Witch-Hunt

[Jhanananda]

The story of the progenitors of nearly every religion shows that they were marginalized by the priesthood of their day. 

If Moses had been valued as a mystic by the Pharaoh, then there would have been no need for him to wander for 40 years in the desert.

If enlightened gurus were common during Siddhartha Gautama time, then he would have found an enlightened teacher, and become his enlightened student, and he would have found a community of enlightened people to be a part of, and he would have been accepted into a community of understanding of what it meant to be enlightened.  However, the suttas clearly show endless debates between religious teachers over what it meant to be enlightened, and a path that led there.

If Jesus, the Nazirite, lived in a time when spiritual enlightenment was understood and valued by the priesthood of the Temple of Jerusalem, then he would not have been crucified.

If Mohammed had lived in a time when spiritual enlightenment was understood and valued by the priesthood of Arabia, then he would not have had to hide in the desert, and cause a revolution to find the freedom to pursue his spiritual enlightenment.

If Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross had lived in a time when spiritual enlightenment was understood and valued by the priesthood of the Catholic Church, then Teresa of Avila would not have had half her books burned, and been kept under house arrest most of her life, and John of the Cross would not have been imprisoned by the church and publicly whipped weekly.  In fact the Inquisition was a witch-hunt to specifically destroy any and all mystics in Europe, and the Americas.

If enlightenment was understood and valued by the priesthood of any religion today, then I and the mystics in my case histories would have been embraced by an enlightened priesthood.  However, every one of us has been marginalized by the priesthood of whatever religion we have come from.  Further, I have not been able to find decent work in 12 years.  I have had so much unemployment, because of my work of studying the mystics of today, that I cannot even get disability benefits for my declining health. 

The marginalizing of mystics today is pervasive.  Wikipedia will not accept any of my contributions to their listing on Jhana and samadhi.  Even FaceBook has blocked my feed.  So, I am now boycotting FaceBook.

When I tell people about the many ways in which I have been marginalized they just cannot believe it.  They would rather dismiss me as a paranoid, than accept that in the "Land of the Free" mystics would be marginalized.  Well, prove me wrong.  Read the following article and prove that mystics are not as marginalized today as they have always been.
http://www.greatwesternvehicle.org/criticism/witch-hunt.htm

[Alexander]

That blows they block your entries on Wikipedia now, though it really doesn't surprise me. I remember finding the page on phala a couple years ago, and in the history it shows you created it. I imagine you laid the foundations for quite a few of these articles, but like every proper religion, the people who come after have to ruin everything. :)

On a related note I created this page on nepsis a while ago - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nepsis which consisted of the short entry of

Nepsis (or nipsis) is an important idea in Orthodox Christian theology, considered the hallmark of sanctity. Nepsis is a state of watchfulness or sobriety acquired following a long period of catharsis. Perhaps most associated with Orthodox monasticism, numerable references to nepsis are made in ''The Philokalia'' (the full title of ''The Philokalia'' being ''The Philokalia of the Niptic Fathers''). Parallels could likely be made between nepsis and Buddhist mindfulness, Islamic dhikr, and Jewish devekut.

As you can see, an impressive amount of crap (and in fairness a couple of good bits) have been added to it. Someone changed my line of "following a long period of catharsis" to "is a dimension of contemplative prayer," which is fair enough. I suppose anyone who would even be on this page, at least appreciates the idea of mysticism, even if their views on it are still rather confused.

At the present time I think the situation now is as good as it's going to be for mysticism. Except in the case of Mohammed who was a political saint, the properly religious usually live lives of poverty (or at least simplicity), nonrecognition, et al. I don't think they're necessarily oppressed, at least not these days - as for the most part people (and priests) are simply ignorant to the tenets of mysticism... even though, ironically, it lies at the core to their religion, and any understanding of religion without mysticism is devoid of substance.

I think this coming century might be a very interesting one, as the majority of people become atheistic. This might actually be a good thing, as those who stick with religion might be those that are properly religious, and not those that belong to said religion just because that was how they were raised (or because that's how you get ahead in the culture). In all, we mystics will still be around. =)

I have to say, though, that one of the things that upsets me is to hear about the persecutions of Sts. John and Theresa. I very sincerely hope the people who oppressed them got to enjoy especially hellish punishments for what they did.

[Jhanananda]

That blows they block your entries on Wikipedia now, though it really doesn't surprise me. I remember finding the page on phala a couple years ago, and in the history it shows you created it. I imagine you laid the foundations for quite a few of these articles, but like every proper religion, the people who come after have to ruin everything.

I actually started the jhana listing in Wikipedia, but it was almost immediately hijacked by Pureland Buddhists, and has since become a stinking pile of nonsense there.  I have since created other listings that are not on Pureland radar, such as the Phala listing that you mentioned.  A true mystic will have to do some serious digging to find the trail of bread crumbs that I have left behind, but that is what mystics do, as you, and others, are demonstrating, because you have followed the trail here.

On a related note I created this page on nepsis a while ago - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nepsis which consisted of the short entry of

Nepsis (or nipsis) is an important idea in Orthodox Christian theology, considered the hallmark of sanctity. Nepsis is a state of watchfulness or sobriety acquired following a long period of catharsis. Perhaps most associated with Orthodox monasticism, numerable references to nepsis are made in ''The Philokalia'' (the full title of ''The Philokalia'' being ''The Philokalia of the Niptic Fathers''). Parallels could likely be made between nepsis and Buddhist mindfulness, Islamic dhikr, and Jewish devekut.

Good work.  You are adding to the bread crumb trail.

At the present time I think the situation now is as good as it's going to be for mysticism. Except in the case of Mohammed who was a political saint, the properly religious usually live lives of poverty (or at least simplicity), nonrecognition, et al. I don't think they're necessarily oppressed, at least not these days - as for the most part people (and priests) are simply ignorant to the tenets of mysticism... even though, ironically, it lies at the core to their religion, and any understanding of religion without mysticism is devoid of substance.

I think this coming century might be a very interesting one, as the majority of people become atheistic. This might actually be a good thing, as those who stick with religion might be those that are properly religious, and not those that belong to said religion just because that was how they were raised (or because that's how you get ahead in the culture). In all, we mystics will still be around. =)

I have to say, though, that one of the things that upsets me is to hear about the persecutions of Sts. John and Theresa. I very sincerely hope the people who oppressed them got to enjoy especially hellish punishments for what they did.

Well, at least mystics are not being burned at the stake anymore.  I think just marginalizing them is mostly how mystics are now and have been marginalized.  Mostly all any institution has to do is just prevent us from publishing anything, or gaining a livelihood, and most of us will just expire before anyone hears from us.  In this way most mystics have passed away without leaving evidence of their existence.  We know the authenticity of any priest, or religion in its ability to recognize its mystics.  So far all of the religions of today have failed the test.