Life according to the Queen is Big in Russia!

I just looked at the stats for this site. The most readers come from Russia. They are followed closely by the United States, and then there is a tie between Germany and South Korea. I looked up Russian Queens. After I got past the music group QUEEN, the first entry was about Catherine, Queen of Russia. That is, Grand Duchess Catherine Pavlovna (Екатерина Павловна) of Russia. She was the fourth daughter of Tsar Paul I of Russia and Princess Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg. Then, did you know that she became the Queen of Württemberg upon her marriage to her first cousin Crown Prince William who eventually became King William I of Württemberg in 1816?

Okay, I find this all pretty cool because Württemberg is in Germany, so she is tied to both the Russian and the German readership of this blog. Do not confuse Württemberg with Wittenburg. Wittenburg is the town with the door on which Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses for disputation on Halloween some 500 years ago. And Württemberg?

Well Württemberg has Queen Catherine and....me!  Many generations ago, some of my family hailed from Württemberg. They left to avoid German conscription into the army, as did so many other Germans. So, as a current resident of the US, we now have a Queen to whom we can tie the Americans who read this blog. Now what to do about the South Koreans? Is Queen Catherine somehow related to them? Do they have their own Queen? Hmmm. We will have to do more research on this subject.

Queeb Catherine of Württemberg

Just one more idea on this topic

In my first Blog Post, I wrote that I am not Queen of the Internet. Well that has not changed. Because of my blowup with my Mormon friend, I want to add that I am NOT Queen of Anti-Mormonism. (In fact, I do not see anything wrong with the faith. It is not for me, but that does not mean it is fine for another person and I will stand up for that person to the bitter end so he or she can be LDS if he or she is calld to that style of a fiath life.) I found a site that lists a couple as the King & Queen of anti-Mormons. Their names are Jerald & Sandra Tanner. I do not know them, but apparently they have written some very nasty texts.

Magic and Mysticism

Just FYI, in my definition of mysticism, it does not refer to magic. Again that is because the literary version of magic is ritual without faith. Illusionists are hard working people who use the word "magic," but they are not doing anything mystical, they are doing a good job of distracting people in order to change something on stage.

Also, for me, the word "mystic" refers to a person not to a thing or to a verb.

Harry Potter and Mormon Mysticism

I have been doing some studying and talking with another friend to try and figure out why my Mormon friend blew up at me recently when I mentioned as an example of mysticism that Joseph Smith was a mystic. You can read MY definition of the meaning of mystic in the previous post. There you can see that the problem arose when my Mormon friend got angry but would not tell me what her definition of a "mystic" is.

Another friend and I recalled that our Mormon friend is a serious fan of the Harry Potter series of novels and movies. She stayed up late at a bookstore to get some copy of one of the novels in the series when it was released. Personally, I have never read any of the Harry Potter books and I have trouble sitting thru the movies when they are on TV. This is not to say I think they are good or bad. I just do not know much about them and certainly not enough to use information from them as cultural referents.

Doing some research, it appears that a concept called "mystic" appears in the Harry Potter novels, but that it refers to magic (not my definition of "mystic"). That could be why my friend yelled "Joseph Smith is real and they killed him!!!!!!!" Perhaps she thought that I had blatantly called Mormonism magic. I do not know.  (I did not ever make that claim to her.) As far as I am concerned, you have trained illusionists and the literary concept of magic which is the performance of a ritual WITHOUT faith. Otherwise, magc does not exist IMHO.

I have also stumbled upon a Blogger site called Mormon Mysticism. Now I am not Mormon and cannot really follow what he is talking about, though he does explain ideas and how he sees mysticism within the Latter Day Saints (the name Mormons use to describe themselves) as a possibility. There are some interesting discussions on his first page. There I learned that there are some Mormons who were thrown out of the Mormon religion because they were "apostate." Apparently these folks discuss Mormon Mysticism, but I still do not know what their definition of mystic is. The fellow who runs the MormonMysticism Blog does explain his understanding of mysticism and says that it is consistent with and supportive of the Mormon faith.

This does not really do anything for my friendship with my Mormon friend, but it gives me a clue as to how she was thinking in order to become so terribly irate in a public place when I had not said anything to be mean. The whole thing could have blown over if she would have answered my simple question "How do you define the word mystic?"

Please dear reader, before you get upset with someone, be rational and find out how you and the other person are defining something. Many arguments have ocurred because people were not giving words the same meaning. (That was a big problem in the Protestant Reformation 500+ years ago.)

Joseph Smith as a Mystic

I suppose that this falls in the category of the Queen's family.

To continue following my line of thought with this post, you first have to assume that Christian Mysticism is real and not to be confused with Jewish Mysticism or mysticism in other religions such as Hindu mysticism. To follow my reasoing, you have to agree that a mystic really is somoene who encounters  the Divine in a way not fathomable to most people.

If you can follow that premise, then the next thing you need to "accept" to follow my dialectic is the Google Dictionary definition of a mystic which is: "A person who seeks by contemplation and self-surrender to obtain unity with or absorption into the Deity or the absolute, or who believes in the spiritual apprehension of truths that are beyond the intellect" That is currently at  https://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+a+mystic&rlz=1I7ADFA_en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7#hl=en&rlz=1I7ADFA_en&q=mystic&tbs=dfn:1&tbo=u&sa=X&ei=5J4AUJrLMMTi2QWzxtSbBA&ved=0CE8QkQ4&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=20426e73fad65345&biw=1280&bih=490

So, we are not talking about the occult or magic. This is a real experience of God in a way that is not readily observable by all people.

So, the next thing you need to agree (only) for now in order to follow my train of thought is that Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism (Latter Day Saints) really saw God the Father and God the Son (Jesus Christ) as well as an angel named Moroni once upon a time while praying in New York. Even if you do not agree with that Mormon belief, for my point, let us say that is true, just for now

With all of my assumptions being understood, then I believe that it is fair to say that Joseph Smith was a mystic. He said he saw God during prayer. He was absorbed into God, apprehending something not seen by others. If you understand my understanding of the word mystic, I think you will see why I think that it can be said that Joseph Smith was a mystic, at least according to those who believe that what he claimed was true.

This all seems pretty minor, but I think a great friendship that I had with someone may have been lost over this very issue. That saddens me. I think my friend, who is Mormon, sees mysticism as quackery and so becomes very angry if Smith is described as a mystic,

We had not established the meaning of the word mystic before a lunch conversation took us down this path. I thought that her definition was different from mine; so, I asked her what she meant when she used the word "mystic." Her reply, made in another very angry voice and curt tone, was "Well apparently not the same as yours!!!!!"

I could not figure out why she was so angry or why she would presume what my definition of "mystic" is since she had never asked. I explained to my friend what my definition of "mystic" is and how that made Smith a "mystic." I never said his claims were false. I only accounted his claims as true (it did not matter if I believe them or not, because that was not the point of the pleasant lunch that tuned into an angry outburst).

She calmed down a bit and I asked her what word she used to describe Joseph Smith and his vision in New York. She said, simply, "manifestation." I said okay and left it at that. To you dear reader, I want to say that that word describes the vision. That is, if one believes it to be true, a "manifestation of God." That still does not describe Joseph Smith. It seems to me that if one still wants to accept what he claims he saw, then he is a mystic. (Perhaps she should have used the word "prophet" in the way that Mormons use that term. It would have made more sense.) As I explored the Internet, I did find some definitions of "mystic," like at the Merriam Webster site, that called mysticism "magic." Maybe my friend thought that is what mysticism is. I do not know. I wish she had asked me what I was talking about before making assumptions and flying into a rage as if I had attacked the core of her being.

So, dear reader, I think I have lost a dear friend. It is hard to go back to surface pleasantries after such an event. What I would like to suggest to you all is that if somebody uses a word that does not gel with your understanding of the word that you ask the person what they mean rather than searching all over the Internet and assuming what the speaker meant by the word. What you find may not be what the speaker meant at all.

Avery's song

There is a new song about Avery available for download. Check out Avery's Bucket List and search the June 2012 posts to find to links about where you can download the song. Half of each download's purchase price will be donnated to SMA research for a cure.