tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32253694678797248732024-03-12T20:56:56.595-04:00Kenaz FilanKenaz Filanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06083915907861140328noreply@blogger.comBlogger424125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3225369467879724873.post-73273648839338651942017-01-23T11:47:00.000-05:002017-01-23T11:47:09.241-05:00The Return of Conversations we Need to Be Having, or: More Reactionary Ranting from Kenaz Filan and Galina Krasskova<b>The rise of Donald Trump has left emotions at an all-time high: I have never seen my country so angry and so polarized. It’s easy to get swept up in all the bad crazy, especially if you are empathic or sensitive. I’m finding a regular spiritual regimen, with time for meditation and quiet contemplation, is more important than ever. How have you been dealing with the craziness?</b><div>
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GK: Well, firstly, it doesn't affect me that much. I worship my Gods. I honor my ancestors. I am hip deep in medieval studies. I don't really give a fuck. I wasn't devastated when Obama was elected in 2009 and I'm not devastated by this. Some things will get worse, some will get better. That's the way it works in a democratic society and it's up to each one of us to be vigilant and be active, stay informed and be engaged. that's what makes a democracy thrive. We need to get involved in the political process, especially locally not just in election years either. </div>
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On a spiritual level, I do regular cleansings, meditation, and yes, i absolutely keep up with my devotional practices and I keep politics out of them. On a mundane level, I limit how much news I watch and I limit how much news I get from social media. I stay informed (and I read liberal, conservative, and foreign news rather than just living in my little bubble, because one has to expose oneself to different viewpoints if one really wants to know what's going on in the world), but I don't overdose on it. </div>
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I also have a grasp of history, so I don't feel the need to disrespect the millions of men and women who died in WWII by comparing President Trump to Hitler every time he says something I don't like. </div>
<br /><b><a href="https://heathenharvest.org/2015/05/14/asatru-a-native-european-spirituality-by-stephen-a-mcnallen-available-for-pre-order/" target="_blank">Stephen McNallen</a> has drawn some comparisons between Asatru and Shintoism as folk religions of particular cultures (Northern European and Japanese, respectively). I think we need to draw another comparison — both are strongly animist. The monotheist world view we’ve inherited features an All-Knowing God Who has gifted humanity with intelligence and free will so that it may rule over a soulless and mechanical world. But our ancestors believed that animals had consciousness and intelligence (a view science is JUST coming around to): they believed that mountains, rivers, storms, and trees could have sentience and agency. And I think understanding that worldview and internalizing it will help us immensely in restoring our ancestral religion and our connection to our ancestral Gods.</b></div>
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GK: Has their all-knowing God gifted them with intelligence? That's news to me. If he had, they'd be polytheist now wouldn't they? </div>
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I absolutely agree with you that accepting and internalizing the animism of our polytheistic ancestors is a healthier and much more correct way to live. I think we need to do this -- and we are, i see it happening more and more -- for our polytheisms to thrive. It's only logical. This is part of what it means to be a polytheist, to be engaged with the Powers, large, small, and all around us. </div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">From the Kenaz Filan Blog
http://kenazfilan.blogspot.com</div>Kenaz Filanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06083915907861140328noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3225369467879724873.post-79320102301849265972016-08-25T12:48:00.001-04:002016-08-25T14:33:40.276-04:00Deities and Demagogues: for Rhyd Wildemuth<div class="tr_bq">
For those who missed it: soon after the Polytheist Revival began it was rocked by controversy. The latest tiff pits <a href="https://godsandradicals.org/" target="_blank">Gods & Radicals</a>, an anti-Capitalist collective of Pagans and polytheists, against a loose conglomeration of "devotional Polytheists." The battle began with a piece written by G&R leader Rhyd Wildemuth entitled <a href="https://godsandradicals.org/others/confronting-the-new-right/" target="_blank">"Confronting the New Right."</a> In that essay Wildemuth warned of a sinister "crypto-fascist" philosophy worming its way into American Neopaganism and Polytheism. By appealing to dangerous ideas like "Our Sacred Traditions" and whipping up fear of "Our Great Threat," these Nazis in Heathen garb were trying to take over OUR drum circles and spread their hateful racist ideology under the guise of spirituality. </div>
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(The fact that Rhyd's "New Right" infiltrators looked uncommonly like those Radical Moozlim Terrorists bigots see lurking in every mosque was lost on him: so too was the fact that he himself was pushing an ideology under guise of spirituality. This is a recurring theme, as we will see in a few paragraphs). <br />
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Among the groups targeted for scrutiny was Druidry. Rhyd worried about the way "Traditionalist and tribalist" ideas were promoted by smaller groups like the <a href="https://www.adf.org/" target="_blank">ADF</a> and <a href="http://www.aoda.org/" target="_blank">AODA</a>. He was especially concerned with the fact that "the ideas of Oswald Spengler (a favorite amongst many New Right theorists) have gained popularity through some 'Long Descent' druids." John Michael Greer, head of the American Order of Druids in America and a noted peak oil expert who has talked at length about our civilization's upcoming "long descent," responded to Wildemuth's concerns in a post entitled <a href="http://galabes.blogspot.com/2016/04/a-wind-that-tastes-of-ashes.html" target="_blank">"A Wind That Tastes of Ashes."</a><br />
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Greer's response is lengthy, pointed and well worth a read. It is telling that <a href="https://godsandradicals.org/2016/08/23/editorial-the-witch-hunt-that-wasnt/" target="_blank">in his response</a> Rhyd quoted a few lines from the post but did not provide a link thereto. Perhaps he was uncomfortable responding to analyses like these:<br />
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<i>Beyond the amusement value, though, there’s much to be learned from Wildermuth’s tirade. It really is a fine piece of demagogy. Note how he wields the classic tropes of threat by subversion, painting the New Right as a malevolent influence worming its way into the heart of Paganism rather than, say, noticing that Pagans embrace as many different political options as they do spiritual ones, and leaving it at that. Pagan traditions, he claims, can be infected with New Right ideas even without knowing it—a claim that makes it easy for him to find those ideas anywhere he chooses, and just as easy to dismiss out of hand any disagreement with his accusations. Note also the way that he glides smoothly from “New Right ideas” to “New Right aligned Pagans,” who are “hiding their political goals behind claims that they’re ‘apolitical’.” It’s the logic of Stalin’s show trials and the witch burnings: deny that you’re influenced by the New Right and that just proves that you must be hiding your real agenda.</i></blockquote>
Rhyd acknowledges that he is "of course, a Marxist. And an Anarchist, a Feminist, a Pagan, and a Polytheist." He acknowledges suggesting we challenge the traditional roles of Pagan elders and leaders. But then he explains his true motivation. He's just here because of racist Facebook postings from dangerous bigots like the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Asatru.Folk.Assembly/?fref=nf" target="_blank">Asatru Folk Assembly</a>.<br />
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Apparently the Asatru Folk Assembly does not recognize transwomen and transmen and is gender essentialist. While this may be offensive to modern sensibilities their position has some historical precedent: <a href="https://jameserich.com/2012/07/18/what-was-it-like-to-be-a-gay-viking/" target="_blank"><i>ergi</i> ("unmanly") was a grievous insult in Norse culture and violation of gender roles was strongly frowned upon</a>. They honor the Gods and Goddesses of Northern Europe -- and the people who honored those Deities would today be classified as "White." And I have no problem with honoring beautiful White children, seeing as how I'm the father of a beautiful White preschooler. (Given that almost every Black American has some Northern European ancestry, I must admit I am curious as to how the AFA feels about the "one drop" rule).<br />
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Nowhere in this post does Matt Flavel call out for violence against transgender people or "mud races." He simply states his opinion as current head gothi in charge at the AFA and uses the word "white" to describe the AFA's membership. For Rhyd that is all we need: their tainted ideology is enough to condemn them. Given that G&R members like Alley Valkyrie have<a href="https://www.facebook.com/alleyvalkyrie/posts/10154294298448518" target="_blank"> advocated violence against those who use "violent rhetoric," </a>we can see just how far G&R is willing to go to protect us from those who would celebrate gender essentialism and "beautiful white children." And how can we blame them? After all, Flavel is claiming to speak for the Gods and, as Rhyd reminds us, "If the gods declared it, then any person faithful to the gods must accept this, lest they go against their will."<br />
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Except that Matt Flavel didn't say "the Gods declare it." Flavel said "The AFA... [believes]." If you disagree with his ideas you're free to choose from many other Heathen organizations. Once again we see that sleight-of-hand John Michael Greer pointed out. We started out with a picture of a smiling White family and within a few sentences we've got brainwashed Heathen Nazis ready to fire up the ovens for Odin. And of course the only cure is to question the Gods and challenge authority.<br />
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Except that pretty much every devotional Polytheist I know does just that. Rhyd warns and warns about the dangers of cultist Polytheist leaders using the Gods to exploit their congregation, yet somehow he can never find an example of leaders doing that. Like a Republican congressman who wants to fight "voter fraud" by disenfranchising minorities Rhyd is long on "could happen" and short on "is happening." Tradition gets a vote, not a veto: veneration of the Gods need not lead to brainwashing. (Rhyd may want to look up the <a href="http://changingminds.org/disciplines/argument/fallacies/excluded_middle.htm" target="_blank">Fallacy of the Excluded Middle</a> sometime).<br />
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The Asatru Folk Assembly is a private organization. I would not join for many reasons, not least of which <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Asatru.Folk.Assembly/posts/602991273109540" target="_blank">their refusal to blot Loki</a>. I disagree with gender essentialism, although I also disagree with the ideas that gender is entirely up to the individual and that "TERFs" (Trans Exclusive Radical Feminists) should be greeted with threats of rape and violence. And insofar as they present White Americans as somehow superior to others rather than as one of the cultural groups making up contemporary America, or advocate violence against non-Whites, I reject their ideology. (I should note that I have to date seen precisely zero evidence that the AFA is violent or that they advocate White supremacy). But I also acknowledge their right to run their own organization on their own dime and to set whatever membership standards they see fit.<br />
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Polytheism by its very definition will never be a monolithic and unified theology. When you have many Gods, you have many ways of serving the Gods. There is also room for disagreement, even for heated argument. If you dislike the AFA's theology you avoid their rituals, or you write an essay explaining your issues and justifying your approach. The idea that they must somehow be brought over to a particular way of thinking or shunned as dangerous enemies is a Monotheist one -- particularly when we start shunning for thought crimes. And Marxism (one of the two dueling theoeconomic systems ruling our world today) is an utterly Monotheistic and Manichean tradition which places History in the role once held by God and which envisions an inevitable Triumph of the Proletariat and eradication of the evil Capitalism. <br />
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Rhyd notes "There has been no great ‘witch-hunt’ against fascist and authoritarian Polytheists by leftist neopagans. No leaders were strung up by the readers of <b><i>Gods & Radicals</i></b>, violently purged and shoved into ghettos or camps." It's a deflection which elides the Soviet Gulag, the Khmer Rouge killing fields, Maoist re-education camps, etc. It's also a clever redefinition of the term "witch hunt." G&R is not advocating violence against ideological foes -- at least not yet -- but they are recommending those foes be purged from Paganism's "big tent" and shunned for their failures to adhere to G&R's leftist/Marxist/anti-Capitalist standards of conduct.<br />
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On his personal blog Rhyd goes on to further expose the rot within our community. He specifically calls out Dorothy Morrison for a quote about "welfare queens" which he does not substantiate and notes that Luisa Teish's gender essentialism is identical to that practiced by the Asatru Folk Assembly. (Because there's nothing offensive about linking an African-American elder to a purportedly White Supremacist organization). We see all the threats of subversion John Michael Greer pointed out, combined with the tender assurances that this isn't about me, this is about protecting our community. Marxists are rarely good at irony or at self-analysis, and that trend isn't broken here.<br />
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">From the Kenaz Filan Blog
http://kenazfilan.blogspot.com</div>Kenaz Filanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06083915907861140328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3225369467879724873.post-30062048981638904692016-08-24T11:04:00.001-04:002016-08-24T11:05:29.749-04:00Conversations that Keep on Going: a Continuing Discussion with Galina Krasskova (Pt. 10)<i><b>KF</b>: Vigorous discussion on refugees continues on Facebook. One interesting topic (one of the few interesting topics, really) concerns hospitality obligations and the obligations incurred by the recipients of hospitality. There were definitely traditions throughout the pre-Christian world of extending a welcome hand to strangers and of helping those in need. But there were also codes of conduct which applied to those strangers and communal expectations which they were expected to meet. And I wonder what we can learn from the Classical and Heathen worlds on how to approach this contemporary crisis. </i><br />
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<b>GK</b>: well it worked out so well for them when they allowed Christians in. *sarcasm*. I think we can learn quite a lot right there. Seriously though, yes, hospitality was not just a virtue but an obligation in both the classical and Heathen worlds. That being said, there were obligations on both sides and one of those was that the guest was not expected to entrench themselves and remain.<br />
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We have a good example of this in the "Odyssey." With Odysseus off at war for ten years and then delayed for another ten in his return, his wife Penelope is left to handle affairs in Ithaka alone, save for her infant son. Suitors descend upon the palace after the first ten years, once Odysseus doesn't' immediately return home, to demand that she marry one of them. (They're not interested in her, mind you, but in her lands). At first, she is obliged to offer them hospitality, but then they don't leave and they start abusing that hospitality. With all able bodied men off at war, she doesn't have a force of retainers to expel them. She is forced to endure their attentions, their ravaging her lands, literally eating the people of Ithaka out of house and home. When Odysseus returns, he sees all that is going on and with his adult son eventually handles the situation: by slaughtering each and every one of the suitors and any of the maidservants who collaborated with them. That is what you do when hospitality is abused.<br />
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Violations of hospitality by a guest are as awful a crime as not extending hospitality in the first place and when your people are suffering, and your culture is being erased, I say hospitality is being violated. Now I'm not advocating genocide, but I am advocating finding a better solution. I am as concerned about the destruction of Syrian culture, which is resulting from all of the population fleeing the country as I am about various European cultures. They have a right to their own ancestral lands and their own culture. I think maybe the question should be, as we temporarily offer shelter, what can we do to help them reclaim and resettle their own lands. That's the part people aren't talking about: What's lost on their end. Are they to be perpetual exiles from their own lands? Are those lands to be sacrificed to Daesh or whatever power hungry tyrant can claim them? Why is that OK?<br />
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<i><b>KF</b>: One thing that's really been driven home to me in these discussions is the very important distinction between clementia and misericordia. I'm seeing lots of misericordia (tearful sympathy or "shared misery" for the plight of an afflicted individual) and very little clementia (clemency, mercy extended when it serves a higher cause). We're seeing pictures of wounded and dying children, cries for "unconditional love" and "mercy for these poor people" with the corollary that anyone who would not give them a home must be a heartless monster. But when you talk about the root causes of the crisis, when you ask about the limits of our moral responsibility and suggest solutions that don't involve rehoming these people -- when you try to frame the issue in practical terms and seek practical solutions rather than engaging in an orgy of teary whimpering -- there's no interest at all. </i><br />
<b><br />GK:</b> Clementia has quite a charge in Latin. I don't know that I"d use the Latin terms for an English analogy. *smiles*. However, to answer your question, of course there is. it's always easier to wallow in useless emotion and virtue signal than to actually roll up one's sleeves and get to work. It's also incredibly racist and infantilizing: oh the great white hope is going to come in and fix all the brown people's problems for them. You know what? maybe they're capable of fixing their own problems, especially because every thing that we're seeing today is a direct result of white people -- European Colonial Powers and after WWII America--interfering in native politics. I think they've had enough "Help" from us. <br />
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Of course what does one do then when seeing children washed up dead on a beach? It's horrifying and heart-rending. I say we save those children and help them go home. The way to stop this is to stop the cause of them fleeing. It's not doing any long-term good to destabilize Europe, which is what is happening. I'm terrified that a excessively right wing government is going to take power in some of these countries (Germany, Austria, France, Sweden, etc.)--we've seen how that goes. We could very well be headed there again, which should give us greater incentive to solve this problem before the right wing nationalists in Europe take advantage of it -- which, I might add, is already happening. <br />
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">From the Kenaz Filan Blog
http://kenazfilan.blogspot.com</div>Kenaz Filanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06083915907861140328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3225369467879724873.post-10725187089454101552016-08-22T10:27:00.001-04:002016-08-22T10:27:41.627-04:00Polytheism's Possible Futures: for Ryan SmithRyan Smith recently posted an article to <b>Patheos </b><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/throughthegrapevine/2016/08/polytheisms-future/" target="_blank">on the future of Polytheism</a>. I agree with many of his statements. He is absolutely right when he says that Polytheism must engage with the local land and Powers; ditto when he says Polytheism needs to be something more than multiple altar statues and different holidays. We both agree the Polytheist Revival is in its infancy. (While many of us have been practicing Polytheism for decades, we have only recently put the P-label on practices we previously called "Pagan" or "Heathen.") We are in the process of defining ourselves and what it means to honor the Old Gods in a modern world. The actions we take now may reverberate across generations, but they may also come to naught like so many religious movements. Toward our success he offers thoughts on how we can make our practices, our community and our Gods relevant in an ever-changing modern world.<br />
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And here is where our approaches differ. I am not sure we disagree: I don't know enough of Smith's theological or cosmological views to speak on those topics. But there is a very definite difference of emphasis. To quote Smith:<br />
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<i>[W]e must be willing to assess our Gods, our practices, and our ideas based on what they mean, in real terms, in the present moment and we should prioritize making our ideas relevant and meaningful in the modern day by providing answers for human and present needs with consideration for their future impact. </i></blockquote>
Smith is advocating a Polytheism focused in the here-and-now, one which seeks to make lasting changes in the real world. His focus is on the community and how the Gods can help meet our needs. As he puts it "We should be ... working to make our beliefs, ethics, and ideas as applicable (<i>sic</i>) to people in their everyday lives and [discussing] how they help in addressing the big questions in society." He seeks to make the Gods relevant by making them useful.<br />
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I question Smith's emphasis on the here-and-now and on judging Gods by its standards and needs. The Kirghiz have preserved the history of their people in the <i>Manas </i>saga, a poem which is several dozen times longer than the <i>Iliad </i>and which is still being written: stories of the Kirghiz meeting Russian invaders with machine guns are juxtaposed with tales of the earliest ancestors. Compare and contrast this with hopelessly dated "modern" takes on religion like the Jesus Freaks. The Gods and Ancestors don't need fashion consultants and PR firms redefining Their message for a new era: the new era needs to redefine itself in accordance with Their message.<br />
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Smith's idea of giving seekers "the means to live authentically and polytheistically on their own as autonomous individuals" and giving them "the means to find their own answers, develop polytheistic practice in a way that is authentic for them, and build community that is self-sustaining" sounds nice. But not all Gods were served in such a free-form way nor do most active Polytheistic communities function in that fashion. The relationship between guru and chela in India, for example, involves a great deal of submission to authority and unquestioning obedience. And we've all seen firsthand what happened when American Neopaganism tried to create a "Big Tent" that covered every possible belief -- an amorphous mush of self-proclaimed Grand High Poobahs where a seeker's uninformed opinion received the same respect as a scholar's hard-earned knowledge and where little useful work was ever accomplished. While I appreciate his fear of fundamentalism and terrorism, I submit it is possible to develop a liturgy and a coherent theology, and even to exclude people from same, without gassing undesirables or flying airplanes into buildings. <br />
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Overall, I think Smith is sincere in his beliefs. Alas, when it comes to the Gods I'm not entirely clear on what those beliefs are and I'm not sure he is either. And at some point we're going to have to answer a question which Smith avoids throughout this essay: what do we mean by the word "Gods?"Are They archetypes hard-wired into our consciousness? Are They cultural myths which preserve ancient wisdom? Or are the Gods the wellsprings of being and weavers of this Universe and all that is in it? Smith might want to first address the many real injustices and problems that plague the world today. But if we are going to have a new religion which is focused on multiple Gods, we might spare a minute to ponder that conundrum. Because I submit that it is a very important issue indeed. <br />
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If your Gods are archetypes, myths or symbols -- if they are grounded in human consciousness and the human experience -- then obviously the community's needs take precedence over Theirs. Symbols only have meaning if there is somebody to interpret them: myths can be retold and retooled to suit whatever purpose the author desires. There's no reason to worry about offending Them any more than you fear Santa leaving coal in your stocking. You can use Them like clip art for whatever ad campaign you choose: you can make Them crusaders for any cause you like. <br />
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But what if They have existence outside your head and agency to do things outside your control? What if the God you are honoring is the same one honored on Olympos or in the forests of Germania -- and what if His feelings about your pet cause differ from yours? That would make things much more ... complicated. Smith seems uncertain on this question. He appears to believe that expecting deities to serve humans is "highly unrealistic" but offers no thoughts on whether humans should be expected to serve deities. He asks "What should [Polytheists] have to say about consumerism, the commodification of natural resources, gender fluidity, racism and bigotry, or the state of human life in much of the world and the communities we live in?" but is silent on what Polytheism has to say about the Gods. And in a religious discussion this is a rather glaring and problematic oversight.<br />
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">From the Kenaz Filan Blog
http://kenazfilan.blogspot.com</div>Kenaz Filanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06083915907861140328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3225369467879724873.post-50106167209935988752016-08-15T14:34:00.000-04:002016-08-16T14:15:00.271-04:00Conversations We Need to Be Having: an Ongoing Discussion with Galina Krasskova (Pt. 8)<i>The objections from Beckett & Co. re "spiritual impurity" all seem to boil down to two big complaints: this is too much work, and it makes us feel dirty. There's this idea that staying spiritually pure is an onerous never-ending task which will leave you with deep emotional scars. To me it's as simple as "respect your Gods and avoid people who do not respect them; exercise caution in liminal spaces like graveyards and maternity wards; honor your gut instinct if it tells you something or someone is tainted; if you cannot avoid impurity ward beforehand and cleanse afterwards." And I'm at a loss to see how any of that is particularly onerous or traumatic. <br /><br />That being said, I can see how the term might seem intimidating or off-putting to someone unfamiliar with the concept. And so I think it's worthwhile to offer a quick and dirty basic description of what spiritual impurity is and how you avoid it.</i><br />
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<b>GK: </b>I think in part it's unresolved damage from Christian upbringings. There's also this misunderstanding of pollution and miasma that ascribes a value judgement to the idea of being polluted, as though when someone is in miasma, we're saying they're a bad person. That's not the case at all. Miasma is generally a neutral thing, just like taking a bath and washing one's hair ought to be. You do or are exposed to X, you're miasmic, you clean. It shouldn't have any particular charge more than that. However, all of that being said, perhaps what they're finding "onerous" and "traumatic" is the idea that they may have to take responsibility for themselves spiritually in a way predicated on the idea of a hierarchy of Powers. I read a blog recently wherein the writer (and yes, I did feel absolutely polluted after reading it) said that while she acknowledges herself as a polytheist, she doesn't see any arguable difference between herself and the Gods, and doesn't consider Them greater than herself, and it doesn't matter by what names They are called" and this after having spent years in Heathenry. I thought, "sweetheart, maybe that assed up notion is why your life is shit." My comment of course reflects <i>my</i> disgust with the complete lack of character displayed here, but in terms of miasma, any miasma present would reflect the lack of right relationship with the cosmic hierarchies: gods and ancestors, the lack of relational integrity and specifically because this is a willful, volitional lack of respect. I really do think that the push back against ideas of pollution and miasma have more to do with certain anti-structural sentiments in the communities than perhaps with anything else. Traditions after all are predicated on specific structures. These things are the necessary scaffoldings that allow traditions to unfold. If you want to weaken a tradition simply attack the particularities of it, attack the scaffolding. <br />
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Part of it also is people don't, because of their backgrounds, want to exclude anyone or anything -- because they've been excluded. Consequently they are tolerant and permissive to a fault. We saw this with the Kenny Klein thing. They didn't want to exclude him, made excuses for him because in the past their own feelings had been hurt and now they didn't want themselves to seem bigoted or judgmental. I'm sorry though: some things one needs to be judgmental about, and in Kenny Klein's case child abuse fits the bill. So i think we're seeing multiple threads coming together here to create a storm of antagonism and purposeful misunderstanding. It doesn't help that 'purity' is a very loaded term in monotheism, one that is often used to attack women's sexuality and behavior. This definition of purity has absolutely nothing to do with miasma. <br />
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Then again, the cynic in me wants to point out that if we really took miasma seriously as a community, if we were really each doing the requisite cleansings that our Gods and ancestors required, that we felt we needed to do in order to maintain good discernment and good integrity of being before the Gods and spirits, maybe we'd see through some of the bullshit currently being spread throughout our communities.<br />
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<i><a href="https://krasskova.wordpress.com/2016/08/15/dont-let-them-silence-you/">Your most recent blog entry</a> talked about the "Pagan/Heathen Atheists" who are openly hostile to any forms of devotion. I think this is the big reason (or one of the big reasons) we need to hold the line on the issue of the Gods' literal existence. Yes, there is room for debate and discussion on the nature of the Gods: there would have to be, seeing as how They are Mysteries beyond our comprehension. There is room for crises of faith and for behaving with honor and dignity in the face of your doubts. But there can't be room for people who refuse to treat our beliefs with respect and who refuse to bend their knee before the Gods. If they're just symbols, what's the big deal? You can put your hand over your heart when you hear the National Anthem: it won't kill you to say a prayer for Odin or Apollo. But of course that question never gets answered, and instead we're expected to conform to their expectations.</i><br />
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<b>GK: </b>What angers me the most about atheist incursions is summed up <a href="https://krasskova.wordpress.com/2015/12/23/show-that-atheist-the-door">in an encounter I had awhile back that I wrote about here</a>. In that piece, I talk about an encounter that I had a local shop. An atheist was talking about how he was Heathen, but only because he liked to hang out with his dudebros and drink, and he thought the Viking ethics were good to live by. I challenged him, on his appropriation of our religion and he said "well, it's not a religion to me so it doesn't matter." The extreme self-centeredness is, I think particularly enlightening. There is zero respect for the religion, the tradition, or the people and communities practicing it. Moreover these people come in and expect us to lower our standards to their level, to accommodate them in their impiety and ignorance. Our traditions are viewed as something for them to use and enjoy, as something disposable, and they do not care about the hurt and harm that they are doing. They do not care about the damage they may cause. It's all about them, and making sure that no one else can have anything deeper and more significant than the experiences they will allow themselves. It's holding not just spiritual mediocrity and shallowness, but spiritual absence up as a life goal. There is a contempt for the Gods because they will not humble themselves to acknowledge that something greater than they themselves exists. And because they won't, they cannot stand that others do and reap the not insignificant benefits of piety. They can't even have a live and let live philosophy, and note they only ever come into our communities demanding that, we never go into theirs demanding that they acknowledge the Gods and change their atheist beliefs. <br />
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I agree with you: this must of necessity be our hard line: there is no room in our traditions for people who refuse to treat our beliefs with respect and who refuse to bend their knees before the Gods. No room at all and we need to hold the line against this pollution. </div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">From the Kenaz Filan Blog
http://kenazfilan.blogspot.com</div>Kenaz Filanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06083915907861140328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3225369467879724873.post-1972696106729994832016-08-14T16:27:00.001-04:002016-08-14T16:27:50.423-04:00Conversations We Need To Be Having: An Ongoing Discussion With Galina Krasskova (Part 6)<i>For me Polytheism can be summed up in three phrases: the Gods are real, the Gods are many, the Gods are here. If you believe in archetypes, symbols or anything else grounded in the human experience you are an Atheist; if you believe all Gods are masks of one God you are a Monotheist; if you believe the Gods have withdrawn attention from this world you are a Deist. There's nothing wrong with any of those positions, <b>but they are not Polytheism</b>. There's plenty of room for discussion, disagreement and diversity within those three phrases: I see nothing to be gained by diluting those principles in the name of "inclusivity" or "tolerance."</i><br />
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<b>GK:</b> I agree with you. What I find objectionable is not that these positions exist on the religious spectrum, but that those holding them are attempting to co opt polytheism and redefine it to accomodate their positions. If you cannot deal with polytheism as it is, then maybe, just maybe you are not a polytheist. It's this attitude, by the way, that I suspect is the reason why in many ATR houses, neo-pagans aren't welcome. They won't adapt to the tradition but expect the tradition to adapt to them. It's the height of white, western, secular privilege. I include secular there because if one actually believed in the Gods as real Beings, then the idea of taking into account what those Gods wanted, what They've told our ancestors and those who originated these practices would be taken into account first and foremost. Instead, the Gods are given short shrift and rendered tangential to a fetishization of "inclusiveness" and "tolerance." I think quite a bit of the push back we're getting from anti-theist Pagans and Anarcho-Marxist Pagans is a testament to the threat inherent in polytheism. If you want to change the world, return to the Gods of your ancestors. THIS right here is the ultimate resistance because if we become rooted in any large scale way once again in the mindset of polytheism and animism then that has world changing possibilities. <br />
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I also have to laugh at the emphasis, a dogged emphasis even, on "inclusiveness" and "tolerance." Firstly, those screaming about these things are anything but. Secondly, it is the very nature of a tradition that there are boundaries. Traditions are not open door experiences. Why should they be? Mysteries are not for the uninitiated. There are processes and rites and ceremonies and study and learning proper protocols that enable one to better engage with the Gods and spirits, to do so relatively safely, and most importantly to do so in the ways that the Gods have asked. If one isn't willing to do that, why should one be entitled to entrance? This of course brings up the question of who is entitled to set those boundaries and here i'd warrant your elders and specialists within a tradition -- you know, the ones the Gods actually task with doing just that. No one else is doing it, and apparently saying "leave us in peace" is oppression. A Tradition is a living thing, a living container for the mysteries of a particular set of Gods, and we are tasked with protecting and nourishing that, with restoring it. What we're being asked to do is allow those who don't care about our Gods, who refuse to give any thought to the most basic of religious fundamentals (like miasma), who moreover are actively hostile to the idea of restoring traditions carte blanche to trample all over them. Why would any self-respecting polytheist choose to do that. yet if we don't, we are told we're intolerant. Well, if respecting my Gods means I'm intolerant, so be it. <br />
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Of course what I find truly mind-boggling about this is that this illiberal left in our polytheistic communities seems to truly believe itself oppressed. In a discussion on my fb, Peter Dybing said that "it's the left in polythiest communities that are leading the way. With reactionary right wingers resisting the fundamental changes that are sidelining their narrow views." What fundamental changes would that be? Substituting marxist theory for theology? Eradicating veneration of the Gods in favor of social justice work? Pushing piety out the window as being 'intolerant?' They truly believe that they are oppressed because, those of us who actually care about our Gods won't allow them to run roughshod over our traditions. This is no different than fundamentalist christians whining about how oppressed they are because they're not allowed to ram their theology down everyone else's throat. It's precisely the same narrative with devout polytheists being cast as unreasonable and intolerant. <br />
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<i>As I look at India's ongoing sacred cow controversy, I see lots of concern about regional food shortages and on how Indian Muslims have no access to beef because of someone else's religion. I don't see anybody saying "why don't they eat pork?" Because of course Hindu cow veneration is a silly superstition, but Halal laws are an important part of a major religious tradition. We're "racist" if we speak out against hamburger stands in India and racist if we suggest pork farming in Pakistan. Monotheistic double standard much? :) </i><br />
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<b>GK: </b>Of course it's a double standard and as much as we like to think that secularism is the polar opposite of monotheism it isn't. Polytheism is. Secularism is just another form of forced unity of thought and ideology dedicated to the eradication of indigenous traditions, i.e. polytheisms. More and more I've been reading about situations in India where Hindus have to fight to hold processions (there was controversy about this recently with a procession for Ganesh at one of His festivals in Mumbai), to practice their religion, to fill their streets with veneration to their Gods and this controversy should not exist. That land belongs to the Hindu Gods. period. Why should any quarter be given whatsoever to foreign faiths? At least, why should it be given when the result is diminishing one's own sovereignty to practice? Yet an insidious narrative is being fed to this nation from the time of British colonialism that damns polytheistic practice as superstition and puts a premium on diminishing rites and traditions as nothing more than interesting folklore. Why would one defend folklore? which is exactly the point. </div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">From the Kenaz Filan Blog
http://kenazfilan.blogspot.com</div>Kenaz Filanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06083915907861140328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3225369467879724873.post-16276573108743497032016-08-12T18:53:00.002-04:002016-08-12T19:19:31.709-04:00Conversations We Need To Be Having: An Ongoing Discussion With Galina Krasskova (Part 5)<i><a href="http://disq.us/p/1av23pb" target="_blank">Rhyd's comment on Beckett's post</a> mentions Wesley, Cromwell, Savonarola and, inevitably, Hitler. But he, like most of the other commenters, does not speak to one very important question: is spiritual impurity a tangible thing? They not only don't believe in this concept, they never even thought it worthy of consideration. The idea that there might actually be more to this than LARPing and psychodrama doesn't even terrify Neopagans or make them defensive -- it just goes over their heads like Sputnik orbiting above the Marianas Trench. How do we get past that? Or can we... ?</i><br />
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<b>GK</b>: This is the key fault line that separates us on this ideological battleground: we acknowledge the Gods' existence and that informs every single decision we make. The Gods are not secondary or tangential to our purpose and our work. I really think that, like so many other issues that have come up over the past few years between Pagans and Polytheists, that it does come down again and again to the question of belief. Either the Gods are real and that changes <b>everything</b>; it has consequences or you don't believe that They are, and all the things that flow from acknowledgement of the Gods no longer matter, save perhaps as symbolic structures to be twisted out of true or dispensed with when inconvenient. </div>
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If we did not believe that purity and impurity were tangible things we would not have Holocaust Memorials. We would not make a concerted effort to remember the atrocities that occurred on our battlegrounds, slave markets, and other historical places of horror. These would mean nothing to our national psyche if even the implication of the sacred was without palpable anchor and weight. There would be no point to memorializing. </div>
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But for Rhyd it's all <i>reductio ad Hitleram.</i> He elides all discussion and nuance and effaces the questions that he does not want to answer: were he to answer them honestly in a way that accords with both his rhetoric and his actions the jig would be up and his shallow ideologies would be shown for what they are. Marxism is predicated on the death of religion to bring the 'glorious revolution.' But what Marx saw as an opiate we Polytheists see as vital. What Marx saw as a distraction we see as essential. What Marx saw as an obstacle, we see as fundamental. There is no meeting ground between the two sides of this debate. That's evident by how Rhyd is acting in this and other discussions, particularly when he continuously attacks the foundations and fundamentals of our religions. </div>
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<i>This just drives home to me once again how important the question of belief is. I'm not even saying you have to have unwavering certainty: spiritual people throughout history have dealt with crises of faith. But if you will not even entertain the possibility that the Gods might exist outside your head, then you have no business calling yourself a Polytheist. Whether to fight for a temple, whether to cleanse yourself from spiritual impurity, whether or not it is possible to offend the Divine -- those and so many more important questions hinge entirely on the question of whether or not the Gods exist. And I think we really need to make that a hill to die on. </i></div>
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<b>GK</b>: Or rather, Kenaz, a hill to make them die on. <i>Molon Labe</i>, as Spartans would have said. </div>
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This is our line in the sand and I agree with you, if this is too difficult an equation upon which to structure one's religious life, then don't call yourself a polytheist. it's as simple as that. Ideas and beliefs have consequence. Secular philosophy is not theology. Bad economic theory is not theology. Piss poor poly sci is also not theology and neither is populist sloganeering which is all that comes out of their side of this fight. </div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">From the Kenaz Filan Blog
http://kenazfilan.blogspot.com</div>Kenaz Filanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06083915907861140328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3225369467879724873.post-40992408168802267652016-08-12T11:55:00.002-04:002016-08-12T11:57:28.289-04:00A Sinner's Prayer: for John Beckett<div class="tr_bq">
<a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/johnbeckett/2016/08/are-we-bringing-sin-into-paganism.html" target="_blank">A recent <i>Patheos </i>essay by John Beckett</a> worried that conversations about piety and ritual impurity are bringing the concept of "Sin" into Paganism. For him this would be an unqualified Bad Thing since:</div>
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<b>Sin</b> is breaking the rules – even if those rules are arbitrary and outdated. Sin is transgression – even if the institution we transgress against is regressive and harmful. Sin is error and “missing the mark” – even if that mark is impossible to attain. The concept of sin tries to force a rainbow world into a black and white box. </blockquote>
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Avoiding sin requires perfection, and since perfection is unattainable, we’re told we’re bad and evil. We feel shame for shortcomings we could not possibly avoid, some of which aren’t even shortcomings. Christianity’s answer is that a god-man will vicariously impart perfection to believers. The proposition works for some, although by their own admission they never completely stop sinning. </blockquote>
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A straw man nailed to a cross is a wonderful prop if you're staging <i>Children of the Corn. </i>It's less impressive as a debate tool. There is no shortage of Christian literature on Sin, and I wonder why Beckett didn't consult Fr. Google to see what actual adherents had to say on the topic. Since I am a cultural Roman Catholic, I'll begin my search with the <i><b><a href="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14004b.htm" target="_blank">New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia</a></b></i>. There is of course a good bit of RC-specific material here. But there's also a fair bit which could prove useful to people of any religious persuasion. For example:</div>
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Sin is nothing else than a morally bad act (St. Thomas, "De malo", 7:3), an act not in accord with reason informed by the Divine law. God has endowed us with reason and free-will, and a sense of responsibility; He has made us subject to His law, which is known to us by the dictates of conscience, and our acts must conform with these dictates, otherwise we sin (Romans 14:23).</blockquote>
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The pre-Christian world was quite capable of creating moral codes and of understanding these moral codes would be violated. Centuries before Moses purportedly received the Ten Commandments Hammurabi's code was followed throughout Babylon. The codes of their communities certainly included proscriptions which appear silly to us, just as many of our "thou shalts" and "thou shalt nots" would seem odd and arbitrary to them. But they would be puzzled indeed by the idea that "avoiding sin requires perfection" when it simply meant "behave in accordance with community standards." And the pre-Christian world certainly recognized "Divine law," though their take on said law admittedly differed from the Catholic vision. </div>
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<i>New Advent</i> goes on to note that Sin must involve a conscious decision. The sinner is aware the action is wrong yet for whatever reason chooses to violate the moral imperative. This is useful in distinguishing between sin and ritual impurity. You can be contaminated by willful wrong action but you can also be contaminated by proximity or contact: miasma involves no moral payload. It's also useful in stopping the kind of free-floating anxiety Beckett describes. If you are honoring the Gods to the best of your ability with the knowledge you have at hand you are not going to fall into a state of <i>Impietas</i>. Christians may think everybody can do it -- but sinning really takes an active effort! </div>
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We can even consult other experts on the subject. In <i style="font-weight: bold;">The Satanic Bible</i> Anton LaVey repeatedly praised the Seven Deadly Sins and noted they led to self-gratification. But the Church of Satan is really more about naughtiness than wickedness. Satanists enjoy tweaking the bluenoses (and their founder wrote about the "Law of the Forbidden"), but their parties owe more to Epicurus than Hannibal Lecter. LaVey distinguished between Indulgence and Compulsion. Throughout his career he condemned drug abuse and "druggies" and disparaged efforts to treat substance abuse or criminal misbehavior as a sickness rather than a personal failing. So while Satanists may make light of the John Beckett version of "Sin," they hardly reject the idea outright. Current CoS High Priest Peter Gilmore has described their worldview as "I-theism." A religion of self-deification certainly can (and does) condemn acts of wrongdoing which cheapen the wrongdoer before the community and hirself. <br />
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The idea that "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23) is Christian: in the pre-Christian world it was expected that most would uphold community standards and honor the Gods, and violations were the exception rather than the rule. And while castes and familial curses certainly exist outside Monotheism, the idea that we are all tainted by some sort of "original Sin" is hardly universal. That being said, it's ahistorical in the extreme to imagine "do whatever you want so long as nobody gets hurt" was the order of things before the Monotheists came in and spoiled the fun. They may not have split the world into "Good" and "Evil" but they certainly knew the difference between right and wrong. </div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">From the Kenaz Filan Blog
http://kenazfilan.blogspot.com</div>Kenaz Filanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06083915907861140328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3225369467879724873.post-13006415209644599832016-08-11T10:00:00.000-04:002016-08-11T10:00:05.945-04:00Conversations We Need To Be Having: An Ongoing Discussion with Galina Krasskova (Pt. 3)<i>Erin had an interesting question in the comments: what are some ways we can address ancestral debt? I agree that we are here to (among other things) work on cleaning up the messes our ancestors left behind. And I think that has to involve more than lighting candles and saying "I'm sorry." There has to be real work done in the real world to address some of the many real injustices out there. But where do we start? </i><div>
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<b>GK</b>: i think that it starts with significantly and consistently honoring your own dead. That's the starting point, because that relationship needs to be healed, healthy, and strong before we can move on to any effective work. Once that relationship is established, it starts to seriously change the way one views the world, the lens through which we engage. That's an important turning point. It's at the point that the ancestor worker will start to see ways in which they can engage in this healing process, in shouldering their part of the debt. It's impossible to say: at that point you will always do X because we don't all have the same ancestors. it's going to be different. we don't all have the same skills and abilities either. For me, when I hit that point, i started educating people not just about ancestor work but about fighting the filter. that was my "come to jesus moment' if you'll excuse the expression. When that personal ancestral relationship is healthy, it will point you toward where you can focus and act in the world. One thing flows out of another. I don't think ongoing elevations are amiss though. <br /><i><br />With all the "Islamophobe" slurs flying around I wanted to state clearly that it is possible to be both a devout Muslim and a good citizen. The late Capt. Humayan Khan is a good example, as is his family: they are fine Americans and our country is better for having them as citizens. This isn't a question of Open Borders vs. Big Walls. We're talking about limited immigration and about immigrants being expected to conform to their new society's expectations instead of the converse. The fallacy of the excluded middle is not dead... </i><br /><br /><b>GK</b>: Of course it's possible to be a good and devout Muslim and a good citizen! I've never contested that. My issue solely is with unregulated immigration into Europe. I think the wolf is at the door of Europe (just as it is with our polytheistic traditions thanks to the Marxist cabal chipping away at their integrity) and people are determined not to see that until it's too late. Just like all Christians aren't terrorists, all muslims aren't terrorists but the unregulated immigration does nothing to root out those that are radicalized and moreover, with people injured, scared, and hurting and feeling that their governments aren't listening to them, it's setting up a situation in which the seriously radical right is slowly gaining power. Do we want to see another WWII? Because that is very easily where this could lead. Moreover, I think European culture is something to be tended and protected. I don't think we should be expecting Europe to move millions of Muslims into an area the size of say Belgium. It's not their problem and they shouldn't be expected to sacrifice their future to solve it. A moderate amount of immigration is fine with the caveat that the new immigrants do not isolate themselves but learn the language and culture of their new countries and become active citizens. What is the benefit to each European nation of taking in as many immigrants as it is doing? and does that benefit outweigh the damage, not just now but twenty years from now? <br /><br /><i>I also note as a polytheist that Trump crossed a very real line when he started attacking Capt. Khan. There are very few universal rules in Polytheism, but "Do Not Defile the Dead" is one of them. Khan died a hero in the service of his country and deserves the respect due a hero: Donald Trump and Roger Stone aren't fit to shine his boots or weed the space around his headstone. When they spread lies implying he was a traitor and a terrorist, they defiled the dead. And even in our polluted and broken society people recoil from that behavior like it was vomit or rotten meat. (I hope America is not so polluted and so broken that a majority of us can overlook it). </i><br /><br />I find defiling the dead in any way disgusting, revolting, and polluted behavior especially when it's done for political gain. If you defile the dead what the hell are you going to do to the living? <div class="blogger-post-footer">From the Kenaz Filan Blog
http://kenazfilan.blogspot.com</div>Kenaz Filanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06083915907861140328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3225369467879724873.post-23281957035017714182016-08-10T14:06:00.000-04:002016-08-10T17:33:54.602-04:00Conversations We Need To Be Having: An Ongoing Discussion with Galina Krasskova (Pt. II)<i>As White Americans become a plurality rather than a majority, we're going to have to redefine ourselves. Right now I see two equally wrong-headed efforts toward that end. The first is the "mighty Whitey" approach. This defines White as inherently superior to non-White and features lots of complaining about blacks, Jews, "mud races" &c. It's rooted in a Manichean binary that's pure Monotheism filter: Civilized/Savage, Good/Evil, White/Mud. And it's as dangerous and as prone to misuse as any other Monotheistic creed</i>.<br />
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<b>GK</b>: I think it's the stupidest most ill thought out, idiotic thing possible to focus on race or to think that one is superior because of one's race. Just completely idiotic. moreover, as a Classicist, i can tell you that race as we view it today is a child of modernity. you don't really see it becoming a divisive issue like this, or a category of any relevance until the 18th and 19th centuries. And of course it's rooted in monotheism (and the Doctrine of Discovery). Any time you have people preaching 'unity' they're preaching monotheism. This need to be all "one" is incredibly dangerous. The corollary that no one ever wants to acknowledge or explore is that if we are all 'one,' than anything different is dangerous at best and bad at worst. Think about the dynamic that is setting up not just with respect to race, but intellectually, spiritually? It's cultural insanity is what it is. <br />
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<i>The second is this ritualized White self-abasement. I'm not talking about acknowledging crimes committed by our White ancestors: if we're going to practice an ancestral tradition we need to acknowledge ancestral sins as well as ancestral achievements. I'm talking this incessant bleating about "privilege" as an original sin. Saying "your privilege is causing you to miss this injustice" and then doing something about said injustice is great. But when you have Ivy League students telling unemployed workers to "lose their privilege" then accusing them of feeling "entitled" to a working wage or "racist" toward the illegal immigrants driving down those wages -- well, that's not really appealing either. While the "cuck" slur has been used in some really disgusting ways, the alternative.right was on to something when they came up with it. There is this almost sexualized ritual humiliation: I'm a bad White person, but I will confess my privilege, condemn my racist White ancestors and become a Good Person. Correct me, mistress: tell me how awful I am, make me grovel in my entitlement and I will be healed. And all that may be useful for dealing with liberal White guilt but it does less than nothing to address the conditions spurring said guilt.</i><br />
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<b>GK</b>: i think in many cases the 'bleating about privilege" is used to shut down useful discussion. Someone is always privileged, always. So what? Use your privilege to make useful change. Instead of attacking each other for it, why not look how you can use it to do good in your world, because you can. I think we have people getting tied up in knots over their privilege -- which isn't going away because they're tied up in knots over it -- when instead they could be out doing useful things. I think also as an ancestor worker, all this ritual self abasement is a fucking excuse to not have to deal with that ancestral debt. It's a distraction, a way of entrenching the system as it stands even more fully in its inequities. Stop bitching and whining and deal with the underlying ancestral debt -- trust me, that's going to be vicious, and nasty and ugly enough to serve anyone's masochism. but that's something that would actually pick apart this systemic structure of injustice and horror from its foundations. It might actually make essential changes, changes that are not going to happen while we're whining and reinforcing hostilities on both sides. That self abasement just mires a person in inaction. It serves no useful purpose. ...which is perhaps it's point: i can feel good about myself. I have confessed, mea culpa, mea culpa...and now I can move on with other things. and nothing has changed.<br />
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<i>Can folkish religions -- honoring the Gods of our ancestors, while acknowledging and respecting other Gods -- help us create a White identity rooted neither in hatred nor self-hatred? </i><br />
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I could give a rat's ass about creating a white identity. I don't think that's the way it ever worked for our ancestors. There was a tribal identity that had to do with shared kinship by birth, adoption, marriage, etc. but it was never ever based on the color of one's skin. That's an artificial construct of modernity. If we're really going back to a tribal awareness, that's the first thing that needs to go. </div>
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For me, it comes down to this: honor your ancestors whoever they were, whatever color they were, wherever they came from. Celebrate their accomplishments. Celebrate their culture. work hard to preserve the good things in their culture while at the same time acknowledging their faults, their narrowness, their prejudices, their crimes. They were people trying to make their way in the world just as we are and they were no brighter or more enlightened than we. Death may have taught them, elevated them, but they were still just faulty human beings. There are beauties and horrors in all of our lines and that is for us to own and go forward, learning from these things how to be better fucking human beings today. </div>
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My impression of folkish religions is that it is far, far less about the color of one's skin than about the cultures from which one's ancestors hailed. that always, always gets lost in these folkish vs non-folkish debates. It's not about being white so much as about being of German descent, or Swiss, or French, or Russian, or X, Y, Z. Everyone should be proud of their ancestors. They're why we're here. I think that folkish religions are tapping into firstly that pride and secondly the connection of a specific community to a specific place and its history. It's a tribal mindset and that's not a bad thing at all. </div>
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I don't know that we can ever develop a 'white' identity per se because both sides of that equation have muddied those waters with rhetoric and pain and anger -- some justified i might add--that perhaps like certain symbols that were once very sacred-the term can never be reclaimed. I don't know. I don't have an answer for that. I don't know that we should want a 'white' identity. In fact, I very much think it's pointless: it erases the uniqueness and diversity of those different tribal cultures that make up our conception of 'whiteness' today. you should be Irish, French, Swedish etc. and take pride in that, not the fucking level of melanin in your skin. <br />
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<i>The problem I see is that the "White" identity has already been created. We're White whether we like it or not: the question now is "what does it mean to be a White American?" I suspect many of the divides we see today in American culture -- Black, White, Hispanic, Native American, Asian-American, Desi (South Asian), etc. -- will harden into cultural/ethnic identities in the future the way i.e "Serbian" and "Croatian" or "Swede" and "Norwegian" came into being. And as those cultures form, the disparate elements therein are going to blend together the way African and Caribbean elements have found their way into the "Black American" identity. Black Americans were able to reclaim Blackness as something other than a tool of insult and degradation. Can we reclaim Whiteness as something other than a tool of oppression? I don't know how we can -- but I know we have no choice. <br /><br />Unfortunately, the Nordic Gods were co-opted in the mid-20th century and beyond by people who used Them for political ends. As a result they have unjustly been connected to the worst sorts of bigotry. I'm hoping that Heathens will lead by example and Heathen communities will provide a working model for White Americans redefining Whiteness for a new era. Among cultural Marxists "White" has literally become a swear word and a club you beat opponents with, especially when combined with "poor" or "rural." We need an alternative that looks back to European culture and acknowledges both its strengths and its weaknesses. We don't need White Pride but neither do we need White Self-Abasement. And I hope we can find cultural myths that will let White Americans take their place with the other participants in the Great American Experiment. Because I shudder at the consequences should we fail. </i></div>
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I think it important to be clear that the Nazis were NOT heathens. In fact, those who venerated the Norse Gods were sent to concentration camps. the only God Hitler was interested in was Hitler himself. They did co opt certain symbols, but not the Gods. Beyond that, i stand by what i said. I think even trying to create a 'white' identity is barking up the wrong ideological tree. <div class="blogger-post-footer">From the Kenaz Filan Blog
http://kenazfilan.blogspot.com</div>Kenaz Filanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06083915907861140328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3225369467879724873.post-1391897096804567582016-08-10T12:25:00.000-04:002016-08-10T12:25:14.058-04:00Conversations We Need To Be Having: An Ongoing Discussion with Galina Krasskova<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://krasskova.wordpress.com/2016/08/08/conversations-we-need-to-be-having/" target="_blank">An earlier post in this series can be found here.</a></div>
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<i>What obligations and responsibilities do we have to our country and our people as Polytheists? "Separation between Church and State" means the government cannot favor one religion over another. It doesn't mean "you must forget your religion entirely when engaging in political activity." (That's the way a lot of people would like to see it defined: they may or may not be blissfully unaware they are favoring Secular Humanism over all other religions... ). Any religion worthy of the name is going to shape and color every aspect of your life, including (especially!) the way you interact with your community. </i><br />
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<i>As a Classics scholar and longtime Heathen, you have a unique perspective on this. A Roman citizen/subject definitely saw his relationship with Rome in spiritual terms: in Northern Europe living honorably and fulfilling one's social responsibilities was a religious obligation. How can we look to those and other examples and find the way we should be engaging with the vaettir of America, Canada, etc.?</i><br />
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<b>GK</b>: I don't think we can ever have freedom without having that separation of church and state in our world because specifically of monotheism. If we were all polytheists, then it wouldn't matter if we had a state cultus. there would be no expectation of exclusivity. we'd participate in state cultus and then get on about honoring our other Gods. That's not the way monotheism works, and it's not a system that embraces liberty at all (quite the opposite really) so that separation of church and state is our only protection politically. Yes, it does favor secular humanism, which is most unfortunate but in America, i don't see a workable alternative. My ideal government and social structure (which would include a polytheistic society) isn't going to happen here any time soon.<br />
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Still, we live on this land. We have generations in many cases rooted here and I think our obligations are two fold: firstly, we must uphold the integrity of the place in which we live. that means respecting the land, but also participating in our community. That wasn't a religious thing to the Romans, it was a matter of being a conscious adult. An adult has a voice in the social, communal, and political process. It was one of the markers in both Greece and Rome of an adult. Yes, polytheism will be the lens through which all of that engagement occurs, but regardless of tradition, if you live in a functioning society then I think that there is an obligation to contribute.<br />
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For the Romans, Roma was a Goddess. I think we can incorporate this polytheistic awareness by honoring the city spirits and land spirits of place here. Each city has its governing spirit after all, and then America, Turtle Island, is also holy. which brings me to my second point: those of us living here carry a blood debt. This is something no one wants to hear but I lay the chaos of our nation directly at the feet of this debt. Firstly, our ancestors were attacked by monotheism. they were forced (or some became polluted and willingly did this) to abandon their indigenous traditions and to accept the yoke of monotheism. They drank that poison and came across the waters and became the monster in the night, the destroyer of nations. We committed genocide on the Natives here, we engaged in the slave trade and the horrors of the middle passage and that does not just go away.<br />
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As any spirit worker worth his or her salt will tell you: there is no magical land 'away.' that is an ancestral debt and it must be dealt with whether we want to acknowledge it or not. I don't put any moral weight to that one way or another. I don't think your ancestors were necessarily bad people. I think they were products of their time and place. Still, there is debt and with debt comes imbalance and with imbalance comes potential devastation. We are getting the nation we deserve.<br />
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As a polytheist, and moreover as an ancestor worker i look at what's happening in the world now as a sequence of interlocking causes and effects riddled with powerful and unresolved ancestral debt. For me, the way that I engage is marked by that. What can you do to make your community better and at the same time to shoulder your part of this debt? Find that out and do it and keep doing it. That's where my polytheism leads me there. Community was always part of ancient polytheistic experience, they just didn't have to talk about it so much or reify it so much or self-consciously hammer it out because the world was polytheist. that was a given, so I think the focus naturally could be put on what was different: various tribes and clans and national experience of the Gods. The state was what enabled the safety of the community, was the fulcrum around which community honor and glory and abundance and security revolved. part of the pax deorum was that the Gods would nourish the state which in turn protected and gave pride to its people so long as we maintained right relationship with the Gods. As a polytheist as much as I am against mixing politics and religion (religion always loses), I do think that we can allow our religion to motivate us to get out and get involved and we should be making our voices heard because the ultimate goal should be a new <i>pax deorum </i>-- one that works for us in our world and that pleases the Gods and we're not going to know what we're dealing with or how far we have to go if we're unwilling to educate ourselves with respect to our government large and small and become involved. for many ancient polytheists this was just part of adulthood.<br />
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Of course, my community.... i would consider my people to be other pious polytheists. first and foremost. That's the community i want to see strengthened. Everything else comes second.<br />
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<i>I've noticed a distressing tendency among many Leftists to pick and choose between whose voices deserve to be heard. We must listen to People of Color, unless they have bad politics: then we can no-platform them as Reactionaries, Right Wing Radicals or, worst of all, Racists. </i><br />
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<i>For example, I've seen reams of material mocking Ben Carson for his ahistorical views on the Pyramids, evolution, etc. Or references to Clarence Thomas as "Uncle Thomas," pictures of him wearing an Aunt Jemima headwrap, etc. The implication is that they are shuffling, servile darkies who don't know any better. (How many commentators claimed Carson and Thomas only got where they were because the Republicans needed black faces -- and how is that different from "the only reason Obama got into Harvard was Affirmative Action?") </i><br />
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<i>I disagree with Carson and Thomas on just about every political issue. But Dr. Ben Carson is one of the world's leading pediatric neurosurgeons and the first to separate conjoined Siamese twins at the head. Judge Clarence Thomas was a highly regarded Constitutional scholar before being appointed to the Supreme Court. And the disrespect aimed at them by people who brag about being Allies in the Struggle is appalling and, yes, rooted in racism. As are so many of the American Left's "white knight" ideals: they don't know how to relate to minorities as anything but victims. </i><br />
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<i>(As an aside, I'd note the Left's distaste for "white trash" and "rednecks"mirrors the civilized Christian distaste for those superstitious, uneducated backwoods Paganii). </i><br />
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<b>GK</b>: Ah, the illiberal left. I think that there is a desperate need there to prove to themselves that they aren't racist and damn anyone who thinks otherwise and this is at war with their own ingrained sense of superiority (morally, intellectually...they're riddled with it). I think they have a very blind, un-nuanced (and certainly in the case of Marxists a-historical) view of the world, where every different opinion is a violent attack on progress. The level of intellectual close mindedness is appalling.<br />
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Ironically in so many things, the only people making many of these issues about race ...are the leftists. Why? Because in some cases it's a useful political tool. In others, i think there's an incredible lack of ability to cope with differing viewpoints. Racist is the worst thing in the world to them, so if you disagree then you are Bad(tm) and of course must be racist. Doesn't matter if you happen to be a person of color. I also think that while there may be a deep empathy with the anguish of the world in many of them, there's also a deeply ingrained desire to be the white knight riding in to fix all of the minorities' problems. You nailed it: they don't know how to relate to minorities as anything other than victims.<br />
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I see the same thing with third wave feminists: they don't know how to relate to women as anything but victims and they don't know how to relate to men as anything but victimizers and that is fucked up in the extreme. meanwhile, women are losing their right to physical sovereignty more and more every day and I don't see those who would call themselves feminists doing much more than posting petitions. In all of it there's a remarkable unwillingness to take personal responsibility for oneself.<div class="blogger-post-footer">From the Kenaz Filan Blog
http://kenazfilan.blogspot.com</div>Kenaz Filanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06083915907861140328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3225369467879724873.post-68576730535107272122016-05-18T14:32:00.000-04:002016-05-18T14:32:31.437-04:00Giving The Devil His Due: of Suave Satanists and Pagan PaupersI recently had the pleasure of attending the Church of Satan's 50th Anniversary celebration: I mingled with old friends, made new ones, and received much invaluable input on the LaVey biography. But while I plugged my project I also spent time admiring the work of other Satanists. Famous attendees included model and "real doll" creator <a href="http://www.marilynmansfield.com/" target="_blank">Marilyn Mansfield</a>; Blood Axis co-founder <a href="http://www.amerika.org/texts/interview-with-michael-j-moynihan-jan-r-bruun/" target="_blank">Michael Moynihan</a>; BoySetsFire lead <a href="https://www.facebook.com/BOYSETSFIREofficial-118834371506603/" target="_blank">Nathan Gray</a> (with <a href="http://www.jimmypsycho.com/index.html" target="_blank">Jimmy Psycho</a> as his opening act); wrestling legend <a href="http://prowrestling.wikia.com/wiki/James_Mitchell" target="_blank">James Mitchell</a>; and sexologist and <i>Old Nick </i>publisher <a href="http://www.thesatanicwarlock.com/about.html" target="_blank">Dr. Robert Johnson</a>. And for each big (or medium-sized) name there were many soon-to-be-famous performers and skilled artisans. I was particularly impressed by <a href="http://hydramstar.com/" target="_blank">Hydra Morningstar's</a> woodburning art, <a href="http://militanteroticism.com/" target="_blank">Aden Ardennes' </a> militant eroticism and <a href="http://isatanist.com/" target="_blank">John H. Shaw's</a> metalwork but many attendees make a living doing what they love.<br />
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With its ties to Heavy Metal, Satanism attracts a fair number of blue-collar types: Neopaganism has always skewed more college-educated and professional-class. Yet as I was surrounded by Satanic success I could not help but contemplate Neopaganism's downward mobility. Every day my Facebook feed is graced with Gofundme solicitations to pay Lord Breakswind's rent, cover HP Sparklefart's medical expenses, or feed Lady Twitchbottom's cats. Unemployment, garnishment, eviction ... your average Neopagan blog has more financial misfortune than a country music CD.<br />
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There are other factors at work here. Satanism holds a dim view of whining: <a href="http://www.churchofsatan.com/eleven-rules-of-earth.php" target="_blank">Anton LaVey cautioned Satanists</a> "Do not tell your troubles to others unless you are sure they want to hear them" and "Do not complain about anything to which you need not subject yourself." There are certainly business-savvy Pagans and financially incompetent Satanists (Anton LaVey being the most famous example of the latter). But in the end it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Satanism is a financially salutary philosophy whilst Neopaganism is financially corrosive. <br />
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Both Satanism and Neopaganism are atheistic religions. They speak of archetypes and symbols rather than Gods; they ground the Divine in the human experience rather than grounding the human experience in the Divine; they see ritual as psychodrama rather than worship. Both have a keen interest in magic and the paranormal, and both draw symbolism from Freemasonry and the works of Eliphas Levi. But once we get past these surface similarities we will see some important philosophical differences -- differences which may play out in their adherents' personal and professional lives.<br />
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One of American Neopaganism's central creation myths involves the "Burning Times" -- Church persecution against followers of Ye Olde Religione. This myth slaps together images from various religious persecutions -- the Roman Catholic Inquisition, the Puritan Court of Oyer and Terminer, contemporary "witch killings" in Africa and India -- and throws them atop a narrative based on their (mis)understanding of the Civil Rights movement. According to that version of history, Black Americans were eternal victims who were shot, lynched, whipped, abused and kept in the direst poverty until White Americans took pity on them. By establishing themselves as victims in the public eye and displaying their various injuries like a beggar showing his sores, Neopagans hope to be recognized as equals and take their place alongside the Huxtables in Respectable American Society. </div>
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This conception is unfathomably condescending and patronizing: it is also incorrect. Hence, any game plan built upon it is doomed to failure from the start. Pity may get you spare change, but it won't get you respect. To make matters worse, Neopaganism has retained its 60s countercultural distaste for wealth. Poverty and persecution become emblems of virtue, not misfortunes to be avoided: financial success is a sign of moral turpitude. If you think money a thing to be avoided, you can hardly be surprised when money avoids you. If you fear power's corrupting influence you need never fear being tainted by its presence. </div>
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By contrast, Satanism sees the finer things in life as Indulgences -- and the Satanic Word of the Aeon is "Indulgence." Power and wealth aren't dangerous snares which distract you from what's really important in life: they are tools you can use to make your lives happier, healthier and more productive. (Satanists also realize "money can't buy happiness" is another way of saying "those grapes were sour anyway"). LaVey saw Satanists as an "Alien Elite" surviving and thriving amidst an indifferent and sometimes hostile world. Some -- OK, many -- used this as an excuse to puff themselves up in spectacularly silly fashion. Those with greater discernment found a powerful model for deportment and a role toward which they could strive. </div>
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American Neopaganism is doggedly egalitarian and the Neopagan community is rife with <a href="http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html" target="_blank">geek social fallacies</a>. Satanists are far more comfortable with <a href="http://www.churchofsatan.com/pentagonal-revisionism.php" target="_blank">stratification</a>: they see no shame in being successful, or in expecting friends and acquaintances to be successful. This means less charity wasted on ingrates and less time spent cleaning up other peoples' messes. When you surround yourself with strivers and achievers, you invariably find yourself following their lead: the converse holds true as well. Satanists are encouraged to give walking papers to "psychic vampires" -- a metaphor which LaVey used for those who take more than they give and who use your feelings of guilt and obligation to their advantage. And of course nobody can play at top form when they are hosting parasites. </div>
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Both Satanism and Neopaganism are magical religions. They are open to the possibility that one can see positive benefit from magical rituals and work, and many of their adherents use magical rituals. But Neopagans generally have multiple taboos connected to their use of magic. They are not to use their magic to do harm or control the will of another, lest their attacks be returned to them threefold. Using magic in your own self-interest is looked upon with suspicion, as is taking money for magic. No such taboos exist for Satanists: they can cast Lust and Destruction spells with nary a moment's worry about losing favor with their coreligionists.</div>
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But that surface similarity masks a profound and very important difference. Neopaganism still accepts the distinction between body and spirit: Satanism is a carnal religion which believes there is nothing spiritual. Neopagan magicians spend a great deal of time engaging in "astral travel," "creative visualization" and other practices which look to Muggles very much like daydreaming. Their visions of magic are often drawn from fantasy fiction and movies: their "magical clothes" evoke a Renfaire never-was. Satanism roots magic in a "dark force in nature" and is concerned with it only insofar as it can better the magician's standing in the here-and-now. As CoS High Priest Peter H. Gilmore says in his essay "The Magic of Mastery:"</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>There is true magic in the mastering of skills. Most members of the herd will look with awe upon a talented and accomplished practitioner. To them, the producing of quality results with the effortless-seaming ease of mastery will appear to be pure wizardry... </i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>So, to be a master of magic , toss out those musty grimoires, unless they're printed by Chilton.</i> <i>Pick some field and become an advanced practitioner. Be a writer, pastry chef, seamstress, flower arranger, plumber, sculptor, carpenter, photographer, upholsterer, elecctrician, pilot, beautician, steelworker, medic, whatever you have an affinity for. You'll amaze those around you, gain their respect and envy, achieve material success and you won't even have to say "Shemhamforash" in public.</i></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">From the Kenaz Filan Blog
http://kenazfilan.blogspot.com</div>Kenaz Filanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06083915907861140328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3225369467879724873.post-78718732445806941982016-02-29T09:02:00.001-05:002016-02-29T09:02:17.368-05:00SET WARS: Cantus in Memoriam Andre Schlessinger"This must be a joke!" St. Kevin-Wan Kenobi tells his faithful robot and smoking device C-420. "Maninblacka would rip Kylo Necchi limb from limb!" <div>
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"Necchi swung his lightsaber at Cliff So-Low in an attempted parricide," C-420 explains as St. Kevin-Wan partakes of his Volcano attachment. "But at the moment his blade would have struck So-Low turned to his browser and closed 37 tabs. The strike missed him by mere micrometers. Our Wookie friend, I'm afraid, was not so fortunate."</div>
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St. Kevin-Wan Kenobi shakes his greying head sadly and blows out vapor. "I still don't believe it."</div>
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"Believe it." Yoda LaVey's cheap CGI image flickers on the wall. "Throw up on Yoda LaVey's shoes last night, Maninblacka did. 'Drink with Lemmy you should not' Yoda tells him. But ignore Yoda he does."</div>
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Meanwhile, from a darkened table behind them a battered old man in a motheaten SS uniform rants at his Denobian companion.</div>
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"Mit der Reichsmarshall's soapmaking skill it couldn't fail. Und so ve leased ein factory und bought ein option on Egan der Hutt's corpse. Vhen his overtaxed heart finally exploded ve vere going to be keeping der galaxy in suds for decades. Und vhat does he die from? CANCER!!!"</div>
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Der Reichsmarshall raises his liver-spotted fist to the water-stained ceiling. "Zere vusn't enough fat left on his worthless carcass to scrub a Paraguayan prostitute's poonany! Not zat ve can go back to Paraguay now thanks to zat troublemaker Weisenthal."</div>
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Der Reichsmarshall's Denobian companion chortles sympathetically as the camera shifts back to our crew. </div>
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"In all the universe, amongst all the darkest and foulest of all the Sith Lords, there's only one person who can tolerate that whiny little prick Kylo Necchi. And he's dead."</div>
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Yoda LaVey slaps St. Kevin-Wan on the head with a pixellated hand. "Stupid you are. Remember you must what the forbidden volume says."</div>
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"You mean Hustler's <i>Almost Legal</i>?"</div>
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"Not that one!" Another slap. "Remember, 'That is not dead which can eternal lie.' And who can lie eternally like Egan the Hutt?"</div>
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"ROOOOOOGGGGHHHH!!!! YOU FUCK'N MORON!!!!!"</div>
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Meinkmfpa, Senior Sewage Control Official and Rebellion Leader (Retired) bellows out Maninblacka's final words, then places the beshrouded corpse in the Porcelain Gateway. The gathered wookies howl along in rejoinder: their cries rise to a crescendo as Meinkmpfa pulls the handle and sends Maninblacka to the Eternal Waters with a royal flush. </div>
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Cliff So-Low frowns. "Emo boys. Why did it have to be Emo boys?"</div>
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"It's worse," St. Kevin-Wan says. "There are dark forces moving behind Kylo Necchi. And not just when he's cruising pay toilets." St. Kevin-Wan looks up to the heavens. "Where is the old crew now?"</div>
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"Princess Curio was last seen running for elected office on Bedlam VII." So-Low peers at 694U's screen. "Lupo Skywalker is a quant geek and Bay Area neofascist. Les Les Masters is the Missouri lieutenant governor. St. Kevin-Wan Kenobi is married with children and working at a shoe store."</div>
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St. Kevin-Wan rolls his eyes. "Don't remind me."</div>
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"And Maninblacka, well... "</div>
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St. Kevin-Wan shakes his grizzled head again as 694U bleeps out an 8-bit rendition of Chopin's <i>Funeral March</i>. "And the opposition?"</div>
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694U pulls up another list. So-Low examines it then frowns. </div>
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"All vanished without a trace. Nobody has seen them, heard them or thought of them for over a decade."</div>
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"They may be forgotten, but they aren't gone." St. Kevin-Wan reaches into his pocket. "This is the calling card Kylo Necchi left on Maninblacka's corpse."</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Sith Brotherhood of Darkness</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">unseen but not unknown</span></div>
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So-Low wrinkles his nose. "Who released the SBD?" </div>
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"An excellent question! Fire up the <i>Necronomicon Falcon, </i>Mr. So-Low. It is time for us to pay a visit to the Dumbshit Nebula."</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">From the Kenaz Filan Blog
http://kenazfilan.blogspot.com</div>Kenaz Filanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06083915907861140328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3225369467879724873.post-59976447629690777552015-12-23T19:03:00.002-05:002015-12-23T19:04:43.874-05:00What Makes a Woman? or Birth of a TERF<div class="MsoNormal">
Testosterone-driven
human systems – otherwise known as male bodies – are larger and heavier-boned
than those running on estrogen. An average male will quickly defeat an average
female in hand-to-hand combat. The same testosterone which gives male-bodied
people this advantage also makes them more aggressive: not only are they more
likely to win the fight, they are more likely to initiate it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
Because of this discrepancy <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/intimatepartnerviolence/datasources.html">the shadow of violence looms constantly
over male-female interactions</a>. "Every man is a potential rapist"
is more than just an inflammatory feminist slogan: it is female reality. A
woman has no way of knowing if or when that uncomfortable date may become
something much worse, that third drink may lead to a gang rape, the man she
considers a friend will violate her trust and her body. Should she be attacked,
there is no guarantee her attackers will face justice or even that her report
will be believed.<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal">
Life in a war zone is exhausting. Many women have sought comfort and healing by withdrawing from the patriarchy. Amongst their fellow women they have created communities ranging from women's music festivals to domestic violence shelters and lesbian communes. These disparate groups and gatherings had in common their shared femininity, and are now faced with a common question -- what makes a woman?<br />
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In 2011 lesbian pornographer <a href="http://lilycade.tumblr.com/post/109954333303/you-said-on-twitter-youve-never-flaked-on-a">Lily
Cade canceled a shoot with Drew DeVereaux after discovering Drew was a
post-operative MtF transsexual</a>. This led to lengthy discussions throughout
the blogosphere and Twitterverse, all of which culminated in a workshop
entitled "Overcoming the Cotton Ceiling: Breaking Down Sexual Barriers for
Queer Trans Women." As the organizers explained:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>The term cotton ceiling is a reference to the “glass
ceiling” that second wave feminist identified in the workforce, wherein women
could only advance so high in the workforce but could not break through into
positions of power and authority. The cotton represents underwear, signifying
sex.</i> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>The theory of the cotton ceiling is useful in identifying
the dynamic trans women are experiencing, and is meant to open up conversation
around desirability’s intersections with transmisogyny and transphobia.</i></blockquote>
Like the fear of violence, desirability casts a long shadow on the female experience. Women are judged largely, often exclusively, on how well they conform to social standards of beauty. Black feminists have talked about how kinky hair, dark skin and non-European facial features impact their lives; fat feminists have called into relief our culture's unrealistic worship of "Barbie Doll" bodies. Alas, any nuanced discussion was soon drowned out by shouting on all sides.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8OTmF_JogzBC8vTpHsclMoJThbV7kNlkC99uU_R6geYg9aSZW_yxc2gXRJjypPiwSwBTcrkkB01fSAy4rOjluGpVXBzSGr6WyNy28lNPrmy_ZeTOFUcyXLve2uo_UQPfmIlmxG2AJQiU/s1600/wow.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="254" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8OTmF_JogzBC8vTpHsclMoJThbV7kNlkC99uU_R6geYg9aSZW_yxc2gXRJjypPiwSwBTcrkkB01fSAy4rOjluGpVXBzSGr6WyNy28lNPrmy_ZeTOFUcyXLve2uo_UQPfmIlmxG2AJQiU/s320/wow.JPG" width="355" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rebuffing trans lesbians = Hitler</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20141008115527/http://www.lilycade.com/2014/06/why-i-went-to-war/" target="_blank">Cade would later find herself under fire again</a> when she refused to hire nonoperative male-to-female transsexual <a href="http://chelseapoe.com/" target="_blank">Chelsea Poe</a>. Ultimately Poe and several other trans activists <a href="http://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/news/a39206/why-this-woman-is-calling-for-a-boycott-of-the-feminist-porn-awards/" target="_blank">called for a boycott against Cade's "anti-trans" hiring practices and against the Feminist Video Awards</a> until such time as they quit discriminating against the female penis.<br />
<br />
Cade remained remarkably even-tempered throughout these exchanges: many of the lesbians watching were less patient. For them the whole brouhaha was yet another case of males wanting access to female bodies. Like sensitive New Age guys inviting nubile young ladies to cast off their inhibitions, these trans activists were framing sex as a revolutionary act -- and where the women uninterested in SNAG penis were just frigid and uptight, lesbians who withheld sex from transwomen were reactionary bigoted transphobes. <br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmxFZEhXJd0IKUv1r9l2KHrUYJshX1Ld-BP2zAqRKQ5iVUsgmGxNSjFLXHUFoVvlxlKt5IcSHYoVLcvjjrxNF8EoPSZQDpkGAipSmL4TQVhH1CNuxwOnMQoRrRIogJw9YwyKNwQjY2Qgc/s1600/cisbians+teeth+beaten+in.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="176" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmxFZEhXJd0IKUv1r9l2KHrUYJshX1Ld-BP2zAqRKQ5iVUsgmGxNSjFLXHUFoVvlxlKt5IcSHYoVLcvjjrxNF8EoPSZQDpkGAipSmL4TQVhH1CNuxwOnMQoRrRIogJw9YwyKNwQjY2Qgc/s200/cisbians+teeth+beaten+in.PNG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">She broke my heart<br />
so I busted her transphobe jaw</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Trans activists generally dismissed these objections out of hand: their opponents' "cisgender privilege" neutralized any merit their complaints they might have. Besides that, as "TERFs" (Trans-Exclusive Radical Feminists, a term coined by radical feminist and noted transgender critic Cathy Brennan) they were a hate group aimed at destroying a marginalized class. As such, they were worthy only of contempt: paying attention to their claims, even to rebut them, would grant them a legitimacy they didn't deserve.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
* * * * *<br />
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/12/11/15/2F478CD700000578-3356084-image-m-23_1449847991988.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/12/11/15/2F478CD700000578-3356084-image-m-23_1449847991988.jpg" height="400" width="183" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I can't wait until Annamaria is six<br />
and we can buy her a bondage collar</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: left;">
In 2009 Stefonknee (formerly Paul) Wolscht was found guilty of 14 counts of criminal harassment, assault, criminal mischief and uttering threats against her former wife and seven children: she was served with a two-year restraining order forbidding her from any contact with them. After this Stefonknee moved to Toronto where she stayed at a shelter alongside women escaping domestic violence and abuse. Stefonknee is non-operative: she is also 6'2" and weighs some 270 pounds. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
While there Stefonknee discovered Fetlife, and met the couple of her dreams. She told two Canadian journalists about her first encounter with the "Daddy" <a href="http://www.theheartradio.org/episodes/howtobeaprincess" target="_blank">who accepted her not only as a woman but as a six year-old girl</a>.</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>He ... took my virginity, and it didn't hurt, it felt beautiful. I felt like a woman. And like I'm surprised I didn't think I was going to be pregnant from it, I was so much a girl. I actually have an erection right now from it *giggles* so I’m just going to pull my dress down a little bit</i></blockquote>
We are left to wonder how Stefonknee's shelter mates felt about her voyage of self-discovery or how many times she had to hide her erections in front of them. (At least they were more fortunate than those women forced to share living space with <a href="http://www.torontosun.com/2014/02/15/a-sex-predators-sick-deception" target="_blank">Christopher Hambrook</a>, a sexual predator who gained access to a woman's shelter by posing as a transgender woman named "Jessica"). And though she has been the subject of several heartwarming profiles in courage -- and even more stories treating her as the freakshow <i>du jour</i> -- we have also heard very little about any damage done to Stefonknee Wolscht's family. If they are mentioned at all, it is only as intolerant villains who cruelly refuse to recognize their erstwhile husband and father as a sexually active prepubescent girl.<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
* * * * *</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
This posting's subtitle was typed with tongue firmly in cheek. I have no doubt that my trepidations will mark me a traitor to the cause, and at this point "TERF" is primarily a snarl word like "fascist," "feminazi" and "libtard". That aside, I differ with the self-described TERFs on several important points. One problem is that radical feminism neither needs nor wants input from male-bodied people. More importantly, I do not believe transwomen are just men in skirts. I have many trans friends and acquaintances and lived as a transperson for several years. (I no longer "present female," whatever that means, because I find that living as a full-time parent does more to assuage my gender discomfort. I hasten to add this is my personal journey and what works for me may not work for you). I believe that there is more to gender dysphoria than entitlement or delusion.<br />
<br />
But I also believe the life experience of a child assigned male at birth is categorically and qualitatively different than that of a child assigned female. This is true whether that child follows those pre-set paths enthusiastically or with enormous discomfort. Because of this I believe there are reasons why people assigned female at birth might need space away from those assigned male -- even those who believe that assignment was erroneous and who are currently living as female. And in any event, I believe that women-born-women have the right to create women-born-women spaces.<br />
<br />
A few years ago <a href="http://kenazfilan.blogspot.com/search/label/pantheacon" target="_blank">I was one of the louder voices protesting a proposed Z Budapest ritual for "women born women" at Pantheon. </a> I believed then, and believe now, that such an exclusionary ritual was inappropriate for a public convention. But I also believed, and still believe, that Budapest had the right to hold such a ritual in a private suite; to accept or reject members for her Susan B. Anthony Coven by any standard she sees fit; to allow or disallow transwomen at her private ceremonies. The second wave feminists have made their position clear: further efforts to press your way into their spaces only prove you incapable of understanding that No means No.<br />
<br />
What is the difference between a drag queen and a transsexual? RuPaul caught enormous heat when he answered <a href="http://planetransgender.blogspot.com/2012/10/transsexuals-are-same-as-drag-queens.html" target="_blank">"About twenty-five thousand dollars and a good surgeon."</a> But I'm not hearing any better answers from the legions of offended trans activists. Many of those same trans activists are claiming Stefonknee Wolscht is an outlier, despite the fact that she is an active and very public member of the Toronto trans community. And if her interviews are any indication she's also a textbook example of what Ray Blanchard and later J. Michael Bailey called "<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20582803" target="_blank">autogynephilia</a>" -- a man's paraphilic tendency to be sexually aroused by the thought or image of himself as a woman. (In Wolscht's case this appears to be comorbid with autopedophilia).<br />
<br />
The online translesbian community is comprised largely of white transwomen working in academia or the tech industry. Much as the New Age movement and American Neopaganism re-envisioned religion as a self-help movement, this brand of Social Justice Warfare aims not so much at changing the world as at assuaging white liberal guilt. Their gender identity disorder allows them to co-opt the sufferings of black and Latina trans sex workers living and dying in neighborhoods they will never visit: they need never worry about the sin of privilege because, as they will happily tell you and tell you and tell you, transwomen are the MOST OPPRESSED PEOPLE EVER. <br />
<br />
(It's interesting to note how many trans activists are also active in the BDSM community, and how closely many of their complaints map onto "sissification" and humiliation fantasies. But that is, I am certain, merely a coincidence... ).<br />
<br />
This oppression isn't just great fap fodder -- it's also a convenient Get out of Jail Free card. That transwoman threatened to kick a TERF's teeth in? You have to understand how angry she is and how horribly they treated her. (They presumably dragged her to their blogs and forced her eyelids open ala <i>Clockwork Orange</i>). Besides, the TERFs are always making up rape threats -- and if you note that Gamergate says the Exact Same Thing every time a woman files a police report, that's just further proof you're a transphobic TERF bigot and I hope you get cancer and die in a fire in for claiming we're violent....<br />
<br />
And so once again we come to the same question we faced in the first paragraph: what makes a woman? I still don't have an answer. But that doesn't make the question any less pressing: neither does it make the "gender is all in your head" claim any more convincing. I'm happy to support equal employment opportunities for trans people; to use preferred pronouns; to fight for stronger laws against hate crimes and gender-based violence. I'm not at all interested in guilt-tripping lesbians to widen the translesbian dating pool. Neither do I think it acceptable to offload the risks of our social experiment onto our most abused and disempowered. And if that makes me a bigot so be it: I can only express my sympathies if the facts turn out to have a transphobic bias.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">From the Kenaz Filan Blog
http://kenazfilan.blogspot.com</div>Kenaz Filanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06083915907861140328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3225369467879724873.post-86829154319742425232015-09-03T18:54:00.001-04:002015-09-03T19:33:43.390-04:00To Reign In Hell: Introduction -- Hell is Murky<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
In a 1991 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rolling
Stone</i> article entitled "Sympathy for the Devil: It's not easy being
evil in a world that's gone to hell," Lawrence Wright found several of
Anton LaVey's autobiographical claims to be wholly or partially untrue. Since
that time Wright's findings have been reproduced by many people wishing to
"debunk" LaVey: estranged daughter Zeena's "Anton LaVey: Legend
and Reality" is probably the most famous example. This has resulted in a
widespread belief that Anton LaVey was an inveterate bullshit artist whose
every word was a lie including "a," "and" and
"the." A man who died in poverty yet refused to monetize Black Masses
is scorned as a con artist who was only in it for the money. And Satanism, a
philosophy that shows remarkable integrity and coherence throughout LaVey's
career, is dismissed summarily as fraud from a fraudster. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
As with William S. Burroughs and Andy Warhol,
Anton LaVey's persona is one of the most important parts of his <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">oeuvre.</i> Any study of LaVey and his
philosophy must touch upon the facts of his life and any serious biographer
must ascertain where truth ends and fiction begins – and when that question
matters. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
* * * * *</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
Several weeks ago Adam Lanza slaughtered twenty
children and six adults at the Sandy Hook Elementary School. Every bedtime
since Annamaria has insisted we read <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sesame
Street's Imagination Song</i>. Every bedtime since I have choked up as Ernie
sails off into the sunset.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
"And the nicest place is the middle of
imagination," I sing, my voice cracking as my daughter nestles heavy-eyed
against me, "when I'm there." </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
Many of my fellow Americans think I have been
duped. They have decided those murdered children and grieving families are all
part of a plot to take away our guns. James Tracy, a media studies professor at
Florida Atlantic University, is claiming that the emergency personnel on the
scene were really "crisis actors" hired by the Obama administration
and states <a href="http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2013-01-07/news/fl-fau-prof-newtown-20130107_1_sandy-hook-school-massacre-fau-prof-lisa-metcalf" target="_blank">"one is left to inquire whether the Sandy Hook shooting ever took place — at least in the way law enforcement authorities and the nation's news media have described."</a> On Senator
and Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul's website,<b> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Daily Paul</i></b>, staffer vinceableworld writes <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121230183125/http://www.dailypaul.com/267143/sandy-hook-what-evidence-do-we-have-that-any-kids-are-dead" target="_blank">in a since-deleted post</a>:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>So far I've seen dozens of conflicting stories. I've seen
some very convincing theories of actors playing roles. I've seen some fairly conclusive
evidence of look-alikes... I've watched a police trooper threaten to PROSECUTE
people putting out "disinformation." </i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>I have not seen ONE SHRED of evidence that any kids are
dead or that the Sandy Hook massacre even happened. All we have is hearsay - in
a court of law that doesn't mean a darn thing. </i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>So tell me what evidence have you seen that these kids
died and haven't been shipped off to... god knows where?</i></blockquote>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
They are just crazies, I tell myself as I wipe
my eyes and Annamaria smiles softly and nuzzles her pillow. And of course they
are: nobody sane could possibly believe this was a false flag operation. Yet as
the debate over gun regulation has continued it has becomes increasingly clear
the Powers That Be <b>are </b>taking
seriously the loons we've come to call without a scrap of irony "Sandy
Hook Truthers." The NRA and its paid politicians have circled the wagons, more
concerned they might lose their gun market than that more children might lose
their lives. It is convenient for them to act as if those grieving parents are
just using it to promote their liberal New England agenda, as if those dead
children washed off the blood and went home, as if the whole thing never
happened and we can safely ignore anyone who says otherwise. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
I no longer weep for what we have lost. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now I weep for what we have become. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
* * * * *</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
When I started this book I used noted American
genealogist <a href="http://www.wargs.com/other/lavey.html" target="_blank">William Adams Reitweisner's LaVey family tree</a> to trace Anton
LaVey's paternal line back to Nebraska and a liquor salesman named Leon Levy. Levy
rose to some prominence in Omaha only to run afoul of gangster "Irish
Tom" Dennison. As part of Dennison's efforts to gain control of Omaha's
saloons and drinking establishments Leon Levi was arrested numerous times on
trumped-up licensing charges. Later his wife divorced him, yelling in court
"<a href="http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn99021999/1911-05-26/ed-1/seq-7/" target="_blank">I would rather go to the pen for twenty years than stay with my husband for one day!</a>" and charging him with cruelty and "overindulgence on
his part of the cup that cheers."<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3225369467879724873#_edn3" title=""><!--[endif]--></a></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
It was a magnificent beginning. It had family
drama and a powerful crime boss who used the law as a club to get what he
wanted. LaVey claimed his father had been a liquor salesman: it would make
perfect sense for Michael Levy<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>to
continue in Leon's trade. I patted myself on the back, secure I had just
figured out a great deal of what made Anton LaVey tick and certain that it
would only get easier going forward.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
Then I discovered that the "Michael
Levy" in question was 15 years' older than Anton LaVey's father. <a href="https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:X6Z4-338" target="_blank">And that he died in 1931 rather than 1992.</a></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
And that I had just wasted several weeks
following one of America's leading genealogists down a rabbit hole.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
* * * * *</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
"I’d rather have my background shrouded in
mystery," Anton LaVey told Lawrence Wright. As was often the case, he got what he wanted. I have presented the available
primary evidence and attempted to place it in the context of its time and
place. When lucky, I have been able to find a newspaper clipping, a census
record, a city directory listing or some other scraps of data which confirm or
refute LaVey's claims. More often I have been forced to rely on conjecture and
speculation, or to admit that it is anybody's guess as to what happened. There
is very little certainty to be had when looking at Anton LaVey's life story,
only a Rorschach blot to be interpreted as the viewer will. And as with a
Rorschach blot those interpretations often tell us more about the biographer
than the subject. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
In <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Satanic Bible</i> LaVey promised "Here you will find bedrock."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There's very little bedrock here, just
some guideposts pointing out interesting anomalies in the swamp. Those
determined to think Anton LaVey a fraud will not be dissuaded by evidence of
his integrity; those convinced he is a liar will not be persuaded by examples
of his honesty; those who imagine him a devil-worshipping reptilian Illuminatus
will not be silenced by inconvenient facts. Satan has always been misunderstood
and those who will take up his cause can expect no better. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
But enough from me. Who cares about the porter
when you're standing at the Gates of Hell? Hopefully my words have whetted your
desire: enjoy the performance!</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Kenaz Filan<br />
Newark, New Jersey, 2015</div>
<div style="mso-element: endnote-list;">
<div id="edn" style="mso-element: endnote;">
</div>
</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">From the Kenaz Filan Blog
http://kenazfilan.blogspot.com</div>Kenaz Filanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06083915907861140328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3225369467879724873.post-42289564091561549512015-08-22T10:37:00.002-04:002015-08-22T10:37:53.152-04:00The Case for Kishinev: More on Anton LaVey's Grandmother (Now With Excerpts!!!)When I began research on <i><b>To Reign in Hell</b></i>, <a href="http://kenazfilan.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-transylvania-twist-on-anton-laveys.html" target="_blank">I was trying to figure out the reality behind Luba Coulton's stories to her grandson</a>. It has been an uphill battle. The Coultons were working-class folk who received little media coverage. The European records were subject to several wars and a well-funded, meticulously organized effort to wipe them from memory. But by comparing those stories to history and to the scant available evidence I have been able to trace a tentative roadmap of Grandma Luba's early career. <br />
<br />
Every available document -- census forms, marriage licenses, birth certificates, etc. -- lists Luba Coulton's birthplace as "Russia." Luba was also Jewish: among other evidence, her August 1955 funeral was held at San Francisco's <a href="http://www.sinaichapel.org/" target="_blank">Sinai Memorial Chapel</a>. Hence she was almost certainly born in the western part of the Russian Empire, as Jewish residence in the Russian Empire was ruled by the <a href="http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/pale.html" target="_blank">Pale of Settlement</a>. With very few exceptions, Mother Russia was "beyond the pale" for Jews so this would place Luba's birthplace in the area of modern-day Poland and Ukraine.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:K9D4-N83" target="_blank">On the 1940 census</a> Luba Coulton tells the census taker she had four years of education. This may not sound impressive but few Jewish girls in 1880's Russia were so lucky. Religious schooling was the only education available for most Russian Jews and that only for boys. There was one notable exception, the region between the Pnut and Dneister Rivers known as the Bessarabia Oblast.<br />
<br />
The Russians won Bessarabia in two of their many conflicts with the Ottomans -- the 1806-1812 and 1828-29 wars, to be more precise. But gaining territory is one thing: ruling it is quite another. Bessarabia was mostly wild, the populace largely Romanian-speaking peasants who were no more sympathetic to the Russians than to the Turks or Austrians. To cement its hold the Empire passed laws encouraging emigration. Farming, inn-keeping and other jobs forbidden to Jews elsewhere within the Pale were allowed in Bessarabia: secular schooling was available to Jews in Bessarabia's main city, Kishinev. <a href="http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0012_0_11206.html" target="_blank">Many found these opportunities irresistible. In 1847 Kishinev was home to 10,000 Jews: by 1897 50,237 Jews made up 46% of Kishinev's population.</a> <br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.aphr.ru/images/books/pdf/all-russian-primary-education.pdf" target="_blank">Russian primary schools of the time were open to students 8-11 -- a four-year curriculum</a>. Only a small fraction of the Russian Empire's children received even that much schooling. Luba could read and write in several unrelated languages which each used different alphabets. In 1894 only 21% of the Empire's subjects could read and write at all. Those four years of schooling suggest that education was deeply important to Luba's parents. And they also suggest that her family was of relatively modest means since they could not afford further private education for their daughter. <br />
<br />
In <i style="font-weight: bold;">Secret Life of a Satanist </i> LaVey recounts Grandma Luba's accounts "of bloody battles fought against Turkish and Russian invaders [and] between Hungary and Romania over the rights to rule." The Ottomans and Russians fought yet again in 1877-1878, when Luba was nine. Kishinev was a major staging area and Luba would have seen Russian battalions and artillery parading through the streets. But though there was a large Romanian population in Kishinev there were few ethnic Hungarians, certainly not enough to fight for the right to rule.<br />
<br />
Still, there is linguistic and other evidence linking Grandma Luba to Hungary. LaVey talks about his great-uncle Laszlo and claims he took "Szandor" to honor a relative: both names are more Budapest than Bucharest. And in the Chicago <i>Sentinel</i> we find entries linking Gertrude Levey's older sisters to activities at Agudas Achim, a synagogue for Chicago's Hungarian Jewish community. It is difficult to explain these anomalies. But one of the more plausible answers lies in a location near the Empire's border which had a sizable population of Hungarian-speaking Jews -- a wooded land the Hungarians called <i>Erdély </i>and the Romanians <i>Ardeal</i> or <i>Transilvania</i>.<br />
<br />
At the end of the 17th century the Austrian Empire won Transylvania. There as in Bessarabia the ruling Austrians faced a restive Romanian population: there they also encouraged Jewish emigration as a buffer against unrest. <a href="http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Transylvania" target="_blank">In 1785-86 there were not quite 9,000 Jews in the Transylvania region (the Principality of Transylvania plus the neighboring counties of Partium and Banat): by 1867 there were over 100,000. </a> These Jews spoke Hungarian -- one of the official languages of what became after 1867 the Austro-Hungarian Empire -- and typically identified as Hungarians of the Mosaic faith.<br />
<br />
This made them especially unpopular with the Romanian peasants. Anti-Semitism was already deeply ingrained in Romanian culture: in 1716 Demetrius Kantemir wrote the Moldavians (Romanians) <a href="http://www.jewishgen.org/bessarabia/files/HistoryOfJewsInBessarabia15-19c.pdf" target="_blank">"considered it hardly a mortal crime to kill a Turk, a Tatar, or a Jew."</a> Throughout Europe ethnic communities were coming together to demand recognition as the age of empires gave way to the age of nations. In October 1784 an uprising began amongst Romanian serfs in Transylvania: it ended in February 1785 with Hungarian authorities publicly torturing the rebels to death. To Transylvania's Romanians the Jewish newcomers were agents of their oppressors, devils who broke Horea and Cloșca on the wheel like they had broken Jesus on the cross. <br />
<br />
But while tensions were high in 19th-century Transylvania, Luba Coulton's parents might have left for other reasons. Transylvania was a remote part of the Austrian Empire with little in the way of industry and little opportunity for advancement. Kishinev, by contrast, was a booming town strategically located along the route to Odessa and the Black Sea. This excerpt from <a href="http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/pinkas_romania/rom2_00400.html" target="_blank">Pinkas Hakehillot Romania (Encyclopedia of Jewish Communities in Romania)</a> might explain how Hungarian-speaking Jews wound in the Russian Empire:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>In the 1850s and the 1860s the [Russian] authorities encouraged trade with Romania, Austria and Russia. The Jews who came from those countries were permitted to reside in Kishinev and other places and to deal and trade and be craftsmen. The permit was good for one year and could be renewed. Many Jews who were foreign citizens were able to deal in trade and to establish industrial plants and craft workshops. </i></blockquote>
The case for Kishinev is largely circumstantial, but it is the best explanation I can find for the data at hand. Anybody with evidence that would contradict or confirm this narrative is urged to contact me: I also welcome alternative explanations which better address the available information. In the meantime, I leave you with an excerpt from the actual manuscript itself -- a few paragraphs from Chapter 4: The Dogs of War (1938-41).<br />
<br />
*****<br />
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On Thursday, May 27, 1937 the Golden Gate Bridge opened:
some 200,000 pedestrians made their way over the 6,450-foot bridge spanning San
Francisco and Marin Counties across San Francisco Bay. Though he did not cross
riding a unicycle, tap-dancing or walking backward as some did, Howard Levey
was among those making the crossing. He and his parents would soon cross again.
Ninety years earlier fortune-hunters came to San Francisco to strike it rich: in
1938 the Leveys left San Francisco for a comfortable life and home with a back
yard. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
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If Mike and Gertrude Levey hoped things would
get better so too did Mill Valley. The Great Fire of July 2-5, 1929 burned
2,500 acres and 117 homes: a few months later came the Great Depression. The town's
businessmen hoped the bridge would bring new families to their community. Perhaps
they were discussing prospective townsfolk over breakfast at Espoti's the
morning the Leveys moved in. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mill
Valley needed people more polished than the WPA workers slurping coffee at the
counter, they might say, but more sensible than those artists and Bohemians
taking over summer cottages San Francisco's ex-wealthy could no longer afford. Had
they known of the Leveys as the sun drove the last of the diaphanous
redwood-scented fog from Mt. Tamalpais they would have certainly declared the
family just the right sort. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></div>
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<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
As America was gearing up for the horrors of
war, Howard was perusing horror novels like Bram Stoker's <b>Dracula. </b>He combined the Gothic imagery therein – and later the
peasants and pitchforks of Universal films – with Grandma Luba's tales. The
Transylvania she knew only from her parents' accounts was re-envisioned as a
dark wellspring of magic, a place where he could set himself apart from the
suburban blandness that surrounded him. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like many first-generation Americans of the day, Gertrude and
Michael Levey were products of the melting pot. They showed little interest in
their heritage or in what was transpiring in the Old World: neither were they
affiliated with any of the local synagogues or Jewish organizations. While Howard
knew little about Judaism and felt little affinity for his Jewish heritage,
Count Dracula was a far more accessible and welcoming presence. And because
Luba came from Vlad Tepes's kingdom her grandson could claim a link to the
vampire prince and his power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">From the Kenaz Filan Blog
http://kenazfilan.blogspot.com</div>Kenaz Filanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06083915907861140328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3225369467879724873.post-54183731834432765412015-05-01T15:08:00.002-04:002015-05-01T15:11:56.631-04:00FiftyIt's been at least a decade since I could write off my failings as youthful indiscretions, and at least a decade before I can start blaming them on second childhood. But though I have still not learned how to act my age, neither can I ignore it. Statistics say I have more days behind me than before me. Whether the curtain has just opened or is about to close, I am in the third act of my life's 3-Act Play (Spoiler Alert: I die at the end).<br />
<br />
A recent physical garnered me a clean bill of health. I am in excellent shape for 50. I only notice the bad shoulder when I move a certain way, feel the bum knee when I'm walking up a steep incline, lose my breath on the fourth flight of stairs. My capacity for love has only grown: my libido is another story. I'm not (yet) a doddering old man but neither am I a virile young stallion in peak physical condition. And over the coming years those little problems will likely become bigger ones.<br />
<br />
I know now that many of my childhood hopes will go unrealized. I will never become a great musician; never gain fluency in any language save English; never become a physician, lawyer or college professor. Those dreams died before the dreamer and won't be resurrected. While I'll surely learn new things as the years progress my days of Bowie-esque self-reinvention are over. The toolkit I have acquired to date is what I carry through the years ahead.<br />
<br />
But amidst my losses I remain keenly aware of all I have. There may be other lovers and the light between us may die but the partnership Kathy and I have created will never be duplicated. For fifteen years and counting we have transmuted each others' failings into strengths. We have stayed together through good times and bad, at our best and at our worst: always we have acted from a place of love. No one else will shape my soul the way she has and no one else will be mother to our child.<br />
<br />
November 28, 2011 marked our last great Transmutation, as we shed all my other masks and became parents to Annamaria Sigyn Estelle Filan. Since that time I've struggled mightily with who I was and what I was to become. Caring for Annamaria has goaded me past all my limits. The years since her birth have been in many ways an <a href="http://www.paganbdsm.org/articles/intro.html" target="_blank">Ordeal</a>: my writing interests have been put on indefinite hold and I remain unsure where, if anywhere, they will go from here Yet though "Daddy" may sometimes drive me to my knees, it is far and away the best role I have ever played. <br />
<br />
Through my life with Kathy and Annamaria I've come to understand something of what <i>Pietas</i> entails. I have a responsibility to protect my child as I am able from this world's dangers and to teach her what I can about its wonders. This is not just a legal fiction but a fierce all-consuming call that resonates not only through my being but through all of Being. I act in the sacred Love fueled by Fear, the love of the wolf for cubs and the herd for calves, the drive to protect and propagate the species. It is a power which reaches from the base of the animal kingdom up to the Gods who celebrate, rescue and mourn Their children.<br />
<br />
That love is its own prayer and its own immortality. The past can be rewritten to glorify the villains and demonize the victors: it can be forgotten altogether; it may crumble into dust and fade into heat death and meaninglessness. But it still stands before Eternity no matter how odious our stupidity or how pretty our lies. There is and was and ever shall be this moment when I am lying here beside my daughter, always the soft rhythmic thumping of her feet against my side as she soothes herself, always the warm soft darkness whispering to us and to all that we love and we are loved and we must sleep.<div class="blogger-post-footer">From the Kenaz Filan Blog
http://kenazfilan.blogspot.com</div>Kenaz Filanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06083915907861140328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3225369467879724873.post-30564364635178357392015-02-19T12:26:00.000-05:002015-02-19T12:50:16.941-05:00Impietas V: Omnis<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div>
<div class="justify">
<i>[Artaxerxes] therefore gave orders that Mithridates should be put to death by the torture of the boats (<b>σκάφη</b>, skáphe). Now, this torture of the boats is as
follows. Two boats are taken, which are so made as to fit over one
another closely; in one of these the victim is laid, flat upon his back;
then the other is laid over the first and carefully adjusted, so that
the victim's head, hands, and feet are left projecting, while the rest
of his body is completely covered up. Then they give him food to eat,
and if he refuse it, they force him to take it by pricking his eyes.
After he has eaten, they give him a mixture of milk and honey to drink,
pouring it into his mouth, and also deluge his face with it. Then they keep his eyes always turned towards the sun, and a swarm of flies settles down upon his face and
hides it completely. And since inside the boats he does what must needs
be done when men eat and drink, worms and maggots seethe up from the
corruption and rottenness of the excrement, devouring his body, and
eating their way into his vitals. For
when at last the man is clearly dead and the upper boat has been
removed, his flesh is seen to have been consumed away, while about his
entrails swarms of such animals as I have mentioned are clinging fast
and eating. In this way Mithridates was slowly consumed for seventeen
days, and at last died.
</i></div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: right;">
<a href="http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Artaxerxes*.html" target="_blank">Plutarch, <i>Artaxerxes</i></a></div>
</blockquote>
</div>
Even today scaphism is considered the apex of human cruelty. The idea of binding a man in his own wastes while vermin devour him alive fills us with horror. But if this is a grievous crime against humanity, how much greater is the wrong we have done the Gods?<br />
<br />
Like Artaxerxes we have bound the Divine fast. All the multitudinous Deities, all the Powers of Fire and Ice, all the spirits of sparkling stream and rushing river, of storm and sunshine, mountain and plain -- we have shoved them into a single boat and labeled it "One God." We have buried Their holy places under cathedrals and churches: we have declared Them mere masks, empty images to decorate the Truth we torture.<br />
<br />
We have gorged our captive with sweet praise. We declared him Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnibenevolent. Where have claimed our captive God mighty beyond all comprehension, beyond all measures, beyond all limits. And yet even as we declared his might we tightened the bonds, leaving Him and His Church an ever shrinking arena while claiming more and more for a god-free society. And given this treatment it is not surprising our captive has rotted.<br />
<br />
An all-benevolent God could not stand by and allow suffering; an all-powerful God could accomplish any goal without causing suffering; an all-knowing God would be aware that this is an imperfect and unjust Universe. A Creator possessede of all these powers who threw us into this world would be a bloodthirsty sadist, the Demiurge of the Gnostics with a particularly nasty imagination. He certainly would be nobody worthy of worship -- and it is such a short and easy step between One God and none at all. And so it is that today we find people seeking to understand Deity through these lies, then turning away in disgust when they find only a fly-blown corpse.<br />
<br />
If we are to move beyond this we must understand that our Gods are as bound to this World and this Wyrd as we are. Like us They must fight tooth and nail to carve out a place for Themselves and Their loved ones. Like us They err, like us They struggle, like us They create meaning where no meaning existed before. Let us call Them powerful beyond our understanding and declare Them worthy of honor and respect (what the Anglo-Saxons called <i>weorðscipe</i>). Let us give Them the veneration They deserve and honor that which They achieved through heroic effort. But let us understand that we can only know Them by acknowledging both Their strengths and Their flaws; let us know that we do Them no kindness by poisoning Them with absurdity.<div class="blogger-post-footer">From the Kenaz Filan Blog
http://kenazfilan.blogspot.com</div>Kenaz Filanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06083915907861140328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3225369467879724873.post-16509705770827721872014-09-26T18:46:00.002-04:002014-09-26T18:46:41.542-04:00FICTION: The Kind That Leaves Me Alone (Excerpt)
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<br />
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
Now that he has a couple centuries' worth of
oxycodone David guesses he should be happy for pill whores.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He can't pretend Xamanda is anything
else as she sleeps beside him beneath the tarp: a junkie knows a junkie sure as
he knows his own baby. Once he could have hated her for being so pretty, David
thinks as he runs his hand through her fluorescent orange hair. But when you can
see somebody's soul there's no joy in degrading her. Nor in knowing she's fond
of you, just not so fond as you hoped. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
David rolls out of bed and checks the nightstand
clock, 4:30 am. Drew's father is bringing him back at 3:00pm and if he finds
her pilled out again she's liable to lose the boy altogether.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>David sets the alarm for noon then
looks for a place where it will take Xamanda time to find the beeping alarm.
Finally he puts the clock near the bathroom, throwing last night's panties atop
it for good measure. David knows no matter how bad off you was the night
before, once you see the toilet you ain't going back to bed without a piss. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">And if
you're still blocked up from last night's pills you gonna go get a cup of
coffee to get the yellow river flowing. By the time Asshole McAsshole the
Fourth gets here she'll be fine. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
Outside the window above Drew's crib the sky is
already catching fire. David can see the razor blade on the coffee table in
X-ray relief against the shimmering glass: wax and talcum residue floats grey
as the spots on his Daddy's lungs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Xamanda's not moving, David would be worried if he couldn't hear the
soft patter of her heart across the room. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">That
girl don't know when she's had enough.</i> David chuckles. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Or maybe she just wants too much.</i></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
"Ain't no medicine gonna fix neither of
us, darlin'," he says to the smoldering sky. Xamanda stirs but does not wake.
David lifts up the tarp and tucks the sheet and comforter around her, it gets
cold up here at night and the wiring won't take a space heater even if she
wasn't three months behind on her light bill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He has to stop for a second to admire her, even after a baby
her titties still look you in the eye and wink. Then he moves on to the pile of
papers on her desk. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
It takes a little digging, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">she ain't no better keeping records at home, Professor</i>, but finally
he finds the disconnect notice in the top right pile. Her Daddy sent money
twice, he ought to know to get the account number and pay it hisself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Amazing
what folks forget once they get a brick house. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>He finds his flannel shirt beside the nightlight then
shoves the notice in the pocket behind his Marlboro Reds. Grown folk can live
without power, Lord knows he's done it, but it ain't right for a child to lie
scared in the dark.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
David walks over to the coffee table and picks
up the razor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He picks up the
rolled dollar bill from the floor as he's stepping into his pants, then places
it in his left nostril as he carefully scrapes every stain into a grey-white
line.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One quick sniff and
everything is clean again. David wipes it down with his red hanky to make sure no
trace remains should Drew try to stand on the edge, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">he's bound to start walking any day now</i>, then covers the table with
Xamanda's sari fabric. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
The stars above Drew's crib are gone now: the
moon is fading like Jimson weed closing up for dawn.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>David puts the blade in his wallet's credit card slot and
scans the place again for incriminating evidence. When he finds none he puts on
his baseball cap and pulls the tarp off Xamanda. She stirs and raises her hand,
she's fine, she'll be fit as an untuned fiddle tomorrow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>David wishes he could stay like they
talked about but he can't help no further now. It's near sunrise but he can
still get home without hurrying more than a little bit. And besides, if Asshole
raised his voice too loud it might wake David up and that wouldn't be good for
nobody.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
"See y'all tomorrow night," David
whispers in Xamanda's ear, then, hesitant, "I love you." She smiles:
David closes his eyes so he cannot see her dreams.<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<!--EndFragment--><div class="blogger-post-footer">From the Kenaz Filan Blog
http://kenazfilan.blogspot.com</div>Kenaz Filanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06083915907861140328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3225369467879724873.post-51210666878866048042014-09-16T12:58:00.000-04:002014-09-16T12:58:50.038-04:00FICTION: Panic in Detroit (Excerpt)
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<br />
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
Pierre knows the Lord means for him to walk
among men again. Otherwise He wouldn’t have sent a purple Cadillac, a grocery
bag of cash, a steamer trunk of marihuana and pants that fit perfectly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He who knows all tongues sent His
message in the language of scents and snarls:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>one whiff and Pierre’s words rose like Ezekiel’s dry bones, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Goddamn that smells like some fine muggles. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>And while the little fellow’s
clothes were past saving the big guy went down with hardly any fight, he barely
moved after his friend’s bloody baseball cap landed at his feet till Pierre <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">yes yes Pierre my name is Pierre </i>broke
his neck.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
The season’s first frost crunches under
Pierre’s knees as he kneels. When he finishes drinking from the little fellow’s
left leg, not so warm as he might like now but a thin velvet blanket is better
than none at all, he looks around for a place to wash. The sand piled by the
steam shovel will get the worst stains, but a man, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">yes a man</i>, needs water to make himself presentable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He lopes to the stream over the hill,
his hands touching the ground till he reminds himself to walk upright. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
When Pierre returns the big man is still
slouched against the car, his unblinking gaze affixed on heaven tight as his
dead hand on his crucifix. Pierre tries to get the Detroit Pistons jersey off
but the big man doesn’t want to let go. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Of
course</i>, he realizes, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">they were
angels. Though I’m not sure why angels had a dead body in their trunk. </i>He
ponders this for a moment as the shattered stars twinkle overhead and the first
frost crystals form on the little fellow’s bloody torso. Finally Pierre loosens
the fingers as carefully as he could, only breaking two, and gets the jersey
and the long undershirt beneath.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The cross reflects moonlight on the big angel’s chest between THUG and LIFE.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
“Agnus dei qui tolli peccata mundi, miserere
nobis,” Pierre sings as he closes the angel’s eyes and remembers the priest
with the pale hands. “Retournez-vous aux ciel, Ange d’Seigneur” Pierre forgets
the Latin but he remembers Notre-Dame de Montréal and expects an angel’s more
likely to know Français than English.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Merci pour votre aide et pour le muggles. Vous-etes un chat froid et un
gros papa. Adieux.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
Once he puts a new hole in the belt the big
denims fit like they were made for him. Pierre remembers watching kids dressed
like this from the woods. Back then he wondered why they were bothering with
clothes at all though of course not in words. Now Pierre understands perfectly.
They give a man air and let him feel nature on his nature in a matter of
speaking. And the shoes fit perfectly and even have his lucky number 15 on the
sole.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Like clockwork, baby </i>he remembers the experiments, of course, a
beast can only take what’s thrown to it but a man can try to understand his
situation.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
There’s a shovel in the trunk beside the dead
body. Pierre figures if the angels were kind enough to see that this man got a
fitting burial it was only right he should do the same. Within a few minutes
there are three holes, Pierre’s new clothes are a bit soiled but nothing a
washboard and some soap won’t take care of. The man in the trunk is already
stiff and some sticky unidentifiable liquid has stained the rug they wrapped
him in. Pierre moves the bundle gingerly and just manages to avoid the maroon
glop, soil goes away with a wash but body fluids stain forever. The big angel
goes quietly and falls peacefully to his final rest. For a moment Pierre
ponders what to do with the little fellow’s remains then realizes he can pick
them up with the shovel. A short stroll to gather him together and soon all three are properly interred.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
The clouds are gathering over the moon. Pierre
smells freezing rain coming in, he barely feels the elements but he knows a man
finds shelter for himself and certainly for his automobile. He looks around a
bit for the crank, then decides he will explore Mr. Stanley’s invention out
later. Picking up the back end like a wheelbarrow Pierre shoves the Cadillac
into a thicket, not that he needs to hide it, nobody works a quarry in a
Michigan winter. But he remembers the man who let them ride in the Steamer had
a garage put aside for it, just like a stall only with no hay on the
floor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A machine slower than a horse and twice as filthy</i>, Antoine said
afterward as he rubbed white spirits on his soot-stained cravat. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Behold the future. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
“They ain’t near so sooty no more!” Pierre
announces proudly, his hand on the hood. He realizes no one is listening of
course but keeps talking anyway, he’ll need the practice if the Lord is sending
him among men again. “Once I learn to drive we’ll be traveling in style,
daddy-O! This is a Cadillac and they’re real fine cars. I saw an ad for one in
a magazine in …” he pauses “when President Eisenhower was in office. They’re a
smooth ride with V8 power and interior luxury. People see Professor Chauffant
pulling up in a horseless carriage like this, there’s no telling how much
elixir they’ll buy.” Pierre pauses again, his eyes downcast this time. “Or
would, I guess.” </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
They left half a joint in the driver’s side
ashtray, they never got a chance to lock the door and Pierre figures every
gravedigger should earn an honest wage, especially considering his clients are
no longer in need of anything. And since the big angel had a lighter in his
pocket, Pierre is especially certain it’s an omen. The locusts are quiet, they’ve
been driven away by the presence of God or maybe they just don’t like the taste
of red velvet. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">What are we, moths? </i>they
ask as they fade into the smoke. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
Pierre looks in the back seat. The grocery bag
isn’t full like he first thought but there are rolled bills covering the
bottom, mostly twenties and fifties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He grabs a couple rolls and discovers neatly trimmed stacks of newspaper
substituting for currency beneath the first bill. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I thought Antoine was the only one knew that trick</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Pierre shakes his head. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Looks like these fellows was even touchier
than that hotel manager. </i>There’s still a fair bit of money though, enough
to last a while and he won’t need to worry about muggles either, he’s got a
stash that would have made Fat Tyrell envious.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
An owl hoots by the stream. Pierre grins
broadly as he realizes the enormity of what God has gifted unto him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He speaks aloud again, hoping his voice
will carry through the water. “Maybe we can’t have Professor Chauffant’s
Medicine Show, but we’re going to be the heppest vipers in…” he looks down at
the newspaper in the back seat. “Detroit, baby! Detroit!” </div>
<!--EndFragment--><div class="blogger-post-footer">From the Kenaz Filan Blog
http://kenazfilan.blogspot.com</div>Kenaz Filanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06083915907861140328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3225369467879724873.post-85908558468504583852014-08-27T17:02:00.000-04:002014-08-27T17:02:22.576-04:00FICTION: Shatterer of Worlds (Excerpt)
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<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
“No sir that would not work.” Pierre says to
the tramp in the battered plaid suit. “Some years ago I lit an entire shack
full of dynamite.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While the
experience left me insensible for a brief period I remained, as you can see,
fully intact.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
Everybody guffaws as the plaid tramp passes the
bottle to the little lame hobo. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Pierre remembers this from before the darkness descended, stories
around a campfire to pass the time, a place where a stranger can speak the
truth knowing nobody’s going to believe him anyway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
“You hear that, Chuck?” the weasel-faced boy by
the tarpaper lean-to asks the burly one-eared man squatting beside him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Think he could take a mortar round
like you did at Guadacanal?”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
The burly man looks up, the stubble on his jaw
nearly as long as his buzzcut. “It was at Chosun, not that a little pansy like
you would know about war.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
The weasel-faced boy sneers. “Not that you’d
know who your Daddy is.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
“What did you just say?” Chuck asks slowly as
he stands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Pierre holds up his
hands, palms facing outward as if he could shove away the jagged anger rising
at the fire’s edge. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
“Easy, cats. No need for aggression, let’s have
a chilled out session, you need some relief and I got some sweet leaf.” He
snaps his fingers as Chuck’s rage cools back down to annoyance and reaches into
the backpack for the joint lying atop the shotgun shells. “The smoke is my
deliverance and salvation, keeps me out of bad situations, provides my
questions an explanation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And if
you two gentlemen will partake I’m sure you’ll be able to put your differences
behind you.” </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
“How about that, Chuck?” The boy turns his
attention to Pierre.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“He ain’t
just good at exploding, he can rhyme too.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
Chuck stares at Pierre’s cigarette.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Don’t you read the papers? That stuff
will make you crazy.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
“My experience, sir, is quite the opposite.”
Pierre strikes a kitchen match against the sole of his boot. “When I first met
Mary Jane, the weight of my sorrows pressed me so that I could but cry out in
my despair. And then, as I wept and raged in a forest, a little Mexican man
came to me with a fat smoldering reefer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>One draw of that fine Mexicali tea and I began to feel like myself
again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I tried to pass it back but
he said, ‘No, all yours’ and disappeared.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
Pierre inhales, then blows out smoke and hands
the joint to the plaid tramp.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
“I still believe him to be an angel sent to
offer me balm for my affliction. And since that moment I have always taken
pains to keep Miss Mary Jane near at hand.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
“Pass that over here,” the boy says. “Ain’t
every day you get to smoke reefer from an angel.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
Chuck grunts his disapproval. “Johnny, you
gonna be even funnier than you already are.” </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
“Weren’t you listening?” The boy examines the
joint. “This comes from God.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
The little lame hobo looks up. “You oughtn’t be
mocking a man who’s telling the truth.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
Johnny starts to respond but something in the
old man’s unblinking grey gaze stops him. The fire crackles as he turns to
Pierre.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
“I met another of your kind a long time ago. I
wasn’t no older than Johnny nor no smarter. This one looked my age when I met
him but he was older. I bet he still looks the same even though I don’t.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
“Yes sir,” Pierre hesitates for a second. “He
probably does.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
“I was working in Michigan then, at the
Callimac Mine on the Gogebic Range.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>You know where that is?”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
“Yes sir,” Pierre says as he stares at the
flames reflecting in the old man’s eyes like Diogenes-lanterns. “On the Upper
Peninsula.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I used to know that
area real well.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
“Business was still just holding on then.
Everyone knew things was near tapped out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There wasn’t but a skeleton crew working by the winter of ’16. Everyone
else had been let go and I was planning to head to Detroit to see if they had
anything for me in the new automobile plants. That was when we started dying.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
The scent of piñon pines wafts on the evening
breeze.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Pierre remembers the smell
of balsam firs and white spruce and frost over swampland: he draws on the joint
as if its cherry might drive away the long-ago cold. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
“It was a hard winter and we lost one with
every snowfall. At first we figured they was just moving on like we was going
to move on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then right before the New
Year we found what was left of Aleksi.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Jefferson, the security guard, said it was a bear. Only he couldn’t
explain how this bear tore a grown man to pieces and didn’t leave no
footprints.” </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
Pierre passes to the little lame man, who
shakes his head.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He stretches the
joint out toward Johnny but the boy stands motionless as his sneer melts into
terror. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
“Two nights later it snowed again and we heard
shots in the dark. Next morning Jefferson was gone.” The old man takes a gulp
from his pint. “Later someone told me they found his badge and his gun in the
woods that spring. Never heard of them finding anything else.” </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
Chuck eyes Pierre warily: the plaid tramp
hesitates before taking the joint from him. Pierre stares straight ahead into
the fire, hoping the last dancing flames will distract him from memories of
loud noises and acrid smells and a brief stinging spark exploding into
shrieking red velvet shreds. The old man stares into the flames with Pierre,
his knuckles white as he clutches the bottle.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
“That was when we all decided to go. But the
railroad wasn't running and all the roads were blocked. There was no getting
out save with a dogsled or a snowmobile and we didn’t have neither.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Big Bjorn remembered Jefferson had a
pair of snowshoes. But then Kowalski pointed out even so you couldn’t walk to
Ironwood without spending the night in the woods. And wasn’t a man in that camp
willing to do that."</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
“Winters are hard in that part of the country,”
Pierre says, trying to keep the words coming. He can feel the smooth brass of
the Pinkerton man’s watch and wonders what time it is now, a beast of the field
knows light and dark but a man can read a clock, it was three seconds past 8:38
when he came in and when he looks down again it is exactly 9:32. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
“Since we had nothing else to do, we all
decided to wait for death or the train, whichever got through first. Turned out
to be neither.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
The dancing flames are flickering lower now,
nothing left but embers and fear and the little lame man sitting on his orange
carton. Pierre extends his hands, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">easy
cats</i>, and the plaid tramp becomes a blank gap-toothed smile but Johnny and
Chuck are out of range, he can feel their terror but can’t snuff out its
locust-song. The lame man eyes him quizzically. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
“The other fellow was different. You make folks
calm. He couldn’t help but make you feel like there were spiders inside you.” </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
Chuck moves away, Pierre thinks he might run
into the hills but instead he grabs a handful of sticks and kindling and throws
it on the smoldering fire.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
“I was the one keeping watch when he walked
into camp. He didn’t leave no tracks in the snow. The way that thing in the
woods didn’t leave no footprints.” The old man drains the rest of his pint.
“The way your boots weren’t muddy even though you had to cross a creek to get
here.” </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
“Quit it, Pops,” Johnny says, his voice a high
whimper. “This ain’t funny no more.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
“Wasn’t funny at all,” Pops says, smiling
faintly despite himself. “I wanted to run but I couldn’t turn away even though
looking into those eyes was like sticking your head into the maw of hell.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Not like
hell</i>, Pierre thinks, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">like a great
empty void and at the bottom snow and stars and hands so pale the moonlight
reveals knuckle-bones beneath the skin and a sad-eyed boy singing </i>Domini
Deus Noster, Miserere Nobis<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">.</i></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
The old man continues. “He told me there was no
monster in the woods, just a soul in torment and that it wouldn't trouble us
again. I asked him what he meant and he said he couldn't take away its
suffering but he eased it for a little while. Then he laughed and I swear to
God I soiled myself when I heard that laugh.” </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Singing
till you can’t help but sing with him, </i>Miserere Nobis, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and then you remember language and fall sobbing to your knees in the
snow and there is no singing, just a pale hand on your head and a soft voice
saying “A beast of the field howls but a man has words to sing with.” </i></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
“The next morning they finally cleared the
tracks and we all left on the next train. Except Kowalski. We found him in his
bunk with his throat slit.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
“Stop it, Pops,” Johnny is nearly crying
now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Stop it.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
“What’s the matter, Johnny? Thought you didn’t
believe in any of this bullshit.” The old man laughs as he turns again to Pierre.
“Don’t worry, kid.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you meant us
harm we’d all be dead right now,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> a</span>in’t that right?”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
Pierre hesitates then decides he doesn’t want
to go to Dr. Oppenheimer with lies on his conscience.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextFirstIndent">
“Yes sir,” he nods. “That’s right.”</div>
<!--EndFragment--><br />
<!--EndFragment--><div class="blogger-post-footer">From the Kenaz Filan Blog
http://kenazfilan.blogspot.com</div>Kenaz Filanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06083915907861140328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3225369467879724873.post-47430984714695672562014-05-16T13:53:00.001-04:002014-05-16T15:53:54.800-04:00Impietas IV: Locus<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>The mysteries of Eleusis could be celebrated nowhere else. Demeter had different cult centers throughout Greece, including places that had their own mysteries just as ancient and esteemed as those at Eleusis. But there was only one Eleusis and one set of rites carried out there.</i> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>This is why all attempts at transplanting them to other locations have been doomed to failure.</i> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>It was here and only here that she finally settled after her long and painful search (hence the site’s name) ; only here where she was received by the king whom she instructed in gratitude for his kindness; only here where she adopted Triptolemos and sent him out to teach the world agriculture; here where she was reconciled with her daughter and all the rest that formed the backdrop of the mysteries. This happened nowhere else in all the world, so these mysteries could take place nowhere else. In those other places different things had happened such as her transformation into a mare or her seduction of a mortal man. As a result these places had their own unique mysteries. The mysteries that we will celebrate here are likewise going to be shaped by time, place and culture.</i> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: right;">
<a href="http://thehouseofvines.com/2014/03/10/why-its-impossible-to-revive-the-ancient-mysteries/" target="_blank">Sannion </a></blockquote>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0c/NouvelleOrleans1726LassusA.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0c/NouvelleOrleans1726LassusA.jpg" height="188" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">New Orleans, 1726. From Wikimedia Commons.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Links between New Orleans and St. Domingue spiritual practices are tenuous and links between 19th and 21st century New Orleans Voodoo even shakier. Today New Orleans spirituality encompasses the Thelema-influenced practices of Sallie Ann Glassman; the Belize-inspired work of Miriam Chemani; the Lukumi-flavored rituals of Lilith Dorsey. It would be easy enough <a href="http://www.luckymojo.com/hoodoohistory.html" target="_blank">to follow Cat Yronwode's lead</a> and dismiss the whole thing as a "newly constructed faux-religion which has no cultural, family, liturgical, or social roots in traditional African, African-American, or Haitian religions, but traces back to literary sources instead." Yet this easy dismissal ignores both Voodoo's cultural impact and the place in which this "faux-religion" takes root.<br />
<br />
Like Blanche DuBois, New Orleans depends on the kindness of strangers. Many of her most influential figures came from elsewhere. At a time when most Blacks were heading north <a href="http://www.academia.edu/5823629/Leafy_Anderson_and_the_Success_of_Black_Spiritualism_in_New_Orleans" target="_blank">Leafy Anderson</a> left Chicago for New Orleans: within a decade after her 1920 arrival her guide Black Hawk was one of the city's most loved "hoodoo spirits." Italian immigrants brought muffalettas and the Feast of St. Joseph. Spanish governors created much of her distinctive "French Quarter" architecture. And we wouldn't have Blanche, Stanley and Stella if a shy young man born in Mississippi, raised in St. Louis and nicknamed "Tennessee" hadn't found a spiritual home in the Vieux Carre.<br />
<br />
New Orleans makes her living off desire. She promised forbidden delights to frontiersmen slogging west through the malarial swampland: the Mississippi rolled along to ragtime and laughter and mosquitos whirling with moths around her whorehouse lanterns. Yet she sates the spiritual hunger of pilgrims as happily as she meets more carnal needs. Yronwode notes "New Orleans Voodoo has historically had no community membership base, in Louisiana other than as a source of employment for shop employees, dancers, authors, and publishers." She might consider how many other American cities have successfully monetized local spiritual practices. The commercialization of New Orleans Voodoo is not a sign of decadence but of strength. <br />
<br />
Port cities have always been places where people and Gods came together to share ideas, goods and beds.<i> </i> Slaves from Mali brought their pentatonic scale with its distinctive flattened thirds and fifths: African <i>griots</i> became Louisiana bluesmen. After the Spanish-American War, a shipment of Army surplus brass reorchestrated the blues into Dixieland jazz. If contemporary New Orleans Voodoo draws from many different sources and honors many new spirits so did the faiths of Hellas, where Thracian Orpheus was honored with Cyprian Aphrodite and Luwian Hekate. And if the old rituals have been washed away by time and the river, new ones have risen in the rich Delta soil. <br />
<br />
Much as the Eleusinian Mysteries told the tale of Eleusis, New Orleans Voodoo tells the story of New Orleans. And just as Eleusis echoed the sagas of Greece and Rome, so does New Orleans Vodou contain within itself the American mystery. It is a faith crafted by travelers, created in a legendary land with a mythical past and an uncertain future. It is a religion where African and European influences co-exist fruitfully and uneasily, where stylized Indians roam the land once held by real Indians, where sin and salvation walk hand in hand. Its magic lies not in mojo bags or spoon dolls but in the sultry summer air and the muddy Mississippi, in the blood of those who walked its streets before we were born and who will walk them after we are dead. If it is a flawed and hollow faith, it is but a reflection of the greater emptiness within ourselves. <div class="blogger-post-footer">From the Kenaz Filan Blog
http://kenazfilan.blogspot.com</div>Kenaz Filanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06083915907861140328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3225369467879724873.post-82603795257464861582014-05-08T08:07:00.000-04:002014-05-08T08:13:23.370-04:00Impietas III: Frith<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Every one of you reading this has warrior dead in your line. You wouldn't be here otherwise. Every one of you has people, men and women both, who made the hard, necessary, and sometimes brutal choices of taking up arms to defend their families, their villages, their traditions. Honoring the military dead ... is honoring that spirit that says "you may destroy my nation, my people, my family, you may take everything but it will not be with my help. It will not be today. It will not be now. It will not be without a very bloody price that you may not wish to pay."</i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>There’s a lot of talk about 'frith' in our communities. Well, frith is built on the blood and bone, the guts and screams and tears of your warriors. Only warriors truly understand the cost of frith. You want to honor your peace-makers? Honor first the ones who took their place on the firing line.</i></blockquote>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<a href="http://krasskova.weebly.com/1/post/2012/11/odin-project-day-11.html" target="_blank">Galina Krasskova</a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUbQwlbKWt3vKwG45X4osf8rPt_32yoXVzYyjA3GDwtZIXiSnex_v_M_cU2K4lVK9vhzIqkVR73tHzzw_fzdi_KWmJ7M5bZpNA9oIAOXKJzyF4Irjr2sN1LdDRTE9B0i1nKTTxCJMv2zw/s700/get-carter-michael-caine-1971-film-review-shelf-heroes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUbQwlbKWt3vKwG45X4osf8rPt_32yoXVzYyjA3GDwtZIXiSnex_v_M_cU2K4lVK9vhzIqkVR73tHzzw_fzdi_KWmJ7M5bZpNA9oIAOXKJzyF4Irjr2sN1LdDRTE9B0i1nKTTxCJMv2zw/s700/get-carter-michael-caine-1971-film-review-shelf-heroes.jpg" height="205" width="320" /></a></div>
Today <i style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/?_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&linkCode=ur2&pageMinusResults=1&suo=1399466783430&tag=kenfil-20&url=search-alias%3Daps#/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_10?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=get%20carter&sprefix=get+carter%2Caps%2C191&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Aget%20carter&sepatfbtf=true&tc=1399466787590&linkId=5RAXK2QYUIA5VIR4">Name Your Link</a><img src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=kenfil-20&l=ur2&o=1" target="_blank">Get Carter</a></i> is considered one of Britain's greatest films, certainly its finest crime drama. 1971 audiences reacted to this gritty tragedy with shock, disgust and horror. Director Mike Hodges' vision was unleavened by the wisecracking wit of <i style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/?_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&field-keywords=Dirty%20Harry&linkCode=ur2&tag=kenfil-20&url=search-alias%3Daps&linkId=BNOULIMQBFVOOTZC" target="_blank">Dirty Harry</a></i> or the stylized ultraviolence of <i style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/?_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&field-keywords=Clockwork%20Orange&linkCode=ur2&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3AClockwork%20Orange&tag=kenfil-20&url=search-alias%3Daps&linkId=MEMBY5AJWVA77KOH" target="_blank">A Clockwork Orange</a></i> or <i style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/?_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&field-keywords=Clockwork%20Orange&linkCode=ur2&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3AClockwork%20Orange&tag=kenfil-20&url=search-alias%3Daps&linkId=4ZLFJQ2YUGWDLMXH" target="_blank">The Wild Bunch</a></i>. Set amidst the smoldering scrap heaps and dive bars of an impoverished northern England town, <i style="font-weight: bold;">Get Carter </i>looked like it was filmed in a dirty ashtray. Protagonist Jack Carter (Michael Caine) was a vicious contract killer, no better than the whores and ruffians he dispatched with steely-eyed efficiency. Most critics and cinema-goers dismissed it as a nasty film about nasty people doing nasty things to each other. After its release it sunk into obscurity, forgotten by all but a few cinephiles. (Most notably two young directors named <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/25adefe8-9c0f-11de-b214-00144feabdc0.html#axzz312U2uxUt" target="_blank">Quentin Tarantino</a> and <a href="http://www.shortlist.com/entertainment/films/get-carter-40th-anniversary" target="_blank">Guy Ritchie</a>). But as Swinging London gave way to Maggie's Millions and Free Love was replaced by the Age of AIDS, <i style="font-weight: bold;">Get Carter</i> looked less like a dog-end in a punchbowl and more like a harbinger of things to come.<br />
<br />
While <i style="font-weight: bold;">Get Carter </i>is lauded today as a Very Important Movie, many of its fans remain entranced by its brutal violence and even more brutal characters. They see <i style="font-weight: bold;">Carter </i>as a celebration of nihilism, when in fact it is as ordered and moral as a Greek tragedy. Their confusion is understandable: the ethical system underpinning the film hearkens back not to Christianity but to pre-Christian Anglo-Saxonry and Jack Carter acts not to bring justice but to restore <i>frith</i>.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
* * * * *</div>
<blockquote>
<i>The oneness of the kindred was no mere conceptual ideal; it was implemented and practiced as a matter of course in everyday life, and the name for this many-faceted thew was frith. "Frith is something active, not merely leading kinsmen to spare each other, but forcing them to support one another’s cause, help and stand sponsor for one another, trust one another... The responsibility is absolute, because kinsmen are literally the doers of one another’s deeds." (Groenbech, Vol I., pp. 42-43)... </i></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<i>Frith was nothing if not partisan: focused on security and stability of the kindred, it had no application to those individuals and groups who lay outside the boundaries when it came to a conflict of interest between the two. Nor could any notion of absolute, unbiased justice make a dent in it: defending one’s kindred was always right, no matter how wrong their actions were. Frith was the paramount thew, taking precedence over all others.</i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: right;">
<a href="http://www.friggasweb.org/frith.html" target="_blank">Winifred Hodge</a></blockquote>
Outside the confines of respectable society reside those who are neither respectable nor particularly social. This is the world Jack Carter inhabits, a place where he has earned some success as a foot soldier to a London mob boss. Like many of the mercenaries slashing their way through sagas Carter has escaped both his humble beginnings and his earliest crimes. He has no reason to pry when his estranged brother dies in a drunken accident, no reason to go against the friendly advice his employer proffers like a velvet glove. No reason save that an empty whisky bottle was found in the wrecked car and his brother always hated whisky.<br />
<br />
Yet still Carter returns home, taking the northbound train with his assassin seated behind him and Chandler's <i><b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/?_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&field-keywords=farewell%20my%20lovely&linkCode=ur2&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Afarewell%20my%20lovely&sprefix=farewell%20my%20lovely%2Caps%2C211&tag=kenfil-20&url=search-alias%3Daps&linkId=HCZF6QS2TR5LHGLE%22%3EName%20Your%20Link%3C/a%3E%3Cimg%20src=%22https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=kenfil-20&l=ur2&o=1" target="_blank">Farewell My Lovely</a></b></i> on his lap. He is well-acquainted with the rules of this game and knows its inevitable ending. Expiating his own sin against his family, he plumbs the depths of this new violation and methodically repays everyone involved. As he turns from the last corpse a sniper's bullet sends him to the ground, <i>frith </i>restored and blood answered with blood. Like most sagas, <i style="font-weight: bold;">Get Carter</i> is a cautionary tale. When <i>frith</i> is lacking in the larger community -- in this case the criminal underworld -- the family is not safe. When the family is not safe the community is not safe. Our ancestors knew firsthand a blood feud's terrible cost.<br />
<br />
While kindred ties often lead to violence, they just as often prevented conflict. When you are held liable for your brother's antics you have a powerful incentive to keep those antics in check. When slurs thrown at a random stranger might be met with a response from that stranger's extended family you chose your words carefully. You did unto others as you would have them do unto you because you know they would return the favor. As with <i>pietas</i>, <i>frith</i> worked in a series of concentric circles. One was tied by blood to kin, by kin to community, by community to the Gods. To our contemporary eyes Jack Carter seems a godless brute. Yet in the eyes of his northern European ancestors (<a href="https://hbdchick.wordpress.com/2013/12/11/the-transition-from-shame-to-guilt-in-anglo-saxon-england-and-core-europe/" target="_blank">who were driven by shame and had to be taught guilt</a>) Carter's behavior would be seen as laudable: what we call murder they called right action.</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">From the Kenaz Filan Blog
http://kenazfilan.blogspot.com</div>Kenaz Filanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06083915907861140328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3225369467879724873.post-64302895136855599392014-04-27T19:35:00.003-04:002014-04-27T19:35:22.024-04:00Impietas II: MisericordiaTo the Romans <i>pietas</i> and patriarchy walked hand in hand. For most of Roman history the <i><a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0063:id=patria-potestas-cn" target="_blank">paterfamilias</a></i> (oldest living male in the family) held absolute power over the family's financial affairs and could punish or even kill other family members without fear of legal sanction. But while the <i>paterfamilias </i>held an autocrat's power over his clan, he was expected to rule with love and compassion. Tradition and public opinion, powerful forces in conservative and status-conscious Rome, defined the <i>paterfamilias' </i>role and delimited his power. In those cases where that was not enough, the Emperor might step in to restore right order. Hadrian, who ruled from 117-138, banished a father who had killed his son. Although the son's crime was great -- he had committed adultery with his stepmother -- Hadrian ruled against the murderous patriarch, declaring "<i>patria potestas in pietate debet non in atrocitate consistere"</i> (a father's power must rest in <i>pietas</i>, not cruelty).<br />
<br />
This same beneficence was expected of the one entrusted with the absolute power of the <i>toga purpura</i>. Writing to Nero in the winter of 55 CE, <a href="http://thriceholy.net/Texts/Mercy.html" target="_blank">Seneca the Younger explained</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>To "the Father of his Country" we have given the name in order that he way know that he has been entrusted with a father's power, which is most forbearing in its care for the interests of his children and subordinates his own to theirs. Slow would a father be to sever his own flesh and blood; aye, after severing he would yearn to restore them, and while severing he would moan aloud, hesitating often and long; for he comes near to condemning gladly who condemns swiftly, and to punishing unjustly who punishes unduly. </i></blockquote>
Given Roman history Seneca's advice might seem a bit idealistic. (It certainly appears to have had little impact on Nero's behavior). But it was rooted not in wooly-headed lovingkindness but in shrewd political calculation. Seneca saw <i>clementia</i> as a tool which a ruler used to mollify one's enemies and ensure the love and loyalty of one's subjects. As <a href="http://krasskova.weebly.com/blog.html" target="_blank">Galina Krasskova</a> notes in a currently unpublished paper entitled "The Paradoxical Ambivalence of Giving: Seneca and the Virtue of Clemency," <i>clementia </i>incurs an obligation in its recipient. <blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Ultimately</i>, clementia <i>is something of a situational virtue. As an oblique form of gift giving it may, at times, have been an uncomfortable trait for Romans, particularly the Roman elite. At the same time, it was not necessarily a negative one. Gift-giving, the exchange of items and/or favors, inevitably carries with it certain tensions. It is an ambivalent exchange. As a means of navigating social hierarchy, the cycle of exchange was also a means whereby “face” might be gained or lost. As such,</i> clementia, <i>an aspect of gift-giving intimately connected to </i>imperium <i>was dangerous virtue, an ambivalent trait, fraught with the potential for abuse.</i></blockquote>
Although the word "pity" derives from <i>pietas, </i>its closest Latin cognate would be <i>misericordia</i>. Most often translated into English as "pity," "mercy," or "compassion" <i>misericordia</i> comes from <i>miser</i> (wretched) + <i>cor</i> (heart) and describes an empathic sharing in the sufferings of the afflicted. From its earliest days Christianity has held <i>misericordia</i> in high esteem. <i>Notre Dame della Misericordia</i> (Our Lady of Mercy) is one of the Virgin Mary's most popular praise names. <a href="http://www.gsc.ac.nz/resources/PBRF/Ryan%20NRO1%20Aquinas%20on%20Compassion.pdf" target="_blank">Fr. Thomas Ryan</a> has noted that for St. Thomas Aquinas:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
<i>[C]ompassion reveals the other-oriented and inter-personal character of human existence. Its necessary condition is a healthy love of self. In that sense it is, with shame, a 'defining' emotion and a virtue. The worth of the 'other' as a person is revealed through an affectively resonant responsiveness to them. Second, compassion as To be sad at another's gifts and success or to take pleasure in another's plight indicates defective self-esteem. One's moral character is flawed. Finally, Aquinas sees any deeper realization of compassion in the context of friendship and devoted love through identification with the plight of the other... The divine image made for creative self-direction is gradually realized through responsiveness to others and to God.</i></blockquote>
<br />
By contrast, Stoics like Seneca saw <i>misericordia </i>as a dangerous flaw, especially in a ruler. <i>Clementia </i>was based in logic and reason. It was extended to those who deserved mercy when upholding the letter of the law would violate its spirit. It was offered to the vanquished when they no longer posed a threat to the Empire. It stayed the Emperor's hand when punishment would serve no purpose. Krasskova points out how Seneca compares Nero to a surgeon and says "if there is ever a need to let blood, you should restrain the blade to stop it cutting more deeply than necessary." By contrast, he says<br />
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<i>[U]nder the guise of strictness we fall into cruelty, under the guise of mercy into pity. </i>(per speciem enim severitatis in crudelitatem incidimus, per speciem clementiae in misericordiam). <i>In the latter case a lighter risk is involved, it is true, but the error is equal in both, since in both we fall short of what is right. Consequently, just as religion does honor to the gods, while superstition wrongs them, so good men will all display mercy and gentleness, but pity they will avoid; for it is the failing of a weak nature that succumbs to the sight of others' ills. And so it is most often seen in the poorest types of persons; there are old women and wretched females who are moved by the tears of the worst criminals, who, if they could, would break open their prison. Pity regards the plight, not the cause of it; mercy is combined with reason. </i></blockquote>
An emperor who acts out of <i>misericordia </i>extends an olive branch or grants a pardon without first considering the consequences. Although his acts may seem laudable they are rooted in selfishness. Feeling the pangs of sorrow at some wretch's plight, he seeks to eradicate that pain. The prisoner in chains is freed to return to his brigandry; the siege is lifted and the enemy left to regain strength; hospitality is extended to strangers at the expense of friends and the needy are succored while the worthy are ignored. <div class="blogger-post-footer">From the Kenaz Filan Blog
http://kenazfilan.blogspot.com</div>Kenaz Filanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06083915907861140328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3225369467879724873.post-25148383734586686292014-04-24T21:40:00.000-04:002014-04-24T21:53:54.477-04:00Impietas I: Pietas<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>In the tale of Verginia, an assault upon a woman’s chastity exemplifies the threat of a corrupt government to Rome’s traditional sense of honor and hard-won freedom. The central Roman virtue of <b>pietas</b>, and by extension the regard for law and order, respect for a father’s rights, the insistence on honor and liberty even at the cost of death, and the suppression of personal desires in order to promote the public good, are all in evidence of the actions of the story’s noble characters. Conversely, Livy displays Appius Claudius as the epitome of immorality: he is lust-driven, power-mad, and lacks <b>pietas</b>. </i></blockquote>
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Jennifer Hutchinson, "<a href="http://www.classics.ucsb.edu/projects/helicon/pdfs/articles/1003.pdf" target="_blank">Livy, Virgil, and the Traditional Values of Rome</a>"</blockquote>
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<i>From our human experience and history, at least as far as I am informed, I know that everything essential and great has only emerged when human beings had a home and were rooted in a tradition... Only a god can still save us. I think the only possibility of salvation left to us is to prepare readiness, through thinking and poetry, for the appearance of the god or for the absence of the god during the decline; so that we do not, simply put, die meaningless deaths, but that when we decline, we decline in the face of the absent god. </i></blockquote>
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Martin Heidegger, <a href="http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~other1/Heidegger%20Der%20Spiegel.pdf" target="_blank"><i>Der Spiegel </i>Interview</a>, 1966</blockquote>
Today "pious" is most frequently used as an insult: to be pious is to be a repressed bluestocking who equates fun with sin. "Pieties" are sanctimonious finger-wagging condemnations of someone else's lifestyle, or meaningless pablum offered in response to difficult questions. At best piety is a matter of personal belief, of spending the appropriate amount of time in prayer, meditation and Godly contemplation. It's a virtue connected entirely to the spiritual world, one which has little relevance in our daily lives on this material plane. </div>
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Yet to the Romans <i>pietas</i>, the root of our "piety" and "pity," <i> </i>was foremost among the social virtues. Among the multiple definitions given in the <a href="http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/143641?rskey=osL3n8&result=1&isAdvanced=false#eid" style="text-align: right;" target="_blank">Oxford English Dictionary</a>, "faithfulness to the duties naturally owed to one's relatives, superiors, etc.; affectionate loyalty and respect, esp. to parents; faithfulness, dutifulness" comes closest to <i>pietas</i>. Over the centuries this usage has drifted out of fashion. By the 19th century, English translators of Confucius could only convey this meaning by the term "filial piety"-- a phrase which would have been as redundant to the Romans as "brotherly brotherhood." </div>
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<i>Pietas </i>called for a right relationship with one's family and with one's community. In fulfilling those responsibilities, one would be in right relationship with the Gods. Because the Gods were the keepers of the traditions which made your community a community. Honoring the ancestors and your fellows, "taking pity" on those in need and offering them the help due to a brother, fulfilling your responsibilities -- all those things were ways in which you ensured those traditions would continue.</div>
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<i>Pietas </i>was a religious virtue, yes. But it was a religious virtue which called adherents to action, not contemplation. In the ancient world praxis was more important than belief. It didn't matter whether or not you believed in the Gods. Indeed, the idea the Gods <i>needed </i>our individual attention was somewhere between blasphemous and simply laughable. What mattered was that you behaved respectfully toward Them. Those who defiled Their temples and profaned Their rites attacked the axle around which your identity revolved.</div>
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Wars, migrations and trade brought Gods to new lands. Sometimes They became part of the local pantheon; sometimes They subsumed it entirely; sometimes They drew the boundaries within which a minority community could form. But throughout that world it was implicitly understood that the desecration of sacred space was a serious violation. Guests were expected to treat your Gods respectfully in your land and you in theirs. </div>
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Above all, those entrusted with the service of your Gods were expected to observe the holy laws and rituals. Priests who betrayed this trust put the community at tremendous risk. The ancients believed their blasphemies might be punished with war, famine, or other spectacular sorts of divine retribution. But they also realized the greatest danger of <i>impietas</i> -- the community's decay and ultimate destruction. </div>
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<a href="http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/364/1528/2381.full" target="_blank">We are animals who learn by mimicry: we take on the mannerisms and attitudes of those around us</a>. Not only are we what we eat, we are who we break bread with. And if we entrust our Gods and our traditions to those who take them lightly, in time we will come to take them lightly as well. They will become a trivial thing, nothing that will sustain us in times of trial or provide us models by which we can give our lives meaning. We will forget Them and They will forget us. And in that process we will forget ourselves.</div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">From the Kenaz Filan Blog
http://kenazfilan.blogspot.com</div>Kenaz Filanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06083915907861140328noreply@blogger.com0