A Cougar’s Mother

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While on a stroll between appointments at Indiana University in Bloomington, I came across a tree with flowers laid underneath and a memorial plaque at its base. I glimpsed the name Mellencamp, and for a fan of rock, it didn’t take much imagination to tie it to John Cougar. Indeed, the memorial is dedicated to his mother, an artist, who died earlier this year. I first came to know of Indiana University because of music. I married a musician who, like myself, had to sacrifice a career doing what she loved in order to “get by.” Although she hadn’t studied at Indiana, my wife knew the reputation of the campus well. At a sunny moment between appointments I sat outside one of the music buildings listening to students practice through the open windows and read about Marilyn Mellencamp. An article in a local paper explains that this week an exhibition of her art is on display in Bloomington. When I read the quote from Waldron Arts Center Gallery Director Julie Roberts that the arts “are viable ways to make a living and they are vital part of being a happy and alive person,” I felt a renewed sense of hope. There are others, it is clear, who see that the arts are called the humanities for a reason. In a culture where only money matters, there is no culture. Think about it.

Since the industrial revolution we’ve been told that the measure of a human is how much money they are able to make. Something profound has been lost since then as great universities cut programs for the arts and humanities while business departments build new facilities. Talk about gaining the world but losing your soul—business cattily replies, “I have no soul.” While John Mellencamp never rivaled the biggest bands for income, his work, particularly Scarecrow, is full of human empathy. I listened to that album over and over in 1985, recounting the farm crisis and the demise of those not driven by corporate greed. And looking at this maple tree I wonder when the last time was that someone honestly mourned the death of a corporate mogul.

It is the mark of a deeply schizophrenic society that we all aspire to what fails to inspire. Our economy is driven by the material—money—and not that which speaks profoundly to what it means to be a human being. We keep the arts alive because the wealthy require something worthwhile upon which to spend their lucre. Is not buying art buying part of another person’s soul? We can’t define souls materially, science must conclude they don’t exist, but every time you say, “I feel happy/fulfilled/satisfied” you belie the facts. Souls may not be material, and they may never be found in laboratories. They are nevertheless part of the human constitution, and I for one, would lay a flower under a tree and know that it is more than just fertilizer for the next growing commodity.

Assaulting Pepper

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“I’m a Pepper, he’s a Pepper, she’s a Pepper, we’re a Pepper,” so goes a jingle that is still in my head decades after I last heard it. Early in my marriage I learned that Dr. Pepper was my wife’s favorite, and we sometimes purchased it by the case when we felt daring. I seldom drink soft drinks anymore, having converted to a more juice-oriented penchant with the increase of years and poundage. I always found it to be a pleasant flavor, however, and it was a frequent choice in those halcyon days when I could eat or drink without much regard for potential tonnage. My wife resurrected my interest in the cola with a link to Time’s NewsFeed announcing that some Creationists are boycotting the soda because of an ad that looks like evolution. The ad campaign shows the evolutionary progress chart we’ve all seen with the tipping back of a Dr. Pepper making the ape human. Creationists aren’t known for their sense of humor, but boycotting a drink because of implied heresy implies a fascinating study.

Boycotting companies that offend moral sensibilities is not an unreasonable response to ethical dilemmas. I haven’t shopped for some products for years because I don’t like what the company does. My choice, I’m sure, has little impact but it makes me feel better about myself. Sometimes the choice is religiously motivated—if I don’t want to support a particular group I won’t buy a product they offer. Secular companies, however, seldom offend theological sensitivities. I, for one, would seldom know the guilty party: the founder of the company? The current CEO? Someone in upper management? An advertising director? Do all employees have to agree with my religious outlook? Ahh, but then there is the political angle.

This is a presidential election year and the first one since 1980 without a Republican candidate who is a darling of the Religious Right. Not to suggest that Reagan or Bush the First were really as religiously orthodox as they were presented, but the perception of their friendliness to conservative Christian causes went unquestioned. With a “liberal” in the White House and the only viable alternative a mysterious Mormon, frustration must be building. On top of it all, Dr. Pepper is showing a funny image that might be interpreted as suggesting a simian forebear to those who drink the stuff! I think I understand the anxiety, and it might help if they just had a drink to calm down. After all, “wouldn’t you like to be a Pepper too?”

Dare to evolve

Mermaid Missionary

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Last summer I was invited to address a church in Princeton about Christian themes in the movies. Back in my seminary days I often presented biblical material at adult forums, but my interest in religious themes in movies has grown over the years. I don’t claim to be an expert, but I have watched secular movies with an eye toward religiosity since I was in high school. The day of the presentation followed a recent viewing of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. Although I’ve posted on it before, that particular movie is among the most heavily freighted with Christian themes of any I’ve seen. Now that I’ve had a chance to watch it again on the small screen without the distractions of getting home through traffic afterward, I would redouble my assertions. The very premise of the movie—the hope for eternal life—is a decidedly Christian refrain and the pirates, who wear their sins on their sleeves, are eager to attain it. The missionary, mentioned in my previous post on the film, serves as a kind of foil for that theme, insisting that all souls can be redeemed. Except, he decides, Blackbeard’s.

The reason that Blackbeard falls out of the missionary’s personal book of life is his mistreatment of a mermaid. Now the swarming, man-eating mermaids are among the most memorable images from the story. One has to be captured to unlock the magic of the Fountain of Youth, and the victim happens to be the missionary’s mermaid. In a Florence Nightingale moment, the two different species fall in love—celibate preacher and heathen, mythological creature. An odd couple indeed. Carried in a glass coffin filled with water, the mermaid also needs air to survive and the heartless pirates don’t really much care. To save the little mermaid from asphyxiation, Philip shoves his Bible into the gap he breeched between coffin and lid, saving the fishwife’s life. Talk about conversion!

When the glass coffin breaks, spilling all the water, the mermaid is reborn as a human. Echoes of Splash come to mind here, as well as Disney’s earlier effort, The Little Mermaid. The transformation in this case, seems spiritual as well as physical. Syrena, whose very name invokes the classical sirens, is the one who delivers the magical chalices (communion, anyone?) to Jack Sparrow to save the life of Angelica, or, more likely, to bring Blackbeard to an end. Our busy mermaid, now transformed again to her fishly form, saves the injured missionary by converting him to her way of life under the waves. There are shades of Lovecraft here as well as a reversal of Ariel’s fate in Little Mermaid. Although critics were harsh on this movie where a comic character now takes on a serious role, I still find it compelling. Nearly all the main characters undergo transformations as the story unfolds and whether heathenish or not, almost everyone ends up a better Christian of one sort or another.

Last Call

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A believer in equality across media, I decided to balance out my recent viewing of The Last Woman on Earth with its chronological sequel, The Last Man on Earth. I have seen I Am Legend a time or two, but I have not yet read the Richard Matheson novel. Knowing that the first cinematic attempt at the story was the Vincent Price version, I was curious to see what the last man and the last woman had in common. Not surprisingly, it was a church. The story has been around long enough that spoiler alerts are superfluous, so here goes: basically, vampires have taken over the world. Somehow Robert Morgan has survived and spends his days hunting vampires and whiling the nights away with jazz and booze. As the opening sequence rolls, the camera lingers on a church where the marquee reads “The End of the World.” Of course, in a quasi-literalist sense this is true. Robert is the only non-infected person left. He is eventually located by the infected-but-inoculated crowd and chased down to be staked to death at the altar of a church. The culmination is strikingly similar to The Last Woman on Earth where the final scene also involves a death at the altar in a church.

The noticeable difference, however, revolves around gender. There is very little in the way of sexual suggestibility in The Last Man. Even the scenes of Robert with his wife are chaste and emotional distant. The appearance of Ruth does not even tempt him after three years alone. The Last Woman, however, revolved precisely around this axis—one woman, two men. The sexual tension is the fuel that moves this entire movie along. Of course, the 1960s became the decade of the sexual revolution, but even so the female is decidedly an object in Last Woman. Even in The Last Man, the woman leads to Robert’s death. She was sent to betray him, and although she changes her mind and attempts to save him, it is in vain. Robert dies in her arms. This fear of female power has never dissipated. How many women have been elected president since the 1960s?

While maybe not the heart of the matter, religious constructs may be the lungs or stomach of the situation. Although current religious thinking often insists on equality of the sexes, a tremendous cultural freight placing women in an inferior status continues to weigh heavily on our cultural mores. The largest Christian body in the world still denies women access to the priesthood. Even the idea of denying access underscores just how deeply this sentiment runs. The movies of the early 1960s had neither the budget nor the cultural support to suggest that things should change. Indeed, in both Last pictures the message was that the world had ended already—why bother trying to change anything at this late stage? The final shot, the stolid interior of a church, underscored the message: the status quo has the sanction of the divine.

Kermit’s Secret

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When I was a post-graduate student in that Gothic city of Edinburgh, I decided to spend some time reading Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum. It was intended as harmless entertainment, but as anyone who has read it knows, the story soon unravels into an unbelievable world of dark religions that haunt a naive protagonist. While I was reading it, a packet, hand-addressed to me, with no return address, came to my student mailbox. The contents consisted of several tracts, in German, warming of the dangers of Satanism. No letter, no explanation. Foucault’ s Pendulum had me paranoid already, and this strange package completely unnerved me. Well, I’m still here to tell the tale. While reading Victoria Nelson’s brilliant The Secret Life of Puppets, I learned that she had a strange episode while reading the same novel. It was an apt synchronicity.

Nelson is a scholar who should be more widely known. I found her because her recent Gothicka was prominently displayed in the Brown University bookstore in May. I saw it after taking a personal walking tour of H. P. Lovecraft sites. Synchronicity. I had read, in a completely unrelated selection just a couple of months ago, Jeffrey Kripal’s Authors of the Impossible. Synchronicity. For many years I have honed my Aristotelean sensibilities, following devotedly in the footsteps of science. Problem is, I have an open mind. It seems to me that to discount that which defies conventional explanation is dirty pool in the lounge of reality seekers. I have always been haunted by reality.

I’m not ready to give up on science. Not by a long shot. Like Nelson, however, I believe that there may be more than material in this vast universe we inhabit. Indeed, if the universe is infinite it is the ultimate unquantifiable. The Secret Life of Puppets is alive with possibility and anyone who has ever wondered how we’ve come to be such monolithic thinkers should indulge a little. For me it was a journey of discovery as aspects of my academic and personal interest, strictly compartmentalized, were brought together by an adept, literary mind. Religion and its development play key roles in the uncanny world of puppets. Those who wish to traverse the realms they inhabit would do well to take along a guide like Nelson who has spent some time getting into the puppets’ heads.

Unbelievable Voyage

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In Sunday’s paper a story from the Los Angeles Times reported that Voyager 1, now 35 years old (and a technological grandfather, considering how quickly technology develops), is poised to leave the solar system. It is the first mechanical device, at least designed and launched from earth, that will do so. The spacecraft, billions of miles away, sends signals that take 17 hours to reach earth. It is boldly going where no man [sic] has gone before. The vastness of open space was one of the initial challenges to the traditional theology that had developed in an unbroken sequence from the time of the Bible down to the days of Copernicus and Galileo. Nobody was sure what was out there, but certainly Heaven had to be somewhere and God was clearly above us, so, in a marriage of convenience, God reigned in the unexplored sky. Voyager 1 bears a gold-plated plaque that attempts to describe who and where we are. Sent into the neighborhood where God used to live, Voyager was announcing that we were ready for celestial guests.

Many scientists don’t take seriously the idea that we’ve already been visited. The internet, however, has become a great clearinghouse for those intrigued by extraterrestrial life. I found a website this weekend that had located at least three different life-forms in just one of the Mars rover Curiosity’s pictures. We are lonely without heavily denizens. Stephen Hawking famously warned, a couple years back, that if they’re there, they’re probably not friendly. His paradigm, however, was based on earth psychology. Most of us know how far to trust that!

The fact is, we’ve been beaming our existence into space since the invention of the radio. Our electronic signals are, according to physics, pretty close to eternal. Electromagnetic waves just keep going and going, putting all manner of Energizer bunnies to shame. Long before Voyager 1 reaches the cusp of the solar system, our light and sound show has been announcing that this is where the godless party is and has been for over a century. Voyager 1 is far less than a needle in the cosmic haystack. It is more akin to a molecule or an atom. Will it find God out there? I highly doubt it. Nevertheless, when I went out to get the newspaper before dawn this morning, I spent an extra few moments looking at the stars and wondering.

Believing is Seeing

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A story has long circulated that as Christopher Columbus approached the coast of the “New World,” Native Americans staring out at the water—straight at his ships—could not see them. This instance of perceptual blindness has been adequately explained, of all places, in the Fortean Times. The best explanation: the natives could see the ships but did not have the referential framework to know what they observed at first. The story still circulates, however, that to them the ships were invisible. An interesting analogue arose when I was reading about Thomas Edison recently. The phonograph was first developed for speaking voices, not music. It was not an immediate success. One of the observations that Edison made also applied to the telephone: when people first heard it, not knowing what it was, they could hear voices but couldn’t make out what they were saying. Once it was explained to them what was going on—a voice had been recorded and was being played back, or a person’s voice was being carried over a distance through a wire—they immediately comprehended what they heard. Not exactly perceptual blindness, but very human indeed.

When people encounter something completely unexpected, surprising, they don’t quite know what to make of it. So we see anthropological pictures showing natives replicating airplanes from grass and twigs, ascribing to these strange birds some kind of divinity. Imagine an iPad in the hands of Moses. Neuroscientists are rather new to the coterie of specialists trying to explain the origins of religion, but a gap remains between perception and science. Active areas of the brain can be traced, but what the experiencer feels remains utterly subjective. It is a realm into which science cannot go. Perception, it is supposed, is simply an evolutionary tool to find food while avoiding being eaten, oh, and also to reproduce. The experience of the perceiver is much more profound. Consciousness, a sense of selfhood, why some are poor while few grow rich, these are facets of life that add dimension to perception and make me wonder just how far down the rabbit hole it goes.

Religion is all about perception. The problem is not that no one tells us how to interpret our experiences, but rather too many interpreters are only too eager to step forward. Perception, it is said, is reality. When encountering the unknown our best road-guide is our senses. In the case of religious phenomena, that guide is supplemented by tradition. What do you see when you look out on that horizon? The answer will indicate what you believe.

I saw three ships?

Magic Bibles

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With autumn not far down the road, my mind turns to scary things. Actually, it is that way quite a bit of the time. Nevertheless, movies about farms are often the setting for the creepy—the sense of isolation, the sharp implements farmers use, the rustling of the drying crops in the wind. A couple years back I watched The Messengers. As a horror film it had a number of good scares, but the menace always seemed somewhat restrained. Nothing profound happens, and it is a film fairly easily forgotten. It was a rainy Saturday afternoon and The Messengers 2: the Scarecrow suggested itself to me. I began watching in an ambivalent mood, but when the first scene began with the protagonist (whose name I’ve forgotten) dropping his Bible on the porch chair as he loosens his tie to work on a derelict water pump, I was curious. When his wife arrives home and asks why he left church before it was over, my interest grew. This direct-to-video prequel turned out to be a cut-budget horror flick based squarely on a religious parable.

In a faustian moment of abandon, and at the advice of a jocular neighbor named Jude (Iscariot, anyone?), our hero erects a scarecrow to try to improve his lot (literally). To give credit where it is due, the scarecrow is distinctly disturbing. The scene of John (okay, I looked it up) nailing the scarecrow to the cross is clearly a crucifixion scene, and the blood that will later appear at the foot of the cross bears this out. Before he realizes that the scarecrow is evil, John hears ghostly children singing in his cornfield. The song is “Jesus Loves Me.” There is a strong fertility goddess theme running through the film and when Jude reveals that his wife has a magic book that explains all the benefits of the scarecrow, John decides to cut it down. The scarecrow, predictably, resurrects.

Meanwhile, John’s Christian family thinks he has gone insane. Or worse, backslidden. As he tries to explain to his wife what has happened, John shows her the magic book and she insists “It’s just your old Bible,” and it is. Heathenish occult instruction transubstantiates into Christian scripture. It is tough to tell one sacred writing from another. For cut-rate horror fodder, this is wonderful commentary on religious sensibilities. Although straight-to-video movies are not high art, and will never receive academy award nominations, they do reflect popular religious beliefs. Scholars are now in search of such beliefs in ancient societies since “official religion” almost never reflects what actual hoi polloi think. Lived religion seldom conforms to the intricacies envisioned by religious founders, and yet it is out there on the Internet for all to see. Maybe the messengers in this film are not the crows after all. The point of the parable? Stay true to your Christian upbringing or else the scarecrow will get you.

Puppet Master

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Usually I resist mentioning books I’m reading on this blog until I have finished them. It is probably because of some misplaced Protestant guilt at taking a small measure of undeserved satisfaction at claiming an achievement that I haven’t legitimately earned. Or maybe it is my innate fear that the author will say, on page 200, “by the way, everything before this is wrong.” In any case, sometimes I forget the important initial stages of a grand argument by the time I reach the final chapters, neglecting any ideas that may have arisen along the way. I just started Victoria Nelson’s The Secret Life of Puppets. I read her Gothicka earlier this summer, and couldn’t wait to get started on Puppets. Besides, when was the last time I saw an academic book with a back-cover sound-byte by Neil Gaiman?

The idea that is so compelling in The Secret Life of Puppets is that in the modern era religion and art have reversed roles. That is to say, people tend to turn to literature (and movies or other media) to discover a sense of transcendence—previously the bailiwick of religion. Religion has transformed into the receptacle of literary imagination instead of remaining the inspiration for it. New Religious Movements grow out of fictional sources—consider Scientology or Jediism or the religions growing from Avatar. But the connection runs to even more profound depths. Quoting a screenwriter she met, Nelson points out that horror movies are often the only genre of film in which God comes naturally into the conversation. Elsewhere God-talk feels high-handed.

Religion has become a kind of fiction while fiction writers preserve the prerogatives of the divine. We suffer from repressing our intuitive way of knowing. Perhaps it is only logical that I select an example from science fiction here. Since the late ’60’s the figure of Mr. Spock has stood sentinel over the neurosis of the flawlessly logical. Just one glimpse and we know this is not homo sapiens sapiens’ behavior. We think with both halves of our divided brains. Scientists sometimes commit the oh so human fallacy of supposing evolution is robbing us of passion. Falling in love would be a lot less enjoyable if it made sense. No, we have not outlived our need for the gods. I think Neil Gaiman would back me up on that.

Nine Lives

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A warm and wet holiday weekend is a good time to watch movies. Since my daily work schedule leave scant time to view anything from most Monday-to-Fridays (and it would claim even more if I’d let it), relaxing often involves watching. I first saw Cats as an ambitious stage production for a local outdoor theater some years ago. Andrew Lloyd Webber has acute talent when it comes to mixing show tunes and popular music; so much so that even a vague storyline will do to carry a show. Cats, of course, is based on a set of children’s poems by T. S. Eliot—Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. There is no narrative, and they show’s emotionally charged hit “Memory” had to be culled from among Eliot’s other poems. Nevertheless, the musical, now long off-Broadway, exists in a film version that is heavily endowed with religious themes. This weekend I watched it for the n-th time, and each viewing brings out new nuances.

The “story,” such as it is, has two very basic events: Jellicle Cats choose who can be reborn on the night of the Jellicle Ball, and Old Deuteronomy, the patriarch of Jellicles, is kidnapped (cat-napped?) and must be recovered before the choice can be made. The vignettes feature cats dealing with loss, love, and crime. The character who resonates with many viewers is Grizabella, the glamour cat. She is the has-been who sings “Memory,” the cat who was somebody before her fame and fortune faded to a tawdry existence among questionable society. The musical is about transformation, however. Transformation is a religious theme, the desire we have to be something more than we are, to transcend the hand life has dealt us. Now, I’m no theater or film critic, but I have to wonder whether the obvious fades and duets of “Memory” point to Grizabella as the older but sadder version of the young and lively Jemima.

Certainly as the finale builds, Grizabella is chosen to be reborn and is sent to the Heaviside Layer, but the camera keeps coming back to Jemima. She is often framed in the center and the suggestion is made that the new life has already begun. Religion thrives on transformation. I suppose that is the reason I find it so ironic that in politics religion, Christianity in particular, is championed as the pillar of the status quo. Whether they are new or old, religions serve no purpose if they do not challenge the “business as usual” model of the secular world. Perhaps that’s why successful artists such as Andrew Lloyd Webber thrive—they can pack theaters of seekers weekend after weekend, even for decades sometimes. Even those of us watching on the television at home click the eject button with a sense of hope that seems possible only on a holiday weekend.

A stray Jellicle cat?

Believer’s Market

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It seems that the world has lost another messiah. Sun Myung Moon, founder and leader of the Unification Church, died yesterday in South Korea. When I was younger “the Moonies” were known as a cult, but scholars of religion have abandoned both terms (Moonies and cult) as pejorative ways of referring to alternative religious beliefs. Monotheistic religions tend to be, by their nature, supersessionistic. They claim that they are the final revelation, but then as the world ages new religions appear and those of more time-honored traditions wonder how to define the new-comers. Accompanying the speed of technological development, religious developments keep apace. Now we are so accustomed to a world full of religions and most people are ill-equipped to tell the difference. Other than the highly public mass marriages, what can the average non-Unificationist tell you about the religion?

This dynamic illustrates a basic fact of human beings—we are meaning-seeking creatures. Founders of New Religious Movements, often convinced that they have something valuable to offer, seldom have difficulty locating followers. We are not trained to think for ourselves in religious matters; in fact, most religions would prefer to have unquestioning followers. Not based on the same logic as physics or mathematics, religions are easily backed into the “it’s a mystery” corner when logic breaks down. That is not to suggest that logic is the only way to know the world, but it does mean that the choice of correct religion often comes down to a feeling, an emotional satisfaction. Problems frequently arise when practitioners of a religion mistake it for science (or when a religion itself makes that mistake).

Over time the New Religious Movements that survive become benign elements of the religious landscape. Although many Americans are still scratching their heads about what exactly Mormons are, they are certainly nothing new or unusual. As a religion the Latter Day Saints are less than two centuries old, but since many people have trouble distinguishing a Baptist from a Presbyterian (on a theological level—the political spectrum is fully represented in both traditions) and could tell you very little about when either tradition began, what do they know of Joseph Smith’s followers? We are far too busy to spend time researching religion. Most people stay with the one they’re born into, and every few years a new one makes it onto the radar of public awareness. The Unification Church, which has at least five million members, may or may not survive the death of its messiah. Either way, there will be plenty of new options for anyone shopping around for a new faith.

Ring

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Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. So goes a trite little statement meant to calm the fears of new students of biblical studies who worry that the historical record for biblical events is so sparse. The professor can head off many confrontations by declaring that such-and-such an event could have happened, but if it did it left no mark on the historical record. As I was watching the Japanese movie Ringu last night, I wondered about the apparent absence of religious imagery or themes. I am fully aware that not all horror movies have religious components, but the juxtaposition of religion and fear is so common in the western world that it often shows up in scary movies. I wondered if this translated to other cultures or not. Ringu is a decidedly creepy ghost story that creates considerable tension with little gore and not much in the way of special effects. The social commentary is evident even without the benefit of first-hand knowledge of the culture. The paranormal pervades the film.

Christianity is the matrix of many scary movies made in a North American, or even European, context. Although I have read about Buddhism and Shinto, and even occasionally taught courses on “World Religions,” my knowledge of eastern religious traditions is admittedly still quite basic. I can usually spot a biblical allusion a country mile away, but subtleties of foreign religions are harder to discern. Although many religions coexist in the United States the overall context is still Christian—there can be no doubt for anyone who follows politics. Japan is, like America, largely secular. The religious base, however, tends to involve both Shinto and Buddhism and I’m not sure which, if either, forms the recognizable “religious” basis of the collective consciousness. In many ways “religion” only applies to the Judeo-Christo-Islamic model. Much could have been transpiring in Ringu that I simply missed.

After the first mysterious death in the film a short sequence of a family in mourning is shown. Clearly this is what we in the western world would consider a religious context. The decision to try to calm the avenging ghost by uncovering her murdered corpse also conforms to what we might term religion. The fact is, these are very human concerns. Religions throughout the world treat death with a religious reverence since it is the great mystery of the living. Religion frustrates many scientists just for the fact of its mysteriousness. So, does Ringu revolve around religious fear? I don’t know. With the karmic implications of the story-line I would suggest that maybe it does. I’ll remain agnostic on the point, however. The same goes for the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Is it or isn’t it?

Psychotic Vampires

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Over the past several months, and unrelated to the current vampire craze, I have re-watched some of the classic vampire movies: Dracula, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Nosferatu (both Murnau and Herzog), and even Shadow of the Vampire—a movie about making vampire movies. Although the prototype of the vampire goes far back in civilization, in some form back to even the earliest of civilizations, the modern rendition rests mostly on the imagination of Bram Stoker. I’ve been re-reading Dracula to recapture a sense of why this particular telling of the tale has become iconic. One suggestion that comes as I’m reading is that it presses the religious taboos of its Victorian era sensibilities. Indeed, Stoker consciously wrote religiously provocative elements into his story. Of course, in movie form the story is altered to fit the needs of both time and scope.

A character that transforms in these various films is Renfield, the lunatic. In Stoker’s original Renfield is the foil for Dracula himself, his devotion interpreted as insanity by the science of the day. At one point Dr. Seward, Van Helsing’s protege and the man in charge of Renfield, notes with clarion penetration, “for a strong man with homicidal and religious mania at once might be dangerous. The combination is a dreadful one.” Renfield is, as a servant of Dracula, complicit in both homicide and religious mania. He uses Christianesque language when referring to his master. In describing his devotion, Seward notes, “He thinks of the loaves and fishes even when he believes he is in a Real Presence.” To a generation raised without Bible, this confession makes little sense.

I have contended throughout this blog that religion and horror are intimate familiars. To understand the appeal of the vampire, one must explore the religious context. Surely the simple neck-biting and blood-sucking without religious underpinnings would soon grow tedious. It is the sense of mystery—most fully realized in religious thought—that brings the vampire to life in the imagination of a generation lacking traditional religion. Not to mix metaphors too intimately, but there is a dose of Melville to be mixed in as well. Renfield is the epitome of madness, blindly following where he believes he is called. But the reader knows how sadly mistaken he is. So it is that I return to Bram Stoker’s Dracula and in so doing find a form of true religion.

The Force

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A long time ago in a galaxy far away, or so it seems, I began studying religion not knowing where it would land me.  One of the great things about studying religion is the perpetual refreshing of religious thought that grows with human culture.  Anthropologists and philosophers and sociologists have difficulty defining exactly what religion is.  It is clearly a belief system of some description, but in many parts of the world religion is not so much reflective and reflexive—doing the ancient rituals and getting on with life.  Every great once in a while I learn about a new religion.  Those who don’t spend too much time thinking about it might be surprised to learn that new religions emerge quite frequently, and sometimes with the most unlikely of inspirations.  Consider Scientology.  While reading about new religions recently I discovered Jediism, or Star Wars religion.  Like Scientology, it is based on science fiction.  For those of us alive in another universe in 1977 it is difficult to convey to more recent hominins just how impressive Star Wars was.  Life-changing, in some instances.  Jediism takes the concept of the Force and makes it a central tenet of a belief system for the twenty-first century.
 
Having witnessed the impact of Avatar in even more recent lightyears, perhaps we should not be surprised that fantasy worlds spawn new religions.  After all, although death and suffering pervade even the most pristine of human-concocted galaxies, good ultimately wins over evil in these realms.  It is something worth hoping for.  Maybe even believing in.  Some people question how serious those who call themselves “Jedi” on religious surveys really are.  There are online Jedi sanctuaries, and even humor can be a part of a serious religion—consider the craze of Christian clowns that was going around in the 1980s.  For those of us from long ago, religions just don’t seem authentic without some antiquity to them; they should’ve been started centuries ago by founders who can be mythologized to sainthood or divinity.  We have more facts about the life of Yoda than we do of Jesus.


 
The thin line between fact and fiction grows more effaced every day.  Can religions be based on fictional founders?  Of course they can!  Without any means of determining objectively which religion is right (if any), we are left with only a person’s word about what s/he believes.  If I choose to believe that Sherlock Holmes was a real person what harm does it do?  It may even benefit the estate of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  As Matt Rossano points out in his book Supernatural Selection, religions are about perceived relationships.  Many people have relationships with fictional characters, sometimes falling in love with one or fantasizing about being one.  Basing a religion on a fictional character may be the greatest sign of trust.  After all, we can’t even define religion in a way on which all specialists will agree.  Religion itself may be the ultimate fiction.  May the Force be with you, just in case.

Wizards and Saints

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Hagiography has gone out of style. Since the Reformation we’ve come to see even our most promising lights as flawed and sullied, and no one retains the sheen of unadulterated goodness. It is the new realism. Yet somewhere in our psyches we still need our heroes—those who give us something to which we might feebly attain. A couple years back I visited Edison’s Orange labs in New Jersey—his last inventing paradise—and partook of the mythology that is Edison. Thoughts of that visit keep coming to me, so I read Randall Stross’s The Wizard of Menlo Park: How Thomas Alva Edison Invented the Modern World. Like a wonder-struck schoolboy, or Homer Simpson, I was ready to find stories of incredible creations Edison conceived. Instead Stross’s account is devoid of hagiography and presents a tarnished hero that is much more in keeping with the spirit of the twenty-first century.

Edison was known, even in the nineteenth century, for his atheistic leanings. He was one of the proponents of the human spirit of achievement, a perennial hard worker who believed we could solve our own problems. In many respects, although he didn’t foresee the practical aspects of his inventions, he was ahead of his time. As Stross points out, during his days as a telegraph operator Edison got into trouble for transcribing Jesus Christ as “J.C.,” following the standard practice of rendering time as “B.C.” (Before Christ). Others saw this as sacrilege, perhaps falling into that perpetual myth that Christ was Jesus of Nazareth’s surname. Abbreviation, no matter how sacerdotal the content, is eminently practical in telegraphy.

When entertaining Henry Stanley during his days of phonograph fame, according to Stross, Stanley asked whose voice Edison would most like to hear from history. (Keep in mind, at this time, before records, magnetic tape, and MP3s, a recorded human voice seemed to be a way of communicating with the dead.) When Edison answered “Napoleon,” Stanley expressed surprise suggesting he would’ve supposed the most important voice to be that of Jesus. Edison replied, “Well, you know, I like a hustler.” Even for Edison hagiography was dead. But he did see that the world had gone after the hustlers. Watching the political game unfold again, of which I’m already deathly sick, I hear echoes of Edison’s cynicism. Political leaders would have us believe they are in it for our best interests. Anyone who has studied history (which most politicians despise and discourage us from doing) knows that Edison was right. For all his flaws, Edison will remain a symbol of light in dark times.