Roachem

 

All the activities and philosophical ideas of the Order of the Unclean are based on the insights and statements of “Roachem".

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Roachem is not a god or any independent being. He is a mythical character who represents the integration between the animal and the divine, as an ideal expression of the human Self. The voice of Roachem is the voice that emanates from the depths of the civilized person. It is the voice of sincerity that combines rational thought with one's instinctive gestures - without hypocrisy and without the need for apologies or guilt. Roachem represents the healthy doubt that nestles in the body and mind of the thinking human. He is the natural, undeniable instinct of the modern man; the voice of the original, basic Self, consisting of an intuitive combination of a thinking mind and a creative body, of thought and power, of spirituality and urges.

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Roachem uttered his bubbly voice for the first time in 2005, and he is the one who gave his name to himself, dictating his complex message to the founder of the order, that Roachem appeared as his inner voice. Roachem's voice has since been heard many times in various settings, and his writings have been distributed among different, but limited, audiences. Now, it seems that the times are ripe for spreading the ideas of Roachem among the masses.

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Although he served as the bearer of the first “revelation”, the founder of the Order of the Unclean does not take any ownership of Roachem, understanding that Roachem is the voice that comes from the internal body and not from the heavens, from the human mind and not from the spirits of angels or any astral beings. As such, Roachem consists of the characteristics and knowledge of the “Bearer of the Revelation” - his urges, his doubts, and his deepest intuitions. Therefore, the border between Roachem and the “Bearer of the Revelation” is blurred and cannot be proportionally determined. At the same time, it is not impossible that Roachem will decide in the future to use other carriers as well, in order to continue spreading his words.

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Roachem's writings have undergone processing and internalization over the past few years, and they are now coming to light as an orderly, translated and responsible philosophy, which is the result of much learning and deep meditation over the original writings. Recognizing the fact that Roachem is a mental idea, an entity whose boundaries are blurred and which is also composed of the original characteristics of the subject himself, the Order of the Unclean does not take any responsibility for further appearances of Roachem and for new interpretations of his words, which originate outside the order. The order handles every appearance and every new insight that is dictated by Roachem, with great responsibility and while posing many doubts and questions upon it. This in order to reach as deep an understanding as possible of the teachings and of the possibility of living according to the advice and insights contained therein.

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The Order of the Unclean presents a unique theological concept, which has no commitment to any transcendent entity, although it presents a ritual structure out of the recognition of the necessity of such a system, and of the human need for ritualistic patterns. Roachem does not present himself as a god, but as a guide, as a suggestion for understanding life in a different way. He does not impose his insights on anyone, although he shows full confidence in his teaching, and the belief that in the future it will be adopted by many.

 

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Man and religion

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The Order of the Unclean sees the individual who exists within the human culture as a slave who aspires to be free, and the established religions as agents that offer liberation through the conversion of one slave state into another. The established religions, with their rituals and ideologies, grant man the promise of freedom in exchange for his absolute loyalty, which usually involves the belief in and worship of transcendent beings. At the same time, people who choose not to follow the dogmas of any religion, those who identify themselves with the "enlightenment", find themselves mostly enslaved to other ideological dogmas, which masquerade as free secularism, but in essence preserve the status of man as a total slave.

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The "Age of Enlightenment" tried to free man from the "dark" shackles of religion, claiming that religious dogmas and mystical experiences are inferior to rational thinking and philosophical thought. Many flocked to the Enlightenment movements that formed during the modern ages, while seeing science as the rational replacement for religion, and placing their hopes in the promises of progress. During the second half of the 20th century, man realized that even science does not have the absolute ability to provide answers to the existential questions and challenges that human culture poses to him.

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The Order of the Unclean holds that at this stage there was a serious crisis of trust (which we are still in the midst of) between man, science and rationalistic thinking. According to the order, this crisis was caused by the fact that man, who still needed objective sets of laws, attributed excessive religious importance to scientific dogmas, and, in practice, turned science into a direct substitute for religion. This crisis of trust, which plagued (and still plagues) human culture, caused the disintegration of ideologies and the loss of faith in truth and in the existence of an objective meaning to life.

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The spiritual void created by the rupture (known by the order as the "post-modern rupture"), resulted in the growth of new movements, which can be gathered under the name "New Age movements". The spiritual teachings offered by the various movements of the "New Age" are based on a combination of beliefs, religious in essence, which assume, for the most part, the existence of transcendental entities, together with pseudo-scientific beliefs, which help the followers of the “New Age” to approach the secular audiences as well. You will often find the followers of “New Age” movements attributing consciousness to the universe itself, or making promises in the name of the "Cosmos".

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The Order of the Unclean sees the “New Age” as a symptom of the human need for belief systems that will fill the spiritual void created by the post-modern situation. But the “New Age” takes man back to the primary sources of religion and dependence on transcendental beings. Meanwhile, the “New Age” also serves as a breeding ground for capitalist charlatanism, and is a new phase in the age of consumerism, selfishness and moral indifference. In conclusion, man, the son of the new age, remains subject to the mechanisms of religious slavery, and is bound under conditions that apparently do not depend on himself.

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The Order of the Unclean understands the mechanism of slavery, man's need for such a mechanism, and on the other hand man’s aspiration to be freed from his human shackles. Therefore, the Order of the Unclean satisfies the need for servitude for its believers through a framework of worship methods and ritual dogmas, but it leaves them as a coating for complete religious freedom, within which the member of the Order of the Unclean can determine for himself/herself the set of his/her own beliefs. Thus, the Order of the Unclean leaves slavery among its believers as nothing but an empty symptom, deprived of its enslaving essence, so that they can experience true liberation. Within the ritual frameworks offered by the Order of the Unclean, you will find the freedom to believe in whatever your psyche desires, and to transform these beliefs into actions without feeling like a sinner.

 

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The Unclean

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The Unclean is an intermediate state. It means the disruption of order and the blurring of boundaries between categories and values that are structured at the cultural level. A “thing” is considered unclean or “dirty” after it has been moved from its place, exceeded its boundaries or the boundaries of the area within which it is regulated. Human societies tend to separate and formulate distinctions between values such as "clean" and "unclean", "good" and "bad", "beautiful" and "ugly" and the like. The Order of the Unclean recognizes the given existence of these dichotomies, and even holds that the survival of a culture requires and depends on the existence of such boundaries and criteria, which it must determine for itself. At the same time, it seems that the current social and cultural atmosphere causes a loss of confidence and trust in standards and norms, which lead to violent promiscuity and cultural chaos. The order sees a need to fill the void created by the confusion surrounding the old concepts and dichotomies, which it seems that neither science nor the existing religions can provide the tools to deal with. The order proposes the Unclean as a concept that represents a situation where the blurring of boundaries and violation of criteria is necessary for the re-evaluation of existing values, and for the creation of new ones. Equally significant is the role of the Unclean in identifying the circumstances and interests that led to the formulation of the boundaries, values and categories in the first place. The Unclean calls humanity to examine the "filth" - the circumstances that led to its appearance and the creative potential inherent in it - before it is cleansed in order to restore "order".

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The Unclean is not a permanent state - it moves and it vibrates, it clings and it lets go, it examines and it questions. It does not see any border as a spiritual imperative that comes from some divine source, but as an earthly, materialistic outline, arising from human needs, as well as from interests and fluctuations of power-economy. It is necessary for the human society to constantly re-examine the diffusion of these areas to each other, without defining them as absolute on the one hand, and without completely abandoning them, on the other hand. The Order of the Unclean constantly strives to formulate new ways of looking at the world, and calls its followers to re-examine the categories constantly, while taking moral responsibility, and while understanding that absolute selfishness and blind altruism are two sides of the same coin.

 

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God

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The Order of the Unclean sees the idea of God as an ancient idea, which has existed since the dawn of humanity. Its expressions among human beings are different and varied. As such, the idea of God affects humanity in almost every aspect and at every moment of everyday life, for both religious and secular people. Therefore, the Order of the Unclean finds the question of the actual existence of God as an irrelevant question, because even if God does not exist in the concrete way, its influence on the world is very evident and infinitely significant. In this sense, the Order of the Unclean deals with the idea-of-God as if it existed as some kind of an entity, in various forms. For the Order of the Unclean, God represents the old order, the dichotomies and categories in which the Unclean seeks to intervene and examine. The Order of the Unclean presents a theology-without-gods, at least in the literal sense of the term as an actual power or entity with supernatural abilities.

The Order of the Unclean subverts many ideas that stem from the faith in God, since it sees their goal as the enslavement of the believers. At the same time, the order makes use of many ideas presented within the framework of the various religions, monotheistic and polytheistic alike, each according to the inspiration it can offer us. Many rituals and practices offered by the order, are meant to free man from the shackles of religious dogmas to which he was enslaved throughout his life.

 

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Statements

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The basis for the Unclean beliefs is presented here in points, and it mostly stems from the recognition that, being the practical representation of a new religion, not one of its believers comes from a cultural vacuum; in all of them lies a religious or secular ideology, in one way or another. We strongly believe that the ideas of the monotheistic religions regarding fundamental issues such as good and evil, punishment and reward, life-after-death and the like, are deeply embedded in the Western mind, even in secular or atheistic people. The following statements deal with this understanding, and are based on the belief in its correctness. The statements are presented here as ideas for thought and discussion, and they form a small and concise component of a more comprehensive worldview.

 

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Statements about the Unclean

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1. The Unclean represents the intermediate and liminal states, the blurring of boundaries and the incessant examination of them.

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2. The blurring of boundaries is necessary for development and evolution, but it requires the existence of boundaries in the first place.

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3. Nothing is clean. If such a thing is ever to be found, let it be defiled!

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4. Every object, every plant and every living thing, has an infinite potential for the realization of every deviation.

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5. Deviation sustains life and strengthens it.

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6. Contingency inspires the realization of deviation. The Order of the Unclean appreciates and respects randomness, and is very attentive to it.

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7. The path of the Unclean is the path of art. The order sees art, in its various forms, as the right way to realize its ideas.

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8. The world has no beginning and no end. Time is rottenness, and it is it who destroys things.

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9. The destruction of one thing is the birth of another. The Unclean does not recognize in destruction anything that is necessarily negative or positive.

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10. The Order of the Unclean cherishes all the defects and all the defectives living on the face of the earth. The defective is closer to perfection because it also contains the absence.

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11. God, faith and the afterlife are concepts whose physical existence cannot be proven, but as existing ideas, they have a significant impact on the world.

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12. "Good" and "evil", "beautiful" and "ugly", are cultural concepts that are subject to social conditioning. The order accepts the fact of the existence of these concepts, but acknowledges only the power of the Unclean - the gods have abandoned their position.

 

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Statements about the Human Being

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1. The human being is a hybrid, a creation of his intellectual ideas and physical characteristics; An animal and a god.

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2. All human beings are “sinners” from the moment of birth.

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3. All human beings are “unclean” from the moment of birth.

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4. Every body, its boundaries are breached. It is absorbed in the world and the world is absorbed in it.

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5. The world around us is experienced through the body orifices, which are called the Gates of Filth. They are the habitats of the senses that “defile” the human body.

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6. Every body (and also everybody) experiences the world in a different way. Experience is the source of knowledge, and therefore knowledge will always depend on the body.

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7. The body orifices are the source of pleasure as well as of torment.

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8. Communication between the living, most of it passes through the body orifices.

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9. Each and every one of the orifices has its own language, and man speaks them all.

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10. Man's natural tendency is to “feed” the continuity of progress, including that which will come after his death.

 

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Statements about the member of the Order of the Unclean

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1. The member of the Order of the Unclean wallows within everything. He/she is one and many.

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2. The member’s ambition for knowledge is endless, restless and unlimited.

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3. Nothing is self-evident for a member of the Order of the Unclean, and there is nothing in his world that is not worthy of questioning and doubting.

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4. For a member of the Order of the Unclean, there is no question without an answer, and there is no answer that does not raise further questions.

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5. A member of the Order of the Unclean is constantly striving to free himself/herself from the enslaving shackles of social conditioning.

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6. A member of the Order of the Unclean takes responsibility for the things that happen to him/her, even when they are not under his/her control.

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7. A member of the Order of the Unclean is fanatic about his/her freedom, his/her time and his/her territory.

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8. A member of the Order of the Unclean respects the freedom of others, their time and their territory.

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9. A member of the Order of the Unclean does not give the other cheek. Whoever hurts another, should not be surprised if he/she gets hurt.

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10. A member of the Order of the Unclean is aware that when it arrives, the moment of death is real and cannot be postponed.