Re: Question borrowed from elsewhere
Daniel Cohen
> Is it ever OK to borrow from another culture's spiritual practice?
It's early in the morning, I've sort of woken but am not going to be
able to get back to sleep.
I would say it depends on the relationship between the borrower, the
borrower's culture, and the culture borrowed from.
It's always gone on, sometimes called syncretism.
I don't think many Hindus or Buddhists complain of their practices and
teachings being borrowed, though they sometimes say that the borrower
does not understand what they have borrowed.
On the other hand very many Native Americans object to any borrowing.
More on this later, after others have posted and I can respond.
--
http://www.decohen.com
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Wood Avens
<ha...@drunkenbastards.spam.com> wrote:
>Is it ever OK to borrow from another culture's spiritual practice?
Hmm. Find me a current spritual practice which hasn't borrowed from
others to become what it is now. Cultures might once have been
separate and distinct, but ever since someone discovered that they
could walk to the next village, where - shock, horror! - they did
things differently, people have borrowed spiritual practices, recipes,
lovers, crops, animals, dress designs, technology, songs, weapons,
ideas and deities from the people next door. And sometimes the people
next door have forcefully insisted that they take them, like it or
not.
There's a question about when it's not OK. People can feel very
protective of something they've put a lot of energy into, but there' s
no copyright. It's a problem when a culture is being dominated by
another, and wants to retain its distinctive practices in order to
preserve its identity. And it's a problem when people claim to be
something they aren't, or when they give their practice a name that
belongs to the culture they borrowed it from. And there's a problem
if it's perceived that the borrowed practice isn't understood, or
isn't performed accurately.
Dammit, you stole my grandmother's cake recipe - and you're doing it
wrong too.
--
Wood Avens
"Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth
should that mean that it is not real?"
spamtrap: remove the first two letters after the @
trin
> Is it ever OK to borrow from another culture's spiritual practice?
Of course, how else are we gonna learn new ways - and possibly better
ways - of doing things else?
--
trin
Flying by since I'm back on-line with the decorating ALMOST
finished... or at the very least, finished enough to be able to get
back on-line anyway. :)
Jo B
"Halla" <ha...@drunkenbastards.spam.com> wrote in message
news:30js14h3orvdull71...@4ax.com...
> Is it ever OK to borrow from another culture's spiritual practice?
Depends
<G>
Would you like me to expand on that?
:-P
Jo
Yowie
> Is it ever OK to borrow from another culture's spiritual practice?
I don't think it can be helped. If you find yourself with an idea that you
happen to find helpful or positive for you, its going to be really hard
*not* to think that way.
Look at the uptake of anything new... from music to items to sports to,
well, ideas. It is very rare indeed for someone to think "hmm, well, that
would be a really useful/fun/positive thing to use in my life, but I'd
better ask the originator/s if its OK to think that way first".
Liek the snow monkeys tha tnow wash their potatoes after seeing one snow
monkey do it - I bet they didn't ask the first monkey whether it would be
culturally insensitive if they started washing their potatoes too - they
just found that it worked for them and adopted it.
Of course some people are going to take ideas wildly out of their original
context. The question is: what harm does taking an idea out of context do to
the person (people) who orignally had that idea and know what context it
orignally sprang from?
Whilst most likely biased as I am part of the 'main' culture rather than a
minority, I still can't think of any idea that another culture could borrow
and take out of context that oculd possibly offend me. Amuse me, yes, offend
me - unlikely. I suspect its something minorities complain about not because
of the ideas being borrowed as such, but because of the lack of
understanding and respect it shows. In that regard, I am sympathetic, but
its one of those things: do you *need* to know all the background and
cultural context to use an idea? I don't think so. Just look at all those
Christians that borrowed ideas fromthe Jews, the Muslims who knocked off
Christian & Jewish ideas, the Buddhists who ran with Hindu ideas, the
Catholics that knocked off ideas fromthe Pagans etc etc etc. Its the way
humanity is: use what works, fix whats broke, and fake the rest (attribution
unkown, but think its someone who lurks here, or SRP or ARWM)
Yowie
Wood Avens
<yowie9644....@yahoo.com.au> wrote:
> Its the way
>humanity is: use what works, fix whats broke, and fake the rest (attribution
>unkown, but think its someone who lurks here, or SRP or ARWM)
[snip]
It's Storm (Steve Storm), who posts on arwm. The full version is:
Nine words th'eclectic rede attest:
Steal what works. Fix what's broke. Fake the rest.
flower of romance
>
>
isn't someone objecting to you using it because it's theirs being shallow?
Wood Avens
I think a particular problem arises when a large or dominant group
borrows a spiritual practice from a smaller group and changes it or
fluffifies it but keeps its original name. It's happened to aspects
of north American shamanism and it's also happened to Wicca in the US
and undoubtedly to lots of others whose origin is now lost in the
mists of time. On the one hand this is just ordinary human activity
and utterly inevitable (as I said in my reply a few days ago) but on
the other hand it's very frustrating if you're a member of the
original group.
Yowie
> On Wed, 7 May 2008 14:06:25 +1000, "Yowie"
>
>> Halla wrote:
>>> Is it ever OK to borrow from another culture's spiritual practice?
>>
>> I don't think it can be helped. If you find yourself with an idea
>> that you happen to find helpful or positive for you, its going to be
>> really hard *not* to think that way.
>>
>
> Is it an unfortunate consequence of doing that proper larnin' type
> thing?
>
>> Look at the uptake of anything new... from music to items to sports
>> to, well, ideas. It is very rare indeed for someone to think "hmm,
>> well, that would be a really useful/fun/positive thing to use in my
>> life, but I'd better ask the originator/s if its OK to think that
>> way first".
>
> to have us adopt their ideas, and to pay only £11.99 for the book
> explaining how... ;-)
>
>>
>> Liek the snow monkeys tha tnow wash their potatoes after seeing one
>> snow monkey do it - I bet they didn't ask the first monkey whether
>> it would be culturally insensitive if they started washing their
>> potatoes too - they just found that it worked for them and adopted
>> it.
>
> the monkeys washed the potatoes, and it'd depend why people copy the
> actions of another person.
Actually, I don't think it does.
People will copy other people because thats what we do. What context we put
onto our actions is our own.
Like when I went to an art exhibition and was admiring a particular
painting. Unbeknownst to me, the artist was in the gallery at the time,
noticed my interst and came up to talk about it. I think we were both
mutually horrified at how differently we interpretted it. But I still found
the painting interesting and worthy of attention - I probably would have
bought it even though I got something entirely different out of it than the
artist intended had it not been so expensive.
Is my interpretation and indeed enjoyment of said painting invalid simply
because its not what the orighnal artist was intending to convey? We were,
after all, talking baout the same object in front of us, the same picture -
we just had different reactions to it, gave it different meanings.
>> Of course some people are going to take ideas wildly out of their
>> original context. The question is: what harm does taking an idea out
>> of context do to the person (people) who orignally had that idea and
>> know what context it orignally sprang from?
>
> Good question. Also, does it harm the taker?
I don't think it does. Although I would suspect that understanding the
original context of what had been borrowed would be of benefit, even if they
chose not to adopt that same context for themselves.
>> Whilst most likely biased as I am part of the 'main' culture rather
>> than a minority, I still can't think of any idea that another
>> culture could borrow and take out of context that oculd possibly
>> offend me.
>
> Well, I'm a Scot, I get a licence to be touchy about that sort of
> thing with the red hair and tendency to burn in the sun. ;-)
LOL. I am a Pom. As far back as I can go in my family tree, all are English.
No foreigners, nothing interesting, not even from other parts of the UK like
Scotland or Wales. The whole lot comes from Essex, England.
Even having emigrated to Australia when i was very young, I have no sense of
being part of anything other than beign part of hte dominant culture. All I
could claim, I guess, is that all of my ancestors where of solid working
class stock, and were thereby opressed why the rich landlords, but even that
makes me 'mainstream' :-)
Husband, on the other hand, is 1/4 Native American and has Irish, Welsh and
Sicilian in him too, and has close ties the Wujal Wujal Aboriginal mission.
Its like he has more 'cutlural identity' than I could ever hope to have.
>> Amuse me, yes, offend
>> me - unlikely. I suspect its something minorities complain about not
>> because of the ideas being borrowed as such, but because of the lack
>> of understanding and respect it shows. In that regard, I am
>> sympathetic, but its one of those things: do you *need* to know all
>> the background and cultural context to use an idea? I don't think
>> so. Just look at all those Christians that borrowed ideas fromthe
>> Jews, the Muslims who knocked off Christian & Jewish ideas, the
>> Buddhists who ran with Hindu ideas, the Catholics that knocked off
>> ideas fromthe Pagans etc etc etc. Its the way humanity is: use what
>> works, fix whats broke, and fake the rest (attribution unkown, but
>> think its someone who lurks here, or SRP or ARWM)
>
> Do you think that people from all those religions spotted a borrowed
> bit in another religion's worhsip and grumbled 'hey, we were doing
> that first!'? :-)
More like "Blasphemers!!!!", but yes.
I guess having ideas removed from their original context, copied, and
desemminated int he maisntream removes that tribal identity of us and them,
removes a sense of specialness and uniqueness that us husmans seem to like
inourselves but find very threatening in others. Like we all want to be in
the secret club, but don't want the secret club to have any more members
after us.
Yowie
Wood Avens
<ha...@drunkenbastards.spam.com> wrote:
>On Fri, 9 May 2008 11:43:08 +1000, "Yowie"
><yowie9644....@yahoo.com.au> blethered:
>>
>>Is my interpretation and indeed enjoyment of said painting invalid simply
>>because its not what the orighnal artist was intending to convey? We were,
>>after all, talking baout the same object in front of us, the same picture -
>>we just had different reactions to it, gave it different meanings.
>
>That's different though, after all two observers could watch, say, a
>marriage ceremony in a Church of Englnad church, and take different
>things from it. Neither of those observers have necessarily borrowed
>anything from that culture though.
>
Suppose, though, that one of them went home and set up their own
marriage ceremony, copying everything they saw done. The C of E would
be round saying "But you haven't got an ordained priest!" and the
local registrar's office would be round saying "But you haven't got a
proper registrar!"
--
Katy Jennison
Jo B...
> On Tue, 06 May 2008 09:38:58 GMT, "Jo B"
> <spirit_...@SPAMhotmail.com> blethered:
>
> ;-)
D'oh ok then - I knew I shoulda kept my typing fingers still :-P
From what I have gathered over time it comes down to respect. It is
respectful to allow people their own culture without it being nicked or rode
over roughshod. It is respectful if you wish to learn about the culture and
beliefs of another cultural group to ask to be invited to join and learn
about it from within. It is respectful of oneself and one's own heritage to
learn about practices and cultures from one's own people.
Its not going to be very respectful or useful to try and copy the practices
from another country over here and expect them to work in the same way, or
even at all. It is my opinion and experience that on the whole spiritual
practices are locality based and, like an unchilled salad in hot weather, do
not usually travel well.
That said - if you get a genuine job interview from a foreign spirit/deity
who am I to argue? Just watch out for the small print.
This is just my own opinion mind, some may share it and some may not. Don't
shoot me for having an opinion - it is not intended to 'get at' anyone or
their beliefs. (<caveat/>)
Jo
still tired out and probably not making sense
Wood Avens
<ha...@drunkenbastards.spam.com> wrote:
>On Sat, 10 May 2008 12:30:41 +0100, Wood Avens
><wood...@askjennison.com> blethered:
>>
>>Suppose, though, that one of them went home and set up their own
>>marriage ceremony, copying everything they saw done. The C of E would
>>be round saying "But you haven't got an ordained priest!" and the
>>local registrar's office would be round saying "But you haven't got a
>>proper registrar!"
>
>Yep. So the original culture would object to the borrowing. Would it
>stop the obersver from carrying on though, or woudl they have a 'but'
>prepared?
Seems to me it would depend on what the borrower believed the point of
it to be. They'd be sadly disillusioned if they'd been under the
impression that their DIY version meant that the newly-married couple
would have their marriage recognised by the Church and/or the state.
And I sometimes suspect that some of the people who borrow, or let's
say copy, stuff from other cultures/religions do so expecting to get
out of it whatever the original culture's people get out of it, in
some mystical way. Rather like cargo cults, maybe.
But that's a long way from what most of us do, whcih is to say "Ooh,
that looks like fun -- right, how can I incorporate the fun bit into
my next ritual?"
--
Wood Avens
"Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth
should that mean that it is not real?"
spamtrap: remove the first two letters after the @
Daniel Cohen
> Its not going to be very respectful or useful to try and copy the practices
> from another country over here and expect them to work in the same way, or
> even at all. It is my opinion and experience that on the whole spiritual
> practices are locality based and, like an unchilled salad in hot weather, do
> not usually travel well.
I agree. Christianity, Judaism and Islam are not locally based, and
since so many of us live in a *vaguely* Christian society, we often
start up with the view that expressions of spirituality are universal
and can be borrowed at will.
With many indigenous peoples, there is or has been a political struggle
going on. I feel that if one is borrowing anything from them, there is a
duty to pay back by learning about the politics and relating to the
struggle.
Ffred Clegg
news:1igrnvj.1ytxwpofa80stN%dan...@f2s.com...
> Jo B... <spirit_craft(antispam)@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> I agree. Christianity, Judaism and Islam are not locally based, and
> since so many of us live in a *vaguely* Christian society, we often
> start up with the view that expressions of spirituality are universal
> and can be borrowed at will.
>
> With many indigenous peoples, there is or has been a political struggle
> going on. I feel that if one is borrowing anything from them, there is a
> duty to pay back by learning about the politics and relating to the
> struggle.
I think that's the right approach.
There's a difference between taking a particular technique which forms part
of a spiritual practice and using it as one of your own and purporting to
adopt the whole social and cultural matrix in which that technique is
embedded.
Techniques have often already been part of many different indigenous
practices anyway. Most people think of sweat lodges in terms of native
american religion but the americans didn't have a monopoly on them - there
are examples in the Celtic countries also.
So fine, if you want to make sweat rituals part of your practice, that
probably won't cause offence to anyone (unless they work for the
antiperspirant manfactureres).
But if you start claiming to be a practitioner of an indigenous spiritual
tradition when what you're putting over has clearly been extracted from a
few superficial Llewellyn books on Wicca, then expect the natives to get
extremely stroppy about it.
gwyn eich byd
Ffred
O Benryn wleth hyd Luch Reon
Cymru yn unfryd gerhyd Wrion
Gwret dy Cymry yghymeiri
Yowie
> On Fri, 9 May 2008 11:43:08 +1000, "Yowie"
> <yowie9644....@yahoo.com.au> blethered:
>
>> Halla wrote:
>>> On Wed, 7 May 2008 14:06:25 +1000, "Yowie"
>>> <yowie9644....@yahoo.com.au> blethered:
>>>
>>>> Halla wrote:
>>>>> Is it ever OK to borrow from another culture's spiritual
>>>>
>>>> Liek the snow monkeys tha tnow wash their potatoes after seeing one
>>>> snow monkey do it - I bet they didn't ask the first monkey whether
>>>> it would be culturally insensitive if they started washing their
>>>> potatoes too - they just found that it worked for them and adopted
>>>> it.
>>>
>>> I see your point but I don't know if that fits well - it'd depend
>>> why the monkeys washed the potatoes, and it'd depend why people
>>> copy the actions of another person.
>>
>> Actually, I don't think it does.
>>
>> People will copy other people because thats what we do. What context
>> we put onto our actions is our own.
>>
>
> deliberate borrowing of elements of practice and culture from other
> bits of the world or other groups of people rather than out-and-out
> mindless copying just because someone else is doing it.
>
>> Like when I went to an art exhibition and was admiring a particular
>> painting. Unbeknownst to me, the artist was in the gallery at the
>> time, noticed my interst and came up to talk about it. I think we
>> were both mutually horrified at how differently we interpretted it.
>
It wasn't :-) it was about seeing something without knowing the context in
which I was 'supposed' to see it in, and thereby putting it into my own
context.
People who 'copy' or 'steal' cultural ideas and then incorporate them rarely
fully understand the context in which the bit they are 'copying' or
'stealing' was originally it. It would take *years* (perhaps a lifetime) to
know and udnerstand it all. What happens when its being 'stolen' or 'copied'
is that - whether the original context is known or not - it resonates and
has meaning with the 'thief' because of the context the 'thief' puts on it.
Anecdote: being raised a boring Church of England, I leanrt how to pray on
my knees with my hands clasped in the traditional way. Then for whatever
reason i stumbled into pentecostalism and they pray with their arms
upraised, palms upward. Praying that way actually felt better, and
afterwards that how I prayed. I didn't know *why* it seemed to work better,
it just did. Then a pentecostal type said it was like putting the 'aerials'.
Thats why *he* prayed that way, and thats what I had copied. But an athiest
psychology friend later pointed out that young children have the same pose
of arms uplifted, palms facing up when they want to be lifted up by a
parent, and *that* is why it 'felt better' to pray that way, because
(somewhere deep in my childhood) doing that usually meant that I got comfort
and a safe, loved feeling (which is what happened when I 'prayed' that way).
When I first watched the pentecostals do the arms upraised thing, i didn't
know *why* they did it, but I tried it, and it seemed to work for me. So I
kept doing it....
> That's different though, after all two observers could watch, say, a
> marriage ceremony in a Church of Englnad church, and take different
> things from it. Neither of those observers have necessarily borrowed
> anything from that culture though.
Watch two kids 'marry' each other. They've borrowed without
understanding....
>>>> Of course some people are going to take ideas wildly out of their
>>>> original context. The question is: what harm does taking an idea
>>>> out of context do to the person (people) who orignally had that
>>>> idea and know what context it orignally sprang from?
>>>
>>> Good question. Also, does it harm the taker?
>>
>> I don't think it does.
>
> How would we know? :-)
Good point.
On the same token, should we assume that harm is being done (and thereby try
to stop it) just because a person *says* that they feel harmed?
>> Although I would suspect that understanding the
>> original context of what had been borrowed would be of benefit, even
>> if they chose not to adopt that same context for themselves.
>
> That sort of applies for almost everything, there's a widespread
> presumption that if we only understood things we'd be better off. I
> wonder if it's true. ;-)
Ignorance is bliss? :-)
>>>> Whilst most likely biased as I am part of the 'main' culture rather
>>>> than a minority, I still can't think of any idea that another
>>>> culture could borrow and take out of context that oculd possibly
>>>> offend me.
>>>
>>> Well, I'm a Scot, I get a licence to be touchy about that sort of
>>> thing with the red hair and tendency to burn in the sun. ;-)
>>
>> LOL. I am a Pom. As far back as I can go in my family tree, all are
>> English. No foreigners, nothing interesting, not even from other
>> parts of the UK like Scotland or Wales. The whole lot comes from
>> Essex, England.
>
> Heh. Does that count as part of the majority (southern English), or a
> minority within a population (people from Essex)? ;-)
Depends.... I am a minority of 1 when it comes right down to it :-)
<snip>
>> Husband, on the other hand, is 1/4 Native American and has Irish,
>> Welsh and Sicilian in him too, and has close ties the Wujal Wujal
>> Aboriginal mission. Its like he has more 'cutlural identity' than I
>> could ever hope to have.
>
> Isn't it interesting too how families can cross cultural boundaries
> once they've already done so on one occasion? The likes of my family
> are more likely to run along the rails of their particular little
> group, marrying from the same group etc. (although apparently my
> husband's family way back when got around a bit more)
You mean, nobody in a particular group crosses their (self defined) cultural
boundry for ages, and then as soon as one person dares break the mold,
suddenly 'everyone' is doing it?
>> I guess having ideas removed from their original context, copied, and
>> desemminated int he maisntream removes that tribal identity of us
>> and them,
>
> Is that the most important part of these practices, do you think? Is
> this asserting of identity actually where the power lies in them?
I'm one of those skeptical types that suspects that the power comes from
whatever power you want to give it (or not give it). Feeling a strong
affinity to a particular ritual / idea/ concept / cultural activity helps.
Finding *meaning* in it helps. But I am not a great believer in the idea
that 'going through the motions' has any power just because its been
performed heaps of times,a nd the vibrations are set or the communication
has gone along that particualr line many times (like a line of least
resistance for electricity). There's a word for this idea, can't remember it
(egregore?). But I don't tend to believe that a person with no knowlegde of
(say) Egyptian could prounounce hte syllables of an Egytian ritual correctly
(but entirely fail to understand any of it) and expect it to work. YMMV
Yowie
Jo B...
> On Sun, 11 May 2008 17:48:52 +0100, dan...@f2s.com (Daniel Cohen)
> blethered:
>
> >Jo B... <spirit_craft(antispam)@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Its not going to be very respectful or useful to try and copy the
practices
> >> from another country over here and expect them to work in the same way,
or
> >> even at all. It is my opinion and experience that on the whole
spiritual
> >> practices are locality based and, like an unchilled salad in hot
weather, do
> >> not usually travel well.
> >
> >I agree. Christianity, Judaism and Islam are not locally based, and
> >since so many of us live in a *vaguely* Christian society, we often
> >start up with the view that expressions of spirituality are universal
> >and can be borrowed at will.
> >
>
> three' rely on place. And yet so much of them has been flavoured by
> where they originated and grew up, from what I can see. How
> interesting. :-) I wonder if they did originally have a more local
> flavour and have gradually bent their followers to the view that place
> wasn't important (mostly)?
Its only something that occurred to me when I began learning about shamanic
practice through actual communicating with spirit. Yahweh is pretty much a
localised spirit deity of a wandering desert people (er do correct me if my
socio/religious history is off the mark) and to begin with (see Old
Testament early bits) there does in fact seem to be communication with
Spirit/deity by the leading spirit cummunicators of the tribe. Then it all
turned to religion and to my interpretation got more based on the
'assumption' of what god wants filtered through socio-political expedience.
To then try and take those practices wholesale to another place and another
time in history just doesn't add up for me.
Mff - I'm always assuming I'm not making sense these days - its probably
because my head is full of college work and none of that makes sense either.
I'm glad the summer hols are coming.
Jo
Wood Avens
I had a lightbulb-over-the-head moment when I first read (and I can't
remember where) the theory that the Old Testament God is harsh, cruel
and judges things in entirely black-and-white terms because that's
what the climate is like: harsh, cruel and divided very sharply
between day and night. Unlike the misty, moisty, crepuscular,
unpredictable but temperate climate of northern Europe.