Every now and then I would stumble across the name Matthew Fox, so I finally went to the library and checked out a copy of The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine. I was excited, at first, because Matthew Fox is a former Dominican who became an Episcopal priest after his expulsion from the Catholic Church. Episcopal: That's Catholic-Lite; twice the ritual with only half the guilt! And Starhawk had dropped his name once or twice, so I thought as I cracked the book, "At last, something about male spirituality with some theological teeth in it."
I became uneasy as I read; the paragraphs seemed to be fuzzy and disjointed. Sort of like, "Purple is a color between red and blue. 'The Color Purple' is the name of a book by Alice Walker. Donnie Osmond liked purple socks, and Prince had an album called 'Purple Rain.' As you can see, purple has an attraction to artists of all genders and orientations." Except Fox would have used chakras, Robert Bly, Meister Eckhart, and Native Americans.
I flipped ahead to the chapter on The Green Man, where I read "The Green Man is an ancient pagan symbol of our relationship to the plant kingdom." My earlier vague misgivings crystallized. I checked in the index, and failed to find Lady Raglan, the British folklorist who wrote in 1936 about the foliate heads she'd notice in English church architecture, and who started the Frazerian theory that they were were symbols of pagan fertility and tree worship. There followed some more loosely related paragraphs, ending with Greenpeace.
The Green Man is an icon, and the cultural meaning of this icon has changed throughout the centuries: from ancient Bacchus, through the medieval images of the Tanglewood and renaissance agents of festival crowd control, to Lady Raglan's theories about restored church architecture in the twentieth century. To make assertions about ancient pagan interpretations of the Green Man is about as valid as asserting that motorists in the modern age worship Pegasus because they gather underneath an icon of a red winged horse. Certainly, Neo-Pagans today use the Green Man as a symbol of the interconnectedness of Nature and Humanity, as a male avatar of Nature's spirit incarnate, and as a paragon to emulate. However, this contemporary use begins with the assumptions of Lady Raglan. I don't mind so much that Matthew Fox wants to imagine new scripts for the Green Man, but I do wish he hadn't grounded them in outmoded folklore theories.
Moving along, I flipped forward to the chapter on Masculine Sexuality. By the fifth paragraph, I read about Toaist practices of controlling seminal fluids (code for "orgasm without ejaculation") and how there's chi stored in the testes. At least Fox did spend some time addressing issues of infertility and male sexuality -- but then out came the berdaches and winktes. This section made me angry because it was titled "Honoring, and Learning From, The Gifts of Homosexuality." It was so old-school-Harry-Hay-elitism: "because we're a persecuted minority we've got special powers." Okay, Fox gets points for saying a Spiritual Warrior must exorcise homophobia, but then he loses points for implying that doing so will give access to, among other things, the homosexual gift of spirituality. Here's a special note for all of you Spiritual Warriors: when I'm having hot, throbbing, man-to-man sex, my primary motivation isn't to bring straight allies a spiritual gift. (And by-the-way: I'm a white guy, not a First Nations person). Muttering "Magic Negro" under my breath, I flipped forward.
By this time my attitude toward "The Hidden Spirituality of Men" had deteriorated into a mix of "Ha, where is your Goddess now?" "Someone is wrong on the internet!" and the feeling of looking/not-looking at a traffic accident. My eyes fell randomly on the end of Chapter Eleven: The Sacred Marriage of Masculine and Feminine. Yep, there it was, a reference to hieros gamos, and the Jewish tradition of Yahweh consummating a marriage with Shekinah, feminine bride. Which is fine, except Shekinah wasn't formulated as feminine, much less a cosmic bride, until probably sometime in the ninth century, and was first written in the "Book Bahir", written around 1185. Earlier writing presented Shekhina as an ungendered concept to enable limited humans to perceive Deity.
As with the Green Man, I don't have a problem with a modern reworking of Shekinah as a Cosmic Bride; but Fox seems to have confused medieval Shekinah with Sophia or ancient Ashera. Shekinah's sexing a thousand years ago by rabbis was done to develop a spiritual toolkit to fix the imbalance in the emanations of the Tree of Life. Fox is looking for a metaphor of the union of two cosmic opposites; but originally, Shekinah was the facade Deity wears so that the Nation of Israel might comprehend the divine.
Yes, I'm knit-picking on this last example, but by now it was too late. I felt betrayed. What I'd hoped for was a Priestly Ronald Hutton or a poetic Margot Adler. What I found was an odd grab-bag of "ancient" and "native" "wisdom," a Frazerian regurgitation of art history presented as archeology, and a kinder, gentler Men's Mythopoetic movement. The symbols and icons of the Divine Male are active and available; use them, re-work them - and if the re-working is a good one, it doesn't need a populist pedigree to justify it. I'm sure Matthew Fox has given us some symbolic gems, and the divine male does need to explored -- but for me, the Spirituality of Men was too well Hidden for this book to be useful.
Showing posts with label Kabbalah. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kabbalah. Show all posts
Monday, May 16, 2011
Friday, May 28, 2010
Update on Everything
Quick update.
I'm working on a short-story -- I was hoping to have a Wordos-ready draft ready by this evening, but family matters (of a fun kind) intervened. It's a humor piece (well, at least I think it's funny).
Tons of rain lately; I'm sure it's good for the snow pack, but our strawberries are mushy and white. On the plus side, in the last half month there have been no less than four huge, double-rainbows at sunset. And double-rainbows almost automatically equal smooching at our house.
With all the clouds and rain, I haven't seen much of the moon. I was hoping Thursday that I might see the moon right under one of the Monster Rainbows, but that didn't happen.
In other news, I'm reading way too many books at once -- books on the various branches of mysticism surrounding the Kabbalah, books on the history of writing and the development of homo sapiens art, and the history of science. It's times like these I wish I could read in my sleep. All this research is sort of for the history exhibit in Second Life... except that I've been so busy with Family Art Projects, short stories, and research that I haven't had much time to play in Second Life. It's crazy, but everything starts to point back to Gilgamesh, King Hammurabi, Ishtar, Lilitu, and Babylon. Oh, and medieval and Renaissance pastiches mistaken in the 1800 and 1900's for real live ancient things.
On the topic of religion... somehow, this week, I got into a discussion of rituals of passage with Dave Raines. I mentioned that over a decade ago, one of my old friends had used the metaphor "taken by the fairies" as part of a Neo-Pagan based ritual recognizing that her daughter's medical condition had irreversibly changed her personality. Dave wondered about a Christian-based ritual... and this is what popped out:
I'm reminded of the saying, "When one door closes, another opens." Here's one suggested ritual format (keeping in mind that although I was raised Episcopal, my spiritual practice is Neo-Paganism).
Ritual Welcoming the Changing One (a ritual marking the passing of the old self and the appearance of a new self, either through Alzheimer's, menopause, injury, or other personality changing conditions)
From within the sanctuary, The minister lights a colored candle (representing the Changing One's past life) from the altar candles and says, "From God's hands we come, and to God's hands we shall return." He takes the candle from the sanctuary to the vestibule at the back of the church, where the Changing One waits, possibly holding a photograph or small token representing their past.
A curtain is set up at the gate of the sanctuary rail. The Changing One's family and friends form a corridor leading to the curtain. The minister, representing the church, leads the Changing One (still holding their candle and token) through the corridor of community to the curtain at the sanctuary rail.
The congregation sings, "To every thing there is a season..."
The Changing One is assisted through the curtain, which closes after they enter the sanctuary. The minister helps the Changing One to place their candle and token on the altar, and to light a new white candle (representing their new self or new beginnings) from the old one.
Holding the new white candle, the Changing One reappears through the curtain at the sanctuary rail. The minister offers a benediction (I'm not sure if anointing with oil is appropriate [Dave says that within his practice, anointing at this time would be similar to a prayers for healing service]), and the Changing One and is welcomed by the corridor of community back to their seat. (Perhaps logistically, their candle could be clipped to their pew or placed on a low table in the aisle for the rest of the service.)
The service transitions into regular communion.
I'm working on a short-story -- I was hoping to have a Wordos-ready draft ready by this evening, but family matters (of a fun kind) intervened. It's a humor piece (well, at least I think it's funny).
Tons of rain lately; I'm sure it's good for the snow pack, but our strawberries are mushy and white. On the plus side, in the last half month there have been no less than four huge, double-rainbows at sunset. And double-rainbows almost automatically equal smooching at our house.
With all the clouds and rain, I haven't seen much of the moon. I was hoping Thursday that I might see the moon right under one of the Monster Rainbows, but that didn't happen.
In other news, I'm reading way too many books at once -- books on the various branches of mysticism surrounding the Kabbalah, books on the history of writing and the development of homo sapiens art, and the history of science. It's times like these I wish I could read in my sleep. All this research is sort of for the history exhibit in Second Life... except that I've been so busy with Family Art Projects, short stories, and research that I haven't had much time to play in Second Life. It's crazy, but everything starts to point back to Gilgamesh, King Hammurabi, Ishtar, Lilitu, and Babylon. Oh, and medieval and Renaissance pastiches mistaken in the 1800 and 1900's for real live ancient things.
On the topic of religion... somehow, this week, I got into a discussion of rituals of passage with Dave Raines. I mentioned that over a decade ago, one of my old friends had used the metaphor "taken by the fairies" as part of a Neo-Pagan based ritual recognizing that her daughter's medical condition had irreversibly changed her personality. Dave wondered about a Christian-based ritual... and this is what popped out:
I'm reminded of the saying, "When one door closes, another opens." Here's one suggested ritual format (keeping in mind that although I was raised Episcopal, my spiritual practice is Neo-Paganism).
Ritual Welcoming the Changing One (a ritual marking the passing of the old self and the appearance of a new self, either through Alzheimer's, menopause, injury, or other personality changing conditions)
From within the sanctuary, The minister lights a colored candle (representing the Changing One's past life) from the altar candles and says, "From God's hands we come, and to God's hands we shall return." He takes the candle from the sanctuary to the vestibule at the back of the church, where the Changing One waits, possibly holding a photograph or small token representing their past.
A curtain is set up at the gate of the sanctuary rail. The Changing One's family and friends form a corridor leading to the curtain. The minister, representing the church, leads the Changing One (still holding their candle and token) through the corridor of community to the curtain at the sanctuary rail.
The congregation sings, "To every thing there is a season..."
The Changing One is assisted through the curtain, which closes after they enter the sanctuary. The minister helps the Changing One to place their candle and token on the altar, and to light a new white candle (representing their new self or new beginnings) from the old one.
Holding the new white candle, the Changing One reappears through the curtain at the sanctuary rail. The minister offers a benediction (I'm not sure if anointing with oil is appropriate [Dave says that within his practice, anointing at this time would be similar to a prayers for healing service]), and the Changing One and is welcomed by the corridor of community back to their seat. (Perhaps logistically, their candle could be clipped to their pew or placed on a low table in the aisle for the rest of the service.)
The service transitions into regular communion.
Sunday, May 09, 2010
Brief Summary of Kabbalah
Kabbalah (Notes primarily from Joseph Dan's "Kabbalah: A Very short Introduction".)
Kabbalah is complex, fluid subject with a written history of development spanning about 800 years. There are many forms of contemporary Kabbalah studies. Some of the worship forms used in Neo-Paganism can trace their development through Dion Fortune (aka Violet Firth) and Israel Regardie, The Golden Dawn, 19th Century Free Masonry and Theosophy (H.P. Blavatski) to Renaissance Christian Kabbalah. Kabbalah's practice in the last two centuries (at least) is a mystical one, although its earlier Jewish roots were more scientific.
Briefly (and incompletely), Kabbalah is a cosmology, a metaphysics, and a tool used to contemplate one's relationship with Deity. Kabbalah states that the universe was created by a series of utterances or emanations, called sefirot, from deity. The structure of sefirot is called the Tree of Life. Imbalances in flow of divine power through and to the sefirot strengthen the Left-Hand, or evil powers. Restoring the proper flow aligns the restorer with cosmic or divine powers.
Within (Western European) Neo-Paganism, Kabbalah's influence is most readily seen in theories behind divination by Tarot card -- a particular card is a reflection of a specific sefirot's functioning. Kabbalah's Tree of Life paradigm can be (and has been) used as a template by Neo-Pagans and occultists as a comparative table of world religion by assigning various cultures' gods and goddesses to particular sefirot on the Tree of Life.
Christian Kabbalah's source materials can be traced back to the early 1500's; the most well-known English writer from this time would be Robert Fludd. Its Christian authors were interested in using Kabbalah as a system of magic, numerology and alchemy.
Jewish Kabbalah's written source materials probably go to the ninth century, with claims of an older oral tradition. These are the "Sefer Yezira" (The Book of Creation), probably written in the ninth century; the "Book Bahir," written around 1185; and the "Zohar," written by Rabbi Moses de Leon (d. 1305) and collected in a single printing in 1560.
It is possible to speculate (and the author wishes to point out that this is only speculation on his part) that Dion Fortune's theories of male and female polarity as two ends of a magical battery may trace their roots to "Book Bahir," which introduced gender polarity to Kabbalah by presenting the "Shekhina" as the cosmic bride / divine wisdom.
Earlier writing on Shekhina presented this as an ungendered concept for the limited human perception of Deity. Writings of Lurianic Kabbalah after 1572 also may have influenced Fortune's magical theories, as they suggested bringing the Shekhina into an eroticized union with the deity as expressed through the sixth sefirot (associated with Fortune with the Messiah in general and Christ specifically) would increase and correct the flow between the sefirot.
To the best of this author's knowledge, there is no connection between Shekhina -- a divine (and later a feminine) manifestation of deity -- and Ashera -- an 11th century BCE goddess.
What Kabbalah contributes to Neo-Paganism is: a worldview that words or utterances have a causal relationship with the cosmos; (paradoxically) a worldview that is mystical and beyond verbal expression; erotic union (i.e. The Song of Solomon) as a metaphor for divine knowledge of deity; theurgy, or the idea that humans can help and influence divinity by their actions; and that ancient sages had an esoteric toolkit for influencing the spiritual and divine that allows practitioners to regain a lost relationship with deity.
Kabbalah is complex, fluid subject with a written history of development spanning about 800 years. There are many forms of contemporary Kabbalah studies. Some of the worship forms used in Neo-Paganism can trace their development through Dion Fortune (aka Violet Firth) and Israel Regardie, The Golden Dawn, 19th Century Free Masonry and Theosophy (H.P. Blavatski) to Renaissance Christian Kabbalah. Kabbalah's practice in the last two centuries (at least) is a mystical one, although its earlier Jewish roots were more scientific.
Briefly (and incompletely), Kabbalah is a cosmology, a metaphysics, and a tool used to contemplate one's relationship with Deity. Kabbalah states that the universe was created by a series of utterances or emanations, called sefirot, from deity. The structure of sefirot is called the Tree of Life. Imbalances in flow of divine power through and to the sefirot strengthen the Left-Hand, or evil powers. Restoring the proper flow aligns the restorer with cosmic or divine powers.
Within (Western European) Neo-Paganism, Kabbalah's influence is most readily seen in theories behind divination by Tarot card -- a particular card is a reflection of a specific sefirot's functioning. Kabbalah's Tree of Life paradigm can be (and has been) used as a template by Neo-Pagans and occultists as a comparative table of world religion by assigning various cultures' gods and goddesses to particular sefirot on the Tree of Life.
Christian Kabbalah's source materials can be traced back to the early 1500's; the most well-known English writer from this time would be Robert Fludd. Its Christian authors were interested in using Kabbalah as a system of magic, numerology and alchemy.
Jewish Kabbalah's written source materials probably go to the ninth century, with claims of an older oral tradition. These are the "Sefer Yezira" (The Book of Creation), probably written in the ninth century; the "Book Bahir," written around 1185; and the "Zohar," written by Rabbi Moses de Leon (d. 1305) and collected in a single printing in 1560.
It is possible to speculate (and the author wishes to point out that this is only speculation on his part) that Dion Fortune's theories of male and female polarity as two ends of a magical battery may trace their roots to "Book Bahir," which introduced gender polarity to Kabbalah by presenting the "Shekhina" as the cosmic bride / divine wisdom.
Earlier writing on Shekhina presented this as an ungendered concept for the limited human perception of Deity. Writings of Lurianic Kabbalah after 1572 also may have influenced Fortune's magical theories, as they suggested bringing the Shekhina into an eroticized union with the deity as expressed through the sixth sefirot (associated with Fortune with the Messiah in general and Christ specifically) would increase and correct the flow between the sefirot.
To the best of this author's knowledge, there is no connection between Shekhina -- a divine (and later a feminine) manifestation of deity -- and Ashera -- an 11th century BCE goddess.
What Kabbalah contributes to Neo-Paganism is: a worldview that words or utterances have a causal relationship with the cosmos; (paradoxically) a worldview that is mystical and beyond verbal expression; erotic union (i.e. The Song of Solomon) as a metaphor for divine knowledge of deity; theurgy, or the idea that humans can help and influence divinity by their actions; and that ancient sages had an esoteric toolkit for influencing the spiritual and divine that allows practitioners to regain a lost relationship with deity.
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
Descending into the Chariot
I'm reading a fascinating book, Joesph Dan's "Kabbalah: A Very Short Introduction." It's a history of Kabbalah, which is not as straight forward as one would think. The idea that's struck me the most, and which shouldn't have been so much of a surprise, is that Kabbalah (like the Egyptian collection of spells known as "The Book of Going Forth By Day") has been changing, developing and fragmenting over centuries.
Dan's thesis is that Kabbalah has been used for many things; that Kabbalahistic writings are probably only about two thousand years old; that at various times it's been used as a kind of secular set of rules to be Jewish without being orthodox; and although it has non-mystic roots, mystics have latched onto it; and, about every three hundred years or so someone does a radical reinterpretation of it that eventually is considered "ancient wisdom."
As an amateur historian of Neo-Paganism, what I find interesting is the dualism and strands of Neo-Platonism that have worked their way into Kabbalah studies -- which, apparently, wasn't originally the case. I'm waiting to see if Dan will make mention of either Dion Fortune or some other member of the Golden Dawn (he has mentioned Robert Fludd), since they were so keen on Kabbalah, and their conceptions of ceremonial magick influence the worship format of Neo-Paganism.
As a writer, this history is interesting to me. Yes, I'm working on an alternate world, and the problem as an architect of a believable Secondary World is the nature of divinities in the world. I want to have my fantastical divinity active -- which means I have to decide things like the nature of Nature in relationship to divinity, and the nature of divinity (is it perfection, or just super-natural?) And I probably don't want to go down the road of "Is a Perfect Divinity Knowable through Human Awareness?"
Hmmm.... looks like I have to go create a boulder so big I'm unable to move it. Oh. Wait...
Dan's thesis is that Kabbalah has been used for many things; that Kabbalahistic writings are probably only about two thousand years old; that at various times it's been used as a kind of secular set of rules to be Jewish without being orthodox; and although it has non-mystic roots, mystics have latched onto it; and, about every three hundred years or so someone does a radical reinterpretation of it that eventually is considered "ancient wisdom."
As an amateur historian of Neo-Paganism, what I find interesting is the dualism and strands of Neo-Platonism that have worked their way into Kabbalah studies -- which, apparently, wasn't originally the case. I'm waiting to see if Dan will make mention of either Dion Fortune or some other member of the Golden Dawn (he has mentioned Robert Fludd), since they were so keen on Kabbalah, and their conceptions of ceremonial magick influence the worship format of Neo-Paganism.
As a writer, this history is interesting to me. Yes, I'm working on an alternate world, and the problem as an architect of a believable Secondary World is the nature of divinities in the world. I want to have my fantastical divinity active -- which means I have to decide things like the nature of Nature in relationship to divinity, and the nature of divinity (is it perfection, or just super-natural?) And I probably don't want to go down the road of "Is a Perfect Divinity Knowable through Human Awareness?"
Hmmm.... looks like I have to go create a boulder so big I'm unable to move it. Oh. Wait...
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