Author: aristocratsofthesoul
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A Re-Introduction: Why Aristocrats of the Soul Is Back
This site was quiet and offline for a long time. Not because the questions it explores stopped mattering to me, but because my life became full, demanding, and very real. In the years Aristocrats of the Soul was offline, I became a mother. I worked long hours—often from early morning until late at night—between having…
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Advice from Plato on Keeping New Years’ Resolutions
The writings of ancient philosophers can be extremely useful for daily life in the modern world. This is especially true for the Greek philosopher Plato (c. 428–348 BC). In The Republic, he outlined the ideal way a person should structure his mind, spirit, and emotions. Plato didn’t specifically mention New Years’ resolutions (the tradition of making promises…
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Aleister Crowley Books for Beginners
I was 17 when I bought my first Crowley book—Book 4. I had been browsing the occult and New Age sections of bookstores for more than a year looking for some book on Magick or witchcraft that seemed to be the “real deal.” Once I opened Book 4, I knew I had found it. I started…
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Leonora Carrington’s Alchemical Paintings and the Sacred Domestic Space
Leonora Carrington was a student of the esoteric and magical arts, particularly the legends of Ireland and Mexico. Though raised in the debutante circles of England, she ran off at a young age with surrealist (and then-married) Max Ernst. In Paris she was at the center of artistic circles that included Salvador Dalí, André Breton, Joan…
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Paideia: The Ancient Greek Art of Becoming an Educated Citizen
Paideia is a concept from ancient Greece that referred to the training and education of the ideal aristocratic member of the city-state. This training included the liberal arts, philosophy, sciences, being a moral person, and also being physically fit. It derives from the Greek word for the rearing of a child or discipline (in the sense of…
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An Easy Guide to Jungian Dream Interpretation
Dream interpretation using the methods of Carl Jung is fairly simple, doesn’t require a ton of knowledge about mythology or archetypes, and can be one of the most valuable tools in a Magician’s arsenal. In the book Inner Work, Robert Johnson details a concise four-step process for Jungian dream interpretation. All it takes is the willingness…
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Spiral Dynamics: Bridging the Right and Left in Current Politics
Ken Wilber’s Spiral Dynamics is a model of human development and stages of human consciousness that encompasses every viewpoint without judgment. Although it’s customary to examine societies and voting patterns using nationality, ethnicity, race, sex, socio-economic status, or religion, Spiral Dynamics presents a way to analyze political affiliations outside these narrow demographic fields. In Spiral…
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The Glass Bead Game: Hermann Hesse on Meditation and Yoga
“No noble and exalted life exists, without knowledge of devils and demons, and without continual struggle against them.”~ Father Jacobus The Glass Bead Game was Hermann Hesse’s last published work, and he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946 largely on its merits. Most of Hesse’s novels explore themes of Eastern spirituality and esoteric doctrines, and The…
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Greatness of Soul: Six Characteristics of Aristotle’s Ideal Person
Before the small-souled bugman, there was Aristotle’s small-souled person. In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle describes the small-souled person as someone a bit too weak, a bit too eager to self-depreciate. The kind of person who “seems to have something bad about him” (probably because he thinks something’s bad about him). This post may contain affiliate…
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Julius Evola on the Virtues of the Grail
In The Mystery of the Grail: Initiation and Magic in the Quest for the Spirit, Julius Evola examines the Grail Legend from a spiritual perspective, particularly in terms of a pre-Christian initiatory tradition. As such, the Grail is not a physical object, but is seen as a transcendent element or state of spiritual enlightenment. This post may contain affiliate…