Psychology

Duration of Sin And The Unbuilt Building

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At least weekly – often daily – I read about some scandal or another at a church or religions organization – usually, Christian, as I live in the United States. These are sometimes very highly-placed people, and the scandals are of an obvious nature. You know the kind, the person doing them had to know they were wrong. You really can’t keep doing the same horrible things for years without some idea you’re awful.

But so often the organizations go on. The followers follow. Someone goes to jail or get sued, but they often go on. The rest of us go on because it’s just another scandal, and we’re all used to them because tomorrow there will be another.

And I wonder, who thinks of the theological repercussions of this – again for the mostly-Christian audience in my country. Why did their God (god? “god?”) allow such horrible things, abuse, scandal? Why didn’t anyone do anything at supposedly holy organizations?

I don’t understand how they go on.

A long term series of horrible acts show whatever Church of organization is just . . . a group of people. There’s no holy structure, there’s no divine order, there’s not even an organization, just a kind of group of people like anything else.

It’s really a reputation of most people’s very orderly idea of a monotheistic universe and warrants some pretty deep personal and theological contemplation.

Of course people don’t want to admit that they trusted the wrong people, that the organization won’t protect them. The people in the organization don’t want it to end for their own reasons, from belief to they’d be out of a job. So everyone just sort of goes on, maybe fiddles with theology, and it all continues.

Then there’s another scandal, and another.

What’s strange is that every scandal has to eat away a little more faith that people have. Each one is just another sign maybe you chose wrong or believed wrong and the divine order you want is not something you access. But to give up on that? Well that’s too hard, even if there’s really nothing there anymore.

I wonder how weak some religious organizations are. How much their scandals and failures have been patched over in people’s minds so often they might be close to breaking. I wonder what happens when things break and what reforms. I wonder what has broken that I just didn’t notice.

And in the end, I think all those people lying to themselves, trying to persevere, not admitting to themselves how messed up their church is, they all have to hurt. What’s it like to have things so repudiated, to be so betrayed, what does it take to go on? How much of you is left after you lied to yourself enough?

I don’t understand.

I guess I wish I did understand. But what does scare me is maybe there’s nothing to understand. Maybe at some point you just go on no matter what because stopping means you’ll have to look back.

– Xenofact

Moving At The Speed of Self

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I’ve talked about meditation in previous writings. On a simple level I do breath and simplified energy work mostly derived from Taoist sources. These are things that can be described in a sentence – or not described completely in a book. In the spirit of that paradox I’d like to share a deep slice of an insight I’ve had over the years – the role of speed and self.

More than a sentence, less than a book.

Most meditations I do involve a certain level of slowness – of breath, of feeling the bodies energies, etc. The slow even breath in my beloved Cleary translation of “The Secret of the Golden Flower” or slowing so one senses the bodies energies all involve some form of calming, focusing, and not running around in your brain. In these modern times it can almost be shocking to just slow down for a few minutes.

As you may know from your own works there’s a peculiar point in meditations where you slow down and suddenly you’re not you. In fact you might not be there at all.


All the chatter and sensations, dialogue and tensions just sort of goes away. I mean you’re there but you aren’t there. Somehow when we slow down, “we” goes away – which is quite disturbing sometimes as who’s doing all of this?

Thinking over these experiences – without trying to grasp them too hard – I’ve come to realize how much of ourselves, our identity, is a matter of speed.

Thoughts racing ahead in a relay race. Desires we grasp as soon as possible. Tensions that rage through the body as soon as triggered. There’s so much of our identity that relies on fast reactions and immediate thoughts that to slow it even a bit feels like we’re falling apart.

Perhaps that’s one reason relaxing can be hard for some people – even a moment of slacking and you’re falling apart in your head because so much of you is speed. Relaxation for a harried person might feel like an existential threat.

It’s an interesting insight. When you’re used to meditation, going to therapy, etc. it’s easy to see ourselves as complexes. We are thoughts and reactions and memory, crystalline memories on an erratic web, like rock candy on a string. It’s not hard to see yourself as bits and pieces when you do any form of self-exploration.

But the speed? I think that’s harder to see. You can see all the bits and bobs of your identity, but the connections and the rapidity of them? That’s a different thing to observe – moreso when it goes away in a slow breath or graceful meditative movement.

If you’re one thing because of speed – who are you in slowness?

–Xenofact

Discomfort In Belief

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In the sphere of mysticism and magic, one will find an emphasis on belief in many modern practices. Belief makes things happen, gods are created or sustained by belief, etc. This is not a modern idea by any extent, but I feel it’s more prominent today than I would expect, and I’ve been analyzing it now and then.

So yes, this column is not just an attempt to communicate, but organize my own thoughts. What can I say, I believe this will work.

Last pun, I promise.

I think the sheer prominence of emphasis on belief in mystical practices has been amplified by such believe-to-achieve stuff like “The Secret” and its related and origin documents. There’s been something about the 20th and 21st century that has emphasized the idea that we can just believe something and have it happen. It’s both highly individualistic and also very comforting to people – and that’s where I think this prominence gets “sticky.”

It’s comforting to think you can change your mind and change the world. It’s comforting to think your destiny is in your hands. It’s comforting to think that there are gods that just exist as you believe and there’s no one in charge but you. It’s comforting – until you think about how we really believe.

A lot of our beliefs are handed – or forced – on us by parents, society, friends, and our own poor choices. A lot of what we believe and have believed is not something we chose, and even if we “take control” are we that sure we’re making the right choices? A lot of what’s us has its origins outside of us.

This means a lot of beliefs are unconscious. We say we may believe something in a ritual or attempts to “focus out will,” but do we really? Are we believing something, just reflecting what’s already there, or is there something else crawling beneath our thoughts? If you’ve ever been to therapy you know how much stuff is just under the surface – and that’s not comforting.

Whatever power our beliefs do have (which I may, perhaps, write more about) they’re also working with – or conflicting with everyone else’s beliefs. Taking a materialist or mystical viewpoint, our beliefs – already quite complex – are forming a web with everyone else’s beliefs. It might not be the one we want.

Then, finally, there’s the idea that our beliefs shape supernatural – or supernatural-like powers. That may sound comforting to think you have power over the gods, but far less comforting when you think about the above. And all that is even less comforting if you have any concept of the gods and spirits being independent entities

So “belief affects reality? Yeah, probably, but it’s not comforting, it’s not a source of unlimited power, and it’s very complex.

Perhaps this is why the “believe to achieve” type quasi-mystical B.S. sells and keeps selling. It gives us hope of power and control – and when we don’t get what we want or confront the complexity of the universe, people buy more. It’s not comforting and is easily challenged, so for some people you buy another book or take another class.

Belief is just part of life. It has its role – and that role is not to make you feel better or in charge.

–Xenofact