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Interested in conversations about the nature of reality, multidimensionality, truth, being, religion, spirituality, life, love, consciousness, and language?
Wondering how to thrive in an uncertain and rapidly changing world?
Do you want to learn about things you've never experienced or heard of?
If so, we might just be for you!
Wendy Frase 0:00
Welcome to wake up call for the soul with Bill and Wendy, Hi Bill,
Bill Frase 0:06
Hey Wen.
Wendy Frase 0:08
Well, it's good to be with you again today for our second official episode. And today we are talking about religion, and we are talking about, what is religion? And you had a good title for the show, religion isn't what we thought it was, which is very intriguing to me, because I don't really know if I know what religion is. And that spurred this conversation today, because I went out to lunch recently with another person, and they were we were talking about things that you were involved in, and they asked, Is that a religion? And I immediately said, No, but then I went home and thought, well, what is really a religion? What does it mean to be religious? I did grow up in the church. So I have these ideas that different religions have core beliefs, practices, symbols. I can name certain religions, but really, what is religion? And you are telling me now it isn't what we thought it was.
Bill Frase 1:30
I've done a lot of thinking about religion for a long time now, and yeah, and I think what I used to think that it was, was that someone had a greater experience or perception of reality than other people, and then that person somehow shared or expressed their understanding and their teachings to other people. And then eventually that that founder, or those founders end up dying or something, and and then their followers and people who follow them kind of put their own ideas and interpretations on what this person taught and what their life was about, and these kinds of things. And then others come along and a religion is established that has, like you said, beliefs, structures, rituals, scriptures, writings that they prioritize as being maybe more true than other writings that exist in the world. And so that's what I thought religion was, and I don't think that I see it that way anymore.
Wendy Frase 2:45
Tell me more, because, yeah, we know that certain religions, most of us would consider Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, to name a few. These are things that come to mind when we say religions, but really, what is a religion? And maybe, how do you bill see it differently?
Bill Frase 3:08
Yeah, so I think how I'm seeing it now is that religion is a much more fundamental aspect of the fabric of the human world than I realized. I think I think I used to think that it was really separate from how the rest of the world works. We think this way now, right? Because we have this idea that there are religious things and secular things, or sacred and the so called secular or worldly. And as I've been thinking about this and reading and contemplating, I've come to feel that that the human world itself is inherently religious, and that the problems that we have with the world are are created by the dynamics that are behind this religious world that we live in.
Wendy Frase 3:59
What I think of when you just said that is, is we need a so called savior or person to look up to, because things are so bad and so I feel like a lot of religions were created possibly around this theme.
Bill Frase 4:15
Well, that's what I used to think. I'm going to try to lay out some ideas that are going to hopefully lead us in a direction here. So I'm going to start with the idea of myth. I know people have all kinds of things as to what they think myth is, and I'm not talking about pretty much any of those things that anyone is probably thinking about right now. And so I'm going to go to a book that was gifted to me by John Dominic Crossen called the Dark Interval. And what it is is it's a the subtitle is something like toward a theology of story. And he does some really interesting things in that book, where he looks at different kinds of stories, and he studies them structurally. And the first type of story that he looks at is. myth. And to make a long story short, what he is saying is that myths are stories where you have two irreconcilable opposites. So he's looking at a structural analysis, and he's borrowing a lot of his thought from the structural Anthropology of Claude Levi Strauss. When Claude Levi Strauss and people like John Dominic cross, and they look at myth, what they see is, is that the stories appear to represent two irreconcilable opposites, polar opposites, for example, male, female, death, life, divine, human. That's not so important as the fact that these stories always lead to a reconciliation between these two polarities, but in many cases, the reconciliation in the myth is sort of nonsensical. Doesn't really make a lot of sense as to how these things were reconciled. And John Dominic Crossan also makes this point very generally. This is at a very obviously high conceptual level in terms of just looking at all world myths, not to say that they all fall into this, but he's talking about religion, theology, that these stories also his thing that he really finds important about myths is that these stories proposed the possibility of the reconciliation of irreconcilable opposites. So they propose the possibility, but they don't really tell you how this is achieved. Okay? And the other aspect of myth that is really critical for what's going to go come next is that he considers myths to be the stories that create the world, the stories that create the human world. And I think that this point is super important. So for me, myth are all of the stories that human beings tell themselves that continue to perpetually recreate the world as it is
Wendy Frase 6:55
Okay. So when you were talking about myths there and stories at first, I was thinking about stories, even myths, Greek myths, or stories in the Bible. I grew up in a Christian background, so I think of stories like Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah and the ark. These are important stories we tell ourselves. But then there's also stories we tell our own mind, like the world is a bad place and I have to overcome it, or do these kind of things, or maybe other stories that we tell ourselves are I am unlovable, and so I keep having relationships that end in bad ways. So there's stories in our mind, and they may be missed because they may really not be true, but then there's also these stories that we grew up with, historical stories that may or may not be true, as we talked about in the last episode of Abraham Lincoln being the 16th president, or stories, myths, fables, Bible stories. So what are you talking about here?
Bill Frase 8:14
I think I'm talking about all of those. Okay, that they're all related, okay, that they all have a very similar structure to them underneath them. And I'm sure that this is going to be a gross oversimplification any kind of discussion like this, you have to really oversimplify things, but I don't really see much of a difference between the idea that the world is an awful place and it's hard to get along here. And stories like Jonah and the fish, for example, I don't really see much of a difference between those, and maybe in our conversation, some of that more fundamental structure will become clearer. I started off with John Dominic Crossen with his structural analysis of stories. So now what I'd like to do is move to one of my favorite thinkers that listeners may or may not be familiar with, Rene Girard. And Rene Girard has a take on story and myth that is I consider to be revolutionary, and it's really at the center of a lot of what I was hoping that we would talk about today, he has, he has a theory that has multiple aspects to it. So the first thing I'd like to talk about is his theory of mimetic desire.
Wendy Frase 9:32
Yes, I'm now very familiar with mimetic desire.
Bill Frase 9:37
Renee Girard in his study of literature, of actual stories, and a lot of these coming from the 19th and 20th centuries. When he looked at these stories, he saw sort of the structure of the drama in these stories. He saw how a lot of the best stories involved people who someone wanted something and then someone in the story sees that that other person, or those other people want that thing, and they want it too. And part of his theory is the irony of the fact that all of these people in these stories, they think that they are unique, separate individuals who have just come up with these desires on their own. It's, he calls it, I think, a romantic idea of desire, that people spontaneously perceive desires within themselves, and they simply express themselves. And it just so happens that my desires happen to be either exactly like yours or mirror images of yours. So what this does, then, is people who are in any proximity to each other if they want the same thing. So let's just we'll give an example, two men who love the same woman. Okay, so two men now are seeking the love and affection of this one woman. They cannot both possess her the way that they want to. And so what happens is, as they express their desires for this woman, they observe each other, and they start to realize that they are now rivals. They are mirror images of each other that want this woman, and they're they're rivals, and then they become obstacles to each other, as they now try to undermine each other in their efforts to acquire the love and relationship with this particular woman. And so people are probably wondering, what the blank does this have to do with myth? We're going to get there. But it's this dynamic then that leads in Girard to another idea of what he calls the scapegoat mechanism, which is that these crises of mimetic desire, when people start to escalate, right when you're when you're in this rivalry, maybe you just, in the beginning, you just kind of undermine the other guy. And you talk to the woman about how, oh gosh, he doesn't have any money. He's not as rich as me. But that's not working. And so it's now like, well, maybe we're going to have a duel. Maybe I need to punch him in the face. Maybe I need to kill him in order to possess this woman. Now that's a very simple example of an object and two people who are using each other as models for desire for that object. But the thing about mimetic desire is that it's contagious. Other people can get in on this thing. Other people can observe their desires and say, I want her too. Or now we can expand it to say, well, I want this thing. I want this thing I call freedom. I want this thing called my rights. I have this thing called whatever. Take your pick of the idea, and people start to say, well, I want that too, and I want that. Well, most of these things, you can't really have it the same way,
Wendy Frase 12:46
Like leadership,I think of politics, yeah, right, different people vying for different roles or money or control
Bill Frase 12:56
resources, all of these things, status, right? To your point. So what happens is, is that all of these, these forces, come together. In a lot of cases, sometimes they they get taken care of, someone's murdered, and it's all good. But in other cases, these things build and build and build where an entire community can kind of, it's like they've gone insane. They they have caught this contagion of this thing. And a lot of times what will happen is, when these things happen, there'll be some kind of trigger. I was reading stories about the Black Death and what happened there, and we can go into that. But what happens is that the pressure becomes so great that at some point someone says they ask this question, well, who's to blame? Whose fault is this awfulness that we are experiencing, that we've caused ourselves? But we are completely unaware of it. We are in denial of the fact that we're doing this. And then they look for someone who stands out in some way. They could be a foreigner, they could have a different appearance. They could have it could be anything. What it is doesn't matter. And one person points at that person and says, You know what? It's their fault. And everyone's like, Oh my gosh, you are right. You're right. It's their fault, whether it's an individual or an entire class of people, it's their fault. And so then they go and they he kind of describes it as a mob murder in most cases, yeah. And so here's the thing that relates to myth and religion, that these ancient stories that we have, that we think are kind of cute and symbolic, what Rene Gerard is saying, and these stories are about the foundation of the world, these myths, what Rene Gerard, in his insight, has discovered, and I I'm fairly convinced that he is spot on. I. These myths are actually the retelling of the survivors of that incident of a crisis of mimetic desire, who then kill a surrogate victim, someone who is in the place of all those people in the community who are going to die if they don't find a way out of this mess. And I'm not saying they're consciously aware of this, but when they find that surrogate victim and they either kill or exile them, then what happens is you have this incredible socio psychological release of energy. People are like, Oh my gosh, I love you. We're we're good now, we're fine. We're one. We are a community. And oh, thank the gods that this person was sacrificed so that we could experience this unity and this harmony together. Oh my gosh. You know what? Maybe that person that we murdered is actually a god. Okay? And so while this may sound insane to us as modern human beings, hopefully by the end of this conversation, it'll become clear that we're all still doing this today. It just looks and sounds a little bit different. But right. So then for me, religion isn't about this enlightened person who passes along teachings, and everyone is like, Oh, wow, isn't that great? And then it gets reinterpreted and blah, blah, blah, no religion. Things that are religious, according to Rene Girard and I am now, I can't find a way to disagree with him, are those things that are commemorated, remembered and celebrated that flow from the unanimous murder of a surrogate victim.
Wendy Frase 16:46
Wow. This is, wow. Yes, this is pretty big. You said religion isn't what we thought it was, and to you, this is kind of a different twist on it. And of course, I'm thinking of Jesus Easter coming up. Easter is really what we celebrate, the big holiday in the Christian tradition, and that does surround his murder. So that's Christianity. Do other religions follow in that suit, too, that we think of as religions.
Bill Frase 17:22
All right, so let's, let's go to Judaism, yes, all right, so Abraham and Isaac, Hagar and Ishmael, Jonah and the fish. We can go to Joseph. We can Who else,
Wendy Frase 17:41
but those are stories in one religion.
Bill Frase 17:44
Okay, so let's see Isis, Osiris and Horus, Romulus and Remus, the very foundation of the Roman Empire was founded in fratricide, one brother a twin, killing another. And notice in a lot of these stories, you have twin motifs, which Gerard brings out. What is a twin? A twin is the image, the mirror image, the reflection, the identity of another person. Well, when you are in a memetic crisis, everyone looks like everybody else because they all want the same thing. They are all twins.
Wendy Frase 18:23
And this is true, this idea of memetic desire. Because just think of advertising nowadays, we all want the same thing, or we want a same thing. I even think about the housing crisis, when prices skyrocketed and bidding wars started for different housing because people all had this desire to own a home, and they couldn't find one, and they kept bidding up the houses. So that's what I think of when I think of the idea of mimetic desire, is we just we see something that someone else has, and we want it. But you're taking this idea now into this idea of religion, but then further that we have to have a scapegoat, and a lot of religions do, so would something that didn't have a scapegoat? In your opinion? Would that not be a religion, correct?
Bill Frase 19:17
Yeah, because I am on board with Rene Girards definition of that which is religious. And so, for example, I don't consider you mentioned Buddhism as a religion. I don't consider it a religion because I'm not aware that it has this element of the sacrifice of a surrogate victim by a unanimous group. Okay?
Wendy Frase 19:38
And then other ideas of religion, are these core beliefs? Would you think that religions have this idea of a divine or a higher power, right?
Bill Frase 19:51
But so what I'm what I'm suggesting via my and again, this is my interpretation, of Girard
Wendy Frase 19:56
Right, right? We're kind of, we're kind of unpacking this different idea of what religion is, and people may or may not agree with you or me, but we're just exploring these concepts.
Bill Frase 20:08
So when you look at this release of energy, this this kind of unexpected turn of events, everyone is at everybody's throat. We identify a scapegoat, we murder or exile them, and then we have this unexpected peace that has descended upon this unanimous group. And so my What I'm suggesting is that this foundation for religion, what we do is we attribute this unexpected turn of events to be of divine origin, whether we put that divine origin within the individual that was or the group that was murdered or exiled, or whether we attribute it to forces around or in the world that supported this dynamic. But what I'm saying is is that religion is attributing divinity to a socio psychological process of the workings out of the scapegoat mechanism.
Wendy Frase 21:05
So everything happens for a reason, and it must be some sort of higher power that has directed or allowed or Yeah. Okay, that's interesting perspective, right?
Bill Frase 21:24
I mean, I was not raised to think about religion in this way. It was not part of my worldview, no.
Wendy Frase 21:30
But religions are organized. I mean, one thing that I always thought of religion is they're organized and institutionalized, and they do have a list of beliefs and and rituals and maybe different prayers or things written down that we do, we say, and are those in response to what has happened in the past, or some big event that you are speaking of here, which is a scapegoat event, right? Absolutely.
Bill Frase 22:02
I mean, because so we'll go into a few other aspects of religion that are very typical in religion. Religions are have scriptures. They have stories. And you can look throughout the Bible. You can look through the religious scriptures, I'm guessing, of pretty much every religion on the planet, and find stories that, while on the surface, may not appear to show the scapegoat mechanism and how it works, are suggestive of it and the very fact that certain things are missing. For example, when I actually read the story of Abraham and Isaac, where Abraham goes and is going to sacrifice Isaac, but sacrifices a ram instead, if you look at that story, there are massive holes in that story. That story does not make sense to me at all. There are huge things where I'm like, what, why, how, and it's a very short story. Yes, it's ridiculous and and I think part of what Rene Girard talks about is the fact that these things are missing from the story is actually evidence that the story is about a crisis of mimetic desire. Because who wants to go back and say, well, we kind of murdered this person, and so, you know, it's not fun, nice table talk, okay? But so we have the scriptures, we have the myths, but we have rituals, right? And a lot of these rituals, if you look at them, they have certain aspects to them that are echoes of this kind of memetic crisis. And a key component of religions is typically sacrifice, someone or something is sacrificed and and that thing needs to be close enough in some cases. I mean, there are many religions throughout time and even today where human sacrifice is a thing, okay, so, but, but a lot of these religions now, what they've done is, you look at Judaism, right? Well, they the story of Abraham, is this move away from human sacrifice, not murdering my child, but instead killing an animal in place of that. By the way, Cain and Abel is another story of a crisis of mimetic desire.
Wendy Frase 23:59
but they're still sacrificing animals, right?
Bill Frase 24:03
But the sacrifice is important, and what it's doing is, in its own way, it's it's replaying this memory of that original scapegoat murder, yes, instead of applying it to a person, now we've shifted to animals. Yeah, yeah, okay, and so it's almost like an escape valve. You have these rituals that kind of reenact this thing, and then you have the sacrificial part, and people feel a sense of unity again. It's, it's softer. It's not as, Oh, we've
Wendy Frase 24:32
just softer, like communion,
Bill Frase 24:34
Yeah, right. That would be an example of this replaying of of this dynamic, yeah, yeah. So I think the other idea I kind of want to put in here, because I feel it's really important, is that this topic right now, if this is all we have, then it's a pretty dismal picture, because what we have is we have human beings replaying murders over 1000s and 10s of 1000s of years, and so it's like, well, where's the hope? Because if this is the only thing available to us to experience unity and peace? That's horrifying. That to me, it's like, oh my gosh, this is not good at all. So thankfully, as I've been contemplating these things, another person and their ideas has come to play very much in my sense of the possibilities as it relates to this, this topic of religion. And that person is JRR Tolkien, the author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, The Lord of the ring, yeah. And so in a talk that he gave, he gave a talk on fairy stories. And toward the end of that talk, and in the Epilog, he talks about this concept that he has of something that he considers to be, I'll call it an essential element of a good fairy story, and it's what he calls the eucatastrophe. So in a Greek drama, the catastrophe is where, kind of everything's falling apart, and it's bringing you into the end of the Greek tragedy. But he's added the prefix you, eu to it, which means good in I think that's great Greek Yeah, eu for good. So a good catastrophe. And so what he means by this is a sudden and unexpected reversal from utter despair, desolation, defeat and death to joy, victory, peace, unity and celebration. That's not his actual definition, but that's my I'll just throw all that in there. That's what a eucatastrophe. That's what a eucatastrophe is. So you could just call it the unexpected, joyous turn. That would be like a really brief definition for me of my interpretation of what he means by eucatastrophe in a fairy story. And he makes connections in this talk on fairy stories between the ideas you brought up in terms of Jesus, His life and the circumstances of his life. I'm not going to get into that in the eucatastrophe, it's clear that he does not have this requirement for a sacrificial murder, that somehow divinity, the gods, whatever, something breaks into the frame in these stories, these fairy stories that is completely unexpected, that turns again, defeat to victory, despair to joy. And he considers this an essential thing. And he considers it the breaking in, the the coming into what we thought was the frame of the story, something far grander, something vaster, much more powerful than anything that that story has suggested up to that point. And I think when people hear him talking about this in terms of fairy stories, that they think, Oh, well, it's just applied to we like these kind of positive turns and stories in our movies and our fairy tales and all these kinds of things well. But my thinking is, is that? And it's in his talk, because he talks about what he considers to be real world events, and eucatastrophe. So he's making this kind of blend. He calls it What's he called it a secondary creation, the fairy story, as opposed to actual world history.
Wendy Frase 28:16
Does he use these examples in The Lord of the Rings? Well, he doesn't mention eucatastrophe in The Lord of the Rings, but he but
Bill Frase 28:23
if you read the Lord of the Rings, it's full of eucatastrophes. It's eucatastrophe after eucatastrophe in that thing. They think this is the way it's going to go. For example, The Battle of Helms Deep. They're, they're going out there, they're riding to their death. And then help comes. And it's, it's not what they expected at all. And you have this throughout the story, you think, oh my gosh, it's over. They're dead, they're gone. Oh no, they've been saved. How has this happened? It's a miracle, right? I mean, eucatastrophe, just another word for a massive, unexpected miracle. Because the whole thing about miracle is milagro, meaning wonder, meaning we wonder at them, because they're completely unexpected. Okay, so the reason I bring this up is that I think Tolkien is absolutely onto something, that it is possible for divinity to break into this human world that we've constructed out of our myths and instead of the false eucatastrophe. Okay, so when I think about it, because if you think about the eucatastrophe, it's very similar to what, what we talked about, in terms of that unexpected turn when we murder someone, then we're like, Hey, we're good. Now, what's this piece? This is amazing, okay, and we attribute it to the person of the gods, or whatever. Well, that, to me, is a false eucatastrophe, because what it means is, is that it's just going to keep replaying. We'll replay it in ritual. When the rituals don't work, we're going to go back to this mimetic crisis again, and we're going to replay this loop over 1000s of years, whereas what Tolkien is saying is divinity can break in and actually change the story, not to replay an old loop, but to give us a glimpse of an entirely new world and reality. That's possible. And so for me, when I think about Tolkien in relation to Crossan in relation to Gerard, I see this possibility that we can escape this death spiral of religion, oh man, I can't believe I'm putting these words together and and enter into an actual divine reality, one that is not conditioned by human psychosocial processes for the relieving of tension, frustration and pressure and violence caused by crises and mimetic desire.
Wendy Frase 30:39
Wow. Yeah. Lots to think about, and I should maybe be scared or upset or blown away, but really not, because, I mean, this is an interesting conversation, and religion isn't what we thought it was. It's not going to upset my and I don't even want to say beliefs, because we talked about how beliefs, how that word is, is triggering and hard to understand, because it's not truths, but maybe my truth, that religion isn't what we thought it was, that doesn't shake me, because this is, these are your ideas, or these other people's ideas, and I even struggled when I had this conversation with this other person this week on what is religion and if something is religious or if something is a religion, because it depends on how another person sees or defines or thinks about religion, and it's perfectly fine for you or Crossan or Tolkien to have these ideas, and they're very interesting ideas, and I really appreciate this conversation, because religion isn't what we thought it was. I think a lot of things aren't what we think they are. So these kind of conversations are important because they do give different perspectives. And so I'm, I'm very happy about this conversation. Thank you, Bill,
Bill Frase 32:07
Thank you. I I'm kind of surprised you're happy about it, because it's pretty much a downer. That's why, for me, the eucatastrophe is it's the whole deal, the actual possibility. And I'm excited that we've had this conversation, because I I believe that we are just like our last conversation. We are going to come back and revisit, actually, a lot of what's in here, because what's coming, what's coming on this planet in the days, weeks, months and years ahead. Are going to be a series of eucatastrophes, there are going to be a series of things that will look one way, and then they will turn out a different way. And more and more people will come to recognize that these things are not merely human inventions, but that something much greater than humanity has come in to help us out of the crises that we ourselves have created.
Wendy Frase 33:01
and that's kind of exciting, because this idea of you catastrophe is much more hopeful and positive, it sounds like than even some of the stories that we learn in a more traditional religion or religious setting.
Bill Frase 33:16
For me, eucatastrophe is how the new world will come into being, the new earth, the new humanity, is going to come through a series of eucatastrophes,
Wendy Frase 33:28
Interesting. And is there anything else that you want our listeners to take away? I know you kind of wrap things up a little bit there.
Bill Frase 33:36
I'll throw in one little piece that. And it's not, I don't think it's really mentioned in Tolkien, but it's something that, as I've been contemplating the nature of eucatastrophe that has become, I think it's actually essential, and so I'll just put that in here as an invitation to listeners, that what I'm going to invite our listeners And myself, you everybody, to do is to be open, to be open and receptive to the possibility of completely awesome and unexpected things popping into our individual lives and experiences, into our collective lives and experiences. That's the seed that I'd like to plant is just because I think I feel, I think I should say I feel that we have a role to play in eucatastrophe, that our openness to it, our willingness to allow it to happen, our deep desire for the breaking in of that which is greater than humankind, into our lives and into history is something that we can really participate in, that we can contribute to through the expression of our own deep desires. Hey, guys, it's not just about divinity popping in. We can actually kind of till the field for this stuff to help help it come into our lives and into our world.
Wendy Frase 35:03
Perfect. Sounds good? Well, thank you, Bill, thanks until next time.
Bill Frase 35:08
Until next time. Thank you so much for listening to wake up call for the soul. With Bill and Wendy, we look forward to you joining us next time.
Wendy Frase 35:18
These are important stories in the Bible, and we could say that they're myth or not myth.
Bill Frase 35:29
Oh, I forgot to turn it off. Oh, glorious bird, clock
Wendy Frase 35:34
crap, because I actually had some thoughts. And I don't always have thoughts.
Bill Frase 35:41
There's no point in turn the thing off, because we don't intend to record for over an hour.
Wendy Frase 35:45
So what was I saying?