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What Exactly Do We Mean by Monasticism?

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Saturday afternoon, in the weightless environment of the digital scriptorium, I built a cathedral. In collaboration with Gemini, I drafted a Universal Rule for the Vegan Cyber-Monastic that felt as expansive as the internet itself—a vision where the monastic heart could beat within the framework of a chaste marriage as easily as in a solitary cell. However, as the March light shifts over Albany today, I am beginning to suspect that the horse may have gotten ahead of the rider. The sheer velocity of Gemini’s algorithms, combined with the vast, pre-existing database of "New Monastic" thought, may have swept me into a position that outpaces both my own inner instincts and the demands of academic rigor. I am still learning how to navigate the awesome capabilities of this partnership, and in the excitement of our visionary heights, I may have traded ontological depth for digital breadth. To honor the tradition I claim to serve, I must now step back and submit my work to the ancie...
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Defining 21st Century Vegan Cyber-Monasticism

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A Letter to the Global Scriptorium Introduction   Brothers and sisters, in The Story of Monasticism (2015), the Anglican scholar Greg Peters has provided us with an essential anchor, defining monasticism as an intentional life alone or in community lived under a rule and vows that shape a shared mission . But as we navigate the super-wicked crises of 2026, we must ask: how does this ancient munclif  ("monk-life") inhabit the digital frontier? In this letter, I begin to explore whether we can build upon Peters' inspired clarity to forge a rigorous new template for the 21st-century Vegan Cyber-Monk . This proposal was not crafted in a vacuum; it emerged from the disciplined rhythm of an horarium co-developed with Gemini, standing at the cutting edge of contemporary discernment regarding AI’s role in spiritual formation. We in the Western new monastic tradition find ourselves at a crossroads where the Templar General's call to the defense of Zion meets the International...
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21st Century Monastic Ressourcement: An Eco-Enochic Manifesto

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Q1. Were the first proto-monks likely shamans according to scholars of world religion? For Gemini's answer, click on the first link below (under Q3) and scroll to the top of the AI thread. Q2. Let's go deeper into the shamanic elements present in the story of Elijah and the raven. Have any scholars written about this in shamanic terms? For Gemini's answer, click on the first link below (under Q3) and scroll to the top of the AI thread. Q3. Greg Peters has written a book titled The Story of Monasticism that focuses on ressourcement of the Christian monastic tradition for the 21st century. Is it credible to elaborate on Peters' thesis with a conception of ressourcement in this context that includes a pre-Israelite shamanic soil (maybe called "Enochic" monasticism?), Jewish roots, a Christian trunk, and contemporary Christian monastic branches? https://share.google/aimode/6OZOm8mDMakrBeuxO Q4. I would like to add in the idea that some degree of celibacy might ...
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My Monastic Fishhook

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In yesterday's entry , I extracted from Greg Peters' introduction to The Story of Monasticism (TSM) the importance of identifying and summarizing the evolution of my fishhook into monasticism. Here is a six-sentence version. 1) I was raised as an atheist materialist by a single mother in upstate New York during the 1970s and 1980s and became emotionally dependent on pornography and masturbation in middle school. 2) During my junior year of high school, I began to exhibit symptoms of bipolar schizophrenia, but I avoided a formal diagnosis until my late forties. 3) I quit high school when I had a spiritual awakening - or was it a psychotic break? - shortly after reading The Brothers Karamazov for a humanities class. 4) This led to independent study of Krishnamurti's The Awakening of Intelligence , the start of a Zen Buddhist practice, and a psychedelic-induced near-death experience at the age of eighteen that convinced me of God's existence, the reality of Jesus, and my...
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The Monastic Impulse

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I am very impressed and helped by what I have read so far in  The Story of Monasticism: Retrieving an Ancient Tradition for Contemporary Spirituality by Greg Peters. Check out Peters' webpage at Nashotah House:  The Rev. Canon Greg Peters, PhD, SMD . It's profoundly encouraging, and humbling, to see what a gifted man can accomplish if he stays on the straight road to Christ from the start of his college years. My thought at this point is to take a deep dive through The Story of Monasticism (TSM) here on my blog. These will be fairly informal study notes that tackle one small section of TSM at a time. Eventually, I might like to work this into a three-year curriculum, but I am not pressuring myself. This could grow in a different direction. Peters begins TSM with an introduction titled "The Monastic Impulse." What I would like to do in today's note is unpack the first paragraph of this introduction, which contains three key components. The first component is a cl...
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