Interesting

I was just going over the list of people I know to be Numenist – the ones still alive and still actively Numenist, more than a Celebrant, and of them all, I could only remember the names of 4 people who joined Numenism after 1980 who weren’t born into it.

Maybe that’s what Bacca meant when she said we need to start being more open to new adherents.

Actually, her words were, “Noddy, you better stop scaring people away!”

I’ll admit I have been rather negative about taking in new adherents because I don’t want to spend all that time teaching them only to have them leave to follow some other religion. I got tired rather quickly of teaching classes on Numenism just to see my students return to their birth religion, because what I taught them made their birth religion make sense. Or watch them leave to become Wiccans or Co-Masons or Ceremonialists because Numenism offered most of what they wanted, but they wanted more formality and theater. Numenism was too laid back for them.

We still work well together, and we’re all still friends, we just don’t belong to the same religion anymore.

So, maybe that’s another reason I’m being pushed to write the books – Bacca is afraid she’ll die soon – she has Alzheimer’s and forgets a lot, and Firehand is getting frail even though he’s really not so old (he comes from a short-lived, not very healthy family). We have people dying off faster than they’re being born or joining.

I guess I do need to be nicer.

I can understand why others would be unfamiliar with Numenism – very few people adhere to it, and none at all in your state. Actually, we only have 2 hard and fast holy days: Founders Day and Cookie Day – all the rest are determined by the individual and the House. My House likes to party, so we celebrate a lot. A whole lot. And when we can’t find an excuse, we haul out the Moosemass, our “portable” holy day.

Numenism merges well with other beliefs; that’s part of what the Founders intended: a core of Numenism that was adaptable and flexible to meet the changing needs of the adherents and any technologies, changes in social contracts and governments that might come along. Yes, there is a bit of woowoo in that provisions have also been made in case of the discover and contact with non-terrestrials – what can I say, all the Founders and many of the other members have all been SF fans. We even offer “alien abduction insurance” among our membership – just for fun.

Each House is automomous, there is no central reporting or oversight group (other than the Elders, and then only if the Celebrants and/or House have contact with any of the declining number of Elders).