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3,500 Occult Manuscripts Will Be Digitized and Made Freely Available Online
- busterarm 9y agoIf only it were so easy to do this (legally) for research papers...
- IntronExon 9y agoI was totally unaware that this Ritmam library existed. I can’t pretend to be into the occult, but I like the idea of studying people who are/we’re, and this seems like a terrific resource. Only downside... You want Great Old Ones? Because this is how you get Great Old Ones.
- floren 9y agoI really like these old texts because it's interesting to try and get into the mindset of the authors. To the medieval occultist, that plant over there is growing well because Saturn is ascending or whatever, and if a rabid dog bites you, you should apply the plant to the wound because the melancholic nature of Saturn will counteract the mania of the rabies, etc. Why did such-and-such happen? A demon did it. It's a completely different way of looking at things, it's very strange to our modern sensibilities but it's also surprisingly developed and just fascinating.
- empath75 9y agoThat's also how I troubleshoot kubernetes problems.
- Xeoncross 9y ago[Angry manager stomps in] "WHY DID WE GO DOWN??? WHAT HAPPENED!??" "Nothing much we could do boss, Saturn ascended"
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- mcguire 9y agoYou may think you're kidding, but modern technology stacks have gotten so complicated and entangled that mystical troubleshooting is the routine solution. Not working? Reboot it. For all I know, the phase of Saturn (as calculated by some library down in the framework) does affect Kubernetes.
- booleandilemma 9y agoFix your PC with a crystal pendulum https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-MM0Z_jCrGo https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-MM0Z_jCrGo
- 9y ago
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 9y agoIt's just not exciting without Lovecraft. What I mean is, the word "occult" in this context may be a boring label invented by boring people, kind of like "off topic" on stackoverflow.
- Kostchei 9y agoyewp, lol, Laundry Files OPSEC vs Great Old Ones. 1. Don't scan and upload random occult manuscripts to computational devices
- couchdive 9y agoAleister Crowley is dancing a jig
- anigbrowl 9y agoIncidentally he's been dead long enough that his works fell into the public domain this last new year. So you don't have to pay Gerald Suster or whatever Thelemite fork that last had the copyrights any more.
- disgruntledphd2 9y agoHe never really wanted his books to be under copyright in any case, so I'm OK with that. I think it was the OTO who last had the copyright, sadly (as those people seem pretty wack).
- chrstphrhrt 9y agoThere’s a pretty long documentary/interview with the owner on prime video: https://www.primevideo.com/detail/0ND6NJX19GO8N1C0MPEE1D7UA8/ref=sr_hom_c_unkc_1_1?sr=1-1&qid=1516988507 https://www.primevideo.com/detail/0ND6NJX19GO8N1C0MPEE1D7UA8...
- olivermarks 9y agoyour link just takes me to my amazon prime log in page....do you have the title of the documentary please?
- chrstphrhrt 9y agoSorry, it’s called “The Ritman Library - Amsterdam”
- olivermarks 9y agothanks!
- sebnap 9y agoIs it this one? https://vimeo.com/179329765 https://vimeo.com/179329765
- sebnap 9y agoTheir site indicates more than 25k books (1,6k available): http://embassyofthefreemind.com/en/library/online-catalogue/?mode=gallery&view=horizontal&sort=random%7B1516989550519%7D%20asc http://embassyofthefreemind.com/en/library/online-catalogue/...
- Akinato 9y agoHoly shit yes. It's too bad it's pre-1900s. I found something called the Vampire Bible once and it was seriously the funniest thing I ever read.
- madeuptempacct 9y agoAs far as I know, the only "occult" concept that has any merit is lucid dreaming. Harvard also did a study on meditation which showed lowered blood pressure as compared to a control group which took a health class on high-blood pressure management techniques (diet, low stress, etc). I can't find the study now.
- desireco42 9y agoI think this is fantastic news. I really enjoyed reading old alchemy texts over at http://levity.com/alchemy/ http://levity.com/alchemy/ and like some others mentioned, just getting into mindset of people writing this and their view of the world, really opens you up about different perspectives.
- ChicagoDave 9y agoInto every generation, a slayer is born...
- thenomad 9y agoI suspect I'm one of the few readers here (@cstross being another) for whom this is genuinely important professional information. And it's fantastic. Sadly no mention of license there, though - kinda vital if one is intending to use some of the imagery in remix works - although given the texts are thoroughly out of copyright I'd assume that's not too big an issue.
- rosser 9y agoIANAL, but yeah: shouldn't these works not be under copyright, just on the basis of their age? Wouldn't the "phone book" doctrine apply here, also? There's no creative authorship in a collection of previous works.
- racer-v 9y agoThis is probably correct. Scans of public domain works which are "slavish copies" containing "no spark of originality" were ruled public domain in Bridgeman Art Library vs Corel. http://www.likelihoodofconfusion.com/who-owns-the-copyright-scans-public-domain-works/ http://www.likelihoodofconfusion.com/who-owns-the-copyright-...
- mylons 9y agocare to expound on your profession? edit: click their username to read about their profession
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- flycaliguy 9y agoI bet that shirtless youtuber is excited as well.
- oh_sigh 9y agoWhat kind of work do you do on the occult?
- 9y ago
- fastball 9y agoDoes this mean we're no longer allowed to make fun of renowned author Dan Brown[1]? 1. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/authors/dont-make-fun-of-renowned-dan-brown/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/authors/dont-make-fun-of-re...
- hutzlibu 9y agoI was thinking a bit similar, but I'd say, no, because I am still mad for all the useless discussions I had with people claiming Illuminati etc. was factual ... (what the book also claimed to be) So sure, every audience gets the writer it deserves, but still - I appreciate the gift, but there would need to be much more, before you can even consider that ... but I don't think he has so much money though.
- vivekd 9y ago> “pre-1900 texts on alchemy, astrology, magic, and theosophy, I don't understand, what's really the use of any of this stuff except for their insight into history and as precursors to science. There's no way any of this stuff has any meaningful application today. I also don't understand how anyone can find this stuff interesting, they're often boring, hard to read, and filled with obviously erroneous information
- TillE 9y agoIt's all part of understanding the culture of the time. Manuscripts generally are quite hard to read: the language, the script, etc.
- sibeliuss 9y ago> It's all part of understanding the culture of the time. Fortunately it's not all that -- there are quite a few techniques inside that one can employ (e.g., meditation) to achieve, with practice, certain mystical results
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- poisonarena 9y agothis is the first time I have ever seen someone hate on medieval manuscripts
- Jemmeh 9y agoYou just said it, for the history. It's just interesting to read about people who think so differently and their culture. Sort of like historical science-fiction.
- flycaliguy 9y agoI enjoy old typesetting myself
- jimjimjim 9y ago
- d-crane 9y agoThe Ritman library is absolutely wonderful, and open to the public without appointment; if you find yourself in Amsterdam, it's absolutely worth it to go ring their doorbell and look around. It was the highlight of my post-high-school Europe trip.
- Quequau 9y agoWhatever happened to that giant library of scanned books that Google created?
- pradn 9y agoThe books are just sitting in storage until the laws change. https://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/what-ever-happened-to-google-books https://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/what-ever-happen...
- hartror 9y agoAnyone else reminded of the The Laundry Files series by Charles Stross? Am now expecting ICOs for occult based startups . . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Laundry_Files https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Laundry_Files
- api 9y agoThe Great Old Ones could just have their own ICO.
- Crespyl 9y agoThe other day on HN I saw a comment that described Bitcoin/proof-of-work cryptocurrencies as being "created by an act of ritual sacrifice" (of electricity/compute power). I recon there's grounds for some amusing short stories in there.
- IntronExon 9y agoIt would certainly explain why nobody has found Satoshi! He was just a tool of Cthulhu and his cultists to increase the rate of dissipation. At some critical juncture the total entropy of the system will be sufficient to allow invasion of our reality by tentacular horrors. Maybe...
- zipwitch 9y agoInstall Cthulhoid Overlord?
- madeuptempacct 9y agoSo, no one here, ever looked into this stuff and found any conventionally useful insights? Nothing?
- YTGRK 9y agohttps://youtu.be/I2l8xkjTUh4 https://youtu.be/I2l8xkjTUh4
- Havoc 9y agoThat's pretty cool. I mean not into it, but I think it's worth preserving.
- zmix 9y agoThe soulhackers are amongst us!
- 2close4comfort 9y agoIt would truly be great to see the actual texts of early cryptography like Trithemius and John Dee.
- Eliezer 9y agoI applaud their very, very confident reductionism.