Discussion:
Religions of the Book, Bible-Burning, Reference for Novel Additions
(too old to reply)
tyaginator
2004-07-26 22:18:13 UTC
Permalink
50040726 viii om

tyaginator:
#>#> this Apocalyptic is not accepted by all Christians as scripture,
#>#> as, for example, the Plymouth Brethren of Crowley's childhood,
#>#> to my knowledge.

later elaboration by tyaginator:
#> corrections welcomed. that's the last I recall of their sect, yes.
#> i wish some of these distinctions were more often, or more popularly
#> pointed out! i know the 100+ sects of christianity agree on very little
#> when all is said and done, so such facts usu. are not too surprising.
#> christianity itself was first cobbled together like this by Paul and
#> others as far as I can tell ca. 100-400 CE. People cherry-picked the
#> books (and versions of books?) they liked at Council of Nicea. Further
#> christianity has never been particularly consistent over the years,
#> certainly, least with/ about points of spiritual dogma. christianity is
#> monolithic in its political power not in its substance, form, or
#> manifestation.

#>#> this is why I consider it another 'Book' after
#>#> the Older and Newer Testaments, to which then Crowley appends
#>#> his Book. that he identifies himself in ways that harken to the
#>#> Book of Apocalyptic visions is relevant to a consideration of
#>#> his role with respect to all of these Religions of the Book.

DngulSkarmaTathagatgarbha <astrum-***@cox.net>:
#># I, in regular Discordian fashion, think it nifty to write your own
#># bible, preach your own law, tread your own path, forge your own
#># way, &c.

# Brother Theophane would then add: "and burn your own Bible!!"
# (cf. "Tales of a Magic Monastery").

DngulSkarmaTathagatgarbha <astrum-***@cox.net>:
# did a search on this. never heard of it. what is it? where's
# it from?

Theophane the Monk is the reputed author of the amusing text.
it is a batch of anecdotes, short stories, comparable to Sufi
tales compendiums. I have it from nonremembered source that
this was actually written by Idries Shah under one of his many
pseudonyms. I don't recall now who gave me that information.

the short story to which I refer I've keyed in before
(looking at luckymojo.com/esoteric.html search engine) is:

============================================================

From: ***@houseofkaos.Abyss.coM (tyagi mordred nagasiva)
To: alt.magick
Subject: Burning Bibles 451 :> (9408.bblburn.ttm)
Date: 49940824
Quoting: |***@thuja.FSL.ORST.EDU (Kevin Sahr)
and "Theophane the Monk (Idries Shah?)

|Please; if it is your inclination to tell me to simply toss the
|bible in the fire and forget about it, I would prefer that you
|enjoy your opinion in silence....

:> Here you go:

"I've been going there on retreat each year for the past forty years.
Each time it's the same, yet somehow always different. The first
time I went I forgot to bring my Bible. When I asked the guestmaster
if I could borrow a Bible, he said, 'Wouldn't you care to write your
own?'

"'What do you mean?'

"'Well, write your own Bible - something of your own on the order of the
Bible. You could tell of a classical bondage and the great liberation,
a promised land, sacred songs, a messiah - that kind of thing. Ought
to be much more interesting than just reading someone else's Bible.
And you might learn more.'

"Well, I set to work. It took me a month. I never learned so much about
the official Bible. When I was finished, he recommended I take it home
and try to live according to it for a year. I should keep a journal of
my experience. But I shouldn't tell anybody about the project, nor show
anyone the books. Next year, after Christmas, I could come back for
another retreat.

"It was quite a year. An eye-opener. Most certainly I had never put so
much energy and alertness into living by the official Bible as I was
putting into living by this one. And my daily meditations had never
been so concentrated.

"When I arrived back for my next retreat, he greeted me very warmly,
took into his hands my Bible and my journal, kissed them with greatest
reverence, and told me I could now spend a couple of days and nights
in the Hall of the Great Fire. On the last night of the year, I should
consign my two books to the flames. And that's what I did. A whole
year's wisdom and labor - into the Great Fire. Afterwards he set me
to work writing another Bible.

"And so it went, these past forty years. Each year a new Bible, a new
journal, and then at the end of the year - into the flames. Until now
I have never told anyone about this."

_Tales of a Magic Monastery_, by Theophane the Monk, pp. 43-4.
______________________________________________________________

tyagi
[***@luckymojo.com]
====================================================================

# i burn Legis at every solemn occassion I can muster.

excellent. if it is your scripture, so much the better, was all.

#># In particular, I like Phil Dick's Tractate Scriptura Cryptica # (sp?)
#># from VALIS, and N. Kazantzakis' (sp?) The Saviors of God.
#>
#> yow, I've heard very powerful recommendation on the former,
#
# you've read this one then? the novel is the cognitive support for
# the Horselover Fat's/ Phil Dick's Exegesis, and is really the main
# attraction. the 52. verses included in the back as an appendix are
# interesting, but can't really be properly be appreciated without first
# reading the VALIS novel.

I haven't read or seen that. sri catyananda has recommended it to me
more than once, and more than one PKDick fan has raved about it to me.
I haven't yet found his writing inviting and tend to read nonfiction.
having seen a bio film on the man I'm unsure I'd want his material in
my Bible, or how it might exactly relate (a cosmic Ray beaming into
his head by the God -- hm, or was it the CIA? ack!).

# N. K.'s Salvatores Dei is like a more sober Aleister Crowley Holy Books:
# good philisophic points, but less breathless cocaine-induced passages
# (or so I would guess). Curiously, both like Neitzsche, but only one of
# these men was taken seriously enough for the Catholic Church to put him
# on their No Read list, AFAIK. Gotta love that Forbidden list!

lol
now that you remind me of LTC, I understand why his book and maybe the
film too, would be put on such a list by the RCCs: heretical -- too
close to their cosmology and personage of the Jesus character to be
allowed promoted within the dictates of the church's authority.
semi-gnostic it seems to me, very human-based, possibly comparable
to some deist conceptions of Jesus as a human dealing in the
aftermath of the Creation epic.

#> never heard of the latter.
#
# well then, let me give you a decent link:
# Nikos Kazantzakis' short bio:
# http://www.philosophers.co.uk/cafe/phil_jan2003.htm

oh, now that you point out his works, I've seen both the films
(Zorba the Greek long ago, the Last Temptation of Christ numerous
times a decade or so ago or less -- I didn't read the books).
thanks for the URL. I don't usually follow them out but this one
was definitely worth it. :>

# The Saviors of God: Spiritual Exercises- initial publication in Greece
# in 1927, composed in 1923.

any relation to those Ignatius?
bunches available at Amazon and Zshops:

http://s1.amazon.com/exec/varzea/search-handle-form/002-2619387-5202438

reviews of the text:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0671202324/002-5867999-9064836

'Adam' says:

"...this is a series of spell-binding meditations that
most mainline believers of any stripe probably wouldn't
like; precisely because it scares the living daylights
out of you with its frightening possibilities and its
sirens' call of seemingly chaotic life-affirming zest. '

# Greek title: Asketeke ('Salvatores Dei') couldn't find any
# copies of this book on the nett, otherwise i would've given
# a link to same here.

#> These would be 6th and 7th (or so) on my short list.
#> 8th: Principia Discordia.

while I can appreciate the inclusion, I don't much see that the book
mentioned immediately above has to do with a supplanting or addition
to facets of the Jehovah-Jesus God (which is what *I* would be using
as a criteria for 'Bibles'.

#>#> Thomas Jefferson presumably pasted together his own bible.
#>#
#># he did. it is very lovely.

the infernal Wednesday-Tezcat borrowed mine and ne'er returned! ;>
it is a superior collage-work. inspirational. "The Jefferson Bible".

#> you can check out stuff like "The Jesus of Poets and Prophets"
#> too if you like Christian stuff. :>
#
# Is this the (a?) title he gave to his work?

different book, but it runs across the spectrum of Jesus figures.
again, when I'm back at the house, I'll give you the details if
you haven't found them at a good resource. I don't think that I
put that up online yet and don't know if the book is OP (it may
well be -- which means you may find some at Zshops -- I'll check:

ok found it. you may wish to add Zshops to your searches for books
online (because it includes O(ut of)P(rint) texts too):

Roberts, Richard (ASIN: 0804611718)
http://s1.amazon.com/exec/varzea/search-handle-form/002-2619387-5202438).

shit, that may be a difficult book to come by. the unpopular
legend-tracings and lie-compilations often get buried within
the brief attention between generations as to historicity.

here's the Zshops Adv Search page:

http://s1.amazon.com/exec/varzea/subst/search/fixed-search.html/002-2619387-5202438

which has been extremely helpful to me in locating hard-to-find items.
there are a few antiquarians which are comparable, such as Abebooks.com.

tyaginator
DngulSkarmaTathagatgarbha
2004-07-27 01:27:43 UTC
Permalink
comments inserted
-didn't post to some originating NG's me newsreader has problems with
Post by tyaginator
50040726 viii om
#>#> this Apocalyptic is not accepted by all Christians as scripture,
#>#> as, for example, the Plymouth Brethren of Crowley's childhood,
#>#> to my knowledge.
#> corrections welcomed. that's the last I recall of their sect, yes.
#>$$ i wish some of these distinctions were more often, or more popularly
#>$$ pointed out! i know the 100+ sects of christianity agree on very little
#>$$ when all is said and done, so such facts usu. are not too surprising.
#>$$ christianity itself was first cobbled together like this by Paul and
#>$$ others as far as I can tell ca. 100-400 CE. People cherry-picked the
#>$$ books (and versions of books?) they liked at Council of Nicea. Further
#>$$ christianity has never been particularly consistent over the years,
#>$$ certainly, least with/ about points of spiritual dogma. christianity is
#>$$ monolithic in its political power not in its substance, form, or
#>$$ manifestation.
#>#> this is why I consider it another 'Book' after
#>#> the Older and Newer Testaments, to which then Crowley appends
#>#> his Book. that he identifies himself in ways that harken to the
#>#> Book of Apocalyptic visions is relevant to a consideration of
#>#> his role with respect to all of these Religions of the Book.
#># I, in regular Discordian fashion, think it nifty to write your own
#># bible, preach your own law, tread your own path, forge your own
#># way, &c.
# Brother Theophane would then add: "and burn your own Bible!!"
# (cf. "Tales of a Magic Monastery").
# did a search on this. never heard of it. what is it? where's
# it from?
Theophane the Monk is the reputed author of the amusing text.
it is a batch of anecdotes, short stories, comparable to Sufi
tales compendiums. I have it from nonremembered source that
this was actually written by Idries Shah under one of his many
pseudonyms. I don't recall now who gave me that information.
the short story to which I refer I've keyed in before
============================================================
To: alt.magick
Subject: Burning Bibles 451 :> (9408.bblburn.ttm)
Date: 49940824
and "Theophane the Monk (Idries Shah?)
|Please; if it is your inclination to tell me to simply toss the
|bible in the fire and forget about it, I would prefer that you
|enjoy your opinion in silence....
but only by Telling of my opinion
and the Preaching of my law
will the Silence be consumated!
Post by tyaginator
"I've been going there on retreat each year for the past forty years.
Each time it's the same, yet somehow always different. The first
time I went I forgot to bring my Bible. When I asked the guestmaster
if I could borrow a Bible, he said, 'Wouldn't you care to write your
own?'
"'What do you mean?'
"'Well, write your own Bible - something of your own on the order of the
Bible. You could tell of a classical bondage and the great liberation,
a promised land, sacred songs, a messiah - that kind of thing. Ought
to be much more interesting than just reading someone else's Bible.
And you might learn more.'
"Well, I set to work. It took me a month. I never learned so much about
the official Bible. When I was finished, he recommended I take it home
and try to live according to it for a year. I should keep a journal of
my experience. But I shouldn't tell anybody about the project, nor show
anyone the books. Next year, after Christmas, I could come back for
another retreat.
"It was quite a year. An eye-opener. Most certainly I had never put so
much energy and alertness into living by the official Bible as I was
putting into living by this one. And my daily meditations had never
been so concentrated.
"When I arrived back for my next retreat, he greeted me very warmly,
took into his hands my Bible and my journal, kissed them with greatest
reverence, and told me I could now spend a couple of days and nights
in the Hall of the Great Fire. On the last night of the year, I should
consign my two books to the flames. And that's what I did. A whole
year's wisdom and labor - into the Great Fire. Afterwards he set me
to work writing another Bible.
"And so it went, these past forty years. Each year a new Bible, a new
journal, and then at the end of the year - into the flames. Until now
I have never told anyone about this."
_Tales of a Magic Monastery_, by Theophane the Monk, pp. 43-4.
______________________________________________________________
tyagi
====================================================================
quite nice, thanks for sharing.
Post by tyaginator
# i burn Legis at every solemn occassion I can muster.
excellent. if it is your scripture, so much the better, was all.
it is one of many

on sunday: Scriptvra Tractates Cryptica (from VALIS to PKD/ Horselover Fat)
monday: liber 49 (john marvel whiteside parsons/ Belarion)
tuesday: liber legis (from Aiwass to AC/ Therion)
wednesday: Salvatores Dei- by NK
thursday: Principia Discordia- by Thornley
friday: Cities of the Red Night- by WSB
saturday: Candle of Vision- by AE (George Russell)

one's /OWN/ Witness to and Word of God is better, see Liber Testis
Testitvdinis vel A'aD
svb figvra LXXIV (found in Liber ABA 2nd revised edition of 1997)
published in Class D, composed ca. 1918-9?
Post by tyaginator
#># In particular, I like Phil Dick's Tractate Scriptura Cryptica # (sp?)
#># from VALIS, and N. Kazantzakis' (sp?) The Saviors of God.
#>
#> yow, I've heard very powerful recommendation on the former,
#
# you've read this one then? the novel is the cognitive support for
# the Horselover Fat's/ Phil Dick's Exegesis, and is really the main
# attraction. the 52. verses included in the back as an appendix are
# interesting, but can't really be properly be appreciated without first
# reading the VALIS novel.
the Two-Source kosmology has always struck me as being a lot like AC's
Lamen of yin/ yang (frontispiece or cover of LIBER ABA)
and interesting on a bunch of other levels

the Kalendar PKD sets up also has parallels or intersections with AC's.
"Our 1974 CE is really
year 70
."- tractates paraphrase
Post by tyaginator
I haven't read or seen that. sri catyananda has recommended it to me
more than once, and more than one PKDick fan has raved about it to me.
I haven't yet found his writing inviting and tend to read nonfiction.
having seen a bio film on the man I'm unsure I'd want his material in
my Bible, or how it might exactly relate (a cosmic Ray beaming into
his head by the God -- hm, or was it the CIA? ack!).
why VALIS et. al. speaks to me:

it seems you have at least a tentative hold on the main narrative or
plot which is maybe better than nothing. the plot is hardly the main
attraction is PKD's novels. this element of the novel is not at all
emphasized. what /is/ emphasized are the internal projections of the
characters in the setting that keep fighting with 'plot' &c.

perhaps you are not assuming the same extremes/ types of self-analysis,
skeptical mysticism, necessary to describe such apparent
ludicrisnousness (sp?!) of such 'plots' convincingly. that's ok.

I don't know who was watching/ surveilling Dick, breaking into Dick's
offices, or if PKD was being watched at all, or if anyone was 'plotting'
against him or his offices. he may well have 'merely' been a paranoid
drug-addled acid casualty. It's hardly important. What is important is
the extremes of psychosis/ pathology that are alluded to in the persons
of Richard M. Nixon AND a boatful of other characters, including, but
not limited to, Horselover Fat/ Thomas.

(as an analogue, S Dali may be 'mad' from one perpective, but he IZ
obviously Genius from another. the attention to detail, the attention to
faithful reproduction of simulacra or plasticity of mind -> are we
reaching close to paranoiac-critical method? certainly we are not too far)

(replace Remedios Varo or a million others if you don't like Dali or
think he is an overused example of 'genius')

1) i read pkd for thee facing down of (internal? external?) demons/
angels/ &c....
pkd may be a tormented, deluded, and/or split soul, but i feel coumunion
('with yoke') with him all the same.

2) VALIS is really a more /philisophical/ or semi-autobiographical work
than purely /sciFi/ work. the same has been said of much of Dick's work
after ca. 1974 CE.

3) the 'Black Iron Prison' theme is as good as the 'Happy King.' his
theories of time-travel are somewhat novel and go in a more mystic
perhaps than purely sciFi direction: "am i walking in the end times? are
the end times now or before? both? neither? how do i know?"

4) Horselover Phat is PKD
iz not PKD
iz neither
both
&c.

the entire VALIS trilogy:

Alpeph> VALIS
Beta> radio free albemvth
Gimel> transmigration of timothy archer
-PLUS-

Gamma> the Exegesis (not fully published, but abridged ca. 1992 in
Divine Invasions)
Heh> his Essays

are all worth reading, if only for the possible insight gained from a
psychological pov. IOW, i don't know the standards of 'fine literature,'
but i do know the standards of good reading. PKD is all around Good
Reading, if a bit unsettling. And that's all I ask for my bibles/ books:
good reading. the good book (read or written by you) iz an axe to the
icy soul (friedrichN paraphrased). that's why you burn it, why it burns
in one! you must have ecstasy in your heart if you are to give birth to
a dancing star! (FN paraphrase)

5) the expansion/ refining/ exploring &c. of the tutelary spirit idea
(and numerous other valuable related ideas or constellation of ideas) is
ALSO the least of which somebody will gain by perusing VALIS. OTOH,
there's a lot to read, and not every book is for every one.

You are so well-read that this last point may not apply to you, but I
think you'd find the novel interesting nonetheless, and the 52. verses
of appendix at least as interesting. but there is a lot GOOD to read out
there, so I can't say you /MUST/ read Valis now. But you might like to
get to it in sometime in the next fifty years or so.
Post by tyaginator
# good philisophic points, but less breathless cocaine-induced passages
# (or so I would guess). Curiously, both like Neitzsche, but only one of
# these men was taken seriously enough for the Catholic Church to put him
# on their No Read list, AFAIK. Gotta love that Forbidden list!
lol
now that you remind me of LTC,
LTC? is that what the RCC calls their Forbidden list?
Post by tyaginator
I understand why his book and maybe the
film too, would be put on such a list by the RCCs: heretical -- too
close
too close? that might be ironic!
Post by tyaginator
to their cosmology and personage of the Jesus character to be
allowed promoted within the dictates of the church's authority.
semi-gnostic it seems to me, very human-based, possibly comparable
to some deist conceptions of Jesus as a human dealing in the
aftermath of the Creation epic.
no doubt: a little of a lot.

[a friend lets me borrow a book <<Letters from AE>>

this book could be another one of my new 'bibles?'
why not!
]
Post by tyaginator
#> never heard of the latter.
#
# http://www.philosophers.co.uk/cafe/phil_jan2003.htm
oh, now that you point out his works, I've seen both the films
(Zorba the Greek long ago, the Last Temptation of Christ numerous
times a decade or so ago or less -- I didn't read the books).
thanks for the URL. I don't usually follow them out but this one
was definitely worth it. :>
# The Saviors of God: Spiritual Exercises- initial publication in Greece
# in 1927, composed in 1923.
any relation to those Ignatius?
i don't know definitively the answer to your question.
a sure tip of the hat to the same, one surmises.
Post by tyaginator
http://s1.amazon.com/exec/varzea/search-handle-form/002-2619387-5202438
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0671202324/002-5867999-9064836
"...this is a series of spell-binding meditations that
most mainline believers of any stripe probably wouldn't
like; precisely because it scares the living daylights
out of you with its frightening possibilities and its
sirens' call of seemingly chaotic life-affirming zest. '
# Greek title: Asketeke ('Salvatores Dei') couldn't find any
# copies of this book on the nett, otherwise i would've given
# a link to same here.
#> These would be 6th and 7th (or so) on my short list.
#> 8th: Principia Discordia.
while I can appreciate the inclusion, I don't much see that the book
mentioned immediately above has to do with a supplanting or addition
to facets of the Jehovah-Jesus God (which is what *I* would be using
as a criteria for 'Bibles'.
'immediately above?' all me book sare horizontal: heh heh!
:)
principia discordia or salvatoires dei?

In my book,
any book not The (underline THE) Book,
is the book.

Since competing interests all say Their Book IS
THE Book,

all I have to Do is collect them all and Say
They All Collectively are My OWN One New Transcending Meta-Book, and
I've Successfully Affirmed and Denied them All Thereby (or Denied and
Affirmed Myself which is at least as desirable) in One Fell Swoop.

Knowledge/ Dispersion as enlightenment? who knows?

I want to confound knee-jerk Christians and Knee-jerk Satanists!
Iz that clear? Good Muslims and infidels! sorry Sadhus and yapping
Yidams! nominate me for 'Player Hater of the Year!'
(Dave Chapelle Show reference)

damn it!
i know what i mean.
Post by tyaginator
#>#> Thomas Jefferson presumably pasted together his own bible.
#>#
#># he did. it is very lovely.
the infernal Wednesday-Tezcat borrowed mine and ne'er returned! ;>
it is a superior collage-work. inspirational. "The Jefferson Bible".
#> you can check out stuff like "The Jesus of Poets and Prophets"
#> too if you like Christian stuff. :>
#
# Is this the (a?) title he gave to his work?
different book, but it runs across the spectrum of Jesus figures.
again, when I'm back at the house, I'll give you the details if
you haven't found them at a good resource. I don't think that I
put that up online yet and don't know if the book is OP (it may
ok found it. you may wish to add Zshops to your searches for books
Ah! Good tip.
Post by tyaginator
Roberts, Richard (ASIN: 0804611718)
http://s1.amazon.com/exec/varzea/search-handle-form/002-2619387-5202438).
shit, that may be a difficult book to come by. the unpopular
legend-tracings and lie-compilations often get buried within
the brief attention between generations as to historicity.
thanks for all the interesting leads.
Post by tyaginator
http://s1.amazon.com/exec/varzea/subst/search/fixed-search.html/002-2619387-5202438
which has been extremely helpful to me in locating hard-to-find items.
there are a few antiquarians which are comparable, such as Abebooks.com.
tyaginator
as fast as the aspirants shall acquire this power, so the faster will i
employ their energies further -thelemic holy books rephrase

418,
Dst

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