Your Thelemic Top Book List
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I guess what I was after is non-occult books, or of course I would say all of Jim's books. I'm after books that you could give a friend who has no interest in the occult but the flavor or ideas of the book are compatable with Thelema. For example, The Alchemist is a great read for anyone but the theme is the search for your true will, even if it isn't called that.
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Ah, see, that's what you didn't say. You asked for "Thelemic books," which I understood to be "overtly and explicitly Thelemic" books... and couldn't think of enough to make a list after you excluded my top 25.
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I think I'd have to include Kahlil gibran's "The Prophet" although it was written some time ago.
For those that aren't allergic to Christian symbolism I'd recommend Thomas Merton's "new seeds of Contemplation".
And "Thus spake Zarathustra" is a must.Also; The complete works of C.G.Jung.
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"I guess what I was after is non-occult books, or of course I would say all of Jim's books. I'm after books that you could give a friend who has no interest in the occult but the flavor or ideas of the book are compatable with Thelema."
Nothing in the last 25 years satisfies those parameters.
Thus Spake Zarathustra is the best Thelema-like but non-Thelemic work I've yet found. The writings of Rabelais are suggestive and hilarious. The A.'. A.'. reading list has most of the worthwhile titles.
I've been re-reading Dracula between studies. The Bodhitcharyavatara as well.
I really don't have a lot of time for light reading these days. If I'm going to read I want it to be productive.
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Dracula is pretty bad. It ranks up there with one of the worst books I have ever tried to read. I never managed to finish reading it, actually. The fact of the matter is, it was not well written. I have read some pretty hard and awful things like the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Sometimes a Great Notion and Dion Fortunes Mystical Quabalah (not that it was hard, just depressing)
I did read Carmilla that was written before Dracula and is actually a better book. -
"I have read some pretty hard and awful things like the Lord of the Rings Trilogy..."
Um. Congratulations?
Try Heidegger. I think he fits within your comprehension scale.
And "Sometimes a Great Notion" is by Ken Kesey. Not very intensive.And yes, Dracula is an excellent book. I'm suprised you haven't read it, Vlad.
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One has to have a taste for 19th century fiction (which I do). Slow, patient, saturating the senses with detail, reflecting thought from numerous points of view, gradually coalescing a story from people's diaries and correspondence. A really phenomenal piece of literature, actually.
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@Mephis said
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"I have read some pretty hard and awful things like the Lord of the Rings Trilogy..."Um. Congratulations?
Try Heidegger. I think he fits within your comprehension scale.
And "Sometimes a Great Notion" is by Ken Kesey. Not very intensive.And yes, Dracula is an excellent book. I'm suprised you haven't read it, Vlad."
Actually, my name refers to my actual name, only with a twist that has to do with my name's origin. I've watched Dracula a few dozen times over a couple of years, but I haven't dragged myself to get the book. Jim, what you say is just what I hoped for!
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@DavidH said
"If you were to suggest a few books to a Thelemite, what would you say their library could not do without? The only thing is that they have to have been written in the last 25 years - so no Crowley!
Here are a few to start:
The Alchemist
Let your Life Speak
Inner Gold
Flow"I have been turning this request about and about in my mind.
I have worked professional in the library and retail sale of books field for a very long time.
Why do the books need to be written in the last twenty five years?
Also just to be a pain in the literary butt, the alchemist was written in Portuguese first and only first published twenty five years ago, he wrote it twenty six, so that book doesn't fit.
How about books that have been published in the last twenty five ? that opens up allot, and I could give you more suggestions?
You also seem to want literature, or more generally non fiction?
Many authors of fiction are excellent examples of Thelemic. Principles, Stephen King, Peter Straub, Michael Chritchon for example not only deep with Thelemic ideas in a round about way, but themselves are stars following their bliss, true will ect and can model and inspire us to do the same. -
Very nice list so far. I'd add that, though I don't think it's "out in the open" (whatever that means in a quantum multiverse), Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist is for good reason seemingly Thelemic, he was at the least a Probationer [here], and I vaguely remember reading more about that, but the details escape me (however The Internet remembers).
I would add to the list some fictions:
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[:81evx7zw]Philip Kindred Dick: Ubik, Valis, The Transmigration of Timothy Archer, The Divine Invasion; [ paraphrased summary, "What is Real?" ].[/
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[:81evx7zw]Philip José Farmer: Dark is the Sun, Riverworld, The Unreasoning Mask; most of his other works too, he's prolific. [here's Farmer mentioning Crowley][/81evx7zw]
[:81evx7zw]Dan Simmons: Hyperion Cantos; [to paraphrase: "Love is the Law of the Void Which Binds"] I've heard good stuff about his other works, but not vetted for my Self.[/81evx7zw]
[:81evx7zw]Alan Moore: Promethea; I'd highly recommend this to everyone interested in Thelema, Magick, Kabbalah, and even Comics. [Alan Moore's Mindscape a brief docu where he explains a lot.][/81evx7zw]
[:81evx7zw]Robert Anton Wilson: Cosmic Trigger Trilogy; warning, may cause what it says on the cover.[/81evx7zw]
[:81evx7zw]Neal Stepehenson: Snow Crash, Diamond Age, Cryptonomicon; SC gets into the Sumerian psycholinguistics of magic, in a technomantic near future.[/81evx7zw]
[:81evx7zw]Jack L Chalcker: And the Devil Will Drag You Under; a quest across multiverse to retrieve Artifacts for / from "Demons".[/81evx7zw]
Some unfiction:- [:81evx7zw]Philip K Dick: Exegesis; After his Henosis like experience he spent the rest of his life recording his analysis of the event and "what it all means". [/81evx7zw]
[:81evx7zw]Robert Anton Wilson: Quantum Psychology; title is accurate, has exercise for group psychology.[/81evx7zw]
[:81evx7zw]Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi; Simplicity.[/81evx7zw]
[:81evx7zw]Don Miguel Luíz: The Four Agreements; Syncretic Self awareness with talk of Magick and Maya, etc.[/81evx7zw]
I second the mention of Gibran, would add Hafiz [The Gift]. I don't think the 25year publish date holds well for most of these, but then the rest of the thread didn't seem to care, so... But also, what is Time?
- [:81evx7zw]Philip K Dick: Exegesis; After his Henosis like experience he spent the rest of his life recording his analysis of the event and "what it all means". [/