Oddbean

That reminded me of this St Augustine City of God page, where he's pointing out to Romans that their gods apparently try to hoodwink the 'better people ' with clandestine moral instruction and purposely ignore instructing the rest of the public who run about direction-less. https://image.nostr.build/6461950794e026b3b4f4fc50862b2e418c78a3be07816e0895c4f958427b6018.jpg

The real God does that too. There's a verse where Jesus explains that he gives the true instruction to his disciples but only gives allegory to everyone else, so that they will be confused. That verse, IMO, has to be connected with the verse where he says the Haves will get more and the Have Nots will lose even what they have - paraphrasing of course, but I think he's talking about spiritual knowledge. The blind lead the blind, they don't have ears to hear or eyes to see - to tie in that verse from John. I should track these down and do a write up while its on my mind... Matthew and John, I think. With the Roman cults, I do think they got hijacked by what is essentially demons - idk if real demons exist, but I know a collective psyche can manifest, which is called "egregor" - that term seems to be in fashion right now, its popping up everywhere. IMO the core value of the cults was that they offered initiation to young men, which I think our modern society lacks, and the lack of an initiation leaves men vulnerable to even worse influences emanating from the media and academia. Its the search for initiation, instinctually, that causes people to throw themselves into a false worldview, such as socialism and its justifications (climate change, bad rich people) and wokeness. Maybe even false religiosity... Idk what the fix is... I just see that verse - to those who have much, more will be given ; to those who have little, even that will be taken. Its spiritual knowledge.

This quote is a little adjacent to your point, but since you mentioned " initiation of young men", the very next section contrasts what I assume is a Christian church service. St Augustine praises "the separation of the sexes". I normally read stuff like that and think about how much more advanced we are nowadays and scoff. However, since the rest of his stuff is so logical, I'm trying to think why does a smart man 1700 years ago see a need to separate sexes in a public place. In the back in of my mind the AI videos of giants building the pyramida are playing, and I'm thinking was it there dress code, maybe they use the same restrooms. Were they just so much healthier that their hormones and sex drive were better? Or is sex like a battery and he's keeping the terminals separate. And that's how they built all those aqueducts https://image.nostr.build/8f061ef60c92600673610edab250c013779522d99408a020278b3f3cda9f1aba.jpg