Lecture XIX, "Other Considerations," is James tying up final loose ends before concluding his work. This lecture series has moved through the human hardware (Lecture I), the outward expressions of the healthy (Lectures IV and V) and sick (Lectures VI and VII) souls and how the mind is fractured into the later (Lecture VIII), as well as the crystallization of religious practices into saintliness (Lectures XI, XII, and XIII), and mysticism (Lectures XVI and XVII), to the disciplined formalizations found in philosophy (Lecture XVIII). The cycle has moved from the physical to the mental, to the spiritual, and then the intellectual. The remaining odds and ends to be addressed are relating to actions and events that happen in the life of a religious person.

Why does a person choose a given religion over another? One point James makes is in its aesthetics. The cohesion set forth by a unifying imagery is motivating. The emotions stirred by a given setting, its iconography, and the extent to which a person can feel comfortable practicing in that physical space are included under this umbrella (458-459). One such action is that of confession. Similar to how James outlines purity and a purging of one's self as a characteristic of saintliness, confession is the formalized sacrament by which the Catholics undergo this process in a demarcated religious setting.

Prayer is another topic addressed here. James includes accounts of effective prayer, such as Muller (467-471), where prayer becomes a test of faith and patience and the vehicle by which manifestation is set into motion. Again, I am reminded of Goddard, who taught a different form of prayer as "dwelling in the end of the action fulfilled," as in, assuming and approximating the state of a desired outcome as it it were presently manifested. In the formalized religious setting, this takes place in an institution like a church, but writers like Belanger warn that prayer in this sense in not without its potential pitfalls. They write, even if the religious fervor is congregationally generated, its lack of singular direction affects its overall efficacy.

There is additional commentary on inspiration and revelation as well. The former is the event where one becomes the acting instrument of a higher physical power (479) and the later is the transmission of wisdom for action (481-483). James remarks that these sudden flashes of insight can seep into the conscious from the subconscious sphere, such as the case with Muhammed (481) where many of the tenets of Islam are transmitted to him.

As with the previous lecture on philosophy, this lecture is bringing about considerably reflection on my part. The rapid procession through a gauntlet of these topics led to an initial discriminatory response that reveals weakness in my character. I confront in myself an attraction to Christianity based on its aesthetic; I understand my enduring interest in philosophy as merely that, a transient interest. This religious pessimism could be diagnosed by James as that of a sick soul. "Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher; all is vanity" as goes Ecclesiastes 12:8.

To be blunt, now I don't know what to do. The image of a person going to seminary and reading philosophy books is idolatry. The motivation still persists to see my soul, but quite clearly, these objects are obscuring my view. The joy in meditation is still present, but now I must find a remedy for the sickness brought about by weighing my soul down with idols as to what I intellectualized it to be.

How does one overcome such a crisis?

["Mysticism" is spread across two lectures, but combined in one chapter in the CLC edition of the text.]

Before discussing James' remarks on mysticism, I will attempt a provisional account based on my own reading and experience. A significant backdrop of my religious upbringing, involving mix of Lutheranism and Catholicism, shows that mysticism was an understanding of God few members of the faith would achieve. Its parameters were vague, but as a child, I felt an otherworldly serenity ascribed to Catholic saints, both in their verbal description and iconography. St. Dominic's encouraged prayer to certain saints, such as petitioning St. Anthony for the return of lost items. Confirmation at Redeemer Lutheran, conversely, emphasized the forgiving aspect of Jesus Christ in the New Testament, that he was an avatar for the forgiveness of God and it is through his appearance and subsequent passing in the world that the relationship of God and world fundamentally changes. My confirmation taught that some stories like Adam and Eve were etymological, not historical, but this congregation seemed set on the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth. In both cases, the mystic was the Christian adept, the person whose relationship to God had a greater sense of immediacy than the average churchgoer. It was not accompanied by words, but a greater sense of certainty in Christlike conduct.

Education in philosophy provided a much different route on understanding mysticism. One of the few mentor figures I have had in my lifetime, Dr. Frank Hoffman, would repeat the Buddhist adage "mountains are mountains, rivers are rivers" during my undergraduate career. This is a confirmation of the empirical world as taken in by the bodily sense. From this initial saying, "mountains are not mountains, rivers not rivers," would be introduced as the second term of this formulation. This is the beginning of grappling with an illusion, that despite the snapshot relayed by the eyes, with this second phrase is an understanding that the physical world is transient, that things will not remain as they appear. Finally, he would say once again, "mountains are mountains, rivers are rivers," which I would understand as acceptance, that temporality becomes wordless, but intuited, and peace would follow this intuition as nothing further *needed* to be said.

Here, the element of wordlessness presented itself yet again, and as seen in my Christian upbringing, there was a change in the person ensuing this state of wordlessness. The Christian adept was better equipped for Christlike action, and the Buddhist finishing this three-part phrase was better equipped to make peace with the nature of transience.

These situations beg multiple questions. What *is* this wordless state one enters, and what do we do upon return, when other of people, community, and so on resume? For James, mysticism is not objective in the same way the laws of natural science are; the mystical state of consciousness may have commonalities across those experiencing it, but how it manifests and what it implications it carries for the individual after its cessation are personal, not intelligible, but present and subsequently unforgettable with unflinching certainty (422, 428).

The use of negation is one that must be done away with, as any limiting factor on contact with the Absolute denies the fullness of the wider reality outside of human reality that is essential to mysticism. In Hegelian terms, this is sublation, where any potential Other is absorbed into Spirit, what for Hegel is the Absolute, and it is this Becoming as process that gives a hint toward the nature of wider reality, and intellectualizing this in philosophy is what James calls the artificial mystic state of mind (389). James will later quote Pseudo-Dionysius, as accounting for the Absolute solely in terms of the negative because words cannot capture the absolute, only move closer to its approximation by denying all which it is not, which is inherently everything, paradoxically rendering it as Nothing, or at the least, nothing fixed and definable (416-417).

James provides three key takeaways on mysticism. (1) Mystical states are authoritative over the person experiencing them upon sufficient development, (2) mystical states have no authority outside of the person having the mystical experience, and (3) mystical states point to other states of consciousness and other truths that exist outside of consensus human reality and the world of sense-perception (422-423). For James, the mystical state itself can be brought on to a receptive individual through language and music (383), drug use (387), nature (394), and techniques like yoga (398) and meditation (402-403). Here, I find the state of wordlessness I understood intellectually and described at the beginning of this entry combined with the awareness of a wider reality given by James' description. The experience is ineffable, and trying to capture its contents in words feels futile. Perhaps James summarizes it best in stating "[m]ystical truths exist for the individual who has the transport, but for no one else" (405).

There is a sense of feeling at a loss in writing here. Providing my own accounts of psychosis, drug use, dreams, or meditation is not going to capture the topic in a manner useful to anyone else; those anecdotes would be intellectually masturbatory and perhaps nothing more. What James does in these two lectures is provide accounts to verify the mystical experience through loose consistencies that can be observed in persons having them. Yet, in all cases, the content is not something that can be transmitted outside of a given individual. However, we can say that the mystical experience is potentially a formative one in that its stark, immediate, and radical difference to waking, physical reality can be the catalyst for personal transformation.

["Saintliness" is spread across three lectures, but combined in one chapter in the CLC edition of the text.]

James has circled back to his original guiding questions of "what are religious propensities" and "what is their philosophical significance" in this trio of lectures titled "Saintliness." Thus far, the former question has been answered in preceding lectures on the reality of an unseen world, its affects as religious experiences that elevate the soul of the healthy-minded, or fracture the soul of the melancholy. Both groups have the capacity for the experience of conversion, where the paradigm of the individual's respective consciousness shifts, transforming the individual into a happier, more whole being. James discusses moments where a person reports losing their sense of identity, only to be confronted with an experience ineffably greater than that of mundane human life, and moments of surrender to this higher power that are accompanied by a higher joy than anything found on Earth. Now it is time to answer the later question, what are the fruits cultivated by such experiences?

The task set out is twofold: first, James will describe the results of religious life, and second, a value judgment will be determined in order to assess these results (259). He says, people are prone to "differing susceptibilities of emotional excitement" (261) that inform different impulses and inhibitions as the inner conditions which comprise one's character. In other words, the push-and-pull of the inner influences impacting outward behaviors and the ensuing attitudes one takes toward them form a psychological complex which is unique to the individual. It is here James notes that a fruit of the religious life is the diminished presence of inhibitions, religious life bringing about a permanent higher insight one may draw upon (267-268).

Saintliness is thus the collection of qualities cultivated as a result of religious life. James defines four traits of the saintly character, manifested outwardly in four distinct ways. The saintly individual is prone to (1) a feeling of existing in a life wider than the boundaries of their ego-mind, (2) a willingness to surrender to the control of a higher power, (3) euphoria brought on by the melting down of one's ego-mind, (4) a shifting of the emotional center tending toward affirmation and harmony. James states these inner conditions are expressed as (a) asceticism as the passion of self-surrender, (b) strength where personal interests become insignificant, acting toward a cause greater than the self, (c) purification, as in, treating earthly weakness, and (d) charity, actions beneficial to all, even the enemies of the saintly individual (271-274).

The examples set thereafter detail accounts of these inner conditions reflected in outward actions. One example provided is the account of Bill Bray, a man who encounters an unseen reality through hearing the voice of God instructing him to "Worship me with clean lips" and then proceeds to surrender to this higher power, and life an ascetic life free of smoking and chewing tobacco in an ongoing effort to purify himself (290-291). Another account of saintliness comes from St. John of the Cross, where the mystic's provisions for conduct are of denial. In denying all that does not please God, in resolving to "know nothing" and "be nothing... desiring Nothing" (304-306).

What these accounts show are the ideals of saintly character particularized in individuals, manifested by their actions and retained in the consistency of their attitudes. For Bray, purifying the self comes in part through the action of ceasing tobacco use, a habit which made him impure. For St. John of the Cross, the solution to the fleeting nature of attachment is in the removal of earthly desires, which reaps the reward of encounter with God as the All. Shown in both accounts are that a recognizing of and, to borrow a term from Heidegger, being-towards God as that which is greater than personal desires or earthly life. The differences between others are reconciled under the providence of God, as the saint sees all life as God's creation.

"Only those who have no private interests can follow an ideal straight away" (319) James says, in discussing the path of the saint. It is here I am reminded of a recent post I made in the UGC discussion group on ritual practice. I have been wondering the significance of mentally forming shapes, lighting them with given colors, and intensifying their visualizations; exercises that I have repeated countless times at this point. The effort to hone the mind's focus feels too simple. My new ongoing thesis is a Platonic one: it is an exercise in manifesting a form in three-dimensional space, training the mind to engage with a higher reality. Reading this chapter, I see the saints practice this across the examples James provides in these lectures. These are people who encounter higher reality through their actions, seeing the events that solely take place on Earth as transient and trading an interest in them in favor of a pursuit of the Divine.

Yet, the judgment on the value of a saintly character has not been conclusively described. Surely, there are the practical considerations, ie, the benefits charity has toward others, the benefits of giving up harmful behaviors like tobacco use, that are implied. However, accounts mentioned by like that of Suso, whose acts of extreme asceticism and self-purification that in practice appear as a form of masochism as a taming of the body out of a pursuit of God do not initially seem to share the same practical benefits. James ends these lectures as a guidepost for what is to come: the value derived from saintliness, to be discussed in the next chapter.

Lecture IX, "Conversion," begins a discussion on the shifting of consciousness via religious experience. It follows from the previous lecture on the divided self; where that lecture concludes that a unification of the psyche heals the divided self, this lecture examines that healing process as one of conversion to a new psychic baseline. The disparate parts of the divided self are reconciled into a a whole greater than its former constituents, firmer in resolve, and happier overall in result (189).

My initial understanding of this is the idea of the "born-again Christian," the person who has completed a transformation and now lives differently as a result. One example I immediately thought of is the musician Dave Mustaine; a member of Metallica kicked out of the band who would form the group Megadeth in the early 1980s to achieve success in an act to spite his old bandmates. Mustaine was fired from Metallica for issues with drugs and alcohol, which would continue into his career as the Megadeth frontman. Despite multiple platinum albums and several Grammy nominations, this success was plagued with intermittent periods of rehab stints.

Once Mustaine grew so physically weak from his addictions that he could no longer play guitar, he experienced his own conversion. After doctors told him he would be unable to recover to the point where his hands were too weak to play the instrument, he said he experienced a vision of himself on a cross in 2002. "What have I got to lose" he said, and then converted to Christianity, giving up all substances and disavowing black magick. He made a full recovery, and his band would eventually win their first Grammy in 2017 for the song "Dystopia," an anthem comparing the fractured consciousness and physically-weak body to a society out of control, discusses James' method of surrendering to a higher power and experiencing conversion through the lyrical metaphor of "the quickest way to end a war is lose."

This lecture is filled with such examples; people get fed up with their lives as they currently live them, surrender them, and then in that surrender make room for a higher consciousness to blossom. Another example I can offer comes from the myth of the Shani Mahatmya, translated as "The Greatness of Saturn." In it, a king is ignorant of the ways suffering in the physical world can lead to self-transformation, and is then subject to an intense period of suffering, losing his status as a King and becoming an oil extractor after being falsely convicted as a thief, away from his kingdom. The dramatic change from the top to the bottom of the social order humbles him, and when confronted by Saturn in the form of Shani years after the initial fall from grace, the god shares his truth that all are subject to law of karma, and in the surrendering of the ego mind, one may finally transcend the cycle of reincarnation.

I offer these examples as a means of mirroring James' lecturing style. He illustrates the personal topic of religion by using personal experiences, and in writing this post, I bring up a musician and the figure of a god. As a psychologist, James is expounding upon the concept of psychic healing and conscious integration, and the topic of religious conversion not only continues the previous lectures of an unhappy self, subjected to a sick soul, characterized by a divided self, but then moves to a resolution. This resolution comes about in the form of a change, whether gradual or sudden, the result of which is the formerly divided person becomes whole and their lifestyle and beliefs change. For many, that change is brought about by figures of Christ and the use of scripture, but the common theme is that it is a higher power brought about from within the individual.

["The Sick Soul" is spread across two lectures, but combined in one chapter in the CLC edition of the text.]

These two lectures examine religious experiences of dis-ease, as James says, "Here is the real core of the religious problem: "Help! help!" (162). As there is a positive religious joy which affirms a sense of being greater than physical waking life, there is a negative religious melancholia which detracts from the momentary physical being when the incalculable vastness of the divine tugs one away from physical life. James quotes Tolstoy during a bout of spiritual sickness, "It cannot be said exactly that I wished to kill myself, for the force which drew me away form life was fuller, more powerful, more general, than any mere desire," (153). In "The Sick Soul," James discusses an impairment between body and spirit manifesting as an imbalance that manifests as symptoms ranging from long-term depression to suicide.

What is the soul sick of? The world, as James states this "...mark[s] the conclusion of the once-born period, and... leave[s] of an unreconciled contradiction and seek[s] no higher unity" (144). Therefore, we can say the sick soul is subject to more than imbalance; it is straying from a path in pursuit of greater divine union and self-reflection. It is here I am reminded of what Hill says in "Outwitting the Devil" about drifters, that people who veer off their purpose are subject to their own devil and subject to the negativity inherent under a dualistic paradigm of existence as spiritual beings in physical bodies.

James has further commentary on negativity formulated as the problem of evil in these lectures, critiquing a monistic approach to reality. He examines the duality present in the works of Hegel, stating that for Hegel reality is a totality, that evil is an irrational entity negated as waste by the rational process of this totality in its efforts to perfect an ideal (130-133). The problem here becomes a contrast of this ideal from what is actual, which I suspect is another way to say Hegel's reasoning is flawed in trying to ignore the parts of reality that do not fit neatly within his system. Hegel's theory is one of a process that modifies itself after each progressive step, but this process fails to encompass all there is.

For James, it is not about good and evil, it is about nonjudgment (144). A footnote offered on this page states that the wiseman is content, suggesting balance is the check to religious happiness and religious melancholy. As someone once heavily devoted to Hegelian studies, this chapter sheds light on his philosophy that I had not previously considered: the entire dialectical motion falls apart in a state of non-judgement. The negation cannot operation without a negativity to be overcome; contentment thus sublating both the positive and negative and ceasing movement for it is no longer necessary upon achieving that contentment.

Further, I am questioning my own monolithic paradigm here. If James is suggesting differentiation over totality, that different states of spirit "are" rather than "are part of," there is a peace in seeing one can strive for contentment rather than accomplishing some alchemical Great Work as if its success or failure is a direct imperative of the soul. My thoughts are that this is moving past duality in a way that can be discussed; a limited natural theology that, as I previously discussed, brings to mind the writings of Scotus.

There is an irony in reflecting upon these two lectures for me personally. I am not seeking "enlightenment" in that I don't think such a term practically exists, but reframing it as "contentment" seems to point toward a non-dualistic state. Maybe this is like, but not analogous to, the Garden of Eden. If "good" and "evil" are poles, then contentment collapses them. There is no judgment, but acknowledgement, of the flux of human experience.

"What I felt on these occasions was a temporary loss of my own identity, accompanied by an illumination which revealed to me a deeper significance than I had been wont to attach to life," (70). To this account James offers during his third lecture, I have a response: this and exactly this. When I applied to this seminary program, I shared what is possibly my most cherished memory: a high school jazz band rehearsal where I did not play guitar, but instead, the guitar played *me.* In that moment, I had lost any sense of who I was, my experience of music was a catalyst for something far greater than myself. It was as if instead of plugging the guitar into an amplifier, I was plugged into God.

I found myself intimately relating to many of the accounts James reads for his audience in this lecture. I imagine on his end, the decision is to continually provide evidence of an underlying "something" that exists without a story being told to itself in the form of an individual identity, a "something" that connects all extant atoms in this universe. "Sometimes as I go to church, [...] I feel as if God was with me, right side of me, singing and reading the Psalms with me" (71) is another account that I intuit as truth, but am seemingly unable to explain why.

I do not think saying I "intellectually" or "psychically" project a presence onto a vacant space sufficiently describes this phenomenon like the account given above, and yet sometimes, it is there, felt definitely. It is entirely different from the hallucinations brought about by my schizophrenia, as it means no harm, I sense nothing menacing from the presence; it is maximally joyful, yet subtle as not to disturb.

James begins this lecture by talking about how such objects elicit a reaction and suggests these reactions may be more than mere sensible presence (53). This seems to speak directly to my experience of jazz band rehearsal: not merely sensing an invisible presence, but being fully enraptured by it, experiencing it outside of the worldly "I" in favor of a greater "I" ineffable.

This feels like Emmerson's notion of the Oversoul, or Hegel's notion of Geist: the underlying unitary faculty that encompasses all existence, for our lives manifest in particulars which in of themselves realize potentials over the passage of time facilitated in physical space. Or, to paraphrase Damien Echols, that which peers out of the eyes of every living man, woman, and child. It's a sheer "eureka" moment to come in contact with such a force, that which James describes in the previous lecture as having a "hotter" quality than that of philosophy, one that he calls "religious."

My experience in reading this lecture is only further validated by last week's Zoom call with other seminarians. To talk to real people who have had lucid dreams, seen strange occurrences in dark mirrors, and felt themselves grow like seeds reifies this Spirit and diminishes the ego. There's something greater going on here, not just in the objects and experiences of James' lectures, but in the experiences of my cohort here, and it's exciting, inducing a fervor that bypasses not just language, but rational conventionality.

Where James ends his lecture is in discussing other components of human life as new religions, specifically mentioning music (77). Here, I return to Hegel, in that Geist is this sense of God expressing itself through particular organisms in a specific way during a given historical epoch. Relating it to music, the modal harmonies of the ancient Greeks are restated in a new sequence as jazz. It is God seeing its own creation in a new light.

https://ibb.co/jVZ4zrC

In the summer of 2022, I had a vision brought on by the use of psychedelic drugs.  I saw an orange man with no legs and extraordinarily long fingers covered in spider webs.  He waved his fingers at me, and I had the above sigil in my mind and the name "Engory."  Interacting with the sigil shows me the name "Gry" as an alternative name, but I have yet to fully understand the function of this occult device.

I do not think burning it is a safe idea.  I do, however, think the being represented by this character corresponds to the ego mind in a substantial way.  Whatever the truth behind this entity is, I identify it as a block to my own spiritual progress.

“You know it when you see it” rings as a common response to Plummer’s interviews on independent sacramentalism. While there may not be a standard definition for this form of worship and practice, there appears to be a mood. Independent churches may range from similar to drastically different from Christian orthodoxy, but many elements forbidden from mainstream worship appear as celebrated components of these churches. Plummer’s field work sees him everywhere from ecclesiastical Gnostic churches to the houses of priests that practice solo. As he writes, some form of celebrating the eucharist is one of the only constants across these different churches, denoted by “sacrament” in the name.

What I make of this is that freedom of worship yields itself to authentic expression. There is no objective criteria barring any practitioner Plummer has interviewed or group he has studied from legitimacy, even if that group or individual is not recognized by a larger church organization. Instead, what I see is a recognition of the Divine and attempts to work with it. All these forms of independent sacramentalism therefore have the advantage of personalization. I say this as an LGBT+ person that may not be able to practice or seek ordination with all mainstream Christian groups: customizing a preestablished blueprint can in turn increase the intimacy of the practice, and I see that present in a congregation like St. John the Beloved, where a person’s background as LGBT+ presents no obstacles to practice. Researching this church online, it appears like a Catholic church I would’ve visited growing up, the main difference being *who* is eligible for ordination.

This “whatever works” approach is finely tuned, creating such a wide field of independent churches. Plummer’s documented visits convey the feeling of family, and even if that family is not the idyllic nuclear American unit, I am convinced of the efficacy of this movement in its tender portrayals. Channeling this energy into magickal practice would mean embracing a sense of freedom. Other practitioners of magick I have spoken to tell me that I am too “by-the-book”, and if these churches are capable of finding God despite no support from the Vatican, there may not be a need for those books to further my practice, or at minimum a need to be so stubborn when being given advice.

I am not going to say there was one exact purpose in assigning this text for seminary. Yes, a bit of history on contemporary Gnostic movements is mentioned, as well as brief discussions on figures like Crowley and Steiner who were directly involved in magickal practice. However, I think the broadened horizons of seeing just how many different ways a church can exist and its congregation can coexist is the bigger takeaway. Part of the value in Plummer’s work is seeing corners of American life that I (and I’m assuming most Americans) do not know about. This comes an understanding that they are *free* to practice as they do, which ironically feels more American in spirit than having an overseas organization dictate what actions constitute legitimate worship, and who is allowed to lead that worship.

I am currently planning on reading the William James text next, and pending on how this report and that report turn out, I would then like to perform the Sacrament of Blessing for the Order of the Cleric in Gnostic Lesson 2. I do not know if this style of writing and communication works and would appreciate any feedback you have to offer. Thank you!

The fifth chapter in Plummer’s dissertation is an analysis of the independent movement’s theological underpinnings. He begins by stating that theological commentary is sometimes scant within the independent movement, given that (i) many independent clergy often lack formal theological education and (ii) many independent groups function like orthodox groups with minimal caveats such as rejecting papal infallibility. These reasons are compounded by the age of many independent groups that do not have a history like most mainstream Christian sects as many of them did not have a previous generation to draw on at Plummer’s time of writing. Despite this, theological themes and experiments do rise from many of these groups relating to the interplay of the church’s past and future, the embrace of the church, and the activity of a given congregation.

As discussed in previous chapters, the way an independent group positions itself in relation to history, ie, forgotten elements of worship to be revived vis-a-vis new elements of worship not yet tapped by the mainstream, plays into the present-day context of an independent movement’s theology. This is seen in the previous post with a group like the Ecclesia Gnostica Mysteriorum; to my knowledge, apocryphal gnostic texts are dated as older than practicing orthodox groups, yet the practices the EGM observed by Plummer do not come from a standard liturgical script. Old archetypes such as Mary Magdalene and the Black Madonna are revitalized by present-day practitioners. The same can be said of the Holy Order of Mans discussed in this chapter: Father Paul and his followers not only accept reincarnation, but look to Paul for proof as a reincarnation of the Biblical man. Reincarnation is not a standard tenet in any church I’ve attended, but the HOM uses it to restore the Apostolic College literally.

The space of a church remains a question both in mainstream orthodoxy and in the independent movement. “Who is allowed to belong?” is a question of permission in various spaces, and in Plummer’s field work, that answer may be limited or it may be limitless depending on the group. Origen’s teaching of Universalism, the idea that God saves all, has been a minority opinion in church groups documented here and frankly in ones that I have experienced. Yet, in the early 1910s, the Polish National Catholic Church preached this as doctrine in their sermons, beginning with Francis Hodur. Plummer’s experience with the Radical Faeries has another answer to the question of belonging as the Faeries are a primarily gay congregation, taking the standard liturgy into non-standard territory by incorporating environmentalist and pagan themes into their services.

Finally, Plummer discusses event-oriented theological themes as arising from sacrament. Anointing the sick, officiating a marriage, and consecrating clergy are among but not limited to events for consideration here, with some groups like St. Michael’s Liberal Catholic Church meeting infrequently, typically for the sacramental event, and other groups like the Friends Catholic Community Church expanding the traditional idea of sacrament to include techniques like reiki during the service proper. The work of these groups Plummer surveys feel less like a loose interpretation of standard liturgical proceedings and more like a revision of worship. Within the independent sacramental movement, elements of *who* is allowed to participate, *what* the participants will do, and from *when* the structure of service is organized are cast from time-tested tradition into a graceful freefall; these groups do not seek to destroy what has been previously established, but instead, their flexibility allows practice to grow in directions that may be unconsidered without the freedom of their independence.

Rereading this text for the purpose of this writing assignment has given me a deeper appreciation for Plummer’s writing style. The topics Plummer introduces are chosen in an order allowing them to cumulate, with each new chapter introducing information relevant to its preceding chapter. The text folds in on itself in such a way to reveal new threads, such as the PNCC being introduced as an older independent group in chapter three, now recontextualized as standing-by universalism in this chapter. The same can be said about the EGM discussed in the previous chapter on field work; Plummer’s firsthand account is one of healing and communal intimacy, but in this chapter, the focus on the EGM is seen as a fusion of early, non-canonical texts with practices that would be new to a mainstream church.

The next chapter is on leadership in the independent movement. Where Plummer has already discussed many of these figures by name, the nature of how their leadership differs from orthodoxy will be made center. For this chapter, Plummer sheds light on how the movement’s actions bring about new theological considerations, but he states that nothing sustained can be asserted at the time of writing. My take is that if current groups are legitimizing ideas as old as universalism, then time is the ingredient needed to see a wider recognition of independent theological contributions.

The third chapter in Plummer's thesis sketches an early history of the modern independent sacramental movement through three roots: (i) heritage of the Western Church, (ii) heritage of the Eastern Church, and (iii) new priesthoods developed through direct experience in North America. Plummer notes at the start of the chapter how vital of a fixture priesthood is in independent sacramental communities, with some groups having the majority of its members ordained in some way. This theme continues with clergy that are repeatedly consecrated to further legitimize their role as clergy and consolidate multiple lineages to individuals. Here, I'll discuss these three historical strains in relation to the modern independent sacramental movement and against my own experiences.

The old Western Churches stem from several European groups, primarily Catholic, and largely stemming from a schism in Utrecht, what was then the Netherlands, in the 1700s. Bishop Cornelius Jansen's book Augustinus was charged as too theologically close to Luther and Calvin by other Catholics of the day, yet the Jansenist movement persisted with a dedicated following. Archbishop Pieter Codde refused to sign legal documents against Jansenism in 1702 and was deposed for it, leading to a Utrecht without a bishop after his death eight years later.

It would not be until 1719 that missionary Bishop Dominique-Marie Varlet would continue to perform confirmations in Utrecht. This church continued quietly until the First Vatican Council of the Roman Catholic Church in 1869, where the group would define papal infallibility as one of jurisdictional and doctrinal authority, leading to a schism across Western European churches. Old Catholicism would spread in reaction to papal infallibility and subsequent proclamations issued by the Vatican, serving as a theological backdrop in the face of differences prompted by rulings from the Vatican and later becoming the import of the Western Church unto the independent sacramental movement of today.

The Eastern Church would similarly spread its DNA to North America, with claims of independence from the papacy in the 1850s. Dominican French missionary Raymond Ferrette resigned his Catholic priesthood in favor of Protestantism, working with Presbyterians in Mesopotamia and Kurdistan. Again, similar to the Western Church, examples of practitioners like Ferrette are abound, with clergy changing their minds, clergy disagreeing with the Vatican, clergy expelled from orthodoxy, and then converting and functioning outside the purview of orthodoxy but still in service of God as Christians. This I believe is the key takeaway from the chapter: the differences that crop up as time moves forward and new generations practice in new ways, the seeds of new movements are sown, many of which splinter off from Catholic orthodoxy and add a new flower to the garden of the independent movement. Here is another lens by which the United States can be seen as a “melting pot”, as the adage goes.

The final group Plummer discusses in (iii) are the new North American priesthoods, some of which are rooted in traditional practices, and others in esoteric practices. In a group like the Evangelical Orthodox Church, the majority of which would join the Antiochian Archdiocese in the 1980s stateside, a blend of Protestant groups would then blend further into mainstream orthodoxy through joining the Antiochians. Here is Plummer’s discussion of multiple consecrations from the previous chapter coming back: individual clergy going through repeated consecrations are strengthening the legitimacy of their practice and stake to priesthood, but furthermore, events like these are tightening the community, which I see as necessary to heal a community torn by schism. The latter of these new American groups are practicing esoteric techniques in conjunction with worship as their spirituality. For example, Earl W. Blighton founded the Science of Man Church in 1961 stateside, doing so after claiming to experience inner contact with holy figures such as Jesus and Paul. This group still continues to operate, and does so with its apostolic succession originating from a man whose experience was not of a bishop laying hands on him, but of interior changes he then carried outward in the name of service.

Plummer is building upon his previous chapters in providing this detailed history of the independent sacramental movement. Each schism between groups results in fractures that sometimes reconcile with other splinters to synthesize a new congregational landscape. The Vatican revises its laws, some groups dissent, leave, and then revise their own practices independently. The conclusion is atomization of worship as we are seeing what Plummer claimed in the beginning of his dissertation: the variety in independent groups here is daunting because of how different their lineages are. The Gnostic Church falls outside of older traditions or mainstream Christian orthodoxy in that its lineage is largely predicated upon esoteric practices not unlike the Science of Man Church. Occult workings and ineffable visions serve as the impetus for these clergy to work and worship, as seen with Jules Doinel founding the Gnostic Church in France in 1890.

Significant to my own practice as an occultist and a Christian, there is a preestablished sense of routine, ie, a mixture of meditating and working from occult books (such as the Bible!) that inform my own experience of God in a sense that matches parts of all these groups and contrasts parts of all these groups. The starting point of “let there be light!” is still shared, and a belief in the validity of mystical experiences is shared with some, yet I am still local to my own geography and era in which I live. What I get out of reading Plummer is validation that Christianity is confusing, no one has an objectively “correct” approach, and that there is a real humanity in the continued effort in what is ultimately the face of the unknown.