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Restorationist Christianity (plus Alan Watts, Ken Wilber, & Nasr) worked for me, to initially get traction and break through to re-create and re-birth esoteric gnosis.
I knew little Greek Antiquity at the time, other than university classes in Ancient History and traces in Wilber.
I felt robbed of the religious mythology imagery that Catholicism (and Orthodox Christianity) contains.
Christianity is a living tradition, though that living tradition is so extremely, exclusively exoteric, you have to counter that tradition in order to be lifted up by — or, as much, in spite of — that modern exoteric “living [zombie] tradition”.
A broad Orth/ Cath/ Prot/ Restorationist/ Gnostic Christianity could be a restored almost-living tradition that includes the higher, esoteric level/layer of religion.
Restorationist Christianity is intensively, exclusively Bible-only, without later Catholicism or Protestant creedalism, with worship liturgy strictly per the New Testament.
By ‘Gnostic Christianity’, I mean Valentinian Gnostics’ esoteric Christianity per Elaine Pagels’ first 3 books, on Gnostic themes in the writings of John, then Paul, then the Gospels.
The only things I find valuable for Western culture in Gnostic Christianity are the exo/eso distinction (as in the “3-races” scheme per Elaine Pagels) and Ptolemaic Astral-Ascent Mysticism. The rest of Gnosticism is too florid and noise-filled.
A simple introduction to that esoteric Christianity is Freke & Gandy’s The Jesus Mysteries, contrasting exoteric vs. esoteric thinking, which Pagels referred to as “Orthodox vs. Gnostic” Christianity.
The Jesus Mysteries: How the Pagan Mysteries of Osiris-Dionysus Were Rewritten as the Gospel of Jesus Christ / Was the Original Jesus a Pagan God?
Timothy Freke & Peter Gandy
http://amzn.com/0609807986
editions & subtitles
For a Western-culture grounded, esoteric, near-living tradition that could be restored, this broad, omni-formed Christianity has to be supplemented by Greek religious mythology & Mystery Religion, with a nod to Northern European equivalent mythemes.
Northern European pagan religion is beyond restorability; it is more lost even than Greco-Roman Mystery Religion.
Indian religion or Sufism is alien to Western culture and not a proper, requisite part of such a partly living, partly revivable spiritual tradition.
I’ve ended up with broad Christianity supplemented by Greek religious mythology & Mystery Religion & Banqueting symposia, informed by World Religious Mythology including only minor attention to Indian religion.
Christianity is a living tradition, albeit too exoteric-only, in Western form; and Greek Mythology is “living” in that it is Western and well-studied in Western culture, more than Northern European paganism religious mythology and practice.
“Fresh answers built on timeless knowledge, forward-looking, that doesn’t require self-delusion”, can be found.
The Egodeath theory 