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Orthodoxy vs. Orthopraxy
Oct. 27th, 2018 01:13 pmWhat we could call "Tradition" is by no means a monolithic concept or ossified form. To demonstrate this fact, all we need to do is take a brief glance at how traditions of ancient times and classical antiquity compare to the closed-canon "revealed" religions that have dominated the West and Middle Asia (and beyond)for the past 1,700 years or so.
There are really two (and probably more) ways of looking at tradition. That of orthodoxy and orthorpraxy. The former refers to the continuity of a set doctrine, code or list of precepts, all written down in language concrete enough to serve a practical means of ordering or at least providing guidance to everyday mundane social conduct, an entire community or state, or a religious body. The latter refers to a continuity of religious or spiritual practice, including things like rituals, mantras and incantations, ways of conducting marriage and funerary rites, ect. With Orthopraxy there is certainly a reverence for disciplined consistency and sense of venerable continuity involves in the practices, but there's also the tendency to incorporate new or previously-foreign practices into the greater mix. We can see this clearly when examining the mystery schools, cults and sects of Hellenistic (Greco-Roman) antiquity.
The orthopraxy of the Hermetic (Pythagoren-Platonic) lineage embraced syncretism and thus was always evolving with the times and adapting new teachings and practices it borrowed from other schools and sects. In that paradigm, those adepts who become Great Masters are always learning form the Great Masters who came before them, even if they are from distant lands. who By the 3rd century, Neoplatonism had incorporated quite a lot of Syrian, Chaldean and Persian practices into the mix, on top of the eclectic Alexandrian philosophy. There was no set-in-stone, one-off revelation event that defined the tradition. For example, the Chaldean Oralces was considered a sacred, revealed scripture, but it certainly wasn't the only one, as there were many others to draw from for inspiration.
Compare and contrast all of this with the narrow-minded, ham-fisted mandate that all practice and outer forms must remain permanently set-in-stone in perpetuity. At the end of the day, it's the higher teachings and principles (which reside on the higher planes anyway) that matter, not worldly forms that came about at a particular place and time to address the needs of that place and time. The truth of the material/physical plane is that all phenomena is of an ephemeral nature and thus in a constant state of flux in one way or another. The conditions of one era will never be the exactly the same as the conditions of another era. Anything resembling what we might term a "perfect form" or archetype is derived from somewhere far above the material.
There are really two (and probably more) ways of looking at tradition. That of orthodoxy and orthorpraxy. The former refers to the continuity of a set doctrine, code or list of precepts, all written down in language concrete enough to serve a practical means of ordering or at least providing guidance to everyday mundane social conduct, an entire community or state, or a religious body. The latter refers to a continuity of religious or spiritual practice, including things like rituals, mantras and incantations, ways of conducting marriage and funerary rites, ect. With Orthopraxy there is certainly a reverence for disciplined consistency and sense of venerable continuity involves in the practices, but there's also the tendency to incorporate new or previously-foreign practices into the greater mix. We can see this clearly when examining the mystery schools, cults and sects of Hellenistic (Greco-Roman) antiquity.
The orthopraxy of the Hermetic (Pythagoren-Platonic) lineage embraced syncretism and thus was always evolving with the times and adapting new teachings and practices it borrowed from other schools and sects. In that paradigm, those adepts who become Great Masters are always learning form the Great Masters who came before them, even if they are from distant lands. who By the 3rd century, Neoplatonism had incorporated quite a lot of Syrian, Chaldean and Persian practices into the mix, on top of the eclectic Alexandrian philosophy. There was no set-in-stone, one-off revelation event that defined the tradition. For example, the Chaldean Oralces was considered a sacred, revealed scripture, but it certainly wasn't the only one, as there were many others to draw from for inspiration.
Compare and contrast all of this with the narrow-minded, ham-fisted mandate that all practice and outer forms must remain permanently set-in-stone in perpetuity. At the end of the day, it's the higher teachings and principles (which reside on the higher planes anyway) that matter, not worldly forms that came about at a particular place and time to address the needs of that place and time. The truth of the material/physical plane is that all phenomena is of an ephemeral nature and thus in a constant state of flux in one way or another. The conditions of one era will never be the exactly the same as the conditions of another era. Anything resembling what we might term a "perfect form" or archetype is derived from somewhere far above the material.
