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Books > Health, Home & Family > Mind, body & spirit > The Occult > General
Charles Fort's classic recording of unexplained, paranormal events
and phenomena offer fascinating insights into bizarre occurrences
the author felt had been unjustly damned from formal, scientific
study. The title derives from the author's perception that the
book's subjects were so stigmatized and excluded from ordinary
scientific inquiry that they had become 'damned'. Perhaps
permanently forbade for formal study, the oddities and unexplained
events in this text were felt worthy of attention by the author,
who eventually became an authority on anomalous phenomena. The
topics in Fort's thesis include unexplained disappearances of large
groups of people, frogs and fish suddenly raining from the sky, the
possibility that mythical beasts such as giants exist, UFOs
manifest as glowing and sometimes moving lights in the sky, and
bizarre weather phenomena. Fort attributes credence to many of
these oddities, and argues that science - by dismissing them - has
become a religion in itself.
Rudolf Steiner's superb thesis provides deep insight into spiritual
science, and the history of mankind as viewed through the
philosophy of the anthroposophy movement he founded. An Outline of
Esoteric Science attempts to reconcile mankind's spiritual being
with the scientific exactitude which had emerged among scholars in
the 19th century. Steiner lays out the spiritual realms which are
invisible to us, attempting to use a defined precision similar to
that which had emerged in science. In the final section, this book
refers to the spiritual development and contemplation necessary for
individuals to see the spiritual realms and planes which comprise
existence and the universe. The means by which individuals may
train themselves introspectively to see are detailed by Steiner,
whose theosophical philosophy was, by the time of this book's
publication in 1909, well-developed.
Herbert Silberer's examinations of alchemy and the occult, and his
attempts to correlate the two crafts to the pursuit of
psychoanalysis, is published here complete with the original
illustrations. First published in 1917, this text represents the
extensive investigations Herbert Silberer undertook in order to map
occurrences in the occult with the ascendant psychoanalytic
disciplines present in the Vienna School of which he was part. This
text is marked by its depth of research, with sources such as
Hermes Trismegistus, Flamel, Lacinius, Michael Meier, Paracelsus,
and Boehme quoted and drawn upon in service of Silberer's thesis.
The support of alchemy as a spiritual movement, on the same level
as the yoga traditions of the Indian subcontinent, is also notable.
Together with the three original illustrations, this edition also
contains the extensive bibliography and notes of Silberer.
Paul Foster Case was an American occultist of the early 20th
century and author of numerous books on occult tarot and Qabalah.
Perhaps his greatest contributions to the field of occultism were
the lessons he wrote for associate members of Builders of the
Adytum. The Knowledge Lectures given to initiated members of the
Chapters of the B.O.T.A. were equally profound, although the
limited distribution has made them less well known. Case was early
on attracted to the occult. While still a child he reported
experiences that today are called lucid dreaming. He corresponded
about these experiences with Rudyard Kipling who encouraged him as
to the validity of his paranormal pursuits. In the year 1900, Case
met the occultist Claude Bragdon while both were performing at a
charity performance. Bragdon asked Case what he thought the origin
of playing cards was. After pursuing the question in his father's
library, Case discovered a link to tarot, called 'The Game of Man,
' thus began what would become Case's lifelong study of the tarot,
and leading to the creation of the B.O.T.A. tarot deck, a
"corrected" version of the Rider-Waite cards. Between 1905 and 1908
(aged 20-24), Case began practicing yoga, and in particular
pranayama, from what published sources were available. His early
experiences appear to have caused him some mental and emotional
difficulties and left him with a lifelong concern that so called
"occult" practice be done with proper guidance and training.
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