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This text discusses how W. B. Yeats, Aleister Crowley, Ezra Pound and Robert Graves had access to the forbidden knowledge of the Goddess. These four poets experienced a confrontation with their unconscious and let the grace of the Goddess touch their heart strings. Consequently, through this surrendering, they created avant-garde poetry and were inspired to write seditious manifestos that would teach humanity an esoteric creed. This creed, based on humans eternal divine essence, aspires to liberate the eternal feminine. These poets became the instruments of the Goddess. As defenders of the Light, they took arms against the forces of inertia and proclaimed the eleusis of a new faith. This creed pledges to overthrow the anachronistic religious and social institutions and initiate a new world order and a new divinity based on the ancient rites of the Great Goddess. No matter how disparate these four were in character, they shared the vision of transmitting esoteric knowledge to profane humanity. They were specifically chosen by the Goddess as Her troubadours and they pave Her way to the religious consciousness of the people.
The enigmatic relation between religion and science still presents a challenge to European societies and to ideas about what it means to be ‘modern.’ This book argues that European secularism, rather than pushing back religious truth claims, in fact has been religiously productive itself. The institutional establishment of new disciplines in the nineteenth century, such as religious studies, anthropology, psychology, classical studies, and the study of various religious traditions, led to a professionalization of knowledge about religion that in turn attributed new meanings to religion. This attribution of meaning resulted in the emergence of new religious identities and practices. In a ...
Magic and the Occult in Contemporary Poetry investigates the relationship between poetry and magic in the context of contemporary poetics. It traces the history of ‘magical poetics’ and the poetry of the occult to the present, in order to ask, in the context of contemporary US poetry, what potential there is for a magical poetics, or a poetics of the occult, today. The book argues that a magical or occult poetics offers a vital counterpoint to more mainstream poetic trends. It defines a magical or occult poetics in terms of the willingness of a poet to entertain a magical worldview for the purposes of writing poetry or the willingness to experiment with creative techniques and processes derived from magical or occult practices. It explores the allure of the poet as magician, the conceptualization of language as inherently magical, and the implications of adopting a magical perspective in poetic creation. It also delves into the specific creative techniques and processes central to magical and occult poetics, including the use of spellcraft, trance, divination, and ritual in the composition of poetry.
"The book is organized around five distinct themes that include studies on Graves's own literary criticism, offer new insights into his poetry, produce commentary on his often overlooked fictional output, make some reflections on the origins and importance of his White Goddess, and examine some literary crosscurrents that have pollinated Graves's work."--BOOK JACKET.
The topical issues debated in this volume include the patenting of AIDS drugs, the future pensions crisis, Britain's universities, and Pan-Islam.There are studies of Shakespeare, Pope, Montaigne, Robert Graves, and William Faulkner. And there are lectures on the Inquisition, empires in history, and the journey towards spiritual fulfilment.
As this book demonstrates, the cradle of the Mystery Cults of the Goddess and of Western civilization is the Aegean region, an area extending from the Balkans to Crete and from the Ionian Sea to Asia Minor. The Eleusinian Mysteries do not originate from Old Europe or Egypt, but from the worship of the Pelasgian goddess Daeira, Mother Earth, who preceded Demeter and whose cult was indigenous to Eleusis. As shown here, in the Mysteries of the Goddess, the initiates descend into the depths of their psyche, perceive the midnight sun, transcend duality, and achieve cosmic consciousness symbolized by the unity and harmony of the Great Goddess. The Pelasgians, Minyans, and Minoans, the Aegean regio...
The book demonstrates how Kazantzakis—like Carl Jung, living through dark and critical times—turned inward and heard the silent cry of the inner Divinity. As a Light Warrior, and an initiate of the Western esoteric tradition, Kazantzakis aligned his rhythm with the Universal rhythm, becoming an instrument of the Spirit of the Age. His mission: to spread a new religious paradigm and prepare humanity for the coming of the new Aeon of the Holy Spirit. Seized by the power of the primordial source, Kazantzakis conveyed to humanity that deep within the psyche lies a Divinity capable of liberating us from the shackles of matter and blind obedience to a false creator. He declared humanity’s in...
As millions of readers worldwide react to Dan Brownâ (TM)s The Da Vinci Code, so do many scholars. The novel has become a proxy debate for two compelling scholarly and social issues of our time: the feminist/post-feminist challenge to patriarchal authority; and the textual construction of meaning and value. Presenting the feminine as both dominant and sacred brings attention to every text which argues for dominance or divinity. Traditional scholars are being challenged to defend their disciplines and practices, to reassert the authority of their knowledge base. Postmodern scholars are finding an opportunity to explain to the world at large how texts construct meaning and maintain power stru...
A new volume in the distinguished annual that presents the latest and best Yeats criticism