "Oh, this is happening to me," the experience is thwarted. In other terms: the more we identify our ego to any perception, the more it diminishes in value.

"

My attitude toward drugs as a spiritual and psychological tool has changed a lot, from the argument that it's all bad or all good, to one of balanced respect, pretty much like any other potent tool- it must be respected, but also, *perhaps *a very necessary part of the path.

I have been very frustrated with the situation here in AZ and in the USA in general. I don't trust street stuff anymore: I had some really bad experiences and I cut myself off from all the people I knew involved in that scene, and so I am pretty much NOT high, but very dry. And it would be nice, for a change...."

Ditto. Having visited Arizona, I feel qualified to extend to you my utmost sympathy.

I myself came to much the same conclusions as regards the "drug scene". I restrict my drug use to cannabis these days (cannabis is all but legal here), and psychedelic mushrooms on occasion. It's just impossible to gauge the purity of street drugs these days.

On the subject of books, I think you might enjoy "The Peyote Cult," which is a scientific examination of the Peyote Rituals of the Southwest Indians. I found it an excellent supplement to my experimentations.

[underabloodredsky]

@JPF said

"On the subject of books, I think you might enjoy "The Peyote Cult," which is a scientific examination of the Peyote Rituals of the Southwest Indians. I found it an excellent supplement to my experimentations."

Thanks! I was going to ask that question from the other related post!

BTW, if your ever in AZ, feel free to look me up!

[Labyrinthus]

"American comics were very influential on me as a child, and I still retain something of their sunny spirit and wild, liberal imagination."

Amen.

and the Childcraft books... the olde ones, published back in the 1950's
(what do kids these days know of fairies and gnomes?...)

Bradford Angiers "How to Live in the Woods" was quite the inspiration. I spent many week-long and longer backpacking trips in the mountains and books like that really got me going.

Tolkien

...and then I grew up....