The following blogspots center on a variety of subjects, which I have initiated. You are invited to look and respond.

http://esoschronicles.blogspot.com/ Not-Violence main subject

http://melnaysjanis.blogspot.com/ Temple of Janis (John) site

http://the-not-voter.blogspot.com/ Arguments for systems change

http://the4thawakening.blogspot.com/ Sacrificial crisis in Latvia

http://oedipusrexrewritten.blogspot.com/ Oedipus Rex Rewritten

I suggest you look at the links imbedded in these blogs or at the end of the blog as an integral part of my argument.  * text between [ ] is not part of quote.

The 4^th Awakening

37 God at the Drop of a Hat

© Eso Anton Benjamins

If one looks at history from the point of view of the concluding stages of our occupation of planet Earth, the settlement of Europe may be viewed as among the last. Of course the occupation of America, South America, and Australia happens subsequent to that of Europe. However, these latter continents, thinly settled before arrival of the Europeans, received a people of already secularized minds and, therefore, a people predisposed toward living in a mercantile, i.e. urbanite environment.

The “empty” continents, occupied by a scattering of “prehistoric” communities, received a people who had experienced a second birth of barbarism. Though this is not a commonly held view, this writer believes that the regressive maneuver was the result of a combination of rising living standards among an increased number of people, which led to confidence that did not hesitate to reject all things aboriginal and all civilizations immediately arising from it. The communities that formed before the second-birth barbarians came into being, generated themselves on the basis of a perception that a community comes into being only if it overcomes the sacrificial crisis that keeps it a rapidly disintegrating group. Indeed, the evidence of the beneficence of the sacrifices of the aboriginals and post-aboriginals was their very community.

What the barbarians of the second coming (second time around, so to speak) did was to impose themselves on the aboriginals through violence, and then insisted that the community was not the result of the sacrifices by the aboriginals, but the result of the violence exercised by the “moderns”. Thus, “violent” and “modern” became not only synonyms, but synonyms believed to be superior to the synonyms of “sacrifice” and “community”.

Some will say that sacrifice is a violent activity, and that one cannot therefore create a second coming for barbarism. One may reply that it depends on what one perceives as violent. It may be argued that there is a difference between nonviolence and not-violence.

Nonviolence is a romantic notion perpetuated by those who live in an urbanized world that has become unreal (i.e., alienated from nature), whereas not-violence suggests that violence is not—it is not turned against others. In other words, when one turns violence against one’s self, one creates a charisma that potentially bonds the witnesses into a community with no less strong bonds than overt violence. While the self-sacrificial act cannot be called nonviolent, it is for all that a not-violent act. It awes the witnesses into making peace with each other. It is for the sake of peace and the avoidance of war that a self-sacrifice dies.

Of course, there are sacrifices that are not self-sacrifices, but are sacrifices "sacrificed" by others for whatever reasons of their own. These other sacrifices may not be thought of as self-sacrifices (i.e., submissively accepting their fate), because even if they are such (by some tragic set of circumstances), the fact that another takes their lives (persecutes them) makes the other a murderer. Therefore, what this writer is arguing is that of violence became a synonym of nonviolence, but that the synonymy was (is/must be) enforced by the self-sacrifice of the not-violent.

It happened (sometimes between the 9^th to 12^th centuries) that the synonymy was destroyed as a result of the imposition of a world order through violence, what is here called the second coming of barbarianism. This rough and violent beast destroyed the memory of the not-violent order. We therefore have what we know today as the “new secular order” (Novus Ordo Seculorum). The old secular order, the day-to-day not-violent law of the times, is in our day believed to have been impossible and is therefore impossible now. This is why we delude ourselves into believing that we have succeeded in becoming “modern” by way of a nonviolent ideology and war, yet are finding ourselves imprisoned in an unchangingly violent world.

Likening the old secular order to Arch-Christianity and the new one to Neo-Christianity may be controversial, some may say provocative. One has to agree, but  suggest that the comparison is a not-violent act. It is a challenge. It asks why the Neo-Christian Johns, today known as Jesus Christ, is sitting in a non-place called Heaven and on his hands no less. Would the Arch-Christian Johns not have done better?

Incidentally, this is known as the religious schism between the Eastern and Western churches. While at this time the Eastern Church appears (to this author) thoroughly westernized inspite of its insistence that it is not, the tradition certainly suggests that at one time in history the schism was the result of polar perceptions of what religion is about.

This is where the proto-Latvians and Latvians come into the picture again. Interestingly, the cultural space in Latvia—even media people call on God at every opportunity—is as if there is no other. This compulsive presumption inhibits, above all, the ability to recall the past. What modern Latvians fail to do is to recall the traditions that once bound them as a community of Arch-Christians. 

The failure by Latvians to recall the past results in the present cultural, economic, and financial crisis, which is so severe as to threaten the death of the Latvian language in about fifty years or sooner. One of the primary causes of this crisis is the lock-step meme that was grafted unto a now dismembered Arch-Christian mindset by secularizing Neo-Christianity. The current government, literally possessed with itself, has hitched its wagon to a short-term past, while it never intends to welcome back an in-depth history. It is the Spinach Man, Popeye, dragging a wagon full of the unemployed, nonexistent forests, destroyed dunes, near empty countryside regions, and an endless discussion over whether one of the politicians in the Latvian Saeima (elected by the people of his district fair and square) speaks or does not speak Latvian.

The meme that set the forgetting of their language into motion was first officially inscribed on the Latvian mindset with the opening song to the First All Latvian Choir Festival. It was the neo-Christian Lutheran Hymn. Though removed from the repertoire a long time ago, the meme of Neo-Christendom continues to sit on his heavenly hands wherever Neo-Christendom is found and preaches “nonviolence”. John lies dead before its feet, but he no longer stinks, which apparently is a good enough reason not to remember him.

Nearly 150 years ago, one of the first Latvian books that openly expressed a nationalist bent by putting on the inside leaf a picture of a priest of the Children of Johns (Jāņu bērni) officiating at a forest altar, was burnt by the tsar. One may say that the tsar succeeded in his intent, because no one today in Latvia knows much about John or cares. While it appears that the defeat of John is complete is sitting on hands in Heaven an acceptable alternative?

The 1^st Awakening of Johns (a resurrection of sorts) occurred in 1934 when Karlis Ulmanis did his “soft” coup de tat and made himself president and prime minister of Latvia. Ulmanis lasted as President until the occupation of Latvia by the Soviet Union (1940). As one of the founders and now authoritarian ruler, he was Latvia’s semi divine leader.

John the Reawakened failed at the task that moved him to imagine himself a monarch. To say this does not bring him dishonor. After all, in his time and ours, the disremembrance of the need for closing on a “sacrificial crisis” with a not-violent death has been forgotten. Substituting that forgetting with military action would have been futile. The first attempt at resurrecting John was aborted when K. Ulmanis failed the Soviet challenge to offer himself as a not-violent sacrifice. He died in a Gulag instead.

The Story of Crazy Jane and Clever John, Part 3

(…story begins at blog 15)

One of the hanged men looked up, and Clever John saw that it was the same man with whom he talked while on his way to Sun Mountain. He had not yet hung himself then. “You are a liar, Clever John,” yelled the man now, “the Sun said that we could stop hanging ourselves after you went hang yourself, but then did so no more.”

“Yes, I know. I am worried,” answered Clever John.

(To be continued.)

Asterisks & Links of Interest

* text between [ ] is not part of quote.

Unchanged Feature: What is reality, what is myth?

http://www.voltairenet.org/article167588.html

Changing Feature: In the preceding posts, I started a compilation of video clips, which when seen as a linear sequence tell a story in a context which I hope will become apparent. No, I do not yet know where it is going to lead. This is a story with no end. If it began in the past (it must have), it is now moving parallel to the day we live in. Watching the film may or may not contribute to your understanding of my meaning. Put this clip as a tail to your communication so http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dm96MZS48lA others may see. The origin of this post is at http://the4thawakening.blogspot.com/ 

The following blogspots center on a variety of subjects, which I have initiated. You are invited to look and respond.

http://esoschronicles.blogspot.com/ Not-Violence main subject

http://melnaysjanis.blogspot.com/ Temple of Janis (John) site

http://the-not-voter.blogspot.com/ Arguments for systems change

http://the4thawakening.blogspot.com/ Sacrificial crisis in Latvia

http://oedipusrexrewritten.blogspot.com/ Oedipus Rex Rewritten

I suggest you look at the links imbedded in these blogs or at the end of the blog as an integral part of my argument.  * text between [ ] is not part of quote.

The 4^th Awakening

36 The Arrival of the Naïve Gods

© Eso Anton Benjamins

Among the first of the naïve Gods to arrive in Latvia ready for the box whence the naïve Gods of a fictive “pagan” past could be drawn was Bear Wrestler (Lāčplēsis).

Not that the Bear Wrestler had always been fiction. A long time ago, when the forest was Alma Mater of not only proto-Latvians, but of all of humankind, the Bear Wrestler had the role of what modern anthropologists call the scapegoat and religious people call the sacrificial lamb. Later, when secular and violent neo-Christianity replaced not-violent arch-Christianity’s real sacrifice (click here here, here, and here) with a fictional one, the Bear Wrestler became an arms bearing military hero (here, and here.)

To explain the difference between the use of naked hands and a sword or a spear or a gun, I will refer to Rene Girard, from his book “Violence and the Sacred”. Writes Girard: “As long as violence remains present among men, and as long as men pursue it as an absolute, as a kind of divinity, it will continue its devastating oscillations.” In his text, Girard discusses violence in terms of Greek kudos, a term used by Homer. As the Greeks understood it, violence brings a fickle victory. Victory through violence will, too, be overthrown by violence, and, thus, peace established by violence will be short lived. Seen from this perspective, the Latvian Bear Wrestler with a sword in his hands cannot and does not bring about a permanent peace.

After Latvia declared its independence (1918) other former erstwhile Latvian Gods are added to the box of the naïve Gods. All are become bloodless. It is likely that the Gods lost their blood in the long trek through the swamp of history that began with Bishop Alberts humiliation of the king and kingdom of Jersika in 1209 and the year 1873, when the tsar burnt the “Lihgo" book, the cover of which became the flag of the yet proto-Latvians and their song festivals.

Laima, the Goddess of Fate, one whose theological name translates as “Dearest Goddess”, the superior equivalent of God (who with no little violence usurped the Sun), becomes but a Goddess in a linen shirt with folk design embroidery. The Goddess who was the midwife to the newborn and took the baby into her hands on a towel is not remembered in any Latvian maternity hospital now; never mind that Thunder (Pērkons) passes overhead without a show of real anger, and no one knows who John is or Johns were.

Even so, in our time Bear Wrestler covers for the bloodlessness of the others Gods or demi Gods, because his name has been sacralized by it becoming identified with Latvia’s defenders and war dead. The Bear Wrestler is a badge of honor and it has every Latvian’s respect. However, this fact does not allow us to forget and forgive that he is used by a unipolar government as reason not to offer John (Jahnis) the right to be either the firstborn or second born of twins if Bear Wrestler and John may be so regarded.

What may be classified as “the naïve gods” (I am not sure what anthropologists call them) of Latvia are largely inventions of one man, one E. Brastins. While the membership of Brastins native church (projected as serving on behalf of Latvian Latvians) never had a huge membership (the count at this time is said not to exceed more than 1000), its audience in the late 1920s and the 1930s was most of Latvia. Brastins Gods served to fill the vacuum left by the dismissal (through secularization) of the Children of Johns Midsummer Festival and replacing it with what is known today as Midsummer Picnic where an occasional “lihgo” song (a ululation forgot) may still be sometimes heard.

As already mentioned (see previous blogs), for the Latvians the way to the present leads through the puritanical straight jacket of the Lutheran and Catholic churches on to a puritanical secular shoal of ethnic nationalism, a term that translates as fascism. This running aground of the ship of state was not only traumatic, but intolerable. In the 1920s and 30s a number of such ships—bled white by the devastating oscillations of the swords of violence of World War 1 and lobotomized of all memory of not-violence through self-sacrifice—were in great dread of being overrun by an Apocalypse. Russia (disguised as the Soviet Union), then Germany (disguised as Deutchland uber Alles) joined by Italy, France, and, yes, Latvia, and others, began to check the break-up of their respective communities by checking extreme individualism with reciprocal violence. Then with internal order temporarily reestablished, they all vied with each other for “semidivine prestige, of mystical election attained by military victory.” That Latvia would be a loser in this game was almost a foregone conclusion.

Latvia’s semidivine leader became Karlis Ulmanis, one of the founders of Latvia as a secular neo-Christian nation. Could Ulmanis save Latvia? As it turned out, the President played an evolutionary role. He was another phase in the relay race among the bloodless secular Gods.

The Story of Crazy Jane and Clever John, Part 3

(…story begins at blog 15)

Clever John then buried Crazy Jane’s child, and the raven flew down from the tree to the ground and offered for John to climb on its back. Clever John wasted no time and lay down between the raven’s wings and buried his hands deep into her black feathers.

The raven rose into the air and Clever John raised his head to see where they were flying. They were just over the Ahdere River.

Clever John looked down and saw Crazy Jane still standing in the river and bailing empty buckets of water. It was only then that he remembered that he had never told Crazy Jane that the Sun had released her from her abortive labors.

“Hey, Crazy Jane,” yelled Clever John, “you can stop doing that. The Sun said so. I asked Her.”

“Thank you, Clever John,” answered Crazy Jane. She had raised her head and was looking up at Clever John. It was then that Clever John saw that that Crazy Jane was crying real tears and that the water she had been bailing from the river was not water but tears.

By then the raven was flying over the great oak tree where earlier on Clever John had seen all the people go hang themselves. They were still doing so. Clever John saw, too, that the Ahdere River began nearby and was from all the trickles of tears the people shed.

“Hey, you all,” yelled Clever John, “you can stop go hang yourselves. The Sun said so. I asked.”

One man looked up, and Clever John saw that it was the same man with whom he talked while on his way to Sun Mountain. “You are a liar, Clever John,” yelled the man back at him, “the Sun said that we could do so only after you hung yourself and would do so no more.”

(To be continued.)

Asterisks & Links of Interest

* text between [ ] is not part of quote.

Unchanged Feature: What is reality, what is myth?

http://www.voltairenet.org/article167588.html

Changing Feature: In the preceding posts, I started a compilation of video clips, which when seen as a linear sequence tell a story in a context which I hope will become apparent. No, I do not yet know where it is going to lead. This is a story with no end. If it began in the past (it must have), it is now moving parallel to the day we live in. Watching the film may or may not contribute to your understanding of my meaning. Put this clip as a tail to your communication so http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4w3o80Vlj0&feature=fvw others may see. The origin of this post is at http://the4thawakening.blogspot.com/