Merkabah
- Thread starter Skarekrow
- Start date
NO MORE RESISTANCE:
Allowing the best of life involves nothing more than becoming aware of your resistance to it.
Shine the light of awareness on your resistance and that resistance dissolves into nothing.
Allow life’s richness to be and it flows freely into your experience.
See your pain and frustration for the resistance that they are and suddenly they are no more.
If you focus on the concerns of your ego, the resistance builds up.
Realize that you are not your ego and suddenly the resistance has no basis.
Resisting the limitless abundance of life is your own choice.
As soon as you understand you’ve made that choice, you can quickly let it go.
Imagine what will happen when you simply stop judging, criticizing and resenting yourself and others.
You open yourself to a whole new world of beautiful possibilities.
Shine the light of awareness on your resistance and that resistance dissolves into nothing.
Allow life’s richness to be and it flows freely into your experience.
See your pain and frustration for the resistance that they are and suddenly they are no more.
If you focus on the concerns of your ego, the resistance builds up.
Realize that you are not your ego and suddenly the resistance has no basis.
Resisting the limitless abundance of life is your own choice.
As soon as you understand you’ve made that choice, you can quickly let it go.
Imagine what will happen when you simply stop judging, criticizing and resenting yourself and others.
You open yourself to a whole new world of beautiful possibilities.
My motherinlaw has alzheimer's and is in the final stages where her body is 'forgeting' how to do it's daily tasks to live. I saw her go from being meek and mild (on the outside) to aggressive and mean on the outside. She was generally sweet and kind hearted before the disease took over. She's been living in assisted living facility in FL since 2007 where her daughter lives.
She was an introvert and loved the land. All she ever wanted to do her whole life was work with plants and have a pet or two. She had the disease many years before we knew it because she lived alone on our 40 acres. She loved going for walks and find wild plants of interest to her she could dig up and transplant to her home. She slid down into alzheimer's quickly the day hurricane rita hit. She went for a walk while we were gone trying to get our friends into their home - and did not return. We searched until curfew and had to wait until the next day before we finally tracked her down. She had been picked up by a complete stranger and taken to the sherriff's office. They then took her to the high school gym shelter. Then somebody took her to the Catholic church shelter. They almost took her to Waco - a 4 hour drive away - but someone thought to drop her off at the hospital emergency room. There we found her! When I walked in to the waiting area where she was being kept - she was sitting on a bench swinging her legs back and forth as if she was a little girl. I walked up to her and immediately recognized her state of mind....so I nonchalantly asked her: "Y....whatcha doing?" She looked straight at me - smiled - and said very truthfully "Havin' an adventure!". Hahahahahaha.....holy shit....what do you say to that?
I think if they were allowed to live out their lives in nature without western medicine interference - like mind control drugs and feeding them huge amounts of high calorie foods - they would probably live without being aggressive. They'd die sooner - for sure - but that would be in keeping with a more holistic perspective - would it not?
Like everyone else in our culture - if you can't fit in to their system of boxes - then they force you. I see it all the time with special needs children. I see anti psychotic drugs showing up in some strange situations. Well...you know what I mean. You see it too.
My motherinlaw was perfectly happy digging in the dirt and talking to her plants. She wasn't taking care of the dogs - though - and we had to intervene there. I just wonder what would have happened to her if she had been allowed to live out her days in the country. You know....a natural life.
What a wonderful thought…I think you are probably correct in thinking that she would have been happier without the intervention of western medicine. Of course I don’t believe that all western medicine is bad or will prolong suffering…but there are for sure instances where it does! But that is what people want…they want to live longer even if they are constantly suffering…because people either don’t know how awful it could be, or the family decides for them for selfish reasons. This is why most Docotrs when faced with a terminal disease will NOT go through each and ever life saving measure out there…because they know their quality of life vs time remaining isn’t stretchable in most situations.
They would rather forego chemo if they have been given 6 months to live…and chemo (if it doesn’t kill you) may stretch it for another few months…but there is no guarantee.
But people don’t know the suffering they are bringing on themselves and their loved ones….I’m not saying to give up if you get cancer….but I am saying that you shouldn’t if you are past a certain point.
Of course that is maybe the most personal choice someone could make.
ASCEND ACADEMY: WAY OF THE SENTINEL PT. 1
The planet we live on is a living organism.
The trees are it’s lungs, the streams are it’s veins, and whether we realize it or not, our bodies are apart of a shared field of consciousness that contains all the native beings who reside here.
The physical Earth and it’s biosphere are the body or feminine aspect of this field of consciousness.
All of our collective consciousness is linked through this grid.
We are one with the Earth just as we are one with the Universe.
In the Way of the Sentinel, we seek to explore and strengthen this connection with the Earth, so we may use it as a spiritual foundation to continue growing towards a more universal understanding.
The Sentinel is the Light Warrior, the being who has the knowledge and courage to ground themselves, protect themselves, and maintain their energetic state so that they may always expand in consciousness in a balanced manner.
They understand that others are extensions of themselves, as we are one with the Earth, and thus seek to ground, protect, and maintain their fellow Souls as well.
This role seeks to take a direct approach in dealing with the so called negative thought forms, psychic attacks, and offensive spiritual forces that usually originate in the human mind.
A Sentinel’s goal is to be in constant homeostasis and harmony with the environment on all levels of consciousness.
We achieve this by establishing an energetic symbiosis with the Earth, recognizing it as the Sentinel of all of it’s life forms, through it’s abundance of resources, a fairly hospitable atmosphere, and (although unnoticed) unconditional love.
Watch this quick video by Rob Bell to give you a sense of what I mean.
We begin to act as extensions of this unconditional love through the methods provided in the Way of the Sentinel. By doing this, we also gain access to energetic abundance, constant subtle body regulation and healing, and an incredible sense of connection with life.
Let’s begin this process of conscious rebirth with the Sentinel Oath:
“I pledge to maintain, protect, and nurture the Collective Consciousness for the greater good of all. I pledge to use these spiritual methods to act on behalf of the whole Earth and for it’s benefit. I allow the life force energy that connects me to all that is to flow through me unobstructed by doubt, fear, hate, anger, or sadness. I pledge to be a Sentinel of Souls.”
The trees are it’s lungs, the streams are it’s veins, and whether we realize it or not, our bodies are apart of a shared field of consciousness that contains all the native beings who reside here.
The physical Earth and it’s biosphere are the body or feminine aspect of this field of consciousness.
All of our collective consciousness is linked through this grid.
We are one with the Earth just as we are one with the Universe.
In the Way of the Sentinel, we seek to explore and strengthen this connection with the Earth, so we may use it as a spiritual foundation to continue growing towards a more universal understanding.
The Sentinel is the Light Warrior, the being who has the knowledge and courage to ground themselves, protect themselves, and maintain their energetic state so that they may always expand in consciousness in a balanced manner.
They understand that others are extensions of themselves, as we are one with the Earth, and thus seek to ground, protect, and maintain their fellow Souls as well.
This role seeks to take a direct approach in dealing with the so called negative thought forms, psychic attacks, and offensive spiritual forces that usually originate in the human mind.
A Sentinel’s goal is to be in constant homeostasis and harmony with the environment on all levels of consciousness.
We achieve this by establishing an energetic symbiosis with the Earth, recognizing it as the Sentinel of all of it’s life forms, through it’s abundance of resources, a fairly hospitable atmosphere, and (although unnoticed) unconditional love.
Watch this quick video by Rob Bell to give you a sense of what I mean.
We begin to act as extensions of this unconditional love through the methods provided in the Way of the Sentinel. By doing this, we also gain access to energetic abundance, constant subtle body regulation and healing, and an incredible sense of connection with life.
Let’s begin this process of conscious rebirth with the Sentinel Oath:
“I pledge to maintain, protect, and nurture the Collective Consciousness for the greater good of all. I pledge to use these spiritual methods to act on behalf of the whole Earth and for it’s benefit. I allow the life force energy that connects me to all that is to flow through me unobstructed by doubt, fear, hate, anger, or sadness. I pledge to be a Sentinel of Souls.”
From now on, you are apart of a sacred non-secretive order of light workers who wishes to raise the consciousness of the planet.
Physical meeting is irrelevant, we can all do our collaborative work here even at a distance.
Our souls recognize and know each other intimately, and we all came here with the same missions in mind.
We will collaborate with those who we are meant to, and our lives will unfold in a way that will allow us to come together in the most positive manner, as we’ve already decided on creating this.
If you wish to learn more from me personally or coordinate with me on developing and implementing these methods even further, I will give my information at the bottom of the article, as I do with all of them.
I suggest you obtain a journal that you can set aside to copy down these techniques and record your progress with these skills, as reflecting on what you’ve experienced will help you understand what to change and how to expand beyond what you currently know.
Let’s call it a Way Journal.
I also suggest before beginning these techniques that you have a background of at least 10 hours of meditation.
This will help you grasp the visualization components much easier.
Grounding
The first school of techniques we learn as a Sentinel is the process of initiating the symbiotic relationship with the Earth.
To do this, we energetically anchor, root, or link ourselves to the core consciousness of the planet through meditation.
These 3 techniques can be used in other contexts which will be talked about later on, but for now let’s focus on connecting with the Earth.
Root Grounding
While sitting in meditation under a tree or in a chair, imagine you yourself are slowly turning into a tree.
Feel every aspect of this and focus on your arms and body turning into branches and a trunk.
Focus on your legs and feet turning into roots and visualize them sinking into the ground.
Feel and see these roots extending beyond the Earth’s crust and deep down into the core.
Imagine there is a warm, loving sphere of Light radiating here; this is the spirit of the Earth, what many call Gaia.
Allow your roots to sink into this space, feel the compassion, love and pure nurturing energy willingly embrace you.
Know and feel that the Earth loves you unconditionally and wants to supply you with all the energy you need.
Feel as this abundant energy travels up through your roots, flooding your being with light. Inhale deeply through your nose and exhale deeply through your mouth for a couple minutes throughout this visualizing process and slowly move your awareness back into your body.
This connection between you and the Earth can never be broken by any external force.
Anchor Grounding
Imagine your spine as a column of light.
Visualize an anchor of light forming at the base of your spine.
You can plunge this anchor into the center of the Earth, or you can do this entirely in your mind space, visualizing an ocean to represent your subconscious mind and this grounding to be the connection to a deeper level of awareness.
It can also be applied to any source of energy, belief structure, or thought form representing stability.
Chord Grounding
Using two fingers, place your hand on a chakra you wish to stabilize or supply energy to, and imagine an infinitely flexible and strong thread of white light being pulled out from it. Place your two fingers on a crystal you wish to ground to, visualizing the end of the thread sinking in and connecting with the energy of the crystal.
Make sure you use a crystal that resonates with that chakra and that it is cleansed/ cleared thoroughly before you attempt this.
Now to raise your rank in Grounding, simply perform the technique and record them in your Way Journal for further reflection.
Be sure to give a full detailed account of what you visualized, what you felt, heard, saw, etc.
This allows you to reflect on what you did and how you can improve or change it next time.
Also feel free to share these with me and maybe I’ll give you tips on how to improve.
Each rank will be reached as follows:
Apprentice: Ground 7 times and record.
Adept: Ground 20 times and record.
Master: Ground 30 times, 10 of which are a unique method created by you, then record.
There are many unknown ways that Grounding may be able to be applied, so use your imagination and attempt different things.
I don’t suggest grounding to foreign objects you know nothing about though, as you are intimately linking your energy body through this process.
Be careful with your experimentation of this skill, and feel free to go at your own pace as this is your personal journey.
A word of warning, don’t let the rank of Master get to your head.
These are all arbitrary ways to get you to practice these skills so you can learn even more from them.
They allow the ego to positively participate in progress by giving it the label and feeling of accomplishment it desires.
We also come to a deeper understanding that as Souls, we are beyond the concept of rank.
As a Master, you are not finished in your growth, but rather reaching a vibration of self reliance in which you no longer need any external instruction to keep moving.
You are also not better than anyone else, just at a different vibration on your personal pilgrimage back home.
Shielding
Shields are emotional, mental, and spiritual barriers that are quite effective against all forms of psychic attacks, negative atmospheres or offensive thought forms.
They allow you a sacred personal space by only inviting positive vibration into your environment while simultaneously protecting against all spiritual adversity.
Pulse
Begin by holding a certain positive emotion within yourself.
Whether that’s love, bliss, joy, compassion, happiness, power, or truth, allow it to well up inside your body.
Cause it to arise with the thought of someone or something that makes you feel that positive emotion, or simply choose how you wish to feel in this moment.
Allow yourself to visualize the feeling of this emotion as a glowing ball in your solar plexus (if its a shield for yourself) or in the heart chakra (if it’s for others).
Inhale and imagine this glowing orb expanding, slowly filling with more energy.
Do this for 2-5 breaths.
Once you feel it has expanded enough within you, inhale and use your will to immediately condense all this energy into a tiny singularity, spring loaded with force.
Finally, release the spring load and exhale all of this into the surrounding environment as you visualize this luminescent energy cascading from your body in all directions.
Programming
This energy that now permeates your astral environment or Focus 2 field is still in a raw state, so it must be molded by your intention.
Once again visualize this energy arranging itself into a more “solid” shape.
Begin with the Sphere or Egg, as they are easiest to grasp and work well with most people.
Later on you can begin experimenting with the shape to see what works better for you.
The platonic solids will always yield some sort of elemental result, and those who have more affinity towards certain elements will find they feel safer with the corresponding shield shape.
From this point on, since this is designed in the thought realm, it all depends on your own elemental associations.
If you feel that a cube shaped shield will help you feel powerful and be more grounded because it’s Earth, then it will be that for you.
If you feel that an octahedron shield will help you have a clear mind because it is the element of Air, it will also hold that association strongly.
Eventually you won’t have to rely on the shape to instil a belief in the shield.
Speak or think towards the shield as if it was a person.
Tell it that it’s role is to protect from all negativity and only promote more harmonious vibrations.
This action on a spiritual level is giving it more presence in your consciousness as a reality while giving it more sentience to be responsive to your intention.
It becomes the vessel of your thoughts and beliefs, almost like it’s own personality, but still an aspect of you.
If you’re beginning to accept the concepts I’ve been presenting thus far in the series it may be easier to understand how strong beliefs are.
Beliefs are like lines of code for the program of reality.
With this technique you are manually changing the code in your reality by introducing a new sequence of vibration.
The truth is you’ve always had this freedom to create.
You’ve only just decided now to start consciously applying it.
Solidifying
Finally, imagine the barrier crystallizing or turning into an unbreakable ice around you.
If you feel it should have a different material association then experiment on your own with it.
Make sure to instil the belief that it simply cannot be broken and that it will stay in that state for however long you wish.
Be clear whether you want it be around your field constantly moving with you or if you want it to be stationary attached to a location.
The best way to make sure of this is by using the chord grounding technique with the shield and either connecting it to a crystal that resonates with it’s energy or a person’s heart chakra.
After all of this, try to occasionally visualize it throughout the day surrounding the space you created.
This will feed it more mental energy and get the thought pattern perpetuating into a more self sustaining structure.
The ranking progression for Shielding goes like this:
Apprentice: Shield with a sphere or egg 7 times, then record.
Adept: Shield with at least 2 Different Platonic structures 10 times each, then record.
Master: Shield with at least 5 Different structures 7 times each (one set of unique programming), then record.
Clearing
This technique applies the concepts of astral gravity and torsion in order to filter out negative vibrations, thoughts, or spiritual forces from any environment; mental, emotional, or physical.
Filtering
Begin with a deep breath.
Imagine an orb of white light surrounding the chakra, person, animal, plant, or space you intend to clear.
Visualize it filling up with white light imbued with pure prana or life energy from the surrounding area or being poured in from above.
Imagine it shining brilliantly in your mind, feel as it purifies all it touches and surrounds.
Spin the orb and imagine it’s astral g force causing all negativity and dense vibrations to fly out, filtering the affected space.
Polarizing
Imagine a black hole type portal opening below you and all the negativity being visualized as a smoke (or whatever you want) being sucked into the ground.
Believe that no negative vibration will be able to resist it’s pull and intend that it will all be sent into the Earth through this portal to be properly purified and transmuted into positive energy.
Finally, visualize the portal completely closing and returning the environment back to normal.
Remember, the trick is to have strong faith that this is all happening as you intend it to.
This is what creates the astral phenomena, and you will begin to feel it’s effects as a result.
The Clearing rank progression will follow a similar pattern to the earlier skills:
Apprentice: Clear 7 times, then record.
Adept: Clear 20 times, then record.
Master: Clear 25 times, 10 of which are a unique method created by you, then record.
This knowledge is proving to take some time to properly articulate without creating a tome in the process, so stay tuned for part 2 of Way of the Sentinel for the rest of the skills!
I will also be releasing videos to better explain these techniques, their methods, and their various uses.
I have not made a YouTube account yet, but very soon all of this will be put into place.
Scientists Demonstrate Remarkable Evidence Of Dream Telepathy Between People
Dream telepathy suggests that human beings have the ability to communicate telepathically with another person while they are dreaming.
This isn’t a new concept, scientific interest in telepathy dates back to the fathers of the psychoanalytic movement.
Freud, for example, considered telepathy and the implications of it with regards to psychoanalytic thought.
He also considered dream telepathy, or the telepathic influence of thought on dreaming on multiple occasions.
Carl Jung believed in the telepathic hypothesis without question, and even developed a theoretical system to explain “paranormal” events of this nature. (2)
All great minds seem to encourage the study of various types of non-physical phenomena.
“The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence.” - Nikola Tesla
“A wealth of anecdotal and clinical material exist which supports the possibility of telepathic effects occurring in dreams (Krippner, 1974).
However, an experimental approach to the topic did not become possible until psycho-physiological laboratory technology became available.
It was discovered that sleeping research participants awakened from periods of rapid eye movement (REM) activity were frequently able to recall dream episodes.
As a result, it was possible to request a “telepathic receiver” to attempt dreaming about a target stimulus that was being focused on in a distant location from a telepathic sender.” (source)
Experiments and Results
In the mid 1960′s, Montague Ullman, MD, began a number of experiments at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York to test the hypothesis that sleeping people could dream about randomly selected material that they were targeting to dream about.
In other words, they could choose what they wanted to dream about, some examples include artwork, movies, photographs and more.
Shortly after these experiments began, she was joined by Stanley Krippner. Krippner is a PhD., and professor of psychology at Saybrook University, he has a very impressive background when it comes to the scientific study of dreams, psychology and parapsychology.
The experiments they conducted lasted a span of more than 10 years, and “yielded statistically significant results.”
During the experiments, there was usually a “telepathic sender” and a “telepathic receiver.”
They met in the laboratory for a short period of time before being placed in completely separate rooms just before they went to sleep.
The “telepathic” sender had an envelope waiting for them in the room in which they’d sleep.
The envelope would contain something like a picture or a drawing.
The “receivers” were then purposely awakened shortly after Rapid Eye Movement sleep (REM) and the researchers took a dream report.
A Very Significant Session
One very memorable and significant session of dream telepathy experimentation took place where the selected art print was “School of Dance” by Degas, which depicted a dance class of several young women.
According to Krippner, the “receivers” dream reports included such phrases as “I was in a class made up of maybe half a dozen people, it felt like a school,” and “There was one little girl that was trying to dance with me.”
These results are extremely fascinating, the idea that one can influence another’s dream is quite remarkable.
Although we might not understand the process behind the transfer of information, and we can’t see this transfer take place from mind to mind, the phenomenon was well documented and real, yet void of any scientific understanding or explanation.
This is quite common when we examine scientific studies that have evaluated parapsychological phenomena.
It’s real, observed, yet we don’t quite understand ‘how.’
Another significant session conducted by Krippner and Ullman took place on March 15th 1970.
In this session, a large group of people at a Holy Modal Rounders rock concert were selected as the “telepathic senders.”
A local media artist by the name of Jean Millay took responsibility to ready the “telepathic senders” for “target preparation.”
She did this with help from the Lidd Light Company, a group of artists that were responsible for the light show at the concert.
Millay gave the audience a brief verbal set of directions before the image was flashed on the large screen that the “telepathic” senders were looking at.
Six slide projectors were used to project a color film about eagles and their nesting habits as well as information about various birds from around the world, including information about the mythological Phoenix.
This all happened at the same time Holy Modal Rounders were playing their song, “If you want to be a bird.”
There were five volunteer “telepathic receivers” for this experiment, and they were all located within a one hundred mile radius from the “telepathic senders.”
All of the receivers were aware of the concert location and were told to record their images at midnight because that was when the material to be sent by the senders would be exposed to them.
“One “telepathic receiver,” Helen Andrews, had the impression of “something mythological, like a griffin or a phoenix.”
The second, third and fourth research participants reported images of “a snake,” “grapes,” and “an embryo in flames.”
The fifth participant was Richie Havens, the celebrated American singer and recording artist, who reported closing his eyes at midnight and visualizing “a number of seagulls flying over water.”
Both Mr. Havens and Ms. Andrews reports represented direct correspondences with the target material.”(source)
More remarkable results were seen when the rock group “Grateful Dead” also volunteered to participate in a dream telepathy session over a span of six nights.
You can read more about that (and other results) here.
These results were actually published by the American Psychological Association
(1)These are usually the instructions given to the subjects that participate in these experiments.
1. You are about to participate in an ESP experiment.
2. In a few seconds you will see a picture.
3. Try using your ESP to “send” this picture to the receiver.
4. The receiver will try to dream about this picture. Try to “Send” it to them.
5. Then, receivers will be made aware of the senders location
Possible Explanations?
Quantum physics has shed light on the vast interconnectedness of everything in the universe.
One possible explanation is quantum entanglement.
For example, two electrons that are created together, if you send one to the other side of the universe, the other will respond instantly, distance doesn’t matter.
This is one way of interpreting how everything is really connected in some way.
Einstein called it “spooky actions at a distance.”
For a great visual demonstration of this, click here.
The truth of the matter is that there is no explanation and scientists are unable to give an explanation.
They were only able to observe what was taking place, which again, is very common for parapsychological phenomenon.
At the same time, these experiments involve dreams, a completely different and altered state of “reality” that we really don’t know much about.
It’s a world separate (or at least we think) from the world in which we are “awake.”
Although the world we perceive when we are awake could just be a dream.
We could go on and on with these questions, and continue contemplating forever.
Parasychological Phenomenon Has Been Proven and Documented All Over The World
Parapsychological (PSI) phenomena, and studies examining the role of consciousness and its influence on our physical material world has been studied, documented, observed and proven (over and over again) by a number of renowned scientists in a number of laboratories all over the world.
The Department of Defense has had a huge interest in it (and have studied it) for a number of years, yet the scientific study of it is concealed from the public and left out of universities and mainstream science, which is not fair, and not right.
It’s not like we don’t have this information, some of this documentation and these publications are available in the public domain.
CE has covered these in depth, and the link below will take you where you want to go, to an article that is well sourced with lots of information.
There are more examples on our website, so if this sparks your interest feel free to browse through it and look for more!
Sources:
10 Scientific Studies That Prove Consciousness Can Alter Our Physical Material World
(1) http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1986-13291-001
(2)http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=489052
http://stanleykrippner.weebly.com/a-pilot-study-in-dream-telepathy-with-the-grateful-dead.html
http://www.neuroquantology.com/index.php/journal/article/view/385
http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/59574068/dreams-telepathy-various-states-consciousness
https://www.google.ca/#q=Dreams,+Te...iousness+Stanley+Krippner+and+Cheryl+Fracasso
Dream telepathy suggests that human beings have the ability to communicate telepathically with another person while they are dreaming.
This isn’t a new concept, scientific interest in telepathy dates back to the fathers of the psychoanalytic movement.
Freud, for example, considered telepathy and the implications of it with regards to psychoanalytic thought.
He also considered dream telepathy, or the telepathic influence of thought on dreaming on multiple occasions.
Carl Jung believed in the telepathic hypothesis without question, and even developed a theoretical system to explain “paranormal” events of this nature. (2)
All great minds seem to encourage the study of various types of non-physical phenomena.
“The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence.” - Nikola Tesla
However, an experimental approach to the topic did not become possible until psycho-physiological laboratory technology became available.
It was discovered that sleeping research participants awakened from periods of rapid eye movement (REM) activity were frequently able to recall dream episodes.
As a result, it was possible to request a “telepathic receiver” to attempt dreaming about a target stimulus that was being focused on in a distant location from a telepathic sender.” (source)
Experiments and Results
In the mid 1960′s, Montague Ullman, MD, began a number of experiments at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York to test the hypothesis that sleeping people could dream about randomly selected material that they were targeting to dream about.
In other words, they could choose what they wanted to dream about, some examples include artwork, movies, photographs and more.
Shortly after these experiments began, she was joined by Stanley Krippner. Krippner is a PhD., and professor of psychology at Saybrook University, he has a very impressive background when it comes to the scientific study of dreams, psychology and parapsychology.
The experiments they conducted lasted a span of more than 10 years, and “yielded statistically significant results.”
During the experiments, there was usually a “telepathic sender” and a “telepathic receiver.”
They met in the laboratory for a short period of time before being placed in completely separate rooms just before they went to sleep.
The “telepathic” sender had an envelope waiting for them in the room in which they’d sleep.
The envelope would contain something like a picture or a drawing.
The “receivers” were then purposely awakened shortly after Rapid Eye Movement sleep (REM) and the researchers took a dream report.
A Very Significant Session
One very memorable and significant session of dream telepathy experimentation took place where the selected art print was “School of Dance” by Degas, which depicted a dance class of several young women.
According to Krippner, the “receivers” dream reports included such phrases as “I was in a class made up of maybe half a dozen people, it felt like a school,” and “There was one little girl that was trying to dance with me.”
These results are extremely fascinating, the idea that one can influence another’s dream is quite remarkable.
Although we might not understand the process behind the transfer of information, and we can’t see this transfer take place from mind to mind, the phenomenon was well documented and real, yet void of any scientific understanding or explanation.
This is quite common when we examine scientific studies that have evaluated parapsychological phenomena.
It’s real, observed, yet we don’t quite understand ‘how.’
Another significant session conducted by Krippner and Ullman took place on March 15th 1970.
In this session, a large group of people at a Holy Modal Rounders rock concert were selected as the “telepathic senders.”
A local media artist by the name of Jean Millay took responsibility to ready the “telepathic senders” for “target preparation.”
She did this with help from the Lidd Light Company, a group of artists that were responsible for the light show at the concert.
Millay gave the audience a brief verbal set of directions before the image was flashed on the large screen that the “telepathic” senders were looking at.
Six slide projectors were used to project a color film about eagles and their nesting habits as well as information about various birds from around the world, including information about the mythological Phoenix.
This all happened at the same time Holy Modal Rounders were playing their song, “If you want to be a bird.”
There were five volunteer “telepathic receivers” for this experiment, and they were all located within a one hundred mile radius from the “telepathic senders.”
All of the receivers were aware of the concert location and were told to record their images at midnight because that was when the material to be sent by the senders would be exposed to them.
“One “telepathic receiver,” Helen Andrews, had the impression of “something mythological, like a griffin or a phoenix.”
The second, third and fourth research participants reported images of “a snake,” “grapes,” and “an embryo in flames.”
The fifth participant was Richie Havens, the celebrated American singer and recording artist, who reported closing his eyes at midnight and visualizing “a number of seagulls flying over water.”
Both Mr. Havens and Ms. Andrews reports represented direct correspondences with the target material.”(source)
More remarkable results were seen when the rock group “Grateful Dead” also volunteered to participate in a dream telepathy session over a span of six nights.
You can read more about that (and other results) here.
These results were actually published by the American Psychological Association
(1)These are usually the instructions given to the subjects that participate in these experiments.
1. You are about to participate in an ESP experiment.
2. In a few seconds you will see a picture.
3. Try using your ESP to “send” this picture to the receiver.
4. The receiver will try to dream about this picture. Try to “Send” it to them.
5. Then, receivers will be made aware of the senders location
Possible Explanations?
Quantum physics has shed light on the vast interconnectedness of everything in the universe.
One possible explanation is quantum entanglement.
For example, two electrons that are created together, if you send one to the other side of the universe, the other will respond instantly, distance doesn’t matter.
This is one way of interpreting how everything is really connected in some way.
Einstein called it “spooky actions at a distance.”
For a great visual demonstration of this, click here.
The truth of the matter is that there is no explanation and scientists are unable to give an explanation.
They were only able to observe what was taking place, which again, is very common for parapsychological phenomenon.
At the same time, these experiments involve dreams, a completely different and altered state of “reality” that we really don’t know much about.
It’s a world separate (or at least we think) from the world in which we are “awake.”
Although the world we perceive when we are awake could just be a dream.
We could go on and on with these questions, and continue contemplating forever.
Parasychological Phenomenon Has Been Proven and Documented All Over The World
Parapsychological (PSI) phenomena, and studies examining the role of consciousness and its influence on our physical material world has been studied, documented, observed and proven (over and over again) by a number of renowned scientists in a number of laboratories all over the world.
The Department of Defense has had a huge interest in it (and have studied it) for a number of years, yet the scientific study of it is concealed from the public and left out of universities and mainstream science, which is not fair, and not right.
It’s not like we don’t have this information, some of this documentation and these publications are available in the public domain.
CE has covered these in depth, and the link below will take you where you want to go, to an article that is well sourced with lots of information.
There are more examples on our website, so if this sparks your interest feel free to browse through it and look for more!
Sources:
10 Scientific Studies That Prove Consciousness Can Alter Our Physical Material World
(1) http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1986-13291-001
(2)http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=489052
http://stanleykrippner.weebly.com/a-pilot-study-in-dream-telepathy-with-the-grateful-dead.html
http://www.neuroquantology.com/index.php/journal/article/view/385
http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/59574068/dreams-telepathy-various-states-consciousness
https://www.google.ca/#q=Dreams,+Te...iousness+Stanley+Krippner+and+Cheryl+Fracasso
If–BY RUDYARD KIPLING
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream–and not make dreams your master;
If you can think–and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings–nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And–which is more–you’ll be a Man, my son!
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream–and not make dreams your master;
If you can think–and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings–nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And–which is more–you’ll be a Man, my son!
http://darklore.dailygrail.com/index.php
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Before the advent of Google Earth, when one wanted to see what the planet looked like, or to find a certain faraway place without actually travelling to it, one would consult a map - and you’ll recall that they didn’t always fit in your phone.
We’ve made maps for millennia.
It’s an art form unto itself, and as anyone with a love for antique maps can tell you, the variation in form and artistic style is both immense and awe inspiring.
Of course, there are different kinds of maps.
From a technical perspective, there are topological and topographical maps, navigational maps, population maps, faction maps, marine maps, even wind maps.
Most are concerned with demonstrating relative locations on Earth, but people have been making maps of the stars for almost as long as they’ve been giving each other badly drawn directions to the corner store.
Celestial maps, as they’re called, offer a standardised view of constellations and individual stars, along with their relative position compared to specific points on Earth.
One of the problems with celestial maps, and actually with all maps, is the two-dimensional representation of a three-dimensional object or space.
In order to accurately plot locations and show a realistic measure of their position relative to all others, the cartographer must distort the actual shape of either the Earth or the heavens.
This, obviously, can cause some problems when one wants to clearly understand the actual relationship between two locations.
The answer?
Globes!
Globes too, are split into two categories, terrestrial and celestial.
The earliest known terrestrial globes date to ancient Greece (6th to 3rd century BCE), though no examples have survived the ravages of time.
Celestial globes may have gotten a start much later, possibly as late as 2nd century CE, as a part of the Farnese Atlas, which is a Roman replica of the classical Hellenistic sculpture of Atlas, but depicting him holding up the heavens, rather than the world.
Though, since no examples or records of celestial spheres have been found (yet) prior to this point, it’s not known when or who exactly started the trend.
Antique celestial globes are most often made out of metal, usually bronze, and are usually hollow, but are also found in marble and other sculpting mediums.
In the realm of celestial globes, also known as celestial spheres, there are some spectacular surviving examples, and among those gems are hidden one of history’s most vexing puzzles.
In the 1980s, a Smithsonian historian of science, Emilie Savage-Smith, embarked on a journey throughout the middle-east, with the purpose of finding and studying celestial spheres from antiquity.
She found a bounty of them, some of the most incredible works of cartographic art and engineering ever made by human hands.
Among those she found there were two distinct types; seamed and seamless spheres.
Seamed spheres are, or were, made by moulding two halves of the sphere separately and then soldering them together, ultimately buffing the soldered seam to make a smooth sphere.
Then artisans and astronomers would engrave the surface according to whatever specific element of the skies they wanted to depict.
Seamless spheres, however, were another thing entirely; something Emilie Savage-Smith discovered quite unexpectedly.
Up until Savage-Smith made her discovery, it was thought by virtually the entirety of the academic community and by metallurgists the world over, that all examples of hollow metal celestial spheres in existence were of the seamed type.
This was owing to the long held belief that creating seamless hollow metal spheres is impossible.
It turns out, that isn’t true.
One of the earliest examples of a seamless celestial sphere found by Savage-Smith, was found to be from a workshop in Lahore, Pakistan, though she soon found that the technique, described as ‘secret wax casting’ was widely known by metal craftsmen in Northern India from at least as early as the late 16th century and coming from the Mughal Empire.
In fact, some of the workshops identified continued to use the technique up until the 19th century.
Though it has apparently now been lost to modern manufacturing techniques.
According to some, the best surviving example of a hollow, seamless celestial sphere is one made by a Mughal metallurgical master and astronomer named Muhammad Salih Tahtawi in 1631.
The sphere, known as the celestial globe of Muhammad Salih Tahtawi, is a massive bronze globe adorned with ornate engraving in both Arabic and Persian, as well as numerous pictographic representations of celestial bodies.
Its manufacture would have been an immense undertaking, though Salih Tahtawi surely succeeded in creating a masterpiece unparalleled before or since.
The existence of the spheres, which are commonly known as Islamicate Celestial Globes, isn’t without controversy though.
Aside from the obvious resistance among modern metallurgists to the idea that these objects were created as Savage-Smith asserts, there exists a good deal of misinformation about these spheres, stemming from what appears to be a reluctance to attribute such mastery to the Muslim ruled Mughal Empire.
Several people have asserted that the existence of both Arabic and Persian language on many of the surviving examples is explained simply by the suggestion that those features were added long after the spheres were made.
Presumably implying that the spheres themselves were made by a much older culture, perhaps even in a different area of the world.
Bronze casting techniques similar to that which may have been used to create these spheres, such as lost-wax casting, originated approximately 5700 years ago in Israel, but there is no evidence thus far to substantiate such a claim.
Circumstantially, it is a well-established fact that Arab and Muslim cultures were responsible for a great many technological and scientific advances throughout the middle-ages and long before.
There seems to be no valid reason to deny that this particular innovation also came from their masters.
Unfortunately, the subject of seamless celestial spheres is little known in mainstream culture, and as such, in the few places it is discussed, the facts are often distorted or even completely made up.
There are those who would like to claim that these magnificent examples of our history are actually OOP-ART (out-of-place-artefacts), suggesting that their origin is related to either a lost pre-historic human culture or aliens.
Though as with most such arguments, there isn’t enough information at present to really dive into the discussion.
In any event, once again we are awed by the sophisticated and masterful creations of our forefathers, and once again, our steady march toward modernity has cost us the wisdom of the ages.
@muir @sprinkles @Eventhorizon @Jacobi @Lark [MENTION=6014]dudemanbro[/MENTION] and anyone else interested. Just curious as to your opinions’ on this? I find it to be a very interesting article.
Believing in Fiction
The Rise of Hyper-Real Religion by Ian ‘Cat’ Vincent
Ever since the advent of modern mass communication and the resulting wide dissemination of popular culture, the nature and practice of religious belief has undergone a considerable shift.
Especially over the last fifty years, there has been an increasing tendency for pop culture to directly figure into the manifestation of belief: the older religious faiths have either had to partly embrace, or strenuously oppose, the deepening influence of books, comics, cinema, television and pop music.
And, beyond this, new religious beliefs have arisen that happily partake of these media – even to the point of entire belief systems arising that make no claim to any historical origin.
There are new gods in the world – and and they are being born from pure fiction.
This is something that – as a lifelong fanboy of the science fiction, fantasy and horror genres and an exponent of a often pop-culturederived occultism for nearly as long – is no shock to me.
What did surprise me, however, was discovering that there is a growing area of sociological study of these beliefs... an academic realm which not only seeks to understand these developments, but also provides a useful perspective on modern belief for both the Fortean and the occult practitioner.
I first learned about this area of study from a 2007 interview on the excellent religion and pop culture focussed website Theofantastique with the Australian sociologist Dr. Adam Possamai,[SUP]1[/SUP] in which he talks about his research into what he has termed ‘hyper-real religion’.[SUP]2[/SUP]
Fascinated, I acquired his introductory text to the concept, Religion And Popular Culture: A Hyper-Real Testament[SUP]3[/SUP] and, later, the mammoth 2012 collection of research and essays on the subject which he edited, Handbook of Hyper-Real Religions.[SUP]4[/SUP]
The term ‘hyper-real’ itself draws on the work of the French postmodern theorist Jean Baudrillard. Possamai’s current definition of hyper-real religion is;
A key aspect of postmodern theory (especially poststructuralism, in which Baudrillard was a key writer) is that, in modern society, symbols have attained such importance that they have actually overtaken the things which they are symbols for.
Baudrillard emphasises this particularly in his essay Simulacra and Simulation.[SUP]6[/SUP]
Here, he draws a distinction betweenSimulation – copies of an imitation or symbol of something which actually exists – andSimulacra – copies of something that either no longer has a physical-world equivalent, or never existed in the first place.
His view was that modern society is increasingly emphasising, or even completely replacing, the simulation with the simulacra, the actual being displaced by the never-real… and that:
The novelist and philosopher Umberto Eco later put this more succinctly, saying the hyper-real is “the authentic fake”.[SUP]7
[/SUP]
Although Baudrillard did not specifically discuss religion in this context, Possamai’s use of the term fits broadly into Baudrillard’s view that modern society is especially, if you forgive my pun, symbol-minded.
The other key word in the definition given by Possamai above is “commodified”.
It is a key aspect of postmodern and poststructuralist thought (which, though it stems almost entirely from the Marxist leanings of its founders, still has a remarkably apt bearing on our current situation) that the main cultural aspect of modern society is its origin in a time period which has almost completely succumbed to the viewpoint of neo-liberal concepts around value and trade – an era usually referred to as ‘Late Capitalism’, dating from roughly the end of WWII.[SUP]8
[/SUP]
The late capitalist era is defined by the power of multi-national corporations, globalised markets and labour, increased concentration of financial speculation and (most significantly here) mass consumption.
In the late capitalist world, pretty much everything can be defined or co-opted as a commodity, as Product.[SUP]9
[/SUP]
That’s the thing about pop culture (and, of course, all cultures – a factor Possamai does not neglect): it’s bought and sold.
And it’s this easily available aspect of it, in combination with the Western World’s emphasis on individuality and choice (thoroughly reinforced by neo-liberal capitalist practices), which allows hyperreal religion to bloom.
The one aspect of postmodern thought that has thoroughly leaked into the overall modern mindset is the undermining of the Grand Narrative concept, the long-standing belief that there is One True Truth which underlies all aspects of a given society.
While this has possibly led to the ‘clash of civilisations’ strife that dominates much of the geopolitical landscape,[SUP]10[/SUP] it has also given the scope for individuals to seek their own defining narratives and faiths.
As Possamai puts it:
For some, it allows them to find new and vivid metaphors for their existing beliefs.
For others, it can give them the chance to move beyond the beliefs of their kin and tribe to find other beliefs (or, of course, to reject belief as a concept entirely).
And, most interestingly for me, it can bring some people to find or even create a whole new range of faiths, based on the stories they find within pop culture.
If there is one thing we can say with certainty about the human mind, it is that it has a core-deep hunger for narrative.
It is in stories that we have always found and transmitted our truths, probably from as far back as we have actually had language.
It is clear that, on some levels, our minds react nearly identically to a story as to that which the story is about.
Whether or not the story happens to be, for want of a better word, ‘true’, doesn’t matter for the most part.[SUP]12[/SUP]
And these days, there are so very many stories to choose from.
Bearing all this in mind, let’s look at some examples of hyper-real religion... and, especially, the particularly influential role played by the science fiction and fantasy genres.
History
After all, the telling and retelling of tales where the true origin is lost to antiquity and thus subject to untold levels of embellishment and fantasising has been a problem in the consideration of the history of all beliefs.
There is a fine line between the growth of a mythology and its outright invention – not least because all of the hyper-real beliefs have necessarily drawn on older mythologies for their mystical and philosophical approaches (for example, the Buddhist and Taoist roots of the Jedi in Star Wars, who I will return to in some depth later on).
There is also the particular case of the belief systems spawned by L. Ron Hubbard – Dianetics and especially Scientology were certainly a product of his prolific work in pulp fiction writing, as well as his liberal borrowing from the work of Aleister Crowley, which he encountered as a result of his friendship with (and/or infiltration of the branch of the Ordo Templi Orientis led by) Jack Parsons in 1940s California.[SUP]13
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However, they cannot be shown to have derived from any particular fictional work.
We can, however, establish a firm date for the first religion to be based primarily on a fictional source – one which Possamai himself cites in A Hyper-Real Testament.
The date was 7 April 1962, and the religion is The Church Of All Worlds. Founded by the American Neo-Pagan priest Oberon Zell- Ravenheart and his friends, the name and initial ritual structure of The Church Of All Worlds (CAW hereafter) derives from the practices described in Robert A. Heinlein’s novel Stranger In A Strange Land as having been brought to Earth by the adopted Martian hero, Valentine Michael Smith – specifically the ninefold structure of the Church and a bonding ritual for members based on the sharing of water.[SUP]14
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The CAW also drew heavily on Zell’s Earth-based pagan spirituality and, later, other science fiction concepts such as the Vulcan philosophy of IDIC – ‘Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combination’ – from the original Star Trek series.[SUP]15
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The CAW was formally chartered as a religion in the United States on 4 March 1968 – the first Earth-based religion, and the first hyper-real religion, to be so formally and legally recognised.
Although the CAW was officially dissolved in 2004, Zell and the CAW have continued to play an influential role in neo-paganism to this day.
It should also be noted that the entirety of the neo-pagan set of beliefs has continued to be heavily influenced by fiction.
There has always been a certain amount of mythic back-and-forth between fiction written by pagans and the practices of their faith – from the heavily neo-pagan influenced Marion Zimmer Bradley novel The Mists of Avalon (which many cite as their gateway text to the possibility of actually practicing paganism)[SUP]16[/SUP] to Brian Bates’ fictional interpretation of Celtic and Norse myth, The Way Of Wyrd,[SUP]17[/SUP] to the rise of other openly pagan authors as major writers in the modern fantasy genre.[SUP]18
[/SUP]
Another immensely influential stream of the hyper-real was opened in the 1970s by the prolific writer and occultist, Kenneth Grant (1924-2011).
Grant, who was a friend of Crowley in his twilight years and was also the sole reason the work of proto- chaos magician Austin Osman Spare (1886-1956) was not lost after Spare’s death in near-forgotten poverty, was a huge influence on modern occultism – not least because of his major role in the revival, and mystical interpretation, of the cosmic horror fiction of H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937).
In a series of books now known as the Typhonian Trilogies, beginning with The Magical Revival,[SUP]19[/SUP] Grant set out his theory that Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos stories were actually based on a genuine occult tradition, which Lovecraft had accessed subconsciously.
This is of course highly debatable… nonetheless, a resurgence of interest in Lovecraft’s work arose at the time, and the fictional lines were blurred even further with the publication of several books purporting to be the unexpurgated texts of the Cthulhu Mythos’s key (and, according to Lovecraft, entirely fictional) occult tome, The Necronomicon – including one version which was partly ghost-written by the great British philosopher of the occult, Colin Wilson (1931-2013).[SUP]20
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Lovecraft’s work and the Cthulhu Mythos are now so deeply intertwined into pop culture that they have indirectly influenced or directly led to games, films, associated novels[SUP]21[/SUP] and comic books[SUP]22[/SUP] … and a range of surprisingly adorable plushy toys.
Grant’s attitude to the adaptability of fiction as (at minimum) an inspiration for mysticism was a major influence on the school of occult practice known as chaos magic, which first appeared in the mid-1970s and has become a key influence on both the practice of applied mysticism and a great deal of modern fantasy literature (especially in the urban fantasy subgenre) that has followed.
Although Possamai does not interrogate chaos magic directly in his work, it is clearly (and usually explicitly) a postmodern magical system, and thus a thriving aspect of the hyper-real religious current.
The 1970s were a remarkably fecund time for the hyperreal religions – not least for the considerable growth in what has become known as the New Age Movement.
Possamai regards this aspect of popular mysticism as an offshoot of the Human Potential Movement, whose roots Possamai traces to the ‘sensitivity training’ of the 1940s,[SUP]23[/SUP] and which found wider acceptance in the 1960s.
Although the Human Potential Movement was at its core a secular and humanistic one, aspects of its philosophy of deliberately-directed self-improvement of humanity filtered into the stream of imported Eastern spiritual ideas in the 1960s, becoming part of a popularised ‘transcendence’ narrative.
The various forms of New Age spirituality – ranging from the less explicitly mystical forms (such as EST and biofeedback training and the positive thinking/self-help practices ranging from Neuro- Linguistic Programming to The Secret[SUP]24 25
[/SUP]
Possamai notes of the New Age adherent:
Possamai defines Presentist Perrenism further by saying that;
The New Gods
Ever since the release of the first film in 1977, the Star Wars mythos has spoken to many people as a powerful expression of the ineffable – on a metaphorical level at least, the tales of the Jedi Knights and their use of the cosmic energy of The Force has connected with literally millions.
In the original creation of the Star Wars internal mythology (an ironic side-effect of George Lucas being unable to secure the rights to a Flash Gordon reboot), Lucas drew on many aspects of Eastern religion – Buddhism, Taoism and Shinto in particular – to build the mystical system practiced by the Jedi Knights.
In a sense, this was an act of pure unadulterated cultural appropriation by a middleclass white boy from Orange County, California… but he was approaching these sources through the already assimilated New Age versions, and the resulting mix took on a life of its own.
There’s a directly appealing pull to the simplified version of Taoist dualism in his image of the Light and Dark sides of The Force…
The other key aspect of how Lucas handled his burgeoning mythos was the work of Joseph Campbell, especially his development of the Monomyth concept.[SUP]30
[/SUP] Lucas hit every beat of Campbell’s guide to tales of a mythological hero’s journey with a ruthless efficiency – and it worked supremely well.
Of his creation, Lucas later said:
Right from the start, there were an awful lot of people who simply and truly wanted to learn the ways of the Force and become a Jedi.
The rise of the internet allowed the earliest signs of this fervent wish to begin coalescing into an actual faith… but it was not until 2001 that this loose belief in The Force undertook a significant shift, both for itself and for hyper-real religion in general.
In that year the U.K., Australia, New Zealand and Canada undertook a national census, the first in which those surveyed were asked to state their religion.
In the U.K. and Australia in particular, there was an enthusiastic internet-based campaign to encourage people to claim Jedi as their religion of choice.
This was a remarkable success – 390,000 U.K. citizens and over 70,000 Australians were now, officially, members of the Jedi faith.
These figures made the Jedi faith the fourth largest in the United Kingdom – far ahead of Judaism and all of the non-Mosaic Eastern faiths, and considerably higher than the number of either Pagan or Scientology adherents.
Of course, many of those claiming Jedi as their faith probably did so for a laugh, or to make a statement on the ridiculousness of having a religious census question in the first place… but some of them meant it.
And, after receiving a substantial amount of publicity as a result, the wider public awareness of what was now becoming known as Jediism grew.[SUP] 32[/SUP]
Many online groups attempted to formalise the belief set (and, obviously, make allowances for the fact that adherents did not develop any notable Force-based superpowers).
Their statements clearly show the syncretic and perrenist aspects of the belief.
An example:
In 2005, newly elected Member of Parliament Jaimie Reed was seated as the first stated member of the Jedi in the House of Commons (although he later confessed to having done so as a joke and as a comment on a religious freedoms bill being then debated).[SUP]34
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In 2006, two Jedi delivered a protest letter to the United Nations in recognition of the International Day of Tolerance.[SUP]35[/SUP]
In 2009, it became known that eight serving police officers in Scotland’s Strathclyde force identified as Jedi.[SUP]36
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In 2010, an interesting comparison appeared between the treatment of hyper-real religions versus the more established faiths.
It began when a self-identified Jedi walked into a British Job Centre.
When asked to lower his hood, he politely refused, saying that keeping his hood raised was an article of his faith.
He was asked to leave for ‘security reasons’.
After submitting a formal complaint to the Department of Work and Pensions, he received a written apology from the branch manager.
Around the same time, a Christian nurse lost her law suit against her employers at the National Health Service for being forced to conceal her crucifix at work.[SUP]37
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Although U.K. law has specifically ruled against Jedi having the same religious entitlements as other faiths (along with Satanists, those who preach female genital mutilation and Scientologists – a delightful comparison),[SUP]38[/SUP]
in practice it is not only holding its own with orthodox religion, but can clearly on occasion be given even greater respect.
It should also be noted that the late capitalistic aspects of Jediism-as- product are considerable.
Not only the quantity of material, but the quality (replica lightsabers have come a long way in 37 years!) and sheer ease of availability of physical manifestations of the mythos are both a continual manifestation of that belief and a multi-billion dollar industry (and, as any religionist will tell you, nothing makes a belief more concrete for the faithful than having physical objects which represent it).
The upcoming resurgence of Star Wars product as a result of the sale of the franchise to the Disney Corporation – themselves an exemplar of the hyper-real in Baudrillard’s eyes[SUP]39[/SUP] – will likely lead to still further growth of Jediism.
Jediism may be the best known of the purely fictional-based beliefs, but there are many others: Matrixism (deriving from the mythos of the Matrix films) and the Na’vi mysticism of James Cameron’s film Avatar, for example.
There are also the satirical or spoof religions – Discordianism,[SUP]40[/SUP] The Church of the SubGenius, The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster etc. – whose adherents of appropriately varying sincerity have claimed their own space in culture and even law, further blurring the lines of what can be considered a ‘true faith’.
Some people have taken such hyper-real beliefs even further and hold that their very souls are a manifestation of the fictional into our realm.
These folk, who call themselves Otherkin, have existed for quite some time (I became personally acquainted with several people who believed their true souls were essentially Tolkienesque elves as early as the mid-1980s), but the term is of fairly recent origin – and, of course, the internet has allowed them to more easily ‘find the others’.
Despite the considerable scorn of many, they have found a strength and consistency in their non-human soul models – although there are controversies within their ranks, mostly around a schism between the majority who hold to a nonspecific species of soul origin (elf, wolf, dragon etc) and those who believe they are specific reincarnations of fictional entities (such as Neo of The Matrix or one of many anime characters).[SUP]41[/SUP]
It would seem that no religion is immune to fractioning.
Backlash
The Yang to the Yin of these post-modern beliefs is what Possamai calls the ‘hypo-consumerist’ element of modern religion: how the already existing faiths have striven to co-opt, dilute or utterly oppose the influence of popular culture on their adherents.
These reactions vary widely.
The more extremist forces (usually of the Mosaic religions) include such aggressive displays as a variety of Islamic fatwas against various popular materials (usually condemned for their ‘Western’ origin as much as for their heterodox content) and the book and record burnings so beloved of the American Christian right.
Other branches of traditional faiths attempt to draw on popular currents to further their aims.
These range from the use of comic books and popular literature used to directly preach (such as the long-standing Jack Chick comics[SUP]43[/SUP]) to the resurgence in Christian-oriented works (such as the phenomenally successful Left Behindfranchise), movies like The Passion of the Christ (2004), the recent wave of exorcism-related films, and the substantial production line of Christian-oriented music in various genres.
Many modern preachers (especially those in the ‘megachurch’ ministries, which, Possamai has noted, increasingly resemble shopping malls) are quite comfortable to purloin aspects of pop culture in their sermons, while of course never quite straying over the line into considering those sources as actually having any spiritual worth of their own.
Others (such as Rabbi Cary Friedman, author of the delightful Wisdom from the Batcave[SUP]44[/SUP]) can find confirmation and inspiration for their own faith within works of pop culture.
Between condemnation and co-option, the orthodox faiths strive to keep the encroaching wave of modernism (and, far worse, postmodernism) at bay, with varying levels of success even within their own ranks.
Aside from the resistance from the older, orthodox faiths, there are of course specific issues in regard to the hyper-real religions and their place within the realm of contemporary belief systems.
Bluntly put: if you are able to accept a fictional origin for your spirituality, what happens when you apply that to the real world?
And, in such cases… how much is too much?
Here is an example of what happens when somebody takes their hyper-real beliefs rather too stringently to heart.
Around British science fiction fandom in the 1980s, there was a woman who was an enthusiastic participant of the occult/pagan fringe which so often overlaps SF&F fandom.
Her preferred personal mythos was Pern – the planet of telepathically-bonded dragon-riding heroes in the books of Anne McCaffrey.
As you can imagine, when this person finally got to meet Ms. McCaffrey herself, it was quite an important moment… one which she spent explaining in excruciating detail to McCaffrey what the author and the books had got wrong about Pern, on the basis that she had been there via the Astral Plane and knew better.
(Of course, the possibility that she was right about Pern has to be mentioned… anyone who’s familiar with Alan Moore’s theory of Idea-Space[SUP]45[/SUP] could raise the possibility that there is an Ur-Pern out there in the imaginal realm, and that some folk could conceivably make contact with it.
Or even that Pern, faults and all, truly does physically exist somewhere in deep space and she actually did pick up some telepathic vibe coming from it, or even translated her soul there in some manner.
Nonetheless; going up to the person who is pretty sure they actually invented that world with overriding declarations of your version of their invented reality as utter truth is, at bare minimum, impolite and just plain tacky.)
This story illustrates what I think is the most important factor in not just the hyper-real beliefs, but adherence to any religious text or mythos in general – the importance of treating metaphoras metaphor.
The disparity between the stories our culture tells and the actually existing subjects (simulations rather than simulacra, in Baudrillard’s terminology) of those stories can often be distinguished when the subject is deeply at odds with the story.
Consider the dissonance when watching a fictional version of a subject or profession you have some expertise in and the version on your screen.
Or note how the ubiquity of fantasy versions of forensic science in TV shows such as the CSI franchise has led to a massively skewed public perception of the capabilities of that science – to the point that lawyers complain about the influence of ‘CSI Syndrome’ on juries’ perception of evidence in cases.[SUP]46
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The smarter hyper-real religionist should always be aware that, no matter how hard postmodernist and poststructuralist theory may insist, confusing story with fact has consequences – possibly severe ones.
(As I often say, after Austin Spare – treat your spiritual perceptions and inclinations as if they are real, not as real.)
But, within one’s own mythos or set of metaphors, many truths may be found – for a given value of ‘truth’.
All of this came to a head recently, in a case which horrified the world and brought the hyper-real very directly into the Real.
The attempted murder of a 12 year old girl in Wakuesha, Wisconsin by two of her classmates, as a sacrifice to summon the favour of the internet-birthed monster Slenderman,[SUP]47[/SUP] made it very clear that a creature of a known fictional origin could be the (alleged) inspiration for crimes just as vicious as any perpetrated by fanatics of a conventional religion.
News media seized on the story – some offering it as an example of the pernicious influence of the internet on children, others considering the overall role of story and myth on modern humanity.
With two other Slenderman influenced cases (one involving the murder of two policemen in Las Vegas[SUP]48[/SUP]) mere days before the fifth anniversary of Slenderman’s creation, it seemed that a point of no return had been reached.
One might almost consider 31 May 2014 as the 9/11 of the hyper-real – after that date, nothing will quite be the same again.[SUP]49
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Conclusion
It may even point the way to a position which rides the constantly shifting tides of that culture without either descending into Future Shock or surrendering to the particularly whiny form of nihilism that the non-spiritual postmodern adherents are often inclined to.
The hyper-real religionist (unless they simply take on a single belief system such as Jediism) draws on a smorgasbord of metaphorical possibilities, integrating these perspectives into how they self-define their personality… and as long as those metaphors have a personal resonance, their origin matters not at all.
The Presentist Perrenist is, by nature, comfortable with a much higher degree of epistemological uncertainty than a monoculturalist practitioner – often, they have been disappointed by the lack of connection the more orthodox faiths have with the modern condition and look wider afield for something that can provide a connection to their own life experiences.
The myths of our times can provide a wide and varied pantheon of heroic figures to draw on for comfort and inspiration – as Christopher Knowles put it so well in the title of his book on the modern mythology of comics, ‘Our Gods Wear Spandex’.[SUP]50
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A criticism many would make of these perspectives is that the hyper-real religions are nothing more than a manifestation of the saturation of culture by mass-produced product.
I would say that, although this is a factor, there is more often than not a spirit of selfadaptation, of bricolage, a guerilla-like use of the products of late capitalism against themselves, to the practice – a rich inventiveness which combines the love of stories manifest in the best of culture (fannish and otherwise) with the hopes, experiences and aspirations of genuine spiritual seekers.
The act of absorbing and respecting aspects of so many variant stories may indeed allow them to find a more egalitarian, multi-modal perspective on faith and belief – a positive manifestation of what orthodox religionists so often sneer at as “pick-and-mix spirituality”.
There may even be a greater honesty in admitting one’s religious metaphors come from an invented source rather than making unprovable claims to any kind of historical ‘authenticity’… as long as those metaphors never harden into dogma.
Although, as the Wisconsin incident clearly showed, one must be as careful in regards to the pernicious effects of fanaticism and absolute belief with the hyper-real beliefs as with the traditional ones.
In terms of religious belief, these manifestations have a short history, barely half a century.
But they are becoming a growing part of the conversation about how we view the Divine, and will open new possibilities for those disappointed by the Old Gods and the old certainties.
Believing in Fiction
The Rise of Hyper-Real Religion by Ian ‘Cat’ Vincent
Especially over the last fifty years, there has been an increasing tendency for pop culture to directly figure into the manifestation of belief: the older religious faiths have either had to partly embrace, or strenuously oppose, the deepening influence of books, comics, cinema, television and pop music.
And, beyond this, new religious beliefs have arisen that happily partake of these media – even to the point of entire belief systems arising that make no claim to any historical origin.
There are new gods in the world – and and they are being born from pure fiction.
This is something that – as a lifelong fanboy of the science fiction, fantasy and horror genres and an exponent of a often pop-culturederived occultism for nearly as long – is no shock to me.
What did surprise me, however, was discovering that there is a growing area of sociological study of these beliefs... an academic realm which not only seeks to understand these developments, but also provides a useful perspective on modern belief for both the Fortean and the occult practitioner.
I first learned about this area of study from a 2007 interview on the excellent religion and pop culture focussed website Theofantastique with the Australian sociologist Dr. Adam Possamai,[SUP]1[/SUP] in which he talks about his research into what he has termed ‘hyper-real religion’.[SUP]2[/SUP]
Fascinated, I acquired his introductory text to the concept, Religion And Popular Culture: A Hyper-Real Testament[SUP]3[/SUP] and, later, the mammoth 2012 collection of research and essays on the subject which he edited, Handbook of Hyper-Real Religions.[SUP]4[/SUP]
The term ‘hyper-real’ itself draws on the work of the French postmodern theorist Jean Baudrillard. Possamai’s current definition of hyper-real religion is;
Let’s unpick that...
A key aspect of postmodern theory (especially poststructuralism, in which Baudrillard was a key writer) is that, in modern society, symbols have attained such importance that they have actually overtaken the things which they are symbols for.
Baudrillard emphasises this particularly in his essay Simulacra and Simulation.[SUP]6[/SUP]
Here, he draws a distinction betweenSimulation – copies of an imitation or symbol of something which actually exists – andSimulacra – copies of something that either no longer has a physical-world equivalent, or never existed in the first place.
His view was that modern society is increasingly emphasising, or even completely replacing, the simulation with the simulacra, the actual being displaced by the never-real… and that:
The term ‘hyper-real’ derives from this perspective: he defines it as “the generation by models of a real without origin or reality” (emphasis mine).
The novelist and philosopher Umberto Eco later put this more succinctly, saying the hyper-real is “the authentic fake”.[SUP]7
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Although Baudrillard did not specifically discuss religion in this context, Possamai’s use of the term fits broadly into Baudrillard’s view that modern society is especially, if you forgive my pun, symbol-minded.
The other key word in the definition given by Possamai above is “commodified”.
It is a key aspect of postmodern and poststructuralist thought (which, though it stems almost entirely from the Marxist leanings of its founders, still has a remarkably apt bearing on our current situation) that the main cultural aspect of modern society is its origin in a time period which has almost completely succumbed to the viewpoint of neo-liberal concepts around value and trade – an era usually referred to as ‘Late Capitalism’, dating from roughly the end of WWII.[SUP]8
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The late capitalist era is defined by the power of multi-national corporations, globalised markets and labour, increased concentration of financial speculation and (most significantly here) mass consumption.
In the late capitalist world, pretty much everything can be defined or co-opted as a commodity, as Product.[SUP]9
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That’s the thing about pop culture (and, of course, all cultures – a factor Possamai does not neglect): it’s bought and sold.
And it’s this easily available aspect of it, in combination with the Western World’s emphasis on individuality and choice (thoroughly reinforced by neo-liberal capitalist practices), which allows hyperreal religion to bloom.
The one aspect of postmodern thought that has thoroughly leaked into the overall modern mindset is the undermining of the Grand Narrative concept, the long-standing belief that there is One True Truth which underlies all aspects of a given society.
While this has possibly led to the ‘clash of civilisations’ strife that dominates much of the geopolitical landscape,[SUP]10[/SUP] it has also given the scope for individuals to seek their own defining narratives and faiths.
As Possamai puts it:
This personal seeking for truth has manifested in a variety of ways.
For some, it allows them to find new and vivid metaphors for their existing beliefs.
For others, it can give them the chance to move beyond the beliefs of their kin and tribe to find other beliefs (or, of course, to reject belief as a concept entirely).
And, most interestingly for me, it can bring some people to find or even create a whole new range of faiths, based on the stories they find within pop culture.
If there is one thing we can say with certainty about the human mind, it is that it has a core-deep hunger for narrative.
It is in stories that we have always found and transmitted our truths, probably from as far back as we have actually had language.
It is clear that, on some levels, our minds react nearly identically to a story as to that which the story is about.
Whether or not the story happens to be, for want of a better word, ‘true’, doesn’t matter for the most part.[SUP]12[/SUP]
And these days, there are so very many stories to choose from.
Bearing all this in mind, let’s look at some examples of hyper-real religion... and, especially, the particularly influential role played by the science fiction and fantasy genres.
History
Finding a starting point for the rise of the hyper-real religions might seem a problematic thing.
After all, the telling and retelling of tales where the true origin is lost to antiquity and thus subject to untold levels of embellishment and fantasising has been a problem in the consideration of the history of all beliefs.
There is a fine line between the growth of a mythology and its outright invention – not least because all of the hyper-real beliefs have necessarily drawn on older mythologies for their mystical and philosophical approaches (for example, the Buddhist and Taoist roots of the Jedi in Star Wars, who I will return to in some depth later on).
There is also the particular case of the belief systems spawned by L. Ron Hubbard – Dianetics and especially Scientology were certainly a product of his prolific work in pulp fiction writing, as well as his liberal borrowing from the work of Aleister Crowley, which he encountered as a result of his friendship with (and/or infiltration of the branch of the Ordo Templi Orientis led by) Jack Parsons in 1940s California.[SUP]13
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However, they cannot be shown to have derived from any particular fictional work.
We can, however, establish a firm date for the first religion to be based primarily on a fictional source – one which Possamai himself cites in A Hyper-Real Testament.
The date was 7 April 1962, and the religion is The Church Of All Worlds. Founded by the American Neo-Pagan priest Oberon Zell- Ravenheart and his friends, the name and initial ritual structure of The Church Of All Worlds (CAW hereafter) derives from the practices described in Robert A. Heinlein’s novel Stranger In A Strange Land as having been brought to Earth by the adopted Martian hero, Valentine Michael Smith – specifically the ninefold structure of the Church and a bonding ritual for members based on the sharing of water.[SUP]14
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The CAW also drew heavily on Zell’s Earth-based pagan spirituality and, later, other science fiction concepts such as the Vulcan philosophy of IDIC – ‘Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combination’ – from the original Star Trek series.[SUP]15
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The CAW was formally chartered as a religion in the United States on 4 March 1968 – the first Earth-based religion, and the first hyper-real religion, to be so formally and legally recognised.
Although the CAW was officially dissolved in 2004, Zell and the CAW have continued to play an influential role in neo-paganism to this day.
It should also be noted that the entirety of the neo-pagan set of beliefs has continued to be heavily influenced by fiction.
There has always been a certain amount of mythic back-and-forth between fiction written by pagans and the practices of their faith – from the heavily neo-pagan influenced Marion Zimmer Bradley novel The Mists of Avalon (which many cite as their gateway text to the possibility of actually practicing paganism)[SUP]16[/SUP] to Brian Bates’ fictional interpretation of Celtic and Norse myth, The Way Of Wyrd,[SUP]17[/SUP] to the rise of other openly pagan authors as major writers in the modern fantasy genre.[SUP]18
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Another immensely influential stream of the hyper-real was opened in the 1970s by the prolific writer and occultist, Kenneth Grant (1924-2011).
Grant, who was a friend of Crowley in his twilight years and was also the sole reason the work of proto- chaos magician Austin Osman Spare (1886-1956) was not lost after Spare’s death in near-forgotten poverty, was a huge influence on modern occultism – not least because of his major role in the revival, and mystical interpretation, of the cosmic horror fiction of H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937).
In a series of books now known as the Typhonian Trilogies, beginning with The Magical Revival,[SUP]19[/SUP] Grant set out his theory that Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos stories were actually based on a genuine occult tradition, which Lovecraft had accessed subconsciously.
This is of course highly debatable… nonetheless, a resurgence of interest in Lovecraft’s work arose at the time, and the fictional lines were blurred even further with the publication of several books purporting to be the unexpurgated texts of the Cthulhu Mythos’s key (and, according to Lovecraft, entirely fictional) occult tome, The Necronomicon – including one version which was partly ghost-written by the great British philosopher of the occult, Colin Wilson (1931-2013).[SUP]20
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Lovecraft’s work and the Cthulhu Mythos are now so deeply intertwined into pop culture that they have indirectly influenced or directly led to games, films, associated novels[SUP]21[/SUP] and comic books[SUP]22[/SUP] … and a range of surprisingly adorable plushy toys.
Grant’s attitude to the adaptability of fiction as (at minimum) an inspiration for mysticism was a major influence on the school of occult practice known as chaos magic, which first appeared in the mid-1970s and has become a key influence on both the practice of applied mysticism and a great deal of modern fantasy literature (especially in the urban fantasy subgenre) that has followed.
Although Possamai does not interrogate chaos magic directly in his work, it is clearly (and usually explicitly) a postmodern magical system, and thus a thriving aspect of the hyper-real religious current.
The 1970s were a remarkably fecund time for the hyperreal religions – not least for the considerable growth in what has become known as the New Age Movement.
Possamai regards this aspect of popular mysticism as an offshoot of the Human Potential Movement, whose roots Possamai traces to the ‘sensitivity training’ of the 1940s,[SUP]23[/SUP] and which found wider acceptance in the 1960s.
Although the Human Potential Movement was at its core a secular and humanistic one, aspects of its philosophy of deliberately-directed self-improvement of humanity filtered into the stream of imported Eastern spiritual ideas in the 1960s, becoming part of a popularised ‘transcendence’ narrative.
The various forms of New Age spirituality – ranging from the less explicitly mystical forms (such as EST and biofeedback training and the positive thinking/self-help practices ranging from Neuro- Linguistic Programming to The Secret[SUP]24 25
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Possamai notes of the New Age adherent:
After noting the dichotomy between the New Age ‘hyper-consumer’ beliefs (where individual choice is celebrated) and the ‘hypoconsumerist’ Fundamentalist beliefs (in which, although they are still believed by a community of consumers, the adherents have their consumption choices dictated by a hierarchical authority - more on these later), Possamai says of the New Age Movement:
and,
Possamai sub-divides the New Age beliefs - always a very wide blanket term, to be sure - into three flavours:
- Aquarian Perrenism – as in The Age Of…, “a modern movement valorising the future and progress” (expressions of this current range from the self-help movements noted above to the techno-futurist Transhumanism movement),
- Neo-Paganism – “an anti-modern movement valorising traditions, mainly pagan” (though I would note factors such as the bleed-over from sources such as the CAW mentioned above), and, of the greater significance to this piece,
- Presentist Perrenism – “a movement which has its genesis in post-modernity”.
Possamai defines Presentist Perrenism further by saying that;
By ‘Perrenism’ Possamai means a syncretic (drawing from many combined sources) spirituality which...
It is this Presentist Perrenism that describes the fictional-sourced-orinfluenced belief systems which are my primary interest here.
The New Gods
One especially fruitful area of Possamai’s study – and one whose significance has grown considerably since he first explored it – is the religious current deriving from Star Wars.
Ever since the release of the first film in 1977, the Star Wars mythos has spoken to many people as a powerful expression of the ineffable – on a metaphorical level at least, the tales of the Jedi Knights and their use of the cosmic energy of The Force has connected with literally millions.
In the original creation of the Star Wars internal mythology (an ironic side-effect of George Lucas being unable to secure the rights to a Flash Gordon reboot), Lucas drew on many aspects of Eastern religion – Buddhism, Taoism and Shinto in particular – to build the mystical system practiced by the Jedi Knights.
In a sense, this was an act of pure unadulterated cultural appropriation by a middleclass white boy from Orange County, California… but he was approaching these sources through the already assimilated New Age versions, and the resulting mix took on a life of its own.
There’s a directly appealing pull to the simplified version of Taoist dualism in his image of the Light and Dark sides of The Force…
Here, of course, Lucas is describing Ki/ch’i/mana/prana etc. by another name.
The other key aspect of how Lucas handled his burgeoning mythos was the work of Joseph Campbell, especially his development of the Monomyth concept.[SUP]30
[/SUP] Lucas hit every beat of Campbell’s guide to tales of a mythological hero’s journey with a ruthless efficiency – and it worked supremely well.
Of his creation, Lucas later said:
Clearly, Lucas succeeded - perhaps more than he ever intended.
Right from the start, there were an awful lot of people who simply and truly wanted to learn the ways of the Force and become a Jedi.
The rise of the internet allowed the earliest signs of this fervent wish to begin coalescing into an actual faith… but it was not until 2001 that this loose belief in The Force undertook a significant shift, both for itself and for hyper-real religion in general.
In that year the U.K., Australia, New Zealand and Canada undertook a national census, the first in which those surveyed were asked to state their religion.
In the U.K. and Australia in particular, there was an enthusiastic internet-based campaign to encourage people to claim Jedi as their religion of choice.
This was a remarkable success – 390,000 U.K. citizens and over 70,000 Australians were now, officially, members of the Jedi faith.
These figures made the Jedi faith the fourth largest in the United Kingdom – far ahead of Judaism and all of the non-Mosaic Eastern faiths, and considerably higher than the number of either Pagan or Scientology adherents.
Of course, many of those claiming Jedi as their faith probably did so for a laugh, or to make a statement on the ridiculousness of having a religious census question in the first place… but some of them meant it.
And, after receiving a substantial amount of publicity as a result, the wider public awareness of what was now becoming known as Jediism grew.[SUP] 32[/SUP]
Many online groups attempted to formalise the belief set (and, obviously, make allowances for the fact that adherents did not develop any notable Force-based superpowers).
Their statements clearly show the syncretic and perrenist aspects of the belief.
An example:
The drive for Jediism to be recognised as the equal to any other nonhyper- real belief system won some major successes, especially in the UK.
In 2005, newly elected Member of Parliament Jaimie Reed was seated as the first stated member of the Jedi in the House of Commons (although he later confessed to having done so as a joke and as a comment on a religious freedoms bill being then debated).[SUP]34
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In 2006, two Jedi delivered a protest letter to the United Nations in recognition of the International Day of Tolerance.[SUP]35[/SUP]
In 2009, it became known that eight serving police officers in Scotland’s Strathclyde force identified as Jedi.[SUP]36
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In 2010, an interesting comparison appeared between the treatment of hyper-real religions versus the more established faiths.
It began when a self-identified Jedi walked into a British Job Centre.
When asked to lower his hood, he politely refused, saying that keeping his hood raised was an article of his faith.
He was asked to leave for ‘security reasons’.
After submitting a formal complaint to the Department of Work and Pensions, he received a written apology from the branch manager.
Around the same time, a Christian nurse lost her law suit against her employers at the National Health Service for being forced to conceal her crucifix at work.[SUP]37
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Although U.K. law has specifically ruled against Jedi having the same religious entitlements as other faiths (along with Satanists, those who preach female genital mutilation and Scientologists – a delightful comparison),[SUP]38[/SUP]
in practice it is not only holding its own with orthodox religion, but can clearly on occasion be given even greater respect.
It should also be noted that the late capitalistic aspects of Jediism-as- product are considerable.
Not only the quantity of material, but the quality (replica lightsabers have come a long way in 37 years!) and sheer ease of availability of physical manifestations of the mythos are both a continual manifestation of that belief and a multi-billion dollar industry (and, as any religionist will tell you, nothing makes a belief more concrete for the faithful than having physical objects which represent it).
The upcoming resurgence of Star Wars product as a result of the sale of the franchise to the Disney Corporation – themselves an exemplar of the hyper-real in Baudrillard’s eyes[SUP]39[/SUP] – will likely lead to still further growth of Jediism.
Jediism may be the best known of the purely fictional-based beliefs, but there are many others: Matrixism (deriving from the mythos of the Matrix films) and the Na’vi mysticism of James Cameron’s film Avatar, for example.
There are also the satirical or spoof religions – Discordianism,[SUP]40[/SUP] The Church of the SubGenius, The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster etc. – whose adherents of appropriately varying sincerity have claimed their own space in culture and even law, further blurring the lines of what can be considered a ‘true faith’.
Some people have taken such hyper-real beliefs even further and hold that their very souls are a manifestation of the fictional into our realm.
These folk, who call themselves Otherkin, have existed for quite some time (I became personally acquainted with several people who believed their true souls were essentially Tolkienesque elves as early as the mid-1980s), but the term is of fairly recent origin – and, of course, the internet has allowed them to more easily ‘find the others’.
Despite the considerable scorn of many, they have found a strength and consistency in their non-human soul models – although there are controversies within their ranks, mostly around a schism between the majority who hold to a nonspecific species of soul origin (elf, wolf, dragon etc) and those who believe they are specific reincarnations of fictional entities (such as Neo of The Matrix or one of many anime characters).[SUP]41[/SUP]
It would seem that no religion is immune to fractioning.
Backlash
As I noted earlier, Possamai’s studies have not been limited to the ‘presentist perrenist’, fiction-embracing faiths.
The Yang to the Yin of these post-modern beliefs is what Possamai calls the ‘hypo-consumerist’ element of modern religion: how the already existing faiths have striven to co-opt, dilute or utterly oppose the influence of popular culture on their adherents.
These reactions vary widely.
The more extremist forces (usually of the Mosaic religions) include such aggressive displays as a variety of Islamic fatwas against various popular materials (usually condemned for their ‘Western’ origin as much as for their heterodox content) and the book and record burnings so beloved of the American Christian right.
Other branches of traditional faiths attempt to draw on popular currents to further their aims.
These range from the use of comic books and popular literature used to directly preach (such as the long-standing Jack Chick comics[SUP]43[/SUP]) to the resurgence in Christian-oriented works (such as the phenomenally successful Left Behindfranchise), movies like The Passion of the Christ (2004), the recent wave of exorcism-related films, and the substantial production line of Christian-oriented music in various genres.
Many modern preachers (especially those in the ‘megachurch’ ministries, which, Possamai has noted, increasingly resemble shopping malls) are quite comfortable to purloin aspects of pop culture in their sermons, while of course never quite straying over the line into considering those sources as actually having any spiritual worth of their own.
Others (such as Rabbi Cary Friedman, author of the delightful Wisdom from the Batcave[SUP]44[/SUP]) can find confirmation and inspiration for their own faith within works of pop culture.
Between condemnation and co-option, the orthodox faiths strive to keep the encroaching wave of modernism (and, far worse, postmodernism) at bay, with varying levels of success even within their own ranks.
Aside from the resistance from the older, orthodox faiths, there are of course specific issues in regard to the hyper-real religions and their place within the realm of contemporary belief systems.
Bluntly put: if you are able to accept a fictional origin for your spirituality, what happens when you apply that to the real world?
And, in such cases… how much is too much?
Here is an example of what happens when somebody takes their hyper-real beliefs rather too stringently to heart.
Around British science fiction fandom in the 1980s, there was a woman who was an enthusiastic participant of the occult/pagan fringe which so often overlaps SF&F fandom.
Her preferred personal mythos was Pern – the planet of telepathically-bonded dragon-riding heroes in the books of Anne McCaffrey.
As you can imagine, when this person finally got to meet Ms. McCaffrey herself, it was quite an important moment… one which she spent explaining in excruciating detail to McCaffrey what the author and the books had got wrong about Pern, on the basis that she had been there via the Astral Plane and knew better.
(Of course, the possibility that she was right about Pern has to be mentioned… anyone who’s familiar with Alan Moore’s theory of Idea-Space[SUP]45[/SUP] could raise the possibility that there is an Ur-Pern out there in the imaginal realm, and that some folk could conceivably make contact with it.
Or even that Pern, faults and all, truly does physically exist somewhere in deep space and she actually did pick up some telepathic vibe coming from it, or even translated her soul there in some manner.
Nonetheless; going up to the person who is pretty sure they actually invented that world with overriding declarations of your version of their invented reality as utter truth is, at bare minimum, impolite and just plain tacky.)
This story illustrates what I think is the most important factor in not just the hyper-real beliefs, but adherence to any religious text or mythos in general – the importance of treating metaphoras metaphor.
The disparity between the stories our culture tells and the actually existing subjects (simulations rather than simulacra, in Baudrillard’s terminology) of those stories can often be distinguished when the subject is deeply at odds with the story.
Consider the dissonance when watching a fictional version of a subject or profession you have some expertise in and the version on your screen.
Or note how the ubiquity of fantasy versions of forensic science in TV shows such as the CSI franchise has led to a massively skewed public perception of the capabilities of that science – to the point that lawyers complain about the influence of ‘CSI Syndrome’ on juries’ perception of evidence in cases.[SUP]46
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The smarter hyper-real religionist should always be aware that, no matter how hard postmodernist and poststructuralist theory may insist, confusing story with fact has consequences – possibly severe ones.
(As I often say, after Austin Spare – treat your spiritual perceptions and inclinations as if they are real, not as real.)
But, within one’s own mythos or set of metaphors, many truths may be found – for a given value of ‘truth’.
All of this came to a head recently, in a case which horrified the world and brought the hyper-real very directly into the Real.
The attempted murder of a 12 year old girl in Wakuesha, Wisconsin by two of her classmates, as a sacrifice to summon the favour of the internet-birthed monster Slenderman,[SUP]47[/SUP] made it very clear that a creature of a known fictional origin could be the (alleged) inspiration for crimes just as vicious as any perpetrated by fanatics of a conventional religion.
News media seized on the story – some offering it as an example of the pernicious influence of the internet on children, others considering the overall role of story and myth on modern humanity.
With two other Slenderman influenced cases (one involving the murder of two policemen in Las Vegas[SUP]48[/SUP]) mere days before the fifth anniversary of Slenderman’s creation, it seemed that a point of no return had been reached.
One might almost consider 31 May 2014 as the 9/11 of the hyper-real – after that date, nothing will quite be the same again.[SUP]49
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Conclusion
Possamai’s terminology – hyper-real religion, presentist perrenism – provides a useful perspective on a rising aspect of modern belief, one which manages to bring some clarity as to why people can derive spiritual guidance from one or more of the many fictional tales which permeate modern culture.
It may even point the way to a position which rides the constantly shifting tides of that culture without either descending into Future Shock or surrendering to the particularly whiny form of nihilism that the non-spiritual postmodern adherents are often inclined to.
The hyper-real religionist (unless they simply take on a single belief system such as Jediism) draws on a smorgasbord of metaphorical possibilities, integrating these perspectives into how they self-define their personality… and as long as those metaphors have a personal resonance, their origin matters not at all.
The Presentist Perrenist is, by nature, comfortable with a much higher degree of epistemological uncertainty than a monoculturalist practitioner – often, they have been disappointed by the lack of connection the more orthodox faiths have with the modern condition and look wider afield for something that can provide a connection to their own life experiences.
The myths of our times can provide a wide and varied pantheon of heroic figures to draw on for comfort and inspiration – as Christopher Knowles put it so well in the title of his book on the modern mythology of comics, ‘Our Gods Wear Spandex’.[SUP]50
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A criticism many would make of these perspectives is that the hyper-real religions are nothing more than a manifestation of the saturation of culture by mass-produced product.
I would say that, although this is a factor, there is more often than not a spirit of selfadaptation, of bricolage, a guerilla-like use of the products of late capitalism against themselves, to the practice – a rich inventiveness which combines the love of stories manifest in the best of culture (fannish and otherwise) with the hopes, experiences and aspirations of genuine spiritual seekers.
The act of absorbing and respecting aspects of so many variant stories may indeed allow them to find a more egalitarian, multi-modal perspective on faith and belief – a positive manifestation of what orthodox religionists so often sneer at as “pick-and-mix spirituality”.
There may even be a greater honesty in admitting one’s religious metaphors come from an invented source rather than making unprovable claims to any kind of historical ‘authenticity’… as long as those metaphors never harden into dogma.
Although, as the Wisconsin incident clearly showed, one must be as careful in regards to the pernicious effects of fanaticism and absolute belief with the hyper-real beliefs as with the traditional ones.
In terms of religious belief, these manifestations have a short history, barely half a century.
But they are becoming a growing part of the conversation about how we view the Divine, and will open new possibilities for those disappointed by the Old Gods and the old certainties.
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[MENTION=5045]Skarekrow[/MENTION]
Opinions.... don't really have any.
But I totally see it. And do it. Especially re: Lovecraft and, well, Eris. Even though Eris is also historical, modern Discordianism is pretty much this same schtick - but it's also more because you can engineer anything with thought patterns. Which is pretty much what a whole lot of religious people do (for many it's the only reason to do religion) BUT the thing is they don't all admit it and I find it hard to trust things that are so self serious. At least Discordianism, Church of the Sub Genius etc. has no aspirations of self-proving and often even parodies the fact that it may or may not be a crock religion.
Opinions.... don't really have any.
But I totally see it. And do it. Especially re: Lovecraft and, well, Eris. Even though Eris is also historical, modern Discordianism is pretty much this same schtick - but it's also more because you can engineer anything with thought patterns. Which is pretty much what a whole lot of religious people do (for many it's the only reason to do religion) BUT the thing is they don't all admit it and I find it hard to trust things that are so self serious. At least Discordianism, Church of the Sub Genius etc. has no aspirations of self-proving and often even parodies the fact that it may or may not be a crock religion.
Sure…this is why I have to laugh when I see the statue of Satan in the state government building in OK. Pretty damn funny how that backfired in all their faces…lol.
Anyhow, yes…well, supposedly like the article inferred it is indeed possible that a universe with this as a “real” religion is possible if you believe the many universes theories out there.
So maybe none of it is self-created, but tapped into?
Also, if you adhere to the idea that the reality of each person only exists in their mind, and “reality” itself is only a creation of our consciousness or a projection of reality itself then no belief is more true or real than anything else.
I’m not too sure what I think about this….there is great room for wonderful applications and great room for evil applications (that includes making it available only to the rich)…what do you think??
DARPA Is Developing Tiny Implants That Trigger Self-Healing
Throughout the last 100 years, the world has witnessed incredible advances in medicine that have dramatically improved the lives of the sick.
But while there may be more drugs on the market than you could possibly fathom, many diseases can’t be treated by popping pills.
That’s why DARPA is working towards a futuristic medical implant that not only continuously monitors the condition of your organs, but also helps your body heal itself when problems arise.
The program, known as Electrical Prescriptions (ElectRx), aims to develop technology that could “fundamentally change the manner in which doctors diagnose, monitor and treat injury and illness,” DARPA’s Doug Weber said in a news release.
Moving away from conventional medicine, DARPA plans to develop an implantable device that works somewhat like an intelligent pacemaker, continually monitoring the body’s condition and providing feedback in the form of a stimulus that would help maintain healthy organs.
The idea behind the ElectRx implant is that it would act as a neuromodulatory device.Neuromodulation is the reversible alteration, or “modulation,” of the nervous system through stimulation of various nerves.
These changes in neural activity can be achieved either through drugs or electrical stimulation, both of which are introduced by implants.
In the body, the peripheral nervous system (the nerves outside the brain and spinal cord) is constantly monitoring your organs and regulating responses to infection, injury or disease.
Certain conditions can unfortunately cause this process to go haywire and rather than resolving the problem, peripheral nerve signals start to actually worsen the situation, triggering pain, inflammation and immune system problems.
That’s where ElectRx’s tiny little device would come in.
After sensing problems, it would send out tailored electrical impulses to populations of nerves that help the body heal itself, keeping patients healthy using their own bodily systems rather than drugs.
There already exists a market for neuromodulatory devices, but current models are bulky, around the size of a deck of cards, and consequently require invasive surgery to fit them into patients.
ElectRx devices, on the other hand, would be similar in size to individual nerves and could therefore be implanted with ease, perhaps with a needle.
Thanks to the recent identification of neural circuits involved in the regulation of immune system function, these devices could possibly be useful in the treatment of various inflammatory diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis and inflammatory bowel disease.
Furthermore, it could one day lead to better treatments for various brain and mental health problems, such as epilepsy, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.
But ElectRx has got a long way to go before these ambitious devices can become a reality.
Researchers need to first develop novel biosensors and also devise techniques that would allow the precise targeting of single nerves or small populations of nerve fibers that control relevant organs.
DARPA Is Developing Tiny Implants That Trigger Self-Healing
Throughout the last 100 years, the world has witnessed incredible advances in medicine that have dramatically improved the lives of the sick.
But while there may be more drugs on the market than you could possibly fathom, many diseases can’t be treated by popping pills.
That’s why DARPA is working towards a futuristic medical implant that not only continuously monitors the condition of your organs, but also helps your body heal itself when problems arise.
The program, known as Electrical Prescriptions (ElectRx), aims to develop technology that could “fundamentally change the manner in which doctors diagnose, monitor and treat injury and illness,” DARPA’s Doug Weber said in a news release.
Moving away from conventional medicine, DARPA plans to develop an implantable device that works somewhat like an intelligent pacemaker, continually monitoring the body’s condition and providing feedback in the form of a stimulus that would help maintain healthy organs.
The idea behind the ElectRx implant is that it would act as a neuromodulatory device.Neuromodulation is the reversible alteration, or “modulation,” of the nervous system through stimulation of various nerves.
These changes in neural activity can be achieved either through drugs or electrical stimulation, both of which are introduced by implants.
In the body, the peripheral nervous system (the nerves outside the brain and spinal cord) is constantly monitoring your organs and regulating responses to infection, injury or disease.
Certain conditions can unfortunately cause this process to go haywire and rather than resolving the problem, peripheral nerve signals start to actually worsen the situation, triggering pain, inflammation and immune system problems.
That’s where ElectRx’s tiny little device would come in.
After sensing problems, it would send out tailored electrical impulses to populations of nerves that help the body heal itself, keeping patients healthy using their own bodily systems rather than drugs.
There already exists a market for neuromodulatory devices, but current models are bulky, around the size of a deck of cards, and consequently require invasive surgery to fit them into patients.
ElectRx devices, on the other hand, would be similar in size to individual nerves and could therefore be implanted with ease, perhaps with a needle.
Thanks to the recent identification of neural circuits involved in the regulation of immune system function, these devices could possibly be useful in the treatment of various inflammatory diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis and inflammatory bowel disease.
Furthermore, it could one day lead to better treatments for various brain and mental health problems, such as epilepsy, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.
But ElectRx has got a long way to go before these ambitious devices can become a reality.
Researchers need to first develop novel biosensors and also devise techniques that would allow the precise targeting of single nerves or small populations of nerve fibers that control relevant organs.
Yeah but I don't adhere to that idea. There's no such thing as reality that exists only in the mind because that contradicts what reality is. This position is different from uncertainty. I think it arises from insecurity and the need to justify untenable positions.
i.e. people say this when they don't like their beliefs to be doubted.
Edit:
Or when they'd rather have everyone be right than have a confrontation.
Well, it doesn’t have to be contradictory…
Like the statement “Life is but a dream…”
We don’t know what the actual, true reality is…we don’t have the power to see from that perspective. Not to say that what we are experiencing isn’t real, because it certainly is to us, even if it is illusory, from our perspective it is “real” and so, even if it weren’t truly real…we have made it that way in our minds.