Jacob Rogers' blog

Atlanta Trip, December 2009

2009-12-28T15:20:00.000-08:00

A long long time ago in a galaxy far far away...

On Sunday December 20th, 2009 we went to the annual Rogers' Family Dirty Santa Bash-a-palooza. Fun was had by all and I wound up getting an electric rice cooker and Drew got a box full of dish towels. Drew and I taxied my entire family between our two cars. My father, mother, and Jason riding in my car and Aaron, Kristine, Adam, and Michael riding in Drew's car. After driving from Gulfport to Lucedale and back again it was then time for us to go to Drew's parents' home in Jasper county to visit his family. This was also a convenient and free over night on our trip to Atlanta.

It was nice to see Drew's parents, Linda and Andy, for Christmas. It was also a special treat to see Drew's sister Mary, whom we rarely get to see any more since we live in different towns now. Drew's parents were also nice enough to baby sit Venus the dadgum dog for us while we were in Atlanta. A service for which I will forever be grateful for. I was the proud recipient of several fine Christmas presents of which I was most proud. I was given two hand held video games, several fine candy bars, and a luxury chocolate orange. The video games are most fun, my favorite was the handheld video poker machine they got me, I even brought it to work one day. I could totally imagine myself playing the video poker machine on the train in Atlanta one day. The treats were most delicious.

Monday, December 21st, 2009 0530 central standard time, we embark. Drew drives the first leg of the trip but after stopping just over the Alabama border I take the wheel. I end up driving for the remainder of the trip as well as the entire trip back. From Jasper county it took us 5 hours approximately to reach Atlanta. Our first stop however is in Tallapoosa, GA. The last time Drew and I went to Atlanta it was spur of the moment on a whim. We wound up taking 8 hours to get there from Biloxi, we stayed there 4 hours, and then took another 8 hours to get home. On our first trip we stopped in Tallapoosa to get gas and since we were hungry we stopped at Newborn's Truck Stop. It was very... charming. They had "for amusement only" slot machines and video poker machines, classic arcade games from the 80s and 90s, showers for the truckers, and a little buffet. Drew and I ate at the trucker's buffet and the mood was very similar to my Lucedale family reunions. I recall there was our waitress, a middle aged couple, and a Canadian female trucker, and as 5 of us shared a communal meal we also shared polite conversation with one another about the weather, their recent trucking assignments, and how the Canadian frequently made the trip from where she lived in Canada because they manufactured some mundane part exclusively for some other industrial complex in the Atlanta area, and that it perplexed her why they didn't just make the part locally in Atlanta instead of buying it from Canada. She was however content with the arrangement and liked her sojourns in Atlanta. Our new Canadian friend wearing a flannel shirt, short hair, and a trucking hat, looks up form her plate and exclaims, "they don't have biscuits and gravy in Canada."

After you factor in the timezone change, Drew and I arrive in Atlanta at 1100am. After some debate about whether or not to go first to the hotel or to the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, the largest Hindu temple outside of Atlanta. We decided to go to the SSM. The temple is a marvel to look upon and, without trying to sound offensive, really looks out of place in suburban Atlanta, situated next to a Walgreens and across the street from a Publix. However out of place it was truly beautiful.

Have a good day!

2008-06-07T20:34:00.000-07:00

Hang in there, baby!

Oh yea just one more thing

2008-06-03T12:36:00.001-07:00

One more thing about Algonquians Indians, the "flyer" or Shaman described by and painted by John White seems to fit in with what I know about larger Shamanic studies. The name alone "the flyer" might be indiciative of the whole shamanic experience of soul travel and "flying" around the world making spirit friends (perhaps he's friend with a bird or the bird is a symbol of soul travel). This is speculation on my part though.

Roanoke first impressions

2008-06-01T18:55:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading Karen Kupperman's Roanoke. I read it over the course of three days and it fueled my weird dreams lately involving the Algonquian Indians. I had one dream I was out collecting oysters or clams at night in a slow moving narrow river. I then dreamed that I was drilling holes in the pearls to make a necklace. I had another dream about being in Roanoke and being frustrated with the fact that I'm a low priority to the English investors, who favor privateering and immediate returns, and I believe I was made at Ralph Lane for being too heavy handed with the locals and pissing them off. I felt frustrated and endangered. But since in the dream I was in the Lane colony and not the White colony, at least I had a chance of going back to England.

In my reading I was taken by the idea of how Roanoke fits into the larger context of Britain being a marginalized parasitic nation that's on the verge of usurping Spain's position as the main superpower in the world. Kupperman touches on the larger Protestant verses Catholic themes of the day, which I was aware of but never truly ever considered how that might of faired in early American colonization.

I was also surprised to learn about French Huguenot attempts to colonize Florida, that's an interesting tid-bit of trivia. I was also surprised to learn about Joachim Ganz who was probably the first Jew in British America. I've read before about how a at least a few of the people that went with Christopher Columbus on his first voyage were probably secret Jews (so called Marranos or swine)and later on how Dutch Recife Brazil became a 16th century haven for Jews, but to my knowledge there isn't a similarly interesting and exciting story to tell about Jews in the British colonies.

I think Kupperman does a really good job of describing the mindset of the gentry and how that played into their dealings with the Indians. Things that seemed plainly obvious to them seem stupid and fool hearted to me, such as Ralph Lane attacking the Indians over a cup, which I imagine would of really pissed them off. Into this delicate situation come the Lane colonist that then mistakenly attack Indians that are friendly to them, granted this time it was a more honest mistake. But still I'm left with a feeling that the English were very unskillful with their dealings with the Roanoke area Indians.

Internal Vs External Sources for Dreams

2008-05-24T03:54:00.000-07:00

Internal Verses External Causes for Dreams

Do dreams come from within the person or do they come from some place outside of the person? There are many different ways to answer this question, either inside, outside, or a combination of the two. For ancient Near East peoples, some of the Greeks, and early Muslims the answer is a combination of the two. For Aristotle and Freud the answer is that dreams come from inside the person. Despite different causes for dreams, both camps arrive at similar conclusions about the nature of dreams and some of their meanings.

In the ancient Near East dreams were said to be sealed baskets of legal contracts from the gods, but it is clear that not every dream was something from the gods because the emphasis placed on reoccurring dreams. It was custom of the day to report reoccurring dreams to priest or kings because they were likely to be significant. Here it is evident that people like priest and kings were better able to interpret dreams and it is likely they were more apt to have more significant dreams. Dreams were of a high importance to ancient Near East peoples as one can tell from the pressure one may of felt to relay a potentially significant dream to the priest.

Kings and priest were much more likely to have significant dreams than regular people. This, in and of itself, is evidence that significant dreams came from outside the person, mainly from the Gods. Significant dreams come from outside the body and as such are somewhat mysterious and need special interpretation. In the ancient Near East there was much need and appreciation for dream interpreters. Dreams interpreters worked off of puns, they would rearrange the letters in a word to come up with a new word, or they would relate words to rhyming words or a word with a similar root, etc. It was rare that a dream meant what it appeared to mean and often dreams would have nearly the opposite meaning of what a face value reading would of resulted in. It is also said that figuring out the meaning of a dream may there by nullify the dream, an idea that echoes in Freudian thought.

For ancient Hebrews dreams had a similar function but the two most famous examples of dream interprets in the Hebrew Bible, Joseph and Daniel, were both working in foreign countries. Other keys from the text may lead one to believe that dream interpretation was natural and easy among the Hebrews. For example Joseph’s brothers did not have any trouble interpreting Joseph’s dream of the sheaves. Other themes from the ancient Near East are also present in the Joseph story such as Pharaoh having two dreams that were a message for the same thing (the wheat and the cows). By the time of the prophet Isaiah there seems to have been some controversy over people lying about their dreams and then dream interpretation became less popular.

Ancient Greek writers like Artemidorus and Aristotle because they wrote specifically about dreams, and their writings aren’t in the context of a larger story so they say things more directly about dreams. For Artemidorus dreams can either come from the self or come from the gods. Dreams that came from within were generally considered to be gibberish and were called enhypnia while dreams from the gods were called oneiroi. Oneiroi were subdivided into two types; those that can be directly interpreted and are plainly obvious, theorematikoi, and those that need interpretation, allegorikoi. To interpret the allegorikoi Artemidorus would of used word play, the principle of opposites, and visual free association, and numerology.

Another important issue Artemidorus took up was that different dreams mean different things to different people. Artemidorus looked at the person that was having the dream to try to figure out what that dream meant. An identical dream from a priestess and the dream of a prostitute would of meant something different. Artemidorus’ notion that not only the dream but the dreamer mattered echoes later in Freudian theory.

Another thing that makes Artemidorus’ theories different from the ancient Near Eastern traditions is that to Artemidorus a dream being reoccurring did not make it special. In fact he says that a reoccurring dream will mean different things at different times and gives the example of somebody that dreams they lost their nose. The first dream means the dreamers perfume business will go under, the second dreams means that he will lose face and be degraded.

Unlike Artemidorus or the peoples of the ancient Near East, Aristotle believed that dreams arose internally. The Aristotelian soul was made up of perception, judgment, and imagination. Perception accounted for sensory input, judgment was able to make rational decisions based on that input, and imagination was part of the mind that made wild associations and was a source of creativity and spontaneity. When one falls asleep one’s judgment becomes dormant and the perceptions fade. While faded the perceptions do not disappear and also there are some residue perceptions still in the organs that will take some time to dissipate. While sleeping, the imagination is dominant part of the brain that is still awake. It uses the residue of the perceptions as well as some random memories to make dreams. The value of dreams in the Aristotelian system is that dreams allow you to explore a part of your mind that you usually don’t have much access to.

For medieval Muslims dreams played a huge role in their religious practice. John C. Lamoreaux argues that dreams played a central role in the early Islamic communities by way of the charisma of early dream interpreter. And now dreams exist in many strings of Islamic scholarship and culture such as Sufism, high culture, sharia, and the non-Muslim Islamicate. Puns play a large role in Islamic dream interpretation as it does in Arab poetry. Also popular in the Islamic world are dream manuals like the kind Artemidorus made. These dream manuals.

For Freud dreams are internal wish fulfillment. Somewhat similar to Aristotle’s imagination Freud believes that the mind can be divided into conscious and unconscious parts. The unconscious part of our brains is where a lot of our thoughts actually happen but a lot of these thoughts would be unacceptable to our conscious mind because they are crass, sexual, and violent. It is when we sleep that our unconscious mind takes control; Freud uses the analogy of an invading army. Our mind is taken over by the unconscious and things do not work the same as they do when we are asleep. The unconscious, again like Aristotle’s imagination, makes wild and free associations between things observed in waking life. Because of these wild associations often what we see in our dream does not really mean what it seems to mean, a theme that is echoed in all the traditions mentioned so far.

Many of the things we see in our dreams are symbolic of other things, but it is a hard to know exactly what they are symbolic of because of the nature of the unconscious. A vision seen in a dream may be representative of something it is very different from or it may even be it’s direct opposite. To Freud everything in our dreams matters and has great significance. There is nothing in our dreams that does not come from inside of us and there is nothing in our dreams that does not have some kind of greater meaning. In the Freudian system, like the ancient Near Eastern traditions, once you figure out why a symbol is in your dream you gain control over it and it will not bother you any more, provided of course you found the real cause and not an imaginary one.

This idea of conquering our dreams may be at the root of all of these traditions but nonetheless there are similarities in these theories even if they don’t agree on where dreams come from. The notion that dream images are representative of something other than what they are appears in all these ideas about dreaming and beyond that one may wonder if it is not self evident and intuitive that our dreams are rarely to be taken at face value.

Dreams in the Sefer Hasidim - an incomplete thought

2008-05-24T03:48:00.000-07:00

Dreams in the Sefer Hasidim

Monford Harris explores how the Ashkenaz Pietists viewed dreams in his article “Dreams in the Sefer Hasidim”. Harris begins by briefly exploring Rabbi Moses ben Jacob of Coucy’s halachic work the “SeMag”. Although that work primarily deals with non-dream issues it does eventually deal with dreams. The one question that R. Jacob was never able to satisfactorily answer is why dreams flow from the mouth from the interpreter and why is it said that people should only ask for dream interpretation from somebody that will be favorable to the dreamer.

The answer that R. Jacob found was that some people are predestined, by luck, to be dream interpreters and it is only those predestined people that the Berakhoth 55b refers to and the reason you should only go to a dream interpreter that’s likely to be favorable to you is that the dream interpreter has an angel on either side of him and if he says a good interpretation the good angel will take the good interpretation and make it so and the same is true for the bad interpretation.

The thirteenth century Ashkenaz Pietiest also addressed the issue of dream interpretation as well as other aspects of dreams and visions in the Sefer Hasidim. For the Pietiest there was a distintion between dreams and visions. Visions were seen while awake and dreams were seen while asleep. Dreams were always talked about in terms of “seeing” the dream.

The answer the Pietiest find to what Berakhoth 55b means is different from what R. Jacob found. The Pietiest said that nothing happens to a man that doesn’t first reveal itself in a dream, however nobody is pious enough to receive direct revelation so the symbols in our dreams are vague an allegorical. Also the dreams of regular people intermingle with the words of demons, the body and desires also influences dreams, so the interpretation of dreams is very important to try to figure out the meaning of dreams. Therefore not all dreams about God are said to be purely prophetic or angelic because if somebody spends their days being pious its only natural that they will have a dream about God that comes from their desire and not from angels.

This dichotomy of internal verses external dreams is important in the Sefer Hasidim for figuring out the meaning and source of a dream. Internal dreams, those influenced by the body, desire, and the mind, will be of things that person has been thinking about recently. If you dream about something that’s been on your mind lately then it is safe to assume that this dream is an internal dream without much meaning.

Dreams are not ruled by reason, it is said that in Psalms 16:7 that at night during a dream the reins instruct, therefore a man’s reason is not turned on during dreaming. Most though, be they good, bad, true, or false are not intended. They just kind of happen. The chaotic thoughts we have while dreaming have their own momentum and sometimes dreams are random and akin to when somebody throws a ball and it rolls where you didn’t expect it to roll.

Besides reason, our sense of self is distorted in dreams as is evident by the fact that people can do lewd thing in our dreams and not feel embarrassment. However a pious person can maintain their sense of embarrassment in dreams.

External dreams are usually about thing that are alien to the dreamer. External dreams can have three sources: angels, demons, and the ba’al halom. External dreams are recognizable as external because they will contain themes, images, teachings, etc that are completely alien or beyond the capabilities of the dreamer.

Dreams from demons are said to happen when one is not quite asleep, but only kind of asleep. The demon whispers into your ear and influences what you think. The demon does now, however, control you or directly give you a bad dream. Another external figure that gives dreams is the ba’al halom, Harris brings up scholarship about but remains neutrual about whether or not ba’al halmom is a crossover a Babylonian god that made into the Babylonian Talmud. To me it seems likely.

Harris comments that Gershon Scholem and himself agree that the Sefer Hasidim has many original ideas that it proposes, such as the idea of dream images having their own momentum, but it never develops the ideas much. The criticism is that it says what it says and then moves on even though the reader may want more about a certain insight.

Harris comments that the he thinks one of the most unique and interesting approaches to dreams the Sefer Hasidim offers is its interpretation of Berakhoth 55b. How is it that dreams flow from the mouth of the interpreter and yet different people can find different interpretations to dreams? Unlike R. Jacob the Pietist don’t postulate that some people are predestined to be dream interpreters and that their interpretations will be carried out by angels. The Pietist propose that like the Torah, dreams can interpreted multiple ways and multiple times, as long as the interpretation holds true to the contents of the dream, without all of their meaning being extracted.

Dreams and scripture are truly multilevel and need to be interpreted in terms of Oral Torah and Torah. Harris makes the claim that because both scripture and dreams are divinely inspired and flow from the mouth of the interpreter that dreams are a kind of scripture (63). However I don’t think he provides enough evidence to make his case convincing because I could imagine somebody arguing that dreams and scripture are similar but not the same thing.

Because of the emphasis placed on dream interpretation and the multilevel meaning of dreams, Harris argues that it would be logical to assume that dream interpretation and the meaning of symbols would of played a large part in lives of Pietist but Harris says that the Sefer Hasidim is surprisingly quiet on cases of dream interpretation and has very few symbols in it except for an ark representing death. Harris argues that a reason for this may be that the Pietist would have been so steeped in Biblical and Talmudic lure and associations that symbolic interpretations would of been clear and uncomplicated.

So then whose dreams need to be interpreted? Harris says the the only two real examples of somebody going to get their dreams interpreted in the Sefer Hasidim is when gentiles go to get their dreams interpreted. Harris argues that while this may seem unusual it fits in surprisingly well the Biblical precedents of Joseph and Daniel who were both strangers in a foreign land interpreting the dreams on foreigners.

To “interpret” a dream to the Pietist meant more than to simply give an analytical reading of the dream. The interpretation of dreams was said to have a therapeutic effect on the dreamer. Similar to ancient Near Eastern ideas about dreams the Pietiest thought dreams came with secret messages that needed to be decoded and that decoding the dream was very important. For the Pietist decoding a dream was even more important than whether the dream was true or not. Sometimes somebody is shown a harsh dream so that he may investigate his conduct (69). If somebody receives such a dream fasting may be done in the stead of animal sacrifice. Figuring a dream out or “solving it” cancels out any bad effects the dream has.

Harris relies heavily on a Hebrew copy of the Sefer Hasidim and also draws in some modern work took. He cited Leo Oppenheim’s “The Interpretation of Dreams in the Ancient Near East” and argues that there are enough parallels between thirteenth century German Jewish ideas about dreams and ancient Near Eastern ideas to make the comparison valuable.

The rest of this paper has been lost and for the time being I'm not terribly interested in going out of my way to either find the finished version of this paper or try to redo it. Although one day I do hope to revisit this subject.

Comparing Theravada and Zen

2008-05-24T02:54:00.000-07:00

Comparing Theravada and Zen

Theravada can claim to be the oldest form of Buddhism. Theravada can also be one of the most “fundamentalist” Buddhist sects with totally different paths for laity and ordained monks and nuns. Theravada in Sri Lanka has recently been influenced by western thoughts and ideas. Theravada holds the Pali Canon to be one and only Canon, unlike Zen which uses Mahayana sutras like the Lotus Sutra. In the book “The Empty Mirror” the Lotus Sutra is one of the Sutras the Japanese monks chant in Chinese. Theravada and Zen both however have Jataka, or stories of the Buddha’s previous births to teach moral lessons. Harvey mentions that Theravadans will use them when ministering to laity and Wetering mentions the Roshi telling them to the laity. The Jataka stories may be slightly different from one another and these differences may reflect differences in philosophy or maybe just cultural differences.

Zen Buddhism emphasizes meditation and innate Buddha nature. The term “Zen” is usually used to distinguish it from Chinese Ch’an. Ch’an itself is a translation of the Sanskrit word “dhyana” which means meditation. So just by looking at its name it is clear to see that Zen emphasizes meditation. The founder of the Ch’an School, Bodhidharma, is said to have cut off his own eyelids so he could meditate in front of a wall without falling asleep. Whether that story is true or not isn’t important but it does demonstrate the importance of meditation to Zen.

Zen was brought to Japan by Eisai and then Zen split into two main schools: Rinzai and Soto. Both schools, pulling from their Mahayana background, stress sudden enlightenment or “kensho” spiritual “ah ha” moments. One may have several kenshos until one finally reaches total enlightenment, or satori. However Bodhidharma also studied and was influenced by Taoism. And because of this Zen also puts a stress on intuition, realizing unity, and spontaneous experiences and reactions. The Taoist leg of Zen is also where a lot of the “beyond logic” ideas come from.

In Zen moments of satori are brought on by meditation. Meditation also plays a huge part in Theravada circles as well. Where Zen emphasizes meditation Theravada offers two general paths for monks to follow: “book-duty” (gantha-dhura) and “insight-duty” (vipassana-dhura). Monks with book-duty tend to live in large cities and monasteries and monks with insight-duty tend to become forest dwellers. One can change focuses thought out one’s life. Zen stresses that enlightenment is beyond all words and scripture and instead focus on seeing one’s innate nature. Theravadans would argue that having an innate nature implies a self, but Zen would argue that the “innate nature” is selflessness.

In both Theravada and Zen concentration meditation and insight meditation are stressed. Both for example, hold sweeping floors to be a very good form of concentration meditation to bring on mindfulness. However the philosophies going into them are slightly different. For a Theravadan sweeping a floor is a great practice in concentrating one thing. The better one gets on concentrating on one thing the easier it is to then make the “next step” to concentrating on zero things. This is also true in Zen but there is an added emphasis on the Madhyamaka idea that Samsara and nirvana are not different from one another. So from that point of view sweeping the floor is an enlightened activity but it is up to the sweeper to wake up and realize it, to have a kensho.

In Theravada there has traditionally had two very different paths for laity and monks and nuns. However this distinction has been breaking down as Theravada has become influenced by outside ideas. In 1815 the British conquered Kandy the capital of Sri Lanka. Theravada Buddhism was disestablished as the main cultural force in Sri Lanka and had to adapt itself to survive. It was during this time that the Pali Canon was translated into English, by English scholar Rhys Davids, and then widely circulated. For the first time Buddhist scriptures were available to the masses and as lay people become more educated about Buddhism there was a shift in the laities spiritual quest. The line between monk and laity became more and more blurry and the British discouraged monasteries. This was especially true when Anagarika Dharmapala tried to bring meditation to the masses. Dharmapala brought a new meditation lineage to Sri Lanka from Burma. Before Dharmapala bringing Buddhism to the masses like he did there were a lot of Sri Lankan practices such as possession that were more common. Also like almost everywhere Buddhism adopted the local Sri Lankan pantheon and incorporated them into Buddhism. However the Dharmapala movement would distance itself from these “folk beliefs” and try their best to practice “pure Buddhism”.

In Zen meditation can be hard. In Zen practice and meditation are helped by visiting a Roshi, or master. The Roshi has the wisdom (pranyana) and skillful means (upaya) to gauge where people are on their spiritual path and give them advice accordingly. In Rinzai there is a tradition of a Roshi giving his pupils koans to solve. A koan is a nonsensical riddle and the goal of it is to crash the minds logical processes. In the book “The Empty Mirror” the main character goes to a Rinzai school. He tells of his frustrations with the koans and also says that people aren’t encouraged or technically allowed to talk about what koan they’re working on but many people do. The goal is to try to “experience” the answer and move “beyond logical”.

Accepting alms is a major part of all traditions. Harvey says that alms are more popular among Theravadans then Zen monks but Harvey says that Zen trainees will sometimes take alms as part of their training. Wetering specifically mentions some Zen monks that were collecting alms while shouting “HOOO” to get people’s attention. The monks were so caught up and in a daze from shouting “HOOO” that people would have to run to catch up with them to give alms.

Dharmapala tried to establish a new social role in Theravada that would be halfway between a monk and a layperson. He called it an “amagarika” which was a Pali term from wondering homeless person. An amagarika would take all the vinayana vows except the one about handling money. The role of the amagarika never really caught on but ever since then monks all over have become more socially conscious and lay people have made more attempts Nirvana. In Japan about 800 years ago there was a new social role made, that is the role of the priest. A Zen priest can marry and his main function is to minister to lay people and run the in's and out's of small local temples. Zen priest may also lead meditation sessions for his followers.

For both Theravada and Zen the role of a monks is basically the same but also subtly different. In Theravada, for example, once somebody is enlightened and becomes and Arhat they are take out of Samsara. In Zen, like other Mahayana schools, the goal is not to leave Samsara but to help others become enlightened. This is accomplished by taking the Bodhisattva vow, which is where the person simply vows to stay in Samsara until every sentient being is enlightened. Zen and other Mahayana may hold their view is more noble and does the most good, some Theravadas may rebuttal that since all life is suffering the longer they stay in Samsara the ore harm they are doing, despite what their intentions are. Also inside the monastery Theravada stresses the Vinayana more so than Zen does.

As previously mentioned there have been some radical shake-ups about the role of the laity in Theravadan circles recently. Despite that Theravada and Zen are still philosophically different in that in Theravada one works towards enlightenment and in Zen one has to realize that he or she is already enlightened. Also the way one goes about this is different. As mentioned there is more room in Theravada for book study than there is in Zen, but that’s not to say that Zen monks don’t read. Also in Theravada concentration meditation (samatha) and insight meditation (vipassana) are done separately. In Zen they’re combined into one practice called “zazen”.

Zazen is notably different from Theravada practices because, again, there is a stress on “realizing” that one is already enlightened. Just like with the sweeping example, if one is already enlightened one only needs to “wake up” to that fact. However the goal of zazen is not to concentrate on this idea because that would be as futile and as pointless as pointing out that the sky is blue and would may also misplace the persons motivations. The goal in zazen is to “just sit”. There is a lot of stress placed on not having any expectations but just sitting. Wetering points out that this is a lot harder than it sounds and details his physical as well as emotional pain that goes along with zazen. Another Zen practice is the use of compassion sticks to hit people that aren’t meditating satisfactorily.

Since the resurgence of the written word and book study in Theravada Buddhism the notion that Zen is in contrast iconoclastic is all the more relevant. Zen has been accused of being iconoclastic because of they don’t stress art and music very much. That’s not to say that they don’t have art though because Watering mentions statues of the founder of the monastery he was staying out as well as a figure of Manjusri in the Meditation Hall.

Both also share similar core philosophies about karma. In the “The Questions of King Milinda” karma is explained as being like a fire, in that it is impersonal but has tangible effects which can be observed. Both Theravada and Zen seem to be ok with this way of looking at Karma. Both also stress the idea of no permeanete self. Besides the fact that Theravada and Zen have some common scripture, they also have related ideas about translations of scripture. In Theravada English translations of the Pali Canon are widely read and studied and in Zen Chinese and Japanese copies of scriptures are also widely read, studied, and chanted.

Theravada is generally accepted to be one of the three vehicles of Buddhism. Zen is one school inside of Mahayana. Zen is one of the more visible and accessible schools of Buddhism in the West but the notion that Buddhism is a “philosophy” and not a “religion” is refrain I’ve personally heard a lot of as well. The notion that Buddhism is a philosophy and not a religion is a somewhat trivial issue from any “Buddhist point of view” because “Buddhism” like anything else is subject to anatta and any attempt to study and label it ultimately will no be satisfactory. But to apply the term “philosophy” to Buddhism seems even more incorrect than applying the term religion because philosophy means love of wisdom. The goal of accumulating wisdom is a far cry from the Buddhist goal of stopping suffering, and it also would imply that there is a “self” to love the wisdom. This whole debate from a Theravadan and Zen point of view is contrary and against what they’re trying to do. Both schools Theravada and Zen do not claim to be an ultimant truth of reality, they claim that they can end suffering.

Theravada Buddhism in Sri Lanka and Zen Buddhism in Japan are both arguably well adjusted to living in a secular society. In Sri Lanka monks and nuns had to give up their central position in society and adjust. They also had to deal with the opening of state schools, so the monistaries were no longer the best way for people to get educated. Zen too survives in a country, Japan, where secularism is high and on the rise. It could be because of this that these two schools of Buddhism have been able to adapt neatly to the West where secularism is also prized. Having the Pali Canon translated into English has also gone a long way to make Theravada Buddhism very visible in the West. The works of monk activist and educators has also exposed the West to Buddhist ideas, especially Zen Buddhism through the works of Thich Nhat Hanh. Theravada Buddhism and Zen Buddhism have both made a last impression on the world.

Supression of Religion in non-Tibet China

2008-05-24T02:52:00.000-07:00

Supression of Religion in non-Tibet China

When the Communist took over China, the question of how to deal with religion was a complex question. Holmes Welch, a research assistant at Harvard University, explains that in the early days following the Communist Revolution many temples and monasteries were were occupied by by government offices, there was a mass exodus from monastic life, and difficulty getting monks and nuns to become good communist. It is the intention of this paper to explore these three issues presented by Welch .

On September 29th, 1946 the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference passed the “Common Program”, Article 5 of this program guaranteed freedom of religious belief to members of the People's Republic (Welsh 3). According to Welsh this religious freedom was not an inalienable right and could be denied to reactionaries, counter-revolutionaries, and “rightist” because since they do not support the government they are not entitled to the rights that a member of the government should have (Welsh 4, 12). Also Buddhist suffering discrimination were told in an September 1951 issue of “Modern Buddhism”, a magazine published by the new Chinese Buddhist Association, that it was their responsibility to prove to their discriminators that they were pro-government by helping expose counter-revolutionaries (Welsh 12).

The Chinese Communist Party's policy towards religion intentionally stayed vague while different ideas and strategies were discussed at various times and places. Firstly there was the idea that religion is a byproduct of suffering and as the conditions improved in China, religion would just naturally fade away, any attempts to forcibly remove it would not work (Welsh 4). Secondly, there was also the idea a reformed idealized Buddhism could be used as a foreign relations tool to convince nearby Asian-Pacific states to become communist (Welsh 9). The idea of using reformed Buddhist ideas as a tool for the spread of “liberation” may have been of interest to those interested in the “liberation” of Tibet (Welsh 9).

The idea to to use Buddhism as a catalyst for world communist revolution was the brain child of one Chu-tsan (Welsh 7-10). Chu-tsan was a monk that was in favor of reform long before the communist ever took over China (Welsh 7). He studied under the Republican Buddhist reformist, T'ai-hsu who had urged monks and nuns to become involved in the community by starting orphanages, schools, and hospitals, etc (Welch 7, 80). Chu-tsan called for reform in the sangha, in this context the communities of ordained monks and nuns, to “shift to production” and “shift to scholarship” (Welsh 8-9). The “shift to production” will be covered later, but it is not clear how much influence Chu-tsan had on later policies that required monks and nuns to start working (Welsh 9, 51-68). Chu-tsan argued, in a memorandum to Mao, that a shift to scholarship would eliminate superstition and would help Buddhism become a vehicle for world revolution (Welsh 9). “Superstition” was probably meant to convey acts that the Chinese Communist thought were immoral, such as charging for rights of the dead, considered to be exploitation of people's ignorance and insecurities (Welsh 9, 65). Chu-tsan argued that all change and reforms in Buddhism must first be applied to monks and nuns, since they were the top tier in Buddhism, and then later to lay people (Welsh 8). This may have been a ploy to secure his own role of leadership because he was competing against lay people who also had an interest in reforming Buddhism, like Chao P'u-ch'u, a lay person who also had interest in reforming Buddhism that became very influential in the Chinese Buddhist Association (Welsh 8, 17).

There were three main tools used by the Chinese Government to influence Buddhism; they are the publication Modern Buddhism, the new Chinese Buddhist Association, and the Religious Affairs Bureau (Welsh 11, 17, 29). At time went by their practices and policies became more defined, and they would collectively address issues and promote policy (Welsh 14, 35).

Chu-tsan was told time after time that his reforms were too radical and the government could not reorganize the sangha as fast as he wanted (Welsh 9-10). But all of his efforts to make himself seen as become to “go to” guy for Buddhism paid off somewhat when in 1950 he was chosen to become editor-in-chief of a new publication; Modern Buddhism (Welsh 10). This was to be the way the government was going to try to influence Buddhist ideas and practices until later the Chinese Buddhist Association we reestablished (Welsh 11, 17).

According to a later issue of Modern Buddhism in their early years of operating Modern Buddhism made many “mistakes” (Welsh 12). Evidently these mistakes were their willingness to publish questions in their question and answer column which reflected too much negativity towards policies of the Chinese Communist (Welsh 12). For example the letter that prompted the response about how monks and nuns are responsible for making sure people don't confuse them as counter-revolutionaries is an example of Modern Buddhism publishing things which may cause the Chinese Communist to lose face with foreign powers (Welsh 12-13). But by 1954 when Modern Buddhism was taken over by the recently formed Chinese Buddhist Association “serious mistakes” stopped happening (Welsh 13).

The next year 1955, the Chinese Buddhist Association passed a resolution asking all of its members, contributers, and readers to practice self-censorship and not submit any material that wasn't of a “patriotic nature” or criticized the regime (Welsh 14). The publication faired well but never published in large numbers, even after its competition of other Buddhist journals were outlawed, this may because of a paper shortage or because of the unwillingness of the Communist to mass produce a religious publication (Welsh 16). In 1960, according to Welsh, there was a shift towards making a good impression on foreigners and less emphasis on trying to educate local Buddhist (15). This may have been because of the reluctantence and inability of monks and nuns, who were now mostly elderly without new young members joining regularly, to support themselves (Welsh 55-67). According to Welsh it is very difficult to see how much influence Modern Buddhism had on changing the way monks and nuns thought, or even how widely it was read (17-18).

In 1952, after much lobbying and at least one failed attempt by Chao P'u-ch'u, a new Chinese Buddhist Association (CBA) was formed (Welsh 20). Their function was to be a liaison between the government and the peasants on subjects related to Buddhism and Buddhist reform ( Welsh 20). However as time went by it became clear that they began to promote some ideas that a large part of the sangha could not support, such as compassionate killing ( Welsh 21, 100). The members of the CBA were elected but it is not know by whom, but their members were representative of the the whole of Chinese Buddhist, with members from every minority, even an unbalanced number of Tibetans prior to the Tibetan Rebellion (Welsh 20, ). Despite the CBA's position of being a liaison they were very reluctant to set up local branches, like the former CBA had done, because they said it would cause inequality for the lay people (Welsh 19). However members of the CBA did function in local independent groups all over the country (Welsh 26-27). These local groups were usually run by high ranking monks and lamas and lay people were a minority, congruent with Chu-tsan's ideas about reforming the sangha from the top down (Welsh 10, 26).

The final and most important organ of the government, to be discussed here, related to Buddhism was the Religious Affairs Bureau. Because of the delicate nature of religion and how important it was to foreign policy, foreign opinion, and possibly to the spread of communism a special bureau was set up to be in control of all government policies related to religion (Welsh 29-31). The Bureau would also be in charge of identifying and squelching counter-revolutionary actions that took the guise of religious practice (Welsh 30). The chain of command of the Religious Affairs Bureau was complex but they did seem to enjoy some autonomy and freedom because they were practically a direct branch of the Chinese Communist Party, but they were technically classified as being under the Civic Affairs Bureau (Welsh 30 -32).

One of the Chinese Communist Party's polices that had a profound effect on the sangha was land reform because Buddhist monasteries were some of the largest landholders in the country (Welsh 42). There was a lot of resentment towards landlords by communist and rent was one of the main way many monasteries made money (Welsh 42-45). The Agrarian Reform Law stipulated that the land of monasteries be requisitioned and then redistributed (Welsh 43). This caused some problems with interpretation because since monasteries were seen as communal property it was unclear if the land redistributed back to the monks was suppose to be done so on an individual basis or if the land they received back was to also be communal (Welsh 43). Welsh says that the there doesn't seem to be a clear policy either way and different localities did different things, but Modern Buddhism published an question and answer article which said that the land belonged to the monks as individuals (44).

Welsh says that his informants report that the land the monasteries received after the land reforms were usually not as high quality as the property they had owned before the reform, and not as high quality as that given to people seen as more favorable to the regime (45). Additionally, monasteries were not given more land if population rose, but land was taken away from them if their population fell (Welsh 45). This seems to have been very devastating to some monasteries where the population would fluctuate (Welsh 45, 49). The reason for the large fluctuation is because smaller monasteries in rural areas would close down, and the monks that didn't disrobe, usually the older ones, would move into a larger monasteries that had remained open (Welsh 45, 64, 67, 73).

According to Welsh, many monks proved to be bad candidates for farm labor because they had spent most of their life studying Buddhism and didn't have the technical knowledge to effectively farm (48). Also many of them tended to be older because the younger monks were more likely to leave the sangha after being exposed to pressure from the communists (Welsh 45). The lack of able bodied persons, the poor land, and also an unwillingness to work lead to tensions between the government and the sangha (Welsh 48, 58).

Very soon after the Chinese Communist Party took control of the country there were a lot of young monks and nuns who decided to leave the sangha (Welsh 67). Monks were “taught” to learn that the whole world depends on labor and were expected to feel shame and change their ways (Welsh 63). Monks were encouraged to disrobe and many of the young ones did (Welsh 67-68). One of the easiest jobs for them to acquire was to join the People's Liberation Army, PLA, (Welsh 99).

Another significent cause to the lack of younger monks and nuns was also because smaller monasteries were being shut down (Welsh 73). Smaller monasteries served the function of training young nuns and monks the rules of how to live in a monastery, without this advanced training it would have been nearly impossible for the larger monasteries to function with so many people living so close together (Welsh 73-75). This compounded with the Chinese Communist Party activily discouraging people from joining the sangha and fear that being associated with the sangha would also mean being associated with the landlord class it is easy to see why there were not enoung young people around to help the monasteries become self suficent (Welsh 80). But this doesn't mean that some monks did not enthusiasticly try to meet the new demands on them be reviving the lost tradition of “Farming Ch'an”. Farming Ch'an was an old tradition from the T'ang dynasty and it provided the model for many monks that wanted to live well under the new regime (Welsh 85).

Monks living in urban areas where this kind of land reform wasn't a problem for them had their own set of problems. If an urban monastery had empty rooms the local government officials could “borrow” or rent the rooms from the monastery (Welsh 51). The monastery had the right to be consulted and could refuse, but could not do so unreasonably, if they had empty rooms that really weren't being used then they had to let the government move in (Welsh 51). This however wasn't new to the monks and nuns, because their buildings were used this way by the Republic as well (Welsh 52).

One of the jobs that was decided the Buddhist monks may be good at is producing gunny sacks out of burlap because this wasn't a labor intensive , didn't require much skill, and only required a small investment (Welsh 51). Some monks put up their own capital to get into the gunny sack trade, others rented out their monasteries to a third party that they would in turn work for (Welsh 51). Monks that lived in monasteries that were traditionally places of pilgrimage and recreation continued to do traditional hotel and restaurant services (Welsh 52).

Buddhist monks have long been accused to doing communal work for the good of the monastery and for working without pay, except for being able to live in the monastery (Welsh 52). However this tradition didn't always translate well into mutual aid teams (Welsh 52-56). However monasteries were some of the first to apply for cooperativization (Welsh 52). One of the problems seems to be a subtle idealogical one, mutual aid teams goal was to improve the material world and create a paradise on Earth while traditionally Buddhist monastic life was to escape from samsara and help others do so as well (Welsh 54). Welsh cites one example of monks who pretended to be deaf and dumb in order to avoid doing worldly activities (60).

Making monks and nuns become self suffient was seen by the monks to be less than ideal because they felt that they were already doing what was best for society be praying for people and bringing themselves to higher spiritual levels (Welsh 59).

Aishah as a Symbol for Women in Islam

2008-05-24T02:44:00.000-07:00

Aishah as a Symbol for Women in Islam

Aishah has been interpreted as a symbol for women by several Muslim thinkers. Generally the Sunnis have had a more favorable opinion about Aishah than the Shiite Muslims. Among the Sunnis stories about Aishah have mostly been stories that praise Aishah's virtues and show Aishah as an ideal woman that other women should emulate, or they are used to show as an example of why women should not be in politics. Aishah has served has served as a unifying factor in some Muslim communities and as an object of strife in others. More Hadiths are attributed to Aishah than body else and she is a central figure in one of the most unique and detailed Hadiths.

Aishah is unique in Islamic literature in many ways. Firstly, we known an usual amount about her because of the Hadith al-ifk. Secondly Aishah is said to be Muhammad's favorite wife. Lastly, Aishah highly involved with the running of the early Umma after Muhammad passed away and she was also highly involved in the disputes over the Caliph lineage of Uthman and the subsequent political incidents with Ali and his followers. Because of her position of favor and power she is one of the most controversial figures in Islamic history.

Maulana Ashraf 'Ali Thanawi mentions Aisha several times in his writings on Perfecting Women but because a lot of his writings deal with trying to teach Indian Muslims to follow Islamic customs about marrying and remarrying widows and divorcées, he often mentions Aishah as the exception of Muhammad's wifes because she was the only one of Muhammad's wives that had not been previously married. Whenever he mentions her or any of Muhammad's wives he always does so favorably.

Thanawi cites two Hadiths involving Aishah back to back. In the first one he praises Aishah for giving praise to her co-wife Sauda and in the second one he says that there once was a woman that was so great that scholars consulted her on problems of religion. In both incidences he goes on to say that women in Thanawi's day do not reach the ideal that Aisha represents. The ladder example is interesting because Thanawi is using Aisha as an example of the fact that women can become very educated, to the point that people will seek them out to ask for religious advice. This contrasted with what else Thanawi had to say about women, one may conclude that Thanawi believes that there is a fundamental difference between modern women and women from the age of Muhammad. With this in mind one must consider if Aishah is suppose to represent an attainable goal or if she represents an unattainable ideal.

Some modern Muslim feminist, such as Nawal Saadawi, have used the story of Aishah as an example of a strong, self thinking, woman who was able to be an excellent Muslim yet not be unreasonably subjugated to the whims of men. Not every Muslim thinker has been as kind to Aishah as Thanawi and Saadawi. Some will use the story of Aishah as an example of why women should not be involved with politics.

Some Muslim thinkers would not draw the same conclusion about the Hadith where people sought out Aishah for religious advice. They would use this story as an example of what can go wrong when a woman is involved with politics. This view may be most dominate in Shiite circles where the discourse that took place between Aishah and Ali are considered to be most unfortunate and Aishah is considered to be the wrong mistaken one in the conflict.

Some Muslim thinks may argue that there exist some foreshadowing of the Uthman controversy in the Hadith al-ifk. In one of the versions it is Ali who tells the prophet Muhammad that women are plentiful and he could easily change one for another. One may wonder if Ali's remarks here have anything to do with what will happen between Aishah and Ali later. One may also wonder if Ali's remarks in this Hadiths are indicative of a Shiite perspective of women, or if they represent how Sunnis perceive Shiites view of women.

Aishah has come to represent a difference between Sunni and Shiite Islam. Because of this Sunnis may go out of their way to exemplify the actions of Aishah and are adament in their claim that Aishah was Muhammad's favorite wife. There is even a story about Gabrial bringing an image of Aishah before Muhammad and telling Muhammad to marry her. In this story not only is Aishah Muhammad's favorite wife, they are also divinely matched. Shiite however may go out of their way to denounce and vilify her, use her as examples of why women should not get involved in politics, and associate her with fitna.

The idea that Aishah's story serves as an example of why women should not be involved with politics may owe something to the idea of fitna. Fitna is the idea that women have some primordial association with chaos; fitna also means civil war. Considering Aishah's role in the Uthman controversy linking Aishah to fitna may be a logical jump for some Shiite Muslims. Associating Aishah, and women in general, with fitna may have been a big issue for some early Muslim converts that had a preexisting belief in the inherent impure and chaotic nature of women. The idea of the inherent impurity of women hasn't remained a popular in Islam but there definitely seems some remnant of the belief that women are chaotic and random. It is not uncommon to find female characters in Islamic named Fitna that represent some sort of chaos or misfortune.

Less controversial lessons have also been inferred about the Hadiths involving Aishah. Since Aishah presumably did not have water with her when she excused herself from her howdah to use the restroom, so one could use this story as an example of how one can use clean earth for ablution. Or one could contemplate how Um Mistah cursed her own son and Aishah scolded her for that. Cultural things can be inferred from the Hadith about the world that Aishah lived in such as her people's tendency to use the bathroom outside.

It is difficult but one can try to detangle Aishah from the Hadith, to try to figure out who Aishah really was and what her world view was like. A young girl married to a revolutionary figure, who's very existence has shaped much of the modern world's view on women and Islam. Aishah is one of the most beloved women in the Sunni Islamic tradition. Her stories have been used as proofs for many, sometimes contradictory, ideas. To be able to control Aishah and remake her in your own ideals, is to be able to define the role of women in Islam. That is why so many people have tried to tame her story, to bend it into agreement with their ideology. And when studying Aishah it is important to realize that we are studying her through multiple lens of history, culture, and perception.

The Tibetan Sacred Outlook

2008-05-24T02:43:00.000-07:00

The Tibetan Sacred Outlook

Religion has swayed the whole life of many Tibetans. Religion is an unextractable component of their culture and almost every aspect of life has a religious significance to Tibetans. Opinions on the soul, the interconnectedness of everything, the importance of art, the social role of spiritual teachers, all play a role in how Tibetans view their world.

A popular religious tradition in Tibet is nature reverence. Tibetans believe that the world is heavily populated with spirits and demons; these spirits and demons must be acknowledged and appeased in order to have a prosperous and strife free life. Offerings such as burn juniper and alcoholic beverages are often put out for spirits. Mountains and lakes are considered to be very powerful spirits or deities that are often protector deities. When crossing a mountain pass it is tradition to carry a stone from the base of the mountain to the other side of the mountain and put it in a pile. This is to show your thanks to whatever spirit allowed you to safely pass through the mountain.

Mount Kailash is an important mountain to Tibetans and it is also the mountain that some believe that Sherab Mibo ascended to from heaven. The idea that sacred people descend from heaven onto mountains is a popular Tibetan motif; seven Tibetan kings are said to have descended from heaven onto various mountains (Tucci 218-219). There is also a popular creation story in Tibet about a white yak that creates the world by perpetually dividing a sacred mountain.

The idea that the world is full of spirits plays a big part in how Tibetans look at the world. In popular Tibetan tradition one has a soul, or bla, and shares it with multiple other beings (Tucci 191). When you are sleeping or in a trance your bla leaves your body and travels around (Tucci 191). There are four safe places for your soul to go when it is traveling: a specific lake, a specific yak, a specific tree, or a specific bird. The bla of those specific entities can also inhabit the human they are associated with. The bla can become lost while it is wondering, especially if it is scared by a demon (Tucci 191-192). When that happens it is necessary to visit a shaman and have him or her go out and find your bla and take it back either by force or by ransom.

Besides indigenous Tibetan beliefs, Tibet has also had its sacred outlook influenced by Buddhism. In Tibet Vajrayana Buddhism is the dominate form of religion. Several aspects of Vajrayana Buddhism have shaped the way Tibetans view the world from a sacred perspective. Almost all Tibetan Buddhist practices associated with mainstream Vajrayana doctrine will involve trying to overcome dualities.

Tibetan Buddhism teaches that everything is interconnected; this is called patichasamupada. Everything is considered interconnected because nothing has independent origin and no being has a continuous self through time. Nothing has independent origin because everything is the result of something that has happened, nothing comes out of a vacuum. No being is believed to have a self or atman because it is believed that everything can be broken down into separate independent, yet related, components that are constantly subject to change and decay. Because of that it is said that to draw any distinction between one thing and another is a false distinction because everything has one taste or one essence. So if one was to say that he or she was Albert Einstein, he or she would be deceiving themselves into believing that Albert Einstein is continuous through time and that Albert Einstein is somehow separate and distinct from somebody else. Because it is believed that one has no self and everything has dependent origins, Tibetan Buddhist assert that dualities are inherently false and must be over come. This is in contrast to Bon tradition which is very heavily dualistic.

In Bon it is believed that there is a good white force and an evil black force. Every being is either associated with white force or black force (Tucci 214). The spirits mentioned previously are considered to either be good spirits associated with the white force or bad spirits associated with the black force. However in Tibetan Buddhism, at least in the Tantric Monastic setting, such dualism is considered false and must be over come.

The desire to overcome dualism has greatly influenced the Tibetan Buddhist out look on the world and has shaped many of their practices. Many ceremonies involve deliberately manipulating symbols that represent opposite forces and one must try to experience how these dualisms are in fact not a dualism.

The chief way to experience the non-duality of existence is through deity yoga. Deity yoga is the primary form of Tibetan meditation. In deity yoga one must first visualize a deity in front of them. This can be a very hard processes and requires a lot of practice and skill. Because of the importance of deity yoga it is very important that one knows what a deity looks. This has highly influenced Tibetan art and almost all Tibetan art has some sort of religious significance. Sometimes one must be empowered to learn all of the multiple meanings of a Tantric image.

The second step of deity yoga is to become one with the deity. This is another example of trying to breakdown duality. In Tantric Buddhist practice there is no difference between one and the deity. One must only realize this. When one does realize that one is not different from the deity, then one develops deity pride. Deity pride is recognizing that you are the deity and the deity is you. Nothing has changed except the realization and experience of the practitioner.

Because we are talking about deity yoga in a Buddhist setting there must naturally be a last step to deity yoga. That is the step of dissolving the self into nothingness. This is the last step of deity yoga, if one can fully experience this step it is said that he or she has reached enlightenment. However once one does reach this state of enlightenment one does not leave samsara. Because Vajrayana is closely related to Mahayana schools it retains the bodhisattva vow.

The bodhisattva vow is simply a vow one takes to not reach full enlightenment, in the sense that one is freed from samsara, until every sentient being has reached enlightenment. This has greatly influenced the way Tibetans have views their world Because enlightened individuals are not going to leave samsara they are reborn to help other people reach enlightenment. This is where the Tibetan idea of a tulku comes from; a tulku is an enlightened individual who is reborn. The idea of the tulku has had many implications for Tibet.

Because people can be reborn it is possible that a new born baby is a fully enlightened being. One could even be the incarnation of a deity, such as the roles of the Dalia Lama and the Panchen Lama. Because of Tibetans typically sacred outlook on life, their system of government has traditionally been lead by spiritual teachers or spiritual beings. Pre-Buddhist Tibet had a tradition of divine kings, and then they later had a tradition of divine leaders in the tulku lamas.

Because of the importance of lamas in Tibetan society they do practice lama devotion. Because lamas are often considered to be incarnations of spiritually powerful beings, it is natural that Tibetans have incorporated lama devotion into their daily life. Also it is believed that lamas have magical powers such as the ability to read minds. Many important folk heros and saints in Tibet have been lamas such as Milarepa.

As mentioned above art is very important in Tibet because of deity yoga, but also because it helps keep one constantly reminded of religioius themes. Besides art depicting deities, art depicting different realms of rebirth and art depicting the truths of impermenance are very important in Tibet. Also in keeping with maintaining a sacred attitude many Tibetans will carry a prayer wheel with them and spin it all day long, in essence spinning the prayers into the world.

Not every Tibetan agrees with every other Tibetan on issues of religion, naturally. Some Tibetan practices are not congruent with other Tibetan practies, such as the the aforementioned Bon notion of duality and the Vajrayana notion of over coming duality. They also disagree about animal sacrifice, Bon do it and Buddhist do not. Animal sacrifice is more popular in the outskirts of the country than it is in the cities. Another thing that Bon and Tibetan Buddhism have in common is circumambulation (Tucci 150, 242). However they do differ on which direction; Bon go counter-clockwise and Tibetan Buddhist go clockwise.

Shamanism plays a big part in Tibetan religiousity. It is believed that a shaman is capable of rescuing lost souls, can tell the future, and can heal. The defining characteristic of a Shaman is deliberate soul travel brought on by trace. Shamans also practice exorcisms and are routinely possessed by spirits. Being possessed by spirits is another instance of the differencing opinions between Bon and Tibetan Buddhism. Buddhism in general does not teach of exorcisms, but to a Tibetan exorcisms may very likely be labeled as Buddhism.

Shamanism, deity yoga, lama devotion, art, and philosophy have all contributed to the Tibetan's sacred out look on life. When one believes in the interconnectedness of everything or that one shares their soul with the enviornment around them then it is easy to understand why Tibetans typically have a sacred outlook on life.

Works Cited

Tucci, Giuseppe. The Religions of Tibet. Trans. Geoffrey Samuel. Los Angelas: University of California P, 1980.

The issue of headscarves in France

2008-05-24T02:42:00.000-07:00

The issue of headscarves in France

The Muslim population in France, as it is else where, is representative of a whole spectrum of practices and beliefs; however in France the Islamic headscarf became a popular symbol for the problems associated with Muslim immigration, “Islamism” in France, and the role of secularism in French society (Bowen 4,5). The issue of Muslim women wearing headscarves has become a heated issue in France especially after a law banning all religious garb in public schools went into effect in 2004.

Hijab is an Arabic term used to describe proper dress according to Islam. There is variation to what exactly hijab, which is related to modesty for both men and women, exactly means. Different Islamic schools of thought, called madh'habs (not to be confused with larger more general sects such as Sunni or Shiite) have different answer. What's considered hijab in one movement may not be hijab in another movement. Here on out I will use the term hijab specifically to refer to headscarves worn by some Islamic women.

In 1994 it was reported that of the whole Muslim population in France only 700 girls wore hijab to school (Hamel 295). John Bowen, an anthropologist and Islamic scholar argues that through the combined workings of French media, politicians, and popular writers the hijab not only became a symbol for the tensions between Muslims in France and the larger, supposedly secular, French society but it became an externalization for everything that is wrong with French society and was associated with everything from anti-Semitism to the suppression middle class suburban women (Bowen 3).

In French politics there is a trend to justify current actions by putting them in context of larger French history and this is what was done to justify promoting secularism and barring religious apparel in public schools (Bowen 5, 6). Therefore the argument, whether valid or not, is that Muslim immigrants to France should have to adapt to a long standing tradition of secularism and keeping religion out of the public forum and one need not only know how this fits into the larger French history but also one must be well versed in all the major French political and philosophical writings of the last few centuries (Bowen 6).

The tensions between Muslim immigrants wanting to maintain some of their linguistic or ethnic culture verses a French society, that while ferociously denying it, promotes and harbors “la pensée unique ” or the single [French] way of thinking are obvious. What is less obvious is how all these complex issues became epitomized and externalized into the hijab. However irrational or convoluted the reasons for the hijab becoming the focal point of many complex issues, it is not really surprising when one puts it in the larger context of Islam's relationship with the West and how women's role in both societies have a tendency to become not only issues in their own right, but also symbols of the larger struggles of the West and the Middle East.

March 15th, 2004 Jacques Chirac signed a bill from the national legislature that banned the wearing of religious garb that is immediately recognizable from being worn in French public schools (Bowen 7). While this bill bans all religious garb unilaterally there are several issues we need to unpack first before we can appreciate why some Muslims felt like this bill was specifically targeted towards them.

First off we need to understand a key difference between attitudes towards the role of the government in France verses the Anglophone world. One of the key differences between what Bowen categorized as Lockian views of personal liberty verses what Bowen categorized as Rousseauian ideas of personal liberty is that in the Lockian system the government is only responsible for providing for the safety of its citizens. People give up their right to take justice into their own hands in exchange for living in a safe society. I being very simplistic here but in the Rousseauian system the government, besides securing the safety of its citizens, is responsible for providing ways for people to become good citizens.

In France citizenship is based on being integrated into the larger dominate society and adopting their social roles, unlike the United States that bases citizenship on birth or Germany that bases citizenship on ethnicity (Killian 21). In the Rousseauian system you cannot be a good citizens without certain things, so the government is responsible for making sure that all of its citizens have access to those things. One very important social agent in this system is the schools (Bowen 17). Schools, more so than any other institution, are the agents by which people learn what it means to be good citizen, and in the case of France what it means to be a good French citizen.

The school is a system of the state used to make people into good equal citizens. The notion of equal citizenship is an important notion in the Rousseauian system. It is important that in order to facilitate this equality students should not set themselves apart in any kind of subgroups. Habits that do not promote becoming a good citizen are discouraged. Therefor some argue that religious markers are a problem because they divide up the student body into subgroups and promote non-unity. So in order for somebody to grow up to appreciate equality, fraternity, and appreciation of the over-arching dominate culture religious markers should be discouraged.

Notice that this system puts a great deal on precedence, and that the goal is to become a good French citizen. What it means to be a good French citizen is the issue where people tend to find themselves disagreeing. Imagine being an Islamic family that your daughter should wear a headscarf at all times and then imagine that the school system says your daughter cannot wear a headscarf to school because it is contradictory to what they want to teach them about what it means to be a good French citizen. You might be understandably upset.

Although it is a crude system, integrating women can be viewed in two different lights, either as “barriers of assimilation” or as “vehicles of assimilation into the dominate society” (Killian 11). The issue of hijab is an example of women being used as pawns in a larger struggle, a struggle that is less about women or hijab and more about France’s fear of Islamic extremism being harbored in French ghettos, or le citiés, that some French people were scared had become nodes in an international Islamic fundamentalist network (Killian 15).

The French media played no small part in making the public believe that Muslims in France, especially Muslims in bad neighborhoods, were in on a larger Pan-Islamic plot to take over the whole world (Bowen 157, Silverstein 4). French fears of radical Islam were shaken up by the linking of French-born Muslims to the 1995 bombings in Paris and Lyon as well as the arrest of French-Moroccan Zacarias Moussaoui (Silverstein 4).

This is an issue of integration (Bowen 247). Some Muslims think this system is unfair because it favors those who, “drink wine and wear berets” over “those who prefer tea and headscarves” (Bowen 427). The issue of integrating Muslims into the larger French society is also a complex issue we'll return to after one more point about Lockian versus Rousseauian views.

A criticism of the Rousseau point of view that people need to be conditioned and taught how to be equal is that in practice sometimes it seems that the quest for equality infringes on people's personal freedom to do what they want. A related issue of laïcité or the idea of a secular state that's devoid of religious influence or input (Bowen 3,156).

According to Bowen some staunch supports of laïcité will trace its lineage back unbroken to the French revolution, however Bowen argues that the real issue is much more complex (Bowen 23). Those that say that there is a precedent for laïcité are correct however the notion that laïcité is unyielding and absolute can't be right and to prove his point Bowen says that even if you omit France's relationship both culturally and in legislation towards the Catholic church and use only Islamic examples the precedence of laïcité begins to fade (Bowen 27). Bowen points to examples like that French state and local governments giving monetary aid to help build mosques, to provide graveyard space for Muslims, and the creation of the quasi-state Muslim Council (Bowen 27, 35).

And it's hardly fair to say laïcité is a 200 year old institution when, the interplay of church and school has been complex but mostly has leaned towards favoring the Church. It wasn't really until after the Paris Commune in 1871 that there was really an big push to use the schools as an instrument to create "French citizens" and thus make and an attempt was made to decrease the influence the Church has on schools, previous to this time besides have major influences over schools Priest could dismiss school teachers in their diocese that they didn't like (Bowen 27, 30-33).

In 1989 three young ladies were expelled for refusing to take off their headscarves (Silverstein 3, Killin 23). The Highest French court decided that students may wear religious garb as long as it wasn’t “ostentatious” or “political” in nature (Silverstein 3). The court’s decision set the precedent of letting the individual school decide what and was not ostentatious or political and most hijab school issues after this were settled through parent-teacher compromises and when that couldn’t be done be done special Stasi commission, a special commission established in 1998 to specifically handel issues of laïcité members were sent to try to mediate (Silverstein 3).

Why women wear hijab is another issue. Its kind of a no win situation for the women that want to wear hijab because many French people argue that she's only wearing it because she feels pressured into it and even if she really wants to wear it she only really wants to wear it because of how she's been raised. So even arguments by Muslim women defending their choice to wear hijab fall on deaf ears according to Bowen (45).

Besides attacking hijab in lieu in other more serious problems, another tactic the French have used to quell their fears has been to create its own brand of secular-Islam and sell it back to the French community as a whole (Silverstein 4). Many young Muslims and other Muslims that have been acculturated enough to French society enough or it are just naturally ready for such a progression to prefer that kind of Islam.

These developments have made the issue of hijab very complex. I can only imagine what it would be like to be a Muslim in France that on the one hand you have your traditional culture pulling at your loyalties, you have a larger society that’s trying to bring you over to the French way of thinking, and you also have the voices of successfully integrated Muslims to listen to. Growing up in such a world must be having some effect on young Muslims today and I’d imagine that these tensions pulling them in all different directions will be the source of many interesting novels and coming of age books in France in the next few decades.

The separation of church and state, integration, and learning to become a good citizen are all superfluous issues being used as an excuse to attack Muslims, specifically hijab wearing women, as a reactionary retaliation to the tensions surrounding immigration and fears of radical Islam (Bowen 198). Bowen argues that the hijab became a symbol of all the problems with society and that some politicians, news media, and popular writers fueled the fire of over simplifying issues.

According to Bowen one of the really serious issues underlying the hijab issue is the issue of Muslim immigrants and few-generation Muslims in France and the fear of Islamic extremist terrorist (Bowen 155, 182). The issue of immigration of Muslims into France is complex but it is fair to say that many Muslims in France come from or are decedent from families from North Africa, especially Algeria (169). However modern waves of immigration have people coming from all over the Muslim world (Bowen 170).

Paul Silverstein argues that the notion of “religious freedom” has been sacrificed in France in France’s strive for national unity. Silverstein argues that this isn’t a case of separation of Church and state but the case of a new state religion of France that supresses other religions. The notion of laïcité has become some abstract source of morals and people have been eisegesisically using it as a tool to supress the religious freedoms of others, thus making laïcité not only a quasi-state religion but also a suppressive tyrannical one.

For many first, second, and even third generation Muslims in France the whole situation of trying to find a happy medium between being true to their ethnic, linguistic, cultural, and religious roots while also being good French citizens must be very frustrating.

Works Cited

Bowen, John B. Why the French Don't Like Headscaves: Islam, the State, and Public Space. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2007.

Hamel, Chouki E. "Muslim Diaspora in Western Europe: the Islamic Headscarf (Hijab), the Media and Muslims' Integration in France." Citizenship Studies 6 (2002): 293-308. Google Scholar. 03 Apr. 2008.

Killian, Caitlin. North African Women in France: Gender, Culture, and Identity. Standford UP, 2006.

Silverstein, Paul. "Headscarfs and the French Tricolor." Middle East Report Online. 30 Jan. 2004 <http://merip.org/mero/mero013004.htm>.

Music in Tibet

2008-05-24T02:41:00.001-07:00

Music in Tibet

Music and theatre are included in a subsection of sGra, which is one of the five inclusive sciences, which all things are said to include all types of study.^¹ Music has played a central role in the lives of Tibetans and continues to console Tibetans in exile. Tibetan music has many venues: chants, Tibetan opera, special troupes of performers, folk songs, and even newer venues like rock concerts and traveling all-female stage productions.

-Rakra Tethong says that Tibetan music can almost be thought of as a mixture of many different kinds of music.^² Tibetan music has had influences from Mongolia, Afghanistan, China, and India.^³ And perhaps from places as far away as Syria and Greece, but Tethong argues that the majority of outside influences on Tibetan music came from India, especially when talking about the development of music inside the Buddhist monasteries.^⁴ Tethong claims that typically new musical forms arrive first in Western Tibet, then they make their way to central Tibet where they’re learned by nomads that then bring the songs to Eastern Tibet.^⁵ There was a special troupe of singers and dancers called the gar pa in Lhasa that received many of their influences from India as well as Mongolia, and they also came up with many of their own styles and customs.^⁶

The gar pa represent a unique institution in Tibetan history that lasted for several centuries. The gar pa had many unique traditions and instruments and while some of them have been incorporated into other Tibetan musical venues, others have been lost.^⁷ Tethong recalls how the special drums the gar pa used were, while the looked simple, were in fact very complicated and had the ability to be heard miles away and not be disturbing to somebody in the same room.^⁸

-Another interesting institution related to Tibetan music is Tibetan Opera. Called lha mo, Tibetan Opera is said to have been founded by the legendary figure of Grub chen Tang stong Rgyal po.^⁹ Tang stong Rgyal is honored similarly to other great Tibetan saints and transcripts of his plays were keep on alters to him and offerings to him were made before and after the study of or performance of a play.^¹⁰ It is said that Tang stong Rgyal felt that people needed to be exposed to religious ideas but that some people are not susceptible to being preached to, so instead plays and music with religious themes could expose people to religious ideas that they would otherwise not be able or willing to accept.^¹¹

After the time of the Great Fifth Dalai Lama lha mo saw increased popularity, which was probably somehow related to the Fifth Dalai Lama having a dream about the lha mo which included new mask for them to wear.^¹² Some modern lha mo troupes still use the mask designed by the Fifth Dalai Lama.

An important event in the lha mo calendar is the drama festival or yogurt party at Drepung monistary.^¹³ The legend goes that the monks at Drepung were too well behaved, so behaved were they that the local demon-god-mountain-being became upset with them and was causing trouble for them. To appease the being, the monks held a large festival and when the being saw them having a big festival he became appeased that they weren’t too well behaved any more and let them alone.^¹⁴

The Buddhist Monastery is where some of the most complex and actualized Tibetan music comes from according to Tethong, and one of the major influences on Tibetan Monastic music was Indian music.^¹⁵ However, that’s not to say that Tibetans Buddhist didn’t borrow from other sources or neglected their own indigenous Tibetan traditions. An example of a Bon instrument that crossed over into monastic life in Tibet is the rnga, which is a small kind of drum with a handle on it.^¹⁶

While Tibetan Buddhism is among the most lenient of all Buddhist sects towards music, stringed instruments were the least popular in the monastery and were even banned in some, because of all the kinds of instruments they are the hardest to meditate to.^¹⁷ However even though they are not played, stringed instruments are offered as offerings to Bodhisattvas in some ceremonies.^¹⁸ Each of the four main sects of Tibetan Buddhism, Nymingma, Sakya, Kargyud, and Gelug, each has their own musical tradition. Tethong argues that the Sakya tradition’s music is closest to the Indian tradition in Tibet and that the Gelug tradition is the most conservative of all the movements in regards to music.^¹⁹ These distinctions are useful but limited because it is also said that every single monastery has its own musical tradition, and sometimes a monasteries tradition will be contrary to the trend of its sect.^²⁰ Not only do monasteries have their own views on music, sometimes different parts of the same monastery will have different musical traditions and views.^²¹

After the Chinese took control of Tibet, many lha mo troupe leaders were sent to China to be re-educated in music and to make lha mo performances conform more to their “Chinese origins”.^²² In 1959, after a popular uprising, many Tibetans fled the country, following the example of the Dalai Lama. At least two lha mo troupes were set up in exile.^²³ One troupe toured the United States in 1975.^²⁴

One of the first institutions founded by the Dalai Lama in Dharmsala was the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts (TIPA).^²⁵ TIPA’s symbol is the iconic mask of the hunter that introduces all Tibetan Operas and the skeleton dancer mask.^²⁶

An important issue to Tibetans in exile is coming to terms with what it means to be Tibetan in the first place. Tibetans in exile live in communities with other Tibetans from all over the region and for the Tibetans in exile this has really widened their sense of who is and who is not a Tibetan.^²⁷ Another issue is that of preserving Tibetan culture. What happens when notions of preserving Tibetan culture clash with efforts to stop sectarianism in the Tibetan Diaspora?

One such incident happened in 1981 when a deputy in the Tibetan National Assembly, who also happened to be Kargyupa monks, complained that the TIPA would be performing a play the next day for the Dalai Lama that included an immoral clown-type character that at one point chants Kargyupa prayer.^²⁸ The deputy argued that things like this were fueling sectarianism and that he was offended by it and it should be removed.^²⁹

No official stance was made one way or the other but what happened was immensely interesting. The lha mo went on, as schedule but the Dalai Lama did not attend; the reason for his absence isn’t made clear nor is it ever claimed to be as a result of the controversy.^³⁰ When it came time for the character to repeat the Kargyupa prayer he instead stopped and discussed with a God how he did not want to perform that part of the performance because of the controversy and he would instead perform a song from a popular Hindi musical.^³¹ Another alteration that was made to the performance is that when the characaters were suppose to make a bread offering to a demon in an exorcism ritual instead of the using dough and bread they used an effigy of a skeleton dance, which is a symbol of the TIPA, and threw it at duputy-members of the Tibetan National Assembly.^³² The implication of this action was to imply that the Tibetan National Assemblies were like demons attacking the TIPA.^³³ These actions caused the deputies to leave in protest; Marcia Calkowski argues that the argument against the TIPA wasn’t genuinely an argument against sectarianism but a blatant sectarian act in and of itself by the Kargyupa monk for the Kargyupa.^³⁴ The act of relating criticisms of an lha mo with an exorcism also have further symbolic meaning in regards to Tang stong Rgyal because legends tell of how the first lha ma was performed to appease a demon that was tormenting a town.^³⁵

Another instance where tradition and sectarianism have clashed with each other as well as with modern Western ideas is in regards to how women should be treated and what roles they can perform. The nuns of the Khache Ghankyil Ling nunnery, a nunnery for Tibets in exile in Nepal, study Buddhism on par with their male counterparts and have also study traditional Tibetan songs, dances, and other performance arts.^³⁶ Many of the performance arts the nuns learn are learned only for the purpose of raising money in performances in the west.^³⁷

-Tibetans, like everybody else, have not been immune to modern or Western influences. While researching the modern state of Music in Tibet ethnomusicographologist Keila Diehl recalls in her book “Echoes from Dharmsala: Music in the Life of a Tibetan Refugee Community” how she found many modern musical elements in young Tibetans’ music. She asks the question of whether this is a sign of Tibetans that are proud of their own heritage trying reach out and form complex relationships with other cultures and traditions or is this a sign that young Tibetans, many of which have never been to Tibet or outside of India, are losing their own sense of cultural identity and are just plugging into what’s most easily accessible to them.^³⁸ She tells how one contemporary Tibetan band around the area of Dharmsala that call themselves the “Yak Band” plays rock and roll, blues, and incorporates an amplified version of a dranyen (a six-stringed Tibetan lute) into their songs as well as their attempts to turn traditional Tibetan chants and folk songs into dance songs.^³⁹

Rock concerts can be understood in terms of Victor Turner’s communitas and Deihl says that is also true when looking at modern Tibetan music in the Tibetan Diaspora.^⁴⁰ However communitas does not fully explain the tensions that exist between Tibetans that are resistant to these new forms of music, even when you try to argue that there is a subculture of young Tibetans that are looking outside their own traditional for inspiration.^⁴¹ For those Tibetans that are resistant to new musical forms Diehl argues that it might not be the music itself they have a problem with but the tension they feel with trying to maintain their own cultural identity while being exiles.^⁴² Despite the hardships that go along with being a people in exile, Diehl explains that in her experience that even though it is difficult many Tibetans hold onto what it means to be Tibetan, even those that are reaching out and looking for something else or new, such as rock and roll, still have a sense of being Tibetan.^⁴³ Diehl argues that even though Tibetan refugees can be described in terms of hybridity and pastiche, that many refugees regard these things as sources of failure and an unfortunate consequences of the life of a refugee.^⁴⁴

A lot of cultural transmittion takes place in the home, as it does in most cultures around the world. However because of their status as exiles, there is a great importance placed on how the culture is presented and preserved in the public sphere.^⁴⁵ It is because of this that public performances of become ever so important to the Tibetan diaspora as the gap between living memory and Tibetan identity widens, Tibetans cling to what makes them Tibetan and try to avoid displacement and assimilation.^⁴⁶ However Marcia points out that there is more more emphasis on preserving Tibetan culture in the face of Chinese culture and an over-arching globalzied world culture, but few Tibetans seem bothered or notice the influences of Hindi culture on their own.^⁴⁷

1 Jeanette Snyder, “Preliminary Study of Lha Mo”, Asian Music, 10, no 2 Tibetan Issue (1979): 35-38. JSTOR, www.jstor.org

2 Rakra Tethong, “Conversations on Tibetan Musical Traditions,” Asian Music, 10, no. 2 Tibetan Issue (1979): 5. JSTOR, www.jstor.org.

3 Tethong, 5.

4 Tethong, 5-8.

5 Tethong, 7.

6 Tethong, 6-7.

7 Tethong, 6.

8 Tethong, 7.

9 Snyder, 24.

10 Snyder, 24.

11 Snyder, 26.

12 Snyder, 28.

13 Snyder, 29.

14 Snyder, 29-30.

15 Tethong, 9.

16 Tethong, 9.

17 Tethong, 10.

18 Tethong, 10.

19 Tethong, 11-13.

20 Tethong, 10, 12.

21 Tethong, 11-12. Tethong describes how different grwa tshang or “colleges” in his own monastery of Drepung, forbid certain monks from learning instruments because their section of the monastery focused on logical, philosophy, or metaphysics, but required other monks in different colleges to learn to play instruments because their focus was on Tantric rituals.

22 Snyder, 29.

23 Snyder, 29.

24 Snyder, 29.

25 Marcia Calkowski, “A Day at the Tibetan Opera: Actualized Performances and Spectaular Discourse,” American Ethnologist 18, no. 4 (1991): 645. JSTOR, www.jstor.org.

26 Calkowski, 645.

27 Calkowski, 645.

28 Calkowski, 648.

29 Calkowski, 648-49.

30 Calkowski, 648-50.

31 Calkowski, 650.

32 Calkowski, 650.

33 Calkowski, 651.

34 Calkowski, 651-52.

35 Calkowski, 653. Snyder, 29.

36 Claudia Orenstein, “A Taste of Tibet: The Nuns of the Khache Ghankyil Ling Nunnery and the Theatre du Soleil,” Asian Theatre Journal 19, no. 1 (2002): 213-15. Google Scholar, www.scholar.google.com.

37 Orenstein, 214. That’s not to suggest that the nuns are greedy or not living up to their goals by taking money.

38 Kelia Diehl, Echoes of Dharamsala: Music in the Life of a Tibetan Refugee Community (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), xx.

39 Diehl, xx-xxiii.

40 Diehl, 2.

41 Diehl, 2-7.

42 Diehl, 3.

43 Diehl, 4.

44 Diehl, 5.

45 Diehl, 66.

46 Diehl, 66.

47 Calkowski, 654. Calkowski points to how nobody seemed to have any problem or qualms about a popular Hindi movie song being used in what is considered the quintessential lha mo.

Extremely Brief overview of Tibetan religiosity

2008-05-24T02:41:00.000-07:00

Extremely Brief overview of Tibetan religiosity

Nature Religion

In Tibetan nature religion one of the things that brings meaning to one's life is being in good standing with your community. Your community includes not only your townsmen and family but also many nature spirits. Much ado is paid to the needs and wants of local nature spirits, its considered kind of like a big cosmic d'uh, in that OFCOURSE you need to be worshiping the spirits around come on! This may be related to how primal and open the landscape of Tibet is. If one transgresses against the spirits there will be consequences so the quality of one's life depends on appeasing these spirits.

Another thing to consider when weighting the meaning of life and Tibetan nature religion is to remember that Tibetans believe that their soul, or la, is a six part system that you share with other beings. Your la can go out on adventures and inhabit other beings but the most common and safe place is in either a specific bird, horse, ox, tree, lake, and of course your own human body.

As far as the meaning of life, this idea of a multi-part shared soul lends itself to thinking of oneself as a humble being of a larger system and may promote community and nature reverence. Another thing to consider when contemplating the meaning of life is to remember that the world is dualistic.

There are two primal forces in the world a white force, which is good, and a black force, which is bad. Ideally somebody should find their meaning in the white force and dedicate themselves to serving the good gods. One of the things the gods want is animal sacrifices, so part of the meaning of life is to provide the gods with their sacrifices.

Shamanism

The meaning of life for a Shaman may be to serve his or her community. There are several themes that are common to most Shamans in Tibet and they all play a part in what a Shaman or follower of a Shaman believe about the nature of existence and the meaning of life.

If your la gets lost somewhere while its out adventuring while you are asleep, you need a Shaman to go look for it. So in one way big part of the what it means to be a Shaman is to be a protector and finder of lost souls. Shamans use many tools for finding lost souls but one of their most useful tools is the ability to soul travel. Through trances and other meanings Shamans can leave their body and go out into the spirit world to try to find your soul and bring it back to you. Perhaps you've angered a local nature spirit and it scared or kidnapped your soul, in such a case the Shaman must use his or her spiritual ability to try to appease the spirit. Being able to soul travel and make face to face communications with the nature spirits is very helpful for soul retrieval task.

Face to face meetings with the spirits also allow Shamans to make spirit friends, these spirit friends help to teach and serve the Shaman through his or her career. More so than the average person, a Shaman is responsible for harboring and developing relationships with local spirits.

Another important aspect of the meaning of existence when considering Nature Religion, Shamanism, as well as other expressions of Tibetan religiosity, is to recall that a popular idea in Tibet is that dreams are a real reality in and of themselves, sometimes even considered to be more real than waking life. So if one wanted to explore what their purpose in life was, a prudent place to look would be in your dreams. While in your dream world, you and your soul can go on magical adventures all over, just be careful not to get scared or caught like we mentioned earlier.

How does a Shaman get all these powers that define and give meaning to his life? Tibetan Shamans, life Shamans all over the world, go through something scholars label as the “Shamanic illness”. During the Shamanic illness the future-Shaman becomes very sick and falls in and out of trances and is just generally crazy. The goal is for the future-Shaman to die, or at least be broken down all the way to his core, and then cure himself and come back as a healthy member of society. It is thought that through curing himself that the Shaman gains the entry-level experience needed to be a Shaman. Also while under this Shamanic illness the Shaman may make some life long spirit friends.

Buddhism

The meaning for life in Tibetan Buddhism fits in with the grander themes of Buddhism in other traditions, but also has its own unique positions on certain issues. The essence of Buddhist teachings are the four noble truths which are that dukkha is pervasive in samsara, dukkha is caused by tanha, there is a way to stop dukkha, and that way is the noble eight-fold path.

A key precept of Tibetan Buddhism is the concept of interdependence. I depend on you, you depend on me, and so and and so on in an imaginably complex and beautiful way. If one was looking for meaning to their life in terms of Tibetan Buddhism, interdependence would be a good place to start. The repercussions of this idea is that everything you do has enormous reprocutions on the cosmic scale, so it is important that one live their life in a compassionate and wise way so that the repercussions of one's life will be as good as possible.

As with all schools of Buddhism, the goal of Tibetan Buddhism is to become enlightened one day. Similar to Mahayana in Tibetan Buddhism it is typically said that spiritually powerfully people do not reach full enlightenment because their compassion and vows require them to stay in samsara until every sentient being can achieve samsara. In Tibet this has had the unique occurense of tulkus, which are spiritually powerful and enlightened people that choose to be reborn. If you're born as a tulku your goal in life is to help as many people as you can reach enlightenment.

One of the specific goals unique to Tantic Buddhism is to overcome duality and realize that life is, as Milarepa puts it, ro chig or a single taste. One should spend their life realizing that any and all dualities are man made and get in the way of realzing greater spiritual truths. There are many Tantric rituals and concepts directly related to the idea of overcoming and collapsing duality whether its day and night, the sun and the moon, male and female, pure and impure, or living and dead.

The idea that there is no difference between pure and impure has had many profound effects on Tibetan culture. In contrast to other Tibetan civilizations, Tibetan gods frequently enjoy alcoholic beverages and monks often do things that are considered impure, such as drinking from a human skull bone.

Although there is a goal to overcome duality, many Tibetan ritual objects seem to represent duality, on the surface, however because Tantric practices are so secret and there is the understanding that there is no duality, things that seem dualistic on the surface are done only to attempt to show a conquering of this duality. Its just that we as observers aren't spiritually powerfully enough to realize that.

Another consequence of the breakdown of duality is that Tibetan Buddhism has some antinomian qualities. If there is no difference between right and wrong, then human made senses of morality and right and wrong do not apply to a Tibetan Buddhist. This idea contrast sharply with the Natural Religion, Shamanism, and Bonpa ideas we talked about earlier where everything is either part of the primordial white or black forces.

Another goal that goes along with achieving enlightenment is to become a monk, nun or a lama. Monks and nuns take vows and precepts and live in monasteries or nunneries fulfilling their monastic duties. Monks and Nuns are very important to Tibetan culture and through out the centuries the education and proliferation of monasteries was a very big deal in Tibet.

A lama is a spiritual teacher and be either male or female. He or she may or may not be a monk or nun but there is considerable overlap between monks, nuns, and lamas. Lamas primary role is to minister to the people and do rituals for people. They serve a very important role in Tibetan society and this could said to be one of their main reasons for finding meaning in their life.

One need not be a monk, nun, or lama to find meaning to their life or even to have the goal of enlightenment. Since there is no distinctions or duality in Tantric Buddhism to say that there is a difference between monks and laypeople would be erroneous. In Tibetan Buddhism it is typically said that any yogin or yogini can achieve enlightenment at any time. So Tibetan Buddhism lore has stories of many lay people that became enlightened and/or became great spiritual teachers. Many of the 84 Mahasiddhas, great spiritual teachers, were said to be lay people. Perhaps the greatest spiritual folk hero in Tibet, Milarepa, was not a monk.

If one was a member of the Kagyu sect of Tibetan Buddhism, the meaning of life would be found in the teachings of Karmapa, who is said to be an incarnation of Chinrezig. And as far as the practices you would practice to help you find meaning to life you would practice the six yogas of Naropa, one of the Mahasiddhas. These include: heat yoga, illusory body, dream yoga, clear light, bardo, and phowa. As well as the six yogas of Naropa you migh talso pratice Maching Lab Dron's chod yoga, which consider of spiritually cutting up parts of yourself and offering it to demons.

If you were a member of the Sakya school you might find solace in the idea of “crazy wisedom”. If you were a member of this school you would study how there is no difference between the mind of a Buddha and the mind of roach, and that enlightenment isn't something that can be achieved but only realized.

If you were a member of the Geluk school, you may find yourself more focused on scholarly and book work than members of other schools, genreally speaking. Your primary spiritual teacher would be the Dalai Lama who is said to be an incarantion of Chenrezig. If you were a member of a Geluk school your goal in life may be to become a Geshe, which is kind of like a PH.D. in Geluk studies.

If you were a member of the Nyingma school, you would rely on hidden spiritual treasures, gter ma or terma, to be discovered to teach you new doctrine and other ideas that were considered too advanced for people in the past. Terma can be dreams, visions, or literally lost or hidden objects found or dug up by a spiritually powerful person. If you were a member of the Nyingma school your main meditation practice would be dzogchen, which is similar to zazen, and is where you just sit there. Since there is no difference between enlightened and unenlightened and you can't achieve enlightenment only realize it, you need to sit there and just wake up to the fact that you're already enlightened. A goal common to all 4 of the great schools is the goal of Bodhisattva ideal and the goal of asceticism.

There is also an Islamic minority in Tibet. For them the meaning for life is living up to Allah's precepts with the hope of being judged good enough during the day of reckoning.

Tibet may be fairly classified as one of the most religious places on Earth and as such many people look to religion to find a meaning or answer to their life.

Demons, Sex, and Possession in Judaism

2008-05-24T02:39:00.000-07:00

Demons, Sex, and Possession in Judaism

Demons are sexy. In many Jewish myths and in larger Jewish contexts many demons want to disrupt your sexual purity. Typically every time you fantasize about sex it is said that you are actually fornicating with a demon. All aspects of demonology in Judaism are sexually charged and in tales of possession is where the sexual metaphors reach their proverbial climax.

Judaism has its own terms and concepts for dealing with evil spirits and spirit possession. Ru’ah is a generic word for spirits used in many Jewish contexts.^¹ Ibbur comes from the Hebrew word to impregnate but is also used to talk about receiving an additional soul.^² Ibbur is the most general world for possession and is used to talk about demon possession.^³ It also used to talk about another type of possessions that tend to be benevolent in nature and are sometimes said to be soul fragments from dead pious people or second soul that one receives on the Sabbath.^⁴ Sometimes though ibbur is used in a malevolent spirit possession however negative spirit possessions by deceased humans are referred to by the name dybbuk.^⁵ One common but not exact way to distinguish dybbuk possession from others is that dybbuk possession almost always involved possession from a dead human being that’s either wicked or confused.^⁶

When talking about demons in Judaism, Lilith is a logical place to start. Lilith is said to be the first wife of Adam who fled from Adam after refusing to lie underneath him during sex.^⁷ Lilith is referenced in Isaiah 34:14 and she may be based on the Babylonian succubus Lilitu who was a great seducer of men and stealer of semen.^⁸ Lilith adopts a dual role in Jewish lore: the seducer of men and the killer of babies.^⁹ However it seems that Lilith was originally only a seducer and succubus; and her child killing tendencies previously belonged to a demon named Obyzouth whom is mentioned in the pseudepigraphical book The Testament of Solomon.^¹⁰

However it came about, it is interesting that Lilith is associated with both sex and death; she is an externalization of everything that scared and fascinated the pre-modern Jewish mind. Judaism and Jewish culture can be fairly characterized as being very concerned with purity. In no two areas of life is purity more in danger than during sex and death. Therefore Lilith and her demonic children are naturally most active and dangerous when people are coming into the world and also when they are on their way out of this world. Lilith was more than a demon; she was the personification of impurity and mankind’s inclination towards evil (yetzer ha-ra).^¹¹

Lilith the seducer is said to be able to take very beautiful forms, besides being able to be the epitome of beauty she is a master in the Law.^¹² Lilith uses her intellectual prowess to try to talk people into sinning by trying to convince them that sleeping with her would only be a very minor sin.^¹³ Lilith is often described as having long black hair and her long hair is said to be a symbol of not being married, so she tempts men by trying to convince them that since the Torah doesn’t specifically specify a punishment for a man lying with an unmarried woman, that it is only a minor sin.^¹⁴ Lilith and all demons were also brazen enough to try to temp even the most holy of men, in fact the more holy you are the more Lilith and her children will want to try to attack and seduce you.

Lilith and her demon children, called the Lilim, want semen. It is said that every time a man ejaculates outside of his wife he is having sex with a Lilim or succubus. Lilim appear to men in many ways but it is usually through visions or dreams.^¹⁵ The Lilim want semen so that they can become pregnant with half-human half-demon spawn that will haunt their fathers for all their days.^¹⁶ The symbolism here is seemingly transparent, what should scare a man more than a sexually empowered woman, a woman in control, that wants to become pregnant and then the children of said arrangement will torment the man for the rest of his life?

Most men have dozens if not hundreds or thousands of half-demon spawn haunting them.^¹⁷ Luckily for men though, it said that a hundred of Lilith’s children perish every day.^¹⁸ Demon spawn can cause many health problems for their father or just those that happen to be near by.^¹⁹ When a man dies his demon children surround his body and howl out his name, to avoid these demon, the human children of a man must take certain precautions. There are many rituals a man’s sons must perform in order to not take on his father’s demons.^²⁰ Perhaps this is an expression of a type of Oedipus complex, as well as a type of repression of it, built into the myth. When a son takes on his father’s demons he in effect becomes his father and owns his demons, in the way it may be said a man owns his wife or his children. Even more so it is possible and likely that said son could one day have sex with a Lilim perhaps even the same Lilim that knew his father. In a very convoluted way we can see something similar to an Oedipus complex as well as the an incorporation of that fact that people try to repress this urge built into the myth. It is bad for a son to take on his father’s demons and his father’s demon-lover just like it is bad for a son to take his father’s wife but that doesn’t mean that the subconscious desire isn’t there.

Copulation with demons and the resulting health issues aren’t only limited to men, one myth about the origins of the giants called the Nefilim, found in the pseudepigraphical Testament of Reuben, attributes the birth of the Nefilim not to women sleeping with the sons of God but instead to women fantasizing about the angels while having sex with their husbands.^²¹ As it is in the case of men fantasizing about Lilith is also considered having sex with her and having children with her, so too here simply by fantasizing about the angels the women bring untold and unexpected consequences on themselves by having Nefilim children. There are also various other myths that have to do with Cain being the spawn of a demon because of Eve having sex with, being raped by, or fantasizing about a demon; an alternative myth also involves Adam and Eve cannibalizing a human baby or eating a sheep that was actually a demon.^²²

Despite having long black hair that is suppose to be a symbol of not being married, Lilith is said to have at least two husbands Samael, the angel of death, and Ashmedai, the king of demons. Attempts have been made to bring these beliefs into agreement by saying that there are two Liliths. One that is married to Samael and is the great seducer and one that is married to Ashmedai that is the baby killer.^²³ The notion that there are two Liliths fits into a larger Luriandric Kabbalist theme of their being two Adams, two Messiahs, and two covenants with God.

Let’s look as Lilith as the killer of babies. A woman fears Lilith for different reasons than a man fears her. Men fear her as a sexual fantasy but to a woman Lilith represents the risk of somebody taking away their husband and killing their children.^²⁴ For men Lilith is forbidden and sensual therefore making her tempting while yet fearing her destructive abilities.^²⁵ For a woman Lilith is nothing but trouble, a whore that wants to steal her husband’s affection and seed as well as take the life of her infant children.^²⁶ Perhaps because women aren’t typically afraid of being tempted by Lilith women seem to have the most knowledge and expertise fighting her. It is said that Lilith is attracted to the smell of breast milk and that sometimes she takes the form of a long black hair and goes into a container of breast milk to get to a baby.^²⁷ One astute mother was able to see what Lilith was up to one day and she put a lid on the jug of milk that Lilith had put herself in and she shook the jug mercilessly to torment Lilith. Lilith eventually agreed to protect the mother and child from all danger for three years in exchange for being released.^²⁸ Notice how in this story, it is the woman that’s the hero, she is strong and smart and more than capable of defending herself and her baby’s health against Lilith, something that can rarely be said about a man.

How does one go about healing themselves from the problems caused by the Lilim and various other demons? Judaism has many processes in place for dealing with the health issues that are demon related. Exorcisms are used to expel demons, the recitation and inscription of holy names or even the names of the demons are used to ward demons away, and most commonly there are many purity rituals in place so that one can regain their purity through ablutions.

The notion of purity is very important to Judaism and is one of the driving forces behind demons. Demons are a useful tool because they allow an individual or a society to externalize parts of themselves that they are not willing to include in their concept of us and can thereby make parts of their own society part of “them” by blaming it on demons or other types of spirits. Various contexts give various impressions, but it seems that typically there is no sin or transgression that can be inferred simply because somebody is being plagued by a demon. Even the most holy men get plagued by demons and are actually more likely to be done so.

Demon possession (ibbur) has been a part of Jewish culture for millennia but possession by deceased human beings is a relatively new phenomenon that the earliest known documented cases come from the late sixteenth century.^²⁹ The idea of being possessed by humans was most likely heavenly influenced by the idea of the transmigration of souls (gilgul), which can be traced, back to the thirteenth century CE.^³⁰ Dybbuk possession while different in theological significance to demon possession played a very similar role as demon possession in terms of being very sexual in nature.^³¹

Contrasted to men being tempted by female demons such as Lilith, dybbuk possession usually happened to women and it was male spirits that usually possessed them.^³² The second most common combination was men being possessed by male spirits.^³³ The least common scenario was female spirits possessing men.^³⁴ Dybbuk possessions thus usually play out as heterosexual or less commonly male homosexual metaphors. It is said that where the spirit enters the body is through the vagina or the anus; the association of erogenous zones with dybbuk possession further showcase the sexual nature of demons and possession in Judaism.^³⁵ One of the signs of a woman being possessed by a male dybbuk is that she will masturbate uncontrollably and she will avoid being penetrated by her husband at all cost.^³⁶

Just as encounters with demons became an externalization and symbol for men’s sexual fantasies; so too did dybbuk possession become a means by which people could express subconscious urges that were not acceptable to the larger society without the context of spirit possession. Under the context of being possessed by a dybbuk women could express their desires for more sex, or express their lack of interest in sex with men and instead demand to have sex with women. Likewise men could express desires of wanting to know another man. By externalizing these feelings the individuals and the societies at large had a way of explaining away things they did not like such as female sexuality or homosexuality. As a culture obsessed with sexual purity having something like a dybbuk, which could be explained as an impure outsider, was a very useful tool the society could use to not incorporate sexual deviants into their sense of “us” while at the same time not literally pushing their members out. With proper motivation, effort, and ritual these people could become clean again, healed, and brought back into the society. In the theme of repression Yorma Bilu speculates whether male-to-female dybbuk possession might be influenced by Oedipal urges by women to be penetrated by their fathers.^³⁷ While there isn’t a lot to go on in dybbuk literature, there is one instant where a famous nineteenth century Hasidic rabbi was said to have possessed his most favored daughter, whom he favored over all his other children including the males.^³⁸ Under the pretext of being possessed by her father the daughter challenges the moral and spiritual authority of her brothers.^³⁹

Spirit possession is not always bad and sometimes people are impregnated with the spirit of a righteous person that needs to accomplish something. Even spirit possession that is malevolent can have unexpected positive side effects such as clairvoyance.^⁴⁰

The way to cure a possession is through an exorcisms and a Jewish dybbuk exorcisms is said to be a very long, emotional, and exhausting struggle done by a Rabbi.^⁴¹ The first important step in a dybbuk exorcism is to find out the identity and name of the possessing spirit, a theme common to many exorcism rituals around the world.^⁴² The next step the Rabbi would negotiate with the spirit, typically what the spirit wanted had something to do with its own spiritual redemption or it wants certain mourning practices to be done on its behalf because nobody did them for it when it died.^⁴³ The Rabbi would make arrangements with the spirit to meet its conditions if it would swear a public oath to leave its victim.^⁴⁴ The next and final step was tricky, the spirit would want to maintain its pride and declare some sort of victory in its leaving by hurting its victim through the exit wound that it would leave though. Therefore it was very important for the Rabbi to instruct the spirit to leave though the fingers or big toe, which were said to be the safest place for a spirit to leave the body.^⁴⁵ Yoran Bilu points out that in contrast to modern Western practices of healing, when a Rabbi heals somebody from possession he’s not only healing the person he’s also healing his community, the deviance shown by the possessed person is harnessed and used as a tool to reinforce social control and cultural unity.^⁴⁶

Besides sexual impurity, demon possession was also used to explain things like madness as well as many other kinds of sickness especially in the seventeenth through eighteenth centuries.^⁴⁷ In this time period Jewish magic and spell makers were very popular however the old theme of antagonism toward sorcerers and against practitioners of magic was ever present.^⁴⁸ This antagonism did not necessarily derive from a lack of belief in the effectiveness of the person that practiced the magic but instead arise from the ever present Biblical theme of not practicing witchcraft, divination, or otherwise knowing what is hidden.^⁴⁹

These Jewish magical practitioners were known as the ba’al shem which literally means masters of the name, they took this name because the ba’al shem were mainly concerned with knowing and manipulating divine and spiritual names for the sake of fulfilling some goal often a healing goal.^⁵⁰ The knowing of spiritual names and the power that knowledge give somebody control over has a long history in Judaism. One of the most commonly known and held beliefs is that the names of the angels Seynoy, Sansenoy, and Semangeof will ward off Lilith.^⁵¹ Another legend gives the secret names of Lilith herself, which were told by her to the prophet Elijah and are Lilith, Abiti, Abizu, Amrusu, Hakash, Ode, Ayil, Maturta, Avgu, Katah, Kali, Batub, and Paritasha.^⁵² Knowing the name of an angel or a demon was thought to be an extremely powerful magical tool, inscriptions of holy names and amulets have a documented history in Judaism that’s thousands of years old.

Demons, spirits, dybbuks, shades, and any other correlating figure have played a role that is central to Judaism. They’ve served as the personification of sexual impurity, are used to scare people into doing the right things. They’ve been catalyst for people to express subconscious repressed urges. Studying demons and possessions tells more about human nature and the state of Judaism at any one particular time than it does about the nature of demons themselves. Attitudes about women, purity, sexuality, and what’s best for the society are all alluded to when looking at literature about demons and possessions in Judaism. Perhaps the greatest insight to be gained is to look at how the individual cases of temptation and possession are used as a tool by the society to reinforce its own norms and also to reassert what it means to be a member of that society as well as what it means to not be a member of that society.

Bibliography

Bilu, Yoram. “The Taming of the Deviants and Beyond: An Analysis of Dybbuk Posession and Exorcism in Judaism.” In Spirit Possession in Judaism: Cases and Contexts from the Middle Ages to the Present, edited by Matt Goldish. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2003, 41-72.

Goldish, Matt. “Preface.” In Spirit Possession in Judaism: Cases and Contexts from the Middle Ages to the Present, edited by Matt Goldish. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2003, 11-19.

Mark, Zvi. “Dybukk and Devekut in the Shivhe ha-Besht: Toward a Phenomenology of Madness in Early Hasidim.” In Spirit Possession in Judaism: Cases and Contexts from the Middle Ages to the Present, edited by Matt Goldish. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2003, 257-304.

Schwartz, Howard. Tree of Souls: The Mythology of Judaism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Sommer, Eli. “Trance Poessession Disorder in Judaism: Sixteenth-Century Dybbuks in the Near East.” Journal of Trauma and Dissociation 5, no. 2 (2004), www.haworthpress.com/web/JTD: 131-146.

1 Matt Goldish, “Preface,” in Spirit Possession in Judaism: Cases and Contexts from the Middle Ages to the Present, ed. Matt Goldish (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2003), 12.

2 Matt Goldish, 12.

3 Matt Goldish, 12.

4 Matt Goldish, 12, and Howard Schwartz, “The Sabbath Bride,” in Tree of Souls: The Mythology of Judaism, (Oxford University Press, 2004), 309.

5 Matt Goldish, 13.

6 Yormal Bilu, “The Taming of the Deviants and Beyond: An Analysis of Dybbuk Posession and Exorcism in Judaism,” in Spirit Possession in Judaism: Cases and Contexts from the Middle Ages to the Present, ed. Matt Goldish (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2003), 41

7 Howard Schwartz, “Adam and Lilith,” in Tree of Souls: The Mythology of Judaism, (Oxford University Press, 2004), 216.

8 Howard Schwartz, Adam and Lilith, 216.

9 For many examples of these roles see the chapter “Myths of Hell” in Howard Schwartz’s, Tree of Souls: The Mythology of Judaism, (Oxford University Press, 2004), 211-243.

10 Howard Schwartz, “The Night Demoness,” in Tree of Souls: The Mythology of Judaism, (Oxford University Press, 2004), 223.

11 Howard Schwartz, “The Woman in the Forrest,” in Tree of Souls: The Mythology of Judaism, (Oxford University Press, 2004), 219.

12 Howard Schwartz, Woman in Forest, 219.

13 Howard Schwartz, Woman in Forest, 219.

14 Howard Schwartz, Woman in Forest, 219.

15 Howard Schwartz, “The Cellar,” in Howard Schwartz, “The Woman in the Forrest,” in Tree of Souls: The Mythology of Judaism, (Oxford University Press, 2004), 220.

16 Howard Schwartz, The Cellar, 220-221.

17 Howard Schwartz, Woman in the Forest, 219.

18 Howard Schwartz, Adam and Lilith, 216.

19 Goldish, 15.

20 Howard Schwartz, The Cellar, 221.

21 Howard Schwartz, “The Giants of Old,” in Howard Schwartz, “

22 Howard Schwartz, “Cain and Abel,” in Tree of Souls: The Mythology of Judaism, (Oxford University Press, 2004), 450-462.

23 Howard Schwartz, “The Two Liliths,” Tree of Souls: The Mythology of Judaism, (Oxford University Press, 2004), 222.

24 Howard Schwartz, “Lilith the Witch,” in Tree of Souls: The Mythology of Judaism, (Oxford University Press, 2004), 224.

25 Howard Schwartz, Lilith the Witch, 224.

26 Howard Schwartz, Lilith the Witch, 224.

27 Howard Schwartz, Lilith the Witch, 224.

28 Howard Schwartz, Lilith the Witch, 224.

29 Bilu, 42-43.

30 Bilu, 42, and Howard Schwartz, “The Creation of Souls,” in Tree of Souls: The Mythology of Judaism, (Oxford University Press, 2004), 164.

31 Bilu, 46.

32 Bilu, 46-48.

33 Bilu, 46.

34 Bilu, 46.

35 Bilu, 47-49.

36 Bilu, 49.

37 Bilu, 53.

38 Bilu, 53-55.

39 Bilu, 55.

40 Eli Sommer, “Trance Possession Disorder in Judaism: Sixteenth-Century Dybbuks in the Near East,” Journal of Trauma and Dissociation Vol 5 issue 2 (2004), www.haworthpress.com/web/JTD: 135.

41 Bilu, 56.

42 Bilu, 56.

43 Bilu, 58.

44 Bilu, 58-59.

45 Bilu, 59.

46 Bilu, 60.

47 Zvi Mark, “Dybukk and Devekut in the Shivhe ha-Besht: Toward a Phenomenology of Madness in Early Hasidim,” in Spirit Possession in Judaism: Cases and Contexts from the Middle Ages to the Present, ed. Matt Goldish (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2003), 257.

48 Mark, 257, 263-265.

49 Mark 257, 287.

50 Mark 257-258.

51 Howard Schwartz, A Spell to Banish Lilith, 218.

52 Howard Schwartz, “Lilith and Elijah,” in Tree of Souls: The Mythology of Judaism, (Oxford University Press, 2004), 224-225.

Depth Theology

2008-05-24T02:38:00.000-07:00

Abraham Heschel's Depth Theology and John C. Merkle

John C. Merkle rehashes Abraham Heschel’s theology and covers such things as becoming aware of the divine through the sublime, the inadequacy of human perception and senses, the non-physical nature of the divine. Merkle strays from Heschel theology by introducing a non-Heschelian idea of grace into his ideas and he also uses the example of love as an example of the sublime.

Human beings have an innate predisposition to want to know about things beyond themselves; we question what is our greater meaning (Merkle 366). You could not ask questions about the world if it didn't exist, that's obvious. Heschel argues that you could not ask questions about greater meaning if a greater meaning did not exist because, “to sense the sublime is to perceive the sublime, not merely to conceive of it” (Merkle 369). The argument is not particularly strong because it makes an appeal to an abstract quasi-sensory and/or emotional feeling. Heschel, I’d imagine, would say that I am in no position to critique his claims from a scholastic point of view. In his work God in Search of Man Heschel says that religious beliefs are some what like a living being and when one tries to take them apart philosophically you lose a lot because when you do so you remove the ideas of faith from the moments of faith and, according to Heschel, if you try to study one without the other you will fail (Heschel 8).

However because I do not have access to a pious man and I am required to do so I will dredge forward but instead of critiquing Merkle or Heschel I will try to put myself in dialog with them through their work and my writing. To me the most obvious rebuttal to the argument that supposedly perceiving the sublime means that a higher reality exist is the Kantian notion of thinking you have a 100 dollars doesn't mean you have 100 dollars. And a Heschelian rebuttal would be that it is not human nature to think you have 100 dollars, but the notion that there is something greater than ourselves is a universal precept found in all cultures, at all times, and in all places (Heschel 152). And, that even people of science and reason are trying to find a greater meaning or the purpose of being human (Heschel 153). The argument is that it is an unavoidable presupposition that's part of being human (Merkle 371). But why do we have this presupposition?

The answer is the sublime. What is the sublime exactly? The sublime, according to Heschel is a silent allusion of things to something greater than themselves (Merkle 369). Of importance here is the notion of "silent allusion". Silent denotes that it is not readily perceived, and is actually not sensory at all, which is why two people could look at the same thing but only one of them would be able to perceive the sublimity of it (Merkle 369). And allusion points out that this sublimity is not an ultimate reality unto itself but instead points to the ultimate reality (Merkle 369). That is to contrast this position with a pantheism where God could be said to be "in" the sublime or creation could be a "self-expression" of God because that would imply that the sublime things share in the ultimate reality. The appropriate quote here comes from Heschel’s work Man’s Quest for God, "The world speaks to God, but that speech is not speaking to Himself”.

Heschel says that every human surrenders to an ultimate reality because there is no purpose in living without an ultimate reality (Merkle 368). We do this in one of three ways according to Heschel and Merkle: we can accept God as the ultimate reality, we can give ourselves over to a non-sufficient ultimate reality, or we can just deny intellectually that there is an ultimate reality but even if we deny it that doesn't make us immune to the fact that there is an ultimate reality (Heschel 154,155).

One of the insufficient answers to the question of ultimate reality, Heschel classifies as being false idols (Heschel 152). According to Heschel most people have false idols in their life. One of the most popular false idols, according to Heschel, is to believe that science has all the answers. Heschel and Merkle attack this notion by attacking the premise that science is based on, observation. Heschel argues that observation is an insufficient tool to use to measure reality and to prove his point Heschel makes a distinction between being the "living encounter" of reality and of "insight" (Heschel 116).

Heschel argues that the "living encounter" of reality is immediate, preconceptional, and presymbolic" (Heschel 115). An insight that may have been a few decades ahead of his time because I've recently read a book by Donald Norman that argues that our brains start to react to things on a chemical level a very considerable time before we start to make rational thinking ideas about what we're perceiving (Donald Norman's Emotional Design).

The way we experience the world through living encounters is a flood of input. Of all the things bombarding our senses at any one moment we are only processing a very small amount of that stimuli.

Of the stimuli we do process we then use that information for the "insight" part of thinking. When we conceptualize and verbalize our experiences they diminish. You can't possibly explain to another human being every detail and aspect of an experience you had. Notice too that of that experience you had you only possesses some of the stimuli of it to begin with. So the whole processes of experiencing things, conceptualizing them, and then putting them into words is a process of considerable degradation. This is why science and reason are unsatisfactory answers for ultimate reality, according to Heschel.

Another issue of faith in Heschel's writing is that of being aware of the sublime as being an antecedent, or prerequisite, for faith. But before I delve into this I think it's important to make a point here about "grace". Heschel didn't believe in the traditional notion of Christian grace, in that he didn't believe that faith was something one could tap into at any time and that it came as a "free gift" from God. Faith does come from God but people that deserve it earn it and you have to work extremely hard, for a long time, to acquire a suitable amount of it (Heschel 154). And once you get faith you must work to keep it or you can lose it. However Heschel also states that everybody has a little bit of faith that of which they cannot get rid.

Recall earlier when we covered how you only sense a small percent of the stimuli perceived is analyzed by the brain? The fact that there is so much stimuli that you are unable to perceive is an example of the sublime according to Heschel (Heschel 156). The sublime is the mystery of what we cannot perceive. The sublime is what is hidden. It is recognizing that the sublime is beyond us and not understood and not easily understood is one of the first steps towards worship (Heschel 156).

Actually the very act of thinking there is something greater than one's self is, according to Heschel, an act of worship (Merkle 369). So by merely pondering about if there is or is not a larger reality that humans are a part of or if there is or is not a god is worshiping God, again according to Heschel.

Extending to it's logical extreme even people that devote themselves over to a life of science and actively use science to discount God are still worshiping God because their career as a scientist is a testimony to the fact that there is a larger reality to the universe and they're trying to figure it out. An objection somebody could raise to this argument is that it is non-falsifiable, however I doubt Heschel and Merkle would have cared in the slightest because recall that according to them you cannot extract the religious experience from the religious claims and claim to have a grasp or understanding of the religion.

One place where Merkle and Heschel differ is over two things. Firstly Merkle uses words like faith and grace in a way that isn’t consistent with Heschel’s philosophy. Merkle argues that we become aware the sublime by simultaneously recognizing that it comes from God. However Heschel makes the distinction that you can perceive the sublime even if you do not believe in God and that you start to worship before you believe. For Heschel worship is a two-part thing, the first part is visceral and happens without your control and the second part is conscious. The visceral worship, argues Heschel, is human nature and can’t be avoided (Heschel 156,157).

Heschel’s and Merkle’s arguments are designed for people to already believe, many of the points they make appeal to one’s emotions or intuition but they make many assumptions that they assert to be plainly true. The weakest claim is that there must be a transcendent meaning to reality because we sense the sublime, although Heschel spends a lot of time and effort explaining what the sublime is, nothing effable is said about it. We know that, according to Heschel, the sublime is perceived with, through, and beyond the senses but I don’t really think that tells us anything. I think I have an idea of what Heschel are Merkle are talking about however I too am at a loss to put it in effable words.

I don’t think Heschel or Merkle would cede the point that what they claim is sublimity is something else or even worse is something that can be totally explained by neuroscience because they are making a case for the transcendent reality that is God and that all of creation is an allusion to God but is not in-and-of-itself a part of God.

Works Cited

Heschel, Abraham J. God in Search of Man: a Philosophy of Judaism. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1955.

Merkle, John C. "The Sublime, the Human, and the Divine in the Depth-Theology of Abraham Joshua Heschel." The Journal of Religion 58 (1978): 365-379. JSTOR. JSTOR.Com. 31 Mar. 2008 <http://jstor.org/stable/1201471>.

Norman, Donald. Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things. Jackson, TN: Basic Books, 203.

The Value of Community and Ritual in Healing

2008-05-24T02:34:00.000-07:00

The Value of the Community and Ritual

In the “Healing Wisdom of Africa” Malidoma Somé argues that the agents that heal people in Africa, specifically the Dagara people in West Africa, are ritual and community. Community is important because according to Somé, “there is an understanding that human beings are collectively oriented” that is to say that the health, both physically and mentally, of the individual are directly related to the overall health of the community, and vise versa (Somé 22). Somé goes on to argue that many of the problems we face in the west are a longing for a sense of community.

It is important to understand that Somé’s notion of community is much broader than just the human beings you deal with on a day-to-day basis. There are a whole host of supernatural beings afoot and they are all a part of the community. These beings, as well as other supernatural invisible forces, are what people call upon when during rituals.

Rituals are missing from the west, however Somé says that doesn’t westerns are totally devoid of things that take the place of rituals. People still go through things like initiation, it’s just that we are more disorganized and chaotic about it.

This invisible world that exist alongside and beyond our world consist of ancestor spirits as well as an innumerable amount of other spirits. Such as the Siura, which is like a personal guardian spirit that everybody has. A Siura might help you make sure that you’re living up to your purpose and potential (33).

Everybody is born with a purpose and innate gifts (27). We need to live up to these talents or else we’ll become mentally or physically ill. The community plays a big role in making sure that we don’t get sick because they acknowledge our innate gifts. The simple act of acknowledging a problem if it exists goes a long way towards curing it, a theme that’s been common in a lot of our readings.

The language used to talk about people’s innate talents is to talk about “remembering” things instead of learning things (32). There is a ritual in place where the community talks to an unborn fetus and asks it what its purpose is (33). Whether or not this means the person has a real purpose or not is irrelevant but Somé talks about it as if it is true. The very fact this institution exist and the whole community gets behind it makes it true enough that it can have a profound efect on somebody’s life. Somé gives me the impression from the introduction to this book, that he was at least somewhat inspired by the prophecies about him that the community believed before he was born.

The idea that everybody has a purpose needs to be further understood in the contexts of the spirit-body connection. Somé says that the spirit and the body need each other to exist, at least for humans in a living form. The spirit and body are intensifications of the Spirit and as such need to be in harmony with the spirit world. That is why people are born with a purpose and it is also why not living up to that purpose can cause problems (66).

Since the world of the Dagara includes non-human and non-corporeal beings, illness caused by being misaligned with the community can be invisible and unseen, except for their symptoms (29). For this reason, problems that we wouldn’t usually think of as illnesses, the Dagara do think of as illnesses. If you are having trouble studying it may mean that you need to perform some kind of ritual to bring you back into alignment with the community (30).

While supernatural beings are apart of the community and encounters with them can heal you, such as Somé’s encounter with the green lady healing his feelings of alienation, but it isn’t fair to say that they are members of the community in the exact same way living people are. Spirits from the Other World have rules that they have to follow so that they do not interupt the daily lives of people too much and it is also said that seeing their true form would be traumatic so they usually don’t show us that (Somé 55-56).

Somé blurs the line between what is nature and what is community, but he says that it is nature that is the foundation for healing (38). What rituals need to be done depend largely on what the natural conditions you are at are like (38).

Illness is always understood in terms of breakage of a relationship (73). It is for this reason that when an African herbist is selecting herbs it isn’t just a simple procedure, the herbist has pick out the right herbs with the right energy that’s appropriate for that person.

Being aware of these energy flows is important for a good ritual, and rituals are important because they nourish our souls and spirits. Somé argues that some emotionally pains cannot be healing by any other method except through ritual (160). Because correct rituals are so important it is necessary to have a good understanding of Dagara cosmology in order to understand those rituals.

The Dagara cosmos is made out of five elements; water, fire, earth, mineral stone, and vegetative nature (165-166). Each of these elements is connected with spirits and is also connected to an innate quality that a person has. Somebody people are more into fire others into earth etc. Because of that there are not blanket rituals that are good for everybody, a shaman must get in touch with the essence of the person and then from that decide how to continue with the cure.

Just to put Somé into the context of some of the ideas we’ve talked about in class this semester, Somé and Sudhir Kakar seem as though they would agree on the value of recognizing supernatural forces as a tool to heal people. It seems to me though that Somé is more Jungian than Somé because Somé always takes the position that the supernatural reality they are tapping into is real, while Kakar may be obliged to say that the supernatural forces experienced are externalizations of something from inside the persons own mind, and he would point to the closed system of Freud. From a Lévi-Straussian point of view, the method here is totally irrelevant and all that matters is what the community believes; Somé’s explanation of how people are suppose to just give themselves over to and trust the natural and invisible forces around them also stresses the idea that the community’s collective belief is the most important thing even more so than the faith of the individual practitioner. And from a Victor Turnerian point of view, he may look at examples like the Dagara grieving as an example of communitas. The notion that, either the person or the community need to readjust in order for healing to take place, has echoes of Jerome Frank’s theories. And the last I’ll mention Mary Douglass may be glad to point out the use of purity to strength community bonds and define what it means to be Dagara, and by implication what it means to not be Dagara.

For Lévi-Strauss all elements of a society can be understood in terms of a duality. What we experience and the conclusions we draw from it is highly subjective to our experiences, but there is a constant give and take between a society and its members. However because culture shapes how we think there is no such thing as an uncontexted idea. Cultures through out the world are constantly coming up with and changing old ideas about religion, healing, science, etc.

What many in the West consider to be the “right way” to do things is simply a case of ethnocentrism. When looking at things like cultural institutions there are no right or wrong ones, only more and less adapted ones. What works here might not work somewhere else and vice versa.

According to Lévi-Strauss there are three things to consider when looking at the effectiveness of a healing practice; the belief of the sorcerer, the belief of the patient, and the belief of the group as a whole (Lévi-Strauss 168).

Lévi-Strauss tells of a boy that’s accused of being a sorcerer and giving a girl a seizure (Lévi-Strauss 172). Through the course of the trial against him, he begins to accept and enjoy his role as a sorcerer, and because the group views him a sorcerer he may as well literally be one (Lévi-Strauss 174-175). Because the group is telling him he’s a sorcerer he ultimately gives into that reality and for all intents and purposes it might as well be true.

When looking at Shamans, Lévi-Strauss says that you need to look at the experiences of the Shaman, the patient who may or may not get cured, and the feelings of the over all community (179). Each of these things is further qualified by the experiences of the individual versus the experiences of the group. In the case of Quasalid, it is really irrelevant that he does not believe in his own teaching method, or that the method in and of itself is nothing special. What matters is how the community feels about his method. The community, drawing from its collective experiences views Quasalid as a great spiritual teacher and as such the power of the community literally makes him into a powerful teacher.

For Lévi-Strauss argues that healing is a function of abreaction but unlike in our traditional scientific point of view, the abreaction doesn’t only need to take place between the patient and the Shaman, it needs to take place between all three agents; the shaman, the patient, and the community (183). Healing takes place when the patient reorganized his worldview into one that is more appropriate, or when the larger community reorganizes its worldview (184).

This system puts very little emphasis on the method used and a lot of method on how the individual and society view each other. Lévi-Struass’ ideas fit in well with Somé’s because they both argue that the community has a very important role to play in healing.

When looking at the case of a healing ritual of the Cuna Indians, Lévi-Strauss argues that the patients world is full of spirits and supernatural beings, she believes in them and they are incorporated into her world (197). The pains she feels however are not incorporated into her world (197). One of the things the Shaman does is to personify her pains in the form of an animal spirit (195). Now that the pains are presented to her in a recognizable form that she and her society are used to deal with, her and the Shaman can now work on curing her.

It does not matter if the myths are real, or even if they are coherent, what matters is whether she and her society believe them or not. Somé talks about his experiences with the supernatural as though they were real, and I have no intention on passing judgment on his claims, but if you look at them from a Lévi-Struassian point of view it doesn’t really matter if the myths are right or not. All that matters is if the community and/or patient believe in them. To a certain extent it doesn’t even matter if the Shaman or patient believe in cure, as long as the larger society does. The patient will eventually get caught up in the communal healing experience and be cured. The Shaman’s ability to make effable deep psychological feelings in his or her patients puts the Shaman somewhere between our modern psychologist and doctor (198).

Both Somé and Lévi-Strauss stress the importance of the community, and both off them stress the value of ritual. Lévi-Strauss says that it is paradoxical that blaming an illness or something supernatural may have better effects than blaming it on germs because germs are real. Somé offers that same paradox to us as a gift and invites us to get in touch with our spiritual side again and develop rituals.

Works Cited

Lévi-Strauss, Claude. Structural Anthropology. Trans. Claire Jacobson and Brooke B. Schoeph. New York: Basic Books, 1963. 04 Apr. 2008 <http://books.google.com/books?id=RmeUknlauJAC>.

Somé, Malidoma P. The Healing Wisdom of Africa: Finding Life Purpose Through Nature, Ritual, and Community. New York: Penguin Putnam Inc, 1998.

A dialog in a dream

2008-05-24T02:33:00.000-07:00

A dialog in a dream about dreams

Two eerily similar individuals sit across from each other in a nondescript room, the entire scenario is dreamlike and it is hard to say if it even happened at all. At one end of the room is the vague figure of a person that goes by the name Ziggy. Ziggy is a somewhat intelligent college student that has an overview understanding of Freudian psychoanalysis and has attended all of Dr. Capper’s class about Freudian theory. At the opposite extreme of the room is Chris, a similarly intelligent person that has a similar level of knowledge as Ziggy except focused on Christianity and dream healing.

Ziggy: The mind is like an iceberg in that most of it is hidden and cannot be easily seen or studied. The part of the mind that cannot be easily seen is the unconscious (Freud 14). Although unseen and not easily accessible it does exist and is worthy of study and also the study of the unconscious is along the lines of a natural science and the does follow certain cause and effect rules that ultimately boil down to something physical (Freud 14,15, 29).

Chris: There is the potential for something extra physical that goes on when one sleeps. Maimonides says that some dreams can serve as a type of prophecy (Kelsey 139, 151). For early Christians dreams played a large role in their faith as is evident by the fact that both the Pauline letters have accounts of Paul’s dream vision of Jesus as well as text “Sheperd of Hermas” has an account of a dream vision from its author (Kelsey 100, 90). Not all dreams are necessarily important however; some are just junk dreams (Kelsey 21).

It is however obvious that some dreams do not come from the self and come from God in some way or another. Joel 2:28 says, "I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions (NIV).” As it is also clear from the story of Joseph that the use of puns and hidden meanings in dreams is also important.

Ziggy: What a perfect lead in to wish fulfillment and the interpretation of dream symbolism. But first let us discuss why we are here: the healing power of dreams. Everything that we encounter we remember on an unconscious level. The mind is made up of three parts the id, the ego, and the superego. The id is the oldest most fundamental part of the mind (Freud 15, 19). The id is composed of two basic instincts, the Eros instinct and the Death instinct (Freud 18). While contradictory these two instincts exist side by side and influences everything that we do. The other superego is responsible for enforcing all the learned norms society and our parents have placed upon us and the ego is responsible for mediating between the id, the superego, and what is feasible (Freud 14-16).

As you might imagine often the ego is not able to totally satisfy the id and the superego all the time. When this happens often things become repressed (Freud 36). The repressed can cause mental problems in an individual because although it is our nature to repress things repression causes one to lose touch with the reality of what their mind is actually think of. It is important, in Freudian theory, to not have any unknown repressions.

Things that are repressed and put into the unconscious want to be expressed, besides mental problems another medium for expression is dreams. When one dreams the unconscious mind takes control and the id mostly reigns supreme supplanting the normal roles and boundaries in a dream although it is possible for the ego to take control during a dream as well. The superego does not give up its attempt to impose order and norms on our mind willy-nilly however and impose some limited structure on dreams; the main avenue for this is the dream-distortion (Freud 39).

Dream-distortion causes images in our dreams to not be what they seem to be (Freud 39,40). The examples are endless: a cigar may be a penis; a window or the back of the nose may represent female genitalia and so on. However it is important to note that these associations are not hard and fast. As noted earlier when talking about the Eros and Death instincts, the id is capable of holding contradictory beliefs simultaneously and the id is constantly making wild associations between unrelated objects, not unlike the Aristotelian imagination (Freud 56). So it is difficult to interpret dreams without an in depth knowledge about the dreamer in question.

Back to wish fulfillment, despite being censored by the superego dreams are mostly about the id satisfying some desire by way of a dream (Freud 39). This relates to healing because if one is unaware of this process taking place one is ruled by it, to be healthy and free one must recognize the dynamics of their own mind and this acknowledgement and self knowledge will lead to good mental health (Freud 61-62).

Chris: In addition to the Jewish influences on Christian dream theories it is also important to note that Christianity owes a lot of its dream traditions to the ancient Greeks. Dreams could be part of shamanistic healing traditions involving soul travel; dreams in Platonic thought are accepted as important and also as a way for the gods to communicate with humans (Kelsey 62, 66). However Ziggy there were Greeks that agreed with you that dreams are physical entities that arises from the self and follow certain rules, Aristotle being one as you’ve mentioned. While Aristotelian thought has been unutterably important in the Occidental Christian tradition, western Christians have lost touch with their very rich pre-Aquinas dream tradition (Kelsey 152, 191).

These non-Jewish Greek dream traditions had a strong following in early Christianity. Macrobius an early 5^th century Christian theologian borrowed heavenly from the Pagan Dream manual of Artemidorus (Kelsey 139). A contemporary of Macrobius, Jerome was less keen on dreams and forbid them by translating Deuteronomy 18:10 as forbidding dream observation in the Vulgate (Kelsey 139).

About wish fulfillment why would somebody like Saul or Constantine dream about Jesus and Christians symbols before they ever converted?

Ziggy: For the sake or argument, assuming that these accounts are true, and using your own example of Artemidorus it would depend heavily on the context of that dream and who had that dream. As mentioned before often symbols in dreams are not self evident and may mean something other than what you assume they’d mean and also following in the Artemidorian thought and also early Hebrew Biblical thought dreams can often have a meaning that is the opposite of what their face value reading is. So my answer is that it is impossible for us to know, with certainty what these dreams may of actually meant. But from a Freudian point of view all religious beliefs are neurotic and hinder mental health.

Chris: Ah then how would you explain examples of people like Handsome Lake whom overcame alcoholism after a dream that he claimed was sent from God? Or how do you explain cases where people with little or no faith are dragged to Lourdes and get cured?

Ziggy: Well the answer absolutely cannot be that there is any merit in religion or ritual at all. Obviously they are displacing one neurosis with another. On some level or another some id satisfaction is going on, perhaps though some sort of cathexis where the id recognizes the dream or the Lourdes water as fulfilling some sort of need it has, but this is naturally wrong and will cause another neurosis and not take away the original neurosis in question. So it is bad business all around.

How do you go about curing yourself in the Christian dream tradition?

Chris: In both Aristotelian and Hippocratic circles dreams warn somebody of subtle changes in their body and alert the dreamer by way of an allegorical dream such as dreaming you’re on fire when your body detects a fever coming on (Kelsey 73). There are examples of people becoming healed after a dream vision such as Aquilinus’ healing after a dream (Kelsey 119). Ambrose, the late 4^th Milan Bishop, was told to repent in a dream and also was given the emotional comfort of seeing his brother after his death (Kelsey 132). You argued Ziggy that becoming aware of the inner workings of your mind and acknowledging these things to yourself can lead to good mental health. Say you what can be said about the value of repentance in the Freudian theory.

Ziggy: In psychoanalysis it is important to have a skilled therapist to counter and lead the way of psychoanalytic sessions. If one repents to God all sorts of things can go wrong! Transferences, when a patient projects qualities of their parental figures onto the therapist, must take place, be used masterfully, and be channeled properly in order for a patient to fully work though issues they have with their parents. The language is already in place for this kind of interaction to take place between a repenter and a priest and or God. In a protestant context, when one talks to God and uses God as an invisible therapist this natural transference can lead to issues plus there isn’t an actual trained psychoanalyst there to steer the session. If you transfer anger onto your therapist the therapist could help you work through that anger, put it into perspective, and ultimately dispel it. If one transfers upon God and gets mad at God, there is nobody present help this person work through this feeling and he or she is likely to develop a new neurosis because his or her superego will be telling him or her that it is unacceptable to feel mad at God.

Chris: You said previously that humans, by nature, are going to have neurosis. In a Christian context this idea fits in well with the idea that humans have an evil nature because of the Fall. It is only by living the teachings found in the New Testament that one can, through divine grace, over come this nature. On this journey of self-discovery dreams can be a valuable tool to gauge one’s spiritual health and even get messages from God.

Ziggy: Human beings are neurotic but there is no place for God in the path to personal enlightenment, as I have clearly pointed out any such belief is an example of neurosis in and of itself.

Chris: Thank you, before we go I’d like to reiterate that the Judeo-Christian tradition has a long history of dream theories. Christians today are rediscovering Christian takes on dream interpretation and I’m sure we owe that in large to Sigmund Freud and others that have paved the way for the importance of the self, self identity, and self reflection. In a world where it was not enough to be content with the idea that “I think therefore I am”, Freud makes us ponder the idea that: I know how I think there for I am less neurotic.

Works Cited

Freud, Sigmund. An Outline of Psycho-Analysis. Trans. James Stachey. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1949.

Kelsey, Morton T. God, Dreams, and Revelation: a Christian Interpretation of Dreams. Revised and Expanded ed. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1991.

Vision and Language in Dreams

2008-05-24T02:28:00.000-07:00

Vision and Language in Dreams

Dreams consist of both visual images and languages and language. One tool used by Near Eastern Writers, ancient Greek, writers, medieval Muslims writers, and Freud was to examine what the possible meanings of dream images were, but another tool known to all of these groups would of been to specifically look for puns and metaphors in the dreams. Another interpretation used was that some dreams meant their exact opposite, in fact Freud goes so far as to cite examples of how ancient languages often used the same root word for two opposite things. And lastly another tool would have been to try to focus on the visual images of a dream, an approached used by Artemidorus and favored by Aristotle.

The idea that dreams contain puns wherein the words used for images one sees in a dream can be studied and inferences can be made about what those puns mean is a practice found in all of the aforementioned oneirocritic traditions. In the ancient Near East there was an idea that dreams were a kind of secret legal contract between humans and the gods, but because of their secret nature one needed to visit a powerful dream interpreter to find out what one’s dream meant because they were not always self evident. For example there’s a point in the Epic Gilgamesh when Ea warns Utnapishtim to “spurn property” which we later learn sounds very similar to and actually means “construct boat”. Another example from the same story is when Ea tells Utnapishtim that she dreamt that the people would receive an abundance of wheat cakes, which Utnapishtim takes as meaning that there will be a heavy dark storm, notice how in this last example the interpretation of the dream not only plays off of puns in the dream but the ultimate meaning is actually counterintuitive and opposite of what it originally said. The notion of the polarity of dreams and their meanings is another important theme of dream interpretation related to visual input verses the language used in dreams. A link between ancient Near East and Freudian interpretation of dreams can be made because it was said that the very act of interpreting a dream and “solving” its word mysteries could dissolve its harmful consequence, a notion that Freud would later support fully albeit for different reasons.

Puns of this kind as well as the polarity of dreams and their meanings can be both in all levels of dream literature of the Jews. The two most prominent figures related to dreams in the Hebrew Bible are Joseph and Daniel both of whom became foreigners in other lands. The use of word play and puns is quite evident when one looks at Joseph’s interpretations of the cupbearer, the baker, and the Pharaoh’s dreams. In the cupbearer’s dream grapes can be equated to people, budded can also mean prosperity so Joseph interprets his dream as meaning that soon he will be exonerated. However the baker’s dream is more grim because the word used for food in the basket on his head is a word that’s normally used to talk about a carcass left for birds to eat, and the mention of white bread is equated to Pharaoh’s heated anger, so the dreams ultimate means that the baker will receive a harsh punishment. Joseph uses similar means to interpret Pharaoh’s dream, reckoning abundance to seven years.

Another issue that would of been important to ancient Near Eastern people, Biblical era Hebrews, and Freud alike would of been the issue of reoccurring dreams. For the Near Eastern and Biblical people the repeat of a dream obviously meant that it was of some significance because it was being sent to the person for another go at interpretation. For Freud it would of meant that the dream represented something unresolved in the unconscious and one needed to find the meaning in it.

Ancient Greeks also had many similar ideas on oneirocritic traditions. An example of somebody with similar ideas on dream interpretation is Artemidorus. Artemidorus had two practices related to the visualization of dreams that were not as popular in Near Eastern culture but has Freudian echoes. Artemidorus made a case for dream images as being symbolic and similar to something else, for example he likens a crucifix to a sailing mast when interpreting a sailor’s dream. Notice too that that Artemidorus takes into consideration details about the person interpreting a dream, ancient Near Easterners would of done this too but mainly in the context of whether that person was pious and ritually clean enough to receive dreams, not so much relating their particular life circumstances, such as being a sailor, as being a critical part of the person’s dream interpretation. This notion that different people’s dreams can mean different things gave Artemidorus much more leeway when interpreting dreams images and puns.

Another ancient Greek interested in dreams was Aristotle, although Aristotle did not necessarily believe that one could gain any daemonic knowledge from dreams, he believed they were value to interpret because they could put one in touch with their imagination and give one introspective knowledge about one’s self. For Aristotle the important thing in dreams would have been apparitions and the conversations one has with them. Because the imagination is the part of one’s mind that can make radical associations and isn’t limited by things like reason and memory it can the source of some unique knowledge. Because the nature of imagination the notion that dream images are representative of something else similar would not of been lost on Aristotle.

Aristotle’s imagination is somewhat similar to Freud’s unconscious because it makes unusual associations, isn’t hampered by reason, and is the dominant force at work in one’s dreams. There too is a need for an interpreter in the Aristotelian system of dreams and a dream interpreter is said to be in touch with and have great understanding of the imagination. The interpreter would of looked at things such as the images and conversations in the dreams and then try to figure out what other things those images are related to. As a sort of proof for his methods Aristotle cited the occurrence of how in dreams you will see a figure in a distance and it will look one way, perhaps like a horse, and when you get closer to it will look another way, perhaps like a man. So the idea goes that your imagination made these kinds of associations but it isn’t until you’re asleep that your imagination, working off of the residue of your senses, plays with these associations.

Medieval Muslims would of been aware of all of these traditions and here are elements of each in the Islamic dream interpretation tradition. There is some conflict in the Islamic world about whether dreams had any value at all. John C. Lamoreaux argues that even from the early stages of Islam dreams played a paramount and central role in orthodoxy. Puns were a popular form of interpretation in the early Islamic world, and puns were also popular in Islamic poetry. Images were important in Muslims dreams, especially the image of the prophet, because it was said that Satan could not take the form of Muhammad and any dream that Muhammad appeared in was a true dream. Dream visions as being representative of something else by way of the Artemidorian system would of been known to early Muslims also by way of many popular dream manuals and the notion that the individual circumstances of the person having a dream were of supreme importance would of been known to Muslims as well.

Another important issue, present in all the traditions talked about so far with the exception possibly of Freud, is the idea of a junk dream. Not every single dream had profound meaning. Also it said that a dream from an impious or ungifted person probably did not hold much weight. The notable exception to this idea is of course Freud, who held that all images in dreams are important and represent some facet of the unconscious.

Dreams played a critical role in all of these traditions and continue to do so until this day. One can speculate endlessly about why dreams meant so much in these traditions, one possible answer is that the attempt to try to understand dreams is an attempt to try to subdue them there by conquering them. It is an attempt to try to apply things from the waking world, like reason, cause and effect, unto our dreams that do not apparently seem to follow these kinds of rules.

Legal Concept of Marriage in Islam

2008-05-24T02:26:00.000-07:00

The Legal Concept of Marriage and How It Has Affected Women in Islam

Marriage in terms of Islamic law is an oath. Oaths are extremely important in Islamic law and in Islamic tradition in general. Divorce serves as a way to nullify or satisfy this oath and terminate the marriage. Because marriage is an oath and oaths are so important to Islamic culture there are strict rules about how to get out of one. Also built into the system are mandatory waiting times called iddiah which help to prevent divorces of passion and also help to protect the inheritance rights of unborn babies.

The minor divorce, or ila' is an oath a man takes to not have sex with his wife for four months. An ila' is implied but not mentioned in Surah II verse 226. This practice of minor divorce may be in reference to some pre-Islamic tradition that allowed men to easily partially divorce their wives so that their wives could not remarry but they did not enjoy full status in their own house hold. Also according to Hanbal there are instances where these types of oaths are still acceptable under Islamic law. However Hanbal argues that if a man vows to not have sex with a woman while in their house, that does not count as an 'ila because they could have sex in some other location.

The 'ila seems to be slanted against the female. It services as a tool men can use against their wives to scare them into being more obedient. A husband may use this as a threat against his wife. This may make a woman live in constant fear that she is not performing well enough and may cause psychological stress on her. Hanbal says that after the 'ila is complete the man must either have sex with his wife or divorce her. If the man was using this as a psychological tool against his wife he may decide to singly divorce her, and then doubly, and then only take her back at the last moment. And then start the whole process over again. This is an extreme example of what could happen.

Other than the minor divorce there are two types of divorce. One initiated by the man and one initiated by the woman. Divorces initiated by the man are done as follows: the man must say aloud that he divorces the woman three times. After he does so three times a waiting period begins. The waiting period either last three menstrual cycles of the woman or three lunar months if the woman does not menstruate. This is explained in Surah II verse 229.

Men initiated divorces have several implications on the status of Muslim women. For one thing they get to keep their dowry. So this gives the woman some money to support herself. The woman may live off of this dowry until she finds another husband or some other way to support herself. Also in Islam a divorced woman does not get thrown to the bottom of the society. Ibn Hanbal and Maulana Ashraf 'Ali Thanawi both speak about how it is lawful and acceptable for divorced women to remarry. Thanawi actually goes on a great deal about this issue because he was trying to combat what he considered to be unislamic traditions. All of the prophet Muhammad's wives, except Aishah, had previous husbands. If the prophet did it, then it must be good, so the argument goes.

Because the man must say that he divorces the woman three times that also protects people from getting divorced hastily because of passion. The waiting period also gives the couple time to reconcile their differences before the divorce goes into effect, it is said that if a man and a woman reconcile before the waiting period is up then there is no shame or punish to be brought upon them. The waiting period also gives time for the woman to figure out of if she is pregnant or not. This allows for her to assure the status and inheritance of her children by her husband. It should be noted that the couple can not get back together if the man declares the divorce three times. There are varying opinions on what constitutes as a triple divorce, such if a man says that he divorces a woman triply should it count as a single divorce or a triple divorce. Hanbal argues that it should count as a triple divorce if the man's intentions were for it to count as a triple divorce, and it should count as a single divorce if the man intended for it to count as a single divorce.

The 'iddah also has several other implifications for women. It prevents a man from marrying one of his former wives sisters until after his former wife's 'iddah is over. This is because until the 'iddah is over they are still considered family and his former wife's sister is forbidden to him. Also if a man has four wives and he divorces one of them, he must wait for her 'iddah to be done with before he takes another wife. This is because he may reconcile with his her or she may be pregnant and then he'd have five wives, which is forbidden. The 'iddah also gives all parties involved in a divorce the chance to calm down and reflect on why they are getting divorced. It is considered best for the couple to get reconcile than it is for them to divorce.

If however a couple does not reconcile in time and their divorce becomes final. The woman must remarry, get another divorce, wait another 'iddah before returning to her husband. The implications of this are that there may be times when a woman will engage in a marriage of convenience to somebody for only one day and then divorce him to start her 'iddah.

The woman initiated divorce is implied in Surah II verse 229. This idea has several implications on the status of women. There are disagreements in Islamic law over a women initiated divorces. If the couple reconciles, should the woman get her dowry back? If they do decide to get back together but the woman does not get her dowry and then the man decides to divorce her, how is the woman suppose to support herself if she does not have any family?

Women initiated divorces do allow women to leave abusive relationships, or even one that she simply does not like. There are no stipulations on why one performs divorce. This has several implications for women. They never know if there husband will decide to divorce them. And if their husbands do decide to divorce them there is nothing they can do about it if there husband is stubborn. But as mentioned before, on the positive side they do get to keep their dowry, unless they decide to give it as a free gift to their husband. This also gives women an elevated amount of freedom in a marriage because they are free to threaten to leave or actually leave their husbands for any reason. This can be a powerful factor in keeping marriages fair and balanced, provided the female has somewhere to go and some way of supporting herself if she decides to ransom herself.

Another type of Islamic divorce that Shiite Muslims have that Sunnis do not is the mut'a marriage. That is a temporary marriage done for pleasure. In this case the dowry and the marriage are akin to prostitution and prostitution fees. Shiite Muslims justify these types of marriages by citing Surah 4 verse 24.

Islamic divorce laws have for the most part been an uplifting factor in the lives of married women, because of the built in safe guards and that women get their dowry back if their husband decides to divorce them. The triple nature of divorce and mandatory waiting period until a divorce is official prevents people from getting divorced too quickly.

Summer 2008

2008-05-23T06:01:00.000-07:00

I need a job desperately, which is why I'll be sucking up (again) to Chuck E Cheese because I know that if they hired me I could start right away. If they give me the job again I'd be so grateful to be working and it would be so much fun.

This summer I'll be taking my third stab at the History and Methods class at USM. This time I know I'll pass, this time I just know it. I've got some really great and controversial sources lined up and I think I'll do great. I'm also taking a class entitled Colonial South, which shouldn't be too far beyond my abilities.

It's getting cold now.

2007-10-25T13:13:00.000-07:00

Well for starters I'm working less hours now. I couldn't handle the crunch of midterms so I cut back from working five days a week to only working two. I think I'll do ok with money. I'll be getting a raise in January but I'm not sure how much. I'm getting paid way less than I ever have for years (6.25 an hour) but the benefits are that the job is insanely easy and there isn't any real pressure. I think I'll work 3 days a week next semester.

My online English class isn't going so great. I never do any of the reading but I've been doing fine on all the quizzes, and I'm fairly certain I'm going to make another A on the paper that's coming up. I don't understand why people complain about World Literature, it's a cake class. I haven't been doing all of my reading for my Islam and Women class, and I really need to. However at the moment I have a really important research paper I need to focus on.

I'm retaking a research method's class that I failed this summer. I'm writing a 10 page paper on Jews in the Civil Rights but I'm focusing on the life of Charles Mantinband, a rabbi that once taught at Hattiesburg Mississippi. I've got all kind of ideas in my head on how I want to organize and argue my thesis but I haven't actually put much pen to paper yet.

I can't keep letting my research paper in one class be an excuse for me not doing my reading in another though. This weekend Drew's going to the coast because his father is just coming back from a 4 month business trip to Japan. So maybe I'll catch up with my Islam reading and make some tangible headway on my research paper.

Eventually I need to start (!) my term papers for my Islam and Women class and my Tibetan Religions class. I haven't put a terrible amount of thought into it because I'm pretty good with research papers and I always make good marks. The reason I'm stressing out so much over that Jew paper is because it's a methods class and I've got to really go the extra mile to make a decent grade. And I'm being graded for things like method and I've got to provide copies of everything I cite and argue in a separate assignment how I used all my sources correctly and efficiently. blah blah. I'm sure I'll do fine, but all the extra details are making me flip out.

ok

2007-08-31T16:30:00.001-07:00

http://img.perezhilton.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/moreremix1.mp3

My impression of my geography class

2007-08-22T08:09:00.001-07:00

It'll be an easy A, that should be relatively fun.

No longer horny

2007-08-22T06:23:00.001-07:00

I can't believe this. Between the time I went into the bookstore, bought my books, and sat outside the bookstore getting situated; somebody stole my silly bicycle horn. It was one of those big silly kind with the twist in it. And somebody just took it off my bike. What the fuck? I bet it was one of those snot nosed freshmen. It always takes a while for the rift-wraft to be seared off by the fires of a collegiate career.

USM Fall 2007

2007-08-22T06:08:00.001-07:00

Here I am sitting in the Thad Chocran center in front of the schools Barnes and Noble. I've arrived early to get some books and to just soak up the atmosphere. I rode my bike here and there are too many slow people walking around. Get out of my way!! *honk*!

I'm not looking forward to my 101 class in the international building room 101. I thought my days of seminar sized classes was behind me, but alas I've got to take this last one. I much prefer the smaller upper level classes that are actually relevant to my major. Since I have my glasses now maybe I'll be able to just fade into the background, because I won't have to sit in the front row to see things.

I'm here way too early, I've got time to kill.

Some like it hot; some like it cold.

2007-06-21T13:25:00.000-07:00

Iced coffee verses hot coffee? Or what about frapuccinos? I was just sitting in my university's Starbucks thinking of the advantages and disadvantages of each one. Ice blended coffee drinks are very popular now, I first noticed it about 4 years ago and through casual observation I've noticed they're very popular at my university. A cold icy drink does have its advantages when you live in south Mississippi. But you know what I'm seeing a lot less of these days? Snowcones. All the good snowcone places are small mom and pop joints on the side of the road or by the beach, but I've been seeing a lot less of them lately. In fact I specifically remember the very last time I had a snowcone; it was June 2004. I was on a kick to make the most of my last summer before college so I was systematically taking all of my nieces and nephews to the snowcone shop on Deadeaux road, the little brown building with the two snowcones overlapping each other painted on it, with a shaded area for sitting. Unfortunately they didn't reopen after Hurricane Katrina. To be fair I've noticed a handful of snowcone stands but I have to admit that I'm partial to three snowcone stands, two of which are on Deadeaux road and one is by the beach. They've all been in business since I was a kid, but none of them made it through Katrina. This blog wasn't suppose to be about Katrina, it's suppose to be about coffee.

I learned today in my French class that a common French breakfast is buttered toast (baguettes) and that the French will dip the buttered toast into the cafe au lait. As I sat there listening to Madame Rowland describe this, I almost immediately went into a reminiscent daze. My mother, who is from New Orleans, eats her toast like that! I had memories of when I was a babe and I would sit on my mother's lap and we would both help ourselves to buttered toast dipped in coffee. I haven't had that combination for years, so after my French class I went to Starbucks and got a cafe au lait and a buttered croissant and tried to recreate the experience as best I could. Mind you, that a buttered croissant isn't exactly buttered bunny bread but I made do. The taste of the coffee soaked bread transported me back to Mock street, back to our old trailer with the holes in the floor, with sheets for doors, and the commode that had to be flushed by slowing pouring a five gallon bucket of water in it. I was there and it was wonderful.

You can think what you want of my mother, and I do, but it's is kind of cool that's she's a creole Jew from the big easy with street smarts and a mishmash French/Spanish/Ashkenazi customs, tricks, and secrets in her bag.

Blog from My DS

2007-06-15T18:30:00.000-07:00

Here is a blog from my Ds. I am doing fine.

Where behavioral psychology and math meet

2007-05-02T14:53:00.000-07:00

Fitt's Law:

MT = a + b log2(2A/W)

where

* MT = movement time
* a,b = regression coefficients
* A = distance of movement from start to target center
* W = width of the target

I don't know how I feel about equating human behavior to mathematical formulas but it seems to work and is the idea behind an exciting new desktop environment called Mezzo, which you can get and install on your current linux distro or you can try out it's native distro: SymphonyOS.

Can't... go... on... reading... and... writing.... ...

2007-04-29T05:36:00.000-07:00

This feeling, the one I'm feeling right now, is one of my least favorite feeling I can think of. When I read, write, and think into the night it's hard for me to go to sleep. So I'll stay up exceptional late working. And then there comes a point where I can't work any more but I also can't go to sleep because I'm so "wound up" from studying. This is the phase I'm in right now. I'm no where near done but if I turned in what I have now I'm sure I'd make a B. I'll probably wind up making a B even after I carefully and lovingly craft my paper in my own image. That A threshold is very hard to cross. Thank Dr. Capper for the extra credit assignments.

It's 7:40 am right now, I know if I don't sleep I won't be able to work any more, but if I sleep too long I won't have time to do everything I want to do. Not to mention I'm really tired but I can't fall asleep (I've been trying since 6:30).

I should of been reading some more articles during that time, but I think that would of made me vomit.

Ha ha, I'm making this sound so hard, but it doesn't have to be. I could of started doing this term paper a long time ago. I could of been finished with it months ago. Why didn't I do that? Because I'm irresponsible, that's why.

Ocean Webserver

2007-04-28T01:37:00.000-07:00

iTech recently announced plans to decommission the Ocean Web server, the hosting server for faculty and student personal Web pages.

Since we made that announcement, the campus community has clearly indicated that Ocean is vital to academic and research activities at the university.

In keeping with our mission to support Southern Miss academic and research activities, we are now working to determine faculty and student Web hosting needs in an effort to find an alternative solution which will allow us to continue providing this service. If you wish to ask questions or to provide input about the need for personal Web space for academic or research purposes, please forward written comments to ITPlanner@usm.edu.

Hoo-zaa! I thought it was stupid when I first heard they were getting rid of it. But if they ultimantly replace it with a newer better server that'd be great.

If I can dream it

2007-04-26T12:58:00.000-07:00

Magnolia trees

2007-04-25T08:19:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I noticed the magnolia trees were begining to bloom and it made me think of the gigantic magnolia tree I used to have in my yard when I was a kid. It was 20 feet tall if it was an inch, truely much larger than the kind you usually see. I would climb up it and be able to see all the way down the road. It wasn't my favorite tree for climbing though, I had a popcorn tree which forked about 4 feet up and another 4 feet it had a sturdy branch perfect for perching. I would sit up there, just able to see over the shed, and imagine myself flying. Or whatever it is children do.

Video Blog: Online Learning

2007-04-23T04:39:00.001-07:00

My very first video blog. I wonder if I get credit for this as a blog?

Video Blogs

2007-04-23T02:17:00.001-07:00

I'd really like to do some video blogs but I'm afraid I'm not interesting enough.

Bubbles the Pup

2007-04-20T23:40:00.001-07:00

I had one of these when I was about 4. I'm convinced that it shaped the person I am today.

Close Reading Response

2007-04-17T06:13:00.001-07:00

Faculty Training at an Online University
Brent Muirhead and Muhammad Betz
http://www.usdla.org/html/journal/JAN02_Issue/article04.html

Summery:
This article explores process of being hired at the University of Phoenix and it then details how an instructor is expected to run and update his or her classes.

Importance:
This is important because it gives the information from the point of view of a teacher and is interesting.

Connections:
This fits in with other things I have read about the University of Phoenix.

Supporting Source:
I could defiantly use this to explore how online universities work.

Argumentative source:
This article would be a good count-argument to people that say that they’ll let anybody teach at the University of Phoenix.

Critical Responses

2007-03-08T20:58:00.000-08:00

Sayer, Peter. "French to Give Students Open-Source Software." ComputerWorld 12 Feb. 2007. The University of Southern Mississippi Libraries. EBSCOhost. 8 Mar. 2007 .

Summary: French high school students in Paris will be given memory sticks with open source software to use on school projects.

Importance: it shows that open source software is a viable option for students and a new contender to big businesses. It also reinforces my hypthosis that it’s possible to do everything an average college student has to do using free software.

Connections: This article is a standard, just the facts, article. So I’ve seen many others like it.

Supporting Source: I could cite it as an example of Government taking the side of open source.

Argumentative Source: I wouldn’t really critique this source because it’s jut barebones facts and isn’t intended to be anything else.

Random

2007-03-03T20:28:00.000-08:00

This suit is black not.

Gnostic Demiurge

2007-02-24T21:17:00.000-08:00

New week is here

2007-02-23T16:34:00.000-08:00

All and all I'd say this has been an ok week, except it got pretty crappy towards the end. But now it's a brand new week and I'm off of work today. I'm looking forward to my birthday because I'll be going home and spending time with my family and I can go play blackjack in the casinos.

This week is going to be better.

Chart

2007-02-21T12:01:00.000-08:00

Here is a doodle I made. I need to find out more about Manicheism which is an Iranian/Persian version of a Draco-Gnostic mythos. I just made up the term "Draco-Gnostics" to refer to Gnostic sects that hold the snake in high esteem; the Ophites, like I've mention, used the snake in a Eucharist ceremony and the Manicheism believed Jesus to be the incarnation of the Great Serpent (aka God) and were heavily inspired by Persian mythos. The Manicheans were also very Dualistic, on par with other Gnostic sects and Zoroasterism.

Also I'd like to explore how the Bacchus Cult influenced the Ophites because their Snake Eucharist was similar to a Baccuhusian ritual.

Also apparently the first mention of an Oracal ever in recorded history was by Virgil in the Aneaid where he mentions a priestess of Ob (or Aub) in the Canaan. Aeneid. Virgil. p. 46, &c, Worship. Dean. p 89 &c. Deane argues that אוב, in Leviticus chapter 20 verse 27, which is typically translated as "hath a familar spirit" or as a "ventriloquist" is most correctly translated as a "Priest/Priestess of Ob". I still need to go through some various Bible translations and check this out and cross check it with some Biblical commentary. Rashi would be the easiest to look up.

Also Manichism was influeneced heavily by Buddhist ideology and it is said that Mani reached Parinarvania but when used in the Manichaean it has a different context than with the Buddhist ideas.

And that's all I have for now.

Research coming to a plateau

2007-02-21T02:26:00.000-08:00

My research on snake worship inside the Judeo-Christian mythos is coming to a plateau. I'm having a hard time tracking down some quality sources and this is just a for-fun project so it's going to have to go on the back burner for now because now that Mardi Gras vacation is over I'm about to be assigned 3 for-real papers, two of which are going to be labor intensive. And there's always test and quizes. So no more snake tangents.

More about Snake Worship and the Bible

2007-02-18T11:56:00.000-08:00

I'm putting this stuff in this blog so I can refer to it later as a springboard of ideas.

"Worship of the Servent" chapter 1: http://www.sacred-texts.com/etc/wos/wos04.htm#fr_143

Things to look up and cross source:

HIVITES - Canaanite serpent worshipers (May have influenced story in Second Kings about Nehustan). Mentioned in Genesis chapter 10 in the Table of Nations. Also mentioned in Deuteronomy chapter 7 "the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nation". Also mentioned countless other times especially in Joshua.

Baalim - term for Israelites that secretly praticed Serpent Worship. May term "baalim" is plural form of either Baal or Bel which are both Canaanite gods.

Ophites- Οφῖται - This is just the greek term for a snake worshipper but refers to a couple different specific groups when used in context. Epiphanius uses this term when he describes a sect of Heritical Christian Sect.

""the Ophites sprung out of the Nicolaitans and Gnostics, and were so called from the serpent which they worshipped... The Ophites attribute all wisdom to the serpent of paradise, and say that he was the author of knowledge to men... They keep a live serpent in a chest; and at the time of the mysteries entice him out by placing bread before him upon a table. Opening his door he comes out, and having ascended the table, folds himself about the bread. This they call a perfect sacrifice. They not only break and distribute this among the votaries, but whosoever will, may kiss the serpent. This the wretched people call THE EUCHARIST. They conclude the mysteries by singing an hymn THROUGH HIM to the supreme Father. " Epiph. lib. i. tom. 3. p. 268, &c.

2/16/07 This should prove interesting

2007-02-16T17:39:00.000-08:00

So I guess my sister, the drug lord, is out of jail. She called me and said she was at a bus stop in Gulfport waiting for Mom and Dad to pick her up. I thought she was going to be in jail for another year or two, I can't really remember how long she's been in jail... about a year and a half. When she called and said she was in Gulfport my first thought was that she broke out of jail. It was strange when she called me because she sounded like she "used to" she didn't sound like a scraggly drug fiend at the end of her rope trying to bum a ride so she could chase the dragon. She sounded like she did when she used to be sober. While she was using and selling it was like my real sister died and was replaced by this stranger and when she called me today and it sounded like my real sister it was like getting a call from somebody I thought was dead. Very weird indeed.

So I guess I'll be seeing her on Monday when I go down to the coast, which will be weird.

2007-02-16T16:07:00.000-08:00

Thought this would be an interesting topic of discussion. How in Exodus chapter 32 while Moses is getting the Decalogue, or Ten Commandments, the Israelites are activly turning their jewelery into a gold calf and worshipping it, breaking the first two commandments. Of course, as most of know and have seen the reinactment by Charlston Heston, Moses angerly throws down the tablets, has a fit, destroys the calf, grinds it to powder, throws it in a river and forces the Israelites to drink it.

However after God tells him not to make any idols, not even of God, he tells Moses to make a snake staff to heal snake bites in Numbers chapter 21. But as we learn from 2 Kings chapter 18, Hezakiah broke the snake staff because people were starting to burn incents for it and called it Nehustan, as if it were a god. It became an idol. (in my imagination I can't help but imagine Hezakiah grinding it up and throwing it into a river like Moses had done)
Here is a picture of a Jew praying to Nehustan on Shabbat:

Good thing his mother isn't around.

Even more ironically is that God tells Moses to put golden cherubims on the Ark of the tabernacle. And despirte the popular version of "Cherubs" we have today which are little chubby angels:

Some scholars think that cherubim, as understood by the original audience, would of more likely resembled a wingled lion or bull with a human head:

which makes chapter 32 seem even more ironic. What exactly is the Bible's stance towards graven images? I'm defintly not sure but I do collect Batmobile minitures.

Is there a lesson to be learned from all this? Probably but you'll need to find somebody that cites their sources if you're looking for something with that deep of a meaning.

Satan and Lucifer: two differnt beings

2007-02-14T19:58:00.000-08:00

Lucifer and Satan traditionally the same being? I disagree.

Last month something sparked my interest in the figure of Satan/The Devil. It's been a pretty hard task for me to shift through all the stories and references found in the Bible, the Christian New Testament, and Apocrypha.

For the purposes of this post I'm just going to focus on Lucifer and Satan.

The characater of Lucifer is referenced in the book of Isaiah chapter 14 and the myth may also be referenced in the Ezekial chapter 28. Both times they're making paralleling to an Earthly king who's about to experience a fall. Since this characater is not clearly introduced or given his own background story in the canone it's almost a safe bet to say that they where drawing from an oral tradition about an Angel who has something to do with the morning star, Venus, which is where we get the name Lucifer.

Isaiah chapter 14

Quote:

12How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!
13For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:
14I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.

15Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.

Now the story that one can piece together from these references is that this Angel rebelled against God and is then cast directly into Shoel, the underworld, which is one of the main differences between Lucifer and Satan; where they get banished.

Now let's talk about Satan. I'm sure most of us know and appricate this characater's work in the book of Job. He's not given an origin in this story.

In the Christian New Testiment there are passages which give us a background story for Satan. In Luke Chapter 10 Jesus says "I saw Satan fall like lightening from heaven." And in Revolations 12 it says that Satan was cast out heaven and sent to Earth. The idea that Satan goes to Earth and not Shoel is also found in other non-canone texts.

Also in the apocrypha Vita Adae et Evae (Life of Adam and Eve) we're given a very clear cut description of how and why Satan was cast out of heaven (for refusing to bow down to Adam). And in the apocrypha 2 Enoch we're told very explicity by God himself that Lucifer was thrown out of heaven for trying to overthrow Him, not for anything having to do with Adam. And even though these stories are just apocrypha/pseudoapoocrypha that doesn't really deminish their value at tracing a myth. And please, please understand that I use myth in the neutral sense to mean a story.

This are kind of made fuzzy by the phrase in second Corinthians chapter 11 about how Satan can transform himself into an angel of light. There could be some confussion about this passage and trying to equate Satan to Lucifer, but Satan's ability to look like an angel of light is simply an alagory about liars, which is what that entire first half of the chapter is about. Besides we already know from Isaiah that Lucifer went to Shoel, the underworld, and thus would have no dealing with humans in any way what so ever.

On a note of tracing this myth down to it's origins (which is not my goal in this post) there is a pretty neat little trail of similar stories surrounding rebelion of Lucifer and Satan, Rahab the angel/prince of the sea, the rebellion of the water (from when God seperated the upper and lower waters in Genesis), the personification of the firmament from Genesis in the book of Ezra, and the Babylonian story of the god Marduk slaying Tiamat, the personification of water and splititng her body as land to create the Earth. One really interesting difference in that little chain is that Timat the Babylonian goddess is female and Rahab the angel is male/masculine. And I'm next to positive that Zoroasterism mixes into the Christian sides of these stories too somehow. (All of these links of course beings ones I've read and discovered in other sources, I'm not claiming I'm smart enough to put all these pieces together).

Lucifer rebeled on the second day of creation (before humans where ever created- Enoch chapter 29) and Satan rebeled on the 6th day of creation (because of Adam - Vita Adae et Evae Chapter 13)

Second Book of Enoch Chapter 28 verse 4 to Chapter 29 verse 4 (God speaking)

Quote:

4Thus I made fast the firmament. This day I called me the first-created.
Chapter 29
1And for all the heavenly troops I imaged the image and essence of fire, and my eye looked at the very hard, firm rock, and from the gleam of my eye the lightning received its wonderful nature, which is both fire in water and water in fire, and one does not put out the other, nor does the one dry up the other, therefore the lightning is brighter than the sun, softer than water and firmer than hard rock.
2And from the rock I cut off a great fire, and from the fire I created the orders of the incorporeal ten troops of angels, and their weapons are fiery and their raiment a burning flame, and I commanded that each one should stand in his order.
3And one from out the order of angels, having turned away with the order that was under him, conceived an impossible thought, to place his throne higher than the clouds above the earth, that he might become equal in rank to my power.
4And I threw him out from the height with his angels, and he was flying in the air continuously above the bottomless.

Lucifer isn't named in here but the notion that it's Lucifer (or even somebody besides Satan) is because this characater wants to place his thrown higher than God, not refuse to bow before Adam. Also this fits in exactly with the analogy in Isaiah chapter 14 "Instead you are brought down to Sheol, to the bottomless pit".

Vita Adae et Evae Chapter 13 (This is Satan Speaking to Adam)

Quote:

2 from that place. When thou wast formed. I was hurled out of the presence of God and banished from the company of the angels. When God blew into thee the breath of life and thy face and likeness was made in the image of God, Michael also brought thee and made (us) worship thee in the sight of God; and God the Lord spake: Here is Adam. I have made thee in our image and likeness.'

Of course both of these books didn't make it into the canon but that doesn't diminish their value as far as knowing what people of their day thought. The idea that Satan is different than Satan can be made strickly using canon material, as I think I did earlier)

If you made it to the end of my post PLEASE note that I've only scratched the surface of this topic. What do you think?

Valentin's day

2007-02-14T16:43:00.000-08:00

If the science tower didn't exist I bet I could see my apartment from the library, I know I can see it from the science tower.

Watching people out a window from high above is amusing.

Hanniable Rising was disappointing but it was nice having my family come up for a visit.

Upton Sinclair really isn't that great of a writer.

I like my George Foreman Grill.

If this wasn't required I wouldn't be doing it.

Today's my friend's Eric birthday. I remember one year I had knee surgery on the 14th, it was his birthday, and it was valentin's day. He lives in Michigan now. I should call him before it gets too late and say happy birthday.

I'm going home Monday, I have to work on Fat Tuesday though.

I always make plans to study when I get home from work but I never have the motivation that late at night. I just lay on my sofa, watch cartoons, and fall asleep. I don't know why I even have a bed I mostly sleep on the sofa.

I don't know why I have a two bedrooom apartment other than it's the only thin I could find that was available and within walking distance of campus. I rarely go into my bedroom and I even less frequently go into the backroom.

I've been pleased with my performance this semester, I hope I can keep it up. I'm having second thoughts about taking HIS 300 over the summer time. I may take something else in its stead and take it during the regular semester. But that kind of puts a wrench in my plan. I guess I have to take it in the summer. I'm smart I can do it. I can take HIS 300 and FRE 201 and 202 over the summer. Vacations are for people that didn't screw up their first year of college.

No Self

2007-02-14T14:54:00.000-08:00

It's hard for me to totally wrap my brain around the no-self concept but I've thought of this example:

DPI, dots per inch. When you print a picture of a person out of a printer when you look at the picture and you see a person. However if you look through a magnifying glass you see that the photo is really just thousands of little dots. The idea that all those dots combine into one thing is an illusion, so too is the idea of an "I" an illusion.

That example is somewhat limited though because it doesn't really demonstrate the idea that the dots are constantly changing, so to further develop my example imagine that not only is the picture made of dots but that the dots are also fading. The dots are like all components that make up "you" they're constantly changing and they're not connected. There's no part of the picture, or you, that's the same from one microsecond to the next, so how is it logical to say that the picture from the printer at 4:00 is the same as the picture at 5:00? All of the dots have faded, they've changed.

The picture has no self no atman, it's just a group of dots, and those dots are constantly in flux.

Problems with paper

2007-02-06T05:27:00.000-08:00

I'm having problems adding lengeth to my paper. I'm doing it on prejedous and I'm scared that if I elaborate too much I'll wonder too far away from the stories and my main points won't be related too the stories.

I'm also scared of being cliche and that other people are also working on the same topic I am. I may slightly alter my topic.

Results of Civil War -His 202 1/17/07

2007-01-24T20:06:00.000-08:00

More Americans were killed in the Civil War than all other wars prior to Korea combined.

because both sides were America

The Civil War settled 3 things

Union is indivisible - succession is illegal
Eradicated slavery
North would dominate political structure of USA for a long time

Legacy of the Civil War

Abolition of slavery

first two years of civil war Lincoln's only goal was to preserve the union. However on Sept 1862, after battle of Antietam, Lincoln issued emancipation proclamation.

emancipation proclamation had no effect at all at the time it was issued
South was withholding cotton from Europe to try to pressure them into allying with the South. Lincoln's emancipation proclamation was issued to prevent European powers from siding with the South. All European powers were anti-slavery
Slavery was officially ended in 1865 with the 13th amendment.

Freeing slaves was good for slaves, bad for slave owners.

Largest instance of a government confiscating of "property" (former slaves).

Problem of the Freedmen

Former slaves not ready to be free

no land, no money, no education

blacks were often cheated by dishonest people

Freedmen's Bureau - Organization set up in 1863 to address the Freedmen issue. Primary concerned with welfare of freedmen: food, health care, and education for blacks.

Oliver O. Howard - Head of Freedmen's Bureau
Was successful at first established schools (Hampton, Fisk, Howard) and hospitals

Freedmen's Bureau expanded after war in 1867, despite the veto of President Andrew Johnson
Suffered from corruption, like most government agencies in its day
Tragedy is that the Federal Government and Freedmens Bureau didn't go far enough.

Freedmens Bureau ended in 1872, under President Grant

Over 4 million "new" members to society

Material Loses - Majority of fighting done on Southern soil. 10,000 Southern men killed; 10,000 war orphans in Mississippi alone

Aristocracy ruined - land prices plummet some aristocrats leave South, some stay

Robert E. Lee became the President of Washington and Lee University and became a highly respected educator before his death

Poverty sweets the land - everybody except the profiteers suffered

Confederate stocks and bonds become worthless. 3 Billion lost
Banking capital destroyed
Lot of cotton confiscated or destroyed
No money to invest in education
Railroads tore-up - no money to rebuild
Several towns destroyed

Columbia, Atlanta

The few Southern industries were destroyed

ex: cotton gin

Collapse of Plantation System

Land declines in value
Livestock destroyed in war
Some Planters took in Northern partners
Some leased their land
Plantation gives way to a new tenet system: share cropping - farm tenets

Note to self: come back in edit this to completion later. I'z tired

My profile

2007-01-23T19:17:00.000-08:00

My name's Jacob Rogers and I was born on March 5th, 1986. I grew up in Gulfport, Ms and went to High School at Harrison Central (Go Big Red). I'm a double major in History and Religious studies, and would like to teach at a high school or community college one day, maybe even university who knows. One of my biggest characater flaws is that I don't communicate well. I don't see the point sometimes because when you know that what you're about to say isn't going to sink in, what's the point?

I like reading comic books but not as much as friend Drew, who always keeps me up to date on nerdy things.

I'm traditionally a good student but I had a bad year at the University of Alabama that's really botched my GPA, but I hope to get it back up again (famous last words?)

And that's all.

Snow!

2007-01-19T16:16:00.000-08:00

Jacob Rogers' blog

Atlanta Trip, December 2009

Have a good day!

Oh yea just one more thing

Roanoke first impressions

Internal Vs External Sources for Dreams

Dreams in the Sefer Hasidim - an incomplete thought

Recent Entries

Comparing Theravada and Zen

Supression of Religion in non-Tibet China

Aishah as a Symbol for Women in Islam

The Tibetan Sacred Outlook

The issue of headscarves in France

Music in Tibet

Extremely Brief overview of Tibetan religiosity

Demons, Sex, and Possession in Judaism

Depth Theology

The Value of Community and Ritual in Healing

A dialog in a dream

Vision and Language in Dreams

Legal Concept of Marriage in Islam

Summer 2008

It's getting cold now.

ok

My impression of my geography class

No longer horny

USM Fall 2007

Some like it hot; some like it cold.

Blog from My DS

Where behavioral psychology and math meet

Can't... go... on... reading... and... writing.... ...

Ocean Webserver

If I can dream it

Magnolia trees

Video Blog: Online Learning

Video Blogs

Bubbles the Pup

Close Reading Response

Critical Responses

Random

Gnostic Demiurge

New week is here

Chart

Research coming to a plateau

More about Snake Worship and the Bible

2/16/07 This should prove interesting

Satan and Lucifer: two differnt beings

Valentin's day

No Self

Problems with paper

Results of Civil War -His 202 1/17/07

My profile

Snow!