Okay. This is hopefully (I know this is an incorrect use of English, but bear with me.) the last time I am changing the name of this blog at least for a while.

I gave a thought on this for several weeks. I did put kind of silly placeholder names such as “The Thing Thing” or “The Ignition” in the interim just because I felt that the “Oregon Collyridians” was no longer an appropriate name for the blog.

The reality is that when I started this blog I was straight out of a Christian denomination, so the Collyridian label was a way to comfortably link my past connection with the Christian heritage with the newly developing spirituality and thealogical understanding. The more and more, as the time passed, however, the idea of Collyridianism felt less relevant. After all, I have never been a Roman Catholic and my emotional attachment to Mariolatry was next to none in comparison with the fervent devotions given by the pre-Vatican II Catholics.

I am more open to the idea today of being a Filianist, but not necessarily in a way practised or envisioned by the likes of the Aristasians or the Lux Madriana, One of the common sentiments I have fielded over years about Filianism or Deanism from outside the Aristasian community was that it did not feel like a real religion, did not address real-life concerns and questions of life — but rather a product of a fantasy subculture and even a pseudo-religion set up as an ancillary cultural prop to facilitate the role-playing games. I would like to change that. Filianism — and the older writings by the pre-Bridgehead Aristasians, such as those of Alice Lucy Trent — indeed saved my sanity and changed my life.

But we (or at least most of us, including so-called Aristasians who post in the Heartbook) live in a real world with real challenges of life. I have had more than a fair share of hard times and I am familiar with oppressions and difficulties of this world. The problem with historical Filianic communities was that it was merely an escape from the real world — whether or not one attributes that to some extraterrestrial source or to an overly romanticized “good old days.” Don’t take me wrong — Alice Lucy Trent is absolutely right in expressing a need for a healthy image-sphere and she proposes a solution that was viable for some people. Today’s deracinated world is unfortunately a “Pit” infested with psychic poisons, as she writes in the Feminine Universe. But unless we wage a serious spiritual warfare against that manifestation of the forces of darkness, and instead dumb ourselves down in a sweet yet infantile refuge, then the Pit will remain Pit and the sound doctrine is not being proclaimed. At least, in the pre-Bridgehead era, as much as it sounded snobby and elitist, there was some dose of Pit criticism that made people think for themselves.

This also led me to explore what are the true essences of the Filianic faith in all its simplicity. Much of Filianism is embellished with cultural and idiosyncratic elements — whether in the CFC or in Aristasia or in Lux Madriana. What are our messages in the nutshell, that everyone can take and run with it? While I do not discount the importance of wholesome liturgies rich in symbolic archetypes, rituals without a good understanding of essentials of the faith would be empty religious practices without meaning.

Hence after I kept playing with the words, I propose that this blog be renamed “Reformed Filianism Today” (RFT), as it captures the mission and callings of this site.

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