> [Krimel] > Isn't the belief system there to guide the believer on a path towards an > original experience of their own? > > [Arlo] > Ideally. All too often its there to reify its power. This is the line between > esoteric and exoteric, and we see the vast, vast majority of those being > "guided" by a Church to be given exclusively the exoteric view. Indeed, the > single largest growing "Christian" church in America is not only vocally > exoteric, its agressively anti-esoteric. The "radical Islam" that we are told > to fear shares this agressively anti-esoteric approach to Mystical Awareness. > > Manly Hall wrote several great treatises on mystery traditions throughout the > ages, and one common point he finds is that the esoteric awareness was > reserved > for an "initiate" group, with the idea that the hoi poloi would always be too > sheep-like, too weak, too unable to handle the esoteric wisdom, and so the > stories served a two-fold purpose. First, they functioned as metaphor to point > those wise enough to get the Mystery in a Quality direction, and second they > enabled a power-base by which the majority could always be controlled, or at > the least "opiated".
MP: I agree wholeheartedly with your first paragraph. Again exemplifying why I insist on distinguishing theism into the most inclusive definition (in your terminology, the esoteric only) and the rest, which I would refer to as "theistic practice" or "theistic cultural manifestations" or "religions" (but appears here to be simply, and IMO confusingly and in some cases un-constructively referred to as "theism"); the *esoteric* theism applied in an *exoteric* way. But you seem to be suggesting you think humanity can operate any differently by adopting an MoQ over SOM? How will changing the accepted metaphysics to something *less* tangible, obvious, or in line with what human perceptions lead us to believe is the case make people be relatively any less sheep like rather than *more*, or obviate the need for an "initiate" group? If people in general can't handle deep esoteric wisdom, it doesn't matter what the wisdom is, either exoteric action is necessary to have them to be in line with it, or an acceptance that they won't be is in order. (Read "Anathem" for a vision of the world of the latter.) Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
