One problem was that the more the mind was opened to what was commonly called “cosmic consciousness” (a hippie rubric of the sixties), the less meaningful politics or social structure became,
It amazes me how few take the hint from this obvious and ubiquitous consequence.
The true cults that proliferated in the American sixties and early seventies resemble those of the Hellenistic and imperial Roman eras. Such phenomena are symptoms of cultural fracturing in cosmopolitan periods of rapid expansion and mobility. ...Hence, the cult phenomenon even at its most bizarre demonstrates the sociological dynamic of the birth of religions, as they flare up, coalesce, and strengthen or sputter out and vanish.
Wrong Camille... REbirth. It's that OLD old time religion, as it started in Babylon. The revival is intentional.
Mystery religions, which generally produced fewer and less monumental stone or chryselephantine idols, offered personal salvation through initiation into an enlightened group bound by some special secret, often involving the promise of an afterlife, a recompense for present miseries.
A consequence of the paradigm of human divinity coupled with the lack of a guiding written text, such as the Bible. Thus anyone could start and justify their own group on claims of higher spirituality by thowing in a few twists because there was no set of codified principles to contradict such an act. Judaism, Islam, and Christianity held together because of written texts and organized hierarchy, the former being the more important.
You will note that it wasn't long after translating and printing the Bible that the Reformation began. As soon as the written word was available, the people looked at the hierarchy and found it wanting.
The major Mediterranean mystery religions—of Dionysus, Demeter, Isis, and Mithras—anticipated, influenced, or vied with Christianity.
That would be JUDEO-Christianity. They both go back well before the time of Christ.
But this time (in the 60s) the nascent religions faltered under the pitiless scrutiny of modern media.
I prefer to call it an attack. See Gramsci.
But the titanic, all-enveloping sound of rock was produced by powerful, new amplification technology that subordinated the mind and activated the body in a way more extreme than anything seen in Western culture since the ancient Roman Bacchanalia. Through the sensory assault of that thunderous music, a whole generation tapped into natural energies, tangible proof of humanity’s link to the cosmos.
This is just goofy. It filled a void in the groin that begins in the heart.
I stopped there. It's really a pretty lame effort.
That was, more than any single agent, what ushered in the Enlightenment. The hierarchy naturally reacted by mounting the Counterreformation. Blaise Pascal helped destroy it, with ingenious ridicule, by focusing attention on the self-serving hypocrisy of the French Jesuits who tried to dominate the Counterreformation. (Hey, there's a reason to take heart here. It seems the losing side may be identified with anything the French try to lead or are Quislings to. <G>)
The Age of Reason shortly followed, providing the next ideological shifts that ushered in the American Revolution. Our forces defending America today find themselves fighting a renewed counterreformation. What calls itself the "Progressive" movement has driven that incrementally regressive force.
Seeing it is impossible to thwart free speech for very long in America, the Establishment's not-so-Lamestream-media has taken the next best tact: overwhelming our society with a plethora of choices, many of them counterproductive to Freedom.
Excuse me if I'm wrong, but it seems your self assigned task, C-O, Dash, et al., has been to try to focus more attention on those things which are worthy of attention. But sometimes that means, rather than dealing with our positives, we must show how counterproductive things, like Scientology, are negative.
Now, none of us is Blaise Pascal. None of us have that open and uncluttered field he had. Also, today, the Establishment short-circuits Pascal style ridicule by permitting highly paid jesters to take the heat off them with blanket criticism of all politicos. (Though Mark Steyn occasionally proves me wrong). And maybe most importantly, none of us is permitted the level of anonymity he enjoyed.
So today's Counterreformationists think they've got all bases covered. We believe in better because we see they are NOT the higher Authority. Getting men to respond to their higher and more noble instincts is actually more possible as men, who've known ease, come to see that material gain just isn't the be-all, end-all upon which the Mammonites have tried to get us to focus exclusively. And so these alternatives, manufactured faiths, are naturally aimed at those most at ease -- with the least confidence for beings so -- the highly paid celebs like Cruise, Revolta, et al. And Celebs' involvement there have helped sell the new "faith" to the starstruck.
That brings me back to this issue.
Helping identify this bit of detritis is what this Paglia piece attempts. It's also what we're about, so don't be too critical. It's not that bad if it impels you to improve upon it. Do it. You understand my tagline. <G>
-Av