How Does LUCKISM® Work?

I begin to present some of the specifics of this new religion; how certain practices and rules of behavior arise logically and naturally from its foundation.

In general, we can divide belief-based behavior, whether in traditional religions or LUCKISM®, into two categories. The first consists of practices which confirm the truth of the belief or reinforce it and the second consists of rules of behavior which govern daily life. For example, in the first category of confirmation/reinforcement are such practices as eating a wafer considered to be the body of a savior god or reading from a sacred text containing words alleged to have been dictated by a god or having visions of deities. In the category of governing are such rules as those excluding certain foods from the diet or commending acts of charity or limiting violence.

CONFIRMATION OF TRUTH
For LUCKISM® the primary practices used to confirm the truth of the fundamental belief are  Sublimated Gambling and Chance Analysis. These can be done individually or in organized gatherings. Sublimated Gambling is the use of games of chance, free of the money-making motivation, in order to experience, as purely as possible, the sensation of being subject to the operation of chance. Aleatory Analysis is the examination of events, personal and public, mundane and scientific, to notice how they always contain a strong component of chance. 

Sublimated Gambling

Picture a gathering of Luckists standing around a table engaged in the game of craps. Craps is a dice game in which players bet on the outcomes of the roll of a pair of dice.We’ll assume that, to begin, they have all contributed a modest amount of money to obtain the symbolic tokens with which they play. (That contribution goes towards the support of the non-profit LUCKISM® organization.) As players pass the dice around, winning or losing tokens, they have an undeniable experience of the reality of luck. It is nothing more or less than the unpredictable and uncontrollable unfolding of reality which permeates all existence. The participants have one of the most tangible and verifiable spiritual experiences offered by any religious practice. There may be criticism arising from negative attitudes towards conventional gambling in some segments of society.  These should easily be overcome by pointing out the pure and high purpose in LUCKISM®. It should be noted that most of the world’s population gambles in one form or another so most people will have to do nothing more than realize that there is a higher meaning in the experience of gambling.

Chance Analysis

In aleatory analysis an individual or a group engage in examination of personal or public events or natural phenomena, to locate the operation of chance in them. This can range from accounts of unexpected personal encounters or events to news of accidents like a gigantic cargo ship getting stuck in the Suez Canal and blocking all traffic, to the weather conditions or the latest scientific breakthrough. We live in a world full of chancy events. Chance will show up everywhere we choose to look deeply whether the matter is private or public.

Aleatory Guidance - I-Ching

RULES OF LIFE
The application of LUCKISM® to daily life is a never-ending process. As surrounding conditions change in the world, as is inevitable, LUCKISM® balances the benefits of living in harmony with the energizing presence of natural chance and the folly of trying to dominate it. When LUCKISM® takes a position on what a person should or should not do in life, it does so on a basis equivalent to that used by traditional religions. That means it derives from the dictates of the most profound source of authority accessible to humans - a source formerly identified as a god or gods. In short, in the case of LUCKISM® the source of guidance is the reverence for the operation of chance in the world. Should one try to choreograph the dance of order and chance and, if so, to what extent?

This basic insight covers everything humans do from birth to death. This does not mean rigidity of form. It means achieving harmony with the most important facts of existence on the most basic, natural level. That is the great desideratum.

It starts with the fundamental needs of life. Direct relations with them and with other living things, to the greatest extent possible, is the aim of LUCKISM®. On the other hand, becoming alienated from these things is what must be avoided.

Here are a few examples of how this should work. LUCKISM® means no soda and no eating of animals. The reasons? These all flow from the fundamental belief that the natural operation of chance is the guiding principle.

Water and Other Liquids 
Water is a universal embodiment of chance, full of mysterious unknowable qualities intimately connected to its origin and the origin and continuation of life. Adequate supplies of water for the sustenance of human life is a human right. https://www.un.org/waterforlifedecade/human_right_to_water.shtml 
Obtaining water should be accomplished as directly as possible. Wasting water in order to obtain it in an altered form is a desecration. Therefore, most commercial processes of manufacturing water-based drinks are obviously undesirable. Soda is particularly reprehensible from this standpoint. A fortiori, any action which misuses or pollutes water has to be forbidden and all efforts should be made to minimize or end it. Keep in mind that the ultimate reason for LUCKISM’s position is not ecological, economic or scientific (although it has those aspects.) It is religious. 

Here is an excerpt from a news article which  is sufficient to show the imbalance in the prevailing use of water.(https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB123483638138996305)

It takes roughly 20 gallons of water to make a pint of beer, as much as 132 gallons of water to make a 2-liter bottle of soda, and about 500 gallons, including water used to grow, dye and process the cotton, to make a pair of Levi's stonewashed jeans.

Food Sources
This deals with the underlying question of the basis for deciding what humans should or should not eat. The Jains have thought about this question very deeply and apparently arrived at the conclusion that the sensory developments of what is to be considered as food is the most important deciding factor. They allow the eating or "killing" of plants because they are on the lowest level of sensory development, having only the sense of touch. Even then, they bar the use of some plant foods, such as roots and tubers, whose harvesting is likely to kill insects. They even avoid foods which contain microorganisms such as yoghurt. See, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jain_vegetarianism Beyond plants, the eating of all animals is prohibited.

I believe that LUCKISM® may have located a deeper decisional basis for this question. In LUCKISM® it is the presence of chance interaction which should serve as the ratio decidendi. The more that independent chance interaction of a conscious nature is present, the greater the caution should be in using the object for food. Within the family of plants this would allow a distinction between plants which are immediately responsive to touch, for example, and those which do not respond. When we reach the animal kingdom LUCKISM® will have to differentiate between creatures on the basis of the degree of conscious interaction they have with others. 

LUCKISM® does not permit killing for the purpose of obtaining food because that is an interference with the chance interactions of the thing that is killed. So the question is, what food involves “killing?"  The Jains, who have probably given the question the most profound thought, permit only the consumption of certain plants because they have only one sense, that of touch, and are therefore on the lowest level of life. Even then, they bar the use of some plant foods, such as roots and tubers, whose harvesting is likely to kill insects. They even avoid foods which contain microorganisms such as yoghurt. See, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jain_vegetarianism

The logic of LUCKISM’s fundamental principle leads to another standard.  For LUCKISM®, the defining characteristic of life for the purpose of guiding life-affecting conduct, is the interaction with chance. When an entity has a conscious interaction with independent external stimuli we can consider it to be subject to the operation of chance at a level which requires protection from interference.  This state of existence forbids a Luckist from ending the chance development of any life form which is in a state of conscious interaction with others. (The implications of this for abortion and euthanasia will be discussed in the future.)

A living thing is a thing capable of interacting a state of unpredictable interaction with others when
A state of unpredictable (chancy) interaction with external forces is one in which is present


The rules for obtaining food are connected to wider rules of behavior such as the rules governing killing and the rules governing relationships with other living things. For example, when we give fundamental importance to reverence for the operation of chance in life, we must  pay attention to our possible interferences in the operation of chance in the life of others. Stated differently, when a living thing has what we would consider a conscious relationship with the world we have to refrain from ending that relationship. (Our belief in the lack of consciousness in the the tropism of plants and the chemical activity of microorganisms makes it permissible to eat plants and yoghurt.) 

Animals which have conscious interactions with the world should not be eaten.This puts LUCKISM® generally in favor of vegetarianism. There may be room for consumption of lower forms of sea life such as certain types of shellfish. The fine tuning of the meaning of consciousness can wait for further discussion. Octopuses are clearly forbidden. Fish are open to discussion at this time.