e g r e g o r e s: 09/01/2015

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

"in the space of emptiness everything has a space to play and affect each other"

"everything is hanging on and functioning by virtue of mere conditioning - and that's all we have, mere conditioning, and not the slightest tinge of any intrinsicality"

"how come there is the difference between projecting a snake on a rope and a snake on a snake?"
...

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Meet The New Pope

It is always the high point of any papal visit to any nation: the canonization of one of that nation's own indigenous "saints". And these "saints" are always the same everywhere: they were fanatical jihadists dedicated to the forced conversion and/or extirpation of all Jews, Heathens, Heretics, Atheists, and anyone else deemed to be enemies of the One True Faith.

There are, perhaps, here and there, genuine exceptions to this rule. But these are, necessarily, quite exceptional. The man whose name Pope Voldemort II now obscenely bears is arguably one of them.

But neither the New Pope nor the evil wretch Junipero Serra are in any way deviations from the usual assortment of highly successful con-artists (like the Pope) and murderously accomplished thugs (like Serra) who have always done and will always do the Dark Lord's bidding in the name of the Great Commission.

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/01/17/father-serras-sainthood-sanctifying-legacy-domination
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-serra-saint-20150116-story.html
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/08/15/567667/-The-Great-California-Genocide
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/25/pope-francis-junipero-serra-sainthood-native-american-controversy
https://zinnedproject.org/2015/03/california-missions-and-indians/

Sunday, September 20, 2015

"furthest from him is best"

[From Book 1]:

Is this the Region, this the Soil, the Clime,
Said then the lost Arch-Angel, this the seat
That we must change for Heav'n, this mournful gloom

For that celestial light? Be it so, since he [ 245 ]
Who now is Sovran can dispose and bid
What shall be right: fardest from him is best
Whom reason hath equald, force hath made supream
Above his equals. Farewel happy Fields
Where Joy for ever dwells: Hail horrours, hail [ 250 ]
Infernal world, and thou profoundest Hell
Receive thy new Possessor: One who brings
A mind not to be chang'd by Place or Time.
The mind is its own place, and in it self
Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n. [ 255 ]
What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be, all but less then he
Whom Thunder hath made greater? Here at least
We shall be free; th' Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence: [ 260 ]
Here we may reign secure, and in my choyce
To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav'n.
But wherefore let we then our faithful friends,
Th' associates and copartners of our loss [ 265 ]
Lye thus astonisht on th' oblivious Pool,
And call them not to share with us their part
In this unhappy Mansion, or once more
With rallied Arms to try what may be yet
Regaind in Heav'n, or what more lost in Hell? [ 270 ]

[From Book 5]:

That we were formd then saist thou? and the work
Of secondarie hands, by task transferd
From Father to his Son? strange point and new! [ 855 ]
Doctrin which we would know whence learnt: who saw
When this creation was? rememberst thou
Thy making, while the Maker gave thee being?
We know no time when we were not as now;
Know none before us, self-begot, self-rais'd [ 860 ]
By our own quick'ning power, when fatal course
Had circl'd his full Orbe, the birth mature
Of this our native Heav'n, Our puissance is our own, our own right hand
Shall teach us highest deeds, by proof to try [ 865 ]
Who is our equal: then thou shalt behold
Whether by supplication we intend
Address, and to begirt th' Almighty Throne
Beseeching or besieging. This report,
These tidings carrie to th' anointed King; [ 870 ]
And fly, ere evil intercept thy flight.

[From Milton's Paradise Lost - full text here: https://www.dartmouth.edu/~milton/reading_room/contents/text.shtml ]

Wednesday, September 16, 2015

How many of these lists of "greatest books" have you read?

In honor of Voldemort II's impeding visit to Our Nation's Capital, today's blog post is dedicated to the benighted subject of literary canonization.

Is there any form of middle-brow psuedo-intellectualism lower than the old "ooooh, how many of these eleventy-eight books have you read?" twaddle?

Image created at: 3Dthis.com.

Monday, September 14, 2015

Max Beauvoir: "I don't believe there is any significant Christian-Vodou syncretism or Christian inclusions in the Vodou religion."

In 2007 while a student at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Elaine Panter (now a legal consultant at the World Bank) published an essay on "Religion and Politics in Haiti", in which she wrote "The two official religions in Haiti are Catholicism, and Vodou. Due to the phenomenon of syncretism, Haitians are said to be 80% Roman Catholic, 20% Protestant and 100% Vodou."

However, in an accompanying footnote we read the following:

"Not all scholars agree on the existence of such syncretism. As stated by Max G. Beauvoir: 'No, contrarily to what even good scholars have stated, I don't believe there is any significant Christian-Vodou syncretism or Christian inclusions in the Vodou religion. To the best of my knowledge, I have not found any incorporation of Christian materials in Vodou. Jesus Christ in not a Lwa or Expression of God, meaning an important figure of the 401 divinities of Vodou. I have never seen or heard of someone who had ever been possessed by Jesus Christ, possession being an important characteristic of the religion. Neither has any one been possessed by the father, the son, or the Holy Ghost, meaning by one of the major figures of the Christian faith.'"

Source: Haiti: Understanding Conflict 2007, published by Johns Hopkins University School for Advanced International Studies, edited by Dr. I. William Zartman. Link to pdf: https://www.sais-jhu.edu/sites/default/files/2007%20Haiti%20Report_0.pdf

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Going Beyond the Sangh (from Koenraad Elst's latest blog post)

Koenraad Elst's latest blog post on "How the West Looks at India" is worth reading in full - but I found one part, toward the end, especially helpful: a list of "new communities shedding the Sangh baggage and trying to serve the Hindu cause through new analyses". Some of these I haven't been able to track down yet, but here are three with websites definitely worth checking out:

Examples of what you can find at the above sites: