However unexpectedly, you have somehow arrived
While visiting this area, please clean up after your dogma.
Today's categories are: [ bogus
anthropology ] [ can you found a
religion on fiction? ] [ exotic travel ]
[ east greets west ] coming soon: [
sex and the single guru ] [ Crazy Wisdom
] [ some profound books on
religion ] [ Chinese sublimity ] [
Chinese Taoist goof-offs ] [ Christian/Buddhist mutual reflections ] [ ghost stories, exorcism ]
"somewhere" first put on the web, October 1, 1998; next to
latest change, August 9, 1999, Nagasaki Day; July 21, 2001. Oct.
10, 2001. Revived, August 2, 2018. [Editorial insertions denoted by
square brackets.] Email your death threats to (...TOFIX).
see also
[ Dr Pseudocryptonym's Book
Knowledge ]
[ California School Book
Depository ]
[ Hell's Bibliophiles ]
[ Life of Vernon Vernon Howell
a.k.a. David Koresh ] especially relevant to the current page
Magic and Mystery in Tibet, 1931, Alexandra David-Neel, "the book that started all the nonsense about Tibet", approximate quote of P.E.I. Bonewits. Based on her claimed itinerary over her entire career in Tibet, she could not have physically traveled to all the places she claimed (according to some reference I have to dig up, I can't remember what.) Thus, the presumption of some fiction. Many marvels, such as imaginary visualized being becoming more real than expected, although with a scriptural basis in yogic texts, (for instance the Six Yogas of Naropa), but enhanced for the reading public. Of course, who am I to say.... the final reconciliation between Asian and European culture has yet to be completed; she spent decades cruising the Himalayas, wrote books on Buddhism, and lived it; all I have is book knowledge.
There have been many attempts made to present the Buddhist teachings of Tibet, and generally there are certain consistent misconceptions, reminiscent of the seven blind men describing the elephant. An example of this is the persistent idea of a lamaist cult with complicated practices leading to magic. This occurs particularly through the isolation and dramatisation of certain details out of context: a partial view rather than showing the whole journey in the great vehicle.
Chogyam Trungpa Rimpoche, Foreword to The Jewel Ornament of Liberation
Real Magic. Philip Emmons Isaac Bonewits. Bonewits has a B.A. in magic and thaumaturgy, (self-declared major) from the University of California, Berkeley. To earn this he had to undergo the tapas (religious austerity) of being "bellowed at" repeatedly. I used to have a first edition, 1971, but I lent it to someone who lent it to someone, and I never got it back, so I put a hex on him/her. It still hasn't returned. So much for the efficacy of magic. (Just kidding.) Bonewits had a hunch and deserves respect for following up on it. The book is a perfectly reasonable attempt to come to accommodation between science (and future science), anthropology, and his occult beliefs. Unsuccessfully, so far, in my opinion, at this time. But at least it's written in good faith.
The Third Eye; Doctor from Lhasa; The Rampa Story; The Cave of the Ancients; Living with the Lama; You--Forever; Wisdom of the Ancients; late 1950's,1960, etc. Lobsang Rampa. (pseudonym for Englishman Cryil Hoskin, who apparently started believing his own books) ("Ridiculous", Agehananda Bharati. See "Fictitious Tibet: The Origin and Persistence of Rampaism" )
.... , fantastically fraudulent output beginning with The Third Eye and its sequels. I call this whole phony tradition "Rampaism" after its phony consummator, Rampa-Hoskins, and his all-too-numerous followers in North America and Europe. This depressing crowd of partly well-meaning, totally uninformed, and seemingly uninformable votaries .... This, very briefly, is the somewhat autoerotic creed of a large, and unfortunately still growing, crowd of wide eyed believers in the mysterious East, apropos which my colleague Professor Hurvitz at the University of British Columbia sagaciously remarked that "for these people, the East must be mysterious, otherwise life has no meaning."
The Teachings of Don Juan; A Yaqui Way of
Knowledge, 1968, A Separate Reality 1971, etc.
Carlos Casteneda.
"The only sorcery he performed was getting the University of
California (LA) to award him a PhD of anthropology". Whoever said
this first, your name goes here.
"... pseudo-profound, sophomoric and deeply vulgar. To one reader
at least, for decades interested in Amerindian hallucinogens, the
book is frustratingly and tiresomely dull, posturing
pseudo-ethnography and, intellectually, kitsch." [ and a major
bestseller ] p.42 Weston La Barre in Seeing Castaneda,
Daniel C. Noel, ed New York: G.P.Putnam's Sons, 1976.
(Agehananda Bharati: "Casteneda is infra dig.".)
Here's something that looks more scholarly: Nagualism: A Study in Native American Folk-Lore and History, by Daniel G. Brinton, 1894.
Medicine Woman ; Star Woman ;
Wind Horse Woman ; Crystal Woman ;
Jaguar Woman, etc. Lynn Andrews
big on the shaman, and shawoman, market; but apparently bogus.
Mutant Messages Down Under, Marlo Morgan.
The Celestine Prophecy, James Redfield
see this commentary on science fiction.
But what about badly written fiction?
Slouching Towards Gomorrah, Robert H. Bork. Supreme Court reject.
The Narrow Road to the Deep North, Basho ("banana tree", not his real name.)
Take a tour of someplaces via the Magic HTTP ride:
web-based geography lesson, and international business
Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet. William Henry Knight.
Blue Highways: A Journey into American. William Least Heat Moon. 1982. A circumautomobilization of the USA via the leastsuper highways, clockwise.
Travels with Charley. John Steinbeck
Travels with Samantha. Philip Greenspun. 1993. USA, Canada. with pictures. more travel writing and photography
Travels with Lizbeth a review. . Lars Eighner. "gay homeless dog owner in Austin, Texas".
I have slogged through The Gulag Archipelago. I
finally finished the 1900 pages in the 3 volume American edition. I
had no idea it was so well written, a necessity to make in
bearable. Is it possible for people to make society that bad?
People do.
Timeless.
Tibetan Foothold. Dervla Murphy. 1966. After riding a bicycle from Europe, as told in the book Full Tilt, describes her stay as a volunteer in a Tibetan refugee camp.
The Way of the Pilgrim
The Pilgrim Continues His Way
suggested by Franny. For more on Russian "Name Worshipping" see
Naming
Infinity book review.
Travel to a strange and exotic foreign country,
bring back tales of marvels and the supernatural.
Journey to the East, novel, Hermann Hesse.
"The East MUST be mysterious, otherwise life has no Meaning." see above.
Journey to the West, classical novel from China, 16th century. Waley translation under title Monkey.
Lost Horizon James Hilton, exemplifies the get-away-from-it-all hidden-magical-kingdom kind of story telling. Never claimed to be anything other than fiction. Also a Frank Capra movie. In 1937 when the movie came out, you can understand why people wanted to get away from it all. The head lama looked a lot like a cross between Yoda, ET, and Marshall Herff Applewhite. I don't think it's a coincidence. The name "Shangri-La", now part of the English language, is a corruption of "Shambhala", a (maybe) mythical Tibetan religious/magical kingdom/utopia.
"... I became lost in a dark wood..."
approximate beginning of Inferno, Dante Alighieri.
The Way to Shambhala: A Search for the Mythical Kingdom beyond the Himalayas, 1980. Edwin Bernbaum, PhD. Asian Studies, UC Berkeley. Anchor Books: Garden City. Nicely written well-researched account on the myth of Shambhala. Cross cultural myths. And Tibetan religious practices, rituals, meditations, prophecies.
excrept from Shambhala, Sacred Path of the Warrior Chogyam Trungpa, Rimpoche.
The Way of the White Clouds; A Buddhist Pilgrim in Tibet, 1966, Lama Anagarika Govinda, "an Indian National of European [German and Colombian] descent and Buddist [sic] faith belonging to a Tibetan Order and believing in the Brotherhood of Man", and a heck of a nice guy, from what little I know of him, and a scholar. Better than Evans-Wentz. This book is both autobiography and pilgrimage account.
We witness the tragedy of a peaceful people without political ambitions and with the sole desire to be left alone, being deprived of its freedom and trampled underfoot by a powerful neighbour in the name of 'progress', which as ever must serve as a cover for all the brutalities of the human race. The living present is sacrificed to the moloch of the future. The organic connection with a fruitful past is destroyed for the chimera of a machine-made prosperity.
Born in Tibet, 1966, 1971. Chogyam Trungpa, Rimpoche, ("Rimpoche" is an honorary title) the eleventh Trungpa Tulku (acknowledged reincarnated lama). Going the other way. Tibetan lama escaping the Chinese invasion, eventually starting centers in Britain, USA, Canada. "Lost consciousness" while driving, and crashed into a joke shop; partially paralyzed on one side. After a career of trying to bridge the cultural gap, he has since disincarnated. I have not been informed on whether there is an acknowledged reincarnation. [Update: Yes, in Tibet! TODO:ref] He had been an important head lama in Tibet; now his native country was overrun and the only people to carry on the tradition were Americans and other Westerners; no wonder he drank a lot. A teacher of "Crazy wisdom", an interesting life story since the book ends. ['Crazy Wisdom' category coming soon.] He attained the degree of Khyenpo, equivalent to the western PhD.
It was also the first time I had been the object of that fascination which is noncommunicative and non-relating, of being seen as an example of a species rather than as an individual: "Let's go see the lamas at Oxford." Born in Tibet was the first attempt to get through the cultural barriers publicly. The book was received somewhat as a description or travelogue, but the atmosphere of the teachings did not seem to be generally perceived.
Tigers of the Snow and Other Virtual Sherpas: An Ethnography of Himalayan Encounters, Vincanne Adams. Princeton U. Press 1996. What happens when a wave of western exotica-seekers and rich mountain climbers invade the Himalayas and how the locals adapt. Sex tourism for women; meet a Sherpa. Adams has a PhD from UC Berkeley in anthropology.
traveling in the other direction... Prisoners of Shangri-LA: Tibetan Buddhism and the West, 1998, Donald S. Lopez, PhD, Asian Languages and Cultures; here's a bookseller review. He is not impressed with Lama Govinda's scholarship.
The Ochre Robe, Agehananda Bharati (Leopold Fischer, PhD Anthropology) autobiography, 1970. Probably the only westerner (German) initiated as sannyasin, (until Rajneesh), at the crematory ghats of Banaras. Hardly anything miraculous recounted, other than a mystical experience in prison (cf Darkness at Noon), and a religious "hallucination" in a temple. He is also cultural anthropologist, well-published, and, "...one who is an insider, an initiate, a professional in the field of mysticism, but who is also a professional social scientist and hence a social critic." And great fun and worth reading.
Be Here Now, the
book that launched a thousand trips.
An on-going story, this is an unusual bibliographic
specimen; I read it in the early '70's. Still in print, I recently
[Feb 2000] bought a copy to reread (and fetishly possess) after all
these decades, before it disappears from the market. (Bibliophilia
is my vice.) Here's the description from Michael Crichton,
Travels, p. 107, ( vide
infra).
One day I came across a book called Be Here Now. It was an esoteric, quasi-religious Eastern-philosophy book of the sort I didn't usually look at,... The author was Ram Dass, formerly Richard Alpert [PhD], an expelled professor of psychology at Harvard. I had been a reporter of the Harvard Crimson during the sixties when Alpert and his colleague Timothy Leary, PhD, were thrown off the faculty for giving LSD [(a CIA experimental mind-control drug)] to undergraduates.* I remembered those incidents well. .... [I don't believe LSD was technically illegal until a few years later. This was also the period when Theodore Kaczinski, PhD, attended Harvard as an undergraduate. B. F. Skinner, PhD, and the cult of Behaviorism were in its period of maximum membership expansion. **FLASH! July 6, 1999; report hints that Mr. Kaczinski did get LSD from CIA! Not clear though. And I thought I just made it up. Maybe they copied from me...].... I expected to find the disorganized ramblings of a poor fellow whose brains had been scrambled by too much acid and too many mystical journeys that went nowhere. But instead I found a lucid history of a driven, successful East Coast intellectual who suddenly found his life, his houses, his cars, his lovers, his vacations, his work, to be unsatisfying.
I knew exactly what he was talking about.
I felt exactly the same way.
Richard Alpert, a Harvard renegade, an obviously unbalanced man who had gone off the deep end of his life, now appeared before me as somebody I identified with strongly....
But there was a further implication. Alpert, now Ram Dass ... had gone to India. And after several years he had come back with answers that seemed to work for him. ...
He had made a pilgrimage to India.
Should I?
the Encyclopedia Britannica is now online. Special feature: Psychedelic Rock and the '60s. with more on:
View this former Harvard professor at a new venue
[ I have had good karma to be able to attend three talks by Ram "Servant-of-God" Dass. In the early days Ram Dass (PhD, Psychology) called himself Baba Ram Dass, but he has since dropped the Baba; too pretentious. At this moment as I write (1998), he is partially paralyzed on one side due to a stroke; he is also prevented from speaking, but as he says, he now knows the sound of one hand clapping. (I may be out of date on his medical condition.) UPDATE. I just saw him speak in Berkeley on spirituality and activism, Feb 2000, from a wheelchair. Older, but still there. His latest book is Still Here: Embracing Aging, Changing, and Dying]
Karma Cola; Marketing the Mystic East, 1979, Gita Mehta. Glad to see the Indians writing back. An Indian (although Mehta lives in London now) journalistic view of the invasion of the European seeker generation. Ever since the Beatles. Biting, and funny. (Also sad.)
Anjuna Beach in Goa is an anthropologist's dream. It illustrates what people will keep and carry with them to the bitter end, long after they have lost their passports, their money, their virginity, their health, and often their sanity.....Anjuna Beach had become to the Indians what the burning ghats were to the foreigners, mostly a place to watch others lose their dignity.
For instance:
Goa Freaks; My Hippie Years in India, 1995, Cleo Odzer. [her home page] Personal account of a New Yorker in India (Anjuna Beach), about the period 1975-79. Mercifully, and unexpectedly, devoid of any discussion or rationalization along the lines of philosophy or religion. Written in a scientific spirit, holding back no details, even those that others might think undignified.
Best argument against drugs since Andy Warhol's film Trash (with the possible exception of David Crosby's autobiography Long Time Gone).
If you are interested in all of the drama involved with acquiring drugs (coke and smack), spending weeks at a time taking drugs, thinking about drugs, complaining about not having drugs, scheming to get drugs, using drugs, the entrepreneurial problems of running a for-profit shooting gallery, smuggling drugs, hiding drugs on one's person, rationalizing about drugs, how to get one's house guests to not squirt hypodermic fluids in the ash trays, how to handle those gone "Coke Amuck", all the reasons for quitting drugs "next week", similar to the kinds of endless drug-interest expressed in William Burroughs's Junky, then you will like 95 percent of this book.
When Neal showed him the works and the vitamin B ampules, the Indian seemed to get the picture. He smiled and nodded and motioned for Neal to deposit the works in the pot.
"Acha. Boil," he said, "I boil."
He put the lid on the pot and left for the kitchen.
Did he really understand? we wondered.
A while later, the waiter returned with the pot and lifted the cover to reveal steam wafting from our floating works. Amazing! Bombay must be the only city in the world where one can send a syringe to be sterilized by room service.
Smuggling.
I viewed my enterprises as capitalist, not felonious.
Hopefully the statute of limitations has run out; if she were caught these days she'd be up for a mandatory life sentence. Karmically, as it turned out, instead she will have to spend the rest of her life as a PhD of anthropology.
Six months after I left Goa, I started college and discovered that learning was as simulating as any psychotropic chemical I'd taken, and with the will-power Daytop [drug rehab] demanded of me, I was capable of postponing immediate gratification in order to aim for long-range goals.
Perhaps this endorsement should be printed in college catalogs sent to high school seniors to help combat drugs.
(The contribution to the gross domestic product of annual incarceration is greater than the pay scale of yet another professor of anthropology, so you can see why the efficiency of the market is moving us in the direction of greater societal benefit, away from education, towards incarceration.)
She did try to hire someone to break her ex-boyfriend's arms and legs who had thrown a pound of her heroin into the ocean. (He thought it was evil.) I'm surprised she isn't afraid of meeting the people she ripped off with a check scam she describes in the book. Especially since she put it on the web as a sample chapter.
She did have her periods of self-reflection and personal growth:
Were money and lawlessness making me cold-hearted? Would this be bad for my karma?
While on the lam she took "sanyassin vows" from B. S. Rajneesh. Hardly there could be a better match of chela to guru in terms of sincerity and insight.
She may not be as stupid as she makes herself sound. The fact that she includes details like these implies an attempt to be complete in her reportage, as befits a scientist.
She did her anthropological field work on the Thai prostitute scene. Patpong Sisters: An American Woman's View of the Bangkok Sex World, 1994. Excerpt. Put it next to My Wife in Bangkok: A Romantic Guide to the City, an American man's view of the Bangkok sex world, Rory O'Merry, 1990. Because of his experience with pollution, he was able to get the contract to write Dr. Smog's Smog Check Guide, 1992.
Lately she's into the internet. In a few years I expect a book from her on internet-addiction rehab. (Go to her home page to see what her newest book is really about.)
Cleo Odzer has, since this page was first written, ascended. see her Wikipedia entry.
The Lotus and the Robot, Arthur Koestler. 1960 or so. Travels to Indian and Japan, seeking deep insights. Ended up a cranky cross-cultural disquisition; comparative sewerology. (See also Mehta, Odzer, Jonathan Swift, and Rabelais for more on the same topic.) I doubt chauvinistic Indians or Japanese like it. But well-written, as usual.
Theos Bernard. Hatha Yoga: The Report of a Personal Experience. 1950. and other works. Here is a western who traveled the yogic path himself; a tremendous commitment to going beyond just reading about it.
The publishers regret to announce the death of the author in the following circumstances, as related by Mr. G. A. Bernard, the author's father."In 1947, Theos Bernard was on a mission to the KI monastery in western Tibet in search of some special manuscripts. While on his way, rioting broke out among the Hindus and the Moslems in that section of the hills; all Moslems including women and children in the little village from which Theos departed were killed.
"The Hindus then proceeded into the mountains in pursuit of the Moslems who had accompanied Theos as guides and muleteers. These Moslems, it is reported, learning of the killings, escaped, leaving Theos and his Tibetan boy alone on the trail. It is further reported that both were shot and their bodies thrown into the river."
Meetings with Remarkable Men, Gurdjieff. Easy reading travelog, a lot easier reading that the philosophical exposition I expected. Made into a film (loosely) by Peter Brook. If you are in search of the miraculous try
In Search of the Miraculous, Ouspensky. Russian writer. English translation, 1949, about stuff that happened up to 1920 or so, and "philosophy" concerning Gurdjieff. Never could finish it.
Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain, Sheila Ostrander and Lynn Schroeder, Introduction by Ivan T. Sanderson, 1970. Stories of marvels from a distant, mysterious land.
news item:
April 5, 1997, The New York Times, By Michael Specter. " ...on the night of Feb. 22. Sasha Lebyodkin and his terrified nephew, Sergei Gretsov, went on a witch hunt. Armed with hammers and knives, they entered the house of the woman who they said had cast a spell on them and started swinging."When they were done one woman was dead -- the first murder here at least since the Revolution -- and four of her five children were on their way to the hospital. The 22-year-old woman whose life they were after, Tanya Tarasova, suffered several hammer blows to the head, but survived.
"Saying they were spooked by wild, half-human beasts and dogged by incantations that set their eyes on fire, the killers were not shy about what they had done. And with mysticism and sorcery a pervasive fact of modern Russian life, the other residents of this village on the border with Ukraine weren't a bit surprised. ......
"Major national newspapers advertise the services of clairvoyants, witches and warlocks every day. [What about the Psychic Hotline?] Well-trained doctors at respected hospitals see nothing unusual in recommending that their patients take a trip to a "babka," an old woman with the power to heal. [Well, a placebo has to fit the patient.] Until late last year, Gen. Georgi Rogozin was in charge of a team of Kremlin staff astrologers whose sole job was to help guide President Boris N. Yeltsin in making decisions. [It worked for that zombie warlock FBI secret informer agent T-10, a.k.a. Ronald Reagan. Astrologers, here is a job opportunity: work for the State Department.]
"We have had in this country a very long period of total absence of spiritual education, and people completely forget what religion really means," said the Rev. Aledsandr Bulekov, from the Moscow patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church.... "
They seem to be following the traditional medieval book "Hammer of Witches", Malleus Malefactorum; perhaps they will be coming out with an updated edition called "The Hammer and Sickle of Witches." There are a number of small American villages where it would also be popular.
According to my latin dictionary an alternate translation of "Malleus Malefactorum" would be "The pole ax (for slaughtering small animals) of malefactors." Instead, the word for witch is venefica, or saga. Maybe the book has been misrepresented. Maybe it's really just about Police Procedure.
I am not making up this term.
to be worked on. topics. Trungpa, Fuerestein, Da Free A Vid John Avhoout etc Jones, Atmananda Rama Fred Lenz. The Double Mirror Butterfield.
A Rumor of Angels: Modern Society and the Rediscovery of the Supernatural Peter L. Berger, 1969, 1990. coauthor of The Social Construction of Reality A very different point of view than I expected. He shows every evidence of understanding his previous book.
.. I wanted to show how the intellectual tools of the social sciences, which had contributed greatly to the loss of credibility of religion, could be turned on the very ideas that had thus discredited supernatural views of the world and on the people propagating those ideas. I called this project "relativizing the relativizers." And second, I wanted to draw a very rough sketch of an approach to theologizing that began with ordinary human experience, more specifically with elements of that experience that point toward a reality beyond the ordinary. I called this approach "inductive" and I indicated a number of experiential complexes that could be considered "signals of transcendence." ... such a program would not secularize the religious definitions of reality; on the contrary it would, as it were, transcendentalize secularity. ....The more conscious one becomes of the immense variety of human thought and action in this world, the more one puts in proportion the peculiar ideas and institutions that we subsume under the heading of "modernity." ........ discloses the naïveté and parochialism of those Western "cultural desisers of religion" who have been the interlocutors ... of so much recent Christian theology.
The Mind's Sky: Human Intelligence in a Cosmic Context Timothy Ferris. Cosmology, mind, life. the usual. "Library of the Amazon", one chapter on-line
For other worthy texts, see anything by Paul Davies.
Earlier works in the same lineage:
Intelligent Life in the Universe. 1966. Shklovskii and
Sagan.
The Mysterious Universe. 1930. Sir James Jeans
Skinny Legs and All. 1990. Tom Robbins. Novel. Some parts are too whimsical even for a believer in many-worlds. Robbins studied religion and art in college. It shows.
An Historian's Approach to Religion Arnold Toynbee, 1956. by definition, cross cultural. Quoted on the title page:
'Only through time time is conquered.'In a class by itself: The Fabric of Reality: The Science of Parallel Universes -- and Its Implications David Deutsch, 1997. Very different and much more profound and practical than what I expected.
-- T. S. Eliot: Four Quartets
The four main strands of explanation which may constitute the first Theory of Everything are:
- quantum physics [many worlds]
- epistemology [explanation, not induction or positivism]
- the theory of computation [virtual reality [intentionality, although he doesn't use the term]]
- the theory of evolution
[If you are missing one, you have an improverished worldview; they support each other in creating a wider vision.] believes in Many Worlds interpretation of Q. M.:
When Shor's algorithm has factorized a number, using 10^500 or so times the [classical] computational resources that can be seen to be present, where was the number factorized? There are only about 10^80 atoms in the entire visible universe, an utterly minuscule number compared with 10^500. So if the visible universe were the extent of physical reality, physical reality would not even remotely contain the resources required to factorize such a large number.
I don't have time to explain why this is so exciting. Those with ears to hear, let them hear. To learn more jump right into:
Explorations in Quantum Computing Colin P. Williams and Scott H. Clearwater. 1998; excellent intro overview to the field, if you already know some q. m. and computer stuff. Takes the theory of computation away from the mathematicians and gives it back to the physicists, where it belongs. (Or maybe there is no difference.)
Quantum Computation and Quantum Information. Michael A. Nielsen and Icaac L. Chuang. Cambridge U. Press. 2000. Monster textbook. both PhDs.
The Tao is Silent. Raymond M. Smullyan. 1977. Every
website I've seen that mentions this book seems to like it. Why is
that?
Everything by Smullyan is recommended. Typical chapter title: "The
Tao is good, but not moral."
Creativity and Taoism; A Study of Chinese Philosophy, Art, and Poetry. Chang Chung-yuan. PhD. 1963
The Importance of Living Lin Yutang. 1937.
To me personally, the only function of philosophy is to teach us to take life more lightly and gayly than the average business man does, for no business man who does not retire at fifty, if he can, is in my eyes a philosopher.
[Bill Gates, take note.
(written in 1996. 2018 update: Good Job Bill, you quit to become web-based book reviewer, like me.]
Chuang Tzu; Genius of the Absurd, Legge and Waltham. One translation. Another: The Way of Chuang Tzu. 1965. Thomas Merton (Catholic (Trappist) monk).
The Book of Tea. Kakuzo Okakura On the web at www.takase.com/KakuzoOkakura. Japanese, actually.
Leisure: The Basis of Culture. Josef Pieper. writen 1947. Intro by T.S. Elliot. Not Chinese, German. Not Taoist, Christian.
The idolatry of the machine, the worship of mindless know-how, the infantile cult of youth and the common mind-- all this points to our peculiar leadership in the drift toward the slave society..." backcover excerpt from New York Times Book Review
Zen and the Birds of Appetite. 1968. Thomas Merton.
Mystics and Zen Masters. 1967. Thomas Merton.
Merton died due to faulty wiring on an electric fan. He said he
felt more kinship with Buddhist monks then he did with Christian
nonmonks.
according to Butterfield, Merton met Chrogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche, in India. They were mutually impressed. That fits.
The Spiritual Guide Which Disentangles the Soul and Brings It by the Inward Way to the Getting of Perfect Contemplation and the Rich Treasure of Internal Peace . Miguel de Molinos.
cf something like: The Path of Purification (Visuddhimagga): A Classic Textbook of Buddhist Psychology. AD 400. English trans. Nanamoli Bhikkhu, 1953. More like a database of states of mind. Pretty unreadable.
A more recent Catholic monk who reminds me of Merton: Brother David Steindl-Rast. Wrote book with Tao of Physicist Fritjof Capra.
Christ: The Eternal Tao. Hieromonk Damascene. "presents the Tao Teh Ching as a foreshadowing of what would be reveiled by Christ, and Lao Tzu himself as a Far-Eastern prophet of Christ the incarnate God." Based on teachings from Gi-ming Shien. From the Eastern Orthodox perspective.
Mysticism: Christian and Buddhist: The Eastern and Western Way: A study of the qualities Meister Eckart shares with Zen and Shin Buddhism. D. T. Suzuki. 1957.
The Gospel According to Zen: Beyond the Death of God eds. Sohl and Carr. 1970. "An extraordinarily ecumenical collection of readings in the new consciousness of post-Christian man, with commentaries by Erich Fromm, D. T. Suzuki, Alan Watts, J. Krishnamurti and others."
Jesus and Buddha: The Parallel Sayings . by Marcus J. Borg (Editor), Jack Kornfield (Introduction), Ray Riegert (Editor). most recent of the 3 above, and most wasted white space on pages.
an Amazon listmania list on the same topic.
Mysticism: Buddhist and Christian: Encounters with Jan van Ruusbroec. Pual Mommaers and Jan Van Bragt. 1995. 14th Century Flemish mystic.
Living Buddha, Living Christ. by Thich Nhat Hanh, Elaine Pagels. Pagels is scholar of gnosticism. see The Gnostic Gospels . Probably a PhD.
Martin Palmer. The Jesus Sutras: Rediscovering the Lost Scrolls of Taoist Christianity. 2001. not a reflection but an actual cultural influence. Apparently early Eastern Orthodox Christainity penetrated China and had influence on some Taoists.
Swedenborg: Buddha of the North D.T. Suzuki. Japanese, 1913. Translated by Andrew Bernstein. 1996. If you consider Swedenborg "Christian"; he himself did. Suzuki translated four books of Swedenborg into Japanese. This book in Japanese is Suedenborugu. It isn't very good, compared to D.T.'s other books, and the following:
The Presence of Other Worlds: The Psychological/Spiritual Findings of Emanuel Swedenborg. 1974. Wilson Van Dusen. Best intro to Swedenborg. Went into trances; explored "Heaven and Hell." Highly related to:
The Natural Depth in Man. 1972. Wilson Van Dusen. Discovered an analogy between the heirarchy of angels described by Swedenborg and the voices heard by schizophrenics. Was able to do psychotherapy on the voices. Fascinating.
Journeys Out of the Body Robert A. Monroe. 1971. Well-known book of this genera. One of many accounts of such experiences. He set up an institute to try to "teach" the experiences. Waterbeds, relaxation, biaural-beat audio tapes; hypnotic regression; biofeedback. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross is an endorser. His two later books are duds although I'm sure the faithful like them.
see also the Six Yogas of Naropa mentioned above.
Catapult: The Biography of Robert A. Monroe. Bayard Stockton. 1989. Wasn't as good as I hoped. Monroe has since ascended.
Out of Body Experiences: How to have them and what to expect. Bob Peterson. OBE books are becoming pretty generic. Also, seminars available, and favorite quotes from mediocre rock musicians.
Beyond the Body: An Investigation of Out-of-the-Body Experiences. Susan J. Blackmore. 1992. Reasonable academic overview plus she had her own experience.
[ Out of their body, or just out of their mind? Or traveling in internal virtual reality. "Intentionality"; although she doesn't use the term. Her latest book is about memes.]
Blackmore wrote the pretty interesting In Search of the Light: The Adventures of a Parapsychologist. She gave parapsychology an open-minded investigation, but became skeptical after investigation. Now she has to find other things to write about.
see also The Star Rover, Jack London. Novel. Based on true-life prison experiences of Ed Morrel, escaping intolerable physical situation (in San Quintin prison) by mental regression or imaginative creation. You decide.
"Unready to Wear", Vonnegut short story, 1953. Probably got the idea from reading something like Muldoon and Carrington, The Projection of the Astral Body, 1929. Similar references to some verses in the Bible, and Theosophical doctrines, ..... yoga, .... Egypt, .... Greek philosophy (specifically Plato, The Republic Book X, the myth of Er) .... etc. Such ideas have permeated eastern and western culture since the ancients. Vonnegut's wife was into the astrology type thing, if I recall correctly from reading something like his son's book. referece elsewhere on a nearby page.
ftp.beyond-the-illusion.com/Altered-States/AP-OOBE-NDE/ap-bklst.txt Bob's Books on Out-of-Body Experiences - 161 titles to date, a list
Possessed: The True Story of an Exorcism. Thomas B. Allen. 1993. This is the case on which The Exorcist, William Peter Blatty, is mostly based. (The Exorcist, 1970, is one of the world's all-time best sellers.) Unfortunately, could use better documentation. (They also wanted to maintain privacy of those involved.) Same case was also investigated by parapsychologists as a poltergeist case. Parapsychology Bulletin, No. 15, August 1949. Also in Enchanted Voyager, Denis Brain, 1982, a biography of J. B. Rhine. An account appeared on the front page of the Washington Post August 20 (or is it 10?), 1949, which is where college student Blatty first learned about it. (I have not confirmed the statement that Blatty worked for C.I.A.) The unfortunate subject, now a well-adjusted adult, wishes to remain unknown. (see below, a few paragraphs)
From The Economist, August 29, 1998, page 34:
This is the man* who ...., during the 1991 hearings to confirm Clarence Thomas, a right-wing nominee, to the Supreme Curt, rudely ridiculed Anita Hill's charges of sexual harassement by the judge (at one point waving a copy of William Blatty's "The Exorist", the source, he alleged, for one of Miss Hill's more exotic claims.)*The man in question: Orrin Hatch, Senator, R-Utah, also famous for saying "What a jerk!"; later, clarifying, "what I meant to say was that he acted like a jerk"*; re Bill Clinton (as of this writing, former well-known "President of the United States of America"), referencing the "improper" relationship.
He was only acting.
The book The Exorcist, is based on an actual incident, as described the the Allen book above. For a real investigative report, revealing the true location of the house, and actually tracking done the boy in question, (with out revealing his name, with good reason) see this very important article in Strange Magazine, also on their website. One should always take into account the author's own prejudices and beliefs when judging the credibility of a document; in this case the author, Mark Opsasnick, is a believer in both God and the Devil. It is an excellent investigative report.
Memorable Providences, Relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions. A Faithful Account of many Wonderful and Surprising Things, that have befallen several Bewitched and Possessed Persons in New-England. Particularly, A Narrative of the marvellous Trouble and Releef Experienced by a pious Family in Boston, very lately and sadly molested with Evil Spirits. , Cotton Mather. Also a major best seller. 1689.
about the Salem, Massachusetts, British colony, later USA, witch trials. The jury was not hung. 1692. after the Mather propaganda.
I would be derelict if at this point I didn't mention:
Tourette's syndrome
schizophrenia
ergot fungus
Medieval Jewish belief that a dead soul (dybbuk) could enter a living person.
Six Yogas of Naropa (Medieval Indian Tantrik, a source for the
Tibetan tradition):
[the yoga of] Psychic-heat,
the Illusory Body,
the Dream-State,
the Clear Light,
the After-Death State,
and Transference of the consciousness.
see Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines ed Evans-Wentz,
1958, or Esoteric Teachings of the Tibetan Tantra
trans, Chang Chen Chi, ed. Charles A. Muses. 1961. Also relevant:
The Life and Teaching of Naropa, [A.D. 1016-1100],
trans. Herbert V. Guenther, PhD, 1963.
One man's forbidden witchcraft is another's spiritual technology. (I use lower case here, lest I infringe on a trademark.)
Begone Satan! . another American exorcism. Iowa, 1928. On the web for your perusal. Mentioned by the Allen book above.
Exorcism: The Removal of Evil Influences. by Martin Israel.
Hostage to the Devil. Malachi Martin. 1976 or so. Several cases in America. Uncorroborated by the publisher or anyone else. Some are suitably shocking. Martin is a reasonable (but conspiracy-mongering) writer and former Jesuit, scholar, and exorcist. Roman rite (NOT a sacrament) of exorcism in English included in appendix. For gossip about Martin see the 1960s diaries of Edmund Wilson. Martin has recently been released from this mortal travail (August 1999).
American Exorcism. 2001. Cuneo. pretty good research about grassroots churches holding exorcisms, but he missed the Strange Magazine article mentioned above. His thesis is that American religion is feeding off pop culture. Blatty, Malachi Martin, etc now cited by churches as evidence. He says Malachi Martin is unreliable, his included rite is not standard. If he can't even get that right, what else isn't right? Doesn't he know magic spells have to be done EXACTLY?
Rewriten (1999) Catholic rite of exorcism, with an acknowledgement of insanity this time. Previous edition, A.D. 1614. see article: A Kinder, Gentler Satan. D. Trull. "evil... a threatening force that dwells within each individual. ... not external malevolence, personified as Satan ..."
Taoist Mysteries and Magic alternate title: The Secret and Sublime, 1973. John Eaton Calthorpe Blofeld travels in older China. Fascinating ghosts stories and account of possession isomorphic to those found in Hostage to the Devil, Malachi Martin. 1976. New meaning to phrase "foxy lady". For more on _kitsune_.
Japanese ghost stories from Lafcadio Hearn
other related catagories:
Kundalini, (eg Gopi Krishna; many others) Near Death Experiences.
(e.g. Raymond Moody, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, Kenneth Ring)
when I get some more time after my mandatory goof-off period.
Embraced by the Light Betty J. Eadie with Curtis Taylor. 1992. "The Most Profound and Complete Near-Death Experience Ever" it says on the cover. What happens when profound events happen to mediocre minds. "A New York Times #1 Bestseller". "My appreciation to Curtis Taylor, writer-editor for Gold Leaf Press. Without his extraordinary talent and tremendous sensitivity to the Spirit, this book would not exist in its present form. Betty J. Eadie" One can only speculate what a mess the original manuscript could have been.
If you're interested in attaining miraculous powers, you may as well check out some of the classics (beside the Indian/Tibetan one mentioned above):
The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali, from the Hindu tradition. Example translations: How to Know God "A supremely enlightening work on the theory and practice of yoga, translated with a new commentrary by Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood" 1953. or The Science of Yoga, I.K. Taimni. 1961. or by Georg Feuerstein. or by William J. Judge.. Book 3 concerns the siddhis (prefections, miraculous powers, accomplishements), for you wannabe god(wo)men.
The Practice of the Presence of God Brother Lawrence. Christian.
The Way of the Pilgrim, and the Pilgrim Continues His Way from medieval Russian church. If I say the name "Franny", do you know what I'm talking about?
The Path of Purification (Visuddhimagga). Bhadantacariya Buddhaghosa , the Theravadin (southern Buddhist) tradition, couple of English translations out there. 1956. Meditation manual and laundry list of altered states of consciousness and other miracles.
St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of Jesuits. Spiritual Exercises Most founders of lineages of monks/nun have a spiritual manual.
Emile Durkheim, founder of the Sociologists.
channeling
many others.
Reincarnation, Channeling and Possession: A Parapsychologist's Handbook. 1993. Loyd Auerbach. Warner Books. "... one of the world's top parapsychologists, ... has appeared on numerous TV talk and news shows, including Today, Oprah, and Hard Copy and is an advisor to the Fox Network show Sightings." A resonable example of the genera. Loyd will act as a "ghostbusting" consultant, will use a magnometer to look for fields. This may be under the theory that since he doesn't understand magnetism and he doesn't understand ghosts, maybe they are related phenomena. Quotes Frederick Lenz (aka Rama) as an authority on reincarnation. Persued his research earnestly at the postgraduate level. He is also a funny guy and has a sideline as stage magician "Crazy Loyd".
www.ghostweb.com, International Ghost Hunters Society related to the following:
The Supernatural Investigators . They sell EMF meters. How scientific could they be if they didn't have electronic gear?
Be sure to get the ok from your priest, guru, spiritual friend, psychoanalyst, preacher, meditation checker, rebbe, Auditor, PhD advisor, conscience, parole officer, agent, lawyer, and trainer; please try to avoid ego-inflation, cult-founding, verbose prose, mass suicide, or other demonic possession; it's such a drag and the bad PR makes it harder for the next guy.
If you think your spiritual leader has miraculous powers, he or she probably accepts fools as disciples.
Crazy Wisdom section
Holy Madness: The Shock Tactics and Radical Teaching of
Crazy-Wise Adepts, Holy Fools, and Rascal Gurus Georg
Feuerstein. 1990.
more later:
Trungpa;
Frederick Lenz, Atmananda, Rama (PhD in literature; specialist on
Rilke)
Da Free you know who. a very interesting case. MA in creative
writing
no need to go off in a vulgar rush to Perfection; it'll still be there after you finish your PhD.
I always like to read a personal experience
Travels, 1988, Michael Crichton. New York suburbizen, grocery-store novelist; more travels and wonders. He has been to Harvard Med School, Europe, London, Ireland, Mexico, Virgin Islands, (observer of) Patpong district, Bangkok, Thailand, Bonaire, South America, Bora Bora, Singapore, Tanzania, Kenya, Baltistan, Tahiti, Rwanda, Jamaica, Malaysia, New Guinea, Pakistan, Egypt, Hunza, Nigir, Borneo, Hollywood. The most interesting parts (other than discussions of his relationships of course) are his personal experiences in psychic schools. Aura seeing, odd kind of projection with inanimate objects (cactus), reminiscent of Casteneda looking for his power spot; personally bent metal, etc, etc. Nice essay in the philosophy of science at the end. But leaves one hanging. Is this guy for real? And why doesn't he follow up on this stuff since then?
Now, with the intense pressure abruptly ended,... in a mood of almost hysterical self-congratulation. ....Suddenly I broke out in a drenching sweat.... I was panic-striken, in the grip of a powerful anxiety attack, but why at this instant of ... elation?...
All my life I had pursed clear goals: in high school, to get into a good college: .....
I was thirty years old, I had graduated from Harvard, taught at Cambridge University, climbed the Great Pyramid, earned a medical degree, married and divorced, been a postdoctoral fellow at the Salk Institute, published two bestselling novels, and now had made a movie. And I had abruptly run out of goals for myself.
I was stranded within my own life.... what was I going to do now?[*]
I had no idea.
I fell into a lethargy, then a full-blown depression....
I took to haunting bookstores, buying five hundred dollars' worth of books at a time, carrying them off in cartons.....
One day I came across a book called Be Here Now. ... [vide supra]
It is not my intention to rip off the publisher and/or copyright holder of Travels, or other works here mentioned. I believe my short excerpts fall within "fair use" as recognized by copyright law, as for purposes of criticism and commentary. And I love books; I encourage everyone to buy some; just don't believe anything you read, including this.
I have traveled extensively in Concord.
--Henry David Thoreau
quote used by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. to open his book Wampeters, Foma, and Granfalloons, 1974.
Should I?
Self-referential url: pseudopodium.com/somewhere_over_the_rainbow/ to be changed again soon.