[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

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.