It's been so many years since I opened my first Hindu Facebook group. I named it Hindu Missionaria Protectiva under the influence of my favorite fiction books, Dune by Frank Herbert. Dune is a sci-fi political epic with Imperiums, royal houses and powerful guilds. In a way, the diverse union of various planet kingdoms under the reign of an Imperial Emperor who competes with the guilds for power is almost exactly what our Vedic Hindu Monarchy system is all about, it's the same model. I wrote a blog post on Vedic Kingship a while back and discussed how a Vedic Monarchy can be democratic still... and in my post on the Vedic Hindu Guild System I discussed how the existence of guilds gave the merchant classes power over the Emperors and kings, so there was a kind of checks and balance system, and this is exactly how the political system in the Dune series operates.
There are not only royal houses in the congress, their are also powerful houses and other societies. One society that is a major player in the Dune universe are the Bene Gesserit, a school of all females who upkeep selective human breeding programs for eugenic purposes, as well as to breed a prescient messiah who will lead them to dominate the known universe. The Bene Gesserit are very crafty and manipulative, earning them the title of "witches". They inhabit a planet of their own in the universe and make their earns by working as teachers and oracles to the royal and imperial families, also marrying into royal bloodlines for power and the refinement of their bloodlines.
The Bene Gesserit practice "religious engineering" through a faction called the Missionaria Protectiva, which spreads "infectious superstitions on primitive worlds, thus opening those regions to exploitation by the Bene Gesserit." Collectively known as Panoplia Prophetica, these myths, prophecies, and superstitions provide the opportunity for a Bene Gesserit to later cast herself as a guide, protector, or some other figure in fulfillment of a prophecy in order to manipulate the religious subjects for protection or other purposes. These myths also exploit religion as a powerful force in human society; by controlling the particulars of religion, the Bene Gesserit have a manipulative lever on society in general. The Bene Gesserit also employ the Missionaria Protectiva to prepare the Empire for its messiah.
It's obvious from the name of the group that I wanted to somehow copy the practices of the Bene Gesserit and their fascinating Missionaria Protectiva. So what exactly is my vision? As Hindus, we have myths, legends, prophecies, occult sciences, prophets, seers, god-men, astrology, numerology and the list goes on forever; all we need to do is spread the seeds of our religion, especially through Purana as these are the texts which are most saturated with this kind of knowledge. The Puranas, if spread and evangelized could become our Panoplia Prophetica, our collection of myths and prophecies which we can use to advance our cause once they have become adored by the masses, Vedic Hindu religious engineering if you will.
I remember some time ago I used to get angry when I would see ISKON or Brahama Kumaris stealing from Hinduism but twisting and distorting it and trying to delink it from Hinduism. I would often get into quarrels with people over this, especially other Hindus. But one day a good friend of mine said that "as long as the root is in the Vedas it is fine, because everything goes back to the root". This immediately made lots of sense and I could all of a sudden see the usefulness of even diluted Vedic Hinduism. If we can't get them to believe in Vedas, get them to believe a legend, take to a particular god, acknowledge a prophecy or believe in our astrology. I want to use this group to do just that. PLEASE JOIN
It's obvious from the name of the group that I wanted to somehow copy the practices of the Bene Gesserit and their fascinating Missionaria Protectiva. So what exactly is my vision? As Hindus, we have myths, legends, prophecies, occult sciences, prophets, seers, god-men, astrology, numerology and the list goes on forever; all we need to do is spread the seeds of our religion, especially through Purana as these are the texts which are most saturated with this kind of knowledge. The Puranas, if spread and evangelized could become our Panoplia Prophetica, our collection of myths and prophecies which we can use to advance our cause once they have become adored by the masses, Vedic Hindu religious engineering if you will.
I remember some time ago I used to get angry when I would see ISKON or Brahama Kumaris stealing from Hinduism but twisting and distorting it and trying to delink it from Hinduism. I would often get into quarrels with people over this, especially other Hindus. But one day a good friend of mine said that "as long as the root is in the Vedas it is fine, because everything goes back to the root". This immediately made lots of sense and I could all of a sudden see the usefulness of even diluted Vedic Hinduism. If we can't get them to believe in Vedas, get them to believe a legend, take to a particular god, acknowledge a prophecy or believe in our astrology. I want to use this group to do just that. PLEASE JOIN
No comments:
Post a Comment