It's Up To You...

So, here we are...I was watching a trailer for a movie titled "besouro" which means beetle.  I noticed that the American version of the trailer did not paint the same picture as the one done in Brazil.  So, that, of course sparked another homework session for me.  I noticed that they painted the "religion" mysticism in the American trailer as a religion of Africa. Sounds pretty positive right? I mean, we are the only ones with the melting pot, right? I had been exposed to mysticism during another homework session, so I knew that it was of the occult, particularly voodou practices. I think the movie trailer does a great job at showing you what I just said is true.  However, if I were in search of my roots,  I might get online and research mysticism to see how I can get connected to it, since it is from the motherland. This may sound over the top, but I see it everyday.

I see that since our ancestors were uprooted, from their native land and placed in captivity (slavery) we are forever on that quest to be reconnected to our culture. The truth is, we don't really know what that culture is for sure. The African countries, except for Ethiopia have all been colonized by the French or British...So surely, you must know that the culture changed. So, in my mind, we are in search of something that cannot be found in its original form. There are so many that have visited Africa and become initiated into the "traditionalist" culture (thinking that this represents Africa). This is not true. (I am being vague a bit because I don't want you to take my word for it, I want you to look it up)...There are lots of Christians in Africa (yay!). There are other religions there as well. However, we come back to the states and want to display "deep" knowledge by sharing these pagan rituals with others because that's how they do it in Africa. Not true.

Which brings me back to the states...so many times we become affiliated with stuff and in such a trusting way.  It is as if because a great number of people have done it, there couldn't possibly be anything wrong with it. It baffles me, how even I never asked ANY questions, even when things stuck out (as someone who was previously affiliated with a BGLO).  And its something about that word initiated...well, I'll digress and save it for another post. I am thankful to God that I was given the opportunity to be educated and delivered.  I will speak about this experience in another blog as well...

Back to my topic -- so here is what I found. I know it's wikipedia, but this is just the last site I viewed. I chose to post wikis version because it had it laid out in a nice chart. Any other site you go to will give you bits and pieces of each affiliate. See anything surprising on the list? I'll let you decide what you think. If you do decide to research it, just know that this link was a wiki on mysticism.

Mystical traditions

Examples of major traditions and philosophies with strong elements of mysticism are:

• Ascetism
• Bahá'í Faith
• Christian mysticism
• Evangelical Mysticism
• Daoism
• Divine Science
• Faith healing
• Freemasonry
• Ghost Dance (Nineteenth century Native American)
• Gnosticism (Pagan)
• Greek mythology
• Hesychasm (Eastern Orthodox)
• Kabbalah (Judaism)
  • Christian Kabbalah (Christian)
• Mystery religions
• Esoteric Christianity
• Theurgy
• National mysticism
• Near-death experience
• New Thought
• Occult
• Psychedelic experience
• Lexigrams
• Religious Science
• Religious Society of Friends
• Sant Mat
• Sufism (Islam)
• Taoism
• The Fourth Way
• The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception (Rosicrucian)
• Theistic Satanism
• Thelemic mysticism (Thelema)
• Tibetan Buddhism
• Transcendentalism (Unitarianism)
• Unity
• Vedanta (Hinduism)
• Wicca
• Yoga (Hinduism)
• Zen (Buddhism)