Post 2 of 2
Heterodoxy, Orthodoxy and the LHP
Much of your definition of heterodoxy depends on your definition of nomos and antinomianism which I have already refuted. However worth addressing is the parts of the definition that talk about the taboo and this definition:
to strike fear, terror, or anger into the people of the culture in order to disable their rational thinking ability and get them to do something they normally wouldn't do if they were thinking rationally
I'm not sure what the you're getting at. I have never met, read about, or heard of heterodoxy being about striking fear in others or manipulating them. If anything what you are describing is known as "black magick" and smells a lot more like LaVeyanism than anything else. I don't think I need to quote any sources here as I can safely assume you are familiar with
The Satanic Bible and other such books that address this.
There are forms of black magic in eastern traditions as well although they are not typically used to those types of ends but that is a whole can of worms involving ancient Tantriks and all kinds of crazy stuff in isolated areas. Rather, I think I should note that black magic can be an element of heterodoxy but saying it is heterodoxy is incorrect.
Heterodoxy is simply an opposite current of the orthodox, and can even become orthodoxy itself. In the broadest sense even things like economics or scientific theory can be considered heterodoxy
such as the example listed here.
An example of heterodoxy becoming Orthodoxy would be Yeshua preaching unusual, heretical even views of Judaism. This would later become it's own orthodoxy of the Roman Catholic Church, which would face Martin Luther
who was at the time considered Heterodoxy until Protestantism took root.
This isn't to say that all heterodoxy seeks to become orthodoxy. Bringing it back to the nomos... if a heterodoxy does not seek to establish a nomos, it can't become orthodoxy. So when you again, give examples of feminism, it fails to hold because it seeks to redefine the nomos.
Actually your example of menstruation and fetching water and the:
heterodox act towards the stigma surrounding menstruation
would actually have more to do with antinomianism in the "against the rules" kind of sense and more in line with your definition of antinomianism.
But back to heterodoxy that does not seek to establish new nomos... I spoke of heterodoxy in the past as tradition. These traditions that have survived for centuries and do not seek to change the culture at large or reshape it but to give an alternative path that in many ways actually can reaffirm the orthodoxy.
Traditional views of the Left Hand Path in Asia fit this model and so we can understand heterodoxy as the main ingredeient in the Left Hand Path. This will include practices against the normative religious law/rules (
the five M's are a classic example) but the intention is to break them not to destroy them but to transcend them:
link above said:
Tantras prescribe a strict regimen of penance, meditation, sensory control, cleansing the self of negative thoughts and seeking truth and justice before an individual can hope to transcend from her or his natural state. An individual who successfully practices these tasks may eventually take a vow of viravrata (a hero's vow) to be of vira-bhava (heroic disposition). The demarcation vira is potentially transient as it is considered a state of being free of desires.
In the Kaula and Vamachara schools of tantra the pañca makara (5 M's) ritually/sacramentally broken in order to free the practitioner from binding convention are: madya (wine), mamsa (meat), matsya (fish), mudra (parched grain), maithuna (sex).
The "sacramental" or ritual breaking was only for the vira practitioner, not the divya or pasu. The pasu would misunderstand and get caught up in the literal act while the divya will have already progressed beyond and not need the literal act to understand the inner meaning.
There also exist tantric schools that substitute innocuous items for the taboo substances and acts, claiming that literal interpretations of the pañca makara miss the inner truth of the rite.
Such a dissection of what you would call the "nomos" with your goal of changing it or not has much more in common with the Right Hand Path than it does the Left Hand Path, since it believes that those valuations should be universal. At least if we are to take feminism as an accurate example. You even said yourself near the end that the goal is to change the nomos at the end of your example right before the video.
The Left Hand Path is about the individual and it exists separate from the nomos even if it doesn't wish to reaffirm it. If it seeks to become the nomos it can't be truly LHP even if it transitionally appears LHP. Plus, the LHP is about religion so it doesn't really make sense to call something social or political LHP.
However, heterodoxy can be quite useful and effective in breaking emotional ties to unproductive nomos if intelligently applied and followed up with rational contemplation to provide more productive, intelligently thought out unconscious support for those unmindful moments.
Heterodoxy as I use the term, more specific than the broader definition, does break emotional or spiritual ties to normative religious prescriptions for the benefit of the practitioner but the endeavor is not one of challenging others like how feminism does. It's about challenging the self and transcending the attachment that has grown to them whereas following them has not become a valid path for the practitioner. That doesn't effect the value of the end-goal however, it's simply avoiding the conflation.
However, that said, that is a feature of heterodox traditions, a heterodoxy encompasses all the usual trappings of any religious sect. It is not some kind of intellectual exercise it is a religious tradition unto itself. Basically any Dharmic, Buddhist, Hindu ect tradition described as Vamachara or LHP is heterodox (although in the broader sense not all heterodoxy is LHP) such as some forms of Dakini based Tantric Buddhism, the ancient Kapalikas, and particularly Shaiva Kaula. However these heterodoxies are complete with their own paramparas (lineages) and thus are established as traditions in their own right.
Conclusion and Distinction of LHP from Politics
Also lastly:
When a leader of a LHP Order posted this video, I was shocked to hear all of the irrational thought and emotional scorn directed at the woman in the video. This scorn was echoed among other leaders of various LHPs, Satanist, Luciferians, and Setians alike.
I do admit I didn't watch that video or have an interest to, but I imagine the reactions and intentions were little if any different from a video I did watch of women painting with their menstrual blood. I get why they do it, I even think there is a valid point in all of it. I can see it's taboo breaking power. A comparison to the Cynics comes to mind again. I don't have much to comment on the western occult reactions (at least for now) but I might bring it up in a later post as to why I think that happened as it pertains to what I think the LHP is.
Call it antinomianism if you will, in the sense that I'm for breaking the social and cultural norms, expectations and rules for the individuals if they would benefit from it. But again that term is problematic but I recognize I have used it in that sense the few rare times I have. I think that kind of thing is a good thing but it's not a very good example since it's link to feminism muddies it and it's not religious in nature.
But is it heterodoxy? No, although I would go so far as to say if a practitioner of the Left Hand Path did it for themselves it would be a LHP type of act. But the context this was done in wasn't either LHP or RHP but if I was forced to pick one I would say it was RHP due to it being a political and social idealogy, so really it just lays outside of relevance.
The Left Hand Path is entirely about religion. Nothing else. We can talk about antinomianism as against or defying the "law" or social conventions and rules, and heterodoxy as weird economic models or political or social ideologies... but that doesn't mean it's relevant. Those terms become relevant when we are talking about religious laws and religious orthodoxy. In any other context it's just conflation.
(Also as a side note, I wanted to touch on Atiska and Natiska since it's relevant to definitions of heterodoxy within Dharmic faiths, you being Buddhist and me being Hindu... but that's a can of worms I know we have some different views on that we should probably get to only once we get through everything here first).
My apology for the typos in my opening post.
My apologies for taking a week xD Also I honestly didn't even notice the typos. No worries.
