In one of my old time favorites from the Moody Blues, they sing of Timothy Leary "on the outside looking in," which I have never understood. I liked the song because of the dreamy Indian-style music, not the lyrics, but the lyrics were always there, positing poor old Tim (a character of cosmic proportions) as some kind of clown. With that spin, we would see Tim as locked outside of humanity, a victim of his own self-induced schizophrenia, a lunatic trying to run the asylum. But the Moody Blues as a band were one of THE acid groups of the late 60's, and one has to think that maybe, just maybe, they were not laughing at him. With that as a starting point, then his "outside" made him that much wiser, a man set apart from the droids most of us usually are.
Or perhaps they meant he was both, a cosmic clown who played the fool only because he knew us to be fools.
I suppose I will never know, but I do know of the stance of self-styled wise men looking in personally as a social scientist. That is what, in fact, social science is all about - disassembling social beliefs and putting them into some theoretical context that proves the social scientist the wise man. You, they, everyone but the social scientist are lost in their own context, unable to see what there beliefs and actions are truly about.
Religion is one of social scientists' greatest benefactors. One of the first books we were to read in depth in graduate school was by armchair sociologist Lewis Henry Morgan, titled Ancient Society, or Researches in the lines of human progress from savagery through barbarism to civilization," published in 1877, when such long titles were fashionable. One might think that he belittled "savages," but he did not; rather he showed how religion reflected group cohesion and, at the same time, buttressed it. It had, at one time, its purposes, although in the "modern era" such primitive beliefs were being supplanted by the bureaucracy of government, a colder yet more efficient means of ensuring group (now national) cohesion. We will not go into his theories any further - I mentioned him only to show the ways of the wise man. He never understood what it FELT like to be alive in the religion and myths of the primitives and barbarians - rather, he sat as a god-like figure above it all, determining what all this mumbo-jumbo was all about. He was, as most social scientists are, on the outside looking in. From the point of view of, say, an aboriginal healer, he might have been the clown; but to many others, especially we zealous graduate students, he was the wise man.
What, though, if one is caught in between, both as a wise man (or clown) looking in, and as a believing participant (or group-thought captive) experiencing from within looking out? I explain my own position by this, in the wake of another 4 day retreat in the Catholic Church, one in which I was practically arm-twisted to play a major role. Unless one is made of iron, after so many hours surrounded by believers, one begins to believe. Not only that, one begins to experience what is referred to as the Holy Spirit. To most social science people, this experience would only be a reflection of group thought and cohesion, but to those who participated, it was indeed a supernatural power that they (we) experienced. To me as anthropologist and religionist, it was both. And being both was not always a comfortable experience.
Let me say this, however: at one point, I received a deep feeling of knowledge, as if from the Holy Spirit. What it showed me unmistakably was that all of us are injured, often tortured souls, even though we can't always see this in ourselves. What the Holy Spirit brings out from those on the inside is this hurt in light of some form of redemption - whether as forgiveness for our guilty selves or in the presentation of our possibilities in the supernatural, or better said, the super-natural world (which includes nature as well as spirit). It is a well-spring of hope and insight into something far greater than we perceive normally. And it is so real that it is super-real, not only feeling more real than real, but intellectually presenting a more-real reality - one that puts us into the context of the vast, ultimately enigmatic cosmos we inhabit. Thus, more encompassing; thus more real; thus, far beyond any normal human insight from either within or without.
The social scientist looking in would never have this experience; rather, he would hear of this phenomena from believers and set it into the more practical, or worldly, framework of his hypothesis. But from the inside, he would be ludicrously simplistic - not necessarily wrong, for religion might cause or reflect group cohesion of ecological balance or whatever, but so short of the total nature of the experience as to look to the believer to be a child - a primitive - himself.
In Catholicism, we have a tradition of patron saints, and I realized during the retreat who mine was: Doubting Thomas of New Testament fame - for I always will be a social scientist, on the outside looking in, and probably (hopefully) will also be one who experiences the super -natural from the inside. "Thomas" means twin, and that is what the practical minded of today often must be, never to be "fooled" by the hocus-pocus of religion, even as they experience the hocus-pocus themselves. Certain people among us will always be torn, as believers who disbelieve. But the stories of the New Testament are not just a stories, but a set of lessons (among many other things), and the lesson here is that even in the secular world - and now the scientific world - there is always room in the spiritual realm for the doubter; for his doubts, if he will allow it, will not keep him from transcending his doubts. And so we have Thomas, not only my saint, but probably the saint for our times. In this, we can laugh and even mock ourselves, even as we fall into the mystery. We can be wise men and clowns at the same time, depending on perspective, making of us just one more aspect of this mystery that always deepens the deeper we go. FK
Or perhaps they meant he was both, a cosmic clown who played the fool only because he knew us to be fools.
I suppose I will never know, but I do know of the stance of self-styled wise men looking in personally as a social scientist. That is what, in fact, social science is all about - disassembling social beliefs and putting them into some theoretical context that proves the social scientist the wise man. You, they, everyone but the social scientist are lost in their own context, unable to see what there beliefs and actions are truly about.
Religion is one of social scientists' greatest benefactors. One of the first books we were to read in depth in graduate school was by armchair sociologist Lewis Henry Morgan, titled Ancient Society, or Researches in the lines of human progress from savagery through barbarism to civilization," published in 1877, when such long titles were fashionable. One might think that he belittled "savages," but he did not; rather he showed how religion reflected group cohesion and, at the same time, buttressed it. It had, at one time, its purposes, although in the "modern era" such primitive beliefs were being supplanted by the bureaucracy of government, a colder yet more efficient means of ensuring group (now national) cohesion. We will not go into his theories any further - I mentioned him only to show the ways of the wise man. He never understood what it FELT like to be alive in the religion and myths of the primitives and barbarians - rather, he sat as a god-like figure above it all, determining what all this mumbo-jumbo was all about. He was, as most social scientists are, on the outside looking in. From the point of view of, say, an aboriginal healer, he might have been the clown; but to many others, especially we zealous graduate students, he was the wise man.
What, though, if one is caught in between, both as a wise man (or clown) looking in, and as a believing participant (or group-thought captive) experiencing from within looking out? I explain my own position by this, in the wake of another 4 day retreat in the Catholic Church, one in which I was practically arm-twisted to play a major role. Unless one is made of iron, after so many hours surrounded by believers, one begins to believe. Not only that, one begins to experience what is referred to as the Holy Spirit. To most social science people, this experience would only be a reflection of group thought and cohesion, but to those who participated, it was indeed a supernatural power that they (we) experienced. To me as anthropologist and religionist, it was both. And being both was not always a comfortable experience.
Let me say this, however: at one point, I received a deep feeling of knowledge, as if from the Holy Spirit. What it showed me unmistakably was that all of us are injured, often tortured souls, even though we can't always see this in ourselves. What the Holy Spirit brings out from those on the inside is this hurt in light of some form of redemption - whether as forgiveness for our guilty selves or in the presentation of our possibilities in the supernatural, or better said, the super-natural world (which includes nature as well as spirit). It is a well-spring of hope and insight into something far greater than we perceive normally. And it is so real that it is super-real, not only feeling more real than real, but intellectually presenting a more-real reality - one that puts us into the context of the vast, ultimately enigmatic cosmos we inhabit. Thus, more encompassing; thus more real; thus, far beyond any normal human insight from either within or without.
The social scientist looking in would never have this experience; rather, he would hear of this phenomena from believers and set it into the more practical, or worldly, framework of his hypothesis. But from the inside, he would be ludicrously simplistic - not necessarily wrong, for religion might cause or reflect group cohesion of ecological balance or whatever, but so short of the total nature of the experience as to look to the believer to be a child - a primitive - himself.
In Catholicism, we have a tradition of patron saints, and I realized during the retreat who mine was: Doubting Thomas of New Testament fame - for I always will be a social scientist, on the outside looking in, and probably (hopefully) will also be one who experiences the super -natural from the inside. "Thomas" means twin, and that is what the practical minded of today often must be, never to be "fooled" by the hocus-pocus of religion, even as they experience the hocus-pocus themselves. Certain people among us will always be torn, as believers who disbelieve. But the stories of the New Testament are not just a stories, but a set of lessons (among many other things), and the lesson here is that even in the secular world - and now the scientific world - there is always room in the spiritual realm for the doubter; for his doubts, if he will allow it, will not keep him from transcending his doubts. And so we have Thomas, not only my saint, but probably the saint for our times. In this, we can laugh and even mock ourselves, even as we fall into the mystery. We can be wise men and clowns at the same time, depending on perspective, making of us just one more aspect of this mystery that always deepens the deeper we go. FK
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