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Banishment to the Subhuman Realm.

September 30, 2016 by Exangel

by Brian Griffith.

In most Eastern religions, animals are taken as souls like us, who are on a common journey, although presently at different levels of awareness. In that case we might all be kindred, and treat each other like cousins twice removed. However, if animals are lower on the ladder of being, then their beastly incarnations seem to indicate a lack of virtue. And many traditional believers feel it is obvious that people who live an immoral life are bound for rebirth as animals. So we read in the Tibetan Book of the Dead: “A priest who drinks liquor enters [the womb] of a worm, bug, or moth, of birds who eat excrement, and of vile creatures. … A priest who is a thief [is reborn] thousands of times in spiders, snakes, and lizards.ˮ The Vedic Laws of Manu also affirm that “people of darkness always become animals.” And it is not only Easterners who have felt this way. In Plato’s Phaedo, we read that “Men who have followed after gluttony, and wantonness, and drunkenness … will pass into asses and animals of that sort … And those who have chosen the portion of injustice and tyranny and violence, will pass into wolves or hawks, and kites—whither else can we suppose them to go?ˮ

All this could indicate either that lower beings deserve our contempt, or that our karmas depend on mutual help. Among village people, the message of accountability for compassion is usually a bit more popular. For example, in the Book of Good Deeds, a scripture from rural Yunnan, China, we are informed what the locals expect for those who abuse their fellow creatures:

When spring arrives, the wild creatures are pregnant, birds lay their eggs, and so do bugs and ants. When we hunt wild animals or shoot flying birds, fires are set in the wilds to capture the animals. They burn in the hills and burn in the valleys, burning tens of thousands of bugs and ants. This should not be. Therefore, it is said that those who set many fires in the wilds have no hidden virtue and their descendants will get leprosy.

But of course the Eastern world has featured both compassionate and cruel brands of morality. In the cruel versions, female birth was a punishment for sin, and animals were doing penance by serving their masters. The cruel versions of religion usually prevailed among the rulers.

 

Filed Under: EAP: The Magazine, Fall 2016: Animals Are Us.

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In This Issue.

  • Who Was Dorothy?
  • Those Evil Spirits.
  • The Screaming Baboon.
  • Her.
  • A Tale of Persistence.
  • A Conversation with Steve Hugh Westenra.
  • Person Number Twelve.
  • Dream Shapes.
  • Cannon Beach.
  • The Muse.
  • Spring.
  • The Greatness that was Greece.
  • 1966, NYC; nothing like it.
  • Sun Shower.
  • The Withering Weight of Being Perceived.
  • Broken Clock.
  • Confession.
  • Francis Coppola’s Apocalypse.
  • Sometimes you die, I mean that people do.
  • True (from “My Life with Dogs”).
  • Fragmentary musings on birds and bees.
  • 12 Baking Essentials to Always Have in Your Poetry.
  • Broad Street.
  • A Death in Alexandria.
  • My Forked Tongue.
  • Swan Lake.
  • Long Division.
  • Singing against the muses.
  • Aphorisms from “What Remains to Be Said”.

In The News.

That cult classic pirate/sci fi mash up GREENBEARD, by Richard James Bentley, is now a rollicking audiobook, available from Audible.com. Narrated and acted by Colby Elliott of Last Word Audio, you’ll be overwhelmed by the riches and hilarity within.

“Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges is your typical seventeenth-century Cambridge-educated lawyer turned Caribbean pirate, as comfortable debating the virtues of William Shakespeare, Isaac Newton, and compound interest as he is wielding a cutlass, needling archrival Henry Morgan, and parsing rum-soaked gossip for his next target. When a pepper monger’s loose tongue lets out a rumor about a fleet loaded with silver, the Captain sets sail only to find himself in a close encounter of a very different kind.

After escaping with his sanity barely intact and his beard transformed an alarming bright green, Greybagges rallies The Ark de Triomphe crew for a revenge-fueled, thrill-a-minute adventure to the ends of the earth and beyond.

This frolicsome tale of skullduggery, jiggery-pokery, and chicanery upon Ye High Seas is brimming with hilarious puns, masterful historical allusions, and nonstop literary hijinks. Including sly references to Thomas Pynchon, Treasure Island, 1940s cinema, and notable historical figures, this mélange of delights will captivate readers with its rollicking adventure, rich descriptions of food and fashion, and learned asides into scientific, philosophical, and colonial history.”

THE SUPERGIRLS is back, revised and updated!

supergirls-take-1

In The News.

Newport Public Library hosted a three part Zoom series on Visionary Fiction, led by Tod.  

And we love them for it, too.

The first discussion was a lively blast. You can watch it here. The second, Looking Back to Look Forward can be seen here.

The third was the best of all. Visions of the Future, with a cast of characters including poets, audiobook artists, historians, Starhawk, and Mary Shelley. Among others. Link is here.

In the News.

SNOTTY SAVES THE DAY is now an audiobook, narrated by Last Word Audio’s mellifluous Colby Elliott. It launched May 10th, but for a limited time, you can listen for free with an Audible trial membership. So what are you waiting for? Start listening to the wonders of how Arcadia was born from the worst section of the worst neighborhood in the worst empire of all the worlds since the universe began.

In The News.

If you love audio books, don’t miss the new release of REPORT TO MEGALOPOLIS, by Tod Davies, narrated by Colby Elliott of Last Word Audio. The tortured Aspern Grayling tries to rise above the truth of his own story, fighting with reality every step of the way, and Colby’s voice is the perfect match for our modern day Dr. Frankenstein.

In The News.

Mike Madrid dishes on Miss Fury to the BBC . . .

Tod on the Importance of Visionary Fiction

Check out this video of “Beyond Utopia: The Importance of Fantasy,” Tod’s recent talk at the tenth World-Ecology Research Network Conference, June 2019, in San Francisco. She covers everything from Wind in the Willows to the work of Kim Stanley Robinson, with a look at The History of Arcadia along the way. As usual, she’s going on about how visionary fiction has an important place in the formation of a world we want and need to have.

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