A Tale of Two Deities

Once upon a time, in the lovely Mediterranean coastal town of Ugarit (in modern day Syria), there dwelled a pair of deities, a father and a son. The people revered these two gods as the co-equal patrons of their lovely metropolis. The name of the father was El, the sky god, and his son was Baal, lord of the earth (1).

Now their neighbors, at that time little more than tribal shepherds, had a habit of borrowing. They borrowed, for example, Mesopotamian stories of a serpent in a tree, an ark filled with animals during a great flood, and a god proving his might by defeating a mighty dragon of the sea (2). They also borrowed a great many words, including names. When these tribesmen finally settled down and formed a kingdom of their very own, their priesthood recycled a lot of these borrowed elements and gave them a new spin. This brings us back to the fine people of Ugarit and their gods (3).

In their language, not surprisingly called "Ugaritic," the name El meant "God." The name Baal, meanwhile, meant "Lord." Their neighbors--the ones who liked to borrow--applied both of these terms to their own tribal deity, who sometimes was called "God" and sometimes "Lord." The word El they seemed to keep. As in Ugaritic, El meant God in Hebrew too. Thus the "sons of god" are the elohim, and angels all get names that end in "-el" meaning "such and such of god." (Speaking of borrowing, the 20th century cult of Superman would recycle the "el" thing again with Jor-el, the Father, sending his son Kal-el to save the Earth. But I digress). (4)

For whatever reasons, the name "baal" was replaced with "adonai," and didn't get the positive spin that "el" did. Baal is used throughout the early chapters of the Bible to signify the gods of other peoples. But lo and behold, our story does not end here.

Despite having settled down, built a big shiny Temple, and clobbered their neighbors, the ancient Hebrews were beaten by a bigger and badder nation. During this time of captivity, they became exposed to Persian dualism, the concept of an all-good god fighting it out against an all-bad god for the fate of the world (5). And guess what? They borrowed again! While in the earliest books of the Bible, God is clearly identified as the source of both good and bad things, following this period we get a new and nicer God. Lacking a ready-made equal and opposite bad god, those clever priests combed the Bible for words like "satan" (never a proper name, just a word meaning "challenger" or "accuser") and--you guessed it--Baal. The second Book of Kings mentions a form of Baal who was patron of the city of Ekron, Baal Zebub. As they neared the newthink of the Christian era, the Bible makers changed him to Beelzebub, and made him their bad guy (6).

So, where once El and Baal were co-equal and co-important, the Father and Son were now bitter enemies. The Sky or Heaven was the Good Place, and the domain of Baal, the Earth was Bad (7). Eventually the whole very silly doctrine of "let's all die so we can go experience paradise in Heaven and leave this nasty Earth behind" got started. We have been living in the false dichotomy of black versus white, good versus evil, spirit versus flesh ever since.

to be continued...

NOTES (To be read by the Very Bored and/or Easily Amused):

(1) A third important deity was named Dagon, but there is really no reason to bring Cthulhu into this.

(2)Yes, Mesopotamian civilizations had these first. The god and the dragon thing refers to the Book of Job, where Yahweh talks about how bad ass he is because he defeated the great serpent Leviathan. This is a blatant rip off of the tale of Marduk slaying the great cosmic dragon Tiamat, with one bizarre twist. In the Mesopotamian tale, Tiamat is the first being, the mother of all things. Therefore, Marduk defeating her deserves bragging rights. But if the Hebrew Yahweh is the almighty creator of the universe, then him kicking the crap out of Leviathan and boasting about it is a bit like knocking out your three-year-old's teeth and asking for a heavyweight champion belt. Silly Hebrews.

(3)To be fair, Ugaritic and Hebrew were both Semitic tongues and "el" might have derived from a common source. But the Baal thing is just suspicious.

(4)Gods I hate Superman. Can you tell?

(5)Ahura-mazda (no relation to the Japanese car so far as I know) and Ahriman.

(6)The "satan" appearing in Job is clearly just another angel doing his job (no pun intended). His function is to run around testing the loyalty of humans to Yahweh. The Soviets would have called him a Political Officer.

(7)Despite what you may have heard, Christian theologians have long claimed that Satan, and not Leonardo diCaprio, was King of the World. James Cameron, take note.

Where Are The Lions When We Need 'Em?

So here's the deal.

The American government, despite George Dubya's personal chats with the Almighty, has been at pains to make it clear to the Muslim world that we the US is not at war with Islam, but with terrorism. President Obama made this very clear once more while speaking in Turkey.

Enter Trijicon.

This Michigan based defense contractor produces--among other things--scopes for American military rifles. They make $660 million dollars a year doing so. In a turn that is positively medieval, it turns out that Trijicon has been encoding Bible verses on these scopes in the serial numbers. For example, 2COR4:6, or 2 Corinthians 4:6, ""For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." Others bear JN8:12 (John 8:12) "Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." These are are the scopes of rifles designed to kill people. Sorry, wasn't there a commandment against that? It's been awhile since I was studying the Bible, but I do seem to remember that.

Sitting here outside the States, I admit my perspective may be skewed. You see, I have been defending my country for years against European and Asian infidels who think we are a nation of religious fanatics. The image of the United States outside the United States is a bit like the Taliban with nuclear capabilities. I keep trying to convince people American is not a land of religious crusaders, the last bastion of the Puritanism the Brits freed themselves during the Restoration (and screw the English for shipping all the overthrown Cromwellites to our shores). But when people put it to me that--for example--we are the ONLY major nation to deny gay marriage (an issue that so far as I see it has absolutely not impact on those outside such marriages, and who deny it only because it offends their own personal religiousity), it gets very hard to employ logic. When we have people like Robertson, a man with freaking followers, claiming the Haitians got just what they deserved for siding with the Devil, it is hard to make an excuse.

And just when I think I am making headway, I find that like knights of the Crusades hell-bent on retaking the Holy Land, we are blessing our weapons with religious invocations.

Yes, my fellow Americans, I hear you. Land of the Free. Home of the Brave. But as Dylan might say, "let us not talk falsely now...the hour is getting late."

We have had the luxury of being oh-so-smug since the Second World War. Problem is, we've had the hardest time winning wars ever since, and now our economy is slipping. It's easy to have God on your side when you are an economic titan, and indeed, the Protestant ethic has always been that material wealth was a sign of God's favor. But I wonder, when that is gone, what happens then? Islam is the second largest religion on the planet, and we are shooting at it with rifles Christened to Jesus.

Yes, America. Love it or leave it. Well, I did. But there are times when I wonder if that was a terrible mistake. The pious are so vocal, so sure of themselves. The agnostic too careful not to offend. maybe voices like mine are needed, voices that see religion as the medieval poison it is.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/us-military-weapons-inscribed-secret-jesus-bible-codes/story?id=9575794

"Twilight" for People With Brains

The middle of the last decade saw the publication of an extraordinary debut novel. Moving, disturbing, and strangely uplifting, it told the improbable tale of emerging love between an adolescent and a vampire. It rocketed to the top of the bestseller list and was soon the basis for an equally amazing film (Rotten Tomatoes rated it 97% Fresh). No, we are definitely NOT talking about Stephanie Myers or Twilight. The book in question is Lat Den Ratte Komma In by Swedish novelist John Ajvide Lindqvist.

Let The Right One In (its English title, taken from Morrisey's "Let the Right One Slip In," is a play on the old vampire tradition of having to invite them in) tells the tale of 12-year-old Oskar. The child of a broken home, he lives in a state apartment housing complex with his mother. Slightly overweight, ostracized and horrifically bullied, the daily abuse by his peers has given him the unpleasant habit of constantly wetting his pants. Worse, he has begun to fantasize about sticking a knife in his tormentors, stealing a hunting knife from a local sporting goods store to stab at trees in the woods, imagining their faces, hurling back the taunts usually yelled at him. He is a boy dangerously about to break, the one Pearl Jam wrote about in Jeremy, the kind of monster manufactured in schools every day.

Enter the new girl, Eli. She and her "father" move into the unit next door to Oskar, but are almost never seen. The windows are covered up, and despite also being 12 the girl doesn't seem to attend school. Oskar, whose habit is to sit alone on the communal play ground in the evenings, encounters her there. Despite the brutal Swedish winter she is barefoot and in a thin pink sweater. Her hair is matted and filthy. She smells bad. She tells him she can't be his friend. And yet his loneliness is reflected in her own, drawing them slowly together. Night after night they meet on the playground, pretending they aren't happy to see the other there.

Then Oskar suffers an particularly brutal assault, whipped by a pack of boys with switches. One blow cuts open his cheek. That night, when he meets Eli, the following transpires;

...she touched his wound and (a) strange thing happened. Someone else, someone much older, became visible under her skin. A cold shiver ran down Oskar's back, as if he had bitten into an ice cream.

"Oskar. Don't let them do it. Do you hear me? Don't let them."

"...No."

"You have to strike back. You've never done that, have you?"

"No."

"So start now. Hit them back. Hard."

"There's three of them."

"Then you have to hit harder. Use a weapon."

"Yes."

"Stones. Sticks. Hit them more than you really dare. Then they'll stop."

"Yes, but what if they..."

"Then I will help you."

"You? But you are..."

"I can do it, Oskar. That ...is something I can do."

Indeed she can. Eli is 200 hundred years old, a vampire trapped in the body of a little girl. The man taking care of her is, sickeningly, a pedophile she snared and forces to watch over her by day. Oskar is the first person to be kind to her in decades, and despite herself and the danger to herself, the exposure, she helps him.

Let the Right One In pulls absolutely no punches. Twilight, written roughly the same time and with a very similar premise, is by comparison comfort food, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. Where Twilight is fastidiously careful not to challenge or offend, to tell you that beautiful people really do have souls and that abstinence really is the best policy until you graduate from school, Let the Right One In has teeth. Its protagonists are not faux outsiders who both mysteriously look like models, but rough, untidy, unclean. Both of them, including Eli, are pathetic and powerfully human. They fall in love (for anyone who remembers junior high school) in a fumbling, awkward, uncomfortable way, drawn together because no one else would want them.

Make no mistake, the novel terrifies to a degree that Myers' work never comes near, but at the same time Let the Right One In is deeply tragic. It leads, unlike Bella and Edward, are not leads in the ballet version of Romeo & Juliet, but nevertheless far more compelling.

The novel--a bestseller across Europe--is readily available in English. The 2007 film version, equally superb, is also easy to find. Predictably, a 2010 American version is in the works (God forbid Americans read subtitles).

And Now, A Word From Pat Robertson

“If the divine master’s plan is perfection, maybe next I’ll give Judas a try…”

Tori Amos, “Spark”

American televangelist and 700 Club minister of propaganda Pat Robertson has made a total ass of himself.

Gee. It must be Tuesday.

From the mind that brought you such classics as 9/11 being God’s punishment for abortion and hurricane Katrina being the result of tolerance for homosexuals comes another golden hit. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the massive Haitian earthquake that has left upwards of 100,000 people dead is the result of a pact with the Devil.

According to Pat, the people of Haiti made a pact with Ole’ Scratch to get Napolean III and the French out. Ever since then, they have been cursed. While I am inclined to agree with Pat that Satan might be sympathetic towards those rebelling against an abusive tyrant (Lucifer would know something about that), I can’t help but wonder if he goes home at night and hangs garlic from his windows to keep the vampires away, or sticks leeches on himself to balance his Humours. Could he get on a ship and sail to China without being afraid to sail off the edge of a flat world? Wake up Pat and smell the 21st century. Hell, even the 19th.

The media has, predictably, railed against him. One commentator went so far as to wonder if Pat is out of his mind. Well of course he is, people. News flash: he believes that virgins give birth, the dead get raised, and that some big invisible guy is watching us from the sky.

I have never been shy about my opinion that religion is a mental illness, and one with the same root cause as drug addiction, alcoholism, or those nuts who study Klingon and get married in Star Fleet uniforms. Reality is harsh, and to paraphrase Shirley Jackson, no creature can remain sane long under conditions of absolute reality. From time to time, we all need to escape, to get away from the way things are into a comforting dream. There is nothing wrong with having a few beers, a wee nip of Scotch, or losing oneself in a good book/film/game. Nor is there anything wrong with seeking refuge, in times of trouble, in prayer. But when you get to the point that your life revolves around the bottle, the next episode of Battlestar Galactica, or the Bible, you’ve taken things a bit too far.

I think this explains a bit the curious relationship between religion and other addicting behaviors. How many times, for example, have you met people who used to be drug addicts and alcoholics before they “found God?” Clearly they have moved from one addiction to another, the way heroin users are weaned with methadone. And consider the reaction strong religions like Puritanism and Islam have against alcohol, almost as if they don’t want the competition. Curiously, here in Japan, religion as we know it in the West doesn’t exist. Sure, there are shrines and temples, but the only times people visit them are New Year’s, when they want good luck for something, or funerals. Even weddings these days are done in hotels. Lacking strong religion, alcohol is far more available and more tolerated. It is perfectly acceptable for a businessman to be stinking drunk and throw up on a late-night communter train. Drinking is a recognized way for escaping the pressures of life. By contrast, such behavior would never be tolerated in the United States. On the other hand, we give religion a pass that we would never give other types of mental illness. If a President of the United States claimed he went to war because aliens were beaming transmissions into his head, he’d be impeached. If he said God told him to go to war, he gets a second term.

We have been conditioned to tolerate the most grotesque absurdities because they are someone’s religious beliefs. From a legal standpoint, I applaud this. No government should have the right to arrest people for their ideals. But I reject the notion that as a member of polite society I must smile and accept someone’s irrationality on the grounds that they are entitled to their beliefs, and it troubles me that people who believe an Apocalypse is a “good thing” have the right to vote. We have laws against driving while drunk, shouldn’t we at least be skeptical of voting while expecting Rapture? Why fear the destruction of the biosphere or nuclear holocause when it all just means God will sweep in and build a New Jerusalem on Earth?

Sure. And the aliens will give Elvis back.

Back to Pat. I am not sure Pat-Pattie-McPat even believes what he says half the time. The cynic in me thinks he is really more the heroin dealer than the heroin addict. After all, he has made a very comfortable living for himself by pumping people full of crap (aka, his “ministry;” come to think of it, drugs are ad-minister-ed too). Then again, so has the Pope. Much like any collection of ancient myths, the Bible is full of colorful stories to explain why things happen. To explain to themselves why bad things happened to them, the Hebrews blamed it on punishments from God. To keep his followers loyal, in line, and contributing to his coffers, Robertson jumps on any natural disaster (euphemistically “acts of God”) as evidence that Yahweh is still up there throwing temper tantrums. But really, Pat, any deity who murders 100,000 people because he’s ticked off with them is, much like yourself, an asshole.

And though I cannot conceive of the possibility that people like Pat are right, if there really is a God up there aiming airplanes at skyscrapers, whirling hurricanes, unleashing AIDS, and crushing thousands with earthquakes, sign me up with the Other Team. If Robertson's sick, bent Almighty is really the Guy in Charge, Satan would have the moral high ground.

Please Allow Me To Introduce Myself (You Know The Rest)

“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream.”

Shirley Jackson, “The Haunting of Hill House”

The most important question for a Satanist is "why?"

Back in 1990, as a freshman at university, I filled out an application, answered detailed essay questions designed to weed out the whackos, and joined the (then) San Francisco-based Church of Satan. 20 years later, I still consider it one of the most rational decisions I have ever made. Most people would question my logic.

But Satanism only seems irrational if you have no familiarity with it. Founded in 1966 by organist, lion-tamer, and showman-extraordinaire Anton Szandor LaVey, the Church of Satan was created to be the only rational Church out there. While skeptical about the existence of the supernatural, LaVey nevertheless recognized man had a psychological need for ritual and drama, and began to conceive of a Church that used these devices not to promote superstition, self-denial, and obedience, but rather self-expression, creativity, and indulgence. Because it was opposed to the doctrines of most major religions, and because it was a brilliant way to attract instant media attention, LaVey boldly adopted the traditional opponent of the Judeo-Christian and Islamic faiths as the symbol for his new group, and scandalously called it the “Church of Satan.” With a few well orchestrated media events, the Church was instantly a sensation, allowing LaVey to reach a much wider audience through a publishing career. Just three short years after the Church of Satan opened its doors, LaVey collected its philosophy in the pages of The Satanic Bible, a book that has never since gone out of print. This was followed by The Satanic Witch, a manual on cold reading, applied psychology, and seduction. The Satanic Rituals followed, and in the decades after LaVey produced colorful essays and social criticisms in books like The Devil’s Notebook and Satan Speaks! It is clear to anyone who has even read one of these works that LaVey was not your stereotypical devil worshipper, but rather a keen observer of human nature.

Like the mythological Lucifer, the Satanist rejects God and chooses, rather, to follow himself. Some of the Church’s teachings include the idea that man creates his gods, not the other way around. Worshipping a god some other guy invented is basically worshipping that other guy by proxy, so why not create a god in your own image and worship it? This leads to the idea that man is himself a god—not “the God," lording it over the universe, but a flawed and imperfect deity like the gods of the Norse or classical Greeks. Like them, man is a being of vast creative powers, capable of wonders. But at the same time, he is also a beast, an animal with instincts, drives, and needs just like any other. Just as the Devil is depicted as part animal, part angel, so too does the Church view humanity, and it regards both sides (the Light and the Dark) as healthy and necessary to the whole.

This embrace of man’s dual nature brings us to another key tenet of the Church; wisdom lies in a synthesis between a thesis and its antithesis, a “third side” that reconciles seemingly paradoxical points of view. This idea colors most aspects of the Church’s philosophy. For example, while the Church encourages rationality and skepticism, it recognizes that man needs fantasy, mystery, and wonder to ensure psychological health. For the Satanist the ritual chamber is the place to indulge in such fantasies, to explore the depths of the psyche and get pent-up needs out of one’s system. This is where ceremonial “magic” comes in. Having all the urges and violent instincts of our animal ancestors, but living in a society where they must be suppressed, the Satanist seeks a third side solution and exercises his dark side safely through ritual and symbolism. The urge to punish and kill someone who injures you, for example, is a natural one. Rather than repress it, or buy a gun and go out to blow the offender away, the Satanist might ritually torture, maim, and mutilate his antagonist in the form of a “curse.” This “third side” solution satisfies the emotional need without breaking the social contract. The same holds true for lust spells; one cannot simply go out and ravish whomever he choses, but one can do so ritually, in his own imagination, and doing so is often enough “to scratch the itch.” And where others might turn to prayer in a higher power in times of need and trouble, the Satanist views magic as a way to command, rather than beg, the universe into coming to your aid. Whether or not any of these spells affect real change outside the chamber, they have released toxic emotions from the self. And as many Satanists will tell you, more often than not in the wake of a ritual things really do suddenly seem to go the Satanist’s way.

The Church reconciles another paradox in being an organization of “non-joiners.” Vehemently opposed to herd conformity, and organizations which force uniformity on their members, membership in the Church of Satan is only a symbolic commitment made between yourself and your beliefs. Satanists are not required to attend meetings, seminars, or sermons. They do not need to gather and pray. They may do so if they like, and there is a sort of instant kinship when Satanists cross paths, but the Church neither encourages nor discourages this. In the two decades of my membership, I have only met a handful of other Satanists, and while joining them in group rituals and discussions was stimulating, I have much preferred to keep my practices to myself. Like any sorority or fraternity, members of the Church might extend a helping hand from time to time to their fellows, but are neither required nor expected to do so.

For me, these aspects of Satanism made membership in the Church a logical move. Of course, not all Satanists need to be members of the Church—they need only apply its principles to their own lives—but for me joining was a psychological turning point, a private commitment I have never regretted making. Satanism has allowed me a way to practice occultism without believing in it, to indulge my animal passions without breaking the social contract, to explore rich symbolism and imagery without accepting it as a literal truth, and to feel connected to something larger than myself without being enslaved by it. It has driven me to question and to doubt, to trust my instincts, and to explore and accept myself without shame. What could be more rational than that?