Starting A Cult

Inside our minds is an entire universe onto itself. The body is constrained by the physical laws of matter and energy but in the bio-cyber space of thoughts -in our dreams, our imagination and in a possible mystical experience, all the hard and fast rules of reality can be suspended.

It's easy to think that life and conscious thought would be fantastic enough but most people want to explore what's beyond that horizon -at least once. People take drugs to experience altered states of mind.  We fall in love, which is a lot like being on drugs, not only for the physical benefits but also for the irrational drama.  And even though there are hard headed realists that proclaim "that all that's physically there, is all that really is" everyone else to some degree doesn't believe that. The average person is seeking transcendence, some experience that gives life "meaning".

Once as a college gag several of us decided to start a cult. It wasn't a serious idea but more like a mocking piece of performance art. The first wave of Tele-evangelists were raking in millions, Moonies were on every street corner selling flowers and politicians were tripping over each other to get in front of the public to talk about their "born again" conversions.   It seemed like there was one born again every minute.

Social media didn't exist back then, social circles had to be created the hard way. In a local newspaper we placed a personal ad.  Along with announcements for club meeting and lonely people seeking dates, our ad said "Messiah seeking converts, respond to box C-5" .  We expected a few letters of hellfire condemnations and we were not disappointed. The big surprise was over 30 letters from people that said -yes, they are ready to follow our new Messiah.  Given that some of the letters were just as much a joke as our ad, it still amazed us that we could have probably found twelve dedicated Apostles to start our spiritual mission.

In truth what is a cult?  Thomas Wolfe defined it as a religion without political power.  Politics and religion has always been a poisonous mixture.  The modern breakdown of organized religion mostly is the legacy of past wrongs where  religion was used as a stick to beat others into compliance and submission. 

No matter how much good that comes out of any faith eventually somebody is going to get killed in the name of God.  The world must be divided between saved and damned. Heretics must be weeded out. Special benefits must be secured and traded for money and power so that the faith can survive as an intuition.  It's kind of proof positive that where ever God goes Satan is there too.  The next question is God and Satan avatars of people's personal psycho drama or do they exist outside of the human mind as tangibly real beings?  And because questions like that, people from time to time were burned at the stake.  The big surprise is even when people are thoroughly repulsed by this kind of behavior, they still have a spiritual earning.

Sensing that we were playing with fire, we dropped the idea of starting our own cult.  We were afraid that a little bit of unintentional success could lead to so many unintentional consequences.  One of our co-conspirators was Stevie, an accomplished painter and an open Atheist -long before it cool or safe. He would wear a tee shirt that said "I saw the logic" in response to others who said they saw the light.  It really troubled Stevie to know that most people reject logic and embrace all kinds of irrational thinking. My response to Stevie was "if numbers can be irrational, why should people be any better?".

Life is wonderful but all the parts that aren't so wonderful can be pretty crappy. The cold hard realization that all we have is now falls apart in front of an eternity in heaven.  We at least want to think there is some cosmic justice beyond this world where that bully in middle school will be forced to contemplate his sins and there's a paradise filled with all our former pets and grandparents. 

Though Stevie was an Atheist, he was also very enthralled with "Christian mythology".  Every bit of mythology has a vital question, a kernel of truth or an unanswerable paradox at its core. Mythology represents the greatest form of storytelling where the most scarred human principals can be forever framed in the context of a fable -or a parable. Renaissance painters depicted the crucifixion of Jesus in all its gory details. On Jesus' face is the pain and doubt of human suffering when we face death. Stevie broke down all the different interpretations of a few of these painting. As he said "that's the hallmark of great art, it gets you to react to what is and isn't there, it reflects the ambiguity of life".     

So what is a man but the stories he tells?  (I think that's Shakespeare) If you listen a person carefully all of his beliefs are encoded in his stories.  Our personal narratives are filled with symbolic language because even the most precise words all by themselves -don't always work. 

Like I said, people don't want to fully accept the totality of physical reality. They want life to have mystery in it because then they don't feel so bad when they face parts of it they don't understand.  But the rub is a mystery is a difficult thing to leave alone. Neurotically we want to solve the mystery that we really don't want to know the answer to.  It's like a marriage. The relationship with my wife is the closest human relationship I have .  We can finish each other's sentences but I'm glad we can't read each other's minds.  A little bit of mystery is a good thing.

So  I'm left here with a handful of conflicting thoughts. One of the best statements of faith came from a Rabbi giving a formal lecture on the Book of Exodus. One student challenged him because there are no collaborating historical records that Mosses existed, or that the Hebrews were ever enslaved by the Egyptians.  The Rabbi conceded that are no historical records outside of Exodus that support any of the events that occur in Exodus.  For the Rabbi the ultimate truth of Exodus is "slavery is morally wrong". Maybe that message is too stark and simple for people to absorb, so a long involved story and a religious holiday was developed around the message to hammer it home.

There was another lecture I attended on the Mystery Cults of Ancient Rome. Many of these mystery cults explored the meaning of life. They would often have members pray, fast and be initiated with a glass of wine or beer laced with hallucinogenic mushrooms. This might have been the "very strong drink" that Saint Paul warned against in Timothy 5:23. I know how some people would be leery to think a person's greatest spiritual understand could be drug induced.

Last is the idea of a miracle. That all the laws of physics can be up ended without rhyme or reason other than the whim of God or the power of pray.  As Stevie might say it's cartoon logic. Like when an ostrich buries its head in the sand. Ostrich do bury their heads to keep cool but on the semi-desert plains of African an ostrich is afraid of nothing. Even lions don't mess these birds.

I have seen individuals as logic as Vulcans cross their fingers or pray out loud for a miracle when all other hope is gone.  Like a gambler in a casino making one last bet on impossible odds to win back all the money they lost.  It's like a metaphor where reality forks off to either the right or left. Either there is a loving God with a convoluted plan for you or the world is a casino of rigged games of chance where sooner or later you're forced to cash in your chips.