Esotericism in 1 picture

Luminon
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Esotericism in 1 picture

In case you ever wondered what my hobby is like, here's the definition in popular format.

 


Vastet
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*chuckle*

*chuckle*

Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.


truth
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I'd summarize Esotericism as

I'd summarize Esotericism as the lower middle picture shows


Atheistextremist
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Nice one Lumie

 

 

But what are the guys bottom left doing - I can't make out if they're gutting a shark or drilling for oil....

"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck


truth
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Lumy, perhaps this priest

Lumy, perhaps this priest has debunked esotericism? ---> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3K0wsusaOo&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PLBC522E73BE5EAE46

How is it NOT an illusion of power?


Luminon
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 truth wrote:I'd summarize

 

truth wrote:

I'd summarize Esotericism as the lower middle picture shows

Yep, that's the one I personally identify with. But to outsiders it looks like the lower right one.

 

Atheistextremist wrote:

But what are the guys bottom left doing - I can't make out if they're gutting a shark or drilling for oil....

That's a scene from the Ghost Hunters show. I guess that shadow thing on the other side of a wall is supposed to be a ghost Smiling 

 

truth wrote:

Lumy, perhaps this priest has debunked esotericism? ---> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3K0wsusaOo&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PLBC522E73BE5EAE46

How is it NOT an illusion of power?

He's a Christian. They have only one answer, everything you ever ask them about is of the devil. I haven't ever seen Christians to say that something is NOT demonic or agree on what is or isn't. It's better not to ask Smiling But really, if they didn't yet call something devilish, they probably did not hear of it yet but they will fix that in a near future. 

You also see this pastor's world is religion. All he can imagine is worship, so esotericists must be satanic worshippers! Apparently, we can't just greet satan and exchange a few compliments.

But unfortunately, other than that he is generally right. Besides some relatively pure but austere and intellectually demanding traditions like Theosophy or Rosicrucianism there is the morass of New Age movement where people get scammed a lot. Not just by snake oil, when snake oil salesmen die, they continue parasiting on people from the astral realm, by pretending to be holy figures and giving messages to astral mediums. It can get really ugly, the medium has money, fame and people's attention and the ghost feeds on the medium's energy that the medium takes from the people (energy follows thought) and gets to publish his teachings. It's not like demons are involved the way Christians imagine, but people waste time,  money and energy and generally become wiser the hard way, if ever. The reality is, most of esotericists begin with the astral and New Age and it may take a decade or two to get wiser, if ever. Esotericism is not a very powerful nor effective path, that is the domain of science and politics.

Surprisingly Christians are right about selling the soul, that is, people involved with the astral tend to forfeit their chances at the communion with their own soul or higher self (which is a superior choice but requires lots of effort) for the sake of using easily reachable astral services and paying with who knows what. 
In our group of acquaitances we do not tolerate astral mediums and their followers and we highly value the ability to discern an astral teaching from a higher one. We take only people who mean it.

 

Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.