Kate and spirituality

[Goddess in Training <rrosen@falcon.cc.ukans.edu>]

> From: chrisw@miso.wwa.com (Chris Williams)
> Subject: Re: Kate and Spirituality: No Responce??
> Date: Wed, 04 Oct 95 03:20:14 GMT
> 
> >I'm sure some know--it's just that this question has been bantered about
> >for nearly twenty years and, I think, many people,  especially among the
> >Lovehounds, are a bit bored by the subject.  Listen to the music, read the
> >lyrics, watch the videos, and come to your own conclusion.  
> 
>    Some of us have come to the conclusion that the only accurate term is
> "religious diliatante" (sp?). Kate was raised as a Catholic by parents

Not a flame here, just an opinion.  I'd use the word "eclectic" or 
"syncretic" over "dilitante" because dilitante implies that one isn't 
serious about something, that one is just playing at doing something.  
Kate's spiritual beliefs, whatever they are exactly, may be rather varied 
and not drawn from one source, but she seems to be sincere in them, or at 
least sincere in how she expresses them through her art.
[information on various spiritual interests of Kate deleted to save bandwith]

>    Following the death of her mother she apparently reached out to "Lily"
> some sort of spirtualist. 
> 
Lily doesn't seem to be a spiritualist to me.  Spiritualism refers to the 
attempts to contact the dead via such methods as Ouija boards, table 
tapping, seances, etc.  The spiritualist movement was extremely popular 
at the turn of the century, especially among bourgeois women, and the 
serious occultist and magicians (such as the ceremonialist magicians like 
the Golden Dawn or Aleister Crowley) frowned upon it as being either 
foolish or even dangerous because untrained and uneducated people were 
messing around with spirits they did not understand.  Of course, to the 
normal world, both the spiritualists and mages tend to be treated as 
total kooks, so they tend to get confused in the public eye (as they are, 
in some ways, part of the same general movement in society).

IMHO (and I have no proof of this, only what I've gleaned from Kate's 
work, and I've yet to get the chance to see /+( ), Lily is most probably 
some sort of English traditionalist Wiccan, most probably Alexandrian 
over Garnderian because of the Lower Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram in 
the song "Lily."  Even though all modern Wicca (I'm ignoring the endless 
debate on whether Wicca is ancient or modern here--r.m.g. is *not* the 
place for it) comes out of the ceremonial magick movement of the turn of the 
century, Alexandrians tend to incorporate more CM practices such as the 
LBRP than do other Wiccans.  Some people have said that the ring of fire is 
specifically Wiccan imagery, but I'm not Wiccan, and I've never run into 
it in my readings into the matter or discussions with Wiccans.  

I also don't think that Kate is Wiccan, unless she's a Wiccan-Christian 
mix (which does happen more often than alot of people want to admit).  On 
_The Red Shoes_ even she uses both Wiccan/magickal imagery ("Lily") and 
Christian imagery ("Why Should I Love You"), although not in the same 
songs.  OTOH, she might only *believe* in one of the various traditions 
and religions she draws upon or she might not in the literal sense 
believe in *any* of them.  She might just be using them for their imagery 
and the insights into the human condition that they illustrate.  
Especially if she's coming from a magickal or Pagan background, there is 
a higher than average chance of her literally not believing in any sort of 
external deity or in external spirits--although not all mages and Pagans 
don't believe in literal gods or goddesses, many do not, especially when 
compared to religions such as mainstream Christianity.  Instead various 
deities can be seen as archetypes, symbols, aspects of the self, etc.  
Also, various religious paths are often seen as different ways of 
achieving the same thing.  A belief such as this one often leads to 
ecclectic and syncretic religious practice.

Not a flame, just a minor point of corrections/clarifications.

--'--,-{@  --,--'-{@  --'--,-{@                                               
Renee Rosen                   "Dear Mr. Manson, have you heard of or seen
rrosen@falcon.cc.ukans.edu     a man from Wisconsin by the name of Ed Gein?
Goddess in Training            You helped me discover The Beatles and Stones,
Astrud and Astarte on irc      but he turned me on to the beauty of bones."
LadyGodiva on the DivWeb                            --The Fibonaccis
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