Why Esoteric Philosophy is Vital To Our Society, Part One
What is Esoteric Philosophy and Why Don’t We Care About It
Welcome to the three-part analysis of Why Esoteric Philosophy is Vital To Our Society. This is Part I of III. You can find Part II here and Part III here.
Introduction
I’ve been writing on Substack for the past year, and while I’ve experienced some growth, I’m looking to increase my growth – it’s somewhat of a project for me. So while I look around at other ways to improve visibility, I’ve had to analyze the work I put out on my site.
If I were to classify all that I write about, I would categorize my work as “spiritual.” The rationale for classifying my page as such is that I implore many spiritual practices and themes into my work. Whether it’s about productivity or self-development, I try to tie it back to the topic’s spiritual and mental aspects. This focus on spirituality, on the mental, is why I would classify my work as such – but I can’t say it’s one hundred percent spiritual. Mainly due to the alchemic topics I discuss.
These topics may not be what others would tie to spirituality, and in actuality, they may be seen as somewhat “occult.” So if I were to take an accurate view of my substack between the spiritual and the occult themes I write about, I would say that my work can be classified as “esoteric” – hence my members-only “esoteric wisdom” section.
However, as I look to grow my esoteric substack, I’ve come to see that there is little interest in topics like these. For one, I think that is by design which we will address in this article, but for two, I propose we’ve all been drawn to esoteric themes, but due to the effect of number one, “the design,” we haven’t looked deep enough into it.
And so today, my goal is to show why we need to look closer into the esoteric, specifically, the esoteric philosophy of things.
Within this three-part article, the reader will learn the following:
What is Esoteric Philosophy?
Why Don’t We Care About the Esoteric
Examples of The Esoteric Philosophy Applied
Why Esoteric Philosophers Are Needed.
Defining Esoteric Philosophy
In my quest to optimize my substack, I searched for other esoteric publications and came across
by Alex Sachon.If these topics interest you, or if this article piques your interest in discussions like these, I suggest you follow The Wisdom Tradition.
The insights I’ve received this week alone have been phenomenal and will heavily influence this work and potential others as well.
In fact, the term “Esoteric Philosophy” comes from his work and is known as “ancient wisdom teachings.”
I would make a slight adjustment and refer to it as “hidden ancient wisdom teachings,” and here is where we see the first example of what I refer to when I state individuals are drawn to the topic but don’t go deep enough. Before I touch on the philosophical aspect of things, I’d like to address the word “esoteric.”
Esoteric is synonymous with the word “occult,” and the phrase occult already raises red flags in the minds of most who read that term. We’ll address why this is, but looking at the words by themselves, “esoteric” and “occult,” you can already see a “warning” or “barrier” of sorts to this. Ironically, the word “occult” simply means hidden – and due to the perception that has been placed around the term “occult,” we’ve demonized anything associated with it. However, it simply means hidden.
If we muster up the courage to simply inquire what “esoteric philosophy” is about, we can see that it merely means “hidden philosophy.” Once we’ve chipped away at this mental roadblock, we can now see that “esoteric philosophy” can be referred to as how I see it, which is, hidden ancient wisdom teachings. That’s simply it. Now that we’ve addressed the esoteric side of things let’s now focus on the philosophy aspect, which we can view as “ancient wisdom teachings.”
If we look at the phrase “ancient wisdom teachings,” one of the first things that comes to mind is the practice of stoicism. I was introduced to stoicism a few years back as the philosophy seemed to enter the public zeitgeist around that time.
I read Ryan Holiday’s book, Ego is the Enemy, completed his 30-day ego challenge, and immersed myself in the philosophy.
I want to say around this time, Jordan Peterson was also brewing in the public consciousness, so there was somewhat of a revival around “ancient wisdom,” with stoicism leading the charge. And for a very good reason at that.
If you’re not familiar with stoicism, the core tenant is essentially, you cannot control what happens to you; but you can control how you react to what happens to you. This is a powerful concept, and while very simple, it is quite impactful. Stoicism also implores one to think about life objectively, without the judgment of emotion to sway you, and reflect upon the possibility of death.
The phrase “memento mori” is associated with stoicism as it begs one to think seriously about their life and how they would like to live it, with death in the picture.
This exercise should make one evaluate their life to ask if they are happy with their life or if any changes are warranted.
These are but some of the lessons learned in the ancient wisdom of stoicism.
So we can see how one form of ancient wisdom teachings, stoicism, is widely received, yet, another form of ancient wisdom teachings, esoteric philosophy is not – which may be due to it being hidden or the roadblocks put up in front of it. Now that we’ve set the stage for what esoteric philosophy is, and before we dive into why individuals may not care for the esoteric, I’d love to leave you all with this beautiful quote from Alex on what philosophy is and why we need to ensure we are familiar with all aspects of philosophy, even the hidden realms of it:
“Philosophy is ultimately about preparing the individual to be a useful instrument in the actualization of the Divine Plan…putting the mind and emotions in order through reason and discipline.”
Why Don’t We Care About The Esoteric
Asking this question alone makes one really examine their world, the information given to them, and overall the perspective they have of reality. When I ask this question of society, two things come to mind. The first is the negative perception of the topic. The second is the lack of interest in the subject.
To start with the negative perception surrounding the topic, we’ve touched on this so far in this article. We’ve touched on the word “esoteric” being synonymous with the word “occult,” and nine out of ten times, this invokes a mental image of “dark,” “satanic,” and “evil.” This is the effect of a very effective propaganda technique that we will briefly touch on here, and to do this, we must see the role that religion plays in this.
An excellent place to start our analysis of religion is with my article, “The Black Man’s Guide To Reality, Part One.”
The purpose of this article is to put the reader in the lens of the early Africans to show how they communicated with God prior to the written word of the Bible.
Another purpose of the article is to show the reader how the Bible disappears for about 600 years, only to reappear from the hands of the Roman Empire.
The purpose of this fact within the article is two-fold; for one, to add a historical bit of information that most readers probably did not know about the Bible, but two, to address the naivete that may persist in grasping that the Bible was manipulated for political and territorial gain.
In short, religion was weaponized.
I dive into this deeper in the latter chapters of my upcoming book and also in the sections of my Udemy course, but the takeaway here is that religion, specifically Christianity, was monopolized to serve as the only pathway to this innate, inner yearning, that our soul longs for.
Anything other than Christianity that attempted to enlighten the reader about their place in the cosmos, their soul purpose, and more was banned, shunned, and destroyed.
Not only do we have the Dark Ages that reflected this, but also the colonization of the world under British Rule and how it destroyed all other cultures of spirituality.
All in all, the study of any topics that attempted to discuss the role of the soul and its place in reality was banned and ultimately driven underground, or in other words, hidden.
Now the Dark Ages did go on for centuries, and even after the period was over, the effect it left still remained. Yes, some topics did become “revealed,” but for the most part, the majority of these topics stayed in the dark. So as the majority of individuals today have been influenced somehow by Christianity, in some shape or form, these topics that are outside Christianity are not touched on. This is the first reason why individuals are not interested in the esoteric.
The second reason why individuals are not interested in the esoteric can be tied to Christianity, but it’s more accurate to tie it to a lack of spirituality and, even more specifically, to a lack of philosophy.
The reason why I would blame Christianity for this, even though early students of the esoteric were devout Christians, would be due to the lackadaisical nature that modern Christianity presents itself with.
When I say modern, I will refer to the years of 2010 and beyond because, as a former Christian, I’ve seen the principles of the faith deteriorate over time.
Growing up as a Christian, the goal was to live a life modeled after Christ; however, in modern times, it appears that there is no goal for the faith.
Once I’ve accepted Christ “as my savior,” and I simply “love everyone,” then the spirituality box has been checked.
However, most modern Christians often forget how Jesus destroyed the Temple due to corruption. The need for action, besides the “love everyone” piece, often gets left out of the modern Christian walk.
The connection that spirituality has to philosophy is “the walk.” Spirituality, philosophy, is a walk that one takes daily; to live a life, to take action, that is in alignment with a Divine plan.
By following a modern faith that’s lost its luster, you “check the spiritual box,” but there is no walk.
And for those who are not religious, there’s a walk, a philosophical one, but there’s no connection to “a Divine plan.”
Similar to religion, you are taking the proper steps to strengthen your character, but that’s only half the battle.
And so we’re seeing when it comes to understanding the mysteries of these complex topics, spirituality, and philosophy, we’re only scratching the surface.
Between the first distraction of weaponizing these topics as evil and then providing the masses with mental replacements to prevent further exploration of these topics, the masses don’t look any deeper into the esoteric. Religion and philosophy check the box, and they can go on about their every day.
In the following sections, I will address why we need to dive deeper to further understand our reality, but before I do that, I’d like to share some examples of what applying esoteric philosophy to our reality looks like. Furthermore, at this point in the article, we’ve come upon a new definition for “esoteric philosophy.”
Esoteric Philosophy simply means hidden ancient wisdom teachings that teach us how to walk according to the Divine plan.
This concludes Part I of Why Esoteric Philosophy is Vital To Our Society. You can find Part II here and Part III here.
https://blog-en.theplanetarysystem.org/2024/01/05/the-hierarchy/ I've been gobbling up your words like a pacman game LOL! I think you mentioned Shambala somewhere in your writings and musings.