Richard Smoley: Magic and the Occult

Richard Smoley: Magic and the Occult

141,529 views - June 14, 2018

Theosophical Society

Presented on June 7, 2018

Magic can be defined as causing effects in the physical world through supernatural means. It is universally practiced. Today, our ideas of magic and the occult have been filtered through Hollywood films and horror fiction. But what's the truth behind these mysterious phenomena? Is there anything more to magic than sleight of hand? Richard Smoley draws on his books Hidden Wisdom and Supernatural to give a clear, levelheaded introduction to this baffling subject.

Available on DVD at:
https://questbooks.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=3555&search=Magic+and+the+Occult&description=true&category_id=59&sub_category=true


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There Is No Religion
Higher than Truth

-- Motto of the Theosophical Society


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Theosophical.org (Theosophical Society)

InnerChristianity.com (Richard Smoley)

Richard Smoley (Wikipedia)

Richard Smoley is an author and philosopher focusing on the world's mystical and esoteric teachings, particularly those of Western civilization.


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The following article was referenced in the above lecture. 


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'The Twisted History of the Swastika'

Printed in the Winter 2016  issue of Quest magazine

Citation: Smoley, Richard. "The Twisted History of the Swastika" Quest 104.1 (Winter 2016): pg. 22-23

By Richard Smoley

If you were asked to come up with a symbol for evil, very likely you would think of the swastika. The quintessential emblem of the Third Reich, it still evokes hatred and fear seventy years after the collapse of the Nazi regime.

And yet not so long ago it was a symbol of blessings and good fortune. Even its name is derived from Sanskrit roots meaning “it is good.” (Other names given to it include the cross patteé, the gammadion, the hakenkreuz or hooked cross, and the fylfot.) Today, in a somewhat truncated form, it still occupies a place in the official symbol of the Theosophical Society.

The peculiar fate of the swastika has a great deal to teach about the nature and meaning of symbols — and about the uses to which they can be put.

The swastika occurs almost universally. The most ancient version known is on a carved tusk from the Ukraine, dated to around 10,000 BC. Other early instances were found at Hissarlik in western Asia Minor, where Heinrich Schliemann, often called the father of archaeology, unearthed the ruins of Troy in 1873. The swastika begins to appear in the city’s third stratum, dated to 2250–2100 BC. It is on spindle-whorls, a sphere, and a statue made of lead thought to be an image of the goddess Artemis. The vulva (or perhaps the mons veneris) of this figure has a swastika in the middle. One scholar interpreted it as representing “the generative power of man” (Wilson, 811–13, 829).

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