prof-reach-blog

[prof-reach-blog]

More Than This

“Very few things are truly universal.”

It’s quiet, but it carries. The hubbub dies down in an instant. Professor Impervious Cleansing Reach looks up at the assembled mass of students, the largest class he’s seen so far at USU, and raises two fingers to tap his cheek. A kjanto smile, though most of them won’t recognise it.

“In so much of academia, we study how we are different, and this is well and good, but too often we forget to examine how we are the same. The single thought at the heart of this course is one that is shared, I dare say, by every sentient culture and people at some stage. Great or small, primitive or advanced, warriors or pacifists, all are drawn to one nagging question.”

With a quick stroke of his fingertip on the remote in his hand, Reach dims the lights just a touch. He waits for the few whisper-soft murmurs that rise in response to fall back into silence.

“Is there more than this?”

He lets it hang for a few seconds.

“Perhaps you decide that there is more. You find the voids observation cannot fill, and you give them names, for naming is the first step to understanding. Your seasons become Wet and Dry, the great elemental lovers in their eternal dance around Varistad. Your kind becomes the First Bearer, supreme steward of life and progenitor of my own kjanto brethren. Your fate becomes Alakura, and you scream that name aloud as you give your life in service to the Void League.” A couple of Leaguers in the audience shift uncomfortably in their seats.

“Or perhaps,” continues Reach, “you decide that there’s nothing more, that everything is within your grasp and it’s up to you to reach out and understand. Yet still you name it. You call it Great Ration, you call it empiricism, you call it ‘common sense’. You put your faith in the concrete, but faith it is nonetheless.”

Now it’s the hardline scientists’ turn to look uneasy. A few people each year, usually science specialists, take Spiritual Analytics in the hope of slacking off and laughing at the weird theists and their silly superstitions. Reach can spot them from a mile away, and they’ve got another thing coming.

“Let me be clear: we are not here to talk about who’s right. Wars have been fought and civilizations have risen and fallen over that question, so I doubt a few dozen of us can work it out in one cycle.” There are a few bubbles of nervous laughter. Good. That should defuse the tension a bit. “We’re here to look at where these beliefs come from and what they can tell us about the societies that hold them. We’re here to compare and contrast, and, ultimately, to find the lines that connect the faiths of the universe, that bind the spiritual lives of sentient beings together.” Reach talks with his hands, short, purposeful motions like a conductor wielding an invisible baton.

“Why do so many cultures have gods?”

Someone puts up a hand, a huge, hairy mammal in the second row with a broad grin on her sharp, rectangular face. “I wasn’t looking for answers just yet, but go ahead,” says Reach, gesturing towards them.

“Coincidence,” she rumbles. Again, there’s a scattering of laughter.

Reach has heard this one a lot. “Yes, it is a coincidence. These things coincide with each other. Unless, perhaps, you meant that it was pure chance, but I doubt that very much. What’s your major?”

“Chemistry,” says the student, the fur around her face jerking and twisting.

“Then I’m sure that’s not what you meant. What good chemist would claim it’s purely by chance that sodium chloride always seems to dissolve in water?”

She’s not awed or silenced - it wasn’t a very good comeback, to be honest - but it gets her thinking for just long enough to get back on track.

“We are not scientists in the conventional sense, but, like them, we are in the business of identifying and studying patterns. We combine this, however, with other approaches. Understand that spiritual analytics is not a discipline in itself, but a field to which many different disciplines are applied. The skills you learn here are a toolbox you can use to examine all manner of other things, though I hope you will take interest in the subject matter as well.” Pause. Then, quieter, “Please.” That gets a few more laughs.

Professor Reach flexes his fingers, straightens out his headfins, and gives the audience another kjanto smile. “That’s enough preamble, I think. Now, Kaggae identifies five broad patterns for the development of spirituality in social cultures. Let’s find out who’s done the preliminary reading. Who can name one?”