Six Sufficiencies of "Religions"

I really wanted to like Religions. There were philosophical cores there that no one else was anywhere close to. They were ambitious, elite, curious, systematic, and utterly unashamed. That's what drew many of us in.

But the "communities" turned out to be disappointing. I partook, but rapidly came out the other sides after learning what I could and realizing that they weren't up to the real thing.

Even so, I met some of the finest people I've worked with through those crowds, so I know there was something powerful at their cores. The question of what those cores were and how they could be done better has haunted me for some years. Looking back on them all, what is most clear now is the things they got right. If we're starting a new iteration of the cult of philosophy, here's the overlap with the Religious:

1. Gnosis, life-changing hidden knowledge.
2. Nemesis, an enemy who wants to hide it from you.
3. Ecstasy, transcendent mental states that are given to the elect.
4. Taboo, forbidden actions which those with gnosis understand to avoid.
5. Eschatology, a model of how the world will end.
6. Telos, a prescription for how to spend your surpluses beyond the necessity of survival.

All the religions I've seen have different combinations of these six. Many have just one.

Nice copypasta anon. To respond to what I think is the substance, that sounds like a great schema and we should be unafraid to answer those questions confidently.

> 860 Nice copypasta anon

I've seen versions of this float around. Is there a canonical (or at least notable) source for this analysis?

>>862 Is there a canonical (or at least notable) source for this analysis?

I don't respect zero very much, but this series was good:

https://zerohplovecraft.substack.com/p/marooned-in-the-deepest-darkness-993

https://zerohplovecraft.substack.com/p/marooned-in-the-deepest-darkness-90b

https://zerohplovecraft.substack.com/p/marooned-in-the-deepest-darkness-bad

>>860

Zero's idea is that a Christian refounding by way of Nietzsche should take place. This seems about right. We've independently agreed in >>130. Unify two of the strongest religious threads available, get something new on the other side. Perhaps Teilhard de Chardin comes in as a final strop to make the new thing push cut.

This schema is powerful to play around with. Imagine something like:

1. Gnosis: Natural law
2. Nemesis: Satan
3. Ecstasy: Ritual mannerbund hunts of in the mountains (BLM land). Fasting until prey is killed, natural law scripture at critical points throughout.
4. Taboo: Products of modern agriculture, cocaine computers, polygamy, sexual deviancy
5. Eschatology: Arrival of the overman.
6. Telos: Pursuit of Beauty via great works.

A metaphysical geometry Manichaean dualism is only sufficient for a closed, artificial system in which the cataphatic and apophatic are complements, i.e. that decidabikity defines co-decidability and vice-versa. Anything actually infinite requires that it be capable of complete description in purely positive terms; the geometrically monist is coherent, but insufficient, and thus trinitarianism is compelled.

*geometry of Manichaean dualism
*decidability

And "complete description" should, technically, be read "sound description".

I will say that Jung's interpretation of religion has helped me a lot to appreciate existing religions and ritual. Though other life events have allowed me to access emotional states I was not capable of accessing before. An excerpt from Memories, Dreams, Reflections by C. G. Jung to whet the appetite:
https://cdn.theatlantic.com/media/archives/1963/01/211-1/132644425.pdf
I find this to be very dense reading. At the same time, it doesn't really make sense without direct experience.

Some of the points that I highlighted:

1. Man is lured to disobedience by a serpentine antagonist of the Creator by the promise of increased conscious knowledge (scientes bonum et malum).
2. A premature invasion of the human world by unconscious contents is alluded to by the fall of the angels, where are the thoughts and intuitions of their Lord.
3. The notion of "Christus in nobis" (Christ within us). Thus the unconscious wholeness penetrated into the psychic realm of inner experience.

The essay later provides the advantage of using mythic language, "God", as opposed to a dispassionate word such as "unconscious".

I have only a very cursory understanding of Jung's thought and would appreciate more comments. I do find Jung's comments in Man and His Symbols that "the goddess Reason" is our "greatest and most tragic illusion", that we believe that we have "conquered nature.", to be at the heart of the problem. What is atheism but the belief that we are all-powerful? Jung writes that we are "so captivated by and entangled in our subjective consciousness that we have forgotten the age-old fact that God speaks chiefly through dreams and visions", and so, we now believe that we can simply use our will to triumph over them.

(for those of you who would like the original German, Späte Gedanken in Erinnerungen, Träume, Gedanken von C.G. Jung)

>>864
Christian refounding by way of Nietzsche sounds a lot like the anti-christ to me.

>>879
Well Nietzsche did write a book called anti-christ, and there is no sense in which the Christians can be expected to cooperate with their own salvation.

>>864
I will reformulate your six points as I see them from the Nietzschean perspective, especially as articulated by Dr Alamariu:

Gnosis: natural law specifically pertaining to the esoteric perspective of philosophy on breeding, natural right of the superior, justice flowing from might, etc. It is hidden because it is ambiguous and cannot (so far?) directly be the collective mythos of a political community. It is difficult to discover under the lies.

Nemesis: the flatterers of the wretched masses, who tell them comfortable lies that obscure the unpopular truth of breeding and natural right, and justify the degenerative enslavement of the superior to the inferior. The worst part is the way this tends to confuse and deceive the better parts of mankind into believing in the rightness of their own destruction and enslavement.

Ecstacy: the highest state of mind and body is the utterly uncompromised freedom of being able to see, speak, and act on what is true and on your own unchained will, in alignment with nature and God. The joy of strength and power.

Taboo: compromise and participation in the system of lies and slavery. That can include the fake food, fake values, fake prestige, fake instincts, and so on some of which you allude to. But also the having of moralistic taboos itself is taboo.

Eschatology: depending how you mean it, I think the heat death and eternal return fits best here. The universe will simply run out of it's mortal life at some point, and all will be doomed to have accomplished exactly what they did, and be judged eternally by their finite deeds and beauty, with no more to come.

Telos: the reconciliation of this perspective with political mythology, the foundation of a state that is fully and openly honest with itself and lives for glory and breeding according to the law of nature. This may be the same thing as the arrival of the ubermensch. Point being this is the goal for mankind, but not necessarily the end.