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Second part of conversation with Mark Golding, on the difference between mystery schools & wisdom schools, social engineering and the overlap between occultism and spirituality, the fragment’s bid for wholeness, transcending duality, will to power/pursuit of happiness, letting go of the spiritual goal, chopping wood/carrying water, intellectual kung fu, Buddhist frying pan attack, distrusting appearances & opinions, being response-able, finding the medicine to trauma, following awareness to the source, a sense of wrongness in the world, the wrongness of circumcision, remembering the circumcision trauma, feeling the mother’s distress, Metzitzah B’Peh, the rationale for circumcision, the warrior-ification of the male, a great mystery, repetition compulsion, in the beginning, what was before the beginning, Jehovah’s covenant with Abraham, the threat of ostracization, patriarchal lineages and dominance through fear, a vessel for ancestors, Saturnine child sacrifice, ‘the ring of power,’ within the Jewish community, no voices in the wilderness, tram and forgetting, the trauma of birth, imbibing alcohol in the womb, psychic enmeshment with the mother, the ancestral usurper, Judaic ritual abuse, possession by ancestral patterns, going into the past the make way for the present.
Songs: “El Mariachi” & “Monkey Said” by The Freak Fandango Orchestra; “Waltzing in the Dark,” by Greg Houwer; “Lucy,” by Cullah.
yay, two of my favorite people chatting. Keep following your awareness.
While it is relatively quiet on the “western front” in regards to those who are outspoken on the harms of perpetuating the circumcision ritual, it’s not completely quiet. I suggested Mark as a guest to Jasun because I thought he was the one guy out there who I knew had spoken on this topic of ritual circumcision who I also thought would be a good fit for the Liminalist conversation. Personally, as a male who was circumcised as an infant, I like hearing this topic discussed in a sensitive (and direct) way and I knew that The Liminalist would explore the subject from angles that are not the typical ways of approaching Jewish and/or modern medical ritual circumcision.
I see that there are picto-grams of a seemingly ancient Egyptian circumcision in the image that goes along with this podcast, but I’ve wondered if the official “In the Beginning” didn’t officially begin until the “circumcision commandment” was first officially written down in words many thousands of years ago — in the letters of the Hebrew alphabet — with the “thou shalt circumcise your baby boys, or else” appearing in those first old Hebraic holy books. Sure, circumcision is way old — older than Judasim — but something special happened — back there “In the Beginning” — when the “circumcision order from on high” was officially written down in words in a book (and not just in the visual picture-images as was done sometimes on the walls of Egyptian temples).
But, yes, there are indeed others out there (although I may have made it sound like, to you, Jasun, that there were none) who address the topic with some sort of wider-than-normal scope:
On folks of Jewish ancestry who are against carrying on the tradition of circumcision:
http://www.jewsagainstcircumcision.org/brisshalom.htm
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powerful testimony from the director of the film, Cut: Slicing through the Myths of Circumcision :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13mvKdv65BQ
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One of the Bloodstained Men participants on his own metzitzah b’peh:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DRsJXJop5I
So what did he send you?
Ah yes,thanks for the reminder: here is Mark’s drain unblocking meta-narrative: http://markjgolding.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/dance-deep-line.html
Huh.
His memory of his mother’s reaction to him being taken away to be circumcised & the conversation it opened up was incredible to hear. I don’t have children but was struck that I could see a kind of enmeshment played out, to some degree, with my pets. I’m not saying this is at any level the same as the parent/child relationship but it was quite instructive for me to compare my treatment of “my” cat in context of the topics of this conversation.
I first got my cat after a divorce…she was there for MY comfort and as a result swimming in MY emotional toxic soup day in & day out (she wasn’t allowed outside, let alone very far from my side)…she grew quite anxious around other people & didn’t seem to like anyone but me…I’m ashamed to say that I loved this. She developed some neurotic behaviors such as eating anything string like she could & this very nearly killed her multiple times. Even in the face of her obvious distress, it took much convincing from my current husband to let her outside. I argued for her safety but can now admit it was purely selfish. She has been an indoor/outdoor cat for the past 5 years. The neurotic behaviors stopped immediately, she grew to be quite robust, & her calming down/openness to strangers seemed very much correlated to my own letting go. I don’t know if anyone would agree but it seems that most pet relationships are in the vein of “”you are here for my needs & ends only” with little respect for the nature & individual being of the pet. This isn’t a call to join PETA, just something to think about in context of the bigger picture.
I have two children and three cats. No, the relationship one has with one’s own children is nothing like a relationship one has with cats.
Agree, although I can understand Mollie’s insights. As for myself, I’ve often noticed that people’s pets express aspects of their owners’ characters.
Cats are fully independant and quite capable of venturing outside within a matter of weeks after their birth. Not so with human children.
You have simply restated my disclaimer of this clear understanding? I don’t quite understand the purpose of this kind of response.
It was through looking at the animal relationship that I was able gain a slight understanding of the matryoshka doll (matryoshka strangely translates to something like mother) like nature of these unconscious compulsions that hinder individuation. They seem to unfold into & out of a whole spectrum of relationships.
Sorry for any confusion caused. I guess what I’m getting at is that while keeping an adult cat indoors could certainly be seen as constraining to the cat’s freedom and I suppose individuation, the maternal bond with a human infant that compels a mother to protect and provide for her child does not hinder the child’s development or eventual individuation. In fact, healthy attachment and nurturing in infancy and childhood is necessary for healthy individuation later in life. I hope that’s more clear…
I’m still confused because where do I say anything against healthy attachment? All I’m saying is look around and you see similarities in the macro & micro dysfunction…at least I do…it’s especially clear to me in the pet/owner relationship because of personal experience.
Government/governed,parent/child, employer/employee, doctor/patient, coach/player, teacher/pupil, person/pet… should these not be looked at for possible patterns & similarities because of their obvious differences? I promise I’m not trying to stake any claim in the sacred real estate of motherhood. *As I personally see it*, an attempt to plug an emotional hole (or an unconscious drive to reenact trauma or whatever you want to call it) in any of these relationships, at any level or direction, is likely to be detrimental *to some degree* to everyone involved.
In reply to the response below – yes of course, the dynamic you describe can be detrimental indeed. I just had trouble making the connection between this type of behaviour and the description of the guest’s mother’s apparent distress at having her newborn son taken from her arms to be tortured in he name of tradition. How does this relate to a detrimental type of enmeshment as described above?
His story related the seemingly extreme sensitivity between bonds (having an imprint within his body of the emotional state of his mother). I extrapolated from there. Thought about the slide from emotional bond to bondage, circumcision possibly being one of the first links in the invisible chain. But since I don’t have children, I tried making sense of it through the bonds I do share. I guess it gets a bit confusing when you’re not entirely in someone else’s head.
I didn’t find your OP confusing; what has confused me is the source of disagreement.
This statement by M: “No, the relationship one has with one’s own children is nothing like a relationship one has with cats” is an absolutist statement based on a subjective experience, hence the use of the word “one” rather than “I” is misleading.
I don’t have a child, but nonetheless I can say without any doubt that the relationship I have with my cat is very much the sort of relationship I imagine I would have with a child, and that others do also (tho the way people relate to their cats generally baffles me, more or less as possessions). And I consider “my” cat to be an extension of myself also, or rather, that both of us are an expression of a single Soul.
Yes, it’s true that using absolutes in this context is inexact since all relationships are unique.
I think I understand the original comment a little better, though it’s still somewhat abstract to me. I don’t follow the link from mother-child physical/emotional bond to bondage and circumcision. The mother-child bond is a healthy expression of a natural state, a basic human attribute rooted in survival, while circumcision is quite a harmful and unnatural procedure.
About cats and children, I was just sharing my own perspective. I can’t really speak for others, but I can attest to the fact that I had absolutely no idea what it would be like to become a parent and would have also thought the relationship would be much more similar, before having kids. Only after having kids did I realize how very different those relationships are.
I didn’t mean to cause any controversy or start an argument, and really don’t have much invested in this comment thread. I just thought I would weigh in with my opinion for what it’s worth.
The link between a mother-child bond and child bondage to the mother is that whenever the mother-child bond is compromised it becomes unhealthy and leads to bondage. The circumcision ritual almost seems like a grotesque & premature enactment of the dis-enmeshing of male child from mother’s psyche which is necessary for the child’s developing autonomy at around 2 years old, and which requires an “intervention” from the father. If this intervention doesn’t happen, or if it happens in a way that is traumatic (as in the extreme case of circumcision), the bond to the mother, because violently & prematurely severed, becomes compensatorily unnatural & unhealthy. The other factor which may have caused some “controversy” at this thread is when the mother emotionally invests in the child as a surrogate lover, to alleviate her own distress due to past childhood trauma and present lack of intimacy with the father of the child, and so is complicit with the child’s unnatural attachment to the mother. These patterns intersect, as in my own case, where the father was more indifferent than violent or intrusive (tho I am sure jealous of the affection I got from my mother), and my mother’s own behavior was a combination of over-attachment with violent separation, as when a s/mothering (drunken) affection turned to cold & murderous (tho not literally) rage without warning.
I wouldn’t of course want to underestimate the biological factor in the depth of parent-child bonding, so can freely imagine that having a child is unlike anything that might seem comparable. Still, the experience of taking care of someone that is like an extension of oneself, the empathic bond, does seem to be key to this, and while few people have this with their cats, there are I think many parents who do NOT have this with their children (due to the depth of their own trauma).
Is it possible to hear from the females on this site as to whether they have a preference for “cut” or “uncut?”
My coat is by the door.
thanx
I prefer cut — I’ll probably get crucified for admitting that, but since you asked…
These were really good talks — thanks!
Was there a scene in the original “Roots” mini series where they do a flash back or something showing a tribal circumcision ritual for a group of 12 year old boys?
Or did I imagine that?
Yikes!
I can’t find it on youtube?
Not that I really want to find it…
Egads, once again, thank God for that slave ship!
Thanks for the episode. I am very interested in your comments about Dopamine problems connected to birth drugs Jasun- I think this may effect me. Where did you find the info?
Thanks again,
Ross
It was in conversation with someone off the record. I meant to follow it up online but so far I haven’t. Let me know if you find something.
Jasun, about halfway through the conversation you mentioned something regarding a connection between circumcision and rape;
Did you mean “easier/better” anatomical ability to rape, or “easier/better” emotional ability to rape?
The former. But I am glad you brought it up because I left out the more acknowledged, and credible, reason given for circumcision, which is that it was meant to reduce sensual pleasure and thereby curb the lusts of the flesh.
It’s also possible that it originally started because in a particular kind of climate/environment — like arid desert regions — the males might have been more prone to foreskin related illnesses, which would indeed hurt the survival rate of a desert-dwelling tribe. (I’ve heard it called “having a case of desert dick”). Eventually it spread out into a global phenomenon as it was continued at all costs — due to fact that it was now written down on paper as “law” — even though it was unnecessary to do so in most climates of the earth.
Do camels get “desert dick?”
I heard their urine is so concentrated it will remove paint?
The historic reasons for circumcision would seem to go back to the origins of patriarchal civilization, roughly 10,000 years ago. I was interested to read this account from Judaism:
http://www.algemeiner.com/2012/03/30/the-blood-of-menstruation-is-covenantal-blood/#
The author here makes much of the need for “cleansing”, and also mentions that circumcision occurs on the 8th day of the new born baby boy’s life. “8” is symbolically important, as it corresponds to Sunday, not the Sunday of Creation but the (second) Sunday of Resurrection. It would seem to imply that the baby has, by surviving to his 8th day and by undergoing (and surviving!) the procedure (pseudo-ritual?), obtained some kind of eternal life – through the spilling of blood, which signifies ritual potency.
Of course, girls are excluded. As they bleed naturally at puberty – and their menstruation (moon-change) makes a mockery of all patriarchal religions such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam (we can also add the “Mystery” cults too!), which are all equally fearful of women and of the Moon:
“The husband, because he is the stronger, may beat his spouse, but he does so at his peril. All she has to do by way of retaliation is to touch his food when next she menstruates and thereby inflict him with a fatal illness.” (Ian Hogbin, “The Island of Menstruating Men, p86).
“The husband, because he is the stronger, may beat his spouse, but he does so at his peril. All she has to do by way of retaliation is to touch his food when next she menstruates and thereby inflict him with a fatal illness.”
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And then what does she do?
Go hang out with the loser women who don’t got no man?
“Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart.”
If I heard correctly. at 15.34
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b077j8km
WTF?!