Page 1 of 1
LHP interpretations of Modern Religions/Cults
Posted: Wed Nov 13, 2013 8:51 pm
by Jiva
An idle thought that entered my mind while halfway asleep was: are there any LHP (or similar breakaway) interpretations of modern religions or cults? The only one I can think of is
The Process Church of the Final Judgement which originally broke away from Scientology. I don't really know much about them aside from the Wikipedia page and stuff like Current 93 and Sabbath Assembly lyrics.
Re: LHP interpretations of Modern Religions/Cults
Posted: Fri Nov 15, 2013 10:57 am
by Nefastos
By modern, I take you mean monotheistic religions? I'm mostly ignorant of their sects, although some neo-gnostic Christian sects might be taken as such - although they are more akin to New Age movement than Christian churches. Of the sects of Islam or Judaism I have heard (or paid attention to 
) little. Then there are those evangelical Christian sects that have gone a bit wild with their ecstatic practices, and wandered to astral thrill-seeking that is close to really astralism-emphasizing Left Hand Path. "Angels" of those ecstatics are clearly demons with just another name. But these groups are usually local & not openly LHP.
Outside the monotheistic religions, I just wondered about dugpas, with which I here mean those Tibetan Bönpo Buddhists which have taken most of the native shamanism into their practices. That merging of Buddhist doctrine with native shamanism was abhorrent to Blavatsky, who therefore started to use the name of dugpa as synonymous with the worst kind of morally perverted black magicians, wherefrom it leaked to New Age occultism - and to Twin Peaks. 
For I have met not just one but several extremely talented occultists or people who met with all the requirements of serious occultists, who have exactly that "dugpa"-kind of temperament, namely, who most easily & instinctually unite the shamanistic, kinetic, very physical form of spiritualism to those kinds of ethics of which the Buddhist philosophy consists of, including the fundamental idea of the cosmos as chaos (samsara) & reality as Void.
I can only take my hat off to these people who so easily can bring that very demanding aspect of being, corporeal body with its infinite magical possibilities, so close to the basic focus of their spiritual search. For I see both neo-shamanism & even the "standard" forms of Buddhism non-optimal for many occultists while practiced without their opposites. The former is a hard to grasp without opportunism nowadays, thinking about how culture-bound & nature-bound the role of an ancient shaman was; and the latter often seems to encourage secret pride (actually dualism/separatism) & like an esoteric nihilism in a person, my older self included. But when brought together, these aspects of shamanism & higher philosophy of Buddhism seem to form incredibly potent amalgam.
I'm unaware how many of the actual Tibetan dugpas are using this potential to its fullest & how many are acting like Blavatsky envisioned (probably not so many), but as an occidental seeker who's not so enstranged of physical aspects as sadly many - once again myself included - are, I think that kind of a modern Left Hand Path would be very beneficial indeed.
Re: LHP interpretations of Modern Religions/Cults
Posted: Tue Nov 19, 2013 3:46 am
by Jiva
I was thinking of defining modern as roughly 18th to 21st century rather than a specific type of religion. Most of what I could think of was as you described: Christian practices that adopt ecstatic practices or simply incorporate Theosophical beleifs into their teachings. My thoughts keep returning to the Thuggee cult in India and also the early Vory v Zakone in Russia as mental and physical revolts against he status quo that necessarily involved some religious components, but then reliable information is incredibly difficult to find due to contemporary and current sensationalism.
I actually started reading about the Bönpo when I was thinking about studying the Ahnenerbe at university. Coincidently this was about the time I discovered
Phurpa. Ultimately I decided to stop this line of investigation basically because my German is terrible
. I also decided to leave the Bönpo alone as well due to not really understanding enough about “traditional” Buddhist beliefs, coupled with the massive ranges of historical opinion on the subject, much of which is clearly mythologised to some degree.