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The Magic Door is a study on myth, magic, and metamorphosis in the Italic (Italian) branch of the Western Inner Traditions. The Magic Door surveys a wide spectrum of esoteric traditions and explores the heroes, schools, and teachings that have provided the foundations for initiation in Italy, from Roman times to the present, in the broader context of an Occidental Tradition.
The overarching themes that constitute this tradition include a perennial Western Empire (Hesperia), Atavistic Resurgences, Heroic Spirit, and internal practices specific to the Ars Italica: Magia, Amatoria, Memoria, Imaginatio, and Insomnium. Initiation in this context, from the Latin initi¿tus, refers to the individual inner journey to identify and integrate with the Principle (Self, Soul, Numen) and the corresponding Tradition (Olympia, Heroi, Aeneades). In this sense, initiation - like Aeneas' quest to reveal his future by finding the roots (principle) - refers to a process of self-discovery, identity, and tradition.
Summary:
Aeneas (archetypal hero of initiation)
Heroic Initiation through the River Mnemosyne
Spiritual Kingship
Hesperia
Myths and Symbols of Ancient Rome
Vestal Virgins & the She-Wolf
Golden Bough and the Italic Tree of Life
Return of the Nostoi (Olympians)
Pythagorean Brotherhoods and the Underground Basilica of Porta Maggiore
Cicero and the Art of Dreaming
Magical Realism of Virgil
Ovid's Ars Amatoria
Apuleius and the Art of Metamorphoses
Symmachus, Last of the Olympians
Macrobius' Commentary on the Dream of Scipio
Dante and the Fedeli d'Amore
Revival of the Platonic Academy in Renaissance Florence
Marsilio Ficino on Divine Love
Pico della Mirandola on the Christian Cabbala
Julius Pomponius Laetus and the Roman Academy
Francesco Colonna and the Strife of Love in a Dream
Hermes Redividus in Ludovico Lazzarelli and Giovanni Mercurio Correggio
Renaissance Origins of the Tarot
Giordano Bruno on the Art of Magic
Tommasso Campanella on the Practice of Philosophical Ecstasy
Cesare Della Riviera on the Magical World of Heroes
The Magic Door of Rome
Chiron the Centaur
Cagliostro and the Arcana Arcanorum
Giambattista Vico and the Restoration of Ancient Italic Wisdom
Domenico Bocchini, Giustiniano Lebano, and the Neapolitan Mysterio
Sophic School
Giuliano Kremmerz and the Fraternity of Myriam
Julius Evola and the UR Group
Ekatlos and the Great ORMA
Viennese Circle of Kronos
Marco Daffi and the Rite of Andromeda
Giammaria and the Body of Peers
Commentary on the Golden Verses of Pythagoras
Recapitulation of Orphic and Bacchic Initiation
About the author
David Pantano is an independent researcher in Eastern and Western inner traditions.
