/lit/ - Literature

Colin Wilson, The Occult and The Outsider Cycle
DeRopp, Master Game

>>14350073
Why do you think they are the best?

Thundersqueak is the best silly quasi-occult book ever written

Was in a new age book store once. Most authors were jewish

>>14350455
Makes sense they have high iq and maybe more spiritually adept to be enlightened

>>14350462
They're definitely a special people, but the kind of books they're writinf seems so beneath them

I pronounce newage like sewage

e.g. "What a bunch of newage bullshit"

>>14350597
Namaste

>>14350016

>Criticizing my straight up synthetic ripoff of older much more complex ideas that have themselves already aged horribly is bigotry

Wew lads

>>14350738
>valid criticism = bigotry

If you have rational arguments good for you, but you are delusional if you think bigotry doesnt exist.
Most opposition to newage I've seen on the chans is irrational bigotry and not well thought out criticisms.

>>14350738
This is just a generic and typical anti-synthetic traditionalist viewpoint.

Newage is superior precisely because of its syncretic nature; it defies traditional authority with its progressive personal spirituality free from the dogmatic stifling chains of tradition.

>>14350833
None of that points to supremacy though. Why is tradition bad while progress good? If the people of previous traditions were wrong, the how can syncretizing them be merited?

>>14350855
Sycretism takes the best of every tradition; if there is spiritual truth, wisdom or value it can be absorbed.

Anti-syncretism thinks its tradition is the only source of spiritual or religious truth and rejects what is outside of it. To think any tradition is 100% wrong or right is quite silly.

>>14350891
Imagine a traditionas a tree. Are its roots wrong, or only its leaves? If its roots are right, and every tradition has right roots, then you're a perrenialist rather than a syncretist.
By what means do you decide that certain aspects are right or wrong? What is the standard

>>14350016
I am ignorant of New Age. Could you tell me about its epistemological basis?

>>14350916
Prelest

>>14350901
Regarding religious truth, the standard is ultimately up to the individual to determine what they believe is true; its all religious opinion. (Not to say there is no Truth (Truth is that which aligns with Spirit or Reality) its just that there is no way to conclusively prove it, it has to be experienced).

Even if you assent to an external authority (like the Catholic Church) it is still the individual that decides to believe that that particular authority does indeed have the truth.

>>14350916
No. Its a broad spiritual movement not precisely defined.

>>14350930
Subjective opinion has no bearing on universal truth. If I decide we all go to hell and someone else decides we all get reincarnated, who is correct?

>>14350958
You could both be wrong, but you would be hard-pressed to conclusively prove it one way or the other; though ones persuasiveness and argument would be enhanced by the truth contained in any one proposition.

>>14350988
So there's no good reason to follow any spirituality at all other than personal feeling?

>>14350941
I take it that there is none. Have fun with your dogma in superstitious pretense of spirituality.

>>14350016
don't know if he counts as 'New Age', but Aldous Huxley's Perennial Philosophy and the Doors of Perception are both great reads and definitely inspired a lot of copycat New Age thinkers

>>14351005
Not necessarily.

>>14351023
What do you think spirituality is?

>>14351067
>Not necessarily
Elaborate. Whatgood reason is there to believe in a syncretic spirituality, or any spirituality at all?

>>14350696

>>14351074
>A large volume of research shows that people who are more R/S have better mental health and adapt more quickly to health problems compared to those who are less R/S. These possible benefits to mental health and well-being have physiological consequences that impact physical health, affect the risk of disease, and influence response to treatment. In this paper I have reviewed and summarized hundreds of quantitative original data-based research reports examining relationships between R/S and health. These reports have been published in peer-reviewed journals in medicine, nursing, social work, rehabilitation, social sciences, counseling, psychology, psychiatry, public health, demography, economics, and religion. The majority of studies report significant relationships between R/S and better health.

Religion, Spirituality, and Health: The Research and Clinical Implications

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3671693/

>>14351067
>What do you think spirituality is?
I am not entirely confident but I gather it is an elevated state of consciousness in which the mind can access the "thing-in-itself" without the mediation of the senses. I also believe that the realizations resulting from this are essentially incommunicable due to the limits of language, hence Plato refrained from writing down the truths that "Apollo conveyed to him in a dream". I further believe these limits can be potentially bypassed by the use of highly symbolic language in which the goal is to lead the others to the realizations themselves, instead of expressing the truths directly, and this is the case with the writings of the genuine mystics. However, it is also my belief that since most people cannot distinguish between the genuine mystical writings and the fake pretenders, many charlatans have exploited this spiritual yearning inherent in some and mislead them for self-interest. What reason do I have to believe these New Age authors do not belong to this group? All evidence points to the contrary.

>>14351159
Utility does not demonstrate truth. I asked for a reason to believe that it is truth,not for something tohelp my health. Are you selling me lies?

>>14351170
You asked for a good reason to believe in a spirituality, is better mental and physical health not a good reason?

>>14351291
By definition of reason, no, it is not

>>14350016
You are unironically better off just reading a bunch of M:TA books from the 90's and trying to set up a game with some local schizophrenics.

>>14351340
>>14351354
How so?

>>14350833
in other words it is (deterritorialized) capitalist spirituality that is one step away from corporate mindfulness

>>14350891
What you are describing is Renaissance style syncretism. New Agers typically are not studying multiple traditions and finding to what extent they complement each other. Rather, New Age is characterized by source amnesia - a complete lack of knowledge with regards to your traditional heritage, historical illiteracy and pseudohistorical claims, bizarre cherrypicking that removes embedded concepts from their systems of meaning and repurposes them as essentially justifications for your preferred form of neoliberal capitalism.

>>14350901
Religions and traditions are a mixture of truth and error, they have different degrees of right or wrong depending on if any one aspect is actually aligned with universal truth or not.

There is no authoritative source of truth (other than God), and if there is one there is no way to prove it (hence it is all religious opinion in a sense, even though there is a technical right and wrong).

>>14351363
Reason exists to ascertain Truth. If your beliefs are admittedly without truth, then a reasonable person cannot accept them

>>14351434
when you rip a concept out of its traditional framework and make no attempt to understand that framework historically then anything you do with that concept is not even historically accurate, yet alone universally true

>>14351434
How do you know what is universal? It seems like that your skepticsm of traditional spirituality negates the truth value of new age spirituality as well

>>14351431
One does not need intimate knowledge of the roots to enjoy the spiritual fruits of the various traditions. Spiritual truth is not owned by any tradition; and far from there being anything wrong with picking the best fruit from every tree, it is the most enlightened and plainly logical approach.

>>14351490
>best fruit
How do you know what the best fruit is? Whats the standard?

>>14351454
Truth doesnt work like that. The tradition that may have given it expression at one point does not hold monopoly over it.

>>14351498
God within. Spiritual insight/intuition and reason.

>>14351510
there is no linguistic access to "truth-in-itself", atomic facts dont exist. truth expressed in an alphabet you dont know is just a load of symbols, truth expressed in a neoplatonic framework doesnt make sense outside of a neoplatonic framework, truth expressed in Latin can not be flawlessly translated into English. Insight is not dependant on traditions but expressing insights in words, symbols, e.t.c. is ABSOLUTELY historically and culturally contingent.

>>14351543
for example the phrase "γνῶθι σεαυτόν" requires historical and cultural knowledge to understand in its full significance. you cant understand it by just looking at the symbols. New Age methods are roughly equivalent to me highlighting every 2nd letter and claiming the symbols are metaphysical diagrams - im removing the phrase from its context entirely and re-assigning it a new meaning that suits my needs.

>>14351543
>traditionalists collapse in to relativism under pressure

the people calling them out as 130+ new agers were right all along.

>>14351559
i do not consider myself a traditionalist, I have not read their works. I mainly read pre-Renaissance texts and literary theory.

>>14351559
>>14351572
also I think you may have misunderstood me, I do agree that there is universal truth but I do not think it is possible to give it expression within the material world through language or symbols.

>>14351543
Where does the truth come from? True teachers had real spiritual, transcendent, or enlightening experiences and taught it to others; over time there develops a tradition and culture, with others adding there own experiences and insights. The individual experiences God (Truth) and then the tradition forms around it. But God is independent from the tradition, the essence is truth, the tradition is just a shell that forms around it.

Acknowledging and appreciating these truths and wisdom and spiritual value of other traditions is logical; but everything progressively evolves, so the truths are absorbed into new forms and combined with new revelations of truth as humanity grows.

>>14351518
What's the standard for deciding which insight is best? Are all the traditions devoid of insight? Only today we have it? And how do you reconcile the disagreement among people ebtween their insights?

The Law of One (The Ra Material)

>>14351600
>Where does the truth come from? True teachers had real spiritual, transcendent, or enlightening experiences and taught it to others;
the truth comes from those internal experiences. nobody has ever "taught" the truth to a disciple as if its a piece of hand me down knowledge like "apples stay ripe for longer if chilled". some teachers may have developed methods that helped their disciples calibrate themselves in the necessary way to share in the experience. they didnt teach them the knowledge though, they only taught them a method that improves their chances of receiving it.
>over time there develops a tradition and culture, with others adding there own experiences and insights. The individual experiences God (Truth) and then the tradition forms around it. But God is independent from the tradition, the essence is truth, the tradition is just a shell that forms around it.
yes, and both traditions and shells are structures. if you chip a piece out of a shell then that piece does not retain the properties of the shell as a whole. if you pry a concept out of its historical and cultural background then it will lose its meaning and essentially becomes a decoration.
>Acknowledging and appreciating these truths and wisdom and spiritual value of other traditions is logical; but everything progressively evolves, so the truths are absorbed into new forms and combined with new revelations of truth as humanity grows.
there is a difference between traditions changing with the times and deterritorialization. If I borrow a Mandean phrase without knowing anything about it in terms of culture and history then I am not incorporating Mandeaism into my system, I am just writing my own system that includes some symbols superficially similar to Mandean symbols.

>>14351602
>What's the standard for deciding which insight is best?

see this:
>>14350930
>>14351434

The truth is the truth, but without a reliable authoritative source its hard to be certain. So in a sense it is all religious opinion though technically religious opinions will be either correct or incorrect.

I think we as human beings have an ability to discern (spiritual) truth, to experience it and to feel its truthiness so to speak.

>>14351657
>If I borrow a Mandean phrase without knowing anything about it in terms of culture and history then I am not incorporating Mandeaism into my system, I am just writing my own system that includes some symbols superficially similar to Mandean symbols.

Buddhism and Hinduism have been a strong influence in New Age and I think you would have a hard time proving that its influence was only superficial and devoid of true understanding of its spiritual significance.

This is a good meditation to relax and find inner peace

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92i5m3tV5XY&

>>14351398
>deterritorialized
rare word

Commercialization of spirituality is a valid criticism, but I think that may be a relatively recent corruption rather than an essential quality of newage.

>>14351681
This is a total non answer. Why syncterize new religions at all? Were past faiths deficient? By your standard, how can you know? You cant obfuscate by claiming ignorance, otherwise your entire position is without merit. You're not actually making ant claim at all

>>14350016
Reminder that New Age love and light/occultism bullshit is just people taking advantage of the Capitalist market of people looking for a way to fill in the gap left by the collapse of Christianity.

If you are interested in real "esotericism" look to older texts like the Corpus Hermeticum, Neoplatonic Enneads, Gnosticism, Eastern texts like Upanishads/Buddhism/Taoism etc.
Only trust material made back when people werent doing it solely for monetary gain

>>14351972
There is no reason to think ALL New Agers are insincere; I doubt you could prove that ALL expressions of New Age are motivated by 'people taking advantage of the Capitalist market'. Its a real spiritual movement/cultural phenomena.

Otherwise its appeal to Age/tradition fallacy.
(Its older so it must be better, more correct, more true etc)

>>14352091
Im saying that people in the older days didnt benefit at all from "creating" traditions and religions.

Take the Buddha for example, he was from a wealthy Brahminic family and he renounced everything he had and devoted his life to the path of the Buddha.

Im sure there are some legitimate New Agers who are the same, but 90-99% of it is bullshit, and the parts that arent Bullshit are the parts they adopted from the older traditions. (Its just a side effect of the Kali Yuga). Its almost all for profit nowadays, and if it isnt then its for the sake of being well known/famous.

you're better off just practising an authentic traditional/spiritual religion itself, rather than the New Age Pseudo religions

>>14351889
>Why syncterize new religions at all?
I think it happens naturally, like how Sikhism evolved out of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam. There is an inclination for humans to have spiritual experiences and that turns into the various manifestations of religion. Phenomena grows and evolves spontaneously based on many factors, and there is the trend to progress and improve (upon ideas, teachings, philosophies, schools of thought etc)

>>14352162
Some of those Syncretic religions are clearly bullshit though.

Take a look at Ahmadiyya Islam and the Bahai Faith.

Both are perennialist religions, and the founders of both religions both claimed to be the Imam Mahdi (the redeemer of Islam)

>>14352199
I'd say its an over-simplified way of viewing things and despite any erroneous beliefs these faiths may have you can still find spiritual truths, wisdoms and other things of value (beautiful literature, art etc) in them,

>>14352298
The problem with new age spirituality is its ontological inconsistency. The age of enlightenment is signified by the scientific method which enables us to reliably test the world against our own beliefs. Failure to apply this tool of reasoning leads you to empty truths that are justified as "spiritual" because you need "faith" in them to be true. This is wrong and faith should not be the answer but part of the question. By "empty truths" I mean these truths can not be reliably tested against the world and so don't hold any tangible value besides the value you personally give them. One can be convinced that their spiritual belief has real power in the world when in reality it's just their projection of values and meanings onto events that are not correlated.

For example: A man who lived near a volcano before the enlightenment era, prays to his god every day, requesting it to explode, and after 30 years it finally explodes, he says "My prayers are answered! See you just needed faith" and nobody could argue otherwise. But the "New age" spiritualist would say the same thing, and when questioned they would say "Well vibrations from my thoughts and body permeated the universe and with special frequencies and will and faith the universe granted my request." When pressed further they might even evoke science by inferring that particles and waves and vibrations are around you so you can't deny that vibrations and frequencies play a part in the process. All of this is not just an oversimplification of the process but a lack of understanding and perhaps even a laziness or fear to understand what is objectively happening to the volcano. The person is making value propositions against things they don't understand which comes off as disingenuous or lazy.

This is not to say that spirituality is not valuable, it has given us physiological tools and interpretations to deal with the harsh realities of life. It can give us new art that holds new values and meanings to those who can appreciate it. But if the tool is not sharpened against the backdrop of objective reality then it will break, rightfully so.

>>14350016
>talk about ascending
>remain a normal person
Let me know when any of you queers can do something out of the ordinary.

>>14350016
my friend roped me into some new age convention thing. there was some group meditation shit where the panel speaker claimed he was being possessed by an alien and told us about "the mysteries of the universe." like 90% of the people in the room believed it and looked in awe, lmao

kys

>>14352970
Yeah theres some sort of psyop bullshit going on.
Its probably designed to discredit actual esoterists and traditional esoteric movements

>>14353019
It has something to do with liberal/progressivism too.

Watch a New Ager freak out when you tell them that the Buddha didnt believe it was possible for women to obtain enlightenment until they had first been reincarnated as men

>>14353019
no shit. try talking to someone about hinduism and they will think you put magic crystals under your pillow.

>>14353019
leftypol came back to the board and is spreading like a disease.

>>14353772
dissociation propaganda is the bread and butter of leftists.

>>14350462
>Makes sense they have high iq and maybe more spiritually adept to be enlightened

Sure thing hooknose. That is why you feel jealous around loud and proud Caucasians and scheme to destroy their society.