#ritual abuse can also make one avoidant or even fearful of believing in religion or spirituality

[entropy-sea-system]

Ok so. My in sys partner figured this out when I told them about my avoidance of personally having spiritual or religious beliefs (I have OCD and STPD and experience magical thinking) and I hadn't thought of it before but.

One may be avoidant of personally engaging in spiritual or religious activities or beliefs if they experience magical thinking.

Magical thinking is defined as "the belief that one's ideas, thoughts, actions, words, or use of symbols can influence the course of events in the material world" (from Encyclopedia brittanica website)

So magical thinking is when you believe causations or correlations between things that aren't necessarily rooted in actual consequences or possibilities. It's associated with some neurodivergences like schizospec (includes schizotypal pd, schizoid pd, schizophrenia, etc.) and OCD although anyone may experience it at some point. For example if you think unfollowing someone led to that person breaking up with someone. Or perhaps if you think that being jealous of someone led to them being injured in an accident.

Many superstitions and some religious and/or spiritual beliefs may literally have tenets that reinforce or include magical thinking (if you think this you will be punished for sin, 'step on a crack break your mother's back', etc.) . So if you're already prone to magical thinking, some such tenets or beliefs may make it worse (or it may also not, as not everyone has the same experiences).

This doesn't mean religion or spirituality is wrong(and this post is not antitheist or supportive of being antitheist or otherwise bigoted towards religions), it just means it can be difficult for some people to engage with spirituality and/or religion as a result of experiencing magical thinking.

[shiorimizuyami-kyu]

Angie Yonaga Analysis:

Angie Yonaga, a Danganronpa V3 character with the title of Ultimate Artist has the reputation of being disliked due to her obsession with Atua. Hopefully this analysis would show Angie in a different light.

Trigger Warning: This analysis will have discussions of sexual assault, sexual abuse, religion and possible other stuff that may be sensitive towards some readers. You have be Warned.

Atua:

In order to better understand Angie as a character, we have to include Atua. The term 'atua' is used as a plural noun referring to all gods and spirits within their religious practices among people of Polynesian descent, particularly native Hawaiians and the Maori people of New Zealand. 

In other words, 'atua' isn't necessarily a specific kind of god, but the term is used in the English release of the game to avoid using a specific god such as Jesus. (So no Angie isn't Christian) In the Japanese release of the game, Angie refers to Atua as "Kami-sama" in which similar to Atua is plural for god without using a specific religious figurehead.

From the first interaction with Angie the most noticeable traits is Angie's devotion towards Atua, although some fans have theorized that Angie's religion could be Christian, however they're some religious acts that Angie has mentioned that don't match up with Christianity such as the extensive amount of worshipping towards Atua. 

Angie's religion is shown to be anonymous to not only to avoid using specific religious figure heads like Jesus, but to show a darker side of religion. To be more specific, Angie's religion is actually a cult using Atua as a figure head.

During Angie's free time events, when talking about her homeland, Angie almost always brings up Atua. Here is the interaction between Angie and Shuichi about her island:

~

Angie: Angie lives with Atua on a divine island paradise.

Shuichi: Ah, right, but... Where is the island? What's it like?

*Angie: It's a tiny, divine island. It used to be much bigger...

But Atua used a natural disaster to make it smaller cuz He thought it would look cuter.

Shuichi: *That* was the reason?

Angie: My island has lots of plants and flowers too, y'know?

Shuichi: Ah, is that so?

Angie: But most of the plants and flowers on my island like to attack people.

Shuichi: They attack people!?

*Angie: Come to think of it...I'm honestly not sure if they're actual plants or flowers.

Shuichi: What...? What kind of island *is* this?

~

This comes off as strange due to the sound of uncertainty in some of her lines, quickly changing the subject as if she isn't aware of what goes on in her island in a geographical standpoint.

On an 'interesting' note, Angie has something called 'DeepSea' which is a website that's used for shipping the following:

magazines, food, clothing, organ meat, medicine, blood, children.

It's safe to say the 'DeepSea' is a black market website used for illegal activities like human trafficking.(and considering that Angie never mentioned her parents once through her free time event, there is the disturbing possibility of Angie being a victim of human trafficking at a young age)

Angie has also mentioned some of her traditional act that she along with the others on her island part-take(which might implied both child abuse and sexual abuse) in such as:

~

Angie: First, you're not allowed to feed children after midnight!

Angie: Cuz it's unhealthy! They won't grow up to be stable adults!

Angie: And they hafta undergo a divine initiation ritual before they can enter adulthood...

Angie: During the ritual, we perform intense physical workouts.

Angie: They all become adults at the same time, and feel all happy and relaxed afterward.

~

Sexual Assault:

Throughout this specific detail on why Angie's religion is most likely a cult based off this interaction between Angie and Shuichi:

~

Angie: That's right. On my island, everyone shares in our fun, happy times.

At weddings, for example, after the bride and groom consummate their vows...

The guests make their own vows, and then they consummate those, too.

Shuichi: What, everyone!?

Angie: After a successful consummation, the bride is blessed with a baby.

Of course, we all share the baby, too...

using a sickle...

...

Shuichi: What...the hell...are you going to do with that!?

Angie: Nyahahahaha! Just kidding! We can't share a baby!

We just share the bride!

Shuichi:...What does that mean!?

This island has a ton of strange traditions…

~

In other words, Angie has implied that everyone(which might include minors) can part-take in sexually assaulting the bride(and possibly impregnating her), more proof that Angie has possibly witnessed, part-take and experience sexual abuse from a young age. To a serious degree that she sees this behaviour as normal. This line from her FTE also indicates this as well:

~

Angie: On my island, if you feel sad and lonely at night, you stab a sickle into your window!

Shuichi: That's...an odd custom.

Angie: Anyone who sees it can't just ignore it. They gotta go console that person.

They gotta do anything they can to console them. And I do mean ANYTHING.

~

What we must keep in mind based off this discussion is that Angie has been on this island before becoming an Ultimate, meaning that her religious traditions and everyone else's are completely different. This interaction between Angie and Shuichi is proof of it(Although there's more proof of Angie sexually assaulting Shuichi in the Love Hotel Scene, I chose to not included it for the time being):

~

Angie: Very well... By Atua's divine decree, your training begins today.

Shuichi: 'Grinning ear-to-ear, Angie skipped over to me and…'

Shuichi: Whoa!

Angie: Huhhh? Why are you running, Shuichi?

Shuichi: Y-You grabbed me all of a sudden... And you tried to take my clothes off!

Angie: Of course. How else would I provide what you're lacking?

Shuichi: I-I think I'm okay, thanks anyway!

*Angie: Why are you afraid?

*Angie: Atua and I will gently embrace you.

*Shuichi: What does that mean? What are you going to do...?

*Angie: Huh?

Shuichi: I-I just wanted to talk, Angie! Just be friends!

Angie: …

Shuichi:...Ah! S-Sorry for yelling, I just...

Angie: …

Shuichi: I'm just worried about you.

Angie:...

Shuichi: Ah, Angie?

~

When Angie made her attempt to assault Shuichi, he reacted in fear and hostility. And yet Angie was the one confused on 'why would he react so hostile towards her advances?' And when Shuichi said he just wanted to be friends, Angie, just ran away. As if she doesn't know how to react.

~

While doing research on Angie's religion, this particular term show up on my Google search: 

Religious Trauma Syndrome (RTS) is a function of both the chronic abuses of harmful religion and the impact of severing one's connection with one's faith and faith community. It can be compared to a combination of PTSD and Complex PTSD (C‐PTSD).

Believe it or not, Angie in Kaeda's FTE, we see Angie suffer a PTSD attack(it was more of a nightmare then a PTSD attack) in the game, and when questioned about, Angie just brushes off like it was nothing:

~

Kaede: Well, how was it, Angie? This song…

Kaede: Huh!?

Angie: Zzzzz...zzzzz…

Kaede: She's sleeping!?

Angie: Zzzzz...zzzzz...zzzzz...zzzzz…

Kaede: Geez, she fell asleep even though she asked me to play. And it was a really lively song, too.

Angie: Ngh, grgh...zzzzz...zzzzz…

Kaede: Angie...scares me sometimes, but she looks like an angel right now.

Angie: Hmmmm…

Kaede: Oh, are you awake?

Angie: Wednesday morning... Need sacrifice... Hurry... Can't wait…

Kaede: What?

Angie: Not enough blood... Need more blood... So I'll... I'll...

Hahhh! Stop! Ngh, ergh... Ngahhhh... It's too much!

Kaede: Is she having a nightmare!? Angie, wake up! I said, wake up!

Angie: Huh?

Angie: Oh, hi Kaede. Was I sleeping?

Sorry 'bout that. But thanks to your piano, I got to have a wonderful dream.

Kaede: Are you sure about that...? You sounded pretty distressed…

Angie: Hehe, Atua says He was so enchanted by you, He accidentally poured His divine wrath somewhere.

Kaede: He poured it!? Where!? Divine wrath shouldn't just be accidentally poured somewhere, right!?

Angie: I'm starting to like your music, Kaede! Let's have a paint-and-piano jam session very soon!

~

To sum up the analysis, there's more to Angie character then just Atua even though Atua is a huge part of her character. The point of this analysis was to better understand Angie while pointing out some of the things she has done.

Thank you for reading!

[ashfaqqahmad]

Faith versus Logic Final

Could Shara’s rule be an ideal system?

Click here to read the previous part of this article

If you want to give the example of Sharia law as an example of low crime rate and safe environment, and then also consider that ten countries of the world with the lowest crime rate Iceland, Denmark, Austria, New Zealand, Portugal, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Canada, Japan, and Slovenia are there— so why not their system is ideal?

Sharia laws were defined at a time when there was a tribal culture in Arabia – the monarchy was the system. In that era, there were often wars for animals, women, domination, and expansion of power, in which women were widowed largely— to support them, more than one marriage or to make them mistress was allowed… what wars are happening now?

If the people living there accept it due to happiness or helplessness, but even if enjoying full civil liberties in democracy, the Sharia system of Saudi Arabia is attracting you, where there are restrictions at every step, then you are religiously ill— and you don’t want to think anything beyond faith. Even in that system, this thinking of mine will also come under Blasphemy because I raised the questions, whose punishment is death— do you want such a system? I really do not want it. The one who follows another religion cannot get citizenship there nor can he adopt his method of worship.

How did humans start their journey on earth

And in India, those who are advocates of Sharia seen wandering here and there – there is a request to them that even if our rule is a democracy, but as a true believer, they should apply the Sharia to themselves and don’t do anything which is wrong or a crime with the Shariah. For example—

Avoid the interest-bearing banking system— immediately cash whatever mutual funds, shares, FDs you have. Avoid stealing power, which is the most common custom among Muslims. If photos are not allowed in the house, then break the TV and throw it away. Since porn is also available on mobile and you can see a picture/video of unknown women on Facebook etc., then quit using your Smartphone and keep a simple buttoned mobile. Do not wear tight clothes (jeans, t-shirt, etc.). On the way, getting-up or sitting, do not look at any girl and woman. The Sharia has made the daughter a shareholder in the property, immediately give her due right to your sisters or daughters. These are the deeds which Momins are doing indiscriminately— the rest things like gambling, liquor, womanizing, are a different issue.

If you can do this much then try doing it, then after that, if you talk about Sharia law or Sharia, only then your say will matter to the people.

Did God make a man or the man, made God?

God created man or the man, made the God— this dispute may never be resolved, but an unseen God is in existence ever since the first human being in the world would have found first hope amid awe. Fear and hope – right here begins the God, and even though he may not have been known in any particular way then, but as man became smarter, God too became accepted in different forms and its separation is the prevalent “religion” at present.

Where did religion come from and how logical from the point of view of science?

The real meaning of religion is not what is in front of everyone in the world today, but its practical meaning is this— you are Hindus, I am Muslim, that is a Sikh, that is a Christian and that is Jew.

So for a while, free yourself from this tilak, cap, cross, turban— and find out what is religion? What is its real form— why is it and what has it given to you? What are you achieving from this religion?

Leave the past in the past, whatever was written in those books, was according to the circumstances of that time, was written to handle the humans of that time. Come in the present and think, can it be a religion to abuse someone, or to speak to someone with love should be the religion?

Can it be religious to hate someone or to love someone should be the religion? Taking someone’s life should be a religion or to save someone’s life? To take away someone’s right can be religion or to help any poor fellow to get his right? Can injustice done to someone be religion or give/help to get justice? To torture, someone with the opposite ideology can be religion or to give respect to people of other ideology?

Think as many questions like these as you can think, think those questions with closed eyes and introspect yourself honestly. Test your answers on the criterion of religion you have been carrying from generation to generation. Think, brainstorm what religion was for— why there was a need for religion and how you are practising that religion. Among Hindus too, “Meditation” is said to be the way to seek God and to connect oneself with him and in us too it is called “Salat”.

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Salat means meditation, that is, attaching oneself to God— the Prophet adopted this Salat as “Namaz”, Sufis in some other form— but later on people adopted Namaz as a rule and today its meaning is lost somewhere. Do not ask me this question, but ask yourself whether you reach that state of “meditation” in Namaz? That you feel connected to Allah or does your mind keep wandering in worldly additions/subtractions? Remains stuck in High pyjama or Skull cap?  Do you find yourself ever close to “Salat”? If not, find out the reason for that.

However, if by churning so much you do not get this pearl of knowledge, that to hurt someone is not a religion, but to help in someone’s suffering, to help him overcome his suffering is religion— then be sure, that there is a lacking in you being a human.

Religion, Iniquity and Foul-Iniquity

Here people are often seen asking the question, what is religion? So the question is right in its place but the answers of those in front can be different… Actually, when you say Religion in English or ‘Mazhab’ in Urdu, it has a direct and only meaning— The particular ideology, creed, the enclosure bound with the law of uniformity— but when you say ‘Dharm’ in Hindi, then it has two meanings. The first meaning that is commonly practised is Religion itself.

If God is there then how can it be from the point of view of science

But what it has as another meaning is, in fact, the actual meaning of the word “Religion”. Your good deeds— your behaviour that is in harmony with the welfare of humans, that actually is the religion. Now understand this in detail—

Every small or big practice of your entire life is divided into only three parts— Religion, Iniquity and Foul Iniquity. Maybe you ever gave attention to this or not— but every little or big work of yours, every small or big decision taken at every step of your life, comes only under these three rules.

Telling the truth, supporting the truth, living honestly, avoiding false deception, doing justice, to support the justice, to stand for the rights of the victim, to stand against the cruelty, not doing injustice, helping others, avoiding illegal, excluded and selfish deeds that are outcaste by society, means to say that everything you do for the betterment and welfare of human beings… is actually religion.

And on the contrary, whatever you do, the result of which is harmful, troublesome to any human being, which gives suffering… will come under the purview of Iniquity.

Now there is a link between them, that is, your acts which may seem iniquitous to appear but religion is hidden in them— that is a ‘Foul-Iniquity’ You can understand this with two or three examples— You lie in a place where telling the truth can be harmful to one or more humans— then that lie of yours is Foul-Iniquity. You steal somewhere, where the stolen goods have the welfare of others hidden behind them and not your selfishness, then that theft is a Foul-Iniquity.

You stand somewhere with a Cruel, and there you can help the victims in any way, then it is a Foul-Iniquity to stand with that cruel. You may or may not understand this, but every activity of yours is tied to these rules. And the interesting thing you will find is that it is the core of all religions. On this basis in the Gita, the ‘Kauravas’ were declared unjust by Lord Krishna, or else they also believed in the worship of God and other things— and in fact, “Kafir” in Islamic Mythology has also been determined on this basis. People derive the meaning of ‘Kafir’ as an atheist or non-Muslim according to their own belief.

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Whereas, as a religious person, whatever rituals of worship, Aarti, Pilgrimage, Roza Namaz, Hajj, Zakat, etc. have you mistaken as religion, they, can be called the flattering methods or ritualism of God, but it is not the real religion. Real religion is your good conduct, with which if you do these rituals, then in a way we can see them as religion, but alas that it does not happen in practice.

The real religion is Humanity and not these worship methods

Let’s give many examples of this and explain— A true Momin believes in himself that by doing Namaz, keeping Roza, and doing Haj, he is doing a lot of good work and he will get a lot of praise for it – but while he sits at the shop and lying to the customer that this much of this merchandise is purchased, he can give it in that much— though this is not true. He is performing all the good rituals but he is sitting on the rented or untitled land occupied by a house or shop. The stolen light is glowing in the house and after washing himself with water pulled with that stolen electricity, he is reciting Namaz. He is eating sacred food made on the heater burning with that stolen electricity.

Consuming water, fans, lights obtained by direct theft or rigging of the electricity in the mosque, is washing himself and performing Namaz— Performs Haj and becomes a Haji with the money acquired through bribes, commissions, frauds, rigging or by other illegal means. Performing Namaz by surrounding roads as religious work, doing processions, even if all traffic is disrupted, may someone miss their train, plane or bus… or may someone die in an ambulance.

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Similarly, a true Hindu by applying a Tilak on the forehead, ties a red thread in his hand, chanting Ram-Ram day and night, keeps on ringing bells for hours in temples— but at the same time lies, deceits, manipulations, deception are all being done. Donating from the money saved through commissions, bribe, black marketing, stealing tax. The religious pandals are decorated with stolen electricity. Narrating religious stories by installing big loudspeakers, DJ sound— whether there are sick people around, children going through exams or people are going crazy by the noise.

They have been occupying the streets in the name of Ganapati, Navratri, Kanvar processions, even though the traffic system is collapsing. By surrounding the roads in the name of Jagran or big sacred type of religious events and causing problems for the people wandering around— by making noise pollution from the heavy sound systems, making people around it sick— but thinking that he is doing very religious work and this will give him great virtue, which will lead him to salvation or heaven.

In the name of religion, all these people who commit hypocrisy, pretence are in deception— they are confused as to whether they are doing any religious work worth virtue. Actually, while knowing all of this, he is engaged in wrongdoing with closed eyes and it is not that he has is no feeling of it… he has it and to erase the guilt created by this feeling, they try to show that they are very religious people and continue to prove others as trivial, by making a lot of noise from personal life to social media.

What do you think are these religious people and if there is a God/Allah will he be happy with them? So by putting yourself in his place and thinking about it, maybe instead of being happy on their gimmicks, you will reel off their skin by hunter until they do not truly understand the difference between religion and Iniquity.

इस लेख को हिंदी में पढ़ने के लिये यहाँ क्लिक करें

[crownedcroweprince]

A1, B1, C1, D1, E1, F1, G1, H1, I1, J1, K1, L1 for Una'to because I'm evil and want to ask all the questions c:

It got long so I put it under the cut.

A1) What of the Meyers-Briggs personality types they most fit into? INFP, ENFT, et cetera… : 

I just did the test for him and he got ENTP which is so far from my INFP/INFJ/ENFP that’s it’s kind of surprising. It makes sense he’s the debater. Look at him. He’s mostly going to try and figure out the best way to get what he wants and what he wants out of others. He also just really likes to poke at people to get reactions from them and figure them out. So it fits.

B1)  Do they believe you have to give respect to get it, or get respect to give it?:

Not particularly. He’ll give basic respect, but he doesn’t expect it back particularly. It just serves him better to give it, but if someone is too awful in respecting him they can expect some amount of retaliation. He doesn’t need it to give it really, he just... doesn’t care.

C1) Does your OC have a moral code? If not, how do they base their actions? If so, where does it come from, and how seriously do they take it?:

He doesn’t have much of one. He toes the line between Chaotic Neutral and Neutral Evil for a reason. Most of his actions are based on what will entertain him, what will give him what he wants the most, or what may save his skin in the long run. He mostly decides to stick with things out of self interest more than morals.

D1) How religious is your OC? What do they practice, if anything? If they don’t associate with any religion, what do they think of religion in general?:

He’s largely agnostic. After all the twelve weren’t there for him and his siblings. Though he does keep to some of the beliefs he was raised with regarding Menphina and will once in a while do the rituals himself as a comfort, mostly because he enjoys them and has a small hope that they make his condition slow. More than anything he practices witch craft learned from his time back home with ties to Menphina.  So gathering and crafting are religious in a sense.

E1) Would you say that your OC is intelligent? In what ways? Would your OC agree?:

I would say that philosophically and in a common sense way he’s intelligent. But he also goes chaotic stupid and self destructive when he gets too bored. Most of his fun is derived from having a quick wit and using it to play word games with others.

F1)  What sort of home do they live in now, if at all? How did they end up there?:

He lives in an apartment in the Goblet with his partner, though he still tends to stay in a lot of the Inn’s of Ul’dah out of fear of people trying to follow him home, due to his own paranoia of what he’s suffering and some run in’s he’s had before with unsavory types. Fueled all the more from said partner learning he lives in an apartment by breaking in through the window, and his friends with benefits doing something very similar. He mostly ended up there as a way to stay close to the South Shroud without actually living in the area. It’s proximity to Ul’dah also serves his divination business well, and should he need to perform old circus acts as a street performer, Ul’dah is the best place to do it. 

G1)  Is your OC close to their family?:

TW for child murder mention and child abuse mention. Generally? NO. Not at all. He ran away when he was ten as his mother tried to kill him out of her grief from losing his sisters to the “disease” they suffered from a year prior. His clan didn’t help when he was suffering with his mother either, so he’s really not fond of most other Bajhiri that could know or could have helped him. He is still in contact with his brother, his half-sister who is more child hood friend than sibling, and has recently started to interact with one of his distant relatives. He’s only really close with his brother however, and tends to push his half-sister away when ever she tries to establish sibling bonds.

H1)  What is your OC’s orientation, romantic and/or sexual? Has it ever been a source of stress for them? Have they always been pretty sure of their orientation?:

Una’to is polyamorous, pansexual, and pan romantic. It really hasn’t been a stressor for him, and didn’t require much soul searching on his part. It just is what it is to him. He was figured this stuff out as some kid being raised by and working for the circus. They didn’t particularly care as long as he was good at his job and listening to all his mentors.

I1)  What are their favorite kinds of flavors– Sweet, salty, sour, spicy, creamy, et cetera?:

Rich foods and foods that are kind of heavy. He’s had a lot of points in his life where food was scarce so to him the foods that are the best are those that make you feel full, even if it is a small portion. Otherwise he does enjoy spicy and creamy foods. The latter of which tend to be rich.

J1)  Where does your OC stand most politically? What would they align with most?:

Mostly, he doesn’t want to engage with politics. He doesn’t trust the systems in place for most of Eorzea as they struggle to help their own people more often than not. Though he is not a fan of Garleans and what they’ve done to the area’s he calls home. Were we to put him on a compass I would generally say he’s very left leaning. While not morally inclined, he’s not fond of people suffering since it breeds violence and problems he’d rather have a better chance of avoiding.

K1)  Does your OC have to keep their paranormal aspect (PA) a secret from general society? If so, how? I.e., they can’t discuss their abilities, they have to hide a tail, they have an alter-ego, et cetera. What would happen if society found out about it?:

He feels that he has to due to his half-sister Vizha putting it in his head that if he’s figured out he could get in trouble within the confines of Ul’dah or even be killed or quarantined in other city-states. Which is hard when he needs to poke at others to try and figure out a way to deal with it. He isn’t that well versed in voidsent or adventuring after all, so he needs to reach out for help. People are scared of voidsent after all, and he’s not too sure how many steps away he is from being considered one, even if he hasn’t fallen completely yet. Having others know can also just end up being a nuisance for him, as people, even strangers, are apt to worry which can make some of his methods of getting information in my dangerous places harder to do.

L1)  How have your characters changed since you created them?:

He’s made to change as he interacts with others and with which ever end it being approached. For example since it’s moving towards a bad end for this arc he’s getting more jaded, less trusting, and being more closed off to others. Giving warnings to stay away from him or they may get hurt should he fall. He’s more callous and less caring towards violence done towards him and others. The last one is only slightly, but it’s something that will germinate should this road be followed further. Originally he was just an ass who liked to flirt and torment people for his own amusement who was hiding their past and trauma. Now he’s desperately reaching out for help as fear threatens to devour him. A lot of pieces of him are the same though, such as not letting on his more negative emotions outwardly since he has weird control issues about his emotions, body, and the situations he ends up in.

[BIG OL’ HONKIN’ OC QUESTION LIST]

That took a little while, but I hope it’s a fun read into one very cursed catte. Thank you for the ask @gildedandgolden!

[katelynrushe26]

The Dog Brain of Ragetti & the Secret Success of Pintel

Original essay here: https://whatsnewwithkru.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-dog-brain-of-ragetti-and-secret.html

The characters Pintel and Ragetti from the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise are no strangers to my blog. I've discussed a few things about them in past entries, mostly on how their actors and the screenwriters view them, but I've never delved into any serious analysis of the characters themselves. As hard to believe as this sounds, I actually think there's a lot to analyze about this comic relief duo, even if most of what you come up with probably wasn't intended by the writers.

Intended or not, the fact stands that in the three Pirates films that feature Pintel and Ragetti, we see a surprising amount of growth in both characters. Since the films rarely explain any of that growth, the door is left wide open for fans to speculate and fill in the narrative gaps. This essay is my own interpretation of Pintel and Ragetti's character arcs throughout the series, and if there's any truth in what I've gathered, then their subplot could be one of the more meaningful ones in the original trilogy.

Played by Lee Arenberg and Mackenzie Crook, Pintel and Ragetti first appear in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl as two members of Captain Barbossa's evil, undead pirate crew. At first they seem like your typical dim-witted henchman duo, but throughout the movie, we get a lot of hints at their personalities, their backstories, their thoughts on their situation, and most importantly, their relationship with each other.

As far as that goes, there are three important things to notice:

1. Pintel and Ragetti are always together

2. Pintel frequently loses his temper and lashes out at Ragetti

3. Ragetti acts like a dog

I don't mean that Ragetti's lewd, either. I mean that he literally barks and growls at people whenever he gets angry or excited. He also shrinks back with his head down in a very tail-between-the-legs manner whenever Pintel yells at him. He doesn't talk much in Curse of the Black Pearl, but often when he does, it's just to chime in with Pintel. Given that Pintel hits him with a parasol and throttles him purely out of embarrassment at two points in the film, you can kind of see why Ragetti tries to be so obedient.    

The only time we see another side to their relationship is roughly halfway through the film, when Barbossa's crew tries using the heroine Elizabeth Swann to break their undead curse. Right before the proceedings, the crew sorts through the piles of treasure around them, and Pintel and Ragetti more or less have a moment alone to talk. Pintel is curiously sympathetic towards Ragetti, assuring the one-eyed pirate that he can buy a glass eye once the curse is lifted and then patiently chiding him when he rubs the splintery wooden one that he does have. During the curse-lifting ritual, Pintel is seen leaning over Ragetti's shoulder at the front and center of the crowd and playfully nudging his arm to keep him excited about what's happening.

To me, Pintel comes across in these scenes like a guilty parent trying too hard to make up for letting their child down. There's sincerity there, but also a slightly selfish motive behind it. We don't know if he and Ragetti are really uncle and nephew like their actors say, but Pintel is obviously the mentor/decision maker in this relationship. Perhaps he feels responsible for getting his younger companion into this mess with the curse, and perhaps he believes he can clear his conscience by helping Ragetti have a better life after it's over.    

The problem in the meantime seems to be that they're in a situation where Pintel feels he can't afford to look weak. Barbossa and the rest of his crew are frequently shown to be bullies, needlessly mistreating their captives and sometimes turning on each other, and Pintel and Ragetti appear to be at the very bottom of the Black Pearl's ranks. As fond as Pintel is of pillaging, plundering, and shooting people in the face, we see that he's terrified of the crew's first mate Bo'sun -- and because of Bo'sun's authority, that can make Pintel fear the entire crew at times. It's conceivable that he and Ragetti always stay close together for security as well as company, and that at least some of Pintel's vicious persona is just a front that he puts up to avoid harassment.

He drops the act during his talk with Ragetti in the treasure cave because despite the rest of their crew being present all around them, no one's really paying attention to them at that exact moment. As soon as Bo'sun walks by and sees them holding the frilly parasols that they've found though, Pintel panics and hits Ragetti with his parasol as mentioned before. The reason he throttles Ragetti later is because Bo'sun has ordered them to distract the British Navy by dressing up as women, and Ragetti makes him feel even more insecure by complimenting the way he looks in a dress.

Slapstick comedy aside, Pintel and Ragetti's relationship is not a healthy one. Ragetti's doglike demeanor (his "Dog Brain" if you will) is most likely a defense mechanism from all the abuse and trauma he's suffered, and unlike Pintel's murder-hungry rage, it doesn't seem to be an act at all. Pintel has contributed to Ragetti becoming a poorly adjusted, socially inept man with low self-esteem who can barely think for himself. That's not going to give him a better life after the curse is over.

We last see the duo getting outwitted by the hero Jack Sparrow and then arrested by the Navy right as their curse is finally lifted. In the second film, Dead Man's Chest, we first see them rowing through the ocean in a longboat with the jailhouse dog as they discuss how they escaped from prison. This takes place one year after the first film, and we get a very different Pintel and Ragetti this time around.

Here are the three important things to notice in Dead Man's Chest:

1. Ragetti is less doglike and more well-spoken than before

2. Ragetti constantly talks back to, argues with, and defies Pintel

3. Pintel never punishes Ragetti for it

He still yells at Ragetti a lot like he did in the first film, but he doesn't physically harm him anymore. And let's face it, doing that could very easily revert Ragetti back to his old self. It's possible the writers just made these changes to make Pintel more likable and Ragetti more three-dimensional since they join the heroes in this film, but this dramatic character growth can be explained in the context of the story.

For someone as naive as Ragetti, being thrown in jail with a guarantee of hanging has to be earth-shattering. It's the complete opposite of all the great things Pintel told him were going to happen after they broke their curse. What did they do to deserve something this awful instead? Ragetti probably had time to realize what they'd done to deserve it, and with all his pirate aspirations in ruins and death on the horizon, he probably turned to the only salvation he could find: religion.

Hence the Bible that he's trying to read in Dead Man's Chest (which he probably stole, by the way). His "beliefs" are flimsy at best, often getting twisted to justify the crimes that he and Pintel keep committing, but he still seems convinced  that "divine providence" was what broke them out of jail. Pintel disagrees, saying that he was what broke them out, but Ragetti doesn't relent. And why should he? Pintel was wrong about what would happen to them after the curse was lifted, so maybe he's wrong about a lot of other things. Ragetti might see it as his duty now to teach Pintel some humility and eventually steer him away from the sinful life of a pirate. This gives Ragetti some confidence, and that makes him rebellious. And I think for all his annoyance, Pintel lets him rebel because he sees it as a good thing.

If Pintel really did feel guilty for involving Ragetti in their curse, he probably also felt guilty for getting him thrown in jail — so guilty, perhaps, that it pushed him to break them out. He probably also did that to save himself, but the fact that he's stopped mistreating Ragetti (thus allowing the younger man to give him grief all the time) says a lot about his own growth. Maybe he doesn't feel the need to act tough anymore now that they're rid of Barbossa's crew. Maybe lifting the curse and losing his immortality has made him so afraid of death that he doesn't mind having a bolder sidekick to watch his back now. Or maybe he's gained some perspective since their arrest and really is trying to rein in his temper for Ragetti's sake. In the little way that he can, maybe Pintel is still trying to make life better for his friend.

Whatever the reason for this restraint, it does seem to be making a positive difference. Along with speaking up and acting out more often, we also see Ragetti perform a few duties aboard the Black Pearl without Pintel, including a hazardous one that involves clinging to the outside of the hull to hold a longboat in place during a storm. By the end of the film, he's built up enough nerve to save Elizabeth from the giant Kraken squid by chopping off one of its tentacles. He never would have taken a risk like that in the first movie.  

Not that Ragetti's Dog Brain is completely gone. We see him slip back into it twice in Dead Man's Chest, both at times when he's overwhelmed with emotion. As he and Pintel move in to fight Elizabeth for the titular chest, he sticks out his tongue like he's panting and goes back to mumbling and repeating what Pintel says. During the Kraken assault at the climax, he stops talking altogether and cowers close to Pintel for most of it. These moments seem to suggest that his more mature demeanor hasn't fully found its roots yet.

And this brings us to the third film, At World's End.

I've complained in the past about how this film handles Pintel's character, especially compared to how much better it handles Ragetti's. I still take issue with some of it, but I do feel like it plays out better if you watch it with this interpretation in mind.

We first see Pintel and Ragetti with three other members of Jack Sparrow's crew as they sneak into a building through a basement sewer. Ragetti is leading the mission, impressively enough, but when they enter the basement and a huge guard walks into view, his Dog Brain sends him running to hide behind Pintel again. This time though, the first mate Gibbs intercepts him. Gibbs says they don't have time for that kind of behavior anymore, then shoves Ragetti to the front of the line again.

After this, we start to notice three new dynamics with Pintel and Ragetti's relationship:

1. Ragetti spends more time on his own

2. Pintel spends more time with Gibbs

3. Pintel frequently follows Ragetti's lead without any arguments

We don't know if these changes have been in place for a while since the second film or if the confrontation with Gibbs suddenly triggered them. Either way, it's interesting to see Pintel spending less time with his closest friend and more time with a former enemy. It's also interesting that in spite of his growing desire to become the Black Pearl's captain, he's willing to go along with Ragetti's ideas and let Ragetti do a lot of the talking for them in this film.

Pintel could just be so overwhelmed by everything in At World's End that he's content to go with the flow for now, even if it means giving Ragetti the oars, but I also think he agrees with Gibbs that Ragetti needs to grow more independent. It could be that allowing his younger pal more space and responsibility is his way of helping that to happen, and that warming up to the Pearl's first mate in the meantime is him trying to further secure a better future for them. The fact that the duo barely argues anymore also says volumes about Pintel's anger management progress since the first film.

Take the scene where the pirates escape from Davy Jones' Locker by turning the Pearl upside-down. Not only does Pintel humor Ragetti's plan to tie themselves to the mast as the ship tips over, but he also keeps a pretty level head after that plan turns out to be terrible. What's more, when this watery escape ruins their gunpowder, Ragetti clunks him on the head with his pistol to practice wielding it as a club instead and Pintel doesn't hit him back. This is the same man who once throttled Ragetti just for telling him he looked nice in a dress. Pintel doesn't even yell at his friend for the pistol incident. He just simmers for a few seconds, then lets it go. If that isn't proof of how much their relationship has changed since Curse of the Black Pearl, I don't know what is.

And just like in Dead Man's Chest, this new approach seems to pay off in the end. The two main obstacles that Ragetti has to overcome in At World's End are his Dog Brain and his fear of people, which are both represented to him by Captain Barbossa. The former cursed captain joins the crew again in this film, and with him comes a whole boatload of Ragetti's old insecurities. Not being allowed to hide behind Pintel all the time anymore probably makes that all the more harrowing.

But after days of being pushed around, slapped around, and even made to give up his wooden eye by Barbossa, Ragetti finally summons just enough courage and confidence to show up his tormentor right before the film's climax. This involves freeing the sea goddess Calypso from her human form by reciting an incantation, which he points out that Barbossa had failed to do properly. Once he frees Calypso, Ragetti also becomes free himself. He's free of his Dog Brain, free of his fears, and is now a stronger, braver, and more capable man.

I used to dislike how Ragetti gets this big moment (and several others) all to himself in At World's End while the biggest moment Pintel gets is a throw-away scene of him chickening out after yelling at Jack and Barbossa. It just felt like the writers were sidelining him and scrapping the duo concept for no good reason. However, if his underlying arc really is about him reforming so he can see his friend better off, then Ragetti's success with Barbossa and Calypso is Pintel's success as well. That big triumphant moment secretly belongs to both of them. It's theirs to share as a duo after all.

The only downside is that Calypso doesn't end up saving the pirates like they'd hoped she would. Once she's free, she just abandons them and creates a maelstrom to add chaos to the final battle. We even get a moment where Pintel looks down over the ship's rail and laments that "she's no help at all," almost like he's disappointed for Ragetti. Despite this, the two pull themselves together for the final battle. They help to win it, part ways with the heroes when it's over, and then go back to their usual pirates' lives. The difference this time is that they seem to be working together to move their ways up in the ranks now.

Pintel and Ragetti were supposed to appear in the fourth film, but for various reasons, that didn't end up happening. The Pirates of the Caribbean Wiki site claims that their subplot would have involved them getting separated, each thinking the other was dead, and then reuniting by the end. As nice as it could have been to see their relationship finally get some dramatic focus, I don't think it's needed. Pinteal and Ragetti's story on screen ends with them standing side by side as equals on the deck of the Black Pearl, carving a new wooden eye and possibly plotting a mutiny against Barbossa. And since it's been shown that other crew men have survived what happens to the ship before the fourth film, we can assume that the duo did as well. All in all, it's easy to interpret a better life for both of them on the horizon.

[glittergummicandypeach]

In the Name of the Father, Son, and Q: Why It’s Important to See QAnon as a ‘Hyper-Real’ Religion | Religion Dispatches

In a May 13th article published in The Atlantic, Adrienne LaFrance offers her readers a deep dive into the QAnon movement. The article argues that when surveying QAnon, we’re not only examining a conspiracy theory, we’re observing the birth of a new religion. LaFrance underscores this argument by highlighting the apocalypticism found in QAnon; its clear-cut dualism between the forces of good and evil; the study and analysis of Qdrops as sacred texts, and the divine mystery of Q. 

Following the mass suicide of the Peoples Temple in Jonestown in 1978, historian Jonathan Z. Smith wrote an essay locating the study and definition of religion within an academic context, where he highlights that “almost no attempt was made to gain any interpretative framework” of what occurred at Jonestown by academics. Adrienne LaFrance’s article on QAnon makes clear that the movement and its believers demand to be taken seriously. Her piece acts as a springboard to ask the question: Can QAnon be considered a religion? 

Though many enjoy mocking the QAnon conspiracy theories and those who profit from them, it’s important to note that the movement’s adherents firmly believe in the theories—even to the detriment of their families and communities. Therefore, in an effort to avoid the mistakes of the past and to better understand the movement as it continues to grow and evolve, I suggest that we view QAnon as a “hyper-real religion.” Sociologist Adam Possamai, who coined the term, defines it as “a simulacrum of a religion created out of, or in symbiosis with, commodified popular culture which provides inspiration at a metaphorical level and/or is a source of beliefs for everyday life.” Or, to put it more simply, a religion with a strong connection to pop culture. Based on Jean Baudrillard’s work on hyper-reality and simulations, hyper-real religion is based on the premise that pop culture shapes and creates our actual reality, with examples including, but not limited to: Heaven’s Gate, Church of All Worlds, Jediism, etc. As a movement in a constant state of mutation, QAnon clearly blurs the boundaries between popular culture and everyday life.

What this means is that technology and the marketplace of ideas have inverted the traditional relationship between the purveyors of religion and the consumers of religion. Thus, we see religious doctrinal authority (that is, those who can contribute to the religion’s teaching) being created by popular culture. 

For example, the QAnon cosmology (how the world/universe appears; what it looks like; its characteristics, and types of creatures that populate it) and anthropology (ideas about human beings, their origin and destiny) are rooted in conspiracy theories, historical facts, and mythical history from film and popular culture. As such, Terry Gilliam’ Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is recommended by QAnon followers as evidence of the effects of Adrenochrome; The Matrix’s blue pill/red pill scene is used to frame the choice to either be a part of the Great Awakening or to remain “asleep”; and the slogan “Where We Go One, We Go All” is from the film White Squall, whose official YouTube trailer’s comments section is filled with QAnon followers (the top-rated comment, with over 5,000 up-votes, reads “Thumbs up if Q sent you here”). The prophetic figure of the movement, known only as ‘Q’ , also regularly references movies in their QDrops, as demonstrated from the screenshots below:

The QAnon theology (conceptions of the sacred, gods, spirits, demons, the ancestors, culture heroes and/or other superhuman agents) is rooted in American evangelicalism and neo-charismatic movements developed in the 1970s and 1980s—specifically theology involving a worldwide cabal that controlled governments and aimed to control the freedoms of people through technology, medicine, and liberalism. For example, QAnon reworked elements of the Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA) panic (aka “satanic panic”)that originated in the U.S. in the 80s. SRA was the belief that a global network of elites was breeding and kidnapping children for the purposes of pornography, sex trafficking, and Satanic ritual sacrifice. 

Furthermore, QAnon adopts the language of spiritual warfare found in many neo-charismatic movements. Based on some of the data analytics work I’ve done, Ephesians 6:11-18 is the most shared verse among QAnon adherents. Given the verse’s apparent condemnation of governments, the reaction of QAnon to the pandemic is rooted in the language of spiritual warfare, especially when addressing conspiracy theories surrounding 5G, ID2020, Bill Gates and vaccines, HR 6666, etc. Since the start of the pandemic, QAnon have spread a false racist theory that Asians were more susceptible to the coronavirus and that white people were immune to COVID-19; they’ve promoted drinking bleach to cure the virus; that COVID-19 is a Chinese bioweapon and that the virus release was a joint venture between China and the Democrats to stop Trump’s re-election by destroying the economy. If that weren’t enough, they also played a key role in promoting the Plandemic video and the ObamaGate and #FilmYourHospital hashtag; and forced Oprah Winfrey and Hilary Duff to come out with statements declaring that they are not pedophiles.

When taking into account how much neo-charismatics, American evangelicalism, theological conspiracy theories, and spiritual warfare is influenced by the distrust of the everyday reality as being false (with their reality being ‘true’), one could make the argument that QAnon theology is not only influenced by pop culture, but is in fact, deeply rooted in the conception of the sacred within a hyper-real world.  

Some might argue that a hyper-real religion isn’t a “real” religion because it’s invented, but scholars of religion don’t validate or discredit claims of what constitutes ‘true’ religion, because it’s true to the people we study. As a scholar of religion I study what people do when dealing with the sacred, rather than try to validate the religious message or experience. What people do when dealing with the sacred is routinized over time as believers construct their religion. All religions, hyper-real ones included, are socially constructed and are thus invented. QAnon is blatantly invented as it openly uses works of popular culture, media, entertainment, American evangelicalism and conspiracy theories at its basis, that have been organically developed across time and space by a community of believers. Belief in QAnon reflects a created hyper-real world based on such theories. 

This is unsurprising, as Travis View stated on PBS’s The Open Mind “we’re living in an age where conspiracy theories are promoted at the highest levels of power, when it wasn’t that long ago conspiracy theories were the pastime of the powerless.” Similarly in 2018, Joseph Uscinski stated that QAnon is different from normal conspiracy theories. “Conspiracy theories are for losers,” he told the Daily Beast’s Will Sommer, “you don’t expect the winning party to use them.” 

By framing QAnon as a hyper-real religion, it can offer insight into the confusion that people feel when discussing the movement, which is critical for observers, scholars, and decision-makers who need to take QAnon seriously. The past months have highlighted how QAnon is a public health threat, a threat to national security, and a threat to democratic institutions.

The essence of conspiracy beliefs like QAnon lies in the attempts to delineate and explain evil; it’s about theodicy, not secular evidence. QAnon offers comfort in an uncertain—and unprecedented—age as the movement crowdsources answers to the inexplicable. QAnon becomes the master narrative capable of simply explaining various complex events and providing solace for modern problems: a pandemic, economic uncertainty, political polarization, war, child abuse, etc. 

The result is a worldview characterized by a sharp distinction between the realms of good and evil. The movement accomplishes this by purporting to be empirically relevant. That is, they claim that QDrops are testable by the accumulation of evidence about the observable world in fighting evil. Those who subscribe to QDrops are presented with elaborate productions of evidence in order to substantiate QAnon’s claims, including source citation and other academic techniques. 

However, their quest for decoding QDrops masks a deeper concern: the more sweeping a conspiracy theory’s claims, the less relevant evidence becomes—notwithstanding the insistence that QAnon is empirically sound. At its heart, QAnon is non-falsifiable. No matter how much evidence journalists, academics, and civil society offer as a counter to the claims promoted by the movement, belief in QAnon as the source of truth is a matter of faith rather than proof.

Therefore, rather than ask questions like, How can people believe in QAnon when so many of its claims fly in the face of facts?, we should instead ask What are QAnoners doing with their belief system? QAnon believers have committed acts of violence in response to QAnon conspiracy theories. Elected officials or those campaigning for elected office have campaigned on QAnon. Those studying and combating the movement need to move beyond viewing it as a mere conspiracy theory; QAnon has grown beyond that. We are, as Adrienne LaFrance asserted, witnessing the birth of a religious movement. QAnon as a belief system only appears to be dependent on Donald Trump’s presidency and his ability to remain in power. Whether we will be speaking of future or former President Trump, the person known as Q will likely fuel the movement for a long time to come. Q will continue to claim special insights, knowledge, and frame things for their followers in terms of their enemies’ alleged ambitions. 

If Donald Trump wins in November, QAnon will be vindicated in their beliefs and say this is what God has mandated, reinforcing the belief that they are right. If Trump loses, it will be attributed to the Deep State Luciferian cabal and they will have a role to play in fighting against the fake government that’s replaced Donald Trump. 

QAnon has become a hermeneutical lens through which to interpret the world. Already we’ve seen a formalized QAnon religion at Omega Kingdom Ministries (OKM). OKM is part of a network of independent congregations (or ekklesia) called Home Congregations Worldwide (HCW). The organization’s spiritual adviser is Mark Taylor, a self-proclaimed “Trump Prophet” and QAnon influencer with a large social media following on Twitter and YouTube. At OKM, QAnon is a hermeneutic by which the Bible is interpreted; and the Bible, in turn, serves as an interpretive lens for QAnon. Furthermore, QAnon is built into their evangelical Christian rituals. OKM may be a sign for what’s to come in terms of QAnon’s proximity to evangelical and neo-charismatic movements in the U.S.

In categorizing QAnon as a hyper-real religion rather than a decentralized grouping of conspiracy theorists, it provides an analytical framework to quantify and qualify QAnon-inspired acts of violence as ideologically motivated violent extremism. Furthermore, there’s an increasing overlap between QAnon and the far-right/Patriot movements on Telegram, a messaging app that has attracted extremists because due to its privacy protections. From the perspective of national security, we need to be prepared for more acts of violence by QAnon believers as it’s proven to be a catalyst for radicalization to violence, terrorism and murder.

By considering QAnon as a hyper-real religion, it becomes possible to frame how QAnon has found resonance not only within the American electoral system, but with populists around the globe. This is especially important not only in the context of elections, but also when framing the global response to the pandemic and public health. Policy makers at all levels need to take the QAnon ideology seriously when planning strategies to mitigate the spread of the novel coronavirus.

QAnon may not be a recognized religion, a tax exempt 501c3 institution, or the kind of traditional brick-and-mortar religion most are familiar with. However, by framing QAnon as a religion—in particular, a hyper-real religion—we create a framework that helps us better study, report and understand QAnon. More importantly, it demonstrates that the movement needs to be taken seriously and has the socio-political and behavioral impacts that other religions have. In doing so, it provides a pathway to protecting our societies and institutions from the public health, democratic, and national security threat that QAnon potentially poses.

This content was originally published here.

[theloosecannonbuchanan]

The Evil of Gay “cures” in Russia

The sordid history of pathologizing homosexuality has many dark chapters. For decades men, women and children were electrocuted, poisoned, drugged, castrated and even lobotomised by Frankenstein-like Freudians and money swindling quacks.  All this torture and nonsense, labelled Gay Conversion Therapy, was an attempt to “cure” the “disease” of homosexuality. The motivations of people for seeking it were varied.Children obviously can be forced by their parents or church leaders. Adults are bending to social pressure ranging from placating their families, avoiding prison or out of actual fear of being murdered. This is where the current situation in the former Soviet Union comes in. 

Russia is experiencing a disturbing boom in those seeking or being conscripted in to conversion therapy. This snake oil mainly comes in the form of hypnosis and bizarre varieties of religious cleansing, analogous to a Catholic exorcism. There’s money to be made by these quacks and conmen too. Multiple costly appointments and more than a little blackmailing to keep the patient list private. To clarify, homosexuality is not officially classified as a mental disorder in Russia.  Being gay was taken off the list of recognised psychiatric conditions in 1999.Yet demand in the gay-hostile environment is soaring.LGBT people are being subjected to cruel Pavlovian response sessions and the malpractice of cognitive behavioural therapy; associating arousal with pain and nausea. Imagine a cross between Clockwork Orange and some Orwellian nightmare. 

A recent BBC investigation into the rise of conversion therapy there interviewed psychotherapist Yan Goland .He claimed he "cured" 78 gay men and 8 trans people using a combination of psychoanalysis, hypnotherapy and pressuring the patient/victim in to having heterosexual intercourse. And there are hundreds more charlatans, extortionists and well-meaning homophobic professionals.As well as the men in the white coats there are the ones in the funny hats and dresses. The Russian Orthodox Church enjoys levels of power in Putin’s Russian unseen since the time of the Czars.  Homosexuality is something these highly respected clergy views as a cancer in Gods creation. Also, Protestant pastors run an organisation called "Vosstanovleniye" the Russian for “rehabilitation/resurrection" using similar medieval mumbo jumbo. Gays are hit with canes, saturated with cold water and made to swallow holy water. They are locked in solitary confinement religious cells, screamed at with biblical verses and sleep deprived. All classic examples of brainwashing and psychological torture used to extract false information. Those exposed to these medieval rituals are inevitably left mentally broken, self-hating and suicidal. 

Russia is certainly not the only place soliciting this damaging mental and physical hocus pocus. However, Putin's laws created a perfect storm of criminality and fear likely to force LGBT folk to submit to this sickening suffering. Other nations take a different approach to invalidate Queer identities. In Iran Ayatollah Khomeini issued fatwa decades ago allowing gender reassignment surgery. The result might seem like an act of tolerance. It fact it was to eliminate homosexual men. Gays in Iran are forced with the choice of death or sexual reassignment surgery to become Trans women, regardless of their identifications. There is a disturbing cottage industry in the US which includes summer camps for kids “to pray away the gay”. One of the biggest masterminds behind the American gay cure movement is Alan Chambers whose religious quasi-cult “Exodus International” has over 260 ministries promising to rid you of those pesky fag demons for a sizable fee. Paradoxically Chambers admitted that “99% of recorded cases this cure does not work”. Amnesty International and the UN have cited a sickening culture of “corrective rape” to “cure” lesbians in Africa and parts of Asia. I think the disgusting term is self-explanatory of the process used.

Unpalatable as it sounds, is there any actual proof that sexual orientation can be altered by these therapies?  The answer is a resounding no. Decades of empirical study have shown homosexuality is not a disorder and cannot be cured. Therapies are almost universally seen as unethical, unscientific and ineffective. Not to mention it is a major breach of the Hippocratic Oath. Earlier this year The Irish Council for Psychotherapy stated that “efforts to try to change, manipulate or reverse sexual orientation and/or gender identity change through psychological therapies with different theoretical frameworks are unethical ……this is usually pursued via non-scientifically proven and potentially harmful techniques.” This opinion mirrored the 2007 report from the Royal College of Psychiatrists in the UK which stated "Evidence shows that LGB people are open to seeking help for mental health problems. However, they may be misunderstood by therapists who regard their homosexuality as the root cause of any presenting problem such as depression or anxiety. Unfortunately, therapists who behave in this way are likely to cause considerable distress. A small minority of therapists will even go so far as to attempt to change their client's sexual orientation…. there is no evidence that such change is possible." 

The World Health Organisation called LGBT conversion therapy “a serious threat to the health and well-being - even lives of affected people”. The only accredited scientific paper which seemed to go against this trend was by Dr Robert Spitzer in 2003. However, since then Dr Spitzer has acknowledged his evidence was  “fatally flawed” and his conclusions were completely incorrect. He went as far as begging the LGBT for forgiveness, saying “I owe the gay community an apology”. Other studies citing a cure and LGBT as a syndrome are discredited Freudian theories, falsified pseudoscientific results and religious dogma. The overwhelming scientific evidence points to homosexuality being a natural and constant part of not just the human species but across the animal kingdom. Advances in neurology and genetics are coming every closer to showing detectable congenital differences in the brains of gay people and genetic models showing why LGBT people are adaptive and may be a necessary part of the passing on of DNA. One uncomfortable fact must not be ignored. There are LGBT people who sincerely want to be heterosexual. Should we impede their free will to seek help? After all, we would consider it immoral to prevent a Trans person from the right to medically alter themselves to match their identified state. I would ask LGBT people who want a “cure” to ask themselves these questions. Do you feel that your own individual homosexuality is discordant with your identity or do you think all homosexuals are sick? Do you want to because your family, friends, state or religion make you feel this way? Do you want to prevent yourself being bullied or fit in better to society, marry and have children? If your answer is yes to any of these things than I would suggest that this “cure” is not really your choice. It is coercion. You are not sick, the society pressuring you is. 

As unscientific as it is unnecessary, gay conversion therapy attempts to manipulate society in to a definite hierarchy putting male heterosexuality firmly at the top. Anything challenging heteronormative values is subversive and must be destroyed or discredited. Categorising being queer as a disorder is analogous to native peoples feeling their cultures were inferior to those of their colonial masters. That effect still resonates today. When the voodoo, whether it be psychiatric or religious, inevitably fails to alter sexual orientation it is the child or adults “fault”. Guilt at disappointing parents or culture, fear of angering God mixed up with all the natural confusion and self-hatred of young people frequently leads to substance abuse, self-harm and in many cases suicide. And there are serious implications in the wider culture which tolerates this butchery. If you can deceive heterosexual society into believing homosexuality is an illness or a choice then it’s a slippery slope towards coercing, criminalising and persecuting LGBT people without conscience.

[tbsbookclub-blog]

Thematic Approach on Roy Andersson’s “World of Glory”- Salma Samoud

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bi0mvRI4L5Q&t=449s

“World of Glory” is a 1991 Swedish short film written and directed by Roy Andersson, best-known for his widely acclaimed advertisements. By dint of its peculiar method of shooting, this fifteen-minute film succeeds to captivate the viewer’s attention and allows him/her to ponder upon its meaning. Thematically speaking, “World of Glory” displays Modernist concerns namely the alienation of the individual, the social conformity and the rot of human interaction. The seclusion of the main character from his surroundings in this film is quite apparent. This idea can be seen through both setting and speech. Indeed, one cannot help but notice the gloomy atmosphere that hovers over Andersson’s short motion picture where every footage reveals a dominant blurry whitish colour. The haziness negates the innocence and purity that are embedded within the notion of whiteness and adds to it a sense of paleness and bleakness. These two attest to the psyche of this man, for they emanate passivity and disinterestedness to the world. Additionally, the scene where he stands alone in the empty room of the apartment is highly symbolic since the other two people stay distant from him. This distance can be construed as this man’s need to stay far from others in a cocoon of his own devising, for the scene does not demonstrate any actual interaction between them.

 To insist on this, the camera too is distant from him despite being the only object to which this character addresses. He seems insecure and extremely uneasy in the way he displaces himself. He fears the others and does his best to avoid being near them. Contact with the other frightens him as one deduces when he tells the camera about the man who owes him money and still, he keeps his distance from him without asking him to get his money back. In this light, speech, despite its near absence, is of paramount importance. The character tells little, yet his economy of speech informs the audience about his hatred of his job. He states, in the bath scene, that he is an estate agent and that “they have to exist too.” His use of “have to” as an obligation denotes his loathe towards this stultifying job where he is forced to be around people and in constant contact with them. The fact that he makes such statements concomitantly with taking a bath symbolically implies redemption, for this resembles the Christian baptism where a priest covers a sinner’s body with water in order for him/her to attain salvation. Therefore, he implicitly compares his job to a sin that he feels the need to wash away from his body and soul.

Not only is this man’s life dragged by his social seclusion, but also by the codes of society since he tries to cover every day life namely religious practices and daily habits. Conformity is defined as the behaviour or actions that follow the accepted codes of society where Man is constantly looking for these rules to abide by. Ostensibly, religion is the path to undergo, for it is a set of rules of conduct. The main character of this film resorts to religious practices as it is conveyed in the Church scene. He, wearing the same clothes as the others who are waiting in line like automatons, drinks wine that represents the blood of Christ. The meaning behind this Christian ritual is to ensure the Christ’s spiritual presence inside the believers. Therefore, the character falls back on this sacrament as a way to cure himself from his estrangement and to imitate these religious people in hope to find a common ground with them. He feels the need to bear resemblance to them in order to spare him the difficulty of being different. Likewise, he includes himself in a vicious circle of daily habits that seem to be common to everyone. He tackles mundane subjects which that seem very normal to the audience such as sleeping in a bed with his wife next to him and eating in the kitchen. However, what seems amiss in this scene is the lackadaisical and sinister tone used in the way these statements are rendered. This tone can be interpreted as means to voice the character’s resentment to every day’s routine. He implicitly decries human being’s conformity to the absurdity of these routines and urges one to rail against the tediousness of modern life.] Indeed, just like cogs in a machine, the modern man goes through life in automatic, repetitive and calculated manner in the same way this man remains unmoved emotionally and physically throughout the entire film. He is aware that if he moves, he will cross the lines of his comfort zone. Instead, he feels a need to be motionless and be part of the aforementioned vicious circle. As a result of repeating over and over again these daily habits, the machine-like Man focuses more on the circularity of his day and his main purpose becomes no more than wasting the time he has. Consequently, he forgets about the importance of human connection which leaves one to tackle the issue of Man’s impaired relationship with society. In her essay “Mr Bennett and Mrs Brown”, Virginia Woolf writes, “All human relations shifted” and in that light, Man is indeed in a perpetual struggle in trying to assimilate. The main character of Andersson’s short film is a case in point, for this can be seen in his dealing with both family relationships and social hierarchy. The dysfunctional family explored in this film is a result of human’s inability to communicate effectively. The definition of a family has altered throughout the years. Family is no longer the pillar that holds a balanced society. The decay of familial relationships is clearly shown in “World of Glory.” When the brother is introduced, several symbolic gestures are set forth to impart this decay. The main character stiffly grabs his brother by the arms to introduce him. This simple gesture implies the uneasiness to get along with the protagonist because the spectator notices his pressured nature. Indeed, the main character holds a condescending attitude towards his brother, as he shows his discomfort to loosen himself before the former. Similarly, there exist a contrast between speech and action. The protagonist rigidly announces that his brother is his “only true friend, so to speak”, whereas, at the end of the scene, both of them look in the opposite direction as if to declare their inability to harmonise. In the same respect, the son-figure in this film is victimized when the father compulsorily gets his son a tattoo on his forehead of some commercial brand: “Volvo”. Because of the materialistic nature of nowadays’ human being, his relationship with others, even with his blood-tied relatives, is put to strains. The tattoo connotes the sponsor and therefore money. The audience is informed that the son is talented in an unknown sport and the father uses this talent for self-interest means. The child remains indifferent and unresisting to the tattoo and the cash nexus that this movie exhibits. This image seems common in society and the director clearly criticizes this parent-child exploitation. Such patronising attitudes can also be traced in hierarchical societies. First, men in this scene prove to be powerful and hold high social positions because they are in control; they are the ones who trap the naked and helpless women and children in the vehicle in a callous and merciless manner. In fact, this nakedness contrasts with the suited men, who are likely to be politicians, aims to highlight the discrepancy of social status where the rich controls the poor and is able to humiliate and annihilate him. Second, the choice of the female gender and young age denounces both child abuse and sexual exploitation. These crying and tortured women and children all trapped in a prison-like van reveal an unspoken reality of their trafficking and abuse by the male’s patriarchal power. The film seems outspoken about these social issues and challenges the viewer to reflect upon them, for they may stir in him/her a sense of action. The grotesqueness that Andersson puts to the fore in this film perfectly delineates the plight of the modern man as well as his plagued society, making it an intriguing movie. Not only does he grip the audience with this fifteen-minute short film, but also allows them to reflect upon the different modernist-like subjects that are put in the limelight such as Man’s seclusion, societal conformity and humans’ inability to interact.

[walking-the-line-blog1]

Reason for forensic science and to be an FBI agent.

For years June Campbell was the `consort' of a senior Tibetan Buddhist monk. She was threatened with death if she broke her vow of secrecy. But then enlightenment can be like that. “Feet of clay? No, it was a different part of the anatomy - and of all too fleshly substance - which caused the trouble. But, I suppose, you don't expect Tantric sex to be a straightforward activity. Then again, sex of any kind isn't really what you're planning when you become a celibate nun. It was, said June Campbell as she began her lecture, only the second time she had been asked to give a talk to a Buddhist group in this country since her book, Traveller in Space, came out three years ago. Small wonder. The topic of her talk was "Dissent in Spiritual Communities", and you don't get much more potent types of dissent than hers. For she not only revealed that she had for years been the secret sexual consort of one of the most holy monks in Tibetan Buddhism - the tulku (re-incarnated lama), Kalu Rinpoche. She also insisted that the abuse of power at the heart of the relationship exposed a flaw at the very heart of Tibetan Buddhism. This was heresy, indeed. To outsiders, the Rinpoche was one of the most revered yogi-lamas in exile outside Tibet. As abbot of his own monastery, he had taken vows of celibacy and was celebrated for having spent 14 years in solitary retreat. Among his students were the highest-ranking lamas in Tibet. "His own status was unquestioned in the Tibetan community," said Ms Campbell, "and his holiness attested to by all." “The inner circles of the world of Tibetan Buddhism - for all its spread in fashionable circles in the West - is a closed and tight one. Her claims, though made in a restrained way in the context of a deeply academic book subtitled "In Search of Female Identity in Tibetan Buddhism", provoked what she described as a primitive outpouring of rage and fury. "I was reviled as a liar or a demon," she said during a public lecture last week at the non-sectarian College for Buddhist Studies in Sharpham, Devon. "In that world he was a saintly figure. It was like claiming that Mother Teresa was involved in making porn movies." “But it was not fear of the response which made her wait a full 18 years before publishing her revelations in a volume entitled Traveller in Space - a translation of dakini, the rather poetic Tibetan word for a woman used by a lama for sex. It took her that long to get over the trauma of the experience. "I spent 11 years without talking about it and then, when I had decided to write about it, another seven years researching. I wanted to weave together my personal experience with a more theoretical understanding of the role of women in Tibetan society to help me make sense of what had happened to me." What happened was that, having become a Buddhist in her native Scotland in the hippie Sixties, she travelled to India where she became a nun. She spent 10 years in a Tibetan monastery and penetrated more deeply than any other Westerner into the faith's esoteric hierarchy. Eventually she became personal translator to the guru as, during the Seventies, he travelled through Europe and America. It was after that, she said, that "he requested that I become his sexual consort and take part in secret activities with him". Only one other person knew of the relationship - a second monk - with whom she took part in what she described as a polyandrous Tibetan-style relationship. "It was some years before I realised that the extent to which I had been taken advantage of constituted a kind of abuse." “The practice of Tantric sex is more ancient than Buddhism. The idea goes back to the ancient Hindus who believed that the retention of semen during intercourse increased sexual pleasure and made men live longer. The Tibetan Buddhists developed the belief that enlightenment could be accelerated by the decision "to enlist the passions in one's religious practice, rather than to avoid them". The strategy is considered extremely risky yet so efficacious that it could lead to enlightenment in one lifetime.” “Monks of a lower status confined themselves to visualising an imaginary sexual relationship during meditation. But, her book sets out, the "masters" reach a point where they decide that they can engage in sex without being tainted by it. The instructions in the so-called "secret" texts spell out the methods which enable the man to control the flow of semen through yogic breath control and other practices. The idea is to "drive the semen upwards, along the spine, and into the head". The more semen in a man's head, the stronger intellectually and spiritually he is thought to be. More than that, he is said to gain additional strength from absorbing the woman's sexual fluids at the same time as withholding his own. This "reverse of ordinary sex", said June Campbell, "expresses the relative status of the male and female within the ritual, for it signals the power flowing from the woman to the man". The imbalance is underscored by the insistence by such guru-lamas that their sexual consorts must remain secret, allowing the lamas to maintain control over the women. "Since the book was published, I've had letters from women all over the world with similar and worse experiences." “So why did she stay for almost three years? "Personal prestige. The women believe that they too are special and holy. They are entering sacred space. It produces good karma for future lives, and is a test of faith." The combination of religion, sex, power and secrecy can have a potent effect. It creates the Catch 22 of psychological blackmail set out in the words of another lama, Beru Kyhentze Rinpoche: "If your guru acts in a seemingly unenlightened manner and you feel it would be hypocritical to think him a Buddha, you should remember that your own opinions are unreliable and the apparent faults you see may only be a reflection of your own deluded state of mind... If your guru acted in a completely perfect manner he would be inaccessible and you would be able to relate to him. It is therefore out of your Guru's great compassion that he may show apparent flaws... He is mirroring your own faults." The psychological pressure is often increased by making the woman swear vows of secrecy. In addition, June Campbell was told that "madness, trouble or even death" could follow if she did not keep silent. "I was told that in a previous life the lama I was involved with had had a mistress who caused him some trouble, and in order to get rid of her he cast a spell which caused her illness, later resulting in her death. There are those Buddhists, like Martine Batchelor - who spent 10 years as a Zen Buddhist nun in a Korean monastery and who now teaches at Sharpham College - who insist the religious techniques the Buddha taught can be separated from the sexist, patriarchal and oppressive culture of many Buddhist countries. But June Campbell is not convinced. "You have to ask what is the relationship between belief and how a society structures itself," she said. In Tibetanism, power lies in the hands of men who had often been traumatised by being removed from their mothers at the age of two and taken to an all-male monastery. "Some were allowed visits from their mothers and sisters but always in secrecy - so that they came to associate women with what must be hidden." But there is more to it, she believes, than that. Teaching at Sharpham last week she gave the students a whole range of material about different kinds of feminism - from the political to the psychotherapeutic. She then asked them how it relates to the fact that there are no female Buddha images, or to why in Tantric sex images the woman always has her back to the viewer, or to why Buddhist women are told to pray that they will be reborn into a male body in their next life - for only in a man's body can they attain full enlightenment. "Once I started unravelling my experiences, I began to question everything," she said. That meant not just the actions of a particular guru, but the very idea of the guru. She began to wonder whether the Tantra was just a fantasy, and whether there is really any difference between Tantric sex and ordinary sex. She questioned the very concept of enlightenment itself and the practice of meditation. "I realised that in order to be myself I had to leave it all - completely and utterly." I recommend da book “traveller in space” for further reading.

The preservation of Tibetan Buddhism’s wholesome integrity is why I will ultimately becaome FBI.

[bluewatsons]

Tara Isabella Burton, What Is a Cult?, Aeon (June 7, 2017)

Cults are exploitative, weird groups with strange beliefs and practices, right? So what about regular religions then?

Cults, generally speaking, are a lot like pornography: you know them when you see them. It would be hard to avoid the label on encountering (as I did, carrying out field work last year) 20 people toiling unpaid on a Christian farming compound in rural Wisconsin – people who venerated their leader as the closest thing to God’s representative on Earth. Of course, they argued vehemently that they were not a cult. Ditto for the 2,000-member church I visited outside Nashville, whose parishioners had been convinced by an ostensibly Christian diet programme to sell their houses and move to the ‘one square mile’ of the New Jerusalem promised by their charismatic church leader. Here they could eat – and live – in accordance with God and their leader’s commands. It’s easy enough, as an outsider, to say, instinctively: yes, this is a cult.

Less easy, though, is identifying why. Knee-jerk reactions make for poor sociology, and delineating what, exactly, makes a cult (as opposed to a ‘proper’ religious movement) often comes down to judgment calls based on perceived legitimacy. Prod that perception of legitimacy, however, and you find value judgments based on age, tradition or ‘respectability’ (that nice middle-class couple down the street, say, as opposed to Tom Cruise jumping up and down on a couch). At the same time, the markers of cultism as applied more theoretically – a single charismatic leader, an insular structure, seeming religious ecstasy, a financial burden on members – can also be applied to any number of new or burgeoning religious movements that we don’t call cults.

Often (just as with pornography), what we choose to see as a cult tells us as much about ourselves as about what we’re looking at.

Historically, our obsession with cults seems to thrive in periods of wider religious uncertainty, with ‘anti-cult’ activism in the United States peaking in the 1960s and ’70s, when the US religious landscape was growing more diverse, and the sway of traditional institutions of religious power was eroding. This period, dubbed by the economic historian Robert Fogel as the ‘Fourth Great Awakening’, saw interest in personal spiritual and religious practice spike alongside a decline in mainline Protestantism, giving rise to numerous new movements. Some of these were Christian in nature, for example the ‘Jesus Movement’; others were heavily influenced by the pop-cultural ubiquity of pseudo-Eastern and New Age thought: the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (aka the Hare Krishna), modern Wicca, Scientology. Plenty of these movements were associated with young people – especially young counter-cultural people with suspicious politics – adding a particular political tenor to the discourse surrounding them.

Against these there sprang a network of ‘anti-cult’ movements uniting former members of sects, their families and other objectors. Institutions such as the Cult Awareness Network (CAN) formed in 1978 after the poison fruit-drink (urban legend says Kool-Aid) suicides of Jim Jones and his Peoples Temple. The anti-cult networks believed that cults brainwashed their members (the idea of mind control, as scholars such as Margaret Singer point out, originated in media coverage of torture techniques supposedly used by North Korea during the Korean War). To counter brainwashing, activists controversially abducted and forcibly ‘deprogrammed’ members who’d fallen under a cult’s sway. CAN itself was co-founded by a professional deprogrammer, Ted Patrick, who later faced scrutiny for accepting $27,000 from the concerned parents of a woman involved in Leftist politics to, essentially, handcuff her to a bed for two weeks.

But that wasn’t all. An equal and no less fervent network of what became known as counter-cult activists emerged among Christians who opposed cults on theological grounds, and who were as worried about the state of adherent’s souls as of their psyches. The Baptist pastor Walter Ralston Martin was sufficiently disturbed by the proliferation of religious pluralism in the US to write The Kingdom of the Cults (1965), which delineated in detail the theologies of those religious movements Martin identified as toxic, and provided Biblical avenues for the enterprising mainstream Christian minister to oppose them. With more than half a million copies sold, it was one of the top-selling spiritual books of the era.

Writing the history of cults in the US, therefore, is also writing the history of a discourse of fear: of the unknown, of the decline in mainstream institutions, of change.

Every cultish upsurge – the Mansons, the Peoples Temple, the Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church (or Moonies) – met with an equal and opposite wave of hysteria. In 1979, the US sociologists Anson D Shupe, J C Ventimiglia and David G Bromley coined the term ‘atrocity tale’ to describe lurid media narratives about the Moonies. Particularly gruesome anecdotes (often told by emotionally compromised former members) worked to place the entire religious movement beyond the bounds of cultural legitimacy and to justify extreme measures – from deprogramming to robust conservatorship laws – to prevent vulnerable people falling victim to the cultic peril. True or not, the ‘atrocity tale’ allowed anti-cult activists and families worried about their children’s wellbeing (or their suspicious politics) to replace sociological or legal arguments with emotional ones.

This terror peaked when atrocity tales began outnumbering genuine horrors. The ‘Satanic panic’ of the 1980s brought with it a wave of mass hysteria over cult Satanists ritually abusing children in daycare centres, something that seems entirely to have been the product of false memories. In the now-discredited bestselling book Michelle Remembers (1980) by the psychiatrist Lawrence Pazder and his patient Michelle Smith (later, Mrs Lawrence Pazder), the lead author relates how he unlocked Smith’s memories of Satanic childhood. This influential atrocity tale influenced the three-year case in the 1980s against an administrator of the McMartin Preschool in Los Angeles and her son, a teacher, that racked up 65 crimes. The prosecution spun a fear-stoking narrative around outlandish claims, including bloody animal mutilations. The number of convictions? Zero. But mass-media hysteria made Satanic panic a national crisis, and a pastime.

And yet it is impossible to dismiss anti-cult work as pure hysteria. There might not be Satanists lurking round every corner, lying in wait to kidnap children or sacrifice bunny rabbits to Satan, but the dangers of spiritual, emotional and sexual abuse in small-scale, unsupervised religious communities, particularly those isolated from the mainstream or dominant culture, is real enough.

It is also keenly contemporary. The de-centred quality of the US religious landscape, the proliferation of storefront churches and ‘home churches’, not to mention the potential of the internet, makes it easier than ever for groups to splinter and fragment without the oversight of a particular religious or spiritual tradition. And some groups are, without a doubt, toxic. I’ve been to compounds, home churches and private churches where children are taught to obey community leaders so unquestioningly that they have no contact with the outside world; where the death of some children as a result of corporal punishment has gone unacknowledged by church hierarchy; or where members have died because group leaders discouraged them from seeking medical treatment. I’ve spoken to people who have left some of these movements utterly broken – having lost jobs, savings, their sense of self, and even their children (powerful religious groups frequently use child custody battles to maintain a hold over members).

In one Reddit post, James Chatham, formerly a member of the Remnant Fellowship, a controversial church founded by the Christian diet guru Gwen Shamblin, listed every reason he’d been punished as a child:

Allow me to give you a short list of the super-crazy [discipline] I recieved [sic] ‘Gods loving discipline’ for. Opening my eyes during a prayer Joking with adults (That joked back with me) … Saying that i don’t trust ‘Leaders’ (Their name for those that run the church) Asking almost any question about the bible. Trying to stop another kid from beating my skull in … Sneezing … Not being able to stand for 30 minutes straight with no break. Asking if my mother loved me more than god.

Does such extreme disciplinarianism make the Remnant Fellowship a cult? Or does the question of labelling distract us from wider issues at hand?

The historian J Gordon Melton of Baylor University in Texas says that the word ‘cult’ is meaningless: it merely assumes a normative framework that legitimises some exertions of religious power – those associated with mainstream organisations – while condemning others. Groups that have approved, ‘orthodox’ beliefs are considered legitimate, while groups whose interpretation of a sacred text differs from established norms are delegitimised on that basis alone. Such definitions also depend on who is doing the defining. Plenty of ‘cults’ identified by anti-cult and counter-cult groups, particularly Christian counter-cult groups such as the EMNR (Evangelical Ministries to New Religions), are recognised elsewhere as ‘legitimate’ religions: Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, even the Catholic Church have all come under fire, alongside the Moonies or the Peoples Temple.

To deny a so-called ‘cult’ legitimacy based on its size, or beliefs, or on atrocity tales alone is, for Melton, to play straight into normative definitions of power. We label cults ‘cults’ because they’re easy pickings, in a sense; even if their beliefs are no more outlandish, in theory, than reincarnation or the transubstantiation of the wafer in the Catholic Eucharist.

In a paper delivered at the Center for Study of New Religions in Pennsylvania in 1999, Melton said: ‘we have reached a general consensus that New Religions are genuine and valid religions. A few may be bad religion and some may be led by evil people, but they are religions.’ To call a group – be it Scientology or the Moonies, or the Peoples Church – a cult is to obscure the fact that to study it and understand it properly, both sociologically and theologically, we must treat it like any other religion (Melton prefers the term ‘New Religious Movements’). His point underscores the fact that questions of legitimacy, authority and hierarchy, and of delineation between inner and outer circles, are as much the provenance of ‘classical’ religious studies as of any analysis of cults.

Whatever our knee-jerk reaction to Scientology, say, and however much we know that compounds where members voluntarily hand over their savings to charismatic leaders are creepy and/or wrong, we cannot forget that the history of Christianity (and other faiths) is no less pockmarked by accusations of cultism. Each wave of so-called ‘heresy’ in the chaotic and contradictory history of the Christian churches was accompanied by a host of atrocity tales that served to legitimise one or another form of practice. This was hardly one-sided. Charges were levied against groups we might now see as ‘orthodox’ as well as at groups that history consigns to the dustbin of heresy: issues of ecclesiastical management (as in the Donatist controversy) or semantics (the heresies of Arianism, for example) could – and did – result in mutual anathema: we are the true church; you are a cult.

Of course, the uncomfortable truth here is that even true church (large, established, tradition-claiming church) and cult aren’t so far apart – at least when it comes to counting up red flags. The presence of a charismatic leader? What was John Calvin? (Heck, what was Jesus Christ?) A tradition of secrecy around specialised texts or practices divulged only to select initiates? Just look at the practitioners of the Eleusinian mysteries in Ancient Greece, or contemporary mystics in a variety of spiritual traditions, from the Jewish Kabbalah to the Vajrayāna Buddhist tradition. Isolated living on a compound? Consider contemporary convents or monasteries. A financial obligation? Christianity, Judaism and Islam all promote regular tithing back into the religious community. A toxic relationship of abuse between spiritual leaders and their flock? The instances are too numerous and obvious to list.

If we refuse any neat separation between cult and religion, aren’t we therefore obligated to condemn both? Only ontological metaphysical truth can possibly justify the demands that any religion makes upon its adherents. And if we take as writ the proposition that God isn’t real (or that we can never know what God wants), it’s easy to collapse the distinction with a wave of a hand: all religions are cults, and all are probably pretty bad for you. The problem with this argument is that it, too, falls down when it comes to creating labels. If we take Melton’s argument further, the debate over what makes a cult, writ large, might just as easily be relabelled: what makes a religion?

Besides, accusations of cultism have been levelled at secular or semi-secular organisations as well as metaphysically inclined ones. Any organisation offering identity-building rituals and a coherent narrative of the world and how to live in it is a target, from Alcoholics Anonymous to the vegan restaurant chain the Loving Hut, founded by the Vietnamese entrepreneur-cum-spiritual leader Ching Hai, to the practice of yoga (itself rife with structural issues of spiritual and sexual abuse), to the modern phenomenon of the popular, paleo-associated sport-exercise programme CrossFit, which a Harvard Divinity School study used as an example of contemporary ‘religious’ identity. If the boundaries between cult and religion are already slippery, those between religion and culture are more porous still.

In his seminal book on religion, The Interpretation of Cultures (1973), the anthropologist Clifford Geertz denies that human beings can live outside culture (what he calls the capital-M ‘Man’). Everything about how we see the world and ascribe meanings to symbols, at a linguistic as well as a spiritual level, is mediated by the semiotic network in which we operate. Religion, too, functions within culture as a series of ascriptions of meaning that define how we see ourselves, others, and the world. Geertz writes:

Without further ado, then, a religion is: (1) a system of symbols which acts to (2) establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods in men by (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing those conceptions with such an aura of factuality that (5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.

Such a definition of religion isn’t limited to groups with formal doctrines about ‘God’, but encompasses any wider cultural narrative of the self in the world.

Geertz’s definition – somewhat dated now – has been updated: most notably by postcolonial thinkers such as Talal Asad, who argue that Geertz overlooks one of the most significant mechanisms for meaning-making: power. How we conceive of God, our world, our spiritual values (a hunger for ‘cleansing’ in yoga, or for proof of strength, as in CrossFit, or for salvific grace) is inextricable both from our own identities and our position within a group in which questions of power are never, can never be, absent.

Even the narratives that many religions, cults and religious-type groups promulgate – that they are in some sense separate from ‘the others’ (the Hebrew word for ‘holiness’, qadosh, derives from the word for separation) – are themselves tragically flawed: they are both apart from and firmly within the problems of a wider culture. 

Take, for example, the cultural pervasiveness of ideals of female thinness. It is precisely the aspirational desire to be Kate-Moss skinny that allows a Christian diet programme such as Remnant to attract members in the first place (don’t eat too much; it’s a sin!). So too does it allow cults of ‘wellness’ to take hold: a woman who is already obsessed with cleansing toxins, making her body ‘perfect’ and ‘clean’, and ‘purifying’ herself is more likely to get involved with a cult-like yoga practice and/or be susceptible to sexual abuse by her guru (a not uncommon occurrence).

Likewise, the no less culturally pervasive failure of mainstream institutions – from the healthcare system to mainline Protestant churches – to address the needs of their members gives rise, with equal potency, to individuals susceptible to conspiracy theories, or cultish behaviours: to anything that might provide them with meaningfulness.

The very collapse of wider religious narratives – an established cultural collectivism – seems inevitably to leave space for smaller, more intense, and often more toxic groups to reconfigure those Geertzian symbols as they see fit. Cults don’t come out of nowhere; they fill a vacuum, for individuals and, as we’ve seen, for society at large. Even Christianity itself proliferated most widely as a result of a similar vacuum: the relative decline of state religious observance, and political hegemony, in the Roman Empire.

After all, the converse of the argument ‘If God isn’t real then all religions are probably cults’ is this: if a given religion or cult is right, metaphysically speaking, then that rightness is the most important thing in the universe. If a deity really, truly wants you to, say, flagellate yourself with a whip (as Catholic penitents once did), or burn yourself on your husband’s funeral pyre, then no amount of commonsense reasoning can amount to a legitimate deterrent: the ultimate cosmic meaningfulness of one’s actions transcends any other potential need. And to be in a community of people who can help reinforce that truth, whose rituals and discourse and symbols help not only to strengthen a sense of meaningfulness but also to ground it in a sense of collective purpose, then that meaningfulness becomes more vital still: it sits at the core of what it is to be human.

To talk about religion as a de facto abuse-vector of hierarchical power (in other words, a cult writ large) is a meaningless oversimplification. It’s less an arrow than a circle: a cycle of power, meaning, identity, and ritual. We define ourselves by participating in something, just as we define ourselves against those who don’t participate in something. Our understanding of ourselves – whether we’re cradle Catholics, newly joined-up members of the Hare Krishna, or members of a particularly rabid internet fandom – as people whose actions have cosmic if not metaphysical significance gives us a symbolic framework in which to live our lives, even as it proscribes our options. Every time we repeat a ritual, from the Catholic Mass to a prayer circle on a farm compound to a CrossFit workout, it defines us – and we define the people around us.

Today’s cults might be secular, or they might be theistic. But they arise from the same place of need, and from the failure of other, more ‘mainstream’ cultural institutions to fill it. If God did not exist, as Voltaire said, we would have to invent him. The same is true for cults.

[themeadowsaz]

Why We Grieve: The Importance of Mourning Loss

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By Tian Dayton, Ph.D. Senior Fellow at The Meadows

Grief is a life issue that strikes at the very heart of being human, while we live in a body, pair bond and procreate we will love and we will lose. The effect of loss can be shocking and dis-equilibrating and it needs a process of mourning or grieving to come to terms with. When loss is not accompanied with some sort of process that allows us to both feel and express our feelings of despair, vulnerability, disorientation and perhaps even relief, those emotions can go underground. But out of sight is not out of mind, they will come back to haunt us if we do not somehow find a way to accommodate and accept the loss that has taken place.

Rituals that address loss have long been built into the religions of the world. Whether a wailing wall, windows covered in black, ripped clothing, or overt crying and beating of the breast, the need to grieve is a recognized and encouraged phenomenon. Numerous religions involve rituals that are designed to trigger the grief process and eventually to mark its ending. Wearing black or a mourning arm band are ways of signaling the world that life is different and that the person who has experienced a loss needs special consideration for a period of time. But in our mobile, modern culture where physical distance is often a part of families and communities, and formal religion is less the center of people’s lives, we need to find alternative ways to acknowledge and process life changes and losses.

Grief has most often been associated with losses to death. But there are many kinds of losses, particularly as our life span has lengthened by more than three decades over the last century, that occur as part of a long life. In this series of articles on grief we’ll explore varieties of loss and their impact on the psyche and on our lives, including the particular types of losses that follow in the wake of addiction and dysfunction. We will also look at ways of handling loss, whether to death or disruption that mankind has developed intuitively over time and more recently through research.

Disenfranchised Loss

Some life losses do not get fully recognized and when this happens they become what is referred to in the grief vernacular as “disenfranchised”. Unlike a loss to death there is no funeral to acknowledge and honor the loss, no grave to visit, no covered dishes dropped at the door nor sitting in the company of fellow mourners and supporting each other through the tears. These losses live in unmarked graves within people and family systems who often avoid discussing them. The pain becomes covert rather than overt that is, unexamined feelings surrounding the loss may still affect us, but we may not be aware of the way in which they are impacting our lives and relationships. Some examples of disenfranchised losses are:

The effects of divorce, on spouses, children and the family unit.

Dysfunction in the home, loss of family life.

Addiction, loss of periods of one’s life to using and abusing.

Loss of the addictive substance or behavior.

Loss of job, health, youth, children in the home, retirement, life transitions (if they trigger other losses or are overwhelming due to difficult circumstances they can be harder to handle).

The Stages of the Grieving Process

The stages that one can expect to pass through in the grieving process are laid out below. Loss here is defined as loss of a person, a part of the self, a period of life, or a situation/circumstance. I have adapted renowned psychiatrist John Bowlby’s stages and added a fifth stage that I have seen clients pass through when they can allow themselves to surrender to the process of grieving. Particularly when the grieving is of disenfranchised losses related to addiction, mental illness or dysfunction, clients can feel a new lease on life when they move through the stages of loss.

It is important to note that people’s feelings do not necessarily follow an exact course, but the stages offer an overall map of the emotional terrain covered during the process of grieving loss. The stages are:

Emotional numbness and shutdown. In this stage, we may go through a period of feeling emotionally numb. We know something happened but our feelings are shutdown and out of reach. Yearning and searching. A yearning for the lost object (person, situation) and searching for it in other people, places and things mark this stage; ghosting, or the sense of a continuing presence of the lost person or feeling as if you are seeing them, may be part of this stage. There is deep yearning for what was lost–be it a stage of life, a part of the self, or a person–followed by searching for a way to replace it.

Disruption, anger and despair. In this stage, we may experience anger, despair and disappointment that comes and goes and is overwhelming at times. Many losses that have anger and resentment involved with them, can get complicated at this point. Ambivalent feelings may persist such as longing for the lost person or situation vs relief at its absence, or rage surrounding the loss vs despair and sadness. Sometimes for example it’s easier to feel the anger associated with the loss rather than the sadness beneath it because the sadness feels demeaning, confusing or makes us remember all that never got a chance to be and this too can become confusing and disorienting.

Reorganization and integration. In this stage we can talk about the loss without fear of sinking into it and never coming out. We’re able to actually experience the emotions connected with the loss, translate them into words and elevate them to a conscious level and thus integrate it into the overall context of our lives and ourselves. We can become mindful about our own inner world, aware of our own process which strengthens our ‘inner wittness” or the part of us that can actually watch our own mind and emotions. This is a natural stage of acceptance and letting go.

Reinvestment, spiritual growth and renewed commitment to life. In this stage, we come to believe in life’s intrinsic ability to repair and rebuild itself. We’re able to reinvest in life and relationships and to feel reasonably good about our future.

Though these stages appear in order, they do not necessarily occur in order, nor should they. We may find ourselves cycling through these stages over and over again, hovering between stages and even zig-zagging among them or skipping over some in favor of others. Whatever our process is, it will not generally look or feel tidy, in fact it is in entering what feels disorganized and messy that we may most fully plumb the depths of our own grief and emerge perhaps stronger and more confident of our ability to face what life deals us. If we avoid or cannot move through some sort of grief/mourning process we may:

Stay stuck in anger, pain and resentment.

Get stuck in numbness, the first stage in the grief process, we may lose access to important parts of our inner, feeling world.

Have trouble engaging in new relationships because we are constantly emotionally and psychologically “reliving”; we’re preoccupied with a person or situation no longer present, we have not, in other words processed the loss and moved through it.

Project unfelt, unresolved grief onto other relationships or situations, placing unfelt and unacknowledged feelings of hurt, pain and/resentment where they do not belong.

Lose personal history along with the un-mourned person or situation; a part of us dies, too.

Carry deep fears of subsequent abandonment, betrayal or disillusionment. Although mourning carries the scent of darkness and pain, it is also a time- honored path towards the light. The very vulnerability we feel along with the depth of emotion that is connected with mourning brings us in touch with our own and other’s humanity, it softens out hearts and opens our minds.

Grief and Loss Workshop at The Rio Retreat Center

Healing Heartache: A Grief And Loss Workshop provides a safe, sacred for participants to lean into the grief, which facilitates the healing. Loss can come in many forms including death of a loved one, loss of one's health, relationship losses, major life changes, lost opportunities, etc. During this 5-day workshop:

Cumulative loss over the life cycle will be examined,

Myths and inaccurate messages about grief will be dispelled, helping to normalize feelings,

Thinking processes and patterns of destructive behavior following trauma or loss will be explored

Feelings and words left unsaid will be released through experiential exercises,

Issues pertaining to relational problems will be addressed, with an emphasis on recognizing emotional reactions to loss, trauma, and broken dreams,

Resources will be offered to assist participants in moving forward, and

Psycho-education on grief and recovery will be provided, offering hope for the future.

To register, or for more information, call 866-331-3368.

Note: This article originally appeared on The Huffington Post

Content Source Why We Grieve: The Importance of Mourning Loss