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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   34723 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 16, 2025

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In my circles on twitter, the Mystical Christianity conversation is cropping up again. It tends to come around every few months, at least for the past year I've been on the site.

Tyler Alterman writes a long post on it that is mostly summed up here:

There’s an emerging branch of mystical Christianity that is very intriguing. I think of it as “Imaginal Christianity” (IC). You could also call it Mythic Christianity or Jungian Christianity

IC’s main selling point is that it’s compatible with a scientific mindset. I list the tenets I’ve observed below. By doing so, I try to document what I see ppl practicing. (I am not an Imaginal Christian.)

God = the ground of being. It is both presence and void, shows its love by embracing all things that exist & affording the path to salvation through communion with it

“The Lord”: a useful anthropomorphism of god. ICs use imagination to turn something incomprehensible (god) into an imaginal presence that we can speak to and which speaks to us through words, silence, and beyond

Jesus of Nazareth: a person who came much closer than most people to theosis – ie embodying how god would behave if it acted in human form with full recognition of its own nature. By doing so, Jesus genuinely did show us a path to salvation. (Although – here’s the heretical part – other people like Gautama Buddha might show us a complementary paths.) Thanks to the degree that Jesus was charismatic and the degree to which his followers admired him, they created and/or realized an imaginal being called Christ

Christ: a mind that continues to guide humans to salvation, directly inspired by Jesus of Nazareth (whose body is now dead). There are many names for the nature of this type of mind: thoughtform, tulpa, egregore, archetype, living symbol, yidam, memetic entity. His metaphysical status is similar to the way Tibetan lamas seem to regard their deities, as manifestations of Mind. This doesn’t make him less divine; he represents a latent divine potential available to all people. We see archetypes similar to Christ manifest across cultures: Osiris, Dionysus, Krishna, etc. However, Christ is is our culture’s instantiation of the archetype – his specific teachings and the story of his life are meaningful to us

Now to broaden this outside of just Christianity, I'm curious what the Motte thinks of symbolism as a whole? I will admit my own path back to religion came via a symbolic pathway, although I believe it goes far deeper than this.

That being said, from my short time here it seems like most of the Christians on this site aren't that into symbolism, and tend to be more "rationalist" and materialist in their worldview. Again, might have a mistaken impression.

I know this is a rationalist offshoot forum so not sure I expect a ton of mystical/symbolic discussion, but I'm kind of surprised by how little there is given how many professed religious folks there are here. And I do think from a Culture War angle, that materialism is definitely losing steam (especially amongst the right) as we see more and more cracks form in the edifice of Expert Scientific Opinion(tm).

On a deeper note, the symbolic worldview is all about seeing the world through the language of God (or meaning if you prefer), in a way that helps people bind together and understand events in the same way. Right now we are in "darkness" symbolically because, well, nobody can interpret events the same way! I personally think a return to the symbolic is inevitable given how confused everything is at the moment, although the transition may not be smooth or easy.

I like symbolism, but when I see the likes of this I groan "oh God, not this crap again". Yeah, give us mystic Christianity divorced from any roots in a living faith tradition, where we can pull it around like Sam Harris Buddhism (get the benefits, dump the woo, be compatible with our true god Science!) to fit what we want without making demands.

If you want Christ the Cosmic Mystic Gnosis Theosis jack-in-the-box, you can go for Theosophy or any range of Western Esoteric traditions that will fit you right up but make no demands of you along the lines of But you, who do you say I am?.

If you want mysticism rooted in tradition, explore the Orthodox and Catholic traditions, but be aware that this is work, not just 'sit there and contemplate my own inner awesomeness'.

There are a lot of people in the world today who just straight up hate the idea of Christianity in its modern formation. Decades of 'oh you believe in an old man in the clouds with a fluffy beard granting wishes' has poisoned them, and then they couple that with the mundanity of everyday worship and nope right out. But they still have a deep yearning for spiritual connection. They have been looking into Buddhism, and esoterics and paganism for a spirituality still rooted in materialism and if you speak to them in that language you can actually reach them. And you can learn more about your own faith by seeing how alternative faiths work too. I didn't have the foresight you did, it wasn't until I started reading about Blavatsky and co that I realised how deep narcissism runs in people. It says it pretty regularly in the bible, yes, but it didn't click until I saw their working out.

Edit: I just read your post below about Arianism - are you actually directly talking about me?

Edit: I just read your post below about Arianism - are you actually directly talking about me?

No? It was our pal the Imaginal Christian as quoted? 'Here's a bit of Adoptionism, here's a bit of Theosophy, here's a bit of....' in regards to understanding of the nature of Christ, the sense of the Bible, is God personal or a force (immanent or transcendent) etc.

I thought so, but you threw some stank on the concept of the zeitgeist in that other post, and that's all I ever talk about. And then it occurred to me that the last time I explained the non-recreational reason I enjoy talking about and to the adherents of that kind of mysticism, I was explaining it to a guy who thought I was trying to turn Christianity into a mystery cult. So I put those things together and thought 'this guy might actually be sick of my bullshit too'.

What, you mean we're not already a mystery cult? Dang, that takes all the fun out of it!

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