Pynchon's RC Sources

[Richard Fiero]

Terri wrote, quoting from mystery sources:
>. . .The sequence of events that make up the life
>and death of Jesus forms a singular and historic instance, a
>decisive moment which, occurring ONCE ONLY, serves as the
>basis for a personal relationship of forgiveness and trust
>between Christian believers and their God. In celebrating
>the life, crucifixion, and resurrection of Christ, the
>Christian faithful do not engage in a ritual of seasonal
>rebirth; they do not act out an eternal return to
>beginnings.

We recall that man's orginal sin was, at the command of God, 
the naming of things and that original people were prevented 
from returning to the Garden of Eden by the appearance of a 
Flaming Sword most likely representing ratiocination itself 
(also Lucifer = Star of Light).  An ingenious solution was to 
let intelligence in the form of the Word be deified, and then 
let the Word be sacrificed! In the beginning was the Word . . . 
Let the Flaming Sword shine through as the True Light from the 
Word living as a human and on the eve of His sacrifice. Let His 
Sacrifice also remove the fruits of ratiocination in the 
convenient forms of a good thief and a bad thief.

Uh, what's different here? Perhaps not a lot.
Pynchon a religious writer? No more so than a rather astute 
student of folklore, in my view.

>Of course, this new historical religion did not win an
>instant victory over the older, archaic attitudes, which are
>deeply rooted in human psychology. The tremendous attraction
>of the  fertility religions did not simply go away.

This does seem rather inventive.
The following seems to deny that both the Individual and Nature 
were seventeenth century inventions or even allow the existence of that view.
Now I am confused for certainly Marx is mentioned here. A 
Marxian view certainly holds that the whole is more than the 
sum of its parts and indeed, the whole determines the parts.

>In Western civilization, especially modern Europe and
>America, in the last few centuries, Eliade explains, we have
>once again seen something quite new in human history: the
>. . .  But neither can we
>find it in the Judeo-Christian way, by claiming that there
>is in history some great plan or purpose of God. We can find
>it only in ourselves. Examples of this historicist thinking
>can be found in any number of modern systems and thinkers.

Oh no! Now Milton Friedman is a religious writer also. Just 
kidding. Of course he is.
These must be the same people that ran up the dot.com bubble, 
believing that something new had arrived.

>Eliade notes the developmentalism of the German philosopher
>Hegel, the communism of Karl Marx, and the perspectives of
>twentieth century fascism and existentialism. Modern
>capitalism might be included as well.