<< As long as I'm on the subject of Western esoterica, a friend of mine who
collects Renaissance magical writings was telling me that the hostility of
the Catholic Church towards Hermeticism had a great deal to do with the
Hermeticists fumblings toward the (eventually Protestant) image of an
immediately accessible God. In other words, anyone with the right spirit
could approach the Divine directly without the intervention of layers of
priests and ritual. There could be key there for tensions between the
religious wizards and atheist sorcerers of the West.>>
I'm not sure where you're fitting the atheists in there - the whole point about them is that they don't believe God is accessible at all, with or without layers of priesthood. The group who take the view that God if accessible without the necessary intercession of priests would be the Hrestoli.
<< Another Western approach to mysticism, or sorcero-muysticism, if such a
thing is possible.... >>
If there such a thing, I suspect the Perfecti are it. Certainly they appear to be mystics of some stripe, since they avoid the use of magic.
Forward the glorious Red Army!
Trotsky
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