[log in to unmask] wrote:
>...many people undertook ascetic practices and very few of them won the
attention of hagiographers and a reputation for sanctity after death.
>I was not really trying to read their minds but to pass on the arguments
that the writers of the Vitae made. What seemed to concern a lot of them in
the post-persecution period was the idea that people could be recognized as
saints even when the age of martyrdom had passed.
once again this list has got me thinking about stuff i hadn't thought about
--or tried to think through-- before;
and, i just hate it when that happens.
seems like there might be two distinct albeit sometimes inter-related
practices at work:
(1) "asceticism" _per se_, i.e. the more or less severe and systematic
deprivation of sensory input through fasting; "sitting" (meditation); silence
or the very controlled, *very* powerful experiencing of the aural stimuli of
chant (supercharged, as it were, with cognitive as well as "musical" meaning)
within stone, accustically-manipulated settings, experienced also within the
context of visual stimuli consisting of
highly abstract, *powerfully* expressive, sharply-lit/deeply-shadowed,
"otherworldly" images [termed, in our own age, with wonderful, revealing
irony, "un-realistic"], seen under highly controled, usaually flickering light
conditions, and the --again, *very* powerful, potentially overwhelming--
olfactory environment of hallucinogenic incense; etc.)
(toss in the occasional possibility of the practicioner actually having an
understanding and feeling for the liturgy being performed and you
*might* be on the way to having a psychically explosive situation.)
this was frequently combined with *relatively* mild forms of disciplinary
[self-]"abuse" (e.g., Columba standing in the icy stream waters, reciting his
psalter; Anselm [was it?] keeping long, cold nightly vigils prostrate on the
stones before the altar, etc.), which might have been more in the nature of a
"numbing" of the flesh than of the "mortification" of it, considering the
relative moderation of earlier (11th-12th c.) practices --*within* the context
of disciplined, ruled communities-- compared to
the (to me) quite bizarre and (relatively) unstructured antics of later
centuries.
(n.b., this last may be a distinction without a difference, now i read it
back, but, whathaheck, you can't make an egg without breaking omelettes.)
all, this --even the clear acts of mortification-- was, i submit, primarily
and deliberately for the purpose of achieving "altered" states of
consciousness (visions, Union, samadhi, nervana, yadda, yadda).
it seems to me that this "tradition" was/is, in the West, very much more
"esoteric" than it was/is in the East (esp. Hindu/Buddhist lineages), by which
i mean that --particularly during the course of the late m.a. (to say nothing
of our own benighted "modern" times)-- the knowledge of the "how-to" of such
practices became increasingly more restricted and, along with that, the
"why-come?" virtually lost to all but the most persevering of seekers (mention
the word "monk" to a contemporary 'Merican and you
can immediately see "NO SEX--YUCKO" appear on his/her forhead in Big, Bright,
Flashing Neon Letters --and not much else in the way of a clue as to
whathahell the guy might actually be up to).
and a second strain (about which i know even less than the first):
(b) "pentintial" self-[and other-]abuse, frequently carried to extremes, whose
purpose may or may not have been primarily aimed at the transformation of
"internal" state of things central to the purpose of
(1), and which increasingly (over time) became mired in the most "exoteric" of
manifestations, largely (though perhaps not always) to the detriment of the
goals of (1).
as i say, the two "traditions" may have been closely linked at times, but are
really quite distinct, to my frequently addled mind.
having thoroughly muddied these waters and insulted the memories of centuries
of post-1200 adepts, i withdraw from the field to await appropriate
flagellation (good-oh, pant, pant).
best from here,
christopher
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