GSXR Compilation 118

1. Captured! The Betty and Barney Hill UFO Experience: The True Story of the World's First Documented Alien Abduction - stanton friedman 2007

Today, 46 years after the UFO abduction of Betty and Barney Hill, more and more people are convinced that UFOs are real and their existence is being covered up by the government. If you have doubts or questions about the Hill case or alien experiences in general, Captured! will give you the answers you're searching for.

The 1961 abduction of the Hills stirred worldwide interest, primarily because of the book The Interrupted Journey, the subsequent media coverage, and a 1975 TV movie, The UFO Incident. The case is mentioned in almost all UFO abduction books. It also became a target for debunkers, who still attack it today.

But the complete story of what really happened that day, its effect on the participants, and the findings of investigators has never been told...until now.

In Captured! you'll get an insider's look at the alien abduction, previously unpublished information about the lives of the Hills before and after Barney's death in 1969, their status as celebrities, Betty's experiences as a UFO investigator, and other activities before her death in 2004.

Kathleen Marden, Betty Hill's niece, shares details from her discussions with Betty and from the evidence of the UFO abduction. She also looks at the Hills' riveting hypnosis sessions about their time onboard the spacecraft. The transcripts of these sessions provide insight into the character of the aliens, including their curiosity, their democratic discussions, and their desire to avoid inflicting pain.

In addition, co-author, physicist, and ufologist Stanton T. Friedman, the original civilian investigator of the Roswell Incident, reviews and refutes the arguments of those who have attacked the Hill case, including the star map Betty Hill saw inside the craft and later recreated.

2. Kundalini: The Evolutionary Energy in Man - Krishna Gopi 1997

Coiled like a snake at the base of the spine, kundalini is the spiritual force that lies dormant in every human being. Once awakened, often through meditation and yoga practices, it rises up the spine and finds expression in the form of spiritual knowledge, mystical vision, psychic powers, and ultimately, enlightenment. This is the classic first-person account of Gopi Krishna, an ordinary Indian householder who, at the age of thirty-four, after years of unsupervised meditation, suddenly experienced the awakening of kundalini during his morning practice. The story of this transformative experience, and the author's struggle to find balance amid a variety of powerful physiological and psychic side effects, forms the core of the book. His detailed descriptions of his dramatic inner experiences and symptoms such as mood swings, eating disorders, and agonizing sensations of heat—and of how, with the help of his wife, he finally stabilized at a higher level of consciousness—make this one of the most valuable classics of spiritual awakening available.

3. Grimoires: A History of Magic Books - Owen Davies 2009

No books have been more feared than grimoires, and no books have been more valued and revered. In Grimoires: A History of Magic Books, Owen Davies illuminates the many fascinating forms these recondite books have taken and exactly what these books held.
At their most benign, these repositories of forbidden knowledge revealed how to make powerful talismans and protective amulets, and provided charms and conjurations for healing illness, finding love, and warding off evil. But other books promised the power to control innocent victims, even to call up the devil. Davies traces the history of this remarkably resilient and adaptable genre, from the ancient Middle East to modern America, offering a new perspective on the fundamental developments of western civilization over the past two thousand years. Grimoires shows the influence magic and magical writing has had on the cultures of the world, richly demonstrating the role they have played in the spread of Christianity, the growth of literacy, and the influence of western traditions from colonial times to the present. Through his enlightening and extraordinary account, we see how these secret books link Chicago to ancient Egypt, Germany to Jamaica, and Norway to Bolivia, and grasp how the beliefs of Alpine farmers became part of the Rastafarian movement, how a Swede became the most powerful wizard in early America, and how a poor laborer from Ohio became a notorious villain in his own country and a mythical spirit in the Caribbean.
Despite religious condemnation and laws barring their use, the grimoire has survived to the present day, and not just in Harry Potter films and Broadway's Wicked. Here is a lively and informative history of a genre that holds a powerful fascination for countless readers of the occult.

4. Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism: Special Issue on “Esotericism and Fiction”: The Horror of Disenchantment

Arthur McCalla
“Eternal Sun” / “Black Sun”: Illuminism and Disenchanted Romanticism

Antoine Faivre
Borrowings and Misreading: Edgar Allan Poe’s “Mesmeric” Tales and the Strange Case of their Reception

Marco Pasi
Arthur Machen’s Panic Fears: Western Esotericism and the Irruption of Negative Epistemology

Wouter J. Hanegraaff
Fiction in the Desert of the Real: Lovecraft ’s Cthulhu Mythos

vol. VII, no.2 2007

Radek Chlup
The Ritualization of Language in the Hermetica

Brendan French
Blavatsky, Dostoevskii, and Occult Starchestvo

Hélène Koehl-Krebs
Spiritisme et Piété Luthérienne en Toscane, avant le “Grand Marché”

Jean-Marc Mandosio
Problèmes et controverses: à propos de quelques publications récentes sur la magie au Moyen Âge et à la Renaissance

vol. VIII, no.1 2008

Valery Rees
The Care of the Soul: States of Consciousness in the Writings of Marsilio Ficino

Glenn Alexander Magee
Hegel on the Paranormal: Altered States of Consciousness in the Philosophy of Subjective Spirit

C. J. Pevateaux
Widened Awareness: Allen Ginsberg’s Poetic Transmission of a Blakean Inflected Esoteric Dream-Insight

Leonardo Sacco
La tradizione taoista nel pensiero di René Guénon

vol. VIII, no.2 2008

Gerhard Mayer
Die Bedeutung von Tradition und Geheimnis für praktizierende Magier des 21. Jahrhunderts: Ergebnisse einer Interviewstudie

Egil Asprem
Magic Naturalized? Negotiating Science and Occult Experience in Aleister Crowley’s Scientific Illuminism

Pauline Chakmakjian
Theological Lying and Religious Radicalism in Anderson’s Constitutions

5. Christian Astrology, Books 1 and 2 - By William Lilly 2005

This is the most famous, the most celebrated astrology book in the English language. It has been prized by students ever since its first publication in 1647. The Horary Astrology in these pages, in the hands of a master, is no mere parlour game. It is demanding and precise, combining science and art. Properly used, it will give answer to any well-defined question.

In this volume:

Book 1, An Introduction to Astrology, containing the use of an ephemeris; the erecting of a scheme of heaven; nature of the twelve signs of the Zodiac, of the planets; with a most easy introduction to the whole art of astrology.

Book 2, The Resolution of All Manner of Questions, by a most methodical way, instructs the student how to judge or resolve all manner of questions contingent unto man, viz, of health, sickness, riches, marriage, preferment, journeys, etc. Some 35 questions inserted and judged.

Includes: Original woodcut charts, as well as charts in modern round format; glossary of archaic terms; original marginalia; Lilly's original bibliography & index. Spellings & verb tenses modernized, the entire book (including tables) reset in modern typeface. The contents of this book match the 1985 Regulus facsimile (of the 1647 original) page-for-page, often line-for-line. This is Lilly's great book as he himself knew it, brought into the 21st century.

Summary: A monument of astrology
Rating: 4

Very nice publication of a fundamental text for any (would-be) astrologer. Not really for beginners though, as rather much is assumed as common knowledge, and the style is dense. Book 2 (second part of published volume 1) is geared to previsions/horary matters.
Summary: Essential Horary Astrology Text
Rating: 5

Christian Astrology is the most important book on horary astrology by probably the best ever horary astrologer William Lilly. It would be a hard choice, but I would have to say that if I could only have one astrology book, Christian Astrology would be it. As a professional astrologer I literally use it every day. We are so lucky to be living at a time when this most classic of horary texts is so easily available. The debt that his contemporaries owed Lilly is clear when you see how much they stole right out of Christian Astrology. Christian Astrology has so much more detail on almost any horary question than any other traditional source. All traditional astrologers, whether natal, electional or horary, need a copy of this essential text! The Astrology Classics version comes in two volumes, Books 1&2 of Christian Astrology in one volume and Book 3 in the other. You really need both, yes, I know that Book 3 is natal astrology, but there is all sorts of useful information in it for horary and vice versa. Get both volumes! The Astrology Classics version is not a facsimile, it is in modern font with modernized spelling. It contains the original Lilly example charts along with modern, computer calculated versions of the chart examples. The pagination is the same as the original and the marginal comments and glosses are included as well. The Astrology Classics version also contains the original index now alphabetized more consistently and a new glossary. If you are serious about horary astrology, particularly if you are practicing horary, you are probably going to want a copy of Christian Astrology in hard copy or book form. It is a whole lot easier to flip through this way. Astrology Classics has really done a great job with this version. The layout is clean and appealing and the books are quite reasonably priced. If you want a copy of Christian Astrology in book form, this is the one to get!

6. Angels - Peter Lamborn Wilson

180 illustrations, 38 in color

Most westerners, when they hear the word 'Angel', think of Christianity; many assume that only Christian artists have depicted them since Jewish law forbids all such representations. This is simply not so. Already we have seen Angels in classical myth and philosophy, Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism and Islam.

Angels have played rather an ambigous role in Christianity. St.Paul bitterly attacked 'the worship of Angels which some enter into blindly, puffed up by their mere human minds' - which suggests the existence in his time of a cult of Angels. The Council of Nicaea in 325 declared belief in Angels a part of dogma, and apparently this caused an explosive renewal of the cult: in 343 the Synod Laodicaea condemned the worship of Angels as 'idolatry'. Finally in 787 the Seventh Ecumenical Synod reinstated a carefully defined and limited cult of the Archangels which took root in the Eastern Church; in the West, however, the distrust of Angels remained stronger.

7. Treatise of the Reintegration of Beings - Martinez de Pasqually

The information available about Jacques de Livron de La Tour de la Case Martinez de Pasqually are poor . His memory is exclusively connected with the mission he devoted his short life to: making more accessible, to the Western world, the transmutation techniques of the Qabbalah, by transposing them in a theologically acceptable language (according to the Christian ethic point of view). He was born in Grenoble in 1727, to an affluent Jewish family of Portuguese origin. Since early childhood he devoted himself completely to the study of the Qabbalah which he probably studied with Simon Ben Jochai, one of the most prestigious masters of his time.

Introduced to Freemasonry by his father, Martinez traveled around Southern France’s Lodges from 1754 to 1760, gathering around him, passionate followers of his ideas. In 1760, in Foix, he created the first Chapter of a new High Masonic Degrees’ system: the Order of the Elected Cohen of the Universe.

Suddenly,in 1772 he left for Haiti with the purpose of establishing a Chapter of his Order in Port –au-France. A sudden attack of malaria killed him on September 20th 1774 in Port-au France.

According to the doctrine of the cabalist schools, the Glory of God spreads in the universe progressively filling ten symbolic vases, the so called Sephiroth that correspond to the ten further levels of manifestation. The ideal disposition of the Sephiroth is similar to the shape of a human body; man can awake their strength within himself progressively through a work of purification together with continuous invocations to the Angels who rule them. In case of successful outcome, man feels “reintegrated” with all the previous faculties Adam enjoyed before falling and he concludes the process of inner transmutation (which in cabalist terms is defined with “reintegration”).

Martinez’ idea was to create a Masonic system of 10 degrees, each corresponding to a Sephirah, according to this scheme:

Order of Elected Cohen

1st class- Blue Freemasonry:

1st degree- Apprentice(sephirah:Malkuth)
2nd degree- Fellow Craft(sephirah:Yesod)
3rd degree- Master(sephirah:Hod)
4th degree- Apprentice Cohen(sephirah:Netzach)

2nd class- Class of the Porch

5th degree- Fellow Craft Cohen (sephirah:Tiphareth)
6th degree- Master Cohen (sephirah:Geburah)
7th degree- Particular Master (sephirah:Chesed)

3rd class- Class of the Temple:

8th degree-Great Elected Cohen Master (sehirah:Binah)
9th degree- Knight of the Orient (sephirah:Choknah).

4th class (secret):

10th degree-Reau-Croix (sephirah:Kether).

A secret doctrine around man’s fall and reintegration was taught in the degrees of the Order. By following initiations, the transmutant would climb step-by step up the reintegrative ladder and through the operations of sacred magic he devoted himself and he was able to receive the signs (so called “steps”) of his own rise. These signs were created by the mental iradiation of luminous hieroglyphs.

Only by starting the degree of High Master Elected Cohen the real transmutative work was happening, through purification, exorcism and assistance to the theurgic operations of higher degrees. In the degree of Knight of Orient, the practical aspect was omitted and the transmutant student was exclusively engaged in the theoretic study of the inner transmutation.

The main textbook was a book by Martinez himself: ”The Treatise of the Reintegration of the Beings” where he greatly used his cabalist knowledge.

This book (that was circulating as a manuscript till 1899, and has been revealed recently outside by the Order)is practically a commentary on the early books of the Bible, where at the beginning is described the fall of the spiritual beings created by God, that originated the creation.

After this first tragedy, God derives man :a man-God whose mission is to “watch the fallen Angels and rule over the Universe, the Earth and all the celestial and earthy Spirits”. But man betrays him too because of man's arrogance and God sends him down from Eden to the Earth, giving him the chance of expiating his sin and walking the opposite path, of “reintegration in its original properties, virtues and powers”.

In the Hebraic history, Martinez researches examples and prototypes of reintegrated men: Abel, Enoch, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Salomon and Christ, who represent the highest point of those following reconciliation.

De Pasqually put forth the philosophy underlying the work of the Elus Cohens in his only book, Treatise on the Reintegration of Beings which first uses the analogy of the Garden of Eden, and refers to Christ as "The Repairer". The ultimate aim of the Elus Cohen was to attain - whilst living - the Beatific Vision, through a series of magical invocations and complex theurgic operations.