I am so fucking happy that Marxism is generally hostile to the supernatural and occult. I watched some grown ass adults try to drive the devil out of a broken halloween toy on the youtubes and I could not deal with that shit with a straight face if it came up at a DSA meeting.
hermetic and gnostic
I always convert to Cathar myself. It's got equal inheritance, same-sex relations and witchcraft - and you can suicide an older ruler when their succession is all squared away with no penalty. it's basically the perfect religion, assuming you don't get crusaded of course.
fetishism and the crystallization of exploited human social potential within privately owned commodities is a kind of alchemical process
Can ya speak more to this? Like was Marx actually influenced by occult writers, or just a more “spiritual” (lol) lineage?
These are dope, I really liked the 2nd one and I'm saving the cosmonaut one for later. Have you read The Enchantments of Mammon? I don't know shit about religion/mysticism and this book is big as fuck, but I just started it and it seems fascinating - it's interesting to see how much he's cited Marx so far, but I guess it does seem like the author is obviously indebted to Marx's tradition of rigorous historical analysis (oh yeah and fetishism) even if he's more of a theologian.
It's weird, I have zero spirituality or any of that (at most some posthumanist type shit that I'm still super pessimistic about) and I certainly am most sympathetic to super positivist strains of Marxism and I love Lenin, but I'm definitely not a positivist, it's more like I feel it to be the best Myth (in a sorelian sense, like he considered the Mass Strike to be the Myth for the syndicalists) for the Communist movement - the ruthless criticism of all that exists. Still I love reading Hegelian shit I've got to so far and I'm starting to dip my toes in Deleuze and the postructuralists and I find shit like this super interesting. Not sure why I spouted all of this rn, but I think you might dig The Enchantments of Mammon
Positivism has the advantage of being the first philosophical system powerful enough to prove itself wrong. There's a lot of tools there to use, it's the sharpest knife we have, but it's still only a knife. Much like the Dialectic is stunningly more explanatory than it has any right to be, but it still isn't god, you can't just plop things into it and stop thinking.
Mysticism too has its place, even though it's often tied to idealism that isn't necessarily an unbreakable bond. "The kingdom of heaven is among us", after all.
As far as I’m concerned mysticism is the key to converting the religious masses to socialist/anarchist ideology. Fuck the church, fuck the pope, fuck priests and fuck any form of religious hierarchy, nobody can mediate an individuals experience of the divine, we are all one so we should dam well start acting like it. Do unto others as you’d have them do unto you, because they are literally you too.
I'm not opposed to that, although I'd claim that consistent ritual is important to many (indeed it can be the interface of the ideal and the material), and people can mediate the experience of the divine in structured (preferably non hierarchical) ways. What else is something like an Oratorio or Concert Mass if not that?
I agree, but I don’t really see ritual as inextricable from religious hierarchy, and in many cases it’s used as a method to attain mystical or divine experiences which are integral in bringing about the positive perspectives associated with spiritual/religious practice. Mediate was probably not the right word to use in this case, perhaps dictate or interpret would have more accurately described what I was trying to convey. An example that comes to mind might be a shaman leading an ayahuasca ceremony through drumming and singing which could be seen as mediating an experience, however it’s more from the stance of a guide, as opposed to an authority imposing dogma or predetermined ways of conceptualising such experiences. As long as power over others is not derived from some kind of spiritual hierarchy I’ve got no problem with how people choose to practice their religious beliefs.
Hell yeah! I’m a weird mishmash or lefty and occultist and I love stuff that bridges these tendencies
https://cosmonaut.blog/2020/06/27/the-christian-mysticism-of-hegel-and-marx/
Highest Per Capita Beautiful Velvet Boys in the union if I'm not mistaken.
