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[ by Charles Cameron — I’d have put these two “quotes” in my DoubleQuotes format, but wanted to quote quite a gobbit of each, and the print would have been too small ]
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Offering us a fresh angle on two great nations as we (maybe) pivot to Asia…

Excerpted from Hungry Ghost Festival 2013 Begins In China As Spirits Descend On Homes, Wander Streets:

The gates of hell have opened. Its ghosts have been let loose to roam on earth and visit the homes of their relatives.

According to traditional Chinese beliefs this happens every year during the seventh month of the lunar year, resulting in a raucous, feast-and-music filled celebration known as the Hungry Ghost Festival. But not all ghosts are good. There are some spirits who wander the streets, ravenous and envious because they died without descendants or were ignored by their kin while alive.

To appease the hungry spirits, ethnic Chinese step up prayers, aided by giant colorful joss sticks shaped like dragons. They also burn mock currency and miniature paper television sets, mobile phones and furniture as offering to the ancestors for their use in the other world.

For 15 days, neighborhoods hold nightly shows of shrill Chinese operas and pop concerts to entertain the dead.

Excerpted from Indian state outlaws profiting on miracles, summoning ‘ghosts’:

New Delhi – A new law against superstition and black magic in India’s Maharashtra state has triggered a debate between religious groups who say that the state is interfering in personal faith, and rationalists who say religious malpractices violate human rights. [ … ]

“We will challenge the law as it is ambiguous and interferes with personal faith,” says Abhay Vartak of the Santan Sanstha, a Hindu organization. “The law does not define much of what it outlaws – ghosts, for instance. The government itself is not clear whether ghosts exist! And if belief in ghosts is to be outlawed, then what about the Hindu Scripture the Atharva Veda, which says a lot about how to get rid of ghosts who come to inhabit a body?” he asks.

The law specifically outlaws 12 practices, making them punishable by a jail term of seven months to seven years. Of the 12 clauses, two relate to belief in ghosts. The first one forbids recommending violent and sexual practices for purging ghosts from the body – including drinking urine or stool, being tied with a rope or chain, and touching heated objects. It also outlaws creating fear by threatening to invite ghosts.

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For a glimpse of how the notion of “hungry ghosts” might be interpreted in terms of Tibetan Buddhist philosophy — as embodied in the Chöd rite — see Tai Situ Rinpoche‘s Introduction to Chod.

[ by Charles Cameron — at the confluence of two relatively new religious movements ]
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I’ve known for a while that Minister Louis Farrakhan had expressed a positive view of L Ron Hubbard’s Scientology, but this short clip from a Nation of Islam leadership talk took me by surprise:
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I am not a member of either faith, let alone both — but as a student of religions I find possible confluences between them — such as this one promises to be — fascinating.

[ by Charles Cameron — bemused by all you young people ]
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Kim Kierkegaardashian is exactly the right amount of Kardashian for me to allow into my life. It’s a twitterstream consisting entirely of combination authentic Kardashian soundbites and Kierkegaard quotes, and it’s usually hilarious.

JM Berger‘s tweet, by contrast, sets out one version of an aesthetic principle which seems to underlie much of today’s culture: mixing pop-reference in with serious culture, for serio-popular effect.

Bashar al-Assad‘s supporters do this, aligning their man with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Salafi jihadists likewise, borrowing footage from the Lord of the Rings. Dan Drezner does it — using zombies to discuss international politics — and wins an Association of American Publishers honorable mention for the 2011 PROSE Award in Government & Politics. Kim Kierkegaardashian does nothing else…

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Has this sort of hi-lo-brow mixing always happened?

L’homme armé was a French pop song from the 14th or 15th century, its melody used as the basis for Masses by composers from Dufay and Okeghem to Palestrina — and thence to Peter Maxwell Davies in our own times:

The man, the man, the armed man,
The armed man
The armed man should be feared, should be feared.
Everywhere it has been proclaimed
That each man shall arm himself
With a coat of iron mail.

It must be noted that some believe the “armed man” in question is the Archangel Michael. His fight, unlike Kierkegaardashian’s, is neither with God nor man, but directly with the Devil.

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DoubleQuotes Sources:

Kim Kierkegaardashian

JM Berger

[ by Charles Cameron — notes towards a pattern language of conflict and conflict resolution: bridging divides in Baghdad 2013, Netherlands 1888 and the Germanies 1961 ]
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I’ll be collecting examples of “dualities and the non-dual” here, because they give us a chance to consider the pattern that underlies “conflict and conflict resolution” and much else besides. This post picks up on an earlier post on the same topic: I’ll begin with three tweets that came across my bows this last week…

First, a vivid glimpse of sectarianism in today’s Iraq:

"Two safe zones were set up west of Baghdad… where Sunni drivers can hand goods over to Shiite counterparts safely" http://t.co/ApOY8nAdRE

— Akiko Yoshioka (@Akiko_Yoshioka) July 30, 2013

Second: sectarianism in the Netherlands, 1888:

Graves of a Catholic woman and her Protestant husband, who were not allowed to be buried together. Roermond, NL, 1888 pic.twitter.com/cF9mCAnjGN

— Historical Pictures (@HistoricalPics) July 26, 2013

And last, unexpected but charming, the divided Berlin of 1961:

East German soldier helping a boy cross the new Berlin Wall, to reunite with his family. 1961 pic.twitter.com/g6i8V28kKt

— Historical Pictures (@HistoricalPics) July 30, 2013

It’s obvious once you think about it — thought we don’t always remember, such is the mind’s propensity to distinguish, divide, and argue from just one half of the whole — that human nature embraces both conflict and conflict resolution.

The Department of Veteran’s Affairs has approved Mjolnir, the hammer of Thor the Norse God of Thunder, for use on gravestones of US military personnel.

“The Department of Veterans Affairs got out of the deciding game,” Pitzl-Waters says. The new rules stated that as long as a soldier filled out the proper paperwork and the symbol they wanted was linked with an existing religious community, a soldier could have any emblem they wanted on their tombstone. “You can’t just put, say, a Metallica logo on your headstone, but otherwise, the VA shifted the onus off of themselves in deciding what is or isn’t an ‘appropriate’ religion.”

In theory at least, Thor’s hammer was an acceptable symbol of faith in the eyes of the VA for the first time ever. But there was a dark side to the rules change. Like blót, the ancient Norse ritual sacrifice used to worship the gods, the Department of Veterans Affairs required blood to be spilled before Thor’s hammer could be officially added to the list. A soldier needed to die.

….Details are thin: His name was Shane, and he was a sergeant in the Marine Corps. He came from an extremely private family of Odinists, and he died in August 2012. After his death, his mother campaigned for the VA to not only allow Shane to have the symbol of Mjölnir placed on his headstone but for the same right to be extended retroactively to her husband, Mark, who had been buried by the Department of Veterans Affairs under a blank headstone under stricter rules. After ten months of red tape, the VA finally relented, and where once the space had been left empty, Mjölnir was carved into both of their headstones.

It’s a weird thing, when you think about it. That somewhere within a sea of headstones at Calverton or some other national cemetery, two soldiers–father and son–lay buried beneath the emblem of their faith: a magic, flying hammer that just also happens to be a pretty cool comic book weapon millions of people around the world know pretty well. 

Read the rest here.

Hat tip Feral Jundi