Talk:Brotherhood of Infernal Zoth, the Undying Renderer

"It is possible that, like the Jesuits or the Dominicans on Roundworld"

Excuse me? The Jesuits are ANYTHING BUT mystics; they were founded to be, and remain, the most pragmatic and rationalist of all the religious orders. --Solicitr 19:26, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Not what we think of as Jesuitical, certainly, despite the founder's maxim that "I will believe that the white that I see is black if the hierarchical Church so defines it". The Dominicans have been fairly practical too, if more in the manner of the Quisition. Mystics seem to have had more success in Islam; is there a better example among Catholic orders? --Old Dickens 21:07, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

What I had in mind was the visualisation exercises the Jesuit order teaches its priests, where the novice is taught, for instance, to envision the suffering and crucixion of Christ in such detail that they become one with Christ on the cross and share the ecstacy of pain, the nails through feet and wrists, the crown of thorns, the whipping, the spear in the side, et c. The idea is to become one with the godhead through the medium of His sufferings on earth - and if that isn't a mystical experience, I don't know what it! The Dominicans had a similar visualisation regime concerning the torments of Hell and the nature of evil - an incentive to them to prevent others from ending up there, hence the Inquisition.

I will admit that the Jesuit warrior priest St Francis Xavier (who took the faith into Japan) was pretty practical, though!--AgProv 22:09, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I think you have to admit that the Jesuits have been the countervailing force in the Catholic church for most of their existence. They had the good fortune (from the rationalists' point of view) to be founded during the Renaissance, not long before the Enlightenment. The Dominicans suffered from having been established in the middle ages and carrying centuries of ingrained superstition; the Jesuits adapted quickly to the the new ideas that emerged in the seventeenth century. (This from a severely backslidden Evangelical Baptist who was taught that they were all Satan's deceivers of the righteous.) --Old Dickens 03:57, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

What Loyola had in mind was an order of "missionaries to the elites", a band of priests who were of both high birth and high intelligence, able to circulate in the best (and most powerful) company, capable of debating and persuading in the new era. The watchwords were reason and education; the Jesuits pursued and promoted science, almost alone in the Church during that period. While the discipline of prayer may seem "mystic" it really isn't, not in the St Teresa way: the point was to keep the Jesuit's mind focused on the reality of Jesus' sacrifice, lest he become proud. There was no sense of "bringing Heaven down to earth," nor of accessing gnostic mysteries.

The Dominicans, whom you denounce as just superstitious medieval knuckledraggers, were in their origin a *reaction* to the medieval Church; like the Franciscans they eschewed the Church's wealth, power, corruption and worldly politics and got "back to basics" as it were: living in poverty, helping the poor and sick, preaching the Gospel. While the Franciscans largely stayed true to their founder's vision, the Dominicans went another way- the Order of Preachers became the Order of Dogma, and the fount of the Inquisition.

"I will believe that the white that I see is black if the hierarchical Church so defines it" isn't remotely mystical, but rather an example of the rigid obedience Loyola, a professional soldier, believed to be the duty of a priest.

I must say, though: don't diss the High Middle Ages. The era of Aquinas and Abelard, of Bacon and Bonaventure, of Dante and Giotto, of the great cathedrals and the great universities, wasn't nearly as backwards as the Whig historians like to depict them.--Solicitr 20:47, 17 July 2010 (UTC)