Esoteric Religion
Esoteric Religion is a branch of Colonized Spirituality that is created in order to indoctrinate the Accumulating Classes with archetypes that encourage the individuals in the class to take and exert power and control over others.
Syncretic Terms
Related LP Terms
Esoteric Religion > Colonized Spirituality, Esoteric Religion, Exoteric Religion, Ideological Institution, Mainstream
Non-LP Related Terms
Examples
Notes
The Accumulating Class have a history of hiding knowledge, particularly “spiritual” knowledge, not because they are stupid or superstitious but because there is something there worth hiding. Western spiritual traditions have a) an esoteric/secret version contained, for example, in the “secret” brotherhoods of this world, like Freemasonry, and b) an exoteric version contained in public religious institutions.[1] The former is available only to “initiates” (people who are invited in) while the other is open to the masses. The initiates get the truth about “divine things,” “human nature and human destiny” (Wilmshurst 1922: italics added) while the masses get confusing allegory. “To initiates it is given to understand, via the hidden mysteries of nature and science, the mystery of the center. To the uninitiated all these things are veiled in allegory”.[2] Freemason Wilmshurst says it best.
In all periods of the world's history, and in every part of the globe, secret orders and societies have existed outside the limits of the official churches for the purpose of teaching what are called "the Mysteries": for imparting to suitable and prepared minds certain truths of human life, certain instructions about divine things, about the things that belong to our peace, about human nature and human destiny, which it was undesirable to publish to the multitude who would but profane those teachings and apply the esoteric knowledge that was communicated to perverse and perhaps to disastrous ends.[3]
Footnotes
- ↑ Arthur Versluis, Magic and Mysticism: An Introduction to Western Esotericism (Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007).
- ↑ Robert Lomas, The Secret Science of Masonic Initiation (San Francisco: Weiser, 2010).
- ↑ W. L. Wilmshurst, The Meaning of Masonry (London: William Rider & Son, 1922): italics added.
