#vulcan spirituality

[purpleenma]

Vulcan Deities

When I saw this post by @timcurrysteeth about Vulcan Spirituality and their deities I inmediately knew I had to draw them.

I took it as a personal project to picture each deity and, in the future, create a series of illustrations of each one of them.

These are the initial sketches of the first 10 in the list, the designs are not final but I had a lot of fun working on them and thinking the elements I would add in each one based on their descriptions.

I highly recommend you give a read to the post, it's absolutely fascinating, as well as this second part.

This is going to be a long term project since I have several deadlines for other works but I hope to be able to update you soon enough with more sketches of the remaining deities!

[ex--astris--scientia]

C'Thia, Surakian Philosophy, and Vulcan Polytheism

While most would consider Surak to merely be a philosopher and reformer, thereby removing any hint of religion from the discussion and forming instead an idea of both Surak and his philosophy as being, at best, atheistic or agnostic, and at worst, being anti-theistic, I have to strongly disagree with this assessment. Especially when it's used as proof to claim that modern, post-Awakening Vulcans are also at best atheistic or agnostic, and at worst anti-theistic. I believe this comes about due to a commonly held misconception that religion in and of itself is anathema to science, to progress, to intelligence, and therefore, to logic itself. This is, of course, a blatantly false binary and we are shown over and over again in canon that while Vulcans place a great importance on science, education, intellect, and logic, they are also a very spiritual people. Most of the important locations on Vulcan that we see in canon tend to be temples, sacred mountains, or holy ruins. Leaders tend to be high priestesses. Meditation is almost universal for Vulcans, and while it can be argued that it is very much a mental discipline as well, meditation was birthed, and continues to find its roots, in spirituality, and at its heart, is a spiritual discipline. Meditation, after all, was not invented by scientists, but by monks.

In the episode of the Animated Series, "Yesteryear", Spock tells Sarek that he is merely passing through ShiKahr on his way to the family shrine to "honor our gods". This one line proves to me that, at least for Spock, there is no incongruence between his modern Surakian belief and practice of C'thia (commonly this is translated as just "logic" but a more accurate Vulcan translation is "reality-truth") with that of traditional Vulcan polytheistic religious practice. One can assume that this is not, however, unique only to Spock, seeing as shrines require some semi-regular maintenance and he very rarely visits his father's homestead so it is unlikely that Spock alone is the one who maintains them. Sarek also is unsurprised by Spock's actions, which suggests a kind of normalcy to it. One does not get the impression that Spock is doing something rebellious by performing religious rites to Deities.

Likewise, in the Voyager episode, "Hunters", Tuvok receives a letter from his wife. In it, she tells him that she and their children have asked the priests at the Temple of Amonak to say prayers for Tuvok's safe return from the Delta Quadrant. Prayer requires something to which a person prays to and the assumption here is, again, the existence of Vulcan Deities as well as devotional practices targeted toward them existing even until the time of Voyager. While one of the purposes of prayer has to do with the person praying, as in, a benefit to prayer is that it gives the praying person something to do when they may not be able to do much else about a situation, and therefore T'Pel and her and Tuvok's children may be using it as a kind of meditative practice meant to give their grief and worry about Tuvok's safety somewhere to go that may then help them control it, I believe even this would still imply belief in the existence of Deities. One could meditate without the use of prayer involved but that was not the course of action that T'Pel took. She specifically made a trek to a sacred temple with the intention of saying prayers for Tuvok and told him about it, again, just as with Spock and Sarek, showing that there is something normalized about the action. Belief in the Gods and religious practice utilizing them is, therefore, not something performed only in the dark or in secret.

So, Vulcan polytheistic spiritual practice has continued past the Awakening and into the Vulcan Reformation. Is it the same as what it looked like to pre-Reform Vulcans? What's different? I wish we got more glimpses of Vulcan religion beyond mostly backdrop (while we are explicitly shown rituals and ritual locations in episodes like "Amok Time", "the Gambit" and many places in Enterprise, and in movies like "the Motion Picture" and "Search for Spock", very rarely do we see explanations for what the Vulcan lay people and priest(ess)es are doing and why) but that simply means that I instead get to make things up. Which is my favorite thing to do. So while the entirety of this post is built on a core of canon and information from Memory Alpha and Beta, as well as the Vulcan Language Database, most of what follows is my own musings and thoughts.

Firstly, in my research I've established that there seems to be two major pantheons within Vulcan spirituality, the Ka-ta-pak, or Inner Chorus, and the grouping I've named Ek-tam'a-ta, which is where I've placed every other named Deity not belonging to the Inner Chorus. The Inner Chorus, being made up of Deities that seem much more akin to emotional archetypes, become a much more thorny topic to consider when it comes to reconciling the worship, or, at the very least, acknowledgement of these Beings with the rigorous control of emotions that is to be expected within the Surakian cult of C'thia. As such, they are what I plan to focus on here.

The Inner Chorus is made up of the following Deities: Tel-Alep and Alep-Tel, Kir-Alep and Alep-Kir, Valdena and Dena-Vel, Kal-ap-Ton and Tyr-al-Tep, and Ket-Cheleb. Other than the last Deity, each is a part of a pairing where one represents the lighter, more acceptable form of a suite of emotions, whereas the other is the darker, shadow side. It's a concept similar to reading Tarot cards, where a card's reversal typically points to the darker reading of the themes the card communicates when right side up. For example, Valdena is famously the love Goddess and rules over emotions such as joy, beauty, fullness, pleasure, etc, whereas Dena-Vel, her shadow twin, rules over the darker side of love, namely concepts like possessiveness, covetousness, envy, domination, etc. What I would posit as probably one of the fairly radical reforms within Surakian thought, is the idea that C'thia is meant to subjugate and control both sides of what the Inner Chorus represents, not just the shadow side.

Isn't it illogical, however, to worship archetypal manifestations of emotions that one is trying to suppress? This was the big question that came out of my exploration of Vulcan Deities and led me to conclude that there is a difference between how Vulcans interact with Ek-tam'a-ta Deities vs the Ka-ta-pak, wherein the former is treated much more like how one stereotypically interacts with Gods, ie with reverence, worship, offerings, prayers, etc, as well as an understanding of the Deities being Beings outside of the mind in their own rights, while the latter is much more localized and symbolic. The Ka-ta-pak are not so much outward Beings, as they are emotional symbols and touchstones, metaphors to be focused on in meditation rather than as Gods to be worshipped.

Even the name, the Inner Chorus, suggests this kind of community of emotional beings, of aspects of the interior Vulcan mind, and furthermore, points to a need for a harmony amongst them. It is my thought that the Ka-ta-pak are less like sentient beings with personhood and more like the Platonic ideal of the emotion they represent. They are the emotion in its most perfected form and by experiencing this, experiencing the presence of this being, this outward-focused inner spirit, in the relative safety of meditation, the average Vulcan is able to meet that emotion and learn how it manifests within their own body and mind. In this meeting, they are able to name the emotion, learn it, experience it, and understand how to master it so that when they experience it outside of meditation, they need not be conquered by it and brought into chaos but instead are able to hold to order and logic in the face of it.

In the Enterprise episode, "Fusion", we are shown that Vulcans don't typically dream and that meditation has usurped the role that dreaming would usually take in the Vulcan psyche. It follows, therefore, that they process the emotional stimuli of the day through meditation and that symbolism, which is an important language for the sub-conscious and the language that dreams are written in, would probably play a role in that. Thus, the use of the Inner Chorus as a symbol of focus, as the emotional tangle that one seeks, through meditation, to sort out and bring order to, makes sense. I believe that this constitutes some of the work of t'san s'at, or the intellectual deconstruction of emotions that Surak preached. T'san s'at is the study of one's own emotions, and the effects these emotions have over one's actions. The peace and tranquility that lies at the end of t'san s'at is the goal of every Surakian Vulcan, and is a lifelong aspiration. It is through working with the Ka-ta-pak with this goal in mind that brings these ideas together.

Another idea I found interesting about the Ka-ta-pak is that the names of the Deities match the names of the other planets within the Vulcan solar system (according to the Memory Beta article that I believe is based on a Trek inspired ttrpg). A solar system, with its constant routine of stable orbits and cycles, would be an obvious metaphor for the idea of Order. The Inner Chorus strikes me, then, as the microcosm within the Vulcan mind/spirit as connected with the macrocosm of the living universe around them. It is the connection between the Vulcan mental and katric interior space and the exterior physical space. Just as the solar system is in constant harmony, subjugated to the laws of gravity, order, and simply the natural mechanisms of the living universe, one's own interior system should likewise be ordered. That it is called an inner chorus is very telling to me, since when choruses are working correctly, they are making music in harmony, just as the broader cosmos makes the music of the spheres, which is the sound of mathematics purified. It is the goal of every Surakian Vulcan to harmonize their inner chorus (part of which involves meditating on the form of the Inner Chorus) with the music of the macrocosm. In this, I believe the mind, or the reasoning capacity, represents a kind of conductor, who directs the inner chorus of emotions to properly allow for the production of music. The music produced by this harmony is C'thia, which is the same substance that keeps the planets in their orbits and the universe ticking onward.

This post is getting a bit long but there's one last thing I want to talk about and that would be Surak himself. As mentioned earlier, there is a common misconception I've seen that, again, makes Surak some kind of radical atheist philosopher who, in stomping out the violence and ignorance that marked the culture of his planet, must also have gotten rid of its religion, not just superstition or conservativism but religion more generally. Again, this comes more from the mistaken belief that spirituality and science are necessarily at odds. But what we see of Surak doesn't actually support this erroneous belief. Instead, one of the things that Surak is famous for is his pilgrimage. A pilgrimage is a religious journey undertaken for religious purposes. Surak set out to visit many religious orders and temples, before traipsing into the wilderness in places like Vulcan's Forge and Mount Seleya, to learn from and connect with the various priest(ess)es, as well as to connect in solitude with his own mind. C'thia is always shown as a revelation. Surak perceives it for the first time and discerns its meaning while on pilgrimage, while in meditation, while studying spiritual truths. He discovers it, not in a laboratory, but in deep contemplation on a mountain peak. Thus, Surak strikes me as much more akin to a Hindu yogi or an enlightened New Age seeker than he does a Richard Dawkins type. He doesn't dismiss the spiritual lessons he learns from visiting the other religious orders but instead incorporates them into his new cult. I think it's this incorporation of c'thia with traditional polytheism within Surak's own spirituality that allows for modern Vulcans to do the same.

In conclusion, anyone who claims that the post-Reform Vulcans shown in canon are atheists have not been paying attention to the actual canon, first of all, and secondly, are doing nothing more than showing their bias toward the science vs religion binary. I think the Vulcans are a little too smart to fall for this dichotomy, and they are certainly aware of the need for a philosophy to be an open one, if it's to be sustainable at all. I think having access to the neverending mystery of space, peopled as it is with many different kinds of beings, has allowed the Vulcans to be open-minded toward religion and the existence of Gods and other numinous beings. After all, they fully accept the existence of katra and thus, souls, spirits, and the idea of beings existing without bodies. It is not an illogical leap to suppose that since animating spirits (ie souls that are housed by and animate a body) exist, other kinds might also, including Deities. And since Vulcans possess a psionic system, capable of the extrasensory perceptions involved in their version(s) of telepathy, they may be able to perceive these spirits telepathically, even when psi-null folks may not be able to.

So, I don't think Vulcan polytheism is relegated to some point in the planet's distant past but instead continues, alive and well, into the post-Awakening world.

[bumblingbabooshka]

So, here me out. In the alternate timeline of 'Before and After' Harry gets with Linnis Paris AND he has a track record of falling in love with women whom it seems like it'd be impossible to date...so...wouldn't it be SO funny if-

[glimblshanks]

It's unfortunate that religion in Star Trek is so controversial because I think converting to Buddhism would fix Mariner

[table-top-romulan-playing-games]

Rewatching The Search For Spock has made me remember how Star Trek introduced us to the trope of "If I Don't Fuck, I Die" with Pon Farr, and how after Amok Time, not a single other mention of Pon Farr has been remotely Not Gross...

[theawesometomboy101]

I’ve had this painful experience having a major crush on a guy in HS. It hurt seeing girls flirting with him or when he even gave compliments but what much can you do when you’re not together (and don’t have the guts to tell him how you feel lol)

Thinking about jealous Spock in “The Conscience of The King”.

[comradecowplant]

Earlier I saw someone on bluesky refer to the Xindi arc from Enterprise as one of their top Star Trek plot lines across all shows.......... these sickos need to be put in jars for observation.

[fresh-bag-of-ham]

look. spirk went canon for the first time when spock went into heat and they fucked wrestled on vulcan and spock's heat broke even though jim only faked his death. then they got divorced and spock tried to purge all emotion from his body. then spock realized that jim is his soulmate and feelings are good actually and they held hands which is vulcan for kissing and spirk went canon a second time. then spock died and they had to regrow his body and put his soul back in it and he had to relearn all his memories and finally he remembered jim and spirk went canon a third time. then they were married for a while and saved some whales, met god, had to deal with spock's terrorist cult-leader brother, space chernobyl happened and the soviet union the klingon empire fell and jim was framed for murder and spock had to find the real killer. then jim got sucked into another dimension and died (don't @ me i refuse to even watch this one) and spock lived for like a hundred more years and then got zapped into an alternate universe where he didn't know anyone and had to play spiritual guide to chris pine and zachary quinto, and then he ALSO died. and that was the end! and we just lived like that! for decades! but NOW, thanks to executive producer bill fucking shatner, old jim got to meet even older spock on the astral plane one last time and DOUBLE HELD HANDS which we can only conclude is vulcan making out with tongue. so yes, for a fourth time, spirk has gone canon

[pityroadart]

Here's my piece for the @mcspirkevents Big Bang! I was paired with the excellent @twinkboimler and their fic Jim Kirk's Guide to Delivering the Goods, which you can find here (E, AOS McSpirk, 60k)

Summer just started, and Jim is bored out of his mind. The courses he needs to take aren’t being offered until the second half of the summer, so he has an entire month to bother his roommate Bones. At Bones’ suggestion to get a job, Jim fixes up a motorbike and starts making deliveries to people in town, including a cute Vulcan professor named Spock. But when Jim is beaten up while making a delivery, it’s Spock who delivers Jim back to the apartment he shares with Bones. After the meet-cute from hell, Spock and Bones start dating… and so do Jim and Spock. With neither roommate aware they’re both dating the same man, there’s only so long that things can go well for them before the other shoe finally drops.

Also as part of my Big Bang offerings, I made a fic playlist (below) — partly a love letter to McSpirk, partly a love letter to myself and Fletcher's overlapping music taste.

Thank you again to Fletcher @twinkboimler for working on this project with me, it's been an absolute joy!

Until the Birds Return on Spotify

Tracks and choice lyrics below the cut (contains vague spoilers):

Astronaut | Future Crib

I wanna be an astronaut Fly into space I wanna see Mars from Venus I wanna go to that place And if you come with me They'll be room in my ship I'll take you up there with me It can be just you and me

Afraid of Heights | boygenius

I never rode a motorcycle I never smoked a cigarette I wanna live a vibrant life But I wanna die a boring death

Day by Day | Old Sea Brigade

Time and time again, I think I'm falling through space And I wake up in my bed just sweating in sheets

... Then I think of you growing old and it breaks my heart

Factories | Autoheart

When you found my body by the lake You wasn't sure if I was still alive

You and Your Friend | Snake River Conspiracy

Must we go run through our lives with our eyes closed To the loving happiness that we can share I think I'm in love with you and your friend

My Gal, My Guy | Darlingside

My (guy) he's the bluest ocean, (he) Waits under the bluest sky for me I belong to (him) When I'm in the water

Santa Fe | Autoheart

Heaven sent You were like a present I should not have kept A sticker on your forehead saying 'breakable And I broke you bad

Coat on a Hook | The National

Two days, we're still not talking You're the opposite of an open book Come back for me

Top to Toe | Fenne Lily

So I'm changing all my days To make your nights It's just not right

Pigeon Song | Patrick Wolf

Now the pigeons gather 'round my feeding hand And we talk 'til the evening fades I have learnt how it goes What you wait for never shows And what you least wanted, holds you down like a stone

Hornets | The National

But I don't wanna leave And I don't wanna hide I just don't wanna run Into you tonight

Tea, Milk & Honey | Oh Pep!

If you stick with me, I'll make sure your time is all right If you don't understand where I am now, it's better if we leave it

The Spiritual | Jukebox the Ghost

We might have kissed a bit too soon I could feel what was coming and I didn't mean to hurry you I just knew that time would find our fingers linked, through and through Forgive me, I'm human too

Bike Dream | Rostam

Two boys, one to kiss your neck And one to bring you breakfast Get you out of bed

Don't Go | Yazoo

Can't stop now Don't you know I ain't never gonna let you go

Jenny | The Mountain Goats

I hopped on back of the bike, wrapped my arms around you I sank my face into your hair And then I inhaled as deeply as I possibly could You were sweet and delicious as the warm desert air And you pointed your headlamp toward the horizon We were the one thing in the galaxy God didn't have his eyes on 900 cc's of raw whining power, no outstanding warrants for my arrest

Old Old Fashioned | Josh Ritter (Frightened Rabbit cover)

Oh let's get old fashioned Back to how things used to be If I get old, old fashioned Would you get old, old fashioned with me?

[smhalltheurlsaretaken]

Sarek in TOS being so proud of Spock despite disapproving of Spock's enlistment and Sarek in the TOS movies showing up and being all in Jim's face and openly emotional about Spock and confessing to being emotional about Spock in front of a whole Vulcan a crowd and Tuvok being so in love with his wife T'Pel and saying his children are part of who he is to the point he is not whole without them and still being so logical and pragmatic and chill and Spock feeling 400 Vulcans die from hundreds of miles away because Vulcans are connected to one another and Soval admitting that Vulcans are afraid of humans because humans remind them of Vulcans and Vulcans being so dry and funny and T'pol saying "Hello, I am your mother" to her infant clone daughter and T'Pau and T'Lar and the Vulcan elders wearing those intricate robes and Vulcan art and music and language and their beautiful and their amazing writing system dfgfdfdfg. I'm gnawing on the furniture. They're in love with meticulous craft and intricate tradition. Beauty isn't illogical it's at the core of what they value. Community and family aren't illogical it's their highest duty. War and violence aren't logical or pragmatic, logic is pursuing peace. They have SO MUCH compassion and curiosity and legitimately insane approches to things. their childhood rite of passage is a brutal survival test and they can snap a man's neck and they can throw humans easily and they still developed a fighting technique that's painless and harmless and gracefully neutralizes opponents. they're logical to the point of devotion and yet a decent chunk of them are still monks and priests and spiritual leaders. They're cryptic space elves and incredibly precise calculators and they're asshole cats they're Humanity's older sibling they're weird bloodthirsty passionate warriors with SO MUCH EMOTIONS raging inside them who now enjoy equations and chess and vegetables and chose to force control onto themselves and leash themselves to peace and knowledge and order and pacifism because their emotions are legitimately too dangerous to be expressed. what a concept. what an aesthetic. amanda grayson fell in love with who they were and she and sarek made Spock which is literally the greatest thing anybody has ever done in the Star Trek universe

and don't even come near me with the dumb stuff like 'they outlawed mindmelds at one point' because that never made sense, they have fal-tor-pan and they mind meld with the dying. ST writers periodically do them SO DIRTY FOR NO REASON. it's *NOT* mind melding that's always been weird in the TOS movies and TNG because they are EMPATHS and they share emotions and the deepest depths of their souls when they need to

VULCANSVULCANSVULCANSVULCANSVULCANSVULCANS

[purpleenma]

✨ This June 16th prepare your bodies for my collaboration with the amazing CampySpaceSlime (@ex--astris--scientia) for the T'hy'la Reverse Bang 2024 : Shore Leave (@thylabang)! It's going to be a Vulcan religious experience. ✨

To start the appetite here is an extra sketch of Spock in traditional Vulcan underwear.

✨ See below the cut for a little teaser of CampySpaceSlime's awesome writing. And believe me, you want to read it.

And the tags for good measure.

I'm really excited for you guys to see what we both came up with! It's been an inspiring collaboration experience, and it was even more incredible seeing my art come to life in such beautiful writing 💜 I feel so so honored!

[ex--astris--scientia]

Since I have way more thoughts on the topic of Vulcan polytheism and spirituality than I think can be easily contained in my one little post, I decided to remake this blog and start exploring some of that more in depth. So if you want to hear more about Vulcan pagan nonsense, this is where it shall be

[bumblingbabooshka]

B'Elanna, Neelix, Tuvok and Chakotay needed to star in an episode where they just talked about their different beliefs and approaches to spirituality/religion. Paired off and all together. I need to gain more insight. I need characterization and I need it to be messy.

[paradiscake]

The fandom seems to hold the opposite view but to me, this bit in MGS2 makes it clear Snavid has some belief in deities, a higher power. Snake was affected by Vulcan Raven and his words in MGS1 and he had gotten spiritual and somewhat religious in general after settling in Alaska.

[isnt-it-too-dreamy]

i know lots of autistic ppl claim spock or at least they used to back in the day but by any chance does anyone else think that the history of vulcans as a society and spock as an individual is such a bpd mood?

the whole "vulcans used to be destructively emotional but then decided to prioritize logic in order to not destroy themselves further" as well as spock (falsely) thinking of himself as half-human (emotional), half-vulcan (logical) is sooooo reminiscent to me of how people with bpd didn't learn to deal with emotions successfully in childhood so instead they adopt this coping mechanism of putting their feelings away and adopting a "i shouldn't have any feelings at all" mindset bc they feel overwhelmed and controlled by their emotions and never learned how to cope with them so it's easier to wish them away completely.

and even spock's character arc from the movies of accepting that he needs both logic and emotional stuff like spirituality in his life reminds me of this dbt skill called "wise mind" where on one end of the spectrum you have the emotional mind, on the other end you have the rational mind, and in the middle you have the wise mind. and the latter is the mindset you aim for bc for most situations in life, a mixture is better than one of the extremes.

anyway i always thought spock was such a bpd bitch and found him relatable for that and now that i've learned more about dbt i think so even more 😭

[zestoflemon]

okay! heres more drawtectives star trek au thoughts bc i have a lot of thoughts :)

so all of this would take place in the lower decks era (2381), with jancy as the captain of officers rose, grendan, and york, and science expert eugene! also rosé, grendan, and york went to starfleet academy together bc thats fun

rosé is still a human, she's from tycho city bc its always funny to me when a star trek character is from the moon. she's a pilot and she learned to fly shuttles and runabouts at a young age. karina's hinted at there being some Dramatic Things in rosé's past so i briefly thought maybe she'd been recruited to section 31,, but then i thought maybe thats too much? so instead her Dramatic Thing could be that she had a conflict with a previous commanding officer that led to her being transferred off the ship. her off duty style would be very christine chapel or erica ortegas in snw vibes, she has so many chelsea boots its crazy

grendan is bajoran bc that just makes sense to me <3 their parents were in the bajoran militia so they lived on ds9 for a while and got interested in starfleet there! shes a science officer and specializes in exobiology (the star trek equivalent of walking dogs) his style is mostly earth tones plus science blues and soo many crochet vests and sweaters

york! klingon lore works really well with orc lore imo but he had to be green so! his dad is a klingon warrior and his mom is an orion starfleet officer, and york grew up with his dad on qo'nos before coming to earth to live with his mom and eventually join starfleet :) oh also since klingons mature faster than humans but i wanted him to be around the same age as grendan i just subtracted 8 years from what his human age would be, so he's technically the youngest of the star trek drawtectives but not by klingon standards?

eugene <3 i just think all the vulcan spirituality and katra and telepathy makes soo much sense for him! and i think he was with the vulcan science academy but then got really into studying the afterlife with holograms & androids so he left the academy to do his own research

i dont have a lot thought out for jancy yet but she's a betazoid bc i think telepathic jancy is neat :) and she was a diplomat before entering starfleet where she studied anthropology (and mystery solving)

also feel free to send me asks about this! drawfee and star trek are my two favorite things so i have a lot of thoughts about them but idk if im explaining them well,,