In my last blog Occult Dogma Love it or Leave it , we looked at three elemental categories of belief:

THE FIRST THREE ELEMENTS OF DOGMA

1) Air: a dogma that is proliferated only hypothetically. It floats on nothing-on air- but is proposed to “probably” be real. In this manner we have looked at the claim for extraterrestrial contact.

2) Water: a dogma that is strongly affirmed, but has no foundations in clear asserted experience to back it up. In this case, we have looked at the claim for meat being dangerous to one’s health because it has absorbed the sufferings of animals. This dogma is drowning in what I have called a “sea of unknowing.”

3) Fire: a dogma that is also affirmed, but has the backing of a great occultist’s assertions. In this case, we are talking about the claim that there is a Vital Life Force promulgated by the sun- that causes the evolution of the inert and life-bearing qualities of substances. This dream is smoldering in the fire of improvability, an illusion fostered by smoke and mirrors.

Now here is the fourth category.

THE FOURTH ELEMENT

4) Earth: a dogma that is not confirmed in any way, but is given in explicit detail- as though the theoretical model, in all its splendid complexity, is sufficient for proliferation. Such is the case with Degree 3, No. 4, which in the Initiatic Section, which focuses on the structure of the cell. In this case, the veracity of the claim is buried in the rough matter of complexity, in the rich soil of diagrams and scientific exposition, propped up by information about the cell available in any encyclopedia. So the claim seems grounded in science, even though its assertions about the role of Spirit in the cell are really only somewhat extravagantly wed to the known, scientific facts about the cell.

I will go into this with more detail in my next blog. But do me a favor. Please do not make my Four Categories of the Improvable into a dogma. It is more of a literary device than an inherent and perfect way of categorizing an improvable belief system. I will then be able to breathe easier.