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Last May I thought that this blog would be moving in a new direction. Since then I have made exactly zero blog entries. Clearly the idea that the focus of this blog would be “an interest in heresies” was premature. The reality is that I stopped writing here because I had priorities of a political nature and because I had developed a strong doubt as to whether I have had anything worth saying on the subject of religion or spirituality.
On the issue of priorities all that needs be said is that I am a National Committee member of one of oldest and smallest of America’s Socialist parties, the Social Democrats USA. I am deeply committed to this organization and have been doing a substantial amount of work within it. Thus a considerable amount of my writing has been in its service during the last few years.
The second issue has been one of self doubt. Part of this concern has been based on the minimal response that most of my writings within this blog have received from viewers. However another more important cause has a sense of my own inadequacy and of doubt regarding whether what I have to say has any significance. Most people who write on religious topics have a certain sense of spiritual achievement, success, and divine revelation that I have never had. Further more I feel that in many ways in Christian terms I am still too attached to many of the addictions, vices, or what Christians would call the sins. I am hardly a person who lives in an ongoing awareness of the Divine.
Well, I am still not out of that wilderness, however I think that despite my problems perhaps even because of them, I still have ideas and insights worth attempting to communicate. A major reason for my change of attitude has been my increasing study of the classics of the Confucian tradition. This tradition with its spiritual morality which is both deeply personal yet strongly focused on society seems to be just what I need to help me deal with many of the issues of my life. It have given me some real grounding, inspiration, and a better sense of my self and of my possibilities.
The other change has been my deepening sense of the rightness of my Isian beliefs. My sense of Isis, her significance, and her way of justice (maat) contrasts sharply with most other Isians that I know. This has always deeply bothered me and I have hesitated to go against the flow. I plan in the future to be more assertive in communicating what I think is of value. People can then respond positively or negatively as they wish.
Glenn
While many decent human beings find a satisfactory religious home within the mainstream religious organizations and theologies of the modern world, I do not. My discomfort with the modern religious world extends from the established Christian liberal and evangelical Protestant traditions and Roman Catholicism to the modern New Age and Neopagan faiths. It also extends to the other monotheistic faiths of the West including both Islam and Judaism.
Instead the religious universe with which I have always felt most inspired has been in the now absent worlds of those religious movements deemed to be heretical from the perspective of the dominant traditions of the West.
Thus recently I have been reading heavily in the literature of the Gnostics of Christianity’s early centuries and have been discovering what seems to me to be an authentic voice of the female God in this literature. I also see a literature which seems to express a strong rejection of oppressive powers of civilization.
At earlier times I have been both fascinated by and admiring of the Radical Reformation and Anabaptist traditions of martyrs who in both Germany and England challenged the economic and social oppressions of people during both the 16th and 17th centuries. Examples of these movements were the earliest Anabaptists led by such leaders as Thomas Muntzer and Jon Hut of the early Reformation and the early Quakers of the English Puritan Revolution. The communal life and theologies of the Shakers of 19th century America also challenged the dominant patriarchy and individualistic capitalist norms of the day.
Unfortunately all of these movements were either destroyed by the heretic hunters of the political religious establishments of society or transformed themselves to escape persecution to safer weak imitations of their former selves. Examples of the former were the early Gnostics, Cathars, and the radical peasant revolutionaries led by Thomas Muntzer during the German Peasant’s War. The modern Society of Friend is a prominent example of the latter.
However in spite of their downfall many of the writings of the heretical movements still survive. Further more we do know something of the histories of these movements. These are well worth examination and study both because they perhaps can still inspire at least some people in the modern world. They inspire me. Further more many of their ideas, practices, and experiences still have something to say. Any way I am interested in them and will widen the subject area of this blog to include them. That is of course the reason for this blog’s most recent name change.
Glenn
While the basic direction of my religious life has been fairly constant for several years, its constancy seems to be the constancy of a man straddling on a teeter totter or balancing on a log. It seems to take but a small shove to push me in either one direction or another. Several months ago I thought that I was utterly sick of Christianity, was fast losing interest in Mary, and was convinced that a purely Isian direction in my religious life was my future. However all that it took was a visit by myself with some friends to the Russian festival at the St Nicholas Orthodox Church in Mogadore, Ohio and the development of a strong uneasy feeling about a page dedicated to Isis on Face Book to completely spin me in another direction.
These constant changes I think are not caused by the sort of searching that young people do when they try out one religious idea after another attempting to develop a spiritual understanding of the world. I am a fairly old person whose basic intellectual spiritual framework has been fixed for years. The problem is that this framework has been build on the fulcrum of a metaphoric teeter totter. The facts. I have always been drawn and have felt a part of the Jewish and Christian cultures and civilizations of monotheism. I certainly do see a lot that is problematic with both of these traditions. However in spite of this there is much of beauty and of the highest conception of life in these traditions as well. The main problem for me is that in these traditions there has been no room made for Goddess or what is called the divine feminine. I can not ultimately worship a purely male god with out also worshiping a goddess. One of the reasons for my attraction to the Marian tradition has been that Mary is the closest equivalent to Goddess in the Christian tradition.
Isis seems to me to represent the most developed tradition of the Goddess within the western Pagan traditions. Therefore I have worshiped her for years as Creatress, Savioress, as the Universal Goddess. The problem is that I do not share any deep interest in the Wiccan, the Kemetic, or magical theologies of the vaste majority of contemporary worshipers of Isis. The pattern of my relationship with Isis instead is closely modeled on how the Hindus of the Bhakti / Devotional traditions worship their own personal deities such as Krisna, Shiva, or the Mahadevi. This devotional path is also by the way similar to how devote Christians and Jews might worship G-d / the Lord, Jesus, or Mary.
So here I am a person with feet on both sides of the see saw. I see Isis, the Biblical Sophia, and Mary as One. I also have a lot of interest in Durga and the goddesses of Hinduism. At this time I even chant Om, Hrim, and chant a mantra of “Om Shri Maryam Namah” as part of my morning devotions. Well perhaps I have left the teeter tooter. I can no longer pretend to my self that I am really what most people or I, myself, can call “Christian.” Neither am I a Pagan, a Jew or a Hindu. I am instead what I am and am willing to learn from any tradition that helps me in my life.
Glenn
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I do not want to even talk about the last set of changes. Suffice it to say that readers of this blog will figure out where I am coming from eventually. I do not know how often I will be posting here since my ability to spend time on this blog varies with my immediate priorities and to the decree that I have something that I want to say.
Glenn
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I do read my Isis lists every day and do always hope for interesting discussion that is respectful and thought provoking or devotional. I would love love to find an Isis group near me but there are none. I have been a part of the Pagan community in my area for 10 years, but it is very small and even though we now have a Universal Pagan Ritual format, people don’t really come to group activities. OK. Now, you know more about one of the list subscribers than you ever wanted to know I wrote this article about two months ago. However due to my involvement with my political group the Social Democrats USA I have delayed completing and posting it until now. During the last two months little has changed. My current negative attitudes toward Christianity are still in a process of hardening.
Glenn
Most who pay any attention to this blog must wonder about the continued changes of name that this site endures. The problem is that my religious sense of identity makes subtle shifts over time. One would think that a 59 year old man’s basic beliefs and outlooks would be settled by this time of his life. Unfortunately my religious affairs are not completely settled.
So why “Devotion to Isis” as opposed to “Isis, Mary and the Goddesses.” Well first I must state that my devotion to Isis has not wavered since I initiated this blog. It has been a constant for nearly a decade of my life. However in recent months my feelings about Christianity and thus Mary have cooled considerably. One consequence of this is that I am currently not reading any of the classical Marian literature at all. That does not mean that I will not in the future but I am not now. Other goddesses? I am always interested in them but my ongoing theological and devotional basis is always Isis. The goddesses for me are always personas of Isis. They represent Isis as she is seen in differing ways, traditions, and nations. They are never competing divine powers that in some way limit the universal power and imperium of Isis.
I do respect the right of other persons to worship other deities such as Athena, Cybele, or the Hindu goddess Durga within the context of polytheism. I also believe that certain goddesses can be legitimately be seen as being the supreme and only goddess – both the Hindu goddess Durga and Tara, the Tibetan Buddhist goddess, represent that possibility. However for me Isis is the one supreme goddess. She is not simply one goddess in a pantheon of equal goddesses; she is as Isidorus said all goddesses. I do not share the polytheism to which modern paganism seems to be increasingly turning. I also reject the conception of Isis as an ecumenical goddess who is simply a convenient symbol of the Great Goddess of Wicca, the matriarchal mythos, or of paganism in general. This is not meant to be an attack on other world views: it is simply a statement of my own.
Another reason for changing the name of this blog to Devotion to Isis is to stress the word “devotion.” Isian religion should be a religion which stresses the devotion, love and worship of Isis. It should be a religion which stresses obedience to the will of Isis and the doing and speaking of Maat (righteousness and justice) in the world. Isis is a goddess of liberation and she is a savioress from oppression. She supports as is said the widow and orphan, the poor and oppressed. Her followers should attempt to the same.
Glenn
I have yet to master the art of matching my texts with images. Here is one of the great classic images of the great goddess Hathor.
Glenn
I have often wondered about what the musics of ancient Egypt, Greece and other nations were like. Well a few years ago a friend of mine as a gift bought me an CD called “Music in the Time of the Pyramids” which was “composed” by Spanish musicologist Rafael Perez Arroya. I have been listoning to it recently and have decided to share at least a little of it. Mr Perez’s CD produced by his Hathor Ensemble is probably the most acurate recontruction of the music of Ancient Egypt that has been developed yet. Mr Perez’ reconstruction of Egyptian hymns and music is based on over ten years his study of simply everything that is known of ancient Egyptian music, the instruments, how they were played, Egyptian musical texts, etc. The result of this work of scholarship was the CD and a book of the same title of over 400 pages which explains Rafael Perez understanding of ancient Egyptian music. As a consequence of his work Mr Perez won the First Prize from the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture, and Sport for best Scientific book.
Enough of this introduction. Enclosed is the link to the “Hymn to the Seven Hathor” a beautiful New Kingdom hymn dedicated to the goddess Hathor http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=503kvqmWjUM
I hope people enjoy it.
Glenn King
