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What ever happened to the philosophy of the ages before us? When did taking a walk to commune with nature and your true self become so obsolete? Where did our mysticism go? Where did the belief in the "impossible" go? Did science which was started through PHILOSOPHY & ALCHEMY the reason for this?
In my view the rise of Christianity was simply the end of the old ways and the mystical beliefs that were once held have not entirely disappeared, rather morphed to fit the Christian paradigm. Many of the stories in the bible reflect old pagan and jewish ways. Read leviticus from the old testiment. Even the story of genesis could be considered to reflect older pagan beliefs - to some extent. But not only that we also have "christian" holidays that originated in pagan roots. For example halloween or Christmas. Dressing as the dead and giving treats out in honor of the dead is a very old and pagan custom - even practiced in the Chinese new year. Decorating a tree - pagan.
In that sense Christianity was not the death of mysticism (it certainly was supressed). If you study theology you begin to see just how "occult" Christianity really is and how much of it is based on the mystery religions before the Church. Philosophy has also taken a new turn. We now attempt to quantify reallity through theoretical sciences like quantum or null physics. Many chaos magicians claim to use these fields as a means to explain their works. And about 400 some years chemistry and alchemy were simply the same thing. However eventually chemistry became its own subject when people threw out the subjective mystical aspects and only clung to the emperical view.
Empericism has been the death of mystical thinking, or even just magick in general. Through ridged and cynical empericism we have created this veil of reality that shrouds our eyes from a much greater and more abstract world beyond the sense of the body or the senses of current science. While we have made technological leaps, we have essentially cut out a part of human existance - faith I would call it. Faith in magick, faith in a higher power, even faith in love have all been attacked by a down pore of athiest scientists who cannot even admit a possibility in anything beyond their own dogmatic view of science.
And that takes us to media making us think we need things that we really don't - thats pure capitalism baby! hey why buy one when you get one free if you buy two! Hey lets give you some credit cards you can't afford, loans for a house you'll just foreclose on, a lease on a car that is out of your league. Never mind the small stuff. Thats just pittens in some moguls pockets. What sells is whats big, "smart" and of course sexy. Be it bigger boobs a larger dick, a big ass hummer or high risk stocks on the market at 1/3 their value. It all adds up to commercialism and its all about hype and sensationalism. They actually pay psychologists to study commercials and see which ones have a higher impact on viewers. Thats why there are so many negative campaign adds. They engineer everything from color scheme to lighting and sound affects specifically to cater commericals to a market group. The more defined a market group is, the easier it is to manipulate them - especially children, young women and the elderly. Men too, but not by such a great affect. We do see young men growing up thinking they need a penis thats 13 inches long in order to be a good lover. As a result thousands end up measuring their own self worth as men based on nothing more than the size of their genitals. Its a trend that is starting to catch up with women and how they are often taught to view their bodies through media. By the time I'm in my 40's they'll have designer babies and micro chips that you can implant in your brain to allow to conduct wireless business with nothing more than your brain. It'll be the dawn of a cybernetic society in a corperate republic where the rich live forever and the poor get used up for crature comforts. - you want to talk about depressing thoughts, think about being a poor person in that society.
And while I could sit here and rant and rave about this and that for me personally the point is it has only become easier to let go of matterial desires. The world, in some ways, has become as shallow as it is plastic and synthetic. I actually feel sorry for future generations who will learn to view Aristotle and Plato as mere relics in light of reality TV. Who needs intellects to tell you have to think and act when you can just follow what your favorite celebrity does? What has become more difficult for me to tell go of are my nieces and nephew who will group up in this hyper-matterialistic society.