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"I moved to New York from Los Angeles a year ago and I thought this would be a good way to make friends," says Jenny.

Over lunch we chat about where we're from, our families and our interests, just as you would on a first date. It feels like a strangely formal way to get to know a complete stranger, but in New York people are forever striking up conversations with people they've just met.

As the weirdness of the situation subsides and we start to chat about everything from astrology to literature and politics, it becomes apparent we have a lot in common.

It could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship, but it was all arranged online via Rentafriend.com. And if I want to see her again it'll be in the knowledge that I have to pick up the tab.

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The union would probably have to come next, then the spiritual element as a PR campaign.

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Originally posted by AgentRouka:
Good point!

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The union would probably have to come next, then the spiritual element as a PR campaign.

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Agree about the unions, not so much the PR campaign. I don't think Inara's spiritual bend is a facade, so I don't think it is taught as one, which makes me think that it would more have to evolve as a particular school of thought within the organisation that ends up strong enough to make policy decisions about training and "company culture".

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but look how much of it seems to be hokey new-age-isms.

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Like what?

Seems like too radical and unnecessary a shift for me, to artificially create all spiritual reference for the sake of "PR" out of nowhere and invent a philosophy to teach all new students, who would if course all be too naive to ever question where it came from upon examining Guild history. That would also imply all member of that union were happy to be frauds, which is a pretty harsh accusation.

I guess if this is going to go down a "the Guild MUST be bad because it is a large organisation" road then we should agree to disagree now.

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He accuses her of selling love as a lie, when he himself is using his position as captain as a tool to keep things "professional" that really aren't. Loyalty and closeness - but no real committment. In some way, he is paying people to be his less complicated family.

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Originally posted by AgentRouka:

Like what?

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Seems like too radical and unnecessary a shift for me, to artificially create all spiritual reference for the sake of "PR" out of nowhere and invent a philosophy to teach all new students, who would if course all be too naive to ever question where it came from upon examining Guild history. That would also imply all member of that union were happy to be frauds, which is a pretty harsh accusation.

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I guess if this is going to go down a "the Guild MUST be bad because it is a large organisation" road then we should agree to disagree now.

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Originally posted by Bytemite:

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Originally posted by AgentRouka:

Like what?

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Well, for example, the whole rite-of-passage-by-sex thing and "union" thing in Jaynestown calls pretty strongly to a new-age revisioning of Hieros Gamos.

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It doesn't even have to be that it was the entire Guild at first, but rather that business savvy leaders of the Guild at the time invented some kind of cult to attract members. It would still technically be more of a PR campaign if the intention was to make it acceptable for the mass public.

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I guess if this is going to go down a "the Guild MUST be bad because it is a large organisation" road then we should agree to disagree now.

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No, but the Guild was, first and foremost, organized for the sake of a business enterprise. Otherwise why not call it the Church Of The Most High Goddess or something?

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Originally posted by Bytemite:

He seems to have that same commitment to his crew, judging by his taking River and Simon back in during the movie, and going to rescue Inara, and his very real reaction when Book is shot (both in the series and the movie). He holds himself responsible, maybe too much.

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And sex is a form of union. Why is that necessarily "hokey" and fake?

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But why would a spiritual bend (as a shift away from what was already offered) make it more acceptable, if they already had a satisfied customer base? If anything, it might alienate previous customers.

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And a super-gradual change over centuries would hardly be a desired result of a deliberate campaign designed to increase acceptance. The pay-off would be decades/centuries away and the outcome uncertain. Unless you - again - imply that intermediate generations were happy to participate in phony spirituality.

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Because they are not a religious order? They are a union, a Guild. They protect an existing trade.

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Originally posted by AgentRouka:

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Originally posted by Bytemite:

He seems to have that same commitment to his crew, judging by his taking River and Simon back in during the movie, and going to rescue Inara, and his very real reaction when Book is shot (both in the series and the movie). He holds himself responsible, maybe too much.

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It's more the emotional committment I meant. Mal is fiercely loyal. But even his best friend Zoe calls him "sir".

They say you don't pay a prostitute for sex but to go away afterwards. That's a little how I see Mal dealing with emotional committment to his crew "family". He gets to be fiercely loyal but it's because that's his Duty as The Captain. That way, he gets to push them away rather harshly when it suits him. He doesn't have all the work of real emotional relationships.

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But sex has been considered a rite of passage into adulthood far beyond "new age"

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Originally posted by Bytemite:
I'm sorry, I'm atheist. Most of the organized spirituality people have come up with seems pretty hokey to me.

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And sex is a form of union. Why is that necessarily "hokey" and fake?

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Because my guess would be considering Sihnon's considerable Chinese influence, most members of the Guild are of the Hànchuán Fójiào flavour of Buddhism, not the rare sect of Indian Vajrayana Buddhism that believes in sex rites. Inara espousing a philosophy of sex as a sacred union seems to be in direct conflict with what her actual religious beliefs probably are.

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Though admittedly that was mostly to get Magistrate Higgins out of her face, so I also admit the possibility that this didn't represent Guild philosophy at all.

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But why would a spiritual bend (as a shift away from what was already offered) make it more acceptable, if they already had a satisfied customer base? If anything, it might alienate previous customers.

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Maybe, but if they were accepted by the mainstream, they'd get more customers to replace the ones they'd lost, and if previous costumers saw that the offered services hadn't changed, they might win them back.

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...Not really. How else does a cult form? Usually the leader just wants to make a crap ton of money, but the followers for some reason believe it all whole heartedly.

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Because they are not a religious order? They are a union, a Guild. They protect an existing trade.

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So we agree here. I suspect our differences might lie in whether we believe a business can actually have a spiritual side. The Guild started as a business. It seems to have become something more. Still, the spiritual side of the Guild seems fairly inexplicable unless you consider the spiritualism must have all been developed early on for business reasons.

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Originally posted by Bytemite:

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But sex has been considered a rite of passage into adulthood far beyond "new age"

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See, that's another thing. Sacred Union and Hieros Gamos have absolutely nothing to do with sex-as-rite-of-passage.

That Inara even brings it up there is WEIRD, and indicates that her understanding of the history and philosophy behind all of that is incomplete. As I said, it's more in line with the amalgamation of ideas that is new-age-ism.

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That's a pretty specific assumption, though, which discounts the possible shift and fusion of religious believe and practice in a space of 500 years.

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I don't see it as mainly a business. I see it as a union for business women, but a union with a spiritual bend that grew out of a genuine spirituality.

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Originally posted by Bytemite:

Hmm. In some ways I agree with this... But I don't think he's fiercely loyal just because he sees himself as obligated by duty.

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For some reason it doesn't seem accurate to me to say the wages are a "you have to put up with me" insurance on Mal's part.

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She brings it up to negate it, not to affirm it. So this does - again - not apply.

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Originally posted by Bytemite:
Why is a cult considered automatically evil? They aren't.

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That's a pretty specific assumption, though, which discounts the possible shift and fusion of religious believe and practice in a space of 500 years.

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From the Vajrayana? o.0 I find that extremely unlikely, unless the Guild took all of this from new-age tantricism... Which arguably is neither Buddhist or Vajrayana.

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I don't see it as mainly a business. I see it as a union for business women, but a union with a spiritual bend that grew out of a genuine spirituality.

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Yeah, you're right, we don't see eye to eye. I just don't see how that's possible. For me the only thing that makes sense is either that the Guild started as a business and had a spectacular PR campaign that evolved into an actual culture and spiritualism, or the Guild was started by someone who wanted to mainstream prostitution/protect prostitutes and created a cult to do so. Neither of which are evil goals, I note.

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I'm also not sure how the Guild can have such a pervasive spiritual bend, when it's not necessarily part of the package that companions offer.

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But try being snarky and mean consistently the way Mal can be and keep those friends around.

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Originally posted by Bytemite:

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But try being snarky and mean consistently the way Mal can be and keep those friends around.

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Yet his crew comes to save him from Niska, in spite of his treatment of him. If this concept exists for Mal, it must be largely delusion.

I wonder if once he was feeling better after Niska he started being exceptionally mean to his crew, to reestablish the status quo in his mind. :)

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Well, you framed it in a context of greed and naivety, so.. yeah.

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nor would they be "hokey" or fake or artificial. All religions were new once and developed from other sources. That doesn't make their followers cult victims or phonies.

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Let's agree to disagree. Again.

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Originally posted by Bytemite:

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She brings it up to negate it, not to affirm it. So this does - again - not apply.

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Okay, so perhaps this isn't something Inara believes. But does Inara hold new-age beliefs?

What do you make of the time when Inara tells Kaylee she selects clients based on their "energy"? That's pretty new-age.

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Originally posted by AgentRouka:


"But physical appearance doesn't matter so terribly. You look for a compatibility of spirit. There's an energy about a person that's difficult to hide, you try to feel that--"


I honestly think she was trying to describe "I use my intuition" in a more visual frame. 'Energy' certainly creates the image of a personality and demeaner based impression. I doubt Inara would walk up to a person and espouse about their "energy". More a form of gut instinct. "Compatibility of spirit" is flowery but it's a solid enough thing to say in description. Inara is emotionally involved in her profession, she won't describe it in clinical terms.

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All religions were new once and developed from other sources. That doesn't make their followers cult victims or phonies.

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