Tradition from last Thursday

One of the things that I worry about is the idea that older is better in occultism. And preferably old is best when it traces back to Moses. Hence, the whole idea of lineage, and the "Only True LVX Order."

The problem is with this is that ideas, which are fuel for the mind, and symbols, which are food for the soul, have limited shelf-lives, just like food for the body does. Some of the ideas and symbols used by Big Name Orders are as wholesome as the cans of survivor rations that are stored in my grandfather's fallout shelter. I am not willing to stick beef stew canned in 1961 into my mouth; why would I consider putting ideas and symbols such as Atlantis into my head and heart?

At one time, Atlantis was an useful symbol. Plato created it, probably basing its mythical disappearance on a real event, and used it as a prop for his idea of the Philosopher-King. For those who are unaware of his ideas and have no idea what he wrote in another of his works, The Republic, he thought that some people were more qualified to rule than others and that they should use force to remain in power.

Sounds a little like the ideas that have led to Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and Jonestown, doesn't it?

His fiction of Atlantis was ignored for several centuries until the New World started to be explored when it gained a new purpose. It was a way to explain how animals and plants could be common to both the New World and the Old World despite a large ocean between them. Today, we know more about the land/ice bridge and no longer have any need of the theory.

But some occultists refuse to give it up. It is old; it has lineage, and it is more romantic than the theories that someone came up with last Thursday.

According to the lineage crowd if an idea can be traced to its source, like maybe Pat Zalewski, or did not have the kiss of approval by a Philosopher-King, then it is useless, untrue, and everyone should be forced into a better Order (today, the legal system is the force favored) with older and better ideas; there you will be told who is telling the truth and who is not, what to think and why to think it.

It is a perfect world based on a perfect idea carried down though time by a perfect tradition and taught by perfect officers. Perfect, that is, if you are a sheep. As for myself, I am a goat; and I am going to take a look at the idea from last Thursday and see if it is better.