Lev Osherovich The hermits who hung out in caves and wrote biblical apocrypha authored some pretty trippy stuff. Whether they reached this alternate state through meditation, chanting, fasting, or plant compounds is debatable, but it seems to have been pretty common. I find it difficult to imagine that all of that imagery and allegory is down to the 'style' of the times; I think they definitely cultivated alternate states, though this type of mysticism isn't taught about in Hebrew school; at least, not when I attended...
A teacher of mine in high school {New Testament course} stalwartly denied that that had ever been the case, that all of the psychedelic imagery was simply the 'accepted' style in which 'visionaries, 'prophets', or religious acolytes wrote , during the period in which most Gnostic texts and other apocrypha were written down {like Revelations}.
Many of the guys who wrote these did so after leaving civilization, avoiding contact with humans, and 'communing' with 'spirit' in desert caves.
When I think about the conditions that these guys were living in when they conceived of this stuff, had there visions, most were alone, in caves.
As I understand it, it was a 'thing': going to a cave to seek a mystical experience.
The Essenes were in caves, too, tho most of the imagery from the Dead Sea Scrolls isn't as 'way out', except some of the 'leader of light' business.
Some of the stuff in the Nag Hammadi codex and in other rediscovered writings, and a good deal of standard biblical imagery are exceptionally dream-like, colorfully expressed.
My chaplain/professor at Emma insisted that these authors had some sort of 'direct line' to the divine; that they wouldn't have practiced any techniques to cultivate an altered state of consciousness.
I'm not buying his explanation...
Your choice of music may be a contemporary iteration or expression of such traditional practices ???
Ah, I agree totally. The psychedelic visionary state lies within; music, drugs, chanting, fasting, wandering in the desert, etc are helpful ways to get there. I'm on board with that.
I suspected there was some funny business going on in them there caves...
ReplyDeleterare avis not getting the cave reference
ReplyDeleteLev Osherovich The hermits who hung out in caves and wrote biblical apocrypha authored some pretty trippy stuff. Whether they reached this alternate state through meditation, chanting, fasting, or plant compounds is debatable, but it seems to have been pretty common. I find it difficult to imagine that all of that imagery and allegory is down to the 'style' of the times; I think they definitely cultivated alternate states, though this type of mysticism isn't taught about in Hebrew school; at least, not when I attended...
ReplyDeleteA teacher of mine in high school {New Testament course} stalwartly denied that that had ever been the case, that all of the psychedelic imagery was simply the 'accepted' style in which 'visionaries, 'prophets', or religious acolytes wrote , during the period in which most Gnostic texts and other apocrypha were written down {like Revelations}.
Many of the guys who wrote these did so after leaving civilization, avoiding contact with humans, and 'communing' with 'spirit' in desert caves.
When I think about the conditions that these guys were living in when they conceived of this stuff, had there visions, most were alone, in caves.
As I understand it, it was a 'thing': going to a cave to seek a mystical experience.
The Essenes were in caves, too, tho most of the imagery from the Dead Sea Scrolls isn't as 'way out', except some of the 'leader of light' business.
Some of the stuff in the Nag Hammadi codex and in other rediscovered writings, and a good deal of standard biblical imagery are exceptionally dream-like, colorfully expressed.
My chaplain/professor at Emma insisted that these authors had some sort of 'direct line' to the divine; that they wouldn't have practiced any techniques to cultivate an altered state of consciousness.
I'm not buying his explanation...
Your choice of music may be a contemporary iteration or expression of such traditional practices ???
Anyway, it brings them to mind...
Ah, I agree totally. The psychedelic visionary state lies within; music, drugs, chanting, fasting, wandering in the desert, etc are helpful ways to get there. I'm on board with that.
ReplyDeleteLev Osherovich
ReplyDeleteGood Yontif !