Автор: Colin Wilson Название: The Occult: A History Издательство: Random House Год: 1971 ISBN: 978-0394465555 Язык: English Формат: pdf Размер: 11,8 mb Страниц: 601
Primitive man believed the world was full of unseen forces: the orenda (spirit force) of the American Indians, the Imaca of the ancient Peruvians. The Age of Reason said that these forces had only ever existed in man's imagination; only reason could show man the truth about the universe. The trouble was that man became a thinking pygmy, and the world of the rationalists was a daylight place in which boredom, trivialitv and 'ordinariness' were ultimate truths.
But the main trouble with human beings is their tendency to become trapped in the 'triviality of everydayness' (to borrow Heidegger's phrase), in the suffocating world of their personal preoccupations. And every time they do this, they forget the immense world of broader significance that stretches around them. And since man needs a sense of meaning to release his hidden energies, this forgetfulness pushes him deeper into depression and boredom, the sense that nothing is worth the effort.
PREFACE INTRODUCTION
PART ONE
A Survey of the Subject 1. Magic - The Science of the Future 2. The Dark Side of the Moon 3. The Poet as Occultist
PART TWO
A History of Magic 1. The Evolution of Man 2. The Magic of Primitive Man 3. Adepts and Initiates 4. The World of the Kabbalists 5. Adepts and Impostors 6. The Nineteenth Century - Magic and Romanticism 7. The Beast Himself 8. Two Russian Mages
PART THREE
Man's Latent Powers 1. Witchcraft and Lycanthropy 2. The Realm of Spirits 3. Glimpses
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