Paradise (Where is it now?)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Thursday, December 31, 2009, 16:35 (5223 days ago) @ George Jelliss

I was able to Listen Again to the 1:00 News this evening (it is available for 7 days). The speaker was the Pakistani author Mohanmmed Hanif who wrote a satirical novel "A Crate of Exploding Mangoes" about the death of General Zia. There is a review here from 2008:
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> http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/a-case-of-exploding-mango... 
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> He was describing a wall painting found in a Taleban hideout. His actaul words were: "We don't really know if the heaven of their dreams really exists". To me this just shows how even the most intelligent people just cannot escape childhood indoctrination.
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> On another matter entirely:
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> Matt/xeno writes: "If you ever studied Western Hermeticism, you also realize that "magic" as it is often put is an attempt to recreate an exact emotional state for another person. These are the kinds of things that for obvious reasons--materialism doesn't handle very well, because they are all arts, and not sciences."
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> Strangely enough I have studied Hermeticism to some extent. By coincidence I happened to be looking into "The White Goddess" by Robert Graves today, and in a discussion about the Unicorn and the White Hart (which are said by Hermetics to symbolise spirit and soul) I came across this statement: "The Hermetics were neo-Platonists who patched their philosophic cloaks with shreds of half-forgotten bardic lore."
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> Not relevant to the discussion perhaps, but such coincidences amuse me.-Relevant enough--but the dying art of psychotherapy also serves more good than drugs, and much of Jungian thought is related to occultism and hermeticism. Instead of working through problems our society seeks escapism in antidepressants. -I'll avoid the obvious pun here detailing affairs and states.

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"