Philosophy
Today, Western Esotericism is a syncretism of ancient philosophy, Paganism and Abrahamic thought and imports from Asia and modern science. The tradition focuses on individual spiritual progress through initiation, either personal or into a brotherhood, on personal or group rituals, study of philosophy and "cosmic" laws and their practical application, and encompasses alchemy, meditation, divination, and ritual magic.
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Famous quotes containing the word philosophy:
“The fact is, mental philosophy is very like Poverty, which, you know, begins at home; and indeed, when it goes abroad, it is poverty itself.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Even healthy families need outside sources of moral guidance to keep those tensions from imploding—and this means, among other things, a public philosophy of gender equality and concern for child welfare. When instead the larger culture aggrandizes wife beaters, degrades women or nods approvingly at child slappers, the family gets a little more dangerous for everyone, and so, inevitably, does the larger world.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (20th century)
“Ordinary people seem not to realize that those who really apply themselves in the right way to philosophy are directly and of their own accord preparing themselves for dying and death.”
—Socrates (469–399 B.C.)