This morning at breakfast, a friend and I got into
an interesting discussion about spirituality.
After reading the Corey Olsen book (Exploring
J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, 2012), I found myself thinking once again about
the distinction between fictional and historical spirituality, and reflecting
on whether or not it is a valuable distinction to make.
The idea of a fictional spirituality is that you
can base practices and even beliefs in a fictional source; such as LOR or Star
Wars or Star Trek—and that this does not de
facto prevent you from living a valuable and production life. Some people would say that to live your life
‘based on a fiction’ is inherently inauthentic; but I disagree with the
generalization. I have thought of my own
book, The Fires of Yule, for the last
year or so as an exercise in fictional spirituality, as it is ‘set’ in Ross
County and is now – in the new edition coming out this year – narrated by a
fictional character – Cornelius Whitsel.
But what
constitutes a ‘fictional spirituality?’ What defines it; especially as in distinction from
an ‘historical spirituality’—and what defines that?
Is the distinction simply that an historical
spirituality is grounded in historical facts whereas a fictional spirituality
is grounded in ‘literary’ or ‘fictional’ sources? As I have said, somewhere (perhaps here in another
blog?), a fictional spirituality draws its content from fiction, not from
history. The practitioners of such a
spirituality know that they are basing their praxis on a text or film (series)
that is not historical, whereas the practitioners of an historical spirituality
can cite historical sources and know that their praxis is tied into history in
some way.
But this does not seem very clear cut; and it blurs
at the edges when you start thinking about it more deeply. For instance, take The Fires of Yule: while it is ‘set’ in Ross County and narrated by
a fictional character, everything I say about Celtic Paganism and mysticism is
drawn from sources from the Celtic tradition; there are historical precedents
for these practices, even if no one before me (or perhaps before my Horned
Ones) ever practiced “The Thirteen Dayes of Yule.”
Furthermore, what if someone practices a ‘fictional
spirituality’ that has been practiced for generations? Will the practitioners of a spirituality
based on Star Wars pass on their spirituality to their children? Will others pick it up and carry it on? If so, does it eventually become an historical
spirituality? What about historical
religions? I would argue that most of
what practitioners of the major world religions believe is fictional, even
though it has been believed (in) for thousands of years, and thus has an
historical dimension.
Does a fiction that has been believed (in) for
thousands of years become an historical fact?
No, obviously—that’s
silly. But a fictional spirituality, once
practiced for decades, not to mention millennia – does become, in one sense, an
historical spirituality. _And fictional
spiritualities, consciously constructed by one or a number of people, can
contain historical elements. _Nothing is
ever ‘created out of whole cloth’ with no precedents! (Even the cliché jibes at itself; there was the ‘whole cloth’ out of which
something was created to begin with; lol)
At breakfast, my friend suggested a distinction
between “organic” and “synthetic” spiritualities as a possible
alternative. While there are problems
with this terminology as well, the hermeneutic gist is that an “organic”
spirituality would be one that arises out of a sociocultural context
‘spontaneously,’ ‘un’-consciously – having an inner dynamic of its own, whereas
a synthetic spirituality is one that is ‘assembled’ – with conscious intent –
by a creator or founder(s). So a
phenomenon like the early Jesus movement or even the advent of a ‘Tolkien
inspired spirituality’ might be counted as organic, whereas much of Neo-Pagan
spirituality seems to be synthetic; in the sense that many practitioners are
consciously constructing – or in their
minds often ’re-constructing’ – a spiritual praxis out of traditions and even
historically researched accounts of ancient Pagan cultures.
Yet this is a different distinction from the
fictional/historical one; it cuts a different way, and doesn’t make the point I
thought I was trying to make. _And I’m
not sure the point I wanted to make was well defined to begin with. It’s just that it has long struck me that a
spirituality can be grounded in fictions as well as historical facts; and that
this does not make the spirituality ‘false’ or ‘inauthentic.’ But just because a spirituality has the
pretence of being ‘historical,’ that doesn’t make it so; nor does it being grounded
in ‘historical facts’ make it authentic.
The more I think about this issue, the more I find
it muddled. It is not clear what is meant
by a ‘fictional’ spirituality. It
doesn’t really mean that the spirituality is ‘fictional,’ does it? That would be a strange idea. Rather, I’m aiming at the idea of a
spirituality grounded in fictions. But that could intend an exploration of a
Tolkien or Star Wars inspired spirituality as much as lead to a critique of
traditional western religions, for instance, which are all grounded in fictions (resurrections, prophecies and miracles,
ascensions, etc.) as much as ‘history.’
Judaism, Christianity and Islam put themselves forward as ‘historical
religions,’ in juxtaposition to ancient Pagan religions; which were considered
more ‘mythological’ and therefore ‘made up’ (there’s the bias against the truth
of fiction coming out).
Let me go down this path a ways …
I think it is
true that ancient Israelite religion emerged more from tribal experiences
supposed to have been within the reach of people’s historical memory, than were
many ancient Pagan religions, grounded as they
were in the cycles of the seasons and the ‘eternal return’ of the same events year
after year, the practitioners becoming more mature as they moved further along
in the spiraling of time and experience at each cycle. Israelite religion was supposedly initiated
by encounters between the tribal ancestors and their god – perhaps archaically
called “Yah” – the ‘religion’ evolving as people encountered their god and had
experiences of the god in their lives.
But, as modern research has shown, the accounts of the patriarchs are
composite stories put together by later generations, written and re-written to
fit new circumstances, and not ‘historical accounts’ in the sense in which we
today understand ‘history’ (i.e., as a researched account of what actually
happened at x time in x place). As such,
are they not as much ‘fictions’ as the seasonal-based tales of ancient Pagan
religions?
I would say “Yes,” they are of equivalent
‘fictionality’ (a term complementary to ‘historicality’). It’s just that one set of fictions is
grounded in the cyclic experience of the Earth and the seasons, while the other
is based in touchstones thought of as ‘remembered events’ from the tribal past
that have been passed down orally and then in written accounts, and that are
supposed to have ‘happened’ – not in some dreamtime or otherworld, but in the
same historical stream as other events in our lived empirical lives. But just because so much of the mythic
content of Israelite religion and its descendants (Judaism, Christianity and
Islam) is fictional, that doesn’t mean that it (i.e., the mythic content) isn’t
‘true.’ _That is a question that has to
be dealt with separately. The critique I
meant to imply above is aimed at those who argue that the big three western
religions are all ‘historical,’ and for
that reason ‘true.’ The fictions of
western religion are true in the way that myths are true, not as researched
historical accounts are true. They are
both true, just in different ways. They
express different kinds of truth. _And
this doesn’t stand or fall on whether or not archeologists can verify the
existence of x city or x person from the stories in the myth-historical
texts! For instance, finding the ossuary
of James the brother of Jesus (even if they could verify that this is what the
artifact actually was) doesn’t make anything in the letter attributed to this person
in the NT any more ‘true’ or ‘false’ by itself.
Ok, so there was a man named James who was the brother of Jesus of
Nazareth. Did he write the letter
attributed to him? _That’s a different
question. Does it validate the content
of the letter if he did write it? Again,
it does not.
Having said all this, are there spiritualities that
are clearly fictional, and others that are clearly historical?
No. I think
there is probably always a blend. After
all, a spirituality is basically a praxis that contributes to our living life
to the fullest. A genuine spirituality
is one that allows us to understand ourselves, see ourselves for what we
actually are, and then helps us move toward wholeness, self-realization,
personal-fulfillment, enlightenment – or some combination of such aims. Whether the stuff of the stories and tales
that we repeat as part of this process is historically verifiable is less
important than that it is existentially authentic. A spirituality that tells you that you are an
alien being from another planet, or that you are just a soul wandering through
the physical world and imprisoned by it, is not helping you to understand what
and who you really are as a human being; a biological creature with the
specific personal history that makes you you
and the particular evolutionary history that makes you the particular kind of
animal that you are, by virtue of hundreds and hundreds of millions of years of
biological processes that we cannot undo or re-write at our whim at this point.
We are who we are.
We are where we are.
Spirituality should always be a path of awakening
to this present reality; leading to self-revelation and empowerment—a praxis
that helps you to become what you are best capable of becoming, both as an
individual and as a member of your family, community and species. It should teach you where you are – in the
world, in time and in history – as much as show you where you are in your own
life-process. It should then reveal the
possible paths you can walk from where you are to where you might be going, and
offer choices. I think that
spiritualities that are characterized as ‘fictional’ can be just as good at
this as those that are characterized as ‘historical.’ So long as we realize that there is more than
one ‘kind’ of truth, and allow that fictions can reveal truth as much as
history can reveal it, we’ll be on a potentially authentic path.
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