Pseudo-spirituality?
Posted: Fri Apr 30, 2021 11:56 am
Sister Ave suggested a thread about pseudo-spirituality (here). I have sometimes made such accusations against some systems, and so it might fitting that I begin with a word of explanation.
Saying that something is "pseudo" is very pejorative, and a strong condemnation. Yet I think in some cases it is well earned, and needed to make a most important division. Pseudo-spirituality is something that claims to be spirituality, but is its opposite, lacking the very core that makes something spirituality. So we come to the question what is spirituality.
Simply put, spirituality is what the matter and form are not. And so, every claimed occult or esoteric system which places its primary attention on the form side is pseudo-spirituality. It can still be interested in magic and/or religiosity, cultures and/or philosophical study, but it takes these things on their surficial side, the side of form.
In true spirituality, the outward shape is seen as a garment that can be changed when there is a need. For example, Rosicrucians were demanded to change their clothing and style to that of their current surroundings, and not to draw attention. Likewise, theosophists teach that the master adepts live among people in cognito. Open displays and claims of power is seen as a snare to entangle the surficial people into mistaken belief systems (for spiritual truth cannot be seen from open displays of power) by most if not indeed all of the old religions' systems of spirituality.
But nowadays, when the world is once again young in a way, people are hungry for new, and easy, spirituality. Because of this new approach, this ideology of instant spiritual gratification is most often referred as the "New Age" spirituality. It is not a perfect term. Also, the New Age tends to bring about associations from the Right Hand Path surficiality, healing crystals and angel channelings. But the last ten or fifteen years or so has exploded the same attitude in the Left Hand Path practices, and nowadays there can be seen equally much LHP-oriented New Age. Shady pictures on black candles & bones on the altars, channeled goetic demons instead of angels, piles upon piles of useless but pretty grimoires, and so on.
This is pseudo-spirituality, focusing on form: consumerism, sociological ego-boosting or choosing temperamentally alluring groups, and other such surficial things. The lacking aspect is, most of all, actual hard (inner) work. When actual "Try!" is put into any form of pseudo-spiritualism, it too can be made into actual spiritualism. For there is no form itself that is bad, no more than good. To the actual spirituality, there are only instruments in form, never something that is good or bad in itself. This is what iconoclasts tend to forget. The problem is no altar picture, or grimoire, or sociological group, but instead how these become the main thing.
Saying that something is "pseudo" is very pejorative, and a strong condemnation. Yet I think in some cases it is well earned, and needed to make a most important division. Pseudo-spirituality is something that claims to be spirituality, but is its opposite, lacking the very core that makes something spirituality. So we come to the question what is spirituality.
Simply put, spirituality is what the matter and form are not. And so, every claimed occult or esoteric system which places its primary attention on the form side is pseudo-spirituality. It can still be interested in magic and/or religiosity, cultures and/or philosophical study, but it takes these things on their surficial side, the side of form.
In true spirituality, the outward shape is seen as a garment that can be changed when there is a need. For example, Rosicrucians were demanded to change their clothing and style to that of their current surroundings, and not to draw attention. Likewise, theosophists teach that the master adepts live among people in cognito. Open displays and claims of power is seen as a snare to entangle the surficial people into mistaken belief systems (for spiritual truth cannot be seen from open displays of power) by most if not indeed all of the old religions' systems of spirituality.
But nowadays, when the world is once again young in a way, people are hungry for new, and easy, spirituality. Because of this new approach, this ideology of instant spiritual gratification is most often referred as the "New Age" spirituality. It is not a perfect term. Also, the New Age tends to bring about associations from the Right Hand Path surficiality, healing crystals and angel channelings. But the last ten or fifteen years or so has exploded the same attitude in the Left Hand Path practices, and nowadays there can be seen equally much LHP-oriented New Age. Shady pictures on black candles & bones on the altars, channeled goetic demons instead of angels, piles upon piles of useless but pretty grimoires, and so on.
This is pseudo-spirituality, focusing on form: consumerism, sociological ego-boosting or choosing temperamentally alluring groups, and other such surficial things. The lacking aspect is, most of all, actual hard (inner) work. When actual "Try!" is put into any form of pseudo-spiritualism, it too can be made into actual spiritualism. For there is no form itself that is bad, no more than good. To the actual spirituality, there are only instruments in form, never something that is good or bad in itself. This is what iconoclasts tend to forget. The problem is no altar picture, or grimoire, or sociological group, but instead how these become the main thing.