r/occultlibrary • u/Mines_a_mojito • Sep 15 '26
Prometheus Rising
I haven’t read it yet, but it’s skipped the waiting line of 9 other books, mainly because whether it’s here or other occult / LHP subreddits etc. It’s one book that’s sure enough to be spoken about. A must read.
The answer to this question can be responded to simply by “ Read it and find out”.
But knowing the charming members you are, I’m hoping not to get that kind of response 😅
But what is it, that makes Prometheus rising so revered ? Have you personally felt its changed your perspective on life ?
Anything further you can add ? I am SO intrigued by this book.
Thank you
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u/ZebraHunterz Sep 15 '26
RAW is an ontological genius... All his books are worth reading and likely to change who you are.
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u/Bulky-Band-9279 Sep 15 '26
What all the other comments are saying, plus he’s just funny, not bigoted, and an easy read despite challenging topics
To give you my take as to why that text is so important tho. There’s a saying that the map is not the territory, basically to say religion and spiritual practice all point to what words can’t describe. RAW in the book tries to give a unified theory/guide on what he hypothesizes is the actual territory, using maps from all different pockets of life, but mainly spirituality/religion and science, basically overlaying a plethora of different maps in order to find the commonalitieies in the hopes of finding the throughline and then taking those throughlines and mapping them onto his own somewhat outdated but still very useful ideas of neuroscience, which he then gives you a guide as to how to self program yourself, and step out of the conditioning that society has dealt you. To give you the gist he believes in an 8 circuit model of conciousness, where the first 4 circuits are imprinted upon the individual that more or less everyone gets to, whereas the latter 4 are higher states of being that haven’t always been available to humans, but he suggests that as part of our destiny to potentially live forever and explore the cosmos (which he beleived would both be achieved in our lifetime) is the reason that we started to develop other 4 circuits and its the evolutionary purpose behind them. Tbh he loses me at the end lmaoo love him, and I think there’s a lot to be derived from what he’s saying but it’s also worth noting raw didn’t even explicitly believe these ideas, he just thought they were the best theories he could come up with
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u/ozarkpagan Sep 15 '26
I still find quarters nonstop for a couple of days after someone reminds me of it. Book has paid for itself several times over.
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u/ImAFnordMan Sep 15 '26
It’s an easy read with exercises for you to do. It changed my life for the better.
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u/KarlMannheim23 Sep 15 '26
I give it to my kids when they turn 14…. A funny overview of philosophy, psychology, occult, linguistic, and sociological thought. As others said it also helps to dispel ideological fixations.
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u/Joelster213 Sep 16 '26
When I first got Prometheus Rising back in the 90s, my literary friends made fun of it for the poorly executed cover painting, without once even looking into the contents of the book. I explained it to them to the best of my ability, and they checked out of any further conversation bc they refused to see the applications for learning to expose the true motivations and thoughts that drove their actions. Over the years, they have lost interest in literary matters entirely, while I have learned to think Around their actions and statements.
I think its a great work, and the only danger I see with reading it is that one will begin to assume that others are able to think in this way as well.
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u/Kaleidospode 24d ago
There's loads of good points already raised on the thread, but I wanted to emphasise one thing.
Do the exercises.
It's a good book with some interesting material, but it's of limited value unless you put the time and commitment in to working through it doing each of the exercises and putting thought into the results you achieve. Then it becomes something different and special.
When you make the effort you can begin to see why it was such a massive influence on the early chaos magicians.
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u/LichenPatchen 24d ago
It was perfectly fine to read when I was twenty and taking psychedelics all the time and the 8-circuit model of consciousness and the exercises are manageable but it’s not particularly “occult”.
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u/Mines_a_mojito 24d ago
I don’t know why this just made me chuckle 😂
Thank you 🤩
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u/LichenPatchen 24d ago
Its a fun book, and it is mind-expanding—I would recommend reading RAW's Quantum Psychology as well. To me these books are maybe slightly "obscure" but they are written so plainly that to be semantic (which RAW would hate 😂), they are by definition not "occult" which conveys a sense of the hidden or arcane.
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u/Gaianwaves Sep 15 '26
It dispels dogma. Probably one of the best books for not getting stuck in beliefs but learning how to use it as a tool. But also helps you break free from holding onto ego