Great article! I would like to gesture to this from an anthroposophical angle. Humanity is no longer living in the same structure of consciousness. In earlier times, especially in what Steiner would describe as the lingering aftereffects of Atlantean, atavistic clairvoyance, human beings still stood in a more immediate relation to the etheric and elemental worlds. Magic, in the sense you describe, was more naturally accessible through the earlier ceremonial forms.
The reality that ceremonies do not work as they once did is not due only to cultural loss; I see that as more a symptom than a cause. Steiner might say that this is an evolutionary necessity. Humanity and the earth are moving away from the old magical consciousness precisely so that the I-being, may incarnate more fully. The older powers were more collective, more dreamlike, more bound to blood, tribe, and inherited participation. What is being asked of us now is perhaps more difficult: not to fall back into those earlier forms, but to awaken through effort into a free and conscious spiritual relation to the world.
So I would say that the waning of ceremonial efficacy is not just a sign of disenchantment or a dilution of meaning. It may also be the cost of freedom. The old magic recedes so that a new faculty can be born, one in which spirit is no longer given to us in a natural, atavistic way, but must be consciously and morally attained. In that sense, ceremonies may not be losing their magic so much as humanity is being asked to meet the sacred in a new way...
I like this explanation...it's like a giant spiraling upward, looping back, but still moving forward and upward. We are given the freedom and choice to return to the sacred for a reason. Because it calls to those who it needs to bring it to a living and breathing presence.
Yes, I do! It's hard to take in at one time, but most of what I read resonates deeply. I particularly appreciate Orland Bishop's incorporation of its teachings in his work. I have dabbled in it especially for childrearing. In that sense, I see a clear progression of creating more room for freer translation and appreciation of sacredness in my own family line...
That's truly wonderful! I'm glad to read that. Childrearing is a fantastic entrance to Anthroposophical thinking and one of its most important fruits, to me. Thanks for the reference, I will check him out.
What you are pointing to resonates so purely & deeply with the energy/consciousness explorations I feel blessed to be part of these days. Thank you for highlighting/framing this underlying expansive picture so beautifully! Truely an amazing time for for humanity to be waking up & stepping up.
I'm curious whether the diminishing power of ritual might be part of a larger shift, something that is also encapsulated in Stella's essay that you linked here.
In particular, perhaps we are moving out of an era in which *belief determines reality* and into an era in which our experience is more embodied, more direct.
Modern technology and science is step in the direction of direct engagement. We do not need a collective mythology of radio transmission for cell towers to work, for example. But it is limited by its own mythology of materialism and reductionism.
As you say, Stella's Resonant Attention is not a ritual. It is not based in belief or mythology. It is, instead, based in direct awareness, attunement, attention. And I have a sense that might be the direction we are moving. Not creating new mythologies or reviving old ones, but moving beyond mythology into a deeper understanding of and direct engagement with the matrix of reality.
Ritual isn't just about beliefs. It is also about organizing human labor and creativity. To put it simply, people will not join in creating something together unless they believe others will join too.
Or perhaps the inner pull just becomes so strong (as we begin orienting to it) that we are naturally drawn to find others who are also engaging in this way. That has happened on my path. Even when part of me was reluctant to 'step out' and 'risk' actively aligning my life with what I was discovering about spirit/energy/consciousness, the connections that supported/cultivated further spiritual growth appeared like breadcrumbs leading me deeper. Astounds me to see all the evidence around & in us of the evolving Field of Consciousness. Thank you Charles for all you are doing to shine more light on this.
"A ritual becomes a ceremony when it is performed with reverence"
Love this!
I reflected on something similar related to running my small farm: "In its best form, consistency expresses itself as ritual - an intentional outpouring of care and devotion...Routine is consistency without heart."
Your message of bringing about a more beautiful world is one of the primary operating principles here at our farm.
Thank you for continuing to showcase the many gifts come from following your heart and remaining a student of beauty, truth and deep connection to people and the planet.
I implore one to read the Preface to “Milton” by William Blake.
We’re moving past the limitations of our western cultural beliefs into ones that open us to infinite possibilities. In fact the rituals of seeds appearing and costumes changing may become more real in smaller circles. Perhaps collective agreements are going to be lessened, but the ones between friends, families and communities may converge.
Thank you for offering this vision of a More Beautiful World! Many people talk about collapse of modern society, but I’m reading writers that imagine an evolution that includes gifts from the past as well as hope for future!
I've noticed something similar. Every so often Charles engages in a ritual of posting several thousand words on Substack. A few years ago these words meant a lot to me. I looked forward to them, read them with reverance, and maybe even resonated with them. Then he participated in a sham political campaign, profited greatly, and got an evil man re-elected. Suddenly his rituals aren't working for me anymore. I no longer feel the resonance. You could say the "field" has been tainted by performative ritual in service to alterior motives. Seems to be a lot of that going around. Maybe that's why it's not working anymore.
If people had listened to what I and many others were saying about Trump and Brexit and the other anti-establishment movements going back to 2016, he would not have been elected. The establishment he defeated needed to be stopped. The fact that he is even worse does not change that. The problem today isn't simply that an evil man is in power. Obama wasn't an evil man, yet he too pursued the establishment program of war, surveillance, corporate control, and imperialism. I understand your dismay, though, that I did not take a stand against Trump. Many people feel the same way you do.
Well Charles I agree with you about broader problems with “the establishment”. Whether or not Trump defeated “them” is debatable. And I think your attitude toward Trump in 2024 was a little less benign that you are portraying. If you cut through the literary gymnastics, “Shades of Many Colors” was a pro-Trump propaganda piece. You helped get him elected.
Hi Charles. Just wondering why the comment that you have replied to here has now been removed? There was nothing in the comment that was abusive or counter-factual. It was a perfectly reasonable reflection on things that have occured.
I do hope there isn't an attempt on your part, or on the part of your team to launder your image in any way by removing or silencing criticisms?
Someone (*cough*) flagged my account for abuse of censorstack's "spam policy". I appealed and the appeals bot unsuspended my account. These are the games that are played with those of us who speak the uncomfortable truth. I appreciated your support of my right to speak freely.
For me the "social contract" was clearly irreparably broken during Covid. The mask came off with rules for thee but none for me etc., and it's become more clear as times moved and the institutions we all grew up feeling like we could depend on have shown just how conditional they really are. This instability has gathered like shadows in our subconscious minds and even though we all have to rise up and meet the work of the day, its clear that theres no marrow in the bones of our system, its been hollowed out and is dying. Its depressing if you let it get to you.
The only conclusion that I can sit comfortably with is the idea of sovereign individuals reclaiming their personal power (never read that book, fyi). We all have to come to terms with the fact that these broken systems no longer serve us, they are no longer just, reliable, or strong. Because they have become extractive and corrupt, therefore the contract is no longer binding. Its up to us as individuals to rise above the propaganda and word noises and recognize that we just have to move through it as guided by our higher conscience without being spiritually owned by whatever social commitments may have held power over us in the past. I think this is when the magic starts to come back. We have always been the magic, but we threw in with something we thought was greater than ourselves, and we are realizing that was a lie.
I foresee some sort of new Wild West as the landscape shifts and the rules change. Magical thinking and mysticism with a high tech overlay. You are only governed by what you allow yourself to believe is true, which is why creativity and ingenuity have always bent and broken the beliefs of the past to make space for new ways of being. Religion and faith, placebo and medicine, these things work because we believe we can be changed and healed. We can't give up hoping that the future that awaits us is one where things will be more beautiful, more real. Im rambling, but this ongoing breakdown isnt one of destruction, its just disillusionment vanishing so we can see with real eyes that whatever we've been waiting for is already here waiting to be taken by individuals who are not afraid to be their own masters.
Agree mostly. I don't believe in magic or magical thinking. I do believe in magick, which is another word for the inherent properties of the universe, most of which we aren't aware of or don't understand. Belief is required for these things to work only insofar as our psychology demands. Beyond our human limitations, the universe works because it does. Pretty words from "thought leaders" and gurus, and tithing (or "love gifting") to them is definately not required. For the most part they need to shut TF up and get out of the way.
Hi! I just realized I somehow commented on your comment instead of the main thread, so nice job with your tricky name, ha! Also when you say magick are you at all talking about Thelema? There's some core ideas that ring true within it, but the paths seem to turn dark, and darker...
Isaac Newton would be horrified by the perspective that "it is liberating to be free of notions of God." Newton, an alchemist who believed there is no science without God, would not agree. His unpublished writings that surfaced in 1936 when they were auctioned off at Sotheby's clearly paint the picture of a man who very much believed in God. This wasn't because he had to believe to keep his position at Cambridge. He was supposed to become a priest to keep his university job, but he was able to become the exception to that rule. He didn't want to become ordained because he believed that traditional religion did not represent the true religion - which was alchemy - and represented a fusion of science and religious philosophy. He believed that Yeshua embodied the teachings of alchemy that dated all the way back to Atlantis. He disagreed with the church of Rome that Jesus was God and he believed that the Pope was the Anti-Christ. Newton spent the majority of his time studying church history and alchemy and left behind millions of unpublished writings that reveal his beliefs in a Higher Power. He was prevented from publishing them during his lifetime - the church would have thrown him in prison or worse executed him.
I have been thinking about how these rituals depend on people's belief in the shaman to give them the spiritual result they desire, in the same way that organised religions have had leaders who are the only ones with access to spiritual knowledge. In the same way we outsource our body to others for healing and our minds to the stories we are fed by systems or people who claim to have the answers. Maybe the state of rituals like this are calling us back to our own inner guidance, to the recognition that magical answers keep us away from facing the difficult truths that humanity has allowed so much oppression and extraction, including spiritually. Because it seems to me a time where most people reclaim some power and some people relinquish it so we start to be in right relationship with each other. I read an essay about a woman's relationship with weed as a way of managing her pverwhelming distress when she was little and then circumstances in her life changing so that she had to face a time where she could not access the drug. And in some way do we as humans use spirituality and these kinds of mystical rituals to cope with the horrors of how humans live until many of us are unable to deny that horror and are better resourced to face it without drugs, spiritual beliefs which have operated as control mechanisms of the masses and enabled the most horrendous abuses and exploitation to occur by spiritual leaders. And the same with our bodies - when do we trust our own hands and intentions over the expertise of others ?
Maybe one "ritual" that is still here and still working in the shadows, will be rediscovered. That is homeopathy. Conventional medicine is practicing bad homeopathy.
Some day conventional medicine will understand homeopathy. What Any drug causes mentally, emotionally and physically it will also cure and vice versa. This is the homeopathic law of similars, like cures like. And the drugs dont have to be diluted. They are just more effective when they are diluted in the manner used in homeopathy as experience has shown.
Every one of conventional medicine's drugs has side effects that match the indications for which the drug is prescribed. Aspirin, ibuprofen & acetaminophen can Cause fever and headaches. Ritalin is an “upper” that causes ADHD type symptoms similar to those it is used to manage. Radiation & chemo drugs can cause and sometimes cure cancer. SSRI’s and other antidepressants can Cause depression and homicidal & suicidal ideation. Budesinide, an asthma inhaler, can cause "Paradoxical bronchospasms". etc. etc. This is true for the top 500 drugs used by con-med that I have investigated so far, no exceptions. Conventional medicine is practicing bad homeopathy, temporarily suppressing or palliating a few symptoms with their prescriptions, biochemical whack-a-mole medicine.
If conventional doctors prescribed on the homeopathic principle where the “side effects” of their drugs matched All the mental, emotional and physical symptoms of the patient, they would be curative as homeopathy is. Instead they suppress/palliate symptoms temporarily like a poorly prescribed “homeopathic” medicine that is only partially similar or “like”, the patient’s disease.
Homeopathy is a great example of a ritual system embedded in a very different "mythology." Interbeing. Each condition of a human being is mirrored by or connected to some substance in the universe.
"Freed from its hegemony, other cultures, what Orland Bishop calls communities of memory, will recover the power of their ceremonies without having to insulate themselves to remain intact. They will be free to coevolve with all the rest. They will join and intermingle with the other currents and eddies of the Great River. They will deliver their gifts to the world, that they have been holding for so, so long." I would like to add: "And we will learn to RESPECT their ceremonies for what they are, valid ceremonies, not just superficial rituals".
Interesting Charles, you bemoan the loss of ritual power and then rightly show how damaging that seeming (hypnotic) power can be. Trump casts off many such rituals and he is evil, but the shaman in South Africa is good, (unless he turns that power against his enemies in war which he will certainly do?). You are not really talking here about ritual, but simply about your personal preferences, the stories (and the people) you like and the ones you don't. And you feel free to mix them all up. And you are right, waking up to the rituals of mass traumatic mind control) of medicine, vaccination, indebtedness, jingoism, psychiatry, materialism, scientism, etc. is healthy and liberating, but we don't need to replace it with another story, ancient or modern. The story is always a two edge sword. One person's mythology is another person's delusion. And the propaganda, Newspeak (the story) works most effectively when the mind controllers mix the two up (for the greater good, saving grandma). As long as a story is active, any story, we are easily enslaved. What we are learning is that we don't need the stories (mythology) in order to know what is real and what is unreal. This discernment (the wheat and the chaff), arises when we see through all the stories. As Shakespeare wrote, "There is neither good nor bad but thinking makes it so". What is essential to life, happiness, love is always, already within us, waiting to be recognized and given expression in our lives. And it doesn't always show up in ways we imagine or as our stories dictate. When the real is present, our stories are always challenged. We are no longer children who need Santa Claus or the frightening (mythical) creature that lives under the bed at night. We just need the truth that sets us free. You seem to understand that truth at times, but all your competing stories muddles it up.
I'm not bemoaning anything. I am making some observations.
We will always have stories and narratives through which we cocreate material reality. Money is a story, a assigning of meaning to symbols. So is an industrial contract. For human beings to create anything beyond the power of their individual two hands, they must tell the story of what is to be. Rituals come from and contribute to that story.
It may be true Charles that "we will always have stories and narratives through which we cocreate material reality" But what if that is the reason the world is in the sorry state that it is? Yes, the creative process is the natural activity of the mind and consciousness but if stories and rituals were the only basis for manifesting our world not only are we in danger of adopting false stories that create a false world, like materialism, scientism, which are empowered by stories and rituals of belief and socialization. In so doing we co-create material unreality, not reality. So, stories and rituals cannot be the answer or the basis for your vision of 'a more beautiful world our hearts could know is possible'. The heart knows nothing of the way the mind likes to structure, define and limit the world it constructs, it is free of such constraints. As Rumi tells us, “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” Our stories and rituals are the artifice, a construct built to veil the truth of our being, love which needs no such artifices to give expression to the creative spirit. We can live life directly, fully, we simply chop wood. carry water. As John Keats tells us, "Truth is beauty and beauty is truth, that is all we know and all we need to know." To be, to know and to love, three names for our one true indivisible reality. No need to weave stories and practice rituals to know this, live this, and bring forth a beautiful world.
As you say, until the rituals and the stories don't work, empty, vain repetition. Those that harbor stories, and seek meaning through them are easily manipulated by those who know how to use all the old and new stories to their ends, who know how to use the language of kindness and empathy and connection to 'co-create' the opposite. You know how well this works, all the psyops we experience everyday. We are already that which we seek, beyond all fables we hold and tell each other. To know this means we are immune to not just to manipulation but all the rituals that keep us distracted, abstracted and identified with a narrative. The stories will never make up for our sense of separation, only the recognition of our innate perfection and unity. "In Him we live and move and have our being". The old stories are for children. It time to put away childish things. This is childhood's end.
Agree ... for example, the "ritual" of legal immigration being abandoned could have been cited as well as the "rituals" of no longer adhering to lengths of sentencing by judges or arrests according to crimes. It wasn't organic; it isn't that these changes just happened. Clearly, there were powers behind them. So more needs to be unraveled within ourselves.
Great article! I would like to gesture to this from an anthroposophical angle. Humanity is no longer living in the same structure of consciousness. In earlier times, especially in what Steiner would describe as the lingering aftereffects of Atlantean, atavistic clairvoyance, human beings still stood in a more immediate relation to the etheric and elemental worlds. Magic, in the sense you describe, was more naturally accessible through the earlier ceremonial forms.
The reality that ceremonies do not work as they once did is not due only to cultural loss; I see that as more a symptom than a cause. Steiner might say that this is an evolutionary necessity. Humanity and the earth are moving away from the old magical consciousness precisely so that the I-being, may incarnate more fully. The older powers were more collective, more dreamlike, more bound to blood, tribe, and inherited participation. What is being asked of us now is perhaps more difficult: not to fall back into those earlier forms, but to awaken through effort into a free and conscious spiritual relation to the world.
So I would say that the waning of ceremonial efficacy is not just a sign of disenchantment or a dilution of meaning. It may also be the cost of freedom. The old magic recedes so that a new faculty can be born, one in which spirit is no longer given to us in a natural, atavistic way, but must be consciously and morally attained. In that sense, ceremonies may not be losing their magic so much as humanity is being asked to meet the sacred in a new way...
Anthroposophy was woven deeply through that South Africa trip, which began at the OASA conference.
I like this explanation...it's like a giant spiraling upward, looping back, but still moving forward and upward. We are given the freedom and choice to return to the sacred for a reason. Because it calls to those who it needs to bring it to a living and breathing presence.
Cool imagery. I think you would enjoy Anthroposophy.
Yes, I do! It's hard to take in at one time, but most of what I read resonates deeply. I particularly appreciate Orland Bishop's incorporation of its teachings in his work. I have dabbled in it especially for childrearing. In that sense, I see a clear progression of creating more room for freer translation and appreciation of sacredness in my own family line...
That's truly wonderful! I'm glad to read that. Childrearing is a fantastic entrance to Anthroposophical thinking and one of its most important fruits, to me. Thanks for the reference, I will check him out.
What you are pointing to resonates so purely & deeply with the energy/consciousness explorations I feel blessed to be part of these days. Thank you for highlighting/framing this underlying expansive picture so beautifully! Truely an amazing time for for humanity to be waking up & stepping up.
Wow! you're welcome! I'm glad I could express it.
Thank you for sharing this
My pleasure :)
I'm curious whether the diminishing power of ritual might be part of a larger shift, something that is also encapsulated in Stella's essay that you linked here.
In particular, perhaps we are moving out of an era in which *belief determines reality* and into an era in which our experience is more embodied, more direct.
Modern technology and science is step in the direction of direct engagement. We do not need a collective mythology of radio transmission for cell towers to work, for example. But it is limited by its own mythology of materialism and reductionism.
As you say, Stella's Resonant Attention is not a ritual. It is not based in belief or mythology. It is, instead, based in direct awareness, attunement, attention. And I have a sense that might be the direction we are moving. Not creating new mythologies or reviving old ones, but moving beyond mythology into a deeper understanding of and direct engagement with the matrix of reality.
Ritual isn't just about beliefs. It is also about organizing human labor and creativity. To put it simply, people will not join in creating something together unless they believe others will join too.
Or perhaps the inner pull just becomes so strong (as we begin orienting to it) that we are naturally drawn to find others who are also engaging in this way. That has happened on my path. Even when part of me was reluctant to 'step out' and 'risk' actively aligning my life with what I was discovering about spirit/energy/consciousness, the connections that supported/cultivated further spiritual growth appeared like breadcrumbs leading me deeper. Astounds me to see all the evidence around & in us of the evolving Field of Consciousness. Thank you Charles for all you are doing to shine more light on this.
"A ritual becomes a ceremony when it is performed with reverence"
Love this!
I reflected on something similar related to running my small farm: "In its best form, consistency expresses itself as ritual - an intentional outpouring of care and devotion...Routine is consistency without heart."
Your message of bringing about a more beautiful world is one of the primary operating principles here at our farm.
Thank you for continuing to showcase the many gifts come from following your heart and remaining a student of beauty, truth and deep connection to people and the planet.
https://www.cardifftinyfarm.com/blog/on-ritual-routine-ruts-and-revival
I implore one to read the Preface to “Milton” by William Blake.
We’re moving past the limitations of our western cultural beliefs into ones that open us to infinite possibilities. In fact the rituals of seeds appearing and costumes changing may become more real in smaller circles. Perhaps collective agreements are going to be lessened, but the ones between friends, families and communities may converge.
"While praying people have a tendency of looking up, but why?
There is no reason for it. There's nothing up there.
God resides in your heart.
So pray from within; clean your heart.
There's nothing in the sky!"
--Meher Baba
A great example, to my mind, of how technology and life meet.
Thank you for offering this vision of a More Beautiful World! Many people talk about collapse of modern society, but I’m reading writers that imagine an evolution that includes gifts from the past as well as hope for future!
Gratitude is one of the most powerful rituals and feeds love which is the power of the cosmos
rituals are failing because coherence is thinning
more input is entering the system than people can regulate
without that regulation, meaning collapses
without meaning, rituals hollow out
The work now is not new ritual.
It is developing the capacity to hold what is already here without fragmenting.
I've noticed something similar. Every so often Charles engages in a ritual of posting several thousand words on Substack. A few years ago these words meant a lot to me. I looked forward to them, read them with reverance, and maybe even resonated with them. Then he participated in a sham political campaign, profited greatly, and got an evil man re-elected. Suddenly his rituals aren't working for me anymore. I no longer feel the resonance. You could say the "field" has been tainted by performative ritual in service to alterior motives. Seems to be a lot of that going around. Maybe that's why it's not working anymore.
If people had listened to what I and many others were saying about Trump and Brexit and the other anti-establishment movements going back to 2016, he would not have been elected. The establishment he defeated needed to be stopped. The fact that he is even worse does not change that. The problem today isn't simply that an evil man is in power. Obama wasn't an evil man, yet he too pursued the establishment program of war, surveillance, corporate control, and imperialism. I understand your dismay, though, that I did not take a stand against Trump. Many people feel the same way you do.
Well Charles I agree with you about broader problems with “the establishment”. Whether or not Trump defeated “them” is debatable. And I think your attitude toward Trump in 2024 was a little less benign that you are portraying. If you cut through the literary gymnastics, “Shades of Many Colors” was a pro-Trump propaganda piece. You helped get him elected.
Hi Charles. Just wondering why the comment that you have replied to here has now been removed? There was nothing in the comment that was abusive or counter-factual. It was a perfectly reasonable reflection on things that have occured.
I do hope there isn't an attempt on your part, or on the part of your team to launder your image in any way by removing or silencing criticisms?
Someone (*cough*) flagged my account for abuse of censorstack's "spam policy". I appealed and the appeals bot unsuspended my account. These are the games that are played with those of us who speak the uncomfortable truth. I appreciated your support of my right to speak freely.
For me the "social contract" was clearly irreparably broken during Covid. The mask came off with rules for thee but none for me etc., and it's become more clear as times moved and the institutions we all grew up feeling like we could depend on have shown just how conditional they really are. This instability has gathered like shadows in our subconscious minds and even though we all have to rise up and meet the work of the day, its clear that theres no marrow in the bones of our system, its been hollowed out and is dying. Its depressing if you let it get to you.
The only conclusion that I can sit comfortably with is the idea of sovereign individuals reclaiming their personal power (never read that book, fyi). We all have to come to terms with the fact that these broken systems no longer serve us, they are no longer just, reliable, or strong. Because they have become extractive and corrupt, therefore the contract is no longer binding. Its up to us as individuals to rise above the propaganda and word noises and recognize that we just have to move through it as guided by our higher conscience without being spiritually owned by whatever social commitments may have held power over us in the past. I think this is when the magic starts to come back. We have always been the magic, but we threw in with something we thought was greater than ourselves, and we are realizing that was a lie.
I foresee some sort of new Wild West as the landscape shifts and the rules change. Magical thinking and mysticism with a high tech overlay. You are only governed by what you allow yourself to believe is true, which is why creativity and ingenuity have always bent and broken the beliefs of the past to make space for new ways of being. Religion and faith, placebo and medicine, these things work because we believe we can be changed and healed. We can't give up hoping that the future that awaits us is one where things will be more beautiful, more real. Im rambling, but this ongoing breakdown isnt one of destruction, its just disillusionment vanishing so we can see with real eyes that whatever we've been waiting for is already here waiting to be taken by individuals who are not afraid to be their own masters.
Agree mostly. I don't believe in magic or magical thinking. I do believe in magick, which is another word for the inherent properties of the universe, most of which we aren't aware of or don't understand. Belief is required for these things to work only insofar as our psychology demands. Beyond our human limitations, the universe works because it does. Pretty words from "thought leaders" and gurus, and tithing (or "love gifting") to them is definately not required. For the most part they need to shut TF up and get out of the way.
Hi! I just realized I somehow commented on your comment instead of the main thread, so nice job with your tricky name, ha! Also when you say magick are you at all talking about Thelema? There's some core ideas that ring true within it, but the paths seem to turn dark, and darker...
Not familiar with Thelema. I'm referring to the creative energy of the universe as opposed to stage tricks and sleight of hand.
Keep watching your television, critical thinker. 😏
Oh Art, what's it like to be you?
thank you. let's begin the great reset with transforming our mindset from scarcity to abundance.
Isaac Newton would be horrified by the perspective that "it is liberating to be free of notions of God." Newton, an alchemist who believed there is no science without God, would not agree. His unpublished writings that surfaced in 1936 when they were auctioned off at Sotheby's clearly paint the picture of a man who very much believed in God. This wasn't because he had to believe to keep his position at Cambridge. He was supposed to become a priest to keep his university job, but he was able to become the exception to that rule. He didn't want to become ordained because he believed that traditional religion did not represent the true religion - which was alchemy - and represented a fusion of science and religious philosophy. He believed that Yeshua embodied the teachings of alchemy that dated all the way back to Atlantis. He disagreed with the church of Rome that Jesus was God and he believed that the Pope was the Anti-Christ. Newton spent the majority of his time studying church history and alchemy and left behind millions of unpublished writings that reveal his beliefs in a Higher Power. He was prevented from publishing them during his lifetime - the church would have thrown him in prison or worse executed him.
I have been thinking about how these rituals depend on people's belief in the shaman to give them the spiritual result they desire, in the same way that organised religions have had leaders who are the only ones with access to spiritual knowledge. In the same way we outsource our body to others for healing and our minds to the stories we are fed by systems or people who claim to have the answers. Maybe the state of rituals like this are calling us back to our own inner guidance, to the recognition that magical answers keep us away from facing the difficult truths that humanity has allowed so much oppression and extraction, including spiritually. Because it seems to me a time where most people reclaim some power and some people relinquish it so we start to be in right relationship with each other. I read an essay about a woman's relationship with weed as a way of managing her pverwhelming distress when she was little and then circumstances in her life changing so that she had to face a time where she could not access the drug. And in some way do we as humans use spirituality and these kinds of mystical rituals to cope with the horrors of how humans live until many of us are unable to deny that horror and are better resourced to face it without drugs, spiritual beliefs which have operated as control mechanisms of the masses and enabled the most horrendous abuses and exploitation to occur by spiritual leaders. And the same with our bodies - when do we trust our own hands and intentions over the expertise of others ?
Compelling thread Charles ... where this is going next only the universe knows.
Maybe one "ritual" that is still here and still working in the shadows, will be rediscovered. That is homeopathy. Conventional medicine is practicing bad homeopathy.
Some day conventional medicine will understand homeopathy. What Any drug causes mentally, emotionally and physically it will also cure and vice versa. This is the homeopathic law of similars, like cures like. And the drugs dont have to be diluted. They are just more effective when they are diluted in the manner used in homeopathy as experience has shown.
Every one of conventional medicine's drugs has side effects that match the indications for which the drug is prescribed. Aspirin, ibuprofen & acetaminophen can Cause fever and headaches. Ritalin is an “upper” that causes ADHD type symptoms similar to those it is used to manage. Radiation & chemo drugs can cause and sometimes cure cancer. SSRI’s and other antidepressants can Cause depression and homicidal & suicidal ideation. Budesinide, an asthma inhaler, can cause "Paradoxical bronchospasms". etc. etc. This is true for the top 500 drugs used by con-med that I have investigated so far, no exceptions. Conventional medicine is practicing bad homeopathy, temporarily suppressing or palliating a few symptoms with their prescriptions, biochemical whack-a-mole medicine.
If conventional doctors prescribed on the homeopathic principle where the “side effects” of their drugs matched All the mental, emotional and physical symptoms of the patient, they would be curative as homeopathy is. Instead they suppress/palliate symptoms temporarily like a poorly prescribed “homeopathic” medicine that is only partially similar or “like”, the patient’s disease.
Homeopathy is a great example of a ritual system embedded in a very different "mythology." Interbeing. Each condition of a human being is mirrored by or connected to some substance in the universe.
I wonder if homeopathy isn't one of the few epistemologies that actually touches ontology, beyond aesthetics or what have you.
... and I am astounded at the pushback from practitioner's should a patient raise the idea of a holistic or alternative option!
"Freed from its hegemony, other cultures, what Orland Bishop calls communities of memory, will recover the power of their ceremonies without having to insulate themselves to remain intact. They will be free to coevolve with all the rest. They will join and intermingle with the other currents and eddies of the Great River. They will deliver their gifts to the world, that they have been holding for so, so long." I would like to add: "And we will learn to RESPECT their ceremonies for what they are, valid ceremonies, not just superficial rituals".
Interesting Charles, you bemoan the loss of ritual power and then rightly show how damaging that seeming (hypnotic) power can be. Trump casts off many such rituals and he is evil, but the shaman in South Africa is good, (unless he turns that power against his enemies in war which he will certainly do?). You are not really talking here about ritual, but simply about your personal preferences, the stories (and the people) you like and the ones you don't. And you feel free to mix them all up. And you are right, waking up to the rituals of mass traumatic mind control) of medicine, vaccination, indebtedness, jingoism, psychiatry, materialism, scientism, etc. is healthy and liberating, but we don't need to replace it with another story, ancient or modern. The story is always a two edge sword. One person's mythology is another person's delusion. And the propaganda, Newspeak (the story) works most effectively when the mind controllers mix the two up (for the greater good, saving grandma). As long as a story is active, any story, we are easily enslaved. What we are learning is that we don't need the stories (mythology) in order to know what is real and what is unreal. This discernment (the wheat and the chaff), arises when we see through all the stories. As Shakespeare wrote, "There is neither good nor bad but thinking makes it so". What is essential to life, happiness, love is always, already within us, waiting to be recognized and given expression in our lives. And it doesn't always show up in ways we imagine or as our stories dictate. When the real is present, our stories are always challenged. We are no longer children who need Santa Claus or the frightening (mythical) creature that lives under the bed at night. We just need the truth that sets us free. You seem to understand that truth at times, but all your competing stories muddles it up.
I'm not bemoaning anything. I am making some observations.
We will always have stories and narratives through which we cocreate material reality. Money is a story, a assigning of meaning to symbols. So is an industrial contract. For human beings to create anything beyond the power of their individual two hands, they must tell the story of what is to be. Rituals come from and contribute to that story.
It may be true Charles that "we will always have stories and narratives through which we cocreate material reality" But what if that is the reason the world is in the sorry state that it is? Yes, the creative process is the natural activity of the mind and consciousness but if stories and rituals were the only basis for manifesting our world not only are we in danger of adopting false stories that create a false world, like materialism, scientism, which are empowered by stories and rituals of belief and socialization. In so doing we co-create material unreality, not reality. So, stories and rituals cannot be the answer or the basis for your vision of 'a more beautiful world our hearts could know is possible'. The heart knows nothing of the way the mind likes to structure, define and limit the world it constructs, it is free of such constraints. As Rumi tells us, “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” Our stories and rituals are the artifice, a construct built to veil the truth of our being, love which needs no such artifices to give expression to the creative spirit. We can live life directly, fully, we simply chop wood. carry water. As John Keats tells us, "Truth is beauty and beauty is truth, that is all we know and all we need to know." To be, to know and to love, three names for our one true indivisible reality. No need to weave stories and practice rituals to know this, live this, and bring forth a beautiful world.
As you say, until the rituals and the stories don't work, empty, vain repetition. Those that harbor stories, and seek meaning through them are easily manipulated by those who know how to use all the old and new stories to their ends, who know how to use the language of kindness and empathy and connection to 'co-create' the opposite. You know how well this works, all the psyops we experience everyday. We are already that which we seek, beyond all fables we hold and tell each other. To know this means we are immune to not just to manipulation but all the rituals that keep us distracted, abstracted and identified with a narrative. The stories will never make up for our sense of separation, only the recognition of our innate perfection and unity. "In Him we live and move and have our being". The old stories are for children. It time to put away childish things. This is childhood's end.
Agree ... for example, the "ritual" of legal immigration being abandoned could have been cited as well as the "rituals" of no longer adhering to lengths of sentencing by judges or arrests according to crimes. It wasn't organic; it isn't that these changes just happened. Clearly, there were powers behind them. So more needs to be unraveled within ourselves.