Now that we have analyzed the principal defining characteristics and metaphysical concepts of the main worldviews currently being followed in our day and age, we are in a position to compare them.

In this way, we shall be able to discern common patterns, as well as important and sometimes irreconcilable differences.

Especially interesting will be the analysis of two specific points:

• The position of each worldview on the problem of the One and the Many.

• The discernment of which worldviews (and particular metaphysical doctrines through them) get frequent and consistent media exposure and which ones are ostracized. This second point will be the focus of the next chapter, where media fixation with specific doctrines will be analyzed and widely influential examples shown.

In the table below, the main characteristics and beliefs of each worldview are tabulated and coloured by type. In this way, it is easier to see at a glance which ones are similar or different to each other, as well as the constituent metaphysical beliefs that serve as their building blocks.

Each worldview has been characterized by its teachings in six main metaphysical areas:

• View on God or Ultimate Reality: who or what He/It is. Is He Personal? Does He care? Is Ultimate Reality One or is it Many? If it is One, in which way? (e.g., Pantheism, Panentheism, Monotheism).

• Doctrine of the Origin of the Universe: what is the ontological status of the Universe? Was it created at a certain point in time? If so, did it came from nothing or was a pre-existing formless substance used as a substrate? (e.g., Chaos, matter). Perhaps it was not created but instead it is the extension, emanation or body of God. Or maybe it has always existed. For some, it may not even really exist.

• Type of Cosmology and Time: how does the Universe work? Does it follow periodic cycles of creation and destruction or is it linear, with history having a significant and unique beginning and consummation?

• Position on the problem of Evil: does evil exist? If so, is it an independent entity or Principle or just the negation of the good, like darkness is the absence of light? Maybe matter itself, as the last emanation from the One, is the closest thing to evil that exists, weighing us down and making us forget our spiritual heritage. Or maybe good and evil are just relative human abstractions variable with time and culture.

If there exists an objective moral compass underlying reality, how does it work? Is there a personal God judging us? Or maybe life itself is moral in nature and follows its own law of causality with unavoidable consequences (e.g., Karmic Law).

• Position on the Free Will / Determinism dialectic: are we free or is the Universe a completely deterministic place ruled by some unavoidable power? Maybe we are subject to the inscrutable Will of God, or maybe we are just the plaything of the impersonal laws of a mechanistic universe with unavoidable consequences, being observers but not agents of our own life. Is there a middle ground? If so, to what degree are we conditioned?

• Stance on the possibility of Salvation / Liberation and what the Ultimate Aim of human life is: should we aim to become as close as possible to God, expecting to partake of His attributes as freely given divine gifts? Or maybe we should aim for a complete re-unification and re-absorption with Ultimate Reality, identifying with it.

Are exceptional persons able to de-create themselves and tread the path of emanation in the opposite direction until they go back to Ultimate Reality through the way of self-deification? Or should we attune to the Will of God with the hope that His grace (Energies) will be freely, but justly, granted to us?

Maybe our aim should be just to extinguish this never ending cyclical existence of births, suffering and death. Or perhaps awaken to the notion that transcendent reality and this one are one and the same, and achieve mastery over it and freedom from it while still inside it. Or maybe no transcendent reality exists for us and we should focus on living a good life for its own sake.

Some of the main symbols of each worldview are also tabulated, as visual representations of the metaphysical teachings encoded in each worldview.

COMPARATIVE WORLDVIEW TABLE [Click Here]

From the table above, a few notable conclusions can be drawn.

The worldviews that follow the Many in the One/Many dialectic are few and have a tendency to shift positions over time to get closer to the One.

Even classical dualist examples like Zoroastrianism and Gnosticism are not really dualistic. Zoaroastrianism states that the Evil Principle (Angra Mainyu, Ahriman) derives from the Good one (Ahura Mazda), which is superior and will eventually obliterate the evil one. Gnosticism, in turn, explains that the Demiurge was born from a cosmic catastrophe in the Godhead and is inferior to the heavenly realities of the Divine Fullness (Pleroma), and its inhabitants (the Aeons). His existence is also temporal.

Even Shinto, the Japanese animist worldview, while enduring a deep process of syncretisation with Buddhism, became closer to Panentheism / Non-Dualism than it originally was. Deities (Kami) were integrated into Buddhist cosmology and they were seen either as incarnations of the Buddhas or as beings lost in the cycle of Samsara in search of liberation, like anyone else. Ultimate reality then, instead of plural, became unitary (Emptiness) or non-dual. From the Many, to the One.

This tendency can also be seen in a conflicted way even in modern day Neo-Paganism. Wicca, for example, was defined as monistic by its founder (Gerald Gardner), with the Aristotelian Prime Mover as Ultimate Reality. Other Neo-Pagan and New Age worldviews make the conception of God / Ultimate Reality a matter of personal choice, with no defined formal position. Adherents of these worldviews can be followers of such disparate doctrines such as Atheism, Monotheism and Polytheism, with many seeing themselves as primarily atheists.

Even in esoteric worldviews that emphasize plurality (some branches of Wicca, original pre-buddhist Shinto and Shamanism), the existence of two Principles (Duo-Theism, usually male and female) is usually believed over pure Polytheism.

Therefore, there is no current religious, mystical or esoteric worldview that defends pure Polytheism. Pure multiplicity is not a traditional belief. This tendency from the Many to the One which was already clearly seen in Greek and Hindu religions through Henotheism is still current today.

In fact, the only current day worldviews that defend pure multiplicity as Ultimate Reality are the ones that can be classified as philosophies or life stances that reject in one way or another the existence of any such transcendent reality: Anarchism, Objectivism, Post-Modernism and Nihilism. Chaos Magick, related to metaphysical Anarchism, while apparently pluralistic, also posits a Universal Mind as First Principle. Even Anarchism itself, the great defender of pure multiplicity, has been declared similar and compatible with a monistic or non-dual view such as Taoism.

Science and science-based worldviews such as Atheism and Transhumanism, too, are eventually also examples of monistic worldviews, reducing everything to one aspect, usually material (e.g., atoms, matter) but not always so (e.g., the Quantum Field, the Omega Point). The only difference with religious or esoteric monistic worldviews is that this unitary underlying reality tends to be immanent instead of transcendent.

The general direction of the human spirit, therefore, is to go from the Many, through the few (Dualism), to the One. This has always been, and still is, the case.

Therefore, after excluding Polytheism and Dualism because of their limited following, current worldviews can be classified as adherents of:

• A version of pure Monism as Ultimate Reality:

o With only around 7% of the world population following impersonal materialistic Monism¹Keysar, Ariela; Navarro-Rivera, Juhem (2017). A World of Atheism: Global Demographics. In Bullivant, Stephen; Ruse, Michael (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Atheism. Oxford University Press.(e.g., Atheism).

o With the most represented positions being those of impersonal Panentheism (the One) and personal Monotheism (God). Pure Pantheism (the Universe itself is God) is rare, and mainly found in non-dogmatic esoteric movements that emphasize consciousness expansion through the use of entheogens.

o With most esoteric schools of thought and the mystical traditions of even monotheistic religions (excluding the Christian and some Sufi orders) favoring an impersonal Ultimate Reality and our fusion with it (a form of Panentheism), sometimes even contradicting its main parent religion in this matter (e.g., Kabbalah in Judaism, some branches of Sufism in Islam or Yoga in theistic Hinduism).

• One of the two positions that claim to transcend the dialectic of the One and the Many:

o Non-Dual Buddhism. Of the type “this world is equal to Ultimate Reality” (two sides of the same coin, at the same time). Which, even though sometimes considered a form of Monism (everything has the same nature: Emptiness, Buddha nature), it is and it is not at the same time both Monism (regarding the highest reality) and Dualism (regarding our reality, which it equates with the first).

Other Hindu and main Taoist “non-dual” worldviews being excluded from this category as they eventually believe in pure Monism in the form of Panentheism, instead of holding a “Samsara equals Nirvana” stance. Even Buddhism itself has sometimes been classified as a type of Panentheism by its authorities, (e.g., Reverend Zen Master Soyen Shaku).

o Trinitarian Christianity. Which cannot be said to conform to pure Monism, even if it is a monotheistic religion.

In Dualism or duo-theistic worldviews, the world has an origin, usually born from the cooperation or generative dialectical tension between the two opposite or complementary Principles, typically male and female.

But as we have seen, these worldviews are currently rare. The major beliefs regarding the origin of all that exists can be summarized as:

• Time and the Universe have always existed. There is no such thing as an origin. Found in Buddhism, Jainism and some interpretations of Taoism and metaphysical Anarchism.

This belief is an unavoidable consequence of “true” (non-panentheistic) non-dualist worldviews. If this reality and Ultimate Reality are one and the same, one cannot have been derived from the other.

• Emanationism: everything that exists has been emanated from a personal or impersonal highest reality (the One). Found in many Dharmic religions (excluding Buddhism and Jainism), and in almost all mystical and esoteric schools of thought. The implications of this belief are:

o Our very nature is eventually identical with this Ultimate Reality (“you are God, we are all God”).

o The current Universe is either an illusion born of ignorance or the temporal play of the energies of this One reality (“God´s body”).

• Creation Out of Nothing (Ex Nihilo): creation came from nothing through the action of a transcendent personal God that is above being and non-being. Found in Abrahamic faiths: Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

Notable is the fact that the mystical traditions of all religions (excluding the Christian and a few Sufi ones, as mentioned above), because of their panentheistic views, believe in emanationism, even if their parent religion follows the doctrine of creation out of nothing (e.g., Kabbalah, most Sufi orders).

This is a core tenet of Traditionalism, which teaches that truth is found in the esoteric core of all religions (their mystical traditions) instead of in the exoteric beliefs taught to “the masses”.

Regarding the structure of time and the cosmos in our reality, two main positions can be found:

• Cyclical Cosmology and Time: common, but not always present, in worldviews that follow an emanationist doctrine. The Universe (or Multiverse), follows a cyclical process of creation, degeneration and destruction. Each instance of the Universe can have its own gods, who being also mortal, will perish at the end of each cycle. A god, it is implied, is a title for a temporal role or function, not an ontological declaration of transcendence.

This belief also implies an a-historic outlook, since events tend to repeat themselves, lacking uniqueness and making history and everything that is bound by time less important.

This doctrine is found in all Indian religions, but also in Western thought (e.g., in Stoicism or in the Neo-Platonic “world periods”). Most modern esoteric schools, such as Theosophy and Traditionalism, adopted this doctrine from Indian religions and disseminated it, being now commonplace in most “spiritual but not religious” movements, such as the New Age.

• Linear Cosmology and Time: typical of Abrahamic religions that believe in creation out of nothing by a transcendent God.

It is also present, however, in a few emanationist worldviews such as: Sufism (certain orders, due to mainstream exoteric Islamic theology), Gnosticism (including Mandaeism) and Kabbalah.

In all these worldviews historicity is important (e.g., the Christian Incarnation of the Logos) and the world is firmly advancing to a permanent universal eschatological event.

It could be argued that a third position that transcends the dialectic between linear and cyclical cosmologies exists: the belief in a linear time where recurrent cycles of immanent meaningful events (types) point to a future transcendent one (anti-types).

This is the Christian view on Typology, especially important in Orthodox Christianity. According to this doctrine, some events resemble and prefigure future ones, since they share the same underlying spiritual reality or Reason (logoi). The existence of types does not eliminate the uniqueness of these events, however, as their concrete historical importance is emphasized in addition to their value as pointers of both an underlying spiritual reality and of a future transcendent event that recapitulates everything that was previously pre-figured through types.

The most obvious example is the Incarnation of the Logos, pre-figured in multiple types in the Old Testament and the Jewish Bible. Another example is the coming of the Anti-Christ at the end of time, pre-figured through multiple “Anti-Christs” partaking of his spiritual reality and becoming his pre-figurations throughout history.

In a totally different manner, there exists another position that emphasizes the cyclical nature of life within a linear cosmological framework: agricultural and Sun-worshipping religions or esoteric traditions (e.g., Wicca and Neo-Paganism).

A number of worldviews delegate in science their metaphysical positions on topics such as cosmology and how time works. However, science has proposed many different paradigms concerning these topics, ranging from linear ones (constantly expanding Universe after the Big Bang that will eventually end in its thermodynamic death), to cyclical ones (Big Crunch theory). Current observations seem to favour a linear cosmology, since no evidence of universal contraction has been found.

This doctrine is found typically in monotheistic Abrahamic religions, where the existence of an omnibenevolent transcendent God in a world full of suffering needs an explanation.

A subtype of this metaphysical stance is the following:

o Evil as Non-Existence, which is also Matter. Common in worldviews that follow the doctrine of Emanationism and posit an Impersonal Force or Principle as the Godhead, instead of a Personal transcendent God (e.g., Panentheism; doctrines of the One).

Here, the emanation further apart from the One True Reality is matter. It is considered as the limit between existence and non-existence, as pure potentiality without actuality. Matter is our prison, as well as that of the Spirit or God (myth of Narcissus).

• Evil as having Ontological Reality. Seen as personal from the beginning in the form of:

o A particular Being or Principle (e.g., Zoroastrianism, Gnosticism).

o Multiple individual Evil Spirits (Animism and Shamanism).

o A Realm of Darkness containing those Spirits (Mandaeism).

Or as impersonal as:

o A part of God: sometimes in the form of an unbalanced attribute of His (Kabbalah).

o As His necessary counterpart: through which the Absolute limits itself in order to become manifest (Lurianic Kabbalah).

The positions regarding our ability to live our own life in a way conducive to mankind´s ultimate aim can be summarized as follows:

• Mankind is absolutely free to live as they want. In general, no conditioning is strong enough to prevent us from leading the life we want, if we can muster the sufficient force of will to do so.

No traditional or modern science-based worldview thinks this is the case. Only philosophies like Anarchism and Objectivism, who emphasize the self-made heroic character of man can be said to fully embrace the possibility of achieving this level of absolute freedom.

• Fatalism. We are the slaves of a power like Fate, the gods or of our own conditioning. Fighting against them will not yield the desired results.

No traditional school of thought fully endorses this view either, as no salvation for man could be sought if some degree of personal autonomy was not possible.

However, some of them partially believe in it, including: Gnosticism (and Mandaeism), some denominations of Protestant Christianity and their theory of Total Depravity, Stoicism, Islam, Zurvanism (a later version of Zoroastrianism), Taoism and its concept of Life-Destiny and, especially, passive Nihilism and usually most science-based worldviews, which see the Universe as a mechanistic and reductionist closed system where genes and environment heavily limit and condition our possibilities, with no spiritual element present in us capable of modifying the resulting deterministic outcome.

• Conditioned Free Will. The main position of traditional worldviews, treading the middle way between the two extremes just mentioned. The amount of freedom we have is differently perceived depending on the tradition. This stance can be further divided into:

o Those who believe in a Cycle of Rebirths conditioned by a Moral Law of Causality (Karma). Where a certain justification of Fatalism due to Karmic Law can be seen, with most persons unable to attain higher states in their current life unless they acquire further merit and wisdom and reincarnate in better conditions.

The main worldviews that include this belief are: Hinduism (including Tantric Shaivism) and Yoga, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Hermeticism, some branches of Kabbalah and Taoism, Neo-Platonism, Perennialism, Theoshophy and New Age, Spiritism and some versions of Wicca and Neo-Paganism.

o Those who don´t. They include: Christianity, Judaism, Islam (and Sufism). Modern philosophical stances such as Agnosticism, Relativism / Post-Modernism and Nihilism. Science-based worldviews such as Transhumanism, Secular Humanism and Atheism. Gnosticism and Mandaeism. Zoroastrianism, Stoicism, Shamanism, some versions of Taoism and Wicca, and Spiritualism.

Finally, worldviews can be classified according to what they perceive to be mankind´s ultimate aim and destiny:

• Cessation of Existence. A fairly modern opinion of man´s ultimate destiny, only shared by modern science-based worldviews (excluding religious Transhumanism) and Stoicism, which declared itself agnostic regarding an eternal afterlife due to its material conception of the soul.

• Salvation in a Heavenly Realm. Where individual souls live in a paradisiacal or heavenly realm prepared for them by God, in which they can grow perpetually closer to Him. They may inherit some of the attributes and energies of God, but without becoming one with Him.

Found in monotheistic religions (with reservations in the cases of Roman Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity, as we will later see), Shamanism, Shintoism, Spiritualism, Zoroastrianism, Wicca, Neo-Paganism and even in Transhumanism, if we consider their aspirations of building digital paradisiacal realms where uploaded souls can live indefinitely.

• Liberation from the Cycle of Rebirths. Understood just as the cessation of suffering and conditioning (Theravada Buddhism), or as the realisation of our true identity as:

o Possessors of Buddha-Nature (Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism).

o Ultimate Reality itself (e.g., Hinduism and all worldviews derived from it, including modern Western esoteric ones).

• Self-Deification (Apotheosis). Where the souls of the adepts, as part of God, are fused back with their Source, becoming One again with it through mankind´s own efforts. Most common in esoteric, panentheistic systems of thought. It is based on the notion that we are already God or Ultimate Reality in our essence and, therefore, we can trace back the path of emanations (the Great Chain of Being) to go back to the Source and to our own intrinsic nature. A mostly Western esoteric concept similar to the Eastern concept of liberation, with a lesser focus on breaking the round of cyclical existences, which may not always be endorsed.

It can be found, for example, in Hermeticism, Alchemy and, partially, in Lurianic Kabbalah and Gnosticism (Holy Sparks motif).

• Deification (Theosis). Particular Orthodox Christian doctrine. It states that God becomes “All in all“, giving Himself freely and fully to all without annulling their individuality. Saved persons partake of all of God´s attributes (Energies) without fusing with His Essence.

Another possible way of classifying these worldviews is to compare their view on who Jesus Christ is, since many of them acknowledge Him in one way or another. Jesus Christ is conceived as:

• A Prophet of God: for Manichaeism, Islam and the Druze faith.

• One of the Manifestations of God: for the Baháʼí faith.

• A Transcendent Teacher sent to liberate mankind: for Gnosticism.

• An Avatar or Incarnation of God (one of many): for Hinduism.

• A Bodhisattva: for Buddhism (as stated by Tenzin Gyatso, the fourteenth Dalai Lama²“[…] Jesus Christ also lived previous lives” ; “[…] So, you see, he reached a high state, either as a Bodhisattva, or an enlightened person, through Buddhist practice or something like that.”
― Tenzin Gyatso as quoted in Beverley, James A. (2001). Hollywood’s Idol. Christianity Today, Vol. 45, No. 8.).

• An Ascended Master: for Theosophy and its offshoot, the New Age.

We have now briefly compared the more salient characteristics of each worldview, their main metaphysical building blocks and what concomitant beliefs each of these building blocks is usually associated with.

1. Mysticism, Sacred and Profane: an Inquiry Into Some Varieties of Praeternatural Experience. R.C. Zaehner.
2. Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy: Finding the Way to Christ in a Complicated Religious Landscape. Andrew Stephen Damick.
3. A History of Religious Ideas (Vol. I-III). Mircea Eliade.
4. Patterns in Comparative Religion. Mircea Eliade.

1. Keysar, Ariela; Navarro-Rivera, Juhem (2017). A World of Atheism: Global Demographics. In Bullivant, Stephen; Ruse, Michael (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Atheism. Oxford University Press.
2. “[…] Jesus Christ also lived previous lives” ; “[…] So, you see, he reached a high state, either as a Bodhisattva, or an enlightened person, through Buddhist practice or something like that.”  ― Tenzin Gyatso as quoted in Beverley, James A. (2001). Hollywood’s Idol. Christianity Today, Vol. 45, No. 8.