OutFront: Church of Spiritual Humanism -- Officiant Services

INTRODUCTION

The Rev. Philosopher D. Stephen Heersink (hereafter “officiant”) is an ordained member of the clergy, authorized by the Church of Spiritual Humanism to officiate at rites and ceremonies, including marriage, baby naming, funerals, invocations, festival banquets, and holiday ceremonies, as permitted and subject to the laws and regulations of the city of San Francisco, the State of California.

Should individuals, couples, or groups desire one or more services offered by the Church and its clergy, please contact the clergy email. For a nominal fee, philosophical and spiritual guidance, as well as travel and accommodation planning are also available for those that come to San Francisco and Northern California without prior experience.

Philosophical counseling -- individually or group -- is available by prior arrangement. While the officiant accepts no remuneration, charitable benefaction to third-party eleemosynaries is request according to the individual's ability to pay.

Liturgical guidance, dramaturgy, and other art forms, accessing the naturally-romantic venues and settings of the California landscape, with the free-spirited directives are available to the most sincere “journey seekers.” The success of one's life journey, the joys of one’s commitment to his/her beloved, and the celebration of any couples’ dialectic of “two-gather-ness” is offered gratis.

CENTRAL TENETS AND PRACTICES

The inherent worth, dignity, and moral equality of every individual organism;
Justice, equity, benevolence, and altruism in human relations;
Acceptance of one another, combined with encouragement of self-cultivation, nurture, and growth in our community, state, nation, and the world;
A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
The sovereignty of individual conscience and the use of the liberal democratic process among our communities and our society at large;
Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, seeking to integrate experience, evidence, and reason, in a perpetual renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life;
The goal of world community with equality, peace, liberty, and justice for all;
Respect for the interdependent biospheric web of all existence of which we are an integral part.
First, obey the Universal Moral Imperative: Do No Harm or Injury.
Restitution, not retribution, is the proper and primary means of restoration to one harmed or injured.
Deliberation of The Ethical Mean lying in-between the extremes of defect and excess by personal excellence determines the rectitude of the means to act, and only the complete good, human flourishing and well-being over a complete life, is the total good which all action aims
Pluralism, diversity, toleration of individual reasonable differences, and compassion work together through both cooperation and competition to improve the human condition.

The Fellowship of Humanity was founded in 1935 by Reverend A. D. Faupel as one of a handful of "humanist churches" seeded in the early 20th century as part of the American Religious Humanism movement. It was the only such organization to survive into the 21st century and is the first and oldest affiliate of the American Humanist Association.

RITES, CEREMONIES, & SERVICES

THE CHURCH OF SPIRITUAL HUMANISM RITES, SERVICES, AND CEREMONIES

■ Infant/Child Naming* & Baby Welcoming* (ceremony and certificate)
■ Celebration of the Four Ages of Humankind (transition ceremonies and certificate) -- See, Solinox, below
■ I. Age the First: Childhood & Play (ages 0 - 12)
■ II. Age the Second: Adolescence & Fertility (ages 12 - 24)
■ III. Age the Third: Adulthood & Growth (ages 24 -48)
■ IV. Age the Four: Senescence & Wisdom (ages 48+ )
■ The Pledge of Humane Benevolence (ceremony and certificate)
■ The Great Festival Banquet¹ (ceremony only)
■ Reconciliation & Restitution (consensual sealed process only)
■ Rite of Betrothal* (pre-marriage ceremony and trial period of proto-marriage)
■ Covenantal Marriage, Civil Unions, Pair-Bonding of Beloveds* (ceremony and certificate, see Note)
■ Affirmation of Love* (ceremony and certificates)
■ Renewal of Pair-Bonding* (as required by law)
■ A "Letter of Good Standing"* (required by some jurisdictions to certify individuals' status with the Church of Spiritual Humanism)
■ Anointment of the Beloved² (ceremony only)
■ Ecstatic Dances and Celebrations³ (ceremony only)

■ Betrothed Commitment * (see, Affirmation of Love)

■ Invocations & Benedictions (alone or in conjunction)
■ Funerals, or Thanksgiving Celebrations of Life* (ceremony and certificate, if required)
■ Graveside/Columbarium/Interment or Scattering of Ashes* (ceremony)

* Those rites marked with an asterisk (*) are standard Rites, Ceremonies, and Services of the Church of Spiritual Humanism. Those not marked are complementary Rites, Ceremonies, and Services.

NOTE: Pair-bonding is the dialectic of discovery between two individuals committed mutually to experiencing a covenantal bond of life together through the prism of each other and through the lens of their shared bond. Public Declarations of Commitment, such as Marriage, Civil Unions, Bonding of Beloveds, and similar rites, ceremonies, and actions that testify to this commitment are equally valid in establishing and sealing the pair-bond by, for, and between the beloveds, with or without the approbation of an "institution." It is the duty of the State, a requirement of equality, a mandate of justice, and an expression of liberty, that every pair-bond be recognized equally before the law as the Beloveds present it, regardless of sex.

THE GREAT FESTIVALS
OF THE CHURCH OF SPIRITUAL HUMANISM

Holidays, or the Great Festivals, of Spiritual Humanism are based on the natural phases of the earth and moon, particularly the Solonox, which ties the depths of human need for special days to mark and commemorate the passage of time, the stages of life, and the natural rhythm and patterns of the our solar system.

■ Winter Solstice (Festival of Lights), December 21

The Festival of Lights, coupled with the merrymaking of Saturnalia (see below), are marked by the Great Banquet, lighting of candles or other lamps, the use of mistletoe over a doorway as goodwill offering to visitors, the use of evergreens to remind the coming period of growth, and, if desired, the presentation of small gifts of special enchantment.*

■ Vernal Equinox (Rites of Spring), March 20

The Rites of Spring, also known as Ostara (e.g., Easter), mark the times crops are planted and fertility rites of love-making to give birth and generate a spiritual rebirth commemorate the arrival of Spring, including the celebration of dance as daylight lengthens, sometimes known as the "White Party." *

■ Summer Solstice⁴ (Feast of Baths ), June 21

The Feast of Baths, sometimes referred to as Midsummer, Litha, or St John's Wort Day, commemorates the beginning of Summer with bonfires and ceremonial bathing -- especially the traditional baths of Greek and Roman men and men, men and women, or women and women strengthen their bonds with the clear, crisp waters of runoff, or in lakes, oceans, ponds. Children, conversely, bath themselves in the morning dew, especially those too young to participate with adults.*

■ Autumnal Equinox (Feast of Harvests), September 23

The Feast of Harvests celebrates the harvest of planting, especially the vintage presssing of grapes into wine, and a jubilant feast with plenteous fruits, a fatted goose, a touch of ginger, in conjunction with Bacchanalia.*

* Descriptive features proposed or suggested by the Church of Spiritual Humanism.

THE SEASONAL FESTIVITIES
SURROUNDING THE FESTIVALS

Each of the Four Great Festivals may be accompanied by the Four Seasonal Festivities around their celebration. Each Seasonal Festivity occurs over ten consecutive days, in which the Great Festival appointed during the Season is ultimate feast occasion, the seasonal festivities merely serving to highlight the the four Great Feasts or Festivals.

■ Saturnalia (Merrymaking and Lamplighting), December 16 - 25
■ Mercuralia (Mother Earth, Fertility, and Prosperity) March 17 - March 26
■ Neptunalia (Water, Earth, and Fire among Baths) June 16 - 25
■ Bacchanalia (The Vintage Harvest and Wine Press), September 18 - 27

Notes

¹Each of the Great Festivals of the Church of Spiritual Humanism is often typically celebrated by the Great Festival Banquet conjoined with the themes of the concurrent Seasonal Festivities. The four Great Festivals are appointed according to the Gregorian Calendar's date on which they occur, while the four Great Festive Seasons may be fixed by calendar date, or conjoined in conjunction with the lunar phases of the Solonox.

The average calender month, 1/12 of a year, is about 30.4 days, while the Moon's phase (synodic) cycle repeats every 29.53 days. Therefore the timing of the Moon's phases shifts by an average of about one day for each successive month. While the Seasonal Festive Dates may vary according to local customer, the Four Great Solonox Feasts are fixed my lunar expression.

²The Church of Spiritual Humanism has no "absolute" rules, concerning its liturgical and calender feasts and how they are celebrated. Instead, the local communities are deemed the most proficient in determining -- according to ancient custom -- their modern adaptation of them. Alas, local officiants, their member participants, and governing laws often need to be adjusted, lest an intolerant and bigoted society against rationalistic religion be imprisoned for what irrationalistic religion achieves with only more power to them.

Thus, for example, the Supreme Court allows certain religious groups to use hallucinogens as their "communion" mediation, but if anyone else dared to use pilosybin for the same purposes, we are sure to spend many of our days in jail. If, like the Amish, the anti-hedonists allowed its populations four times a year in which to savor the dedication of drugs, orgies, and merriment, we might reclaim a mighty superiority that one homophobic, anti-drug, and queer Quaker thought emasculated his "males" in Vietnam. Of course, he never set foot in a Quaker Assembly Room, used the same stuff President John F. Kennedy used, but decided they knew the use of psychogenic drugs better than Nam Vets, who used it only to feel no pain in their sure and certain death.

Today, many of the wonderfully-exciting drugs of ethereal experience -- not the least being Ecstasy used by Benedictine monks -- to experience the transcendent -- is now so illegal, unless Benedictine monks, Cistercian abbots, and "dead head" kids tempt the dragon -- known as the U.S. government. Monastics exclaimed the virtues of Ecstasy, some even of cannibis, and even some the excess of liquor, but anyone that chooses "the hard stuff" should be put in prisons. No, not heroin, not crystal meth, but plant products -- products "natural" to all but unnatural flame throwers. Perverse ain't even close.

³ Anointment of the Beloved is an ancient custom of using fragrant vegetal oils to anoint unctuously the Beloved as a sign and seal, commitment, adornment, adoration, and admiration of the Beloved's body with the glistening and fragrant oils of nature, mirroring symbolically the love and bond the Beloveds share uniquely between them. The officiant, at the Beloved's request, may cense the Anointment as a sign and symbol of the community's share in their support and affection.

⁴Where legal authorities permit, Ecstatic Dances and Celebrations, one of the key features of Saturnalia and Bacchanalia, encourage the use of peyote (mescaline), cannabis, psilocybin, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), methylenedioxy-N-methylamphetamine (MDMA, MDA, Ecstasy), cocaine, alkyl nitrates, ethyl alcohol, and similarly potent psychedelics and psychoactive agents for the festive celebrations of the Bardos of liberated dance and celebration. Note: While the Reverend Philosopher Officiant and others are experienced with such religious rites, some individuals may be unsuited, or ill predisposed, to the religious use of psychoactive agents, including ethyl alcohol, especially if one is an “addictive” personality, “paranoid,” or discomfited by liberating experiences. In each and every case, please do not operate machinery, engage in locomotion, or attempt other skilled activities that require maximal cognitive attention and/or might impair your responsibility not to harm others.

⁵The Book of the Bath, Francoise de Bonneville wrote, "The history of public baths begins in Greece in the sixth century B.C.," where men and women washed in basins near places of exercise, physical and intellectual. Later gymnasia had indoor basins set overhead, the open maws of marble lions offering showers, and circular pools with tiers of steps for lounging. Bathing was ritualized, becoming an art -- of cleansing sands, hot water, hot air in dark vaulted "vapor baths," a cooling plunge, a rubdown with aromatic oils. Cities all over Ancient Greece honored sites where "young ephebes [teens] stood and splashed water over their bodies."

OTHER PRACTICES

Any act, rite, ceremony, or service, in which any member of humanity is deliberately celebrated may, with the cooperation of the officiant, be creatively constructed from other traditions and ceremonies not listed, except, any act, rite, ceremony, or service that in any manner humiliates, mutilates, castrates, denigrates, and/or otherwise diminishes the noble integrity fitting of all individual organisms.

The Church of Spiritual Humanism prohibits its clergy from ceremonies that involve exorcism, circumcision, or animal sacrifice. The officiant joins the chorus of humanity in condemning these tribal, barbaric, and inhuman practices.

Other creative and celebratory rites, however unique, will certainly be entertained, provided the substance and appearance of such rites are compatible with the objectives, purposes, and beliefs of the Church of Spiritual Humanism, 2001.

PRINCIPLE OF SOVEREIGNTY (Conscience)

No person shall be compelled to act against the sovereignty of his or her conscience. No person may be compelled to act immorally against his or her will. Defending the indefensible is never acceptable. Tolerating the intolerant and intolerable is not a virtue.

Under no circumstances will the Officiant participate in the genital mutilation of either males or females, either as adults or children, or in any deforming or destructing mutilation of the human species.

PHILOSOPHIC COUNSELING

The Officiant holds advanced degrees in philosophy and the arts of philosophical counseling. Unlike "psychological therapy" and "psychotherapy," philosophical counseling endeavors to help individuals achieve self-control and happiness through their own powers of reasoning. Since the great philosophers of Classical Greece unto the present day, philosophers engaged in "therapeutic tactics" in order to empower individuals to achieve their own degree of happiness and flourishing.

Correction of one's self-destructive and misguided thinking, not simply "listening to one's rant and lament," has been at the nucleus of philosophical counseling from the beginning. Departing from "psychologists" that endeavor to "divine" the cognitive soul's discontent largely through one-sided auricular confession, philosophical counseling uses a dialectical process, with which a four-fold technique to help troubled individuals become aware and gain control over his choices: These techniques are: (1) Frank critical questions, (2) and develop one's own impartial judge, (3) to accept and learn improvements from therapeutic criticism, (4) by which the whole person and the fullness of his/her awareness seeks to to achieve insight, integrity, and intention fulfillment.

THE ROLE OF MYTHS & FABLES

The human imagination from time immemorial has used myths, allegories, parables, and fables to communicate the ineffable wonders of the human experience. The fourfold hermeneutic (i.e., polysemy) since the middle ages has recognized the historical-literal, moral, allegorical, and anagogical senses in the use of language to interpenetrate the ineluctable, yet inscrutable, meanings of life. Such simple stories enable humans to “interpret” their unique historicity and shared humanity across time and space. In this regard, three written texts have a special universal appeal in the West:

Anonymous, Aesop’s Fables, 1692
Thomas Bulfinch, Bulfinch’s Greek and Roman Mythology: The Age of Fable, 1859
James G. Frazer, The Golden Bough: The Roots of Religion and Folklore, 1890.

May the moral, spiritual, and allegorical myths and fables continue to speak to, and to link, successive generations of humankind, from the seedling to the majestic tree. The works of Lao Tse and Confucius are also commendable.

ABOUT THE CHURCH OF SPIRITUAL HUMANISM

The Church of Spiritual Humanism
PO Box 180
Jenkintown, PA 19046
Phone: 206-457-1966
Email: info@spiritualhumanism.org

The Church of Spiritual Humanism is incorporated in the state of Pennsylvania as a nonprofit religious organization and is an IRS tax exempt church.

© Church of Spiritual Humanism, Inc. "Spiritual Humanism" is a trademark of the Church of Spiritual Humanism, Inc.

The Church of Spiritual Humanism recognizes and affirms the right of consenting adults to enter into and celebrate a committed union with each other regardless of their orientation or gender. If marriage is a legal option for a same gender couple our ordained clergy are fully authorized to perform a ceremony sanctified by the church for them. Even if such ceremonies are not legal in certain jurisdictions our clergy will not be penalized by the Church for performing them.

FEES & DONATIONS

Actual costs incurred directly by the Officiant must be paid in advance by retainer. The costs of all other incidentals are the responsibility of contractor, not the Officiant. The Officiant accepts only minimal gratuities (less than $25) , but otherwise accepts no compensation, remuneration, or fees personally. The Reverend Philosopher Officiant may request that in lieu of fees, a stipend or donation be made to a mutually-agreeable charity or eleemosynary. Please be sure that all incidental costs are prepaid before services rendered.

The Solinox

Church of Spiritual Humanism