Religion

We Need The Shrines

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I’d seen a Tumblr post about a desire to have community shrines again, a place to leave offerings to local spirits and luminaries, a sort of ritual in physical form. That post made me feel many things and I wanted to explore them.

We have them, we just don’t call them that

As any regular reader knows I adore Little Free Libraries and in fact engage in ritual behavior with them. Every week I place books of particular importance to me in whatever Little Free Library I choose – a used copy of the Tao Te Ching a copy of On Tyranny (which i get in bulk). Sometimes I place other books, and of course sometimes it’s time to clear the shelves – but I always make it part of a ritual.

The Little Free Libraries are a shrine to knowledge and writing, all you have to do is treat them as such. Your favorite gods, immortals, and spirits of such things can be respectfully and appropriately honored – as well as any local spirits you wish to.

But there’s aren’t’ the only “also shrines” out there.

There’s Little Free Galleries that display art, take a piece, leave a piece. There are donation boxes put out to share resources in a community. I’ve seen people leave “bottles” of well wishes for people to pick out, or invite folks to chalk inspirational messages on the sidewalk, hang signs to give neighbors a books, and so on. All of these are shrines if you let them be. In fact, they may be shrines anyway if you really think about it, and the creators may not have realized it consciously – but unconsciously, who knows?

Real shrines might be a challenge

As much as I’d like full-bore public shrines I think they might be a challenge. Making things multi-spiritual/syncretic is a challenge in America of 2025, and it doesn’t take many people to ruin it anyway. It seems there’s aways some Influencer-Brain busybody out there to raise a stink, and I can hope in the near future we shame them away.

This makes me sad. The honest need for shared public ritual, spaces, and values is important. I think we need something like that. I think our culture, such as it is, needs something like that. Shared ritual space, perhaps just silent leaving of offerings and wishes, would do so much good for us.

However . . .

But let’s do it anyway – our way

What this really makes me think is we should start making public shrines and ensuring things are public shrines but in ways that work it into the community – and thwart busybodies.

Start with the Little Free Libaries, Little Free Studios, Donation boxes, and so on. Make donations, get your fellow spiritually-inclined folks to join in. Set regular times, do a walk around a city to hit specific spots relevant to local spirits, history, and so on. If you had a lousy day make an extra special donation, or make a donation in the name of those passed or those blessed. Use what we have.

Extend what you do. Nothing wrong with sending the person supporting a Little Free Library an anonymous card of gratitude and maybe a few bucks to pay for expenses and a non-specific “bless you.”. Put a bookmark that just happens to have your fave deity in the book you donate. When you donate food, put sticky note with a blessing to the person taking it on it, wishing them well. That sign someone hung on a tree saying “Have A Nice Day” probably needs another sign with another affirmation next to it to further encourage people.

Maybe make anonymous shrines out of some places you find. Oh nothing official, but perhaps you and your friends may agree to “enshrine” a specific area or thing, a bench or a post or something significant. Leave offerings and notes over time. Don’t call it out, or make it “official” just do it and see what happens.

Let’s get our shrines back, subtly at first, but then let’s see how far we can go . . .

–Xenofact

Religious Art Without Either

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My own experiments in surrealist art and how art connects with spirituality have graced a few of these pages. Until I started doing my own art I hadn’t given much consideration to art and spirituality – as most of my interest was written work and meditations. Some art inspired me and I did find “project plan” type diagrams like The Six Realms useful, but I hadn’t thought of it until my own work.

But as I started doing art I started viscerally appreciating the power of art and spirituality. I appreciated my own inspirations much better, as I got them. There’s something powerful about art, bridging all those gaps between feelings and ideas, going where words cannot. The hyperdetailed art of the Six Realms of Buddhism, awe-inspiring pictures of gods, hilarious art of the Eight Immortals – all of those can be rationally analyzed and felt.

Just as spirituality connects things together so does art. No wonder they go together – and are really inseparable.

Which is what brings me to religiously kitschy art. You know the kind, the stuff that is standard, pandering, sometimes pseudo-realistic, and where the message is extremely obvious. The kind of stuff that Queen Coke Francis mocked in one of her videos (also she’s just hilarious and here makeup is on point).

Kitschy religious art kind of fascinates me. It feels dead to me. It’s message is obvious, sometimes in the title or spelled out. The look is often cartoony but without that “edge” where the style brings a benefit of inspiration or feeling, or so realistic it might have well been a photo. The kind of stuff AI churns out because so many people churned it out. I mean I’m talking still work, but I suppose it applies to media like TV.

I always wondered why people would enjoy this art because there’s nothing there. There’s no inspiration to it, nothing to fire you up or inspire you. There’s nothing stylized, no edge to the art to catch on your mind and make you think. It’s just so simple . . .

. . . and then I realized that’s the point.


Kitschy religious art is not about helping you feel or get inspired or go deeper.. It’s about reinforcing what you’re supposed to feel and what others want you to think and feel. In most cases I think about signaling, showing who you are and what you think, it’s not there to help you you think anything deeper.

Which is the point.

In fact, this”art” has to be short of any detail, any extra, any edge. If you take any liberties, get a bit stylish, etc. you risk inspiring people. Anything playful, any attempts to be really artsy risks getting people to feel something, to speculate, to feel something. Kitschy religious art has to avoid any risk because for all you know it might actually do something for you. No wonder so much of it is simple.

Of course this leads me to wonder how kitsch can be used to conceal inspiration or how one might inspire people to put a bit more into their kitsch that may produce deeper thoughts . . .

–Xenofact

Your Paranoia Is Your God

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Many a Conspiracy Theorist claims to be religious, but I think they’re not honest about who their real God is.

As my regular readers know I have a fascination with Conspiracy Theories. This is both because I’m interested in how people work, and because as we’ve seen they’re incredibly goddamn dangerous. Honestly the way we treat Conspiracy Theorists as a point of humor misses how some of them turn very deadly individually or in groups.

As I watch these potentially dangerous people, I’ve seen how their ideas can become all-consuming. I’ve noted elsewhere that Conspiracy Theory is a kind of creative skill, an unhealthy form of writing and imagination. I suppose it has to be that way so it can encompass everything you need to an eternal yes-anding to reality.

After all, your Theory has to explain everything. Plus you can’t let someone one-up on you, especially if you want to get internet clicks and sell supplements. A Conspiracy Theory is a comittment.

These Conspiracy Theories almost inevitably include religion because you have to. You have to cover it all, so deities, Satan, angels, etc. all have to become part of it. Most Conspiracy theorists remind me of the ever one-upping that dooms movies and TV shows to raise the stakes ridiculously to keep going before their inevitable collapse. The theory must be fed.

Watching this constant adaption, this sacrifice to the Theory, reminds me of what I said early about Monotheism being so unstable it has to evangelize and spread to avoid questions. Thus I can safely say that Conspiracy Theories are just a form of monotheism.

Think about it. Conspiracists are beholden to the Great Conspiracy. The Conspiracy defines them. The Conspiracy must be supported. For many The Conspiracy is a form of profit or career, the very essence of what they do. The Conspiracy Theory is the most important thing in their life – in short, their god.

And it has to be monotheism. The Conspiracy Theorist by definition worships an all-encompassing idea. Any different idea is incorporated or is declared falsehood and the enemy. To not do so is to risk breaking your god – you may dress it up in cosplay as some other god, but it’s yours and it’s just as broken as you are.

Even if the Conspiracy Theorist is a pure grifter, they still have to keep putting time in on the Theory as it’s always under challenge. It’s still their god even if they don’t believe it. Plus there’s always the risk they start believing or have to start believing.

Whatever deity they say they worship, The Conspiracy Theorist’s real god is The Theory.

This “monotheism model” is a tool I find useful to understand Conspiracy Theorists. They’re on a religious crusade no matter what. They have to be. They have to maintain this god, the god is all they have. No wonder they seem so anxious to kill people for their god.

It doesn’t make me feel any safer. If anything I feel kind of worse. But I feel I have a better grasp of what to worry about.

-Xenofact