Gender Magick

Feb 23

The Orthodoxy of Embodiment: Gender Heresy & Gender Magick in Human Culture

Or: The Shifting Roles of Gender-Benders, Crossers or (insert other verbal noun here) in the Ongoing Drama of Civilization, and the phenomenological “Which-craft” of the Destabilization of Fundamental Ontological Categories That Such People Perennially (and with a multitude of variable effects) Enact Within Their Mother-Cultures

…In which I discuss the strange, magical and often counter-intuitive phenomenon of how (IN MY LIMITED EXPERIENCE) the people most “accepting” of gender-heretics are people who live like Americans lived 200 years ago. I also speculate on why this is so.

Humans are social, visually oriented creatures and gender is one of the sets of signs by which we communicate. But gender is not merely an arbitrary assemblage of signs, it is in a way a special sign (or perhaps “signing”) that occasions a vast repertoire of more mundane significations. Thus it is a platform or interface, existing as a hypostasis of meanings from which other meanings emanate. It is a “ground of many signs” if not of all signs. Because of its coupling with the flesh (and not just coupling with patterns of behavior, as with the construction of sexual orientation) I think “gender” deserves special critical attention, especially when discussing to what extent it is socially constructed.

*First, a necessary disclaimer. It won’t do to simply claim that gender is either a social construction or that it is a product of biological determinism. There is no easy answer. First of all, to denigrate the idea of social construction and its value is to miss the critical point that for humans, things that “exist” largely in the realms of language, symbol and process are NO LESS REAL than material things (again, as far as humans are concerned. Other animals, that’s another story). We are humans, social mammals of a high order, and so to say that something is “socially constructed” is not actually to say that it’s “not real”, “fake”, “less real” or that it is “bad”. Such appraisals and value judgements are actually the result of projecting one’s own conservative, misguided assumptions onto the discussion. In actual fact, to say something is socially or culturally constructed is to acknowledge its incredible power and leverage in human life and experience. Therefore, the joke is on you if you reject social constructivism out of hand. Just a word of warning because I’ve been there. ;)

= My new post on the Farmpunk blog

Feb 20

What happens when queer mystics read Susan Stryker.

Monster Jesus.

Exposition forthcoming…

Feb 10

Feminism, Impasse and the Redemption of Hugo Schwyzer

You go girl. I’m proud to be in the same graduate program as this woman. The post is at CGU/CST’s Feminism and Religion blog — you all should check it out, there’s like one post per day and there are always really interesting discussions! It brings together an amazing amalgam of communities.

In Constance FitzGerald’s article Impasse and Dark Night,* she draws from sixteenth century Spanish mystic and reformer St. John of the Cross-and his Dark Night of the Soul. FitzGerald moves from the individual’s experience of impasse to a larger societal impasse. By impasse she means those experiences that bring life as you know it to a stand still, where every attempt of extracting the self from suffering is a lost cause. In what is known as the principles of “first order change”—reason, logic, analysis, and planning, do not work to move the self forward and out of impasse. In other words, the skill set you have come to rely upon to move you out of the grip of darkness no longer works.

Inherent in this spin-cycle of suffering is the possibility that transformation is taking place in the midst of the darkness and absence of accustomed pleasure, desire and motivation for life itself. If transformation of the self is to occur, which brings with it creative growth, insight, compassion and a new understanding of the divine, than a letting go of left-brain rational control must give way with consent to the stripping away of one’s limitations of the self and others. In other words, one must enter into the Dark Night not only with eyes wide open, but the wounded heart as well. FitzGerald states, “What is important to realize is that it is in the very experience of darkness and joylessness, in the suffering and withdrawal of accustomed pleasure, that this transformation is taking place…. Since we are not educated for darkness, however, we see this experience because of the shape it takes, as a sign of death…It is a sign to move on in hope to a new vision, a new experience” (414).

I draw upon FitzGerald’s interpretation of Dark Night to relay my own disenchantment with the state of feminism as it was displayed in response to Hugo Schwyzer’s post, Making Amends and Moving Forward . Initially I judged those cutting and obscene responses by said feminist as an indicator of the current state of feminism. Which is to say, I saw a kind of death with my own relationship to feminism. I felt a kind of Dark Night experience in which those attributes of feminism that once made sense to me were now clouded by the at times vulgar and cruel responses to Schwyzer and his attempt at redemption. I have sense come to recognize a kind of both/and scenario of the “all ready/not yet” language with the Dark Night evident in Schwyzer and the larger pool of feminism, the former “all ready,” while the latter is “not yet” with regards to transformation.

Read the whole blog post here

Jan 29

Reading “The Believing Brain” by Michael Shermer

For one of my classes at CGU, co-taught by Dr. Paul Zak and Michael Shermer. Two badass dudes—Shermer is the founding publisher of Skeptic magazine and is one of the scholarly authorities on the science and psychology of belief, and Dr. Zak is the founder of one of the first departments of Neuroeconomics in the country, and studies the effects of oxytocin on trust and morality. (link to his TED talk) Psyched. Blending transdisciplinary science with the secular study of Christianity is pretty much one of my cups of tea.

One of the best quotes so far:

“Even the belief that the government can impose top-down measures to rescue the economy is a form of agenticity, with President Obama being hailed with almost messianic power as “the one” who will save us.”

OMG YES, THANK YOU. This is what I’ve been sayeeeeng. To say nothing of the fact that I’ve known many people who are cynical about mainstream religion but believe in conspiracy theories. Please… check yourself.

To be more specific, I’ve met people who are cynical and downright vitriolic toward Christianity, but then they believe that aliens have been occupying the earth for thousands of years and are behind all major political power structures. Or something tamer, like they belief in astrology. Cool, fine, I mean, me too! But do they not see the hypocrisy there? The reason I study *Christianity* as opposed to the theory of the Reptilian aliens is because.. guesswhat… more people believe it and have believed it. It’s had huge effects on society and still does. I’m not even saying that they “aren’t true”… either sets of belief. That’s not for me to say. I’m not a theologian, at least not publicly.

A great example of this sort of hypocrisy is that stupid internet movie that was so popular a few years ago called “ZEITGEIST”, which was a “documentary” about religion, in particular Christianity, that suggested that Christianity was some sort conspiracy for social control, citing all the central traditions within Christian culture that were iterations of pre-christian ritual or absorbed from Norse/Anglo saxon religion. Cool, the maker of that film took a history of christianity or comparative religion class, how subversive. The tone of that film was barbed and inappropriately snarky toward Christian religion, and freshly minted atheists everywhere sung its praises. But needless to say, the fact that it even hinted at, implied, or otherwise framed with spooky music and editing, that there is some sort of planned social control occuring because of religion just struck me as pure intellectual suicide. It really was a thorn in my side for a long time, and I didn’t feel like my perceptions were corroborated by evolutionary sciences since so many of THOSE guys hate religion too!!! But Michael Shermer’s book is awesome because it focuses so much on the cognitive science of belief… ALL belief. including scientific belief. ;) Since I am no fan of an attitude of scientific imperialism, this sort of self awareness in science writing and equal treatment of all beliefs is pretty damn awesome.

Jan 24

Liturgical Naming Rite for a Transgender Church Member

This is just absolutely amazing. Way to hack/own Christian liturgy! As a fan of DIY ritual and half-Orthodox by blood, I just admire everyone involved in making this happen so, so much. You guys are pioneers! The blog entry of the transgender guy for whom the rite was held is also linked to below, definitely check it out.

This week one of my parishioners, Asher O’Callaghan wrote a post for the Fund for Theological Education about his experience as a transgender man at House for All Sinners and Saints. You can read his lovely reflection here.

After posting this link on Facebook and Twitter this morning several people have asked to see what rite we used. I had posted this on my previous blog last September, but here it is now on this new site:

One really lovely thing about this day was that Asher made a little shrine to his previously female self, Mary. It included the whole name lovingly written out, several photos and a candle.

(Prayers of the People)

Presider:

Holy One of Blessing, in baptism you bring us to new life in

Jesus Christ and you name us Beloved. We give you thanks for the renewal

of that life and love in Mary Christine Callahan, who now takes on a new name.

Strengthen and uphold him as he grows in power, and authority, and

meaning of this name: we pray in the Name above names, Jesus, your Son,

whom with you and the Holy Spirit, the Triune God, we adore. Amen

(Lindsey) A reading from the letter of Paul to the Galatians.

There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no

longer male and female; for all are one in Christ Jesus

The word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

(Laying on of hands)

Let us pray:

We pray for your servant Asher, with thanks for the journey and awakening that

have brought him to this moment, for his place amongst your

people, and for his gifts and calling to serve you.

O God, in renaming your servants Abraham, Sarah, Jacob, Peter,

and Paul, you gave them new lives and new tasks, new love and new hope.

We now hold before you our companion. Bless him with a new measure

of grace as he takes this new name. Write him again in your

heart and on your palm. And grant that we all be worthy to call ourselves

Christians, for the sake of your Christ whose name is Love, and in whom,

with you and the Spirit, we pray. Amen

The Giving of the name

Pr. Nadia: By what name shall you be known?

Kate: The name shall be Asher

Asher: My name is Asher

The community may respond by repeating

Your name shall be Asher

Pr. Nadia: Bear this name in the Name of Christ. Share it in the name of Mercy. Offer it

in the name of Justice.

Christ is among us making peace right here right now. The peace of Christ be with you all. And also with you.

Jan 23

fittedhash-deactivated20121121 asked: What religion are you?

Good question! But I might ramble because I also study religion so I think about it a lot. :P

I like to say I’m “Christianoid”, because in terms of my acculturation I’m Protestant Christian, like most other Americans whether they like it or not, even if they are atheist. :P

I was raised going to an Unitarian church in central Vermont, which is a very liberal protestant sect that has lots of transcendentalist influence and is very interfaith and pluralistic. The grandson of Ralph Waldo Emerson actually was a lifetime member of my home church, so we really were Unitarians to the core!

When it comes to theology, especially monotheism, I consider myself agnostic (which I suspect many Unitarians are), but I also strongly identify with all forms of mystical spirituality - at least all that I have encountered, even ones that come from a monotheistic tradition. I guess I would be comfortable being called a mystical Christian, especially because I’ve found a lot of affinity in orthodox Christian spirituality (my mother is Greek and one half of my family is Greek Orthodox). Many people don’t associate the term “orthodox” with mystical, but in fact Eastern orthodox christianity can be very mystical and has a lot of similarities with the Buddhist tradition.

I appreciate all religions and strongly believe that belief itself is a powerful tool, thus I have great respect for it even though it is often wielded in what I think is an unenlightened way. I also don’t identify with or really understand the position of atheism because atheism is actually a form of postmodern theology and I think a lot of people who are atheist are actually post-theist or have some other kind of spirituality that for some reason is getting confused with atheism.

To call myself an atheist would be to participate in a useless debate, and also would locate me squarely within the mainstream protestant christian theological discourse (no thank you). It is interesting to consider, that Christians were once vitriolically called atheists, when the Jesus movement was new. Atheism just means reaction against the status quo or the predominant world view, and it is in my opinion a symptom of revolution in the Kuhnian sense (not a bad thing at all… I love me some paradigm shifts!) Maybe some people can appropriate it as a meaningful term to somehow describe the complexity of their intellects, but for me it feels like a term that hides more than it reveals.

If I could choose, I’d choose probably not a religion of the book, but rather a philosophy-religion, like Hermeticism. The three M’s, Myth, mystery and magick, are all I need to worship/follow/dance around. :)

Jan 21

Anonymous asked: Hey, where does the spelling for "magick" come from?

Hi, thanks for the message. It’s a good (and interesting) question!

It’s is a variant spelling of “magic” from early modern English (technically spoken from the mid 15th-mid 17th centuries) in England. To my knowledge this spelling was revived/popularized by Aleister Crowley (late 19th century), a famous and controversial English occultist. The spelling is usually used nowadays (and by Crowley) to distinguish it from sleight-of-hand magic/stage magic. “Magick” is instead essentially a set of techniques and methods to attain a form of spiritual self-actualization or gnosis, which in many occult traditions is seen as equivalent to a holistic understanding of the self and the self’s relatedness to the natural world/environment. Crowley describes it as “the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will”. The goal is essentially the “Great Work” or magnum opus, which is again a sort of secular equivalent of enlightenment, which moreover is not necessarily teleological (it doesn’t or might not have an end). Often people take it a little too literally (as testified to by the popular phrase “magical thinking”) and think that occult practitioners actually believe they have or can attain fantastical powers like levitation, telekinesis or the like. However, this is not exactly right. It’s similar to the parable in the book of Matthew, when Jesus talks about how if one has enough faith, one could move mountains. The trick or paradox is that if you actually DID have faith that could “move mountains”, you wouldn’t have to. Another way of putting this is, to paraphrase Peter J. Carroll, that the smallest ability to change oneself is more powerful than any ability to change the outside world.

Many misunderstand or mislabel the magick practice as satanic, selfish, or hedonistic. This is mostly because there doesn’t seem to be a particular ethical/moral framework that is universally tied to this sort of practice, so therefore it is easy to appropriate it for harmful ends, and also easy to ‘demonize’ it from any sort of position of religious orthodoxy.

Essentially magick can be understood as a form of postmodern religion, because it draws upon all the benefits and effectiveness of ritual but does not invest it with any theological meaning, or at least not in the traditional sense. The most concise example of this philosophy is in the modern occult tradition of chaos magick, for which the core tenet is simply that belief itself is a tool. All of one’s personal practice ideally derives from this central supposition and awareness about belief and how it functions, in the self and in others. Personally I am very much in solidarity with the philosophy of chaos magick, and I would also caution anyone in comparing it with pop New Age philosophies like the law of attraction from The Secret. The “truth” of magick is more subtle than that. As I once read on a magic hat bottle cap, “Truth is slippery, like eels.”

I highly recommend anything by Peter J Carroll and Robert Anton Wilson if one is interested in further pursuing the subject.

Dec 5

Vishnu as Krishna his universal form, depicting his 12 avatars. I just stumbled across this while doing some research and wanted to share it because it is so beautiful and transfixing.

Off the official scholarly and politically-correct record, I wish we had spiritual iconography this profound as fixtures of our urban environments. Hindu iconography is so much more queer and pyschedelic to me, and it’s way easier to identify with.

In the Westernmost-of-the-West, we have Michelangelo’s David and blue-eyed Jesus…. DO NOT IDENTIFY WITH. And actually, religious iconography is really not at all a part of American culture and public space since that’s pretty much one of the whole points of Protestantism. *shrug* That’s why Eastern Orthodox and “Oriental” Chrisianities are so cool… they are so aesthetically ornate and full of sensory awesomeness.

I’m belying my Greek/Iconophile roots here, but I’m just a strong proponent of visual and sensory ‘aids’ to the transcendent, always. Whether mantras, yantras, visionary art, iconography, sacred space, sacramental subtances… Through the stuff of the world, the world is known.

Nov 5

New post over at the Farmpunk headquarters, in case any of my tumblr followers are interested.

Entitled “Memetics, Religion and the Ancient Greco-Roman World”.

A romp through the weirdness that was the historical spread of Christianity, informed by meditations on some recent course material and also some nostalgia for the dearth of cognitive and evolutionary science in my life right now (though hoping to change that next semester). It’s a bit of a history lesson, but as per the Farmpunk tradition I bring it back to the ongoing inquiry into sacredness as a natural[istic] and ecological category.

Some followers may be interested.

Sep 16

Woah, I love these!