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Diaryland
New Age Beliefs and Perspectives July 05, 2007 @ 3:57 p.m.
Hey Scott.
Sorry it took so long to get back to you. I have been very busy and limited in my Internet access, so I haven't really had much chance to respond until recently, when I got a bit of reprieve for the week of the 4th. I also needed to think about things so that I could give you a good response.
I am very eclectic, but overall you could call my perspectives Holistic, Integral, Spiritual, or New Age. New Age is kind of a misnomer, because it is actually really just the return of the "Old Age". The basic paradigm is that people must cultivate a personal relationship with the Divine that is specific for them and based on experiential knowledge and revelation (Gnosis). Guidance can be very helpful, but ultimately you must be your own authority and cannot give your power and soul away to anyone or anything else, be it an organization, a philosophy, a person, or a scripture. God, the Ultimate, Spirit, or whatever you want to call it, is Universal - both transcending everything we know and imminent within everything we encounter, especially our own hearts and souls. The essence of God and the cosmos is Unconditional Love and Compassion, and Life serves to test, express, and demonstrate the Divine within a world of limits, ego, pain and seperation.
The only real sin is ignorance, which is the real root of all evils. Spiritual enlightenment and fulfillment comes from shifting one's identity and actions away from the ego's limited perspectives to align with God through one's True Will and True Identity as a spiritual being having a human experience. We have found all these truths to exist at the heart of all religions and to be expounded by the founders, mystics, saints and magicians of every religion. The mystical Poet Rumi said that "All religions, all this singing, is One Song. The differences are just illusion and vanity". Our perspective is called "Esoteric", meaning that it points towards the inner meaning and experience of religion. Similarly, we are frequently vilified, hated, blamed and persecuted by those who are religiously "exoteric" - focused on an absolutely literal fundamentalisit interpretation of religion and its history. Esotericism tends to be based on positive energies like love, joy, freedom and healing, while exotericism is usually based on fear, prejudice, guilt and shame.
Within the umbrella of esoteric spirituality, there is a lot of variety, but this is rather a point of pride rather than contention. There are many spiritual arts and sciences of esoteric perspective, such as energy healing, Integral philosophy, channeling, magick, shamanism, mysticism, etc. There are also many ancient esoteric traditions that grew up alongside religions, such as Gnostic Christianity, Jewish Kabbalah, Sufi Islam, Mahayana Buddhism, etc. There are many histoical movements and organizations also not linked to any specific religion, such as the alchemists, the Freemasons, the Rosicrucians, and the Western Ceremonial Tradition. The Integral Philosophy which Ken Wilber has recently rediscovered insists that to maintain the healthiest perspective, you always should try to appraoch things from as many angles as possible, so that you can see both the forest and the trees and not chop out any part. Two very important parts stressed in modern spirituality, for example, are the Feminine Dimension of the Divine, and a spirituality that honors the body and sexuality instead of demonizing it.
For example, one of the groups I belong to is an order of Christian mystics called the Gnostic Order of Christ. We preserve the estoric teachings, initiations and sacraments that Jesus brought to Earth but were later altered for political reasons. If you'd like to check out the websites, try www.gnostic.org and www.gnosticorderofchrist.org . You may also enjoy looking at the Rosicrucians, another group I belong to, at www.amorc.org .
I have a book I recently finished reading that you may enjoy and could answer a lot of your questions. It is called "Ascension Magick" and presents a very good survey of all the kinds of things I'm talking about and you were asking about. I live across the water in Lynnwood now, so if you'd like to get together for coffee or have me drop off the book for you sometime, I'd be happy to.
Hope this helps. Keep in touch,
David
"Details in the Fabric" - May 31, 2009
Not So Quick Questions - April 6, 2009
The Morning Stars - Lords of the 15 - April 9, 2009
Sincerity and Faith in Magic - April 10, 2009
Not So Quick Questions (2) - April 14, 2009
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