‘Non-Christian’ License Plate Prompts Oklahoma Lawsuit

An Oklahoma court has cleared the way for Methodist clergyman Keith Cressman to sue the state over his objection to  imagery on that state’s license plate.

The new license plates carry a photo of a statue called “Prayer for Rain,” of an Apache man shooting an arrow into the sky.

His 2011 lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Oklahoma City seeks a court order allowing him either to cover up the image on his plates or to get a personalized plate for the same cost as a standard license plate.

“Mr. Cressman’s (lawsuit) states a plausible compelled speech claim,” the appellate judges wrote Tuesday in a 39-page decision, reversing Judge Joe Heaton’s dismissal of the lawsuit. “He has alleged sufficient facts to suggest that the ‘Sacred Rain Arrow’ image on the standard Oklahoma license plate conveys a particularized message that others are likely to understand and to which he objects.”

Oklahoma has used American Indian imagery on license plates before, but something about this one evidently pushed the Rev. Cressman’s buttons.

Sigh. Maybe they should make a plain black and white plate for militant monotheists.

Pentagram Pizza: Should You Print Out These Links?

pentagrampizzaItems that deserve more commentary, but are not getting it today:

• From  MIT Technology Review: When we read books on paper, do we retain more than when we read on a screen?

• Re-creating the sound of ancient musical instruments, sometimes with synthesizers.

• A review of Apocalyptic Witchcraft, from Scarlet Imprint.

• At The Journal of Hofstadr Hearth, Alfarrin rethinks the blot in terms of Neolithic and Paleolithic, Aesir and Vanir, reciprocity and sharing. With a big shout-out to Paul Shepard!

• Related issues here at “Heathens in the Military: An Interview with Josh and Cat Heath, Part One,” at the Norse Mythology Blog.

You Want “Paganistan”?

From n + 1

Build Paganistan. A floating Paganistan. “Bulletproof Coffee”? I might try that once.

In addition to seeing government as just another problem that technology can overcome, Seasteaders try to “hack” every aspect of their existence down to their self-care regimens. Many participate in health and fitness regimes like the Paleo Diet and Crossfit—lifestyles that dovetail nicely with more mainstream libertarian retro-futurism, which argues humans ought to live more like they did before their “freedom” was impinged upon by large state governments, all while enjoying the enhancements of technological innovation forged in the free market. It wasn’t just Charlie from the boat cruise who proselytized the health benefits of butter: the unofficial beverage of Ephemerisle was “Bulletproof Coffee”—black coffee with half a stick of butter mixed in—which advocates claim increases their mental acuity and helps them stay trim. The inventor of the concoction claims to have increased his IQ by twenty points and lost 100 pounds as a result of his experiments “hacking” his biology. He was at Ephemerisle, too and later, in an email, told me he’d had a great time.

Have You Accepted Pan?

talk about pan

Active Imagination, Scrying, Creative Visualization, Guided Meditation

Trying to get a good handle on what the Jungians mean by “active imagination,” I have been reading Robert A. Johnson’s Inner Work: Using Dreams and Active Imagination for Personal Growth this past month.  And I am learning some things. One is that active imagination, while a good technique, is definitely a product of the modern era. For starters, it requires a room of one’s own, quiet time, and literacy, even if done without an analyst.

My professor side started thinking of this as analytical topic for a paper — which I do not intend to write, but maybe someone else can. Take active imagination, scrying, creative visualization, and guided meditation.

Could you do a four-cell diagram with two axes, such as ego — unconscious or guided — unguided?

Johnson himself says this, after stressing that active imagination deals with the surprising and unexpected:

We need to grasp this clearly because there are no so many systems around that can be confused with Active Imagination but are completely distinct from it. The main difference is that they work with a prepared script; everything is determined in advance. These systems are sometimes called “guided imagery,” “creative imagery,” or by something else. What they have in common is that everything is predetermined. You decided in advance what is going to happen in your imagination. The ego decides what it is trying to get out of the unconscious and prepares a script. The idea is to “program” the unconscious so that it will do what the ego wants it to do. In one system, the whole avowed purpose of using the imagery is to get what you want.” (Italics in the original.)

Coincidentally (“there are no coincidences,” my old teacher said) Christina Hoff Kraemer posted recently on similar topic.

Often people use the terms visualisation, meditation and pathworking interchangeably, but they are different techniques, with different purposes and histories of development.

That would be part of my hypothetical paper too: what are the intellectual roots of these practices? Some go back (in the written record) to the Middle Ages, at least — think of the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order, who prescribed a guided imagery (or meditation) exercise where you place yourself as an observer of Jesus’ crucifixion and other significant events of his life, attempting to experience them through all your senses (there is more, of course).

Sky Full of Saucers

I watched Iron Sky last night — and then this:

Must be a meme here somewhere.

You can crowd-fund the sequel to Iron Sky.  This is all part of my appreciation of homegrown Finnish films — they are rare exports.

Holy Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat

I knew that “St. Jehoshaphat” (or “Josaphat” of “Baarlam and Josaphat”) came from bodhisattva, but here is more about the Norse tale of the Buddha. The comments are interesting too.

Viewing the Earth from Space: A Major Change in Nature Religion?

A link to a site about an exhibit and conference in German devoted to the “California ideology,” symbolized by a cover from Stewart Brand’s Whole Earth Catalog  from 1968.

The image of the “blue planet,” a new perspective of the earth as seen from the outside, is one of the most popular images in history. This image, more than any other, has shaped the popular notion of the age of the “whole world” and globalization, from a worldwide society linked by the Internet to the current debate on the climate. Using artworks and materials from cultural history, the exhibition will critically explore the application of ecological-systemic concepts to society, politics, and aesthetics.

And how it ended up as a way to sell smart phones.

That the photo of the earth from space changed consciousness on some level is a given of environmental writing. My only concern is that it feeds the “everything started in the 1960s” meme, which downplays the long role of nature-as-source-of-sacred value in American religion, going back to the early 19th century. Catherine Albanese described it well.

 

Letter from Hardscrabble Creek, 1845

From Alexander Barclay, trader, to his brother George in St. Louis, June 11, 1845:

Our wants are few, and as we witness no instance of ostentation and luxury in our neighbors, we have nothing to create envy. Thus, we have only to repress occasional recollections of the superfluities of civilized life to be contented with our own. Indeed, the men who have located here are all those whom the wreck of the mountain trade and hunting parties have left on the surface, unfitted to return to former haunts or avocations, with minds alienated by new connections from home and early friends, and habits transformed by constant excitement and daring adventure from the dull plodding of the sober citizen to the reckless activity and thrilling interest of a border life, open to the aggression of the savage and the pursuit of free will, free trade and free thinking.

George P. Hammond, The Adventures of Alexander Barclay, Mountain Man

(Denver: Old West Pub. Co., 1976)

Survey: Your Spiritual Relationship with Animals

Sabina Magliocco, anthropologist and folklorist and author of Witching Culture: Folklore and Neo-Paganism in America, among other books, has a new research project underway on people’s spiritual relationships with animals.

The purpose of this study is to understand how we imagine our relationship to animals, how we incorporate animals into our spiritual or religious beliefs, and how this may motivate our actions in the everyday world.

She invites you to take her survey.