[Main Blog Post] The Open-Minded Materialist's Gentle Introduction to Spirituality

[jprussell]

I've written my first "full" blog post of the year and posted it to my main blog here. If you have any thoughts or ways I might make it better, kindly let me know by commenting here or dropping me an email!

Comments

[causticus]

Hey Jeff, a lot of thought-provoking points there. As someone who doesn't "need" this guide per-se, I don't really have much to add, though I should say that I agree Stoicism might be a good entry-point for materialists; though with the caveat that a hardcore belief in "progress" will probably be a massive roadblock when it comes to grasping core Stoic teachings, much less putting those teachings to practice. As you also allude to, Westernized Buddhism seems to attract a fair number of them too, but any deeper dive into authentic Buddhism might face the same sort of cognitive dissonance issues for progressives. IIRC, I slowly started shedding my old progressive beliefs about 8 years ago and I believe this has greatly helped me in adopting a more "enchanted" way of looking at the world.

One thing that JMG has mentioned a few times is the likely fact that a lot of human souls in incarnation right now are likely too "immature" for any serious spiritual teachings, due to the "mental sheath" not being very well developed as of yet; so the "job" of a soul like this in their current incarnation might simply be to learn the rudimentary lessons of material life in a human body. Beyond various basic (and probably dogmatic) religion, such a soul will probably not seek out much in the way of spirituality, thus materialism might come as a default worldview. But it seems the target audience for what you wrote might be someone who has developed their mental sheath enough to commit to a specific intellectual position, in this case skeptical materialism. Perhaps they could be seen as a transition point between materialism and a more refined view of reality. Anyway, I think you present here a serious of compelling strategies for how to break the ice, so to speak. I will be very curious to see where and how you further develop these ideas!

[jprussell]

That's a good point on the baggage from the religion of progress. I remember when I first read JMG's "The Next 10 Billion Years", I found the points he made about it intellectually compelling, but emotionally depressing. As you said, it took a while to let go of the idea that material life is steadily getting better, and admitting otherwise would be the admission of our failure as a species. For me, it was made a lot easier when I found other things (like spiritual and religious practice) that gave me the sense of purpose I was looking for in much stronger doses and in a way far less reliant on what society/politics/technology could make happen.

That's also interesting about "immature" souls, I hadn't thought about that consciously while writing. Instead, my goal was to be as helpful as I could to as wide a range of "willing to try something new" as I could manage. Obviously, there will be large swathes of folks who don't even bother with these kinds of existential questions (or not consciously, anyway), lots who are comfortable with more mainstream answers, and some amount who are proudly secure in skeptical materialism.

Your contention that skeptical materialism might be what folks with a moderately developed mental sheath find their way into would also jive with the idea of the "initiation of the nadir", which I think comes from Fortune. The idea is that a soul has to get all the way down to the nadir of the material plane in its involution before it can begin its evolution back up. Adamantly believing that the material world is all there is and closing yourself off to what the wider cosmos might offer sounds like it would be one way to qualify for that.

Time May Work Both Ways

[davidtrammel]

While Greer has mentioned the idea that due to the huge number of humans now on the planet that some lesser-developed souls have gotten an early bump up to humanhood, and for that reason, we're seeing a lot of the chaos we are seeing, he has also said (on Ecoshopia) that it's possible that we can reincarnate into lives which overlap in the linear time of the physical plane.

I've read some lofty math and science articles that suggest that Time has no mathematical reason to flow one way. So maybe we are seeing some of both.

Personally I believe in reincarnation as a core assumption of my world view. That we begin as sparks out of the Well of Souls, which incarnate in the bodies of the least microbe, and over time our souls learn all that it needs to to understand life.

I have also come to the belief that what we see as spirits and as the gods, are actually more evolved souls, filling in as mentors. That they too are in the process of evolving and will leave their roles and move on to the higher planes. This has lead to me coming to the theory that godhood is a job title and not a name. That something like Hekate or even Jesus, is a collective of souls. Perhaps a soul corporation?

More later, I have to get off to work now.

Re: Time May Work Both Ways

[jprussell]

Huh, interesting. I've had some other commenters on Ecosophia and on Magic Monday point out that spiritual entities might not interact with time the same way we do, and I've been very, very shallowly exposed to the idea that ever since Einstein at least, physics has suggested that time (might?) be a product of our perception rather than an intrinsic fact of external reality. I am in no way qualified to evaluate such claims, so I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

As for reincarnation, I'm currently accepting it as a good working hypothesis, but not one that I have much personal evidence for (no past life memories or the like). It keeps striking me how it keeps showing up in very different religious traditions around the world, in weird and specific enough ways to make me think there's something to it, but for now, it's more a belief I take on faith/the credibility of folks I trust. At a minimum, I'm meditating on things as if it is true and seeing what comes of that.

On Gods as collectives, also very interesting. I don't have a super well-developed view here, but my working hypothesis (heavily based on what I've gotten from JMG's writings) is that "Gods" as identified by humans are some combination of an astral vehicle/body and an animating spirit that is bigger/smarter/more wise than a human. I suspect that the astral vehicle is somewhat co-created between worshippers and the God involved (this vehicle would be the "job title"), and it is then animated by beings that for one reason or another find it suitable (personality? responsibility? shift system?). This view certainly allows for different beings to animate the same vehicle at different times, but I hadn't really considered that it might be closer to a "rotating" role like who brings snacks to the meeting rather than a sequential role, like "the King of England".

All interesting to think about and worthy of further study and meditation!

Re: Time May Work Both Ways

[davidtrammel]

Reincarnation is something that I came to from a religious and ethical slant. I wasn't that church-going as a child, but I did get a firm moral package from my upbringing. I could never though, reconcile my belief in a loving god and the idea that it would send us to Hell for life-choices we had no control over.

That I personally, who came from a loving mid-class family with plenty of breaks in life would go to Heaven while a child born into a broken poor family who ends up in a gang young and then prison for the things they had to do to survive in that life, would go to hell.

I came to the conclusion that each life, the good and the bad, are just lessons on a path to true enlightenment of what it means to be human. So the murderer is just as blessed as the saint. Doesn't mean we shouldn't strive to be better though.

What's the quote? If god allows evil when they could stop it, they are a sadist. If they can't stop evil, then they aren't omnipotent. I think evil is a feature of the system, not a bug. You can't understand being human without understanding the evilest things we do.

Once you accept that reincarnation happens you have to decide just how it works. Some say only humans reincarnate and then only as humans, but that didn't make any sense to me. Too many animals display "human" feelings and characteristics.

And it didn't make sense that if all life reincarnated, then there was some special class (the gods) that stood out from that. So since we would want someone to help us make sense of our lessons from each life, each time we died, and that the spirits and gods seemed the logical choice for that, then wouldn't they too have had the experiences?

I'm loosely pagan in that I believe in multiple gods, but I'm leaning toward not considering them "gods". I still though, visit and comment on multiple pagan and heathen groups and a recurring comment from people who have intimate encounters with the spirits is that one person may find that their god likes chocolate as an offering, while another person finds theirs doesn't. Both are the same deity. I've come to the conclusion that who they are dealing with are minor aspects of that "god" and since we have a working example of such collectives here, in the form of corporations, I think spirits have the same.

Now it may be that each collective is led by an old and learned CEO, who may be an ancestral spirit but for my practical experiences I doubt I'll end up ever meeting it.

I do think that there is a plane or state of existence above what the spirits and gods inhabit, and at that place/point, there is an Omni-godhood we will all end up at. Perhaps at that point, our essence will just get recycled back into the Wheel of Life to restart the process all over.

Re: Time May Work Both Ways

[jprussell]

I shared many of your concerns with the "problem of evil" as applied to Abrahamic monotheism, and I agree that reincarnation neatly solves that and other ethical/conceptual issues, as well as being consistent with the reported experiences of folks from around the globe and throughout time, as far as we can tell. All of that is much of why it's my current working hypothesis (that and I'm meditating my way through courses of study that ask me to consider it as part of a philosophical system, but then "to train the mind, not inform it" and all that).

That being said, I also take seriously JMG's idea that humans just aren't that smart, and making sense to us is not a requirement for how things necessarily work in the cosmos. That's the main thing that keeps me from feeling (for now) like "yup, reincarnation is definitely how it works". But I'm still pretty early on this journey!

As for collectives and the like, I'm currently grappling with what the Dolmen Arch calls the "One Life" - the thought that all of being is a manifestation of a unified life/consciousness. It teaches that each bit (like us) is differentiated, but also fundamentally linked, and that spiritual enlightenment consists mostly of experiencing and understanding that link. If this is right, then it implies that boundaries of "individualness" might be perceived very differently by beings farther along their spiritual path.

I haven't gotten very far with this particular line of thinking, but one crude way to put it might be that if "Thor" is a job title, with a collective of spiritual beings who all fulfill its functions as a group, maybe the reason they're all doing so is that they share a certain amount of "Thorness", which is a more fundamental kind of similarity than just "have similar strengths and tendencies" the way a group of humans in a team effort would be described as sharing traits.

But again, I don't know! I'm sucking up occult philosophy a lot faster than my meditation and experiences can keep up, so I'm pretty firmly in the "let's pull out a map and speculate wildly" phase of things.

Very much appreciate the discussion, by the way.

Re: Time May Work Both Ways

[davidtrammel]

I loosely look at the way the World works having "Assumptions" and having "Working Theories". Assumptions are just that. Core principles that I take on a bit of faith that make sense. Working theories are my way of organizing the things I see happening in that World. Both though, I don't have set in stone. I try to constantly re-evaluate and re-imagine them whenever new info shows up. I figure I won't know for sure until I die.

As for Thor-ness, yes I feel like that is a good assumption. The spirits who take jobs as mentors do so because they have an affinity for the attitudes of that deity or spirit. I figure it's just one more experience that we all need to go thru to know what we need to ascend to the Spiritual plane and join with the collective godhood. I figure that we also do time as local spirits of place (like of a spring, lake or forest) and as protector spirits of some of the other life (like of cat, owl or bear).

BTW, I'll give you a shout once I get the shaman blog reorganized. I've got a year's worth or so of old posts, and a bunch of new ones that I want to write, to get together into a coherent narrative before I go public with it. I like to mix thought posts like this one, with practical tutorials on skills and craftwork.

I'm planning on taking Jason Miller's seven-month-long Hekate course this Summer, so I should have some interesting thoughts to share when that starts too.

Re: Time May Work Both Ways

[jprussell]

Wonderful, I look forward to it! Shamanism is an approach to practice that I am intrigued by and think might be something I need to explore at some point, but I want to get a solid grounding in basic magical practices before I start focusing on working with spirits.