I am in South Carolina at a conference on spontaneous orders.  Today, as I was making notes during our discussions, I was struck with a possible connection between people’s rapidly increasing interest in emergent processes, and the rise of Pagan religion.  I am NOT saying that either causes the other, but I think they are unusually compatible,  both psychologically and culturally.
From the rise of agriculture to recent times human relations in our various civilizations have been very hierarchical, usually with a king or emperor on top.  I think not coincidentally, there has tended to be a top, or single, deity referred to as a King, less often, Queen.  These hierarchies were long taken for granted.
The past two hundred years has seen a huge decline in the power of hierarchies, though they are still powerful and I think to some degree will always be.  Gradually we shifted to ways of living where complex orders could arise among people who were more or less equals.  Agency exists throughout our society, and not just in leaders, upper classes, and rulers. Science, markets, and democracies all rest on this value of equality in one way or another.
Though none of these institutions meet this value perfectly, all are justified in its terms. All scientists’ work is supposed to be judged by the same criteria, from grad student to Nobel Laureate.  The poorest person and Bill Gates alike are supposed to have the same property rights, even though one has vastly more property than the other.  All citizens have equal political rights, be they a working single mom or legislator.
Hierarchies are always trying to arise – like our current corporate oligarchs – but they are on the defensive morally, and often have to hide their power rather than boast of it, as the old aristocracy did.  There is always the possibility they could lose their perks, as they should.  Hierarchy is no longer unquestioned.
In natural science the rising interest in emergent order is in keeping with these trends. The ‘building blocks’ of our world are not really blocks, and they are creative. In chemistry Ilya Prigogine won a Nobel by showing how important these processes were in his field.  Simple reductionism was undermined.  New possibilities emerge at every level of existence. Rather than life arising either because of some divine clockmaker, as with traditional Western religion, or through a process of mechanical chance repeated over millenia, as with secular mechanism, evidence is accumulating that even the most basic atoms have unexpected properties that can emerge when they combine with other atoms.  The universe is creative all the way down.
This third possibility is distinct from either Genesis or Dawkins.  It is not much addressed by advocates of either despite abundant evidence such processes happen.
Increasingly we are told our world consists of networks, nodes, processes, and continual transformation.
We are learning to think in new ways, freed from so much hierarchical conditioning, and as we do, our world looks different.
I wonder whether this very deep cultural shift has led to a gradual abandonment of the ideal of one God as absolute King, perhaps with a heavenly throne and angelic retainers, to monism (there is a single Source from which all arises, and in which everything manifests It to some degree), various forms of divine immanence (the sacred is in the world, in all things), and polytheism.
What these three concepts have in common is that no single source of divine order is ‘in charge.’  The sacred is distributed everywhere.  This is a spiritual perspective far more in keeping with modern values than one of divine eternal hierarchies.  It is also not threatened by the discoveries of modern science.  There is no need for a God of ever narrower gaps, for there are no gaps

Some people are drawn to breezy tropical islands and sun drenched beaches. I’ve always been in love with the north and if I had to chose, prefer 0 degrees to 100.

September is the best time to see the Northern Lights because there is a decent length to night but it’s not too cold yet, and fall colors begin then as well. Hopefully we’ll see scenes such as this and this. Bugs should be on their way out and the true terror of the north, black flies, should have come and gone. We’ll camp out much of the time, but motels and such are fine, we’re not truly roughing it. It will be nice to be far away from politics and being unable to spend so much time surfing the web.
I will take my computer, so I may get some stuff off, but probably nothing very long.
Back in mid-September.

What I found amazed me. I want to pass it on to any Pagans or others reading this blog.

There is NO mention of abortion in the Bible. Here is a site that purports to give the Biblical case against it.

Scripture mentions human life being in the womb at some point, but it NEVER mentions that conception is where Biblically important life begins. All one can tell from the Biblical passages is that at some time while in the womb the fetus becomes a person. To my knowledge mo one has ever argued otherwise.
In fact, I was amazed, truly amazed, to discover there is no direct mention of abortion anywhere in the Bible. None at all. The closest is Exodus 21:22-25, which the above site does not mention. But this passage does not support the religious right claims, it rebuts them:

And if men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she has a miscarriage, yet there is no further injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman’s husband may demand of him; and he shall pay as the judges decide. But if there is any further injury, then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.

Violently causing a miscarriage is punished by a fine, and an uncertain one at that. Every other injury is compensated by the principle “an eye for an eye.” If the mother is accidentally killed, the responsible party is still executed. But if she miscarries, only a fine is levied.

Very creative Biblical interpretation indeed is needed to conclude from this passage that abortion is murder. This is a pretty weak reed to split a country, murder doctors, and terrorize others in the name of some God or other.

Peter Berger, the great sociologist of religions, divides the world’s major faith traditions into two categories, those monotheisms identifying in different ways with Abraham, and Hindu traditions as well as Buddhism which emerged from them. As a short hand he calls them the religions of Jerusalem and Benares, and I will as well.

What Jerusalem and Benares share is a common dissatisfaction with the world at a very deep level. Whether as an outcome of sin or through the illusions of the ego, suffering and injustice are basic features of the world and our ultimate release from these things requires our separation from the world. In one case salvation is the way out, in the other, enlightenment. Short of salvation or enlightenment ultimately there is only suffering, either for eternity or for endless incarnations. I realize I am writing very broadly and that the spiritual richness within both traditions has developed a great variety of interpretations of the basic situation facing us, but I do not think I am distorting their main themes.

Both also emphasize transcendence over immanence. The world is a place of illusion, deception, and a snare. We need to connect with what transcends it.

Pagan spirituality has had a transcendent dimension, but as a rule it is acknowledged within a context that equally honors the immanent. The world itself is an expression of the sacred and its major dimensions and processes can teach us about the sacred. In this very important respect Pagan traditions raise to priority what is at best a subordinate theme in the traditions of Jerusalem and Benares. This difference is symbolized most deeply by our emphasis on the feminine in its sacred aspect.

If the world is a reliable manifestation of the sacred then our spiritual task and challenge is to harmonize ourselves with it in all of its most basic dimensions. Within most NeoPagan traditions we see this insight most explicitly in our Wheel of the Year, with its recognition and honoring of life and death, night and day, male and female, all existing in a sacred balance.

Balance is the spiritual value in Pagan spirituality that is the equivalent of salvation in that of Jerusalem and enlightenment for Benares. And in the Wheel, balance is most perfectly represented with the equinoxes, the Sabbats of Mabon and Ostara.

As Ostara is balance tipping into growth, Mabon is balance tipping into decline. Those of us in the temperate zones are fortunate that our climate is roughly in keeping with the symbolism of the Wheel. Even here on the mild California coast hints of fall color are becoming visible even as the harvest is in full swing. Some of the best peaches I have tasted in a long time are finally emerging at the end of our unusually cool summer. But among the wild plants seed heads are formed or forming, preparing for the changes to come. But I do not really see much in the way of actual decline yet.

The Sabbats of balance, Mabon and Ostara, do not usually get as much attention as the great cross quarter ones, or the equinoxes, but at the deepest level I think they teach one of the most profound Pagan insights: that the good life is lived in balance.

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