religion

Room For The Mystic

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I have a book on my reading pile that I really need to get to, Alchemists, Mediums, and Magicians: Stories of Taoist Mystics by Thomas Cleary. It a catalog of assorted Taoist eccentrics, mystics, artists, and so on. It’s strange that I haven’t rushed to read what is basically “character study of characters” but there you go.

I have poked around in it, delighting at some of the stories. It also made me think about other Taoist figures, from the legendary immortals to 18th century doctor and mystic Liu Yiming (who apparently predicted his own death). Taoism has a legion of artists, mystics, sorcerers and other impressive weirdos throughout its history.

I suppose it’s no surprise I feel at home among this cast.

This got me to think about how many of these tales are about people who wrote great treatises, explored mystical states, founded orders, created poetry, and are noteworthy centuries and aeons later. They did this without the internet, without social media, without megachurches – many of them seemed to oddly not care about fame but achieved it anyway.

Even more obscure figures may still appear in historical documents – or in the book like the one I mentioned.

As I write this in 2025 I think about how we’re pushed to monetize everything – and avoid things that don’t make us money. We’ve got example after example of spiritual grifters to tempt us to start monetizing videos. Why can’t we just be religious weirdos?

We also don’t really encourage people to really live their religion. Our own religious pursuits are “fine and good” but you know, don’t take it too far. If you’re gonna be weird at least be religiously obsessive in the right way.

Oh, and to be sure don’t be religious in a way that makes the world better. We’re fine with homophobia and war-mongering, but don’t you dare tell us to care about each other! And be sure you never denounce the system or anything!

We don’t really have place to just be some spiritual weirdo in American culture, and we need those.

We need the eccentrics who contemplate the strange and discuss it, and that’s fine. We need people who produce zines (ahem) to spread their thoughts obsessively. We need to have room culturally for someone dispensing wisdom fro their front porch. We need people who live their spiritual practices.

We need people whose mystical meanderings may lead us to something. Let society have it’s spiritual Skunkworks.

Besides, if we had more people really thinking about the Big Ideas, we’d have less cults and megachurches. If we accepted the idea of a spiritual quest as fine, acceptable, and laudable who knows what we might have. Especially if we don’t encourage people to make a buck first.

I suppose I’m doing my part. It makes me wonder what happens if more and more of we weirdos live sincerely and team up. It also makes me wonder if maybe I’ve got some inhibitions I’m best without . . .

Your Paranoia Is Your God

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Many a Conspiracy Theorist claims to be religious, but I think they’re not honest about who their real God is.

As my regular readers know I have a fascination with Conspiracy Theories. This is both because I’m interested in how people work, and because as we’ve seen they’re incredibly goddamn dangerous. Honestly the way we treat Conspiracy Theorists as a point of humor misses how some of them turn very deadly individually or in groups.

As I watch these potentially dangerous people, I’ve seen how their ideas can become all-consuming. I’ve noted elsewhere that Conspiracy Theory is a kind of creative skill, an unhealthy form of writing and imagination. I suppose it has to be that way so it can encompass everything you need to an eternal yes-anding to reality.

After all, your Theory has to explain everything. Plus you can’t let someone one-up on you, especially if you want to get internet clicks and sell supplements. A Conspiracy Theory is a comittment.

These Conspiracy Theories almost inevitably include religion because you have to. You have to cover it all, so deities, Satan, angels, etc. all have to become part of it. Most Conspiracy theorists remind me of the ever one-upping that dooms movies and TV shows to raise the stakes ridiculously to keep going before their inevitable collapse. The theory must be fed.

Watching this constant adaption, this sacrifice to the Theory, reminds me of what I said early about Monotheism being so unstable it has to evangelize and spread to avoid questions. Thus I can safely say that Conspiracy Theories are just a form of monotheism.

Think about it. Conspiracists are beholden to the Great Conspiracy. The Conspiracy defines them. The Conspiracy must be supported. For many The Conspiracy is a form of profit or career, the very essence of what they do. The Conspiracy Theory is the most important thing in their life – in short, their god.

And it has to be monotheism. The Conspiracy Theorist by definition worships an all-encompassing idea. Any different idea is incorporated or is declared falsehood and the enemy. To not do so is to risk breaking your god – you may dress it up in cosplay as some other god, but it’s yours and it’s just as broken as you are.

Even if the Conspiracy Theorist is a pure grifter, they still have to keep putting time in on the Theory as it’s always under challenge. It’s still their god even if they don’t believe it. Plus there’s always the risk they start believing or have to start believing.

Whatever deity they say they worship, The Conspiracy Theorist’s real god is The Theory.

This “monotheism model” is a tool I find useful to understand Conspiracy Theorists. They’re on a religious crusade no matter what. They have to be. They have to maintain this god, the god is all they have. No wonder they seem so anxious to kill people for their god.

It doesn’t make me feel any safer. If anything I feel kind of worse. But I feel I have a better grasp of what to worry about.

-Xenofact

Feed The Unstable God

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I’ve been thinking about religious evangelism lately due to, well, large chunks of human history and too many chunks of current history. Most of my thoughts are about evangelizing by believers in Anthropomorphic Monotheism, those who worship a god they insist is infinite and all knowing yet has the same traits and biases as humans. It seems a lot of people want us to follow their Big Daddy – or else.

The funny thing is for so many people proclaiming their undying faith – and being willing to spread it by the sword and the bullet – evangelical Anthropomorphic Monotheists seem peculiarly insecure about their deity. Considering a core part of their believe has a conflict between “infinite in all ways” and “just as petty as I am” it’s not surprising. You can feel that instability.

How do you resolve belief in a being of infinite power and potential with the idea they’re worried about, say, what bathroom they use or what day they worship at? How do you reconcile all the conflicts with experience, holy texts, other believers, and so on? A believer in an all-to-human infinite “god” has to spend a lot of time making excuses or a lot of time ignoring the conflicts – the world will mock them by existing.

This conflict is familiar to me – believing in a god both petty and transcendent is a challenge that is faced by enthusiasts for media, like fanfic writers. Every new show, every season, every episode the staff may dump a new load of continuity or retcontinuity on you. You have to constantly revise your ideas due to new input and instability – but whereas fanfic writers admit they have “a take,” believers in Anthropomorphic Monotheism have to act like everything is real.

And this I think is one reason for the rampant evangelism. The world is constantly leading you to question your beliefs as your beliefs are fundamentally unstable and unsustainable without effort. So what do you do? You convert the world, you make the world believe and act the way you think it should so you don’t face conflicts.

Anthropomorphic Monotheism is inherently unstable to a level that is painful in the mind of believers. To resolve that pain they have to change the world so they don’t have conflict, so everything lines up, so everything is it should be. At some levels this evangelism is a kind of Gray Goo, Von Neuman’s Catastro-deity. It just chews up the world to replicate itself.

And, yes, the reasons for religions evangelism are more than just resolving conflicts by eating the world, but I think the inherent instability and need to convert are worth examining. Maybe it explains people’s need for an Apocalypse – they need a fundamental point where unresolvable conflicts are resolved, and are fine to watch the world die to have it.

So next time you see believers in Anthropomorphic Monotheism enragedly trying to convert people, ask how much of that is them trying to resolve the inherit instability of their religion. And ask yourself how much of the world they’d burn to fuel it.

-Xenofact