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The unknown panentheist

“The Religion of Solidarity” is a short text written by Edward Bellamy when he was 24 years old. It was posthumously found among Bellamy´s papers by his biographer Arthur E Morgan and subsequently published. Bellamy is, of course, famous for his utopian novel “Looking Backward” (1888). One of the serious lacunas in my knowledge of things large and small is that I never actually read it. Back in the days, the novel triggered an entire political movement, known as Nationalism (with a capital N). Most of its members soon joined the more successful Populists.

I expected “The Religion of Solidarity” to be a materialist-positivist-populist screed of some kind. It isn´t. Unexpectedly, it turns out to be a spiritual text, obviously based on Emerson and the New England Transcendentalists. And while the little piece isn´t *that* interesting, I admit that Bellamy was a better writer than Emerson, Thoreau and Alcott. In a note appended much later, Bellamy writes that he tried to live according to the principles expounded upon in “The Religion of Solidarity” all his life. He even asks for the text to be read at his funeral!

Bellamy reflects at length at the opposition between the individual and Spirit (my term), the latter being infinite and immortal. The “centripetal” and “centrifugal” forces are said to be basic to the universe, one leading to unity with Spirit or impersonal consciousness, the other moving in the direction of individuality. The most common mistake of men is to live as if the individual is immortal. This is said to characterize Napoleon and Caesar, whom Bellamy doesn´t seem to fancy. The Christian idea of individual immortality is criticized. That the Spirit is real can be sensed in nature mysticism, poetry, love and sexual union. The text gives the impression of being written by a desperate young man longing to live life to the fullest and prove himself thereby – which, of course, it was.

Interestingly, it´s not entirely clear what Bellamy *really* wants to do, based on his insights into the immortality of the universal soul. We somehow expect the future prophet of socialism and industrial armies to say something, well, socialist and industrial army-ish. Instead, Bellamy rather says the opposite. Since our individuality counts for nothing compared to the infinite Spirit, we may as well live our lives with a certain reckless abandon, indifferent to our fates, since we are ultimately nothing and yet immortal at the same time. Later in the text, however, Bellamy sounds more serious-minded, and draws the obvious conclusion that since everything is One, the moral thing to do is to identify with the One and sacrifice yourself for the One. Patriotism, oneness with Nature and ultimately an oneness with the entire cosmos is said to follow from this. Friendship and family is also said to be important.

Well, thank you.

The text is incomplete, or rather Bellamy misplaced a few pages, in which he attempted to reconcile his essentially pantheist perspective with belief in a personal god. His argument strikes me as “panentheist”. Just as humans are both personal and impersonal at the same time, a Supreme Being might be both. To find Edward Bellamy of all people in a gallery of panentheists is intriguing, to say the least.

With that, I end my little reflection.

A Theosophist in Bombay

“The Spirit of Zoroastrianism” by Henry Steel Olcott is a peculiar pamphlet published in 1913 by the Theosophical Society based in Adyar, Madras, India. The author is better known as Colonel Olcott and was a co-founder of the Theosophical Society, together with the more well known Madame Blavatsky. The content of the pamphlet is a speech given at Bombay (Mumbai) already in 1882. Very little information on the background to Olcott´s colorful speech is available on the web, but I did manage to glean a few things…

Olcott´s support for the Theravada Buddhists in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) is well known. I´ve previously reviewed the so-called Buddhist Catechism written by the American colonel. Less well known are his contacts with the Parsees of Bombay, i.e. the Zoroastrian community. Apparently, the Parsees were split in several factions when Olcott and Blavatsky arrived in India, the Theosophists throwing in their lot with the “orthodox” faction that still upheld the ancient traditions of Zoroastrianism, as opposed to the “heterodox” reformers who called for modernization and craved for Western knowledge. However, it´s obvious from Olcott´s speech that he didn´t uncritically embrace orthodox Zoroastrianism either. For instance, he does call for modern scientific education. More interestingly, Olcott reinterprets Zoroastrianism in “modern” terms. Miracles associated with Zoroastrian saints are accepted, but explained in terms of “magnetic” energies (compare Mesmer). The seemingly idolatrous worship of fire is explained in terms of fire being the force which penetrates and propels the entire cosmos. In this way, the ancient Zoroastrian priesthood becomes a kind of “scientists”, more advanced in some ways than modern scientists.

Olcott doesn´t seem interested in the actual Zoroastrian religion (except some of its rituals), probably because he considered it exoteric. On the esoteric level, Zoroastrianism is the religion of the Magi, which in turn lies behind Judaism (including the Kabbalah), Christianity and Greek philosophy. He probably believed that at its esoteric core, the religion of Zoroaster wasn´t all that different from the peculiar ideas promoted by Blavatsky. At several times in the speech, Olcott wants the Parsees to support an expedition to Armenia, where a monastery is said to own ancient documents which can prove the Theosophists right. 

One thing that surprised me when reading the presentation is that Olcott is extremely straightforward. He sharply criticizes, almost reams out, his Parsee listeners. The Parsees are admonished to give more money to the education of their children and youth, instead of squandering it on “stupid tamashas” (a kind of theatre plays). They are also called upon to translate their Persian scriptures into Indian vernacular and English, and the priests are criticized for not understanding their own religion (including prayers in the Persian language). A funny detail is that Olcott refers to the Bohras, a Shia Muslim group, as “infidels”. I get the impression that Bohras and Parsees were competitors in Bombay, both traditionally being merchants. Another weird detail is that Olcott (an American) brags about Blavatsky´s friendship with the Russian governor of Armenia (Blavatsky was indeed Russian). In British-controlled India, such a statement could have been seen as potentially seditious!

I don´t know what eventually happened to Colonel Olcott´s attempts to reform the Parsee community on crypto-Theosophical lines, but since the Parsees are still thriving in modern Mumbai, I assume they somehow put their act (and their tamashas) together. As for the Theosophical Society, they continued playing an often unsung role in Indian history, Theosophical leader Annie Besant even being elected president of the Indian National Congress…until being eclipsed by the movement around a certain Gandhi. But that´s another story, as they say.

Make the zodiac Greta again

Greta Thunberg celebrated her 17^th birthday yesterday. So *that´s* the explanation! She´s a Capricorn!

I should have known.

Only a Cap can be so super-serious that he or she tries to save the world at the age of 16, and doesn´t understand why nobody else gives a damn. The weird sarcastic humor is also a typical Cap trait. Yes, Greta has that too – hi there, Sharon!

I happen to be familiar with this problematique, since I know at least one other Capricorn with similar tendencies. Yes, that would be, ahem…myself. 

However, there is one obvious difference between my horoscope and Greta´s. OK, I haven´t checked hers, but if you believe in astrology (as a card-carrying Cap, I obviously don´t), Uranus is crazy planet. And I happen to have it in a *very* prominent position in my horoscope. Even apart from the fact that my progressed sun is probably in Aquarius right now…

By contrast, Gretish Thunbergish is 100% Saturnine.

I suppose this explain why Greta is busy saving the world, while I´m busy trolling her from a blog named after the Ashtar Command.

No hard feelings, I hope.

Here we go again

Varje gång Trump försöker att INTE vara världspolis är han "rysk agent". Och varje gång han ÄR världspolis får *exakt samma personer* kalla fötter och skiter ner sig totalt när han dödar ryska allierade i Irak och så vidare.

Proffstyckarnas proffstyckeri betyder visst ingenting i verkligheten. Eller också har de alla drabbats av "Trump Derengement Syndrome" alias TDS. 

Vad vill de att Trump skall göra egentligen? Lämna över tyglarna till Hillary Clinton...? *Då* är äventyrspolitik mot ryska allierade helt okej. Cuz reasons. Eller?

Är jag den ende som slutat läsa morrontidningen eller vad... 

Well, somebody is celebrating...

Well, it seems somebody is celebrating... 

Iranians in London celebrate killing of Soleimani

Veckans Machiavelli

Titta vem som plötsligt hyllar "den muslimska republiken" Iran... 

Trump dödade iransk general som krossade IS 

De har ju en av ottomanska rikets allierade i sitt tidningshuvud, fast Iran är väl mer åt safavid-hållet? 

My predictions for the 2020´s

Everyone is making predictions for the 2020´s and I decided to chime in. Well, almost. I already predicted everything (yes really) so I will simply link to the relevant blog posts. Remember: a prediction is not a prophecy. I could be wrong. In fact, I *want* to be wrong! With that caveat, here we go...

Some black pills

The next 100 years

Make America Great Again?

TL;DR: Be careful what you wish for!

HAPPY NEW YEAR

HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM SWEDEN! 

OK, I know the picture is from Taiwan 2009 but who cares? LOL.

Christ among the tyrants

Gustaf Aulén as Bishop of Strängnäs 

Gustaf Aulén was a prominent Swedish Lutheran theologian, who eventually became Bishop of Strängnäs. The English-language “Christus Victor” is his most well known work. It was originally published in 1931 and is a hybrid between theological tract and historical study.

Aulén criticizes the two most widespread views of the Atonement, the “objective” satisfaction theory associated with both medieval Catholic Anselm of Canterbury and Lutheran orthodoxy, and the “subjective” view typical of liberal Protestantism. What both have in common is that they are man-centered. Aulén believes that the classical view of the Atonement was different from both. 

He associates the classical view with most of the Church Fathers, in particular the Eastern Fathers, but also the New Testament writers, Paul in particular. This view is God-centered, God being both the Reconciler and the Reconciled. God enters the world in order to fight the evil demonic powers which keep humans in bondage. The Incarnation, the miracles and the crucifixion are part of the same struggle, which ends in God´s victory over sin, death and the devil. The culmination of the struggle is the resurrection. At no point does God demand “satisfaction” from man (or from Christ´s human side). Man seems to be wholly passive in the drama, God and the demonic “tyrants” being the only actors. The perspective is dualistic, in that God and the Devil are seen as almost equal powers fighting over the rightful possession of man (ultimately, of course, God stands above the Devil).

Aulén admits that the classical view had some aspects which may seem weird or even repugnant to modern Christians. For instance, Jesus was often seen as a ransom *paid to the Devil* rather than a sacrifice offered up to God. By offering himself as a substitute for man, Jesus freed humanity from the Devil´s bondage, while simultaneously cheating the Devil, who didn´t know that Jesus was really God and could therefore escape his clutches (and destroy the Devil´s dominion). If this sounds familiar, it should – C S Lewis used these notions as the basis for his children story “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe”. 

Aulén doesn´t seem to take this colorful language literally, but rather as symbolic descriptions of a mystical reality. Above all, he emphasizes that the Atonement cannot be thought about in rational terms – something Anselm and the Scholastics attempted to do. On Aulén´s interpretation, Martin Luther had the classical view of the Atonement, while later Lutheran theologians (beginning with Luther´s collaborator Melanchthon) once again tried to rationalize it. I assume Aulén preferred the classical view since it emphasizes that the Atonement is wholly an act of grace from God´s side – salvation really is “by grace alone”, whereas the Catholic view gives more leeway to a human-created penitential system. Lutheran orthodoxy is, to Aulén, the most absurd system, being essentially the Catholic system without the penances!

Another interesting point in Aulén´s exegesis is that the Law is one of the “tyrants” from which Christ sets men free, alongside sin, death and the Devil. Not only is the Law incapable of freeing men from sin, it actively leads them away from such a possibility, being a negative force in its own right. This is obviously Aulén´s criticism of legalism, although he never mentions what specific groups he is attacking – something tells me it isn´t Jews or Catholics (tiny minorities in Sweden in 1931). 

One thing that struck me when reading the book is that the classical view of the Atonement as exegeted by Aulén presupposes a view of the world as very radically evil and incapable of change. The world in a sense does legitimately belong to Satan and his host of “powers” and “principalities”. Humans have been snatched away from God´s realm through deceit and are now Satan´s property. From a certain perspective, even God is incapable of simply setting things right by fiat – he must incarnate in the evil world and gradually defeat the “tyrants” one by one, even to the point of suffering and dying. While main-line Christianity wasn´t officially dualist, it´s nevertheless obvious how such a view can morph into Zoroastrian-like dualism or Gnosticism. Even Aulén calls it “dualistic”. In a certain sense, God incarnates in a world which really isn´t his…

According to the all-knowing Wikipedia, the fate of “Christus Victor” is an interesting one. The book seems to have inspired both “Paleo-orthodox” Protestants (who I assume are theologically conservative) and various pacifist and politically left-wing versions of Christianity. Since Aulén places so much emphasis on the Eastern Fathers, his work can probably be read with some profit by Eastern Orthodox believers, as well. The leftists, by contrast, like the idea of Christ fighting the powers of evil and eventually being executed by them – only to triumph in the end. Here, the “tyrants” are interpreted naturalistically, as actual earthly powers oppressing the weak.

With that, I end my review…and my reflections.