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Righto! Now to take the other side of the stick. Hard work for a Janus with only one face.
Firstly, consider using what you've learned on the Hoodoo path to find out where you ought to go. That's your most honed tool at the moment, so might as well use it, methinks!
Next, I'll just tell you a little about where I feel the GD fits, pro and con. It's very much a product of its time and place - the more you contextualise it in terms of the late 19th - early 20th century England the more sense it makes, really.
So, like any good Rosicrucian, it wears the dress of the country it travels in. Which in this case means it deals with a fair amount of Christianity.
At the time, this was a plus - as almost everyone for whom the system was designed WAS Christian - and it therefore was built to fit them. Nowadays, this is much less the case.
I went into the whole thing with no real reason to dislike Christianity, but a sort of low-level and unrealised prejudice against the whole concept - possibly from my social scenes overall contempt for the concept of religion full stop.
Said low-level contempt meant I found some elements really challenging to my preconceptions early on. I went into it expecting magic (of which there was plenty, but more on that another time) and got prayer - and biblical quotes. I had to spend some time really examining why and how I was relating to the whole concept of God, let alone Christ.
In the end, that was good work - and to be honest, I didn't (and don't) understand the symbology completely. There came a point where I just had to hurl myself off the cliff at speed and hope I'd land on the other side. I understood then where faith comes into the equation - because I didn't *really* believe in the allegorical value of Jesus or IHVH when my feet left the edge. And I certainly didn't believe in them literally.
Now, I feel much better about my choices. I understand myself better for having made the jump - and at no point did I entertain a "belief" beyond "well, I'll give it a shot and see if I keep getting results".
By the same token, I personally ended up in the GD due to heavy duty (to me) personal signs and portents that lead me here - you can probably safely trust yourself that if you keep doing magical work, whichever path is right for you will open up for you.
There are a myriad of reasons this is a good path for me right now - and none of them are necessarily valid for anyone but me.
So, why have any Christianity in there? Because (at least in my case, and despite my irreligious upbringing) all this symbology and import is built into my psyche by the simple act of being a pretty normal western born and raised lad. It works. And now I understand what it really means to me much better than I once did.
Finally, it may be Christ flavoured, but it's still heresy from the point of view of pretty much any Church. It's also not really a religion or a dogma. There's plenty of demon summoning and dealing with other Gods to get you burned at the stake.
Hope that ramble helps. Let me know if you'd like me to elucidate on any of it. |
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