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kimberlysteele
I have a going hypothesis that I have dubbed the LCD or Lowest Common Denominator Effect that goes a little something like this: any group of people that physically gathers with the intention of channeling spirits is subject to the lowest and worst person's astral state dragging the rest of the group down to its level. So yes, what I am saying here is that any given group that tries to channel spirits, including groups of Christians who worship in church, is subject to the lowest, scummiest, and worst-intentioned person dragging the group's egregore down into the astral gutter.
I am not sure how long the LCD Effect has been in play. I am going to guess it has been a very, very long time, but it does seem to have gained a great deal of ground in the last two hundred years. I think there are quite a few factors contributing to this phenomenon.
Three Strikes of LCD
1. This is not an easy time to be spiritual. That's the thing about our current Demonic Age: this is a difficult time to be spiritual or achieve any kind of spiritual understanding. People are more materialistic than they have ever been as a function of being at the bottom of a glacially long cycle and because of cheap petroleum wealth.
2. Holy buildings are not holy. Another contributor to the LCD effect is a lack of structures, both literally and figuratively, that help connect humans with the Divine. In his book The Secret of the Temple, John Michael Greer discusses how ancient temple structures all over the world were eerily similar and how they may have been conductors and transducers of a now-misunderstood form of energy. In his book, he offers a provocative speculation that perhaps ancient temple architects knew exactly what they were doing and perhaps they were able to channel the kind of energy that made both crops and human minds extremely fertile. Compare the brutalism of modern so-called holy buildings. They are sterile, unproductive places where the only miracle that occurs is the creation of wealth from the wallets of the gullible.
3. Our holy men and women are 90 pound weaklings. Yet a third reason the LCD effect happens is the absence of holy men and women with enough astral "lift" in order to overcome the LCD effect.
The Bad Apples
What tends to happen in an LCD situation is a group of people is spoiled by the "bad apple" and despite the best efforts of good apples, the bad apple turns the egregor into a mirror of his or her own septic self until the group either sinks down into the morass or disbands.
In the case of the vegan group I used to run, it was the second one. After going vegan in 2010, I ran a group for vegans for many years. We met at restaurants and ordered vegan options. I threw potlucks in my old commercial space. I showed movies, hosted bake sales, and generally spent a great deal of my energy trying to make veganism a thing in my local area the only way I knew how. The group was generally very good and we helped lots of people and animals, however, the LCD effect was a constant scourge. One of the first LCD creeps it attracted is someone I will call Creepazoid Chris. Chris decided I was the one for him despite my wedding ring and obvious married status. He took everything nice I said to him as an invitation. When he began suggestively texting me late at night, I told him to buzz off and blocked his number. He proceeded to stalk and harass me online. He was not the only person who came to my meetups hoping to find a date and turning his fractured affections towards me, the hostess. "Laura" wasn't into other girls, but she was a bad apple extraordinaire. Laura went to a restaurant meetup at a cheap, fast-casual place and proceeded to lecture everyone at the table about how the restaurant was in the wrong for not offering oil-free options. Laura's bad behavior ruined several of my gatherings, but by the time she had made herself an obvious pest, the fissures breaking the group apart were en route to dismantling it on their own.
I used to belong to a group of houseplant and garden aficionados online. I say "I used to" because the group has now been canceled by its leader. The founder/leader of the group hosted huge plant swaps at the local mall out of the goodness of her heart. Many of my rare houseplants and a few of my prized garden plants are from the few swaps I was able to attend. Though most of the group was a harmonious bunch of amateur botanists, there were a small but vocal cadre of drama queens who insisted that the founder was pocketing money from fundraisers. The leader's final message before disbanding the group was "I'm tired of breaking my back just to have people accuse me of being about the money; this has never been about the money".
In the past, I think it was easier for a charismatic and motivated leader to lift his or her group out of LCD-ville. I have a great deal of chutzpah and etheric energy, but when Creepazoid Chris and Laura entered one of my meetups, there was no way I could inspire the kind of power necessary for them to feel alienated. No matter what I did, they clung like boogers. I made rules to attempt to dissuade Creepazoid Chris, saying that my group was not for dating and mating and that anyone who sexually harassed another group member would be immediately booted. This worked about as well as you suspect it did. I wrote Laura a scathing message or three telling her to grow the hell up -- I highly doubt she took that advice.
Now take the average, medium-sized Protestant church in my area. Not only do they lack charismatic leaders, there is nothing holy about anyone in the congregation. One medium-sized Protestant church near me sports a Starbucks style café along with the usual worship band. One of their meeting rooms is larger in square footage than my house. The crass materialism of the place is glaringly obvious from the (huge) parking lot. Once you go into the building, it is quite clear they are not worshipping Jesus no matter how many Bibles they quote during service. Multiply the bland, uninspiring elevator music-scored bloviations of the Protestant pastor by a million and we begin to understand how the LCD Effect drags us collectively lower and lower still.
:(
Date: 2023-11-28 01:42 pm (UTC)It's as if the bad apple has a "will to ruin": "If I can't be happy, neither can you."
-Eugene
Re: :(
Date: 2023-11-28 06:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-11-28 04:13 pm (UTC)If there's no sufficiently strong and discerning character/s acting as gatekeeper, then yes, any organization, religious or secular, can (and probably will) succumb to the deprivations of vampires, drama queens, embezzlers, and attention whores. Have seen it often enough to know the depressing pattern. All it takes is a nice organization started by nice marshmallows who can't say "no" to inappropriate people. The weak are unable to keep out parasites and predators. Because no sane person actually *wants* to be the secretary, treasurer, committee chair, or whatever. It's *work* and often very thankless work. So you either stand firm, do the work, and keep the vampires out through constant vigilance... or everything goes to hell because the people who actually *want* to do that stuff are the worst possible choices. The really nasty part, as your plant organization illustrates, is that if you're the person who takes on the thankless job and keeps the embezzlers (who *want* access to the checkbook and should never have it) out, then the would-be embezzlers will accuse you of all the things they wanted to do, smear you to anybody who'll listen, and probably suffer no consequences for it. So much ugly.
The bad apples will drag you down.
But, I don't think that's the only force at work. Or doesn't have to be.
All churches have their share of ugly. We are, after all, spiritual hospitals, in which we are all patients. But there are countervailing forces here. It's not LCD all the way down. In the absolute worst parish I was ever part of, the bad apples had the upper hand for sure-- and yet. That church, by rights should have failed and been sold off decades ago. But it's still there. There's a core group of devout old ladies (and a couple of old men), and I could swear the very rafters are held up by their prayers. They are the only reason the parish still exists-- no amount of generous names-on-plaques donations or parishioner social prestige could have kept it going otherwise. The infighting is vicious. But the old ladies just turn off their hearing aids, pretend they don't speak English, and ask St. Nektarios and the Theotokos for help.. and I'm pretty sure they oblige. Also wouldn't be at all surprised if, when the last of their coffins exits the nave, the roof just collapses.
Still, that was the worst. It mostly works better than that. And... I think it's because in a functioning sacramental church, things don't depend entirely on the parishioners. We celebrate every liturgy with the whole of the church, outside of time. Every liturgy is *the* liturgy, with the angels, saints, every Christian who's ever lived and will ever live, unto ages of ages. That sort of thing leaves a mark. A parish can squander that treasure, but it takes more than just a few malcontents and drama queens to erase it, and just as a few old ladies and St. Nektarios can offer life-support to an otherwise dead parish... it doesn't take much more than that to have a really vibrant parish. If just a few people are doing it really, really right... I think the overall effect tends to drive away the really bad apples. They get uncomfortable and leave. It also helps to have alert gatekeepers, and I've seen that in action as well. We have a pretty good priest, and when it comes time to nominate candidates for the parish council elections... he comes right out and says "don't nominate anybody in a public meeting without asking me first-- there are some people who can't serve, I know the reasons and you don't, and it would not be kind to publicly embarrass them by shooting down nominations during a meeting!" So there is some active policing going on there as well. You need both, I think-- active vetting of leadership roles, *and* the earnest prayers of repentant sinners seeking God. With those pillars in place, a parish can survive quite a lot of LCDs coming and going, I think. Perhaps some of us even find redemption!
But also... leaving a mark. I think this jives with the "tracks in space" thing that comes up now and then on JMG's page. Enough people, communing with God and the saints, in the same place, for a long time, has an interesting effect on the place itself. I'm a pretty lousy Christian, but I've always been able to see things that aren't strictly physically "there". I have some rough theories on this, but those things are real in some sense, and they are mostly not nice. I have a keen nose for danger, bad energy, hobgoblins and malign critters, and the odd whiff of brimstone, which seem not to hinge on my religious convictions or practices. I found an interesting thing in the desert fathers, where it says (paraphrase) that a brother (they are talking about hermits) who is very close to God, will see only good, all the time. I've puzzled over this one a lot (the holy desert fathers are renowned for seeing *truth* directly-- why would they see only good and not *everything*?), and I think it's important in the context of my own perceptions: I tend to see bad things. But on the odd occasions when nice things turn up... it's usually in the nave of the church. Why is that? I think it's a question of the neighborhood, and of "tracks in space". I'm pretty far from the excellent spiritual neighborhood where the holy desert fathers live, and I see *what's there*. Because that's where I am. Sketchy neighborhood ;) But on the odd occasions where something else visits... it tends to be in a place that's essentially been woven into the neighborhood of eternity, by the prayers and hard work of people who are way better than me. And it lingers even when they're not actively there and working on it, so that even I can sometimes follow their tracks, however unworthily.
So... I think churches can, and do, get dragged down by the LCD factor. But I don't think it's inevitable, and it's not the only force in play. We'd probably all fail if left on our own, but Christ is bigger than all that. The Theotokos and all the saints love us, and will intervene if asked. And if even a few people in the group are humbly connecting with the divine, it tends to weaken the grip of people with selfish motives.
$.02
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Date: 2023-11-28 06:40 pm (UTC)I agree with you, if those old ladies are not blazing new energetic tires down your church's tracks in space, the roof might very well cave in. They are the energy that prevents the LCD effect from working its cacomagic. Thank heavens for them.
Christ may be bigger than the LCD factor, but most so-called Christians do not worship Christ nowadays. Christians who willingly or unthinkingly quaxxed/foxxed are likely worshipping Mammon and Paimon. Keep in mind there are huge factions of Christians (I would estimate the majority of Protestants) who reject the notion that saints are worthy of worship. It's too close to polytheism for them, plus they are usually so up their own butts, they see themselves as sitting at the right hand of God for eternity all by themselves. Quite a few Christians are de facto Satanists, worshipping the other side in every way except actual lip service.
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Date: 2023-11-28 08:25 pm (UTC)My general impression of prosperous well-established protestant churches, from my childhood, is that they are social hobnobbing opportunities, particularly the ones with the nicest buildings. A parish governing body with a few shrewd business minds can keep the lights on and the hall rented out for wedding receptions for a very long time... and while I'm sure there are many positive things that can be accomplished that way, I'm not convinced that salvation is one of them. There's always a group of well-meaning, good folks who're probably in it for the right reasons and deserve a lot of credit for keeping things running, but I think for anyone earnestly pursuing God... it's a bit of a cheat isn't it? Not much there, there. Might as well be the Rotary Club. I'm not sure there's any worship going on at all-- at best it's a weekly lecture with some group singing and an overall nice feeling of goodwill and expiation of any lingering guilt that may have cropped up about wasteful lifestyles, conspicuous affluence, etc.-- as long as you're a nice person thinking nice thoughts, God wants you to have nice things, right? Still, they've maintained enough connection to *something* that I was able to get a really decent religious education in a bog-standard Presbyterian grade school, and I'm grateful for that. Learned the Bible too well to buy the Gospel of Nice. Oh, well.
Catholics... sigh. Had so much going for them. Went so hard for the corruption. Maybe in a few decades, they'll be on the recovery side? From what I've heard, they've still got some vermin-infested seminaries to burn down. But it's a cycle they've been through before, more than once. I wish them the best.
It'll be interesting to see what happens to the denominational spread, as we lurch forward into the decline: on the one hand, a keen business mind may not be enough to support a vast building with very expensive maintenance needs anymore, and on the other hand, being a member of *any* church has been losing rather a lot of its social cachet in recent years. It's not totally gone yet, but I think we're approaching the point where politicians don't include "member of prestigious religious institution" on their resume anymore-- and it'll be a great day for the church when we get there. Overall, this seems to be, already, a rolling disaster for lots of churches, numbers-wise. But I think it will be a net positive for Christianity. We have to be unpopular now and then or we forget what we're supposed to be doing. And we are traveling very quickly in that direction, glory be to God!
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Date: 2023-11-29 05:07 am (UTC)The church has seen problems before, but I think it's on a different scale: one of the core issues I see with Catholicism today is that I think they unintentionally (at least, I hope it was unintentional!) cursed themselves with Vatican II. From the very early 1900s, there was the Oath Against Modernism; it was only stopped after Vatican II. Every member of the clergy was required to swear, before God, that they were not Modernists, and that they rejected a long list of things... All of which Vatican II implemented.
Now, to my mind, there are few things more likely to alienate God than swearing in his name that you don't believe in something, and then turning around and doing exactly that once you have the ability to do so; and so I think this round of crises for the Catholic Church is likely to be a lot worse than the prior ones, because I'm unaware of an period in which the leadership of the church acted so foolishly.
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Date: 2023-11-29 03:46 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2023-11-29 09:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-12-01 04:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-12-01 11:38 pm (UTC)I've seen the opposite model in action, in rural SE Asia, and it was a bit of a shock. I don't think I ever knew what traditional religion even *looked* like before that... and everything in the US falls short of it, AFAICT. Even Orthodoxy. Even Trad. Catholics. We're trying really hard to grasp something that we sense is out there, but we're lazy and we have cars. We do not live in walking distance of the church, wake up with the church bells, get dressed, and shuffle down the dark road to daily mass, along with all our neighbors. We do not offer incense for the dead at our home altar, or stop by one of the several small shrines to say a prayer to Our Lady between home and the market. That's not a thing here, and may have slipped from living memory already, if we ever had it. We move where the job is, not where the church is.
If the economy gets bad enough, we could see a real resurgence. But not in current conditions.
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Date: 2023-12-02 06:14 pm (UTC)He said he only knew it even existed because his grandfather insisted on keeping to it, long after everyone, even the extremely devout, had abandoned it.
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Date: 2023-11-29 03:36 pm (UTC)The church I grew up in and received confirmation from at age 14 has fallen into decrepitude. The pastor's house is for sale as well as the small parcel of land around the church. They may even be trying to sell the actual church at this point so it can be torn down for a luxury subdivision.
I think Christianity will become an individual thing and not so much a group/societal thing. The trouble with Christianity is it became meaningless through repetition, like that cool band that sold out to a major label and then put out a bunch of annoying, focus group-approved earworms. Instead of its power being diffused throughout hordes of materialist, de facto Satanist zombies, Christianity will rise again in tiny pockets where there are individuals willing to live the Word. In my opinion, I think Christianity will be much more potent as a minority religion (and that's what I believe it is destined for, fringe/minority status) and the few who are actually touched by Jesus in a genuine way will be incredible forces of nature, like Hildegard of Bingen, Emanuel Swedenborg, and John Gilbert. That sort of Christian mystic is sorely missing right now.
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Date: 2023-11-29 03:49 pm (UTC)https://pagesix.com/2020/12/28/hillsong-church-operated-like-a-nightclub/
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Date: 2023-11-30 05:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-11-30 11:19 pm (UTC)The church is basically a prototype for American Protestant megachurches, almost all of which have been consumed by grift. In short, Hillsong is a pyramid scheme of the worst sort and it’s “business” model has infected almost every Christian church in the world.
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Date: 2023-12-01 02:18 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2023-12-01 04:39 am (UTC)Western Christianity seems to have a seriously tainted energy to it; that's the only explanation I can come up with for this mess.
Church, Inc.
Date: 2023-12-01 02:23 pm (UTC)I do not believe they are churches in anything but name, but that doesn't keep the general public from judging all of us for their excesses-- even though we don't have any control over them because they have exempted themselves from any acknowledged Christian authority. It is one of the reasons I look forward to a future in which Christianity is actively unpopular. I think it'll put the kibbosh on the megachurch business.
Re: Church, Inc.
Date: 2023-12-01 07:25 pm (UTC)"It cannot be blamed for the excesses of the zillions of totally independent abuses of the "nonprofit" tax designation in the US."
It hadn't actually occurred to me until now that this is probably the core of the problem. If they claim to be religious, they get special treatment from the government; so of course sleazy and corrupt people will claim to be running a religious group. And then, since American culture sets the tone for the rest of the world, this sort of thing spreads out from there and infects the rest of the world....
Re: Church, Inc.
Date: 2023-12-02 05:04 am (UTC)Religious studies professor Hugh Urban and journalist Janet Reitman, amongst others, have noted that L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of the Church of Scientology, decided to market the practice as a religion for practical reasons.[14][15][16] Harlan Ellison reported being present when the idea for creating a new religion was first discussed: "Lester del Rey then said half-jokingly, 'What you really ought to do is create a religion because it will be tax-free,' and at that point everyone in the room started chiming in with ideas for this new religion. So the idea was a Gestalt that Ron caught on to and assimilated the details. He then wrote it up as 'Dianetics: A New Science of the Mind' and sold it to John W. Campbell Jr., who published it in Astounding Science Fiction in 1950."[11][17] Hubbard had a different origin story and stated that Dianetics had been researched during the years 1945-50 and it was initially presented as a science, however religious ideas were added into the book Science of Survival published in 1951.[18] After the commercial failure of the Dianetics Foundation and disputes over the direction of the subject, Hubbard revisited the possibility of classifying his philosophical teachings as a religion.[14] In a 1953 letter, Hubbard wrote that "the religion angle" seemed to make sense as "a matter of practical business".
L. Ron and Anton LaVey used to pal around back in the day. Most people do not know that Hubbard was a Satanist before he founded Scientology. It's very brazen of Scientologists to use a cross as part of their trademark symbolism.
Re: Church, Inc.
Date: 2023-12-02 03:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-11-28 10:46 pm (UTC)I read your essay earlier today and felt something like ‘good… and there is more.’ A voice said wait, and so I did.
‘… and there is more’ was kindly provided by Methylethyl.
Many years ago I read the article below (I think it has been republished a number of times since I read it). I have read a number of Hardy’s novels. Good, but… where’s the hope, the love, the joy, the campfires of the friendly?
The image of the circles stays with me. I think this is why I am an Anglican (and a few other things! :)
Sometimes it is enough to ‘pass it on’. Is this what a number of religions and traditions do, deep down, when they cannot do anything else?
https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/from-the-archive-blog/2011/may/24/guardian-190-thomas-hardy-funeral-1928?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
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Date: 2023-11-29 03:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-11-29 06:11 pm (UTC)Pax et bonum.
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Date: 2023-11-30 05:56 pm (UTC)It's been turned into a public exhibit, in which the ruined walls are housed within a black-walled-basement, and at regular intervals an automated 'temple ambience' show starts with dry ice, lighting effects, and an audio recording of footsteps, Latin chanting and speaking, and suchlike.
It's fine, for what it is. But the actual *energy* of stepping into the basement was *vile*. Whatever it was, I don't think it was Mithras's fault. Maybe I'm conspiranoid, but something tells me Bloomberg and his buddies may have been interested in the temple for more than just antiquarian curiosity. They're certainly not making any money from it, as far as I can tell - the exhibit is open to the public. During the daytime, at least...
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Date: 2023-11-30 11:24 pm (UTC)Of course, we are trained to dismiss the gut feelings we have in such places. It’s the sort of basement I wouldn’t want to go into without an amulet.
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