esoterica

^maybe that should've gone in exoterica

ahaha

love how the hebrew cube looms inscrutably above it all

http://www.nybooks.com/media/img/blogimages/chardin_jpg_600x780_q85.jpg

http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2015/apr/18/guts-spring/

Three flayed squirrels on the road enact Francis Bacon’s Three Studies for a Crucifixion.

In the ancient world, it was the liver, with its mysterious folds and lesions, that was believed to hold the most information. “For the king of Babylon stood at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use divination: he made his arrows bright, he consulted with images, he looked in the liver” (Ezekiel 21:21).

The melting snow-bank slowly yields its hoard: a Sunday Times, buried by the snowplow in January; a flattened can of Red Bull; an opossum’s corkscrew tail.

On the first day of spring, I find a notice in the mailbox: time for my routine colonoscopy. I make an appointment to have my entrails read.

“Gut it out,” we say. This chipmunk did, all across the driveway.

My dog circles the dispersed feathers. It would take a forensics expert to divine what happened to this pigeon.

“I thought you were writing about divination,” my friend said. “What’s with all the road kill?” “Well,” I answered, “you don’t expect me to sacrifice animals myself, do you?”

Splanchna (singular splanchnon) are the innards, the general collection of heart, liver, lungs, gallbladder, and attendant blood vessels. English translations of splanchna depend on context. The lexicon reaches for words like “entrails” (in contexts of divination) and “bowels” (in contexts of emotion). “Feeling,” “mood,” “temper,” or “mind” often seem more apt. Splanchna feel. They feel anxiety, fear, grief, and sometimes love and desire. In the New Testament, splanchnizomai is “I feel pity.” Splanchna soften in worry. The bully Menelaus “will soften his splanchna” when his daughter is at risk. But in vehement feeling they are hot and taut. A young man “has a stretched splanchnon and says foolish things.”

How physical is this word? Sometimes the physicality seems obvious. When the Erinyes have chased Orestes, their splanchnon “pants with many labors.” But sometimes it is less obvious. The word can read like “character.” It is unfair, for instance, to dislike someone before you “clearly learn their splanchnon.”

Rather than prejudge this word’s concreteness or abstraction, let us watch how the word behaves and what ideas it attracts to its neighborhood. Splanchna contain feeling, but also hide it. One may conceal feeling “under one’s splanchna.” The very inner thing that must be learned, if we want to know people, masks their feeling. Tragedy, especially Euripides, gives voice to a Greek sense of lack here. There is no “clear proof” by which to understand phrenes (which I take, for the moment, to mean “mind”). If good people lived twice, then, “it would be possible to know the bad, the good.” External judgment is confusing. “There is no clear boundary set by the gods between the good and bad.” One cannot “judge” people by a “clear” outside token, there is no “accurate” test of their value.

This thought is voiced increasingly through the fifth century. Only being with people helps us judge them. We cannot see into another’s splanchna. Would it were possible, says a fifth-century drinking-song,

to see what sort of man each person is,
divide up (dielonta) his breast
and look at his mind (nous), then close it again,
and think with an undeceiving mind (phren)
that he’s your friend.

The Byzantine scholar Eustathius aligned this song with an Aesopic fable that blamed Prometheus for placing pulai, “gates,” in the human breast. He interprets the splanchna here as gates of thought and feeling, gates we close against outsiders. We are doubly masked. Our innards in themselves are hard to see, and they mask the feelings they contain. Perhaps these are two ways of saying the same thing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gombe_Chimpanzee_War

http://www1.ind.ku.dk/complexLearning/zachary1977.pdf

http://i58.tinypic.com/2mdnfr6.png

O my friends, there is no friend.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e2/Prado_-_Los_Desastres_de_la_Guerra_-_No._03_-_Lo_mismo.jpg

homo homini lupus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xQyQnXrLb0

When the Kachinas entered the kiva without masks, I had a great surprise. They were not spirits, but human beings. I recognized nearly every one of them and felt very unhappy, because I had been told all my life that the Kachinas were gods. I was especially shocked and angry when I saw all my uncles, fathers, and clan brothers dancing as kachinas. I felt the worst when I saw my own father— and whenever he glanced at me I turned my face away. When the dances were over the head man told us with a stern face that we knew who the Kachinas really were and that if we ever talked about this to uninitiated children we would get a thrashing even worse than the one we had received the night before.

http://www.colorado.edu/ReligiousStudies/files/Sam%20Gill/DISENCHANTMENT.pdf

http://www.singingdesert.com/rock-art-images/Hopi-kachina-Powamu.jpg

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3945/15356846688_9703f9263f_b.jpg

http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/hopi-drawings-of-kachinas/

Public domain so good. Do you know the third world force field thread?

Do you know the third world force field thread?

thank you for that revive; <3 it

http://www.class.uh.edu/classes/Arth1380/ArtConceptPages/HomerDeChirico/EnigmaOfTheOrace.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cF8A37bjU1M/UnNh3wthZAI/AAAAAAAAk9U/Q6s50l6Ds1g/s1600/deus-absconditus+%281%29.jpg

http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/blogs/the_vault/2015/05/13/MedicinalPlants.jpg.CROP.original-original.jpg

https://users.polisci.wisc.edu/avramenko/Methods/Derrida_PlatosPharmacy.pdf

http://faculty.arts.ubc.ca/pmahon/pharmakon.html

http://www.drugabuseinscripture.co.uk/assets/images/Manual_Greek_Lexicon_of_the_New_Testament.-_p.466._Abbott-Smith._Third_Ed._1937_Courtesy_T-T_Clark-.jpg

http://www.drugabuseinscripture.co.uk/assets/images/autogen/Oxford-Hebrew-Lexicon--B.D.B--p.jpg

http://www.drugabuseinscripture.co.uk/assets/images/Gesenius_Hebrew_Lex_-Rosh-__Public_domain.jpg

i had a long chat the other day about whether it's ok to get your palm read ironically bc maybe it doesn't count as sorcery if you don't believe it's real

haha what was the verdict?

(btw that problem reminds me of essay by psychoanalyst octave mannoni--

http://ideiaeideologia.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Mannoni-I-know-very-well.pdf

-- which relates to post on kachinas above. haven't read it in a long time, but iirc idea is that psychoanalytic concept of Verleugnung or disavowal ("i know very well, but all the same...") is underlying structure of fetishism, some religious practices, and (as zizek would have it) ideology in general

imo even total disbeliever in fortune telling, as i am, likely has something like this going on, if only subconsciously, when they engage in the fortune telling ritual)

the following ideas were posited:
a. fortune telling acc to the torah is probably true, and the law against consulting it is because the fate of Jews comes from a level above that of Mazel (um, astrology maybe?), so using fortune telling that you don't believe is real might not be covered under those laws.
b. however, it could be to consult a fortune teller invites in a level of intervention that breaks yr bond to this higher-than-mazel level of divine providence and should not be risked, even if meant trivially
c. we discussed the scenario of if you went to get your fortune told and were told something horrible, like that you'd die, do you not believe enough that it wouldn't on any level penetrate your consciousness?
d. whether fortune tellers ever actually tell clients that they're going to die bc that sounds very bad for business

interesting! essay i linked relates to c.

"do you not believe enough" is the catch: i.e. do you know very well (it's not true) enough" that you're not on any level thinking "but all the same..."

yeah this is i feel like a very common idk if dialectic is the word but phenomenology in the religious jewish community. the talmud says about the evil eye that it can only bother you if you think about it, but if you don't, it can't. maimonidies goes much further and denies any kind of supernatural reality. i feel like jews split the difference and essentially hold a position of 'i don't believe in it' but also 'it's best not to think too much about it,' which kinda makes sense i feel like in that often you can give power to fictional constructs by devoting your attention to them, ie it is your attentiveness + obsession that ends up eating you alive. it's not the pure kind of disbelief of atheism which proves it doesn't believe by mocking the object of disbelief. it's more like some phenomenon of belief by way of disbelief.

again that is v interesting!

makes me wonder if freud's complex theorizing re different forms of negation/ denial (one of which is disavowal), different relations of denial to the negated (i.e. various failures of repression, return of the repressed) is related to his familiarity with talmudic/ jewish treatments of analogous issue

“phenomenon of belief by way of disbelief” seems very psychoanalytic!

I took a class in undergrad at YU called German Jewish Philosophers which argued that the dialectics that show up with Freud, Benjamin, Marx etc are products of their doubled identities in Western society both insiders and outsiders and experiencing both simultaneously. Interesting to contrast that to Levinas and Derrida who maybe reflect a more French Jewish sensibility?

find that plausible, & promising to think about, have read v little taking that tack

i'm only a few pages in but that Mannoni so far is great

yeah, reread it myself last night

read in passing once long ago, but that schema (‘i know well, but all the same’) really struck & has stuck with me

(after reread, should correct reference above to ‘repression’; thing about many though not all examples is it’s ’conscious’, ambivalent (dis)avowal)

also interesting distinctions of knowledge/ belief / faith, reminds me of some points you made in atheism thread

yr posts yesterday also connect with thinking/ reading of 'the prophets’— which, after interruptions & delays, do plan on finishing soon :) & will report

edit to: relatively 'conscious'

mordy is it yr bday today?

if so, happy birthday!

My dear son,

It was in the seventh year of your age that the spirit of God began to move you to learning. I would say the spirit of God speaketh to you: “Read in My book; there will be opened to thee sources of knowledge and of the intellect.” It is the book of Books; it is the well that wise men have digged and from which lawgivers have drawn the waters of their knowledge.

Though hast seen in this Book the vision of the Almighty, thou hast heard willingly, thou hast done and hast tried to fly high upon the wings of the Holy Spirit. Since then I have preserved the same Bible. Now, on your thirty-fifth birthday I have brought it out from its retirement and I send it to you as a token of love from your old father.

my gregorian birthday is tomorrow - thank you for the well wishes. my hebrew birthday is the 27th of iyar which this year fell on May 16th. i had a farbrengen at synagogue to celebrate. it's traditional at a birthday farbrengen to make a hachlata - essentially a 'resolution.' i resolved to finish tractate yoma by my next birthday (i had already committed to finishing the first half by yud alef nissan in honor of the rebbe's birthday, so this committed me to doing the other half as well). in honor, i will share some of what i learnt Shavuot night (when it is customary for some to stay up all night learning) (i added the bold to emphasize what i think the big takeaway is):

Why was the first Sanctuary destroyed? Because of three [evil] things which prevailed there: idolatry, immorality, bloodshed.

Idolatry, as it is written: For the bed is too short for a man to stretch himself and the covering too narrow when he gathereth himself up. What is the meaning of ‘For the bed is too short for a man to stretch himself’? R. Jonathan said: It is: This bed is too short for two neighbours to stretch themselves. And [what is the meaning of] ‘the covering too narrow when he
gathereth himself up’? — R. Samuel b. Nahmani said: When R. Jonathan [in his reading] came to this passage, he would cry and say: To Him, concerning Whom it is written, He gathereth the waters of the sea together like a heap, the cover became too narrow!

Immorality [prevailed] as it is written: Moreover the Lord said: Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched-forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and make a tinkling with their feet. ‘Because the daughters of Zion are haughty’, i.e., they used to walk with proud carriage. ‘And wanton eyes’ i.e., they filled their eyes with kohl. ‘Walking and mincing as they go’, i.e. , they used to walk with the heel touching the toe. ‘And make a tinkling with their feet’, R. Isaac said: They would take myrrh and balsam and place it in their shoes and when they came near the young men of Israel they would kick, causing the balsam to squirt at them and would thus cause the evil desire to enter them like an adder's poison.

Bloodshed [prevailed] as it is written: Moreover Manaseh shed innocent blood very much, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another. They were wicked, but they placed their trust in the Holy One, blessed be He. For it is written, The heads thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money; yet will they lean upon the Lord and say ‘Is not the Lord in the midst of us? No evil shall come upon us’.

Therefore the Holy One, blessed be He, brought them three evil decrees as against the three evils which were their own: Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps and the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest.

But why was the second Sanctuary destroyed, seeing that in its time they were occupying themselves with Torah, [observance of] precepts, and the practice of charity? Because therein prevailed hatred without cause. That teaches you that groundless hatred is considered as of even gravity with the three sins of idolatry, immorality, and bloodshed together. And [during the time of] the first Sanctuary did no groundless hatred prevail? Surely it is written: "They are thrust down to the sword with my people; smite therefore upon my thigh," and R' Eleazar said: This refers to people who eat and drink together and then thrust each other through with the daggers of their tongue!

hapy birthday from the future

thank you for sharing that, mordy

what you bolded is something like principle i try to practice myself

love the idea of the farbrengen! please forgive my ignorance— what do you mean by “finish tractate yoma,” does it involve more than reading & studying a text by yourself?

Generally (though not always) Talmud is learnt w a partner ("chavrusa") but otherwise u r right: finishing means reading & studying and upon completion it is customary to make a celebratory completion party (a "siyum") to honor the accomplishment

I. Lit., that which grows forth; esp. of human beings, offspring, progeny, child, descendant; and collect., descendants, race, progeny, posterity (mostly poet.; “but cf.: nec fugerim dicere prolem, aut subolem aut effari, etc.,” Cic. de Or. 3, 38, 153; cf. Quint. 8, 3, 26, and v. in the foll. the passages from Cic.; syn. progenies). —Poet.: “propagando procudere prolem,” to bring forth, produce children, Lucr. 5, 856: “prolem est enixa gemellam,” Ov. M. 9, 452: “laudantur simili prole puerperae,” Hor. C. 4, 5, 23; id. C. S. 19: “di Romulae genti date remque prolemque,” id. ib. 47: “et pulchrā faciat te prole parentem,” Verg. A. 1, 75: “felix prole parens,” Val. Fl. 5, 384: “tua postuma proles,” Verg. A. 6, 763: ferrea proles, the iron race, Poët. ap. Cic. N. D. 2, 63, 159: “aënea,” Ov. M. 1, 125: “argentea,” id. ib. 1, 114: “proles Ausonia,” the Ausonian race, Verg. A. 4, 236: “dic mihi, Teucrorum proles,” Juv. 8, 56.—In prose: “praeclara Brutorum atque Aemiliorum proles,” Sall. H. 1, 41, 2 Dietsch; Cic. Rep. 2, 22, 40: “proles illa futurorum hominum,” race, id. ib. 6, 21, 23.—Of individuals (poet.): “Ulixi,” i. e. Telemachus, Hor. Ep. 1, 7, 40: “proles tertia Phorcus,” Ov. M. 7, 477: “Clymeneïa,” i. e. Phaëton, id. ib. 2, 19: “Apollinea,” i. e. Æsculapius, id. ib. 15, 533: “deūm certissima proles,” Verg. A. 6, 322: “egomet Neptunia proles,” Val. Fl. 4, 213.—Of deities: “Saturni altera proles,” Verg. A. 12, 830: “Bacchi rustica proles,” i. e. Priapus, Tib. 1, 4, 7: “Cyllenia proles,” Verg. A. 4, 268: “fulminis,” i. e. Bacchus, Sen. Med. 24; cf. Verg. A. 6, 25: “Jovis,” Vulg. Act. 19, 35.—Of animals: “hinc nova proles per herbas Ludit,” Lucr. 1, 259: “duellica equorum,” id. 2, 661; Phaedr. 2, 4, 19; Verg. G. 3, 65: “jam maris immensi prolem, genus omne natantum,” id. ib. 3, 541; Col. 7, 6, 7. —Poet., of plants: “et prolem tarde crescentis olivae,” i. e. the fruit, Verg. G. 2, 3; cf.: naturae contenta manu Zephyrique favore Parturit (tellus), et tantā natorum prole superbit, Alan. Anti-Claud. 1, 79.—In plur.: privignasque rogat proles, Col. poët. 10, 163.—

http://40.media.tumblr.com/7a4aae3b53a2692d4096e0383cf1193e/tumblr_mj9bhq6LGG1rzjyi0o1_500.jpg

At once insanely proud and filled with self-hatred, omniscient and doubting everything, cold and violently passionate, contemptuous and self-abasing, tormented and detached, surrounded by an adoring family, by devoted followers, by the admiration of the entire civilised world, and yet almost wholly isolated, he is the most tragic of the great writers, a desperate old man, beyond human aid, wandering self-blinded at Colonus.

http://www.rhapsodes.fll.vt.edu/images/archilochus.gif

The entire comedy of art is neither performed for our betterment or education nor are we the true authors of this art world. On the contrary, we may assume that we are merely pictures and artistic projections for the true author, and that we have our highest dignity in our significance as works of art–for it is only as an aesthetic phenomenon that existence and the world are eternally justified–while of course our consciousness of our own significance hardly differs from that which the soldiers painted on canvas have of the battle represented on it. Thus all our knowledge of art is basically quite illusory, because as knowing beings we are not one and identical with that being which, as the sole author and spectator of this comedy of art, prepares a perpetual entertainment for itself. Only insofar as the genius in the act of artistic creation coalesces with this primordial artist of the world, does he know anything of the eternal essence of art; for in this state he is, in a marvelous manner, like the weird image of the fairy tale which can turn its eyes at will and behold itself; he is at once subject and object, at once poet, actor, and spectator.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3c/Robert_Burton%2C_The_anatomy_of_melancholy..._Wellcome_L0027168.jpg/556px-Robert_Burton%2C_The_anatomy_of_melancholy..._Wellcome_L0027168.jpg
OPE-
NED AND CVT VP.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/historicalanatomies/Images/1200_pixels/valverde_p64.jpg

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/historicalanatomies/Images/1200_pixels/Estienne_p236.jpg

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/historicalanatomies/Images/1200_pixels/Estienne_p237.jpg

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/historicalanatomies/Images/1200_pixels/Berengario_p09v.jpg

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/historicalanatomies/Images/1200_pixels/valverde_p94.jpg