Is This Contact?

2 Comments

And speaking of the X-Files—but ah, I shouldn’t jest!  In fact, I strongly advocate avoiding the ridicule response when a claim seems outlandish.  A few weeks ago I posted on a review of Alan Steinfeld’s Making Contact: Preparing for the New Realities of Extraterrestrial Existence, a book just out.  The review I’d seen made reference to the aspects of religion and paranormal in the book, and given the mainstream media’s treatment of the topic of UFOs lately, I thought I should see what was being said.  As you might expect for a collection of essays, the tome is a mixed bag.  While ridicule is excluded, a healthy skepticism is necessary.  Amid the contributors with known credentials are those who make claims that are difficult to verify.  Much like the rest of life, you’re left making choices.

Amid all of this, where does religion come in?  Books like this often reveal the deep biblical literalism of our society.  Amid the authors who haven’t held government (although that’s hardly a situation where critical thinking is necessary) or university posts, there is clearly the assumption that the Bible is literally true.  Cherry-picked verses are “explained” by the presence of UFOs or aliens, with the supposition that if it’s in the Good Book it must be true.  This kind of simple credulity is quite common, but it does make you wonder if all the homework’s been done.  I know, I know, biblical scholars spoil all the fun!  If one piece of the puzzle doesn’t fit, however, perhaps the picture hasn’t been put together correctly.

That’s not the extent of the religious—or better, spiritual side of the topic.  Many of the essays are written from a somewhat “New Age” perspective with vibrations, and energy, and universal guidance of spiritual beings.  Other essays deal with government whistle-blowers who seem to tell a coherent story of secrecy and deception on the part of those in power.  No matter how you slice it, reading this book without ridicule is a perception-bending experience.  It may not be the one book everyone needs to read to get up-to-date information on where things stand in public perception, but it will make you think.  Given how much the topic has been in the media lately, and how it has at last been treated without snide asides, may be cause for hope.  “No go” topics may be vanishing, if only because our military admits to taking this one seriously.  And there seem to be, as always, religious implications.

Seekers

Leave a comment

We live not far from an upscale mall. This mall, although over 30 miles from Manhattan, has its own bus line dedicated to it by New Jersey Transit. There is a route that runs throughout the day from the City to this mall and back. My readers know I’m hardly an uptown type. Nevertheless, an occasional trip to the mall can be a learning experience. On a cold weekend where outdoor activities felt unnecessarily ascetic we went to stroll around to see what was new. In the midst of the usual stores I never visit, there was one that had the temporary feel of an exploratory venture in high rent retail. It was, for lack of an appropriate adjective, a “New Age” store, featuring figurines from eastern religions, incense, dragons, and the aesthetic of the hippie mystique. Wandering about, I couldn’t help but notice how much of the merchandise, in one way or another, was religious in orientation.

Those of us from the western hemisphere find the quotidian aspects of Hinduism and Buddhism exotic. Otherworldly, even. In our sterile offices, we dare not burn incense. Fabrics this colorful are not worn to work. It was as if the only place true color exists is in that mystical world that religions acknowledge, but businesses deny. Yes, it was a Saturday, but nevertheless the number of patrons surprised me. The town in which the mall sits is quite affluent. We live far enough from the City that some very serious money resides at no great distance. Patrons tend to have enough, and considerable surplus. And here they are, in a store selling that is undifferentiated spirituality. A stand of silver jewelry was explicitly marked Wicca. There were even Christian figurines among the crystals.

IMG_2672

People, even (or perhaps especially) the wealthy, desire more than the dollar can bring. We’re authoritatively told that we are meat computers. Mere automatons to the forces of physics. Our human experience tells us otherwise. We are meaning-seeking creatures. There are people who will willingly sit for three hours on a bus just to reach this mall. Whether it is a hippie-friendly shop, or the latest fashion trends that draw them here, they have this in common: they’re seeking something. I glance around and spy a mirror. I came here looking for a place out of the cold, but I have discovered an unexpected insight. If we make our own, or purchase it prefabricated, we venture to our secular cathedrals to find a kind of salvation.

Gnostic Agnostic

2 Comments

ACU-Stuckrad-WesternEsotericism-COVER.indd Hidden knowledge is sweet. Belief in it is very old. Kocku von Stuckrad’s Western Esotericism: A Brief History of Secret Knowledge offers its own kind of hidden knowledge—well, it’s not so much hidden as it is simply ignored—that even science owes a debt of gratitude to the draw of the esoteric. We are trained to treat such “New Age” ideas with contempt from our tender years, and we are assured that the light of reason has dispelled the gloom of occluded wisdom. Von Stuckrad, however, clearly demonstrates that the desire to explain our world streams from the same font as the belief that a larger, if hidden, reality lies behind what our senses perceive. Such ideas originate in antiquity and continue in various forms up to the present. The impetus to explain it all shows in Galileo’s belief in astrology as well as astronomy and Newton’s fascination with alchemy as well as calculus. Great minds have always been willing to be stretched.

In more recent, and self-assured, days vocal spokes-folk have declared a single way of knowing, and it is empirical and imperial all at the same time. That which cannot be explained rationally cannot be explained at all. Still, our experience of life often suggests otherwise. Sometimes it feels as if science overuses the coincidence excuse, and maybe there is something more going on. The esoteric, without fail, has been assigned to the category of religious thought because, in the current paradigm, the only real opponent to science is religion. If it’s irrational, it must be religious.

Ironically, von Stuckrad’s research demonstrates that the culture that led us to science, in many ways, has its basis in esoteric beliefs. That gnawing suspicion that not everything is explained by numbers and experiments has been with us since the days of Gobekli Tepe, the pyramids, and Stonehenge. Each of these monuments (and many others besides) were astounding feats of engineering—and engineering is applied science—while all being profoundly religious. Science in the service of the unknown. Such complexity need not be considered naive; even scientists can be subject to religious ways of thinking. Von Stuckrad does not advocate esotericism in his book; he merely documents it and treats it non-judgmentally. There is perhaps a hidden lesson here for all of us as well. Instead of declaring a single heavyweight champion of all the world, perhaps true wisdom lies in being fully human with all its complexity and contradictions.

New Age Present

1 Comment

Okay, so I admit I’m curious. As my “six month” subscription to TAPS Paramagazine continues into its second year, itself somewhat paranormal, I get the feeling that I’m witnessing the birth of a new religion. I’ve been in this business long enough to know that new religions are hardly rare, but this one seems an accidental entry into the field. Now ghosts and religion are natural enough as corollaries. Both involve afterlife concerns and the unknown. Having watched TAPS Paramagazine feature fairies, tarot cards, and zombies, however, I wonder if the distinctions are becoming blurred. In this latest issue (January/February) many of the articles make explicit mention of God. God and ghost in the same breath, with the exception of a particularly holy spirit, is an odd combination, given the biblical injunction against mediums.

Spiritualism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was descried by famous debunkers such as Harry Houdini and accepted by famous intellectuals like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It is that liminal area that stays out of the reach of traditional Christianity and Judaism, but strays into the afterlife-prepared psyche. If the dead are out there, they should be able to communicate. Right? And with God’s full approval, so it seems. This latest issue alone suggests that UFOs may be demonic, that clergy may be legitimately interested in ghosts, God may speak through dead children, and that one may become addicted to paranormal investigation. Sounds like a recipe for a New Age mythology. Throwing in light-hearted contributions about the Walking Dead, and suddenly zombies become real as well. Oh, and skunks have a special wisdom.

Traditional Christianity cautions against all of these things (except skunks). When it comes to the supernatural, it claims, there is only one super, supernatural being. The rest are charlatans and wannabes. The Bible certainly does not encourage consorting with ghosts, and yet, in this New Age milieu it is possible to find any remotely spiritual entity touted as proof of reality beyond reality. As Bader, Mencken, and Bader observe in Paranormal America, citizens of this country are inclined to believe. Where does belief lead when there is no pole-star to guide the ship? I sense that we may be steering into uncharted waters. Anyone want to volunteer to be captain? Religions always get to make up their own rules, so feel free to devise your own compass.

Just Druid

3 Comments

Suggestively between the autumnal equinox and fall’s cross-quarter day, yesterday British authorities announced that Druidism is now an official religion. Such an announcement, naturally, does not endorse or censure the belief system but only affects its legal status. That status relates to taxes, the handmaid of the One True God, Money. Tax-exempt, Druids are now free to worship nature free of charge.

In the recent resurgence of interest in paganism, the Druids have attracted a considerable New Age following. There is, however, no doubt that Druidism is an ancient religion predating the Christian conquest of Europe. The origins of the Druids are lost in obscurity, but they are one of any number of ancient nature cults that have become fashionable in a post-Christian society. What does it matter if a society recognizes a belief structure as a religion or not? (Apart for tax liabilities, of course!) One of the issues at stake is the perennial question of who determines what is a religion and what is not. In a society where religion is defined purely by belief, the doors are cast wide, if not blown completely off their hinges, when a group declares itself a religion. Who is the final arbiter? Today the world resoundingly answers “Mammon.” When you pass that collection plate, or basket, or gourd, does the government take its cut or not?

Religions will always struggle to convince the many that they each possess the one, true faith. Some will do it through magic, others through nature, and others through divine revelation. All will be subject to the scrutiny of government fleshpots greedy for a share whenever money changes hands. Druids have lurked in the shadows for thousands of years. By publicly receiving the blessing of tax-exempt status, they are free once more to disappear into the mists and attract the envy of more imperially minded religions.

A Druid attempting tax evasion?

Cryptid Be Thy Name

2 Comments

While poking around the internet last night to take my mind off the heat and humidity surrounding me, I stumbled across an article entitled “The Religious Struggle over Cryptozoology” on a site called Science and Religion Today. The piece was written by Joe Laycock, a doctoral candidate at one of my alma maters, Boston University. Having just finished Bruce Hood’s Supersense, there was a pleasing euphony in the coincidence. Cryptozoology is the study of unknown animals, and is not necessarily based on the supernatural (although it may fall within Hood’s definition of it). Laycock notes that two religious elements in society have latched onto this study: New Agers and Creationists. Creationists, it seems, see in certain cryptids, such as the Loch Ness Monster, hold-overs from the Mesolithic Era that prove the Mesolithic Era never existed. God can still make dinosaurs today, therefore the Bible (which doesn’t mention dinosaurs at all) must be true.

The draw of the unknown

One of the most welcome parts of Hood’s thesis was its consonance with Stephen Asma’s On Monsters, a book I’ve posted on before. Both authors explore how the human psyche reacts against what it perceives to be “strange mixes,” beings that cross-over between readily defined categories. Hood addresses this by tackling the concept of “essence” while Asma notes a dread accompanied by a sense of wonder. Hood demonstrates that from a scientific point of view, there is no such thing as the “essence” of a person, object, or living thing. Such ideas are the cling-ons from the era of souls and radically distinct species and genders. Closer observation has taught us that many such things are more of a continuum than a series of sharply defined types. Religions prefer to have fixed categories. Religious ethics often depend on them.

Laycock suggests that both New Ageism and Creationism “can be read as a religious response to the cultural authority of science.” Religions fear that which can be empirically demonstrated since it throws the god-of-the-gaps into the dryer and he comes out smaller each time. This is so, despite the fact that Creationists crave scientific respectability. While teaching my course on Myth and Mystery at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, I dwelt on cryptids for a few sessions. They are indeed often surrounded with a religious mystique. I wouldn’t necessarily dismiss the possibility of undiscovered species, many new ones are described by science every year. Nor would I say that they are supernatural. Nature has ways of surprising us still, and as Asma clearly demonstrates, we still have a need for monsters.