Ritual

Share thoughts and ideas regarding what can be done to meet contemporary humanity's need for rites of initiation and passage.

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CarmelaBear
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Post by CarmelaBear »

I'm not against laws, Evinnra. I AM a lawyer and proud of it. I'm a critic of some of the most fundamental assumptions that underlie all the laws. That's how we evolved from the Ten Commandments to what we have now. The fundamental problem with the 10 C's was really obvious to Joe Campbell. I'm not going to belabor that one.

I believe all people are good. Behavior is not people. People are not ONLY what they do. Nobody is "unworthy". Worth is something we're born with and we can't do anything to lose it.

Are you forever the little dribbly, babbling poop machine who cried like a banshee and slept a lot? If we never lived down our behavior, one might call every human being an infant and just leave it at that, without considering anything else about the person.

That's what we do to those who make mistakes. We stick their whole entire being into a box and leave it there. There are studies that show, beyond a reasonable doubt, that that does not work.

Do you want to prevent crime or respond to it? Those are your choices. If you choose the first option (my favorite), then you have to pay attention to CAUSES, which turn out to be common to absolutely everyone, no matter what. If you had been born Hitler, you would have done what he did. If you had been born Marie Curie, you would have done what she did. Some factors are genetic. Some are environmental, some involve complexities that are beyond all our abilities to comprehend, but the factors that lead to what you call "good" or "law-abiding" behavior are well-known and not that hard to produce in everyone.....yes, I said EVERYONE. We just have to pay attention.

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Neoplato
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Post by Neoplato »

Some people still think I'm a little dribbly, babbling poop machine.

:D

CarmelaBear
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Post by CarmelaBear »

Rituals do tend to lose their meaning or just get boring and monotonous. The ones that are forced upon us eventually have a higher burden to justify continued interest and participation. I'm not big on funerals, for example, and I have very little patience with rituals that are only for "show" or represent the height of hypocrisy (like judges that admonish defendants not be violent, when the law is nothing if not violent....it's like the parent who whacks the kid, saying something like "Don't hit people!").

I wonder if ritual is one of the Masks of the Gods. It covers what's really going on so that we can go along with things that are so repellent that we would never choose to participate unless we are compelled by forces much more powerful.

Before Vatican II, all Catholics were required to attend Holy Mass on Sunday or face eternal damnation. The churches were full, the coffers were brimming over, and the prestige of the priestly class was enormous. Now, the only place where the rituals still have power is in the developing countries, where the greatest power an individual can claim comes from the world of the spirit, and rituals are the path to power.

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CarmelaBear
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Post by CarmelaBear »

Neoplato, have you ever considered entering Chicago politics?

Neoplato
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Post by Neoplato »

Not sure how to take your comment CarmelaBear. Do you ask this question because I babble too much? (I hope it's not because I'm a poop machine. :D )

Seriously, I have to deal with politics on a daily basis and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. You're really a lawyer?

Roman Catholics keep coming up. I also was brought up RC. Is their a pattern here?

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Post by CarmelaBear »

Neoplato wrote:Not sure how to take your comment CarmelaBear. :D )

Seriously, I have to deal with politics on a daily basis and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. You're really a lawyer?

Roman Catholics keep coming up. I also was brought up RC. Is their a pattern here?
It's my sense of humor, Neo. I did not intend offense, of course, but I can be self-effacing to a fault, and treat others as I mistreat myself. You can bite me back, but it's not the same. If there's bad, then I'm it. :oops: Sorry. Sorry.

I practiced law for a number of years. I don't any more. I enjoyed student politics, but when my running mate in a student election took a suicidal turn, I began to see the whole political thing from a more serious frame of reference. Then, I graduated from Harvard Law School, and the prospect of actually succeeding in a big way just turned my life around. Some people freaked out and made more trouble for me than I ever dreamed possible. Others had (have) high expectations. The story's not over.

The RC thing is very real. We share Campbell's background, and it makes a big diff.

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Neoplato
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Post by Neoplato »

No offense taken CarmelaBear. :D

The RC thing is very interesting. All starting from the same point and ending at the same point along different paths.

Speaking of rituals and RCs, I was trully amazed when I watched the Mythos serious and learned the source and meaning of the RC rituals. For me it was like "everything comes full circle".

CarmelaBear
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Post by CarmelaBear »

Neoplato wrote: The RC thing is very interesting. All starting from the same point and ending at the same point along different paths.

Speaking of rituals and RCs, I was trully amazed when I watched the Mythos series and learned the source and meaning of the RC rituals. For me it was like "everything comes full circle".
Although I did get the same impression when I watched the Mythos series, I'm not sure to what you are making specific reference. Perhaps you could remember what you have in mind when you say "full circle".

What's particularly interesting to me is that the most sacred elements of any religion have their own truth. There is such a great world beyond what our sense tell us so plainly.

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Neoplato
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Post by Neoplato »

I guess what I mean by "full circle" is that the RC rituals had no meaning for me growing up. "You must go to church or god will damn you", "You must go to confession or god will damn you", "You must say 10 our fathers and 5 hail Marys or god will damn you", Stand, kneel, stand, kneel, etc...

So in my search for spirituality, it's ironic that everything that I've learned or experienced on my path can be linked back to the rituals of the catholic church.

It's like I hinted at earlier, the rituals take a life of thier own and the meaning is lost. But if you can come to the understanding of the representation of the rituals, then when you look behind you...it's like... oh! so that's what it was supposed to represent. Now that...makes sense. Thus the circle completes itself.

CarmelaBear
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Post by CarmelaBear »

Okay, Neo. I get what you're saying now. I can relate to that, except that I received an entirely different religious education. The reasons for the rituals were explained in vast detail, and I remember the wonderful stories of real people and fictional characters who illustrated much of the symbolism and meaning.

There was one in particular about the importance of the Eucharist. There was the story of a martyred saint who believed so fervently in the literal meaning of the wafer being the actual body and blood of the risen saviour, that he protected the host with his life. He was a child of nine or ten. It was one of those stories that made a ginormous impression on me and steered me in the direction of zealous Catholicitousness.

For me, Campbell confirmed what I long suspected. There was always some grounds for being enthusiastic about my religious beliefs. If I backed off after a while, it's because I keep learning new things.

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Post by Neoplato »

The reasons for the rituals were explained in vast detail, and I remember the wonderful stories of real people and fictional characters who illustrated much of the symbolism and meaning.
I never experienced this. I remember a specific instance when a "teacher" tried to explain why Jesus had to die. "In order to open the gates of heaven, a sacrifice was required that was equal to god. And the only thing that is equal to god is god. So Jesus had to die to open the gates of heaven". I was 8 at the time. I looked at her and said "that makes no sense". She disciplined me and sent me on my way.

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Post by Evinnra »

Do you want to prevent crime or respond to it? Those are your choices. If you choose the first option (my favorite), then you have to pay attention to CAUSES, which turn out to be common to absolutely everyone, no matter what. If you had been born Hitler, you would have done what he did. If you had been born Marie Curie, you would have done what she did. Some factors are genetic. Some are environmental, some involve complexities that are beyond all our abilities to comprehend, but the factors that lead to what you call "good" or "law-abiding" behavior are well-known and not that hard to produce in everyone.....yes, I said EVERYONE. We just have to pay attention.

~
Carmela, I was aware that I was replying to a lawyer. :wink:

As for my stance, I too prefer prevention of crime but I’m not sure if a system could ever be devised that can halt the hand and mind of a criminal before s/he commits the crime. Moreover, a system aiming for that outcome would have implications regarding the individual’s free will and I’m one of those old fashioned Catholics who believes that the foundation of Law lies in the freedom of the moral agent to make his/her own moral judgements.

As far as I recon nothing is written in stone regarding an individual behaviour treat. Even if behaviours were as hard wired and genetically predetermined as physical appearance is, I’d say it should still be the individuals’ own preference to make that change for fitting in with the context. Say, if it were a sin to possess green eyes and I knew I couldn’t change the colour of my eyes without genetic modification of my body, it still ought to be my achievement if I decided to undergo genetic modification just so I can please the Law. It wouldn’t be right if I blamed the Law for making it a sin to have green eyes, but I could rightly blame all who FORCIBLY changed the colour of my eyes without my INFORMED CONCENT. No?
'A fish popped out of the water only to be recaptured again. It is as I, a slave to all yet free of everything.'
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CarmelaBear
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Post by CarmelaBear »

When Campbell asked the guru for the answer, he was told: "Yes."

That's the answer.

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Post by Andromeda »

Neoplato wrote:CarmelaBear wrote:
Healthy, happy people don't need laws. They have self-respect and they respect others. There is a rational and humane response to any human error, no matter how terrible it is.
I think the same can be said for rituals. Once you have come to understand the meanings embedded in the myths, why do we need rituals? Laws are used to deal with non-conformists and so are rituals. Physical Imprisonment vice eternal damnation and excummunication.

Of course this doesn't address the orginal reason for the development of rituals. I'm thinking that at first, similiar to laws, they were developed for the good of society. So maybe we're talking about when does "good of the society" turn into "control of the society"? And when does the idea of "good of the society" lose its meaning?
Healthy, happy people have laws... that's how they attained that enviable state. The laws may or may not be written or need to be enforced, but they still have laws or else they would not be healthy and happy... To postulate they don't need the laws that are part of the basic foundation of the society that created/sustains their circumstance of happiness and health is an oxymoron. To give the laws up or change them would be to alter their basic circumstance sufficiently to cause unhappiness and disease where previously there was health and happiness. Perhaps it might be more accurate to postulate that healthy, happy people rarely have need to enforce laws by distasteful means.

Rituals could provide a similar function, depending on the persons in the society and how they react to various external influences. Some may find ritual more acceptable than the perception of a law as being a relatively harsh imposition which they don't require to induce proper behavior... and would therefore resent, for instance.
Envision a world as it should be. What we envision is what we create in the future.

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Post by Neoplato »

Andromeda, I think we're saying the same thing. Laws are required to ensure the stability of society and rituals are required to ensure the stability of a specific religious institution.

These aren't "bad" overall, but they are a controlling influence. Do I interpret your position correctly?

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