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AR 29:27 - Another technique for "manufacturing bliss"
In this issue:
HAWKINS, CRAIG SCOTT - remembering a brother in-arms
JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES - easing shunning rules to regain Norwegian legal status
NEW AGE MOVEMENT - is this finally the "moment for the jhanas?"
WORLDVIEW - measuring adversity and commitment in opposition
Apologia Report 29:27 (1,668)
July 17, 2024
HAWKINS, CRAIG SCOTT
From Eric Pement: "Dr Craig Hawkins passed away on June 21st. He spoke on The Enneagram recently. <www.tinyurl.com/4c7z374s> (Worth hearing and linking so others can watch.)"
Both Paul and I (RP) worked alongside Craig from 1984-1990 at CRI, including (for Paul) one year co-hosting the Bible Answer Man radio program. Craig was especially noted as a Christian apologist in the realm of witchcraft, neopaganism, and goddess worship. <www.tinyurl.com/szst5jpv> To see Craig's obituary and July 20th memorial service details, visit <www.tinyurl.com/bvhd359j>
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JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES
"Jehovah's Witnesses ease shunning rules after blow in Oslo court" by Evert van Vlastuin (Christian Network Europe, Apr 24 '24) -- the Watchtower faith community "seems to be trying to get a better position in the appeal case in Norway. The community came under attack for its rigid rules regarding discipline to 'baptised minors.'
"Among Jehovah's Witnesses, it is usual that children choose for baptism between 12 and 16 years. Religiously, they are seen as responsible members then, who can be disciplined. There have been cases of 'disfellowship' after 'serious wrongdoing', resulting in 'shunning', isolation and contact bans. For individuals and families, this can be rigid and feel like psychological violence.
"For the Norwegian state, this practice is controversial because those 'baptised minors' are legally still kids. The state feels responsible for protecting the minors. After complaints of psychological violence, the authorities decided in 2021 to rip the Jehovah's Witnesses in Norway from the legal status, which they had since 1985. According to experts, this is the first time a faith community lost its legal position in Norway."
The financial stakes are also high: "This registration in Norway gives access to huge amounts of state subsidies. The monetary support is about NOK 16 million (1.3 million euros) every year. Over three years, together with interest, the JW demanded NOK 50 million (4.3 million euros). ...
"The public sessions in court took two weeks in January.
"Dozens of people involved came to testify how significant the damage of exclusion had been for them. Others came to tell of the fear of being excluded from the community in which they had lived and, therefore, remained within the community anyway. Some people told of years of pressure that led to lifelong emotional impact.
"The conclusion was clear: disfellowship and shunning exist. However, legally, the central question was whether this is part of the community's freedom of belief or whether it restricts the freedom of those (minors) involved. ...
"On March 4th, the judges confirmed the state's position. On March 28th, the Jehovah's announced the appeal.
"Before the appeal was made known, another announcement came from JW [headquarters]: 'Adjustments to handling serious wrongdoing in the congregation.'
"The new rules published in a video mid-March include a softening of the contact ban. Members may use their 'Bible-trained conscience' to decide on a 'simple greeting' to a person removed from the congregation. It is no longer expected 'to ignore him completely.'
"According to a confidential document <www.tinyurl.com/yc62tkdb> that leaked to the critical platform Jehovahs-Witness.com, the discipline of baptised minors has been liberalised even further. From now on, only two elders meet with the person and his parents or guardians. Before, this was a committee. The elders 'will exercise patience as they work with the parents to understand the minor's attitude'. After this, they cooperate with the parents 'to assist their child.'
"Before, there was just one meeting, after which the committee decided within two hours whether to take steps to 'disfellowship' or not. ...
"In Norway, the court case has been characterised as the most important judicial procedure about religious freedom in decades. ... The decision by the judges about the 'State's offensive allegation' is 'deeply disappointing,' Pederson writes. The state could 'not provide a single verified example of a victimised child.' For him, this judgement confirms that Jehovah's Witnesses are 'often victims of disinformation.'
"The case will continue in the appeal stages. Experts find it likely that the case might end in Strasbourg at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).
"Reactions to the court's decision were of two types. First, some welcomed the verdict."
A second group of "more critical" reactions receives more attention by van Vlastuin. The views of this group "do not defend the practice of shunning but still think that this should be protected legally." <www.tinyurl.com/ycx23dbk>
For more, see coverage by the Stop Mandated Shunning initiative at <www.tinyurl.com/r2m7zd2s>
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NEW AGE MOVEMENT
New Age spin-offs just keep coming, packaged with the same hardly-new pitch. See, for example, the detail-rich article "Manufacturing Bliss" by Nadia Asparouhova (Asterisk Magazine, April 2024), in which a growing San Francisco Bay Area community is "rediscovering the jhanas, a meditation technique that practitioners claim could upend how we think about the brain - and transform our lives in the process."
Asparouhova asks "what if we could engineer these altered states without any external substances or stimuli? Enter the jhanas, a growing meditation trend that's made its way into some corners of tech. Practitioners claim they can induce extremely blissful mental states that rival life's peak experiences, available at any time with enough concentration. ...
"The jhanas, which derive from Buddhism, are eight states of consciousness that allegedly produce strong feelings in the body and mind. They can be accessed through a meditation technique that involves concentrating the mind on an object, then gradually deepening the sensation that arises.
"Modern practitioners tend to focus their practice on the first four jhanas, or the "form jhanas," which roughly progress from euphoria (first jhana, or J1) to joy (J2) to contentment (J3) to peacefulness or equanimity (J4). While the higher jhanas (J5 through J8), sometimes called the "deep" or "formless" jhanas, are more dissociative, the first four (J1 through J4) bring about palpably positive sensations, which have a clearer instrumental purpose.
"Stephen Zerfas, cofounder of Jhourney, a company that aims to help more people experience jhanas, describes them as "the opposite of a panic attack." Instead of an escalating anxiety loop, jhanas are an escalating pleasure loop...."
Asparouhova reviews centuries of jhana history in seven paragraphs. Following this is a lengthy collection of testimonials by jhana practitioners.
Asparouhova wonders: "If the jhanas are so good, and they've been around for centuries, why haven't they spread more widely? I kept asking myself this question as I drove back to the airport" from a Napa Valley retreat hosted by Zerfas.
"One reason might be that jhanas have a natural half-life." Lady Red Beacham, a pseudonymous Twitter user, "had once mused to me that jhanas had a sort of anti-mimetic effect, where instead of evangelizing, practitioners tend to lose interest once they've had their fill of pleasure. ...
"Another possibility is that the jhanas have simply been hiding in plain sight."
Asparouhova concludes with steel-trap logic: "The fact that jhanas have persisted for this long undetected, however, shouldn't discredit their transformative power. Yoga and psychedelics, too, had a 'Westernization' moment that came centuries after people had begun using them. Perhaps this is now that moment for the jhanas."
How short will that moment be? If the New Age has taught us anything, it is that a jhana replacement will likely be in the works even as we begin imagining it. <www.tinyurl.com/27jf3jk6>
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WORLDVIEW
"Adverse Experiences Have Surprisingly Little Impact on Worldviews and Ideologies" by Eric W. Dolan (PsyPost, Apr 22 '24) -- a popular summary of the Frontiers in Social Psychology paper (Vol. 2, 2024), Felipe Vilanova, et al: "The Limited Impact of Adverse Experiences on Worldviews and Ideologies." <www.tinyurl.com/4n8a4e2u>
Dolan explains that "scientists have presented findings that challenge long-standing beliefs about how adverse experiences shape our worldviews and ideological stances. The study reveals that while adverse experiences are strongly linked to clinical symptoms like depression, anxiety, and stress, they have only a marginal connection with personal ideologies and worldviews. ...
"Psychological theories have postulated that adverse experiences not only lead to clinical symptoms such as depression but also profoundly influence a person's ideological outlook and perceptions of the world. ...
"Vilanova and his colleagues conducted two separate studies....
"The first study focused on a group of Brazilian youth aged between 13 and 17 years. ...
"The researchers found that while there was a consistent and moderate association between adverse experiences and clinical symptoms ... the connections to worldviews and ideologies were significantly weaker."
The second, conducted between May and August of 2023 with male prisoners in a Southern Brazilian jail; "shifted the focus to an adult population with a presumably higher incidence of adverse experiences. ...
"The findings largely mirrored those from the previous study."
Given the strength of prevailing opinion seen in the assumed challenge framed by the article's title, might the project's minimal sampling be teasing provocation by design? <www.tinyurl.com/e8h3n6m5>
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