Lecture #9: Stranger in a Strange Land

Course: Science Fiction & Religion

Lecture #9: Stranger in a Strange Land

Book cover of

STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND by Robert A. Heinlein, 1960

This book, if anything, is more of a classic than the Dune series. It was destined to transcend the science fiction genre and become a classic in every sense. It was the Bible of the so-called love generation and of the whole New age movement as pertinent today as it was when written. The unabridged version was only released in 1991 by Virginia Heinlein, his wife, and is about half again as long as the original. A much more complete book.

Before beginning I want to show you a 9 min clip from a PBS special on the sixties concerning the 50s and the way kids were raised.

SHOW clip:

Before I get into the story, I need to explain the term GROK a Martian term Mike uses frequently. Grok means to drink. However, it means far more than that depending on how it is used. It means fear, love, hate, ie, proper hate which one can’t have unless you grok something completely, ie, understand it so thoroughly that you merge with it and it merges with you, Then and only then can you hate it.

Grok means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the process being observed--to merge, to blend, to intermarry, to lose personal identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy and science.

NOTE: Optional Read / Skip in Highlight

SYNOPSIS:

Valentine Michael Smith was born on the first human expedition to mars. Because of the death of his illicit parents, he was left there and raised by Martians. He was 25 when the next expedition went to Mars and found him, and against his desire, brought him back to Earth. WW III had intervened, and he was the only survivor of the first expedition.

He is kept in isolation in a special lower gravity bed on Earth until he can adjust. He had never seen a human female and strict orders were given that he was not to see one.

He spent a great deal of time in a trance like state with very low metabolism or heartbeat. He could control his body and vital signs at will, among other things.

Jill Boardman, a nurse, sneaks in to see him and offers him water to drink, not realizing that to Mike this is a sacred ceremony making them water brothers. He is completely innocent of humanity behavior.

Jill hooks up with Ben Caxton, a reporter, who tells Jill that his parents were not married making him the first interplanetary bastard, ie, love child, on record. By Federation Law, Smith is a sovereign nation in himself and sole owner of the planet Mars.

Jill uses a tape recorder and interviews Mike, and returns it to Ben. He begins writing articles insinuating the govt. is holding Mike for political and economic reasons. The govt. has an interview with "the Man from Mars" to rebut but it is faked. Jill works it out so she can get to Mike and dresses him as a nurse to get him out of the hospital when it becomes clear his life is in danger. She brings him to Ben's apartment where she insists he take a bath, an unbelievable thing to immerse oneself in water. It is a great and sacred honor to him. The law arrives to take Mike back but when he sees guns he groks a wrongness and makes all the people disappear. Then he goes into one of his trances. Jill packs him in a suitcase and gets him to JUBEL (the father of all), where Ben had wanted to take him. Jubel is a doctor and lawyer with a large estate and powerful enough that hopefully the govt. won't touch him.

Part II HIS PERPOSTEROUS HERITAGE

Jubel has to decide whether to risk it but the anarchist in him, the birthright of every American, decides to pit himself against the planetary govt. and keep him safe.

The MARTIANS that raised Michael were completely different from humans having ho sexual polarity. Adults were huge and varied and always male. Physically passive, mentally active they were self aware and lived extremely long periods. When they discorporated, (ie, died) it was when they desired to and then they would be eaten by their fellows They sent Mike to Earth to grok it for them though he was unaware of that for a long time.

Mike was brilliant with a photographic memory, learning to read in one day. He could remember things even if he couldn't grok it! He loved swimming in Jubel's pool and spent all his spare time there growing stronger and learning all he could. Jubal is finally told by Jill about how Mike made people disappear. He asks for Mike to be brought to his study along with a registered witness, Anne. Cameras were set up as well. Mike does 2 demonstrations, artificially, making a box thrown at Jubel disappear before it hist him and holding an ashtray near the ceiling so it won't fall on him. Ie, telekenesis. Jubel assigns Jill to learn Martian from Mike.

Jubel's employee, Duke is bothered by the fact that Mike is a cannibal. Jubel explains that Mike knows people's souls are immortal so no problem for Mike.

They watch the films and realize Mike really did what they thought he did.

Mike watches a T.V service of the Fosterites, a large sect called "The church of the New Revelation." Mike is impressed that 2 humans are going to discorporate thus joining the human "old Ones". Mike is wanting to meet the "old ones" for on Mars they are the ones with all the answers (Mike was only an egg).

Jubel debates what to tell Mike @ the Fosterites and finds himself defending the idea of a Creator saying all religions have their own way of explaining what is the Truth.

Mike asks "What is Truth" but can't grok how each religion could have the truth. Under duress, Jubel promises Mike an interview with a Fosterite.

Mike than asks "What is a man?" Jubel finally answers, Man is the animal who laughs". Mike says then he is not a man because he doesn't laugh. Jubel assures him that someday he will.

Mike says he hadn't groked the idea of "God made the World". He says to Jubel, "thou art God", God is that which groks Jill, the grass, etc. "I am God, so is everyone. All creating together. Jubel feels he blew it, but has to end the conversation as he hears air cars approaching. He tells mike to stay on the bottom of the murky (deliberately so) pool until Jill comes to get him. He goes into his trance in the deepest section.

The police have a warrant for the arrest of Jill, Mike and Jubel. Mike leaves his body and comes up to see what’s happening. He realizes it is a wrongness. When the men point a gun at Jill his doppelganger makes the gun disappear. But when a man comes for Jill he makes him disappear. Then four more, the car the pilot on the ground and the one in the sky. He then returns to his body to await Jill. She comes and he kisses her and hopes to grok what that means better.

Jubel knows the SS will be coming again for sure so he gets ahold of Sect. general Joe Douglas. He finds he will have to work thru an astrologer he knows, mdm. Vesant who can use astrological jargon on Alice Douglas to get her husband immediately.

Just as 2 more cars arrive, he has Sect Douglas on the line and tells him he is the attorney for the Man from Mars. They arrange a meeting at Douglas's palace. Jubel insists that Ben Caxton be there for Mike (he orchestrated this whole conversation just to get that in). Jubel says he can't find Ben but they better or forget the meeting.

Later that evening Ben is delivered with the excuse he was a Vagrant in Sonora. He had been kept and drugged for a week. and only released 2 hours earlier. Ben and Jubel discuss Mikes' legal problems since Mike has no concept of ownership of property he is unable to understand he owns millions of shares of stock and is seen as the monarch of Mars by the government.

Jubel, Ben and Jill and the rest of Jubel's women, escort Mike to the meeting! He runs into Dr. Mahamoud, a Muslim linguist he knows from the expedition that found him. They chat in Martian and Jill is inspired to have them all share water. Tho Stinky, as Dr. Mahamoud is called, thinks the women may not understand and it may be heresy. However, he agrees.

Jubel insists on a Martian flag being made and Holst's Mars theme from the Planets played as an anthem for Mike. The whole point was to publicly get Sect. Dougles to look after Mike's affairs and, if he fails, Ben Caxton would do so. This protected Mike who now has a substantial income.

Part III, HIS ECCENTRIC EDUCATION

Now that he has gone public, he gets tons of mail of all sorts, some lethal, as bombs. However, he knows how to grok wrongness and makes them disappear.

He finally groks that money is an idea, as abstract as the old one’s thoughts, a structured symbol for balancing, healing and growing closer. He begins buying gifts for his water brothers.

Jubel finally takes him to a Fosterite service but warns him that they are after his money and how narrow minded religion is.

They are led into the inner sanctum where they see Foster sitting as if alive. Mike groks wrongness and realizes he is not an old one but only spoiled food. Mike has a private audience W/ Bishop Digby and has to go home and grok it all. He does so and come around about midnight feeling good. He meets one of his female water brothers and has his first sexual experience saying: “Oh, thou art God, we grok God."

Digby is poisoned, just as he had poisoned Foster before him and now a Bishop Short is head of the church. Mike announces that He and Jill are leaving to see more of the world. He now seems much more mature to Jubel.

As Jill learns Martian she and mike can use telepathy to speak to each other. They join a carnival where they meet Patricia Porwonski, a completely tattooed woman. She and her late husband had joined the Fosterites and about 3 sq. feet of her body told the story of Foster. Her husband was the tattooer.

They reveal to Aunt Patty that Mike is not a magician but is for real. They make her a water brother which now means share water and make love. A growing closer the old ones couldn't understand.

Patty fills them in on all the secrets of the Fosterites and is convinced Mike is holy (maybe Michael the archangel). Patty and Mike spend the night growing closer. When Patty leaves in the morning he says to Jill: "sex is necessary, sex is a helpful goodness but only if it is sharing and growing closer." He still doesn't grok love or people.

He spends time in Las Vegas groking gambling (a wrongness). Then to San Francisco where he surrounds himself with all the holy books of the world’s religions. He is puzzled and says he can't grok people and their multiplicity of religions.

He says: "among the Martians there is only one religion, and that one is not a faith, it is a certainty. You grok it, "thou art God"

He is concerned that Jill doesn't laugh as she used to, that she is becoming more Martian rather than be more human as he still hasn't learned to laugh.

They go to the zoo and are in the monkey house watching a poor little monkey get picked on by a larger one. This one in turn goes and picks on a smaller one who runs to its mother. Suddenly Mike begins laughing hysterically. Jill gets him home and he says at last I grok people and love and knows he's people for the first time. He says: "I found out why people laugh. They laugh because it hurts so much. . .because it’s the only thing that will make it stop hurting.”

He groks that what we laugh at is tragedy, something with a wrongness in it. Even, or especially death, can be funny. Maybe all those religions, even though they contradict each other on most points, are all filled with ways to help people be brave enough to laugh even though they know they are dying.

"Could it be that everyone of all those religions is true?"

If "thou art God" then that one prime fact which doesn't depend at all on faith may mean all faiths are true."

He than asks Jill, "What do I have to do to be ordained?"

Part IV: HIS SCANDOLOUS CAREER

Mike is chased out of Union Theological seminary, spends 3 weeks in the army before they discharge them but gets enough credit from college to be ordained and is now the Rev. Doc. Valentine M. Smith, AB, DD, PhD. Founder and pastor of the Church of all worlds, inc.

It is legally a church but in fact is a training school in discipline and in the Martian language.

Jubel hears from Ben about the church. It is a huge structure with no stairs but bounce tubes to carry you up or down. Soft floors (nests) where people can lay down. A huge living area austere but with a pool for swimming and growing closer. This is the innermost temple. Bowls of money by the exit for those leaving and needing it.

To become a full water brother one must learn Martian. There are @ 20 at this point. There is a large picture of Jubels head (this irks Jubel) in the inner temple. When the offering is passed there is money in the baskets and people are invited to put in or take out as needed.

There are nine circles in the church and one must advance thru them progressively.

Ben and Patty (his hostess) attend a promotion service from the 7th to the 8th circle. Jill is a high priestess portraying the various mother goddess till she is finally Eve. Mike is Adam to the candidates who are initiated.

In the inner nest nudity was the custom. Mike doesn't understand clothes and sees them as a wrongness that keeps people apart and gets in the way of letting love cause them to grow closer.

Jill explains that the church is not trying to save souls, because none are lost. Or trying to bring people to God, a contradiction in terms. No faith is needed because they offer Truth, verifiable truth. The hitch is they have to learn Martian first in order to understand what Truth really is.

Ben shares water and love with Dawn Ardernt, a former Fosterite that is a high Priestess with Jill. Next morning Mike arrives to see Ben. They talk awhile and Ben gets up, When he turns around again he sees Mike and Jill "going to it". Since Ben loves Jill he reacts by grabbing his stuff and leaving as fast as possible. Jubel tells Ben that its Mikes business, that Ben is the hypocrite. Jubel points out to Ben that it was jealousy not moral outrage that motivated his departure.

Jubel goes further saying that what Mike and the others are doing is moral, especially their selfless dedication to giving their perfect morality to others.

Ben still thinks what they are doing is wrong. Jubel says he sees the beauty of Mike's attempt to devise an ideal human ethic and applauded his recognition that such a code must be founded on ideal sexual behavior, even though it calls for changes in sexual mores so radical as to frighten most people. Mike sees sex as a way for people to be happy together, it should never be used to hurt or dominate each other.

The commandment not to covet another’s wife or against adultery have made people hypocritical, sneaky and unhappy. The foulest sinner of all is the hypocrite who makes a racket of religion, Mike is not doing that. He is completely sincere.

Humans are so built they can't believe in their own extinction. This leads to endless invention of religions. Mike, Jubel says, might be the Messiah. Who Knows?

Jubel convinces Ben to go back and try again. He does and begins learning Martian

Part V: HIS HAPPY DESTINY

Jubel follows Mikes career thru news clippings but wishes he could hear from him and the rest that are with him. Ben keeps in touch, however.

He hears Mike has been arrested again with charges of public lewdness, statutory rape, conspiracy to defraud, etc. News then comes that Mike's church has burned down. Ben calls, no damage to people, but it was incendiary bombs. Eight people in the ninth circle were arrested, the rest escaped but were believed dead by the cops.

Ben tells Jubel to come if he wants but there is nothing he can do. He goes anyway, along with everyone on the estate. He is picked up by a water brother and escorted to a hotel, owned by Mike. They occupy a whole floor. Ben is told that Mike has escaped from jail and is there in a trance handling the troopers after him by stripping them of their weapons and shoes.

Jubel is treated like a god and is uncomfortable about it and is filled in on what’s happening. He bolts the door, goes to bed and tries to sleep. In comes Dawn Ardent, who has had a crush on him, to share water and grow closer. He is about 90 and thinks that’s impossible. However, he discovers it isn't.

When Jubel awakes, Jill meets him and explains how they all shared with him and Dawn and that sex is not primarily for making babies but for growing closer.

Mike finally comes to Jubel and they talk. Mike says he needs to make a confession to Jubel. He says he has recently learned he is a spy sent by the old ones to grok his people. They were linked with Mike and recently had triggered all he had seen and heard in the past 2 1/2 years, recording it in their records telepathically. It happened so fast he couldn't even protest.

The old ones had destroyed the 5th planet from the sun, creating the asteroid belt, millennia ago. Mike’s fear is they might do that to Earth. To Martians, humans are a diseased people. If they destroy Earth it will be as a mercy killing. It will happen, if it does at all, in no less then 500 years in the future or more likely, 5000 years. They must grok all the fullness before acting.

His greater fear is they might move in and attempt to make humans behave like Martians, which would ultimately kill them. It would be a wrongness.

Mike tells Jubel he had started out thinking he could change the world through love, physical and spiritual. Now Mike is being called the antichrist by the Fosterite Bishop, Short, and others and they and the police are after Mike.

Mike has been "cleaning up" the city, ie making people he has groked as evil disappear. Jubel says, aren’t you playing God, Lad? Mike answers, "I am God, Thou art God and any jerk I remove is God, too. It is said that God notes each ; sparrow that falls and so He does. But the proper closest statement of it that can be made in English is that God cannot avoid noting the sparrow because the Sparrow IS God. And when a cat stalks a sparrow both of them are God, carrying out God's thoughts."

Mike feels he has failed to put across his ideas because, "No matter what I said they insisted on thinking of God as something outside themselves. Something that yearns to take every indolent moron to His breast and comfort him. The notion that the effort has to be their OWN. . .and that all the trouble they are in is of their own doing… is one that they can't or won't entertain."

Jubel points out he is not being patient as the Martians are in hoping for success. He may have to wait a thousand or even 10 thousand years but by example, he will prevail. Mike says he understands and now groks the fullness. Patty comes for him and he says: "the waiting is ended."

There is a huge crowd gathered outside, most of them ugly but Mike dresses and goes out to meet them. Jubel stays and watches on the TV what is happening.

He approaches the crowd saying, "you called me." and then telepathically removing all his clothes says: "Look at me, I am a son of man."

A brick hits him with the curse, God damn you. Then a rock calling him a blasphemer. Mike says in fighting me, you fight yourself for Thou art God and I am God. . . and all that groks is God--there is no other." More rocks hit him. He says "hear the truth, you need not hate, or fight or fear. I offer you the water of life (a glass of water appears in his hand) "and you may share it whenever you so will... walk in peace and love and happiness together."

A shotgun blasts his arm. He keeps preaching love as the crowd kills him. Finally he is killed and happily discorporates.

After Mike's death, Jubel wonders if he is the only one upset as the others don't seem to grieve. Jill tells Jubel Mike is not dead, how can he be when no one can be killed.

Jubel feels guilty @ Mike going out and he is distraught. He tries to commit suicide in his room but Mike calls to him, makes him evacuate the pills and then leaves. Jubel goes out to the rest of the group, now grokking what is true.

They arrange for an air bus to take them back to Jubel's estate. Meanwhile Duke, of all people, is cooking a broth with Mike in it. They share together and Jubel says "I grok you at last, son."

The final scene has archangel Digby as assistant to the archangel, Michael. Now that he is an archangel again, he can get to work on all the changes he wants to make. END

STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND: SUMMARY

The messianic figure of Michael is willing to give himself without limit and regardless of consequences for others. This trait of giving without reservation is a common trait of messianic figures, whoever they are or whatever they represent.

The appeal of Stranger in a strange land was to a whole generation that felt a shallowness in society and thus felt incomplete and unaffirmed.

Sex is a sharing to be closer, not domination of one person over another. Like water brothers, all are equal.

God is everyone, God groks us and we grok God and each other. This is a way of affirming the other and their worth.

You saw the clip of fifties rules, now after hearing a review of the book do you think this appeal of the book was result of the way kids were raised in the fifties?

Was Michael a messiah because of the felt need for deeper communication which affirms the goodness of all?

It’s hard to estimate the impact of this book on the hippies but certainly it had an impact. Have any of you got any insights into this, or personal experience of the sixties you'd share?

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

The Church of All Worlds -- A Brief History

NOTE: Lection Talking Points in Green Highlights

It all began on April 7, 1962, when, after reading Stranger in a Strange Land, Tim Zell and Lance Christie shared water and formed a water-brotherhood called "Atl" at Westminster College at Fulton, Missouri. During the mid-1960s the group was centered on the University of Oklahoma campus at Norman under the name Atlan Foundation. A periodical, The Atlan Torch (later The Atlan Annals), was published from 1962- 68. Following a move to St. Louis, Missouri, in 1968 the Church of All Worlds was legally incorporated. In March of that year, the first issue of Green Egg appeared and over the years made Tim Zell, its editor, a major force in Neo-Paganism, a term which Zell coined. CAW was the first Neo-Pagan/Earth Religion to obtain full federal recognition, although it was initially refused recognition by the Missouri Department of Revenue on the basis of its lack of primary concern about the hereafter, God, the destiny of souls, heaven, hell, sin and its punishment, and other supernatural matters. The ruling was overturned as unconstitutional in 1971. The Church of All Worlds took much inspiration from the science fiction classic, Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein. In the novel, Valentine Michael Smith was a human being born on Mars and raised by Martians. Upon being brought to Earth, he established the Church of All Worlds, built around "nests", a combination of a congregations and an intentional communities. A basic concept was "grokking", i.e., the ability to be fully empathic. Heinlein's CAW emphasized non-possessive love and joyous expression of sexuality as divine union. Their greeting was "Thou art God" or "Thou art Goddess", a recognition of immanent divinity in each person. The basic theology of the CAW is a pantheism focused on immanent rather than transcendent divinity, which is worshipped in female as well as a male form.

The most important theological statement came in revelatory writings by Zell in 1970-73, on a theory which later came to be known as the Gaia Thesis, a biological validation of the ancient intuition that the planet is a single living organism, Mother Earth. Pantheists hold as divine the living spirit of Nature. Thus the CAW recognizes Mother Earth, the Horned God, the Green Man and other spirits of animistic totemism as the Divine Pantheon. Church of All Worlds was an early forerunner of the Deep Ecology movement. Through its focus on Mother Nature as Goddess and its recognition and ordination of women as Priestesses, CAW can also rightly be held to be the first Eco-Feminist Church. Its only creed states: "The Church of All Worlds is dedicated to the celebration of life, the maximal actualization of human potential and the realization of ultimate individual freedom and personal responsibility in harmonious eco-psychic relationship with the total Biosphere of Holy Mother Earth."

In 1974, CAW reported nests in Missouri, California, Illinois, Kansas, Wisconsin, Iowa, Wyoming, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, New Jersey, New York, and Ohio. It was then publishing two periodicals, Green Egg and The Pagan. Two years later Zell moved to Oregon with his new wife, Morning Glory, an ordained Priestess, for a rural life of writing, research and the practice of the religion he had developed. They left the administration of the CAW and the publication of the Green Egg in the hands of other Church leaders. After only a few more issues, the magazine ceased publication. Subsequently many Church Nests dissolved due to internal conflicts.

By the mid-1980s CAW survived only in California, focused around the sanctuary land bequeathed to the Church by its Bard, Gwydion Pendderwen. On and around this rural retreat, a Pagan homesteading community grew which included the Zells (Tim Zell had changed his first name to Otter in 1979 following a vision quest) and other long-time Church members who had moved to California, as well as many new people. Two new clergy were ordained during that time, Orion Stormcrow (a Church member since 1969) and Anodea Judith. (In 1991, Deborah Hamouris was ordained, bringing the present number of active clergy to six.) In the late 1980s, following Otter and Morning Glory's emergence from eight years of living in the wilderness, the Church of All Worlds began reorganizing under the leadership of Anodea Judith. The membership program was radically upgraded to include a Progressive Involvement Program (PIP), intensive training courses and a new members newsletter, The Scarlet Flame. Activities and membership increased dramatically during this period as CAW emerged from its slumber. The first issue of Green Egg (The Next Generation!) appeared in May, 1988, the 20th anniversary of its original publication. It has risen to a position of prominence among Pagan periodicals. Diane Darling, who joined the Church in the mid-'80s, is its editrix, Otter its publisher and designer. In 1991, with 52 pages and a four-color glossy cover, Green Egg is on the Silver Award from the Wiccan/Pagan Press Alliance (WPPA) for "Most Professionally Formatted Pagan Publication". In 1992 Green Egg won the WPPA Gold Award for "Readers' Choice" as well as the Dragonfest Awards for "Most Attractive Format" and "Best Graphics". Diane won the Pentacle Award for "Favorite Pagan Editrix", and Otter for "Favorite Pagan Writer".

The non-fictional Church of All Worlds has grown far beyond Heinlein's dream. There are nine concentric - circles of member involvement, named after the planets and grouped into three rings. Each circle's activity includes study, writings, magical training, sensitivity and encounter-group experience, as well as active participation in the life of the Church. The First Ring, Circles 1, 2, and 3, is for Seekers, those who are only participants. Second Ring, Circles 4 through 6, is made up of Scions, members who help run the church. The clergy, Council of the Third Ring, consists of legally ordained priests and priestesses; longtime members who have worked through the other circles, undergone personal and leadership development, religious training, and completed the Church's ordination requirements. There are two governing bodies in addition to the Clergy: the Board of Directors, which determines policy and business matters, and the Fun Committee, which implements the activities and functions of the Church. The Fun Committee is made up of a Board member, a clergy member, and one representative from each of the church functions, such as Rites and Festivals, Publications, Membership, Communications and each subsidiary. There is an annual General Meeting to elect officers and make changes in the Church's ever-evolving Bylaws. Worship involves attending weekly or monthly Nest meetings usually held in the homes of Nest members. Autonomous nests are composed of at least three members of 2nd Circle meeting monthly or more often. The basic liturgical form is based on a circle where a chalice of water is shared around as part of the ritual part of the Nest meeting. Longer events are celebrated at the Church sanctuary, Annwfn, a 55-acres of land in northern California. Annwfn has a two-story temple, cabins, garden, orchard and a small pond. It is maintained by a small community of resident caretakers. In addition to the eight Celtic-seasonal festivals, the Church holds handfastings (marriages), vision quests, initiations, workshops, retreats, work parties and meetings-on-the-land. As of 1993, the Church has ten chartered nests in California, with others in Florida, Illinois, Arizona, Maryland, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Australia (where CAW has become the first legally-incorporated Pagan church in that country). A number of proto-Nests are in the process of forming. Current President is priest Tom Williams (a member since 1968). Otter is presently engaged in the formation of the Universal Federation of Pagans (UFP), a worldwide association with which he hopes to unify the global Pagan community. 1992 was the 30th anniversary of the Church. A Grand Convocation was held in August, with an attendance of nearly 300. Membership at the end of 1993 was around 600.

The Mission Statement of the Church of All Worlds is as follows:

The mission of the Church of All Worlds is to evolve a network of information, mythology, and experience that provides a context and stimulus for reawakening Gaea, and reuniting Her children through tribal community dedicated to responsible stewardship and the general evolution of consciousness. Over the years, the Church of All Worlds has chartered a number of subsidiary branches through which it practices and teaches its religion:

Church of All Worlds

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Church of All Worlds (CAW) is an American Neopagan religious group whose stated mission is to evolve a network of information, mythology, and experience that provides a context and stimulus for reawakening Gaia and reuniting her children through tribal community dedicated to responsible stewardship and evolving consciousness. It is based in Cotati, California.

The key founder of CAW is Oberon Zell-Ravenheart, who serves the Church as "Primate", later along with his wife, Morning Glory Zell-Ravenheart (d. 2014), designated High Priestess. CAW was formed in 1962, evolving from a group of friends and lovers who were in part inspired by a fictional religion of the same name in the science fiction novel Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein; the church's mythology includes science fiction to this day.

CAW's members, called Waterkin, espouse Paganism, but the Church is not a belief-based religion. Members experience Divinity and honor these experiences while also respecting the views of others. They recognize "Gaea," the Earth Mother Goddess and the Father God, as well as the realm of Faeries and the deities of many other pantheons. Many of their ritual celebrations are centered on the gods and goddesses of ancient Greece.

Formation

CAW began in 1961 with a group of high school friends. One of these was Richard Lance Christie from Tulsa, Oklahoma. Christie was fascinated by the "self-actualization" concepts of Abraham Maslow, a renowned American psychologist, and after meeting then-Timothy Zell at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, he began experiments in extrasensory perception. It was during this time that the group they formed read Heinlein's science fiction novel, Stranger in a Strange Land, which became the inspiration for CAW.

Heinlein's book, combined with Maslow's self-actualization concepts, led to the formation of a waterbrotherhood that Zell and Christie called Atl, the Aztec word for "water", and also meaning "home of our ancestors". Atl became dedicated to political and social change and the group grew to about 100 members.

Zell formed CAW from Atl, and filed for incorporation as a church in 1967. It was formally chartered on March 4, 1968, making it the first Earth religion to obtain full United States recognition as a church.

Early organization and beliefs

CAW modeled its organization after the group in Heinlein's novel, as a series of 9 nests in circles of advancement that were each named after a planet. The basic dogma of the CAW was that there was no dogma - the basic "belief" was a stated "lack of belief". Within their religion, the only sin was hypocrisy and the only crime in the eyes of the church was interfering with another person.

Evolution

Moving toward an emphasis on nature eventually led to a breaking of the relationship between CAW and Atl. In 1974, CAW had nests in more than a dozen states around the United States. That year, Zell married Morning Glory (née Diana Moore) and in 1976 he and Morning Glory settled in Eugene, Oregon and then at the Coeden Brith land in northern California.

When Zell stepped away from central leadership, the Church of All Worlds suffered internal strife that led to most of the church dissolving. By 1978 the focus and headquarters shifted to California with the Zells and the nine-circle nest structure was revamped. CAW then served for several years as an umbrella organization for its subsidiaries.

Subsidiaries

Morning Glory Zell founded the Ecosophical Research Association (ERA) in 1977 to research arcane lore and legends. Its first project of note was the creation of living unicorns in 1980, after noting that early art depicts the creatures as being more goat-like than horse-like. The Zells reconstructed what they claimed was an ancient unicorning procedure, a process involving surgically manipulating the horn buds of kids during their first week of life, and created several unicorns, some of which toured with the Ringling Brothers Circus for a time. The ERA sponsored a Mermaid expedition to Papua, New Guinea in 1985 and a later ERA project involved the May 1996 world-wide ritual to draw upon and re-activate the Oracle at Delphi. This rite involved a relatively early attempt at utilizing online community and internet-facilitated virtual community rituals conducted simultaneously across different time zones, led by Maerian Morris, another former High Priestess of CAW, working from Delphi. The reactivation of Delphi was the subject of a series of six editorials in Green Egg (issues 125 through 130) from November/December 1998 through September/October 1999.

In 1978 CAW merged with Nemeton, a Pagan organization founded by Gwydion Pendderwen and Alison Harlow. In 1987 CAW also absorbed Forever Forests, another one of Pendderwen's organizations. An outgrowth of Forever Forests was founded in 1983 by Anodea Judith, past president and High Priestess of CAW, called Lifeways.

The Holy Order of Mother Earth (HOME), founded in 1978 by the Zells, is another subsidiary, dedicated to magical living and working with the land.

Oberon and Morning Glory Zell-Ravenheart have appeared at over 20 Starwood Festivals (and a few WinterStar Symposiums) over the past 25 years; because of this, there has been a Church of All Worlds presence at Starwood, called the CAWmunity, for over a decade.

First Renaissance

By the mid-1980s, CAW had practically ceased operation outside of Ukiah, California where the Zells relocated in 1985. Anodea Judith assumed presidency until 1991, and the structure of the organization was revamped with plans for more nest meetings, training courses, new rituals, and publications. By the late 1990s CAW had increased membership internationally, becoming particularly strong in Australia, where it was legally incorporated in 1992.

In 1998 Oberon Zell-Ravenheart took a year-and-a-day sabbatical from his role as Primate, and the church headquarters were moved to Toledo, Ohio.

Attempted termination & Second Renaissance

On August, 2004, the Board of Directors decided to terminate CAW due to financial and legal struggles.[5] In January, 2006, due to the effort of Jack Crispin Cain to help save the organization, CAW was reestablished with Zells again assuming a leadership role. In 2007, Green Egg, CAW's influential journal, returned to publication in an online format. The "3rd Phoenix Resurrection of the Church" continues to the present.

THE RIGHFUL HEIR

(Star Trek: Next Generation) - Season 6, ep 23

Worf in a spiritual crisis after bringing back a group of young klingons he has found. He is not sure that what he has taught them is true about Khaless and his return.

He gets leave to go find whatever he needs.

He is with a group of priests and others, very conservative, waiting for the return of Kahless as they have for 1500 years.

He appears to Wrof and turns out to be real, not a vision, and announces he has returned.

Worf has doubts but Kahless tries to convince him, and apparently finally does so.

On the Enterprise, Gowran, the head of the council, wants him tested with some of Kahless's blood from a knife. It turns out to be truly Kahless.

Worf discovers that Kahless is a clone, based on gaps in his knowledge, and tells Gowron.

However, Gowron agrees to accept Kahless as a figure-head emperor to bring back honor and values to Klingon society.

Worf raised by humans from 9yrs old on

Issues raised:

Cloning: Chaos theory would say that no matter how close to the real person you may get with a clone, there will be differences that can not be predicted so is it really Kahless?

Khaless is given the memories from the holy books of the original, or all that is there, does this make him more Khaless than he would be w/o them?

There are gaps in his memory which leads Worf to realize he is not really Khaless, but a clone. However, he comes to see the Khaless clone as a symbol, ie, the rightful heir, to the real Khaless.

QUESTIONS TO PONDER: