Zizek on modern Jews
“The experience of being a leftist Jew in the West is often an exercise in paradox. As leftists and Jews, we hold positions that are apparently always in contradiction with each other. Keats called this phenomenon “negative capability†or the ability to hold two simultaneously contradictory things in our heads and not explode. The most obvious possible ways this plays out today would look something like this: Being able to both love and criticize the state of Israel; the possibility of being both a religious person and a person who believes in science and evolution; or even the possibility of being both religious and modern.”
http://ping.fm/AEYtM
Russia attacked first?
““So back to the 3rd of August. Kokoity announces women and children should leave. As it later turned out, he made all the civilians leave who were not fighting or did not have fighting capabilities. On the same day, irregulars – Ingush, Chechen, Ossetians, and Cossacks – start coming in and spreading out into the countryside but don’t do anything. They just sit and wait. On the 6th of August the shelling intensifies from Ossetian positions. And for the first time since the war finished in 1992, they are using 120mm guns.â€
“Can I stop you for a second?†I said. I was still under the impression that the war began on August 7 and that Georgian President Saakashvili started it when he sent troops into South Ossetia’s capital Tskhinvali. What was all this about the Ossetian violence on August 6 and before?
He raised his hand as if to say stop.
“That was the formal start of the war,†he said. “Because of the peace agreement they had, nobody was allowed to have guns bigger than 80mm. Okay, so that’s the formal start of the war. It wasn’t the attack on Tskhinvali. Now stop me.â€
“Okay,†I said. “All the reports I’ve read say Saakashvili started the war.â€
“I’m not yet on the 7th,†he said. “I’m on the 6th.—
http://ping.fm/4ztAw
Pix or it didn’t happen
Is it the neon icons
blazing blue about you
drive you mad
make you scream
Feel your heart
blood in my eyes
Paint a ragged notion
To fill a foul quota
Dead idols dancing
Morose and hungry
Please me, don’t listen
Listen to me, don’t ask
Imago is how you bleed
Blue blood is all I see
–
“I saw death rising from the earth, from the ground itself, in one blue field.”
– Bruce, A Scanner Darkly
Hilarious
I don’t know if the anon guy was replying to himself or if he was talking to another person here, but I freakin’ love the last bit.
“This is the nature of the weblog mutual circle jerk, though – no one will ever be honest, that would endanger all the warm fuzzies they all get spending all day fellating each other’s egos in a great digital mutual masturbation. As shallow as they are, they consider this real ‘friendship’. They are not real, and none of them has much experience with reality, however. These are ghosts, not real humans – at least as far as they present themselves in this sick livejournal ‘lovefest’.”
This is the worst ego trap ever. The idea that one can, by being as rude as you possibly can be, somehow ape sincerity, is the height of ego based delusion. All niceness must be false, because the ego doesn’t feel nice. Notice how people who fall into this one talk about nothing but ego removal? They’re telling you what they need. Ego work is difficult and nuanced at best. Especially when the problem is bad, people who suffer from it should neither be pitied nor attacked. The desire to completely destroy (as opposed to rectifying) the ego of another is sadistic at best, and really no one should trust their own urge to point out someone else’s ego issues. It rarely helps the problem unless you have a very skilled technique. I’ve dealt with old timers in AA who took the “bash the ego” route a lot further than most of the magi I’ve met, and it only rarely produces results (in this case sobriety) above the norm levels. Still worse, it can also lead to a person hiding certain issues even from themselves, then 15 years down the road, BAM, they end up drinking again. While in an occult context, there isn’t the same risk, it’s just as detrimental, because 15 years down the road could be when they’ve written a book or are in a position of power, and others depend on them to not be sadistic ego crushers. Nice people can be shallow, but so can angry people. I’d say it’s pretty shallow to assume that people are shallow because they aren’t disagreeable on the internet (not to say that arguing on the web is bad – it’s as good a hobby as any, I’d say). All in all, the sooner people stop being obsessed about each other’s egos or lack thereof, the better.
Klippot Redux
The Apoptisso rite is the most vital core of the Kadmon Group, and probably the best reason for our continued existence. Basically the Apoptisso rite is the process of breaking down harmful barriers that a person has put up to shield themselves from reality.
These barriers are described in the Kabbalah as Klippot, or shells, and I have learned to visualise them as layered shells surrounding a central core. The kabbalists also saw these Klippot as having distinct characteristics and subscribing to a sort of hierarchy. In much the same way, I see the shells of most people as taking on the traits of individuals in their lives (particularly those associated with traumas or important life events), but through a more universal lens.
For instance, in husking a person who had strained relations with their partner, it might be important to look at the person’s dreams and see what relationship (or what sort of relationship) originated the issue. If the issue originated with a father figure, then one could adopt this role as part of the Apoptisso process. The interaction with the person will tell you what the problem is. They may lash out at you in a certain way for acting as a father figure or become withdrawn. Learn from this.
Once sufficient evidence has been gathered, it remains to you to enact a scenario within the imagination, as vividly as possible, which can mend this situation, thereby creating a potential rectification – Bina, the conscious mind is linked to Beriya, the world of Information/Creation. Try to really act out the part both in the imaginary drama and outside actions.
The next part is difficult to describe. You must then mentally step through an alternate timeline, in which your drama did actually occur. As each continuity is capable of influencing the next, by observing the influence of a particular timeline in the imaginitive faculty, as well as acting out the role, one can draw near to that timeline, and create a potential channel for the person to rectify themselves as you have done in the alternate timeline. Do not forget that you cannot truly mend another person, but you can give them an opportunity, and that is enough.
Remember, whether you believe that alternate timelines or Klippot even exist is absolutely immaterial. These are tools that enable you to accomplish a goal. May they serve you well.
Georgia
According to the Georgian Foreign Ministry, Russia may actually be trying to occupy the entire country. This situation is interesting to me because the Georgian Foreign Ministry is having to use Blogger to circumvent a cyberattack (I would assume DDoS) which means that disrupting Internet access will likely become a standard method during warfare, just like any other communication medium. What a weird weird world we live in.
Huzzah!
Ping.fm Custom URL support for WordPress makes me very happy. Previously WordPress.com was supported, but for those who like to “roll your own”, this really hits the spot. Great plugin, very easy to configure, and it even gives you a widget for status update support (so you don’t have to have status updates amidst posts). Very nice.
Learning from Lamenting
After doing the yearly reading of Lamentations (Eikhah), I was scanning through the text a second time when I noticed a verse (ch.4 v.15) that began, “Begone, you are unclean!” That seemed like a pretty useful phrase to me, especially when dealing with the forces of Sitra Achra. Roughly transliterated, that’d be “Suru tamei!” I also noticed the cantillation marks. I am not a cantor, but the marks were fairly straightforward, being the marks on V’ahavta and V’hayu in the V’ahavta. So I took those two modulations and practised them on each word individually, then together. Whether or not I actually ever have occasion to use this particular phrase, it is certainly a useful method for constructing ritual.
Time
Time moves from moment to moment just as the lightning does. There’s an initial branching process that seeks out the best path to ground, then the actual strike. Intuition is just a level of attention that stays in the offbeat – that branching moment, whereas our standard perceptual level is the onbeat (or the strike).
