James and Penthe further explore the presence of deities and other trans-human beings drawn from the animal kingdom.  James then goes on to give examples of how aspects of divine reality are manifest in human culture, and how human interaction with divine beings becomes a way to create order in the world and a metaphor for what a ‘world’ is.  James shares an experience in Vietnam in which contrasting aspects of religious phenomena can apparently co-exist. 

James continues the discussion of Episode 12, focusing on the distribution of power within pantheons, ritual and sacrificial interactions between humans and gods, and the identities and forms of trans-human beings.  Questions are continually raised about what we now are in a position to apprehend and understand, particularly with ancient cultures whose written and visual material remains are limited and come without explanatory manuals. 

James outlines the categories under which the characteristics of a perceived Umwelt of Multiplicity will be discussed.  In addition to the premise of this model, it will consider the source or origin of various powers in the world; the structure of a pantheon and its distribution of power; interactions between trans-human and human beings; the identities and forms of deities, gods, godlets; manifestations of the trans-human world in human culture; how the model creates order in the world; moral and ethical implications of a world of Multiplicity. 

The Canaanite Baal cycle of a dying and rising god.  Natural evil, distributed power in the pantheon, and seeing the world as a whole.  A minimal dualist Multiplicity as recounted by Penthe in the Iroquois creation myth of competing twins, and by James in the Zoroastrian Ahunuvaiti Gatha  Yasna 30 with self-generated primordial twin spirits of Good and Evil, and in the West New Guinean Dani concept of ritualized warfare.  

James proposes a proto-theory of the origins of human religiousness.  A World of Multiplicity: Canaanite Religion.  Alistair looks at underlying dimensions of human morality.                                                              

The music is from a collection of Hurrian songs inscribed in cuneiform on clay tablets excavated from the royal palace in the ancient Canaanite city of Ugarit, dating to approximately 1400 BCE.  One of these tablets, which is nearly complete, contains the Hurrian Hymn to Nikkal (also known as h.6), making it possibly the oldest surviving complete work of notated music in the world.  Nikkal was a Semitic goddess of orchards; the singer was accompanied by a nine-stringed sammûm, a type of lyre.  The simulation of a lyre was played on a Huss and Dalton OO-SP guitar and recorded at Chêne Ancien Studio.  

James briefly presents the five conceptual models: Singularity; Multiplicity; Locality; In/Conceivability; Universality and explains why he will investigate them in a different order.                                                                                          
 

No questions for Episode 9, presentation only.        

James expands on the ideas of Umwelt and ‘Possibilities of Phenomena’ in preparation for presentation of the five conceptual models of the manuscript.   

No questions for Episode 8, presentation only. 

James introduces the idea of ‘conceptual models’ as a way to make comparisons across cultures and traditions and their embedded structures of meaning.                                                                    

Questions:

1.  Choose a person whose view of life differs considerably from your own and try to explain why a value they do not share is particularly important to you.

2.  What do you feel is at the core of why they cannot appropriate this idea in your head the way you do? 

James and his gang of ‘card trick watchers’ make a case for the importance of an individual’s life experience and reflection in uncovering the deepest layers of spiritual meaning.                                      

Questions:

1.  In what way do your deepest spiritual values match or not match the doctrine and beliefs of an institutional faith tradition with which you have been associated.

2.  Write an account of a critical life experience that changed your deepest values and share it with your family or your children or your closest friend.

James and Dr. VanNostrand go back and forth on the role of the ‘self’ in religion and the ontology of mind and body.  An attempt to classify several levels and modes of institutional religion.                      

Questions:

1.      Do you feel certain ways of conceiving your ‘individuality’ or an object of religious devotion stand between you and an accurate picture of the world and human life?

2.     Do you support the belief that all forms of human religiousness accept the existence of a single underlying reality?