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Originally Posted by Green
Not coming from a Christian tradition my knowledge of Christianity is very little so my opinion below may be erroneos.
But I always believe that Christianity is full of fantastical stories about the other world, satan , exorcism and all that. Just as much as eastern religions.
The way I see it, the westerners are now much less concerned about mysticism and alternate realities/universe , not because they profess Christianity or live in Christian culture but the opposite. They have come away from this culture and turn primarily to secularism which eschew the unproven unknowns.
I guess the western worlds in the dark ages or even in the 19th century were as much as the eastern world in their belief of the unexplained.
Would the swords of the knights of the crusaders for example were believed to be magical as the keris in Indonesia today? My guess is, many believed they were.
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One of the big differences to be found between Christianity and Eastern religions is the rigid dichotomy that is found in the former. God (as it is understood) is good and Satan is evil. So all spirits that are good (angels) are of god and all other are of the devil and therefore "evil". If something is not "of God" it is to be shunned. This is not the case with the various gods and goddess of Hinduism, for instance. Concepts of good and evil are not so cut and dry. A good Christian in the Western world can't fully comprehend a goddess like Kali, for instance, who in her many manifestations can be both beneficial and destructive. The average Christian in the Western world does not think much about the unseen world that exists around them at all times. Certainly not on a daily basis. Stories about pacts with the devil and exorcisms are not really the same thing as that kind of daily existence. The concept that spirits exist in everything, from rocks, grass and trees to rivers, oceans and skys and all parts of the animal kingdom is not really a part of their daily understanding. In the exoteric church there is God, in the triad of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and then there is the adversary of the devil that tempts one from the path of goodness. This is a very different way of experiencing the world and deity than in the East. Again, we can find the mysticism of the Gnostics, for instance, but that is a path of Christianity that was considered heretical by the Church and punishable by death in many cases.
Regarding "magic" as it pertains to the swords of the crusaders, i have no doubt that many crusaders may have had their swords blessed by priests and felt that that helped them to victory on the battlefield. I am not aware, however, of crusader swords that were created from the start with magickal intent, that were imbued with power by the smith fasting, chanting and praying over them during the forging process. Forging itself has always been considered magickal in some regard. Their is something alchemical about it, taking the raw materials of iron ore and transforming them into useful and/or deadly tools and objects. But i do not believe the same kind of spiritual/magickal intention was ever applied to Western blades in quite the same way as the keris, certainly not in such a culturally ingrained manner.