Sunday 25 March 2012

New School, Old School, Self-Education

Despite all scientific advancements in archeoforensics, academic standards in many places have a lot of catching up to do. Of course the organisational costs of adapting new approaches to new information are bound to be excessive for most; and given how anyone can sell their ideas on the internet these days, is no less prone to a great deal of interpretation. Thus, anyone aspiring to educate themselves, is apt to find it arduous enough searching out the source material before even being able to determine whether it is reliable or not. More often than not, this is also marred by the person's own precepts induced by popular hearsay and fanciful fashion trends. Unfortunately this is much of what paganism has been suffering since the days of Aleister Crowley; namely that any academic lack of evidence is an invitation to rearrange the pieces so that the picture fits the frame of their notions, rather than realize that they don't have the actual picture at all. The victims are usually ethno-cultures with anything others might eclectically perceive as enigmatic; some mystical grail of occult knowledge, promising the finder unimaginable psychic powers. If that were the case, then one is more apt to find it within their own familiar heritage than anyone else's, if they'd only take the time and providence to explore it. Mind you, being the contrary species that we are, sometimes we have to go afar to realize the meaning of “coming home”.

On the other hand, there is no limit to the convenient excuses to justify misinformation. Take for instance that all-time favourite: “Science can't explain everything”, well news flash, that is not the object of science. Science is the study of nature's mechanisms for solutions to whatever contentious problems that make survival or the understanding of it a right pain in the ass. It does not justify the invention of plastic chakra pyramids or running an electric current through an epoxy full of exotic industrial waste, let alone eating garlic to ward off heart disease when you drink like a viking. These are items more likely to inspire dreams of trendy market loopholes and palacial manors in the sun until somebody sues you for fraud, or even worse, criminal negligence.

I don't know who came up with the foolish notion that science was meant to be some sterile realm of industrialized non-belief and academic absolutes. That sounds more like a socialist dogma than anything creatively enlightening. Whether we call what motivates us divine or natural is actually quite relative, provided that it has a healthy respect for the natural mechanisms that we are no less dependent on as anything else in the continuum of existence. As for those want to put faith in some cosmic puppet master for the delusion of being the chosen, don't even try me. I think that crap is just a cop-out from any real sense of personal responsibility no matter what the promises of salvation.

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