Roleplaying Games and Spirituality

[ecosophia]

I was delighted recently to be interviewed by Gabriel West of The Table You Fear The Most, a recently founded  Dreamwidth journal/blog discussing the interface between fantasy roleplaying games and the spiritual and psychological realms of human experience. We had a good lively conversation, which brought back a lot of good memories for me. (Yes, those volumes on the left were the original version of Dungeons & Dragons, and yes, I played that version.) 

Interested? Check out the interview and the other fascinating content of the the journal here. 

Comments

[ecosophia]

That's a great story -- thank you for it.

[(Anonymous)]

Back at you! That was a great interview. Thank you for sharing. It was a lot of fun to read. I'm grateful to have been exposed to the blog, and I'm looking forward to following it into the future. His questions were great. I always enjoy finding interviewers who can take full advantage of a discussion with a guest who has lots to share. James over at Hermetix is like this. KMO at c-realm. Gordon at Rune Soup too. So often people interrupt, don't know the discussion material enough to follow up on tantalizing dangling threads, or lead the conversation into boring dead ends.

The portion at the end, where you were both speaking about the excision of ritual from daily life was quite interesting. I feel this strongly. I have personal rituals, and we have immediate family rituals, but it is so hard to find rituals to partake in at the Dunbar level. It is a very noticeable hole in daily life, and I'm an introvert. Most people fill this with a Target run, but man, that leaves me deeply unsatisfied. I want that dance around the bonfire, followed by mead and stories in the smoky longhouse, while the kids listen to branches snap in the dark, outside. Nowhere to be found right now, unfortunately...

When you spoke on Evily evil villains, and the Jungian projection of shadow, it resonated. I've been wondering lately what it means that I have deep antipathy towards the creeping global authoritarianism of the Whale. Surely I am projecting, and have work to do. When the kids behave poorly, my inner authoritarian comes to the surface quite easily. But, is there a possibility that an outer trend can be recognized as worthy of disdain, without it necessarily pointing four fingers back at you? A boot on the neck feels like Freud's cigar. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

It's not magic monday, but I also wanted to say thanks for your response a few weeks ago, about techniques to soften the signal of modernity, to the benefit of enchantment. I sort of turned off the net before I said thank you.

Murmuration