PBP #8: Eclecticism Pt.1

SPECIAL NOTICE:  There is a lead-in piece to Part 2 here.

WARNING: Some abrasiveness ahead.

We are all a part of the same universe, subject to the same laws, both physical and metaphysical.  As such, as the ancient civilizations like Greece, Egypt, Persia, India, and the like encountered each other, naturally, they realized that they had similar ideas and practices to one another.  The Interpretatio graeca, which compared the Greek gods to those of others is one version of the idea, whereas the acculturation of Buddhism into the nations it goes to is another.  Any differences were usually respected as a difference (or reviled as barbaric, let's be honest, the ancient world wasn't rainbows and butterflies).  Much like the ancient Axial Age, the modern Information Age is seeing a metting place of different ideas and cultures.  However, something is vastly different.  That difference is cultural imperialism mixed with a spiritual imperialism, with bits of anomie and rejection of Judeo-Christianity.

In my post "Yule and the Apocalypse", I lightly touched on this idea with the 2012 phenomena, and why it was basically New Age bullshit.  I say bullshit because I hate the term woo.  It feels like people who say woo are trying to make fun of it's practitioners, and reminds me too much of Randy Savage, no offence to Randy Savage (And now I must say, BONESAW IS READY).  Calling it bullshit means that one thing is bogus while not tarnishing the tradition, despite me not being a huge fan of New Age stuff.  I lightly covered how, without any training with Mayan elders or background knowledge of Mayan culture, New Agers just up and stole 2012 and combined it with the Judeo-Christian idea of Armageddon (and some mixed in the end of the Kali Yuga as well).  Too often do I find bullshitters out to make a cheap and easy buck off of people who are honestly looking for spirituality in their lives.  But, as P. T. Barnum once said, "this way to the egress."

Egress, for those who don't know, is a fancy word

for exit. (SOURCE)

Sadly, it's not just the charlatans that do this, normal everyday people do it as well.  People in the West  turn and appropriate the worship of Kali without aknowledging the darker aspects of her nature as well aspects of her worship that don't fit in with the "white light" and "fluffy bunny" worldview of the New Age.    Animal sacrifice is practiced en masse during Kali Puja, and Kali spends a lot of time on charnel (read: cremation) grounds, I don't see many New Agers doing that.  Hermeticism and Theosophy are also appropriated from.  For example, take the Archangel Metatron, who seems to be channeled as often as i flip the channel in the morning from FOX to BBCA to catch Doctor Who.  I'm sure these channelers don't realize that, according to Jewish tradition (and I apologize for the caps coming up, I know, bad internet form), Metatron is SECOND ONLY TO GOD HIMSELF!  That's right, a being so powerful that he is called the lesser YHWH supposedly takes time from what I'm sure is a very busy schedule to chat up some cult leader holing people up in a compound on it's way to the next Waco.  I'm sorry for the strong analogies, but come on people!

BRB God, the New Agers need me (SOURCE)

Thankfully, the more this is called out, the more it diminishes, and the more legit syncretism takes place.  The more the charlatans are called out, the less money ends up in the pockets of the likes of Kiesha "Little Grandmother" Crowther, and the more people learn certain practices from the elders and masters that actually know them.

But what makes cultural appropriation, well, cultural appropriation.  Well, first, we need to remove the visceral component to it.  Cultural appropriation is uneducated and commonly ethnocentric eclecticism, no more, no less.  This is eclecticism gone wrong.  Most commonly, in the United States, we hear this when it comes to Native American cultures (yes, there are more than one, to those who didn't know), but it also happens to Celts (see my one previous PBP post on that), Hinduism, African Culture, Buddhism, Theosophy (as stated above), and oddly enough, our own community.  Yes, our own community has been appropriated from.  Granted, some traditions and cultures complain more about this than others, some don't complain at all.  Some only complain if legit syncretism (which I shall discuss in part II) isn't done.

I think I would like to put it this way.  I want the readers of this post to click on my two Table Plan posts discussing world building for fantasy games.  I then want you to report back here after aquainting yourself with Wintermoot.  Now, say that, with my DM, that becomes a more fleshed out place and is added to his world.  Say now that you are me, and your best friend is the DM, and you both were in the exact same situation as I in this thought experiment.  Now, say someone comes along the proper channels and asks to use Wintermoot, they took the time to respectfully learn about it to use it.  Now, suppose someone comes along, takes Wintermoot, claims that they were involved in its creation, and suddenly makes unauthorized changes and claims it to be the original.  Copyright aside, we must look back and think for a moment.  We are adults.  We can look at these things and laugh.  Cultural appropriation is like Laura l'immortelle or Sonichu.  Neither is original or official Highlander or Sonic the Hedgehog material (and with Laura l'immortelle, it was plagiarism of a fanfic, wrap your mind around that).  There is nothing wrong with both of them as fanfics, as long as they honor the source material, and yet they are pushed as something original.

How does this all relate to Eclecticism?  Modern Eclecticism tends to become this all to easily.  The Eclectic that becomes an appropriator  cherry picks from a whole bunch of traditions without understanding.  Buddhist meditation has underpinnings that, in reality, aren't THAT hard to learn about, yet meditation becomes a chic and "in" thing empty of true spirituality, much like yoga or those Teen Witch kits from a certain Wiccan author everyone has a love-hate relationship with.  The next thing you know, your house smells of cheap dollar store incense with names like Wild Passion, and you have more New Age knick-knacks and statues of Hindu and Buddhist Deities than you know what to do with.

There is nothing inherently wrong with Eclecticism.  I personally am not Eclectic, but there is absolutely, positively nothing wrong with you if you are.  I think I'm trying to show people that Eclecticism isn't really wrong, and there is nothing wrong if you are Eclectic, but there are ways of going about it that are wrong, disrespectful, and ethnocentric; and ways of going about it that are respectful, beautiful, and open-minded.  But how do we get to this state?  How do we stop appropriating?  Well, look out for Part 2 next week as I discuss Syncretism, how when cultures A and B meet that A becomes a bit B'ified and B becomes a bit A'ified, and how Truth being one, is called by many names (from the Rig Veda nonetheless).