Mircea Eliade (1907-1986)
Eliade was educated as a philosopher. He published extensively in the history of religions and acted as editor-in-chief of Macmillan's Encyclopedia of Religion. The influence of his thought, through these works and through thirty years as director of History of Religions department at the University of Chicago, is considerable.
Eliade's analysis of religion assumes the existence of "the sacred" as the object of worship of religious humanity. It appears as the source of power, significance, and value. Humanity apprehends "hierophanies"--physical manifestations or revelations of the sacred--often, but not only, in the form of symbols, myths, and ritual. Any phenomenal entity is a potential hierophany and can give access to non-historical time: what Eliade calls illud tempus (Latin for 'that time,' I tend to think of it as 'yon time'). The apprehension of this sacred time is a constitutive feature of the religious aspect of humanity. www.westminster.edu/staff/brennie/eliade/mebio.htm
Mircea Eliade recounts in his books the brilliant use of ashes made by old men initiators in Australia, Africa, the Near East, South America, the Pacific. Initiation says that before a boy can become a man, some infantile being in him must die. Ashes Time is a time set aside for the death of that ego-bound boy. The boy between eight and twelve years of age, having been taken away from the mother, passes into the hands of the old men guides who cover his face and sometimes his whole body with ashes to make him the color of dead people and to remind him of the inner death about to come. He may be put into the dark for hours or maybe days, introduced to spirits of dead ancestors. Then he may crawl through a tunnel-or vagina- made of brush and branches. The old men are waiting for him at the other end, only now he has a new name. The mothers in some cultures feel so strongly about the importance of the ritual that when reunited to their sons, they pretend not to recognize them and have to be reintroduced. The mothers participate joyfully in this initiation.
The gold-obsessed man, whether a New Age man or a Dow Jones man, can be said to be the man who hasn't yet handled ashes.
The word ashes contains in it a dark feeling for death; ashes when put on the face whiten it as death does. Job covered himself with ashes to say that the earlier omfortable Job was dead; and that the living Hob mourned the dead Job. But for us, how can we get a look at the cinders side of things when the society is determinded to create a world of shopping malls and entertainment complexes in which we are made to believe that there is no death, disfigurement, illness, insanity, poverty, lethargy or misery? Disneyland means "no ashes."
Despite our Disneyland culture, some men around thrity five or forty will begin to experience ashes privately, without ritual, even without old men. They begin to notice how many of ther dreams have turned to ashes. A young man in high school dreams that he will be a race driver, a mountain climber, he will marry Miss America, he will be a millionaire by thirty, he will get a Nobel Prize in physics by thirty-five, he will be an architect and build the tallest building ever. He will get out of his hick town and live in Paris. He will have fabulous friends...and by thirty five, all these dreams are ashes.
At thirty -five his inner stove begins to produce ashes as well. All through his twenties, his stove burned with such a good draft that he threw in whole nights until dawn, drinking parties, sexual extravagance, enthusiasm, madness, excitement. Then one day he notices that his stove doesn't take such big chunks anymore. He opens the stove door and ashes fall out on the floor. It's time for him to buy a small black shovel at the hardware store and get down on his knees. The ashes fall off the shovel and onto the floor, and he can see the print of his bootsoles in the ashes.
Robert Frost said of the "Oven Bird":
The question that he frames in all but words
is what to make of a diminshed thing
Some habitual error we keep making in our relationships produces more ash than heat. A number of men around thirty-five have told me that they are afraid to go into a new relationship for fear it will end as the last ten or twelve have ended, in "ashes." But young men can't get enough ashes. Enlightenment addicts think they want ecstacy from their association with their guru, but they may really want the ashes. Having no kitchen fire to sit beside and no Wild Man to send us there, the young man smears soot on his face and hopes that his own mother will not recognize him.
Pablo Neruda says:
Out of everything I've done, everything I've lost
everything I've gotten unexpectedly,
I can give you a little in leaves, in sour iron...
here I am with the thing that loses stars, like a vegetable, alone. (from "Brussels, Trans. by Robert Bly)
Ashes present a great diminishment away from the living tree with its huge crown and its abundant shade. The recognition of this dminishment is a proper experience for men who are over thirty. If the man doesn't experience that diminishment sharply, he will retain his inflation, and continue to identify himself with all in him that can fly: his sexual drive, his minds, his refusal to commit himself, his addiction, his transcendence, his coolness. The coolness of some American men means that they have skipped ashes.
Franklin Roosevelt found his ashes in his polio; Anwar Sadat in his prison; Solzhenitsyn in the gulag. Some of our liveliest writers--John Steinbeck, William Faulker, Thomas McGrath, Tillie Olson, David Ignatow, Kenneth Rexroth--found their ashes in the poverty of the Depression.
Katabasis and ashes are a little different. We could say that a man finds katabasis only through dropping, poverty, abrupt change in social class; and prison is a traditional place to experience both katabasis and ashes. But a man may keep his job and famly and still experience ashes if he knowns what he is doing. From Robert Bly, Iron John, Vintage Books, New York, 1992, p. 80ff(To be continued)
Friday, February 4, 2011
Thursday, February 3, 2011
"Dirtier" Boys have healthier immune systems (Researcher)
By Whitney Blair Wyckoff, on SHOTS, NPR's Health Blog, February 3, 2011
There's a growing body of research showing that children exposed to lots of germs early in life are less likely to develop allergies, asthma or autoimmune disorders as they grow up.
But now there's a new twist on the theory, known as the hygiene hypothesis in scientific circles, and it's about little girls in cute little dresses.
In an article in the peer-reviewed journal Social Science and Medicine, Sharyn Clough, a philosopher of science at Oregon State University who studies research bias, says young girls are held to a higher standard of cleanliness than young boys, a discrepancy that could help explain later health differences.
Girls are expected to stay squeaky clean while boys are encouraged to play outside, Clough argues. And that might explain why women have higher rates of certain illnesses.
Women have a higher rate of asthma than men — 8.5 percent compared to 7.1 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They're also more likely than men to have allergies. And the American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association says autoimmune disorders affect women three times more often than men.
Now there are lots of differences that could account for those discrepancies. But Shots was intrigued by Clough's research and talked about it with her.Our conversation, edited a little for clarity and length, follows.
What makes you think there's a link between cleanliness and rates of chronic illness and autoimmune diseases in women?
I read about a study that was linking these large environmental patterns of hygiene and sanitation with autoimmune disorders. [The researchers] suggested the lack of exposure to parasites may be related to the increased rate of Crohn's disease in industrialized Western nations — and then they generalized to other autoimmune disorders. I happen to know among those who've got these diseases, women are overrepresented. So, it struck me as odd that gender was missing from the analysis.
Why don't girls get exposed to the same germs as boys?
In large populations, you can make generalizations about the differences in the ways we socialize little boys and little girls. We still dress little girls in clothes that are restrictive and not supposed to get dirty. Little girls are still way less likely to play outdoors than little boys. And little girls are supervised more often by their parents during their play, which is likely to keep them from getting dirty.
What exactly is in the dirt?
There are a variety of bacteria even just in soil. A gram of uncontaminated soil contains 10 billion microbial cells. Playing in dirt is a reliable way to ingest dirt. Playing in the dirt is highly correlated with eating it. And when you eat it, you know you're exposed to bacteria — all kinds and in high numbers
So that exposure to dirt makes it less likely to have allergies or asthma later on?
Young boys actually have higher rates of asthma than do girls. So my thinking is that [at a very young age], boys are exposed to more of the allergens and things that inflame their immune systems more often than do girls. So boys will have higher rates of asthma early on. But then after puberty, girls have higher rates of asthma and then for the rest of their lives.
What about the fact that it's becoming more socially acceptable for girls to behave stereotypically like boys? More girls are playing sports, and fewer girls are wearing dresses to go out to play.
You'd think that this is changing but you'd be surprised. In a study from 1998 of American children in preschool, one-third of the 5-year-old girls came to school in dresses each day. Title IX and getting more girls into sports — that's clearly a phenomenon that's changing things. But I think for little girls, things aren't changing much.
Allergies, asthma and autoimmune disorders are increasing for everyone — both men and women in our populations in the North and West. So what that means — if the hygiene hypothesis folks are right — is that we're decreasing our exposure to germs all the time even though we have more girls playing sports. There are competing trends that affect boys and girls, men and women.
What should policy makers and parents take from your research?
I think if you've got a teeny kid — like an infant or a toddler — I think it doesn't hurt to get them dirty. But the jury is still out. We're only beginning to understand the relationship between bacteria and other kinds of organisms in our bodies. And the higher rates of diseases are unintended consequences of policies that are, for the most part, pretty good. It's actually pretty good that we have higher sanitation rates than we used to. But it turns out, we just weren't aware of how complex the ecologies of germs are.
There's a growing body of research showing that children exposed to lots of germs early in life are less likely to develop allergies, asthma or autoimmune disorders as they grow up.
But now there's a new twist on the theory, known as the hygiene hypothesis in scientific circles, and it's about little girls in cute little dresses.
In an article in the peer-reviewed journal Social Science and Medicine, Sharyn Clough, a philosopher of science at Oregon State University who studies research bias, says young girls are held to a higher standard of cleanliness than young boys, a discrepancy that could help explain later health differences.
Girls are expected to stay squeaky clean while boys are encouraged to play outside, Clough argues. And that might explain why women have higher rates of certain illnesses.
Women have a higher rate of asthma than men — 8.5 percent compared to 7.1 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They're also more likely than men to have allergies. And the American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association says autoimmune disorders affect women three times more often than men.
Now there are lots of differences that could account for those discrepancies. But Shots was intrigued by Clough's research and talked about it with her.Our conversation, edited a little for clarity and length, follows.
What makes you think there's a link between cleanliness and rates of chronic illness and autoimmune diseases in women?
I read about a study that was linking these large environmental patterns of hygiene and sanitation with autoimmune disorders. [The researchers] suggested the lack of exposure to parasites may be related to the increased rate of Crohn's disease in industrialized Western nations — and then they generalized to other autoimmune disorders. I happen to know among those who've got these diseases, women are overrepresented. So, it struck me as odd that gender was missing from the analysis.
Why don't girls get exposed to the same germs as boys?
In large populations, you can make generalizations about the differences in the ways we socialize little boys and little girls. We still dress little girls in clothes that are restrictive and not supposed to get dirty. Little girls are still way less likely to play outdoors than little boys. And little girls are supervised more often by their parents during their play, which is likely to keep them from getting dirty.
What exactly is in the dirt?
There are a variety of bacteria even just in soil. A gram of uncontaminated soil contains 10 billion microbial cells. Playing in dirt is a reliable way to ingest dirt. Playing in the dirt is highly correlated with eating it. And when you eat it, you know you're exposed to bacteria — all kinds and in high numbers
So that exposure to dirt makes it less likely to have allergies or asthma later on?
Young boys actually have higher rates of asthma than do girls. So my thinking is that [at a very young age], boys are exposed to more of the allergens and things that inflame their immune systems more often than do girls. So boys will have higher rates of asthma early on. But then after puberty, girls have higher rates of asthma and then for the rest of their lives.
What about the fact that it's becoming more socially acceptable for girls to behave stereotypically like boys? More girls are playing sports, and fewer girls are wearing dresses to go out to play.
You'd think that this is changing but you'd be surprised. In a study from 1998 of American children in preschool, one-third of the 5-year-old girls came to school in dresses each day. Title IX and getting more girls into sports — that's clearly a phenomenon that's changing things. But I think for little girls, things aren't changing much.
Allergies, asthma and autoimmune disorders are increasing for everyone — both men and women in our populations in the North and West. So what that means — if the hygiene hypothesis folks are right — is that we're decreasing our exposure to germs all the time even though we have more girls playing sports. There are competing trends that affect boys and girls, men and women.
What should policy makers and parents take from your research?
I think if you've got a teeny kid — like an infant or a toddler — I think it doesn't hurt to get them dirty. But the jury is still out. We're only beginning to understand the relationship between bacteria and other kinds of organisms in our bodies. And the higher rates of diseases are unintended consequences of policies that are, for the most part, pretty good. It's actually pretty good that we have higher sanitation rates than we used to. But it turns out, we just weren't aware of how complex the ecologies of germs are.
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