We’re entering a new and exciting field of inquiry with its own jargon, assumptions and lore. There are volumes dedicated just to debating proper etymology and epistemology within this field. Questions like: what is a soul? A spirit? And so on are still a matter of debate and definition. But I’m going to side-step all that as best I can and endeavor to use the people’s vernacular in this series to convey basic concepts and speculate within reason about things that, by definition, can’t really be logicked out entirely. It’s a tall task and I’m not doing myself any favors by critiquing, even mildly, ideological dogmas that are meant to be taken on faith. To make matters worse, my primary audience - people on the dissident right - are by and large materialists who generally do not see the point in speculating on metaphysical matters at all.
I grew up sortof Greek Orthodox, with a mother who used church as a social outlet, an atheist Russian Orthodox father, a school that credited to Abraham Lincoln a direct quote from Jesus, and no actual Bible in the house.
It is only in the last 2 years that I sat down to read the Bible. I gave up on the Old Testament. I've now read the 1/5 of the KJV New Testament and on my 2nd reading of the Passion version's
translation.
Many of the contradictions are easily answered simply by focussing on the words of Jesus according to the apostles that actually walked earth with him. He is clear that connection to God is direct, no intermediaries, the Holy Spirit dwells within each of us, no rituals, the Sabbath was meant for people, not people meant for the Sabbath, and only God should be called Father.
Dressing a man in a gold-embossed robe, putting a funny hat on his head & calling him Father or Pope seems rather the antithesis of what Jesus taught.
And this is only from looking at what writings the early Catholics admitted into the Bible.
Who knows what they hid or discarded to keep from the sheeple.
Nice write up. There are overlaps with the concepts popularized by Evola, expecially the idea of a left hand path as opposed to a right hand path, but I'm sure you know that. I'd like to drop some thoughts however:
1) the evolution of the Catholic church towards the path of believing, or a strict "right hand" approach if you prefer, happened under the assumption of the primacy of the positive theology, a strict philosophical and rationalist approach to the understanding of the Divine. The ritual-based approach is prevalent in the orthodox church as a result of the mystical tension under the premises of an apophatic and hyperessential God about whom there was little point to speculate. As far as I know, there are some controversy between the various orthodox churches about the way to rightly perform the rituals, while in the Catholic church it's just a matter of canonic law, something not divinely ordered. So I think that the primacy of the rituals is actually part of the technology of the knowing you are speaking about. About the reasons of those different approaches, you should note that the Catholic Church was at the head of a ruling state and was a very influential political force in western Europe, so she undergone those changes toward rationalism, burocracy and centralism that ultimately were shared by most political institutions and resulted in the so called "modern" or "absolute" state. The historian Paolo Prodi, Brother of the former Italian president Romano, wrote some nice books about that stuff, but idk if those were ever translated in English.
2) there are indeed mystical schools in the Catholic tradition, and interestingly some of those are linked to the influence of the Greek orthodox church during ~1450s, when a lot of orthodox priests fleed from the Islamic invasion in Italy bringing with them theological books. The most influential novadays is the Neoplatonist school born in Florence as a direct result of the collaboration between the Greek cardinal Bessarion and the local priest Marsilio Ficino, as opposed to the mainstream Aristotelianism of the Catholic theology. It was widespread and elaborated in movements such as the valdesianism, which preached direct enlightenment from God.
1. Metaphysics: I am philosophically uneducated and so probably use certain terms incorrectly, but to my mind metaphysics is simply about that which is extant-or-experienced but which is not purely or only physical. That said: The American philosopher William James (1842–1910) said, “Metaphysics means only an unusually obstinate attempt to think clearly and consistently.”
In any case, to me it stands in contrast to contemporary physics based on physical materialism. So it mainly features qualia not quanta, qualities not physical forms. All physical forms have qualities which we appreciate with our minds - which are also metaphysical in that awareness and intelligence are metaphysical. Qualities are endless: red, hot, disturbing, subtle, patterns, humour, the significance of a smile, a flirtatious gaze, the presence of an orange, the quality of the color orange, nobility, authority, narrative, neurosis and so on ad infinitum.
The point being that it is not necessarily about magical dimensions, though they too have a part to play.
2. Dharma definition: not to proselytize, but I spent some time as a student of traditional Buddadharma with an English-speaking Tibetan lama so I offer the following because it dovetails with your 'believing vs knowing' and with gnosis being to do with direct knowing for oneself. The Buddhist word for Law, Reality, Truth and Teachings (depending on context) is Dharma. The teachings definition of Dharma is 'that which is both taught and experienced'. In other words, various teachings suggest that one explore X, Y or Z by experiencing their veracity and nature for oneself. So the Buddhist tradition seems to include both sides versus forcing an either-or approach. Similarly, in the traditional tantric traditions who work with gurus, the latter's role is to embody realization in such a way that the student can grok the same in him or herself experiencing it first-hand having first witnessed it in the Teacher-guru. The old meaning of guru is said to be 'inner wisdom', the idea being that any such thing as enlightenment or realization only exists if you experience it for yourself first-hand. There are many different schools and arguments and refutations and denunciations in the tradition, but nearly all of them agree that you have to experience things first hand, not take anyone's word for it, or any external authority at all for that matter.
Also, in the esoteric tantric traditions, which do feature quite a few shamanic miracle workers, the admonition pops up again and again in a wide variety of texts that 'supernormal powers need not be sought'. As one progresses, one may encounter visions or acquire various powers, but they are not either necessary or helpful when all is said and done. The basic powers which arise just from doing simple sitting meditation thoroughly (which hardly anyone ever achieves) are: clairvoyance, seeing through walls, walking on water, flying and something else. Masters of dream yoga can first dream several bodies simultaneously and then blend dream with everyday reality and do it in the waking world too which others can experience. Things like that.
But this has as much to do with letting go of habitual fixations which create the psycho-cognitive prisons in which we choose to remain imprisoned. Once outside, lots of others things become possible, though ultimately it's not all that important. Letting go of the fixations is 90% of the issue. Then one can go with the daoist flow, basically. Something like that.
I grew up sortof Greek Orthodox, with a mother who used church as a social outlet, an atheist Russian Orthodox father, a school that credited to Abraham Lincoln a direct quote from Jesus, and no actual Bible in the house.
It is only in the last 2 years that I sat down to read the Bible. I gave up on the Old Testament. I've now read the 1/5 of the KJV New Testament and on my 2nd reading of the Passion version's
translation.
Many of the contradictions are easily answered simply by focussing on the words of Jesus according to the apostles that actually walked earth with him. He is clear that connection to God is direct, no intermediaries, the Holy Spirit dwells within each of us, no rituals, the Sabbath was meant for people, not people meant for the Sabbath, and only God should be called Father.
Dressing a man in a gold-embossed robe, putting a funny hat on his head & calling him Father or Pope seems rather the antithesis of what Jesus taught.
And this is only from looking at what writings the early Catholics admitted into the Bible.
Who knows what they hid or discarded to keep from the sheeple.
Nice write up. There are overlaps with the concepts popularized by Evola, expecially the idea of a left hand path as opposed to a right hand path, but I'm sure you know that. I'd like to drop some thoughts however:
1) the evolution of the Catholic church towards the path of believing, or a strict "right hand" approach if you prefer, happened under the assumption of the primacy of the positive theology, a strict philosophical and rationalist approach to the understanding of the Divine. The ritual-based approach is prevalent in the orthodox church as a result of the mystical tension under the premises of an apophatic and hyperessential God about whom there was little point to speculate. As far as I know, there are some controversy between the various orthodox churches about the way to rightly perform the rituals, while in the Catholic church it's just a matter of canonic law, something not divinely ordered. So I think that the primacy of the rituals is actually part of the technology of the knowing you are speaking about. About the reasons of those different approaches, you should note that the Catholic Church was at the head of a ruling state and was a very influential political force in western Europe, so she undergone those changes toward rationalism, burocracy and centralism that ultimately were shared by most political institutions and resulted in the so called "modern" or "absolute" state. The historian Paolo Prodi, Brother of the former Italian president Romano, wrote some nice books about that stuff, but idk if those were ever translated in English.
2) there are indeed mystical schools in the Catholic tradition, and interestingly some of those are linked to the influence of the Greek orthodox church during ~1450s, when a lot of orthodox priests fleed from the Islamic invasion in Italy bringing with them theological books. The most influential novadays is the Neoplatonist school born in Florence as a direct result of the collaboration between the Greek cardinal Bessarion and the local priest Marsilio Ficino, as opposed to the mainstream Aristotelianism of the Catholic theology. It was widespread and elaborated in movements such as the valdesianism, which preached direct enlightenment from God.
1. Metaphysics: I am philosophically uneducated and so probably use certain terms incorrectly, but to my mind metaphysics is simply about that which is extant-or-experienced but which is not purely or only physical. That said: The American philosopher William James (1842–1910) said, “Metaphysics means only an unusually obstinate attempt to think clearly and consistently.”
In any case, to me it stands in contrast to contemporary physics based on physical materialism. So it mainly features qualia not quanta, qualities not physical forms. All physical forms have qualities which we appreciate with our minds - which are also metaphysical in that awareness and intelligence are metaphysical. Qualities are endless: red, hot, disturbing, subtle, patterns, humour, the significance of a smile, a flirtatious gaze, the presence of an orange, the quality of the color orange, nobility, authority, narrative, neurosis and so on ad infinitum.
The point being that it is not necessarily about magical dimensions, though they too have a part to play.
2. Dharma definition: not to proselytize, but I spent some time as a student of traditional Buddadharma with an English-speaking Tibetan lama so I offer the following because it dovetails with your 'believing vs knowing' and with gnosis being to do with direct knowing for oneself. The Buddhist word for Law, Reality, Truth and Teachings (depending on context) is Dharma. The teachings definition of Dharma is 'that which is both taught and experienced'. In other words, various teachings suggest that one explore X, Y or Z by experiencing their veracity and nature for oneself. So the Buddhist tradition seems to include both sides versus forcing an either-or approach. Similarly, in the traditional tantric traditions who work with gurus, the latter's role is to embody realization in such a way that the student can grok the same in him or herself experiencing it first-hand having first witnessed it in the Teacher-guru. The old meaning of guru is said to be 'inner wisdom', the idea being that any such thing as enlightenment or realization only exists if you experience it for yourself first-hand. There are many different schools and arguments and refutations and denunciations in the tradition, but nearly all of them agree that you have to experience things first hand, not take anyone's word for it, or any external authority at all for that matter.
Also, in the esoteric tantric traditions, which do feature quite a few shamanic miracle workers, the admonition pops up again and again in a wide variety of texts that 'supernormal powers need not be sought'. As one progresses, one may encounter visions or acquire various powers, but they are not either necessary or helpful when all is said and done. The basic powers which arise just from doing simple sitting meditation thoroughly (which hardly anyone ever achieves) are: clairvoyance, seeing through walls, walking on water, flying and something else. Masters of dream yoga can first dream several bodies simultaneously and then blend dream with everyday reality and do it in the waking world too which others can experience. Things like that.
But this has as much to do with letting go of habitual fixations which create the psycho-cognitive prisons in which we choose to remain imprisoned. Once outside, lots of others things become possible, though ultimately it's not all that important. Letting go of the fixations is 90% of the issue. Then one can go with the daoist flow, basically. Something like that.