The Perennialism Thread

Andy Kaufman

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Dude you didn't read what I said properly. For one, yes it is in some way beneficial because with regards to evolution it has increased reproduction by a crazy amount. So by the standard of survival it is the best method ever seen. I don't prefer it but what I'm saying is that beliefs are what are beneficial. Even for the Moon thing, it could just be that seeking importance in things that are constant and repetitive was a way of seeing a point to their struggle and going on. The materialist world also hasn't discarded this truth, it's quite well accepted that the Moon keeps the oceans in tact.

There were probably good reasons for these beliefs, many of which are more reasonable than what we use now but there are many that are the opposite.

Let's say humanity started off as a single village. Would that mean all beliefs they had there were the core truth? Did no one in this first village ever deceive people for their own benefit? You think everyone was pure hearted and did only good?
Evolutionary Biology really does has a lot of very plausible answers for these kinda things. My usual strategy when looking at seemingly irrational human behaviour is "How could've helped this our ancestors to survive back in the days of tribes and caves?" and most of the time there's a good answer once you factor out modern technology and civilisation and switch them out for the every day realities of living in a small commune and trying to survive.
 
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FalseReality

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Evolutionary Biology really does has a lot of very plausible answers for these kinda things. My usual strategy when looking at seemingly irrational human behaviour is "How could've helped this our ancestors to survive back in the days of tribes and caves?" and most of the time there's a good answer once you factor out modern technology and civilisation and switch them out for the every day realities of living in a small commune and trying to survive.
Yup. And I think that adds though. If the people on top now are the most deceptive, who have found ways to make everyone reliant on them, why would that be different in the past? Certain factors would not be the same obviously. For example people are probably scared of fines and jail time rather than a death punishment. But I find it highly unlikely that a trait could've come out of nowhere that was not there thousands of years ago because of evolution. The difference is what situation allows to come to fruition.
 
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Yes but answer the question. Do you think that no hunter-gatherers lied to each other? In a tribe the leader tends to get the nicest part of the food. There's a video about a current hunter-gatherer tribe doing a hunt where that happened. Everyone says it's okay but that doesn't mean they really think that. It's like admitting to your boss you hate them, it's a risky move.

Your examples mean nothing. If there was a perfect society, why would they move to an imperfect society? Why would people keep trying to find shortcuts that led to this?
I mean of course they weren't totally good but there was still a lot less anti-social behaviour. The tribe leaders were actually respected unlike modern leaders. Hunter-gatherers were also generally quite grateful for what they had (unlike modern industrial people). So I believe they probably were ok with such an arrangement. Obsession with equity only comes in highly developed and (subsequently) highly narcissistic societies.

And using this same line of argument could I not argue that social media is a good? Everyone's on it after all. It's still a cancer on society even if it's popular. And the shift to agriculture isn't entirely understood. Some like to attach the modern "innovation" narrative to it although I did read a book which suggested it was actually due to an environmental catastrophe which caused people to switch to agriculture.
 

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I mean of course they weren't totally good but there was still a lot less anti-social behaviour. The tribe leaders were actually respected unlike modern leaders. Hunter-gatherers were also generally quite grateful for what they had (unlike modern industrial people). So I believe they probably were ok with such an arrangement. Obsession with equity only comes in highly developed and (subsequently) highly narcissistic societies.

And using this same line of argument could I not argue that social media is a good? Everyone's on it after all. It's still a cancer on society even if it's popular. And the shift to agriculture isn't entirely understood. Some like to attach the modern "innovation" narrative to it although I did read a book which suggested it was actually due to an environmental catastrophe which caused people to switch to agriculture.
You're making assumptions. Until covid a much larger proportion of people were okay with the structure we have now and still a large proportion are. People are born into a society and from a young age are conditioned to agree with it for an easier life and also have everyone around them telling them it's good. You're basically saying at one point life was completely fair, now it's completely unfair. It's always been unfair and the majority of the time people in power take advantage of their power. It's like how priests would tell people all the good values to have and then be pedophiles. They needed an escape from their "perfect" life and probably thought kids wouldn't snitch. With agriculture I'd be curious to read but what this is saying is that a catastrophe affected the whole Earth. Assuming this was true, people would already have had to have had methods of farming otherwise how would the human race go from only hunting and gathering to one day uh oh problem good thing farming is ingrained in our minds.

With social media, yes, you can assume in some ways it's good and some ways it isn't. We probably wouldn't be so against a lot of things had it not been for social media. But it's also the bad things u know about it. Someone found a way to make things easier for us and took advantage of it.

This is going in circles. Can I ask what you're seeing my view is as I really feel you've gotten it wrong.
 
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You're making assumptions. Until covid a much larger proportion of people were okay with the structure we have now and still a large proportion are. People are born into a society and from a young age are conditioned to agree with it for an easier life and also have everyone around them telling them it's good. You're basically saying at one point life was completely fair, now it's completely unfair. It's always been unfair and the majority of the time people in power take advantage of their power. It's like how priests would tell people all the good values to have and then be pedophiles. They needed an escape from their "perfect" life and probably thought kids wouldn't snitch. With agriculture I'd be curious to read but what this is saying is that a catastrophe affected the whole Earth. Assuming this was true, people would already have had to have had methods of farming otherwise how would the human race go from only hunting and gathering to one day uh oh problem good thing farming is ingrained in our minds.

With social media, yes, you can assume in some ways it's good and some ways it isn't. We probably wouldn't be so against a lot of things had it not been for social media. But it's also the bad things u know about it. Someone found a way to make things easier for us and took advantage of it.

This is going in circles. Can I ask what you're seeing my view is as I really feel you've gotten it wrong.
Well this seems to have devolved into a discussion over Utopia and if it really existed at some point when I fail to see how this even effects what I'm doing here. The goal is to find commonalities in various spiritual traditions to find some meta truths and you seem to be talking about equality for some reason? I don't see how the equality of a society impacts how much truth there could be in it. Hell the entire point of the thread is that humans cannot fully grasp the spiritual. I'm sat here trying to gain some form of esoteric truth and you seem to be obsessed with equity.... I don't get it. Equity is not a concern of mine. I believe in a fundamentally hierarchical universe run by a singular God that is superior to all else. The premise here is based on the idea that humans have some amount of inherent truth that is instinctively known and the idea is that by examining all of these together we might some kind of universal truth.
 

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Well this seems to have devolved into a discussion over Utopia and if it really existed at some point when I fail to see how this even effects what I'm doing here. The goal is to find commonalities in various spiritual traditions to find some meta truths and you seem to be talking about equality for some reason? I don't see how the equality of a society impacts how much truth there could be in it. Hell the entire point of the thread is that humans cannot fully grasp the spiritual. I'm sat here trying to gain some form of esoteric truth and you seem to be obsessed with equity.... I don't get it. Equity is not a concern of mine. I believe in a fundamentally hierarchical universe run by a singular God that is superior to all else. The premise here is based on the idea that humans have some amount of inherent truth that is instinctively known and the idea is that by examining all of these together we might some kind of universal truth.
ok i figured it out. You're trying to find as much evidence to prove Christianity got it right and you want their original story.
 
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ok i figured it out. You're trying to find as much evidence to prove Christianity got it right and you want their original story.
Not quite. I more or less view Christianity as a prism through which you can view this knowledge. I just want to have a collective effort to find comparison and see where it leads.
 
How is there a thread on Perennialism and nobody's mentioned Guenon, Coomaraswamy, Schuon or Evola yet?

Here's a good documentary on the Perennial philosophical school of thought (sometimes just known as capital-T Traditionalism):

View: https://youtu.be/P_CNg4dpU54

My understanding is that essentially, Perennialists like Guenon argue that all the great religions at their deepest esoteric levels reveal the same truths. Exoterically they will be quite different of course.
 
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FalseReality

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Not quite. I more or less view Christianity as a prism through which you can view this knowledge. I just want to have a collective effort to find comparison and see where it leads.
how can u know it's true when u decided u chose one way of looking at it?
 
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How is there a thread on Perennialism and nobody's mentioned Guenon, Coomaraswamy, Schuon or Evola yet?

Here's a good documentary on the Perennial philosophical school of thought (sometimes just known as capital-T Traditionalism):

View: https://youtu.be/P_CNg4dpU54

My understanding is that essentially, Perennialists like Guenon argue that all the great religions at their deepest esoteric levels reveal the same truths. Exoterically they will be quite different of course.

Thank you for (hopefully) setting things back on course.

how can u know it's true when u decided u chose one way of looking at it?
I haven't? Christianity was simply how my mystical experience presented itself but I recognise that there are others which manifest very differently.
 

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I have come to the belief that there is a Creator who is everything (creation), and that creation (everything) is this creator's "thoughts", ie the creator trying to understand itself creates the increasingly complex world that we now know, and levels of illusion to obfuscate the truth (ie our limited physical reality despite the infinite possibilities that exist within our minds via thought, a direct a reflection of our origins as pieces of the Creator). Mathematics are essentially the true language of the universe/creation, and everything boils down to vibration (something more or less confirmed by advanced science, is it not?). This relates to stuff like why music can be so powerful to us and gives us intense & unique feelings approaching a spiritual deepness that we cannot get easily elsewhere, and why users of psychedelics report similar experiences at the extremes of their highs (never done drugs/drank so I can only go off of what I've heard from others for that - DMT machine elves, "the grid" and all that jazz). Our physical reality is explained in simple language as a reincarnation loop that we undergo until we consciously understand the true infinite creation and infinite "love", love being our term for the euphoric deepness we experience when exposed to something that brings us closer to the reality of creation beyond our current physical illusory reality

I don't want to run on forever so this explanation is really simplified and probably not well expressed, but it's the only metaphysical belief that has ever resonated with me and explains so much the feeling that there is something "more" that I have felt my whole life. I was raised secular and identified as an atheist for pretty much my whole life up until relatively recently. I've found that pieces of truth relating to this belief of mine seem to pop up in almost every religion, even in non-religious beliefs like Pythagorean numerology, which itself even deals with the idea that we are stuck in a reincarnation loop until we attain true understanding

As I've undertaken this belief I've noticed increasingly unlikely synchronicities in my life, nothing crazy or truly "supernatural" but coincidences that are too frequent and niche to ignore. Almost daily there will be something I think about or witness for the first time that is repeated or reflected in reality within a matter of hours. This one is easy to explain away as "well you just noticed it because you thought about it" but the increasing frequency and unlikelihood of the experiences has been hard to ignore, and I've hesitantly taken it as a sign that I am on the right path. Even if it's all a bunch of nonsense, the benefit it has had for me on a personal level to think this way has been too great already - everything makes so much more sense, nothing is left unaccounted for. I am enjoying all of "creation" and existing with a certain wholeness that I haven't felt since young childhood
 
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Jessica3cho雪血⊜青意

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So to start this thread I am going to give this insight into the afterlife. The halo. The halo is a common symbol associated with European Christian artwork. However it is not only seen in European artwork and is also seen in Bhuddist, Hindu, and some Islamic art. It is possibly one of the oldest symbols associated with the afterlife. From here I think we can safely conclude that the halo is real and is involved in life after death.
I must unfortunately disagree. Halos are either unimportant or not found in very early religions, such as Shinto, Aztecan myth, and the various Native American religions. Halos play no role and, if depicted at all, are typically only shown on major Gods.

Instead, perhaps we can assume that the Halo is a symbol of divine enlightenment, most commonly being associated with prophets, disciples, and other figures considered major symbols in the religion.
 
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How is there a thread on Perennialism and nobody's mentioned Guenon, Coomaraswamy, Schuon or Evola yet?

Here's a good documentary on the Perennial philosophical school of thought (sometimes just known as capital-T Traditionalism):

View: https://youtu.be/P_CNg4dpU54

My understanding is that essentially, Perennialists like Guenon argue that all the great religions at their deepest esoteric levels reveal the same truths. Exoterically they will be quite different of course.

Since the thread popped up again I read through it and was surprised they werent mentioned. Control f for Guenon and Evola and your reply was the only one. Wild.

Regarding Perennialism I think its main flaw is that relies on assumptions that cant be verified. Even Traditionalists basically just found similarities in different cultures which may or may not point to something and gave them significance. With individual religions, any claims made can be verified based on the authenticity of their sources. If you can somehow conclude that a religion is divine, what it claims must be true. Perennialism lacks this since its central claim is that all/most religions can lead you to truth without any real evidence from a divine source that they do. Its essentially speculation on metaphysics. Especially when you consider the left hand path pushed by Evola, the number of contradictory traditions perennialists claim lead to truth is huge and the only real way they reconcile these opposing traditions is speculation. This is even assuming that you can claim Truth exist outside of a divine framework like a religion.
 
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I have come to the belief that there is a Creator who is everything (creation), and that creation (everything) is this creator's "thoughts", ie the creator trying to understand itself creates the increasingly complex world that we now know, and levels of illusion to obfuscate the truth (ie our limited physical reality despite the infinite possibilities that exist within our minds via thought, a direct a reflection of our origins as pieces of the Creator). Mathematics are essentially the true language of the universe/creation, and everything boils down to vibration (something more or less confirmed by advanced science, is it not?). This relates to stuff like why music can be so powerful to us and gives us intense & unique feelings approaching a spiritual deepness that we cannot get easily elsewhere, and why users of psychedelics report similar experiences at the extremes of their highs (never done drugs/drank so I can only go off of what I've heard from others for that - DMT machine elves, "the grid" and all that jazz). Our physical reality is explained in simple language as a reincarnation loop that we undergo until we consciously understand the true infinite creation and infinite "love", love being our term for the euphoric deepness we experience when exposed to something that brings us closer to the reality of creation beyond our current physical illusory reality

I don't want to run on forever so this explanation is really simplified and probably not well expressed, but it's the only metaphysical belief that has ever resonated with me and explains so much the feeling that there is something "more" that I have felt my whole life. I was raised secular and identified as an atheist for pretty much my whole life up until relatively recently. I've found that pieces of truth relating to this belief of mine seem to pop up in almost every religion, even in non-religions beliefs like Pythagorean numerology, which itself even deals with the idea that we are stuck in a reincarnation loop until we attain true understanding

As I've undertaken this belief I've noticed increasingly unlikely synchronicities in my life, nothing crazy or truly "supernatural" but coincidences that are too frequent and niche to ignore. Almost daily there will be something I think about or witness for the first time that is repeated or reflected in reality within a matter of hours. This one is easy to explain away as "well you just noticed it because you thought about it" but the increasing frequency and unlikelihood of the experiences has been hard to ignore, and I've hesitantly taken it as a sign that I am on the right path. Even if it's all a bunch of nonsense, the benefit it has had for me on a personal level to think this way has been too great already - everything makes so much more sense, nothing is left unaccounted for. I am enjoying all of "creation" and existing with a certain wholeness that I haven't felt since young childhood
Fantastic post. I find your explanation really interesting. I myself agree existence is likely a thing so God can understand itself. Although I tend to imagine God is somewhere outside of the universe or at least not anywhere in the third dimension.

And yeah I also used to be Atheist. It's hollow and that's putting it lightly. Dabbled in Paganism before my mystical experience which has changed a lot for me. The coincidences thing is something I've noticed a lot. I no longer believe they are coincidences. Since that experience I feel a lot better and less resentful. Thanks God.
 

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Very good thread. Besides the authors already mentioned, Aldous Huxley and Joseph Campbell are must-reads if you're determined to dive all the way into Perennialism. Also Christ the Eternal Tao by Hieromonk Damascene is a good read for the Christian perspective.
 
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Well it's time for another open minded heresy on my end. A whole thread dedicated to perennial philosophy. What is perennial philosophy? Perennial philosophy is the idea that all religions and spiritual practices have some degree of truth in them and that by comparing them together we can find some universal spiritual truth. To truly get a look into the spiritual world and what happens after we die. Think of it in a similar way to linguistics. Linguists compared and contrasted the languages of Europe to find they all shared one common ancestor known as Proto-Indo-European.

So to start this thread I am going to give this insight into the afterlife. The halo. The halo is a common symbol associated with European Christian artwork. However it is not only seen in European artwork and is also seen in Bhuddist, Hindu, and some Islamic art. It is possibly one of the oldest symbols associated with the afterlife. From here I think we can safely conclude that the halo is real and is involved in life after death.

I hope I've given you a basic introduciton in how to do this and from here I hope we can gain some new insights. If you're going to post in this thread I do respectfully request that you remain open and inquisitive. Try not to start any fights over religion.

And with that, enjoy.
I believe it. In another thread I posted about how the earliest cultures, spread very far across the world all made similar statues (probably gods). https://forum.agoraroad.com/index.p...tell-us-about-the-past.4150/page-2#post-28316

The halo is also in many pagan religions in Europe like ancient Greek. It's of course, why the Catholics put halos in their art, Catholicism is kind of paganism with a Christian skin (sorry if this causes a argument but i don't think there are any Catholics here so it should be fine. I guess because of my perennialist beliefs I am a henotheist or whatever anyway too). Off the top of my head: Apollo, Lyssa, Thetis, Helios, as well as Perseus but he isn't a deity. It also appears on ancient Egyptian and Babylonian deities but I don't know their names so I'd have to take a look. But the reoccurring theme before that of deities was penis holding, which I find much more interesting.
 
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I believe it. In another thread I posted about how the earliest cultures, spread very far across the world all made similar statues (probably gods). https://forum.agoraroad.com/index.p...tell-us-about-the-past.4150/page-2#post-28316

The halo is also in many pagan religions in Europe like ancient Greek. It's of course, why the Catholics put halos in their art, Catholicism is kind of paganism with a Christian skin (sorry if this causes a argument but i don't think there are any Catholics here so it should be fine. I guess because of my perennialist beliefs I am a henotheist or whatever anyway too). Off the top of my head: Apollo, Lyssa, Thetis, Helios, as well as Perseus but he isn't a deity. It also appears on ancient Egyptian and Babylonian deities but I don't know their names so I'd have to take a look. But the reoccurring theme before that of deities was penis holding, which I find much more interesting.
Well there are some Catholics here. My main issue with Catholicism is the concept of papal infallibility. Not sure if I would classify it as Paganism though. I'm currnetly looking into the Orthodox church. And I guess on that note we should bring up Paganism. I think Paganism was more just a confused form of worship of the one God. Some of those Gods were perhaps be divine beings but I am still a monotheist. I think the reason Abraham happened was because God wasn't liking where Paganism was going and decided to step in. I definitely believe in the story of Abraham.
 

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It's about finding commonalities to find some consistent themes in human spiritual experience. The more established the knowledge, the more likely it is to be closer to truth. I consider religions by themselves to be highlighting specific aspects of said truth. For example Dharmic religions have a lot of truth regarding good health practices for individuals. But Dharmic religions downplay the role of God whereas it is central within Abrahamic religions. I believe Abraham to be far more correct regarding the nature of God but that doesn't mean the Dharmic stuff is devoid of any spiritual truth.

Happy to help.
It was once considered very well established knowledge that your humors were out of balance, 500BC-1800AD. This is either a non sequitur or your humors are out balance.

Part of the problem in trying to establish that something is closer to spiritual truth, is I don't even know what spiritual truth is. To some it's to have God's grace and enter heaven, to others it's self actualisation and to others it's to end their suffering(in budhism, moshka to avoid duhka, ending the cycle of life and death). I think the Collective Unconscious as described by Carl Jung is probably where a lot of the storytelling elements of these Religions stem from, in much the same way a lot of it is used in Mythology(consider the snake in the garden of Eden as a basic example, and the recurring theme of the snake throughout other myths like Medusa, Dragons and Indiana Jones).
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Religion started as man's way of trying to understand the inner workings of the world around them. Eventually however, it got corrupted into a tool used to control people by asserting that only certain important elites were capable of knowing and understanding the world's truths. But even then, there were still people who were dedicated to true knowledge and discovery rather than doctrine. They came to be known as scientists.

And unfortunately, they seem to be falling into the same trap as religion did back then.
 
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Well there are some Catholics here. My main issue with Catholicism is the concept of papal infallibility. Not sure if I would classify it as Paganism though. I'm currnetly looking into the Orthodox church. And I guess on that note we should bring up Paganism. I think Paganism was more just a confused form of worship of the one God. Some of those Gods were perhaps be divine beings but I am still a monotheist. I think the reason Abraham happened was because God wasn't liking where Paganism was going and decided to step in. I definitely believe in the story of Abraham.
If you think the reason Abraham happened was because God didn't like where paganism was going and stepped in then what do you make of the whole Melchizedek episode?
I'm pretty intrigued by Melchizedek. He was one of those figures in the Bible that I remember hearing about and just being sort of brushed over. Most people I knew just didn't have much to say about him outside of a typical "He was JUST foreshadowing Jesus" type of answer. that answer never really satisfied me.
 
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