Prometheus Unbound

The New Republic? The Weekly Standard? Foreign Affairs? Commentary? National Review? The New York Times? People Magazine? Christianity Today? The Atlantic Monthly? The National Enquirer? Charisma?

What are we to make of a VP candidate who clearly doesn’t read, or follow the debates of our time, in any serious fashion?

Eight more years?

Yes, I feel the spell is lifting now.

Play again to levitate Wall Street.

Sarah Palin’s exorcist, Thomas Muthee, on Mama Jane:

When we began to recognize who—or what—Mama Jane really was, Margaret and I set ourselves to prayer.

I located a book, written in 1997, that tells, in Thomas Muthee’s own words, his tale of driving the witch of Kiambu, Mama Jane, from her community.

The book is by George Otis and titled, The Twilight Labyrinth: Why Does Spiritual Darkness Linger Where It Does?

It is published by a division of Baker Book House, a well-known fundamentalist book publisher.

On pg. 295 of The Twilight Labyrinth the author states:

Another riveting example of godly spellbending was related to me by Kenyan pastor Thomas Muthee. In a series of interviews between August 1994 and February 1996, Thomas described how God used a handful of intercessors in a grocery store basement to bring revival to one of the most spiritually oppressed communities in East Africa.

According to Otis, Muthee’s “spiritual warfare,” exorcism, and witch hunting career started in 1988:

The story began in 1988 when Thomas and his wife, Margaret, returned to Africa from post-graduate studies in Scotland. Back in their native Kenya, the couple settled in a banana-producing area called Karuri. From there Thomas launched out across Kenya as an itinerate preacher. In addition to holding crusades, and teaching seminars, he also ministered in high schools and colleges. (295)

Before long, Muthee and his wife were led to start a church in Kiambu, a suburb of Nairobi.

In Muthee’s telling, Kiambu was, even by Nairobi standards, impoverished, crime-laden, and violent—and not very receptive to fundamentalist Christianity.

Kiambu was ”a notorious ministry graveyard” (295).

Then the Muthee’s moved in, discerning the community’s problem: witchcraft.

Here are Muthee’s exact words to Otis:

After several months of prayer and research, we discovered that many of the things going on in Kiambu were linked to a powerful woman named Mama Jane. As we sought the Lord for understanding, He revealed to us that Mama Jane was a witch. Although she tried to pretend she was a Christian, even going so far as to call her divination house ‘Emmanuel Clinic,’ her business was pure witchcraft. And her business was not done in secret; it was widely known that she was visited by very senior people in both business and government. Mama Jane was feared: that was her power. (296)

Notice in Muthee’s telling that Mama Jane did not, herself, accept the designation of “witch.” It is something that Muthee claims was “revealed to us.” In fact, Mama Jane told people that she was a Christian, and even gave her clinic a Christian name, “Emmanuel,” which means “God is with us.”

Thus what Muthee called Mama Jane’s “pure witchcraft” was probably some sort of New Age syncretism practice.

Perhaps Mama Jane was doing traditional fortune telling and combined this practice with Christian and native pagan cultural elements.

In other words, she was simply engaged in eccentric religious practice which Muthee and his followers did not approve.

Muthee’s belief in mysterious occult powers is displayed in his interview with Otis:

What originally drew us to her were the accidents. In our research we had discovered that a disproportionate number of fatal automobile accidents were occurring on the dusty road in front of her clinic. Not a month went by without somebody losing his life. In many of these cases, people were hit and killed but you did not see a drop of blood on the road. Naturally we wanted to know what was behind this phenomenon. (296)

As can be seen in the above passage, despite Muthee’s formal graduate training in Scotland, his beliefs are not informed by academic modes of reasoning, or the European Enlightenment. He believes that witches exist, and that they can make cars crash simply by being in proximity to them. He even believes that car crashes, caused under the occult force of witchcraft, can result in no blood being shed by the injured or killed drivers.

Spooky!

And, in his telling of his story to Otis, Muthee is not even able to say for certain whether Mama Jane is really a human being. She may, in fact, be an animal or devil of some sort:

When we began to recognize who—or what—Mama Jane was, Margaret and I set ourselves to prayer. (297)

You did not misread this. Muthee thought Mama Jane might not be human.

Talk about demonizing your opposition—literally!

As Muthee’s movement in Kiambu grew, he claims that Mama Jane used “to come around the worship center at night to perform her witchcraft rituals” (297).

He then claims that his parishoners, come morning, would then find her evil spell-casting materials strewn about:

On Sunday morning we would find ashes spread around with pieces of special cloth, animal horns and cock feathers. Our services became very oppressed. People would try to sing, but they just couldn’t. (297)

If Muthee’s story sounds positively medieval in its primitivism, it gets still worse, for Muthee’s cult begins to pray collectively and earnestly that Mama Jane convert or leave Kiambu. Three days later another tragic accident occurred along the road near Mama Jane’s clinic, killing three children. Muthee says:

The people were furious because they suspected that Mama Jane’s witchcraft was linked to the accident. Some were clamoring that she be stoned. When the police were called in to quell the uprising, they found a huge snake in one of the clinic rooms. Startled, the officers drew their weapons and shot it. After this Mama Jane moved to the town of Mathare, about two hours north of Nairobi. Interestingly enough, the same ‘bloodless accidents’ began happening there. Now rumor has it she has moved on to a place in Ngongo. (297)

Muthee claims that Mama Jane’s exile from Kiambu has resulted in prosperity and a reduction of crime:

Now that Kiambu has a good name, people from Nairobi are flocking to get houses here. The population is up by thirty percent. (298)

With regard to his own group, Muthee says:

Everyone in the community now has a high respect for us. They know that God’s power chased Mama Jane from town. (298)

William Kent, in his 1934 book London for Shakespeare Lovers (Methuen & Co.), in the “Useful Information” section at the back of the book, had this rather charming notice (on pg. 174):

The Sunday Shakepeare Society was founded by the late Dr. Furnivall in 1874, and Sir Sidney Lee was for many years its president. At its monthly meetings held on Sunday afternoons (outdoor in summer), the plays are read by members, and in this way the whole of the Canon has many times been covered. The indoor readings are given at Tolmer’s Hall, 153 Drummond Street, Euston, N.W. 1. Annual subscription, 3s. 6d. President, Professor J. W. MacKail. LL.D., Hon. Secretary, Fred Tallant, 153 Drummond Street, N.W.1.

I Googled “The Sunday Shakespeare Society” and didn’t find anything. I wonder if the group survived World War II.

This is outrageous.

CBS is not releasing part of the interview that Sarah Palin did with Katie Couric.

Why?

Because it would be embarrassing to her!

From Politico today:

Of concern to McCain’s campaign, however, is a remaining and still-undisclosed clip from Palin’s interview with Couric last week that has the political world buzzing.

The Palin aide, after first noting how “infuriating” it was for CBS to purportedly leak word about the gaffe, revealed that it came in response to a question about Supreme Court decisions.

After noting Roe vs. Wade, Palin was apparently unable to discuss any major court cases.

There was no verbal fumbling with this particular question as there was with some others, the aide said, but rather silence.

That silence needs to be seen and absorbed by the electorate. Media outlets should not be aiding the McCain campaign in shielding Palin from scrutiny.

Silence.

Think about what that means.

not uh

oh nor

oh

no but

ah so

One of the most enduring pieces of world literature is the Bhaghavad Gita.

And one of the keys to reading the Gita is to understand its doctrine of the two selves. 

In the Gita the two selves are:

• the “big self”—that is, the Atman, which is the seeing self shared by all conscious beings, and
• the “little self”—that is, the individual ego with which one usually identifies

Error, in the Gita, consists in identifying with the “little self”; that is, the self of desires and aversions, pleasures and pains, against the “big self” (the Atman), which is pure consciousness, untouched by these passing states and forms.

Here’s a representative passage on the Atman in the Gita (Barbara Stoler Miller’s translation, pt. 2 stanzas 23 and 24):

Weapons do not cut it,

fire does not burn it,

waters do not wet it,

wind does not wither it.

 

It cannot be cut or burned;

it cannot be wet or withered;

it is enduring, all pervasive,

fixed, immovable, and timeless.

The Atman, according to the Gita (as well as other books of Hindu literature) is the “true self,” the one who is the “Eternal Seer” behind what is to be seen. Hindu literature has two terms for this distinction:

• Purusha (the seer), and
• Prakriti (the seen, or everything else in the world)

Suffering thus arises when one identifies the seeing self with what is seen or experienced.

Hence the meditative and yogic tradition is a training—a discipline—in keeping separate the seeing consciousness from what is seen.

So in the Gita Krishna advises Arjuna to relinquish attachment (from pt. 2 stanza 48):

[B]e impartial to failure and success—

this equanimity is called discipline. 

Equanimity through non-attachment of the seer and the seen can be illustrated in any number of ways.

For example, you might notice how easily your own casual language of self-description readily blends the conscious self with the states of the body or emotions and calls it “I”:

I’m getting fat.

I’m depressed.

I’m ugly.

But the meditative or yoga practitioner would ask you, on saying these things, to notice that you can make a distinction between the perceiving self and the shifting states of one’s body or mind by saying:

Noticing fatness.

Noticing depression.

Noticing ugliness.

In fact, any time one notices something, one is, as it were, standing alongside it, metacognizing it. In other words, one is separate from it—and so not directly experiencing it.

The moment, for example, you notice that you’re crying, you cease, in that moment, to be “in” the crying, but rather, at a distance from the crying.

Hindu literature calls the self that notices “crying” the Purusha or the Atman, and the crying itself is Prakriti, that which is noticed. And so when you associate with your crying then you have fallen, as it were, into the state of the ego, which identifies itself with Prakriti states.

Meditations on non-attachment thus bring you to continually ask the question, “Who are you, really? Who is crying? Who is feeling joy or pain? Who is excited about the election, and who is depressed? Are all these ever shifting states really you?”

Setting distance between what one notices as thoughts, bodily states, and emotions, and identifying instead with the dispassionate noticer of those states, is to be on the path to what the Gita would identify as “insight.”

By contrast, attachment to the ego, with its desires and aversions, and identification with one’s ever varying thoughts, bodily states, and emotions, is the formula for suffering.

So the Gita has Krishna say to Arjuna (pt. 2 stanzas 55-58):

When he [the yogi] gives up desires in his mind,

is content with the self within himself,

then he is said to be a man

whose insight is sure, Arjuna.

 

When suffering does not disturb his mind,

when his craving for pleasures has vanished,

when attraction, fear, and anger are gone,

he is called a sage whose thought is sure.

 

When he shows no preference

in fortune or misfortune

and neither exults nor hates,

his insight is sure.

 

When, like a tortoise retracting

its limbs, he withdraws his senses

completely from sensuous objects,

his insight is sure.

Most Western readers will find this degree of ego sacrifice and emotional withdrawal from the world highly problematic.

The West, afterall, from its art to its capitalism, is about the projection of persona and the pursuit of “happiness”—via routes material, emotional, and intellectual.

And what the Gita calls “insight” Western psychology might call “disassociation.”

Still, the Gita has long been appreciated, in both the East and the West, as a piece of literature whose reflections on the self and suffering are novel and profound.

And Western writers such as Arthur Schopenhaur, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Christopher Isherwood, Aldous Huxley, Allen Ginsberg—and a host of others—have been intellectually and imaginitively stimulated by reading the Bhagavad Gita.

Conservatives Begin Questioning Palin’s Heft
by Associated Press
Sunday, September 28, 2008
http://elections.foxnews…questioning-palins-heft/

 

A growing number of Republicans are expressing concern about Sarah Palin’s uneven – and sometimes downright awkward – performances in her limited media appearances.

Conservative columnist Kathleen Parker, a former Palin supporter, says the vice presidential nominee should step aside. Kathryn Jean Lopez, writing for the conservative National Review, says “that’s not a crazy suggestion” and that “something’s gotta change.”

Tony Fabrizio, a GOP strategist, says Palin’s recent CBS appearance isn’t disqualifying but is certainly alarming. “You can’t continue to have interviews like that and not take on water.”

“I have not been blown away by the interviews from her, but at the same time, I haven’t come away from them thinking she doesn’t know s-t,” said Chris Lacivita, a GOP strategist. “But she ain’t *** Cheney, nor Joe Biden and definitely not Hillary Clinton.”

There is no doubt that Palin retains a tremendous amount of support among rank-and-file Republicans. She draws huge crowds, continues to raise a lot of money for the McCain campaign, and state parties report she has sparked an uptick in the number of volunteers.

Asked about Palin’s performance in the CBS interview, a McCain official briefing reporters on condition of anonymity said: “She did fine. She’s a tremendous asset and a fantastic candidate.”

But there is also no doubt many Republican insiders are worried she could blow next week’s debate, based on her unexpectedly weak and unsteady media appearances, and hurt the Republican ticket if she does.

What follows is a viewer’s guide to some of Palin’s toughest moments on camera so far.

Speaking this week with CBS’s Katie Couric, Palin seemed caught off-guard by a very predictable question about the status of McCain adviser Rick Davis’ relationship with mortgage lender Freddie Mac. Davis was accused by several news outlets of retaining ties – and profiting from – the companies despite his denials.

Where a more experienced politician might have been able to brush off Couric’s follow-up question, Palin seemed genuinely stumped, repeating the same answer twice and resorting to boilerplate language about the “undue influence of lobbyists.”

These missteps could be attributed to inadequate preparation and don’t necessarily reflect more deeply on Palin’s ability to perform as vice president. But when reporters have tried to probe Palin’s thinking on subjects such as foreign policy, she’s been similarly opaque.

In an interview with ABC’s Charlie Gibson, Palin gave a muddled answer to a question about her opinion of the Bush Doctrine.

And given the chance to describe her foreign policy credentials more fully, Palin recited familiar talking points, telling Gibson that her experience with energy policy was sufficient preparation for dealing with national security issues.

In the same interview, Palin let Gibson lead her into saying it might be necessary to wage war on Russia – a suggestion that most candidates would have avoided making explicitly and that signaled her discomfort in discussing global affairs.

Then, asked this week by Couric to discuss her knowledge of foreign relations – in particular, her assertion that Alaska’s proximity to Russia gave her international experience – Palin tripped herself up explaining her interactions with Alaska’s neighbor to the west. Watch CBS Videos Online

On the economy, too, Palin has avoided taking clear stances. In a largely friendly interview with Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity, Palin spoke in tangled generalities in response to a question about a possible Wall Street bailout – and even preempted her campaign by coming out against it.

On Thursday, Palin finally took questions from her traveling press – but shut things down quickly after Politico’s Kenneth P. Vogel asked her whether she would support Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, who has been indicted for corruption, and Rep. Don Young, who is under federal investigation, for reelection.

Unlike her other interviews, at least this time Palin had the option to walk away.

See a great Sarah Palin “movie trailer” here.

Question: What is poetry, really?

Answer: Joe Cocker in translation.

Who will win this week’s VP debate?

Sarah Palin and her zombie-like enthusiasts?

Or the ever flailing, mic-hoarding, and cocky Joe Biden?

Jimmy Kimmel:

“John McCain showed up without running mate Sarah Palin, which is a shame because she actually has a lot of experience with financial matters. You know, she lives right next to a bank.”

See a full definition of the “Near This, Know That” Palin fallacy here.