Should there be an etnic element to spirituality?

[Sir Darius the Clairvoyent]

Fire bomb, I known. Couldn’t make it more politically incorrect if I actively tried to. But if we play with this idea as adults, I think it could be an interesting discussion.

 

the above is a 4.000 year old joke from Mesopotamia. It reads: the joke reads: “A dog walks into a bar and says, ‘I cannot see a thing. I’ll open this one.’” Funny, right? What I am trying to illustrate, is how depended on culture, time and place our perspectives are. Language for instance, I think massively influence the way we think, and visa versa. We are a product of tradition, culture, upbringing, genetics, history, list goes on.

 

Can we ever truly grasp an alien tradition the way we grasp our own, or is it like the Sumerian joke? Let’s be real, it would look a little silly if I tried to act and speak as an Amazonian wiseman, wouldn’t it? Not because they are wrong or worse, nor because I am, but simply that it can never resonate at the same level as say… Jesus on the cross, for instance.

 

edit, continuing: likewise, when Christianity arrived here, it took on a unique, cultural element not present in say, Japan or Ethiopia. Christmas Eve here is centered around the worship of a tree with presents under it, ungodly amounts of alcohol and fatty meat. Nothing biblical about it whatsoever.

Edited January 2 by Sir Darius the Clairvoyent

[Taomeow]

In Lima, Peru, I visited a 500-year-old Franciscan Monastery, where they have a huge painting of the Last Supper on the wall of the monks' dining hall.  In that painting Jesus and the apostles are drinking ayahuasca and eating a guinea pig.

  

While this cuisine is far removed from what they could have been consuming at the Last Supper in Jerusalem, I think it's the art of translation doing its best -- translation not of texts "as is" but of complex cultural references, philosophical and spiritual ideas separated by time, space and very different human experiences.  In this case, the translation into the local idea of spirituality was perfect.  I don't think any locals at the time could possibly grasp how anything can be holy without ayahuasca. 

Matter of fact, I've trouble believing that any religion that has rid itself of entheogens is more than a cargo cult.   Whereas in their presence, the sacraments "explain themselves" directly, so to speak, and may help bridge the space-time-experience rift between cultures.    

[Sir Darius the Clairvoyent]

26 minutes ago, Taomeow said:

 

In Lima, Peru, I visited a 500-year-old Franciscan Monastery, where they have a huge painting of the Last Supper on the wall of the monks' dining hall.  In that painting Jesus and the apostles are drinking ayahuasca and eating a guinea pig.

 

Lovely story ❤️‍🔥

 

Quote

While this cuisine is far removed from what they could have been consuming at the Last Supper in Jerusalem, I think it's the art of translation doing its best -- translation not of texts "as is" but of complex cultural references, philosophical and spiritual ideas separated by time, space and very different human experiences.  In this case, the translation into the local idea of spirituality was perfect.

Mhm, translation, or maybe reinterpretation or adaptation, is key. By all means, read, study, talk and pick from whatever source of wisdom from any time or place, as long as it is genuine and resonates at some level. 
 

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I don't think any locals at the time could possibly grasp how anything can be holy without ayahuasca. 

Matter of fact, I've trouble believing that any religion that has rid itself of entheogens is more than a cargo cult.   Whereas in their presence, the sacraments "explain themselves" directly, so to speak, and may help bridge the space-time-experience rift between cultures.    

Mhm I think you are on to something. This Sami wise man once admitted that while he was chanting and rhythmically beating his drum, he was just going trough the motions and said he had no clue what he was doing. Before the aryan offered them redemption trough Christ and status as human beings (all be it slightly inferior, not even the gospel can compensate fully for their asiatic admixture as their skull was measured and found to not be an exact match to that of the Nordic volk),  they made use of funny substances, often filtered through the urine of reindeer, while performing their rituals and contacting the invisible realm. Once the chain was broken tho, it seems it could never be fully restored. Now they refer to the pre Christian era as «the age of the drum». 
 

This happened to pretty much every culture, I guess. Henbane, mushrooms, cannabis and mead with some added substances for that X factor feel was fundemental in rituals, burials, magic etc. for the Norse pagans as well. Below you can see Odin, shapeshifted as an eagle, pooping down some mead of poetry on mankind after having retrieved it from two dwarfs in a cave, who had slaughtered the wisest being in the cosmos and brewed the drink out of his blood. 


 

Please don’t suggest that they were not tripping hard while telling this story. And yet another tradegy: the gift from the gods used in ritual circumstances has now been degraded to drug abuse, a societal hazard. Sure, people still use now and then. I have as well. But I suspect 8 stoned teenagers watching Netflix and tripping while their parents are away for the weekend, doesn’t hit in quite the same way.

 

How many cultures were not at least in part based on the use of various mind altering substances until very recently? Ah the loss… 

 

I find the theory that various substances was fundemental in the development of human culture and religion to be very plausible. And also a reminder that there are other ways to organize, that is not depended on Pfizer certified stimulants in order to function. 

Yeah, interresting observation.

 

 

 

[liminal_luke]

Cultural appropriation is looked down on in certain circles but human beings have always burrowed from each other.  Burrowed stuff is inevitably different from where it came from -- often worse, occasionally better, but always different.  Chinese food in Mexicali is served with skillet-fried chiles and limes.  Mexican restaurants in the United States, unlike in most of Mexico, serve a lot of margaritas.  When my partner wanted to sell paintings at a local gallery here in Ensenada, Baja California he was told to paint pictures of naked women and portraits of Frida Kahlo because that´s what cruiseship passengers would buy.  Yoga classes at my local gym likely have a different vibe than yoga in India.  This is the way of things.  There will always be traditionalists and innovators.  Personally, I´m glad for both.

Edited January 3 by liminal_luke

[stirling]

There isn't really any need for an ethnic element, though some words in other languages have a conceptual accuracy that is unrepresented in most Western thought, like "dharma", or "rigpa" for example. 

 

In my opinion the spiritual path could be reduced to a very simple set of instructions, but most people will fail to understand what is meant by them. 

 

For example, how to change suffering is covered wonderfully here:

 

 

...but most people will need substantially more guidance in learning to find the stillness necessary to stop the identification with their overwhelming personal dialog. 

[Sir Darius the Clairvoyent]

4 minutes ago, stirling said:

most people will fail to understand what is meant by them. 

I am sure I do as well, but your instructions, so to speak, has been interresting to explore even at the very beginning, surface level. Thanks. And thanks to Luke above as well.

 

@liminal_luke sure, don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of beauty in borrowing and exploring and learning from other cultures. I’m almost tempted to say it is fundemental, and I don’t like the term appropriation as I find it… well, dumb. As you said it yourself, man has always learned and traded and interacted with the foreign. If some Italian snob tried to tell me I am not allowed to have wine to my pizza I would just laugh and enjoy the wine even more. Still tho, credit where credits due, when you try traditional Italian made pizza made by an Italian in Italy, it is on a nother level than what’s to find in my freezer.

[johndoe2012]

14 minutes ago, stirling said:

For example, how to change suffering is covered wonderfully here:

 

 

...but most people will need substantially more guidance in learning to find the stillness necessary to stop the identification with their overwhelming personal dialog. 

 

Yeah, shouting is effective 😅

[Taomeow]

Cultural appropriation is a made-up problem in all cases except when you're stealing someone else's thunder and claiming it for your own. 

Japan is a country that historically has fully "appropriated" Chinese culture, acknowledging and accepting the fact, and then working all things Chinese into their own cultural expression the Japanese way.  Russia, since the 18th century, was a product of "cultural appropriation" by the tzar Peter the Great of the European ways -- he studied them personally (even working as a carpenter at Dutch shipbuilding yards -- in order to learn how to build a modern fleet) and enforced them relentlessly, from beard-shaving and fashion to social structure, education, architecture, the calendar, you name it.  (Some Russians still haven't forgiven him for that though -- while some Americans still aren't buying that Russia is a European country.  The former pine for the "unique" and "native" ways which they idealize the hell out of, while the latter simply aren't that great at either history or geography due to educational peculiarities.)  

[Sir Darius the Clairvoyent]

That’s a fun one I think, on Russia and identity and otherness. For a geek like me, at least.

 

 It’s a little strange when I see maps depicting Europe where Russia is cut out and turkey included, when it is clear to me that the former is firmly within the category and the other is not. I have always thought that is down to political agendas tho.

 

But now and than I bump across some American on the internet throwing Iceland, Finland and even Greenland 🇬🇱 in to Scandinavia, so who knows. I feel like both issues have become unnecessary touchy in the current day and age, as if belonging to the category is a question of value or something looney.
 

If it is based on knowledge of history or culture or geography or whatever ultimatley is not that important, as I would be a hypocrite of astronomical levels if I pretend to have great and detailed understanding of the etnic identities of people in lands far away. There is this term used to describe nowhere’s land: huttiheita. Never thought about it, but the word is completely nonsensical. Learned not so long ago that it is based on the French word for Haiti and morphed trough the centuries. I belive Timbuktu has a similar connotation to the English.
 

To Scandinavians what is and is not Scandinavia is very simple and there exist zero confusion about it: Norway, Sweden and Denmark. In part I believe the meaning of the terms Nordic and Scandinavian is reversed in English and in Scandinavia. Here, scandinavian is more of a cultural/etnic term while Nordic is more geographical. The very term Finland comes from old Norse finnr. Etymology a little unclear but in essence it boils down to something along the lines of «those people  who are not us». Like how wales comes from Walas meaning foreigner.

 

The question of what is and is not Europe is an interesting one tho, as the  tree continents of the old world was defined by the Greeks in times long gone, despite the lack of any magical line distinguishing the three. As far back as 400bc a fellow by the name of Hippocrates wrote:

I wish to show, respecting Asia and Europe, how, in all respects, they differ from one another, and concerning the figure of the inhabitants, for they are different, and do not at all resemble one another. To treat of all would be a long story, but I will tell you how I think it is with regard to the greatest and most marked differences.

 

Basically Europeans are wild but simple and free, while the Asian is more slavish and ruled by tyrants, and of greater intelligence. The Greeks, ofc. got the best of both worlds. They were unique in their unmatched intelligence while remaining all brave and free and all that stuff. And if that is not human nature in a nutshell, I do not know what is. Those people there are kinda weird in that way, but the people on the other side are weird to the other extreme. My people, however, we got it just right ahaha.

In the opera to Beethovens ruins of athens, the Turkish march they go full bigot on the Greeks on how they have fallen, and have become a nation of slaves not worthy of claiming decent from the ancients, who Europe has always admired so, so highly. The British apperantly had an existential crisis when they took over Greece. They appeared way to swarthy, surely the inhabitants must be decendents of some Asian slave population and not the ancient ones… (in case you are curious, there is a large degree of genetic continuity in Greece since antiquity).

 

Aaand this sorts of relates to the whole European identity thing. I think that «us» is often defined in opposition to «not them». Like, when Muslims we’re invading it was Christendom, when on its height of colonial power it was whiteness and civilized. Then it became «free and democratic.» 

 

Prior to ww2, Hungarians would go great lengths to distance themselves from their nomadic and Eurasian origin, while tomorrow they might claim to be rightfull heirs of Djenghis Khan himself. 
 

While I belive always seen as european both by themselves and the rest of Europe, I have a sense that it the sense of «otherness» goes way back. Getting assaulted by various nomadic people, the longer established western neighbors and Scandinavian raiders for a long time lefts its marks. 6 million of them were captured by these and sold to the caliphate as slaves. From where we get the very word slave, ofc. Then there was the orthodox thing making them a little exotic, then backwards, followed by racist accusations of being somewhat compromised by asian admixture, before becoming evil communists and today they are of course the dictionary definition on tyranny… sad, really. 
 

But let’s end this rent on a little more positive note. For one thing I think people politice and over intellectualize identity way to much. To me it is just like porn, can’t define it but I know it when I see it. Countless nations and tribes called themselves simply «us,» «people,» etc. and their enemies as some variation of savage or degenerate. The Norse called the Greenlanders skraelings. Then some North American tribe called them Eskimo, meaning eating raw flesh or something like that. Today the correct term is what they call themself: Inuit, meaning humans. Conclussion: we are a fiercly tribal species, but at the end of the day we are all innuits.

[Nungali]

3 hours ago, Sir Darius the Clairvoyent said:

I am sure I do as well, but your instructions, so to speak, has been interresting to explore even at the very beginning, surface level. Thanks. And thanks to Luke above as well.

 

@liminal_luke sure, don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of beauty in borrowing and exploring and learning from other cultures. I’m almost tempted to say it is fundemental, and I don’t like the term appropriation as I find it… well, dumb. As you said it yourself, man has always learned and traded and interacted with the foreign. If some Italian snob tried to tell me I am not allowed to have wine to my pizza I would just laugh and enjoy the wine even more. Still tho, credit where credits due, when you try traditional Italian made pizza made by an Italian in Italy, it is on a nother level than what’s to find in my freezer.

 

I am fiercely against it !

 

'Boutique pizza' I mean .   What does  boutique pizza mean ? It means its $10 more because they put alfalfa sprouts and mashed banana on it .

 

 " Dinner is ready ! "

 

[Taomeow]

1 hour ago, Sir Darius the Clairvoyent said:

There is this term used to describe nowhere’s land: huttiheita. Never thought about it, but the word is completely nonsensical. Learned not so long ago that it is based on the French word for Haiti and morphed trough the centuries.

 

We have a similar derivation -- from a medieval turkic city of Taman-Tarkan we got "tmutarakan'" meaning lands far away/god knows where.  Which, while being nonsensical, is also funny since its components evoke associations with "darkness" and "cockroaches."  That's how lands far away that are "not ours" and "not us" are imagined.