Twid's spiritual exploration thingie.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

and how about agnosticism? it has all the benefits of atheism without the asshole parts

Asshole parts being lack of spiritual fulfillment and no promise of afterlife?

I was an agnostic Catholic for the past year. Agnosticism isn't a spiritual system, it's a stance on whether or not a spiritual system can be definitely known as true or untrue, the answer to which being, "don't know, dude."

I don't lack spiritual fulfillment.

Yes you fucking do.  I haven't been up there in YEARS.

[hooplala]

and how about agnosticism? it has all the benefits of atheism without the asshole parts

Asshole parts being lack of spiritual fulfillment and no promise of afterlife?

I was an agnostic Catholic for the past year. Agnosticism isn't a spiritual system, it's a stance on whether or not a spiritual system can be definitely known as true or untrue, the answer to which being, "don't know, dude."

I don't lack spiritual fulfillment.

Yes you fucking do.  I haven't been up there in YEARS.

But I still have that ball of your pubic hair.  It doesn't glow as much as it used to, but I can still read by it.

BUT YUO BETTA COME BACK SOON!

[Cramulus]

I've been enjoying watching the world through a gnostic lens.

Here's the shortest version of gnosticism I've encountered: "You and the true god are allied against the evil world."

A good start is to read Valis, by phillip k dick. It's a quick read, heady, and if you've already been hanging out in the Black Iron Prison sect of Discordia, it will hit you at a particular angle which I found genuinely startling. No diggity.


In the Gospel of Thomas, (one of those apocryphal texts we found buried in an urn somewhere because the church couldn't handle a sect which gave people a direct line to the divine) Jesus' first line goes something like this:

"Let him who seeks continue seeking until he finds. When he finds, he will become disturbed. When he becomes disturbed, he will be astonished, and he will rule over the All."

See, he's not going to solve the mystery for you. In the gnostic tradition, you don't go to a priest and get the truth. The only way to know the truth is to come in direct contact with the divine, through these gnostic moments of clarity and epiphany. The material world distracts us from this truth---our hungry little bodies distract us, our quick little minds distract us, and when we manage to see past all that, it's disturbing, unsettling... it doesn't make you feel comfortable, like the traditional bible might. But even a glimpse of it motivates you, lights a burning bush under your ass.

And one of the things I like about gnosticism is that it's personal. Nobody can tell you that your relationship with the true god is incorrect, it's all yours. There is no orthodoxy. But you can't be too confident, because the false god disguises himself as the truth. The material world disguises itself as the spiritual world. You are constantly distracted, misled, pulled astray by the ego, the body, the trickster demon who you sometimes think is actually you.

And the truth in gnosticism isn't a discovery, it's a memory. You are already connected to the divine, you just have to remember it. You already are your true self, you just have to stop being distracted by illusions.





anyway, that's gnosticism in brief. there are a million gnostic traditions. generally people assemble their own from the parts of others. I'd be happy to ramble more on this topic, but I'm trying not to create a wall of text. 

[Cain]

-

[Nephew Twiddleton]

The only real problem I have with gnosticism is the whole Rex Mundi thing, and what that entails.  Christianity as a belief system has enough hatred for reality, so one which, via a Christian lens at least, believes the whole of creation is an evil plot against humanity is one I find myself leery of.  It leads to...suspect trains of thought.

Put that way it sounds like the roman empires version of david icke

[Cramulus]

Yeah, that's also where I get uncomfortable with some forms of gnosticism -- the idea that there is a material and spiritual world, and the spiritual world is higher. Some sects of gnostics who follow this train end up believing that sex is bad, or that women are evil because they tempt men (the whole lilith thing).

That's not my personal experience of the world, so I leave that behind. And I'm not so into the cartesian dualism division of the world into "spirit" and "matter", I think that's a false dichotomy, part of the illusion we have to slash to get to the truth. I think that the material world can springboard us to truth, just like how good sex can be a transcendent experience.



As another example of what I mean, I also think that Schopenhauer's discussion about losing oneself in art is a type of gnostic experience. Schopenhauer writes about how when you listen to good music, or view good art, you for a brief moment lose your sense of self - there is just the music, and your ego is displaced, subsumed into this musical experience. The job of the artist, the director, the composer, is to bring people out of their heads, into this common spiritual space. (what they call the Holy Moment in Waking Life) So that's another material thing which contains an element of the divine.

[Kai]

Shinto is mostly ritual based, place based, and purity based. It centers around the worship of kami, which is a word variously translated as "god/s" "nature spirit/s" "powerful being/s". Kami reside in objects called shintai, or "kami bodies", which could be a human crafted item, a rock, a tree, or in rare cases, something as big as a mountain (Mt. Miwa, for example, has historically been associated with a very powerful kami, and legends from the Yamato era trace a great deal of the Yamato kings' power to that kami). Generally, the shintai is located within a Shinto shrine, which is a ritually purified area. The symbol of Shinto, the torii gate, is found at the entrance of every shrine (with lots of variations by region) and acts as a gateway. Most of the rituals involve purification and vitalism, so burial rites are generally taken care of by other religions, Buddhism, for example, because impure objects are unwelcome in shrines.

The worship of kami is very place based, as I mentioned, something that the authors in my reading call Particularism. Kami receive worship from people within a particular region, and in return are believed to give protection and fortune to those people living there. In other words, it's very bottom up organized, with local kami being the largest focus of worship, and larger festivals for more powerful kami. The most revered kami is Amaterasu, who's shintai is the Sun. Up until the end of WWII, the Imperial Family claimed direct descent from Amaterasu, and therefore divinity or what passes for divinity in Shinto. This is, incidently, why the Emperor/Empress have both great power and essentially no power: great power in spiritual realms, as they are the chief priests for Amaterasu worship, but essentially no political power. This goes back to around the end of the Nara era, in the 8th century, where powerful families took over as the "power behind the throne", and the Imperial family essentially became figureheads. The only two times this wasn't true was at the very start of the Ashikaga or warring states period, when that emperor staged a coup against the shogun of the time, and from the Meji restoration up till the end of WWII. Anyway, that was a total digression. The point is, kami are very much associated with places, and so very few are universally worshiped. As far as I know, the worship rituals are mostly clapping and bowing, with festival rituals being more complicated.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Thats very helpful. Thanks kai

[Kai]

Thats very helpful. Thanks kai

Welcome! 

[Don Coyote]

Shinto is mostly ritual based, place based, and purity based. It centers around the worship of kami, which is a word variously translated as "god/s" "nature spirit/s" "powerful being/s". Kami reside in objects called shintai, or "kami bodies", which could be a human crafted item, a rock, a tree, or in rare cases, something as big as a mountain (Mt. Miwa, for example, has historically been associated with a very powerful kami, and legends from the Yamato era trace a great deal of the Yamato kings' power to that kami). Generally, the shintai is located within a Shinto shrine, which is a ritually purified area. The symbol of Shinto, the torii gate, is found at the entrance of every shrine (with lots of variations by region) and acts as a gateway. Most of the rituals involve purification and vitalism, so burial rites are generally taken care of by other religions, Buddhism, for example, because impure objects are unwelcome in shrines.

The worship of kami is very place based, as I mentioned, something that the authors in my reading call Particularism. Kami receive worship from people within a particular region, and in return are believed to give protection and fortune to those people living there. In other words, it's very bottom up organized, with local kami being the largest focus of worship, and larger festivals for more powerful kami. The most revered kami is Amaterasu, who's shintai is the Sun. Up until the end of WWII, the Imperial Family claimed direct descent from Amaterasu, and therefore divinity or what passes for divinity in Shinto. This is, incidently, why the Emperor/Empress have both great power and essentially no power: great power in spiritual realms, as they are the chief priests for Amaterasu worship, but essentially no political power. This goes back to around the end of the Nara era, in the 8th century, where powerful families took over as the "power behind the throne", and the Imperial family essentially became figureheads. The only two times this wasn't true was at the very start of the Ashikaga or warring states period, when that emperor staged a coup against the shogun of the time, and from the Meji restoration up till the end of WWII. Anyway, that was a total digression. The point is, kami are very much associated with places, and so very few are universally worshiped. As far as I know, the worship rituals are mostly clapping and bowing, with festival rituals being more complicated.

The Imperial line also claims descent from Mt. Fuji, who is also a woman.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Shinto sounds fun!

It does. Mostly because I have little idea what Shintoists do. I have very little understanding of it.

And then Twid was a MysticWicks.   

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Shinto sounds fun!

It does. Mostly because I have little idea what Shintoists do. I have very little understanding of it.

And then Twid was a MysticWicks.   

Well part of it is to understand it better. But based on what kai said im not terribly sure what good it will do for the what an i taking away from it part other than be better about brushing my teeth.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Shinto sounds fun!

It does. Mostly because I have little idea what Shintoists do. I have very little understanding of it.

And then Twid was a MysticWicks.   

Well part of it is to understand it better. But based on what kai said im not terribly sure what good it will do for the what an i taking away from it part other than be better about brushing my teeth.

I was joking about the whole Pagan "eclectic" thing.  Once on MysticWicks, some freak said "I feel drawn to Bast.  Can anyone tell me about him?"

1.  Bast is female.

2.  Pick a religion that sounds nice and obscure, JOIN THE HELL OUT OF IT, and THEN ask what it's about.  It's sort of a form of cultural appropriation, when you think of it.  Random Pagan hipster decides that your religion is "underground" enough, claims to be a believer, and then asks you what it's all about.



Sorry, I was just reminded, is all. 

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Shinto sounds fun!

It does. Mostly because I have little idea what Shintoists do. I have very little understanding of it.

And then Twid was a MysticWicks.   

Well part of it is to understand it better. But based on what kai said im not terribly sure what good it will do for the what an i taking away from it part other than be better about brushing my teeth.

I was joking about the whole Pagan "eclectic" thing.  Once on MysticWicks, some freak said "I feel drawn to Bast.  Can anyone tell me about him?"

1.  Bast is female.

2.  Pick a religion that sounds nice and obscure, JOIN THE HELL OUT OF IT, and THEN ask what it's about.  It's sort of a form of cultural appropriation, when you think of it.  Random Pagan hipster decides that your religion is "underground" enough, claims to be a believer, and then asks you what it's all about.



Sorry, I was just reminded, is all.

Ah yes lol
Even as a pagan i thought that kinda stuff was silly. I seem to remember there being the new trendy pantheon thing. Bored with runes? Try slavic sorcery!

[Kai]

Shinto is mostly ritual based, place based, and purity based. It centers around the worship of kami, which is a word variously translated as "god/s" "nature spirit/s" "powerful being/s". Kami reside in objects called shintai, or "kami bodies", which could be a human crafted item, a rock, a tree, or in rare cases, something as big as a mountain (Mt. Miwa, for example, has historically been associated with a very powerful kami, and legends from the Yamato era trace a great deal of the Yamato kings' power to that kami). Generally, the shintai is located within a Shinto shrine, which is a ritually purified area. The symbol of Shinto, the torii gate, is found at the entrance of every shrine (with lots of variations by region) and acts as a gateway. Most of the rituals involve purification and vitalism, so burial rites are generally taken care of by other religions, Buddhism, for example, because impure objects are unwelcome in shrines.

The worship of kami is very place based, as I mentioned, something that the authors in my reading call Particularism. Kami receive worship from people within a particular region, and in return are believed to give protection and fortune to those people living there. In other words, it's very bottom up organized, with local kami being the largest focus of worship, and larger festivals for more powerful kami. The most revered kami is Amaterasu, who's shintai is the Sun. Up until the end of WWII, the Imperial Family claimed direct descent from Amaterasu, and therefore divinity or what passes for divinity in Shinto. This is, incidently, why the Emperor/Empress have both great power and essentially no power: great power in spiritual realms, as they are the chief priests for Amaterasu worship, but essentially no political power. This goes back to around the end of the Nara era, in the 8th century, where powerful families took over as the "power behind the throne", and the Imperial family essentially became figureheads. The only two times this wasn't true was at the very start of the Ashikaga or warring states period, when that emperor staged a coup against the shogun of the time, and from the Meji restoration up till the end of WWII. Anyway, that was a total digression. The point is, kami are very much associated with places, and so very few are universally worshiped. As far as I know, the worship rituals are mostly clapping and bowing, with festival rituals being more complicated.

The Imperial line also claims descent from Mt. Fuji, who is also a woman.

There are all sorts of weird stories about the Imperial Family. My favorite one so far is about a Yamato princess during the most heavy period of Mt. Miwa worship. The kami of Mt. Miwa came to her incorporeal-like, and said that it wanted to see her in person, in her bathroom (her toilet, really). So she goes in there, and is startled to find a white snake. The Miwa kami was offended by this so it scolded her and ran off. She was shamed enough by the experience that she killed herself with chopsticks. Apparently she's buried in one of the large mounds near Mt. Miwa, named after "the chopstick princess".