Thread by @forthrighter

Most esoteric systems & philosophy are expressible as a set of mappings. Concretes ("fire") are mapped into abstracts ("doctrine")

Relations between concretes stand in, or speak obliquely about relationships between abstracts

Plato's Cave:

in the Christian Trinity, the concretes are things like Father and Son, which is not literally meant

"Actual illustration is an exercise in futility"

Systems are not always so explicit in this mapping but sometimes they are. "Tree", "Crown", "Pillars", etc.

Mid left text, "Astrological Associations", there are mappings *between* systems too

One of the wildest and most involved of these I've seen is the "Occult Anatomy of Man"

Which is, uh, fairly involved to say the least in its correspondences between concretes (parts of the body) and abstracts (various occult, astrological, and other symbols/associations)

note that often the referent abstracts (things concretes refer to) may themselves be symbols standing for something else. In occult anatomy of man, a thing might stand for "astrological mercury" which is just an invitation to another level of symbolic mapping

some systems build up a library of symbols, and lots and lots of mappings with layers of concretes (spring, summer, stars in the sky) and abstracts (friendship, pleasure)

here, astrology

If you build up an entire system of symbols within some tradition, this enables a new form of abstract communication beyond words, which I sorta think of as "symbolic language"

This game is very very old. As old as humans. Once you know how to look for it, it's everywhere.

Whether you know it or not, you already know how to read some kinds of symbolic language! (That's why it's so popular/powerful: transcending words, still legible)

this type of human communication is lousy for analytical chemistry or mechanical engineering, but it excels in certain other areas that are critical to humanity. That's why it's been around forever and always will be

back to symbolic mapping, because references are unstable, this causes many of the failure modes of esoteric systems and religions you would probably recognize

You see, the symbol/sign just isn't the thing itself, it's just a pale stand-in

Christian trinitarians who refer to the "father" and the "son" do not literally mean father (shared DNA, helped raise a boy) it is an allusion to the type of relationship

but obv if you get too wrapped up in the literal father/son connection, you'll likely go the wrong way

what'll really bake your noodle is the realization that if the mappings are different, or conflict, or are multi-valent, the system can still work. A mapping system needs to be consistent, but not necessarily coherent in order to "work" as we need it to

this will probably anger partisans but this last point here imho takes off the table questions of who is "right" and "wrong" in symbolic interpretation or religious endeavors, and why ecumenicalism is so important to me

these systems are all exploring the same ineffable space using the same flawed human communication scheme

the map is not the territory, so it's to be patient with criticisms like "your topo map is wrong, this street map is right"

We only have but so many ways to get real facts into the brain. Only so many ways to create hard, concrete references that everyone can verify for themselves. And hence a limited vocabulary we can map onto for communication with others

Religion=good/bad is too simple, don't go for it. I would prefer to separate and steelman their esoteric context, while being open at all times to analyzing and critiquing the exoteric methods.

God doesn't need silver candlesticks but the church might

Bonus examples of symbolic language; the Masonic Chart (1876) and a 1st degree tracing board

These make sense to #Freemasons but not to others, as the system is internally coherent & consistent