Reverend Stu Interviews the Sitting Abbot

Stu: Does the ECoD intend to conduct Masses and church services from other faiths as well as the Trinity Mass?

A: Yes, we do.

Stu: Well, how can you do that if you are not ordained or recognized as an authorized priest or minister by the faiths or churches involved?

A: We follow the script.

Stu: That sounds like you are equating a church service like the Roman Catholic Mass with theater?

A: Yes, it’s had a longer run than Cats. Joking aside, don’t sell theater short. When done well drama should emotionally involve an audience - be thought provoking -and thus enhance overall awareness, social awareness or self-awareness. Consider church services and drama have performers on a stage with props and an audience – congregations, same things really both are expected to pay money, anyway, the performers in both situations have choreography and scripted lines. And make no mistake the paying audience has expectations; you are not the only show in town.

Stu: Isn’t that out and out blasphemy?

A: By most accounts – yes, most certainly, OK, I was raised Catholic, from that perspective it is blasphemy to say the mass is theater and that I am Priest for a day. Also to say that this wafer is the body of Christ, this wine the blood of Christ…you shouldn’t because you are taking the Lord’s name in vain and you are making light of the absolute core of Catholic faith. On the other hand, if you really believe you are doing magic and are conducting a valid transmutation of bread and wine to the body and blood of Christ. This is heresy - out of the question it denies the creed – there is one holy Catholic and apostolic church – no transmutation without full indoctrination and preparation in seminary school and then the sacrament of Holy Orders. These steps must be done through recognized channels to be valid, the Catholics and Orthodox recognize each other’s clergy as peers and respect the sacraments performed as well. Anyway, the ECoD is by its definition – (laughs) a part of what has been titled the Radical Ecumenical Heresy –blasphemy is like a misdemeanor –analogous to an adolescent saying “No way man!” This young person remains in the family and is shown the correct way and is given a chance to see the light, so too with the blasphemer. In the case of heresy, that is a felony. Heresy must be silenced. The church has encouraged everyone to pray for the blasphemer and say a prayer for the heretic.

Stu: Wow I must have said Catholic, (laughing) OK – misdemeanors and felonies, what about copyright infringement or the possibility of taking heat from some church? Don’t take this in the wrong way but your activities are clearly going to be deemed offensive to some people.

A: We are beneath notice.

Stu: Perhaps, but what if… lets say in a year or so the church has a dedicated space and is a small functioning church with a fairly solid congregation – a Catholic priest comes by and asks you to not perform the mass any more, would you stop?

A: Maybe, if he were from the local parish we would want to know if they have a website, if so we would like to link our website to theirs through our Friends page, they should reciprocate, hmmmm, we would want to know if our members can feel welcome at their church. I would love to accept an invitation –an Ecodite field trip! We can time it for when there is a social event or a bake sale. We can thank them for their hospitality and invite them to our next Trinity Service. We can mingle! No, Stu… I don’t see that happening. The pastors know better than to open this door, they are not young and zealous by nature. They cannot benefit from the publicity of taking official action or going to court and we would welcome the opportunity to present our case on such a grand stage. David and Goliath meets Media Manipulation and the Ascent to legitimacy. The religious organizations that are most proprietary and uptight for different reasons will tend to ignore us.

Stu: What about the Crowley passages, the OTO and EGC they aren’t that big or that old and you simply cut and pasted major chunks of the Gnostic Mass also known to them as Liber XV? You also edited passages of Crowley’s writing, which I know they will find annoying. You deleted and changed words that came directly from The Book of the Law, you are not suppose to do that in Crowley’s own words.

A: Wow, I must have said proprietary and uptight – (laughing)

Stu: Fair cop, touché.

A: Sabazius X and I have spoken before; I sent him a copy of the Trinity Mass at any rate aka The Gnostic Nugget. I’m rather hoping he posts it on The Invisible Basilica of Sabazius and perhaps it can be a ritual within the EGC appropriate for OTO camps without easy access to a bona fide priest.

Stu: Really?

A: Absolutely.

Stu: OK, new tangent. Let’s discuss the Trinity Mass, how did it come into being?

A: Brian and I have had a variety of trainings in religious studies. We wanted a church service that could cope with radical Ecumenicism but not be watered down as to not offend anyone. Aleister Crowley’s Thelemic system has great value, we have an initiated understanding, and I have performed the Gnostic mass. However, some of the mass seemed trapped in the past, in the old Aeon so to speak. The priestess as an extension of the priest, her saying, “Do what thou wilt’ when the veil is opened, the lance and all the over the top phallic content…. Women, contrary to the 19th century aristocratic British worldview are fully competent human beings. If there is a Divine, then the Priest’s Will, and the Priestess’ Will would be one.

The reunification of all things for Love sake, also a line from the Gnostic mass, is the unification of a man and a woman in sexual Love that has the potential to create a human being, how God got his reputation I might add. This is an act that requires equal partners, like the Yin and Yang, an element of the masculine within the feminine and vice versa, the circle is completed when they join. And really, the lance the Greek, my penis and I go back a long way, we’re really attached, but we don’t need to adore it, symbolically stroke it, or praise it – really it is great, it is only the vehicle through which truly profound and utterly non-physical - truly spiritual experience can take place –it is only a tool.

Stu: A tool, really?

A: Like a hammer. Have I told you about the hammer used by the master carpenter, was sold when he died and ended up in the hands of a thug who used it to beat old people and rob them?

Stu: Yes it was just a hammer. Now in the Trinity Mass I’m intrigued by the Hindu elements; can you elaborate on their significance related to the other elements?

A: Of course, the Hindu/Buddhist system has such diversity, the deities - the Avatars, there are a multitude of traditions, from assassins to monks that walk carefully to avoid stepping on bugs. The poet William Blake once concluded that, “One law for the lion and the ox is oppression” It was a pointed critique of the religious orthodox – the “one true way” - the “true believer”- the evangelical, the notion that anyone has the only true way to achieve at the highest levels. Clearly in an over simplified way life is like Pac-man. You make your way through twists and turns trying to clear the board and make it to the next level in one life. Sometimes you succeed, sometimes you don’t, on some levels you eat the monsters – other times they eat you. But with reincarnation – you always have another life. I think the difference is that in life the scoring system is tougher and you can lose points. In any event, winners and losers all have the same limitations and opportunities, like the paths on Pac-man; among the winners there are a multitude of styles and techniques to reach the higher levels. As this analogy continues, at the highest levels of life and Pac-man it appears that there are only a few options available – people that get to that elevated place are rare, most everyone else in the game that truly want to attain at the absolute highest levels when given the chance will observe and learn from those masters. It only seems that there are only a few paths to stardom, (chuckle), and only one can be the best –like a pyramid comes to a point so to say, but this is only a reflection of human duality not reality the pyramid is not a physical structure it is a metaphor, a symbol, its existence is solely a result of keeping score – nothing really changes when from seemingly out of nowhere someone sets a new high score, perhaps with a new method, let’s say a frustrated geek or wannabe priest… comes up with a cheat, changes the programming so that known levels of the game can be passed without so much effort and time.

Just like Martin Luther King Jr. said, “There is nothing so powerful as an idea whose time has come” – once the news of this cheat gets out suddenly there are many people at the highest levels of achievement. But now it’s GAME ON! Revisionists and purists and bitter “Used-to-be-cool-as-a-pocket-calculator” types strike back. Special new cheats are released but are actually viruses. OK the analogy is getting old but to conclude – all of this change and activity and all the new high scores did not change the playing field, the screen still looks the same in Pac-man if you change the screen it is a new game entirely, also, human mortality and limitations to humanity remain in place. Now there are those that may say –“I’m not going to play corrupted Pac-man; I’m playing a new game!” Go get ‘em I say, but if you play a different game, remember someone built it, and if so they have played it –there is already a standard set and a score to beat. If the game sucks, is no fun - dismal – providing new levels of misery and disappointment, you may set a new standard quickly, so few people want to play that game. You might as well go back to Pac-man and stare at the screen and let the monsters eat you, it makes no real difference anyway. I tell you what, other people may say, “Build your own game” – I say some people are always choosing to do just that. Art, human creativity, new games along every wall, seems like more are available all the time – choices growing exponentially. This analogy just won’t die it seems. I think now to Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave.”

People are restrained only able to watch shadow play on the wall in front of them; shadows cast from a fire behind them and puppeteers creating illusions. The greater truth can only be discovered by escaping your bonds and to leave the cave to see the world of color and life – to be free to move about. Plato maintained that the transition into the light of day would be painful to the eyes. He maintained that after a period of discovery the liberated man (or woman) would feel morally obligated to return to the cave and release other prisoners – often needing to literally drag them into the light as many will not want to endure the pain, most people are villagers at heart – we know what we like and we like what we know. Change is uncomfortable and a hassle and is avoided unless staying the same becomes more uncomfortable, something must tip the scale, so to speak, change happens regardless of what we want or feel – so people change, we evolve and grow, we develop, we adapt…reluctantly but inevitably. I wonder how Plato would feel about his allegory today, given the vast new body of scientific knowledge. It is clear that he believed that walking the face of this earth was a destination. I maintain that there are still people in the cave but there are billions of people walking the walk and talking the talk - living their lives in the light of day. I feel as though there are individuals both living and dead trying to get me to see the truth – a greater cosmological truth. The relative size of a cavern or cave, as described, compared to the size of the Earth is exponentially larger than the ratio formed when you compare the size of the Earth when compared to the size of the known universe. Given this –I really wonder if Plato would still maintain that there is some moral obligation to free people from their bonds in the cave, perhaps he would feel the need to risk the rarified air of space to achieve new heights – to work toward sight in the altogether new light, Divine Light? No, most likely this new light is as much brighter than sunlight as sunlight is to fire light, we know now that our sun, the major player in our world – is rather puny compared to other stars. Divine light – there is no knowing at what level that may be. In the movie Men In Black, there is a great discussion of scale. An entire known universe with a multitude of galaxies, fit into a ball small enough to dangle from a cat’s collar. From our here and now point of view –our planets could be like sub-atomic particles, solar systems like atoms, galaxies like molecules, the entire known universe and that which we don’t know are contained in a single drop of mucus falling from a rodents nostril at night on a planet in its own solar system – or more to the point a single drop of something in a sea of something so beyond our grasp as to not be relevant. A similar or corresponding notion of time comes to mind. Whoa… I would like to think that not only have I stepped away from Pac-man but that I have actually left the arcade. That I have had a hand in building a bus – accepting passengers outside the Arcade, giving people a lift to the beach, the park, the foothills, if you want to go to the top of the mountain I can get you as close as the road goes but you need to hike the last bit. I know my way around town – there is a lot you can do, fun in the sun, toil in the sun, the sun will come out tomorrow, after morning fog.

But, I have seen what I call an airbus, a vehicle in the sky, I’m not sure but it seems it may land just on the other side of the hill at the edge of my route. I might be able to walk over there and get on that vehicle, there may be other towns to see and things I don’t even have a name for, but if I do that, then this town and my grateful passengers won’t be able to rely on me, I’m afraid that this town will seem small and insignificant, the arcade used to be my life, everyone I knew was there I was the Man, God was I ever that young? Hey, maybe there is more than one airbus, maybe I can build one, and maybe I’m too old to start…. What do you think Stu?

Stu: I think I just heard the 21st century sequel to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave and I want to read the transcript later, but I’m not sure how the Hindu/Buddhist traditions led you from polytheism - to the cave - to Pac-man - to the arcade – to the bus – to a possible airport and potential air travel?

A: Actually I have seen enough with my eyes to know there is air travel. It isn’t the polytheism that started this journey; it is that there is a comprehensive alternative to the Catholicism of my youth, valid in method and tangible result. Once I saw that a single pyramid was not the end all I saw it in perspective – in a metaphorical field with other pyramids at other locations, and there were other grand buildings as well, all within my field of my vision. To carry on with the theme, I’ve actually seen the airport; I have experienced some air travel… Why are you grinning? … Oh, never mind, I’m back in town so to speak.

Let me put it this way, children are often spoken of as having a sense of wonder and a magical connection to life, love and the cosmos that is eroded by forces from the moment they are born. Children grow up. The pressures to get along and pursue comfort make for compromise and setting priorities and making tough decisions, these shape young adults and prepare them. Parents and society want our young to outdo us –we want them to set new high scores. So – social norms and good parenting assure our children get a really good view of the cave wall, I work hard to assure my kids are bound to the bench in the second row, I can never afford a front row seat – its so unfair.

Stu: You have been talking a lot about travel; do you plan to go home?

A: No…. You’ve heard the phrase, “You can’t go home again? Actually in a spiritual sense you can and do, I’ve been back home and everything was different, starting with me. Last time I was there, everything I remember about the place was gone; in fact, there was an airport where my entire neighborhood used to be.

Stu: Oy, you sure can beat a dead horse.

A: You mean like a drum skin?

Stu: Smart ass.