I've done much of the magic in the secret society bit (in what was once Zaire). My friend (a tribal chief) and I were able to repeat the magic in my university office. Sadly, I get rather the reverse experience of Molly in our churches. Jean-Claude was a thorough-going Marxist, though detested the Lenin-Mao lines. I tend to anarchist-mutualism myself and am never sure about Molly's higher plane - my sense is it emerges from the material conditions of possibility. Sleeping near ants is not recommended.
I was thinking of the potentials of religion to free us from biological structuration, perhaps in the sense of a poison-cure. It has both higher plane experience and chronic rationalisation - the latter, say, in jihad, crusades and the ant-like 'let's kill the Yazidi and steal their women' (or Numbers 31). Many of our terms have this pharmikon status, though we allow them to dominate in 'good' form - education, government, freedom ... John Brown is often presented as a deluded religionist, but at least wasn't talking western philosophy at the top table of a slave economy. Religion these days seems silent on material matters. On Monday, 13 October 2014 14:16:26 UTC+1, Molly wrote: > > I suppose that it does provide a place to hide in community from the > mundane and economic realities of the lower and middle classes if one is > necessary. I've always found a church community to provide its own > cultural limitations based on what all human groups offer, and not much > insight into faith or support in crisis of faith. At the head of each > church is a human being, struggling as we all do to make sense of it all. > The tone of this culture depends invariable on the tone of the leader and > they deviate more or less from the greater church dictates. Mass itself is > little more than a ritual although once understood as a process to higher > consciousness, can take you there, I've experienced it, and not just in a > Catholic mass. Participating tribal ritual drumming can lead to ecstasies. > Much if not all of this is lost on most congregations, in my experience. > > On Monday, October 13, 2014 7:03:02 AM UTC-4, archytas wrote: >> >> Many of our terms for freedom have religious origin in the rough phrase >> 'freedom from debt' - more and much wider than than Xtian kicking over the >> tables of the money-lenders. There have been many debt jubilees in >> history, often on the death of a 'king'. Debt slavery is and has been much >> wider in human communities than most seem to know. We are not widely >> informed on biology and anthropology in this regard. Religion can raise >> the best and worst in us. Much of it raises the notion of adherents as >> some kind of chosen people, sometimes restricted to the in-group blood >> line. The Yazidi are such an example. >> >> Chimps seem to have a form of 'religion' connected with the seasons - as >> many of our belief systems. I saw footage of some southeast Asian spiders >> this morning - they lay eggs in a central tower surrounded by a henge - >> immediately bringing Stonehenge to my mind, though they don't hack stones >> to shape. Religion raises Facil's 'we might both (all) be wrong' phrase to >> my mind, something often missing in our argument despite knowledge that we >> can make many equally powerful arguments about the same stuff (Sextus >> Empiricus). To judge between arguments we need something mystical >> (religious). I say this as a scientist knowing magic wands don't work. >> Religion could be rebellion, a postmodern moment, oversimplifying to the >> extreme, of incredulity towards metanarratives like government, law and >> economics - a dreamtime against material and spiritual debt-rules. >> >> Black holes have recently become 'grey', but dreamtime might challenge >> the geometry we use. Global warming and much else on pollution challenges >> us to think 'This Changes Everything' (Naomi Klein) - the economics of 'we >> can never afford to do the right things' in my view. So what does religion >> offer on the postmodern moment of rebellion? >> > -- --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups ""Minds Eye"" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
