Christian Occultists?

Hello all,

I am an orthodox Protestant. That does not mean that I am a biblical literalist, but I do believe in the Trinity, the Resurrection of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, salvation by grace, Satan and his cohorts, etc. I have two questions. First, is anyone here also Christian? Second, why are so few Christians involved in the occult?

(When I use Christian here, I mean orthodox Christians, not Gnostics. Someone who denies a bodily afterlife or affirms reincarnation will not count.)

For some time before becoming a Christian, I practiced the LBRP and MP daily, as well as did some general energy work. I was expecting too much too fast, however; consequently, I burnt out and became an atheist between my occult work and conversion. However, I have not forgotten the impression those rituals made on me. The time is ripe for me to take up ritual work again.

The second question really bothers me. So much of the symbolism of Hermetic Qabalism makes best sense within a Christian framework. The biblical pronunciations against magic strike me as referring to thaumaturgy, not theurgy: they are better seen as a warning against Godless sorcery than a prohibition of esotericism. Renaissance magic had explicitly Christian overtones. So what is going on?

I'm genuinely stumped.

Things move forward, that is what is going on. So much of Christian Dogma is tomfoolery...and just comes with accepting things. Integration makes more sense than conversion, and even then you're selling yourself at.

But yes, Ceremonial Magick and Qablism and such can fit in nicely with Christian Dogma. My advice to you is learn as much about yourself, and your deepest darkest beliefs (which probably won't be "dark" at all) and then see if you'd fit in with all the stuff you're just swallowing right now...assumption there, but an assumption made on your talk about conversion.

Good luck to you.

Dear Friend,

The longer you study with an eye toward the truth, the more likely you are to incorporate multiple ideas into your personal paradigm/world view. When we as human beings begin to dig through texts considered sacred to others, we often find wisdom and answers we weren't expecting, and that draws us in. For some people, Buddha's way is correct. For others, myriad gods, Krsna, Jesus, Mohammad, Zoroaster, and so on represent the "ultimate truth". Here's my take on it: The real question is transmigration of souls, and to where, and what forum. Suppose we exist as spiritual beings when we perish. The next question is, are our spirits created at conception, or there a vault somewhere full of spirits, or a heaven, etc., where we dwell until taking our physical form.

Now some of the Bibles I have read seem to indicate people can be possessed and people can be exorcised of possession. There also seems to be some evidence of animal possession (swine) and talking animals before (serpent) and after the flood (donkey). Before analyzing Christianity, it is important to address the fundamental query of animism - do things have a spiritual essence, and if so, which things? Going any further than this leads to angry arguments between the schools of Rosicrucians, Freemasons, Golden Dawn, Gnostics, Neoplatonists, Essenes, Catholics, and Mormons, to name a few. For me, understanding the fundamental basis of reality goes a long way when working with any kind of magical system.

Ask yourself this: #1 are spirits real, or subconscious projections of our will or desires? Are angels and demons nothing more than creations of our wandering imagination and lust, or is there something fundamentally wrong with Freud and Crowley's claim?

Once you have the answer to this question, all the others should fall into place pretty quickly. One of the very next principles to analyze is Hierarchy - if spirits exist, do they differ in magnitude, ability, or authority, and what are the consequences? Does a man's spirit fit somewhere in this hierarchy, and is there spiritual mobility, or is it a spiritual Caste system? If it is a hierarchy, and there is spiritual mobility, the next thing worth knowing, would be the means by which a person can elevate their spiritual worth and authority.

Following this line of thinking, you will quickly arrive at the John Dee scenario of man's interaction with angels and demons. Of course, this gets extremely peculiar, because a mortal's understanding is usually very limited, while in theory, a multimillenial being is capable of far more reason, wisdom, intellect, and possibly power that we normally only dream of. How can a human being possibly think some dried paint and bones will have any influence whatsoever on a being capable of calling down the stars and boiling oceans?

This is where knowing the worth of souls becomes important, and understanding exactly how a person barters for progression even more so. Resolve your hierarchy, your place in that hierarchy, and your history, and you will know if the past you lead is self defeating, damning or real progress.

-Shin

Lokia: Would you say that Gareth Knight is just stumbling in tomfoolery? Based on what I've read of him, he is a fairly orthodox Christian. I'm not just swallowing dogma - I have reflected on other faiths. My reasons for embracing Christianity are varied. One of them is that I think the morality is superior to, say, Islamic or Buddhist views. Another is that I doubt emanationism, in the strict sense of planes proceeding from an impersonal Godhead, is coherent, and even if it is it looks less plausible a priori than a personal Creator. A third is that the evidence for Jesus' resurrection is pretty robust if one is honest about it. Even very critical scholars recognize the historicity of the empty tomb and the resurrection appearances. Perhaps most important in the process is the witness of the Holy Spirit.

shintashi: I'm not sure what you're getting at... of course I believe there is an angelic/demonic hierarchy. Angels are responsive to man because God made them as His servants. We are above the angels not in power, but in bearing His Image.

Lady Dunsany: I know! That's why I don't understand why so few Christians are involved! But maybe my impression here is just mistaken.

The nature of orthodox Christianity necessarily proscribes Occult practices. As an orthodox Christian, you must wholly accept the Bible as the sole source of spiritual knowledge and revelation. If you pursue truths and revelations by means of ritual and the like, you are denying the adequacy of the Bible as the font of holy truth.

So I think that you, since you're evidently reaching out for some sense of validation for your conflicting interests, should ask yourself: why am I drawn to Occultism rather than to Christianity exclusively?

So what is it about each path that forbids you from completely dropping the other? I see some evidence of grasping at straws, based on your statement that there is overwhelming evidence for Christ's resurrection. More importantly, I detect some uncertainty as you're looking for others to help you reconcile two paths that are mutually exclusive - orthodox Christianity and esotericism.

If you are committed to your Christian faith, and this is what you identify with more than anything, I would recommend speaking with a minister; they are masters (even doctors) of Christian theology and would be more than willing to show you some scripture that will address your concerns.

What is this talk about the subconscious and denial of actual existence of certain spirits/whatever/pretty much anything? Shouldn't we have realized by now that things are always more complicated/simpler than they at first seem. Why it is both is the so called complication, which it is. Things neither are and are not, they are and are not, not are and not are not, you get where I am going. Even science is coming to this conclusion, so maybe one day we will have Scientists spouting another dogma, one that is an anti-dogmatic dogma constantly negating and confirming it's purpose, that life is more art and art is creative, it generates from us and the things around us. However, what is art? Is it wholly our creation?

I feel that art gains a life of it's own apart from it's creator. Everything is totally wholly existant and the only reason this can happen is because of the non-existence of anything inherent. We make meaning.

Something can both be something that we create and make as we go through the day, and something as (falsely) independent as me and you.

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Lokia: Would you say that Gareth Knight is just stumbling in tomfoolery? Based on what I've read of him, he is a fairly orthodox Christian. I'm not just swallowing dogma - I have reflected on other faiths. My reasons for embracing Christianity are varied. One of them is that I think the morality is superior to, say, Islamic or Buddhist views. Another is that I doubt emanationism, in the strict sense of planes proceeding from an impersonal Godhead, is coherent, and even if it is it looks less plausible a priori than a personal Creator. A third is that the evidence for Jesus' resurrection is pretty robust if one is honest about it. Even very critical scholars recognize the historicity of the empty tomb and the resurrection appearances. Perhaps most important in the process is the witness of the Holy Spirit.

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First question: Yes.
Second question: Swallowing dogma is swallowing dogma no matter where the dogma comes from. I'm talking about your beliefs here...not some old dead guys, who has no clue what modern life would be like even for himself (therefore you don't even know what he would believe. I'm sure someone from the Bible would hold drastically different beliefs than they did when they wrote whatever book. Some might move to Nepal and follow a Tibetan Guru, or be a firm supporter of Super-String theory. But, what I'm getting at is finding ideas that not only resonate with you but come straight from you. I accept a number of things that aren't originally mine, but from my experience seem to be true...but these are usually something that I can use to develop my own ideas, and most of it is something I concluded all on my own. This is what I'm talking about, not choosing some pre-made dogma other than Christianity.
Experiencing the Holy Spirit is Christian? Why? How did you come to that conclusion?

Great American Desert: I don't think orthodox Protestantism actually says that - after all, that would be denying that natural theology is even possible, which many apologists use to defend the faith. I think the Bible contains all propositions necessary and sufficient for salvation, but that doesn't mean it is the only way to access spiritual truths.

Also, to clarify, I'm not trying to reconcile my faith with occultism: I've already put some thought in that. I'm asking why it is that Christians tend to avoid the occult and occultists tend to dislike Christianity.

Lokia: All I can say is that you seem to be denying there is any knowledge. I just don't find that skepticism warranted...

Knowledge of the self...I don't deny that

Christianity and occultism are definitely compatible, as long as one has a non-rigid understanding of both. I struggled with combining the two in my late teens. Then, I started reading up on Hinduism. Their concept of all gods being facets of one made perfect sense. If one accepts the Trinity as true, the Hindu concept of God is the logical next step. Occultism can flow nicely from there.

Yes, knowing how to love and will good things for people is something all people should incorporate. I try to incorporate everything that exists. the Christ plane is the 5th and throat etheric element of sound. the christ plane is whats out there that is not us. it is like the food we eat, where does it come from, does everyone have enough, did something die to make the food.



even a satanist pushing products, that is their christ plane and to make things people will use magically serves the purpose of expanding power and getting money, maybe an act of transcendental meditation for the TRUE evil of big business...that is just an example but to you as an orthodox christian i would say yes that the hermetic teachings which I believe the qahballah is part of are some of the philosophy that is encoded in the bible, especially the neumeration of the lines which gives a story of the people, then the story of christ. Muhammed only warned against the Jews because they did not accept Christ, who was a true prophet of the tradition, and I'm actually certain that Islamic people just treat christ as another prophet, like Muhammed. Maybe people just wanted to spend time with the first 5 books and the qahballah. I always would consider myself, spiritual science aside, and calling Buddhism a philosophy of mind since it proclaims no God, but as far as that goes i'm Sikh, still haven't read all the Guru Granth Sahib, but as they combined Hinduism and "Islam" aka the trilogy of the bible and Quran during the time of the protestant reformation, which still spawned things like Presbeterianism which isn't fundamentalist, a big problem, imposing what you think people should do in life, this often maquerades as public health and is even enacted into law, such as in the case of all the spiritual sacraments from all of human history, aka the psychedelics, and it explicitly says on the last page of revelation well you can read the part about just flooding the streets with acid yourself(the christian sacrament, but everyone had grass forever the synthetic just confused some people now that we have all left the fields) and Seventh Day Adventism, which has a philosophy of eating like you have a soul and is some 1800's not Christian science but Christianity applied to the modern day, one of technology. they go to church on Saturday like the Jews and don't eat pork and the other things from leviticus, also like the Jewish people

there is plenty of incense, even the vatican burns incense, which, fascist scrutiny aside, still is weird to some people. i have incense from a christian monastary and an angel that protects all the other incense I burn. I enjoy it.

there are also nature religions, like the druids/uk, pagan continental religions, of Austrailia, the Americas, and Africa... the four elements sit below the throat christ plane and the top two of the seven chakras are light and electricity. spiritual science is everywhere...

Im Christian I go to a bapist church why?:)