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Is Science-Fiction Occult?
I’m having some fun blog-hopping through the online Christian world. It’s very interesting to me to see just how different people’s thinking can be from my own. Here’s a blog called Dyspraxic Fundamentalist. From his “about me” section, we get a little overview:
Basically, I am a Fundamentalist Christian and suffer from Dyspraxia. I also believe that cleanliness is next to godliness. I am totally opposed to Popery, Socialism and wearing shoes inside homes. I uphold the King James Bible, free market economics and removing shoes at the door. I am probably a bit Obsessive-Compulsive.
I find it funny how people define themselves to the world. I had to look it up myself, but dyspraxia is variously defined as “the impairment or painful functioning of an organ,” or “impairment of the ability to perform coordinated movements.” Seems like quite a thing to be saddled with, especially when you’re already battling against “Popery” and socialism.
In any event, the thing that really caught my eye on his blog was a story about some trials and tribulations in relation to his career and lovelife. After going through some decidedly difficult times, he says:
While I was going through this chastening, I thought the only way through was to be more devout. I did lots of fasting and Bible study. My Christian friends had told me that I needed to purify my life from Science Fiction and Fantasy. I reasoned that if I got rid of anything that had any remote connection with the Occult or Fantasy, then the Lord would start blessing me and solve my problems. Unfortunatly, this was not the Lord’s plan. I needed this chastening and no matter how many books, videos and CDs I destroyed, it was the relationship [with sci-fi & fantasy] that needed to end. We sometimes have to learn the hard way. God’s discipline is not easy.
My main question here, of course, is: are science-fiction and fantasy really occult tools that pull you away from God? It could be just me, but that seems like a bit drastic of a thing to blame your troubles on. Why would God want you to destroy books, videos and CD’s? In what way does that bring one closer to God?
But maybe he’s on to something though. We already independently established that the old Christian myth about role-playing games leading people to the occult actually does have some validity to it. So maybe his assertion that Star Trek keeps you from basking in God’s glow is right. Or maybe God is actually out there lurking in outer space, waiting for us to cruise on over and meet him in our starships.
- The Occult Origins of Science
- History: Fiction or Science?
- Connections between Philip K. Dick & John Lennon
- The dreams our stuff is made of
- Conspiracy Theory is the New Sci-Fi?
- Prev: Christians Against The Senses
- Next: Starbucks Megachurches!
December 8th, 2005 at 6:25 pm
Of it course it brings you closer to “God”, it draws you back towards the ego, the pinnacle of the f-ed up triangle. If you remove the occult, the hidden, the realm outside the triangle (imagine a triangle situated within a circle, or a pyramid in a sphere) is hidden, but not separate from the infinite circle. The ego is bound to the circle, much like animals are bound to this planet. We are not just animals. We have the ability to influence our own evolution, within or own lifetimes. We are a part of a greater circle, and to break free of the monotheistic, tyrranical ego is to strive for the infinite points of the circle beyond.
That is why I believe the occult is necessary, and getting rid of it is de-evolution.
December 8th, 2005 at 6:32 pm
as many people as pkd turned on to gnosticism, this guy should be afraid.
December 8th, 2005 at 6:55 pm
i didn`t realise that fasting was part of the christian doctrine. it is part of mind control. sensory deprivation, reading meaningless text, fasting, chanting,etc are all tools of mind control. these practices, whether done voluntarily or otherwise are ways to create psychotic breaks in a person. once this has happened, the mind is plastic and waiting for the new porgramming.
December 8th, 2005 at 6:56 pm
oh yeah, and long ceremonies in foriegn languages.
December 8th, 2005 at 7:08 pm
Lord of the Rings became my first portal into the ‘ocult’. It made me feel alive and a certain magic that does permeate things.This came after a painful existential crisis in which I despaired and dreaded life. I think the magic in fantasy can heal psychic wounds. Tolkiens Lord of the Rings did more for my inner life than the bible ever did.
December 8th, 2005 at 8:31 pm
I’m not a religious scholar of any sort, but…
The reasoning may be similiar to that which results in music being declared haram and sinful by some Islamic clerics — because it distracts from the Path of Allah. One logic train seems to be:
a) Materialism distracts us from the spiritual (or the Path of God),
b) SF, Fantasy, music, and other forms of worldly entertainment are materialistic,
c) Therefore, I am distracted from the spiritual by watching Star Trek.
Which, as ever, relates back to the whole supposed division of the spiritual and material. Then you can tack on the worrying belief that worldly entertainments might just be tools of Satan to subvert people away from the transcendant glory of God.
In any case, Science Fiction tends to deal with Science (knowledge of the measurable), which is rather the opposite of the Occult (knowledge of the hidden).
December 8th, 2005 at 9:04 pm
I’ll go one further.
Don’t ask me how it happened, but years ago I found a testimonial from a Born Again Christian who had undergone “sex addiction” therapy. Part of this person’s deal was to share his experience with… masturbation!
One detail I found peculiar from reading the testimonial was that the author attributed their descent into masturbatory sinfulness to Flash Gordon serials and Sheena: Queen Of The Jungle comic books. Why? Because of the way the women were presented.
As an avid comic book fan, I can attest to the fact that the women in sci-fi/fantasy games, movies, and books are ALWAYS drawn or presented to look like they have Angelina Jolie’s physique, as well as scantily clad. I was raised religious and recognize the embarrassing guilt that can be had over being aroused by something like the She-Hulk, but over time I got over it.
Perhaps this Dyspraxic person’s guilt had to do with things that had nothing to do with the occult. Certainly, the language he employs while writing about his “purity” is what made me recall the reformed sex addict’s testimonial. But it’s easier to blame it on the occult because the occult is “evil”, whereas normal people could reasonably argue that there’s nothing prurient about Erin Gray in the Buck Rogers TV show.
December 9th, 2005 at 12:07 am
i wonder which limb of his is painful to use.
December 9th, 2005 at 12:27 am
Whoa! I would completely disagree. Science Fiction is where Science meets the Occult. “To boldly go where no man’s gone before…” That’s the occultic search! To search the hidden or unexplored.
Now, if a lot of Science Fiction eventually becomes Science Fact (in one way or another), what happens when Sci-Fi dreams of infinity, or dreams of “divine” man?
Just a thought…
December 9th, 2005 at 1:11 am
Serious Channel Null:
I hate to admit it, but I think the RPG character-creation/alternate identity/alternate world thing just might have some mind-expanding possibilitys.
Sometimes, though, the training wheels never come off.
Vitriolic Channel Null:
Every time I see anyone attribute significance to RPG crap, all I have to do is think of a bunch of overweight guys full of revenge fantasys rolling billion-sided dice. 1. For christ’s sake, take about twenty percent of that RPG time and devote it to something meaningful. Like, e.g, gardening, painting, smoking weed, etc. 2. For christ’s sake, can’t you come up with a fucking system based on six sided dice? How hard can it be? All the pen-and-paper flight simulations relied on one or two normal-ass dice. How is imaginary barbarians setting invisible goblins etc on fire more complicated than operating an imaginary airplain? 3. all those losers playing “live action RPGs” need to fucking get a grip. Make life your “LARPG”, duh. Why pretend to “be” a constantly drunk, sex-crazed barbarian when you can actually “be” one?
December 9th, 2005 at 2:18 am
I am totally opposed to Popery, Socialism and wearing shoes inside homes.
The three great evils afflicting the world today! Parenthetically, isn’t it fascinating the number of hardcore super-Christians who uphold the KJV as the only legitimate Bible? I wonder how many of those people realise that it’s just a translation (and a relatively recent one at that), not the original.
My Christian friends had told me that I needed to purify my life from Science Fiction and Fantasy. I reasoned that if I got rid of anything that had any remote connection with the Occult or Fantasy, then the Lord would start blessing me and solve my problems.
Because we all know there’s absolutely nothing occult or fantastic about a man returning to life three days after being crucified…
December 9th, 2005 at 5:08 am
Does that mean that Science research in any form is fundamentally Occult research?
Most works of science fiction are basically attempts to tell pulp stories using scientific logic. Star Trek, your example, is probably the best proof of this:
“The engines are going to blow, Captain! I need more dilithium crystals!”
“The warp matrix is destabilised. We’ll need to bombard it with more tachyons.”
Phenomena that can be measured is accepted, while phenomena that cannot be measured is viewed as something suspicious, and those brave foot soldiers of science will figure out and measure it later. Most times that they encounter a species with some unforeseen mystery power, it is viewed through the rationalist lens: How does this mystery power REALLY work (versus how ignorant aliens claim it does)? How can we measure it (scientific)? How can we nullify it (military)?
Though we could probably argue over specific instances (Q, DS9 Wormhole Gods) that fall outside this category, it is a fair conclusion that most Star Trek stories do follow that pattern - rationalise, measure, nullify (or replicate).
Unless we want to go back to my question about the position that Science = Occult, but that’s another discussion, and we’re already completely breaking away from the original topic about evil SF making the Goddess angry because we spend more time looking at Angelina Jolie pictures and less attending forest sermons.
i.e. I should shut up now.
December 9th, 2005 at 1:50 pm
I too am opposed to wearing shoes in the house.
But this is more interesting:
Apart from the obvious need for self-flagellation, it is sad to me that someone who is on a religious path sees difficult times as being punishment and God’s stern discipline instead of an opportunity for growth. This is where traditional religion offers no real help when it comes to a transformative experience.
December 9th, 2005 at 2:39 pm
In my definition, yes. But I define occult as “the hidden”, and thus Science is searching for the hidden. The only difference is that many people who follow “the occult” (as defined by the Church), continue to have the Blind, irrational faith that plagues organized religion.
If you go back to the roots of Science, to the realm of Philosophers and early thinkers, the Occult (Sacred Geometry, Allegory of the Cave, etc) was accepted side by side with rational, scientific pursuits.
Oh, and the whole Q thread and DS9 Bajor Gods went on some realy interesting tangents, and IMO are a sign of Star Trek EMBRACING their occultic nature, rather than Gene Roddenberry continually fighting his subconscious, occultic tendencies with his more conscious, rational thinking.
But remember, the occult is just the hidden, and does not necessarily mean that it cant or is not explained rationally. It’s usually explained symbolically until reason can’t catch up to it.
December 9th, 2005 at 2:47 pm
What about the Crystalline Entity in Star Trek NG? That shit ruled! Man it’s been years since I watched any episodes of that show. Maybe I oughta get some on Netflix.
December 9th, 2005 at 4:49 pm
I think we need to come to a common understanding of what we mean by “Occultism” and what we mean by “Science” before we can compare the two. It is possible that both may seek knowledge, but they go about it in radically different ways, often coming to completely different conclusions as a result.
Is that because Occult knowledge remains hidden, only measured indirectly through symbolism, and Scientific knowledge demands measurability, to be seen directly through repeatable experimentation? All these concepts need to be unpacked before I can answer that, or even determine if it is a question of value, I think.
Back to Star Trek: If they’re really going where no man has gone before, why is there always someone waiting for them when they get there?
(With apologies to whomever I stole that from.)
December 10th, 2005 at 3:02 pm
What was the name of that evil princess who was always clashing with Buck Rogers (Gil Gerard) on Buck Rogers in teh 25th century? Man, she was smokin!
Yeah, SHeena is teh awesome too, check these out:
Index of “Good Girl Art”
Comic Book Bondage Cover of the Day
Jungle Girls Gallery
December 11th, 2005 at 6:20 am
For me (and I realize that I could be mistaken), if Science and the Occult were put to their maximum (ie used together, and not always in conflict with each other), the Occult would esentially be the right brain applying symbols and metaphors to thoughts and questions beyond the left brain. The left brain, Science, would then attempt to find the underlying models and then apply those models to form hypothesies that could be tested in experimental settings.
I believe science, in some areas, is beginning to do such a thing. Princenton’s PEAR group has spent the last 3 decades testing ESP effects on human-machine relationships, and has found statistically significant correlations that suggest what mystics already knew: That mind can overcome matter, or perhaps in the EM field of Consciousness theory, that the EM field of the brain can, through exertion of electro-magnetic energy, overcome matter.
I think the potential is there for a great expanse of knowledge, IF science and occultism can be properly combined. This is, to an extent, what David Lewis argues in his essay, The Physicist as a Mystic.
December 11th, 2005 at 6:32 pm
I disagree that either science or occultism are split along the lines of left-brain and right-brain thinking. The only difference is that occultists (used to) hide their sources and findings from the world, and scientists allowed the world to scrutinise their sources and findings independently.
The notion that science ignores intuitive thinking is completely false. If anything, the entire basis of science is that intuitive thinking can be proven or disproven by analytical experimentation. Science is the merger that you’re talking about. The best scientists understood this implicitly, and that is why the likes of Newton and Faraday came to their understandings of nature.
All that said, science and symbolism do co-exist very successfully in the form of mathematics. For example, mathematics being used as the source of advanced physics, despite lack of physical or experimental evidence. (And the essay you referenced probably suggests just that, no?)