Beliefs are beliefs are beliefs. Beliefs within the home territory of an empire ruled by anti-ethical madmen and a perpetual conditioning towards lock-step militarism will take on those aspects as they are assimilated within the going conventional notion of “religion” — especially as illegal actions by the government must be cloaked within it. Just as in Haiti, a Haitian descended from slaves once owned by the business charters of Christian nations, with a bit of distant and ancient African ritualism thrown in will take on the appearance of “satanism” once provoked into a lifestyle of desperation and meaninglessness. There is no “conservative truth” just as there is no Satanic truth. Top down religions, forced chantings, forced pledges, forced divisions between similar people are all cut from the same “satanic” cloth.

If you can see past the idiotic rituals one is forced to do in order to fit in, you find a little person, not much older than the age of eight in there totally under the control (in greater or lesser degrees) of the theater put on by the authorities at hand. Impressionable people don’t walk into a church with a missle on display and walk back out in disgust. They’re impressionable. They stay to hear what it’s all about.

It’s all conditioning after that. And it grows until it destroys itself and everything else of its own inertia or there are enough minds out there to satisfactorily put the stupid idea to rest. Think purple Ore’Ida microwavable french fries.

The question is: How many people are buying this good vs. evil narrative as read by the shining beacons on the dominionist, craven right? We’ll probably get a good idea of how big this is soon. Or how big it isn’t. . .

But in the end, we have little control when all purposes for human behavior fall under the two categories of empire: With or Against.

The empire gets to decide. If missles must be deployed in congregations across the land then so be it. If the whole of Haiti is best understood as under the power of Satan, then that too. So be it. All of it is done in honor and veneration of death. A death the empire shall never suffer.

If pagans, gnostics, unitarians, and others were as focused and committed we would not be in the situation we are in today.

actually, i tend to think the situation is pretty good, overall. our shit gets sensationalised, but there are more of “us” out in the open at this point in history than ever before.

it’s the american & palestinian muslims and kashmiri muslims and hindus and iraqi mandeans and people who are *actually* restricted from practicing their religions who have it bad at the moment. they’re the ones who are currently being persecuted, most certainly not anyone who can afford to freely post about paganism on tim boucher’s weblog.

really, all you can do is live by example & be good & compassionate to your friends & family members & neighbors. if pagans and gnostics and unitarians (oh my!) want to start getting involved in the realm of politics as some kind of organized body, count me out. i’d prefer to stay transparent to the authorities, as it were.

There really is this whole thing in alternative spirituality where organization is sort of anathema beyond just small groups. I mean, I basically think this is great.

The Invisibles were a small group.

——————–

I’ve never had a problem with occultists speaking in warlike terms either

AT least the Evangelicals aren’t living in denial about it

Interesting info about occult warfare here

In a nutshell the Haitians kicked off the Hiatian revolution against the French slavemasters with a ritual invocation to a war god

It appears to have worked, but the Protestants are still pissed about it

BTW, I use the word “liberal” in its broadest sense of being open-minded, not necessarily its political sense.

In my experience most supposedly open-minded liberals cringe from discussing religion publicly. The conservative evangelicals don’t. So people who are looking for a church go to the right-wing mega-churches. Also, these mega-churches are very serious about their growth, they are very well-organized and committed.

If pagans, gnostics, unitarians, and others were as focused and committed we would not be in the situation we are in today. Yet try finding some literature on how to grow a pagan/gnostic/unitarian organization and you will usually come up empty handed. In fact a recent magazine had an article about growing a Wiccan group from coven to fellowship to church and one of the co-authors was a Christian! It’s as if these people can’t even find one of their own as an expert.

Honestly, if people who have alternative religious viewpoints are just going to sit at their computers or read books all day - then guess what? The evangelicals are going to continue to grow and dominate this country, not because of some conspiracy by clever pastors and religious right boogeymen, but simply because there is no damn competition in the spiritual playing field. BTW, I am personally very guilty of this because my personality is not all inclined to go out and try to win people over from fundamentalism. I’d much rather sit on my ass and read Tim’s blog.

As for spirtual warfare, I think that is an apt term. That is exactly what man is engaged in whether we like it or not. Always has been, always will be (until the end of times at least) Not everyone is going to sit down around the campfire and sing kumbaya. Sometimes there are bastards you just need to fight head on. I think both Islamic and Christian fundamentalist fall into this category.

I have never had a problem with fundamentalists speaking in warlike terms - I think it is healthy and clarifying. Now one can’t and shouldn’t approach everything in life like a war, but under certain conditions the Gods of War need to be invoked and I think the current spiritual divide in this country definitely demands that. It’s past time to confront fundamentalists head on and point out why they are dead wrong. No more of this “Well, whatever works for you, is OK by me,, crap” That sounds real nice until you realize that what works for them (the fundamentalists) is dominating our politics and culture, corrupting our government, and cracking down on free inquiry.

I would love to see more open-minded churches and institutions confront the problems of fundamentalism. A good step in the right direction was the Church of Christ’s pro-gay ads.

People are thirsting for spirituality in this country but all they are being offered is fundamentalism - I think this is largely because the fundamentalists were very conscious of organizing and institution-building. Anti-fundamentalists need to start focusing on organizing as well. That’s the only way any progress can be made. right now the playing field has been forfeited to the fundies. That’s why they do stuff like this.

this is the archon at work right here, folks.

btw, jk– wanted to toss you a link, but your site seems to be intermittent at the moment . . . let me know when it’s fixed and i’ll link to ya in my post.

Via Tim and DunneIV– I wouldn’t have posted this was it not so [...]

WE ARE THE BORG! PREPARE TO BE ASSIMILATED!

God, WordPress is really quite amazing.

for example, all of these suburban magachurches that get their acolytes drawn into this sort of theological monoculture

supposeldy this is planned - the fact that these megachurches are strategically built to encircle cities like NYC

the plan is to map different places that they see as centers of sin & impudence and then pray for over and against them

encircle the cities and then pray that their residents see the light and turn away from sexual and religious and artistic experimentation and towards the God of the Bible and GWB and the ‘Merican way.

Is it working? I dunno. I never thought the US in 2005 would look even more like the Reagan era than the Reagan era did, if that makes any sense