Hello! Welcome to this manifesto on grounded spirituality. Part One is called Spirituality is Bad, in which I describe my transformative first encounter with the great clown Pagliacci. Part Two is called Spirituality is Good, in which I describe my transformative second encounter with the great clown Pagliacci. Enjoy.
<aside> 🙏 (Thank you to the many reviewers of this post! @kathryndevaney Crichton Atkinson @stephsoussloff @awbery **@VividVoid_ @peak_valley_pea @chercher_ai @rosaclewis @algekalipso @tasshinfogleman @emily_crotteau James Dama @teebarnettsays)
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Went to the healer. Said, “I’m depressed.” Told her, “Life seems materialistic and meaningless.” Professed, “Dabbled in the corporate world and it was all bullshit. Tried activism and it burned me out. Seems like society is doomed.”
Healer said, “Treatment is simple. The great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him. That should pick you up.”
“Can’t you just align my chakras?” I asked.
“I could,” said the healer. “But it would only make your problem worse. The great clown Pagliacci will explain to you why.”
That night at the theatre Pagliacci burst through the red curtains with a frown. He squinted through the stagelights and met my eye. Then he bellowed:
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, “processing” hysterical naked,
rolling themselves through the ecstatic dance halls at twilight looking for a cathartic fix,
Buddhadrunk urbanites burning for ancestral connections & nonduality in the primal play orgy,
who Om-tattoo and earth-sign and ayahuasca no-blink eye-gaze into the LED shadow-work of Burning Man camps with dreamcatchers catching fleets of polyamorous art cars revving tantric engines,
who poured out their intellects for lifetime lobotomies to feel high-vibration healing from the eighth chakra crystal bowl kundalini flow,
who retreated through global circuits of festivals and sessions and workshops and more and more retreating and more retreating to circle infinite games of authentic relating.
What siren of fragrant sage and divine femininity acupunctured open their skulls and smoked up their brains and imagination with a deep belly breath in?
Mara! Addiction! Escape! Illusion! Lightwork and shamanic aesthetics! Drug deal mysticism under the ashrams! Attainments as packaged goods! Egos abandoned for even bigger ones instagramed out of flowing hemp harem pants and tangled ropes of mala beads!
Mara! Mara! Rootless in Mara! More-evolved-than-the-normies Mara! Self-love-except-for-my-left-brain Mara! Healing-the-world-one-cacao-ceremony-at-a-time-with-my-enlightened-upper-middle-class-Costa-Rica-jetset-acquaintances Mara! Mara the new age cinematic universe! Mara the healing-industrial complex! Mara the whole boatload of sensitive bullshit!
At this last bit, spittle flew from his lips into the audience, landing on my knees. Everyone laughed. I didn’t see what was so funny; I had gotten a lot of value out of ecstatic dance and authentic relating. Clearly this was not the clown for me.
But as I filed out with the rest of the audience, a voice behind me shouted, “Hey you!” It was Pagliacci, peeking out from behind the red curtains. He beckoned me toward him with one outstretched finger.
I followed Pagliacci through the curtains, down the hall, and to his dressing room, where he gulped down a glass of water and wiped sweat from his brow.