A new status on the adept
I was re-reading Richard Noll’s The Jung Cult this morning and there was this passage from a 1974 essay by Mircea Eliade that reminded me of some things.
What is more general is a rejection of Christian tradition in the name of achieving an individual and, by the same stroke, a collective renovatio. Even when these ideas are naïvely or even ludicrously expressed, there is always the tacit conviction that a way out of the chaos and meaninglessness of modern life exists and that this way out implies an initiation into, and consequently the revelation of, old and venerable secrets. It is primarily the attraction of a personal initiation that explains the craze for the occult. As is well known, Christianity rejected the mystery-religion type of secret initiation. The Christian ‘mystery’ was open to all; it was ‘proclaimed upon the housetops,’ and Gnostics were persecuted because of their secret rituals of initiation. In the contemporary occult explosion, the ‘initiation’ — however the participant may understand this term — has a capital function; it confers a new status on the adept; he feels that he is somehow ‘elected,’ singled out from the anonymous and lonely crowd.
It is primarily the attraction of a personal initiation…it confers a new status on the adept; he feels that he is somehow ‘elected,’ singled out from the anonymous and lonely crowd.
That. All too familiar, isn’t it. It’s that adolescent delusion that one is Special, Different, Interesting. Singled out from the boring conventional cis crowd.
Astrology, numerology, tarot, ESP, handwriting analysis and all the other occult arts/psychic sciences absolutely enthralled me when I was about 12 or 13 years old. And, judging by what was in girl’s magazines at the time, it fascinated a lot of other teenage girls. This was in addition to and along the same lines as all the silly personality tests: “What Kind of Heroine/Romantic Lover/Flower Are You?” The real question was “who am I? How do I compare to others? Where do I belong?”
I grew out of it.
It’s not a coincidence that many of the occult “mysteries” are often less about the nature of reality and more about our special place in it — and our cleverness in knowing the trick to finding it.
I never got bitten by that particular bug – I think I was too busy pretending to be all sorts of fictional characters from movies and tv shows and kids’ books. A different branch of magic/fantasy/pretending.
I am not sure I 100% agree with the argument that the Christian mythos was all that open. Paul never met Jesus and feuded incessantly with those who had. And the basis for his version of the faith was a vision/hallucination NOT available to everyone. And from the beginning, Christianity was full o squabbling conflicts as to who had the REAL TRUTH. And the so obvious truth that the writer assumes is present in Christianity is certainly not confirmed by the endless schisms and conflicts within the religion(s). Christianity is full of vague confusion, except for their certainty that we all deserve eternal torture at the hands of our loving creator. (even that is not universally true, of course. There are universalists and deists)
But Author of Jesus and Mo fame expressed it the best with the cartoon showing the special non-binary Moses and his horror in finding out that everyone is “non binary” I LOVED that simple panel
I was fortunate not to be bitten by that bug, too, and like Ophelia, I would pretend to be all sorts of fictional characters from the books I read. Sort of the same thing.
Brian M at #3: in the Catholic church at least, there is a class of initiated people who partake in unique secrets: the priests, who are supposed to be the embodiment of Jesus on Earth. If not saints they are at least saintly, sanctified, and given unique powers. For a very long time after all the Church insisted on the Latin mass – and, before that, the untranslated Bible – as a way of ensuring that the rabble did not have access to the unmediated word of God.
Also I find it weird that somebody like Eliade would make such a suggestion, to be honest: he surely knew that the old mystery religions were not exclusively the domain of the initiated, that they drew upon a greater population of believers from which the initiated were chosen. The parallels with the priestly class of the Catholic Church must have been apparent to him. But then, Eliade had his own agenda and was not above twisting his theories to advance it…
Not just in matters of CIS/Trans, either.
We see it in sports fans, the fanatical “we” as if it is all of us in the stands, not just the few on the field, who wins. not too harmful, unless its UK soccer. :-)
We see it in Trumpholes, they feel as if they can touch the cloth and he speaks directly to them, and only them. Dangerous. Same with Qanon types, scary as some are too close to the levers of power. They are the only ones with the magic decoder ring.
We see it in educational institutions where the special ones elected to attend must be spoon fed, must not be challenged, and must have the power to dictate what they will be taught and what they would accept as knowledge.
Two books I recommend are “Who Are We” by Gary Younge and “The Coddling of the American Mind” by Lukianoff and Haidt.
Of course the Second Coming/End of the World/ Kingdom of God, was supposed to arrive long before squabbles and schisms had a chance to arise. A big part of Jesus’s message was “I’ll be back in a jiffy!” Who would have guessed he was speaking geologically?
The pseudoscience bug I was bitten by as a kid was the Von Daniken “Chariots of the Gods” bullshit. Growing up with Gemini and Apollo, it sounded kinda cool. Of course its central premise was that humans were too stupid and backwards to build the things they built, so they must have had outside help. I outgrew it.
Now, if you want to start a movement, or school of thought where the central premise is that humans are too stupid and backwards to not destroy the planet, and we need outside help, and you have some outside help lined up to pitch in, I’m all ears…
It wasn’t until the last line that I realized Ophelia was thinking of the trans-cult rather than ‘Q.’
The whole Jungian bandwagon, promoted as some sort of hippie ‘spirituality’ to the naïve, is proto-Nazism all the way down. ‘Blood and soil’ mysticism, unearned status as ‘special,’ toxic group-think eroding personal judgment. etc. etc.
You’re always so highbrow. I was too busy running round the fields in motorbike and/or horse form.
Oh I did the running round the fields thing too – usually while pretending to be some fictional character. It was a very outdoors kind of pretending. Also fictional character can include ones on tv, which were very far from highbrow.
True enough, but I don’t recall the motorbikes and/or horses having complex inner lives, exactly.