Appearances
I was talking to a friend yesterday (they had just discovered this blog) and they were quizzing me about Islam and such from an ‘orthodox’ pov so I wasn’t really into talking about it. They found this strange because they thought I was talking about it all the time on the blog but didn’t seem to get my explanation that in fact, I wasn’t and I don’t really. True, I do write about Islam a bit, because it is my belief and also because I study it. Esotericism - well, that’s something quite different and separate but essentially I am not really writing about these things.
A while back on Enormous Fictions, Coe blogged on how Gnostic blogs seem to be sprouting up everywhere. I know Anulios is not so much Gnostic in the accepted sense of the word but I like to think that we are all part of a bigger picture that is developing where we look at things in a specific way and from a specific angle rather than looking in an ‘orthodox’ way. We are trying to see beneath the surface and in doing so we are questioning the surface - some blogs are doing this with Christianity and I am trying to do it with Islam and mysticism. Obviously then we are not focusing on the surface so cannot be grouped in with people who do - we are not denying the surface, opposing or fighting it - just looking deeper beneath. It’s more of a Fortean approach if we have to define it but even that won’t really do - maybe it’s Gnostic heh!
Basically this approach is a form of philosophical questioning, an openness and willingness to examine all things - even sacred cows - and reject them if they are found to be false. This approach has always existed - and it has always declined. From one perspective human history may be seen as a conflict between these two modes of perception: accept everything/question everything. Of course there are degrees and the pendulum swings through all positions. Right now it is pretty far to the right (ie: question nothing or you get a tin-foil hat) but it does seem to be swinging back.
Let’s take an example around Islam (as that is the vehicle I generally use as I am most comfortable with): currently Islam has an image of being violent, extremist, anti-western, totalitarian etc. From a philosophical position this may or may not be true (I’m not concerned with that at the moment) the issue is why and how this image is projected and maintained.
The image is projected obviously through the mass-media and builds on earlier historical images. It succeeds by taking actual events and either tweaking them or else expanding them so they become larger and more significant than they are. Further, events which do not fit the meme, or that would cause someone to question it, are suppressed. Clearly someone is consciously doing this and presumably for a specific reason but this aspect does not interest me much. In a way the who is irrelevant (which is why I do not venture too far into politics, there is always a who and they are pretty much always the same cardboard cut-outs from the same cookie-cutter), what is more important is the how - because that is where the antidote is to be found, and that is what I’m trying to do here.
But it’s not just Islam - this process of suppressing free-thought and questioning is happening right across the board in western culture. Islam is the vehicle chosen for the symbolic representation of the ‘other’, the state which is the opposite of ‘freedom’, the ‘evil’ which has to be opposed because it enables a brilliant trick - a sleight of hand: list all the things which you yourself are working towards and which the public may oppose (ie suppression of questioning, faith-based education, theocracy, erosion of established rights etc) and project all these onto a culture/system which is as far removed from your own (in the popular imagination) as possible whilst setting yourself up as the opposite force who will fight this ‘threat’. Hey presto - you have a free hand. No-one will see you do exactly that which you oppose and, even better, if anyone points out you are doing it they will be opposed by your supporters.
So what is the solution? There is only one: question everything. Absolutely everything must be examined and thought about critically: religion, politics, mystical teachings....everything.
When I mentioned this to my friend they claimed that I was contradicting myself - that Islam was the most inflexible system and the one that most acted against such questioning but this belief is in itself a proof of the assertion: because my friend was not talking about Islam - she was talking about her received view of Islam. But she had not questioned that view, she had just accepted it without examination. If she had researched Islam she would know of the concept of ijtihad.
Ijtihad was a philosophical practice inherent in Islam from the very beginning that stated that if something was true then it would not be harmed by questioning it, even in the most extreme manner. Conversely, something false would not be upheld under such questioning and would be exposed and this would be a good thing. Hence, it became a duty for Muslims to practice this questioning - on the words of Imams, teachings of Mullahs and even the Qur’an itself. This questioning is what resulted in the Golden Age of Islam and formed the foundation of one of humanity’s greatest civilizations.
After a while though, this practice of questioning caused people to question the religious leaders and people in power (rightly so, the way some of those guys carried on) and so guess what? The people in power banned it. They had to - they always have to, questioning the statements of authority or subjecting them to rigorous analysis is always a major threat.
And what was the result? Islamic civilization went into decline and we ended up with the rise of fundamentalist totalitarianism as evidenced in various minority sects and States which occasionally rise to prominence. And no-one questions anything.
We don’t just need to start looking beneath the surface - we need an industrial digger. A whole fleet of them.
Whatever is your thing - Islam, Christianity, atheism, politics, whatever - question it. If it is false you need to lose it and if we are not being told the truth (by anyone) we need to know.
