[Buddha-l] Enneagram and Buddhism

[Curt Steinmetz]

Bernard Simon wrote:
>> "New Age religion is simply what religion looks like when people
>> are allowed to think whatever they please. Much of it is
>> unedifying in the extreme, but the messiness of spiritual
>> anarchism is much to be preferred over the alternatives proposed
>> by those who like their spiritual trains to run on time. "
>>     
>
> The New Age is simply another name for Western Occultism, which still  
> gets too little scholarly attention because of its disreputable  
> character. Its best known historian is Frances Yates, a Shakespeare  
> scholar. Parts of the New Age are anarchic and individualistic, others  
> are highly regimented. Remember Elizabeth Clare Prophet?
>
>   

Lynn Sharp's book posits an ongoing tension between the "hierarchical" 
tendencies of the "Occult" and the democratic and even (as she claims) 
socialistic tendencies of "Spiritism".

Personally I think that there is something to that, but it can be way 
over-emphasized. I haven't decided yet whether I think Sharp gets it 
"right" (in my opinion). In reality I think that spiritual knowledge is 
no more "democratic" and no more "hierarchical" than any other kind of 
knowledge. One does not learn calculus simply by way of Unverified 
Personal Gnosis - nor do I think any meaningful 
religious/spiritual/philosophical understanding is possible without the 
student "doing the work". Some people are born with natural talents of 
all kinds - but the more talent one has the greater benefit can come 
through training.

And then there is also the annoying fact that democracy and (especially) 
socialism can turn out to be quite tyrannical and oppressive, and a 
monarchy (or other "hierarchical" political system) can guarantee and 
protect individual liberties - liberties that are, by definition, up for 
grabs in a democracy.

Concerning Frances Yates: there is a new biography of her: "Frances 
Yates and the Hermetic Tradition", which I have so far only skimmed.

Curt