Hypothetical situation

[kyrene]

Say you had a dream in which you were instructed by the gods to build an oracle. How would you do it?

Let's assume you didn't take any funny pills and you're pretty sure that based on various other details that the dream is legit and get that question out of the way. How would one go about building an oracle in this day and age?

Come on, put on your thinking caps! :D

Comments

[cktraveler.livejournal.com]

(continued)

Basically, I can't see any way of being a "freely accessible" oracle without founding an actual temple, without the backing of any larger organization. The problems to consider are more legal, financial, and logistical than anything else -- and probably exactly the wrong things for an oracle to be clogging her mind with.

Assuming it succeeded, then you have to think about the marketing issues and how you're going to make people 1) know you're there and 2) take you seriously. Well, you need to think about how to make non-idiots take you seriously; the kinds of people who read newspaper horoscopes would gladly go to an oracle but are probably not going to take cryptic prophecies well. They want to know the lotto numbers. :P

[kyrene-myste.livejournal.com]

The best way to do that would be to have a virtual temple online, methinks. And see about getting incorporated as a nonforprofit.

[justben.livejournal.com]

Me, I'm not a big fan of online temples. I will often take someone less seriously if they have an online temple, to be perfectly frank. They don't feel real to me at all. They just feel half-assed, like an excuse. "I couldn't make a real temple, but at least I have this handful of ill-designed and unmaintained bits in my corner of the Internet. That's got to be worth something." Not for me. Quite the opposite.

Now, a webpage with information about a real temple, or with information about past oracles -- That is valuable and quite respectable. But an online temple? Absolutely gives me the creeps.

Incorporation is vital if you're going to be handling money, but AFAICT it's mostly irrelevant otherwise. I'm pretty sure 501(c)(3) is grossly overrated in the pagan community -- even if you're handling money it's only legally meaningful (IANAL) if the taxes are more of a burden than the hassle of obtaining it.

Boy, that all sounds negative. Sorry about that. This is one place where I think Neokoroi really have the right idea: As long as the goal is getting something done, legal recognition doesn't buy you much beyond psychological gratification. It's when you want to start interacting with the law and legally-controlled matters like money that it becomes an issue.

[kyrene-myste.livejournal.com]

Basically it would be done as a fraternal org, which is actually good. As for virtual space, that's because a) Boston's expensive and b) I dont see the real need for a public space.

[justben.livejournal.com]

For people foolish enough to take any oracle -- no matter how incredible -- as dictum straight from the Gods, well, what they need are profitis to help them interpret the pythia's oracle. And that's back to the matter of staff. :-)