Introduction |
Deities |
Spiritual Technologies
The difference between personal spirituality and organized religion
is, I think, that spirituality remains focused on examining, changing,
or enforcing your filter, regardless of social or political
pressures… in short, spirituality is about exploring and changing
consciousness. Organized religion is focused on social and political
pressures. I feel that organized religion is useful (or useless)
inasmuch as it strives to explore and alter consciousness (or lacks
to strive).
Therefore I advocate creating your own religion. I look on the myriad
paths and traditions of the world as a grand philosophical buffet,
from which you glean that which is useful and attractive to incorporate
into your personal system, leaving behind (as Uncle Walt said) "anything
that is offensive to your soul."
Unfortunately, the word god is so loaded and variegated of use as to be
almost meaningless. I will discuss two concepts which can fall under the
vague heading of "god."
The Force: There is no force but the force
and George Lucas is its prophet. Seriously, "the force" is my favorite
description of god, mostly because it facilly avoids the mistake of
personification. God is best described as "it" rather than "he", "she"
, or "they." It is so huge and incomprehensible that to personify it
is to at once unfairly limit it and unfairly fool us into thinking
that we can conceptualize it. Did you follow that?
Here's what some demigods have to say about the force:
The Eternals: Personified deities, demigods,
demons, beasts, and so on are very useful in conceptualizing or
working with PARTS of the force. I call them "eternals" because they
are eternal in the minds of people. C.G. Jung best described them
as the "Archetypes."
Jesus -paraphrased from 'Jesus was
way cool,' a song by King Missile.
Isis/Ishtar/Astarte/Ashtoreth
Osiris/Dionysus/Tammuz
Set
Zeus
...More to come!
Introduction
I've been obsessed with ontology and philosophy since I started
talking. Questions like "what is reality" and "what is the meaning
of life" have overshadowed anything I've ever done or thought. I've
tried a lot of avenues to explore these questions, including
Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Discordianism, Agnosticism,
hedonism, meditation, ceremonial magick, even Satanism; the only
consistent thing I've discovered is that life is what you make it -
it's all D.I.Y. Meaning is a creative act, you are the artist. Some
people take this premise (a cliché of paganism and the occult is
'you create your own reality') too literally, thinking that they
personally are God and that everything that exists does so because
of their thoughts and beliefs. This is a tricky premise, in that
it's simultaneously true and not true (paradox also seems to be an
earmark of cosmic insights). You are god, because everything you
experience comes through the elaborate filter that is your brain.
You essentially live in a universe of your own design… everything you
see is really just part of your brain mimicking part of the outside
world. There is far too much raw data out there for you to notice
all of it, so your brain selects which information to retain, and
which to filter out. It's criteria for filtration are compiled
slowly, over the course of your life, based on your genetics, your
culture, your education, and your experiences. A spiritual path is
essentially a technology to recognize, enhance, further refine and/or
change your filter. All spiritualities and religions are effective
and useful to the extent that they allow you to understand, catalog
and/or modify your filter - your "paradigm."Deities
"There is nothing in the world which is not god."
-The Upanishads
"It's an energy field, created by all living things. It surrounds us,
it penetrates us, it binds the galaxy together." - Obi-Wan Kenobi
"Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter! There is no death, there
is the Force!" - Yoda
Jesus was way cool. Everybody loved Jesus. He would
tell these stories, and people would listen. He was really cool. He
Walked on the water, and swam on the land. Jesus turned water into
wine, and if he wanted to, he could have turned weeds into
marijuana. That's so cool. But then some people got jealous of how
cool he was, and so they killed him. But he rose from the dead! He
rose from the dead, danced around, and went up to heaven. That's so
cool! Jesus was way cool!
Isis is the great mother, in probably her oldest guise. She traveled
around mesopotamia a lot, frequently altering her name. Whether she
was simply accomodating the tongues of different languages or whether
she was fleeing from her past is lost in the annals of time. When she
was still in Egypt, her brother-in-law hacked apart her lover. She
diligently sailed her barque up and down the nile, gathering the pieces
so he could have a proper funeral. She found 13 pieces of him and
reassembled them. She couldn't find his phallus, though. Some stories
say a crocodile ate it. Other stories say she found it, attached it,
and blew him, which had the effect of resurrecting him. In any case,
her son went after the murderous uncle (Set) and ripped his nuts off.
Different early versions of the dead and resurrected god, these guys
typically represent the solar year, passage of seasons, and crop cycles.
They are kind of like Jim Morrison, in that they generally like to
get fucked up and screw hot chicks.
Just a guy with an aardvark's head. Or maybe it's a tapir. Hell, nobody
knows what it is. He's a freak. He was originally a farm hand, but
he said "screw this" and invoked the spiral force of Ra to become a
star, or a god, or both. He lives in the northern constellations,
outside of the zodiac belt/season cycle. Seen as a troublemaker
because he always has to be different, this guy isn't really evil, he
just doesn't want to have to deal with people's shit. He got tired of
his brother being authoritative all the time, so he killed him. His
nephew came to kick his ass, and managed to rip off his nuts. He
ripped out the little brat's eye.
A Greek god, king of Mount Olympus, famous for screwing things up on
earth and philandering with any female, divine or mortal, that he
could hook up with. His wife was a bitch. He is the ancient
template for Bill Clinton (sorry, I couldn't resist).Spiritual Technologies
...Under construction
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