This last two weeks 'unpayed holiday' was a blessing. I haven't slept normally for a while, I was really tired …and I had time to read at last. I mean I usually read on the evenings, but it was far better to read all day if I wanted to. Finally I could finish some books I started reading a quite some time ago and I even had the time to buy some new ones.
So my new books for the Spring:
The History of Magic by Eliphas Lévi
The Book of Ceremonial Magic by A. E. Waite
Elementals by Paracelsus
So my new books for the Spring:
The History of Magic by Eliphas Lévi
The Book of Ceremonial Magic by A. E. Waite
Elementals by Paracelsus
In Spring when the nature just awakening I usually in a magical mood when I'm open to the unknown and everything mystical and surprising [well, a little bit higher salary would be surprising…].
As I said once I'm into occultism/esotericism to a certain limit, especially into the second half of the 19th century, when the archeological excavations brought a complete new aspect to the world and many philosophers, scientists [and charlatans as well] started to rediscover the late cultures with its own mysteries, religious ceremonies, rituals and of course they started to rediscover the Eastern philosophies as well as researching the roots of "witchcraft". The first pioneers of the modern occultism were H. Blavatsky, Rudolf Steiner, Alice Bailey, but there aren't any Hungarian translation from them. Then the big names were Eliphas Lévi, A. Crowley, A. Edward Waite, Papus, T. Reuss. There aren't any translation from Reuss and Papus as well and I can't stand that Crowley guy so there are only two persons left to read from... I knew well Waite before by his writings about their Rider-Waite tarot deck with the illustrator Pamela C. S. I'm crazy about tarot cards, I just don't know why… anyway I hope I will find something interesting in these writings, due to I have a little scepticism about esoteric and occult books. But maybe this feeling in me comes from the contemporary authors. There are too many hogwash books without certain knowledge, most of them just repeating each other and less about some philosophical/theoretical background or inspiration but more about the - typical - appearance, unique lifestyle [what is not unique if all imitate each other...], stones and scents and that is all... and there are too many bigoted "witch" as well who for me are just as frightening as a bigoted catholic or a simple stupid but egoisticly proud person like most of my colleagues... Maybe that's why I never had the slightest intention following a coven or whatsoever. Catholic Church was enough for me for a lifetime to ruin me. I called it the Same Old Church of Narrowness and Manipulation... This is just my bitter opinion, before you openly send me into hell in the comment section... 😑 Not that I care. If someone ask me about my religion I usually say I'm simply a nature lover neo pagan whatever, who is into Buddhism as well and that is all. I'm interested in the Ancient Greek religion but that is just an interest and not about adoring the chauvinist/hedonist Zeus or doing ceremony imitations and other funny things. I have a pagan altar thing but I only meditate and is rather a room decoration than a used altar. Rarely I follow the group meditation in the local Buddhist community but nothing other Buddhist events ever again what are mostly about the money [sadly in this Western Buddhist way] and making "friends"... surprisingly always the lonesome men found me... It's a Buddhist social gathering not a village matchmaking party for god sakes...
Sometimes I read Buddha's and the Dalai Lama's teachings and - somewhat sensible - esoteric and neo-pagan books and that is all what I can call my "spiritual life"...
But I think I will enjoy Waite and Lévi's books and I hope I can follow their thoughts. Seems a little high to me. Well, we'll see.
I bought that Paracelsus book, because the preview said it's about fictional creatures of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and that this book and some other Medieval thinkers in the topic were who possibly inspired later Tolkien and maybe Rowling as well who wrote the two well-known modern magical myths...
What can I say, I read out the book under 1 hour... no joke, and it was a dissapointment. Well there were some interesting thoughts about creatures what could be the hobbits later and some things about melusines and water nymphs, but the rest of the book was nothing but a bigoted religious blah blah around God and Adam... and that women, animals and creatures[?!] are just the same and both have no souls only Adam has and other stupidness... not to mention the lame, sometimes unfinished sentences... I would expect more from a big hit Renaissance humanist thinker... [Maybe his other works are far sensible but I don't care...] Sorry Mr. °C but you were a dissapointment to me, although I respect the humanists, especially Cosimo de' Medici, the patron of arts. I think I'll just back to my heroine H. of Bingen. She lived min. 300 years earlier than Para C. but there have more wiseness and ratio [apart from some of her poetical religious visions] in her thoughts about humanity than some of the men had later in the Renaissance for sure... That is what I'm missing from the R. humanist era [too], a female thinker's aspect... but due to usually a woman's title was "shut up and bear child - and sons, if it's possible" it is but a naive expectation from me... If Hildegard would be a simple woman not an abbess with political patroners around her, probably would died a horrible death as well as any other free-spirited thinkers...
Ok, I finish my happy thoughts again. Unbelievable how I can reach an average feminist topic from an innocent book again... or books are everything but innocents? Nooo! They make us think! OMG, no thinking! That is the fall of [wo]Man!!!!! ... You know what? I'm in! 😜
Good Day!/Szép napot! ✌
