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From: laura@utcsstat.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: exoteric versus esoteric religions
Message-ID: <1617@utcsstat.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 7-Jan-84 08:52:41 EST
Article-I.D.: utcsstat.1617
Posted: Sat Jan  7 08:52:41 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 7-Jan-84 09:07:58 EST
Organization: U. of Toronto, Canada
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... or "Hey Rich Rosen! I think that I got it!".

Remeber a while back when i proposed that Rich Rosen use the 
mega-mouthful: "Authority centered religions founded on a
belief in a Supreme Being" or something like that? I believe
that i can better this. the final definition may require more
work, but what I believe Rich Rosen is objecting to is
Exoteric religions. I figure that the Esoteric ones don't
bother him. (( But he may tell me I am wrong... ))

I was looking through OPEN SECRETS by Walt Anderson, looking
for something else when I came across this. Since this book
does not have in its copyright notice "cannot copy part or
whole", but merely says that you can't put your own cover
on the whole deal (or copy the whole deal) an sell it I do
not feel that I am violating the copyright by quoting from it.

	Tibetan Buddhism has a great tradition of esoteric lore, of knowledge
	kept secret from the general public and passed on from teacher
	to student. [...] The existence of an esoteric tradition in
	a religion implies that it functions on different levels of
	meaning -- that it has outer forms, exoteric material for 
	people who are not able or ready to take in its secret content,
	and inner meanings for those who have been initiated.

		The exoteric material in a religion usually serves
	social or political purposes: It provides codes of morality
	to regulate behaviour, rituals to sacralize the transitions
	of individual life and the events of the year, a common
	store of beliefs that help people sense their connectedness
	to one another and their culture. The esoteric material is
	concerned with personal growth and the evolution of the mind.

	[...]

		(discussion of revivals in Gnosticism, Hasidism
	and an interest in the occult as symptoms of a society that
	is in search of an esoteric tradition)

	[...]

		(discussion of how even if you reveal the secrets of
	an esoteric tratdition, you have not really *revealed* them
	since they only work if you are ready for them -- thus
	an initiate, though perhaps not an "official" one.)

	The esoteric-exoteric distinction also involves morality.
	Every religion has its rules about how people are supposed
	to behave. Such codes of morality are usually exoteric,
	handed out as the word of God, meant to be obeyed (whether
	one understands their purpose or not) because they make
	society work. In the esoteric traditions, codes of morality
	are less important for the simple reason that the ultimate
	purpose of the spiritual effort is to attain a level of
	personal development at which morality is natural. It is
	discovered within oneself, and external authority is no longer
	necessary or meaningful. [...] (discussion of how this
	relates to Western psychology.)

So. Does it sound like what it was you were objecting to was
exoterica? i think so.

Laura Creighton
utzoo!utcsstat!laura