The Ultimate Book

[Alienist]

Re: The Ultimate Book

Seeing as several people have already posted "how" in this vary thread, why are you asking again?



And that's how you're disrespecting them. Those spells and incantations are the result of their cultural context. That you apparently don't seem interested in learning the importance of that context strikes me as very disrespectful.

I'm hoping you or someone actually answers my question. It's not as if I'm making fun of their culture or ignoring it so you don't have to act as if I am. For one thing, wouldn't the Bahai Faith seem disrespectful since they basically want all religions to merge into one world religion? What about the Sikhs in Sikhism? They believe all of the gods of different faiths lead to their one God, so isn't that basically disrespecting all other gods, saying that all of them are nothing more than just aspects or connected to only their God? I know it sounds off topic, but I'm trying to make a point. I'm not ignoring other cultures or making fun of them. I think it's obvious that I stated numerous times that I respect all good faiths.

[Satu]

Re: The Ultimate Book

I'm hoping you or someone actually answers my question. It's not as if I'm making fun of their culture or ignoring it so you don't have to act as if I am. For one thing, wouldn't the Bahai Faith seem disrespectful since they basically want all religions to merge into one world religion? What about the Sikhs in Sikhism? They believe all of the gods of different faiths lead to their one God, so isn't that basically disrespecting all other gods, saying that all of them are nothing more than just aspects or connected to only their God? I know it sounds off topic, but I'm trying to make a point. I'm not ignoring other cultures or making fun of them. I think it's obvious that I stated numerous times that I respect all good faiths.

You know that old saying? Just because everyone else does it doesn't mean it's okay for you to do it? It applies. And if you've been paying attention to this thread, do you remember the idea of cultural appropriation? Look up cultural appropriation. Look beyond Tumblr, though. There are some people who take it to ridiculous extremes there, but there are people elsewhere who have a point. Plastic shamans and some New Age attitudes about other cultures come to mind.

To take pieces of a culture's artefacts--whether those artefacts come from their religion or magic--is not respectful. No talk of underlying unity is going to change that. There is no way you're going to be able to respectfully take pieces of disparate systems--such as Zoroastrianism and Taoism--and combine them in a way that does justice to the originals. Like I said earlier, if you wanted to combine things that actually did have contact with one another--such as the Greeks and Romans--that would be different.

Think of it like this. Cultural artefacts like religion and magical sytems are like valuable treasures we dig up from the sands of Egypt. But if everyone rushes to the site where those treasures are found to take their favorite pieces, soon those treasures as they were will be gone. Hard to recognize. The place where they were found will be difficult to find. Do we really want that? No. Why? Because we don't want to lose the culture. We have already lost so much thanks to human stupidity. We don't need to help the entropic process along by piecing together shiny bits.

Edit: as an example, do you know how much garbage surrounds ancient Egyptian spirituality because of people's disrespect toward the culture? Aliens made the pyramids! They ancient Egyptians had airplanes and lightbulbs! Tarot cards come from ancient Egypt! Yoga originates from Egypt! The ancient Egyptians were montheistic! And oooo, look, vampires!

As for Bahai, I hate to tell you this, but yes, it is disrespectful to want to bulldoze over a culture (of which magic and religion are an expression) because you think the world would be happy and shiny and enlightened that way. In fact, it's rather a distinctly fundamentalist radical Christian viewpoint.

Religion, magic, and culture are intertwined. The idea that we can separate religion and magic from the rest of culture is a distinctly Roman (and perhaps late Greek) thought.

Sikhism doesn't bother me. I'm not impressed with purely monotheistic faiths, but I think the main point to make here is, far as I can tell, Sikhs don't try to bulldoze over the rest of the world by mashing together disparate systems. See, they aren't trying to take bits of all sorts of different faiths to make an uber-system. I don't see anywhere in their tenets that they need to preach the Word. I don't see calls to grab A from Zoroastrianism, B from Shinto, and C from Irish polytheism and put it all in a big book because-because-because.

I'm not sure how I can make this much clearer. Perhaps someone else will have better luck.

[SaintElvis]

Re: The Ultimate Book

I would be interested in seeing a huge book of faiths put together, but one that does not make everything all shiny, happy and ready to use for fuzzy, warm eclectics.

I am an eclectic, but not in the sense that I pick and choose everything and throw out the rest. I am an eclectic by combining Rinzai Zen Buddhism with Wicca. Come to think of it, making a huge text on faiths alone would be daunting to say the least, for how many Buddhist practices are there in the world and how many differences in teaching would one have to investigate to make it a proper tome of learning?

[Tylluan Penry]

Re: The Ultimate Book

I am not entirely sure why people haven't compiled scriptures of magic from the other religions. I thought of a design as I was daydreaming as sort of a design with the symbols of Taoism, Christianity, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, as well as symbols of Mjolnir, the symbol of Hermes and The Ankh of Life from the Egyptian Religion. I know all of them have ancient magic and I wondered why people can just put all the incantations, spells and magic into the book. I feel as if people will have a greater understanding of spiritual power if it was compiled into one book and they can learn from other faiths as well. Other faiths can always learn from each other.

Firstly you are going to have to define your term 'scriptures of magic.' I am pretty sure there are a shed load of Christians who are really going to object to this, and probably a lot of other groups too.

If you mean magical texts, that's one thing. If you mean religious texts, that's quite another. Do you mean inscriptions or papayrii? What period? What place?

When you start to create a book - and this is something I have some experience of - you need a pretty firm grip on all of this because it is so easy to get completely sidetracked. So...

Yes, it is possible to set out a book that deals with different faiths. That explores differences, similarities and explains these to the best of the author's ability. Indeed, there's nothing new about that - as the whole idea of comparative religions indicates.

Where a writer gets into hot water is in trying to turn all these traditions into a sort of spiritual porridge. Regardless of showing respect for various cultures, we have to acknowledge the problems of time and space. What one group do in, say, Babylon, seven thousand years ago may not be the same as what the same group's descendants were doing in the same place two thousand years ago.

And this is the problem. You cannot create a mish-mash. It would be inaccurate. And pretty meaningless.

[Rae'ya]

Re: The Ultimate Book

Firstly, I am absolutely with Satu and Vigdisdotter on this one. Cultural appropriate is something that is very important to me... in the sense of 'don't do it because it's disrespectful'.

I think some misunderstand me. Obviously you wouldn't take every single scipture from every single religion and put it into one book. The book would be too long. You take a little from Taoism as well as Zoroastrianism and other religions. You take certain exorcism spells, holy spells and healing spells involving incantations, potions, herbs and crystals. You take a little from each and put it together. Any faith that you practice would probably be in that book so you wouldn't have to hunt down a certain type of book.

Taking a little from each and putting it together is very, very difficult to do respectfully. Skillful eclecticism is the way to do it respectfully... take the practice, CHANGE it, call it something different and make it your own, and never mention the original practice except to say 'I studied X culture and took some inspiration from them'. Cultural appropriation is the way to do it disrespectfully... take the practice, ignore it's cultural context, call it the same thing, equate it with something from another practice, and claim that you are still practicing the original practice.

You don't have to exaggerate for one thing... How it taking away the culture? All of them have used spells. That's kind of obvious. I'm not disrespecting any of them. All it is is just a collection of spells and incantations. How am I disprespecting any of them? It doesn't matter if the cultures are different. Different religions always have some similarities whether it involves head deities, magic/science gods or exorcisms or blessing spells. The way they do it is different but the result is still the same. If anything, I'm showing respect by acknowledging them, unlike others who would dismiss it as superstition or fake.

I'm gonna throw an example in here that most people understand. Native American spirituality is one of those that is constantly being culturally appropriated in a disrespectful manner. To the point that there are actually legalities and lawsuits over people who are using practices and rituals out of context and making money off them. So...

Lets say in this book there's a page on Native American Spirituality. And in it is a Sun Dance. Now there are a number of different Sun Dances specific to certain Native American Nations... the one that is most commonly appropriated is the Lakota Sun Dance. So this specifically Lakota ritual is on a page in this universal magick book, and it's labelled as a Native American Sun Dance, and there is just the ritual itself, no background information, no information about the culture or their beliefs. Just the ritual. And so a hundred people start drumming and dancing and putting hooks through their skin in an attempt to copy this Sun Dance, and pass it on to their peers... and all of a sudden we have hundreds of people doing 'Native American Sun Dances' and claiming to practice 'Native American rituals' because they read it in this giant book of universal magick scripture.

That's cultural appropriation. And it's disrespectful.