Marianne 2020
Published on Jul 4, 2019
Marianne Williamson addresses the public at Concord New Hampshire’s historic Phenix Hall.
marianne2020.com
Monthly Archives: July 2019
“The Time and Land of Arascus” by Mike Zonta, H.W., M.
THE TIME AND LAND OF ARASCUS
by Mike Zonta, H.W., M.
Even in the time and land of Arascus, men felt the overpowering sensation of the oneness of the universe. Thus, when there was born to them a certain one, they could see him and notice him from afar off. They saw in him the allness and oneness that they could feel so strongly in themselves.
They called this one Aman, and all who saw him wondered and marveled at his oneness.
It was not long after the birth of Aman that the time and land of Arascus experienced a great proclivity of creative enterprise.
But it was also during the time of Arascus that there appeared in the land a certain one who was called Mobid, who seemed to all who encountered him a most mean and onerous sort. Mobid’s deeds became as well know and wide-spread as those of Aman.
It was Arascus himself who was to experience the terrible presence of both Aman and Mobid.
One day, Arascus and many of the townspeople were gathered together to hear the wondrous words of Aman. There was a great feeling of festivity in the air as Aman approached the platform from which he was to speak. Flowers and music filled the senses, and great anticipation was felt among all who came to witness this great and joyous event.
Finally, and very surreptitiously, Aman ascended the platform from which he would speak. There fell on the people gathered there a sudden hush. Aman settled himself at his station and looked out among the many people gathered there. And this is what he said:
“There is amongst our people of this time and land a great explosion of newness and rebirth. And it is a joyousness to perceive. Fathers and mothers have become as little children and little children have become as fathers and mothers. And this is very good. And women have become as men, and men have become as women, and this too is very good and as it was meant to be. And the simple-minded have been proclaimed as wise men and the wise men have acted the fool. In this I rejoice with all of your rejoicing. And it is very good.”
The townspeople were alive with loving awe and appreciation of what they were hearing. And Aman continued:
“But it is said there is amongst this time and land one who would undo our great doings and cast a mockery at the loving oneness which we have proclaimed to be our natural heritage. And this one they call Mobid.”
A great silence encompassed the crowd. Aman continued:
“Yet you need not experience fear, for I have come to give you peace and life onward until Forever.”
There was some rumbling amongst the townspeople.
“And this gift is yours if only you but ask for it,” said Aman.
Then one of the townspeople spoke out and said, “O great one, if you have come to give us peace and life onward until Forever, I beseech you to banish this one called Mobid and forever rid our time and land of him who would seek to destroy our creative enterprise and loving sense of oneness.”
Aman was silent for a moment. He looked at the man with great compassion and with words very paced and clear he answered him:
“There is only one way in which you can stop the menacing deeds which Mobid would perform, and that way is to love him as you love me and as you love each other.”
The townspeople stood in amazement at what they were hearing for it was Mobid who would spread fear and hunger and disease among all that which they knew was good and great and plenty.
And one of the townspeople shouted out that he would rather cut off his right leg than give love to such a one as Mobid. And other townspeople were crying out similar expressions of grief and dismay.
Then Aman said to them: “I understand your anger and grief and dismay, and I have come before you that you might transform your weapons of anger and grief and dismay into tools of love and happiness and wisdom. But before you can take up these tools you must lay down all weapons which you would use against Mobid or against any other whom you think might spitefully use you. For I say unto you that whatsoever hate and fear you harbor against Mobid or any other, that you also hate and fear within yourselves.”
The townspeople were bewildered.
Aman continued: “As long as you would banish Mobid or any other from this time and land, you would also banish yourselves from the Eternal Kingdom and Timelessness and Landlessness.
And the people felt sore amiss, for was it not their divine heritage to be living in this time of plenty and this land of loving brotherhood, and was not Aman himself the proof of their destiny manifest? How could so great a one as Aman speak to them of loving so low a one as Mobid whose evil deeds and vicious tongue were common knowledge?
Aman, sensing their thoughts, continued:
“The abundance of love and wealth that you bear witness to in this time and land are not children of this time and land but are children of the Eternal Kingdom of Timelessness and Landlessness, which is the only kingdom there is, was and ever shall be.
“Then what of our time and land and what of Mobid?” demanded one of the townspeople.
Aman continued: “Believe only that which you know. Trust not your senses which tell you of forms and faces, sounds and words, smells and taste and touch. For this is not the stuff of which you are made. Be ye not deceived by what appears to be so.”
Again one of the townspeople demanded, “And what of Mobid?”
Aman answered: “Love not evil, neither give it credence. Evil is nothing but a lie about that which is true. Love that which is true about Mobid and every man and all life.”
One of the elders of the townspeople now spoke out saying, “And what is it that is true of Mobid and every man and all life?”
Aman knew this elder and considered him for a moment. Then he continued: “Truth you must seek within yourselves and this is a journey you must make alone.”
Aman had finished speaking. He slowing descended the platform and began walking away to his home in the hills. And the other townspeople began their walk homeward also.
Arascus sat for a few moments longer and watched his neighbors and friends leave. No longer was there the air of festivity shining in their faces. Something very new and different to Arascus was expressed in the faces of his friends. It was awe, and it was uncertainty and at times it was even anger and fear and dismay.
II
Now Arascus was alone. He looked upwards at the sky and the countless shining stars, and he wondered. He looked at the trees which surrounded him and also wondered. Then he looked at the grass on which he was sitting and then he looked at his very own body, and still he wondered.
Sometimes he would wonder in joy and amazement, and sometimes he would wonder in anguish and dismay.
Arascus was sitting in this sense of deep wonder and concern when he heard a noise of rustling bushes. He looked to where the noise came from and saw an old, dirty man stumbling toward him.
Arascus got onto his feet.
The old man approached Arascus. “Do you have anything to quench the hunger of a tired, old man?” he asked.
Arascus reached into his satchel and gave him what was left of the cheese and bread he had brought that day to hear the wondrous words of Aman.
The old man took the bread and cheese and ate heartily of the few morsels. “And is that perchance a jug of wine you have strapped over your shoulder?” he asked.
“Yes, that it is,” Arascus replied hesitantly.
“Then a few swallows would do me well to warm up my insides.”
The old man reached for the jug of wine and Arascus had little choice but to hand it to him.
Arascus watched all this with uncertain anticipation. As the old man finished the last drops of wine, he fell back to the ground and moaned in satisfaction.
Arascus approached the old man cautiously, “And what is your name, kind sir?”
The old man opened his eyes and lifted himself up to a sitting position. “I am not a kind sir. I’m an old man,” the old man replied rather indignantly.
“I am sorry if I have offended you,” Arascus began without knowing what to make of this irascible character.
“It is very difficult, indeed, to offend me,” the old man said to Arascus. “Sit down and talk with me a while. You’ve got no place to go.”
Arascus sat down. They sat in silence for a few moments. Finally Arascus asked, “Who are you?”
“I am nobody really, and I am everybody. My name is Mobid. Perhaps you have heard of me?”
Arascus was aghast for a moment. Then he remembered the words of Aman: “Be not deceived by what appears to be so. Love that which is true about Mobid and every man and all life.”
Arascus introduced himself. “Yes, I have heard of your name. My name is Arascus.”
Mobid continued: “What is it that you are doing here and where do you live?”
“I have just listened to the wondrous words of Aman, and I have not yet gone home to join my father and mother in the village.” Arascus could feel his body begin to shake and quiver. He tried to control it but to no avail.
“Do you have fear of me?” Mobid asked, sensing Arascus’ uneasiness.
“I don’t know,” Arascus replied.
Mobid laughed.
“It has been said of me, I know, that I am a very evil man. Really this is not so. It has been said of me that I would spread fear and hunger and disease among all that which you know is good and great and plenty. Neither is this so.”
Arascus was listening intently.
“If the people of this time and land are fearful and angry at the evil they think they see in me, then obviously they still believe that there is something evil to be feared.”
“But it is common knowledge,” said Arascus, “that even that which is good and great and plenty in this time and land cannot last forever. And the people fear your intrusion.”
Mobid thought for a moment. “The good and great and plenty that you bear witness to in this time and land are not children of this time and land but are children of the Eternal Kingdom of Timelessness and Landlessness, which is the only kingdom there is, was and ever shall be.”
Arascus was amazed that Mobid spoke the very words that Aman had spoken.
Mobid continued: “Believe only that which you know. Trust not your senses which tell you of forms and faces, sounds and words, smells and taste and touch. For this is not the stuff of which you are made. Be not deceived by the mask of what appears to be so. You can only seek truth within yourself. And we must each take this journey by ourselves.”
Mobid had finished speaking. He got to his feet, smiled at Arascus, said farewell, and stumbled back into the bushes.
And thus it was that Arascus experienced the terrible presence of both Aman and Mobid in the time and land of Arascus.
(from The Prosperos Newsletter, September 1971)
Marianne Williamson Wants to Heal the Country By Running for President
Emotional Intelligence
By Daniel Goleman
(danielgoleman.info)
In 1990, in my role as a science reporter at The New York Times, I chanced upon an article in a small academic journal by two psychologists, John Mayer, now at the University of New Hampshire, and Yale’s Peter Salovey. Mayer and Salovey offered the first formulation of a concept they called “emotional intelligence.”
Those were days when the preeminence of IQ as the standard of excellence in life was unquestioned; a debate raged over whether it was set in our genes or due to experience. But here, suddenly, was a new way of thinking about the ingredients of life success. I was electrified by the notion, which I made the title of this book in 1995. Like Mayer and Salovey, I used the phrase to synthesize a broad range of scientific findings, drawing together what had been separate strands of research – reviewing not only their theory but a wide variety of other exciting scientific developments, such as the first fruits of the nascent field of affective neuroscience, which explores how emotions are regulated in the brain.
I remember having the thought, just before this book was published ten years ago, that if one day I overheard a conversation in which two strangers used the phrase emotional intelligence and both understood what it meant, I would have succeeded in spreading the concept more widely into the culture. Little did I know.
The phrase emotional intelligence, or its casual shorthand EQ, has become ubiquitous, showing up in settings as unlikely as the cartoon strips Dilbert and Zippy the Pinhead and in Roz Chast’s sequential art in The New Yorker. I’ve seen boxes of toys that claim to boost a child’s EQ; lovelorn personal ads sometimes trumpet it in those seeking prospective mates. I once found a quip about EQ printed on a shampoo bottle in my hotel room.
And the concept has spread to the far corners of our planet. EQ has become a word recognized, I’m told, in languages as diverse as German and Portuguese, Chinese, Korean, and Malay. (Even so, I prefer EI as the English abbreviation for emotional intelligence.) My e-mail inbox often contains queries, from, for example, a doctoral student in Bulgaria, a school teacher in Poland, a college student in Indonesia, a business consultant in South Africa, a management expert in the Sultanate of Oman, an executive in Shanghai. Business students in India read about EI and leadership; a CEO in Argentina recommends the book I later wrote on the topic. I’ve also heard from religious scholars within Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism that the concept of EI resonates with outlooks in their own faith.
Most gratifying for me has been how ardently the concept has been embraced by educators, in the form of programs in “social and emotional learning or SEL. Back in 1995 I was able to find only a handful of such programs teaching emotional intelligence skills to children. Now, a decade later, tens of thousands of schools worldwide offer children SEL. In the United States many districts and even entire states currently make SEL curriculum requirement, mandating that just as students must attain a certain level of competence in math and language, so too should they master these essential skills for living.
In Illinois, for instance, specific learning standards in SEL abilities have been established for every grade from kindergarten through the last year of high school. To give just one example of a remarkably detailed and comprehensive curriculum, in the early elementary years students should learn to recognize and accurately label their emotions and how they lead them to act. By the late elementary years lessons in empathy should make children able to identify the nonverbal clues to how someone else feels; in junior high they should be able to analyze what creates stress for them or what motivates their best performance. And in high school the SEL skills include listening and talking in ways that resolve conflicts instead of escalating them and negotiating for win-win solutions.
Around the world Singapore has undertaken an active initiative in SEL, as have some schools in Malaysia, Hong Kong, Japan, and Korea. In Europe, the U.K. Has led the way, but more than a dozen other countries have schools that embrace EI, as do Australia and New Zealand, and here and there countries in Latin America and Africa. In 2002 UNESCO began a worldwide initiative to promote SEL, sending a statement of ten basic principles for implementing SEL to the ministries of education in 140 countries.
In some states and nations, SEL has become the organizing umbrella under which are gathered programs in character education, violence prevention, antibullying, drug prevention and school discipline. The goal is not just to reduce these problems among schoolchildren but to enhance the school climate and, ultimately, students’ academic performance.
In 1995, I outlined the preliminary evidence suggesting that SEL was the active ingredient in programs that enhance children’s learning while preventing problems such as violence. Now the case can be made scientifically: helping children improve their self-awareness and confidence, manage their disturbing emotions and impulses, and increase their empathy pays off not just in improved behavior but in measurable academic achievement.
This is the big news contained in a recently completed meta-analysis of 668 evaluation studies of SEL programs for children from preschoolers through high school. The massive survey was conducted by Roger Weissberg, who directs the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning at the University of Illinois at Chicago – the organization that has led the way in bringing SEL into schools worldwide.
The data show that SEL programs yielded a strong benefit in academic accomplishment, as demonstrated in achievement test results and grade-point averages. In participating schools, up to 50 percent of children showed improved achievement scores and up to 38 percent improved their grade-point averages. SEL programs also made schools safer: incidents of misbehavior dropped by an average of 28 percent; suspensions by 44 percent; and other disciplinary actions by 27 percent. At the same time, attendance rates rose, while 63 percent of students demonstrated significantly more positive behavior. In the world of social science research, these remarkable results for any program promoting behavioral change, SEL had delivered on its promise.
In 1995 I also proposed that a good part of the effectiveness of SEL came from its impact in shaping children’s developing neural circuitry, particularly the executive functions of the prefrontal cortex, which manage working memory – what we hold in mind as we learn – and inhibit disruptive emotional impulses. Now the first preliminary scientific evidence for that notion has arrived. Mark Greenberg of Pennsylvania State University. A codeveloper of the PATHS curriculum in SEL, reports not only that the program for elementary school students boasts academic achievement but, even more significantly, that much of the increased learning can be attributed to improvements in attention and working memory, key functions of the prefrontal cortex. This strongly suggests that neuroplasticity, the shaping of the brain through repeated experience, plays a key role in the benefits from SEL.
Perhaps the biggest surprise for me has been the impact of EI in the world of business, particularly in the areas of leadership and employee development (a form of adult education). The Harvard Business Review has hailed emotional intelligence as “a ground-breaking, paradigm-shattering idea,” one of the most influential business ideas of the decade.
Such claims in the business world too often prove to be fads, with no real underlying substance. But here a far-flung network of researchers has been at work, ensuring that the application of EI will be grounded in solid data. The Rutgers University-based Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations (CREIO) has led the way in catalyzing this scientific work, collaborating with organizations that range from the Office of Personnel Management in the federal government to American Express.
Today companies worldwide routinely look through the lens of EI in hiring, promoting, and developing their employees. For instance, Johnson and Johnson (another CREIO member) found that in divisions around the world, those identified at mid career as having high leadership potential were far stronger in EI competencies than were their less-promising peers. CREIO continues to foster such research, which can offer evidence-based guidelines for organizations seeking to enhance their ability to achieve their business goals or fulfill a mission.
His Mother Had to Give Him up for Adoption as a Baby
Now He Is Holding onto Her by Rejecting Himself
I was on a video call with my friend Dan when we decided to talk about a longing that I had noticed in him. Earlier, in a post on Facebook, he had asked his friends if they would honestly reveal what they could see. I had described what I imagined was longing, longing for his mother.
Dan was born in Korea, adopted by new parents who didn’t look, smell, or feel like the ones his infant-self knew, and raised in a completely foreign environment to the one his nervous system was primally accustomed to. As an adult, he has been on a quest to know his roots and to find his biological mother, all of this to nurture his inner-child.
While some social services exist today for single mothers to raise their children in Korea, they are still ostracized and financially disabled by society so severely that giving children up for adoption is an understandable though heartbreaking choice. Dan doesn’t know for sure if his biological mother was single, but he thinks it’s highly likely, and suspects that the pressures on single mothers would have been even greater when he was a baby.
This label “longing” had resonated with Dan on Facebook and still resonated when we spoke on the video call. I supported him in noticing the actual visceral experience that the label pointed to. When he reported to me the aching pain he felt in his chest, I could also feel it in my own chest. It was not as simple as just longing however; it turned out to be also grief and loss and rage. “I want to push it away,” he told me.
This is the part that is hurt, wounded, abandoned, “and you want to push it away?” I asked. This is the child part that seemed to have been rejected before, and now there is an acting-out (or rather an acting-in) of that apparent abandonment. “What if the child part never stops hurting?” I asked, hoping to contrast the idea of never getting rid of the pain with also never getting rid of the child.
As Dan welcomed the discomfort of the past traumas, and the innocent, child-like life energy trapped within them, I intuitively reflected, “This is the source of all of your power and it’s trapped away in the core of these wounds. As you welcome in the pain, you also welcome in the power.”
Then he began to feel tightness in his throat. Something else was coming up into consciousness to be met with kindness; another ancient aspect of the self was needing to be heard. “My body has started to shake,” he told me.
“Let’s welcome that too,” I said, trusting that his body was delivering the exact medicine that was needed, while also thinking of Peter Levine’s work on Somatic Experiencing. Like a gazelle after being chased by a lion, the human animal body, unshackled from the constraints of should, is able to execute its automatic healing and integration program on its own.
“This is pre-verbal” he told me as he started a round of coughing.
By the time we ended our conversation, it was clear that Dan had been holding onto unpleasant sensations by pushing them down and away, deferring their eventual integration by ignoring them. Holding onto these sensations was a way for him to hold onto his biological mother. This was all he had ever known of her: loss and longing and rage. Where the fuck is she?Regardless of her story, regardless of the easy-to-take but completely ineffective path of having conscious compassion and forgiveness for her, the unconscious rage continued to cry-out to be finally held and parented.
For me, there is no judgement of this rage; there is nothing wrong with it. A baby was torn, by life circumstances, from the arms of its mother. That baby felt fear and then longing and finally rage. That tiny baby felt that way for a minute, then an hour, then a day, a week, a year. And now here he is, in his thirties, that inner-child still waiting for his mother to return, still holding on to that visceral memory. Maybe one day, if I hold on tight enough, she will come back. Meanwhile, life goes on.
After writing this article, I shared it with Dan for comment. That started a process of refinement and revision in which I learned even more about his culture and his story. He helped me to craft this article to be a more accurate reflection of his experience and to make it as respectful to his biological mother and adoptive parents as possible. I learned a lot about him in this process and it moved me deeply; at times when I was talking with him, as Dan pointed out to me, I was crying.
Bio: Robert Lindner
Robert M. Lindner
American author
Description
Robert M. Lindner was an American author and psychologist, best known as the author of the 1944 book Rebel Without A Cause: The Hypnoanalysis Of A Criminal Psychopath, from which the title of Nicholas Ray’s 1955 film was adapted. Wikipedia
Born: May 14, 1914, New York, NY
Died: February 27, 1956,
Celebrate the 4th with Eta Carinae’s slo-mo fireworks
God is not a man with a beard on a throne in the clouds
Symbols are often used to help people get an idea of higher, often ineffable, truths.
Pete Holmes is a comedian, writer, cartoonist, “Christ-leaning spiritual seeker”, and podcast host. His wildly popular podcast, You Made It Weird, is a comedic exploration of the meaning of life with guests ranging from Deepak Chopra and Elizabeth Gilbert to Seth Rogen and Garry Shandling.
30 June, 2019
A good story has the ability to transform its readers — it speaks to our psyche, and, in doing so, has the ability to how we perceive the world.
When trying to understand the adherents of the world’s major religions, Joseph Campbell advises to try to look at mystical experiences through the lens of the founders. In doing so, we can better understand the context of their messaging.
When we talk about God as an old man on a throne in the clouds, when seen as a metaphor, the imagery helps us understand the divine — the beard expresses great age, the throne symbolizes its supremacy, and the clouds signify that it presides over all of us.
Homosexuality of Jesus explored by 18th-century philosopher Jeremy Bentham
Biblical arguments for LGBTQ rights and a queer Jesus may seem like new ideas, but they were pioneered about 200 years ago by an influential British philosopher — in writings that were published only recently.
Philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748 – 1832) presented Biblical evidence for Jesus’ homosexuality as part of his theological defense for same-sex love in “Not Paul, but Jesus Vol. III.” It was published for the first time in 2013 and is freely available to download or view online. He died on June 6, 1832.
Bentham didn’t dare publish it during his lifetime because he feared being labeled a “sodomite” himself. At the time “buggery” was punished with death by hanging in England.
This champion of sexual freedom was far, far ahead of his time. “Not Paul, but Jesus” lays out many of the same arguments that are still used today by LGBTQ Christians and our allies: debunking the scriptures typically used to condemn LGBTQ people and pointing out that Jesus never said anything about homosexuality. Bentham goes on to present an idea that many still consider blasphemous. He suggests that Jesus had male-male sexual relationships.
Bentham wrote the book so long ago that the word “homosexuality” had not been invented yet. Instead he has a chapter titled “The eccentric pleasures of the bed, whether partaken of by Jesus?” His language may sound quaint, but his ideas are right on target for today. Bentham himself struggled with words for what we call homosexuality, deliberately creating new vocabulary so he could avoid the negative connotations associated with the terminology of his day (sodomy, buggery, perversion, etc.).
Bentham is best known as the founder of Utilitarianism, a philosophy that advocates “the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people” A respected thinker during his lifetime, Bentham was also far advanced on a wide range of other legal, economic and political issues. He coined the word “international.” He was one of the first proponents of animal rights. He supported women’s equality and opposed slavery and capital punishment. He corresponded with various world leaders, including US presidents Jefferson and Madison. Several South and Central American nations sought his advice in creating their constitutions and legal codes. Born and raised in a devout Anglican family in London, he became an agnostic who believed that religion was an instrument of oppression. His solution was separation of church and state.
Bentham sheds light on “clobber passages”
In the third volume of “Not Paul, but Jesus Vol. III,” Bentham corrects false interpretations of what would later come to be called the “clobber passages.” He identifies the sin of Sodom as gang-rape. He puts the sexual prohibitions of the Hebrew scriptures into historical context, pointing out that many of the other taboos are no longer enforced.
Bentham dismisses Paul’s condemnations of homosexuality as an asceticism not shared by Jesus himself. He sees romantic love between Old Testament heroes Jonathan and David — and possibly between Jesus and his beloved disciple John, noting that the Bible reports their loving touch without condemnation.
Jeremy Bentham engraving by J. Thomson, from a painting by W. Derby (courtesy of the Bentham Project)
Bentham goes on to analyze the account in Mark’s gospel of “the stripling in the loose attire” (now usually known as “the naked young man”) at the arrest of Jesus — a passage that continues to fuel 21st-century speculations in the LGBTQ community. He urges readers to consider the most “probable interpretation” for the nakedness. (In a different manuscript he made it clear that the youth was probably a male prostitute loyal to Jesus.) Bentham even hints that Jesus was killed for homosexuality, asking readers to consider what interaction with a naked man could be “so awful” that it leads to cruel execution.
Pro-LGBTQ Christians today often note that Jesus never said anything against homosexuality. Bentham makes the same point in his own elaborate way, with sentences such as: “In the acts or discourses of Jesus, had any such marks of reprobation towards the mode of sexuality in question been to be found as may be seen in such abundance in the epistles of Paul—in a word, had any one decided mark of reprobation been so to be found as pronounced upon it by Jesus, in the eyes [of] no believer in Jesus could any such body of evidence as hath here been seen [to] present itself be considered as worth regarding.”
Indeed Bentham’s main purpose in all three volumes of “Not Paul, but Jesus” is to show the error in following the ascetic Paul instead of the true Christianity of the more tolerant Jesus, who accepted the human pursuit of pleasure. This concept is introduced in the first volume of “Not Paul, but Jesus” was published in 1823. Fearing hostile reactions, Bentham used the pseudonym Gamaliel Smith. The second volume, which deals with the early church, and the third volume, which focuses on sexual morality, remained unpublished.
Bentham wrote a lot about homosexuality
Bentham wrote more than 500 pages explaining his liberal views on homosexuality during the last 50 years of his life. Some of these documents may have circulated among his followers, but none of it was published during his lifetime.
The first Bentham writings on homosexuality to be published were primarily secular. His 1785 essay “Offences Against One’s Self: Paederasty” is considered the first document arguing for decriminalization of homosexuality in England. He reasoned that consensual sex between same-sex partners should not be punished because it does not harm anyone. The essay was not published until 1931, when a fragment first appeared in print. The full essay was finally published in 1978.
Only now are Bentham’s writings on Jesus and homosexuality coming to light. The third volume of “Not Paul, but Jesus” was not published in any form until 2013. It was released last year by the Bentham Project at University College London, which counts him as its spiritual father.
In January 2014 Bentham’s own overview of the “Not Paul, but Jesus, Volume 3” appeared as a chapter in a book published by Oxford University Press: “Of Sexual Irregularities, and Other Writings on Sexual Morality” by Jeremy Bentham. (More info at: http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199685189.do)
A section on “Jesus’s Sexuality” is also included in the 2012 article “Jeremy Bentham: Prophet of Secularism” by Philip Schofield, director of the Bentham Project. He draws on the “Not Paul” book and another set of manuscripts to draw powerful conclusions such as this:
Bentham claimed that, unlike Paul, Jesus did not, according to any account that appeared in the four Gospels, condemn either the pleasures of the table or the pleasures of the bed. On the contrary, Jesus’s opposition to asceticism was shown in his condemnation of the Mosaic law in Matthew 9: 9–17…. Bentham pointed out that Paul’s most forceful condemnation was directed towards homosexuality. Bentham responded that not only had Jesus never condemned homosexuality, but that he had probably engaged in it. There were, moreover, many females in Jesus’s immediate circle, and again Bentham saw no reason why Jesus might not have engaged in heterosexual activity as well.
Bentham’s mysterious life and lasting impact
Although Bentham doggedly defended consensual sexual activity between same-sex couples for half a century, his own love life remains a mystery. The son of a wealthy lawyer, he was a child prodigy who grew up to be a brilliant and eccentric recluse, living alone in London in what he called “a state of perpetual and unruffled gaiety.” He referred to his home as his “hermitage.” He lived there with a “sacred teapot” called Dicky, a favorite walking stick named Dapple, and a beloved tom cat addressed as the Reverend Doctor John Langborn. He declared, “I love everything that has four legs,” and allowed a colony of mice to share his office. One study concludes he had Asperger Syndrome, a high-functioning form of autism. Check this link for an 1827 description of Bentham’s eccentricities.
The philosopher’s influence continued to grow after his death as his supporters spread his ideas. Most of what is now known as liberalism is rooted in Bentham’s philosophy. His diverse followers included economist John Stuart Mill and feminist firebrand Frances “Fanny” Wright, who once exclaimed in a poem, “Oh had I but the Lesbyan’s lyre, / Blue-eyed Sappho’s fervid strain, / Then might I hope thy blood to fire…”.
Contemporary queer theologians such as Robert Shore-Goss have recognized him too. Shore-Goss writes a section about Bentham in the chapter on “Christian Homodevotion to Jesus” in his book “Queering Christ: Beyond Jesus Acted Up.”
During his 84 years Bentham wrote manuscripts totaling more than 5 million words, and many remain unstudied and unpublished. The Bentham Project is busy recruiting volunteers worldwide to transcribethem. More words of wisdom are likely to emerge from this prophet of LGBTQ rights who once summed up his approach to life by saying: “Create all the happiness you are able to create: remove all the misery you are able to remove.”
Not Paul, but Jesus Vol. III by Jeremy Bentham, edited by Philip Schofield, Michael Quinn and Catherine Pease-Watkin, is now freely available to download or view online at:
http://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/bentham-project/2013/04/30/not-paul-but-jesus-vol-iii/
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Top image credit:
Jeremy Bentham portrait by Henry William Pickersgill (Wikimedia Commons)
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Related links:
To read this article in Russian, go to:
Гомосексуальность Иисуса в трудах философа XVIII века (nuntiare.org)
To read this article in Italian, go to:
Il Gesù omosessuale del filosofo Jeremy Bentham (gionata.org)
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This post is part of the LGBTQ Saints series by Kittredge Cherry. Traditional and alternative saints, people in the Bible, LGBTQ martyrs, authors, theologians, religious leaders, artists, deities and other figures of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people and our allies are covered. It is also part of the Queer Christ series by Kittredge Cherry at the Jesus in Love Blog. The series gathers together visions of the queer Christ as presented by artists, writers, theologians and others.
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Kittredge Cherry
Founder at Q Spirit
Kittredge Cherry is a lesbian Christian author who writes regularly about LGBTQ spirituality.She holds degrees in religion, journalism and art history.She was ordained by Metropolitan Community Churches and served as its national ecumenical officer, advocating for LGBTQ rights at the National Council of Churches and World Council of Churches.
What five failed utopias can teach us today
Catch up on the best moments so far from Curbed’s podcast Nice Try!
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Nice Try!, the Curbed podcast on the perpetual search for utopian living, has now explored five failed attempts at utopias, from the bloody beginnings of Jamestown to Oneida, an upstate New York commune turned silverware brand. There won’t be a new episode this week due to the 4th of July holiday, but the series will resume July 11 and the season’s final episode airs July 18. Until then, there’s no better time to catch up on previous episodes. Here are five of our favorite moments from the series so far.
Episode 1: Jamestown, Utopia for Whom?
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There are many tellings of America’s beginnings, but Jamestown—whose story you might have seen in Disney’s Pocahontas—is one of the most fascinating, troubling, and misunderstood. The series’s first episode begins in 1607, when the British established the colony. Things quickly went awry.
“[George] Percy says that first they ate dogs, they ate cats, they ate rats, they ate vermin, they ate any living thing that was in the fort. Then they ate the leather off their shoes. They boiled their belts and sucked them. Then it got to the point where he says they licked the blood off the faces of their dying men.”—Kathleen Donegan, professor of English at UC Berkeley and author of Seasons of Misery: Catastrophe and Colonial Settlement in Early America
Episode 2: Chandigarh, the Modernist Utopia
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Architects have a longstanding obsession with designing cities from scratch. If done right, is it possible to design a more democratic society? The second episode in the series explores the ambitions, and realities, of Chandigarh, a city in India designed by local architects and Le Corbusier. But a humble timber chair might be the city’s most enduring legacy. These designs, which fetch tens of thousands of dollars at auctions, are also finding new life and new interpretations for everyday use in the city today.
“Now this [revival] sounds like a fantastic narrative of modernism to me versus the narrative that ‘Oh no, these are fetishized objects of Eurocentric provenance, which are disinherited and abused by the post-colonial subject and therefore must be recovered and returned back to the hallowed institutions of the West and sold at their ‘proper prices’ so that Kim Kardashian— and I have nothing against Kim Kardashian or whoever that was—can sit in them.”—Vikram Prakash, professor of architecture at the University of Washington, Seattle
Episode 3: Utopia in our Backyard
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American housing policy has long promoted a nation of happy suburban homeowners, and developers raced to fill the need—for some buyers. Episode 3 of Nice Try! dissects the work of William Levitt and Morris Milgram, two men who built suburban subdivisions outside of Philadelphia guided by dramatically different moral compasses.
“I call it ‘The Bubble’ because when we moved outside of this community that was when we were hit with the racism. Outside we were known as ‘Checkerboard Square,’ black and white. Well, that was fine because we knew that what we were doing was wonderful. We were proud of who we were.”—Joyce Hadley, resident of Concord Park, a Philadelphia suburb developed by Milgram
Episode 4: Utopia, LLC
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In the late 1800s, John Humphrey Noyes established a commune in upstate New York with radical beliefs on love, sex, and family. While the Oneida Community thrived for some years, the group eventually descended into chaos before ultimately rebranding as a silverware company. Episode 4 uncovers why.
“If you could rid yourself of all your attachments and your selfishness and sort of connect equally with all other humans you would get this sort of clean circuitry going that would do away with all illness and all sickness and eventually death. And sex was a part of this.”—Ellen Wayland Smith, author of
Episode 5: Architecture in a Fascist Utopia
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Architect Norman Foster once called Tempelhof “the mother of all airports” for its innovative design, which has a dark backstory that involves Hitler and the Third Reich’s aspirations as a global superpower. Episode 5 sleuths how it came to be and what happened to the monumental city that was supposed to be built around it.
“That’s a weird thing about Tempelhof, because you do have this unchanging rigid structure next to this field which is always changing and which is like so alive and organic. People are doing some different weird thing every time you come back, and it makes it so interesting.”—Luisa Beck, reporter and Berlin resident
Listen to Nice Try! Utopian on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or in your favorite podcast app, and subscribe for free to get each new episode automatically every Thursday.