Nazis and Neo-Pagan Gnosis

[Constantine]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cC6xCyFJ1 ... IHBhdWw%3D

I'm a bit skeptical, not that Paul had earlier Judaic mystical experiences, but rather the branch of Christianity he founded has no traces of it. As the top guy, who would of rebuked him? Died out in the end, if it did exist as per this video.

But even if it did happen, both Judaism and Christianity always has had multiple movements doing extra mystical things within. I'm less tolerant than rabbinical Judaism is of it, they take after Aristotle in thinking if enough of the community of the faithful agree it is a part of Judaism, then it is. Taking that logic, the golden calf the jews made when Moses was on the mountain is legitimate Judaism. Kosher laws and legitimate prophethood and God should have the higher say over the common consent of what is. I'm so much more skeptical when it isn't a majority but a mystical, secretive minority. But that doesn't rule out it isn't true, or even if false, maybe harmless or beneficial in some moral reasoning it introduces, or the strength of inquiry or community it fosters. Notice this Pauline theory 14 years prior does not of that save in motivating Paul, as he is only willing to talk of his visions cryptically.... and to people we know know not. So I'm in a position of a lack of evidence but not necessarily opposed but not caring enough to squash it. My imagination and cognitive abilities are advanced enough to see the mystical visions similarly described or conjectured and I don't feel a overflowing of faith or Godhood, just skepticism and mild annoyance in noting alot more should be present if a secret Jewish society existed believing in this. Because it doesn't seem enough. They were secret and cryptic so very likely alot is missing today.

[Maia]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cC6xCyFJ1 ... IHBhdWw%3D

I'm a bit skeptical, not that Paul had earlier Judaic mystical experiences, but rather the branch of Christianity he founded has no traces of it. As the top guy, who would of rebuked him? Died out in the end, if it did exist as per this video.

But even if it did happen, both Judaism and Christianity always has had multiple movements doing extra mystical things within. I'm less tolerant than rabbinical Judaism is of it, they take after Aristotle in thinking if enough of the community of the faithful agree it is a part of Judaism, then it is. Taking that logic, the golden calf the jews made when Moses was on the mountain is legitimate Judaism. Kosher laws and legitimate prophethood and God should have the higher say over the common consent of what is. I'm so much more skeptical when it isn't a majority but a mystical, secretive minority. But that doesn't rule out it isn't true, or even if false, maybe harmless or beneficial in some moral reasoning it introduces, or the strength of inquiry or community it fosters. Notice this Pauline theory 14 years prior does not of that save in motivating Paul, as he is only willing to talk of his visions cryptically.... and to people we know know not. So I'm in a position of a lack of evidence but not necessarily opposed but not caring enough to squash it. My imagination and cognitive abilities are advanced enough to see the mystical visions similarly described or conjectured and I don't feel a overflowing of faith or Godhood, just skepticism and mild annoyance in noting alot more should be present if a secret Jewish society existed believing in this. Because it doesn't seem enough. They were secret and cryptic so very likely alot is missing today.

Thanks for the link. What surprised me the most, I think, is that this idea of Paul's involvement with pre-existing mystical sects is such a modern idea, as it seems so obvious. Christianity wasn't formed in a vacuum, and it must have built on earlier traditions. What Paul created was essentially a mystery religion, and like other mystery religions of the time, most famously Mithraism, it had degrees of initiation, a secret inner core of knowledge, and a communal feast where the participants ritually and symbolically consumed their god. That last bit, of course, would have been a grotesque blasphemy to Jews, but existed in Pagan Greek traditions, so if it's the case that Paul drew on Jewish mystical thought, as I'm sure it is, he also drew on Greek mystical thought as well, creating a new, syncretic system. After all, Palestine had been part of the Hellenistic world since the time of Alexander, and there was a great deal of cultural exchange.

The mystical practices he was describing are also similar to the sort of Kabbalistic rituals practiced by the Golden Dawn, with its ascending levels of initiation and revelation, ultimately approaching godhead. There probably isn't a direct link, though, and the creators of the Golden Dawn presumably deliberately modelled their system on such earlier traditions.

[Constantine]

I doubt Paul had much exposure to Roman pagan traditions as a Jewish man. Christianity sucked alot in. Mithraism in this period wasn't the state religion it would be later on, mostly bee keepers and pirates. You'ld have to wait a while for influences, and it was mostly in the procession of the liturgy then. We also had pagan Jewish sects. Something overlooked today.

[Maia]

I doubt Paul had much exposure to Roman pagan traditions as a Jewish man. Christianity sucked alot in. Mithraism in this period wasn't the state religion it would be later on, mostly bee keepers and pirates. You'ld have to wait a while for influences, and it was mostly in the procession of the liturgy then. We also had pagan Jewish sects. Something overlooked today.

Not Roman ones, but certainly Greek ones.

It sometimes seems, as it's usually recounted, that the development of Christianity was completely insulated from what was happening in the world around it at the time, but this obviously can't have been the case. It appears that Paul's great mystical revelation at the temple in Jerusalem took place around AD 40. That also happens to be around the time that the Emperor Caligula decreed that a statue of himself should be placed in the Holy of Holies for the Jews to worship. It goes without saying that they were not to happy about this, and it's likely that the famous Jewish revolt of AD 70 would have been brought forward by 30 years had not Caligula been assassinated, and the desecration averted.

How this ties into Paul's revelation, at a time of great spiritual ferment, is an interesting question.

[Constantine]

Oh.... should point out I accidently learned the Golden Dawn sefirot (and do mean accidently) when I was a member of a personality typing website via a canadian theory from the 1980s called Cognitive Styles. I was typed in that theory as a INTJ Contributor, which aligned with Keter, but Keter wasn't named in that system. When I finally got around to studying the Zohar, I immediately recognized it and was pissed. His brother runs a site called mentalsymmetry.com and has the older video links. He is a anabaptist Mennonite and has a different take on the cognitive set up (I'm still a INTJ Contributor based out of the supplementary motor area in both systems). The brother doesn't want anything to do with paganism and instead types out every Christian sect in existence, why the golden dawn brother.... stays quiet. All enthusiasm for his theory died after I figured it out and told everyone. There was in my group a former Golden Dawn model and musician living in Texas equally angry (why she didn't pick up on it first is beyond me). She left due to molestation as a child in the religion and general weirdness.... they have a intergenerational retention problem, became a lesbian and is now over 40 married to a fat chick. I believe she wrote a song about me, used to be played in plazas and diners in the Dallas Fort Worth area.

[Maia]

Oh.... should point out I accidently learned the Golden Dawn sefirot (and do mean accidently) when I was a member of a personality typing website via a canadian theory from the 1980s called Cognitive Styles. I was typed in that theory as a INTJ Contributor, which aligned with Keter, but Keter wasn't named in that system. When I finally got around to studying the Zohar, I immediately recognized it and was pissed. His brother runs a site called mentalsymmetry.com and has the older video links. He is a anabaptist Mennonite and has a different take on the cognitive set up (I'm still a INTJ Contributor based out of the supplementary motor area in both systems). The brother doesn't want anything to do with paganism and instead types out every Christian sect in existence, why the golden dawn brother.... stays quiet. All enthusiasm for his theory died after I figured it out and told everyone. There was in my group a former Golden Dawn model and musician living in Texas equally angry (why she didn't pick up on it first is beyond me). She left due to molestation as a child in the religion and general weirdness.... they have a intergenerational retention problem, became a lesbian and is now over 40 married to a fat chick. I believe she wrote a song about me, used to be played in plazas and diners in the Dallas Fort Worth area.

The original Golden Dawn no longer exists, having fragmented around 1900, when it's founder, MacGregor Mathers, was booted out over his promotion of Aleister Crowley, and the poet W. B. Yeats took over for a while, until the whole thing fell apart. Any modern group using its name will have no legitimate connection with the original, and it sounds like that one is more like a cult.

[Constantine]

Very cultic. And touchy, in a unfriendly way.

[Maia]

Very cultic. And touchy, in a unfriendly way.

Doesn't sound very nice. The original Golden Dawn was organised like the Freemasons, and even met in Masonic lodges, so very un-cultlike.

[Constantine]

Looked like one from the wild pics I've seen.

[Maia]

Looked like one from the wild pics I've seen.

A number of organisations have claimed to be descended from the original Golden Dawn, preserving its secret wisdom, such as it was, but I don't think any of their claims have been proven. The Golden Dawn had branches in London, Bristol, Bradford and Edinburgh, if memory serves (it's been some years since I've read about this sort of stuff), plus a few abroad, in Paris, Chicago and New Zealand. After the split of around 1900, two rival orders emerged, called the Stella Matutina and Alpha et Omega, and each of these chartered new temples, not necessarily successfully. The original London temple was closed down at the outbreak of the First World War, and the Paris temple, where the exiled MacGregor Mathers was residing at the time, closed when he died in the flu pandemic of 1918. Apparently the Bristol temple survived the longest, into the 1960s, when its members eventually died off. But I suppose it's just possible, somewhere, that some offshoot survived.

[Constantine]

Something in Texas does.

I am not a Alexster Crowley fan. Pissed off the head of the Roman branch, back when he followed me on Instagram. My account mostly did historic image analysis, but we conversed one day and I brought up the monastery they had and the beastiality goat fuck sacrifice incident. Apparently that's a shameful taboo denial thing, and my not apologizing- as if I made it all up (I'm hardly the first) offended him. Which was funny as I know a crazy Dutch guy from another site who claims to of hung with him.

So they are puritanical pilgrims living in celibacy, drug free up in their little mountaintop monastery only thinking pure thoughts while eating wholesome oatmeal.

The imagery of the golden dawn- I had a thick paperback book on them after, was hokey amd weird looking, and more about sensational pageantry. And this from a guy used to specializing in historic religious artifacts. They just wanted to stand out in a carnival like atmosphere. I'm far too introverted and analytic to fall for that, if I tried I'd just walk out mid way through embarrassed. Like a religion ran by a partying frat house. The imagery was off.... in terms of illustrations. Not the best art. Too packed with complexity, and the complexity was largely unwarranted, but also in style looked like a amature did it all. Just isn't something I'd take seriously. I know nothing about the golden dawn ending.... but not surprised it did. It always looked off. I've seen some gnostic offshoots (they do both gnostic and hermeticism) try hard to look traditional byzantine. One in California does services in his church in his house wearing a Mickey Mouse phantasia outfit, but he put alot of effort in his set up. Not hokey.... weird, but he means it. It would in terms of art match a traditional church.

[Maia]

Something in Texas does.

I am not a Alexster Crowley fan. Pissed off the head of the Roman branch, back when he followed me on Instagram. My account mostly did historic image analysis, but we conversed one day and I brought up the monastery they had and the beastiality goat fuck sacrifice incident. Apparently that's a shameful taboo denial thing, and my not apologizing- as if I made it all up (I'm hardly the first) offended him. Which was funny as I know a crazy Dutch guy from another site who claims to of hung with him.

So they are puritanical pilgrims living in celibacy, drug free up in their little mountaintop monastery only thinking pure thoughts while eating wholesome oatmeal.

The imagery of the golden dawn- I had a thick paperback book on them after, was hokey amd weird looking, and more about sensational pageantry. And this from a guy used to specializing in historic religious artifacts. They just wanted to stand out in a carnival like atmosphere. I'm far too introverted and analytic to fall for that, if I tried I'd just walk out mid way through embarrassed. Like a religion ran by a partying frat house. The imagery was off.... in terms of illustrations. Not the best art. Too packed with complexity, and the complexity was largely unwarranted, but also in style looked like a amature did it all. Just isn't something I'd take seriously. I know nothing about the golden dawn ending.... but not surprised it did. It always looked off. I've seen some gnostic offshoots (they do both gnostic and hermeticism) try hard to look traditional byzantine. One in California does services in his church in his house wearing a Mickey Mouse phantasia outfit, but he put alot of effort in his set up. Not hokey.... weird, but he means it. It would in terms of art match a traditional church.

I'm not an Aleister Crowley fan either. He seems to have lived a very chaotic and unhappy life. Presumably you're referring to Crowley's Abbey of Thelema on Sicily, famous for its filthy, unsanitary conditions, which was eventually closed down by Mussolini and Crowley kicked out of the country.

I can't really comment on Golden Dawn art, but in terms of pageantry, they were definitely heavily into that. Their rituals read like extremely complex, arcane and very lengthy plays. This was an integral part of their system, of course, designed to take the participant out of the mundane world by the sheer combined force of symbolism and tedium.

If that Dutch person you mentioned hung out with Crowley he must be getting on a bit by now, since Crowley died in 1947.

[Constantine]

Not Crowley, the head of the Roman branch as of.... ummm.... last two years, but probably still now. I lost my instagram accounts when I refused to list my birthday and personal details.

[Maia]

Not Crowley, the head of the Roman branch as of.... ummm.... last two years, but probably still now. I lost my instagram accounts when I refused to list my birthday and personal details.

The Roman branch of that Golden Dawn cult?

[Constantine]

No, Thelema. He was only interested in my knowledge of ancient religions. I wasn't doing any geolocating or covering the war then because Russia hadn't invaded yet, so was mostly just historical stuff.