After a discussion of the Enlightenment it is apt to consider what most would consider a part of the Counterenlightenment and/or the reactionary anti-modern new age realm.
A close look shows that the modern transition attempts to include a pathway to the realm of the esoteric, occult, etc, even as it narrows its track to a mainline ‘Enlightenment’ of reason main theme. To say the least a sufi or yogi can’t stomach this ‘enlightenment’ even as they miss entirely the issues of modernity. This aspect of modernity visible perhaps in examples such as the post-reformation Rosicrucianism rapidly decay into confusion and/or get collated with other things, from the history of borderline spiritualities to sufism and free masonry. The archaeology of the sixteenth century (!) ‘Rose Cross’, no doubt with echo influences from sufism, was a true original in its own way at a time when the spirit of the Reformation might have still been at work in a field of piety???? Freemasonry to this day is a zone of confusion and has never been properly elucidated or even studied by conventional scholarship, although Pierre, who becomes a freemason, in War and Peace throws a curve ball here, such things were once benign??? The proponents of such things have done a great job throwing them into discredit and deadly occult horrors of all types: once sharks, operators like Gurdjieff enter such things are no longer benign, unless such a figure intends a warning: the theme enters incoherently into Star Wars with its uncomprehended and silly Dark Side. The original version of the ‘Rose Cross’ stands at the boundary of the Reformation in ambiguous shadow light. The question of fascism and its sources in much later ‘esoteric’ entities like decayed ‘buddhism’ is discussed at length at the Gurdjieff Con.
Source: Online version of Debriefing Gurdjieffianity – The Gurdjieff Con
1848+: The End(s) of History 