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October 31, 2009
October 30, 2009
Copper Robot: How the occult shaped America
I talked with Mitch Horowitz, author of Occult America: The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation.
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We started out talking about the history of Halloween in America, an ancient Celtic holiday that's become one of the biggest events on the American calendar.
"It has its roots in pre-Christian Celtic practice where you were getting ready for winter and welcoming the ghosts of their ancestors," Horowitz said. Irish immigrants brought Halloween to America in the 1840s, and the holiday evolved over time, adding costumes and Jack o' Lanterns and trick-or-treating.
Now, Halloween is returning to its religious roots, as Wiccans take it up. Horowitz predicted that soon Halloween will be recognized as a religious holiday.
We turned to Horowitz's book, which he describes as essentially a history of the powerful influence the occult has had in America. "Occult beliefs have had a very serious influence, a liberalizing influence on a lot of our politics, and a very powerful and unseen impact on how we think about spirituality in America," Horowitz said.
"There are certain things that Americans expect from their churches, from their religions," Horowitz said. "They expect religion to be therapeutic, they expect it to be a kind of healing force, they expect it to come up with practical ideas and solutions to the problems of day-to-day existence.
"These ideas were almost unheard of about a hundred and fifty years ago. But as a culture of occult and alternative spirituality really took shape in America and took off with a kind of bounding popularity in the mid-19th Century, it changed our religion. And America became a laboratory for all kinds of ideas that later came to be called New Age or alternative religion, and exported this stuff all around the world. So occult and esoteric movements in America need to be written in to our religious history if we're going to understand our religious history.
"To ignore them is to misunderstand how many aspects of our politics and our culture and our spirituality took shape in modern America.
"My whole aim in writing this book was not to get caught up in the truth or falsity of the beliefs. I wanted to understand the impact of the beliefs. If one were to hold any religion up to the mirror of truth or falsehood, I don't think any could pass."
Horowitz said: "If the validity of Judaism is based on whether Moses really parted the Red Sea, that's got to be pretty shaky ground on which to base a belief system. But if someone could disprove to me the validity of the historical Moses--maybe such a man never walked the Earth--it does not reduce the validity of 'thou shalt not steal,' or 'thou shalt not kill.'
"Similarly, even if you could disprove Cayce's clairvoyance, it wouldn't reduce the experience people had in getting advice from him. Cayce introduced 'karma,' 'clairvoyance,' 'psychic' and 'reincarnation' into the American lexicon.
"Karma became part of our outlook on life. Even if we don't believe it's literally true, it's still a pretty good way to live, to believe that whatever I visit upon my neighbor in some way or another will get visited upon me."
We talked about the dark side of occult beliefs in America, from the occult roots of the neo-Nazi movement to deaths in a sweatlodge ceremony just a few weeks ago.
And we also discussed Christian Science, Abraham Lincoln's occult connections, how Horowitz became interested in occult history, and more. Listen or watch now.
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October 27, 2009
Next on Copper Robot: "Life, Inc." author Douglas Rushkoff
Join us for a conversation with author Douglas Rushkoff. We'll talk about his latest book, Life, Inc.: How the World Became A Corporation And How To Take It Back.
WHEN: Sunday, Nov. 1, 6 pm Pacific time (which is the same as Second Life Time).
WHERE: The lovely Seaside Theater, World2Worlds Island in Second Life, or watch the live video on the Web.
Life, Inc. looks at how corporatism and consumerism have turned us from human beings into producing-consuming machines. In our conversation with the author, we'll talk about how we got here, and what we should do about it.
Rushkoff is hardly the first guy to point out that we've gotten focused on consuming rather than creating, watching TV rather than connecting with our neighbors, and we've come to rely on big business to do for us what we used to do for ourselves, or for each other. But Rushkoff makes it all seem fresh, illustrating his points with research and anecdotes.
We'll talk to Rushkoff about those things, and also about what we should do to take back our society and lives. Don't worry, you won't have to wear hemp clothing and live in a yurt.
Rushkoff has written 10 books on the media, technology and culture. Previous books include Get Back In The Box: Innovation from the Inside Out, Open Source Democracy, the graphic novel Club Zero-G, and Nothing Sacred: The Truth About Judaism. His book Cyberia: Life in the Trenches of Cyberspace, published in 1994, looked at the cyberpunk digital counterculture of the period. He teaches at the New School University, serves as technology columnist for The Daily Beast, and lectures around the world. Catch his program, the Media Squat, on the radio at WFMU or available as a podcast.
Join us for a fascinating conversation with one of the best minds of the Internet.
From Copper Robot. 
iTunes
October 23, 2009
October 16, 2009
Listen to my Copper Robot interview about same-sex marriage
I talked with Pamela Brown, national policy director of Marriage Equality USA about why same-sex marriage is important, and the status of the fight to get it legalized all over the United States.
Brown described how same-sex marriage benefits states in many ways. Businesses profit from wedding-related spending. But that's not the important part. "Mostly, the stronger that our family structures are, the more we are able to support and protect each other. That's not just a benefit for us as individuals, it benefits for society as a whole. It makes our communities stronger and allows us the opportunity to prosper the way we need to," Brown said.
Civil unions, with all the legal rights of marriage, but without the name, are an alternative to same-sex marriage. But they're not good enough, Brown said. She cited the example of her own relationship; she and her spouse have been together nearly 14 years. After five years, they registered as domestic partners, with a commitment ceremony. But friends, family, and the community found it confusing, people don't really know what a "domestic partnership" is.
Last year, Brown and her partner married. "The way we were treated after that-- I was surprised. People pretty well know we're together, we've been together a long time and involved in supporting this issue of marriage equality. But when you can go out and say 'we're married,' people get it. We were treated differently by the businesses we dealt with, whether it was the insurance company or jewelers or just talking to neighbors and co-workers.
"We said we got married and the first thing they said was 'congratulations,'" Brown said. "When we said we registered as domestic partners, they said, 'What does that mean?'
"Marriage is something that's understood and very important in society, and civil unions and domestic partnerships will never be the same thing."
That was just a few minutes of our discussion. We also talked about the legal and political work being done to get same-sex marriage recognized In California and Maine and other states, as well as on a federal level. We talked about whether it's fair to decide the issue in the courts, and whether legalizing same-sex marriage would infringe the rights of religions that consider same-sex marriage wrong.
And don't forget: Mitch Horowitz, author of Occult America: The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation is our guest Sunday. Join us for the live interview. Hope to see you there!
From Copper Robot. iTunes
October 12, 2009
Next on Copper Robot: Occult America
Join us for a conversation with Mitch Horowitz, author of Occult America: The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation.
WHEN: Sunday, Oct. 18, 7 pm (SPECIAL TIME)
WHERE: The lovely Seaside Theater, World2Worlds Island in Second Life, or watch the live video on the Web.
For our Halloween program, we'll talk about how mysticism, Spiritualism and belief in the occult have been important to the US from its very beginning. George Washington and other Founders were Freemasons, Abraham Lincoln consulted with mediums, and occult beliefs shape pop culture to this very day, in the hip-hop music of Jay-Z and the recently released bestselling novel The Lost Symbol by Dan The Da Vinci Code Brown. And of course, Halloween itself is a massive celebration of the occult.
You don't have to believe in mystic secrets and talking to the dead to recognize the powerful effect occult beliefs have had on our nation. Occult practitioners helped shape some of the best things about America, such as equal rights for women and the abolition of slavery. Occult practices here have always been given an uniquely American stamp, used for self-improvement, with do-it-yourself techniques, and connected with progressive political causes.
Horowitz is a writer and publisher on metaphysical themes. He has appeared on the History Channel, The Montel Williams Show, CBS News Sunday Morning, and just completed a stint guest-blogging on one of my favorite blogs, Boing Boing. As editor-in-chief of Tarcher/Penguin in New York, he has published some of today's leading titles on world religion, esoterica, and the metaphysical.
Join us for a fascinating discussion.
From Copper Robot. iTunes
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