The Dark Arts, by Richard Cavendish Options

This one is unfinished. Once agian I am just copying from elsewhere.

This book is so awesome, and everything is cited. It is non-biased and shouldn't be offensive to anyone. It is written like a text book in a college class, with everything cited, it is just... better written than a text book usually is... But anyway, here are my favorite quotes and I would love to discuss anything about it.

"The principal process in the Grimoire of Honorius, which is usually considered he most diabolical of them all, overflows with impassioned and perfectly sincere appeals to God and devout sayings of mass."
-page 3

Interesting.

"The magician sets out to conquer the universe. To succeed he must make himself master of everything in it-- evil and well as good, cruelty as well as mercy, pain as well as pleasure."
-page 3

"In magic the universe is a human organism on a colossal scale. Just as all facets of a man's character and behavior are aspects of some one thing which underlies and connects them. The one thing is a being, a force, a substance, a principle, or somethng which it is not possible to describe in words at all. it is the One, or God."
-page 5

"The channel between his inner impulses and the forces outside him is his imagination, and a powerful imagination is his most important single piece os equipment. His powers of concentration are also vitally imprtant."
-page 6

"To affirm and will what ought to be is to create; to affirm and will what ought not to be is to destroy."
-page 7 quoted from Eliphas Levi

"Another important magical theory about the universe is the doctrine of opposites."

"Day gives way to night and summer to winter, calm follows storm, what is born must eventually die and what grows strong will in time grow weak. But they(Greek philosophers) did not think the universe could be entirely explained in these terms. They believed that there was something which held them in balance so that the pendulum swung regularly to and fro, from day to night and back to day, something of which the opposites were themselves a part.
The magician's search is for this 'something' which underlies and connects the opposites, the mysterious One which reconciles all diversity in unity. The path to the One lies through the reconciliation of opposites. To experience and master all things is to experience and reconcile opposites-- good and evil, the spritual and the material, freedom and neccessity, reason and passion, laughter and tears. In magic, as in Hegelian dialectic, progress comes through the reconciliation of opposites, thesis and antithesis, in a sythesis which transcends them."
-page 9

Explanation of "as below so above" and all that which I have heard debated

"One of the most deeply reverenced of magical documents is the Emerald Tableof Hermes Trimegistus."

"A Latin version of the Emerald Table was in existance by 1200 and earlier Arabic versions have been discovered. No two translations of it agree and none of them make very much sense, but for magical purposesthe important part of it is th eopening sentence of the Latin version-- quod superious est sicut quoad inferius et quod inferius est sicut quod superius ad perpetranda miracula rei unius, 'that which is above is like that which is below and that which is below is like that which is above, to achieve the wonders of the one thing.' This is the great magical doctrine of 'as above, so below', which is the foundation of the art of astrology. It is one way of putting the theory that man is the earthly counterpart of God: as God is in heaven so man is on earth. it is also a statement of the old belief that events on earth parallel the doings of the gods in heaven.
Events of earth run parallel to events in heaven because both depend on the workings of the same force ('the one thing' which reconciles the opposites of 'above' and 'below'), like two wheels turned by the same cog-wheel."
-page 12

I'll add more later.

I need to close the computer and go read. lol!

This one is unfinished. Once agian I am just copying from elsewhere.

This book is so awesome, and everything is cited. It is non-biased and shouldn't be offensive to anyone. It is written like a text book in a college class, with everything cited, it is just... better written than a text book usually is... But anyway, here are my favorite quotes and I would love to discuss anything about it.

"The principal process in the Grimoire of Honorius, which is usually considered he most diabolical of them all, overflows with impassioned and perfectly sincere appeals to God and devout sayings of mass."
-page 3

Interesting.

"The magician sets out to conquer the universe. To succeed he must make himself master of everything in it-- evil and well as good, cruelty as well as mercy, pain as well as pleasure."
-page 3

"In magic the universe is a human organism on a colossal scale. Just as all facets of a man's character and behavior are aspects of some one thing which underlies and connects them. The one thing is a being, a force, a substance, a principle, or somethng which it is not possible to describe in words at all. it is the One, or God."
-page 5

"The channel between his inner impulses and the forces outside him is his imagination, and a powerful imagination is his most important single piece os equipment. His powers of concentration are also vitally imprtant."
-page 6

"To affirm and will what ought to be is to create; to affirm and will what ought not to be is to destroy."
-page 7 quoted from Eliphas Levi

"Another important magical theory about the universe is the doctrine of opposites."

"Day gives way to night and summer to winter, calm follows storm, what is born must eventually die and what grows strong will in time grow weak. But they(Greek philosophers) did not think the universe could be entirely explained in these terms. They believed that there was something which held them in balance so that the pendulum swung regularly to and fro, from day to night and back to day, something of which the opposites were themselves a part.
The magician's search is for this 'something' which underlies and connects the opposites, the mysterious One which reconciles all diversity in unity. The path to the One lies through the reconciliation of opposites. To experience and master all things is to experience and reconcile opposites-- good and evil, the spritual and the material, freedom and neccessity, reason and passion, laughter and tears. In magic, as in Hegelian dialectic, progress comes through the reconciliation of opposites, thesis and antithesis, in a sythesis which transcends them."
-page 9

Explanation of "as below so above" and all that which I have heard debated

"One of the most deeply reverenced of magical documents is the Emerald Tableof Hermes Trimegistus."

"A Latin version of the Emerald Table was in existance by 1200 and earlier Arabic versions have been discovered. No two translations of it agree and none of them make very much sense, but for magical purposesthe important part of it is th eopening sentence of the Latin version-- quod superious est sicut quoad inferius et quod inferius est sicut quod superius ad perpetranda miracula rei unius, 'that which is above is like that which is below and that which is below is like that which is above, to achieve the wonders of the one thing.' This is the great magical doctrine of 'as above, so below', which is the foundation of the art of astrology. It is one way of putting the theory that man is the earthly counterpart of God: as God is in heaven so man is on earth. it is also a statement of the old belief that events on earth parallel the doings of the gods in heaven.
Events of earth run parallel to events in heaven because both depend on the workings of the same force ('the one thing' which reconciles the opposites of 'above' and 'below'), like two wheels turned by the same cog-wheel."
-page 12

I'll add more later.

I need to close the computer and go read. lol!

I think the title is the black arts, right?I plan on reading that very soon as i've heard very good things about that book.

The title is indeed The Black Arts, not the Dark Arts.

That book is one of the best general references on the occult there is. My copy's seen better days--the cover is held together with heavy clear tape--but it still gets used a great deal just for general reading. Unfortunately there haven't been as many general books nearly as good on this subject in a very long time. :/ I wish there were more.

Anyway, yes, it's a real classic and definitely worth reading again and again.

The title is indeed The Black Arts, not the Dark Arts.

That book is one of the best general references on the occult there is. My copy's seen better days--the cover is held together with heavy clear tape--but it still gets used a great deal just for general reading. Unfortunately there haven't been as many general books nearly as good on this subject in a very long time. :/ I wish there were more.

Anyway, yes, it's a real classic and definitely worth reading again and again.

Sorry I haven't been on here in a while.

How in the hell did I do that?! I did that with the dam book right in front of my face.... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/oops.gif)