Post #4023720

2026-07-23 01:21 UTC

But the most important way that right-wing Christianity has dealt with mysticism has been #politics. The mystical energy, the craving for knowledge beyond that which is obvious, has been a gold-mine for political cults and extremist sects and conspiracy theories, all of which (as has been frequently point out) seem to feed right into pro-business, pro-fascist, police-state Republican politics. Let me return to the concept of "the veil", a mystical concept. Right-wing Christianity and U.S. conservatism have effectively hijacked the veil. They claim that the veil, the invisible barrier between ordinary human perception and preternatural experience, is controlled by their political enemies: the Democrats, the "Deep State", the [insert slurs here], you name it. All of them are lumped into vague murky conspiracies to control the human perception of reality. (cont'd)

Replies (1)

@mxchara@seattle.pink 2026-07-23 01:25

There's an immense practical value in this deliberate mystification of U.S. politics and daily life: turning EVERYTHING into an omen of some sort, a hint about the underlying nature of reality, gives the right wing a supremely simple way of sorting through current events and teaching people what they should believe about them. Omens can be Good[tm] or Bad[tm]. Good omens teach the faithful that their leaders have divine guidance on their side; bad omens feed into their End-Times obsession. Everything has an explanation. Everything fits into a neat simple model, almost a fable that explains everything one needs to know about the Cosmos and human purpose on Earth. As a result of this process, which has been going on quite a while but accelerating in the 1800s thanks to conservative Christian reaction to revolutionary upheavals, "Western Civilization" has become positively haunted by its own mysticism. (cont'd)

Open ##4023913