The simple and the complex

 

Many people still believe (or want to believe) that the original message of the Buddha (or Jesus, or any religious founder) was pure, pristine and simple. All the complexities are degenerate products of a later time. This scenario is based both on a implicit evolutionary perspective whereby all phenomena go from the simple to the complex, and a Protestant perspective in which the complexities are seen as a degeneration. How *that* combo works is, I suppose, anybody´s guess! More importantly, is there any actual evidence for this position? Or is it just an assumption floating around in intellectual meta-space? 

Are there any new religions *today* which exhibit the scheme "from very simple to  more complex" (and degenerate)? Maybe, but from the top of my head, I can´t think of any! Take Mormonism. It´s extremely complex theological speculations were developed by founder Joseph Smith himself during his lifetime, and continued by the Utah branch of Mormonism after his death. By contrast, the Reorganized Church developed a much simpler theology which over time moved closer to "mainline" evangelical Christianity - but that wasn´t a return to a pure and pristine original message, but a deviation from it, since Joseph Smith´s original message wasn´t particularly evangelical. Rather, he was the mage of Palmyra! 

Or take Theosophy. It could be argued that "The Secret Doctrine" was "dumbed down" by all branches of Theosophy after Blavatsky´s death, although the "Pasadena" branch later tried returning to it. Or take Charles Taze Russel. Didn´t Judge Rutherford actually make his message simpler? I´m sure other examples of the same phenomenon can be adduced: complexity comes first, simplification later. This is of course perfectly logical: the founder of any truly new spiritual tradition would have to be very sophisticated in terms of either ideas or techniques (or both), while the later adaptation - drawing in the masses - would have to be simpler. 

That being said, there is also another tendency at work in some religious traditions towards an increase in "scholastic" complexity, presumably when the message of the original founder attracts the intelligentsia (or people trying to pass themselves off as such). Both tendencies - populism and scholasticism - can indeed be seen as "degenerations" from the message of the founder, but that doesn´t mean the founder was some rustic simpleton. He (or she) may have been free-wheeling, ecstatic and charismatic, but also very, very complicated...