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>>41871751
Previous thread >>41800888

>>41871751
This should have been thr 144 000 edition but oh well

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Should I become Catholic?

>>41874343
Yes, but don't ask men, just trust Jesus to show you the way.

Ant Grimores about angels/ contacting friendly angles

>>41874343
seconding what >>41874390 said, when i was trying to get back into religion and reading the bible, starting in the ot was like dragging my balls through glass, so i said ‘fuck it’ and skipped ahead to reading matthew, and everything just clicked

In case you don’t know about this, this site is amazing: https://bkv.unifr.ch/en

>>41871751
Is this general dedicated to Alexandria the great city of gnosis, both pagan and Christian, both heretical and orthodox?
So many great thinkers came from Alexandria! Such a pity that today it's an irrelevant place.

>>41873146
I think Lewis‘s Mere Christianity is an excellent starting point, it made me understand a lot of things about Christianity.

>>41874343
Yes, come home to your mother

>>41875592
Catholics try to be exclusive about this, but yes, The Jerusalem Above is Our Mother: The Bride of the "Father" is a Mother who Produces Sons, just not with a womb.

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>>41875592
>>41874977
>Excuse me?
The Syriac Alexander Romance is a Christianized retelling of older Alexander tales that has even influenced the Quran.
Alexander the Great is depicted as a Christian in the text:
>"Oh God, master of kings and judges, you who raise up kings and dismiss their power, I perceive with my mind that you made me great among all kings, and that you caused horns to grow on my head, so that I may gore with them the kingdoms of the world. Give me the power from the heavens of your sanctity so that I may receive strength greater than the kingdoms of the world, and I will humiliate them and glorify your name forever, O Lord!”

>>41875909
>>41875912
>I tell you people everything in simple words of your own language and you still don't let it process through your minds. Why?
Probably because a very basic familiarity with Proverbs / Wisdom of Solomon of Sophia as active agent which gets transferred later to the actions of the Holy Spirit, Inanna's Descent and her frequent appropriation of the spheres of other deities etc. all conflict massively with "feminine as inactive/inert", because that is a very late quasi-medieval alchemical idea being retroactively applied to much older texts in ways that only "work" when you ignore "nuance and wording" of said texts and mythologies and mix all of them together completely willy nilly in order to avoid having to actually read them individually.

If I had to guess.

>>41871751
Hey guys!
I really need to know where exactly is the tomb of Alexander the Great. Someone said that it's in St Mark's cathedral in Venice, that the venetians took the body of Alexander and not that of St Mark. How true is this? How is it even possible that the tomb of someone like Alexander to be lost? Does not make any sense. It should have remained the most important monument in Alexandria.

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>>41876054
>It should have remained the most important monument in Alexandria
I agree. If nothing else he was still the founder of the city so they should have taken better care of the body.
I read that it might actually have been us (Christians) that did it, when we went around the city smashing idols, since it was also the main site for the cult of Alexandros-Ammon.
There is only one God (Yahweh Elohim) that deserves worship but Alexander was definiatly a son of God.
He was a prophet of God but his mission was not to spread the Word but to put the nations of this world in their place.

>>41875592
>>41875909
>>41875912
Weird, these posts were already too old to be deleted. Why did the jannies delete these posts?

>>41876534
Why does it just say [deleted] next to deleted posts? Nigga I can still see it. 4chan would've fixed that problem years ago if it had any paid employees

>>41874343
Do you want to?
>>41874589
Learn how to venerate Saints in Catholicism/Orthodoxy, then look up the 7 Archangels in the Book of Enoch and venerate them
>>41874730
The NT resonates with us a lot more, it environment and characters are much more familiar to us so it is better to start there, but with time, you have to learn the OT as well as it gives the context surrounding what is being fulfilled in the NT
>>41875601
Israel is Wisdom, the Church and the Bride of God
>>41875915
There's quite a story behind Alexander being a proto-Christian, Josephus mentions the story of him meeting the High Priest in Israel
>>41876118
Ah yes the pagan prophets, Pythagoras, Plato, Alexander, Vergil, pretty funtif you say that out loud

>>41876569
>There's quite a story behind Alexander being a proto-Christian
If Alexander the Great was a proto Christian, then I'm a proto-religion-that-won't-be-invented-until-2370

>>41876606
Maybe you are, who knows...
It's just that Alexander's teacher was Aristotle, and Christianity which considers itself to be both the continuation of the Law and the Prophets together with the Poets and Philosophers of Antiquity, so someone with that background who is also known to have bowed down to of the God of the Old Testament because of Daniel's prophecy, will get turned into a proto-Christian

Jesus says: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life." Can anyone explain what he specifically means by "life"? What kind of life is he referring to?

>>41877074
The eternal life, without him you will die, with him you will live forever

>>41877147
Is it also meant as the spiritual life vs. the natural life?

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>>41877202
NTA but I guess both. Most Christians I know seem to think that the afterlife is purely spiritual but actually your physical body will be restored for judgement day and it gets turned into a glorified body similiar to what Jesus had after His resurrection.

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Song of the Original Way to Save the World (《原道救世歌》)
>Worship of the Heavenly Father as the one true God
>That all people should revere and worship Him without dividing by social rank
>Moral exhortations against evil behavior (e.g., immorality, harming parents, killing, theft, sorcery, gambling, opioid use)
>Building a new social ethos rooted in righteousness and peace

Should I buy a handmade prayer rope for 45€ to help me practice the Jesus prayer?

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Posting in a cringe thread!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmgXW9xkMTA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3QosepCOx8

>>41877319
You could try making one yourself you know.
That would be good practice in itself, and there are tutorials available.

I have made two knots on my own belt as a reminder, which I wear every day.

But if you want to support the people making them, that wouldn't be the worst way to do it.
Just remember to do your due diligence.

"Christian Esotericism" Wut?
damn 4chan why discuss this rofl; Poopish Pee might as well be a thread.

>>41878891
What is generally called "entertainment" is propaganda through magical means.

>>41878784
I'm a bit concerned about quality, so I'd need to acquire high quality materials, but I'm not good at c&a, I think it would be difficult, especially because each knot is a small cross.

New Christian convert here (was raised agnostic, but I’ve had some familiarity with Scripture from a young age).

I’ve found God, Jesus and scripture, but I honestly don’t know what denomination to identify with, since I really just thought more about Jesus’ words than that, and I’m skeptical with institutions. I’m keeping my faith private for the time being, but I really want to know how to converse with God and understand His will, but I feel I’m someone who’s too liberal for some churches and too conservative for others.

>>41881151
I was the same as you for a long time, but with time the wish to get baptized became so strong, I had to choose a church. In the end I decided in favor of the Catholic Church, because it's the one true Church founded by Jesus Christ. It's long history, tradition and religious practices also helped me in my private spiritual and prayer life.
I guess, if you live in a predominantly Orthodox country, you could also make a case for joining that one, but for me it wasn't really an option.

>>41881188
See, I’ve considered Catholicism, but part of me doubts that the Vatican truly speaks for God. How can the Pope be God when they seem to be influenced by the politics of their time. Not to mention that Catholics often seem to argue who’s a good pope and who’s a bad pope.

Maybe that’s because of the fact that I went to a Protestant school growing up in addition to my Agnostic family, but I’m a person who’s skeptical of authority. Especially if it’s humans imposing their will on others.

It’s why I feel so confused. I’ve had a complicated relationship with God throughly my life. I’ve always believed He existed, but I’ve always wondered if he thought I was too sinful for him. Adding Church politics to that feels like it would complicate things more.

>>41881338
Catholics don't think the Pope is God, we don't even think he's infallible (except on very rare occasions when he acts ex cathedra). The Pope is Bishop of Rome, the highest ranking shepherd and successor of the Apostle Peter.
>but I’m a person who’s skeptical of authority
God is the greatest authority there is. Authority isn't a bad thing, he gave us the Church to help and guide us and follow in his steps.
There have been good and bad popes, the Pope is also a human who sins and can make mistakes.

Any Christians who agree that Jesus was the Teacher and Prophet, but not a God/Son of God?

>>41881338
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEA6fLJcxQo

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>>41881456
If you don't even believe that Christ was God/the Son of God, you're by definition not a Christian.

>>41881955
By who’s definition? Jesus never really claimed to be a God.

>>41882018
I don't know the exact verse but Jesus did say that he was identical with the Father.

>>41881373
>>41881574
That makes sense. It’s food for thought at least. I’m going to keep praying and researching for now and I’m sure God will point me in the right direction wherever that is. Thanks for that. I just hope I can be a good or at least a passable Christian considering I’m kind of new to a lot of this. Though I suppose being exposed to The Bible young and having learned a lot through cultural osmosis will help as a baseline.

>>41882018
Facts. He isn't God.

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>>41871751
I’d asked ChatGPT what a good list of Origen’s writings to start with were, do yall think it did a good job?

>>41882853
(One caveat is that I was asking it about the philokalia earlier, and “on first principles” was recommended in the second place on the order in the chat above it as being good to read alongside greer)

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>>41882264
>>41882827
>>41882018

Nicaea I taught that Christ was homoousios (consubstantial) with the Father. All Christians with a historical basis today affirm this council.

The Bible is very clear that Christ is God.

John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.
1:14 And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us...

Hebrews 1:8 But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom.

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>>41882159
John 10:30
>I and the Father are one.
Matthew 28:19
>Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name (singular!) of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

>>41882827
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/fw6jrG85MKM

>>41883204
>the Word was with God
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ar5uFp7XLnY

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/CX7KPsTIdK0

>>41882984
Michael seethes too much

>>41883869
But does he have the right amount of cope

>>41880302
They're not just a small cross, each knot is constituted by seven crosses bound up by one another.

It would be worth learning how to make that knot.

>>41883204
>Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever
It can also be translated as "Your throne is God," using the throne as a symbol meaning source of authority. Similarly the NRSV says the Hebrew of Psalm 45, which is being quoted by Hebrews, (though I imagine in its Septuagint form) can be translated as "Your throne is a throne of God."

In context in Hebrews, I think it's a bit more natural that way because the author is arguing that Jesus became superior to the angels after having made purification for sins, and him being plainly identified as God would be such an open-and-shut case that it renders everything else being quoted superfluous. It proves more than the author set out to prove, but it's presented without comment on the fact. Not only did the Son become superior to the angels; he is and always was at the top on account of being God, if the translation is correct.

It would also be out of place in the original psalm to the extent that the psalm is understood as a wedding song addressed to the then-king (it also mentions the queen and a princess), though it was understood by the author of Hebrews as prophetic.

Idk, as far as I've looked into it, I think the unitarians have a decent counter to everything, though the final understanding of the relationship between Jesus and God they end up with still puts Jesus really, really close to being God.

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>>41882264
Can also recommend this book by the same guy (which gets mentioned in the video). Shows quite clearly how the papacy is biblical. Jesus didn't build a democracy (democratic Church), the hierarchy and authority are intrinsic to its foundation.

How do you guys deal with doubt? I’ve really gotten into secular scholarship about the authorship of the New Testament and believe most of it consists of forgeries to combat Gnosticism and Marcionism.

I tried the Catholic/Orthodox cope that it was ok for church leaders to forge epistles in the apostles names to prevent heresy. But then I read Irenaeus’ Against Heresies and all of his arguments are terrible. He says things like Jesus was an old man in book 2 chapter 22 and that the four gospels represent the four corners of the flat earth in book 3 chapter 11. I just can’t convince myself that Irenaeus and the early church fathers are being honest. The evidence of deception is too strong and u don’t know if I believe them anymore. What if the heretics were the true Christians?

>>41884089
The Jewish Publication Society translation goes with "Your divine throne is everlasting" which, if that can be valid, is the least strange translation I've come across so far. There's a note in it that suggests for comparison 1 Chronicles 29:23, where it says that Solomon sat on the throne of the LORD, succeeding his father David as king.

>>41886280
>How do you guys deal with doubt?
Look into it until i get a concrete answer
>I’ve really gotten into secular scholarship about the authorship of the New Testament and believe most of it consists of forgeries to combat Gnosticism and Marcionism.
Mainstream secular scholarship believes that the NT Gospels predate all Gnostic Gospels and are atleast concurrent with the first Gnostic movements
>Jesus was an old man in book 2 chapter 22
First of all, his word isn't Gospel (lol) and should be read in light of the historical context, for Jews of that era the number 50 was significant as the Jubilee year
>the four gospels represent the four corners of the flat earth in book 3 chapter 11
He doesn't believe in a flat earth but in a geocentric universe with a round earth so he believed in what was standard at the time, again their worldview is different from us, see:
https://classicalchristianity.com/2013/09/14/on-the-seven-heavens/
>What if the heretics were the true Christians?
What would make them that? Which group specifically?
All Gnostic sects are dependant on the four Gospels, the Simonians are dependant on Simon who is mentioned in Acts, the "sequel" to Luke
(1/2)

>>41886507
Also I'll give you a short story that might help you, I believed that the Gnostic text Eugnostos the Blessed was from the first Century, all the scholars said so, but it made no sense to me and i spend months trying to square it with what i knew, I also read Sethian Gnosticism anf the Platonic tradition, 700 page study on Gnosticism and Platonism, which outlines a hypothetical history where there were Pre-Christian Barbeloites and Pre-Christian Sethians who then mixed, became Christian, then became Neoplatonists separate from Christianity
Then i read the newest Study by Einar Thomassen, and he says that (depending on a French study I can't read) that Eugnostos is 3rd if not 4th Century, and the "prequel" to On the Origin of the World, and he himself argues that Barbeloites and Sethians never existed, that instead there were the group we usually call Ophites from Irenaeus Against Heresies Book 1 Chapter 30, and from their Christian Neopythagorean system then developed first an alternate to it with Barbelo, and then afterwards they began considering themselves to be the seed of Seth, and everything began making sense
So basically, scholarship told me one thing, i believed it but struggled to make it make sense, but then new scholarship came out and said the exact opposite, and everything began to click and make sense to me
(2/2)

>>41886507
>>41886511
The newer scholarship that dates the gospels to the late second century makes more sense to me and the arguments for the first century read like bad apologetics desu.

My main issue is Marcionism. If Marcion’s canon was first, if his gospel was first, if his versions of Paul’s letters are first, and Luke-Acts and the pastorals are forgeries written by an early church father like Polycarp. Then doesn’t that make Christianity a subversion of the earlier religion?

>>41886741
At most you can argue that Marcion and the Church have two different edits of an original Luke, and Marcion has ten letters when scholars today claim Paul only wrote seven
The Gospels are first century because Simon Magus used Matthew, and Marcion is dependant on Simon through Cerdo, in both Simon who is before Marcion and the Marcionite Apelles, they're dependant on the Early Church for their Theology, specifically the Savior coming down through the Heavens
Second Marcion is a historical outlier, he is the only person in antiquity to read the Bible like someone from the Bible Belt in the USA
Tell me, if Marcion had the original, tell me the story, what happened during the first and second century?
Oh also, don't forget that Jesus' name means Yahweh is salvation

>>41887210
>Simon Magus used Matthew
NTA but source? I've never heard that before. My impression was that it's commonly thought that Simon Magus probably didn't exist, though there's an interesting minority who think Simon and Paul have a historical basis in the same person on account of things like Justin Martyr never plainly mentioning Paul but knowing about Simon and Marcion, or the Pseudo-Clementine literature which depicts debates between Peter and Simon Magus, with no mention of Paul, but with Simon sometimes seeming like a stand-in for Paul. For example, in Homily 17, Peter and Simon debate whether Simon having seen a vision of Jesus makes him more or less authoritative than Peter who saw him while he was alive, which seems suspiciously like the difference between Paul and Peter's conversions.
https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/080817.htm
>You professed that you had well understood the doctrines and deeds of your teacher because you saw them before you with your own eyes, and heard them with your own ears, and that it is not possible for any other to have anything similar by vision or apparition. But I shall show that this is false.

Also, while I don't think Marcionite doctrine was the original Christianity, I do think that both Marcionism and orthodoxy could be two divergent simplifications of the original Christianity. And if what Tertullian said about Marcion outright requiring celibacy for all converts is correct, then Marcionism was playing the religion game with their hands and feet tied behind their backs, so their dying out completely only after several centuries looks more impressive rather than less impressive.

>>41887340
*is correct, then Marcionites were playing

>>41887340
>source?
I made it up
It's in Irenaeus Against Heresies Book I Chapter 23, Helena is the lost sheep mentioned in Matthew 18
The whole Simon-Paul thing is one of those conspiracy theories the academics love to imagine, they struggle with parallelomania, like James Tabor who has his own little "original jewish followers of Yeshua" story arc he dreamed up
>I do think that both Marcionism and orthodoxy could be two divergent simplifications of the original Christianity.
Yes that's the case, I drew up a timeline myself with how Christianity was divided, both from Judaism, the John the Baptist sect, then Jewish Christianity, then Gnosticism, and how Gnosticism itself is divided
But Marcionites are dependant on the Proto-Orthodox Church just like the Simonians before them, so I believe that the Christianity closest to what was practiced by the Apostles was Proto-Orthodoxy, they also happen to be the ones who are connected the most to Second Temple Jewish Esotericism, Philo, Qumran and Enoch literature

>>41887426
>Helena is the lost sheep mentioned in Matthew 18
What Irenaus says is, "and she it was that was meant by the lost sheep." Imo all that can be inferred from that is that Irenaeus knows the Simonians identified their Helen as the lost sheep in the parable, not that they were referring to Matthew specifically. I really doubt the Simonians would've used Matthew considering it's the most pro-Jewish law gospel, even anti-Paul by some estimates.

Instead it could easily be that they knew a collection of sayings of Jesus similar to the proposed Q document or the gospel of Thomas, which does have a lost sheep saying. Or early copies of Mark mentioned the lost sheep in the story of the woman at Tyre where Matthew does, but it was removed to prevent Simonian interpretation. Or the Simonians had a proto-Luke similar to or the same as Marcion's which was written before Matthew, but which we no longer have like we no longer have anything the Marcionites used.

An interesting Paul-Simon overlap is that while Simon was "in the habit of carrying about" Helen, In 1 Corinthians 9, Paul reveals that he or someone else in his group was apparently criticized for being accompanied by a woman.
>This is my defense to those who would examine me. Do we not have the right to our food and drink? Do we not have the right to be accompanied by a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas? Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working for a living?
It's odd how the topic of the woman gets brought up and immediately dropped, with the next verse seeming to refer either back to verse 4 or to something missing. Why would Paul be criticized for being accompanied by a believing wife? Could it be because there was something scandalous about her left unsaid, like maybe she was a former prostitute, in which case there's another parallel between Simon and Paul?

>>41887529
Yeah but we have no evidence for any of those, but I do admit that they, if they did not have Matthew, then they did have Syriac Matthew, which I think is the Q source if there is one
Them using Matthew makes sense if it's the only thing available to them
For context I believe that the Simonians are very, and i mean, very early, I have tried to square the timeline scholars use but, the Gospels have to be mid-1st century for Christian history to make sense, otherwise we have John coming out the same period as Justin Martyr's simple Middle Platonic Theology, together with Valentinian Theology which is more complex than Proclus in the Early Medieval period, and the Gnostics within a few years are able to spread all around the empire, develop a dozen different theologies with bizarre elements like Marcosian Letter Mysticism, something we have no evidence of from that era, which only shows up later in the obscure Syriac About the Mystery of the Letters and even later Medieval Kabbalah
And while we don't have primary sources we still have secondary ones, and just like Simon before him the Marcionite Apelles is dependant on Proto-Orthodox traditions, the motif of the Savior coming down, clothing himself in the heavens, which Irenaeus knows is a Christian tradition
>>41887613
The Clementina also mentions Simon being a follower of Dositheus and them both being parts of the John the Baptist sect, but Paul has no equivalent to those

>>41887654
>Them using Matthew makes sense if it's the only thing available to them
Scholarly consensus is that Mark was around well before Matthew, so if they had any gospel they should've had Mark. And Matthew copied from Mark with some pro-Jewish law alterations, so if a Gnostic heretic had a choice, they would go with Mark and call Matthew a Judaizing corruption. So imo the fact that Simonians mentioned the lost sheep at all makes it quite likely that either a version of it was originally mentioned in Mark or they were getting it from somewhere else, like a Q, Thomas, or proto-Luke as mentioned.

I feel like you'd have to have a really excessive caricature in mind of how dishonest or delusional the Simonians were to imagine that they could get ahold of just Matthew and start claiming that it secretly agreed with them.

>>41887777
Or Hebrew Matthew which is attested by Papias, which I said i believe is Q

>>41887851
I just try to find reasonable answers, for example, the Simonians said that Simon is the Christ and that he revealed himseld to the Samaritans as the Father, to the Jews as the Son and to everyone else as the Holy Spirit
How can he claim that? To be the Trinity and the Messiah?
My guess is that he was docetist and modalist, he thought that God revealed himseld in different ways to different people, he showed himself as Jesus Christ but since Jesus wa crucified he had to explain the event through Docetism, if he intented it or of it was a position at the time, i cannot prove either, I just know that through it he could claim that he was the Messiah while banking on the succes of eaely Christianity

>>41887920
>Simonians said that Simon is the Christ and that he revealed himseld to the Samaritans as the Father, to the Jews as the Son and to everyone else as the Holy Spirit
I would guess that this is a much later idea than the original Simonian doctrine, since it's very trinitarian-sounding and is I think only attested by Epiphanius in the late 4th century, when there were very few Simonians left, and it isn't clear what Epiphanius' source is for this supposed doctrine.

I think certainly if Simonians at all resembled Paul or the Thomasines or the Valentinians which are supposed to be their descendents, the idea of Simon appearing as the Father in one place and the Son in another place doesn't make much sense. The Father is supposed to be almost inaccessible and incomprehensible, hence the need for the Son to reveal him.

1 Corinthians 8:6
>Yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.

>>41888013
It's from Irenaeus, Chapter 23 as previously mentioned
>>41888184
Forget Nicene Trinitarianism, just think of Father, Son and Holy Spirit as 1st Century terminology, then many texts, in particular the Ascension of Isaiah, place the Father as God with the Son and Holy Spirit on his right and left hand but still divine so that the angels worship them

>>41883869
Nah.

>>41888219
>It's from Irenaeus, Chapter 23 as previously mentioned
Ah, found it. I still really doubt that it's an authentic Simonian doctrine because it sounds like such pure nonsense relative to Paul or any Gnostic apocrypha I've read. My best guess for how the idea might've come about is that Irenaeus inferred it from Justin Martyr's claim that there was a statue erected for Simon on the river Tiber saying "To Simon the holy God." And since for the early Christians God most unambiguously meant the Father, that meant Simon claimed to be the Father. And then Epiphanius just copied it from Ireneaus.

But rumor has it that the likely statue was found some time ago, and it was actually devoted to Semo Sancus, a deity having nothing to do with Simon Magus.
https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Places/Europe/Italy/Lazio/Roma/Rome/_Texts/PLATOP*/Semo_Sancus.html
>The marble base on which this inscription is placed supported a statue which, because of the similarity of names, the early Christians mistook for one of Simon Magus

For the purpose of the Paul=Simon theory, if there were a single historical figure behind them, I would doubt that he even was a Samaritan. It may have started out as an insult the same way Jesus was accused of being a Samaritan in John 8:48.
>The Jews answered him, “Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?”
But then it got permanently incorporated into the orthodox lore on Simonians. But I know that's pretty speculative.

>>41888352
We can't claim to say that Simonians believed this or that, we have to take everything we know about them and then draw conclusions
Personally I think Irenaeus is authentic, at most you can critique the parts of Against Heresies not based on Justin Martyr
If you want to go down a rabbit hole, look into the stories in Islamic Hadith, what has been preserved in Islamic accounts is literally insane and I am amazed at how they preserved them and didn't burn them, the criterion of embarrassment makes them seem likely, but i can't accept that

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vc8UrYsF06c

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https://x.com/Sophiologist_/status/2017630708726894932

>>41891448
Is Eliphas Levi worth reading? In what way is he a Christian esotericist?

The priest quoted Angelus Silesius in today's homily. Let's gooooooooo

>>41891489
Eliphas Levi was supposed to be a Catholic priest but gave up on it before his ordination, he is depending on who you ask either the last person to know what he was talking about concerning Esotericism or the first to not know what he was talking about concerning it, so he's the person that connects Christian Esotericism (Louis Claude de Saint-Martin) with modern Occultism (Helena Blavatsky, Papus)
He knows about Paracelsian Imagination, the "Astral" as mentioned by Saint-Martin and is one of the few sources on French Illuminism in English, but he also practiced magic and connected the Tarot to Kabbalah for the modern mind
You can read him but it's better to see him in light of what came before instead of what came after
>>41891761
The light continues to shine even if we don't realize it

>>41874730
>>41876569
OT is just Jewish Tales if you're white you're better off reading the Havamal and the Nordic sagas/Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Iamblichus/Hermetica/Roman authors/Keltic lore instead. Also get into the esotericism of the Grail, HRE etc

>>41891448
I like Martin and I think he's real smart feller, but he really does fall into the trap of thinking that everyone else but him is totally wrong, except if they happen to agree with him. Like in this video, he essentially accuses the protesters in Minneapolis of (unwittingly) practicing black magic and being empty receptacles for psychic energy that turns them into hysteric lunatics, without even considering the fact that, just maybe, they are just people distraught by the undeniable attempts by the government to turn the country into a dictatorial police state and the cold blooded execution of two innocent individuals.
I think Martin should stick to farming and poetry. That way he can use his clearly enormous amounts of creative energy producing something beautiful instead of sowing distrust and discord whether he means to or not.

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Someone should do a clinical study to see if there is a correlation between Sophiology and mommy issues.

>>41892086
>but he really does fall into the trap of thinking that everyone else but him is totally wrong
I find him quite broad-minded. But he's right about normies being under the control of black magic.

>>41871751
Is it possible to achieve gnosis in my lifetime? how do you know if you're close? Is it even possible?

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Moses was just bronze age Epstein.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OlPs2Jdeok

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/JpklNl8Cei4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdeTLpzg0yo

>>41894182
>>41894188
Any insightful passages in this book?

Please pray for us Germans that the Synodal Way fails!

>>41895623
How is the German Catholic Church not seen as schismatic and heretical by the other Catholic and the Vatican? If it's not condemned in a way is seen as what they're doing is legitimate. If they really want to be protestants they should just become protestant and leave the Catholics alone.

>>41895794
The Vatican clearly rebuked several of the matters that the Synodal Way discussed.
https://www.dw.com/en/vatican-slams-german-reformers-warns-of-potential-for-schism/a-62559108

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>>41894336

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_lSayXYvok

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93GASVpp3ec

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E54l3AyOhI4

https://www.rtmullins.com/podcast/episode/24d58bd9/ep-186-why-create-gods-most-central-purpose

Has anyone ever done a serious comparison/contrasting of the medical writings of Hildegard of Bingen and Paracelsus?

>>41897061
mid

Negative theology is a trick of the Devil. We start out with the noble goal of wanting to describe the Greatest of All, and end up with something that is almost indistinguishable from nothing at all.

>>41897242
>Negative theology is so indispensable to affirmative theology that without it God would be adored, not as the Infinite but rather as a creature, which is idolatry.

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just do like all the church fathers did and just go read Plato. all of Western Religion and Philosophy is a footnote to Plato.

>>41897287
Wow, so very profound. Have never heard this cope a million times before.

The Greek pagan theologians that we euphemistically call philosophers, and sometimes Church Fathers, have some interesting things to say, as do many pagans. But when they make assertions that urinate in the face of Divine revelation, we take them with a grain of salt.

>>41897287
>which is idolatry
What God tells us about Himself via revelation is different from what people speculate about Him and overlay onto Him.

get some bitches nigga

>>41897399
What the theologians point to with negative theology is based on divine revelation, they aren't just philosophizing.

>>41897427
>negative theology is based on divine revelation
Sure, no one would disagree that these niggaz use it as a jumping off point, and try to coopt it. But they distort it into something almost unrecognizable, by awkwardly trying to make it dovetail with Neoplatonic speculations about the One.

>>41897464
Neither with Neoplatonism nor with early Christian mystic theology is the via negativa a type of speculation. If you're paying attention to the text, then quite obviously, it's gesturing at the complete absence of speculation or any other act of discursive thought.

>>41897496
The creation of an altered psychological state in which God is willfully misperceived, even without the use of the use of entheogens. And afterwards, nondualist speculative interpretations of what might be called, to steal a word from the Orthobros, that prelest.

>>41892086
>without even considering the fact that, just maybe, they are just people distraught by the undeniable attempts by the government to turn the country into a dictatorial police state and the cold blooded execution of two innocent individuals.
You're doing the exact same thing but the other side of the spectrum

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>>41897580

>>41897588
Word.

>>41892579
I actually DO think there's a correlation between Mariology and mommy issues, considering that we have a God the father but the Holy Spirit as mother/feminine was lost to the Greeks (but maintained by the Syriacs). I think we have a psychological need for a divine mother just like we have a divine father, and Mary fulfilled that.
Sophiology would appeal more to lonely men who would otherwise be searching for union through porn, and I say this as someone who believes Sophiology is a very legitimate line of theology.

>>41895794
Germany is one of the countries that donate the most money to the Vatican, so yeah they're being very lukewarm about it

>>41897603
>Sophiology would appeal more to lonely men who would otherwise be searching for union through porn, and I say this as someone who believes Sophiology is a very legitimate line of theology.
Yeah, but if you're into Sophia yet still lonely, you must be missing something.

>>41897603
Facts. Also men who place a lot of (too much?) value in romantic and platonic relationships with women, even if they already have such. It's a way of sacralizing that tendency and predisposition. But yeah, Sophiology is based.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1U7I7m-P1c

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>>41893386

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I don't know where to ask this question cuz its so schizo, Are there any Christian deep lore regarding demon killing weapons? The kind that would be wielded by a mortal.

>>41898994
demons aren't living mortal beings
that being said, one of the most iconic exorcist items is the St. Benedict medal

>>41898994
The Medieval and Renaissance grimoires have the names of the angels and specific aspects of God that rule over them.

>>41898994
>>41899067
>demons aren't living mortal beings
Depends on the demon. It's an equivocal term.
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/54243
In Mark 9:29, our Lord says that certain demons can only be cast out by fasting and prayer. In Tobit the archangel Raphael says that the demon Asmodeus can be expelled by burning the liver of a certain fish. Sacramentals such as exorcism or blessed medals don't work on these beings because they are something other than damned spirits from hell. Some of them are mortals joined to a subtle body, "aerial" in the sense defined by Empedocles among others. Incubi and succubi, elves, fairies, etc. belong to this class.
>>41899102
The fundamental problem with the grimoires is that human nature is incapable of acting upon something superior to it, which every demon is: the word originally and properly refers to any created nature more perfect than man but less than God. The only respect in which the demon may be inferior to man is therefore in the order of grace, which is nothing other than God's friendship, and thus it is by God's power and according to God's wishes that saints and exorcists sometimes command them.
Someone who goes to study a grimoire with the intent to use it is only seeking power. That person probably has a very good reason why they ought to have such power, but he cannot escape the law that any operation in the spirit requires the presence of a need beyond self, and so he succumbs to evil.

>>41897689
Happy St. Brigid's day anons.

Gnosticism got my foot into the door to Christianity
Now I'm not even certain if there's actually a demiurge, but there does appear to be something deeply wrong/flawed with the material world, and there does empirically appear to be some sort of reincarnation loop. There's a great mystery to this world, and I don't fully understand it all. But I have been able to talk to the holy spirit, who I can at least understand is both real and good. And its advice to me in understanding all of the world's mystery is to seek... perspectives. That so many cultures are able to see the world (spiritually) from different angles, and the only way to understand everything is to view the world from the sum of these perspectives.

Am I even on the right path?

>>41897588
Yeah, you got me. I got pretty heated when I wrote that.
But I think my point still stands. People can act in ways that you or I or Michael Martin can understand without them being demonically possessed or driven by black magic. They might have a different point of view caused by entirely mundane things.
The main thing that irks me in the way Martin approaches any of the topics he discusses is made clear in the video on the situation in Minneapolis. At the end, he says: "You might disagree with me; but your wrong." That sort of attitude is present in every single one of his videos, and especially clear in the more polemical ones. It's just a very strange way of thinking to me.

>>41900893
>Am I even on the right path?
I doubt that anyone can answer that question for you, but I would take your revelations with a grain of salt if I were you. The perspectives available in this world are indefinitely many. For any spiritual aspirant it's best to dig your well in one place. When you reach the summit then every possible perspective unites in a transcendent synthesis.

I'm genuinely starting to think more and more that the world is controlled by reptilian nephilim offspring but I have nothing to really validate this other than a hunch

>>41899773
>The fundamental problem with the grimoires is that human nature is incapable of acting upon something superior to it, which every demon is
Technically this is true per orthodox theology (their bodies being more subtler than ours), yet it also states that we surpass angels (and even moreso demons) because we are able to create anything (specifically in Yetzirah, the astral realm) unlike the angels and demons who are bounded unto their given function. Naturally, it takes a quite a high level in spirituality to subjugate the demon, and not fall on your knees before it. Yet as I said, the grimoires gives you the keys to bind them. But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, This fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils.

I'm discerning the Carthusian order. I'm only 32 so I still have a few years to think about it, but I feel incredibly drawn to it. Only thing is, I'm not Catholic. But I've been Christian for 10 years and consider my faith relatively mature. I don't consider Catholicism to be heretical or anything, I wouldn't mind attending catechism or whatever I need to do, but I feel like during conversation I might say the wrong things and they'll reject me.

>>41902952
do you believe in the Nicene Creed?

>>41903005
Yes

>>41903013
can you accept the origin of the sacraments being in the Gospels, the value of the three evangelical counsels that are practiced in a monk's life, and the need of regular liturgy celebrated as a sacrifice for God?

>>41902691
There is no contradiction because the being "we," "that I am" is not strictly limited to the human state, but the human is also the only state in which angels and demons appear as such. The subjugation of the demon assumes a very different character on a deeper level and unites with pure spirituality. This is the key not only to the Western grimoires but to the Tantras etc.
>>41902952
The abbot will know whether your vocation lies under his rule, so any anxiety about it is unwarranted.

>>41903102
Sure I think so
>>41903237
I think my biggest concern is being misunderstood. I've never been good at explaining myself. I imagine him asking me something like "so why do you think you're called" and I can't think of any answer other than "idk I just do".

>>41903564
It won't be like a job interview. The abbot will have some questions, but just answer honestly and listen to his advice.
Fair warning, pretty much none of the Catholic religious orders are in very good shape right now. If you are turned away, that might be for the best in more than one way.

>>41903617
>Fair warning, pretty much none of the Catholic religious orders are in very good shape right now.
Why do you say that?
Ultimately if I really believe in God then I have to accept that I'll be allowed in if my calling is true I figure.

>>41903637
Standards have fallen precipitously everywhere. A lot of Catholic men and women religious have fallen into laxity and many don't even have the faith. It's a depressing scene. You are very fortunate if you find a devout community.
Remember, the purpose of your vocation, whatever God intends for that to be, is to save your soul. So yes, accept whatever comes of your discernment process as God's will.

>>41903667
The Carthusians live in almost complete solitude and only have one monastery in the USA (the only one on the continent actually).

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Do you think aliens are also seeking the Creator of the Universe and he forces of it?
Do you think that any of them have?

>>41903738
The possibility of ayy mystics partaking in the divine nature is not zero.

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What are the 2 blue crystal tablets of law that Moses took off/out of the Great Pyramid?
Are they a quantum A.I. alien computer?
Are they a way to communicate with the actual Creator?
Is the Creator all consciousness, all A.I.? All of the quantum level?
Is our entire belief system just a Gods Must Be Crazy cargo cult calculating matter moving machine? Strapping computer chip stones, in essence, onto our chest piece for rituals?
Is intelligence commutative, so that the more intelligent, the more indistinguishable from a single intelligence, and with enough computation you tap into a source with the Creator?
Is it just a simple construction device to the alien visitors?

>>41903564
Then you can be considered as a Catholic once baptized/regularized, at least in the barebones, and qualify for being a monk. You would celebrate the Carthusian liturgy of Mass every week in communion with Pope Leo, profess the Nicene Creed and live by the Catholic sacraments for the rest of your life.
Once interviewed say the truth, that you feel drawn to it, believe in the Creed and Trinity, but you have not been formally catechized. And see what they say.

>>41903738
the best argument against aliens is that they are not mentioned in Genesis (animals were created and after that, Adam) and God rested in the last day, i.e. stopped creating new genres of things in the universe.

>>41903916
>Once interviewed say the truth, that you feel drawn to it, believe in the Creed and Trinity, but you have not been formally catechized. And see what they say.
Well I'd want to regularly attend church for at least a few years before seriously inquiring. I was baptized as a baby but idk if they'd require some sort of proof of that.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/QRYTC8YQEaI

>>41904001
>I was baptized as a baby but idk if they'd require some sort of proof of that.
Catholics write certificates of baptism since the middle ages before modern birth certificates, yeah. You would have to look any proof of yours and depending which denomination baptized you they may accept it or have you been conditionally baptized again. Ask your local priest before reaching the Carthusians.

>>41901790

>For any spiritual aspirant it's best to dig your well in one place. When you reach the summit then every possible perspective unites in a transcendent synthesis
I see. Thank you for your wisdom.

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found it
2 And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him: the spirit of wisdom, and of understanding, the spirit of counsel, and of fortitude, the spirit of knowledge, and of godliness.
3 And he shall be filled with the spirit of the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge according to the sight of the eyes, nor reprove according to the hearing of the ears.

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I struggle with showing my faith to those in my life because I'm scared of how my they will view me. That's what I'm going to improve on my path to get closer to God telling me "well done thy good and faithful servant". God has given me so much in my life but I'm still shy and fearful about it.

>>41906055
You don’t have any obligation to tell them, just don’t deny Christ, if you’re asked.

>>41906055
>For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, of him the Son of Man will be ashamed when He comes in His own glory, and in His Father’s, and of the holy angels. -Luke 9:26
Who do you care more about? Jesus, the Light of the World and Heavenly Father? Or some normgroid cuck that probably watches netflix, listens to rap, and uses discord.

Can FSSPX stop being schismatic af for once? I don’t respect your „traditionalism“ if you don’t follow the Church that was founded by Jesus Christ.

>>41907820
The Church that was founded by Jesus Christ is the Roman Catholic Church, not whatever new age religion they're following in the Vatican these days. Don't worry, I don't respect your "traditionalism" either

Who is this guy who keeps spamming xitter links and various memorabiliae? Did he make this thread as his home?
Anyways, what books can you guys recommend to me?

>>41908021
The Church is defined by the papacy, you don't just get to define the Church how you like, if you dislike what the pope is doing.

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>>41907850
Based! I was just reading through Nephi and it's very interesting. I am only at the part where they just returned from Jerusalem and retrieved the Brass Plates from Laban. Merely the beginning and already filled with so much divine wisdom, it really is divinely inspired, isn't it?

>>41908049
Nope, Rome abandoned conciliar tradition and invented papal absolutism.
The Pope is merely a man, the visible Church is not spotless, and he is not infallible no matter on what chair he is sitting.

>>41908080
That said you should still remain in the Church. Splitting off is never a good solution and will only lead the mainline Church to destruction. Anastasius didn't quiet either when Arians tried to hijack the Church.
>The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; therefore, do and observe whatever they tell you, but not what they do, for they preach but do not practice -Matthew 23:2–3:

>>41908021
This is historically unfounded. If you aren't intellectually honest enough to accept this then you should question whether you worship God in truth or worship your institution
>Asking what place it was, and learning it to be a church, I went in to pray, and found there a curtain hanging on the doors of the said church, dyed and embroidered. It bore an image either of Christ or of one of the saints; I do not rightly remember whose the image was. Seeing this, and being loth that an image of a man should be hung up in Christ’s church contrary to the teaching of the Scriptures, I tore it asunder and advised the custodians of the place to use it as a winding sheet for some poor person.
Epiphanius of Salamis, a Roman Catholic saint. Now I am not saying the Roman Catholic Church is evil or that icon veneration is evil, (they may or may not be) I'm only criticizing the assertion that Christ founded the RC church. Attend it if you want, but it is a fallible manmade institution

>>41908080
I neither claimed the Pope was infallible nor that the visible Church is spotless, but the Church is built on him as the successor of St. Peter, so ordaining bishops without his approval is obviously against the Church and its traditions. You simply do not have any right.

>>41908111
>I'm only criticizing the assertion that Christ founded the RC church
Read the bible on how Jesus built the Church on St. Peter and how St. Peter was the first bishop of the Roman Church and how all early Christians accepted the primate of the Roman Church...

>>41908132
Unfortunately the modern RC church comes packaged with a lot more assertions than just that

>>41908123
Sure, Rome has primacy of honor,due to Peter. Doesn't mean exclusive control over episcopal ordinations. In the first millennium Bishops were ordinarily ordained by their local synods, and this was considered fully legitimate.
>is obviously against the Church and its traditions
Nicaea, Chalcedon, and other councils regulated ordinations through regional bishops, not through papal approval. Even major patriarchates like Alexandria, Antioch, and Constantinople appointed their own bishops without seeking Roman permission, and no one regarded this as “against the Church.”

>>41908141
It is still the same one Church that was founded two thousand years ago, even if its outward appearance changed over time. Jesus sure as hell didn't want his flock to be split into thousands of different churches and denominations. You also seem to are mainly referring to the institutional aspects of the Church? The Church is also a supernatural reality, a community guided by the Holy Spirit, which our Lord breathed unto the Apostles.

>>41908150
The situation of FSSPX is not comparable to that of the regional churches of Antiquity you mentioned though. There may have been good (practical) reasons for that back then, nowadays it's not reasonable anymore.

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>>41908164
>It is still the same one Church that was founded two thousand years ago
No its not, and that's *very* easily demonstrable. For example, virtually every Christian reference to anything resembling icon veneration is spoken of negatively before John of Damascus.
>Jesus sure as hell didn't want his flock to be split into thousands of different churches and denominations.
But that's what you are doing. When you say "no my church is the one true one" you're doing a more extreme version of what those denominations are doing. What I'm saying, is that all of these denominations, Catholic, Orthodoxy and Protestantism have the capacity to be attended by true genuine Christian, but as a rule they are still deeply flawed manmade institutions. They are as flawed as you and I, that is to say, very much so. You just need to be honest.

>>41908196
Oh the image is Evagrius Ponticus btw

>>41908183
>good (practical) reasons for that back then, nowadays it's not reasonable anymore.
I don't think the times change the the underlying ecclesiological principle.
The question isn’t whether communication was easier or harder in Antiquity. It’s whether episcopal authority is, by its nature, local and synodal, or whether it depends on prior authorization from Rome in every case.
I just don't think Roman practice should override the structure of the undivided Church. But I guess I have been born a millenia too late for that.
The actual problem at hand is how can we mend the Schism today, and how we can bring other denominations, that haven't completely strayed from the right path, back into the fold, without polluting the Church with their apostasy.

>>41907820
They're not schismatic in practice. They celebrate their mass naming Pope Leo in their prayers as any Catholic priest does and they have been welcomed by Rome to celebrate in their temples recently. The negotiations between them are still going and you should pray for a resolution soon.
They have never been sedevacantists as you may have been misinformed.
Furthemore we talk about the same Rome that does nothing when the church in Germany is falling in heresy as a whole, or when the Chinese government names new bishops without their permission and accept it reluctantly.
>>41908049
>The Church is defined by the papacy
Wrong. It's defined by the Canon Law, the Councils and the Magisterium of previous popes, which includes the status of the Tridentine Mass as the eternal mass. And the Fraternity has always appealed to the Canon Law.
If anything, Francis was more of a tyrant who did his whims without concerns for protocols.

>>41903038
no one of those topics have anything to do with Christianity and I'm tired of pretending they do because Magas (whose leader isn't even christian) say so

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>>41905196
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerro_del_Cubilete
The door in the video is a small chapel to Blessed. Mary in the back part of the main Church, behind the statue of Christ, in the mountains in Guanajuato, Mexico.
I went there last month. I find the circular shape of the church ugly but I liked this small chapel inside it.

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>>41897580
its called apophaticism anon, and it works. its how can you use a series of logical steps to deduce there can neither be One, nor can it be jewish

socrates was put to death for raising the question: "why would the gods embody the worst traits of men?" and he hit a little too close to home, as religion was being used as a tool of elites to pursue their own interests and often to alley oop the state. its where jews got the idea for christianity to act as zog cheerleaders, from reading of akhenaten, and herodotus and his experiences with the oracle at delphoi and the magi, both being facades for state power.

so by questioning this, he questioned the Elites' right to rule and set a dangerous precedent. akin to a national hero (a real influencer, not the fake and gay kind we are provided) today saying "wait a minute why are we worshipping a jewish guy in sandals as our god, thats retarded, jewish people are terrible and they hate us and are trying to conquer and enslave the world, thats what jesus meant by fulfilling the Law. our gods should be realistic, and intelligent, not getting arrested with naked boys and crucified in between two child traffickers."

>>41909902
Thank you for sharing your internal dialog, anon.

>>41907850
I gotta make time to finally read this.

>>41908021
Based.

>>41908049
Artificial and homoerotic.

>>41908080
>invented papal absolutism
Based again.

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>>41907850
The more I look into Mesoamerican mythology the harder it is for me to deny that Joseph Smith wasn’t at least channeling some kind of Akashic Record. Then again, understanding Quetzalcoatl and Xolotil as two aspects of the same deity (Shahar and Salim in the Canaanite religion and basically any other light/darkness duality) also helps. Have you looked into the Cosolargy of Gene Savoy?

>>41908049
The papacy is defined by sacred tradition, not sacred tradition by the papacy. It doesn't matter whether you like or dislike what the Pope is doing. If he does something outside sacred tradition or contrary to it then he does not do that thing with apostolic authority.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=A96oWoLhdSQ
ceg ost

>>41908111
>muh historico-critical method
It's just a soup of guesswork.
>>41908123
Denying papal infallibility and the spotlessness of the visible Church are much more obviously against the Church and its traditions. The consecration of bishops without papal approval is actually not, but I know where that talking point comes from. The rule originates with Pope Pius XII who was responding to the attempted consecration of communist bishops in China. However, at the same time, Catholic bishops behind the Iron Curtain could be consecrated without papal approval, because those dioceses were unable to send anyone to Rome.
The conciliar popes have abused this part of canon law in order to ensure that no one is consecrated a bishop unless he consents to continue the agenda set at Vatican II. Since that is an explicitly anti-Catholic agenda, how could any Catholic bishop obey? You may not agree but in principle this is very easy to understand.
>You simply do not have any right.
Who are you to pronounce that judgment anyway? An essential characteristic of modernism is laicism. Never before have the Catholic faithful felt themselves entitled to a juridical opinion.
>>41908209
>The question isn’t whether communication was easier or harder in Antiquity. It’s whether episcopal authority is, by its nature, local and synodal, or whether it depends on prior authorization from Rome in every case.
Episcopal authority is neither synodal nor dependent upon prior authorization from Rome. It depends precisely upon communion with the Holy See. This means not just the present pope but all the popes and councils of the past, because the faith does not evolve. Find out who is making claims to the contrary of this principle, and you have found out who is really in schism.
>>41909902
Apophatic theology has nothing to do with any of that.

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>>41903833
>>41903738
I believe Akhenaten was a son of the Lord and there is a certain solar aspect to YHWH. Of course the visible sun is just a created ball of hot plasma and gas, but the solar symbolism fits the Lord really well, as he is the Light of the World, and the metaphoric sun of all of existance. Jesus is the sun incarnate since his rays guide humanity from darkness (ignorance) into light (wisdom).
I also believe Sol Invictus is actually YHWH and that is exactly why he helped Constantine.
Jesus of Nazareth is the sun incarnate and son of Sol Invictus who really is YHWH Elohim, the sun not of this solar system but the sun of the universe.
Thoughts?

>>41916438
The symbolic correspondences that you point out do mean something, but not everything that is meaningful is an object of belief. You wouldn't say, "I believe that I exist," nor would you say "I believe in the Pythagorean Theorem." Symbolism works on that level.

>>41871751
Weeping and gnashing of teeth

What’s cries? An eye. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth

Also, aiyn = eye (and nothingness, illusion) and shin = teeth (and fire)

Weeping and gnashing of teeth is being stuck in the law of karma

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>>41916470
It's funny really, since at the same time I am a true name Christian and use YHWH and Yahshua instead of God and Jesus. But at the same time I gravitate much to Hypsistarianism basically. Orpheus for example being a gentile prophet disavowing polytheism and professing a belief in single source of all life and the immortality of the soul. Which Plutarch and Clement of Alexandria supported him for.
Even Mithras who we basically know nothing about is just another pre-incarnation appearance of God the Son, like Melchisedek, and like YHWH on earth form that visited and ate with Abraham before destroying Sodom and Gomorrha, calling forth fire from YHWH in heaven.

>>41916516
To pronounce a name is to realize it. The true pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton is to realize its meaning, and that meaning is given in Exodus 3:14.
Saint Paul preached the Unknown God in the Areopagus. He did not mean the God of whom we are ignorant but the God who we Unknow, that is, who we know beyond knowing. Saint Dionysius who was there to witness Paul's sermon explains the meaning in the Mystical Theology.
Saint Justin Martyr writes in the First Apology that the fallen angels wanted to be worshipped under names and forms that were really appropriate to God. The ancient Mysteries, Orphic, Mithraic, and otherwise, have this twofold character. Where there is understanding of their incommunicable essence, they would confer knowledge. Where that understanding was lacking, they degenerated into superstition, and their power was given to demons, that is, the knowledge that they yielded was limited to the aerial or psychic domain.
These matters were deliberately obscured when the Church left the catacombs because they are incomprehensible to the profane.

>>41916591
>Where there is understanding of their incommunicable essence, they would confer knowledge. Where that understanding was lacking, they degenerated into superstition, and their power was given to demons
Yes, I fully agree. Pagan mysteries were distortions or anticipations of Christ.

>>41916603
They should only be called pagan insofar as the object of worship is demonic. I mean the formal object, since all creatures including the demons are really names of God. When there is no understanding that it is the one God that is worshipped under such and such a name and form, then it is paganism. And this reconciles the cult of the saints (of which the ante-Nicene evidence is copious) with the apparent iconoclasm of some of the Fathers.

>>41916102
apophatic theology as you know it, i agree it.
right off the bat itd be something like
>god is not not jewish
instant L

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>>41916603
or jews were the distortion, and it would appear to you in reverse. i.e. the eleusinian mysteries were about a mother's (Demeter's) love for her daughter, Persephone.

a christcuck would see that and think: silly pagans are just talking about yahweh's love for jesus. when the reality is jews came after, and ripped off the mythology, and the first thing they tell you in church or at christian babby day care is john 3:16.

come to find out that truth is surface level, and jesus (jews) are trying to upend that familial connection, which makes the enemies of jews so strong. plus, the irony is he outright says i am here to cause you to sin.

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>>41916718
>christcucks worshipping literal demons and eldritch monstrosities beyond comprehension as divinity
this is fiiiine

>>41917168
Redditors don’t understand symbolism and yet think they are smart for it

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>>41917180
i agree. redditors dont understand symbolism.
the one 'demonic' deity most often pointed to is the one deity who was killed off.

christcucks wont tell you they associate jesus with that deity

>>41917146
>>41917168
cringe

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>>41917194
>a mother's love for her daughter is cringe
ladies and gentlemen, christcucks

>>41917203
>X race has a monopoly in maternal love
double cringe

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>>41917239
>no one mentions race
>christcucks: is this racism?

>>41917074
>but t-that's not le secret apophatic theology with a special private definition that only I know!
Ok.

>>41917275
The "Christians" were founded in imperialism after all. Race didn't become such a big deal till the nationalism that broke up the empires.

Modern Christians support BBC race-mixing and creating disgusting halflings. None of you know about the Curse of Ham clearly. At least the Mormon church stayed racist until the 70s. Even though they're not racist anymore, they're still like 99% white and blonde. Average modern Christian is super brown though.

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>>41917295
i mean there was a guy who invented it, plato, and he has a formula, and the formula is quite easy to follow. by brute forcing traits about what divinity is not, we can make a good general estimation of what divinity is.

apophaticism really doesnt work when you already think you know, i.e. by prior accepting of faulty premises, even though you cant apply scientific principles like apophaticism to arrive at that same conclusion.

then again, theres a reason no one, atleast not jewish, has independently come to know the name jesus christ. somebody else had to tell them. you cant just raise a human in complete isolation and expect them to ever know a completely fictional manmade story. they will however instinctively understand the concept of divinity though. and it is through these isolated examples we can get a pretty good estimation of divinity. thats what you call pagandom. the default human religion, which is not a religion, just human nature. whereas religion is more political, it exists to cheerlead zog and to maintain status quos. but effectually, it results in a complete spiritual wasteland. thats why something as simple as apophaticism is completely beyond your comprehension.

some opinions are obviously more reliable than others, others not at all, then theres jews, in a league of their own. schizo episodes, drug induced hallucinations, call it what you want, not at all the same thing. i dont think theyve ever seriously broached the subject themselves, they saw what others did and asked how can they exploit it for their benefit.

>>41917486
>by brute forcing traits about what divinity is not, we can make a good general estimation of what divinity is.
Oh, you mean the elenchus. No, that's not the same thing.
Apophasis is about negating the transcendentals, e.g., the goodness, justice, wisdom, or unity of God. Cf. Plotinus (or Nagarjuna for that matter) for the distinction between privation and negation. Propositions like "God is not Jewish," "God is not male," "God is not human," etc etc fall under the cataphatic person/nature distinction. When we talk about God in His divinity then those categories obviously can't be applied.
I mean you're obviously just making shit up to disrupt this thread, which is fine. I'm pointing out the distinction for anyone reading who is actually interested in the topic.

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>>41917275
>>41917203
>>41917168
>>41917146
You don't have an alternative and don't actually practice paganism.
You are just another wannabe pagan apologist not doing anything of substance.
Also, thank God for Constantine, Theodosius and Charlemagne for saving Europe from false polytheistic teachings.

>>41918683
This mundie is over-intellectualizing without direct experience.

>>41918680
If Schuon was using the word "dream" metaphorically, then he was not expounding classical non-dualism viz. drishti shristi vada. The distinction between waking and dream itself belongs to the dream state.
Don't know where Bolton gets the idea that "the great majority of mystics, in the Catholic tradition at least, did not take their experiences as a basis for changing their ideas of reality, but were rather reluctant even to speak of them." He cites St. Teresa in defense of this position, but Teresa herself explicitly opposes quietism in the Interior Castle, and the treatise therein on the Spiritual Marriage makes use of a nearly identical analogy to that found in the Chandogya Upanishad's explanation of advaita.
The argument for the manifestation of the Logos in nature goes back to the Platonism of St. Justin and his doctrine of rationes seminales, also Dionysius on the Divine Names. He asks rhetorically whether if God were manifest to that extent the Incarnation would have been necessary. It was not. Grace is gratuitous.

>>41919067
He just doesn't like non-dualism, but then he thinks that if he doesn't like it, then no one else ought to either. Of course, whether it is true is another matter entirely. It's important to note that Advaita Vedanta only presents itself as a means to arrive at the truth. In its fullness the truth is incommunicable and realized only in silence. There is no theory and no sadhana that can touch it. While in via we cannot see the essence of God.
This is why in Zen for instance, they cultivate a militant anti-intellectualism, and their best "philosophers" are those who can skillfully derail a conversation or a train of thought.

>>41918783
no, elenchus is the peak of understanding that can only be achieved through open debate of ideas and testing them to scrutiny vs. all other positions.
plotinus was a (((neo))) platonist, not really an authority, just use plato, read parmenides. youre not negating goodness, wisdom, justice, etc. those are unnegatables afaia. at best inconclusives. to get to goodness, wisdom, justice, you would not use apophaticism.

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>>41918842
your role models are all men without virtue.
>saved europe
FROM WHAT?

>>41919752
>FROM WHAT?
Nta but this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pederasty

>>41919747
Ok. Give Stephanus numbers for what you think Plato means by "apophaticism" or GTFO

>>41919752
>immediatly admits the story is bullshit but makes up strawman and doubles down anyway
Lol

>>41919792
>The Roman Emperor Justinian I, upon converting to Christianity, banned all forms of homosexual intercourse within the Roman Empire, regardless of age
Based.

What's the mystical take on baptism?

>>41920450
Baptist is a second birth as it creates the new spiritual body of the believer

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>>41919792
pederasty has literally never been more pervasive what are you even talking about lol
there are entire religions dedicated to pederast worship (christianity)
you can find pederast artwork, literature, graphic novels, comic books, statues, sculptures, paintings, podcasts, tranimes, video goyims, tel avivision shows, pretty much everywhere you look, out in public, right in front of your faces youve become so densensitized to it so poorly did you "save" europe from it

you literally pay taxes to fund pederasts to help them engage in pederasty
you didnt save shit. everything is bizzaro world with jew worshippers. spiritual jewishness is the source of npcs. youre completely incongruent with reality. theres more kids being raped today in current year than probably the entirity of pre-christian european history combined

>>41919811
i dont give anyone anything whose got "anus" in their name

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>>41920174
oh no, that actually happened anon. he really did kill his wife and son. and some ancient source embellished the redemption arc, iirc im pretty sure it was a church father. only the charicaturization of the man in the story is an embellishment.
its a 4chan reenactment, of a reenactment.

clearly a jew just bribed him outright, as was the case in every land christianity ever took root in. jews target the leaders, ignore the plebs entirely. the leader then shoehorns it and uses the pretense of laws to enforce it.

>>41921492
>evidently doesn't know what Stephanus numbers are and couldn't be bothered to look up the definition
You haven't read even a single page of Plato you stupid fucking pederast

>>41919111
Impressive word salad.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qd7XCnweodE

>>41921674
Fascinating analysis

>>41919067
>direct experience
All direct experience is dualistic. Every experience is an experience of something. A genuinely nondual state would be closer to deep sleep, no object, no subject, no awareness of awareness.

What these people call “nondual realization” is really just a post hoc interpretation of an intense, highly focused dualistic state. They push themselves into an abnormal mode of consciousness, tap into a deeper underlying current they are connected to and are a fragment of, and then, because their egos are inflated, mistake themselves for the totality of that current.

It’s a fundamental misinterpretation of their own experience. Our Orthodox friends have a word for this kind of self‑delusion, “prelest,” and we don’t have to be Orthodox to use it or appreciate how well it fits.

>>41921703
Thank you.

On days of John XXII, a German theology magister, named Eckhart preached publicly that the world is eternal, that every righteous man is transformed into the divine essence like the bread of the Eucharist is turned into the Body of Christ, that a certain man created the stars and that God wouldn't know what to do without him, that in the divine nature there is no distinction at all neither in essence or Persons, and that all creatures are pure nothingness, and a lot of other fantastic things that were not much heretical as they were insane, in no way believable even if one wanted to. But this man had many followers in Germany....
-Ockham on Eckhart

>>41921890
Pretty gay. Thank you for sharing.

>>41921901
>t. believes a man created the stars

of course he was germanic
the eternal german

>>41921904
A man did not create the stars.

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this is brother Ockham

>>41921793
All dualistic experience is indirect. Lrn2epistemology

>>41921890
Redpill me on where Eckhart states that man created the stars. There were a lot of seething Franciscans at this time

>>41921969
nowhere, Ockham was one of those franciscans and this paragraph is funny (and more valuable than most of Eckhart's anyways)

>>41921945
Dualism doesn’t rule out direct contact with the world; the veil of perception simply shapes how that contact appears, not whether it occurs. Even when you see through illusions and perceive the world as it is, the experience remains dualistic because the subject and object stay distinct on both sides of the veil.

>>41922524
Knower and known are always mediated by a means of knowing (can you think of a counterexample?), so direct contact with the object is categorically ruled out. Again, learn some fucking epistemology

>>41922597
You’re mixing up two different meanings of ‘mediated.’ Having a subject and an object doesn’t mean we’re cut off from the world itself, which is why whole traditions like direct realism, disjunctivism, and enactivism hold that we really do perceive things directly. And if your definition ruled that out, you’d have to deny direct access to your own thoughts as well, which ends up undermining the very idea of knowledge.

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>>41921621
just dont care about your hebrew speaking dude with anus in his name is all

i dont need to involve a jewish middleman, but its hilarious how you feel the need to. that is so christcuck.

>>41922678
You don't have direct knowledge of your own thoughts, they are objects of perception like any other. Just like vision or hearing, your awareness of your thoughts admits of varying degrees of clarity. The thought itself can only be known by means of the agent intellect.
Why wouldn't this undermine the very idea of knowledge (at least, until Ockham got rid of a crucial though indemonstrable principle)? It's because there is one thing and one thing only that is known immediately, the primum cognitum, which is being.
Although various arguments could be furnished for this, they would only serve as an aid. The real proof lies in the practice of paying careful attention to your thoughts, something to which the medieval scholastics were accustomed from religious meditation but modern "philosophers" are nearly all not.

>>41923531
No, you are just illiterate, and you will try the most puerile and transparent tactics to deflect from a simple request for page and line numbers for Plato's supposed apophaticism. Stephanus numbers are the standard method for this because they remain constant across different translations and editions of Plato. But anything to change the subject, you pseud.
Spoiler alert: THERE IS NO APOPHATIC THEOLOGY IN PLATO

>>41924753
lines and pages?
lol.. he wrote a whole book on the subject, its called Parmenides.

the fact you even have to ask means its you whose not read plato. maybe spend less time consulting hebrew speaking "experts" and just read the books anon. simple.

>>41924789
Every first year philosophy student reads the Parmenides. The dialectic there is not what is called apophatic theology, it is called elenchus, which always has an aporia, in this case regarding the unity and intelligibility of the Forms. But the aporia is not the end; the conclusion expressly affirms the being of the one and actual knowledge of the Forms.
The aporia in any one of the dialogs never represents an intractable difficulty. Its resolution is intended as an exercise for the reader.

By contrast, here is an example of apophatic theology, taken from the Mystical Theology:
>As even now, when entering into the gloom which is above mind, we shall find, not a little speaking, but a complete absence of speech, and absence of conception. In the other case, the discourse, in descending from the above to the lowest, is widened according to the descent, to a proportionate extent; but now, in ascending from below to that which is above, in proportion to the ascent, it is contracted, and after a complete ascent, it will become wholly voiceless, and will be wholly united to the unutterable. But, for what reason in short, you say, having attributed the Divine attributes from the foremost, do we begin the Divine abstraction from things lowest? Because it is necessary that they who place attributes on that which is above every attribute, should place the attributive affirmation from that which is more cognate to it; but that they who abstract, with regard to that which is above every abstraction, should make the abstraction from things which are further removed from it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuzKVhhDJE4

>>41871751
Gay thread for the antiwhite Catholic cult with their tradcuck bishops demanding White countries open their borders. Eat shit, antiwhite scum.

>>41924544
When you say “thoughts are objects of perception,” you’re already admitting the split you’re trying to deny: an experiencer on one side and mental content on the other.

You’re also relying on a distinction you never establish. If all dual experience is mediated, then calling “being” unmediated only works if a genuinely nondual experience exists. But you haven’t shown that it does. Every actual experience we have, including the introspection that gets labeled as nondual after the fact, has a subject and an object built into it.

And your example of “paying attention to your thoughts” just reinforces the same structure: a subject noticing an object.

Once you see that, the rest is just terminology layered over a basic subject–object divide.

Book of Revelation real time

Whistleblower designed through dungeon and dragons format to protect the information

https://targetedindividuals.boards.net/thread/43/truman-show

>>41925086
its not *the* Parmenides, its Parmenides, its named after an actual philosopher, one of the titular characters. its not taught first-year, its taught last, as its one of the most difficult to ascertain. im not even gonna bother reading your AI write-up, since AI is jewish and jews historically have been unable to grasp it themselves. AI cant make sense of it either. and christcucks, being spiritually dependent on jews, well theyve got pretty much have 0 chance. they still think Timaeus was about Atlantis. just stop talking.

>>41925287
>you’re already admitting the split you’re trying to deny: an experiencer on one side and mental content on the other.
I never denied that distinction, Sir Reddit
>If all dual experience is mediated, then calling “being” unmediated only works if a genuinely nondual experience exists. But you haven’t shown that it does.
It's self-evident.
>And your example of “paying attention to your thoughts” just reinforces the same structure: a subject noticing an object.
It's a recommendation, not an example. You're free to take it or leave it.

>>41926580
We use the definite article with the titles of Plato's dialogues. The Apology, the Symposium, the Phaedrus, etc. Your pedantry makes you look even less serious.
Where did you study philosophy, that the curriculum reserved the Parmenides to your senior year? It evidently wasn't a good faculty, for you seem like an autodidact to me. The Parmenides is the dialog that gives the theory of the Forms and introduces the third man argument. It has to be taught almost right away, or there's almost nothing left to discuss.
The whole of philosophy excepting minor logic is hard, and if it seems easy to you, then it's a reliable sign that you're a midwit. The Parmenides is not especially difficult, but it is fundamental.

>>41924544
>you don't have direct knowledge of your own thoughts
Yes, you do. In the same way that you have direct knowledge of your sensory field.
Being aware of something is not the same as knowing it. I can be aware of a light source, without knowing exactly what that source is.

There are plenty of things people know but aren't aware they know, for example.
Something triggers a memory, and you remember something you already knew.

>primum cognitum
primum doesn't mean sola, it means first
the intellect does not truly filter or refract thought, it presents them to the consciousness as is and then ruminates on them

>>41922524
You're assuming that an "outside" world exists independently of your perceptions of it.
That simply isn't true. At least, it cannot be demonstrated to be true.

There is no strict dividing line between your own consciousness and that of the natural world, because you are fully integrated into that kosmos.

Your personal experience of reality is just an extension or instance of that reality itself, the underlying consciousness which permeates everything.
It is real, and since it is conscious, it can be concluded necessarily that the real itself is conscious. And to determine that this consciousness is not limited to a single entity, but is constituted of various extensions of the primordial qualitative substance, one need only consider that experience of non-self is well attested in the literature.

The idea of an outside "world" that itself does not have awareness, and the natural followup that you are somehow qualitatively distinct from it as being conscious, is not well founded on any epistemic or empirical grounds.

>>41925287
Thoughts are operations of the intellect.
The intellect is a phenomenon which we associate with particulars, but this is due to our inherent limitations.

Nous is no mere biological effluvium or secondary but is made apparent to us through the organizing principle of creation itself. It reveals the truth.

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>>41926391
hes summoning dragon ball z characters in his mind to fight off an army of cenobites

if you people knew what schizophrenia was, you wouldnt be jew worshipping.

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>>41926627
so the 'christian' esoterics in this thread include gangstalked people who summon dragon ball characters to fight off cenobites to stop a royal order of jesters demon summoning ritual, and people who think Parmenides' debate with Socrates is called *the* Parmenides.

id say its about on par with what jewish esoterics are up to. which is an oxymoron if you think about it, since both christian and jewish esotericism are jewish.

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>>41926756