Lenny Duncan

Lenny Duncan (they/them) is an artist. Preacher. Esoteric fool. Student Teacher. They produce art and media at the intersections of faith and radical abolitionist dreams in America. Lenny is the auhtor of Dear Church and United States of Grace, and the Forthcoming: Dear Revolutionaries - A Field Guide to the World Beyond the Church. A Phd student in historical and cultural studies of religion, who concentrates their studies in "New Religious Movements." Lenny is originally from West Philadelphia, has hitchiked thousands of miles on American byways, and now makes home in the East Bay. 

Transcript

Lenny Duncan

[00:00:00] Intro: Welcome to the Holden Village Podcast. Holden is a community of education, programming, and worship located in the remote wilderness of the Cascade Mountains. These snapshots provide a glimpse into the learnings taking place in our community. Let's tune in to this week's highlight. 

[00:00:22] Dev: So welcome to another edition of the Holden Village podcast. I am with one of our week six faculty of the 2023, uh, summer program, Lenny Duncan. Lenny, how would you like to introduce yourself?

[00:00:35] Lenny: so I'm a writer, speaker, scholar, and a media producer, um, and a lot of my work has been at the forefront of like, what some people call racial justice in America. I wrote a couple books, Dear Church, United States of Grace, and Dear Revolutionaries. I had a podcast on PRX for a while about like, Jam bans and racism, which I thought was really fun. 

[00:00:55] Dev: Jam bans and racism? Dude. That sounds amazing. 

[00:00:58] Lenny: Because it absolutely, you know, if you've ever been to a jam ban show, I have been to a we did a, yeah, we did a thing for Ben Jerry's called Blackberry Jams during the uprisings where we just talked. Blackberry Jams. Yeah! We just talked about like the common shit that would happen. Like, I've been going to see The Grateful Dead since 1991. And without fail, there's some dudes. Who's like so Ever been in one of these shows before? Jesus Christ, dude. Yes! Yes! Yeah, I ended up at VIP here next to Bob Weir's sister by accident. Like, come on, man. I wandered in. 

But like now, I'm a student down at the Graduate Theological Union doing my last semester of PhD coursework. I take comps in the spring and I start teaching a course called A People's History of Magic.

Um, and right now my focus is on is the fancy way of saying it in case there's actually someone who It's doing this work who listens to the podcast is a decolonial counter narrative to Western esotericism with a focus on black, esoteric practices. And by black, I mean black peoples of the Americas.

I'm calling it black magic and black power. Really it's a people's history of magic, right? It's just the stuff we were all doing when no one was looking, you know? So like on your way to church, when you grabbed Mulberry Bush to help you with your breathing and what, what does all that mean? And what sort of, uh, really useful social and cultural technologies have we thrown into what we call the waste basket of modernity and that's, so that's sort of where my work focuses. 

[00:02:37] Dev: That's awesome. how would you like to talk about magic? 

[00:02:41] Lenny: mean, when we talk about magic or esoterra, uh, you know, esoterrism, or mysticism, or seerism, or divination. I kind of throw it all in the same bucket. and so what it is, I mean, the pitch is, is that it's really just the movement and the rearrangement of symbols combined with medicines and nature, with ceremony to change one's reality when you hold it loose like that, it can be anything you want. it's the human urge to take smells and candles and herbs and minerals and praise of divine and some sort of combination.

you know, it might be the divinity in you. You might be a person who's like, I am, that's fine. I'm just saying, but it's your way of acting. And so that's what magic is. Uh, it's a way of changing, reality and changing our own perception of reality. You know, and the interesting thing about any of that sort of thing, like when, uh, Jung talked about alchemy and that sort of thing, one of the things he really focused on was it didn't really matter at a certain point, whether it was your view of reality, Or if it was, if you were just shifting your own individualized perception, or if reality was shifting around you, the effect would be the same. He just suggested you had a good psychiatrist the whole time. 

You know, I think it's a time of magic. I think it's a time for people to tap into their personal power. Our leadership was incredibly afraid that we would tap into our personal power. They were incredibly afraid that we would do community at home and be like, why the hell am I going here on Sundays? They were incredibly afraid that if you started to build community without their specific guidance, what kind of community would that be?

And when I joined communities like that, the emergent communities that happened during the 2020 uprisings in 2021, as we continue to do that work in Portland, from everything from wildfires to indigenous land defense. And so, that's why I think it's an important time for magic. I think it's an important time for you to know how to bury your dead. Call me crazy. I think it's an important time for you to know how to bless your children with water and welcome them into your tradition.

Hundreds of traditions do it that way. I'm not really attached to how you're going to do it. I just want to make sure you have the tools to do it. And I think magic or looking at things more in that way, provides that for people in really accessible ways. This idea that I But these elements can be combined and change and it can shift things in this room, right? that idea that, I am empowered in my own home. That, that God has empowered me the same way God empowered the 72. How is that not something the church would be into? and so I'm much more interested in that.

I'm much more interested in what has been deemed the miraculous. I'm much more interested in why the... Disciples through lots when Jesus died rather than pray. No one talks about that. Most important decisions ever. They're like, break out the dice. I mean, come on, man. You know, like, but no one wants to talk about that stuff.

So, We need the goddess. We need her back, right? And we need her lessons for us, you know, and those are very specific lessons, divine eminence as Dr Sherman puts it in my school, like that all matter is divine, the world around us is full of divinity and weighted down with it. 

[00:06:00] Dev: When did you know you wanted to get into this? Is there like a specific core memory, um, and when do you feel most magical?

[00:06:08] Lenny: I was ten and I had a dream that my granddaddy couldn't get up from a, from a chair. It was actually a toilet in the dream, but I'd never seen a toilet like that. And then he had a stroke the next day after I told my mama and a bunch of people about it. no one knew what to do with that in my family.

and I had a couple other dreams that came true like that. So eventually they, they wrote me to, uh, they had me write my aunt Sissy, who was 88 years old. And hang out with my aunt Gussie, who were the two, like the oldest white woman on one side and the oldest black woman on another.

you know, my Aunt Sissy would start sending me candles and saint cards and herbs and I didn't understand any of it, you know, and, and my Aunt Gussie would bring me around and rub VanVan oil in my ears and say I had the best heart to go play her number, you know, like that kind of stuff, right?

And so I think the first time I walked into a place in Philly called Harry's Occult, I was 12. Harry's a cult was this place that was just like one of those watchtowers, you know what I mean? So they had to sign up Harry's a cult fighting evil since 1913, you know, like just Just badass, you know they actually had a monkey's paw or a hand of fortune there and a few other things like real ones, you know and a full spread of everyone's stuff, you know, it wasn't just European stuff it wasn't just Vodun, Hudu, or Ifa.

It wasn't just astrology stuff. It was sort of like, if you walked in there and you needed something, you're in the right place. I was fascinated by that stuff. I thought, you know, cause from school, I, you know, from when I knew witches and sorcerers and, Most people would get in trouble, you weren't, and here was a store, a huge ass store downtown and they're like fighting evil and like People are walking in in suits and businessmen and normal everyday people who say they don't believe in this stuff But they go in there and grab a bunch of items.

So they have the person do a reading Or they're going to get a job and they ask them to dress a green candle they can burn in front of their house And I'm like isn't that so and so from? so I, you know, that was the first time I really got into it. 

Um, there's a big tradition in black, culture of, people who are practitioners becoming pastors. There's never been a, a problem with that culturally. It's one of the few places that black men or people born male at birth or black folks in general Could get respect as the pulpit right as a spiritual leader. No matter what kind of spiritual leader you really were, you know 

But you know most my life I remember being like and writing the Rosicrucians for us. I can take their lessons and sending the money in, you know, and ask my mom to write a check as I gave her the cash, you know, and taking all their lessons and taking all the golden dawn lessons.

And I, I always had a mind for this stuff. I didn't know I'd be studying it on a PhD level when I was older. Right. so yeah, I always had an interest in it. And always saw liturgy and always saw particularly church architecture as just an outgrowth of that, Uh, the churches attempt to do the same things.

[00:09:17] Dev: I love that you're bringing this to Holden. Cause there's, I'm biased towards it. Like I love the themes and, but I also think like Holden needs it. I think it has it's own repressed magic, like it wants to release it's magic. Yeah. And it just needs a little permission, you know, to do so.

[00:09:35] Lenny: Certainly the land. Yeah, yeah. Certainly the land, and certainly this place, and certainly the community, right? When, listen, we talked about Paschal Beverly Randolph and, and sex magic. Mhmm. And for a bunch of people who started out the class as saying, I'm not sure about magic and for a bunch of people for being like, I'm really uncomfortable talking about sex in public, that was the loudest discussion part, you know, of the whole class because people were delighted with the idea of what kind of magics or what kind of power, what kind of divinity is just in you, you and pleasure and joy.

And, and you're right, pent up magic, right? there's certainly that here. Um, people talk about it in different ways, right? place and space and ritual and repetition thins a place. Yes. And creates these sort of things. You know, one of the things we talked about was, does it matter if... A E weights system of tarot work the way it does 110 years ago, because it's 110 years old.

So every time someone uses that tarot, that space gets thinner. That symbol means that more and more, you know, um, that the, those cards become something more in the consciousness of people. And is it that the cards are mash it magical, or is it just the conscious energy of people creating it? It's the same thing with holding.

Is holding a thin place because it's always been magical or is it the thousands of footsteps that came through it doesn't matter? It is what it is. But yeah, that's here. that's here to be tapped into and and We'll see people look for more land based practices particularly in their Christian.

Oh, yeah, 

[00:11:11] Dev: The final question, what would you say to someone who is thinking about either teaching or going to Holden? 

[00:11:19] Lenny: Oh, I'll keep it real in case you got a black person listening. Yeah, I wasn't going to come to this shit. Oh, hell no. I mean, especially after the uprisings. Like, you want to go to Eastern Washington? And I was like, bro, are you kidding me? I'm like, I'm on Patriot Prayers. Like, you know, their liberal mob list. I was on their hit list. For years. So I want to go hang out with them in Wenatchee, I don't know man.

You know, but the truth is, is that, you know, despite that there is sort of like, it is in a weird place in Washington, and people will be uptight when you pull up your car to fill up your gas. It's where the holding experience itself has been really great. You're not going to get around that, right? So if you're a rare, this is

rarefied air for any, for even hikers, for people who are into hiking trails, for people who are into national parks. I'm into national parks. I'm into state parks. I spend most of my time in them. And this is one of the nicest national parks I've ever been to. Some very rarefied air. Uh, and you know, I talked about this on Threads.

I said, you know, I'm at a church renewal place and it's working. And I made a side eye. Because, you know, you hear so much about Holton. Oh, you're gonna go up there, it's gonna be so magical. You're gonna go up there and you're gonna be so renewed. You're gonna go up there and you're gonna make so many friends.

You're gonna go up there and it's gonna be so good for you. And it's shitty because it is. At least for me! Like, I was like, damn, I'm so basic. All I needed was some prayer and some goddamn camp food. And some walking around. I feel like a million bucks, right? Um. So I would say that like, it's okay that there are these sort of like tropes around, especially as a queer person, so many of us hid here for years.

Um, you know, on my way up here, I had lots of queer elders who were like, none of your shit up there, pal. You know what I mean? You'd be good to those people because it holds such a special place in queer Christian culture. And you feel that here, too. You feel like you're on holy ground if you're a queer Christian, for sure.

That, that kitchen, you know, that kitchen that has been that has saved so many queer kids lives. And I know that personally. I know that the Holden Bread recipe has saved friends lives. Learning that recipe in that kitchen, literally. And so that feels like sacred ground, right? That feels like amazing stuff.

That feels like an untold story that, you know, could be told a little bit more. and so, yeah, it's worth the trip. And if you want to come teach, I was surprised how many engaged folks. I did not think this was a crowd for magic. Just like I did not think that older Protestant white women would love to talk about sex magic as much as they did.

[00:14:11] Dev: Uh, that's the biggest takeaway from this whole podcast will be that. 

[00:14:14] Lenny: Oh, again, people will be like, well, that's it. You know, but I'm just, you know, people are a game here. People are a game and they want to learn and they want to have fun and they want to be exposed to some stuff. I've been invited to speak at a lot of church camps, but this one really, it really has struck on a formula of giving people just enough autonomy that they choose the programming anyway. Like, you know what I mean? 

[00:14:40] Dev: That's the trick, man. 

[00:14:40] Lenny: That's the trick, man. But, you know, just a really engaged, open space. and it's just been great for me. So, you know, it's my first trip up and it's just been great for me. And I'm not one of those people who never get, cause I think there's a lot of that too. There's a lot of people who don't realize how little they see of nature and they come here and they're like, whoa, it's just so special.

And I'm like, honey, you're just not in service. like that's just the feeling of. No one could reach you. Yep. And you've been able to wander through your day and you're not quite sure where you're going and that's Yeah, it's fresh air and Right, and so I think there's a lot of that right but it is still one of the most stunning areas I've ever been an incredibly beautiful hiking and just a really and one of the coolest relationships I've ever seen between government and Church, and community, and private organizations. I've, I just... When we pulled up I was like, They just gave them this whole ass national park camp? I don't understand what's happening here. I was like, what is happening here? And, yeah, it's a cool thing. And so it's definitely worth... You know, the trip up is definitely worth coming to teach. It's definitely a thing I'll probably try and do again. 

[00:15:58] Dev: I hope you come back, personally. Also, I think it'd be cool if like, You know, we did some camping, too, you know? Oh, man. Like, you know, really, I don't know if you've had the opportunity to, like, you know, go into the Cloudy Pass and, like, stuff like that.

[00:16:10] Lenny: I have not had a chance to go to the Cloudy Pass or any of that. But I was talking to some people who hiked in. And I was just like, they're like, well, I took the easy way, spider gap, so I only had to cross a glacier. And I was like, what? I was like, you're like, I just hiked all the way in. And I was like, oh, man, I want to do that. 

[00:16:27] Outro: Thanks for joining us. Be sure to view the links in the description for more information or visit our website to find out more about the village. We hope you will make a pilgrimage to Holden. Blessings and peace to you.