The matrix
65 traditions, 17 axes, every cell sourced
A tradition is included when its positions can be sourced on at least fourteen of the seventeen axes. Where they cannot, it is left out — omission is honest, caricature is not. Branches that differ doctrinally are treated as separate results rather than lumped together: Theravada, Mahayana, Zen, Pure Land and Vajrayana are five entries, not one.
Christianity13
- Roman CatholicismA personal, transcendent God known through revelation and reason together, mediated by a sacramental church with teaching authority. Humanity is wounded and rescued by grace, which reaches people through sacraments rather than around them.
- Eastern OrthodoxyShares the Catholic creedal core but reads salvation as theosis — genuine participation in the divine energies — rather than as a legal remedy. Correspondingly more immanent, more ascetic, and less interested in defining what it has not had to define.
- Oriental OrthodoxyThe Coptic, Armenian, Syriac and Ethiopian churches, separated from the rest of Christendom since 451 over christology. Doctrinally close to Eastern Orthodoxy, with a heavier fasting discipline and a strongly inherited communal identity.
- LutheranismSalvation by grace alone through faith alone, received rather than achieved — the single sharpest position on D1 in the whole matrix. Retains sacraments and liturgy while moving authority from the hierarchy to scripture and the confessions.
- AnglicanismDeliberately broad: scripture, tradition and reason weighted together, with liturgical form holding together people who disagree doctrinally. Has the widest dispersions of any Christian body here, and that width is the tradition rather than a defect in the data.
- Reformed Christianity (Calvinism)God’s sovereignty pressed further than anywhere else in Christianity: election is unconditional and grace is irresistible, so nothing whatsoever on the human side earns the outcome. Worship is stripped to what scripture positively commands.
- Anabaptism (Mennonite, Amish, Hutterite)Faith as a freely chosen adult commitment enacted in a separated community — baptism on confession, not on birth. Discipleship and non-resistance are the substance; the community, not the clergy, discerns.
- Evangelical and Baptist ChristianityA personal decision of faith, a high and usually literal view of scripture, and very little between the individual and God — no priesthood, no mediating sacraments, ordinances rather than mysteries. Exclusive about the path and clear about what it costs to say so.
- Pentecostal and Charismatic ChristianityEvangelical doctrine plus a live claim that God acts now, directly and experienceably — tongues, prophecy, healing. That claim pulls B1 sharply toward direct experience while everything else stays revealed, which is an unusual combination in this matrix.
- Quaker Christianity (Religious Society of Friends)The inner light in every person, reached in silence, with no clergy, no creed and no sacraments — the most thoroughly de-ritualised body in Christianity. Its authority and practice positions sit closer to Stoicism than to Catholicism, which is one of the more interesting facts the matrix surfaces.
- The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day SaintsAn embodied God within the universe rather than outside it, continuing revelation through a living prophet, and matter organised rather than created from nothing. The Fall is read as a necessary step forward, which puts C3 far above every other Christian body here.
- Jehovah’s WitnessesStrictly unitarian, strictly literal, and organisationally directed to an unusual degree. Rejects the immortal soul outright: the dead are unconscious and restored by resurrection, which is why C1 sits mid-scale rather than at the Christian maximum.
- Progressive ChristianityKeeps the practice, the story and the ethics while reading the metaphysics as metaphor. Scripture is human testimony rather than dictation, other paths are treated as genuinely valid, and the point of the whole thing is how you live now.
Islam4
- Sunni IslamAbsolute and undivided oneness, a transcendent God who is nonetheless nearer than the jugular vein, and a revealed text taken as dictated rather than authored. People are born sound and forgetful rather than fallen, which places C3 far from the Christian position despite everything the two share.
- Twelver Shia IslamShares Sunni tawhid and adds a line of divinely appointed Imams, a living scholarly authority one formally follows, and a devotional life built around lament and intercession. Authority sits markedly more centrally than in Sunni practice.
- Nizari IsmailismReads scripture allegorically through ta’wil, guided by a living hereditary Imam whose interpretation is authoritative for the present. The combination of esoteric reason and highly centralised living authority is close to unique in this matrix.
- SufismIslamic practice turned toward direct experiential knowledge of God, with the divine understood as present in everything rather than only beyond it. Keeps the law and the ritual; adds dhikr, a master, and an inclusivism unusual for the family.
Judaism4
- Orthodox JudaismCovenant with a people, worked out in a law that covers ordinary life in detail, under an interpretive authority that is rabbinic rather than priestly. The lowest E3 value in the matrix: belonging here is inherited, not chosen.
- Conservative (Masorti) JudaismHalakhah is binding and also historically developed, so the law changes deliberately and slowly through a scholarly process. Sits between Orthodox and Reform on almost every axis, and does so on purpose.
- Reform JudaismEthical monotheism with autonomy at the centre: the individual decides which practices are binding, and the prophetic call to justice outranks ritual law. The widest dispersions in the Jewish family, and among the widest anywhere in the matrix.
- Reconstructionist JudaismJudaism as an evolving civilisation rather than a revealed religion: God is reconceived as the process that makes for salvation, while practice is retained because it is how a civilisation lives. Non-supernatural and strongly peoplehood-centred at once.
Abrahamic3
- Bahá’í FaithOne unknowable God revealed progressively through a succession of messengers, of whom Bahá’u’lláh is the most recent — so the world’s religions are stages of one revelation rather than rivals. Highly inclusive about other paths and highly centralised about its own administration.
- DruzeAn esoteric monotheism that reads scripture allegorically, teaches immediate reincarnation within the community, and has been closed to conversion for nearly a thousand years. The only Abrahamic tradition here with a cyclical view of time.
- RastafariGod — Jah — present within the person rather than above them, reached through reasoning together rather than through clergy, and lived out in ital diet and an African diasporic identity. Non-creedal by construction, so the dispersions are wide almost everywhere.
Abrahamic-adjacent1
Buddhism6
- Theravada BuddhismSuffering, its cause, its ending, and a path — worked out without a creator and without a self that survives. The unconditioned is real but is not a god, which is why A1 sits mid-scale rather than at either pole.
- Mahayana BuddhismEmptiness and buddha-nature: awakening is not acquired but uncovered, and it is aimed at everyone rather than at oneself. Skilful means makes the tradition genuinely pluralist about how people get there.
- Zen (Chan) BuddhismA special transmission outside the scriptures, pointing directly at the mind — the highest B1 value in the matrix. And yet lineage authority is real and the forms of practice are exacting, which is the tension the tradition lives in.
- Pure Land BuddhismIn an age when self-power fails, Amida’s vow carries you — entrust yourself and that is all. Its D1 value of 0.03 is the purest statement of grace in the matrix, and it arrives from Buddhism rather than from Christianity.
- Vajrayana (Tibetan) BuddhismMahayana aims plus tantric means: an elaborate deity practice, a guru whose authority is central, and a use of the body and the passions as the path rather than as obstacles. The most ritually dense form of Buddhism here.
- Secular BuddhismThe practice and the psychology kept, the cosmology set aside: no literal rebirth, no supernatural claims, no authority beyond what you can test in your own experience. A naturalist reading of the canon rather than a rejection of it.
Hinduism7
- Advaita VedantaOne reality without a second: what you take to be a separate self is Brahman, misperceived. Knowledge dissolves the error — there is nothing to acquire and nobody separate to acquire it.
- Vishishtadvaita VedantaNon-dual, but qualified: souls and world are real and are the body of a personal God. Surrender rather than knowledge is the operative move, which puts D1 on the grace side of a family that mostly sits on the effort side.
- Dvaita VedantaGod, souls and matter are permanently distinct — an unusually sharp dualism inside Vedanta, and the closest Hindu school to a classical theistic picture. Liberation depends on divine grace, not on realising an identity that was there all along.
- Gaudiya VaishnavismKrishna as the supreme personal God, approached through devotion, chanting and a strict guru lineage. The most personalist theism in the Hindu family and, on the authority axes, among the most centralised traditions in the matrix.
- ShaivismShiva as both the absolute and the immediate reality of consciousness, approached through recognition, yoga and temple practice. Spans ascetic and tantric extremes, so D3 sits mid-scale with a wide dispersion for good reason.
- ShaktismThe Goddess as the power that is the world, not a deity who made it — the highest immanence value in the matrix. Ritual is central and the body is treated as a site of the sacred rather than as a problem to solve.
- Samkhya-YogaA dualism of consciousness and nature in which liberation is the disentangling of the two, achieved by a precisely specified discipline. God is an optional element — Samkhya proper does without one — which puts A1 unusually low for the family.
Indic2
- JainismNo creator, no grace, no shortcut: the soul frees itself by not harming, and the discipline required is the most demanding in the matrix. Its doctrine of many-sidedness makes it simultaneously the most epistemically pluralist tradition here.
- SikhismOne formless creator present in everything, remembered in daily practice and served through honest work and shared food. Rejects both caste and asceticism: the householder’s life, lived attentively, is the path.
East Asian5
- Philosophical DaoismThe Dao is the way things go, not a being who arranges them — so the move is to stop interfering and act in accord with it. Almost no ritual, almost no authority, and a naturalism that arrives at reverence rather than at disenchantment.
- Religious DaoismThe same cosmology, staffed: a vast celestial bureaucracy, an ordained priesthood, liturgy, talismans and the pursuit of bodily transcendence through internal alchemy. Practically the opposite of its philosophical sibling on ritual and authority.
- ConfucianismHeaven is real and mostly silent; what matters is becoming a person of character through study, ritual propriety and the obligations of family. Ritual is essential and metaphysics is optional — an inversion of almost every other tradition here.
- ShintoKami are everywhere — in rivers, mountains, ancestors and the occasional remarkable person — and the religion is what you do rather than what you believe. There is no sin to be saved from, only impurity to be washed off.
- Chinese Folk ReligionAncestors, local gods, Buddhist figures and Daoist ritual specialists used together without embarrassment, organised around efficacy rather than around creed. Belonging is to a family and a place, not to a doctrine.
Afro-Brazilian2
- UmbandaA Brazilian synthesis of Yoruba orixás, Kardecist reincarnation and Catholic saints, in which spirits work through mediums to do practical good. Charity is the point, syncretism is the method, and no existing quiz can return it.
- CandombléWest African orixá worship carried to Brazil and preserved through initiation rather than through text — knowledge is transmitted inside a house, in stages, by a hierarchy. The body is where the divine becomes present, not an obstacle to it.
Spiritist1
Afro-diasporic2
- Haitian VodouA distant creator and a crowd of lwa who are served, fed and who ride their devotees in ceremony. Initiatory, communal, intensely embodied, and consistently misrepresented by everyone who has not looked at it.
- Santería (Regla de Ocha / Lucumí)Cuban orisha worship structured around divination, initiation and a strict ritual grammar, with Catholic saints as a historical overlay rather than as theology. Authority is earned through initiation and is not negotiable.
African1
Contemporary Pagan2
- WiccaA Goddess and a God immanent in the turning year, honoured in ritual that participants write themselves, with no scripture and no central authority. The most affirmative position on the body anywhere in the matrix.
- Heathenry (Ásatrú)Reconstructed Norse and Germanic polytheism: gods who are persons with limits, honour and reciprocity as the moral core, and offerings that are meals rather than sacraments. Divided internally over whether belonging is ancestral or open, which the E3 dispersion records.
Metaphysical1
Liberal religious1
Non-theistic4
- Secular HumanismOne life, no supervision, and an ethics built from reason and human solidarity rather than received from anywhere. Organised, articulate and explicit that meaning is made rather than found.
- Philosophical NaturalismThe claim that the natural world is all there is, argued as a position rather than assumed as a mood. Less interested than humanism in supplying a replacement ethics, and correspondingly less pluralist about what counts as true.
- AgnosticismA claim about knowledge rather than about God: the question is not settled and the honest response is suspension. Sits mid-scale on the A-group with small dispersions, because being genuinely undecided is a definite position, not a vague one.
- Ethical CultureDeed before creed: a congregational religious life with ceremony, community and moral education, and no theological claims at all. Keeps rather more ritual than secular humanism, which is the cell that separates the two.
Philosophical5
- StoicismA rational order running through a material cosmos, and a life spent aligning your judgements with it. Its positions on authority, text and ritual land almost exactly where Quaker Christianity does, which is the most interesting near-collision in the matrix.
- EpicureanismAtoms and void, gods who exist and do not care, and death as simply the end — so fear of both is misplaced. The good life is modest, friendly pleasure, deliberately unambitious about everything else.
- ExistentialismNo given essence, no external warrant, and therefore total responsibility for what you make of yourself. The highest value in the matrix on individual conscience, and it treats that as a burden rather than as a liberation.
- PantheismThe universe is the divine — not made by it, not containing it, identical to it. Scores the matrix maximum on immanence and near it on the sacredness of nature, while denying a personal God entirely.
- DeismA creator established by reason from the evidence of order, who does not intervene, answer prayer or reveal anything. The matrix minimum on immanence — this is the one tradition here whose God is genuinely absent from the world.