I am alone in the world with a different loneliness form that of
Christ. He was alone because He was everything. I am alone because I
am nothing. I am alone in my insufficiency--dependent, helpless,
contingent, and never quite sure that I am really leaning on Him upon
whom I depend.

Yet to trust in Him means to die, because to trust perfectly in Him you
have to give up all trust in anything else. And I am afraid of that
death. The only thing I can do about it is to make my fear become part
of the death I must die, to live perfectly in Him.

--Thomas Merton

In eternity there is indeed something true and sublime. But all these times and places and occasions are now and here. God himself culminates in the present moment, and will never be more divine in the lapse of all ages.

–Thoreau, "Walden"

Often people come to Gnosticism or whatever spiritual path because they feel cheated, empty or angry. They are running from religion in a perceived need to remove themselves from old modes of being that are perhaps “spiritually” insufficient and maybe unsatisfying. As people most of us prefer a “satisfying meal” than just a “snack” to keep us fed for the day. Give us this day our daily bread, as Christ said….

Religion means to tie or to bind. To bring together. Religion typically here in the west is often though of as exoteric and esoteric. Exoteric meaning for the many and esoteric for the few. It is tempting to place a greater value on one depending on your perspective.

However one could argue that there is no inner or outer, no esoteric or exoteric, no occult (Occult means “hidden”) or unhidden. There just is. One could argue the very "act" of supposing or "making' the esoteric/occult/inner creates a false separation.

The Esoteric (for the few) is often used to mean the “spiritual” or more “in depth” or closer to the divine than the Exoteric (for the many).

As Brother Lawrence states:

The time of action does not differ at all from my time of prayer; I possess God as tranquilly in the bustle of my kitchen –where sometimes several people are asking me different things at one time—as if I was on my knees before the blessed sacrament…It is not necessary to have great things to do. I turn my little omelet in the pan for the love of God; when it is finished, if I have nothing to do, I prostrate myself on the ground and adore my God, who gave me the grace to make it, after which I rise, more content than a King. When I cannot do anything else, it is enough for me to have lifted a straw from the earth for the love of God.

–Brother Lawrence

Largely then once could argue those "fixated" on the "occult/esoteric" will never really "gain the grail" they will just "sup from the grail."

This "argument" would be like saying something like "I want a secret decoder ring, by using my secret decoder ring I am special, I no longer need the cereal box it came in, I don’t care that I will be starving to death by not eating...cause I have a special decoder ring"

So perhaps the idea that one "only needs inner initiation" is incorrect in that, it is like saying

“I no longer need to eat; ‘cause I can now sup from the grail, but actually obtaining it (becoming the Grail) is not something I will reach, as I only need my decoder ring, not my cereal.”

This is perhaps typified in two Buddhist quotes I like:
....

There are no mundane things outside of Buddhism,

And there is

No Buddhism outside of mundane things.

–Yuan-Wu

...

I gained nothing at all from supreme enlightenment
It is for that very reason it is called supreme enlightenment.

--Buddha

The problem occurs when people "think" they are involved in the esoteric and/or the occult and thus no longer need the exoteric or the un-hidden

To put it into real world less flowery language terms...

It is like a person who partakes in the Atkins diet. The Atkins diet works by cutting down on carbohydrate intake and increasing protein intake. Yes, I know first hand the Aitkin’s diet does work. Cutting down on "carbs" and eating predominantly meat will indeed promote weight loss. But there is the danger of keeping with that diet. Which would cause imbalance, clogged arteries maybe, and even death....?

Does this mean too much esoteric and too much occult without their "opposites" leads to death? In a very real sense, I would say yes....

I think this is very similar to Christ's temptation by Satan and Buddha’s temptation under the Bodhi tree

A good way to combat this would be to actively “Be in the world but not of it.” Join a local church or group. By actually serving, we are actually serving.

“Like grapes, we ripen best on the vine.”

…………..

The Lord's Prayer is the most excellent prayer of all since it has Christ for its author; it is therefore more excellent as a prayer than the Ave, and this is why it is the first prayer of the Rosary. But the Ave is more excellent than the Lord's Prayer in that it contains the Name of Christ, which is mysteriously identified with Christ himself, for "God and His Name are identical"; now Christ is more than the Prayer he taught, and the Ave, which contains Christ through his Name, is thus more than this Prayer; this is why the recitations of the Ave are much more numerous than those of the Pater and why the Ave constitutes, with the Name of the Lord that it contains, the very substance of the Rosary. What we have just stated amounts to saying that the prayer of the "servant" addressed to the "Lord" corresponds to the "Lesser Mysteries"—and we recall that these concern the realization of the primordial or Edenic state, hence the fullness of the human state—whereas the Name of God itself corresponds to the "Greater Mysteries", the finality of which is beyond every individual state.

From the microcosmic point of view, as we have seen, "Mary" is the soul in a state of "sanctifying grace", qualified to receive the "Real Presence"; "Jesus" is the divine Seed, the "Real Presence" which must bring about the transmutation of the soul, namely, its universalization or reintegration in the Eternal. "Mary"—like the "Lotus"—is "surface" or "horizontal"; "Jesus"—like the "Jewel"* —is "center" and, in dynamic relationship, "vertical". "Jesus" is God in us, God who penetrates and transfigures us.

Among the meditations of the Rosary the "joyful Mysteries" con­cern the "Real Presence" of the Divine in the human, from the point of view adopted here and in connection with ejaculatory prayers; as for the "sorrowful Mysteries" they describe the redemptive "imprison­ment" of the Divine in the human, the inevitable profanation of the "Real Presence" by human limitations; finally the "glorious Mysteries" relate to the victory of the Divine over the human, the liberation of the soul by the Spirit.

*We are here alluding to the well-known Buddhist formula: Om mani padme hum. There is an analogy worth noticing between this formula and the name "Jesus of Nazareth": the literal meaning of Nazareth is "flower", and mani padme means "jewel in the lotus".

--Frithjof Schuon

……..

I heard my deceased elder say that even people who do not pray, but who either have the or are sick, see light streaming from every article in the darkest of rooms; they distinguish objects, sense their double, and penetrate the thoughts of other people. But what proceeds directly from the grace of God in the prayer of the heart gives so much delight that no tongue is able to express it. It cannot be matched in any material thing; it is even beyond compare. Everything perceptible is base in comparison with the sweet sensations of grace in the heart.

--The Pilgrim's tale

…..

" Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. "

--The Prayer of the Heart

….

The real purpose of meditation is this: to teach a man how to work himself free of created things and temporal concerns, in which he only finds confusion and sorrow, and enter into a conscious and loving contact with God in which he is disposed to receive from God the help he knows he needs so badly, and pay to God the praise and honor and thanksgiving and love which it has now become his joy to give.

--Thomas Merton

Fucked Dolly Parton

Fucked Loretta Lynn

Fucked Barbara Mandrell

And fucked all of her kin

I've fucked Danny Pearl

I fucked Elvis Presley's little girl

I fucked the Judds

You fucked the Judds?

Hell yeah!

My cuntry boner, it won't go down

It won't go down, it won't go down

My cuntry boner won't go down

My boner, my boner, my boner won't go down

It won't go down, it won't go down

My cuntry boner, it won't go down

My cuntry boner, it won't go down

I fucked Willie Nelson

I fucked him deep inside

I fucked Elvis Presley in the bathroom where he died

I fucked Dwight Yoakum

Johnny Cash grabbed his ankles and he hollered as she poked him

I fucked the Judds!

You fucked the Judds?

My cuntry boner, it won't go down

Group... sex 
 Group... sex  Group... sex  
 

Our cuntry boners, they won't go down

Fucked Alabama

Fucked the Oak Ridge Boys

Fucked Randy Travis with a 12-inch plastic toy

I fucked the cast of Hee-Haw

I fucked Glen Campbell, fucked him on a see-saw

Kenny Rogers thought it crass

When I fucked his big white ass

I can't help it....

My cuntry boner, it won't go down