@rs666 - Esotericism <> Syncretism. As to affectation, it should be repeated that I can only speak to my experience, I've no knowledge that would lead me to believe it must be so. Nonetheless, what I mean by affectation here is the wrapping of myself in the trappings of a way of being such as to convince myself, and maybe also others, that I walk that path.
In a larger sense, the reason I find syncretism, and especially a syncretism built on picking and choosing, worth avoiding goes something like this:
There is a cake. I know this is what it is called because I have been told so, but I do not know how it works, let alone how it came to be made. I taste it, mmm chocolate, I like chocolate. I didn't know you could make it creamy like that. Oh, it's made with whipped butter, I don't normally eat dairy, but I'm sure I could make that work in something else, especially considering how much I like chocolate. Huh, they tell me there are eggs in this. Why the fuck would you put eggs in sweets? Well, that doesn't make any sense, but no loss, I don't like eggs anyway.
From this experience I add to my way of cooking more chocolate, something I already liked, but not only do I fail to understand cakes, as I failed to see in my confusion the possibility of my own ignorance, I fail to learn what it is that an egg does when part of a cakes way of being which also forecloses the possibility of me seeing in my own practices room for something like an egg. I leave the experience having reinforced my existing ways while learning nothing of this other way beyond that they too agree that chocolate is delicious.
