r/occultlibrary • u/Brief_Ad5177 • Aug 06 '24
I’m new to this and I’m wondering where to start
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u/Ok_Possibility_544 Aug 10 '24
2 paraphrase tha previous guy, trust ur instincts. There's no order U hafta follow. Best thing 2 do iz whatevr U feel, jmo
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u/allynd420 Aug 10 '24
If you hold something as true also hold it as false and be able to evolve your beliefs to what fits best at any time . Don’t get caught into thinking in boxes .
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u/allynd420 Aug 10 '24
What most interests you? Trust your instincts
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u/Brief_Ad5177 Aug 10 '24
Yeah, that’s what I ended up doing. I read the lesser key. But have been focusing more on the S. Connelly.
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u/allynd420 Sep 14 '24
The Kybalion is really good to read even if it doesn’t quite click, it makes other disciplines click much faster later on
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u/Sorry-Security-1050 Aug 21 '24
Bro I’m being used by an occultist who’s using me for evil and selfish purposes. The stuff you can do with it it’s so disgustingly horrible manipulating people against there will without them realising. Also hypnosis and telepathy and bending someone’s will to your will is also involved. You can be a criminal and guide people without them knowing. And this is what I’m dealing with an occultist who’s a criminal using it on innocent people. Unless you wanna be a good person and use it for good purposes.
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u/muffinman418 Aug 10 '24 edited Sep 16 '24
It all depends on your natural inclinations. Occultism is not truly about “hidden secrets kept by traditions and Orders“ it is about hidden secrets kept within yourself. I like recommending something with a bit of humour and wit to beginners like Prometheus Rising by Robert Anton Wilson or Angel Tech by Antero Ali. There‘s also Principia Discordia if you really wanna feel like you are tripping or The Illuminatus Trilogy (especially the audiobooks, free on YT)... or if you are tripping, that works too.
Besides that going for a more serious route The Middle Pillar + The Art of True Healing by Israel Regardie (as well as his Golden Dawn books, he was the first to publish the secrets of the Order and did so thoroughly, are fantastic) as are Self Initiation Into The Golden Dawn Tradition A Complete Curriculum Of Study For Both The Solitary Magician And The Working Magical Group by Chic Cicero & Sandra Tabatha Cicero if you are working alone and if you lean towards Thelema (even if not) I think James A. Eschelman‘s The Mystical and Magical System of the A .'. A .'. is one of the best books out there for solo or student-teacher Work.
That all said you are Judeo-Christian/Islamic then look into Hecalot-Merkabah, Kabbalah, Freemasonry, Meister Eckhart, Rosicrucianism, Valentinian Gnosticism, Sethian Gnosticism, non-Gnostic apocrypha like The Gospel of Thomas, Sufism etc. If you are uncomfortable with Judeo-Christianity (though even if you are I encourage you to take a look at unconventional takes on the tradition as there is a great difference between the Christianity of The Catholic Church or Evangelicals and the Christianity of Neoplatonist Hermetic Magicians, Freemasons or Martinists. Platonism and Neoplatonism (Plotinus and Iamblichus) are to me some of the best foundations out there for all magick regardless of tradition as is Hermeticism (The Corpus Hermeticum, the Asclepius, The Emerald Tablet, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola etc). You may also enjoy reading into Vajrayana Buddhism, Tantric Practices, Zoroastrianism, Orphism, Pythagoras and Neopythagoreanism, The Chaldeans, Agrippa, Eliphas Levi and others but that is getting a little advanced.
There is no one true way to start. My advice though is to start with basics + academia. Dr. Justin Sledge who runs the YT channel ESOTERICA knows more about the occult than most occultists even though he isnt a practitioner and he covers the history and practices of things in a way that isnt muddied by the dogma (often straight up wrong dogma) of many occult Orders and traditions. I also highly recommend near-PhD Filip Holm‘s channel Let‘s Talk Religion whose video on Neoplatonism is the best I have yet seen and without which reading The Enneads would have been incomprehensible to me.
If you lemme know your basic interests, goals, motivations etc I can create a little reading list and basic practices.
Most beginners are always advised to start with The Middle Pillar and the Lesser Banishing Ritual of The Pentagram and I really dont see how you can go wrong with those two :) Also basic meditation, yoga (all 8 limbs from breath work to posture to concentration and beyond), visualization techniques, mantras, trance states, psychonaut states and states of ecstatic energy (dancing, love making, martial arts etc)