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I think it all depends on how shallow the fictional stuff was intended to be in the first place, and what it's being drawn from. I mean, there's an awful lot of allegory in Lord of the Rings, for example. It's referencing a lot of real stuff that has all kinds of depth to it. So Lord of the Rings is, in effect, adding a new layer of modern mythology to an existing pile of cultural folklore, rather than being a shallow pool in isolation. Most really useful magical fiction is, really.
Also, the biggest Mysteries are often apparently quite simple, and can be summarized with few words. No amount of more detailed, in-depth explanation will reveal the Mystery any better. Only experience can do that, because the words are not what make them Mysteries.
I find all kinds of depth to Lewis Carrol that Carrol himself likely never intended.
I would go so far as to say that a robust faith is a flexible one, which allows for adaptation.
Absoloutely. A living tradition is a growing tradition, even if the change is gradual. Only dead languages, dead cultures, and dead traditions are truely static.
I think atheist secular humanism needed to reinvent religion and spirituality in other forms, i think it does this through what it calls fiction.
I don't think that's a reinvention, honestly. Look at Greek Drama, and compare it to modern Fanfic. Take a cast of familiar characters and use them to tell a story that you feel a need to tell. How human is that? How many European folktales are about a guy named "Jack", who has the basic traits of a fortunate fool? Before the Victorians re-paganized them, those stories had a lot of Baby Jesus and Mother Mary and the Devil in them doing things that had only a vague relationship to Biblical content.
Is everything a story?
Yes! For me, anyway, because the way I grok things is pattern based, and Patterns in Time are Stories.
the map is not the territory
Agreed, but we do not contain the territory, only the map with which to reference it. The whole point of stories, then, is to expand our maps thus allowing us to cover more territory.
Some personal examples of "fiction" working entirely too well in fact:
* Somebody Else's Problem (SEP) Fields are a commonly accepted model for wards and shields in my experience.
* After years of playing NERO (a High-Fantasy LARP) I got really good at visualizing the effects described. Sometime later, when I was learning to cast "snap" circles, I discovered that I could use that to my advantage. I made myself a little ball of energy "spell packet", and hurled it at the ground just as I would have in game, and sure enough, the visualization I had practiced for purely fictional reasons worked just fine when I put serious energy behind it. (Thankfully I didn't have to say the silly incant to make it go.)
* Before I started working with Ghede, I created a Vodouisant Toreador for a Vampire LARP. After I started working with Ghede, I played that character one last time at a game event held at a Halloween Ball. Between the headspace I was in for the character, the clothing I had worn for the game, and the music being played, Ghede decided He wanted to dance, and all but knocked me on my ass. Thankfully, the storyteller knew just enough about my religious background to take my indisposition in stride. I no longer play that character.
* A teacher of mine tells the story of friends who called her for help after they jokingly swapped "Darth Vadar" in for the name of a god when they were just practicing the form of the ritual for performance, and actually got him. We attribute that to "Some spirit showed up perfectly happy to be addressed as Darth Vadar", but of course we can't prove that it wasn't the result of Darth Vadar being a community thoughtform with enough energy poured into it to get a serious bit of power to him, eh?
* Growing up with spiritually significant nightmares that I have since had to work through in Journey, I was rescued from the Bad Monster by the likes of She-Ra and Rainbow Bright. Try telling a four year old that her favorite cartoon heroes are less effective than real mythological beings when it comes to kicking monster ass!
--Ember-- |
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