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God’s Children
A core element of the Zionist concept is “God’s children”, and though philosophically we are supposedly all equal in the eyes of God, in literal practice some are more equal than others. Those cultures who first embraced the Zionist movement, and conquered cultures, are at best the strange stepchild. There is a lot of pride…
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Heretical Christianity
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…
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Gnostic Reality
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…
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Individual Emanation
The Gnostic divinities are in the realm of the emanation, in the realm of self knowledge. Gnosis is a quality of the individual emanation, and not a body of knowledge that is fixed and must be accepted. Mandean and Manichean Gnosticism even reached China. To know yourself is to know God, i.e. all divinities? Yes,…
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Islamic Mysticism
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,…
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Gods Insights
In Sufi psychology, they refer to humanity as having three parts: physical being spiritual heart transcendent godlike soul The dervish dancing was a way of exhausting the body to open awareness of the heart, because only by the devotions of the heart can there be knowledge of the soul. It is believed that people are…
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Sufi Practice
Sufis don’t have a single set of practices that apply to all disciples, thus the absolute need of the teacher. The Sufi master is the only one in their view who has the insight to help a disciple pursue the practices in a way that would have any merit. Otherwise, it’s believed that rather than bringing…
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Spirit of Giving
We complain about the modern Christmas being commercialized, but our ancestors did a lot of fortune seeking at that time of year even before the age of super malls and trendy stores. There was also a running debate regarding praying to angels, and this is part of why angels are a related image in Christmas. They…
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Iconoclasm
Iconoclasm is a very old spiritual and philosophical paradox. On the one hand it differs from atheism in that it does not deny the reality of truth or God, but it challenges codification of these ideas. It is on its face an opposition to any representation of the divine images, and on another it’s a…
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Forms of Iconoclasm
Iconoclasm has taken many forms across world cultures. I just remember the type that smash icons. Some factions smashed icons that they felt were not adequate or proper representations. They weren’t all absolutely opposed to any image at all. In fact, Catholicism has had iconoclastic movements without actually rejecting any representation at all. In part,…
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Faith in Iconoclasm
An iconoclast is not necessarily faithless. As a matter of fact, Judaism has what could be considered a tradition of what could be called iconoclastic behaviour, formal debate of their law. Islam, as I understand it, is iconoclastic? Islam is iconoclastic in the literal sense, but has many strictly orthodox sects though some that aren’t…
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Exploring Religion
One World, Many Paths holds spirituality discussions in the virtual world of Second Life. Join us there to meet like minds and explore your path. ~~~~~ I’m an atheist, but I find religion very interesting. Especially mysticism, druidism, Wicca. It is, yes. There are so many beliefs that have shaped our world even when we…
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Truth and Lies
Rosicrucianism is a pseudo-gnostic school with a lot of obtuse arguments regarding the nature of human progress and spiritual advancement. The Rosicrucian movement can be argued to be a hoax similar to the supposed Illuminati. There isn’t a lot to say about it of any coherence. What constitutes a hoax? Incoherence. Same as what constitutes…
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Norse Gods
I employ a lot of metaphors and intellectual tools when I try to teach a class. Thing. The word is of Norse origin. Know what it means? Mystery. The allthing was a meeting of Norse spirituality. They didn’t really have a priesthood. Luck is also Norse. Luck meant tendency/fate. The Norse had the habit of…
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Mystic Avatars
The idea of the divine manifesting in matter is truly universal, but the particulars differ as does the understanding of context. The original meaning of the word avatar is “descent”, but it’s typically translated into English as incarnation. There are many kinds of avatars and different degrees of divine connection from the Voodoo spirit horses,…
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Agents Of The Divine
In Shintoism, when a Kanushi sought to exorcise a malicious spirit, they would pray not to be made as a Dragon or one of the high celestial Kami. They would pray to be made like the Oni who were low spirits, savage, and their place in the celestial bureaucracy was as punishers of those who…
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Embody Connection
One more aspect of the avatar phenomenon, the Archmagus, or whatever other term is used by the tradition in question. An Archmagus is someone who has collected and embodied all their spiritual metaphysical connections. Meaning all that influences them transforms their nature. They come to be living embodiments of the great force by whatever name…
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Practice Of Religion
Religion is from the Latin world religio, which was their word for practice of any kind. Legal is also a word that comes from the same root. It’s hard to name one body of beliefs (well, it’s really impossible), and say “There … what that is, is religion.” In fact, for as long as humanity…
Category: World Belief
On my spiritual path I have studied many world beliefs. While I don’t claim to be an authority on them, I will share some of what I’ve learned in the ‘World Beliefs’ category. Perhaps they will inspire you to seek further.
Those who abandon their faith are not faithless. Perhaps quite to the contrary, their faith has given them the strength to abandon trappings. Religion from the Latin religio meaning practice. We will all have practices. I was very devout myself, and in my devotion I found I could no longer devote myself to that creed. My faith isn’t weak. It motivates my seeking. I don’t subscribe to any specific faith. I find truth in my personal experience which does loosely label me a Gnostic. Many Gnostic schools say the logos indwells our sun itself.
The Buddhas wisdom was put into the context of the greater way as was the only way it could be, but in fact the symbolism is at best intuitively true. The spheres exist within us. Wisdom is simple. It is the sign of true knowing. Not if they can spout arcane jargon, but can they take an arcane topic and make it abundantly clear to the uninitiated.
I will state that these beliefs discussed are not necessarily my beliefs.
“There is not enough religion in the world to destroy the world’s religious.” Friedrich Nietzsche