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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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One of the original's in Theosophy, or the "New Thought Movement", a brilliant, albeit overworked and stressed lawyer has a breakdown. It's approximately 1890, slightly before.
He consolidates a few spiritual teachings and from there begins a career as one of the most prolific authors ever, whose hundred(s?) of books are still in print (under a variety of pseudonyms), titles include:
- Mind Power: The Secret of Mental Magic
- Practical Mind-Reading
- Reincarnation and the Law of Karma
- The Subconscious and the Superconscious Planes of Mind
- Telepathy: Its Theory, Facts, and Proof
- The Seven Cosmic Laws
- The Science of Psychic Healing
- Ghosts of the Living, End of the Dead
- How to Develop Psychic Telepathy
- The Mystic Sixth Sense
- Mental Vibrations and Transmission
- Clairvoyance and Occult Powers
- The Art and Science of Personal Magnetism: The Secrets of Mental Fascination
His influence on contemporary spiritual teachings cannot be overestimated. He's "L. Ron Hubbard" gone mainstream, and his fingers can still be seen in every New Age chicanery - or ideal - today.
Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Walker_Atkinson
I mean, I should have stumbled across him as a child, I would have lapped this all up...
Maybe better I didn't. Well, given where I'm living now, maybe I should have...
Nonetheless, I'll keep an eye peeled, if I come across any volumes I'll be sure to pass them along. I'm pretty sure you'd want to read them as well...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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Now this, it was great. It's the bookstore of your dreams, filled with first editions, old books, oversized books - any of it's sections in itself bigger than most bookstores, a 16' high ceiling, shelves all the way to the top, great tottering stacks of books, overstuffed racks of books, books lining the floor roughly where they would fit on the shelf, if there was room.
Probably, not a word of a lie, a million books. Curated as well, customers coming in - at first glance there's no rhyme or reason - but everyone asks for their author and he steers them right to the section, knows if he has it in stock or not - books on Magic ("with a 'K'" I ask, and he reprimands me - "Tricks are in another section. There's many forms of magic...") and with just a few of the right questions puts the right book in their hand. Esoteric, Theosophical, there's no tripping him up, he knows it all.
I'd written about him-not-him, the ideal bookstore, proprietor, and now I've met him.
I am impressed.
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Or, why I'm so fucking poor. Because this mother-fucking-getting-rich.
Link: Roddy Rich
Weird I never heard of him before. Great name though.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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I mean, this has to be a joke, doesn't it?
I'd been warned.
The Chef's son, a server, perhaps mid 30's, coming in to work, first off telling me he's still drunk, been doing Ketamine, so drunk AND high, and the rest of the night goes as you might expect. He's not concealing it well, garrulous with the tables, forgetting things, he's going on about a little tattoo he got with a couple at the bar, a small one, his dad thinks it makes him look like a prisoner or felon, it's just like a SMALL tattoo, why can't his father approve anything, and now he's going off "IT's NOT LIKE I'M A HOLOCAUST DENIER"...
In his addled state he finds this hilarious, repeats it ad nauseum, the night passes.
Fuck I hate my life at the moment.
There's a book in there some where, "The responsible, articulate and reasoned child of wealth and privilege", fiction, nobody would believe it...
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Since being back at the hostel I've had it pretty sweet. 7 days, my shared dorm room only once shared with a Ukrainian traveler, and he only here from 12:00 Noon until midnight when he left.
So I'm being spoiled.
But the common area's come under siege. An older Mexican man, perhaps 45 (?? I'm no judge of age) has taken to partying there every night. He travels with his Bluetooth speaker around his neck, playing "Vogue" by Madonna and "Like a Virgin", and a ton of other camp favorites from the late 90's and turn of the century. He's drunk on Mojitos and Daiquiris, It's loud and I'm unable to pay attention to anything but this, the worst of all possible 90's club "muzak".
We take turns picking songs, and I pick "Gay Bar" by Electric Six. It's a great song. He listens a moment - then looks at me, his face all lit up: "Are you Gay?"
I nip this in the bud. "NO". It's a hard no, I used to feel that I was offending people by being straight and so I'd be all coy, wishy-washy, but I know better now - fuck that - I'm fine with you being gay - you be fine with me being straight. I'm only gay if it's an older woman asking.
He doesn't like this, finds other company, a poor young Greek man with his girlfriend, and - I have to say - in this shared dorm-style housing - well - things could get awfully uncomfortable. And I'm grateful for the long spell of no shared roomies...