Tract 3: The Three Faiths That Exists Within & Across Religions

We categorize all religions into three core faith archetypes that humans intuitively gravitate towards:

* Polytheism - Characterized by elaborate cosmologies, supernatural forces representing nature, communication with divine entities, and magic.

* Mysticism - The belief in an interconnected divine substrate behind reality that can be accessed through altered states to reveal hidden truths.

* Monotheism - Worship of an ineffable god through reason and rules, while seeking to expand human potential.

We argue that when combined, mysticism subsumes monotheism, while polytheism retains addictive allure. Our goal is to disentangle them into a "spiral" denomination that uplifts human potential across Abrahamic faiths.

Tract 3: The Three Faiths That Exists Within & Across Religions

I love watching videos analyzing and criticizing our project to create a new religion for our family. The most common complaint is just to point out the audacity of a project like this. After all, how often is a new religious system really founded?

The obvious reply to this is how often does a person really try to create a new theological structure not dedicated to self glorification or the extraction of resources from others? Our motivation for this endeavor is to create something to protect our children in this cultural sand storm which is ripping the flesh from the traditional cultural systems. If we can’t create a high fidelity system for intergenerational cultural transfer that synergises with science and plurality I am throwing my kids into the sandstorm with only borrowed rags to protect them. Our only motivation for sharing these ideas is to create enough of a community that my kids can build on this culture and improve it themselves.

However, I also think calling this a, “a religion,” is a bit of a stretch and that it is more like a new denomination similar to Lutheranism or Calvinism—in that we have no special connection to divine knowledge and are just applying a new interpretation of old texts. The only odd thing about it is this denomination is applicable across the Abrahamic Faith systems—allowing for a Jew to hold it and stay Jewish or a Christian to hold it and stay Christian.

Finally, calling it “new” is also quite a stretch. The ideas we have on theology are ideas that lots of people are having right now. One of the most common comments on our tract videos is, “this is what I have been thinking for ages.” So to say we came up with these ideas is a bit like saying Darwin discovered evolution when in truth the idea of evolution was had by a collection of individuals around the same time and was merely attributed to Darwin because we as society love a simple story.

In fact to claim these ideas are new is also an absurd claim given that we have repeatedly pointed towards Winwood Reade who developed a near identical cosmological and theological system hundreds of years ago. In fact I would go further and say that there have only ever been three faith systems in the world—all we are doing is disentangling those systems which have become intertwined in many of the world's major religions.

The three religious systems are:

* Polytheism is characterized by:

* Elaborate just so stories explaining natural phenomena

* Intricate complicated cosmologies filled with layers and interacting parts

* An entire zoo of supernatural forces that often has an internal caste system and roles

* Divine entities that combine animal and human futures or have extra body parts, that represent places / things in our world (or that’s body parts do), and stories about how these entities interacted in history

* Divine entities that interact with man (making deals and having conversations)

* Include either reincarnation after death, afterlifes where people fade away, or afterlifes where people repeat something they did in life

* Lean heavily on magical thinking like numerology and sympathetic magic.

* These are Gods that you look at, you can talk to, and you can have sex with

* The core value of these systems is duty

* Mysticism is characterized by:

* Systems that believe there to be some supernatural or ultra natural phenomenon behind the fabric of reality—or that is the real fabric of reality—which connects all things. This phenomenon is identified as God. (God is essentially a sentient medium of substrate.)

* The belief that the goal of humanity is to reconnect with this ultra-reality or thing behind the nature of reality. At this point reality as we understand it either ends or merges with this thing.

* The belief that the divine can be contacted or otherwise interacted with by pushing all thoughts from one's mind or by only thinking about it.

* Practices that involve actions and rituals like chanting, spinning, narcotics, taking odd poses, and sleep deprivation which cause altered states of consciousness.

* The belief that experiences had in altered states of consciousness contain more information about the true nature of reality

* The belief that reality does not exist as we perceive it and is in part an illusion.

* The belief that emotional states hold some intrinsic supernatural value (e.g. “God is love”) and the elevation of emotional states over logic

* Self indulgent asceticism

* After he dies man's soul is subsumed by or rejoins this ultra-reality or thing behind reality

* This is a Divine that when you look at represents a cognition you, and all reality, are an aspect of

* The core value of these systems is harmony

* Monotheism is characterized by:

* A distinct God which is totally ineffable to the human mind and which has sovereignty over us.

* Attempting to know this God or worship him through an earthly intermediary is a sin (idolatry).

* God that interacts with man through logic, rules, and order. Logic is always considered superior to emotions as a tool for determining the will of the divine in these systems.

* After he dies man faces the consequences of his actions on earth for all eternity.

* A prohibition against engaging in supernatural arts, attempting to take shortcuts to God, and the belief that reason is the only path to God.

* A belief that man has fallen and is wretched in contrast to our potentiality. As well as a commandment to work to expand that potentiality through self discipline, mental order, austerity, and personal industry. To be happy with yourself as you are is a sin.

* This is a God that if you look at you die—it is so much greater than man to aspire to interact with it directly is beyond foolish.

* The core value of these systems is an expansion of human potentiality

While most of the world religions heavily point to one of these three faith paths as the, “true” one—all of the distinct religions that exist on earth today are woven from these three core human faiths. As such most of the world's religions can be used to pray to any one of the three human faiths. For example, it is perfectly possible for a Catholic to, through a system of saints and magical fetishes, live a completely polytheistic life. At the same time it is possible for a Jew or Muslim to dedicate themselves entirely to the Mystic faith as can be seen in the writings of many Kabalists and Sufis. On the other hand it is possible for a Budist or a Hindu to live a totally monotheistic life.

There have been many efforts to find commonality and communion between religious traditions over the past couple centuries whether it is the Bahia, John Vervaeke’s the Meaning Crisis, or the Seekers of Unity Channel. All of these efforts have either tried to unite man around the Mystical conception of the divine or combined all three of these conceptions. These conceptions of the divine are fundamentally incompa