Veneration of the dead

But as the month drew to a close, our attentions turned away from the monsters, murderers, and things that go bump in the night, and toward the spirits of those who came before us.

In our exploration of ancestor veneration, we examine the traditions, rituals, and beliefs surrounding the remembrance of the dead, bringing us rather appropriately to the doorstep of Samhain.

And while we've certainly spent October entertaining ourselves with wolves, witches, poison, and a rather alarming number of murder weapons, Samhain reminds us that this season isn't only about the things that frighten us.

It's also about remembrance, reflection, and the cycles of life, death, and renewal.

We promise, right? Right? We kept returning here on season four to thresholds.

winter becoming spring, life transitioning into death, henbane and altered consciousnesses, psychedelics, queer people existing between accepted social structures, Vincent leaving and returning, fireflies appearing briefly in the darkness, wolves existing between feared monsters and beloved guardian, Kylie's ability to perceive things others can't, ancestors and descendants, even in our songisodes like The Man Under the Roses, which centers around Kylie and her ability to see between the worlds.

And we literally ended our season with Ancestor Veneration.

And that has made such an unintentional yet extremely satisfying bookend.

This is usually followed by a discussion of the more religious elements associated with Confucianism.

Ancestor worship, the imperial state religion, and the cult of Confucius.

And by cult, I mean the religious veneration of Confucius.

In this video, we'll begin by discussing these three components.

We'll then turn our attention to the early modern period and see how China's encounter with the West gave birth to the notion of Confucianism as a world religion.

Let's start with ancestor worship.

While often associated with Confucianism, rituals designed to venerate deceased members of one's lineage have been performed in China for hundreds of years before Confucius.

The Shang Dynasty Oracle Bones, which are divinatory records that are the earliest written documents in Chinese history, reveal a highly developed pantheon of gods headed by a single deity, known as Lord On Hai, or Shang Di.

And then we also had it where the Halls of the Holy halfway up the mountains was, like, another very significant great forgery, um, that to them is almost more of a temple.

It's, it's a, it's a temple to, like, their understanding of, like, ancestors, um, and ancestor worship, which I, I think we had a little bit of debate about whether they would still have the same ancestor gods or different ones.

I don't think we necessarily came to a conclusion on that.

Uh, Winds of Death Tragic, "This just makes my Native heart so happy.

Uh, so I'm gonna go with, uh-

So we can just, we can start deciding the fundamentals of the religion.

Um, the, obviously the old world dwarfs have ancestor worship, and those ancestors, if we go with the standard story, were receiving, literally receiving information from the old ones and passing it to the dwarfs.

And those ancestors were revered abunks- uh, above all others as their gods.

So by the time I was introduced to connecting with my ancestors, I already had the groundwork and the foundation of being able to do that.

Ancestor veneration is one of...

the most powerful aspects of hoodoo and understand the way you come from and the people who brought you here.

And like I said, once again, about that blood, the importance of that blood, the importance of that heritage.

And what I love now with the language of hoodoo is that a lot of people are referring to hoodoo as the heirloom, a precious tradition that's passed down through generations and generations that is cherished and honored and kept sacred.

So that's exactly what the relationship and the connections you have or you learn to have with your ancestors.

At this time, I had no idea what ancestor veneration was.

I didn't have that language, but that's what I was doing.

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Domestic ancestor worship linked the present household with its dead members.

Most families could not preserve and serve a deceased relative with the wealth lavished upon an emperor.

They could, however, wrap bodies, place them in family burial locations, return with offerings and seek their continued favour.

Right before my friend passed, a couple of months before, I had no idea she was going to pass away.

But a couple of months before, I went to a retreat on ancestor worship because my meditation teacher, Elizabeth P.I. Joff, was holding this retreat at Menla in the Catskills in the mountains.

And I tried and attended many of her retreats.

programs as I can because she's fantastic.

It's amazing how what she said about ancestor worship.

She's an American lady of Eastern European descent.

So what she said about ancestor worship, what Anita Moorjani said about a near-death experience and the verses we're going to discuss together in the Gita, literally they all say the same thing and paint quite a vivid and hopefully accurate picture of how to better understand death and life and the passage of the soul from one lifetime to the next.

So let's talk about that.

End of chapter 13 Recording by Expatria in Bangor, Maine Chapter 14 Part 1 of Kokoro Hints and Echoes of Japanese Inner Life by Lafcadio Hearn This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.

Recording by Expatria in Bangor, Maine Chapter 14 Some Thoughts About Ancestor Worship Part 1 For twelve leagues, Ananda, around the Sala Grove, there is no spot in size even as the pricking of the point of the tip of a hair which is not pervaded by powerful spirits.

The Book of the Great Decease Section 1 The truth that ancestor worship in various unobtrusive forms still survives in some of the most highly civilized countries of Europe is not so widely known as to preclude the idea that any non-Aryan race actually practicing so primitive a cult must necessarily remain in the primitive stage of religious thought.

Critics of Japan have pronounced this hasty judgment and have professed themselves unable to reconcile the facts of her scientific progress and the success of her advanced educational system with the continuance of her ancestor worship.

How can the beliefs of Shinto coexist with the knowledge of modern science? How can the men who win distinction as scientific specialists still respect the household shrine or do reverence before the Shinto parish temple? Can all this mean more than the ordered conservation of forms after the departure of faith? Is it not certain that with the further progress of education, Shinto, even as ceremonialism, must cease to exist? Those who put such questions appear to forget that similar questions might be asked about the continuance of any Western faith and similar doubts expressed as to the possibility of its survival for another century.

Really the doctrines of Shinto are not in the least degree more irreconcilable with modern science than are the doctrines of orthodox Christianity.

This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.

Recording by Expatriate in Bangor, Maine.