Sun Ra framed his Arkestra as an educational project preaching discipline, not religion

Evidence

The Detroit jazz poet John Sinclair came to the Sun Palace in late 1966 and interviewed Sun Ra, who told him, “I’m just like a university—I’ve got my different courses set up—and they deal with things that are going to be beneficial to people. But it’s not religious, like some people are saying—I’m not the least bit religious. I’m not interested in that. Because churches don’t do anything but bring people … peace. What I’m talking about is discipline—that’s what people need.” — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 1952

Categorization

• DEFINE: Sun Ra explicitly reframes what outsiders called cosmic religion as a pedagogy of discipline.