What is it like to explore a new area of study from the beginning? What kind of questions and difficulties a new student may have when first approaching the subject? For a subject which is, in a way, obscure, how does the interested layman find their way in a strange and unfamiliar land? These are all questions which may not receive much attention. When learning about a subject -any subject-, authoritative information, from people who already have some expertise and deep knowledge are, of course, the best source. The writings of a neophyte are of little value for those seeking to learn from the masters. And yet, the path from beginner to advanced is all but evident. One sees the product of those with experience, but seldom does one get to see the course they may have taken to get where they are. In many cases, more and more as information disseminates freely, interested people have had to hack through the overgrowth of both information and misinformation, to clear a path between fancy and falsity and seek the light of the truth that lies behind the mesh of folly.
So it is that I endeavor to make public a journal, of thoughts and questions and false-starts and even the perils faced in the course of getting from here to there, wherever that may be. Here lies the danger of making public a thought that may, at the time, seem correct or reasonable, but which in the course of learning turn out to be inaccurate or even downright false. None of my words, then should be taken as final or authoritative, but rather as merely tentative, as questions and provisional answers, passing thoughts and temporal convictions that I may lay as signposts to find my way through the strange and unfamiliar land of the particular field of study which I endeavour to get to know.
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What is this field of study? I hesitate to say it out loud. It is not a very reputable path, at least not in the mainstream, and the sole mention of it may face objection from those who adhere to the 'accepted' ontology of reality, those who deem themselves are more learned, more rational, more "correct" in their interpretation of the world and it's relevance to daily matters. In the age of rationalism, of materialism, the pursue of mysticism seems like an outdated and superstitious endeavour, doomed to crazy and folly. That the world is pure matter, entirely knowable through the interactions of atoms and the physical laws of matter, that subjective reality is but an epiphenomenon, the emergent behaviour of the complex network of organic molecules in a mechanic body governed by the cold instructions of strands of DNA, that is what we are asked to believe, to support, that is the reality which we are expected to adhere to and which, if followed to the letter, will bring about a better world for all of us. Yet this denial of the value of life is precisely what has allowed for the wholesale destruction of every ecosystem, of every place of natural beauty, for beauty is not in the nature of the life that permeates every surface and every sight, but that it lies "in the eye of the beholder" and, as such, can be overriden with alternative aesthetic parameters.
And so I have said it: It is mysticism, in this case, the so-called Western Mystery Tradition. Here lies room for another objection: The notion of a Western-anything, which today is even used as a political tool to justify all kinds of atrocities. To single out "The West" as somehow opposed to the rest of the world (and it is particularly interesting that opposition, not mere separation, is the notion that underlies such discourse), is one of the favorite tactics of the modern "cultural war" that is used to underline the necessity of a belligerent attitude towards anything or anyone that doesn't aling with the interests of whoever wields the term "West", along with a few other terms which are supposed to be coextensive with it, and which has, at it's core, the notion of a superiority of method, or of nature, over any alternatives and a divorce from that cultural continuum in which it participates.
Here it need only be said that such a mindset is not necessary, and ought to be completely ignored here, though it may sometimes rear it's ugly head, as the notion underlies the socio-political milieu in which these writings are conceived. To adopot a reactionary stance, and ostracize "The West" as much as it ostracizes itself in political discourse from the rest of the world with which it refuses to cooperate, is as silly as the attitude which first proposes such separation. The fact that there is an identifiable "Western Mystery Tradition", which by the way takes from many different sources from different parts of at least three continents, should not be reason to adhere to a political position in the events currently unfolding. To lack historical perspective, to be unable to get outside of one's own time, leave that for the limited minds of those unable to question themselves and their surroundings. Here it is intended to engage in a serious study and not in the banner wielding of political factionalism.
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Enough politics. What now? What is the actual purpose of all of this? What am I to write in the future? For now, I have talked about a topic which has been bugging me, and somehow also made this as a sort of introduction to the intended stream of discourse, the exposition of a part of the thought stream of a mind at the threshold of the study of certain mystical traditions which are, in a way, the cultural heritage to which I am historically, if not geographically, connected. As a journal, this is for my own understanding, the action of publishing this to the wider world may or may not be to the benefit of others, I can hardly think of anyone that would endure my dry and lengthy prose just to discover, behind it, the blind gropings of an ignoramus in a subject where much more profitable prose has been written. Yet it is posted as a sort of public log, perhaps, a form of public ridicule, exposure of an Inverted Fool who has found himself in over his depth.