Are we more divided than ever? More vicious? No. Abe Lincoln
once insulted a man so cruelly on the floor of the Illinois senate he made him
cry. Fistfights among elected officials were not uncommon in those days.
Alexander Hamilton fought and was killed in a duel because he’d
been…BESMIRCHED! Politics has always been rough but the passion it ignites is
nothing compared to that of religion. Sensible people say you should never talk
about either in polite company, hence my gutless choice to use the pseudonym
Cornholio and not my real name, Bartholomew Cornelius Polkinghauser III.
And what about Devil worship? Aleister Crowley has been
called the most evil man who ever lived. I wouldn’t go that far. However, being
the father of modern occultism and a specialist in all sorts of perversions and
bad habits, he was not exactly well behaved. Crowley was born in England in
1875 to deeply religious parents. They were strict and harsh. His father died
when he was 11 and his mother’s religiosity took on a rigid, even bizarre
quality. She railed against the evil of the world and cursed mankind daily.
Crowley received little better treatment. He had little affection for his
family and came to outright despise his mother.
As a teenager, Crowley worshipped Satan. Later, as
experiments with séances, sex rituals, and other sorts of silliness progressed,
he believed in neither God nor Satan. His religion, sort of a mix of Hedonism,
Neitzsche-ism, and spirit worship still influences weirdos to this day.
Crowley was a world-class chess player and renowned mountain
climber who set records that lasted for decades. He traveled the world and was
a fairly accomplished poet. He was quite literally a genius. Yet, Crowley was
also a narcissist who used people like handkerchiefs, stupidly wasted a large
inheritance and then mooched the rest of his life, slept with a battalion of
women and men, experimented with all manner of drugs, struggled with heroin
addiction, left a man to die on a mountain top, abandoned his wife and
children, and raised two other children in his care like animals. One day he
asked his girlfriend how he could prove his love. She said, “eat my poo”. He
did.
An interesting man, very little in Crowley’s life is
actually instructive. He was good at spotting hypocrisy, however, and there was
a quote in Martin Booth’s excellent biography I found rather remarkable.
Crowley stated, “In a way, my mother was insane, in the sense that all people
are who have watertight compartments in the brain, and hold with equal passion
incompatible ideas, and hold them apart lest their meeting should destroy
both.”
Psychologist and Christian James W. Fowler wrote a
marginally readable but important book that explained beautifully those
watertight compartments in the brain. “The Stages of Faith” is about the way
humans see the world. The first two stages are in childhood. Roughly, stage
three is when an adult accepts blindly without examination the values he or she
was taught. Stage four is when childhood or societally dominant values are
indeed challenged and maybe even rejected. Personal responsibility is taken for
one’s beliefs. The problem is that contradiction or paradox is simply
deflected. Those watertight compartments
still exist. Stage five is when a person becomes less self-absorbed and accepts
the fact that truth is often complex and confusing. Paradox can be incorporated
without inner turmoil. Not necessarily a postmodern rejection of objective
truth, respect for other belief systems develops. Stage six is when one begins
to understand that all humans are universally connected in a way. Truth may
still exist. Good and evil may still exist but tribalist us vs. them thinking
disappears. After deep examination of his thoughts and beliefs, he focuses even
less on the self and actually lives the principles of absolute love, justice,
and selflessness. He is willing to consistently sacrifice himself for the good
of others. Sadly, the research shows these latter two stages are exceedingly
rare.
When liberals blindly view the rich as enemies and
conservatives as selfish and evil, when conservatives think Obama wants
to ruin the economy, or that every liberal is godless, immoral, and hates
America, when churchgoers think every nonbeliever is wicked and capricious*,
they are holding on to those watertight compartments. Being in the mushy middle
is not the answer. I have taken a side and believe it is the right and moral
one. But not every fact or event can be Limbaugh-wedged into a neat little
package of ideology.
So when I’m confronted with the sharp sword of truth, I hope
I recognize it. I pray my mind is not made of iron or water. I pray my mind is
made of clay: solid and firm, yet soft and compliant. I hope that sword sticks.
Phillipians 1: 9,
10.
*Yes, I’m aware of Romans 3:12
