[The Clockwork Rat]

Doesn't look like that many to me.

[Killborn]

Sad to see so many leftists going away from rational thought towards mysticism

You can blame that on the fin de siecle. But were things ever rational to begin with?

[Donna]

TCR: What would you describe yourself as?

Sad to see so many leftists going away from rational thought towards mysticism

You are a middle-class Londoner. You will probably never appreciate how absurd existence is.

[The Clockwork Rat]

Curious and non-belligerent.

Christian without Christ. Pagan without spirit. Daoist without direction. Humanist without atheism.

[Paradigm]

Sad to see so many leftists going away from rational thought towards mysticism

Sad to see someone who supposedly likes post-modernism continuing to buy into the myth of reason.

[Goldberk]

You are a middle-class Londoner.

Correction, a working class Welshman living in London.

Sad to see someone who supposedly likes post-modernism continuing to buy into the myth of reason.

What gave you that idea, I am steadfast in mu rejection of post-Modernism.

[Donna]

Your supporter title says 'Modernist'. Are you being ironic?

[Decky]

Sad to see so many leftists going away from rational thought towards mysticism

I think it has something to do with the shite position of the left in the post 1991 world, since the collapse of the Soviet Union we have been in retreat everywhere and it is impossible to even begin to look at the state of the left around the world without being confronted with bad news everywhere you look.

Lots of people have just given up and went for the opiate of the masses, they have essentially abandoned materialism and have put their faith in magic.

[Dagoth Ur]

Some of us are still materialists.

[Donna]

I'm a member of several esoteric discussion groups and people often remark that my Christian Hermeticism is steeped in materialism, continental philosophy, and phenomenological metaphor, to the point where I have had American theosophists accuse me of having authoritarian or anti-democratic tendencies. Eurasian forms of Christian mysticism also tend toward this eclectic kind of perennial discourse between disciplines which diverge from speculative mysticism in the West. I would even say that Russia is leading the world in the development of innovative occult philosophy, while the mystery fraternities in the West are busy making music videos with Katy Perry.

[Paradigm]

Materialism in the Marxist sense is methodologically useful up to a point, and I use it in my analyses to a degree I consider appropriate. Scientific materialism, on the other hand, I object to for reasons well beyond any spiritual concerns of mine. I have long critiqued it on philosophical rather than theological grounds.

[Goldberk]

Your supporter title says 'Modernist'. Are you being ironic?

I meant to say post-modernist.

[annatar1914]

I'm a member of several esoteric discussion groups and people often remark that my Christian Hermeticism is steeped in materialism, continental philosophy, and phenomenological metaphor, to the point where I have had American theosophists accuse me of having authoritarian or anti-democratic tendencies. Eurasian forms of Christian mysticism also tend toward this eclectic kind of perennial discourse between disciplines which diverge from speculative mysticism in the West. I would even say that Russia is leading the world in the development of innovative occult philosophy, while the mystery fraternities in the West are busy making music videos with Katy Perry.

I wouldn't critique you, i'd say you have a genuine interest in concrete manifestation, whereas many others are dabblers who play at theurgy and alchemy and won't purify themselves as the Great Work calls for.

And as to Russia, it's no joke to say that Russia has saved the world in a number of ways.

[Killborn]

Liberation theology never stopped being a thing, and it is the only leftist ideology that has had success in the past 40 years.

[annatar1914]

Liberation theology never stopped being a thing, and it is the only leftist ideology that has had success in the past 40 years.

Exactly. People respond better to it than standard Marxism because-irony of ironies-it seems more reasonable than Atheistic Communism.

[SolarCross]

Could I join? I am an irregular Vipassana meditator, dabbled in Reiki, played around with yoga, had an interest in Kabbala when I was a teenager and have had various close encounters of the spiritual kind. In terms of theology I'd say I am mostly buddhist with a dash of daoism and sufi Islam.

[fuser]

Sad to see so many leftists going away from rational thought towards mysticism

I hear you, Goldberk and I agree.

[Donna]

Updated:

-Donald (Roman Catholicism)
-Dagoth Ur (Islam)
-Paradigm (Anglo-Catholicism)
-Potemkin (Daoism-Mictlantecuhtli devotion)
-annatar1914 (Old Believer/Old Calendarist Orthodoxy)
-noemon (Old Calendarist Orthodox Hellenism)
-RhetoricThug (Mahayana Buddhism-Gnosticism-Eastern esotericism)
-Andrea_Chenier (Roman Catholicism)
-Killborn (Esoteric Apotheosis Christianity)
-The Clockwork Rat (New Age)
-taxizen (Buddhism-Daoism-Sufism)

[Rei Murasame]

If I'm acceptable, put me down as 'Theosophy, Shinto'.

This group seems pretty diverse so far.

[Ter]

Donald (Roman Catholicism)

Donald, since when are you no longer a Jew ?
What will your parents say of this ?
Oy vey gevalt !