The author,

Ronnie Pontiac.

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E PLURIBUS UNUM

‘E pluribus unum’ (‘From many, one‘) is the motto of the United States of America. It is also the driving force that composes Ronnie Pontiac’s latest ‘tour-de-force’, ‘American Metaphysical Religion‘, published by Rochester based Vermont publishers, Inner Traditions, in 2023.

It is an impressive book that will be seen as a milestone, a twenty-first century American manifesto. In its close to 600 pages, Ronnie Pontiac sums up more than 400 years of European, Asian, African and Indigenous religious, spiritual and esoteric presence in northern America in a clear, entertaining and factual presentation that delivers a solid basis for anyone trying to understand what are the specifics of the ‘American experience’.

What reaches the U.S.A. is radically transformed and goes through a myriad of small deaths and resurrections, religions, spiritual practices, esoteric doctrines, nothing was, is, left indifferent by what America had and has to offer, even though we assist in the present times to a shortness of breath in all sectors of life, as the ‘American model’ is severely questioned to the core, because its present avatar is being mostly reduced to an hegemony of white cultural privileges against all other existing constituting groups.

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AMERICAN METAPHYSICAL RELIGION

A Definition

‘…This book is not a defense of cultural appropriation, although it contains many examples of it. There’s no denying that ‘American Metaphysical Religion’ has thrived on appropriation. Where most religions seek to keep their beliefs and practices pure, uncontaminated by foreign influences, in America the cross-pollination of esoteric traditions has always been popular. Throughout most of history an American with an interest in metaphysics would know their way around the Jewish Kabbalah, the theurgy of the Neoplatonists, the poets of Persian Sufism, and the sutras of Buddhism. Most of them argued that religions are something true wrapped in something false. The false comes from the place and time when the religion was born. Peculiarities of custom and accidents of language make it seem that all religions are different. But the truth at the core is common to all spiritual traditions, because it is the human condition.  Let’s begin with an overview. American Metaphysical Religion is so mysterious it may not even exist, or it may be one of the largest and most traditional religious communities in the United States—it just doesn’t know it is. It’s a community without self-awareness. The members think they are more or less alone, oddballs, delegated to the fringe. But that couldn’t be further from the truth, and the proof is in this book.  Even before it had a name America was fascinated by the occult, pagan, metaphysical, mystical, whichever inadequate word we choose for what academics are beginning to call ‘American Metaphysical Religion.’ Ronnie Pontiac, from page 8 & 9.

The U.S.A. is suitably comparable to an onion; it has many layers that are not visible, only the surface skin covering it is. It is represented by mainstream European religions, Catholicism, Protestantism and all of their plethoric derived denominations. Harold Bloom, in his ‘American Religion’ claim that traditional Christianity is not well-suited to Americans, and that the belief in direct experience of God is connected to anti-intellectualism. The American Religion is the inevitable consequence of the growth of the American Self, it is of a Gnostic nature and not Christian. Here he says: ‘There are indeed millions of Christians in the United States, but most Americans who think that they are Christians truly are something else, intensely religious but devout in the American Religion, a faith that is old among us, and that comes in many guises and disguises, and that overdetermines much of our national life.’  But Harold Bloom did not see or was not willing to see the full picture. He was plowing only a part of the global image represented by the following layers, the esoteric traditions imported from Europe: Free-masonry, Rosicrucianism, the Theosophical and Kabbalistic traditions, magical folk-lore from European countries. Russel Yoder, Arthur Versluis and the ‘esoteric.msu.edu’ website scholars, around 1999 have pioneered research that were overlapping with the mainstream layer but putting many things into the context of esotericism-subject which until Antoine Faivre and Wouter j. Hanegraaff was carefully put under the carpet or deliberately put into a non-scholarly category aimed at the general public’s entertainment (Dan Brown and similar writers). These scholars have documented this layer very well in many  books and pioneered a vision of America that takes esotericism at the heart of the American experience, identifying  overlaps with religion, spirituality and politics. Next layers would be African religions, spiritual practices and folklore, then Asian religions, spiritual practices and folklore and the Indigenous religions, spiritual practices and folklore: All combining into a great melting pot that will be very attentive and creative in using what the American land had, has to offer in term of communications means and commercial opportunities. Finally, layers that will become the ‘new thought’ movement, leading to what is known as the ‘new age revolution’, symptomatic epitome of an ailing American society by promoting a spiritual selfishness with surprising cultural appropriation and racist attitudes.

‘American Metaphysical Religion’ succeeds in taking all of these heteroclite layers and weaves them skillfully in telling us an alternative story of the U.S.A. from pre-colonial era up to the twentieth century that is at the same time fascinating and bewildering by the intimate proximity of saints & rascals, cheats & gifted people having authentic spiritual apotheosis, between generosity & greed. It provides a synthetic vision of all the above mentioned parts participating in forging a unique experience, no-where to be seen as such elsewhere in the world and for those who are more eager to look at the present times, in its chapter about the twenty-first century the book provides a clear snap-shots and portraits of the complex mutations of American society and of the birth of new trends that are from reactive to an dissimilar and chaotic past, are-at the tectonic level-shaping the direction the U.S.A will journey forwards in ways ploughed so deep into the land and its people’s psyche, EVEN the most gifted populist politician couldn’t achieve, but only dream of pretending steering the process.

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E PLURIBUS UNUM

AGAIN

What is it to be American? The United States of America are comparable to a linen patchwork of distinct cultural identities and from time to time, a piece tries to claim it is the sole part of the whole. The American flag consists on stripes of colors and stars within a square, no part can pretend to the the whole flag…Its very foundation shows that disparate communities with different customs and beliefs lived and continues to live, side by side, when not together, creating an abundance that was at the core of the ‘American dream’. Each self-conscious part fantasizes as it is the whole and acts accordingly; automatically, all the heteroclite other parts do not find themselves represented and respected in the box they have been allocated by the hegemonic part, hence the never-ceasing tension among a culture that favorizes quick gratifications and very low self-consciousness leading to a kind of dis-connection with reality that plagues the American society and is at the main origin of many of its ailments and traumas. Local level has lost its ‘togetherness’ with all the other parts of the country.

At the level of being a citizen of the United States of America, the majority lives in a present state of numbness and amnesia due to their education and religious conditioning, because they don’t want to see that the main drive of the American experiment is the failure of its economic system: capitalism. Even at this dramatic time of global collapses, it still tries to make money…while the boat sinks. So, everybody blames external causes and like ostriches hide their head in the baren ground.

Gore Vidal exposed it when he said: “We are permanently the United States of Amnesia. We learn nothing because we remember nothing.” Anything contradicting their opinions and the illusionary status of their lives is denied. Gore Vidal could have also said: ‘We are the United States of Denial‘ too.

Social media is maintaining a lucrative fake ‘nowness’ and enthralls us into consuming never-ceasing events to are not real events and products that are not real products, but just bubbles being blown away from a money-making machine making void. ‘American Metaphysical Religion‘ fulfills the task to fill this void demonstrating that the American experience was, is, much more complex and multi-layered than what the main public is taught and shown throughout the media.

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CONCLUSION

‘American Metaphysical Religion‘ comes at an important time that is defined by the burning question: ‘How the U.S.A will re-invent themselves into the twenty-first century?‘ will it be by finally learning from its past ? By accepting it, making the necessary amends in acknowledging its schizophrenic and traumatized shadowy aspects that have grown in the horrific metastasis everyday life is experiencing: racism & fascism, violence & death, anti-intellectualism & mercantilism? And finally, by honoring the long forgotten colorful-dissimilar-and gifted people who were also part of it, all in their own way, partaking into the genius of what is at the very core of the ‘American Metaphysical Religion‘ manifesto: Confidence into Humanity’s resilience in front of challenges and its amazing creative resourcefulness. In the wake of announced great upheavals lurking ahead, it is a civic duty, for each American citizen to read and ponder this book carefully and join-in this healing process of conscious remembering  and resilience.

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