Can we talk about how ancient religions had way more imagination than current ones...

Can we talk about how ancient religions had way more imagination than current ones? How and why did religions get dumbed down? Here's the Kabbalah's Tree of Life, an ancient Jew understanding of the universe

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>ancient
it dates back to the medieval period, younger than christianity and islam

the kabbalah's translations are wrong. They go God (souls) divine (rinnegans) life (psychology) atomic power (infinite strength) ifnite luck (x=xe_^) turned into a natural law of a person's body, ice (colder than 0 farenheit as a constant of the structure) and son on.

Every religion has an exoteric and an esoteric side. They keep things to themselves you know.

>kabbalah's translations are wrong
Wait, what exactly are they translating?

>Here's the Kabbalah's Tree of Life, an ancient Jew understanding
The Tree of Life is comparatively recent in terms of visualizing the Sephira.
In the Zohar it was the "anatomy of the body of God" and before that they were visualized as a series of concentric spheres or sometimes a geometric solid.

Sephira as a concept are probably older than 300 BCE it's just that this form is recent.

The form of the third God, The Sword

You're gonna need to be more clear.

God's old body

I said more clear, not less clear.

As far as I understand Kabbalah, there is only one god with one body. The designation of parts don't actually need translated because they're clearly in their native Hebrew already.

As far as I know, there is no term that equates to "sword" (חֶרֶב) used in the Kabbalah, other than an instrument of a Tzadikim's defense of God.

This.Also such things are still expanded upon if OP looks in the right places. Divine truth is a living tradition.

read the illiads for how bodies work

That looks like the commedia del Arte character hierarchy chart

>illiads
What the fuck does this have to do with Kabbalah? Are you just posting nonsensical BS for funsies or what?

...

>imagination
I see what you did there

In religions, imagination is an important vehicle for meditation. idk what you think OP did, or even if OP thought he did, but imagination is indeed a proper term in this context.

>no real insights
>they were just imagining things

Imagination is an act. The act of imagining something. It has nothing to do with something being "real" or "fake" and meditation involves the imagination. What's hard to understand about this?

>implying I wasn't forcing an implication contrary to my own beliefs to promote your defense of my own beliefs

I love that they look the same.
I look forward to a movie or novel based on this similarity.

>Dan Brown's "The Shakespeare Code" with forward penned by the late Umberto Eco.

>How and why did religions get dumbed down?

Too much dicksucking of tradition.

You can't create a new interpretation without hordes of purists getting up your ass about it. As a result, even if you have something really original, the purists will tear it apart because the doctrine doesn't conform to concepts that were in operation centuries ago and thus it's wrong and isn't operational.

I will use modern Western Esotericism as an example, where the concept of tradition is important because the more (((((((((ancient))))))))) your material it, the more legitimate it is, therefore if what you think of the world and the practices you do do not have antecedents in the ancient past, you're a fake.

Practical example:: go to /omg/ on /x/ and say you worship Kek. Check your timer at how quick you get the response that what you do is inauthentic because you have insufficient data about the Ogdoad to make "proper" worship. Another thing you can try with them is to say that you devised your own modern "hermetic" system. Observe how quickly local occult authorities will denounce by questioning in what way it's rooted in Egyptian Hermetic Texts. Here's your answer why there's little imagination in religions everywhere right now.

As a historical example of a highly imaginative religion and the backlash it got for originality, check Kenneth Grant. Grant combined in his system Western Esotericism of thelemic variety with Lovecraftian deities, UFOs, and a original spin on the idea of qliphoth, and often blended fiction with reality in his books, As expected Grant wasn't received very well in the occult community, because of Lovecraft and blending fact with fiction (occultism is serious business, after all), and because of what he did with the qliphoth (ask this guy about it), and forgot that giving and interpreting old concepts in new ways is anathema in occultism.

UH OH....

>go to /omg/ on /x/ and say you worship Kek
Never once has anyone claiming to be a Kekite posited anything more sophisticated of a religion than "fap on sigils and shitpost for dubs". Excuse me for finding this to be an uninspired approach to theurgy, evocation, or invocation.

>you devised your own modern "hermetic" system.
Some of these are pretty good but you're conflating a dislike for abject New Age trash like Kybalion for a dislike of anything modern. I like a LOT of modern materials. Provided they have an internal and external logical consistency that appears at least theoretically do what it says on the tin.

>Kenneth Grant
His first two Typhonian trilogies are actually really good if dodgy in spots. I've never said otherwise nor have the /omg/ regulars so I dunno why we're dragging /omg/ into this.

>and because of what he did with the qliphoth (ask this guy (You) about it)
youtube.com/watch?v=a43kowi2ncI

>old in new ways is anathema
No, quite the contrary, I and my compatriots welcome change. Just don't be offended when someone who works on Actual Changes says "Hey mate I dunno" or "This [thing] sorta sucks".

What's a good starting place for learning about Kabbalah?

That REALLY depends on what you want.

If you want Hermetic Kabbalah you can't go wrong with Israel Regardie's Tree of Life or Garden of Pomegranates.

If you want that hardcore Hebrew shit you need David Chaim Smith and Aryeh Kaplan for practical stuff and Scholem for theory and introductory history (though desu Kaplan's good for that too).

What do you think of Alan Moore's Promethea as an approach?

>"Tradition is pretty overrated. I mean if people stick with eternal truths for thousands over large distances and time periods what's the point? It's like stagnation or whatever. It really gets in my craw because I can't just express myself and my opinions.

user. The Ogdoad shows up elsewhere. You were just too low IQ to notice.

I keep saying Arum Solis and/or some early GD scripts would be a good place to start on a Kekite system with some (nondualist) transcendental teeth given that the original materials were old when the Coffin Texts were etched, but most folks are unable to get past me saying "your dubs are stale" to listen.

Thanks for this post. The wonderful juxtaposition caused me to chuckle.