RavenCon 17 (April 2024)

Last weekend, my husband, our daughter, and I attended RavenCon near Richmond, Virginia. Here's the convention's website. Information about this year's con is still up.

RavenCon

Guests of honor were editor Ellen Datlow and author Ursula Vernon, aka T. Kingfisher. Since she's one of my favorite writers, I was thrilled when I learned she'd be there. Her reading consisted of excerpts from a new "Sworn Soldier" novel -- sequel to WHAT MOVES THE DEAD and WHAT FEASTS AT NIGHT, yay! -- and a novel about an angel and a demon teaming up to solve a mystery in a small village. (She mentioned her dismay when the GOOD OMENS series premiered, after she was well into the book.) I watched part of her interview later, fascinating background information about the origins of her writing career.

I appeared on panels about Writing Believable Characters and Geeks Parenting Geeks. The latter especially was a lot of fun, the whole session filled with memories and anecdotes about introducing our children to the worlds of fantasy, SF, and horror, plus the works our kids turned us on to. My husband took part in discussions on Writing with a Partner and Writing a Series. Together we appeared in "How Will Religion Change in Space?" Well attended, that was lively and thought-provoking but slightly chaotic. In our opinion, the moderator opened the floor to questions too soon. Eager audience participation is always desirable, but people kept prematurely derailing topics in progress. I never did get to say much about Mary Doria Russell's THE SPARROW, one book I especially wanted to delve into, but anyway it was a worthwhile and memorable panel.

The most heavily attended session I watched, surprisingly, was a lecture with slides proposing that the folktale of "The Smith and the Devil" is the "world's oldest fairy tale." The room was packed, with people sitting on the floor and leaning against walls -- at 9 p.m. on Friday. An interesting late-night presentation I watched only part of was called "Ask a Necromancer," by a licensed mortician answering questions about her profession. On Sunday morning, a slide show about angel lore in myth, fiction, and film mentioned some works new to me that I may watch on video streaming. I brought up C. S. Lewis's Space Trilogy, strangely (from my viewpoint) omitted from her book list even though she cited several other things that sounded rather peripheral to the topic.

At the Saturday evening masquerade contest, even though I recognized hardly any of the costumes, I marveled at how impressively elaborate most were. Even the "cosplay showcase" of people who didn't enter the official competition featured many dazzling outfits. One I did recognize immediately -- the Queen of Hearts, complete with flamingo, with the equally regally dressed King of Hearts hovering in the background.

Fortunately for getting to events on time, the hotel restaurant offered buffets at all three meals on Saturday and breakfast on Sunday. Not so fortunately, we had to fend for ourselves at Friday dinner in the only food venue open, the bar. With the resulting crowd, we didn't get fed until half an hour after ordering, when the opening ceremony had already started. Aside from not being present for the self-introduction of guests, though, we didn't miss anything vital.

We drove there and back uneventfully. We arrived home on Sunday afternoon to find the house and the cats in good condition.

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.

Deities in Fantasy Worlds

Recently T. Kingfisher published the fourth book in her "Saint of Steel" series, PALADIN'S FAITH. (The others are PALADIN'S GRACE, PALADIN'S STRENGTH, and PALADIN'S HOPE.) Also in the same setting: The Clocktaur War duology (CLOCKWORK BOYS and THE WONDER ENGINE) and the stand-alone novel SWORDHEART. These works may be broadly described as sword-and-sorcery romances in a late medieval or an early steampunk milieu.

The premise of "Saint of Steel" is that the deity in the series title died, from a cause so far unknown. His paladins felt his violent death. The few who survived the cataclysmic trauma struggle to carry on with their lives despite a void where the bond with their god should be. Two gifts of their divine patron remain, the "voice" that empowers them to persuade anyone of almost anything (provided the paladin sincerely means what he or she says) and a battle frenzy called the "black tide," which grants them superhuman strength and speed but leaves scars on their souls. The surviving paladins have been taken under the protection of the temple of the White Rat.

The stories in this fictional universe feature three principal deities, although others are mentioned: The Saint of Steel, whose warriors fight evil and protect its victims; the pragmatic White Rat, whose temples are noted for exercising charity and correcting injustices, many of whose devotees are lawyers or investigative accountants; and the Dreaming God, whose servants specialize in exorcizing demons. As illustrated by a scene at the climax of PALADIN'S FAITH when the Saint of Steel speaks to a large crowd through the mouth of a character, everyone knows and takes for granted the existence of the gods. In the face of incontrovertible evidence, nobody disbelieves in supernatural beings. If there are any "flat-earth atheists" in this world, we don't meet them:

Flat-Earth Atheist

The background of the Dungeons and Dragons games is similar, but even more so. Everybody knows that multiple gods exist and that clerics acquire their magic spells by praying to their patron deities.

What would it be like to live in a world where the existence of deities is a routinely accepted truth? Faith in the sense of intellectual belief would be unnecessary and nonexistent. You don't have that type of "faith" in something definitely known. No matter how powerful, divine entities would be as mundane a fact as the sun and the moon. Faith in the sense of trust, of course, would be an entirely different matter. Granny Weatherwax in Terry Pratchett's Discworld doesn't approve of believing in gods; it only encourages them.

The rare person who experiences an epiphany like the characters in the aforementioned scene would presumably react with awe. Most ordinary people, lacking either a personal divine encounter or Granny Weatherwax's strength of character, would probably regard the gods as powers to be approached with caution, placating them but not getting too deeply involved. Rather like living next to a forest infested by semi-tame tigers, maybe.

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.

A World Without Christmas

The Hallmark channel has already begun its annual Countdown to Christmas movie marathon. For us (Episcopalians) the season runs from the first Sunday of Advent (early December) to Epiphany (January 6, aka Twelfth Night), and I keep the tree up at least until Epiphany. But starting before Halloween?!

Last Saturday night, I watched WHERE ARE YOU, CHRISTMAS? The protagonist wishes Christmas didn't exist and wakes up from a minor car crash to discover she's got her wish. She finds herself in an alternate reality where nobody else has heard of the holiday.

Does the script take into account any of the implications of a world with no Christmas? If they even thought of that aspect at all, they didn't bother, maybe to avoid complications that would distract from the theme of rediscovering the joy of the holiday. No Christmas implies no Jesus and no Christianity, a change that would make the history of Europe, Britain, and the Americas almost unrecognizable. As far as religion is concerned, you'd have Judaism, Asian religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism, and modern-day versions of the various pagan cults. As for Islam, I conjecture it might not exist without Christianity, at least in a form we'd easily recognize. So we should see pagan temples all over the place and people celebrating Saturnalia and/or Yuletide. (Earth's history as portrayed in the cartoon series STEVEN UNIVERSE takes this sort of thing seriously. There's no Christianity, so we don't see Christmas, Halloween, or Valentine's Day.)

For a less drastic point of divergence from actual history, suppose the Reformation as a whole concurred with the Puritan belief that the feast of the Nativity shouldn't be celebrated because it's merely a Christian veneer over a pagan festival, and the Catholic Counter-Reformation adopted that position, too. In that case, we can imagine Christmas being abandoned in the early modern era. Therefore, some people would recognize the word "Christmas" when the heroine mentions it, but for the most part they'd be medieval historians, which she probably wouldn't encounter in a typical Hallmark-movie small town. Moreover, in every human society outside of the tropics (as discussed in Stephen Nissenbaum's delightful book THE BATTLE FOR CHRISTMAS), the winter solstice has been celebrated by feasting and other forms of excess. In the absence of Yule or some other pagan observance, what, in this alternative universe, replaces Christmas? Apparently New Year's celebrations dominate the winter festive season, although this point is mentioned only once. The dialogue includes a slyly self-referential remark about New Year's-themed TV movies starting to air in June.

Aside from the practical difficulties of fitting this kind of speculation into a two-hour feature film (including commercial breaks), I suspect there's not much overlap between writers of alternate-history SF and made-for-TV romance movies.

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.

AI Sermons?

To follow up the topic of "creative" artificial intelligence programs, here are some clergy-persons' thoughts about sermons composed by chatbots:

Sermons Written by ChatGPT

Not surprisingly, the consensus from representatives of several different faith traditions is that AI-composed sermons have no "soul." This is one genre in which the personal, human element remains essential. A rabbi in New York comments, “Maybe ChatGPT is really great at appearing intelligent, but the question is, can it be empathetic? And that, right now at least, it can’t.” A pastor in Minneapolis writes about the program's attempt to compose an essay on maintaining one's mental health during the stress of the holiday season, “Although the facts are correct, there is something profound missing. . . . AI can’t understand community and inclusivity and how important those things are in building a church.”

On the other hand, New Testament scholar Todd Brewer asked ChatGPT to write a Christmas sermon based on the Nativity story in Luke's gospel, "with quotes from Karl Barth, Martin Luther, Irenaeus of Lyons, and Barack Obama." He was taken aback when the resulting composition was “better than many Christmas sermons I’ve heard over the years.” However, judging from the listed criteria, the requested product sounds more like an article than a sermon. Brewer himself, again not surprisingly, said it lacked "human warmth." Given that reservation, can the AI really be said to "understand what makes the birth of Jesus really good news"? Not to mention the unlikelihood that artificial intelligence in its present stage of development can literally "understand" anything -- raising a whole other complex question, whether intelligence can exist without consciousness.

From reports on ChatGPT from people who've tried it, I get the impression that it can produce creditable essays on factual topics, if fed enough sufficiently specific data, although they tend to be "bland." In more creative endeavors, as might be expected, the program falls short. And it wouldn't be ethical to present the program's raw output as one's original work anyway.

Since I'm a slow writer and first-draft composing is my least favorite phase of the writing process, I've often wished that a word-processing program existed that would take my detailed outline—such as those I've constructed according to the plan in Karen Wiesner's excellent FIRST DRAFT IN THIRTY DAYS—and expand it into a fleshed-out draft of a novella or novel in my own style. I could take it from there with editing and revision. While it's possible to instruct ChapGPT to create a writing sample "in the style of" a particular author, I strongly doubt that procedure would work for fiction anytime soon. So for the time being I'll just have to continue tackling the laborious stage between outlining (which I enjoy) and revising (which I don't mind, up to a point) the hard way.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Strong Characters Defined Part 4 - What Does It Take To Make an Atheist Pray?

Strong Characters Defined

Part 4

What Does It Take To Make an Atheist Pray?

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Previous Parts to the Strong Characters discussion are:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/07/genre-root-of-all-passion-by-jacqueline.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/10/strong-characters-defined-part-1.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/08/strong-character-defined-part-2.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/11/definition-of-sf-what-is-science.html  -- which is about science fiction romance and Strong Characters.

And we've discussed what editors mean by calling for manuscripts with "strong characters" (not big muscles, either). 

Here are some entries where we discussed Characters from many angles.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/12/theme-plot-integration-part-15.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/12/theme-symbolism-integration-part-1-you.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/07/why-every-novel-needs-love-story-part-2.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/02/reviews-22-by-jacqueline-lichtenberg.html

And this one recent one about sexual harassment
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/03/theme-character-integration-part-12.html

So, with the understanding that strength of character is invisible, and thus must be DEPICTED -- shown via something visible, a symbol, or dialog, or mode of dress, or something more subtle such as responses to provocations -- we understand that the "strength" referred to by editors is all about the story, not the plot.

You can have strong characters in Action Romance -- bulging muscles, or not.  But you can showcase the strength of a character in any genre -- the wimpish looking Geek in a science lab, the UPS delivery woman, the counter clerk, the person answering tech chat calls, or the kid born without a foot who becomes an Olympic Champion skier.

Strength of Character is about vision - imagination mostly - the ability to see what the results of success at a sequence of endeavors will be, and to assess whether those results are desirable enough to be worth the cost.

How much of yourself - your inner self where you seem to be real to yourself - should you invest in achieving something external (such as Olympic Gold, the CEO's office, the Presidency?)

The Strong Character has a good, solid (if perhaps erroneous) assessment of their own inner resources, their own emotional stability and balance under duress, and their own personal view of reality.

A devoutly religious person may be a Strong Character with serene conviction in their idea of God.  These ideas can range from the most benign Christian view to the most savage destroyer-of-world, or one who demands destructive acts of followers. 

Whatever the religion's portrait of Supernal Forces in charge of Destiny (I'm assuming you've studied Greek Mythology, Roman Mythology, Mythology in General, maybe Assyrian and Egyptian and possible some of the Oriental ideas), the "Strong Character" will not just believe, not just cling white-knuckled, not just sacrifice himself idealistically -- but will study, know, understand and adhere to that religion's view for reasons.

Those reasons may seem perfectly rational to the Strong Character,  so you as the writer must portray the Strong Character's reasons in a way that convinces your reader (all of your readers, no matter their personal opinion of religion) that this Strong Character is Righteous. 

If your novel's Theme is about Religion, or the structure of the universe as discovered by science, or the nature of humanity (as opposed to Aliens evolved on another planet), you have a big problem convincing the whole spectrum of readerships that this Strong Character is Righteous. 

Ponder the Depiction Series for ideas of how to show-don't-tell that a religion you make up for your Aliens is righteous.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/04/index-to-depiction-series-by-jacqueline.html

Now consider the currently extant theory that Atheism is actually a Religion, or at least a "religious belief."

Study Anthropology and Psychology, and you may find how the human brain and mind has a "place" -- like a compartment -- a structural space designed specifically for "belief." 

It is a survival trait, or so most people think, to be able to accept and integrate a diversity of facts, some of which contradict each other, and act in ways that stake your life on a set of such unproven, assumed, or acquired-from-others facts.

Some think that the most potent survival trait of humans is the need to "fit in" -- to become part of a human group (Tribe, Club, Nation, Culture) by adopting the predominant belief, wearing it as  badge of honor, fraternal lapel pin, declaring membership in the Group. 

"Blending in" is one of the primary lessons learned (often the hard way) in High School.  In dress, accent, mannerisms, and taking "sides" (clique joining), teens learn to become one of the Group - whereupon the Group defends them and makes them feel safe. 

This basic mechanism becomes internalized throughout life, and becomes the "default" behavior (if it was successful in High School) the person goes to under duress - during crisis situations.

Strong Characters usually have "default" behavior patterns that have been successful for them in the past, and that apply to a wide variety of situations. 

The Atheist will reject any course of action proposed by a Religious person applying the tenets of Religion to a problem.  ("Turn the other cheek" seems ridiculous to the Atheist).

The Religious person will reject any course of action proposed by an Atheist who is applying the tenets of "God is a Delusion" to a problem.  ("Nobody's going to help you; you're on your own" seems ridiculous to the Religious person).

There have been many TV shows and films about passivist religions such as the Quakers being provoked into hitting back.  That is almost a cliche by now.

But what about the heroic Atheist, the go-it-alone, it's all up to me, Character who is "provoked" into not-hitting-back? 

What would it take to make an Atheist who is being attacked (physically, socially, psychologically) look at the attacker and see the attacker's torment?

What would it take to make an Atheist Strong Character - absolutely convinced Atheism is correct, not a blind-religious-superstition - flip to an understanding of reality wherein their fate, destiny, and future rests in a decision made by The Creator of The Universe Who is assessing their Devotion to the Creator's purpose?

We all know the maxim that a battle plan does not survive the first contact with the enemy.

We all have heard the adage that there are no atheists in a foxhole.

There are interactions (human-to-human or perhaps one day Alien-to-Human) during which "anything can happen and usually does." 

The outcome of any such wild, pure-chance, situation often reveals the Master Theme of a novel or series of novels -- I've called it "Poetic Justice." 

Scan the headlines any day, glance through Facebook for YouTube videos, and you'll find many examples of Poetic Justice. 

It is not usually easy to see in real life -- how things come out the way they "ought" to come out, Justly and Beautifully.

But every once in a while, you can see Poetic Justice in the outcome of a real world situation. 

The job of a writer is to reveal that Poetry inside and underneath everything in this real world.  That is what artists do -- show the reality behind what we "believe" is real. 

Examining the nature of "belief" and our subjective assessment of "reality" is what science fiction writers do.  Take some humans, ram them up nose-to-nose with some truly alien Aliens, scrunch them together hard, and crack some skulls -- find the Poetry behind reality.

That's what Gene Roddenberry did with Star Trek and the non-Emotion of Vulcans.  Roddenberry was a "Humanist" and so created a lot of stories where the Enterprise met what seemed to be a Supernatural or God, and revealed the mundane truth behind that illusion. 

Subsequent producers have taken a more atheistic stance.

Set yourself the problem of creating a commentary on your target audience's "belief" system (or lack of system), and then take a Strong Character with settled convictions and change that Character's view of Reality in such a way that the Character naturally changes response to a Situation.

That is the thematic material of a series of novels.

In a Comic or Graphic Novel (maybe most Games) such changes take place in the blink of an eye when presented with concrete evidence.  We all wish life were that easy.

Romance makes a Character suffer while changing their basic view of Nature and their Self Image.

Marriage is a process of changing self-images (of both parties), a learning process, often called "learning to love." 

What would make an Atheist pray? 

Remember why we cry at weddings:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/08/theme-symbolism-integration-part-3-why.html

Consider Romance, ripening to true love, becoming marriage, and then some horrible threat to the life of one partner which the other can do nothing about.

Now consider all those years of growing together.  How many instances of Poetic Justice have occurred? Are there enough strange outcomes to tricky situations for the one left in a helpless position to connect them and "see" a "Finger of God" moving their lives poetically, with purpose and Divine Love?

What sort of person could or would put "two and two together" and break down and address a foreign deity -- maybe a Catholic praying to Allah, or a human praying to some Alien's deity? 

The point here is not to pick out the correct vision of the Creator, but to Depict how humans assess reality and act on their assessment, even if their assessment is not their own.

In Comics or even Film, it is usually depicted as one, singular Event and the person totally abandons their former view of the universe to embrace a new one.

In good drama, in Romance novels, in Science Fiction Series, it is never that simple.

There is the saying, "You have to have been there." 

This refers to the tiny, baby steps, experience after experience, that adds up to a Poetic Justice outcome too vast to put into words, or even think about consciously.

Epiphany works that way -- it is the last step in a long series of steps that lead to what seems to onlookers a "sudden" change.

But it is rarely sudden.  What would it take for a Strong Character Atheist to have that final epiphany and appeal to a Deity?

The Stronger the Character, the more novels it takes.

Notice how long the TV Series "X-Files" (yes, a fabulous Strong Character Meets Strong Character Romance) took to get ideas and evidence, proof, and belief all in line? 

How many different explanations were adopted along the way? 

Bringing an Atheist to prayer is a long process. 

Breaking a Devout person's belief is usually swift sudden and unexpected.  For example, the undeserved death of a loved one, absolutely no justice to it, despite real, genuine prayer filled with begging.  And the person "blames" God, or comes to think others are correct, and there is nobody Listening.

Atheists are usually harder to convince.  Are they stronger? 

THEME: Atheists Are Stronger In Their Belief Because They Are Correct.

Try it.  See if you can write it, then construct the biography that would set the Atheist up for a change of opinion or a Religious person for a glimpse of "The Cold Equations" of a godless mechanism that is reality - where "life" is just an accident of chemical combinations and the sense of "self" is an illustion.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Incarnations of Lucifer

Coincidentally (if there ARE coincidences in this life, especially in the realm of popular entertainment—maybe there's a trend here), two current TV series feature Lucifer in person: The long-running SUPERNATURAL, in which two brothers hunt monsters, fight demons, and save the world multiple times; the newer program LUCIFER, in which the Devil goes AWOL from Hell, runs a Los Angeles night club, and works as a civilian consultant for a female homicide detective. Aside from the teeth-grinding implausibilities of the show's versions of police procedure and the work of a therapist (Lucifer's psychologist), I'm enjoying the latter program very much for its characters. The flippant, hedonistic Lucifer has a core of deep-rooted morality, skewed though it may be. This Devil doesn't tempt people to sin. As the (unwilling) ruler of Hell, he punishes evil. When he encounters a Satanist cult in one episode, he rejects them with contempt. His main superpower in human form is to compel people to express their deepest desires. Lucifer in the SUPERNATURAL universe, on the other hand, is unrelentingly evil and, having been freed from the "cage" in which he was imprisoned, is presently roaming the Earth (played by Rick Springsteen as a rock star whose body the Devil has inhabited) with dire prospects for humanity.

In the world of LUCIFER, angels and demons (fallen angels) take physical form by producing fleshly constructs for the purpose—or at least that seems the usual method. Lucifer's mother, on the other hand, becomes corporeal by taking over the body and persona of a dead woman. In SUPERNATURAL, celestial and infernal beings visit Earth by possessing the bodies of living human "vessels." The difference is that angels have to get the host's permission (and demons often seem to destroy the vessels they occupy, judging from the typical outcome when a possessed person is exorcised). Both series postulate a dualistic universe. Good and evil seem to clash on an equal footing. Moreover, the very definitions of "good" and "evil" appear ambiguous. In SUPERNATURAL, many angels have no compunctions about sacrificing human lives in the service of what they conceive as the greater good. As for God, He has been simply absent for most of the series until the climax of last season. Even the highest-ranking angels had no idea where he went or why. In LUCIFER, God seems like the archetype of a strictly authoritative parent, at least as viewed by Lucifer and (by the opening of this season) his unfallen brother who's tasked with returning him to Hell. Both of them portray their "Father" as an inscrutable tyrant.

The universes of SUPERNATURAL and LUCIFER are dualistic in another sense, too. In each, the male Deity has a female consort. In SUPERNATURAL, she's opposite and equal, God's sister, the primal Darkness, co-eternal with Him. In LUCIFER, God has a wife, the Mother Goddess of the universe. However, they're not equal; He has the power to consign her to Hell. God's power doesn't seem unlimited, though, because He has ordered the angelic characters and Lucifer to return her to the infernal realm, and He doesn't take direct action when this command isn't obeyed.

These programs differ radically in their approach to spiritual and metaphysical issues from the older series TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL, one of my all-time favorites, far more conventional in its treatment of God, supernatural beings, and their interaction with humanity. One thing I like very much about TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL is that its angels were explicitly portrayed as another species, a separate creation from us, not the spirits of dead people as in the misconception that stubbornly persists in popular culture. The angels in SUPERNATURAL (but apparently not most of the demons) and LUCIFER also clearly belong to a different order of being from humanity. Why do these newer series depart so far from the orthodox depiction of celestial entities as purely good, as in TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL (not to mention the older program's consistently happy endings)? Has a fundamental shift in cultural attitudes toward spiritual matters occurred in the intervening decades? Or, more likely, has the extent to which the viewing audience will accept iconoclastic treatment of such topics changed, maybe from the influence of boundary-pushing cable programming? Also, TV programmers are always looking for something new to grab the public's attention, so the stretching of boundaries from the simple, financially driven motive of novelty-seeking may partly account for the difference.

The image of God presented in these two current series may strike many viewers as blasphemous. But despite their unorthodoxy, I'm encouraged by the fact that two major networks think it's worthwhile and profitable to offer programs that grapple with issues of ultimate metaphysical significance.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Superstitions

Within the past week and a half or so, two people we were acquainted with (not closely) died. In accordance with the "bad things come in threes" rule, should I brace for hearing about another death in the near future? I don't really believe in that "rule," but. . . . How soon would it have to happen, to "count" as the last in a cluster of three? How well would we have to know the person? The human brain, being designed for pattern recognition, tends to stretch events to fit into patterns whenever feasible.

I admit I entertain superstitions that I recognize as such and don't truly believe in on an intellectual level—yet a certain degree of emotional belief lingers, even though I know it's irrational. I feel it's bad luck to talk too much about good fortune, because it might evaporate. I don't believe Divine Providence actually works like capricious deities in classical mythology. But I "knock on wood" anyway (usually on my own skull to indicate it's a joke). There are some cultures in which it's considered bad luck to praise a baby or small child, because the words might draw the attention of evil spirits or malicious fairies.

My stepmother tended to pronounce superstitious warnings on occasion, though I don't know how seriously she meant them. The one that struck me as strangest was "it's bad luck to open an umbrella in the house." Huh? You have to set up a wet umbrella in the open position, typically in a bathtub, so it can dry. I'd think a mildewed umbrella would be a worse outcome than hypothetical generalized bad luck.

In the U.S. black cats represent bad luck; in England they're good luck. So it all depends on your culture's point of view.

At the Maryland Renaissance Festival this fall, I attended a talk about early modern science, given by a man who portrayed a natural philosopher and alchemist of the sixteenth century. He told us comets were omens sent by God to warn us of coming disasters. Proof? Whenever you see a comet, something terrible happens soon afterward. Of course, terrible things happen in the world all the time, comet or no comet, so we can easily find a disaster to connect with the celestial omen. We are pattern-seeking creatures!

One thing that bugs me about lots of older science fiction set in the future is that many authors operated with the unquestioned assumption that beliefs in supernatural beings and phenomena would no longer exist. Scientific advances would cause the people of the future to outgrow that "irrational" mindset. DEEP SPACE NINE, I thought, handled the spiritual dimension much better than the original STAR TREK did. In DS9, religion played an important part in Bajoran society and in the lives of some of the characters, rather than the only "gods" being super-powerful aliens faking their divine status like Apollo in the original series. The transitions from hunter-gatherer cultures to agriculture to urbanization to the present Information Age haven't eradicated religion and superstition; why would a relatively minor innovation such as space travel (minor compared to the difference between the Paleolithic and today) cause these deep-rooted human tendencies to die out?

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Theme-Symbolism Integration Part 4 How To Use Candles As Symbolism by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Theme-Symbolism Integration

Part 4

 How To Use Candles As Symbolism

by

 Jacqueline Lichtenberg 

The previous parts of the Theme-Symbolism Integration series are:

Foundation Posts on Use of Theme:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/03/communicating-in-symbols.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/05/theme-element-giving-and-receiving.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/08/how-to-use-theme-in-writing-romance.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/10/believing-in-happily-ever-after-part-4.html -- on structuring nested Themes into a novel.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/08/plot-vs-story.html  -- defining the terminology I use in these posts to distinguish plot from story and why they are indistinguishable.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-to-learn-to-use-theme-as-art.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/09/what-you-can-do-in-novel-that-you-cant.html  -- compares use of Theme in a movie with the use in a Novel.

The posts with "Integration" in the title are advanced posts about blending two, three, and four of these components into such a seamless whole that no reader will ever be able to see the seams -- but writers can and do see those seams.

Previous parts in this Theme-Symbolism Integration series are:

PART 1 of integrating Symbolism with Theme is You Can't Fight City Hall -- about the romance inherent in Politics and Power (or Power Politics)
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/12/theme-symbolism-integration-part-1-you.html

PART 2 Why Do We Cry At Weddings?
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/08/theme-symbolism-integration-part-2-why.html

PART 3 Why Do We Cry At Weddings - part 2
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/08/theme-symbolism-integration-part-3-why.html

Part 1 of this series ended with:

------QUOTE----------
The most passionate Romance is all about the Powerless vs. the Powerful.  The winner is always the Strong Character with a vividly defined set of values, sense of right and wrong, and unbending pursuit of the ethical and moral path.  Find your epoch in the cycle of Pluto, then find the symbols in that epoch to bespeak your theme.
---------END QUOTE---------

This is Part 4 on the candle as a symbol.  By examining how and why a Candle is a symbol, what it is a symbol of, and why it is used to evoke tears (as in Why We Cry At Weddings), and other emotions, we may learn how to invent the symbols of a truly non-human civilization that modern human readers can comprehend on a non-verbal level.

The objective is to create symbols modern humans react to, and even recognize, but see as non-human.

So we need to look at the symbols that evoke emotional responses for us to find where those symbols have their roots in the objective, true-for-non-human-civilizations too, reality.

The nature of objective reality -- and even the issue of whether there is such a thing at all -- is the the "warp" of the fabric of the Theme.  The "woof" might be the existence of the Soul -- woven into theme at "right angles" to the "warp" of objectivity.

Weave these component elements into a fabric in such a way that your reader only sees the pattern or picture on the fabric, not the individual threads.

That is the difference between reading and writing -- a reader sees the pattern, a writer works with individual spools of multi-colored thread and a loom to weave them on.

That reader/writer difference in perspective may also be the difference between the Living Creature view of "reality" vs. that of the Creator of that Reality -- (again the existence of a Creator is a Thematic thread the writer uses, that the reader does not see.)

The reader sees Karma working out in Poetic Justice, but the writer created that effect from the axioms and postulates, "warp and woof" of the worldbuilding.  The reader sees the picture; the writer works with colored threads.

When a Romance Novel fails with a reader, what the reader is seeing is incoherence in the warp/woof blending of those threads.  The reader sees "broken threads" (e.g. in reality, there is no such thing as an HEA, and in this worldbuilding there is an HEA but it comes out of nowhere for no reason.)

The reader sees a philosophical premise (the HEA), but nothing to indicate how this invented World differs from their everyday Reality in such a way that this invented World must necessarily permit an HEA .

To read, and convince, such readers, writers work hard with the "warp and woof" of the cloth of their theme.

Suspension of disbelief pivots on Theme as the foundation of story and the foundation of plot.

Story and Plot must be cut from the cloth made by the threads of Theme, and sewn together into a garment that fits the reader.  

So let's study the Candle as a symbol,  and how, as a Romance Writer, you can learn to use that symbol and fabricate others from the warp-and-woof from which The Candle Symbolism is created.

It is, in the odd way that all symbols demonstrate, about the Power of the Powerless, which is a subject that makes up into  large sets of fabulous Themes.

In Parts 2 and 3, we talked about Crying at Weddings.

Note how "light" pervades the imagery of Weddings.  Imagery is the alphabet of symbolism.

And of course, candles are often part of wedding ceremonies.

Never forget that traditionally "wedding" meant a female becoming the possession of a male, with the male having the power of life and death over that female.  "Keep them barefoot and pregnant," was not just a saying.  It happened, and still happens some places today.  It is a situation that generates huge, complex Themes about the Power of the Powerless.

Little by little, in leaps and bounds, the definition of "wedding" is changing as fast as the definition of "marriage."  That change is changing the definition of Romance, both in real life and in fiction.

What we are looking for here is the level of abstraction at which no change is happening at all.  If we find that level, we find "reality" (whatever that is).

We don't put candles on a Wedding Cake (though sometimes we put them beside the cake)

 


 -- but we do put them on Birthday Cakes.

 
We all know what a candle is, and how to light them.

All your readers know that mastering FIRE was a huge dividing line in the development of the human animal into a civilized beast.
We also know the oil lamp - Aladdin's Lamp and all its ilk - was the only source of night time illumination for thousands of years, toxic smoke and all.

Olive Oil is a favorite for burning.  Various forms of tallow, all kinds of smokey, stinky stuff has been burned for the sake of light at night.  Today we do the burning way off somewhere at a Power Plant, and bring the power to our homes to make various things glow for us.  But in essence, nothing has changed.

Is electricity fundamentally different from Fire?

Is candle-wax fundamentally different from Olive Oil?

Is oxidation different from electricity?  What if all Power Plants used nothing but Solar or Wind (or wave or geothermal) power?  Would that make the electricity we use to make things glow different from the light of a candle?

If we don't use oxidation for light, does that fundamentally (thematically) change the symbolism of a Light?  What has Fire to do with the symbolism?

We are surrounded by fire in so many forms.  Stoves burn Natural Gas (some are electric; some solar).

We make a fire in the fireplace for Winter Holidays -- mostly no longer used to warm the house, but a symbol of the Winter Solstice festivals.

Some fireplaces have been converted to natural gas, and had fake ceramic logs inserted to look like wood.  It's too much work to clean out wood-ash once a year.  Besides, wood makes toxic fumes, shortens your life, right?

Some houses have natural gas heaters hidden away in the attic or basement.

Other than smokers, people can go for months without lighting a candle or an actual open fire.

If your stove is electric, and your clothes dryer is electric, and your water heater is electric, when do you ever LIGHT a fire (with a match?).

Who has lit a fire with flint-and-steel or rubbing two sticks together since Scouting days?

How common is open flame in your life?

Among your readers, fire is reduced to a mere symbol, relegated to special occasions, right?  But the discovery and mastery of fire is the, single, outstanding progenitor of human civilization (maybe including The Wheel?)  Using Fire to make Wheels turn was a biggie, too.  How did that go for your Aliens on their native planet?

Do you see the parallel between Theme-Symbol Integration and Fire-Wheel-Integration?

The less common the underlying progenitor of a civilized process is, the more penetrating the encounter with its symbol.

The sight of a candle flame can yank a modern human's heart strings like almost nothing else.

Some people meditate using a candle flame.

Staring at the flame to clear and silence the chatter in your mind is one of the beginner's exercises in meditation.

As far as I know, there is no currently existing culture that dates back to the taming of fire, or even to the invention of putting a wick into oil to make light.  The Oil Lamp pre-existed Middle Eastern civilizations - Assyrian, Egyptian, Babylonian -- and they're all long gone.

Here's a quote on the earliest oil lamps:
http://www.historyoflamps.com/lamp-history/history-of-oil-lamps/

----------QUOTE-----------
After human race first tamed the fire and started to use it as a light source, a need appeared for a smaller, controllable flame - a more sophisticated solution, if you will. First such solution was an oil lamp some 70.000 B.C. Early humans used shells, hollow rocks or any nonflammable material as a container and in it some moss soaked in animal fat which they would ignite and it would burn with a flame.
--------END QUOTE------------

70,000 years ago?  

It was a practical device for extending the work day at a time when getting the project done was always and ever a life-or-death proposition.  Also, of course, fire deterred predators.

Some recent research indicates cooking food makes nutrients more accessible to human digestion, so that could have helped the R&D geniuses 70,000 years ago (yes, they were the Bill Gates' of their day) figure out how to make, contain, and use fire.

Along in there somewhere, the fearsome thing (I'm sure some wildfires were started inadvertently, and stories told about that terrifying high-tech marvel the smartphone - uh, I mean Fire) became a SYMBOL.

What would flame have first been a symbol of?

That could matter to a modern Romance writer leaping into writing fantasy or science fiction romance stories because aliens on other planets -- think major love-interest -- could belong to a culture where FIRE is a symbol of something very different from what all our modern Earth cultures think.

To create a connection on a romantic level between a human and a non-human, raw-basic-symbol systems can evoke even more intense emotion than we ordinarily experience in daily life.

So think about the simple, basic FLAME.

Think in the abstract about symbols.  We extract the essence of a material thing and make a symbol out of the outline.

The symbol, the mere suggestion, reminds us of the real thing.
The symbol evokes a series of associated emotions, usually at a semantic level above words, a level where music and scent light up brain cells and recreate an experience.

From that first use of fire as symbol -- maybe a bit after the 70,000 year ago mark -- meanings associated with that symbol would have been changed, added to, morphed into, re-interpreted, and re-associated with different emotions.

But it is all rooted in the routine, daily, boring, encounter with the reality.  That Reality recedes as technology distances people from it -- then it becomes a symbol, a selective recreation of reality.

For example, maybe people started holding weddings at night around a fire because all day long everyone was in a headlong dash to get life-or-death stuff like sowing and reaping done.

When was the last time you shouldered the harness of a plow blade and pulled it through stubborn sod?  What does a plow blade symbolize to you?  Blisters on your shoulder?  Oxen pooping in your barn?  The smell of sweaty horse?  No, you go to the rental place and lease a gas-powered plow for a Sunday afternoon to make your garden this year.

Yet the symbolism of beating swords into plow blades still "works."  How many sharp-edged swords do you own?  (Not stage-steel, but real fighting weapons with blood on them?)

Life was hard, and mostly people died young.  Life was hard in the daytime, and people could relax and do "human" things only at night.  Have you ever been so far away from the glow of city lights that you literally could not see your hand in front of your face?  Have you ever tried to walk in a forest in a night so dark you had to put your hands out and grope?  That is the world where the light of a single candle pierced the nerves and gained eternal meaning -- meaning true even in today's street-lamp world.

So fire-light became a symbol of romance, or at the very least license for wonton sex.

To this day, the "candle-light-dinner" is a symbol of courtship, even if we have to remember to turn the overhead lights out so you can see the candle light.

The candle -- or oil/wick/flame -- has become a symbol of both Life and Death.

We light candles (or sparklers) on birthday cakes to count our years, or dodge that issue:

 

We light a candle to commemorate death -- the candle light vigil ceremony on the site of a murder or tragedy has been pushed back into prominence even as religious observance wanes.
  Making these candles is a whole modern industry.  You can find these vigil candles on Amazon -- and not all who use them or attend memorial vigils are in any way religious or what is termed God-Fearing.  Neither warp nor woof of the fabric of their philosophy contains a God-is-real thread.  But they "do" vigil candles right alongside devout worshipers of diverse God-concepts.

So which is the Candle a symbol of, Life or Death?  Sex, Romance, Happiness, Bereavement, Mourning, Calming Meditation, Wedding, or what?

Perhaps the candle is a symbol of wisdom?

.

It is said (tall tale) that President Lincoln gained his education by reading books by the light of a log-cabin's fireplace.  Have you ever read a book by the light of a fireplace?  Or a candle?

It takes me 7 or 8 candles burning at once to see well enough to read a nice, clean font from a modern book on super-white paper.

I can, however read well by a fancy 1800's style oil lamp with a fancy woven wick and carefully crafted chimney to keep the fire burning brightly, never mind toxic carbon emissions.

 So an oil lamp is to me a symbol of the serene happiness attained by reading in bed at night -- yes, I've done that.

Some people have memories of camping out in tents lit by such an open-flame lamp (though today's children mostly use solar-charged electric lamps).

Sometimes, those camp-out-at-night memories are great happy memories, so the open-flame light (or electric camp lantern) evokes happiness.

  Sometimes the camping memories evoke spooky ghost-story marathons long past a child's bed time, lending the groggy tiredness to the spooky-pleasure (because it's fake-spooky).

Now we're getting somewhere.  Consider the inventors of the oil lamp 70,000 years ago didn't even have a nice, modern tent for shelter.  We recreate our origins and surround ourselves with those ancient things -- the out-doors, the night sky, open flame, spooky stories -- and regard them as SYMBOLS.

What was real, everyday, common, can't-escape-it, reality 70,000 years ago is reduced to mere symbol today.  What was alarming and threatening is titillating today.

Today, we use those symbols to evoke what was once the reality of existence -- being spooked was being really scared death was immanent.

Ghost stories by candle light.

Today, at Halloween, we see symbolic ghosts made out of thin plastic sheeting hung from trees in people's yards.

What is a ghost?  Well, no two traditions agree on that, but generally it is a remnant of some part of a human being.  We term that non-material part we imagine we have our Soul.

Romance writers can gain verisimilitude by paying attention to the Candle as a Symbol, analyzing it, projecting it into the cultures of aliens.  The symbolism may never be referred to in your novel, but it will be the firm foundation of your worldbuilding, and that firmness will be evident to your readers even if they can't point to what is causing them to feel that way.

Invent the 70,000 year ago culture of your Aliens before coupling your invented Alien to an everyday, modern human.

Romance stories that rivet a reader's attention generally contain a core element of a Soul Mate mechanism, even when the words Soul Mate, or even just Soul, are never used by narrator or in dialogue.  The element is in the worldbuilding even if the worldbuilding contains a Theme thread that says, "In this universe, God is not real" and there's no such thing as "Soul."

Whether you, the writer and the reader, see God as the single organizing principle of Life, The Universe, and Everything, or not, somehow being "In Love" activates some component within a human being's perceptions that the human never knew was there before.

Some of your readers only imagine what they would be like if such a component was activated inside them.  Some yearn for it.  Some fear and flee from it.  Some don't believe it ever happens to anyone.  And some have experienced it, only to have disaster part them from their spouse, and now they are hoping it will happen again.

Neuro-scientists are zeroing in on the brain structures and activity associated with all these complex human experiences.

The thesis they are pursuing is that the brain and its functions completely account for everything humans experience, do, decide, believe (yes, even your Politics is just a genetic property of your brain -- you have no choice!), and theorize.

Many readers of Science Fiction Romance are keenly aware of this brain research.

So Romance writers have to worldbuild some theory of Soul into every story-universe, or the characters won't seem real.

What do I mean by "world-build?"

What the characters believe about their world is not the same as what their world REALLY is, what it's laws-and-rules are.

In fact, many great science fiction novels pivot on the characters discovering things are not what they believe them to be.  Think about the film, The Matrix.

Or think about the novel THE FLICKER MEN that I talked about in this post:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/09/reviews-19-by-jacqueline-lichtenberg.html

Remember, I pointed out THE FLICKER MEN is not a Romance, but Science Fiction Romance writers need to read it anyway?  This is the reason you must absorb what is going on in novels like The Flicker Men.

The Flicker Men pivots on a worldbuilding concept woven of recent discoveries in particle physics and mathematics, and is a valid extrapolation from that new science, which creates the plot.  The story is woven from cognitive dissonance, and utter consternation, culture shock, psychological disorientation, and the struggle to overcome that paralysis and deal with the harsh realities that have been revealed.  That harsh reality is that some people have Souls -- and some do not.  Time is not what you think it is.

In contemporary romance, you can find great novels about deeply religious characters discovering God is a myth created for political purposes by con-artists -- and characters who are absolutely convinced there's no such thing as God or the Soul discovering the chilling (spooky) tangible reality that God is Real, and "my Soul knows it."

Romance deals with exactly that kind of cognitive dissonance discovery -- when you Fall In Love, you discover your own Soul, and the conversation your Soul is having with Another Soul.

If you are convinced Souls don't exist, then you may mistake Love for Lust --- or vice-versa.  And therein lies a Plot.

What your Soul knows and what you know are not always the same thing -- and therein lies the kind of Conflict that writers weave Nested Themes for long series of long novels around.

This quandary is all about our cherished theoretical notion of reality vs. the actual function of immutable reality around us.

Some people move through life smoothly, and others encounter vast difficulties.  Bring a pair formed of each type of person into conflict, take up the issue of whether "Life Is Good" or "Life Sucks" and you're off and running with long series of THEMES driving an ever-changing matrix of conflicts.  Add deranging astonishment of an awakening Soul discovering another Soul to Love, and the pages sizzle.

When you are handling an abstract theme -- such as "Souls are Real But God Is Fictional" or "God is Real and only Some People Have Souls" -- you handle these boring abstractions with symbolism.

You never state the theme in words, not narrative, exposition or dialogue.

You "show don't tell" by using symbols.

So you bring in a candle as a symbol -- but what is it a symbol OF?  How do you use the Candle as a symbol that your reader will understand?

You understand candles, flames and the chemistry of oxidation.

Just as a map is a piece of paper with a two dimensional drawing (OK, Google Street View is handy, but think of the simple navigation map), a candle is not what it symbolizes any more than a map shows a street you can drive on.

Any symbol abstracts certain functional components and leaves out all the rest of reality, just as today we seek to have an open flame for the Holidays without the toxic smoke and shovel loads of ash.  Is fire still an effective symbol without fumes and ash?

There is almost no experience of a human being that is not "symbolized by" a candle.

It's life, death, joy, sadness, Solstice, anniversaries, security and threat.  The whole gamut of human experience is tied symbolically to "Light dispelling Darkness."

Remember, the Bible starts with LET THERE BE LIGHT.

It is said, when things look bleak because humans are holding a war, destroying things, hating each other, etc. that the light of a single candle dispels the darkness, mental, emotional, and actual Darkness.

The same about Good and Evil: the light of a candle overcomes Evil.  The candle flame repels wild animals, stops sneak-thieves, etc.  A single act of random kindness is like that candle flame -- and can redirect the path of a human being.

Another proverb about the candle-symbol is that a lit candle can light other candles and not be diminished by giving away it's light.

Think about that very hard.  What can you give and still have?

In Judaism, every Friday at sundown, candles are lit.  In some traditions, oil is used instead of candles -- olive oil with a floating wick, older than the high-tech invention of the candle.

Look at this picture:

What is she doing?

She is gathering the light of the candles to her eyes, then saying a Blessing, and after that she will cast the light she gathered back onto the candles in the official act of kindling the light.  The candles are not "lit" until after the Blessing is said -- and that moment of Lighting officially begins the Sabbath, during which time fire is not kindled.

It is said that the Sabbath candles of the Matriarchs of Judaism lit the tent for the whole week.  Does that mean physical light?  Or does it mean the metaphorical "light" by which we "see" right from wrong?  The nature of that metaphorical Light is a thread of the warp-and-woof of your Thematic Fabric.  It is by that Light that your reader discerns the Poetic Justice visited upon your Characters.

In Judaism, the "day" begins at sundown.  "And it was evening and it was morning the First Day."

Evening comes first.

The Day is the first unit of Time.  The Soul enters manifestation through the dimension of Time.

The Sabbath day ends in a series of symbolic actions.

Fire is kindled once more, a blessing said over wine, incense and fire, and then the fire is extinguished by dipping the candle flame into the wine, marking the division of Time when it is again not only permitted but required to kindle fire.

Thus the candle and its flame are used to mark an interval of time that repeats at set intervals.  By marking that singular Day, all the rest of the Days of the Week are thereby defined.

The Soul enters through the dimension of Time, and the Soul then participates in marking and counting Time, dividing Time.

Those who practice Evil also use candles to symbolize their powers.

So what is it about a candle that contains all of these abstract Thematic Elements, from Good to Evil and from Joy to Sorrow?

What exactly is a candle?

Let's view a candle as a mechanism for supporting the Flame.

Flame is pretty much the same thing no matter what is burning (oxidizing).  Flame is a zone of incandescence where a chemical reaction is taking place, combining oxygen with (whatever) and producing Light as a byproduct.

The chemical reaction has to be "sparked" -- that is, something HOT has to be touched to the substance that will burn.

How hot depends on the substance that will burn.  Each substance has it's own temperature where it will start to combine with the oxygen in the air to produce something else (ash, CO2 and water, whatever).  Some candles smoke, others not-so-much.  Smoke is not a property of the flame, but of the substances reacting.

How relevant to the symbolism is the substance the candle is made of?

Another common use of Flame as Symbol is in the Hanukkah Celebration, which commemorates the victory of the Maccabees and the re-dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem.

This dates from the Exodus from Egypt, when God Commanded that a tent be built called the Mishkan or tent of meeting, where Moses would meet with God and bring instruction to the Jewish people.

One feature required for this operation was a Lamp that was to be built hammered from one piece of gold by an inspired artisan.

Here's an excerpt from
http://www.chabad.org/holidays/chanukah/article_cdo/aid/102911/jewish/What-Is-Hanukkah.htm

As the story goes:

-----------QUOTE-------------

Chanukah -- the eight-day festival of light that begins on the eve of the 25th of the Jewish month of Kislev -- celebrates the triumph of light over darkness, of purity over adulteration, of spirituality over materiality.

More than twenty-one centuries ago, the Holy Land was ruled by the Seleucids (Syrian-Greeks), who sought to forcefully Hellenize the people of Israel. Against all odds, a small band of faithful Jews defeated one of the mightiest armies on earth, drove the Greeks from the land, reclaimed the Holy Temple in Jerusalem and rededicated it to the service of G-d.

When they sought to light the Temple's menorah (the seven branched candelabrum), they found only a single cruse of olive oil that had escaped contamination by the Greeks; miraculously, the one-day supply burned for eight days, until new oil could be prepared under conditions of ritual purity.

To commemorate and publicize these miracles, the sages instituted the festival of Chanukah. At the heart of the festival is the nightly menorah (candelabrum) lighting: a single flame on the first night, two on the second evening, and so on till the eighth night of Chanukah, when all eight lights are kindled.

-----------END QUOTE-----------

So, we have candles used as an anniversary celebration SYMBOLIZING the Olive Oil Lamp that the High Priest lit in the Temple (which practice persisted for centuries from the 40 years in the Desert wanderings).  Ever been in the Sinai desert?  It's DARK.

The Shape of that Temple Lamp is described in the Bible, but even so there are various opinions on how it was shaped.  Here are some.

From the Temple Institute website

And other Rabbinic traditions specify straight branches like this Hanukkah Menorah:

Note the different shapes for the branches holding up the flames on

a) the design prescribed for use in the Temple by the High Priest

b) the design seen on  carvings (Roman etc)

And note how the Hanukkah Menorah has 8 branches, not the 7 of the Temple version -- commemorating the 8 days that 1 day's worth of olive oil burned.

Note how even today old, traditional Hanukkah menorah designs are used, but how artists have embellished, re-designed, and re-imagined the Hanukkah Menorah.

And the Menorah has become a subject of freehand, creative art by and for kids, and for adults:

On a side note: The word Hanukkah or Chanukah is used to designate the process of dedicating the Temple, which included cleaning up the mess left by the invaders, repairing, and then purifying (spiritual cleansing), as well as making the oils and incense and other consumables according to the detailed instructions.

So today, when we buy a new house or move into an apartment, we hold a Chanukat Habayit -- a house-warming -- party.

Hebrew is a language which is not cognate to English, so it "works" grammatically in a different way. The exact same "word" appears in different forms and has different meanings -- but all the meanings are related even if they're not related in English.

The word generally used for Education is Chinuch.  It's the same word as the Holiday Chanukah, in a different grammatical form.  In Ancient Hebrew, Education is Dedication - like the Temple is dedicated, like the Holiday of Hanukkah commemorates.  A housewarming party for the mind/spirit/soul of a child.

If you ponder that conceptual linguistic relationship for a while, you may see how today's modern argument over "Common Core" educational standards can be resolved.  We think of education as something one person does to another -- as an adult "teaching" a child, basically by force and over the child's vigorous objection, for their own good.

What the child learns is the adult's choice, not the child's.  Yes, there are schools that try to break out of that box, and perhaps that movement will grow. Today we don't punish the child for misbehaving; we reward them with time "in the corner" with educational toys and optional activities.

But for the moment, think conceptually about transforming the subject of the Common Core discussion from parents vs. government to the ignition of a child's Soul into an enthusiastic dedication to Light.  Remember, the candle symbol is embraced by those who do not accept the concept of A Creator.

Redefining Education could make a great cultural theme-thread for the fabric of your Romance novel worldbuilding.   Your aliens might require Earth to re-define "Education."

Think about the child's Body -- and the child's Soul.

Here is the post I did which has a link to 6 other posts I did on the Soul-Time-Hypothesis:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/01/cycles-and-seasons-margaret-carter.html

Remember, the Soul enters manifestation through the dimension of Time.

The principle being practiced in Orthodox Chinuch today, by some groups, uses the principle of how a Soul takes possession of a Body through Time to help that Soul become dedicated to Life and Light.

The theory is that the Soul makes its first connection to its Body at conception (maybe before) (a moment in Time), and gradually, in stages through Birth (a Time) and at lines of demarcation throughout childhood -- (3 years is when Chinuch begins, 12 or 13 is when the Soul becomes fully responsible for its own body, and there are stages between), becomes more and more manifest, more in control of the Body, more dominant in the ebb and flow of the animal processes within the Body.

The Soul manifests through the dimension of Time through the medium of the Body.

Leveraging that principle, Chinuch gradually turns over responsibility, one thing at a time, to the child, as they gain dedication.

So what has that to do with the Candle as Symbol, and how to discover and invent symbols for an Alien Civilization?

If we look at a candle, we see two distinct parts -- the candle-shaft of wax & wick (or pot of oil & wick) -- and the flame.

Let's look at the candle shaft, or oil&wick part.  Maybe that's the real symbol.

In the actual instructions in the Bible, the Lamp to be lit in the Temple by the High Priest is described in meticulous detail.  It is to be made by hammering a single block of gold into this specified shape, and the shape is to be adorned with various "decorative" devices.

Since we know that no detail mentioned in the Bible is just filler, we know that the "decorations" may be decorative, adorning with beauty, but there is undoubtedly more to it than that.

The formula for making the oil is described in microscopic detail, and those who did the work trained apprentices in exactly how to do this oil preparation -- far more detail passed down orally than is written.  Much of that detail may be lost now.

After years of intense study, The Temple Institute has been recreating the implements used in the Temple Building itself.

This image and the quote below is from the Temple Institute website:
https://www.templeinstitute.org/history-holy-temple-menorah-1.htm
------QUOTE-----------
The menorah weighs one-half ton. It contains forty five kilograms of twenty four karat gold. Its estimated value is approximately three million dollars. The construction of the menorah was made possible through the generosity of Vadim Rabinovitch, a leader of the Jewish community of Ukraine.
--------END QUOTE---------

Note: THE UKRAINE.

It is amazing, impressive, and a powerful symbol even though it is not being kindled.  Without any flame, it is a symbol.

All by itself, without flame, the Lamp is a powerful symbol, and a potentially functional device, a physical reality.

So, perhaps the lamp or candle-holder for the flame and what is burned to make the flame (candle wax or oil) matters somehow in both symbol and actuality?

But it seems to be the focus is on either the Flame itself, or perhaps on the Light it sheds.

All kinds of things burn -- forest fires burn trees, shrubs and houses.  Oil wells can burn oil and gas before we can capture it and make it burn where we want it to.

Volcanoes and lightening set fires everywhere.  The Earth is always on fire somewhere.

Magnesium burns under water.

There's flame everywhere.  But a LAMP (or candle holder) contains, tames, directs, controls the Flame, bends Fire to our Will.

So the lamp or candle-shaft as container of the fire is a symbol, all by itself, of bending Nature to our Will.

Or, if we Identify with the Flame itself, the lamp or candle is a symbol of bending us to the constraints of material reality.

Is a candle a symbol of the thing that burns, or of the burning?

Or both?

Let's look at the symbol again.

We  generally favor pictures of lit candles.  If you go into a lamp store, they usually display most of the lamps or fixtures lit so you can see how beautiful they are.

The whole POINT of the Flame-Container image as a symbol is that it HOLDS LIGHT and SHEDS LIGHT.

The container contains something dangerous and puts it to use in our world, at our behest.

Does it symbolize POWER?

Note we began this exploration with the idea of the Power of the Powerless.

Does the candle symbolize the power we have over life?

No.  We use it to symbolize death, bereavement, sadness, and situations we have no power over.

Does the candle symbolize the powerlessness of humans in the face of life and nature?

No.  We use it to symbolize birthdays, romance, a warm Yule log at Year's Turning.

Does it symbolize Danger?

Well, we've used FIRE to signal from mountain top to mountain top -- both enemy-coming and triumph-assured signals have been done with fire and smoke.

So what DOES a "candle" taken as a whole, wax/oil, wick, flame, symbolize that it spans all these emotions?

Symbols generally bespeak that which can not be spoken, that which is not believable but is known to be true fact -- what is called "a higher truth."

Symbols communicate Higher Truth.

So let's ponder the underlying concept of all Romance, particularly Paranormal and Science Fiction Romance.

That is the elusive and maddeningly implausible concept of the Soul Mate.

To dedicate yourself to a life's search for your Soul Mate, you have to accept there is such a thing as Soul.  To fabricate Theme, you can postulate all sorts of different origins and natures for Souls.  Your Aliens may have Souls that differ in substance, structure and function both in actuality and in their mythology from that of humans.

But to do "Soul Mate" stories at all, to deal in the concepts related to Fate and even Luck, you have to postulate that the Soul is Real.

If the Soul is real, then it has to have some sort of relationship to the Body.

So to worldbuild for a Paranormal or Science Fiction romance story, we have to postulate a structure for the Human Being. (see why I said you have to read The Flicker Men?)

If our Humans (and maybe Aliens, too) are structured with a 1)Soul,
2))a Connector, and
3)a Body,

then the CANDLE is the perfect symbol for the entire Human Being -- or Sentient Being.

1)The Flame symbolizes the Soul,
2)the Wick symbolizes the connector
3)the wax/oil symbolizes the Body
And that jives perfectly with the Kabbalistic concept of what a human being is.

In the symbolic candle, we (the human) supply the spark, the flame is ignited, the wax/oil is CONVERTED (not destroyed, changed) and appears CONSUMED through TIME.

In the real human being, God supplies the spark, the Soul is ignited by the male-female Spiritual Interaction that parallels the creation of a zygote (the candle) by physical interaction, and through time, the Soul consumes the body just as the flame consumes the candle.

We grow old, wear down, and die just like a candle.

Sometimes we "gutter" and go out before our time.

The Soul is connected to the body through that "thread" -- the silver cord that has been reported during out-of-body experiences.

Our Souls take incarnation for the purpose of consuming a body through Time, converting the physical material into something spiritual.

As I noted, the Candle is a symbol of great power.  It makes no sense that this symbol has survived to this day, and is embraced and used by those who aspire to Good, and those who admire Evil, is used at occasions of Joy and Sadness as well as Commemoration and Spiritual Practices.

There is only one thing in this world I can think of that possesses all that and needs a symbol that represents such diversity of meaning.  That one thing is the Human Being.

We are Good and Evil, Joy and Sadness, a Light to the World and the Bringer of Darkness.

If you find a Soul Mate among Aliens in the Galaxy, those Aliens will likewise exhibit that kind of flexibility of spirit and purpose.

If Symbols convey a higher-truth, it is possible we can open First Contact without war just by establishing that we use the symbol of the Candle (or oil) Lamp.

The Lamp may be just as important as the Flame.

The way we put Candles into a Lamp designed for oil is an interesting variation.  Themes can be spun from that addition.

So, is it the Light that is the point of the candle, or is it the Lamp that contains the Candle.

If you are a Candle, then what contains you?

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Worldbuilding with Fire And Ice Part 8: Point of View

Here's the link to PART 7 of Worldbuilding with Fire And Ice:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/08/worldbuilding-with-fire-and-ice-part-7.html

Part 7 has a link to Part 6 which has links to previous parts. 

This is a series of blog posts on developing fiction based on themes about "Fire and Ice" (things that mix explosively) such as religion and politics, or Romance and Science Fiction.  Mind and Emotion.  Fact and Opinion.  Name a pair, any pair that explodes, and examine how they mix microscopically - you'll find there are certain principles of writing craft, structural principles, that once mastered can be used routinely to mix-up any pair of explosives, or pairs of pairs.  This series of posts is about training your subconscious to bring those principles to bear on any mixture of subjects -- any subjects.  Put the conflict into the worldbuilding, then forget about it and just tell your story.  That conflict will drive your plot.  But it won't work for you unless you discipline and train your subconscious.  Some people are born with well trained subconscious creativity, and others have to train for this job -- but the end result will be the same. 

So -- to work!

I saw a tweet on twitter by a blogger who's got a book out that's Science Fiction with Christian characters.  He has some good comments on Amazon from folks who loved this angle, but a few readers objected to mixing Christianity into Science Fiction.

Their objections sounded, to me, just like the objections we get for mixing Romance into Science Fiction. 

You can read his quoted reader comments and blog post, with my replies, here:
http://room-14.com/?p=44

The provocative title is:
Does Faith Belong in Sci-Fi?

And the comments that sparked it:

---------QUOTE-------
“I have nothing against Christian or Christian writers, but when I want a ‘Christian’ story, I will buy one. When I want military Science Fiction, that is what I want.”

“Pages upon pages of God this and God that … Oh GOD cut it out! If I want to be preached to, I’ll go to a sermon. When I read military science fiction, I want a good story, NOT a spiritual rant.”

“The main character had a fixation on the Bible. For no apparent reason he would start thinking about his ‘faith,’ question god’s ‘plan,’ do some soul-searching, then decide he is doing what god ‘wants’ him to do. It seemed like the author went back after writing the book and decided as a christian that there weren’t enough references to his faith, so he crammed in some more.”
----------END QUOTE-----------

Doesn't that sound familiar?  Substitute "Love Conquers All" or "Romance" or "does he or doesn't he?" for "God" and it's the SAME PROBLEM. 

So after I posted what you'd expect of me, all about writing craft techniques and tools being the solution (which is true), I kept on thinking about this problem.

It's a problem of an artist living inside one VIEW of the universe trying to communicate the human-drama experienced by a character living in that artist's view of the universe TO a reader who's living in a different view of the universe.

That's the problem faced by HAPPILY EVER AFTER writers trying to rev up the juices of readers who are convinced by real-life experiences that the very notion of HEA is ridiculous and not even worthy of a Fantasy story.

Then I saw a post by a screenwriter I admire no end (because he works with this problem constantly).  He's author of the novel ALONGSIDE NIGHT which is becoming a film, and the author/producer of a film I absolutely adore LADY MAGDALENE with Nichelle Nichols as a brothel owner in Nevada (where it's legal). 

I think this link will lead to this thread:
http://www.facebook.com/jneilschulman/posts/119631654737632

---------QUOTE----------
J Neil Schulman
Just because I've been convinced by experience God exists doesn't mean I am intellectually any less skeptical or any less epistemologically rigorous than when I was an atheist. It comes down to what one accepts as valid data. I have internal data I can't share -- which is why I don't ask anyone to take my word about it on faith.
--------------END QUOTE--------------

Within minutes, 14 people "liked" that statement, and there were over 70 comments, mostly a back-and-forth between a few people who like to argue (not FIGHT, argue) which I adore, too.  Arguing is almost a lost artform today, especially on Facebook where name-calling has replaced argument. 

Way down that list of answers is my comment:

--------QUOTE------------
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
Absolutely valid position, in fact J Neil Schulman may have articulated the only valid position. The entire premise of God is what philosophy professionals call a "non-falsifiable hypothesis" -- and the most intransigent followers of any religion get that intransigence from some kind of very personal, very tailored to their individual identity, EXPERIENCE (i.e. Revelation). The Divine "reveals" itself to individuals. As far as I know, there's only one recorded instance of God speaking directly to an entire Nation, as a Group, in PUBLIC, and that's the one recorded as happening at Mount Sinai. What anyone living today makes of that record -- ah, well, there are so many interpretations!!! Since we're talking about The Infinite, I doubt it's valid to call any of those interpretations "wrong."
----------------END QUOTE---------------

So, as writers looking for a THEME and a MARKET full of people interested in that theme, you can see where I'm going with this FIRE AND ICE series.

Religion, Politics, Philosophy, and the currently dominant branch of Philosophy known today as "Science" -- the "Age of Enlightenment" (I do hope you all know the history of the philosophical movement known as "Enlightenment" (which might be argued is actually the age of "Endarkenment" if you want a dynamite theme to worldbuild from!) -- this is explosive stuff which is center stage today. 

If you're not familiar with it or can't quite remember, try this link to brush up on it or search Wikipedia:

http://www.progressiveliving.org/progressivism_1.htm 

It's all very confusing and full of name-calling.  But as you re-read up on Thomas Paine, keep doing the Science Fiction thinking I've been showing you how to do, and keep asking,

"What if Thomas Paine's disaffected Mormonism is the source of a totally fallacious worldview that's been co-opted and re-purposed by displaced Aristocrats who want their thrones back?" 

There's an alternate universe Romance in that premise question, if you read what's circulating on the internet now not as "fact" but as the new popular mythology that you can re-purpose into a worldbuilding exercise.

Here's the writing technique clue you need to filter all this information through:

Every story that has a Beginning, Middle, and End, has a plot-structure based on two things, the Objective and the Stakes.  What the Hero needs to achieve is the Objective, and what the Hero stands to lose if he/she doesn't achieve it is the Stakes. 

THE OBJECTIVE:

A character looking at his/her world from the Faith point of view (doesn't matter which religion, an alien religion would work just fine), discerns a different objective to the entire point of living a life than a character parsing the world from the agnostic or atheistic point of view.

To create a character who is internally consistent enough to seem "real" to readers of all stripes, you as the writer have to know what that character's take is on the objective of that character's very existence. 

The character DOES NOT NEED TO KNOW, and for verisimilitude, shouldn't actually, consciously, verbalize that objective!  That's the writing craft error that many writers trying to portray a character with Faith often make.

The writer has to choose a Life Objective around which to build a Character, then portray (in show don't tell) a consistent decision making process that always points toward that objective, very clearly, very unambiguously.

Real life is ambiguous in this area; fictional life has to be unambiguous at this level and ambiguous at the level where real life is unambiguous - think of an old fashioned photographic negative.  If you want the negative to print positive, it has to be the reverse of the image you want.  That's what the fiction writer must accomplish - create the negative that the reader will convert to a positive-print.

In real life, we think we hold one life objective sacred, but our actions and decisions actually point at another objective.  We are driven by our subconscious opinion on life's objective, not the conscious one.  The "together" person is one whose conscious and subconscious opinion on the objective of their life is the same.  People with an Internal Conflict have a disparity between conscious and subconscious beliefs about themselves.  This produces Plot Events in our lives that conflict, draw us in opposite directions, muddy the waters, make everything ambiguous.  "Story" is the sequence of bringing those two sets of beliefs into agreement, alignment, relieving that conflict.

The artist's job is to single out one clear thread of that pea-soup of confusion we live in and portray the Problem and it's Resolution in a way that casts light (enlightenment?) on that specific thread. 

Criss-crossing too many threads results in the kind of responses you see on the blog entry, Does Faith Belong in Sci Fi? 

So the writer chooses a philosophical LIFE OBJECTIVE for the character then unambiguously delineates the character's decisions as pointing at that life objective. 

Here are a couple of examples of what I mean by an objective:

One faith might see the object of Life as "Die in such a way as to go to Heaven."

Another faith might see the object of Life as "Live in such a way as to draw the Love of the Divine Creator into this world." 

The reader then can "read" all those character-decisions and, for themselves, FIGURE OUT what that character's life-objective is.  It's a rule in learning and teaching - what you figure out for yourself, you own, you possess, you have a right to USE in ways that benefit yourself as well as others.

Figuring it all out for themselves, readers then feel "empowered" too use this Faith-based view of the universe in whatever way they see fit (including discarding or scoffing at it in public). 

It's not the writer's job as an artist to TELL the reader what's right and what's wrong, what is and what is not.  It is the writer's job as an artist to ASK THE QUESTIONS that the reader, in the confusion of life, can't quite get off the tip of their tongues.

THE STAKES:

The Stakes is the other element that structure's a Plot.

The Stakes work best as a plot element when the character holds the idea verbally, consciously, right up front, visually reinforced.

The Stakes have to be obvious, shown in vivid imagery.  The Objective Of Life is unconscious; The Stakes are conscious.

Now, the Faith Based Character's view of the world is seen through the window of the Faith-formed Objective of a)life in general and b) his/her life in particular (such as a priest may have a Calling - each life may have an assigned Calling).

The Faith Based Character sees what there is to lose in a very different way from the Agnostic or the Atheist, and that contrast gives you amazing power to create conflict in your plots and your stories.

The Faith Based Character sees The Stakes as "Souls" -- and in the case of Romance, Soul-mates, getting the right two people together so they can have the right children at the right time in order to (whatever the stakes are in that religion).  It may be to save the world, save just one soul, save the universe. 

The Faith Based character rarely sees The Stakes as Money, A McMansion, A Corner Office at work, A Promotion. 

The Faith Based character will do "the right thing" even when any reasonable, rational view of the situation tells you that the act will result in massive loss -- of life, of job, of money, of inheritance, of a Good Name (ratting out the drug cartel boss and losing credibility with his minions because of it?).  The Faith Based Character is likely to be the Whistle Blower, the one stubborn Congressman who refuses to vote for a particular bill.

Many times, such actions are viewed as "do the right thing and damn the consequences" -- as utterly unreasonable behavior, or as "brave" behavior because the unacceptable consequences obviously will destroy what the character most values (their marriage, for example).

But that's not it at all, from the Faith Based perspective.

From the Faith Based perspective, the OBJECTIVE is not to amass wealth, prestige, position, material reward, or to live smoothly within "the system."  The Objective of that character, (perhaps unknown to the character) is whatever their Faith holds dear (getting into Heaven, obeying God, whatever it is).

So what appears to the Secular character as irrational and unreasonable behavior is actually rational and reasonable given the OBJECTIVE and the STAKES -- both of which are likely to be Soul-based for the Faith Based Character.

Likewise, to the Faith Based Character the Secular Character's choices and actions appear irrational, unreasonable, stubborn, and above all DOOMED. 

The Faith Based Character does not see material wealth, position, fame, dominance, winning, as "at stake" -- that is liable to be lost if he chooses to do something that would logically cause their loss.

To the Faith Based Character, material wealth, position, etc. are gifts from God which are blessings if properly earned by acting to achieve the Faith's Objective, and curses if acquired by acting against the Faith's Objective.

The Faith Based Character knows he/she can't possibly lose anything of value when acting to achieve the Faith's objective.

Using these parameters in points-of-view, you can block your canvass and begin worldbuilding the background against which your characters must play out this conflict.

Now, put yourself into that mindset, then into the mindset of the Faith Based Character's opponent.  The Opponent can't predict the Faith Based Character's actions without understanding the Faith's Objective -- and the Secular Opponent can't never grasp that, nor can the Faith Based Character explain it because it isn't consciously grasped, it isn't verbalizable.

The Secular Opponent can have no other emotional reaction to the Faith Based Character's (random) successes than utter FEAR, but that fear must remain subconscious because to admit it is to open the door to Faith itself.

Now, put these two Opponents at odds over winning a particular Mate.  It can be a Love Triangle situation, an ex-spouse or live-in situation -- even a Gay Couple where one falls in love with someone of the opposite gender. 

Now suppose these 3 Characters are all running for Public Office, or perhaps up for a major promotion, or vying for a CEO position.

Now suppose they're doing that on another planet where the Faiths are all different from what we have here.

Can you see the endless potential of tossing a really well drawn Faith Based Character into your story?  It alters the paradigm, creates avenues of action that would never be considered by the other characters -- because they're "irrational." 

And if you do your worldbuilding assiduously, you can use a Faith Based Character to shape your plot without demanding that all your readers be of the same faith as your character. 

Mix Religion, Politics and Sexuality at the core of your worldbuilding and your plots explode off the page.  Get your reader gibbering inarticulately over your characters' doings, and they will talk to all their friends about your novel, because it's so outrageous and mystifying.  That will make you a best seller.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com