Syncretism

Syncretism is my religious inclination.

Gnosticism was a religious movement older than Christianity. There were both types of Christian and non-Christian Gnosticism because there was syncretism, or mixing. They believed that humans were trapped in their bodies and in this evil material world that was created by a cosmic disaster, by a malevolent deity who was not Christ. Christian Gnostics believed that Christ was one of the aeons or divine beings from the Pleroma, the Divine Realm, as described in the Apocryphon of John, part of the Nag Hammadi Library of Gnostic literature. Salvation was by esoteric knowledge, although ultimately self-knowledge. Gnostics believed in the dualism of the good spirit and evil matter. The material world was an evil place from where Gnostics had to escape. They believed that not all humans had the Divine Spark. The aeons emanated from the Ultimate God, the Monad in the Pleroma. The origins of Gnosticism are unclear today, but probably it came from Persia or further east. It had a lot of Greek influences. Today, after the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library as leather-bound papyrus codices in a sealed jar in Egypt, in 1945, some people are trying to revive Gnosticism. "Gnōsis" is Greek for knowledge.

My mind about spirituality oscillates between Syncretism and Lojbanism. My Syncretism deals with Animisms as Daoism, Shintō, Native-world Animism, and so forth, as well as Buddhism and Hinduism, but I do not discount Xtian-type ideas from Jehovah's Witnesses, Gnosticism, and my birth religion, Roman Catholicism. My Lojbanism entails the study of Lojban and the practice in expressing spirituality in it, either by writing or making soliloquies.

Today's a cloudy, yet sunny day, the 13th of May of 2025. Yesterday and today, I went to the garden neighbourhood at St. Albans Road to enjoy the scenery and the big Roman Catholic church there, which I have visited maybe the 11th time this spring. The big admirable purple-bloom tree nearby is probably not a Jacaranda, but maybe a Paulownia, an Empress Tree. Nevertheless, it's like saudade for me about South America. I often visit the major worship hall and the smaller Adoration Chapel, where I noticed that at the right front the statue of the Virgin Mary is holding the Child at her arms, and they are not standing side by side, as I imagined from memory. At the big worship hall, there are two crucifixes, one at the front centre and one at the front right, both draped in white cloth. There are Filipinos in the parish. By the way, it's now Pope Leo XIV. I'm really tending to Animism-Buddhism in my Syncretism. I visited Tim Hortons café here on Lulu Island several times during the day to enjoy an Earl Grey Tea with oat milk, an Iced Classic Lemonade, Scrambled Eggs with Sausage and Potatoes, an Iced Coffee with oat milk, and a Wild Blueberry Muffin. Today, at home, I'm reading bits from Spanish speculative fiction, El eterno regreso a casa, by Ursula K. Le Guin. I read aloud for oral practice. I'm also looking at an online Esperanto dictionary to ameliorate my green vocabulary.

This 14th of May of 2025 is cloudy skies interspersed with blue spaces. I walked to the Roman Catholic church on St. Albans Road twice, once in the morning and again in the afternoon, my 12th and 13th times this spring. In the morning was confession for the little boys and girls in uniform. They were of different races, in the big worship hall. The priest was in the confession booth talking to a student. At the Adoration Chapel, I noticed a nice pot of orchids on the front left. In the afternoon, the big worship hall was mostly empty, a condition which I usually prefer. At the road was a handsome muscle man in white tank top jogging. The big purple-bloom tree seems like an Empress Tree, a Paulownia, because of the big heart-shaped leaves. Reminiscent of Jacaranda with its purple blooming, it's saudade for me about South America. At Tim Hortons café, I enjoyed Scrambled Eggs with Sausage and Potatoes and an Earl Grey Tea with oat milk in the morning, and an Iced Classic Lemonade in the afternoon. The day was full of walking. At home, I study bits of Lojban and Esperanto. I have many books in Esperanto. I tend towards Animism-Buddhism in my Syncretism.

Having thus established his trinity of hypotheses, M. Lamennais deduces therefrom, by a badly connected chain of analogies, his whole philosophy. And it is here especially that we notice the syncretism which is peculiar to him. The theory of M. Lamennais embraces all systems, and supports all opinions.

It provides a more natural explanation of the Colossian syncretism as stemming from local religious impulses that continued to wield a powerful draw on people converted to Christianity from the local Jewish communities and pagan cults.[…]The kind of syncretism we find at Colossae was not unique to that city or region.

Kraft's functional view of Anthropology eventually leads to syncretism because God is understood as working within a modern, humanistic paradigm.

The strategies of religious syncretism—the active transformation through renegotiation, reorganization, and redefinition of clashing belief systems—are consistent with the creolization process.

In this paper a distinction is assumed between full syncretism, which affects whole morphemes, and partial syncretism, which affects only some case allomorphs, and also between syncretism proper and mere loss of a case morpheme.