Spirituality for Living

The Kabbalah is Jewish esotericism. It’s a bit more widely known than people realize, and some of its arguments are arrived at and used by people who aren’t Kabbalists. The basic concept is that Gods essence is incomprehensible to us, and though Christians criticise this mysticism they still use that idea. The universe exists as [...]

When Jesus went into his meditative retreat, it came to mind that he could claim power. He was being heralded as the next King of Israel, as well as the messiah, and he confronted these. He didn’t just ward himself against the devil, nor was his purity evident in being untouched by darkness, but quite [...]

The first discipline of language magic is listening, and at first you will be listening to yourself. This is necessary. As you listen to yourself, you will see the pattern, and how it impacts the world. At this point you can begin to make choices, but you can’t stop there. That’s just meditation, though that’s [...]

The Buddha rejected the way of the ascetic, but people get hung up on his view of attachments and miss his message. Avoidance can be an attachment, and no insult intended if you are Christian, but in my experience those most concerned with Satan are Christians. They are more concerned about Satan and evil than [...]

What amounts to a necromantic practice is that of the Sin Eater. The Sin Eater was a person who performed a rite that is based on a Christian concept. Every sin must be atoned for, yes? If one could not receive final absolution, then one of the village, a Sin Eater, would perform a rite over [...]

The tribes in Indonesia that eat the brains of their loved one’s are practicing necromancy? In a sense they are, but for them it hasn’t broken from their shamanism. So it is in a sense a spiritual sacrament for them, and in some traditions of necromancy eating portions of the dead was practiced.
I would require [...]

Originally, Gnosticism was just seen as a heretical branch of Christianity, but other evidence points at it having had a different origin and a viral tendency. It infiltrated not only Christianity, but Judaism, Islam, and Zoroastrianism also. It was sort of a novel idea for the time. Sort of like the religious equivalent of the [...]

The different schools of Gnosis have differing attitudes about reality and the creator. From Jehovah being genuinely evil to just being fallible, and from any partaking of reality as being damning of yourself to the problem being misperception of reality.
Asceticism? Yes. To a most meditative attitude, mostly. Some say you can’t achieve gnosis without abstinence. [...]

The Kabbalah is Jewish mysticism. Sufism is Islamic mysticism, and though having been influenced by Sikhism, it isn’t Sikhism.
Have you noted that Islam seemed to be far more scientifically tolerant than Christianity? It’s sort of ingrained into the original native culture of Islam. They were even the ones who preserved the c-section, astrological charts, the [...]