We walk by sight, not by faith...well, sometimes

Some Biblical miracles are very difficult to believe. I mean, Jonah was supposedly eaten by a whale of a tale, a fishy story if I ever heard one! And some others are very EASY to believe. Like the story of Bileam's talking donkey. Seriously, was that even a miracle?! If you want to meet talking donkeys, just access the World Wide Web…

The boring Anglican

"Christian Atheist" was something of a disappointment. I had expected a sustained argument in favour of some exotic new heresy, but instead Brian Mountford simply rehashes liberal Anglicanism (or one of its fissiparous varieties). The author is the vicar of the University Church at Oxford, and a personal friend of Richard Dawkins!

In his book, Mountford has interviewed a number of people, both known and unknown, who don't really believe in God or Christianity, or believe in it only barely, but who nevertheless decided to stay inside the Church of England. The reasons are often cultural or even aesthetic: community feeling, a lot of activities, good music, etc. One of the interviewees describes himself, tongue-in-cheek, as Anglo-Choral rather than Anglo-Catholic! Another reason is nostalgia, as when one of the characters in Philip Pullman's novel "Northern Lights" say that he rather misses God, now when he's gone. A more elaborate argument is that humans need a moral compass, ritual and a sense of belonging. Religion does provide this, even though it's man-made, and for that reason, even atheists could belong to a Christian church. Several of the interviewees like the specifically Christian morality (love your neighbour, love your enemies, etc).

Mountford does wonder how one can isolate Christian morality, or aesthetics for that matter, from a relationship to a God who actually exists? In the end, however, he is too liberal to be able to challenge the "Christian atheists" (or Sunday Christians, or cultural Christians). He sees doctrine as evolving and fluid, doubt as natural and most of the Bible as metaphorical. Thus, the vicar of Oxford supports homosexuality and abortion, opposes creationism, and believes that God didn't gave Israel to the Jews. No? At another point, Mountford wonders what it could possibly mean to a modern reader that the death of Jesus takes away "sin". Does it do away with global warming?

Don't get me wrong. I'm not a Christian, and I probably have more in common (politically) with the author of this book than with, say, the really hard line Anglo-Catholics. Still, what's the *point* of claiming to be Christian if you reject everything distinctive about Christianity, or argue that we are dealing with metaphors and clever stories? The apostle Paul said that Christian faith is in vain if Jesus wasn't resurrected. That was no metaphor, brother. Conversely, if Mountford (like his Christian-atheist friends) believe that everything in Christianity is true, except the Christianity (with apologies to C.S. Lewis), how come that so many positive results came from this particular ancient superstition? Isn't the liberal position, if framed in this manner, really parasitical on the traditional one?

I don't think Brian Mountford ever solves these questions, and he probably doesn't even think they can be solved. But this is precisely what has led many outside observers to conclude, that the liberal clergy hold on to the outer strapping of the faith simply in order to fill the pews. And judging from this book, many of the church-goers are just as sceptical as their clergymen...

John Maynard Keynes is spinning in his grave

A review of a very strange product on Amazon.

I know that our splendid employment figures are dependent on people producing and consuming as much as possible, but, please, can't we at least draw a line at...a plastic unicorn horn for cats??!! And no, it's no joke. This really is a toy horn you are supposed to place at the head of your cat! I can't imagine that it works. The cats I've known throughout my life were...well, too cat-like to accept anything even remotely resembling this hokum. Even apart from their tendency to sneak into small, closed spaces - bad for that "horn", I imagine. Somebody should call the Royal Society for the Protection of the Unicorn and file a complaint, LOL

Spank me, I'm a normal Swede

A review of "Mounted by the Gryphon (Gryphon Erotica)" 

We're entering Amazon's twilight zone. I've reviewed erotic stories about lesbian mermaids, apparently the only crossover between the gay subculture and the (presumably very straight) cryptozoology-Fortean ditto. However, if we broaden our search parameters… You get the picture.

I happen to live in a Swedish county that uses the griffin (or gryphon) as a symbol, but I must admit that I never found it erotically titillating. Cool, maybe. Or just ridiculous (when I got older). But sexy? A griffin rampant sable beaked? Naaah. But then, as my psychology teacher in high school told me, the number of deviancies is almost endless…

Frankly, Mr Griffin should have known better than hooking with a human female.

I haven't read this book either

"Taken by the Pterodactyl". Ha ha ha. OK, seriously, who *is* reading this kind of trash pornography? I don't (no, really) but I admit that the other customer reviews on this page were pretty darn funny, funnier than anything I could ever have come up with!

One of the reviewers wonders about the fate of "Tyrannosaurus Sex", while another is upset at the palaeontological ineptness of the editor, who classified this as "Dinosaur Erotica", when pterodactyls (of course) are a very different group of reptiles. I can only hope the editor can tell the difference between a human female and, say, a male Hadrosaurus. I concur with the guy who calls this "the best piece of literature I've never read".

I don't usually reference other customer's reviews, but, frankly, this was The Laugh of the Week. Thanks guys, says Ashtar Command (a perfectly normal Swedish citizen), gracefully bowing out.

Somebody please call Tolkien's estate

A review of "The Orc Chief´s Virgin Tribute (Orc Erotica)" by somebody named Christie. Apparently, Orc erotica is a thriving genre.

Welcome, my fighting Uruk-hai. I wonder whether somebody has called Tolkien's estate about this? Surely, Orcs are copyrighted by Christopher Tolkien or somebody. Are they really in the public domain? Or is there a secret understanding between the author and the dark side faction of L.O.T.R. fandom? From the same writer who gave us “Taken by the Pterodactyl”, “Mounted by the Gryphon” and “Ravished by the Triceratops”. Seriously, Christie, get a life, ha ha.

You won't read this in Fortean Times

Ann L Probe (read that pseudonym again, slowly) is hardly going to be the next Nobel Prize laureate in literature. Nor will you find her (?) oeuvres in “Fortean Times”, except maybe in the silly season column. “Boffing Bigfoot” (no need to read *that* slowly) is something as bizarre as a porn-alien-cryptid crossover. From the same faux author who gave us “Mounting the Mothman”. Something tells me John Keel wouldn't have published this either. CSICOP? Maybe. But only on a full moon night!

The theory and practice of Hoxhaism

"The Theory and Practice of Revolution" is a famous editorial, published in the Albanian Communist newspaper Zeri i Popullit on July 7, 1977. The editorial was subsequently translated to several foreign languages by various pro-Albanian Communist groups. I have the unauthorized Swedish translation published in 1978 by "The Communist Unity Group of Stockholm" (SKEG), a forerunner of the KPS (see my review of Magnus Utvik's "Med Stalin som gud"). The American edition was apparently published by the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists (COUSML). This group later broke with the "official" pro-Albanian world communist movement. I haven't seen the edition currently at sale here.

"The Theory and Practice of Revolution" was published during the Sino-Albanian split, when the Albanian Communist leadership around Enver Hoxha attacked the Chinese rapprochement with the United States and Yugoslavia. The editorial doesn't really say anything that was new at the time. Rather, it summarizes the erstwhile criticism of China made by Hoxha at the seventh congress of the Party of Labour of Albania in 1976. In 1978, Hoxha would publish what in effect became his magnum opus, "Imperialism and Revolution", in which he expounds at length on the ideological differences between the Albanian Communist regime and its erstwhile Chinese ally. This book, too, became near-canonical among the pro-Albanian Communist groups in different parts of the world.

Little needs to be said about "The Theory and Practice of Revolution", which I haven't already stated in my review of Hoxha's book. Zeri i Popullit has little problem proving that the Chinese adapt themselves politically to the Western powers, to various conservative and right-wing regimes in the "Third World", and that this has little in common with the ideas of Lenin. However, the Albanian Communists also run into serious problems of their own, something various Maoist groups were quick to point out. Thus, both Stalin and Mao had some of the politics Hoxha attacked. Yet, Hoxha never criticized them in his public speeches. In 1978, Hoxha did get around to attacking Mao in his book on imperialism, but Stalin was still upheld as a great Marxist-Leninist and friend of the Albanian people. In reality, of course, Stalin's diplomatic alliances were on a par with those of the Chinese. We're talking about the guy who signed the Hitler-Stalin pact, for crying out loud!

Hoxha's Maoist critics also pointed out the *the Albanian Communists themselves* had pursued many of the politics Hoxha now suddenly claimed were anti-Leninist, including peasant-based guerrilla warfare and "national democratic revolution" as a prolonged stage. I think it's pretty obvious that Hoxha was full of it, and that his break with China had more to do with local Balkan power politics than with some terribly important Marxist-Leninist doctrine. Hoxha presumably didn't fancy the idea of a Western-Chinese-Yugoslav alliance, Tito's Yugoslavia being the usual nemesis of Albania on the Balkan peninsula.

Another ridiculous contradiction concerns Hoxha's idea that the post-Stalin Soviet Union was "state capitalist" and "imperialist". This notion, it should be recalled, was stolen from the Chinese. (How could a "revisionist" like Mao correctly divine the character of the Soviet Union?) Apparently, post-Mao China was also "state capitalist". If the two major socialist countries had turned capitalist, Hoxha should logically draw the conclusion that the counter-revolution has been victorious on a global scale. Yet, he draws the *opposite* conclusion: the proletarian revolution is on the agenda in every nation of the world, including backwaters like Zaire! He also claims that a socialist camp still exists. It consists of "the Socialist People's Republic of Albania and other countries building true socialism". No other country is specified, but it was a public secret that the Albanian regime had good relations with China's Communist competitor Vietnam. Is Vietnam building true socialism? If so, what on earth is the difference between Vietnam and, say, Cuba or Angola, two Communist regimes Hoxha opposed? And how does Hoxha explain Vietnam's good relation with the "state capitalist" and "imperialist" Soviet Union?

Of course, he doesn't. The American publishers of this pamphlet, the COUSML (later the MLP), must have spotted these contradictions in the Albanian creed, forcing them to break their "fraternal relations" with the Party of Labour of Albania. However, they still insisted that Albania was somehow socialist, creating problems for themselves in 1991, when socialist Albania collapsed in pretty much the same manner as the "state capitalist" and "imperialist" Soviet bloc... Only the pesky Chinese, who both Hoxha and the MLP loved to hate, are still going strong! But that, as they say, is another story entirely.

The dog that ate Philemon

"Don't listen to the voices in your head. Listen to your Great Pyrenees". Seems like good advice. What a shame neither Sigmund Freud nor Carl Gustav Jung heeded it. I mean, it could have saved the world a lot of trouble...

John Michael Greer's school of witchcraft and wizardry

“Inside a Magical Lodge” is a book by John Michael Greer, who is currently the head of the Ancient Order of Druids in America (AODA). When he published this book (1998), he practiced ritual magic in the Golden Dawn tradition, and had also joined a number of fraternal lodges, including (I suppose) the Freemasons. Greer's book does *not* include sensational revelations about secret rituals, nor does it contain detailed instructions in magic. Instead, Greer discusses the theoretical underpinnings of lodge rituals and the magic worldview, and also the history of both fraternal and magical lodges. This takes up about half of the book. The other half explains (more or less) how to actually create a magical lodge or “secret society”. Since Greer doesn't want to divulge any secrets from really existing lodges, he describes a fictitious lodge (the Order of Athanor), the rituals of which are invented by the author himself. Or so he says. Since Greer is secretive, how can we really know?

A few things stand out. One is Greer's conservative attitude. He rejects most of the New Age, and other attempts to create what he believes are artificial or fake forms of spirituality. Secret societies modelled on popular fantasy tales á la LOTR or Harry Potter? Forget it. Neo-shamanism? Syncretism? Also out. His argument is a magical one: the traditions are guarded by an “egregore”, a kind of potent energy field with a life of its own, and unless you are initiated through the proper channels, you can't tap the energy, no matter how hard you try. Thus, the egregore of the Golden Dawn became accessible only after the last remaining legitimate Golden Dawn lodge had dissolved itself around 1970. It seems Greer later revised his ideas, since he joined a Druid Revival group working a “Celtic” version of the Hermetic Qabalah! Not very traditional. Still, Greer has a point that Neo-Shamanism and similar currents could degenerate into a kind of pseudo-spirituality, unless the practitioner takes the more demanding step to actually become apprenticed to a real shaman. It's also true that new religions based on contemporary pop culture will simply mirror the prejudices (for good or for bad) of their own time.

Another thing that struck me was Greer's opposition to authoritarian leadership, sectarianism and cultishness. He prefers a democratic leadership structure with checks and balances (sometimes literally – two people should sign each cheque made out in the name of the lodge, thereby more carefully monitoring the balance…). Nor does Greer believe that only one path is the true one. Indeed, his fictive Order of Athanor is a “broad tent” magical lodge, open to people from several different traditions. Greer's perspective on God and the Divine sounds perennialist, impersonalist and “pluralist”, and is presumably influenced by the Hermetic Qabalah. The Divine, which is unfathomable in itself, uses different egregores as masks.

As for the idea of “Secret Chiefs”, Greer rejects the notion completely, pointing out that it might actually be dangerous – a personified “energy” contacted by the magicians might wreak havoc by claiming to be a secret chief or ascended master. (A very magical way of dispensing with the secret masters!) Greer also rejects most lodge history as invented, or “mythological” to use a less pejorative term. Thus, Freemasons don't really have their roots in the Knights Templar, the Temple of Solomon, or whatever.

I read about half of the book, and merely skimmed the other half, since I have no particular plans to actually form or join a magical lodge (or non-magical lodge, for that matter). However, “Inside a Magical Lodge” could be good reading for those so inclined, especially since it might make them more “down to earth”! Greer has also published a volume titled “The Element Encyclopedia of Secret Societies”, where he details the gritty history of fraternal and magical orders, often in rather entertaining fashion. Could perhaps be read as a complement to this book, so that you *really* know what you're getting yourself into (or what mistakes to avoid…).