When I installed the “Western Wheel Carols” section of this website, there was an editorial that went with it. Joel Furches mentions that there is not as much magic in the western stories as there was in the folklore from which Tolkein created his epic “Lord of the Rings.” I am paraphrasing here. He connects this to the rise of ‘science’ in the era in which the Western is set and the colonization of North America came about. This, our age has been taught, led to the fall of superstition.

I do not agree with this take on things. Joel is very intelligent and I respect him and what he has to say. My belief is that the statement that he made is the product of our age and represents a belief that was impressed on all of us in this era. However, there was a piece of the puzzle missing so I could not make my point back then. That piece of the puzzle has recently come to me.

“If God is dead, it’s not that people will believe in nothing, but that they will believe in anything.” –Max Weber.

This quote was difficult to find because I was looking for another wording. It gives the main point of my argument. Joel’s argument relies on what people stopped believing in being the cause of the lack of overt mysticism in Westerns. Having been to a few places that are out of the way, I can say that folk magic is still practiced in North America and this has nothing to do with Wicca. The American Indians, part of my ancestry, were not the only practitioners of magic in their age.

The part of the puzzle that I was missing is the meta-naturalist beliefs of evangelical secularists. Every religion must explain, in its own terms, anything that it cannot deny. So I recently came across the beliefs of some men who claim science as their faith. They believe in things like reincarnation. It is not important for me to prove that everybody who is steeped in the religion acting as the basis for modern science would naturally fall to mystic beliefs. My statement only requires that these beliefs not naturally lead to the elimination of superstition.

Jewish theology forbids the practices of witchcraft, astrology and necromancy. Monotheism also gives birth to belief in a universe which is rational and consistent. Maybe we didn’t stop believing in things that go bump in the dark as much as we stopped fearing them. Spiritual descendants of the jews, Christians who embraced their beliefs enough to flee Europe and take the risks of life in North America would be a different breed.

In order to propose a theory, you must put forth a prediction that can be falsified. Charles Darwin proposed that irreducible complexity would kill Evolution by natural selection. I’m paraphrasing, again, by using modern words for what he said. Even a stand up philosopher can do that.

I’ve seen a good deal of foreign television that deals with superstitious beliefs. The logical conclusion of my theory would be that these United States will become similar. Logic dictates that taking the cause away will eliminate the effect. My proposition, therefore, is that the modern world will become more superstitious as it loses those theological principles that held us rational.

This differs from other beliefs that have been put forth only in that I do not believe that materialism or naturalism are those theological forces.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 26th, 2007 at 12:01 am and is filed under Mulligan Adventures. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.