Blood Sacrifice Research Articles

The Emergence of Daoism: Creation of Tradition by Gil Raz (review)

Reviewed by: The Emergence of Daoism: Creation of Tradition by Gil Raz Andrew Meyer (bio) Gil Raz. The Emergence of Daoism: Creation of Tradition. London: Routledge, 2012. 292pages. Hardcover $168.00, isbn 978-0-415-77849-7. The Emergence of Daoism is an important contribution to a decades-long debate over the origins and development of Daoism. With broad erudition and painstaking analysis, Gil Raz throws new light on a host of issues that have long occasioned difficulty and confusion. His work is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of Daoism or Chinese religion more generally. Working in a scholarly discourse exemplified by Michel Strickmann and Stephen Bokenkamp, Raz focuses upon the institutionalized Daoist religious communities of the medieval era. He shows that conventional narratives of Daoist history, positing a linear development from the founding of the Celestial Masters in 142 c.e. by Zhang Daoling, up through the emergence of the Shangqing and Lingbao scriptural traditions in the fourth and fifth centuries, to the eventual formulation of the first orthodox Daoist canon in the Tang dynasty, do not acknowledge the complexities evinced by the sources. Rather, the record demonstrates that during this entire period Daoism, in social terms, remained a very fluid phenomenon. Who could claim to be a Daoist, what sobriquet(s) they should be known by, what practices they could legitimately engage in, and what texts they should take as authoritative were all questions that remained indeterminate and heatedly contested from the earliest appearance of Daoist groups in the Han until the formation of the Tang canon (and beyond). Instead of a single Daoist community [End Page 480] evolving from Han to Tang, we should think in terms of a plurality of interacting and oftentimes competing lineages, each engaged in the construction and reconstruction of tradition using various elements inherited, shared, invented, or imported from beyond the precincts of Daoism altogether. Raz has entered into a fraught discourse and is aware of its pitfalls. He begins by reviewing the various definitions of Daoism that have been posited in English-language scholarship, arguing that none thus far have presented a framework flexible enough to accommodate all of the diverse elements that contributed to the early history of Daoism. In their place, Raz offers a polythetic definition, a list of characteristics that delineate a family resemblance among varying groups that played a role in the emergence of the Daoist tradition.1 To be included in the scope of inquiry, a group need not exhibit all of these criteria, only most of them. While one could quibble with Raz’s list of characteristics, there is no denying that his polythetic approach yields a versatile and effective means to navigating knotty methodological problems. Under the aegis of this definition, Raz urges us to think of the emergent Daoist tradition as a dynamic patchwork of interlinked “communities of practice” (p. 4), groups shaped as much or more by the activities they cultivated as by their theoretical doctrines or textual engagements. Over the course of The Emergence of Daoism, Raz examines a series of practices that formed the focal matrix for the evolving identity of early Daoist lineages. In chapter 1, he looks at a chronological sequence of cults of immortals and the various meditative, yogic, and dietary techniques they exemplified for the achievement of transcendence, uncovering the mechanisms by which the earliest Daoist lineages evolved from or co-opted the cults of local fang shi. Chapter 2 examines the ritual means by which early Daoist lineages were constructed and explores the process by which these transmission rites, over time, eschewed the blood sacrifices of the “common religion” in favor of “pure covenants” (p. 36) that distinguished increasingly self-conscious Daoist communities. Chapter 3 charts the evolution of the use of talismans, from its pre-Daoist origins in classical and apocryphal texts up through its development as a central vector of Daoist concepts of cosmogony and spiritual efficacy. Chapter 4 examines the history of sexual yoga among Daoist practitioners and charts the controversies these techniques incited among various lineages. Chapter 5 recounts the various attempts among medieval scholiasts to systematize the proliferating body of Daoist texts into an authoritative and orthodox...

Inhibition of RNA Polymerase I Transcription by CX-5461 As a Therapeutic Strategy for the Cancer-Specific Activation of p53 in MLL-Rearranged Acute Myeloid Leukemias

Abstract 1548Increased transcription of the ribosomal genes (rDNA) by RNA Polymerase I (Pol I) is a common feature of human cancer1. Inhibition of Pol I transcription causes nucleolar stress that leads to the release of ribosomal proteins from the nucleolus into the nucleoplasm where they can sequester the p53 inhibitory protein MDM2, causing activation of p53 and induction of apoptosis2. We have developed a potent and selective small molecule inhibitor of Pol I transcription (CX-5461) that is non-genotoxic3. When evaluated for anti-proliferative activity against genetically diverse cancer cell lines, CX-5461 exhibited its greatest potency against wild-type (wt) p53 cells derived from hematological malignancies (median IC50 = 12 nM), while the median IC50s in cells derived from p53 mutated hematological, p53wt and p53 mutated solid tumors and normal cells were less sensitive to CX-5461 (median IC50s = 94 nM, 164 nM, 265 nM and 5 mM respectively), indicating CX-5461 selectively kills p53-wild type malignant hematopoietic cells. Consistent with the nucleolar stress model, p53 wt human leukemia cell lines exhibited robust activation of p53 signaling and apoptotic death in response to low nanomolar doses of CX-5461. To explore the therapeutic potential of Pol I transcription inhibition in vivo in hematological malignancies wt for p53 that are refractory to cytotoxic therapies we tested CX-5461 in mouse models of human acute myeloid leukemia (AML) expressing MLL fusion proteins4. Mice transplanted with 5×106 leukemia cells expressing MLL/ENL or MLL/AF9 together with oncogenic NRAS linked to GFP and luciferase biomarkers by virtue of bicistronic retroviral vectors, rapidly developed aggressive leukemia characterized by anemia, leukocytosis, hepatosplenomegaly and within 7–10 days (Mac1+, Gr-1) leukemic cell counts in peripheral blood. Treatment of recipient mice harboring MLL/ENL+NRAS leukemia with CX-5461 (40mg/kg Q3D) significantly increased median survival (17 days for vehicle vs 36 days for drug, P <0.0001), and reduced leukemic burden, as determined by leukemic cell luminescence imaging, peripheral white blood cell counts (20.77×103cells/ml±2.25 for vehicle vs 6.2×103cells/ml±0.68 for drug, P <0.0001) at sacrifice and FACS analysis of the peripheral blood (24.36% GFP leukemic cells±1.84 for vehicle vs 6.30% leukemic cells±0.5 for drug, P <0.0001) after 3 doses of treatment. The reduction in tumour burden was associated with in vivo activation of p53 signaling and apoptosis. In marked contrast, treatment of MLL/ENL+NRAS leukemic mice with a combination regimen of cytarabine (50 mg/kg 5XQD IP) and doxorubicin (1.5 mg/kg 3XQD IP) at the combined MTD dose failed to provide a significant survival advantage. Treatment of recipient mice harboring the highly aggressive MLL/AF9 + NRAS leukemia with CX-5461 (40mg/kg Q3D) was also able to increased overall survival (15 days for vehicle vs 23 days for drug, P 0.0009), with this delay accompanied by a significant decrease in leukemic burden as determined by peripheral white blood cell counts (114×103cells/ml±12.24 for vehicle vs 4.68×103cells/ml±0.7 for drug) and FACS analysis of the peripheral blood (65% GFP leukemic cells±4.9 for vehicle vs 0.26% leukemic cells±0.05 for drug) after 2 respectively 3 doses of treatment. Critically, in murine xenograft of human AML MV 4;11 that carries the MLL/AF4 fusion, treatment with CX-5461 (125 mg/kg Q7D IP) inhibited tumour growth by 93% and extended time to sacrifice from 21 to 36 days. Together this work demonstrates that CX-5461, which selectively inhibits Pol I transcription and non-genotoxically activates p53, may be used to therapeutically treat aggressive p53-wild type AMLs that are highly refractory to standard cytotoxic therapies. The fact that mutations or deletions of the p53 gene are relatively rare in AML, coupled with our data that p53-wt AML cancer cells are particularly sensitive to CX-5461, provides a compelling rationale for evaluating CX-5461 in this patient population. Disclosures:Drygin:Cylene Pharmaceuticals Inc: Employment. Huser:Cylene Pharmaceuticals Inc: Employment. Bliesath:Cylene Pharmaceuticals Inc: Employment. Ryckman:Cylene Pharmaceuticals Inc: Employment. Rice:Cylenen Pharmaceuticals Inc: Employment. Hannan:Cylene Pharmaceuticals Inc: Consultancy.

The High Water Mark of Social History in Civil War Studies

Just hours before the Army of Northern Virginia raised the white flag at Appomattox Court House, Confederate Colonel Edward Porter Alexander approached his commanding officer, Robert E. Lee, with what he hoped was a game-saving plan. Rather than suffer the mortification of surrendering, Alexander begged Lee to scatter his men across the countryside like “rabbits & partridges” where they could continue waging war, not as regular Confederate soldiers, but as elusive guerrilla fighters. Lee listened patiently to his subordinate’s reasoning for irregular warfare. Before Alexander finished, he reminded Lee that the men were utterly devoted to their commanding general, and that such loyalty would continue to inspire the sacrifice of more blood, even if it meant taking to the woods and fighting like common outlaws. When Alexander concluded his impassioned plea, Lee asked his subordinate to imagine what would happen if he turned Alexander’s suggestion into official policy. But before Alexander had a chance to respond, Lee reminded him that virtually every Southern community had been overrun by Union armies, that farms were in disarray, and that crops were ruined. Lee feared that his veterans, upon returning home, would have no choice but to plunder and rob for survival. It would take no time for his disciplined army to descend into a demoralized mob that would take the rest of the South into a downward spiral of unending and unrestrained violence. “As for myself,” Lee concluded, “while you young men might afford to go to bushwhacking, the only proper & dignified course for me would be to surrender myself & take the consequences of my actions.” [excerpt]

The Nature of Evil

The Nature of Evil

Alexander Watson . Enduring the Great War: Combat, Morale and Collapse in the German and British Armies, 1914–1918 . (Cambridge Military Histories.) New York : Cambridge University Press . 2008 . Pp. xv, 288. $99.00.

That soldiers proved capable of withstanding the enormous physical and mental pressures of trench warfare on the Western Front during World War I is a source of wonder. In assessing combat motivation Alexander Watson is travelling along a familiar road—he is far from the first historian to attempt to answer the question of how soldiers coped in this “war of endurance”—but building on the work of his predecessors, he has produced a deeply researched and in many ways genuinely original study. In brief, Watson argues that human robustness was the key to why the armies stuck it out so long; and ultimately British Empire troops proved more resilient than their German opponents. Generally, his British material, while sound, is less innovative than his arguments about the German army. Watson devotes an important chapter to examining mental coping strategies among soldiers. These include religious observance and superstition, which were sometimes extremely bizarre: he cites the case of a German soldier who decided that his survival depended on offering the gods a “blood sacrifice” of thirteen flies. Perhaps more important was self-deception, soldiers managing blithely to ignore the evidence of their own eyes and persuade themselves that they would survive. While this is not a new insight, Watson brings a wealth of detail and analysis to the topic.

Beyond Sacrifice: Milton and the Atonement

In Paradise Lost, Milton imagines a cosmos at odds with orthodox theology, making a heretical departure that parallels his reluctance to dwell on the Crucifixion and his Arian Christology. Belief in a plurality of worlds threatens the integrity of the Trinity: it exalts the omnipotence of the creator, while it limits the significance of the redeemer. In effect, it produces a tension best resolved by Milton's position that the Father and the Son are two distinct beings—the former uncreated, infinite, and immutable and the latter created, finite, and changeable. This distinction enables Milton to fashion a theory of salvation that transforms Christ's sacrifice from a singular, traumatic event to an ethical decision that other created beings can emulate. These heterodox views constitute the theological underpinnings of his radical republicanism, which embraces an idea of human dignity and agency antithetical to the tyrannical politics of torture and blood sacrifice.

What Makes A Story Amusing: Magic, Occidentalism And Overfetishization In A Colonial Setting

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Acknowledgement Drafts of this essay were presented in the Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh, and in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Northwestern University. I thank in particular Hermann Herlinghaus, Tom Rogers, Jorge Coronado and Marisol de la Cadena for their insightful comments. Notes 1 For the Inca case, see Seed, 1991 Seed, Patricia. 1991. ‘Failing to Marvel.’ Atahualpa's encounter with the Word. Latin American Research Review, 26(1): 7–32. [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] and Lamana, 2008 Lamana, Gonzalo. 2008. Domination without Dominance, Durham, NC: Duke University Press. [Google Scholar]: 27–64; for the Aztec case, see Todorov, 1984 Todorov, Tzvetan. 1984. The Conquest of America, New York: Harper & Row. [Google Scholar]: 51–124. The French and British, who also gave writing a prominent place in their narratives of their colonial encounters, re-wrote key Spanish colonial encounters to craft their imperial grammars of difference. These re-writings echo Amerindian responses to the specifically Spanish renditions of the same events, but also expose the limits common to all Western imperial thinking (Lamana, 2007 Lamana, Gonzalo. 2007. “Of Books, Popes, and Huacas; or, the Dilemmas of Being Christian”. In Rereading the Black Legend, Edited by: Greer, Margaret R. 117–49. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. [Google Scholar]). 2 ‘Fetishism’ has a long and at times controversial academic history (see Taussig, 1983 Taussig, Michael. 1983. The Devil and Commodity Fetishism, Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press. [Google Scholar]; Ellen, 1988 Ellen, Roy. 1988. Fetishism. Man, 23(2): 213–35. [Google Scholar]; Apter and Pietz 1993; Pietz, 1999 Pietz, William. 1999. “The Fetish of Civilization: Sacrificial Blood and Monetary Debt”. In Colonial Subjects, Edited by: Pels, Peter and Salemink, Oscar. 53–81. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan. [Google Scholar]; Masuzawa, 2000 Masuzawa, Tomoko. 2000. Troubles with Materiality: The Ghost of Fetishism in the Nineteenth Century. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 42(2): 242–67. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). I intend to make no intervention in the debates about its precise meaning, genealogy or scientific rigour, and to state no claim about its historical pertinence (the question of anachronism); I use it strategically, as means to an end. 3 I am indebted to Taussig's (1993: 45–7) study of the role of yielding in shamanism. 4 The facts that Oviedo calls Badajoz the cacique's master (amo), that there were other Spanish settlements and that the cacique follows his orders indicate that there was an encomienda regime at work. Gonzalo de Badajoz, one the founders of the city of Panama (1519), received an encomienda in that same year, which in 1522 was enlarged to include a Cueva cacique. He died in 1530 (Mena García, 1996 Mena García, María del Carmen. 1996. Temas de historia Panameña, Panama: Editorial Universitaria. [Google Scholar]: 59, 75, 87). 5 Consider, in contrast, the massacre that followed the Inca Atahualpa's miss-handling of the bible during the Inca–Spanish contact scene. I thank Jorge Coronado for having brought the contrast with Cajamarca to my attention. 6 ‘Occidentalism’, after Coronil, 1996 Coronil, Fernando. 1996. Beyond Occidentalism: Towards Nonimperial Geohistorical Categories. Cultural Anthropology, 11(1): 51–87. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]. 7 The Peruvian council made the point several times. Sermon seven states that images in churches are not honoured ‘because of what they are in themselves, that they are made of wood or metal or paint, but because of what they represent, which is in heaven’ (Catecismo… 1991 Catecismo…. 1991 [1585]. “Tercero catecismo y exposición de la doctrina cristiana, por sermones”. In Monumenta catechetica hispanoamericana (siglos XVI-XVIII), Edited by: Guillermo Durán, Juan. vol. II, 613–741. Buenos Aires: Pontificia Universidad Católica Argentina. [Google Scholar]: 652). (See also the 1584 Doctrina cristiana y catecismo… 1991: 483.) 8 I use ‘magician’ as short cut for the many different kinds of lay experts on the supernatural; as Geertz (1975 Geertz, Hildreth. 1975. An Anthropology of Religion and Magic, I. Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 6(1): 71–89. [Google Scholar]) points out, the label ‘magic’, and its use, has to be object of a critical study. 9 For the role of the scientific claim of objectivity in the visual register, and flashes of non-Western awareness of and uses of it, see Tobing Rony, 1996 Tobing Rony, Fatimah. 1996. The Third Eye, Durham, NC: Duke University Press. [Google Scholar]. 10 I quote Koster's guide's words using my translation of the original in Portuguese (which Koster provides in two footnotes), not Koster's own translation of it. I thank Tom Rogers for having brought the passage to my attention in the first place and for having helped me do the alternative translation, and Frank Safford for having pushed me to think why exactly the example was relevant to my argument.

Walls of history: the use of mythomoteurs in Northern Ireland murals

This study set out to discover in what way murals may possibly reflect the history of the Northern Ireland conflict. The findings suggest that each conflict group's usage of imagery reflects the reality and the very complicated nature of the Northern Ireland conflict which crosses religious, cultural, and political fault lines. It is also apparent that the symbolism of murals creates its own invented versions of history. This is evidenced by both protagonists' usage of myth-symbol complexes and mythomoteurs in order to legitimatise their ethnic origins, religious and political ideologies. It is also axiomatic that many nationalist murals reflect O'Brien's notion of sacral nationalism. The symbolisation used in some Protestant/loyalist murals reflects Old Testament themes, whereas some nationalist murals reflect New Testament themes. Moreover, there is a profusion of murals reflecting diabolical enemy imagery, sanctification/demonisation imagery, militaristic imagery, ethnic victimisation imagery, ego of victimisation and blood sacrifice imagery in chronicling historic victories, rebellions, massacres, suffering, and imprisonment.

The optimal sacrifice: A study of voluntary death among the Siberian Chukchi

ABSTRACTIn the Siberian North, “voluntary death,” that is, a person, who—often because of illness and old age—requests to die at the hands of close relatives, has traditionally been explained as a form of suicide resulting from the region's harsh living conditions. In this article, I suggest an alternative interpretation. Drawing on ethnographic data collected among the Chukchi of northern Kamchatka, I argue that voluntary death is effectively a ritual blood sacrifice. In making this argument, I recast long‐standing debates about sacrifice by suggesting that behind the triangular relationship of sacrificer, deity, and victim lies a structure of ideal sacrifice, which is the impossible act of self‐sacrifice. This structure, in turn, makes it possible to conceive of voluntary death as categorically different from suicide—indeed, as a ritual inversion of suicide.

Polska kostucha

The author discusses the presence of death in the social public sphere in the context of Polish national identity. She describes the area of popular collective imagination that is part of a broader category: religiousness arising from folk culture. In the Polish public sphere the traditions of death are represented by two trends: the myths of the Passion and Martyrdom. The internal ties of the Polish tribe are sustained by the cult of ancestors and the practice of mourning, the symbol of which is Our Lady of Dolours from the pictures in Częstochowa and Licheń. As a consequence of the dolorous aspect of Polish fundamental tribal emotions people spontaneously organize themselves during religious and national festivals which commemorate the events that entailed a heavy toll of human life. The arche of the Polish death is terror, mourning and redemption by a sacrifice of blood.

Priest, Blood, Sacrifice: Re-Membering the Maternal Divine

The presence of the woman priest presiding at the Eucharist causes a `collision' with traditional phallocentric Christian rites, not least around blood sacrifice. Sociological, philosophical and psychological research has found this to be a male-only practice designed to control women. I argue that the woman priest brings new and recovered meanings and possibilities relating to the maternal divine that revivify and enrich old interpretations associated with the Eucharist. A doubly gendered priesthood symbolically connects bloodshed not only with violence and death but with birth and nurturing, with nature and with community. Women's priesthood calls for sexual difference to be acknowledged and celebrated within the Christian narrative in a way that allows both women and men to flourish as children of God.

KAREN ARMSTRONG'S AXIAL AGE: ORIGINS AND ETHICS

KAREN ARMSTRONG'S AXIAL AGE: ORIGINS AND ETHICS

Farewell Ritual and Transmigrating Souls: Secondary Funeral of the Attappadi Kurumbas

This article examines the ritual importance of the secondary funeral of the Kurumbas and places it in the context of tribal religion and social relations. Among a chain of ceremonies that mark a tribal funeral, secondary funeral is the most elaborate and ritually the most complex. Tribal people all over the world practice secondary funerals but in Kerala only two tribes, namely, Kurumbas and the Mudugas of Attappadi, practice it. As the most primitive tribal groups now living in Kerala, the cultural practices of these tribes are exceptionally relevant to the study of archaic societies. The ritual is an elaborate process and is the formal ceremony by which the souls of the dead of a fixed period are cheerfully sent to the world of the spirits with the accompaniment of song, music and blood sacrifice. It also involves the retrieval and reburial of the relics of the dead. Spirit worship and ancestor worship are the basic elements of the religion of the Attappadi tribes. Rituals like secondary funeral have diametrically opposite roles in a tribal society - while helping to maintain tribal unity and solidarity, it exhaust the surplus necessary for an economic growth. However, the advancing process of acculturation is bringing about a crisis in religious practices based on ancestor-cult and is a pointer to the slow but steady transformation.

Dr. Joseph Warren: Leader in Medicine, Politics, and Revolution

Dr. Joseph Warren: Leader in Medicine, Politics, and Revolution

Poetry and Apocalypse: Theological Disclosures of Poetic Language (review)

Reviewed by: Poetry and Apocalypse: Theological Disclosures of Poetic Language Dorothy Z. Baker (bio) Poetry and Apocalypse: Theological Disclosures of Poetic Language. By William Franke. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009. 232 pp. Cloth $60.00. Poetry and Apocalypse: Theological Disclosures of Poetic Language is a profound and radical study that holds many surprises. The first surprise is that it takes up the important relationship between literature and theology, a relationship that is studiously avoided in contemporary scholarship. Despite obvious religious meditation in the work of such diverse authors as Louise Glück, Seamus Heaney, Geoffrey Hill, and Fanny Howe, scholars seem to be uncomfortable with the religious arguments in their poetry. Likewise, when reviewers and critics read John Berryman's "Eleven Addresses to the Lord," Anne Sexton's "O Ye Tongues," and Allen Grossman's "How to Do Things with Tears," they broach each poem's metaphysics, transcendence, spirituality, and myth making but shy away from engaging in any discussion of theology or religious practice per se. At the foundation of William Franke's book is the assertion that poetry and theology were inseparable during the earliest stages of culture and that this unity of language and religious experience is fully in evidence in modern and contemporary literature. The second surprise is that Poetry and Apocalypse does not treat lyric poetry closely defined. Rather it broadens its focus to take up the enduring vitality of poetic language in a variety of genres. Paying special attention to Dante's Divine Comedy and, most particularly and extensively, James Joyce's Finnegans Wake as examples of Christian epic, the book argues that the literary modes and themes of Christian scripture provide a structure and a telos for poetic articulation. That is, contemporary literature relies [End Page 674] on the repetitive structure of scripture and enacts typological strategies of scriptural hermeneutics. It does so to articulate the origins of the self and human culture and to give voice to the human sense of divinity and to the ways human beings imagine divinity. The fact that literature continues to evoke and rework scriptural types asserts its investment in religious thought and its goal of rendering the unity of human experience. Franke does not examine the scriptural passages in which Job repeatedly questions God, biblical assertions of power in the figures of Miriam or Judith, statements of the desire of Lot's wife, or New Testament revelations of the simultaneous humanity and divinity in the person of Jesus, all of which appear and reappear in modern and postmodern texts as evidence of the bond of theology and poetic expression. Rather, he identifies rituals of blood sacrifice and death as the center of Christian theology, this being yet another surprising turn within the book. Looking to the studies of Gian Balsamo and J. J. Altizer, the book asserts, then, that the typological pattern of sacrificial death that engenders life is repeated throughout literature as the ecstatic and liberating transformation of death into understanding, self-sacrifice into love, and pain into the full experience of the body. Literature preserves and manifests the sensual immediacy of blood sacrifice and the human experience of terror of violence to a human being and the simultaneous awe of the gift of life. Consistent with his theoretical understanding of the form and function of the literary text, Franke understands Joyce's fragmented, inventive, and frequently irreverent language ("God becomes man becomes fish") as a literary means of resurrecting otherwise dead religious types or metaphors as visceral and potent assertions of a new community. His language arrests and appalls the reader in his attempt to enact the experience of the Crucifixion. Ultimately, Poetry and Apocalypse is a book about radical Christian thought, and this, too, is an interesting surprise. The death and resurrection of Christ establishes a pattern of apocalyptic experience for the Christian church that demands that the believer be open to devastating events and horrific ideas within history in anticipation of a transformative and illuminating aftermath. Despair is always attached to the hope of transcendence; death is always attached to the affirmation of life. In this way, the openness to apocalypse becomes a condition of Christian life, a characteristic of the...

Ecstasy and Understanding: Religious Awareness in English Poetry from the Late Victorian to the Modern Period by Adrian Grafe

848 Reviews to which I wish he had said more about its realism, and Lilith and Phantastes. Because the book traces the presence of folklore and folk tales in such literature, it is prevented from being as interesting as it could be about what is distinctive in this fiction: the account of Hogg's The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a JustifiedSinner being a casualty of this approach, so that the reader not knowing Hogg might not suspect what an extraordinary psychic analysis takes place within it and so might not even read it.The book does not set itself targetswhich are either exciting or challenging to itself, as here: 'The question remains: what are some of the ways in which nineteenth century British writers of the fantastic who use supernatural folklore represent "the marvellous within everyday life"?' (p. 101). The latter is, of course, a reference to 'magic realism'. This is hardly T. S. Eliot's 'overwhelming question'; nor ismore originality signalled by the declaration of intent, to show 'how the tension between folkmetaphysics and rationalism produces the literaryfantastic, and [todemonstrate how] narrative and ideological negotiation with folklorewas central to the canon, aswell as popular in themargins of British literature' (p. viii). There is little here to surprise, and the knowledge that such folklore is somewhere inmuch nineteenth-century writing demands, to justify furtherwork, more of a sense of how itmakes a difference. Alas, when it comes to justification, Harris rather flails out: 'through their attention to the supernatural folklore of rural regions in particular, Carleton and Sharp challenge the cultural dominance of English industrialism, the complacency of mundane rationality and the narrative totalitarianism of realism' (p. 165). The book isnice in having footnotes, not endnotes, and useful in suggesting that Scottmay have helped block the reception ofHoffmann in Britain (p. 38), so limiting the psychoanalytic power of his work, so influential on Freud's 'The Uncanny', a text needed on page 183. But refusal of Jack Zipes's Marxism means a serious downplaying of his work (p. 48) in favour ofmuch lesser secondary literature,while neglect of Freud means that Jacqueline Rose's decisive study The Case ofPeter Pan; or, The Impossibility ofChildren's Fiction (London: Macmillan, rev. edn 1994) gets a bare mention, and does notmake it to the index. University of Manchester Jeremy Tambling Ecstasy and Understanding: Religious Awareness in English Poetry from the Late Victorian to the Modern Period. Ed. byAdrian Gr?fe. London: Continuum. 2008. xi+183 pp. ?60. ISBN 978-0-8264-9864-9. No consistent party line can be expected from a volume of fourteen essays by different authors. Adrian Gr?fe, in his introduction, does, however, set his own agenda, ranking Geoffrey Hill along with Hopkins and Eliot as arguably the three greatest poets' of the period (p. 2). The notion thatHill's work is superior to that ofHardy, Housman, Owen, Auden, Larkin, or Plath will seem risible to those who clearly distinguish poetry from theology. Eliot held that the testof religious poetry is that it should excite and hold the interest of readers who are not religious. The MLR, 104.3, 2009 849 question haunting religious poetry isposed byDaniel Szabo, one of the contributors here, in relation to R. S. Thomas's prayers to a silent God: 'And yet who is really convinced? Is the poet himself convinced?' (p. 127). Grafe's own essay assumes that it is natural for art to embody theology. Simone Weil restsher religious belief neither on reason nor on any pre-established disposi tion or passion tobelieve, but ratheron aesthetic grounds'. The perfect beauty of the accounts of thePassion', she says, 'forces'her tobelieve inChristianity (p. 164). How convincing is this?Those brought up on theQuran know that the story ofChrist's incarnation, however beautiful, isblasphemous; while atheists will struggle to find 'beauty' in a God who requires a blood sacrifice for the 'sins' of those he has created. Some essays in thevolume followGr?fe in eliding poetry and Christian theology. Catherine Phillips argues that the borrowing of images fromHopkins by Geoffrey Hill, George Mackay Brown, and Edwin Muir ensures a continuity of 'religious sensibility'. Maureen Moran writes: 'Luxurious material artefacts and dramatic gestures are...

Bloedoffers en morele vorming: Gewelddadigheid as faset van Christelike tradisies

Blood sacrifice and moral formation: Violence as a&#x0D; facet of Christian traditions&#x0D; &#x0D; Is it possible that the discourse (and the corresponding assumptions) of blood sacrifice contribute to violent behavior? After a brief review of the pervasive presence of blood sacrifice language in formative Christianity, some theoretical perspectives on the concept of sacrifice are discussed. Attention is given to traditional views emphasizing sacrifice as transaction and communication, as well as to the theories of René Girard and Walter Burkert. These theoretical reflections remind us of how interwoven sacrifice and our cultural histories; sacrifice is rooted in coping strategies for powerful and dangerous emotions and events. Some connections between blood sacrifice imagery and sacrificial talk and the possible substantiation and naturalization of violent actions and values are indicated. Sacrifice language is not the only cause of violent behavior, but it does contribute to the cultural scripts of communities, promotes egocentric values, maintains magical components in worldview and facilitates the perception of violence as a commodity.

Statius’ Thebaid and the Poetics of Civil War (review)

Reviewed by: Statius’ Thebaid and the Poetics of Civil War Mark Masterson Charles McNelis. Statius’ Thebaid and the Poetics of Civil War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. x + 203 pp. Cloth, $90. In this well-focused study, Charles McNelis gives what is due both to the poetics of Statius’ epic and to what John Henderson has called its “political intelligence” (PCPS 37 [1991]: 52). Regarding the poem as a product of its time both in terms of poetics and politics, McNelis shows that Statius uses the considerable arsenal of the Latin poets’ ability to be intertextual to create a work that addresses [End Page 436] the particular situation of post–civil wars Flavian Rome. McNelis finds that Statius proposes that the epic teleology of the Golden Age’s reestablishment under Augustus that Virgil presents (albeit with some ambiguity) “has been thwarted and/or challenged, thus suggesting the fragile nature of any claim—even claims that define a society—to have brought an end to civil war” (177). Instead, Statius suggests that while it is possible for a particular civil conflict to come to an end, the results of it are ever with us and, further, that resolution comes in the form of clementia which is available to all on an individual basis from an entity that takes no blood sacrifice and is aniconic (163; Theb. 12.487–88, 493–94). A multifaceted challenge to the Virgilian/Augustan narrative of communal imperium sine fine guaranteed by Jove is manifest here. In order to make the case that Augustan/Virgilian teleology does not fit Flavian Rome, Statius’ particular strategy is a resort to Callimachus whose criticism of the epic genre had already made frequent appearances in Latin poetry. McNelis sees Statius restaging over the course of the epic the conflict that Callimachus (in Aetia 1 and elsewhere) presents between finely worked poetry and overdone epic. This conflict then reflects the presence of civil war in the literary-generic contouring of the poem. The presence of this conflict also ensures, in McNelis’ estimation, that the Thebaid is most emphatically not the “one continuous song” (Aetia 1.1.3: ) that Callimachus presents as the undesirable goal of epic composition and instead “replicate[s]” civil war “in the very fibres of the poem” (1). After the introduction, McNelis presents in the first chapter (“Gods, Humans and the Literary Tradition”) a discussion of Thebaid 1 with special attention paid to the story of Coroebus and the particularly malevolent Apollo therein. McNelis underscores in this story (significantly an aetion) the essentially hostile nature of the gods in the poem and the blending of them with chthonic forces, exemplified by Apollo’s killing of Python and his revenge, via a baby-eating monster, for the death of a baby born to a young woman he had raped. This story promises—and it is a promise that the epic delivers—that humans can hardly expect a settled existence with Jove as beneficent ruler. The second chapter (“Beginning”) foregrounds discussion of the necklace made by Vulcan, the Cyclopes, and the Telchines for Harmonia. McNelis sees in the necklace a product from the god of the forge’s workshop that comments on this epic in as serious a manner as the shields of Achilles and Aeneas comment on their respective epics. It is here that McNelis makes a key connection to the Aetia, for it is the Telchines whom Callimachus takes to task at 1.1.1. While at times he overstates the power of the necklace to cause things to happen (e.g., 51), McNelis is right to emphasize its significance. The necklace promises communal dissolution from the hands of the gods just as surely as the shield of Aeneas promises reintegration, likewise overseen by divine forces. Too, it is fitting that the poet of the Silvae would focus on a luxurious item such as this. In the third chapter (“Nemea”), McNelis sees the Callimachean aspects of the plot derail the warlike plan of Vulcan and the Telchines in the famous [End Page 437] digression at Nemea. McNelis draws the reader’s attention to the fact that the great body of water that is epic has been reduced to but...

Uses Of Blood: Re-Reading Matt. 27:25

‘The entire people cry out, “His blood be on us and on our children.”’ Is this the epochal ‘no’ of Israel renouncing its birthright? The legal precedent is not in delict but in contract, in treaties and covenants in which an entire people bind themselves and their descendants, their entire nation, in perpetuity by an imprecatory curse-oath identifying themselves and their descendants with a blood sacrifice that seals the contract. Legally, treaties and covenants require contemporaneous ratification. The author of Matthew’s gospel obtains the acclamations of the other actors, Pilate, the soldiers, the chief priests, scribes and elders and from the sign atop the cross by the formulaic talisman, ‘King of the Jews’ or ‘Israel’s King’ that each recite. He obtains the crowd’s acclamation from Pilate using together the words ‘Christ’ (Messiah) and ‘blood’ and employing a Jewish hand washing ritual. The purpose of the hand washing ritual was to forgive Israel for the guilt of innocent blood. However, Pilate uses this ritual meant to forgive Israel for its extreme opposite perverse purpose to condemn Israel. But the crowd uses the words ‘blood on’ in a different sense that evades Pilate’s request. ‘Blood on’ in the sacrificial system meant acceptance of a sacrificial blood offering.

Transforming Possession: Josephine and the Work of Culture

Abstract This article presents the case of a Sri Lankan woman who tells of an early life fraught with suffering and problematic dissociation. After a 30‐year career as a priestess during which she became renowned for deep possession trances, firewalking, and blood sacrifices, she no longer participates in these activities. The analysis of this case argues that problematic dissociation outside a ritual context can be used in and transformed by involvement in culturally available possession rituals to promote healing. This counters Melford Spiro and others who have viewed possession experiences as necessarily abnormal, psychotic, and symptomatic of mental disorder. It supports Gananath Obeyesekere's assertion that engagement with these symbolic systems can lead to “progressive transformations.” Parallels between this priestess' lifestory and Western psychotherapy extend Obeyesekere's conception of “the work of culture” beyond the domain of meaning and symbol to include roles for embodied practice and interpersonal relationships. [spirit possession, Sri Lanka, dissociation, healing, mental health]