[MD] new blog

[MarshaV]

Very nice.  The last line is a beauty.   - Marsha




At 02:40 PM 2/5/2009, you wrote:
>[Krimel]
>I don't know enough about Islam, radical or 
>otherwise, to comment on that but I would say 
>you are wrong to claim that fundamentalist 
>Christianity is anti-esoteric. In fact I would say the opposite.
>
>[Arlo]
>Well I am sure now we will begin our journey of 
>defining "esoteric". :-) I'd argue that you are 
>confusing "miraculous" with "esoteric". 
>Certainly the fundamentalist's "personal 
>relationship with Jesus" is "miraculous", but 
>the distinction is that for the fundamentalist 
>Jesus is an actual person, whose description as 
>a being created by the sexual union of God with 
>a mortal female. Jesus is not a "metaphor" for 
>anything, it is not a myth or a finger or a 
>story or anything of the sort. There is no 
>esotericism involved, what "is" is exactly and 
>literally described in The One True Book of The One True God.
>
>[Krimel]
>The holy rollers are the ones to incorporate 
>mystical experiences directly into their services.
>
>[Arlo]
>As with "faith healing", I'd say again that this 
>is "miraculous" but not an esoteric 
>understanding of the underlying myths (in this case, Christianity) involved.
>
>By the way, although Wikipedia recognizes that 
>many dispute certain inclusions on this list, it 
>points out some historical esoteric tradtions. 
>"In the scholarly literature, the term 
>designates a series of historically related 
>religious currents including Gnosticism, 
>Hermetism, magic, astrology, alchemy, 
>Rosicrucianism, the Christian Theosophy of Jacob 
>Böhme and his followers, Illuminism, Mesmerism, 
>Swedenborgianism, Spiritualism, and the 
>theosophical currents associated with Helena 
>Blavatsky and her followers." (Wikipedia). 
>Personally I view any approach that looks beyond 
>the literal, socio-cultural "words" and towards 
>what it is that those words point "at" to be 
>esoterically inclined. The most esoteric drop 
>all pretense about importance in the words 
>themselves (e.g. debating "Jesus or Allah" would 
>be like debating "Kirk or Picard").
>
>[Krimel]
>But I find it hard to complain that an 
>institution should strive to perpetuate itself.
>
>[Arlo]
>I don't make this complaint. But would you 
>complain about a hospital that strives to 
>perpetuate itself by euthanizing its patients to 
>harvest their organs to sell on the black 
>market? Or a school that strives to perpetuate 
>itself by deliberately uneducating poor kids to feed the needs of sweatshops?
>
>[Krimel]
>Especially within religious institution, even if 
>[personal power and control] are the true 
>motivations, at least the arguments are couched 
>in terms of the underlying ideology.
>
>[Arlo]
>I'd say that makes it all the worse.
>
>[Krimel]
>Nor am I sure that Mystics don't build the kind 
>of walls you mention. Paul was a mystic and the 
>chief architect of Christianity. Mohamed was a 
>mystic and he not only founded Islam but the 
>dynasty that oversaw it in its early days.
>
>[Arlo]
>Well this harkens back to what I was saying to 
>Michael. These people viewed the mystical 
>esotericism as available only to an initiated 
>few. The "walls" the created served the 
>dual-fold purpose of (1) providing esoteric 
>pointers to the Wise, and (2) providing exoteric 
>structure to control the masses. Paul was, in 
>this example, outright about the distinction between serving milk or meat.
>
>[Krimel]
>Pirsig is right, there is always tension between 
>the prophet and the priest. Call them the yin 
>and yang of institutional theology.
>
>[Arlo]
>I'd prefer to look past both the Yin and the 
>Yang and at the field in which they spin.
>
>
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