Neocities.org

Beliefs are only useful to the extent that they inspire constructive actions within ourselves and those around us. Truth is the balance. How do our motivations and our perceptions interface with our experiences and our effects upon others?

One doesn't want to get stuck within "toxic positivity" or "pronoia". But getting stuck within a combination of "negativity bias" and "learned helplessness" is also harmful. Where is each person's "locus of control" in regards to each situation?

Sometimes people, including myself, skew towards complaining about life, yet don't even try to create something constructive instead. Personally, I have gotten to the point where I've recognized that being constantly depressed is harmful to me and hope is the only viable option.

Oh yeah...I most identify, in both theory and in practice, with the "desert mothers and fathers" who lived in self-sufficient "cenobitic monasticism" in order to avoid "theocratic rule" by a corrupt "priesthood" (i.e.: the "Essenes", not the "Pharisees", "Sadducees", or "Zealots").

While some parts of modern "Christian Anarchism" (and its associated "liberation theology") touch upon their ideas with less mysticism, most of the more esoteric strains of Judaism/Christianity seem to derive from them as well, including Gnosticism.

For example, this is evidenced by the origins and contents of the Nag Hammadi Library, as well as their similarities with contemporaneous Merkabah and Hekhalot literature from which Kabbalah springs. I'm particularly interested in this kind of study: https://web.archive.org/web/20160316053521/http://odeion.org/gematria/

I don't think that abandoning hope in a better world here and now, is a good idea. But I also don't think that being concerned about karma, or any form of retributive justice in the afterlife, amounts to anything productive (even if it's real, doesn't affect this life).

One can also make direct connections with other teachings, particularly Pythagoreanism/Plotinism and Buddhism, through groups like the Therapeautae of Alexandria. But I would argue that there is a "primordial tradition"/"perinneal philosophy" that permeates all true "alchemy" and which is present within most esoteric spiritual teachings, independent of time and place.

Fundamentalist interpretations sometimes degrade into justification for tyranny. For example, many of the groups that were persecuted during the Inquisition (like the Cathars and Waldensians) tended to be more egalitarian, holding beliefs opposite to that of "dominion theology", and teaching that no human intermediaries were needed to experience "theosis"/"henosis".

@daliwali - Sorry for the post mix up. That is fair. To me, Justice is always restorative, never punitive. Likewise, constructive knowledge must be applied... I'll shut up now 😂