The Secret Religions of the West, Session 2 of 3
In his first talk at the Sovereign Nations Mere Simulacrity conference in Phoenix, Arizona, in December 2022, James Lindsay introduced the idea that there is a long, running current of “Secret Religions” in the West. These are the Modern and Postmodern manifestations of the Esoteric Religions like Gnosticism and Hermeticism as they developed through what we might consider the Middle Age’s “New Age” period, famously codified by G.W.F. Hegel. In the second lecture in his “Secret Religions of the West” series, Lindsay explains that these “philosophies,” including Marxism, are actually mystical Esoteric cult religions posing as science, economics, and politics, and that their success in infiltrating our religions, societies, and institutions is down to their intrinsically parasitical nature. They mimic and illegitimately claim the language and structure of the things they pretend to be and bring destruction and madness into the void they create. Join him to understand not only this but how the “handshaking” balance between Reason and Faith is the only way to stop Gnosis.
Session 1: The Negation of the Real
Session 3: As Below, So Above
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8 comments
James makes my brain hurt in such a good way. Thank you.
Correlation is not causation. The speaker definitely understands Marxism, Woke-ism, Neo-Liberalism, Socialism, Fascism, New Age-ism, WEF, etc., and I concur with his analyses of those popular ism’s and their definitive evil. His clarity on Classical Liberalism and the genius of the U.S. Constitution is spot on. However…, there’s no evidence the lecturer has anything beyond a superficial acquaintance with Gnosticism; and only enough to remain contemptuous of different (heretic?) thought. In this respect this lecture is a sad and vain attempt to impart understanding about a subject so plainly misunderstood, and feared. His self-righteous conviction about Gnosticism might be summed up with the acknowledgement at 1:31:30 on Marx’s so-called ‘inspiration’ from the Corpus Hermeticum with the admission, “I can’t prove that, it’s just suspicious”, The lecture gets derailed entirely at that point and degrades. His stated goal, to “stop Gnosis” (an impossibility), would make Pope Innocent III proud.
“By an act of god, then, those who have understood find what I have been saying believable, but those who have not understood do not find it believable. Let this much be told about understanding and sensation.” – Brian P. Copenhaver, Hermetica: The Greek Corpus Hermeticum and the Latin Asclepius
“Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves.”
― George Gordon Byron (Lord Byron)
“Faith consists in believing what reason cannot.”
― Voltaire, The Works: Voltaire
One does not need a deep and insightful understanding of Gnosticism to see how it works in the post modern @$$-Klown clown world we inhabit in this the current year.
James Lindsay perfectly explains what Anita Sarkeesian is blithering about in this video clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SA0aKjY8K50
“Everything is sexist, everything is racist, everything is homophobic and you have to point it all out.”
Thank you! This is what I was looking for. I read the summary of the videos and I was very confused. Saying he wants to stop gnosis is very problematic for me, and I think any religion or idea can be used for good or bad. Take a look at the crusades, and the handling of heresy long ago, among probably hundreds or even thousands of examples that are known today of doing bad things under the guise of a divine purpose. People do bad things and try to excuse it. People misunderstand, people go to extremes. I don’t think it’s fair to list an entire school of thought as extreme until you have a full understanding of what it’s about. Jewish Mysticism has been around since long before Christianity, and it’s thought that even the apostle Paul may have been a Jewish Mystic, as well as Christianity having its own foundations in Jewish Mysticism. Hopefully your comment and mine can help searching people be on their way to finding gnosis.
commenter quoted: “’By an act of god, then, those who have understood find what I have been saying believable, but those who have not understood do not find it believable. Let this much be told about understanding and sensation.’ – Brian P. Copenhaver, Hermetica: The Greek Corpus Hermeticum and the Latin Asclepius”
This quoted statement is the very blueprint of WOKE! Those who are Woke UNDERSTAND and BELIEVE the TRUTH of Woke. Those who are not Woke are ignorant UNBELIEVERS: lesser people, evil people, perhaps even cattle for slaughter (to decrease the surface population to meet UN climate goals of course, like duh-uh).
Because The Woke have the “higher knowledge”, the “true understanding”, the “gnosis”, the Hermeticist superiority, this allows their triple-S (Supercilious Sanctimonious Smug) puffed-up egomania to divide humanity into “those who “UNDERSTAND” — the Wokes, the Gnostics, the Fabian Society, Sexyy Red from Pound Town — from those who do NOT UNDERSTAND — the foul pestilent masses of unevolved deplorable useless eaters.
Be careful what sources you use to critique; they often say more about your own motives than the human failings of those you are trying to bitch slap.
“Gnostic” joke:
Mrs. Trismegistus, can your son Hermes come out to play now?
Sorry, Billy, but Hermes is in his room channeling the pleroma so that he can look down in his self-divinity and sneer at your ignorant lowness. Now scoot, you little Runt of the Demiurge. “
Though James obviously has many valid points, some of the beliefs he speaks of derisively have since then been documented as scientific fact.
Thus I see this whole business, beyond the more obvious psychopathic elements of past and modern movements, as a struggle for power between a variety of different groups seeking influence here on Earth. Though some of these groups have had more “success” on modern Earth, that does not necessarily mean that their teachings are closest to the truth.
There’s no such thing as scientific fact, there is only scientific theory.
Mere “fact” is not “science.” It may be a “fact” that the temperature outside your house is 17 degrees Celsius, but that is not “science,” that is only a data point. “Science” would be theorizing a relationship between that temperature measurement and the barometric pressure and the relative humidity measured simultaneously.
My point is, you’ve missed the point. Gnosticism is not about truth, it’s about achieving the desired outcome, which can only be interpreted as lying to get what they want.
Thank you James. As always, you’re on target. Helena Blavatsky along w/ William Judge, Henry Olcott, & Alice Bailey were members of the Historical Progression Theological Society established in the 1800’s. They believed Ouroboros was the Holy Spirit which is blasphemy. Blavatsky wrote a/ The secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion & Philosophy. Science: a systematically organized body of knowledge (knowledge a system covering basic truths of general laws regarding study of the natural universe based on facts learned experience, observations & documented white paper reports. Marxism, Communism, Fascism, Authoritarianism, & Totalitarianism all originate from the same fabric. All sides of the same coin. All intellectual inheritors are intertwined. Knowledge along w/ ideas are engulfed and resistant w/each generation implanted, regurgitated, manifesting & at times difficult to expel. Nothing new under the sun. You’re lectures are phenomenal.