Welcome to a miscellaneous node of the Pandeism index!!
Halloween is here,
festival of
fear, time for drinking
beer, have some frightful
cheer!! So what does Halloween have to do with
Pandeism? After all, we know by now that Pandeism has no '
holy days' (or to be more exact, Pandeists believe every day to be equally
holy), but although some religions take just such a position as a reason to avoid festive celebrations, in Pandeism this does not translate to a disdain for '
holidays.' For if, as Pandeism proposes, we are indeed all fragments of a
Creator which has become our Universe -- quite possibly in order to share in the experience of
existence as seen and heard and felt by beings within it -- then it more likely behooves us to garner for ourselves a diverse set of positive and enjoyable experiences, to the extent we can do so without creating net negative experiences for others. Simply put, we ought to have some
fun. If our Creator shares in our experiences (and in fact, any
omnipotent Creator envisioned in any faith ought to), then we ought to share with it fun times. And holidays are fun.
And, yes, there are all sorts of fun holidays. Those occurring around the traditional
Saturnalia can be fun (if certain later-imposed
dull ceremonial chores can be avoided).
Valentine's Day can be
fun.
Cinco de Mayo can be fun. But Halloween is especially suited to notions of having fun, being perhaps the most divorced from its own historic theistic impressions, and having been imbued with one of the most freewheeling and creative holiday themes in its
costumery and treats and kids going door to door to decorated houses (without having to sing for their supper, as it were). And so Pandeism would be quite keen on that.
Halloween has its origins in notions of
ghouls and
ghosts and a sort of sympathetic magic effected through costumes and candies to ward off the same. And Pandeism is sympathetic to the idea of sympathetic, for Pandeism proposes that any reports of '
supernatural' experiences which can not be outrightly dismissed as probable
miscommunications,
misunderstandings,
hallucinations, or
hoaxes are best explained as unconscious manifestations of the experiencing person's own inherent internal power to warp the fabric of our Universe a tiny bit, in a very localized way. Sympathetic magic is predicated on the notion that doing something which simulates a desired effect -- in this instance, the warding off of spirit forces -- brings about the actual desired effect. Just so, Pandeism proposes that simply believing strongly enough that doing something to simulate the desired effect will bring about the desired effect is enough in some instances to bring about that desired effect, if the aim is modest enough and the doer of the deed has an especially talented mind for the task (whether he knows he's doing it or not). Here, indeed, there would be a sort of recursive effect at play. Belief in ghosts makes the believer experience ghosts, possibly even causing others to share in this experience; believing in the effectiveness of methods to ward off ghosts will consequently cause the believer experience the warding off of the 'ghosts' possibly initially called into action, as it were, by the believers own initial belief in them!!
Modernly, Halloween has become a holiday tied with the playful experience of fear, with its
haunted houses and
horror film releases, and yes, even a bit of fear can be fun. I for one will confess, I'm a big fan of schlock horror films; put some zombies or demonic possession or otherworldly abominations, or a pain old psycho killer in the woods in it, and I'm there. Some of my own fellow Pandeists have asked how I can watch that stuff, with all the
violence and
suffering; for me the answer is easy -- it's only a movie. The violence is not real, the suffering is simply acting (often bad acting). And so, for the price of a ticket, I get to experience a range of emotions which I wouldn't in the course of my daily life, without the real threat which would accompany the confrontation of such things in real life. And, I would add, from time to time I go
surfing, and more than once I've been
rock climbing,
bungee jumping, or
scuba diving -- as have some of these same friends -- and every one of these activities poses an actual threat of harm which doesn't exist even in the finest simulation presented in a theater.
Then again, for the
adult, Halloween has an undeniable
sexuality about it, as holidays go, with many more adult-themed costumes promoting hurried sweaty trysts in coat closets and upstairs bedrooms. And
Pandeists like to share in those experiences as well, that we might gift our Creator with sharing in all possible sorts of our pleasures. The bottom line of it being that Halloween is a fun and awesome holiday, and not one of those overbearing theistic guilt-trip holidays, and so onward will we Pandeists party into the night.