May 21, 2004
Similar as in their own time occultists like Rudolf Steiner or H.P.Blavatsky, via a process of reinterpretation later ‘alternative writers’ also were willing to transform ‘exotic’ occurrences or beliefs, into an organic part of a new context.Such writers often attempt to stress continuity and disregard change, a legitimizing process that has its typical elements. For example reduction, is used to denote several related techniques of reducing the complexity, variety and contextuality of the traditions or situations from which elements are taken. Thus, ‘Da Vinci Code’ and what sometimes has been termed 'New Age' esoterica, understandings of actually existing traditions, e.g. Gnostics, the kabbala or Freemasonry, are radically pared-back versions of the originals.
The complexities of the Jewish kabbala, with its numerous schools, its arcane texts and its path of religious instruction stretching over many years, is reduced to a New Age / Da Vinci Code Syndrome kabbala, a system of correspondences that now can be explained in a ’slender’ best selling volume.
An influential presentation of the doctrine of exoteric versus esoteric religion in the French Occult revival is Edouard Schure's Les Grands Inities, published in 1899 when he was a Theosophist, later he became an admirer of Rudolf Steiner.
The distinction made by several writers between an exoteric and an esoteric form of religion combines several topoi common within the Esoteric-alternative milieu. It eliminates the relativism that one risks when facing the diversity of human faiths: behind the many masks of religion lies one single core wisdom. It explains the difference between various exoteric faiths by placing them within the various stages of Esoteric historiography, thus incorporating them into one of the dominating metanarratives of the Esoteric milieu. It provides a place in the (emic) spiritual history of mankind for the initiates who have transmitted perennial philosophy, always making sure that it is phrased in a language adapted to the needs and abilities of the recipient.
But Hindu reincarnation is not the same as kabbalistic reincarnation. Among the kabbalists, Isaac Luria has a very different conception of reincarnation than does the anonymous author of the Zohar. However, a synthesizing Da Vinci Code Syndrome spokesperson intent on finding a perennial (‘Gnostic’) philosophy underlying divergent traditions (example ‘Freemasonry’), has ample material from which to synthesize, and every- opportunity to reduce traditions to the grand scale on which the divergences can come to appear as insignificant details.
Typical of the development of Da Vinci Code Syndrome religiosity is its eclecticism, where spokespersons like Dan Brown, attempt to combine the most disparate sources into a personal synthesis.
Among elements of this ‘Matrix’ there is pattern recognition, a basic cognitive strategy, also in daily life we often form hypotheses that help us find order and covariation even in random data, and then apply a strategy of selective hypothesis testing to ensure that the existence of the patterns we have projected onto the data will be corroborated.
But in the Da Vinci Code Syndrome this then is done by adducing carefully selected and skewed data. Where a more attentive reader might suspect selective reading of the history, myths, and facts behind such a claim. But considerable effort is spent on showing that these seemingly disparate elements in fact point to the same underlying reality.
For example a variety of symbols that may ethically appear to be selected more or less at random from the vast variety of options, can be claimed to be near-universal. I pointed out a few examples of this via symbols in the Da Vinci Code. Other ‘Da Vinci Code Syndrome’ books for example have the cross and the fire are central to traditions ranging from Christianity and Hinduism to alchemy, masonry, Platonism and kabbalism. Typical of Da Vinci Code religiosity is thus its eclecticism.
Or another example, ever since Madame Blavatsky’s “Secret Doctrine”, the number seven serves as a focus of pattern recognition: since many religions contain at least some doctrines describing elements grouped in sevens, they can be proclaimed to be essentially the same. "Brahmanical religion" believed in seven inhabited worlds; Egyptian religion believed in the transmigration of souls in seven stages; Mithraism had seven mysteries; several masonic lodges have seven steps. Yet Theosophy and other occult groups today, presents such similarities as due to a common spiritual heritage.
More recently than New Age writers have added that since there are seven metals and, seven planets in Renaissance alchemy, "in reality", the alchemists worked with the ‘chakra’ system.
When no overt similarities are to be found, correspondences can be forced upon the material. Even though the kabbalistic tree of life bears no obvious resemblance to the chakra system, in various systems of system of ‘hypnotism’ and ‘inner alchemy’ the two are said to be definitely related.
Thus Esoteric spokespersons construct parallels in their attempts to join systems, creating patterns where the outsider sees none. Crystals were a marginal point of interest in the Esoteric groupings until quite recently. Esoteric spokespersons such as Madame Blavatsky, Rudolf Steiner, and Alice Bailey, do not mention them.
But today authors will frequently claim that “crystals leads us back to the ancient continent of Atlantis. It is supposed that the evolved inhabitants of this advanced race used crystals to channel and harness the cosmic force.”
To give an (esoteric) 'Archeological' example, last year, Gary A. David claimed a definite relationships between the Anasazi Indians of the American Southwest and Europe’s Knights Templar. It seems just to obvious Gary David argued that the Circular buildings found at Mummy Cave Ruin in Canyon de Chelly (traditional home of the Snake Clan) are no doubt related to the round towers found in the European during the middle ages and thus for sure evidence Knights Templar sealed to the America’s.
Gary David also brought in (even more popular today than one year ago) an alleged fragment from the Dead Sea Scrolls called The ”Testament of Amram” where a certain “Belial” dreams of a “terrifying in appearance, like a serpent...” and “his visage [is] like a viper...” The figure of Belial referenced in II Corinthians 6:15 means “lawlessness,” “worthless,” or “reckless” and is an appellation of Satan. The word “serpent,” is synonymous with both the Enochian Watchers and the Nephilim, the latter denoting the “giants in the earth” from Genesis 6:4.
Gary David has no difficulty to find ‘evidence’ to back up his claims by quoting other esoteric/alternative ‘experts’. For example Andrew Collins in his ‘Archeology’ and ‘Ancient History’ book- Ashes of Angels (2001) writes (all backed up by similar circumstantial evidence as all, authors quoted above) that the Nephilim are also known as the sons of the Anakim. “The word Anak is generally taken by Jewish scholars to mean ’long-necked’, or ’the men with the necklaces’...” In this context it is curious that the Hopi term naaqa means “turquoise necklace” or “ear pendant “ and that anaaq means “ouch!", an interjection used to express extreme pain, such as that caused by a snakebite. Is this, then, a reference to the Indo-European Nagas, those snake-worshiping seafarers originating from the Indus River Valley? Are these the so-called Long Ears, who stretched their lobes with ear-plugs? Coincidentally, archaeologists found an example of this artifact in an ancient pueblo ruin known as Snaketown near modern-day Phoenix.
To intensify the mystery, the word “Chna,” an English transliteration of the Greek word referring to the Phoenician land of Canaan, is homophonically similar to Ch’a, the Hopi name for the worshiped snake that initiated their biennial ceremony still performed today on the high desert of Arizona in order to bring rain. The biblical Anakim were known to have hailed from southern Canaan. In addition, Baal, the Phoenician rain god mentioned above, is similar in sound and sense to the Hopi word paal. Did the Phoenicians, the Anasazi in building the round towers, come to the American Southwest and establish outposts there in order to trade with the latter? Were the Knights Templar the recipients of this Naga/Phoenician legacy, carrying forth the ancient traditions bequeathed from Egypt?
Specifically, the djed pillar was known as the “backbone of Osiris.” Morphologically similar to the round towers, this column symbolically channeled the kundalini (serpent energy) up the vertebrae. In Jesus, Last of the Pharaohs (1999), Ralph Ellis avers that round towers were modeled after the Benben tower located in the Phoenix Temple at Heliopolis. (The Phoenicians took their name from the mythical bird that rose from its ashes.) He also says that over 7,000 Nuraghi, or circular towers constructed during the second millennium BC, are found on the island of Sardinia north of the ancient Phoenician city of Carthage (modern-day Tunis).
Do these structures form a global network centered around ophidian fertility symbols? To return to our starting point, were the Irish round towers also “snake houses,” or phallic temples used by a race of serpent people whom St. Patrick in the 5th century AD ultimately had to chase into the sea? (For case study purposes quoted from: http://azorion.tripod.com)
One can see that it would be easy for Gary David to make a trilogy just as worthy as the after all ‘fictional’ novels of the Da Vinci Code, backed by ‘real quotes’, and ‘direct references’ to other, ‘non-fiction’ bestsellers of a ‘recent’ date…
Another strategy, closely related to pattern recognition, is synonymization. Whereas pattern recognition rhetorically erases differences between divergent elements of religious praxis and doctrines myth A is essentially the same as myth B, ritual X is merely a version of ritual Y-synonymization wields its homogenizing influence over religious terminology.
Synonymization utilizes the curious double role of words in a foreign language interspersed in a text written in e.g. English as seen in the example quoting Gary David. Who like many others no doubt ‘believes’ is what he writes, and clearly is not doing this for profit only, a reason I took his website as an example for quoting what can be seen as common strategies of epistemology we find all the way from 19th century Blavatsky, to the most sophisticated of New Age (pseudo-)‘scientists’.
Amit Goswami in the The Self Aware Universe claims the same message was proclaimed by mystics as diverse as Catherine of Genoa, Hui-Neng, Ibn al-Arabi, Moses de Leon, Padmasambhava, Eckhart, al-Hallaj, Shankara and Jesus.
But why, then, do Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and Christians disagree on so many issues if the "essence" of each religion is identical? Goswami's answer is that "mysticism is a universal enterprise”.
Something hardly any student who completes a PhD today in Religion , History, or /and Sociology, would agree with.
But only certain cultures (even the choice is more and more expanding) are part of the matenal on which these writers draw. One might hypothesize that these are cultures that have points of overt affinity with the esoteric-alternative millieu.
The double process of selective choice and creative hermeneutics applies apart from mysticisism for the purpose of constructing an inner and as seen in the example quoted from Gary, and alternative-historians or the Da Vinci Code books, is myth.
But each tradition referred to nevertheless seems to have its own role in Esoteric historiography. Egypt is the land of initiation, of great mysteries; India is the source of concepts such as reincarnation, karma and the subtle bodies; Tibet plays the role of the homeland of sages and the repository of ancient scriptures. In a sense, however, the distinction between an Egyptian tradition and one based on a generalized India, Europe and the Knights Templar, or even an imaginary one such as the wisdom of Lemuria or the Atlanteans.
However neither Egypt, India, Atlantis or Neoplatonism figure in this story as representatives of their respective historical times and geographical locations as they are understood by historians of religion.
And then when one arrives at the latest, current generation of New Age literature, esoteric history finally dissolves into a flurry of fragments. References to everything from native American wisdom to the ancient East or Japan, are very common.
But very significant in Esoteric books, the admiration of mythic wisdom is linked with the belief in two or more layers of religious truth. The overt meaning of the myth becomes the mere trappings with which believers in exoteric doctrines content themselves, while the deeper truths need to be revealed by an interpreter with the requisite insights (who knows the’ Code’). Also in the Tarot today, there is a virtual cornucopia of mythical universes. Among them the world of the Greek gods and goddesses, shamanic pagan/tribal life, Norse and Celtic sagas, Arthurian legends, and the mysteries of Japan's floating world.
A crucial strategy in transforming the unfamiliar and exotic into yet
But a reduction of complex doctrines to a few building blocks, the extensive search for more or less spurious parallels or the application of various speculative hermeneutics to myths would hardly work if one were acutely aware of the Procrustean tactics used in each of these cases. Thus, all the other strategies become available to those who accept Esoteric historiography through the application of the meta-strategy of source amnesia.
Fairly often as is the case of “Anatomy of the Spirit” bestselling author Myss can devote some three hundred pages to building up a complex and detailed system of correspondences, only to radically relativize the importance of all her claims by telling her readers to "take with you only what feels accurate and truthful to your own heart".
Whereby it obviously doesn’t matter anymore if the book is marketed as non-fiction, or fiction ,as in the case of the Da Vinci Code trilogy.
One could ad also to the subject as a whole and pseudo-science:
1) Invention and Appropriation;
The transformation of fiction in alleged fact.
Esotericist Rudolf Steiner's excercises intended to increase his students true ability to perceive realities hidden to the ordinary- observer, include meeting a shadowy figure called the Guardian at the threshold. Taken verbatim from Bulwer Lytton fictional work “Zanoni” published in 1842.
And central to Steiner’s ‘worldview’ (see Anthroposophy/Waldorfschools) is an evil being called ‘Ahriman’ who has an underground school that in its decription suspiciously matches the ‘underground Vril race’ in Bulwer Lytton’s novel “The Coming Race”.
In other cases travel narratives are transformed to fit in with culturally predetermined elements of their own.Michael Harner or the adepts of the ‘Bear Tribe’ differ significantly from the tradition of other tribal shamanism. Sufism in the west is something quite different than Sufism of Senegal, while the Kaballa of the occult revival is distinct from the complex kabhalism of' medieval Provence.
2) Most people simply are not particularly aware of what the scientific methods entail. Clearly also apologetics (like creationists for example) who rely on a ‘God of the gaps’ argument will find themselves in a defence position to the extend that such gaps are closed by science. The other variation of this is the ‘two worlds’ approach in which ‘esoteric’ science is wholly other, and thus utterly incommensurable with and therefore immune to attacks from science.
Some of the arguments by today’s members of the Theosophical Society and related groups today is that the ’esoteric’ does not describe to the empirical world at all. but is a ‘feeling’, a form of life, and that scientific inquiry provided it is interpreted correctly serves to prove the validity of the ‘esoteric’ point of view, that Descartes, Newton or Darwin were fundamentally mistaken.
In fact most of the Esoteric groups today (those who read and write most alternative Archeology and History books) make pragmatic claims that scientific truth is something other than esoteric truth: from a ‘spiritual’ point of' view, what matter’s is that a esoteric practice is useful in helping a person to live a ‘good life’. And that science and spirituality are ‘two sides of the same coin’..
One of the one of' the most striking characteristics of' the Esoteric Tradition alternative Archeology and History writers is precisely its use of contemporary science as a, source of legitimacy. However often in a role as significant Other.
Firstly Esoteric writers explicitly choose one of several possible understandings of what kind of activity "science," this elusive and abstract entity might actually be.
Second, having decided how to understand the essential characteristics of science, the intellectual and ethical import of' science is judged against pre-existing normative standards.
Another recurrent theme throughout the New Age and current cultic milieu is that opposition between the esoteric (today also called ‘magic’ again, like it was during the Renaissance) and science soon will be overcome, or has de facto already.
May 21, 2004