Spirituality

Maybe It Can Never Be Big

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The Industrialized spirituality of our modern world gets to me. The Ayahuasca retreats where narcissistic techo-bros take an ancient drug with no guidance or knowledge, only becoming more of their shallow selves. Churned-out big budget mysticism 101 books that are the same or worse as that of a decade, a century, an aeon ago. It’s a clicking-clacking machine of sameness where any depth is accidental.

I mean faux-mysticism has been with us forever, albeit at smaller scale since people didn’t have the technology to efficiently spread bullshit on a global level Fake grimoires copied over and over again to deceive royalty. Cults that become governments. Some grifter is always ready to monetize and mechanize spirituality.

At the same time, it’s fascinating to read of small-scale spirituality. People who lovingly copied books for friends and families. Small folios – for instance I own a book on Taoist energetics clearly easy to copy and pass on. Even strange little creations of today, vanity press creations that may be divine madness, or at least one of the two. It’s always been there and it’s there today, and a lot healthier than the latest spiritual bestseller that’s been the same book for five decades.

Now I’m sure some of these “industrial spiritualists” are sincere. But the results speak for themselves, the great sea of uninsightful sameness. Even sincere and smart people may spiral down into the same old same old.

I look, and I think spirituality, really healthy spirituality, can’t be done at a large scale, even sincerely. You can have large organizations, but they need to support the personal touches – and guard against becoming generic. You have to be careful of making stars and rockstars out of your people.

When you industrialize spirituality, you welcome grifters. There are people who are glad to take advantage of scale to profit at scale. That’s no reason to, say, not publish a lot of copies of things like the Tao Te Ching or whatever, but that’s the basics and the historic.

When you industrialize spirituality you have to generalize. There’s only so much you can do it before it becomes washed out and meaningless. You can try to write for a generalized audience, but even the most benevolent will risk generalizing to much.

Besides, spiritual practice needs personal touches. You need that one book that’s just right, that extra post from someone on a forum, or something that fits you. As much as I am skeptical of gurus, I get why many a Buddist or Taoist practitioner talks of needing “mind to mind transmission.” It has to fit you.

The at-scale spirituality we see see now probably can’t generate what people really need, since they need different things at different time with actual depth. Probably some clever, smart, persistent people could do it, but I’m not sure it’d be worth the effort in the end. Time is probably best spent figuring out how to get people the intimate, networked, personal spiritual experiences they need.

– Xenofact

Speculation on Spiritual Ferment

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As you probably realize, I like doing zines. Chances are you’re reading this in a zine, have some of my zines, or will have my pitch you buying some. I like writing down my spiritual and related thoughts and hearing what people have to say.

Also they make a great gift! Hint.

Anyway as I’ve noted before I’d like to see more spiritual/mystical zines, especially ones about meditation and techniques for self-refinement. I mean yes there are great books, there’s a reason I own so much of the late Thomas Cleary’s translations, but there’s “several thousand years old” and “recent insights.”

This led me to an interesting speculation I’d like to share. I wonder if the current concept of publishing – that you should put out big honking books – is a disservice to “spiritual ferment.” Let me just get to the base of my thoughts.

Imagine spiritual exchanges via zines or some similar reusable, but focused small press. Be it an APA or a quarterly, the goal would be to both record findings, discuss, and dialogue. A bit like the old APAs as I’ve written about before. Such a situation would provide both well-designed and well-thought out written communication and an exchange of ideas.

Large, published works aren’t dialogues and people need dialogue to learn. Large, published works also have the problem of authority wearing you might take them too seriously – even if the author doesn’t intend that. Also maybe I don’t want to go through 250 pages to get 50 pages relevant to me – no offense.

Meanwhile, immediate dialogue is great, but sometimes constant immediate feedback has its own problems. It can be distracting or go off the rails. It can lead to groupthink. Also scheduling time to exchange ideas can be frustrating, and constant use of things like chat programs can be time-sucking in their own way.

But small pieces of work, focused, contemplated, in one’s own time but with a cadence of exchange? I intuitively feel there really is something there.

I’m probably influenced by old Taoist tales of people exchanging small books, papers, poetry, manuals, and so on. But maybe there’s something there to emulate.

Also sometimes the Taoists got wasted together and wrote really sarcastic poetry, but that’s thoughts for another post . . .

Cultivation For Cultivation’s Sake

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So I set aside time for spiritual cultivation in my life. What I find weird is that’s very hard to talk about. Though I am informed by Taoist traditions, where “setting off to seek the Tao” is part of lore and history, our culture doesn’t seem to have an equivalent.

I’m not off to use this as therapy, despite the many benefits. Therapy is, well, therapy – and well worth everyone’s time. There are plenty of mental benefits to spiritual practice, but sometimes it’s useful to just work shit out. It also lets you focus on your practice and avoid spiritual confusion.

I’m not off to “optimize myself” and “be mindful of my work” or whatever you call “hijacking spiritual practice to be better at my job.” My job is my job, my practice is my practice. It’s nice if my job allows me to get insights, and nice if my spiritual work helps me out in my career. If I want to be better at my job, I’ll be better at my job.

I’m also not trying to make a spiritual career. If I want a new job or be a minister or whatever, then I’ll do that. I mean maybe I will some day. But that’s not the goal, but “spiritual hobbyist” doesn’t quite catch it either.

Oh, and I’m not writing a book. I mean yeah, maybe I might. I do make blog posts but that’s sort of the whole outreach/connect thing. But I’m not trying to produce something

I’m setting aside time for spiritual cultivation because that’s what I want to do. I want to be better, expand myself, seek wholeness, attain the Tao. That’s my goal, not these others things, because if they were my goal I’d so something else.

But too often I see spiritual practices assumed to be for work, or to make money, or as a substitute for dealing with your parental issues. There’s something about our culture that assumes spiritual practice can or should be something else.

It’s almost like we don’t have a language or a concept that recognizes “I am taking a significant portion of my time for spiritual growth” and have it respected and seen as normal. Or at least “acceptably eccentric.” I don’t even know how I’d express it to people, to be honest.

Maybe capitalism is part of it. We’re always taught to be hustling, making money, doing what’s profitable, etc. The idea of doing something for it’s own sake – spiritual or art or whatever – seems alien to many. The idea of giving up something (unless that makes you more money) seems weird.

Perhaps I need to find my own way to talk about it, to own that – and maybe I’ll be a good influence on others. Or at least make a small contribution to discussing it.

–Xenofact