I'm so insanely sick of the new youth culture as seeing psychedelics as some magical shortcut to wisdom and eternal happiness, but I have no idea how to fight against it or how to speak out against it without the people who swear by them using their own subjectivity and saying "Iunno it sure saved my life and fixed every problem I ever had!" despite still having a terrible life and still having 10000 problems

@hidden if only it were dhyana and not intoxicating substances touted as a miracle cure

@georgia For real. Contemplation is worth more than revelation every single time.

@hidden seems with the passing generations people reach mental maturity slower and slower with each generation. Some 30 years olds act like they are how a 18 year would act in prior generations and so on. In the really old days in 50s and 60s a 18 year old would be a respectable adult. Now mid 30 year olds are behaving like children

@hidden @georgia It's a desperate overreaction to the sterility of modern culture. Just like weed culture, the way to kill it is to force feed them to everyone so no one ever feels the need to share their experience again.

@Diceyocean I think psychological development requires empty space, and as society becomes more stimulating there's simply less space. Way more complex than that, but that's a big part of it

@J @georgia It's weird though because for a lot of them they integrate it into the sterility. If they just wanted to do drugs and be a degenerate that would be at least more honest than mind raping themselves with LSD in an attempt to enjoy office work or some stupid thing

@hidden @J ive literally done pharmahuasca with 80mg of DMT and it only damaged me spiritually. I only know one person whose gotten genuine spiritual insight from drugs.

@Diceyocean @hidden
Yeah, I can see that.
Good take.

@hidden @georgia Pleroma needs voice notes yesterday. I have thoughts but I'm driving

@georgia @J Yeah... it always seems to make people more solipsistic. I mean have you ever seen someone on psychedelics give af about you? It's always very self centred, and makes people delusional. I hope that experience hasn't set you back on your path too much, and that you're doing well 🙏

@Jonny @hidden I am not saying they shouldn’t say faggot etc. I am talking about a certain wisdom that some don’t have. Certain ability to connect. Here in Spain 80 year old woman use the word “pussy” when joking. Especially in Southern Spain. It’s just a certain state you enter when you are a grown up. A certain vibe you can sense when talking that you say this guy have lived

@hidden @J it set me back for sure but God corrected me and will further correct me in the future. dw about me

@georgia @J Good, very glad to hear

@Diceyocean @hidden
Yeah, I’m picking up what you’re laying down.

@hidden @georgia @J try datura to cure all spiritual illness.

@sarvo @hidden @J yes its a great idea to try a drug with the side effect "unspeakable horrors" listed on the psychonaut wiki

@georgia @J @sarvo Sarvo is an eternal troll

@hidden @georgia

@hidden @georgia @J I prefer the term silly or whimsical, I do not hide under bridges.

@sarvo @hidden @J just a bit puckish, is all!

@georgia @hidden @J oh I like this word I didn’t know it.

@sarvo @hidden @J teehee

@Jonny @hidden my grandparents were working in 1930s basically when they were 12-13. Life was hard. My Spanish grandmother had a tough childhood with some days without food working to survive and my Norwegian grandfather had to make it on his own completely. There was no such thing as your parents showing affection. Life was hard and basically as a 15-16 year old you would be like a completely matured man or woman

@sarvo @georgia @hidden This cornball banter is worse than drugs

@hidden many such cases

@hidden

i never did these kinds of things ever, but isn't this old youth culture by now?

@whiteline Nah it’s on the up and up again

@hidden "new"

@colonelj Neo

@J @georgia True! I do think there is a lot of meaning in the daily grind, and a lot of magical immanent moments that can be found in the mundane. But none of us are Jesus or Lao Tzu. Our journeys are local and so will be our impact, the world goes on with or without us.

@hidden @whiteline At least this wave is less annoying.

@hidden @georgia Do you know what happens to an Arhat when the defilements cease and the awakened student fades into Nirvana?

@J @georgia I have no clue!

@hidden @georgia He encounters the Buddha, who tells him there is more work to be done, and the awakened one will continue to manifest in the world to guide all beings toward awakening, until every last one is rescued.

But there are no finite amount of beings, and there is no change in state between sleep and awakening. The final state of awakening transcends the difference between Nirvana and Samsara and the Buddha spends his entire eternity at work.

There is no stasis at the end, the endpoint of awakening is greater and greater work.

@hidden @georgia The daily grind lasts forever, it just gets greater.

@J @georgia @hidden Arbeit macht frei etc etc

@cine @georgia @hidden It doesn't even sound corny when it's not in English.

@J @georgia @hidden It sounds corny in any language you speak somewhat fluently, as many aphorisms do.

@cine @georgia @hidden How do you say it in Arabic and do you scream it like they do everything else? I bet it's cool.

@J @georgia @hidden Are you calling me an arabian? It's so over.

@cine @georgia @hidden Only a jew could be this disgusted by an Arab.

I reverse psychology'd you.

@J @georgia Wow, Buddhists got absolutely trolled thinking they’d escape. Makes sense though, nirvana being a perspective of the endless grind. This really makes me wanna get into indian literature

@hidden every great putdown starts with a "you". You can do it, kween

@ligma_male You’re right. I just have to go for it

@hidden @georgia There's nothing to escape. Everyone was already a Buddha, they just forgot.

The Arhats were not too pleased to discover this.

@J @georgia @hidden How can I be arab if I'm in a christian instance? Checkmate atheists.

@J @georgia @hidden wait, jew, well, whatever works.

@cine @georgia @hidden This is the least Christian Christian instance you could run. Half the people here are esotericafags.

@J @cine @georgia We’re all trying and failing to be Christian ok

@hidden @J @georgia Literally me trying to be a good catholic but then I'm seduced by the dao de jing and the zhuangzi 😭

@hidden @cine @georgia Well, it depends what you mean by we, and it depends what you mean by trying, and it depends what you mean by ok

@cine @J @georgia Just read the “Tao of Christ” and don’t think too hard

@hidden @cine @georgia I will send a free copy of *Christ the Eternal Tao* to anyone who wants a reason to die and cleanse their memories.

@hidden @J @georgia > don’t think too hard
way ahead of you, sis

@cine @J @hidden @georgia yall think twice?
I dont even think once!

@J @cine @georgia I’ve never read it but I’m so curious lmao

@hidden @cine @georgia It's not bad in a way that would be interesting to you, most likely. I don't even keep it on my shelf as an ice breaker.

The book is split in half. The first half is Christian poetry written in the style of the Tao Te Ching in English translation. It's exactly what you'd expect of a Christian trying to imitate Laozi's style.

The second half is just a Losskyite treatise making the case that the Taoists are actually just Eastern Orthodox Christians who didn't know Jesus yet.

I have to specify Eastern Orthodox not because I happen to know the author's orientation, but because the entire thing is essentially a reflection on Seraphim Rose and is full of all the modern Losskyite reimaginings of Christianity that are specific to 20th Century Eastern Orthodoxy. I can't remember if there are any UFO references but I wouldn't be surprised.

Maybe for someone else that would be interesting but I'm so overly-familiar with that crowd and their literature and how bad it is at real history that I just cringe.

@J @cine @georgia Alright yeah that sounds awful lmao

@hidden @cine @georgia You cannot imagine my disappointment. It was out of print for so long. I wanted it as a novelty for YEARS and then it came back into print, I bought it, and it sucked, and I think I died and went to hell that day and I am now a ghost.

@J @cine @georgia Tfw the afterlife is shitposting on fedi

@hidden @cine @georgia It's not that bad there are cute girls here and I work at a park where everything is pretty and well kept and there are little baby deer everywhere.

@cine @hidden @J @georgia i will never be a good catholic the way i yearn to be, but I always come back to Christ so at least there's that

@J @cine @georgia I’m really happy actually. I didn’t know you got such a better job

@hidden @cine @georgia What was my job when I was threatening to sodomize you with broken glass bottles?

@une @cine @georgia @hidden How to you feel about the filioque?

@J @cine @georgia You were working in a warehouse, amazon type deal. It was a nightmare

@hidden @cine @georgia I made it all the way to middle management. I have power now. Nature is my throne.

@hidden @J @cine @georgia basically it's an explanation of hesychasm and describes correspondences between hesychastic and taoist philosophy

@genmaicha @cine @hidden @georgia Hesychasm as interpreted by Losskytards.

@J @cine @hidden @georgia what's Losskyism?

@genmaicha @cine @hidden @georgia Vladmir Lossky is more or less the founder of modern Eastern Orthodox theology.

Basically if you hear an Eastern Orthodox contrasting their *approach* with that of Western traditions, that was made up by Lossky, then made worse by his successors (Romanides being the most famous)

No one actually calls it Losskyism except me though. I just don't like legitimizing it. It's usually called "Patristic Retrieval" or "the end of Latin Captivity" or smth like that bc the radical shift away from the former way of thinking has to be justified.

@une @J @georgia @hidden We can keep trying. tbh I don't try to adhere to the doctrine. I just focus on spending time with my family, be that working time, or idle time, and trying not to be a piece of shit to others. That ought to be enough as I got plenty on my plate for now . But I feel it's ok as it is, so it must be ok too. Going by instinct as thinking never got me anywhere

@J @cine @hidden @georgia it sounds a lot like what Luke Smith touted before he left the internet

@genmaicha @cine @hidden @georgia All pop online Eastern Orthodoxy is Losskyite except some Old Calendarists, who hate it because it was most widely adopted by the Communist run churches.

@J @cine @georgia @hidden i have to be honest, the whole thing seems really silly. i identify as catholic almost exclusively because it's how i was raised and the religion of my ancestors, but i find i resonate more often with the non-scholaticism of orthodoxy more. as for the filioque specifically, it has no significance to me or my understanding of God or the Trinity

@J @cine @georgia @hidden frankly trinitarianism is interesting, but since everything is consubstantial with God, it renders the whole thing moot

@une @cine @georgia @hidden I wasn't expecting a serious answer.

The Latins are historically right about the filioque anyway so u good homie. It was the main argument against the Eunomians (Unitarians)

@une @cine @georgia @hidden What do you mean by consubstantial?

@J @cine @georgia @hidden I mean there is nothing that exists that is not God

@une @cine @georgia @hidden When Fuentes is President and America is a Tradcath Empire you're getting burned at the stake for that one 💀

@J @cine @georgia @hidden i would not be the first

@une @cine @georgia @hidden Why do you want to be a Catholic? You sound more like a Hindu who just likes Jesus. Not even the weird esoteric Christian schools teach that kind of consubstantiality.

A hard division in ontology between created and uncreated is, like, the defining feature of the 3 Abrahamics.

@J @cine @georgia @hidden if you're a philosopher or theologian, sure. although my pantheism kinda comes from spinoza, so I guess hating on philosophy is kinda hypocritical. but idk i'm just an ordinary person, so I don't really need to care about any of that.

like i said, the reason i wanna be catholic specifically is mostly ethnic. i would feel like it was a betrayal of my ancestors to be a protestant, and beyond liking some of the music and imagery, hinduism has never really grabbed my interest.

@J @cine @georgia @hidden basically, I like Christianity, the Three Chinese Schools, and Shinto/Japanese Buddhism. if I had to be honest, I'd say Christ was more like a kami to me than an avatar of the Godhead

@une @cine @georgia @hidden >i'm just an ordinary person, so I don't really need to care about any of that.

I think that's only true if you don't know anything about it, but you already seem to. You can't put the genie back in the bottle.

Since you do you'll eventually hit a fork where you have to pick between conforming for convenience, or following truth.

>i would feel like it was a betrayal of my ancestors to be (something else)

I get that impulse and one initial thing that drew me to Eastern religion after I stopped believing in Christian truths was its capacity to connect to pre-Christian traditions without being aimless like Neopaganism or eradicating anything older than itself, like Christianity.

A small, but devoted subset of Conservative Western dharma converts are trying to integrate old European traditions. Celebrating old festivals, revering the more virtuous of the old gods as bodhisattvas, older styles of shrine, etc.

@une @cine @georgia @hidden I don't entirely relate to ethnic loyalty in religion. My family is Celtic and were strict Irish Catholics before the Greatest Generation, but I'm so far removed from that I don't feel much kinship there. When I looked into old Celtic paganism I couldn't really make myself care either, and there are no surviving lineages so there's no point. It would be a LARP. All the attempts at modern revival are more about accepting gay brown trannies into your country than living a real tradition.

What I did appreciate were the Greek philosophers, which as it turns out, have a lot of crossover with, and relate well to, Indian philosophers.

@J @cine @georgia @hidden i have ceased to believe theological discourse alone is the path to truth. been in my theurgy arc (also interested in connecting theurgical ritual to whatever tf confucius was saying about it), but i haven't been able to settle on actual good work that I could do, since most modern theurgy is bullshit occult slop and Catholic ritual is pointing towards a truth that doesn't fit well inside my heart (and same with the neo-Platonists like Iamblichus, although I agree somewhat more with them). so currently, I'm just trying to cultivate virtue and not worrying about it until I feel like I could actually make any headway at all

@une @cine @georgia @hidden Indian religions typically accept Christ to some limited degree in much the same way.

I'm not telling you that's something you should conform to, I'm just saying it seems more compatible with what you naturally align with anyway.

NGL my knowledge of Hinduism is only surface level. I don't understand avatars either and I'm not that interested in learning. When I was originally looking into Indian religion, I found that on analysis, on every point of contention between Buddhists and Hindus, I agreed with the Buddhists. When the tension between the two were reconcilable, the Buddhist articulation was still more precise and more useful to practice in real life.

@J @cine @georgia @hidden Irish Catholicism was what I received directly from my parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents, so it feels a little bit different for me. I went to a Catholic university and felt a lot of nostalgia for being in Catholic school as a kid, so Catholicism makes sense to me in that way. I also tried the Celtic paganism route (and the Hellenic paganism route) but ultimately the lack of surviving lineages was the sticking point for me as well. I like Greek philosophy for this reason, too, since, even if the Enlightenment and the Middle Ages took Greek philosophy and ran with it in wildly different directions, it's still a lineage of people grappling with the same ideas over thousands of years

@une @cine @georgia @hidden There is a MIDDLE WAY tm.

If something is correct, this will be revealed through both sound discourse AND practice. If you have to ignore one that's a bad sign imo

@J @cine @georgia @hidden yeah, I agree. I don't think I'm ignoring discourse entirely, I'm just keeping it simpler for now while I focus on practice, since in the past I tended to neglect practice in favor of pure discourse and I became, to my understanding, greatly deluded

@une @cine @georgia @hidden Fair enough.

The problem I found practicing Christianity was the more I knew, the more I realized I couldn't reconcile everything into the paradigm I held at any given time, so near the end I kept having to switch traditions to ease my conscience so my aim would be right.

By the end my aim ended up not being Christian at all, at least not in an orthodox way. I still have a great appreciation for the Christian tradition but the only way to solve the paradox of my own orientation, I had to relocate outside of it.

@J @cine @georgia @hidden yeah, this is why I say I'll never be Catholic the way that I want to. My understanding of the world will never match the doctrine of the Church. and like you said about the genie going back in the bottle, I can't ever really pretend like I didn't reach any of the conclusions I did. So I am definitely outside of it. I think of it as one of the schools I draw on, but ultimately I'm just a religious person without a religion that I necessarily identify with 100% The desire to have a home is still there, though

Simone Weil helped me feel not so bad about it, although she phrased it/understood it as "finding Christ in the religions of the East," which isn't exactly how I see it

@une @cine @georgia @hidden Christ fits much better into the East than the East fits into Christ. I don't think you'll ever be able to live consistently with what you're trying to do, you'll be implicitly lying at some level no matter what, especially if you commune.

If it orients you positively for now then that's a good thing, but I'll just reiterate my concern that eventually you're going to hit a fork and you'll have to pick one.

@une @cine @georgia @hidden That's not even to berate the choice, or anything. It's just hard not to notice the contradiction, and I hate for people to crash into walls that they didn't at least see first.

@J @cine @georgia @hidden I appreciate the concern. Personally, I'd love to crash into a wall. It'd be way easier than trying to make choices with all the ambiguity I'm surfing through

@J @cine @georgia @hidden I agree with you also, about Christ fitting into the East more than the East fits into Christ. It's one of the reasons I'm uncomfortable referring to Him as a bodhisattva. It just doesn't really seem to gel with who He was

@une @cine @georgia @hidden It's really hard to say. There certainly are themes of kenosis; emptiness of the self, and universal compassion, and statements like "ye are gods" (not univocal language to Yogacara and Buddha Nature thought, but pretty close.)

But ultimately I don't like dissecting Christianity to only pick out the favorable parts. It's too easy to do because the Bible has so many damn mysteries, you can make Jesus agree with just about anything if you twist his arm.

Some Buddhists like to praise the Gnostic cosmological texts but they seem more Hermetic than anything. Not to mention thematically off. Why would a bodhisattva be meticulously teaching his disciples how to deceive illusory beings that they could simply transcend through awakening?

I tend to think of it as upaya. Jesus probably wasn't a literal bodhisattva, though he's certainly closer to one than an average sage, but it could be helpful for some to think of him that way to emulate his positive qualities.

@J @cine @georgia @hidden I've been attracted by the way some Chinese Buddhists consider Laozi and Kongzi, as reincarnations of members the Buddha's original sangha who spread upaya in the form of Confucianism and Taoism to pave the way for Buddhism. I mean, for me, maybe not literally to pave the way for Buddhism, but at least to bring people closer to enlightenment. I haven't settled on that interpretation though, although it's very compelling to me

@une @J @cine @hidden @georgia thinking about religion is for nerds, you people are nerds

@eemmaa @cine @hidden @une @georgia Brilliant contribution. Very constructive and helpful. Everyone gained a standard deviation onto their IQ reading this.

@une @cine @georgia @hidden I tend to think of it as "big if true" but it's not something that can be analyzed from the perspective of us mere normalfags.

@J @cine @hidden @une @georgia I try to be as constructive as the topic, thank you 🖤

@J @cine @georgia @hidden @une
how would you make a religion if there werent any?, thats the perspective the pagan revivalists seem to have, that its natural which the abrahamism isnt, so surely larping would help them along and theyd fall back into a natural pattern that was always there

i find myself feeling more that there simply isnt any religion but still believing in "it" just as the german article, i find myself in that intermediate state


sermons always seem unwholesome lacking divinity boring in a very painful lifeless way, vapid, what are they even for, why would you tolerate them? ive never understood this

@J @cine @georgia @hidden @une forgot the images

@eemmaa @J @cine @hidden @une @georgia

nerds > normies

@hidden this is why rationality is good

@Hyolobrika It’s very good to be rational for sure, but a lot of people who fancy themselves rational end up completely fucked by trying to create rational priors, when they need to actually have good sense of where things start so they can have accurate priors instead

@J @cine @hidden @georgia @genmaicha
I think that was alluded to the one time I visited an Orthodox church. Some stuff about rationality, flawed Romanist philosophy and God is meant to be felt or something.
But I never got around to figuring out what that meant because shortly after this I gave up on religion altogether rather than just the fundamentalist baptist church I'd left.

@Cyrillic @J @cine @hidden @georgia @genmaicha IK my fren said something similar about being an Asatru, before finding his way to Armanism (which is the same thing he introduced me to, it's moreso Esoterica then a religion proper, makes more sense to me in that)

@Cyrillic @cine @hidden @georgia @genmaicha Yes and it's all bullshit. They're just hippies but they cover it up by using the medieval liturgy.

@Witch_Hunter_Siegfired @J @cine @hidden @georgia @genmaicha
That sort of thing comes off to me as getting high off your own propaganda, while I just want to believe things that are true

@Cyrillic @J @cine @hidden @georgia @genmaicha For me it sorta just made sense, but I getcha, I'm not like a Born Again or the like I've no ill will twords my old beliefs infact I'd argue they're still quite sensible lol.