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Dear Jeffery,
You wrote about the splintering of the
church:
'That splintering, though, has led to a loss of
the experience of transcendence that comes with
belonging to something/someone bigger than the
self.'
I don't think you are saying that by belonging
to a group, a transcendent experience is available
that is not available by not belonging to a group.
If that were the case, transcendent experiences
would be available every time one went to a
football match as that is a shared group
activity.
I think that what you mean is that by belonging
to the Catholic Church, transcendent experiences
are available that will not be available once
splintering occurs.
My own feeling is that whatever you do or don't
belong to is irrelevant because ones spiritual
journey (whatever that is) is an intensely and
unbelievable unique and personal experience that
happens completely internally despite or in spite
of outside influences.
I personally feel that whether one decides to
hang ones hat at the door of a group, be that the
church or a cult, or if one goes it alone, if ones
commitment to oneself is high, growth or change
will happen, if ones commitment to oneself is
superficial, nothing will happen.
What I am saying is that to me membership of any
external community is less important than ones
commitment to ones own growth and that transcendent
experiences are 100% internal and if they occur,
they occur because of ones internal work not ones
group.
This point is critical because when people join
the cult, they are hughly motivated and put a lot
of work into themselves. They then have experiences
that may be transcendent. The cult then claims to
be responsible for those experiences and in a
superficial way it is because it motivated them to
work on themselves. Unfortunately, the cult then
uses the experiences as a tool to bind the
individual to itself. It says 'see, I told you,
this is my gift, stay with me and I will give you
more'. In fact this point is the central marketing
tool of the cult. Its called loyalty marketing. It
is cheaper to market to existing clients then to go
and find new ones.
In fact the real resonsibility for having the
experiences lies with the people who put in the
effort for themselves. What matters is that
whatever internal work they did on themselves would
lead to growth, no matter what group they belong to
or if they belong to no group at all.
M used to say that hhis path was quicker, it was
the direct route to the destination, no dead ends,
no forks in the road, no bends and twists. In fact
every group makes the same claim (they could hardly
do otherwise). As I keep saying here, to me the
path is individual and progress comes from ones own
effort and nothing else.
I wonder whether joining a group actually slows
ones spiritual growth by introducing extraneous
conceptual material that distracts the individual
from her efforts.
However, I can see how the Catholic Church has
stood the test of time probably because it does
provide enough space for the internal spiritual
needs of many people to manifest.
I suspect that M and K will slowly fade away as
the limited space they provide people for their
internal spiritual growth becomes apparent to each
individual.
I am sorry to lump the Catholic Church - a great
institution that is a cornerstone of Western
thought, in with a cult but from the point of view
of the individual, to me both are external supports
(of differing quality), for a process that is 101%
internal and individual and unique. No external
support can totally satisfy the needs of this
internal process.
Thanks for your thought provoking message.
Mark N
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