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Is the Constitution A Mystical Document?



I just happened across an interesting article about a well-known Wiccan and alternative religion advocate named Phyllis Curott. Actually, the article itself isn’t anything especially mind-blowing, but there are a handful of juicy quotes from her. This one raises an interesting issue I think:

“For me, the Constitution is almost a mystical document, with its commitment to the freedom of the individual and their essential integrity and decency. I believe so deeply in the goodness of the American character. I don’t think we’ll allow this democracy to be destroyed.”

I think this idea of the Constitution as a mystical document is one worth exploring. I guess we could also approach it more broadly and ask questions about the mystical and magical origins of all contracts, documents and laws. It’s a big topic though, so where should we start? Maybe we could start with what Curott is saying here: does the Constitution (or equivalent document in your country) hold some kind of almost magical power for you? What other documents do you hold in similar high regard?







12 Reader Responses

  1. Garrett Kelly Says:
    October 7th, 2005 at 12:54 am

    Hmm, I briefly thought of doing a documentary where I would go through the constitution and try to actually “live” the document as if it were a religious/mystical text. Like, I’d actually go out and buy a gun and learn how to shoot, go do the standing on the street corner with a soapbox, etc. But I got bogged down with things like soldiers not being housed in people’s quarters and shit.

    I should probably go back and look at the document and see if the movie would be feasible even.

    What was that movie that came out recently, National Treasure? What was that business all about?

  2. alistair Says:
    October 7th, 2005 at 1:10 am

    firstly, the costitution of the united states of america, was written by a bunch of guys who were all dead by 1800, which means that, as a contract it`s a worthless piece of paper. as a manifest of destiny is is a missive of some considerable power that stirrs powerful emotions and could be argued that it is mystical. i presume that you refer to mystical in some arcane evocational way, containing instruction in ritual of some sort. unfortunately government today makes a mockery of any sort of manifest destiny with constitutional reforms, lobbying and a blatant disregard for the position of democracy in modern society. to get an inkling of of my point delivered in a scolarly and clear fashion have a read of my friend marc stevens work at www.adventuresinlegalland.com and prepare to see the law in a new light.
    iconoclasts rejoice!

  3. Kylark Says:
    October 7th, 2005 at 2:29 am

    “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

    You can’t get much more mystical than that. Just sit and meditate on those words for a bit.

    (It’s not the Constitution tho’ - it’s the Declaration of Independence).

    The Bill of Rights is the ultimate anti-Archonic document. It’s all about protecting the individual from the excesses of the State.

  4. James Russell Says:
    October 7th, 2005 at 3:09 am

    It’s an interesting way of looking at it. I’m increasingly of the opinion that politics has become a form of religion for many people (particularly political webloggers), so it makes a kind of sense to view political texts accordingly.

  5. Surrealism vs Dada Says:
    October 7th, 2005 at 12:17 pm

    I read both of those manifesto’s recently and I think they are somewhat mystical because of its attack on tyranical rationalism. Although no country has ever based their government on surrealistic or dadaesque principals I’m sure plenty of imaginary lands have.

  6. alistair Says:
    October 7th, 2005 at 12:27 pm

    it`s interesting that you should mention dada. there is a dada exhibition in france right now. the dadaists were rebeling against the futility of the first world war and stated that no exhibition of dada would work. give it to the french to be that contrarian. i suppose the french government is trying to absorb the movement into it`s ideology in some way. hand-signed urinals………but is it art?

  7. Avalon Says:
    October 7th, 2005 at 1:53 pm

    I don’t think of the Constitution as a mystical document.

    But the statement makes a great soundbite when you are on a lecture tour and your most recent book is not selling too well.

  8. Tim Boucher Says:
    October 7th, 2005 at 2:03 pm

    Maybe… I do think there’s something to be said for all documents being mystical in nature, especially in regards to law. But mainly the idea that you could take a thought and put it into a fixed form which can then influence or go inside of other people’s minds and guide them towards particular behaviors and mental states seems extremely magical to me.

  9. Avalon Says:
    October 7th, 2005 at 2:42 pm

    “you could take a thought and put it into a fixed form which can then influence or go inside of other people’s minds and guide them towards particular behaviors and mental states seems extremely magical to me”

    But that’s the nature of writing itself, once you move further from cuneiform tablets of how many measures of grain you are storing.

    I’ve been occasionally dipping into The Alphabet Versus the Goddess by Leonard Shlain. I haven’t read enough to discuss it and I’ll be away most of the weekend, but ideas in that book might be relevant, I’d think.

  10. Tim Boucher Says:
    October 7th, 2005 at 3:53 pm

    But that’s the nature of writing itself,

    Yes, and when you have a piece of writing that guides the foundation of a nation, then it seems fair to call it mystical

  11. Avalon Says:
    October 7th, 2005 at 4:40 pm

    As a parent, I think of times when I have had to put guidance in writing for my family.

    “You do not hit your sister when you are angry” “I don’t care how other familes do it, this is how we will do it” and “I do not ever want to see wet towels placed on top my my books and magazines again”
    are some versions of our little social contract/constitution. But I don’t consider them to be mystical, and when you take away the flowery writing, I think the Constitution. is saying the same things pretty much.

  12. channel null Says:
    October 9th, 2005 at 9:06 pm

    I don’t know if I take the constitution as a mystical document–most of it is rules-based garbage. Indians don’t pay taxes, blacks count three-fifths… It’s hopelessly dated. Likewise, it overshadows the historically divergent document, the Articles of Confederation, which I think represents a superior form of gub’ment…

    But the Bill of Rights, now there’s something. Free speech, guns, the 9th, 10th, 14th amendments. Unfortunately…

    The document comes from a borderline agricultural-industrial, pre-Capitalist society. While everytihing it guarantees is still a worthwhile pursuit, it can’t cope with the spin-filled outsourced mediascape, or the burgeoning, hammer-fisted state apparatus. I think that if the Founding Fathers found out that NYC had 35,000 fulltime cops, there’d be powdered wigs and ponytails all in a twist. Simply put, the politics of control squelched out the magick.

    Another avenue of pursuit might be to see how the Constitution lines up with Deist and Masonic beliefs–after all, the founding fathers were very much into those systems, which, while seemingly benign and boring, have some dense concepts worth unpacking. I’m not saying that there are Masonic codes in the Constituion, I’m wondering whether it might be a way to serve the Architect.



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