{"id":1031,"date":"2014-11-19T23:39:09","date_gmt":"2014-11-20T04:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernway.org\/weblog\/?p=1031"},"modified":"2014-11-20T00:02:13","modified_gmt":"2014-11-20T05:02:13","slug":"1031","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernway.org\/weblog\/?p=1031","title":{"rendered":"Esoteric Christianity, what does it mean?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bishop James posted Wikipedia’s definition of esoteric Christianity,<\/p>\n

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Esoteric Christianity<\/b> is an ensemble of spiritual<\/a> currents which regard Christianity as a mystery religion<\/a>,[1]<\/a><\/sup>[2]<\/a><\/sup> and profess the existence and possession of certain esoteric<\/a> doctrines or practices[3]<\/a><\/sup>[4]<\/a><\/sup> of which the public is unaware (or even to which they may be denied access) but which are understood by a small group of people.[5]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

and then he asked:<\/p>\n

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Do you think it is an accurate description?\u00c2\u00a0 How can it be defined as “the existence and possession of certain esoteric doctrines or practices of which the public is unaware (or even to which they may be denied access) but which are understood by a small group of people” and yet many of the described elements have so many\u00c2\u00a0books and public websites devoted to it?<\/p>\n

How can a Christian possibly be devoted to Crowley type goetia?<\/p>\n

* * * * * * * * * * *<\/p>\n

Very thought provoking question; I responded thus:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Aleister Crowley’s perverted nonsense is not esoteric Christianity. \u00c2\u00a0One might call it esoteric Satanism, but never Christianity.<\/div>\n
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The Wikipedia definition of esoteric Christianity is accurate\u00c2\u00a0in my opinion\u00c2\u00a0for the “original” esoteric Christianity. Almost exactly 100 years ago esoteric Christianity finally became talked about in\u00c2\u00a0the salons and publications of the Western world.\u00c2\u00a0 Of course it did exist before, but the turn of the\u00c2\u00a0last\u00c2\u00a0century is\u00c2\u00a0when it gained a wider audience, a small niche, but much wider than the centuries before.<\/div>\n
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Now there are indeed tons of books and websites dedicated to esoteric Christianity, my first website in 1999\u00c2\u00a0was one of them. But the esoteric underground stream\u00c2\u00a0is still just a small niche in Christianity. In this Internet Age esoteric is still little known, but not as obscure and “occulted” as it once was.<\/div>\n
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My favorite definition of the word esoteric is based on the original Greek word “esoteric”, which means “inner”. Esoteric Christianity is really “inner” Christianity. Richard Smoley lays it out perfectly in his very enjoyable book, Inner Christianity: A Guide to the Esoteric Tradition<\/em><\/div>\n
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http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/1570628106\/esoterictheologi<\/a><\/div>\n
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Here are our lessons based on that book:<\/div>\n
http:\/\/esotericchurch.org\/courses\/inner\/index.html<\/a><\/div>\n
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Because we are the Esoteric Interfaith Church, Inc.\u00c2\u00a0esoteric teachings and Smoley’s book figure prominently\u00c2\u00a0on our tenets of faith page here: http:\/\/esotericchurch.org\/tenets.shtml<\/a><\/div>\n
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Our tenets of faith are not dogmas that must be followed by all our ordained minister and rabbi clergy. We are definitely multi-faith and interfaith in addition to being esoteric. We recently ordained a New Thought minister and a Celtic Minister. Technically since esoteric Judaism (Kabbalah, etc.) is part of the underground stream we enjoy, we should call ourselves esoteric Judeo-Christianity….and multi-faith, interfaith, spiritual…<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bishop James posted Wikipedia’s definition of esoteric Christianity, Esoteric Christianity is an ensemble of spiritual currents which regard Christianity as a mystery religion,[1][2] and profess the existence and possession of certain esoteric doctrines or practices[3][4] of which the public is unaware (or even to which they may be denied access) but which are understood by … Continue reading Esoteric Christianity, what does it mean?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,217],"tags":[119,255],"class_list":["post-1031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misc","category-ordained-ministers-priests-rabbis-clergy","tag-esoteric-christianity","tag-inner-christianity"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernway.org\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernway.org\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernway.org\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernway.org\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernway.org\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1031"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernway.org\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1031\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1034,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernway.org\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1031\/revisions\/1034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernway.org\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernway.org\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernway.org\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}