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*rubs face* Okay. My grandmother, who is staunchly catholic, has been having a lot of trouble lately because she's spent the past couple of years on a reading spree through the weird end of religious self-help books, we think originally in search of natural medicines because she's mildly obsessed about those. But apparently in the past couple of weeks she's been reading, and subsequently espousing, several books on hermeticism. As in magic. As in the occult, the shit that was driven underground by the Christian Church and re-emerged as part and parcel with things like Rosicrucianism and the Freemasons.
I mean, not knocking hermeticism as a philosophy or anything, but Nan's really, extremely, staunchly, raised-in-1950s-Ireland Catholic. Half a step shy of creationism. This is not ... not exactly the kind of thing we ever thought we'd end up hearing from her?
And the thing is, I don't think she actually knows what it is. In that, if you ask her separately if she believes in magic, or alchemy, or anything like that, she immediately says a categoric no. The occult is the tool of the Devil. How ... how did she end up reconciling that with a school of thought that puts alchemy, theurgy and astrology as the three parts of the wisdom of the universe? The stuff is straight up magic. It's the original European occultism. How ... how did she wind up there while still maintaining baseline Catholicism?
I'm just ... really confused. And, ah, slightly worried that Nan might be the kind of person who in all innocence ends up joining a cult -_-; It's not the philosophies or ideas themselves. It's just the way she ... How is she putting these things together in her head? I'm half convinced they all sound sort of the same to her? That anything that has a singular deity at the top of the food chain translates to 'catholic' in her head? But, I mean, she won't have with Protestantism. She won't have with Islam. But hermeticism is fine?
Of all the things we ever thought we'd hear from her, this was about zero on the list, is what I'm saying. *shakes head* Really, really confused, over here.
I mean, not knocking hermeticism as a philosophy or anything, but Nan's really, extremely, staunchly, raised-in-1950s-Ireland Catholic. Half a step shy of creationism. This is not ... not exactly the kind of thing we ever thought we'd end up hearing from her?
And the thing is, I don't think she actually knows what it is. In that, if you ask her separately if she believes in magic, or alchemy, or anything like that, she immediately says a categoric no. The occult is the tool of the Devil. How ... how did she end up reconciling that with a school of thought that puts alchemy, theurgy and astrology as the three parts of the wisdom of the universe? The stuff is straight up magic. It's the original European occultism. How ... how did she wind up there while still maintaining baseline Catholicism?
I'm just ... really confused. And, ah, slightly worried that Nan might be the kind of person who in all innocence ends up joining a cult -_-; It's not the philosophies or ideas themselves. It's just the way she ... How is she putting these things together in her head? I'm half convinced they all sound sort of the same to her? That anything that has a singular deity at the top of the food chain translates to 'catholic' in her head? But, I mean, she won't have with Protestantism. She won't have with Islam. But hermeticism is fine?
Of all the things we ever thought we'd hear from her, this was about zero on the list, is what I'm saying. *shakes head* Really, really confused, over here.
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