Yes we have no Nirvanas
23/07/08 11:27
Summary only available
when permalinks are enabled.
Yes,
we have no Nirvanas.
Not on this planet, or in this life, at least. The City of God turns out to be a mirage: a shimmering image broken up by the exchange of ammo. Instead of earthly paradise we have the clash of fundamentalisms: "Jihad versus McWorld," with each side ready to argue their beliefs with incendiary insistence.
With the war on terrorism morphing into The Crusades 2.0, we’ve got more reason than ever to be wary of Revealed Truths and Holy Visions. It may be hard to imagine a world without organized religions, but it’s getting even harder to imagine it lasting much longer with them.
This brings to mind novelist Kurt Vonnegut, and his tonic, of sorts, to the destructive belief systems that have plagued human history. Vonnegut imagined the social function of dangerous beliefs displaced by more harmless variables. He called these "Wampeters, Foma, and Granfalloons," in a book of the same name.
Wampeters are "objects around which the lives of otherwise unrelated people revolve." In Vancouver or Seattle, a Starbucks coffee would be a wampeter. In Whitehorse, it might be a rented pair of cross-country skis.
Foma are "harmless, comforting untruths," e.g.. "Prosperity is just around the corner." A soft and fuzzy foma could be the New Age belief that "everything will be all right if I learn to live in the now."
And Granfalloons are "a proud and meaningless association of human beings." An example of a working granfalloon is The Society of Creative Anachronism, in which members relive the medieval era by dressing up in armour and staging mock jousts.
Wampeters, fomas, and granfalloons may be harmless fun, but that’s the whole point: they’re pretty darn unlikely to inspire suicide missions or national fits of flag-waving.
I’m of the mind that if a granfalloon should be explicitly silly wherever possible, and so chock full of foma it never, ever, has a chance of being taken seriously, and being defended to death by believers.
Why not take make the silliness of religious fundamentalism to the next stage? Why not a granfalloon in every garage, a wampeter in every pot?
This brings us to the late American writer Robert Anton Wilson. His many published works address plenty of mind-bending topics, from quantum theory to artificial intelligence, but Wilson sprinkled his deep thoughts with comic asides and hilarious anecdotes. Wilson’s mix of intellectual inquiry and hilarious banter is the kind of thing you'd expect from a guy who once described himself as "stand-up philosopher." When I met up with him in 2000, the goateed, gravel-voiced author was in a wheelchair. "Now I’m a sit-down philosopher," he said.
Wilson’s CV included a Ph.D. in psychology, a stint as editor at Playboy, and the underground science-fiction classic The Illuminatus Trilogy. He had, as you’ve probably guessed, a less than positive attitude toward organized religion, which no doubt dates to his upbringing in a severely repressive Catholic background. Wilson’s howls of outrage were served up as belly-laughs, and in this respect his work resembled that of Kurt Vonnegut.
In his book Coincidance, Wilson had a chapter entitled "Religion For the Hell of It." You want Granfalloons? Wilson’s had ‘em by the bushel.
"Have you ever considered the possibility that God might be a crazy woman? Or that John Dillinger died for you? Do you think there might be a secret technique by which the Enlightened can literally get Something for Nothing? Could the Martians have the true religion while we Earthians are lost in superstitious darkness? Can a cup of coffee be a sacrament, and if not, why not? Does the mathematics of six-dimensional space -time and philosophy of Multi-Ego Pantheistic Solipsism explain the Universe?"
Sounds like he’s having us on, but in typical fashion, Wilson upends our expectations. These seemingly rhetorical questions are references to working granfalloons: actual officially-recognized religions in the US, where the Constitution guarantees absolute religious freedom. Some are straight-out prank religions with the impramatur of official status, and some semi-serious excuses for eccentric types to socialize among their own. Many emerged during the mind-bending times of the sixties and seventies. Some are now defunct, and some limp along today.
As an example of a semi-serious religion still extant, Wilson cites the Reformed Neo-Aristotelian Druids of North America, whose initials make up the organic chemicals that organize life (RNADNA). The working unit of RNADNA are "groves," with an average number of six members. There is no attempt to police the beliefs of individual groves. One in Washington is inspired by the work of sci-fi author Robert Heinlein, and another in Florida is a "Taoist group infected by gnomes." The RNADNA web site identifies their organization as "The most satisfied, yet confused, Druid organization" in the world.
Then there’s the Javacrucians, who Wilson says are "a group which looks suspiciously like the Rosicrusians." The Javacrucians have selected caffeine as their sacrament.
"Javacrucianism also has the simplest theology in history, teaching one thing only is necessary for salvation, the American Coffee Ceremony — a variation on the Japanese Tea Ceremony. This is performed at dawn, and you must face towards the rising sun, as you raise the cup to your lips. When you take the first sip, you must cry out with intense fervour, "GOD, I needed that!" If this is performed religiously every morning, Javacrucians say, you will face all life’s challenges with a clear mind and a tranquil spirit."
Some of these religions Wilson cites are counters to culturally dominant faiths, just as Protestantism was a counter -reaction to Catholicism. What’s different is the banana-peel aspect. "The Campus Crusade for Cthulhu," for example, was once visible on any American campus where The Campus Crusade for Christ was active, and was mostly devoted to annoying the latter.
"Chthulu-ists worship a monster who originally appeared in the pulp horror fiction of H.P. Lovecraft....The Campus for Crusade for Christ has bumper stickers which members flaunt on their automobiles declaring "I Found It." The Cthulu-ists have their own bumper stickers saying "It Found Me.""
Wilson also endorsed the now-defunct Neo-American Church, Formed in 1966, the church made a brave attempt to top organized religion for ritualized wackiness. Its members called themselves Boohoos, and they claimed that their use of psychedelic drugs was sacramental, similar to the peyote rituals practiced by Indians of the Native American Church, and should therefore be protected under law.
Not surprisingly, the Boohoos lost their case in court when the judge ruled that an organization with "Row, Row, Row Your Boat as its theme song was not serious enough to qualify as a church."
As you’ve no doubt guessed, the hippie-era Neo-American Church didn’t make for a religion with legs. The Boohoos went out with a whimper rather than a bong.
It all sounds pretty silly. In other words, not a whole lot different from much of the content of many organized religions. But Wilson wasn't suggesting these goofball granfalloons are going to offer much opposition to big three monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Still, they’re fun to entertain as possibilities, in spite of their snowball-in-hell chance of catching on big-time.
In my audience with Wilson in 2000, he told me that "the best thing that could happen in the Middle East is an outbreak of atheism." The man said everything with a twinkle in his eye, and you never knew for certain if he was being dead serious or slyly ironic.
As Wilson knew, atheism is a belief system with its own baggage — if the CVs of Pol Pot and Stalin are any indication. Perhaps a more helpful idea is a global outbreak of agnosticism. As one comedian put it: "There are no agnostic fanatics: people who don’t know and are willing to kill for it."
But everybody needs to believe in something. Me, I believe I’m going to have a cup of coffee — but not one of those Starbucks wampeters.
Geoff Olson
Not on this planet, or in this life, at least. The City of God turns out to be a mirage: a shimmering image broken up by the exchange of ammo. Instead of earthly paradise we have the clash of fundamentalisms: "Jihad versus McWorld," with each side ready to argue their beliefs with incendiary insistence.
With the war on terrorism morphing into The Crusades 2.0, we’ve got more reason than ever to be wary of Revealed Truths and Holy Visions. It may be hard to imagine a world without organized religions, but it’s getting even harder to imagine it lasting much longer with them.
This brings to mind novelist Kurt Vonnegut, and his tonic, of sorts, to the destructive belief systems that have plagued human history. Vonnegut imagined the social function of dangerous beliefs displaced by more harmless variables. He called these "Wampeters, Foma, and Granfalloons," in a book of the same name.
Wampeters are "objects around which the lives of otherwise unrelated people revolve." In Vancouver or Seattle, a Starbucks coffee would be a wampeter. In Whitehorse, it might be a rented pair of cross-country skis.
Foma are "harmless, comforting untruths," e.g.. "Prosperity is just around the corner." A soft and fuzzy foma could be the New Age belief that "everything will be all right if I learn to live in the now."
And Granfalloons are "a proud and meaningless association of human beings." An example of a working granfalloon is The Society of Creative Anachronism, in which members relive the medieval era by dressing up in armour and staging mock jousts.
Wampeters, fomas, and granfalloons may be harmless fun, but that’s the whole point: they’re pretty darn unlikely to inspire suicide missions or national fits of flag-waving.
I’m of the mind that if a granfalloon should be explicitly silly wherever possible, and so chock full of foma it never, ever, has a chance of being taken seriously, and being defended to death by believers.
Why not take make the silliness of religious fundamentalism to the next stage? Why not a granfalloon in every garage, a wampeter in every pot?
This brings us to the late American writer Robert Anton Wilson. His many published works address plenty of mind-bending topics, from quantum theory to artificial intelligence, but Wilson sprinkled his deep thoughts with comic asides and hilarious anecdotes. Wilson’s mix of intellectual inquiry and hilarious banter is the kind of thing you'd expect from a guy who once described himself as "stand-up philosopher." When I met up with him in 2000, the goateed, gravel-voiced author was in a wheelchair. "Now I’m a sit-down philosopher," he said.
Wilson’s CV included a Ph.D. in psychology, a stint as editor at Playboy, and the underground science-fiction classic The Illuminatus Trilogy. He had, as you’ve probably guessed, a less than positive attitude toward organized religion, which no doubt dates to his upbringing in a severely repressive Catholic background. Wilson’s howls of outrage were served up as belly-laughs, and in this respect his work resembled that of Kurt Vonnegut.
In his book Coincidance, Wilson had a chapter entitled "Religion For the Hell of It." You want Granfalloons? Wilson’s had ‘em by the bushel.
"Have you ever considered the possibility that God might be a crazy woman? Or that John Dillinger died for you? Do you think there might be a secret technique by which the Enlightened can literally get Something for Nothing? Could the Martians have the true religion while we Earthians are lost in superstitious darkness? Can a cup of coffee be a sacrament, and if not, why not? Does the mathematics of six-dimensional space -time and philosophy of Multi-Ego Pantheistic Solipsism explain the Universe?"
Sounds like he’s having us on, but in typical fashion, Wilson upends our expectations. These seemingly rhetorical questions are references to working granfalloons: actual officially-recognized religions in the US, where the Constitution guarantees absolute religious freedom. Some are straight-out prank religions with the impramatur of official status, and some semi-serious excuses for eccentric types to socialize among their own. Many emerged during the mind-bending times of the sixties and seventies. Some are now defunct, and some limp along today.
As an example of a semi-serious religion still extant, Wilson cites the Reformed Neo-Aristotelian Druids of North America, whose initials make up the organic chemicals that organize life (RNADNA). The working unit of RNADNA are "groves," with an average number of six members. There is no attempt to police the beliefs of individual groves. One in Washington is inspired by the work of sci-fi author Robert Heinlein, and another in Florida is a "Taoist group infected by gnomes." The RNADNA web site identifies their organization as "The most satisfied, yet confused, Druid organization" in the world.
Then there’s the Javacrucians, who Wilson says are "a group which looks suspiciously like the Rosicrusians." The Javacrucians have selected caffeine as their sacrament.
"Javacrucianism also has the simplest theology in history, teaching one thing only is necessary for salvation, the American Coffee Ceremony — a variation on the Japanese Tea Ceremony. This is performed at dawn, and you must face towards the rising sun, as you raise the cup to your lips. When you take the first sip, you must cry out with intense fervour, "GOD, I needed that!" If this is performed religiously every morning, Javacrucians say, you will face all life’s challenges with a clear mind and a tranquil spirit."
Some of these religions Wilson cites are counters to culturally dominant faiths, just as Protestantism was a counter -reaction to Catholicism. What’s different is the banana-peel aspect. "The Campus Crusade for Cthulhu," for example, was once visible on any American campus where The Campus Crusade for Christ was active, and was mostly devoted to annoying the latter.
"Chthulu-ists worship a monster who originally appeared in the pulp horror fiction of H.P. Lovecraft....The Campus for Crusade for Christ has bumper stickers which members flaunt on their automobiles declaring "I Found It." The Cthulu-ists have their own bumper stickers saying "It Found Me.""
Wilson also endorsed the now-defunct Neo-American Church, Formed in 1966, the church made a brave attempt to top organized religion for ritualized wackiness. Its members called themselves Boohoos, and they claimed that their use of psychedelic drugs was sacramental, similar to the peyote rituals practiced by Indians of the Native American Church, and should therefore be protected under law.
Not surprisingly, the Boohoos lost their case in court when the judge ruled that an organization with "Row, Row, Row Your Boat as its theme song was not serious enough to qualify as a church."
As you’ve no doubt guessed, the hippie-era Neo-American Church didn’t make for a religion with legs. The Boohoos went out with a whimper rather than a bong.
It all sounds pretty silly. In other words, not a whole lot different from much of the content of many organized religions. But Wilson wasn't suggesting these goofball granfalloons are going to offer much opposition to big three monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Still, they’re fun to entertain as possibilities, in spite of their snowball-in-hell chance of catching on big-time.
In my audience with Wilson in 2000, he told me that "the best thing that could happen in the Middle East is an outbreak of atheism." The man said everything with a twinkle in his eye, and you never knew for certain if he was being dead serious or slyly ironic.
As Wilson knew, atheism is a belief system with its own baggage — if the CVs of Pol Pot and Stalin are any indication. Perhaps a more helpful idea is a global outbreak of agnosticism. As one comedian put it: "There are no agnostic fanatics: people who don’t know and are willing to kill for it."
But everybody needs to believe in something. Me, I believe I’m going to have a cup of coffee — but not one of those Starbucks wampeters.
Geoff Olson
