User talk:Cj.23

Mystery cult, esoteric and exoteric

Hey CJ. Saw one of your comments about merging Esoteric mystery cult with Esoteric mystery. It seems reasonable, but even with the length of Esoteric Mystery, I'd suggest merging both into Mystery Cult with redirects to the appropriate sections. If the page gets too big, we can always split it off later, but I think the exoteric mystery cult section will likely stay small for a while.

As a side, I'll note that I think that this specific labelling by Atlas- exoteric and esoteric- to distinguish between House mysteries (which may or may not be publicly known) and all other msyteries was pretty artificial. Sure they are different words, but their pretty much synonymous with outer and inner mysteries. *shrug* Inquisitive (talk) 17:46, 16 April 2013 (MDT)

Hi CJ here. I think they are quite different things, coming at it from a history of magic perspective. Now all magical cults in our world are Esoteric; but Esoteric Cults tend to hide their existence, as much as their magical secrets. Using that definition the Legion of Mithras and Green Cockerel are exoteric mysteries, in that most magi have probably heard of them (if they exist in your saga: ditto the Pythagoreans). However we developed Esoteric Mystery as a term for a different, game related reason -- Outer Mysteries imply those available to any member of a House, or what were termed Curious Common Magics - it is after all possible for a non-Criamon to develop Enigmatic Wisdom, or a non-Merinita to develop Faerie Magic. SO while progression further in to those Mysteries would require (probably) joining the mystery house in question, most magi have heard of them. Inner Mysteries are very different. Hence the choice of Exoteric Traditions, those with broadly known Outer Mysteries, and the secret societies as Esoteric Mysteries - Esoteric used here as a synonym for "occult" (lit. 'hidden') as "occult has too many other connotations. The initiatory structures of the TMRE mysteries are incidentally more 14th-15th century in style than actual 13th century groups in my opinion, but deliberately rendered less similar to the Hermetic Tradition (meaning the Late Medieval real Hermeticism, not the game version) than The Mysteries 4th Ed, which was closer to the era of Giordorno Bruno et al in feel. So basically they are meant to be different types of group. CJ (talk) 22:06, 23 April 2013