Label: western esotericism

Conspirituality (again)

Conspirituality (again)

Just stood and fried pancakes. Thought of the mix of esoteric holistic spirituality, and conspiracy theories. What is now called "conspirituality" in research. How is it that? That the two ways of looking at the world seem to marry so well?

Conspiracy theories in general are not that exciting. Resentful, marginalized and fearful people in the mid-west, etc, grasping for a simple answer in all uncertainty & disappointment. It is more interesting to try to understand how educated, conscious, idealistic individuals, such as those who like Western esotericism, with their "on the way to the light-and we are in the lead" philosophy, can start such a thing? What's in the works?

So, as I stood there staring into the frying pan & turning my plates, I came up with one thing and another! Suggestions, partial explanations... Not all of them are correct, but one or a few, possibly in combination... Fill in the ones you want...

  • That both things, esotericism and conspiracyism, use the same brain center? As if trained up, became extra active, "over-movable", via the spiritual studies? So that it is only too easy to think outside the box
  • That you have a spiritual world view that is so bright, and personal ideals that are set so high, that the urge to see sinister conspiracies & dark pacts "out there" becomes... Yes, what do you call that? Projected? That the outside world becomes a projection surface for a darkness that is actually one's own, but which one does not want to be aware of
  • That the world has become too crass, material, atheistic, "demystified"? An attraction, a craving for conspiracies, becomes an attempt to remedy, via the imagination, a kind of mental and cultural deficiency

Then there are, of course, conspiracies that are real too. High-level unholy alliances, cartel formations, etc…

Psychospiritual honey trap?

Psychospiritual honey trap?

This post relates to a previous entry, which was, among other things, about a protracted copyright dispute in the circle around the Danish mystic Martinus Thomsen (1895-1981).

Actually, I don't care that much about the fuss over literature. It's sad. But let the dead bury their dead, as he said, the Nazarene. However, the discussion that followed my post helped me get to grips with what is and has been my fundamental problem with all of this.

“Everyone does not understand the Master, they cannot appreciate, they do not need him. This is because they are not mature enough. They have not been through as much suffering as we/me. People are at different stages in their humane, intellectual development. Some are before, some are after. It is as it is. Everything is very good.”

You hear that from time to time. (Guess that in the argument about literature, you can hear it from both sides?) But there is something clever about it. Alluring, but devious. Like a psycho-spiritual "honey trap".

("Honey trap" is a term from the spy world. Someone is seduced by an attractive man/woman and can be picked on secret information and/or put themselves in a blackmail situation. That is, something attracts, tastes sweet, but it fetches a high price.)

But, again, I therefore do not take a position on whether such things as spiritual development exist (as in my made-up quote above). One would perhaps want to dismiss the whole thing because it sounds so elitist, old-fashioned or even colonial? But I actually don't. Satisfying myself with psychology. It comes closest.

Are we equipped to handle and face life with this thinking - regardless of whether it is true or not - or will it do something to one, dull, simplify, betray one's mind? (But the downsides I'm trying to describe don't apply to everyone. Some seem to be able to parry it. Is probably not a matter of will, whether you can handle it or not. It is something else that then acts as an "antidote".)

But one might think it is a strange circumstance that so many other movements arose and individuals came forward who formulated their philosophies in a similar way to Martinus Thomsen, then a hundred years ago?

Then in some camps there were also darker, more active dreams, as in the extension of this "some are ahead, some are behind"... Shouldn't one actively try to get rid of those who slow down, who only cause trouble, etc. Philosopher Jules Evans wrote about the dark history of esoteric neo-spirituality in a long, readable text A couple of years ago.


Farewell to the esoteric

Farewell to the esoteric

The title was a bit dramatic. And by the way, I've been resigning gradually over several decades. Up to twenty-five I was inside the world of thought, but after that I have distanced myself more and more. Ten years when I was less and in opposition. When it was time for master thesis on my education and I couldn't come up with anything better, so I chose to write about "new spirituality" of the kind represented by the likes of Rudolf Steiner, Madame Blavatsky, etc. For me, this work also became a kind of reconciliation work.

The title also does not imply that I have come to a conclusion about the truth content of the esoteric basic ideas, which I am now trying to impress upon others. Reincarnation, karma and the individual's gradual development towards perfection, to sum it up briefly. I still know nothing about this.

I dared to express my feelings on a forum around the Danish mystic Martinus Thomsen (1890-1981) the other day and the conversation that developed from this convinced me even more that - and why - I put the commitment behind me.

But I think I'll start a little earlier! Came into contact with "new spirituality" through a man in the town where I grew up, the yoga and meditation teacher, etc. Sture Emby. Moved to Stockholm in the middle of high school, had various such jobs that one had at that age. Went to all the lectures and courses about Martinus Thomsen that I had time for. Lived in Denmark for six months, attended the so-called "Winter School", at the Martinus Center on Zealand.

Started working at the new spiritual establishment Cafe Pan in Götgatsbacken, Stockholm. Did unarmed service, wrote a book. Continued working at Cafe Pan... Almost every summer I spent 1-2 weeks down at that Martinus Center. In the beginning I participated in study groups and lectures with a good appetite, but gradually it became more and more regular (lovely) holiday stays by the sea.

For the past perhaps twenty years, the Martinus movement has been marked by a bitter conflict over copyright, how the founder's writings should be presented to the outside world.

A more orthodox phalanx who claim that the only right thing is to continue printing the books in facsimile, with any obvious spelling errors and the Danish as it looked before the spelling reform in 1948. A more modern phalanx, who are also those who hold the copyright (Martinus Institute in Copenhagen, with its board which is traditionally called "The Council"), which has been for a gentle update. Those who are familiar with the conflict can fill in what I missed or don't know at all, the rest of you probably don't need to worry about the details. I wouldn't post this post if I didn't perceive the content to be more general.

I reason around a concept that deals with how everything goes in cycles. The seasons are one cycle, the human life course from birth to death, another. But in this author's model of existence, the cycle idea is absolutely central, all-encompassing. So maybe it can then be applied to Martinu's work and the movement that has formed around this for a hundred years, too?

“Council vs… who is it?

Have to say I stopped caring about this conflict because, what is it, how long has it been going on? Fifteen, twenty years? Personally, I think it has less to do with the Council or those who are dissatisfied. I think that Martinu's big project has reached some kind of phase of decay, old age, decay. The last push as well. Sad in a way, but... It's the "circulation principle" as well. I think his ideas will live on and be able to inspire one or another in the future, but then more in a molten form, via secondary literature and free thinkers.

I have the warmest feelings for Martinus as a person, and the history of the cause.”

Based on the response I received, both support and rebuttal, I thought further, and wrote:

"Does not take a position on whether Martinu's world view will have a renaissance and great importance. But in any case, it is ONE cycle that is now coming to an end. You don't even have to think metaphysically to see it that way, I think.

First, there is a founder with talent, enthusiasm, confidence (whether this is justified or not, whether he really has the abilities he claims to have, or not). In a period when such things are also 'in time'. A movement arises around him. What is written and said is in step with the spiritual currents of the period, feels relevant and fresh, can interest relatively many people.

Envy is aroused, to some extent phalanxes arise. Some are provoked by and challenge the founder himself, some are content to position themselves in relation to other interested parties, the 'crowd' who have not really understood him as well as themselves.

Eventually the creator disappears. The field is now open for battle, polarization is growing. The building weathers and collapses. Those around you wonder what the hell is going on with that little inspired circle? As one did not understand what they were really interested in, but they seem to have had something exciting going on for themselves in any case.

Then if someone digs the books out of the rubble in a hundred years and finds something of value there, that remains to be seen. But clearly what has been going on now means that many who could potentially be interested in this Danish mystic's world of thought do not want to approach. It gives a little too much of an impression of old-fashioned religious warfare, something that seems to be on its way out, a phenomenon that has entered its 'autumn'. At least that's what I think,"

I think that Martinu's texts, whether they are in facsimile, in Old Danish or carefully revised, have in some sense become irrelevant. So both sides are wrong. I've been trying to come up with an analogy.

The old large Swedish company Facit was successful with its typewriters and calculators. (Didn't they even fly in the Brazilian national team to kick a ball with Åtvidaberg FK?) I got a picture of how towards the end rival product teams were bickering about whether the typewriters should be green-grey like before, the "original", or spruced up a bit, to attract new , younger buyers.

While the truth was that the world outside Åtvidaberg had turned half a turn and no one wanted a typewriter anymore. At all.

By the way, when I think about it, there are several reasons why I distanced myself from the esoteric world explanation. What I bring up above in the post is not even the most important.

Another side of it all, which I am reminded of in the exchange I refer to, is the view of the esoteric foreground figures. Their perfection. Within the movement around Martinus Thomsen, this has been an existing, although I would hardly call it a living, discussion. "Could Martinus be wrong?"

This is something that rubbed off over the years. But it hasn't been the most decisive either. Or it's kind of baked in, a facet, of what probably had the most importance because I wanted to keep esotericism/new spirituality at arm's length.

But what is the most important reason then? It's a bit tricky to describe. But is the theme of many other posts here on the website. It's about "mental hygiene", for lack of better words.

A basic thought for me today is that the esoteric/neo-spiritual understanding of life can both pressure and attract the individual to function at a lower, "simpler" developmental level than what is actually hers. And that this has nothing to do with whether the fantasy world is true or not. It might sound strange.

If I were to venture to formulate the basic problem/basic challenge, it would be that esoteric neo-spirituality is working with "absolute greatness" (complete love, perfect knowledge, perfect people, total responsibility for one's own destiny via the "law of karma", etc.), as it the human psyche in the vast majority of cases is not equipped to handle. It risks doing something to one, so to speak.

Fifteen years ago I did a dozen interviews with people who embraced the esoteric-neo-spiritual notions of reincarnation, karma and the individual's gradual development towards emotional and cognitive perfection. I then put the answers and statements I received against the human "existential conditions" as these had been formulated by an experienced psychoanalyst, Adrzej Werbart:

Werbart (2000) writes that we humans are "irretrievably doomed to live as separate 'in-dividuals', dependent on each other, divided into two sexes and several generations, vulnerable and mortal...". Elsewhere, the same author writes that we have to "accept the existential conditions of man: our separateness as separate individuals, our division into two sexes and the impossibility of being both, the division into the parent and child generations, our aging and our mortality" (Werbart, 1996 ).

In conclusion: We humans are separate, alone. We are divided into two genders (in which case we cannot be "everything"). Furthermore, we are included and arranged in parent and child generations. We are dependent on others and each other throughout life in various ways. We are all limited in terms of talent, abilities, strength, etc. Subjected to aging, we become weaker and eventually die.

The result? My impression was that the group actually denied all the existential conditions. The esoteric-neo-spiritual worldview seemed to offer reasoning or answers that invalidated them all. However, the interviewees still seemed to be able to be divided into three groups, which I once formulated roughly like this:

  1. Those who are very disoriented (“deny the existential conditions”) even before the encounter with the neo-spirituality and the neo-spirituality allow them to remain in this state.
  2. Those who are normally healthy/normally ill ("wrestling with the existential conditions") and the new spirituality may be tempted to avoid continuing to wrestle.
  3. Those who are psychologically more mature (“have come to terms with the existential conditions”) and can find a healthy balance between theory and practice, between belief and emotional reality.

My conclusions can be read in more detail in the discussion section to the study, whoever wants to.

This may seem academic and distant. Who do I think I really am (who have I been)? Group 2 I would say. Incidentally, the very largest of the groups. That is my assessment. But Group 3 exists (Group 1 included for that matter). These psycho-spiritual unicorns!

Recycle yourself?

Recycle yourself?

Reincarnation... Twenty, twenty-five percent of people in our more or less secularized, de-Christianized West, are not averse to the fact that we might come back. Says the researchers. So not just become energy, Nirvana, or live on in some kind of diffuse heaven, but actually continue in a new body much like the one you have now.

How is it that? Perhaps a growing individualism has influenced in that direction, made the idea feel reasonable and appealing? That is to be able to continue with one's projects, interests, realizations, possibly after a little "holiday".

Know that CS Lewis, the author and theologian, said that such notions come as if automatically when people have no shepherd, i.e. the church, or a wise, well-educated priest, who keeps order.

Or, it is that reincarnation is simply a fact. The tilted theology of the Church has loosened its grip and what is fundamentally true is allowed to rise out of consciousness as a hunch, a certainty.

But I'm sitting in the subway and wondering if the whole recycling philosophy hasn't done its job? In the past, people threw their rubbish where they stood and walked, in the ditch, out the window, or just in the lake. Miraculously gone. That's not the case in our part of the world anymore. The circular mindset is always present. Everything comes back. We are constantly fed it. Maybe done something with our self-image, our expectations, that too?

Krishnamurti in Swedish media

Krishnamurti in Swedish media

DN and SvD have digital archives that span approximately 150 years. If you look up the Theosophical apostate and wisdom teacher Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895-1986), it turns out that they actually followed and reported on his entire career.
1.
“In Paris there is currently a fifteen-year-old Hindu from Adyar in India named Krishnamurti, called Alcyone by his followers. Despite his youth, Krishnamurti has managed to write a book entitled At the Master's Feet, which has been translated into several languages ​​and made its author the leader of an occult sect, the Eastern Star Sect, which already counts followers in the thousands.” (DN 1912-03-28)
2.
"A new Messiah... For si, an order had been issued by Mrs. Annie Besant that a new Messiah would come and walk with the people on earth. He would wear the creation of a young Hindu raised for this purpose by the Grand Old Lady of India.” (DN 1926-01-07)
3.
(continued)
4.
"Mrs. Besant's Messiah in Dutch Tent Camp: The Tool of the World Teacher." (DN 1926-08-31)
5.
"It has been announced that the famous Indian prophet would be engaged to play the leading role in a new tone film in Hollywood..." (DN 1930-03-06)
6.
"Krishnamurti, the theosophical prophet who has given himself the title of the title [The Second Messiah], has dissolved his order, which is called the Star of the East." (DN 1929-08-11)
7.
"The 'Star in the East' has disbanded." (Bad picture, but only to show that this was also news in the other morning newspaper. SvD 1929-08-09)
8.
Memory words. “Krishnamurti is dead… 'Let us die each day so that we may face tomorrow as delicate as a newly sprung leaf. For a person who is constantly dying there is no death.'" (SvD 1986-02-21)

(Tip! If you're reading on a mobile phone, it's better to zoom in normally with your fingers rather than selecting "Fullscreen".)

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My Krishnamurti

My Krishnamurti

But look there! In the mandatory bookshelf with light reading left at the hotel. Hero of my youth. I recognize the name, but have no idea what the title means.

Krishnamurti, with his unlikely and twisted upbringing and his equally remarkable break-up and adventures after that.

Over time, I have come to partially reevaluate him. Perhaps no coincidence that he appealed so much to a teenage mind precisely? Rowdy, rebellious, demanded to be free. (Maybe it's that book of his, "To be Free"?) As he continued with the rest of his life. Partly because he needed it, for himself. With its baggage, its spiritual-esoteric trauma, overload. Partly because it was a repetition, I think, just lost momentum, that's how you wanted him. I probably got a little grumpy too, perhaps learned about it all, in the autumn of my age.

He is one of the greats. One of the great spiritual "psychologists" I would say. His greatness also lies in the fact that he was who he was, serving his analyzes of spiritual-esoteric lock-in, precisely at the time and in the context in which he did so. Groundbreaking (as far as I know & know, religiously historically). Can you understand him psychologically? Maybe it only works to a certain extent. His message cuts like a knife, crystal clear. (My personal favorite quote, the one that comes to mind the most, is: “Remembering is brutal.”)

His message was about radical freedom. If you don't at least partially try to explain this, his persistence and sharpness, based on his own unique upbringing, confinement, then you almost have to idealize him. As I see it.

Who is independent?

Who is independent?

“Still waiting for a qualified, independent socio-religio-philo-psychological etc clarification of this movement & its history. Independent in the sense of non-affiliated. That is, by people who are not beforehand invested or too happy in their subject of study.”

When I posted this post on my private page a couple of years ago (which I reposted today as a "memory", with the text above) I met objections.

At that time I had written:

"130 years ago today, this man, Martinus Thomsen, was born in a village in Jutland. Poor, not much for schooling. He eventually trained as a dairyman.

In his thirties, he had a strong religious experience that would shape the rest of his life. He began to write, lecture, and paint. A couple of hundred outlandish images (like the one he's working on here). A Scandinavian "mystic", one must call him.

Still, quite a bit of a doldis. Only now is an independent academic mapping of what he actually accomplished, I've heard, and the movement that grew up around him underway. Congratulations, Martinus!”

It was this thing about "independence". Because academic essays have been written about Martinus and his "cosmology", which have been approved, at various academic levels. A-, B-, C-, Master's level. Yes, recently there was even a doctoral thesis. However, as far as I know, exclusively by followers. But aren't these works independent, after all? At least at a higher level, there are rigorous requirements for the reasoning to be of good quality?

And I still feel that it is something I am missing because I think it could be really interesting.

It has something to do with Martinus Thomsen's claim - and how he is thus perceived within the movement - to be a perfect individual with infallible knowledge, which I have difficulty seeing that it does not risk setting it up.

Someone objected that time, that, for example, psychoanalysts write about Sigmund Freud, is that background also disqualifying? Isn't their in-depth knowledge of history, theories, etc. rather an asset?

But I find it hard to buy it. No one, or at least very few, and they probably enjoy no greater respect, would claim that Freud was infallible, irreproachable, a perfect human being who recorded only the truth in his books.

Spiritual Elitism (again)

Spiritual Elitism (again)

Today 17/2 is 100 years since the Institute of Racial Biology in Uppsala was founded, they say on TV.

What was the esoteric-neo-spiritual scene like at the time? 1922... Jiddu Krishnamurti, the Theosophists' mainstay calf, has his "enlightenment experience". (The Dane Martinus Thomsen had had his the year before.)

It will take until 1929 before Krishnamurti turns his back on Theosophy. Theosophy with its doctrine of "root races", the evolution of souls and cultures, ascent towards light and sovereignty, peaks in the years leading up to that, as I understand it. Attracts masses, thousands and thousands, of educated people. Seems to be well in time.

Hitler takes full control of the Nazi party in 1922, too, I google.

Don't know what I'm looking for really. Has the world changed more than parts of (new) spirituality have?

Honor those who should be honored

Honor those who should be honored

“Ojai”… Seeing an ad from the Krishnamurti Center on the American West Coast. I have probably mentioned that my two main inspirations - not only for what they actually said and wrote, but as individuals, almost as "archetypes" for different kinds of spirituality - have been the Danish mystic Martinus Thomsen & the Theosophical apostate Jiddu Krishnamurti.

And I've had the Universe on my side, it seems 🙂

The first time I was going to visit the Martinus Center on Zealand, in the early summer of '84, I started hitchhiking in Stockholm in the morning. And managed to get to that center out on the bonnavischan already that evening. A combination of strange circumstances, like a wave of helpfulness.

In the spring of '90, I was sitting on a Greyhound bus along the coast of California, squinting out the window. Suddenly saw a sign for an exit that had such a familiar name: “Ojai.” I knew Krishnamurti stayed at a place called that. But I thought it was in India? But, I guess I took a turning bus to check it out. And so I ended up at that center, too.

In both cases, however, I arrived three or four years too late to meet the founders themselves.

It's like every type of spirituality has its possible varieties. Esotericism, like Martinus, then one becomes far too fond of the answers, the "system", that one has seen and been initiated into this. Such systems that there are several similar, but that one has found what is superior to the others, etc... And that other type of spirituality then, of which Krishnamurti is a representative? The downside there is that you can become too aggressive, cross-confident in that way, I feel. Followers of Krishnamurti can sometimes appear as the spiritual equivalent of "Science and Public Education" or "The Humanists".

Still don't know how to get their respective teachings together properly. When I was into it more, I fantasized about how the two could perhaps be seen as a kind of "epoxy" solution. As a two-component glue, then. They each had an angle. Which could hardly be expressed by one and the same individual. Together, they were a guarantor that one would not become too cocky, one-sided, fundamentalist.

Am I a follower of any of these gentlemen? It is a question of definition. Krishnamurti for example? If someone were to scan my brain - if it were possible - and see which individuals made a big impression, whose words and quotes sort of built up my inner world, then it would say "Jiddu Krishnamurti" on quite a lot... (Others may have the same nourishment of other philosophers, then their names are certainly on the mind.)

So then I gladly honor him by calling me a follower. (Since I hardly read a line of his since I was twenty-five, I think it matters less.) Honor to whom honor is due.

Then I don't know if maybe Krishnamurti got a little grumpy towards the end, "VoFfig", he too? A long life and having to answer a lot of questions that didn't reflect what really interested him, together with age, maybe made him tired... That he was a bit routine.

But still his story about the devil and a friend of his who was out for a walk, which he included in the speech when he dissolved the Star in the East, is a clear shining light. As a psychospiritual equation, a spell:

"You may remember the story of how the devil and a friend of his were walking down the street, when they saw ahead of them a man stoop down and pick up something from the ground, look at it, and put it away in his pocket . The friend said to the devil, 'What did that man pick up?' 'He picked up a piece of Truth,' said the devil. 'That is a very bad business for you, then,' said his friend. 'Oh, not at all,' the devil replied, 'I am going to let him organize it.'"

Martinus meets resistance

Martinus meets resistance

Always refreshing, but only happens so rarely, when the Danish Martinus Thomsen's (1890-1981) esoteric system receives some qualified, interested, reasonably benevolent, resistance like this! (The episode becomes a kind of variant, with the same qualities, as The Nexus article from -82, I think.)

"Martinus Thomsen had a transformative spiritual experience in his thirties. He perceived strong divine light, and met a Christ figure. This led to him gaining something he called cosmic consciousness. He spent the rest of his life writing down what was revealed to him. The life work was named the Book of Life. The term Third Testament also appears.

We talk to Mikael Krall and Olav Johansson about the man and the work."

"Magical Thinking - about the greater reality" # 075 MARTINUS THOMSEN (2 hours 2 minutes)

Link to the podcast episode: https://bit.ly/3xk4VRL

An interview that stirs up thoughts in both the interviewers, it seems, and in me as the listener.

Of course, it's about faith, for me (even if I'm a coward? and barely deal with metaphysics anymore) and most people. But with the addition that maybe there are others for which the beliefs in this field (reincarnation, for example) are actually knowing, I don't know what is possible, but I feel I need to keep this open in any case.

Otherwise I became some sort of... I don't know what?... philosopher of dissatisfaction who takes every chance to cause trouble just because... Or who would be trapped in some belief of his own (either this that something metaphysical doesn't exist, or that in any case it's not possible to have self-experienced knowledge of this) ... And it would be a kind of prison, that with, o waste of energy.

Feel a great deal of sympathy for the approach that the big questions, which Martinus et al posted the text about, would in fact lack answers. At the same time, can't one's attitude accommodate that one also keeps life open, maybe it actually works in a certain way, and that others may have gained knowledge about this? It doesn't cost anything to keep this open, I think.

But what would it take? Must be a balancing act in the higher school that. Some kind of wonder yoga 😃