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on January 8, 2012

[This is the next to last post in my long series on atheism and Wicca.]

My approach to Wicca has been critical. For philosophers at least, and hopefully for any rational person, criticism is based on careful analysis; it points to both the good and to the bad, to the true and to the false. It cannot be one-sided; it must strive to be fair. And it certainly isn’t knee-jerk hostility.

One of the goals of philosophical analysis is to look for deep structure underneath surface structure. When such analysis is applied to religion, its task is to look for the conceptual and rational logos underneath religious mythos. This series of posts has worked to look beneath the Wiccan mythos for its logos. Contrary to those who without thinking dismiss Wicca as entirely made of woo, this series indicates that Wicca is not merely mythos; on the contrary, it has a logos, it contains a logical deep structure.

Unfortunately, this logos is all too often covered with layer after layer of woo – with wishful thinking, pseudo-science, anti-rational or even mentally disturbed thinking. Some Wiccans may be offended by the term woo, which seems derogatory. To them it must honestly be said that their own books and websites present doctrines that are manifestly indefensible by people who use modern technology and that, frankly speaking, many of those books and websites seem to prey on the emotionally vulnerable and mentally unstable. The promotion of magic is especially both cognitively and ethically offensive.

And yet the woo in Wicca is not necessary; it serves certain psychological functions which an be served honestly. An entirely woo-free Wicca is possible. If an ancient honorific name is needed for this approach to Wicca, it might be called Athenic Wicca, after Athena, the goddess of wisdom. Of course, atheistic Wiccans might just prefer to call it atheistic Wicca. The core structures of a woo-free Wicca might look something like this:

1. The Ultimate Deity. On the mythic surface, the Wiccan ultimate deity is presented in theistic language. But most Wiccan texts already describe the ultimate deity in rational terms. The ultimate deity is just the ultimate immanent creative power of being. It is wholly immanent and natural. It is natura naturans. Many atheists have argued for the reality of natural creative power. Atheistic Wicca affirms the reality of the ultimate deity; however, it rejects all theistic or mythic attributes of this ultimate deity – it is not God.

2. The God and Goddess. On the mythic surface, the Wiccan god and goddess are spirit-people. But there is no evidence for the existence of such people. Atheistic Wiccans reject all spirit-people as idolatrous projections. But the symbolism of the god and goddess points beyond itself to a deep structure under the mythic surface. The deep structure is two abstract powers of being. Natura naturans expresses itself as objective will and objective reason. Objective reason is symbolized by the goddes and objective reason by the god. But they are not spirit-people; they are merely symbols for abstract natural powers.

3. The Wheel of the Year. On the mythic surface, the Wheel of the Year symbolizes the life-cycle of the god and goddess as a productive couple. When the Wheel is rationalized, it symbolizes all the cycles of nature; ultimately, it concretely represents the abstract algorithmic iteration in the logic of creation and evolution by rational selection. The Wheel symbolizes the logical action of the Priniciple of Sufficient Reason as it generates all natural complexity.

4. Reincarnation. According to reincarnation, souls pass from body to body here on earth. This is the transmigration of souls. And transmigration is mythic. It is a concrete way of referring to something more abstract. This myth of transmigration points beyond itself towards rebirth. Rebirth is palingenesis – it is the recreation of a counterpart of the self in some other universe. It is expressed more clearly in Theravedic Buddhism and it gains some empirical justification from the arguments of Kurt Godel. While transmigration is mythos, palingenesis is logos. As rational rebirth, it is supported by the logic of creation and evolution by rational selection. Atheistic Wicca affirms rebirth.

5. Personal Activities. Wiccan writers describe various techniques for self-empowerment. Such techniques include meditation (mindfulness), breathing, visualization, and other techniques for arousal regulation and self-optimization (self-mastery, self-discipline, askesis). The Wiccan writers typically cover these techniques with a thick coating of woo. However, these techniques have scientific foundations. If any technique for work on the self is empirically supported, then atheistic Wiccans are free to use it. And such techniques should be used. Through these techniques, the rational manifestation of the will of the self is maximized. Thus natura naturans is maximally manifest through the self.

6. Social Activities. Atheistic Wiccans celebrate the sabbats without any theistic baggage. Such celebrations can involve many different types of social ceremonies and rituals. And atheistic Wiccans can preform ceremonial activities in sacred circles. One might cast a circle against woo, summon the various cognitive and practical virtues, and so on. But it seems best to leave the details of such practices to Wiccan groups.

Even if a woo-free Wicca is possible, it is hardly clear that it can ever happen. There seems to be a culture of woo in Wicca. Book after book, website after website, presents wishful, confused, and delusional thinking. Since none of that is essential, it is tragic. The depth of woo in Wicca is likely to lead either to its degeneration into New Age nonsense or to its social collapse as its new practicioners find that the woo accomplishes nothing. And as Wicca grows, the woo is surely going to attract the critical attention of other religious groups as well as scientists and skeptics. Wicca may die of woo. And that would be deeply unfortunate, since it would mean the death of an alternative to Abrahamic religion in the West. Anyone interested in seeing alternatives to the dominant Abrahamic religions in the United States ought to encourage Wicca to get real, get serious, get clean.

Criticizing Wicca: Magic is Unethical

Published

on January 7, 2012

[This is part of a series looking at atheism and Wicca.]

Many Wiccans practice magic. Skeptics, rationalists, and naturalists may all be tempted to try to use science to refute the effectiveness of magic. Although such refutations do persuade some people, they often fail to accomplish anything: despite the best efforts of scientific debunkers, magical thinking persists and flourishes.

Another way to think about magic is ethically. Wicca contains an ethical maxim known as the Wiccan Rede: if it harms none, do what you will. The most reasonable way to interpret the Rede is this: if an act causes no harm, then it is permissible; if an act causes harm, then it is forbidden. It will be argued that Wiccans cannot ethically offer or use any type of magic that has not met the highest standards of empirical justification.

As a term of art, say a practice is sound if and only if its reliability has been certified by evidence which meets the same epistemic standards as the evidence used to make our best technologies. A practice is unsound otherwise. Since magical spells are practices (they are procedural activities intended to produce external effects), they can be evaluated for their soundness or unsoundness. Our best technologies are sound; when we use them, they sometimes fail – they cause damage. But that damage is not moral harm. Moral harm is damage done by an ethically impermissible or forbidden act.

If there were any sound spells, then they would just be examples of our best technical practices. They would not be spells anymore (except perhaps through historical association). For instance, if some herb were used in some Wiccan ritual, and the herb reliably did produce the claimed effects, at the same level of reliability used for any ethically permitted medical treatment, then the practice of using that herb would simply enter into standard medicine. I am not aware of a single Wiccan spell that has ever been tested for its effectiveness or reliability; there are no known sound Wiccan spells.

Offering Sound Spells. Suppose, contrary to present fact, that there were some sound Wiccan spells. If a writer offers a sound spell, then that offering meets the highest standard of rational practice. Offering such a spell is merely describing one of our best technologies. To offer it is consistent with the rationality of the writer, so that it causes no harm to the writer as a rational animal. If somebody suffers some negative consequences as the result of using a sound spell which the writer offered, then the writer could not have done any better – the writer has met the highest epistemic standards – so the writer is not morally responsible for that suffering, and has caused no harm to others. Since offering a sound spell causes no harm, it is permitted by the Wiccan Rede.

Offering Unsound Spells. As far as I know, there are no sound Wiccan spells; all Wiccan spells are unsound. Now consider the ethical aspects of offering an unsound spell. If a writer offers an unsound spell, then the writer is causing harm both to himself or herself and to others who may perform it.

Harm Caused to the Self. First, consider how the writer is causing harm to himself or herself. If the writer offers an unconfirmed spell, then he or she is violating his or her obligation to his or her own rationality; he or she does violence to his or her own reason. But reason is that which is most sacred within any person; to harm your own reason is to harm the sacred depth of your own nature. To do violence to what is most sacred within yourself is to cause the deepest possible harm to yourself. It is to cause yourself ontological harm.

Harm Caused to Others. Second, consider how the writer of an unsound spell causes harm to others. If somebody suffers some negative effects as the result of using an unsound spell which the writer offered, then the writer is responsible for that suffering, so that the writer has caused harm to others. The negative effects can include everything from mere disappointment to loss of life. Because the writer did not do his or her best to prevent possible negative effects, the mere possibility of negative effects is sufficient for this harm.

Since offering an unsound spell is harmful both to the one who offers it and to the ones to whom it is offered, it is forbidden by the Wiccan Rede.

As an illustration of the harm caused by offering an unsound spell, consider the spell for attracting money offered by Cunningham (2004: 23-24). By presenting and advocating magic like this, Cunningham is putting people in harm’s way. He is exposing people to risk and ruin. His money spell might tempt a weak-minded person into spending money that he or she does not have, on the unconfirmed belief that playing with candles and herbs will bring needed funds later. Such weak-minded person has thus been exposed to financial risk and perhaps led to financial ruin. It is immoral for Cunningham to present his spell without any evidence for its effectiveness. It causes harm by exposing people to risk.

Using Sound Spells. Now consider somebody who uses the spells presented in Wiccan books. Suppose that, contrary to present fact, there were some sound spells. If a person uses a sound spell, then that use meets the highest standard of rational practice, including the highest ethical standards. To use the spell is ethically permissible; any damage that arises from using it is morally acceptable (it is not moral harm). The use of a sound spell is morally equivalent to the use of some technology that has met the highest standards of testing. Sound technologies sometimes fail; when they do, those failures are unfortunate but not morally harmful. The use of a sound spell is consistent with the rationality of the one who uses it; there is no violation of rationality. And if others are damaged by the failure of a sound spell, the person who performs it is not responsible for that damaged, so that the person performing the spell has not morally harmed others. Since using a sound spell is not harmful, it is permitted by the Wiccan Rede.

Using Unsound Spells. As far as I know, there are no sound Wiccan spells; all Wiccan spells are unsound. Now consider the ethical aspects of using an unsound spell. If a person performs an unsound spell, then the performer is causing harm both to himself or herself and to others who may be affected by that performance.

Harm Caused to Self. If a person performs or uses an unsound spell, then by that use that person does violence to his or her own reason. To use the spell is to do violence to that which is most sacred in any rational animal. If you use such a spell, you do violence to the sacred depths of your own nature; you therefore cause yourself ontological harm.

Harm Caused to Others. If a person performs an unsound spell, and if others are harmed by its failure, then the one who performed that spell is responsible for that harm, so the performer has harmed others. The mere possibility of failure is sufficient for this harm.

Since performing an unsound spell is harmful both to the one who performs it and to any others affected by its performance, it is forbidden by the Wiccan Rede.

On the one hand, if a spell is sound, then Wiccans (and others) are permitted to offer it or to use it. Such a spell is merely part of our best technology. On the other hand, if a spell is not sound, then Wiccans (and others) are forbidden to offer or to use it.

Since at present there are no sound spells, it is inconsistent for Wiccans to either offer or perform such spells. It is unethical and it ought not to be done. It must be stressed that the mere possibility of harm makes the offering and use of spells unethical. Those who offer or who perform such spells place people in harms way. And that’s wrong.

References

Cunningham, S. (1988) Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner. St. Paul, MI: Llewellyn Publications.

Criticizing Wicca: Magic is Unreliable

Published

on January 7, 2012

[This is part of a long series looking at atheism and Wicca.]

Any procedure for changing an initial situation (the start) into a desired situation (the goal) can be tested for its effectiveness. As used here, effectiveness is a matter of degree, so that procedures can be more or less effective. The simplest way to measure the effectiveness of a procedure is to divide the number of successful trials by the total number of trials.

To help keep things clear when analyzing magic, it will be useful to introduce the following precise terms of art: A procedure is tested in a group of people if its effectiveness has been measured within that group and it is untested otherwise. A procedure has some reliability if its known effectiveness is better than chance and has no reliablity otherwise. A procedure is sound in a group of people if it is among the most reliable procedures known within that group and it is less than sound or unsound otherwise. Obviously, every sound procedure has been tested. Although every sound procedure has some reliability, the best we can do in many cases may not be much better than chance. Although sound procedures must have some reliability, they need not have much reliability. The technical expertise of any group is the collection of all sound procedures known within that group.

The term spell is used here for any procedure that is presented as magical in any Wiccan text. Wiccan texts offer elaborate catalogs of spells. The set of surveyed spells includes the spells presented in Farrar & Farrar (1981); Bucklands (1986); Cunningham (2004); Sabin (2011). The texts that present the surveyed spells do not present any data to measure their effectiveness; all the surveyed spells are presented as untested. And I am not aware of any tests of any surveyed spells.

For those spells that are untested, if Wiccans or others cannot provide evidence for reliability that meets the same epistemic standards as the evidence for the reliability of our technologies (which Wiccans use too), then it is cognitively wrong for Wiccans or others to assert that the spells have any positive reliability. And if they cannot provide evidence that meets the same standards as the evidence for the reliability of our best technologies, then it is cognitively wrong for Wiccans or others to assert that the spells are sound.

All surveyed spells compete with (or are offered as alternatives to) procedures which have known positive reliabilities or which are sound. All surveyed spells make use of operations and objects whose technical properties and relations are already well-understood. Since the well-understood technical properties and relations of those operations and objects do not reliably produce any of the effects listed in the surveyed spells, it is reasonable to conclude that all surveyed spells have zero reliability. Of course, the fact that this conclusion is reasonable does not entail that it is true – it must be tested.

But the fact that it is reasonable to say that the surveyed spells have no reliability does entail that nobody has any reason to test those spells. Of course, Wiccans may test them if they like; but they cannot complain that others are obligated to test them in order to deny their reliability or to deny their soundness. Skeptics are under no obligation to test the spells in order to make the entirely rational claim that they have no reliability and no soundness. Even without testing them, it is rational to deny that they have those features. If Wiccans want others to test the spells,then it is up to the Wiccans to give reasons.

If you use a car, a cell phone, a computer, or any product of advanced technical expertise, then you have every reason to say that the surveyed spells have no reliability. And you contradict your own behavior if you insist otherwise without providing evidence which meets the same epistemic standards as the evidence used to make the technologies you use. Here actions speak louder than words: if you use a cell phone, then you don’t really believe that spells work. On the contrary, you place your faith in science and technology. The purpose of magic is purely psychological: to induce the illusion of control.

References

Buckland, R. (1986) Complete Book of Witch Craft. Second Edition Revised and Expanded. St. Paul, MI: Llewellyn Publications.

Cunningham, S. (2004) Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner. St. Paul, MI: Llewellyn Publications.

Farrar, J. & Farrar, S. (1981) A Witches Bible. Blaine, WA: Phoenix Publishing.

Sabin, T. (2011) Wicca for Beginners: Fundamentals of Philosophy and Practice. Woodbury, MI: Llewellyn Publications.

Criticizing Wicca: Magic

Published

on January 6, 2012

[Magic is a pseudo-technology based on the pseudo-science of mysterious energy. It’s purpose is to provide the illusion of control. This post briefly describes how some Wiccans conceive of magic. Many Wiccans reject the use of magic altogether, or consider it entirely independent of Wicca. Thus the two should not be confused. After this brief presentation, the next two posts will offer a cognitive and then ethical criticisms of magic.]

Many Wiccan books extensively discuss magic. They offer many definitions of magic (e.g. Buckland, 1986: 222-223; Sabin, 2011: 195-196). Cuhulain offers these definitions from other authors: “Magic is a joyous exceptional experience which leads to a sense of well-being.”; “Magic is the science of the control of the secret forces of nature.”; “Magic is a comprehensive knowledge of all nature.”; “Magic is the art of affecting changes in consciousness at will” (2011: 27). And Cunningham defines it like this: “Magic is the projection of natural energies to produce needed effects” (2004: 21).

These definitions are so vague that they are useless. The only way to understand it is to proceed by the way of example. Magic is a catalog of spells. A spell is a procedure or algorithm: “A spell is a set of actions done in a specific sequence to manifest your intent. . . . it is a recipe to bring about change” (Sabin, 2011: 197). Thus Wiccan magic includes the spells listed in Wiccan books. It includes at least the spells presented in Farrar & Farrar (1981); Bucklands (1986); Cunningham (2004); Sabin (2011).

One of the main philosophical questions about magic is whether or not it has any reliability (that is, whether or not the spells included in Wiccan books have any effectiveness above chance). Those who assert that spells do have such reliability are realists about magic. Cunningham is a realist about magic. He writes that “Magic is effective in causing manifestations of needed change. This isn’t self-deception. Correctly performed magic works, and no amount of explaining away alters this fact” (2004: 23). Sabin writes that “Wiccans believe that magic is real, that it works” (2011: 29).

Cunningham illustrates the alleged effectiveness of magic as follows: “Say I need to pay a hundred-dollar phone bill but don’t have the money. My magical goal: the means to pay the bill” (2004: 23). To achieve this goal, he outlines a magical procedure (a spell). The spell involves candles, herbs, paper, and ink. Cunningham writes that the spell uses “a good selection of money-drawing herbs” (2004: 23), thus indicating that he believes that certain plants have powers to attract money to people. After the spell is performed, “Within a day or two, perhaps a week, I’ll either receive unexpected (or delayed) money, or will satisfy other financial obligations in a manner that frees me to pay the bill.” (2004: 24). Of course, Cunningham offers no data to justify this claim. He does not offer a detailed list of trials of this money-spell along with its rate of success and failure.

The lists of spells in Wiccan books is enormous; spells are offered for allegedly changing almost any given situation in to almost any desired situation. Sabin writes that there are spells “for things like finding a new job or protecting your home” (2011: 18). It should be noted that spells include procedures for gaining information.

Life confronts everybody with practical problems (getting money, finding love, overcoming illness, protecting your house). For many of these problems, luck plays a central role in the outcome. When a person is confronted with such problems, magic enables the person to perform some easy operations. The performance of these operations make it look like the person is using some skill to solve the problem. Apart from its psychological effects on the person who performs it, magic has no influence at all on the solution to the problem. Those who practice magic do not even bother to test its objective effectiveness. The reason is simple: the purpose of magic is not to increase objective effectiveness.

Magic is a pseudo-technology based on the pseudo-science of energy. Magic makes it appear as if an event that involves mainly chance is one that involves mainly skill. The purpose of magic is entirely to produce the illusion of control: “By encouraging or allowing participants in a chance event to engage in behaviors that they would engage in were they participating in a skill event, one increases the likelihood of inducing a skill orientation, that is, one induces an illusion of control” (Langer, 1975: 313).

The illusion of control appears to be an adaptive illusion: “a nonveridical perception of control over an impending event reduces the aversiveness of that event. . . . A temporary loss of control is anxiety arousing. A chronic feeling of no control is characterized by passivity and giving up in the face of failure” (Langer, 1975: 323). The illusion of control may help people avoid learned helplessness (Langer, 1975: 325). Learned helplessness is a defective and depressed condition of agency that results when a person comes to believe that their actions have no power to solve their problems. Long fruitless searches for jobs, money, lovers, children, or social status may all produce learned helplessness; any activity that induces an illusion of control can counteract learned helplessness, and help a person to continue to act in the face of adversity generated by randomness or complexity. Thus magic, by inducing illusions of control, can help people function. It can make an agent more confident, and more willing to continue to try to solve a problem, rather than just giving up. Thus magic may be beneficial for agency.

Unfortunately, the illusion of control is indeed illusory, and no rational person seeks self-deception. Such self-deception can result in harmful consequences to the self and to others. Any rational Wiccan will aim to avoid magic entirely. Some Wiccans clearly separate the Wiccan religion from the practice of magic. Buckland writes: “Witchcraft [Wicca] is first and foremost a religion. Worship of the Lord and Lady is therefore the prime concern of the Witch. Magick is secondary to that worship. . . . If all you want to do is to work magick, then you do not need to become a Witch to do it” (1986: 221; see 15). Sabin writes: “If you’re exploring Wicca only so you can learn magic, don’t waste your time. Wicca is a religion, and you don’t need it to do magic. Magic exists outside of religion. Wicca provides one of many paths to magical practice, but magic is not its central theme. Some Wiccans don’t do magic at all” (2011: 23-24). However, the Farrars (1981) and Cunningham (2004) do not seem to clearly separate Wicca from magic. And many Wiccan books seem to focus very little on the religion and very much on magic.

References

Buckland, R. (1986) Complete Book of Witch Craft. Second Edition Revised and Expanded. St. Paul, MI: Llewellyn Publications.

Cuhulain, K. (2011) Pagan Religions: A Handbook for Diversity Training. Portland, OR: Acorn Guild Press.

Cunningham, S. (2004) Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner. St. Paul, MI: Llewellyn Publications.

Farrar, J. & Farrar, S. (1981) A Witches Bible. Blaine, WA: Phoenix Publishing.

Langer, E. (1975) The illusion of control. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 32 (2), 311-328.

Sabin, T. (2011) Wicca for Beginners: Fundamentals of Philosophy and Practice. Woodbury, MI: Llewellyn Publications.

Silver Elder (2011) Wiccan Celebrations: Inspiration for Living by Nature’s Cycle. Winchester, UK: Moon Books.

The Illusion of Control

Published

on January 6, 2012

[Much of the content and practice of religion is based on regulating (arousing, maintaining, and inhibiting) the illusion of control. This illusion is briefly described here. The neural basis of this illusion is clearly exposed in Wiccan texts. The illusion of control is said to be an adaptive illusion with personal and prosocial benefits. The inability of atheism to induce illusions of control may entail that atheism faces significant social obstacles.]

Many Wiccan practices involve energy. Here the term “energy” is used as a Wiccan term of art rather than as a scientific term: it is an alleged mysterious energy, rather than the energy studied in physics. This energy does not exist in nature or elsewhere. The Farrars use electro-magnetic metaphors to talk about (mysterious) energy (1981: 107-110). However, the Farrars do not seem to use the term “energy”. The term does appear in Buckland (1986: 14-16). Energy plays more prominent roles in later American Wiccan writers. The main idea is that all energy originates from the Wiccan ultimate deity. Cunningham writes that “All natural objects . . . are manifestations of divine energy” (2004: 92). Hence Wiccans like Cunningham stress that the energy involved in Wiccan practices is physical and natural rather than super-natural. He stresses that “[t]he energy and magical powers at work in Wicca are real. They aren’t of some astral plane. They’re within the earth and ourselves” (2004: 90).

For Cunningham, the energy used in Wiccan practices is immediately felt as the metabolic energy of the body: “We daily deplete our store of energy and replenish it through the air we breathe, the food we eat” (2004: 90). This energy is closely related to the arousal and activation of the autonomic nervous system: “This energy is the same power we’re filled with when we’re angry, nervous, terrified, joyous, or even sexually aroused” (2004: 92). For Buckland, the energy in Wiccan practices also comes from the body: “Witches have always believed in this power coming from the body” (1986: 14).

Cunningham presents a ritual intended to demonstrate the existence of this energy. You rub your palms together for about twenty seconds and then hold them about two inches apart. After you do this, he asks: “Feel them tingling? That’s a manifestation of power . . . It’s flowing out from your palms as you hold them apart” (2004: 90). After you learn to sense this energy, Cunningham says that you can use visualization to manipulate it. He says you should “visualize jolts of energy” passing from one palm to another (2009: 90). He then recommends visualizing the energy as forming a sphere between your palms. He says you can learn how to manipulate this “bit of energy that you’ve released from your body” (2004: 91). You can then learn to direct this energy out of your body: “When you feel yourself bursting with power, hold out your right (projective) hand and direct energy from your body, through your arm, and out your fingers. Use your visualization. Really see and feel it streaming out” (2004: 93). Obviously, our bodies do generate energy. And equally obviously, everything Cunningham says about it is false. The only way to externalize somatic or emotional energy is by activating your muscles.

Sabin offers an elaborate system of energy exercises (2011: chs. 3 & 4). She describes the energy exercises involve rubbing hands and directing energy from the hands (2011: 43-45). She describes exercises intended to enable the practicioner to feel the energy in non-human things like crystals and trees (2011: 45-46). She develops detailed “grounding” exercises for sending excess energy into the earth (2011: 51-58) as well as detailed “shielding” exercises for protection from excess energy or negative energy (2011: 59-64). She frequently discusses techniques for “raising” energy (e.g. 2011: 52, 208). The result is a complex theory of energy that has no empirical basis – it is a pseudo-science.

It is intriguing to note that much of Sabin’s theory of energy is a fairly accurate theory of activation in the autonomic nervous system. Her negative energy corresponds roughly to activation of the sympathetic nervous system, especially by social conflict or performance anxiety. It is arousal of the fight-or-flight circuitry. Her positive energy corresponds rougly to activation of the parasympathetic nervous system, especially as it seeks to inhibit sympathetic fight-or-flight responses. Perhaps more deeply, these energies correspond roughly to activations in the limbic system, especially the amygdala. The distinction between positive and negative energies appears to be the result of projecting limbic-marking outside of the body (see Saver & Rabin, 1997). And the belief in mysterious energies may be the result of the projection of autonomic activation outside of the body.

Just as real science is the basis for real technology, the pseudo-science of energy is the basis for the pseudo-technology of magic. Buckland writes that Wiccans have “developed ways to increase [energy], collect it, and use it to do what we term magick” (1986: 14). Sabin writes that Wiccans “believe that they can bend and use energy to bring about change, which is what magic is all about” (2011: 43). These Wiccan energy exercises, and the magical procedures that make use of this energy, are designed to produce illusions of control (Langer, 1975). These illusions can decrease anxiety and increase confidence.

It has been argued that these are adaptive illusions that can facilitate performance, especially in the face of situations over which the self has no control. It is said that illusions of control can motivate the self to continue to act despite the fact that action almost certainly has no effect on the outcome. These illusions are cognitive biases that amplify the probability of success high enough to make it appear rational for the self to continue to act. They amplify the probability of success sufficiently far above the probability of failure that the self can continue to act instead of collapsing in despair. One large function of religion may be to regulate (induce, maintain, inhibit) illusions of control personally and socially.

Since illusions of agency and control are illusions, they conflict with the imperative to avoid all deception (thou shalt not deceive, not even thyself!). Since many atheists are motivated by this imperative, it is not likely that any atheistic religion could ever have any practices that produce illusions of control. However, if these illusions are adaptive, then atheism may be maladaptive, and can hardly be expected to flourish. The psychological demand for the illusion of control, and the inability of atheism to satisfy that demand, may be one of the most significant practical problems for atheism to solve. The illusion of control will be discussed further in the forthcoming discussion of magic.

References

Buckland, R. (1986) Complete Book of Witch Craft. Second Edition Revised and Expanded. St. Paul, MI: Llewellyn Publications.

Cunningham, S. (2004) Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner. St. Paul, MI: Llewellyn Publications.

Langer, E. (1975) The illusion of control. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 32 (2), 311-328.

Sabin, T. (2011) Wicca for Beginners: Fundamentals of Philosophy and Practice. Woodbury, MI: Llewellyn Publications.

Saver, J. & Rabin, J. (1997) The neural substrates of religious experience. Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences 9 (3), 498-510.

The Atheism and Wicca Series So Far

Published

on January 6, 2012

Some folks have jumped into this series just recently, and others have had some trouble following due to the server problems in the last two days. The point of this series is to critically examine Wicca (and other neo-paganisms) through the lens of atheistic analytic philosophy of religion.

So here’s the list of links to the entire series:

The Wiccan Deity: An Initial Philosophical Analysis

On Participation in Being-Itself

More on Religious Diversity among Atheists

Spiritual Exercises for Atheists

Buddhist Rebirth

Rational Rebirth

Published

on January 5, 2012

Spiritual exercises (askesis) are practical activities for mental self-empowerment. They are intended to facilitate successful achievement by increasing the degree to which the self is mentally or emotionally prepared to perform. Spiritual exercises are not magic. Spiritual exercises are distinct from magic because they focus on causing changes in the self while magic focuses on causing changes in the external world.

Spiritual exercises typically involve mental preparation for performance through visualization or emotional preparation for performance through arousal regulation. Visualization involves working with mental imagery while arousal regulation involves conscious control of physiological and emotional arousal (it involves neocortical control of the limbic system and autonomic nervous system).

Arousal regulation is often done when the self is confronted with a challenge in which the outcome is uncertain, valuable, and not amenable to skill. Successful performance through such challenges often requires fine-tuning of arousal. On the one hand, arousal that is too high is experienced as anxiety. Excessively high arousal may impede performance. If the self is too strongly aroused, then arousal regulation techniques can be used to decrease arousal. On the other hand, arousal that is too low may be experience as depression or despair of success. Excessively low arousal can also impede performance. If the self is too weakly aroused, then techniques can be employed to increase arousal.

Although there are many types of spiritual exercises, Wiccans and many other groups focus on three many types: meditation, visualization, and breathing. The British Wiccans like the Farrars and Buckland either do not discuss these techniques at all or mention them only briefly. These techniques seem to develop in American Wicca. These spiritual exercises are very briefly described below:

Breathing. Breathing exercises involve the conscious regulation of inhalation and exhalation to regulate arousal or to induce trance states. The Farrars very briefly discuss breathing in the context of certain rituals (1981: 230-231). Cunningham discusses Wiccan breathing techniques (2004: 86-87). Sabin discusses Wiccan breathing techniques for facilitating visualization and for inducing trance states (2011: 55, 70-71).

Meditation. Meditation involves the self-regulation of conscious activity. It may be done in many different ways and with many different objectives. Cunningham describes the use of meditation in Wicca to decrease arousal while increasing alertness (2004: 87). Sabin describes meditation practices that involve “concentrating on an image or desired outcome while in a trance state” (2011: 75). She gives a detailed ritual procedure for using meditation to decrease arousal prior to taking a test (2011: 76-77).

Self-Hypnosis. Self-hypnosis involves various relaxation techniques and the use of affirmative thoughts or words to modify emotion or behavior. It typically involves going into a deeply relaxed quasi-trance state followed by the repetition of statements that aim to affirm some positive goal. Sabin briefly mentions the use of affirmations: “Affirmations are positive statements that you repeat over and over to yourself” (2011: 47).

Visualization. Visualization techiques involve creating, manipulating, and destroying mental images. Cunningham deals extensively with visualization (2004: 88-90). He gives four detailed visualization exercises. The first exercise involves visualizing a single image for several minutes. The second exercise begins with visually memorizing the appearance of some physical thing and then mentally focusing on the image of that thing for five minutes. The third exercise involves the deliberate mental construction of a detailed visual image while keeping your eyes closed. The fourth exercise involves the deliberate mental construction of a detailed mental image while keeping your eyes open. Sabin also deals extensively with visualization (2011: 47-51). She develops several visualization exercises like the ones described by Cunningham.

Although it is easy to cover these spiritual exercises with many layers of unscientific or anti-natural meaning (that is, with woo), there is no need to do so. These exercises are essentially secular. They have been widely used outside of any religious context and independent of any religious origins. They are widely used and studied in medicine, in sports, in the performing arts, in law enforcement and even in the military. Many scientific studies have been done to assess the degree of effectiveness of spiritual exercises; they generally confirm that such exercises can reliably regulate arousal and enhance performance. The secular aspects of these spiritual exercises are described below:

Breathing. Breathing techniques are often used to manage performance anxiety or to decrease arousal (e.g. by athletes and as part of tactical arousal control in law enforcement). Musicians make extensive use of breathing to manage performance anxiety.

Meditation. Secular versions of meditation are widely used in sport and medicine. They are widely recommended for the relief of psychological distress and to mitigate addictions or other maladaptive behaviors. These secular meditation techniques are typically adopted from Buddhist mindfulness techniques. They have been extensively studied (e.g. Bishop, 2002; Ostafin et al., 2006). Meditation does not require belief in any theistic deity. Many atheists have discussed their uses of meditation (Harris, 2005: ch. 7; Sponville-Compte, 2006; Walter, 2010: ch. 8).

Self-Hypnosis. Secular versions of self-hypnosis are widely used and studied in sports and medicine. Self-hypnosis techniques are effective and reliable. There is evidence that they reliably reduce anxiety and fear (e.g. in cancer or cardiac patients), that they reliably reduce bedwetting and migraines in children. Studies confirm that self-hypnosis provides valuable assistance to help people lose weight, stop smoking, pass through grief.

Visualization. Psychologists have found evidence that visualizing successful performance of some task or achievement of some goal increases motivation and effort and can reliably lead to better performance (Vasquez & Buehler, 2007). The use of visualization to enhance athletic performance has been widely studied and has been shown to enhance certain types of performance (e.g. Whelan, Mahoney, Meyers, 1991; Sheikh & Korn, 1994). Chess players make extensive use of visualization techniques (indeed, chess experts are so adept at chess visualization that they can play multiple simultaneous games of chess while blindfolded and thus operating entirely on mental imagery).

Many theists appeal to God to enhance their performances. These appeals are often done through petitionary prayer. Obviously, atheists will deny that those appeals to God have any direct effect on success (that is, God does not help the petitioner). However, such appeals can decrease arousal or reduce performance anxiety, and thereby have an indirect positive effect on performance. It would be useful for atheists to have non-theistic replacements for any theistic techniques whose real goals are arousal regulation.

Spiritual exercises like breathing, meditiation, self-hypnosis, and visualization are non-theistic. Since they do not involve any theistic deities, they can be employed by atheists. They can socially and culturally compete with theistic performance-enhancement techniques (thus replacing, for instance, petitionary prayer). Atheistic Wiccans can perform these spiritual exercises without any references to any gods or goddesses. Or, if an atheistic Wiccan prefers to think of the god as a symbol for the will and the goddess as a symbol for reason, these spiritual exercises can be thought of as enhancing the rational expression of the will. They facilitate the actualization of positive potentialities. And they can be included in an atheistic nature-religion or within an atheistic spirituality.

Links to this entire series of posts:

The Wiccan Deity: An Initial Philosophical Analysis

On Participation in Being-Itself

More on Religious Diversity among Atheists

Buddhist Rebirth

Rational Rebirth

References

Bishop, S. (2002) What do we really know about Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction? Psychosomatic Medicine 64, 71-84.

Comte-Sponville, A. (2006) The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality. New York: Viking.

Cunningham, S. (1988) Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner. St. Paul, MI: Llewellyn Publications.

Farrar, J. & Farrar, S. (1981) A Witches’ Bible: The Complete Witches’ Handbook. Blaine, WA: Phoenix Publishing.

Harris, S. (2005) The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason. New York: W. W. Norton.

Ostafin, B. et al. (2006) Intensive mindefulness training and the reduction of psychological distress: A preliminary study. Cognitive and Behavioral Practice, 191-197.

Sabin, T. (2011) Wicca for Beginners: Fundamentals of Philosophy & Practice (For Beginners (Llewellyn’s)). Woodbury, MI: Llewellyn Publications.

Sheikh, A. & Korn, E. (Eds.) (1994) Imagery in Sports and Physical Performance (Imagery and Human Development Series). Amityville, NY: Baywood Publishing.

Vasquez, N. & Buehler, R. (2007) Seeing future success: Does imagery perspective influence achievement motivation? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 33 (10), 1392-1405.

Walter, K. (2010) Atheism: A Guide for the Perplexed (Guides For The Perplexed). New York: Continuum.

Whelan, J., Mahoney, M., Meyers, A. (1991) Performance enhancement in sport: A cognitive behavioral domain. Behavior Therapy 22, 307-327.

Rational Rebirth

Published

on January 5, 2012

Kurt Gödel (1906-1978) was an Austrian-American logician and mathematician. He is best known for his incompleteness theorems and his work in axiomatic set theory. However, he also produced some deeply interesting philosophical arguments. Some of these are found in his unpublished papers and letters. One of these is an argument for life after death (for rebirth) given in a letter written in 1961 to his mother, Marianne Gödel:

In your last letter you pose the weighty question whether I believe we shall see each other again [in a hereafter]. About that I can only say the following: If the world is rationally organized and has a sense, then that must be so. For what sense would it make to bring forth a being (man) who has such a wide range of possibilities of individual development and of relations to others and then allow him to achieve not one in a thousand of those? That would be much as if someone laid the foundation for a house with the greatest trouble and expense and then let everything go to ruin again. But do we have reason to assume that the world is rationally organized? I think so. For the world is not at all chaotic and capricious, but rather, as science shows, the greatest regularity and order prevails in all things; [and] order is but a form of rationality. (1961: 429-431)

How is another life to be imagined? About that there are of course only conjectures. But it is interesting that modern science is the very thing that provides support for them. For it shows that this world of ours, with all the stars and planets that are in it, had a beginning and, in all probability, will have an end. But why then should there be only this one world? And since we one day found ourselves in this world, without knowing how [we got here] and whither [we are going], the same thing can be repeated in the same way in another [world] too. (1961: 429-431)

The paragraphs from Gödel’s letter contain an argument. This is Gödel’s Argument for Rebirth. One way to analyze it looks like this: (1) Nature produces humans; that is, nature produces us. (2) If nature produces us but does not allow us to realize all our potentials, then nature is not rational. (3) From 1 and 2 it follows that, if nature does not allow us to realize all our potentials, then nature is not rational. (4) However, science shows that nature is rational. (5) Therefore, nature allows us to realize all our potentials. (6) We do not realize all our potentials in our earthly lives. (7) Either we have future lives in which we will realize all our potentials or we do not. (8) If we do not have future lives in which we will realize our potentials, then nature does not allow us to realize all our potentials. (9) However, nature does allow us to to realize all our potentials. (10) Therefore we have future lives in which we will realize all our potentials. (11) While it is not likely that these future lives will appear in this universe, it is possible that there will be other universes after this universe ends. (12) If this possibility is not actualized, then nature does not allow us to realize all our potentials and is not rational. (13) But nature is rational and does allow us to realize all our potentials. (14) Consequently, we will have lives in other universes and through those lives we will realize all our potentials. This is clearly an argument for rebirth, since other future versions of our lives must appear in those future universes.

The mathematician Hao Wang was a close friend of Gödel. Wang reports that Gödel was interested in the construction of a “rational religion” (1987; 2) and characterized Gödel’s philosophy as rationalistic optimism (1987: 218). Assuming that reason is not self-negative, the most rational way for anything to actualize its potentialities is also the most optimistic way. Granted this optimistic premise, your future lives will realize all your positive potentials. The most optimistic way can be spelled out by two rules. These two rules define an iterative algorithm (so that any process directed by these rules is an example of algorithmic iteration). The two rules are as follows:

The Initial Rule states that you have an initial life. Your initial life is just your present earthly life. Your initial life runs biologically from conception to death. It exists in your initial society in your initial ecosystem in your initial universe.
The Sucessor Rule states that for every one of your lives, for every way to improve that life, you have a better successor life that is improved in that way. Starting with your initial life, the successor rule defines an endlessly ramified tree of ever better lives. Every successor life exists in a better successor society, ecosystem, and universe.

These two rules define an endlessly ramified tree of lives. The lives in the tree are stratified into ranks, and the tree contains as many ranks as natural numbers. The zeroth rank contains your present life; the first rank contains all the future versions of your present life; each next rank contains all future better versions of all the lives in the previous rank. For every natural number n, there is an n-th rank of lives. These ranks can be extended to the infinite using a Limit Rule; but that’s too technical for discussion here.

These rules define the theory of rational rebirth. The theory of rational rebirth follows from the logic of creation and evolution by rational selection. Rational rebirth is driven by natural creative power (it is driven by natura naturans, expressed through the dynamic interaction of objective will and objective reason). Rational rebirth exemplifies the concept of rebirth in Theraveda Buddhism. There is no personal identity that binds all your lives together. On the contrary, all these lives are counterparts in the sense defined by David Lewis (1968, 1986: ch. 4). The theory of rational rebirth does not involve any immaterial thinking substance that travels from universe to universe – it involves no Cartesian minds. To use some old-fashioned jargon, it is not transmigration, it is palingenesis. Of course, if the soul is the form of the body, then each of your lives can be an instance of your soul; all your lives can realized and run the same body-program. There are no memories of past lives; you cannot remember your past nor anticipate your future. So what’s the point? The point is that nature will realize all your positive potentialities. Your nature will be fully actualized. Nature contains the fullness of your person.

Rational rebirth is linked by resemblance to the Wheel of the Year. On the one hand, rational rebirth is an instance of algorithmic iteration; the two rules for rational rebirth define a cyclical pattern of action that generates your tree of lives. On the other hand, the Wheel of the Year is abstracted from the cyclical patterns of life and death in earthly nature. Bringing these two hands together, the Wheel of the Year can symbolize rational rebirth. The cyclical pattern of rational rebirth is the Great Wheel. One way to fill out the symbolism is to use the spring equinox to symbolize birth and the fall equinox to symbolize death. The light half of the year (from the spring to fall equinoxes) represents life; the dark half of the year represents the time between lives. During this time, there is no persistent self that exists. The self is merely an abstract pattern (the form of the body) that is carried by the Great Wheel, from lifetime to lifetime, from universe to universe.

Since rational rebirth does not involve any theistic deities, it is entirely consistent with atheism. The Great Wheel is driven by natural creative power (natura naturans). And while natural creative power is divine, it is not a theistic deity. An atheistic nature-religion can include rational rebirth as its doctrine of life after death. The Pew Religious Landscape Survey states that 18% of atheists believe in life after death; those atheists are free to adopt rational rebirth. Since rational rebirth does not conflict with science, and since it does not involve any super-natural entities, it is also entirely consistent with scientific naturalism. Rational rebirth is probably not consistent with strong forms of positivism. And skeptics will say that there is not enough evidence for it. However, atheism is distinct from skepticism and positivism. While positivists and skeptics may be forbidden to do speculative metaphysics, atheists are free to do as much speculative metaphysics as they want (so long, of course, as it does not involve any theistic deities).

The Pew Religious Landscape Survey states that earthly reincarnation is affirmed by 24% of Americans. Anybody who believes in earthly reincarnation can be offered rational rebirth as a more reasonable alternative. (And to say that it is more reasonable does not imply that it is true.) The mythos of earthly reincarnation points to the logos of rational rebirth. If you are dealing with somebody who believes in earthly reincarnation, you may want to try to dialectically lead them to the more reasonable theory of rational rebirth. You might win a friend and avoid making an enemy. Atheistic or rational Wiccans can affirm rational rebirth instead of earthly reincarnation. And if such Wiccans are willing to see the god and goddess as merely symbols for objective will and reason, then they can see the interplay between the god and goddess as symbolism for the Great Wheel. Rational rebirth captures the Wiccan idea that the purpose of reincarnation is self-perfection, that is, the actualization of all the positive potentialities of the soul, over many lifetimes.

The Pew Religious Landscape Survey states that 10% of atheists pray at least weekly; those atheists are free to pray to the Great Wheel. The Great Wheel is not a god or goddess; it is not a theistic deity at all; nor is it even a deity of any kind. It is merely an abstract cyclical pattern, an iterative algorithm. The content of an atheistic prayer to the Great Wheel might simply express the desire that it will carry your pattern forward, so that you will be reborn. Facing the greif of separation by death, two parting lovers might express their love in the prayer that the Great Wheel will carry them on together forever, that they will love again. As a response to an existential crisis, such atheistic prayers may be comforting. There is absolutely no reason why atheists should be denied such comfort. And any atheistic world-view which hopes to gain mainstream acceptance and to serve as a meaningful way of life for many people will have to provide such comfort. An atheistic nature-religion would thus be part of a positive and life-affirming atheism.

Closely related posts on the soul and multiple lives:

From Aristotle through Buddhism to Nietzsche

The Eternal Return of the Same

Links to some (but not all) of the other posts in this broader series on Wicca and atheism are below:

The Wiccan Deity: An Initial Philosophical Analysis

References

Gödel, K. (1961) Letter to Marianne Gödel, 23 July 1961. In S. Feferman et al. (Eds.) (2003) Collected Works: Volume IV: Correspondence, A-G (Mathematics). New York: Oxford University Press, 429-431.

Lewis, D. (1968) Counterpart theory and quantified modal logic. Journal of Philosophy 65, 113-126.

Lewis, D. (1986) On the Plurality of Worlds. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.

Wang, H. (1987) Reflections on Kurt Gödel. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

The Eternal Return of the Same

Published

on January 5, 2012

The classical versions of eternal recurrence say that recurrence occurs within our universe. Those classical versions say that there is a cyclical pattern of events in our space-time. Since the classical theory of eternal recurrence makes claims about our universe, it is open to scientific study. And it is almost certainly false. There is no recurrence within our universe. However, that does not refute the theory of eternal recurrence.

Here is a multiverse version of eternal recurrence that is consistent with science: (1) our universe exists; (2) for every universe, there exists an exactly similar predecessor universe; and (3) for every universe, there exists an exactly similar successor universe. This theory says nothing about the events in our universe. Perhaps our universe starts with a Big Bang and then runs through its entire history until all entropy is maximal. If that’s right, then that same pattern occurs in every predecessor and successor universe. This theory says that there is a two-way infinite series of exactly similar universes.

Since all these universes are exactly similar, their contents are exactly similar. Your life exists in our universe; but if something exists in some universe, then it is a member of a two-way infinite series of exactly similar counterparts in the other universes. The term “counterpart” signifies a technical philosophical concept, developed most extensively by the recent American philosopher David Lewis (1986: ch. 4). Counterpart theory is deeply fascinating, but there’s no need to get into it too deeply here.

The multiverse version of the eternal return entails that your life is a member of a two-way infinite series of exactly similar lives in exactly similar universes. For every one of your lives, there exists an exactly similar predecessor life. For every one of your lives, there exists an exactly similar successor life. You will be reborn over and over again, to live your life over and over again. However, this rebirth is not reincarnation – there is no immaterial thinking substance (no Cartesian soul) that travels from counterpart to counterpart. There is no transmigration of souls. Nor is there any continuity of memory – you do not remember your past lives in any meaningful way. Of course, you do remember your past lives in the entirely trivial sense that remembering what you did yesterday is the same as remembering what you did on the corresponding day of every one of your past lives.

And there is no personal identity across all your counterparts. Taken together, your counterparts don’t make up the stages in the life or career of some big person. You are not identical with any one of your past or future selves. They are distinct people who are exactly similar to you in every way. To use some logical jargon, they are qualititatively identical to you, but they are not numerically identical to you. Your life does not persist through recurrence; you do not survive into the next cycle. Your life is merely repeated, and the form of your life is exactly re-instantiated. Your biography is the singlel universal shared in common by all your lives. But that universal is not you.

This theory of eternal recurrence does not involve any theistic deities. On the contrary, it says that nature is fully self-sufficient. Since nature is uncreated, it needs no creator. It always has been and it always will be. So this theory of eternal recurrence is entirely compatible with the most rigorous atheism. And the thesis that you have infinitely many counterparts does not involve any immaterial thinking substance that passes from each previous counterpart to its next counterpart. It is entirely consistent with the most puritanical materialism. Of course, this theory agrees with the Aristotelian doctrine that the soul is the form of the body. Your body has a form – it runs a biological program. And that program will run over and over again.

This theory of eternal recurrence is also consistent with naturalism. It does not involve any super-natural agencies. It is an entirely natural theory. It is even a purely mechanistic theory. Nature is just a big loop. It is a looping process that has always been running and always will be running. The ultimate natural pattern, the logos of natural creative power, is a big looping program. It always has and always will be running.

This theory of eternal recurrence is consistent with atheism, with materialism, and with naturalism. But what about rationalism? Rationalism permits the existence of any objects that are found in empirically justified theories. Rationalism doesn’t guarantee that these things exist; it merely states that it is rational to say that they exist. Unfortunately for the eternal return, it doesn’t seem like there are any good arguments for it. Unless some good evidence-based argument for it is found, it’s not rational to believe in the theory of eternal recurrence. And eternal recurrence, with its sterile repetition of the same, probably isn’t what an advocate of rebirth wants anyway.

Despite its failures, the eternal return is a good illustration of a theory of rebirth that is consistent with atheism (as well as most other doctrines that inspire atheists). It suggests that there may be good lines of reasoning for more desirable types of rebirth. There may be types of rebirth that can be included in an atheistic nature-religion.

References

Lewis, D. (1986) On the Plurality of Worlds. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.

Background on themes in this post:

From Aristotle through Buddhism to Nietzsche

Below the fold are links to more posts on atheistic metaphysics, plus posts on parallels between Wicca and atheistic naturalism and possibilities for a Wiccan like atheistic religion:

The Wiccan Deity: An Initial Philosophical Analysis

From Aristotle through Buddhism to Nietzsche

Published

on January 5, 2012

Among all the classical theories of life after death, the one that seems to be most consistent with naturalism is the ancient Buddhist concept of rebirth. This concept is developed in Theraveda Buddhism. Theravedic Buddhism is an atheistic (or non-theistic) religion. Rebirth is linked to the Theravedic doctrines of impermanence and no-self. These doctrines imply that there are no permanent substances that endure either through one life or across different lives. There are no immaterial thinking substances (no Cartesian minds) that pass from life to life or body to body. Rebirth is not the transmigration of immaterial thinking substances:

As there is no permanent, unchanging substance, nothing passes from one moment to the next. So quite obviously, nothing permanent or changing can pass or transmigrate from one life to the next. It is a series that continues unbroken, but changes every moment. The series is, really speaking, nothing but movement. It is like a flame that burns through the night: it is not the same flame nor is it another. A child grows up to be a man of sixty. Certainly the man of sixty is not the same as the child of sixty years ago, nor is he another person. Similarly, a person who dies here and is reborn elsewhere is neither the same person nor another. It is the continuity of the same series. (Rahula, 1974: 34)

As an illustration of rebirth (which is not reincarnation), consider the eternal return of the same. The eternal return (also known as eternal recurrence) is the theory that physical reality has a cyclical pattern. The same pattern of events repeats itself over and over. The repetition is exact – there is no variation from cycle to cycle. Eternal recurrence is an old idea. The ancient Greek philosopher Eudemus tells his students: “If one were to believe the Pythagoreans, with the result that the same individual things will recur, then I shall be talking to you again sitting as you are now, with this pointer in my hand, and everything else will be just as it is now” (Kirk & Raven, 1957: frag. 272).

More recently, eternal recurrence was popularized by Nietzsche. And Nietzsche, as is well-known, is an atheistic philosopher. Nietzsche uses his character Zarathustra to talk about eternal recurrence. Zarathustra has two animals, an eagle and a snake. They tell him that they understand his theory of eternal recurrence:

Behold, we know what you teach: that all things recur eternally and we ourselves with them, and that we have already existed an infinite number of times before and all things with us. You teach that there is a great year of becoming, a colossus of a year: this year must, like an hour-glass, turn itself over again and again, so that it may run down and run out anew. So that all these years resemble one another, in the greatest things and in the smallest, so that we ourselves resemble ourselves in each great year, in the greatest things and in the smallest. And if you should die now, O Zarathustra: behold, we know too what you would then say to yourself . . . “Now I die and decay” you would say, “and in an instant I shall be nothingness. Souls are as mortal as bodies. But the complex of causes in which I am entangled will recur — it will create me again! I myself am part of these causes of the eternal recurrence. I shall return, with this sun, with this earth, with this eagle, with this serpent — not to a new life or a better life or a similar life: I shall return eternally to this identical and self-same life, in the greatest things and in the smallest, to teach once more the eternal recurrence of all things.” (Nietzsche, 1974: III: 13/2)

If the eternal return of the same is true (which is not to say that it is true), then your life is just one member of a two-way infinite series of exactly similar lives. On every natural cycle, you are born, you live, you die; and on every next cycle, you will be born again, you will live exactly the same life again, and you will die again. There is no immaterial thinking substance (no Cartesian mind) that moves from life to life. Of course, all these distinct lives share exactly the same pattern. Each of these lives is a series of stages like a movie is a series of photograhs or like a book is a series of pages. And each stage is a body that exists at exactly one instant of time. All of these bodies share the same form. If the soul is the form of the body, then they all share the same soul. All your past and future recurrence twins all share the same genotype. The soul is just a pattern that all your past and future bodies share. But there is no immaterial thinking substance that moves from body to body. All your lives are entirely material processes.

Previously: The Soul is the Form of the Body

Next: The Eternal Return of the Same

References

Kirk, G. S. & Raven, J. E. (1957) The Presocratic Philosophers: A Critical History with a Selection of Texts. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Nietzsche, F. (1974) Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Trans. R. J. Hollingdale. New York: Penguin Books.

Rahula, W. (1974) What the Buddha Taught: Revised and Expanded Edition with Texts from Suttas and Dhammapada. New York: Grove / Atlantic.

The Soul is the Form of the Body

Published

From Aristotle through Buddhism to Nietzsche

on January 4, 2012

According to the Wiccan theory of reincarnation, your soul leaves your body at death and enters a new body at conception. The Wiccan theory of reincarnation thus presupposes that human beings are soul-body composites. It is a type of soul-body dualism. Cunningham writes “The soul is ageless, sexless, nonphysical, possessed of the divine spark of the Goddess and God” (2004: 73). Since Cunningham identifies the soul with consciousness, this soul-body dualism is a kind of mind-body dualism: “the consciousness (soul) is reborn many times” (2004: 73). Silver Elder writes that “non-physical matter such as the Soul, or Self cannot be destroyed or transmuted allowing us to evolve in wisdom over many life times” (2011: 57). Obviously, it’s nonsense to talk about non-physical matter. At most these Wiccans are thinking of some sort of immaterial thinking substance. Many philosophers have argued that the soul is an indestructible immaterial thinking substance. Among these, Descartes is the most famous; but the idea goes back to Aquinas at least (Summa Theologica, Part 1, Q. 75-102). It may go back even further.

Against soul-body or mind-body dualism, many philosophers have argued for monism. This is also known as physicalism or materialism about persons. This materialism states that if something is a person, then it is a body. Modern science contains a very precise and powerful Success Argument for the materialist theory of persons. It goes like this: (1) For every function F, if any person can do F, then there is some part of the body of that person whose activity is both necessary and sufficient for the performance of F. All your digestion is done by your guts; all your breathing is done by your lungs; and all your thinking is done by the part of your body that computes (your brain, your nervous system, your immune system). Everything you do is done either by some part of your body or by your whole body (which is an improper part of itself). (2) If everything you do is done by some part of your body, then you are your body. Therefore (3) you are your body. This argument is general: every person is identical with his or her body.

Materialism is successful. Of course, there is a large literature arguing for the materialist theory of persons. You can start with Paul Churchland’s old but wonderful book Matter and Consciousness (1985). And here it’s worth pointing out that the fact that we don’t know everything about the brain or about consciousness does not imply that there is any room for an immaterial thinking substance. There is no empirical justification for the existence of any immaterial thinking substances. Consequently, it is irrational to affirm that they exist. When Cunningham and Silver Elder assert that immaterial thinking substnaces exist, they are wrong. However, the theory that the soul is an immaterial thinking substance is not the only theory of the soul. There are other theories of the soul.

Aristotle said the soul is to the body as form is to matter (De Anima, 412a5-414a33). On the basis of this analogy, he declared that the soul is the form of the body. The Aristotelian theory of the soul as the form of the body has recently received much greater attention due to computers. The Aristotelian idea that the soul is to the body as form is to matter becomes computationally interpreted as the idea that the soul is to the body as a program is to a computer. Every cell in the body is performing a biological computation at the molecular level. The cellular program is mainly encoded in its genes. But the body is just a network of interacting cells; hence the body is also performing a biological computation. The form of this computation is the body-program. The body-program is the form of the body; the body-program is the soul. The soul is the logos of the body – it is the algorithm of the body. Tipler writes that “the human ‘soul’ is nothing but a specific program being run on a computing machine called the brain”(1995: 1-2). And Barrow & Tipler explicitly identify the soul with the body-program:

an intelligent being — or more generally, any living creature — is fundamentally a type of computer . . . the really important part of a computer is not the particular hardware, but the program; we may even say that a human being is a program designed to run on particular hardware called a human body, coding its data in very special types of data storage devices called DNA molecules and nerve cells. The essence of a human being is not the body but the program which controls the body; . . . A living human being is a representation of a definite program rather than the program itself. In principle, the program corresponding to a human being could be stored in many different forms. (Barrow & Tipler, 1986: 659)

As the form of the body, the soul is an immanent universal (it is a universal in re). It does not exist as an independent substance. And just as a program without a computer does not compute, so a soul without a body does not live or think. Of course, since the soul is a form, it can be multiply instantiated. It can be instantiated in other natural human bodies besides your body. Or it could even be instantiated by an artificial robotic body, or by an artificial software body in some virtual reality simulation of your body. More abstractly, it could be instantiated by a purely mathematical structure. To be sure, since anysuch structure is purely mathematical, it does not think or live – it merely exists. Your soul can exist even if your body does not; but it cannot exist apart from an instantiation. Your soul is a form, and every form is realized or instantiated by some object.

For precision, you might try to argue that souls are encoded in genomes. You might say that every possible human genotype encodes some human soul. The encoding compresses the instructions for building and running a human body into a series of nucleotides. This is an interesting idea, since the genotype is wholly present in almost every living cell in the body. Old philosophers (like Plotinus and Anselm) used to argue that the soul is integrally omnipresent in the body – it is wholly present in every part of the body. The genotype comes close to this old-fashioned notion. And the genotype remains pretty much invariant through your whole life. Essences are invariants; hence your genotype is your essence. If this is the correct theory of the soul, then any two people who share the same genotype share the same soul. For example, monozygotic twins and clones share the same soul. This is an entirely scientific conception of the soul. Of course, you may want to add lots more information to the soul. And you’re entirely free to do so.

The theory that the soul is the form of the body, modernized using computer science, is consistent with current natural science. This is a scientific theory of the soul. As an immanent universal, the soul has a place in the naturalistic ontology sketched in an earlier post. There is nothing super-natural about the soul as the form of the body. And there are good evidence-based arguments for the existence of immanent universals. Of course, some nominalists, positivists, and materialists cannot agree with the existence of any universals at all. But not all atheists belong to those groups. Atheists can be Aristotelians (or even Platonists), and can affirm that the soul is the form of the body.

Follow up posts on the soul and multiple lives:

The Eternal Return of the Same

Links to references and to related posts in this series are below the fold:

Atheism and Wicca

The Wiccan Deity: An Initial Philosophical Analysis

On Participation in Being-Itself

More on Religious Diversity among Atheists

References

Barrow, J. & Tipler, F. (1986) The Anthropic Cosmological Principle (Oxford Paperbacks). New York: Oxford University Press.

Churchland, P. (1985) Matter and Consciousness: A Contemporary Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Cunningham, S. (2004) Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner. St. Paul, MI: Llewellyn Publications.

Silver Elder (2011) Wiccan Celebrations. Winchester, UK: Moon Books.

Tipler, F. (1995) The Physics of Immortality: Modern Cosmology, God and the Resurrection of the Dead. New York: Anchor Books.

Reincarnation

Published

on January 4, 2012

[I’m doing a long series of posts on atheism and Wicca. I am not a Wiccan - I'm an outsider. There are many good reasons why atheists should be interested in Wicca or neo-paganism more generally. When I discuss some topic in Wicca, I do it in three stages: First, I try to give an accurate presentation of the Wiccan position. Giving an accurate presentation of their position does not imply that I endorse it. Second, I evaluate what the Wiccans say, trying to separate the rational from the irrational. It is never my purpose to be vicious or arrogant, so when I criticize, I don’t mock or sneer. Third, I try to indicate the content that is consistent with atheism, and what atheists might profitably learn and use for their own purposes. My next few posts will be on the Wiccan doctrine of reincarnation. Here I'm merely presenting their ideas, without any judgment.]

Although reincarnation is often thought of as an Eastern doctrine, it has a surprisingly large following in the West. The Pythagoreans affirmed reincarnation. Plato affirms it in his Myth of Er (The Republic, 614b-621d) and Plotinus affirms it in the The Enneads (III.2-4, III.6.6, VI.7.6). Versions of reincarnation seem to be endorsed by classical American thinkers like Emerson and Thoreau. As for modern America, reincarnation beliefs appear to be surprisingly common (see the Pew 2009 Religion and Public Life Survey).

Reincarnation is a common doctrine among Wiccans. The Farrars say that “Almost all witches [Wicccans] believe in reincarnation” (1981: 113). Buckland talks about it (1986: 25-28). Sabin reports that “most Wiccans will tell you that they believe in reincarnation” (2011: 31). And Cunningham says that “reincarnation is one of Wicca’s most valuable lessons” (2004: 73). Silver Elder discusses it (2011: 56-57). She writes that “It is the Soul or, the Spirit body that transcends the earthly physical realm to be re-manifest within the cycle of birth, life, death, and re-birth” (2011: 38).

According to Cunningham, reincarnation is not revealed by any super-natural agency, but is inferred from the observation of natural fertility cycles. Thus reincarnation is manifest in the lawful patterns of nature: “reincarnation is as real as a plant that buds, flowers, drops its seed, withers, and creates a new plant in its image” (2004: 77). Of course, this botanical fertility cycle corresponds to the solar cycle. So Cunningham writes that “our very lives are symbolically linked with the endless cycles of the seasons that shape our planet” (2004: 76). Silver Elder says that reincarnation is manifest by the solar cycle, that is, by the Wheel of the Year: “the Wheel of the Year forms the story of birth, life, death and rebirth, the Cycle of Infinity and Reincarnation with the seasonal cycle acting as the metaphor for the regeneration of life” (2011: 23). Silver Elder also says that the daily sleep-wake cycle is a metaphor for reincarnation (2011: 43).

The Farrars say “The theory of reincarnation holds, briefly, that each individual human soul or essence is reborn again and again, in a series of bodily incarnations on this earth” (1981: 116). Cunningham writes that “when the physical body dies we do not cease to exist, but are reborn in another body” (2004: 73). Sabin says that reincarnation is “the soul returning again to earth in a new body or form after death” (2011: 31). But reincarnation is not limited to being reborn on earth. Buckland suggests that you might be reincarnated on some other planets or worlds: it is possible that “we not only experience lives here on Earth, but also on other planets . . . Perhaps we go through the cycle here having already been through it a dozen times or more on other worlds” (Buckland, 1986: 26).

The basic Wiccan reincarnation doctrine seems to be this: A human person is composed of a soul and body (this is soul-body dualism). The soul is some kind of divine spark from the ultimate deity (or god and goddess). Thus Cunningham writes “The soul is ageless, sexless, nonphysical, possessed of the divine spark of the Goddess and God” (2004: 73). Although the body dies, the soul cannot be destroyed. After the body dies, the soul travels to some spiritual place where it prepares for its next incarnation (Cunningham, 2004: 75; Silver Elder, 2011: 56-57). After this preparation, the soul enters a new human body. The Farrars say that it enters the fetus at conception (1981: 121).

The cycle of reincarnation aims at self-perfection and is repeated over and over again until the soul becomes perfected. Cunningham says “Wicca teaches that reincarnation is the instrument through which our souls are perfected. One lifetime isn’t sufficient to attain this goal; hence, the consciousness (soul) is reborn many times, each life encompassing a different set of lessons, until perfection is achieved” (2004: 73). Cuhulain says that the purpose of reincarnation is “to continue the process of perfecting ourselves” (2011: 17). Buckland discusses the purpose of reincarnation like this: “your job is to progress; to strive your hardest towards perfection” (1986: 27). Buckland uses an educational analogy to illustrate the process of self-perfection through multiple lives:

A very good simile for [reincarnation] is the grades of a school. You enter school in a low grade and learn the basics. When you have mastered these you graduate, take a short vacation, then come back into a higher grade to learn and experience more things. So it is in life. In each life you have a certain amount to learn and to experience. When you have done that, you graduate (e.g., you die). To come back into a higher grade, you are reborn in a new body. (1986: 26)

Once the soul is perfected, the Farrars say that it advances to some higher level of spiritual reality that is beyond our detailed comprehension (1981: 116). Cunningham is more explicit: “after rising upon the spiral of life and death and rebirth, those souls who have attained perfection break away from the cycle forever and dwell with the Goddess and God. Nothing is ever lost. The energies resident in our souls return to the divine source from which they originally emanated” (2004: 76). Cunningham’s version of Wicca is highly Neoplatonic. For Cunningham, reincarnation climbs great chain of being. This is Neoplatonic: after the soul is emanated by the One, the soul returns to the One.

Athough Cunningham tries to interpret Wicca using old Neoplatonic ideas, his Neoplatonic notion that the purpose of reincarnation is to reunite the soul with the One does not seem consistent with other Wiccan doctrines. It is not consistent with the Wiccan conception of nature as a perpetual cycle (which Silver Elder refers to as the “Cycle of Infinity” (2011: 23)). And Sabin writes that “Wiccans aren’t trying to get off the wheel” (2011: 12). She says that Wiccans are not trying to escape from the cycles of nature: “Wiccans believe that they actively participate in turning the wheel – in nature, essentially – while practicioners of some other religions try to transcend it” (2011: 12). This opposes Cunningham’s view of reincarnation as Neoplatonic return. And Cunningham contradicts himself: after all, he said our lives are linked with the “endless cycles” of the earthly seasons. Neoplatonic return can’t be right. It is certainly possible for self-perfection to continue forever, through infinitely many reincarnations, always rising to higher and higher levels of perfection. You could have as many reincarnations as there are numbers.

For Wiccans, reincarnation is associated with compensatory justice: you are rewarded or punished in your next lives for what you did in your past lives. This is commonly known as karma although in Greek-Roman thought it was known simply as justice (and Plotinus uses the Greek term adrasteia to refer to it (Enneads, III.2.13)). There is little need to go into the details of the Wiccan theory of karma here (e.g. the Threefold Law).

Although the details of the Wiccan ethics of reincarnation are of little philosophical interest, there is an important ethical point that must be said: any reincarnation theory, when coupled with the doctrines of self-perfection and justice across lives, is surely morally superior to the Christian notion of the afterlife as spent either in eternal heaven or eternal hell. For an earthly life to be punished forever in hell is infinite injustice. No finite human being deserves infinite pain. And this is true for heaven as well: to be rewarded forever in heaven is also infinite injustice. No finite human being deserves infinite pleasure. The Christian theory of the afterlife entails infinite injustice. Reincarnation is morally superior. And here it is worth noting that the Christian philosopher John Hick rejects the Christian doctrines of heaven and hell in favor of a reincarnation-resurrection theory that is surprisingly similar to the Wiccan theory of reincarnation (Hick, 1976: chs. 15, 20, 22).

Wiccans attempt to construct evidence-based arguments to justify reincarnation. They attempt to empirically justify reincarnation (e.g. deja-vu, alleged memories of past lives, explanations of the injustices of this life, etc.). Here it must be noted that Christians do not make any efforts to empirically justify the theory of the general resurrection of the body; it is simply asserted as a matter of faith based on the Bible. Unfortunately for the Wiccans, their theory of reincarnation is not consistent with natural science. And it is foolish to try to mount some defense based on some alleged gaps in our present scientific knowledge. All the science that is needed to refute reincarnation has been available for a long time. And purely logical arguments against reincarnation have been well-known for a long time (see Tertullian, 1997). And philosophical arguments against soul-body dualism also refute Wiccan reincarnation. There is no reincarnation.

Nevertheless, reincarnation is not the only theory that says we have multiple lives. The Buddhist theory of rebirth also says that we all have many lives. It does not involve any soul that travels from body to body. It need not even involve having future lives here on earth; your future lives may exist in other universes. The Buddhist theory of rebirth suggests a way to have multiple lives that is consistent with scientific naturalism. But before talking about rebirth, it will be necessary to talk about the soul.

The Atheist Wheel of the Year

Published

on January 3, 2012

The Wheel of the Year involves eight solar holidays (the sabbats). The sabbats include the solar quarter days (the solstices and the equinoxes) as well as the solar cross-quarter days intermediate between the quarters. For theistic Wiccans, these days symbolize events in the life-cycles of the god and goddess. These days are marked by sabbat rituals.

Atheistic Wiccans, or atheists generally, must reject any theistic aspects of the sabbats. Of course, atheists are free to use the non-theistic aspects of the sabbats. The celebration of the sabbats is consistent with atheism (and with the denial of the Wiccan gods). The sabbats are solar holidays. Scientific naturalism confirms the structure of the sabbats. The earth does orbit the sun and the seasons do follow a cyclical pattern.

Atheists can certainly participate in all the life-affirming aspects of the sabbats. And atheistic Wiccans, or atheists generally, can perform many other rituals or ceremonies on these days. Many atheistic ceremonies are already being done on these days. All sabbats involve gatherings and feasts. And all sabbats symbolize the continued existence of natural life on earth. As such, they are life-affirming holidays. The sabbats affirm both the rhythms of human life and the rhythms of the entire earthly ecosystem. As life-affirming holidiays, they can play positive roles in atheistic communities.

The list below provides information about non-theistic versions of the sabbat holidays. The sabbat days listed here are for the Northern Hemisphere. For the Southern Hemisphere, the days appear on the opposite places in the solar calendar. The solstices and equinoxes are inverted as are the cross-quarter days (for instance, Beltane takes place on 1 February and Imbolc on 1 May). The agricultural aspects of these holidays (e.g. harvests) are most meaningful for the temperate latitudes (at about 45 degrees). For those in the tropics, the solar variation is smaller and therefore has less meaning. Nevertheless, these celebrations can still be done in the tropics. They should be varied as the participants see fit.

Imbolc (about 1 February).

Imbolc takes place at a time which is often very emotionally difficult; the winter has been grinding on, the cold is at its worst, and the long lack of light leads to depression. For many, it is the worst point of the year. It therefore seems fitting to use Imbolc to remember the Dark Ages, when superstition and the sleep of reason bred monsters. But any recollection of the Dark Ages should have at its end an affirmation of hope. This is both the hope that reason will triumph over irrationality and the hope that brighter and warmer days will soon triumph over the dark and cold. It is a time to emphasize the virtues of patience, resolve, and determination. Darwin Day (12 February) is close to Imbolc and may be celebrated along with it.

Ostara (Spring Equinox; about 21 March).

Since this is a time at which light triumphs over darkness, the American Humanist Association, through its Secular Seasons Project, suggests marking it with a celebration of the Renaissance. This is the end of the Dark Ages. This can be celebrated by remembering those who fought for science over religious superstition. It might be celebrated with some ritual banishment of a priestly figure by a figure symbolizing reason or science. Obviously, the Spring Equinox is a time of psychological re-vitalization. This may be ritually recognized in many ways.

Beltane (May Day; about 1 May).

Many non-theistic practices are associated with May Day. One of the best known and most widely practiced involves erecting and dancing around a Maypole. Various atheist groups have participated in May Day Parades. Some atheistic groups celebrate the National Day of Reason on the first Thursday in May. For atheistic Wiccans, this should be close enough to Beltane to serve as a Beltane ceremony.

Litha (Summer Solstice; about 21 June).

The Summer Solstice is the longest day. Since the light of the sun traditionally symbolizes reason and truth, the Summer Solstice symbolizes the maximal power of reason and truth. On the Summer Solstice, it is therefore fitting to celebrate the Enlightenment. This can be done by perform the Cosmic Walk as a counterpart to the Advent Spiral. The Summer Solstice is also World Humanist Day, which can be celebrated in many ways.

Lammas (aka Lughnasadh, about 4 August).

Lammas is an initial harvest holiday. Many neo-pagans mark Lammas with feasts involving the fruits, vegetables, and grains available during the height of the summer. Since corn is often first harvested around this time, Lammas is often celebrated as a corn festival. Corn festivals are common and traditional during August throughout the United States. Atheistic Wiccans and atheists generally can obviously celebrate corn festivals. Beyond feasting, it is hard to find much recent ritual activity at Lammas. Since Lammas is the height of summer, it may serve as a time of reflection on accomplishments or a time for the reflection on the coming harvest, which symbolizes the impermanence of all things.

Mabon (Fall Equinox; about 21 September).

An interesting and complex ceremony for the Fall Equinox is performed in Crested Butte, Colorado. This is the Vinotok ceremony, which is said to originate in Eastern Europe. This ceremony is also known as Burning the Grump.

The Vinotok ceremony takes place over about one week and involves a large cast of characters – it’s a large-scale festival performed (so it seems) by most of the town. It might take several pages to describe the elaborate aspects of the Vinotok ceremony. But here it will be useful to focus on the Green Man and the Grump. The Green Man symbolizes natural creative power expressed in the botanical vitality of agriculture. The Fall Equinox is the start of the harvest. At this time, obviously enough, the crops are grown, the leaves are falling, and thus the Green Man is dying. To ensure his return in the spring, someone must be sacrificed in his place. The sacrificial scapegoat is the Grump.

The Grump symbolizes all human negativity. The Grump is a wooden figure of a man with a hollow interior. Over the course of the ceremony, people write their complaints and grievances on paper and put them into the Grump. One might also write down things that hold us in bondage or burdens from which we seek to be relieved (e.g. bad habits, addictions, personal failings, and so on). The Grump put on trial and found guilty (perhaps the charge is that he holds us back from realizing our highest ideals). The Grump is then taken to the town square and burned. This climax of the festival involves considerable partying. Upon the sacrifice of the Grump, the Green Man returns.

Atheistic Wiccans, as well as atheists generally, ought to be able to perform and enjoy something like this ceremony. It can function as a powerful psychological purification ritual, in which we seek release from our bonds and burdens. It is interesting to note the parallels between Burning the Grump and the Burning Man festival held in the Black Rock Desert. But the significance of Burning Man is a topic for another time. Burning the Grump resembles the burning ritual described by Buckland (1986: 99-101). While Buckland puts that burning ritual at Samhain, Mabon seems more appropriate.

Samhain (about 31 October)

Samhain is traditionally a time to remember and honor the dead. At this time there are many well-established ceremonial structures for dealing with death. These include the Day of the Dead in Mexico and elsewhere. One way that some Wiccans honor the dead is through Silent Suppers (Cuhulain, 2011: 96; Sabin, 2011: 171). A Silent Supper is meal that is served and eaten in silence, with a place at the table set for the dead. Atheistic Wiccans, or atheists in general, can obviously hold Silent Suppers. For children, all the usual North American Halloween celebrations and activities can be done. One of the psychological functions of Halloween is to help children deal with their fears. It is also a good time to teach children about superstitions. Children may learn that ghosts or other frightening powers are not real, but merely projections of our own fears.

Yule (Winter Solstice; about 21 December)

Many atheist groups have Winter Solstice activities. Atheists can certainly perform all the usual Yule practices (setting up a tree, giving gifts to children, and so on). The mythology of Santa can be used in a positive way. It is customary to tell young children the Santa myths and to allow or encourage them to believe those myths. It is also customary to tell older children that Santa is merely an illusion. Atheists can certainly use these customs to very good ends: all gods and goddesses are like Santa; they are pleasing fictions.

Many Waldorf schools perform a ceremony known as the Advent Spiral. This ceremony is primarily a ceremony for children, with parents watching. It involves a large spiral laid on the ground or floor. The spiral must be large enough for people to walk from its outer end into its center. Some versions of the Advent Spiral use a double spiral, so that people can walk into the center along one spiral and out of it along the other. The spiral is laid out with evergreen boughs or perhaps with stones. Luminariums (small candles in holders) may be set at regular intervals along the spiral. At the center of the spiral, there is a chair. The ceremony is performed in darkness. It starts with a child holding a lighted candle walking into the spiral and sitting on the chair. Other children are lined up at the outer end of the spiral with unlit candles. One by one they walk into the center of the spiral, where they light their candles from the central candle. After the candle is lit, the child walks out of the spiral. The Advent Spiral symbolizes the growing of the light from the Winter Solstice. The use of the spiral and the lights is clearly similar to the Cosmic Walk. This similarity motivates the performance of the Cosmic Walk at the Summer Solstice.

Some (but not all) other posts in this series:

The Wiccan Deity: An Initial Philosophical Analysis

References

Buckland, R. (1986) Complete Book of Witch Craft. Second Edition Revised and Expanded. St. Paul, MI: Llewellyn Publications.

Cuhulain, K. (2011) Pagan Religions: A Handbook for Diversity Training. Portland, OR: Acorn Guild Press.

Sabin, T. (2011) Wicca for Beginners: Fundamentals of Philosophy and Practice. Woodbury, MI: Llewellyn Publications.

Criticizing Wicca: The Wheel of the Year

Published

on January 3, 2012

The Wheel of the Year is a division of the solar year into eight holidays (the solstices, the equinoxes, and four days in-between). Insofar as the days on the Wheel of the Year mark natural points in the orbit of the earth around the sun, the Wheel marks a natural pattern. It marks a natural logos. Wiccans use that natural logos as a frame which they cover with religious symbolism – they cover it with religious mythos.

According to the Wiccan mythos, the Wheel represents stages in the lives of the Wiccan god and goddess. Some (but not all) Wiccans think of the god and goddess theistically, as real people. Atheists reject this theism; on the contrary, the god and goddess are merely human projections. At most, they are symbols, icons representing the dynamic polarity of male and female in animal nature and the solar cycle in botanical nature.

And while atheists must reject any theistic interpretations of the Wheel, atheists need not reject the aesthetic-affective dimensions of the Wheel. Any atheist who has ever been overwhelmed by love can appreciate the story of the god and goddess as emotionally beautiful and satisfying poetry. It is entirely consistent with the purest atheism to affirm that love is sacred and holy. For anyone who values earthly nature, the drama of the sun and earth is both beautiful and ethically arousing – it reminds us of our personal and social obligations to the whole earthly ecosystem. It is entirely consistent with the purest atheism to affirm that earthly nature is sacred and holy.

Atheists can certainly use the eight days of the Wheel as purely atheistic holidays (and many atheists and atheistic groups already do). The Wheel of the Year also provides materials for personal reflection. The eight parts of the Wheel can be put into correspondence with the eight stages of human life as described by Erik Erikson. At each sabbat, we can reflect on those stages – on what it means to be an infant, an adolescent, an aged person, a dying person.

The Wheel of the Year provides a great deal of material for atheistic reflection. The regular movement of the sun can be used to symbolize all the laws of nature – it can serve as a symbol for all the patterning in nature. Natural creative power (natura naturans) is not irrational; on the contrary, the success of science shows that it is rational. Natural creative power contains the natural logos – nature is rational and reason is natural. The Wheel of the Year can inspire reflection on the rationality of nature.

The Wheel of the Year can inspire us to think about deep time. The Wheel has been rolling for billions of years from the past and will continue to roll for billions of years into the future. We can mentally roll the Wheel back to the very dawn of life on earth, and then mentally roll it forward through the entire course of earthly evolution. The solar cycle depicted in the Wheel drives all biological evolution on earth. And we can wonder about how the Wheel will roll into the future: what will the shape of life on earth be like? The Wheel compels us to think about our stewardship of earthly life.

The Wheel of the Year is a natural cyclical pattern. As such, it inspires us to think about the deep features of natural cyclicality. The Wheel doesn’t just roll; it rolls in one direction, along an arrow of time. And it doesn’t just roll through the same patterns. Our best science reveals that as the Wheel rolls on, the contents of its cycles tend to become more complex (Chaisson, 2001, 2006). The cycles of the Wheel do not merely produce another generation of bacteria. On the contrary, those cycles build an enormous biological complexity hierarchy. The Wheel rolls uphill. Will the Wheel always roll uphill?

The Wheel of the Year inspires us to think about general principles of cyclicality. Machines that seem to operate linearly are driven by cycles. The action pattern of every Turing Machine is cyclical. Computers are also wheels. How deep are the principles of cyclicality? Iteration is cyclical. Number lines and hierarchies of sets are generated by cyclical processes. Perhaps all complexity is built by repetition or recursion. Perhaps everything is generated by algorithmic iteration. The logic of creation and evolution by rational selection together constitute a purely atheistic account of the emergence of all natural complexity (including our whole universe). Evolution by rational selection is an example of algorithmic iteration. Hence the Wheel symbolizes the evolutionary process which constructs all complexity. The Wheel symbolizes the self-manifestation of natura naturans through the interplay of objective will and objective reason.

Atheists must repudiate any activity in the sabbat rituals that involves the Wiccan god and goddess. But that still leaves some interesting ritual activity for atheists to use. It is entirely consistent with atheism (and with rationalism) to light a candle symbolizing truth, and to draw a sacred circle that includes reason and excludes irrationality. Many religious rites focus on purification and ascetic self-discipline. For an atheistic nature-religion, those rites would focus on purification of the mind and cognitive self-discipline. Everybody is welcome inside the circle of reason. Just leave your irrationality outside.

Some (but not all) other posts in this series:

The Wiccan Deity: An Initial Philosophical Analysis

Creation Myths

References

Chaisson, E. (2001) Cosmic Evolution: The Rise of Complexity in Nature. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Chaisson, E. (2006) The Epic of Evolution: The Seven Ages of the Cosmos. New York: Columbia University Press.

The Ontological Argument Against God

Published