On Sight

If Orthodox (Eastern Orthodox or Miaphyte/MonosphyteOriental Christianity) is merely the older pagan philosophy you say--than why would you preclude esoteric teachings--the initiations you speak of go much deeper and are somewhat but poorly recreated without much understanding by masonic ritual.

Please respond.

Very briefly, the issue is not about esoteric teachings, deeper initiations, or anything else of that sort. The issue is how we perceive truth. Without getting bogged down in convoluted epistemological terminology, I would say that truth is not about the mental chewing and spitting out of certain propositions.

Truth is about sight. Understanding is about vision. Wisdom is about learning how to see, and see properly. That is what Neoplatonism says in a nutshell. Truth is intuitive, it is manifest and not proven. (St. Pavel Floresnsky)

The extent that the Orthodox understand this better is for me something that is not obvious. The Orthodox still live in the 21st century, and any anti-rational discourse at the heart of the theology of the last century could just be a knee jerk reaction to modern rationalism. It could just be escapism just as studying Far Eastern religions and philosophies is escapism. (Mind you, I say COULD BE...)

The solution is neither to turn inward in a self-enclosed scholasticism that only polemicists understand, nor is it to look past all of our problems for a Shingri-la in the east. The solution lies in seeing properly in the Western society in which we live, in the light of God. (image credit goes to C.E. Newland, the Painter's Eye, found on this site. Lots of good stuff, please visit).