Lately I've been pondering social pathologies that have been linked to "magical thinking." Utopian ideologies whose proponents keep pushing them despite a long record of failed implementations, cargo cults believing in various panaceas for all society's woes, etc.
It occurs to me that some of these problems could be linked to the application of esoteric tools of thought by people who don't have the knowledge or context to properly use them. Traditionally, esoteric knowledge has been gatekept in various ways; degrees of initiation in occult societies, monasticism, exclusive apprenticeships, etc. Are we experiencing the consequences of occult thinking being applied in a careless, piecemeal fashion such that these old social conventions were designed to prevent?
For example, occult thinkers have asserted "Reason is not the only means by which truth may be found, there are other experiential pathways we can follow to broaden our understanding." Postmodernists say "Reason is an oppressive social construct and truth is merely the product of temporal power, and we can change the world at will by changing how we speak." The latter assertion reflects a dim understanding of the former along with a heaping dose of wishful thinking.
In particular, while today's prominent anti-rational political streams share an idea that symbolic rituals can transform society, they lack any kind of spirituality and their metaphysical framework is rudimentary at best. It's interesting because many of these ideas are seen on the political left, and in decades past the left was associated with significant amounts of "woowoo," tarot cards, astrology and the like, but the contemporary left that has more fully embraced postmodern ideas appears nearly devoid of spiritual thought.
It all seems akin to children playing with matches. Are there any historical analogs you can think of - incidents where poorly understood occult methods were used with disastrous results? It seems that the propagation of vampires may be reflective of this - you've written that the original spirits inhabiting long barrows were elders who bound themselves to the physical world after death to continue guiding their people, but the later vampires inhabiting burial mounds were simply kings and nobles who used the old knowledge to cheat death and become parasites of the living. Is there any evidence that the traditional frameworks restricting esoteric knowledge were motivated by problems such as these?
An addendum: It's also occurred to me that the lack of spirituality in postmodern politics may only be an outward appearance. Along with things like the "Magic Resistance" and the infernal rituals hosted at Catland Books in Brooklyn, I've heard multiple references in "progressive" circles to this book:
This grimoire of demonic magic specifically describes the powers it invokes as anti-thought and aimed at dissolving reality. If this is the spiritual framework underlying the above political movements, it's no wonder they want to keep it as private as they can.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2022-07-18 11:48 am (UTC)Lately I've been pondering social pathologies that have been linked to "magical thinking." Utopian ideologies whose proponents keep pushing them despite a long record of failed implementations, cargo cults believing in various panaceas for all society's woes, etc.
It occurs to me that some of these problems could be linked to the application of esoteric tools of thought by people who don't have the knowledge or context to properly use them. Traditionally, esoteric knowledge has been gatekept in various ways; degrees of initiation in occult societies, monasticism, exclusive apprenticeships, etc. Are we experiencing the consequences of occult thinking being applied in a careless, piecemeal fashion such that these old social conventions were designed to prevent?
For example, occult thinkers have asserted "Reason is not the only means by which truth may be found, there are other experiential pathways we can follow to broaden our understanding." Postmodernists say "Reason is an oppressive social construct and truth is merely the product of temporal power, and we can change the world at will by changing how we speak." The latter assertion reflects a dim understanding of the former along with a heaping dose of wishful thinking.
In particular, while today's prominent anti-rational political streams share an idea that symbolic rituals can transform society, they lack any kind of spirituality and their metaphysical framework is rudimentary at best. It's interesting because many of these ideas are seen on the political left, and in decades past the left was associated with significant amounts of "woowoo," tarot cards, astrology and the like, but the contemporary left that has more fully embraced postmodern ideas appears nearly devoid of spiritual thought.
It all seems akin to children playing with matches. Are there any historical analogs you can think of - incidents where poorly understood occult methods were used with disastrous results? It seems that the propagation of vampires may be reflective of this - you've written that the original spirits inhabiting long barrows were elders who bound themselves to the physical world after death to continue guiding their people, but the later vampires inhabiting burial mounds were simply kings and nobles who used the old knowledge to cheat death and become parasites of the living. Is there any evidence that the traditional frameworks restricting esoteric knowledge were motivated by problems such as these?
An addendum: It's also occurred to me that the lack of spirituality in postmodern politics may only be an outward appearance. Along with things like the "Magic Resistance" and the infernal rituals hosted at Catland Books in Brooklyn, I've heard multiple references in "progressive" circles to this book:
https://scriptus.gydja.com/the-book-of-sitra-achra-a-grimoire-of-the-dragons-of-the-other-side-n-a-a-218/
This grimoire of demonic magic specifically describes the powers it invokes as anti-thought and aimed at dissolving reality. If this is the spiritual framework underlying the above political movements, it's no wonder they want to keep it as private as they can.