Coming to an Understanding of "Religiosity," and How Death Can Inform Worship

After a fairly good hiatus, I'm back, here today to talk to you about what's been on my mind since I left. I've been thinking about exactly what makes an experience "religious," and what makes the ceremony of worship so inspiring.

Directing a church choir has forced me to look at this question in greater depth, since it's part of my responsibilities to foster a sense of devotion and solemnity to the music we make. But I have found that parishioners are very rooted in music that does very little to anyone in regards to inspiration. In some ways, I believe that they are only attached to this music because it represents their comfort zone, and is just what they're used to. It's "pretty" to them, but not exactly profound. But trying to nudge them out of this safe territory into more interesting repertoire is incredibly difficult, and it becomes an issue of politicking and negotiating, which only gets in the way of the work we're supposed to be doing.

As a result, I started to think about several questions. What actually determines the beauty and efficacy of a piece of worship music? What makes something "religious?" And how do you instill people with a sense of adoration for something entirely intangible?

"What actually determines the beauty and efficacy of a piece of worship music?"
In order to answer the first question, I actually turned to the Tree of Life, and looked at what Beauty is influenced by. Of course, "Beauty" is the name of the central sephira Tiphareth on the Middle Pillar, so it receives and exerts a number of influences. Most importantly, it receives direct influence from Godhead in Kether, the Crown. But it also is shaped by the masculine and feminine archetypes of Chokhmah and Binah. As such, it represents on a fundamental level the balance and harmony between all kinds of force, but also the interrelationship between force and form. It is at once passive, active, and fluid, and also represents the union of drive (Chokhmah) with purpose/form (Binah).

It also receives influence from Chesed and Geburah (Mercy and Power respectively), so Tiphareth is constructive and destructive equally. It is a therefore a perfect representation of creation or Life in manifestation, and it can be conceptualized as a snake that moves in a given direction through undulation, or the endless flow back and forth between positive and negative. Life is based on the same principles. Remember that Tiphareth is represented by the sun, and the sun can be equally generative and destructive. It burns away what is unnecessary and cultivates new life from the ashes. Tiphareth is therefore also associated with the phoenix.

Tiphareth emanates Netzach (Victory), Hod (Splendor), and Yesod (Foundation) and from here we start getting a definite sense of form in the literal sense. The first is connected with Venus, the second with Mercury, and the third with the moon. Netzach is almost primal, natural, raw, ecstatic, and lusty, whereas Hod is regimented, logical, analytical, and focused. Yesod is an interesting amalgamation of all the above influences, which produces an astral double or imaginary image of the created idea. Yesod is fantastical and illusionary, and therefore sometimes misleading. It is the source of our subjective subconscious, the shadow self of Jung, and a part of our personality that acts automatically and reflexively. The first major step in the process towards initiation is overcoming Yesod by wedding it to the light of the True Self as expressed consciously in Tiphareth.

To summarize all this, Tiphareth, or Beauty, must be a perfect balance of inspiration and understanding, benevolence and suffering, emotion and intellect. The importance of Yesod in all this is that I believe by participating in adoration balanced by the above principles we can work to regulate our subconscious. We do this by showing it the existence of something greater than itself. Living under Yesod's influence with our subjective consciousnesses grounded in Malkuth, we often act out under the misguidance of Yesod, and disregard the clearer, more beneficial advice of Tiphareth. If the quality of our worship and praise music matches that of Tiphareth, then we are more apt to gain for ourselves the healing and rewards of Tiphareth. If we worship with mediocre methods, then the actual religious effect will be greatly diminished. Choosing pieces simply because they're easy or because "that's what we've always done" is misguided.

"What makes something religious?"
I believe that we can answer this question simply by looking at basic aspects of human religion around the world. The form a religion takes is through its ritual praxis. Ritual gives us a kind of art piece to look at and contemplate, but the real importance of that piece is the artist's intent behind the actual images. In other words, ritual is an abstract performance art. It exists on a stage-like field and even suffers from "fourth wall" syndrome. While this is not absolute, oftentimes ritual is set up with the dichotomy between initiates and uninitiated in mind, the former directly participating and the latter simply observing. Initiates are allowed to actually practice the ritual because they supposedly understand the deeper significance of it. They see the ritual from the level of Tiphareth, whereas it is expected that the audience sees it from the perspective of Yesod. In fact, this is very often the case seeing as religious ignorance abounds in much of the world. The people who have attained any amount of initiation are relatively few, and it is highly likely that whole congregations of people gathered for the celebration of a specific ritual have absolutely no idea what the ritual is trying to express to them on the allegorical level. In some ways the ritual becomes a kind of taunting game - even though it's right in front of our faces we are unable to penetrate behind the veil of images. (Of course, penetrating the veil requires spiritual nerve and courage - something many people unfortunately lack, particularly in America.)

The purpose of this, however, is not only on one level to mislead people (for the Mysteries must be given and protected simultaneously), but also to create a space that is alien to the audience. The everyday world is dominated by false images created by Yesod and Malkuth, even Hod and Netzach. But the truth behind events and images is revealed in Tiphareth, which is the source of these experiences in the first place. Therefore a real sense of religiosity must exist on the level of Tiphareth, outside the sphere of normalcy.

I also think it's important to turn to Victor Turner's model of liminality to unpack this question. Turner was writing about medieval pilgrimages and was trying to get at the heart of their appeal to medieval laity. I'd like to summarize his model for you here.

1.) The pilgrim begins at home surrounded by what he or she knows. Home for them represents the sum total of what they know to be reality. Obviously there is a lot more of the world out there to explore, but for the medieval man or woman the world was incredibly small and confined to their immediate surroundings. The individual then decides to take a pilgrimage to a given shrine for any number of reasons. Perhaps they feel they require penance, or they are looking to be healed from a sickness, or maybe they simply want to go for the thrill of traveling on "vacation." Whatever their reason they begin their journey.

2.) The pilgrim joins other pilgrims while on the road to their particular shrine á la The Canterbury Tales. They share resources and hopefully help each other to survive the arduous and most likely on-foot trek to their destination. Along the road the pilgrims encounter a number of other shrines with relics. They stop at these locations to pray, seek the aid of the patron saint, and are simultaneously introduced to symbols, pictures, and allegories in the form of religious artwork. Oftentimes there are certain motifs that are replicated at other shrines along the pilgrimage road so that by the time the pilgrims have reached their ultimate destination, they have been bombarded by the same symbols many times through different artistic interpretations.

3.) At this point the pilgrim has been exposed to a number of experiences outside of the realm of the ordinary. Most importantly, the pilgrim is physically in what Turner calls a space of "liminality." Approaching this space of ultimate spatial/chronological/psychological distance from what the pilgrim considers "normal," they become much more pliable. They experience a kind of "death" and are in turn made more susceptible to the religious experience - witnessing of miracles, visions, ecstasies and lamentations, etc. By the time the pilgrim approaches the final pilgrimage site, the individual has been forced to discard their precepts of normalcy and thereby enter the liminal space of the miraculous. One becomes much more prone to experiencing the presence of God - that which is greater than ourselves. The pilgrim is literally overwhelmed by the experience and is thus transformed by it.

4.) The last step is reintegration. The pilgrim must return home to their original space of normalcy after having experienced something entirely unique, foreign, and life-changing. The person can never quite deal with their original place of normalcy in the same way they used to ever again. Those who surround the pilgrim do not understand what they have experienced, and there grows an inevitable and unsurpassable gulf between the individual and their peers.

While Turner's model has been recently given a fair amount of criticism, I believe this general model is very helpful to us as we try to track down what the religious experience is all about, especially since the process of individuation is very much a psychological pilgrimage. Our psyches are vast worlds of which we only know a small portion. Thinking this is all there is, we remain stagnant, uninspired, ignorant individuals. One thing is clear: the religious experience is absolutely abnormal, and involves a kind of death of the normal. Following this there is a psychological "resurrection" which leaves the person forever changed and more enlightened about their personal condition.

"Religion," therefore, must consist of the individual's confrontation with greatness. The "pilgrim" so to speak must be overwhelmed by liminality to the point of metaphysical death. The greater the liminality the more profound the religious experience.

"How do you instill someone with a sense of adoration for that which is entirely intangible?"
This might be the trickiest question of all because everyone has a unique relationship to the Divine. "Every man is the master of his own temple," and therefore the Law is different for each of us. It is quite difficult for one person to determine what will fill another with a sense of adoration. But if we base our answer on the answers to the previous two questions, then we might say that it all has to do with encouraging people to move into the space of liminality. The hierophantic or pastoral duty becomes one of adhering to the general framework, but adapting it to fit the needs of a given person. Presumably, everyone who is participating in a religion has chosen it because it is the method of attainment that they believe is best for them. We must not assume, however, that this is accurate. An individual might make a much better Buddhist than a Catholic, but until circumstances force the individual to actually reappraise their beliefs they will not be allowed to grow in this direction.

Central to all of this is the idea of death. Religion is that which deals explicitly with it both through mythology and ritual praxis. Much of religion is focused exclusively on the sacrifice of the "lower self," that part of our being that considers our physical condition to be the only aspect of our total condition. Living our lives from such a rigid perspective inevitably leads us to cultivating redundant habits and ignorant world-views, all of which contributes to the handicapping and stunting of society and culture at large.

Therefore, from a psychological standpoint, religion of any respectable tried-and-true form is crucial for the development of any human being. The details of the religion are largely irrelevant, as what matters is the formula of attainment it follows. It must be capable of instilling in someone a sense of reverence for that which is greater than themselves, but to do that one must first get a sense of what "that which is greater than themselves" is actually like. One does this by setting Tiphareth as the goal of their worship and thereby opening themselves up to the experience of death. Death under these conditions is sweet, benign, and even beautiful.

Perhaps this is even why the average person shuns the religious experience by preferring watered-down, ineffective, bland forms of worship - because these represent a world they can easily understand, one that is very similar to their own mundane, normal sphere of existence in the here and now. But as we have talked about, God transcends the mundane and is also outside of it. You cannot expect to be transformed for the better, to experience or understand God's benefits, without first enduring the death of normalcy, and we all know how much humans want to reject death of any kind. Until one's consciousness has been pried open by the recognition of something greater and more powerful than itself, then that person's consciousness will perpetually perceive reality as a mixed jumble of non-related events and "accidents" that God may or may not have rewarded or punished them with. This view of reality becomes a license to stop growing, to remain clueless about responsibility, to take things for granted, and to do no real work on one's person. The individual stops functioning as a source of life for the world around them and instead becomes a source of death.

Christ tells us, "For whoever loses his life shall find it." Religion teaches us that death is the necessary complement to life, but also that religion itself is about Life, capitalized so as to represent summative existence, the flux between life and death. He who rejects the religious or spiritual impulse rejects themselves, and emits the signal to their True Self that they are wholly uninterested in who they are in totality. He who believes they are complete without initiation, without surrendering to the Mystery that is Self, suffers from vanity. And vanity, being the cause of Original Sin, is ugly.

The New Roman Missal: Some Thoughts

As you may or may not know, the Catholic Church has once more revised the Roman Missal's English translation so that it may more accurately reflect the original language of the Vulgate Bible. The changes are to be implemented during the season of Advent, 2011, and will supposedly rekindle faith and devotion for all who partake in.

To begin with, I would like to express a hearty "FINALLY" in response to this decision. The "translation" done in the 70's and 80's is so paltry, ineffective, dull, and irreverent that it is truly necessary to at last have an English text that does not try to summarize the contents of the liturgy, but actually attempts to translate them accurately.

This is not to say, however, that I approve entirely of the movement, not because I disagree with the efforts of the Church to more accurately disseminate the text of the Bible to lay people, but because I believe its opinions on the movement, as well as the goal of the movement, miss the obvious reality: that the music of English-language Catholic music is unashamedly awful.

Since the 1970's, the American Church has ruthlessly suffocated the true Roman tradition of Gregorian chant, and has frowned upon music that may be "too difficult" for lay people to sing (i.e. Medieval/Renaissance polyphony). For an institution that prides itself on espousing the Roman form of Christianity, and one that gloats over its universality as a single Church with one liturgy, it is incomprehensible as to why we suddenly need to sacrifice our 1,000-year-plus prayers and rituals in the name of gaudy simplicity, so that "the common man" can sing along in church. So essentially, the Church has allowed itself to stoop to the level of Disney Sing-Along in exchange for discarding one of the most sublime musical traditions the West has ever heard.

Let me be clear. The Church never catered to lay people's musical ability until the Reformation, when suddenly it became expected that everyone needed to participate in the liturgy. But this is not the original intention of Christianity. Indeed, early Christian rites were set up in mystery cult fashion, where the catechumens were the only ones allowed to partake in the Eucharist, and everything was done very hush-hush in the interest of secrecy and solemnity. But now under the guidance of the Enlightenment, we desire to expose the Mass in every way possible, to make it entirely accessible to even the most ignorant member of the congregation. We are now spoon-fed everything. No one has to work to understand the Mysteries anymore, no one has to work in order to pray or to worship. Everything has been simplified to the point where it is frankly sickening, and the Church has shot itself in the foot by this approach. How are we to expect people to regain excitement over a religion that has nothing to hide? that doesn't challenge us to dig deeper? The whole business of religion, whether Catholic or Protestant, has become too easy. No longer does one need to read St. Augustine or St. Thomas Aquinas in order to understand Christianity; no longer must one delve into the mystical writings of St. Teresa of Avila; no one needs to be able to read music anymore or to attend rehearsal in order to sing the prayers at a high quality. No, instead we have a degraded, insulting version of a once beautiful religion, and I am frankly angry.

What happened to strong-arm Catholicism? Where are the old monastic teachers of the universities? Where is the voice of reason? Where is the usual sternness of Catholic dogma? We are flailing about over all sorts of other issues in the name of "Catholic dogma," but are afraid to defend authentic Catholic dogma and practice. Are we that enamored with Marty Haugen's Mass of Creation, or Bob Hurd's hideous Mass of Glory? Who are these people and who gave them the authority to subject us all to their mediocre, uninspired swill other than the few liturgical music publishing companies? Why are we not fighting back? I know that there is

a large group of people out there who believe in the pure, timeless beauty of things like Gregorian chant, or the wonder of old polyphony. Under the spirit of reform, we must become a much louder voice and defend this body of music, or at least hold it up as a standard to meet. Not every parish is going to be able to implement such music - I am all too aware of this unfortunate reality. But why do we not strive to do so? Why are church choral programs full only of the elderly? Why is it that no one really enjoys singing in church anymore? Why is no one learning musical technique through the church as people did since the 8th century under Pope Gregory I? We simply must address the issue of quality in contemporary worship music. These people who consider themselves "composers" are blemishes on the history of Catholic music. It is appalling and unconceivable that these people should consider themselves part of the same heritage as Josquin, or Lassus, or Palestrina. It is like comparing stray cats to lions.

I am not a hardcore orthodox Catholic - not by any means. I believe that the Catholic Church needs to seriously reevaluate its stances on abortion, homosexuality, and female ordination, but I do NOT believe that the Church should be throwing away its liturgy so carelessly. I am an ardent (and clearly feisty) lover of early music, and as an amateur musicologist, it pains me endlessly to see this once alive music become the subject for faux-new-age CD's and techno remixes. I realize that this comes across more as an impassioned rant, but I am so distressed by how long this practice of sheer mediocrity has been allowed and desired by certain members of the clergy.

The sad truth is that this music no longer moves people in any way, no longer elevates them to a different plane of thinking or contemplation. Instead it is flat and dull. No amount of bongos, electric guitars, or flutes will ever remedy this. The false exuberance of these works are only a tacky veneer over poorly designed composition and text setting. Handel, not a native English speaker, set English better than these native English composers. And why is this tolerated? So that we can maybe appeal to some of the "young people?" I am a member of the "young people," and I can tell you that none of us are impressed by this garbage. None of us have found any yearning for God from these petty songs. But I know many of my generation who have been deeply moved by things like chant, and it has inspired them in a way unbeknownst to them before.

May God move as is according to His Will.

Amen

Music in America: Lady Gaga Revisited

It is by no means my intention to turn this into a Lady Gaga blog, but I will confess that I am a fan. Furthermore, this blog is partially about music and culture, so I believe it's perfectly valid to discuss something like Gaga's new album, Born This Way. I have now had to defend this album against far too many people, and every time the same issues seem to come up. Let me get to the point: for the American public, Lady Gaga has become too artistic. Yes, that's right. A music artist has become too artistic for mainstream America, and her ratings are subsequently sinking. I do hope with every bit of my being that you find this statement to be absurd, because it is the epitome of absurd - and yet, I'm not surprised in the least.

Let's face it, pop music was never invented to be profound. With the rise of the recording industry, coupled with a simultaneous bout of post-war trauma and American over-confidence, American music became so dumbed-down as to become pointless. Music became such a part of the mundane that it was quickly taken for granted, and capitalist record companies, eager to sell as quickly as possible, churned out a continuous spew of mediocrity that still plagues us to this day. This sort of capitalist swill, created supposedly for the sake of the masses, was quickly exported and shoved down the throats of many countries' populations. I am painfully reminded of Chile in the 60's, where the gross influx of American pop music sparked the Nueva Canción movement, a grassroots, pro-Socialist, indigenous music revival. This is pop music's origin; it is a genre based on keeping people ignorant, and blithely happy about nothing of any substance. Its subjects are usually so irrelevant that there is no real point to questioning the genre as a whole; people don't have to work in order to understand it.

But Western music history shows us that this is not what music has to be about. As Westerners, our heritage consists of composers and music makers who put titanic amounts of thought into their work, and expected their listeners to do the same. Once upon a time, the dialogue between artist and audience spurred by a challenging piece of music was something to be excited about! People wanted the librettos to operas in advance so they could study them before they went to see them performed; Renaissance printers made countless copies of the latest Italian madrigals for people to sing together in their homes; Haydn paid for the publication of his tour de force, The Creation, in both English and German, and set up a subscription system so that members of the public could gradually get their hands on the entire score; Wagner had fan clubs across Europe because people were so obsessed with his artistic vision; and today, musicians are still struggling to play pieces "as the composer intended." I could of course go on, but the point is this: in the West, music has always been considered an art of some kind, and with this definition comes an expectation that music will foster some kind of discussion or exchange of ideas.

But pop music, by nature, shuts this dialogue down. What's the point of doing a musical analysis of Britney Spears's "Hit Me Baby One More Time," or discussing the ideology of Train's "Meet Virginia?" Even songs that could be considered more in-depth than the more poignantly superficial ones are usually not so profound as to spark nation-wide arguments. Now, I understand that pop music is meant to let people just have fun. In some ways it's important to have an unpretentious, simple music genre for people to let loose with. But it's equally important to keep the public thinking. I also understand that not everyone listens to pop music, nor is it the only thing a person may listen to. But the fact that it chooses to label itself as "popular" demonstrates that it's a genre that believes itself to be accessible and likable for the general populace. It reflects a certain over-arching mindset when it comes to American music, and quite clearly tells us that American music should be simple, pointless, and fun, and not much else.

But Lady Gaga is different, and this is why she's so important to American culture. She has single-handedly attempted to turn a genre of music inherently anti-artistic into an art form. In the footsteps of Warhol and countless other modern artists, she has converted the mundane blandness of pop music and culture and turned it into something worth talking about. Her music and performances are controversial not just because their subject matter can be racy, but because they seek to penetrate and dissect the lifestyle that has sprung up around this type of music. Most of her music is trying to get you to think about something, sometimes several things at once - just like a good artwork will. I strongly believe that even if you dislike a piece of art, if it makes you question your own aesthetic values, your ideology, or your general perceptions, then that artwork was successful. It pushed you out of your norm and forced you to think of life in a broader scope. And this is what frustrates me so much about the mainstream criticism I've been hearing from people when it comes to Born This Way - the biggest complaint I hear is that her music has become too message-ridden. Heavens! Songs that make you think? Songs that make you angry or empowered or both? Songs that you can have a visceral connection or aversion to? What is the world coming to!?

So essentially, Lady Gaga has played the most genius cards I've ever seen. She has invaded the pop industry to seriously partake in it, and simultaneously criticized and questioned it. She has made millions fall in love with her and as many come to hate her. But this is not the same sort of distaste one expresses over other pop artists - when one condemns Britney for being talentless, they don't do it with the same sort of scorn that I hear the Gaga-haters toss around. There's a real anger present here that must be recognized, and at the same time appreciated. Lady Gaga, like it or not, has created a schism in this country by forcing us to ask ourselves the question, "what do we want to get out of our music?" Do we want pointlessness and fun? or do we want art? For the first time in a long time, we have the option to choose both, but with the awareness that the artist herself is cognizant of her genre's pointlessness.

Let me also be very clear about Born This Way as an album: I think it's bloody brilliant, and I wish more people would hear it the way I and many others do. I have heard people say it's not a cohesive album, that it's just edgy for the sake of it, that it's over-produced, that it's pretentious, etc. Yes, to some extent you're all right; but that's what's great about it. People simply must remember the purpose of the album, which is to encourage people to embrace themselves for who they are, and to defiantly be themselves in order to have fun, even at the status quo's expense. Therefore, we should expect an album whose music constantly pushes and pokes at the definition of "normal" pop music, an album that cannot be neatly categorized or defined, one that is sometimes unruly and seemingly undisciplined. Frankly, I find this "incoherence" to be a strength, as every song on Born This Way sounds different, and creates a singular world unto itself while still participating in several interconnecting themes. Some of these are particularly intriguing and worth discussing - man and metal, constructed identity versus natural identity, sanctity and harlotry, the performer's relationship to her audience, the abilities of electronic music, gay rights, and of course the general theme of self-liberation. When was the last time a pop album strove to cover issues like that? And shouldn't art challenge us to ask several questions and not just one or two? What's wrong with having an album that poses multiple issues at once while also being tonally complex and interesting? Aren't people's personalities complicated like that?

Here's what I find most compelling about Born This Way: no longer does the listener have fun because they're partaking in a vast social network that all agrees "this is the music everyone should be listening to and one has fun while listening to it" (often enough because alcohol, dancing, or general socializing is involved); rather, the listener has fun because they are being themselves, their own independent and unique individual. This is a step that has utterly obliterated the primary obstructions of pop music. Lady Gaga is as much obsessed with her fans as we are about her, and it's refreshing to know that. It's also refreshing to see that pop music can actually be done with some substance, by a woman who has a remarkable amount of talent in music performance, composition, dance, and design. So for those of you who hate the album, so be it. I don't expect to change your subjective aesthetic opinion, but I would like to think that I at least convinced you of there being more importance to this album than there seems to be at first glance.