
3,500 Occult Manuscripts Will Be Digitized and Made Freely Available Online - RmDen
http://www.openculture.com/2017/12/3500-occult-manuscripts-will-be-digitized-made-freely-available-online.html
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thenomad
I suspect I'm one of the few readers here (@cstross being another) for whom
this is genuinely important professional information. And it's fantastic.

Sadly no mention of license there, though - kinda vital if one is intending to
use some of the imagery in remix works - although given the texts are
thoroughly out of copyright I'd assume that's not too big an issue.

~~~
mylons
care to expound on your profession? edit: click their username to read about
their profession

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IntronExon
I was totally unaware that this Ritmam library existed. I can’t pretend to be
into the occult, but I like the idea of studying people who are/we’re, and
this seems like a terrific resource.

Only downside...

You want Great Old Ones? Because this is how you get Great Old Ones.

~~~
floren
I really like these old texts because it's interesting to try and get into the
mindset of the authors. To the medieval occultist, that plant over there is
growing well because Saturn is ascending or whatever, and if a rabid dog bites
you, you should apply the plant to the wound because the melancholic nature of
Saturn will counteract the mania of the rabies, etc. Why did such-and-such
happen? A demon did it. It's a completely different way of looking at things,
it's very strange to our modern sensibilities but it's also surprisingly
developed and just fascinating.

~~~
52-6F-62
If you're interested in the study of religion at all (at least as a human
affectation), it can get pretty interesting to get into the Hermetic and
Gnostic texts. Some of the traditions and proposed knowledge exists on a
timeline parallel to popular history going back thousands of years. It's
really quite something.

It combined with other mystic traditions ultimately informed the theosophical
movement of the 19th and 20th century through to the magick of Aleister
Crowley. His sex magick informs a lot of the modern incel, red-pill, and proud
boy ideas that you must refrain from "spilling your seed"—that your
reproductive emissions contain some of your essential energy. The result being
that you have to abstain or otherwise be reduced to a plodding pile of
unenlightened goo (to give the idea some imagery).

So it's especially interesting, and a little funny, how in spite of the larger
mysticism having fallen out of popular favour as a way to understand the
world, they still influence a great part of it in a variety of outcomes as a
result of lingering practices and beliefs finding their way into new systems.

~~~
floren
> It combined with other mystic traditions ultimately informed the
> theosophical movement of the 19th and 20th century through to the magick of
> Aleister Crowley. His sex magick informs a lot of the modern incel, red-
> pill, and proud boy ideas that you must refrain from "spilling your
> seed"—that your reproductive emissions contain some of your essential
> energy. The result being that you have to abstain or otherwise be reduced to
> a plodding pile of unenlightened goo (to give the idea some imagery).

Those seem to have been relatively widely-held beliefs based on the humour
system of medicine, see [https://aeon.co/essays/getting-down-and-medieval-the-
sex-liv...](https://aeon.co/essays/getting-down-and-medieval-the-sex-lives-of-
the-middle-ages) posted here on HN a few days ago.

Taoists had similar ideas:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taoist_sexual_practices](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taoist_sexual_practices)

Edit: also I'll never spell it "magick" because Crowley was a toolbag

Edit 2: There's also the current meme that (humorously) claims a man who
remains a virgin to the age of 30 will become a wizard, which is presumably
drawing on all these historical beliefs.

~~~
guskel
Incels don't practice noFap. If you actually check incel forums, they heavily
ridicule the idea and the Redpill types who do.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
Good point. It's important to keep your ridiculous lunatics separate.

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d-crane
The Ritman library is absolutely wonderful, and open to the public without
appointment; if you find yourself in Amsterdam, it's absolutely worth it to go
ring their doorbell and look around. It was the highlight of my post-high-
school Europe trip.

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Quequau
Whatever happened to that giant library of scanned books that Google created?

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pradn
The books are just sitting in storage until the laws change.
[https://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/what-ever-
happen...](https://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/what-ever-happened-to-
google-books)

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2close4comfort
It would truly be great to see the actual texts of early cryptography like
Trithemius and John Dee.

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hartror
Anyone else reminded of the The Laundry Files series by Charles Stross? Am now
expecting ICOs for occult based startups . .

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Laundry_Files](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Laundry_Files)

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api
The Great Old Ones could just have their own ICO.

~~~
Crespyl
The other day on HN I saw a comment that described Bitcoin/proof-of-work
cryptocurrencies as being "created by an act of ritual sacrifice" (of
electricity/compute power).

I recon there's grounds for some amusing short stories in there.

~~~
IntronExon
It would certainly explain why nobody has found Satoshi! He was just a tool of
Cthulhu and his cultists to increase the rate of dissipation. At some critical
juncture the total entropy of the system will be sufficient to allow invasion
of our reality by tentacular horrors.

Maybe...

~~~
api
Maybe SHA-256 itself encodes a complex ritual for summoning the old ones.
Bitcoin ASICs are effectively performing this ritual billions upon billions of
times per second, gradually drawing the Old Ones closer and closer...

~~~
mcguire
Towers of Hanoi, anyone?

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desireco42
I think this is fantastic news. I really enjoyed reading old alchemy texts
over at

[http://levity.com/alchemy/](http://levity.com/alchemy/)

and like some others mentioned, just getting into mindset of people writing
this and their view of the world, really opens you up about different
perspectives.

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sebnap
Their site indicates more than 25k books (1,6k available):

[http://embassyofthefreemind.com/en/library/online-
catalogue/...](http://embassyofthefreemind.com/en/library/online-
catalogue/?mode=gallery&view=horizontal&sort=random%7B1516989550519%7D%20asc)

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chrstphrhrt
There’s a pretty long documentary/interview with the owner on prime video:
[https://www.primevideo.com/detail/0ND6NJX19GO8N1C0MPEE1D7UA8...](https://www.primevideo.com/detail/0ND6NJX19GO8N1C0MPEE1D7UA8/ref=sr_hom_c_unkc_1_1?sr=1-1&qid=1516988507)

~~~
olivermarks
your link just takes me to my amazon prime log in page....do you have the
title of the documentary please?

~~~
chrstphrhrt
Sorry, it’s called “The Ritman Library - Amsterdam”

~~~
olivermarks
thanks!

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ChicagoDave
Into every generation, a slayer is born...

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busterarm
If only it were so easy to do this (legally) for research papers...

~~~
52-6F-62
Just change belief systems. Bing bang boom.

~~~
busterarm
LOL. Well played.

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Eliezer
I applaud their very, very confident reductionism.

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Havoc
That's pretty cool. I mean not into it, but I think it's worth preserving.

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couchdive
Aleister Crowley is dancing a jig

~~~
anigbrowl
Incidentally he's been dead long enough that his works fell into the public
domain this last new year. So you don't have to pay Gerald Suster or whatever
Thelemite fork that last had the copyrights any more.

~~~
disgruntledphd2
He never really wanted his books to be under copyright in any case, so I'm OK
with that. I think it was the OTO who last had the copyright, sadly (as those
people seem pretty wack).

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zmix
The soulhackers are amongst us!

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fastball
Does this mean we're no longer allowed to make fun of renowned author Dan
Brown[1]?

1\. [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/authors/dont-make-fun-of-
re...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/authors/dont-make-fun-of-renowned-dan-
brown/)

~~~
hutzlibu
I was thinking a bit similar, but I'd say, no, because I am still mad for all
the useless discussions I had with people claiming Illuminati etc. was factual
... (what the book also claimed to be)

So sure, every audience gets the writer it deserves, but still - I appreciate
the gift, but there would need to be much more, before you can even consider
that ... but I don't think he has so much money though.

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Akinato
Holy shit yes. It's too bad it's pre-1900s. I found something called the
Vampire Bible once and it was seriously the funniest thing I ever read.

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vivekd
> “pre-1900 texts on alchemy, astrology, magic, and theosophy,

I don't understand, what's really the use of any of this stuff except for
their insight into history and as precursors to science. There's no way any of
this stuff has any meaningful application today.

I also don't understand how anyone can find this stuff interesting, they're
often boring, hard to read, and filled with obviously erroneous information

~~~
TillE
It's all part of understanding the culture of the time. Manuscripts generally
are quite hard to read: the language, the script, etc.

~~~
sibeliuss
> It's all part of understanding the culture of the time.

Fortunately it's not all that -- there are quite a few techniques inside that
one can employ (e.g., meditation) to achieve, with practice, certain mystical
results

