character and service, what good is to be accomplished by digging out of the past and exploiting weaknesses, which perhaps a generous contemporary public forgave and subdued? (Mormon Apostle S.L. Richards in 1955, emphasis added). R.L. Moore749 aptly links appearing as “being psychologically fucked up” with “sociopathic narcissism driving [one's] fucked up-ness” that often remains undetected.
Finally, if there’s no way out, and there’s nothing we can do to stave off the inevitable, we will activate the ultimate emergency system: the dorsal vagal complex (DVC). This system reaches down below the diaphragm to the stomach, kidneys, and intestines and drastically reduces metabolism throughout the body. Heart rate plunges (we feel our heart “drop”), we can’t breathe, and our gut stops working or empties (literally “scaring the shit out of” us). This is the point at which we disengage, collapse, and freeze. -...-Collapse and disengagement are controlled by the DVC, an evolutionarily ancient part of the parasympathetic nervous system that is associated with digestive symptoms like diarrhea and nausea. (Van Der Kolk 2014:70). Vomiting is a disgust reaction. A disgusting emotional situation often elicits the feeling of nausea. We say, "That makes me sick to my stomach" or "I can't stomach that" or "That's hard to swallow". -...-By vomiting one literally bathes in shame. (Bradshaw 1988:102). A rogue reporter hounds Dr. D.B. Banner ( The Incredible Hulk, 197882), who would love to be just left alone with his predicament. Stallone's 1989 Lock
Up transposes the Valjean motif behind bars; meek and redeemed inmate about to be paroled is persecuted by rogue prison manager he had slighted in the past. Van Damme's 1990 Lionheart portrays a noble deserter who wants to help his family while police is after him; the movie ends when policemen finally recognize his 749
2003a.
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motives, and leave him alone.
As skilled pastry cooks know, only imagination sets limits to how many layers of sentimental molasses can be piled up (=chain of misfortune routine): emotional pornography. Valjean suffers from other people's misjudgment, yet he as well -albeit indirectly- cooperates in Fantine's misfortunes, for the single mother is fired -which later causes her to turn to prostitution to support her child Cosette- by harsh superintendent madame Victurnien.
Madame Victurnien's motives to ruin Fantine's life -as she discovered she's a single mother after all- are dissected explaining (ch.VIII) how the superintendent was the widow of a monk having escaped from cloister.
Even in 1862 -when Hugo wrote Les MisĂŠrables and well before Freud (psychoanalysis), and Boas (radical cultural pluralism)-, we are all latent homosexuals, '...ists', thieves etc indeed. We are all so tainted and unaccountable (not so) deep down that we (=all of us down to the last one in all possible universes) ought not to cast judgments about anyone, no matter which transgression that frail, precious soul may have chanced to commit.
If one single lesson is to be gathered from Non Violent Communication, the protocol Jewish-American psychologist Rosenberg 750 pioneered, is precisely that human beings ought to never be judged, criticized or subjected to demands if lasting
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2004.
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peace and cooperation are the goal. Prinstein 751 seems to agree: studies report that critical and aggressive home environments and/or parenting styles lead to the child becoming maladjusted and “unpopular”. Best-selling author and clinical pastoral counselor Hendrix also concurs: zero-negativity relationships are ideal.
Because judgment is part and parcel of human experience, however, convoluted doublespeak and circumventive psychological maneuvers prove expedient:”We find it in the extraordinary, vibrant atonality of the announcers at major airports or on TV; in the atonal smile, so `sincere' and calculated”.
Behavioral economics cynosure Ariely quips:”We don’t have an internal value meter that tells us how much things are worth. Rather, we focus on the relative advantage of one thing over another, and estimate value accordingly. -...-most people don’t know what they want unless they see it in context. -...-Everything is relative, and that’s the point.”752. Professor of psychology and dating expert Welch is adamant:
Because solemn religious injunctions to the contrary, many experiments show that we judge others and are judged in turn. Our judgments are unconscious and rapid, and we especially hang onto what we learn First and Worst. It’s human cognition (2015b:106, emphasis added). The first principle of our predictably irrational decision making is that everything is relative and influenced by context. When choosing from alternatives, we can’t help but make comparisons between options that are put in front of us—often to our detriment. 751 752
2017c:64. 2009:17-8, emphasis added.
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(Viskontas 2017:128). If all humankind can do is incessantly to engage in judgment and comparison, religions and mythologies alike aptly seize the opportunity to exert shame shamanism about what is a core human activity in order to gain leverage. As G.L. Fishkin puts it, shame causes one to either want to flee, or to freeze in time and space.
Several researchers have suggested that what contributes to our happiness is not our absolute wealth, but, rather, our relative wealth—that is, our material means relative to that of the people around us. -...- The importance of relative wealth to our well-being explains counterintuitive findings in the literature, such as why an increase in a nation’s GDP over time is not accompanied by an increase in general subjective well-being. While the country may be getting wealthier, the individual’s relative economic status remains the same, and thus happiness stays constant. Relativity is a crucial aspect of human psychology.(Sharot 2011:58, emphasis added). Our consideration of relative income sometimes defies logic: in effect, we’re willing to give up a lot of money to make sure our neighbors aren’t much better off than we are. Yet it seems to be human nature to want to keep up with our peers. (Chen&Krakovski 2010:39). This theory can be adapted from all and sundry. The identity of Hitler's grandfather was unknown; Hitler's paternal grandmother was a working class single mother from a remote village in Austria. While this indeed casts a shadow on Hitler in light of NSDAP racial purity laws, many jump to conclusions about a petty case of village shame to announce Hitler's elusive grandfather was in fact a Jew.
While a garden variety Jew might suffice for some, others need no less 504
than a member of some great Jewish house, whether a Rothschild or otherwise. By the same token, Israel's nemesis, Iran's (former) President “Mahmoud Ahmadinejad [is] revealed to have Jewish past” 753. Again and again, arch-enemies Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader; Parsifal and Feirefiz; Karna and Arjuna discover the be close blood relatives: opposites always coincide.
Hugo -in a portrait of the turncoat that outperforms war propagandaalso recounts how Victurnien was on exceedingly good terms with the Catholic establishment: connecting the dots may be inevitable at times. Magraw describes thus the situation in France in the period between the revolution and the coup that would restore the Empire:
Merriman's claim that the emerging 'police state' of 1848-51 effectively broke the back of the Dem-Soc [radical left] movement, echoes Marx's assertion that bureaucratic repression inevitably demoralized a politically immature peasantry. Election meetings were banned. By December 1850, 185 newspapers had been prosecuted. Leftist by-election gains provoked the May 1850 law disenfranchising over 30 per cent of the electorate, including migrants and 'criminals', meaning in the village context, anyone with a poaching or forest conviction. Mayors were dismissed, municipal councils and National Guard units dissolved, teachers sacked. The purge extended down to the Allier postman, whose dog's red collar and white tail ribbon was taken to symbolize the victory of socialism over royalism, and to the Yonne schoolgardener sacked for growing red flowers! Links between the national, departmental and village cadres of the Dem-Soc movement were broken. With Limoges heavily garrisoned, dozens of mayors sacked, radical politicians hounded by the police, the Limousin, which had voted heavily for the Dem-Socs in 1849, failed to resist the 1851 coup. (1983:149, emphasis added). 753
The Daily Telegraph, October 3, 2009. There is a cottage industry of minority media revealing “minority past” behind a slew of public figures. The strategy requires political authentication to succeed. An unknown online satirist was accused of “hatred” when he posted online the picture of a noted U.S journalist next to a Star Of David.
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Of course, fundamental shifts in the party line loomed on the horizon of Victorian Catholic France (II Empire):
After 1876 municipalities took their ritual revenge, asserted their right to ring church bells to signify republican victories or, as in one Isere village, ceremoniously removed crucifixes from school walls and hurled them down the school lavatory! (Magraw 1983:334). Liberal and later Fascist propaganda never stopped clamoring for Italy's place under the sun (posto al sole) in colonial terms, and the right of Italy's impoverished peasant masses to seek greener grass under national tutelage: could opponents look inside, listen to their heart, and say that was not a honest war?
Last, the hero-savior shall in most cases be opportunely equipped and attired for the journey. Hale754 suggests that the idea of death as journey appeared at the time of the megaliths (7.000-4.500 BCE). The dead had to be opportunely equipped, and mausoleums served as landmarks denoting a sense of land ownership.
People were also sacrificed and buried to consecrate new buildings among pre-Roman Celts. At Iona (Scotland), Saint Oran (a companion of St. Columba) was buried alive under a chapel to insure its completion in the VI century; in today's Romania, a thread corresponding to the height of the occupants is buried as a new home is built: human sacrifice by proxy?
Remus may also have been a human sacrifice, either as part of the Lupercalia tradition in which a boy is offered up for death, or as a foundation sacrifice. Excavations at the remains of the 754
2009:Mysteries Of The Megalyths.
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Temple of Victory in Rome have unearthed a grave under a wall that may indicate this type of human sacrifice, in which the victim is buried in the foundation. Evidence of actual human sacrifice in Roman culture is rare but does exist, usually connected with the foundation of cities. In Greek culture, the grave of a dead hero could bring great benefits to a community. (Meineck 2005-1:39). At the site of Tiwanaku, political and ceremonial center of a prehispanic state that influenced much of the South American Andes for several centuries (AD 500–1150) -...-.Ritualized dedications involving llamas or humans were important in the ‘life-cycles’ of construction, renewal or closing of building complexes throughout Tiwanaku. Burying fetal llamas or humans was an important part of building or re-flooring a residential dwelling or compound. A fetal or juvenile llama was interred under each of several residential buildings dating to the Tiwanaku Period in the Akapana East barrios, just outside the ceremonial core (Janusek 2004). In one sector, Akapana East 1M, a human infant was placed in the foundation of a compound wall upon its construction. Today in the altiplano, households imagine their dwellings and compounds as scaled micro-cosmic domains with vital dimensions, and laying their foundations is likened to ‘planting roots’ in the ancient rock of the earth (Arnold 1992). Fetal llamas and human placentas are important elements in rituals dedicated to these foundations. Just like similar offerings do today, the Tiwanaku dedications were most likely elements in long sequences of libations and rituals intended to ensure the social regeneration and well-being of the group who inhabited the built environment. (Blom&Janusek 2004:123-6). Burial ships or chariots proliferated in many cultures: the journey made manifest. Even today in upper Egypt, festivals to commemorate Muslim Saints turn into a Mardi Gras extravaganza that includes the display of the immemorial barge of the dead. In Bronze Age times in both China and Mycenae, warlords with flat funerary masks were buried alongside their chariots.
In many cases, the 'hero's journey' is indistinguishable from a
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strongman’s feat, typically associated with brute strength, such as pulling the sword out of the stone. In Sri Lankan mythology, demon Kalu Kumara is born 755 the son of a laundress. The King of Anuradhapura adopts him after he amazes people with supernatural feats of strength, such as putting a mythical club upside down (=power inverted): a feat only the King had previously accomplished. In the Ramayana, Rama wins Sita in marriage after he not only handles, but breaks a divine bow as he tries to stretch it in the nuptial contest.
Popular culture delights viewers accordingly: the Van Damme character in Bloodsport is required to perform a spectacular karate move in order to join a death tournament. Arnold Schwarzenegger wrote:
Every year, in the spring, a stone-lifting contest is held in Munich -...the stone weighs approximately 508 German pounds -...-[and I, in 1967] broke the existing record -...-. The press picked it up and wrote that Mr. Universe was the strongest man in Germany- which may or may not have been true (Schwarzenegger&Kent Hall 1979:84-86). In Peru, indigenous people in the Ayacucho region carry enormous logs over a fixed distance; at lake Suwa (Japan), “log surfers” ( onbashira-sai) fell and carry huge logs to renew a shrine; at Viterbo (Italy), devotees carry the macchina di
Santa Rosa, a 29 meter tall tower in honor of Christian Saint Rosa since the XIII century; Japanese (matsuri) folklore also prescribes to pompously take large objects (Japanese portable temples or omikoshi) along a fixed trajectory (=topography), or the Calvary mytheme. In Bali, funeral towers ( bade) may be up to 20 meter high. In
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In one of the many versions, of course.
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Kerala (India), Kavadis are ritual bows – up to 8 meter tall, easily weighting up to 150kg- individual devotees carry on their shoulders to honor the god Muruga:
El dogma cristiano obligaba a concebir el mundo medieval de acuerdo con las Sagradas Escrituras y, en consecuencia, forzaba a sustituir conocimientos cientificos por quiméricas localizaciones de los escenarios biblicos. (Chimeno Del Campo 2006:137)756. Left-wing hippies, and proponents of the drug/protest culture walking the streets of the mystical Orient could hardly be told apart from the domestic Sadhu, the wandering monk of Hinduism; from the Fakir ( fakir/fokara, poor) who epitomized the wandering Sufi sage; from the equally divinely unkempt saviors, and apostles, of the conservative, patriarchal and belligerent cults cropping up in the Siro-arabian deserts, or from the fictional Sandokan on television for that matter: “do not judge a book by its cover lest you later repent”.
Della Santina757
recognizes Mahakassapa (one of Gautama Buddha's
prominent disciples) is characterized in very different -possibly antithetical- ways according to different Buddhist traditions: an outré, bedraggled forest ascetic (Sarvastivada), and a dutiful monk, and mainstream practitioner (Theravada). The portrait of the 'historical Jesus' historians such as Crossan have delivered very much resembles that of a beat generation/hippie icon: the clownish Sandokan figure and the savior figure eerily co-exist.
It all was a 'honored' tradition going back several centuries BCE not only 756
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The Christian dogma forced to conceive the medieval world in accord with sacred scriptures, thus replacing scientific knowledge with chimerical discoveries of biblical situations. ME6102:lecture 9.
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in India, but in the Graeco-Roman world as well. The stereotypical cynic philosopher in fact represented the quintessential unwashed prophet -as philosophy was typically understood as a call from the gods- going around flaunting commonly held beliefs -or what others may call 'reforming customs'- in a rough cloak, and wearing sandals, long hair and a beard: he gives his wake-up call to -and scolds- the misguided masses758.
Endless variations subsist. Sikhs believe uncut hair and beards ( Kesh) to be a source of strength -akin to Samson 759 of Hebrew lore-, and a gift from god; some American-Indian tribes also attach gnostic value to long hair. In Japanese tradition, hair was also reputed as possessing a sacred life force: cutting a samurai's hair would bring much dishonor, and sumo wrestlers cut their hair as they retire. Hair may be construed -according to Robert Bly760- as the epitome of sexuality.
Incidentally, (semi)omnipotent patriarchal figures with a beard go back to Mesopotamian and Egyptian times, whereby rulers and/or gods wore either natural or prosthetic beards (=ceremonial beards common in Mesopotamia, Egypt and China) to play the part. Among Chinese Muslim Uyghurs, a man with a prosthetic beard presides over traditional celebrations: the central government in Peking considers long beards as coterminous with radical Islamism, which is heavily censored. Romulus, Bacchus, Lao-Tzu and Confucius are also traditionally depicted 758 759
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Johnson 2002:The Charlatan. “So [Samson] told her everything. "No razor has ever been used on my head," he said, "because I have been a Nazirite dedicated to God from my mother's womb. If my head were shaved, my strength would leave me, and I would become as weak as any other man." � (Judges 16:17). 1986.
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as wise old men with a flowing beard.
Enkidu the “wild man”, “nature boy” who runs with beasts has long hair until his sexual congress with a harlot:
He rubbed down the matted hair of his body and anointed himself with oil. Enkidu had become a man; but when he had put on man's clothing he appeared like a bridegroom. He took arms to hunt the lion so that the shepherds could rest at night. He caught wolves and lions and the herdsmen lay down in peace; for Enkidu was their watchman, that strong man who had no rival. ( Epic Of Gilgamesh, Sanders trans.). By the same token, in Southern India it is common to shave one's head as an ex voto to the gods; Buddhist monks also shave their heads. In traditional Khmer marriage (Cambodia), the newlyweds receive a symbolic haircut. In traditional Yoruba religion (Nigeria), the shaving of hair is part of the initiation. So does the groom in the traditional Macedonian Galicka wedding: remains from this shaving are preserved in a cloth as token of fertility and good fortune. Hitler's and Stalin's mustaches have become an household item, much as Kaiser Wilhelm's mustaches were popular in the Belle Epoque. Various urban tribes sport peculiar hairstyles: shaven skinheads (both left- and right-wing); rockabillies sport Elvis Presley's hairdos...
An entire constellation of situations concerns women and (body) hair. Among Muslims, women are either strongly urged, or required by law, to cover their body, especially their hair. Brides across the traditionalist Jewish diaspora veil themselves, and/or cut their hair, possibly after the consummation of marriage. 511
When a young woman graduates from the status of maiko (apprentice, dancing girl) to that of geiko (artist, geisha) according to traditional Japanese customs, she gets an haircut: upon marriage, tradition requires that a geisha retire. In the past, Japanese children up to the age of three were required to keep a shaven head: a custom now replaced by the Shichi-Go-San ritual. Shamanic ceremonies of Hispanic Shipibo Indios (Peru), require women performers to cut their hair. Peter the Great the Russian Tzar cut in 1698 the beards of Russian boyars as he was committed to embracing European modernity.
Even in Italy in the early XX century, and in backward Southern Italy still in recent decades, women typically wore head scarves to cover themselves. Maltese women of bygone times wore the traditional Faldetta (Ghonella) of unknown origin to veil their figure. Various ethnicities in Asia wear distinctive headdresses and/or hairdos. The lore is replete with people 'doing things' with their body hair, and cathecting the same with gnostic values.
The blank stare of the proponents of the drug/protest culture with their crack pipes761 (and what not) looks sinisterly similar to the stare of the 'traditional' sage having attained samadhi or ecstasy. The role that 'sacred' hallucinogens played in shaping the most ancient and basic spiritual (religious) experiences is commonly attested, still actual in our day. A barley drink was sacred to the Greek Eleusinian mysteries, possibly because psychotropic ergot grew on barley. 761
“crack mainlines the grandiose self -...- once you experience being god, it's awfully hard to stop� (Moore 1989:part 7).
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Spirituality luminary H. Smith762 claims he asked experts to part shuffled paragraphs that described mystical experiences that came from both conventional mystics, and entheogen users: experts were unable as both looked alike. In 1963,
Time Magazine ran the article Worship: Instant Mysticism:
In every age, men have struggled to perceive God directly rather than as a tenuously grasped abstraction. Few succeed, and the visions of the world's rare mystics have normally come only after hard spiritual work—prayer, meditation, ascetic practice. Now a number of psychologists and theologians are exploring such hallucinogenic drugs as mescaline, psilocybin and LSD-25 as an easy way to instant mysticism. -...-Perhaps the best-known deliberate effort to create religious experience with drugs was a special service in the basement chapel beneath Boston University's nondenominational Marsh Chapel on Good Friday last year. Organ music was piped into the dimly lit chapel for a group of 20 subjects, most of them divinity students, half of whom were given LSD while the rest took placebos. A minister gave a brief sermon, and the students were left alone to meditate. During the next three hours, all except one of the LSD takers (but only one of those who took placebos) reported "a genuine religious experience." "I felt a deep union with God," reports one participant. "I remember feeling a profound sense of sorrow that there was no priest or minister at the altar. I had a tremendous urge to go up on the altar and minister the services. But I had this sense of unworthiness, and I crawled under the pews and tried to get away. Finally I carried my Bible to the altar and then tried to preach. The only words I mumbled were 'peace, peace.' I felt I was communicating beyond words." Seal's 1991 worldwide hit song Crazy specifically connects religious experience with acid trips:
In a church by the face He talks about the people going under Only child know A man decides after seventy years That what he goes there for Is to unlock the door-...- Miracles will happen as we trip -...-In a 762
In Mishlove 1988.
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sky full of people only some want to fly Isn't that crazy Is the allegory of unlocking a door an invention of the creative artist of color? Probably not. Muslim mystics called Dervishes practice Sama, a dancing ritual, supposed to reflect the divine sound of the doors of Paradise: the entranced faithful crosses the mythical threshold (=door, from which Dervish comes) towards god's realm.
As Campbell said, the difference between the mystic and the lunatic is that the lunatic fell in waters he cannot swim in, while the mystic can 763. Do they look like any old acquaintance?
Thus, in Symeon, we find two prototypes, Diogenes and Christ. This double legacy of the “fool for Christ’s sake” remains the most puzzling insight of our investigation. In his concern to rid urban life of vice and nonconformity, Leontius constructed a Saint who in Emesa’s public and commercial spaces performed his most unSaintly deeds. In front of the urban laity of Emesa, Symeon dances licentiously with whores (p. 156) and gorges himself on cakes in the middle of Holy Week (pp. 156–57). Here too, Symeon defecates and eats foods which will cause him to fart (pp. 148, 152–53). Obviously, in creating such episodes, Leontius has not modeled Symeon’s actions on those of Jesus. Instead, in these episodes, as we have seen, Leontius models Symeon on the figure of Diogenes of Sinope. What then is the significance of Leontius’s construction of Symeon as an alter Diogenes in addition to an alter Christus? -...-The Cynic references work for Leontius because the figure of Diogenes challenges human systems of categorization, revealing through his antics that distinctions which people make between polite and impolite, public and private, appropriate and inappropriate, and pure and impure are nothing more than human conventions. (Krueger 1996: no page). It is the desire to maintain distance from those structures, to call them into question and to change them that marks the person of 763
Campbell 2002:Mythic Literature.
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authenticity (WD, 221). Authenticity is therefore a subversive power that destabilizes the orderly categories and certainties that constantly tempt us. It is not a stable state of being that one might achieve. Rather, it lurks in the shadows of our lives, waging guerilla warfare on the manifold forms of bad faith. Vulgarity, likewise, represented to Sartre a defiant revolt against bourgeois good taste and "bad faith." For this reason, he turned toward vulgarity as a vehicle of authenticity within personal identity. (Charmé 1991:7). One might not think that much direct contact occurred between the cultures of ancient Greece and Rome and ancient India. The civilizations lay thousands of miles apart, a vast distance for men who traveled by foot or horse. But in fact, we have much evidence, both material and literary, for rather extensive contact – economic, military, and cultural – between the ancient East and West. One of the most interesting interactions, in my opinion, was the intellectual exchange between the West and ancient Indian philosophers, sages, and religious thinkers. Fortunately, we have a great body of extant ancient Western literature – primarily in Greek – that provide numerous accounts and descriptions, historic, pseudohistoric,and fictional, of Indian wise men and their interactions with the West. This body of literature particularly focuses on portrayals of Indian ascetics who lived a very frugal lifestyle, scorning most material needs, in the pursuit of knowledge. These Indian ascetic sages seem to have particularly impressed Western authors. Indeed, many authors seem to see Indian ascetics as paragons of self-sufficiency and other virtues. In some of the literature, authors use accounts of Indian ascetics to support moral or rhetorical treatises, emphasizing, eliding, or even changing certain details about the Indians as befits the particular argument. Over time, this creates an image of Indian sages that is progressively more distorted, but nonetheless these literary Indian sages often retain at least some of the features of their historical counterparts. (McVane 2011:1). Asceticism, then, along with other common threads of individualistic soteriology in Greek and Indic thought during the Hellenistic period formed the foundation of the subsequent synthesis; these interactions were brought into direct contact following Alexander the Great's forays in India, and in the Greek colonies of the Mauryan, GrecoBactrian, and Indo-Greek kingdoms which succeeded him. This, coupled with pre-Hellenic interactions and coalescence with Indian thought by way of Persia, and common ancient influences of Egyptian and Mesopotamian culture, provided a container for the amalgamation of Greek and Indian culture via the medium of the 515
Buddhist philosophy and religion. (Schmidt 2008:5). Hercules the divine swashbuckling founder on a journey in his trickster's extravagance resembles closely iconic Tibetan Buddhist Saint Drukpa Kunle. When Saint Tsongkhapa gave him a blessed thread as a gift for him to wear, Kunle had no better idea than to wear it around his penis.
In another story, Kunle exorcised a powerful demon with the display of his hyperpotent penis that unleashed the lightning of wisdom 764. Penile versatility, after all, and unnatural sexual or genital configurations are quintessential trickster characteristics.
Although in Pali and Sanskrit texts composed prior to the tantras the Buddha is always represented as completely celibate following his attainment of buddhahood, he sometimes employs his penis for other purposes. In the Discourse of the Ocean-Like Meditation of Buddha Remembrance, for example, he uses it to convert heretics. His aid is requested in three instances: (1) to defeat the daughters of Mara; (2) to combat prostitutes in Sravasti who had become enormously wealthy and were corrupting the youth of the city; and (3) to convert a group of naked Jain ascetics. He and his disciples reportedly performed various miracles, including transforming Mara’s daughters into hags and inflicting various torments on them, and the Buddha and his disciples also conquered the prostitutes and rescued the city. The culmination of their efforts is a scene in which the Buddha converts skeptical Jains: he creates a mountain like Mount Sumeru surrounded by water and lays on his back next to it. He begins to emit golden rays of light, and his penis emerges from its sheath, winds around the mountain seven times, and then extends upward to the heaven of Brahma.extnote Alexander Soper comments that the text declares that “the Buddha was not a eunuch 764
A similar motif recurs in Polinesian lore. Here's a taunt one hero of lore directs to another:”"Oho!" cried Maui. "Just let him catch one glimpse of the lopsided end of my phallus, and he'll go flying out of the way!" ” (Campbell 1960:193). extnote A story similar to the Hindu myth of the quarrel between Vishnu and Brahma. Shiva appears as a fiery pillar, and Vishnu and Brahma go in search of the opposite ends of such pillar (note of this writer).
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and so naturally exempt from sexual temptation. He possessed, rather, a male member that was normally kept retracted, like a horse’s; but that for purposes of demonstration, to quell disbelief, could be marvelously expanded.” -...-Buddhaghosa asserts that “other tongues are either fat, thin, short, or hard. The great man’s tongue is soft, long, and wide and also has a pleasing color. Because it is soft, [Buddha] can extend the tongue and touch and stroke both ears with it. Because it is long, he can touch and stroke both nostrils; because it is wide, he can cover his own forehead.” (Powers 2009:13-14). Hercules had already enjoyed a second birth as homo salvadego (savage man) during Christian times in the Alps: an unwashed, hirsute brute (a sort of alpine Enkidu) with a club, and an animal skin:”St. Francis was renowned for his communion with nature, particularly with birds. Tricksters and liminality also share this feature.”765.
This alpine version of Hercules can be restyled as San Cristoforo (III century martyr) in his human and zoomorphic image (dog-headed). San Cristoforo (in the Legenda Aurea) -just like homo salvadego- meets a child who asks him to be carried to a river's other shore (=the crossing mytheme). In spite of his strength, the giant barely makes it to the other shore: the child reveals he had been carrying the world on his shoulders. In the Christian version, the child is identified with Jesus.
Savior-founders and their ilk not only travel and/or retreat in solitude, but often climb mountains. Yatsenko 766 claims about the Vedas that “to the ancients, the mountain was a symbol of the path of yoga”. Voth 767 describes the importance of 765 766 767
Hansen 2001:55. MAISI002 no date:lecture 1. Discussing Hindu Vedas. 2010:The Places Of Myth, Mountains.
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mountains as quintessential sacred space in various religious traditions:
Height has remained a mythical symbol of the divine – a relic of Palaeolithic spirituality. In mythology and mysticism, men and women regularly reach for the sky, and devise rituals and techniques of trance and concentration that enable them to put these ascension stories into practice and ‘rise’ to a ‘higher’state of consciousness. Sages claim that they have mounted through the various levels of the celestial world until they reach the divine sphere. Yoga practitioners are said to fly through the air; mystics levitate; prophets climb high mountains and break into a more sublime mode of being (Armstrong 2005:12). Many savior-hero-founders are associated with specific mountains. For example, Zalmoxis retreats on mount Kogaion for three (=common mytheme) years; Romulus appears atop the seven hills; Moses climbs atop mount Sinai; Buddhist patriarch Mahakassapa at Gurpa; Buddhist Saint Nagarjuna at Sriparvata; Gautama Buddha preaches at Vulture Peak; Mohamed prays at Hira; Jesus delivers “the sermon on the mount”; he is transfigured on a high mountain, and appears at the mount of olives or on Golgotha (=”the place of the skull”); John the Baptist as heavenly child is spirited away to the White Mountain:
In the matrifocal cultures that settled in the fecund river valleys, the landscape — nature — is mythologized: here a sacred peak, there a sacred spring, here a sacred grove; every element of the geography woven into the local mythology. These agrarian economies thrive on nature's bounty — so Nature becomes personified in the various forms of a goddess figure, supportive and nurturing — and the mythology mirrors the seasons of the year and the cycle of the heavens. Nomadic peoples, however — again, specifically, the Indo-Europeans who overwhelmed “Old Europe” and the Semitic peoples who exploded out of the Arabian desert — developed a mythology centered not on any feature of landscape, which after all remains inflexible and hostile, but on elemental forces that are with them everywhere — powers of Sun and Sky 518
and Storm and Wind and Fire. These are powerful male deities, sky gods such as Indra, Zeus, and Yahweh. (Gerringer 2006:5). While Buddhists sought to become bodhisattvas or Buddhas, Daoists now sought to become immortals (aka “transcendents”), who according to legend distinguished themselves from the rest of us through all sorts of astonishing powers. In keeping with the Daoist romance of reclusion, these exemplars were said to live on high mountains, in secluded grottoes, or on faraway islands. According to Dutch Sinologist Kristopher Schipper, the Chinese word for immortal (hsien, or xian) is made out of the characters for “human being” and “mountain,” so immortals were human beings who traded in stale society for the vital rhythms of the natural world (Prothero 2010:101). Hubei police found out that the cult's leader, Li Changlu, 61, from the city of Yongzhou in Central China's Hunan Province, had been gathering together former members of the "Zhong Gong" cult since 2011. Calling himself a successor to Zhong Gong's leader and reincarnation of the Maitreya Buddha, Li established Milefo Dao and recruited followers in 23 provincial-level regions. -...-While brainwashing his members, Li also demanded his branches pushmembers to buy "healthcare products." Li claimed that his products were imbued with Buddha's power and required members to eat them to accumulate "merits." Boxes of medicine were sold to members at significant markups."The tutor told us that after he touched the product, or said something to the product, it would be totally changed. If we ate it, we would become immortal," said a member. The products sold by the cult are unlicensed and do not confirm to the country's food and drug standards, police said. Police arrested 21 key members of the cult in August 2015 and confiscated 10.32 million yuan, 37 bank cards and 82 books of cult propaganda. (Global Times, June 20, 2016). Achilles is associated with mount Pelion; Japanese Buddhist Saint Nichiren with mounts
Senko and later Minobu; Japanese Buddhist founders
Shinran and Kukai with mounts Hiei and Koya 768; Chinese Buddhist patriarch Zhiyi
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In Japan, mountain-worship (Shugendo) is still a current practice on the part of hermit-monks ( Yamabushi) who follow a composite doctrine mixing elements of Buddhism, Taoism and Shinto. About 600m high, mount Takao in the Tokyo area is home to Yamabushi.
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with mount Tiantai; Aeneas and Zeus with mount Ida 769; Elijah with mount Carmel; Chinese insurrectionist leader Hong Xiuquan (Taiping Rebellion, 1850-64) with mount Zijing; incarnate gods, the Dalai Lamas resided atop the Potala hill at Lhasa, a proxy for mythological mount Potalaka, where Buddha Avalokitesvara resides; Abraham binds Isaac at mount Moriah (probably today's Temple mound at Jerusalem), and so forth.
According to Mayahana Pure Land Buddhism, the four great Bodhisattvas (in the Chinese tradition Di-Tzang, Guan Yin, Wen Shu Shi Li, Pu Xian) are associated with four mountains. Other Buddhist lineages also record four mountains as sacred to different Bodhisattvas, although Chinese Zen masters add a fifth Buddha (Maitreya) and a fifth core direction (the five elements also). At Lhasa, three hills are associated with three Buddhist deities: Manjusri, Vajrapani, Avalokitesvara.
Navajo sand paintings often include the four sacred mountains (North, South, East, West). In China, five mountains are especially sacred to Taoism, and one of them (Tai Shan, 7.000 steps to the top) saw the presence of several Chinese Emperors, Confucius and Mao as well, and so on.
Samaritan Hebrews770 considered Jerusalemite Temple worship as a corruption of Judaism. They thus worshiped god on mount Gerizim, or the mythical 769 770
Two separate places, one in Crete (Zeus) and Anatolia (Aeneas). A tradition that developed from common Hebrew roots in Hellenistic times. Samaritans adopted a different set among Hebrew scriptures. In 111 BCE John Hyrcanus, a Maccabean King, destroyed the temple on mount Gerizim in favor of Jerusalemite worship.
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Bethel, where Jacob allegedly saw the ladder to heaven. Zephon (high mountain of the North: mount Aqraa in Syria) is the abode of Ugaritic chief god Baal -known in Mesopotamia as Marduk- much as Kailash is Shiva's abode, and Olympus Zeus'.
There is a patch of ground about eighteen miles from Durban called Paradise. It is a wooded hillock at the centre of a small estate called Ekuphakameni, 'the place that is lifted up'. Here in a modest mausoleum a Zulu prophet, Isaiah Shembe, lies buried. He was born in 1870 and died in 1935. His followers now number, it is claimed, a quarter of a million. Like Moses he spent time alone on a mountain and received, in some incalculable sense, his orders. Like the psalmist, he wrote hymns for his people. When he had much impressed a small gathering of Roman Catholic priests and they asked him why he did not join them he answered, in words recalling Jesus, 'I was a Roman Catholic before you were born'. Like Jesus, it is said of him that he rose from the dead. Though he never claimed divinity, such claims were made for him that his son and successor, Johannes Galilee Shembe, had to issue denials. (Eyre 1979:218). Popular culture is never far behind. Some famous Japanese giant robots of the 1970s are also associated with mountains: Getter Robot and mount Asama; Mazinger Z and mount Fuji, and so forth. In the end of an inspiring training montage, Rocky (Rocky IV) reaches a mountaintop, and screams his rival's name.
Some suggest:
The fundamental revelations to the founders of the three monotheistic religions, among many other revelation experiences, had occurred on a mountain. These three revelation experiences share many phenomenological components like feeling and hearing a presence, seeing a figure, seeing lights, and feeling of fear. In addition, similar experiences have been reported by non-mystic contemporary mountaineers. The similarities between these revelations on mountains and their appearance in contemporary mountaineers suggest that exposure to altitude might affect functional and neural 521
mechanisms, thus facilitating the experience of a revelation. Different functions relying on brain areas such as the temporo-parietal junction and the prefrontal cortex have been suggested to be altered in altitude. Moreover, acute and chronic hypoxia significantly affect the temporo-parietal junction and the prefrontal cortex and both areas have also been linked to altered own body perceptions and mystical experiences. Prolonged stay at high altitudes, especially in social deprivation, may also lead to prefrontal lobe dysfunctions such as low resistance to stress and loss of inhibition. Based on these phenomenological, functional, and neural findings we suggest that exposure to altitudes might contribute to the induction of revelation experiences and might further our understanding of the mountain metaphor in religion. (Arzy et alii 2005:841). Le fantastique est d’abord une affaire de vision, il s’élabore au plus près du processus de l’apparaître, il a trait à la sortie et l’entrée dans l’ombre, il suit ce visible qui à la fois se tapit dans sa cache d’invisibilité et va se rendre au plus haut point visible. Il remet en cause toute univocité régulière, il rend caduque la rationalité positive de la vue. Le fantastique transforme la perception. -...- on doit étudier le fantastique à travers ce qu’il propose : la thématisation et le réseau philosophique du voir, de l’apparition, de l’invisible. Cette perspective peut ainsi projeter le fantastique sur le champ de la vision. Du coup, l’image ne se contente plus de deux dimensions ; elle prend le relief que laissait pour compte l’amblyopie de la narratologie. (Dubreuil 1999: n.p). Paranormal experiences often involve the imagination; they are also frequently associated with deception. The paranormal and deception are two constituents of the trickster constellation, and this suggests that the imagination shares some of its properties. There is another component of the trickster constellation—sexuality. I have not addressed the sexual imagination, but it is a powerful force. So here we have the trickster elements of deception, sex, and psi, which are all closely associated with the imagination. (Hansen 2001:295). A recent documentary (2007) details some western Buddhists' pilgrimage to Tibet's holy places: the famous Oracle lake at 16.000 feet (4800 meters). Pilgrimnarrator Steven Dancz771 relates how -throughout the final leg of the journey - most
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An academic with the University of Georgia.
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group members suffered from altitude sickness; Dancz also reports the mystical experiences (dreams, visions etc ) many had. In Mwindo's myth, the central-African hero spends one year in heaven (a hostile place ruled by weather extremes) to later bring new laws to his people.
After an arduous trek astride a mule, at 12.000 feet (3600 meters) spiritual seekers in Peru are offered a concoction of the powerful hallucinogen mescaline from the San Pedro cactus sacred to local Inca people since time immemorial: they thus enter the spirit world while experiencing neurological and/or gastrointestinal syndromes. Pilgrims also bathe in the ice-cold water of nearby lake laguna Shimbe (black lake) as shamans officiate.
Readers will notice how myth's beloved ingredients are present, such as the hierophant; the hero's journey; the sacred drink; the body of water and sacred ablution; the taking off of clothes element; the neurological and gastrointestinal syndrome cathected with gnostic values; the communion with an higher power, and so forth.
In 1970, Osho Rajneesh introduced the “dynamic meditation”: frantic movement, scream, cry and laughter outbursts interspersed with catatonic moments as a way for devotees to reach the godhead. Readers shall individually determine how different that might be from western dance floors, or frantic Yoruba dances exported worldwide through the Black African diaspora:”it follows that symporeia (collective movement) has a particular role to play in human cognition and 523
emotional intelligence, beyond its usual role of creating social cohesion and reinforcing group identity.”:
The setting was the Sixth International Positive Psychology Summit, held in the majestic Gallup Organization building in downtown D.C. -...-The audience was instructed to stand, do a few shoulder rolls and neck stretches, shake their bodies, and then utter a big collective “Aaaah.” When we were loosened up, we were treated to the pounding beat of Ricky Martin’s “Cup of Life,” and the women on stage began to dance along in an awkward, choreographed way, while some in the audience boogied freestyle and a few of the older men stamped around as if putting out fires. I told Seligman I had liked the energy break well enough, not bothering to mention how closely it resembled the audience exercises undertaken by motivational speakers at the National Speakers Association. (Ehrenreich 2009:466-7). We have not yet explored how well sensory integration works for traumatized adults, but I regularly incorporate sensory integration experiences and dance in my seminars. Learning to become attuned provides -...-with the visceral experience of reciprocity.(Van Der Kolk 2014:163). Our reciprocity reflex seems to be so strong that it can even be triggered by inanimate devices ( Vishton 2016: How Little Things Cause Big Persuasion). Enthusiasm -in tune with the etymology of sacred Bacchic frenzy- may turn into convulsions. Cases of French XVIII century Jansenist convulsionnaire mystics: “ le corps résiste à tout” 772; of contemporary Christian Pentecostals; of India's and Bali's frenzied mystics at religious festivals and processions are emblematic. Gastrointestinal and/or neurological syndromes are indissociable from 772
Aguerre (Le Vampire 1984:episode 3) connects the popularity of vampirism with convulsionnaire mystics who abuse their bodies in all possible ways (for example by jumping from the third floor): their bodies “endure everything”. He also points out characters in de Sade's work, whose body remains intact in spite of torture and abuse. In the XVIII century the body rises to prominence as it takes over the promise of immortality the Catholic Church seemed unable to secure any longer.
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mystical or spirit world imagery. In antiquity, epilepsy was dubbed morbus sacer (sacred illness) because it implied spirit or divine possession.
The main character in The Time Machine (and the countless times such device has been employed) appears to his guests exhausted, unkempt, wounded:
He was in an amazing plight. His coat was dusty and dirty, and smeared with green down the sleeves; his hair disordered, and as it seemed to me greyer—either with dust and dirt or because its colour had actually faded. His face was ghastly pale; his chin had a brown cut on it -...- For a moment he hesitated in the doorway, as if he had been dazzled by the light. Then he came into the room. He walked with just such a limp as I have seen in footsore tramps -...- . I thought of the Time Traveller limping painfully upstairs. I don’t think any one else had noticed his lameness. (Wells 1895:19-21). The journey had been etched on his skin. The same approach is often employed in narratives related to UFOs and paranormal activities: Chilean corporal Valdez in 1977 was said to have gone missing for fifteen minutes in conjunction with a hypothetical UFO sighting, only to reappear with a dense beard having professedly lived five days in another dimension -or some other explanation of that kind-.
Irrespective of any issue altitude sickness poses, divine Shiva retreats to mountain-tops to meditate, and so do Orpheus, Milarepa etc; the five, inseparable -often likened to the five senses773 or to the five sheaths774 that surround atman
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The number five -like seven, twelve, three etc- is a totem number. Gautama Buddha and his five early companions. The five elements; the five precepts or the five aggregates of Buddhism and so forth. According to Vedantic philosophy they are:Anamayakosha, food;Pranamayakosha, breath;Manamayakosha,mind; Vijanamayakosha, wisdom; Anandamayakosha, rapture.
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(soul)- Pandavas775 (in the Mahabharata, each son of a quintessential Hindu god) suffer several years of exile in the wilderness.
Gautama Buddha, too, practices asceticism with five companions – five like the fingers of a hand, the five senses, or the Upanishadic koshas that envelop the atman or soul- before enlightenment: the Buddhist response to either Vedantic philosophy, or the Mahabharata quest. Govind Singh (X and last Sikh guru ) chooses five men as first members of militant order Khalsa; each man is given the name of a virtue.
Jesus retreats to fast in the desert, where he contends with the devil776:”After 775
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In the Mahabharata, two sets of cousins fight for supremacy. The same myth comes back in Rome in the duel between two sets of male triplets. The Horatii (championing the city of Rome), and Curiatii (championing the city of Alba Longa) vie for supremacy. Horatius survives alone: upon his triumphal return to Rome, he kills in a fit of patriotic rage his sister, who was in tears as she had been betrothed to one of the now deceased Curiatii. Sentenced to death as a result (=the hero bears the consequence of actions performed in order to bring the ultimate boon back), he appeals to the people alongside his father (=patriarch) and is thus acquitted. Horatius' father pleads that he not be left childless, and the Roman people acquiesces in a sort of Saving Private Ryan (1998). According to legend, the duel took place in the VII century BCE under mythical Roman King Tullius Hostilius. Meineck clinches:”The myth is set against the backdrop of a bitter war between the two cities, a war that in reality probably took place much later in the late fifth century BCE ”(2005-1:45). Central-African dictator Bokassa explained in this fashion how he had overthrown his own cousin in a golpe:”l'interest national prime le sentiment familial” (national interest supersedes family ties) he declared on tape in 1965. 'Great men' all behave alike:”However, he was battling a lost cause. Yakov Was captured. Stalin found out about it when he received a package from the Germans that included a picture of his son. "The fool-he couldn't even shoot himself" an angry Stalin complained to his younger son, Vasily. German authorities proposed a trade. They expected the Soviet leader would welcome his son's return. A message was sent to Stalin that said the Germans would release Yakov if the Soviets freed a German officer. Stalin refused. "I cannot do it," Stalin said. "War is war." This decision would cost Yakov his life. Some historians believe the Germans killed Yakov, but others think he committed suicide. According to the official report, Yakov died in Apri l 1943, after running into an electric fence surrounding the camp where he was held. Apparently Stalin never felt any remorse regarding his son's capture and death. "I have no son named Yakov," he was reported as saying after Yakov's capture.” (Haugen 2006:10-11). Once captured behind enemy lines, the hero is left alone as the horde back home disowns him. CEKA-NKVD, Khmer Rouge and GESTAPO squads were alternatively busy executing fellow countrymen. Jesus had said it eloquently:”If you want to be my disciple, you must hate everyone else by comparison--your father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters--yes, even your own life. Otherwise, you cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26). “Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty
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”777. Gautama Buddha fasts 49 days meditating under the Banyan tree. Cambronne 778 connects the number 49 to the number 7 in the Hebrew Book Of Daniel, a jubilee: a mystical calendar of plenitude.
[ St. Paul wrote] Nor did I go up to Jerusalem to consult with those who were apostles before I was. Instead, I went away into Arabia, and later I returned to the city of Damascus. (Galatians 1:17). Fictional Rocky Balboa retreats first to an ethnic ghetto ( Rocky III), and later to the polar Siberian wilderness ( Rocky IV). Bud Spencer's character in the xeroxed movies Bulldozer (1978) and Bomber (1982) is a champion who retreats as a lone seaman disgusted with backstage deals in the sport he loves so much, yet he's later coaxed into mentoring/training youth in problematic situations.
As it behooves any respectable savior, such youth are the scum of the earth: drifters, petty smugglers, three-card monte crooks, pickpockets, muggers etc. The providential master, however, holds no grudges: he recruits a mugger who had threatened him at gunpoint as well.
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nights, he was hungry. ” (Matthew 4:1-2).”After his suffering [=scourging and crucifixion], [Jesus] presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.” (Acts 1:3);”So he got up and ate and drank. Strengthened by that food, he traveled forty days and forty nights until [Elijah in flight from Jezebel] reached Horeb, the mountain of God. ”(1 Kings 19:8). 40 (=a number of completeness) also represents the years the Hebrews wandered in the desert; the days it rained during the deluge; Moses is up mount Sinai for 40 days; Lent lasts 40 days before Easter... In the Bible, “forty days” is mentioned 15 times (http://biblehub.net/search.php?q=forty+days). During the Black Plague epidemics, ships and their crews at Venice were isolated for 40 days ( quarantena) in order to help stop the contagion. The customs was also extended to other kinds of infections such as cholera. It might mean a period required until the time is complete in order to accomplish what's at stake in any particular instance. Sacred numbers are everywhere. In the Chinese Pure Land Buddhist tradition:”“Twenty-one” is not an actual number. It represents perfection. For example, in the Amitabha Sutra, the number seven represents perfection. It signifies the four directions, the zenith, the nadir, and center. In the Avatamsaka Sutra, ten is used to represent perfection. Counting from one to ten, ten is a complete and perfect number. Ten tens is one hundred, also a complete number. ” (Wuling, September 27, 2010). Matthew 4:2. No date.
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Third-rate movies and the Dalai Lama meet established science: positive psychology luminary Lyubomirsky claims forgiveness is (almost) always therapeutic. Forgiveness (perdono) is (as the Latin etymology of pardon, perdono, pardon goes) “a great gift”. Established religions hand out ladles of forgiveness to sinners and outcasts alike, just as street bums ask for donations for a variety of noble causes as they want one to take a “free” pen, postcard etc. Vishton establishes the connection:”the gift hits an unconscious reflex that causes us to be more receptive to requests”779.
Emotional intelligence notable Brackett uses a similar approach he calls “meta-moment”. Before “going for the jugular” after someone “triggers us”, Brackett advises to engage in cognitive reconstruction (= how would our “best self” react?) to find possible soothing or acceptable alternative explanations to avoid lashing out.
“Real American” Rambo (Rambo III, 1988) retreats in solitude among Buddhists only to be back with a vengeance: “I feel strong about right and wrong, And I don't take trouble for very long”; Superman's polar abode is aptly named “fortress of solitude”780. It is difficult not to recall Gilgamesh's retreat to the wilderness (away from civilization) as he seeks the secret of eternal life 781.
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2016:How Little Things Cause Big Persuasion. “Superman is drawn from other super-savior myths of the time, and the borrowing can be obvious. For example, you probably know of Superman’s Fortress of Solitude in the Arctic, but Doc Savage also had a Fortress of Solitude in the Arctic, and his first name was also Clark. Doc Savage (née 1933) is the Man of Bronze and Superman (1938) is the Man of Steel. Captain Future (1940) is The Man of Tomorrow; so is Superman. The girlfriend of The Shadow (1930) was Margo Lane; Superman’s was Lois Lane. ” (Seidensticker 2014:no page). For example, Sun goddess Amaterasu retreats to the depth of a cave in order to sulk.
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The retreat/exile can be either elective or compulsory. Imprisonment was a very important element of medieval Christian hagiography, soon absorbing the gnostic value of a spiritual initiation:
Dans les textes hagiographiques médiévaux, l’emprisonnement peut donc être associé à la fois aux conventions du récit hagiographique (l’histoire du martyre) et à la valeur discursive de la prison en tant qu’espace où pouvaient s’exprimer des leçons sur les tendances libératrices de la foi. (Cassidy-Welch no date:57). He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. -...- Yet it was the LORD's will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life an offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand. (Isaiah 53:3-4,10). As difficult as it might be to appreciate this experimental support for the practice of Opus Dei, the results suggest that purification through the pain of self-flagellation might tap into a basic way we deal with feelings of guilt. Perhaps recognizing our mistakes, admitting them, and adding some form of physical punishment is a good recipe for asking forgiveness and opening a new page. (Ariely 2012:125). But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. (Luke 5:16). Chavez, Castro, De Valera, Mujica, Havel, Khomeini, Mandela, Hitler, Walesa, Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Smith and countless other leaders from all provinces of the political spectrum were imprisoned and/or prosecuted for more or less extended periods of time. Most of them fled (or were exiled from) the country -just like Jesus and Krishna- for some time to avoid retaliation. Castro toured the USA; Khomeini found sanctuary in Paris; Havel was 'exiled' to work in a
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brewery; Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte grew up in Switzerland:”Historical ‘heroes’ are ten-a-penny”.
In prison, Hitler allegedly wrote Mein Kampf, the future regime's blueprint. Mandela, Mujica, Smith, Havel, De Valera, Walesa, Khomeini, Castro were touted to have developed -thanks to prison terms and maltreatment - the insight and gnostic potency that would later cause them to spearhead the overthrow of an accursed regime and its foolish utopias.
Regimes fall like dry leaves. Apartheid in South Africa; Communism in Poland and former Czechoslovakia; discredited Cuban caudillo Batista in Cuba; the Shah's regime in Iran; the brutal British rule in Ireland; or the inept II Republic in France... Other regimes sprout like mushrooms. The Jesus covenant in the new promised land of America; welfare State in Uruguay appear... Detained for sedition at Alipore in 1908, Aurobindo assertedly received mystical assurance of India's future independence, and divine insight to develop his philosophical system.
The homo novus of the radical left, the Greek Tsipras, takes part in clashes with police as radical left-wing extremists try to enter Italy at Ancona to disrupt violently the G8 meeting 782 in 2001. Just as the screenplay demands, Tsipras, in line with fellow left-wing radicals Mujica, Castro and Mandela, is hailed as austere: a real 'man of destiny' who shuns pomp:”false modesty might conceal exalted visions of grandeur”. As Tsipras is appointed to lead Greece, he once more 782
Mailonline, June 22, 2015.
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shows that the clown and the savior figure literally intertwine.
The false modesty item is evergreen. In 1975, creative star A.L. Webber composed Don't Cry For Me Argentina. The musical went on to enjoy massive popularity through the decades with a familiar portrait:
Será difícil de comprender Que a pesar de estar hoy aquí Soy del pueblo, jamás lo podré olvidar Debéis creerme Mis lujos son solamente un disfraz Un juego burgués, nada más Las reglas del ceremonial The operetta tentative to set the world rolling towards some Da Vinci
Code doomsday scenario collapses in farce as Tsipras first bombastically resists, then totally acquiesces to exaction international finance demands of Greece. August 20, 2015 Tsipras resigns: man of destiny or schlockmeister? The experiment ends like the botched launch of a new aftershave that flunks out in the end: no doomsday; no collapse of the Euro zone; no European civil war...
I [= Ellen G. White, Seventh-Day Adventist co-founder] was shown [in 1856] the company present at the Conference. Said the angel: 'Some food for worms, some subjects of the seven last plagues, some will be alive and remain upon the earth to be translated at the coming of Jesus'. At one time she saw that the Lord would come the second time in June 1845. The prophecy was discussed in all the churches, and in a little 'shut-door paper' published in Portland, Me. During the summer, after June passed, I heard a friend ask [Seventh-Day Adventist co-founder Ellen G. White] how she accounted for the vision? She replied that 'they told her in the language of Canaan, and she did not understand the language; that it was the next September that the Lord was coming, and the second growth of grass instead of the first in June.' September passed, and many more 531
have passed since, and we have not seen the Lord yet. It soon became evident to all candid persons, that many things must have been 'told her in the language of Canaan,' or some other which she did not understand, as there were repeated failures. I could mention many which I knew of myself. ( Ellen G. White Estate, emphasis added). In 2016, another left-wing harlequin -Italian PM Renzi- promises to short-circuit the EU equilibrium by vetoing the budget if his demands are not promptly met in matters of budget and illegal immigration: “ I don't care [about Renzi's grievances]” quips EU Commission President Juncker783.
A few weeks later, Renzi resigns ( December 7, 2016) after an electoral fiasco; internal opposition also forces Renzi to throw in the towel as PD secretary in February 2017. Instead of recognizing voters had seen through his bogus god-claims as they refused to pledge existential idolatry to him, Renzi whimpers in narcissistic pain how “Non credevo che potessero odiarmi così tanto ” 784 (I didn't believe they could hate me so much). Renzi had promised an era of ongoing jollification (=tax cuts, subsidies...), but as soon as he leaves office, tax increases materialize from nowhere.
[Jesus said:]Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. -...-Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! -...- Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? (John 8:43,45-46). But when the Pharisees heard about the miracle, they said, "No wonder [Jesus] can cast out demons. He gets his power from Satan, the prince of demons." (Matthew 12:24). 783 784
Reuters, November 7, 2016. Corriere Della Sera, December 5, 2016.
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I've given people the light pleasures, shown them a good time. And all I get is abuse, the existence of a hunted man (Chicago “gangland chief” Al Capone in 1927). All of my friends, all of, most of my clients, the individual clients, are not net losers. I made a lot of money for them. I was making 20% returns for them (Jewish-American fraudster B.Madoff in 2011. He's accused of embezzling US$ 20 billion from investors). The German people has not fought heroically, it deserves to perish. It is not I who have lost the war, but the German people (Attributed to Hitler in 1945 by UK intelligence sources). Religions and politics couldn't be more alike. Whenever bogus godclaims of any established religion and/or political constituency are questioned, grandiose purulence infects the scene so that opponents might be denounced as evildoers who refuse to acknowledge how Salazar, Joseph Smith, Sikh Guru Arjan 785, Jesus, Renzi, Hillary Rodham Clinton or Tsipras “suffered for us” or “only wanted to do us good”.
If GREXIT won't make Europe implode, perhaps BREXIT will: puff pieces in the press soon announce Great Britain is presently to leave the EU to put doomsday prophecies in motion once again. R.L. Moore explains that the induction of anxiety makes people “stupid and aggressive” 786. Could “Psychotics who identify themselves with the mythological image” miss the opportunity?
A British member of parliament was shot dead in the street on Thursday, causing deep shock across Britain and the suspension of campaigning for next week's referendum on the country's EU membership. -...- Media reports, citing witnesses, said the attacker 785
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1563-1606. V Sikh Guru. Muslim Emperor Jahangir had him arrested as a presumed conspirator. Guru Arjan died under torture as he refused to convert to Islam. No date-3:part 7.
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had shouted out "Britain first", which is the name of a right-wing nationalist group that describes itself on its website as "a patriotic political party and street defence organisation". (Reuters, June 17, 2016). Terror Management Theory787, however, predicts that when mortality enters the picture (whether one's physical mortality, or -the present writer addselusive gnostic variants such as the “death” of the Euro zone; of welfare apparatuses; of the quest after a State for a stateless community...), people rabidly and desperately cling to their symbolic, collective projective systems: they wag their little flags; they acquiesce to clampdown or police State; they sulk, loathe, march and froth at the mouth as the masters of acceptable discourse spin their yarn. Thoughts of mortality also heighten phobias and other mental disturbances 788. Death -according to Girardkills mimetic desire.
Such dog&pony impending mayhem show can be tailored to suit all constituencies. In a commentary track to the atheist Christ-myth documentary The
God Who Wasn't There (2005), Richard Carrier appears mortally aghast. President George Bush, jr. and bigoted Christian fundies are ready to take “heroic remedies” to solve the atheist problem by unleashing persecutions that shall mirror...what Jews suffered in 1930s Germany.
The blurb for Obama's America, a book by Christian conservative Indian-American author Dinesh D'Souza claims how:”Obama came into office with an eight-year plan for America, argues D’Souza. If he’s reelected in 2012, he will be 787 788
Solomon et alii 2015. Solomon et alii 2015.
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able to finish the job—and destroy America’s future. ”.
In 2017 (as soon as Trump is elected), Carrier indignantly fulminates against the sin of imperialism and foreign wars. The fact that Nobel Peace Prize winner Obama had kept such wars, garrison state provisions 789 and imperialism going for two terms while in office as U.S president is a memory Carrier doesn't seem to have:”As Butler put it, “If you suppress a fact because it is awkward, you will next be asked to contradict it.””. The thousand heads of the Social-Communist hydra (GLBT, queers, men-in-drag, climate change and “social justice” warriors, atheists, minorities...) are urged to soldier on.
Start by leaving problem behaviors in the past; focus on identifying and creating new behaviors. Over time, these may shape the dominant pathways in the brain. This is achieved through a solution-focused questioning approach that facilitates self-insight, rather than through advice-giving. (Rock&Schwartz 2006:no page). R.L. Moore explicitly claims that advertisements stir a storm of archetypal impulses in order to trigger one to “act out” instead of regulating such impulsions790.
What we have now is a kind of scandal inflation plus predictable cover-ups that are their inevitable by-products. The result is not only elevating commonplace indiscretions,-...- but also inuring citizens to concern about serious governmental wrongdoing -...-.I am not against criticism and opposition. After all, this book criticizes patterns I find dangerous and troubling. I object only when criticism and opposition become automatic and 789
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For example the issue of detention without trial of political prisoners, torture and “secret prison centers”. As a candidate, Obama had animadverted on the inhumane policies of his predecessor Bush, jr.. When in power, however, Obama had maintained most -or all- of the same “unconstitutional” policies. 2003:part 2.
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exaggerated, and fly out of control (Tannen 1998:58-59,132). Furthermore, consumerism is apparently bolstered up as a result:
Other studies have shown that people who view death most negatively are most attracted to high-status material possessions, especially if they have shaky self-esteem. And after thinking about their mortality, people estimated they would make more money in the future, and spend more on luxuries like clothing and entertainment. -...- managing existential terror underlies our insatiable desire for money and the urge to splurge (Solomon et alii 2015:86, emphasis added). The approval with which we look upon fashionable attire is by no means to be accounted pure make-believe. We readily, and for the most part with utter sincerity, find those things pleasing that are in vogue. Shaggy dress-stuffs and pronounced colour effects, for instance, offend us at times when the vogue is goods of a high, glossy finish and neutral colours. A fancy bonnet of this year’s model unquestionably appeals to our sensibilities to-day much more forcibly than an equally fancy bonnet of the model of last year -...-. For a creative principle, capable of serving as motive to invention and innovation in fashions, we shall have to go back to the primitive, non-economic motive with which apparel originated,—the motive of adornment -...- under the guidance of the law of expensiveness (Veblen 2007:88,115) But whenever the cost far exceeds any visible benefit, it’s a good bet that part of the reason is signaling. It can seem a little crazy to spend money on such signaling; particularly if your competitors are doing it, too, you can find yourself in an arms race that’s costly indeed.(Chen&Krakovsly 2010:109). So companies use signals [when hiring], like where an applicant went to school, the jobs they held previously, or other readily available information as a proxy for qualities that are difficult to evaluate.(Berger 2016:56). The researchers concluded that a simple reminder of wealth undermined the ability of participants to savor the small things in life, like a chocolate bar.(Peterson 2013:47).
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The belief-transmission game is rigged so that we must believe that children and money bring happiness, regardless of whether such beliefs are true. -...- We are nodes in a social network that arises and falls by a logic of its own, which is why we continue to toil, continue to mate, and continue to be surprised when we do not experience all the joy we so gullibly anticipated.(Gilbert 2006:131, emphasis added). Other 'great men' barely escape death as a gage of future greatness: the future Pope John Paul II paralyzes a Soviet executioner 791 with his therapeutic stare. According to French mythologist Vernant, the stare was linked to the thunderbolt in the Graeco-Roman world:”how key the amygdala is in cueing us to attend to the eyes, which gives us clues to other people’s thoughts and emotions.”792. Hindu gods, too, look with a firm gaze as they do not blink their eyes (animisha793).
A story almost identical to what happened to the now beatified Wojtyla in 1945 is told about Adolf Hitler: a British soldier would have spared a wounded -and forever grateful- Hitler (just as a forever grateful Wojtyla) during WWI in France. In another variant of the same story, Hitler was not even wounded. Some historians contend Hitler never served in that region of France to start with: a possible propaganda con game?
Be as it may:”THEIR eyes met across the battlefield in what would turn out to be the final weeks of the First World War. The wounded German corporal
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Il Giorno, April 6, 2014:9. The former Soviet executioner telling the story is Vassili Sirotenko, now deceased. Baron-Cohen 2011:39. Once again, neuroscience seems to support the findings of immemorial myths and religions. People “copulate with their eyes”: miracles happen. Also an epithet of Hindu god Shiva, who -as the quintessential ascetic- is “alert and awake”. “indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.” ( Psalm 121:4). In his quest towards immortality, Gilgamesh falls asleep, thus jeopardizing his chances to attain it.
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was trying to escape but realised he was in the rifle sight of a British soldier.” 794. Fascist leader -and Waffen SS General – Degrelle also had a therapeutic stare. He relays that during a stay as a fugitive in a hostile country after WWII, a political foe from the past recognized him; their eyes met, but the foe didn't alert the police.
In both Wojtyla's, Degrelle's and Hitler's story, both parties (the potential victims and executioners) are absolutely sure -in spite of decades passing after the fleeting encounter- of their respective identities.
Assertedly, a hired gunman was so mesmerized by Gandhi's speech that he forsook his plan, and later confessed his intention while bowing to the great man. Earlier still, while in South Africa in 1908, Gandhi had been beaten almost to death by another Indian in a tense political moment: he promptly forgave his attacker, who in turn conceded to have been in the wrong. These stories all read alike. Gandhi explained in 1938 what happened in 1908:”This could not have happened if I had retaliated. My action can be fitly described as a process of conversion-...-: this urge to convert your enemy by your love” 795.
“Historical ‘heroes’ are ten-a-penny”, indeed. Roman general Vespasian barely eschewed death: he had fallen asleep during one of Nero's theatrical performances, thus irking the cantankerous Caesar. Prophecies announced 794 795
Warren 2014: no page. The meek hero who wants to “save” the ungrateful flock as he's torn apart in death recurs everywhere. Romanian Fascist leader Codreanu explained how:”"The death team" is the expression of these inner feelings of the legionary youth throughout the whole country, to receive death; its determination to go forward, through death.”. Another Fascist leader, the English Mosley, commented how:”those who march with us will certainly face abuse -...- and possibly the ferocity of struggle and of danger”.
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Vespasian, too, “had a rendezvous with destiny”:
[Vespasian] is also suitably modest when asked to heal the sick: reluctant to act, he takes professional medical advice first ( H. 4.81.4).Thus when [Tacitus] mildly notes in the opening to the Histories that ‘we only took on board the predictions and signs connected with Vespasian after the event’, Tacitus is not exercising a cynicism that these signs were ‘really’ meaningless or fabricated: he is signalling what was probably the only sensible position that could be taken at the time. Even Vespasian did not associate the various signs with empire ( H. 2.78.2) and, after all, Galba and Otho also had imperial destinies to fulfil. When three of four candidates are fated to win the throne, how are we to decide in which order they will do so? Or for how long? Galba, though told by Tiberius that he was destined to rule decades previously, had subsequently lived through the reigns of Caligula, Claudius and Nero. And signs could easily be misunderstood: Vespasian himself thought the signs had already been fulfilled. Why should the senate think otherwise? Galba and Otho are both testaments to the wildly unnavigable outcomes of fata when enacted in their human context. (Davies 2004:174-5). “hindsight bias.” The finding is that, after the fact, we think that we always knew the outcome was likely, if not a foregone conclusion. -...-many people thought they had seen it coming. They hadn’t. They were just misremembering. (Thaler 2015:22). A new memory trace gets formed every time you remember because the hippocampus is not just recreating the original pattern; it’s also changing it each time, incorporating the new information that it’s receiving and disregarding things that might not be important. There is a bit of randomness in this process. -...- The fact that you can imagine what it was like to be back in the past is remarkable, but it also means that it’s fairly easy for you to pollute the memory with information that isn’t accurate.-...-Memory is reconstructive. Each time we remember an event, we have to build up the memory from scratch, and every instance of remembering changes the way that the memory will be retrieved in the future. -...-The formation of a type of false memory where you combine information from different but similar events, or even insert a completely false set
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of details, is very common. (Viskontas796 2017:52, emphasis added). people misremember their own pasts by recalling that they once thought, did, and said what they now think, do, and say. -...-we mistakenly conclude that we will feel tomorrow as we feel today. (Gilbert 2006:73,79). If you want to build mythology within your company, rather than circulating a PowerPoint of data, cultivate legend and lore. As we now know, information kills mystique.(Hogshead 2010:85). Supernatural interventions assertedly allowed deposed Cuban dictator Batista to evade his Castrist pursuers: Batista was known for his devotion to Santeria spirits. As Castro was inaugurating the new Social-Communist regime in Cuba, a white dove landed on his shoulder: Santeria spirits had shifted allegiance by appointing the (new) man of destiny. The same white dove shtick recurred in 1989 as Castro celebrated the 30th anniversary of power: manifest destinies never stop unfolding.
Karol Wojtyla plotted a trajectory very similar to Vespasian's: starting from humble beginnings797, he ascended to the throne; he barely eschewed death; Aurobindo, too, purportedly “attained the supermind”, was active within anticolonial insurrectionist cabals, and tussled with colonial authorities.
Wojtyla was gradually rumored to have brought about the implosion of the Communist block all by himself, just as Vespasian had routed a powerful revolt 796 797
Neuro-scientist, Adjunct Professor Of Psychology. In Catholic circles, stories circulate describing Wojtyla as a sort of “miracle baby”: his mother would have contemplated an abortion, but Wojtyla's 'rendezvous with destiny' caused him to survive.
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in Judea. In Aurobindonian circles, Aurobindo is credited with a decisive role in Hitler's defeat:
All traditions have warned against the use of spiritual powers, the reason being that they might cause an inflation of the ego and turn the subject away from his path. But an effort like the one by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother demanded a constant battle against the powers which dominate the earth. Against the use of black magic by the Black Forces there was no other option than the use of white magic by the White Forces. -...-And, writing again in the third person, [Aurobindo] disclosed about himself: “In his retirement Sri Aurobindo kept a close watch on all that was happening in the world and in India and actively intervened whenever necessary, but solely with a spiritual force and silent spiritual action … It was this force which, as soon as he had attained to it, he used, at first only in a limited field of personal work, but afterwards in a constant action upon the world forces”. (Van Vrekhem 2012:no page). The Master Mason, if he be truly a Master, is in communication with the unseen powers that move the destinies of life (Occultist and Master Mason M.P. Hall, The Lost Keys Of Freemasonry, IV ed., 1923). Wojtyla was also reputed to have grown gradually more spiritual over time, until he was bruited about to have been a supernatural healer all along, just like Vespasian; Aurobindo's mystical attainment is the stuff of legend among devotees.
Now that the Polish Pope has become a Saint, scores of supposed eyewitnesses from all over raise their hands to testify that John Paul II was -indeed- the man of destiny, and a clairvoyant thaumaturge:”Contaste-mo tu, ou terei sonhado que o contavas? [Did you tell me that for real, or was it in a dream that you told me about that?]”.
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Devotees regard Aurobindo as some sort of messiah; Vespasian was deified as temples were dedicated to him:”we only took on board the predictions and signs connected with [the great man] after the event”;”These things His disciples did not understand at the first; but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written of Him, and that they had done these things to Him ” (John 12:16);”Because it made people feel like insiders.”798;”building mystique envy.”799.
Popular culture couldn't lag far behind. Filmed when J.C. Van Damme was still an unknown striver, No Retreat No Surrender was marketed in Europe after Van Damme's global rise in popularity as a full-fledged Van Damme title role movie, although Van Damme merely plays third fiddle in No Retreat No Surrender.
In Italy, the 1986 movie No Retreat No Surrender was titled Kickboxer,
Vendetta Personale as a nod to worldwide 1989 Van Damme hit movie Kickboxer. Myth(ologie)s are all over the place: the distortion of the timeline (a 1986 movie presented as a sort of sequel to a 1989 movie); ”we only took on board the predictions and signs connected with [the great man] after the event” ( a movie where Van Damme plays the second stringer is billed as a full Van Damme title role movie).
'Great men', 'good causes' or psychotic societal taboos are no necessary ingredients, however. People raise their hands to testify in support of anything and 798 799
Berger 2013:32. Hogshead 2010:86.
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everything:”What is someone going to tell my cousin, “No, I think you’re lying, there’s no way [that shop] would be that nice”? Hardly.”.
A homemade YouTube tear-jerking video recounts this story about a chap who was embarrassed because his mother had just one eye. The video ends with the explanation that the mother -now deceased- had given her eye to the now ungrateful child once he had lost his in an accident:”Making people feel like insiders can benefit all types of products and ideas.”800.
People in sentimental rapture rush to articulate their emotional agony in the comment section; a few remark how it is medically impossible to transplant eyeballs; at least one person, however, claims the story to be a true one because s-he read about it elsewhere: s-he even saw pictures of the mother, and so forth. Another deranged oddball is possibly claiming elsewhere to have personally met the mother...
This was the reaction to a crummy video some lightweight posted online. Readers may come to their own conclusions about crucified Canadians and bayoneted babies narratives media heavily promote as lawyers are ready to serve those who voice disagreement should evil eyes and shame shamanism fail to successfully deter:”Even if such claims had merit -...- [people] cannot ethically stand by this [statement] whose end result can only be furthering discrimination under the guise of academic discourse.”. 800
Berger 2013:34.
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Da fome sabes alguma coisa: já viste uma bandeira negra içada na torre da igreja.(Contaste-mo tu, ou terei sonhado que o contavas?) (José Saramago, Carta Para Josefa, 1968). (You know a thing or two about famine: you could see a black flag on the church's tower. Did you tell me that for real, or was it in a dream that you told me about that?). Just as government informants may direct an extremist party; or a PR firm may orchestrate a bayoneted baby scare, so online comments, too, can be part of an orchestrated campaign:
[A psychopathic con man discloses how he operates]Then you can get to work—not right away, you need to be patient. -...- You modify whatever it is, whatever the hell they’ve told you—you tend to know instantly where the pressure points are—and then tell the story back as if it were your own. Bam! From that point on, you can pretty much take what you want. (Dutton 2012:75). Listen for the plot. Give back to them the very words that they gave you -...-. Realize that you can be instrumental in their story. You can participate in their adventure by offering them a way to move their story forward (Faulkner 2002). Just as new malt liquor and espresso coffee brands are groomed from time to time, it seems that Pope Francis I is also being primed to play the part of man of destiny as the Catholic Church faces endemic crises. Whether demi-gods truly whisper providential blueprints of destiny to the ear of a 'great man', or a propaganda con game may be on is left to readers to decide.
To name just a couple incidents, the Bishop of Limburg (Germany) Tebartz Van Elst is transferred after he allegedly spent euro 31 million to refurbish his palace; he purportedly spent euro 15.000 on his new bathtub alone 801. Joining 801
Il Mattino, March 26, 2014.
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other “great men” in making such a claim, the high prelate commented:”Those who know me know I don’t need any kind of grandiose lifestyle. ”.
Cases the Catholic hierarchy 'couldn't possibly have known about nor prevented' are many: Bishop Scarano, former accountant of a division in charge of managing Catholic Church's estates (APSA, Amministrazione Patrimonio Sede
Apostolica) is arrested in January 2014. It appears Scarano was at the center of a rogue network made of fraudulent charities maneuvering to launder money through the Vatican bank IOR802: the judicial system impounds princely estates and multimillionaire bank accounts. In 2015, a financial scandal puts the financial equilibrium of the Franciscan order into jeopardy: euro 20 million are “missing” as clergy and lay people are under investigation803.
26 women who write Pope Francis I 804 are a sample from a peculiar lot: women in a 'romantic relationship' with a Catholic priest; they urge the Church to revise its position on the matter. S.M. Cavalletti, a Catholic clergyman, is arrested at Milan during a cocaine party for selling and possessing drugs 805:"All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!" (John 8:7).
Cavalletti, however, had already been sentenced for fraud; he had tricked an old lady into surrendering euro 22.000 to him: he was still serving as a Catholic priest. Rumor also has it that Cavalletti might co-own a night club:”The 802 803 804 805
NoiSalerno, January 21, 2014. La Repubblica, November 25, 2015. TgCom24, May 18, 2014. TgCom24, July 16, 2014.
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Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.� (Matthew 11:19).
Jozef Wesolowski806, a former Polish Archbishop, is put under house arrest at the Vatican for episodes of pedophilia while he was serving as a Vatican diplomat in Santo Domingo: a Vatican tribunal had already stripped him of his religious status after a trial in June 2014:"All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!" (John 8:7):
Religious belief groups, open to new members joining their group from all lifestyles, readily assume that those who join them hold similar beliefs and values, and tend to focus on professed beliefs and values and to forgive past transgressions. These noble qualities, unfortunately, make them easier targets for manipulation by unscrupulous fraudsters. (Babiak&Hare 2006:90). The Catholic Church still has a few aces up its sleeves, however: after the sanctification of stupendous Popes John XXIII and John Paul II, another fabulous Pontiff plots the same trajectory: a miracle is officially recognized as Paul VI's, soon to be Blessed807. In November 2015, Pope Francis is at his most angelic as he rubs elbows with the dejected and dines at soup kitchens: the Italian justice system impounds euro 500.000 from the (former) abbot of Montecassino.
Apparently, Catholic clergyman Vittorelli used to spend as much as euro 34.000 a month on credit card bills for luxury items, travels and hotels as he embezzled charitable funds, and nurtured political ambitions close to right-wing 806 807
TgCom24, September 23, 2014. ANSA, May 6, 2014.
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Forza Italia808. Monsignor Patrizio Benvenuti is arrested 809: he embezzled euro 30 million as he appropriated charity donations. Angelic Pope Francis I, however, is busy making history810: he officially admits women and the disabled to the foot washing rite, and meets Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill in Cuba 811:”Just bad writing. -...-More of the same as in the canonical gospels, more parables and quite frankly, nonsense. Certainly nothing an elder or group of people would be flocking to.”.
When the savior-hero comes back from his retreat, he's no longer the same. Rocky proceeds to summarily defeat Black boxer Clubber Lang (who had previously vanquished him in Rocky III), and Soviet 'wrecking machine' Ivan Drago (Rocky IV); young Jason Stillwell (No Retreat No Surrender), too, is unstoppable.
That's the “repetition compulsion” that forces people into all sorts of illfated relationships in the hope of “doing over”, “correcting” or “getting right” traumatic events or relationships from one's past. In the Rocky ( Karate Kid, or what have you) movies, the 'do-over' works like a charm: Rocky finally defeats Apollo Creed, Clubber Lang and Ivan Drago. Common people, however, hop from one doomed relationship to another as they “marry their mother” for the fifth time: the third investment portfolio supposed to grant 20% net return crashes...
What 808 809 810 811
most
La Repubblica, November 12, 2015. ANSA, February 10, 2016. TgCom24, January 21, 2016. TgCom24, February 12, 2016.
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see
as
the
godly
byproduct
of
gnostic
insight
(training/bricolage montages, bodily ascent to heaven or descent to hell...) looks suspiciously like a mental disorder: a dissociative fugue. Composed around 1700 BCE, the “Babylonian Job” (Ludlul-Bel-Nemeqi) clearly states:”In prosperity they [=mankind] speak of climbing to Heaven. Trouble overtakes them and they speak of going down to Sheol. [=nether world]” 812. In 1581, Tasso writes in his Gerusalemme
Liberata:”Oh nostra folle mente ch'ogn'aura di fortuna estolle! ”813.
Jungian scholar R.L. Moore clinches that personal and world renewal imagery intertwine, whence the evergreen apocalyptic metaphor – complete with saviors in charge of restoring order and evil forces in opposition- that obsesses the human mind. As this writing suggests all along, the psychotic crack-up of small cliques -or even individuals- may be all there is to all the apocalyptic fire and brimstone “things to come” the multitude nowadays elatedly digs.
Today also you are free to write an Upanishad. It is basically an interpretation and a re-interpretation of some aspect of the Vedic realization but it presupposes that the person who is going to write about it has had first hand experience. (Varma, MAISI031 no date: unit 2:4, emphasis added). Even today, in hunting societies from Siberia to Tierra del Fuego, shamans believe that when they go into a trance they ascend to heaven and speak with the gods, as all humans did long ago in the Golden Age.(Armstrong 2005:13). Just as people experiencing a mental breakdown can leave everything behind to run away in order to start a new life under a new identity elsewhere as 812 813
H. Rawlinson translation. “Our foolish mind sings the praises of everything that looks like good luck”. Here Tancredi (a Christian warrior) rejoices as he sees he's overpowering a foe in battle. He ignores he's actually killing his beloved Clorinda, a Muslim amazon.
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the past gets erased from conscious recollection, so the hero comes back with a new self. Taken as epitome of rites of passage and family conflicts, Parvati's son Ganesha “gets a new head” after Shiva beheads him as they fight.
Garden variety psychotics do it all the time online: they make one of their identities die; they often announce the excruciating death posing as friends, relatives etc of the departed, only to resume their chicanery anew under another moniker elsewhere online: multiple personality disorders, and (virtual) dissociative fugues.
Popular culture couldn't lag far behind. Personality coach Nancy Showalter promises online to teach one how to “Become Empowered, Unstoppable and Inspired to Action”. She also suggests religious practices that involve an eclectic mix of self-proclaimed aquarian beliefs, theosophical ascended masters, quantum mysticism and so forth.
The five Pandavas (Hindu Mahabharata) have to be back in disguise (=the Ulysses shtick); nobody shall be able to recognize them, lest they want to suffer another period of exile. When the seven (Christian) sleepers (from the
Golden Legend) wake up, they find the world has changed, and their formerly prosecuted religion is now the prescribed cult.
Even Hebrew patriarch Joseph's brothers -who had earlier sold him into slavery- no longer recognize him -just as the Hindu Pandava brothers, Ulysses,
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Buddha, Jesus and so many others aren't recognized in turn- as the dew of reconciliation rains all over:
When Joseph came home, they presented to him the gifts they had brought into the house, and they bowed down before him to the ground. -...-Then Joseph hurried from the room because he was overcome with emotion for his brother. He went into his private room, where he broke down and wept. (Genesis 43:26-30). O[ld]T[estament] myth’s relevance is evident in the close parallels three well-known myths offer to the Odyssey. Joseph, separated from his brothers and father for virtually the same length of time Odysseus is away from Ithaka, meets with them unrecognized, submits them to various painful tests, before revealing his identity to them. The recognition scenes serve as the climax to his narrative, as do Odysseus’ recognition scenes with Penelope and Laertes. The parallels suggest a highly developed form of romance, with intricate recognition scenes, is a mythical genre common to both Greek and Israelite culture, as explored in Chapter 3. Odysseus’ crew, confined on Thrinakia for a month, in revolt, sacrificing Helios’ cattle in a perverse ritual, offers extensive parallels to the Israelites’ revolt against Moses, and perverse worship of the gilded calf in Exodus 32. The myths of Jonah and Odysseus suggest that Greek and Israelite culture both have a genre of myth we might think of as the fantastic voyage. (Louden 2011:9). He approached me; I raised the ruler. No, Enrico, said he, with his kind smile, putting aside the ruler with his hand, let us be friends again as before. I was stupefied for a moment, then I felt as though a hand had pushed my shoulder, and I found myself in his arms. He kissed me and said: No more quarrels between us! No, never! Never! Never! I answered. (De Amicis 1918:103). In 325 CE at Nicaea, (some) Christian leaders maimed during prosecutions in recent decades could receive converted Constantine's brotherly embrace: the tide had turned forever. Noted historian Toynbee adopted this dynamic as his “law of withdrawal and return” to explain civilisational cycles. 550
Solitude need not to be found at high altitude or in the wilderness, either. Mid-way between the extremes of elective and enforced exile/retreat stands Joseph Campbell's. The mythologist explains how he retreated unemployed to a log cabin in order to read and ponder for five years during the Great Depression.
Awesome father figure, war veteran and karate master Miyagi (from The
Karate Kid movies) serves as unobtrusive handyman working in the back yard, much as legendary intergalactic hero Obi-Wan Kenobi lives as a lone hermit. Cinderella and Snow White toil away in the background as their beauty and noble heart remain unrecognized.
Jason Stillwell (No Retreat No Surrender) retreats to an empty house -which happens to stand right down the corner from where he lives- in order to train in the martial arts. Belaboring the same petrified set of obtuse allegories, The
Last Starfighter (1984) sees the adolescent hero of an upcoming intergalactic clash of civilizations drudging away as petty handyman in a trailer park in the middle of nowhere.
The fabulous adolescent heroes of all the serialized clutter on cable TV hide a sinister -yet recurring- aspect:”Remembrance in its paradigmatic form is permanently adolescent, and proceeds as if gravitationally drawn to suffering, conflict and sacrifice.”;”The adolescent, in a word, is an impatient idealist who believes that it is as easy to realize an ideal as it is to imagine it.”814. Moore815 814 815
Elkind 1970:13. 1988.
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connects adolescence with the archetype of the hero questing after maturity.
Before entering his final battle, Arjuna's 16yo bumptious son Abhimanyu – whose name evokes pride born of virtue- utters lines worth of an actioner of the 1980s:”I can fight Indra himself, mounted on his Airavata, along with all the gods! Why, I can fight in a battle even Lord Rudra himself, to whom the entire world of beings pays homage! ”.
Things were not so different at civilization's dawn. In Hindu Rig Veda (XV century BCE or older), Savitri (“the day-bringer816”) is hailed in terms precisely fit for all those mimeographed divine savior-heroes of later ages:
Thou hast come down into a struggling world-To aid a blind and suffering mortal race, -To open to Light the eyes that could not see, -To bring down bliss into the heart of grief, -To make thy life a bridge twixt earth and heaven; .If thou wouldst save the toiling universe, -The vast universal suffering feel as thine: -Thou must bear the sorrow that thou claimst to heal; -The day-bringer must walk in darkest night. (MAISI018:unit 4:3, emphasis added). Popular culture is -again- never far behind. Irene Cara's soundtrack for box-office hit movie Fame (1980), recites:”You ain't seen the best of me yet -...- I'm gonna live forever. I'm gonna learn how to fly -...-I feel it coming together. People 816
It is not surprising to find Jesus and Horus (“O Morning Star, Horus of the Duat, divine falcon ”) at times associated with the morning star imagery. “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this message for the churches. I am both the source of David and the heir to his throne. I am the bright morning star. ” ( Revelation 22:16). Mahayana lore has it that even Gautama Buddha saw the morning star just before his enlightenment. Japanese Shingon Buddhism also practices “the morning star meditation” to commemorate the mystical union with the universe Buddha had experienced. Shingon Buddhism founder Kukai allegedly had the mystical experience of swallowing the morning star as he meditated in Mikurodo cave, whereby he attained the wisdom contained in 85.000 Buddhist texts. Robert M. Price sees in the Biblical episode of Helal ( Isaiah 14:12-15), son of Shahar (winged dawn goddess) astrotheological connections that see the planet Venus (Helal) rival with the rising Sun: Helal is finally humiliated.
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will see me and cry -...-I'm gonna make it to heaven Light up the sky like a flame -...-Remember my name”.
Victorious ( a teen-age themed sitcom, 2010-2013, basic plot structure as Fame) included the song Make It Shine:”Just remember me when it turns out right ”. The sitcom's title alone could foreshadow a drama on a religious figure, or on some harlequin who happened to be “on the right side” in some war or another.
These things His disciples did not understand at the first; but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written of Him, and that they had done these things to Him ” ( John 12:16) The rag-tag Khmer Rouge Communist militias that announced the year zero of the Cambodian new era of social alchemy, equalization and oneness included a bulk of adolescents. Useless massacres were perpetrated in the name of a passing regime, and its utopias soon to disappear:
the nexus of psychology and spirituality -...-In religion and spirituality, the experience at this locus is called by names such as oneness, unity, interbeing. In psychology, it is called conscience or the moral sense. (Stout 2005:215-6). Vandals who heralded Mao's Communist cultural revolution 817 by defacing Chinese cultural heritage were mostly elated adolescents. Swarms of elated adolescents insurrectionist forces had enlisted took part in deliberate and systematic terror, pillage and mutilation campaigns across Black Africa.
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An antecedent was Japanese Osei Fukko (restore the monarchy) during the Meiji era (1868-1912). People were called to “destroy” the social and cultural remains of the Tokugawa shogunate era (1603-1868).
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Fascist and Communist regimes alike hastened to set up official youth organizations:
A key question is whether adolescents are developmentally competent to make decisions about risks. In principle, barring temptations with high rewards and individual differences that reduce self-control (i.e., under ideal conditions), adolescents are capable of rational decision making to achieve their goals. In practice, much depends on the particular situation in which a decision is made. In the heat of passion, in the presence of peers, on the spur of the moment, in unfamiliar situations, when trading off risks and benefits favors bad long-term outcomes, and when behavioral inhibition is required for good outcomes, adolescents are likely to reason more poorly than adults do. Brain maturation in adolescence is incomplete. Impulsivity, sensation seeking, thrill seeking, depression, and other individual differences also contribute to risk taking that resists standard risk-reduction interventions, although some conditions such as depression can be effectively treated with other approaches. (Reyna&Farley 2006:1). Both in ancient Sparta, and among the Bara people of contemporary Madagascar, rites of passage among juveniles include deeds of bravery such as stealing cattle in Madagascar, or killing slaves at work in the fields at Sparta. Rites in New Guinea required youth soon to get married to go on a secretive hunt, and fetch a human head. This head would ritually preside over the marriage ceremony (“the seed of the child he's going to beget”): “the sign of his having brought death into the world so that he can now beget”818.
On the Arcadian Mt. Lycaeon was an altar to Zeus. -...- Ancient authors such as Plato and Pausanius report a grisly tradition of human sacrifice and that participants in the rites ate human flesh and were turned into wolves. -...- There was a Greek mythic 818
Campbell 1972-2:Man&Myth Through The Ages I.
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tradition of a band of athletes who lived as wolves for ten years and regained their human form only if they did not eat human flesh. They would then go on to win all athletic contests. Anthropologists and classical scholars have seen a parallel between this mythic tradition and the cultural institution of the ephebe, or the Spartan Krypteia, where young warriors were made social outcasts for a period of their military training in order to develop hunting and survival skills before being reincorporated into society and entering manhood. (Meineck 2005-1:24-5). Adolescent heroes typically find real-life masters, yet in No Retreat No
Surrender (1986), carbon-copy of Karate Kid819, young Jason recruits as a master no other than legendary Bruce Lee's ghost. If Karate Kid and No Retreat No Surrender aired in the rugged Eighties, another copycat ( Never Back Down) hits the screens in 2008:”The circumstances seem changed but the cliche is in one's psyche”820.
Jason's father happens to be an accomplished karate instructor, yet psychological complexes, and the providential master item, are too good to pass:
It is the business of mythology proper, and of the fairy tale, to reveal the specific dangers and techniques of the dark interior way from tragedy to comedy. Hence the incidents are fantastic and "unreal": they represent psychological, not physical, triumphs. Even when the legend is of an actual historical personage, the deeds of victory are rendered, not in lifelike, but in dreamlike figurations; for the point is not that such-and-such was done on earth; the point is that, before 819
820
A salad bar of then commonplace elements are added. The title apparently borrows from a song by popular rockstar Bruce Springsteen: No Defeat No Surrender. There are a mean Russian foe named Ivan (Rocky IV, 1985); young Afro-American 'disco freaks' dressing as Michael Jackson's duplicates (with White stuntmen who perform breakdance scenes, optionally), and a crime syndicate trying to take over karate gyms ( similar to The Way Of The Dragon, 1972). The main character also dresses as a John Travolta clone in many training montage segments. It is also obvious filmmakers were making it as they went along trying to pack as many nods, and so forth, into the movie as possible: the Russian foe in the end titles is billed as “Kurt”, not Ivan. Something of that sort had happened with Karate Kid, too. In the original script, Daniel's family name is Weber, not Larusso. Someone had thought opportune to board the Italo-mania bandwagon that fostered Italo-Americans into the mainstream (the various Travolta and Stallone characters). Campbell&Toms 1988:vol. 4.
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such-and-such could be done on earth, this other, more important, primary thing had to be brought to pass within the labyrinth that we all know and visit in our dreams. (Campbell 1949:27, emphasis added). Before Jason becomes unstoppable, Bruce Lee's ghost impels him to perform a complicate move. Jason retorts he won't be able to perform as required, and the ghost instructs him about the power of visualization: Jason finally performs the move, and the ghost vanishes in a white light.
That is what -according to Jungian anthropologist Arrien 821- constitutes initiation: learning something new, and showing it to somebody else, just as a Van Damme character on screen might do822.
Cognitive scientists have known for 20 years that the brain is capable of significant internal change in response to environmental changes, a dramatic finding when it was first made. We now also know that the brain changes as a function of where an individual puts his or her attention. The power is in the focus. Attention continually reshapes the patterns of the brain. Among the implications: People who practice a specialty every day literally think differently, through different sets of connections, than do people who don’t practice the specialty. (Rock&Schwartz 2006:no page). “ekphrasis seeks to fashion spectators out of the listeners,”. So powerful is the “epic mode” -or ekphrasis823 - that contemporary psychology adopts it in all
821 822
823
2002:02pt1. Van Damme as a novelized Frank Dux does so here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RF6Xcbf7-Ug). The real Frank Dux supposedly performs the same move in real life in a German broadcast (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwF3z7ipW58): quite a difference. “In the rhetorical terminology of the Imperial period, ekphrasis is a description which aims at vividness (ἐνάργεια, enárgeia) (thus in Rhet. Her., Theon, Hermogenes, Aphthonius, etc.), that is, a description which tries to bring its object clearly in front of the readers' eyes: persons, things, situations, cities, seasons, celebrations, etc. ” (BrillOnline Reference Works).
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ways and shapes to heal trauma. “Assuming success” is -according to Miles Neale 824one of the “principles of Tantric Tibetan Buddhism”: in order to succeed one has to “assume” s-he is the Dalai Lama, or any other “chosen mentor”, a secularization of Hindu ishta devata concept (chosen deity) to reach enlightenment quickly.
Charisma researcher Cabane begs to agree:”visualization techniques [are] “real-life Jedi mind tricks.””825; “While we would talk late into the night, one would find oneself suddenly a part of [Bill Clinton's] dream, his vision and his path”. Confidence operators are deft at “creating circumstances and creating pictures in the minds of millions of persons”.
In the con-person's thrall, one can really savor the 20% net return on investment; the affair with the prom-queen; the adventurist foreign policy triumph; “living happily ever after” in a Pygmalion-style love story...
Participants in the control group did not change significantly. Participants in the mental-training group [who only imagined they were lifting weight], without ever touching the weight machine, improved their hip flexor strength by 32 pounds— just a few pounds less than the physical-training group. (Vishton 2016:89). In Rocky III, Rocky's wife helps him to overcome his psychological complexes during a discussion on the beach (=the shoreline where all the elements sun, water, air, earth and sky come together): the imagery is almost identical, thus vindicating Campbell's hypothesis. The providential master/mentor can also turn
824 825
Psychotherapist. Assistant Director, Nalanda Institute For Contemplative Science. 2012:51.
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out to be the last opponent (like Drona and Arjuna in the Mahabharata), or a secret enemy: the Jungian archetypal dyad protector/persecutor.
Positive psychologists and personality coaches of all walks of life extol the virtues of mind magic as well. Mind magic -or synchronicity as some might prefer- is also indissolubly associated with tricksters:
Pelton even notes that “Eshu [West-African Yoruba trickster ] is pure synchronicity.” Thus the link with the paranormal is explicit, and these passages contain direct mentions of transition states, divination, synchronicity, and mediation. All are recurring themes in this book (Hansen 2001:28). The true mind can create [everything]. Everything in the Ten Dharma Realms is created by the true mind. The Mahayana sutras say, “All phenomena are created by the true mind and altered by the consciousness.” (Wuling, September 22, 2010). [Jesus said:]Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. (Mark 11:23). Christian apologist David Marshall sees in synchronicity -which he calls miraclesthe elusive signature of the Christian god silently helping devotees along. Of course, (Many) Buddhists see a Buddha's elusive signature behind miracles, and Muslims Allah's...
Another peculiar lot is awash in (presumed) synchronicity: patients experiencing a psychotic crack-up:”[ people are ] compulsively controlled by symbolic insight. Objects outside have symbolic values that they do not have to a
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person that is not neurotic”.
They routinely see themselves as passive agents of synchronicity as extraterrestrials, Men In Black, gods, ghosts etc haunt them; or as active agents: spirits, deities, Men In Black, outer space beings 'choose them' for some higher purpose by bestowing paranormal boons or insight of one sort or another upon them. That's the hallmark of psychosis:“the notion that everything one perceives in the world relates to one's own destiny ” 826; ideas of reference. This is what the various Icke, Maxwell etc are all about; and what all the '...ist menace' scares are all about, too.
How are those providential masters characterized? There is much in common between the various Miyagi ( Karate Kid), Mickey (Rocky), Sargent Foley (An Officer And A Gentleman), Sargent Hartman (Full Metal Jacket), Sargent Zim (Starship Troopers), Bud Graziano (Bomber), Xian Chow (Kickboxer), and their countless clones and imitations. The brash drill Sargent figure was so popular it trickled from movies down into infomercials: after a ten second training montage, a drill Sargent of color awards recruits their pair of designer jeans.
Ben-Shahar is a scholar who led one of Harvard's most popular classes; he introduces U.S educator Marva Collins, and her programs that helped
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L.M. Porter 2005. R.L. Moore (no date-3:part 10) re-frames the concept as being convinced god is interested in you. Readers may notice how Abrahamic religions are especially deft at foisting such concepts on the masses. Abrahamic gods are interested in one, much as Abrahamic prophets and saviors had been interested in the liminal rabble they recruited as their companions and confidants:”And humans care about being liked.” (M. Prinstein in 2017).
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disadvantaged kids succeed, much as the various Sgt. Foley, Yoda ( Star Wars) and so forth did. It turns out Ben-Shahar approvingly characterizes Marva Collins -with the adjustments the situation requires- as a blend of all those fictional providential masters.
Again, Ben-Shahar's sterling educator of the socially disadvantaged (Collins), who imparts lessons commanding our attention, as substantiated through peer-reviewed
research,
is
almost
indistinguishable
-with
due
collateral
adjustments- from her fictional counterparts: tough love.
Of course -as Beverly Engel explains in her books- the 'college of hard knocks where people man up' can purely and simply be a garden variety abusive environment where – to quote Holocaust survivor Primo Levi- “ non c'è un perché” (there is no specific reason why things happen here):”in this house what I say counts” snarls Jason's domineering father in No Retreat No Surrender. A 2010 panel of UCLA psychologists details how bullying827 makes one's skin thinner, not thicker828: the myth of life as 'school of hard knocks' is disproven.
The disgruntled parent who endlessly threatens to “send away” a resident child (to a strict boarding school; to a sweatshop; to live with relatives; to a foster home for adoption...) in order for the child to “grow up” as in countless folk tales is but an abuser in societal regalia: the little Red Guard and the Auschwitz kapo are within reach. Dependent near and dear ones ought to experience first hand 827 828
What is parental abuse if not another form of (extreme) bullying? The Science...2010.
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what it means to have one's will broken, and one's ego regularly trampled upon in the futile rat race that ends nowhere.
They spent their time pursuing high grades, athletic achievements, and prestigious jobs, but the pursuit—and attainment— of these goals failed to provide them with an experience of sustained wellbeing. -...-So many people seemed to accept their poor emotional predicament as the inevitable price of success. (Ben-Shahar 2007:5). The abusive caretaker may even dissociate (“cruise control” for DiMele) during the intense flare-ups of verbal and/or physical abuse. The tartuffe may thus think in good faith to embody Montessori-style parenting. The abusive caretaker may also indulge nostalgic fantasies of being a brash drill Sargent children will ultimately have fond memories of once grown up as s-he who made men out of them: a dysfunctional version of the Pygmalion myth829.
Popular 1989 Van Damme hit Kickboxer presents this dialogue between two brothers:
Dad never let up. If l wasn't the best in every sport I played, he'd call me a loser. He was always on my case, but he made me strong. You know, Eric, Mom, she was a very special lady too. She wanted me to learn three languages. To take ballet before l learned karate. I wish they would have been there to see me win the championship. Abusers may even brag about giving victims -of physical, financial, psychological and even sexual abuse- “the time of their lives”, which the “ungrateful” and/or “flawed” victim is unable to fully appreciate. When an (online) 829
The person one perceives as a tartuffe with a dishonest heart may be an enlightened being who “plays” with popular piety and conventional truth in order to get “ultimate truth” across; or s-he may just be a despicable tartuffe tout court. As Freud reluctantly admitted, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
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Dulcinea disappears with a quixotic, lovelorn suitor's money, she rationalizes it by claiming he “owed so much” to her for “putting up with his nonsense” for so long. After all, he was an abusive “control freak” who tried to “control her” through ongoing “emotional rape”.
Divorce settlements are no different: meek wives 830 are “entitled” to receive financial compensation after all the baloney the screwup dished out: “desperate housewives” seek redress even if their husband afforded them the princess lifestyle of a “domestic diva”.
Most likely, traumatized children will hate one's guts for the haphazard and vicious abuse one inflicted upon them.
Former Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot was a patriot concerned about social justice and fighting foreign enemies, the regimes ex-head of state says in a new book, dismissing claims the group was responsible for the deaths of 1.7 million Cambodians. Khieu Samphan, who was arrested Monday by the U.N.-backed genocide tribunal in Cambodia for his role during the Khmer Rouge government, also denied that the regime had a policy of starving people or had ordered mass killings during its 1970s rule, but added that Pol Pot was responsible for all its policies, right or wrong. (International Herald Tribune, November 18, 2007). On se perd dans ces gouffres de mystère qu'on appelle la nature humaine. (Barbey D'Aurevilly 1882:no page). This apparent respectability is in direct opposition to the family’s reality. It forms the basis of a “family myth.” Joe’s family myth was typical:”It’s such a goddamned farce whenever I get together with my family. Nothing’s changed. My father still drinks, and I’m sure 830
In many jurisdictions common-law relationships are afforded the same legal protection as conventional marriages.
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he’s still hitting my mother. But from the way we all act and talk, you’d think we were Leave It to Beaver. Am I the only one who remembers what it was like? Am I the only one who knows the truth?” (Forward&Buck 1989:80). The greatest advantage of not having children, must be that you can go on believing you are a good person. Once you have children, you realise how wars start. (Fay Weldon). [I] knew I didn’t belong with those friends whose parents were as awesome as the ones on TV. So now the shame of secrecy was piling in, too. Of course, perspective is a function of experience. -...-I was certain that I was the only one in town, even in the world, living through this specific kind of shit show, despite the fact that my high school was in the national news for the alarming number of students there who had committed suicide. It was only later, once the world changed and people started to actually talk about their struggles, that I found out how many of those perfect parents ended up divorced, dead from hard living, or, mercifully, in recovery. (Brown 2017b:11). Expectations are resentments under construction. (Anne Lamott). Both Engel and Glasser caution against “confronting the abuser”. It serves no purpose831 except to put one at risk -physical, emotional or both- once again. People -whether “abusers” or otherwise- may be so “fucked up”, “drowning in samsara”, in denial or actively dissociating that fruitful dialogue is impossible. Self831
It is extremely difficult -if not impossible- to have abusers relinquish their “righteous indignation”, “school of hard knocks” or “harmless, very occasional flare up” frame of mind. Abusers -such as fathers sexually molesting their daughters- may even be convinced victims had the time of their lives but are ungrateful about it. It is the same as expecting the lefty kook to relinquish absurd lefty politics because millions historically died as a consequence worldwide. The wacko will probably appeal to higher values and mythological hogwash that -at least in part- ennoble his stance.” In recent times, even Asian communism has been blamed on western philosophy. Some of the armed teenagers in Cambodia's Khmer Rouge represented " the foot soldiers of Sorbonne ideologues," Robert Kaplan wrote in The Ends of the Earth. The journalist had in mind Khieu Samphan and a coterie of Cambodians, born in the 1920s and 1930s, who were exchange students in Paris. Their leader was Saloth Sar, the son of a well-off landowner who later called himself Pol Pot. The Cambodian students were converted to Marxist-Leninism, and Samphan argued in a doctoral dissertation that cities and towns were inhabited by " parasites" who should be moved out and used for forced agricultural labor. The "killing fields" saw the slaughter of a million Cambodians. Particularly suspect were scholars and intellectuals; anyone wearing eyeglasses was shot on sight. Ninety percent of the country's medical doctors were murdered between 1975 and 1979. Babies were bashed to death against trees. All this mayhem was in the name of a political idea first formulated in a doctoral thesis." (Diggins in Jumonville&Matson 2007:39)
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Esteem psychologist Branden832 aptly clinches that one cannot solve a problem when unaware of its existence.
They are no longer victims of what happened unless they choose to see themselves that way. Choice theory explains that the current thinking that they must relive, and even confront, the abuse is not only ineffective but can be harmful. -...- Choice theory explains that all problems are present problems because the needs must be satisfied now. You cannot eat a meal you missed any more than you can eat a future meal. -...-The past, be it abuse, neglect, or rejection, is not the problem. His or her present problem is no different from anyone’s present problem—all present problems are relationship problems.(Glasser 1998:274-275). Unfortunately, your own denial is not the only denial you may have to contend with. Your parents have denial systems of their own. When you are struggling to reconstruct the truth of your past, especially when that truth reflects poorly on them, your parents may insist that “it wasn’t so bad,” “it didn’t happen that way,” or even that “it didn’t happen at all.” Such statements can frustrate your attempts to reconstruct your personal history, leading you to question your own impressions and memories. They undercut your confidence in your ability to perceive reality, making it that much harder to rebuild your self-esteem. (Forward&Buck 1989:21) 833. Venerable Wuling834 extends this interpretation to the cohort of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas: they plant boons, misfortunes and trials on our path to help us progress towards possible ultimate liberation. Author Sam Vaknin considers “tough love” as a strategy psychopathic narcissists use to lash out at the world: covert aggression for Simon835. 832 833
834 835
Nathaniel Branden, pen name of Jewish-Canadian thinker Nathan Blumenthal. This shtick can be applied in all sorts of circumstances. “Mom”, “dear daddy”, “beloved uncle Joe”, “dear brother Sam” invested in that foolish scheme in foreign currency and the family was ruined as a result. If one protests, they “insist that “it wasn’t so bad,” “it didn’t happen that way,” or even that “it didn’t happen at all.”; “That's not true you dissented: you also agreed we should invest in Lebanese currency all we had“. “Oh my god, you no longer love us: how opportunistic of you that is! Now we see you for the first time!”, report talk ↔ rapport talk claptrap. Pure Land Buddhist monastic. 2011.
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The human psyche just loves these items; the rest is just a matter of detail nobody really pays attention to. Bulldozer revolves around American football,
Bomber around boxing, but it could have easily been rowing, judo or table tennis; the Karate Kid movies (1984ss) -in fact- present a very similar storyline using karate as a commodious pivot.
Serialized mass-media products often copycat immemorial myths in order to send the oblivious masses into a trance. The story Hardy recounts 836, involving a general and an elusive old sage in ancient China, looks uncannily similar to the shtick in Eastwood's 1986 movie Gunny837, with minor adaptations. Recruits in Gunny have to guess the color of the instructor’s t-shirt beforehand; the Chinese general has to guess the right time to be at the appointed place to meet the sage before the old man actually arrives.
Robert Bly838 tells a very similar story he frames as one of initiation in New Guinea. Older males stand young males up when it's time to meet at an appointed place and time:”the world is not [as reliable as] your mother”, whence the importance of betrayal;”the definition of a hero: someone who may be betrayed with impunity.” (Lacan, 1959-60).
U.S Christian fundamentalists preach that “sincere prayer” and “repentance” see an answer and forgiveness from god. But is one “sincere enough”? 836 837
838
2011:Sunzi And Han Feizi. A slight copy of Twelve O'Clock High (1949). Instead of a WWII air squadron, in Gunny we have Marines in the 1980s. Once again, the gist steals the day. 1986.
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How could one know? R.M. Price clinches:
But he should have said: "Hey! This is great! I don't know how I'm doing it, but I'm doing it! And as long as I am, then let's make the most of it." That's a different sort of reaction than Wiley Coyote has. That's the way people on The Twilight Zone react. They are quick to see opportunities in unusual circumstances. They get a stop watch that freezes the flow of time. They find a camera or a TV that shows what will happen five minutes into the future. And they are happy enough to adopt a "no questions asked" policy.-...- Is that too optimistic for you? Put it this way: at least if you do insist on looking down instead of looking ahead, you will sink. It's not so much a matter of looking at Jesus as it is looking ahead and saying "So far, so good." A matter of keeping going. Of not becoming a self-fulfilling prophet telling yourself you've had it, it's over. Because then it will be over. Peter thinks, "Wait a minute! This can't be happening! I have to sink!" And he does. No surprise. He should have said "Hey, what do you know? This is happening! I'm not sinking! Full speed ahead!". You may sink, I know. People do sink. They lose. But my point is: you should only know you're sinking when you see it happen and are surprised to see it happening! Don't make it happen by predicting that it will, deciding that it should! ( Allegory...2017:no page). Chinese generals and brash military men might not suit one's taste, perchance. In a series of folktales Brazilian litterateur Figueiredo Pimentel edited in 1896839, O Companheiro De Viagem (the travel mate), a poor -but morally uprightcountry boy decides following a vision840 (=rendezvous with destiny) to enter a contest to win the hand of a superbly (=arch-virgins of lore) beautiful but cruel witch-princess (=fairy bride).
As R.L. Moore insists ought to be more the case today, the story opens with blessings a dying father imparts to his son before the hero's journey:”Sempre 839 840
Histórias Da Avozinha (little granny's tales). In the vision his dead father announces he'd marry the most beautiful woman in the world. A mental patient confided in the analyst how he “believed that he was fated to marry a specific woman.” (Polimeni 2012:196).
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foste bom filho, André, e, por isso Deus te ajudará na tua peregrinação pela terra” (you've always been a good son, André. For this reason god shall assist you during your earthly journey).
The witch-princess dares her suitors to guess her exact thoughts at an appointed time thrice (=the number three), under pain of death: the lifeless bodies of countless (=surfeit that boggles the mind=tournament) suitors already lay amassed in the royal gardens. With the help of a mysterious travel mate (=hero's journey=merry men), the country boy (=outsider who saves the day) defeats the princess, marries her (=taming of the shrew=Pygmalion motif) and lives happily ever after (= trickster) thanks to a magic love 841 potion the travel mate842 also supplied.
The shadow of Tibetan religious heritage – to name just one- loomed behind an array of right-wing, national-popular or aristocratic 'traditional' secret societies in the Victorian/ Belle Epoque era; and behind the left-wing, hippie crowds experiencing with drugs, protest and sexuality in the 1960s.
Referring to the Tibetan Book Of The Dead that he encountered as a Harvard psychology professor researching entheogens in the 1960s, Ram Dass (Richard Alpert) comments:
This was a book that monks used twenty-five-hundreds years ago to 841 842
The potion turns the evil witch-princess into a good-natured, loving wife. The travel mate revealed himself to be the soul of a poor man who had died in debt, whose corpse the country boy had literally bought from angry creditors who wanted to feed it to vultures.
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read at the bedside of people who were dying -...- [teaching them how] to pass through death in a way that would optimally liberate them and bring them back to god -....-. And the Tibetan Book Of The Dead described very precisely in psychological terms the kinds of experiences I was having (1992:side A)843. Pioneers of theosophy Olcott and Blavatsky were adepts of both Hindu and Tibetan spiritual practices. Blavatsky had allegedly received initiations from the VIII Panchen Lama844 Tenpai Wangchuck at a Tibetan Buddhist high place: the Tashilunpo monastery; others contend she either never visited Tibet, or did so in disguise to circumvent diplomatic restrictions.
Points of contact persist to this day: noted Tibetologist, teacher and practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism Mullin has led pilgrimages -and collaboratedwith the Theosophical Society In America since the 1980s. Highest authorities in the Tibetan Buddhist theocracy, the Panchen and the (XIV) Dalai Lama paid visits to the Theosophical Society while in India in the 1950s.
The XIV Dalai Lama also planned a few events under the Society's patronage across the decades:
Founders of Theosophy H. P. Blavatsky and H. S. Olcott became among the first Westerners to publicly take layman’s Buddhist vows while on a visit to Ceylon in 1880. They already had mixed elements of Buddhism into their new “hybrid religion,” a subcategory of syncretism historically and culturally unique to late-Victorian Britain. Olcott went on to become a champion of 843
844
Ram Dass is in error here. The Bardo Thodol (Tibetan Book Of The Dead) appeared in the XIV century in Tibet. Tibetan Buddhist tradition sees it as a “recovered treasure”, whose original composer was Saint Padma Sambhava in the VIII century. High position in traditional Tibetan theocracy, second only to the Dalai Lama. The Panchen Lama is usually a teacher of a young Dalai Lama.
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the Singhalese Buddhist revival in opposition to pressure by Christian missionaries, mostly Anglicans and Methodists. He wrote and distributed A Buddhist Catechism that still is used by Buddhists in Sri Lanka today, thereby creating a multi-hybrid of Buddhism mixed with his Protestant orientation and a Catholic genre. (Franklin 2008:9). Blavatsky's endless books are cut-and-paste collages of Freemasonry, Hermeticism, potted "Eastern" metaphysics, and her own science-fiction tales of telepathic Tibetan masters and Atlantean cataclysms. But as the historian Joscelyn Godwin argues, Blavatsky's group also represented Enlightenment values that had nothing to do with Buddha's claim to fame and everything to do with the freethinking spirit of progress. The Theosophists loathed conventional Christianity, embraced emancipatory social movements, and called for a new global politics of "universal brotherhood." They were the gnostics of modernism. (Davis 1999:51). The Victorian/Belle Epoque era was also a paradise for drug (ab)use: opiates845 were widely available in all sorts of formats for cheap over-the-counter 845
Bruno Bauer (German philosopher, 1809-1882), equated the effects of religion with those of opium: a concept often incorrectly attributed as originally from Marx. Rather than the elusive gem from a superior intellect, the opium metaphor might just reflects -once again, as this writing contends- then contemporary fixations with opium's widespread use:�Glenn Sonnedecker has chronicled the emergence of the concept of opiate addiction. While western travellers to Asia in the sixteenth century and after noted the continuous consumption and enormous doses taken in those lands, the concept of addiction eluded them. Not until the mid-19th century was this phenomenon recognized widely. -...- [it] suggests that the problem was at least fairly common by the end of the 17th century in England. -...-What is surprising today is the absence of concern among 17th- and 18thcentury medical writers over habitual use of opium. -...- medically initiated addiction became an increasingly frequent phenomenon. -...-The trend toward extensive, careless use of opiates which had developed over these two centuries was to continue into the 19th.� (Kramer 1979:385-9). “In the first half of the nineteenth century, opium preparations were freely on sale to anyone who wanted to buy them, in any sort of shop; they were carried about the countryside by hawkers, sold in grocers' and general stores and on market stalls -...-. It was freely imported (with a decreasing amount of duty); actual quantities varied in the first half of the century from 12,000 Ibs. of Turkish opium in 1834 to 177,000 Ibs. in 1839, out of overall import totals of 48,000 Ibs. and 196,000 Ibs. respectively.Turkish opium, noted for its strength and high quality, usually provided between 80 and 90% of Britain's total import of the drug, only losing some of its preeminence in the late seventies and eighties when the Persian variety was more widely imported -...- In general it was used, or recommended, at one time or another to treat almost every disease and condition imaginable. Up to 2o% of all prescriptions dispensed by pharmacists in Islington and Holloway in the period between the 184os and 186os contained opiates -...- A growing official uneasiness about opiate use did develop, however, and eventually found expression in the restrictions of the 1868 Pharmacy Act and in changed attitudes toward the drug. Certainly there was a public health case for concern about the way in which opiates were used. This element should not be underestimated as part of the increased concern. From the late 183os and early 184os, opiate use became a significant, if minor, part of the general public health cause. The welter of statistics and information produced by government investigations and enquiries and by newly established government agencies, the Registrar
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consumption, whence Marx's polemic use of the term opium. For a while, opiate addicts seemed a better social alternative to alcoholics: such addicts were generally perceived as shy and withdrawn, unlike alcoholics who were busy beating their families, brawling and breaking the law.
It is nowadays common to exonerate scientists of the time by claiming addiction was either scientifically unknown or misunderstood (=we are all as tainted=it could happen to everybody), whereas ancient physicians -such as Erasistratus (304-250 BCE) and Galen (II/III century CE)- had already issued warnings about poisoning and addiction related to opium (ab)use also rampant in antiquity.
This persisted until -in the Belle Epoque and considering the United States for a change- eerie links were systematically established between drug abuse and various unwelcome categories such as the Chinese -and other immigrant General's Office in particular, revealed a situation which appeared worrying in its implications. Import statistics, and in particular the amount of opium entered for home consumption, were rising. In 1829, 23,000 lbs. were retained in the United Kingdom; in 1839, 41,000 lbs. -...- Statistics on opiate deaths caused concern too the publication of coroner's returns of deaths by poisoning in England and Wales in 1839 revealed that 186 out of a total of 543 such deaths were the result of opium poisoning -...-Around a third of all poisoning deaths in the decade were the result of the administration of opiates, and the relatively high accidental, rather than suicidal, death rate from opiates bore witness to the drug's easy availability -...-. There were possibilities too of the criminal use of opiates. Although the published figures were minute, it was said that prostitutes in the East End of London used to add laudanum to sailors' beer and rob them of both clothes and money while the sailors were in a "state of total stupefaction." Such tales could simply have been attempts at self-justification by sailors who had made fools of themselves (similar rumours circulating at the time of the cocaine "scare" of 1915-16 were found, on investigation, to be groundless), but opium was used in this way in other circumstances -...-. Anxiety about opiate use had deeper roots than simple humanitarianism. Uneasiness was connected too with fundamental shifts in nineteenth-century society. Rapid industrialisation and urbanisation, the creation of rough and raw manufacturing towns, and the strikes, violence, crime, and political unrest which appeared endemic in such areas evoked a feeling of fear and unease. This found expression in the establishment of myths about working-class habits such as the widespread belief in official, public health, and "respectable" circles in general, that working people were accustomed to use opiates for "stimulant" or "recreational" purposes, as an alternative when drink was too expensive - a fundamental distortion of popular patterns of opiate use. �( Berridge 1978:438-446).
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communities-, and Afro-Americans as harbingers of crime and other ills such as White (female) slavery846.
In Brazil in the interwar period, the progressive rise of an increasingly centralized state peaking under the Fascist Vargas regime also saw the rise of policies of prohibition and war on drugs. It was a long an honored tradition: in the XVI and XVII centuries, psychoactive compound used in indigenous ceremonies were denounced as causing drunkenness, a root cause of idolatry, across Hispanic America (Peru, Mexico). The correlation between drunkenness and insanity went back to Antiquity. V century Roman physician Caelius Aurelianus had written:” Madness and insanity are often the result of drunkenness ”847.
After exploiting a booming market first with the (mostly British) opium trade of earlier centuries, and later with the “patented medicine” (mostly undisclosed opiate compounds) craze of the late XIX century and ensuing taxation, The Belle Epoque nation-State Moloch was ready to step in the ring as clampdown loomed on the horizon. It is highly ironic that China had fought the first 'war on drugs' on moral(istic) grounds, being opposed -and defeated- by the English and the French in the Opium Wars (1839-42; 1856-60): roughly 15% of the Chinese population (60 million users) -across high and low classes- during the last years of the Qing dynasty Empire consumed opium.
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“The outstanding feature of nineteenth-century opium and morphine addiction is that the majority of addicts were women.” (Courtwright 2001:36). In Meggitt 2007:385.
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Chinese commissioner Lin Tse-Hsu wrote Queen Victoria shortly before the Opium Wars:
Even though the barbarians may not necessarily intend to do us harm, yet in coveting profit to an extreme, they have no regard for injuring others. Let us ask, where is your conscience? I have heard that the smoking of opium is very strictly forbidden by your country; that is because the harm caused by opium is clearly understood. Since it is not permitted to do harm to your own country, then even less should you let it be passed on to the harm of other countries -- how much less to China! In the early 19th century, some Qing officials were growing concerned about both the societal costs of opium use and by the impact the Opium trade was having on the economy, especially the silver supply. The huge outflow of silver from Chinese consumers to British suppliers to pay for Indian opium reversed what had been a trade imbalance in China’s favor since the 16th century. (Wilson 2017:8). Westerners were illegally importing and marketing opium in China 848. What may be morally good there and then might prove reprehensible here and now: situational ethics.
[A] mix of questionable statistics and pseudoscience was instrumental in persuading Americans that addiction was both pervasive and malignant. During the decade 1910 to 1920, the crucial period for the formulation of American narcotic policy, public opinion concerning opiate addiction was profoundly influenced by inaccurate and even falsified data. (Courtwright 2001:33). Narcotics and other artificial stimulants were essential ingredients for Berlin’s sex life [under the Weimar Republic, 1919-33]. Both pimps and sexologists believed that they were powerful aphrodisiacs for women. (Gordon 2006:242)849. 848
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In the last decades of the Chinese Empire, most opium the Chinese consumed was homegrown (Wilson 2017:Opium). Opium enjoyed a reputation as an aphrodisiac in China, too.
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Mythological “ascended masters” of theosophical or Masonic lore coexist with outer space/extra-dimensional masters:
Each Master occupies a specific position within the hierarchy, and administers a closely delimited sector of the workings of the cosmos. Each Master is embodied in a human vehicle, which is cast aside when the passage of time has made it too frail. Specific Masters may therefore be known under a number of different manifestations. -...the Tibetan Master Djwhal Khul is the reported source of practically all [of Blavatsy's] teachings -...- Angels and Archangels have also been the purported sources of various messages. -...- The Swedish Christian esotericist Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772) claimed to have spoken with spirits from other planets. Scattered among the varied contents of his magnum opus, Arcana caelestia, Swedenborg reveals details of life in the solar system.(Hammer 2004:385,387-8). Ascended masters could as well become descended masters. A supreme earthly sage finally ascends to heaven by virtue of his divine inner nature ( theios
aner shtick); or a divine emanation of the almighty god -so popular in Hebrew theology as hyposthases- takes flesh descending from the most exalted position in heaven. In Zoroastrianism as well, six Amesha Spentas850 (divine spirits) represent the hypostases of Ahura Mazda.
Jesus does so in The Ascension Of Isaiah (I-II century CE). Isaiah is taken up to heaven: he witnesses Christ's majesty as he's told how Christ -in heaven with father god- was to literally, gradually, and sort of alchemically, descend through the heavens to assume the identity of Jesus (ch. IX/X) 851 on earth:”And thus His descent, as you will see, will be hidden even from the heavens, so that it will not 850
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According to some Sanskritists, the term amesha is tied to Sanskrit animisha (unblinking): gods are always alert and don't blink their eyes. From the version R.H Charles edited in 1900 considering the various versions.
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be known who [Jesus] is”.
According to Macrobius (V century CE) the human soul descends to Earth at birth, then ascends to heaven at death through the celestial spheres linked to the seven planets. The Lakota American-Indians also claim mythological connections with the Pleiades, and assert their soul shall at death journey through outer space to go back to the stars.
In the Burmese Theravada Buddhist metropolis of Bagan (IX-XIII century CE), the court pageantry was devised to reflect divine hierarchies of the Buddhist cosmos, and so happened in ancient Egypt and Crete: as above, so below. Because they are indeed billionaire businessmen, many thought Berlusconi and Trump could “solve problems” in the State apparatus as well while “getting people rich”: as above, so below.
In extreme cases, complex societies have evolved a detailed set of correspondences between society and heaven: “the institutional order directly reflecting or manifesting the divine structure of the cosmos” (Berger, 1967: 34). This is especially notable in regard to political structures. (Lang 1995:40). The god Proteus descended to incarnate as Apollonius; Vishnu descended many times to incarnate as Krishna, Rama, etc:
Sri Aurobindo calls this enumeration [of Vishnu's avatars] ‘a parable of evolution’, and this is precisely because the evolution of species is only an outward expression of the evolution of consciousness, for we can easily notice, that with every species, its capacities, abilities, possibilities increase – it is the power of Consciousness that 574
increases. (Savardekar, MAISI014 no date: lecture 4:2-5). Savardekar explains the “divine descent” is an old concept, indeed:
The term “avatār” is derived from the Sanskŗt word ‘ avataraņ’ meaning ‘descent’. By the literal meaning itself, one is led to the deep sense of this term which is used to refer to the Divine’s Birth. The concept of Avatārhood is not unheard of in India, which is a land of traditional and mythological stories and incidents, all having their significant relevance in the course of the human evolution. -...-”For whensoever there is the fading of the Dharma and the uprising of unrighteousness, then I [=Krishna] loose myself forth into birth -...-For the deliverance of the good, for the destruction of the evil-doers, for the enthroning of the Right I am born from age to age ” -...-For, there are two aspects of the divine birth; one is a descent, the birth of God in humanity… The other is an ascent, the birth of man into the Godhead, man rising into the divine nature and consciousness,… It is that new birth which Avatarhood and the upholding of the Dharma are intended to serve (MAISI014 no date: lecture 4:2-3). It shall noted how Blavatsky (the Theosophical Society); the Transcendentalists (philosophers like Emerson, Thoreau); German luminaries such as Mueller, Schelling and Schopenhauer, and American scientists like Lowell (nicknamed “Boston Brahmin”,1855-1916) in the XIX century were all interested in Eastern/Indian thought (Buddhism, Sufism, Hinduism...).
Adams (a Unitarian, II President of the United States, member of the Founding Fathers ) wrote to Jefferson in 1813:” Where is to be found theology more orthodox, or philosophy more profound, than in the introduction to the [Hindu] Shasta? -...- These doctrines, sublime, -...- Pythagoras learned in India”.
Such oriental thought was being systematically translated -and adapted575
for the first time for a Western audience since the late XVIII century after the scattered encounters and occasional reports missionaries and explorers used to send home in earlier centuries:
In the 1590s, there were probably more Christians in Japan as a percentage of the population than there were in the 1950s. So important were Catholic missions in the 16th century that powerful Japanese warlords, known as daimyo, sent ambassadors to the Vatican. (Ravina 2015:4). Schopenhauer commented in 1818 that the influence of Hindu scriptures (from his time onwards) would prove as significant as the Renaissance revival of ancient Greek culture. Personalities from all the provinces of the political spectrum -such as Gandhi, Emerson, German national-popular virtuoso ariosophist Von Liebenfels, and NSDAP SS leader Himmler- held Hindu classic Gita in the highest esteem.
We can put colored television on tape so that it is all reduced to a matter of yes and no. And that, you will understand, is the philosophy of the Chinese Book of Changes, the I Ching, which represents all the situations of life in terms of combinations of yang, or the positive principle, and yin, the negative. Interestingly enough, the Latin translation of the I Ching was read by the philosopher Leibniz, and from this he invented binary arithmetic, in which all numbers can be represented by zero and one, which is the number system used by the digital computer that lies behind all our electronic ingenuity. (Watts 1996:7). Eastern/Indian influences were not in name only; Thoreau wrote to Blake in 1849 he saw himself as a yogi, and fellow transcendentalist Conway referred to Thoreau as a “pious yogi�:
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Particularly given their focus on "universal religion," without Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sufism for reference, the late Transcendentalists could not have written as they did, and as we shall see, Emerson and Thoreau wrote many of their works with the Bhagavad Gita, the Laws of Manu, the Puranas, and poets like Saadi for reference. In short, without "Oriental religions," many Transcendentalist works could not exist in the same form, and much second-generation Transcendentalist work would not exist at all. -...-Schleiermacher's "inner fire" was in any case discovered by Novalis (Friedrich von Hardenberg, 1772-1801), whose philosophical aphorisms and poems bear a striking resemblance to the doctrines of the Upanishads and of the Vedantic teachings of Shankaracarya, as more than one commentator has pointed out. (Versluis 1993:10,20). Rather than trace the reformative impulse behind Spiritualism to the idea of spirit communication, I believe it is better and far more easily attributed to a broader interest in invisible causation. -...-In fact, in giving the empirical nature of spirit communication such prominence in the minds of all nineteenth-century American Spiritualists, Moore misread what Philosophical Spiritualists understood to be the revolutionary and reformative implications of their faith.(Morita 1999:100,101). On the one hand, the rise of Freemasonry over the eighteenth century, compounded by the Romantic revival of the occult in the 1780s and 1790s and fused with a renewed millenarianism and dispensationalism, carried the promise of the restoration of ancient truths and even Adamic powers. These influences, borne on a proliferation of secret societies and textual reformulations of Renaissance and Reformation hermeticism, may be seen as a sphere of hermetic purity in a broader field of hermetic culture. This chapter quickly examines their emergence and potential lines of transmission to the world of the divining cults of postrevolutionary America. (Brooke 1994:91). It is easy to superpose Aurobindo's extensive and deep thought with the diverse Victorian primordial soup made of theosophy, occultism, world government, spiritual and physical breakthroughs supposedly ascended masters had heralded.
Aurobindo Ghose was an Indian nationalist, and an important scholar of
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immemorial Hindu literature. The fact that Aurobindo's thought resonates so well with Victorian fads such as theosophy, transcendentalism, Darwinism, Hegelianism and so forth while being rooted in the scholarly examination of immemorial Hindu literature ( Vedas, Upanishads, Gita etc) clearly shows human mind's irresistible proclivities at work.
Such concepts -moving westwards through literary indebtedness and 'awakenings' in waves since antiquity- caught like wildfire precisely because human minds find them irresistible:
early on [Emerson] was introduced to the Orient through articles in popular journals, and not surprisingly, he did not care for the "ritualism," the "superstitious cruelties" depicted as characteristic of Hinduism and Buddhism. (Versluis 1993:52). Buddha began to emerge as a distinct religious figure and Buddhism as a distinct tradition during the 1840s and l850s, and a lively and widespread conversation about the nature and value of Buddhism was initiated in American books, lecture halls, and magazines around 1844. This public conversation intensified after 1879 and peaked between 1893 and 1907. Buddhism even became a "live option" for the spiritually disillusioned during the late-Victorian period as Protestant Christianity became increasingly problematic for a number of Western intellectuals. In this cultural context tens of thousands of Americans of European descent read about Buddhism or attended lectures about the tradition and several thousand even considered Buddhism seriously. Contrary to the presuppositions of American historians, most of those who expressed some interest in the tradition were either rationalist inheritors of the Skeptical Enlightenment or Esoteric inheritors of an Occult tradition and not New England Romantics filled with an aesthetic and mystical spirit; and, although they and their Christian critics did not recognize this, Euro-American Buddhist sympathizers and adherents were cultural consenters as well as cultural dissenters. (Tweed 1989:iv). 578
Even professor of marketing Berger –an expert who studies how stories, ads etc “go viral”- acknowledges success in 'going viral' (news, furphies, products...) is proportional to how in tune the campaign is with the still mysterious way the human mind is put together and works.
To name one instance, the concept of mystical Dawn in the Vedas has transited to serve
in a similar capacity
freemasonic, theosophic and Social-
Communist lore852: it is enough to ponder how many Social-Communist regimes or parties embraced the symbol of the rising sun:”the only healing and purifying sun is the revolution itself ” (Jewish-German Communist leader Rosa Luxermburg in 1918). If Jesus Christ is “the light of the world” 853 for Christians, so Soviet-backed Vietnamese Communist leader Nguyen Ai Quoc (1890-1969) is “the bringer of light” (Ho Chi-Minh), and Fascist “Duce [= Benito Mussolini] tu sei la luce” (Duce, you are the light).
Yatsenko854 conveys the metaphysical wonders described in the Rig
Veda through the image of an “everlasting day”, possibly an echo of the terror darkness triggered in prehistoric men, which was in a later period “sentimentalized and prettified” in the form of evil forces, goat-headed demons and so forth.
The cult of Dawn (as Mater Matuta in early Rome, possibly VI century
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It would be a mistake the regard to influence of secret societies as meaningful only in shaping right-wing movements. When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life”. (John 8:12). MAISI018 no date: RV 5.81.
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BCE) was also associated at Rome with the foundational myth of Hercules and Cacus855: Hercules rising at dawn connects him with earnest and hard toil, an association still present in our day's proverbs such as:”the early bird gets the worm” etc:“Just as Hercules is worshiped for saving Italy from Cacus, so too is Augustus celebrated for saving Italian citizens from war.”856.
As this writing contends, 'awakenings' were often mere fads, however widespread and long-lasting: in most cases a commodious, instant gratification for one's need for mysticism, inclusiveness, urgent social reforms, and so forth. A row of fickle, spiritually deprived radicals helped themselves halfheartedly to the salad bar of world literature in order to – and only as long as it helped them to - buttress their fantasies of social alchemy and reform.
In other words, radical-chic litterateurs and other living room revolutionaries thought a smattering 857 of oriental thought might facilitate their commodious agenda:
Because his was a literary religion, Thoreau finally left it behind; the experiment could not be sustained for a lifetime. Literary religion is not religion. Much has been made of the book collection sent to Thoreau by his British friend Thomas Cholmondeley in 1855 855
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The swashbuckling founder on a journey -like Theseus or Ganesha- delivers the people from unsavory characters: here the foe is the giant robber and cannibal Cacus, son of Vulcan. Meineck (Meineck 2005-1:Greek Myths And The Romans) also explains Cacus might be a transposition of the story of Polyphemus in the Odyssey (semi-divine cannibal giant who herds flocks, lives in a cave, and so forth). Barden Dowling 2006:128. Emerson famously saluted Hindu Gita as “renowned book of Buddhism”, which clearly shows how superficial and misguided his appraisal was. The Gita in fact, a portion of Hindu Mahabharata, which possibly pre-dates Buddhism and belongs to another tradition. This also shows Emerson and his ilk were quick to appropriate any 'therapeutic capital' they could think of in order to serve their adventitious political goals without much afterthought.
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-...-which some have termed the largest collection of Orientalist volumes in America in private hands at that time -...- [yet Thoreau] was no longer vitally interested in reading them (Versluis 1993:95). This explains Jung's interest in Oriental religions as resources of mythic raw material, to be transmuted, by religious psychology, into therapeutic capital for the production of Occidental satisfactions. That he could not extract Oriental autoplastic religious motifs from their historical and sociological contexts, for grafting onto quite another culture configuration did not occur to Jung as a serious obstacle. He is innocent of sociological interest. (Rieff 2006:113). The recourse to “therapeutic capital” borrowed from oriental wisdom recurred across all the provinces of the political spectrum: the NSDAP heavily embraced orientalist lore.
No matter how peculiar, the same salad bar of more or less improbable
Belle Epoque concepts was a direct filiation from pre-Victorian tendencies such as romanticism, transcendentalism etc. Emerson -an ordained Christian Unitarian pastor between 1829 and 1832- in 1841 introduced “the over-soul”, over which transcendentalist Dall lectured in 1895:”God is the Over Soul; above all, through all,
under all, as well.”858. Aurobindo Ghose (1872-1950), the Indian thinker and nationalist, offered a similar concept:”The overmind is the rarely attained summit of human consciousness, It is a cosmic consciousness but without the loss of the Individual”859. Readers shall make of these similarities what they see fit.
Professor of religion Prothero860 talks about Buddhism in America in terms of successive “awakenings”: the 1880s (Theravada Buddhism), the 1950s (Zen 858 859 860
Cit. in Myerson 2000:676. MAISF001 no date:The Planes Of The Mind. 2005:74ss.
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Buddhism), the 1990s (Tibetan Buddhism), although -as seen earlier- various traditions coexisted within the same 'awakening'.
It turns out that today's very popular vipassana meditation in its many schools is not an ancestral practice of a primeval Buddhist dawn preserved more or less intact, but a Belle Epoque product of the interplay between oriental sages and practitioners -such as the Burmese monk Ledi Sayadaw-, and western enthusiasts and scholars having their fill of another Buddhist awakening.
They sought to adapt Buddhist meditation discarding the ceremonial, esoteric and committing element. Vipassana has allegedly sorted good results with inmates in various countries; vipassana has been admitted as rehabilitative practice mostly because it has severed and lost most -if not all- connections to Buddhism as both a philosophy and a religion. The same repackaging of immemorial spiritual lore never stops.
Kehoe861 elatedly quotes positive psychologists in order to urge listeners to carefully analyze their emotions: hardly different from vipassana or zazen in existence several centuries before the positive psychology fad of the 1990s. Equally, these Victorian-Belle Epoque intellectuals interested in Indian thought were also often interested in occultism, spiritualism and the like ( the English Society For Psychical Research included several prominent scientists; Aurobindo is nowadays mostly remembered as a mystic): 861
2011: The Conscious Mind And Emotion.
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As R. Laurence Moore puts it, “Scarcely another cultural phenomenon affected as many people or stimulated as much interest as did spiritualism in the ten years before the Civil War and, for that matter, through the subsequent decades of the nineteenth century." There are not nearly as many believers in Modern Spiritualism today as there were at its peak in the 1850s, but the Spiritualist seance has entered the vernacular. -...-Before Spiritualism could burst upon the world-...-the ghost had to become a mobile spirit, free of earthly bonds -...- Any spirit could be summoned from any sitting room. These were the qualities essential to making Spiritualism both comforting and compelling -...-Most literature by Spiritualists, however, consists largely of anecdotes about the amazing events in the lives of particularly gifted mediums -...-.the afterlife was largely accepted both by Spiritualists and their most vehement detractors. The issue was whether the spirit rappings constituted proof. Empiricism is such a central part of the American worldview that for a hundred years many interesting questions about Spiritualism as a cultural and social phenomenon could not be asked(Pimple in Walker 1995:75,79,82,84). That's not a trend that died with the 1930s, either. Harvard leadership teacher Ben-Shahar862 repeatedly quotes Transcendentalist thinkers. On a lecture tour in Boston in 1842, Dickens was made aware that “whatever was unintelligible would certainly be transcendental �.
Contemporary positive psychologists seem to love transcendentalism for a reason.
If the government controls what you want to do, they control what you can do. If you are under the impression that death exists, and you fear it, you do anything to avoid it. (This is the same way pain operates. Naturally we strive to avoid negative emotion/pain.) You allow yourself to fear death! -...- I'm here to help you realize/ understand that you will live no matter what! It is up to you people to open your hearts and minds. There is no 862
2005-6a:lecture 6.
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such thing as death. The people I've dismissed from this reality are not at all dead. The lines above would sound just great in any gnostic movie of one's favorite flavor. As CNN USA would have it 863, however, a sociopath slipped the letter above in a mailbox he had also prepared so that it would explode with a pipe bomb when opened: gnosticism, what a favorite. The alleged perpetrator of a series of mailbox pipe bombings in the U.S Midwest, Lucas Helder, has been detained in a mental health facility since 2004 as currently unable to stand trial due to mental illness.
Davis clinches that “Gnosticism is such a fragmentary and suggestive patchwork of texts, hearsay, myth, and rumor that you can label almost any contemporary phenomenon "gnostic" and get away with it.”864; “Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness”; “whatever was unintelligible would certainly be transcendental ”. Abbott&Costello “7x13=28” routine makes as much sense as the “unintelligible”, “cloudy vagueness” that goes under the blanket of gnosticism.
The concept Jewish-American trail-blazing psychologist Maslow expounded in 1971 could have been lifted verbatim from Indian mystic Aurobindo (deceased in 1950):
Stated simply, such a concept holds that the function of education, the 863 864
May 7, 2002. 1999:93.
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goal of education- the human goal, the humanistic goal, the goal so far as human beings are concerned-is ultimately the "self-actualization" of a person, the becoming fully human , the development of the fullest height that the human species can stand up to or that the particular individual can come to. In a less technical way, it is helping the person to become the best that he is able to become. (Maslow 1993:162). Become such as you are, having learned what that is (Pindar, Greek poet, 518-438 BCE). If one is really in tune with the pack, free of 'impure' interferences, the fusion shall happen spontaneously. Isn't the Catholic article of faith about “the Communion of the Saints”? isn't Communion (=the taking of the holy host) becoming one with Christ? Isn't communion another form of fusion of the pack in spiritual terms? Buddhism is no different:”just as various rivers flow into the ocean and lose their names, so do those who enter the order abandon their social classes and lay names to be called only "disciples of the Buddha" or "monks"”865.
In 1994, Berlusconi's party's official song preached: “Forza alziamoci. Il futuro è aperto, entriamoci. E le tue mani unite alle mie, energie per sentirci più grandi”( Let's get up. The future is an open possibility, let's seize it. My hands folded with yours, an energy that makes us feel stronger). The beloved at-onement with the pack is eminently tactile:”Third World tactile villagers pass directly into the global village of subtle yet tactile electronic culture.”866.
When you are ready to present your most powerful points or ideas, do it not from the front of the room but from the side of the consensus creator. Go and stand next to him; place your hand 865 866
Hirakawa 1990:61. Gane 1991:49.
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lightly on his shoulder if he is sitting, or stand directly next to him, shoulder to shoulder, lightly touching or nearly touching, and make your point. Communicate from his vantage point and to the point of view of the rest of the room. When you partner with the consensus maker, you assume his ability to bring about a conclusion, and you get him emotionally involved with you. (Lakhani 2009:118-9). In a lead-managed company, workers and managers are on a firstname basis. (Glasser 1998:381). Researchers, such as DePauw University psychologist Matthew Hertenstein, who study it. In 2009, he demonstrated that we have an innate ability to decode emotions via touch alone. In a series of studies, Hertenstein had volunteers attempt to communicate a list of emotions to a blindfolded stranger solely through touch. Many participants were apprehensive about the experiment. "This is a touch-phobic society," he says. "We're not used to touching strangers, or even our friends, necessarily." -...-in 1976, clerks at a university library returned library cards to students either with or without briefly touching the student's hand. Student interviews revealed that those who'd been touched evaluated the clerk and the library more favorably. The effect held even when students hadn't noticed the touch. More recent studies have found that seemingly insignificant touches yield bigger tips for waitresses, that people shop and buy more if they're touched by a store greeter, and that strangers are more likely to help someone if a touch accompanies the request. -...-"We were very surprised. Touch predicted performance across all the NBA teams," says Kraus. -...-The most important things we reveal through touch: "probably our degree of dominance and our degree of intimacy," Andersen says. -...-A touch will naturally seem more intimate if it is accompanied by other signals, such as a prolonged gaze, or if it is held an instant too long. Meanwhile, a squeeze on the arm could be a sign of sympathy or support, but if it doesn't end quickly and is accompanied by intense eye contact, it can come across as a squeeze of aggression. (Chillot 2013:no page). However, the most natural way that we humans calm down our distress is by being touched, hugged, and rocked.(Van Der Kolk 2014:163). When a physician uses a nonverbal style that builds rapport; conveys a non-judgmental approach; and smiles, nods, and touches patients, this encourages the patients to disclose. This is important 586
because if the physician does not know what you are ingesting or doing, he or she may not be able to either properly diagnose the problem or prescribe the solution. (Frank 2016:92). From then on the Holy Roman emperors, followed by the kings of Europe, were imbued with the glow of divinity. Out of this came what was called the “royal touch”—the practice of healing people. Throughout the Middle Ages, as one historian after another chronicled, the great kings would regularly pass through the crowds, dispensing the royal touch. Charles II, who ruled England from 1660 to 1685, for instance, was said to have touched some 100,000 people during his reign; and the records even include the names of several American colonists, who returned to the Old World from the New World just to cross paths with King Charles and be healed. Did the royal touch really work? If no one had ever gotten better after receiving the royal touch, the practice would obviously have withered away. But throughout history, the royal touch was said to have cured thousands of people. -...-. The royal touch continued until the 1820s(Ariely 2009:108-9). Myth(ologie)s can coalesce: the horde in fusion (an endless chain of folding handshakes) can mix with the quintessential hero's mystical or apocalyptic return such as in a dedication to Evita Peron:”Cuando se junten sus manos, volveré y seré millones. ”867 (When [the people's] hands will fold, I shall come back and I shall be millions). Italian comedian turned politician Grillo rises against alleged backstage political deals and -according to news agency LaPresse on April, 20 2013- thunders: “E' in atto colpo di Stato, dobbiamo essere milioni” (A coup is underway. We shall be millions [to march against it]”).
On his 45th birthday, Michael Jackson addressed his innumerable fans thus:”Over the years we became a family, all of us. You are my family -...-It was 867
Phrase originally attributed to Indigenous cacique Tupac Katari in 1781. Beside appearing in a 1962 homage to Evita, the phrase is also credited to Evita on her deathbed, which is most likely not the case. The tactile oneness motif won't escape readers here.
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you, on a worldwide basis who supported me as my army, my soldiers of love. You were always there. You are always loyal and I love you forever”.
Folklore relates how Krishna at the Yamuna river multiplies in order to dance (Rasa Dance) with each and every one of his followers. If Krishna dances with cow maidens, at Pergamon devotees of Dyonisos style themselves as “dancing cowherds”. At Pergamon, “dancing cowherds” kept twin altars to honor both Dyonisos and Caesar Augustus as philosebastoi (friends of the emperors).
Alternatively, Gautama Buddha multiplies in the sky. Bodhisattva of compassion, a female Kwan Yin visits hell realms in order to liberate the damned by teaching each of them individually. Devotees of Mahayana Pure Land schools shall be reborn in Amitabha Buddha's Land Of Bliss ( sukhavati) to receive ongoing personalized instruction by innumerable Buddhas and Bodhisattvas to attain enlightenment. The Jesus of some Protestant denominations “wants to have a personal relationship with you”:”But if this story is not also our story, then it is not worth retelling”.
MAKE THE BUYER THE HERO. No matter whether your intention is to persuade the masses or the individual, you have to remember that you are really only persuading one person at a time. The conversation you have, or the experience you create, has to feel like it is unique to the person experiencing it. She needs to feel that it is directed at her personally because she must feel like she is in control of her decision for persuasion to occur. (Lakhani 2008:138, emphasis added). We all aspirate our voices when we’re murmuring to a person right next to us. Yet Marilyn manipulated her wetness cues as part of her 588
brand image. She communicated with a “pillow talk” effect even while onstage, speaking as though physically intimate with each person in the audience. (Hogshead 2010:70). Gnostic truths (“a form of knowledge flowing from the heart in a mysterious, intuitive way”868) consist in anything that remotely resembles a Vedic hymn:”That thought, may I be many, may I grow forth ”,”He desired, may I be many, may I grow forth” declare the Hindu Upanishads.”God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. ” ( Genesis 1:28).
Jack Kornfield, the acclaimed contemporary psychologist and speaker in matters of Buddhism and spirituality, can seamlessly mix quotes from the Dalai Lama, Kabir, Rumi, M.L. King, Mandela, Gandhi and so many others in his talks: it makes perfect gnostic sense. Civil rights jeremiads can easily co-exist with global warming fulminations and Buddhist tirades about oneness.
Lotuses sprout atop the good old hammer&scythe:
Anger, hatred, killing, war—there is just so much today. And it is getting worse. Even our environment is being effected by our anger. Our world is literally becoming warmer. We may think that this is the result of climatic changes and pollution. We are right about the cause being pollution. But we are wrong about its 868
“Esses são os três estados alterados de consciência que criam condições para a irrupção da gnose, um conhecimento que brota do coração de forma misteriosa e intuitiva. Dentro do filme gnóstico, estes três estados vão orientar os protagonistas na busca pela Verdade. São verdadeiras transformações íntimas, salvações individuais. É importante salientar que as provações que os protagonistas vão enfrentar não são decorrentes de pecados, erros ou transgressões. Ou seja, a jornada de sofrimentos e dificuldades não se constitui em castigo. É aqui que temos uma diferença fundamental entre o filme gnóstico dos outros tipos de filme: o protagonista não passa por uma expiação, mas está em busca da salvação através do conhecimento espiritual.” (Vieira Ferreira 2009:46).
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underlying form. (Wuling, May 15, 2007). Various dabblers in oriental spirituality of Jewish background can smoothly intersperse their Buddhist or Hindu jeremiads with Yiddish punchlines, Torah passages, and Talmud witticisms: it works like a charm with no sense of incoherence:
It seems as many as one third of American Buddhists are Jews. -...-Although Jews make up almost slightly more than two percent of the total American population, as many as 30 percent of American Buddhists are Jewish. ( Jews And American Buddhism 1998:no page). Jewish activists came from a range of backgrounds. Most of those who joined the New Left in the early-to-mid 1960s appear to have been largely assimilated third generation Jews from Old Left backgrounds, although some had participated in labor Zionist groups. Conversely, those Jews who entered the New Left after the mid 1960s appear to have had a stronger Jewish identity. Both groups seem to have grown up in a culture that validated the questioning of accepted ideas and authority (Liebman 1979, 542; Zeitz 2007, 171).It has been estimated that roughly one third to one half of committed New Left activists in the USA were Jewish including key leaders such as Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin. Twenty three percent of Jewish students surveyed identified as leftist compared to four percent of Protestant students and two percent of Catholic students (Glazer 1969a, 112; Heineman 2001, 64). (Mendes 2009:2). The explanation in antiquity was that “only a god” could have fathered -or sent- such a “great man” (= “no ordinary person”) capable of saying wonderful things that “heal each and every soul specifically”: the shtick applied to Gautama Buddha, Plato, Pythagoras and so forth centuries before it applied to Jesus, Mohamed, Guru Nanak or Joseph Smith:”Sine peccato conceptus, natus et mortuus
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”869.
As Huston Smith comments regarding the Buddha, he was considered a completely different sort of being:”What are you? What order of being do you belong to? What species do you represent? ”. Branden couldn't agree more: people with high self-esteem act, walk, talk and hold themselves in a completely different way. Moore also juxtaposes “calm, non-anxious presence” and “psychological system integrity”, in turn gage of “resilience”870.
And how, if Phoebus [Apollo] did not cause Plato to be born in Greece, did he [=Plato] heal human minds with letters? For even as the divinely begotten Asclepius is a healer of the body, so Plato is of the immortal soul. (Diogenes Laertius, Lives Of Eminent Philosophers 3.45). On the death of his father, likewise, though he was still but a youth, his aspect was most venerable, and his habits most temperate, so that he was even reverenced and honored by elderly men; and converted the attention of all who saw and heard him speak, on himself, and appeared to be an admirable person to every one who beheld him. Hence it was reasonably asserted by many, that he was the son of a God. But he being corroborated by renown of this kind, by the education which he had received from his infancy, and by his natural deiform appearance, in a still greater degree evinced that he deserved his present prerogatives. (Iamblichus, Life Of Pythagoras, Taylor trans., emphasis added). Not to mention the (post)modern incarnations of the theios aner: Napoleon, Churchill, Hitler, Lenin, Mussolini, M.L. King, Lincoln, down to Berlusconi, Renzi, Tsipras, Mujica, Chavez, Castro, the Dalai Lama etc...:”no ordinary person indeed”. 869 870
Jesus was conceived, was born and died without sin, Catholic Council Of Florence, 1347. No date-3:part 8.
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In Japanese “new religions” (a term that encompasses new religious sects appearing late in the country's history), the same jumble of characteristics appears:
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charismatic leadership;
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shamanistic practices, trances, miraculous healing;
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the divine nature of the founder as living Buddha or nature-god; or the possession by a god871:”No matter whether the founder regarded himself as a living kami or an ordinary human being, in the eyes of his followers he was, in the end, a kami dwelling in a human. This is a deeply rooted characteristic of the new religions”872.
Also, traditional Greek literature is full of people likened to gods, and/or sporting god-like traits:
You may be a good man in a fight, Achilles, And look like a god (Iliad I:140873); Standing beyond him is Idomeneus, Like a god, with his Cretan commanders (III:246-7); Machaon's heart was pounding as he made his way Across the crowded sand and through the troops Until he came to where Menelaus lay wounded, All the army's best gathered around him In a circle, into which he stepped like a god (IV:223.227);”On their side Ereuthalion, a man like a god,Stood forth as champion,” (VII:145-7); “You will win from them. They will honor you [=Achilles] Like a god.” (IX:305-6); “When Patroclus stood in the door, more like a god Than a man.” (XI:686-7);”Melanippus went with him, moving like a god” 871
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Even in early Christianity, some contended that Jesus was the mortal vessel for an almighty Christ that entered him at Baptism, and left him at the crucifixion, such as the apocryphal Gospel Of Peter presents:”And the Lord [=Jesus] screamed out, saying: 'My power, O power, you have forsaken me.' And having said this, he was taken up. ”. Endo, ME6223 no date lecture 8:5. S. Lombardo translation.
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(XV:583); “And he moved ahead, with Meriones, Who himself moved like a god, in his wake” (XVI:662-3);”Besides Patroclus? He had a will like a god's” (XVII:493); “and Talthybius, Whose voice was like a god's,” (XIX:264-5);”Briseis stood there like golden Aphrodite” (XIX:299);”[Achilles] leapt on the Trojans like a god” (XXI:236);”[Achilles] rose like a god and addressed the Greeks” (XXII:417);”Not Hector, who was like a god among men” (XXIV:275). In more recent times, “destiny” or “providence” may replace god: the providential man. Both Gautama Buddha874; a Hebrew “servant of the lord”875, and Jesus876, appear as emissary of cosmic forces: thundering voices from heaven, or Mother Earth herself support 'the great man'.
Bedlamites “hear voices” all the time that impel them to commit crimes and/or to behave as loons. Minority criminals customize this “external locus of control”:”society”, “...ism” made me do it. Psychologist Tangney connects shame, blaming others and criminal recidivism. Psychologist Julian Jaynes suggested that ancient man – for example in the Iliad, Mohamed or the Hebrew prophets- did not experience an “interior monologue”, a train of thought they might follow in their mind's eye, but “voices in one's head” as “dictation from god”.
As expressed in the Upaniṣad, the quality of the Dreaming State (svapna-sthāna) is of light (tejas) revealed through “luminous enjoyments experienced in exquisite solitude” (praviviktabhuktaijasa). The effect of the rites of any valid initiation ceremonial is 874
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Just like in the Jesus story, the tempter demon god Mara resorts to several strategies (= kama=sensual pleasure; mara=fear; dharma=social duty) to distract Gautama Buddha from his meditation towards enlightenment. Finally, Mara claims Buddha's seat for himself as gage of spiritual accomplishment greater than Buddha's; Mara's demons support their lord bearing witness. Buddha then touches the Earth, which roars in support of Buddha; Mara and his armies disappear. “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will bring justice to the nations.” (Isaiah 42:1). “And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased."” ( Matthew 3:17).
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to bring about in the mind of the individual under treatment an awakening of his inward life to identification with this light. And the aim of the art of the ceremonial is so to reorganize in the way of an apprehensible rhythm of beauty and sublimity the day residues of the initiate’s own immediate past that they should be experienced in a context, now, of unforeseen possibilities, concluding in the revelation (epiphany) of a life-transforming total insight. (Campbell 1988/2017:34). 'Great men' are not alone in their 'man of destiny' shtick as they claim superhuman status for themselves:
[ An inmate who scored high on the psychopathy checklist] turned his photocopy of the Psychopathy Checklist score sheet around and started to scribble. He crossed out the word Psychopathy from the top of the page and then wrote in big block letters SUPERMAN. He turned to show me his creative work and then said: “I’m no psychopath. That’s the wrong term for me. I’m renaming this the SupermanChecklist. And now I’m Superman.” (Kiehl 2014:104). My greatest weakness, it's possible that I'm a little too awesome (Barack Obama in 2008). Jesus went out, along with His disciples, to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way He questioned His disciples, saying to them, "Who do people say that I am?" They told Him, saying, "John the Baptist; and others say Elijah; but others, one of the prophets." And He continued by questioning them, "But who do you say that I am?" Peter answered and said to Him, "You are the Christ.” ( Mark 8:27-29). Ben-Shahar peppers his positive psychology lessons with both academic studies, and stand up comedians delivering punchlines: it works equally well irrespective of who's being quoted at any given moment. No wonder then that the simple mention of such abstruse -hence generic- concepts sends the dull masses into a fitful trance of immediate compliance at the behest of whoever sees fit to
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minimally restyle such lore to serve the moment's purpose.
According to Zimbardo, deindividuation (= fusion of the horde, or whichever other term might be used) unfolds according to the following that -incidentally- recur also at every rock concert or other mass entertainment event:
1. Anonymity that minimizes concern for social evaluation, which brings unaccountability about. 2. Arousal and consequent uninhibition. 3. Large group. 4. Time distortion. Past and future blur in favor of an eternalized present moment. Memory of actions performed may be reduced. 5. Sensory overload (lights, music, chanting, noise, heat, smell...). 6. Altered states of consciousness (possibly accompanying the consumption of alcohol, drugs and so forth). This peculiar state -in both its negative and positive connotations- has been categorized in different ways, such as mindfulness (=”control of attention” according to Loizzo), hyperaesthesia, “being in the flow”, (Buddhist) meditative concentration877, “aesthetic arrest”, “cosmic consciousness”, the sublime, “ being in the zone” (positive); or “going on autopilot” (commuter's amnesia), deindividuation etc (negative):
it turns out that bomb-disposal operatives aren’t the only ones who 877
For example as Buddhist monastic ven. Wuling (Pure Land Buddhism) described. Gautama Buddha ( CulaSunnata Sutta) describes emptiness with words that later authors refer to the sublime, aesthetic arrest, being in the flow etc:”even so, Ananda, a monk — not attending to the perception [or mental note] of village, not attending to the perception of human being — attends to the singleness based on the perception of wilderness. His mind takes pleasure, finds satisfaction, settles, & indulges in its perception of wilderness. ”.
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experience a drop in heart rate when they get down to business. Relationship experts Neil Jacobson and John Gottman, -...- have observed identical cardiovascular profiles in certain types of abusers, who, research has shown, actually become more relaxed when beating up their partners than when they’re lounging in an armchair with their eyes closed.-...-In 2011, Martin Klasen at Aachen University discovered that moments of flow possess a unique physiological profile. Using fMRI to observe the brains of video game players in action, he found that periods of heightened focus and concentration are accompanied by a reduction of activity in the anterior cingulate cortex—the brain’s error-detection and conflict-monitoring hardware—indicative of an increase in attention and the suppression of distracting and non-task-relevant information. But that’s not all. A similar pattern has also been found in the brains of criminal psychopaths. (Dutton 2012:26,124). Across the board, they revealed in their [sexually] un-aroused state that they themselves did not know what they were like once aroused. Prevention, protection, conservatism, and morality disappeared completely from the radar screen. They were simply unable to predict the degree to which passion would change them (Ariely 2009:62-3). The group factor is also optional, for aesthetic arrest, being in the zone or in the flow, going on autopilot and experiencing the sublime happen mostly to individuals. Also, eminent positive psychologist Csikszentmihalyi claims that “being in the flow” makes people “better”, thus cathecting a 'new' concept with the same mystical properties as immemorial states of religious elation.
My Cosmic Consciousness event -....- occurred unexpectedly while I was alone one evening and was watching a particularly beautiful sunset. -...- The Cosmic Consciousness experience began with some mild tingling in the perineal area, the region between the genitals and anus. The feeling was unusual but was neither particularly pleasant nor unpleasant. After the initial few minutes, I either ceased to notice the tingling or did not remember it. -....-Along with the light came an alteration in mood. I began to feel very good, then still better, then elated. While this was happening, the passage of time seemed to become slower and slower. The brightness, mood elevation, and time 596
slowing all progressed together-....-. It is difficult to describe this feeling, but perhaps it would be better to say that there was no time, or no sense of time. Only the present moment existed. My elation proceeded to an ecstatic state, the intensity of which I had never even imagined could be possible. -....-There was no separation between myself and the rest of the universe. -...-To say that subject merged with object might be almost adequate as a description of the entrance into Cosmic Consciousness, but during Cosmic Consciousness there was neither “subject” nor “object.” -...-Perhaps the most significant element of Cosmic Consciousness was the absolute knowingness that it involves. This knowingness is a deep understanding that occurs without words. -...-Eventually, the Cosmic Consciousness faded. The time changes, light, and mood elevation passed off. When I was able to think again, the sun had set and I estimate that the event must have lasted about twenty minutes. Immediately following return to usual consciousness, I cried uncontrollably for about a half hour. I cried both for joy and for sadness, because I knew that my life would never be the same. (cit. In Tart 2012:236-7). There I feel that nothing can befal me in life,—no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground,—my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space,—all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball. I am nothing. I see all. The currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God. The name of the nearest friend sounds then foreign and accidental. To be brothers, to be acquaintances,—master or servant, is then a trifle and a disturbance. (Emerson 1836, cit. in Myerson 2000:127-8). It is because of this collapse of ego boundaries that we may shout at the moment of climax "I love you" or "Oh, God" to a prostitute for whom moments later, after the ego boundaries have snapped back into place, we may feel no shred of affection, liking or investment. -...-for a second we may totally forget who we are, lose track of self, be lost in time and space, be outside of ourself, be transported. We may become one with the universe. But only for a second. -...-To this consensual misperception, this world of illusion that most of us mistakenly believe to be real, Hindus and Buddhists apply the word "Maya." They and other mystics hold that true reality can be known only by experiencing the oneness through a giving up of ego boundaries.(Peck 1978:96). Psychiatrists call this phenomenon alexithymia—Greek for not having words for feelings. Many traumatized children and adults simply 597
cannot describe what they are feeling because they cannot identify what their physical sensations mean. They may look furious but deny that they are angry; they may appear terrified but say that they are fine. Not being able to discern what is going on inside their bodies causes them to be out of touch with their needs, and they have trouble taking care of themselves, whether it involves eating the right amount at the right time or getting the sleep they need.(Van Der Kolk 2014:82). As this writing contends, such bundles of emotional and sensory images are vehicles that can be adapted to all and sundry: the dewdrop merges into the sea. The experience above might be that of a sentimental soul watching a sunset alone; that of the moth merging with the flame as allegory of mystics merging with god; that of a rock concert attendee's; or that of any artificial kin member marching, sulking, loathing...
As Van Der Kolk points out, trauma and elation, the sublime and the abominable look increasingly alike, just as a deranged man and a psychopath may look startlingly similar in their operativity to men of destiny, prophets and saviors mugwumps worship:”However, the more frazzled we are, the more our rational brains take a backseat to our emotions”878:”It is not a long distance between a very productive leader and a sociopath -...-: it is regulation. When the person no longer can maintain their humanity, then they are possessed by these energies -...-. The truth is you have to take those people down -...- or they will destroy the world” 879.
People are busy consecrating or desecrating bodies or corpses...They adoringly listen as 'the great man' bloviates. He's possibly tomorrow's mass878 879
Van Der Kolk 2014:156. Moore 2002:part 5.
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murdering tyrant or pathetic buffoon, whose dead body the masses shall tear apart in contempt:”These findings indicate that the boldness associated with psychopathy is an important but heretofore neglected predictor of presidential performance, and suggest that certain features of psychopathy are tied to successful interpersonal behavior. ”880.
What if I was to tell you that the arsonist who burns your house down might also, in a parallel universe, be the hero most likely to brave the flaming timbers of a crumbling, blazing building to seek out, and drag out, your loved ones? Or that the kid with a knife in the shadows at the back of the movie theater might well, in years to come, be wielding a rather different kind of knife at the back of a rather different kind of theater? Claims like these are admittedly hard to believe. But they’re true. Psychopaths are fearless, confident, charismatic, ruthless, and focused. (Dutton 2012:18). Mindfulness (being “in the zone”, “in the flow” etc) is also routinely perverted politically. Peer/social pressure -if not legal pressure- is exerted in various degrees to ensure one addresses various categories the right way. Under Italian Fascism, the word Duce had to be written in upper case, just as the word god or lord is in some Biblical translations. One has to be “mindful” to insure the right carnage with the liturgical description is attributed to the appropriate arch-tyrant. Muslim customs oblige to interject “peace be upon him” every time Mohamed or other accredited prophets are mentioned.
The horde in fusion is assertedly therapeutic:”Thus, the well-being of the individual was dependent on his full participation in the community. Unification, in 880
From the abstract of a 2012 scientific study by Lilienfeld et alii ( Fearless Dominance and the U.S. Presidency ) that examined the biographies of U.S Presidents up to Bush, jr.
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this sense, is integral to one’s health, since the individual’s completeness resides in the community.”881.
In the volatile world of work, this ability to manage stress, both physically and psychologically, is a significant competitive advantage. For one, it has been found to greatly reduce a company’s health care costs and rate of absenteeism. But perhaps more important, it directly impacts individual performance. Researchers have found that the “physiological resourcefulness” that employees gain from positive social interactions provides a foundation for workplace engagement—employees can work for longer hours, with increased focus, and under more difficult conditions (Achor 2010:165). the brain processes social rejection or shame the same exact way it processes physical pain. (Brown 2012:146). When we speak shame, we learn to speak our pain. As I wrote earlier, we are wired for connection, and this makes us wired for story. More than any other method, storytelling is how we communicate who we are, how we feel, what’s important to us and what we need from others. (Brown 2007:124). In traditional Balinese funerals, a long thread relies the coffin soon to be cremated with the procession accompanying it to the burning ground; a symbolic “cosmic tower” (bade, funeral tower) also accompanies the deceased at an astrologically appointed moment for physical cremation ( ngaben). Parishes (banjars) and villages (desas) with pertaining temples organize in Bali elaborate cremation ceremonies.
At Anuradhapura (Sri Lanka), Buddhist devotees carry a very long flag, and fold it around the Ruwanwelisaya Stupa (140 BCE), where Buddha's relics are
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Castronova 2004:53-4.
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said to rest. Lieberman (Professor of Psychology, Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences) declared in 2013 that:”If Facebook were a religion, it would be the third largest Religion in the world ”882;”’identification à la vie apparente sans profondeur”.
It kind of feels like how nice it might be if you were the most popular person in your high school. In fact, social media has become the world’s high school, and whether we realize it or not, we all have those moments when we imagine that having a lot of followers might make us envied, liked, and as cool as we wished we were back then. (Prinstein 2017b:no page). Popular culture couldn't lag far behind. Browsing across the internet in 2014, one's browser is peppered with pesky pop-ups that advertise this or that meek upstart who desperately needs the public to do something (push a button; fill a survey; add one to his social network; dial a toll number...) so that the unassuming striver may possibly hit it big by winning an online contest (=tournament motif) as a video gets voted up.
The public acts as a fairy godmother who may help destitute Cinderellas (=ugly duckling motif) be(come) the belle of the ball with a click of its magic mouse (or wand); or dialing a toll number in to vote a particular contestant. How many “audition tournament” programs are there on TV? Ordinary bozos and mass-men try to mesmerize an audience with their presumed talent.
This imagery does not concern exclusively the armies of brutes marching on a new country every season in order to enact the foolish dictates of their utopian 882
Lieberman probably doesn't take into account the various regional Facebook clones going under different names.
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schemes of choice culled from long-dead hacks, whatever the color of their armband happens to be. Positive psychologists emphasize the important of socialization and commitment, too.
Being part of the horde in fusion would thus amount to a therapy of commitment, whose healing properties are manifest:
Ritual participation is an extreme form of commitment therapy. But, what ritual participation is to the group, mysticism is, functionally, to the individual. Operationally defined, mysticism is always a form of unification with a saving agency. The mystic inclines to achieve his self-awareness by coming as close to a condition of inaction as he can. Historically, Oriental moral demand systems such as Buddhism have exalted the mystic as a therapeutic type. The tendency to inaction itself has a supportive value, for once the mystical union with the saving symbol, and with the community that stands behind it, has been achieved, a climax of inner stability has been reached; there is no place to go further except down, so to speak, toward alienation from the integrative god-term with which the mystic has been infused. (Rieff 2006:60). Every mysticism performs this operation, claiming only to restore the original profundity of the parent tradition by interpreting it nonliterally. The Sufis, Philo, and others made such claims, but how plausible are they? Usually such hermeneutical attempts are really efforts at modernizing an outmoded faith that has become an embarrassment to its latter-day adherents. Was the belief of the Stoics really older than that of Homer and Hesiod? I doubt it. (Price 2008:111). Professor of Psychology, Psychoanalysis and Spirituality, R.L. Moore addresses883 the Heaven's Gate884 cult mass suicide suggesting that people -in the case of any cult such as Branch Dravidians at Waco- ought to -literally- invite cult 883 884
1997:part 5. About 40 group members committed suicide in 1997 in the hope of reaching a spaceship their religion preached was following the comet Hale-Bopp. Aboard said spaceship they would assertedly reach some fabled evolutionary next level.
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members over for coffee in order to discuss their involvement in socially uplifting activities such as assistance to micro-credit or the homeless: love-bombing as a redemptive strategy, or Jung's “disposable libido� reconsidered.
Others in turn explain how such groups are born because society at large rejects some or most of their core beliefs and assumptions: who would sincerely care to mingle with those weird people who sport all-out beliefs in UFOs, or in approaching fire and brimstone doom? Beliefs people are drawn to in the attempt to soothe their internal feelings of societal alienation, inadequacy and dissonance to start with. One may try to steer their manic attention towards socially acceptable purposes with a game of pretenses: what if the game of pretenses at some point falls apart?
The final scene of the 1986 movie Crocodile Dundee offers one example. Set aside another grotesque rendition of the bewildered country boy in visit to the city, the final scene sees the girl who repents and wants to tell her Romeo she loves him...in a New York subway station during rush hour. After relaying messages to and fro as the two are apart, the packed crowd -composed of people of all races and walks of life- spontaneously and enthusiastically volunteers to serve as doormat; bystanders cheerfully encourage doubting Romeo (or Tarzan, as he's called in the movie) to literally walk on their shoulders/heads to be reunited with his Juliet (or Jane).
Carlyle relays this anecdote from the French Revolution. Patriotic 603
masses are building the Champ-De-Mars,
Thus too a certain person (of some quality, or private capital, to appearance), entering hastily, flings down his coat, waistcoat and two watches, and is rushing to the thick of the work: "But your watches?" cries the general voice.−−"Does one distrust his brothers?" answers he; nor were the watches stolen. How beautiful is noble−sentiment: like gossamer gauze, beautiful and cheap; which will stand no tear and wear! (1837:no page). In the lab, in the Mattel fiasco, in the Madoff scandal, and in countless run-of-the-mill betrayals, trust can lead to exploitation. (Chen&Krakovsky 2010:100). In Superman II885 (1980), the peeping crowd 'becomes one', ires and marches in order to avenge beloved Superman brutish compatriots have momentarily overpowered, only to be rendered powerless by Superman's evil
doppelgaengers:
Holy subtexts abound within the popular cinema. Superman: The Movie (1978) and Superman II (1981) were examined as a protracted secular analogue of the Jesus story. The literature was reviewed and twenty Superman-Jesus parallels plus eight Christic personalistic traits were explicated. It was concluded that Superman is not only a legitimate Christ-figure, but the American pop culture movie Messiah. (Kozlovic 2002: no page). "Well, I'm not saying Superman is Jewish, but certainly his creators, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, were, and they informed him with a Jewish worldview," notes Rabbi Simcha Weinstein-...-.What kind of name is Kal-El for a Jewish boy anyway? Krypton Conservative? "It's a good one," says Weinstein 885
The storyline of high-budget blockbuster Superman 2 strongly resembles that of an episode of Space 1999. In Space 1999 (End Of Eternity episode, 1976), they mistakenly free whom they think is an eccentric visionary dressed in black, unjustly imprisoned in an asteroid. The visionary soon turns out to be a murderous psychopath with superhuman powers on a domination binge, who had been confined because of his earlier crimes. Stills from, and a description of the episode may be found at http://www.space1999.net/moonbase99/eternity.htm . In Superman 2, the domineering sociopaths both dressed in black, and with superhuman powers escaping from confinement are three. Readers shall come to their own conclusions.
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of the simcha of giving a child a name with an incredible similarity to Kol-El, Hebrew for "Voice of God." -...-.No kreplach, Rabbi. But there is a lot of truth to how the saga of Superman has a super sense of Jewish tradition and storytelling that made him every Jewish boomer's favorite Saturday cereal superhero. (Elkin 2006:no page). But by being charged with emotion, the image gains numinosity (or psychic energy); it becomes dynamic, and consequences of some sort must flow from it. (C.G. Jung, Man And His Symbols). The pack in fusion supports Superman. The 'great man' in fact wears -just like Wonder Woman, Captain America and other fictional heroes do- the colors of 'the old glory': he's a walking cathedral with the U.S flag on top, whom meek party liners worship.
Cialdini886 remarks how Hare Krishna adepts who patrolled airports soliciting donations prevented passers-by from escaping the “reciprocity principle” trap. In order for the passer-by not to simply discard the flower they were giving him as a 'gift' (=foot in the door technique) in order to solicit a donation later, the Hare Krishna tied a small U.S flag to the flower: would conscientious members of the horde throw the “old glory” in the dust(bin) simply to escape the reciprocity trap?
The researchers found that [in a study in rural India] people with higher savings goals [randomly allotted in the study] tended to save more, and those with their savings partitioned into envelopes did better at saving than those who did not receive some of their money separately. Further, people saved more money when their children’s pictures were printed on the envelopes [=accessing the money meant to ruin the picture].(Hamilton 2016:76). 886
1995:1a.
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Alternatively, fusion may occur between two parties. Zen martial artists claim the Buddha's spirit fights within them; St. Paul wrote:�I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. � (Galatians 2:20). Gawain champions a child-lady, whose castle was under siege because her older sister had refused a King in marriage, as the child assures him the two of them would be(come) one. Feirefiz and Parsifal are -indeed, as half-brothers in battle- one.
Popular culture couldn't let this gem pass unnoticed. In the Japanese cartoon Astroganga (1972-3), a boy named Charlie fusions in body and spirit with a sentient giant robot to fight invaders from outer space. Another hero of Japanese giant robots, Takeshi (Ufo Diapolon, 1976), fusions with three (=ternary principle) giant robots to fight evil foes from outer space.
Myth's beloved ingredients are all there:
1. Prodigious birth. Although he's an orphan on Earth, Takeshi is in reality the son of a mighty god-king from another planet evil foes overthrew. Charlie is the son of a female runaway scientist from outer space stranded on Earth, and of an earthling (much like Achilles, Aeneas etc).
2. Prodigies galore. Takeshi's godly father takes him up to heaven along with Takeshi's friends (=the merry men motif) so that his manifest destiny might
606
unfold. Charlie's giant robot Ganga is born in an underwater volcano.
3. Wise mentors with a flowing beard. A scientist for Takeshi; an influential grandfather for Charlie.
4. Mythological chases. After various failed attempts, Takeshi rescues his captive mother. Charlie has to fulfill the mission of his deceased parents; Charlie's mother stranded on Earth also lived on borrowed time because she was another “wounded healer”.
5. The savior holds no grudges: not only does Takeshi save Earth, but his enemy planet as well, which he restores after an ecological catastrophe.
The “fusion” item can stew in as many sauces as one sees fit. In the Catholic Mass the priest recites:
Look, we pray, upon the oblation of your Church and, recognising the sacrificial Victim by whose death you willed to reconcile us to yourself, grant that we, who are nourished by the Body and Blood of your Son and filled with his Holy Spirit, may become one body, one spirit in Christ. Researchers -...- recently developed and validated an instrument to measure how experiences of collective assembly (their term for these experiences) affect us. They found that these experiences contribute to a life filled with “a sense of meaning, increased positive affect, an increased sense of social connection, and a decreased sense of loneliness—all essential components of a healthy, happy life.” -...-And there seems to be a lingering effect —we hold on to our feelings of social connectedness and wellbeing past the actual event.(Brown 2017b:79).
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When people become fascinated, they merge with larger groups of people fascinated by the same message. These groups can do much of your work for you, inciting others to join a bigger cultural movement. Harley-Davidson revolutionized a category, and sparked a revolution. Jim Nelson, executive creative director at ad agency Carmichael Lynch, explains that in the sixties, the public had an extremely negative opinion of motorcycle riding. To refute this, Cycle World magazine published an article claiming that 99 percent of bikers were law-abiding, responsible citizens—the other 1 percent of outlaw bikers were giving the rest a bad name. Harley riders took that 1 percent as a badge of honor, calling themselves the “One Percenters.” In response, Honda came out with a campaign that said, “You meet the nicest people on a Honda.”(Hogshead 2010:149)887. The boons of commitment are endless. Vajrayana Buddhist nun and speaker Robina Courtin suggests to take one or more Buddhist pledges. Even if that sounds hard, and even if we end up breaking the vow often, nonetheless we make merit for all the rest of the time we are not actively breaking it: the vow somewhat acts as barrier to deter our behavior.
Professor of psychology DeWall shuns religious fairy tales and refers to the exact same thing as the scientific “implementation intention” 888:”Usually such hermeneutical attempts are really efforts at modernizing an outmoded faith that has become an embarrassment to its latter-day adherents.”.
Indian thought -whether Upanishadic or Buddhist- has been warning against excessive maximalism, and in favor of self-contentment, for ages. Political
887
888
A grunt worker with only a middle-school education told the present writer how he had hobnobbed with top Hollywood actor so-and-so at Harley Davidson motorbike rallies he joined. Brands act as potential equalizers, just like religions. The “last and meek” rub elbows with the nonesuch courtesy of the brand: “brothers in Harley”. 2013:Self-Control Successes And Failures.
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scientist H.A Simon posited satisficing in 1956: self-contentment as a form of optimization that balances sets of constraints.
In 1971 Brickman&Campbell introduced “the hedonistic treadmill”: striving and getting more -or less- is no guarantee of a stable -or incrementalincrease in lasting (dis)satisfaction, which over time tends to float around an average. Again, Upanishadic and Buddhist thought had already eviscerated the conundrum of greed, hatred, doubt, sloth, torpor and delusion ages before the 1970s: Mahayana Buddhism posited emptiness as key to existence.
Costa Rica's folkloric song canha dulce rhapsodizes about the contentment of a modest life of hard toil in the countryside in these terms: “y seré como esos reyes -...- que no envidian ya nadita. -...-esta vide noble y buena, pasaré sin un rencor.” ( I shall be like one of those kings who don't covet anything, and I shall live this wholesome and noble life without any resentment whatsoever).
Naturally, the consequences of the 'horde in fusion' go often beyond middle-aged prats in third rate comedies, or flying heroes in cape and tights wearing lots of brilliantine. The “August madness” of 1914 is another example, whereby -contrary to the propaganda and lucubration of Social-Communists and pacifists alike – the masses spontaneously embraced patriotic causes in a nationalistic spirit at the outbreak of WWI.
Clinical professor of psychology Siegel nicely clinches:
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you will learn that there are many parallels between Western psychotherapies and the traditions from which many mindfulness practices come. But they diverge in the understanding of the self— the ultimate goal. However, the practical differences may not really be so profound, because traditional students of mindfulness may have full enlightenment of their ultimate goal. But that ultimate goal is rarely attained. Instead, in ways that would be quite recognizable to Western health professionals, students of mindfulness become more mature and balanced. (2014:33). Popular culture readily hijacks mindfulness and “living in the eternal present”. Radio stations invite listeners to participate in a game show. If chosen to receive a random phone call from the radio staff, the listener will have to be tested in order to successfully prove on air to have paid attention to the radio's broadcasts.
Political parties recurrently put the concept on oneness to good use. Italian party Lega Nord portrays a faceless horde of bare-footed hobos in rags running berserk carrying the party's symbols 889. In our day, some people buy Tshirts inviting to arrange a meeting between the Taliban and their god; or to catch two birds with one stone by killing pregnant Muslim women in the Middle East: the perversion of the beloved myth of the pregnant woman's ordeal890.
On the opposite end of the political spectrum, the NSDAP motto was: 889 890
One image is available at: http://colico.leganord.org/documenti/nordsfruttato.jpg For example the Greek myths of Ariadne (at times assimilated to Aphrodite), and Cupid&Psyche. The Hindu myth of King Dushyanta and his pregnant lover Shakuntala. The Judaeo-Christian myth of aspersions being cast upon Mary as she conceived the divine child Jesus while a virgin, etc. Aspersions were also cast upon Sita: Rama thus abandoned her while she was pregnant. Anxieties of this kind recur also in Icelandic lore, whereby human women have at times intercourse with huldufolk (secret people) portrayed as more gallant and charming than the stereotypical Icelandic male of the rough times when such stories were crafted. Also, huldufolk may help women with unwanted pregnancies by raising the child themselves. This constellation of myths is but another variation upon the 'choice that entails suffering', 'frail little creature', or 'rash judgment' motifs: one and the same. On the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, malignant spirits called dorlis or homme(s) au baston sexually abuse women as they sleep. In a 1992 book by E. Pépin, a young woman claims a dorlis impregnated her in 1956, which resulted in bouts of collective hysteria as news spread.
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one people, one country, one leader. In 1939-40 Italian crowds drowned then neutral Mussolini's speeches urging him “to march on Paris”; in 1943, a roaring German crowd cheered Goebbels' rhetorical question whether they wanted to go for total war.
In another study, where shocks were actually delivered, some participants were so keen to avoid the dread, they opted to receive a larger electric shock immediately rather than a smaller, less painful one later. This decision may seem irrational.-...-What classic decision-making theories fail to account for is the negative value of dread -...-.It is therefore completely rational to be willing to pay double to avoid an adverse event in the future. (Sharot 2011:76). Self-esteem disturbances leading to aggressive, and/or antisocial behaviour arise when dependent self-esteem (=dependent on external approval) prevails; such disturbances would also accompany huge swings in self-esteem levels891, which in turn mirrors the horde in fusion's ebbing and flowing (they alternatively ire, loathe, sulk, covet...) mood as the masters of acceptable discourse spin their yarns to keep the masses on their seats:
Interpretive communities are groups of people whom we trust to determine whether things are right or wrong. They can be official or ad hoc; they can have credentials or just be people we trust, people whom we end up trusting, who are somehow authorized to determine things, or who have the power—like the umpire at the baseball game —to make final determinations. But the point is that you get your argument accepted by convincing the interpretive community -...-.The important point is that the interpretive community sets the rules, the discourse conventions (Drout 2006:14,19). Regardless of whether the welfare policy was generous or stringent, 891
Ben-Shahar 2005-6:lecture 21.
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conservatives supported the policy if they thought Republicans favored it and opposed it if they thought Democrats favored it. And liberals did the same, albeit following what they thought Democrats supported (and opposing what Republicans liked). When it came to political views, party was stronger than policy. (Berger 2016:58, emphasis added). Ben-Shahar892 discusses self-esteem, which research links on an equal footing to both pro- and antisocial behaviors. It is not surprising. What in one group -or person- amounts to a healthy degree of self-esteem in the pursuit of selfconcordant goals according to a vision, in another group or person – doing basically the same thing- it amounts to self-absorption, conceit and violent compulsions. Is a thrifty person a penny-pincher? Is the braggart just self-assertive? Is the man of destiny an “authoritarian personality�?
Are patriotic muscle-heads in any of those xeroxed Rambo patriotic action movies displaying a civilized sense of social cohesion all should possess? Aren't they rather acting like a Khmer Rouge, CEKA-NKVD or GESTAPO thug? On which basis can the much sought after sense of social cohesion become chauvinism? Is the recourse to illegal foreign objects to win a wrestling match a shame or an heroic remedy?
It doesn't really matter to the masses whether their dragon in a jar is a rubber dummy; whether the eye-witness who saw the elusive but ever-present Canadian crucified on the Western Front is a non-existing soldier of a unit stationed in India during WWI; whether the next hero-victim of '...ists' is both mentally 892
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unstable, and/or with criminal records; or whether the Kuwaiti incubator babies murdered en masse existed only in the mind of hired advert specialists, whose princely salary was even made public.
Their “evidence� remains in oral tradition. Recent -...- rumors are usually only summary accounts based on unverifiable descriptions of supposed news stories, and they are thus probably legends in the making. -...-The majority of the accounts contained authenticating details about police, tow trucks, or newspaper reports, but no verifiable proof. -...-So it appears that oral tradition and journalism each contributed to the growth of this legend, both elaborating on the details of the basic plot.(Brunvand 1981:56,74-75). Cultural or mediating priming easily unleashes human mind's inner proclivities. According to data mentioned in Jadri et alii 893, the prevalence of hallucination cross-sectional studies suggest to be the case for the general population hovers around 11-13% (USA); 20% (France); 21% (UK-Germany-Italy) etc:
A large study of patients at Kaiser Permanente, a health maintenance organization, was designed to assess childhood exposure to multiple types of adverse events, including abuse, neglect, domestic violence, and serious household dysfunction (such as substance abuse). They derived an adverse childhood event (ACE) score, with one point for each major category of abuse. Twothirds of the patients reported at least one ACE, with 26 percent experiencing one event, 16 percent experiencing two events, and 27 percent experiencing three or more events. And that doesn’t include traumas that happen after childhood. They found that trauma has a huge impact on well-being, with higher ACE scores corresponding to more life problems. Compared to persons with an ACE score of 0, those with an ACE score of 4 or more were twice as likely to be smokers, 12 times more likely to have attempted suicide, 7 times more likely to be alcoholic, and 10 times more 893
2013:45.
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likely to have injected street drugs.(Siegel 2014:116-7). The trauma associated with the pain of an intense shame response can lead to all the phenomena we associate with a post-traumatic stress disorder. (Engel 2006:220-221). The continual suppression of emotions during fight or flight reactions results in atrophy and endogenous toxicosis in noradrenergic neurons. Diminished synaptic levels of norepinephrine (noradrenaline)are associated with depression. -...As we have seen, persons with toxic minds have a craving for stimulants because stimulants can trigger detoxification crises. Abused children are attracted to violent TV programs for this reason. All of us have toxic neurons to some extent and crave stimulation. Many of us could not turn off the TV during the Gulf War. Some sociologists speak of man as having a need for enemies. This need comes from unconscious cravings that bring about the release of repressed anger. In its extreme this is what motivates cult leaders, terrorists, dictators, all who wage war, and all those who follow along in their paths of destruction. That there might be conspiracies behind acts of violence is because other individuals with toxic minds have the unconscious need to tag along and release their own pent-up anger. -...- The weapons amassed by David Koresh, Timothy McVeigh, Shoko Asahara, and Saddam Hussein were probably for the purpose of releasing anger stored up as toxic neurochemicals in the nervous systems of those individuals and had little to do with the purposes for which they were ultimately used. Adults who were abused as children are likely to continue to fill the arsenals of the world with nuclear bombs. (Van Winkle894 2000:356-368). And for each additional adverse experience reported, the toll in later damage increases. -...-When the media report an -...- increase in the risk of some cancer, it is headline news, yet these far more dramatic figures are overlooked. -...- Once the NCTSN was up and running, we had the means to assemble a clearer profile of traumatized kids in every part of the country.-...-The vast majority came from extremely dysfunctional families. More than half had been emotionally abused and/or had a caregiver who was too impaired to care for their needs. Almost 50 percent had temporarily lost caregivers to jail, treatment programs, or military service and had been looked after by strangers, foster parents, or distant 894
Research Neuroscientist.
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relatives. About half reported having witnessed domestic violence, and a quarter were also victims of sexual and /or physical abuse. In other words, the children and adolescents in the survey were mirrors of the middleaged, middle-class Kaiser Permanente patients with high ACE scores (Van Der Kolk 2014:117-118,125). Neglect and emotional abuse are the primary causes of both borderline personality disorder (BPD) and narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), which have turned out to be the disorders of our time. This is true for two major reasons: Children in the past two decades have grown up with absent, neglectful parents and parents who continued to pass on the emotional abuse they themselves sustained. -...-partners of those with a personality disorder often have a personality disorder themselves. -...-like kindred spirits who recognize each other across a crowded room. (Engel895 2006:2,183184, emphasis added). It seems obvious that some of these types of disorders are related to syndromes of shame. These include dependent personality, clinical depression, schizoid phenomena and borderline personality. My own belief is that toxic shame is a unifying concept for what is often a maze of psychological definitions and distinctions. -...-Shame As The Core And Fuel Of All Addiction -...-The shame turns one into what Kellogg has termed a "human doing", rather than a human being. -...-This is the "acting out" or ritual stage of the addiction. -...- The ritual ends in drunkenness, satiation, orgasm, spending all the money or whatever. What follows is the feeling of shame over one's behavior, and the life-damaging consequences — the hangover, the infidelity, the demeaning sex, the empty pocketbook. (Bradshaw 1988:14-17, emphasis added). What matters is to be one with the artificial kin group (brethren, compatriots, tovarishi, comrades, common humanity fellows...): “the mystical union with the saving symbol� (Jungian participation mystique). It doesn't matter how misguided, silly, fabricated, implausible etc anything/one might be, for it's human soul's wonderful warmth we celebrate.
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Psychotherapist and abusive relationships expert.
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scholars have long recognized the importance of familial terminology or fictive kinship for early Christian identity. -...-Some other associations and members of associations expressed their sense of belonging with others by employing fictive familial terms, as I demonstrate in the book. There is evidence that in some groups in various parts of the empire members addressed one another as siblings, using the term "brothers" ( adelphoi) or, less often attested, "sisters." Perhaps even more well attested is the use of parental language in relation to leaders and benefactors. The Judean practice of referring to certain important leaders or benefactors as "mothers of the synagogue" or "fathers of the synagogue" further illustrates the importance of the family as a model of community and belonging. In doing so, Judean groups were reflecting a more widespread cultural practice within associations and cities in the Greek part of the empire. Among the earliest examples (from 12-15 CE) of an association calling a leader or benefactor "father" is a Greek inscription from Callatis in Thracia (north of Asia Minor), for instance. In this inscription, the "society-members" ( thiasitai) pass a decree in honour of Ariston, who is called "father," as well as "benefactor" of the society (thiasos) and founder of the city. This group of Dionysos-worshippers is likely one of the associations of "Asians" founded by Greek-speaking immigrants from Asia Minor, which brings us to ethnic associations. (Harland896 2010:no page). The kinship item is deeply ingrained in the human psyche. The rise of the industrial society and Belle Epoque nation-States soon crisscrossed with internal and international migratory lines brought about the mass man:“which feels itself "just like everybody," and nevertheless is not concerned about it; is, in fact, quite happy to feel itself as one with everybody else. � as Ortega y Gasset put it in 1930. Only 1 in 8 average westerners is likely to correctly remember the names of his great-grandparents, if any at all.
The fusion of the horde does no longer take place along the lines of more or less extended clans or bloodlines, but along the administrative lines of the 896
Professor of humanities and ancient history.
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increasingly composite pacified zones that are so-called nation-States. The Belle
Epoque nation-State may have formerly required a Lombard (or a Welsh, Catalan, Bréton) to “be brother” with a Sicilian (or a Scotsman, Galician, Occitan); nowadays it may expect one to “become one blood” with (illegal) immigrants from Africa as the State hands out passports hoping to collect taxes from more consumers.
Providing (illegal) immigrants with commodious -or even fake- “Italian culture certificates”, driving licenses and permits is another eldorado many are poised to exploit. In Italy in 2017, criminalization of “islamophobia” is proposed as the Muslim community swells up. Thought-crime laws are necessary so that the Frankenstein job that is the State doesn't come apart at the seams. One of the “facilitators” of a rogue network that involved politicians and hooligans
(both
“Fascists” and “Communists”) to control the city of Rome blustered on the phone in 2014897 that:”tu c'hai idea de quanto ce guadagno sugli immigrati? il traffico de droga rende meno ” (Have you got any idea how much I earn with [the business of] immigration? Drug trafficking is less profitable).
Politicians marshal bodyguards, bloviate and ride their limousines in affluence knowing that citizenry will pick up the tab, whether Muslim Congoids or Catholic “blond beasts” matters little.
Italian left-wing leader D'Alema explains on TV (May 9, 2017) how Arabs and people from Southern Italy are indistinguishable from an anthropological 897
L'Espresso, December 2, 2014.
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viewpoint. The very Arabic ancestry of D'Alema's family has been thoroughly documented, the former Prime Minister clinches898.
In summary, the United States has been a magnet for low-skill immigration even as low-skill natives have worked less and less. This does not necessarily imply that immigrants push out natives from the workforce, but it does mean that immigrants replace natives, causing economic and social distress in the communities most affected. As natives leave the workforce — whether because of competition from immigrants, insufficient wages, overreliance on welfare, distaste for manual labor, or some other reason — employers turn increasingly to immigrants. (Richwine 2016:no page). Contrary to what J.B. Peterson denounces, this state of affairs is not the exclusive province of a militant, malevolent, resentful clique of ultra-Marxist activists who hate our 'possibly imperfect but altogether very decent society' (in Peterson's view).
The 'good guys' have been drilling, equipping and promoting radicals through both world wars in order to foster 'the great cause': Suffragism, Bolshevism, Zionism, Japanese imperialism, Arab nationalism, Fascism 899, politicization of people of color (Africa, Asia, USA) drafted en masse...
Togetherness through belief -say- in a common religion was gradually replaced
by
regional
variants
with
the
Reformation
(Gallicanisme,
Anglicanism...):�Incredulity is furthermore associated with impietas and contempt for the gods. -...-Belief becomes a test of loyalty and disbelief a sign of political 898 899
Footage at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9T23MoOB2I0 Born out of Italian WWI irredentism and later mobilized to counter Bolshevism (and Soviet-style insurrection) with German Freikorps. The first military swastikas were in fact seen on Freikorp units.
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opposition. ”. Then -starting with the late XVIII century- with increasingly deistic -or even atheist- versions of the nation-State: belief in isolation. Freemasonry influenced prominent members of the U.S constitutional movement: Washington, Franklin and others900.
A driving intellectual force behind the American Revolution, Thomas Paine (1737-1809) famously wrote that:”The Christian religion is a parody on the worship of the sun, in which they put a man called Christ in the place of the sun, and pay him the adoration originally payed to the sun ”901.
Convulsions in the opposite direction were frequent -such as Jacobin secular cults, or NSDAP neo-pagan ones-, albeit short-lived. Independent U.S Christian apologist Richard Rives also shares much polemic material denouncing the Church -that is, brands of Christianity other than his “restored” or “expurgated” variety- as proposing sun worship, popery, devil worship and so forth: Acharya S. or Jordan Maxwell couldn't do any better: ” [ mythicist movie] Zeitgeist is right”, quips 900
901
“Thomas Paine makes the interesting point, in his essay on freemasonry, that there was evidence that the earliest forms of freemasonry were a religion totally unconnected to Christianity. However, it seems that it was from the early 1700s and onward that freemasonry slowly became a group publically promoting naturalism and deism. Modern freemasons could even be said to have been putting into practice the principles of the Enlightenment. Jon Butler, author of Becoming America: The Revolution Before 1776 , agrees with Jacob and states that colonial freemasonry (meaning Modern Masonry, as the official organization of the Ancients had not occurred yet) “emphasized mystical as well as rational sources of human knowledge and an ethics that transcended traditional Christianity.”-...-Whalen even goes so far as to state that all American freemasonry, from its very inception, was anti-Christian and that in order to “get a solid footing in a professedly Christian nation” it had to adopt a “Christian disguise.” Whether this disguise for some modern masons came in the form of “Ancient” masonry or not, we cannot say, but one important point is clear however:“Modern” freemasonry, as it originated at London’s Grand Lodge in 1717, would be more useful in propagating the ideas of the Enlightenment than the values of Christianity. -...-Deists of the Enlightenment believed in a few core ideas: “the existence of one God, often conceived of as architect or mechanican…and the obligation of men to virtue and piety.”” (Ayers 2008:12-13). Membership in secret societies such as Freemasonry is still a touchy subject. A 2003 biography of Benjamin Franklin (The Life And Times Of Benjamin Franklin) completely omits the subject. In An Essay On The Origin Of Freemasonry (1803-5), published posthumously.
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Rives.
As Belle Epoque nation-States gradually -albeit surely- decompose, new loyalties arise: commercial brand loyalty; team sport loyalty that first arose in the USA as a nationwide phenomenon in the 1920s (the rise of football) thanks to increasing nationwide radio and press coverage:”People don’t want to connect with
brands. They want to connect with each other. Fascinating companies create more opportunities for people to connect with each other, through the brand.”902.
[Susan] Pinker writes, “Research shows that playing cards once a week or meeting friends every Wednesday night at Starbucks adds as many years to our lives as taking beta blockers or quitting a packa-day smoking habit.” (Brown 2017b:84). In our world of instant communication, we supplement our relationships with an assortment of technological devices in the hope that all these gizmos will strengthen our connections. This social frenzy masks a profound hunger for human contact. (Perel 2006:41). In truth, I was not much worried about being wanted for who I was; I simply wanted to be wanted (Ben-Shahar 2007:112). The noisomeness of dating, bonding and mingling is omnipresent where humans roam. From car brand reunions to on-site foreign language schools: “meet new friends” (a code word for dating). Lakhani 903 peddles overpriced seminars that pledge to turn the trailer park bum into a millionaire overachiever. The most important reason for attending such expensive seminars in person, however, is to meet people at the seminar and engage in profitable joint-ventures 904 with them 902 903 904
Hogshead 2010:50. 2010:03. For example, the dating agency guy peddling exotic beauties from afar who love mature gents, the guy who
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right away.
Images come up from silver screen western movies. Patriarchs are about to square off with their retainers such as Mexican bandits, Apaches, gunslingers: teenagers scramble to have as many “cool kids” as possible as guests to their parties.
Yet we do deny our loneliness. As someone who studies shame, I find myself back in territory that I know well. We feel shame around being lonely—as if feeling lonely means there’s something wrong with us. We feel shame even when our loneliness is caused by grief, loss, or heartbreak. -...-a great example of this by noting how we often use the term “loner” to describe a criminal or bad guy. (Brown 2017b:35). Enoch was the seventh person after Adam, and he was talking about these people when he said: Look! The Lord is coming with thousands and thousands of holy angels (Jude 1:14). Even the few remaining postal mail pen-pal clubs advertise razor-sharp distance friendships that lasted to one's deathbed 20, 30, 50 years after the beginning. People are loyal, wholesome fellows who have a steady job, and a good house: quirky just enough to spice one's life up. They're full of good intentions: no trace of the narcissistic psychopaths, borderline clowns, time wasters, confidence operators and other shady chaperons news talk about.
Neuroscientists Lieberman&Rock905 are adamant about the fact that being socially disconnected poses a threat to one's health as smoking two packs of cigarettes per day does:”not being good at the social world is very bad for your
905
sells herbal viagra and the guy who trades diapers or long-term-care insurance policies can all start bilking a mailing list indexing aging gentlemen who -say- are divorced but want to find love again. 2011.
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health”. Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience Prinstein 906 agrees:”being disconnected from the herd substantially increases the risk of death -...-. the only factor comparable to unpopularity as a health hazard is smoking”.
In a metaanalysis of studies on loneliness, [it was found how] -...Living with air pollution increases your odds of dying early by 5 percent. Living with obesity, 20 percent. Excessive drinking, 30 percent. And living with loneliness? It increases our odds of dying early by 45 percent. (Brown 2017b:36). “We met on ICQ and got married” recited a campaign to promote a recently launched chat software in the late 1990s. And there are the “true stories”, of course. Precision might not mean accuracy, but this anonymous chap from England -a construction worker who can barely spell- “secured” a row of girlfriends online...all “perfect” to the point he entertained several of them at once in a “competition” to secure his love. That's a concentrate of mythemes: the harem mytheme;
the
irresistibility
mytheme;
the
synchronicity
mytheme;
the
“tournament” mytheme; the frog turning prince mytheme...
Statements from Markovits -as a mere example- may help clarify the point. He writes:
While such things are nothing new in the worlds of the extreme Right and left in Europe and have been commonplace since the Six-Day War in June of 1967, they were not part of Europe's accepted political discourse until the 1990s After all, many people have been rightfully upset with many a country's policies. But in virtually no case has that led to the questioning of the very worth of that country's [Israel] existence. Slobodan Milosevitc's Yugoslavia became the bogeyman of 906
2017c:36.
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Europe's publics -...- but even this atrocity never led any British, French, German or Italian diplomats or journalists writing for these countries' papers of record to question the very right of Yugoslavia to exist as a country. -...- The Jews are not "off limits" anymore in Europe (no date:91). Although coming from intellectuals at the top of the intellectual chain, the above statements merely serve the purpose of fostering unity among artificial kin members on the common ground of partisan advocacy and emotional righteousness.
First off all, opponents are characterized in bulk as fringe lunatics serving opposite -but coinciding- disused ideologies from all corners of the political spectrum. Second, Yugoslavia did cease its geopolitical and juridical existence in spite of any claim to the contrary; Yugoslavia's successor state, the federation of Serbia and Montenegro also vanished as Montenegro gained independence, and Kosovo seceded in 2006.
The fact that Russia – to name one- may lay claims to represent the USSR's legacy does not change the fact that the USSR no longer exists mainly because of Russian intransigence. Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, East Germany and the USSR ceased both their geopolitical and juridical existence in recent decades; South Vietnam disappeared as well, certainly not spontaneously.
Sudan and Ethiopia also fractured in two separate countries in 2011 (South Sudan) and 1993 (Eritrea) respectively after bloody civil wars. Only time will tell whether from Ukraine will ultimately secede two or more distinct zones under 623
Russian control. In 1965, Singapore splintered off from the Malaysian Federation. The staunch opposition of certain classes and groups did indeed play a telling part in the process.
It is enough to remember how any number of States since the XIX century have been designed as 'sick men' of their geopolitical area, whose dismemberment or otherwise geopolitical and/or juridical cessation was clamored for: the Austrian Empire, the Chinese Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Regno Delle Due Sicilie, the Papal States...
The Austrian Empire was especially berated as inconsequential “prison of peoples�. Even a cursory social-ethnological and historical overview allows to see that Italy, the USA, the USSR, Spain, Great Britain, Yugoslavia etc are (were) equally composite pacified zones where a bundle of heterogeneous groups reside(d). When Italy was created in 1861, only 2% of the population could speak Italian: imagined communities of one sort or another reveal their crassly commodious and manufactured nature.
Subtitles are often expedient when Italian national TV interviews citizens from the hundred provinces of the pacified zone:
the feeling there is no myth, there can be no myth anymore. A mythology requires a homogeneous population, a group of people within a horizon who will have had equivalent experiences for whom certain specific images will continue to have, independently, the same sense, the same meaning, the same affect value. (Campbell 1975b). 624
We probably have Hollywood to thank for this: the SNP shamelessly capitalized on Mel Gibson’s preposterous biopic of Wallace, Braveheart, using the launch of the film in Scotland in 1995 to jump-start a massive recruitment drive for the party. Volunteers handed out leaflets to filmgoers as they left cinemas all over Scotland that read in part: “You’ve seen the movie—Now face the reality. . . .Today, it’s not just bravehearts who choose independence, it’s also wise heads.” The juxtaposition was patently absurd, and yet the SNP’s then vice president, Paul Scott, seemed to have no problem drafting into his party’s cause the figure of a Scottish minor nobleman about whom, apart from his military campaign of 1297–98 and the ghastly details of his public execution by the English in 1305, virtually nothing is known. “In modern terms,” Scott told an interviewer, “the desires of civic nationalism are exactly the same [as those of Wallace].” (Rieff 2016:60)907. It is enough to mention that by 1919 the Ottoman and Austrian Empires would cease their juridical and geopolitical existence, whereas the Chinese (1911), Russian (1917) and German Empires would cease their juridical existence in a geopolitical catastrophe similar to the one the French Revolution had once wrought, yet (this time) without any hope of Restoration.
The item is too good to let pass, so people and their bards of choice in the media are still musing which 'sick man' is going to fall next, among the former postwar welfare paradises of western mass-democracy: Italy, Portugal, Greece, Ireland, Cyprus, Spain, Iceland...
Much as cessation and dismemberment were the option of choice of the past, today various cats are still in the social alchemist's bag: fiscal compact, Tobin tax, or a host of other possible measures for the good of the irresponsible flock that 907
At Stirling (Scotland), a new monument to Wallace has been inaugurated in recent years, where Wallace look like Mel Gibson in the movie. The statue proves so unpopular as to attract vandalism. It is therefore moved from place to place.
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brought this all upon itself after all:
When people have become sufficiently frustrated or stressed about a particular problem or event, they are very keen to grab onto a solution, any solution, and they find great emotional release in finding that solution. (Lakhani 2005:89). There’s one thing, though, we can be fairly certain of: uncertainty sometimes makes people do strange things.(Chen&Krakovsky 2010:22). It therefore begs a few questions to peremptorily state that questioning one State's right to exist is something so unheard of and particularly vicious, irrespective of how anyone might individually appreciate any particular situation. All this regardless of how out of control political confrontation does get on any single topic; and irrespective of 'points' on whichever side of any contention that do not belong here and are best left to individual consideration.
Alternatively, it is argued that people leave behind regimes that cross this or that boundary in matters of ethics or performance. The Socratic assumption is easily challenged. If so, the routine trillionaire economic disasters postwar regimes get into; the rows of 'necessary wars'; stratospheric deficits on the rise; corruption, profligacy and ineptitude etc, should have exiled such regimes to the margins of history.
The staunchest partisans of the Social-Communist block were those westerners who dreaded spending in the “workers' paradise� more time than required to pompously tour a 'showroom precinct' in Moscow or Leningrad. When a 626
lie or fabrication is exposed (such as the famous Iraqi weapons of mass destruction), no angry mob of righteous artificial kin members -who couldn't possibly have known earlier- marches into town to demand regime overthrows: accidental falsehood.
The Socratic dilemma (to know the good is to do the good) is yet another idea endlessly repackaged across ages, regimes and continents:”I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh; for I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.”908. Discussing the eclectic jumble of eastern and western Belle
Epoque motifs that constitute Aurobindo's thought -which he extols as unrivaled-, professor of psychology Varma writes:
This individual soul, called the psychic being, is an important key to our psychological well-being. The psychic being is our true being, the secret divinity in us. Its very essence is peace and harmony and joy. It has a natural attraction for the true, the good, the beautiful. -...-We also wish to see in others the perfection that we secretly desire but have not yet arrived at. -...-the outer conflicts of man are the reflection of his inner conflicts [of course also voiced in the Gītā]. -...-This is the evolutionary aspect of life which can be best termed in modern parlance as ascent and integration leading towards a greater and greater degree of wholeness. -...-From another point of view we may simply see them as inevitable evolutionary challenges to assist in our growth by throwing upon us an obstacle to be overcome [all problems are basically evolutionary challenges]. (MAISI032 no date: unit 5:2-4). It is not difficult to detect a salad bar of Hegelian, Darwinian, Freudian, Hindu and other concepts that possibly anticipate Jung. Even (Mahayana) Buddhism has a version of primeval radiant reality as Buddha-nature. Buddha-nature, Krishna908
St. Paul, Romans 7:18, emphasis added.
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consciousness, Christ-consciousness: one and the same? The concept -like the noble eightfold path- might have been borrowed from older literature such as the Rig
Veda:
in the strength of the ideal super-mind they attain to the same infinite amplitude of right becoming, right action and right knowledge. -...- This also is in us a creation, although in reality it only manifests what already exists but was concealed by the darkness of our ignorance,—just as the realms of the physical earth are concealed from our eyes by the darkness, but reveal themselves as the sun in his march follows the Dawn and measures them out one by one to the vision. (Yatsenko, MAISI018 no date: unit 1:9). One citizen who was caught in the lie of Orson Welles' phony 1938 radio broadcast about a Martian invasion confessed later:”The contents of the broadcast were inherently unbelievable -...-[yet] CBS had never lied to me before”909.
None of the several regulatory agencies ever took any steps; police didn't arrest anybody; no lawsuit was adjudicated. Welles and his confederates followed the trajectory of so many hoaxers on good terms with the system 910: they basked in their glory, which begs the question whether it all was another experiment in mind control Bernays style.
Confederate Houseman did, in fact, use his 'expertise' to serve the U.S government in radio operations during WWII. Jewish-American confederate Koch
909 910
Franz no date: lecture 4. Welles had lambasted Fascist regimes in his plays.
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enjoyed Hollywood fame (for example Casablanca), yet he ended up on a black list during the red scare after WWII: synchronicity, indeed.
In hoaxes, trickster motifs appear: e.g., deception, comedy, and a loss of status by victims. There is often a general air of disreputability and unsavoriness surrounding them. Those fooled are seen as gullible, the perpetrators as untrustworthy. Even skeptics who investigate come to bear a bit of the taint, as their colleagues tend to see their efforts spent on rather inconsequential matters. (Hansen 2001:180). If you were to write down everything you know and then go back through the list and make a check mark next to the things you know only because somebody told you, you’d develop a repetitive-motion disorder because almost everything you know is secondhand. -...- We know the answers because someone shared them with us. Communication is a kind of “vicarious observation”(Gilbert 2006:126, emphasis added). In spite of being labeled a clumsy, happenstance lark, the experiment was fated to enjoy long-lasting reputation. Jewish-American director and screenwriter Polonsky was blacklisted during the red scare of the late 1940s and 1950s, yet:
In 1953, CBS television sought to adapt a hit radio program that recreated historical events from around the world as if they were breaking news stories. They enlisted a young Walter Cronkite to star as the “news anchor” of each program. Unknown to Cronkite and CBS officials at the time, the producer Charles Russell and director Sidney Lumet secretly employed three blacklisted Hollywood screenwriters—Walter Bernstein, Abraham Polonsky, and Arnold Manoff—to write the teleplays. These writers relied on impostors to deliver their scripts to CBS and to pretend to be the writers in meetings with the station managers. The writers found the format presented a huge opportunity. “History,” Polonsky later recalled, could “serve us well.” He continued,taking and we happily … took them.…“We had no need to invent conflicts to serve our purposes. They were there for the taking and we happily … took them.… (Monoson no 629
date:31-2). In any event of false claims being laid to solicit the public in the name of any 'good cause', the opportunity to parade one's being on the right side of the myth shall be praised even if a blatant lie occasioned it, and more so. Truth, consistency, verisimilitude and even statistical probability are not necessary ingredients when a story's success with the public is to be measured.
Even in the ancient world, incredulity could at times be equated with ignorance because literary deception -or any deception, whose motives were noble according to the moment, society and circumstances- was staged for the reader's own ultimate good:
Whereas the lie in words is in certain cases useful and not hateful; in dealing with enemies—that would be an instance; or again, when those whom we call our friends in a fit of madness or illusion are going to do some harm, then it is useful and is a sort of medicine or preventive -...-. How then may we devise one of those needful falsehoods of which we lately spoke—just one royal lie which may deceive the rulers, if that be possible, and at any rate the rest of the city? What sort of lie? he said. Nothing new, I replied; only an old Phoenician tale of what has often occurred before now in other places (as the poets say, and have made the world believe), though not in our time, and I do not know whether such an event could ever happen again, or could now even be made probable, if it did.(Plato, Republic:1035, 1067.). If then, Socrates, amid the many opinions about the gods and the generation of the universe, we are not able to give notions which are altogether and in every respect exact and consistent with one another, do not be surprised. Enough, if we adduce probabilities as likely as any others; for we must remember that I who am the speaker, and you who are the judges, are only mortal men, and we ought to accept the tale which is probable and enquire no further. (Plato, Timaeus: 909).
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The invention of arguments by probability has always been associated with the rise of rhetoric itself as an art. -...- It appeals to a general common sense warrant, in this case that according to everyday experience no action will be reasonably attempted without the prerequisite means. -...- Yet in practice it appears that the truly predominant field of employment of eikós-arguments was judicial oratory, only to a lesser extent political oratory. Moreover, even within judicial oratory, their favourite domain appears to be argumentations that concern what later rhetorical theory would call the conjectural status, i.e. the issue whether or not a certain crime was in fact committed by the defendant. -...- In such cases, naturally the initial dissensus between the two opposing parties is complete and fundamental. There can be no way of meeting half-way. The objective of each party must therefore be to gain as much common ground as possible with the judge or jury, and to prevent the other party from doing so -...-. They basically appeal to ideas of common sense. But common sense makes common ground. -...- As we have seen, early Greek eikós-arguments are not based on the idea of likeness to truth, nor do they operate by any notion of statistical probability. Instead, they make their claim acceptable to the audience by pointing out a certain coherence and congruence of the speaker’s own narrative with the audience’s pre-established set of convictions (Kraus 2007:1-11, emphasis added). Can you tell a story? -...-Are you giving them data that confirms to their preconceived notions?” (Sharot, in I'm Right...2017:no page, emphasis added). we tend not to scrutinize information that conforms with our preconceived notions. (Feldman 2009:27). The subliminal persuader understands that the person making the decision mostly does not have an encyclopedic reference system for determining whether the information or ideas she receives are real or fictional. Therefore, when you create narratives, the more congruent they are, the more easily they are accepted as factual.(Lakhani 2008:47, emphasis added). Incredulity is furthermore associated with impietas and contempt for the gods. -...- when the myths told are read as allegories of imperial power. Belief becomes a test of loyalty and disbelief a sign of political opposition. (Wheeler in Textual Sources 2 2010:160).
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So many centuries later, and so far away from the Graeco-Roman world, Japanese intellectual lady Murasaki (X-XI century CE) opined that:
To dismiss all these types of fiction as so much falsehood is surely to miss the point. For even in the Law that the Buddha in his great mercy bequeathed to us there are parts known as Accommodated Truths (Expedient Means). As a result we find certain seeming inconsistencies, especially in the Vaipulya sutra,which no doubt give rise to doubts in the minds of the unenlightened. Yet in the last analysis these Accommodated Truths tend to the same aim as all the rest of the sutras. (Morris, cit. in The Vocabulary Of...no date: 202). Quite surprisingly -as he comes from an engaged Christian milieu- Kramer indignantly reiterates persuaders ought to never lie (cook their facts/sources etc) 911, yet he elsewhere912 explains how persuaders should take into decisive account a myriad of variables that define their audience.
Of course, how many edges is opportune to clip -and to which extentbefore it all starts getting inappropriate is left to individual readers to determine. At the dawn of civilization, the Rig Veda ( XV century BCE or older) explained:
It is falsehood only on the surface of its being, in the depth it is the luminous Truth hidden by the darkness; therefore falsehood can act on the basis of truth only. (Yatsenko on the Rig Veda, MAISI017 no date: unit 3:6). The clannish atmosphere is apparent. There invariably shall be a valiant artificial kin member resorting to heart-warming fallacies, and skilled in wielding reassuring double standards in the defense of the stupendous covenant: best of all
911 912
No date:The Christian And Ethics. No date: Tools In Speech Making.
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causes oblige.
In that case, an attitude prevails that matches the condescending wonder typically displayed when small children tell little lies, or spin some fantastic yarn about Santa Claus, Superman or Donald Duck. It would be perceived as highly insensitive -not to mention perfectly irrelevant- if a grown-up tackled, dissected and exposed a child's lie about having flown the night before aboard Flash Gordon's rocket to a distant planet warring pink elephants inhabited. In that case, the loving, condescending adult who behaves appropriately shall play along and ask the child how fast was Flash Gordon's rocket going, for example.
As existentialists noted ( for example Heidegger), people are busy making stories, weaving webs around and lining the otherwise thin “self� with narratives they believe -or hope- to be at least passably coherent while schizogenic anxiety (nausea for Sartre) propels a perpetual dialogue with the obtuse allegories and petrified myth(ologie)s this writing discusses at least in part, which people are alternatively busy diving in, running from, consecrating or desecrating.
The pendulum frantically oscillates between neurotic extremes: the 'kind of person' people (do not) want to be:
When man gathers together all that he is, there remains behind a pile of all that he is not. This latter category, what man is not, is left to the monsters. This is perhaps the most important cultural role that monsters fulfill. By providing an image of man's opposite, they allow man to better define himself. To put it simply, a person can assure himself that he is a human by listing how he is not a monster. -...-Men 633
are rational and monsters are not. (Kovatch 2008:5,8). I argued elsewhere that in a world where wild men and monsters exist, there is no conceptual space for race (Seth 2010:185). When it comes time for the subject to justify his behavior, the left brain passes from professed ignorance into unknowing dishonesty. One example: the command walk is sent to a man’s right brain, and he complies. When asked where he’s going, his left brain, not privy to the real reason, comes up with another one: he’s going to get a soda, he says, convinced. Another example: a nude image is flashed to the right brain of a woman, who then lets loose an embarrassed laugh. Asked what’s so funny, she gives an answer that’s less racy than the truth.Michael Gazzaniga, who conducted some of the split-brain experiments, has said that language is merely the “press agent” for other parts of the mind; it justifies whatever acts they induce, convincing the world that the actor is a reasonable, rational, upstanding person. It may be that the realm of consciousness itself is in large part such a press agent — the place where our unconsciously written press releases are infused with the conviction that gives them force. Consciousness cloaks the cold and self-serving logic of the genes in a variety of innocent guises. The Darwinian anthropologist Jerome Barkow has written, “It is possible to argue that the primary evolutionary function of the self is to be the organ of impression management (rather than, as our folk psychology would have it, a decision-maker).”.One could go further and suggest that the folk psychology itself is built into our genes. In other words, not only is the feeling that we are “consciously” in control of our behavior an illusion (as is suggested by other neurological experiments as well); it is a purposeful illusion, designed by natural selection to lend conviction to our claims. (Wright 1994:189-90). Details are of situational concern. Are people busy evading (the concept of ) death as Heidegger would have it913? Are people an “agglomérat de solitudes sans illusions” (a jumble of disillusioned solitudes) as Debord would have it? Or aren't they rather chasing the elusive “ motive of adornment -...- under the guidance of the law of expensiveness” as Veblen would have it? Situational concerns. 913
“For even Herakles died; everyone dies. These images acknowledge that in memory it is the quality of life and death that survives and is worthy of commemoration and remembrance.” (Koortbojian 1995:39).
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Any exaggeration, inaccuracy, or any possible benefits third parties may reap as a consequence of mafioso or clannish opinion-leading shall be seen through the good cause's prism, such as tales spun to dissuade children from harming themselves. The lying hoaxer shall be left alone with his conscience (bank account, war declaration or any other undue advantage s-he secured etc) supporting the burden of the haunting image of the public s-he so basely duped and its swollen eyes after so much crying, sore feet after so much marching, thinner wallet after taxes, contributions etc.
The same applies to apolitical circumstances. When this or that celebrity the public came to associate with a given brand through extensive ad campaigns is caught -accidentally or maliciously-
using a different brand, the public feels
betrayed, although the media had previously relayed how that name brand was negotiating with several different possible testimonials: everybody knows it's 'just an ad'.
Mimetic desire according to Girard unfolds when
we covet
something/someone inasmuch we infer the same is -or might be- coveted by an authoritative third party (the testimonial in an ad). Actress Miley Cyrus almost lost her contract after posing for bawdy pictures that countered her affable, familyoriented Disney channel persona Hannah Montana.
If an individual celebrity may be associated with a brand, individual celebrities may also become a brand in themselves. M.L. King, Berlusconi and J.F. 635
Kennedy became household names for a set of values they championed on air (in print, on screen...) in spite of not scoring very high in terms -to name one- of personal integrity, whether sexual or otherwise. The case of Tsipras also exemplifies a botched attempt at becoming a brand. Obama quite literally won Ad Age's “marketer of the year” 2008 award beating icons such as Apple, Nike and Zappos:”“cultural shorthand” for a specific set of actions or values”.
People become brands just like another canned food product or aftershave lotion:”Virality is most valuable when the brand or product benefit is
integral to the story. When it’s woven so deeply into the narrative that people can’t tell the story without mentioning it.”. It is therefore normal that human mind's psychotic quirks tend to associate individuals with abstract qualities that are thus personified.
Light’s Golden Jubilee, the 1929 celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of Thomas A. Edison’s invention of the electric light, is widely regarded as Bernays’s shining triumph and one of the brightest public relations performances ever. -...-The Golden Jubilee was that event. Bernays had a true hero in Edison, a truly significant invention in the incandescent light, and a nation that, in the heady days before the stock market crash, believed the boom would last forever and was forever ready to celebrate. -...-The jubilee itself, on October 21, 1929, drew one of the most impressive lineups ever. -...-In one account after another, credit was lavished on a certain public relations man. “The high point in promotion work for 1929—which should certainly win a Harvard advertising prize—was the feat of persuading the post office to get out a special two-cent stamp advertising Mr. Edison’s electric light,” (Tye 1998:48-9). Ingredients may be junk laced with noxious chemicals, yet it's
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unfathomable to suggest one's local supermarket or theater hall not carry the most popular soda brands; or that new snack who has Hollywood faces swear it's “grandma quality”. In the same way, spirituality shamans, political hacks and wellintentioned frauds all point to J.F.K, M.L. King etc irrespective of the fact M.L. King may -or may not- have “fucked for god” in the company of prostitutes. After all, the top-shelf soda brand contains as much junk as the discount brand selling for half the price: at least one may look trendy and posh sipping it in public, or the boon of social currency.
Mature individuals surmise that 1920s grannies in a basement are not those who cook that canned food according to secret recipes, and that this aftershave lotion most likely won't turn wimps into machos, yet the ad storyline is so inspiring...
There may be more to the shepherd/sheep allegory that haunts metaphors of religion and government than the remote heritage of herding IndoEuropean tribes at the dawn of time:
And thus he grew stronger and stronger, collecting and driving back to man all the herds of knowledge which were stolen from him over the ages by those who confine it and hide in the cave of Darkness. Recovered by Agni [=mystic fire] this knowledge cannot be stolen again (for it becomes selfconscious, as it were). (Yatsenko, MAISI003: no date: lecture note 3:29). Meineck914 mentions how ancient Greeks “performed something called
914
2005: Religion And Society.
637
the comedy of innocence”915 before sacrificing animals to signify the animal agreed to be slaughtered, so that humans could get the meat, and the gods their part, too. This strategy goes back to paleolithic times and began with honoring dead animals killed for sustenance in the 'covenant' that they would thus be back according to the greater cycles of nature to be killed again:
Now, since we are composed of spirit and matter—the two substances are what live in us—we need two types of food. The food that nourishes our material part—vegetables, animals, whatever it is we eat—is earthly food, but we must also have spiritual food, nourishment for our spiritual part. And communion, the eating of Christ, is a symbolization of the imbibing of that spiritual nourishment, a concretization of the idea of meditation, But in order to eat anything, it has to be killed, so again we have this notion of the sacrifice. (Campbell 1991:64). Possibly the neolithic ancestor of karma theories, such covenants with animals required token sacrifices on the part of man:
The first important voice in our culture against sacrificing animals was that of Zarathusthra, who saw this as an act of barbarism. In any real sense of the sacrifice, you must sacrifice some aspect of yourself, and, if it becomes concretized in an animal, then, instead of sacrificing your own animal nature, you sacrifice an animal. (Campbell&Boa 1989:86). As the fatal blow had just been blown, attending Athenian women uttered a ritual scream or ololyge: the scream mytheme, what a favorite. Celts screamed to the top of their lungs in order to scare enemies on the battlefield. Characters in so-called slasher movies scream all the time. Iacchus (Iacchos) was a 915
What existentialist Sartre terms “bad faith”, or claiming one couldn't possibly have acted otherwise. Of course, Sartre ought to have heeded his own witty advice as he obliquely campaigned for -and excused- left-wing regimes: the immoral and the obscene do not exclusively apply to Fascist regimes and their cronies.
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demi-god in Demeter's retinue ( a sort of Dionysus doppelgaenger)
who presided
over the ritual scream in the Eleusinian mysteries. On the island of Sumba (Indonesia), folkloric rites include ritual lance battles that may end with the occasional killing, which the crowd salutes with a howl.
Campbell916 relates how paleolithic paintings from Africa (15.000 BCE) present a woman uttering a scream as a man is killing an ostrich, much as in recent decades Pygmies on the service of White explorers would do to propitiate a hunt.
Pygmies917 would draw a gazelle on the soil, then hit her with an arrow on the neck at dawn: the sun had symbolically killed the animal, just as the lion (a solar symbol) bites his prey at the neck. Once the real gazelle had been killed, they would fetch the animal's blood and hair to the drawing, which was at sunrise to disappear918.
Man -Campbell quips- is therefore not a self-serving murderer, but the proxy for unavoidable cosmic cycles. Hunting-gathering Pygmies have thus lots in common with psychopathic heroes enacting providential blueprints of destiny as they blight their kin. Contemporary cultures do so not in terms of a gazelle's hair, but in terms of '...isms' of one sort or another, imagined community flapdoodle, etc.
Maori perform(ed) Haka (posture dances) for both friendly and unfriendly situations: 916 917 918
1972-1. Campbell 1972-2:Man&Myth Through The Ages I. 1972-1.
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among the Marind-anim of Dutch South New Guinea -...- until the final night, when a fine young girl, painted, oiled, and ceremonially costumed, is led into the dancing ground and made to lie beneath a platform of very heavy logs. With her, in open view of the festival, the initiates cohabit, one after another; and while the youth chosen to be last is embracing her the supports of the logs above are jerked away and the platform drops, to a prodigious boom of drums. A hideous howl goes up and the dead girl and boy are dragged from the logs, cut up, roasted, and eaten (Campbell 1960:170-1). Of course, modern readers are not interested in animal sacrifices that belong to obscure, archaic cultures. In the greater scheme of politics, however, it might be the mass grave(s) invariably discovered to damn this or that regime, about which 'the good guys' knew nothing up to that fateful moment. It might also be Luke Skywalker, young Jason or other cinematographic heroes who scream away.
When a child (or an adult, for that matter) is promised a sweettasting treat and then discovers it tastes salty or bitter, the brain emits strong signals that use a lot of energy, showing up in imaging technology as dramatic bursts of light. Edmund Rolls first illustrated this at Oxford University in the early 1980s, with a study involving monkeys. Dr. Rolls found that “errors� in the environment produced intense bursts of neural firing, markedly stronger than the firing caused by familiar stimuli. -...-Error detection signals can thus push people to become emotional and to act more impulsively: Animal instincts take over. People with the syndrome known as obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) have error detection circuits that have gone into overdrive. (Rock&Schwartz 2006:no page). Altering the teleplay (wrong dramaturgical act, social impropriety or whichever other term might be used) is perceived as the vilest act of barbarism; as the 'proof' of unspeakable allegiances or connections that threaten the entire community with 'impurity', and must be uprooted:
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The whole repertoire of ideas concerning pollution and purification are used to mark the gravity of the event and the power of ritual to remake a man – this is straightforward. -...-Pollution can be committed intentionally, but intention is irrelevant to its effect -...-. Pollution rules, by contrast with moral rules are unequivocal. They do not depend on intention or a nice balancing of rights and duties. -...-However, as we look more closely as the relation between pollution and moral attitudes we shall discern something very like attempts to buttress a simplified moral code in this way. (Douglas 1966:97,114,131 emphasis added). Langloh Parker wrote in 1905 about the Australian aboriginal Euahlayi tribe, its rites of passage, and what happened to those who did not conform:
With the Boorah spirits whistling and whizzing all round them, spears were pointed at them. Their skins were scratched with stone knives and mussel shells. Hideously painted, fiendish-looking creatures suddenly rushed upon them. Should they show fear and quail at the Little Boorah they would be returned to their mothers as cowards unfit for initiation, and sooner or later sympathetic magic would do its work, a poison-stick or bone would end them. Or if one of the initiates was considered stupid and generally incapable, having been brought to the Boorah for that purpose, he was now, after having been made to suffer all sorts of indignities, such as eating filth and so on, bound to the earth, strapped down, killed, and his body burnt. When the trials were over and the old wirreenuns said to the boys who had not quailed, 'You are brave; you shall be boorahbayyi first and afterwards yelgidyi, and carry the marks that all may know.' Then they made on the shoulder of each boy a round hole with a pointed stone; this hole they licked to feel no splinter of stone remained, then filled it with powdered charcoal. After this, leaving the boys there, the men went back to the Bunbul ring. The bodies of the Boorah victims were cooked. Each man who had been to five Boorahs ate a piece of this flesh, no others were allowed even to see this done. Then the bones and what was left of the bodies were put into the middle of the fire, and all traces of the victims so destroyed. (no page, emphasis added). Of course, today's civilized man would never resort to such icky, tacky, gratuitous brutalities: white collar lawfare, 'intelligent' incendiary bombs,
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ecologically friendly killing fields, sanitary gas chambers and well-ordered concentration camps might do; the ultimate depersonalization (=situational factors) of treatment allegedly reflects moral maturity that shuns revenge in favor of more or less clinical, industrial disposal/retribution.
One humorous way to ponder the inoculation of conformity -and what happens to those who don't go along- is through De Amicis' 1886 book Cuore. For decades compulsory reading in Italian schools, it enjoyed considerable success abroad in translation as well. Presented (implausibly) as the diary of an elementary schoolchild, it constitutes a jumble of Victorian motifs: patriotism, progress, fantasies of interclass healing; social oneness based on sentimental socialism, and a fair dose of social fatalism and paternalism. Some criticized the book because of the absence of an explicit religious angle, yet a landslide of sentimentalism supplies a handy surrogate. It is also likely the absence of a well-identified religious angle contributed to the book's cross-cultural success.
In the book, school child Franti (with his “bold” and “ugly” face) is the perturber of order, unity and oneness. Even in Buddhism, perturbing the group's oneness (introducing divisions) is a quintessential sin:
1. While the class saluted the flag, “Franti laughed in the face of a soldier who was limping.” (p.31). 2. “I detest Franti. He is a coward- When the father of a boy comes to the school to reprove his son, he rejoices over it; when one cries, he laughs.” (p.65).
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3. “He was suspended from school for three days, but he returned more insolent and wicked than he was before. Derossi said to him one day: "Do stop that ! do you not see how the teacher suffers ?" And he threatened to stick a nail into Derossi's stomach.” (p.66). 4. “they say Franti will not trouble us any more, as they are going to put him in the reform school.” (p.96)919. Beyond the tasteless figure of a petty problem child, Franti is the archoutcast who deserves all the worst for defiling the pack's oneness. Devadatta (Gautama Buddha's cousin), Satan, Set, Ahriman...most religions identify an archconfounder of truth and harmony.
Popular culture is never far behind. Dano-Norwegian author Sandernose in his 1933 novel A Fugitive Crosses His Tracks offers the fictional utopian city of Jante with its ten rules 920 favoring oneness against individualism. In the 1920-40s paternalistic statism ( Mussolini, Vargas, Hitler, Roosevelt, Salazar...) was all the rage in regional interpretations921.
Points of contact are ubiquitous: Henry Ford (the only American apparently mentioned in Mein Kampf) in 1938 receives the Grand Cross of the 919 920
De Amicis 1918. You're not to think you are anything special. 1. You're not to think you are as good as us. 2. You're not to think you are smarter than us. 3. You're not to convince yourself that you are better than us. 4. You're not to think you know more than us. 5. You're not to think you are better than us. 6. You're not to think you are good at anything. 7. You're not to laugh at us. 8. You're not to think anyone cares about you. 9. You're not to think you can teach us anything.
According to Romanian Fascist leader Codreanu, Fascist regimes were associated with slightly different priorities: mysticism and religiosity (Romania and -the present writer adds- Belgium), statolatry (Italy), blood laws (Germany). 921
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Supreme Order of the German Eagle on his 75th birthday, the highest honor for a foreigner: Hitler apparently admired both Ford and his innovative entrepreneurial style.
Indeed, Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, especially in its earliest phase, resurrected much of the war welfare state. The New Deal's Civilian Conservation Corps, which assembled unemployed youths in army recruiting centers and put them to work under military supervision, was a peacetime version of World War I army camps, complete with uniforms, tents, and military bugle calls. -...-Like the war welfare state, the New Deal used intellectuals to formulate and carry out its policies, and like their predecessors during the First World War, the New Deal intelligentsia regarded the crisis of the Great Depression as an opportunity to test their ideas and turn them into government programs. New Dealers tinkered constantly, changing or abandoning programs, building one organization on top of another, acting much as the Wilson administration had acted in the early, indecisive state of mobilization. The people who operated Roosevelt's programs, like the wartime Wilsonians, mixed incentives with compulsion—hedging farmers and businessmen about with restrictive laws and bureaucratic regulations -...-.Still, the centrally managed society of World War I both presaged and contributed to the rise of federal power in the 1930s. And it also foreshadowed much of what happened in the decades after the New Deal as the United States entered a long era, as Wilson had foreseen, of warfare and continuous preparation for war. (Schaffer 1991:214-5,217). This historical dissertation investigates the international proliferation of Fordism in politically illiberal settings during the 1920s and 1930s. Based on American, German, and Soviet primary sources, it is the first archive‐based study of this process. The dissertation’s main finding is that the implementation of Ford’s ideas and practices was a key component of illiberal modernization drives – that is, projects of state‐led economic growth which explicitly fashioned themselves as alternatives to Western liberal capitalism. This point of view is a departure from previous accounts of the global success of Fordism, which subsume the story under the spread of American market capitalism or portray it as a process of quasi‐selfexplanatory technology transfer. It is also distinct from the well‐known approach in history and the social 644
sciences that describes Fordism as a specifically capitalist production regime (in distinction to a later post‐Fordism). -...[Here we] reconstruct the Nazi and Soviet motorization effort in the wake of Ford’s model, and examine the transfer of Ford’s mass production techniques to Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. The empirical results show that motorization and productive efficiency, both associated with Ford’s innovations, became hallmarks of illiberal modernization efforts in these countries. (Link no date 12). Equally, such arch-villain is often the doppelgaenger of the righteous counterpart: Set and Osiris, Ahura Mazda and Ahriman are brothers much as Jesus and Satan are in the apocryphal tradition; Buddha and Devadatta are cousins. The same old, hardly original plot device of ancient myths: ills or epidemics befall transgressors.
Long before Semitic messianism,
the mystery religions of the Near
Orient had their crucified922 savior: Orpheus. To examine just this example, the divine musician (invariably son of a Muse and either Apollo or some other deity) was at the center of a mystery religion that had its own Orphic Bible923 containing many precepts modern readers may be familiar with, such as the prohibition to lie, the precept of 'doing unto others...' etc.
Although a son of two deities, Orpheus was human; myths are vague or silent about why it should be so, but the present writer identifies the motif of the savior descending to his flock's level in order to offer himself up for sacrifice, thus 922
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According to Joseph Campbell, the swastika “represents the four points of the compass, the cross of the Earth in movement” (1989: episode And We Washed Our Weapons In The Sea), discussing Mesopotamian pottery. It is highly interesting how in July 2011 a search on Google Scholar returned only nine results regarding “orphic bible”.
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bringing salvation.
One day the sulking politician goes through his political calvary tendering his resignation (=political death); another day he seeks re-election (=political resurrection). Then French President Mitterrand revealed he was ill with terminal cancer as a major popular vote approached to possibly sway voters: that's how useful the motif is.
Announcing he would not run as Prime Minister candidate, Berlusconi claimed in October 2012 he was making “una scelta d'amore” (a choice based upon love), much as any of the countless savior-heroes could have said. In late 2016, French Socialist President Hollande plays the same card as he doesn't seek reelection:”je ne suis animé que par l’intérêt supérieur du pays.” (what drives me is the supreme concern for national interest).
A choice Berlusconi promptly reversed some time later claiming he could not bear standing back as he was made aware of the country's dire situation, whose extent had been previously kept hidden from him (=Socratic dilemma). In hiding in the shrinking pockets of 'red' guerrilla in Cambodia, where he'd die in 1998, former Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot also claimed the barbarous genocide his regime (1975-9) perpetrated had been committed unbeknownst to him.
Savior-heroes also typically are either a dynastic product (=sons of gods; sons of David etc), the patriarchs of new dynasties, or both. In order for the
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Praetorian Guard to accept pubescent Alexander Severus (222-235 CE) as Emperor, his family spread the rumor he was Emperor Caracalla's illegitimate son. Unconfirmed reports had in 2012 suggested Berlusconi's daughter might possibly replace him as leader of party PDL924 in a time of crisis. Berlusconi (re)introduced the possibility in mid-2013.
Such cases in Italy abound. The Letta family represents both left and right-wing interests as members lead both PDL and PD. In the 1970s, the opposite ends of the political spectrum (left-wing Partito Comunista and right-wing
Democrazia Cristiana) were led by two Sardinian cousins: Cossiga (at some point Head of State), and Berlinguer. In Shia Islam, the schism arose because some devotees granted a preeminent leadership role to Mohamed's physical descendants.
The Sarkozy, Kim (Communist North-Korea), Le Pen, Trudeau and Bush families may represent other abodes of dynastic power. Da Vinci Code items, such as (semi)secret societies, international intrigue etc, may also be present in the lore surrounding such great families:
Roman emperorship was officially non-dynastic, and Roman law did not allow political offices to be hereditary. Still, in practice heirs to the throne were frequently close male relatives. Indeed, ancestry was occasionally forged to make dynastic claims by usurpers, and there is no example of a son of an emperor who survived and did not himself become ruler of Rome -...-. Dynastic succession did more to safeguard an emperor against usurpation than any other type of succession. Sometimes, rulers even claimed divine descent to legitimate their position (Emperors And Ancestors no date:2). 924
The successor of Forza Italia.
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The problem here lies not so much with the worn-out contention about 'whether Jesus is just Horus' (Mithras, Osiris, Apollo...) so dear to campaigning atheists, homo- and xenophiles 'progressives' and their ilk. Certainly it is not the case that -to name one- Samson and Hercules are 'the same person', as if one could have recorded the fingerprints of those two individuals to realize they were actually the same. Of course, both Hercules and Samson can be considered a solar figure; in some etymologies, Samson means “man/son of the sun”. For example, both killed a mythical lion (a proxy for the sun); both are associated with notable deeds that may represent the zodiac.
R.M. Price also suggests that dualities exist in the Hebrew Bible between “hairy” and “smooth” or “bald” characters, proxies for the Sun and Moon:”Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, "But my brother Esau is a hairy man while I have smooth skin.”925.
Many biblical characters seem to have begun as mythic personifications of the heavenly bodies. Biblical sun gods include Enoch, Isaac, Esau, Moses, Samson (whose name simply means “the sun”), Elijah, Jonah, and maybe even Jesus. Israelite moon gods include Abraham, Jacob, and Elisha. Often the stories pair them and show conflict between them, one getting the advantage of the other, but only temporarily. This motif reflects the eternal cycle of sun and moon, each dominating the sky in turn. (Price 2010b:no page). Abraham means “High Father,” while Isaac means “He Laughs.” Abraham, the father of a multitude (of stars) is the Moon, while Isaac is the Sun (cf. Psalm 2, “He who sits in the heavens laughs” or beams, as we still call it when someone smiles broadly). When the 925
Genesis 27:11. The same can be said about prophets Elijah (=solar connection, hairy man riding a chariot of fire) and Elisha (bald man, hence the lunar connection).
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sun rises it is taken to be born of the Moon. Thus Abraham is the father of Isaac. There is a continual rivalry between them, as each manages to rule the heavens, but neither permanently. (Price 2017c:no page). Again, Starcrash (1978) is not Star Wars; nor it is Barbarella, The Black
Hole, The People That Time Forgot or any other movie parts of which are mimicked: it is a conflation of all the above. It would be unwise to argue that The
Bionic Woman is not a variation upon The Six Million Dollar Man; or The Next Karate Kid a variation upon Karate Kid only because women play the main role instead of men: the gist (the “familiar tune” etc), however, steals the day.
As it is the case with King Arthur, William Tell, Jacques Nu-Pieds, Ned Ludd, Robin Hood, and a host of such characters, the best one might say is that possibly -though not certainly- some character might have historically existed, whom the legend grew around over time.
This character might have be an individual, or -as argued about Robin Hood, Ned Ludd, William Tell, Jacques Nu-Pieds etc- the more or less congruent conflation of several unrelated folklorized historical reminiscences. The projection of collective leadership related to a constellation of unrelated popular uprisings coalesced under the names of Ned Ludd (Britain, XVIII/XIX century) or Jacques NuPieds ( France, XIV century).
“Minos” might have been a generic title of Cretan chieftains; some extend this consideration to the name “Jesus” (Joshua, “savior”, and so forth) as
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generic title for messianic Hebrew figures. Caesar was originally the name of a Roman general. It went on to identify emperors and royalties (Caesar Augustus; Claudius Caesar; Czar Nicholas II; Kaiser Wilhelm II...), and in some cultures it is still used as a first name.
This kind of folkloric euhemerism recurs endlessly: miracles, superhuman feats and supernatural wonders have been associated with such recent historical figures as John Paul II, Gandhi, Sathya Sai Baba, various Tibetan lamas born after WWII926,
Kim Jong-Il and Kim Il-Sung (Korean Communist
leaders):”Again, it is a matter of reification: the ideas of mortals in history are mystified into seeming like eternal verities occurring in nature.”927.
Folklorized accounts of real dames who perished at sea as they refused to take their heavy XVIII century clothes off to swim to safety during a shipwreck off Mauritius gave rise to the Paul Et Virginie novel (1788). Two poor children grow together as bons sauvages928 in Edenic colonial Mauritius; they fall in love, and are separated (=Romeo and Juliet) as she (Virginie=virgin) hopes to get a rich aunt's inheritance; she ultimately dies at sea when the wealthy aunt sends her back disinherited as she wouldn't get married according to the aunt's wishes:”in the
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Although a rival (Trinley Thaye Dorje) to the title has been recognized among sectors of the Tibetan Buddhist community, the XVII Karmapa both the Dalai Lama and China have recognized (Ogyen Trinley Dorje, born 1985) was also welcome to this world by celestial prodigies such as ominous dreams, animal feats and music. A carousel of eye-witnesses attests such wonders did really occur. Price 2010b:105. The appeal of an edenic childhood as “good savage” is also present in 1978 Hannah&Barbera cartoon Jana Of The Jungle. In the opening title, the heroine – a female Tarzan character- declares:”I grew up by the laws of nature and the animals of the jungle became my friends ”.
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absence of data, we will always make up stories”929.
The theological clash between a gnostic/Pauline Christianity, which seems to allude to Christ (=anointed one) as to a sort of spiritual principle 930, and conventional Christianity, which sees Jesus as an ordinary godly savior (Krishna or Buddha-style) who descended among men to bring deliverance unfolds precisely across the spectrum of euhemerism.
The author of this novel presents a Peter who emphasizes the need to follow the Jewish law and opposes another figure, his “enemy”, who does not (often called Simon the Samaritan or Magician [Magus] but sometimes clearly a cipher for Paul) . In the supposed letter from Peter to James that prefaces the novel, Peter complains that some “from among the Gentiles have rejected my lawful preaching and have preferred a lawless and absurd doctrine of the man who is my enemy. And indeed some have attempted, while I am still alive, to distort my words by interpretations of many sorts, as if I taught the dissolution of the law and, although I was of this opinion, did not express it openly. But that may God forbid! For to do such a thing means to act contrary to the law of God which was made known by Moses and was confirmed by our Lord in its everlasting continuance. For he said: ‘The heaven and earth will pass away, but one jot or one tittle shall not pass away from the law'”(Epistula Petri 2:2-5; trans. by Strecker in Schneemelcher; cf. Matthew 24:35). (Hartland 2005:no page). The problem lies with image banks -in turn recurring the world over since time immemorial- that never cease to pay dividends no matter the context, and the detail that may differ as the stories of Ulysses, Rambo and Ringo (seemingly)
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Brown 2017:Integration And Change. For example:”Now if he were on earth, he would not even be a priest, because other men offer the gifts prescribed by the Law. ” ( Hebrews 8:4). “It is foolish to the Jews, who ask for signs from heaven. And it is foolish to the Greeks, who seek human wisdom. So when we preach that Christ was crucified, the Jews are offended and the Gentiles say it's all nonsense.” ( 1 Corinthians: 1:22-23). Here Paul seems unaware of both Christ's many miracles and prodigies, and of Christ's unparalleled words of wisdom uttered in front of a crowd.
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differ.
The ad guy and the PR gal next door are as likely to stir these stale images to get the public into conniptions as the next politicking group, filmmaker strapped for cash, or lone heckler on a mission are:“[advertising professionals] are using initiatory energies to manipulate -...- you'll see a lot of initiatory energy in commercials”931.
Italian singer&songwriter Claudio Chieffo's (1945-2007) career spanned four decades; his songs were a favorite of Demo-Christian youth rallies, and of Christian sub-culture to this day. He sung soppy songs about people screaming in the night; about fatherly embraces upon homecoming; about slaughter; about meek hearts who only want to love you, etc: myths never cease paying dividends.
The 'death and ordeal' shtick works as well to groom possible religious saviors as it does political or entertainment heroes. An Officer And A Gentleman (1982), Full Metal Jacket (1987), Braveheart (1995), The Passion Of The Christ 932 (2004), and hundreds of other mass products, capitalize on the same narrow situations and characters belabored to death in all possible twists and variations, then some more: people 'love that story'.
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Moore 2001:part 6. In a 2004 interview, Prothero explains how -in spite of claiming otherwise- the movie is not principally based upon the gospels, but on the supposed visions of German mystic nun and stigmatic A.C. Emmerich (1774-1824) beatified in 2004:”devout fiction” and “well-intentioned fraud” are definitions of the movie in the interview footage. While the gospels mentions the crucifixion ( John 19:17ss; Matthew 27:33ss;Mark 15:22ss;Luke 23:33ss), they supply very few details about the actual scourging and crucifixion: hardly enough to supply a script for Gibson's long and bloody snuff movie.
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Chick flicks, actioners and westerns look increasingly alike irrespective of who plays the 'bad guy'. Formula films sell irrespective of who exactly goes on video in the overt sexuality, strong language or car chase segment; people just love that stuff:
The body count in prime-time television these days rivals that of a war zone. -...-During the last week of September [2005], there were 63 dead bodies visible during prime time on the six broadcast networks. That's up sharply from the 27 bodies counted during the same week in 2004. (Associated Press, 21 November 2005). A study of children's television by Amy Jordan found that industry experts believe they can attract the largest audiences by offering entertainment for six- to eleven-year-old boys: action- and adventure-oriented programs featuring male superheroes engaging in plenty of violence. They have concluded that girls will watch shows designed for boys, but boys will not watch shows designed for girls.(Tannen 1998:204, emphasis added). To the top-shelf product of international and cross-cultural renown, readers shall add copycat products targeting local or niche markets, such as Indian B-ollywood and T-ollywood industries. If Charles Bronson or Clint Eastwood vigilante movies were famous internationally, Italy had an equally charismatic Maurizio Merli playing the same parts in the 1970s. Sicilian comedy duo
Franco&Ciccio delighted the Italian masses in the 1960-70s with their specialty: clumsy parodies of international blockbusters: kung-fu movies; mafioso or spy movies; horror, peplum or James Bond movies...
If the international mainstream had the Karate Kid movies, Italy had Il
Ragazzo Dal Kimono D'Oro (1987ss) recycling much of the same storyline, complete 653
with the hero's journey -to the Philippines in Il Ragazzo Dal Kimono D'Oro; to Seattle in No Retreat No Surrender933; to California in Karate Kid...-. Trials and tribulations are bestowed upon the future hero (an uprooted teenager) by an illassorted bunch of juvenile delinquents, thugs and mafiosi.
Is this confined to fiction? In her advice directed to those wanting to produce “stronger and more dramatic nonfiction films”, filmmaker Bernard suggests:
Weather, illness, war, self-doubt, inexperience, hubris—all of these can pose obstacles as your protagonist strives to achieve his or her goal. And just as it can be useful to find an individual (or individuals) through whom to tell a complex story, it can be useful to personify the opposition. Television viewers in the 1960s, for example, at times seemed better able to understand the injustices of southern segregation when reporters focused on the actions of individuals like Birmingham (Alabama) Police Chief Bull Connor, who turned police dogs and fire hoses on young African Americans as they engaged in peaceful protest. (2007:26). The same dynamic is at work considering how each religion borrowed heavily into the time's intellectual climate, thus ending up in the presentation of much the same imagery, which works because it provokes human mind's psychotic (=a behavioral, not clinical statement here) cravings and circular propensities. Clinical psychologist Simon quips that “for the most part, truly pathological degrees of neurosis are quite rare, and problematic levels of character disturbance are increasingly commonplace: it is a pervasive societal problem”934.
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The movie is possibly never actually filmed in Seattle. Jason's father in the footage works as a bartender at Brandelli's Brig, supposedly in Seattle. Brandelli's Brig, however, was owned by the Brandelli family (Brandelli being a boxer famous in the 1930s) until 1997: it was located in Venice, Los Angeles. T he item of the hero's journey is too good to pass, however. All the rest is a detail nobody really pays attention to. 2011:002.
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Punching holes in the Jesus myth, patriotic extravaganzas and lefty charades is of no notable consequence until human mind's innermost psychotic (=a behavioral, not clinical statement here) tendencies are properly understood as root of all that provokes, unleashes or tantalizes the same.
The very contention of the historicity of this, that or another savior-hero among many loses thus most of its importance. In a trivial example, so many people online get into all sorts of extortionate claims about their income, looks, connections,
sex appeal, status and property. Incidentally, this addictive-
compulsive recourse to extortionate claims is often linked to psychopathology.
In some jurisdictions, a new crime has been proposed for legislative clampdown: “rape by fraud”, whereby men misrepresent themselves online to lure hopeful women into sexual encounters. As some have argued, three quarters of people into online dating ought to be jailed: men who claim to be millionaire hunks, and women who claim to be teen-aged beauty queens with a doctorate.
One way to enter into the deep symbolic language of our soul is through a fairy tale. When we write a fairy tale, the words “Once upon a time” opens up a portal to another world. We step into shamanic terrain. I have used fairy tales in my groups, classes and individual sessions for years. They never fail to reveal something unique and interesting, offering a perspective that seems both profound and simple at the same time. -...-Every fairy tale is psychologically significant. The narrative and images that show up are metaphorical, not literal. Through the metaphorical images that show up in the tale, we are able to "tune in" to a deeper place within ourselves. -...-Sacred moments are those that bring surprise. If we already know what’s going to happen, we’re not in a sacred moment. When we write a fairy tale, we are entering a sacred space 655
where we don't know what's going to happen next. (Hermanson 2014:no page). While such charlatans are historical (=real) figures (=there is someone typing those claims somewhere in the world), it does in no way necessarily follow that the claims -individually or as a whole- are to be taken seriously. All hoaxers this writing mentions were 'real', yet their claims were absolutely groundless, no matter how many eye-witnesses they claimed to have enlisted.
It is uncomfortably curious how Chris White -and the like-mindedpursue the same line of thought. First, they jokingly remark how 'Christ myth' theories cropped up mostly during the Enlightenment, then claim Jesus ought to have been real, for none disputed his existence until the Enlightenment:�And, of course, precision is not accuracy. �. By the same token, Osiris, Zeus, Neptune, Ceres, Orpheus etc ought to have been real historical figures because for centuries nobody challenged their existence, and so many scrolls, papyri, statues, temples and inscriptions refer -or were dedicated- to them.
The fact that some person might -or might not- have existed as real historical figure -whether as single individual or as a tradition conflating different historical characters/events a la William Tell- says nothing about the claims to divinity, miracles and supernatural feats upon which a(ny) religion rests.
Alexander and his successors (Ptolemies, Seleucids...) were historical figures: should one therefore believe their supernatural claims to divinity their titles
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(savior, god made manifest...) alluded to? There are so many people at UFO conventions claiming they have seen or experienced things in connection with UFO and paranormal phenomena: is that true, then?
Is this limited to semi-literate groupies at UFO conventions, or to unwashed desert fakirs peddling their new religion? What about the case of Katyn? Academic cronyism doesn't seem free from error and bias, either. When it's about beheaded bodies and stolen bullion, they shall keep the official record in order to tell the masses how they are expected to react, with scorn or an emotional meltdown; frothing at the mouth in agony or anger, or smugly punching holes in otherwise inconsistent narratives:
But our experiment showed that the retaliatory response didn’t spring just from the unfairness of the offer; it also had something to do with the leftover emotions that arose while the participants watched the clips and wrote about their own experiences. The response to the films was a different experience altogether that should have had nothing to do with the ultimatum game. Nevertheless, the irrelevant emotions did matter as they spilled over into participants’ decisions in the game.(Ariely 2010:127). The Soviet academic canon -former gem of progressivism extolled for decades across a section of academia- has almost entirely been discarded as worthless political exercise, with the exceptions of strands of revival in Soviet and Stalinist propaganda in contemporary Russia, and of fallacies and bandwagon appeals in 'progressive' circles: again a political exercise. The Fascist academic canon had been discarded even earlier as worthless exercise in foul political advocacy.
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The human mind seems to have an irresistible tendency to stretch whichever issue, fact or event, no matter how trivial, to -at least theoreticallyoverlap with the obtuse allegories, xeroxed myths and petrified images that circularly recur in mythologies the world over:
From this it follows that not only is the psyche made of images, but that it proceeds imagistically rather than conceptually. This means reasoning 'by way of myth and metaphor' rather than propositional thinking. Concepts are translations of image, 'coined and negotiable values', whereas 'images are life' (Angelo 1992:73). The circumstances seem changed but the cliche is in one's psyche (Campbell&Toms 1988:vol. 4). This maze of obtuse allegories and petrified mythologies acts as potent treatment to whitewash anything/anybody. It is false to think that the investigation of droll myths sinking into the well of the past is something best left to amblyopic savants or litterateurs in dusty libraries, whose knowledge of Greek, Latin, Hebrew or Sanskrit did not cause them to make it in the affluently mainstream religious, legal, medical or financial professions:
The distinguished economist Charlie Plott -...- happens to be an avid fisherman—and he compares a great businessperson to a fish in a stream. “The fish knows how to operate so as to catch a fly. It can move through the water in an energy-minimizing way, position itself, and strike effectively. But the fish can’t understand hydrodynamics. Like the fish, the businessman is good at doing what he does. That doesn’t mean he understands the principles that govern what he’s doing.” This lack of insight into why what you’re doing works, Plott suggests, comes from being too immersed. Or, as Plott puts it, “To understand the science you need to be outside the water.”(Chen&Krakosvky 2010:14).
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Critics are divided on the 'real' meaning/purpose (thus on the level of effectiveness ) of such literary devices and on the truthfulness and dependability of the same. Let's examine folk tales, for example: Lipson 935 argues that the Grimms' fairy tales were fertile ground for and precursors to NSDAP racism and antisemitism, whereas Fitzgerald936 mentions how such tales were easily absorbed to serve the USSR's cultural goals. Reuss's 937 doctoral thesis American Folklore And
Left-Wing Politics could be published only posthumously due to the touchy subject. In turn, some argue about the immemorial Indo-European origin of folk tales 938. Some argue in favor of their eminently cross-cultural nature 939, or their universality940 , whereas others941 see folk tales as coded messages to pass on cultural values related to mating habits (in Zipes' examples ) or to “ obedience training and cultural complexity”942.
Of course, much as there is a Muslim tradition related to Jesus, or several so-called apocryphal gospels that mainstream Christians do not make their own, there were different versions of the Orpheus myth; he was said to have taken part in the expedition of the Argonauts, or to have turned to pederasty after his 935 936
937 938 939 940 941 942
2001. “ Initially after 1917, fairy tales were banned. However, it became clear after a short time that it was impossible to stamp out fantasy in children and the Russian fairy tales were adapted to further the aims of the Socialist state in subtle ways: the fairy tale, with its positive hero, became a disguised political tale in which the child’s emotional life was linked with political ideas of heroes. Adaptations were not confined to Russia: the tales of Eastern European countries were also adapted so that, for example, Grimms' Tales in East Germany became very different from Grimm’ Tales in West Germany. In other words the familiar framework and format of the fairy tale were used to circumvent distrust and to facilitate identification.“ (Fitzgerald 2006:13). 1971. Folk Tales, 1875; Fitzgerald 2006. Jobling 2001. Roberts 1963. Zipes 2008. Roberts 1963:198.
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wife's death, for example. The motif of Orpheus crucified was so popular that some contend it was 'borrowed' when Julius Caesar died, and the Roman imperial cult begun.
Some as well argue that the similarities between Jesus' and Caesar's lives are staggering:
According to canonical and apocryphal Christian sources, an immense cataclysmic event occurred during the Crucifixion of Jesus, including the long darkness from the sixth hour. While theological and spiritual interpretations are easy to devise, and abound in modern literature, today’s scholars have seemingly given up on trying to explain the cataclysm’s true origin and nature, and meanwhile place it in the realm of Christian fantasy. In this article we apply the novel textual critical method of the Gospel as a Julio-Caesarian hypertext. Thereby we are able to substantiate that all incidents and properties found during this catastrophic event in the Christian texts were diegetically transposed from the Roman sources about the death of Julius Caesar. (Eickenberg 2010-11:no page). The supporting argumentation leads from the Roman imperial cult via the Athenian Iobakchoi of the second century A.D. as well as the Roman poets and Cultores Liberi of the Augustan era back to the funeral of Julius Caesar, where his wax effigy, which closely resembled the ‘crucified figure’ in the Orpheos Bakkikos engraving, was affixed to a cruciform tropaeum and shown to the people. On these grounds we establish hypotheses that explain both the application of the Orpheos Bakkikos stone as a crucifixum signum on the apex of the flamen Divi Iulii, which has been preserved on the Papal and Patriarchal headdresses, as well as the origin of the articulated crucifixes, which were handed down from Antiquity and are used during the Holy Week to this day. (Carotta &alii 2009:1). The Orphic mysteries also belong(ed) to the cultic province of Bacchic mysteries, with ties to primeval cults of the Mother Goddess 943 and agricultural 943
For example, the mysteries associated with Demeter, 'the divine mother': 'de' as in the root of Zeus, Dios...; and meter, mother. In Sanskrit, Dyaus Pita is primordial Father Heaven. The root “dyu” is Indo-European for “shining”: the gods shine like gold, or like the sun. Gautama Buddha's “skin is of golden hue. ” ( Brahmayu
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fertility, which in turn shared heavily with Egyptian myths. The Orphic variant 'civilized' the Bacchic religion by taming the orgiastic component.
Bacchus -explains Vernant- brought back a sort of a surreal golden age of newly found happiness, reconciliation with wild beasts as honey, milk and wine drip from the earth.
The Teans advance as proof that the god [Dionysus] was born among them the fact that, even to this day, at fixed times in their city a fountain of wine, of unusually sweet fragrance, flows of its own accord from the earth (Diodorus Siculus, The Library of History 3.66.3, Oldfather trans.). The present writer suggests to extend to this dichotomy the Hegelian categories of drive (irresistible compulsion of physiological undertones needing satisfaction or release=Bacchic) and desire (psychological chase after the elusive merger of subject and object=Orphic ).
Something similar happens in India with Krishna. As Krishna starts playing his flute (a sort of Pied Piper of Hamelin situation), all women become enraptured, and instantly quit whatever they're doing to join him in a frantic dance along the Yamuna river (=the water motif once again). On his part, Krishna multiplies so that he can dance with each one of his followers:”When the Bodhisattva teaches, we have been told, he assumes the outward forms of his auditors”944. Gautama Buddha, too, performed a series of miraculous “illusions”.
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Sutta). Jesus is often depicted with the solar disc behind his head.”As the men watched, Jesus' appearance was transformed so that his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as light.” ( Matthew 17:2). Campbell 1991:136.
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Mahapratiharya (the great illusion) saw Buddha multiply so that each devotee could have a “personal Buddha” to converse with.
While prurient motives have been argued (=an orgy in the forest), Krishna's intentions were chaste; the civilization of Bacchic components (Dionysus was often associated with India) is an ongoing phenomenon. Each follower has thus 'a personal relationship' with Krishna (in some Indian dialect pronounced Krishta945), much as Jesus feeds each and every one of his followers with only five loaves of bread and two fishes (Mark 6:40ss).
Then, the Licchavi Vimalakirti spoke to the elder Sariputra and the great disciples: "Reverends, eat of the food of the Tathagata! It is ambrosia perfumed by the great compassion. But do not fix your minds in narrow-minded attitudes, lest you be unable to receive its gift." But some of the disciples had already had the thought: "How can such a huge multitude eat such a small amount of food?" Then the incarnation-bodhisattva said to those disciples, "Do not compare, venerable ones, your own wisdom and merits with the wisdom and the merits of the Tathagata! Why? For example, the four great oceans might dry up, but this food would never be exhausted. If all living beings were to eat for an aeon an amount of this food equal to Mount Sumeru in size, it would not be depleted. Why? Issued from inexhaustible morality, concentration, and wisdom, the remains of the food of the Tathagata contained in this vessel cannot be exhausted." (Mahayana Vimalakirti Sutra, Thurman trans., emphasis added). In Christianity, the 'personal relationship' item is often thought to be a
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Some contend Krishta means actually Christ, as supposedly given in old Sanskrit lexikons. Uncanny confluences are common:”Fr. T. Stevens, an Oxford educated Jesuit missionary who landed in Goa in 1579, lived there for forty years, mastered the Marathi language. compiled its grammar and wrote in it an epic poem of 11,000 strophes titled Krishta Purana on the life and teachings of Christ. The letters of Stevens to his father in England. which were later published, are believed to have contributed to the growing British interest in India. roused already by legends of Portuguese adventures.” (Eraly 2007:37). Jean Sedlar also suggests the possible interplay between Krishnaism and Christianity.
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contribution of XVII century German pietism emphasizing Bible studies and personal religious experience. According to Garland 946, however, from the I century CE, polytheists were increasingly in search of a personal relationship with one of the gods of the pagan pantheon (=the Hindu concept of Ishta Devata, personal deity). Aesculapius the divine healer was an ideal candidate, as Garland compares him to Jesus: both divine, compassionate and suffering in the flesh like men.
Aurobindo explains the appeal of “chosen deities” or “personal saviors” (=the Hindu and Christian rendition of the same concept) exert:
Impersonal integral works are the first indispensable means; but a deep and large adoration, to which a relationless Unmanifest, an aloof and immovable Brahman can return no answer, since these things ask for a relation and an intimate personal closeness (in MAISI015 no date:lecture1:2). Hale947 establishes a relationship between the rise of Christianity, Paul and mystery religions: one of the hotbeds of Mithraism 948 was in fact Tarsus, Saul's 946 947 948
No date. 2009:Taking Religions Underground At Rome. Mithraism also involved baptism; sacred meals; seven degrees of initiation by ordeal associated with the seven planets (also seven metals, an alchemical connection); eternal salvation; the redeeming power of blood and sacrifice; the belligerent attitude of soldiering on for the good against evil, hence popularity among Roman soldiers. Mithras (whose name means “contract” as protecting pledges was his most ancient task) came to be associated with Sol Invictus or Helios (the Sun god). Mithras fights a bull (= lunar symbol). Most often Mithras springs from a stone (=chtonic symbol). Beit-Hallahmi (2010:61), however, relays how (in one variant) Mithras was construed as being born to the virgin goddess Anahita (a rough equivalent of Hindu Saraswati, goddess of wisdom) from the seed of Zoroaster preserved in lake Hamun. Encyclopedia Iranica (1985) describes Anahita thus:”she nurtures crops and herds; and is hailed both as a divinity and the mythical river that she personifies”.The Mithraic concept of soldiering on recurs in both Christianity (“Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes.” Ephesians 6:11); and Tibetan Buddhism (Tsonhgkhapa writes about”armor-like joyful perseverance”). Mithraea (sanctuaries of Mithras) were either natural or artificial caves, a possible symbol of the cosmos. The Mithraic congregation was also led by a hierophant called pater (father). As Christian evangelists are associated with animals (Matthew as a man (humanity); Luke as an ox (toil); Mark as a lion (royalty); John as an eagle (divinity)), so Mithras was associated with the dog (=man's quintessential friend in the Zoroastrian tradition); the snake (=evil to the Zoroastrians), and the scorpion (noxious creature, also associated with Serapis, Isis, Mercury, Artemis; or associated with the Sun as harbinger of good fortune and abundance according to Macrobius; Campbell also associates the eagle of
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home town. Hale also discusses the edge revealed religions (mystery cults, Christianity...) had at Rome against established Graeco-Roman paganism:”chilly, uninvolving, depersonalized”.
This image bank is as old as man. Yatsenko comments on the Rig Veda:
O Savitar, amend this mistake and make us sinless here [on earth] among gods and among men. To be sinless (true, direct) among gods and among men simultaneously is the goal of the realization of the Dynamic Truth, Ritam. It means that all things, divine and human, are already in Harmony. For how can one be sinless or true in the context of heavenly and earthly life at the same time? Moreover it seems that there is no truer harmony of things is possible. The heaven and earth have to be ‘equal and one’, as they were at the beginning of Creation in its Supramental Unity. (MAISI017 no date: unit 5:8). Also, revealed religions had a more personal -and personable- side. In revealed religions – Zoroastrianism, mystery religions, Judaism and its many clones...- the almighty of good enlists fickle, frail humans called to soldier on in defense of good against evil (=progressive betterment of a fallen world): piacular rites that invoke a sense of distress as the group -or the individual- reaffirm their persistence and solidarity around totemic values formerly imperiled. Precolombian Mesoamerica had “the ball game” that was played to help the sun (the ball) keep its course. The Mescalero American-Indians chanted ritually to support the four “grandfather trees” that served as pillars of the four sides of the cosmos...
the Evangelist with the scorpion). Judas betrays Jesus just as the astrotheological Scorpio betrays a weakened Sun. Regarding the four Evangelists, Campbell quips:”[Evangelists] are representatives, really, of four signs of the zodiac. And these four signs, in the fourth millennium BC, were the signs of spring, midsummer, autumn and winter” (Campbell&Toms 1988: volume 1).
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Personalization as a phenomenon recurred circularly:
Young explained that Darwin did not affect such a rupture in the cosmology of Victorian belief as previously supposed. Rather, On the Origin of Species (1859) merely placed God at a greater remove. While God created the universe, henceforth he acted only through secondary causes (e.g., natural selection). Darwin did not kill God; he merely altered his modus operandi. At the same time, as if by way of compensation, Victorian faith became a matter of personal experience. “Knowledge” (or experience) of God was had not by the head but by the heart. (Rechtenwald no date:16, emphasis added). A phenomenon similar to Jesus being removed from the bulk of scriptural baggage -and related practices and austerities- in born-again/evangelical Christianity coalesced in earlier ages in Buddhism. Amitabha Buddha (Buddha of immeasurable radiance, whom some connect with pre-existing sun/fire worship 949), 949
The Jesus Sutras (VII to XI century) expound a mixture of Nestorian Christian, Confucian, Daoist, Mahayana Buddhist doctrines in Chinese milieus. The Nestorian Stele (781 CE) celebrates the alleged establishment of Christianity all over China under the name of “the luminous religion of the Roman Empire”. Readers may notice the fire/solar connection (=light), which was also present in the Amitabha Buddha religion, and earlier still in the characterization of Gautama Buddha (=”the lion (=solar symbol) of the Shakya clan”) and Jesus (“the lion of Judah” or “the chief corner stone”). In Mahayana Buddhist Lalitavistara Sutra, Gautama Buddha is described as “The glows of the sun and moon, the stars, jewels, fire, Śakra, and Brahmā are no longer bright in front of his intense glory.”. Furthermore, Gautama Buddha's “skin is of golden hue. ” (Brahmayu Sutta). Heinrich Zimmer concludes about “the irresistible Lion-man, - the master, consummate champion, of the two worlds” (1948). Vishnu (at times superposed with the Sun god Surya) also incarnates as the mighty Lion-man Narasimha; Hercules becomes a Lion-man as he wears the Nemean lion's skin. Gautama Buddha's body emits powerful rays of light.”Hammurabi received the law from the god Shamash, the sun god. You see the sun rays from his shoulders. As Moses received the law from Yahweh, so Hammurabi from Shamash.”(1750 BCE, Campbell 1989:episode And We Washed Our Weapons In The Sea ). Zoroastrian gods also have luminous faces that mortals cannot bear to behold:”the sons of Israel would see the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses' face shone. ” (Exodus 34:35). “For the LORD God is our sun and our shield. ” ( Psalm 84:11). Gods and Saints the world over – and by extension powerful rulers- were often portrayed with a halo around their heads: the luminous face. Both Zoroaster and Kabir were associated at birth with prodigious luminosity. In Zoroastrianism, Ahura Mazda grants Gayomart (the first man) Khvarenah (splendor or royal glory as in the Achemenid seal). For example, the mysteries associated with Demeter, 'the divine mother': 'de' as in the root of Zeus, Dios...; and meter, mother. The root “dyu” is Indo-European for “shining”: the gods shine like gold, or like the sun. The Jewish apocryphal Book Of Enoch (I-III century BCE) also details Enoch's ascension to heaven. With god's favor, Enoch becomes like one of the angels. His face shines so bright he can't behold it. Enoch (as R.M. Price suggests) may be a solar figure. He lives 365 years -the days of the solar calendar, Genesis 5:23- and “walks with god” in the heavens. At the dawn of civilization, Hindu Rig Veda (XV century BCE or older) also claims brilliance and luminosity to be attributes of the gods who naturally shine like gold. In Yazidi religion, the archangel Melek Taus was born from god's “light”. In contemporary parlance, “people glow” with charisma; they project auras of potency. In Vedic religion, Indra, chief of the gods, represents the sun with his
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and Pure Land Mahayana Buddhism appeared around the II century CE. (Japanese) Zen Buddhism (originating from Chinese Chan) expressly hails as a doctrinal transmission system that is separate from the scriptural tradition (=”gate-less approach”).
Amitabha was a post-card sized, non-judgmental sweet Buddha savior people could have a personal relationship with. He was removed from the bulk of Buddhist scriptural baggage. Devotees could anchor their hope of salvation in Amitabha's saving grace:
Especially in the east if you look at Sufi poetry, the middle east and you come to India and look at the Sufi poetry or you look at bhakti poetry, you will find that there are a lot of references to deeper experiences. This is not even going to the scriptures, the Upanishads or any such classical scripture. This is looking at folk experience. What you hear in the Sufi poetry and bhakti poetry is often a reflection of the people which is captured through the poetry of these special people. In this poetry you will often find references to intoxication, references to bliss and how people have this experience of their deeper identity. (Varma, MAISI032 no date: unit 1:12, emphasis added). a commentary on the Dasabhumika attributed to Nagarjuna, exists in Chinese. Its discussion of how faith in Amitabha Buddha can lead to Buddhahood, a path of easy practice, has been particularly influential in East Asia. -...-Even a bodhisattva with inferior faculties and without the strength to observe the precepts or meditate can quickly attain a stage of spiritual progress from which he will not backslide by relying upon Amitabha's vows. Consequently, belief in Amitabha was called a path of easy practice (Hirakawa 1990:281,289). Śrī Kŗşņa goes further to explain that those who worship the Unmanifest and those who worship Him, both ultimately attain the thunderbolts as the sun goes through darkness to resurface as a new day dawns. Soviet-backed Communist leader from Vietnam Nguyen Ai Quoc was nicknamed “the bringer of light”, Ho Chi-Minh; Chinese Communist leader Mao was hailed as “red Sun”.
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same goal. But those who worship Him, as the manifested AvatÄ r choose an easier path; for, the path of the unseen, transcendent and unmanifest Divinity is much harder to pursue (Sarvadekar, MAISI015 no date:lecture 1:3). The same path of devotion removed from the bulk of scriptures and related practices and austerities had surfaced several centuries before the rise of Mahayana Buddhism: the Gita epitomized it, as Krishna (incarnation of almighty Vishnu) had (supposedly) revealed to Arjuna in a time before time.
Both Luther (the inventor of European Protestantism) and Shinran (XIIXIII century Japanese Buddhist monk) thought faith alone could save man ( sola
scriptura; sola fide; sola gratia; soli Deo gloria; solo Christo ). Even noted theologian Karl Barth remarked such similarities. Both Buddhism and Protestantism may be broadly considered as theologies of personal motives:�Also Shinran reflected on the basic practice of recitation in the Pure Land school and gave it an interpretation which voided the egoistic elements by stressing gratitude�950. Japanese Buddhist founder Nichiren also praised faith as the ingredient without which even the Lotus
Sutra or the Gohonzon (mandala) become useless in the pursuit of salvation.
As Protestants went by sola fide, soli Deo gloria and sola gratia (faith and grace alone; glory only to god), so did Shinran: the man who lives in faith is the Buddha; great faith is Buddha-nature, and gratitude is owed to Amida Buddha. Shinran -like Luther- broke existing traditions and started a lineage of married, meat-eating Buddhist monks devoted to Amitabha Buddha: the True Pure Land Sect 950
Bloom, ME6223 no date: CRJ-142:127.
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(Jodo Shinshu). Shinran's legacy survives in the Monshu, or the founder's lineage still present to this day.
If Protestantism helped to spark nationalistic waves in German-speaking areas, and quickly led to the fragmentation on national(istic) bases of Catholic Christendom,
Nichiren characterized Japan as 'superior to India, China and eighty thousand other countries'.Japan's superiority derived, in Nichiren's view, from her association with the Sun Goddess (Amaterasu). -...-He regarded the imperial rule as the only legitimate rule because of the historic association of the imperial family with the Sun Goddess whom, together with Hachiman, Nichiren regarded as the manifestations of the eternal Buddha and as the guardian deities of the imperial household (Kodera 1979:41,51). Bodhisattvas are construed in Mahayana Buddhism as enlightened beings with miraculous powers -although not Buddhas yet- who forsake the heavens and/or ultimate bliss and extinction out of compassion for all sentient beings. Robert Thurman offers a parallel: Bodhisattvas as Buddhist “archangels�.
It won't elude readers how that resembles the various Jesus (not quite a father god but full of love for mankind), Orpheus (mortal unlike his father Apollo, and full of empathy for all), and so forth. Demeter also presided over the growing of agricultural crops (her Latin name was in fact Ceres, from which cereal derives), much as Hindu-animistic goddess of fertility Devi Shree presides over in Bali.
The mother goddess Demeter was said to have ventured in search of her
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daughter Persephone ( whom Hades had brought to the underworld as a bride). Demeter therefore represented another early rendition of the Saint Mary motif of exemplar motherhood entitled to a divine child who meets with untimely death, and later resurrects at Springtime.
Jin Mengrong, perhaps trying to become the Holy Mary, concocted a scheme to give birth to Lama Tsongkhapa. The father was to be one of the monks under Master Jih-Chang. Eventually, Jin Mengrong conceived, but the baby was aborted. ( Bliss And Wisdom News, June 21, 2017). Jesus may have been considered a vegetation god as well. Easter customs see people exchanging “Easter baskets” as farmers would erstwhile bring seedlings to the place of worship hoping for a plentiful harvest Jesus' resurrection would spur.
Happening to be in some village of Euboea [in Greece] during Holy Week, he had been struck by the emotion which the Good Friday services evoked ; and observing on the next day the same general air of gloom and despondency, he questioned an old woman about it ; whereupon she replied, ' Of course I am anxious ; for if Christ does not rise to-morrow, we shall have no corn this year.' In other details too there is a close correspondence between the pagan and the Christian festivals.(Lawson 1910:573, emphasis added). Macrobius (Saturnalia I:18) explains that:”at the winter solstice the sun would seem like a little child like that which the Egyptians bring forth -...- since the day is then at its shortest”. R.M. Price suggests that certain enthronement Psalms declaiming that “Yahweh lives”951 may be echoes of a long-lost tradition whereby Yahwah, too, was a dying and rising vegetation god: 951
“Elijah said, "As the LORD Almighty lives, whom I serve, I will surely present myself to Ahab today."” ( 1 Kings 18:15). The “living god” of the Bible may be the doppelgaenger of the “dying god” of vegetation myths. “Then Adonai awoke, as if from sleep, like a warrior shouting for joy from wine. “ ( Psalm 78:65). Sleep ↔ death.
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This whole disappearance and reappearance of Persephone is the same elementary idea as we have in the death and resurrection of Jesus-dying to your mortality and being resurrected in your eternal character. (Campbell&Boa 1989:100). Accordingly, children sometimes expect the dead to be reborn at a seasonably auspicious moment (Solomon et alii 2015:25). The egg, a reminiscence of the cosmic egg, is often associated with these fertility and creation cults: the Easter egg. Breaking (painted) eggs is popular in the West, but also among Orthodox Christians, Kurdish Yazidi, and Zoroastrians. Eggs and their parts may be useful as divinatory implements: in Hispanic Santeria, in China, in the Philippines, in Ireland, in Italy (Brianza and Abruzzo for example); among the Khasi people of India:”The image of the cosmic egg is known to many mythologies; it appears in the Greek Orphic, Egyptian, Finnish, Buddhistic, and Japanese. -...-The shell of the cosmic egg is the world frame of space, while the fertile seed-power within typifies the inexhaustible life dynamism of nature”952. Famous anatomist Harvey (1578-1657) -who identified the human heart as a “pump”- claimed that “everything comes from eggs” ( ex ova omnia, De Generatione, 1651).
In fact, although presumed mystics and their ilk claim to have interacted with Saint Mary at different points in history, the figure they describe looks invariably like the widespread and popular Madonnas of the Renaissance painters – in turn influenced by apocalyptic imagery- that have sunk in the collective unconscious, and not like a I century working-class Hebrew woman. Mormon 952
Campbell 1991:192.
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founder Joseph Smith describes Jesus as he saw him:
We saw the Lord standing upon the breastwork of the pulpit, before us; and under his feet was a paved work of pure gold, in color like amber. His eyes were as a flame of fire; the hair of his head was white like the pure snow; his countenance shone above the brightness of the sun; and his voice was as the sound of the rushing of great waters (Doctrine And Covenants 110:2-3). Kwan Yin953 was born pure and devoted to motherly love and compassion for all, which enraged her noble father. As a result, she had to endure trials and tribulations very similar to the Cinderella story. Kwan Yin barely escaped death as she was spirited away to a remote island in the way of many heroines of Graeco-Roman myth. Furthermore -like Magdalene- Kwan Yin is often depicted with the vial of the dew of compassion; and -like Mary- she is often depicted with an infant.
Following other mythical heroes, she willingly sacrifices her bodily integrity954 to benefit her evil father. Buddhist deity Tara is also similar: she embodies absolute compassion -like the great mother goddess- for all, and is alleged born from the tears (a pool of tears, or one single tear according to versions) of the celestial Buddha Avalokitesvara as he contemplated sentient beings' plight.
Some argue Mary Magdalene anoints Jesus in a procedure that mixes last rites with the anointment of a King, and first recognizes him after the resurrection. 953 954
Another embodiment of the Buddha of compassion Avalokitesvara. The ten perfections of Buddhism are divided into 30 according to the level of practice (ordinary, great and greatest). According to the “great level� ( Upa Parami), one gives away his limbs. In modern times this has been interpreted as endorsement of donations of blood, organs and tissues.
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It isn't difficult to see in the versatile and supercharged figure of Magdalene 955 with her jar (box, vial etc) of perfume (oil, balm etc ) a variation on the theme of the equally supercharged mythical figure of Pandora and her box (jar etc) 956.
More generally, Magdalene's case epitomizes an entire category so dear to the human psyche, or the arch-transgressor who happens to be so much better than oneself. So much better, in fact, that godly savior-heroes willingly associate themselves with him/her, thus ushering in sainthood of one form or another.
Bindumati the courtesan -often just “an old prostitute”- can perform an act of truth (=if so-and-so is true, then let so-and-so happen) that causes the flooding Ganges to recede in the presence of the Emperor Asoka. It turns out nobody else – among the attending commoners, priests and warriors - can answer Asoka's call to perform an act of truth, thus saving the city. Among the epithets of Mesopotamian chief goddess Ishtar/Inanna are “lady of sorrow”, “star of heaven” 957, “queen of heaven” (a pre-existing Virgin Mary), but also “mother of harlots” and “great harlot”. 955
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Others contend the woman who anoints Jesus and Magdalene are two completely different persons. There is controversy in literature about which character Magdalene really is:”A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee's house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. ” (Luke 7:37). Rabbinical commentaries suggest prostitution by the proxy of a profession as hairdresser which the name might suggest. The box/jar repository of evil mytheme is quite common. Well before the Greek emerged from the Bronze Age, the Hittite myth -between the XV and XIII century BCE- of god Telepinu, god of fertility, narrates that the god retreats in disgust from mankind (=retreat mytheme), falls asleep (=sleep as death mytheme), is awaken, goes on a murderous rampage (=cosmic rage mytheme), and only later resumes his benign aspect after the gods reconcile with him in a complex ritual that explicitly mentions:”Down in the dark earth there stand bronze cauldrons, their lids are of abaru metal, their handles of iron. Whatever goes in there comes not out again; it perishes therein. Let them also receive Telepinus’s rage, anger, malice, and fury! Let them not come back!’ ” (in Hooke 1963:101-2). Just as Mary and Isis were hailed as Stella Maris.
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The Reverend Mother must combine the seductive wiles of a courtesan with the untouchable majesty of a virgin goddess, holding these attributes in tension so long as the powers of her youth endure. (Frank Herbert, Dune, 1965). The fictional story of the Dutch boy and the dam also reiterates the inner power of the powerless, and so does a commandment under the Italian Fascist regime: la patria si serve anche facendo la guardia a un bidone di benzina (standing guard over a barrel of gasoline rightfully means to serve the fatherland). Master Chin Kung of the Chinese Pure Land Buddhist School agrees: people who help out in the assembly kitchen gather the same merits as people involved in Buddha name recitation958.
Furthermore, Bindumati informs a wondering Asoka that her act of truth could turn the heavens upside down, if she so wished. Bindumati -the archtransgressor who's so much better than all those attending warriors, priests and commoners- can be intended to epitomize either upanishadic wisdom (=she performs dutifully as her caste and station in life demand); Buddhist wisdom, as in one variant she's a faithful, whose act of truth consists in recollecting the Buddha's perfections959; or pudor meretricum: the prostitute (courtesan etc) as exemplum
pudicitiae (epitome of modesty):
el tema de la cortesana arrepentida y disinteresada, es decir, honesta es un motivo de la literatura universal -...-con multiples ejemplos en la literatura de todos los tiempos� (Galan Vioque 1999:175 960). 958 959 960
2014. Probably denoting the Theravada practice of Buddhanussati (recollection of the Buddha). “The motif of the courtesan who reforms, and is thus reputed honest, is a motif recurring in world literature
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The name Faustulus [Romulus and Remus' foster father] may be an allusion to Faunus, either the mythical king of the Arcadians who emigrated to Italy or the god Faunus, the Roman spirit of the wild who is equated with the Greek god Pan. The name Faunus is also linked to the term “Faustus,” which means lucky. Faustulus’ wife was called Acca Larentia [Romulus and Remus' foster mother], a minor Roman goddess connected with the rites of the dead and the Underworld. In some traditions, she was regarded as a prostitute and was said to have bequeathed her property to the people of Rome. Also, the term “lupa” (wolf) was a common slang term for whore. -...-There was another myth that named her as Fabula, another common name for prostitutes. This tradition related her to the Fabula who was the lover of Hercules, apparently his prize after he won a game of dice. (Meineck 2005-1:38-9). Things may not be so clear cut, however, and the dew of forgiveness might be another hot commodity traded within a system of power where 'the opposite' could chance to apply at any moment:
A primera vista , pudor y meretrix pueden parecer términos antitéticos, opuestos. Sin embargo, hemos visto que hay ocasiones en que no sin ironía las meretrices son retratadas con rasgos positivos y se las considera irónicamente ejemplos de pudor frente al comportamiento sexual depravado de ciertas mujeres , como en el caso de Ovidio y Marcial, pero también hombres, como en el caso de Séneca . Propiamente se trata de un motivo de la literatura misógina por el que se ridiculiza y se trata de refrenar la libertad sexual de la mujer dejando en evidencia una falta de recato o pudor que produce escándaloextnote. De hecho, ello responde, según Longino (1980: 44-45), a una reacción psicológica espontánea por la que, cuando una mujer participa en un acto sexual que un hombre considera pornográfico (recuérdese la raíz griega de esta palabra), se la desprecia comparándola con una prostituta, es decir, con una mujer que recibe dinero por hacer lo que el hombre quiere. (Galan Vioque 1999:181, emphasis added). The scum of the Earth ranks higher on any scale (=the ugly duckling with many examples coming from across the ages.”. “It is a motif that recurs in misogynous literature in order to ridicule and restrain the sexual liberty of women by pointing out a lack of restraint or modesty that scandalizes. “.
extnote
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motif) than the law-abiding average schmuck, who is (not so) deep down an hypocrite, a pharisee, a closeted transgressor: a real bore. Even the Mormon Channel adopts the ugly duckling tale to foster values unique to that religion. The story is so pliable and effective that almost any constituency might use it to propel its values:”But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong”961.
Italian writer De Amicis in the Italian version of his international bestseller Cuore delivers the portrait (Il Piccolo Patriotta Padovano) of a “small patriot” his parents had sold into slavery to traveling acrobats. After years of itinerant ordeal (=the journey mytheme) with the troupe, the child (=the child motif) escapes to come back home (=the nostos/return mytheme) thanks to the Italian consul (=the horde as one shall rescue retainers).
Aboard a ship, he tells his story of torments (=suffering makes us one), so that moved foreigners give him a tidy sum of money he might start his life anew with (=boon mytheme). Yet, later the “small patriot” overhears them deprecating 962 the great nation of Italy, so he indignantly throws the money back in their faces: he wants nothing to do with “chi insulta il mio paese” (whoever insults my country).
An illiterate traveling acrobat (= the last and meek mytheme) acts as vanguard teaching the patriotic gospel. This constitutes a statolatrous theodicy, in 961 962
1 Corinthians 1:27. How could an illiterate Italian beggar understand them is a completely different issue. In Cuore, the nasty foreigners speak Italian.
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keeping with the postulates of Terror Management Theory (=the collective as a way to dodge the terror of death).
Much as all the blatant evil, injustice and disaster in the world cannot tarnish the reputation of one Abrahamic god or another, so the Belle Epoque nation-State is intrinsically worthy of veneration and allegiance irrespective of whatever might come to pass to retainers. Homes can be foreclosed, pension funds can be pulverized, and investment portfolios can crash: “right or wrong, it's my country�.
Just to set the record straight, De Amicis963 presents another scene in which patriotic communion proves therapeutic indeed. Marco (a fictional character in the book) is traveling alone (=hero's journey) to Argentina (=colonial nowhere) in search of his mother (=search after one's true self): she serves wealthy Argentinians abroad. Upon his arrival, he finds out a distant relative who served as a proxy had died, and his mother had moved to another city (=chain of misfortune) in Argentina.
He's thus penniless, and an acquaintance (=magical helper) takes him to meet a group of Italian emigrants for help:
“[Marco] has not the shadow of a cent. He is here alone and in need. I know him; he is a boy full of heart; let us think a little. Can't we find enough here to pay for his ticket to Cordova so that he can find his mother? Shall we abandon him here like a dog?" "Never in 963
1918:171.
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the world !" "That shall never be said !" they cried together, striking their fists on the table. "A countryman of ours!" "Come here, little fellow." "We, too, are emigrants here !" "See what a fine rogue." "Out with your money, comrades !" "Good boy ! He came here alone. He has lots of pluck !" "Have a drink, compatriot !" "We will send you to your mother, never fear." If the patriotic communion is therapeutic, fictive Marco soon finds himself stranded among foreigners; the sweet human soul screams away:
His fatigue was growing and the ill-treatment increased [=passion mytheme]. One morning [Marco] was slow in carrying the water, and in the absence of the leader one of the men beat him. After this example, they began to beat him habitually; when they were giving him an order they would strike him, saying: "Take that, vagabond! Take that to your mother!" [=scourging of the hero] His heart was almost broken. He fell sick and remained for three days [=common mytheme] in the wagon, with a cover over him [=symbolic death] -...-. Then he began to recover [=resurrection], owing to the care of the leader [=godly patriarch]. (1918:179). In her travels Demeter had morphed into a bird, and served as a nurse for a child prince she had tried to make immortal by dipping him into fire. The earlier Egyptian goddess Isis had done pretty much the same searching for her deceased husband Osiris. Even odd details match: both Isis -and Demeter many centuries later- sulked near a well. Maidens from the royal house in both cases meet the matron at the well, and invite her to be the young prince's nurse.
Isis had fed the child prince milk through her finger, much as Sikh sage Baba Sri Chand -the eldest son of Sikh founder Guru Nanak- nursed his nephew giving him milk from his big toe. Isis has the divine child in her lap, and so do Night and Dawn, primeval twin goddesses of Hindu Vedas: the gods yearn for that
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privilege. Isis offering her breast to the divine child survives in such Christian depictions as the Portuguese Nossa Senhora Dos Remedios.
Isis also survives in St. Mary's lore
There was a time in the history of the Church when the expressions in the Book of Canticles ( Canticum Canticorum, the Song of Songs) were applied to the Mother of God, while in Revelation ‘there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars’. Mary was seen as Stella Maris, as was Isis; Rose of Sharon (roses were important in Isiac ritual, as Lucius Apuleius makes clear); the Lily among Thorns; the Tower of David (Isis was a Tower, a lighthouse, as Isis-Pharia); the Mountain of Myrrh and the Hill of Frankincense (both significantly Isiac in that they are associated with the rites of the dead, and with embalming); the Garden enclosed, the Spring shut up, the Fountain sealed (springs, fountains, and gardens were also Isiac);the Palm-Tree (a significantly Egyptianising motif);-...-. She was Queen of Mercy, Mother of Mankind, our Life, Hope of All, Refuge, Help and Asylum, Propitiatory of the World, Queen of Heaven and of Hell, Dispenser of Graces, City of Refuge, Patroness, Protectress in Death (particularly Egyptian, and reminiscent of the connection between Seth and Isis), Ladder of Paradise, Gate of Heaven, Mediatrix, Omnipotent, Peacemaker, Intercessor, Advocate, Redeemer, and Saviour. (Curl 2005:62-3). Quoi qu’il en soit, il est possible que la dévotion de certains croyants s’adresse à Montserrat à une divinité syncrétique. Cette hypothèse plausible et séduisante est bien sûr combattue par l’Église alors que c’est elle qui l’a en partie suggérée en faisant grandir l’image de la Vierge et en la rapprochant d’une Déesse Mère notamment par les circonstances surnaturelles entourant l’enfantement divin. Ce syncrétisme est bien vivant à Cuba par exemple où le culte de la Vierge noire est uni à celui de Yemayà, l’esprit des océans, pour protéger les marins. Rappelons que l’une des titulature de la Vierge est Stella Maris. (Impériali 2008:no page). At the same time, Christians showed no reservations about borrowing from the pagan world other elements to articulate their own sacred figures.They adapted pagan painting styles and techniques, as well as forms and materials. The iconographic motif of the Mother of God 678
holding Jesus Christ in her arms became widesp read in Byzan tium, but it actuallyhad pagan antecedents: the goddess Isis giving virgin birth to Horus, an ancient Egyptian god, and suckling her son at her breast," or the god Hermes holding the infant Dionysus. Even the attributes given to the Mother of God in Christianity have antecedents in Hellenic religion, -...- meaning the one who rears and brings up boys. Christians continued, further, the tradition of deities as protectors of cities by replacing them with patron saints. That the cult of the Mother of God in Constantinople went on to enjoy great popularity and a rich devotional status was no accident: it was really a gradual replacement for the preexisting cult of the pagan goddesses Tyche (Fortuna) and Rhea, who during the fifth century rivaled her worship. Additionally, there exist striking parallels between pagan pastoral deities and Christian saints as shepherd and sheep protectors (Makrides 2009:167). Sacred breastfeeding mothers are ubiquitous: myths can coalesce. In Argentina, people go on pilgrimage to honor difunta Correa (the deceased Correa) who -during the Argentinian civil war- had ventured into the desert in search (=the gnostic search mytheme) of her husband (=true love mytheme) at war, thereby dying of exposure between 1840 and 1850. Miraculously enough, when her corpse was found, her baby was still alive being fed at her breast. Even Graeco-Roman goddess Latona had been through an itinerant ordeal as she was first carrying then nursing Jupiter's twin (=twin mytheme) sons Apollo (=Sun) and Diana (=Moon).
Another Egyptian parallel may exist964; as Demeter sulks longing after her lost daughter, a bizarre creature named Baubo (alternatively princess Iambe) exposes her private parts to the goddess in a bawdy dance, which causes Demeter to laugh: an allegory of how intertwined sacred and profane might be. In the
Contendings Of Horus And Seth (1147-1143 BCE), goddess Hathor plays the same 964
Morris in Schneider&Szkpakowska 2007:197ss.
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trick to lure back her father the god Re (Ra), who was sulking in retreat from the quarrel965. Such parallels abound.
The famous Hebrew Book Of Job -and the quintessential dilemmas it poses- had already been expounded in Mesopotamian writings -such as Ludlul Bel
Nemeqi, the so-called Babylonian Job– about ten centuries older than Hebrew sources; or the Babylonian Theodicy (VIII century BCE). Similar accounts are also present from China in times of upheaval. The Chinese Shi-King (Classic Of Poetry, XI-VII century BCE) recites:
Why was not this time before me, or after me ? The people will be reduced to servitude ; they look to Heaven, but all is dark. But let Heaven will, and none can resist. Does the great God hate any one ? -...-O great Heaven, how hast thou shut up thy love ! Compassionate Heaven, arrayed in terrors ! why revealest thou not thy care ? Leaving criminals aside, who have but paid just penalty, the innocent are involved in the same ruin. Why will he not listen to justice ? Why,O Officers, will ye not respect each other, nor stand in awe of Heaven ? (Cit. in Johnson 1877:543). You are as steadfast as the earth, but the plan of the gods is concealed, seek then the grace of your god ( Babylonian Theodicy, cit. in Goldman 2003:Wisdom Literature). Also, suffering constitutes the ultimate currency: that's why heroes and savior-gods are routinely scourged and gruesomely torn apart; suffering burns bad karma, or brings people closer to god. Mythologized slaughter also heralds new eras.
T h e message -...- is t h a t if we a r e to be effective healers we must allow ourselves, within limits, to be continually wounded, and 965
A similar episode takes place in Oriental myth as Sun goddess Amaterasu sulks in retreat incensed at her brother's behavior. Goddess Uzume then performs the same bawdy dance. Hathor exposing her private parts to her father includes an oedipal element that is very common in myths.
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that, i n d e e d , it i s only o u t of o u r w o u n d e d n e s s that we c a n heal or be healed.(Peck 1997:192). Currid966 approaches the question of Biblical parallels (=same story in the Bible and in the lore of other civilizations ) thus:
1. It proves “the historicity and truthfulness that such an event has occurred” (for example the flood).
2. The
same
terminology might
be in
place -for example identical
characterization of Canaanite god Baal (=lord), and Hebrew Yahwah (also referred to as “lord”)- yet Biblical accounts are “taunting” polytheists (=polemical theology), for Yahweh is “true”, whereas Baal is not.
3. Parallels between Mesopotamian and Hebrew creation stories exist because the Mesopotamians “bastardized” the reminiscence of “true events”, whereas the Hebrews “preserved” the recollection as “revealed to Moses”. (2013).
Joseph Campbell967 discusses one of several incarnation of the mother 966 967
Professor of Old Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary. (1989:episode And We Washed Our Weapons In The Sea ) discusses the Catal Huyuk Turkish archeological site (about 7.000 BCE) and the presence of 'mother goddess' figures in various postures, even giving birth to bullheaded figures to mean rebirth in a lunar cosmology (the horns of the Moon; the Moon's cyclical rebirth, etc). Researchers such as Gimbutas see in the “bull's head” the outline of the female reproductive organs (ovaries as the horns and the uterus as the head). Vandiver (2000: Culture, Prehistory And The Great Goddess) broadsides the idea of the existence of mother goddess figures using various arguments, such as that female figurines etc are common but we cannot be really sure what their meaning or use was; that even if all those figures represent deities, we cannot assume it was the same goddess; that the mother goddess is a rather modern invention catering to the needs of disgruntled feminists and others; that the transition towards the reign of male sky gods unfolds in Mesopotamia, too, were no Indo-european invasion took place, etc. Johnston summarizes (2010:61):”Of course, just because there are, say, goddesses, does this mean that women have high social status? Kali, a Hindu deity, is one of the scariest figures I know, and yet the status of women in India is not usually considered high. And there are figures of Mary in many countries where no one would argue that women are in charge, so the correlation isn’t always true. And what if they aren’t religious, but rather toys? Or secular art? Or models to demonstrate childbirth? All of these have been suggested, and they are all possibilities. This
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goddess sitting on a throne, wearing a crown resembling the walls of a city; the same image (several centuries BCE) recurs in the Isis myth: Isis is wearing the throne as a crown, where her beloved child the Pharaoh sits in real life. The same occurs in (Mahayana Lalitavistara ) Buddhist lore:
The earth goddess also played a role in the Buddha's enlightenment by providing the throne upon which Shakyamuni attained liberation. Her throne, located at the symbolic center- of the world, is known as the "navel of the earth" and "seat of wisdom". Ananda Coomaraswamy has demonstrated that here, as in many instances, Buddhist mythographers drew upon established motifs and concepts. Beliefs about the navel of the earth found early expression in the Rig Veda, wherein it is described as the axis of the universe, supreme sacrificial altar, and seat of planetary sovereignty. The term translated here as "navel" also means "center," "nave," and "hub." Like the hub of a wheel, the earth's navel is the still point in a spinning world. (Shaw 2006:20). En effet, l’image de la Vierge [de Montserrat] grandi en suivant l’évolution de la société : par la Vierge reine couronnée on exalte une hiérarchie céleste dont les royaumes terrestres seraient le reflet. C’est à la fois un schéma reconnaissable par tous et une légitimation de l’ordre social (Impériali 2008:no page). At the Chartres cathedral, and at Le Puy, a Madonna is the throne, and the infant Jesus sits thereupon; Montserrat's Black Virgin also presents the infant Jesus likewise (so-called seat of wisdom, sedes sapientiae). The mother goddess wearing the city walls as a crown recurred in Roman mythology ( magna mater/ Cybele968), and is still present these days as the personification of the Italian State
968
doesn’t mean that women didn’t have high status in some ancient societies, but it does mean that we really don’t know.”. It isn't necessary to assume all that much, however, about these primordial cultures. Of course, female figures giving birth to bull-headed figures show that snake god(dess) figurines are not unique, as proponents of the UFO/Alien invasion theories suppose. Naturally, 'bull-headed aliens from planet X' sounds less appealing than snake-headed aliens. A toponym according to Strabo.
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(donna turrita, in Roman mythology mater turrita). In Penang (Malaysia), a statue presents Queen Victoria with four great felines.
Campbell969 contrasts the older mother goddess depicted with felines as she gives birth to a child (=divine child motif) with a later Roman version: the goddess is still guarded by felines but holds the Sun (=sun motif that enshrouds Jesus, Buddha, Mithras etc) in her hands. Buddhist Lalitavistara Sutra hails newborn Gautama Buddha as “Thinking, “This child must be the god of gods! When the four guardians, Brahmā, and the gods, led by [King of the gods] Śakra, make such offerings, He will surely become a Buddha!”970.
The obsession with the throne (=State) embracing oneself like a mother would (or the Pharaoh as the good shepherd) is kept alive in all the contemporary regimes preaching social alchemy and 'cradle to grave' welfare, or the omnipotent
Belle Epoque nation-State shepherding its flock:
Also we have another mother image which occurs after the rise of cities. Here you see goddesses with a crown on their heads which represents the walls of the city. The walled city is our mother, the mother of our civilization, the mother of our life. So the culture is also our mother. (Campbell&Boa 1989:63). A slightly different iconography associates other countries with mothergoddess figures: Marianne (France) is a personification of the vaguely atheistic beliefs of the Enlightenment. As Marianne appears in 1775 as “liberty” (alternatively
969 970
1980. Dharmachakra Committee trans.
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“goddess reason” and suchlike), she gains prominence during the radical phase of the French Revolution (1792ss).
The Brazilian Republic (1889ss) also had a mother-goddess (with a radiant triangle as a halo) as embodiment. Britannia (UK) is another Celtic mothergoddess who came to embody the blossoming British Empire, thus gaining prominence when the crowns of Scotland and Britain merged: in a 1858 painting by E. Armitage, a bare-footed, muscled up Britannia grabs a Bengali tiger by the throat while she thrusts her sword in Retribution (the painting's title) against the bloody Indian rebellion of 1857-8. In the Bengali or Indian nationalist movement, the goddess Kali became Mother India raging against White colonizers.
In his journey, the hero requires many talents (Hercules wrestles, uses bow and arrows, plays the lyre; Oedipus' logic defeats the eerie Sphinx, thus halting an epidemic; Theseus ends Athens' subjugation to Crete...): the archetypal trickster is also an archetypal bricoleur.
Oedipus (from the Greek oida, “I know” and pou, “where”971) according to Sophocles) both “knows” and “doesn't know”: duality his “swollen feet” epitomize. In Oedipus The King, Oedipus is thus addressed:”oistha pou?” (what do you know?), a pun on his name.
Rambo is irresistible in hand-to-hand combat; when he operates a
971
A messenger from Corinth “knows where Oedipus is from” in the tragedy.
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helicopter, a machine gun or a bow. With a five second upload, heroes in The
Matrix movies master any and all crafts; Robocop as the ultimate terminal-man has no problem locating criminals, whom he forthwith routs...
But instead, what is ordinarily attested in conversion-scenes are responses to demonstrations of superhuman power: perceived as miracles, in turn they were perceived as proofs of genuine divinity attaching to whatever deity was invoked and credited -...-. Perhaps the post-Constantinian authors of the gesta were aware of the imaginative power of the miraculous, and wished to ensure that it was firmly tethered to an acceptable Christian message.(Cooper, no date:30). Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. (Isaiah 35:6). Then he asked them, "Where is your faith?" The disciples were terrified and amazed. "Who is this man?" they asked each other. "When [Jesus] gives a command, even the wind and waves obey him!"(Luke 8:25). [a patient told the analyst]“I was always trying to get out of my body, to watch myself, but the medications stopped that.” (Polimeni 2012:199). Naturally, these talents shall square with the kind of ambiance and tone appropriate to the narrator's goals and “popular morality”, “free-floating folk beliefs”, “explanations or interpretations usually put forth”, “only an old Phoenician tale of what has often occurred before now in other places”, “prevailing cultural trends”, “the audience’s pre-established set of convictions”, mos972 and suchlike academics may ceaselessly restyle (“the generalized other” according to Mead in
972
A precise definition of Weber's traditional form of authority with no need for neologisms.
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1934973). Obviously, a candidate to Christian sainthood won't be sung naked as he strangles a lion with his bare hands, or as he beds fifty girls in one night, nor immortalized as a giant brute with a club and an exorbitant, erect penis.
Such images live on in the multifarious knights of medieval inspiration and in their contemporary imitators. The Spartan King Leonidas (V century BCE ) fought the Persians with 300 men as his guard, yet Romulus (VIII century BCE), too, “maintained, in peace as well as in war, a personal armed guard of three hundred men, whom he called Celeres – ‘the Swift’. ”974.
Tarquin [overthrown King of Rome] continued to make trouble, organizing a revolt of the Latin League that was defeated at the battle of Lake Regillus -...-.The date of the expulsion of Tarquin the Proud is traditionally placed as 510 BCE. The very same year that Hippias, the son and successor of the tyrant Pisistratus, was driven from Athens. He later returned with the Persian invasion [ much as Tarquin had summoned the Etruscans] of Darius that was defeated at the battle of Marathon in 490. The date is therefore spurious and seems part of the general tradition of borrowing from Greek sources in constructing Roman myth. But it does seem that some time around 500 BCE there was a shift from tyranny to a republican system of government (Meineck 2005-1:59). Mussolini for one raced cars975, flew his own plane, fenced, danced,
973
974 975
The pressure the horde in fusion ( mos or whichever other term might be used) exerts, and the methods employed to maintain conformity can be showed in this dialogue. Stalin is arranging the disposal of former Soviet honchos Zinoviev and Kamenev:”'You think Kamenev may not confess?' Stalin asked Mironov, one of Yagoda's Chekists. 'I don't know,' replied Mironov. 'You don't know?' said Stalin. 'Do you know how much our State weighs with all the factories, machines, the army with all the armaments and the navy?' Mironov thought he was joking but Stalin was not smiling. 'Think it over and tell me?' Stalin kept staring at him. 'Nobody can know that, Joseph Vissarionovich; it is the realm of astronomical figures.' 'Well, and can one man withstand the pressure of that astronomical weight?' 'No,' replied Mironov. 'Well then ... Don't come to report to me until you have in this briefcase the confession of Kamenev.'” (in Sebag Montefiore 2004:190). Livy 1960:33-51. Quite a technological feat in those times.
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officially addressed foreigners in their own language. According to Suetonius 976, Nero:”Because he was thought to equal Apollo in music, and the sun in chariotdriving, he resolved also to imitate the achievements of Hercules. And they say that a lion was got ready for him to kill, either with a club, or with a close hug, in view of the people in the amphitheatre; which he was to perform naked. ”.
Italian PD's secretary Renzi -who transited from the Catholic activism in his youth to being the leader of the former Communist party- is also serenaded 977 as “ a leader since the beginning”978 as a scout in elementary school. Renzi happens to be fantastic at whatever he chances to be doing: playing soccer; riding a bike; dressing in formal or informal clothing; mingling with diverse crowds; operating an excavator or a cellphone...
British The Guardian enshrines Renzi comparing him to a 1970s TV icon, the character Fonzie from Happy Days, just as Italian politician Grillo had mockingly done in December 2013 (calling him Renzie)979.
[Renzi] told the Guardian last year that Tony Blair was a role model for him -...-. Renzi, meanwhile, was continuing his 976 977 978
979
Nero:53. ANSA, 9 December 2013. Written on Tablet I of the Mesopotamian Enuma Elish (possibly XVI-XVIII century BCE) about the god Marduk. Readers may easily compare this with Hebrew Genesis:”The Nephilim were on the earth in those days--and also afterward--when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.” (6:4). The Hebrew Aramaic Book Of Giants (II century BCE) mentions Gilgamesh (a fallen angel) and Humbaba. The Book Of Giants was part of the Gnostic Manichean canon. Gilgamesh cycle materials find their way into such works as Claudius Aelianus (II century CE in Greek), and the Alexander Romance from late antiquity. As this writing contends, the same myths and allegories can be (ab)used to indifferently promote or demote anything or anyone. Grillo in fact wanted to ridicule Renzi as an effete sit-com character of no political consequence.
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celebrity-like political career. He was photographed, Fonz-like, in a leather jacket and dark glasses and appeared – but, this time, did not compete – in a television talent show. For those who were concerned that he was simply too charismatic, telegenic and image-conscious to be reliable, these actions were all the confirmation they needed: Renzi, they cried, was a kindred spirit of Berlusconi, and too slick to be serious. (Davies 2014: no page.). This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham (Matthew 1:1). The 'Renaissance man' shtick never stops paying dividends. Rather than a manifesto showcasing Greek Bronze Age excellence, the entire campaign looks like the promotion of a new aftershave lotion. The new product finally hits the shelves: Renzi dons the patriarchal robe as he's appointed new Prime Minister 980.
Will irresistible Renzi and his honest men 'save' the great nation? Problems soon loom on the horizon. A few of Renzi's 'honest men' are investigated for various wrongdoings: the government hails due process of law and presumption of innocence981.
“Honest men” who turn out to be as tainted as those they denounce are a dime a dozen. L. Diana, former PD parliamentarian and former member of
Commissione Antimafia in Italy is investigated. It appears Diana, a hero sung in the press for his engagement against mafia, was possibly a member of a mafioso network operating to direct public contracts to companies mafia controls 982.
U.S Pop-culture icon and author Barbara De Angelis imparted expert 980
February 22, 2014. IlSole24Ore, March 5, 2014. 982 IlSole24Ore, July 3, 2015. 981
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advice to counsel the masses about how to engineer good relationships that last: internet sources claim she has been married five times already. David Bassett, who alongside his wife Lucinda had become a U.S popular culture icon for the treatment of anxiety and depression with a barrage of late night infomercials, committed suicide in 2008.
Karl Marx, who chastised oppressive capitalists and the parasitic bourgeoisie, spent his life as living room revolutionary, scruffy and unkempt, being supported financially either by his wife, a baron's daughter, or by his sidekick Engels, the son of a noted industrialist.
Marx even speculated on the stock market and fathered illegitimate children; Bakunin fled to Switzerland to escape from creditors: “Suppose you should contradict yourself; what then? -...-Trust your emotion. -...- A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, -...-With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.�983. Both Marx and Bakunin – those chastisers of the scourge of capitalismwere identified at their death as annuitants (rentiers, people living off investments).
M. Scott Peck, the lieutenant colonel, psychiatrist and physician -who became a self-help/spirituality sensation writing acclaimed books- was profiled thus when he died in 2005:
He spent much of his life immersed in cheap gin, chain-smoking 983
Emerson 1841, cit. In Myerson 2000:324. Benito Mussolini espoused the same attitude when he described Fascism. The original Fascist motto was me ne frego, I don't give a damn. Hitler, Gandhi, Ram Dass and others follow suit.
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cigarettes and inhaling cannabis, and being persistently unfaithful to his wife, who eventually divorced him. He also went through estrangement with two of his three children. (Reed 2005:no page). One is spoilt for choice, indeed. If Renzi is not the irresistible one, will “the Bergoglio984 effect” change Catholicism forever as many elatedly announce? What about stupendous mister Obama? Could he set the world in motion for epochal changes instead? It seems that Francis I might be making history already. What about Donald Trump? Doesn't he “fulfill” 985 the “promise” of Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority (1979 onwards)?
It's the “fulfillment of time”, “all-decisive time” (Tillich about Christology). Of course, unobservant readers may be puzzled to part “great men” materializing from seventh-heaven to “make history” if one acts right now from peddlers and middlemen on late-night TV infomercials promising rebates, slim waist-lines, goodies and free trips to exotic beaches if one makes a purchase immediately.
John Paul II (whom many already nickname The Great) assertedly brought about the fall of the iron curtain all by himself:
The surprise announcement came at the end of 18 months of secret talks that produced a prisoner swap negotiated with the help of Pope Francis and concluded by a telephone call between Mr. Obama and President Raúl Castro. The historic deal broke an enduring stalemate between two countries divided by just 90 miles of water but oceans of mistrust and hostility dating from the days of 984 985
Pope Francis I. Some vehemently disagree, of course.
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Theodore Roosevelt’s charge up San Juan Hill and the nuclear brinkmanship of the Cuban missile crisis. (Baker 2014:no page). Now researchers have documented what they call an Obama effect, showing that a performance gap between African-Americans and whites on a 20-question test administered before Mr. Obama’s nomination all but disappeared when the exam was administered after his acceptance speech and again after the presidential election. The inspiring role model that Mr. Obama projected helped blacks overcome anxieties about racial stereotypes that had been shown, in earlier research, to lower the test-taking proficiency of AfricanAmericans, the researchers conclude in a report summarizing their results. “Obama is obviously inspirational, but we wondered whether he would contribute to an improvement in something as important as black test-taking,” said Ray Friedman, a management professor at Vanderbilt University, one of the study’s three authors. “We were skeptical that we would find any effect, but our results surprised us.” (Dillon 2009:no page). To answer this question, we devised another test. The following message was printed on the cover of the quiz booklet: “Drinks such as SoBe have been shown to improve mental functioning,” we noted, “resulting in improved performance on tasks such as solving puzzles.” We also added some fictional information, stating that SoBe’s Web site referred to more than 50 scientific studies supporting its claims. What happened? The group that had the fullprice drinks still performed better than those that had the discounted drinks. But the message on the quiz booklet also exerted some influence. Both the discount group and the full-price group, having absorbed the information and having been primed to expect success, did better than the groups whose quiz cover didn’t have the message. (Ariely 2009:107). A spelling test that Elliott conducted on both days revealed that the children did better on the day that their group was declared superior. Jane Elliott’s students were responding to expectations that were explicitly expressed by an authority figure. When told they were stupid, they immediately acted stupid. When told they were smart, they acted smart. -...-Not only do adults rapidly conform to expectations in a manner similar to that of Elliott’s students; they do so even when they are not consciously aware of what is expected of them. My colleague Dr. Sara Bengtsson, a cognitive neuroscientist, wanted to see if she could influence performance on a cognitive task by priming college students with 691
words such as smart, intelligent, and clever, or with words such as dumb, stupid, and daft. After presenting the participants with a word such as clever or a word such as stupid, she asked them to complete a variety of cognitive tests. She found that students performed better after being primed with the word clever than when given the word stupid. (Sharot 2011:39-40). Will Francis I over time prove be be a thaumaturge, and a saintly healer with a therapeutic stare just as Saint John Paul II? Is Pope Francis I not playing along with fads of medieval vintage about an apocalyptic “angelic Pope” who should steer the world towards the end of days?
A long time acquaintance of the XIV Dalai Lama, Perennial Philosophy luminary Huston Smith relates how popular the Tibetan high lama was because “he was goofy”, “childishly playful”986. Another perennial philosophy votary, Mark Matousek987, extends this description to another giggling Tibetan high scholarly lama, Sogyal Rinpoche. No mention is made of several scandals -which possibly included out-of-court settlements- that alleged Sogyal Rinpoche might have acted as a sexual predator against young and attractive women he selected for his “inner circle”.
Noted contemplative psychotherapist Miles Neale describes the XIV Dalai Lama in terms that readers saw in this writing as used to describe Bill Clinton (Mandela, Berlusconi...):
It's unanimously described when -...- [someone] gets the one 986 987
2004. There is little doubt the XIV Dalai Lama was playing that part decades before Bergoglio became Pope. 2008.
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second of their lifetime with him that he is enormously present with them -...- but actually sees them as a brother or a sister, and that's an incredible thing -...- it is the product of a training regimen, that's what we are doing here. (2017b:lecture 3). In October 2015, Italian newspapers and Vatican sources squabble 988 over whether Pope Francis I may (or may not) suffer from a brain tumor: quite an explanation for “the Bergoglio effect”.
Even neo-elected Italian Head of State Mattarella poses as personable savior-hero: he wants to appear austere as he shuns State pomp and apparatus:”false modesty might conceal exalted visions of grandeur”. He also delights to rub elbows with the have-nots by boarding ordinary transportation means such as trains and airplanes destined to the general public, or so the story goes.
Hamilton989 relates how “conspicuous consumption” that advertises status may take the garb of “virtuous choices”: acclaimed celebrities attend galas aboard a modest hybrid car to advertise (once again to the public) their ecological concerns. Is the 'great man' feeling it, or are people watching another lavishly produced scene from the ongoing narcissistic rehearsal?
When the men came to Him, they said, "John the Baptist has sent us to You, to ask, 'Are You the Expected One, or do we look for someone else?'" -...-And He answered and said to them, "Go and report to John what you have seen and heard: the BLIND RECEIVE SIGHT, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the POOR HAVE THE GOSPEL PREACHED TO THEM (Luke 7:20-22). 988 989
Reuters, October 21, 2015. 2016:An Evolutionary View Of Decision Making.
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[a psychopath said:]You see, I figured out pretty early on that, actually, the reason why people don’t get their own way is because they often don’t know themselves where that way leads. They get too caught up in the heat of the moment and temporarily go off track. At that point, the dynamic changes. That’s when things become not just about getting what you want. But about being seen to get what you want. About winning. (Dutton 2012:111). How could [ lottery scam con-man] Foley do this to his elderly victims? "There is a perverse thrill to being able to do that to somebody. To be able to take somebody's hard-earned money," says Foley. "How does an athlete feel when they win a big event? How does a lawyer feel when they win a case in court? It was the same for us. When that check was sent and we received it, we won." (Leung 2004:no page). [Augustus] takes pains to remind posterity of powers and titles he never took -...-. He is elusive on the subject of what he accepted. -...- What makes the refusal ritual more striking is that it had not been previously thought of, let alone practised. -...- Equally important, there is nothing republican about the practice of refusal. Honours were fought for tooth and nail and did not fall into the laps of the unwilling. -...- Refusal is not republican: it is a gesture designed to substantiate an elaborate pretence that things are not as they seem. (Wallace-Hadrill 1982:37). Men of destiny may not heal the blind, but they (on paper) pledge to deliver drastic tax cuts along with massive subsidies, public works, foreign policy accomplishments or adventurism etc: the hero of mythology bestows boons.
Let's take Prince Harry, for example. The British aristocrat has often been caught in compromising situations involving the disgraceful (ab)use of drugs, alcohol, sex and what not. An easy way out of embarrassment was to restyle the mundane bohemian, and his bawdy exploits that delight tabloids, into another orderly marionette of the stylized patriotic imagery.
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The valiant prince is thus busy routinely saving lives, and “servicing� (the accredited euphemism for killing) Taliban rogues in Afghanistan: isn't this sufficient cause to let bygones be bygones? A more family-oriented version might help, perhaps, as the bohemian aristocrat champions charities. What is the typical reaction going to be in a casual reader? Woody Woodpecker's outburst of laughter, a standing ovation, or Luke Skywalker's tortured realization?
Putin was a martial arts champion, and saved a TV crew from an Amur tiger:
Some of Putin's adventures have purported scientific connections, such as putting a tracking collar on a polar bear tranquilized in the wild and shooting a crossbow from a boat to get a tissue sample from a whale. Last year, Putin was caught short when one of his scientific events was revealed to be a set-up. He was shown scuba diving and bringing up fragments of ancient Greek amphorae, but his spokesman Dmitry Peskov later admitted the artifacts had been planted on the sea floor for Putin to grab. The stunts irritate Putin's opponents, who regard them not as benign political entertainment but as part of an establishment of a cult of personality lionizing an authoritarian leader. (Putin Leads... 2012:no page.). the Prince [=Siddhartha Gautama] extended one foot to the ground, and with his big toe he took hold of the elephant and hurled it a mile outside the city, over seven walls and seven moats. A deep pit formed where the elephant landed. Today this is aptly called Elephant Gorge. (Mahayana Buddhist Lalitavistara Sutra990). The A-Team members or MacGyver (1985-92) manufacture(d) instant solutions to tricky situations (=an ersatz of training montages in other action movies), etc. The archetypal trickster and/or magician is back in his capacity as
990
Dharmachakra Committee trans.
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quintessential bricoleur: Lancelot or Achilles couldn't have done any better.
In fact, modernist fables circulated narrating Mussolini's (Hitler's, Mao's...) exploits.
Short clips of magisterial feats anticipated the entrance of
wrestler Curt Hennig: the 'Mister Perfect' gimmick. 'Great men' prompt narcissism; narcissism triggers false biographies: the ongoing production of a kolossal Hollywood movie.
This does not constitute light-hearted, escapist campfire fare only. The routine economic collapses -none could foresee, of course-, and the occasional bankster who plea-bargains as child molestation made him unfit to stand trial, are occasions for the potential lay off candidate to be a trickster-bricoleur just like MacGyver on TV:
This short theoretical paper elucidates a plausible theory about the Global Financial Crisis and the role of senior financial corporate directors in that crisis. The paper presents a theory of the Global Financial Crisis which argues that psychopaths working in corporations and in financial corporations, in particular, have had a major part in causing the crisis. (Boddy 2011:255). the evidence shows clearly that while inebriation makes it easier for people to reveal their prejudices, it doesn't put those attitudes in their minds in the first place. Therefore, when people apologize by saying. "I don't really believe what I said; I was tired/worried/angry/drunk"-...-we can be pretty sure they really do believe it. (Tavris&Aronson 2007:63). Virtually no economists saw the financial crisis of 2007–08 coming, and worse, many thought that both the crash and its aftermath were things that simply could not happen.(Thaler 2015:12).
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Construction workers shall retrain as hospitality workers; engineers as plumbers; plumbers as bakers while keeping a positive attitude that shall 'make things happen':
As anthropologist Charles N. Darrah put it, the white-collar worker had become a “bundle of skills . . . who can move freely between [workplace] settings, carrying his or her skills like so much luggage.� (Ehrenreich 2009:313). North Korean Communist leader Kim Jong-Il apparently overshadowed all savior-heroes one might think of:
Even before his birth, the future leader of North Korea was triggering miracles. Official biographers say his birth in a cabin on the slopes of Baekdu Mountain in February 1942 was foretold by a swallow and heralded by a double rainbow. When he was born, a new star appeared in the night sky. * The first time he picked up a golf club, in 1994, Kim reportedly shot a 38-under par round on North Korea's only golf course, including 11 holes-in-one. He then decided to retire from the sport for ever. * Kim has the ability to alter the weather simply through the power of thought. * The fledgling leader was a genius as an infant, with official North Korean biographies stating that he had learned to walk at just 3 weeks and was talking at 8 weeks. * As a junior high school pupil in Pyongyang, he corrected and chastised his teachers for their incorrect interpretations of history. * Kim wrote six full operas in two years, "all of which are better than any in the history of music," according to his official biography. * He designed the Tower of the Juche Idea, a 170-metre tower in the east bank of the River Taedong in central Pyongyang that is topped by a glowing red flame. * Kim's official biography also claims that he wrote 1,500 books during his time at Kim Sung Il University, from where he graduated in 1964. * According to the Korea Central News Agency, Kim is an expert on all aspects of the film industry and "improved the scripts and guided the production" of the movie "Diary of a Girl Student." His favourite movies are reportedly "Friday the 13th," "Rambo" and anything starring Elizabeth Taylor. * Kim reportedly employs a servant to inspect every grain of rice that is served to him. Any with the most minor of flaws is discarded. (Ryall 2011: no page).
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It won't escape readers how this kind of aggrandizing treatment of whomever chances to be at the top at any given moment is part of the 'child prodigy' motif that was put to use to cook self-important biographies of an endless stream of both historical and pseudo-historical leaders: from Jesus to Castro; from Buddha to Kim Jong-Il; from Apollonius to Hitler...
Opinion leaders have dubbed Obama as “the Platonic philosopher king we’ve been looking for the past 2,400 years ”, “Black Jesus”, “The One”991. R.L. Moore explicitly links idealizing projections with “acting out” on the recipient's part, for example pedophile Catholic priests 992:”we are condemned unconsciously to act out archetypal configurations that we do not consciously ritualize” 993. Moore994 also casts prayer as an antidote against “acting out”: it reminds one that one is not “god” or “the one”, which may pave the way to psychosis. Readers may consider the occurrence of Obama, Trump, Berlusconi, Chavez etc being hailed as “the one” on tape or in print.
Studies conclude how
Zondag concluded that 90% of Dutch pastors ranked high in narcissistic characteristics -...-. Within the clergy of the PCC [Presbyterian Church Of Canada], there appears to be much higher levels of the most destructive expressions of narcissism than in the general population-...-. Pastors with Narcissistic Personality 991
992 993 994
Fox News, May 21, 2012. Readers may notice here that bhakti, religious fervor and devotion, under-girds politics. In the delusional world of romantic relationships -Perel suggests (2017:part 8)- one lover knows s-he “not the only” lover of that particular person, but that one hopes to be “the one”. 2003:part 3. Moore 1989b:part 1. 1989b:part 5.
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Disorder are to be found in all areas of the country at rates 400%– 500% higher than are found in the general population (1%-6%). Narcissists can be found in every age and experience range, and in both sexes. (Ball&Puls 2015:1-5). Many rulers were rumored to actually never sleep.
According to
Procopius, Byzantine Emperor Justinian I (482-565 CE) was “the emperor who never sleeps”. Hitler used to stay up most of the night, due to bizarre habits and sleep disturbances. Once Mussolini overheard how popular that had become, he ordered to keep his office's light always on to play along with the psyche's obsession with heavenly, (semi)omnipotent father-figures relentlessly at work shepherding -and thus monitoring- the brutish, unaccountable flock.
Italian Prime Minister Renzi seems to have learnt the lesson: he (or his associates under his name) posts tweets online at 6h43 (27 February 2014) to announce he's already tackling urgent matters 995. In history, 'great men'996 sleep very little:
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Leonardo (1,5-2h);
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N. Tesla (2-3h);
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T. Jefferson (2h);
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T. Edison (5h);
ADNKRONOS, February 28, 2014. Great People...2015:no page.
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I. Newton (3-4h);
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Napoleon (4h);
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B. Franklin (2-4h);
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W. Churchill (5h).
Pope Francis I goes even further as he announces that some churches in Rome shall stay open until late night (28 March 2014) to celebrate Lent under the sign of the sacrament of reconciliation. Berlusconi 997 also declares he is in the lifelong habit of working until 2h30 AM. Likewise, Pope Francis I allegedly wakes up every day at 4h45AM in order to pray. The Pope has been relentlessly at work since his election: insiders -just like in Renzi's case- think he's putting his health in jeopardy998.
The legitimate pre-war French Parliament voted father-figure Marshal Petain in full power to 'save' France from the defeat suffered at the hand of Germany. Father-figure Jack Tunney (figurehead president of wrestling promotion WWF) stepped in as soon as Hulk Hogan lost the belt to The Undertaker in dubious circumstances, ordered a rematch, and assured he'd be at ringside to insure a fair match.
Petain wanted to run the Fascist Vichy government in an authoritarian 997 998
ANSA, April 27, 2014. OnlineNews, June 9, 2014.
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way that contradicted the backstage deals (“bourgeois d'affaires aveuglés par leur égoïsme trusts avides de retrouver leur hégémonie -...-Je n'admets ni le doute, ni les surenchères, ni les murmures d'où qu'ils viennent.”, August 30, 1942), careerism ( “professionnels de l'éléction” as Petain termed it August 30, 1942), ineptitude (“administrations souvent passives, sinon hostiles ”, ibid.) and confusion the common man associated with the defeated Republican regime.
Imposing father figures are often summoned to save the day in fiction: the Emperor in Dune (1984); the deputy mayor in Ip Man 3 (2010); military men in
Rambo (1982) and the rip-off Indio (1989).
All are grown-up versions of infantile fantasies/fears pivoting around the threat directed to disobedient children of “wait until your father [or any other comparable authority figure] gets home, then you'll see”. An inverted form of such shtick comes together in narratives that have frail little creatures being frightened with oblique threats of impending harm (the Russian roulette situation: “maybe tomorrow you'll be executed”):
Projection is used when repression fails. It is a major source of conflict and hostility in human relationships. Projection is the basis for children considering their parents omnipotent. Children are one with the world. -...-This animism and omnipotence are parts of the child's egocentricity. They easily project this onto their parents. Parents are Gods — they are omnipotent. -...-Such projected omnipotence is another way to understand the potential for shame in the parent/child mutual bond. Gods are perfect. If an abusing transaction takes place in the parental relationship, it can't be the parents problem (God is perfect), it must be the child's. (Bradshaw 1988:79). 701
Late XVIII and early XIX century constitutions, notably the Brazilian (1824) and Portuguese (1826) Constitutions created a poder moderador (moderating power, the Emperor of Brazil/King of Portugal) as fourth power (in addition to the legislative, executive, judiciary branches) to defuse and rectify possible conflicts within the State apparatus: a father-figure as bulwark against anarchy and demagogy.
France's first revolutionary monarchical Constitution also turned the Crown into a sort of poder moderador. The Brazilian Emperor could appoint -and dismiss- officials in the executive and judiciary branches in his capacity of “defensor perpétuo desse Imperio” (unrelenting defender of this Empire).
Although the role is in no way present in the Italian Constitution, Heads of State Scalfaro and Napolitano did play poder moderador, a role also associated in different ways with the actual Thai and Cambodian monarchies. Depending on who's telling the story, the Nepali and Bhutanese monarchies overstepped a few boundaries, which led to regime overthrow (Nepal), and abdication (Bhutan): the rose of moderação is not without thorns.
The same fascination with constitutional patriarchal figures is also present in the current U.S and French Constitutions. Furthermore, Sun Yat Sen (1866-1925) -the Chinese revolutionary and statesman- as well added not one, but two extra branches (examination in charge of recruiting civil servants in the tradition of Imperial China; an overseeing body with the ability to censor 702
corruption and disorder) to the customary three: the same ideas were very popular cross-culturally.
In ancient (and contemporary) China, Zapotec milieus; Greece, Hebrew kingdoms, Rome, Mesopotamia, India etc, the figure of the patriarch was key. At several points in time law codes indexed offenses towards patriarchal authority (=the embodiment of values the horde in fusion worships) under sharp penalties such as death (for example China at some point). In English common law until 1828 “petty treason� identified wives killing their husbands, or slaves killing their masters: an affront to societal hierarchies.
While the role of (semi)omnipotent patriarchal figures is important, there is no need to get enthralled, for this imagery is just another form of hierarchy (=order of holy beings) with a particular form of hierophant; in today's terms it means those who control the conversation, masters of acceptable discourse, interpretive communities- that represents the value(s) the hierarchy embodies, subject to change.
Authoritative patriarchs are not the only recurring hot commodity. The 'crucified' hero-savior was such a hot commodity that resurfaced as one of the most famous wartime propaganda hoaxes of World-War-I:
Like so many other stories, this one underwent considerable changes and variations. The crucified person was at one time a girl, at another an American, but most often a Canadian. "Last week a large number of Canadian soldiers, wounded in the fighting round Ypres, arrived at 703
the base hospital at Versculles. They all told a story of how one of their officers had been crucified by the Germans. He had been pinned to a wall by bayonets thrust through his hands and feet, another bayonet had then been driven through his throat, and, finally, he was riddled with bullets. The wounded Canadians said that the Dublin Fusiliers had seen this done with their own eyes, and they had heard the Officers of the Dublin Fusiliers talking about it." ("The Times," May 10, 1915. Paris Correspondent.) -...-. The story went the round of the Press here and in Canada, and was used by Members of Parliament on the platform. Its authenticity, however, was eventually denied by General March at Washington. It cropped up again in 1919, when a letter was published by the Nation (April 12th) from Private E. Loader, 2nd Royal West Kent Regiment, who declared he had seen the crucified Canadian. The 'Nation' was informed in a subsequent letter from Captain E. N. Bennett that there was no such private on the rolls of the Royal West Kents, and that the 2nd Battalion was in India during the whole war. (Ponsonby 1928:chapter XIII, emphasis added.). The Path Of Orphism. What we encompass in this term is a most amazing evolutionary sequence of cognitive maps, myths, rituals, and paradigms. This path spans, in one continuous sweep, the late paleolithic to the present. In spite of being the subject of an enormous scholarly literature spanning two thousand years, it is little known today. (Abraham 1990:39). At any rate, people hostile to his teachings crucified Orpheus (Orpheos
Bakkikos), as set forth in iconography and art:”The cross is a basic symbol for the world and the center. The four points of the compass, and the fifth point in the middle, which is the transcendent point” 999. Orpheos Bakkikos stands crucified under the renewal symbol of the Moon's lower quarter (=”wet moon”).
The Chakana (Inca squared cross) symbolizes the Southern Cross, and is associated with mother goddesses Saramama (mother Corn) and Kukamama (mother Coca). Aztec goddess Chalchihuitlicue (associated with waters and baptism) is often 999
Campbell&Toms 1988: vol. 2.
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portrayed carrying a cross, a symbol of fertility. Egyptian hieroglyph ankh (crux
ansata) is a cross that also symbolizes (eternal) life.
The present writer wishes to liken certain images/situations -no matter whether one may read about in a book, press article or 'watch about it' in a movie etc- to 'neuralgic points' of the human psyche; if pressure is applied in a certain way to certain spots of the human body (the Hindu marma1000 principle), a spontaneous reaction -inherent to the very nature and structure of the human body- ensues, whether or not the subject consciously or otherwise wills it.
Orpheus was often depicted as 'the fisherman'1001 or 'the good shepherd '1002: a “lord of the beasts”1003 like Christian St. Francis, Gautama Buddha or Pythagoras. Octavian Augustus as well was a 'lord of the beasts'. As an infant, he ordered frogs at his grandfather's country house to be quiet: they obeyed him, according to Suetonius. Disgraced boxing legend Mike Tyson had in his heydays been portrayed in his underwear while he interacted with his tiger as a new Hercules: virility and mastery over beasts.
John the Apostle (Acts Of John, a non-canonical text possibly from the II 1000
Traditional healing technique antecedent of acupuncture. It consists in the pressure the therapist applies to specific points of the human body to relieve specific ailments. 1001 Eisler 1921. The 'fish' metaphor is present in ancient mystery religions as meaning one's quest to overcome ignorance: the fish finally gets out of the water of ignorance. 1002 “We may well believe that the mere human spell of a living and sinless personality would go far to keep the Saviour from danger. In the catacombs and on other ancient monuments of early Christians, He [Jesus] is sometimes represented as Orpheus charming the animals with his song. All that was true and beautiful in the old legends found its fulfilment in Him, and was but a symbol of His life and work. ” The Temptation, n.d. 1003 Many gods -such as Hindu Rudra and Gaulish Cernunnos- were hailed as “lord of the beasts”. Pythagoras was a lord of the beasts as well. Under Roman prosecutions, Christians were fed to wild beasts to amuse the public, thus being the lord of the beasts' inverted representations.
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century) is another master of the beasts:
Now on the first day we arrived at a deserted inn, and when we were at a loss for a bed for John, we saw a droll matter. There was one bedstead lying somewhere there without coverings, whereon we spread the cloaks which we were wearing, and we prayed him to lie down upon it and rest, while the rest of us all slept upon the floor. But he when he lay down was troubled by the bugs, and as they continued to become yet more troublesome to him, when it was now about the middle of the night, in the hearing of us all he said to them: I say unto you, O bugs, behave yourselves, one and all, and leave your abode for this night and remain quiet in one place, and keep your distance from the servants of God. And as we laughed, and went on talking for some time, John addressed himself to sleep; and we, talking low, gave him no disturbance (or, thanks to him we were not disturbed). But when the day was now dawning I arose first, and with me Verus and Andronicus, and we saw at the door of the house which we had taken a great number of bugs standing, and while we wondered at the great sight of them, and all the brethren were roused up because of them, John continued sleeping. And when he was awaked we declared to him what we had seen. And he sat up on the bed and looked at them and said: Since ye have well behaved yourselves in hearkening to my rebuke, come unto your place. And when he had said this, and risen from the bed, the bugs running from the door hasted to the bed and climbed up by the legs thereof and disappeared into the joints. And John said again: This creature hearkened unto the voice of a man, and abode by itself and was quiet and trespassed not; but we which hear the voice and commandments of God disobey and are light-minded: and for how long? (no page). During his training, a modern shaman sometimes lives with animals in the wild. He is supposed to meet an animal, who will instruct him in the secrets of ecstasy, teach him animal language, and become his constant companion. This is not regarded as a regression. In hunting societies, animals are not seen as inferior beings, but have superior wisdom.(Armstrong 2005:14). (And Satyrus says that this man himself [Gorgias of Leontini] was present when Empedocles [V century BCE] performed his miraculous deeds.) And he says that Empedocles claimed this and more in his poems, in which he says [that you disciples] You will 706
learn medicines of all kinds and against old age -...-You will stop the force of the tireless winds, as they sweep across the earth -...-You will bring back from Hades the strength of a man who has perished. (fr. III) (Chitwood 2004:41-42). At daybreak all got up, and [Empedocles] was the only one missing. -...-But later he bade them take no further trouble, for things beyond expectation had happened to [the philosopher Empedocles], and it was their duty to sacrifice to him [=Empedocles] since he was now a god. (Diogenes Laertius, Lives Of Eminent Philosophers). The Honey-offering Festival is a Buddhist religious ceremony that commemorates the service and sustenance provided by animals to the Buddha during his 10th rains retreat at Parileyya Forest. According to legend, during his retreat a monkey brought a honeycomb for the Buddha to eat, while an elephant brought fruit and protected the Buddha from fierce animals. -...-The festival is observed on the full moon of the 10th lunar month, mostly by Theravada Buddhists in South and Southeast Asia. (The Honey-offering Festival 2015: no page). Birds are said to have rested undisturbed on the head of both Kodo Sawaki (Japanese Soto Zen Buddhist master) and Karl Jung (Swiss psychoanalyst): lords of the beasts.
Orpheus shares many visual, devotional and philosophical attributes with Jesus. Not least a “solar connection� is present. Max Mueller identifies Orpheus with the Sanskrit Arbhu, the Sun (also a title of Indra):
Christianity shares many characteristics with other mystery religions of antiquity, which are called mystery religions because of their concern with the fundamental mysteries of human existence: life and death, questions about god, the soul, and the afterlife. Also, these mysteries involved secrets revealed only to members of the religious group, the initiates. (The Story of Orpheus and Eurydice, n.d).
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Various texts show how the Church, in its attempt to overpower Orphism, tried to merge Orpheus with Jesus and to turn them into one being. This is further reinforced in De Laudibus Constantini by Eusebius, who compares the ‘Logos’ which tames mankind, with Orpheus who tames wild animals (Ovadiah 1991:477). Christ Jesus is also represented in early art as the “ Good Shepherd,” that is, as a young man with a lamb on his shoulders. This is just the manner in which the Pagan Apollo, Mercury and others were represented centuries before (Doane 1882:202-3). The 'good shepherd' allegory goes way back to ancient Egypt (as early as the 11-12th dynasties, 2050-1080 BCE), whereby several gods -such as Ammon; the Sun goddess, and by extension the Pharaoh 1004- were hailed as “shepherd of humanity”. In Zoroastrianism, Zoroaster is called the shepherd (guardian etc) of oxen; Geshu Urvan is a Zoroastrian angelic being hailed as defender of oxen. Inanna -as Dumuzi's mother and “Lady of Sorrow”- characterizes the shepherd groom of goddess Inanna thus:”now he lies like a young bull felled to the ground”.
Inanna (goddess consort of Dumuzi the mortal) spurred by her brother Utu to marry Dumuzi the shepherd, doubts. She would prefer a farmer to a shepherd:”who will plow my vulva?” she wonders; “I, Dumuzi the King, will plow your vulva” comes the reply.
[Utu, Sun god] then introduces Dumuzi the shepherd as the prospective bridegroom, but Inanna dismisses the thought of marriage to a shepherd (seen by Sumerian society as a seminomadic, uncivilized bumpkin). She demands a farmer as her husband, someone who can fill her storehouses with heaped-up grain. Utu argues that the produce of the shepherd is equally valuable. Dumuzi then speaks, comparing his produce with that of 1004
Wilson specifically examines “The King As The Good Shepherd” (1951:125-154).
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the farmer. If the farmer brings black flour, Dumuzi will bring black wool. If the farmer brings white flour, he will bring white wool. If the farmer brings beer, he will bring sweet milk. If the farmer brings bread, he will bring honey cheese. (Ruether 2005:5051). Vernant confirms that agricultural metaphors ruled the traditional family of ancient Greece:”puisque quand on marie sa fille, on dit: je te donne cette fille pour que tu fasses avec elle un labourage en vue d’enfants légitimes.”1005.
If early Christians hid –in order to avoid prosecution- behind the symbol of the fish, which in Greek supplies the letters for the slogan Jesus Christ Son Of
God [and] Savior, contemporary right-wing hobos hide behind the code-word 88, which covertly alludes to the letter H (as in Heil Hitler); the masses melt in sorrow ruminating about the former, and shake fists at the latter.
Human beings have an irresistible drive to look for psychological states everywhere. Common humanity fellows may be angry, hurting, tense, happy or distraught, but so can animals, commonly reputed inanimate objects such as trees, chairs or houses, or the weather be. Virginie ( Paul Et Virginie, 1788) realizes she's falling in love with Paul she grew up with when she contemplates how entangled the branches of two trees have become, which Paul and herself planted as children.
People are on the lookout for faces everywhere:
By adulthood, people have an "extraordinary ability to recognize a 1005
When a daughter gets married, it is said: I give you this girl so that you may engage in plowing in order to produce legitimate children.
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face as that of a human being. They can accurately recognize objects as faces even in poorly focused photographs, in badly degraded computer images, and in rudimentary schematized drawings."However, since we also see faces in mountains, clouds, and automobiles, the ability to see faces in degraded or rudimentary images is not just a sensitivity to actual faces. Rather, it is a predisposition to see faces whether they are there or not. Our models of faces—whether acquired or innate—are powerful for good reason: "no other object in the visual world is quite so important to us." Consequently, face and other human schemata emerge early. Throughout life, they cause us to find human features everywhere we look. -...-Although the pathetic fallacy has been in critical disfavor since the midnineteenth century, some scholars call it "almost unavoidable." Indeed, Frye says all of literature is an attempt to find a human face in nature and that civilization itself is the "process of making a total human form out of nature. -...-The admitted inability of religious writers, despite their apparent desire, to extricate religion from anthropomorphism suggests there is nothing much to extricate. -...-That religion cannot be extricated from anthropomorphism suggests that anthropomorphism is more even than its matrix. Rather, religion looks like anthropomorphism,part and parcel.(Guthrie 1993:105,124,179, 185 emphasis added). They said to Him, "Tell us who You are so that we may believe in You."[Jesus] said to them, "You read the face of the sky and of the earth, but you have not recognized the one who is before you, and you do not know how to read this moment." ( Gospel Of Thomas no date no page n.91). When observing faces, the system Yarbus devised to track the saccades showed how the eye looked mainly at the eyes and mouth, and then moved on to scan the outline of the head. His findings showed that people look intently at facial expressions, searching for emotional markers, and when they survey an entire scene they will always alight on a human figure even when the surrounding environment dwarfs it. If one looks at a good image of the Pronomos vase, it is the faces of the performers and their masks that draw the eye, especially those of the principal actors. The eyes and mouths of those masks are particularly noticeable, and the gaze direction of the eyes of both masks and performers seems more apparent from a distance that when looking close up. (Meineck no date-2:5). Patterns don’t have to be in time. When we look at a mesa on Mars and see a face, that’s because our brains are interpreting the collection of cliffs and plateaus as a face-like pattern. We’re particularly good at 710
seeing faces in almost anything. (Huettel 2014: Randomness And Patterns). Jane Goodall described a very interesting episode which struck me, and I bring it forward as a little suggestion. She was seated on a hill slope, observing through glasses a number of her chimpanzee friends over on the opposite slope of the valley. There were half a dozen males, and females of about the same number, and a few of the little ones. It was pouring rain, and suddenly there was a prodigious thunderclap and the males went bananas. They started charging displays one after another. When I heard that I recalled that the philosopher Giambattista Vico (1668-1744) had suggested that the first notion of the godhead arose out of experiencing the voice of the thunder. (Campbell 1989:In The Beginning). Faces are so key to our survival, in fact, that we’re born to be fascinated by them. -...-Fantz’s findings startled the developmental community, proving that a fascination with faces is more “nature” than “nurture.” (Hogshead 2010:35). Faces can of course be happy, angry, sad and so forth. Newberg 1006 mentions the above and explains brain scans of people involved in conversational prayer with god show activity pattern associated with everyday conversation with people: an anthropomorphic god exists within our reach.
It is not by chance how billions of people endorse religions that are either primarily animistic, or feature important animistic components: everything got a soul, or Ruskin's pathetic fallacy (emotional tags ascribed to inanimate objects in a merely figurative way= anthropomorphic metaphor):
A comprehensive and currently popular theory of the evolution of the capacity for religious experience as an epiphenomenon is based on the idea that religious experiences and perceptions are the result of selection for “agency detectors” in nervous systems of our ancestors 1006
2012:How The Brain Changes God.
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(agents are entities that have intentions). In the context of evolutionary adaptation, agents include potential mates and partners, but also potential predators and enemies. Being able to identify agents and infer their intentions therefore has extraordinarily important fitness implications.-...- Investigations into the cognitive dimensions of agency detection have indicated that humans (and possibly many other animals) have an innate hyperactive agency detector. This detector is essentially an evolved psychological mechanism that exists in the mind (that is, it is wired into the nervous system) in such a way as to facilitate the detection of intentional agents in our surroundings, and to infer their intentions as accurately as possible. Our innate hyperactive agency detectors are “tuned” in such a way as to generate almost no false negatives—selection would have eliminated individuals that could not detect agency in potentially fatal encounters. This means that those same detectors are prone to generating false positives: actions and entities that do not have intentions or plans, but appear to us to do so. -...- One side effect of the operation of such detectors is the tendency to see “faces” (especially threatening ones) in natural objects, such as clouds, rocks, and foliage.(MacNeill 2011:54-5). In short, animism and anthropomorphism stem from the principle, "better safe than sorry." -...- "Anthropomorphism" also is used in two ways. In theology, it means attributing human characteristics to God or gods. More inclusively, it means attributing human characteristics to nonhuman phenomena. In my terms, it is the class of apparent instances of humanity that have proved illusory. Just as animism is universal in perception generally, so anthropomorphism is universal in human perception. -...- Instead, anthropomorphism stems principally, as does animism, from Pascal's strategy: faced by uncertainty, we bet on the most significant possibility. If we are mistaken, we lose little, while if we are right, we gain much.(Guthrie 1993:5-6). The main soundtrack hit linked to 1976 Italian blockbusting TV drama
Sandokan recurs amply to the pathetic fallacy: blood flow and wind storms; the sunshine and physical strength; the daylight cycle and the renewing of strength. Miguel Bosé in 1982 (Bravo Muchachos) follows in the footsteps glorifying an entire generation as collective culture hero: fate as wind; the strength of a generation
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portrayed as a tide and a volcano; a generation birthed from hell pictured as a sharp winter1007:
People who study poetry have been aware of personifying since forever. It is an art and the images are personified. In this way you can enter into a conversation with the feeling as separate from yourself. You can negotiate with the feeling and work with it. -...Personification creates space around the emotion. Persona/ personify, it is a double-edged sword in terms of engaging with affect. (Archetypal Psychology Lecture 2007: no page). Isn't one of mythology's great lessons to refrain from rash acts, judgments etc lest one repents later? Should one not cast the first stone because s-he very well is as potentially tainted as those s-he denounces? Doesn't this square with both popular wisdom (beware of what you wish for, lest you may get it), and posh science (quantum entanglement, synchronicity etc) that seem to establish an eerie link between psychical states and external events outside of causal chains? Isn't the evil eye traditional cultures warn against the world over a proof that mental or psychical states do have effects? Professor of psychology and spirituality R.L. Moore rescues Jungian synchronicity as a disguised form of Christian divine providence 1008.
Isn't this -in turn- the hazy and undifferentiated (enmeshment) universe of the newborn, who struggles with parting his own body from the surrounding world -including the mother-? Does the infant not superpose his emotional states with an animistic world at large? She cries because she's hungry, which brings about feeding, or he cries because his diaper is soiled, yet he's left alone unattended for a 1007 1008
BosĂŠ originally dedicated the song to people born like him in 1956, famous for a sharp winter. No date: audio 2.
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long time, or all conflicting situations one might conjure up.
Isn't the infant's animistic vision -in turn- the drive behind the pathetic fallacy that haunts litterateurs since time immemorial (I am happy=the world is happy, too; I am upset/frustrated/angry... and so is the world...)? In her capacity as couple therapist, Kingma1009 talks about “sympathetic phenomena”. A man is getting separated: he thinks he hears heartbreak songs everywhere; another person is getting divorced: she realizes plenty of divorcees surround her.
Scholars find anthropomorphism—though most call it personification or the pathetic fallacy—throughout literature. Morton Bloomfield, for example, says personification, giving "general characteristics of an individual human being [to an] inanimate notion or object," has "universal power and long-lived popularity," and in the "whole range of Western literature from Homer down to today [is] one of the most popular of all literary modes." (Guthrie 1993:123). It is opportune here to pause over what French theorist Lacan terms the triad of the real, the imaginary and the symbolic 1010. Once again, Lacan proposes here his Freudian variation upon another tripartite (=the “laws of three” in Olrik's 1009 1010
2000: audio 02. Zizek explains:”This simple, although unexpected, thesis encapsulates the way Lacan reads Freud. Freud uses three distinct terms for the agency that propels the subject to act ethically: he speaks of ideal ego ( Idealich), ego-ideal (Ich-Ideal) and superego (Ueberich). He tends to identify these three terms: he often uses the expression Ichideal oder Idealich (Ego-Ideal or ideal ego), and the title of the chapter III of his booklet The Ego and the Id) is "Ego and Superego (Ego-Ideal)". Lacan introduces a precise distinction between these three terms: the "ideal ego" stands for the idealized self-image of the subject (the way I would like to be, I would like others to see me); the Ego-Ideal is the agency whose gaze I try to impress with my ego image, the big Other who watches over me and propels me to give my best, the ideal I try to follow and actualize; and the superego is this same agency in its revengeful, sadistic, punishing, aspect. The underlying structuring principle of these three terms is clearly Lacan's triad Imaginary-Symbolic-Real: ideal ego is imaginary, what Lacan calls the "small other," the idealized double-image of my ego; Ego-Ideal is symbolic, the point of my symbolic identification, the point in the big Other from which I observe (and judge) myself; superego is real, the cruel and insatiable agency which bombards me with impossible demands and which mocks my failed attempts to meet them, the agency in the eyes of which I am all the more guilty, the more I try to suppress my "sinful" strivings and meet its demands. The old cynical Stalinist motto about the accused at the show trials who professed their innocence ("the more they are innocent, the more they deserve to be shot") is superego at its purest. ” (no date: no page).
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epic laws) division.
Mahayana Buddhism developed the idea of the three ages of Buddhism (mappo in Japanese) which -like all the declining series of ages in various culturesoutlined a period of “right doctrine”, followed by an age of “semblance of doctrine”, and lastly the present age of decline of Buddhist doctrine.
Comte (1798-1857) presented the “law of the three stages”. Comte suggested mankind moves through three stages: the theological stage -in turn divided
in
fetishism,
polytheism,
monotheism-;
the
metaphysical
stage
(=impersonal, abstract explanations); the positive stage (scientific reasoning and experimental approach).
Aurobindo, too, offered a version of man's development in four stages (infra-rational, rational, subjective and spiritual). Japanese Buddhist Nichiren Soka
Gakkai founders Makiguchi and Toda declared:”The goal of human life is happiness, the ideal state for each individual. Between unhappiness and the ideal state of happiness there are many stages.”1011. Joseph Campbell in 1983 declared also how:” bringing these studies together with a new organizing insight that suddenly came to me from classifying the material in terms of stages of culture - I mean, really basic large stages - is exciting. ”.
The present writer suggests the real is the province of cultures of little
1011
In ME6223 no date CRJ-5:65.
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intellectual sophistication living more or less in the 'here and now'; the imaginary is the
province
of
animism,
totem-building
and
similar
practices
(=superstition=deference towards invisible and often unnamed 'x forces'); the symbolic is the higher province of most complex religions. For example, primitive people finding the water of a well turned red might balk thinking about the elusive influence of mysterious gods or spirits they represented in their totem poles (=imaginary). A symbolic interpretation is to see the fountain turning red as symbol (proxy, ersatz...) of the sacred blood tribesmen shed in the defense of some higher good.
The pathetic fallacy sits on the cusp between the imaginary and symbolic stages:
Anthropomorphism then consists in fantasizing some object, real or not, as an appropriate target on which to vent a feeling. It is a safety valve for excessive emotional pressure. (Guthrie 1993:76). The fixation with blood – and its ersatz, suffering- is pervasive. Even today, Kumaris -the pre-pubescent girls chosen as virgin embodiment of the goddess Durga in Nepal- shall lose their superhuman status in case of blood loss (cuts, menstruation...)1012:
The leaking of bodies through ejaculation, defecation, urination, or bleeding were emphasized actions in Sade’s writings. In three images, and possibly others that are not as legible, Desrais depicts a woman defecating on a plate (fig. 29), and a man bleeding from 1012
Something similar happens to Hindu Balinese priestesses at Ulun Danu: menstruation or loss of virginity triggers the loss of sacerdotal status: the priestess represents the goddess Dewi Danu (water goddess).
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lacerations on his back, while sitting on a toilet as two women insert hot pokers in his ears (fig. 30). Another image shows a man with bruised and bloody buttocks as he ejaculates in a woman’s face (fig. 31). Images of active bodies either through sexual prowess or the release of fluids demonstrated libertine philosophies of embracing the natural, biological body, instead of complying with gender constructions and privatized oppression of natural instincts by the Church (Nacol 2008:22-23). Medical authorities link copious amounts of semen to female satisfaction. In describing the benefits of a potion to increase seminal volume, Caraka [core text for traditional Hindu medicine ayurveda, possibly a few centuries BCE] states that a man who ingests it will fully satisfy a woman with a seminal discharge like that of an elephant (Powers 2009:129). There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses. ( Ezekiel 23:20)1013. Excreting is the curse that threatens madness because it shows man his abject finitude, his physicalness, the likely unreality of his hopes and dreams. (Becker 1973:33). And what, Ananda, is contemplation of foulness? Herein, Ananda, a monk contemplates this body upward from the soles of the feet, downward from the top of the hair, enclosed in skin, as being full of many impurities. In this body there are headhairs, body-hairs, nails, teeth, skin, flesh, sinews, bones, marrow, kidneys, heart, liver, pleura, spleen, lungs, intestines, intestinal tract, stomach, feces, bile, phlegm, pus, blood, sweat, fat, tears, grease, saliva, nasal mucous, synovium (oil lubricating the joints), and urine. Thus he dwells contemplating foulness in this body. This, Ananda, is called contemplation of foulness. (Gautama Buddha in Girimananda Sutta). (Sexual) contact with menstruating women might harm their partners. Much as Kumaris are chosen according to a strict list of requirements, so was the 1013
Ugaritic myths that preceded Judaism explain how “After filling the Tigris and Euphrates with fertilizing waters ejaculated from his penis, Enki puts the rivers under the God Enbilulu, inspector of canals. Enki appoints a fish deity to control the marshes, a sea goddess to control the sea, and a rain god to control the waters of the heavens. The fields and plowing, the tools of house construction, the wildlife of the steppes, the sheepfolds, and the textile industry are likewise put under the control of their respective deities.� (Ruether 2005:46).
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ancient Greek priesthood of arrephoroi (custodians of unnamed things), 21 noble girls aged seven to eleven serving Athena on the Athenian Acropolis, who transited upon reaching puberty to Aphrodite's domain through a rite of passage. In Nigeria, the arugba, the adolescent priestess who plays a central role in the procession to honor the goddess Oshun at Osogbo, shall be a virgin of royal blood also.
At the Jain Indian high place of Shatrunjaya, warnings inform that menstruating women are not permitted to climb even one step on the sacred site: an high sin; in Bali, menstruating women (or people with bleeding wounds) are not supposed to enter temples. Japanese Shinto temples are also off-limits to people deemed “impure” such as those suffering from certain sicknesses and injuries. India's Bishnois consider women impure for five days as they're cycling. Menstruating women may be prevented from approaching the sacred (places, rites, scriptures...), or to carry on specific activities -such as drawing water or cooking food- in many cultures ranging from tribal Nigeria to ancient Hebrews, Greeks and today's Hindus.
Even Christianity in its early age included similar taboos:
The idea of pollution by blood, for example, seems to have been a long time dying, if we judge by some early Penitentials. See the Penitential of Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury, A.D. 668–690 -...-He also requires from women 40 days of purgation after the birth of a child, and enjoins penance of three weeks’ fast on any woman, lay or religious, who enters a church, or communicates during menstruation (McNeill & Gamer). Needless to say, these rules were not adopted as part of the Corpus of Canon Law, and now it is difficult to find instances of ritual uncleanness in Christian practice. Injunctions, which in their origin may have been concerned with removing pollution of blood, are interpreted as carrying only a symbolic 718
spiritual significance. For example, it is usual to reconsecrate a church if blood has been shed in its precincts, but St.Thomas Aquinas explains that ‘bloodshed’ refers to voluntary injury leading to bloodshed, which implies sin, and that it is sin in a holy place which desecrates it, not defilement by bloodshed. (Douglas 1966:61-2). And so does Islam:
In traditional Islam, a menstruating woman was considered vulnerable, weakened, and polluted; therefore she could not pray, fast, or have intercourse. Menstrual blood was najis, polluted, haram, very dirty, as were all blood, excrement and reproductive fluids. Islamic tradition emphasizes that Allah values people who are clean and pure, whereas malevolent jinn, predatory evil spirits, are not repulsed by filth, blood and decay, and may even find it attractive. -...-Running water and a thorough scrub purified a woman at the end of her menstrual cycle or other reproductive blood flow, so she could resume prayer, fasting and intercourse, and dispel malevolent jinn. When she bathed, she also applied henna to her hands, feet and hair. Henna stained her skin and hair dark blood-red, and remained visible for several weeks, showing that she had a purified body, worthy in the eyes of God and her husband, and repellant to malicious jinn. (Cartwright-Jones no date:2-3). Myths tend to coalesce: a menstruant's stare could unleash a flood, wither plants, cause livestock to die and so forth. Menstruation raises the issue of creativity; creativity run amok may produce monsters. The freak, hybrid or monster -following St.Augustine- epitomizes some allegorical or moralizing truth as the Latin root of the word monster (monstrare) documents.
According to Greg Salyer, monsters are “pure culture”, and coalesce out of society's faults (=moral and seismic value) as “culture quakes” take place: Nero, Hitler and Marcos can be fitting examples. Monsters are the Freudian id on a rampage: radical, disturbing otherness. While all contending parties in WWII tried 719
to apply industrial warfare to the annihilation of foes, Hitler alone -as commonly reputed- “went too far”: id going berserk. The U.S army may have dropped an atomic bomb or two; or may have incinerated a few cities full of civilians: 'heroic remedies' to end the war sooner, thus sparing everybody even greater losses.
Women were deemed historically impure to take part in Shinto processions, and in the production of Japanese sake, the national alcoholic beverage, also an offer to the gods of Shinto, and a sacred beverage consumed in Shinto worship. Due to a shortage of manpower at traditional breweries, this taboo is increasingly been overlooked. Women nowadays work to turn fine Japanese rice into sake, and have started joining Shinto processions in recent decades also.
Campbell1014 relates how Ice Age hunters used weapons no woman was allowed to ever get in touch with, lest the thought of a woman might distract the hunter from his task. Women are also not supposed to even approach the shrine of
tio (uncle, chap), or the devil1015 -with a giant, erect phallus- Bolivian miners in the Potosi region worship in order to maintain their safety, and the mine's yield. Studies revealed that both males and females rated a female study participant as “less competent and less likable”, and were willing to sit farther away from her after she dropped a tampon from her purse while searching for lip gloss1016. 1014
1972-1. Mexican miners working in semi-abandoned, high-risk mines honor El Tio (the uncle, chap), or the Christian devil under the guise of a mischievous but handy fellow in a miner's attire they try to appease in order to lessen the tribute of blood and lives that the mine (=earth) exacts from workers. Idols very similar to El Tio, including a passion for tobacco and a giant, erect phallus, are found in the voodoo religion of Benin, such as the deity Malegba. 1016 Solomon et alii 2015:114. 1015
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As with any such case, some may reverse the polarity and cathect menstruation with gnostic, and symbolic, values of redemption, for example among partisans of new age thought, mother goddess fads and 'magical feminism'.
Orphic mysteries represented a province of much earlier (and more extreme) Bacchic/Dionysian1017 mysteries, which included the images of Bacchus as a man with a dark, flowing beard; with the cup of wine as the sacrificial offer of his blood; in communion with his mother Semele (another face of the mother goddess), and the grain -today possibly replaced by the holy host equally made of grain- as Bacchus' mystical sacrificial body1018.
Bacchus [=the Roman name of Dionysus] is at times identified with Zagreus (=”the great hunter”), the son of Zeus and Persephone, whom Titans tore apart1019 as a divine child at Hera's behest (as Diodorus Siculus attests). In some versions, Zagreus was then reborn, optionally as Bacchus (Dionysus Chtonios 1020 [=of the nether world]):
Liber [=Zagreus in the Roman version], son of Jove [ Jupiter, the Roman Zeus] and Proserpine [=Persephone in Roman lore], was 1017
Bacchus is the roman name of the Greek Dionysus. Some mystery religions are believed to contain the ceremony of the presentation (exaltation, etc) of an ear of grain/grain wafer. Even religions far away from ritual cannibalism and ensuing mentalities -such as Buddhism Zen in Japan - conserve vestigial ritual meals during which disciples share food with the spiritual master. At Saidaiji temple in Nara (Japan), a vestigial offering of tea to the Buddha has translated into a mass liturgy. Attendees drink tea sipping in turn from 5kg bowl. Shinto rituals also include vestiges of sacred meals where food offered to the gods is shared among devotees. 1019 As Zagreus changed into a bull, the Titans dismembered and devoured him. Bereaved Zeus incinerated the Titans (seven in number in Orphism) in his fury. From their ashes -which included particles of the divine child Zagreus- Zeus fashioned humankind. 1020 At times equated with Hades. Hades may also be construed as Zagreus' “sire” (=father) (Aeschylus, fragment 124). 1018
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dismembered by the Titans, and Jove gave his heart, torn to bits, to Semele in a drink. When she was made pregnant by this, Juno [= Hera in Roman lore], changing herself to look like Semele’s nurse, Beroe, said to her: “Daughter, ask Jove to come to you as he comes to Juno, so you may know what pleasure it is to sleep with a god.” At her suggestion Semele made this request of Jove, and was smitten by a thunderbolt. He took Liber from her womb, and gave him to Nysus to be cared for. For this reason he is called Dionysus, and also “the one with two mothers.” (Hyginus, Fabulae, 1671021). The IHS monogram associated with Jesus in the Catholic holy host was possibly associated with another former “son of god”, Bacchus 1022. As well, both Christian and Muslim mystics -including Ayatollah Khomeini- hail god as intoxicating liquor. Bacchus was associated with the vine, and so is Jesus:“[Jesus said]"I am the vine; you [=apostles] are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. ( John 15:5)”.
Jews keep the Sabbath by reciting prayers over bread (two loaves of bread with strands possibly recalling the 12 tribes) and wine. The eating of bread and beer was also associated with Osiris' mystical body.
Dionysus (=son of god) represents another divine son of the almighty god (in Latin the root for Jupiter is Iovis as in Hebrew Yahweh) by a mortal woman 1023. In Hindu Shvetahsvatara Upanishad, men are hailed as “sons of the immortal” (amritasya putra). 1021
M. Grant translation. Others disclaim parallels between Jesus and Bacchus, and prefer IHS to stand for IN HOC SIGNO (in this sign), VICTOR ENS (you shall conquer) usually associated with Constantine's victory and conversion to Christianity. Others again take IHS to mean “Jesus savior of mankind” ( Iesus Hominum Salvator). A fringe view also connects IHS with sun worship in the name of Egyptian gods Isis, Horus and Seb. 1023 Fears 2011:Myth And Athenian Drama. Of course, superlative virgins of myth can either be considered mortal, or as the embodiment or incarnation of some quintessential god or higher principle. 1022
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Bacchus was also celebrated during springtime rites: this imagery has probably played a significant role in the shaping of Christianity. In Achilles Tatius (possibly II century CE), Dionysus turns water into wine just as Jesus had professedly done at Cana. Common water with the fragrance of precious wine was a commonplace occurrence in antiquity:
It is accredited by the Mucianus who was three times consul that the water flowing from a spring in the temple of Father Liber [Bacchus] on the island of Andros always has the flavour of wine on January 5th: the day is called God’s Gift Day. (Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 2.106, Rackham trans.). I century CE Jewish “man of truth” Hanina Ben Dosa of Rabbinical literature turns vinegar into oil inside the Sabbath lamp, and produces bread from smoke1024; heavenly voices bless him as he works wonders and controls demons and the elements, just like Jesus.
One of the very earliest human ideas must have been cannibalism. Though it may seem bestial and horrific, it is indeed an idea. First of all, cannibalism is rarely practiced for nourishment. Throughout the world, it has been much more commonly practiced for moral reasons, in order to appropriate the virtues of the people the cannibals ate. Most often, cannibals believe that eating the dead shows them honor, or that by eating the dead, you stand to gain their powers or prowess. We determine that cannibalism is one of man’s original ideas because under the stones of every civilization lie the bones of cannibal feasts. In most societies, cannibalism has been a normal practice at some stage of their past, going as far back as 400,000 years. While cannibalism is rare among other mammals, it is a defining characteristic of humans. (Fernandez-Armesto 2004:8). By the sixteenth century Egyptian mummies, usually in broken pieces 1024
His family is so poor they have nothing to cook for the Sabbath, so Hanina's wife burns things that produce smoke. When a mischievous neighbor visits to catch her red-handed, he finds the oven miraculously full of bread.
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or powder, could be found in the shops of all European apothecaries as a drug for prescriptions. That the embalmed bodies of ancient Egyptians, and even the "mummified" bodies of those more recently dead, became a valued drug was due to a complicated and confusing process of transference and substitution involving originally the use of bituminous products in medicine (Dannenfeldt 1985:163). Medicinal use of the body has, in all likelihood, been practiced since the beginning of time, continuing to this day in many cultures. But it has largely been ignored as cannibalistic in Western medical histories. Especially in its modern forms, medicinal cannibalism has been removed to the technological realm. The difference between a blood transfusion and drinking blood seems on the surface quite dramatic. But in one form or another the practice of utilizing human body parts or fluids for medicinal purposes has persisted. (Himmelman 1997:185). For well over 200 years in early modern Europe, the rich and the poor, the educated and the illiterate all participated in cannibalism on a more or less routine basis. Drugs were made from Egyptian mummies and from the dried bodies of those drowned in North African desert sandstorms. Later in the era the corpses of hanged criminals offered a new and less exotic source of human flesh. Human blood was also swallowed: sometimes fresh and hot, direct from a donor’s body; sometimes dried, powdered, or distilled with alchemical precision. Human fat was one of the most enduring substances of all: it was usually applied externally in the form of ointments or plasters. Certain parts of the bone of the skull were swallowed as powder or in liquid distillations. In London chemists’ shops one could see entire human skulls for sale. Some had a growth of botanical moss, which could be powdered and used to treat nosebleeds and other forms of haemorrhaging. Both skull bone and the moss of the skull should – most authorities agreed – be derived from a man who had met a violent death, preferably by hanging or drowning. These were the most common drugs derived from the human body. But, as we will see, for certain practitioners and patients, there was almost nothing between the head and the feet which could not be used in some way: hair, brain, heart, skin, liver, urine, menstrual blood, placenta, earwax, saliva and faeces. Medicinal cannibalism was practised to some extent in the Middle Ages. But, with nice irony, it became most popular and pervasive in the era when reports of New World cannibals were circulating amidst the outraged Christians of Rome, Madrid, London and Wittenberg. (Sugg 2011:24). A man was a man because he did not eat other men. This action was 724
so connected to the monstrous that almost anything which ate humans was considered permanently a monster. The Plinian races were frequently given this terrifying attribute. The frightening Anthropophagi for example combined cannibalism with patricide by devouring their elderly parents (Kovatch 2008:22). Because human mind's proclivities manifest in circular fashion across ages, regimes and continents, U.S transcendentalist Thoreau (in Walden) draws a compelling lesson from the rotting carcass of a horse that mixes intuition and vitalism with proto-evolutionary ideas already well in the air.
It won't elude readers how such imagery would find a speedy -and tragic- adaptation under the Nietzschean regimes of the XX century:
There was a dead horse in the hollow by the path to my house, which compelled me sometimes to go out of my way, especially in the night when the air was heavy, but the assurance it gave me of the strong appetite and inviolable health of Nature was my compensation for this. I love to see that Nature is so rife with life that myriads can be afforded to be sacrificed and suffered to prey on one another; that tender organizations can be so serenely squashed out of existence -...and that sometimes it has rained flesh and blood! With the liability to accident, we must see how little account is to be made of it. The impression made on a wise man is that of universal innocence. Poison is not poisonous after all, nor are any wounds fatal. Compassion is a very untenable ground. It must be expeditious. Its pleadings will not bear to be stereotyped. (Thoreau 1854:no page) The connection with blood also circularly returns. The Moche (prehispanic Peruvian civilization, 100-800 CE) also presented familiar rituals. Prisoners in battle would be maltreated, bound, taken on a procession to a sacrificial high place (pyramid, Huaca1025) in order for their blood to be drawn, and for their bodies
1025
“Sacred place�, a word applied to various areas.
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to be dismembered. Priestly figures would then ritually offer the prisoners' blood -mixed with a vegetable anticoagulant- to a warlord/supreme chief. In the lore of Lombardy, drinking a wolf's blood was considered a treatment against rheumatism, and affections the Moon (=lycanthropy) caused.
The Lindow Man found in England in 1984 also confirms the obsession with ritual dismemberment to be a powerful one. The remains were radiocarbon dated to the I century CE, on the cusp between pre-Roman and Roman times in Britain. This Celtic druidic sacrifice saw an healthy upper-class youth having a ritual meal in order to be subsequently murdered multiple times. He was hit on the head; his back was pierced; he was garroted, and finally drowned in the bog: the chain of misfortune becomes all too real. In Ireland, Celtic chieftains were ritually murdered, dismembered and left in bogs as they “failed” to preserve equilibrium (in case of famine or other disaster for example) several centuries before the common era.
The goddesses Sekhmet (Egyptian) and Kali (Hindu) are summoned to dispel a great threat:”The Mother Goddess is as fierce and beyond control as an animal when its young is in danger.”1026. They get so violent in their fury they get drunk on their victims' blood (Kali), or are served blood-colored beer/wine, which they drink thinking it to be blood (Sekhmet, 7.000 jugs according to legend); in her drunkenness, Sekhmet sleeps for three days (=common mytheme). 1026
Armstrong 2005:21. Mesopotamian Marduk is also created to destroy the dragon of chaos Tiamat. He is therefore bestowed “double equality with the gods” upon (Tablet I of the Enuma Elish).
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Also angry at humankind's fickleness1027, Ugaritic goddess of war and love1028 Anat also goes on a murderous spree as the oceans turn to blood:
But both Baal and Mot are divine, so neither can be wholly extinguished. The battle between the two will continue, and the harvest will only be produced each year in the teeth of death. In one version of the myth, Anat restores Baal so completely that the next time Mot attacks him, he responds much more vigorously. Rain returns to the earth, the valleys run with honey, and the heavens rain down precious oil. The story ends with the sexual reunion of Baal and Anat, an image of wholeness and completion, cultically reenacted during the New Year’s festival. (Armstrong 2005:22). When their rage subsides, the goddesses revert to their gentler, motherly self as Durga (Kali) and Hathor (Sekhmet). In Kali's case (in one version), only trampling her husband Shiva (=the doppelgaenger motif) brings her back to her sense of Hindu lajya, the Greek epimeleia (vigilant self-control), thus linking supreme transgression and ultimate virtue.
Still sophrosyne and its cognate forms were so closely identified with the feeling for harmony and restraint which governed every phase of Greek life that they were bound to appear occasionally in literary criticism. Their use serves to illustrate the constant interchange between ethical and aesthetic spheres in ancient civilization, for the process by which sophrosyne found its way into criticism is typical of the development of many such terms. -...-[Sophrosyne] reflects the equally Greek demand for fitness and propriety in speech and action (North 1948:2). Lajya¯ combines feeling and evaluation; it is an emotion and a moral state. The noun lajya¯ is used with the verb cay-gu, “to feel.” Informants report that the feeling of lajya¯ may be 1027
She accused humans of not having sided with chief god Baal (=lord) against the dragon Mot. The turncoat dilemma goes back to the dawn of civilization.. 1028 The commingling of erotic and martial arousal at the dawn of civilization might be at the core of Greek soldiers' sacrifices to eros (=procreative instinct) and sayings such as “all is fair in love and war”.
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associated with blushing, sweating, altered pulse,and similar psychophysiological phenomena, which are general signs of emotionalarousal or anxiety. However, experienced emotion in a physiological sense is not always present. The term may be used coherently in the absence of such states, for lajya¯ has, as a moral concept, evaluative and social-regulative uses. -...-The person with lajya¯ (the self, that is, who possesses the capacity to experience shame, who is sensitive to the possibilities of shame) is seen as motivated by lajya¯ (as feeling) to act in a manner consistent with moral norms. -...-Lajya¯ has to do with intersubjective integration into public life: lajya¯ is felt when a person knows that others know that a breach has been committed. When asked if lajya¯ would be felt if no one would see, a highcaste man replied, “If no one sees, why would they feel lajya¯?” Other high-caste informants agreed -...-that lajya¯ may, in certain situations, have a cold, withdrawn dimension, drawing on, or providing an experiential base for, the death metaphor.(Parrish in Corrigan 2004 :159-63). Although the “heroes” of Homer’s Iliad and the central protagonists of Thucydides’ the Peloponnesian War possess the Homeric excellences of skill in battle and the ability to inspire other warriors, they lack the introspective natures necessary to cultivate a sophron state of being or moral excellence. Many of these characters are akraticextnote because when they do have moments of clarity or revelation, they often do not have the strength of will necessary to act upon the insight they have gained, or they sometimes act in direct opposition to what they know on some level is the greater good. (Higgs 2004/5:43). By 'monsterizing' women, men were able to gain a level of control over their dangerously unstable position within society. -...-Like monsters, women were not bound by the order of man's world and, even more unsettling, had the ability to manipulate this world. (Kovatch 2008:36,41). Psychopaths often come across as arrogant, shameless braggartsself-assured, opinionated, domineering, and cocky. They love to have power and control over others and seem unable to believe that other people have valid opinions different from theirs. They In the Christian New Testament koiné Greek, the term is translated as “hypocrite”. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! ” (Matthew 23:25). Self-esteem notable Branden echoes this terminology as he discusses “self-esteem”: only humans can be hypocrites (=low self-esteem), and humans only can act with integrity, that is self-esteem: animals cannot behave as hypocrites. Note of this writer.
extnote
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appear charismatic or "electrifying" to some people. Psychopaths are seldom embarrassed about their legal, financial, or personal problems. Rather, they see them as temporary setbacks, the results of bad luck, unfaithful friends, or an unfair and incompetent system.(Hare 1993:38-9). Adam's first wife Lilith (Lamia in the Greek version) also represents a liminal woman slipping out of society's fabric. Lilith becomes a blood-thirsty demon much as Hathor and Durga embody demonic powers once out of the societal bounds of vigilant self-control, which for some equals patriarchal control, or society planting a policeman in everybody's head through internalization of social norms specific to a given culture.
Blood is omnipresent in various kinds of lore. Roger Bacon, a XIII century friar and proto-scientist, applied alchemy to blood in an attempt to distill quintessence, or a life elixir. High-ranking SS members were rumored to practice neo-pagan rituals, which possibly involved drinking drops of Hitler's blood, and/or other prominent leaders'.
Mormonism, too, considers the shedding of blood a pivotal aspect of doctrine:
If there was a note of panic in the resumption of Mormon piety, it ran from the rhetorical extremes of the Reformation. Although they were deemphasizing the mysteries, the Mormon leadership nonetheless did preach on the mysteries as religious sanction, specifically the doctrines of "blood atonement" and the "second death." "Covenant-breakers" and "transgressors," the "Sons of Perdition," were said to be beyond the power of Christ's atonement; only death and their spilled blood would allow their salvation. The rhetoric of "blood atonement" mingled hermetic 729
notions of condensing vapors, which carry us back to the "Old Rodsman" and to Ranter Lawrence Clarkson, with the Old Testament rituals of blood sacrifice, perhaps implicit in the Mormon restoration of the temple. Young presented the doctrine in full in September 1856:”I do know that there are sins committed, of such a nature that if the people did understand the doctrine of salvation, they would tremble because of their situation. And furthermore I know that there are transgressors, who, if they knew themselves, and the only condition upon which they can obtain forgiveness, would beg of their brethren to shed their blood, that the smoke thereof might ascend to God as an offering to appease the wrath that is kindled against them, and that the law might have its course. . . .There are sins that can be atoned for by an offering upon the altar, as in ancient days; and there are sins that the blood of a lamb, of a calf, or turtle doves cannot remit, but they must be atoned for by the blood of man.”. The "second death" awaiting the unrepentant sinner also had alchemical connotations. As Heber C. Kimball put it in 1857, body and spirit would be denied eternal life, but in a "second death" would "go back into their native element, the same as the chemist can go to work and dissolve a fivedollar piece, and throw it into a liquid."(Brooke 1994:285). In Iran, the “pond of blood” was built to honor the martyrs of the IranIraq war: a fountain would spurt water dyed red. Purple in antiquity was a garment fit for heroes, dignitaries, Kings and Emperors. Purple's greatest glory was -precisely- that of looking like congealed blood 1029: “They stripped [Jesus] and put a scarlet robe on him” (Matthew 27:28); “They clothed [Jesus] in a purple robe ” (John 19:2).
The earliest evidences for murex purple-dyeing date to the Mediterranean Bronze Age. They come from ancient Qatna in Syria in the early second millenium, and from the settlement at Coppa Nevigata in the province of Foggia, Italy, where the extraction of 1029
It won't escape readers how here the virtue is in the imagery of congealed blood, whereas Marx posited the supreme quality in the amount of congealed labour. Campbell quips:”In the living of a life today, money is a facilitating energy source. With money in the tank like gasoline, you can get places you other wise couldn’t go. ” (1991:41).
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purple from murex snails started about 1800 BC. Apart from these instances, the technology of purple-dye production is usually accredited to the Minoans where it was a vital part of the palace economy.[ as the murex was also farmed] (Guckelsberger 2013:4). "Come now, let us settle the matter," says the LORD. "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. (Isaiah 1:18). “We have been using anointing oil which is called “The Lion of Judah” before and we have been using anointed mantles, bracelets and DVDs but this time the power is released. Major 1 introduced “The Blood of Jesus” which is real blood of Jesus which was extracted at Calvary when the Son of God was crucified. “As sons and daughters of Major 1 we don’t really care what people will say, we understand this revelation as a ministry (ECG family), people are on the move to drag our fathers name into disrepute but God elevated him to address our problems. (Mzansi Live no date). According to Roman sumptuary laws, only the statues of the gods, and exalted officials could wear the trabea, a toga with different degrees of purple. Consuls during a triumph, high priests, knights (=equestrian nobility) and Senators were entitled to wear purple on statutory occasions. Aeschylus (525-456 BCE) in the Agamemnon describes:”a mighty store,Precious as silver, of the purple dye, ”.
Later, emperors wore a purple trabea studded with gems. In Late Antiquity, emperors started wearing purple footwear as well. Corippus (VI century Byzantine poet) explains that:”only emperors, under whose feet is the blood of kings, can adopt this attire”1030. Whereas in its early beginnings purple had been a trading commodity and a tribute to the gods, it had later during the Roman Republic become a marker of status and social differentiation, until 1030
In Laudem Iustini Augusti Minoris, Cameron trans. Readers may appreciate here the equation between purple and royal blood.
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it became a sovereign symbol. It was not so much the economic value that mattered but the equation of the colour with absolute power. One might say that the colour had been “elevated” from the fabric and its owner and become by itself a venerated object, a symbol of royalty and divinity. That would explain why the emperor was so suspicious of any purple garment as it would automatically make its wearer a rival to dispute the emperor’s rights. (Guckelsberger 2013:29). Wrestling, too, brought forth a version of the shedding of the sacred blood - referred to as blading- whereby wrestlers -with concealed objects and suchlike- procure themselves cuts in order to lend credibility to the match's brutality, thus ending up as most savior-heroes do: covered in a shower of blood...
Gandhi wished
he could achieve Hindu-Muslim unity in India by
cementing it with his blood (=blood->sparagmos->covenant). The imagery related to sacred blood -irrespective of the often laughable or purely mythical premises- is a widespread one found everywhere and not only among '...ists' and other cranks, revered in awe or laughed at depending on accessory details such as whose 'sacred blood' it all is about.
The skeptical Ovid refuses to believe that mere water can wipe away bloodstains. Some Romans believed that blood was the seat of the soul. The ancient Hebrews also believed that the life resided in the blood. The dangerous character of blood is further suggested by the common accounts of rains of blood. -...-. The juice of the grape was considered blood because it was red and looked like blood; and it was believed to contain the spirit . Moreover, wine was intoxicating, and so the soul of the vine could be felt actually at work in the person who drank the wine. -...- Blood, too, had a magic part in religious rites. -...-. The blood of foreigners, especially of enemies, was felt to be dangerous. -...- Blood was considered the seat of the soul of man; it was dangerous to have the blood of a living person over one's head; bloodstains were considered dangerous; prodigies involving blood 732
were held to be especially ominous; blood was believed to have a mystic power to wipe out blood-guilt and to seal covenants of crime. If a soldier's actions were bad, his blood was believed to be bad, and hence it might be drawn off to allow good blood to take its place. (Burriss 1931:17-24). Such taboos are measures tending to protect individuals and the community against dangers that are most often imaginary, taboos that present themselves under diverse forms, but that in our opinion derive from a common source. the dangerous quality of blood. When it is not invested with a specific significance that wards off danger, spilt human blood is considered to be the malignant, frightful, and dangerous element among all human beings. A particularly acute fear is demonstrated toward the blood of the female sexual functions, the blood of the menses, defloration, and childbirth -...- The fear of blood is extended likewise to fetal materials (placentas, umbilical cords, membranes, -...- to newborns -...- and finally to anything whatsoever coming from a cadaver. All these materials are subject to taboo: that is to say, they are removed from contact with or the proximity of others, or even from public view. because of the danger they represent to the community. -...- But the frightful and malignant effect that the imagination imparts to blood's impurity appears reassuring and benignant when its destructive powers turn against that to which it is adverse: a hostile army, influences that cause illness, all that threatens and harms and ought therefore to be driven away and destroyed. -...In pressing our analysis a bit further, we learn that from such a conception of the negative power of blood-which could be summed up by the formula "blood banishes all that is bad"- one passes imperceptibly over to belief in the positive power of blood-"blood provides all that is good." While we might say that the first formula has a rational basis, the second is an extension of the benignant power ascribed to blood , which ends in overdetermining its power and attributing to it the capacity of producing all desirable results and effects, and of dispensing every good thing.(Makarius in Hynes & Doty 1993:68-69). So Moses and Aaron did just as the LORD commanded them. As Pharaoh and all of his officials watched, Aaron raised his staff and struck the water of the Nile. Suddenly, the whole river turned to blood! (Exodus 7:20, emphasis added). Anxieties are at times present about relating to the hero-savior's mystical body:”Avec le temps, l’association de la sécurité du citoyen avec le salut 733
du corps du chef devient de plus en plus étroite et le lien de plus en plus émotionnel. ”1031. As reported1032, a cohort of hardcore, high-ranking aficionados celebrate Berlusconi's 77th birthday at Naples with a giant cake on which the hero's image and the party's symbol are represented.
While elated partisans hail Berlusconi as another Einstein, and relate how the superlative Jewish-German physicist had in 1940 declared that mediocre minds always oppose great spirits, a moment of anxiety arises about using the knife to cut into (=goring) the hero's face and/or the beloved symbol. The hero-savior's mystical body is then ritually consumed in a secular copycat of religious rites.
October 16, 2015, histrionic Berlusconi plays strip-tease moves at a party convention to show his “physique” to a female admirer who had claimed she “loved his brain”: the mystical body of the savior-hero appears, who took flesh to represent great values from the abode of high gods.
The hero and his doppelgaenger the anti-hero go through similar experiences. In October 2013, Italy witnesses a squabble around the funerals and burial of E. Priebke, a German officer during WWII involved in a slaughter of civilians in a military reprisal.
As soon as Priebke's coffin gets sealed, a(nother) life sentence is meted out in relation to a(nother) WWII misdeed: the butcher is a(nother) 90yo (former) 1031
(Lowrie 2016:76). As time goes passes, the equation between the citizen's safety and the safety of the leader's body becomes all the more strict as the relationship assumes an emotional character. 1032 Corriere Della Sera, 30 September 2013:5.
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German soldier; a third (former) German soldier is about to be sentenced to life in prison when he dies at 97 years of age.
The strategy can be applied from all provinces of the political spectrum: Communist North Korea detains a 85 yo U.S citizen as war criminal: he is accused of atrocities committed as he served his country during the Korean War 1033. The U.S government urges an immediate release on compassionate grounds lamenting the prisoner's advanced age. Readers might hear more of the same if North Korea could pull the strings of a row of debased client States the world over.
As Quintilian very well put it: the same words may be received as signs of folly, freedom or pride on the sole basis of who is uttering them. Tannen 1034 confirms such is the widespread case in corporate culture: suggestions one makes are ignored or set aside, only to be elatedly embraced when someone else recycles them at another point in time.
ANSA reports on January 19, 2013, that a crowd saluted P.Gallinari, a
brigatista rosso and unrepented member of an erstwhile revolutionary left-wing faction responsible for a series of murders and terror attacks. Fists clenched in the Communist salute, red scarves and eulogistic poetry greeted the coffin during the public funeral.
In this case, topography triumphed in the presence of labour and 1033 1034
Reuters, November 30, 2013. 1994.
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political leaders of party Rifondazione Comunista, whose executives shared power in a number of governments axed around the former Communist party:”un atto di umanità” (acting out of human compassion). People trying the same 'compassion card' in Priebke's case were either silenced, or threatened with ritual defamation or legal action.
T. McVeigh, the Gulf war U.S bronze-star recipient and later author of the bloody Oklahoma City terrorist bombing in 1995, was executed in prison in 2001: his ashes were scattered at an undisclosed location. He had a 'gnostic' vein, too, but flags were not flown at half-mast when he died as it was the case with another articulate, bomb-planting terrorist: Nelson Mandela.
McVeigh wrote in 1998:
When a U.S. plane or cruise missile is used to bring destruction to a foreign people, this nation rewards the bombers with applause and praise. What a convenient way to absolve these killers of any responsibility for the destruction they leave in their wake. Unfortunately, the morality of killing is not so superficial. The truth is, the use of a truck, a plane, or a missile for the delivery of a weapon of mass destruction does not alter the nature of the act itself. These are weapons of mass destruction -- and the method of delivery matters little to those on the receiving end of such weapons. Whether you wish to admit it or not, when you approve, morally, of the bombing of foreign targets by the U.S. military, you are approving of acts morally equivalent to the bombing in Oklahoma City. The only difference is that this nation is not going to see any foreign casualties appear on the cover of Newsweek magazine. It seems ironic and hypocritical that an act viciously condemned in Oklahoma City is now a "justified" response to a problem in a foreign land. Then again, the history of United States policy over the last century, when examined fully, tends to exemplify hypocrisy. (An Essay On Hypocrisy). 736
Overzealous military sociopaths on the right are not the only target. After a coup in 1889, the progressive and abolitionist Imperial family of Brazil was exiled, and expressly forbidden from re-entering the country.
Mythology also presents such dilemma. Rioting Polynices (Antigone's brother and Oedipus' son) is left unburied and unmourned outside Thebes' wall: a plague ensues. Jesus -as R.M. Price points out- is first cast out of Jerusalem and then killed at Golgotha outside the city wall. The hero's body has distinct medicinal and reliquary qualities1035: at Aiud1036 (Romania), the Orthodox Church collects in a monastery the remains of many victims of the Communist regime as martyrs of the faith. A supposedly miraculous ointment is produced from/with those mystical bones.
Noted Tibetan Buddhist Lama Norsang died. During the cremation ceremony supernatural signs -such as rainbows around the sun- manifested; after cremation his heart, tongue and eyeballs had purportedly remained fused into one special relic. The corpse of mahasiddha Karma Norbu, another notably proficient Tibetan Buddhist master, professedly disappeared after his death.
If no body -remains etc- are available for possible medicinal use, images might also do as ersatz (=the holy host as Jesus' body). At Renate (Italy), it was customary to use in the healing process fragments of a painting of thaumaturge San 1035
A Swiss firm offers to turn one's deceased loved ones into diamonds. Using patented technology, the carbon from the corpses' ashes is extracted, then turned into a diamond. 1036 Ubication of a notorious Communist prison.
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Mauro -whose cult had displaced Sant'Alessandro's 1037 -, a beloved Benedictine Saint believed to heal body pain.
The reliquary compulsion readily extends to contemporary memorabilia: 'great men' still leave supercharged objects behind. It may not be the shroud of Turin, but it might be a polyester suit 1038 the leading man wore in that blockbusting movie; a signed color photo of a singer, wrestler, or athlete; a book autographed by one's favorite politician; a religious image blessed by a Pope, patriarch or Dalai Lama...
This irresistible compulsion can be readily tapped for prompt results:
Imagine what happens when you admit that you are a huge fan of the pro wrestler Goldberg, and a couple of days later I send you an autographed 8×10 color photo. You like me . . . probably a lot. If you look at my collection today, it contains footballs, baseballs, basketballs, minifootballs, jerseys, pictures of every size and type, books, magazines, towels, golf balls, beer bottles, makeup, and literally dozens of other things. All are signed by people from Sylvester Stallone to the San Francisco 49ers cheerleaders. And none of it cost me one thin dime. You should see all the people that think I am great now that they got such a personal gift from me. (Lakhani 2005:140). The opposite can be said about anti-heroes, whose body is pathogenic. Remains of anti-heroes have to be disposed of immediately, lest ritual pollution unfolds: Polynices' unburied body causes thus a plague as animals tear it apart.
“Historical ‘heroes’ are ten-a-penny, but some have a distinct ‘reliquary’ 1037 1038
Allegedly a martyred knight, but not a thaumaturge. John Travolta allegedly paid US$ 2.000 in 1978 for a polyester suit he wore in blockbuster Saturday Night Fever. The same suit was sold in 1995 as memorabilia for US$ 145.000.
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association”. DeVoss writes about Gavrilo Princip, the Serbian terrorist who killed the Austrian archduke chasing foolish myths of grandeur folklore had fostered, thus putting the world in motion for about 30 years of war, spoliation and slaughter if we consider WWII a sequel of WWI:
But Franz Ferdinand’s death was more enviable than the life that faced Gavrilo Princip. He was taken to Theresienstadt, an old Bohemian fortress north of Prague that had been converted into a military prison and later would serve as a Jewish concentration camp during World War II. Chained with shackles weighing 22 pounds, the 145-pound prisoner was kept in solitary confinement in an unheated cell. Tuberculosis consumed him, and on April 28, 1918, Princip died weighing 88 pounds. Fearing his bones might become relics, Princip’s Austrian jailers took the body in secret to an unmarked grave, but a Czech soldier assigned to the burial detail made a map, and in 1920 Princip and the other “Heroes of Vidovdan” were disinterred and brought to Sarajevo, where they were buried together beneath a chapel “built to commemorate for eternity our Serb Heroes” at St. Mark’s Cemetery. -...- Shortly before his departure to Theresienstadt, Princip was told that the war he had started, to free all South Slavs, was, in fact, consuming them. Although Belgrade had fallen to Austrian troops, he remained positive. “Serbia may be invaded but not conquered,” he told one of his German guards. “Serbia will one day create Yugoslavia, mother of all South Slavs.” (2000:5-6), emphasis added. The symbolism of Kosovo and of [King] Lazar’s [the hero of the Kossovo battle, 1389] commitment to the heavenly kingdom have been frequently used, and more often misused, in recent political discourse. This applies equally to the glorification of the Kosovo myth by Serbian nationalists, who saw it as the confirmation of the idea of the “Heavenly Serbia”, that is, the entire nation’s commitment to metaphysical values and heroic death, and to Western authors who referred to it as the source and explanation of much of the troubles and atrocities in the Balkans (Pavlovic 2009:2). Of course, applying such “possibly wrong but terribly romantic” treatment to the 'wrong' hero, that fragile and diminutive creature, might see one 739
prosecuted under this, that or another law, precedent or statute, not haranguing the unwashed from the gilded podium of the incensed patriot.
XIV century Serbian King Lazar entered the myth accordingly. In the lore1039, 40 years after the Turks defeated and decapitated him at the Battle Of Kosovo (1389), Lazar's severed head1040 magically reattached itself to the intact body: he was venerated as a Saint.
IV. Then was Paul brought unto him after the decree; and he abode by his word that he should be beheaded. And Paul said: Caesar, it is not for a little space that I live unto my king; and if thou behead me, this will I do: I will arise and show myself unto thee that I am not dead but live unto my Lord Jesus Christ, who cometh to judge the world. -...- [after Paul's execution] VI. And when he heard it, while he marvelled long and was in perplexity, Paul came about the ninth hour, when many philosophers and the centurion were standing with Caesar, and stood before them all and said: Caesar, behold, I, Paul, the soldier of God, am not dead, but live in my God. But unto thee shall many evils befall and great punishment, thou wretched man, because thou hast shed unjustly the blood of the righteous, not many days hence. And having so said Paul departed from him. But Nero hearing it and being greatly troubled commanded the prisoners to be loosed, and Patroclus also and Barsabas and them that were with him. (apocryphal Acts Of Paul, about 160 CE, James trans.). The piercing element (the body of the savior-hero being pierced) plays an important role as part of the ritual dismemberment constellation. The obsession with goring the hero's body is circular. A constellation of accounts exists of Fascist forces in the 1940s -or the Khmer Rouge for that matter in the late 1970sbayoneting their way through legions of opponents, babies and foes in the era of 1039 1040
The Miracle Of Tsar Lazar. Even Orpheus' severed head took on a life of its own. Severed limbs coming magically alive (hands, eyes, phalli...) is a common mytheme.
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industrial warfare, poison gas and machine guns. At times, the item is pushed to the point of bayoneting the hero to the consistency of steak tartare.
In Congo, Nkisi Nkondi (=ritual idol) are figurines into which nails are hammered to either negatively curse or positively to “activate” the spiritual power within the idol. XVI century Christian missionaries effectively identified the ritual as one of “crucifixion” (=the piercing motif). In African religions, nails are banged into the fetish kamisi in the body part the devotee experiences as troubled or painful in order to relieve distress.
Gautama Buddha's pierced ears, and elongated ear lobes, are unmistakable signs of royalty. Hindu devotees pierce various parts of their bodies to atone for their sins, or to please the deity. An important ritual of the Arakambut tribe of the Amazonian jungle in Peru involves nose and lip-piercing, after which males are recognized as accomplished members of the community eligible for marriage:
And in Australia, about a year following the ordeal of the circumcision, the candidate for full manhood undergoes a second ritual operation-that of subincision (a slitting open of the underside of the penis, to form a permanent cleft into the urethra). The opening is termed the "penis womb." It is a symbolical male vagina. The hero has become, by virtue of the ceremonial, more than man (Campbell 1949:142). We're now hearing that in the jungle tribes of Brazil these initiations of breaking a man, smashing him, giving him pain are called "the male menstruation." That is to say, something is now living through his life that's not simply his personal intention. This happens naturally with a woman. -...-In the Sudan there are a number of examples not only of 741
circumcision but also of clitorectomy where there is an incision of the clitoris in the young woman. The idea is that they're born androgyne, male and female, and what the circumcision is meant to do, according to this interpretation, is to release the full manhood from occlusion in the mother womb. It's symbolically interpreted that way. Similarly, with the removal of the clitoris from the female organ, the male element is removed and the person is fully female. The ritual takes place at puberty. (Campbell&Boa 1989:72,77). We would like to offer another explanation for the subincision ritual. The ritual is an increase ritual with sexual aspects, based on the keen observation of the aboriginal that the kangaroo has a bifid penis, with the outer surface comparable to an externalized urethra -...-However, the male kangaroo also squats, and his urinary stream flows from a point identical in location to a subincised urethral tract. Of course, without knowledge of the male kangaroo’s anatomy, it would be natural to think in terms of the human vaginal similarities. (Singer&Desole 1967:356). I was very much interested in the work of George Catlin, who did hundreds of paintings of American Indians. He traveled among the Mandan Indians in 1832 and painted a series of pictures depicting their initiation rites. The young men are hung from the ceiling by spikes through their chests and spun around until they collapse. One young man said to him, “Our women suffer, and we must learn to suffer too.” (Campbell 1991:65). For the Walbiri the dream does not signify the beginning of an actual pregnancy as dreams do for some [other] Australian peoples, but "piercing" nevertheless has procreative-sexual overtones, and a certain parallel between becoming pregnant and receiving y awalyu designs is implied (Munn 1973:91). There are further literary allusions to Odinic sacrifice.-...-All of these accounts maintain the central motif of hanging as well as piercing. (O'Donoghue 2007:65). As far as we can tell from our sources, which are incomplete, her purpose is to usurp her sister Ereshkigal, Queen of Hell, who is also Mistress of Life. Before she can enter Ereshkigal’s lapis lazuli palace, Inanna has to pass through the seven gates of her sister’s city’s seven walls. Each time, the gatekeeper challenges Inanna, and forces her to shed an item of clothing, so that when she finally enters her sister’s 742
presence, Inanna is stripped of all her defences. Her attempted coup fails, the Seven Judges of the underworld sentence Inanna to death, and her corpse is displayed on a spike. (Armstrong 2005:22, emphasis added). The Talmud likewise has a dying-and-rising 'Christ son of Joseph' ideology in it, even saying (quoting Zech. 12.10) that this messiah will be 'pierced' to death .Modern scholars are too quick to dismiss this text as late (dating as it does from the fourth to sixth century), since the doctrine it describes is unlikely to be. For only when Jews had no idea what Christians would do with this connection would they themselves have promoted it. There is no plausible way later Jews would invent interpretations of their scripture that supported and vindicated Christians. -...- It's also debated whether one of the Qumran fragments says one of these messiahs 'will be pierced' and killed. or whether he will pierce and kill someone else, and I consider that question presently unresolvable (the manuscript is too damaged to tell). -...-Even a Hebrew copy of Isaiah at Qumran, for example, replaces the word 'bruised' with the word 'pierced' in both Isa. 53.5 and 53.10.(Carrier 2014:73,75 note 34,91). Gnostic experiences are similar to piercing in nature. Mythicist David Icke describes one of his presumed initiatic/gnostic trips to Peru thus:
They’re like magnets pulling my feet to the ground. I think, oh crikey, I recognize that, here we go, and then I felt, like a drill going on the top of my head and through my body, through my feet into the ground and another one coming the other way. Now at that time [Gautama Buddha's] foot had been pierced by a stone sliver. Excruciating were the bodily feelings that developed within him — painful, fierce, sharp, wracking, repellent, disagreeable — but he endured them mindful, alert, & unperturbed. ( Sakalika Sutta). Icke is not alone, for the Hindu Mundaka Upanishad ( several centuries BCE) renders the supreme spiritual awakening/experience in such terms:
The Syllable Om is the bow: one's self, indeed, is the arrow. Brahman 743
is spoken of as the target of that. It is to be hit without making a mistake. Thus one becomes united with it [Brahman] as the arrow becomes one with the target. Mythological motifs may easily co-exist. A brother of mythical Cuzco Kingdom founder and lawgiver Manco Capac (“royal founder”) had been turned to stone during a fabulous journey from Tamputoco to Cuzco, thus inaugurating the ear-piercing custom, which might go back to the Huanacauri shrine. During the Hindu festival of Thaipusam, devotees pierce their mouth, cheeks etc in order to commemorate how the god Muruga with his magical spear defeated a demon. Devotees of Tibetan shamanistic religion Bon also pierce themselves in Hindu fashion.
Manco Capac himself had appeared out of lake Titicaca (=body of water connection1041): a child of the Sun god Inti, he married his sister. Various AmericanIndian tribes practiced piercing rituals ( Sun Dance). Oedipus (“swollen foot”) had his feet pierced at birth (=mythology of the foot), and pierced his own eyes after the crucial moment of recognition.
At Tsurugashima (Japan) rain ceremonies involve taking a giant dragon made of straw and bamboo to a sacred pond, where the idol is literally dismembered in order to provoke rain.
In some variants of the Red Riding Hood story, allusion is made to needles -through which threads pass- as symbols of sexual maturity and bridal 1041
Aphrodites, too, was born in the sea around Cyprus.
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readiness. The Hebrew Deuteronomy advises thus:”then take an awl and push it through his ear lobe into the door, and he will become your servant for life. Do the same for your maidservant. ” (15:17). What did Robocop undergo, if not a form of extreme body piercing?
Various quintessential heroes (Achilles, Balder, Siegfried...) are special just because their bodies cannot be pierced, and so is Superman: bullets 'bad guys' shot ricochet on his steel body; as he wears the Nemean lion's skin, Hercules' body, too, cannot be pierced.
Chinese martial artists strive to document the power of Chi, and Indonesian transgendered Bugi shamans (Bissus) try to stab themselves with sharp knives (spears...): no blood is drawn. Mystical Islamic Dervishes from Kurdistan stab and/or pierce themselves with sharp objects; they bang long nails into their skulls and swallow broken glass and lightbulbs to show they are indeed reaching out to Allah. In Mauritius, Hindu devotees walk on a trail of sharp machetes: no blood is spilled as a sign of communion with the godhead.
Chinese Boxer insurrectionists in 1900 also purportedly shot themselves with firearms to document how spirit possession made them invulnerable. Aguerre1042 gives the same description of the French Camisard Protestant insurrection (1702-10) in the Cévennes: offhand “prophets” would get into convulsions, walk on fire and stab themselves with knives while assertedly receiving 1042
Le Vampire 1984: episode 3.
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no harm.
Salvific heroes have an inverted doppelgaenger: the undead (vampires, zombies etc) have often to be pierced and/or dismembered/burnt in order to end their unholy existence. Vampires -specialists comment 1043- are the antithesis of civilization as they go for “raw food”, a pun to Lévi-Strauss' 1964 The Raw And The
Cooked.
He did not welcome the idea that [porn movie] Gang Bang 47 was really about male sexual insecurity. But he did identify with the need for an emotion-free zone where sex could be unencumbered and raw, and where all vulnerabilities, inadequacies, and dependencies—his and hers—might be temporarily suspended. (Perel 2006:172). While Gilgamesh walked in the garden by the edge of the sea Shamash saw him, and he saw that he was dressed in the skins of animals and ate their flesh. He was distressed, and he spoke and said, 'No mortal man has gone this way before, nor will, as long as the winds drive over the sea.' And to Gilgamesh he said, 'You will never find the life for which you are searching.' Gilgamesh said to glorious Shamash, 'Now that I have toiled and strayed so far over the wilderness, am I to sleep, and let the earth cover my head for ever? Let my eyes see the sun until they are dazzled with looking. Although I am no better than a dead man, still let me see the light of the sun.' -...-Beside the sea she lives, the woman of the vine, the maker, of wine; Siduri sits in the garden at the edge of the sea, with the golden bowl and the golden vats that the gods gave her. She is covered with a veil; and where she sits she sees Gilgamesh coming towards her, wearing skins, the flesh of the gods in his body, but despair in his heart, and his face like the face of one who has made a long journey. She looked, and as she scanned the distance she said in her own heart, 'Surely this is some felon; where is he going now? And she barred her gate against him with the cross-bar and shot home the bolt. -...-She answered, 'Gilgamesh, where are you hurrying to? You will never find that life for which you are 1043
Le Folklore...1980.
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looking. When the gods created man they allotted to him death, but life they retained in their own keeping. As for you, Gilgamesh, fill your belly with good things; day and night, night and day, dance and be merry, feast and rejoice. Let your clothes be fresh, bathe yourself in water, cherish the little child that holds your hand, and make your wife happy in your embrace; for this too is the lot of man.' (Epic Of Gilgamesh, Sanders trans.). Vernant adds that for ancient Greeks eating raw meat was forbidden on par with cannibalism and eating the meat of animals not properly sacrificed. In Bali, the corpse soon to be the object of a “royal cremation” ( palabon) is carried around the cremation mound as to disorient evil spirits who might want the dead to come back.
An obsession surfaces from the bottomless pit of time:
Four types of dead were commonly thought in the ancient [GraecoRoman] world to be dangerously ‘restless’, i.e. tended to haunt the place where they had died: those who had died prematurely (Gk. aōroi), those who had died violently (Gk. biaiothanatoi), those who had not received proper funeral rituals (Gk. ataphoi, Lat. insepulti), and those who had died before they were able to marry for the first time (Gk. agamoi, Lat. Innupti). Given that fear of revenants or morts malfaisants is well attested in antiquity, and that iron nails were believed to be able to ‘fix’ dangerous supernatural forces, some scholars have suggested that this type of magic may also have served to protect the living against the dead (Alfayé Villa no date:445). The post mortem mutilation of corpses, where decapitation –to be referred to later on- should be included, may also be interpreted as a magic action intended at preventing the spirit of the dead, by means of its immobilisation, from taking revenge from the Otherworld, since there are numerous anthropological parallels which document its funerary use with this purpose. Mutilation of corpses in the Ancient world has been linked by several scholars to the idea of the Greek maschalismos, a selective amputation exerted on the defeated or the murdered person which, apart from having an unquestionably vexing nature, prevents the dead from returning from the tomb and taking 747
revenge on the living. The idea of immobilisation – both physical and symbolical- of the individual by means of their mutilation is also present in the ancient “voodoo dolls” who were beheaded and/or whose limbs were amputated or twisted (Alfayé Villa no date-1:21011). Since myths can coalesce, vampires, werewolves and zombies, too, can come back as sanitized pop-culture mannequins with fantastic faces for the 7 th series of the fifth season airing on cable TV: if felons, half-wits and outcasts are heroes fit for the masses, so are the undead.
Werewolves have been associated with “alpha male status” 1044 since antiquity. Vampires, too, steep into bestial sexuality since time immemorial: “un phallus ambulant” comments a specialist1045. No wonder Victorian prigs 1046 and dolts Meineck 2005-1:Arcadian Fantasies. “ an ambulating phallus”, Le Folklore...1980. 1046 J.C Aguerre (Le Vampire 1984: episode 1) suggests the vampire as such appears in writing by definition in 1721 only. In 1732, a report (Visum et Repertum) by competent Austrian military surgeon Fluckinger substantiates the existence of vampires: the European press turns the item into a sensation. Others trace the originally Slavic word “vampire” in various forms to the XVII century, for example Rohr's Dissertatio in 1679. Aguerre (Le Vampire 1984: episode 2) also recalls how various royal expeditions took place in the XVIII century so that the French court could know more about vampires. Pope Benedict XIV (1675-1758) -according to Aguerre, Le Vampire 1984: episode 3- issued stern prohibitions against vampire trials, exhumations etc. Several centuries earlier the Irish penitential First Synod Of St. Patrick (457 CE) ordered that:”A Christian who believes that there is such a thing in the world as a vampires that is to say, a witch, is to be anathematized ”. Aguerre also comments how conventional views of the body's “density” were mixed with mechanistic philosophy to explain how it was “normal” for Slavs to “become vampires” given the characteristics of their bodies and souls. Vampire epidemics reached the U.S as well:”Though scholars today still struggle to explain the vampire panics, a key detail unites them: The public hysteria almost invariably occurred in the midst of savage tuberculosis outbreaks. Indeed, the medical museum’s tests ultimately revealed that J.B. had suffered from tuberculosis, or a lung disease very like it. Typically, a rural family contracted the wasting illness, and—even though they often received the standard medical diagnosis—the survivors blamed early victims as “vampires,” responsible for preying upon family members who subsequently fell sick. Often an exhumation was called for, to stop the vampire’s predations. The particulars of the vampire exhumations, though, vary widely. In many cases, only family and neighbors participated. But sometimes town fathers voted on the matter, or medical doctors and clergymen gave their blessings or even pitched in. Some communities in Maine and Plymouth, Massachusetts, opted to simply flip the exhumed vampire facedown in the grave and leave it at that. In Connecticut, Rhode Island and Vermont, though, they frequently burned the dead person’s heart, sometimes inhaling the smoke as a cure. (In Europe, too, exhumation protocol varied with region: Some beheaded suspected vampire corpses, while others bound their feet with thorns.).Often these rituals were clandestine, lantern-lit affairs. But, particularly in Vermont, they could be quite public, even festive. One vampire heart was reportedly torched on the Woodstock, Vermont, town green in 1830. In Manchester, hundreds of people flocked to a 1793 heart1044 1045
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restyled the Vampire, originally an hideous monster with a fetid breath, into an emaciated, mysterious foreign nobleman1047 who goes around piercing (=a form of penetration) women's necks with his hard fangs.
Because of his theriomorphism, Dracula (or the vampire in general) throws the gauntlet to evolutionary theories: lord of the beasts 1048. In 1992 movie
Dracula, the count turns into a horde of rats: nosferatu as “bringer of disease”. Disease becomes all the more threatening as it accompanies sexuality and immigration from Eastern Europe 1049 in the vampire's exploits: the UK 1905 Aliens
Act was forthcoming. Lucy Westenra turns from the virginal and prudish Victorian woman into Dracula's assertive1050 “bride” as she kidnaps and vampirizes children: nightmares of the Belle Epoque psyche.
If there is a well-attested history in the world, it is that of the Vampires. Nothing is missing from it: interrogations, certifications by Notables, Surgeons, Parish Priests, Magistrates. The judicial proof is one of the most complete. And with all that, who believes in Vampires? Will we all be damned for not having believed? (JeanJacques Rousseau to Beaumont in 17641051). burning ceremony at a blacksmith’s forge”. (Tucker 2012:no page). Readers may recognize here another cherished motif: the 'arriving outsider'; the hero (or villain) as a liminal figure coming from some place far away as in Greek myth, or Western movies for all that matters.. 1048 “That horrid thing has the wolves and the rats and his own kind to help him” (Stoker 1897:no page). 1049 “In the 19th century, Tsarist Russia was home to about five million Jews, at the time, the "largest Jewish community in the world". Subjected to religious persecution, they were obliged to live in the Pale of Settlement, on the Polish-Russian borders, in conditions of great poverty. About half left, mostly for the United States, but many - about 150,000 - arrived in Britain. This reached its peak in the late 1890s, with "tens of thousands of Jews ... mostly poor, semi-skilled and unskilled" settling in the East End of London. y the turn of the century, a popular and media backlash had begun. The British Brothers League was formed, with the support of local notables, organizing marches and petitions. At rallies, its speakers said that Britain should not become "the dumping ground for the scum of Europe." In 1905, an editorial in the Manchester Evening Chronicle wrote "that the dirty, destitute, diseased, verminous and criminal foreigner who dumps himself on our soil and rates simultaneously, shall be forbidden to land."” (At The Turn...no date:no page). 1050 The suffragette movement is active when the book Dracula appears in 1897. 1051 In the Austrian Empire, vampire hunts were so common that Empress Maria-Theresa sent court physicians to 1047
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[Dracula] can transform himself to wolf, as we gather from the ship arrival in Whitby, when he tear open the dog, he can be as bat, as Madam Mina saw him on the window at Whitby (Stoker 1897:no page). According to the French radio in 1980 1052, in Italy (in the La Spezia area) a werewolf haunts a township with eerie howling. A hunting party -in the best tradition of Universal horror movies- is organized. The monster is surrounded and bombarded with stones until the police intervenes. The werewolf then appears as a very hairy, drunk U.S seaman with bloodshot eyes and a broken leg, who literally howled in pain.
In Romania (Rodna, 1969), visiting historian McNally -a university professor- informs the public (in 1974) how he saw villagers plunge a stake through the heart of a suicide girl's corpse after her funeral in order to prevent her turning into a vampire.
According to Jungian luminary Kalsched, the vampire represents the ultimate narcissist:
cannibal or corpse therapies persisted well into the late Victorian period. -...-As is probably already clear, popular Victorian uses of corpse materials or blood cannot easily be separated from the realm of magic, and the same holds for much of popular medicine in general. And magical beliefs dominated the lives of numerous country dwellers for a surprisingly long time. -...-By the Edwardian period, even medicinal cannibalism itself has been absorbed within this newly sexualised paradigm of what we might call ‘intimate transgression’.(Suggs 2011:55,1455,1515).
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investigate. In 1755-56, laws prohibited witch- and vampire-hunts in the Empire. Le Folklore...1980.
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The continuing vogue of vampire movies may be a clue to how close to the surface our repressed fears are: the anxiety of , losing control, of coming completely under someone's spell, of not really being in command of ourselves. One intense look, one mysterious song, and our lives may be lost forever.(Becker 1973:129). The undead shall be prevented from being reborn from the grave, whereas many important deities were saluted as 'born again', 'twice born' and the like. Dionysus before birth gestated in Zeus' thigh; Zeus' siblings were swallowed by their father Kronos, only to be regurgitated alive when Zeus intervened (Red Riding Hood and many religions still include this plot device).
What does it mean "to be born again" for man? It means for the first time to be subjected to the terrifying paradox of the human condition, since one must be born not as a god, but as a man, or as a god-worm, or a god who shits. Only this time without the neurotic shield that hides the full ambiguity of one's life. And so we know that every authentic rebirth is a real ejection from paradise(Becker 1973:58). However, when we discovered ourselves to be objects, we decided that the time had come for suicide, because all objects, as the name implies, are of course objectionable. I found that phrase, which I thought I had invented myself, in the writings of Weston La Barre, who is a great anthropologist, but definitely of the psychoanalytic school that shares this nineteenth-century philosophy of so-called scientific naturalism. He uses the phrase, "the objectionable, objective world.'' So when everything is deprived of subjectivity and is regarded as simply a mechanism, with nobody home as it were, then the world is seen as futile. (Watts 1996:21). The dramatic movement that audiences enjoy more than any other is death and rebirth. -...-Most of the time, they magically survive this death and are literally or symbolically reborn to reap the consequences of having cheated death. They have passed the main test of being a hero. Spielberg's E.T dies before our eyes but is reborn through alien magic and a boy's love. Sir Lancelot, remorseful over having killed a gallant knight, prays him back to
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life.(Vogler1053 2007:155-156). Grof found the imagery of death and rebirth central to a stage of the LSD experience that not everyone reaches. The subject finds him or herself awash in the contents of the personal unconscious, confronting everything from sexual and religious taboos to childhood fears and family relationships. Often this involves consciously re-experiencing one’s own birth trauma (even details previously unknown to the subject), followed by catharsis – a release or breakthrough into transpersonal realms (Gerringer 2007:9). Many cultures (China, India, Africa etc) include(d) rites of passage intended as “second births”, often associated with a journey, quest or withdrawal element. Some Protestant denominations revive the concept: born again Christianity.
Campbell quips:
In sum, then: The inward journeys of the mythological hero, the shaman, the mystic, and the schizophrenic are in principle the same; and when the return or remission occurs, it is experienced as a rebirth: the birth, that is to say, of a "twice-born" ego, no longer bound in by its daylight-world horizon. (no date:131). In the schizophrenic situation the affect doesn't find an image; and the image yields no affect. There is a dissociation of image and affect so that these poor people [=schizophrenics] have affects, emotions, experiences, which they cannot communicate -...- because they don't have the image to let their consciousness know what -...- is going on down there (Campbell 1968c). [a patient confided in noted existentialist psychologist Irvin Yalom]“All my paintings and drawings are simply copies of visions that God has sent to me. Almost nightly now, just between sleep and waking, I get a vision from God, and I spend the entire next day, or 1053
Hollywood insider and leading story consultant for major production houses. He injected Campbell's theories into the film-making mainstream.
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days, just copying down the vision. My question to you is, why does God send me these visions? Look.” -...-[Yalom replied]“So my view of what’s happening is that these ideas and these remarkable drawings emerge from your own creative wellspring, but that your self-regard is so low, you’re so self-doubting, that you cannot believe that you are capable of such creations, so you automatically pass the credit to someone else, in this case to God. So my point is that, even though your creativity may be Godgiven , I’m convinced that you, and you alone, created the visions and the drawings.” (Yalom 2008:190-1). He himself has experienced the Second Birth. He has gone through the Virgin Birth and been born again. (Campbell&Boa 1989:38). Even to the good Arab Muslim, the Holy Qur'an is still said to be 'virgin'. It can be studied. It can exercise its power. It can offer enlightenment, judgement, support and can issue grave warnings. But it cannot be penetrated.(Eyre 1979:145). hard to find are those beings who can claim to be mentally healthy for even a moment except for those [arhats] whose mental cankers are destroyed. (Gautama Buddha, Roga Sutta). In summary, commitment therapies can be distinguished from analytic therapies. The latter arise in an historical period concomitant with the rise of democratic individualism. Commitment therapies, however, operate by returning the individual to the cosset of his natal community or by retraining him for membership in a new community, with a more effective pattern of symbolic integration; the therapeutic effort is transformative; the therapist is characteristically either a sacral or an exemplary figure. (Rieff 2006:63). In contrast, present-day industrial and post-industrial societies, as well-described by Clark (1989), Toffler (1970), and others, feature long and stressful workdays and commutes, incessant time demands, rapid change, reduced sleep (now estimated at less than seven hours per day), transient emotional/social relationships, compulsiveness in seeking secondary rewards (material goods, status symbols, fame, power, information etc.), intense competition, and financial uncertainty. In turn, the drive to acquire incentive-based rewards and the constant decision-making and control strategies associated with succeeding in modern societies all lead to an extremely high “futureorientation” (Bentley, 1983; Zimbardo, 2002). -...-What does it mean for a modern society to be labeled “hyperdopaminergic”? Based on the 753
dopaminergic personality profile in Chapter 3, the hyperdopaminergic society is above all, an extremely goaldriven society in which achievement is highly rewarded in a highly competitive and uncertain environment. (Previc 2009:149-50). Campbell1054 for one interprets the second birth in symbolic terms as the person 'graduates' from the 'second womb' of mythological imagery ready to take his place according to immemorial, universal blueprints that vary slightly according to localized societal structures (the Indian divide between desi and marga, or the anthropological divide between elementary and ethnic ideas):
In general, all cultures have a therapeutic function, insofar as they are systems of symbolic integration-whether these systems be called religious, philosophical, ideological, or by any other name. (Rieff 2006:56). interpretive schemes of a particular script-like -...-kind that give shape and meaning to the human experience of those conditions of the world that have a bearing on self-esteem (Shweder et alii in Lewis et alii 2008:414). The demise of the Sky Gods helps to explain why the Creator God worshipped by Jews, Christians and Muslims has disappeared from the lives of many people in the West. A myth does not impart factual information, but is primarily a guide to behaviour. Its truth will only be revealed if it is put into practice – ritually or ethically. If it is perused as though it were a purely intellectual hypothesis, it becomes remote and incredible.(Armstrong 2005:12). To follow Campbell, the taming (framing, rationalizing, channeling...) of affects takes places through very specific sets of images:“Pictorial representation of psychic processes”1055;”the soul never thinks without an image”1056;”My idea is that
1054
1969-1. Jung, cit. in Angelo 1992:74. 1056 Aristotle, On The Soul, Smith trans. 1055
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the basic thing about myth is that it is visionary. ”1057. Unnatural pregnancies were part of free-floating folk beliefs the world over indeed. The Muslim Quran “cannot be penetrated”, whereas quintessential Hindu mantra om (aum) is anahata, unwounded.
Buddhist Saint Padma Sambhava is “untainted by a womb”: “birth by apparition” accorded to some prominent Tibetan Buddhist masters; Jesus', Mwindo's (born from his mother's finger), Karna ( to preserve her virginity, Surya grants Kunti that their child be born from her ear); Gautama Buddha's and other such figures' birth was as unnatural and prodigious as Bacchus':
In Chinese mythology, considerable gods, demigods, and heroes are described as having been born after their mothers experienced a miraculous phenomenon: they became pregnant without having sexual intercourse with men. Instead, these women became pregnant because they swallowed an egg, were exposed to the sunshine in a special way, drank divine water, swallowed mythical pearls, consumed certain plants (such as red hawthorn or Job’s tears), dreamed of devouring the suns, responded to a divine animal (a dragon, for example), touched a piece of wood, or reacted to the air, and so forth. Chinese scholars classify these kinds of myths as “Gansheng myths,” in which the gods’ mothers miraculously became pregnant after they responded to certain outside influences and incidents, which may refer to animals, plants, or astronomical phenomena. (Yang et alii 2005:64). The results of a long-term study of reproductive health, published in the British Medical Journal, have revealed that one in two hundred US women claim to have given birth without ever having had sexual intercourse [nor in vitro fertilization].The findings were based on a study of 7,870 women and girls aged 15 to 28, as part of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, which ran from 1995 to 2009. (Williams 2013: no page, emphasis added). 1057
Campbell 1976:no page.
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For behold, from henceforth: all generations shall call me blessed. (Christian Song Of Mary). And Mary said to the angel, "How will this be, since I do not know a man?" (Luke 1:34). Still, the goddess wants a child, so she bears one without a husband. The child thus born is called Vinayaka, “he who was conceived without a man” -...-. A man had five daughters. While four of them wanted husbands and children, the youngest wanted only children, no husband. The four elder girls turned into the mango, tamarind, fig,and berry trees; the youngest girl, Kadali, turned into a plantain— a plant that many believe produces fruits parthogenically without any cross-pollination or involvement of birds and bees . Tribal lore from central India (Pattanaik 2000:150). As soon as he's born from the dust on her body [= Pygmalion connection], goddesss Parvati orders her son Ganesha to prevent people from entering her house. Obeying his mother, youngest Ganesha then proceeds to defeat Shiva's retinue of demi-gods; he finally succumbs to Shiva (Parvati's consort) himself, who wants to enter his house after all 1058. Newborn god Hermes manages to steal Apollo's cattle. Medieval legends told of Virgil's prodigious birth: the Roman poet would in fact be the son mighty Jupiter sired on a Celtic sorceress without intercourse: he began to walk as soon as he was born, and natural wonders unfolded to celebrate the event.
Legendary Japanese lawgiver Prince Shotoku (574-622 CE) also went through the same theios aner shtick:
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His mother bore him unexpectedly with no labor pains as she was inspecting
Shiva beheads Ganesha with his trident. That's how Ganesha receives an elephant's head, and how he's proclaimed as leader of Shiva's retinue. Of course, Shiva had no idea his opponent was his wife Parvati's son.
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the imperial stable (=born in a manger just like Jesus);
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He could speak as soon as he was born; he also was a child prodigy (like Buddha, Zoroaster or Jesus);
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Like Constantine, Angus king of Alba and others, Shotoku obtained a crucial military victory after a prayer to Shi-Tenno (Four Heavenly Guardians Of Buddhism), and established the Buddhist religion;
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He became a Buddhist Saint as the Bodhisattva Miryoku Kannon, just as Jesus or Buddha (Mahayana) were deified.
One real woman named Cleo in the IV century BCE seeks the miraculous intervention of the divine healer Aesculapius 1059:
after already five years of pregnancy, she [Cleo] came as a suppliant to the [god] and went to sleep in the innermost sanctuary. As soon as she came out of it and was outside the sanctuary, she gave birth to a boy who, as soon as he was born, washed himself from the fountain and walked about with his mother. (Austin 1981:126). And [Eve] bore a son and he was shining; and at once the baby rose up and ran and took a blade of grass in his hands, and gave it to his mother, and his name was called Cain. ( The Books Of Adam And Eve1060, cit. in Charles 1913:138). 1. We find (1) what follows in the book of Joseph the high priest, who lived in the time of Christ. Some say that he is Caiaphas. (2) He has said that Jesus spoke, and, indeed, when He was lying in His cradle said to Mary His mother: I am Jesus, the Son of God, the Logos, whom 1059 1060
Son of Apollo. Constellation of texts known under different titles across traditions and languages that also relay different content: possibly between I century BCE and CE.
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thou hast brought forth, as the Angel Gabriel announced to thee; and my Father has sent me for the salvation of the world. ( Arabic Infancy...no date: no page). According to the legends about this birth, the baby [Gautama Buddha] began to walk seven steps forward and at each step a lotus flower appeared on the ground. Then, at the seventh stride, he stopped and with a noble voice shouted: "I am chief of the world, Eldest am I in the world, Foremost am I in the world. This is the last birth. There is now no more coming to be." ( The Birth Of The Prince no date: no page). Two important observations are necessary: firstly, in the cures performed by Epidauro, belief is subsequent to the prodigy, an after effect, not as a prophylactic,as is to be seen, as a general rule, in the evangelical prodigies performed by Jesus. Rather, it normally precedes a persistent skepticism, obviously destined to be overcome, all in honor of Asclepio, his shrine and of his priestly class. Then, secondly, the cures are directly performed by the god in the total absence of the human miracle worker, similar, from that point of view, to those performed in the present day cures in Lourdes. (Barbaglio 2009: 29). Zoroaster's followers, holding ardently to this expectation, came to believe that the Saoshyant will be born of the prophet's own seed, miraculously preserved in the depths of a lake (identified as Lake Katsaoya). When the end of time approaches, it is said, a virgin will bathe in this lake and become with child by the prophet; and she will in due course bear a son, named Astvat-ereta, 'He who embodies righteousness' (after Zoroaster's own words : 'May righteousness be embodied' Y 43. r6). (Boyce 1979:42). [God said]And when your days be fulfilled, and you [=King David of Israel] shall sleep with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you, which shall proceed out of your bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. (2 Samuel 7:12). In Buddhism, Suppavasa (Suppavasa Sutta) remained pregnant for seven years, then endured childbirth problems. Thanks to both her saintly nature, and Gautama Buddha's wishes, she finally delivered a robust baby. The newborn
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immediately paid his respects to the Buddha, and revealed to Sariputta 1061 how karma required that he'd suffer for so long in his mother's womb; he went on to become the arhat (=Saint) Sivali.
There is no doubt some (most?) sincerely religious milieus are (highly) embarrassed by the preposterous, supernatural, magic or sci-fi elements of their faith. Goldman1062 compares the Bible favorably with other coeval middle-eastern narratives1063: the Bible is less peppered with divine interventions and other supernatural feats. It is difficult to guess which version of the Bible was Goldman (Professor of Hebrew and Middle-eastern Studies) considering.
The present writer objects that removing divine interventions, grotesque feats and supernatural wonders from the Bible might leave behind only tasteless genealogies and factoids of little import:
Across the board, the evidence indicates that the clichÊs about the fringe nature of paranormal belief are wrong: paranormal beliefs are not at all uncommon; they are not restricted to people who are socially marginalized; nor are they a sign of low intelligence or poor mental health. -...-When polled about even very short lists of ten or so ideas selected from the hundreds of paranormal and pseudoscientific notions critiqued in the skeptical literature, large majorities of the population readily affirm that they hold one or more of those paranormal beliefs. In 2005, Gallup’s survey found that 73 percent of American adults affirm at least one paranormal belief from a list of ten; 57 percent believe in at least two of those ideas; and 43 percent believe in three or more. These numbers are not unusual, but are consistent with other findings. -...-In a strictly numerical sense, people who do not believe in anything paranormal 1061 1062 1063
One of Gautama Buddha's closest disciples. 2003:Marriage, Divorce And Other Arrangements. In the specific the Egyptian Tale Of The Two Brothers (XIII century BCE).
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are now the “odd men out” in American society. Less than a third of Americans (32%) are dismissive of all nine subjects. -...-Involvement in one or more cultural organizations, fraternities, trade unions, sports, or civic or service groups had no discernable impact on the number of paranormal beliefs a respondent held or the number of paranormal experiences that person reported. Regardless of community involvement, people affirmed their belief in an average of about two of the paranormal items included on the survey. -...-“As stakes in conformity increase, paranormal beliefs and experiences steadily and markedly decrease. A person with the highest stakes in conformity accepts on average only two paranormal beliefs. This is less than half the level of belief exhibited by those with the lowest stakes in conformity.”(Loxton&Prothero 2013:ch.7). Yet all that has been instrumental in shaping a(ny) faith. Contrary opinions are also present -such as Joseph Campbell's-. Jefferson, too, edited (1804,
The Philosophy Of Jesus Of Nazareth and subsequent updated versions) a version of the life of Jesus from gospel passages that preserved most moral teachings -leveraged towards the milder side- to the detriment of the supernatural and the miraculous, which were foregone.
Talking about supernatural elements in Mahayana Buddhism, Della Santina comments: “it was a point of prestige; it was a selling point -...- that made people believe -...- it is our loss that we don't believe -...- we have narrowed our capacity to understand and to appreciate by demanding certain criteria ”1064;”Miraculous powers serve to authenticate the spiritual abilities of exemplars and to disseminate the Buddha’s teachings.”1065.
One of the privileged ways to target a(ny) faith, party, creed or sect for 1064 1065
ME6102 no date: lecture 3. Scott 2010/2011:493.
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destruction is to show beyond doubt how its leaders, founders and holy figures are all too human in their transgressions, appetites, monomania and pathetic shortcomings. Something that should be welcome and go unnoticed by the very advocates of a desacralization of belief systems.
Let's take two books as an example: Curren's 2006 Buddha's Not Smiling and Falk's 2009 Stripping The Gurus that broadside oriental spirituality circles (Hinduism, Buddhism etc).
Pages from Falk's book read thus:
Ramakrishna was a homoerotic pedophile. His chief disciple, Vivekananda, visited brothels in India. -...- Krishnamurti carried on an affair for over twenty years with the wife of a close friend -...-. At other times, the boons of such “powers” included [Ram] Das’ waking up to a seventeen-year-old blond girl (Swedish) on one side of his Nepalese cowshed bed, and a silent, young Frenchwoman with long, black hair on the other side. (2005:2,70). Mystics have also displayed some of the most extreme manifestations of the trickster. A number of them had ambiguous sexual orientations; some sexually abused their devotees; some simulated paranormal phenomena in order to lure followers. This association between mysticism and deception is long-standing, and many times it is difficult to tell the difference between a holy man and con artist, or even if it is meaningful to speak of any such distinction. Nevertheless, mystics have fostered important religious traditions. They have also demonstrated some of the most powerful psychic phenomena ever recorded, including instantaneous healings, immunity to fire, and levitation. (Hansen 2001:53-4). Marjoe Gortner was the nation ’ s youngest Pentecostal minister. He performed his first wedding ceremony when he was four years old.-...-He also had a revelation about the people. He discovered that for people who were not allowed to watch television, dance, or 761
participate in most forms of entertainment, the tent meetings he performed in were their entertainment, and he was the entertainer. To that extent, he treated each sermon like a rock concert and emulated Mick Jagger.(Lakhani 2008:130, emphasis added). Curren's book is replete with accounts such as:
Ole and Hannah Nydahl were two of the first Westerners to visit Rumtek and become students of the sixteenth Karmapa. The Danish couple met the sixteenth Karmapa in Kathmandu in the late sixties. Beginning in the early 1970s with a single dharma center in Copenhagen, where they hosted the Dalai Lama on his first visit to Europe, the Nydahls have founded a network of more than four hundred Diamond Way Buddhist centers around the world. -...- For his part, Ole Nydahl has credited the Karmapa with reforming him from a boxer and casual marijuana dealer into a devoted, if unconventional, student and teacher of Buddhism. In the late sixties, Ole Nydahl was a short-tempered street-fighter from Copenhagen who had gotten into buying hashish in Nepal and selling it back home in Denmark. Shamar told me the story of how the Nydahls, in Nepal on one of their supply expeditions, first met the sixteenth Karmapa in Kathmandu in 1969. -...- Though Tibetan culture was imbued with Buddhism at every level, history belies the Shangri-La image of Tibetan lamas and their followers living together in mutual tolerance and non-violent goodwill. Indeed, the situation was quite different. Old Tibet was much more like Europe during the religious wars of the Counter Reformation than a neighborhood in Berkeley, California where synagogue, mosque, church, and dharma center make cozy neighbors. During the European religious wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, forces of Protestant kings and princes fought armies of Catholic rulers or troops of the Church itself. Likewise, for hundreds of years in Tibet, lay followers of each religious school sometimes clashed with each other for control of the government of Central Tibet or rule over provincial areas. Lamas often had to defend their monasteries and other landholdings from supporters of the other schools. (2006: no page). Triratna, a Buddhist movement (formerly known as FWBO) popular in the UK, was rumored to put a suspicious emphasis on same-sex activities, and to allegedly consider essential for spiritual practice to overcome taboos related to
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homosexuality.
The FWBO Files (1988) was much more explicit, alleging that Sangharakshita [Triratna founder D.P.E Lingwood ( known as Sangharakshita) ] was dismissed from the Hampstead Vihara for homosexual behaviour, that two of his disciples committed suicide, that homosexual abuse at the Croydon centre caused another suicide, and that the FWBO actively promotes homosexuality between Order members and their disciples. The FWBO’s response dismissed most of the allegations as rumour (and unconnected with the suicides), but admitted that Sangharakshita was sexually active for some years after the formation of the FWBO, and had a 2-year affair with a male disciple in the mid-1970s, only becoming celibate again in the 1980s (FWBO, 1998: 18–20, 34, 36). (Bluck 2006:168). This state of affairs was short-lived. In December 1988 the movement learned that the [Vajradhatu] Regent [Osel Tendzin, born T.F. Rich, 1943-90] had developed Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) and had infected a male partner, who had inadvertently infected a female partner. Although married, the Regent was openly bisexual and known to have numerous sexual partners, an aspect that members tolerated without judgment. In addition, the movement learned that many in the administration had long known of the Regent’s illness but had failed to make this information public. This was stated directly by one member (Eldershaw 2007:79). In the 1960s, four major Zen teachers came to the United States from Japan -...-.And three of the four, Afable noted when we spoke, have caused major public sex scandals: first Maezumi, and more recently Shimano and Sasaki. -...-But there are many lesserknown yet just as randy Zen teachers (Oppenheimer 2014:no page). The jury found [Swami Kriyananda] Walters, 71, guilty of fraudulently representing himself as a celibate religious leader-or swami--although he had sex with several of his devotees during 30 years at the helm of Ananda. Several women came forward during the civil trial to testify that Walters had sexually exploited them after they had given him back rubs and massages. (Anning 1998: no page).
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Elle [= Indian “hugging saint” Amma] a malgré tout réussi à développer un pouvoir de type chamanique, au prix d’une ambivalence de type psychotique (Vigne1066 2015:44)1067. KOCHI: A lower court in Kerala on Wednesday banned Malayalam translation of a controversial book on spiritual leader Mata Amritanandamayi or Amma as she is addressed by the faithful, by her former close aide and Australian author Gail Tredwell alias Gayatri. The book, Holy Hell, A Memoir of Faith, Devotion and Pure Madness, which narrates tales of alleged sexual exploitation and abuse in the Mutt (ashram), had created quite a furore when it was published in February this year and consequently the Malayalam translation of the book published by DC Books was banned by the high court. ( The Gulf Today, October 16, 2014).
The Secret Gospel Of Mark is an highly disputed and controversial hypothetical find of some ancient manuscript American professor Morton Smith -whom some qualify as homosexual- professedly found at the Mar Sabba Orthodox monastery in Palestine. At the center of a convoluted spy story and intrigue, the elusive manuscript that was never recovered details how Jesus spent what some qualify as a homosexual love night with a young man he had raised from the dead: most likely a forgery.
If Buddhism could be turned into an emancipation tool for frisky homosexual hippies in spiritual suit, it could very well be restyled to serve atheist and rationalist purposes with a Stephen Batchelor, a former Buddhist monk who wishes to do away with the doctrines of rebirth and karma in favor of vanilla prescriptions to “live the good life now”: the socially binding and spiritually 1066 1067
French psychiatrist and a follower of Indian spirituality (Buddhism/Hinduism). In spite of everything, she could develop some kind of shamanic power being at the same time psychotically ambivalent.
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uplifting -yet empty- rituals of Confucianism; or the rituals that positive psychologists urge one to engage in so that one may feel more adjusted.
What Batchelor, Peacock (an academic and also former Buddhist monk) and others wish for is -often in their own words- to subject Buddhism to the kind of reverse engineering and inquiry Christianity has been increasingly subjected to since the Enlightenment: Buddhism as today's opium for the masses.
If certain minorities are believed to have colonized -or hijacked- such movements as the civil rights movement (ACLU etc) on the left, or the neoconservative movement on the right, the same profile can be drawn within the Buddhist -or oriental spirituality- community.
Many western Buddhist circles are just ACLU, SDS, ACORN copycats: garden variety lefties drop the Soviet (Cuban, North-Korean, Vietnamese...) obsession in favor of new-age spiritualism. Noted Buddhist teacher and psychologist Miles Neale1068 proclaims that Trump's victory is an event as traumatizing as the Twin Towers attack: true Buddhist equanimity and detachment at work. Some oriental guru who looks like Gus Goose replaces Most, Castro, Ho Chi Minh, Marx etc (= levantine image of bearded patriarch) as target of boyish devotion and girly infatuation.
Points of contact are innumerable between garden variety lefties and
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2017.
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Buddhists. Neale1069 commends the the XVII Karmapa both the Dalai Lama and China have recognized (Ogyen Trinley Dorje, born 1985) for his engagement in favor of the environment.
Some may prefer post-atomic mayhem or politicized “Mayan calendar” kind of prophecies of doom:
Also start buying food from local farmers. -...- And in the new normal, when the supermarket doesn’t have food because diesel fuel is too expensive or a storm knocked out their electricity or the main bridge into town collapsed because it wasn’t maintained, you’ll know where to get healthy, delicious food for your family and your elderly neighbor. -...-Also, learn to cook. -...-Learn to cook from scratch because in the new normal, people will be relying on their own gardens and local markets for much of their food. Learn to use a solar oven or a rocket stove or an outdoor oven because electricity will cost much more in the future and there will be more frequent brownouts. -...-Start collecting manual kitchen tools, like a grain grinder, so you can store wheat berries, not flour, and still have bread when the electricity goes out or the supermarket doesn't have any more bread. -...-learn how to darn, knit, or sew; think of what skills will become more important as things peak oil and resources hit our pocketbooks harder; put your vacation money, any other other money you can spare, into fixing up your house and then take your vacation at home; (Wuling, October 6, 20081070). Do we really want to cling to our lifestyle despite the knowledge that our indulgence has a terrible cost? People are starving because their land is taken by governments and multinationals who want to supply our desires. People are drowning because we are dumping 1069 1070
2017b: lecture 3. Biographical inertia (=”from Mandela to Mandala”) may be a way to explain this particular thought pattern, which is also present in Kriya Yoga Kriyananda. Ven. Wuling is a U.S citizen (born 1946) of Jewish background originally from New York. “While we were eating, I saw a plastic bucket near the entrance to the kitchen. Those who attend my classes and have been in the center will understand my interest in plastic buckets. I allow very little water to go to waste. I reuse water from washing the dishes, catch the cold water while waiting for the hot, have a little bowl to catch the water from washing my hands in the bathroom sink and empty the bowl into the bucket, put the dishpan under the dripping faucet when the temperature drops so low the pipes could freeze, and do anything else I can think of to conserve water. ” (Wuling, February 12, 2008).
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massive amounts of carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere, causing sea levels to rise and climate disturbances to intensify. (Wuling, February 15, 2008). Popular Buddhist speaker -and nun- R. Courtin was in her youth a radical feminist, lefty and civil rights activist 1071. Oriental spirituality was in many cases a fig leaf for Masonic cabals of conflicting persuasions during the Belle Epoque.
Many oriental spirituality centres are today a mere front for the usual vanilla lefty, homo- and xenophile civil rights operation that allows to push the same social alchemy agenda without having to openly disclose a more or less embarrassing Marxist, Soviet or Social-Communist baggage that might alienate people: from Mandela to Mandala; from Obama to Dalai Lama.
the most compelling catchphrase for liberals and leftists alike in the 1960s was "community": "community action," "community outreach," "communities of mutual respect." As Alan Brinkley has noted, most of the protests and conflagrations of the 1960s had their roots in a desire to preserve or create communities. (Goldberg 2007:106). Noted Buddhist psychotherapist Miles Neale is a case in point. He both 1071
Although improbable at first sight, significant points of contact between Marxist and Buddhist doctrines exist. For example, both reject creationism in favor of mechanical explanations: karma with its seeds in (Mahayana) Buddhism; dialectical materialism with its congealed labour overlap. Both Buddhism and Marxism posit the adventitious nature of one's circumstances: one's actions and feelings are not supposed to define one, just like devil advocacy Marxists deploy in support of their pet categories oppressed by the economic structure, and the political superstructure. Both Marxism and Buddhism present evolutionary societal parables in “stages”. Courtin -as one might expect from her leftist background- also reduces Buddhist mind science to a sort of Freudian -Adlerian and what not- mind laboratory. Marxist universalization of human plights under the sign of labor and exploitation finds an hefty Mahayana Buddhist equivalence: interdependence. Marxist activists' obsession with so-called civil rights can easily be subsumed under the Mahayana “freeing all sentient beings from suffering”. Courtin swapped the T-shirt with Che Guevara's image with that of the Dalai Lama's: the rest is pretty much the same. Just as a garden variety U.S 'progressive', Courtin worked with inmates: the difference between ACLU and Buddhism becomes increasingly thin. Wright (2014) conclusively details how most tenets of Buddhism square perfectly with evolutionist and non-creationist doctrines; for that reason, Wright suspends judgment over karma and reincarnation. Wright also labels Buddhism as a “rebellion against natural selection”.
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wields (presumed) “scientifically proven” consensus against dissidents (for example climate change as a consensus item) and fringe views (the great Egyptian Sphinx as 15.000 years old). When in “fringe view” mode, Neale denounces established academia as a “racket” that wants to “fire” or “castrate” good fellows like this chap who can build one cheap ecological villas with junk yard materials, or the other fellow who “demonstrated” how the Egyptian Sphinx is indeed 15.000 years old.
G.B. Shaw the author and polemicist was a star of British Fabian Socialism, but he -in a 1940 letter to Beatrice Webb- also wrote:
We must not let Adolf give Socialism a bad name. We are NationalSocialists, and for Socialism in a single country as against Trotsky; and we cannot too strongly insist that we are not objecting to German Socialism but to persecution and bogus Racialism, which are completely foreign to Socialism and incompatible with it, and have been attached to it illogically and insanely by the Fuhrer. In 1934, the leftist economist William Pepperell journeyed from his home base of Columbia University to the International Congress on Philosophy in Prague where he announced the name “Fabian Fascism” to describe the New Deal, which he considered a creative hybrid of socialism and fascism. (D'Souza 2017:no page). Della Santina1072 categorically disclaims Buddhism was ever cause of war, or violent in-fighting between Buddhist traditions. While it's always possible to tap dance around definitions, and to perform a comedy of innocence to deny -or affirmanything, it is just fair to mention the points of contact between various Buddhist monks and various equivocal situations (support lent to Japanese imperialism; infighting in Sri Lanka, Burma, Tibet etc). 1072
ME6102 no date: lecture 14.
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On the other end of the religious divide, things aren't much better. One of Mexico's new Santa Muerte cult's high priests (TutltitlĂ n temple), El Comandante
Pantera, succumbs in 2008 after more than 150 bullets hit him: he was allegedly involved with narco gangs. David Romo Guillen, the self-appointed bishop of the
Santa Muerte cult, is sentenced in 2012 to a 66 year prison term for theft, kidnapping and extortion.
Time Magazine wrote in 1991 about scandals that haven't stopped embroiling Catholicism ever since. It is quite a butterfly effect that the Catholic Church's integrity, left about unscathed throughout the Cold War, was immediately at stake as the Cold War order imploded:
Dozens upon dozens of priests have been accused of sexually abusing underage boys. -...- So widespread are the cases that by one informed estimate, Catholic institutions have paid $300 million in settlements -with no end in sight. "We could be sued out of existence," says Notre Dame philosophy professor Ralph McInerny. ( Sins Of The Fathers 1991: no page.). It appears that [Mormon founder Joseph ]Smith used spiritual coercion as well as assurances of salvation to induce women to marry him. (Miles in Jacobson&Burton 2011:192). Catholic priests are routinely exposed not only because of their sexual transgressions, but also for an uninterrupted series of financial wrongdoings that range from big-time billionaire affairs to countryside reverends embezzling or appropriating Church money or donations. In recent times, the Catholic Bishop of Novara forecast the need for centralized financial control in the diocese, possibly to counter the liberties priest-entrepreneurs typically take with the Church's finances 769
or estates.
The basic problem with this approach is that -in spite of all likely factual truths- it betrays a longing for the superhuman, for those exaggerated virtues, feats and postures worth of a comic-book, whereby characters are so much chaster, wiser, stronger etc than the average human being. Oddly enough, that is the same point that attracts ridicule and scorn to start with: improbable comic-book figures who consort with spirits, walk on water, tame wild animals, fast for ages without dying, resurrect the dead etc.
that a prima facie plausible principle concerning how evidence should be assessed – a principle I call the contamination principle – entails that, given the large proportion of uncorroborated miracle claims made about Jesus in the New Testament documents, we should, in the absence of independent evidence for an historical Jesus, remain sceptical about his existence. (Law1073 2011:no page). There is only so much one can expect from humankind, no matter which gown, armband, bonnet, skullcap or beard one's favorite savior-hero may sport:
And talking about remarkable things provides social currency. Remarkable things are defined as unusual, extraordinary, or worthy of notice or attention. Something can be remarkable because it is novel, surprising, extreme, or just plain interesting. But the most important aspect of remarkable things is that they are worthy of remark. Worthy of mention. Learning that a ball of glass will bounce higher than a ball of rubber is just so noteworthy that you have to mention it. -...-the details to make the story more remarkable. We’ve all had similar experiences. How big was the trout we caught last time we went fishing in Colorado? How many times did the baby wake up crying during the night? Often we’re not even trying to exaggerate; we just can’t recall all the details of 1073
Reader in philosophy, University of London.
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the story. Our memories aren’t perfect records of what happened. They’re more like dinosaur skeletons patched together by archeologists. We have the main chunks, but some of the pieces are missing, so we fill them in as best we can. We make an educated guess. But in the process, stories often become more extreme or entertaining, particularly when people tell them in front of a group. We don’t just guess randomly, we fill in numbers or information to make us look good rather than inept. The fish doubles in size. The baby didn’t wake just twice during the night—that wouldn’t be remarkable enough—she woke seven times and required skillful parenting each time to soothe her back to sleep.(Berger 2013:25-6). One of the main characteristics of Orphic-Bacchic ideologies was that of rejection. Rejection myths explained how ministering preachers (saviors, founders, heroes etc) were persecuted and driven away in many instances. The imagery of the hero who comes back from the ordeal (war, prison, wilderness etc), sees things have changed, and is rejected and denied what's his jumbles the situation of the journey together with the rejection myth and is as evergreen as Robin Hood 1074 driven underground as usurpers take over both his ancestral property, and the throne of England.
Ringo is a Confederate veteran in a 1965 spaghetti-western movie, who comes home from the U.S Civil War and realizes Mexican bandits have taken over his ancestral property, and threaten his wife: doesn't it sound much like what happened to Ulysses?
And to tell you what you still have to endure In your own house. And you do have to endure, And not tell anyone, man or woman, That you have come home from your wanderings. No, you must suffer in silence, and take a beating. (Athena to Ulysses, Odyssey XIII:315-321, 1074
In some of the many versions of course.
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emphasis added).
Rambo (Vietnam veteran) as well comes home from war, yet he's maltreated and denied what's his. Osiris, Dionysus and Orpheus themselves are slain. Rambo and Ringo barely escape death and – like Ulysses and Bacchus in some myths- exact bloody revenge upon their foes.
Myth(ologie)s tend to coalesce. Rambo and Ringo come back from war zones. In 1986 The Wraith, a youngster is back from death thanks to extraterrestrial technology (=sci-fi angle). He bloodily does away with the thugs who murdered him, and who threaten his fiancee (just like Ulysses). In The Crow (1994ss) and its many sequels, an unjustly murdered man resurrects (=comeback motif) to relentlessly liquidate criminals who -in the 1994 movie- had brutally savaged and murdered him and his lover (=Romeo&Juliet shtick).
Physician William Thornton proposed to revive Washington's frozen dead body in 1799. Contemporary cryogenics movements offer to freeze the head -or the whole body- of the recently deceased. The preserved (body) parts would be revived in a far-flung future courtesy of visionary technology.
As incredible as it may sound, Fears 1075 puts the James brothers, real-life Confederate guerrillas and frontier outlaws, on the same level as mythological Robin Hood. Fears might have added Harry Callaghan or characters from Bruce Lee movies for all that matters. 1075
2011:Jesse James And The Myth Of The Outlaw.
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As this writing contends, history, pseudo-history and myth are essential to the weaving of stories, the visiting card of the human self. Truth (statistical probability, consistency, verisimilitude...) is not a necessary component of any strategy wanting to capitalize on the above, but 'what feels emotionally true' is: the quintessence of every religious experience. In the James brothers' case, honest men are driven underground by unjust laws and oppressive rulers, just like Robin Hood and Harry Callaghan.
Are readers tired of action movie story-lines? What about a Theravada Buddhist text? Arahat monk Ratthapala (Ratthapala Sutta) goes through what looks like a xeroxed Ulysses shtick. He goes away as he ordains (heroic journey), comes back to his parents' home and nobody recognizes him, but “instead of receiving a gift or a polite refusal — we got nothing but abuse ” 1076. Then “a slavewoman -...recognized [Ratthapala's] hands, feet, & voice”, which sounds suspiciously like Eurycleia, Ulysses' slave nurse, who recognized him by way of his bodily features1077.
As this writing contends, adventitious details are all that varies. In the
sutta, the slave is just “a slavewoman belonging to one of his relatives ”. In the Odyssey, the slave is described with plentiful details; she rises to the rank of Laertes' sort of second wife1078, and the palace's spiritual guardian. What sort of insight are Ratthapala Sutta no date: no page. “Eurycleia's heart Trembled with mingled joy and grief, Tears filled her eyes, and her voice Was choked as she reached out And touched Odysseus' chin” (Odyssey XIX:515-19). 1078 “true-hearted Eurycleia, daughter of Ops And Peisenor's grandaughter. Long ago, Laertes had bought her for a small fortune When she was still a girl. He paid twenty oxen And honored her in his house as he honored His 1076 1077
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readers to gather from these seemingly carbon-copied stories? Spiritual insight from the Buddhist religion? Elusive, manly insight from Bronze Age Greece? It makes no difference but in the detail; the mind undergoes aesthetic arrest anyways, then details are filled in by current socio-political trends.
Just to prove that the narrative core ( marga, elementary idea) is what really counts, details (desi, ethnic idea) can be reduced to a bare minimum. Let's examine Il Riconoscimento (recognition)1079. In that poem, “a poor chap” (un povero
garzone) comes home from abroad. Unlike Ulysses or Ratthapala (Rambo, Ringo...), he's a nobody; no detail whatsoever is given about his journey; he has done no notable deed. Yet the journey has been literally etched on his skin the sun has turned black/dark (la faccia scura). His dearest friend doesn't recognize him, nor does his lover.
The thunder of insight strikes as his mother, finally, recognizes him (ché, sebbene ha scura la faccia, mamma sua lo raffigura ) in spite of his dark skin. Even details reduced to a bare minimum are of adventitious importance: the elementary idea (=the gist, the familiar impression) triumphs at any rate. The lover or friend might have recognized him instead, following the commodious whims of the shaman-writer: the effect on the public wouldn't change.
Roberto1080 quips:” Why does it grab people's attention? Because it's wedded wife, but he never slept with her Because he would rather avoid his wife's wrath. Of all the women, she loved Telemachus the most And had nursed him as a baby.” (Odyssey XIX:452-461). 1079 which Ettore Toci translated from Vogl's German during the Belle Epoque. 1080 2011:Making Change Stick.
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unexpected. So if there's an unexpected element -...-, that can help you grab people's attention, and get them to adopt -and stick with- a change”.
Popular culture couldn't be far behind. A glurge story circulated over the internet time ago regarding a “friendly phone operator”. What this story celebrates is the irresistible compulsion to commemorate, be remembered and thus to find consistency over time1081, just as the stories of Ulysses and Ratthapala show:”And if imaginative literature has a shelf life, so too does historical memory.”1082. A child (elementary or middle school: details vary) bruises his finger (or some other trivial event or need); nobody happens to be home at that time, so s-he dials the general info line on the phone: a friendly phone operator gives assistance1083.
Years later, when the former child is now about to go to college (or some other landmark moment), s-he calls the info line: there stands the friendly operator again who -of course- remembers very well that time the child called a long time in the past.
Years later again, as the child of yore is about to get married (or whichever rite of passage/landmark event one chooses), s-he calls the info line again. This time the friendly operator no longer answers the phone. A colleague does, who is of course privy to the details. This second operator relates how the
Ceux pour qui le temps irréversible a existé y découvrent à la fois le mémorable et la menace de l’oubli (Those who experienced time as irreversible discover by the same token the reality of memorialization and the threat that oblivion poses. Debord 1967: point 133). 1082 Rieff 2016:14. 1083 The friendly phone operator as ersatz parental figure. 1081
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friendly phone operator recently passed away in whichever heart-rending circumstances, yet had before doing so penned a message -which happens to be right there for one to listen to- precisely for that child who ages earlier had called with a bruised finger.
The sweet human soul screams its xeroxed pain in a hurricane of tears while a gigantic gastrointestinal or neurological syndrome impairs the frail little creature. The story is so preposterous 1084 and artificial that its only purpose can be that of tantalizing human mind's irresistible vortexes: to remember, be remembered, and to commemorate such remembrance as gage of consistency over time:
The Czech existential novelist Milan Kundera suggests that we also have a foretaste of death through the act of forgetting: “What terrifies most about death is not the loss of the future but the loss of the past. In fact, the act of forgetting is a form of death always present within life.” (Yalom 2008:12). Not everybody can browbeat or blackmail discredited politicians into passing 'special laws' at the drop of a hat; not everybody gets to tell the U.S Congress about bayoneted babies; not everybody gets on prime-time TV and so forth. Everybody can type an equally obtuse and preposterous story full of petrified myths and grotesque antics to post online, though.
Of course, different strands of the same original chain-mail may share 1084
Everybody who has ever dialed such info lines in the good old days knows it is next to impossible to catch the same operator the first time one dials, and this over a period of several years. Furthermore, the chances such phone operator busy attending to ongoing calls as a matter of routine might remember such a trivial conversation from ages in the past is laughable at best. Last, a “colleague” of the departed is casually privy to the details; s-he opportunely not only answers the right phone call again, but also keeps the friendly phone operator's last message handy, just in case: synchronicity, indeed.
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different details; the list of tribulations -as well as the hero's name, background, location or gender- may be somewhat different. It is the typical situation of the tall tale contest between hunters and fishermen, whereby the tuna they caught gradually gets to be the size of a sperm whale, and the hare they shot over time gets to be the size of a kangaroo. As well, details at times might not jibe. It is a safe bet items derive from separate sources some elated writer combined because they were too good to miss.
For example, was Mary truly a virgin even after Jesus' birth? Faith demands that one believes it, but how could one be truly sure? The Protogospel of
James – a II century non-canonical work- answers precisely that: a disbelieving midwife joins the scene of Jesus' birth in order to give Mary a postpartum inspection:”Then Salome inserted her finger in order to examine her condition, and she cried out, “Woe to me for my sin and faithlessness. For I have put the living God to the test, and see, my hand is burning, falling away from me.”[then a miracle happened and]Salome was immediately cured, and she went out of the cave justified. ”1085.
Things may have changed in many ways. Gautama Buddha realizes he cannot share his insight with his two former masters as they have passed away. Xuan Zhang realizes he is no longer supposed to keep the engagement to a King who has disappeared along with his reign.
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Ehrman translation.
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In one Celtic tale1086, a knight lives happily with a fairy bride -the Queen of a fairy hill, or a version of the mother goddess- until he longs to visit his ancestral village. As no dissuasion proves effective, he's allowed the visit, but on the condition he never set foot on the ground. The knight reaches his village astride his horse, sees things have changed, and turns to dust as he sets foot on the ground trying to pick something up (or a variant of the 'turning back' motif). Centuries had gone by since he had originally embarked on his adventures, during which he had by happenstance discovered the fairy hill, and championed its Queen1087.
Mortals walk the earth, while immortals (also Kings and their ilk) hover in mid-air (walk on carpets/platforms etc). According to Balinese religion, infants are not allowed to touch the earth before they reach a certain age ( Nyambutin, 105 days ceremony). In Ethiopia, Christian Timket (epiphany) processions see priests walking on carpets unrolled before them as they carry the tablets of the law. In Hispanic countries -from Guatemala to Portuguese Azores- people prepare mats made of flowers to pave the way of a religious processions.
Could popular culture lag behind? Remo Williams (1985) is an action movie that sees a vigilante working for a secret, patriotic U.S cabal. An elusive oriental master trains him in the martial arts: the vigilante learns to run so fast he can walk on semi-solid bodies like a sea of fresh concrete. If that sounds good, the 1086 1087
Campbell 1967b. Campbell derives from this story (also behind Wagner's Venusberg and Tannaeuser) a lesson about the triumph of patriarchy (the lone, valiant knight epitomized) over matriarchy and the mother goddess (the fairy Queen or Venus retreating to a secluded mountain abode).
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providential oriental master can literally walk on water. Neo in the Matrix movies can literally fly, just as Mahayana Buddhist Saints were rumored to.
Artificial kin members from all walks of life float in mid-air contemplating a white light in the video of international hit song One&One (1996). White lights also constitute the essence of spiritual rapture in Tibetan Buddhism and much earlier Zoroastrianism (as the righteous soul journeys to heaven). Fundamentalist Christians, too, shall be raptured to meet Jesus in mid-air (heaven etc) in order to be spared the tribulations of the upcoming end of days.
Psychological studies show people on average “like better” a given person when they're told they are actually going to meet such person. Priests enter the holy of holies to “meet” god; the faithful shall “meet Jesus” on rapture day, or after their death; Mormon devotees believe – as LDS President Brigham Young declared in 1859- that:”“Joseph Smith holds the keys of this last dispensation, and is now engaged behind the vail in the great work of the last days.-...- that no man or woman in this dispensation will ever enter into the celestial kingdom of God without the consent of Joseph Smith.”. Of course they like him a lot more. Antifascist activists executed as “bandits” get streets named after them as the political tide changes. What if the money-digger, bandit, deluded lunatic you dissed as a contemptible buffoon judged you in the last days instead?
Top Gun (1986), Bloodsport (1988) and Kickboxer (1989) - although stewed in seemingly antithetical sauces- go through the basic high points. James 779
Livingston identifies four main stages in renewal ritual, also similar to what happens in most action movies: mortification, purgation, invigoration, jubilation.
1. The duo of near and dear undergoes ordeal (in one case the sidekick dies; in the second, he remains disabled for life; in the third, he gets seriously wounded ).
2. The hero's journey (in one case a journey to Thailand; in the second, military men sail aboard an aircraft carrier, and fly in their jets; in the third, a journey to Hong Kong).
3. Arch-enemies galore (a brutish Thai boxing champion and Thai mafia on one hand; Soviets and bureaucrats on the other; police 1088, and a murderous, foulplaying opponent in the third case).
4. Various psychological complexes shall be dealt with and resolved.
5. The 'training montage' shtick ( learning Thai boxing in the first case; taking part in an elite navy program in the second; fighting a death tournament in the third).
6. The thunder of insight about what lies hidden (the rape of the boxer's love
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As this writing reiterates, petrified mythologies and stale allegories fare better wholesale. In Bloodsport, one may find several ingredients of formula films, namely the couple of cops, one young and impulsive; the other older and more conciliative. The virile friendship item; the romance angle; the master-pupil angle; the bereavement angle (the Japanese karate teacher loses his own son); the conflicting duties/Antigone angle (the army officer disregards military discipline in order to honor commitment to his karate instructor and his clan) and others.
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interest1089, and the captive brother's liberation in one case; the truth about the father's death in the pilot's case; esoteric martial arts teachings resurface in the third case as the main character gets blinded ).
7. The comeback (the pilot's comeback in combat: doubt/hesitation and redemption shtick; the boxer's final match; the murderous champion's defeat at a blind opponent's hands1090).
Now, there are several embattled scholars who fight the idea -and the concrete impact of- what is hereby referred to as the inescapable vortexes of the human mind -marma of the mind, or whichever other terms might be used-. Christian apologist David Marshall1091, who presents himself as a “scholar of Asian religions”, claims the Jesus of the Gospels “fulfills” and vindicates the longings and loose ends of both Taoism and Confucianism.
Regardless of what might -or might not- be the case with ancient inscriptions, papyri and old myths that scholars dissect exchanging learnt punchlines, it is difficult to understand how our culture might be literally awash in such petrified narratives, obtuse allegories and stale mythologies if that played no overwhelming role at all. Another popcorn psychology item that recurs endlessly in popular culture fodder. 1996 all-star-cast Sleepers revolves around the (re)discovery of sex abuse meted out to juvenile delinquents in a reformatory. In 1986 Highlander, Lambert's character discovers his wife of a bygone age had been raped, and so forth. The public peeps aghast: that's the aesthetic arrest the dramatic mode (=the audience is excluded from the scene as mere witness) brings about. 1090 Once again, popular culture (by)products often look like scraps from a Discovery Channel cutting room session than anything else. The martial art of Kalaripayattu -possibly the oldest martial art in existence- from Southern India in fact involves some kind of exercises to perform while blindfolded. 1091 2017. 1089
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How the media, political and entertainment industry keeps thus milling carbon-copied versions of the same old plots in the sole attempt to provide the public with an irresistible commodity that -to them- translates into all too tangible box-office, cash-counter or ballot-box results that have nothing in common with the scholar's byzantine lucubration over fine points of doctrine the common man simply ignores or scorns.
It is interesting how George Lucas congratulated scholar Joseph Campbell, and credited Campbell's examination of myths as step-stone in the creation of Star Wars1092. For all it's worth, even manuals advising the hopeful writer longing for success recommend to cram in as many of those 'myths' and petrified situations as possible. In 1985, Disney story analyst Vogler introduced a 7-page A
Practical Guide to The Hero with a Thousand Faces that has been used as bible in the movie industry ever since.
A professional international storyteller and an academic, Harvey 1093 advises hopeful storytellers that their story, whichever its magnitude, focus, genre or import might be, stands the best chances to connect with the audience if molded within the parameters of the hero's journey.
It took Darth Vader a while to recognize in Luke his son, in spite of his paranormal powers: the fact they bore the same family name just escaped him. Only later in the Japanese cartoon Great Mazinger does young Shiro Kabuto recognize in 1092 1093
Campbell 1989:The Hero's Journey. 2013:Myth And The Hero's Journey.
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doctor Kenzo Kabuto he was living with his father he presumed dead: the fact they bore the same family name just escaped him.
The mythical script can be scrambled in all sorts of ways. 2009 book The
Lost Child Of Philomena Lee (and 2013 movie) offer a mother on a desperate search after a child the Catholic Church had snatched away from her as a single mother in Ireland decades earlier. The son is on a reverse quest as well: he's got a new name; he has become a White House politician; he's gay and dying of AIDS.
The sky is the limit, literally, when myths are involved. Even legendary captain Kirk can meet (Star Trek II, 1982) his own son, whose existence he ignored, now a top-scientist on a intergalactic quest to create life from the void.
As early psychoanalysts suggested, the long lost relative is always high placed: a top-scientist (Kirk's son, and Kabuto's father); the Emperor's lieutenant (Luke's father); or a high-ranking politician. For all that matters, even The Six
Million Dollar Man gets to meet an estranged, long-lost son who -just as it was the case with his father- becomes a bionic secret service agent fighting international crime syndicates in tandem with his father1094.
What does this explain? The present writer suggests that certain myth(ologie)s -such as the quest after one's true self long-lost relatives epitomize etc- never stop paying dividends no matter how careless script-writers or editors
1094
The Return Of The Six-Million Dollar Man And The Bionic Woman (1987).
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happen to butcher them.
In both Star Wars (1977) and Great Mazinger (1974), the elusive, longlost father has changed. Both professor Kenzo Kabuto and Anakin Skywalker have been transformed into cyborgs in the aftermath of tragic incidents. Both have left their children in pursuit of higher goals; the establishment of the Empire under the sign of authoritarian peace for Darth Vader; the construction of defense mechanisms to fight the impending attack of the demonic forces of the satanic Emperor for Kabuto: originality is decidedly an elusive concept.
The famous medieval Tristan And Iseult cycle is but a clumsy salad bar of third-hand graeco-roman mythology
using the Theseus story (foreign king
exacting a tribute of youths) as a pivot around which a Medea angle (sorceresses who can heal or wound with their magic), Philoctetes (stinky wound 1095), and Abelard angle (gifted teacher falling in love with female disciple) angle orbit.
It is all the more interesting as more or less direct knowledge of Greek -but even Latin for good measure- literary culture was nearly completely lost until 1095
This mytheme recurs in the Japanese Buddhist tale of Ajase, a pseudo-Oedipal narrative. Arch-transgressor Ajase (he dethroned, imprisoned and starved his father; he also tried to kill his mother) was also beset by a skin disease that caused him to stink horribly. In the Buddhist Kokalika Sutta, a sinful monk slanders Moggallana and Sariputta in the Buddha's presence three times (=common mytheme). Stinky sores then appear all over the monk, who dies in the aftermath only to be reborn in hell. In Wolfram's Grail quest works, the Grail King (also called Fisher King) has a stinky wound, too. If transgressors figuratively -and literally- “stink”, holy people figuratively -and literally- “smell good”: odor sanctitatis in Christianity. Many Saints presented osmogenesis (odor of sanctity), such as Catholic Saint Padre Pio da Pietrelcina (1887-1968). Sogyal Rinpoche claims one of his Tibetan Buddhist masters rescued at a distance a disciple who was about to drown in a river in flood. A fragrance typical of the great Buddhist lama alerted the disciple regarding supernatural actions about to occur. Osmogenesis can be very similar to phantosmia (olfactory hallucinations) that are treated medically and/or surgically. In traditional Khmer (Cambodia) marriages, the newlyweds are sprinkled with heavy doses of perfume: may their bond be as strong as their aroma.
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the Renaissance and the fall of Constantinople (1453) brought about a new era of philological and literary studies. It is thus possible to argue how litterateurs in northern Europe just utilized third-hand allusions and folkloric imagery as King Arthur aptly exemplifies:
The story of love between two children, Floire and Blancheflor, enjoyed a great popularity in medieval and Renaissance Europe and versions of it survive in French, Spanish, Italian, German, Greek and Old Norse. The Old French romance Floire and Blancheflor (mid-12th Century) is often considered to be the oldest extant version of the story, although 19th and 20th century scholars of medieval literature have suggested its Germanic, Byzantine, Persian, and Arabic provenance. -...- These works are united by the theme of ‘idyllic childhood’, that is by the description of a boy and a girl who grow up together, fall in love, and after a number of trials are married (Romanova 2004:1-2).
Meineck1096 calls Dionysus (=son of god) “the god of arrivals” to convey how he was portrayed as 'always on the move' spreading his 'good news'. Historical figures -such as Buddhist Saint Milarepa- bestowed not only spiritual but material boons upon their arrival. Incidentally, salutations such as savior, son of god and god made manifest were commonly addressed to Hellenistic (323-30 BCE) monarchs and generals, much as they had been to Alexander.
Even earlier:
Which requirements did the Messiah have to fulfil in the Jewish way of thinking? Beginning with Saul, the first king (1012 -1004 BC) Messiah (anointed one, in a closer sense: the one anointed by the Lord) had been the name of honour of all kings of Israel who 1096
2005:Myth Into Politics.
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did not hold the Semite title melek (=king).Messiah was more of a political term. In contrast to this, the prophets called the God sent one and herald of salvation the Prince of Freedom or Son of Man to exclude any political reference. Only in the 2nd ct BC, under the influence of the dynasty of the Hasmonaeans, and the view of the Qumran Essenes, the term Messiah is conferred to the spiritual and priestly level (priest -king). (Altinger 1995:701). Up until recently, the Emperor of Japan was also considered divine in the Japanese mixture of traditional animism (Shintoism) and Buddhism that supplied an ideology to a world awash in animistic magic (mountains such as Fuji, groves, sea creatures...all is divine). In Thailand, lèse-majesté laws are also reportedly very punitive: the monarch is in a unique relationship to the Emerald Buddha, an icon of national Buddhist faith. Current monarch Rama X is saluted as “Descended by Flesh and Blood of God Indra, Overlord of all Angels ”.
Still discussing 'gods of arrivals', it is known that Roman Republican authorities met Bacchic mysteries with sheer opposition (the Bacchanalia affair of 186 BCE1097) as harbingers of moral degeneration and anti-national weakness. The savior-hero has also often been persecuted since his childhood, and has thus to venture outside his homeland: Abraham, Krishna, Jesus, Perseus. Some wrap the same
high
points
around
historical
figures
such
as
Alexander
and
Charlemagne...Jewry rejected both Jesus and Mohamed as its prophets. The stories have it that Jesus died and Mohamed barely escaped.
Japanese Buddhist Saint Nichiren (1222-82) preached conversion in the 1097
Limoges:n.d.
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perspective of an impending Mongol invasion he foretold. Ostracized, prosecuted, and barely escaping execution thanks to celestial prodigies, Nichiren was later canonized, and is hailed as founder of Buddhist schools still in existence.
Nichiren also heralded a doctrine whereby what goes between man and the divine is the physical scroll -and the sacred text it contains- of the Lotus
Sutra1098, much as in ancient Judaism the Torah was/is what acts as transmission belt between the human and the divine.
Since the VII Guru Har Rai (1630-61), Sikhs are expressly forbidden from altering the Sikh scripture Granth Sahib in any way. Har Rai disowned one of his sons who had modified a hymn in the Adi Granth in order to please a Muslim ruler.
I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this scroll. (Revelation 22:18). In Chinese Taoism, sacred calligraphy in the form of a talisman may be physically ingested (talismanic water) to heal one who consults a Taoist priest:”Then [god] said to me, "Son of man, eat this scroll I am giving you and fill your stomach with it." So I ate it, and it tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth.”1099. Sikhs clinch: “the word [=hymn in the sacred book] is the guru”.
“Passages in the Lotus and Prajnaparamita sutras stated that copying, preserving, reading, preaching, and honoring these texts would result in great merit.” (Hirakawa 1990:283). 1099 Ezekiel 3:3. “So I went to the angel and asked him to give me the little scroll. He said to me, "Take it and eat it. It will turn your stomach sour, but 'in your mouth it will be as sweet as honey.'"” ( Revelation 10:9). 1098
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1863 British T.J. Barker painting The Secret Of England's Greatness shows Queen Victoria as she hands a Bible to an exotic, awestruck foreign Prince in a colorful attire as he bows down to her. Because he's very dark-skinned, this foreign dignitary might as well be either an Indian and/or an African nobleman as Britain begun scrambling for Africa on one hand, and 'pacified' India on the other. Here again, “The Secret Of England's Greatness� is supposed to rest entirely upon one book1100.
Both orthodox Jews (the Aleppo Codex, X century CE) and Buddhist Mahayana scriptures several centuries older than the Aleppo Codex bless the endeavor of copying and diffusing the sacred text. Jews are supposed to inscribe the
Shema invocation on their houses' doorpost, although some Jews also put it in other places of the house on a mezuzah, a decorative, encased parchment. Vajrayana Buddhists as well may put simple or encased scrolls with invocations on doorposts and elsewhere indoor to gather blessings every time one passes under the sacred words.
The sign -usually in a sacred language such as Hebrew, Sanskrit or Arabic- can be used to beautify and to adorn: decorative Sanskrit in Tibet; calligraphy among the Chinese or Japanese (for example kanemochi), and verses of the Quran among Muslims.
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Victorian ethos is thoroughly preserved. Although she was the supreme ruler of a Constitutional monarchy, Victoria appears in a somewhat diminutive form, whereas Prince consort Albert (1819-1861) appears at her side as a sort of giant: gender roles are preserved as societal ethos demands.
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“Texts that defile the hands” are sacred Hebrew texts that require one to wash one's hands upon touching them. Jewish congregations follow the Torah with a pointer to avoid touching the holy parchment: “Uzzah reached out and took hold of the ark of God, because the oxen stumbled. The LORD's anger burned against Uzzah because of his irreverent act; therefore God struck him down, and he died there beside the ark of God”(2 Samuel 6:6-7). In ancient Japan, sacred objects were not handled or touched directly, whence the need for wrapping them up that evolved into contemporary gift-giving customs.
Gobind Singh, X and last Sikh guru passed leadership onto the XI and eternal guru in 1708: the sacred book Granth Sahib. Sikhs say that seeing the Granth Sahib is seeing the guru (=dispeller of obscurity), much as Mahayana Buddhists say that seeing the Dharma is seeing the Buddha.
Sikh devotees are supposed to set a holy place apart in their homes as abode for the Granth Sahib, so that those who are unable to comply use a selection from the same as prayer book. The sacred book in gold often opens Orthodox processions; Islam always made allowances for “the people of the book”; a Bible often preceded French Protestant Huguenots in their itinerant ministry after the Reformation.
Mormon founder Smith took the concept of “religion of the book” to unprecedented new levels: he claimed to have received (and translated from ancient scripts) through divine intervention the golden plates of the Book Of Mormon, and 789
scrolls with the Book Of Abraham.
While no trace is left of the original Book Of Mormon, the (purported) Book Of Abraham was revealed to consist of conventional Egyptian papyri from the Book Of The Dead with no Hebrew connection whatsoever:
The Book of Mormon was the first book of scripture Joseph Smith produced and Mormons generally consider it the foundation scripture of their religion—Joseph’s greatest miracle. The Qur'an serves a similar purpose for Muslims. Critics of Muhammad noted that he did not perform miracles as other prophets had done. (Harris 2007:86). Witness reports were also filed to attest how such deponents had indeed seen Smith's golden plates, and/or supernatural beings. Whether with their own eyes (as promoters affirm), or with “spiritual eyes” (as demoters emphasize) remains an open question in Mormonism.
Busy milling both orthodox Holocaust documentaries and heterodox “revisionist” films under competing identities, Jewish-American David Cole admits how:”In the most surreal moment of all, Laurence Moss, an economics professor at Harvard and Tufts, claimed [in print] to have actually visited the [Holocaustrelated]"Tinbergen Archives" (you know, the thing that existed entirely in my head).”1101.
Even some devout Mormon sources seem to have no problem with the “spiritual eyes” Smith translated the Book of Mormon professedly through. In our 1101
Republican Party Animal (2014:ch.8).
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recent decades, most people also saw the crucified Canadian and the bayoneted babies...with their “spiritual eyes”, perhaps: popular piety.
But there are bigger problems with group memories. They are more often frail and faulty than individual memories—just the opposite of what you might expect. It is nonetheless the case, for well documented reasons. For one thing, if one person—say, a dominant personality—injects into the conversation an incorrect recollection or “distorted memory” that others in the group do not remember, they tend to take the other person’s word for it. As one recent study has shown, “The misinformation implanted by one person comes to be shared by the group as a whole. In other words, a collective memory could become formed around misinformation.” (Ehrman 2016:41). The term "popular piety" designates those diverse cultic expressions of a private or community nature which, in the context of the Christian faith, are inspired predominantly not by the Sacred Liturgy but by forms deriving from a particular nation or people or from their culture. (at n.9, Catholic Directory On Popular Piety and Liturgy, 2001). I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know--God knows. -...-[ I= St. Paul] was caught up to paradise [=Third Heaven] and heard inexpressible things, things that no one is permitted to tell. (2 Corinthians 12:2,4). Another fabulous mister Smith was purportedly spotted at several places in north-eastern Piedmont (Italy) in summer 2014 1102: noted Afro-American actor Will Smith was photographed in front of landmarks here and there. Not only there are photographs to prove Smith had been at a certain place, but several people online claim to have personally interacted with him: it is all revealed to be a prank.
Just like UFOs, Elvis Presley, '...ist cabals', Men In Black and Madonnas 1102
Giornale Di Arona, August 8, 2014:39.
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might have, Will Smith would have appeared across Italy, with eye-witnesses and photographs to prove it: another hoax. The occasional bystander might be in a tizzy to part tomfools who deserve to be chastised or lampooned from 'authentic' eyewitnesses who deserve to act as vanguards of the party line: the liturgy looks identical.
The research is abundant and all points in the same direction. People remember all sorts of things, some of them in vivid detail, even though they never happened at all (Ehrman 2016:49). In the cult of Mao, everyone was expected to perform the loyalty danceextnote—from miners to office workers to toddlers to old ladies whose feet had been bound. "The movements were always toward the sky—that way you could show how respectful you were to Mao," Li says. "Everyone knew how to dance it." (Lin 2009:no page). Eusebius concluded that Irenaeus had failed to distinguish between Jesus’ disciple John and a later individual, “John the Presbyter” (i.e., the Elder), both mentioned in this passage, and thus Irenaeus imagined that Papias was a direct hearer of the former, whereas Papias said he’d heard the latter. I think Irenaeus also confused Papias with Polycarp; notice the similarity between what Irenaeus says Polycarp would recall and repeat of the words of the apostolic hearers and what he quotes Papias saying about picking the brains of the “elders” who repeated to him what they had heard from the apostles. Thus I think Irenaeus provides very doubtful evidence of his own teacher Polycarp, having heard the teaching of the Apostle John.(Price 2017d:no page). Myth had already addressed such issues. Vishnu and Brahma quarrel over whose role is greater. At that point a fiery pillar (a symbol of Shiva, yet to appear) manifests. Brahma and Vishnu decide to seek the end of the lingam: Brahma extnote
This is not a metaphor. People performed real dance steps while hailing Mao. The movement were inspired by a folk dance from Xinjiang, whereas the words were from the song Beloved Chairman Mao. (note of this writer).
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flies higher and higher, and Vishnu digs deeper and deeper, but no end is in sight. Brahma then cheats, invokes a divine flower as his witness to attest he has, indeed, reached the pillar's pinnacle. Vishnu humbly accepts defeat, but an angry Shiva materializes. The destroyer humbles and chastises Brahma and his minion: no temple would be dedicated – and no devotion paid- to Brahma ever; he also rewards Vishnu's good will with temples and worship to come.
Alternatively, some contend much of the same uncritical worship is paid to the British or U.S Constitution as 'sacred' system that enshrine quintessential principles of mystical origin and power (check and balances in the UK; the sovereign individual citizen in the U.S ).
Former U.S Chief Justice W. Burger exhorted U.S citizens in 1987 to exalt the U.S Constitution in terms very similar to instructions to Jews regarding the Torah imparted in Deuteronomy. In our time and age, the holy writ might be some gnostic passage from xeroxed '...ist censorship' and/or 'just war' flapdoodle.
Such cases are plentiful. Mythical Chinese founder Fu-Xi (XXIX century BCE) as culture hero gave the primeval Chinese instructions about sustenance methods -fishing, cooking, hunting...-, folkways (institutionalized marriage and sacrifices), and he also devised a primitive alphabet that became the quintessential divination tool as I-Ching. On the cusp between legend and history, the Korean alphabet Hangul was allegedly devised in 1443 CE under visionary monarch Sejong the Great. Hangul underwent all the persecutions, reversals of fortune and ultimate 793
triumph as all savior-heroes.
If Mormons consider their sages as the Saints of the latter days, Nichiren, too, is considered -by some of his followers- as the Buddha of the latter days. If devotees considered Jesus as a “son of David” of biblical vintage, Nichiren considered himself as the descendant of Jogyo Bosatsu, the Bodhisattva of the Latter Days. If the Nichiren Sho sect sets Gautama Buddha aside to proclaim Nichiren -just as in Johannine Christianity- as the eternal Buddha, other Nichiren sects -just as pre-Johannine Christianity1103- considered Nichiren as supreme teacher -just as Jesus was merely “god's adoptive son” 1104 in the beginning- and not as an incarnate Buddha.
Although the only begotten son of an almighty god, Jesus was born in a manger1105; “It is interesting to note [Nichiren's] apparent pride in coming from the barbaric eastern region of the country and also from a low social class. He calls himself the 'son of a sudra and a fisherman'”1106.
The figure of the prophet of doom is instrumental to soteriology, whether spiritual or mundane:”Muhammad is described as “a warner” (38:4), and the Quran as a book sent down “to warn the evildoers” (46:12).”1107. Nichiren put his 1103
The Gospels are in focus here. Of course, points of contact exist between the Pauline (the earliest) and the Johannine (the latest) form of early Christianity. 1104 A great honor in antiquity. As Bart Ehrman says, Octavian Augustus was Caesar's adoptive son. 1105 “She gave birth to her first child, a son. She wrapped him snugly in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no lodging available for them. ( Luke 2:7).”. Even Japanese lawgiver Prince Shotoku was miraculously born in a manger. 1106 Kodera 1979:41, note 3. 1107 Prothero 2010:24. The divine power in its capacity of warner is very ancient. Juno Moneta had a IV century BCE temple built at Rome: Juno (Greek Hera) as “warner”, in one explanation. In another, the goddess Moneta
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life in jeopardy to forewarn the rulers about catastrophes impiety had caused Japan, and about an upcoming Mongol invasion. If Jesus' anaiconic representation is the cross, in Nichiren Buddhism there is the mandala ( gohonzon) Nichiren prepared, which Soka Gakkai co-founder Toda dubbed “a machine to produce happiness”.
The core parable in Mahayana Buddhist Lotus Sutra is that of the house on fire: a father tries to get his many unaware children to leave the house that's on fire. His call goes initially unanswered because they're absorbed in their play, so the father tells a lie to insure his children get out as fast as possible, which they finally do. Who's the father? An elated minuteman peddling war propaganda? A patriotic hooligan? A meek redeemer? It's hard to tell the difference.
Many savior-heroes follow Machiavelli's suggestion, and try to branch their new gospel onto existing religions they want to avowedly 'reform': Brahma asks Gautama Buddha to teach; Joseph Smith incorporates the Christian Bible into Mormonism; Jesus is often hailed as son of David; Islam recognizes Jesus and the Hebrew tradition as anticipatory of Mohamed's ultimate ministry, whose revelation repeats -albeit in a perfect way according to god's will- that once delivered to Jews and Christians.
XIX century Japanese religion Tenrikyo saw a prophetess who introduced the cult of “god the parent”. In a revelation, this father-god figure (
Tenri-O-No-Mikoto ) branched the new religion onto traditional Japanese Shinto is connected to “memory” in the Greek tradition as mother of the Muses. “Warning” and “memory” are interconnected.
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lore by claiming that he, the father-god of newly established Tenrikyo, had begotten the founding deities of Japanese Shinto (Izanami and Izanagi) in a time before time. Sai Baba may be seen as Krishna's reincarnation; Krishna compels the people of Braj to give up Indra's worship: pilgrims pour libations of milk and water on a sacred stone to commemorate it...
John the Baptist might have been believed to be the messiah 1108 as chief of one of the competing1109 Hebrew sects in those ebullient times. Rising Christianity may have been led to incorporate a tradition that seemed important in those times and places by demoting a competing messiah to an ancillary role.
Jesus said, "Among those born of women, from Adam until John the Baptist, there is no one so superior to John the Baptist that his eyes should not be lowered (before him). ( Gospel Of Thomas no date no page n.46). For example, some authors connect John the Baptist (in his pre1108
“The child is placed in the womb of Elizabeth, and John [the Baptist] is born. After the birth of John, Magi (wise men) from the east appear to pay homage to the Messiah, whose star they saw. The angel warns Zechariah of the plan of Herod to kill the child. The new -born John the Baptist is handed over to the White Mountain (Parwan) in a mysterious fashion. He only returns on a splendid cloud to Jerusalem to commence his mission at the age of twenty-two. -...-We thus perceive a partial transfer of the birth -story of John the Baptist to Jesus in the gospels of Matthew and Luke.-...-From all this knowledge, they inferred the point of time of the expected Messiah. The Messiah of the Essenes was a priestly figure who would have to experience affliction and humiliation. Other religious groups saw the king in the Messiah, coupled with liberation and political grandeur for the people of Israel. The Priestly Messiah, thereby, had to be the offspring of an old honoured family of priests descending in direct line from Levi, while the Royal Messiah was expected from the House of David. -...-The by far greater number of his disciples, however, continued to see the messiah in John the Baptist, and, historically proved, existed as a religious community, respectively sect, until the 2nd ct AD. In this context, the already mentioned existence of the Sect of the Mandaeans has to be referred to that has its foundations in the disciples of John.” (Altinger 1995:17-19,81). “The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Messiah.” (Luke 3:15). 1109 There as similarities and contradictions between the Jesus movement and the John movement. C.H. Kraeling (John The Baptist, 1951) lists differences between the two figures. John practiced fasting, whereas Jesus rejected it (although the issue is kind of muddled in scripture); John practiced baptism, whereas Jesus didn't; John feared the upcoming judgment of a wrathful god, whereas Jesus welcomed the judgment of a merciful god; John preached the letter of the Hebrew law, whereas Jesus waived it; John welcomed a future kingdom of god that -for Jesus- was sort of already present.
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Christian, independent incarnation) to Simon Magus 1110 (either a St.Paul duplicate, or Paul himself according to some), who is in turn connected to Marcion 1111 the heresiarch, who allegedly assembled a first Christian Canon. The three Magi who honor the infant Jesus represent the bow of another existing, prominent religion (Persian Zoroastrianism) to emerging Christianity1112.
John the Baptist was construed to be related to Jesus, whether as a “cousin” or just a “relative” (Luke 1:36):”The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. -...-When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. ” (John 1:35-7). John the Just, Jesus' brother, might also be an(other) gnostic “teacher of righteousness” of Dead Sea Scrolls fame, whom Christianity co-opted into an ancillary position.
There also is a “James (the Just) the brother of Jesus”, but he has no connection with Jesus Christ, although such connection is often implied 1113. This James was a Herodian priest liquidated in a political intrigue: Jesus Bar Damneus, his brother (holy men by all accounts), replaced him as High Priest according to
Clementine Homilies. Irenaeus, Against Heresies. 1112 A very common religious ploy. The lore has various founders converting each other, or interacting in some way: Lao-Tzu as Buddha's eminent disciple; or as he who converted Buddha himself... 1113 Contrary to what Christian fundamentalists believe, such confusion is possible even today. In her blog, Chinese Pure Land Buddhist monastic Wuling talks often about “brothers”. While it is often clear she refers to ordained Buddhist monks, at times it is unclear whether she means blood relatives or simply co-religionists. In the New Testament, Jesus seems to disown his blood relatives in favor of his followers:”He replied to him, "Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?" Pointing to his disciples, [Jesus] said, "Here are my mother and my brothers. “(Matthew 12:48-49); also in Mark 3:33-34. Luke is also explicit:”Someone told him, "Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to see you."[Jesus] replied, "My mother and brothers are those who hear God's word and put it into practice."( 8:20-21)”. Whence the thorny issue regarding “brothers of the lord” as independent attestation for Jesus' life&ministry. 1110 1111
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Josephus around 68 CE.
Popular Hindu gods such as Ganesha easily transited to Theravada Buddhism in ancillary capacity (Vinayaka). Buddhists would do the same in Tibet at a later time by demoting Bon deities to ancillary roles in the new religion, and so happened in Japan with primeval Shinto gods ( honji-suijaku). Deities of Indian origin -such as Brahma or Sarasvati- had erstwhile been adopted into the Japanese Shinto pantheon. Small groups -such as the Mandaeans- revere John the Baptist the most still today.
At times the old establishment may try to reabsorb the heresy, for example considering Gautama Buddha as Vishnu's incarnation, or Jesus as an (Hebrew) sage, possibly linked to the rabbinical tradition ( Babylonian Talmud) as Yehoshua Ben Pandira (Panthera, Pandera...1114), a disciple of noted Rabbi Ben Perechiah (Perachia) who started his ministry in 154 BCE.
According to some sources1115, Ben Pandira's life in Talmudic literature (Babylonian, not Jerusalem Talmud) shares some high points with that of the conventional Jesus, notably ministry, a violent death at the hands of a Jewish mob under Queen Alexandra1116 in 70 BCE, and an earlier flight to Egypt.
A more interesting alleged Jewish tradition conveyed by Amolo is 1114
Some claim Pandira (Panthera, Pandera) means “virgin”, hence “son of a virgin” (Ben Pandira) just as the lore claims about Jesus. 1115 For a comprehensive summary, see Zuersher 2014:268ss. 1116 A pivotal figure in Hebrew history. After her death, the Hasmonean Kingdom disintegrated in a civil war between her sons. The Romans conquered Judea: the end of Hebrew sovereignty in the Middle East.
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the use of the nickname “Ussum Aegyptius," meaning “Dissipator Aegyptius." for Jesus. Amolo thought that this “Egyptian Destroyer" was the Egyptian False Prophet mentioned in Acts. " But it is more likely that the word “Ussum" is a faulty rendering of the Hebrew “KOSSeM" — sorcerer. According to the gospels, the Jews accused Jesus of sorcery, I 13 and this accusation was repeated in talmudic sources, one of which uses the word “KOSSeM" when referring to Jesus; following another Talmudic passage, Jesus learned his sorcery in Egypt. " The Talmud accuses Jesus of “bewitch[ing], incit[ing] [to rebellion] and induc[ing] Israel [to sin]." -...- This double meaning explains Amolo’s (and perhaps his Jewish source‘s) mistake; all the Talmudic sources were incorrectly merged into one derogative appellation describing Jesus as an “Egyptian sorcerer" - “ussum Aegyptius" - and Amolo [IX century CE Archbishop of Lyon], wrongly informed about the double meaning of “HeDIaH,“ incorrectly translated it as “Dissipator." (Albert in Limor&Stroumsa 1996:139). In yet another Talmudic passage (and in Epiphanius, 315-403 CE), some Jesus (Yeshu1117; Yeshu the Nasorean1118 (Nazorian)...) is stoned and hanged on Passover eve because he was a sorcerer 1119 under King Alexander Jannaeus1120 (10376 BCE):”We have found this man[= St.Paul] to be a troublemaker who is constantly stirring up riots among the Jews all over the world. He is a ringleader of the cult
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Even in antiquity, a single name might go under a myriad nicknames, such as Margaret may be shortened as Daisy, Greta, Marge, May, Molly, Peg, Rita. Alexander may appear as Al, Alec, Lex, Zan, Andy. 1118 “As David Friedrich Strauss pointed out, Jerome for a time thought that the Gospel according to the Nazoreans was the Hebrew original of Matthew.-...-namely the entire silence of both Josephus and the Mishnah when it comes to Nazareth. More than this, it seems to confirm a long-standing critical theory that 'Jesus the Nazorean/Nazarene'first denoted a sectarian label, reflecting the Nazorean sect(s) catalogued by various Jewish, Christian, and Muslim heresiologists, notably including the still-living Mandaean (Nasorean) sect of lraq. Jesus was considered to be a member, or at least a pious Jew of that type (Nasoreans were itinerant carpenters, among other things). It was only later, once those with a higher Christology had begun to feel uneasy with notions such as Jesus receiving instruction from John the Baptist or even from village tutors, that some preferred to understand "Nazarene" to mean "of Nazareth." And by this time, there was a Nazareth, which the gospel writers were only too happy to retcon,or retroject, into the first century BCE.” (Price 2010b:25,123). “Nazarene” might have been construed as a title, “holy one”. “What do You have to do with us, Jesus--Nazarene? Have You come to destroy us? I know who You are--the Holy One of God!" ( Mark 1:24, it implies “Nazarene” as meaning “holy one of god”). 1119 One of the explanations is that he had by subterfuge mastered “god's ineffable name”. 1120 For example versions of a possibly IV century constellation of Jewish texts known under the label Toledot Yeshu.
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known as the Nazarenes.”1121.
Many other notable Jesuses1122, “new Joshuas” (prophets, agitators, priests...) also populate the same historical period, such as Jesus Ben Stada (in one etymology “Jesus son of a virgin”), a II century CE agitator often confused with Ben Pandira (= the virgin mother connection) according to C.G. Jung; or Jesus Ben Thebuth, a Temple priest -hence an “anointed one”, “messiah”- who surrendered to the Romans in 69 CE during the war.
other would-be prophets of deliverance [Josephus describes]-...-For deceivers and impostors, pretending to be under divine inspiration and fomenting upheavals, persuaded the multitude to madness and led them out into the desert, as if there God would show them signs of liberation. (Evans in Levine et alii 2006 :60-61). There were also bandits among the supporters of at least two of the popularly acclaimed kings, Simon the royal slave in 4 B.CE. and Simon bar Giora in 68 C E . (Horsley&Hanson 1985: 92-93). Acts 24:5. “This section of Nazoraeans, whose leaders were Peter, James, and John, became the first Christian Church. For reasons that admit only of conjecture (perhaps due to the nature of their visions) James and certain others enjoyed the title of " brethren of the Lord." -...-To the first Christians the death of the Messiah or Christ was not an earthly event at all. He was the " Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." .The mode of his death was at first unspecified. Paul, a rival visionary to Peter, James, and John, introduced from Psalm xxii the idea of his death by crucifixion. To Paul, however, the murderers of the Christ are not Jewish priests or Roman procurators, but Satan and his demons, the " rulers of this world, which are coming to nought."” (Robertson 1946:60). “My original theory was that the " Nazareans " were just the " Nazarites " of the Old Testament men "separated" and "under a vow"; and that the two movements somehow coalesced, the place-name " Nazareth " being finally adopted to conceal the facts. ” (Robertson 1917:114).”The disciples said to Him, "Your brothers and Your mother are standing outside." [Jesus] said to them, "Those here who do the will of My Father are My brothers and My mother. It is they who will enter the Kingdom of My Father."” ( Gospel Of Thomas no date no page n.99). 1122 Some suggest Minos might have been a honorific title reserved to Cretan kings. Others extend this consideration to Jesus. Jesus, Joshua or variations of such a name, might have been generic titles reserved to a number of messianic Hebrew figures. “Nazarene” might also have been construed as a title, “holy one”. “What do You have to do with us, Jesus--Nazarene? Have You come to destroy us? I know who You are--the Holy One of God!" (Mark 1:24, it implies “Nazarene” as meaning “holy one of god”). “She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins." ” (Matthew 1:21).Caesar was originally the name of a Roman general. It went on to identify emperors and royalties (Caesar Augustus; Claudius Caesar; Czar Nicholas II; Kaiser Wilhelm II...), and in some cultures it is still used as a first name. 1121
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Herod decided that it would be much better to strike first and be rid of [John the Baptist] before his work led to an uprising, than to wait for an upheaval (Josephus, Antiquities 18:118). When we look at more reliable manuscripts, 'Jesus of Nazareth' is repeatedly and explicitly identified as 'Jesus ben Pantera' and 'Jesus ben Stada', leaving no such doubts (Carrier 2014:282, note 4).
The God-Man does not receive the name Jesus till after his crucifixion. That alone, in my judgment, is fatal to the historicity of Jesus. M. Loisy maintains, in opposition to the text, that the name given after the crucifixion is not Jesus, but only the title of Lord. Unfortunately for that argument the text is perfectly clear. (Couchoud1123 1939:438). In conclusion, there seems to be a pattern, where a number of episodes described in the New Testament display significant similarities to events described by Josephus, but with a fairly consistent delay of fifteen to twenty years. -....-There are significant differences, but had the Egyptian been active in the 30s, instead of in the 50s, historians would undoubtedly have made comparisons with Jesus from Nazareth. The reasons are manifold: Like Jesus, the Egyptian had lingered in “the wilderness” or “desert” (ἐρημία). Both speak of tearing down the walls of Jerusalem (cf. Luke 19:43-44). Both had lived in Egypt. Both are described as messianic leaders with a great following. Both are perceived as major threats by the authorities. ”The Egyptian” is defeated on the Mount of Olives, where Jesus was arrested. Aside from chronology, the one thing which most clearly distinguishes Jesus and the Egyptian are the circumstances surrounding their defeat: Jesus is arrested on the Mount of Olives, crucified, resurrected, and then vanishes. The Egyptian is defeated in a battle on the Mount of Olives, and then vanishes. (Einhorn 2012:no page). For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough. (St. Paul, 2 Corinthians 11:4, emphasis added). Jesus Ben Ananias was another prophet of doom who criticized the 1123
French physician, psychiatrist and litterateur who followed the “German thesis” that denied the historicity of Jesus. He refers here to Jesus' name in Philippians 2.
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establishment on the basis of biblical prophecy: he entered the Temple to denounce the ruling authorities on the possible basis of Jeremiah 71124 at the time of religious festivities; he was accused and scourged 1125 in the 60s CE under Roman surveillance; he was actually set free1126 later as a lunatic with no actual followers:
to argue that Jesus of Nazareth was put to death by the Roman authorities because they believed him to be a royal pretender of some kind, fails to explain satisfactorily why he was killed but his followers were not. A possible solution to this conundrum, which is supported by neglected contextual data, is that the Romans thought Jesus of Nazareth to be a deranged and deluded lunatic (Meggitt 1127 2007:379). Simon Bar Giora was another rebel leader during the Roman siege of Jerusalem. He was captured, carted off to Rome, publicly scourged and executed as “King of the Jews” (=Gospel reference 1128) in 70 CE, just as he wished to be considered in his political career: another kingly Joshua figure?
Simon's ceremonial surrender and his ritual execution at the climax of the imperial triumphal procession, reveal both that Simon [ Bar Giora] understood himself as the messiah and that the conquering Romans recognized him as the leader of the nation [=King of the Jews]. When Simon suddenly appeared, in the place where the temple had stood, clothed in royal robes, he may well have been sacrificing himself as an offering to God. (Horsley&Hanson 1985:126-127). 1124
“And as he taught them, [Jesus] said, "Is it not written: 'My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations'? But you have made it 'a den of robbers.'"” ( Mark 11:17). “Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you? But I have been watching! declares the LORD.” ( Jeremiah 7:11). 1125 Like Jesus, he meekly took punishment without cursing his tormentors according to Josephus. 1126 Pilate also offered to set Jesus Christ free, but the mob preferred Jesus Barabbas to him in the Gospel. 1127 Academic Director, University Senior Lecturer in the Study of Religion and Classics. 1128 Either the “historical Jesus” was one of many “kingly agitators” (=king<=>messiah; king, hence “son of god”, or “son of god”, hence king), or bits and pieces from “talk of town” narratives had been assembled to substantiate a mythological Jesus: another Joshua (“Jehovah by him would save Israel”, Fausset's Bible Dictionary) who looked like a composite character drawn from many competing narratives about pretenders who cleanse the Temple to inaugurate restorative messianic kingdoms.
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Other sources may criticize and/or discard any or all the above. The reason for the presence of so many Jesuses may be in the same league as the presence of an African wrestler named Apollo Crews, just like the Rocky movie character Apollo Creed:
The name Jesus was very common in this part of the world at this time. For example, there are twenty-one people named Jesus in one history by Josephus, written in the first century CE, and one scholar has noted an ancient letter that was written by a man named Jesus to a man named Jesus about a man named Jesus. (Johnston 2010:55)1129. As Burton Mack has suggested, the political element in the Passion seems likely to represent an anachronistic confusion by Mark with the events leading to the fall of Jerusalem. When the Olivet Discourse warns its readers not to take any of a number of false messiahs and Zealot agitators for their own Jesus, does this not imply Christians were receiving the news of Theudas or Jesus ben Ananias or John of Gischala as news of Jesus’ return? You don’t tell people not to do what they’re already not doing. If they were making such confusions, it would be inevitable that the events attached to them would find their way back into the telling of the Jesus story. It looks like this very thing happened. One notices how closely the interrogation and flogging of Jesus ben-Ananias, in trouble for predicting the destruction of the temple, parallels that of Jesus, ostensibly 40 years 1129
Johnston was unable to supply details regarding “an ancient letter that was written by a man named Jesus to a man named Jesus about a man named Jesus”. In a private email, Johnston (Associate Research Professor in Anthropology) writes (March 8, 2017) to the present writer:”To be honest I heard it in a documentary that was critical of the ossuaries being connected to the historical Jesus Christ. Probably not the best standard of scholarship! But it was such a "fun fact" that I couldn't resist using it even without verifying it. ”. At a conference, Professor Of Religion S. Prothero declared that in Muslim Indonesia in the 1830s there was an interest in rising Mormonism. The present writer asked Professor Prothero in an email about the topic, to which Prothero kindly replied (January 26, 2013) that he had gotten it from Islamic Studies scholar M. Feener. Asked about the topic of Indonesian Muslim interest in Mormonism, Dr. Feener (March 10, 2017) graciously replies in a private email to the present writer to “not have any information on particular Muslim reactions from Indonesia at that early period. “. Urban legends spread likewise. The chain of authentication for the story of this local U.S customer -whom everybody knew yet still anonymous- who either died, or had an arm amputated because of the poisonous sting of some animal nested into imported foreign goods went thus:” “My brother is a doctor,” another caller explained. “He’s on the staff at Baylor Hospital and he was present when they brought the woman in.” Baylor Hospital said it also had no such case on record. Neither did the police or the health department. The doctor was questioned, he said it wasn’t actually he who was present but a friend. The friend explained he wasn’t present either, he had just overheard two nurses talking about it. ” (Brunvand 1981:95).
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previously. We notice how Simon bar Gioras was welcomed into the temple with palm branches to cleanse the sacred precinct from the “thieves” who infested it, Zealots under John of Gischala. Uh-oh. Suppose these signs of historical-political verisimilitude are interlopers in the gospels from the following generation. (Price no date:no page). Acts 5:26-40 depicts how the Apostles are brought to the Sanhedrin. At one point, rabbi Gamaliel says: “Fellow-Israelites, consider carefully what you propose to do to these men. For some time ago Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody, and a number of men, about four hundred, joined him; but he was killed, and all who followed him were dispersed and disappeared.” If we assume that Acts is written somewhat chronologically, this interrogation at the Sanhedrin would have happened soon after the crucifixion of Jesus, and in any event in the 30s C.E., since it precedes Saul’s arrival in Damascus. Judging by Josephus, however (A.J. 20.97-99), Theudas was a messianic leader active and killed under Fadus (44 to 46 C.E.). So if this is correct, Theudas could not already be dead in the 30s. This is an inconsistency between the NT narrative and that of Josephus which is generally noted. The most common assumption has been that the author of Luke-Acts confused the order of the messianic leaders, especially since Acts 5:37 subsequently relates Gamaliel’s statement that Judas the Galilean came after Theudas. According to Josephus, Judas the Galilean was active several decades before Theudas (B.J. 2.56,118,433; A.J. 18.1-10,23). (Einhorn 2012:no page). Much as early Christians co-opted the figure of John the Baptist, possibly another originally independent messianic figure, so Jesus is also mentioned in nine chapters in the Quran (Islam's holy book) as messenger of god: 154 times, more than Mohamed himself as some say.
The apocryphal1130 Arabic Infancy Gospel Of The Savior (VI century CE) explicitly links Jesus to the Zoroastrian tradition of Persia. The Magi who worship Jesus are in fact – at Ravenna (mosaic at Sant'Apollinare Nuovo) – garbed in Persian 1130
The term simply means this -and many other gospels- are not received as part of the official tradition of Christianity in one or more denominations. There are gospels apocryphal in one tradition but accepted in another. “Eventually, 'Abd al-Jabbàr [Islamic theologian, (935-1025 CE)] relates elsewhere [Tathbìt, 153], there were eighty versions of the gospel.” (Reynolds 2004:93).
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fashion, with Phrygian caps linked to Mithras:
7. And it came to pass, when the Lord Jesus was born at Bethlehem of Judaea, in the time of King Herod, behold, magi came from the east to Jerusalem, as Zeraduscht [Zarathustra] had predicted; and there were with them gifts, gold, and frankincense, and myrrh. (Arabic Infancy... no date no page). Echoes of the Arabic Infancy Gospel may also be found in the Quran (Surah 19:29-34). The entire Infancy Gospel genre represents another vortex of the human mind alive and well to this day. If there is a Superman, there ought to have been a Superboy: Discovering The Teen Jesus 1131. “If you had never heard of Superman, would you have ever heard of Clark Kent? ”1132. Indiana Jones, Sherlock Holmes and Han Solo must have been “young adventurers” as many movies and series document: already awesome as their adult persona. Hitler, Garibaldi, Freud, Mussolini as youngsters also beckon from video libraries.
Some traditions argue that Jain Saint Mahavira and Gautama Buddha – or Confucius and Lao-Tzu- interacted in some way or another. For example Buddha may be seen as Mahavira's disciple; Confucius as Lao-Tzu's disciple; Jesus bows down to John the Baptist's spiritual authority; Zalmoxis was Pythagoras' slave. Alternatively, Buddha is said to be either Lao-Tzu in disguise, or an incarnation of 1131 1132
Subtitle of a 2013 book by F. Silcox. Attributed to R.M. Price. Price here refers to “scaled down” versions of Jesus who -from the “only begotten son of god” (=Superman) is cut to size as some carpenter who tried a gig as messianic agitator with no success (=”the historical Jesus”, Clark Kent). Price's question is legitimate, however. If no “only begotten son of god” existed, why would people show interest in the record relating to a failed provincial messianic agitator among many? The bumbling carpenter figure -just as Clark Kent the bumbling reporter- is of interest only insofar as it serves as an opaque screen for “the man of steel” or “the son of man”. At any moment could “the man of steel” fly to the sky; or “the son of man” walk on water. As far as the oracles and deepities 'the great man' uttered, this writing shows -at least in part- how it's a thimblerig to guess which 'great man' said which deepity first (Krishna, Confucius, Buddha, Zoroaster...).
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Vishnu. Baruch Ben Neriah was an Hebrew scribe under Prophet Jeremiah (about VI century BCE), whom some Christian traditions identify with Zoroaster (as Baruch-Zoroaster): after the Hebrew god denied Baruch the gift of prophecy, he allegedly relocated to Persia to found a new religion as Zoroaster.
In the polemics the introduction of Buddhism generated in China among pre-existing Taoism and Confucianism, a flurry of spurious texts were forged to vindicate which founder had come first. Competing traditions arose proclaiming Lao-Tzu as the Buddha's pre-eminent disciple; or arguing that Lao-Tzu had converted Buddha himself. Chinese Emperor Wudi of Liang (464-549 CE) considered Lao-Tzu and Confucius as Buddha's disciples.
Syncretism was also very popular. Taoist monk Gu Huan (420-483 CE) declared:”Tao is Buddha and Buddha is Tao, the sages are the same, but the manifestations are different.”. Chinese Emperor Wendi (541-604 CE), who ruled a unified China after centuries of turmoil, also declared regarding China's three main religions (Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism):”teachings all are good and aiming for the same purpose; although the teachings may be different in profundity but they all come to the same end from various ways”.
Nestorian Christianity at some fleeting moment entered the mix. A proclamation introducing it to China declared in 638 CE:”Right principles have no invariable name, holy men have no invariable station; instruction is established in
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accordance with the locality, with the object of benefiting the people at large. ”1133. In Japan, Shinbutsu Shugo denotes the dominant religious syncretism between Buddhism and Shintoism.
The human mind thus reflects the collective unconscious' proclivity to endlessly mill multifarious clones and variations of the same gnostic package:
As this observation implies, the [chief Taoist text] Zhuangzi is a mischievous text. Its reputed author has been described as “a mystic, a satirist, a nihilist, a hedonist, a romantic,” and “a profound and brilliant jester who demolishes our confounded seriousness.” The words attributed to him run in all these directions, often at the same time. (Prothero 2010:100). Octavian Augustus (also called Caesar Augustus) is no different. Dio Cassius1134 narrates how Augustus' mother Attia claimed her child had been fathered on her by Apollo: she was convinced to have had -just like Alexander's motherintercourse with a snake1135. Senator Figulus, a noted soothsayer (=the magus/wise man connection), prophesied to Augustus' father Octavius how the child was fated to rule supreme one day.
That's a very common mytheme. ”Taking the form of a serpent, Arjuna slipped into Ali’s bed and made love to her as she slept. Krishna solemnized the union.”1136. Eve, too, has sex with the Eden serpent in Midrashic literature1137: Cain is Nestorian Monument, Wylie trans. (1909). These lines could very well epitomize the description of Bastian's elementary and ethnic ideas. 1134 History Of Rome 45, 1.2-2.4 1135 Liu Bang, the future founder of the Chinese Han dynasty as Gaozu (IIII/II century BCE), was born a peasant, whose mother dreamt she had intercourse with a dragon. 1136 Folklore from the state of Tamil Nadu, in Pattanaik 2000:41. 1137 Genesis Rabbah 2.19.2 1133
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thus born. In Graeco-Roman lore, Zagreus – a dying and rising divine child often equated with Bacchus- was born “to Zeus in dragonbed by Persephoneia [=Proserpina/Persephone], the consort of the blackrobed king of the underworld [Hades/Pluto]; when Zeus put on a deceiving shape of many coils, as a gentle drakon [=serpent] ”1138.
Seized by fear, Octavius -an Herod or Nimrod ersatz- contemplated killing the child (threat upon divine child mytheme), but Figulus dissuaded him. According to Suetonius1139, the Roman Senate proposed to kill any boy born around the time of Octavian's birth because prodigies announced the birth of the future king of Rome. The decree was not put into effect because Senators with pregnant wives hoped the prophecy foretold an imperial destiny for their own son soon to be born. Further prodigies - and mastery over natural elements just as it would be the case with Jesus and Pythagoras1140- confirmed Octavian's royal destiny.
Although in our time such explosive critique against whichever established socio-political order is typically equated with left-wing, pseudo-Marxist advocacy -nowadays simmering in the stale sauce war propagandists cooked -, leaders had been performing the exercise since time immemorial:
In this description of four castes, there is no intervention of God. The emergence of four groups was the result of the natural process that the people freely selected their professions in the society. God had no role to take on it. Therefore, the theory of varnadharma and svadharma Nonnus, Dyonisiaca, W.H.D Rouse translation. The Twelve Caesars, Augustus, 94:1-11. 1140 Aristotle remarks how divine Pythagoras was addressed by the river Nessus he was crossing:”Hail, Pythagoras”. 1138 1139
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also had no place to stay on it. (Abeynayake, ME6208 no date: Buddhist Critique Of The Social And Religious Institutions). According to Indian thought in 6th century BC, if one wanted to be rich, he had to be Brahmin or Khattiya. Caste determined everything. But the Buddha says that not the caste, but the economical condition determines the destiny. -...- According to the [Kutadanta] sutta, the root of problems in any country is the problem of food. It is the duty of the government to provide food for workers and farmers. The reason is that workers and farmers constitute the major part of the citizens. They are revolutionary class. If the government gives them food, then the major problem will be solved.(Guang Xing, ME6208:Buddhist Attitude Towards Material Wealth). This is what Buddhism did to the established socio-economic order of India. Joseph Smith, too, was busy both scandalizing the mainstream (for example polygamy ), and reforming it (for example his bid to become president). Jesus, too, followed suit:
Command the Israelites to send away from the camp anyone who has a defiling skin disease or a discharge of any kind, or who is ceremonially unclean because of a dead body (Numbers 5:2). While Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along who was covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he fell with his face to the ground and begged him, "Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean." Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!" And immediately the leprosy left him. (Luke 5:12-3). the psychopathâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s devil-maycare attitude toward social conventions. (Dutton 2012:132). Wisdom and foolishness are practically the same. Both are indifferent to the opinions of the world. (Campbell 1991:149). Savior-hero-founders in fact turn the received socio-political order upside down:â&#x20AC;?things that give deep passions are your sword; rules and regulations 809
have no meaning anymore ”1141. Gautama Buddha explained the true “aryan” 1142 was not1143 the member of Hindu upper classes claiming unbroken lineages from mythological heroic ancestors, but the religious practitioner starting from an intermediate state of development.
Confucius explained the true “gentleman” (a term reserved for the nobility of the various Chinese States) was he who followed the moral code Confucius had expounded. Jesus followed in the same steps, for the ultimate Kingdom would belong neither to Hebrew priests or zealots, nor to Graeco-Roman imperial elites, but to the scum of the Earth. Marx scorched the upper classes to the advantages of the toiling have-nots, future rulers of a world of plenty. Mussolini hailed as future master race no other than the ragged Italian masses: austerity was their birthright.
Another of human mind's irresistible proclivities is -in fact- that of projecting self-important images of itself in stern, clear-cut roles abiding by moral codes cast in stone, only to be in perpetual neurotic flight from the same thereafter as it routinely gets caught 'with the pants down'.
Observe the nature of the conflict. It is a clash between a value imperative ("I should know what to do; I must know what to do") Lyrics from Rocky IV (1985) soundtrack Hearts On Fire. “Whoever thus aspires, labours, battles, travels, ascends the hill of being is the Aryan (ārya, arya,ari with the various senses, to toil, to fight, to climb or rise, to travel, to prepare the sacrifice) ” (Yatsenko, MAISI002 no date:lecture 4:9) 1143 In perfect Hindu style, Gautama Buddha is described thus, however:”The ascetic Gotama is well-born on both sides of pure descent to the seventh generation, unbroken, of irreproachable birth. -...-He is a wanderer from a wealthy family, of great wealth and possession.” (Abhayawansa, BH6103 no date: unit 8:2-3) 1141 1142
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engaging the man's sense of personal worth and a failure or flaw or inadequacy that the man experiences as a breach of that imperative ("I don't know what to do"). (Branden 1985:77). For example, people set families up and beget children only to feel “trapped” and often “owned”, so they chafe in the pursuit of “alone time” and diversions. That's the “lost adolescence” phase according to DiMele:”with responsibility comes resentment”. Relationships one worked hard to weave 1144 become an impingement upon one's well-deserved “free time”.
People feel deprived of their “potential” 1145, so chagrin comes over that university degree that has eluded them for a lifetime; over that “boob job” one has been unable to afford so far; over that soul-searching trip to India that awaits one since one was 17yo; over the sport car that would finally turn one into a “babe magnet”.
You can never reach an ideal; it is always just beyond the horizon. Even if you do achieve some element of it, the satisfaction won't last, so you tend to believe you didn't do it well enough or get it quite right. Motivating you toward this unreachable ideal is the other major job of the judge. It keeps egging you on to reach that perfect image, never letting you rest or feel satisfied. Even though the ideal may be worthy and good, at some point, you must question how good it is when you use it as a way of continually rejecting yourself now. Compared to an ideal, you will always find yourself lacking, deficient, or not good enough in the moment. (Brown 1998:165). Sem hipocrisia não há civilização, e isso é a prova de que somos desgraçados: precisamos da falta de caráter como cimento da vida 1144
It is enough to think of the billionaire fertility industry. There are many couples (or people) who spend a fortune on fertility treatments and/or consultations only to feel dejected, “trapped” and “owned” as the very expensive pregnancy and/or child finally arrive. 1145 That typically takes the form of some status display such as letters after one's name, job titles or descriptions.
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coletiva (Luiz Felipe Pondé 2010)1146. Oedipus (an oracle); King David of Israel (prophet Nathan 1147); Set (Isis) respond to either oracles, or a fictional story by getting on their high horse spouting off judgments that are then revealed as having been leveled at themselves: Set thus admits his nephew Horus is Egypt's rightful King; Oedipus discovers his crimes brought a plague to Thebes; King David faces his godless behaviour.
There is no need to get hot flushes as patriarchal gods froth at the mouth.
The Cookie Thief story1148 may do as well. A woman is convinced a man sitting next to her stole her cookies, but offered her half of the last one. She's unnerved, but suddenly...
As she reached in her baggage, she gasped with surprise. There was her bag of cookies in front of her eyes! “If mine are here,” she moaned with despair,“Then the others were his and he tried to share!”Too late to apologize, she realized with grief, That she was the rude one, the ingrate, the thief! (Valerie Cox, from A 3rd Serving Of Chicken Soup For The Soul, 1993). The same approach should be used to settle arguments: The perspective of each side is presented without the affiliation—the facts are revealed, but not which party took which actions. This type of “blind” condition might help us better recognize the truth. (Ariely 2009:99). Then Nathan said to David, "You are the man! This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: -...-Why did you despise the word of the LORD by doing what is evil in his eyes? “ ( 2 Samuel 12:79). 1146
Hypocrisy is the foundation of civilization. That shows we are wretched. Lack of character is necessary to us in order to keep collective life in working condition. Caroline Myss also posits “personal integrity”, a code of conduct. “Standards” one would in no occasion deviate from are posited as cornerstone of “self esteem”. 1147 2 Samuel 12:1ss. 1148 http://www.chickensoup.com/book-story/35305/the-cookie-thief
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Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things (Romans 2:1). Dictators, revivalists, and sadists know that people like to be lashed with accusations of their own basic unworthiness because it reflects how they truly feel about themselves. (Becker 1973:154). It is healthy for partners to challenge one another’s words and behaviors, if there is unconditional acceptance at the heart of the relationship. What is most destructive for a relationship, Gottman found, is hostility—an attack on the person—be it in the form of name-calling, insults, hurtful sarcasm, or other ways of putting the partner down. Telling your partner that he is an inconsiderate slob is an attack on the person; telling him how it upsets you to enter a smelly kitchen after you had agreed that he would take out the garbage is focusing on the behavior. (BenShahar 2011:76). Can you tell a story? -...-Are you giving them data that confirms to their preconceived notions?” (Sharot, in I'm Right...2017:no page, emphasis added). Internalization of negative opinions— changing “you are” to “I am”—forms the foundation of low self-esteem. (Forward&Buck 1989:71). [Marcuse's criticism] takes historically accumulated concepts and then measures a society against those concepts that have been developed within it, which is what I was just doing by saying these are the following maladies of our society and they shouldn’t be; we should be happier and so on. You know, this is a society with happiness, liberty and all that, or it is supposed to be. -...-So immanent critique takes the historically accumulated concepts, for example the Bill of Rights tradition and it confronts them with the historically existent reality, to measure the gap between the practice and the promise. You are all familiar with this style of critique because it’s, for example, Martin Luther King‘s paradigmatic style of critique, right? I mean, Martin Luther King didn’t say “Look, I am a Maoist, that’s why we should have civil rights” No, it wasn’t because he was a Maoist; it 813
was because there was a gap between the practices we engages in and our promises. (Roderick 1993:Marcuse And OneDimensional Man). Most of us are one paycheck, one divorce, one drug-addicted kid, one mental health diagnosis, one serious illness, one sexual assault, one drinking binge, one night of unprotected sex, or one affair away from being “those people”—the ones we don’t trust, the ones we pity, the ones we don’t let our children play with, the ones bad things happen to, the ones we don’t want living next door. (Brown 2007:117). Almighty ones avowedly pass down divine moral codes, only for a later savior-prophet to dismantle them -in full or in part- under the sign of fighting prejudices, spreading forgiveness and reconciliation etc: the doom of tribalism. Mahayana Buddhism has Gautama Buddha recede in the background as new celestial Buddhas, scribes and other sages expound an updated truth as Gautama serves as the fig leaf of credibility:
Thereupon, the Lord [Gautama Buddha] arose from that Samadhi and applauded the holy Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, the great messiah: “Excellent! Excellent! Noble son! Such it is! Such it is! (Bhagavati Prajnaparamita-hrdaya Sutra, Thurman trans.). Passing judgments is bad on one hand; on the other, apocalyptic judgment days of fire and brimstone are a fixture of religious projections, even when such “hijacked religious impulses” take the form of a wish to ignite an all-out race war (in the USA for example).
Drout seems to counter the present writer's argument as he writes:
Related to the ad hominem fallacy is the tu quoque fallacy, or, as we 814
used to use it in New Jersey when I was growing up, the “so’s your mom” fallacy. An example would be “famous actor X says that population control is a good idea, but he has eleven children.” Famous actor X may be a hypocrite, but that does not address the merits of the idea of population control, whatever they may be. The tu quoque fallacy is probably the most common in all of political discourse. It is worth noting that on the one hand, this is a very effective way of criticizing someone, because very few people (and even few politicians) manage to live up to every ideal they preach. The saying is that hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue, and it is worth thinking of this when considering whether or not to engage in the tu quoque fallacy: It gives you short-term cover, but in the long run you are not likely to convince anyone. (2006:39). Following the close of the 104th Congress in 1996, a startling event occurred: Fourteen incumbent senators decided not to seek reelection. Such an exodus was unprecedented in U.S. history. In contrast, the average was five and a half per session for the years 1946 to 1994. Even more distressing, the voluntarily retiring senators were a particularly distinguished and respected group, widely agreed to be exceptionally thoughtful, fair, and moderate. In his introduction to a collection of farewell essays by thirteen of them, Norman Ornstein singles out a theme running through their remarks that also caught my attention: Many of the outgoing senators "lament the increasing level of vituperation and partisanship." Politics is partisan and oppositional by nature. Political parties vie for power and votes. Legislation is proposed and either supported or opposed. Bills, like candidates, are either voted in or voted down. (Tannen 1998:96). Drout's objection is not tenable. According to the same, people are a bunch of underachieving, lunatic hypocrites anyways, who love to stuff their big mouths with bombastic claims nobody really takes seriously in a sort of role-play where condescending adults try to take children's flights of fancy seriously.
If the vastest majority of people -if not everybody- cannot live up to (respect, abide by...) the standards of whichever great idea, moral code cast in stone or the like they embrace, what sense does it make to discuss it after all? It amounts
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to another sensational documentary detailing terra-forming on Mars as a feasible enterprise to be started soon; Drout's approach is pretty much equivalent. It is not about aiming high to achieve less: it is sheer nonsense.
As far as politicians go, cases lifted from everyday press in various countries show that interactions look more like a tragicomic operetta or a melodramatic pantomime as far as the public can see; or the unwritten chapter of a mafioso novel if one considers what goes on behind the curtain:
In mid-November assistant FBI director William C. Sullivan instructed the lab to compile a tape of "highlights" of King's sexual adventures collected over the preceding ten months. Sullivan then added an anonymous letter. An agent took the tape and letter to Miami and mailed the package to King at SCLC headquarters in Atlanta. The staff assumed that it was a recording of one of his speeches and saved it for Caretta, his wife, who collected them. She picked it up after New Year's and played it. As Garrow wrote, she was "surprised and shocked" and immediately turned it over to her husband. The letter was both insulting and threatening. (Bernstein 1996:217). Tannen, however, argues that:
What's wrong with this picture? In doing public service, a person makes a personal sacrifice to contribute to society. The notion that people must pay a high price for the privilege of making sacrifices makes no sense. But today the assumption is that people seek public office not to serve their country but to advance their careers and enhance their personal power. Looked at that way, it makes sense: You have to be willing to pay a price to enjoy the power and glory. (1998:82). Just in case more proof was needed, former Italian minister -and eminent executive of Italian right-wing party PDL- directed to some party officials what 816
many perceived as a threat, whereby Scajola mentioned he knew so much about those officials as former head of a secret service State committee 1149. The heated reunion apparently ended as Scajola traded with attending party officials reminiscences of the various scandals each had been embroiled in over the years. Trump tweeted on March 22, 2016:”Lyin' [ competing politician] Ted Cruz just used a picture of Melania from a G.Q. shoot in his ad. Be careful, Lyin' Ted, or I will spill the beans on your wife! ”.
Broadly put, all prophets, saviors and founders challenge, undermine and ridicule the established order from four different angles:
1. Authority/tradition. They deny some -or all- validity to established authority. They denounce the tradition upon which authority rests as an ideological masquerade. Buddhism and Jainism defy the laws of Manu 1150 in India; Christianity challenges Hebrew laws; Mohamed overthrows idol worshipers at Mecca...
2. Rituals. For example they expose the dominant ritual system as ineffective, superstitious or blasphemous.
3. Philosophy and the essence of the mysterious. They expose the ultimate 1149 1150
Zunino 2012: no page. In Sanskrit “The Man”. Even Jesus (for example Mark 2:10;Matthew 26:2;) -and before him Hebrew prophets such as Ezekiel (Ezekiel 2:1)- were called -or addressed as- “son of man”.
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concerns of dominant philosophical systems as irrelevant: goalposts shift regarding the nature of mysteries.
4. The nature of grace. They deeply re-wire the circuits that supposedly connect the human and super-human realm.
Scandalizing the mainstream hasn't necessarily to take on an exceedingly dramatic tone; the savior-hero (of the moment, of course) hasn't necessarily to be violently mobbed and/or torn apart in agony. Porky's II (1983) lampoons a brash, hypocritical and deep down tainted fundamentalist Christian pastor in a comedy movie that -once again- is a poor excuse for a barely disguised political manifesto:
People tell stories for the same reasons they share word of mouth. Some narratives are about Social Currency. -...- Other stories are driven by (high arousal) Emotion. -...- People are so used to telling stories that they create narratives even when they don’t actually need to. -...-But this mostly informational content often ends up being embedded in a background narrative. -...-First, it’s hard to disagree with a specific thing that happened to a specific person. What is someone going to tell my cousin, “No, I think you’re lying, there’s no way Lands’ End would be that nice”? Hardly. Second, we’re so caught up in the drama of what happened to so-and-so that we don’t have the cognitive resources to disagree. We’re so engaged in following the narrative that we don’t have the energy to question what is being said. So in the end, we’re much more likely to be persuaded. People don’t like to seem like walking advertisements. (Berger 2013:94,96-7). When we pity, we are, at least for the moment, defenseless, and like so many of the other essentially positive human characteristics that bind us together in groups-social and professional roles, sexual bonds, regard for the compassionate and the creative, respect for our leaders-our emotional vulnerability, when we pity is used against us by those who have no conscience. Most of us would agree that giving special dispensation to someone who is incapable 818
of feeling guilt is a bad idea, but often, when an individual presents himself as pathetic, we do so nonetheless. (Stout 2005:108, emphasis added). Far from being uniform, empathy is schizophrenic. There are two distinct varieties: hot and cold. -...-But why? Greene believes he has the answer—and that it’s got to do with different climatic regions in the brain. -...-But in a psychopath, I would see only darkness. The cavernous neural casino would be boarded up and derelict. And the crossing from impersonal to personal [dilemmas] would pass without any incident. (Dutton 2012:21-2). we suffer from what George Loewenstein has called “hot-cold empathy gaps.” When we are in a cool, reflective mood—say, contemplating what to eat at dinner on Wednesday after just having finished a satisfying brunch on Sunday—we think we will have no trouble sticking to our plan to eat healthy, low-calorie dinners during the week. But when Wednesday night comes along and friends suggest going out to a new pizza place featuring craft beers, we end up eating and drinking more than we would have predicted on Sunday, or even on Wednesday before arriving at the restaurant with its tempting aromas wafting from the woodburning oven, not to mention an intriguing list of special brews to sample.(Thaler 2015:75). Instead, empathy is a dignifying experience precisely because, as a witness to someone else's emotional experience, one is transported out of one's self. (Shweder 2003:143). In 1984 Footloose -one of the slew of movies axed around the topic- an inner-city Chicago guy (=the outsider as savior motif) moves to a Midwest, puritan U.S town. A(nother) brash pastor has put a ban on dancing, which the guy sets about to defy electrifying other youngsters on the dance floor.
If dancing serves as an excuse to lampoon U.S conservatives and religionists, 1993 Swing Kids sees the same story-line – and related salad bar of ethical dilemmas- recycled to expose the NSDAP regime. Chocolat (2000) sees the 819
usual, mimeographed story with a twist: instead of activist clods, this time a single mother settles in rural France (=the hero comes from afar and she's an outcast) to open a chocolate parlor, thus throwing the gauntlet to austere puritans a splenetic, embittered nobleman leads: readers can guess how it all ends. The movie supposedly filmed in a fairy tale France suspended in time was in reality filmed in the UK.
Religions and cults also assemble a salad bar of beliefs in an attempt to cater to different constituencies. The same can be argued about maltreated yet forgiving savior-gods, prophets walking on water 1151 and resurrecting the dead, miraculous births, unnatural prodigies, mother goddesses with a child who dies but ultimately resurrects at springtime etc.
In a version of the tale, Red Riding Hood finally escapes from the wolf crossing a river (the walking on water and river motif) atop a sheet; Christian Saint Giulio in the IV century allegedly crossed the lago d'Orta (Orta lake, Northern Italy) atop his mantle: what San Miro and San Gerardo did at other locations; future leader of Communist North-Korea, Kim Il-Sung was sung to have sailed across a river atop a tree leaf during his swashbuckling adventures as war hero. After an unsuccessful audience with Chinese Emperor Liang Wudi (502-49 CE), Buddhist patriarch Bodhidharma crossed the Yangzi river atop a reed:â&#x20AC;?About three o'clock in the morning Jesus came toward them, walking on the water. â&#x20AC;? (Matthew 14:25).
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Italian conjurer Alfredo Barrago was in fact videotaped walking on water while a third party -up to his waist in water- walked around him to show there were no platform and no wires. Old footage still available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHLTSqNHBo0
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The description of an advanced pre-columbian Christian civilization recurs for example both in Francis Bacon's XVII century utopia New Atlantis, and in Smith's Mormonism. Hale1152 suggests that such preposterous legends flared up in the XVIII century. As the United States originally started their expansion, seizing land from American-Indians was best justified by portraying them as “uncivilized savages” with no link to various remains, burial grounds and artifacts that were being observed.
Civilisational vestiges of Native-American cultures were thus interpreted as remains of mythical predecessors (Israel's lost tribes, Egyptians, Phoenicians...). Oden1153 also suggests Puritans drew ample parallels between U.S founding figures and ancient Israel: Washington as the “American Moses”; the Atlantic as another Red Sea, and Queen Elizabeth as another Pharaoh. Native Americans, then, could only play the role of the sinful Canaanites, who deserved to be dispossessed and killed:”the need to make the experience of the past into the present”; “ancient events continually held up for emulation”.
In 1823, E. Smith (U.S pastor, not a relative of the Mormon founder) published A View Of The Hebrews, whereby he -much as theosophists, Freemasons and other occultists in other directions- argued that American-Indians descended from Israel's lost tribes, in turn splintering into warring factions (=good versus evil=great war mytheme) on American soil, just as the later Book Of Mormon would 1152 1153
2009:lecture 1. 1998: Bringing It All Back Home.
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explain. The savage faction would eventually obliterate the civilized faction, just as theosophical doctrines preach, and just like the storyline of H.G. Wells 1895 The
Time Machine goes as he describes a dystopia from a far-flung future.
In Wells' story, both the meek Eloi and the threatening Morlocks are but the two sides of a coin predicating decadence and vileness; readers can safely evince the collapse of human civilization to have been rather swift. Consequently, in the book, Eloi are always described in positive and condescending terms, whereas Morlocks -brutish cannibals who devour the Eloi- are characterized in terms emphasizing their grotesque looks, their criminal intentions, and how repulsive they are1154; both seem to be equally denied the full status of persons. For once, tomorrow's utopia is not the paradise of today's visionary.
Archeological vestiges of Israel's lost tribes is not the only thing coming back. The 'comeback'/second birth motif is very handy:”This belief is usually held concerning some god or demi-god, whose second coming is awaited by the faithful. It is found in most parts of the world, and is not peculiar to any one of the great religions”1155.
Whether “rabbi Jesus”, Emperor Redbeard or some other historical -or pseudo-historical- figure, “arrivals” are too good to miss. In Iceland, UFOs are
Here Wells employs a device typical of ancient Greek drama, kalokagathia, that is outward appearance reflects one's moral, intimate world. The Eloi are generally portrayed as diminutive, friendly, pleasant to look at and engaged in childish and Arcadian behaviour; The Morlock are slimy, treacherous, unpleasant to look at, busy scheming in the dark of their caves. 1155 Thompson 1977:264. 1154
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rumored to land regularly. In 1994 a great hoax took place as the Alien Society Of
Iceland assured outer space beings were to dock at noted volcano Snaeffelsjoekull. TV crews and aficionados were on site, but none showed up.
Mystics, channelers -just as any XIX century duped Millerite- were quick to explain how UFOs had indeed landed, although in another dimension, just as XIX century Millerites were quick to control damage: Jesus had started to “cleanse the heavenly Temple” instead of bursting through earthly clouds in plain sight.
Arthur -for one- was hailed as “once and future King”; a parliamentary decree named deceased North-Korean Communist leader Kim Il-Sung “eternal president”. Italian Lega Nord leader Bossi, in spite of numerous financial and embezzlment scandals pending in court, is named Presidente a vita (President for life) in June 2015. During WWII, both Fascist authorities and Douglas MacArthur pledged they would return to the territories the enemy had seized. At Ise (Japanese Shinto sanctuary) main temples and religious objects are remade and installed (Shikinen Sengu) at a slightly different location every 20 years.
Isn't the famous Terminator punchline “ I will be back”?
The folk tales commonly support or supplant this theme of the exile with that of the despised one, or the handicapped: the abused youngest son or daughter, the orphan, stepchild, ugly duckling, or the squire of low degree. (Campbell 1949:301). The psychological "gift" or appeal of the Ugly Duckling story is that it reflects a deep yearning we all feel from time to time: If only they 823
knew how good or how smart I am deep inside, if only they understood the real me, I' d be accepted, promoted, loved, etc. (Mark&Pearson 2001:295). The concept of a "real me" who bears little relation to anything one says or does in reality is an especially prevalent antianxiety device and often coexists with other defense values. (Branden 1985:83). In some cases, child(ren) hated, despised or abandoned by their parents come back with a vengeance. Kronos barely escapes death at the hands of his father Ouranos (the Latin Coelus); the mythical protector of Japanese fishermen; Nyatri Tsenpo is abandoned because he is ugly: he finally establishes a reign in Tibet.
Alternatively, the birth of the savior/hero can fulfill a wondrous destiny: Jesus ( for example John 10:361156 ), St. Paul (Galatians 1:151157), prophet Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1:51158), Isaiah (Isaiah 49:51159) and many others emphatically announce how the almighty had set them apart even before birth. In the XVI century Gospel
Of Barnabas, Jesus speaks of the spirit of then future Muslim founder Mohamed as an entity created by god before all else.
Let's just include Zoroaster (the mythical founder of possibly the oldest Indo-european religion ):
This was the first of a number of times that Zoroaster saw Ahura Mazda in vision, or felt conscious of his presence, or heard his words 1156
“what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, 'I am God's Son'?”. 1157 “But even before I was born, God chose me and called me by his marvelous grace. Then it pleased him”. 1158 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations ”. 1159 “And now the LORD says-- he who formed me in the womb to be his servant to bring Jacob back to him and gather Israel to himself, for I am honored in the eyes of the LORD and my God has been my strength ”.
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calling him to his service, a summons which he whole-heartedly obeyed . 'For this' (he declares) 'I was set apart as yours from the beginning' (Y 44. I I). (Boyce 1979:19). I was formed long ages ago, at the very beginning, when the world came to be. (Proverbs 8:23). He [=Moses] was prepared before the foundation of the world to be the mediator of God's covenant ( Assumption Of Moses, around I century CE). Gautama Buddha, too, was set apart as Buddha Vipankara had -in a remote, bygone age- predicted the future enlightenment of a person -the future Siddhartha- going under different names.
Perhaps someone like mythicist Jordan Maxwell might satisfy the contemporary taste better, for he as well claimed divine beings -aliens from the Pleiades- had contacted him to inform him he had been set apart ages earlier in order for him to serve them as mouthpiece for some higher purpose, possibly a world government or new world order scheme of one sort or another. Mythicist David Icke also indirectly refers to himself as a sort of Christ fit for the media age.
The narrative comes with all bells and whistles one might expect. Along with positive psychologists (=be authentic and 'things shall start happening to you'), Maxwell enters into a sort of relationship similar to biblical ones with his alleged extraterrestrial grantors:”And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus. ” (Philippians 4:19); “The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing. ” (Psalm 23:1). If Jesus called upon disciples to “Take my yoke upon
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you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ” (Matthew 11:29), Maxwell becomes a disciple of the extraterrestrials.
In Argentina, more or less talented impersonators (Gardelitos) go around as living images of tango superstar Carlos Gardel (1890-1935) who -they claim in some cases- called upon them to follow his path:”To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. ” (1 Peter 2:21).
Popular culture is -again- never far behind. Irene Cara's soundtrack for box-office hit movie Fame (1980), recites:”You ain't seen the best of me yet -...- I'm gonna live forever. I'm gonna learn how to fly -...-I feel it coming together. People will see me and cry -...-I'm gonna make it to heaven Light up the sky like a flame -...-Remember my name”.
Semi-literate vagrants and stoned groupies are not the only possible targets. (German born) Tibetan Buddhist monastic Kelsang Wangmo, billed as the first woman to receive a Geshe1160 degree, claims she burst in tears of joy when she was finally able to approach the Dalai Lama:
For years, I have been lecturing about Marva Collins, the legendary Chicago schoolteacher. I describe the miracles that she performed with at-risk children, helping them realize the great potential that existed within them, potential that so often remains unrecognized, 1160
Rough equivalent to a doctorate of divinity in the Tibetan monastic tradition.
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unappreciated, and tragically, ultimately unrealized. Although I admired her from afar for many years, I never initiated a meeting with her, possibly out of shyness. But when I reached forty, my friend C.J. Lonoff thought it was time for me to meet my heroine and role model, even if this meant venturing out of my comfort zone. So as a surprise birthday gift, C.J. organized a lunch with her. I was in seventh heaven! C.J. and I sat in a restaurant for three hours with Marva Collins and her husband, George, and during that time I felt I was privileged to be in the presence of greatness. Marva Collins has the gift of breathing life and energy into every person she comes in contact with. When we sat down at the table, our waiter appeared lethargic and emotionally not present. All it took was a few words from Mrs. Collins—a few smiles, a question or two about his background and his goals in life—and his energy and self-confidence visibly increased. And when his shift was over and a new waitress took over, she, too, received the same treatment. Mrs. Collins’s interest in people is genuine, and when she interacts with others, she wants to get to know and to enjoy the company of each person. (Ben-Shahar 2012:124-25, emphasis added). Regardless, most everyone in attendance was visibly excited by President Obama’s presence. I myself rolled out of bed at 5:30 AM to get to the football stadium for the 11:00 AM start of the ceremonies. I hadn’t stood in line that long since the early 1970s -...-. President Obama is a gifted speaker. -...- intelligent, eloquent, and at times humorous (Peterson 2013:197-198). but before [Oprah] took more than a few steps, she turned back and said, “Maya Angelou is here. Would you like to meet her?” Tunnel vision. Time slowed down. It’s all too much. Maybe I’m dead . (Brown 2017b:14). The 'great (wo)man' who induces aesthetic arrest is here Marva Collins, Maya Angelou or stupendous President Obama, but elsewhere is San Su Ky, not to mention the various Clinton, Chavez, Mujica, Renzi, Reagan, Berlusconi... Likewise, other groupies elsewhere are equally scrambling to secure a place to see Brad Pitt, Justin Bieber, Messi or Beckham.
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Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience
Prinstein 1161
connects “popularity games” with celebrity cults extended to political cults. An adult version of high school “popularity games” unfolds:”the urge is so strong and natural that he has even called it an "instinct"-a "kinship libido." This instinct he says, cannot be satisfied in any abstract way:”It wants the human connection. ”.
A beauty starlet remembers her meeting(s) with singer and actor Frank Sinatra at the peak of his fame thus:”He had like a halo around his head of stars to me. He projected something I have never seen in my life”1162.
Of course, Fame was about juveniles wanting to take the world of entertainment by storm with songs, acting and dance steps. Yet, the same song could describe Rambo, Ringo, Ulysses, Hercules; Jordan Maxwell, David Icke and their extraterrestrial cabals; pencil-necked sweat-hogs, and the 'mind magic' they just learnt at that posh positive psychology seminar...one and the same.
In some states, the Superman capes you can buy for Halloween are required to carry a warning that the capes won’t actually help you fly. Sounds hilarious, but it’s a useful reminder of the one caveat to the fulcrum and lever principle. While it’s important to shift our fulcrum to a more positive mindset, we don’t want to shift it too far —in other words, we have to be careful not to have unrealistic expectations about our potential. While so much of our experience is relative and dependent on mindset, there are of course still concrete restraints (Achor 2010:85). In one instance, Maxwell claims he was introduced to this
1161 1162
2017. Cit. in Becker 1973:128.
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extraterrestrial leader by whom he characterizes as a charming little girl he met in a restaurant on one occasion; in another instance, the girl becomes a girlfriend of his ( no longer a child but possibly a romantic interest) he was seeing regularly for some time before she -and her intergalactic family- disappeared into thin air: inconsequential notes for inconsistent stories to sell to cable TV producers.
Maxwell's alien cabals may merge with David Icke's pastel-colored vibrational theories axed around cosmic rays -the theosophical doppelgaenger of deep space radiations-, ascended masters, new ages and world orders. Ruminating about possible world orders is not exclusive to our day's westernized I.T. society, for
Her followers danced and sang, spoke in tongues, and waited for Mansren, an old man who had long ago captured the Morning Star and been given magical powers. He had sloughed off diseased skin, become new, and, in the company of a young wife and miracle childextnote, created the lands of Papua. His return would herald the new age. From the 1860s, stories about Mansren and his cargo were known to European missionaries. -...- Angganita continued the contests. She was arrested by Dutch officials in 1942. but both she and her successor Stephen Simopyaref had reasons to be optimistic: Japanese forces landed, announcing a new Asian empire. As they pushed out the Dutch, it appeared Mansren had returned. The excitement did not last long. Angganita was taken away by the Japanese, and colonial exactions continued, worse than ever. Simopyaref organized warriors to liberate the prophetess, and to drive away all foreigners. His army united as Koren, the new order, under the sign of the Morning Starextnote. (Matsuda 2012: 293-4, emphasis added) e
xtnote
e
xtnote
Very similar to the St.Joseph, St.Mary and baby Jesus imagery. (note of this writer). It is not surprising to find Jesus and Horus (“O Morning Star, Horus of the Duat, divine falcon ”) at times associated with the morning star imagery. “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this message for the churches. I am both the source of David and the heir to his throne. I am the bright morning star. ” ( Revelation 22:16). Mahayana lore has it that even Gautama Buddha saw the morning star just before his enlightenment. Japanese Shingon Buddhism also practices “the morning star meditation” to commemorate the mystical union with the universe Buddha had experienced. (note of this writer).
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Setting aside mountebanks and TV personalities, the newly established religion of Cao Dai (formally established in 1926) presents in fact another jumble of
Belle Epoque commonplace motifs, and heavy theosophical influences the likes of Icke, Maxwell etc recycle as well.
Cao Dai's spiritual covenant-signers include French writer/reformer V.Hugo and Chinese revolutionary and reformer Sun Yat-Sen. Buddha, Confucius, Lao Tzu, Jesus, Joan of Arc, Tolstoy, C.Flammarion. Mythical founders, and a slew of 'great men' from history, complete the syncretic pantheon of a religion presenting a hierarchy molded upon the Catholic one.
Masonic influences, seances and spirit-mediumship are present as a way to gather revelations and messages from god: Cao Dai's founders all dabbled in the occult. Cao Dai presents a pantheon headed by “god the father”, “the holy mother” and a series of “heavenly beings” under the motto that all religions share the same principles and origins. Between 2 to 6 million people worldwide adhere to Cao Dai.
It is not a matter of personal opinion how successful the motif/cliche of 'the rejected/persecuted kind savior who willingly dies for us' might be. It is enough to ponder it has been applied to all sorts of situations since time immemorial. Theologian Bultmann suggested that Christianity would be debunked if it could be documented that Jesus had been dragged unwillingly to the cross kicking and screaming in reluctance. Joseph Campbell remarked how:”St. Augustine speaks of
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Christâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s going to the cross as a bridegroom to his bride.â&#x20AC;?1163.
Muslim Sufi mystic Hallaj was tortured and crucified in 922 CE for preaching to be one with god, but -so goes the account- he remained calm and forgave his tormentors. Nationalist or religionist heroes die at the hands of SocialCommunist regimes; lefty resisters die at the hands of Fascist regimes: one and the same.
Naturally -as it is typical in these cases- a way is to simply understand Hallaj was one with god not because of his preeminent status, but because the scriptures said only god is entitled to true existence and all things just reflect this; it is just another rendition of primeval Hindu anatman, on pair with 'the 99 names of god' (108 or 1000 names as in Hindu tradition) and other religious trappings.
As many other meek saviors (Orpheus, Jesus...) did, Hallaj preached a doctrine without class barriers, open to all. He traveled to spread the good news, and was eventually killed. All in all, Socrates -whom all consider a major philosopher, and many the founder of the western philosophical tradition- went through the high points of the life of the hero-founder (an oracle's prophecies, ministry, reversal of fortune, unjust death, eternal fame etc). Musonius Rufus -whom many considered the Roman Socrates -whose life is shrouded in mystery 1164also went through the high points. 1163 1164
1991:120. As with most of these characters, different sources emphasize different trajectories their life would have followed; as a result, some high points may be present or missing according to individual instances.
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Plato (in the Gorgias) advised men who practice virtue to take whatever emotional or physical abuse might come their way without fear, much as Gautama Buddha (in the Dhammapada) does1165: the resilience of positive psychologists becomes Hebrew lore's turning of the other cheek 1166; or Athena's advice to Ulysses:”No, you must suffer in silence, and take a beating. ”;”The irony is that you may ultimately feel better when you are the victim of an insult than when you are a
bystander to it.”1167.
Dio (40-120 CE) described the philosopher in a way that much resembles the meek savior-hero:
But to find a man who in plain terms and without guile speaks his mind with frankness, and neither for the sake of reputation nor for gain makes false pretensions, but out of good will and concern for his fellow-men stands ready, if need be, to submit to ridicule and to the disorder and the uproar of the mob — to find such a man as that is not easy, but rather the good fortune of a very lucky city, so great is the dearth of noble, independent souls and such the abundance of toadies, mountebanks, and sophists. (Discourses, 32, no date: no page). Therefore this is what the LORD God Almighty says: "Because the people have spoken these words, I will make my words in your mouth a fire and these people the wood it consumes. (Jeremiah 5:14). Coming out of his mouth is a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. (Revelation 19:15). Monks, even if bandits were to savagely sever you, limb by limb, with a double-handled saw, even then, whoever of you harbors ill will at 1165
“He who without resentment endures abuse, beating and punishment; whose power, real might, is patience — him do I call a holy man. ” 1166 “If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. ” (Luke 6:29). “Let them turn the other cheek to those who strike them and accept the insults of their enemies. ” (Lamentations 3:30). 1167 Gilbert 2006:109.
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heart would not be upholding my Teaching Kakacupama Sutta).
(Gautama Buddha,
When someone behaves aggressively toward you, you will have a natural tendency to respond in kind. Your brain will mirror the behavior you see and prepare to respond to malice with malice. Your behavior, of course, will tend to be mirrored by the other person’s brain, and the malice will build between the two of you. If you can short circuit this cycle, mean can change to nice.(Vishton 2016:130). People pursuing the yoga (=eternal ritual) -from the root that means “to yoke together”, akin to Latin religio, religare, to give overall sense to one's life- of Aurobindo1168, the Indian activist and philosopher devotees regard as prophet (seer etc), are thus advised:”If you can accept the ideal whole-heartedly, face all the difficulties, leave the past and its ties behind you and are ready to give up everything and risk everything for this divine possibility, then only can you hope to 1168
It is not difficult to superpose Aurobindo's extensive and deep thought with the diverse Victorian primordial soup made of theosophy, occultism, world government, spiritual and physical breakthroughs supposedly ascended masters had heralded, which -according to various hierarchies- include even notable spiritual figures of the philosophical and religious lore alike such as Hesiod, Plato, Jesus, Maitreya, Rakoczy (Francis Bacon as ascended master) often dubbed Saint Germain, and Aurobindo according to his circle:“Henry Olcott, cofounder with Helena Blavatsky of the Theosophical Society, constructed such a lineage in his first presidential address, in which he referred to Albertus Magnus, Alfarabi, Roger Bacon, Cagliostro, Pico della Mirandola, Robert Fludd, Paracelsus, Cornelius Agrippa, Henry More, the Chaldeans, kabbalists, Egyptians, hermeticists, alchemists and rosicrucians.” (Hammer 2004:86). Conflicting forces were at work among theosophists and Freemasons holding otherwise similar beliefs. Aurobindo -who claims to have obeyed commands from the spirit world- retreated under French tutelage at Pondicherry - incidentally a renowned centre of international Freemasonry since the late XVIII century-, whereas Blavatsky allegedly harbored anti-French sentiments. Aurobindo never denied ties with Freemasonry, but claimed his brother to be an adept: Masonry was “nothing” according to report. Rudolf Steiner, a prominent Theosophist, left the Society to band a new one (Anthroposophical Society) when it was announced Indian J.Krishnamurti had been selected as living god. While the departure of Steiner and other German Theosophists signaled racialist preoccupations, Steiner ran into conflict with NSDAP over his anti-nationalism. A racist, eugenic and segregationist version of theosophy and Romanticism (Ariosophy) surfaced in German territories between 1890 and 1930. Albert Pike (1809-91), U.S lawyer, Confederate General and Sovereign Grand Commander of Freemasonry, declared in 1875:” I took my obligation to White men, not Negroes. When I have to accept Negroes as brothers or leave Masonry, I shall leave it”. In German territories in the early XX century a flurry of national-popular, esoteric societies flourished adopting structures similar to conventional Freemasonry they considered under Jewish (= anti-national) control. It won't elude readers how this persistent acrimony between a string of Masonic, national-popular, theosophical, and occult cabals -for those who can tell the difference- is not inconsistent. Acrimony has existed since the beginning between a string of Christian groups, sects and Churches, irrespective of the common ground core Christian beliefs represented.
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discover by experience the Truth behind it. â&#x20AC;?1169.
the martyr was the quintessential Christian preacher, uniquely able, in his or her complete sacrifice of flesh to the Word, to serve as the medium of what might be called divine ventriloquism. The martyr's gift of endurance in the face of death was accompanied by a gift of speech: that of delivering words sent by the Spirit of the Father.-...- I have argued elsewhere that in the period before the conversion of Constantine, Christian writers made imaginative use of the conventions of Roman forensic practice to describe and interpret the seemingly miraculous fortitude of the martyrs as a guarantee of the truth of their belief The martyr's willingness - and ability - to die an unflinching death for Christian conviction was offered as proof that Christian belief was founded in an incontestable reality -...-. After Constantine's conversion, martyr narratives continued to be produced despite the end of persecution.(Cooper n.d:22-4, emphasis added). In 1991 FBI director William Sessions announced that "The implementation of the hate-crimes program will continue to be a top priority of the FBI." However, Sessions also commented that while there appeared to be an increase in hate crimes, the rise may be due partly to required reporting. (Wilcox 1994:21). But in the face of these obstacles, blows, intrigues and persecutions, assaulting us from every direction, having this terrible feeling of aloneness, having nowhere to turn, opposed all this with a firm determination to die. "The death team" is the expression of these inner feelings of the legionary youth throughout the whole country, to receive death; its determination to go forward, through death. (Codreanu1170 1976: the death team, emphasis added). Je fais don de ma personne Ă la France pour attĂŠnuer son malheur (I give myself to France in order to lessen its misfortune) (Marshal Petain on 17 June 1940). From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. (Matthew 16:21).
1169 1170
MAISF001 no date:ch.5. Romanian Fascist leader; he was arrested and murdered in prison in 1938.
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Imagine not the way is easy: the way is long. Arduous, dangerous, difficult. At every step is an ambush, at every turn a pitfall. A thousand seen or unseen enemies will start up against thee, terrible in subtlety against thy ignorance, formidable in power against thy weakness. And when with pain thou hast destroyed them. other thousands will surge up to take their place. Hell will vomit its hordes to oppose thee -...-: Heaven will meet thee with its pitiless tests and its cold luminous denials. Thou shall find thyself alone in thy anguish ( MAISF001 no date: The Law Of The Way). Unrepentant Belgian Fascist leader (and Waffen SS General) Degrelle resumed the ethos of non-German Waffen SS volunteers as one of offering themselves up for sacrifice to save ungrateful kin members from Communism.
The sirens of reformism, too, adopted the lore of the meek, rejected savior: “the sole object of my efforts is to do you good” proclaimed in 1817 Robert Owen, a reformer/industrialist of socialist1171 persuasion who founded townships and 1171
“The Socialist and Communist systems, properly so called, those of Saint-Simon, Fourier, Owen, and others, spring into existence in the early undeveloped period, described above, of the struggle between proletariat and bourgeoisie “ (Marx 1848:28) and ““Home Colonies” were what Owen called his Communist model societies.” (Marx 1848:30, note 8). The difference between Marxist Socialism and Owen's is thus explained:”When we look at what Owen, Thompson and Wheeler meant by socialism, we find something that is rooted in a specific theory of society that is "utilitarian" in the sense that it is about human beings following their "interests". -...Marx and Engels argued for a materialist interpretation of society and history. The idea that human societies change the material world in order to exist, was used as the key to explaining everything that humans do. ” (Roberts 2001:n.p). It shall be emphasized, though, that most thinkers believed their 'system' to be 'scientific' and rational, in spite of eccentricities that are present in Marx as well. Jones (1890 vol.II:64) states: “ The advocates of Socialism were not violent men. They had pledged themselves by their public declarations against violence of every kind. They had made known, as widely as they could, and with the strongest emphasis, their firm conviction that the wrongs they condemned could not be rectified by disturbance of the peace.”. Miliband (1954:238) reports Owen's severe critique of revolutionary movements of 1848: “Owen was totally devoid of a later proletarian mystique. ” (Ibid.). “Owen's proposals differed from later socialist and communist programs in many ways. First, Owen was concerned not only with the economic well-being of the laborers, but also with their morality, behavior, and intellect. Second, Owen first formulated his theories at a time when the working class had no real cohesiveness. He thought of himself as a benefactor of the poor and did not think in terms of class unity. Third, in Owen's time the concept of government being responsible for the welfare of its citizens had not yet been developed. Therefore his assertions that the government must find useful employment for the poor were viewed with suspicion. Since the government was not thought to be responsible for the welfare of its citizens, Owen did not believe that the government necessarily had to be involved in his schemes, but rather that his plans could be effected by any charitable group. Generally thought of as a utopian socialist, Owen had an idyllic vision of a peacefully changed world. He did not believe in revolution or radical organizations of any kind.” (Altfest 1977:37).
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Utopian communities1172.
Compare that with what Chicago “gangland chief” Al Capone declared in 1927:”I've been spending the best years of my life as a public benefactor-...- Public service is my motto -...-.That's what I got to put up with just because I give the public what the public wants”.
'Suddenly, Hitler began to make one of his characteristic speeches [in 1945]: "Everyone has lied to me, everyone has deceived me, non[sic] one has told me the truth. The armed forces have lied to me and now the SS have left me in the lurch. The German people has not fought heroically, it deserves to perish. It is not I who have lost the war, but the German people".' (McQueeney 2012:no page). Owen lobbied at and influenced1173 the highest levels of British society: “Yet, when it was written, we could not have called it a socialist manifesto. By Socialists, in 1847, were understood, on the one hand the adherents of the various Utopian systems: Owenites in England, Fourierists in France, both of them already reduced to the position of mere sects, and gradually dying out; on the other hand, the most multifarious social quacks who, by all manner of tinkering, professed to redress, without any danger to capital and profit, all sorts of social grievances, in both cases men outside the working-class movement, and looking rather to the "educated" classes for support.” (Marx 1848:38-39); “but have developed a particularly interesting critical perspective on a certain kind of socialist doctrine which Marx and Engels christened "Utopian Socialism". In particular, where many other kinds of socialism have been viewed as little more than a collection of errors of analysis and political strategy, Marx and Engels were excited to point to major anticipations of their own thought in the works of Robert Owen, Charles Fourier and Claude-Henri de Rouvroy Saint-Simon. ” (Brooke 1998:n.p). 1173 “Engels in turn had been in association with Robert Owen, who may be taken as the pioneer of the British working-class movement and is generally recognised as the founder of the Co-operative Society Movement which has grown from trivial beginnings to its present imposing dimensions.When Engels met Marx in Paris his outlook on social problems was mainly of the Owenite stamp, but the two men formed a life partnership which resulted in the formulation of a Socialist theory with a philosophic and scientific basis and with a revolutionary method and objective. “ (Maxton 1933:23-24) and “The first attempt to carry out the idea was made in September 1864, when the International Working Men's Association was founded in London by leaders of the workers living there. It adopted as its principles a statement written by Karl Marx entitled ' An Address to the Working Classes,' in preference to proposals put forward by the followers of Owen and others proposed by the disciples of Mazzini. ” (Maxton 1933:101).”Owen when he went to London delivered addresses in Exeter Hall, at which members of the royal family thought they were doing a public duty by attending ; and it was at one time rumoured that the Duke of Kent intended to give the princess who is now the Queen of the British empire the benefit of instructions, in social science, by Robert Owen.” (Burton 1854:40). “In 1803 Owen became a member of the Committee of Management of the board representing the cotton industry and took an active part in seeking to alleviate the economic and social problems confronting the industry. In 1815 he called a meeting of Scottish manufacturers to consider asking the government to rescind the tax on cotton imports and to discuss the plight of children and older workers in the textile factories. At this time he advocated, in addition 1172
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[Owen] wrote his autobiography at age 86, where he remarks that he was communicating (in seances) with the spirits of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and the late Duke of Kent -...- where they all discussed ways to reform the world and to unite the population as one family. The end of his life was taken up with Millennium ideas, not in the specific Christian sense, but rather something like the brotherhood of humankind, with you know who as its prophet, a strangely religious idea from this lifelong atheist. (Bloom 2003:281). Author Sam Vaknin explains that the psychopath's quintessential finishing move is the same as Robert Owen's (and so many other meek saviors and redeemers):“the sole object of my efforts is to do you good”. Vaknin (himself a diagnosed psychopathic narcissist) claims that framing (psychopathic) abuse (for example insults directed to other people) as “well-meaning” increases such insults' hurt and mileage as it exploits the intrinsic self-criticism (=”hyper-awareness of lack” according to Brené Brown) and doubt smoldering inside every human being.
Confirming what I knew from my extensive work with former victims of child abuse, research shows that traumatized individuals feel significant levels of shame and/or guilt (Jonsson and Segesten 2004). Shame has been recognized as a major component of a range of mental health problems as well as proneness to aggression (Gilbert 1997, Gilbert 2003, Gilligan 2003, Tangney and Dearing 2002). -...-As Gershen Kaufman (1992) explains it, “The meaning of the two experiences [guilt versus shame] is as different as feeling inadequate is from feeling immoral”(Engel 2015:7,20). The incessant passive-aggressive feuds, tit-for-tats, one-upmanship, repartees and nagging that characterize ordinary families also fit that bill when to tax abatement, several specific measures for the benefit of employees -...-. Nonetheless, undaunted by negative reactions to his ideas, Owen persisted until he prevailed upon Sir Robert Peel to sponsor a bill in Parliament for the relief of working children. That bill, a modified version of Owen's original proposals ” (Altfest 1977:27-28). “When he began in 1813 to make his views public, he was solidly established as a wealthy factory owner. The reforms in education and factory conditions that he had introduced at New Lanark had given him a wide reputation as an enlightened and practical philanthropist. For the next few years he enjoy ed the friendship and approbation of princes, prelates and ministers. ” (Miliband 1954:235).
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physical violence doesn't enter the picture. Tannen 1174 comments that in her research people report the disappointment family members cause when they target for criticism the part of their life they're most sensitive about at the moment:”We swing from depression to indignation, from lifelessness to roaring rage, from collapse to counterattack. ”1175;”licking honey off a razor's blade” (a Buddhist saying).
Relationship super-expert Gottman claims politeness is among the first things to go in a marriage1176:”Civility is claiming and caring for one’s identity, needs, and beliefs without degrading someone else’s in the process”1177. Hendrix forewarns about the dangers of negativity, and explains that whatever the other party experiences as such constitutes negativity 1178. Hendrix claims that the negative-to-positive interaction ratio ought to be 1-to-20, not 1-to-5 as proposed in research. The question then is, who can live up to such standards?
"Kitchen sinking" - This term means that each discussion of one issue eventually winds up dragging in everything but the kitchen sink. The discussion starts on one issue and, before there is a chance to explore that issue, one partner or the other drags in other gripes that may or may not be related. Pretty soon both people get the feeling that they have to deal with all of the issues at once, and the problem seems like a tangled knot, impossible to solve. (Gottman et alii no date:no page). Jungian analyst Lisa Marchiano1179 claims parenting “reveals our shadow”, that is in Jungian parlance the “mister Hyde” (repressed, violent, vile, 1174
2006. Perel 2017:part 10. 1176 2012:part 8. 1177 Dahnke&Spath, cit. in Brown 2017b:57. 1178 2015. It is obvious people are then 'walking on eggshells' when interacting with one another. 1179 2017. 1175
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unacceptable...) side of ourselves. One's children -Marchiano clinches- are the people deserving of treatment so poor one would never think of subjecting anyone else to it: relationship expert Gottman thinks the same about married couples.
John Lee has an interesting insight: the soft drinks his grandfather often bought him during a hot summer paralleled the beatings the grandfather administered to Lee's father: that's how the father got to be dysfunctional.
Brené Brown1180 makes the same point: by virtue of how close they are to you, the “near&dear” know precisely where to pinch to hit raw nerves. As corporate consultant, Branden concurs: people consider “home life” as “the irrational realm” where they “permit themselves behavior that they would never -or rarely- permit themselves in the office”; relationships -Branden clinches- do not require “the kind of consciousness, attention, action-orientation that our career or work or business requires” because one pays “no attention to outcome” in relationships.
Distinguished professor of psychology Fredrikson 1181 cautions against stress that impairs the immune system, thus exposing one to all kinds of illnesses:”positive emotions beget health”; the frequency of stressful moments -rather than the individual intensity- matters most.
One's little compensatory neuroses1182 are met with gaslighting -that is 1180
2013. 2017:Savoring Connections. 1182 Someone found respite from “quiet desperation” in a new hobby, passion (=addiction?), pastime, spirituality, 1181
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making one question one's sanity and identity, which is devastating according to Tannen1183- disguised as care-taking (=”I'm only saying this because I love you”). Self-Esteem psychologist Branden shoehorns: Self-esteem is “trust in your mind”, precisely what gaslighting targets. When one's self-esteem is undermined through gaslighting, one tends to catastrophize about oneself, Branden adds 1184:
during the attachment relationship the infant tries to “mentalize” the caregiver’s mind. -...-But if, when you mentalize, you imagine that your mother hates you or wishes you didn’t exist, this could derail the development of empathy. (Baron-Cohen 2011:75). What makes a controlling parent so insidious is that the domination usually comes in the guise of concern. Phrases such as, “this is for your own good,” “I’m only doing this for you,” and, “only because I love you so much,” all mean the same thing: “I’m doing this because I’m so afraid of losing you that I’m willing to make you miserable.”(Forward&Buck 1989:36). No difference exists between the family as microcosm and society at large as macrocosm. Society may want to run a witch hunt to uproot yet another “denier” (global warming, evolution, genocide...), whereas families run their own little “scares”:
This is the reason for so much bitterness, shortness of and recrimination in our daily family lives. We get back a reflection from our loved objects that is less than the grandeur and perfection that we need to nourish ourselves. We feel diminished by their human shortcomings. (Becker 1973:167, emphasis added). love interest, activity:”Yeah, it feels good to be drunk. I don’t have to think about anything. Everything seems softer—it takes away all the hard edges.” (Engel 2015:144). The “near&dear” mercilessly criticize and take apart such compensatory neuroses. When conventional shaming fails, “who do you think you are anyways?” should do the trick. 1183 2006. 1184 For example, one thinks s-he is a good-to-nothing, despicable sinner who shall burn in hell:”This distortion results from toxic shame's grandiosity. ” (Bradshaw 1988:196).
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For example, “near and dear ones” seem to only care irresponsibly about ballet rehearsals; writing Star Trek fan-fiction; fishing trips to Colorado; going to concerts or collecting baseball cards... Fredrickson 1185 emphasizes how research shows “how much passions matter in terms of people's development and growth over time”.
One works long hours in a damn cubicle to support the arrangement: they foolishly build their little diversionary tower of Babel instead.
Physical violence against children is often a reaction to stress at work, conflict with another family member or friend, or general tension over an unsatisfying life. Children are easy targets: they can’t fight back, and they can be intimidated into silence. Unfortunately for both the abuser and the victim, displacing anger gives the abuser only temporary relief. The true source of his rage remains, unchanged and destined to build up again. (Forward&Buck 1989:75). I carried the trauma of growing up in abject poverty—the daughter of a violent alcoholic.-...-For decades he [=father] groomed horses at a racetrack. We never knew he hated it. He had a second grade education. He also worked as a janitor. We never knew that’s how he felt. It was devastating for us to think about the pain he endured his entire life. (actress Viola Davis, cit. in Brown 2017b:50-51) 1186. “Near and dear ones” therefore deserve to be gaslighted and attacked as the deceitful charlatans they truly are:” morality for me is about action -...-. I believe that what people believe to be true is what they act out, not what they say” 1185 1186
2017:Built Resources. Readers may consider how widespread this situation is. A Black janitor with an elementary school education becomes viciously violent: that's what we sort of expect. An attractive, brilliant Japanese university graduate commits suicide because her job overstresses her: nobody knows how she might have (re)acted if married with children. Most families that look like Leave It To Beaver families on the outside, the “nice families on TV infomercials”, are rife on the inside with hatred, conflict and dissatisfaction even if both parents work as white collars wearing neckties and smoking cigars.
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(J.B. Peterson).
Gaslighting may come under the guise of an “old soul” imparting lessons about higher and lower order priorities: a ”we need to save more money” narrative versus “we need to spend more money”. Kidney stones and a ballet rehearsal fiasco may chagrin one family member; another family member as “old soul” heaps scorn and ridicule over the whole thing: kidney stones and ballet fiascoes are nothing compared to chronic sciatica and a canceled fishing trip to Colorado 1187. Hendrix comments how the mismatch between the reality picture of two parties in a dialogue produces “an emotional injury”1188.
Tartuffes, loons and frauds rise in desecrated anger against the person next to them, who's “the real loon”, “the real fraud”. The “sport car guy” and the “mansion guy” (designer clothes, trophy wives...) discuss utter human foolishness as they chastise the other guy's obsession. People parade whatever 'luxuries' they can afford:”the motive of adornment -...- under the guidance of the law of expensiveness”;”worth is measured by fame and fortune.”.
Impressing peers is indeed nonsense, as long as it is the other chap's obsession that's being pilloried. “Only a loon” would spend fortunes on a mansion he calls an “investment”; he'll have to sell at a loss when the real estate market
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There is no limit to how this unfolds. Being not invited to the school dance is nothing compared to the third parking ticket another got this week. Failing to be promoted is “reality” versus the nonsensical trifle of a romantic break-up: the writing was on the wall about it anyways. 1188 2011. For example, one party cries out that s-he in distress, and the responding party scoffs at it suggesting to “get a grip”.
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routinely crashes anyways. “Only a fraud” would spend fortunes on sport cars that aren't worth their mortgage value once they hit the road at any rate. Even if 'the poor schmuck' ends up bankrupt, society at large rolls high.
Deceit has to enter the picture because the main actor cannot admit one's own foolishness in playing the little societal game to start with: romance, family, the begetting of children and so forth. During divorce, a favorite phrase is that one “no longer recognizes” the partner: s-he's not the person (one thought) one had married.
In the best folkloric tradition, moments of bonding, too, are often revealed to have been fake all along. People (inter)act ”with reservations, with a dishonest heart”: enough of putting up with your nonsense already. “ By the way, I faked every orgasm” quips Frank Drebin in a romantic break-up scene in 1988 comedy movie The Naked Gun. S-he was in for the money; s-he needed to bail out of a country or situation; s-he had been having affairs all along; s-he never liked Szechuan cuisine even if the dupe thought s-he did, and that made them a match made in heaven: Branden's “social metaphysics” at its zenith.
Newlyweds thought they would be a Leave It To Beaver (TV series, 1957-63, about a stereotypical, wholesome suburban White U.S family in the 1950s) family; a family as happy as those one sees in TV infomercials. Instead, they find themselves trapped in a toxic relationship where “the four horsemen” of marital apocalypse dominate according to relationship expert Gottman: criticism; contempt; 843
defensiveness; stonewalling. After decades as a mental health professional, DiMele observes that “love is not always a good thing. -...- the primary complaints [at a mental health center] is depression over the ending of a love relationship -...-. So, if love hurts so much, why do you wanna do it?”1189.
Whether one couple divorces or stays together; whether children are raised, victimized or even killed, that is all grist for society's mill. One only has to picture lawyers crossing their pens; social workers arguing a case in court when damages, redress and compensation of all kinds are sought1190.
John Lee1191 explains how anger (overt or covert) serves as transmission belt in dysfunctional families. G.D. Chapman1192 suggests that most people cannot properly handle their anger (“conflict avoidant marriages” according to Gottman); whenever they claim to be be simply disappointed or otherwise, they are smoldering with “implosive rage”1193 inside. Branden1194 connects depression with pent-up, indignant rage that is both quite common, and often inadmissible to the overseeing consciousness: releasing spiraling anger and depression triggers anxiety.
Chapman concludes people shall find alternative, passive or covertly aggressive, ways to get back at people:”If you can’t trust your father, whom can you 1189
No date. For example, divorce lawyers joust to secure a better deal for their client; a distraught parent seeks financial compensation over the spouse's murder of a child. Even if all goes perfectly well, children must be fed, raised and go to school; utility bills need to be paid; credit and debt schemes need to be attended to: society wins at all times even when individuals may lose. 1191 No date. Masculinity movement speaker. 1192 2008. 1193 Chapman contrasts this with overt violent acts, “explosive anger”. 1194 2005. 1190
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trust? Trust is like the runt of our emotional litter; under harsh conditions, it’s usually the first to die.”1195.
While there is no question that children can be damaged by putdowns from friends, teachers, siblings, and other family members, children are the most vulnerable to their parents. After all, parents are the center of a young child’s universe. And if your all-knowing parents think bad things about you, they must be true. (Forward&Buck 1989:71). Demonic possession comes again to mind. The mortal coil of the near&dear one we confront has to have been “colonized” by the unholy powers of fishing trips to Colorado, domestic battery, soccer practice or heroin.
U.S Christian maximalist Westboro Baptist Church wishes the worst upon the proud nation of the USA. Since the country abandoned its Christian, European heritage in favor of atheistic liberalism, the “colonization” on the part of homosexuality was inevitable: the former vessel of existential idolatry (the State) becomes a new Sodom cursed in god's eyes.
It works in reverse as well. Pope Francis I posted on Twitter on April 10, 2013 how:”Essere cristiani non si riduce a seguire dei comandi, ma è lasciare che Cristo prenda possesso della nostra vita e la trasformi. “1196. One ought to allow “positive possession” (by the demon of Christ; of a State for the stateless community; of security for the homeland; of America's greatness; of immigration amnesty...).
1195 1196
Forward&Buck 1989:54. “Being a Christian is not just about following commandments; it is about allowing Christ to take possession of our life in order to transform it” (emphasis added).
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This letter is from Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus, chosen by God to be an apostle and sent out to preach his Good News. (Romans 1:1). I love you But I gotta stay true My morals got me on my knees I'm begging please stop playing games -...-You got me begging you for mercy Why won't you release me You got me begging you for mercy Why won't you release me I said release me (song Mercy, 2008). “Opposing sides in moral conflicts tend to describe the issues using “incommensurate language”; that is, they talk about the issues in terms that just don’t compute with the other side. This tendency leads to us to view our opponents on moral issues as villains or enemies.” 1197. Catalan and Spanish nationalists; Greek and international financial authorities joust: who's “on the side of the angels”? In
Matthew (12:22-45), Jesus fences with the Pharisees. Who is casting out demons by the power of god versus the power of the prince of demons?
The Tibetan Buddhist diaspora is no different. A group allegedly distances itself from the Dalai Lama, who in turn fulminates against it. A squabble ensues over all sorts of possible sexual and financial improprieties. Another Buddhist source quips in 2017:
A lot of problems arise when people don’t trust their gurus, and instead trust Dorje Shugden. Just like Master Jih-Chang, who preferred to trust Mary Jin instead of the Dalai Lama. [ Tibetan Buddhist deity] Dorje Shugden appears to be a dharma protector, but is in fact an evil demon. Just like Mary Jin, who came up with a Lord Tee – it’s a demon too. (Bliss And Wisdom News, June 21, 2017). The charmer becomes a wife-beater; the sweet child becomes a drug1197
Dues 2010:73.
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addict; the former bikini queen looks now like a supersized bag of chicken scraps; the soon-to-be C-level officer loses the job. Levels of stress and “learnt helplessness” among the unemployed compare to those of soldiers coming back from war zones1198; one simply no longer likes them as much because the person in the next cubicle at work proves to be much more interesting...at least for the moment.
The open admission is too painful, so bogus “demonic colonization” is invoked.
When Lucy—I call the thing that was before us Lucy because it bore her shape—saw us she drew back with an angry snarl, such as a cat gives when taken unawares At that moment the remnant of my love passed into hate and loathing; had she then to be killed, I could have done it with savage delight. (Stoker 1897:no page). One grows increasingly resentful and frustrated, just like Hebrew Yahweh: drowning in samsara. Out of “tough love” (malevolence when the perpetrator is in disfavor), one has to “teach them a lesson”. Life is not as “easy” as they think it is as they indulge their little obsessions of that moment:”Mel Gibson allegedly said to his former girlfriend, “You insult me with every look, every breath, every heartbeat.””1199.
One has to “make things right” by raining on their little, stupid parade1200. Next thing one knows, of course, is that slighted “near and dear” will Coppin in Fredrikson 2017:Positivity And Policy. Evans 2012:30. 1200 Perhaps one cannot “ground” a spouse in order to prevent him from taking a(nother) fishing trip to Colorado, but one can certainly withhold sex, nag and moan, and “ground” a child “to study for exams”: goodbye to that doggone soccer practice, so he, too, shall feel as “owned” etc as the parent does;”Power is a cover-up for shame”. Report talk ↔ rapport talk. 1198 1199
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retaliate in kind1201 as J.B. Rubin forewarns1202:” you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all you have left is a compromise. -...-The human spirit will not invest itself in a compromise ” (R. Fritz in 1989);”The trickster represents the deity coming through as the destroyer, the disrupter of programs.”.
The same principle is at work in anarchism and “propaganda of the deed”. By shooting a monarch or a politician dead, or by detonating a bomb, the propagandist of the deed rains on people's parade by bursting the little colored balloon of existential idolatry: the World Trade Center collapses in ruins after hijacked planes are flown into it; John Lennon is assassinated.
In 1877, a popular insurrection of anarchist flavor electrifies the Benevento area in Italy: anarchist agitators put title deeds and tax records on fire.
What we would now call the anarchist terrorism of the 1890s has been largely forgotten. Yet in no other period have as many heads of state been murdered as during that brief spate of time, with Sadi Carnot, president of France, killed in 1894; Antonio Cánovas, prime minister of Spain killed in 1897; the Empress Elizabeth of Austria in 1898; King Humbert of Italy in 1900; and US President William McKinley in 1901. The assassinations of political leaders were accompanied by other, less discriminate attacks, such as the bombing of Paris’ Chamber of Deputies in 1893 and the Café Terminus in 1894, and then, most bloodily, the explosion at the Barcelona religious procession in 1906 that killed 23 people. Politically, the ideas of the anarchist bombers could not have been more different from those of today’s jihadis. For one thing, most of them were avowed atheists. The Frenchman Ravachol, perhaps the most famous of the dynamitards, inspired a popular song (with the chorus: “Long live the sound of the explosion!”) after he threw an 1201
For example: you made sure I had a miserable time with my cherished ballet rehearsal, but I shall make sure you have an even more miserable time with your doggone fishing trip to Colorado. 1202 2014.
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“infernal machine” at a judge notorious for his treatment of political prisoners. On the way to the guillotine, Ravachol chanted: “To be happy, God damn it, you have to kill those who own property! To be happy, God damn it, you must cut the priests in two!” (Sparrow 2015:no page). That's not promising at all. In a cross-cultural comparison, Socio-cultural anthropologist Charles J.H. MacDonald (2002) showed how grief over -and conflict between- closely related parties -such as family members- along with physical pain trigger or promote suicide more often than any other cause.
Professor of linguistics Tannen sort of agrees with Vaknin 1203. In familiar interactions, ongoing bids for connection and bids for control are so intertwined that telling the difference becomes almost impossible:”I Only Say This Because I Love You ”, or “the double meaning of connection and control” 1204.
That's how the various Chicano, GLBT, genocide, gender etc “studies” try to shame the mainstream community into acknowledging “le tort absolu” (absolute wrongdoing) they inflicted upon “you know who”. Atonement charades are a daily occurrence in order to exorcise “violence against” a number of subjects, ranging from animals and trees to people of color.
Of course, sharp disagreement exists over who “you know who” exactly might be as hyphenated groups howl to attract the biggest slice of compassion, subsidies and 'special laws'.
1203 1204
2001. Tannen 2006.
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Self-doubt, simply put, is lack of confidence in our own ability to achieve something: we doubt our capacity to do it or our capacity to learn how to do it. Worse, it is the fear that there is something essential that we lack, something necessary but unattainable, and that we are just not good enough . In one of the manifestations of self-doubt, known as the impostor syndrome, competent people feel they donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t really know what theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re doing and are just waiting for someone to expose them as a fraud. Since the impostor syndrome was first identified by Georgia State University professors in 1978,weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve learned that more than 70 percent of the population has experienced this feeling at one time or another (Cabane 2012:29). Television shows promising cutthroat alliances, backstabbing, hostile confrontations, exclusion and public humiliation consistently grab the top ratings. And at the same time we use shame to defend and entertain ourselves, we struggle to understand why the world feels so scary, why politics have turned into blood sport, why children are suffering higher levels of stress and anxiety, why popular culture appears to be sinking to all-time lows and why a growing number of us feel alone and disconnected. (Brown 2007:12). Everybody has their own little holocaust of some sort. -...-I am talking about when people just get angry and put it under PTSD or people get hurt feelings and they put it under PTSD. People get sexually harassed on the job and put it under PTSD. -...-In United States somehow it goes like that. Something that you don't like happen to you. Something that you don't think should happen to you because American have the sense about a constitutional right to be happy, happiness. If you cannot pursue your happiness, you got violated, your constitutional right is violated and it must be bad, it must be wrong. It's not just shit happens, sorry for the language. It just something is wrong. Then we're looking to who to blame, of course psychology is forward on blame mothers and later on men were to blame, government, car companies, military industrial complex or even our genes. We don't like something that happens to us, that must not be right, we need to blame somebody. Once we blame them and we have a target, we call the attorney in combination of mental health people and lawyers, and you have a nice package of lawsuits. This is our way to deal with things that we don't like. [sic](Zur 2011b1205).
1205
Israeli-American forensic consultant & psychologist.
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Rather than functioning as a “sacred canopy” of society as a whole, to use Berger’s terminology, the metanarratives become small “canopies” for particular groups or individuals. (Surrency 2007:4). In our new era of ressentiment, the idea of a shared anything seems increasingly out of reach.(Rieff 2016:31). Psychopaths are in good company as they jockey the human mind's bumbling, atavistic fears:
but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell (Matthew 5:28-9). Approaching a national election in early 2013, Italian right-wing party
PDL, which most considered annihilated in the wake of defections, multiple scandals and in-fighting, slowly but assuredly gains points in polls day by day, as leader Berlusconi serenades the masses, cracks jokes, outsmarts opponents on air with his gift of gab, and relentlessly pushes the buttons of the mind nodding to a salad bar of myths.
According to polls various agencies ran, PDL is the first Italian party in May 2013, quite an accomplishment:
[Assassin of U.S President Garfield] Guiteau scores in the 99th percentile of psychopathy (37.5 out of 40)-...-Dr.Spitzka, who testified for the defense during the assassination trial, went a little beyond moral insanity and stated that Guiteau was “a moral monstrosity.” Guiteau’s behavior at trial was theatrical, to say the least. He testified using poems he had written, he openly and repeatedly sought to represent himself in court, and he berated his 851
defense team. Sentenced to death, he requested an orchestra play during his execution (the judge denied the request). On his way to the hangman, Guiteau continued to display psychopathic exuberance, as he danced up the stairs, waved to the audience, shook hands with the executioner, and, as a last request, recited a poem he had written. (Kiehl 2014:72). Fictional Jedi1206 knights and Paul Atreides, too, can use their voice to subjugate or defeat so easily that it's paramount to prevent them from speaking; the failure to use his voice at its best -as seen earlier- costed Orpheus his life. Chinese Maoist thugs would gag Tibetan Buddhist monks they were about to torture and/or to execute avowedly in order to prevent them from using sacred sound against them:”Fire energy when you say "Hi" to someone -...-They will notice something special about you—some might call it "star quality."”1207;”[King David of Israel said]Foreigners came cringing to me; they obeyed as soon as they heard me.”1208.
Popular culture couldn't lag far behind. If the idea of fictional Jedi Knights looks once more like scraps from a Discovery Channel cutting room session, the analogy is not lost. NLP and persuasion expert Kenrick Cleveland hails his followers on his website thus: “you guys rock- all you JEDI warriors!”. Michael Carroll1209 talks about “bodhisattva warriors” as the “mindful leaders” his seminaries may produce. Strivers can get a personal consultation with “master persuader” Djed was the pillar symbol of stability in ancient Egypt. It was associated with Osiris and the tree that grew around the sarcophagus he had been surreptitiously locked into. Djedi is also a mythical sage and magician in Egyptian mythology supposed to have joined the court of King Khufu (XXVI century BCE) at 110 years of age.”By day you [= Hebrew Yahweh] led them with a pillar of cloud, and by night with a pillar of fire to give them light on the way they were to take.” (Nehemiah 9:12). Zeus, too, could be worshiped as a “sky-pillar”. The Pillar could be construed as it “held down” a dragon, such as Typhon (for example in Pindar). In traditional Japanese Shinto, too, statues, stones and the like can “hold in place” spirits. 1207 Boothman 2000:18. 1208 2 Samuel 22:45. 1209 2007. 1206
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Cleveland for a modest US$ 794 fee: a real bargain so that the hopeful may reach “the next level”.
An icon of the masculinity movement, Professor of Psychology, Psychoanalysis and Spirituality, R.L. Moore also offers1210 “Jedi knights”, besides movies such as The Untouchables (1987) or Dancing With Wolves (1990) as beacons for males in search of initiation and “grassroot masculine leadership”.
All sorts of people may be in a desperate quest after one kind of initiation or another, but Prinstein1211 comments how people are mostly re-living their high-school days chiefly fraught with difficulties. Such troubles never really leave one, coloring one's life forever with only limited potential for remedial actions.
Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) guru Sikes promises to teach you swiftly “how to get people to do what you want without begging, pleading, guilttripping, or nagging -...- Effectively use non-verbal communication to get what you. want -...-Use good voice tonality in your sales pitch with hypnotic results ”: US$ 299, a real bargain on Sykes' website. NLP has often being linked to “hypnotic abilities” and the “trance” it induces in potential subjects.
Heart-rending scenes exist of the representative of this, that or another regime, idea etc being prevented from using his divine voice. Going to the 1210 1211
No date-2 2017c.
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guillotine, Louis XVI's voice was drowned: insensitive Jacobins played drums to prevent him from haranguing the crowd. Equally, gagging laws were applied to the Danton process to prevent the disgraced French statesman from bloviating in front of the crowd. Fascist henchmen assaulted Italian antifascist Pietro Gobetti, who died later in Paris of the aggression's aftereffects:”God in Christ used “a voice which, because it was broadcast with power, imported some inexpressible enchantment to those who heard it””1212. Gautama Buddha -once again- was no different. A Vedic expert in recognizing “great men” by way of their bodily features reported how Buddha:”has a divine voice, like the call of the Karavika bird”.
Using their mouths, mountebanks and their kin sell dreams that tend to work out unbearably expensive in the long run:
oral story moves an audience more profoundly. -...- Because their bodies are touched as well as their minds, receptive audiences experience a oneness with a teller. -...- Teller and told, mind and body, are one: mutually possessed by the power of story (McCool 1998:iii, emphasis added). And if the story told has been effective -...- the act of transmission resembles the psychoanalytic transference, where the listener enters the story as an active participant in the creation of design and meaning, and the reader is then called upon himself to enter this transferential space (Brooks 1994:51). Again, the power of stories is their ability to emotionally engage people. It grabs people by the brain and it grabs people by the heart. It slams the two of them together so that they can listen as one. The result is that [people] are moved by the stories you tell. (Lakhani 2005:61).
1212
Theologian R.P.V. Hanson in 1959. He quotes Origen, Contra Celsum.
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Perhaps this is the crux of the matter: somewhere in the story of the psychopath is a meeting place for the compulsions of writer and reader, actor and viewer. (Weber 1991:no page). Second, we’re so caught up in the drama of what happened to so-andso that we don’t have the cognitive resources to disagree. We’re so engaged in following the narrative that we don’t have the energy to question what is being said. (Berger 2013:94,96-7). Surviving a slasher movie, just like surviving an urban legend, scars the narrative’s protagonists at the point of diegetic closure. (Koven 2008:114). Then the LORD reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, "I have put my words in your mouth. (Jeremiah 1:9). The magic sentence "Let me tell you a story" seems to have the power to command attention in groups around the world. For some reason, people seem to find stories powerfully attractive. Indeed, studies find that 35 percent of our conversation with friends involves exchanging stories. • Further, most nonfiction writers rely heavily on the power of story. What's known as creative nonfiction is based on the idea of stringing together multiple stories, mostly in novelistic form, to craft a more engaging narrative. Speakers note that public speaking also amounts to connecting stories together with principles in between. Great teachers, such as Confucius, Aesop, and Jesus, as well as great leaders, such as Lincoln and Reagan, were all highly skilled storytellers. • Storytelling is powerful for a number of reasons. It engages listeners, almost like a movie, creating a vivid and memorable experience. It has the ability to cut tension and to humanize situations. It also illustrates ideas in a way that invites listening and allows listeners to draw their own conclusions. In contrast, telling your listeners facts often prompts them to argue. (Freeman 2014:118). Inflicting the supreme suffering upon the savior-hero may have deep gnostic resonances, however. Hercules' bow and arrow (instrumental to end the Trojan war much later) went to Poeas 1213 who had the courage to obey, thus lighting the pyre on which the dying Hercules lied1214. 1213 1214
Alternatively to Poeas' son Philoctetes, one of the Trojan war's heroes. Nero assertedly made the myth become fact as he turned foes into human torches wearing the tunica molesta (= a sort of flammable garment) in imitation of what had happened to Hercules for the entertainment of the
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As the apocryphal Gospel Of Judas (II century CE) would have it, Judas1215 (or his equivalent in the Hallaj story) was the most intimate of disciples, chosen to bring about the savior's mystical sacrifice, thus 'freeing' the savior's divine essence from the shackles of time and flesh:
Knowing that Judas was reflecting upon something that was exalted, Jesus said to him, “Step away from the others and I shall tell you the mysteries of the kingdom. It is possible for you to reach it, but you will grieve a great deal. -...- Jesus answered and said, “You [Judas] will become the thirteenth, and you will be cursed by the other generations—and you will come to rule over them. In the last days they will curse your ascent to the holy [generation].”” (The Gospel Of Judas, n.d:1-4). As it turns out, if something is supposed to be secret, people might well be more likely to talk about it. The reason? Social currency. People share things that make them look good to others. (Berger 2013:22). Gautama Buddha not only forgave, but extolled the merit of Kunda, the oblivious blacksmith who had served him tainted food, thus ensuring the Buddha's final demise; Krishna also forgave the hunter who accidentally shot him in the foot, thus causing his death:”Fear not thou in the least. Go, hunter, through my favor to heaven, the abode of the gods”1216; ”Jesus answered [the compassionate criminal who was crucified next to him], "Truly I tell you, today you
will be with me in
crowd. “remarkable and undoubtedly totally in dependent parallel to the tale of the Oedipal Mahâdeva in the medieval Europe an story of Judas Iscariot. This is a tale the earliest known versions of which may be securely dated to the twelfth century, although they very likely had appeared sometime earlier. The best-known version of the story is preserved in the Legenda Aurea (Golden Legend) of Jacopo da Voragine, composed around 1265 or slightly thereafter and the most widely known text in Europe during the Middle Ages after the Bible. ” (Silk 2009:189). This clearly shows -as this writing contends- not only that myths tend to coalesce, but that various costituencies tend to interpolate (pseudo)historical characters of choice in the petrified mythologies and obtuse allegories that obsess the human mind. 1216 Wilkins trans. 1215
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paradise."” (Luke 23:43).
In perfect accord with early psychoanalysts, in a version of the Portuguese folk tale O Touro Azul (the blue bull1217), a girl goes on a hero's journey in the company of a mighty and friendly, talking blue bull. At the end, the blue bull asks the girl to kill him, and to bury him under a rock so that he may become a guardian spirit able to make her wishes come true. After many adventures, the girl marries a prince Cinderella-style: the hero's journey knows no gender boundaries.
Herakles' death – which his wife Deianira 1218 had brought about by mistake- was after all the occasion to ascend to heaven to be with his father Jupiter. Isis and Demeter had wanted to turn the child prince they were looking after into an immortal by burning his mortal body so that his immortal one could shine; purifying flames are sculpted to adorn the gateway to temples of Buddhist tradition. In recent times, the cyclist Weylandt “died for us” according to a newspaper announcing the professional athlete's accidental death during a competition 1219.
Illegal immigrants being (rarely percentage-wise) deported
-or
accidentally dying in their journey- are often lionized as wanting to meekly 'save' the host country's tax and pension Ponzi schemes slaving away doing (so goes the 'accredited' version) the kind of jobs that locals no longer want to take up, yet
1217
Variations of the same folk tale are found from the UK to France. R.I. Viegas Pereira collected this version in southern Portugal interviewing family elders. 1218 Her name means 'destroyer of men'. 1219 Those were titles the present writer read while casually reading through newspapers at a supermaket newsstand.
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meeting with rejection or slaughter.
As
much sense as this may (not) make, all governments count on
presently incoming funds to pay for retirement and pensions due to people who contributed in past decades (=the precise definition of a Ponzi scheme), whose retirement funds have disappeared in the drain of the Belle Epoque nation-State Moloch under a cloud of social alchemy Robin Hood rhetoric propelled. The humongous healthcare and welfare bill immigration instantly 1220 generates is not even mentioned, thus jeopardizing the Ponzi scheme the welfare State runs.
The alleged boom in construction work -or other niches- was a preferred argument to push the item, until recently the midsummer dream came crashing down well beyond the point of collapse in Spain or the USA, or nearing the same in Italy. New neighborhoods morph into ghost towns as distressed home-owners relinquish en masse their half-paid, heavily refinanced homes (cars, gadgets...) in flight from the now unbearable obligations of this, that or another debt or credit scheme, the hallmark of affluence in post-war western mass-democracy; a ricochet
1220
It was fairly obvious to at least a few how immigrants (and their dependants typically present) might start availing themselves of whichever healthcare and welfare facilities might be present well before they might start contributing into the system by working regular, registered jobs that may -or may not- be offered. Also -at least in Italy- certain alien groups and minorities benefit from particular subsidies and other provisions in place to atone – so the story goes – for nameless crimes the mainstream community committed in a mythologized past or present time. The same logic of alleged atonement justified Italy directing billionaire amounts -under the guise of reparations, emigration control fees and so forth- to the Gaddafi regime just before said regime was violently overthrown. Illegal emigration never stopped, and Italy -along with other countries- was soon burying Libya under a deluge of bombs: so much for the reparation angle. Readers shall come to their own conclusions regarding which accounts did those billions from the Italian taxpayer settle. A conference at U.S Center For Immigration Studies reported the following:”Again, about 7 million uninsured illegal immigrants; that number is about 8 million when we count their U.S. Children -...-. our best estimate is that we’re spending about $4 billion a year providing health care to illegal immigrants. ” (The Elephant...2009: no page).
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of sharp losses in real estate value, stock-market crashes, collapse of pension and welfare funds, credit crunches and unemployment ensues.
As Giornale Di Arona reports ( May 24, 2013), in Italy in 2012 the percentage of temporary jobs -as opposed to full-time jobs- rose from 62,1 to 66,8%. Short before the bursting of the economic bubble no regulatory agency could foresee, President Bush, Jr. signed in 2005 a bankruptcy bill revised to make it harder for insolvent debtors to slip through the net presenting it as a measure to curb abuses: synchronicity, indeed.
Well before the 2008 economic meltdown:
“PWC [PricewaterhouseCoopers] global survey that experienced fraud rose from 37 to 44 and then to 45 in 2005. PWC suggests that corporations should be on the watch for the executive who: • Engages in activities indicative of a lack of integrity
• Is prone to engage in speculative ventures or accept unusually high business risks
• Displays a poor attitude toward compliance with regulatory or legislative obligations
• Is evasive, uncooperative, or abusive of the audit team • Lacks a proven track record “(Babiak&Hare 2006:136).
One may wonder about minutemen's appeals of recent decades: the great
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nation(s) had just won the Cold War: its awesome destiny had once more become manifest. Economic -and social- meltdown constitutes thus a fatal happenstance the providence/nanny state -and its hydra of over-staffed regulatory agencies- couldn't possibly foresee, nor prevent.
In June 2014, Italian news announce a scandal embroils high-ranking
finanza members (an armed tax police unit in military uniform). A rogue protection racket was allegedly in place to remotely control internal revenue surveillance processes in exchange for princely kickbacks. Uniformed Italian taxmen thus lived a celebrity lifestyle awash in money concerned parties such as entrepreneurs supplied under the table. Because all the above went unnoticed by the many regulatory and due diligence agencies, the government proposes a drastic measure: the creation of yet another regulatory body.
In July 2014 dignitaries occupying key position in regulatory agencies are either detained or arrested: they remotely controlled the due diligence process against princely kickbacks. The hydra of due diligence regulatory bodies also failed to notice this row of suspicious deals: mugwumps are distracted watching the world soccer cup on TV as the noble Italian flag flies on.
Woe betide those drawing unspeakable conclusions about the regime and its values; no angry mob storms in demanding the overthrow of the gods that failed: best of all causes oblige. The same rose-colored fable about plentiful jobs and greener grass can be spun even though domestic labour unions are marching at the 860
same time to denounce unemployment or economic collapse; if the myopic, headstrong flock had any clue about what's good for them, there would be no need for saviors and social alchemists.
It does not really matter whether it is internal migrations involving
BrĂŠtons flocking to Paris, Sicilians flocking to Turin or external migrations, whereby people from Togo, Syria or Morocco flock to Europe; Hispanic people flock to the USA, or Burmese and Laotians flock to Thailand. The same image banks, obtuse allegories and petrified mythologies make sentimental chicanery evergreen because the main goal -after all- is just to send the public into conniptions in order to emote its overwhelming emotional experiences alternatively going berserk, gasping for breath, weeping itself asleep, clamoring for or against.
The activist-shaman shall first of all shatter the public's perception or consciousness through artful recourse to sentimental and infantile chicanery, then s-he will macadamize the same under new auspices by way of some more chicanery:
Most of us have a strong desire to be correctâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;to have "the right" opinions and to perform reasonable actions. When someone disagrees with us, it makes us feel uncomfortable because it suggests our opinions or actions may be wrong or based on misinformation. The greater the disagreement, the greater our discomfort. (Pratkanis&Aronson 2001:ch.22). Our brains are programmed to try to agree, to try to get along; we are definitely programmed to be agreeable when it's possible to us (Drout 2006: The Enthymeme). The reduction of dissonance is a part of everyday life; this is used to 861
advantage by propagandists in what we call the rationalization trap. The trap goes like this. First, the propagandist intentionally arouses feelings of dissonance by threatening self-esteem—for example, by making the person feel guilty about something, by arousing feelings of shame or inadequacy, or by making the person look like a hypocrite or someone who does not honor his or her word. Next, the propagandist offers one solution, one way of reducing this dissonance —by complying with whatever request the propagandist has in mind. The way to reduce that guilt, eliminate that shame, honor that commitment, and restore your feelings of adequacy is to give to that charity, buy that car, hate that enemy, or vote for that leader. (Pratkanis&Aronson 2001:ch.4, emphasis added). Remember that people want to hold right opinions, beliefs, and attitudes. A conflict arises between their own beliefs and a continuous flood, a shower, of homosexual-positive messages that cannot be turned off. The emotional price (the exaction price) is an uncomfortable mental state of perpetual cognitive dissonance through forced compliance. By comparison, the idea of accepting homosexuality is presented as a prestige product, only for those who, by inference, do not want to be seen as any of the above "…ists"-type negative personalities. The favorite exaction-pricing weapon is to accuse anyone who publicly expresses competing ideas of being a homophobe. Its complexity is particularly effective; by definition it includes unnatural fear plus all the mechanisms of an "…ist" label. The exaction power of the tactic is even more powerful as it is often coupled with the idea that most homophobes use anti-homosexual attitudes as a smokescreen to disguise their own homosexual feelings. (Rondeau 2002:464). Famous historical figures are considered especially useful to us for two reasons: first, they are invariably dead as a doornail, hence in no position to deny the truth and sue for libel. Second, and more serious, the virtues and accomplishments that make these historic gay figures admirable cannot be gain said or dismissed by the public, since high school history textbooks have already set them in incontrovertible element (Kirk&Madsen, cit. in Rondeau 2002:449). This dissertation stems from a long-held fantasy of mine that the philosophers of Western civilization were what we today would call homosexuals, bonded through the distant ages by Plato's declaration in his literary Symposium (Plato, trans. 1999b) that same-sex love is of the celestial and procreative sort. (Sadownik 2006:1).
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The alleged rejection, of course, causes red and swollen eyes in a hurricane of tears and jittery emotional meltdown because it is the inverse twin of the cherished motif of arrivals: arrivals equal births and new beginnings, departures (deportations etc) equal death that makes the beautiful human soul agonize.
Roxette's popular 1988 song Listen To Your Heart
delivers another
cargo of melodramatic sentimentalism, for listeners can almost hear Luke Skywalker howling in despair in the background: “Your little piece of heaven turns to dark-...Listen to your heart When he's calling for you Listen to your heart There's nothing else you can do I don't know where you're going And I don't know why But listen to your heart Before you tell him goodbye ”. In April 2014, it's Pope Francis I who muses upon the same themes:”a mystic is a man who treats his feelings as tools of cognition. He knows he's right -...- because he feels he's right -...-. The basic formula is credal. It is worth observing in how many crucial respects the attitude of a mystic is paralleled by the attitude of a schizophrenic”1221.
It was so emotionally devastating when wrestling 'heel' (=bad guy) manager Bobby 'the brain' Heenan cast wrestler Red Rooster out of 'the Heenan family' because he lost a match; a dejected, limping Red Rooster left the scene holding his wounded chest.
Nothing is more challenging than seeing the next of (artificial) kin (tovarish, comrade, compatriot, brother, common humanity fellow...) limp away, his 1221
Branden 1960/1969:lesson 3.
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vision impaired by a thick layer of mucous tears (sweat, etc), bumping into things -thus hurting himself more- while trying to look back – a motif alone worth a treatise, that of looking back1222 - to see whether the jeering crowd perchance switched to bear-hug mode so he can faint into their open arms for one of those unforgettable reunion scenes (= the social sacrament of reconciliation, “the spontaneous act of a noble heart”) filmmakers and salesmen have been milling for ages, which would be just right to boost the sales of that malt liquor, corned beef or underwear brand:
They govern us by their qualities of natural leadership, their ability to supply needed ideas and by their key position in the social structure. Whatever attitude one chooses to take toward this condition, it remains a fact that in almost every act of our daily lives -...-. No serious sociologist any longer believes that the voice of the people expresses any divine or specially wise and lofty idea. The voice of the people expresses the mind of the people, and that mind is made up for it by the group leaders in whom it believes and by those persons who understand the manipulation of public opinion. It is composed of inherited prejudices and symbols and cliches and verbal formulas supplied to them by the leaders. (Bernays 1928:Ch.I,VI). Does changing the descriptive frame alter how the product tastes? Yes. Participants in one experiment were first shown a label indicating either the leanness or the fat content of ground beef, and then they were given a small freshly cooked sample. Everyone sampled the same ground beef, so any differences in taste could only be attributed to what the label said. After they tasted the meat, people who had read labels indicating leanness rated the meat as leaner, of higher quality, and as less greasy—compared to people who had read 1222
The fact of looking back is the pivotal point of several myths. Orpheus goes to hell to recover his wife. He is told he is not supposed to look at her during the ascension to the world of the living, yet he does so, and she vanishes. The same story repeats itself in the Japanese myth of Izanami and Izanagi and in Genesis 19:26 (Lot's wife looks back and is turned into a pillar of salt). “The more detailed the police instructions are, the more plausible the tale seems to become. Of course the standard rule of folk-narrative plot development now applies: the taboo must be broken (or the “interdiction violated,” as some scholars put it). The girl always does look back, like Orpheus in the underworld, and in a number of versions her hair turns white from the shock of what she sees, as in a dozen other American legends.” (Brunvand 1981:14).
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about the fat content of the meat. (Huettel 2014:160). Though business practitioners of psychoanalytic theory badly mangled and conflated the work of Sigmund Freud, Gustave Le Bon, John Watson, and other important theorists, there emerged by the early 1920s a popular consensus among advertisers that humans were rarely, in writer Everett Dean Martin’s words, “governed by reason or consideration.”Rather, “instinctive impulses determine the ends of all activities and supply the driving-power by which all mental activities are maintained.” (Zeitz 2006:155). Should the “generalized other” fail to melt in sentimental rapture as the meek transgressor looks back for mercy, s-he would turn into a pillar of salt, psychologically speaking: the public jeers and dangles a noose in front of the malefactor. In the clouds, Jesus (Buddha, Zoroaster, Santa Claus, Tudi Gong...) wriggle in unspeakable agony as the evil flock failed to heed their teaching:”A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”1223.
From Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989) to Leon (1994) and countless songs, the situation of the unobtrusive yet deeply grieving, sullen, suffering etc character, whose plight goes unnoticed -either accidentally or maliciously- by others, is awfully common, and paves the way to 'illumination' scenes of various kinds: 'if I only had known', comeback, reunion, reconciliation etc. The wrestler Red Rooster would in fact be back to exact his revenge upon the insensitive manager who had cast him out while he was in agony.
1223
John 13:34. Societal cohesion ought to be preserved at all costs, even if that means disregarding rules of conduct or popular piety.
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An entire category of preposterous chain spam-mails preys upon the chain of misfortune(s) leading one artificial kin members to the brink of self destruction, and then over. The atmosphere is -unsurprisingly- that of many precooked news releases.
The atmosphere is also that of a Tom&Jerry cartoon, yet people are supposed to choke, gasp for breath and sulk instead of laughing. In quite a few cases, it was possible to discover how any particular story started in the real world as a creative writing or fiction project coming alive when released over the internet: that's how true stories have to be in order to be believed.
There is no reason why Oedipus' misfortune (Mahadeva's, Dharmaruci's, Gregorius'...) couldn't become a comedy -or pseudo-comedy- moment. The M.J. Fox's character in 1987 The Secret Of My Success unwittingly ends up in bed with his aunt, for example.
On one end, people laugh; on, the other -when socio-political preconditions are in place- they go through their Skywalker recognition routine screaming:”Nooo!” in an emotional meltdown (=tragic urgency shtick):”The same myth may be taken as seriously as some Puritans took the story of Pilgrim's
Progress, or played with as casually as the animated adventures of Godzilla and Kikaider”1224.
1224
Goodman 1993:109.
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The hero that dodges bullets can be a fashionista in a sci-fi movie, or a forensic Wojtyla:”But Gershom Scholem speaks of "the sudden and almost explosive surge of miracle stories" concerning [ XVII century Jewish messiah] Sabbatai Sevi within weeks or even days of his public appearances! ”1225. The nonesuch who “becomes human just like us” can be either Jesus, or Pinocchio: people are elatedly ready to garner life lessons and gnostic truths from all.
Screams of recognition are everywhere. Pagnol's Manon Des Sources screams as the oedipal tragedy unfolds: her father is harassed and finally killed by his own father unaware of their bond. The anti-hero in Maupassant's 1884 Garçon,
Un Bock! also screams as a scene he happens to witness in his youth shatters his psychological integrity forever:”Et je me mis à crier de toute ma force, sans savoir pourquoi, en proie à une épouvante, à une douleur, à un effarement épouvantables”.
A man falling downstairs may be a comedy moment with the appropriate soundtrack and background; or the moment to ponder life's meaning with a sad soundtrack and a background informing the viewer (listener, reader...) that the victim belongs to an outcast group: the rabid henchmen of a vile dictator harbinger of absolute evil are committing murder. As the Inigo Montoya character says in The
Princess Bride (1987), “That is the sound of ultimate suffering. My heart made that 1225
Price 1993:66. Price continues:”Letters from December of the same year related that Sabbatai "command a Fire to be made in a publick place, in the presence of many beholders... and entered into the fire twice or thrice, without any hurt to his garments or to a hair on his head." Other letters tell of his raising the dead. He is said to have left his prison through locked and barred doors which opened by themselves after his chains miraculously broke. He kills a group of highwaymen merely with the word of his mouth. Interestingly, the miracle stories often conformed to the patterns of contemporary saints' legends ”.”The movement suffered a serious setback when the messiah apostasized to Islam! But still it did not die away.” (Price 1993:66.).
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sound when the six-fingered man killed my father. ”.
Such archetypal images -like Rorschach inkblots- can become mostly what one sees fit.
Hermanson renders this “Rorschach quality” aptly as she
describes metaphor:
• Metaphors provide concrete imagery. In his book Made To Stick, Chip and Dan Heath write that a primary quality of an idea that sticks is that it embodies a concrete image. For example, in religious proverbs abstract truths are often encoded in metaphoric language, such as the phrase: “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” “Sticky” ideas are full of concrete imagery. • Metaphors make something universal. We live in a somatic world —we all have bodies that feel and senses that see and smell and hear the world around us. When someone says, “he was as cold as ice” we immediately understand what is meant in a visceral way. Metaphors facilitate our understanding. • Metaphors suggest a story and/or felt emotion. Advertisers know that if they want to sell us something, they need to make us feel something. Deep down, we all want to feel currents of life moving through us. • Metaphors satisfy our heart’s longing for beauty. Metaphors are aesthetic; they’re like little pieces of art. Wouldn’t you rather hear about a “bird in the bush” than hear a series of projected numbers? • Metaphors offer shades of gray. When you frame something metaphorically, it can be interpreted in multiple ways. It is likely that what the world needs now is not black-and-white ideas like capitalism and communism, but more creative combinations of ideas and methods. Metaphors take us into a creative realm. • Metaphors “work” us. Metaphors are fuzzy and open to interpretation. Meaning is communicated in a less precise way, which in turn initiates a process of learning in the listener. Since metaphors are not literal, they force us to search for meaning. • Metaphors surprise us. Eckart Tolle called metaphors a way to "awaken us from the old grooves of repetitive and conditioned thinking." A good metaphor offers something fresh and renewing. • Metaphors are inherently democratic. A good metaphor is not "flat" — it invites us to participate in it and offers a gamut of possibilities. We can find our own interpretation within it—there is no single “truth.” 868
â&#x20AC;˘ Metaphors are powerful. Metaphors are capable of creating new understandings and therefore, new realities. (2010:no page). The story of Eve's Unequal Children1226 may return nearly verbatim in a Grimm variation to justify social classes; in Icelandic lore to explain how Huldufolk (secret people) came to exist; in Norse mythology to explain the existence of demons; In Tagalog lore1227 to explain -again- how a social hierarchy -with racial overtones this time- came into being. It may seem that the situations discussed in this writing are manifold, whereas in reality it is just the circular return in disguise of the same bunch of obtuse allegories and petrified mythologies.
The more ancient Hinayana Buddhism does not include a revelation -although some documentaries incorrectly refer to it as such-, for Gautama Buddha came to awakening all by himself. Buddha explicitly disclaims his role as savior. As one might expect, later developments such as Mahayana introduced revelations of one form or another, just as Protestant Christianity champions â&#x20AC;&#x153;progressive revelationâ&#x20AC;?. Mahayana texts are explicitly linked to supernatural sources such as the celestial Buddhas, or mythical sources such as the Nagas (serpent-beings) that transmitted sacred texts to a series of sages.
Parallels continue: emphasis could be placed upon individual struggle
1226
According to Grimm, Eve parted her children in two groups as god announced he would be visiting. She hid the ugly children from god's presence, and presented the good-looking ones to god. After the event, god spoke. The good-looking children would become well-to-do (nobles, scholars...); the ugly children would become the toiling community (fishermen, servants...). In Icelandic lore, Eve divides her children in two groups: those she could wash and groom, and those she had been unable to wash and groom before god's visit. The shift is apparent, for ugliness is an in-born trait, whereas the fact of being dirty is just by happenstance. 1227 Here it is not about Adam and Eve, but simply mankind's first couple.
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towards salvation/enlightenment in relative isolation and withdrawal with no stakes neither in direct supernatural intervention, nor in allowances supernatural forces might make (Theravada/Protestantism). Emphasis could alternatively be placed upon group dynamics, social engagement and collective progress that irreversibly enmesh individuals as possible beneficiaries of a bounty of supernatural grace and intervention (Catholicism/Mahayana). Chinese Buddhist master Dao'An (312-85 CE) expressly linked individual salvation (Mahayana-style) with that of the collectivity, especially one's nation.
Only a limited number of people 1228 might receive Gautama Buddha's teaching at one particular moment (Hinayana/Christian gnosticism); or huge, at times limitless, crowds of both human and divine beings could be in attendance as one Buddha preached (Mahayana). Are those motifs too broad?
What about the great physician? Gautama Buddha in both Hinayana (Four Noble Truths) and Mahayana (for example the “wise physician” parable from the Lotus Sutra) is hailed as physician, but so is Jesus ( Mark 2:171229; Luke 4:231230) and even Joseph Smith:
Plato’s theory of disease in Timaeus, Thucydides’ explanation of the cause of the plague in Athens, Nicias’ speech to the Athenians advising them that they “will be acting as the 1228
“The Buddha did not have large gatherings in order to present his doctrines. Normally he preached to individuals or small gatherings.” (Abhayawansa, BH6103 no date: unit 8:1). 1229 When Jesus heard this, he told them, "Healthy people don't need a doctor--sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.". 1230 Then he said, "You will undoubtedly quote me this proverb: 'Physician, heal yourself'--meaning, 'Do miracles here in your hometown like those you did in Capernaum.'.
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physician for [their] misguided city,” all confirm that the Greeks were preoccupied with disease at the individual, social, and political level. These examples also suggest that the philosopherkings or the orator-statesmen were conceived as diagnosticians of sorts for the individual, society, and state, as well as prescribers of regimens for returning these entities back to their healthy condition. More recently, this same sentiment has been expressed by the philosopher, Frederick Nietzsche, who was a self-appointed physician attending to the culturally ill, as well as by Richard Weaver, who in the Ethics of Rhetoric imagined the orator serving a similar purpose (Roth 2008:8-9). Finally, according to Mahayana Nichiren Buddhism, Gautama Buddha is hailed as the eternal savior of the world, just as Jesus is, whereas the founder Nichiren is hailed as Buddha's earthly messenger, just as Mohamed is. If Tertullian (II century Christian apologist) based his faith on credo quia absurdum (I believe on the basis of absurdity), Chinese Pure Land Buddhists claim the Pure Land school represents “dharma that is hard to believe”.
If Christianity and Islam adopted the coge intrare (force [them] to enter [the faith]), Japanese Nichiren Soka Gakkai sect adopted shaku-buku (to destroy and conquer, an aggressive method of brainwashing propaganda to gain converts):”In his writings Nichiren stressed that with ignorant men tolerant, moral suasion could be used; but that with malicious men it was necessary to use intolerant methods.”1231.
The Nichiren Sho sect (typically associated with Soka Gakkai) went from running 69 temples in 1920 to 141 in 19571232.
1231 1232
ME6223 no date: CRJ-5:56. ME6223 no date: CRJ-5:64-5.
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Sōka Gakkai emerged as the largest lay organization of Nichiren Buddhism and today Sōka Gakkai’s membership account for nearly ten percent of Japan’s population. It has done practically what no other religion has been able to do in Japan. It has gained influence and power among workers and trade unions. Sōka Gakkai has won a memorable struggle with Tanro, the coal miners’ trade and climaxed its growing political influence in 1959 when it succeeded in electing all of the candidates it sponsored. (Endo, ME6223 no date: lecture 8:6). Is either of these theologies right, wrong or in-between? Did Christian elements influence Mahayana? Did Theravada elements influence Christianity? Both? Neither? Aren't those circularly recurring approaches rather the reflection of human mind's ghosts and circular proclivities that -indeed- have remained the same across regimes, ages and continents?
It is the same logic behind the deluge of 'glurge', typically anonymous chain-emails that contain stories -at times with religious overtones 1233-, whereby heroes are busy putting nooses around their necks; barely escaping from rapists and murderers thanks to divine intervention; wasting away of chagrin on their deathbed; screaming -like Tolstoy's Ivan Ilyc- after the sudden realization of some existential truth1234; sulking or pouting as target of endless indignities. There are loving mommies, dutiful daddies, sweet children and adorable puppies: all meet an horrendous fate:”images are psychotropic”1235;”with the demand for 24 hours
1233
The author or scribe in his capacity of shaman decides what's next. The same story may unfold in all its doom and gloom, or divine intervention may at the last minute avert the catastrophe: angels safely escort a woman walking through a back alley past a rapist's reach; the phone or doorbell rings, and a suicide attempt is averted barely on time, etc. 1234 In Tolstoy's story, the character realizes his own mortality on his deathbed. In those stories it may be just about any occurrence of possible spiritual or existential value. 1235 Moore 1989:part 7.
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content, the focus on “real people” went into overdrive” 1236;”the soul never thinks without an image”1237.
The public is thus irresistibly electrified to draw fiery analogies -no matter how stretched and preposterous- to its own peculiar life stories:“A great and interesting story is about everyone or it will not last ”;”But if this story is not also our story, then it is not worth retelling”. Teaching a Christian approach to counseling at Westminster Theological Seminary (USA), Powlinson 1238 repeatedly refers to the Bible -and to the Christian worldview- as “lenses”, “grids” and so forth, through which reality has to be interpreted.
Referring to case studies in counseling he presents, Powlinson makes the explicit point that -although many details of one's case in point may certainly find no parallel or answer in the Bible- certainly core aspects salient to the matter do find relevant solutions in the Bible: gnosticism is human psyche's skeleton key, the present writer concludes. Lakhani1239 begs to agree: marketers ought not just to offer generic solutions to common problems, but specific solutions tailored to solve a particular person's dilemma.
There are stories purported to bring aesthetic arrest about as one's mind gets 'in the zone' by contemplating transcendental truths. For example, a beautiful soul tells his entourage how they are not supposed to tend to him the next day. The 1236
Prinstein 2017c:29. Aristotle, On The Soul, Smith trans. 1238 1995:lecture 5. 1239 2010:02. 1237
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thunder of realization strikes the next day as the keeper realizes the person just died. What sort of transcendental truth could this herald? Any one might see fit; aren't people jerking tears and gasping for breath already? Who's this candid soul? Any one might see fit.
The same story circulated online about a sick child in a hospital, who said he'd be going home the next day; or about a middle-aged, illiterate laborer Chinese Buddhist master
Di-Xian (1858-1932) had ordained as a monk, and
dispatched to a remote, empty temple to chant Amitabha Buddha's name. The monk one day said there would be no need to cook for him the next day: he was found standing in the temple in his death; master Di-Xian remarked upon seeing him how he surely had attained blessed rebirth in Amitabha's place of bliss, thus surpassing many accomplished monks.
Much as Amitabha's name the monk chanted varies according to reports, so the sweet child in the story's other strand claims to be going home, whereby he departs to be with Jesus or any punchline that might be used to make one's adorable soul scream...
Of course, there were many who avowedly met the sick child, or the dutiful monk, much as many claimed to have seen Jesus walking on water; Belgian or Kuwaiti babies slaughtered en masse; Gautama Buddha planting a stick into the ground, which instantly grew into a giant tree...
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In the copycatted movies Karate Kid (1984) and No Retreat No
Surrender (1986), the juvenile heroes pour their heart out, either snapping back at one's mother (1984), or lamenting “they're out to get me -...- I can't handle it” before Bruce Lee's tomb (1986).
All this unfolds as the knot of readers/viewers/bystanders peeps aghast:
unhappiness [originating] from within his own self, creating that tragic urgency—that sense of plumbing the darker depths of our identities (Brown 2005:6) If something is easy, there’s no tension, and without tension, there’s little incentive for an audience to keep watching. Tension is the feeling we get when issues or events are unresolved, especially when we want them to be resolved. -...- We need to know, because it makes us uncomfortable not to know. (Bernard 2007:25). At times, such stories are invented out of thin air; at times they relay just another version of immemorial myths; at times they relay real stories camouflaged (abridged, condensed, novelized= hyperreal) to play the part so readers can be swept off their feet in a tide of sentimentalism in tune with the infantile, melodramatic register:”those worthless, gaseous, sacred texts”1240.
Glurge chain-emails circulated around 1998 bearing evocative, selfencompassing titles: “The caves of sorrow have mines of diamonds”; “forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that crushed it”;”los recuerdos son de agua, y a veces nos salen por los ojos”.
1240
Euripides Hippolytus 1063.
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Skepticism seems in order, but -to name one- the Chicken Soup For The
Soul inspirational franchise sold in excess of half a billion (yes, billion) copies (in addition to audios, videos etc) recycling glurge and deepities such as:
A little girl named Jocelynn Jay said,” I know all about adoptions because I am adopted.”. “What does it mean to be adopted?” asked another child. “It means” said Jocelynn “that you grew in your mother's heart instead of her tummy” (George Dolan, A 3rd Serving Of Chicken Soup For The Soul, 1993). Titles are evocative enough to cause aesthetic arrest 1241 -whereby the mind goes still awestruck by some quintessential emotional or spiritual truth-, yet broad enough to make room for personal interpretations, creeds and circumstances a narrower focus might upset or disparage:”images are psychotropic”1242;”the soul never thinks without an image”1243;”My idea is that the basic thing about myth is that it is visionary. ”1244.
Popular culture is never far behind. Miguel Bosé's 1982 Spanish hit
Bravo Muchachos
was launched in Italy in a nearly literal translation (Bravi
Ragazzi). Originally intended as a generational anthem for those -like Bosé- born in 1956 (“todos poetas los del 56”, all poets those born in 1956) replete with gnostic punchlines (“Mira adelante que no hay nada detrás Y no se puede regresar -...-Colgando del tiempo En crisis desde una eternidad -...-Héroes y delincuentes Buenos chicos, buena gente ”1245), translated perfectly in a cash-counter and popular James Joyce originally utilized the concept referring to the effects of great beauty upon the mind. Moore 1989:part 7. 1243 Aristotle, On The Soul, Smith trans. 1244 Campbell 1976:no page. 1245 “Look ahead, there is nothing behind and there is no way back-...- hanging from time in a crisis going on for an 1241 1242
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culture success in both Italy and Spain.
With insignificant edits, Bosé's song could be revamped to serve as anthem for any and all generations and age ranges: gnostic truths constitute the ultimate emotional currency. It is difficult to guess, however, whether such terrific gnostic punchlines were originally on a papyrus carbon-dated 3.000 BCE, or a chewing-gum wrapper's fortune.
It is a circular, never-ending rendition of stiff Greek drama and its cardboard-cutout characters alternatively rising in anger, collapsing in supplication, sullen in anticipation, besotted with love or hate. They may be otherwise drolly disguising or crassly parading their identity, groveling in recognition, exchanging solemn oaths or Homeric insults while grimacing and gesturing like the stereotypical overexcited troglodyte on a caffeine overdose:
When people are very engaged in a topic and excited, their illustrators get bigger and more numerous. When people are less engaged, less interested, or thinking a lot on their feet, then the number of illustrators will go down and the gestures themselves will get smaller. (Frank 2016:60). [ A 2007] study by the UK’s National Autistic Society supported the conclusion that autistic kids prefer Thomas the Tank Engine over any other children’s character. In other words, the exaggerated expressions on the characters’ faces fascinates these kids. (Hogshead 2007:37-38, emphasis added). One may compare the taunts Gilgamesh exchanges with the monster
eternity -...-heroes and scoundrels, good guys, good folks”. It is useful to ponder Spain had undergone a regime change in the late 1970s leaving Francoism behind.
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Umbaba before the combat...or the exchange between the Chinese and Japanese characters on screen as Bruce Lee (in Chinese Connection, 1972) raids the Japanese Bushido school1246.
Goldman aptly compares the taunts Ugaritic deities Baal (god of rain and fertility, known as Marduk in Mesopotamia) and voracious Mot (god of drought and death) exchange to a Clint Eastwood movie 1247. In Hindu mythology as well, Indra (Zeus' counterpart, sky-god) defeats the serpent Vritra, thus releasing the cosmic waters.
An otherwise very composed person, Campbell also brags:
There is a darling little woman who comes to my lectures in New York, who was a nun. She left the convent after hearing a couple of my talks. She did. That’s one of my great credits, you old bastard up there. The last time I was lecturing and she was in the group, she came up to me afterward and asked, “Mr. Campbell, do you think that Jesus was God, was God’s son?” I said, “Not unless we all are.” “Ahh!” she said, and off she went (Campbell 1991:115, emphasis added). Why does the hero waste time with taunts? He might just do the splits in mid-air, fire the grenade-thrower and win the battle, yet it would turn out to be a short story -or movie- indeed. A number of broadcast series exist(ed) to allow wrestlers to keep the tension up by exchanging taunts, and fueling feuds. Among the many Japanese giant robots of the 1970s, Daitarn III sees the cartoon hero (a sort of samurai) exchange ritualistic taunts with enemies before each battle. 1246
Examples are limitless, for example the taunts exchanged between the various Chuck Norris or Steven Seagal characters and the villain(s) of the moment. 1247 2003:Epics Of The Gods.
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On the opposite end of the entertainment spectrum,
Meineck 1248
explicitly compares contemporary sit-coms on TV to their direct -and identicalancestors: Graeco-Roman comedies (Greek Menander and Roman Plautus):” the plot structure is almost exactly the same”:
explorations of the moral and emotional implications of exclusion and marginality illustrate the genre’s predilection for ‘testing to destruction’ the concepts and categories of ordinary -...- life. By dramatising the experiences of individuals driven out of their usual frameworks for living, tragedies depict actions which are simultaneously extreme and representative. (Woodard 2007:172). These highly physical farces were modeled primarily after the “New Comedy” of Athenian dramatists such as Menander, whose plays had first been performed in Athens in the fourth century and had spread across the Hellenistic world to the Greek cities of southern Italy. Although most of the plays are domestic situation comedies with stock comic characters, the texts are full of mythological references and one play has survived that was even based on a popular Greek myth (Meineck 2005-1:12). Each night, a near-majority of the population of Britain, in an action which plainly has no parallel in the previous history of our island race, sits down to watch actors simulate situations which the producers devoutly hope millions of people will recognise. What does it matter whether we call it art or not ? Nightly, we expose ourselves to countless myths, both uniform and uniformed. Our representatives, those chosen from our tribe for their talent or for their beauty, pull on blue serge or green scrubs to appear before us as doctors, as policemen and as vets. But strangely, although this development is so singular and peculiar to our age, although we experience so many more of these artefacts than any large human group before us, we rarely pause to ask ourselves not just whether the consumption of endless parallel narratives to our own is necessary, but what on earth we think we are doing when we indulge in it, or rather when we indulge in it to such extraordinary excess. People seem, in the twinkling of an eye, to have gone from finding everything in one book – the Bible, the Koran - to finding very little in very many. -...- Why fabulate ? Because if we do 1248
2005-1:The Making Of Myth.
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not, everyone else will. (Hare 2004, 1-7, emphasis added). You would be surprised how many absolutely contemporary political speeches have the same structure [as medieval sermons], though instead of going to the Bible for their commentary, they turn to texts like the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution. But the key is in fact the exemplum, the story. The minds of human beings are hard-wired to be interested in other human beings, and the brilliance of the structure of medieval sermons is that it allows a speaker to tell a story and then make that story have the point that the author wants. (Drout 2006:25, emphasis added). So the indirectness of their communication contributes to the appearance, and probably also the feeling, of rapport.(Tannen 1991). This potential of violence, for the on-screen characters in slasher movies and for the â&#x20AC;&#x153;friends of a friendâ&#x20AC;? of urban legends and for us listeners/viewers, underlines that these narratives are predicated upon what is possible and that, assuming we do not wish to end up as grist for these killersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; mills, we need to heed their narrative interdictions. (Koven 2008:127). Today's networked I.T society is still at it more than ever, crassly parading (social networks...) or drolly disguising (multiple IDs, monikers, proxy servers, identities associated with alternative mobile phone numbers...) one's identity on par with both ancient, XVIII century romanesque and telenovela heroes.
Quite (un)surprisingly -again- the entries of such fabricated 'logs towards hell' have their victim-heroes suffer all sorts of losses, rejections and indignities before taking the final leap to self-destruction; the quintessential savior-hero has never been healthier.
In one of such chain-mails, a girl is dumped by her boyfriend in a cruel manner; 'hip' classmates reject and insult her, only to set her later up for a date that 880
turns into another cruel prank; her parents get in a car accident: her father dies, whereas her mother survives disabled for life1249; she finally commits suicide.
The chain-mail ends with a moral lesson about the importance of being nice, and the promise everyone who forwards it to as many people as possible shall be rewarded with a random act of kindness:â&#x20AC;?the god virusâ&#x20AC;?. Mahayana Buddhist texts of a bygone age also promised great rewards to those who would copy and spread the sacred text.
Much as early psychoanalysts suggested, many such situations and imagery obsessing the human mind mimic infantile (or juvenile) fantasies. Tannen1250 discusses one-upmanship among male children at play in a conversation ritual: if one can kick a ball this or that high, the last will claim he can kick a ball up to god; or if a couple children have visited Disneyland for 2 or 3 days, the child having the last word claims he is moving to Disneyland.
In adult life goal posts shift, yet only so much. Tall tales revolve around the quantification of one's presumed masculinity/femininity, connections, bank account, drastic tax cuts and/or fabulous subsidies one's 'honest' party shall grant, and so forth.
If most children may make stories up about striking a friendship up with imaginary superheroes, most adults endlessly brag about this billionaire friend of 1249 1250
In other variants, the mother dies and the father survives disabled. 2003:lecture 2.
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theirs, and the “many eye-witnesses who saw it with their own eyes”.
Reminiscences were a genre in antiquity in which presumed “eye-witnesses” told table talk stories (moralia) about some “great man” they chanced to interact with. The result was often a novelized tale full of improbable wonders.
The telling of one story inspires other people to share what they have read or heard, and in a short time a lively exchange of details occurs and perhaps new variants are created. Tellers of these legends, of course, are seldom aware of their roles as “performers of folklore.” (Brunvand 1981:13). Our day is no different. Here come the Monaco yacht and the nine solid gold watches “a friend” owns; the twenty euro a cup coffee they routinely drink...with “a friend” who can “swear” it's all true (=triangulation); the secret service, millionaire club or special forces badge that identifies them; or that topmodel they dated in college, whom -some add for good measure- was a top dollar feminist lawyer, too:”the thought being that the dubious character of the several extraordinary parts of a narrative ends up contaminating the more pedestrian parts, rendering them dubious too.”.
As in most American versions of the story, these specific local touches make believable what is essentially a traveling legend. -...-Apparently the basic human need for meaningful personal contact cannot be entirely replaced by the mass media and popular culture. A portion of our interest in what is occurring in the world must be filled by some face-to-face reports from other human beings. (Brunvand 1981:14,16). Branden qualifies the above as self-esteem disasters. People live inauthentic lives in ongoing neurotic fear of being found out as the imposter they
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are because they put up a false front in order to be liked. Joe Loizzo claims that ongoing neurosis stems from the potential for danger in the world around people; a potential that might at any moment become (f)actual.
People, Branden adds, not facts constitute the reality of folks living inauthentic lives; people they hope to placate, please or manipulate. Anxiety reduction that results from other people's approval replaces self-esteem:”people occupy the place which -in the mind of a rational person- is occupied by reality -...-. In order to belong with others, the social metaphysician is willing to belong to them”1251;”what do people think it is; what have I heard said it is: this is social metaphysics -...-. the worst punishment that social metaphysicians endure is their contempt for their own judgment”1252.
I found [this] to be an extraordinary pattern. Participants in my study didn’t just lie occasionally. They lied a lot. Participants watching themselves on video [as they chatted with strangers] confessed to lies that were big and small, rooted in the truth and fantastic, predictable and unexpected, relatively defensible and simply baffling. -...-My finding that most people told three lies in a ten-minute “getting to know you” chat attracted national media attention. -...- Verbal lies start in most children around the age of three, though in some children they can occur as early as two. -...-Whereas an adult may brag about exaggerated success at work, a child may brag about a trip he took to hunt down the Loch Ness monster. -...-He checks the educational backgrounds of CEOs and vice presidents, then compiles what he calls the Liars Index: a statistic that represents the number of résumés with inaccuracies divided by the total number of résumés he has checked. In 2008, the Liars Index was nearly 16 percent. That’s down from the high of 23.3 percent, reached in 2000. Applicants claimed degrees they had never earned, honors they had never received. And again, these 1251 1252
2000. Branden 1960/1969:lesson 8.
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are not the résumés of inexperienced college graduates (or nongraduates, as it were), ready to lie in order to launch their careers. Werra’s index describes executive résumés, those of individuals already established in the business world— though, it seems, not established enough.(Feldman 2009:11,34,99). [pharmaceutical industry] reps told us that they employed other tricks too, turning into chameleons—switching various accents, personalities, and political affiliations on and off. They prided themselves on their ability to put doctors at ease. Sometimes a collegial relationship expanded into the territory of social friendship —some reps would go deep-sea fishing or play basketball with the doctors as friends. Such shared experiences allowed the physicians to more happily write prescriptions that benefited their “buddies.” -...-Of course, in many cases the doctors probably didn’t realize that they were being manipulated—but there is no doubt that they were. (Ariely 2012:41). Some may be sociopaths, or even psychopaths -...-, but most are probably ordinary people trying to function and survive in a competitive environment. (Babiak&Hare 2006:118). That historian or scholar who delights in pointing out the weaknesses and frailties of present or past leaders destroys faith. A destroyer of faith - particularly one within the Church, and more particularly one who is employed specifically to build faith - places himself in great spiritual jeopardy. He is serving the wrong master, and unless he repents, he will not be among the faithful in the eternities. Do not spread disease germs! [Mormon Apostle B.K. Packer in 1981] ( cit. in Dana 2006:168-9). Of course, as in the best religious lore, if some saw the Johannine Jesus ascend bodily to heaven with a deep wound in his side 1253, some also partook of the 1253
Some contend even the canonical Gospels evolve over time. John's gospel incorporated the mortal wound to Jesus' chest to counter “swoon theories” applicable to earlier Gospels. Namely, Jesus would have simply “swooned” on the cross, being later revived, and thus appearing later in the flesh (not as a resurrected prodigy, however). John really wants to emphasize the matter: St. Thomas not only meets the resurrected, maimed Jesus, but personally inspect his mortal wounds (John 20:24-29). This seems to contradict earlier Pauline Christianity, whereby resurrected bodies partake of divine spiritual perfection (=Jesus is not recognized in his resurrection because his body is unlike any mortal coil) and cannot therefore appear maimed with spear wounds fingers can be inserted into:”It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. ” ( 1 Corinthians 15:43-44);”Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe."” ( John 20:27). In 1 Corinthians (6:13), Paul proclaims that “Food
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expensive coffee, saw the special forces ID or met the millionaire friend to lend credence to the account:”An animal who gets his feeling of worth symbolically has to minutely compare himself to those around him, to make sure he doesn't come off second-best.”1254;”First, it’s hard to disagree with a specific thing that happened to a specific person. What is someone going to tell my cousin, “No, I think you’re lying,there’s no way [that shop] would be that nice”? Hardly.”;”And if to some my tale seems foolishness I am content that such could count me fool. ”;”We know the answers because someone shared them with us. Communication is a kind of “vicarious observation””;”what later became the gist of the tradition was not in fact an accurate memory, but one that had been generated as the stories were told and retold”.
Bragging harlequins, whether on- or offline, are in the good company of both Bronze Age heroes of lore, and of this chap who's “Presently serving time for murder, he has been denied parole four times -...-Needless to say, this man's score on the Psychopathy Checklist was very high.”. He “
is for the stomach and the stomach is for food, but God will do away with both of them. ”. Luke presents a completely different picture from Paul's perfected ectoplasms who need no food:”Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have."” (24:39);”They gave [Jesus] a piece of broiled fish,and he took it and ate it in their presence.” (24:42-43). There were memories early Paulinists did not share yet about Jesus living, dying and coming back in the flesh instead of in spirit only. In the Protogospel of James – a II century non-canonical work- an incredulous midwife (another “doubting Thomas” figure) gives Mary a postpartum inspection so that Mary's “perpetual virginity” can be “independently attested”. Gautama Buddha is no different. Uttara ( Brahmayu Sutta), a master of the Vedas and disciple to noted Vedic master Brahmayu, is sent to ascertain whether the Buddha's body carries the 32 “marks of a great man”. After following Gautama around for seven months, Uttara confirms the Buddha is indeed “a great man” (mahapurisa) as people proclaim. ”We know the answers because someone shared them with us. Communication is a kind of “vicarious observation””;”what later became the gist of the tradition was not in fact an accurate memory, but one that had been generated as the stories were told and retold”. 1254 Becker 1973:4.
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• left home at age eight
• started flying at age eleven; pilot's license at age fifteen
• was a commercial pilot with twin-engine and full instrumentation
experience
• lived in nine different countries in four continents
• managed an apartment building
• had his own roofing company
• ran a ranch for a year
• worked as a forest-fire fighter for six months
• spent two years in the coast guard
• was a captain on an eighty-foot charter boat
• was a deep-sea diver for four months” (Hare 1993:48-9).
[god said]Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you know so much -...-Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb -...- Can you lift up your voice to the clouds, So that an abundance of water will cover you? -...-Can you pull in Leviathanextnote with a fishhook or tie down its extnote
The “dragon of watery chaos” defies the hero. Leviathan (in some etymologies) is connected to the Litani river. Hercules battles the hydra (=water connection). The dragon Yamm defies Baal/Marduk...(note of this
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tongue with a rope â&#x20AC;&#x153;(Job 38:4-41,41:1) As repeatedly argued throughout this writing, various strategies can coexist. The Buddhist story of Mahadeva joins the arch-transgressor/hero, Zorba/Buddha narrative with the chain of misfortune narrative. Mahadeva has an incestuous relationship with his mother; in order to cover his tracks, he kills his father. Moving to another place to hide (=hero's journey), Mahadeva then murders a neighbor who knows about him, and finally he murders his mother/lover upon finding out she has an affair (=chain of misfortune). On the brink of self-destruction, he meets a Buddhist preacher, gets ordained and becomes a saintly monk (=Zorba becomes Buddha).
In the carbon-copied legend of Dharmaruci (same basic storyline), horrors really have no end, and the arch-transgressor also kills by arson a large number of monks and Saints after they refuse to ordain him on account of his capital sins. Finally, Dharmaruci meets a Buddhist monk who refrains from hasty judgment, and preaches to him (=Gautama Buddha in one of his previous lives).
The human mind finds chains of misfortune supremely relishable. In Sade's story 'Florville et Courval', sensible Florville's journey from Paris to Lorraine begins her misfortunes. She is seduced and gives birth to an illegitimate child she cannot keep: her journey(s) to escape only make(s) things worse. In the house of pious madame de LĂŠrince, she is raped but manages to accidentally kill the culprit,
writer).
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who in the end turns out to be her son.
At the end of another journey ( in Nancy ) she appears as eye-witness in a trial for murder, and a woman is sentenced to death as a result: she'll find out later that woman to be her mother she had never met. At the end of all journeys, married to much older Monsieur de Courval, and expecting a child from him, she receives the uncanny visit (thus she is the recipient of the 'message' of someone else's journey ) of her former lover, who is no other than M. de Courval's estranged son. She thus learns -among other things- how Courval is the father she had never met, whereas the father of her first child is her brother: Florville instantly commits suicide.
Seemingly supporting the case for psychic unity of mankind, a tale collected in Karnataka (India) reveals the same story-line:
instead of the Greek tradition’s directionality from child to parent -...-, with aggression expressed within one gender and sexual interest across genders, the Indian model -...- has the same modalities of expression, but with their directionalities reversed, from parent to child. -...-Both Dharmaruci and Mahâdeva show aggression toward the father, but not exactly hostility. The distinction is interesting. These sons kill the father, but they do not hate him. He is simply in the way; as long as he is present—and until his return from a lengthy sea voyage, he is not present—he prevents continuation of the sexual relationship between mother and son. But that relationship is characterized predominantly as one of sexual convenience, not of affection. (Silk 2009:166). The Agganna Sutta further says that itthigācu here means not the physical female body, but the mind made consciousness as femininity. (Priyadarshana, ME6210 no date:chapter 5:4).
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Silk's points emphasizing the chasm between the Greek and Indian Oedipal dilemma shall be taken with a grain of salt. Even Oedipus cannot be construed as hating his father: he kills him by happenstance as a feud arises at a crossroad; neither can Oedipus be said to love his mother: he's simply awarded the widowed Queen for defeating the Sphinx.
Most modern readers may not feel affinity to XVIII century romanesque -which is kept alive in Hispanic telenovelas for the matter-, yet is the row of misfortunes befalling Florville any different from those befalling Rambo, Ringo, illegal immigrants, felons and other contemporary pariah heroes? Popular culture serves hefty doses of the above.
Also, great religious heroes -from St. Paul
(Christian) to Joseph Smith (Mormon) and Saicho and Kukai (Japanese Buddhist)have their share of romanesque adventures.
Claudio Baglioni's 1972 hit, teenage-themed love song Questo Piccolo
Grande Amore (this little big love) recites:â&#x20AC;?e lei tutto ad un tratto non parlava ma le si leggeva chiaro in faccia che soffriva ed io io non lo so quant'è che ha pianto solamente adesso me ne sto rendendo contoâ&#x20AC;? (and suddenly she would grow silent, but it was apparent she was in distress. I don't know how much she cried because I am getting it just now).
The broken record effect is obvious. The public chokes as crooners chronicle misunderstandings between lovers over and over again. In 1964, Italian singer Bobby Solo (an Elvis Presley lookalike) had already taken the music scene by 889
storm with Una Lacrima Sul Viso (a teardrop on your face): Da una lacrima sul viso
ho capito molte cose (from a teardrop on (your) face I understood so much). The song enjoyed an English rendition ( For Your Love), eight weeks of top placements, and an eponymous movie.
But the main difference is that in traditional society the human partner would not absorb into himself the whole dimension of the divine; in modern society he does. In case we are inclined to forget how deified the romantic love object is, the popular songs continually remind us. They tell us that the lover is the "springtime," the "angel-glow," with eyes "like stars," that the experience of love will be "divine," "like heaven" itself, and so on and on; popular love songs have surely had this content from ancient times and will likely continue to have it as long as man remains a mammal and a cousin of the primates. (Becker 1973:161). Newscasts endlessly recycle such rigmarole to whitewash, promote or excuse anyone: illegal immigrants, murderers caught red handed, corrupt politicians, pedophile Catholic priests...The jive becomes an occasion of gnostic insight as the public puts its hands together to celebrate our common humanity.
Some people have gone on wild goose chases after this, that or another incarnation of the quintessential maltreated hero (=the myth ought to have become fact= we're smart, and believe only forensic truth, not silly legends) in the contemporary media, only to find that â&#x20AC;&#x201C; to the best of their research- none under that name (had) lived in that locale, let alone died in the prescribed manner (by hanging, drowning, murder, gunshot wound...that also varies).
As reported in 2004:
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Norma Khouri's bestseller Honor Lost (published in Australia, Khouri's home, as Forbidden Love) told the story of a Jordanian 'honor killing.' Dalia, a young woman living in Jordan, falls in love with a Christian man and is murdered for this transgression by her father in order to defend the 'honor' of the family. Khouri claimed the story was nonfiction, based on the life (and death) of a woman she met while growing up in Jordan. But the Sydney Morning Herald discovered that Khouri did not grow up in Jordan. She actually grew up in a suburb of Chicago. And no person matching the Dalia character appears to have existed. Khouri's book was revealed to be fiction. The Australian publisher of the book withdrew it from sale. (Terror And Hate Crime Hoaxes no date: no page, emphasis added). On May 14, Kaycee Nicole Swenson, an effervescent 19-year-old, died from complications surrounding leukemia, which she had been battling for nearly two years. -...-For nearly a year, thousands of people went to the site to follow her travails. Many came to feel as if they knew her, and a few talked with her regularly on the phone. Some sent her gifts. -...- A few days after the death announcement, Debbie Swenson, a 40-year-old homemaker, confessed to having invented the life and death of Kaycee. -...- [hoaxer] Ms. Swenson said she had hired a lawyer because of the many angry phone calls she had received. Nevertheless, Ms. Swenson said on Tuesday that she believed the Kaycee character had been more helpful than harmful. "A lot of people have problems," she said. "I know I helped a lot of people in a lot of different ways." (Hafner 2001:no page, emphasis added). Yet it will invariably sound like the next religion that never happened, with the recipients of the chain-email (readers of the acclaimed best-seller etc) acting as the peeping busybodies gathering around an accident; or going through fixed liturgy in a religious milieu. Vicarious trauma proves irresistible, as Greek tragedy epitomized:â&#x20AC;?A witness to violence is a victim of violence.â&#x20AC;? 1255.
In fact, the basic difference between the stream of such fabricated doom and gloom stories and myths presiding over the formation of any religion -whether 1255
Bradshaw 1988:51.
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secular or spiritual- is how they are slanted. Are the glorious on-paper antics of the non-existent “Dalia”, “Misha Defonseca” or “Kaycee Nicole Swenson” so different from the antics of one savior-hero or the next? After all, one had “the documents”, “the eye-witnesses” and so forth to attest Dalia, Kaycee and Misha lived, suffered, died etc:”We know the answers because someone shared them with us. Communication is a kind of “vicarious observation””;”what later became the gist of the tradition was not in fact an accurate memory, but one that had been generated as the stories were told and retold”.
Is Krishna another “Dalia”? Is Jesus another “Kaycee”? Zoroaster a “Misha”? To add insult to injury, not only is “Dalia” a figment of a disturbed imagination, but “Norma Khouri” is a fictitious front as well for Norma Bagain. Are the “heroic deeds” of saviors and cynosures as “factualized” as those of “Dalia”, “Misha” and “Kaycee”?
Hillary Clinton has conceded that she "did misspeak" about landing in Bosnia under sniper fire [in 1996], blaming tiredness for a dramatic description that was shown to have been significantly exaggerated. (The Telegraph, March 25, 2008)1256. On one hand, a boy/girl commits suicide after suffering a row of more or less casual indignities trying in vain to make friends; on the other, a savior-hero wants to preach to the masses his newly established or updated version of quintessential truth (covenant etc), and suffers tribulations, whose high points are established (annunciation, ministry, rejection, betrayal, sulking/doubt, sparagmos, 1256
Footage exposing Hillary Rodham Clinton's lie is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BfNqhV5hg4
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comeback...). In both cases, stories from all provinces of the spectrum of plausibility, pseudo-history and folklore are summarily edited to include the hero of the moment.
Alternatively, it could be the activist of this, that or another political affiliation preaching against another set of political affiliations, thus going through the high points. In other words, it is the presence of the political/religious angle to determine whether the same odd lump of indignities qualifies as potential founding event, following the decision of parties authoritative enough to impose their choice durably1257 to the masses (masters of acceptable discourse= hierophants, or “those who show what's sacred” etc). As R.M. Price alleged regarding Biblical parables, has “the meaning” been read “from” or “into” the story? Are these stories mere devices to get to the punchline? Isn't the punchline all there is to the story?
The dead -more or less well-known- were routinely “heroized” in the ancient world, whence a series of presumed tombs of Homeric heroes that are dated as coming centuries after the possible Trojan war:
In the funerary epigrams of the Hellenistic and Greco-Roman era various forms of heroization of the dead are apparent. The dead were presented as heroes, eternally youthful and immune to old age and dying, like the stars shining with perpetual light in the sky, or like the favourites of the gods. The leitmotiv of such heroizations was the emphatic praise of the beauty of the dead. Emphasis on beauty and youth not only preserved the memory of the dead but made the loss seem even more dramatic. (Wypustek 2009:277). 1257
The cult of Sulla (and related games, Syllaia ) at Athens -for one- lasted only a few years, token of appreciation the Greek oligarchy paid, which Sulla had helped reinstate. Inscriptional evidence at Myletus shows how in the 30-40s CE a temple was for a time set up to honor the Emperor Caligula (reigning 37-41 CE).
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In fact, the same trite story can instantly -depending on the public penchant of course- induce aesthetic arrest if a small addition is made, such as horrors being visited upon -or committed by- one by virtue of their race, skin color, sexual, religious or political orientation:”Not being liked becomes less of as question of what is wrong with you than what is wrong with others who don’t like you. -...-Having the "right" enemies can often lead to acquiring the "right" friends.”1258.
The same applies to so-called miracles. What makes a huge difference between the bizarre events from the realms of Forteana 1259 -such as “strange sky falls”1260- and miracles is once again the 'political' spin or gnostic addendum that could turn a Fortean phenomenon into a miracle in full regalia worth of any sacred book.
Whether seen from the culprit's or victim's standpoint, a murder for petty reasons – such as two intoxicated ale house regulars getting into a fight- tells little. If buzz-words or details are added – you-know-who and you-know-what narratives-, it may become the greatest story never told.
A minor rabble-rouser possibly liquidated for disturbing the peace alongside two thieves in a peripheral area of low geopolitical interest tells one nothing. The son of god being put to death by demonic imperial forces at the behest
1258
Wilcox 1994:33. From C.H. Fort (1874-1932) who wrote books listing an endless series of weird phenomena such as strange sky falls. It nowadays includes items such as cryptozoology and conspiracy theories. 1260 Frogs, fish, squid, turtles and even “demons” were reported to have fallen from the sky. Strange Sky Falls no date:no page. 1259
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of an evil people in order to free humankind from sin tells the greatest story ever:
The key to finding inner remarkability is to think about what makes something interesting, surprising, or novel. Can the product do something no one would have thought possible -...-? Are the consequences of the idea or issue more extreme than people ever could have imagined? (Berger 2013:27). A rabid judaeophobic radical strangled in prison, whose acid-defaced body was buried in a shallow grave alongside his followers, probably evokes today a feeling of just desert that compensates for romantic inattention to due process of law. Under the short-lived Romanian Fascist regime, however, Codreanu's death epitomized the misdeeds of the inept, corrupt demo-plutocratic regime -and its judaeo-masonic international master puppeteers- who oppressed the good Romanian people.
It must be emphasized how the set of accusations can remain more or less identical. For example, Romanian Fascists were seen essentially as a fifthcolumn following plans drafted in Rome or later Berlin, whereas Romanian Fascists saw the pre-war regime as a fifth-column following a plan drafted in London (Paris, Moscow...) at the behest of Judaeo-masons, Judaeo-Communists or something like that.
The same recurs everywhere. Fastidious descriptions the NSDAP regime made of â&#x20AC;&#x153;degenerate art and scienceâ&#x20AC;?, and/or internationalist Judaeo-masonic cabals has been lifted nearly verbatim and applied to exposing and chastising western civilization. Where the NSDAP regime saw swarms of noxious internationalist 895
Judaeo-masons relentlessly at work to oppress and/or destroy the Aryan race, other people see swarms of equally noxious bourgeois, traditionalist (sex-ist, rac-ist...) White males pursuing their agenda of exploitation and oppression of this, that or another blessed minority. After all, it's the old story of the arch-trickster: a faceless sock-puppet easy to groom in order to fit any part.
The power of such images and situations, no matter how recurring and obtuse, is extended to the reverence for ancient languages; for ages the clergy counted on the hypnotic effects Latin (Greek, Sanskrit...) had on the clueless masses.
The movie Flatliners (1990) provides a storyline axed around the final emotional thunder of illumination. Eccentric medical students try artificially induced near-death experiences to probe the secrets of life beyond death. Suddenly uncanny events start happening as they realize they are being haunted by their past bad deeds' personified ghost.
One of them has a particularly hard time, and tries to make sense of his predicament. He at some point remembers how he had literally hounded a classmate he didn't like in middle school, or something like that. In one scene, the victim is still being lampooned while perched on a tree branch seeking refuge. The victim desperately pleads with his aggressors. The branch upon which the victim rests suddenly collapses killing both the victim, and the young bully's dog: the suffering of puppies and children, what an irresistible commodity.
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Aesthetic arrest and thunder of illumination strike the viewer peeping aghast, whose mind goes still in the contemplation of a tragedy: “the “uncanny” is that class of the terrifying which leads back to something long known to us, once very familiar “1261;”structuralist Tzvetan Todorov has proposed that tales of the supernatural divide into three categories: the marvellous, in which no rational explanation is possible; the uncanny, in which it is; and the fantastic, in which the narrative
hesitates
undecidably
between
a
natural
and
a
supernatural
explanation.”1262.
A jornada gnóstica deve conduzir à revelação, ao inesperado e, às vezes, a um violento insight que conduz o protagonista à percepção do todo. Muitas vezes a gnose não é uma experiência que o sujeito alcance intencionalmente. Ele é tomado por ela. (the gnostic journey shall be conducive to a revelation, to the unexpected, at times to a violent insight leading the main actor towards perfect understanding. Many times gnosis is not an experience arrived at intentionally. He is seized by it.) (Vieira Ferreira 2009:207). the tasting of a transcendent form that had previously been hidden from the consciousness it had organized. (Shweder 2003:142). The katharsis is cleansing you of man's fear and desire in terms of merely temporal purposes and opening then the great experiences of pity, compassion for the other. And I think when [Aristotle] speaks of katharsis as following from pity and terror, he's speaking of going past fear and desire in to a deeper realm. James Joyce has discussed this magnificently in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. What Joyce calls the kinetic emotions, the emotions that move you to desire something or to loathe and fear it, are erased in the tragedy, where the emotions which he calls static emotions, of pity: participation and identification with the suffering of another; and terror: the experience and identification with the secret cause behind all things, the Being of beings. These are static emotions that arrest the mind and cleanse it of the mere temporal interests of fear and desire. (Campbell 2007:316). 1261 1262
Freud 1919:1-2. Lodge 1992:212.
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We may dance toward it and away, achieve glimpses, and even dwell in its beauty for a time; yet few are those who have been confirmed in that knowledge of its ubiquity which antiquity called gnosis and the Orient calls bodhi: full awakening to the crystalline purity of the bed or ground of one's own and the world's true being. (Campbell 1968:66) Again, that's a very old concept going back to the immemorial times of Mesopotamian flood stories (Utnapishtim, Atrahasis, Ziusudra 1263 etc). The gods decide to punish mankind unleashing a flood, but after the fact repent ('if I only had known'...) and plead to commit the event to memory. ”My lord, by all the gods, take back that prayer. Believe me, soon enough you’ll realize that you’ve done wrong”1264 suggests the chorus to Theseus who just cursed his innocent son.
Eduardo and I called this idea the emotional cascade. I don’t know about you, but I find the notion that our DECISIONS can remain hostage to emotions long after the emotions have passed rather frightening. It is one thing to realize how many ill-considered decisions we have made based on our mood—choices that, in perfectly neutral, “rational” moments, we would never make. It is another matter altogether to realize that these emotional influences can continue to affect us for a long, long time.(Ariely 2010:125). Popular culture is never far behind cranking the same handles. Questo
Piccolo Grande Amore (this little great love)– which some hail as the biggest seller in the history of Italian music- quips:”io non ho mai capito niente visto che oramai non me lo levo dalla mente” (I never got it and now it gets stuck in my mind).
The tragic urgency derives from a narrative that forces the character to make a choice—and that moment of choice becomes the mechanism by which the character’s suffering is ensured. (Brown 1263
So-called Sumerian Noah (=Akkadian Utnapishtim), who ruled as mythical X King of Shuruppak when a flood allegedly struck around 3.000 BCE. 1264 Euripides' Hippolytus 990-993.
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2005:17). suffering is depth and not height (Paul Tillich, 1948).
Questo Piccolo Grande Amore was an apolitical love song, but its lyrics (the frail creature's suffering that had escaped us, but gets stuck in our mind now that we realize its extent) could very well be lifted from any rewritten history book of one's choice: so pliable are supposed gnostic truths tantalizing human mind's vortexes:â&#x20AC;?the principle of montage into history. That is, to assemble large-scale constructions out of the smallest and most precisely cut components.â&#x20AC;?1265. Freudian psychoanalysis comes to mind: relentless attention to detail, whether in a work of art, or in a patient's dream.
Wrestler Honky Tonk Man had to put his title on the line in 1988, but a sudden last-minute change made his official opponent unavailable. He was provided a second opponent, but he wouldn't want to know who that might be; the anchorman
insisted trying to forewarn him, but Honky wouldn't listen. The
Ultimate Warrior then defeated him in record time and got the belt: if only Honky had known... Gnosticism seems to revolve around those exempla, petrified mythologies and stale allegories this writing discusses at least in part, which recur the world over since time immemorial.
Are all religions the same, then? According to a definition credited to Arjun Appadurai, religion is a system of behaviors and beliefs that formulates and
1265
Cohen in Ferris 2004:202.
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answers questions that are recurrent, important, and have to be answered. Prothero clinches:
One of the most common misconceptions about the world’s religions is that they plumb the same depths, ask the same questions. They do not. Only religions that see God as all good ask how a good God can allow millions to die in tsunamis. Only religions that believe in souls ask whether your soul exists before you are born and what happens to it after you die. And only religions that think we have one soul ask after “the soul” in the singular. Every religion, however, asks after the human condition. Here we are in these human bodies. What now? What next? What are we to become? (2010:17). The birth of theosophical orientalism coincided with a wave of interest in the philosophia perennis, the primordial tradition supposedly underlying all the major religions of the world. -...- Both the emphasis on individual experience and the psychologizing defense of the belief in a philosophia perennis are, of course, profoundly resonant with the concerns of New Agers. Spokespersons of the New Age would soon claim transpersonal psychology as a part of the ongoing consciousness revolution. -...- Esoterically, they are all stations in the transmission of an ageless wisdom, a philosophia perennis that has been accessible to the initiates of all times and places. -...- The belief in a philosophia perennis presents those who would rely on such a strategy with a particular problem. How does one account for overt differences between religious traditions? A strategy more radical than either synonymization or pattern recognition is the wholesale denial that the most spiritually advanced adherents of a certain religion actually believe in the doctrines of that faith. According to this strategy, most believers are caught up in a superficial, exoteric mode of belief. Those who have been initiated, whether by others or through their own insight, have reached an esoteric understanding. It is thus significant that one of the earliest exposés of theosophy is entitled Esoteric Buddhism. -...- Universalism becomes an effective remedy against doubt. If in the ultimate analysis, all religions are merely variations of a philosophia perennis, the differences between Hindu, Christian or Spiritist beliefs are simply details. The question whether present-day reincarnation beliefs, as set out in the latest texts, were actually created (or discovered) by Allan Kardec, Helena Blavatsky or some nameless Oriental sage becomes a matter of no great concern.(Hammer 2004: 62,72,170,173, 493).
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I see all the gods in thy body, O God, -...-I see numberless arms and bellies and eyes and faces, I see thy infinite forms on every side, but I see not thy end nor thy middle nor thy beginning, O Lord of the universe, O Form universalâ&#x20AC;ŚThou art the supreme Immutable whom we have to know, thou art the high foundation and abode of the universe, thou art the imperishable guardian of the eternal laws, thou art the sempiternal soul of existence (Hindu Gita as Aurobindo translates it in MAISI014 no date:lecture 5:3). Whatever form of Godhead any devotee wishes to worship with faith, in that very form do I confirm his unwavering faith (Krishna in the Gita, in MAISI015 no date: lecture 1:6). Going back to Bastian, one might aptly say that religions are all the same insofar as they present, provoke or address the same underlying mechanisms (elementary ideas), which are then obfuscated by the local, ethnic idea that represents the visible surface, and is eminently multifarious. The recently established Baha'i and Cao Dai faiths -not to mention Sikhism- proceed through ample syncretism.
Exempla work in the same way as the Marxist theory of ideology does: an irrelevant pantomime of smoke and mirrors a system of power stages in order to have the have-nots sympathize and endorse said pecking order in spite of all the problems and disadvantages the system of power entails for those at the bottom of its ladder.
Of course, today people are rarely expected to sympathize with royalties, hoarders and clergymen; today people sympathize with illegal immigrants, minorities, felons, defectives, presumed abuse victims of all sorts, sociopaths, banksters and so forth. It is the revolving operetta of the 'best of all causes' and 901
'foundling' routines adapted anew to all and sundry: only bad faith and political opportunism may make adventitious differences count.
Another reason abusers tend to blame others is because they have a tendency to view themselves as victims. Because of this victim mentality, their perception is faulty. No matter how much they are hurting someone else, they can only seem to recognize how much they themselves have been hurt.-...-Another reason why those who abuse have a tendency to blame others for their own behavior is the psychological defense mechanism known as projection. The way this works is that as a defense against facing a quality about ourselves we dislike, we project this quality onto someone else. (Engel 2002:121-122). Misidentification recurs circularly to haunt psychotic mythic imagery: Theseus (mis)recognizes his son Hyppolytus; Siegfried no longer recognizes his lover Brunhild because he was tricked into drinking a magic potion to that effect. Myths may coalesce. Because of a hermit's curse, King Dushyanta no longer recognises his pregnant lover Shakuntala (=the pregnant woman's predicament); pregnant Sita (Ramayana, several centuries BCE) is also abandoned as Rama either doubts her integrity, or wants to court favor with the masses who hold Sita in disfavor; pregnant Psyche is left to her own devices facing a series of trials her mother-in-law Aphrodite decrees in order for her to reunite with Cupid; Theseus abandons pregnant Ariadne1266 (at times assimilated to Aphrodite).
Myths tend to coalesce. In the Buddhist story of Utpalavarna, the pregnant woman's ordeal mytheme (=aspersions are cast upon a pregnant woman's 1266
Ariadne had given Theseus a ball of thread he had used to trace his way back from inside the labyrinth, where he'd kill the Minotaur. Interestingly enough, both at Adam's Peak (Sri Lanka), and at various Buddhist Theravada temples, pilgrims grab threads connected to holy statues as a token for the transmission of grace and protection. Hindu Brahmans as well wear a thread as symbol of their initiation.
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character as in-laws evict her) joins the Oedipal and the lost child mythemes. Raised by foster parents, Utpalavarna marries his mother and his sister he had never met. As the thunder of illumination strikes, the mother leaves to become a Buddhist nun1267.
In a convoluted Buddhist tale that makes French XVIII century
romanesque or Hispanic telenovelas look dilettante, a female Utpalavarna goes through the same shtick over and over again first as an householder, then as a courtesan. Akin to Florville, she encounters shame and sorrow in one place, only to move, and find more of the same elsewhere (=chain of misfortune mytheme=we are all as tainted= perversion of the hero's journey= suffering makes us one):
Utpalavarnâ thought to herself: “Previously, having been co-wife with my own mother, I also was co- wife with my daughter. In the present, again, being co-wife with my daughter, my son has become my husband. I must get completely out of here.” (Silk 2009:149). The female Utpalavarna, however, ends up a nun of superlative spiritual accomplishments1268 (arhat) in a Buddha's retinue (=the arch-transgressor is so much better than all of us). Although controversial, a few cases of GSA (Genetic Sexual Attraction) have been documented. Close relatives -such as siblings and/or parents1267 1268
Silk 2009:137ss. “Utpalavarnâ is a sexual libertine, and simultaneously a victim of mistaken identity, yet neither fact becomes grist for any morality- tale mill. From the perspective of classical Buddhist doctrine, the reasons for this are easy to understand: action, Buddhist texts constantly tell us, is defined as intention. Acts performed without conscious intention are, broadly speaking, not karmically potent, an idea familiar to us in our own legal system, which distinguishes, for example, between voluntary and involuntary manslaughter. Volition is central, and volition requires awareness. -...-Mere involvement in incestuous relations is inadequate to elicit sufficient censure in the cultural context of this literature: the compilers of the Mahâdeva story felt it necessary to depict their protagonist as acting with a very specific intention, in order to ensure his guilt.” (Silk 2009:162). Readers may contrast this viewpoint with that of (ritual) pollution, which takes effect irrespective of volition and intention.
903
children- may enter into a sexual relationship once reunited after a long separation -for example due to adoption-. Modern science vindicates mythology anew.
Misrecognition skews judgment. This psychotic obsession with making choices (and ensuing consequences) dates back to Zoroastrian times, whereby the mythical prophet called upon mankind to make a choice between the absolute good (Ahura Mazda) and the absolute evil (Ahriman): “the combat myth”. People take the “combat myth”, the purpose of initiation 1269, to new levels: instead of Leviathan or Tiamat, it is “international Jewry”, the Soviet “evil empire”, the “axis of evil” of Iran, North Korea and Venezuela, ISIS...
Apple’s board members had unanimously disliked the commercial and were reluctant to run it. Jobs, of course, supported it, because he understood the emotional power behind the classic story structure of the hero and villain. -...-“It is now 1984,” said Jobs. “It appears IBM wants it all. Apple is perceived to be the only hope to offer IBM a run for its money . . . IBM wants it all and is aiming its guns on its last obstacle to industry control: Apple. Will Big Blue dominate the entire computer industry? The entire information age? Was George Orwell right?” (Gallo 2010:64)1270. Only interested in boosting real-world sales, NLP author Lakhani urges to exploit:
the self – inflicted feeling of what an experience will be like for the person if something within her control occurs because she doesn ’ t take an action. It is also often a very visceral reaction to a problem 1269 1270
Moore 1989b:part 4. The footage of the famous commercial is here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtvjbmoDx-I . Jobs here sells smoke and mirrors once again. How could the war between multi-billionaire corporations relate to the common man's struggle remains to be seen. How could Apple, a multi-billionaire enterprise, be construed as the garden variety, mom&pop local business worth supporting against faceless big business remains also to be seen.
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she is currently experiencing. (2008:65). Hindu Vedas as well feature the struggle between forces of light and darkness:
Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, so that you and your descendants might live! (Deuteronomy 30:19). Here, in the Rig Veda it is described that there is this battle which is going on between the forces of darkness and the forces of light, this is the central theme in the Vedas which keeps coming up and it will come up in the Gita and in all the Yogas in different ways. (Varma, MAISI031 no date lecture 1:9). King Pandu misrecognizes a sage who's copulating in the marshes: he kills him thinking him to be a deer: the sage's malediction starts the Mahabharata. At the Mahabharata's end, Ghandari's curse (the mother of the Kauravas) puts the death of Krishna in motion. Krishna rests under a tree, and a hunter kills him as he believes to be shooting a deer.
Popular culture invariably offers copycats. In the Matrix movies, Morpheus offers a dual choice in the form of pills. Deal Or No Deal â&#x20AC;&#x153;sentimentalizes and prettifiesâ&#x20AC;? this choice-and-consequence claptrap in a television game. A contestant picks a secret prize; offers are proposed in exchange for this secret prize in a series of rounds as other prizes are revealed, too: the contestant can accept the host's offer, or reject it, and get stuck with the original choice in the end.
The game clearly proposes a travesty of religious dilemmas: people can 905
take refuge in Buddhism's triple gem; embrace one of the many Abrahamic covenants at several junctures in their lives (=the host's various offers), or get stuck with their choice in the end (=death) when it's too late.
Joseph Campbell1271 advocates playing any role in life as a game and not as a doom and gloom experience upon which the world's fate rests:
Life as an art and art as a game -- as action for its own sake, without thought of gain or of loss, praise or blame -- is the key, then, to the turning of living itself into a yoga, and art into the means to such a life. (Campbell no date:72). I’m not a lapsed anything. As far as I can remember, I’ve never had any religious belief. I remember going to the synagogue on the high holidays with my father and reading the English translation of the services, which were an endless paean to the power and glory of God. I felt totally bewildered that the congregation paid homage to a deity so cruel, vain, vengeful, jealous, and thirsty for praise. I looked carefully at the bobbing heads and chanting faces of my adult relatives, hoping to see them grin at me. But they kept right on praying. I glanced at my Uncle Sam, always a jokester and a regular guy, and expected him to wink and whisper out of the side of his mouth, “Don’t take this stuff too seriously, kiddo.” But it never happened. He didn’t wink or crack a smile: he looked straight ahead and kept right on chanting. (Yalom 2008:185-6). The Mormon Channel begs to agree with the life as a game:”stay within the lines” of the Mormon moral compass. Becker seems to disagree. Although human symbolic structures of meaning are man-made, people have to enter them “as though” the man-made nature of the same were inconspicuous, whence the credence to supernatural origins, higher goods etc. Living between the IV and III century BCE, Chinese Confucian philosopher Xunzi advised:”One takes up each of 1271
2002: Mythic Literature.
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the offerings and presents them as though the spirit [of the dead] were really going to taste them”1272.
Campbell's suggestion certainly squares with a level of skepticism that is typically prescribed in the allegiance to any cause -or in playing any role-. It remains to be ascertained, however, how the masses could do without their more or less daily doses of doom and gloom, artificial kinship and pseudo-mythologies awash in infantile melodrama, and sentimental chicanery.
The present writer surmises the collective, the horde or whichever other term might be interchangeably used, cannot function without myths that become facts day on and day off. Symbols -whichever their value- cannot simply be divorced -in the common man's mind at least- from gross historical facts without losing most -or all- credibility, even when there is a heavy toll to pay because gamesmen, hoaxers, politicians, the deranged, the ad guy and the P.R gal are all cranking the handle:” emotions are strategies”1273;”just the simple act of donning a mask indicates that a performance is about to take place”1274;”We don’t have time to calculate and weigh the costs and benefits of different courses of action for every decision; emotions are a shortcut.”1275;”it’s increasingly difficult to determine what’s a real attempt to connect and what’s performance.”. 1272
Burton Watson translation, emphasis added. Solomon 2006:Emotions And Responsibility. Human emotions are tools of “impression management” covert aggression deploys to keep one second-guessing about “secret causes” and the kind of person one is really dealing with. 1274 Meineck no date-1:121. He discusses ancient Greek drama, but his conclusion may be aptly extended to any situation that may involve “psychological truth” or emotional chicanery. 1275 Chen&Krakovsky 2010:46. 1273
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In order for something to seem true to man, it has to be visibly supported in some way lived, external, compelling. Men need pageants, crowds, panoplies, special days marked off on calendarsan objective focus for obsession, something to give form and body to internal fantasy, something external to yield oneself to. (Becker 1973:200). Artificial kin members who toe the party line in oneness ought to magically understand one another, as it happens in the Odyssey, whereby King Alcinous sees through Ulysses' theatrics as the bard narrates the epic Trojan war:
So too Odysseus, pitiful in his grief. He managed to conceal his tears from everyone Except Alcinous, who sat at his elbow And could not help but hear his heavy sighs -...- Hear me, Phaeacian counselors and lordsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; Demodocus should stop playing his lyre. His song is not pleasing to everyone here. Ever since dinner began and the divine bard Rose up to sing, our guest has not ceased From lamentation. He is overcome with grief. (VIII 570-585). Alcinous and his court in fact think they are listening to grandiose 'founding events' unfolded in a more or less remote 'x region' of the past, when all of a sudden they make the experience of the past in their present, as no other than Ulysses is sitting next to them. Tourists can even visit Alcinous' supposed kingdom in Corfu (Greece); three distinct places are identified, where a rock formation is determined as Ulysses' galleon Poseidon had turned to stone: the myth had become fact.
In 1966, the Salazar bridge was inaugurated in Lisbon in the very presence of the 'great man' himself, Fascist dictator Antonio Salazar:
Once upon a timeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;back in the early 1990sâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the acclaimed movie 908
director Stanley Kubrick began hearing stories through his assistant about a man who was pretending to be him. The man-whowouldbe-Kubrick (whose real name was Alan Conway and who looked nothing like the dark-bearded director) went around London telling people who he famously was(n’t). Since the real Stanley Kubrick was a very private person who shunned the paparazzi, not many people had any idea of what he looked like. -...- Eventually the truth came out when Conway began selling his story to journalists. He claimed to be a recovering victim of a mental disorder -...-. In the end Conway died a penniless alcoholic, just four months before Kubrick. (Ariely 2012:75). People believed Conway was Kubrick because they wanted to believe one of the planet's most secretive men had decided to reveal himself to them. -...-.Conway was born Eddie Alan Jablowsky in 1934. He told friends, in later years, that he was a Polish Jew who had escaped Nazi occupation. In fact, he was born in Whitechapel. At 13, he was sent to Borstal for theft. In a move that demonstrated his cheeky self-dramatisation, Jablowsky changed his name to Alan Conn (Conway was one of his many later personae). By the time he met Martin's mother, he had a string of convictions for deception. -...-Martin [=Conway's son] also showed me unpaid bills in different names from Amex, Barclaycard and other companies, running into many thousands of pounds. There was an outstanding phone bill for £879.17, primarily from calling gay chat lines. (Anthony 1999:no page). A few years ago, French-born Fabian Ortuno was arrested in the United States after cutting a swath through Long Island’s high society by pretending to be a Rockefeller. -...- Once arrested, Ortuno posted bail and promptly disappeared,only to reappear in Vancouver as Christopher Rocancourt, a Formula One racing driver. He was a big hit on the local celebrity ski circuit before he was accused of defrauding a West Vancouver businessman of $200,000. He was arrested but still managed to appear on 60 Minutes, claiming that he never stole, only borrowed.-...-Recently released from prison, he has become an author,wealthy, and a celebrity in France, where his ability to con “stupid people” out of their money is much admired.(Babiak&Hare 2006:49). But even if there were such a thing as a French Rockefeller, you'd think he'd speak good enough English so as not to require subtitles. And Rocancourt quickly agreed, expressing disdain for anyone stupid enough to fall for his fables."Right now I say to you, 'My 909
name is Christopher Rockefeller.' You will believe it? No," says Rocancourt. "You will not. You will laugh.". But that's not the only name he's used. He's been known as Prince Galatzine Christo, Christopher De Laurentis, Christopher De Laurenta, Fabian Ortuno and Christopher Reyes."I think it's great to change your name," says Rocancourt. "I say I like to change my name. An actor changes his name. An actor pretends to be somebody. You don't go prosecute somebody because he changed his name or because he pretends to be somebody. So you should prosecute all Hollywood." -...- How much did he take people for in Los Angeles? Mueller says probably at least $1.5 million to $2 million. -...- The true story of Christopher Rocancourt began 34 years ago when he was born in the fishing village of Honfleur on the northern coast of France. He was the son of a house painter and a prostitute who gave him up to an orphanage when he was nine years old. (Leung 2003:no page, emphasis added). And then there is the writer J. T. LeRoy, who published [ and signed] several books before being revealed to be an entirely fabricated persona of the[ mentally disturbed with several gender and personal alter egos] writer Laura Albert. Albert even used a stand-in to act as LeRoy for public appearances.(Feldman 2009:94). The same narrative device recurs in Hindu epic Ramayana. Legendary poet/seer Valmiki â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a murderous highwayman led to repentance after meeting a sage; or Vishnu's incarnation depending on sources- composes the Ramayana upon Brahma's invitation. He teaches the poem to Rama's own long lost sons, and Rama himself delights therein. Patrician Roman funeral processions included scenes from the departed's life that were acted out. Contemporary Tibetan Buddhism advises to enumerate the dying person's past good deeds in front of the same.
As they're torn apart in an ordeal, the Navajo twin war gods as well are restored to health by gods reciting the twins' life story:
The power of such exempla lay in the ability of individual instances to 910
demonstrate a general rule, and to accomplish this sufficiently well so that their intended public might be capable of recognizing the similarity. The mythological exempla illustrate ancient events, which, as they were continually held up for emulation, were continually appropriated to serve new purposes in ever new contexts. And whatever the context into which they were inserted, they imposed a new, specific, frame of referenceâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;as it were, from within -...- in the scale of human values vouchsafed by hallowed traditions. (Koortbojian 1995: 35-6, emphasis added). How could I talk about the Bible being in the NOW? I began to be consumed with a passion either to have a ministry like Jesus or to get out of the ministry. What good did it do to tell about events that weren't happening in this world, in the now? (U.S Evangelist Oral Roberts, cit. in Price 1992/93:no page). Oral Roberts felt he could no longer live for most of the week in the mundane world waiting for his "eleven o'clock Sunday morning world." He decided that by hook or by crook he had to somehow extend the boundaries of sacred time, church time, what Bultmann calls "the spirit and wonder world of the New Testament," to cover the rest of the week. So he began a ministry of tent revivals and healings, to drag the New Testament myth-world kicking and screaming into the secular 20th century. (Price 1992/93:no page). They were not simply recalling facts of history; they were remembering the past in ways that were highly relevant to their present. (Ehrman 2016:80). Being traumatized means continuing to organize your life as if the trauma were still going onâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;unchanged and immutableâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;as every new encounter or event is contaminated by the past.(Van Der Kolk 2014:44). It is the perception that the myth is exemplary that gives rise to the concept of the "re-actualization" of the primordial, creative era. Insofar as a mythic act is open to imitation, insofar as we can narrate or reenact the events of the mythic era, illud tempus is open to reestablishment, we can rediscover and thus reactualize its meaning and its power. (Rennie 1996:72). Every year the [Jewish] family patriarch begins by saying that this is not just ancient history. To gather for Passover is to stand in a 911
tradition of a people who have gathered for millennia to retell this story in their own languages and on their own terms. But if this story is not also our story, then it is not worth retelling, he says. “In every generation, each of us should feel as though we ourselves had gone forth from Egypt.” (Prothero 2010:89, emphasis added). [In a crisis, people] very much look to what has worked for them in the past. As they face higher and higher levels of stress, they go back to those old routines, which are well established. But in so doing, they are behaving very rigidly -...- they are not trying to adapt at all (Roberto 2011:Resistance And Reactions To Change). Of what use, Gabriel, your message to Marie, Unless you now can bring the same message to me (XVII century German mystic Angelus Silesius). In the ancient world, a cosmogony was usually recited in a liturgical setting, and during a period of extremity when people felt they needed an infusion of divine energy: when they were looking into the unknown at the start of a new venture – at New Year, at a wedding or a coronation. Its purpose was not to inform but was primarily therapeutic. People would listen to the recitation of a cosmological myth when they faced impending disaster, when they wanted to bring a conflict to an end, or to heal the sick. The idea was to tap into the timeless energies that supported human existence. The myth and its accompanying rituals were a reminder that often things had to get worse before they could get better, and that survival and creativity required a dedicated struggle.(Armstrong 2005:29). Any specific citation of an event or an individual that is intended to serve as a guide to conduct is an exemplum and hence an opportunity to learn from the past. -...-The focalizer of an exemplum is the person who recognizes it and bases his behaviour on it. (Chaplin 2000:3). In some cases this starts off from a reproduction of the ‘real’ in another medium, but as it passes from medium to medium the real is ‘volatized’ out of its former apparent solidity. It becomes hyperreal and hallucinatory. Out of the crisis of representation the hyperreal has had to be connected to repetition, first in relation to a reproduction of reality, but as reproducibility is established as dominant it ceased to require this support. -...-The hyperreal is the simulation form which dominates, and as such defines itself in relation to that which is always already reproduced.(Gane 1991:102, 912
emphasis added). Hardison1276 mentions “moral, religious and literary theories of catharsis “; the first one(s) refer to situations in which a culprit “ seeing the crime enacted on the stage can make the pangs of conscience so intense that the need for relief via confession becomes stronger than the fear of exposure “ 1277;”Foucault encapsulated this by saying that western man has become a confessing animal. ” 1278. “Tragic catharsis, then, is the result of learning something about the events forming the tragic plot”1279. “the final explanation of the svàdhyàya-. It is to give a space in one's own consciousness for the forces, which have to come through the process of sounding the text connected with them, and by observing its meaning silently, giving it a possibility to be fully expressed, in terms of the experience.”1280.
Nothing is immune. Debate rages over whether Hannibal was of color; over the plight of Barbarian hordes pressing on the Roman Empire's borders, identified – as ancient history ersatz- with our day's dejected illegal immigrant in his righteous search for greener grass, and the boons of citizenship in the affluent society of mass democracy.
Hannibal -and all sorts of literary and historical
characters alike- may (or may not) have been of color, but an Afro-Jamaican actress impersonates Cleopatra in 2015 at the Canadian Stratford Festival.
Goths may have sacked Rome, and minorities may rank high in crime 1276
1969:3. Hardison's article deals with Renaissance, but his suggestion can apply well beyond that period. 1969:5. 1278 Heikkinen et alii 2000:no page. 1279 Hardison 1969:15. 1280 Yatsenko, MAISI003 no date: lecture note 4:10. 1277
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statistics1281 for exactly the same unexpectedly familiar reasons. That is, the alleged obtuse unwillingness to share, prejudice and egoism on the part of the mainstream community (wealthy Rome/wealthy western societies...) on one hand; harsher climate, the alleged pressure incoming tribes exerted on the Goths, and the pressure poverty, warfare and underdevelopment exert on both illegal immigrants on one hand, and on certain domestic groups on the other.
Given that discourse is mostly all there is, the very same facts can be interpreted on the other way round. The Gothic invasions thus become a payback delivered to the Roman world for having armed, drilled and brought initially in such a force, much as the USA had initially lionized, armed, drilled and ushered into the mainstream “ the brave Mujahideen fighters of Afghanistan”, now islamofascist rogues who fly hijacked airplanes into buildings as the story goes.
If White sociopaths (Roof, Breivik...) go on a shooting rampage, legal clampdown may prove remedial:”Power is a cover-up for shame”. “That kind of persons” need their intellectual toys taken away from them, for example by banning
“This Special Report presents lifetime chances of going to State or Federal prison by age, sex, race, and Hispanic origin. Using standard demographic lifetable techniques, and assuming that recent incarceration rates remain unchanged, an estimated 1 of every 20 persons (5%) can be expected to serve time in prison during their lifetime. The lifetime chances of a person going to prison are higher for men (9%) than for women (1%) and higher for blacks (16%) and Hispanics (9%) than for whites (2%). At current levels of incarceration newborn black males in this country have a greater than a 1 in 4 chance of going to prison during their lifetimes, while Hispanic males have a 1 in 6 chance, and white males have a 1 in 23 chance of serving time. 3/97 NCJ 160092 ” Lifetime Likelihood...no page. Doug Ammar, a lawyer with civil rights organization Georgia Justice Project, claims in 2017 that “75% of all arrestees in this country are African-American. Over 95% of all cases prosecuted end in plea bargains” (in Houry&Scully 2017:week 4: Violence& The Criminal Justice System).”Blacks committed 52 percent of homicides between 1980 and 2008, despite composing just 13 percent of the population. Across the same timeframe, whites committed 45 percent of homicides while composing 77% of the population, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.” (Bandler 2016:no page). 1281
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or restricting the display of politically disfavored symbols such as Confederate or NSDAP flags.
If people of color march, riot, kill and loot, more toys have to be given, such as more billionaire welfare programs or heightened judicial leniency. People on a portion of the U.S political spectrum favor identifying looters of color as “undocumented shoppers”: unconditional positive regard.
"Black crime rates [in the USA] were lower in the 1940s and 1950s, when black poverty was higher" and "racial discrimination was rampant and legal." If it's not racism and poverty that are blame for the high black crime rate, then what is? (Bandler 2016:no page). In spite of the nauseous recurrence of such topics as hot button issues, the billions poured in wishful “affirmative actions”, the “special laws”, the “kangaroo courts”, the “re-written history books” etc, Brown boldly declares:
In the case of the United States, our three greatest fault lines— cracks that have grown and deepened due to willful neglect and a collective lack of courage—are race, gender, and class. The fear and uncertainty flowing from collective trauma of all kinds have exposed those gaping wounds in a way that’s been both profoundly polarizing and necessary. These are conversations that need to happen; this is discomfort that must be felt. -...-We can’t undo that level of dehumanizing in one or two generations.(2017b:37,47). c. Metaphors not only facilitate our understanding of something, but also structure our everyday activities and mediate our learning patterns. d. Metaphors have social and cultural implications. The ideas, assumptions, and beliefs of a culture are present in its conventional metaphors. e. We are normally unaware of the metaphoricity of our conceptual systems. -...-i. Metaphors both highlight and hide various features of the source item. Metaphors can either limit or extend our knowing. A way of seeing is also a 915
way of not seeing. (Hermanson 2017:7). According to a presentation by British evolutionary psychologist G.D. Wilson in 2014, under Chavez (1999-2013) Venezuela saw the unemployment rate drop by half, whereas the murder rate tripled: hardly evidence that aggressive social alchemy – in Chavez's Socialist State- thwarts crime.
The appeal of the Confederate or NSDAP cause is a very sinister one, but minorities can easily reclaim themselves of slavery and other ills that come from past centuries:
If one includes crimes in which an awareness of the victim’s race or ethnicity is a factor, then most interracial rapes, armed robberies and assaults might be considered "hate" crimes. Blacks are highly over-represented as perpetrators of the vast majority of these offenses relative to their representation in the population. One could even say that the alleged rage that blacks feel toward "white" society is a race-specific rage, directed at individual victims on the basis of racial identity and, as we see in the Colin Ferguson case, often has the same tragic consequences to innocent individuals as any 1920s-lynching in Alabama. (Wilcox 1994:26). individuals of Jewish descent (Jews as far as most Europeans were concerned) were to be found in many leading positions in those revolutions, as they had been in the Bolshevik Revolution in November 1917 in Russia. The wave of socialist or communist revolutions after 1918 subsided after a few years, except in the Soviet Union, but the list of Jewish revolutionaries – Eisner, Landauer, Luxemburg, Kun, Lukacs, Trotsky, and many others – served to confirm antisemitic assertions about what now became the threat of ‘Judaeo-Bolshevism’. Moreover, the immediate postwar governments that succeeded the imperial regimes in Germany and Austria, and of necessity had to accept the Versailles Peace settlement, had large contingents of the liberal and moderate socialist Left, and hence many of the leading political figures in both Germany and Austria were Jewish. Hugo Preuss was instrumental in setting up the Weimar Republic, and Carl Melchior 916
was heavily involved in negotiating the financial terms of the Peace. Rathenau was a central figure of the immediate postwar government and in 1922 became Foreign Minister, with a policy of fulfilment (and renegotiation) of Versailles’ terms. His assassination in 1922 was one of the leading early ‘triumphs’ of interwar antisemitism. In Austria, the Foreign Minister at the end of the war was Victor Adler, and his successor (also as leader of the Austrian Social Democratic Party) Otto Bauer. It was thus easy, if quite unjustified, for antisemites to blame Jews for the surrender to the Western Allies. (Beller 2007:78). Although Jews constituted less than 5 percent of the Russian population, Jewish individuals played a prominent, visible role in the early Bolshevik regime, though the large majority of Bolsheviks and their leaders were non-Jewish and most Jews actually supported democratic parties. -...-Taking firm control of Russia by 1920, Lenin was supported by several Jewish colleagues -...-. The utopian dream had drawn Jews because it was a secular vision of what had previously been the religious vision for a messianic era. (Karesh&Hurvitz 2006:63). It does not really matter which group or constituency one enshrines in this way, or the epic mode of enmeshing the audience in the story being told:”Go and try to look inside his heart you can find your own mistakes try to hide them thinking -...- but he can read them in your face”. The audience is then supposed to enter into gastrointestinal or neurological syndromes, thus doing the persuader's bidding. Gandhi and the plight of Indians in segregated South-Africa? Outcasts in India? Italian laborers in Belgium? Turkish laborers in Germany? Arab and Black African laborers in France?
Irish journalist, and acclaimed BBC correspondent, F. Keane stresses the point:
They had in common an ability to use words that brought the 917
listener directly into the picture, and they were engaged, not as partisans, but with a clear sense of moral astonishment at the wrongs they were witnessing. (2005: no page). Rhetorical handbooks draw attention to the audience’s involvement in the world depicted in description and claim that description turns listeners into spectators. [V century Constantinopolitan author] Nikolaus notes that -...- “ ekphrasis seeks to fashion spectators out of the listeners,” -...-.Aelius Theon (first century ad), the author of one of these handbooks, defines ekphrasis as an “informative account which brings vividly into view what is being set forth” (Futre Pinheiro, in Cueva&Byrne 2014:83,89). If we are unable to construct a detailed image of the burger, one that includes the smell and texture of it, anticipating it will be less enjoyable.(Sharot 2011:79). “For it matters not how small the beginning may seem to be: what is once well done is done forever. ” 1282. Which 'great act' will have the dull crowd rise to a standing ovation? Gandhi as he refuses to switch train compartment in SouthAfrica to sit where people of color were supposed to? Members of the Movimiento
Nacional Socialista De Chile [Chilean National-Socialist Movement] who -May 5, 1938- stormed government buildings to jump-start national(istic) regeneration, being later wiped out by security forces?
Is Gandhi's defiant demeanor, who burns ID cards in front of the police, being thus flogged, not the simplest proof he has to be right in his crusade? What about the members of Movimiento Nacional Socialista De Chile ? Is the crowd of party liners going to rise to a standing ovation with tears in their eyes, or to shake 1282
Civil Disobedience, Thoreau 1849: no page. Thoreau here pleads to abolish slavery. As this writing contends, however, such impassioned pleas, petrified images and sentimental chicanery can swiftly lend themselves to any and all political (per)versions. It is not far fetched to imagine the various MacDonald, Zundel, Richwine, Zemmour, Churchill, Strugnell, McGowan, Faurisson etc holding the same position.
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fists frothing at the mouth?
Optionally, viewers may watch the charming documentaries attesting beyond the shadow of doubt how meek and friendly deep down sharks, piranhas and crocodiles are, and how accidents are to blame solely on man's 'wrong' attitude, timing or attire. For example, surfers look like seals to the shark; animals become aggressive only because men trespass into their habitat, or impact it with their activities such as deforestation (=situational factors).
It isn't difficult to see mixed metaphors at work that use the animal ersatz/proxy to once again press the psyche's buttons otherwise reserved to cultural relativism, and the plea in favor of this or that group blamed for endemic propensity to disreputable activities (= traits= dispositional factors).
During a conference in Arizona in 2014, noted Christian fundamentalist turned campaigning atheist D. Ray serenades a diverse cohort of atheists and free thinkers with stories about females who “go with the guy they like”, and about males excluded from sexual unions who “rape a lot”.
He's talking about ducks in a presentation filled with picture of genitalia, and raunchy allusion to sexuality traditional religiosity tries to hijack, control, and thus distort according to Ray. Just like in Aesop's fables, the animal serves as an attention-diverting ersatz to deliver another self-serving politicized message in order to enthrall “Psychotics who identify themselves with the mythological
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image”.
Of course, the 'approved' teleplay calls for positive or tragic devices only: exploring any other possibility (for example, illegal immigrants as people with criminal records either wanted or unwanted home 1283; the possibility of health hazards, trafficking, crime surges...) is a way to get the 'evil eye' from the meek party liner.
Emotional pornography enters the picture. A mortally offended heckler shouts a terrific punchline before fainting in distress; a glowering gasbag runs out of fingers to point at what just happened invoking the party line, and the righteous media person shouts: “Cut! This goes to print”;” Shame is the intensely painful
feeling or experience of believing we are flawed and therefore unworthy of acceptance and belonging.”1284. 1283
Historical evidence, beside official declarations of present-day governments, seem to suggest that a significant percentage of people engaged in the practice may be either “wanted”, or “not wanted” home. Italian anarchists emigrating to Brazil (and South America) en masse during the Belle Epoque; partisans of overthrown Fascist regimes emigrating en masse to South America after 1945; religious outcasts emigrating to America at several junctures in history; Castro allowing dissidents to leave Cuba for the USA, only to add common criminals and mental patients to the dispossessed crowd in flight: a scenario repeating itself with so-called 'Arab spring' events...only political expediency and bad faith may dictate how this applies to many groups across time with the exception of some other groups in the present day because some party has a vested interest in claiming so. 1284 Brown 2007:35. A very funny episode of political correctness (lefty “special interests” etc) devouring its liberal votaries happened to Brown who recalls:”I was going through my notes when a woman walked up to me and said, “I can’t tell you how much you hurt me this morning.” I was stunned. Time started slowing down and I was falling into tunnel vision—my normal shame response. Before I could open my mouth, she said, “Your work has changed my life. It saved my marriage and shaped my children. I came here today because you are an important teacher in my life. Then fifteen minutes after you start, I learn that you’re an anti-Semite. I trusted you and you’ve proven to be a fraud.” Shame shit storm of gigantic proportion. Nightmare come true . All I could eke out was, “I don’t understand.” She said, “You said that you felt ‘really gypped’ during your story.” I still didn’t get it. Again, I said, “I don’t understand.” She got louder. “Gypped. Gypped. Gypped! Don’t you know? How do you think you spell ‘gypped’?” It was a weird question but I was too far down the shame hole to say something helpful like, “I can see you’re really angry, let’s talk about it.” I paused for a second to sound out the word in my head and find a word remotely close that I could use as a spelling reference. The only thing that came to mind was Jif peanut butter (of course). “Umm…J-I-P-P-E-D.” She yelled, “No! Nothing in the world is spelled J-I-P-P-E-D. It’s spelled G-Y-P-P-E-D. Like ‘gypsy.’ It’s an anti-Semitic term that degrades gypsies.”I
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Not only that, but you tend to encourage guilt as a form of punishment for "wrong" behavior: "How will I learn if I don't feel guilty?"You don't trust that you can learn without being threatened. Your experience of conscience is based on moral standards instead of a direct knowing of your actions and their effects. And you use guilt and punishment to support these standards rather than your own love for supporting the truth. (Brown 1998:132). Several months later, a widely circulated snapshot of [champion swimmer] Phelps holding up a marijuana bong (and wearing an Omega watch) forced him to admit that he had indeed inhaled. Kellogg swiftly announced it wouldn’t renew the swimmer’s contract, saying that “Michael’s most recent behavior is not consistent with the image of Kellogg.” That comment drew snickers from SNL’s Seth Meyers, who sardonically pointed out that many of the company’s cartoon mascots act like wild-eyed druggies. Proponents of legalizing marijuana called for a boycott of the cereal maker. Soon it looked like Kellogg had miscalculated. Phelps’s other big-name sponsors were standing by him. A little-known reputation-tracking company called Vanno reported that the reputation of Kellogg had actually gone down in the ranking of 5,000+ companies it tracks—from a recent high of No. 9 to No. 83. Leaving aside the question of how Vanno arrived at these numbers, the Vanno announcement gave the Phelps/Kellogg story new legs as the factoid itself became news on TV and in the blogosphere, temporarily boosting the reputation of Vanno in the process. (Chen&Krakowsky 2010:80). It's about time to go on air: sponsors frantically bid to place an infomercial; politicking managers nod in approval:”Ad timing also matters. had no idea. My mind was scrambling. Was I in one of those nightmare scenarios where the truth was spilling out and I couldn’t control it? Did I really hate gypsies? Was I deep undercover as a politically correct social worker that really harbored hateful feelings about gypsies? No. I just didn’t know. I had no idea. I guess the look on my face told her I wasn’t lying because she said, “Oh, my God. You didn’t know. You didn’t do that on purpose, did you?” At this point I was in tears. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I apologize,” I explained. She hugged me and we talked about it for a few minutes. When everyone came back, I explained what I had learned and apologized to the group for using that language. But honestly, I never recovered that afternoon. ” (2017b:65). Campaigning atheist and psychologist Andy Thompson relays a similar experience when a mortally offended prig angrily confronted him about requesting the public in attendance to sing a religious carol to illustrate the power of togetherness. Shame shamanism, what a favorite even when such an expert as Brown is scapegoated. One might be a third generation “White trash”, card-carrying “bleeding gum” liberal who marches to the party song -as bleeding Christs, Che Guevaras and Mandelas perform the high kicks- and still be found highly wanting as 'the great idea' cannibalizes its offspring.
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Although a show may be generally arousing, a specific scene in that show may be more activating than others. -...-We may end up talking more about ads that show up close to these exciting moments.”1285.
Dramaturgy – applied to particular situations of course- has its rules. Extras are not supposed to show up dressed as Klansmen when they are filming a movie about ancient Egypt. Reactions look like that of the public of sport video games. To simulate a living crowd, the audience randomly cycles through a few reoccurring moves.
Also, has the importance of all this chicanery and theatrics (fingerpointing, shouting, fainting, gasping...) been overemphasized? Hardly. One study compared the feedback in terms of votes for U.S candidates Reagan and Mondale coming from viewers of TV networks CBS, ABC, NBC. While the three networks were reported to supply more or less the same kind of information, ABC was found to be slightly partial to Reagan (=the anchorman smiled more). As a result, 80% ABC viewers chose Reagan versus 62% among CBS/NBC viewers.
R. Sayler1286, academic with the School of Law (University of Virginia), reiterates how thickly visual presentations – in addition to proper rhetoric and gestures- insure the audience shall retain a much greater amount of information. NLP and advertisement author Boothman and charisma author Cabane 1287 beg to 1285
Berger 2013:66. No date. 1287 2012:89. 1286
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agree urging one to speak “the language of the brain”1288.
NLP and marketing author Lakhani also agrees:
The second thing I know is that the more interactive time people spend with me up front, the more likely they are to convert. There is a direct correlation between investment of effort, emotion, and action - taking behavior. (2009:66). People process spatial relations with the right hemisphere of the brain, and our neuroimaging research had shown that the imprint of trauma is principally on the right hemisphere as well -...-. Caring, disapproval, and indifference all are primarily conveyed by facial expression, tone of voice, and physical movements. According to recent research, up to 90 percent of human communication occurs in the nonverbal, right-hemisphere realm (Van Der Kolk 2014:222, emphasis added). What could be more visual than all those gasbags fainting, whimpering, groaning, moaning, gasping, choking or having colossal gastrointestinal or neurological syndromes while gesturing as troglodytes on a crack overdose? “Pictorial representation of psychic processes”1289; “mythology is basically a system of analogies -...- and these analogies can begin working under symbols, and begin to tell you something about the bringing forth of the gold of your own spirit” 1290.
Whenever you can, choose to speak in pictures. You’ll have a much greater impact, and your message will be far more memorable. Visionary charismatics make full use of the power of images. Presidents rated as charismatic, such as Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln, used twice as many visual metaphors in their inaugural addresses as did those rated as noncharismatic (Cabane 2012:90). 1288
Boothman 2004. Jung, cit. in Angelo 1992:74. 1290 Campbell&Toms 1988: vol. 3. 1289
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In Sanskrit drama, the primary aim of the aesthetic experience was psychological; indeed, it was the symbolic representation of emotional states per se that set the stage for aesthetic and revelatory experience (Shweder et alii in Lewis et alii 2008:411). Meineck relates the topic above to immemorial Greek drama:
Krummenacher posited that paranormal thinkers had higher than normal levels of dopamine and this produces a distortion of extrapersonal sensory inputs promoting superstitious beliefs and a characteristic underestimation of the role of chance. Previc has also suggested that dreams and hallucinations “represent the triumph of the extrapersonal systems over body orientated or peripersonal systems.” Many of these consist of the experience of falling, flying or distant landscapes, and we use terms like “out of body experience” or “beside himself” to describe them. Both rapid and upward, eye movements accompany many of these states. Extreme upward eye movements, such as eye rolling, are associated with spiritual and religious behaviors such as meditation, hypnosis, trance-like states and seizures. Greek tragedy has several famous depictions of characters besides themselves in some form of trance-like altered mental status, such as Sophocles’ Ajax and Philoctetes; Aeschylus’ and Euripides’ Cassandra; Euripides’ Agave and Phaedrea - to name a few. In these cases eyes are often described as “blazing” or “fiery” and in Euripides’ Herakles, the hero’s eyes are described as “rolling in his head” (931) as he attacks his own children in a fit of delusional insanity. Previc also points out that upward eye movements promote the EEG “alpha rhythm” - the brain wave associated with the meditative state. Additionally, in several cultures there are meditative and spiritual techniques that place a focal concentration on the “third eye”- the area of the forehead between and above the eyes – meaning that the viewer must engage with the face by looking up. It is notable then that many representations of Dionysos show the god with a “third eye” usually in the form of a circle of small painted dots in the center of his forehead. We also frequently find a third-eye on the face of the gorgon. Previc’s theory posits that religious and spiritual behavior “are largely a product of the extrapersonal brain systems that predominate in the ventromedial cortex and rely heavily on dopaminergic transmission” and that “religion appears to be biased towards distant (upper) space and time”. This can help us to understand a little more of the religiosity of experiencing a 924
Greek drama. This extends further than the procession of the god that opened the festival and the ever-present animal sacrifices happening in the sanctuary in full view (and smell) of the audience seated in the theatron above. There is also the relationship of the sanctuary of Dionysos Eleuthereus to the liminal realm of Dionysos both in its name and its physical view. But the view offered something else, something that is denied to most modern theatre goers today – it allowed them to both watch the play before them and deeply contemplate what they experienced as their relationship to the theatrical event constantly shifted between Previc’s four spatial realms. The mask operated in a similar way in this space: a striking visual object in a fluid visual field that oscillated between peripheral and foveal (focused) vision. (Meineck no date:13-14, emphasis added). Sophocles was a general officer in Athens’s wars against the Persians, and his play Ajax, which ends with the suicide of one of the Trojan War’s greatest heroes, reads like a textbook description of traumatic stress. In 2008 writer and director Bryan Doerries arranged a reading of Ajax for five hundred marines in San Diego and was stunned by the reception it received.(Van Der Kolk 2014:247). Father Zeus, great is the blindness you send to men. (Achilles in the Iliad, XIX:288). Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God (Aeschylus, Agamemnon, Hamilton trans.). I dread the woes to come; for well I know When once the mind's corrupted it brings forth Unnumbered crimes, and ills to ills succeed. (Philoctetes speaks, Sophocles, Philoctetes, Francklin trans.). Over time Joseph Smith grew somewhat callous to the exhaustion revelation induced. It still required effort to obtain, but the physical hardship of receiving revelation grew easier. In Kirtland, Joseph Smith received one of his most glorious visions, recorded in the 76th section of the Doctrine and Covenants. Sidney Rigdon, an early convert, experienced the vision with Joseph. Afterwards, Joseph appeared vibrant and strong, but 925
Sidney was weak and pale. Noticing this, Joseph remarked with a smile, “Brother Sidney is not as used to it as I am.”. Muhammad apparently never did get used to it; it was an agonizing process for him. As he later stated: “Never once did I receive a revelation without thinking that my soul had been torn away from me.”Aisha, one of Muhammad’s later wives, told how she saw Muhammad receiving revelation on a very cold day and noticed the sweat dripping from his forehead. A dark episode in the lives of Muhammad and Joseph Smith illustrates some of the challenges faced in receiving revelation and the importance of continued revelation as they sought to fulfill God’s purposes. In addition to outside critics, Muhammad and Joseph Smith both encountered satanic opposition. (Harris 2007:68). The present writer suggests the ongoing state of latent psychosis that characterizes the human mind is promptly kindled by parties with vested interests in the activation of such grotesque reflexes for commodious purposes:
When the mind doesn't develop normally, people's sense of humor can become derailed. For instance, one study published in Psychiatry Research (Vol. 141, No. 2, pages 229-232) showed that people with schizophrenia don't perform as well as healthy participants on joke comprehension tests. Study author Joseph Polimeni, MD, and his research partner Jeffrey Reiss, MD, showed participants a variety of one-panel cartoons with captions beneath them. Some of the captions matched the cartoons, some didn't, and participants tried to identify those that matched. "In general, people with a good sense of humor do pretty well [on the test]," Polimeni says. "Participants with schizophrenia did worse." Also, he noted there is "a pretty high magnitude of difference" between the humor-recognizing abilities of people with schizophrenia and with bipolar disorder. As the two disorders are often mistaken for each other, it could provide a tool for more accurate diagnoses, Polimeni says, if further studies bear out the findings. Polimeni, a psychiatrist at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, thinks the deficiency is related to schizophrenic people's frequent inability to connect the dots between associated ideas. "A lot of humor has to do with associations," Polimeni says. "When you hear a punch line, everything in the joke has to come together. But if one of the associations isn't connecting, it's a lot harder to understand the 926
joke." (Price 2007:no page). Polimeni recalls his professional, E.R interaction with a man who believed he was Jesus. Polimeni's professional notes as an E.R psychiatrist recall the magisterial lines Maupassant had penned in his 1887 story Le Horla:
I ask myself whether I am mad. As I was walking just now in the sun by the riverside, doubts as to my own sanity arose in me; not vague doubts such as I have had hitherto, but precise and absolute doubts. I have seen mad people, and I have known some who were quite intelligent, lucid, even clear-sighted in every concern of life, except on one point. They could speak clearly, readily, profoundly on everything; till their thoughts were caught in the breakers of their delusions and went to pieces there, were dispersed and swamped in that furious and terrible sea of fogs and squalls which is called madness. (60). Contemporary readers may have no major issue with the fact that our society is “quite intelligent, lucid, even clear-sighted in every concern of life, except on one point.”. These points are subject to change following iffy socio-political alignments, yet they invariably constitute “the breakers of their delusions” that cause the public mind to get “dispersed and swamped in that furious and terrible sea of fogs and squalls which is called madness.”.
Sayler even offers ten “commandments” that signpost a trajectory towards true persuasion:
1. Themes, refrains, structure, cadence;
2. Calm, ethos, modesty, engage;
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3. Fear dissuades; Although wielding stick and carrot sorts the best results. One shall first arise fear in order to offer his magic solution (note of this writer).
4. Bridges too far erode messages;
5. Essential to revive flagging attention;
6. Answer the question; Although persuasion is most useful when dodging or turning embarrassing questions upside down (note of this writer).
7. The power of power;
8. Too academic and complex confounds; Although a modest amount of pig Latin, pig English, pig professional jargon (medical, financial, legal...) delights the horde. As Ehrman points out, most biblical scholars are familiar with forgeries and issues in the holy book, yet refrain to address them publicly as such: they hide behind the smoke screen of ten-dollar words instead (note of this writer).
9. Mean spirited backfires;
10. The enduring wisdom of the canon of psychologists.
What is here referred to as â&#x20AC;&#x153;approved teleplayâ&#x20AC;? has been discussed in several ways: perspective, emplotment (in the jargon of metahistory it includes romance, satire, comedy, tragedy). Is it just a teleplay? Apparently, it very often is; 928
how often is left to readers to consider.
While their sacred hearts bled on air -or in the press- lamenting the tragic 2010 earthquake in the L'Aquila region (Italy), high-ranking bureaucrats lampooned off-the-record the entire act:” I was having fun in bed at that time” (Ridevo dentro al letto) declared a public works superintendent.
Prefect Iurato, the all-seeing-eye of the copycat Jacobin State, “burst into laughter remembering how she had pretended the debris and orphaned children had moved her” (scoppiava a ridere ricordando come si era falsamente commossa
davanti alle macerie e ai bimbi rimasti orfani)1291.
Expectedly, as news proliferated detailing the unspeakable mockery (=altering the prescribed teleplay=showing one is not one with the horde= one is “the kind of person” that the horde “is not”), both the press and the judicial system took an instant interest in Iurato's allegedly checkered past full of transgressions now being investigated, about which -of course- nobody could have possibly known earlier.
The term “party liner” is specifically used to refer to the bulk of people who sleepwalk along the tide of “popular morality”, “only an old Phoenician tale of what has often occurred before now in other places”, “free-floating folk beliefs”, “explanations or interpretations usually put forth”, “prevailing cultural trends”, “the
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Sisma L'Aquila 2013: no page.
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audience’s pre-established set of convictions” and suchlike; the term is also taken to reflect the possibility of abrupt changes in the “line” being followed. In other words, goalposts may shift at any time.
“What a decent human being would do” is subject to change according to which “interpretive community” runs the show at any given moment. “Basic human values” can mean any and all things: fixations with jingoism, racism and social Darwinism well into the 1940s were deemed ultimate concerns fit for the most reasonable of all people. Such priorities were later reversed as formerly ostracized and/or prosecuted groups started to be lionized as the best among men.
A Reddit1292 community for users willing to share their “stories” online has the following guidelines, which could be extended to all those who go along to get along in society:
•
Readers are to act as though everything is true and treat it as such in the comments.
1292
•
No debunking, disbelief, or criticism (constructive or otherwise).
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Do not ask for proof.
•
Any violation of these rules will be met with appropriate discipline.
•
Suspension of disbelief is key here. Act as though everything is true while
http://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/
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you're here, even if it's not. We want our users to submit original content regardless of its validity. We're here for the scare, not for the plausibility.
Ehrman details how in his religious studies classes in the U.S Bible belt he asks his students whether they believe the Bible to be god's inspired word: most answer yes; most also answer they have read The Da Vinci Code, yet few can say they read the Bible cover to cover.
Other polls are equally -if not more- embarrassing. As Prothero suggests elsewhere, many believe Jesus parted the Red Sea 1293; Noah led the Exodus; Joan of Arc was Noah's wife (12% U.S respondents); Abraham got blinded on the road to Damascus; Sodom and Gomorrah were a Biblical couple (50% U.S respondents); 1 student out of 30 understood the 'good Samaritan' allusion in President Bush, Jr.'s 2001 inaugural address: “And mos requires neither deliberation, nor judgment, but praise or blame”;”[myths] often serve more faithfully to celebrate than to explain”.
No matter which the transgression might be: butcheries, billionaire financial frauds, recreational drug abuse... in the transgressor's eyes the meek party liner shall see the vortex of his humanity that is naturally unaccountable and flimsy, and he shall not throw 'the first stone' in the cosmic bear-hug of non-dualism:”It is not that these stories are unimportant, not very sad, or unuseful, but they don’t help
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The original Hebrew Bible apparently does not even mention the Red Sea, but a “Reed Sea” or “Seaweed Sea”. The Hellenistic Greek translation Septuagint (II century BCE) for some reasons adopted the terminology “Red Sea”. The crossing of a “Seaweed Sea” would thus look less supernatural a feat – a marshy land of some sortthan the apocalyptic scene portrayed in the movies. Various authors identify this”Reed Sea” with various lagoons and bodies of water, both actual and extinct.
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us understand what is happening all around us”.
Once again, the (social) sacrament of reconciliation looks more like a psychiatric disorder than anything else. The public is goaded into a massive dissociative fugue. Just as people experiencing a mental crack-up can leave everything behind to run away in order to start a new life under a new identity elsewhere as the past gets erased from conscious recollection, so the public is led to erase transgressions from conscious memory in order to enact a dramaturgical pantomime based upon reconciliatory embraces, and tactile kisses in nonjudgmental rapture:
Betrayal is an important word -...-. When we value being cool and in control over granting ourselves the freedom to unleash the passionate, goofy, heartfelt, and soulful expressions of who we are, we betray ourselves. When we consistently betray ourselves, we can expect to do the same to the people we love. When we don’t give ourselves permission to be free, we rarely tolerate that freedom in others. We put them down, make fun of them, ridicule their behaviors, and sometimes shame them. We can do this intentionally or unconsciously. Either way the message is, “Geez, man. Don’t be so uncool.” (Brown 2010:85). Is that the triumph of unaccountability? The plasticity of discourse easily allows to turn unaccountability upside down into the worst sentence (according to some, at least) that consists in letting the transgressor go free and unscathed, yet alone with the hypothetically unbearable pangs from his conscience:
The intuition of the moral sentiment is an insight of the perfection of the laws of the soul. These laws execute themselves. They are out of time, out of space, and not subject to circumstance. Thus, in the soul of man there is a justice whose retributions are instant and entire. He 932
who does a good deed, is instantly ennobled himself. He who does a mean deed, is by the action itself contracted. (Emerson 1838, cit in Myerson 2000:232). And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more. ” (John 8:11). who, then, is Surya, the Sun, - asks Sri Aurobindo, - from whom these rays proceed? He is the Master of Truth, Surya the Illuminator, Savitri the Creator, Pushan the Increaser. His rays in their own nature are supramental activities of revelation, inspiration, intuition, luminous discernment, and they constitute the action of that transcendent principle which the Vedanta calls Vijnana, the perfect knowledge, the Veda Ritam, the Truth. (MAISI017 no date: study unit 1:3). It is interesting to ponder how transgressors (hoaxers, felons, corrupt politicians, banksters...) try to turn tables on their acts:”then I felt as though a hand had pushed my shoulder, and I found myself in his arms. He kissed me and said: No more quarrels between us! No, never! Never! Never! I answered.”. They instantly become mentally unstable and in need of prompt forgiveness because -if the public pushes any further- they might do something rash about which it would later grieve.”This practice of creating circumstances and of creating pictures in the minds of millions of persons is very common.”:
Crocodile tears from the remorseless are especially likely when a conscience-bound person gets a little too close to confronting a sociopath with the truth. A sociopath who is about to be cornered by another person will turn suddenly into a piteous weeping figure whom no one, in good conscience, could continue to pressure. (Stout 2005:91). The public mind is offered the projection of the dreadful day the transgressor (whoever it may happen to be at one point or another) is no more. A
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solemn mountebank with red, swollen eyes eulogizes the departed next of artificial kin. There is no limit to how many layers of glurge and sentimentalism one may pile up: innocent, sick kiddos look on as the jeering crowd pillories daddy or mommy 1294; women cry; puppies, kittens; past abuses and neglect.
”We’re so caught up in the drama of what happened to so-and-so that we don’t have the cognitive resources to disagree.”:
And now that "cycle of abuse" theories have become widely accepted, many psychopaths are eager to attribute their faults and problems to childhood abuse. Although their claims may be difficult to verify, there is never a shortage of well-meaning people ready to take them at face value. (Hare 1993:50-1). People now remember how the faltering transgressor last appeared wobbly before the jeering crowd. He carried in his trembling hands a sick bucket and a chamberpot as his desperate plea for reconciliation and forgiveness went unanswered among Bronx cheers:
The key in using empathy is that you do not want people to feel sorry for you (sympathetic); you want them to feel with you (or someone else like them) to the point that they cannot imagine not sharing your opinion. (Lakhani 2005:136, emphasis added). the initial helplessness of human beings is the primal source of all moral motives (S. Freud, 1895). 1294
Of course, there is no limit to the chain of misfortunes and sentimental displays. The sick kiddo might cry, for example; or the transgressor might reminisce about horrors having befallen him as a precious child (violence? Rape? Poverty? Indignity...? ). As this writing contends, deep malice or attorney's tricks are not especially needed. It is enough to watch one fortnight worth of cable TV fodder to have all ideas one might need to fool the sensitive crowd: they are always ready to jerk some tears, and to dive in reconciliatory embraces. Once inducted in the sweet child's (sobbing mommy's...) (virtual) presence, the public is faced with the usual dilemma: is one “the kind of person” to ignore the sweet child? Conclusions are foregone: reconciliation must unfold. As the wonderful myths mankind produced teach us:”And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more. ” (John 8:11).
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The black-hearted public ignored the chamberpot and sick bucket: the gage of the unbearable gastrointestinal syndromes rejection had bitterly wrought upon the frail little creature. Should the chamberpot now become the holy chalice of a new reconciliatory covenant in the name of s-he who suffered so much because of us?
In the clouds, [insert favorite here] was wriggling in agony as the holy covenant was being broken. Society expects one to behave according to social expectations and demands so that one's allegiance be manifest:â&#x20AC;?they were amazed, and began to recognize them as having been with Jesus.â&#x20AC;?.
Readers may also ponder at which point of this trailer for a third-rate cable TV movie -what most xeroxed newscasts look like anyways- an espresso coffee or malt liquor commercial might hold better returns as viewers retch, shake fists, gasp or weep away in irresistible rapture of emotional oneness: news items as multimedia simulacra1295 (mis)taken for real life. As research professor in social work B. Brown quips, one is irresistibly attracted to other people's vulnerability, but repelled by one's own.
This awful cable TV kind of scene can also be restyled as the 'divine child shtick'. Small children -more readily coterminous with chamberpots and sick buckets- are perceived as ultimately good within:â&#x20AC;?inter urinas et faeces
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A displaced substitute. An object of interplay between the human mind and nature as the human nature becomes hypersensitive to patterns.
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nascimur”1296. Children may kick one another, throw stones or tantrums, and steal things, but condescending adults readily attribute the faux-pas to sleep deprivation, food allergies, need for a snack, charming emotional incompetence or some other overwhelming external circumstances.
The same happens with felons, corrupt politicians and other transgressors who can successfully set the 'divine child' charade in motion: he's an habitual burglar: '...ism' made him do it; he ruined countless investors, but see how the sick bucket comes handy...
That has been my overwhelming experience with people who have dealt with an unsatisfying life by choosing psychosis. Some people who become psychotic want to be taken care of; they don’t have the confidence that they can take care of themselves. (Glasser 1998:196). Sartre aptly characterized the two stages/approaches: facticity (=s-he committed that transgression, period) and transcendence (=all the charming or terrifying asides that open the wonderful or disturbing human universe to us: s-he is a gifted saxophone player; he is a sweet daddy; the other was raped as a child etc):”we’re so caught up in the drama of what happened to so-and-so that we don’t have the cognitive resources to disagree.”:
Deliberate misrepresentations, hoaxes and frauds are surprisingly commonplace in American political life. They are more likely to occur in those issues where taboos, "sensitivity," or fear of being called names are operational, or where the moral imperatives of noble social causes and crusades overwhelm individual judgment. 1296
Attributed to St. Augustine:”we are born awash in feces and urine”.
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(Wilcox 1994:29). One highly respected author of the 1920s, in a classical study of the pastoral letters, claimed that the author, who called himself Paul even though he was someone else, â&#x20AC;&#x153;was not conscious of misrepresenting the Apostle in any way; he was not consciously deceiving anybody; it is not, indeed, necessary to suppose that he did deceive anybody.â&#x20AC;? What evidence does this scholar provide for these claims? None at all. And what a remarkable statement! If the author did not want to deceive anyone and in fact did not deceive anybody, why is it that every known interpreter of these letters for over seventeen hundred years was deceived, as many continue to be today, when they assume that the author who claims to be Paul really was Paul? (Ehrman 2011:135-6). It is precisely because these accounts are so emotionally powerful that thousands of people have been drawn to construct "me. Too" versions of them. A few have claimed to be Holocaust survivors; thousands have claimed to be survivors of alien abduction; and tens of thousands have claimed to be survivors of incest and other sexual traumas that allegedly were repressed from memory until they entered therapy in adulthood. Why would people claim to remember that they had suffered harrowing experiences if they hadn't, especially when that belief causes rifts with families or friends? By distorting their memories. these people can "get what they want by revising what they had," and what they want is to turn their present lives, no matter how bleak or mundane, into a dazzling victory over adversity. (Tavris&Aronson 2007:93-4). An article from local, third-rate press written by third-rate journalists 1297 supplies a textbook example of the innate use of transcendence to whitewash just about anything. A 41 yo man dies electrocuted as he climbs in order to steal copper wiring from an electric installation at Sesto Calende (Italy). Does the article emphasizes theft? Does the emphasis lie on tampering with the public electric system, thus putting common humanity fellows in potential danger? Not at all.
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Caminiti 2014:63.
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First “una folla di amici” (countless friends= surfeit that boggles the mind) and “una folla in lacrime” (a crowd in tears; pictures show maybe fifteen people
in
attendance
if
at
all,
though)
attend
the
funeral
(=forgiveness=reconciliation=no grudges=great reunion motif), then it's reported he climbed on a high tower “possibly in order to steal copper wiring” (“pare con l'intenzione di rubare dei cavi di rame”): refrain from hasty judgments motif.
Lastly, “Lorenzo” (the deceased construction worker, that one Lorenzo we all know and love= artificial kin motif) was a fishing enthusiast. The article ends quoting friends who wish to remember (=remembrance motif) Lorenzo as the wonderful person he was, just as in the picture where he smiles with a fish he just caught.
After all, Lorenzo -his family comments- was neither an addict, nor had criminal records: he was just “too generous” (=ugly duckling shtick). What a fitting 'secret cause':”If only they knew how good or how smart I am deep inside, if only they understood the real me, I' d be accepted, promoted, loved, etc”. Lorenzo's “real self” is that of a charming, generous fisherman, of course, not that of a reckless thief.
Boothman1298 comments that reasons, even weak, “sort of” or expedient ones, trigger amazing rates of request compliance in bystanders:” may I jump ahead in the queue here at the counter because...”. Not only are humans on the psychotic lookout for “secret causes”, but experts -such as Lyubomirsky- suggest to willfully 1298
2004.
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engage in finding soothing “secret causes” to help us live better. Baptist pastor and counselor Chapman1299 urges righteously indignant people to surrender wrongdoers to the Christian god's judgment. He alone can know the entire story, motives etc: “the secret cause” never stops paying dividends.
Teaching Tibetan Buddhism, Neale warns us against “deluded indifference”: the delivery boy who arrives late and spoils our TV show might be a scared daddy worried about medical insurance coverage as he distributes groceries during a snow storm. The presumed FMRI study discovers nothing new. Confucian lore prescribes to “excuse others as you would excuse yourself, and blame yourself as you would blame others”.
For example, a reckless driver that almost involved us in a car accident may not be the despicable rascal we fantasize about, but a sweet daddy -or mommywho's rushing to the hospital to assist a sick child: we live better lives if we opt for reassuring pictures.
“Assumption of positive intent” is what Brené Brown 1300 calls the attitude, which she claims characterizes 65-70% of corporate cultures she approached. Brown1301 also urges to quell stress by assuming that “people do the best they can”, even despicable ones. That's once again M. Scott Peck's story of The
Rabbi's Gift; Buddhist innuendo that the clumsy, vile or otherwise despicable 1299
2008. 2017: Hard Rumble Topics. 1301 2017: Boundaries, Integrity, Generosity. 1300
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nincompoop who horrifies us might be a Bodhisattva using “accommodated means” incognito, just as Jupiter and Mercury in disguise “tested” mortals. Buddhist teacher Neale begs to agree:”Why they're doing it; the interpretation, the added layer of misery is self-created”. The same old, trite story keeps coming up again and again.
Once again, the 'wisdom of the ages' had come well before the FMRI. Chinese Pure Land Buddhist nun Wuling claims that:
What matters at this point is not the other person's intention, but rather how you choose to interpret their action and react to it. By choosing to focus on the kind act instead of the unkind intention, you have the opportunity to react out of kindness. And so you say a sincere thank you. -...- Continue to look for their suffering so you can view them more compassionately. (October 9, 2008). The 'secret cause' shtick can easily become a “gotcha” or “we figured you out “ shtick, whereby foul allegiances are uncovered (for example in '...ists'). Prigs and dolts shake fists and froth at the mouth in righteous indignation; comstockers invoke lawfare:”trying to live the motivational vocabulary of the new religion”.
Since Lieberman&Rock1302 claim that the brain's “mentalising system” isn't particularly good at figuring people out -whence all the mileage politicians, clergymen and other peddlers get-, one can safely assume it all ends into a farcical “Castro effect” that has credibility only insofar as it is politically authenticated.
In summary, when someone defines you in any way, tells you what you are (“too sensitive,” “stupid,” “hopeless”), or actually tells you your motives (for example, “You’re trying to start a fight,” “You 1302
2011.
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want to win,” “You want to have the last word”), he or she is behaving as if he or she were you, or were God! (Evans 2012:30, emphasis added). Borrowing a simile from Buddhist literature, the human mind is a gangrenous sore. When poked with everything, it oozes putrid matter: the cherished myths, petrified images and obtuse allegories it finds irresistible. In less crude terms, humans hover between a neurotic and a psychotic state: neuropsychosis.
School of Business professor Freeman imparts much of the same advice1303. He chooses the dramatic hypothesis of a person taken as a hostage. Freeman suggests that the more one is capable to come across to the gunman as a 'real person' (=transcendence=rapport talk), the less likely the gunman is to harm one:
So whereas altruism can increase cheating and direct supervision can decrease it, altruistic cheating overpowers the supervisory effect when people are put together in a setting where they have a chance to socialize and be observed. (Ariely 2012:113). This is the essence of what social scientists call “the identifiable victim effect”: once we have a face, a picture, and details about a person, we feel for them, and our actions —and money—follow. However, when the information is not individualized, we simply don’t feel as much empathy and, as a consequence, fail to act. (Ariely 2010:114). It doesn't take a Business professor to guess that incompetent plumbers and other sloppy service providers, defaulting tenants, murderous sociopaths,
1303
2014:Building Leverage.
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corrupt politicians may as well play the 'common humanity card' to get off the hook by spinning gut-wrenching, tear-jerking guff.
Terror Management theorist Jamie Arndt explains that “common humanity” primes (=suggestions) help defuse aggressiveness “death salience” has triggered:”the explanation is that good people will let pathetic individuals get by with murder, so to speak”.
According to The Edmonton Journal1304, Canadian Alyn Waage is arrested in Mexico (the TriWest Investment scandal) for masterminding a gigantic financial fraud worth 60 million US$ in bunk investments. “ I am dying in jail” declares Waage, a chain-smoking alcoholic who had lawsuits against him since the 1970s. After serving a few years in jail between Mexico and Canada, “pathetic” mister Waage is arrested in 2014 for organizing a suspected 1 million travel trailer theft ring: the “poor man” hadn't died in jail after all.
Whether the story is forensically true or false does not matter in the end: “Why fabulate ? Because if we do not, everyone else will.”. Interesting experiments ( so called “change blindness”) by Simons et alii showed how 8 in 15 common people asked to provide directions on a university campus fail to detect that the person they're talking with changed as a door was carried between the two to divert attention briefly.
1304
February 15, 2003.
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In another experiment, the persons asking for directions were dressed as construction workers: only 4 people in 12 noticed the person had changed as a door was carried between them to divert attention; all they saw was a “construction worker” (boots, hard hat and all). It is hardly surprising: the motion picture industry has been turning this proclivity into a spectacle made of body doubles, stand-ins, stunt men and so forth replacing the 'great (wo)man' on screen as the public fails to notice:
the naïve participants were asked a “hypothetical”question: “If you were to participate in a study where the photo you had chosen was secretly switched with the one you had rejected, would you notice the change?” Eighty-four percent of the participants (who just moments before had failed to detect any changes) believed they would easily detect the switch. Even more astonishing was the fact that participants were more than happy to explain to the experimenter why they found the photo they had actually rejected a few seconds ago more attractive than the one they had, in fact (unbeknownst to them), picked. -...-The experiments by Johansson and Hall and their colleagues show that we can unknowingly create verbal rationalizations for preferences and intentions that we do not actually possess.(Sharot 2011:21). Another experiment (so-called “invisible gorilla” by Chabris&Simons) involves counting how many times a few people wearing black or white shirts pass a ball in a short video1305. While people might follow the ball more or less accurately, many -roughly 50%- fail to notice that:
1305
•
A person in gorilla suit passes between players beating his chest;
•
the curtain changes color;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGQmdoK_ZfY
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â&#x20AC;˘
one player leaves the scene.
No surprise then that hoaxers, felons, politicians etc are as swift as professional gamblers to shuffle the deck of perceptional cards for prompt returns. The murderer of color is 'mentally ill', and needs prompt forgiveness, not a life sentence; the corrupt politician has been sick (raped as a child, etc): he needs sympathy, not judgment:
many criminals are able to fake the results of psychological tests without too much difficulty. Recently, an inmate in one of my research projects had an institutional file that contained three completely different MMPI profiles. -...-During our interview he offered the opinion that psychologists and psychiatrists were "air heads" who believed anything he told them. (Hare 1993:31). Homosexuals, POWs, the mentally unstable, the brain-damaged: these are the people who try to bring him down. He was fated from the start to be a great roshi; those who stand in his way are sick or stupid. Shimano would not, I think, have tried such theories on me unless he had a reasonable expectation that I would believe them. He knows that it is easier, and more flattering to our faith in human nature, to decide that his accusers are a little touched than to think that a Zen master would slander his followers with lies, gossip, or appeals to homophobia. (Oppenheimer 2014:no page). People who present their craziness as weakness; people who present their craziness as inadequacy (Moore 2003a). The Spanish economy finally collapsed, but the valiant left-wing Zapatero government was so proud to uncover and chastise (supposed) Francoist horrors; the NSDAP millenial regime ended with the twin piles of ashes belonging to incinerated German towns, and death camp inmates, yet the NSDAP stood valiantly up for 'a strong Germany', Aryan pride, etc:â&#x20AC;?All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of 944
lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia.”.
Like elated adolescents tasting emotional experiences for the first time, the public is taken on a grand tour of an emotional universe. While the unbearable screams, groans, whimpers and moans of the fallen transgressor -that precious, frail creature who suffered so much- fade away, the heckler quips -along with wrestler Ted DiBiase and his arrogant millionaire persona-: there is nothing s-he has done that each of you wouldn't do; the sweet human soul experiences aesthetic arrest as the thunder of illumination strikes.
Northwestern University primatologist Jules Masserman and colleagues showed in 1964 that in our closer relatives, rhesus monkeys, those who were trained to pull a chain to get food refused to do so if pulling the chain also meant another monkey was given an electric shock. It was as if they refused to profit at the expense of another monkey’s pain. (Baron-Cohen 2011:144). That's what mimeographed news releases, and various categories of hoaxers and manipulators are after: giving the bewildered masses sleepwalking through their lives a iota of daily adrenaline. What better way to provide it than 'you know who' and 'you know what' narratives that allow to make -again, and again and again- the experience of the past into the present? ”[The public] only wanted one thing from [a given public figure]: a story. He told it so well that we forgave him almost everything. ”;“[it] helped people to believe.”;”We want -...original content regardless of its validity. We're here for the scare, not for the plausibility”;“For some people, outrage is a pleasant emotion, and disseminating a rumor that breeds outrage can enhance one’s reputation, especially within certain 945
social networks.”1306:
Paranoia is a rich area for fundamental concepts. The blurring of binary oppositions of self-other, internal-external, fantasy-reality are all obvious examples. Thus paranoia is the province of the trickster. (Hansen 2001:302). In their traditional healing rituals, U.S Navajo Native-Americans make a point of identifying a mythological proxy for the illness/problem to be treated, draw complex sand paintings that recall Tibetan mandalas, chant, and ask the patient to identify with the mythological narrative to insure a positive outcome. Sand is also used for the purpose of divination in Afro-Cuban Santeria.
they perpetuate the discourse by making it relevant in different contexts (in problem-solving usages), and by elevating it above all possible competitors (in sacred usages). -...- Either they depict a policy conducive to a particular interest as the answer to a problem impinging on the common interest. Or they promote such a policy by associating it with an interpretation of discourse that acts as a defense of discourse, and then locating competing policies outside of it. The former usage may be labeled "problem-solving" usages, and the latter, "sacred" usages. For the second aspect we figure discourse as a taken for granted set of perceptions that are used apart from attempts to promote individual policies.(Lorenzo 1993, ii, 28). An example of this is the legend of the Gorgona (mermaid). In this legend the Gorgona, who is Alexander’s sister, would appear in front of sailors during a storm and ask of them: “Tell me sailor, is King Alexander alive?” And if the sailor replies, “Yes, my lady, he is alive and reigns” she happily goes away and calms the sea. But if the sailor tells her that he has died she becomes upset, makes the storm worse and sinks the ship. (Ancient History: no page). Au début étaient les années 1935-1945 et la lutte unanime contre le nazisme et Vichy. Puis vinrent les années 1950-1980, celles de l'anticolonialisme et du tiers-mondisme, de la France multi, pluri, 1306
Sunstein 2014:39.
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interculturelle, etc. Avec les années 1980-1990, le racisme c'est l'exclusion donc tout est racisme. Les slogans se succèdent plus creux et contradictoires les uns que les autres : « Droit à la différence, égalité dans la différence, droit à la ressemblance, droit à l'indifférence..., etc. ». Au bout d'un processus, marqué par la multiplication de lois antiracistes -...-, le racisme n'a plus de contenu. Ce n'est plus qu'une insulte. La démarche intellectuelle qui conduit à ce résultat électoralement utile comporte quatre étapes. La première consiste à fondre en un même ensemble des catégories hétéroclites de victimes : les gens sont exclus par la classe, l'âge, le sexe, le revenu, le niveau scolaire, l'habitat, la religion. La seconde étape vise à couper la France en deux (ce qui se dit en grec: « diaboliser ») entre gauche et droite, victimes et bourreaux, républicains et nazis, enfin les exclus et les autres. Les « racistes » sont dominateurs, oppresseurs, exploiteurs, génocideurs. Ils aiment le marché, la compétition, la productivité, l'efficacité, le profit, la patrie, la famille, Jean-Paul II aussi car libéralisme, nationalisme et racisme ne peuvent relever que d'une même pathologie obscurantiste. Les « racisés » opprimés et exclus, tous les autres sont des victimes innocentes irresponsables de leur exclusion. La disposition affective que présuppose et conforte de telles analyses chez les défenseurs des victimes est la compassion qui se traduit en conduites de solidarités, actions de défense des droits, voire la légitimation de l'insurrection contre la loi républicaine 4. L'étape finale est la stratégie du soupçon. Comme aucune force politique ne se targue publiquement de racisme (même Le Pen gagne la plupart de ses procès), le racisme doit être dit occulte, latent, ordinaire, quotidien et gagnant par prédilection la droite civilisée. (Kaltenbach 1996:77). When a protester1307 hit him with a small plastic object (December 13, 2009), then Prime Minister Berlusconi's (who had risked his life or an eye depending on different sources) first thought when regaining control went to making sure his attacker was safe (=no grudges shtick), relayed some newspapers, thus imitating father god (Genesis 4:151308), and Jesus (Luke 23:341309):
More wooden skewers were then forced through their thigh and calf 1307
The man was swiftly judged incapable to stand trial and discarded to a rehabilitation center as mentally ill. ”But the LORD said to him, "Not so; if anyone kills Cain, he will suffer vengeance seven times over." Then the LORD put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him ”. 1309 “Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." ”. 1308
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muscles, and heavy buffalo skulls were hung from these. Catlin says, and in his paintings he shows us, that when the pegs were being put through their muscles, these [American-Indian] boys made a very special point of smiling and acting as though nothing were happening. -...-Those young men said to Catlin at one time, "Women suffer. We must suffer too." (Campbell&Boa 1989:75-6, emphasis added). In 2013, the mystical body of the savior-hero is still in danger of being profaned, for Berlusconi commented -according to press agency ADNKRONOS (23 February)-: “a Torino una persona mi ha infilato un dito in un occhio col rischio della rottura della retina ” (At Turin someone poked me in an eye, thus potentially damaging the retina)1310.
Also, one may want to recognize here the 'blind hero' motif. Hitler lies temporarily blind after a gas attack during WWI. Blind Oedipus embarks on the journey to his final resting place in Athens. St. Paul is blinded on the road to Damascus. The hero's vision has been more or less permanently impaired: the precious human soul agonizes pondering whichever gnostic message at hand.
(Popular) culture is never far behind. Neo in the last Matrix movies, Frank Dux in Bloodsport, Michel Strogoff, Anthony in Il Ragazzo Dal Kimono
D'Oro, Tiresias, Paul Atreides, Jack in Big Trouble In Little China (1986), and a host of others1311: the hero is (momentarily) blind.
Mexican caudillo and President Santa Anna (1794-1876) proposed a 1310 1311
Readers may notice the “sacred power of sight” motif. See for example a tentative list at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Fictional_blind_characters or at http://brailleworks.com/fictional-characters-who-are-blind/
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similar situation on his followers as he was about the flee in the wake of a rebellion:
Companions-in-arms! With pride I sustained the loss of an important member of my body [ a leg he had lost in combat], lost gloriously in the service of our Native Land, as some of you bore witness; but that pride has turned to grief, sadness and desperation. You should know that these remains have been violently torn from the funeral urn, which was broken, and dragged through the streets to make sport of them. (cit. in Knight in Walsham 2010:239). The remains of murdered revolutionary firebrand and Mason Marat were for a time enshrined at the Pantheon in Paris. He was interred beneath a harbor where an inscription recited:”Sacred heart of Marat, pray for us”. In one version, Marat's remains were scattered and disposed of in the Montmartre sewer at a later date. Ancient myth(ologie)s are not only the province of hazy speculation by amblyopic scholars, but are circularly reenacted, staged, spoofed on a constant basis: irresistible commodities that translate into all too tangible box-office, cash-counter or ballot-box results.
Availability heuristics predicts that what most often recurs in one's mind (what one reads in the press, the most shocking account, what's all the rage in cable TV story-lines...) is taken as most common or likely state of affairs. Frank 1312 connects “directing the flow” (of people, of information...) with particular results: in airports, in shopping malls, in apartment buildings1313...
But even with everyone’s idiosyncratic opinions, there was a distinct pattern [in a study]. Women who had come to class more 1312 1313
2016:Space, Color, and Mood. Frank mentions a postwar study with returning U.S GI Bill students. The most popular couple among randomly assigned, married students was always the one near the staircase: more opportunity to interact.
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often were seen as more attractive. -...- Seeing someone more frequently made people like them more. -...- Similarity increases evaluation (and sales) for the same reason that mere exposure works. Just as the more we see something, the more we like it, the more we see something, the more we like other things that share similar features.(Berger 2016:11,81). No matter how illogical or poorly crafted the argument may be, followers are almost forced to trust the message, because it’s all they know. (Hogshead 2010:18). In general, things that are more familiar, more recent, and more vivid will all be easier to recall or imagine. That means that the likelihood of events with any or all of those properties tends to be overestimated. -...- We will slip into the easier, resource-conserving mode any time we are exhausted or distracted. -...- We’ve developed satisficing rules, habitual responses, and availability heuristics. It is only when we really care about something that we typically bother to pull out the heavier artillery in our decisionmaking arsenals. -...-Replacement is the idea that people have many workarounds when they are presented with difficult tasks; thus, they often substitute or replace a difficult task with an easier one. (Hamilton 2016:21,190-191). The euro zone is indeed going to implode -at least twice a year- lest the new row of tax and due diligence provisions is put into retroactive effect; EastGerman (Communist) spy syndicates along with their domestic confederates are indeed going to destroy the world in nuclear mayhem if we don't support the right party right now; ...ists are indeed going to goose-step onto town if the new 'special law' is not passed immediately etc:
There are five pillars for instilling alarm: Define consequences, create deadlines, or increase perceived danger. Along the way, we’ll also want to focus—not on the risks most likely—but on the ones most feared. And finally, we’ll need to use distress to steer positive action.(Hogshead 2010:90).
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Many pawns are so enamored by the persona of the psychopathic fraudster that they give him or her whatever is needed, however inappropriate or outrageous the request. Eventually, psychopaths are able to convince a large number of people that they are their best friends, trusted confidants, loyal coworkers, and all-around good people with whom to associate. They are able to create a fiction and maintain it in day-to-day interaction. (Babiak&Hare 2006:125). The more you are on stage, the more you educate, the more people talk about you and you get to control the conversation. Top - of mind awareness is about conversation domination, and your goal is to always be in the conversations that potential customers are having, whenever they have them. (Lakhani 2009:61). This is a sobering point indeed. All of us have vivid memories of the past. These are the memories we trust the most. We are absolutely certain it happened the way we remember: why else would it be vivid? The answer is that it might be vivid because we have replayed the event in our memory time and time again in the same, wrong, way. So now that’s how we remember it. Vividly. -...-Or as a very recent study, by psychologists Jennifer Talarico and David Rubin, has shown, “[Flashbulb memories] are distinguished from ordinary memories by their vividness and the confidence with which they are held. There is little evidence that they are reliably different from ordinary autobiographical memories in accuracy, consistency, or longevity.” -...- Whether the persons who first told the stories did so intentionally, knowing full well that they didn’t happen, or inadvertently, thinking they did, in either case once the stories were in circulation and people told and retold them, these other people almost certainly did remember Jesus in such ways. (Ehrman 2016:73,89). flashbulb memories—how we remember unexpected arousing events and how the structures deep in our brain “Photoshop” these images, adding contrast, enhancing resolution, inserting and deleting details. -...-To imagine your upcoming trip to Barbados, for example, you need a system that can flexibly reconstruct novel scenarios, one that can take bits and pieces of memories from your past (your last vacation to a warm country, images of sandy beaches, your partner in his swimsuit) and bind them together to create something new (you and your loved one wearing straw hats on a beach in Barbados next month)—an event that has yet to happen. Because we use the same neural system to recall the past as we do to 951
imagine the future, recollection also ends up being a reconstructive process rather than a videolike replay of past events, and thus is susceptible to inaccuracies. -...-Getting a haircut today may be boring, but getting one in the future is a cause for celebration. -...-By comparing people’s initial accounts of how they learned about the Challenger explosion with their memories two and a half years later, he could empirically test whether these memories were exceptionally resistant to being forgotten, or whether they just appeared to be. His findings were astonishing. Twenty-five percent of the respondents were mistaken about every single detail of how they had learned of the disaster. There was absolutely no match between their later memories of how they had learned about the explosion and how they actually had. -...-A mere 7 percent of respondents received perfect scores—their memories of the Challenger explosion thirty months later and their initial accounts were identical. -...-In other words, the students were pretty sure they were providing precise recollections. Furthermore, there was absolutely no correlation between the accuracy of the memory and the confidence in which it was held.(Sharot 2011:7-8,98, emphasis added).
The New York Times online film archive stores critical synopses of films rather than the films themselves, which would take up far too much space, be far too difficult to search, and be thoroughly useless to anyone who wanted to know what a film was like without actually seeing it. -...-So we reduce our experiences to words such as happy, which barely do them justice but which are the things we can carry reliably and conveniently with us into the future. (Gilbert 2006:33, emphasis added). Professor of marketing Berger clinches: “Word of mouth is the primary factor behind 20 percent to 50 percent of all purchasing decisions.”1314:
We have access to news 24 hours a day on TV, radio, and the Internet—much of it consisting of quick sound bites that aim for our hearts but not our minds. Journalists have a saying: “If it bleeds, it leads,” meaning that the top news stories are always the most shocking or sensational ones. It seems to me that most newscasters are shaped by the same mold, with their grave expressions and motionless hair. They also sound as if they’ve all received standard 1314
2013:10.
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training in how to come up with quick, sensational sound bites that they repeat every few minutes. Grim stories about the economy take the shape of tearjerker stories about people who are struggling, who have lost their jobs, and who can’t pay for their homes or insurance. It is not that these stories are unimportant, not very sad, or unuseful, but they don’t help us understand what is happening all around us, or what caused the economic meltdown in the first place. And when we submit ourselves to a never-ending daily diet of depressing, emotional sound bites (thinking that we are going to learn something from watching, reading, or listening to them over and over), we risk intensifying our depression. (Ariely 2009:169, emphasis added). Lefties and progressive hacks in academia heckle about...spurious, overinflated, sensational, untrue accounts about crime rates and minorities (immigrants...): fair enough; media do tend to indulge in sensational reporting as it helps with sales and audience.
The opposite happens to apply, as one might expect with all this politicized drivel, as the same lefties and electioneering hacks maintain that '...ism' is in truth rampant: the new social alchemy provision or 'special law' shall be passed or funded straightaway, lest '...ists' march onto town by the weekend.
Likewise, when Bill Clinton said that the economy under George H.W. Bush was “the worst economy in fifty years,” no reasonable economist actually could substantiate that idea, but the rhetorical tactic was successful. Notice also the danger of hyperbole: when John Kerry tried to use the same Clinton line, it was not successful. Hyperbole wears out very quickly (Drout 2006:54, emphasis added). Put simply, the link between creativity and dishonesty seems related to the ability to tell ourselves stories about how we are doing the right thing, even when we are not. The more creative we are, the more we are able to come up with good stories that help us justify our selfish interests. (Ariely 2012:85).
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a synagogue bombing had been planned for nearby Spokane. Later, the FBI acknowledged that the "plot" was sheer fiction. David Hill of the FBI office in Seattle, said, "The bottom line is we found there was no substance to the allegations." Apparently, however, Bordner -acting as an informant – actually tried to get a conspiracy of that nature going. According to February 1992 news reports -...-Bordner fabricated the account in order to promote a future book. (Wilcox 1994:59). The slogan ‘Long Live Anarchy!’ appeared everywhere in the French capital, spoken in private discussions and shouted at public meetings, printed in the newspapers and scrawled on innumerable walls. The police imagined they heard it whenever encountering resistance, although the culprit might be a tipsy railway clerk rather than a dangerous anarchist. -...-Once again police and non-anarchists alike unwittingly collaborated in magnifying the anarchist menace out of all proportion to its true size. (Jensen, cit. in Sparrow 2015:no page).
Future pace what you want them to do and experience. When you have people in a peak emotional state, in person or in writing, have them move forward in time and experience what their life, their emotions, their existence will be like after having been doing [or not doing] whatever you are suggesting for a certain period of time. (Lakhani 2005:152). Gun violence in the U.S had dropped by half. The gun homicide rate went from 7 in 100.000 in 1993 to 3,6 in 100.000 in 2010 -...-. Given the way violent incidents are reported in the Internet age immediately, repeatedly and vividly, people naturally think that those events are more likely than they actually are (Hamilton 2016: The Role Of Heuristics In Decisions). But to the person significantly lacking in self-confidence and selfrespect, life is, in effect, a chronic emergency; that person is always in danger—psychologically. (Branden 1985:81). Availability heuristics – much as the horde in fusion- can be scaled down to whichever level one sees fit. The superordinate goal that serves as a glue (the “field” of field theory, for example) to keep the horde in fusion -in spite of centrifugal or centripetal forces- may encompass an entire continent (“we 954
Europeans”); a country (“real Americans”); a family (we Fernandez), or any other unit: a team at work; a unit in the army; wrestlers or welders as a professional body...
Common belief systems allow people who may be very different in many other aspects of their lives to find common ground for social interaction. As long as the psychopath can accurately espouse these beliefs while in the presence of group members, the true motives are less likely to be discovered. (Babiak&Hare 2006:90). In the experimental condition, the researchers established a social relationship between each pair of players. Before the game, the two players briefly met face-to-face and introduced themselves. To reinforce this social relationship, the researchers showed the participants the following short paragraph before the start of the game: You have already met the person with whom you will play the game. Now the person is no longer a stranger to you. You can imagine that the other player is a good friend. You have a good relationship and like each other. This way the researchers shortened the social distance between participants (compared to the control condition) without changing any of the financial incentives or offering any additional information about the players or the game. So what happened? Reciprocity prevailed: participants with social relationships were indeed nicer to each other than those in the anonymous condition. We know this because wholesalers who were “friends” with the retailers set their prices lower than did anonymous wholesalers ($5.18 compared to $6.30), and the friendly retailers set street prices that were lower than those set by anonymous retailers ($10.10 compared to $11.63). (Chen&Krakovsky 2010:54). But framing something as a human rights issue helps it rise above partisan lines. This superordinate, or higher-level, identity is something more people can buy into. And because it evokes a broader identity, it’s less likely that people will avoid it. (Becker 2016:76). Dues1315 discusses power dynamics according to the best minds of
1315
2010:Power.
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organizational theory:
If you have less power in a conflict, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s important to stay engaged and keep speaking up. Research shows that if you do that, your power will grow and the other person will begin to listen to you more. You can also gain power by seeking allies or by building your knowledge and increasing your personal skills (2010:26). Which sounds suspiciously similar to what happens on a kindergarten playground: nagging, and triangulating with little buddies to get our way: readers shall individually assess the scientific value of such considerations.
Tannen1316 advises to team up with one or more co-workers to give one another credit without having to sound egotistical by claiming credit ourselves if need be. When all else fails, triangulation may be put in place elseways:
People who have been hurt and suffered injustices find emotional relief in the idea they are not alone to know their own innocence; that a wise, omniscient god of justice knows it too -...- thus granting to a supernatural entity the place and the emotional meaning, which belong to a moral ideal, to the image of an ideal man. (Branden 1960/1969:lesson 4). Dues1317, however, impart the exact opposite advice:
The harmful effects of triangulationextnote tend not to appear immediately but to build up over time. In organizations, cliques develop, morale declines, and teamwork breaks down. The horde shall experience the last fusion, the last dysphoric bonding 1316
2004. 2010:33. extnote Dues defines triangulation precisely as Tannen does, but reaching opposing conclusions:â&#x20AC;?triangulation:Drawing a third party into a conflict instead of directly addressing the other conflict party.â&#x20AC;? (Ibid.:34) (note of this writer). 1317
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episode1318; the grandiose curtain call shall unfold as humankind -or civilization as we know it- as a whole disappears at once: the 'nuclear holocaust' imagery. R.L. Moore clinches about the “enormous narcissistic investment” apocalyptic fantasies of any kind imply. Still in 1989, the “nuclear holocaust” imagery enthralled Moore. A nuclear war is “the last rite”, “great cleansing” 1319: the “cauterization of the human tumor”1320.
Castro expressly basked in the possibility at the height of the Cuban missile crisis: he impelled the USSR to launch a nuclear attack should the USA invade Cuba, and exhorted fellow 'proud Cubans' to face ultimate annihilation bravely in the great cause's name.
Another left-wing radical, the Greek Tsipras, wanted in 2015 to lead the noble Greek people in an epic fight -with homeland first and rally of the pack flumadiddle- against the inequitable forces occultes of international finance.
Tsipras hoped to create dissent within EU countries so that Greece might dodge mammoth debt payments. People are called to soldier on, boldly to trod the path towards the end of days in the first person as they bear witness to a great cause: realized eschatology. The financial scourging of Greece was the result of another adventurist fiasco.
At Sidari (Greece) couples who can swim together across the canal d'amour are assured of never being separated: dysphoric bonding to state of the art. 1319 Moore 1989b:part 1. 1320 Moore 1989b:part 5. 1318
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In late 2017, proud Catalans with fists clenched in the Communist salute defy forces occultes as the regional administration proclaims independence from Spain. EU hierarchies turn their back to the little Iberian Cuba in the making, and the putsch ends in a farcical fiasco as the Spanish government crushes the quixotic attempt.
Earlier than that, U.S Christian fundamentalists saw WWI -and well before that the 1898 Spanish-American war- as “messianic” in nature: the end of days shall soon begin according to scripture. F. Lynch, secretary of the U.S Federal Council Of Churches Commission, wrote in 1916:”a patriotism that is not so much concerned with saving the nation as it is in having the nation be a Christ-nation to the other nations of the world. ”. The difference between such “righteous patriots” and any renegade “Jihadi John”1321 of our times is left to the reader to ponder.
Besotted
with
anticipation
(elation, guilt...),
and
cornered
by
overwhelming cognitive dissonance, the public shall capitulate, and endorse whatever the social alchemist just proposed, just as the Greek people did when it voted in favor of evading financial obligations with foreign creditors.
That's not new, either. Epochs of unparalleled progress, the late Victorian age and Belle Epoque were obsessed with judgment day imagery -such as Martin's paintings epitomize1322-; a melancholic prefiguration of death, especially 1321
(1988-2015) British-Arab appearing in videos of, and linked to terror attacks and executions of, radical Islamist groups. 1322 In one of his apocalyptic paintings, a steam train -the epitome of the day's best technology- runs at full speed into the pit of the damned. Jehovah's Witnesses as well identify Leviathan with a locomotive ( The Finished
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since Prince Albert's untimely death (1861). Spiritualist and deistic quests seemed a remedy to the collapse of Biblical worldview science was increasingly debunking; a passion for erotic imagery and nudes under the excuse of classic reminiscences also arose.
In 1995 during an internationally televised Italian musical event (Sanremo), popular Italian anchorman Pippo Baudo also 'saved' a supposedly unemployed man ready to jump from a balcony 1323, including a scene in which Baudo -visibly aghast- offered the distraught 'common humanity fellow' a fatherly embrace, and a kiss. According to some subsequent accounts and allegations, it all was an orchestrated farce.
According to Reuters1324, German Chancellor Merkel appears in a similar shtick featuring a possible refugee. Just as party liners rushing to be one with the horde in fusion are not quite sure whether they saw a bayoneted baby or a crucified Canadian, so the refugee is described as a girl in turn 10, 12, 14 or so year old of alternatively Palestinian or Lebanese origin:
As Endel Tulving-...- summarized the matter, “A good part of the activity of memory consists not in reproduction, or even in reconstruction, but in sheer construction. And constructed memories do not always correspond to reality.” -...-In addition, as leading expert Elizabeth Loftus has forcefully stated, “once activated, the manufactured memories are indistinguishable from factual memories.” -...-We especially tend to think that our most vivid memories—precisely because they are vivid—are the most Mystery, 1917). Footage is still available online, for example at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up6cMAnYQ6M 1324 July 16, 2015. 1323
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reliable. That turns out not to be true either. (Ehrman 2016:72). These delusional memories are a common phenomenon in court, when witnesses create perceptions to fit particular cases rather than recall what they actually saw. The witnesses may be trying to satisfy their need to belong or their need for power. We should never rely on any memory that cannot be verified because there is no way to find out if it is real or created. Memories that are elicited under hypnosis or drugs can be equally faulty. There is nothing in hypnosis or drugs that makes a memory more truthful than what is remembered or forgotten without the use of these procedures. At times drugs and hypnosis can actually encourage the person to remember what didn’t happen. Just because these exotic procedures are used becomes a powerful suggestion that something must have happened.(Glasser 1998:288-289). Their “evidence” remains in oral tradition. Recent -...- rumors are usually only summary accounts based on unverifiable descriptions of supposed news stories, and they are thus probably legends in the making. -...-these findings help to show the typical growth of legend from a brief original rumor that gradually acquires validating details as it is repeated from person to person, also incorporating mass-media reports (or at least reports of such reports).(Brunvand 1981:56,59). The refugee pleads her case in front of Merkel who strokes the girl's back as the girl starts to cry because she's told she can't stay. July 17, 2015 1325, media announce the girl finally could -or would- be allowed to stay in Germany after all: the timing outperforms every espresso coffee or malt liquor campaign one might recall. The charming coincidence steals the day in the press so that the ongoing financial scourging of Greece slips on the back burner.
The unjustly maligned and tormented savior/shepherd always forgives and 'still loves us' in spite of it all. Kitchener “wants us” to save ourselves by saving
1325
The Telegraph.
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the British Empire in the Belle Epoque; uncle Sam “wants us” to save ourselves by saving the USA; Brazilian Fascists (integralistas) want you to save Brazil in the early 1930s. Greek chieftains “still wanted” Ulysses and Achilles to go to Troy, so on and so forth.
It is a never-ending replay of stiff Greek drama 1326 that predated Christianity by several centuries:
that the old tales were, from the earliest traceable stages in the development of the genre, made into tragic plots by being adapted to these patterns. Finally (and this is also true at least from the time of our first surviving examples), the plots of Greek tragedies are articulated through a limited but highly flexible repertoire of formal units, and we shall need to examine the ways in which the conventions of form create expectations and provide frames for interpretation (Easterling 1997:179) the problem of heroics is the central one of human life, that it goes deeper into human nature than anything else because it is based on organismic narcissism and on the child's need for self esteem as the condition for his life. Society itself is a codified hero system, which means that society everywhere is a living myth of the significance of human life, a defiant creation of meaning. (Becker 1973:7). THESEUS: You’re leaving me. Your blood is on my hands. HIPPOLYTUS: No, Father. I absolve you of this murder. THESEUS: Really? You would clear me of your blood-guilt? 1326
And whatever other myths were at the bottom thereof.
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HIPPOLYTUS: I call as witness Artemis the huntress. THESEUS: My own dear son, how nobly you have acted.” (Euripides Hippolytus 1620-30). Once again, parting real-life from popular culture and entertainment is almost impossible. During a search at his mother's house regarding an international financial scandal involving prominent Italian industries in 2013, one of the supposed culprits pretends to be taken ill, and collapses on the bed under which damning papers were hidden1327.
Naturally, most don't care about the antics of one of the many Barnums of TV trying to revive the sort of a declining musical event. Party liners, prigs and dolts, however, melt in sentimental rapture as Obama in 2012 hugs and kisses San Su Ky (the activist and fellow Nobel laureate having spent 15 years under house arrest for opposing the military regime in Burma).
More than a dozen fellow Nobel laureates have criticised Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s de facto leader, for a bloody military crackdown on minority Rohingya people, warning of a tragedy “amounting to ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity”. (Holmes 2017:no page). History is thus made -at least every fortnight according to newspapers-.
1327
“Quando gli investigatori vanno a casa della madre di Guido Haschke per una perquisizione, l’intermediario finge un malore e frana sul letto: lì sotto è nascosto un memorandum del 2010 riguardante la fornitura di mezzi Agusta all’India in cui si fa specifico riferimento alla tangente. ” Tangenti 2013: no page.
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Paul Tillich developed the (Christian) concept of kairos:”a point in history in which time is disturbed by eternity ”. R.L. Moore explains that the induction of anxiety makes people “stupid and aggressive”1328.
[In the ]“Proto-Gospel of James. -...-as Joseph and Mary are nearing Bethlehem, she goes into labor. Joseph hurriedly finds a private place for her to give birth, in a cave. He leaves her there to go off to find a midwife. And then a miracle happens. As he is walking, Joseph suddenly sees time stand still. The birds in the air have stopped moving in midflight; in the field before him workers taking their lunch break have frozen in place, with their hands in a bowl or partway up to their mouths; a shepherd is stopped immobile while reaching out his rod to strike the sheep. But “then suddenly everything returned to its normal course.” The world had ground to a halt in honor of the Son of God, who has now become human.” (Ehrman 2016:20, emphasis added). The stories provide research that seems likely but is rarely attributed to a reliable source, but you don ’ t notice because the message - to - schema match is perfect. -...-There is a reason that people like Paris Hilton or Britney Spears “ accidentally ” expose themselves in public. It creates drama that the media need to get you interested. All good stories need an antagonist, drama, conflict, and resolution for it to be interesting. The more you lead with the raw sensational hook, the more likely you are to create awareness and to get people to talk about what you did.(Lakhani 2008:14,114, emphasis added). The manifest destiny is unfolding according to the providential plan laid in the mist of time, or another edition of Aristotelian theories about final causes. An oak tree lurks in every acorn:” Fulfilling the occult magnificent plan, The worldwide and immortal spirit in man ” (Aurobindo):
The most successful people see adversity not as a stumbling block, but as a steppingstone to greatness. Indeed, early failure is often the 1328
No date-3:part 7.
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fuel for the very ideas that eventually transform industries, make record profits, and reinvent careers. We’ve all heard the usual examples: Michael Jordan cut from his high school basketball team, Walt Disney fired by a newspaper editor for not being creative enough, the Beatles turned away by a record executive who told them that “guitar groups are on their way out.” In fact, many of their winning mantras essentially describe the notion of falling up: “I’ve failed over and over again in my life,” Jordan once said, “and that is why I succeed.” Robert F. Kennedy said much the same: “Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.” And Thomas Edison, too, once claimed that he had failed his way to success. (Achor 2010:105). Although life savings and pension funds can be pulverized, homes can be repossessed, and lives can be lost in the recurring honest wars, stock-market crashes and routine economic crises the 'all-seeing-eye' of the ventriloquists for providential blueprints of history couldn't possibly foresee, it's -all things considered- ”three years of struggle, followed by a thousand years of happiness”, just as Mao had predicted: simple, finite, far-out and stretched, or the ideal slogan 1329.
Of course, even imperial Japan, the USSR, the Khmer Rouge and NSDAP Germany had their ideas of manifest destinies that -for a while at least- seemed to irresistibly pan out. Equally, party liners never stop excoriating the lemmings that cut recurring slack to those criminal regimes...
While contemporary readers are unlikely to bet a dime on the NSDAP or Khmer Rouge, Obama declared in 2008:”Our climb will be steep. -...-but America -...- we will get there”. The “renewal through struggle” card always yields dividends.
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Roberto 2011:Phases Of Transformation.
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The fact that people decide to wait for a rewarding event rather than receive it immediately suggests that we derive pleasure from contemplating something that might happen later. (Sharot 2011:75). And I want you to be yourself—unless yourself is prone to complaining and negativity. In that case, please pretend to be someone more positive for the first few dates. -...-your good character counts. But none of us is perfect. If the first things people find out about you are bad, they’ll usually assume you’re bad too. (Welch 2015b:103). Of course, the typical outcome is that no matter how many terms 'great men' serve in power, mountains are unlikely to turn to polenta, and streets are unlikely to be paved in gold: quite the opposite is true. By dangling in front of voters an hypothetical pot of gold that lies at the end of the rainbow they paint, people get elected into office, get the investment etc: they can start reaping profits while the simpleton slowly realizes s-he has been fooled...once more.
If the almighty entered in a covenant with the Hebrews, and promised them glory and rewards, Berlusconi engaged into the televised signature of the
contratto con gli Italiani (contract with the Italian people, May 8, 2001), in which he promised drastic tax cuts along with massive investments. Before him, in 1994, U.S Republicans had played the same card. Posterity shall judge how many of the promises were kept, if any at all:
The Old Testament God has a covenant with a certain historic people, the only holy race—the only holy thing, in fact—on earth. And how does one gain membership? The traditional answer was most recently (March 10, 1970) reaffirmed in Israel as defining the first prerequisite to full citizenship in that mythologically inspired nation: by being born of a Jewish mother (Campbell 1991:102). 965
If any doubt existed, an Italian court stated in 2009 that Berlusconi's promise wasn't legally binding1330:
One of the great tricks of rhetoric is to take something that sounds like a performative, such as “I promise,” and move it into the realm of a nonperformative. Politicians do this all the time, in a variety of ways. For example, if you do not actually have the power to perform the performative action, you can promise all you want, but the action cannot—by you—be made to happen. So when a presidential candidate says, “If elected, I will lower gasoline prices,” we should note that the President does not in fact have the power to lower gasoline prices. And so if gasoline prices do not go down, the presidential candidate can say, “I sent legislation to Congress and they didn’t pass it.” On the other hand, his opponents can try to hold him to the performative utterance. A flawed performative thus walks a very narrow line between a statement and, well, a lie. (Drout 2006:8, emphasis added). It’s a good idea to think about trustworthiness in terms of likelihoods, however imprecise.(Chen&Krakovsky 2010:101, emphasis added). Some -following in the footsteps of Jewish-French sociologist Durkheimstress the modernity of contracts, which would turn a page on the sacred universe of traditional societies: breach of contract doesn't get a mob to lynch one for sacrilege. The present writer contends this leap is unwarranted. Both WWI and WWII started because of breach of contract(s) between various countries (Serbia's or Poland's independence; Belgium's neutrality; various alliances...).
The Hellenist age saw monarchs entering into agreements/covenants with (Hellenized) cities, whereby praise, statues and gifts would be directed to the King, and exemptions and munificence would benefit the city: Seleucid ruler
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Fece Causa...2009: no page.
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Antiochus II (286-246 BCE) “received the surname of Theos, "Divine", from the Milesians in the first instance, because he slew their tyrant, Timarchus. ” (Appian,
Syriaca 65).
The word “gospel” comes from the Greek word euanggelion, which means “good news.” It was a word used to describe some great and glorious event, such as a triumph in a military conquest, or the great benefactions that an emperor had provided or was about to provide for his people. (Ehrman 2016:121-122, emphasis added). In China, Empress Wu Zetian (624-705 CE) lavished praise and favors upon the Buddhist community. Monk Bodhiruci had re-translated a work (Baoyujing, Precious Rain Sutra) as he added that the Empress was the incarnation of the Sun and Moon Light god who had taken flesh to rule China: (wo)men of destiny manufactured on demand as the gods give (expedient) statements of destiny.
Pachakutiq (Inca King, 1438-1471 CE) in a dream entered in a covenant with Inti, the Sun; future Egyptian Pharaoh Thutmose III (1481-1425 BCE) in a dream entered in a covenant with Horus of the Horizon; Khmer King Jaya did the same with Shiva: early Khmer kings (IX-XI century CE) worshiped Shiva, later replaced by Vishnu in the XII century, followed by Buddhism.
Furthermore, the contract imagery in the political or philosophical realm is indeed awash in melodramatic sentimentalism: the great nation in danger; the fusion of the horde is at stake; the score is to settle; frail, little creatures need to be rescued; ”three years of struggle, followed by a thousand years of happiness” and so forth. 967
Industrial societies may restyle mythical covenants as contracts, but many -although for obvious reasons not all- categories of contracts â&#x20AC;&#x201C; such as marriages or foreign policy treaties and engagements- are still supercharged with mythical and/or religious potential. Specialists (lawyers, economists, diplomats...) are still needed to negotiate contracts; they often wear liturgical dresses (ex. lawyers in court; physicians).
The fact their specialism is in legal matters and based on the rite of passage of a bar or diplomatic exam instead of vision quests or religious ordination does not change the nature of the relationship at stake:
A quick search of the Congressional Record (the official source for [U.S] Senate and House debates) reveals in excess of a thousand usages of the Golden Rule and more than five hundred invocations of the Good Samaritan over the last two decades. This same search yields hundreds of references to the Promised Land, Armageddon, and the Apocalypse. (Prothero 2007:13). Nowadays the 'pig Latin' (Hebrew, Greek, Sanskrit...) used to induce stupor in traditional religions has been replaced by the trendy jargon of the legal, financial and medical profession:â&#x20AC;?the ability of some psychopaths to put on a good show without saying anything of substance.â&#x20AC;?1331.
Even St. Paul described himself as god's oikonomos (=god's economist, financial overseer, master of the household, steward... 1 Corinthians 4 & 9) just as Cynic philosophers such as Epictetus did:
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Babiak&Hare 2006:283.
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When Howard Shultz created Starbucks, he was as intuitive a businessman as Salvador Assael. He worked diligently to separate Starbucks from other coffee shops, not through price but through ambience. Accordingly, he designed Starbucks from the very beginning to feel like a continental coffeehouse. The early shops were fragrant with the smell of roasted beans (and better-quality roasted beans than those at Dunkin’ Donuts). They sold fancy French coffee presses. The showcases presented alluring snacks— almond croissants, biscotti, raspberry custard pastries, and others. Whereas Dunkin’ Donuts had small, medium, and large coffees, Starbucks offered Short, Tall, Grande, and Venti, as well as drinks with high-pedigree names like Caffè Americano, Caffè Misto, Macchiato, and Frappuccino. Starbucks did everything in its power, in other words, to make the experience feel different—so different that we would not use the prices at Dunkin’ Donuts as an anchor, but instead would be open to the new anchor that Starbucks was preparing for us. And that, to a great extent, is how Starbucks succeeded. (Ariely 2009:35). In 1973, marketing professor Phillip Kotler introduced the world to the science of atmospherics in the Journal of Retailing. According to Kotler, atmospherics is “ The conscious planning of atmospheres to contribute to the buyer ’ s purchasing propensity. ”. You ’ ve likely heard me say that businesses have a persona. Atmospherics are the persona of your business. (Lakhani 2008:135, emphasis added). Traditional and secular societies alike try to control sexual activity and expression much as they try to control food preparation and intake. Oden 1332 considers this discipline the hallmark of distinct religious communities separating the human (saved, faithful etc) from the non-human (damned, heathen etc).
This point is crucial because it explains why sexual taboos have been at the heart of human society since the very beginning. They affirm the triumph of human personality over animal sameness. With the complex codes for sexual self-denial, man was able to impose the cultural map for personal immortality over the animal body. (Becker 1973:163). 1332
1998:Religious Rituals And Communities.
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When Mormonism was created, the Word Of Wisdom (1833, a “health code”) strongly urged devotees to abstain from tobacco, “strong” and “hot drinks”, although to this day controversy subsists regarding the exact meaning of such advice; most sources interpret the warning to mean “moderation in consumption”. The Sikh communal meal langar is always vegetarian, although meat eating is otherwise permitted.
Modernizing Meiji Japan (1868-1912) encouraged the masses to start eating meat to become stronger, thus able to serve the aim of growing militarism better: a ban on meat-eating on religious ground Emperor Tenmu had enforced in 675 CE (April to September ban) was lifted in 1872. Starting at the top of the social pyramid, meat-eating as both a posh, nationalistic and healthy choice trickled down through Japanese society.
European-style bread also plotted the same trajectory. Tarozaemon Egawa was a local governor who introduced mass production of western-style bread fearing a war between Japan and European powers in the 1840s. Bread would thus serve as handy combat ration for a Japanese militia: Egawa was nicknamed panso (father of bread).
Postwar secular societies are as bizarrely keen on regulating food consumption -and sexuality- as established religions that include archaic traits -such as Judaism- might be:”People in all cultures go to extraordinary lengths to deny that they are animals, and to regulate activities that remind them of their corporeal 970
nature”1333.
One fundamentalist religious society cheers the legal enforcement of body hair or clothing codes, whereas a secular one cheers the legal prohibition against the consumption of say horse, dog or cat meat. One society legislates against GLBT sexuality, whereas another embraces it with much pomp. Both groups are experiencing a psychotic crack-up of oneness as they loathe the other party.
Schizotypal personalities on a mission on both sides of the fence try to hoodwink the frazzled masses into believing that homosexuality is both an abomination, and a one-way ticket to hell; or that it is as fulfilling, trendy and mainstream as it can be.
In an interview, wrestling superstar Rick Flair complained that outsiders ought not be allowed to use the jargon of wrestling: the jargon becomes the camarilla's secret handshake and code-word much as it unfolds among middleschool children.
These two facts together explain why painful or frightening (in the jargon, ‘dysphoric’) rituals — such as traumatic initiations and hazing practices — lead to bonding. Whatever each performer thinks or feels about the experience, they all assume that the other participants feel the same as them. The same goes for non-ritual experiences, too: the more painful or horrifying it is, the stronger the effect. If we are hurt in a plane crash, we might dwell on it for years afterwards, considering how it changed our lives and wondering why it happened, how it could have been different and so on. Discovering other people who share this experience can be powerful: they seem uniquely 1333
Solomon et alii 2015:107.
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placed to understand us in a way that others simply can’t. In fact, we might go so far as to say that people have no right to comment if they haven’t been through what we have been through. Ritual is able to work with these feelings – provoking them as part of an intense experience of bonding with a group. -...-How does any of this relate to rituals? Well, we think dysphoric rituals are a bit like coming under fire in a warzone, except that they are more powerfully bonding, partly because they cannot be explained in any simple causal way. The range of interpretations that one can place on a painful or unpleasant ritual is inexhaustible: it sucks you into an interpretive vortex. In fact, our lab experiments suggest that one’s sense of a ritual’s significance actually increases over time, rather than decaying. (Whitehouse 2012: no page, emphasis added). When people "go through things together," they will often be synchronized right down to primal sighs of despair or shouts of joy. (Boothman 2000:77). Becker noted, this charismatic individual typically performs a striking initiatory act that shines a magnifying light on him, makes him seem larger than life, and enthralls followers who wish they had the courage to follow suit (Solomon et alii 2015:87). After thinking about death and doing something creative, you overestimate the extent to which other people share your attitude (Solomon no date: disc2)1334. Amazingly, this [=reciprocity principle] can occur even when the relationship is merely imaginary. In another version of this experiment, the researchers kept the participants anonymous (Chen&Krakovsky 2010:54-55). In a memoir, Christopher Darden describes the hazing he endured as a freshman at San Jose State University -...-To outsiders (men as well as women) this all seems cruel and pointless. But Darden writes, "In some ways, the entire purpose of pledging a fraternity is the initiation." other young men, to open myself up to other people." This last point is perhaps the hardest but also the most important to grasp. Fraternity life, Darden says, forced him to "socialize and compromise. 1334
Jill Carroll connects that state of mind with a trait of fundamentalist thinking (=selective, reactive, millennial militancy). The fundamentalist resorting to violence (=Solomon's “creative act”) appeals to an “higher law”, a “metareligion” that transcends and supersedes the values and societies the fundamentalist opposes. A row of activists spanning the political spectrum (from Breivik to Castro; from Mendès-France to Hitler) denounced the courts in front of which they were summoned as illegitimate on moral high-grounds: the Antigone shtick.
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But the best thing I got out of the fraternity was a group of lifetime friends." Having gone through these ordeals together was the basis for the friendship: These were "the kind of friends I'd never had before, friends who see you at your weakest and most vulnerable." (Tannen 1998:193). The point the present writer makes is the opposite of Drout's. Drout's viewpoint might be rational, and/or might reflect the stance of a more mature, better informed and discerning public; it nevertheless fails to reflect everyday practice as Machiavelli wrote “in the world there is only the rabble”. Political theorist Lippmann described in The Phantom Public (1927) “the public” in terms of “the trampling and the roar of a bewildered herd. “.
Much as the year 2002 had seen presumed Chinese flu epidemics, and 2013 saw the rise of the “new Chinese flu”, so the Contratto Con Gli Italiani was revamped as Berlusconi's new covenant for the 2013 general election:
even when detailed, reliable information is presented, such as the average likelihood of divorce or the exact date of a German invasion, people often look the other way, hanging on to a brighter outlook. -...-Nevertheless, as Weinstein and others have shown, when it comes to our relationships, our health, and our careers, we, too, underestimate possible pitfalls. These expectations will determine our choices and alter the course of our lives.(Sharot 2011:119-120). To show how inescapable human mind's propensities might be, Berlusconi -counting on the meek masses' volatile attention span- presses ahead assuring of his commitment, and claiming people shall sue him, should he win the upcoming election and fail to keep his (many) promises 1335, for he intends to restore 1335
Berlusconi 2013: no page.
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trust (“compiere un gesto simbolico di riappacificazione tra cittadini e Stato” ) between citizens and the State1336 (=reconciliation, covenant etc).
On the same wavelength, a Chinese legend claims that subjects could bring their petitions and grievances to a certain column, still visible today, and the Emperor would adjudicate within the day: the omnipotent patriarch who embodies the horde in fusion watches your every move, yet he's so personable and eager to serve. In post-Soviet Turkmenistan, President-for-life Niyazov ruled until 2006: he proclaimed himself “head of the Turkmen”.
Berlusconi's last propagandistic exploit meanwhile caused a possible uproar, which PDL flatly denies, and opponents magnify. Rows of meek recipients of propagandistic letters -which party PDL sent to solicit voters detailing the party's commitment to reimburse a particular property tax recently introduced in hasteallegedly tried to use such letters to get immediate refunds. The covenant – as most hero journeys- may reserve equal parts of reward and punishment, struggle and delight:”three years of struggle, followed by a thousand years of happiness” was Mao's motto.
While many identify their chance to beat the odds with this, that or another politician and his 'honest promises', others see that chance as Lady Luck, with much the same prospects.
1336
Elezioni 2013:no page.
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And it’s tempting to think you can turn uncertainty into certainty by applying skill to win a game of chance. [that is] a misunderstanding of how chance actually works. It’s true that reds and blacks tend to balance out in the long run—that’s the Law of Large Numbers. But it’s not true that they balance out in a short time. -...-Thus the casino tends to win even in a game without a house edge. What’s more, without a table limit (and with no house edge), the casino would still beat a progressive betting strategy because everybody has a personal limit. You may empty your savings account, max out your credit cards, and pawn your jewelry —but sooner or later you’ll hit your personal limit. The casino, on the other hand, while not infinitely wealthy, is much better capitalized than you are. A few bad bets may wipe you out, but a few players’ big wins won’t wipe the casino out. Able to cope with the swings of uncertainty, the casino always wins in the end: through the Law of Large Numbers, the casino transforms uncertainty into certainty.(Chen&Krakovsky 2010:17-18). It won't escape readers the dire consequences of applying this flawed logic to gambling (I feel this is my lucky day...everybody wins with slot machines over there...); investments (the previous five investment portfolios crashed, but this one's a keeper...); relationships (not all women/men are the same: I feel I met prince/princess charming this time...).
Caroline Myss aptly characterized “the absence of common sense” as the hallmark of having been traumatized:
Our normal affinity for the occasional thrill can make the risktaking sociopath seem all the more charming -...-. Let us take your credit card and fly to Paris tonight. Let us take your savings and start that business that sounds so foolish but, with two minds like ours, could really take off -...-. Let us lose these boring friends of yours and go off somewhere by ourselves. Let us have sex in the elevator. Let us invest your money in this hot tip I just got. Let us laugh at the rules. -...-Let us live a little. Such is the flavor of sociopathic “spontaneity”and risk taking and "charm," and though we may chuckle about the obvious come-ons when we read them, 975
the overall approach has met with noteworthy success time and again (Stout 2005:89). optimism may be so essential to our survival that it is hardwired into our most complex organ, the brain.-...-We wear rose-tinted glasses whether we are eight or eighty. Schoolchildren as young as nine have been reported to express optimistic expectations about their adult lives, and a survey published in 2005 revealed that older adults (ages sixty to eighty) are just as likely to see the glass half full as middle-aged adults (ages thirty-six to fifty-nine) and young adults (ages eighteen to twenty-five). Optimism is prevalent in every age group, race, and socioeconomic status -...-.even after we crash and burn once, twice, thrice, we still believe the next time will be better. Remarriage, as Samuel Johnson described it, is “the triumph of hope over experience.”-...-Almost uniformly, these individuals were idealistic about the longevity of the union ahead of them. Not only did they underestimate the likelihood of their marriage ending in divorce; they also underestimated the range of negative consequences they would encounter should their marriage break up. What if we were to significantly increase people’s awareness of the incidence of divorce? Would their rosy outlook be despoiled? The answer, according to Baker and Emery, is no. They found that taking a course on family law did nothing to diminish the unrealistic optimism of law students engaged to be married. (Sharot 2011:8,10,119, emphasis added). A self-centered belief that we have to be in full control, and that we're entitled to an exemption from the conditions of existence that everyone else has to face -...-. You are going to blame those who didn't grant you the exemption -...-: I was supposed to get special treatment (Richo 2008:01). I’m sure that many of you are unable to get along with your spouses, parents, or children as well as you would like to. You may also admit that the longer you are with them, the harder it seems to get along. (Glasser 1998:27). have you ever wondered why you often make commitments that you deeply regret when the moment to fulfill them arrives? We all do this, of course. We agree to babysit the nephews and nieces next month, and we look forward to that obligation even as we jot it in our diary. Then, when it actually comes time to buy the Happy Meals, set up the Barbie playset, hide the bong, and ignore the fact that the NBA playoffs are on at one o’clock, we wonder what we 976
were thinking when we said yes. Well, here’s what we were thinking: When we said yes we were thinking about babysitting in terms of why instead of how, in terms of causes and consequences instead of execution, and we failed to consider the fact that the detail-free babysitting we were imagining would not be the detailladen babysitting we would ultimately experience. Babysitting next month is “an act of love,” whereas babysitting right now is “an act of lunch,” and expressing affection is spiritually rewarding in a way that buying French fries simply isn’t.(Gilbert 2006:69, emphasis added). The most unexpected finding was that, on aggregate, mothers did not particularly enjoy the time they spent taking care of their children. Norbert Schwartz, one of Kahneman’s coauthors on the article, explains the counterintuitive results of the study: “When people are asked how much they enjoy spending time with their kids they think of all the nice things—reading them a story or going to the zoo. But they don’t take the other times into account, the times when they are trying to do something else and fi nd the kids distracting.”(Ben-Shahar 2007:152). Yet that is what a composite cohort of positive psychologists, makers of inspirational movies, offhand cult leaders and spin-doctors strapped for cash offer with their nods to oaks that lie dormant in every acorn:”a marshal's baton in every soldier's backpack ” as Napoleon often argued to enthrall his soldiers.
Optimism offers people an hyperreal future, whose condensed, abridged and novelized nature clashes with real life, whether one plans to get married, to enter a credit or debt arrangement, to join an investment scheme or an underground political movement. Traumatized people -whether by need, abuse, covetousness etclose their common sense and jump in harm's way.
In a tape from the 1990s, popular investment author Robert Allen hints that it's easy to become “one's own boss”, thus enjoying a “money tree” that grows at 977
home, whose ever sprouting buds pop out one-hundred dollar bills fast and easy:
[ a research participant said]Five years ago, I quit my job and my husband and I took out a second mortgage so I could start my own business. After two years I had to shut down my online clothing store. It was devastating. You always hear about the people who give up everything to follow their dreams and they are always very successful and happy. I’m in debt, in a terrible new job and ashamed that I couldn’t make it work. I got everyone around me excited and involved, then I failed. I’m ashamed of being a failure. (Brown 2007:22). Roughly speaking, losses hurt about twice as much as gains make you feel good. (Thaler 2015:29). Across numerous similar studies, psychologists’ best estimate for the size of loss aversion is about 2.1. In other words, the gain of a particular gamble must be about twice as large as the loss for people to want to take the gamble. -...-Most people can’t stand the thought of losing -...- and will prefer the riskier option.(Hamilton 2016:46,150). People shall keep coming back for more with resilience until their acorn eventually blossoms into a powerful oak; their blacklisted party seizes power; their dollar turns into ten; they get the marshal's baton, deliver the virgin, or any image one might use...
They want to be the Beatles, the Jordans, the Disneys, the Edisons, the Castros who failed all the way to success as they hear over and over (and over) again in the media. People like psychologist J.B. Peterson fan the flame. Men who reject women, stable relationships, kids etc in order to avoid grief, being wiped out in divorce etc are “pathetic weasels” because “the women are telling you what's wrong with you”. Peterson reverses course as he feuds with social justice activists, queers 978
etc: is their outrage not telling Peterson “what's wrong with him”? The opposite happens to apply: “being grandiose” or “simply being right”?
Alternatively, the soldier is killed anonymously on the battlefield: he is buried disfigured in a mass grave; the dollar is lost in the typical financial swindle or market crash none could forestall; government informants run the blacklisted party according to a script intelligence agencies supplied.
Although people like J.B Peterson boast that self-actualization is a function of the responsibilities one willingly takes up, reality delivers a different picture for the overwhelming majority of people who -unlike Peterson- cannot raise tens of thousands of dollars in fast donations online literally overnight as press agents tap dance to get an interview to go on prime-time TV to celebrate free speech and diversity of opinion. The various Zundel, Strugnell, McGowan, MacDonald, Richwine, Zemmour, Faurisson, Churchill weren't as lucky as Peterson.
Relationship expert Gottman claims good marriages are strengthened by “stable couple stories”1337. In societal terms, that means the politician's tax cuts and subsidies are indeed going to come; that the stateless community shall soon have a homeland; that the homeland shall have security promptly; that the previous three investment portfolios crashed, but this one shall yield 20% net return for good.
Too bad for those who embraced “the sacred combat” or “growth 1337
2012:part 8. Just because someone allegedly “made it” doesn't mean you will also. The plural of anecdote is not data. Perhaps someone will pocket a 20% net return on investment, but how many are going to meet with financial ruin in the meantime?
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mindset”: if “the plan” does not “come together”, a thousand come-ons are offered, and one ends up looking like the bumbling idiot one is. 20% net return on your investment portfolio? That sounds like another Ponzi scheme, and one knows how that is going to end. A state for the stateless community? Against international
forces occultes? What if the providential leader is but another informant working for a security agency? Society at large benefits generally, but individuals may just be wiped out. Branden1338 mentions the dysfuctional individual who lives a maladjusted life day-dreaming about possible, up-coming accomplishments:”Sometimes we need a story more than food in order to live. They tell us about who we are, what is possible for us, what we might call upon. ”;”they condemn themselves to chronic psychological fraud”1339.
A WWI British soldier-poet killed in action in 1918 (Wilfred Owen) already summarized it well in Disabled:
He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark, And shivered in his ghastly suit of grey, Legless, sewn short at elbow. -...-In the old times, before he threw away his knees. Now he will never feel again how slim Girls' waists are, or how warm their subtle hands, All of them touch him like some queer disease. -...-One time he liked a blood-smear down his leg, After the matches carried shoulder-high. It was after football, when he'd drunk a peg, He thought he'd better join. He wonders why. Someone had said he'd look a god in kilts. That's why; and maybe, too, to please his Meg, Aye, that was it, to please the giddy jilts DOES it matter?—losing your legs? -...-Does it matter? Losing your sight? There is such splendid work for the blind -...-for they'll know you've fought for your country and no one will worry a bit 1338 1339
2005. Branden 2000.
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(Siegfried Sassoon, Does It Matter, 1918). The shelves of copyright offices overflow with applications from Edison or Beatles clones who alas went nowhere; the 'hearts on fire' posting inflammatory messages online as heralds of blacklisted 'best of all causes' are agents of governmental or minority group agencies running a sting operation as they post under pseudonyms; all that blossoms is a modest shrub, not an oak.
The bumming unwanted child of a Muslim immigrant, a college dropout with a terrific story to tell may end up the next Steve Jobs and die of cancer a billionaire at age 55, or raving incoherently in a flop house about â&#x20AC;&#x153;changeâ&#x20AC;? the world shall never see because he's down and out for good:
When trying to use emotions to drive sharing, remember to pick ones that kindle the fire: select high arousal emotions that drive people to action. On the positive side, excite people or inspire them by showing them how they can make a difference. On the negative side, make people mad, not sad. Make sure the polar bear story gets them fired up. (Berger 2013:63). Legions of hopeful foreigners in 2009 land in Italy by the airplane-load in order to try their luck with the last fabulous 'honest' State lottery, or so tell the media. The lottery is really worth trying: legions of foreigners do are landing, and have been repeatedly sighted (=the sacred power of vision) by countless witnesses. Probably only one airplane landed for that purpose: a publicity campaign German magazine Bild and Air Berlin had orchestrated.
Lotteries are avowedly Italy's third largest industry, with a turnover 981
rising from euro 14,3 billion in 2000 to 80 billion in 2011 1340. Regardless of personal miseries, pathologies and ensuing ills (in 2012 about 2% gamblers, or 800.000 people, are pathological gamblers1341; the percentage rises to about 33% according to studies in 20131342) on the rise ( Italy's Regione Piemonte reports having treated 613 pathological gamblers in 2010, versus 166 in 2005 1343), gambling is an handle the compassionate nanny State eagerly cranks, for the greater good of all, of course; the best of intentions override accidental ill results, or the old divide between teleology and deontology1344.
Not only are lotteries a boon to the great nation's depleted finances, but also generate by ricochet an entire industry to deal with the aftermath: social workers and psychologists to treat compulsive gamblers; policy makers to draft laws, by-laws and counter-laws; advocacy groups to heckle about it; professionals and scientists to 'study' the phenomenon: what a boon for employment and civic effervescence.
The covenant item is but the concrete, engineered manifestation (=an
exemplum) of an underlying, simpler principle:” the story channels our intuition, and lets us understand how things work”1345. This simpler principle is -again- that of oneness; of Chinese fortune cookie wisdom that -in gnostic capsules- gets the Panza 2013: no page. Diecidue 2012: no page. 1342 Press agency AGI -on 20 May 2013- copies research from Brescia Catholic university. 1343 Ibid. 1344 Brown (2013:The Dark Side Of Influence) mentions that motives (good/bad) are what parts an ethical leader from a toxic one, a benefactor from a conman who might be otherwise using the same strategies. Of course, who's to judge what constitutes good or bad? One's mass-murder might be another's “just payback” after all. 1345 Drout 2006:Structures Of Effective Arguments. 1340 1341
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human mind into a sort of trance: your problem is also mine, and my solution can be yours1346.
Saviors and heroes forsake the realm of the high gods to take flesh among humans to share -and thus “solve”- their predicament: Brahma asks Gautama Buddha to teach for the benefit of both gods and men.
In the most popular version, Siddhartha Gautama embraces the ascetic quest upon casually meeting with people who represent old age, sickness, death and spiritual quest. In another version, the gods arrange the meeting to spur Siddhartha on a spiritual journey. In the mainstream version, upon reaching enlightenment, Gautama Buddha harbors doubts about the possibility of imparting such teaching, but Brahma convinces him that the effort is worth it. In another version, of a completely different theological import, the evil Mara tries to dissuade Buddha from teaching such improbable doctrines, but Buddha overcomes the objection.
We listen to the stories that people tell us about themselves, about their day, about their experience with our products. And the best salespeople know it ’ s smart to continue to elicit the story because as the story comes out and as we get involved in it, a dual narrative emerges — one that allows the prospect ’ s story about what they need and your story about what you have to become intertwined. When that combining occurs, the occurrences of sales go up dramatically. (Lakhani 2009:102). We link the idea that we used to do the same thing that they do now with the idea that the secrets we are about to reveal will transform them like they transformed us. Why? Because we are alike.(Lakhani 2008:55). 1346
Lakhani 2010:02.
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Luke has Paul tell the Ephesian elders that he taught them everything he knew (Acts 20:20 - i.e., against Gnostic claims that he had taught the advanced stuff only to the illuminati, as he says pointedly in I Corinthians 2:6f that he did), and calls them "bishops" in 20:28, though translations hide it. Compare 2 Timothy 2:2.(Price 2010b:42). Again, the “revealing a secret” shtick that so many saviors, heroes and founders made their own never ceases to pay dividends. Gautama Buddha also claimed to teach “with an open hand”, not withholding wisdom, but Mahayana Buddhism “discovered secret teachings” Buddha would have preached in heaven, or entrusted to superhuman beings for example. Over the internet swarms of pedlars in disinterested rapture offer 'secrets' able to instantly fix one's monthly income, one's sexual performance, and so forth.
The Catholic Church has for decades leveraged real or presumed partially disclosed “secrets of Fatima” to gain support. So successful was the venture that soon the Virgin Mary started revealing progressive secrets at Medjugorje anew: crowds flocked to witness.
NLP author Lakhani agrees, even if he is only interested in closing one more sale:
He reveals how not long ago he was working long hours in a dead end job and he saw an offer just like this one and he decided to try it out and his life was changed.-...-The fantasy is complete. Buying the package will lead to wealth and wealth leads to gorgeous women who want to have sex with self - made men. (Lakhani 2008:132).
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8 in 10 Americans -...- when we buy stuff, we inhabit alternative realities -...-. When we buy stuff we pretend we are someone else (Carroll 2009). “Revealing a secret” can be the key to business success. Professor of marketing Berger explains:
you’ll notice a small eatery. -...-Walk down a small flight of stairs and you’re in a genuine old hole-in-the-wall hot dog restaurant. -...-But look beyond the gingham tablecloths and hipsters enjoying their dogs. Notice that vintage wooden phone booth tucked into the corner? The one that looks like something Clark Kent might have dashed into to change into Superman? Go ahead, peek inside. You’ll notice an old-school rotary dial phone hanging on the inside of the booth, the type that has a finger wheel with little holes for you to dial each number. Just for kicks, place your finger in the hole under the number 2 (ABC). Dial clockwise until you reach the finger stop, release the wheel, and hold the receiver to your ear. To your astonishment, someone answers. “Do you have a reservation?” a voice asks. A reservation? Yes, a reservation. Of course you don’t have one. What would you even need a reservation for? A phone booth in the corner of a hot dog restaurant? But today is your lucky day, apparently: they can take you. Suddenly, the back of the booth swings open—it’s a secret door!—and you are let into a clandestine bar called, of all things, Please Don’t Tell. -...-Everything about Please Don’t Tell suggests that you’ve been let into a very special secret. You won’t find a sign posted on the street. You won’t find it advertised on billboards or in magazines. And the only entrance is through a semihidden phone booth inside a hot dog diner. Of course, this makes no sense. Don’t marketers preach that blatant advertising and easy access are the cornerstones of a successful business? Please Don’t Tell has never advertised. Yet since opening in 2007 it has been one of the most sought-after drink reservations in New York City. It takes bookings only the day of, and the reservation line opens at 3:00 p.m., sharp. Spots are first-come, firstserved. Callers madly hit redial again and again in the hopes of cutting through the busy signals. By 3:30 all spots are booked. -...-After you’ve paid for your drinks, your server hands you a small business card. All black, almost like the calling card of a psychic or wizard. In red script the card simply says “Please Don’t Tell” and includes a phone number. So while everything else suggests the proprietors want to keep the venue under wraps, at the end of the 985
experience they make sure you have their phone number. Just in case you want to share their secret. (2013:21-22,35). and their sight was restored. Jesus warned them sternly, "See that no one knows about this." (Matthew 9:30). As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus instructed them, "Don't tell anyone what you have seen, until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead." (Matthew 17:9). Many readers may recognize above many gimmicks associated with popular culture favorites such as Mission Impossible, UFO, James Bond or Matrix movies. An inconspicuous facade ( a film studio specialized in sci-fi for UFO; phones and computers in the Matrix movies...) or innocent activity (like playing video games over the phone in 1983 sci-fi movie Wargames) hurls one into a parallel world made of nuclear holocaust drama enacted by eerie Men in Black, or astronauts flying to a Moon base.
In mythology, hunter Acteon by happenstance catches sight of goddess Diana as she bathes. This irks the virgin goddess, who curses Acteon. Acteon is then torn to pieces by his own dogs after the curse causes him to turn into a deer 1347. In 1998 Mercury Rising, branches of the U.S secret service target an autistic child for elimination after he casually decodes top-secret government cyphers.
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Perhaps a formulaic designation for the fate of a god's lover. Gilgamesh addresses thus the great goddess Ishtar, associated -just like Parvati- with the lion:”You loved the shepherd-...-You struck him and turned him into a wolf, so his own shepherd boys drive him away, and his dogs take bites at his thighs ” (The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic, George trans.). In the Homeric Hymn To Aphrodite, Anchises is terrified as he discovers he just had sexual congress with Aphrodite:”Please, take pity! I know that no man is full of life, able, if he sleeps with immortal goddesses.”. He was answered by the daughter of Zeus, Aphrodite:“Anchises, most glorious of mortal humans! Take heart, and do not be too afraid in your phrenes [mind]. You should have no fear of that I would do any kind of bad thing to you, or that any of the the other blessed ones would. For you are philos [a friend] indeed to the gods. ”. (Nagy trans.).
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â&#x20AC;&#x153;Revealing a secretâ&#x20AC;? may take the form of recovering long lost (hidden, withheld...) teachings or wisdom: the Veda for Aurobindo are the recapitulation -just as phylogenetic theories1348 of the time predicted- of immemorial knowledge a bygone age had produced. Even Jesus hinted at lost teachings of his to be gradually recovered:
I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come (John 16:11-14). Mahayana Buddhism rests upon teachings Gautama Buddha supposedly delivered either in heaven, or to some magical beings. In Tibetan Buddhism, Padma Sambhava's teachings have to be gradually recovered; Tibetan Buddhism in fact rests upon a chain of successive initiations to more or less elusive secrets. Mormon founder Smith claimed to have 'recovered' (and translated) a purportedly long-lost
Book Of Abraham, considered by some a mistranslation of unrelated Egyptian funerary papyri.
The 'oral Torah' (Misnah and Talmud, coalescing around the II to IV century CE) constitutes for Jews a composite mixture of recovered instructions Moses is supposed to have received on mount Sinai, and of casuistry involving noted rabbis. The NSDAP regime financed expeditions to recover the purported 'secrets' 1348
Before birth, human embryos recapitulate (=go through) all stages of evolution, culminating with White (Aryan) phenotypes. That's how Down syndrome people used to be called Mongoloids. According to Down -who framed the syndrome- that group of people -like all groups- ascended only to a given level, hence the validation of the time's racial or ethno-cultural hierarchies. Various categories of defectives (=faulty=dysgenic genes) and throwbacks also failed to climb the evolutionary ladder to the top, in perfect Darwinian fashion.
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mythological Aryan ancestors had hidden somewhere.
Various popular culture characters claim they received “secret teachings”, bequeathals, and so forth, by living legends in their field, however obscure that might sound to outsiders: online strength coach Furey and wrestling legend Karl Gotch; mythicist Jordan Maxwell and fabled Masonic master and occultist M.P. Hall; director George Lucas and mythologist Joseph Campbell 1349. Disputed stories arose regarding the discipleship between Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris; Vince Gironda1350 and Arnold Schwarzenegger; Freud and Jung.
The XIV Dalai Lama declared how Communist chairman Mao appeared to him “as a father and he himself considered me as a son. ”1351. The highest Tibetan lama also addressed Mao thus:”O! Chairman Mao! Your brilliance and deeds are like those of Brahma and Mahasammata, creators of the world.”.
Kriya Yoga Kriyananda (J.D. Walters, 1926-2013) claims to have received main lineage transmission from noted Indian guru Yogananda, which other Kriya Yoga groups vehemently dispute claiming Walters -who meanwhile built a Church with several centers worldwide- was only a minor disciple of Yogananda with no important role to play:”Implied transfers of power occur when people make decisions about you based on the company you keep and the organizations you
1349
Lucas at some point referred on tape to Campbell as a “mentor”. Legendary celebrity strength trainer known as Iron Guru (1917-97); he was a bodybuilder, and the owner of “Vince's Gym” from 1948 to 1995. 1351 Cit. in The Hindu, June 29, 2012. 1350
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belong to.”1352: the Dale Carnegie Organization concurs1353.
Of the Brahmins living in Mithila, the Brahmin Brahmàyu is the wealthiest, the most learned in the Vedas, out of the aged, the most old, and the most famous. He desires to see good Gotama,'.-...When this was said, the Brahmin Brahmàyu, got up from his seat, arranged the shawl on one shoulder, put his head at the feet, worshipped the Blessed One, kissed the feet, and stroked them with the hands -...-Then that gathering was surprised and said, `The power of the recluse is wonderful. The [Vedic master] Brahmin Brahmàyu, so famous and well-known should show this kind of reverence and humility [in the presence of Gautama Buddha] (Buddhist Brahmayu Sutta). Jordan Maxwell aficionados show pictures of Maxwell with random celebrities (Shirley MacLaine; George Lucas; Dan Aykroyd...). All Maxwell might have done is to pay a fee in order to go on some “studio tour” to meet the occasional celebrity as many routinely do, but devotees take it to mean he “really is who he says he is”, namely a chief insider who blows the whistle about what goes on behind society's curtain.
A former president like Bill Clinton is still President Clinton regardless of what he is doing, even if it is not all that presidential. A former general like Colin Powell is always General Powell, except of course when he is Secretary of State Powell, former and forever. These examples illustrate what sociologists call person-role merger (Peterson 2013:123-124). To oscillate between some mythical call (a vision; a training in the special forces; meeting outer space beings...) and endorsement by household names is quite common not only among MLM gurus and online pundits wishing to close a
1352 1353
Lakhani 2005:44. 2005: disc 2.
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sale or to fill a conference room:
Paul, an apostle--sent not from men nor by a man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead -...-For I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. -...-In fact, James, Peter, and John, who were known as pillars of the church, recognized the gift God had given me, and they accepted Barnabas and me as their co-workers. They encouraged us to keep preaching to the Gentiles, while they continued their work with the Jews. (Galatians 1:1,11-12;2:9). Such passing of the patriarchal mantle from an hallowed legend of the past to a younger striver new on the block is often disputed on various grounds.
Waffen SS General â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and Belgian Fascist leader- Leon Degrelle claimed Hitler once confided in him Hitler wished he had a son like Degrelle, one of the Third Reich's most decorated soldiers. Jesus was transfigured on the mount in the company of Moses and Elijah; Mohamed was spirited away to Jerusalem to pray with the great prophets of Judaism, and to converse with god in heaven.
In anthropology and philology, it was once posited 'dark ages' came about as peoples in Greece on the cusp between the Bronze and Iron age 'backslid' culturally as they 'lost' the ability to write after the Minoan civilization's collapse. It is nowadays common parlance to accept how most areas in Egypt or Mesopotamia did not experience such 'fall': cuneiform and hieroglyphic scripts never disappeared.
Areas of Asia Minor, in the Levant and the Greek world experienced a period of illiteracy, however, whence the 'dark ages' and subsequent 'recovery'
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(=recapture mytheme) thesis: an alphabet of Phoenician origin appeared around 1.000 BCE.
Such
catastrophe-and-recovery
dynamics
used
to
be
popular
-Lamarckism as one prominent example- in the XIX century and early XX century. Revealing -or recovering- a secret may come in all sorts of shapes: this canned food brand pledges to deliver 'grandma quality' comfort food according to 'secret recipes'...
A professional storyteller by trade, Harvey1354 urges public speakers to “Ask questions, but be specific to your audience's [situation], and be specific about how you want your audience to answer”. Literary, patterned dialogues between Saints and their retinue; or taped, patterned dialogue between politicians and the crowd all serve that purpose:
A sense of common identity, brought about through storytelling, has enabled speakers and writers for many centuries to establish Ethos in their rhetoric. Through strategic application of the fable's metaphor and maxim, virtually any message can be persuasively conveyed. (Bonniksen 2006:39). Try to make your presentation interactive—get the person or audience to ask or answer questions. -...-To create curiosity ask good questions; directly question assumptions and beliefs. Remember that when people are curious change is possible. (Lakhani 2005:30,117). Swarms of enraptured, seemingly disinterested pedlars materialize on the earthly plane to bask in one's pain, and to offer ranges of solutions: a top ranking on
1354
2013: Invitation To The Audience-Mindset.
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search engines; quick-fixes able to make one's ten dollars grow a hundredfold overnight as fast as this guy's sexual organ, or the other guy's receding hairline:”[that's] symptomatic of our cultural fears. We don’t want to be uncomfortable. We want a quick and dirty “how-to” list for happiness.”1355.
It is increasingly difficult to part 'great men' (re)writing history from bumbling pedlars eager to close a sale. In a radio commercial, humming before a concert takes the form of the first part of a punchline associated with this Italian brand: the crowd as one finishes the punchline as if it were responding to a church ritual. Was it espresso coffee? Malt liquor, perchance? This time it was cured pork meats.
Alternatively, it might be politicians promising drastic tax cuts/bonuses along with massive subsidies and investments; or promising to decapitate -in the name of austerity- the inefficient heads of the State and para-state hydra, yet without any significant lay offs or other general discomfort, for the precious human soul won't want any artificial kin member to wriggle in pain experiencing a lay off. It is the basic blueprint of myth with its journeys, trials, reversals and ultimate boons.
Of course, at the end of the day, it is possible the only difference may subsist in the pedlar's bank account, and not in this guy's advancing hairline, that guy's weight loss, or a third's net income, sex appeal or otherwise. Is this just a 1355
Brown 2010:32.
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biased personal opinion? Professor of Communications Cecil Kramer from a Christian University advises that 1356 speech making -or persuasion in general- is eminently a one-way process (=the speaker wants to convince the audience), yet has to be engineered to look like a two-way process (=speaker and audience on equal footing).
Social psychology in fact teaches that better results are garnered if the target (audience, prospective buyer/voter...) is left under the impression of acting under one's free will. Also, the “liking” principle -in Cialdini's list, for exampleapplies (=one tends to like more people who like one in return=birds of a feather flock together). All pedlars and vendors know how to capitalize on apparently insignificant clues to pitch sales, hence they instantly become outdoor freaks with the person they (more or less correctly) label an outdoor lover; religious with the religionist, and so forth: code-switching in a state of the art.
After an electoral defeat, Berlusconi sulked pondering the meaning of life at a friend's funeral. After announcing another tax increase, Berlusconi sulked, then announced he had “sudato sangue” (sweat blood) as Jesus did 1357. Time later, the minister of a different government (Fornero on 4 December 2011) -announcing another rash tax increase - couldn't finish her phrase because of the emotional agony: she wept during a press conference parading the psychological distress the resolution caused policy makers. 1356 1357
Kramer no date: Speech Making. “And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. “ (Luke 22:4).
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Alessandro Pavolini, the quaint writer, sportsman and later leader of the maximalist Partito Fascista Repubblicano (Republican Fascist Party, 1943-5) -who dreamt of applying Trotsky's model of political party as revolutionary army through his infamous Brigate Nere- once confided in his brother how he knew that at the end of his path he foresaw the firing squad. Every savior-hero has his sulks (for example, Hercules at the crossroad was pondering the meaning of life) and reversals of fortune.
Of course that is at odds with the picture tabloids report of Berlusconi possibly awash in endless sexual scandals; and of politicians in general who pay lip service to the toiling community, anoint on paper the common man as (perfunctory) sovereign, but on public money live lives that compete with those of soccer players, and rock stars for tabloids' attention, and hop from corruption to embezzlement and sexual scandals.
The racketeering, corruption and embezzlement angle may also be spiced up with the pathetic imagery of prominent politicians – such as Italian
regione Lombardia's Zambetti scandal- who “ weep and shit their pants” (“Si è messo a piangere, si è cagato sotto”1358) when dealing with boss mafiosi who had them elected in the first place, thus triggering a vicious circle of omertà, exchange of favors and preferential treatments under threat of blackmail.
In mid-2013, the Zambetti trial(s) have to start anew because of some 1358
Lagattola 2012: no page.
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bureaucratic error: butterfly effect, indeed. Invisible hands at work, or sweet mommies and daddies -now possibly shivering in emotional agony fearing retribution, and hoping for reconciliation- in the byzantine judicial bureaucracy who make mistakes as we all do? Readers shall come to their own conclusions.
If Roman or Byzantine Emperors employed slaves and eunuchs personally loyal to them in the State apparatus, is today's political class mostly comprising of retainers linked to mafia or other organized racket? When one adds organized industrial cartels, labor unions, minority lobbies, religious posses, militias and suchlike, readers shall come to individual conclusions about the extent, nature and intensity of the relationship at hand.
The meek taxpayer is then called to fund the collapsing budgets of a plethora of administrative divisions, sub-divisions, and the hydra of countless public and semi-public companies and agencies -and contractors on their payroll- put in place to realize eerie utopian schemes culled from long-dead hacks. For example, a boom in -to name just one- the packaging industry (=more jobs, taxes and services) in recent decades prompted the establishment of a series of environmental agencies and committees (=more jobs, taxes and services) to deal with side effects: politicians hail the best of intentions.
Some propose drastic cuts in the maze of public and para-public pseudocompanies (agencies, authorities...), yet the city of Rome alone employs (directly and/or indirectly) 62.000 people and â&#x20AC;&#x201C; still according to some estimates- there are 995
about 4.0001359 such partecipate semi-public companies and the like in Italy1360.
In one of those admirable mixtures of public and private enterprises, a private firm in charge of exacting tributes on behalf of Italian local communities embezzled 100 million euros1361. It took years for the all-seeing eye of fiscal and regulatory agencies -and the hydra of regulatory and overseeing bodies- to realize the private collector wasn't passing the revenue onto its public patrons after all. The same dilettante (or criminal) handling of public affairs trickles down the administrative chain of the Belle Epoque nation-State Moloch: State, Regions, Provinces, City Halls...
According to news, the Italian Ministry Of Defense pays euro 17 for each roll of cleaning paper (or several times the current supermarket price): â&#x20AC;&#x153;expensive technical suppliesâ&#x20AC;? retorts the army, which disclaims any wrongdoing 1362. In Sicily, part of euro 295 million State viaduct project collapses like paper-mache six days after the official opening1363. Powerless administrators shiver in angst as politicians thunder against such shame promising draconian countermeasures to curb such malpractice soon.
Italian newspapers nowadays report a galaxy of mixed public-private
1359
As usual, figures vary with each source considering the question. Because of the iffy, commodious and political nature of the contention, the number of partecipate may increase -or decrease- exponentially according to the shifting goalposts of those who keep the count. This figure is a mid-range estimate. 1360 La Bomba...2012:3. 1361 Silvestri 2012: no page. 1362 TgCom24, January 5, 2015 1363 ANSA, January 5, 2015.
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enterprises co-owned by administrative divisions Regioni that have something in common: being on the verge of financial collapse, and serving as fostering ground for tens of thousands of disguised political appointments (as directors, consultants, overseers, councilmen, employees...) ranging from bottom-feeding workers paid statutory wages (=typically linked to units/hours of work as recorded on timecards) to executives paid princely salaries (=typically paid according to the position one occupies, not according to units/hours of work).
Big time cities or administrations are not the only ones to mill financial black holes serving as spoils to divide among political honchos, and their retainers.
Giornale Di Arona1364 informs that a partecipata owned by a few small townships has totaled losses amounting to euro 333.000 between 2009 and 2012. This public sector company had been inactive for several years, yet it had remained a financial black hole in spite of State laws mandating the cessation of such legal entities.
The magic show of both the 'free press', and the maze of State and local due diligence agencies had failed to notice: daddies and mommies (=diminutives that prompt one to melt in sentimental rapture) might lose their job after all. If irresponsible Belle Epoque capitalism multiplied the venues it could (ab)use to increase its own weight and profit in society, so did the plethora of welfare State venues, joint-ventures, schemes and agencies in charge of leveling society in the name of foolish Robin Hood utopias culled from long-dead hacks.
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January 3, 2014:31.
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Who sits comfortably atop the welfare State apparatus on its Robin Hood crusades are not the lionized pariahs, but a new breed of lavishly paid bureaucrats, kleptocrats and professional politicians as idle, ideological and fraught with double dealing, manipulation and inconsistency as any berated Victorian capitalist establishment with its superstructure of affable clergymen with dundrearies, hedonistic monarchies, and their commodious social gospel.
Can the warm human soul contemplate drastic cuts without shivering in angst alongside all those artificial kin members who -one way or another- risk losing their job, income or hope? Do the reasons of all the traveling freak show of common humanity in affected distress on display all over the media not sound convincing? Can people look inside, and say extra taxes are not well-worth bearing in the perspective of the (social) sacrament of (collective) reconciliation? Romans performed a ceremony of preventive reconciliation in order to offer sanctuary to -thus insuring the benevolence of- the gods of cities they were about to attack.
The nature, extent and final cost of whichever transgression that might have been committed becomes mere trifle. Beautiful souls do not push their artificial kin group fellows over the brink to later repent. The precious human soul wants only what's good. That's what almighty ones routinely send savior-heroes to remind us about:
The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Look! All these years Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. 998
Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’ “‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ ( Luke 15:28-32). ”[Jesus said] If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, 'I repent,' forgive him ” (Luke 17:4). 'We all stood and looked at him. We were looking at that slender neck and those poor little ears, that I had seen bleeding one day, and that large jacket, which he wore with the sleeves turned back, and those two little sickly arms, which had been raised so many times to save his face from a beating. Oh, at that moment I would have thrown at his feet all my toys and all my books; I would have taken the last piece of bread from my mouth and given it to him; I would have undressed myself to clothe him; I would have fallen upon my knees to kiss him. (De Amicis 1918:71). Readers may compare the sloth and torpor in handling certain cases with the hyperactive speed in handling others: divine paradoxes of wonderful human soul's fleeting priorities. Le Monde publishes (5 June 2009) that police summoned a woman guilty of posting a supposedly anonymous comment on the internet calling French State minister Morano a liar.
In 2013 “The TV interview is part of a public relations push, including a two-day, hand-shaking tour by Hollande in southeast France this month. The trip backfired when hecklers asked what had become of campaign pledges and one was carted off by police. ”1365. Readers may also ponder the frantic coverage and instant deployment of means in case of real or presumed '...ist' incidents.
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Bremer 2013, emphasis added: no page.
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It turns out it is not only about hot shots, elected officials and other personalities up the mass-democracy's power chain. It is often about the endless retinue of faceless drones, worldly satraps, State nabobs, anonymous handmaids, dissolute minions, chauffeurs, bouncers and members of this, that or another staff, under-staff or para-staff accompanying the honorable excellencies:
She described a wake of destruction left by the commander-in-chief’s bodyguards, including the Counter Assault and Counter Sniper Teams, the same elite groups that got into trouble in Colombia. Antique furniture was destroyed, expensive "locally harvested" wide pine flooring was ruined and beer and liquor bottles were scattered throughout the property after agents stayed in the house, one of several stately million-dollar Victorians with pastel-painted wood shingles and wraparound porches of the exclusive East Chop section of Oak Bluffs. -...- “They left ammo behind, they told me things they shouldn’t have been telling me, things they shouldn’t be telling anyone about the details about how they protect the president. They let us hold their weapons, see all their stuff, they had huge house parties,” said the man, who spoke to FoxNews.com with his wife on the condition they not be named. -...- Glen Caldwell, the general manager of Offshore Ale in Oak Bluffs, told FoxNews.com about an incident last summer when one of his staff found a Secret Service badge on the floor after the bar had closed at the end of the night. The commission book also included a list of emergency phone numbers -two 1-800 Secret Service numbers, a Department of Homeland Security ID card. -...- Yet despite the myriad incidents, neither local law enforcement nor Secret Service officials in Washington would acknowledge a problem with the agents’ behavior on Martha’s Vineyard. -...- Several locals said they were disturbed the agents seemed to treat the president’s vacation as their own, even though the agents were on duty. Among the complaints are that some agents used their status to skip out on bar tabs, or using restricted parking areas while out boozing it up at local bars. -...- “Boys will be boys,” said Peter Martell, owner of the Wesley Hotel in Oak Bluffs, which has hosted Secret Service since Bill Clinton first vacationed on Martha’s Vineyard in 1993. -...- They work their butts off, these guys, and they do a hell of a job. If they want to have a little fun here, what’s the harm?” Martell said. (Winter 2012: no page).
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