Modern art shows the state our of social mindset.

I am doing some more work with Campbells' stuff in the IP and a thought hit me. Campbell says that art is a depiction of our myths. Myths are a depiction of our inner journies or relationship with nature. Modern art is shown to disregard traditional artistic technique and depictions, and to be very open to experimentation. In my own opinion, it often is a messy affair with very little that I enjoy to it. It lacks form and coherent structure from what I have seen. Now I am no art major so please bear with any lack of knowledge of artistic technique or history.

This in my eyes shows the state of the modern man and his relationship with myths and ritual. We are casting off tradition and with nothing to replace it, people are lacking structure and form in the spiritual lives. It is most strongly visible in our youth. We lack rights of passage and rituals for adulthood. Kids are not taught how to be adults in most cases and there is no clear sign that they are adults for most children. Its just boom hit 18 and whelp you are an adult now figure it out.

I will also add that I feel men need these rights of passage even more. With young ladies having their first menstrual cycle is at least a sort of physical right of passage that indicates coming age. Young men have no such individual sign for their own approaching manhood. This is not to say that I do not support such rituals/rights for both genders. Just that I think women at least have some natural benchmark to go by that men lack.

So my questions are as follows:

Do you feel we need rituals and rights of passage?

Do you have your own rituals or rights of passage?

How could we develop such a thing as Jedi and should we?

Please chime in with anything else relevant.

Well, thanks to the "Nuclear family" I guess these things are up to the parents

going to Big School, getting a holiday job, kissing a girl (or whatever), these are sort of the Benchmarks I suppose we expect.

You start to earn money, pay taxes, operate a vehicle - these are (or were? the times they are a changing) the aspects of Adulthood you took on from 13-18 years old before being an "adult" no longer protected by your parents.


Campbell is upset because we don't have spooky tents and fires and face paint and chanting, but we still have our little rituals.

How often, when hearing that someone "doesn't have a licence" are we shocked that they did not complete that little ritual, to earn their adulthood?



We have a thing called "schoolies" where after final exams, senior students all get together in some destination (ideally one with a beach, away from their parents and teachers and other fuddy duddies) and get drunk, do drugs, have sex, get into fights, and sometimes drown or die in traffic accidents or falling off balconies)

If you want a visceral sort of "ritual", that's probably the best that springs to my mind.


Edit: apparently they made a song about it -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whcpgF6aEA0

JC has a book called Myths to live by.
A definite must read if you like his writings. In it and during his life the man validated everything. He went to talk with the tribes and the gurus and the actual story tellers. One of his main ideas as I readjust stuff is in a lot of his writings is to find them and see it they are for you. His idea of learning them and then picking the ones that apply is a main reason I like him in the IP. This idea of ... there are many other ideas out there and you can pick and choose your own to create your own life has changed the way I view life. Never do I read him saying this one is right or they are the absolute . He never fimger points that out. That I admire.
For me I had rituals and rights of passage. All non productive and very distructive . Some were not pass worthy, in other words my family willNOT be doing the same as I did. I have studied many difrent cultures and many difrent ideas . I've adopted my own. Many difrent ones but all on my own now. Today as I see in my life my friends and family they have lacked for a better discription, a thought out and pass worthy path for each other littlenon their own, themselfs. Some of us are cycle breakers. I am one of the many. Now rather than pass the destructive past I give a better more passable example . Passable meaning something you can teach some one and be proud of aka ... character worthy action.
Being Jedi I choose to use syncretism ceartain ways . One way is to serve and gather . I've searched and searched and have literally found thousands of good character examples in literature song movies and in myth. One ritual I do that can be given to all is on the birthday of a loved one I say , it is time to pass some good wisdom. This kinna means if you wanna do it right you kinna have had to been paying attention. Kinna like Christmas gifts , u want underware the wrong style color and size or ... something worth having a , true gift. For me same goes with the rituals , I got dozens but the main idea is to give wisdom and guidance at moments and tons of encouragement.
I feel we all can benifit from that one individual that's encouraging or guiding or even just there to offer assistance , true assistance and guidance in life. We can all benifit from that heart in our life. I did and I now I am once what I needed , That heart. I build up every chance I get , I myself became the very thing I was lacking. That being said that takes a lot of thought and time and discipline And character , which is the whole reason in my opinion for ritual, to pass something worth having.

Harry asked the wizard how can I keep my son safe and the wizard says of all people you gunna ask ME that... paraphrasing of course then he says trouble will come, it's our job to give them the .... abilitys to over come them not take it on for them. . . Still paraphrasing but you get the idea. Rituals to me and how I practice is to insert character into a life as examples or even the possible reminder that there can be another way or even more benifishal way. Or even more than just one way. For specifics just ask I could chat all night ifnu let me about JC . But those are my personal and practicing answer for your 3 questions , hope they help.

I agree with you about modern art, great point!!, but not so much about the lacking of ritual for men. Puberty brings more then enough action downstairs to classify as ground for ritual IMO. So I wouldn't say its the lack of tools but lack of structure as ritual, but then girls don't get that either with menstruation so.... perhaps the ritual is just the dealing with of the personal experience in it.

And none of those topics are really that inviting to social interaction but what they lose in fixing oneself into commune with adults they gain by granting new power to the person as adult - the transformation is real, and so ritual representation seems almost unnecessary. What might be needed is acceptance or acknowledgement perhaps, but this does happen also by society giving them rights and responsibilities as an adult. Which makes me wonder does a person need to know they've been in a ritual to have gone through the ritual... probably not I guess, and how are we defining ritual!?

Do you feel we need rituals and rights of passage - For me it was getting my first car. It denoted the freedom that served to mark the rights and responsibilities associated with being an adult. I got to drive among other adults in a space only adults could drive, and I got to decide where and when I drove obviously.
I was lucky enough to be able to get one as early as legally possible so it worked well in that regard. Getting a proper full time paid job might have worked also, but I'd down unpaid and casual work in earlier years so that was rather diluted for this purpose. A downside might be at that point we are still not fully adult by some measures, as not only do people mature at different rates, but the brain doesn't stop its adolescent phase of development till the mid-20's apparently!! Which is interesting to consider that historically lifespans were so short most people probably died without finishing that brain development phase!!

Do you have your own rituals or rights of passage - For me becoming a Jedi was a mid-life shift of focus. Creating a new higher dimension frame of reference above and outside but to reference directly with my societal and familial one of normal living prior. I tend to explore routines, but I'm not sure they classify as ritual just because they tend to be more a scaffold for growth to both emerge and reconstruct itself, rather then a rigid gateway or mold.

How could we develop such a thing as Jedi and should we - Am unsure if we should, but for me to have them along the path does serve as a tool in that path's progress. They are dictated by their own accomplishment though, the eating is of growing, not the arriving.

Some interesting words from a random webpage;

Eva Weaver wrote: The distinction I see between performance and ritual is that often ritual suppress risk by wrapping up the cultural performance of a ritual within the expectation that the ritual will be meaningful and conform to the society and that the meaning is derived from the history of the ritual. Where performance art uses the meaning of the piece to form the basis of the performance of it. Performance art is about an action which is shown as an expression of an idea or a world view in an art, which is rooted in human culture. I have observed that performance art may be made of several acts which unlike theatre can have real consequences (wounds, or even death). Bakhtin suggests that the artist lives through his or her personal myths in front of the audience. He said that it is the artist’s experience which counts. He sugests, that “performance” appears to be the continuation of semiotics by other means.
Ritual is usually an interactive experience where participants are both active and know what is involved within the roles allotted them. Most rituals but not all of them, are a collection of residual sacramental enthusiasm which society follow as a complicated cultural script which do included rituals of betrothals and other special events. These cultural scripts highlight the need of society to perform to cultural expectations. Enacting this script allows the person to derive meaning from the ritual itself. While making each occasion simultaneously traditional and unique.

source

And imo the prognosis is even worse if, when you say "art", you also mean "the arts" (particularly music, film, and drama), which have to a great degree become extremely shallow, formulaic, and mercantile. Of course there is no way toreally suppress actual artistry, because true artists will make art even when it means they arent making money (and because anyone who is capable of honesty is capable of art to some extent), but art and the arts have become big business, and there are some serious drawbacks (as well as the obvious benefits) to that.
Now that they are ultra-high revenue enterprizes, which serve as cash cows for the producers and as delivery systems for totally unrelated products and services, production companies, studios, sponsors, and advertisers are the real powers behind the arts these days, which means that the flashy and shallow (and above all: SAFE) get prioritized, while those who want to make real art (something vulnerable and honest and deeply personal) often find that breakthrough moment constantly out of reach.

Its not enough to make good art, you have to make (and BE) a good PRODUCT. And you have to come to the table and DEAL. And those prodcucts and deals often require much of the artistry to be dulled and diluted. Record companies want sex and drugs, movie studios want the hottest physiques and the ability to deliver witty quips. Our stories are rehashes of the same themes, and simplified, dumbed down to please the lowest common denominator.

One of the defects of modern culture imo is that it celebrates its own shallowness, and you can see this most clearly in the arts.

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Rites of Passage

I wont even bother talking about women here, as life has made it quite clear to me that i dont understand them very well, even though i like them quite a lot lol

Men no longer have clear models of masculinity. It seems we arent even allowed to have them, as we're constantly told masculinity itself "toxic".
So a rite of passage into manhood isnt really possible because (like jediism) there is no clear vision of what manhood is, anymore. Also like jediism, i guess its up to us to comeup with that vision. To reclaim what was powerful and useful in the old views and adapt them to the new context. To "rescue our dead fathers from the underworld" as j peterson would say, lol.

We have a lot of little milestones like James mentioned, (and Adder, with his car) but do they fulfill the same purpose? Sometimes yes, sometimes no.
Id guess that the most useful R.O.P. would be something that puts us in the situation of finding (thus proving) our courage and our competence (or just our power), and of accepting our responsibilities as men and as male members of society. I think a lot of us turn to various other things -- the military for some, as an example. For many males today, doing time in jail or prison is the closest thing to a rite of passage there is. Sports probably fill that role for many, and quite a lot of us use success in our careers to validate our manhood.

If you asked me, i would say some of the core themes of masculinity have to do with courage and competence, the ability to face and to utilize violence, reliability and trust worthiness, and long term dedication/effort. Thats the first draft only, not the final product lol. But basically I think its impossibe to develop a reliable passage-way into manhood before we develop at least a working conception of what manhood is.

• Do you feel we need rituals and rights of passage?

Yes. As I too learned from Campbell, most older societies have rights of passage that make growing up seem more important. In most western countries, it's just a huge grey area where kids are adults and adults are kids. No one knows what to do or be anymore. There's no dividing line between childhood and adulthood. A birthday can't determine that you're suddenly grown up.

• Do you have your own rituals or rights of passage?

I did, at one time. When my mentor Mitth was training me to be a Jedi, he taught me that becoming one is a sort of realization, not necessarily a ritual that makes you one. You just lknow.

• How could we develop such a thing as Jedi and should we?

I'm a little dubious about this because it would seem that any ritual created here would be limited to TOTJO's curriculum, and not everyone follows that.

Modern art is shown to disregard traditional artistic technique and depictions, and to be very open to experimentation. In my own opinion, it often is a messy affair with very little that I enjoy to it. It lacks form and coherent structure from what I have seen.

I'm about to do something that is very TOTJO-esque in nature that has always irritated me a bit:

How do you (personally, not dictionary-ly) define art? Rather, what do you define the purpose of art to be?

Ritual would be a great Degree module topic, a lot of examples all over the world through time. It would be great if a Degree program could generate or attract subject matter experts!

I'd define art as anything which contrasts a subjective interpretations against each other. It's either fashionable or timeless IMO, if its the former then it relates to other parts of society in a contemporary context, but if its timeless it speaks to more concrete values perhaps exhibited best by science and those shared inherent individual experiences like emotions and passions etc. How we judge it is probably just how it relates to our values and experiences, so everyone has a slightly different take, but often many people will agree.