Digging deeper into the video—the esoteric and the exoteric

I've set the video to start at a very particular point, where a really interesting conversation begins. This right here, the conversation they're starting to have, is about the difference between the exoteric and esoteric versions of a religion. I'm not sure how deep they get into it (I'm watching it in digestible chunks), but this is of profound interest to me. Have I spoken about it in here before? Not sure. But I feel I need to, in connection with this video and the ideas expressed in it. Consider this a further explication of the previous blog post.

The exoteric version of a religion is the outer version, the surface one, the standard version that's preached in churches to the ordinary populace, and that presents the god or gods and the magical other world as something external—'out there' somewhere, beyond our reach. The gods are either strange powerful people existing on a faraway mountain, or underground, or perhaps in some strange realm in the sky or something like an alternate universe.

The esoteric version is the one presented only to initiates, a select few who are prepared for it, and it's the internal or interior version. God or the gods and the other world are inside, within us all. This is one interpretation of the famous line Jesus spoke "The kingdom of Heaven is within you."

It's said that Jesus' parables all have an exoteric and an esoteric interpretation, which he referred to respectively as milk for the children and meat for the adults*. This means that if you're sitting in a pew in church and a preacher is reading the parable, it's to be interpreted in a very straightforward, rather literal way, but if you've been initiated (taught how to properly interpret the esoteric meanings) then you'll be able to glean the deeper meaning of it. In fact it just struck me, this is symbolism. When you learn to read symbolism, you're learning to see things esoterically. At least if the symbolism is interpreted to refer to something within, such as the unconscious. If it's interpreted to refer to exterior things like actual beings, either physical or immaterial, then it's exoteric.

Jung was very much about the esoteric
interpretation of all religions and mythologies
as visionary expressions of
the collective unconscious
​

In ancient times every religion had it's esoteric version, which was secret and sometimes forbidden by the standard church (which were always exoteric in their interpretation). In its earliest days, when it was forbidden and practiced only in private homes at risk of being thrown to the lions, Christianity was esoteric. But when it become the official religion of Rome it become exoteric, and every effort was made to stamp out the now heretical esoteric branches, some of whom managed to bury their sacred texts in the desert. The Gnostics and the Essenes did this, to be dug up millennia later and named the Nag Hamadi and the Dead Sea Scrolls. These reveal a much more esoteric Christianity, with Jesus seen as a symbol of the inner person journeying toward enlightenment symbolized by the crucifixion.

* It doesn't mean actual children and adults, it means those who are children in understanding, who take a more basic and simpler interpretation, and those who are more adult in understanding, who see on a more meta level, who can dig into the symbolic meaning and get something deeper out of it.