Roman Catholicism Archives - The Light Invisible

In a previous essay, I described how Aleister Crowley’s (and, by extension, many modern magicians’) views on sexuality are theologically deficient. Crowley follows the course of modern Protestant thinkers like Ludwig Feuerbach in employing a univocal view of reality, in which words describing the properties of God mean the same thing when applied to created objects such as people or things, even if the degree meant is vastly different. This is opposed to an analogical view of reality (which is the normative position of Catholic Christianity), in which, since God is transcendent, human concepts like goodness or beauty can only ever analogously apply to God, and negative statements — God is not good, God is not beautiful — must be equally true.

The Magician from the Waite-Trinick Tarot

Notes on the Catechism’s Statements on Divination, Astrology, and Magic

By Nicholas Laccetti

On April 17, 2017

In Magic, Occultism, Roman Catholicism

Another set of notes I wrote a few years ago, this time on the Catechism of the Catholic Church’s statements on divination, astrology, and magic. I remembered these notes and decided to publish them here after spending the last couple of weeks thinking about the Christian doctrine of theosis and how it relates to the Western esoteric tradition (specifically the Golden Dawn tradition) — namely, as the West’s equivalent to the Eastern tradition of hesychasm.

Monasticism and Esotericism – A Symbiotic Relationship

By Nicholas Laccetti

On March 21, 2017

In History, Occultism, Roman Catholicism

The underground status of many esoteric orders, and the religious perspectives of many occultists today, are such that the notion of establishing relationships between the world of esoterica and the mainstream religious world is nonsensical at best, offensive at worst. Yes, many orders do have a religious arm or related esoteric faith that they themselves founded or absorbed — the Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica of O.T.O., the Ecclesia Gnostica Spiritualis of the Monastery of the Seven Rays/La Couleuvre Noire, the Liberal Catholic Church and the Theosophical Society, to give but a few examples. As detailed in a previous post, Dion Fortune’s Threefold Way of Western Esotericism especially recognizes the importance of a relationship between the Orange Ray of the Hermetic path and the Purple Ray of mystical devotion, and her own Guild of the Master Jesus’ place in the Society of the Inner Light modeled this understanding for the esoteric community.

St. Peter's Square in Vatican City, Rome.

On the Papal World-Tree, or, An Esoteric Meditation on the Papacy

By Nicholas Laccetti

On February 2, 2017

In History, Roman Catholicism, Theology

Originally posted as a part of my column, The Blooming Staff, on the Agora, the group blog of the Patheos Pagan Channel.

—

Next Sunday, a new show premieres on HBO — “The Young Pope.” The show stars Jude Law as an ultraconservative Archbishop of New York who is elected to the Papacy, and who embarks on a traditionalist mission reminiscent of Pope Benedict XVI’s, if Benedict had been a narcissistic New York chain-smoker with visionary dreams and an American nun played by Diane Keaton as his close advisor. Jude Law’s Pope is essentially the polar opposite of Pope Francis, and has more in common with the fictional Pope Hadrian VII, the main character of Frederick Rolfe’s 1904 decadent novel Hadrian the Seventh.

The Light Invisible

"The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light."

Category: Roman Catholicism

Magical Univocity and Misogyny: Crowley’s Sex Magick vs. Sacramental Sex

Notes on the Catechism’s Statements on Divination, Astrology, and Magic

Monasticism and Esotericism – A Symbiotic Relationship

On the Papal World-Tree, or, An Esoteric Meditation on the Papacy

Social

Subscribe

Categories

Archives

Links