Comments | qibitum: blog-aleuia!

qibitum

blog-aleuia!

Nov 28, 2005 16:20

The Revealer blogs Rev. Billy. As it's lead story no less.

The writer gets as far as musing on authenticity and faith:

"Whether this is theater or religion remains an open question. I have come to see a man expound a moral truth to a crowd of believers while his choir sings hymns from the dais behind him--in a church no less. So how is that ( Read more... )

rev billy

Comments 2

The religious roots of theatre. Theatre as a route to enthousiasmos/yoga/union anonymous December 3 2005, 10:03:23 UTC

The Ancient Greek shaman, known as actors had a ritual called theatre (as in Theos) whose purpose was to induce ekstasis (ek = out & stasis = stand) in order to generate Enthousiasmos, (melding with Theos). W.B. Yeates founded the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, one of his purposes was to reclaim this ancient tech. He had some sucess by all accounts but nevertheless did not pursue his work - more's the pity. Perhaps he ran into opposition from the Church ( ... )

Re: The religious roots of theatre. Theatre as a route to enthousiasmos/yoga/union qibitum December 3 2005, 18:11:43 UTC

Thanks for your comment. All sorts of unexpected yet interesting folks have been dropping by here lately.

I'm not sure that Rev. Billy is consciously deploying a spiritual technology, although there have been a few moments of something like Ekstasis that I've experienced in his services. It's the way in which he dances along the edge of sacred/profane that gets me. He once told me when I asked him about how he understood spirituality in his work--

Because the word "spiritual" is bankrupt, because of religion, because the word "religious" is bankrupt, because of churches, we tend to not return to those words. ... Dead language makes a dead experience. It's better in a Rev. Billy performance for us to walk to the edge of the abyss, beyond which is silence, and to stand there and say, "alright, we’re gonna jump." And that’s the point in the sermon where I start to stutter and I'll say, "somebody give me an amen, help me, help me," and somebody will say, "we're with ya, we're with ya." And I haven't said anything, but we've ( ... )