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John Carter's avatar

Echoing Nina and Luc, this is fantastically well done. Masterful use of sensory cues to paint a sensual, immersive experience.

A few years ago, I attended a traditional Latin mass, just to see what it was like. I'm not Catholic but was intrigued. It was a remarkable experience, the contrast with the staid and somewhat tawdry, mundane disingenuousness of the Anglican services of my youth an almost tangible thing. The ancient rituals, despite their novelty to me, felt somehow deeply familiar, as though a resonance with something ancient and warm and transcendent was established.

Something else I noticed were the types of people in the pews. They seemed entirely more dignified and put together than the common person on the street, or the average parishioner at other churches. The men were fit. The women modest, but elegant. The families large and beautiful. These were people who respected themselves, who held themselves apart from the muck and grime of the modern sewer. Or, perhaps more accurately - these were people who honored something higher than themselves, humbled themselves before something eternal and glorious, and in that service elevated the divine spark within their own souls, becoming more than mere animate matter. How different was our civilization, when this regular reinforcement of the connection to the divine was pervasive, a thick, healthy umbilical cord pulsing with energies from on high? Rather than the tenuous thread keeping barely alive a guttering flame that barely illuminates the gathering shadows.

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L.P. Koch's avatar

I agree with Nina, that was so well-written. Honestly, I don't really want to analyze it, this text should just be what it is.

Since you asked on my stack, however, a few thoughts: from a Pauline perspective, everything can be seen in terms of the material world ("flesh") and the higher, spiritual world. So for example, someone can look perfectly fine, but in the spiritual realm be literally a demon, or aligned with a demon, or a representative of "demonness". With our subtle spiritual vision, we might be able to discern this, and in a sense literally see the demon. In the "fleshly" mode of vision, focussed entirely on the material world, on the other hand, we just see a regular man or woman. However, these worlds are interconnected, and sometimes, as seems increasingly the case today, the evil part of the higher world can manifest almost directly. (I don't discount cases of literal, in-your-face possession, either. Many things are possible.)

As for the "magic", I tend to think that the power of the Latin mass lies in its beauty, and its symbolic representation of an opening up to the good part of the higher world, which can evoke a real opening up to it on the part of the congregation (or at least those with "eyes to see", who "walk according to the spirit"). It is almost always a subtle affair though, I think, and a process that plays out over time.

The same is true for your example of "casting out the twerker" (absolutely great contrast you worked out btw.) - I wouldn't think they would be literally chased away in the way you described. But from the higher perspective, in the higher world, this might be exactly what happens! Spiritual vision again. Often it takes some time though between the spiritual world and the material world to connect, to congeal. Time works differently in the higher planes. So for example, the "woman" in question might exit the church and still be gleeful, but over the next few years completely self-destruct. Or maybe she will feel unwell in the evening, not knowing the reason. Or maybe she will suddenly see clearly on her deathbed and be absolutely crushed by realizations. Many possibilities. Point being: perhaps it IS possible for the higher world to "crash into" our material world occasionally, i.e. paranormal phenomena, wonders, things that look like magic etc. But most often, it is a very subtle affair where we need "eyes to see and ears to hear" to develop "spiritual vision".

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