Jeff Russell

Hey Jeff, a lot of thought-provoking points there. As someone who doesn't "need" this guide per-se, I don't really have much to add, though I should say that I agree Stoicism might be a good entry-point for materialists; though with the caveat that a hardcore belief in "progress" will probably be a massive roadblock when it comes to grasping core Stoic teachings, much less putting those teachings to practice. As you also allude to, Westernized Buddhism seems to attract a fair number of them too, but any deeper dive into authentic Buddhism might face the same sort of cognitive dissonance issues for progressives. IIRC, I slowly started shedding my old progressive beliefs about 8 years ago and I believe this has greatly helped me in adopting a more "enchanted" way of looking at the world.

One thing that JMG has mentioned a few times is the likely fact that a lot of human souls in incarnation right now are likely too "immature" for any serious spiritual teachings, due to the "mental sheath" not being very well developed as of yet; so the "job" of a soul like this in their current incarnation might simply be to learn the rudimentary lessons of material life in a human body. Beyond various basic (and probably dogmatic) religion, such a soul will probably not seek out much in the way of spirituality, thus materialism might come as a default worldview. But it seems the target audience for what you wrote might be someone who has developed their mental sheath enough to commit to a specific intellectual position, in this case skeptical materialism. Perhaps they could be seen as a transition point between materialism and a more refined view of reality. Anyway, I think you present here a serious of compelling strategies for how to break the ice, so to speak. I will be very curious to see where and how you further develop these ideas!