What has been your favourite (digimob) download?

As I am sure you know we share our name with the release group (digimob) who periodically unleash mega-torrents full of goodies, of which I am also sure most of you have occasionally partaken.

What would be interesting to hear is which has been the most useful , interesting or surprising document that you have found there.

Not only is it good to hear your experiences, but it will also help inspire people as to what to put next on their reading list.

Wow! Excellent idea for a thread!

I could probably pick a few dozen favorites, but the GD & Order of the Cubic Stone correspondence courses would certainly be way up on my list. As well, in spite of a few misgivings here and there, I've thoroughly enjoyed Manly P. Hall's lecture series. With that said, I've probably most enjoyed the few Idries Shah selections we've happened upon.

Naughty Nun New Media / Black Flag mega pack: So much stuff!

GD Correspondence Course: Long looked for

The PON Course: Some of the highest quality material I've ever layed eyes on.

Companions of the Stone materials: Quite interesting

Order of the Cubic Stone materials: Quite interesting

Temple of Set materials: Quite... certain I'd never get this from it's source

BOTA lessons: The complete course is still the motherload, but it's a start.

kybalion wrote:BOTA lessons: The complete course is still the motherload, but it's a start.

As some might say, "From your lips to God's ears."

I have so much stuff that it's hard to know now whether I got it from the Mob or elsewhere. Regardless of source, I prefer scholarly and modern magical material.

"Scholarly" means material from scholarly presses, though some of it is from mainstream popular presses when the work is primarily research and not speculation. The substance of these works is quite broad: social and historical studies of mainstream religions and "new religious movements", experimental and phenomenological studies of relevant brain states (dream, drug, introspection), theology, classics that are typically supplemental to a career magician (e.g. the works of Carl Jung), and encyclopedias and dictionaries of any of the foregoing.

I particularly like the scholarly works that deal directly with modern magic and its antecedents -- stuff by Howe, McIntosh, Dummett, Lehrich, Yates, Gilbert, Kuntz. There are a few works, all of them anthropological, that are outstanding in this respect. I might as well list them here:

• Coming to the Edge of the Circle (Bado-Fralick 2005)
  
• Western Esotericism and Rituals of Initiation (Bogdan 2007)
  
• Practising the Witch's Craft (Ezzy 2003)
  
• The Nature of Magic (Greenwood 2005)
  
• Strategies of Epistemology from Theosophy to the New Age (Hammer 2001)
  
• The Invention of Sacred Tradition (Lewis 2007)
  

"Modern magical" means theoretical and practical material aimed at practitioners of ritual magic. That includes works of broad scope or narrow, where "broad" includes Crowley's MTP, the Ciceros' Self-Initiation, etc., and "narrow" includes works on a specific area of practice, such as tarot, sex magic, Qabalah, etc. In all of this, I have no doctrinal preferences. Whether it's Golden Dawn, Temple of Set, Sabatic Craft, Voodoo, or what have you, all of it is on a par for me. Here are my favourite modern magical picks:

• A Practical Guide to Qabalistic Symbolism and Magical Images and the Magical Imagination (Knight 1965 and 1998)
  
• Psychedelic Shamanism (DeKorne 1994)
  
• SSOTBME Revisited (Dukes 2000)
  
• The Qabalah Codex (Ashe 2006)
  
• The G.D. audio tapes (Regardie, various dates)
  
• Tantra Magick (Lokanath 1992)
  
• The Voudon Gnostic Workbook (Bertiaux 1998)
  
• New Flesh Palladium (North 2006)
  
• Qabalistic Tarot (Wang 1982)
  
• The Twelve Houses (Sasportas 1998)
  
• The Mystical and Magickal System of the A.A. (Eshelman 2002)
  
• The works of Andrew Chumbley and Daniel Schulke
  
• The sex magical works of Crowley
  
• The videography of Poke Runyon
  
• The tarot decks (Marseille, Minchiate, Etteilla, Waite-Smith, Golden Dawn, Thelemic)

Well don't be afraid to sort it out and contribute what we're missing! I've personally enjoyed some material on Huxley & Levi but until I get my hardware sorted out I'll nt be finishing any torrents any time soon.

exib wrote:Regardless of source, I prefer scholarly and modern magical material.

Along those lines, it'd be nice to see the run of "Gnosis" released...

Chakravanti: I'm pretty sure almost all of those referenced have been released, so when that HD gets sorted, the digests will be waiting for you.

This thread seemed worthy of a *bump*!

From digest #25 I was certainly happy to finally read René Guénon's Perspectives on Initiation. Yummy!

The "complete" lessons haven't turned up yet, but digest 26.1 included "Tarot Fundamentals, vol. 1-9". I'd add that to my list. And "Earth Inferno ZOS" was almost as much fun as a Jodorowsky flick.

all of the zos kia cultus material was excellent to stumble on, spare was one of the most talented magicians and artists to ever live in my opinion. i was also really excited to find all of the material on c'thulu cults, it's hilarious AND effective

Might seem silly, but the one thing I was happiest to find was probably Philip K. Dick's In Pursuit of Valis. This reminds me that I should start up a PKD thread sometime... That guy was off the hook, dawg.