Interlude: Having Fun with Pseudonyms, or... LARPing for Fun and Profit! - Part 2

[Continued from Here.]

I've done this exercise, more than once. Each time I've discovered things about myself and the world that I'm not sure I could have otherwise.

Being an "alter" [short for alter-ego and what I call the characters I create for my benefit] is relatively easy online. The real challenge comes from doing it live, immersed in one's discomfort zone. Can I be the character so much that no one else knows I'm "play acting"... including myself? And what do I learn from that?

Over the years I've used several characters. Here are some that are still in existence.

• Devilhead
• Founder
• This Guy
• Hostility Jones
• Jonah Nietsche
• Samael Liberalis
• Don Hartley
• And many, many more who have explored the deep web.

Devilhead, who's the writer of the bunch, is who you have been reading. The name was given to me during my first ministry by another minister. [He also left the ministry, as I did, and practices magick, as do I.]

Hostility Jones is Devilhead's alter. Yup... my alters have alters. Imagine a demonic cowboy clown. He came out in UU Nightmares. One of the reasons I've shut that blog down. (That's a whole story I'm going to tell.)

Jonah Nietzsche began as a you tube video series called Bible Study w/ Pastor Jonah. It has been taken off youtube and the concept sold as a TV series to a production company in Singapore... can't make this shit up. As part of the marketing for that, prior to sales, Jonah needed be a real person. To that end he went on a couple of the smaller social media sites. I was aiming for a Christian conservative crowd, precisely because "Bible Study" once released would be both intriguing and upsetting to this crowd. 

"Jonah" joined Faithful Earth and the Tea Party Community. Literally all he posted was a single Bible verse every day. Not offensive ones like "Bible Study" but the ones everyone seems to love. "God is Love." stuff like that. Jonah posted the same quotes in both groups daily for about a year. He'd occasionally get a question from a social media follower, which he would answer promptly and politely. For the most part it was just a single random Bible quote a day. And from that, Jonah got large followings on both Faithful Earth and Tea Party Community. 

As Jonah was going to be part of a marketing "scam". I left as many clues as possible as to who was in the driver's seat when it came to Jonah. I wanted them to find me.

As to the crowd I got on Faithful Earth and Tea Party Community... they were not the crowd to market this to. It became obvious that despite the lame characterizations of the right by "enlightened" Unitarian Universalists, they had no fucking idea who or what they were talking about. One would think, given the characterizations of the Right by Unitarian Universalists, that the Tea Party Community would be filled with knuckle-dragging Klansmen. That characterization says far more about the Unitarian Universalists who promote this image of even the middle-of-the-road right leaning people, than it ever did about the people that Unitarians enjoy denigrating.

What I found in both of those online communities were some very lonely people who sought to ameliorate their loneliness in an ideological echo chamber. The Faithful Earth crowd seemed just sad, very lonely, and a little afraid of the outside world. Doing any sort of surprise marketing on them would be cruel. There is no other word. These are good people, good people who are wounded. They didn't need Jonah.

Likewise the Tea Part Community was the same. Their sadness and loneliness took the form of anger at a world they could not control. I would be less cruel, but still cruel to market to these people this way. They also didn't need Jonah. 

Jonah was resurrected when I chose to market Unitarian Universalist Nightmares to the UUA Board, it's regions, and congregations. Again, Jonah had a direct path back to his creator. No one followed it, but all demanded to know who I was. To me that's funny.

Samael Liberalis is my latest interface with the Unitarian Universalists.

And that brings us to Don Hartley, who himself uses a "stage name" for "protection." (Don Hartly, Devilhead... connection?)

Don Hartley has become quite the speaker on the fundamentalist/evangelical conspiracy circuit. 

After the events of August, 2017, Don Hartley decided to go on a revival tour speaking about the "dangerous cult of Unitarian Universalists." I spent a good part of the fall on an evangelical speaking tour in several states: Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee.  It's part of a whole series on "dangerous cults." Don's not the only speaker, just the "expert" on Unitarian Universalism.

Here's the best part: evangelicals already believe that Unitarian Universalism is Satanic pure and simple. This means one can literally say anything about Unitarian Universalism, bring it back to Satan, and the love offerings flow. If you have a powerpoint of old AYS pornography, and some of the OWL stuff of old and/or disabled people fucking... just sayin'.

And let me tell you if you're used to a Unitarian Universalist speaker's fee... a tent revival "love offering," particularly when you're telling people exactly what they want to hear and believe in their hearts to be true, kick$ the living $hit out of a "speakers fee." I've been fortunate enough that I've never had to worry about money, but this is just literally thrown at you as you speak. 

It will be interesting to see if there is any fallout on the UU churches of Miss, Al or Tenn.  In all honesty, the evangelical communities and Unitarian Universalist communities are both insular bubbles, and really don't brush up against each other. But they do live in the same communities. I'm gearing up for tours of Texas and Oklahoma with the same promoters.

Like I said, fun and profitable.

So,  now you know some of what I've been doing with retirement. As with most of Devilhead's stories reality is both funny and unsettling.

Your Old Pal,

Devilhead

Interlude: Having Fun with Pseudonyms, or... LARPing for Fun and Profit! - Part 1

This interlude is being written because I'm not all that inspired to finish up the Chalice Lighters series. I will finish it, just not today.

For those who want to know how it came out, and don't want to wait, here it is in a nutshell: the NY Metro District's Chalice Lighter's program was a huge success, the District loved it, the congregations loved it, it helped to bring the denomination together, yada, yada... and outside the District, the bureaucrats at the UUA hated it, and did everything they could to dismantle it. The End.

It's not depressing, it's just sad, and pathetic. Details to eventually follow.

I've mentioned in a previous (ancient) post about the use of pseudonyms. I'm a huge fan. And there is a long, long, historical precedent for the use of literary and artistic pseudonyms. Stage names are as old as theater itself from whence the tradition of stage names was ported over to all the performance arts. There's nothing dishonorable about it: Cary Grant was the stage name of Archibald Leach.

The world remembers Cary Grant while Archibald Leach is just... what exactly?

Aleister Crowley taught several methods for breaking cultural conditioning. (It's one of the things magick is good for.) One method, mentioned in Liber Jugorum [Chapter III, b], is to change one's personality along with an article of clothing. This is more than a superficial acting exercise. It is a sort of deep, deep method acting where you strive as much as possible to become the character. And this means, that you feel what your character feels, you believe what your character believes, you immerse yourself in that character's world. Crowley did it himself regularly.

It's easy when it's a character like the actor.

Very easy, if the actor gets out of his/her own way.

It's much more difficult if it's a character completely unlike the actor. The temptation is to treat it all like shtick -- play act all the time winking and nodding to oneself. But where's the benefit in that?

In becoming a character as much as possible, with the realization one is playing a character as opposed to being psychotic and losing sight of that fact -- but by bringing oneself as close as possible to psychosis, much like the method actor who stays in character for the three months of the film shoot, one may realize some deep benefits.

First off, one's perspective on life changes. Can't say much more about it. Depends on the character. It will be different for everyone. And one's perspective changes with each character. And not so oddly, each character adds to the actor's overall perspective on life.

Imagine being able to understand something from several completely different perspectives. I don't mean half-assed attempts to "understand" another whose position one finds distasteful but rather an understanding that only comes from walking a mile in someone else's shoes, blisters and all.

Secondly, one realizes that the person we think of when we think of "ourselves" is just as much a work of fiction as the "characters" we create. When I say "I," who's there? Short answer: something bigger than "I." "I" becomes just another character.

I can't even begin to describe how freeing this is.

It's also fun... and profitable...

[Continued...Here]

Everything I Know about Unitarian Universalism, I Learned as Chalice Lighter - Part 5

[Continued from Here.]

The single most hostile response came from the Rev. Lee Reid. It was her congregation that was up for the next Chalice Lighters call, and she was apoplectic that my "playing around" with the program would possibly jeopardize the anticipate $700 grant her congregation was supposed to get.

Of course, I never heard this from Rev. Reid herself.

Rather, I heard this from ministers in the New Jersey area cluster of ministers. I received several phone calls, all from people who knew me reasonably well, to tell me of Rev. Reid's unloading about me at a minister's gathering. Apparently, she was panic stricken that my redesigning the program would all but guarantee the loss of the anticipated money. Also, apparently nobody told Rev. Reid that $700 is a pittance, nearly any single member of her congregation could just write the check if that was truly an issue.

It struck me as odd then, and still now, that so many ministers operate from a center of lack and scarcity, rather than one of abundance. Rev. Reid did, and it showed in her ministry.

I remember driving back from a ministerial study group with a colleague. Rev. Reid was a member of that same group, and during check-in she had regaled us all with stories of all she's done and does in order to minister to "an intentionally multicultural community." The list was long, although the only thing I remember is her holding up a dozen or so magazines, each with an ethnic focus... just so she can stay up on what's going on in the various multicultural communities her church strives to serve. My colleague's comments were right on target, "You know for all the work she puts into her congregation, she's got nothing to show for it."

He was right, of course. It was approximately five years after her building the congregation from scratch as an intentionally multicultural community, and all that was there was a congregation of thirty members who could barely pay their bills. Rev. Reid would continually remind us that building an "intentionally multicultural congregation" from scratch was "much more difficult" than starting a regular congregation. I always wondered how she knew that, as this was the only congregation she served as a minister let alone built from scratch. Maybe congregation building wasn't her forte, and as such it would be difficult for her no matter what she did. I don't know.

The Rev. Lee Reid never saw the outcome of the Chalice Lighters call for her congregation. About a week before the call, Rev. Reid attended a board meeting, where she was informed that they didn't have enough funds to continue to pay her salary. As a result, she was to be reduced to half-time. (That's  how I remember it. It's possible that they just cut her salary and expected her to work the same hours. I don't know.)

Following that meeting at a board member's home, Rev. Reid walked to her car, and was struck and killed by a drunk driver. Given the situation, one has to ask whether she was killed accidentally or if she jumped in front of the car. The official story is accident. Okay.

She never got to see the results of the Chalice Lighters call for her congregation. About a week after her death, the call went out, and came back. The redesigned Chalice Lighters program brought in $15,000.

$15,000 and the story changed from "it will never work" to "$15,000 had to be a fluke". Okay, it didn't fail, but that's only because people were excited to see how it would come out the first time. (I was actually told this by one of the UUA's "experts" on fundraising how this couldn't possibly work long term.)

Then the next call came and it brought in $23,000.

And every Chalice Lighter's call in the New York Metro District brought in over $20,000... for years.

And while competently raising the money was nice, there was an even nicer piece to the whole thing. Congregations were taking an interest in each other. As they took an interest, and as it became clear that the sky was the limit on fundraising, congregations got creative with their appeals. Congregants would visit other congregations and be inspired by what they were doing.

The enthusiasm was amazing. It was real, not bureaucratically manufactured, and infectious as fuck. I attended the district annual meeting at the end of this first year as Chalice Lighter and received a standing ovation when I was introduced as the district's Chalice Lighter coordinator.

Literally, in absolutely every way, the redesigned Chalice Lighter's program was a complete success. It consistently raised significantly more money than before and had congregations becoming enthusiastic about the wider world of congregational Unitarian Universalism, and as result increased denominational loyalty.

In other words, the New York Metro District's Chalice Lighters program not only raised significant amounts of money for congregations, but also did everything the denomination had been crowing about wanting from congregations: they were becoming less insular, took an interest in each other, began to cooperate together... and on, and on, and on...

There is an old adage that no good deed goes unpunished, as we shall see.

[Continued...]

Your Ol' Pal
Devilhead

Everything I Know about Unitarian Universalism, I Learned as Chalice Lighter - Part 4

[Continued from Here.]

There were several "roll-outs" to various area councils of the district.

(Area councils no longer actually existed, but were treated to exist by nearly everyone in the district. That's another story for another  time. Suffice it to say that it, like most stories of institutional Unitarian Universalism, tends to reflect poorly on the bureaucracy of the Unitarian Universalist Association.)

An idea as "radical" as the new Chalice Lighter program needed to be rolled out to the appropriate parties along the way. It was rolled out to the district board, and as stated above, following that to several of the local area gatherings of Unitarian Universalists.

The district board was the easiest of the presentations. Why? Because I was a known quality. I was serving a congregation in the district that was by all accounts showing signs of vibrant health and well-being; this after a rocky several decades as a congregation. I had served on local committees. And I had served on several as hoc committees of the district board. In other words, they knew who I was and how I worked. Their response to me was "let's give it a go and see what happens."

The Long Island area council, again, trusted the idea. Why? They trusted me. I was one of theirs. It really was that simple.

It's when I presented to the area council in New Jersey that things were, I don't know... weirdly hostile. Why? They had no clue who I was. I was an unknown in every aspect. I was a minister from "over there" in Long Island.

Most of the questions were along the lines of "How do you expect this to work AT ALL since it's different?" My personal favorite exchange was during the questions part of the presentation between myself and a member of some 17 member "church" [social club (long since dissolved)] who took issue with the fact that the new Chalice Lighters program would have no set dollar amount per ask.

"Do you mean to tell us that people can give whatever they want?"

"We encourage people to be generous and not limit their generosity to $10."

"Suppose they only want to give a dollar, or just a penny?" this said with that smug look. Unitarian Universalist ministers all know what that smug look looks like. To me that smug look looks exactly like the special ed kid who is convinced she's the class valedictorian. Only the other special ed kids buy the bullshit. Everybody else wants to get back to something constructive.

"People give what they want. We encourage people to be as generous as possible."

"But they don't have to be."

"They don't 'have to be' now."

What surprised me then, but doesn't now, is that the single most hostile response came from the minister of the congregation that was supposed to receive the next Chalice Lighters call...

[Continued...Here]

Your Old Pal
Devilhead

Everything I Know about Unitarian Universalism, I Learned as Chalice Lighter - Part 3

[Continued from Here.]

The program itself was very simple in idea and execution. It was predicated upon several assumptions I had:

1. Congregations, not individuals, are the focus of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations 
2. Congregations communicating and working together is good.
3. Creativity is good.
4. Enthusiasm is good.
5. I am lazy.

[This last piece was/is important.]

During all of this, a vision of a barn-raising came to me, and it was used in the initial promotions of the New York Metro District's Chalice Lighters Program.

The idea was a simple one: Congregations helping Congregations. 

And it worked like this: About a month before a Chalice Lighters call, congregations would receive a small packet from the district office which contained several pieces of promotional materials about the project and the congregation seeking aide [information put together by the congregation seeking the grant], some clipart for the newsletter, and a letter encouraging people to be creative. That was it. It was up to each congregation's leadership how they would respond to the Chalice Lighters call. 

Some might just give a grant from the congregation, others might hold a special offering, still others would replicate the old Chalice Lighters model of direct mail to their members. The point is it didn't matter. That's Chaos. It's also the only place from whence creativity may arise. Creativity was strongly encouraged and congregations encouraged to rise to the occasion.

Bottom line... it was up to the congregations to decide how to treat fellow congregations. To that end, as much as possible, everything was removed that got in the way of direct communication.

The District Executive loved this approach. Ultimately so did the congregations. And I'm glad because this was designed for the congregations, no one else. 

[Continued... Here.]

Everything I Know about Unitarian Universalism, I Learned as Chalice Lighter - Part 2

[Continued from Here.]

Having taken on the role of Chalice Lighter for the New York Metro District of the UUA, now I had to do something constructive.

As stated in the previous post, the average call for a chalice lighter was about $700, and if I wanted to do a good job all I had to do was double that... That's it? Where's the problem?

Confession time: I had already soured on the Chalice Lighters program in the New York Metro District. I had signed up to be a Chalice Lighter, which at the time meant I would receive no more than three calls a year, at $10 a call. I signed up as a high school student, ready for college. I received one call, paid it and never heard from them again.

It's not that I didn't try.

Each time I moved as a young adult, I sent in a change of address notification to the Chalice Lighters. I moved three times, and three times notifications were sent. I did that for a period of about five years.

I reasoned, rather naively, that if the entire program ran on an up-to-date mailing list, it was imperative that there be an up-to-date mailing list. So, as soon as I got my hands on the mailing list I looked for my name, I found it, ten years later... with my parents' address listed. Clearly the three change of address notifications had no effect. I concluded, also rather naively, that if my address had not been changed despite my reaching out [3x !!!] to keep my address current, this may have happened to other people.

As it turns out, that was the case with much of the list. The list was best described as a work of fiction.

So, when presented with something completely broken, one has options. One can rebuild what was broken. One can re-create something from scratch. Or one can create something brand new.

I went with the latter. I went with it for several reasons.

For starters, ever try to fix something completely broken? Imagine a car with two-thirds to three-quarters of the parts broken or missing. Is it better to rebuild the car? Maybe if it's a priceless vintage auto. But, some old beater car? Much, much easier to purchase a replacement car, and cheaper. Less headaches too.

So... if we're going to purchase a new vehicle, why just a car? The world of possibilities opens up. It's exciting and creative. Exciting and creative, as it turns out, makes bureaucrats squirmy and uncomfortable.

At this time, Denny was moderator. She had a propensity to fart out "programs" [edicts] for congregations to follow. One of which, the name eludes me, was some pronouncement that congregations would benefit from communicating and working together. There was more to it than that, but the general idea was the Unitarian Universalist Association wanted to see congregations communicating and working with each other.

To me that sounded great. What I naively misunderstood at the time was that when the Unitarian Universalist Association says it wants congregations communicating and working with each other, that's not what it means at all. What it meant was the UUA wanted to see congregations communicating and working together under its watchful eye, in carefully structured events, all under the direction and gaze of the bureaucrats.

I found out that the absolutely last thing the bureaucrats want, is for congregations to freely communicate, work together, and inspire each other. It makes them super uncomfortable and squirmy. Let's face it, if congregations communicate with each other, they may come up with ideas that work splendidly without the Associations assistance/direction. When they work together they discover they can do things they never thought possible... usually cheaper and without the bureaucratic ideological baggage attached. To the bureaucrats this sort of thinking is both heresy and treason. In my defense, I went with what they said they wanted, not the unspoken meaning behind their words.

And my final piece was my own perspective being a practitioner of ceremonial and chaos magicks. I desired a place where magick can happen. In the process we took away the $10 "limit" on Chalice Lighters and told people, be generous.

I communicated all of this (not the magick piece, I have always kept that to myself until now) to our District Executive and again stressed that I was going to build up a brand new program, and in the quest to raise money and assist congregations in the goal of working together, the old program would be dead as the new sprang from its ashes.

His reply, "Let's try it. See if it works."

[Continued...Here.]

Your Old Pal,
Devilhead

Everything I Know about Unitarian Universalism, I Learned as Chalice Lighter - Part 1

I recently learned that the New York Metro District (which no longer exists; it was eaten by the Central East Region) re-visioned their unique Chalice Lighters program to be identical to the Chalice Lighters programs all across the country. I'm pretty sure, though not positive, that this happened around 2014.

The thing with the New York Metro District's Chalice Lighters program was that it was both successful and wildly popular, and from its inception was loathed by the bureaucrats in the UUA. Loathed is probably too mild a term. As the program was instituted in 1996, and killed re-visioned in 2014, that's eighteen years of being a thorn in the side of the Unitarian Universalist Association, all the while literally doing nothing but good.

Read that last sentence again. It's 100% true.

And every single bureaucrat at the Unitarian Universalist Association hated the program. That's also 100% true.

Can you see the cosmic joke? 

First a little direct history, dates may be off as this is from memory, but otherwise you're getting it from the creator of the now very dead New York Metro District's Chalice Lighter program.

I was serving my second congregation, the first being a year-long consulting gig to a now dead congregation. I knew them well. It's best they're dead.

Things were going well in my congregation in Freeport, NY. I had settled in, weathered a divorce, and the congregation was growing. That said, I felt it was time to give back a bit to the district. 

I spoke with our District Executive (another dead position?) and made it clear that if there was some way to serve the district, I was available. His response was immediate, "I want you to take on Chalice Lighters." 

"Oh shit that program is really fucking broken." I thought to myself. I said aloud "What are the parameters?"

"Raise money." he replied.

"That's it? What I mean is, do I have freedom to change the program?"

"As long as you raise more money than we usually get, feel free."

"How much money does an average call receive?" I asked.

"About $700."

I just looked at him in silence, then, "I could write a check for that..."

"That's the point. This program's completely broken. You can't break it. If you put any effort in at all, you'll easily double the average call amount."

And so I took on the position of Chalice Lighter in the New York Metro District.

[Continued...Here.]

Your Ol' Pal,

Devilhead