The cultural outpouring surrounding Michael Jackson's death reminds me of similar wakes, in death, swirling around Princess Diana, Curt Cobain, John Lennon, Elvis, MLK, RFK, Malcolm X, JKF, only now reverberating even more so through an internet echo chamber. A smaller but similar version of this came with Heath Ledger's death, come to think of it.
This phenomenon has made me wonder, again, why people believe what they believe, and why, per capita, some things seem so much more important than others, why a cult of personality revolves around some but not around most of the living or departed.
Do people believe what they do because of geography, birth, age, family, friends, personal quest, education, divine intervention, fate, kismet, luck, will, contrariness, emotional needs, personal issues, cultural exposure, brainwashing, aesthetics, self-selection? Is a religion more "important" than a "cult"?
From just a relative handful of newly created movements (since about 1800):
Was Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh / Osho a religious leader or a cult leader?
What inspired Ngo Van Chieu to create Cao Dai in Vietnam? Why is Victor Hugo a saint in the Cao Dai pantheon?
How do you define L. Ron Hubbard's Church of Scientology?
How about Sister Aimee Semple McPherson Foursquare Church? (GOP Senator John Ensign of Nevada is a member, I learned a few days ago).
What of Marcus Garvey, Haile Selassie and the Rastafari movement?
How about George Baker aka Reverend Major Jealous Father Divine and the International Peace Mission Movement?
Or Paul Twitchell and Eckankar?
Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church?
Joseph Smith, Jr., and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and related groups, aka Mormons?
James Springer White and Ellen Gould White, Seventh-day Adventist Church?
What of Mírzá Ḥusayn-`Alí Nuri (aka Bahá'u'lláh) and the Bahá'í Faith?
Jim Jones, People's Temple?
Ayya Vaikundar and the Incineration of Evil Spirits?
Charles Taze Russell, Jehovah's Witnesses?
Helena von Hahn aka Madame Blavatsky, Theosophy?
Mary Baker Eddy, The First Church of Christ, Scientist (Christian Science)?
Noble Drew Ali, Moorish Science Temple of America (Moorish Science)?
Master Fard Muhammad, Nation of Islam?
Gerald Brousseau Gardner aka Scire, Wicca?
Charles Fox Parham, Pentecostalism?
Kim Il-sung, Juche?
Clarence 13X (Clarence Smith), The Nation of Gods and Earths, aka the Five-Percent Nation of Islam?
Who is right? Who is wrong? Who plays the best guitar? What are the top five most important fill-in-the-blanks according to fill-in-the-blanks' opinion?
Born into it, chose it, was chosen by it?
Switched, fought, or walked a mile for it?
For now, I'll end with this thought: "We can act as if there were a God; feel as if we were free; consider Nature as if she were full of special designs; lay plans as if we were to be immortal; and we find then that these words do make a genuine difference in our moral life." -- William James, "Reality of the Unseen," The Varieties of Religious Experience, 1902.
Today's Rune: Movement.
11 comments:
But I Am the Lord, and He is the Prophet.
We are born, we live, we eat and drink and sleep and dream, we die; but we are born in a unique time and space with a unique genetic code (unless per chance we are identical twins), we live and are educated or not educated accordingly, we eat and drink accordingly, we sleep alone or with others accordingly, we dream accordingly, we die uniquely, even if we go down on the same ship or plane together or in the same famine or plague or war. We are all the same, we all different. Universals, and yet we are not universally the same. Highest common denominator, or lowest? I'm with Stevie Wonder -- better to aim for higher ground. Given the choice, why not?
That's the question for sure. Lana and I have been talking about this for the last few days. Why Michael Jackson as opposed to others? I don't understand it. I don't know why people believe what they do, feel what they do. If I did I'd be a better writer I suppose.
Some people are in on it, and most people aren't. Or, some people benefit, to the detriment of most people. This is at the heart of conspiracy theories. And, perhaps, at the heart of reality. Either way, we all die, on the top, on the bottom, or somewhere in between. Given this, why be so worked up about it?
Each person makes a choice in life, to be independent and free and have a more difficult life, or to be dependent and going with whatever leader attracts them. Such leaders make smart misuse of them.
Personally, i studied the phenomenon of Sun Myung Moon
http://lightonsunmyungmoon.blogspot.com/
One of the few general certainties in life on earth is that the strong/lucky exploit (or seek to) the weak/unlucky, including in areas of access to "truth" and "meaning". So, to quote a song lyric I remember from somewhere, "Neither a follower nor a leader be".
I am...
JC
Eric, I think there are three kinds of people. Firstly, the Anonymous theory. Secondly, the peeps that believe in nothing. And thirdly the ones who need to be led by a charasmatic leader that can think for them. No matter-we all end up the same way no matter how we choose to live it. PS-quit makin' me think-it's too scary!
We believe what we believe because we learned it an an early age...and most people are too fearful of life to break away from the teachings of youth to look for truth.
Osho - My work is a movement not to create a Religion but to create Religiousnes
Question - What has grown Around you has been presented by Newspaper as a Cult, As a Sect, and I wonder If you can now explain what it is and what is the function of Sannyasins in this movement.
Osho - It is simply a movement, neither a cult nor a sect nor a religion but a movement for meditation, an effort to create a science of the inner. It is a science of consciousness. Just as the science is there for objective world, this movement is preparing a science for the subjective world. The scientist will study everything, and we are going to study the scientist.
Otherwise he will be left alone. He will be able to know everything except himself, and that will be real shame, that Albert Einstein knows so much about electrons and neutrons and protons that only twelve persons in the whole world can understand it, but he knows nothing about himself. This is a very ugly state.
So my work is a movement not to create a religion but to create religiousness. I take religiousness as a quality, not as a membership of an organization but an inner experience of one's being. And it is going to happen. It is happening. Now nobody can call my movement a cult, sect or religion. My movement is purely a scientific approach towards the inner world. And it is individual.
The question arises, then why so many sannyasins are together? To be together does not mean that you lose your individuality. You can be together in many ways. You can be together as friends, because you are working in the same dimension. You can be together because your search makes you understand each other better than anybody else. But you are not part of any organization. Hence I have called it a mystery school where you learn meditation.
And if you feel that your meditation grows in this togetherness, be here. If you feel you can manage it alone in a better way, then that is perfectly good. You can do it anywhere else. So there is no binding, there is no expectation, there is no imposition. Only I am available here. If you ask for help, if you ask for some problems that you are facing which I have faced... dark nights that will come on the way which I have passed... I can encourage you.
That's the real function of a friend, to help you, to encourage you to be yourself. So everybody is independent and yet deeply connected with love, with the same search for truth, with the same inquiry. And with the same experience ripening on different levels, different stages to different people. But it is not an organization and you don't become a Rajneeshee like a Christian or a Catholic. You remain simply yourself, just the way I remain simply myself. So this place is to give you freedom and help you to experience the summum bonum of life, the ultimate peak of blissfulness. Okay Videha?
Source: from Osho Book "The Last Testament Volume4"
Erik -- I agree with your question -- "why not?"
Last night, I attended the jazz service at the Old South Church in downtown Boston. The young minister announced that on this night, during communion, "free bread was to be offered to people hungry for love" outside on the sidewalk. It was the bread (actually challah) that was used for communion. I was worried that ALL of us were going to be forced to go outside and foist bread on busy people trying to get home in the rain -- but then my spiritual development could be better.
When the time came, the young minister opened the side door and walked outside. As the rain came down, I could see him offering bread to people. Some actualy took it, most did not. When he was done, he returned, sat down, and never opened his eyes during the next hymn. The door remained open.
Mark, that's wild. I understand your hesitancy to get sucked into the activity, and also can'r help but feel a little sorry for the closed-eyes minister. Jazz service must be interesting, eh?
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