NMR ISSUE 24

Acting With The Spirit
Alkhemi
Astrological Forecast 24
Big Horn Sheep
Crystal Power
Editorial 24
In a Witch's Garden
Invocation of Thoth
Letters 24
Mind in Occult Theory
My Terse Verse
Mystical One
revelations From Gnosticism
Spring
The Oldest Magick
Tuna
Why Dreams?

Articles
Authors
Rituals
Book Reviews
NMR Issues
NMR Covers

The Editorial

Scot Rhoads

Paradigms not worth 20

I recently found myself in a real knockdown drag-out discussion about respecting others' paradigms. There is an amazing variety of ways that people try to make sense of their worlds, and most of them (in our culture, anyway) seem to share the idea that those who do not share our paradigm are less worthy (to say the least) than those who do. It is the classic us vs. them mentality.

The people I was talking with represented to me the Western Scientific paradigm that I grew up with. Scientific here means the system of objective, open-minded inquiry, designed to create predictive models (we should all be familiar with that). I use Western somewhat idiosyncratically to describe how this tool has been corrupted into a dogma, characterized by Descartes and Newton (though Newton has long since been left in the dust, the mentality lives on). For instance, Science has to assume an objective reality to function, but it is contrary to the philosophy of science to believe that this reality (or anything, for that matter) absolutely exists. It is only a tool. But those enchanted by the models (Maya) of science, cling to science's Reality as dogmatically as a Fundamentalist.

I discovered this when I tried to make the case that science is a set of models with finite (though impressive) application and no claim to absolute truth; therefore, while one needn't agree with other paradigms, it is inappropriate to scientifically dismiss all of them (and those who hold them) as in some way mentally corrupt. They did not agree. OK, I don't pretend to have the absolute truth myself. But the way they disagreed was dramatic. They would turn my arguments into things I had not in the least intended, or insist that they lead to absurd conclusions, then knock down those straw men. They took my idea, that scientific models need not be treated as more than just models, as an attack on Science and all it had produced. One of them demanded that I describe a realm where science does not apply, and rejected any that could not be proven. After I pointed out that any realm where you cannot prove things is where science does not apply, he became too emotional to continue. (To his credit, he bowed out—even though I had rubbed it in with a sophomoric game, set, and match.)

I felt I understood the emotionalism behind desperate faiths such as Fundamentalist Christianity, but I was not prepared to see something similar so firmly entrenched in people whose thoughts I respected so much. I wondered what was going on. As I understand it, one foundation of science is the attempt to weed out such subjective things as emotions; yet here were the faithful too emotional to consider that science is a philosophy for dealing with life as we experience it, rather than (necessarily) the only path to The Truth. This is a priori conclusion, and thus inconsistent with scientific philosophy. As I see it, this is the embodiment of the complaint that science has become a religion.

What is going on? I ask myself. For now, I have a guess: People are social, those that are not have been weeded out of the gene pool for ages. Yet, particularly in the context of the highly complex societies of the last few millennia, people have emotions that are antisocial. Paradigms (primarily in religious forms) help to defuse these antisocial tendencies (cultures that were better at this would be more cohesive and thus more successful). This system evolved over many generations, starting with pre-humans, and was therefore not on a conscious level (and still is not, for the most part). It deals with these dark, mysterious emotions on their level.

In our modern world, systems that evolved over centuries or millennia are shaken by events that occur over decades or years. Disparate systems mix in new contexts and they begin to fail. Joseph Campbell talks of this when he talks about our society having lost its myths. People begin to face their antisocial emotions without a mechanism to deal with them. The first reaction is to find a mechanism and cling to it desperately. Religion's role is, I think, transparent. Science, on the other hand, is not supposed to do this, yet people are using it emotionally, too.

How many times has someone utterly dismissed your emotions with psychobabble? Oh, he's just paranoid/anal/compulsive/etc./ad nauseam. Even if these observations are true, they pigeonhole and dehumanize people, dismissing their feelings as somehow not being real. People will do the same thing to their own feelings, or they will objectify them. Those at all familiar with scientists will note that many identify so strongly with their research that any question of it becomes a personal attack and justifies a political (rather than just scientific) response. They assign their unreal emotions onto something outside themselves (creating it, if they have to) that they can respect and deal with because it's real. It seems that people need the kind of foundation that such an idea of an immutable Truth provides. If one does not already know it, one needs to believe one is at least on the path to it. Unfortunately, things as mercurial as emotions and personal experiences are not allowed to be part of Truth.

Years ago I heard a story about researchers who explained to recovering subjects that the medication they'd received were placebos. Many of the subjects still wanted prescriptions for the placebos. (Prescription placebos are better than over-the-counter.) When I first heard this story, my thought was that these people were morons. The placebos weren't real! But they work. Why not use them? Because to knowingly do so is an act of treason against the paradigms I used to make sense of the world. I would have refuse a prescription and I diminished those who would not because it was contrary to the way people should think. Subjective things like feeling better were irrelevant next to the importance of keeping my paradigms in tact. I needed the paradigm. Why? Consider what it does:

Belief is a manifestation of emotion. You can find this out by tracing people's beliefs back to the source. My favorite example is the gun control issue. Firmly entrenched on both sides are intelligent, logical minds armed with compelling statistics and compelling reasons why their opponents' statistics are flawed. What distinguishes them? They both have science on their side. Why does one side's science work for some people and not others? When you listen to the feelings behind the words, you often hear fear of the power (threat) that guns represent, or fear of losing the power (security) that they represent.

The whole issue is fundamentally emotional, but to admit that outwardly dooms one to immediate dismissal and inwardly opens the door to all those hidden emotions. We use paradigms of absolute Reality to avoid these things. Assigning such paradigms to our feelings allows us to avoid facing our negative emotions in ourselves (because they're now Real and outside of us), or facing them in others who do not agree with us (because they're now so deluded or evil they cannot reflect us). Certainly there is a legitimate debate about gun control, but to deny the fundamental role of emotion cripples it. I want gun control becomes we must have gun control, presented with the magical statistics that impart the authority of absolute reality. To those who fear gun control, this is an attack and the battle of good and evil begins.

Though this may be true for something as psychological as gun control, what about, say a belief in gravity? That can't be emotional! Well, perhaps the experience of gravity is not, but that is not the same thing as the belief. What do people believe about gravity? Do they believe that its mathematical description is absolute, open to refinement, or questionable? Do they believe that it was overcome in such instances of various Masters ascending to heaven? Do they believe that gravity is an aspect of an objective universe over which we have no nonphysical influence, or a manifestation of our own consciousness that we can potentially control? Etc. The observable, provable aspect of gravity has (so far) been the same no matter what paradigm provides the context; therefore, none of these different beliefs are provable one way or the other. Certainly, you can (for practical purposes) prove specific things: you can prove that gravity appears to act according to certain mathematical descriptions within the limits of your instrumentation (on the apparatus itself, for the time you are observing it, for yourself, etc.); and you can take a specific Master and observe that he does not, at the moment, appear to be ascending anywhere. But these microcosmic proofs need not influence one's fundamental view of the nature of gravity or anything else. Look at the stunning variety of beliefs within our culture alone, despite the vast and fundamental shared experience. If there is a hard Reality out there somewhere, we are sufficiently far removed from it that it doesn't seem to exist. We should learn to work with this.

Without a practical hard reality, how do people choose among the seemingly infinite possibilities? I suggest it is emotionally—I see nothing else left. If this is the process, why do people so rarely see it that way? I suspect fear. If we admit that we are fundamentally emotional, we lose the mechanisms that we, as a species, have developed for dealing with our darker emotions. We lose the knowledge of good and evil. There is no difference in the validity of destructive or constructive emotions. Anarchy!

Well, really now, is this a valid fear? Is the only thing that keeps us from murdering the idea that it is WRONG? Is it only the idea of masses universally attracting that keeps us from jumping off buildings? Perhaps it is for some, but the idea of absolutes is unnecessary. We can accept that we don't want to murder because, even if we at times are tempted, that sort of behavior makes the world a less pleasant place to be in. And we don't have to believe that gravity is any more than a rule of thumb to know that experience suggests great circumspection before testing it with your life.

I see two modes of thinking: The exterior mode assumes that there is, for practical purposes, a hard Reality out there; alternative views are a threat because somebody has to be Wrong. The interior mode assumes that right now, for practical purposes, I do not see a hard Reality out there; I have to work under certain rules to function, but they are the ones I choose and others are free to make their own choices. Outwardly there is no difference between the two modes. Destructive actions are just as undesirable no matter which way you think about then. The differences are that in the interior mode other beliefs [different from actions!] are no longer an inherent threat; and you have to own up to your emotions and admit that they are the foundation of your version of reality. This eliminates much needless fear and abuse; and when we face our emotions, they can no longer victimize us in secret.

Our old structures help to keep us from acting on negative, antisocial feelings, but at the price of fear and self-loathing. They use primitive emotion against primitive emotion. I think we're grown up enough now that we no longer have to do that. If there were not positive reasons to suppress murder, for instance, it is unlikely that such taboos would be so wide spread. And we do not have to look far to see the unpleasantness of murder or imagine how allowing it would make the world less cheerful in general. I think we are now able to use our conscious mind to choose the rules we want to live by. In fact, with the old paradigms collapsing around us, we may not have a better choice.

Consciously reviewing our feelings outside the context of a hard Reality frees us from the emotional judgments that interfere with introspection. We can admit that we want to kill someone. Then we can explore that feeling to find out what this is all about. Is it something within us that we want to change? Are we somehow threatened? Is it a bad relationship we should abandon? Then we can work on healing, rather than repressing.

This applies outwardly, too. There are plenty of destructive beliefs in the world. In an outward mode of thinking, these are a threat (even if they are not acted upon). The outward mode demands that we stamp them out. This is demonizing, which encourages resistance. When we remove the fear, we can treat others like people. We can offer our help, when it's wanted, and gently insist against antisocial acts without questioning others' value as humans.

The goal becomes to establish the minimum rules of conduct and admit that they have an emotional foundation (and that this is entirely respectable). But each of our universes of experience are confusing jumbles (especially these days); thus the incredible variety of paradigms. I expect that the rules necessary for social interaction are considerably less than sufficient to replace the kind of paradigms we need to function optimally in the world.

For instance, I like many Wiccan paradigms such as the Goddess and God, reincarnation and karma. These are hardly irreplaceable for me to function socially; I choose them for their personal emotional benefit. So we if still need paradigms, we need to change our attitude about them. We should see them as personal models that we use to deal with our personal emotional universes; and each one is valid and deserving of respect.

I propose a meta-paradigm. It is a model for our models. If, as it seems, we need some sort of foundation to cement our nascent global village without losing our diversity, we can provide it with a meta-paradigm. This does not judge the validity, Truth, health, propriety, aesthetics or anything else of other people's paradigms. It encompasses them all with the rule that, we can know for ourselves, if we choose, but we cannot know for others. And it allows for minimal rules of conduct. Hashing out the details of these rules may yet be a nightmarish task, but under the meta-paradigm, we can approach it cooperatively rather than adversarially. The Thuggee, for instance, can still believe that throttling people for Kali is an honorable form of worship—the meta-paradigm does not question that—they just won't be allowed to do it. The idea that God made me do it (whether True or not) we have learned empirically is no excuse for antisocial acts. We cannot tolerate the St. Nuremberg defense. Eventually, such destructive beliefs will probably die off (as they seem to have been doing for some time now). Our world will (at worst!) be slightly poorer for the loss of diversity (oh well), but it should allow the positive beliefs to proliferate.

Do I really believe this way? Well, I can't say for sure if any of this stuff is right. But even those I respect haven't offered me any compelling reason to believe otherwise. Freed from the necessity to be Right, the door is wide open. I've been looking around at the possibilities and I'm amazed at the variety, when a few years ago I would have agreed that it was just a question of filling in the details. I'll keep looking, but I'm starting to shape some ideas that I like. I'm starting to choose some of the things I want to believe in. I'm going to give them a try and see where they lead. If it's somewhere good, I have enough confidence in humanity that I won't be alone. If it's not, I have enough confidence in myself that I'll figure that out and try again. There are so many paradigms in our world, and limitless possible ones, that I need a good meta-paradigm to help me to decide which ones will best serve my needs. As long as I'm scrupulously introspective, I believe that my choice will guide my actions such that I make a positive contribution to the world.

Blessed Be