-Caveat Lector- an excerpt from: Other Altars - Roots and Realities of Cultic and Satanic Ritual Abuse and Multiple Personality Disorder Craig Lockwood�1993 CompCare Publishers 3850 Annapolis Lane, Suite 100 Minneapolis, MN 55441 612.559.4800/800.328.3330 ISBN 0-89638-363-6 255+pps � out-of-print/one edition. ----- A very interesting and excellent book. Om K --[5]-- Chapter 5 Existence, Anxiety, And Awe "When large numbers of People together are afflicted with doubt, angst, ennui, loss of purpose, or whatever the term is to be applied to a condition of mental insecurity, their attempts to provide satisfactory explanations of the human condition take on a frantic aspect. " -James Webb, 1973 Something's always going wrong�every day, somewhere in the world. Something's always happening that human beings can't control or even explain. We live in an unpredictable world characterized by cycles of life and death. Few people pass through life untouched, in any society, in any culture. Nobody lives for long without facing ordinary loss and pain-or even catastrophe. Each of us, no matter what our station, experiences continual inconvenience at the day-to-day level. Summing it up concisely is the depressing but accurate aphorism: shit happens. Something's always needing to be fixed, stopped, changed, rearranged. And if it's not something, then it's someone. And if we can't fix it by request, demand, law, statute, decree, threat, war, or any of a thousand other solutions that humankind has used during its short process of civilization, then some feel the need for stronger solutions. Response to this perception of need can take many forms. Positive manifestations represent humankind's highest spiritual expressions�Mother Theresa working with the poor in a Calcutta slum or the tireless efforts of those who work in hospices, among the homeless, or with terminally ill children. Negative responses, such as the fanatic mass suicide of members of Jim Jones's People's Temple, or David Koresh's Branch Davidians, or the body-consuming Palo Mayombe sorcery of Jesus Constanzo, exhibit the flip side of the coin. Existential Dilemma No matter how much technology and science contribute to the quality of contemporary Western life, they are never enough to create complete safety. Disease is a perpetual human condition. Bacteria, viruses, ticks, lice, mosquitoes, poisonous things that fly and crawl and swim leave children and adults paralyzed, disfigured, and maimed. Nature's catalog of woes is legion. Blizzards. Floods. Drought and defoliation. Dust or sandstorms. Fire. Or earthquakes. Add to this all the problems humanity contributes. Industrial pollution overwhelms eastern Europe. Atomic radiation from a failed reactor poisons a vast area in Russia. Tank cars derail in California, spilling deadly chemicals into a trout stream. Smog chokes the citizens of Los Angeles, Tokyo, and Mexico City. Fleeing war, insurrection, genocide�people overwhelm others. Starvation cuts an agonizing swath throughout human populations. Predators, Prayers, and Awe Humanity's humane side meanders like a slender stream of pure water through history. Though it will eventually brush most of us, for many it comes either too late or too little. And yet, by and large, decent humans outnumber the indecent-even if they don't seem to have the same impact. Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, St. Francis, and Mother Theresa are the exception. Their lights burn so powerfully that they glow for centuries. Without this kind of spiritual sustenance, the race might die of despair. It is our spiritual nature, however, that sustains us, and often ensures survival of the species. Awe forms part of this important spiritual quality. Part veneration, part dread, part terror, part wonder, awe speaks to that part of us we call "soul." Awe is the emotional language of sublime reverence. Awe, as with love, fear, hate, anxiety, and suspicion, dwells within every human. We can experience the feeling of awe not only for the sublime, but for the sinister as well. Awe, inspired by love, kindness, consideration, and compassion, is an uplifting spiritual quality. Inspired by dread, fear, and terror, awe renders us helpless and groveling. This duality is the paradox of human spirituality. It makes the worship of evil possible. Our awe-inspired dark side engulfs humanity, enveloping us in fear, cloaking us with superstition and suspicion. So where do we turn? Some of us get down on our knees in a conventional place of worship. We pray as mainstream Protestants, Jews, Catholics, Mormons, Eastern Orthodox or as fundamentalist Christians, Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, Moslems, Buddhists. But is conventional prayer effective? Does God really listen to the coach who circles his team in the locker room praying for victory? Does God actually hear the big-eyed little girl beside her bed praying for a pony or the politician praying for political and personal victory? Does God actually favor the pious guerrilla commander set to attack and wipe out women and children in a mountain village? And if so, why do buses carrying innocent Christian children bound for Sunday school plunge into icy rivers? Why does a misguided missile blow a planeload of Mecca-bound Moslem Haj pilgrims out of the sky? If God protects the holy, why does the church's roof cave in and kill the congregants? Why does God allow a Jim Bakker to bilk his flock of millions and serve less time than a car thief? God's plans, say the pious. Unfathomable to us. More unfathomable, counter nonbelievers, is why an omnipotent deity would give a damn. Existential questions have always been with us, and every system of belief and thought has wrestled with them. "God is distant," declared one Peruvian villager to anthropologist Johan Reinhard, "and we must deal with his intermediaries, the mountains." Reinhard researched Incan sacrificial burial sites and reported his findings in a 1992 National Geographic article, "Sacred Peaks of the Andes." Are we safe in the hands of our conventional religious leaders? Maybe. If the pastor doesn't decide to have a shootout with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF), or direct us to join him in heaven with cyanide-laced Kool Aid. If the preacher doesn't require handling rattlesnakes to prove our absolute faith. If the reverend doesn't decide that teaming up with the Crips or Bloods is a sound political move. If the abbot doesn't suggest that setting ourselves afire in an intersection will stop the war. If the Imam doesn't direct us to fix the world with a car bomb under the World Trade Center or storm the local American Embassy. In short�if they aren't charismatic sociopaths. So many ifs and whys. Some people feel they need something stronger, something proven that has withstood the test of time. Something older than Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, or any of the blow-dried televangelists or bearded, robed gurus in Rolls Royces. This is the line in the metaphysical sand. This is where we confront existential angst. Here the quaint and somewhat intangible notion of good vs. evil enters the picture. Here even members of the same church, mosque, or synagogue part spiritual company. For those who believe, the forces of ritual and magic-like uranium or gunpowder-can be used for either positive or negative means. When those who choose evil really want it badly enough, it's out there-waiting in the shadows, with all the answers and a lineage of a thousand names, in a thousand languages, whispered over many thousands of years. A system nobody knows and everybody suspects and fears-no less today than when Homo sapiens occupied caves. Some decide sorcery and black magic work-and have worked for a long time. Believers say that time's test is the most convincing test of all. If these things have survived, they must work. And, in the service of existential angst, of "something's wrong," they do. just as they have for thousands of years. Because when "something's wrong," there's only one way to really fix it. You have to "say the right thing." pps. 53-57 --[cont]-- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End Kris DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance�not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
