.
@lsanger, PhD and cofounder of Wikipedia, kindly read not only the published first volume of my 3-volume SBNR project, but also the other two in manuscript. He gave me permission to share his reflections:
“If you had told me a few months ago that I would finally understand several weird things I had been casually puzzled by in both philosophy and theology, because I read about the history of the “spiritual, but not religious” movement, I would have said… "Huh???"
So now I understand:
- Why Spinoza was considered, and considered himself, to be religious
- The general historical source of the appeal of idealism (a thing that still puzzled me TBH)
- What Plotinism was, why anybody cared, why it wasn’t just ignored
- What anabaptism and pietism were, that they were considered radical
- What emanation and return are
- (This is huge) How to understand the various obscurities of German idealism (who knew they were basically naturalizing religion?)
- What distinguished those obscure German romantics/ idealists that everybody has heard of but which nobody can explain
- The perennial appeal of New Age/esoteric ideas throughout history: it’s an ancient tradition that taps into a common line of thinking
Etc., I could go on."
I reached out to Larry after I read the story of his conversion to Christianity and it has been a real pleasure getting to know him. Lookout for our conversation together at
@solamediaorg next month.