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"Life expands or shrinks in proportion to one's courage." ~Anain Nin
Muslims unfairly stigmatised, says the Dalai Lama The Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, has warned against portraying Islam as a religion of violence, saying Muslims have been wrongly demonised in the West since the September 11 attacks. Promoting religious tolerance, the world’s most influential Buddhist leader said on Sunday that talk of "a clash of civilisations between the West and Muslim world is wrong and dangerous." Muslim terrorist attacks have distorted people’s views of Islam, making them believe it is an extremist faith rather than one based on compassion, the Dalai Lama told a press conference in the Indian capital. Muslims are being unfairly stigmatised as a result of violence by "some mischievous people," said the Dalai Lama, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 for his work to bring democracy and freedom to his people. All religions have extremists and "it is wrong to generalise (about Muslims)," the 71-year-old spiritual leader said. "They (terrorists) cannot represent the whole system," he said. jaybird found this for you @ 14:49 in Spirituality, Religion & Mythos | | permalink
Viddy Thursday: Zikr jaybird found this for you @ 20:43 in Spirituality, Religion & Mythos | | permalink
Viddy Thursday: Rumi jaybird found this for you @ 14:38 in Spirituality, Religion & Mythos | | permalink
Viddy Thursday: Rumi jaybird found this for you @ 08:35 in Spirituality, Religion & Mythos | | permalink
Hot for the end times: The End of the World As They Know It T he week of September 11 (two weeks ago, not five years), I noticed a poster up at Frankies, my sweet neighborhood trattoria in Brooklyn: It advertised a talk on 9/11 by Daniel Pinchbeck—the former downtown literary impresario who has become a Gen-X Carlos Castaneda and New Age impresario. My breakfast pal nodded at the poster and said, “The guy is selling his apocalypse thing hard.” “Apocalypse thing?” I knew of Pinchbeck’s psychedelic enthusiasms, but I’d somehow missed his new book about the imminent epochal meltdown. In 2012, he interprets ancient Mayan prophecies to mean “our current socioeconomic system will suffer a drastic and irrevocable collapse” the year after next, and that in 2012, life as we know it will pretty much end. “We have to fix this situation right fucking now,” he said recently, “or there’s going to be nuclear wars and mass death … There’s not going to be a United States in five years, okay?” The same day at lunch in Times Square, another friend happened to mention that he was thinking of buying a second country house—in Nova Scotia, as “a climate-change end-days hedge.” He smirked, but he was not joking. On the subway home, I read the essay in the new Vanity Fair by the historian Niall Ferguson arguing that Europe and America in 2006 look disconcertingly like the Roman Empire of about 406—that is, the beginning of the end. That night, I began The Road, Cormac McCarthy’s new novel set in a transcendently bleak, apparently post-nuclear-war-ravaged America of the near future. And a day or so later watched the online trailer for Mel Gibson’s December movie, Apocalypto, set in the fifteenth-century twilight of, yes, the Mayan civilization. So: Five years after Islamic apocalyptists turned the World Trade Center to fire and dust, we chatter more than ever about the clash of civilizations, fight a war prompted by our panic over (nonexistent) nuclear and biological weapons, hear it coolly asserted this past summer that World War III has begun, and wonder if an avian-flu pandemic poses more of a personal risk than climate change. In other words, apocalypse is on our minds. Apocalypse is … hot. Millions of people—Christian millenarians, jihadists, psychedelicized Burning Men—are straight-out wishful about The End. Of course, we have the loons with us always; their sulfurous scent if not the scale of the present fanaticism is familiar from the last third of the last century—the Weathermen and Jim Jones and the Branch Davidians. But there seem to be more of them now by orders of magnitude (60-odd million “Left Behind” novels have been sold), and they’re out of the closet, networked, reaffirming their fantasies, proselytizing. Some thousands of Muslims are working seriously to provoke the blessed Armageddon. And the Christian Rapturists’ support of a militant Israel isn’t driven mainly by principled devotion to an outpost of Western democracy but by their fervent wish to see crazy biblical fantasies realized ASAP—that is, the persecution of the Jews by the Antichrist and the Battle of Armageddon. When apocalypse preoccupations leach into less-fantastical thought and conversation, it becomes still more disconcerting. Even among people sincerely fearful of climate change or a nuclearized Iran enacting a “second Holocaust” by attacking Israel, one sometimes detects a frisson of smug or hysterical pleasure. jaybird found this for you @ 08:02 in Spirituality, Religion & Mythos | | permalink
Jesus, people! Mixed race 12yo boy voted out of church. Why the ban? Joe is biracial, and church members didn't want the black side of his family attending with him. Y'see, this is what happens when you ask Jesus to live in your heart. All kinds of trouble. Ask Cthulhu to live in your heart, they'd hand you the keys to the church and run back to the whiskey still. Think twice about which ascended being you're willing to share coronary space with! Seriously, this is very disturbing, what with the recent school bus incident in which African Americans were asked to sit at the back. I guess we're not done yet, and it is especially upsetting that people who claim to be religious and righteous can't see the hypocrisy swinging from the end of their pearly white gleaming noses. jaybird found this for you @ 14:28 in Spirituality, Religion & Mythos | | permalink
Indians rush to temples to feed "thirsty" idols Thousands of people flocked to temples across India on Monday following reports that idols of Hindu gods were drinking milk given by devotees as sacred offerings, witnesses said. Teenagers, adults and the aged stood in long lines with garlands and bowls of milk to feed the idols of Lord Shiva, Lord Krishna and the elephant-headed Lord Ganesha, they said. Hundreds chanted hymns in the northern city of Lucknow and the eastern city of Kolkata and went into hysterics when the milk held against the idols disappeared. "It is amazing, Lord Ganesha drank milk from my hands. Now he will answer all my prayers," said Surama Dasgupta, a middle-aged woman in Kolkata. The frenzy began late on Sunday in some northern cities and soon spread across the country, including the capital New Delhi, even as rationalists and non-believers called it mass hysteria. A similar mania gripped the country in 1995 when thousands of Hindus fed milk in spoons to marble idols of Lord Ganesha. jaybird found this for you @ 20:32 in Spirituality, Religion & Mythos | | permalink
Satan a victim of bad PR, professor says Goodness, Christianity is certainly a confusing affair, and inventive. And utterly deranged.
In his book Satan: A Biography, to be published by Cambridge University Press this month, the California university academic argues that interpretation of the Bible shows that the Devil suffered a "severe blackening of character" by the clergy, early church fathers, artists, philosophers and religious scholars. The "Devil is in the detail" - literally, he says. The reassessment of Satan comes hot on the heels of attempts to recast Judas in saintly form. Professor Kelly does not go as far as that, but he does call on theologians to consider whether the Devil is as bad as traditionally depicted. Instead of being the personification of evil, Satan is a "divine functionary" whose kingdom is the earth, he says. "My advice is, forget about evil and worry about evil deeds and the people who commit them," he said. His interpretation is accepted by many biblical scholars. The theory provides an explanation for the presence of evil and suffering, without denying the existence or omniscience of God. Professor Kelly refers to traditional texts, such as the Lord's Prayer, where the line "Deliver us from evil" is written in some prayer books as "Deliver us from the Evil One". Most Christians believe that Satan was an angel named Lucifer who rebelled against God at the beginning of Creation. After being thrown out of Heaven, he tempted Adam and Eve into sin, and since then has strived to win souls for his kingdom of Hell. But Professor Kelly argues that none of this is in the Bible, and that it represents conclusions drawn by the early church fathers and read back into the Bible. He argues from Revelation, at the end of the Christian Scriptures, that Satan remains in Heaven, as the "accuser of humankind", and will stay there until the Battle of Armageddon, when he will be imprisoned in the abyss. After a brief release, he will be imprisoned in the lake of fire for eternity. jaybird found this for you @ 20:51 in Spirituality, Religion & Mythos | | permalink
Liveblogging Matthew Fox He spoke on Thursday Aug. 17th at Jubilee Community, Asheville, NC. jaybird found this for you @ 00:22 in Spirituality, Religion & Mythos | | permalink
Death and Rebirth in World Myth and Mythic Fiction To die is to sleep, the myth seems to be saying, to be entombed among flickering dreams until we wake again. Sleep and death, birth and awakening, are fused in tales from across the world, from throughout history. There's the Chinese legend of P'an–ku, for example, a primal deity who hatches from the cosmic egg only to die, his breath, his blood, his muscles and veins, all of him, becoming the substance of the world, the wind and the clouds, the strata of rock and earth, the rivers; his death is the birth of the world. There are the metamorphoses of Greek myths — Narcissus, Hyacinth, Daphne — where death is not an end but a transformation to a new life. There are folktales or fantasy stories which take the Hindu or Buddhist concept of reincarnation as a springboard. Anna Tambour's story "Strange Incidents in Foreign Parts," in Electric Velocipede #9 for instance, has a protagonist who dies and is reborn as an eggplant. Yes, an eggplant. There's an animistic theme which informs these tales, a suggestion that death is only a dissolution of the individual back into the collective soul from which they came, from which they'll re–emerge in a new form. We tend to think of the Phoenix as the archetypal symbol of death and resurrection, to talk of rising, Phoenix–like, from the ashes. But the Phoenix which hatches from an egg incubated in fire is not the same Phoenix which builds that pyre of a nest, which dies upon that fire. That Phoenix dies so a new Phoenix can be hatched. If there is a sense of reincarnation, it is not as a restoration of the individual but as what the Buddhists would call a rebecoming. jaybird found this for you @ 07:41 in Spirituality, Religion & Mythos | | permalink
After giving us a basic overview of what would happen, the santero began the ritual. He started by sprinkling Florida Water (an old perfume which became popular as a tool in Santeria) on the mat, in order to “sweeten the reading.” He encouraged us to apply a little to ourselves as well. Then began a long prayer in the Yoruba language. One by one, he pulled the cowrie shells from the bowl, dowsing each one with water from the bowl, and calling down the blessings of the Orishas, of spirit guides, of our ancestors, of all those who have died, of priests both living and dead. The list went on and on rhythmically. I began to feel myself fall into the rhythm of it all, my head nodding slightly almost of its own accord. I felt the distinct sensation too of a heaviness pushing slightly but not uncomfortably down on the top of my head, perhaps the beginning of a trance. He then took the shells and touched them to my feet, my knees, legs, stomach, shoulders and head – connecting them to me and my particular destiny and energy. Also mixed in there somewhere (I forget where chronologically) were offerings to Eleggua of rum sprayed from his mouth, a cigar smoked backwards so that the orisha could in effect taste it himself, and the $121 that I had been instructed to bring. I folded the money three times over, which was a sign for it to come back to me threefold. The santero kissed it, crossed himself with it and left it in Eleggua’s little dish. Thus began the ritual. The prayers and actions which we took to begin had put me into a very calm and focused state of mind, with no trace of fear or apprehension. I had chosen my santero wisely, it seemed. I trusted him completely. The Dilogun consists of two main throws of the cowrie shells. Each of these is associated with a number, an odu, and a proverb. The first throw establishes the main theme and the second describes the variations of that theme. The first throw found a number of cowrie shells sitting face up, like little mouths smiling up from the mat. The name and number of that odu I am choosing to keep hidden from the public eye, as I understand that these things are intended to be private keys to the energy currently operating in my life. As much as I feel the desire to share my experiences fully with others, I also want to respect the tradition and the spirits invoked by it. In any event, after only the first throw, the reading was already making sense to me. The next throw brought another round of shells smiling up at us. Between the two throws, a compelling picture of my life was beginning to unfold. And I’ll share as much of it as I feel comfortable doing so here... jaybird found this for you @ 14:21 in Spirituality, Religion & Mythos | | permalink
Alan Watts on Time Continued... jaybird found this for you @ 23:23 in Spirituality, Religion & Mythos | | permalink
Ha Ha: True Origin of Christian "FISH" Symbol ...[C]ontemporary Jesus worshippers might be surprised, even outraged, to learn that one of their preeminent religious symbols antedated the Christian religion, and has its roots in pagan fertility awareness and sexuality. Barbara G. Walker writes in "The Woman's Dictionary of Symbols and Sacred Objects," that the acronym pertaining to Jesus Christ was a "rationale invented after the fact... Christians simply copied this pagan symbol along with many others." Ichthys was the offspring son of the ancient Sea goddess Atargatis, and was known in various mythic systems as Tirgata, Aphrodite, Pelagia or Delphine. The word also meant "womb" and "dolphin" in some tongues, and representations of this appeared in the depiction of mermaids. The fish also a central element in other stories, including the Goddess of Ephesus (who has a fish amulet covering her genital region), as well as the tale of the fish that swallowed the penis of Osiris, and was also considered a symbol of the vulva of Isis. Along with being a generative and reproductive spirit in mythology, the fish also has been identified in certain cultures with reincarnation and the life force. Sir James George Frazer noted in his work, "Adonis, Attis, Osiris: Studies in the History of Oriental Religion" (Part Four of his larger work, "The Golden Bough") that among one group in India, the fish was believed to house a deceased soul, and that as part of a fertility ritual specific fish is eaten in the belief that it will be reincarnated in a newborn child. Well before Christianity, the fish symbol was known as "the Great Mother," a pointed oval sign, the "vesica piscis" or Vessel of the Fish. jaybird found this for you @ 12:05 in Spirituality, Religion & Mythos | | permalink
20 Reasons to Abandon Christianity 4. Christianity is extremely egocentric. The deep egocentrism of Christianity is intimately tied to its reliance on fear. In addition to the fears of the devil and hell, Christianity plays on another of humankind’s most basic fears: death, the dissolution of the individual ego. Perhaps Christianity’s strongest appeal is its promise of eternal life. While there is absolutely no evidence to support this claim, most people are so terrified of death that they cling to this treacly promise insisting, like frightened children, that it must be true. Nietzsche put the matter well: "salvation of the soul—in plain words, the world revolves around me." It’s difficult to see anything spiritual in this desperate grasping at straws—this desperate grasping at the illusion of personal immortality. Another manifestation of the extreme egotism of Christianity is the belief that God is intimately concerned with picayune aspects of, and directly intervenes in, the lives of individuals. If God, the creator and controller of the universe, is vitally concerned with your sex life, you must be pretty damned important. Many Christians take this particular form of egotism much further and actually imagine that God has a plan for them, or that God directly talks to, directs, or even does favors for them.(1) If one ignored the frequent and glaring contradictions in this supposed divine guidance, and the dead bodies sometimes left in its wake, one could almost believe that the individuals making such claims are guided by God. But one can’t ignore the contradictions in and the oftentimes horrible results of following such "divine guidance." As "Agent Mulder" put it (perhaps paraphrasing Thomas Szasz) in a 1998 X-Files episode, "When you talk to God it’s prayer, but when God talks to you it’s schizophrenia. . . . God may have his reasons, but he sure seems to employ a lot of psychotics to carry out his job orders." In less extreme cases, the insistence that one is receiving divine guidance or special treatment from God is usually the attempt of those who feel worthless—or helpless, adrift in an uncaring universe—to feel important or cared for. This less sinister form of egotism is commonly found in the expressions of disaster survivors that "God must have had a reason for saving me" (in contrast to their less-worthy-of-life fellow disaster victims, whom God—who controls all things—killed). Again, it’s very difficult to see anything spiritual in such egocentricity. [via corpus mmothra] jaybird found this for you @ 12:02 in Spirituality, Religion & Mythos | | permalink
Good Beltane, friends.  Also known as May Eve, May Day, and Walpurgis Night, happens at the beginning of May. It celebrates the height of Spring and the flowering of life. The Goddess manifests as the May Queen and Flora. The God emerges as the May King and Jack in the Green. The danced Maypole represents Their unity, with the pole itself being the God and the ribbons that encompass it, the Goddess. Colors are the Rainbow spectrum. Beltane is a festival of flowers, fertility, sensuality, and delight. Prepare a May basket by filling it with flowers and goodwill and then give it to someone in need of healing and caring, such as a shut-in or elderly friend. Form a wreath of freshly picked flowers, wear it in your hair, and feel yourself radiating joy and beauty. Dress in bright colors. Dance the Maypole and feel yourself balancing the Divine Female and Male within. On May Eve, bless your garden in the old way by making love with your lover in it. Make a wish as you jump a bonfire or candle flame for good luck. Welcome in the May at dawn with singing and dancing. jaybird found this for you @ 20:59 in Spirituality, Religion & Mythos | | permalink
Growing popularity of Sufism in Iran The lights are dimmed in a home in northern Tehran. The men, women and teenagers gathered in the large living room close their eyes and rock back and forth to the beat of live music. As the tambourine and drums beat louder and faster, some members of the group climb to their feet. They begin to swirl slowly in circles and raise their hands to the ceiling. A few fall into trances. "You can somehow touch relaxation," says 22-year-old Mahsa, who believes that music and dance can provide a direct route to Allah. "It's a very good sensation, and you think your soul is flying, that somehow you're not in your body." These Iranians consider themselves Shia Muslims, as do most Iranians, and look to the first Shia Imam, Ali, as a spiritual guide. But they also call themselves Sufis. Sufis believe that at the core of all religions lies the same truth and that God is the only reality behind all forms of existence. They also believe that the individual, through his or her own efforts, can reach spiritual union with God. jaybird found this for you @ 16:24 in Spirituality, Religion & Mythos | | permalink
Lost at sea on a flotilla of enlightenment I guess what we're on now is an island. A drifing island. The abbot says the drift was the closest they could get to sovereignty, so they accepted it and went back to their prayers. We have no rudders or giant sails, though sometimes a robe will flare up and catch a breeze, sometimes twenty robes at once, and the island drifts a little faster. This is what nostalgia feels like, like I have borrowed the ocean in a small squeeze bottle, squeezed the salt water up my nose twice a day so I can feel the tide, whoosh, back and forth, inside my head. Somewhere between the Pacific currents, I'd like to think the island has a purpose, that it wants to find its way back to its natural latitudes, but I know we can't control it. jaybird found this for you @ 12:21 in Spirituality, Religion & Mythos | | permalink
Tzaddikim: The Thirty Six Unknown In later Kabbalistic (Kabbalah) folklore, the thirty six hidden ones have the potential to save the world, they appear when they are needed, and one of them might be the Messiah. They come at times of great peril, called out of their anonymity and humility by the necessity to save the world. Because they can, and because we need them. Who are your Tzaddikim? [via mygothlaundry] jaybird found this for you @ 12:47 in Spirituality, Religion & Mythos | | permalink
Judas Priestly: Lost Gospel Revealed After being lost for nearly 1,700 years, the Gospel of Judas was recently restored, authenticated, and translated. Some biblical scholars are calling the Gospel of Judas the most significant archaeological discovery in 60 years. The only known surviving copy of the gospel was found in a codex, or ancient book, that dates back to the third or fourth century A.D. The newly revealed gospel document, written in Coptic script, is believed to be a translation of the original, a Greek text written by an early Christian sect sometime before A.D. 180. jaybird found this for you @ 08:38 in Spirituality, Religion & Mythos | | permalink
Wadjet: Serpent Goddess of Justice, Time, Heaven and Hell  Wadjet is primarily a snake-headed protector of Lower Egypt - the delta region. However, the ancient people of northern area worshiped Wadjet as a vulture Goddess. Wadjet was revered as the goddess of childbirth, and protector of children, and in later years she became the protector of kings. Wadjet's role was often seen as a forceful defender, while her sister, Nekhebet, was seen as the motherly defender. This contrast provided the counterpoint seen in many of the Egyptian deities. The symbol of justice, time, heaven and hell, Wadjet is one of the oldest Egyptian goddesses. Often shown as a cobra, or as the head of the cobra, Wadjet can be seen rearing from the forehead of the rulers. Evidence of her protection is most notable upon the funerary mask of Tutankhamen. Occasionally, she has been shown in the guise of her "eye of divine vengeance" role, as a lioness. In later years, the royal crowns were often decorated with two or more depictions of cobras in deference to her role as protector. While Wadjet was sometimes depicted as the lioness-headed goddess, she was often seen in the image of a mongoose, represented on the funeral urns of ancient Egypt. The mongoose was revered as her sacred animal. Along with the shrew mouse, they were mummified and entombed in statuettes of the goddess. It is believed that the mongoose, and the shrew mouse were representative of the day and night cycle. The mongoose representing daylight, and the nocturnal shrew mouse representing night. jaybird found this for you @ 20:01 in Spirituality, Religion & Mythos | | permalink
Brother Wayne Teasdale: Transforming the Seeds of Corruption "We have a universal responsibility to speak out when we see injustice, oppression, and the abuse of human rights, the rights of the earth, and other species," writes an impassioned Brother Wayne Teasdale in his book The Mystic Heart. "Personally, I find the silence [on the crisis in Tibet] disturbing and morally indefensible; it indicates a lack of courage and moral strength that hides behind considerations of prudence and discretion." There are few souls as gentle as Brother Wayne Teasdale, "lay monk" and pioneer of the interfaith movement, who also speak as stridently and compellingly as he does about the necessity for all spiritual leaders to actively respond to the crises facing the world. But for Teasdale, the result of any true and deep mystical experience must be an active and engaged response to the cries of a suffering humanity and an embattled earth. Brother Wayne Teasdale has devoted much of his life to facilitating understanding, respect, and practical cooperation among spiritual leaders. Serving on the board for the Parliament of the World's Religions, he was instrumental in bringing almost eight thousand people of different faiths together for the 1993 Chicago Parliament, an event that led, among other things, to the pivotal signing by two hundred spiritual leaders of Guidelines for a Global Ethic. He also organized the Synthesis Dialogues, an interreligious, interdisciplinary forum moderated by H.H. the Dalai Lama, designed to bring key figures from diverse professions together to explore the value and implications of mystical experience. And, together with His Holiness, he helped to draft the influential Universal Declaration on Nonviolence. jaybird found this for you @ 07:47 in Spirituality, Religion & Mythos | | permalink
Mayan Legend: How The King Of Birds Was Chosen Halach-Uinic, the Great Spirit guarded over all the Maya World. His will was law. One day be grew tired of the constant chatter and fighting among the birds. At a meeting in the center of the forest, he announced that the birds must choose a king to keep peace. Of course, each bird thought it possessed the best qualifications. Col-pol-che, the cardinal sang, "Look at me. No one else is bright red and so beautiful. All the birds admire me. I should he king." And he strutted in front of the impressed bird audience, fluttering his wings and raising his crest. X-col-col-chek, the tropical mockingbird, trilled out, "I'm the only bird with such a lovely voice. Everyone listens to me." Enlarging his throat, X-col gave a short performance of enchanting and complicated melodies. This was a tremendous sensation among the birds and went far in convincing them that the mockingbird should be king. Then the wild turkey, Cutz, strode into the circle and gobbled, "There's no doubt that I should be king because I'm the biggest and strongest bird. With my size and strength, I can stop fights and also defend any bird. You need a powerful king. I'm the one!" And so, throughout the day various birds displayed their qualities. The only one that kept quiet was Kukul, the quetzal. This bird was very ambitious and proud. He had elegant manners and a graceful body, but his plumage was shabby. Kukul thought it would be impossible to be chosen as king while he was dressed so poorly... jaybird found this for you @ 12:51 in Spirituality, Religion & Mythos | | permalink
The Mayas: How The Mockingbird Became The Best Singer When X-chol-col-chek, the mockingbird, was young, her family was very poor, and she could only dress in dingy feathers. Since she was hatched, however, X-col had displayed a magnificent voice. She wanted to take singing lessons but could not afford them. The mockingbird was fortunate to obtain work with a rich and noble family of cardinals. That winter, a famous singing professor, Dr. Xcau, the melodious blackbird, came to Maya Land. The father cardinal immediately imagined that his daughter, Col-pol-che, could become a fine singer. She was lazy vain and hated to study. But by promising her many fine gifts, the father convinced her to try singing lessons. When Col-pol-che went with Dr. Xcau to a quiet part of the woods to begin her music course, X-col followed and hid in the bushes to listen and learn. Then she raced back to finish her chores. For weeks, the professor tried to make the girl cardinal sing sweetly, but without success. He soon realized she had neither the voice nor the ambition. He was afraid to tell her wealthy father after such a long time, having accepted a lot of money. So, he finally flew far away an forgot the whole affair. Meanwhile, X-col had been practicing. One morning, Col-pol-che happened to hear her and was very surprised at her little maid's ability. That same day, the father cardinal decided his daughter should give a concert for their friends. The indolent girl was terrified, yet she dared not tell her parents that she couldn't sing. She thought of the mockingbird's lovely voice and decided to ask her for help. The two birds asked Colote, the woodpecker, to bore a hole into the tree trunk where Col-pol-che would perch. Then the mockingbird would hide inside. While Col-pol-che pretended to be singing, the real voice would come from X-col within... jaybird found this for you @ 20:14 in Spirituality, Religion & Mythos | | permalink
Shari'a Law in the United States First in Europe and now in the United States, Muslim groups have petitioned to establish enclaves in which they can uphold and enforce greater compliance to Islamic law. While the U.S. Constitution enshrines the right to religious freedom and the prohibition against a state religion, when it comes to the rights of religious enclaves to impose communal rules, the dividing line is more nebulous. Can U.S. enclaves, homeowner associations, and other groups enforce Islamic law? jaybird found this for you @ 08:07 in Spirituality, Religion & Mythos | | permalink
Welcome to Spring! While the Vernal Equinox was an important point of passage in the year, the actual method of marking the festival varied from village to village and people to people. Rituals and invocations for abundance in the new crops being planted would often be held during the new moon closest to the Equinox (traditionally a good time to plant). In some places this was also the time when promises were made between lovers for the Handfasting Ceremony that would come at Midsummer. In a very real sense the ceremony was an expression of hope and trust in the new lives that would blossom in the warmth of summer. Even the latter day celebration (comparatively speaking) of Easter acknowledged the significance of the Vernal Equinox. The Council of Nice decreed in 325 A.D. that "Easter was to fall upon the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the Vernal Equinox." This time of equality between day and night has been, and continues to be, a timekeeper, marking our passage from darkness and cold to warmth and light. jaybird found this for you @ 18:19 in Spirituality, Religion & Mythos | | permalink
Alchemy for the Brain-Damaged: The Royal Art So are we talking technique, or are we talking visionary experience? Hopefully both. From the 'spiritual' perspective it behooves one to preference the latter, but part of the point of magick is that it empowers the personality to pursue the spiritual more effectively. My feeling is that done correctly, technique leads to vision, with the added benefit of also having a skill set to implement the vision afterword. In a nutshell, unless your natural inclination is towards renunciation and asceticism, or christlike devotion to others, you'll get something out of cultivating some skills in this area. so we'll start with technique... For our purposes here, we'll be treating magick as this: the cultivation of intent. Full stop. That's it. That covers everything you need to know for now. jaybird found this for you @ 08:07 in Spirituality, Religion & Mythos | | permalink
The Integration of Religion in Multi-Dimensional Science Multi-Dimensional Science, or MDS is an attempt to fully integrate science with mysticism, and religion. Naturally enough, it includes parapsychology, or psychical resarch which is the evolving science into claimed "supernatural" phenomena. Before proceeding further, it must be made very clear that in NO way is MDS a religion, cult, or sect even though it may use terms associated with them. Admitedly, most of this new "science" consists of speculative metaphysical issues such as reincarnation, post mortem existence, pre-destination, other worlds, et al. Essentially, MDS hopes to largely indirectly prove, or alternatively disprove the the reality, or non-reality of such "revelations". The basic thesis, and methodology of Multi-Dimensional Science (MDS). jaybird found this for you @ 12:56 in Spirituality, Religion & Mythos | | permalink
The Persian Sufis The Sufi phenomenon is not easy to sum up or define. The Sufis never set out to found a new religion, a mazhab or denomination. They were content to live and work within the framework of the Moslem religion, using texts from the Quran much as Christian mystics have used to Bible to illustrate their tenets. Their aim was to purify and spiritualize Islam from within, to give it a deeper, mystical interpretation, and infuse into it a spirit of love and liberty. In the broader sense, therefore, in which the word religion is used in our time, their movement could well be called a religious one, one which did not aim at tying men down with a new set of rules but rather at setting them free from external rules and open to the movement of the spirit. This religion was disseminated mainly by poetry, it breathed in an atmosphere of poetry and song. In it the place of great dogmatic treatises is taken by mystical romances, such as Yusuf and Zuleikha or Leila and Majnun. Its one dogma, and interpretation of the Moslem witness: 'There is no god by God', is that the human heart must turn always, unreservedly, to the one, divine Beloved. Who was the first Sufi? Who started this astonishing flowering of spiritual love in Lyrical poetry and dedicated lives? No one knows. Early in the history of Islam, Moslem ascetics appeared who from their habit of wearing coarse garments of wool (suf), became known as Sufis. But what we now know as Sufism dawned unheralded, mysteriously, in the ninth century of our ear and already in the tenth and eleventh had reached maturity. Among all its exponents there is no single one who could be claimed as the initiator or founder. Sufism is like that great oak-tree, standing in the middle of the meadow: no one witnessed its planting, no one beheld its beginning, but now the flourishing tree speaks for itself, is true to origins which it has forgotten, has taken for granted. [via plep] jaybird found this for you @ 15:30 in Spirituality, Religion & Mythos | | permalink
Inside Scientology The faded little downtown area of Clearwater, Florida, has a beauty salon, a pizza parlor and one or two run-down bars, as well as a bunch of withered bungalows and some old storefronts that look as if they haven't seen customers in years. There are few cars and almost no pedestrians. There are, however, buses -- a fleet of gleaming white and blue ones that slowly crawl through town, stopping at regular intervals to discharge a small army of tightly organized, young, almost exclusively white men and women, all clad in uniform preppy attire: khaki, black or navy-blue trousers and crisp white, blue or yellow dress shirts. Some wear pagers on their belts; others carry briefcases. The men have short hair, and the women keep theirs pulled back or tucked under headbands that match their outfits. No one crosses against the light, and everybody calls everybody else "sir" -- even when the "sir" is a woman. They move throughout the center of Clearwater in tight clusters, from corner to corner, building to building. This regimented mass represents the "Sea Organization," the most dedicated and elite members of the Church of Scientology. For the past thirty years, Scientology has made the city of Clearwater its worldwide spiritual headquarters -- its Mecca, or its Temple Square. There are 8,300 or so Scientologists living and working in Clearwater -- more than in any other city in the world outside of Los Angeles. Scientologists own more than 200 businesses in Clearwater. Members of the church run schools and private tutoring programs, day-care centers and a drug-rehab clinic. They sit on the boards of the Rotary Club, the Chamber of Commerce and the Boy Scouts. In July 2004, The St. Petersburg Times dubbed Clearwater, a community of 108,000 people, "Scientology's Town." On the newspaper's front page was a photograph of Scientology's newest building, a vast, white, Mediterranean Revival-style edifice known within Scientology circles as the "Super Power" building. Occupying a full square block of downtown, this structure, which has been under construction since 1998, is billed as the single largest Scientology church in the world. When it is finally completed -- presumably in late 2006, at an estimated final cost of $50 million -- it will have 889 rooms on six floors, an indoor sculpture garden and a large Scientology museum. The crowning touch will be a two-story, illuminated Scientology cross that, perched atop the building's highest tower, will shine over the city of Clearwater like a beacon. jaybird found this for you @ 11:29 in Spirituality, Religion & Mythos | | permalink
Stunning, beautiful audio + photographs from a Jain festival  It left me wonderstruck... jaybird found this for you @ 08:40 in Spirituality, Religion & Mythos | | permalink
Integrative Spirituality: Spiritualized Activism
Our world is no longer perceived as a linear, predictable environment where we can plan for future outcomes with certainty. Chaos is abound, there is an overabundance of information, fragmentation and the planet appears plagued by serious problems that could bring it to the brink of destruction. But there is also a phoenix rising from this bleak picture and with it comes new understanding, new perspective and new ways of being - not just doing. This phoenix carries on its wings an improved form of activism --- spiritual activism. Co-creating with the divine intelligence (or what Tom Atlee the author of The Tao of Democracy refers to as co-intelligence) to increase our capacity of developing creative solutions to the world's rich challenges, taps into the power of the universe. Instead of pushing, driving and forcing with our will, we can let go and let the process of social change organically unfold. We can put our attention on the process itself and support the evolution of a better global and local society by going within and using this divine intelligence to guide us in our actions. This is where spiritual activism begins, with the transformation of each individual being. jaybird found this for you @ 12:26 in Spirituality, Religion & Mythos | | permalink
SubGenius Membership Allegedly Leads to Loss of Child Custody Deliver us from ourselves, Bob. On February 3, 2006, Judge Punch heard testimony in the case. Jeff entered into evidence 16 exhibits taken from the Internet, 12 of which are photographs of the SubGenius event, X-Day. Kohl has never attended X-Day and is not in any of the pictures. Rachel is depicted in many of these photos, often wearing skimpy costumes or completely nude, while participating in X-Day and Detroit Devival events. jaybird found this for you @ 08:23 in Spirituality, Religion & Mythos | | permalink
Fantastic Planet: Images, Icons, Ikons, and Gnostic Speculi The problem, according to the Iconoclasts, was the prohibition against the worship of idols within the Ten Commandments. Familiarly, the Iconoclasts maintained that images of holy figures could induce idolatry, and that the veneration of ikons was tantamount to breaking said commandment. This idea was so ingrained that ikons were officially banned from 726 AD to 842 AD, when they were triumphantly returned to the churches on the first Sunday in Lent (still celebrated in Orthodox Churches). Think about that for a moment: they were *returned to the churches* in triumph. These images, these ikons of the holy figures were so important to people that they kept the tradition alive and underground in the face of persecution which ran from imprisonment to excommunication to death. Why were these ikons so important, and why are they still so important to so many to this day? And, what is the difference between the veneration of ikons and idolatry? jaybird found this for you @ 16:34 in Spirituality, Religion & Mythos | | permalink
Lvx23: magickal constructs What is the subtle and sublime mechanism that underlies magick? In whatever system or technique, by some process we manifest mind into reality. Internally we can call it self improvement yet we know there's so much more. By some arcane, digitally feral technologies our thoughts are often heard by the chaotic web of life, which responds in kind giving us that one sideways glance and cocked smile at just the right fucking moment to be beyond a doubt a sudden mind-blowing manifestation of magick. It's as if there is a great presence existing in some very real yet abstracted layer of reality that interpenetrates everything, leading from the backs of our minds right to the central servers of the Akashic Record. We humans so often consider ourselves alone and isolated. Possibly comforted by a loving other but inevitably, in those very very late hours of a sleepless night, we are, standing at the edge of a gaping black grave, alone. The centimeter or so of our bony skull is apparently enough to completely contain the raging torrents of a millions years or so of cognitive evolution. Undeniably we all have atomic furnaces burning inside our heads, incomprehensibly complex and capable, so powerful that incredibly complex tasks like linguistic communication and symbolic representation are basic sub-routines requiring very little actual effort on the part of the human operator. The simple fact that, by culture, we generally share the same language, the same core values, the same basic ontologies, and the same educational backgrounds is evidence that we are, in fact, very connected and far more similar than different from one another. In short, we all share the same basic cognitive scaffolding on which we hang our individuality. While this acculturation is certainly acquired through peers and seniors, there's a certain point during childhood when one learns things without ever being told. It's as if the child is able to tap into the cultural record resident in all minds yet simultaneously external and independent. jaybird found this for you @ 12:32 in Spirituality, Religion & Mythos | | permalink
Nature of the Divine: get out into the world and play It seems when often when people talk of their belief or lack of belief in a divine figure many seem to fall into the trap of relating to God in their own image. They see the divine as essentially anthropomorphic and possessed of human qualities. So when bad things happen, be they natural disasters or human calamity, they invariably consider that God is either a mighty pissed malicious bastard to be feared or can't exist, because if he (generally it's a he) did he wouldn't allow these sort of things to happen. Some interpretations of spiritual systems hold the belief that this Earth is ultimately fallen, that the pain and misery in the world is a result of it's imperfection and that either the commonly worshiped God is in fact our main jailer, or we are deep down no good bastards who deserve all that's coming to us. jaybird found this for you @ 21:02 in Spirituality, Religion & Mythos | | permalink
In Africa, |
