Blog post #3 Descartes and Paracosm

Like Robin's post, an article in Harper's Magazine called "Worlds Apart" by T.M. Luhman cited the bizarre, tragic events in March 1997 concerning the mass suicide of the members of Heaven's Gate cult. Luhman, an anthropologist of religion specializes in cult belief. She mentions that in studying evangelical Christian "true believers" she notices that even though these people claim to "believe in God without doubt" and tell you that "God is capable of anything, aware of everything, and always on their side" that they don't expect God to "write their term paper or replace a leaky pipe."
And so, in a Cartesian sense, there is a separation and battle between mind, body and faith. As Luhman states, "maintaining a sense of God's realness is hard." Beliefs aren't just laying there in a passive, self-persuading state, they have to be actively cultivated, constructed and maintained on a personal level (which sounds very Cartesian).
But, this is difficult! Here is where the personal power of imagination steps in and makes things very interesting. Robert Silvey, who was involved in audience research at the BBC in the 1970s coined the term "paracosm" referring to the private worlds created by children. One can stretch the term out past Harry Potter and J.R.R. Tolkien and apply the term to include Heaven's Gate cult, alien abduction advocacy groups, White Supremacist organizations, Westboro Baptist Church followers and more. How? What they all share, and what defines a "paracosm" is the specificity of detail of an alternate universe/reality and its adherents returning again and again to the books, the narrative that create the collective history and belief system.
I would bet that we all know people that have created very strange (to us) versions of reality with odd and/or dubious (again to us) belief systems. I'll bet that if you drill down you'll find a paracosm that's been fostered, constructed and maintained. I'm not sure if Descartes would protest, be concerned or feel vindicated and say "I told you so!"