The sacrifice of children in ancient cultures Part 1

The sacrifice of children in ancient cultures is on the surface not just pretty universal, but totally baffling.

Throughout history the dreams of men have been simple really: Let the harvest be bountiful. Let there be enough food so my family can survive the winter. Survival would seem to be the primary genetic motivation for the human race. 

So why kill your own children? What is the logic there? Those hands for helping with the harvest. Those hearts to take care of their parents in old age. Those extra eyes and trigger fingers in case there are disputes with the neighbors. How could you lose that, -- on purpose? You might even argue that your children could be an ultimate meal if your survival was that threatened, but --- this option seems not to have been extant in human history, so that underlines their importance even more, and the weirdness, that they could be sacrificed.

It is like there is this leap going on,a leap beyond genetics, with the sacrifice of children. One thinks of leaps in history. The logic might be-- here is the precious thing I have, and I will surrender it...because.... ??

Other leaps are like the what Jan Cox called, "falling up the stairs," when he referred to man's ability for language manifesting itself. Manifesting like it was there all the time. Who knows about that. But suddenly we could talk. 

Then there is what Karl Jaspers called the "axis time of history", when, simultaneously, in effect, a certain objective thought became apparent, Socrates. Buddha, Confucius, the composers of the Upanishads, Lao Tzu. There were other figures Jaspers mentioned. Of course the word he used was spiritual influence. You might also say a certain kind of personhood was involved. For my point here the significance is this leap humanity made as a whole. A leap which cannot be explained by "cultural diffusion," try as the positivists might to do so. 

Back on the track: it may be that there was a time, between the birth of speech, and the birth of philosophy, when what men appreciated was, the existence of this leap, this gap, and all they could perceive was that a certain appeasement was called for, in the presence of this gap---

Only that's not really it, either. So I don't know an answer, yet. But I know this --- why these children were sacrificed is something we can understand, because we too are humans, and this is something that happened to our species. The standard reply, that they were barbarians, is I trust, an evasion that does not merit a response. There is an answer, I just don't know it. 

Yes, of course it's ridiculous

Writing about it, minutes after the announcement that there is a new heir to the English throne, it is enough to make a republican of you. Unless, of course, you give it some thought. 

What are the alternatives. The rule of plutocrats? Such as seems to be a current product of democratic processes? When elections are just bought, subtly or not?  TV stars setting taste and opinion? That's better? Thugopolies, like Russia has? 

Only the young disregard the benefits of political stability, an easy argument to make for monarchy. But there is more. The people born into that status do not seem to be particularly handsome, or beautiful. Certainly they are not terribly bright. What they do have are standards. Standards of fairness, standards of taste, and the ability to convey their own fairness as plausible. 

Their own sense of entitlement is not as defensive as that of the bankers. They can, sincerely believing themselves superior, make decisions based on a larger good  Their sense of entitlement is genetic, and they may lack that grasping defensiveness characteristic of modern psychology.

Compared to a typical politician, the aristocrat has nothing to hide. One speaks in generalities of course. And of course we are not talking about the monarchy you read about in history. We are talking about constitutional ones, and their value. 

There are not many left, and it is reasonable to wonder if that tyke will ever make it to a throne. 

Because once gone, monarchies cannot be replaced. There is this hope though: the function of the monarch, that is to say, to wave at you, yes, you personally, is not a need that is going away. One shudders to think what is replacing them. 

Secrets as a cultural meme

So Baigent died. Meh. He reminds one of the extent of popular interest in conspiracies, in secrets. When I read of some conspiracy, some idea that there are people who are secretly controlling public affairs, it makes me giggle. And these ideas are so common. Among a variety of types. 

I imagine myself saying to some exponent of such ideas: And you, are clever enough to have penetrated this plot, a plan which has fooled the rest of the world, but YOU, have figured out the plot. Oh yeah. 

Such innocent spokesmen who point to conspiracies have no clue about the nature and complexity of reality, or the mechanical nature of human knowledge. And the same applies to anyone who THINKS they themselves could be a participant in such a plot. I should say here, a participant in an effective plot. 

All  of which does not mean such events have no basis at all in reality. Jan Cox spoke once about the Knights Templar as having at one point a connection to something real. By the time you read about it from me, reality has gone through a stage of myth, and become mere gossip. The person who could speak of such things is dead. 

But I trust the person who mentioned that detail. I trust him, you see, because Jan Cox was a person who could keep a secret, keep a secret FROM -- himself. 

How truth subverts truth

How come no one wonders how they know it is an elephant the blind men are handling? The point of the story is about man's ignorance, but in fact --- the conclusion is dead set before they even investigate the evidence. You cannot wonder if it is an elephant that is being investigated.

Binary thought is the reason. Not only does binary thought assume everything is either this or that, but that assumption includes a sigh of relief when the division is made. That sigh prevents thinkers from pushing on.
The goal of investigating 'what is' does not include investigating the thinking apparatus itself. The sigh when binary thought has divided something distracts the thinker, and that distraction is crucial to the growth of the world we know, and the world we are a part of. That growth though, needs man's understanding not as much as he assumes. 

In the case of the example above, the hack occurs at: it is a teaching story, it is not a teaching story. The gap leaves distracting flows to push the thinker in another direction. 

My analysis might be the case.... 

About Edward Snowden

Edward Snowden's situation presents a great glimpse into the dance of the three laws--- which all manifest in every occurrence every moment. The Creative, The Destructive/Conserving, and the Erelevant,(the irrelevant) are the terms used by Jan Cox. 

My thoughts are about the danger this fellow is in, and my hope that my total ignorance, includes not knowing about greater clevernesses on the part of the technical community, and even Mr. Snowden, --- events and approaches that are mainly effective because no one knows about them.

We may or may not find out about that. 

Who on the planet now can see two sides here-- who can see the appropriateness of the CIA regulations, and the nobility and sweetness of what this young man has done. Both sides are critical to the growth of humanity, both angles at the same time can be in your head. That is a potential of the human brain.

OF COURSE you cannot run an operation based on secrecy if people are leaking to the papers. OF COURSE the flow of power melts the so-called principles of people. OF COURSE the innocence of purity easily flips into self-righteousness. 

And of course the growth of humanity depends on a few flinging themselves into the blades. Ignorant people, beautiful people. This too is part of calculations whirring beyond a murky mathematics which is barely audible.

Those flingers, as we might call them for a moment, include the likes of Jesus, if we can believe the stories. Both Socrates and Jesus died because they would not speak. Reminds me of how glad I was once, to hear Jan say, people are no longer required to die for their  visions. By which I assume he points to a greater economy currently operating within the greater machinery.

Okay, I am a bit off my subject here. Which was: for those who can hear it--- you have to keep two contradictory seeming things together in your head-- the appropriateness of Eric Holder and Edward Snowden, both. At the same time.  

Both Holder and Snowden are -- schooks. Everyone who is not self-observing, --- is a schnook. Holder is a schnook in that he is moving so fast, everything is a blur, and he only occasionally feels things spinning out of control, though, they always are. Snowden is a schnook because he felt a rigorous logic to the analysis that if HE did not act, no one would. Actually this is merely a cellular pressure, this sense of ego, the walls of self which assume the preservation of the self is the preservation of all. The fate of the world is all on his shoulders.  

Nothing at all the matter with being a schnook. In fact, it is necessary for the greater growth of all. 

And that is only two out of THREE facets to the situation. 

A Brief History of the Busy

A example of binary thought could be: describing a real school as

interested in method and goal. The most recent real school stressed that you do not discuss, do not label, the goal. By method we refer to how you get results--- in the case of Gurdjieff that would be self-observation, and Jan Cox called it many things besides self-observation: 'neuralizing', 'considering' are just a few examples. 

Looking back in history we might describe the middle ages as concerned ONLY with the " GOAL." There was no general discussion of how you get to heaven. There were no questions about morality.

Contrast this with the modern era, which has no GOAL, just METHOD. My reference here is to the scientific method and the widespread vacuous assumption that science is atheistic. I'm just making a cheap point here. 

Thesis, antithesis. I cannot say a new synthesis is not in the offing, a synthesis heralded by the inane and vapid--- Whether or not, it falls out that way, my point is --- it could.   

The value of proverbs

When you get that you can't talk about "the baby", ---- 'cause you will definitely be throwing it out by talking about it ---

you might then keep the bathwater too. Useless advice if you can't distinguish baby and bathwater.