May 5, 2020
TRADEMARK
You can look at religions, political institutions and all "isms" as gigantic games of "Telephone" or "Chinese Whispers," [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_whispers].
That's the party amusement in which an original statement is whispered by a first person to the next person in a long line of people. Each person passes the statement along by whispering it in the ear of the next person. In the end, the last person announces the statement to everyone. The original statement usually has undergone amazing transformations in its wording and meaning. [A story from WWI has it that the important message "Send reinforcements, we're going to advance" was passed along by a series of radio operators from the front until it was finally received at headquarters as, "Send three and fourpence we're going to a dance".]
Over time, just as mutations arise in biological evolution, variations, schisms, heresies etc. pop up in the transmission of ideas or doctrines. After all, change is another fact of life, connected to the operation of chance.
With respect to religions, the whispered transformations of the original material over millennia often makes the original insights unrecognizable. Just look at the "founders" of some major religions and compare their words and behavior to what is practiced today in their names. Case closed.
When I contemplated designing a new religion one of the questions I faced was whether my design could maintain its original principles over time. The precedents in religious, philosophical and political isms were all discouraging. My tentative answer came from beer. That's where you find true adherence to original principles/ingredients, certified by what is known as a trademark.
Lowenbrau claims to have to have been using its trademark since 1383. Stella Artois claims continuous use of its mark since 1366. Those were before governments started official registrations. The first officially registered trademark was the Czech beer, PILSNER, registered in 1859. It seems to me that maintaining a registered trademark is about the only way someone can guarantee that what is presented to the public is their authentic product.
So I have registered a trademark for LUCKISM®. That brings to mind a possible slogan: "Try LUCKISM® - the religion with the integrity of a great beer!
I would have written more but my day was filled with chores such as wood-cutting and weeding and de-stoning the moss.
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