Wow, I realize I have not posted for a while. I plan on completing my last two reports over the next week: Module 7: Food: Growth and Preparation (not one of my key interests, perhaps that's why I was slow to process the data) and Module 8: Modernity: Preventable Illnes, Specific Issues, Death (very interesting!). The reading has been done for a while; I have just been distracted by career concerns, personal introspection and my new mentally sharp, sensitive and gorgeous Dobermann, Hunter, who I adore.

Next I formulate a thesis proposal and shoot it over to Dr. Cousins for rejection, edits or approval. Thinking of making a creative/spiritual proposition ... see if he goes for it.

Book Review (The Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered) Eisenman, Robert & Michael Wise

The Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered describes the discovery, disclosure process, and content of the many scrolls found in some of the caves near Qumran on the Dead Sea. With this book, for the first time the public was enabled access to the most intriguing texts from the unpublished corpus and allowed to judge for itself. Providing English translations as well as transcriptions into modern Hebrew characters, this book makes available 50 texts. Accompanied by commentaries, these texts provide insights into Messianism, an alternative presentation of the flood story, ecstatic visions, prophecies, Mysteries, astrology, divination and much more.

We are given Messianic and Visionary Recitals (of Noah and Michael), prophets and pseudo prophets (angels of Mastemoth and the rule of Belial, pseudo Jeremiah, second Ezekiel, pseudo Daniel, the vision of the four kingdoms), biblical interpretation (pesher, Florilegium, calendria) calendrical texts and priestly courses, testaments and admonitions (righteousness, truth, judgement, knowledge, wisdom,) legal minutiae, and the claim that works are to be reckoned as righteousness. Divination, magic and are explored in brontologion (future text), selinedromion (moon text), and thema mundi (world horoscope) articles. The exacting roles of the Maskil and Mebakker are delineated, as is the Way.

The tone of the scrolls is one of unbending nationalism and anti-corruption in the language of righteousness indignation. No peaceful Essenes here. The scrolls are an expression of dazzling faith and ecstatic vision and definitively identify the Essenes as a group, a movement. This is nothing less than the literature of the Messianic Movement in Palestine. Responsible for the uprising that led to the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, its later stages are virtually indistinguishable from the rise of Christianity in Palestine. As noted in Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls and The Dead Sea Scrolls Today, this book too sheds light on the formation of early Christianity.

Book Review (The Dead Sea Scrolls Today) James C. VanderKam

The Dead Sea Scrolls Today describes the discovery and disclosure of the many scrolls found in many of the caves near Qumran on the Dead Sea.

• It surveys the various and numerous manuscripts:
  Biblical
• Targums (tefillin and mezuzot)
• Aprocrypha (tobit, sirach, letter of Jeremiah, psalm 151, pseudepigrapha, Enoch, Jubilees, and testament of 12 patriarchs)
• Habakkak commentary
• Psalm 37
• Themed commentaries (Floriliegium, Testimonia, Melchizedek texts)
• Geneisis (paraphrases, legal texts, Damascus document
• Manual of Discipline
• Temple scroll
• Torah
• Writings of worship (cycle of Worship, liturgy, calendricalia)
• Poetic compositions (Thanksgiving hymns, other poems)
• Eschatological works (the war rule)
• Wisdom texts

Vanderkam provides a case for identifying the original owners of the scrolls and inhabitants of the Qumran settlement with his Essene hypothesis. The Essenes were one of three ancient Jewish groups or philosophies named and described by historian Josephus; the other two (or three the Zealots are included) were the more famous Pharisees and Sadducees featured in the New Testament Gospels and Acts. Josephus tells of these three groups being active from mid-second century B.C. unit the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. Pliny described the Essenes as a celebate group of men renouncing money, living on the west side of the Dead Sea, but a sect continuing over that space of history, remarkably according to Pliny, considering they were not known to traditionally breed. (p. 72)

Vanderkam suggests the beliefs and practices of the Essenes agree well with the beliefs and practices presented in the Dead Sea Scrolls. (p. 75) Vanderkam references the Manual of Discipline for the theology of predeterminism and the afterlife and practices of non-use of oil, communal property ownership, purity rites (of eating, bodily functions and spitting).

Differences between the sect and the Essenes according to Josephus included the initiatory procedure and marriage legislation. The group hypothetically could have been a variant of Sadducess or a fortress of people who during the First Jewish Revolt fled to the site from Jerusalem with the manuscripts to hide them from approaching Romans and who had no direct connection with the caves. This anti-Essene hypothesis points for evidence to the lack of legal documents and contracts and lack of (autographic) original, firsthand texts. Since the anti-Essene hypothesis fails to account for the consistency of the Qumran corpus, Pliny’s descriptions, or for the Qumran buildings, Vanderkam found that the Essene hypothesis is the most compelling of any. (p. 97)

If we accept Vanderkam’s thesis, the Qumran Essenes then had specific ideas about predeterminism, the two ways, the New Covenant, scriptural interpretation, the latter days, special laws, the universe, worship and the messianic end of days.

Interestingly, Vanderkam identifies close parallels with the New Testament and suggests that Christianity emerged from Judaism with examples of similarities, congruencies and direct matches in language, references to “the many,” the guardian, phrases from the Sermon on the Mount, practices, characters, eschatology and teachings.

“The Qumran literature has shown to a far greater extent than was sensed
before 1947 how deeply rooted early Christianity was in the Jewish soil that
nourished it. Because of the scrolls, one can more easily see that a large
number of Christianity’s beliefs and practise were not unique to it. The major
contribution of the scrolls to New Testament study is to highlight the simple
but profound fact that the uniqueness of the early Christian faith lies less in
its communal practices and eschatological expectations than in its central
confession that the son of a humble woman and a carpenter from Nazareth in
Galilee was indeed the messiah and son of God who taught, healed, suffered,
died, rose, ascended, and promised to return in glory to judge the living and
the dead. By claiming that the historical Jesus was the messiah, the Christians
also placed themselves farther along on the eschatological timetable than the
Qumran Essenes, who were expecting their messiahs to come in the near
future.” (p. 184.)

Book Review (Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their True Meaning for Judaism and Christianity) Lawrence H. Schiffman

Since their discovery in 1947, the Dead Sea Scrolls have fascinated. They include the earliest known manuscripts of the Bible, as well as nonbiblical literature, and provide information about the history of Judaism between the Bible and the Mishnah. The scrolls also inform us about the background of Christianity. These scrolls are documents of groups of Second Temple Jews embodied partly by a sect inhabiting the Qumran settlement in the Hasmonaean and Herodian periods, between 135 B.C.E. to 68 C.E. Apparently, the site was abandoned before the massacre at Masada in 73C.E. The scrolls were not the library of the Jerusalem Temple and they were not the documents of an early Christian sect. Most scholars identify the community as the Essenes (Essenoi or Essaioi, healers, doers), in a general way, because the sect at Qumran seemed to have been part of a wider movement. The only information we have about the Essenes comes from Greek sources, Philo, Josephus, and Pliny the Elder.

The scrolls, discovered and disclosed to the public between 1947 and 1967, describe the lifestyle and beliefs of a group of ascetic, observant Jews, who practiced ritual purity, shared eucharist and were led by a Teacher of Righteousness (Correct Teacher). Women and children seemed to be a part of the community.

The group seemed to be reacting against the Sadducees, extreme Hellenists who perpetrated Hellenistic reforms and opened Judaea to the interference of the Selucids, the Antiochan persecutions, and the Maccabean wars. They aligned with the Sadducean priests who continued to be pious during this period, maintaining the ancient traditions of the Temple in Jerusalem. Old Zadokites, especially pious priests, resented Hasmonaean control of the office of high priest and Temple practice and they resented the Pharisaic hegemony.

The scrolls show us that the history of the biblical canon and its text encompassed a collection of writings that formed the core of Jewish literature for all Jews. The canon was the authorized record of God’s revelation, direct or indirect, to humanity, and determining its meaning was none other than identifying the divine word.

Back then, there existed a tripartite division of the Holy Scriptures:

• The Torah (Five Books of Moses
• Prophets
• Writings
  

The three together constituted what is now called the Hebrew Bible, Tanakh.

Apocryphal literature was a rewritten or retold Bible, not commentaries or supplements but independent works. The trend of Jewish thought produced a body of materials typified by the revelation of mysteries or secrets of the end of days, or a guided tour of heaven. The body included Enoch, Jubilees, Genesis Apocryphon, Tobit, Testaments (Levi/Naphtali).

There were scrolls on the wisdom and mysteries of creation: Ben Sira, sapiential texts, and mysteries, and there were also found scrolls on biblical interpretation: Septuagint, Targum, and Pesher commentary. Harmonizing exegesis occurred in the Halakhic Midrash (Mishnah (200 A.D.), Midrash (400-1200 A.D.), and Talmud (rabbinic collection).

After the Roman conquest, the Essenes joined the rebel forces. Josephus records that Essenes fully participated in military action, clearly they were not pacifists. In the revolt itself, the Essenes and sectarian groups such as the Dead Sea sect disappeared as independent entities, as did the Sadducess, who lost their power base when the Temple was destroyed.

The scrolls were concerned with the (anti-Hasmonaean) self definition of the sect, how to live as a Jew, the theology of Jewish law, the law of the sect, prayer and ritual, mysticism, messianism and the end of days. It was concerned with probing the depths of God’s commands and looked forward to the permanent establishment of Jerusalem, the Holy City.

These documents represented the shaping of Jewish identity. The rules of Jewish identity are shown in the documents to be firmly in place. They testify to the triumph of the rabbinic consensus, and became the dominant form of Judaism by the end of the second century. Christians and Samaritans, formerly ancient North Israelites, were at the time already regarded as non-Jews.

“As a result of the elimination of its Jewish competition, the continuing standardization of the biblical text and of Jewish law, and a political alliance with the Roman, the Pharisaic-rabbinic movement was able to strengthen its dominant position within Judaism. By this time, Christianity had absorbed certain apocalyptic ideas of the Second Temple period; Judaism, intent on defining itself against the newly emerging religion, accordingly wrote these ideas out of its tradition. By the time of the Bar Kokhba revolt, the last vestiges of Second Temple sectarianism were gone from Judaism. The new consensus was essentially complete. From the crucible of sectarianism, revolt, and restoration had emerged the mature Judaism of the Mishnah and Talmud, which came to serve as the foundation of the Judaism we know today.” (p. 409)

Monthly Reading #6: (November 2008) Juice Fasting

The focus of my reading for November was on juice fasting. The authors, Bragg, Cott, Cousins, Ehret, and Wolfe generally agree on the methodology, scheduling logistics, and benefits of fasting. The benefits can be said to include youthing, concupiscence, weight regulation, internal cleansing, support of self-healing, and salubriousness or health promotion.

My special interest lies in the mystical properties of spiritually-motivated fasting. Following are some of my favourite passages:

From Arnold Ehret in Rational Fasting:
“Vitality (V) = Power (P) – Obstructions (O). Stated differently: “V” equals “P” and if you simply supply the “engine” with the necessary water which is used up, you ascend into a higher state of physical, mental and spiritual condition. ...

Your former life will take on the appearance of a dream, and for the first time in your existence your conscience awakens to a real self-consciousness.” (p. 60)

From Dr. Allan Cott in Fasting: The Ultimate Diet:
“My own experience is like that of so many others who observe that after even a few days of going without food they feel better physically, mentally and spiritually.” (p. 15)

Dr. Cott quotes Ghandi”
“The fast was an uninterrupted 21-days’ prayer whose effect I can feel now. I now know... there is no prayer without fasting... and that fasting relates not merely to the palate but to all sense organs... Thus, all fasting, if it is a spiritual act, is an intense prayer or a preparation for it. It is a yearning of the soul to merge in the divine essence. My last fast was intended to be such a preparation... How far I am in tune with the Infinite, I do not know. But I do know that the fast has made the passion for such a state more intense than ever.” (p. 52)

More from Allan Cott in Fasting: The Ultimate Diet:
“He who wishes to have intercourse with God must thus be abstemious in order to become a pure vessel of the Spirit.” (p. 121)

Paul Bragg in The Miracle of Fasting agrees that fasting can be spiritual. He dedicates an entire chapter entitled “Spiritual Aspects of Fasting” to the theme:
“As the body cleanses and heals itself through fasting, keener mental concentration and clearer spiritual perception develop. ... You attain new levels of great tranquillity, serenity and peace of mind. You become spiritually perceptive and receptive and at one with the Infinite.” (p. 210)

David Wolfe makes some interesting assertions in Eating for Beauty:
“All knowledge and learning amount to little when compared to the need to purify and rejuvenate the body at all levels, physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual, because a renewed body is capable of accessing the deepest wisdom. Everyone who chooses to purify themselves receives rewards beyond their imagination, If they are willing to progress intelligently and pass the tests. It is through this process of self-purification that we become beings of pure essential beauty.” (p. 35)

And in The Sunfood Diet Success System David Wolfe quotes from Baha’u’llah, Gleanings from the Writngs of Bah’u’llah,
“ That a sick person showeth signs of weakness is due to the hindrances that interpose themselves between the soul and the body, for the soul remaineth unaffected by any bodily ailments. ... In like manner, every malady afflicting the human body is an impediment that preventeth the soul from manifesting its inherent might and power” (p. 157)

Fasting may be the key to spiritual awakening according to David Wolfe’s contact, a Yaqui Indian medicine man. (p. 434)

Gabriel Cousins describes fasting as a process in which “Instead of eating material food, one switches over to the nectar of the Divine Energy (Conscious Eating, p. 227). He says fasting raises pranic energy high enough for Grace to awaken Kundalini. Fasting is not intended to make the body suffer, but is intended as an act of love, as sacrifice of body, mind and ego. Ultimately, it is intended at the highest level to achieve spiritual communion. “At the Tree of Life, we teach Spiritual Fasting as a process of mystical death and rebirth. This is the secret of Spiritual Fasting.” (Spiritual Nutrition, p. 341)

I am intrigued by the spiritual possibilities of fasting and am experimenting with fasting a minimum of one day a week on water, herbal tea or green juice. So far, I am experiencing physical improvements, clarity of mind and will, and heightened peace. The experiment continues.

My Shiatsu Massage Treat at the Carrot Common, Toronto

Shiatsu is a Japanese bodywork therapy often referred to as "acupuncture without needles." The word Shiatsu means "finger pressure" which is gently applied to pressure points along the energy lines (Meridians) of the body with thumbs, palms, and elbows. Shiatsu is rooted in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) utilizing TCM's diagnostic techniques, including Japanese Hara and Meridian diagnosis to assess imbalances in the body's energy system. Shiatsu is a powerful treatment that alleviates pain and tension. Moreover, Shiatsu is highly effective for the prevention and cure of illness providing a valuable component to maintaining physical, mental, and emotional health.

Today I visited the Danforth Shiatsu Clinic to receive my Shiatsu Massage gift from Renaissance Yoga. The Danforth Shiatsu Clinic is comprised of highly trained therapists, Dipl. S.T. designated, and graduates of the most extensive professional training program in North America offering theoretical, practical, and clinical experience. Meridian-style Shiatsu is practiced at the Danforth Shiatsu Clinic for its strong ability to wholistically connect the entire body, providing clients with a profound healing therapy. I was treated by Sarah Walton over the noon hour.

Sarah Walton has a few specialties: Shiatsu Therapist, Reflexologist, Classical Hatha Sananda Devi Yoga, Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy, and Ayurvedic Massage. I found her to be attentive to my needs and concerned about providing high quality treatment. During the time Sarah had her elbows wedged into strategic locations along the sides of my spine and various other pressure points, we had a great conversation about the Ayurvedic cleanse we both recently completed, Tantra, our vows, Shamanism, conscious relationships, the shadow self, honouring the human side of ourselves, the glory of being female and wielding our feminine power.

Some of her statements are still ringing in my ears because they affirmed my recent rethinking of life passages. I now deem certain experiences as sacred that I used to, and many still do, consider mundane or self-indulgent. Believe me, I've heard all of the standard dispositions to obedience and social conformity. I have mastered the drill on how to be a model citizen and pillar of society and it's not completely satisfying.

My conditioning juxtaposed with the circumstances of this turbulent year left my body-mind in a contracted, vulnerable state and Sarah treated me with shiatsu massage, kindness, compassion and her wisdom. We probed life options. What if you stray and find yourself in a grey area of life, unexplored, provocative? Conventional wisdoms advises a speedy return to the safe, well-mapped terrain of black and white. Sarah conveys her understanding, "You are dealing with some very powerful forces." Her commentary was punctuated with elbow pokes to related chakras.

I felt a little more validated and liberated when the hour ended.

Contact Sarah Walton and schedule your own shiatsu body-mind experience at 416-939-9015. I highly recommend it.

Whole Life Expo (Nov 16, 2008)

Whole Life Expo is Canada's largest showcase of natural health, alternative medicine, and eco-friendly lifestyles. With 60 speakers and over 200 exhibitors, Whole Life Expo brings the most comprehensive array of natural health products and services ever gathered under one roof.

This year, the Whole Life Expo featured two lectures by Gabriel Cousins:

11:15am- 12:15pm
EATING FOR YOUR BIOLOGICAL INDIVIDUALITY
with Gabriel Cousens, MD
Stage One

Conscious eating begins with eating to enhance one's communion with the Divine, and as Gabriel Cousens, MD, says in Conscious Eating, “Food is a love note from God.” There is a basic blueprint for the cuisine that uplifts consciousness to the level of optimal experience for the individual and the planet. Within that, with over 30,000 gene variations and each of us being unique, knowing how to combine western scientific with eastern traditional systems for determining our biological individuality is key for life-long enjoyment of conscious eating.

Specifically, Gabriel discussed the genetic factors, parasympathetic/sympathetic process; fast or slow oxidizer system; blood type system (and associated lectins); B12 issues; and the Ayurvedic system.

1:45pm - 2:45pm
LIVE FOOD AS A CURE FOR DIABETES
with Gabriel Cousens, MD
Lecture Hall 205

While type-II diabetes is commonly thought of as incurable, world-renowned doctor Gabriel Cousens asserts otherwise. In his program and new book, There Is a Cure for Diabetes: The Tree of Life 21-Day+ Program, Cousens presents a breakthrough approach: reverse type-II diabetes through practical changes in nutrition and well-being in 21 days. His revolutionary new approach shows incredible results: medication use ceases within four days and many people have fasting blood sugars of less than 100 after three weeks. This talk presents simple dietary principles for recipes of low-glycemic and low-insulin-scoring meals that go hand in hand with the psycho-spiritual approach the author developed to help diabetes sufferers free themselves from disease, and debunk the myth that diabetes is incurable.

Society is always surprised by any new example of common sense (Ralph Waldo Emerson).
The allopathic tradition has long asserted in its well-known mantra that there is no cure for diabetes, which it considers a progressive, fatal disease. Diabetes is, in fact, completely reversible.

How Does Diabetes Manifest Statistically?
Diabetes affects 246 million people. One person dies every 10 seconds of it. Between 10 to 19 years are lost in the life of a diabetic.

The body becomes insulin resistant (the body blocks its own insulin). Insulin resistance produces inflammatory cytokines; these cross-react with tand damage the beta cells of pancreas. The inflammation accelerates the aging process. Hence, diabetes is accelerated aging.

Twenty-five percent of the children under the age of 15 have diabetes (why provide bicycles? why not go straight to the wheelchairs?). Note prevalent with diabetes is neuropathy, retinopathy, heart disease, alzheimers.

It is caused preeminently by excessive sugar in the diet, as well as excessive animal-derived fat, diary, TV, vaccines, agrochemicals, coffee/caffeine, cigarettes, fibreless diet, stress, lack of exercise, wheat, soy, excitotoxins. Genetics loads the gun; lifestyle pulls the trigger.

Crimes Against Wisdom
You don’t catch diabetes, you earn it by being a party to the culture of death. The Culture of Death sees people as economic commodities to be exploited. The Culture of Death is symolized by better living through chemistry and such initiatives as Codex Alimentarius www.codexalimentarius.net/

While on a trip to another village, Nasrudin lost his favorite copy of the Qur'an. Several weeks later, a goat walked up to Nasrudin, carrying the Qur'an in its mouth. Nasrudin couldn't believe his eyes. He took the precious book out of the goat's mouth, raised his eyes heavenward and exclaimed, "It's a miracle!"

"Not really," said the goat. "Your name is written inside the cover."

Look in the right place for the right answer.

The Culture of Life
The Culture of Life is symbolized by better living through better living. We don’t expect everyone to follow Gabriel Cousins’ program. In the case of diabetes, it is moderation in lifestyle that kills, the diabetic has to be a little radical. The diabetic is advised to reject the culture of death and join the culture of life. Here are some of the actions to investigate:

• See beauty in all that we do, people, and life
• Relationship
• Exercise
• Creative expression
• Humour
• Spiritual expression
• Mediation
• Breathing/pranayama
• Sleep
• Nurturance, love, connection
• Food
  
  

A 400-person study will occur in Patagonia and another study is planned in the Middle East.