Autoarchist Community Templates
A Modular Roadmap to
Starting your Own Community
The way to start a church or religious organization in a given region or town will vary considerably. In my location, they are required to be built on the corporate model with a board, a president, and members as shareholders. All the religious orgs in my region are like this, mosques, churches, sikh gurdwaras, and buddhist temples alike, even though this way of organizing isn't really part of their traditions. On the bright side, it is very easy to start one, you just have to submit a fact book and some organizational documents to the state government, and boom, you have a church.
Now, the earlier pamphlet Via de Autoarchus gave an overview on the philosophical underpinning of Autoarchy, but it's not one of the documents you give the government. So, as each individual community is different by design, you must write your own together with your community. You got this, I believe in you.
Now, I mentioned the other pamphlet, and I do recommend you read it first, because I'm going to refer to it here. But, this is a series of templates that help you write your government documents and style your community based on your local preferences and conditions. While the other pamphlet is a compass, this is a pamphlet on how to draw your own map. Autoarchism is nothing if not a philosophy of self directed creativity.
So, to meet government requirements, you may have to either register Autoarchy as its own religion, or as a sect or school of an established tradition. In Muslim Majority nations, this could be considered a Sufi Order (work it out with an expert and be heckin careful). In Europe or the Former colonies of Britain, you can register it as its own religion with some difficulty. In America specifically, where I live, it varies by state and city. So, while it's easy in the western states, some eastern areas may hassle you to explain your affiliation with prior philosophical or religious organizations. In that case, where the government wants to know your lineage, you can say that Autoarchism is a type of Expressive Humanism. Because, that's basically what it is. They may ask you to define your practices and beliefs in a certain way, and individual communities are welcome to change this, but it's gonna be asked in theist terms, and you need to answer it as though it works like that for the sake of legal legitimacy to get approved. Like how you have to pretend to have love of a company and their work as a motivation to get a job, when really you just gotta pay rent. The church approval board is typically the same way. They're not supposed to reject applications for being out of alignment with their subjective beliefs, but they often do. Having previously been to mosque board meetings, there is heinous fuckery in the approval process if the government doesn't like you.
So, here's how you explain what you might get asked while being both honest and within the realm of acceptable answers:
Deity - some jurisdictions require a religious organization to have a clearly identified deity concept. We "worship" 4 things: Human Potential, Human Creativity, Human Curiosity, and Human Intellect. So, 4 "gods" if you will. Though when drawing up your documents, you may find it useful to give them names in accordance with your flavoring. More on the flavoring later.
Creed - most jurisdictions require a creed that determines who is or is not part of your religion based on who believes in it. Your creed in your individual community should be your own, and line up with your flavoring, but in a general sense, Autoarchists believe in the 5 laws of good conduct and the rulings derived from them, the 4 "gods" mentioned above, and in the two psychological theses (stoned ape hypothesis and the study of Evolutionary Psychology). How your community flavors this is up to you. And you can add things to it so long as it doesn't contradict the 5 laws.
They will possibly want clarification on the 5 laws, so here they are:
1. The Principle of Reciprocity
a. To do unto others as you wish be done unto you
b. to not do to others as you do not wish done unto you
c. to respond proportionately to harm inflicted upon you d. the motivator can be pragmatism or empathy and it doesn't matter which, because reciprocity is a universal rule for healthy boundaries and relationships
2. Ethical Hedonism
a. To seek pleasure and goodness for ourselves and others
3. Neo-Luddism
a. To seek ethical advancement of humanity in the arts and sciences; in a human-centered way rather than by profit motive.
c. to protect our communities from exploitation by the wealthy
d. to seek the worldwide abolition of the slave trade
e. to protect traditional crafts, trades, and skills from being pushed into extinction by competition from factory produced goods and clankers
f. to love that which is beautiful in its imperfection because of the touch of human hands
4. Atheistic Humanism
a. To recognize that there is no greater authority or absolute truth beyond the laws of nature and no enforcer of right and wrong beyond humanity itself.
a. To recognize that the great achievement of the individual is to be remembered fondly after they have died
We have no universal sacred scripture, but each community should compile their own religious rulings in a binder based on the 5 laws and questions that arise. The community should gather its initiated members and hold a council to determine the question at hand by logically sound debate and record the argument and results in the binder in an appropriate heading for the topic. Different communities will have different needs. This can be used by members as a reference for future ethical questions.
Styling/ Flavor
This is a super important part of practice. BUT, it very much depends on where you live and who is part of your community in the beginning. I only have experience in America, and can only provide advice for Americans in this vein. But, perhaps you can get some good ideas from it if you live elsewhere.
Cultural Flavoring - So, you live in an ethnic enclave and most of your members are from one ethnic group. And you can use that ethnicity and its language and mythology or stories to flavor your group's identity. Say for example, that you live in the ChoTokyo neighborhood of Los Angeles. Obviously, there's mostly Japanese-Americans there. You could give it a broadly Japanese religious flavor, or go the "we live in an anime" route. It's totally up to you. But the flavor or aesthetic would be dictated by that ethnic background. So, services might include kagura dances or shugendo-style fire-walking, or whatever. Or you might pretend to be anime ninjas. It literally doesn't matter what you pick as long as it means something to your starting members and can provide a cohesive framework and identity, even if it is fantasy or a creative anachronism. Your ceremonial attire would be from that framework, your rituals, your entheogens, your oaths, your holidays, etc…
But more often than not, you will be a mixed group. So:
High Fantasy Flavoring - draw from Tolkein or D&D or whatever Isekai anime you've watched. You can be a village of reverse Isekai people living on earth. It doesn't really matter per se… Maybe your board of directors is the Hero's party? Maybe you're the adventurer's guild and you guys are hardcore into LARP. Your resident furry or kemonomimi can be a beastfolk, maybe there's elves and dwarves? Cosplay as your own persona and do magic battles or whatever. It's up to you. It's just a fun way to get into a different headspace as a group. Maybe you have a tavern in your guild hall, or one down the street that fits the theme? Archery competitions? Fencing? Maybe you build a "dungeon" in the woods and party up to explore it?
Low Fantasy Flavoring - this is when the fantasy element exists within the real world, like Harry Potter for example. Or most vampire stories. Or magical girls. You get the idea. There's some kind of magic, or paranormal thing afoot, and your plucky band of nerds deals with it. Most religions kinda fall in this category, so it's understandable if you want to avoid it.
Scifi Flavoring - woot, luxury gay space communism… Uh, Star Trek, Star Gate SG1, a significant chunk of Anime, and so on. This is basically optimistic futurism. Magic is replaced with technology. Not sure if hdg is optimism or pessimism…
Cyberpunk Flavoring - Pessimistic futurism, with a bold fashion sense and lots of entheogens and uh, electronic music.
Secret Society Flavoring - Can go oldschool like the masons or new school like a trade union. Technically, a lot of gangs work like this. Secret handshakes, drops, spy shit… you get the idea. Just, I don't recommend doing anything illegal, and don't look sus, or you'll get raided.
Witchy Flavoring - Exactly what it sounds like. You know the type. Gothy witchy attire, sigils, cats, cauldrons, candles, tea…. creepy art. A mysterious row of jars. It's a whole vibe.
Post Apocalyptic Mutant Biker Zombies - Think, Mad Max, The Postman, Water World, Kowloon Walled City, Desert Punk. This works really well in the Southwestern US or a rural part of nowhere. Members might build rat rod custom vehicles, or do homesteading, or build a 1:1 of 1960s Kowloon in a canyon in Utah. Maybe you guys like playing RUST as a clan?
Whatever flavor of LARP you pick, its linguistic markers, fashion sense, lifestyle, and its vision of reality gets mapped onto the Autoarchist beliefs to make your specific community uniquely yours. The nonsense and theatrics of harmful religions are replaced with your whimsy, subculture, ethnic culture, or fandom, and from this map and compass set, you derive your norms, bylaws, and organizational structure, your titles, your rituals, your own way of being as a community or tribe with others. To be the master of your destiny, and live out those fantasies you would have to wait until you die to experience in other religions. Go have fun in the now, so you can die without regrets. Go build something cool.
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