28.04.2024

“Wings of the Gods: Birds in the World’s Religions” by Peter (Petra) Gardella and Laurence Krute

Magick Matters

"Birds have a larger place in religions than any other non-human animal, from their role as messenger between humans and gods among the ancient Mayans, to the Christian Holy Spirit taking flesh as a dove. More than symbols, birds gained divine status by guiding humans to water and food, replanting forests after ice ages and fires, and living with humans as they settled into farming and urban life. With the natural world facing multiple crises—climate change, epidemics of disease, pollution, famine—Peter (Petra) Gardella and Laurence Krute argue that humanity needs a new religion, a religion of nature in which birds and other animals are treated as equal inhabitants and citizens of Earth, to save...>>

View

27.04.2024

“Books of the Dead: Manuals for Living and Dying” by Stanislav Grof

Magick Matters

"The art of dying and the posthumous journey of the soul have been described and depicted in many cultures. "Dying before dying", or practice in dying, has been sought throughout history, not just to overcome fear and give help at the moment of death, but to transfigure the quality of life. Stanislav Grof considers some of the most striking and important of the so-called "books of the dead": ancient Egyptian funerary texts; the Tibetan Bardo Thodol; Maya and Aztec myths of the death and rebirth of the Hero Twins and the Plumed Serpent, Quetzalcoatl. From Europe come Christian visions of the soul's journey, the danses macabres, and imagery of mortal decay that recalls Tibetan...>>

View

26.04.2024

“Drugs and Magic: A Consciousness-Expanding and Far-Ranging Anthology” by George Andrews

Magick Matters

"In the dawn of time men visited the realms of magic almost at will, then logic placed its cold cage around our consciousness. But one quick route to the shining levels remained for the tethered spirit: the way of transcendence over self and the material world through psychedelic materials provided by a bountiful nature. From the secret lore of many ages and countries, George Andrews has assembled a brilliant anthology of writings about one of the most controversial areas of the occult. From the mystery of the fruit of the tree of knowledge to contemporary researches into parapsychology, from the fairies and witches of past centuries to the Order of the Golden Dawn and the...>>

View

25.04.2024

“Spiritual Alchemy: From Jacob Boehme to Mary Anne Atwood” by Mike A. Zuber (alternate rip)

Magick Matters

"Most professional historians see the relationship between pre-modern and modern alchemy as one of discontinuity and contrast. Mike A. Zuber challenges this dominant understanding and explores aspects of alchemy that have been neglected by recent work in the history of science. The predominant focus on the scientific aspect of alchemy, such as laboratory experiment, practical techniques, and material ingredients, argues Zuber, marginalizes the things that render alchemy so fascinating: its rich and vivid imagery, reliance on the medium of manuscript, and complicated relationship with religion. Spiritual Alchemy traces the early-modern antecedents of modern alchemy through generations of followers of Jacob Boehme, the cobbler and theosopher of Görlitz. As Boehme's disciples down the generations — including...>>

View

25.04.2024

“Mystifying Kabbalah: Academic Scholarship, National Theology, and New Age Spirituality” by Boaz Huss (alternate rip)

Magick Matters

"Most scholars of Judaism take the term "Jewish mysticism" for granted, and do not engage in a critical discussion of the essentialist perceptions that underlie it. Mystifying Kabbalah studies the evolution of the concept of Jewish mysticism. It examines the major developments in the academic study of Jewish mysticism and its impact on modern Kabbalistic movements in the contexts of Jewish nationalism and New Age spirituality. Boaz Huss argues that Jewish mysticism is a modern discursive construct and that the identification of Kabbalah and Hasidism as forms of mysticism, which appeared for the first time in the nineteenth century and has become prevalent since the early twentieth, shaped the way in which Kabbalah and Hasidism...>>

View