Write about rational vs superstitious practices
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A mythologist seeks to understand, not endorse or judge, the subjective truths that govern rationality, secularism, religion and superstition. He or she recognises that rationality, secularism, religion, and superstition are parts of the same continuum called culture. These are means to organise the world and control the unpredictability of nature and emotions.
While controlling fire, water, earth, plants and animals is easy, controlling human emotions, especially fear, is not. Our imagination amplifies our fear. And our fear is made worse by the imaginations of those around us. We cannot handle the ecosystem of the fear we live in. And so we create rules and rituals that we impose on people around us.
Thus we domesticate the world around us – turn the forest into the field. We “cultivate” the world so that they it does not “threaten” us. We drive away all that frightens us. And so we create the single god who will not tolerate false gods, we reject idolaters, and heretics, and fools who follow irrational beliefs and superstitions
At a recent literature festival, a senior writer asked me, “So what’s your next book about?” I replied that I am superstitious about future books and avoid talking about them till I submit manuscript to my publisher. He smiled, and asked me to write an article on superstitions. And that got me thinking: What is superstition? Is it different from faith, religion, belief, or myth? Why are humans superstitious? Is being superstitious a good thing or a bad thing? Is being superstitious an outcome of being human, or an outcome of irrationality or lack of education?
The Japanese Prime Minister is visiting India currently. When he made offerings to river Ganga after witnessing the aarti with his host, the Indian Prime Minister at Varanasi, were they witnessing and participating in a superstitious ritual, a religious ritual, or simply a state event?
I refer to this because in the 19th century, when the European imperial powers introduced the word “religion” to Japan, and sought religious freedom, it led to a threefold division that separated national ideology (Shinto) from religion (Buddhism, and Christianity), and religion from superstition (shamanic practices). Following the Meiji Revolution, as Japan sought to be more secular and modern, it meant defining “religion” – a term imported from Europe and primarily designed to explain Christianity.
To be secular and modern, religion was permitted only in the private space and was generally seen as irrational and non-scientific. The Japanese intellectuals of the time very cleverly separated religion from state ideology (Shinto), which they saw as essentially scientific and rational.
They also separated religion from superstition, which was seen as un-scientific and irrational. What separated the two? Religion was institutionalised, urban, patriarchal, textual and intellectual and spoke of "one god" or "one truth" – superstition was folk, rural, dominated by female shamans, non-textual, non-intellectual, and spoke of multiple spirits and demons and gods.