skylark

surfing around reading about christian conversion, alison looks over my shoulder and says "remember, only violent emotions can counteract the influence of the spores."

pagans don't evangelize much. oh sure, we'll do those Pagan Pride events once in a while, and one always appreciates fellow travelers, but most pagan outreach consists more of first, mounting the flag so that like-minded folks can find and get to know one another and second, working to clarify and describe (all too often, read "defend") pagan perspective.

to begin with, many pagans create themselves after a period of seeking. they don't need evangelists, and often are running from them. whereas the great modern religions have the benefit of ubiquity in their respective cultures - and the sense of righteous inevitability that goes with it, a basic component of the evangelistic mindset - paganism in these same cultures is an outlier, the very lack of meaningful recruitment to which is a positive incentive in itself for some.

second, and probably more importantly, paganism isn't really concerned with "saving" anyone, especially as that idea has any connection to an afterlife. yes, we have our summerlands and valhallas, but the actual concern with these attainments in real practice is nearly nil. the idea of an eternity of punishment is not only abhorrent but ridiculous, and the avoidance of such has absolutely no bearing whatever on modern pagan morality. salvation and damnation are something you experience now, in your conscience and in your own personal relation with the living, present divine - not something toward which you tot up chits to be paid off after death.

all of which is to say that arguments that attempt to frame pagan/christian evangelical dialogue on the idea that evangelism itself is a common ground - that everyone's trying to convert everyone when we get right down to it, so hey, let us into your head, ok? - are wrongheaded from the start, and really not worth a pagan's time.

i am of two minds regarding the gnostic perspective. on the one hand, if one posits a metaphysical universe in keeping with essentially monotheistic ideas, i think the gnostics have it exactly right: if this universe is a "creation", then it is the work of a demiurge. on the other hand, i actually disagree fundamentally with the premise that the world, or we, are flawed - though neither do i see it all as perfect. it is simply what it is. we are cruel because we live and breathe. we suffer because we are aware. the world is ugly and beautiful, sustaining and deadly, because that's how life works.

one of the implications of having a value system is that you cannot be a thoroughgoing relativist. there is such a thing as right and wrong, and some wrongs are intolerable.

the mind is that of which i am aware.

something i said elsewhere, late in the day and tired, in response to what might, just for a moment, have been an interesting discussion on an old sophomore year philosophy topic:

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i've indicated elsewhere my repulsion at the mindset of the martyr. purposeful sacrifice is one thing... nailing yourself up and expecting to be ennobled by it is something else entirely.

similarly, i have little empathy for the moses trip... the whole "i will lead you hence with my words but woe! i cannot follow because that is not my own path" thing. in modern history, one person got away with that shtick: martin luther king jr. for the rest of you lost prophets, just get down off that damned mountain, shoulder the same backpack you've been selling the rest of us, and hit the trail. we've got a river to cross.

over the weekend i found myself watching a formal debate - sponsored by the Miller Center, i believe - on the question of religion in modern american politics. even though the opposing team included the loathsome chuck colson, and even though i disagreed profoundly with just about every premise, conclusion and assertion of that opposition, i was seriously-enough impressed by the adult bearing of the whole thing - the reasonableness of it all - that i was inclined to give bishop harry jackson some benefit of the doubt when he described evangelicals as, really, just normal people with a need for a specific ethical framework.

that benefit, of course, lasts only as long as it takes me to be reminded that, in fact, bishop jackson himself is in the minority of educated, quasi-rational evangelical thinkers, and that far too many of the mass "believers" (and their leaders) are batshit insane.

(and yah, the smiling, polite mobs that joel osteen packs into his stadium may not have pinwheel eyeballs, but really, it's a very small step from so-called "prosperity gospel" to the conviction that if for some reason you fail to prosper you are beneath consideration, or worse, require ideological correction.)

...if you're going to find religion, I consider it somewhat better to find one that's at least totally metal.

totally.

one reason i can never be a christian is that whenever i see that guy on the cross i hear myself saying, "no... this isn't necessary. not for me. please let me help you down from that thing. just what were you thinking, anyway?"

via jordan stratford, an excellent list of what matters, by dianne sylvan.

i collect tarot cards, and i used to read tarot fairly regularly. by most accounts - except from alison, for whom tarot doesn’t seem to mean much, and who, as a hereditary witch, has different standards for this kind of thing - i was pretty good at it. i was an intuitive reader, letting the cards tell a story, and letting the story tell itself to the person i was reading.

but i’ve lost a good deal of that intuition, and like lyra and the alethiometer, i’ve decided to take a systematic approach, re-learning the skill on a different, hopefully more sophisticated level.

i’ve laid out the universal waite and thoth decks, and am studying them in tandem, suit by suit, card by card, immersing myself in history, artistic and psychomystical intentions, and a more conscious semiotics.

i’m trying to keep my expectations minimal, and just do it for its own sake. and anyone who knows me, knows how hard that is. my life is littered with things taken up, avoided, attempted, put away in frustration, tears or silence.

let’s just see how this goes, shall we?

i’m always bemused when someone argues that “science is just another religion.” don’t they see that they are actually acknowledging that religious conviction is an inferior kind of reasoning?

According to Tricycle, “The People’s Republic [of China] recently issued a proclamation banning tulkus from reincarnating without government permission.”

“The reincarnation of living Buddhas must undergo application and approval procedures,” the new regulations stipulate. “Living Buddha” reincarnations with a “particularly great impact,” such as presumably of the next Dalai Lama, “shall be reported to the State Council for approval.”

comment:

antagonism between religious and secular authority is normally pretty unbalanced. whereas religious authority has often sought substantial influence over just about every level and aspect of secular affairs, secular authority has, for the most part, limited its own interest in religion to the question of whether, and to what degree, it could exist or operate at all. the particulars of doctrine, or the mechanisms of metaphysical events, are generally of little consequence to the state, unless that state is religiously constituted. apparently, the PRC has decided to be a bit more proactive.

one mythos is as good as another, as long as it resonates… as long as its roots strike deep.

this is why i have no problem taking the jedi just a little seriously, or even more significantly, modeling a part of my own worldview after the writings of tolkien. he was a scholar, after all, of language and culture. he knew what he was about, and he draws on very old forms.

at what point does a performance become appropriation?

take the sweat lodge. it happens that sweat lodges are not unique to indigenous north american cultures. so at what point does building one become an appropriation of those cultures? is it a certain design? the addition of feathers? using a smudge stick? is it all just about cultural artifact and style?

how can a spiritual practice be “usurped”? what actual harm is done, beyond offense?

i’ve also just had it with the whole idea. what am i supposed to be limited to, as a white 20th century american? the church of walmart?

and yes, i know that sounds like “wounded privilege.” any member of what is believed to be an oppressive class is fully responsible for that class, and has no standing in the ethical pecking order.

i read in a comment somewhere that “only one religion can be true.”

i understand the rationale behind this, of course. but the fact that it so patently false informs a lot of my questing in this area.

in the absence of knowledge, anything can suffice as an explanation. which is how things like “intelligent design” try to weasel their way into rational discourse. they offer no real testable hypothesis, just one of an infinite number of possible explanations for something that may not yet be known.

people who don’t know anything about science - or who may know something but are hostile to it - view the current lack of explanation for this or that phenomenon to as an indictment of an entire theory, or of science itself. and they seek to fill the gap with whatever nonsense fits their agenda.

just because some field of science cannot adequately explain some observation, or even some conflict between observation and working theory, does not mean that science is somehow a failure, or that scientists are dishonest, or that the field is open to meaningless speculation.

if i have a spiritual legacy, it is a kind of vague, semi-materialistic pantheism inherited from my father, who used to describe consciousness as the act of “the universe looking at itself.”

the quote that follows, from his dark materials, is the closest thing i have ever seen to that worldview, expressed through pullman’s metaphor of Dust, with which i am now quite taken.

the relevant bit is in bold text, and the surrounding material is kept both for context, and as an indicator of the gnostic thinking which this kind of thing keeps leading me back to.

“The Authority, God, the Creator, the Lord, Yahweh, El, Adonai, The King, the Father, the Almighty - those were all names he gave himself. He was never the creator. He was an angel like ourselves - the first angel, true, the most powerful, but he was formed of Dust as we are, and Dust is only a name for what happens when matter begins to understand itself. Matter loves matter. It seeks to know more about itself, and Dust is formed. The first angels condensed out of Dust, and the Authority was the first of all. He told those who came after him that he had created them, but it was a lie. One of those who came later was wiser than he was, and she found out the truth, so he banished her.”

the idea that the same allegedly benevolent being that would concern itself with your petty self-interests - your wealth, your piety, your righteousness - is the same that is utterly indifferent to the terror and suffering of untold millions, strikes me as so pathologically selfish as to indicate outright insanity.

—

years ago, when heavy metal magazine was still truly original, it ran a serial by angus mckie called “so beautiful and so dangerous,” in which a motley group travels the galaxy in the company of an alien named sisyphus in a search for meaning, and finding only… well, life as it is.

near the end of the journey, sisyphus, who has been exceptionally reserved for the entire trip, finally answers the question of what kind of creator could dream up such a reality by screaming, “if there is a god, then he is a malicious idiot child with a vicious sense of humor, and if i ever catch up with him i’m going to ram his teddy bear down his FUCKING THROAT!”

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it is clear to me that there is no way - no way - that the abrahamic model of deity makes any rational, theological or ethical sense.

we know that matter organized a certain way can be conscious.

but cogito ergo sum is not commutative. being does not necessarily guarantee consciousness.

or does it?

i prayed today for the first time in quite a while.

in keeping with my current and evolving worldview, this was not a prayer of supplication or protection, or a plea to limit the consequences of my own errors (though i confess that was my original intent). it turned out to be a prayer for support, for the strength to persevere, prevail and survive.

i have little else to say about it at the moment, other than that it meant more to me than i expected.

i don’t understand how the protestant doctrine of Sola Scriptura (”by scripture alone”) can get around the scriptural assignment of the Church to Peter.

you can’t have it both ways, any more than you can claim both scripture and personal interpretation as authoritative.

it’s too bad that luther couldn’t go that one extra step, and dispense with the Book altogether, in favor of gnosis. as it turned out, he fathered an institutional hypocrisy no better than the corruption against which he rebelled.

query: can a self-important anti-secularist alleged scholar discuss any aspect of secularist views without resorting to straw men, bad faith, and shallow, sneering nonsense?

apparently not.

that scientists and clerics are capable of making similarly human mistakes does not mean that their worldviews are in any way meaningfully equivalent.

nor does their non-equivalence in any way require their mutual exclusivity.

personally, though, given the track record of each as a principal component of social organization, i prefer a secular society.

and it’s much the same as any other day.
and i don’t feel at all good about that.

skylark feels like her wings are coated with oil.

i understand dawkins’ point. really i do. it was the same point that the existentialists tried to make: tear it down. not just wear it down with doubt but really change the paradigm, start with an entirely radical assumption. (i once got an F on a well-written paper simply because i’d opened with that assumption). then, start fresh. find a real reason for there to be ethics, that springs from what it means to be human, and clear-eyed, and without any woowoo at all. we know that there’s a reason, but we always fall back onto the transcendent, and that’s a trap for most people. it makes it too easy.

the farther you get from the reformation, the less i can relate.

protestants were supposed to be their own interpreters. knowledge was supposed to escape the grip of the priests, and come to their hands. but i find protestants, in general, far less educated about their own scripture and its provenance, and particularly in the context of fundamentalism, far more credulous with respect to the self-serving interpretations of egomaniacs with crosses and microphones.

one of the things that annoys me about many modern neopagan polytheists is that they seem to treat their gods like buddies. they reduce them, as if polytheism meant some kind of necessary dilution of the essence of spirit to mere big-brotherly/-sisterly helpmeet. “i worked with yaddayadda and he told me to do thusandsuch”.

no, he didn’t. neither god nor the gods are your personal counselor.

it really is obvious that, for a lot of neopagans, their “faith” is really just a search for coziness, in response to what they see as the oppressiveness of the monotheistic churches.

along related lines, it seems that nearly every neopagan is a ritualist, priest, shaman or seer. everyone is an “initiate”", all seeking power and mysteries. no one follows what must surely have been the actual traditional relationship between people and their gods, which is mostly passive… priests have always been a select class. why, in paganism, should we now be awash in them?

i am the only person i know so far to admit to being a “lay” pagan. i have no voices in my head. i have no special sight. my gods are not telling me what to do. they are just there.

the “fairy faith” is the cultural equivalent of the shintoism i have always felt kinship to.

i start from the proposition that the landscape of myth and mysticism is a map of the human mind. the question then is where you find yourself, when you follow that map to its own sketchy borders.

no meaningful system of thought or social organization fails to evolve. the christianity of today is not that of 1500 years ago, and there is no reason to suppose that any surviving indigenous faith would be any more static.

show me a spiritual seeker/inquirer who isn’t to some degree eclectic, and i’ll show you either someone who hasn’t traveled more than ten miles from their home, read a book, watched television, or participated meaningfully in any modern culture in the past one hundred years - or someone who is operating under self-defined constraints as artificial as “eclecticism” is often considered to be.

paraphrasing nixon, “we are all post-modernists now.”

this entry copied in its entirety from the blog of jordan stratford+.

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as my mentor told me, becoming is more important than what you become.

as my friend pointed out, it’s not what you transcend that matters. it’s rather the practice of transcending that is important.

as i told myself, it’s the act of commitment that feels in many ways more important than what you commit yourself to.

while surfing, i came across this entry, the bulk of which i am copying here to enter into my own archives. emphases are mine.

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One of the common misunderstandings when you tell people that you are a Gnostic is that they hear the more familiar word “Agnostic.” (This becomes quite amusing when they mishear “Agnostic Priest,” or “Agnostic Eucharist.”) This becomes a good opportunity to elucidate one of the truisms of contemporary Gnosticism: You have to be an Agnostic before you can become a Gnostic.

The original differences between agnostic and gnostic are the “privative alpha” of Classical Greek. This prefix functioned like “un-” or “non-” and thus linguistically the two words are opposites, literally ‘Knower’ and ‘Un-Knower.’ (incidentally, the “a” was the first syllable, and the “g” was pronounced in both.)

However, this is Modern English and not Classical Greek, and so both terms have come to have certain more specific meanings. An Agnostic has been jokingly called a “cowardly Atheist,” but is generally someone who knows that they do not know about the divine from the reports of others.

As William James says, most people have faith in someone else’s faith. They believe they know because they have beliefs that have been given to them. While this is entirely satisfactory in some aspects of life, for example if someone tells you what they know about Aruba from their readings, it is unlikely that you will have a need or desire to check their facts, you are satisfied with their account. However, It is highly unsatisfactory when it comes to the truly important aspects of life: the ultimate nature of oneself, the Cosmos, and the Divine.

In rejecting the answers of the Believers, the Agnostic withholds belief, and knows that he does not know. Someone who mistakes belief for knowledge, as most do in this world, will wrestle with the question of existence in the manner of belief: seeking stronger belief and assuaging doubts. It does not occur to Believers that they do not know, it only occurs to them that they do not believe. Thus an Agnostic has made a great deal of progress towards becoming a Gnostic, and has developed the attitude a Gnostic must have. For while a Gnostic knows from experience (has gnosis of), there is so much that a Gnostic does not know (has no gnosis of), and in these matters must maintain the attitude of an Agnostic. We can turn to scripture, tradition, and others for guidance in those aspects for which we personally have no Gnosis, but we cannot have Gnosis of someone else’s Gnosis.

To know that one does not know is the starting point of the path of Gnosis.

an acquaintance said that his “impression of the Pagan movement is that pagans don’t seem to act as though their gods are real.”

and to some degree i think he’s right. i know that some of the fragments of the pagan community i’ve hovered around recently seem to be committed to a kind of hip insouciance. alison has even noticed it, while hovering over my shoulder. once, reading yet another takedown of a wiccan fluffbunny, she walked away in disgust, muttering about the hubris of people who don’t even really believe in “witches” in the first place. alison, of course, is one… though no longer a self-defined wiccan.

as i commented (edits in parentheses):

i agree that many pagans don’t seem to act as if they “believe” what they presumably lay claim to. i think, though, that that may have less to do with a lack of seriousness than with a couple of other things. first, paganism is rife with ridiculousness and delusion, and a lot of (more self-consciously serious) pagans develop a hard shell of pragmatism in response, which makes them seem more cynical about their own faiths than they may actually be. second, paganism is a lot more diffuse than the dominant structured religions, so it allows for a somewhat more fluid worldview, which can come across as superficial at times, but i think may simply be constantly questioning. finally, it seems to me that pagans in general are better educated about the social and psychological purposes of religion, and are more honest about those factors… which is to say, less dogmatic about the “truths” of the faiths themselves. (the point being that they - or the more academically minded ones, at least - are less likely to simply assent to “divine vision”, and much more likely to acknowledge the personal and cultural factors which frame and even create it.)

a solid faith is not defined by its sunday adherents, i think, but by its scholars and devouts… and there are plenty of those in paganism.

really, the stereotype of the dreamy celt is their own damn fault.

the image of a culture is a product of those who claim, define and sell that culture. i’m currently reading the celtic consciousness, a symposium assembled in the 70s in an effort to do exactly that. and right up front the symposium’s founder and editor, robert o’driscoll, stakes out his claim for the celtic as a uniquely imaginative frame of mind. ultimately, the claim is that celtic consciousness and its products - particularly art - are so distinct, deeprooted and significant, that it rivals or even surpasses the greek… classicism, of course, having been the traditional benchmark for ancient greatness. and that consciousness, reflected in the forms of its products, is richly intricate, fluid, and even mystical.

and of course the first great salesman of this perspective was yeats, whose celtic twilight set the pattern for what has finally come down to us as a kind of vague impression of “celtic” as ethereal, poetic and daintily folkish.

a discussion thread was begun, on the topic of whether we have created new mythos. if enough of ourselves is invested in fiction that speaks deeply to us, whose metaphors we take for our own and live through, do we not in effect instantiate new mythic content?

i said:

it’s not just fictional creation. any intentional act is infused with the spirit of the intention. the more focused the intent, the more consciousness is brought to bear, the better resolved is the character of the act and its spirit. as cerebus said, “anything done for the first time raises a demon.” think of all the astonishing, sometimes horrifying things that have been done for the first time, in our modern era. we are awash in new avatars, kami and probably even gods.

before i go any farther with this, let me just point out that i never saw the da vinci code, have no wish to read the book (the last thing remotely related that i read was eco’s foucault’s pendulum, and eco is a hard act to follow), and have had the nag hammadi library on my shelf for over 10 years now (yes, right now it’s in storage, along with most of the rest of my much-lamented library).

m’kay? ‘ta.