http://www.metafilter.com/tags/Yezidis Posts tagged with 'Yezidis' at MetaFilter. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 05:44:25 -0800 Fri, 17 Sep 2004 05:44:25 -0800 en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 60 http://www.metafilter.com/35654/The%2DInteresting%2DYezidis <a href="http://www.sacred-texts.com/asia/sby/index.htm">Devil Worship: The Sacred Books and Traditions of the Yezidiz</a> , by Isya Joseph, 1919. 'This is one of the only public domain sources of information on the religious beliefs of the Yezidi, a small group originally from the northern region of Iraq. Although they speak Kurdish, they are a distinct population from the Kurds. The Yezidi are notable because they have been described as devil-worshippers, which has naturally led to constant persecution by the dominant Islamic culture of the region ... They have many unique beliefs, such as that the first Yezidi were created by Adam by parthenogenesis separately from Eve ... ' New on <a href="http://www.sacred-texts.com">sacred-texts.com.</a> tag:metafilter.com,2004:site.35654 Fri, 17 Sep 2004 05:44:25 -0800 book books devil iraq isyajoseph religion sacred sacredtext text worship yezidis yezidiz plep http://www.metafilter.com/18947/ <a href="http://www.lumen.org/intros/intro20.html">George Ivanovich Gurdjieff. </a> Charismatic and controversial, infamous for introducing the <a href="http://www.duversity.org/ideas/enneagram.html" title="To be fair to Gurdjieff, the enneagram as we know it comes from Oscar Ichazo and Claude Naranjo, new age gurus and cult leaders of some notoriety">enneagram</a>, claimed by the <a href="http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/gurdjieffsufi/" title="Both teachings address the identity of man in terms of our disastrous sense of self. Gurdjieff pupils learn an elaborate and compelling set of teachings on false personality and multiple ''I's'' set against the background of the machinery of the centers. The general idea is that for most of us, nobody's at home because our internal landscape is in total disarray. To add to the confusion, our fragmented beings are continually bombarded by external stimuli via the five senses. We live in a state of kaleidoscopic fascination, and the moments of our lives are drained away to little purpose. The Sufi's similarly fight against the Nafs (ego) and maintain an arsenal of techniques to overcome and even reverse the ill effects of its utter mastery over us. We have eternal selves which are continuously in the divine presence, but stranded on this sad planet, we have forgotten this aspect of our existences and the connection to these higher selves has become attenuated. Both systems teach that there are higher functions within us that may be activated after a great deal of hard work on this problem of identity. ">Sufis</a>, linked to the little known <a href="http://www.yezidi.org/english/articles/gurdjieff-yezidism-2.html" title="The common assumption, as is often made regarding Gurdjieff's teaching, is that Yezidism is syncretist, a reconciling of differing beliefs and practices. An alternative view is that Yezidism is itself an ancient teaching: Yezidis themselves maintain that their religion is one of the oldest in the world. Veil after veil has been drawn over it to protect it from being destroyed by the missionary conversion-frenzy of later religions. The most recent dissimulation, the Islamic-Sufi veneer added by Sheikh Adi and his successors in the middle of the twelfth century, has served to disguise the Yezidis with a form that was at least somewhat recognizable, even if disapproved of, by Muslims in whom temporal power resided.">Yezidis</a>, (More <a href="http://www.yezidi.org/english/articles/gurdjieff-yezidism-1.html" title="The word Yezidi is used as the name of a tribal group (several tribes, really) and a religion practiced by that tribe. The first time the name appears in writing is in the eleventh century A. D. There are many theories about its origin, each being more or less likely for different reasons, so it is not known when they first were called Yezidis or why. Some consider the name stems from Ized (angel, God) or Yazata (worthy of worship), words found in the Avesta, the sacred writings of the Zoroastrians and the Parsees. Most Muslim writers believed the Yezidis are admirers of the Umayyad Caliph Yazid ibn Mu'awiya who was responsible for the death of the Prophet's grandson, Hussein. The younger son of Caliph Ali by the prophet's daughter Fatima, Hussein refused to swear allegiance to Yazid when he became Caliph. In 680 A. D., on his way from Medina to join supporters of Ali's family, Hussein was intercepted in the desert by agents of Yazid, and killed. Because of the belief in the Yezidis connection with Yazid (who was hated by the Shi'ites, the "partisans of ali, and not well thought of by sunnis either), yezidis were hated and persecuted. there was, indeed, in the kurdish mountains a religious movement which venerated yazid and the umayyad dynasty, but it isn't known if the yezidis were part of it.>here</a>), <a href="http://www.bmrc.berkeley.edu/people/rhodges/html/G-baker.html" title="Long and comprehensive version">Gurdjieff</a>--and his <a href="http://www.bmrc.berkeley.edu/people/misc/School.html" title="Short and condensed version">school</a>--have their detractors, whether <a href="http://www3.bc.sympatico.ca/st_simons/arm04.htm" title="Who is George Gurdjieff, and why is he having such a massive indirect impact on our churches today? Why in particular are 'post-charismatic' Roman Catholics, especially well-meaning nuns, becoming caught up in his questionable practices? The Rev. Dr. Robert Innes, Lecturer in Systematic Theology at St. John's College: Durham, England, tells us that the man credited with bringing the Enneagram to the West is George Gurdjieff, a Greek-Armenian from what is now the Republic of Georgia. While still a teen, Gurdjieff became immersed in occultic practices such as astrology, mental telepathy, spiritism, table turning, fortune telling and demon possession. Gurdjieff claimed that while he was in Afghanistan in 1897, he visited a monastery of the esoteric Sarmouni sect where he learned their mystical Sufi dancing, psychic powers and the Enneagram.">religious</a> or <a href="http://skepdic.com/gurdjief.html" title="George S. Georgiades was a Greco-Armenian charismatic con man who was born in Russia but made a name for himself in Paris as the mystic George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff. In Russia he established what he called ''The Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man'', which he re-established in France in 1922. It was at his Institute that Gurdjieff promoted a litany of preposterous occult and mystical notions about the universe, which he claimed he was taught by wise men while traveling and studying in Central Asia.">skeptic</a>. His ideas can be <a href="http://www.nccabq.com/~neil/art.html" title="Only help him who is not an idler. respect every religion. i love him who loves work. we can strive to be able to be christians. don't judge a man by the tales of others. consider what people think of you—not what they say. take the understanding of the east and the knowledge of the west—and then seek. he who can take care of what belongs to others may have his own. conscious suffering has any sense. it is better to be temporarily an egoist than never to be just. practice love first animals, they are more sensitive. by teaching others you will learn yourself. remember that here work is not for work's sake but is a means. he can be just who is able to put himself in the position of others. if you have not by nature a critical mind your staying here is useless. he who has freed himself of the disease of ''tomorrow'' has a chance to attain what he came here for. blessed is he who has a soul, blessed is he who has none, but woe and grief to him who has it in embryo. rest comes not from the quantity but from the quality of sleep. sleep little without regret. the energy spent active inner work is then and there transformed into a fresh supply, but that spent passive work is lost for ever. of the best means for arousing the wish to work yourself is to realize that you may die at any moment. but first you must learn how to keep it in mind. ">difficult </a>, abstruse and are ultimately beside the point. His thesis can be reduced to <a href="http://www.promart.com/G.quotes.html" title="Go out one clear starlit night to some open space and look up at the sky, at those millions of worlds over your head. Remember that perhaps on each of them swarm billions of beings, similar to you or perhaps superior to you in their organization. Look at the Milky Way. The earth cannot even be called a grain of sand in this infinity. It dissolves and vanishes, and with it, you. Where are you? And is what you want simply madness? Before all these worlds ask yourself what are your aims and hopes, your intentions and means of fulfilling them, the demands that may be made upon you and your preparedness to meet them. A long and difficult journey is before you; you are preparing for a strange and unknown land. The way is infinitely long. You do not know if rest will be possible on the way nor where it will be possible. You should be prepared for the worst. Take all the necessities for the journey with you.">this</a>: We are asleep, mere machines, acting from habit rather than volition. The goal then is to wake up and stay awake. And that is where the <a href="http://4thway.com/stella/Work-visual.htm" title="A cartoon--An eye candy soundbite--why I'll bet even jennak can relate!">Work</a> comes in. ( A bit more within)</a> tag:metafilter.com,2002:site.18947 Tue, 06 Aug 2002 04:49:35 -0800 esoteric FourthWay Gurdjieff Mysticism Ouspensky secrets self-observation self-remembering Sufis Yezidis y2karl