{"id":6506,"date":"2013-06-02T12:20:24","date_gmt":"2013-06-02T16:20:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gornahoor.net\/?p=6506"},"modified":"2020-05-19T07:31:41","modified_gmt":"2020-05-19T11:31:41","slug":"esoterism-and-christian-mysticism-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/?p=6506","title":{"rendered":"Esoterism and Christian Mysticism (5)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nThis is the concluding part of an essay originally published by EA, or Julius Evola<\/strong>, under the title \u201cEsoterismo e Mistica Cristiana\u201d from the third volume of Introduction to Magic<\/strong>. Here he discusses the the cult of Mary, the initiation of the Fedeli d’Amore, and then comes to a not unexpected conclusion.\n<\/p>\n

⇐ Part 4<\/a><\/p>\n

Moreover, according to patristics, man as microcosm comprises the entire creation, through which the dominating power possessed by man over himself is manifested likewise in the macrocosm: the dominion of man over nature is the prize of the complete victory that man brings back on himself: the hierarchical relationship established between the powers interior to man are transferred into the relationship between man and the world [TM, 84]. It is through such a way that an unlimited power over creation had been promised to the saints, according to the words of Mark 16:17-18.<\/p>\n

\nAnd these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name they shall cast out devils: they shall speak with new tongues. They shall take up serpents; and if they shall drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them: they shall lay their hands upon the sick, and they shall recover.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It is unnecessary to point out that the premises just noted are the same as in high magic or theurgy: Agrippa and Paracelsus did not express themselves any differently. Finally, as the third prerogative of the adamic state, there is the gift of immortality, athanasia<\/i>, \u201ccorporeal immortality being a sign and proof of the interior presence of God\u201d. For that reason, \u201ca restoration of the primordial state would also include the reacquisition of immortality\u201d. [TM 82-4]<\/p>\n

At the origins of Christianity, there was, as an echo, the ontological ideal of deification\u2014assimilation to God and participation in his nature\u2014as an effect of the earlier mystery tradition and it still predominated over the morality of faith, love, and the merits that carry essentially their fruits into the afterlife. Therefore, there were still half-closed perspectives of the type that, once the dross has been separated, tends toward a world higher than that of mysticism, and of which the world of mysticism is only a weakened and rather humanized echo.<\/p>\n

One final point. We know the part that Mariolatry, i.e., the cult of the Virgin as \u201cMother of God\u201d, has in Christianity. If this cult, in its most external aspects and from the historic point of view, gives evidence of the influence that gynocratic views had in Christianity, i.e., the pre-eminence of the feminine divinized principle (Magna Mater, Gaia, etc.), as in the archaic, pre-Indo-European Mediterranean cycle, then only an esoteric assumption of it is possible. A rather unique thing, it is suggested by the same Catholic author, to whom we referred repeatedly, when he says: Mary is \u201cthe highest ideal of the ascetic\u201d, because \u201cthe ascetic tends to form Christ in the soul, to make it become the Christ bearer and the Mother of Christ\u201d [AC 192].<\/p>\n

Although this symbolism, itself attributable to the scope of initiation, at its base contradicts the principle of passivity characteristic of the Christian mystical way and as emphasized by the conception of the indispensability of grace (i.e., of the activity of a force that psychologically is experienced in terms of grace) for every supernaturally efficacious effort. If in Christian symbolism the Virgin is only fecundated\u2014by the Holy Spirit\u2014according to the initiatic symbolism the \u201cvirgin birth\u201d, it is, more precisely, the birth that has no need of external help, the endogenesis due to a pure and intact force. Kumari, the Virgin, is the \u201cpower of the will\u201d, according to a Hindu text.[1]<\/a><\/p>\n

Another mystical interpretation of the \u201cMother of Christ\u201d is that which makes her the representation of the Church, the mother of supernatural life. [AC, 193] That is, in relation to the supernaturalizing influence that would be connected to its tradition, to its organization, and its rites.[2]<\/a> Usually, such a point is, however, in connected with the exclusivist claim, a characteristic of Catholicism.<\/p>\n

Mysticism considered as a development of the experience of the insertion of the individual, effectuated by the sacraments and above all by the Eucharist, into the current of divine life, and the Church, understood as the mystical body of Christ, as the bearer of this current, is the obvious conclusion that there cannot be true mystical life if not in the Church [TM 77]; and that Non-Christian mysticism, being less than \u00a0union with Christ (which, evidently, is considered along the lines of an historic personality conceived as the Redeemer, not of a superhistoric and universal role model to imitate), is in fact naturalistic, if not the result of demonic influences. In such a way, we end up presuming that in the non-Christian Mysteries, there could not have been any question of true deification, but only of more or less contingent psychic states. [61-71]<\/p>\n

The well-known principle Extra ecclesiam nulla sulus<\/i> [no salvation outside the church] sanctions, in general, the idea that only Christian redemption could result in liberation from diabolic power, expressed as the breaking of the circle of the demonic force that surround us, while helping us to doubt its power, and that making us think that redemption in the sign of Christ and the Church is superfluous, would be the most dangerous victory that Satan can attribute of his activity [66].<\/p>\n

We previously said that all that can only have value for Catholic \u201cinternal use\u201d; likewise, we noted that these views have an exclusively practical justification, no different from that of exclusively analogous views that are encountered in outer, exoteric forms of most other traditions: but they still lack every foundation beyond the sphere of the jurisdiction of each tradition.<\/p>\n

In relation to that, we can pose, as the last issue, the question of the extent in which, for those who have an initiatic vocation, it is useful to adhere to and join a religious tradition\u2014specifically, to Catholicism in the case of a Westerner.<\/p>\n

As the conclusion of the preceding examination, it seems clear the Christianity, as compared to other traditions, has a particular character. In fact, from one side it is not, like ancient Judaism or orthodox Islam, a pure religion of the \u201cLaw\u201d, but that inner experience is important to it. On the other hand, it does not know the experiential, esoteric, and initiatic plane, so that its level is inferior to that of traditions where this plane is adequately taken into consideration. This intermediate nature of Christianity can be characterized by defining it exactly as an essentially mystical<\/i> religion, which has absorbed and adapted some esoteric elements into its mysterico-sacramental form.<\/p>\n

Now, a current that is defined in such terms has a predominantly psychic and collective, rather than a spiritual and metaphysical, character. In every way, that seems rather noticeably what Catholic tradition has become in our time, so that it leads us to think of one of the cases of entities, from which, through involution, the influences that are truly from above have in a good measure receded. But since psychic entities of that type conserved their vitality and strength through inertia, uniting itself to it, for those who have an initiatic vocation, it can serve more of a bond than as the basis for higher development. We come back to a \u201cchain\u201d, from which it is difficult to free oneself and whose subtle influences are difficult to control. So through the doctrinal side, there is something characteristic that even those who sincerely live out the Christian faith sacramentally and mystically are the most \u201ctaken\u201d, the most fanatic, the most incapable of recognizing and respecting anything which is anterior and superior to their tradition and that has been realized in other equally legitimate forms in the world and in history.<\/p>\n

In every respect, in the case of Christianity, it must be judged that the relations between the outer religious way and the metaphysical way are minimal and that one can immerse oneself in the mystical-devotional current to the point of reaching relatively high levels without perceiving anything of the initiatic and metaphysical order. With its character of a closed system in its own way, with elements which represent only a formal, reflected image of the mystery of transformation and of deification, we would almost say \u201clunar\u201d, Christianity is perhaps, among the traditional forms, the one which is least recommended to those who want to enter the \u201cdirect way\u201d.<\/p>\n

\n
\n[1]<\/a> We note the correspondence with the expression used by Dante (Par. XXXIII, 34) for the Virgin: \u201cQueen, who can do whatever you will\u201d.\n<\/div>\n
\n[2]<\/a> As much to the form, or doctrine, as to the organization that is its deposit, the symbolism of Woman was applied in various cases in the initiatic domain. So, in the case of the Medieval chivalric initiation of the \u201cFedeli d\u2019Amore\u201d, Woman represented both \u201cSacred Wisdom\u201d and one or the other organizations of that current. The passage at the active movement was often portrayed through the symbolism of marriage, or even of incest (the Woman or the Mother becomes the spouse of the initiate).\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the concluding part of an essay originally published by EA, or Julius Evola, under the title \u201cEsoterismo e Mistica Cristiana\u201d from the third volume of Introduction to Magic. Here he discusses the the cult of Mary, the initiation of the Fedeli d’Amore, and then comes to a not … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,914],"tags":[940],"class_list":["post-6506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-evola","category-ur-group-2","tag-ea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6506"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12173,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6506\/revisions\/12173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}