Star Trek Into Darkness, The Key of Solomon the King, and Save Me

Jewish date:  24 ’Av 5773 (Parashath Re’eh).

Today’s holidays:  Feast Day of Ignatius of Loyola (Roman Catholicism), Lughnasadh Eve in Northern Hemisphere/Imbolc Eve in Southern Hemisphere (Neopaganism), Feast Day of St. Bill Gates (Church of the SubGenius).

Greetings.

I know posting on this blog has gotten irregular. Sorry about this.  Life is busy.

I would like to comment on a number of different things relevant to this blog:

1) Star Trek Into Darkness:  Preemptively, your humble blogger would like to note that he eventually wants to write a great grand review of religion in Star Trek, all series and movies, but as he saw it recently, he would like to jot down some thoughts on it now so they do not get forgotten.

Much ink (or rather the electronic equivalent thereof) has already been spilled on what is right and wrong with this film.  Considering the focus of this blog, I will note that what Harrison did with the photon torpedoes is such an obviously bad idea that he should never even considered it (duh!) and proceed to discussing religion.  This is not an especially religious film, but like Star Trek in general, it touches on it.  The movie starts out on the planet Nibiru, which is inhabited by humanoids who have not yet developed warp technology and thus, according to the Federation’s Prime Directive, must not be contacted at any cost.  Spock gets quickly trapped in an active volcano with a device meant to freeze the molten lava so the volcano does not erupt and kill the natives.  Due to the Enterprise being hidden under water—something which everyone says makes no sense—Kirk faces the dilemma of whether he uphold the Prime Directive, in which case Spock dies, or get the Enterprise out of hiding and where the transporter will work properly to save Spock, in which case the natives will probably see the ship—a clear violation of the Prime Directive.  Kirk being Kirk, the natives see the Enterprise rising out of the ocean.  The natives’ behavior soon afterwards suggests they believe they have seen a divine being or have had a prophetic vision.  To say the least, Admiral Pike is not happy.  

Religious misinterpretation of Federation activity actually has been done at least once before in the Star Trek universe.  The Star Trek:  The Next Generation episode “Who Watches the Watchers” revolves around someone on a technologically primitive planet inhabited by Vulcanoids mistaking Captain Jean-Luc Picard for a god known as the Overseer.  That episode deals with the consequences of such a mistake and how to deal with it—not to mention religious epistemology—in far greater length and detail than Star Trek Into Darkness, which says nothing about what, if anything, Starfleet does to clean up the mess on Nibiru.

Your humble blogger is not aware of anything quite like either of these fictional incidents happening in reality, though cargo cults approximate them to some degree.

Also noted is a little peek into the Vulcan belief system.  Whether Vulcans believe in the supernatural or not has never been discussed, albeit Mr. Spock once claimed to specifically not believe in angels.  However, the Vulcan belief system includes things like monasticism and mysticism which would normally be religious on Earth.  There is some arguing in this film over whether the needs of the many really do outweigh the needs of the one (reflecting Star Trek II:  The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek III:  The Search for Spock).  Also, Spock claims that war is “by definition” immoral, which sounds like an all-too-human attempt to skirt the problem that morality is intrinsically a matter of opinion.  Certain properties, such as weight and temperature, are matters of objective fact.  But whether an action is good or bad cannot be objective in the same way; no matter how hard one looks, one will never find goodness particles or evilness waves.  Spock seems to be trying to make morality objective by defining what is and is not moral.  One can argue about whether some action objectively fits this definition.  (And your humble blogger assumes that Spock, being no mental slouch, has a definition for war and every other relevant term.)  However, since the definition is not rooted in objective reality, it remains an opinion.  Klingons just as easily can claim that war is by definition moral (and act on this presumed morality, too).  Defining what is moral or immoral does not make it objectively so.

Also:  Considering that Vulcans have been depicted at times waging war, the Vulcan belief system appears to have a priority system.  Vulcans may consider war immoral, but they may well consider other things, such as being murdered by enemy soldiers, to be worse, thus making war the lesser of two evils.  Real humans tend to agree on this issue, though there are a few true pacifists.

2) The Key of Solomon the King (Clavicula Salomonis) translated by S. Liddell MacGregor Mathers:  This is a grimoire repeatedly mentioned as source material in your humble blogger’s previous reading on Neopaganism.  It certainly looks like the source for Gerald Gardner’s High Magic’s Aid, the procedures for working magic being largely the same.  Unlike High Magic’s Aid, The Key of Solomon deals with working magic in a Jewish (or pseudo-Jewish) context.  There is none of the Neopagan business of duotheism, polarity of the sexes, or ritual nudity.  Magic instead is presented as an exercise in manipulating spirits for one’s purposes.  Much emphasis is put on the necessity of piety to work magic.  Consistent with this is the lack of any procedure for divination; after all, the Torah explicitly forbids several kinds of divination.

And, no, there is no convincing reason to believe that King Shelomoh (Solomon) actually wrote this book.  There is nothing in the Hebrew Bible to suggest he practiced any form of magic.

3) Save Me:  This gem of a show showed up recently on Hulu.  It is story of a woman with poor moral habits (such as drunkenness, petty theft, and embarrassing behavior) named Beth who accidentally chokes.  She survives, though feeling like she died in the process.  Reborn, she finds herself religiously moved and believes that God communicates with her.

One major issue that this show deals with is how would someone who experiences a sudden conversion would behave.  (This sort of thing does happen in real life at times.  See The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James.)  Given the profundity of Beth’s conversion, she tends to go to extremes—absurd ones, as this is a comedy.  Having no previous religious experience, Beth frequently has no idea how a religious person is supposed to behave and makes some very strange mistakes.  For example, in one episode she prays constantly.  She also embraces love for her fellow humans and other creatures to the point of loving her husband’s ex-mistress Carlise and a spider.  At one point, she decides to read the (Christian) Bible, but finding the King James Version too hard, she turns to The Children’s Bible and proceeds to misinterpret the parable of the Good Samaritan.  (Come to think of it, she never seems to get very far in either version.)  In another, she “honors” her parents by calling them excessively.  Trying to “honor” her daughter Emily into honoring her back proves socially embarrassing for the latter.  Despite everything being played for laughs, religious behavior Beth undertakes on her own really is no stranger than what a lot of converts do.

(And to be fair to Beth, none of the other main characters displays much knowledge of Christianity or religion in general, which is sadly normal for Americans these days.  (See Religious Literacy by Stephen Prothero.)  Emily even hollows out a Bible to hide marijuana in.)

The other major issue is the nature of prophecy.  For Beth, this is something in the way of a comedic version of the sorts of things one would expect in Ezekiel and Jonah (or Evan Almighty):  She is told to do all sorts of strange actions in a gender-neutral voice, and she is not allowed to shirk her duty.  Refusing to do what God demands only results in pain for Beth, and compliance is quick.  Beth is assumed to be some sort of crackpot for claiming prophecy, though with the lack of theological sophistication of the characters, none of them ever thinks about empirically testing whether she can consistently make correct predictions.  This is despite that around Beth periodically occur unusually well-timed events (lightning striking Carlise, Beth’s car hitting a squirrel, various injuries to Beth, rain falling, the power in various houses going out, etc.) which serve to progress the plot, tie up loose ends, and bring Beth together with her family and friends.  Beth’s husband Todd is unusually generous in interpreting what happens to Beth and chalks her prophecies up to intuition.  Untraditionally, Beth prophetically has access to knowledge about people which she should not have.  Semi-traditionally, she actually has two visions of God, once in the form of Betty White(!) and the other as a black man.  (For comparison, YHWH or some suitable representative has a form which looks like it is practically on fire in Ezekiel.)  Less traditional is God claiming to have taken corporeal form when Beth was a child and played friend with her; while Christians generally regard Jesus as God somehow become corporeal, your humble blogger is not aware of them promoting the idea that He has made a habit of pretending to be human.  Then again, God in this series never claims to be the god of Christianity or any other religion, so some flexibility is warranted.

All in all, an enjoyable effort in theological fiction.  I am saddened that its run seems limited to just seven episodes.  I hope NBC changes its collective mind and continues the series.

’Aharon/Aaron

Thoughts on the Fast of ’Av

Jewish date:  9 ’Av 5773 (Parashath Wa’Ethḥannan).

Today’s holidays:  The Fast of ’Av (Judaism), Feast Day of Our Lady of Mount Carmel (Roman Catholicism), Display of the Embarrassing Swimsuits (Church of the SubGenius).



Today is the Fast of ’Av, the saddest day in the Jewish calendar, marking some of our worst tragedies.  When one reviews the laws for fast days, one of the first things one reads is that fasting and associated practices, while obligatory on certain days, are not an end in themselves.  Thus to spend a fast day touristing or playing video games is forbidden. because that would be missing the point.  Fasting and suffering are a means to the end of repentance.  This post is meant to comment on a contemporary mistake that we have yet to correct.

In previous generations, our ancestors saw fit to act on what they believed was going to happen soon.  YHWH forbade King Dawidh to build the First Temple, but since Dawidh’s son Shelomoh was supposed to build it, Dawidh made all the preparations he could ahead of time.  When many thought that Shim‘on “bar Kokheva’” bar Koziva’ was Mashiaḥ, many took up arms against the Romans to fight the wars that Mashiaḥ is supposed to fight.  And when many thought that Shabbethay Ṣevi was Mashiaḥ, many repented their sins and prepared to move to Israel.  The attitude was that one should act to move events along.  The fact that Mashiaḥ did not actually come at those times is irrelevant to this point.

We are closer to the fulfillment of Messianic prophecies now than at any time in the past 2,000 years.  Not only have we reestablished the Jewish state, but it has survived despite the constant hostility of its neighbors, including terrorism and unprovoked warfare.  All three of the major Abrahamic religions are scrambling to deal with this unprecedented historical change, with adherents trying to adjust their beliefs to the altered situation on the ground or rationalize their way around it.  And while we Jews have been a big winner in this new era, for too many of us the consequences of this new era have not sunk in.

As happened at the start of the Second Temple Period, few of us have returned home to Israel voluntarily, preferring to remain in the Diaspora.  Many of us who did come came because they had little choice in the matter.  Persecution and genocide, both before and after the formation of the State of Israel, have given Jews every reason get out of Europe and the Muslim world.  Those living in places of tolerance, such as the United States, have felt less motivated to make ‘aliyyah.  In such comfortable places, it is very easy to claim to be a Zionist but never act upon it.  Moving to Israel may be a dream or an ideal, but “maybe sometime in the future” very easily becomes “never” in practice.  I myself was guilty of this error until YHWH coerced me into reconsidering.  It is one thing to say one believes that Israel is where Jews belong; it is an entirely different thing to live it.

Even among those of us who live in Israel, the consequences of what we are supposed to be doing have generally not sunken in completely.  Yes, we tithe our produce, and we do not celebrate an extra day of major holidays.  But ever since the destruction of the Second Temple, we have not been able to fully practice Judaism.  Without the Temple, or at least proper access to the Temple Mount, many of the rites that are supposed to performed daily, on Shabbath, and on major holidays cannot be performed.  Part of the problem is the government, or to be specific, every government Israel has had, starting in 1967.  Almost immediately after the Temple Mount was liberated, Mosheh Dayyan returned it to Islamic control, where it has remained, aided and abetted by the police.  The police would rather violate freedom of religion to keep Muslims relatively happy in the short term, even though it is their job to enforce religious tolerance and pandering to violent Muslims never works in the long term.  Muslims are essentially allowed to do anything they want up there, even blatant violations of Israeli law, such as destruction of antiquities, while Jews are openly discriminated against.  Many Jews are turned away for no valid reason, while those who do ascend are warned not to pray and may be harassed by the police and Muslims.  Bringing sacrifices is something the police cannot conceive of permitting at all.

The strange thing is a general lack of concern, even among the observant, for the Temple Mount and the Temple service.  Many of us pray for complete redemption and sing about how we want Mashiaḥ now, but we expect YHWH to do everything and ourselves to do nothing—unlike what our ancestors did.  Very few of us bother to visit the Temple Mount.  Very few of us protest against Muslim desecration of our most holy site.  And very few of us have done anything to get ready for restarting the Temple service.  When confronted with their indifference, many will make excuses based on ritual purity (in contrast with what Jews did in earlier times or that certain sacrifices can be made even while ritually impure) or feign fear of Muslims should Jews reclaim the Temple Mount (despite Muslim complaints about Jews having little to do with reality).  Simply ignoring a large chunk of our religion is irrational, and I can see no way around the problem other than to reclaim the Temple Mount.

May YHWH help us get past the delusion that the status quo must be preserved and lead us to repent.


Various relevant articles:

• “The 9th of Av: A Time to Mourn... A Time to Build”
• “The Temple taboo”
• “Danon: Equal Prayer Rights on Temple Mount Now” (Someone is trying to get my vote.)
• “Muslim Extremists Force Jews From Temple Mount”  (As I keep saying on my Facebook account, the police suck.)
• “A historical description of Tisha Be’av”
• “Weeping in the silence – Tisha Be’av”

Also note the Temple Institute, who are working to get ready everything needed for the next Temple.

A short review of The Book of the SubGenius

Jewish date:  22 Siwan 5773 (Parashath Shelah).

Today’s holidays:  Visitation (Roman Catholicism), Syaday (Discordianism), Desecration Day (Church of the SubGenius), Feast Day of Alphonse Louis Constant (Thelema).

Greetings.

J. R. “Bob” Dobbs, savior of the Church of the SubGenius

Having written about Neopaganism, your humble blogger decided to examine the Church of the SubGenius.  The Church of the SubGenius is sometimes connected with Discordianism, an eccentric Neopagan group, and I happen to have a copy of The Book of the SubGenius, a central text of the Church of the SubGenius, on paper.    The Church of the SubGenius is also significant enough to make the news.  One of their holidays, X-Day, is periodically reported, and a child custody battle between two members gained some notice.  It therefore seemed like a decent idea to get it over with and review The Book of the SubGenius.

The Book of the SubGenius rather reminds me of the literature of the Church of Satan, which creates a huge aura of evil meant to scare away of non-Satanists, under which is hidden a philosophy of selfishness.  The Book of the SubGenius likewise creates an aura, only this one of some of the worst and most insane ideas from religion, both real and imaginary.  Anyone with the endurance to read The Book of the SubGenius will find examples of conspiracy “theories” which reach all the way back to the gods, doomsday predictions (which have turned out to be wildly inaccurate), maltheism (Divine disinterest in or hatred of mortals, clearly styled after the Cthulhu Mythos), racism, selfishness, love of money, predestination, eisegesis (reading meaning into texts which is not there), taking texts out of context, alien visitations (probably inspired by Raëlism and Erich von Däniken), salvation through paying money to the Church, salvation ultimately being dependent on one man (clearly inspired by Jesus), sexual perversion, and incoherent rants.  The book is also littered on every page with bizarre drawings which may give the reader nightmares.  (Really.  This material is safe for neither work nor family.)

Clearly the insanity is not meant to be believed; The Book of the SubGenius in at least two places inside, as well as in the blurb on the back cover, insists its own contents are false.  The mass of insanity would thus act in the same way as the Satanic aura of evil:  to scare the heebeejeebees out of anyone not prepared to do the long, hard work of trying to figure out what is hidden underneath.  There also is a quality of humor to the entire book, as befits a parody religion.  But I have heard that there are SubGeniuses who practice SubGeniusism as a real religion, necessitating that they find something very meaningful under the huge pile of freaky goofiness.  If so, what is it?  Is it just a philosophy of hedonism combined with a warped sense of humor and getting the most benefit out of society with the least effort?  Or is there something else hiding there?

Seeking answers to these questions, I could have driven myself crazy analyzing The Book of the SubGenius and various other materials found on the Church of the SubGenius Web-site.  Instead, I took a perfectly valid empirical shortcut:  I sent E-mail to Reverend Ivan Stang, founder of the Church of the SubGenius and thus someone who should know the answers.  He told me he was unaware of anything hiding behind the aura of insanity.  Thus the Church of the SubGenius can safely be treated as a parody religion.

As far as a parody religion goes, the Church of the SubGenius is shallow and unfocused.  Well-constructed parody religions, such as the famous Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, focus on one religion or even one idea and show what may be wrong with it.  SubGeniusism, on the other hand, is a mishmash of bad ideas and does not accurately reflect any real religion or real religions in general.  There is no attempt to show why any of these ideas are bad, only attempts to freak out the reader with them.  As far as humor goes, this book will not appeal to everyone.  Your humble blogger recommends that anyone who does not find disgust or shock funny skip this book and read something from the Discworld series instead.

Peace and Shabbath shalom.

’Aharon/Aaron

There are no atheists in twisters (or: The gods of Oz must be crazy): a theological review of Oz the Great and Powerful

Jewish date:  30 Nisan 5733 (night) (Parashath Thazria‘-Meṣora‘).

Today’s holidays:  Ro’sh Hodhesh (Judaism), Tuesday of the Second Week of Easter (Roman Catholicism), Feast for the Three Days of the Writing of the Book of the Law and Feast Day of Rabelais and Feast Day of Francis Bacon Lord Verulam (Thelema), Feast Day of St. Tommy Geogiarides (Church of the SubGenius), Day of Jarl Hakon (Norse Neopaganism).

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There are no atheists in twisters (or:  The gods of Oz must be crazy):  a theological review of Oz the Great and Powerful

WARNING:  THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS, STARTING IN THE SECOND PARAGRAPH.

Much ink has been spilled (so to speak) recently by Ozophiles reviewing Oz the Great and Powerful, and a lot of is very accurate.  This includes a review allegedly by the Witch of the West on this blog’s sister blog, Weird thing of the day.  The graphic effects are indeed excellent and completely worthy of Oz.  The writing, while not as good as the effects, is good enough to be entertaining.  But while there is much that is good and many nods towards the literary Oz canon and the famous 1939 MGM movie, one needs to keep one thing in mind when discussing this movie:  it was produced by Disney.  Disney has a reputation for being driven by profits more than by the quest to produce true art—an attitude which produces botched works.

Oz the Great and Powerful is botched in an artistic aspect, because it was the wrong film to produce in the first place.  Oz the Great and Powerful has Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkel Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs, also known as “Oz” and “the Wizard” as the protagonist, and Oz is absolutely the wrong character to center any prequel to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz around.  Oz the Great and Powerful starts off and ends with it being very clear that Oz is human and a fraud.  This completely removes the major revelation that the Wizard is a fraud for anyone watching the movies in order—a serious artistic offense.  The writers should have learned this from Star Wars, Episode III:  Revenge of the Sith but did not.  Nothing can truly compensate for this error.

Even ignoring this blunder, centering the film around Oz is a clear violation of the norms set down by L. Frank Baum, the creator of Oz.  As noted in my previous post on this blog about Oz, Baum incorporated ideas of matriarchy and feminism—ideas derived from sources that also influenced Neopaganism—into his works.  He created many strong female characters, and he favored using girls as his protagonists.  Making Oz the protagonist makes it harder to write Baumian feminism; the easy way to write such a story, given that he is the hero, is to give him the lion’s share of successes in moving the plot towards a happy ending.  Thus any other character on the side of good—regardless of sex—is going to look second-class by comparison.  Thus Glinda, the most powerful mortal character in Oz, is noticeably less powerful than how Baum describes her; otherwise she would have no use for Oz at all except maybe as a figurehead—a position any man sufficiently skilled in lying could fill.  As the villains, Evanora and Theodora, can be as powerful as the writers want, so long as Oz can beat them, are both women, it is very easy to interpret this film as having the message that it is wrong for a woman to be too powerful, whether or not that was actually intended.

“The Witch of the West” does a nice job of detailing how the writers further screwed up on its portrayal of women.  Suffice it to say that the result is a textbook example of regression to the mean and fitting the ideals of neither Baum nor his proto-Neopagan sources.  Given that (and how) people routinely poke fun at the portrayals in Disney movies of women, such is (disappointingly) to be expected.  (For examples of poking fun of Disney’s portrayals of women, see “ Advice For Young Girls From Belle”, “Advice For Young Girls From Snow White”, and “Advice For Young Girls From The Little Mermaid”.)

Bucking Baumian proto-Neopagan matriarchy is not the only religious aspect of Oz the Great and Powerful.  The plot can be understood as a religious journey for Oz.  Oz starts off as a flawed man, albeit not a hopeless one.  Part of this is that he is a professional charlatan, practicing stage magic.  Lest anyone think this is necessarily harmless, his audiences—unlike modern audiences—believe his powers are real.  This gets him into trouble when he is asked to heal a crippled girl and he cannot comply.  He also is a serial womanizer, habitually releasing his charms on whatever beautiful adult human female is available without foresight—which creates problems, as he is somehow extremely attractive to women.  He rather guiltily has to turn down one Annie, who is struggling to decide whether to marry John Gale or continue a sporadic relationship with Oz.  He also has to flee to avoid getting killed by a strongman who does not appreciate him having charmed his wife.

Oz escapes the strongman in a balloon, which turns out to be a bad idea, as it quickly gets caught in a tornado.  Vividly animated flying objects with the potential to kill Oz evoke a religious response:  he prays.  Oz’s prayer is a prayer of the saying “There are no atheists in foxholes”:  unfocused and desperate.  He does not specify to Whom he is praying, not even a generic “God”, and he promises little more than to improve and accomplish something.  At this point, he is ready to do anything any god demands, just so long as he lives.  And his prayer is apparently accepted by a god Who expects Oz to make good on his prayer.

The previous king of the Land of Oz, father of the witches Evanora, Glinda, and Theodora, prophesied about the coming of the Wizard.  The Wizard would be named “Oz” and save the people.  Disappointingly, nothing is said of the critical details of prophecy, such as the name of the god in Whose name it was said or how anyone knows that the king had actual prophetic powers and was not delusional—a large theological plot-hole.  (Would it have killed the writers to add in “Thus says the Supreme Maker” or “In the name of Lurline”?)  Whatever the real details are, the prophecy is generally believed, and the arrival of Oz, quite logically, only serves to reinforce the belief.

Not all the characters unambiguously believe the prophecy.  Oz, who was not raised on the belief, is more confused about it than anything else.  While never claiming disbelief, he repeatedly quietly denies he is the foreseen Wizard.  Evanora and Theodora (post-slide into evil) seek to prevent the prophecy from coming true by killing Oz; technically this not require belief in the truth in the prophecy, but removing Oz also removes the possibility that a rebel movement of believers will coalesce around him.  Glinda also is ambiguous about her belief about the prophecy.  She is aware from the moment she meets Oz what sort of man he is (probably by magic or Sherlock Holmes-like perception), and from that moment she charms him into fitting the role well enough to launch and execute a revolution against Evanora.  Whether the prophecy is real or not seems of little import to her.  That her subjects believe the prophecy makes it a lot easier for her and Oz to get them to prepare for battle and fight.  The result, of course, is in accordance with the prophecy:  the revolution, led by Oz as the Wizard, is successful, Evanora and Theodora are defeated and have to flee, and Oz becomes the undisputed ruler of the Emerald City.  

The fulfillment of the prophecy opens a whole theological can of worms.  Is the prophecy genuine, or did Glinda just engineer the fulfillment of a false prophecy?  If the prophecy is genuine, did whatever gods exist have a hand in its fulfillment, or did they just foresee what would happen? 

Along the way to fulfilling the prophecy, Oz does undergo some moral improvement.  At the start of the movie, the only relationship he has which is not exploitative is with Annie.  At first in Oz, he follows his usual pattern—most egregiously by taking advantage of Theodora and then abandoning her without so much as an “It’s not you; it’s me”.  But he also exercises real sympathy, helping Finley the Flying Monkey and the China Girl (despite no hope or desire of a romantic fling with either) and eventually Glinda’s subjects.  Oz also manages to form a relationship with Glinda without exploiting her.  (To be sure, despite her maltreatment by the writers, even in this film taking advantage of Glinda would be hard.  Instead, she is arguably exploiting him.)  Oz even issues a public apology to Theodora and offers her a place in the Emerald City if she finds her “inner goodness”.

On the other hand, Oz’s moral improvement leaves a lot to be desired.  At the end of the day, he is still a charlatan.  He uses large-scale humbuggery to win the war, and he remains a humbug in his capacity as the Wizard even after his victory.  Also, his apology to Theodora is too little, too late; she dismisses it without a thought.  And there is something disappointing in knowing that this “hero” down the line is going to send Dorothy and company to kill Theodora.  This is a horrible thing to do to Dorothy and company, given that if they are crazy enough to attempt it, they will probably get killed, injured, or enslaved.  And it is a horrible thing to do to Theodora, given how badly he has treated her already.

This incomplete repentance makes for some serious question for the unnamed gods of Oz.  If the revolution is really their doing, why did they put a fraud in power?  Why do they let him get so out of hand as to risk people’s lives?  What sort of morals do they hold by if they do such things?  These are not insoluble questions.  E.g., the gods of the Land of Oz may be trickster gods, or they may consider Oz as the Wizard as their best available solution to the Land of Oz’s problems, not an ideal one.  But no attempt is made to answer such questions.

Theological rating:  C-.  (Your humble blogger doubts the planned sequel is going to clean up the mess the writers left.  Note Disney’s Tron Legacy, which does little to answer the unsolved theological questions of Tron.)

Appendix (because your humble blogger cannot resist commenting on things beyond theology and morality):  

1) The way to write a prequel to Baum’s Oz books covering the arrival of the Wizard correctly is to not write it with the Wizard as the central character.  Such a prequel should be about someone young, preferably a girl, living in or visiting Oz at the time of the arrival of the Wizard.  The Wizard might well appear as a character, but never, ever in his true form, only disguised and scaring the heebeejeebees out of everyone in that time of political turmoil, thus avoiding spoiling a major revelation.

2) I would like to note one continuity nod which I have not noticed anyone else mentioning.  As noted above, in the film, one Annie tells Oz that John Gale has asked her to marry her, the implication being that Annie and John will become Dorothy’s parents.   Alexander Melentyevich Volkov created a loose adaptation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in Russian and a series based on it which went off in a different direction from Baum’s books.  The equivalent of Dorothy in that series is named Ellie, and the names of her parents are… John and Anna.  This may not be a continuity nod to literary or MGM Oz, but it does indicate that someone who made this film really was an Ozophile.

3) “Oz” is conventionally translated into Hebrew as ‘Uṣ, apparently repurposing the name of the place ’Iyyov (Job) lived.  But “Oz” is translated into Hebrew in this film as ’Oz.  The name of this film in Hebrew is ’Ereṣ ’Oz (“The Land of Oz”)—corresponding to the conventional shortened title of the second canonical Oz book, The Marvelous Land of Oz.  Your humble blogger suspects these discrepancies may be due to less familiarity with Oz here in Israel than in the United States.

4) For those who are interested in seeing films which do a better job on certain themes in Oz the Great and Terrible, your humble blogger recommends The Adventures of Captain Zoom in Outer Space and Galaxy Quest.  Both films deal with the theme of people forced by their circumstances to impersonate people who do not actually exist and coming to accept the roles, albeit in science-fiction settings rather than a fantasy setting.  Captain Zoom also deals with religious issues, including having some uniquely dramatic evidence that a prophecy is real.  Both are very entertaining and worthwhile watching just for the fun of it.

Review of One Night with the King

Jewish date:  8 ’Adhar 5733 (evening) (Parashath Teṣawweh).

Today’s holidays:  First Sunday of Lent (Roman Catholicism), Feast Day of St. Isaac Asimov (Church of the SubGenius), Feast of Giordano Bruno the Martyr (Thelema), Quirinalia (Roman religion)

Greetings.

Considering that Purim is a week from now, I would like to give a review on a relevant movie, One Night with the King.

I have been told that I tend to give negative reviews.  Fair enough.  This is Divine Misconceptions, the blog which concentrates on religious fallacies and misinformation.  Thus I often read or watch material containing religious fallacies and misinformation—material I know full well has something wrong with it—and report on it, thus leading to negative reviews.  I am thus happy, for a change, to review a movie based on a book of the Hebrew Bible which I consider done well.

One Night with the King is an adaptation of the Book of Esther, and the people who made it thought a lot about what they were doing, and they took care to go back to the original material.  The basic plot, most of the characters, and much of the dialog are taken straight from the text of Esther.  In doing the work of adaptation, the adaptors were very careful to interpret the original story in a psychologically plausible manner rather than rewrite it.  For example, some examples of interpretation:

• How was Haman descended from ’Aghagh when all of ‘Amaleq was wiped out?  ’Aghagh’s queen, pregnant with his child, escaped.
• Why did Haman hate the Jews so much?  ’Aghagh’s queen passed on a multigenerational grudge.  (That does happen at times.)
• Why was Mordokhay sitting in the palace gates so much?  He was a palace scribe.
• Why did Washti refuse to come to ’Aḥashwerosh’s banquet?  She was protesting ’Aḥashwerosh’s plans to go to war against Greece in revenge for for his father dying in war against them.
• Where was Haman to get that huge amount of money he promised ’Aḥashwerosh in return for being able to destroy the Jews?  He proposed to get it from the Jews by killing them and taking all their money and property; the money would be used to finance the war.

There was a lot of thought put into elaborating on the characters.

• Mordokhay is well aware of the inconsistency between his religion and his remaining in Persia.  (This was a very real problem in the Second Temple Period, when most Jews remained in the Diaspora rather than return to Israel, and the inconsistency is a major problem today.)  He wavers between hiding his Jewishness and taking pride in it.  (This happens a lot today, too.)  
• ’Ester has been blown up into a multilingual, literate, and educated character who wants to run off to Yerushalayim with her boyfriend.  After being conscripted into ’Aḥashwerosh’s harem, in the finest of human fashion, she becomes a writhing mass of contradiction.  She tries to make the best of her situation and becomes romantically entangled with ’Aḥashwerosh.  And she also cannot ignore the politics being worked about her; she has to become involved.
• ’Aḥashwerosh is portrayed as torn between his love of art and learning, on one hand, and on the other hand the need for following protocol and wreaking revenge.  His attraction to ’Ester is not just based on her beauty, but her mind as well.  (He has taste in women and finds less-intellectual women boring.)
• Haman is portrayed not only as carrying on a family tradition of hatred, but also as a master political schemer.  His ultimate goal is to become king, and he is quite willing to step on anyone who gets in the way of that goal.  About the only thing that matters to him other than revenge and political ambitions is family—and his wife Zeresh encourages Haman in his wickedness.  Haman repeatedly gives eloquent political speeches, spreading conspiracy “theories” about the Jews and the Greeks secretly plotting to destroy the Persian Empire.  He comes off as a truly evil and dangerous villain.

Are there inaccuracies in One Night with the King?  Yes.  For example:

• ’Aghagh’s queen passes down to her descendants a symbol which is a variant on the swastika.  While this is an obvious reference to the Nazis, the swastika did not originate with anti-Semites and has been used by a variety of cultures throughout human history.
• The anachronistic use of the swastika is balanced by an anachronistic use of the hexagram (Star of David, Shield of Solomon) as a symbol for the Jews.  Until Jews adopted the hexagram in the 1800s, it was a geometric and magical symbol.
• ’Ester probably did not have a boyfriend before she was abducted.  The concepts of “boyfriend” and “girlfriend” do not appear in the Hebrew Bible at all.
• The Book of Esther makes no mention of the conscription of young men to become eunuchs.  Thus the undesirable fate of ’Ester’s boyfriend in the film probably never happened.
• ’Ester in this film claims to have read The Epic of Gilgamesh in the original.  Your humble blogger is under the impression this may be anachronistic.
• Haman is unaware that the names of the months are not Jewish.
• In the film, it is repeatedly claimed that the Greeks practice democracy, as if this were a universal for them.  Your humble blogger is under the impression that Greece in the ancient world, at least before Alexander the Great’s conquests, was a collection of city-states with a variety of styles of government.
• ’Ester’s fast is too short, and she only has one feast in the film.

However, none of the inaccuracies are large enough to make much of difference in an overall story which largely follows the original Book of Esther.  As such, they are for the most part forgivable.

Peace.

’Aharon/Aaron

Proto-Neopaganism in Oz

Jewish date:  27 Shevaṭ 5773 (evening) (Parashath Mishpaṭim).

Today’s holidays:  Feast Day of Paul Miki and companions (Roman Catholicism), Feast Day of St. Tlaloc (Church of the SubGenius).

Greetings.

I have decided to put off writing about The Secret and What the Bleep Do We Know?  These movies/books are eminently worthy of criticism, and the way the magic espoused in them is supposed to work does resemble that of Neopaganism and LaVeyan Satanism.  However, The Secret properly belongs to the New Thought movement, and What the Bleep Do We Know? is a product of Ramtha’s School of Enlightenment.  As such, discussing either properly requires a sizable amount of research which would be a major tangent away from Neopaganism.  The Secret also requires (or would prompt) digressions into the worlds of Chicken Soup for the Soul and Conversations with God, the authors of which appear in the movie.  As such, I deem them worthy of review at a later date.

Current reading more directly related to Neopaganism is going slowly, so please be patient.  I have read a little from The Key of Solomon, a classic grimoire which is cited as one of the sources for Wiccan ritual.  (And it certainly reads so far like something Gerald Gardner was cribbing from in writing High Magic’s Aid.)  I am also reading The Book of the SubGenius, a sacred text of the Church of the SubGenius, a parody religion connected with the Neopagan denomination of Discordianism.  (It’s also sufficiently disturbing that I want to get it over with.)

In the meantime, I would like to note Finding Oz:  How L. Frank Baum Discovered the Great American Story by Evan I. Schwartz.  This is not a book about religion per se, but rather a book about how L. Frank Baum wrote The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.  This includes not just his personal history and the state of society in the United States at the time in general, but also religious influences.  One of these was Theosophy, a religion which was having its heyday in Baum’s day.  (Those who have read Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West will remember that the Wizard in that story was a Theosophist on a mission from Madame Blavatsky.)  Another was Swami Vivekananda, a Hindu monk who spoke at the Parliament of the World’s Religions at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 and became popular for a time.  I hope to discuss Theosophy and Hinduism in the future, and thus I will not discuss them now, especially since I still have a lot to read of even basic Hindu literature (which is extremely extensive) and everything to read of Theosophical basic literature.

So what is there left to discuss from Finding Oz now?  Consider that The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was published in 1900, and society in the United States back then was noticeably different than it is today.  Today it is generally assumed in the United States that women are equals of men and have the same rights (despite problems in implementation), thus leading to Republican politicians making themselves look really bad whenever they dare to suggest anything appearing otherwise.  This assumption of equality was not a foregone conclusion back in Baum’s day, which was decades before the era of women’s liberation.  Baum happened to live at the time of the suffragette movement of Susan B. Anthony and company, which sought to obtain the right to vote for women.  And his mother-in-law, Matilda Joslyn Gage, was a leading suffragette.  Gage did not just break with common expectations for women at the time; she also broke with Christianity.  Not only did she embrace Theosophy as an alternative, but she also embraced... the pseudo-history of matriarchy, the idea of witches as “wise women” and Christian persecution of witches.  Please note that The Sorceress, Aradia, and the first edition of The Golden Bough had already been published, so these ideas were available already to be embraced.

These ideas rubbed off on Baum to the extent that they showed up in the Oz books.  This is not limited to Baum having a thing for strong female characters (Dorothy, Glinda, Ozma, Betsy, Trot, Scraps, etc.).  While Baum generally kept religious references in his books to a minimum, everyone is aware that Oz has witches.  (Gratefully, he avoids the cliché that witches are all evil or its inverse that they are all good.)  Dorothy Gale is told when she first visits Oz that Oz has witches, because it is an uncivilized country, the implication being that in civilized countries—such as the United States—witches are persecuted.  Both Glinda and the Witch of the North are definitely “wise women”, providing sage advice and help, especially the former throughout the series.  All four countries in Oz are ruled by women (specifically witches) when Dorothy first visits, and while there are male rulers after that, in The Marvelous Land of Oz a girl, Ozma, becomes ruler of all of Oz, a position she retains even in the works of succeeding authors.  Also note that Baum avoided the psychologically unrealistic equation of making all female rulers automatically good and all male rulers automatically bad, e.g., the Wicked Witch of the West is a terrifying dictator, and her replacement, Nick Chopper the Tin Woodman, is much beloved by his subjects.  (Baum still has plenty of fans today, and with good reason.)  Granted, the proto-Neopagan ideas were never taken to the extent of Aradia or The Golden Bough (e.g., Glinda never goes dancing naked in the woods, worshipping the Fairy Queen Lurline and doing something inappropriate with a warlock, and she most definitely does not murder a Quadling consort every year), but some of the basic ideas which later inspired Neopaganism are really in there.

(Now all I need to do is figure out how to tie Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Peter Pan into religious fallacies and misinformation...)

Peace.

’Aharon/Aaron

Notes on 2 Corinthians + Paul's Neopagan-like thinking

Jewish date:  21 Shevaṭ 5773 (Parashath Yithro).

Today’s holidays:  Friday of the Third Week of Ordinary Time (Roman Catholicism), Feast Day of St. Chronos (Church of the SubGenius), Candlemass/Festival of Light (Ritual of the Elements) (Thelema), Imbolc (Neopaganism).

Greetings.

I really need to find more time to work on my blogs…

Progress on reading the New Testament is slow.  Koinē Greek is a complex language, and Paul loves to wax poetic in it.  Included below is my latest installment on the New Testament, my notes on 2 Corinthians, for what they are worth.  Paul has not gotten any more rational or lucid.  If I can tie this in my series on Neopaganism, I get the impression that while Paul was a monotheist, he was thinking a lot like a Neopagan.  As recorded in Acts, Paul had a vision of Jesus, and the emotional effect on him was so powerful that he was an instant convert.  The emotional effect was so powerful that it took days for him to recover enough to interact with other humans.  By virtue of his vision, Paul believed himself an apostle, and he went off on his own vision of Christianity, one different from that the people who knew Jesus believed and practiced.  Very much like Neopagans, Paul put an emphasis on having a strong emotional experience over following formal rules.

Peace and Shabbath shalom.

’Aharon/Aaron

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2 Corinthians 1:1-2—Introduction.  Paul maintains that he is a God-chosen apostle of Jesus.

2 Corinthians 1:3-11—Comfort from Jesus.  Subtext of persecution.

2 Corinthians 1:12-2:4—Paul seems to be attributing a change in plans to God and Jesus, as well as not grieving the Christians of Corinth.  Emphasis on faith.

2 Corinthians 2:5-11—Paul preaches love and forgiveness of sinners.  Paul seems to think of himself as an authorized forgiver.

2 Corinthians 2:12-17—Paul went looking for his brother Titus.  He also waxes poetic about those preaching Christianity having the “aroma” of Jesus.

2 Corinthians 3:1-6—Paul uses the metaphor of people being letters from Jesus written with the Spirit.  Paul promotes antinomianism, claiming “the letter kills”.

2 Corinthians 3:7-18— Paul continues promoting antinomianism, claiming the Torah as bring death and his antinomianism of the spirit as bringing righteousness.  (As if YHWH did not want us to do what He actually told us to do.)  Exodus 34:34 might be cited, misquoted and ripped out of context.

2 Corinthians 4:1-18—Paul uses the metaphor of unbelievers being in darkness.  He cannot understand that they might have good reasons for doubting that there is anything special about Jesus and claims that “the god of this age has blinded” them.  Paul complains about persecution, casting the persecuted Christians (persecuted even unto death) as working in the same mode of the persecuted Jesus.  Cites Genesis 1:3 (botched) and Psalms 116:10 under the delusion that they are relevant.

2 Corinthians 5:1-10—Paul mixes metaphors, talking about being clothed with a heavenly building.  He seems to be talking about an eagerness to go to Heaven.

2 Corinthians 5:11-6:2—Paul speaks about living for Jesus rather than oneself and becoming reconciled to him.  Cites Isaiah 49:8 in botched form and out of context.

2 Corinthians 6:3-13—Paul readily accepts persecution.

2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1—Paul encourages separation from unbelievers, identifying the believers with the Temple.  Cites something which might be a botched version of Leviticus 26:12, Jeremiah 32:28, or Ezekiel 37:27, a fabricated quote, and a botched version of 2 Samuel 7:14.

2 Corinthians 7:2-16—Paul seems to be happy, because the believers in Corinth are such wonderful people.

2 Corinthians 8:1-15—Paul promotes love and generosity, citing Exodus 16:18, which is completely irrelevant.

2 Corinthians 8:16-9:5—Paul praises Titus and notes him being sent.

2 Corinthians 9:6-15—Paul encourages the believers to “sow” and “reap” generously, citing Psalms 112:9 unbelievably and incorrectly.

2 Corinthians 10:1-18—Paul defends his ministry, somewhat illucidly, but seeming to think that he has some sort of authority and power.  Cites something which might be a botched version of Jeremiah 9:23 irrelevantly.

2 Corinthians 11:1-15—Paul seems to be encouraging his followers to form a strong emotional relationship with Jesus, drawing on the frequently sexual symbolism for the relationship between YHWH and Bene Yisra’el in the Hebrew Bible.  Paul thinks of himself as equal to the apostles.  He accuses at least some of his opponents of being “false apostles”, bringing up Satan as a precedent.

2 Corinthians 11:16-33—Paul boasts about all the suffering he has undergone.

2 Corinthians 12:1-10—Paul relates someone who had an ecstatic vision.  He also talks about having a thorn in his flesh and interpretting it completely in theological terms rather than as something to be dealt with by removing it himself.

2 Corinthians 12:11-21—Paul asserts again that he is not inferior to the apostles and expresses concern for the Corinthians.

2 Corinthians 13:1-10—Paul cites Deuteronomy 19:15 in slightly botched form and irrelevantly to try to add more authority to his visits.  Paul claims that Jesus is “in” the Corinthians and encourages people to strengthen themselves in faith.

2 Corinthiatns 13:11-14—Paul sends his final greetings.