First, two quotations to leaven Wei's discussion of Pound's "theology".
(From memory -- apologies if I've misremembered.)

1. "All things which are are lights".
2.  How many gods should a man be content with?  A reasonable number.

Second, Pound's emphasis, in the remark Wei has given us below, is on the
death of the _mysterium_. Translation of the rituals into the vernacular,
Pound implies, gives people the false and even dangerous impression that
they've understood the meaning of the rituals. Dangerous because the
lifeblood of religious experience, for Pound, is its celebration of mystery.
An attempt to prevent the death of mystery! One might understand Pound's
seemingly reactionary position here with the threat to the soul which he
perceived from 20th c. mechanistic Psychology and the scientific explanation
of all things human.

One might be tempted to put Pound into the camp of the Mass-in-Latin
central-authority Church, were it not for "clargimint" (an echo of
"varmint") and the phrase "any abracadabra" which shows that it was not the
language that was sacrosanct to Pound, but the _experience_. Pound is a
pan-religionist, a non-denominational self-appointed high-priest who is
trying to protect the human capacity for religious experience from the
onslaught of the 20th c -- communism, science, advertising, consumer
culture, mechanized war.   His predilection for fascism is to be understood,
in part, in terms of the threat world Communism posed to religious
experience and the free practice of religion.

Tim Romano


>
> Pound explicitly rejects pantheism on several occasions.   Similarly the
> tone of many observations he makes regarding religion is inconsistent with
> pantheism, which is an extremely democratic and tolerant metaphysic.
>
>    Re European belief:  Neither mass nor communion
>   are of Jew origin.  Nowt to do with that nasty old
>   maniac JHV [Jehovah] and are basis of Xtn. religion.
>   Mass ought to be in Latin, unless you could do it in
>   Greek or Chinese.  In fact, any abracadabra that no
>   bloody member of the public or a half-educated ape
>   of a clargimint cd. think he understood
>    (Letter to Rev. Henry Swabey, Mar. 1940).
>
>
> Does it make sense for a pantheist (someone who believes that God is in
all
> things, in all places, and in all persons) to speak this way?
>
> Regards,
>
> Wei
>
> http://www.geocities.com/weienlin/poundindex.html
>
>
>
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>