Strangely, I posed exactly the same question to a friend over a beer in Dublin only last week. We decided it was important to define terms to address this question.
In today’s western world Culture could be described as an insatiable appetite for enjoyment and novelty; the wholesale mortgaging of the future to satisfy the appetites of the present.
As I am from Ireland, I assume that Roman Catholicism formed the central belief system for 1600 years which formed our culture. The central act of the Roman Catholic faith, without which it would not be termed Catholic, is the sacrifice of the mass, according to the order of “Milchesidech” (SSPX.org – pamphlet on the Latin Rite). It is claimed that the sacrifice is a spotless and bloodless one, regardless that it is essentially an effigy or show of a murder and the drinking of the victims blood by the high priest to gain the victims “power”.
In pre-Catholic Rome, the act of sacrifice involved fruits, flowers, vegetables and the blood of various animals to the various Gods of The Trojans who brought them to Rome after the Greeks defeated them. Regardless that many were killed and held up on display, I am not sure if this was supposed to be a religious ritual.
In early European Druidic cults it was similar to the Trojans, but they sometimes sacrificed their king if “the people” were not happy with him.
In Abraham’s day it was his firstborn son among other sacrifices. No more need be said about that group as it’s all there in the Torah.
Would you agree, that the “Cult-ure” emanates and is defined by worship practices headed by a minority priesthood; that it requires the emulation or real killing of a sacrificial victim?
If that is the case, the blood rituals of the Catholics and Jews appear to advocate the killing of a victim and depositing their blood on the alter or in their gullets.
The offering of the first fruits and vegetables was abandoned as the central cult of European Cultures, yet this was deemed progress by the revolutionaries.
It does not appear rational that the source of a culture can be defined by a temporal or earthly habit; i.e. the wearing of certain types of clothes, implements, buildings, warfare etc. Given the state of things in Ireland, at least, could it be concluded that Culture has inverted itself and that what is celebrated as cultural events can only be deemed expressions in selfishness and therefore lacking in any exoteric sacrificial worship cult? Is this not the antithesis of what it may formerly have been? And is that necessarily a bad thing?
However we are left with the obvious question: If there is no sacrifice (of parents time for their kids, or a mans time for study or learning, of man’s insatiable desire for enjoyment) how can we talk of a cult, or even a culture; for surely all societal or group culture’s will eventually pass away without sacrificing something in order to protect themselves, their offspring or their deities.
PS: If those are your photos and writings on the Early Irish period, stone monuments and sweathouses, I have found them fascinating and highly informative. Well done.
I was thinking of culture in a semi-anthropological sort of way, but without going into it too deeply ;-) (e.g. the semiotics of beards, the raw and the cooked, the Golden Bough, etc.) I try to make my blog as terse or pithy as possible.
Yes, many of the photos of Exhibitionists and Irish Megaliths are indeed mine.
2 comments:
Strangely, I posed exactly the same question to a friend over a beer in Dublin only last week. We decided it was important to define terms to address this question.
In today’s western world Culture could be described as an insatiable appetite for enjoyment and novelty; the wholesale mortgaging of the future to satisfy the appetites of the present.
As I am from Ireland, I assume that Roman Catholicism formed the central belief system for 1600 years which formed our culture. The central act of the Roman Catholic faith, without which it would not be termed Catholic, is the sacrifice of the mass, according to the order of “Milchesidech” (SSPX.org – pamphlet on the Latin Rite). It is claimed that the sacrifice is a spotless and bloodless one, regardless that it is essentially an effigy or show of a murder and the drinking of the victims blood by the high priest to gain the victims “power”.
In pre-Catholic Rome, the act of sacrifice involved fruits, flowers, vegetables and the blood of various animals to the various Gods of The Trojans who brought them to Rome after the Greeks defeated them. Regardless that many were killed and held up on display, I am not sure if this was supposed to be a religious ritual.
In early European Druidic cults it was similar to the Trojans, but they sometimes sacrificed their king if “the people” were not happy with him.
In Abraham’s day it was his firstborn son among other sacrifices. No more need be said about that group as it’s all there in the Torah.
Would you agree, that the “Cult-ure” emanates and is defined by worship practices headed by a minority priesthood; that it requires the emulation or real killing of a sacrificial victim?
If that is the case, the blood rituals of the Catholics and Jews appear to advocate the killing of a victim and depositing their blood on the alter or in their gullets.
The offering of the first fruits and vegetables was abandoned as the central cult of European Cultures, yet this was deemed progress by the revolutionaries.
It does not appear rational that the source of a culture can be defined by a temporal or earthly habit; i.e. the wearing of certain types of clothes, implements, buildings, warfare etc. Given the state of things in Ireland, at least, could it be concluded that Culture has inverted itself and that what is celebrated as cultural events can only be deemed expressions in selfishness and therefore lacking in any exoteric sacrificial worship cult? Is this not the antithesis of what it may formerly have been? And is that necessarily a bad thing?
However we are left with the obvious question: If there is no sacrifice (of parents time for their kids, or a mans time for study or learning, of man’s insatiable desire for enjoyment) how can we talk of a cult, or even a culture; for surely all societal or group culture’s will eventually pass away without sacrificing something in order to protect themselves, their offspring or their deities.
PS: If those are your photos and writings on the Early Irish period, stone monuments and sweathouses, I have found them fascinating and highly informative. Well done.
Dear Darragh,
Thanks for your comment.
I was thinking of culture in a semi-anthropological sort of way, but without going into it too deeply ;-) (e.g. the semiotics of beards, the raw and the cooked, the Golden Bough, etc.) I try to make my blog as terse or pithy as possible.
Yes, many of the photos of Exhibitionists and Irish Megaliths are indeed mine.
ANTHONY
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