Tag Archives: mythology

Language in the Service of Myth

20 Thursday Aug 2020

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Language is not religion and neither can there be religion without language. Religion only happens in community, which requires language. This is obvious. We think of religious language, like ‘atonement’, ‘propitiation’, ‘Holy Trinity’, ‘godhead’, etc. as the technical jargon of theologians. There is also a religious dimension to ordinary language. 

For example, when I hear the term, ‘In the beginning’ I immediately think of the opening words of the Genesis creation story. ‘The walls come tumbling down’ is an allusion to the miracle of Joshua at Jericho. In modern terms, ‘may the Force be with you’ reminds us of the cosmic Star Wars — it has almost ubiquitous resonance in American culture, as does ‘the yellow brick road’, which makes me think of Dorothy skipping along her journey. Words and phrases like these have mythic connotations and are part of everyday language. 

Many words and phrases are allusive; they refer to something beyond the literal meaning of any one word itself. The fact that a phrase makes you think of something else is core to humor and communication in general. How many times have you chuckled at inside jokes when someone makes a quote about The Office? If you’ve seen Seinfeld, just saying the phrase ‘soup Nazi’ makes the initiated smile in a way that can’t be explained by either of those words taken literally. In general any language, to be artistic and cogent, alludes to other contexts, and may be funny by way of contrast with the current context. Here, I’d like to focus on a very specific subset of those cases, i.e. when language that originated in a mythic framework gets used in daily language. 

These cases cross a boundary between the mundane and the metaphysical. It is bringing a god-framework into daily conversations in a way that keeps the myth active in the mind and soul of a believer. In some people mythology is taken as real. It could be so presented by a preacher in church to be absorbed by those desperate to believe, or by a parent reliving Santa Claus with their wide-eyed children. It might be a teenager whose head is in Middle Earth while reading Tolkien, or even a politician who desperately needs a fabricated vision of society to be real. For these people, keeping that illusion alive is very important, and injecting everyday speech with allusive references to that mythic framework is crucial. For anyone to adopt the myth, they have to see and feel its truth in someone they trust.

The myth provides hope and resolution for questions that otherwise cannot be reconciled with normal language. That tension between what we know is true and what we make ourselves believe is true needs constant attention for the elevation to persist. This is where embedding mythic references in everyday language helps. There may even be a correlation between the high or low usage of mythic language in everyday speech and the percentage of the population that are believers. I’ll leave that study to the linguists. 

What if we talked only in mythic language? There must be a subset of words and phrases that together cover 95% of what a mythic framework requires to function as such. In other words, there is a finite scope to the semantic ‘infestation’ of mythic connotations in everyday language for a specific myth. All the allusions to Christianity in Italian during the late Dark Ages, for example. That must be a large set because of the ubiquity of Christianity. 

Going further back, was there a time where all written language was only religious in a given culture? In some ancient cultures, the biggest driver for writing or depicting things was documenting the perspective of the ruling and priestly cast. Early narrative language must have been centered almost exclusively around the sacred myths. 

Of course accounting records were written for transactional and evidentiary purposes, as were the various laws, edicts and safe conduct passes. These were all written artifacts. I don’t suspect there was a market for tabloids and pulp fiction in the early civilizations when writing was expensive and only a few could actually write. Moreover, gossip, jokes, family stories, day to day conversations didn’t have to be written down. They were transacted orally only. In terms of important narratives that were written, it’s reasonable to assume that all that content was tied up with myths that had religious import. 

There might have been a time when all written language was religious, and therefore when anyone sat down to read, the immersion in myth was total. Something like this must have immersed Egyptians who saw the state mythology presented to them everywhere in hieroglyphs. Such a complete saturation of mythic imagery in language can lead a population to do whatever is required by the gods because everyone is saturated with it. If all narrative language was religious content, there must be remnants of the worldviews embedded deep in languages today. 

This brings me to a curious hypothetical experiment. Because myth-tainted terms are so crucial to the adoption and spread of a worldview, and because we want to shift world views to have content that drives sustainable behaviors, we can define a set of terms, images, phrases and metaphors that are the building blocks for new directed myths. These are not just taken at face value from a trusted prophet, but are rather purpose-driven myths based on the intent of a community.  

Let’s face it. The prophets who came up with the myths that govern billions of religious people today didn’t have the foresight to incorporate behaviors that foster sustainable existence. Manifest Destiny is implicit in the cultural mandate in the Old Testament. Often the immorality of leaders (like polygamous and murderous King David) was on a different standard than that of the rest of the believers. With that example, believers today seem to have no problem tolerating a blatantly immoral autocratic President today. Blatant racism and genocide were advocated by God in the Old Testament. A culture of war is assumed to be the normal way of life for Roman and Greek gods. Today, arms races have become very popular the world over.  

So often the legacy ‘Holy’ writ disappoints, even as we carefully cherry pick the ‘love your neighbor as yourself’ nuggets of piety out of the verbal morass that is Scripture. Let’s face it, the next generation of prophetic writers cannot be cut from the same cloth as those who gave us dominant world religions from the past. We can do better, and one way is to constrain them by providing normative context in a set of ‘toys in the sandbox’ language artifacts for them to build with. 

We can put coexistence, empathy, tolerance, grace, patience, collaboration, diligence, egalitarianism, social justice, equity, and related terms, into the sandbox. Not included in the building blocks are: war, a priestly cast, diving right of leaders, capricious gods, eternal damnation, sin, victory by the solitary hero, and more. What story new-myth authors come up with is really up to their creative genius. We don’t want to hinder the creative expression, i.e. the aesthetic language, method and experience. We want to constrain the moral principles advocated. This is teleological authoring. 

Now let’s take this experiment a little further, not only recruiting an author or two to write the backbone myth, but also recruiting a grammarian — language specialist — who can take some of the key features of the new narrative and construct a new Indo-European language based on it. It should be minimalistic and focused so we don’t get lost in the complexities of aesthetic embellishment. The new language should be close enough to common languages, like English and German, for us to ‘recognize’ the words in some strange way. We should be able to integrate it into our own language. This type of integration, by the way, is normal for language evolution. In sense, we are embedding worldview into language through the association of strong mythic connotations with new words. Like bees carrying pollen, the more these words are embedded in everyday parlance, the more endemic the myth becomes in our cultural sub-consciousness. 

This provides existing concepts with a new face and a myth-centric interpretive context that provides cultural cohesion to believers. This is absolutely required for a new myth to take hold and become a new interpretative framework because the new terms will have myth-affinity so important for a worldview to take root in a community. 

Our current culture is very diverse, and that is a good thing. When we think back to the time where myths took deep hold in society, the interpretive framework of the myth was everywhere in culture. In other words, the mythic bias was baked into the language, which made it ubiquitous. This is how worldviews won out over the competition. There is a sense where we need a sustainable world view that can win out over the unsustainable competition. The tools of language described here can be brought into the service of that mission. 

A key challenge, of course, is not creating a new instance of oppressive monocultures of myth that fossilize arcane and oppressive beliefs over time. This is where the common foundation of ‘sacred’ terms, the ‘toys’ allowed in the proverbial ‘sandbox’, may prove to be a uniting instrument because it allows for a family of myths to flourish, each riffing off a set of common values that constitute a good humanity. 

— Roy Zuniga
August 2020
Duvall, WA

A Universal Process for a Personal Worldview

02 Sunday Jul 2017

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My worldview guides me, as does yours. I believe in expressing intent as the basis for experience. This world view is also a process that can be applied by everyone. The key is to let ‘the Universe’ have its say in how our intent is fulfilled, considering the intent of others in our domain, and trusting that a suitable outcome will be orchestrated. This is fundamentally a positive outlook. It is also simple. The goal is to have humanity spend less time rationalizing manmade theological problems, and more time actually experiencing life. Nature is in danger from those who don’t know her, who don’t know how connected they really are to her.

I am approaching topics of ultimacy from the personal experience of what works. Praying to Uranthom works for me. Reflexive prayer, i.e. the notion that all spoken prayer for our own benefit, reinforces my intent. Understanding self is so important because being aligned with what makes you tick is the best possible experience for you as an existential ‘node’ in this collective and connected existence. If physical creatures can achieve a ‘heavenly’ experience on earth, why look forward to a non-corporeal existence? Consciousness without physicality is a hell. Whether our souls go to ‘Heaven’ or blend back into a mystical cosmic consciousness, I do not know. I am confident that the Universe that makes Uranthom possible will have a suitable resolution of my consciousness existence.

We get into trouble when we make ‘authoritative’ and exclusive assertions about God the way both Muslim and Christian theologians have over the ages. Conflict arises when the respective believers take the God-speculation literally and defend mutually exclusive absolutes. The line of thought that tries to define God is a dead end. We can be believers without absolutes. In this mode, all world views are necessarily individualistic, which is what I think happens anyway, even to those who believe in the ‘heaven first’ approach where guidance comes down from God.

If you find your mind caught in a web of theological conundrums, it may be helpful to trace back the chain of ideas that led to your beliefs. I did, and it led me to start fresh, from scratch. What kind of conundrums? For example, conflicting ideas about free will vs. predestination; obsession with a physical God who cannot be touched; someone we talk to but who never talks back.  Reconciling undeserved mishaps and tragedies with God’s good purpose for pious people. Talking about both love and eternal punishment in the same conversation. Advocating the never-ending exploitation of a finite earth. Advocating equality of genders while keeping the man as the ‘head.’ Preaching compassion and acceptance while attributing people’s sicknesses and disabilities to sin or laziness. Teaching forgiveness while always finding an enemy to fight. Asserting world peace is on the other side of a war. Thinking like this is making our planet sicker, and we need to change it.

Trace the origin any one of these ideas and you find they go far back, some thousands of years. The writers we read were influenced by ideas they might not properly credit. The Christian worldview goes back to the Greek philosophers, the Stoics, Christianity, kings since Charlemagne who believed in the divine right, the Protestant Reformers, and American conservatism. For example, we celebrate Easter because it recalls Christ’s death and resurrection. Why did He have to die? Shed blood was the atonement for sin. Why can blood atone? Because of pagan beliefs that God(s) demand it for transgression, and to earn favor. Why did Christ specifically have to die? Because he is God incarnate, and as such can atone all of humankind. Why does God have to be incarnate? Because of the theological tradition that requires God to be involved in human affairs, and the certainty that God(s) have to exist somewhere physically, like the Greek pantheon on Olympus. Change your worldview, and you change your destiny.

The tumor of over analyzed worldview tends to grow bigger as each generation tries to sort out one conundrum or the other, resulting in more spaghetti theology. Topics like ‘how do I stay out of hell?’ and other questions become irrelevant. That is all a huge distraction that myopic and weak-willed theologians debate ad-infinitum. Like addicts, they can no longer recognize the simple life and how good it can be. To those invested with years of study of treatises and intellectual traditions, real happiness and peace are a sign of apathy! They can not recognize a completed human being if she was sitting next to them in Sunday morning pew because such people are only expected in heaven. We could play their game and argue with every position that has been taken since Socrates. I do not have the life-energy to do that. Theology for its own sake only produces secure employment for professional mental wrestlers. We have to keep it simple. We can just snip that chain of beliefs at the source, let the weight of conundrums fall to the floor. Life goes on, and we can experiment with alternate foundational principles.

The fundamental worldview question we have to answer is ‘how should we live?’ I have arrived, for now, at a process build on existence as an experience of intent. Intent is simply an affirmation of the desired outcome. This is just a hunch, but so far, it is working for me, manifesting peace of mind and a good life. Note that intent is not the same as will. To will something implies a certain coercion, even if it is your own actions, which is a more aggressive stance that may in fact work against you.

Intent is a passive internal assertion that can be either be silent or can also be reinforced through vocalization, by saying it aloud (as in prayer). Lack of vocalization does not diminish the power of the intent. The ‘Universe’ realizes your intent based on an orchestration process that is opaque to us. I do not see the value of postulating what ‘God’ or ‘the Universe’ thinks and does since by definition it is beyond our grasp. This is why I invented the notion of Uranthom, which is my abstraction layer to what happens ‘out there’.

We express intent many times a day, thinking ‘yes I want a new shirt’, or ‘we pray for a new school for those missionaries, amen!’, or ‘I’d like to sleep in this morning’, or ‘I’d like to be paired with a woman (or man) like that’, or ‘my energy is better spent painting’, for example. We often try to execute on the intent, and this is where we should rather pause and listen to the Universe. Mindfulness is important before taking action, as is patience. I call it ‘manifesting’, which simply means that given some time for processing, those outcomes you intend will be orchestrated along with the intent of others for a more satisfactory resolution. It may not be exactly what you had in mind to start, but examining those desires in light of the outcomes, you will find a good state, one, which inevitably leads to new intent. Thus life evolves in a dialectic with Uranthom, the receptor of our expressions of intent.

If you have a communal intent, like ‘I wish to go to the ball game with my friends’, or ‘we need supporters to donate money to pay for fuel for the ship’, then expressing it helps align the intent of others. The expression can be a post on social media or a prayer in church. Because intent is bubbling up regardless of whether you are in a religious house or not, we do not distinguish between prayer and other expressions of intent. Intent that aligns with that of others is more likely to be realized. This is a driver for social awareness and political action, because, without the expression of an alignment on values, we are not likely to get our way.

Happiness comes from a realization that as you let go, and the manifestations are real, you stop being frustrated about what happens (or doesn’t happen), and start being present to recognize and enjoy goodness. This is parity for the assurance religious people feel when they believe ‘it’s all in God’s hands’. This mindset does not come overnight, especially if you are mired in the conundrums your ancestors fed you with our mother’s milk. Intent that aligns with that of others is more likely to be realized. As is intent that aligns with the progression of the Universe towards harmony, (this assertion, by the way, is an expression of my own intent). If we all share that intent, it will be. The simplicity of the model is the conscious expression (internal or external) of your intent, coupled with a letting go so ‘the Universe’ can manifest that intent.

This all sounds so simple and even mystical. What about all those conundrums that theologians and philosophers have spent lifetimes debating. Are we going to address those questions? I believe a lot of it gets sorted out on its own when you pivot on intent. For example, we don’t have to account for an all knowing God, since ‘God’ knows through our experience. I don’t believe in a God object, a person-like entity who somehow both sits on a throne and at the same time knows everything everywhere and has all power as Christian doctrine affirms. God may, in fact, have some of those attributes, but it is in a distributed fashion.

It is my hunch – and you don’t have to believe this, it’s just my way of dealing with categories of thought that need an accounting – that the ‘the Universe’ achieves omnipresence and omniscience through physical instances of people and other creatures who are embedded within it. ‘Creation’ is a mechanism for self-discovery. Good and evil are really just relative ideas based on the quality of the outcome of intent. Suffering is not a consequence of sin, but rather a consequence of intent and actions that don’t align with a viable existence. Mistaken experiments fail, people learn and change their intent. Look at the Chinese stance towards pollution. They have gone from not caring about it to engineering forest cities. We just have to learn from misguided policies, improve, and move onward towards a healthy expression of a society that doesn’t leave people behind.

Predestination is a moot point, since you are the agent of destiny, if you intend it, it was meant to be. As you realize it, it is also known. As the universe experiences and understands itself through each one of us, this universal consciousness grows. As we expand our experience, we expand the instantiation of knowledge of that area. And we move on. Now don’t ask me about the mechanics of all this. It’s just a myth that helps me explain things I don’t understand, as all good myths do. All this assumes positive intent and has yet to be proven. What will be the intent that wins out in an over-populated world?

Now don’t ask me about the mechanics of all this. It’s just a myth that helps me explain things I don’t understand, as all good myths do. All this assumes positive intent and has yet to be ultimately proven good by humanity. What intent will win out in an over-populated world?

Since you are so important in this whole evolutionary process, it is important to understand the criteria by which you affirm intent. This is the domain of values. Decisions are based on what you consider worthwhile. Some of these are instinctual and innate. We naturally want intimacy or a fun night out with the guys (or gals). We dote on our children by nature. Some behaviors are learned. We defer to elders, distrust strangers or hate to accept help from others. Some values are ideological, such as patriotism and loyalty to a class structure.

Good values come from a common humanity. Despite all the theological conundrums, good values undergird every major religion and provide the redemptive glue that gives them longevity. This is where ‘culture forming’ or ‘cultural engineering’ come into play. What you call it depends on your temperament, but the gist is the same: we understand the dynamics of how humans internalize worldviews, i.e. through prevalent myths, which program the depths of the mind that impact the process and scope of decision making. The arts define these myths, and thus through art, we can change the operating system of the psyche.

As I’ve written elsewhere, Community Mythology is a technique that uses the arts to ‘craft’ a world view into a culture. The idea is that we collectively agree on the set of behaviors, and their underlying values, our common humanity, as colored by the experience of mistaken communities of the past (such as the Nazi experiment). A group comes to mythic awareness by recognizing when cultural artifacts, such as movies, advertising, and political rhetoric are impacting their value system. Awareness is the pre-requisite to a conscious decision process, a kind of ‘pre-qualification’ of the values we let into our intentional decision making. Allowing certain values into our lives is itself an intent.

Make no mistake about it, this a powerful ideological cocktail. The power of the Universe is harnessed with intent, and intent shapes its destiny with humans. Mis-guided collective intent results in ‘evil’, and people consequently suffer. Properly guided intent results in goodness for all those involved. Based on values we deem to be sacred, we have to express our intent, and then, as the saying goes, let go ‘and let God’.

— Roy Zuniga
Langley, WA

Creating Mythic Art

21 Saturday Feb 2015

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So far I have been looking at myth-making from the perspective of how communities can ‘re-program’ themselves to implement more sustainable behaviors. We can think of this as the ‘human software’ role for myth. The theory is people will empathize with mythic heroes on their journeys and mimic their decision making when faced with analogous circumstances.

However, there is another role for myth as a way to connect to ‘the world behind’, or ‘the other plane’. In this view, myth is the portal, the mystical means by which we can make things right with the gods, and in so doing enhance our spiritual survival. In other words, we go from mythology as a systematic and somewhat objective study of the stories of culture, to a faith-full ‘mythism’. This is a belief in the power of the myth itself. In Campbell’s terms, myth gives you ‘a line to connect with that mystery which you are.’

If we take either one of the approaches without considering the other, we miss out. Focusing on the hereafter without regard to the planet does not lead to integral living: as the planet sours, the daily reality of living contrasted with the spiritual journey towards bliss causes us to live with tension, dissonance and conflict. All sorts of dysfunctions result, including the creation of artificial environments, denial, retreat, escapism and even hatred. Some of the most vitriolic chronic ‘haters’ are those who feel others have come in between them and their journey to bliss.

On the other hand, while focusing on the here and now can help organize and clean up society, it doesn’t address the basic human need for meaning and an explanation of the soul’s afterlife. Do we have to choose between approaches? I think not.

The duality between the pragmatic behavior-focused approach and the spiritual journey has something in common: sacred stories. For community myth-making, these are the stories that hold our core values as exemplified by normative behaviors. For the spiritual pilgrim, these very same stories hold the metaphorical images and concepts that provide a connection with the gods and their normative behaviors. Align the two and we have the formula for cultural transformation. Myths give us the sense that today’s acts can be brought in line with how things are done on the higher plane. It’s imperative, therefore, that we align our mythical world with what life on earth should be. What does that look like?

Myths are all around us and every culture has them, but where do they come from? I dare say none of us has invented a widely adopted sacred story (yet). Let’s face it, we’re not accustomed to bootstrapping our sacred myths. Historically, no one person invents a religion; even if it came from a founder or prophet, it only has the legs the community choses to give it. In other words, myths are community creations. Given the need to elevate our behaviors, we can think of the process in three phases:

Three Phases of Myth Making

  1. Sacred Values: We need the notion of sacred values and behaviors, and this is best defined by the community itself. We really do know the answers; we just have to agree and write them down.
    • This is actually not that hard. It starts with mythic awareness, and then coming together to define themes for change.
  2. Myth Framework: We need the masters of metaphors, those who actually create the allegorical imagery and story that we can use to re-program ourselves.
    • This is perhaps the most important phase because it will scope the realization of the myth. Mythical art expresses a shared purpose.
    • The a-priori to mythical art is the shared story. The narrative phase, therefore, is a necessary pre-requisite. This is why we stress the need for a story framework early on in the community myth-making process, which is just a natural expression of a shared belief.
  3. Artistic Myth-crafting: After this come the execution, or creative phase.
    These three phases are described in more detail at Cultera.org.

Artists are the myth realizers – making sacred stories tangible, a necessary pre-requisite to belief. Think about the dimensions of illusion here. For example, a two dimensional surface (the canvass with paint) provides an illusion for a three dimensional form. If the work is figurative, we can infer another dimension, namely the sense of presence of a personality when done well (like a Rembrandt portrait), a fourth dimension. Moreover, if it provides a sense for time past or alternate worlds, we have a fifth dimension (like allegorical art on the Sistine Ceiling). So far we have described qualities what many great works in museums have. They are not necessarily mythical without additional context. The next dimension is narrative context and symbolic meaning. This is what puts art in the realm of myth. The sixth dimension is the portal to the world behind the world, and it’s actually something the viewer brings to the work, i.e. a knowledge of the story. Art has these six dimensions is mythical.

With mythical art, the artist is facilitator of transcendence. Connecting with ‘the world behind’ actually validates current decisions when they are seen as consistent of the laws of that other world, as revealed by mythical art, which by the way, can include dance. Artists with community-sacred values are to be valued as a myth-crafters, those who create the means of collective healing and transformation.

Artists don’t have to dress as priests, mediate and set themselves apart from carnal desires in order to create this sacred art. In fact, it’s not really about the artists themselves. Myths will do their work regardless. It’s the job of the artists to be faithful to the theme and express in the works a heartfelt conviction. This view of the artist, while not new to civilization, is strange to the modern mind.

On a personal note, I’ve come full circle from being an artist who threw away his paint brush to preach a reductionistic gospel of Jesus Christ during two years as a missionary back in the early 1980s, to one who now advocates an expansive vision for making myths as communities write their own gospels, which serve functions of religion. What’s more, this process requires artists to pick up their paint brushes, chisels, pens, musical instruments and whatever other art crafting tools they have at their disposal.

This is trippy because the traditional missionary comes to a people with a message, and seeks to find an aesthetic way to present the pre-conceived – and often ancient – pathways to God. In our new practice, we don’t come with the message – that is the responsibility of the local community. No, we come with a methodology for letting them create their own and helping artists understand the crucial role of mythic art. This pre-supposes a great faith in humanity.

— Roy Zuniga
Feb. 2015 – Langley, WA

copyright © 2015 roy zuniga – all rights reserved

Values Spawn Religion  

06 Sunday Apr 2014

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We often think of religion as the source of our values. We can’t leave Christianity (or Buddhism, or Islam, or Judaism) because we’d cast adrift into a morass of values, not all of which are good. We think of religions as a safe place, where we can come back to – a place where the pastors and leaders can set us straight if we wander, just as they themselves can be set straight if they wander. All of this is based on the values and principles in the Holy Book of whatever religion we follow.

Yet as many of us grow old in religion, we come to realize that we tend to filter, interpret and otherwise mold ‘religious’ and ‘righteous’ practices to conform with how we want to behave. We do largely what we want and pay lip service to a religion. At some point we are living our own interpretation – and if the particular denomination doesn’t suit our taste, we move on to find one that does. In fact, you can become more conservative or liberal at will by joining a church that gives it legitimacy. We fool ourselves into thinking we are obeying God by conforming to the church, forgetting all too quickly that we chose that church. It conformed to us – or our parents we inherited it from – before we conformed to it.

Given this reality, what have we to fear leaving a religion? Do we really lose values if in fact our values have driven the choice of church? Do values and principles in fact go deeper than religion? I suspect they do, and that religions are a way of codifying values and behaviors for a society. Religion is a way of aligning a group of individuals towards the same shared behaviors.

It only follows then, that we can and should come together with kindred spirits and likewise create our own structures and norms to codify the desired behaviors. Creating a religion is not playing God; on the contrary, it is very human. The values that drive it, however, should aspire toward a positive greater good. Where do these noble values come from ultimately? Whether instilled by a divine breath or simply the evolution based on the benefits they deliver, their well spring is the human heart.

The dynamics of religion, then, is about the dynamics of shared values and their manifestation into a socially sacred culture.

— copyright Roy Zuniga 2014

Creating the Greatest Art

16 Sunday Feb 2014

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by Roy Zuniga

Art has an impact. Without someone actually being touched by the work, who can say a painting is art? If it’s not perceived then it is just another object reflecting light. Any item can be seen; beauty is perceived. Art’s essential meaning does not register on a light sensor. Neither does everyone who views a work of art actually perceive its artistic import. The presence we think of being ‘in’ the work is actually only in the viewer’s mind – there is no objective presence in the paint and canvass. Of course, without a work there’s nothing to respond to. Light may reflect from the unobserved art like the sounds of the proverbial unwatched tree falling. Perception of the work as art is everything, which makes judging great art very subjective.

To excel as artists, we need to know what makes truly great art. This actually depends on what we value as individuals, which correlates to what we have learned to value as a culture. Cultural values can go sideways and degenerate. The question should really be ‘what great values should art embody well?’ These question forces us to think about what we need to value going forward as a population, and what stories are we going to develop to ingrain them in our psyche.

Myths, which carry a peoples fundamental beliefs, are manifested through art. Great art in turn has impact by embedding those cultural values and behaviors in our being. In other words, there is cycle that perpetuates certain values, with each generation spinning old myths in a new format. Think of how many incarnations of American superheroes have manifested themselves over the years.

We all participate in this cycle but many of us are not aware of how it’s working on us. Art is central. Impact art and you impact culture and ultimately civilization. Art can be an entry point for change to impact more suitable economic, technical or political decisions. Make people aware of values driving culture, and we have a wedge into this cycle of myth that allows us to adjust the direction of observer’s future choices.

Thus answering the question of what art is, and what great art should be, starts with identifying subjective values that are great. For me, having a sense of connectedness is a supremely good value to have. As do most people, I value a connection with other human beings and creation. This is the foundation for co-existence and long term sustainability. Of course as humans we connect best with our own kind. In my mind, the greatest art has to be the great portraits and figurative works that connect us with the personalities portrayed. So to me, a great work is:

Figurative art that makes us feel we are facing a personality.

To understand this higher calling for the artist, it will help to sort out some of the dimensions that make art excellent, and understand which dimension specifically takes art to that higher level:

  1. Historical import: art valued for its historical role and impact, not just for the merits of the work as art. Like classic cars, the value of the work increase because of scarcity and historical context.
  2. Technical mastery of the artist: the work astonishes us with innovation, competence, skill, execution of the paint and materials.
  3. Subject matter expertise: the work demonstrates deep knowledge of anatomy, perspective, foliage, topography, engineering, etc.
  4. Formal interest: The composition, how the eye is directed by shapes and teased by color, texture, perspective, golden proportions, balance, dynamism, etc. all work together for maximum impact in relation to the concept of the image.
  5. Narrative curiosity: the subject matter makes us think about events and a story. For example, it betrays the artist’s struggle, a fairy tale plot line or someone’s success. Something in the work’s subject or how it’s rendered elicits an involuntary response brings us into the context of the work emotionally. The rendering of a beggar boy, or little girl with a bird for example.
  6. Personal presence:  the most elusive quality – the work of art instigates the perception of a personal presence. Think master portrait. We come to respect and even empathize with the subject. That’s part of the beauty of portraits; the only sensitivity required is the ability to recognize other people!

It’s the last one – personal presence – which I’m most interested in. The others can be acquired through study and practice. Rendering personal presence, however, is a sort of alchemy that enables all kinds of mystical scenarios and raises questions about existence. Before we get into that, however, let’s review some of the dimensions of art that no matter how great don’t add up to great art on their own.

1. A dimension that I don’t think is a defining characteristic of the greatest art is historical import. The analogy is of course classic cars. Rare cars are more valuable because of how much of the original car is actually there, not by how well they function. Knock-offs made today my look just as good and be lighter, more efficient, safer, quieter, etc. and still not be worth what a fragile original is. Same for art – the perceptive impact of a medieval painting could be lesser than the work of a modern master, but because of its historical import, the medieval work could be worth more. It may have been the first painting to show two point perspective, for example.  

2. Neither is the differentiator having absolute mastery of the illusion. A pencil, a fruit, a hat, a bowl may seem to pop off the surface. We admire what a skilled craftsman can do and may be tempted to try the technique ourselves; after all, if it’s rational, it can be learned. We marvel at these works in the same way we marvel at fine woodworking or precise engineering. Aesthetic delight is in acknowledging the elevated actions of other humans, which somehow projects back on us. Ultimately a heroic effort on a ten foot hyper-realistic portrait is only that unless it also connects with our souls.

3. Medical text books have amazing art that illustrate anatomy in detail. Artistic anatomy books display a mastery of surface anatomy. Yet neither of these in and of themselves translate into us feeling a human connection with the subject matter, although the greatest masters demonstrate knowledge of human anatomy. The reverse is of course true. We may feel a presence in the work – a real empathy and connection at an emotional level. However, if the anatomy is off, we take points off.

4. The key differentiator is not the work’s ability to fool the mind into reacting as if it were encountering something. The mind assesses warm and cool greys and evaluates one to be ‘in front’, for example. The same for colors that are said to be acidic, hot, cool, airy, peaceful, etc.  Invoking these associations are an important tool in the artist’s kit. However, in and of themselves these stimulated associations are not the key differentiator. Advertisers use similar techniques to sell products and vacations. And a great work might be devoid of strong visual stimulation.

Neither do formal techniques differentiate great art. As artists we use all sort of gimmicks to trigger involuntary responses, like embedding primal geometry and the golden mean in the composition. Our mind can’t help but perceive the underlying structure, and this creates interest. It’s a way to hold attention on a work that otherwise might not have real depth of content we can connect to. In this category are letters in the background that we can’t help reading any more than a billboard when we’re stopped at a red light. Puzzles that work our sub-conscious can be delightful, and certainly a master portrait that also works in this dimension will be even more fascinating.

5. In a similar vein, an artist might leave marks in paint that are a testament to struggle, which is interesting as a biographical note, and fascinate us, pulling us into the drama. This pricks our curiosity about the plight of the artist and what he was thinking about and struggling with. The wrestled work provides an opportunity for empathy for the audience to be sure.

Aesthetic delight can also come from interpreting symbols in works, like detectives deciphering a Da Vinci code. We want to look for meaning in shapes, animals, coats of arms, etc. Investigative delights can certainly augment the aesthetic experience, as in for example, van Eyck’s ‘The Arnolfini Marriage’ painted in 1434. We can respond at many levels – the wedding narrative invokes our curiosity about the commitment; the symbolism of the dog, the slippers, etc.; the discovery of reflections in the mirror; the sublime execution and richness of contrasting red and green colors all provide us with entertainment. However, do we really feel we know the souls people represented? Or just that we know about them via the symbols?

6. I also don’t believe the greatest art can be achieved without a human component we can empathize with. Sure there are amazingly intimate still life painting like those of Richard Schmidt or Daniel Keys. However, the best still life painting dims when compared to an encounter with a portrait by Rembrandt or Velazquez because we, as humans, value an encounter with a real person above the encounter with a real fruit bowl.

The experience I’m referring to is not instigated empathy, i.e. like the feelings elicited by someone who is tugging your heart strings to get attention. That is not the highest calling for art because it is no more an encounter with a personality than passing by someone on the street whom we might feel for, but don’t deeply engage with. That’s not to say you can’t have a deep engagement through a great portrait of a beggar. That would happen despite the trappings of the subject’s circumstances.

So we’ve seen what can make for great art, but not what I’m really after with understanding the greatest art – art that you can connect with in your soul. When I encounter a Rembrandt or Velazquez portrait I feel a connection the person depicted. This experience is repeatable, although it will vary from observer to observer. What are we connecting to? There is no breathing person there. Here’s where it gets mysterious. If the significance in the recognition, then is the perception of an art work a kind of soul revival? Does it matter if the original subject doesn’t really get any benefit from our adulation of a work about the person? Does art truly immortalize?

Great art has a type of spirit that comes to life when you observe it. If you’ve ever stood mesmerized in front of a Sargent, then you know something is there you can relate to as a person. It would be creepy if it wasn’t so wonderful. Reflected light doesn’t make art; our perception of an entity does. A full experience of art is somewhat mystical, and thus hard to define.

Figurative art that betrays a presence that cannot be explained by a scientific language that only understands paints and canvass as objects, pigments and chemicals. We need a more metaphorical language. The great paintings function as a unit, with a spirit that comes to life as it is observed and internalized. Your attention is what animates it; but the work must first hook you, and it does so with one or more of the visual techniques described above. Look away and it lives not. Look back and it is there engaging you with the intensity only you can throttle. Great art will give to you as long as you let it.

If people are not sensitized to understand and interpret what is before them, art is ineffective, diminished. Thus, paradoxically, the greatest art can only be created in partnership with an audience. No matter how good the work, it won’t be great with an audience of one. When one takes art history, learns the vocabulary of art and visit museums, you are in fact sustaining the art. When the public ceases to participate, the works have no beauty. They revert to being a collection of colorful molecules. As values change, old masterpieces may just fade away. Does that matter? If they were masterpieces to a past generation, does it diminish the works if they are not so to today’s viewers? What value is there in being a historical footnote saying that at some point in time, art we ignore was once valued?

Those who can educate the faithful about what counts in art are very powerful, like the priests of old who educated the religious on what god is and how to worship his attributes. We tend to think of masterworks as having a fixed value. In reality, they are more like stock options, but instead of price fluctuating by demand, the true impact of art fluctuates by the number of people who can perceive them, and the quality they assign to that perception. Perhaps this explains why modern art works can exact such high prices – there is a group that nurtures the appreciation of the works and thus makes them more valuable. However, our institutions have it all wrong if they think a small elite can determine worthiness and masterworks.

There’s a certain protective entitlement of artifacts in museums that, rightly or wrongly, is not tied to any broader audience-impact index. There are many who consider contemporary artists as great as, or even greater than, the pantheon of the ancients. If display space in publicly funded art facilities went to work being appreciated, I suspect we would still see Rembrandts and Sargents, as people still connect to them. But alongside these we would likely see the work of modern masters like Kassan, Assael, Shanks and Liberace.

To appreciate the art, the audience itself must hone its ability to perceive. Wherever you live, you don’t have to go far to enhance your sensibilities. Visit the local farmers market and take time to see the colors, the textures, the smells, the sounds. Pick up objects and feel them. Say hi to the soapmaker and wonder at the materials used. Take it to the next level and open a paint box, look at subject matter and start responding. Study the color transitions on a peach, discern the violet shades in an evening shadow crossing the way, and reveal the warm tones on a blushing cheek, and use highlights and edge to describe where bones meet flesh. A shadow may look grey to you at first, but with every differentiated thought you open up your ability to perceive and translate that insight into paint so that others can perceive as well.

Taken to its highest calling, perception must go beyond invoking the deliciousness of a peach or the sensuousness of a nymph. As in real life, deeper satisfaction comes from establishing a relationship. The ability to discover a person and generate the same response in others through paint is the highest level of art. It goes without saying that to be able to invoke the perception of a personality, the artist himself has to be able to perceive the subject. There are of course varying degrees of perception; not all people can empathize with others or develop deep friendships.

For example, John Singer Sargent’s letters a full of anecdotes about his sitters personalities and lives. Taking a class with David Kassan, one of the things that struck me was the conversation he has with his models. It’s prodding, playful, getting them to respond, to reveal character. It’s no co-incidence that many of his masterful portraits are in fact of people he knows really well, like relatives. You can tell when an artist views his models as mere subject matter, interesting and human for sure, but without a personal connection the end result is a depiction only, without that presence we recognize in the greats. This is the mystery of viewing great master works – there’s a transcendent dimension that creates a presence of character. Perhaps this is why the great portraitist John Singer Sargent was said to require many sittings with his subjects and reportedly scrapped of his canvasses as many as 25 times. It’s not that he couldn’t render a convincing likeness; it’s that he was capturing the ineffable personality of the sitter.

There is a direct correlation between the artist’s capacity for empathy and the ability to create great portraits. The key qualification of an artist is the ability to both perceive the person in the subject, and also stimulate a similar perception in others. A personal encounter is a pre-requisite to rendering a personality. How many introverted artists are capable of this? Do we have to be emotionally maturity to create great art? Certainly we find the time to master techniques. But to encounter a person, we ourselves have to be present, in the moment, and open to understanding the other person. Thus the requirement to perceive first and foremost brings us face to face with the issue many of us avoid by being isolated and absorbed in our own creative process. How we can we socialize? You have to take a genuine interest in other people to be a great portraitist.

By way of negative example, let’s look at those who had trouble connecting, like a Gauguin or Van Gogh. Yes they painted portraits, but more often than not it’s a rendition of modern alienation. You feel a presence, but not necessarily one you can connect to. Van Gogh is better remembered for his landscapes.

Having a relationship with the subject is not as easy as it might sound. Artists study objects. Some instructors tell us to put emotion aside and focus on perceiving the color, form and light. When we get into execution mode, we are responding to things and visual phenomena. We are not thinking about perceiving a soul necessarily. And while we have to get proficient with the machinery of creation, at some point we have get beyond the create-observe dynamic and actually understand the subject and the essential soul/spirit quality we want to instigate in the work. This takes a relationship, which is controlled emotional effort.

When subject friends are not available, the artist may turn to herself in the mirror. When the artist does a portrait, there are really three personalities in the room:

  1. The artist/creator/discoverer – which requires perception
  2. The responder observer – the artist as he steps back to experience the work and judge it to make adjustments
  3. The subject – the person being discovered, i.e. the perceived one

Amazing art has been made just with the first two. Going beyond critical execution to cultivating and understanding the third role is required for making a painting all it can be.

The idea that self-awareness impacts our ability to relate to others and thereby also create great art puts the self-portrait in a new light. When you look at a Rembrandt self-portrait, you are almost gazing into the looking glass that he saw. In his eyes, a depth of understanding and realization that is ineffable, that can only be realized with a gaze eye to eye with a knowing person. The subject is looking at us – or more specifically, looking at me (or you individually). Yet we see the record of the Creator in the room.

Rembrandt the painter has left a stamp on Rembrandt the subject with all the expressive texture on his countenance. The act of painting, secondary in importance yet so very evident, is catching our attention as it catches the light as we look into soulful eyes looking back at us. We understand subconsciously those painted eyes have been looking back at others for centuries. Hundreds, maybe thousands of others. This is a humane moment because, after all, it is the vulnerable Rembrandt we are understanding intuitively, face to face. The 16th century man ‘lives’ making eye contact with us.

To instigate this presence of personality we have to put energy into the material itself. There’s a certain transference of our perception into the material itself that renders it for others. The modern scientific mind can’t explain this.

Medieval alchemists had a special way of looking at the stuff they mixed. They observed properties and behaviors of things and made associations accordingly. They assumed inaccurately that things that behave similarly are made of the same primal stuff. They didn’t have the science to know, for example, that lead is not an immature form of gold because they are both heavy and relatively soft. Alchemists didn’t have the periodic chart, but they did have a systematic approach to their studies, which included gaining insights by observation. They imputed meaning to chemical reactions and interpreted them, trying to gain insight into creation that would allow them to tinker with it.

Likewise, artists view colors in less of a scientific sense, but more in terms of meaning. Artists look for the message of the visual sensations caused by the brush tracks in the paint. Certainly the closer the medium of representation aligns with the thing represented – like brush strokes that mimic skin texture as in a Rembrandt portrait, or a flowery field in a Monet – the more coherent the presentation is and the less the formal aspects get in the way of perception of an illusion.

The continuity of presentation from texture to a human presence is mystical. To the artistic mind there is magic in painting because the medium presents itself simultaneously with the ‘spirit’ in the work in a synchronous duality. The artist is putting mystery into the work by invoking a ‘spirit’ in the work. This is not rational. The artist is able to conjure beings and their new essences at will, placing her on the same side of creativity as God.

‘In the beginning . . .
the earth was formless and void,
and darkness was over the surface of the deep . . .
and God said, ‘Let there be light,’
and there was light.’

— Genesis

To create the universe God, it seems, just needed light before starting to push things around on a surface to make the rest of creation. White light is and has been the energy that makes art possible. Without it we have no images; the surface is ‘formless and void’, it cannot be perceived. With light, the pigments we push around come to life with color, form, symbol and even a spirited presence. Light is energy. We are energy workers manipulating base materials like paint, wax, clay, marble and bronze that reflect and refract the light. Art is not religion: it is creation. With great portraiture, the artist imposes her will on White Light, crafting a personality on the surface of the deep. 

 

copyright 2014 roy zuniga – all rights reserved 

A Dance of Minds

27 Saturday Apr 2013

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The Mona Lisa’s enigmatic smile has long intrigued onlookers. It’s no secret that Da Vinci had features conform to geometry. The attraction therefore probably has something to do with the automatic response within our brain that can’t help but to recognize familiar shapes like letters and basic geometric shapes like circles and squares. Psychologists like Daniel Kahneman have long recognized this type of behavior in the ‘fast thinking system’ of our mind. There’s also a more control-oriented slow thinking system.

We all know how much the Renaissance artists like to put the human body within circles, squares and special rectangles like ones based on the golden mean. This applied to features of the face as much as it did to the entire human figure, as illustrated by Da Vinci’ Vitruvian man. The work of art becomes more intriguing because our minds can read it on two levels at once: geometric shapes that our minds just recognize involuntarily, and the human features which are also of special interest to other humans. The Mona Lisa is enigmatic because she’s both geometry and a human likeness, and these play into each other seamlessly. The flawless execution does also appeal to our slow mind’s appreciation of technique. Thus our fascination is due in part to our brain’s involuntary recognition of geometry. This recognition is effortless because those patterns do not have to be ‘checked’ by the slow thinking system that serves as a control function on our impulses.

Snapping your artistic compositions to well-liked geometry is a gimmick that will help your work become more intriguing. I call it a gimmick because it plays on the involuntary recognition system in our fast brain. Today, master Atelier programs and their literature go on extensively about geometry in master works. Several of the masters I’ve observed painting do in fact create the underlying geometry as a structure for their art. Our minds like order and recognizable shapes of manageable sizes (why else do we artificially break the surface of large window panes into a smaller grid in homes?). Music likewise has cadence and rhythm that adds a natural structure to the work. Like a person with wooden heels walking near you on a hard floor – you can’t help but listen to the ‘tac tac tac tac’ rhythm of the person walking. Like it or not you have to listen. Isn’t that annoying sometimes?

This is of course stagecraft designed to spell bind us. There’s a sense of power achieved when our involuntary attention is commanded. At this level, however, it is all very superficial and of no lasting consequence. It’s just a gimmick to get our attention. Part of the allusive power of art, I think, is the reference to the instantly recognizable. At this level, however, it is a ‘brainless’ allusion because we don’t really have to think to recognize it. A passage of music will remind us of a bird song, or running herd, or impending tempest, or a deep sentiment or sweet emotion. The appeal of art in part is this unavoidable reference to something that is both familiar and also presented in a new cultured, civilized form. Like wild cat strutting in a circus ring, we can safely observe without being at risk. Art takes references – whether it is a benign circle conforming a face, or the deep pathos in the eyes – and presents them in a cultured, safe and civilized form.

The great artist is a ringmaster who has taken forms ‘out in the wild’ that we can’t help but respond to and ‘tamed’ them for us to view. Disconnected from their natural context, the works are an affirmation of our ability to control, to civilize and subordinate. As such they appeal to the ego because our intent as individuals and a society is to rule and subdue, to culture and civilize. Art, like technology, is an affirmation of our ability to tame the wild, to re-order it to our liking. Powerful art preys on our fast thinking brain’s commitment to recognition. It is also an affirmation of our ability to subordinate both the subject matter in the painting, and the captive viewers. We celebrate great art. How do we direct this compulsive behavior into channels that are sustainable? Since we’ve mis-ordered out world with economies that are not sustainable for the long term, new art can help us change the content of our liking and hopefully influence our civilizing choices going forward. Can art, which is arguably sustainable, play a role channeling humanity’s unquenchable passion for subordination?

In any case, our fast and slow thinking minds are in a constant dance in daily life. The fast system responds intuitively, and the slow system checks judgments against statistics and evidence. The slow mind serves as a correcting and control function, and if it has to work too hard, depletes our ego, our energy. Incidentally, because our mind requires more calories when it’s working hard, eating glucose can restore some of the energy. Alternatively, getting drunk will shut down the corrective function for those who want to forget about reality for a while.

My hunch is that art also shuts down the corrective function in our mind and thus gives us an escape, albeit healthier one than alcohol. Slow thinking usually checks our behavior for reasons of survival. If we are in a safe environment, like a theater, a museum or a church, we know our existence is not at risk. If the content before us is art, be it dance, opera, a play, an orchestra or works of art, our slow thinking system can ‘kick off its shoes’ and relax without being shut down completely. That’s the wonder of great art: we can be fully engaged cognitively, but not depleting our egos through a conflict with an over-active control function. The self-preservation imperative is suspended.

With art, as with religion, you step into a fantasy world where the thunder never has lightning that can strike you, wild animals can’t eat you and the villains won’t kill you. Observing art, both fast and slow systems are active. The slow system is examining the technique, the media, the color scheme, and the flawless execution without having to worry about interrupting the fast thinking mind with existence threatening alerts. The fast mind is reading familiar shapes and coming to quick conclusions about what the art work is really saying. The allusive nature of art means that the ego can project its own interpretation of the meaning of the subject matter, or reject it outright. In either case, we are in control in a way that affirms the ego. Part of the delight of art, it seems, is both the celebration of those who civilized forms and presented them to us within a silver frame, and at the same time the choice to interpret and even outright reject it. Art snobbery indicates a healthy ego.

The notion of vicarious enjoyment of timeless memories is the subject of a mini-mythology I wrote called ‘The Land of Serene.’ There, people’s packaged troubles plunge on rafts over the waterfall of Utter Darkens, where deprived of time in the light-less depths, their memories have risen again weightlessly in the mist to the forests and fields above to intoxicate the wandering Feathermen. These people have lost touch with their current reality, inhaling the timeless memories, vicariously participating without any personal risk or involvement. They are immersed and fascinated by actual memories, but not afflicted by any context or consequence.  The behavior of the Feathermen is a metaphor for our obsessive need to escape. One way we do this is by participating in the conflicts of others without getting hurt, through so many soap operas and dramatic programming.

Museums and churches are both safe places to just ‘be’ and contemplate. Art has a place in both as a catalyst for vicarious enjoyment. In the case of the Catholic Church it is the troubles of the saints, the innocence of the Virgin and the resurrection of the Savior. Like the Feathermen, overly religious worshippers never step out of the intoxicating effect of those stories, and they completely take over their judgments. Somehow the control function is overridden or re-programmed, and every spontaneous reaction has a religious filter. The same can be said for anyone who has been ‘brainwashed’ into an alternative worldview. In some the manifestation is good works; for others the manifestation is destructive violence. Art taken to this level should be a controlled substance.

Every religious person is a Featherman to some extent, as is anyone who cannot step out of a mythology. Joy in Eternal Life is the realization that the disconnect from current reality afforded by the religious experience will persist forever! In that sense, a mythic experience is a taste of eternity. The mythic mind is incredibly powerful, able to override slow thinking’s control functions.

The Serene narrative is a story used to explain the experience of the mythic mind. It is a recursive art-about-art allusion intended to help the overly religious recognize their state. It has little chance of success if those with a mythic mind can’t step into a new myth. It is almost as if we have a limited capability for overriding the control functions, although some of us have managed to rewire that programming through self-conversion (as discussed in my previous article). The Feathermen story should be a mirror for us to recognize that we can leave reality with all its existence threatening situations in favor of an alternative one. The proper behavior, however, is not to leave permanently, but rather use the mechanism of myth to program new controls into our slow thinking. Our will has to let in new facts and statistics that support the right behaviors. These data points are woven together with a narrative that abides ready at hand whenever our fast mind requires them to support a judgment. The narrative serves as an indexing function to identify the instance in the story arch we find ourselves, and pull up the appropriate response based on the prior mythic programming.

It takes an extraordinary act of the will to replace a deeply engrained narrative with a new one. This is especially true the more life decisions we have tied to the old narrative. The techniques of community mythology are designed to facilitate change as a group, where it’s safer and there’s a support structure. Art plays the crucial role because it isolates us from the survival pattern that can forbid consideration of alternate control functions. Through art we can safely explore the new narrative and its emotions and behaviors until we accept and internalize it. Then later we can sort out the implications for survival decisions. There’s more than one way to make a living.

The artistic process is an incubation space for newborn mythologies that will provide a new backbone from which we can hang reality facing facts later. Yet, instead of having an ideologue indoctrinate us with a new narrative and supporting facts, however, with community mythology we do it to ourselves. Artists are particularly adept at this because they frequently start with a blank canvass and create a world. We should all learn to have the will of an artist and create a safe normative narrative. Hollywood does this all the time, however, their output is usually not suitable for programming behaviors that lead to a sustainable existence for all.

Transformation can happen on an individual level based on shared values. In other words, the conscientious individual who knows what the sustainable life is can create great art that supports those values. However, without a shared narrative that is adopted as a community myth, the impact is good but limited. Star status of an individual can help spread the message further, and ironically several Hollywood celebrities who starred in mindless movies have taken on good causes outside of their art. It should be the other way around – the ‘mindless’ movies should support the good causes.

How do you create art that has a sustainment agenda without making it didactic? All art has an agenda, and good art is allusive, leaving room for interpretation. The trick is to steer the user’s consciousness in a general direction, baking in some assumptions as part of the framework of the work of art.  For example, making holy people appear skinny and in rags or fat and well-dressed betrays an assumption about the nature of holy work. The first one presupposes a vow to poverty; the other hints at divine responsibility of the powerful to do good works. In other words, the scope of interpretation is in fact bounded.

If we subordinate our will to one world view or the other, we will enjoy the work and go along with it. If we reject it, we reject the work. In either case, viewing art is a safe experience, and we have time to consider both without any existential threat, and make our decision. The community mythology process is about picking and affirming the underlying world view assumptions explicit for artists. They can and must still be allusive and create aesthetically rich works, complete with geometric gimmicks if needed. But they do it within bounds, and the saturation afforded by all these works when presented in a safe environment will help viewers consider the message and internalize a new normative narrative, which ultimately results in new control points that impact our daily choices for a sustainable future.

 

— Roy Zuniga
    Kirkland, WA
    April 2013

Copyright 2013 Roy Zuniga

Self-directed Conversion

15 Monday Apr 2013

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We need to get together and canonize a set of values (that are aligned with goodness) we believe are the universal way forward. There should be a process to ratify them around the world and have them be the holy foundation upon which each culture can create their own stories. In other words, a peace pack of good intent.

What would that look like? Let’s use our imaginations and fast forward to a possible future. Obviously timing of the creation and ratification would be centrally managed, and there would be central guidance on how to do it. We want to avoid creating another hierarchical organization, of course. Execution is naturally de-centralized, starting probably with house groups all around the country (and the world). Outcomes would need to be clearly defined, and there would be a certification process because the values selected would become binding in some way, and normative. A federated set of web sites can help communicate these values to other groups around the world so we all can learn from each other.

The stories that flow from these value sets can and will vary tremendously in content and quality. Regional clusters of cultural traditions will spring up, depending on the local talent, written and visual traditions, etc. Cultural exchanges will happen across communities on a new set of Holidays established for this purpose. There will be a cadence to the year, and even an alignment of sub-set of values and/or themes for the cultural productions depending on the calendar. Thanksgiving, the various solstices, etc. Real heroes will be praised based upon the values they espouse and consciously be made into archetypes for countless stories. As a normal unfolding of mythology, the actual and the fictional will blend into each other. This will not be seen as ‘lying’, i.e. distorting the truth, by others who have different stories. At the same time we want to influence the creation of each other’s value sets in a comparative dialog, so that we can still cohere as a country. Otherwise, some groups would devolve into a hedonistic, sadistic and/or cultic negative spiral of hate. On the contrary, to guarantee a positive spiral of the imagination, those who participate must adhere to the First Principle, i.e. an aspiration toward the good god.

It all starts with value awareness. The only way to want to change is if we see the need for each of us to change individually. And especially those on Wall Street who are driven by cynicism, indifference and greed. They, like the rest of us, need to understand and acknowledge what they believe in. Then they need to see the logical consequences of their decisions. Is top thinking always corrupt? Does absolute power always have to result in absolute corruption? It can’t, or we’re doomed as a civilization and a race. Why did George Washington and the founding fathers accept slavery and South America’s liberator, Simon Bolivar, did not?

Ultimately the self-regulated values-based approach espoused here only makes sense if there is enough to go around for all, and enough room for everyone. Our American Constitution gave protects our right to self-regulation but gives us tools for choosing the direction of our decisions. If planet earth becomes like a lifeboat, i.e. some have to get left behind, then survival does become an exercise in values all right – in favor of those values that ‘preserve the race’ (even if some number of individuals are lost); more likely it will boil down to influence and blood lines rather than skills, abilities or a pristine genetic pool as the criteria for selection. The whole dynamics of myth will be invoked for evil, as it was by Hitler’s propaganda machine. The masses will be programmed to accept their fate for ‘the good of all’, to sacrifice ‘for the homeland’ (or some such story).

Luckily we’re not there yet; at the same time, it’s too easy to imagine that scenario, as is evidenced by recent movies like 2012. It might be another 40-70 years before The Preservation of the Few becomes the primal imperative to sustain civilization, probably after we’ve severely depleted the natural resources of the planet. By the way, don’t get your hopes up about manned missions to space colonies on earth-like planets. We’re not anywhere near being able to colonize any rock in the sun to the scale that it would make an ultimate difference. Earth might end up being just another scorched rock in the sun at the rate we’re going. Anyway, the planet is big enough to sustain us well into the future, if and only if we make the right choices.

How do we make this shift to truly sustainable living? How do we shift the thinking of the rich if not the masses? Can you have a propaganda machine that brain washes the powerful? Isn’t that an oxymoron? It is contradictory if the rich necessarily are on the side of exploitation and selfish preservation. Would it take an act of coercion to change them? Isn’t that how the French aristocracy finally turned (or lost) their heads in favor of democracy? Isn’t revolution and blood-letting the hard earned wisdom of history if you want to change who’s in charge? Maybe. But doesn’t history also teach us that one of the next generations will end up being as bad or worse? How do you permanently change the thinking at the top?

Perhaps a little water-boarding torture will help. Doesn’t that change the decisions of torture victims? Maybe. But does it really change their world view? How do you change someone’s world view without destroying their person as torture does? It took a civil war in America to eventually change the South’s thinking about slavery. That was a lot of blood-letting. What happened in the losers’ mind set in the conversion-by-torture scenario? A voluntary change of will is always better than coercion. We have to understand the psychology of defeat. We have to splice out the violence and replace it with a positive realization. We need a more positive analogy for a change of mind. What happens when a person is willingly ‘sold out’? How does one give up old values and at the same time manage the destruction of former behavior associated with their core sense of being?

How about religious conversion? I was converted to Evangelical Christianity in the distant past. Then I shifted my worldview again, the second time by myself, towards a belief in the power of community mythology. It may be that my first worldview shift at conversion, which was an assisted one, enabled me to shift it again on my own.

My first conversion was leveraged with no small amount of passive threat. The ‘Four Spiritual Laws’ preached to me indicated that: 1) God created all things and created them good; 2) Sin corrupted all things; 3) Christ died to redeem all things, and; 4) therefore I’d better accept Christ (or be corrupt and suitable for Hell). It was a loving humiliation, which unlike torture, co-opted my will without physical pain. The mental logic at conversion, once you accept the premises, is to accept the need for change. This proves, to me at least, that we are capable of willful change that goes against our programming. If I can convert, why can’t a Wall Street baron?

Even though my worldview was destroyed, unlike torture or gunpoint, my personhood and sense of self-worth was not. This is partly because I was not humiliated by a fellow human. At least I thought it I was humbling myself before God. Of course, His proxy the church was standing right there between us facilitating the whole transaction, making me feel good about the decision. Which would explain why I was subsequently inducted into the rank of church missionaries. In any case, religious conversion is an example of a person changing deeply held convictions and behavior patterns over time voluntarily. Immediate change of all behaviors was not required, which helped soften the blow. Thus with hindsight, humility and grace take on new meaning.

In any event, my second conversion was voluntary and self-directed. It required no small amount of separation from the old. The dynamics of self-directed conversion are absolutely critical for us to understand if we are to succeed in non-violent change. Stay tuned. . .

— Roy Zuniga
Kirkland, WA
April 2013

Copyright 2013 Roy Zuniga

The Sacred Myth

14 Sunday Apr 2013

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Myths may be filled with the irrational and fantastic, but neither the process of creating them or of assimilating them is irrational. In fact the orchestration of myth creation can be detected repeated with new content.

Recently I had an engaging dinner with friends who were very concerned about world events and global conspiracies. All kinds of wild and disjoined assertions were flying out – bits of truth projected like so many pellets from a shotgun, each capable of doing some damage to a naïve believer. The only commonality among those hard balls of truth was their source in the voice of a dear friend, and their negative nature. Everything from the meaning of a president’s name to the Federal Reserve to the Catholic Church to the Illuminati to homeland security barbed wire pens to Beyoncé’s satanic signs and symbols during her performance at the super bowl was allegedly hard evidence of a centuries old conspiracy by a corporation that controls all others. All real power in all the world is controlled by a few at the ‘capstone’ of the corporate pyramid. And there were plenty of freakish and well produced videos on YouTube to ‘prove’ it.

As I sought to untangle the reasonable concerns from the irrelevant or downright zany assertions that would pollute any solid understanding of the real situation, my friends got defensive. It seems that you either buy into the general angst, or you get put in the bucket labeled ‘non-believer’. One friend in particular kept bringing up points of religion in defense of certain orthodox positions on Christ. ‘He is the Lamb of God’, ‘He died for our sins’, ‘He was resurrected’. ‘Why would someone die for the sin of others if He wasn’t God?’ she asked.

In my usual fashion I was countering the assertions with non-standard viewpoints. For example, why would God need someone’s blood be shed in order to forgive? Blood atonement has its origins in ancient pagan rituals of animal and human sacrifice to appease the gods. Also, how do we know he was raised from the dead? Only the testimony of a handful of people stand between the universal traditions of the Christian church at Easter and what really happened. And so on.

I was actually less interested the particulars and or winning a theological argument than I was in the phenomenon. Like me in the past, she was programmed and it was coming out. What struck me was the way many of these ‘facts’ of myth were spewed out from some inner repository with no logical connection. In their import those facts were as real as first hand events, and more meaningful. The resurrection is as true as the last presidential election or even the half empty glasses of wine in front of us.

As I listened and bantered tenderly with her, in my mind the only real truth was the phenomenon of how mythical stories were used by her brain to both explain and defend doctrines she had absorbed in religious training in the past. She was also in the process of training herself in the new dogma of world domination by a similar mechanism. Using the media of the internet, she was streaming videos and filing the new ‘facts’ away with those old ones.

Whether true or not, the doctrines of Christianity are highly systematic. It has taken theologians millennia to streamline the thinking and give a defense of their faith. Any good second year seminary student could have countered my bantering with talking points about God’s justice and evidence that demands a verdict about Christ’s divinity. The world conspiracy allegations, however, were new and somewhat disjointed in her mind, even though a richly produced ‘leaked’ video about Illuminati induction talk does a fairly nice job of typing everything together into a one world power narrative worthy of a Hollywood production.

A barrage of facts from both of these more or less systematic streams of thought came gushing forth at the same time in what could be taken by some as a nutty jumble of incoherent thoughts. The religious mind, it seems, needs to have a coherent narrative for history with a greater meaning. Here, right before my ears, I was confronted with both the all-powerful Christ and the all-powerful evil world power. (This brings up an interesting point for another day: the indoctrination of those who do not think systematically results in piecemeal understanding and a sporadic, spotty defense of the faith.) It was interesting to see the dynamics of myth at play, both on the input of new doctrine and the use of that in defense of a world view. She brought up every snowball in her arsenal to lovingly throw back at me, even as she was legitimately concerned and wanted another opinion on the matter.

My view on the matter, for what it’s worth, is that there are nuggets of truth in these urban myths. There is also a lot of fear being fostered by these ‘leaked’ disclosures about what is really going on. If they are so powerful, why would they allow such propaganda to be released? We always have to think about who stands to benefit from fear and the negative imagination. Remember the arms race in the cold war and the MAD (mutual assured destruction) doctrine? Russia and the US kept building up their nuclear stockpiles an industries based on fear, and greatly expanded the great military complex. The same can be said for the exponential growth of Homeland Security in response to 911. Now the dynamic is shifting from external to internal threats. The more the rednecks arm themselves to the teeth to defend themselves against the one world government, the more Homeland Security has to be prepared to deal with them. Fear and rumor are sadly fueling an internal arms race in America.

There is another way, one of positive imagination and local thought. Not that we ignore world events, but the focus of community movements like Transition US is to un-plug from dependency on the global economy and monetary systems that will fail and or dominate us. We can come together and form resilient communities. Transition communities farm, barter, trade services and seeds and generally take very healthy positive steps towards a sustainable lifestyle.

Of course that only works while there is law and order in the land. If everything really unravels, a half million starving city dwellers will overwhelm a transition community like a pestilence of locusts eating everything in their wake. If it comes to that, God help us because not even medieval-like walled cities would stop those with modern tanks and missiles. Only the few with enough wealth and forethought to build bunkers and fund defensive forces can survive. We can’t let it come to that, and the only way to avoid that is if everyone collectively calms down and starts making the right choices driven by a faith in universal goodness.

The bottom line for me is choice: we can’t prove or disprove the Illuminati conspiracy any more than we can disprove Christ’s divinity or alien visitation of the ancient Aztecs. Our fundamental choice then is about the direction of our beliefs: do we take the negative fear driven arm-yourself-to-the teeth view? Or do we tie back to our first principle for life, that fundamental human aspiration toward God, and the genuine assertions of individuals achieving a personal, recurring, momentary connection with a God? It is the human experience of the Divine that keeps the aspiration going, along with an inner good-god awareness.

This aspiration towards God has been present across time and civilizations. Call it the God-principle, good vs. evil, Christ against Lucifer, good / bad karma or whatever. All cultures have similar notions, some with personalities in the metaphors for good and evil, others impersonal energies. Our fundamental choice is whether we are going to believe the aspiration can be realized. That is the only source of hope and positive energy.

Personally I have to believe God is there because I actually had a mystical experience, an exorcism and a ‘baptism in the spirit’ in my early twenties. I can connect with God and have faith in the progress of goodness, as have many in other faiths. The Biblical statement about the Spirit of God that ‘He is near you, He is in you’ rings very true for me personally. My assertion of that can’t be denied, as neither can yours. No do we need to deny each other’s experiences of faith. The new normal has to be tolerance for good behavior, regardless its sources.

In other words, the spiritual consciousness, which is full of metaphor and story, is necessary for us to make good choices. That is Enlightenment to me. Not the melting away into a state where you are not aware of temporal concerns and understand that all is illusion. That doesn’t bring forth proactive good choices. We have to avoid world views that result in passivity and inaction; our problems need attention! Solid focus and mass-decision making for a positive direction in our only salvation. The mechanism for this choice is to unplug for the media and take ownership of the myths and mental ‘proof-points’ we will us to defend those choices. Each community has to make its choices locally.

The ruling elite do have a choice – and they can only make it themselves, i.e. it has to be a local re-programming, and it has to happen soon. We can’t wait a generation. This makes documenting and disseminating the process for community mythology urgent. Those in the inner circle have to diffuse their own negative tendencies. Whatever it is about capitalism that isn’t working has to be changed, and not necessarily swapped out for an equally bankrupt version of socialism. There is another way that is sustainable. We can plan it; some are living it.

There is no proof in an appeal to mythical facts beyond the deep knowledge that these new local beliefs are part of a social contract. This is The New Sacred, as I have called it elsewhere. They are not ‘true’ because the miracle making characters in our myths are actually historical figures with ‘real’ supernatural powers. They are true because we created them together in a solemn process of collective sacred myth making based on shared values we hold Holy in the deepest sense of the word.

— Roy Zuniga
Kirkland, WA
April 2013

A Common Deity

09 Tuesday Apr 2013

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What we’re developing here is a universally applicable praxis of spirituality that focuses on the phenomenon and dynamics of faith, and not the specific trappings and content of a canned religion. In other words, we seek to establish universal practices that result in bonding with God and people. How do we know we are successful? At least three criteria must be met:

  1. A personal connection with God that is undeniable, i.e. an experience
  2. The so-called ‘fruit of the spirit’, i.e. a manifestation of a godly personality in inter-personal relationships
  3. Scalable choices, i.e. those decisions that can be applied broadly without detrimental effect on the environment and fellow humans

Have you ever met a holy person, a preacher or guru or prayer warrior or missionary who exudes the presence of God? I have and so have many people across the globe. A connection is undeniable. It’s not so much how they say they connected that is interesting. Instead, for me it is the love and spirit presence they emanate that convinced me a connection is possible, and I experienced the Spirit rushing through me like a fresh waterfall from above. They all spend time establishing that connection and use Scriptures in the context of life experiences as a catalyst for prayer and meditation. In other words, they make the effort, come with good intentions and an open heart. Yes, it’s possible they are duped by spiritual beings (because of the n-level problem described elsewhere). However, with these ‘saints’ we get the sense that they are connected straight to the source. The smell of scammers is more often on the hierarchy in the religious organizations than it is in these saints. So the possibility of a personal connection with God is pillar of faith.

Another other pillar is choice, or put another way: human agency. Nothing happens in this world apart from the actions of people. These two pillars are of course related. If you see a person acting selfishly and not for the greater good, then we know by their fruits that they are not connected to God.

We often think of choice as consumer choices. We have to also consider spiritual choices. In other words, it is not just about a shopping choice, or choice of career and good social behavior. It is also about what spirits we let into our lives to listen to. We often act based on muses we summon. We can pick our influence; we can exorcise undesirable spirits from our dwelling places. Music we listen to, movies we watch, angry talk radio, etc. All of these influences predispose and open our imaginations to being fed. It’s like tossing bread crusts to the sea gulls – put it out there and they will show up. I don’t know the dynamics of spiritual beings, but one thing is for certain, they are hungry for action; and the way they act is through human agency.

So how do we get rid of them? In whose name do we exorcise the foul demons? Since it is our choice, why do we need a name? Can’t they just go because we said so? Or do we need the name of Jesus or some other spiritual bouncer? In the first degree, it is in our own name that we can do wondrous things, because we have the choice. We are not the source of life and goodness. However, we channel it.

Nevertheless, we as humans seem to need a personification of that source. ‘In the name of Jesus’ is what Evangelicals say. Other cultures invoke deities with different names. Some are facts of God. Some embody the quintessential behavior of a holy man, i.e. they a proto-faithful, like Jesus. That is to say, they embody the pattern for our faithful behavior. How do you fill in the blank?

‘In the name of ____________.’

Jesus was said to be God because he could give commands and miracles would happen (wither the fig tree; convert water to wine; heal the sick; raise the dead, etc.). Assuming those acts happened as reported (which is never really the case when humans are involved), let’s flip it around and take the reported proto-faithful-behavior not as evidence, but as a pattern. For the criteria enumerated above, we don’t actually need tricks like turning water into wine. Because of the n-level problem and the factional will applied to the interpretation of those events, we don’t really know they came from God. They don’t really catalyze a personal connection because they result in awe of the performer, and veneration of the Other, which doesn’t further the cause of scalable decisions unless it’s under an organizational control framework. Yes we can use organizations, but they should be intentional by and for the community, and not driven by miracle evidence and a class of intermediaries.

We should remove the exclusive thinking in the Scriptures, for example the ‘I am The Way’ credentials for inter-personal mediation, and rather view what conforms to the criteria above as proto-behavior, i.e. the normative pattern of behavior. Ironically, in Scripture what was interpreted by the mediator class as evidence of God was reportedly touted by Jesus Himself as phenomenon possible by anyone with the ‘faith of a mustard seed’. Jesus himself diminished the miracles as tricks compared with the fruit of personal behavior and decisions. You can move mountains, he said metaphorically.

Thus what makes me suspect some of the Scripture is true are empowering assertions like that. ‘Oh ye of little faith. . . ‘ or ‘He is near you; He is in you’, etc. Despite the controlling intermediary class, these precious insights made it into the Holy Book. Generally they are obfuscated by the exegesis that interprets His ‘miracle’ acts as evidence of deity. In fact, I feel confident to say, those acts were prototype for us to emulate, and likewise not take them as evidence of our deity as some who have figured this out actually do. The only thing they attest to is the ability to manipulate nature; the source of that ability cannot be known, good or bad.

What we have to watch out for are those who exercise a religious pattern of interpretation, i.e. who take the normal miracle-practices and interpret that as evidence of deity and therefore requiring veneration of the intermediary class by the faithful. Give glory to the ‘Father in heaven’, or ‘Gaia’ as some now call her. God has aspects, not a gender; however, our minds require a name.

We should all manifest the fruit of a connected relationship and as such be common deity. Evidence of connection is normative behavior and the agent cannot be mistaken for an intermediary. Rather he or she are demonstrating what must be our ‘new normal’. This is not to say that every person will provide wine from the water faucet at parties. No, miracles have their own logic, and God doesn’t always make an exception to the laws of nature and mortality.

What should be common practice among mortals who are ‘common deity’ is healing and the fruit of the spirit. In the end, the only name that really counts is your own. After all, we God-fashion Him in our image, like so many 16th century capitalists commissioning portraits of religious subjects in the pious garb of their own times. We can paint our own mental icons if we want, if that helps. Or we can flush them out as spiritual crutches and in the end act in our own name. It is time we own up to ourselves as common deities. Believer or not, the only name counts is your own. So then, why not make it a good name? That’s your choice; it’s your decision.

— Roy Zuniga
    April 2013
    Kirkland, WA 

 

copyright 2013 Roy Zuniga