The Totalitarian Potential of New Age Spirituality

[TheAlchemist]

This is a vital topic to consider as the deeper forms of spirituality gain traction at the collective level through increasing access to psychedelics and powerful spiritual techniques. This article goes along very well with Leo's series on cults. 

Feel free to engage and comment based on just the title, the excerpts, or the whole article:

https://metamoderna.org/the-totalitarian-potential-of-new-age-spirituality/

"Why then would I claim that New Age has the potential to be even more hellish than Gulag or Holocaust? Think about it: These relations involve your innermost ontological belief structures. They can make you believe that if you don’t follow suit, if you even think the wrong thought, you will be punished for a literal eternity of unbearable suffering. And they can make you believe that in full and earnest. That’s much, much more radical than making you think you’re a bad comrade or not a part of the master race. And they can make you believe that the fate of the entire cosmos, literally speaking, depends on your work with this and that inner purifica­tion, enlightenment, etc. And they can make you believe this or that person is literally God speaking and that nothing else has any relevan­ce compared to what they may be saying. And they can make you inti­mately feel that with every cell of your body and soul. It’s the Michelin Star Club of totalitarianism. It’s totalitarianism magna cum laude, extra everything; ketchup and mustard. Because it reaches into the depths of your soul and controls parts of you neither Stalin nor Hitler could reach. In theory, then, what crimes could that sort of power make you commit? And if you were invested in it, what would you be prepared to do to defend it from perceived attackers?" -Hanzi Freinacht

"We must see that spiritual insight and higher universal love are powerful futu­re attract­ors, but that they reside in the posthuman or transhuman realm of poten­tials, which means that we shouldn’t rush it. In this case, we must remain careful and conservative, as the sheer terror that can be unleashed under the auspices of a “metamodern totalitar­ianism” leaves a heavy ethical bur­den on us. Imagine a world where dictators control your soul and the con­struction of your social universe and have a thousand social, psycho­logical, chemical and technological tools to control the structure of your mind. That would be beyond nasty." -Hanzi Freinacht

Edited December 20, 2021 by TheAlchemist

[Carl-Richard]

New Age religion has the same problems as old religion, but spirituality has always been an individualistic pursuit. It's your job to get it, not to throw some book in someone else's face.

[Danioover9000]

@TheAlchemist

58 minutes ago, TheAlchemist said:

This is a vital topic to consider as the deeper forms of spirituality gain traction at the collective level through increasing access to psychedelics and powerful spiritual techniques. This article goes along very well with Leo's series on cults. 

Feel free to engage and comment based on just the title, the excerpts, or the whole article:

https://metamoderna.org/the-totalitarian-potential-of-new-age-spirituality/

"Why then would I claim that New Age has the potential to be even more hellish than Gulag or Holocaust? Think about it: These relations involve your innermost ontological belief structures. They can make you believe that if you don’t follow suit, if you even think the wrong thought, you will be punished for a literal eternity of unbearable suffering. And they can make you believe that in full and earnest. That’s much, much more radical than making you think you’re a bad comrade or not a part of the master race. And they can make you believe that the fate of the entire cosmos, literally speaking, depends on your work with this and that inner purifica­tion, enlightenment, etc. And they can make you believe this or that person is literally God speaking and that nothing else has any relevan­ce compared to what they may be saying. And they can make you inti­mately feel that with every cell of your body and soul. It’s the Michelin Star Club of totalitarianism. It’s totalitarianism magna cum laude, extra everything; ketchup and mustard. Because it reaches into the depths of your soul and controls parts of you neither Stalin nor Hitler could reach. In theory, then, what crimes could that sort of power make you commit? And if you were invested in it, what would you be prepared to do to defend it from perceived attackers?" -Hanzi Freinacht

"We must see that spiritual insight and higher universal love are powerful futu­re attract­ors, but that they reside in the posthuman or transhuman realm of poten­tials, which means that we shouldn’t rush it. In this case, we must remain careful and conservative, as the sheer terror that can be unleashed under the auspices of a “metamodern totalitar­ianism” leaves a heavy ethical bur­den on us. Imagine a world where dictators control your soul and the con­struction of your social universe and have a thousand social, psycho­logical, chemical and technological tools to control the structure of your mind. That would be beyond nasty." -Hanzi Freinacht

   It's not spot on, but great insight nonetheless. This is why a strong selfish ego, a matured one, is useful. 

[TheAlchemist]

1 hour ago, Carl-Richard said:

New Age religion has the same problems as old religion, but spirituality has always been an individualistic pursuit. It's your job to get it, not to throw some book in someone else's face.

The problem at the collective level still remains. How to prevent for example the stuff Leo talks about from being hijacked by someone as a tool for totalitarianism? 90% of people who practice "spirituality" don't do it quietly at home contemplating stuff independently. People want to belong to a group and have some big purpose to work towards. And wherever two or more people gather, there are people interested in hijacking that collective entity and its enthusiasm to feed their own ego. 

And if the group becomes attractive enough (meets enough human needs), and has an ingrained powerful incentive that causes people to "spread the word", it will become like a parasite trying to take over the individual and collective human psyche (the host). Cults are a small scale example, religions, belief systems and ideologies a larger scale example. Parasites.

I think a lot of the neo-advaita stuff for example can also be quite easily corrupted by power hungry egos to gaslight people at the deepest levels of their existence. These high states Leo talks about can easily be hijacked and forced into a premade framework of interpretation that feeds some belief system if they happen in a certain type of group context. Also spiral dynamics is an amazing tool for creating a new kind of pecking order if improperly interpreted. And improper interpretation is not an exception, it's the rule. Especially if the ideas are powerful enough to take hold in human minds at a larger scale.  

I think there are totally new kinds of risks in the modern world, with the easy access to the most potent spiritual teachings that have traditionally been kept secret, increasing access to totally new kinds of powerful psychedelics, strong tribal dynamics on the internet and the breakdown of a sense of shared fundamental truth in society. This will be a very difficult terrain to navigate for us a society. A solid grounding in epistemology is absolutely vital, but almost completely lacking. 

 

Edited December 20, 2021 by TheAlchemist

[Apparition of Jack]

How many New Age teachers talk about an eternal hell? Most of this sounds like hogwash.

Author just projecting his own fears of Christianity onto a generally more holistic and uplifting religion. Fucking lol.

[TheAlchemist]

1 hour ago, Danioover9000 said:

@TheAlchemist

   It's not spot on, but great insight nonetheless. This is why a strong selfish ego, a matured one, is useful. 

Yes. Along these lines is why I think people like Leo, Sadhguru, Rupert Spira and Eckhart Tolle with an authentic message are a necessary part of avoiding devolution and getting stuck in dogmatic thinking in the modern age. For the future transitions of humanity, it's no longer good enough for the mystics to withdraw in the caves, now they must come into the society and market themselves, make themselves and their ideas sexy, competing in the marketplace of (spiritual) ideas. Otherwise the more exploitative, manipulative and toxic version of spirituality take over our minds, individually and collectively. The mystics voice has usually been drowned out by the roaring massive machine of preaching spiritual dogma. Now we need a strong grounding in the introspective mystic path of spirituality, where we avoid collective madness and evolve past our prior limitations.

Edited December 20, 2021 by TheAlchemist

[TheAlchemist]

7 minutes ago, Apparition of Jack said:

How many New Age teachers talk about an eternal hell? Most of this sounds like hogwash.

Author just projecting his own fears of Christianity onto a generally more holistic and uplifting religion. Fucking lol.

That article and writer are not coming from a place of anti- new age, but point towards integrating the healthy parts of it while remaining aware of the potential traps. It's more about the extreme forms of new age spirituality that are popping up now in the form of cults and strong "us vs. them" narratives that are justified in new age terminology. And about how those ideas have potential to go viral and hijack the human mind Christianity or Atheism style, but potentially in an even darker and stronger way. 

Although I think the diversity of worldviews is something that guards us quite well from that in the modern world. Diversity typically increases resilience, whether it be in the natural environment, or in culture. So I'm not too worried about it, it's just something to be aware of and keep an eye on. 

[Carl-Richard]

18 hours ago, TheAlchemist said:

I think a lot of the neo-advaita stuff for example can also be quite easily corrupted by power hungry egos to gaslight people at the deepest levels of their existence

I understand the point, but I think this observation is less about New Age and more about ideology in general. 

All ideologies do this: 1. they are corrupted by power hungry egos, and 2. they touch people at the deepest levels of their existence. Western ideologies (modernism) are more similar to each other than the New Age (which stems more from the East). It's simply a matter of contrast. In other words, New Age is not necessarily more epistemologically infectious than other ideologies, but rather it sticks out in comparison to the relative homogeneity of the Western worldview.

We can instead reformulate the question and say that the Western worldview contains something which we would like to conserve (which is what metamodernism is about) and that a New Age religious uprising could endanger that project. I think this is the real drive behind Hanzi wanting to compare New Age to things like communism and fascism, because it highlights what is under threat, namely modernist values (democracy, progress, rationality).

[TheAlchemist]

@Carl-Richard makes sense. Good points 

[Carl-Richard]

19 minutes ago, TheAlchemist said:

@Carl-Richard makes sense. Good points 

With that said, I'm not trying to undermine the dark side of the New Age. I've been inside that world myself. Totalitarianism married with relativism is a two-headed beast.

[Leo Gura]

New Age is prone to cults for sure. But totalitarianism?? I dunno about that.

The simple solution to all this is to contemplate reality for yourself. Stop following others. Discover your own answers.

This is why I promote psychedelics. So you don't need to listen to any human for the deepest answers, not even me.

When people start joining spiritual herds, that's when devilry blossoms.

[Leo Gura]

16 hours ago, TheAlchemist said:

Imagine a world where dictators control your soul and the con­struction of your social universe and have a thousand social, psycho­logical, chemical and technological tools to control the structure of your mind. That would be beyond nasty." -Hanzi Freinacht

This is modern society, Lol. It's just all done under a materialist paradigm so people think it's normal.

[DocWatts]

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

This is modern society, Lol. It's just all done under a materialist paradigm so people think it's normal.

That's just generally going to be the case whatever the prevailing metaphysical paradigm is though, right?

That is, because the prevailing implicit paradigm is always going to be constructed to some degree to fit the needs of the society.

Industrialization needed an implicit materialist paradigm to get off the ground, in the same way that earlier societies needed implicit non-materialist paradigms to maintain and justify earlier hierarchical forms of social organization.

(That's not to say that materialist industrialism isn't also hierarchical, just that the prevailing meta-ideology co-evolves with societal structures. And in practice the two are interdependent).

Edited December 21, 2021 by DocWatts

[Carl-Richard]

4 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

New Age is prone to cults for sure. But totalitarianism?? I dunno about that.

You could say that cults display totalitarian tendencies, so just a large scale version of that. Still, the article has a lot of square peg action going on (forcefully jamming things into categories, primarily hypotheticals). A global mean Green will most likely never be a mean Red.

[Leo Gura]

23 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

You could say that cults display totalitarian tendencies, so just a large scale version of that.

Well, it's hard to draw a clear line between a cult and society at large.

[Carl-Richard]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

Well, it's hard to draw a clear line between a cult and society at large.

They're babushka dolls 

[Leo Gura]

6 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

They're babushka dolls 

Matryoshka dolls

[Jodistrict]

 I don’t think there will be any religious dogma again as totalitarian as Christianity was historically.  There is too much information available and awareness of competing systems. 

Edited December 22, 2021 by Jodistrict

[Ulax]

@TheAlchemist Good point.

I disagree, with the above user, that it has the same problems as old religion.

It is much less tarnished than old religions in teh cultural discourse, and is more easily perceivable as a non-religion by the masses.

And in the internet age this lack of tarnishing, and illusory ability make it potent for what OP says.

Edited December 23, 2021 by Ulax
",with the above user," added