ConVocation report
I just got back from a day at ConVocation, a local pagan convention. Since I'm not a pagan, many puzzled people have asked me to explain why I would do this. This was only beforehand-- not to the attendees of the convention itself, who seemed mostly indifferent to the presence of unbelievers. (At ConVocation, pretty much everybody is outside the beliefs of everybody else, and it's all accepted.) Simply put, it's a con, so it's an opportunity to meet new people while in the company of my existing friends. Many of my friends are pagan and I don't like not understanding something so important to them. It's an opportunity to shop for prices on the flavor oils that are in the flavoring formula for Open Cola, so I can brew up the black waters of corporate imperialism in my kitchen. This unique use for their product really tickled the oil sellers in the dealers room. There were those who expected me to eventually explode in a fit of apoplectic frustration while attending ConVocation. Not true. My only moment of disgust was when the dance DJ played the country-western song "I'm Just A Redneck Woman." I can't stand that song!
I attended a presentation about pagans in the military, which was kind of interesting as a discussion of religious freedoms. Then there was an event which I really looked forward to called "Finding Truth In Fiction." I expected this to be about finding true lessons or morals in fiction (sometimes not the ones the author intended.) Instead it turned out to be about taking Harry Potter and Charmed and fantasy novels and roleplaying sourcebooks seriously in the ability to summon magic spells with their formulas! It was a demonstration, in my opinion, of how magick (like prayer) at its worst has got NOTHING to do with spirituality. They really should read The Escapist! Fortunately was there and turned all of it into a code for something sensible and reasonable. She said magic was story, and story was magic. (In other words, like every good Unitarian Universalist she believes there's no such thing as magic, but being a good Unitarian Universalist she will speak in code to avoid revealing that she thinks this.) 's contribution was the only meaningful part of the entire session. I did enjoy it when the presenter coined the verb "Scooby-Dooing" to represent rationalists taking the rubber mask off of magick like the Scooby-gang does with the monster at the end of the show. I will use this verb!
The next session I attended was worth the price of the whole day's admission: "Pagans and Polyamory." I love discussion groups because they don't look to a guru or spiritual teacher; and this one did not disappoint. Concrete, practical, and most of all spiritual-- in the legitimate sense of spiritual-- because we talked in the first person about jealousy, insecurity, fear, love, need, and honesty. Not "spiritual" from boring lectures on quantum metaphysics or airy distant abstractions like gods. Not "spiritual" because of confusing rituals that obscure instead of illuminate. Only help from real people talking about real solutions to real problems in the tangible, non-metaphysical world. Looking around the room, I wondered: after experiencing good results like this, why do any of them need any of that other stuff?
But they do, and I don't deny it. The last event of the day was my first pagan ritual in which they said a high priestess was channeling an Egyptian goddess. There was no reason to suppose this was really the case, but it doesn't matter. It's not about belief or unbelief, it's about the attendees getting whatever satisfaction they get, and they can get it whether it's really a goddess or not. So long as they're not hurting anyone I don't care. It would be pointless to go into the details; there was drumming and dancing and chanting. Oh, and also some very good food. As the ritual was winding down asked me if I had attained the understanding that I had come there to seek. The answer is no, not at all. I didn't go there to find out about gods from humans, I went to find out about humans from my own eyes and ears. I now know the "what" of the ritual but I don't know any of the "why" of human motivation. I probably could get the "what" from books, but it tells me nothing about humans. To illustrate: one of the friends who invited me to this ritual asked me if I'd talked to the goddess yet, and when I said, "no," she asked "why not?" and I said, "Why should I?" This was not a rhetorical question. I wanted to ask, "Why do you? Something in your heart motivates you to want to talk with a deity. What is it?" This is not a disrespectful question! Assuming for the sake of argument the gods of ancient Egypt are real. If the goddess is not going to send her followers to hell if they don't do it, then why bother? What need is being met by this? I felt it would be disrespectful to talk to the channeler unless I possessed a felt-need to do so.
But I know the ritual satisfies some kind of need in them, or else it wouldn't exist, and it was eating me alive not knowing what it is even after going through the motions. Don't get me wrong. I'm very happy being an atheist and I feel no curiosity about gods; their followers are what concern me. Especially after the life I've lived with them. I need to know that the pros balance out the cons of religion. Whatever they're getting out of it better have made our species' religious problems damn worthwhile. People are killing each other all over the world for-- for what? So they can dress up like Egyptians? And then it suddenly hit me while writing this-- what if tolerance is the answer to my question about what motivates pagans to perform their rituals? Just hypothesizing here: since the solution to our world's religious hatred and violence is the acceptance of religious differences, the more different a ritual is, the more difference there is to accept. That makes difference attractive for difference's sake! As if to say, "we love and accept each other no matter what, and we're gonna dress up like Egyptians to prove it."
That kind of reminds me of the Wiccan rede. If I recall correctly, it's something like: An it harm none, do as thou wilt is the whole of the law. So... perhaps ConVocation is a celebration of religious difference for difference's sake, because only that can stop the harm religion does to the world. I feel like I just acheived Satori.
Comments
netmouse on Feb. 20, 2005 1:33 PM — on psychological motivations...
Bertrand Russell writes:
The child from whom for any reason parental affection is withdrawn is likely to become timid and unadventurous, filled with fears and self-pity, and no longer able to meet the world in a mood of gay exploration. Such a child may set to work at a surprisingly early age to meditate on life and dead and human destiny. He becomes an introvert, melancholy at first, but seeking ultimately the unreal consolations of some system of philosophy or theology. The world is a higgledy-piggledy place, containing things pleasant and things unpleasant in haphazard sequence. And the desire to make an intelligible system or pattern out of it is at bottom an outcome of fear, in fact a kind of agoraphobia or dread of open spaces. Within the four walls of his library the timid student feels safe. If he can persuade himself that the universe is equally tidy, he can feel almost equally safe when he has to venture forth into the streets. Such a man, if he had received more affection, would have feared the real world less, and would not have had to invent an ideal world to take its place in his beliefs.
or, for a different sort of motivation, earlier he wrote:
Belief in a cause is a source of happiness to large numbers of people. I am not thinking only of revolutionaries, socialists, nationalists in oppressed countries, and such; I am thinking also of many humbler kinds of belief. The men I have known who believed that the English were the lost ten tribes were almost invariably happy, while as for those who believed that the English were the only tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, their bliss knew no bounds. I am not suggesting that the reader should adopt this creed, since I cannot advocate any happiness based upon what seem to me to be false beliefs. For the same reason I cannot urge the reader to believe that men should live exclusively on nuts, although, so far as my observation goes, this belief invariably ensures perfect happiness. But it is easy to find some cause which is in no degree fantastic, and those whose interest in any such cause is genuine are provided with an occupation for their leisure hours and a complete antidote to the feeling that life is empty.
(still from The Conquest of Happiness)
matt-arnold on Feb. 21, 2005 4:24 PM — Re: on psychological motivations...
I had previously focused my reading on the workings of self-sacrificing and controlling fanatical causes, whether religious or political. For that, one book which was amazingly insightful was The True Believer, Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements by Eric Hoffer. This is a short book of pithy sayings, highly accessible and quotable.
However, such reading about the modernistic mindset left me unprepared to encounter postmodernistic sects who think it's perfectly fine to not be in their religion. In this respect it's the inverse of the twentieth-century person Hoffer describes. Believing one's self to be in possession of Divine Truth makes more sense to me with fanatical evangelism than without it. But your quotes are very helpful. I want to read The Conquest of Happiness now. (By the way, on your recommendation I picked up Heinlein's For Us, the Living yesterday. Based on Spider Robinson's introduction I think I'm going to enjoy it greatly. Thanks!)
paranthropus on Feb. 21, 2005 3:55 PM
Just hypothesizing here: since the solution to our world's religious hatred and violence is the acceptance of religious differences, the more different a ritual is, the more difference there is to accept. That makes difference attractive for difference's sake! As if to say, "we love and accept each other no matter what, and we're gonna dress up like Egyptians to prove it."
Brilliant insight, Matt. I think that you've nailed it.
The tendency of fen to participate in Paganism and Wicca has always perplexed me. People everywhere seem to need a dose of fantasy and mysticism in their lives. Some people hunt for the yeti, others see the Virgin in a toasted sandwich. SF fans get their fix, I had always thought, in more healthy and constructive ways, ways that do not blur the lines between fantasy and reality. Paganism moves away from "suspension of disbelief", toward an absolute "belief". This has always made me rather uncomfortable.
My assumptions about the centrality of fantasy, reality and reason may have been wrong, though. Your observations make me think that the ritual is really the most important thing. The chanting and drumming may be the outward challenge that Pagans send to the world, as if to say "we are different, and we want you to accept us. By accepting us you will grow and be a more accepting person". To be fair, Pagans should also be equally understanding of the ritualism of the Catholics. I wonder how many of them would tolerate sitting through a Catholic mass? Personally I would do away with all imposed ritualism in my life. If I want to make up my own, fine.
The liturgical-sounding Wiccan rede: "An it harm none do as thou wilt is the whole of the law" could easily be re-phrased as "Do what you want, so long as nobody gets hurt.". I'll buy that, and it sounds so much better without the dense, dogmatic religious delivery.
matt-arnold on Feb. 21, 2005 4:38 PM
Arguably the rede and the establishment clause of the first amendment could be considered distant paraphrases of each other. I suspect part of the attraction of a "religion of tolerance" is the fact we live in a pluralistic social structure which celebrates diversity in popular culture.
I should diclose in all fairness that my view of the world on most topics has a strong connection with science fiction. I've said before that my favorite works of fiction are those which require me to step back and suspend my belief, not my disbelief. In fact, the most profitable side-effect of my visit to ConVocation was that while my mind was on the topic of motivation, I turned that lens quite profitably on myself. That's a whole new journal entry of its own.
P.S., do I know you?
paranthropus on Feb. 21, 2005 5:05 PM
Yes. Tom Dow here. I just set up an account about a week ago.
Nothing in my journal yet. I am readying some sketches and will post soon.
matt-arnold on Feb. 21, 2005 5:14 PM
Great! Hi Tom! Is the Frankenpuppy icon your own creation?
paranthropus on Feb. 21, 2005 5:29 PM
Yes. I am in the process of finishing up a short animation project (just for fun). Frankenpuppy will make a brief appearance.
matt-arnold on Feb. 21, 2005 5:48 PM
Was that already his name or did I just name him?
paranthropus on Feb. 21, 2005 6:26 PM
That was already his name, unofficially. It was the first thing that came to mind when I uploaded the icon. I thought that you were somehow able to view the icon name.
Pretty odd that you would guess it so easily. Now I suppose it's official.
lorrraine on Feb. 22, 2005 3:10 AM
Hi Matt,
I think you misunderstand me. That's fair. I believe in Magic. I practice Magic. I'm quite pragmatic about it. I do it because it works and I question many of the assumptions that other people incorporate into their magical practices although, if it works for them and doesn't harm anyone, I'm fine with people believing what they want. Just to be clear, by Magic I mean the art of altering the world as directed by the will. I don't scorn science. I see science as a rather limited, but occasionally useful tool of Magic. If I can acheive a desired result through scientific means I do so. I'm lazy and Magic can be hard work.
I was being quite literal when I said that Magic is story and stories are Magic. In the end, most of what humans do in this world is in the service of one story or another. The Dollar bill is a story which says that a rather unattractive piece of artwork has value and can be traded for items of value as much as it is a piece of paper. The United States of America is a story that unites a group of very different people into a world power despite the fact that most of us don't actively participate in the story we call democracy (or a republic when we're feeling more honest) and those who do participate are deeply divided. Some people find comfort in the story that a powerful being controls the universe and is deeply concerned about their sex life while others find comfort in the story that the entire universe is rational and will be satisfactorily explained at some point in the far future. Both those stories make assumptions I don't choose to make, but I try not to make judgements about those who believe such things as long as they do no harm. Whatever gets you through the night.
I choose which stories will affect my life and what role I will take in those stories. Because I know that I'm in a story I can anticipate the plot, look for characters that will turn the story to my advantage, and change my role in the story. I don't do a lot of active Magic because it can be hard work and like I said before I'm lazy. I'll work with pre-existing magic before I'll go to the trouble to come up with something more original.
As to why I talked with Isis, first and foremost is the fact that all Gods are stories and Isis is a particularly interesting story. So, yes, I wanted to meet her. Wouldn't you want to meet Miles Vorkosigan or Albert Einstein or some other story of significance to you? Also, this party was for Isis. When I go to one of Tracy's parties I chat with Tracy both because I like her and because it would be rude not to do so. With Isis the same principle applies.
Thanks,
Lorrraine
matt-arnold on Feb. 22, 2005 4:11 AM
I don't misunderstand you, I call your bluff. From the description you've given here I repeat that you do not believe in magic. You redefine it. If magic is story and story is magic, you're using the word "magic" to mean something other than magic. As your own illustrations here demonstrate (money, America, directing the course of one's life), you are referring to something completely prosaic and obvious even to the most rock-ribbed rationalist who denies the supernatural. You don't believe in astrology either. Not really. You say you do but it doesn't predict the future. Therefore according to honest, straightforward language which acknowledges the meaning in the mind of the listener involves "predicting the future," you don't believe in astrology. You believe in other things, and co-opt the words. This is mostly a vocabulary issue. Same with Isis, according to what I'm hearing you say here. The language game is artistic and enriching, and I can understand how you would want to camouflage, but you and I are both smart enough that if you want, you can drop the pretense around me and say the exact same thing in direct language as I do.
lorrraine on Feb. 22, 2005 2:54 PM
Hi Matt,
Sorry, nope, you don't believe in magic so you don't get to define it. I can translate things into your language for you, but I do that for clarity, not because I see your language as superior. I really don't care what assumptions you choose to make about magic because I'm not using your definitions and you are only using them to deny the existence of magic. I take my definition of Magic from Aleister Crowley and Alan Moore, two practicing magicians.
I find it kind of sad that you think you use direct language. You don't. You wrap the things that you do not want to believe in such limited definitions that you make them ridiculous. That's your choice, but I won't play that game.
I am not redefining either story or magic, just acknowledging their pre-existing equivalence. I am not redefining story or Goddess either, just again recognizing that every deity is a story just as every person is a story. I spoke with Isis. Call her goddess or call her story I spoke with her.
I tend to use prosaic examples because they are easy to understand. And yeah, I'm a hard nosed skeptic which isn't quite the same thing as a rationalist. The difference is that if something is irrational but effective I will choose to believe in it over something rational and ineffective or less effective.
Here's an example that you may find less prosaic. I found Cynthya by magic. After 3 years of romantic abstinence and failure I decided to resort to magic. I found Cynthya within roughly a day of that. I got what I asked for. I didn't ask for true love or a lifelong relationship. I sought someone with whom I would share the potential for a relationship that would be mutually beneficial. I had that with Cynthya while our relationship lasted. Yes, I acknowledge the possibility that I might have met Cynthya without magic. The odd chain of events that happened to lead me to hir was entirely mundane. But when 3 years of effort repeatedly fails and results come from seeming happenstance within a day of magic, I choose to believe that magic worked.
Thanks,
Lorrraine
matt-arnold on Feb. 22, 2005 3:01 PM
OK, this helps me to understand your position a lot better.
avt-tor on Feb. 26, 2005 6:38 PM — it's all science
One of the defining features of intelligence is our ability to abstract sets of related phenomena into symbols, and then to understand the aggregate behavior of objects as the behavior of the aggregates. Being human, we understand behavior as a human characteristic, so we anthropomorphize the policy of every agency of the United States as "Uncle Sam" or "Dubya", or of a storm as "Old Man Winter" or "Hurricane Edna". Our association of personality to the symbol doesn't give it actual sentience or independence, any more than the dancing 3 on Sesame Street depicts some deity of threeness.
There are aggregate phenomena that we understand well, even though they reflect strange underlying objects at the micro or pico level. We can think of a "web site" as an organized collection of words and graphics and a group of web sites as some sort of community, but underneath, there are the underlying layers of electrical signals organized into data frames to carry information according to agreed protocols. Our experience of "temperature" may be as a cool breeze or a hot cup of coffee, but temperature is simply a statistical aggregate of the kinetic energy of individual molecules. And yet in our universe of perception, "web sites" are real and meaningful and temperature is something we are able to perceive directly.
The scientific method is based on the assmption that we don't understand everything, that our current understanding is only our best approximation of truth that is meaningful in terms of what we can perceive around us, and that there may always be new ways of understanding phenomena using more complex or sophisticated theories. As such, we always need new hypotheses to test our experience of the world around us.
So Newtonian mechanics are relatively straightforward, explaining phenomena that we can measure reasonably easily. Relativity, however, is a layer built on top of that. e=mc2 is only meaningful with a quantification of energy which we get from Newton and Joule. Quantum mechanics is a further layer of abstraction that we don't yet fully understand. Einstein believed that "God does not roll dice", that quantum mechanics is merely a statistical aggregrate reflecting an underlying deterministic level of phenomena that we cannot yet observe.
Religions are alternate ways of understanding the universe around us. Sometimes these are illogical in that they draw conclusions based on things that can't be perceied or proven; sometimes these beliefs directly contradict observable phenomena (for example the Muslim "year" of 354 days). Religions assign meaning and sometimes personality to symbols in their belief systems. I find it useful to think of these as ontological metaphors which can help people understand the world around them. The source and validity of a myth is irrelevant; its purpose is as a communication tool. Whether we reference the legend of Aragorn and Arwen, or of Jesus sharing the loaves and fishes, or Isis turning Lucius Apuleius into a goat, or of Churchill defying Hitler in the Battle of Britain, all of these stories can have meaning when they used as metaphors in relation to the events of an individual's life. Different belief systems have value in terms of ideological diversity, to provide alternate methods of thinking about things in case a particular method proves unsuccessful. There was an interesting example of this on Friday in which "God" referenced the myth of Demeter and Persephone to explain a point.
Which gets to the point about "magic". There is a powerful human desire for wish-fulfillment, which can be expressed as prayer or magic. But this is also the drive for scientific and technological achievement. In ancient times a king might wish someone dead; no, by way of a gun, one can simply point a finger and pull a trigger, and a person dies. Kings once wished to speak to those far away, or for the answer to any question; now, with telephones and Google, these wishes can be achieved with minimal effort (with just speaking the desire aloud, if you have voice recognition on one's telephone or computer).
avt-tor on Feb. 26, 2005 6:38 PM — it's all science (pt. 2)
So one's person's magic may be another person's coincidence, but perhaps there's more to it than that. An apparent ability to control future events may simply be a side effect of being able to perceive future events, and the ability to perceive future events may just be a matter of manipulating symbols in an intuitive or hyperefficient way. One's subconscious may have a way of deducing "if A, then B" using symbols for which there is no proper vocabulary or which is not understood at a conscious level.
I read Julian May's The Intervention, which describes a near-future world where humanity is developing a growing awareness of psychic phenomena. While many of the characters express their diverse abilities and experiences as "magic", the story premise is that it's all just a series of parapsychic activity that can ultimately be understood in scientific terms.
Maybe there are "gods" that influence the world in some sort of supernatural yet conscious way. I couldn't say. I don't buy into the whole paradigm of a "belief system" because I'm still capable of changing my understanding of the world. In my daily life, I use methods that seem to produce meaningful results, which to me is a scientific approach. In dealing with other people, I will reference the Gospels, the Torah, the Quran, the Lord of the Rings, Bullfinch's Mythology, the Mabinogion, the plot of the Star Wars movies, or any other legend or metaphor that can help a person understand their situation. We understand and communicate ideas using symbols, and I will use whatever symbols that I think another person will understand.
(Sorry about the long reply.)
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