Re: Joy of this, Joy of that

On 08/12/2024 21:45, rbowman wrote:

On Sun, 8 Dec 2024 11:59:17 +0100, D wrote:
 

But there is this wonderful inflection point, where christianity went
from a personal mystic method to find enlightenment, to become a tool to
control and build society.
>
I wonder if the mystics lost because of 1. being more interested in the
"within" and personal experience than power and 2. the other guys being
more interested in power and cared nothing for god, but saw the
opportunity. I guess the 3. is St Paul fearing that christianity would
split into a 1000 pieces if the mystics with their own individual
experiences were allowed to continue.

 Other than the Gnostics I don't see much mysticism in early Christianity
rather than sort of a consoling belief for the lumpen proletariat.
Constantine was the start of the control.
 

You have to dig deep. Essentially in the mediaeval times there were the proletariat and the Church, playing the game of public morality and religious bullshit, and the monks and nuns in the monasteries and nunneries, where real academic discussions took place.  William of Ockham was such a one.
The real mysticism was  Jewish  -  Some of the more esoteric parts of Judaism were really quite advanced.
I.e. the Kabala and so on, with their attempts to map what appears to be consciousness itself.
Christian mysticism has always been seen by official religion as muddying the waters for the simple people.  Organised Christian religion was always, from Paul onwards, a political and social tool.

Mystics like Ecckhart, John of the Cross, Tauler, Teresa of Avila, and so
forth were a problem for the hierarchy and treated with suspicion if not
outright condemned as heretics.
 

Absolutely. If you want to have visions, for Gods sake have them in the privacy of a monastic cell and dont challenge our authority.

Even in recent times Teilhard de Chardin was ordered not to publish or
teach his ideas. That's no different than Eckhart who would have been
ignored if he hadn't tried to teach.

Yup.
The mysticism was always there, but it was about as popular then as philosophy is today.
--
Karl Marx said religion is the opium of the people.
But Marxism is the crack cocaine.