[Main Blog Post] The Trouble with Authenticity

[jprussell]

I've been trying to write this one for months, but I didn't actually have anything new or useful to say, and then the other day, I read a book review, and it's way of defining a seemingly unrelated topic gave me the key I needed to put it all together.

So, what is the Trouble With Authenticity?

Read on to find out!

Comments

[thinking_turtle]

Thanks for another interesting blog! JMG wrote that magic is neither science nor religion, but a third thing. From the introduction to Way of the Golden Section:

You turn to science to learn about matter and energy; you turn to religion to learn about faith and morals; you turn to occultism to learn about consciousness and the unseen worlds that lie between the realm of Deity and the realm of matter.

In a comment on Ecosophia, JMG wrote:

Religion is the art and science of managing human relationships with disembodied intelligent beings, such as gods and spirits.

So when you write "being at least open to the thought that the Gods were really real", that sounds like religion, but when you mention rituals like LBRP, that sounds like the occult.

My occult "TSW" experience was much less intense than yours. I've always liked rolling dice or flipping coins. Divination is the art form of what I was dabbling in before. So for me it wasn't really an aha! moment, but like turning a corner and seeing a wide new view.

For my list of abbreviations, I assume LARP means Live Action Role Playing. "A gathering of many people who re-enact a real or fictitious event, often complete with clothing" What do you think of that description?

[jprussell]

So when you write "being at least open to the thought that the Gods were really real", that sounds like religion, but when you mention rituals like LBRP, that sounds like the occult.

True, but I believe elsewhere he has mentioned that the borders of these categories are a little fuzzy, and that often the different practices support and inform one another. In my case, I mention the occult/magical practices because they were one of the two things I changed from what I tried earlier (thing 1: give the belie that the Gods are real a try, and thing 2: do a different set of occult practices), and because my "whoah" moment occurred while doing a guided visualization right after the LBRP and MP. Once that "seal" was broken, I started finding more exclusively religious practices (like prayer) more rewarding and helpful, but I suspect that I might not have gotten there (or at least taken longer) without the occult practices opening up certain channels for me.

My occult "TSW" experience was much less intense than yours. I've always liked rolling dice or flipping coins. Divination is the art form of what I was dabbling in before. So for me it wasn't really an aha! moment, but like turning a corner and seeing a wide new view.

If I've gathered anything from hanging out around the Ecosophia community, it's that folks have very different experiences with this kind of thing, and I've come to appreciate that. For what it's worth, besides that initial encounter, divination has also been the place where I've gotten the most frequent, but not all that intense, indication that something is happening here.

For my list of abbreviations, I assume LARP means Live Action Role Playing. "A gathering of many people who re-enact a real or fictitious event, often complete with clothing" What do you think of that description?

Ah, yes, I should have defined that in the main text rather than relying on a silly link, but yes, "Live Action Role Playing" is indeed what LARP stands for. The one quibble I would have with your proposed definition is that it sounds more like "reenactment," like folks who do historical battles or farmsteads or the like. LARPing is an outgrowth of the tabletop RPG scene and so usually has more of a flavor of a game, without settled outcomes. Someone comes up with the initial scenario and acts as the referee/game master, the rest of the participants take on the roles of various characters, and then they interact "in character," both playacting as the character they have chosen/been assigned, but also making decisions and taking actions that might be abstracted away into rules. For example, in one LARP ruleset, if two characters get in a fight, they play "Rock, Paper, Scissors," but some of the conditions to win change depending on your characters abilities (for example, if a soldier character got in a fight with a reporter, maybe the reporter needs to win 2 or 3 rounds of RPS, but the soldier only needs to win 1 to win the fight).

All that being said, I might propose a definition something like "Live Action Role Playing. A term that originated for games where players take on the role of a character and interact with each other within the terms of a fictional scenario. Similar to tabletop roleplaying games such as Dungeons & Dragons, but 'acted out' by dressing up and moving around a physical space, rather than describing actions or representing them on a map. Sometimes used somewhat derisively to refer to actions seemingly taken in earnest that the speaker views as somehow fake or lacking substance."

[thinking_turtle]

Indeed, the categories of religion and occult seem to overlap even by JMG's definitions.

Beautiful definiton of LARP, I'll keep it like you wrote it.