11 regal Record The Proceedings of the South Place Ethical Society

Vol. 110 No. 10 £1.50 November 2005

AT THE ALPHA-SPES DEBATE, 18 OCTOBER 2005

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1 to r: Gerald Vinten, Jennifer Jeynes, Joan Smith (Proposer), Chris Bratcher and Norman Bacrac (Seconder) at the reception in the library after the debate.

For a report on the debate, That the Christian God is a myth, see October 2005 ER

UNCLE SAM AND SCOUTING FOR ALL Shaun K. Mason 3

SHOULD THE ABORTION TIME LIMIT BE REDUCED? Liz Hoskings 11

VIEWPOINTS — Chris Bratcher, Donald Rooum, Paddy Lewin 13

RAY TALUS AND THE "EXTRA-NATURAL" Tom Rubens 15

THE POLITICS OF THE EUCHARIST FROM JESUS TO MARX (I) Ron Heisler 18

ETHICAL SOCIETY EVENTS 24 SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETY Conway Hall Humanist Centre 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL. Tel: 020 7242 8034 Fax: 020 7242 8036 Website www.ethicalsoc.org.uk email: [email protected]

Editor, Ethical Record: Norman Bacrac SPES ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING, 13 NOVEMBER 2005 At the above AGM, the following were elected to the General Committee for three years: Norman Bacrac, Donald Liversedge, Miranda Perfitt. The other existing GC members are: Jean Bayliss, Aubrey Bowman, Harold Hillman, Donald Langdown, Edmund McArthur, Terry Mullins, Kyvelie Papas and John Rayner. There is one vacancy. The General Committee is regarded by the Charity Commission as constituting the Society's Charity Trustees. Elected as Holding Trustees were Donald Liversedge and Harry Stopes-Roe (for one year each, being over 75) and Tom Rubens (for ten years). The other existing Holding Trustees are: Norman Bacrac, Terry Mullins, Diane Murray, Gerald Vinten and Barbara Ward. Malcolm Rees has resigned since becoming an employee of SPES. SPES GENERAL COMMITTEE MEETING, 23 NOVEMBER 2005 At the,above GC meeting, the following Officers, who constitute the Executive Committee, were elected for the coming year: GC Chairman: Terry Mullins Hon. Representative: Donald Liversedge Vice Chairman: Edmund McArthur Hon. Treasurer: Christopher Bratcher Hon. Registrar: Miranda Perfitt Hon. Editor: Norman Bacrac Subcommittee membership (convenors first) Finance & Hall: T.Mullins, N.Bacrac, C.Bratcher, D.Langdown, D.Liversedge, E.McArthur, with the Hall Manager in attendence Programme, Library, Editorial & Policy: E.McArthur, N.Bacrac,D.Liveisedge, T.Mullins, M.Perfitt with the Librarian and Archivist in attendence. Staff Structure: T.Mullins, N.Bacrac, D.Langdown, D.Liversedge, E.McArthur, Sunday Concerts: The Executive Committee. SPES Staff Acting Administrative Secretary: Malcolm Rees LL B Tel: 0207 242 8034 Administrative Officer: Victoria LeFevre, MA. LibrarianlProgramme Coordinator: Jennifer Jeynes, tASe Tel: 0207 242 8037 Archivist: Malcolm Rees LLB. Tel: 0207 242 8037 Conway Hall Staff Hall Manager: Peter Vlachos, MA. , DMS Letting Assistants: Carina Kelsey, Nanu Patel Tel: 020 7242 8032 Caretakers: Eva Aubrechtova, Shaip Bullaku, David Wright Tel: 020 7242 8033 New Members Jason Courtis, London E8; Giles Enders, Exhibition Curator, London N16; Mrs Yvonne Mayer, London N1; Paul Rattenbury, Alderler Edge, Cheshire.

2 Ethical Record, November, 2005 UNCLE SAM AND SCOUTING FOR ALL Lecture to Ethical Society, 22 May 2005. Shaun K. Joynson

A little known but very fierce battle has been taking place in America fought in the most unlikely of places — the Boy Scouts of America. The fight has been between the religious fundamentalists who appear to be dominating that organisation and secularists and gay rights activists who are trying to fight them off and return scouting in America to its traditionally secular roots.

This battle which - according to George Davidson, Legal Counsel of the BSA - has been the cause of '25 years of unrelenting attacks' has reached such a pitch that it has led to attempts to change US law and has even prompted leading American legal experts to hold conferendes to discuss the constitutional implications of the matter. One such conference was held last Wednesday. The soldier at the forefront of this battle was none other than a 13 year old boy.

Why was something as innocuous as scouting the setting for such a bitter battle? After all, isn't scouting just that silly club where they make grown men wear shorts and lemon-squeezer hats in order to teach boys how to tie reef knots and help old ladies to cross the road?

That might be most people's perceptions in this country - but scouting is more than that and to understand Why, you have to know something of its history.

A Daring Social Experiment Most people credit Robert Baden Powell — hero of the siege of Mafeking during the Boer War - with starting Scouting. But he did not. What Baden-Powell did was to carry out a daring social experiment in the summer of 1907. It consisted of his taking 20 boys on a camp held on a small patch of mosquito ridden land on Brownsea Island, just outside Poole Harbour in Dorset.

One of the reasons why BP's experiment was so daring was because the boys came from all walks of life. Some were the poorest of the poor from London's East End, while others were from highly privileged backgrounds and attended schools such as Harrow. Once on camp all class differences were set aside and the boys were divided into 4 teams of 5 — called patrols and set to work on a series of teambuilding activities Baden-Powell had designed. His method of dividing up the boys is another example of why this was such a ground-breaking social experiment.

The decision to break them up into this number was based on Baden Powell's observations of street gangs. He noticed that boys tended naturally to congregate together in numbers between 5 and 7. Indeed, if you observe the hoodie dressed street gangs that menace our streets today, that still tends to be the case and 'the patrol system' whereby troops of Scouts were divided up into self-contained groups of 5 to 7 Scouts still forms the basis of the Scout method of delivering training. Any teacher will confirm that it is a lot easier to train children in small numbers.

Ethical Record, November, 2005 3 The other successful element of this experiment was that it demonstrated the great levelling power of Scouting. It wasn't the case that the high class boys naturally rose to the top of the camp. Very often the best boys turned out to be the poor ones, and again, this is still true, not just for children but for adults as well.

For example, in one group I worked alongside four other leaders. Two of those leaders had two university degrees and a masters each, while the third was just finishing her degree. I had been educated at Ruskin College Oxford and the London School of Economics, but the fifth member of the team — our leader, because he deserved to be — was a dyslexic plumber who had left school at 16.

So, the unqualified success of that experimental camp prompted Baden Powell to write a book entitled Scouting for Boys in which he listed the training methods he used.

The Best Selling Books Of All Time Now here again we see why Scouting is so important. If you look at the list of the best selling books of all time, you will see that the Bible tops the list, closely followed by the Koran. In third place is Chairman Mao's Little Red Book; while in fourth place is Scouting for Boys by Robert Baden-Powell.

When it was first released in January 1908, Scouting for Boys was a part work that was intended to be a guide to the kind of activities that youth groups around at the time — like the Christian backed Boys Brigade — could run for their members. However, what happened was that CHILDREN started buying Scouting for Boys in vast quantities. And, they were so excited by it that they set up their own Scout patrols to run the new activities.

One child who brought one of the first copies was 14-year-old Harold Price of Chiswick in West London. As a result of reading the book, he formed the 1st Chiswick Scout Patrol with a group of friends. This patrol was so successful that Harold soon found other children demanding to join his new gang. Unable to cope on his own, Harold approached Tom Foley, the organist at his church and a noted outdoorsman, and asked him to become their leader. Tom quickly agreed, but the next problem was to find somewhere to meet.

Both being churchgoers, Harold and Tom approached the minister of Chiswick Free Church, where they were both congregants. The church was happy to provide a hall, but only if they could recruit the Scouts as potential believers. However, Harold's circle of friends included Jews, Catholics, Baptists, and some downright heathens.

So the offer from the church was tumed down in favour of a room in the basement of a shop owned by Tom Foley's father. And it was in that basement at 468 Chiswick High Road — which today is a funeral director's - where the 1st Chiswick Scout Troop began meeting in September 1908.

Open To All Regardless Of Faith Mindful of the diverse nature of his friends, Harold declared that the Troop must always be open to boys - and 90 years later - girls regardless of whether they had

4 Ethical Record, November, 2005 a faith or not. That principle was ingrained into every member of the 1st Chiswick from then onwards, including into myself, when I became their leader in 1994. Sadly, the 1st Chiswick ceased functioning in 2003, and became integrated into a neighbouring group that was started in 1909 by Hubert Martin, a man who later helped spread Scouting around the world.

And spread it did to become the biggest youth movement the world has ever seen. Today, there are 28 million Scouts in the world. The only countries that do not have scouting are Andorra, Cuba, North Korea, Laos, and Burma. Half a billion people have been Scouts since 1907. In Britain, some estimates suggest that around 70% of the adult male population have been members of the Scout Association at some stage in their youth. In terms of size, the World Scout Jamborees held every 4 years, dwarf events like the Olympics.

Scouting A Peace Movement Another little known fact about Scouting is that it is a peace movement, which might come as a surprise to those who regard it as a quasi-military organisation.

Scouting became a peace movement after Baden-Powell saw the horrors of the First World War. He declared that he wanted as many children around the world as possible to be instilled with Scouting ideals, because he figured that this would ensure that the world would be full of people with similar views who would then seek alternative ways to resolve disputes than fighting wars. Baden-Powell's efforts were rewarded with a Nobel Peace Prize nomination in 1939. And he would have got it too, had it not been for the outbreak of hostilities in September of that year.

The reasons for Scouting's success are simple. Firstly, it offers activities that will always appeal to children. Not so long ago I took seventeen 6 - 8 year olds on a day trip to their first Scout camp. Despite atrocious weather, they eagerly threw themselves into such timeless Scouting activities as hiking, climbing and burning sausages to a crisp over a smoky wood fire.

If you put 100 of the world's top child psychologists into a room and asked them to come up with a series of activities for children that brought out teamworking, leadership, organisational and planning skills, the ability to learn new skills quickly and all the other attributes Scouting brings out in young people, they would come up with all manner of fancy tests, but not one of them would think of putting six kids in a field with a few tents and food and leaving them to fend for themselves for a weekend.

Scouting works because it does not try to put those things that will develop young people into its activities — it just runs its activities and all the positive development come about as a result. Scouting also works because it tries to be open to all. As Baden-Powell - a man who rarely went to church - said in 1912, 'we hold no brief for one set of beliefs over another'.

Scouting In America Sadly, the one country where this message has not been heard is in America. According to fable, Scouting came to America because in 1909 an unknown Scout Ethical Record, November, 2005 5 helped an American tourist William D. Boyce through a thick London fog. Boyce offered the boy some money for his assistance, but the boy refused it, saying that as a Scout he could not accept payment for being helpful. Boyce was so impressed that he got the Scout to introduce him to Baden-Powell and as a result, Boyce returned home to start the Boy Scouts of America, now known as the BSA.

As in other countries - including Britain - the churches in America quickly saw an opportunity to use Scouting for their own ends. But here and in the rest of the world (including the Vatican, where the Pope was once famously told to 'butt out' of Scouting by Baden Powell) these moves were resisted. However, in America, their grip tightened as time went on.

Today there are 4 million Scouts in America but in most parts of the country, it is virtually impossible to become a Scout without being a member of a church. This is because the Protestant Church operates many American Scout Groups. There are also 9,600 Catholic Groups and 4,300 Lutheran groups. According to the BSA's website, there is also one Buddhist troop, but Jews and Muslims don't appear to be actually able to become Scouts. Instead, they can take part in a series of 'supporting activities based on Scouting'. In other words, they can buy a sort of a franchise.

But the biggest sponsors of American Scouting are the Church of the Latter Day Saints — better known as the Mormons — with 30,000 groups and 400,000 Scouts. The church, which considers homosexual activity a sin, uses scouting to prepare boys for leadership roles within the religion. So when the BSA's battles began, the LDS Church offered its assistance, along with the National Catholic Committee on Scouting, the General Commission on United Methodist Men, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, and the National Council of Young Israel.

As regards independent or open Scout groups, they hardly existed at all - until the religious right started to crack the conservative whip in the late 1970s when a volunteer Scout Leader called Tim Curran committed the cardinal sin of admitting he was gay.

Now Curran's admission should not have caused a problem, because there was nothing in the rule book that said gays were not allowed to be leaders. But despite this, Curran was sacked. Curran then started a court battle with the BSA and in 1992, he finally lost his case.

Curran's stor); was read by Californian Scout Leader Dave Rice, a true scouting grandee if ever there was one. Rice's view - as a heterosexual and an elder of the Presbyterian Church - was that sexual orientation was a private matter and irrelevant to being in Scouting and surprisingly, the boys in his troop supported his view. However, the BSA, which urges its members to be 'morally straight' disagreed, and dismissed Rice from Scouting after 59 years of voluntary service.

Why Scouting For All Was Set Up As a result, Rice set up Scouting for All, an organisation campaigning to end the ban on gays. But nothing much happened to the organisation until one of Rice's

6 Ethical Record, November, 2005 former Scouts came to do his Citizenship Badge.

The main requirement for this badge is that the Scout must pick an issue and then write a letter about it to a politician. After discussing the matter with his father, 13 year old Steven Cozza of California chose the BSA's ban on gays as the issue. He made little progress with the politicians. But then he wrote to American Scouting magazine and was amazed to receive several hundred messages of support following his letter's publication.

As a result, he launched a petition, which garnered 35,000 signatories from 50 states and 18 different countries. Then the media interest came. This was hardly surprising, after all Cozza presented a powerful image. He was 13 years old, straight and about to become an Eagle Scout. Now in the US, Eagle Scouts are regarded with awe. Former Eagle Scouts include presidents, astronauts and captains of industries and it is considered to be the highest award a boy can get in America, so much so that there is even an organisation for Eagle Scouts to join which, when you look at it, resembles what might be regarded as a secret society. Unlike you and me, Eagle Scouts even get to meet the President of the United States!

So the fact that an Eagle Scout was challenging his own organisation proved to be hugely embarrassing to the BSA as his young face regularly appeared on TV screens and magazine covers across the States as he spoke on news programmes and at demonstrations around the country.

Despite putting up with homophobic abuse after being interviewed for gay magazines, Cozza continued with his campaign. Scouting for All soon became a nationally known organisation, with its own offices, website and charitable funding.

A couple of years later Scouting for All extended its remit to include atheists and girls, two other groups who were specifically forbidden to join the BSA. But the BSA kept saying nothing other than they were a private organisation that could set its own conditions of membership.

They also started to actually make policy statements on homosexuality, such as this one on the website they have set up to list all the court cases they are currently fighting.

'The Boy Scouts of America believes that homosexual conduct is inconsistent with the obligations in the Scout Oath and Law to be morally straight and clean in thought, word, and deed. Scouting's moral position with respect to homosexual conduct accords with the moral positions of many millions of Americans and with religious denominations to which a majority of Americans belong. Because of these views concerning the morality of homosexual conduct, Boy Scouts of America believes that a known or avowed homosexual is not an appropriate role model of the Scout Oath and Law for adolescent boys.'

In June 2000, the US Supreme Court finally found in favour of the BSA. Another leader, James Dale, who had also sued after being sacked for being gay, lost his case when the judges ruled that the BSA had a constitutional right as a Ethical Record, November, 2005 7 private organisation to exclude homosexuals because it "would derogate from the organisation's expressive message."

A Catastrophe For The Anti-Gay BSA The BSA was delighted. But their delight was to be short lived. Cozza and Scouting for All seized upon the ruling. They contacted thousands of local authorities and other sponsors of Scouting urging them to withdraw funding on the grounds that the BSA was not a public organisation open to all.

The end result for the BSA has been catastrophic. Scores of state schools across America have stopped sponsoring, funding, and giving special treatment to BSA. Prior to the ruling, state schools used to allow Scout Troops to use their facilities either for free or at a greatly reduced rate. They were also allowed into schools at the start of term to run recruiting drives — something that would never happen here. But not any longer.

Funding or special privileges have also been withdrawn by hundreds of local authorities across America as well as by many local and national governmental organisations associated with the police, the fire service, hospitals and branches of the armed services.

They have also lost countless millions from sponsorship deals and employee giving schemes as Scouting for All pointed out to huge corporations like J.P. Morgan and Merrill Lynch that the BSA discriminated in a way that directly contravened their own equal opportunities policies.

More importantly, as a result of Scouting For All's action, the BSA has suffered cuts in their funding from many chapters of the United Way, which is a central collection organisation representing over 150 organisation's for charitable donations, that distributes funds to community groups in much the same way as the Lottery does over here.

Just recently, the BSA lost their biggest case yet in San Diego. The Boy Scouts had a 50-year lease on Balboa Park in San Diego, which was not due to expire until 2007. The BSA paid the city $1 a year. In December the city council renewed the lease for 25 years with a city option to extend the lease by an additional 15 years. Under the new agreement, the Scouts would pay an annual $2,500 administrative fee.

The American Civil Liberties Union — which has brought over 14 previous actions against the BSA — brought a case that pointed out that San Diego had an equal opportunities policy which demanded that all organisations who had dealings with them abided by it. However, the BSA broke that policy with their bans on gays and girls and so had no right to lease the park. The courts agreed and rescinded the lease.

It was the legal implications of this and other cases brought by Scouting for All and the American Civil Liberties Union that prompted last Wednesday's gathering of American legal heavyweights.

8 Ethical Record, November, 2005 Even many religious groups have withdrawn their funding as a result of the Supreme Court decision claiming that the BSA's policies are incompatible with Scouting's ideals. And this has lead to even CHRISTIAN organisations being thrown out of Scouting. One of the correspondents in last Wednesday's debate in Washington noted that his particular branch of the Christian church was expelled from Scouting when it took a stance in favour of gays.

The BSA has also faced very public criticism from notable Americans such as Michael Bloomberg, Steven Spielberg and former President Clinton. But the biggest backlash has come from within American scouting itself.

Leaders of BSA councils across America proposed that the BSA allows individual groups to decide for themselves whether to have gay members and leaders. And many local Scout Groups and Scout Councils have also withdrawn from the BSA because they cannot continue to claim public money whilst having discriminatory policies.

American Scouting Is Split So today American Scouting is split asunder with the religious-backed conservatives desperately fighting for survival as Scouting for All, no longer led by Steven Cozza as he is now an adult, slowly but surely breaks down the barriers.

A measure of how desperate the BSA has become can be seen in the 2005 Support our Scouts Act that is currently being steered through Congress. The Support Our Scouts Act clarifies federal law so that no local, state, or federal agency can deny Scouts access to public government property.

As the BSA says "The act will help guarantee respect for the constitutional rights of the Boy Scouts and other youth and community organizations in their dealings with government". In other words, the BSA is trying to ingratiate Scouting into the US establishment even though it actively practises discrimination against gays, girls and atheists.

Coming as I do from one of the world's first Scout Groups I frankly find this proposal staggering if not frightening, because the last person who tried to ingratiate Scouting into the establishment was Mussolini, and when his attempt failed, he simply replaced Scouting with his own movement. Later of course, he was followed by Hitler and his infamous Hitler Youth, whose distinguished list of alumni includes our current Pope.

Scouting is not part of any establishment. It is not an arm of any agency, a branch of the education or social services or the tool of any govemment. Nor is it a religious organisation. Mind, try telling that to the BSA, whose book list for new Scouting recruits includes the following titles:-

God and Family, God and Church, God and Me, God and Life, Pope Pius XII, God and Life.

Ethical Record, November, 2005 9 No Duty To God What American Scouting seems to have missed with this list of books is the fact that since the very beginning of the Scouting movement you have always been able to join the Scouts in France, Belgium, Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Ukraine, Switzerland, China and many other countries without ever having to make a promise to do a duty to God.

This is because —America excepted - Scouting is a self-reliant independent non-political, interdenominational organisation run by volunteers that provides enjoyable activities to children - and adults - that coincidentally, just happens to benefit them.

I have been following this battle for about ten years and I must admit to being utterly puzzled by it. Scouting is great fun —but it's not something one needs to take so seriously that one gets into court battles over or to demand changes to the law or constitution. It's only a hobby, for goodness sake.

But the BSA doesn't see it like that and when you see how it is dominated by religious groups like the Mormon Church, you can understand why. As in this country, Scouting is the biggest organised youth movement there is and so it offers churches the opportunity to do what Baden-Powell always resisted, namely to use Scouting as a vehicle through which you indoctrinate millions of young people into your religion.

Religious groups would never get away with that over here. True, there are Scout Groups sponsored by Churches, but all but a tiny few are open to all. We have an equal opportunities policy, so no problem with gays and girls then.

In this country, scouting remains what Baden Powell always said it should be, namely a game for children that adults could also play. But forcing its members to play that game by making it part of a state as the Americans are trying to do will destroy it - as will having rules forbidding certain people from playing it for no other reason than they happen to be non-religious, of the wrong sex or the wrong sexuality.

Unlike American Scouting bosses, the rest of the world learned this lesson years ago. But thanks to Steven Cozza, Scouting for All and the American Civil Liberties Union, a revolution is coming to America; and when it does, Scouting over there will be much better for being able to be played by EVERY child - because as the writings of Baden-Powell have consistently shown, this is exactly what he would have wanted. THE HUMANIST REFERENCE LIBRARY We am gratefulto SPES membersDorothy and Tom Forsythwho are movingto the South coastfor the donationof booksto the HumanistReference Library at ConwayHall. The Humanist Reference Library is normally open for members and researchers on Mondays to Fridays between 2.00 and 6.00pm. It is best to let the Librarian, Jennifer Jeynes, or the Archivist, Malcolm Rees, know in advance of your intention to visit the Library. Tel: 020 7242 8037/4. Email: [email protected]

10 Ethical Record, November, 2005 SHOULD THE ABORTION TIME LIMIT BE REDUCED? Liz Hoskings Ethical Dilemma presented to the Ethical Society, 6 November 2005

Dr Liam Fox of the Conservative Party recently raised the issue of reducing the abortion time limit, and expressed concern over the high level of abortions in Britain. Typically the press regards this to be a right wing concern, and while the right dominate this fraught topic it will be perceived to be so. However, this obscures the fact that large sections of the public, whatever their political leanings, feel uneasy about late abortions.

A YouGov/ Daily Telegraph poll disproved the claim made by many feminists that abortion is a man v woman issue. The survey showed that a _ larger number of women than men favoured restrictions to abortion access, 25% of women surveyed in fact believed the time limit should be 12 weeks or lower. Liz Hoskings

Abortion providers such as BPAS and Marie Slopes are fond of citing the examples of individual women and their circumstances in order to ease restrictions on access to late abortion. The most common groups they cite are menopausal women who were unaware they were pregnant and teenage girls who deny their symptoms and are afraid to tell their parents. Other reasons may be breakdowns of relationships. Marie Stopes gave the example of a woman who aborted at 24 weeks after being beaten with a baseball bat by her partner when she informed him she was pregnant.

These are hard cases that do arouse sympathy. Such issues were a factor in the BMA decision this year against lowering the time limit. Another reason was long waiting lists on the NHS. However, it could be argued that were women given more support while pregnant in difficult circumstances, and care after birth, there would be very little demand for late abortions. It goes without saying that NHS waiting lists should be reduced.

The left supports increased child care facilities, increased maternity and paternity leave, and feminists have long demanded that men cease to be abusive and face up to their responsibilities as fathers, along with ending the social stigma attached to single mothers. Unrestricted access to abortion will not solve these underlying issues, it will leave them intact and may even act as a disincentive to reform them. Besides which, late abortions are a greater risk to women's health in general. Complications are more likely to arise, and women are more at risk of miscarriages if they decide to conceive again. Abortion rights groups, despite medical evidence to the contrary, deny these risks. This indicates their professed concern for women is questionable.

Ethical Record, November, 2005 11 What Defines A Human The concept of what defines a human has been disputed for centuries. Up until relatively recently this status was only granted to white adult males, and children still have fewer rights than adults. It therefore should not be anathema for the left to discuss reasonably at what point life in fact begins.

Owing to modern medical science, birth is shown to be only one stage of human development. A week before a foetus is born it is no less sentient than a day- old baby. Only a small minority of the population believe abortion should be allowed up until birth, and the YouGov poll showed this minority was significantly male. The feminist doctor Wendy Savage stated that there comes a point of development when the right of the unborn child to exist equals the right of the mother to abort it.

The current time limit is based upon the 'viability' of the foetus (its ability to live outside the womb). Due to advances in technology this is now as low as 23 weeks, sometimes even lower, although the long term survival rate of children born this prematurely is still relatively low and many are disabled. But this is not the only issue surrounding the debate. Ultrasound technology shows that foetuses younger than this show high levels of responsiveness to stimuli and appear to move in the womb purposefully. Is abortion justified after such a stage?

Hardened pro-choicers would argue yes, that the rights of the mother outweigh the rights of the unborn child no matter what; in fact they often do not give the foetus human status so the question is moot. They often raise the objection that a foetus is not 'alive'. Yet this is a red herring, as few women who have been through a pregnancy, wanted or not, would deny that something was alive inside them. The actual question is not, in fact, whether or not something dies during an abortion (common sense will tell us that it does) but rather as to whether this being has human status and is worthy in itself of life, and if so then at which point.

Birth is simply a change of environment from the water based existence in the womb, and the child adapts and continues to develop. If the foetus has reached a stage where it can live outside the womb, it is difficult to make the claim that it is justifiable to kill it while still inside. Very young children and babies cannot survive either without the intervention of adults, so it is an irrelevance to point out that sophisticated technology is needed to keep an extremely premature baby alive.

Abortion 'A Tragedy' While we can support the right of adults to make responsible decisions we should not take the crude libertarian view of damning the consequences. To support a time restriction upon abortion does not have to mean joining the ranks of the right. A left wing perspective would involve a positive campaign, such as demands for better child care facilities, issues that the right does not wish to address.

A vast majority of people, many of whom support access to abortion, acknowledge that it is not inherently pleasant and not an easy decision, indeed not one that they would like to have to make. Many of them know this firsthand from experience. It is therefore not consoling for anybody that a higher number of people are feeling compelled, for whatever the reasons, into making this 'choice'.

12 Ethical Record, November, 2005 The American feminist theorist Naomi Wolf spoke of abortion as being a tragedy, and an evil, even if a necessary one. She in fact caused some controversy in her circles by pointing out that it is in fact a matter of life and death.

A study in Italy showed a peak in abortion rates during the summer. This coincided with a peak in female suicides. Previous studies have shown that women who seek abortions do have a higher rate of depression. The Italian researchers drew the conclusion that similar factors that drive women to suicide may also drive them to abortion.

If we address the underlying social issues then hopefully the time will come when abortion will become far more of a rarity. Meanwhile lowering the time limit will ease the moral dilemma and protect women's health. It may even make pregnant teenagers come forward more quickly and induce women to solve the problems of abusive relationships at an earlier stage. Teenagers may be pleasantly surprised to find a supportive family, and if not then the matter is one for social workers and other carers, who need more resources.

Concern over the high abortion rate is only a right wing issue if we let it remain one by refusing to either acknowledge the concern it causes many people or address the problems facing women and suggest positive alternatives to what is an unpleasant and often traumatic procedure.

Sources: www.YouGov.com Seasonal Trend in Abortions Linked to Depression, 22 August 2001, New Scientist. www.guardian.co.uk http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news http://saturn.med.nyu.edu

VIEWPOINTS

Castles In The Mr I am delighted that my talk (May ER) on Reification has generated some vigorous Viewpoints: from Peter Cadogan, in June, and Hyman Frankel, in October. I want to briefly refute the false inferences made as to my own views.

It should be patent that I do not deny that people can be working class, oppressed, or alienated, or that some roses are red; and that I am all for justice, liberty, equality (and redness), not only as meaningful notions, however difficult they may be to define. Of course one should tackle instances and causes of injustice and the like. I have no quarrel with abstract nouns; a fortiori because they do not represent entities; and in denying that they are substantive, other than in the grammatical sense of that term, I am not saying that the qualities they represent are thereby imaginary. My warning was against the demagogy and constructs, whether of Left or Right, that can arise, when, as I put it, abstract terms are given a life of their own.

And, yes, I do not exempt Moncure Conway from criticism. He may have been a born again Humanist, but, like Freud, he could not rid himself of the reificatory tendencies of his age and past religion. Dedicating, as Peter Cadogan reports, South Place, first to the Supreme Light and Fire is bad enough, smacking Ethical Record, November, 2005 13 as it does of cod Zoroastrianism; in adding "Reason & Love in their struggle with Unreason and Inhumanity", he leaves us with a sample of the "rational religious sentiment" that we still have to wrestle with. Chris Bratcher - London WC1 No Debate The "debate" on 18 October (see reports in October ER) was entertaining and enjoyable, but not a debate. A Christian controversialist might have said, for instance, that Joan Smith was wrong about the doctrine of atonement, or something. Reverend Sandy Millar just repeated tatty falsehoods he has no doubt repeated many times from the pulpit (that there is independent evidence for Jesus's life and resurrection, that Hitler was an atheist).

Reverend Paul Crowley and the men called from the audience seemed unaware of any controversy. Their personal experiences were clearly important to them, but not evidence of any event outside their brains. I told an Alpha chap (not one of those who spoke in public) I did not believe in God, and he said "then why don't you invite God into your life?"!

It would be interesting, if it can be arranged, to stage a debate about the existence of God with a Christian who understands the question. Donald Rooum - London, El Brave Azam One of the few magazines I subscribe to and always read from cover to cover is the Ethical Record, and I thought its September issue very interesting. Particularly good, I thought, was The Meaning of Life, by Chris Bratcher.

The lecture by Azam Kanguian on Secularism and Women's Rights in the Middle East was outstanding, and it was brave of her to say what she did. It ended:

'The objectives of those who want to modernise Islam are far more limited than mine. This is not the modernism we deserve. Attempting to modernise or reform Islam will only prolong the age-old oppression and subordination of women in Islam-stricken societies. Rather than modernising Islam, it must be caged, just as humanity caged Christianity two centuries ago. Islam must become subordinate to secularism and the secular state.' Paddy Lewin - Blackheath

SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETY Reg Charity No. 251396 Founded in 1793, the Society is a progressive movement whose aims are: the study and dissemination of ethical principles based on humanism, the cultivation of a rational and humane way of life, and the advancement of research and education in relevant fields. We invite to membership those who reject supernatural creeds and are in sympathy with our aims. At Conway Hall the programme includes Sunday lectures, discussions, evening courses and the renowned South Place Sunday Concerts of chamber music. The Society maintains a Humanist Reference Library. The Society's journal, Ethical Record, is issued ten times a year. Funerals and Memorial meetings may be arranged. The annual subscription is £18 (112 if a full-time student, unwaged or over 65).

14 Ethical Record, November, 2005 RAY TALLIS AND THE "EXTRA-NATURAL" Tom Rubens

What follows is partly a response to The Sighted Watchmaker, the Skene Lecture to SPES given by Ray Tanis in July 2005, but mainly a reply to Tallis's article Freedom as a Reality-Producing Illusion, which appeared in the philosophy journal The Monist in April 2003. In this article, certain ideas about free-will expressed in the SPES talk ' are expounded in more detail. They constitute an interesting challenge to the determinist - indeed the entire naturalist - position, but one which can be effectively met.

TaHis: Reasons Are Not Causes First, Tallis's argument in The Monist (echoed in his SPES lecture) claims that mankind is gradually acceding to a freedom from causality; that, as human beings, we are developing a distinctness from, and independence of, the surrounding physical world, indeed from all external forces that might otherwise determine our behaviour. Bound up with this independence is an empowering awareness of selfhood and individual identity. This awareness enables us to see ourselves, and actually to be, genuine originators of action, self-propelling agents. As such, our actions are no longer driven by biological instincts, needs and appetites, in contrast to the lower animals and to man at earlier stages of evolution. Instead, they are "mediated" by wholly rational factors—reasons and intentions. This mediation is not the same as causation: Tallis, like Leibniz, argues that reasons are not causes.

As agents of the kind described, we become true self-movers 2 and self- formers, no longer subject to determinism of either the physical or the psycho- social kind. What impels us is the intuition of our independence and uniqueness as individual actors: our perception of "the am-ground of agency". This perception is the "Existential Intuition". '

Thus, thinks Tallis, we escape from the false perspective which sees our actions as mere links in a chain of cosmic cause and effect that stretches back to Big Bang and forward to Big Crunch. A link, a mere segment in a causal sequence, cannot be a genuine originator or new departure. Our freedom from phySical determinism does not, however, mean that we can act independently of the laws of nature, which are unbreakable, but it does mean that we can freely choose which laws of nature in the external world to manipulate, in the rational pursuit of our various goals and aims. This exercise in choosing which natural forces to utilize or "hitch a ride on", places us "outside of nature" and "creates an extra-natural space' from which humans are in a position to... obey nature in such a manner as to command it." In freely adopting this controlling role, we confirm our status as originators by putting our own stamp on the course of events in the external world, and "actually change what would otherwise have taken place." Further, "This aspect of freedom is most starkly inconsistent with determinism, which allows only one outcome."

Now for commentary:- Firstly, let's look at the notion of a selfhood no longer subject to determinism or, by implication, to antecedent factors of any kind. This is a familiar concept in existentialist thought (see Tallis's phrase "Existential Intuition"; also, he refers to Maurice Merleau-Ponty). Moreover, it relates to Ethical Record, November, 2005 15 libertarian styles of thinking in general. However, in discussing this kind of selfhood, Tallis at one point falls into ambiguous wording. He defines "the am- ground of agency" as "the territory of what I am, out of which can emerge events that are true actions because they are events which have grown out of what I am." These words, intended to delineate an existentialist position, could equally define an essentialist, determinist one, according to which actions are the outgrowth and expression of pre-established temperament, propensity, character. Essentialism argues that what we do follows from what we are in the well-known Latin dictum: operari sequitur esse.

What is more, determinism has no problem with the view that what we are is indeed part of a cosmic chain of cause and effect. The key point for determinists is that this sequence is dynamic; each part of it is both product and productive. Hence, each component, while caused, has its own characteristic momentum and fecundity. It is, on this view, a unique configuration of the energy which, according to the law of the Conservation of Energy, it inherits from antecedent conditions. Shakespeare On Nature Determinism's insistence on prior factors, especially physical ones, is clearly at odds with Tallis's concept of a selfhood free of causation of any kind. It is also at variance with his additional claim that the self, while exempt from physical determinism, cannot act independently of the laws of nature. If constrained by these laws, the self is surely not physically free. Furthermore, if so constrained, it cannot, by definition, be "outside-of-nature", contrary to Tallis's contention that "outside-of-nature is the am-soil of selfhood." Hence man's ability to control other natural processes and improve them is a matter of one natural phenomenon emending another. As Shakespeare says in The Winter's Tale: "Yet nature is made better by no mean / But nature makes that mean: so, over that art, / Which you say adds to nature, is an art / That nature makes."

There is of course no dispute about man's uniqueness in the natural world, his unparalleled complexity. But these distinctive qualities make man a peerless part of nature, not something in any way separate from nature. His undeniable distance from the lower animals is one between a certain kind of natural structure and other, simpler kinds. In man, nature has reached an unprecedented level of structural intricacy.

As a natural formation, man can never transcend his biological make-up and processes (which of course include brain-processes). Indeed, his biological complexity underpins his complexity as a whole. Every feature of his being is natural.

Anyone who argues for the "extra-natural" must reckon with a major tenet of naturalism: that no area of reality can be ruled out in advance as being inaccessible to scientific investigation. Naturalism of course equates reality with nature; for it, the non-natural is the unreal. Obviously, proponents of the extra-natural do not regard the latter as unreal. If it is a reality, then, is it open to scientific exploration? And, if it is open, what is such exploration likely to reveal? Invariably, the light cast by science discloses, at the macroscopic level at least, event-consistencies and

16 Ethical Record, November, 2005 regularities which can reasonably be interpreted as causal, and as the operation of causal laws. It is difficult to envisage what kind of knowledge other than of consistency and order that scientific analysis could yield, at the macroscopic level; and knowledge of consistency lends itself to deterministic interpretations. So, if the extra-natural can be scientifically described, the description is likely to be of orderly sequence, one which throws doubt on any claims about absolute and unconditioned freedom. We are back, in fact, to Tallis's concession that the laws of nature are pervasive and inescapable; and back to the problem which this concession raises for his postulate about being "outside-of-nature". Rubens: Reasons Are Causes As regards his argument that the self remains free of causation even though its projects are mediated by reasons and intentions, this only begs the question of possible linkage between reasons and causes. Usually, reasons and intentions are seen as either constituting motives or being connected with them; and yet if motives are not themselves to be regarded as causes, the normal assumption is that they are attached to causes. Hence, when Tallis speaks of human beings choosing which laws of nature to utilize in our dealings with the external world, one is bound to ask why one choice is made and not another. He says that "Reasons shape patterns of engagement with the causal matrix", without clarifying the precise sense in which "shape" differs from "cause"; without clarifying, that is, exactly how reasons are not themselves part of, or connected with, a larger causal matrix which includes humans as well as the world external to us.

Let's now turn to Tallis's point that mankind's ability to control events in the external world means that we "change what would otherwise have taken place"; and to his contention that, because we exercise this control freely, determinism, "which allows only one outcome", is called into question. One viable determinist reply is as follows:-- It can be argued that the fact of human control was actually the only possible outcome of man's evolution. Given an adequate awareness of all the factors in play in the evolutionary process—including the emergence of capacities, needs and aspirations, the acquisition of knowledge and the development of technical skills; and taking the deterministic view that these processes were wholly matters of cause and effect: then it was inevitable that, in Tallis's words, "one piece of matter" (a human body or a human being) should get a purchase on other pieces of matter" by "getting a purchase on itself." Tanis claims that, according to determinism, this achievement of control by one area of matter over itself and then over other areas is an "impossibility"; but, from a sufficiently detailed causalist perspective, the very opposite is the case.

Also, it is obviously and trivially true that the external world would be different from what it is, had not mankind possessed the capacity to alter it. This point does not undermine the "one outcome" argument as stated above. If a causalist interpretation is accepted, then it goes without saying that things would have been different if the causal process in question had not been operative. At any point along the cause-and-effect continuum, a particular component in the sequence is something which, in different circumstances, would not have occurred.

Finally, something should be said on an issue which runs through Tallis's various arguments: that of genuine ownership of our actions. The question will be

Ethical Record, November, 2005 17 asked: How is such ownership possible if, on the determinist view, actions are part of a stream of cause and effect which transcends the individual, and if therefore there is no such thing as origination ex nihilo? The answer relates back to a position stated earlier: what we do follows from what we are. Even though our temperaments and characters are cosmically embedded in the way described, and so not of our making or choosing, the fact that they constitute our identity points to a kind of ownership; and one which, with rare exceptions, we cherish. That we do not just passively accept our characters but actively value them, and wish to develop and refine the capacities they contain, are further considerations supporting the idea of ownership.

This highly positive attitude toward our selfhoods applies also to the actions emanating from them. The actions we find most satisfying are those we regard as most deeply prompted by our definite and determinate selves; and not those seen as uncaused and therefore not flowing from a clearly demarcated self. We are most contented when we feel our actions most fulfil, to quote Shakespeare again, the injunction in Hamlet: "To thine own self be true."

1 Text published in the July/August and September 05 issues of ER.

By 'physical', TaIlis appears to mean only physical factors external to the human body. In discussing independence from thc physical, he makes no reference to physicalist and epiphenomcnalist views of mind—views which posit internal physical factors.

3 See p.I1 of Sept. issue of ER.

4 For equivalent language in the text of the SPES talk, see ER: July/August05, p.17 ("we have transcended naturc-). And Sept 05, p. I I (" at a distance from [nature]"); p. 18 ("the escape from biology"); and p. 20 ("the limits of [human] possibility are not prescribed by nature.")

5 while mindful that different environments provide different outlets for self-expression.

6 Libertarianism has always had difficulties with the Law of Conservation, which asserts that every physical event/state is a carry-through of the energy informing the previous event/state. Permanent carry-through means no discontinuity, no absolutely new beginnings, hence no originality ex nihilo.

THE POLITICS OF THE EUCHARIST FROM JESUS TO MARX (I) Ron Heisler Lecture to the Ethical Society, 30 January 2005

The Christian Eucharist - that incredible rite in which the bread and wine are related to the body and blood of Christ - has been a remarkable historical phenomenon, a seismic location for bitter controversy, the shedding of blood and fundamental religious schism. Yet for something that has been so central to Christian practice for so many centuries, it is somewhat surprising to discover how notably modest its origins were in the first century after Christ's death.

Christ's followers regularly gathered for a communal supper -- the agape or love-feast - at which the bread was broken and the wine drunk in memory of the 18 Ethical Record, November, 2005 proceedings at the Last Supper. Not a hint has come down to us of any greater significance being attached to the handling of the bread and wine at the time. This probably reflects the practical nature of those ordinary folk who found a focus in the cult of the wonder-worker Christ - and their democratic ethos. Friedrich Engels described early Christianity thus: it "was originally a movement of oppressed people: it first appeared as the religion of slaves and emancipated slaves, of poor people deprived of all rights, of people subjugated or dispersed by Rome." '

An Inner World Of Class Struggle For Engels, even more than with Marx perhaps, religious engagement masked an inner world of class struggle. Robin Lane Fox reminds us that before around (circa) CE 250, Christians "met in enlarged private houses or rooms", coasting along without the need for public churches. These were people without worldly expectations, whom the pagan Celsus depicted ca. 170 as "wool workers, cobblers, laundry workers and "the most illiterate rustics". Half a century later Minucius, in his Octavius, painted Christians as the "lowest dregs of society" and as "credulous women".

Hierarchy evolved slowly at first in the Christian communities. But after the age of the Apostles, leaders were chosen for life. Lane Fox, citing Ignatius's letters to the main churches of Asia (ca. 110), writes of "the shock waves which the office" of bishop "had spread in certain quarters". But such innovation was echoing deep change taking place in the Roman world in general, for Lane Fox tells us of how "the older type of community and equality had receded in civic life."'

We would argue that the burgeoning role of the Eucharist, and its intensifying overload of significations, also reflected the sharpening class divisions of the empire and the stratification taking place within the Christian communities themselves. Wealthier social elements became embedded within the laity, whilst the professionalization of the priesthood weakened the influence of the congregations. The increasing mystification of the Eucharist had a certain inevitability, consequential upon these social changes.

Some historians have seen St. Paul, the fountainhead of the Hellenizing tendency in Christianity, as responsible for elevating the Eucharist into a more mystifying form. But we cannot ignore the fact that Christianity was but one religion among many in the Roman empire - -that it was struggling to find its feet in a competitive religious market. Christians could not completely cut themselves off from the mind-set of the age and surely something rubbed off from other religions into the Christian mentality. Heinrici points out that there were real contacts between the pagan religious guilds in Corinth and the early Christian community - and actual simtlarities. '

The Beginnings Of The Eucharist Almost certainly such guilds had love-feasts of thcir own. Engels, who was familiar with the German authorities of his time, argued that the Christians accomodated themselves to the dominant paganism by introducing the symbolical sacrifice of the Mass.

Ethical Record, November, 2005 19 The Church Father Origen admitted that the Eucharist replaced the propitiary sacrifices of the Jews. Justin Martyr (ca. 150) accused the followers of Mithras of plagiarism in their "Mysteries" and initiations: "For in these likewise, a cup of water, and bread, are set out with the addition of certain words in the sacrifice or act of worship of the person about to be initiated...."

Death and Resurrection - central to the Christian myth - was a common element in Greek mystery religions. Firmicus Maternus highlights the death/regeneration theme in the rites of Attis, where the novitiate - -a man about to die ("morituros") - speaks the mystic formula: "I have eaten out of the tympanum, I have drunk from the cymbal. I have become an initiate of Attis." In the rites of Zagreus Dionysus, alive bull was sacrificed in the taurobolium, and the initiates "ate flesh raw, this imitiation symbolizing the mangling of his body which Dionysus endured at the hands of the Titans". The 2nd and 3rd centuries CE saw an especial emphasis on the devouring of bulls' testicles, as with the cult of Cybele.'

Some might regard the placing of the wafer in the communicant's mouth during Mass as a poor substitute. When did the Eucharist take on the shape in which we recognize it in modern times? The earliest record is that in the Didache which appears to have been written at some time between the 1st and 3rd centuries; and even here the rite has not yet been disentangled from the communal meal! In Rome, as late as the 4th century, Christians were known to be holding daily communion in their bedrooms early in the morning.'

However, by the 3rd century things were beginning to gell in a critical way. The Christian churches were divided over the issue of the divinity of Jesus. Was he fully the equal of God? Arius led the opposition, supported by the Eastern bishops. The claim was that Jesus was not of the same substance as God, that God lacked any similarity or had any communication with his "Son". The Son could not be eternal (essential for anyone committed to a full-blooded interpretation of the Eucharist) because he was the product of "generation", whereas God the Father was ungenerated. The Arians lost out: Arius was excommunicated in about 318 and then condemned at the council of Nicaea convened by the Emperor Constantine in 325."

As far as Catholicism was concerned the die was henceforth cast. Bonfini reports a quaint case of divine intervention regarding the defeat of the Arians: When the Heresie of Arrius .. had got heat almost over all the world, and was dilated as well by persecution as by disputation: a towne in Gaul [France] was besieged, because it held the Orthodox faith of the Son's coequalitie with the Father: God to confirme this their faith; shewed this minde. As the Priest was at high Masse at the Altar, behold three drops of blood fell from heaven upon the Altar, lying a while in an equall distance one from another, to shew the distinction of the three Persons, at last, in sight of all the People they met together, to shew the unity of Essence, so the story. 1'

The Real Body Of Christ Orthodoxy, once firmly in the saddle, never hesitates to terrorise the terrain. Thus we encounter Cyprian condemning heretics who used water by choice in the Eucharistic ritual. Aquarius was his principal target. We find Radbert Paschasius in

20 Ethical Record, November, 2005 831 dogmatizing that in the Eucharist the bread is converted into the real body of Christ. Poor Berengarius of Tours, around 1047, got into deep trouble for claiming that the sacraments of the altar were just a memorial of the true body and blood of Christ. At the Council of Tours of 1055 he was forced to recant this heresy, obliged, in fact, to agree a statement which runs, in part, thus: the bread and wine which are placed on the altar are ... also the real body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ ...with the senses not only as a sacrament but in reality these are taken and broken by the hands of the priests and crushed by the teeth of the faithful.

Such triumphalist claims by mother Church inevitably attracted the charge of cannibalism. The Syrische Chronik noted the allegation that the early Christians were prone to "kill a Jewish child and take its blood, bake it in bread and give it to be eaten" - the usual antisemitic blood libel here reversed. "

The Medieval Church had licensed the usage of the Eucharist at times in the most appalling of contexts. Reason was mortally affronted. Thus the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 had been forced to bow to common sense in banning the use of the Eucharist in trials by ordeal. These were of three types: (a) the trial involving the holding of a hot iron in the hands; if the defendant's bums healed within three days they were declared innocent; (b) trial by water; if the accused floated to the surface she was clearly a witch; and (c) trial by duel. Obvious miscarriages of justice must have radically undermined the legitimacy of the eucharistic presence. '2

There is worse to report. The Council of Trier of 1227 was obliged to proscribe the display of biers in church accompanied by the celebration of Mass for the living "so that they die sooner." Such practices were commonplace, it would seem. The Germans enjoyed their Mordbeten, in which arrangements were made for the name of a living enemy to be inserted into the telling place in the Requiem Mass. But the English were not behind in this field. Dives and Pauper relate "that for hate or wrath that they bear against any man or woman," some "take away the clothes of the altar, and clothe the altar with doleful clothing, or beset the altar or the cross about with thorns, and withdraw light out of the church, or ... do sing mass of requiem for them that be alive, in hope that they should sore the worse and the sooner die." As late as 1589, the Sorbonne University in Paris sanctioned a series of Masses directed at King Henri [IL

In early Medieval France, votive Masses were known in which "the name of the thief' would be featured and the culprit threatened with death. Christian compassion was flexible enough to include church rites against lepers, excluding them from the community of Christ, in which their death was ritually enacted. Erasmus, in the early 16th century, listed some intriguing sacraments: "the Mass of the Cross of thorns, of the three nails, the Mass of the foreskin of Christ, Masses for those who travelled by land and sea, for barren women, for persons sick with quartarn and tertian fevers." There were other benefits according to Bishop Brinton, delivering his 1376 sermon. Provided the devout gazed intently at the body of Christ "under the appearance of the bread" at Mass, they would receive "the necessities of the day's food," would be forgiven for swearing, would be blessed with good eyesight, would cease to age during Mass and - most

Ethical Record, November, 2005 21 importantly - would have every step they made to and from Mass counted by the angels. "

The Eucharist A Universal Snake - Oil The Eucharist, in other words, had developed into a universal snake-oil, dispensed in an almost infinite variety of circumstances. It had financial implications: English chantry priests at the start of the 16th century made a tidy addition to their incomes by officiating at requiem Masses. A common English remedy for fevers was a charm said over three hosts (the consecrated bread) - a custom also to be found in 13th century Provence. Caesarius of Heisterbach (ca. 1180-1240) noted cases of women using the Eucharist as an aphrodisiac, and of women laying consecrated bread in beehives as a cure for sick bees. But these were probably private initiatives. However, there is the question of exorcisms; we find Franciscans resident near Dordrecht, in the mid-16th century, compiling a Book of Exorcisms, which laid down that the removal of the curse on a butter chum requires the services of a priest performing a Mass.

Little known, even in our more enlightened times, is the practice of official Masses to sanctify same-sex marriages among the Crusaders. The most delightful Mass of all was that associated with the Festum Asinorum - the donkey Mass. Common in France in the 11th century, High Mass was punctuated at regular intervals by the congregation breaking out into a tremendous braying response. Dour disapprovers should remember that it was on an ass that Jesus once entered Jerusalem. "

Eucharistic mania could take a darker turn, however. It was used to induce miscarriages and even used in cases of poisoning. St. William, celebrating Mass in York in 1154, took sick and died amidst rumours that poison had been mixed with the wine in the chalice - presumably he was a victim of his favourite tipple. In Ireland in 1324 Lady Alice Kyteler faced accusations of sorcery when a wafer was found in her house with the Devil's name stamped on it instead of the orthodox "IHS". In 1517 the Council of Florence decreed heavy fines for clergy caught selling eucharistic materials to witches."

Whether there was any truth in the sensationalist claims of Black Masses that flourished in the 16th and 17th centuries, we cannot say. However, in 1577 the English coiner, Edward Phaer, confessed he had a multiplicity of friends involved in magic; and he added that "with their art goeth a filthy ceremony, as mass, sacrifice, and their service of the Devil." Henri Boguet, in his Discours des Sorciers (1608), described such a Mass: "for the person who is to say the office is robed in a black cape without a cross on it: after putting the water in the chalice he turns his back to the altar, and then, instead of the Host, elevates a black coloured turnip. Then all the witches exclaim: 'Master, help us."

The all-prevading ritual of the Eucharist conjoined to a psycho-sexual dimension implicit in the so-called "mystical union" with Christ or God inevitably led to profound psychological disturbance for some. Among Italian female saints of the 13th century, almost half of the forty two displayed patterns of anorexia nervosa. The act of communion often aroused Angelo of Foligno (ca.1290s) to a passion for martyrdom. Poor Colomba was thoroughly misinterpeted at the end of

22 Ethical Record, November, 2005 the 15th century. Of her it was written: "And speaking of the devil, she is a witch. In her room was found a collection of bones under the bed, and a basket full of hosts she vomited." Colomba found normal food indigestible: it was "her total languor that made her famished for Holy Bread..." The unfortunate Catherine of Racconigi in the same century endured ten years of torment, vomiting up all food she swallowed with the sole exception of the host. '8

'Elaborate Screens Were Constructed' A religion in the ascendancy, once it has secured ideological supremacy firmly based on a foundation of material wealth, and with the added asset of state backing, rapidly moves to a power complex and is ever willing to flex its muscles. Caroline Bynum has described how "the role of the priest was exalted, the gap between priest and people widened. By the late Middle Ages in Northern Europe, elaborate screens were constructed to hide the priest and the altar. Thus, at the pivotal moment of his coming, Christ was separated and hidden from thc congregation in a sanctuary that enclosed together priest and God." Sarah Beckwith, in her exemplary study Christ's Body, concludes that "The doctrine of the Eucharist is ... a statement about power, and the source of power ... the symbol is not merely about power, but in its inner substance is power." She relates how "the vexed issue of clerical monopoly over the handling of Christ's body, and access by the community to the body which is supposedly imagined," was the "most frictional tension in late medieval society". '

The long-term consequences of Church monopoly are described by Beckwith thus: "As more of the parts of the Mass were arrogated to the priest alone, lay people were increasingly left to silent contemplation of the awesome spectacle, and this corresponded with a diminishing of the communal nature of the Eucharist and an individualizing of Eucharistic piety." In short, by "the late Middle Ages the mass was becoming more and more of a spectacle and less and less of a communion." "

Control of the masses was indubitably a prime ecalesiastical concern. In 1215 the Fourth Lateran Council banned the taking of the host outside the church - an example, we would suggest, of bad legislation almost impossible to enforce. Even more fatuous were ecclesiastical laws in the same century directed at stopping children from abusing the consecrated host. In 1419 we discover Henry V of England drawing up ordinances for his soldiery in time of war. The penalty laid down for touching the "Sacrament of God's Body", or even the box in which it was kept, was to be drawn and then hanged. "

The love that the heroes of Agincourt held for their patrie was presumably greater than their respect for the "body and blood of Christ"!

The enemy of the Lollards, Roger Dymmok, shrewdly argued that any undermining of the Church's orthodox maintenance of the Eucharist would inevitably lead to the destruction of civil society. " (To be concluded in the December ER, including all references)

The views expressed in this Joumal are not necessarily those of the Society.

Ethical Record, November, 2005 23 PROGRAMME OF EVENTS AT THE ETHICAL SOCIETY The Library, Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, Holborn, WC1R 4RL. Tel: 020 7242 8037/8034 Registered Charity No. 251396 Website: www.ethicalsoc.org.ukemail: [email protected] No charge unless stated NOVEMBER 2005 SUNDAY 27 11W BEYOND TRIDENT - THE FUTURE FOR OUR WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION Carol Norton of the WMD Awareness Programme

1500 LIFE OF ALBERT EINSTEIN CENTENARY EXHIBITION A VISIT TO JEWISH MUSEUM, CAMDEN DECEMBER SATURDAY 3 1400 THOMAS PAINE SOCIETY AGM 1500 Video of the Thomas Paine Lecture 2005 featuring John Pilger's piece entitled PROPAGANDA AND SILENCE IN THE WAR ON TERROR open to all

SUNDAY 4 1100 'If A LION COULD TALK WE COULD NOT UNDERSTAND HIM' Wittgenstein's remark is about the difficulty of understanding beings with very different ways of life from our own. Richard Baron explores what would make it difficult and the assumptions that we have to make in order to understand.

1500 ETHICAL DILEMMA - SHOULD WE SACRIFICE FREEDOM FOR SECURITY? Edmund McArthur says NO. Chair: Joy Wood All welcome to come and argue your point of view.

SUNDAY 11 TO MARK HUMAN RIGHTS DAY 10 DECEMBER 1100 'THE RULES HAVE CHANGED' (T. Blair) Doug Jewell, Campaign Co-ordinator of Liberly discusses this remark.

1500 THE WAR ON TERROR AND CIVIL RIGHTS David Morgan of the Campaign Against Criminalising Communities (Campacc).

1430 Sunday 18 December * * * SPES YULETIDE PARTY **** MC Tegence Mullins Esp. Quizzes * Blasphemous Readings * EnTeRtammenr Mulled wine * Gnam)Res-aveRepzeshmenrs * ALL welcome£2.50 * entRance

MONDAY 19 1830 CONWAY HALL JAZZ CLUB YEAR END PARTY

Sunday 8 January 2006 — New Year Programme begins at 1100

SOUTH PLACE SUNDAY CONCERTS AT CONWAY HALL (by LCMS) 630pm. Tickets 17. For programme details Tel: 020 7483 2450.

Published by the South Place Ethical Society, Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, WC1R 4RL Printed by 1.6. Bryson (Printer) Ltd. 156-162 High Road, London N2 9AS ISSN 0014 - 1690