The reactionary abuse of the guru/surrender game
http://last-and-first-men.com/
It is time for the New Age Movement to enter the modern world and start over on the issues of buddhism, yoga, monotheism (Xtianity, Islam), and gurus.
It is helpful to declare your exit from the ‘New Age’ movement: a funny thing happens, all the concealed/tacit conventions of ancient spirituality are suddenly void. A good example is the term ‘new age’ itself. That new age is phony: it really means the modern new age is a monster and the revival of ancient culture will solve the problem. It is not true and won’t happen.
Once you declare something as simple as that you are outside the whole crypto-fascist reactionary anti-modern obsession of religious traditionalists.
I think that the question of gurus is about to slide into oblivion. There was a concealed fantasy among reactionaries that if submission/surrender to gurus could be concealed behind ‘yoga comeons’ the modern mind could be manipulated to move backwards. That inananity is now sliding over the falls, gone.
We need a new form of ‘new age’ activity that isn’t dependent on gurus, and turned into the exercise of the student’s autonomy.
There are a lot of issues here, but I think that all these groups have to start over and consider the implications of modernity. In the short term most of this stuff is going to die of commercial overdosing.
New Man, New Age, New Socialism 