In Reply to: some ramblings about sexuality & spirituality & Berg posted by anovagrrl on January 11, 2004 at 05:46:57:
Anovagrrl,
I found this "rambling" very interesting. I have recently begun to take some first tentative steps into the world of meditation practice, and the ideas of Buddhism. Some of these ideas seem to me to hold thereaputic promise for a survivor of bodily abuse (sexual and other) and mental abuse. I seem to have split in a strange way from my poor body, which deserves better, and certainly was not at fault. Not my poor child's body. But my child's mind became confused at the treatment that both received. Buddhist thought seems to enlighten a path to reinhabiting the body with the spirit. Of course, whether I can turn the theory into action in my experience of living is another question.
I am intrigued by your notes on Jewish thought. I will have to look into that more deeply.
Did you set out to ananlyse in more depth Berg's pathological turn in this area? The title of your post seemed to promise more extensive gloss.
I would venture to suggest that beyond, as you put it, rejecting "the notion that sex is evil in and of itself," Berg embraced a notion that sex is a good in and of itself. Otherwise why would "the Devil Hate Sex"? Certainly he allowed for an inroad of an external pollutant -- that attitude or approach that he dreamed up which he called "lust" and juxtaposed to "love" -- ironically giving to both terms very different contents than elsewhere in the world -- which in an odd way as I write this seems a bit of a morbid parallel of the Jewish view as you cite it. Except, Berg again throws the language curveball -- "flesh" to the Family is a thoroughly derogatory term in a number of uses, while the "spirit" is generally good. But *who* would ever think, before exposure to the Family's notions of "flesh" and "spirit", of sex as practiced in Family homes and throughout Family history as *not* being "flesh" unbridled? While of course, TF would say that as long as practiced in the "Law of Love" it is juxtaposed to the "systemite" practice of sex, which is all about "flesh" and "lust" compared to their so-called being in "love" and in the "spirit."