Documentary explores religious cannibals

[PsychoDad]

Indian documentary explores religious cannibals

Ramola Talwar Badam
Associated Press Writer
Oct. 28, 2005 12:00 AM

http://www.azcentral.com/ent/movies/articles/1028cannibals1028.html

BOMBAY, India (AP) - A new Indian documentary seeks to shed light on a secretive sect of Hindu ascetics who eat corpses in the belief that ingesting dead flesh will make them ageless and give them supernatural powers.

"Feeding on the Dead," a 10-minute documentary, delves into the closed, little-known world of the 1,000-year-old Aghori sect, whose sadhus, or holy men, pluck dead bodies from the Ganges river.
...

Singh and three cameramen waited with an Aghori sadhu - whose name is not mentioned in the film - for 10 days in June before finding a floating corpse. Hindus generally cremate the dead, but bodies are sometimes ceremonially disposed of in the Ganges.

"The body was decomposed and bluish in color, but the sadhu was not afraid about falling sick," Singh told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday. "He sat on the corpse, prayed to a goddess of crematoriums and offered some flesh to the goddess before eating it."

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Oh, yum.

[oneighty]

2. And what is

eating the wafer and drinking the wine?

180

[TallahasseeGrannie]

3. eating a wafer and taking a sip of wine

it isn't eating corpses.

[oneighty]

6. But it is said to be/represent

the flesh and blood of Christ in the frantic search for life everlasting.

Cannibalism and symbolism thereof is a common thread in religion and superstition.

No?

180

[TallahasseeGrannie]

7. BIG DIFFERENCE

between sympbolism and the real thing.

If they start carving up corpses I'm afraid that's the last Eucharist I'll attend.

However, that said, many cannibal cultures reverred their victims. (I know this because I teach art history and kids LOVE this stuff!)

[oneighty]

8. Kids love this stuff!

Me too. Hee hee hee!

180

[TallahasseeGrannie]

9. Yeah, the grosser the better

When I teach Aztec and Incan culture it's all about baby tossing. I don't know where they hear it but they come to me knowing it!

[oneighty]

10. Television

Some natives in Madagascar feasted on the brains of their dead-a religious sort of thing-and acquired a disease similar to mad cow. I suspect cannibalism carried to extreme would be self limiting.

Native American warriors are said to have eaten the hearts of their conquests to assimilate their strength and bravery.

My brother in law 'The mighty hunter' tells me the new hunter (Of deer) must eat of the heart and blood of his first kill.

And of course there is the legend of the Vampire feasting on the blood of young maidens (Preferred) to maintain their everlasting life.

It is a mystery to me as to how partaking of the flesh and blood for those purposes permeates (seemingly) all the societies of the ancient world and exists one way or the other into modern times.

180

[htuttle]

15. The belief in the basic principles of 'sympathetic magic' permeate history

"Sympathetic Magic" says simply, "things that are alike are related, and when you affect one, you affect the other." When you eat the bear's heart, you become like the bear. When you bathe in the blood of young maidens, you become young, like them. When you drink the same beer as the rich and famous, you absorb just a little bit of their 'rich and famousness'. When President Bush appears with Lance Armstrong, he expects some of the 'Armstrongness' to rub off on him, etc...

The marketing industry, for example, is all about exploiting the belief in sympathetic magic. That sympathetic magic doesn't actually work is irrelevant -- people's belief in it is real -- and it's not entirely unfounded.

IMHO, it has it's roots in how we can learn by emulating. For example, to become an athlete, you start living like an athelete. The issue is: what part of the 'athlete's life' is more important -- the training regimen and diet, or the brand of shoes they wear?. Emulating one aspect works -- emulating the other is irrelevant.

[oneighty]

16. Good post

Thanks

180

[Inland]

19. It must be the shoes! nt

[manic expression]

11. You think this is not uncommon?

please, this is a case of a very, very small sect doing a certain practice. That's like saying the stuff that happened in Waco represents an entire religion. This is very likely looked down upon by the rest of the Hindu community, for a variety of reasons, namely: the fact that the pursuit of supernatural powers, ESPECIALLY through external means, is seen as greedy, counter-productive and ignorant; also, realization and enlightenment MUST be internal growth; another thing is that trying to be "ageless" is not only seen as petty, foolish and worthless, but it is impossible in Hindu philosophy - everything ends and begins again, but one must transcend this cycle to reach the truth.

My apologies if you weren't implying that much.

When you think about it, it's not THAT bad (I've heard of worse). However, it is an EXTREMELY uncommon practice, something completely rejected by the virtual entire religious community.

[PsychoDad]

12. Exactly

The article mentions that this is a small splinter sect of hindus, numbering about 70 in total practicing something that is quite against mainstream hindu teachings.

Peace

[PsychoDad]

13. Flesh and blood of a living God.

Makes me wonder when the practice of the Eucharist became common among Christians. I would venture to guess sometime before the council of Nicea.

Seems like it would be a hard sell for Jesus(pbuh), a Jew, to even symbolically represent the consumption of Human flesh and blood to fellow Jews, to whom, because of kosher laws, the mere suggestion would have been unclean and anathema.

The practice is more likely to have it's origins in the worship of Dionysus, for whom symbolically the body was bread and his blood wine.

But, yes, ritual cannibalism, most often symbolic, does seem to play a role in many religious traditions.

Any thoughts?

Peace

[nemo137]

17. The thing that gets me

I was taught in Evangelical Covenant (i.e. Swedish Lutheran) confirmation that it was a remembrace and a lesson. Jesus wanted his disciples to understand what he was doing on the cross, so he used a parable, and used the broken bread and wine to explain (I don't remember exactly what), and told them to do it in remembrance again whenever they had bread and wine. It always vaguely surprised me when I learned from my mom that Catholics believe in literal transubstantation. Even Luther's idea of consubstantiation surprised me. I always liked Zwingli's idea of it simply being an act of fellowship and memorial.

Just my .02

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. Depends...

on whether you bellieve in transubstantiation or transignification, or whether you figure it's just cheap wine and bread that tastes like cardboard.

[beam me up scottie]

5. The christian version of Tofurkey?

:shrug:

[NAO]

14. "Take, eat, this is my body" said the god/man...

Was that Dionysus? Or was it Attis? Maybe Osiris? Possibly Mithras? Or Quetzalcoatl?

There were a whole slew of mythical god/men who are reported to have endorsed cannibalism, with themselves as the main course. This type of folklore is pretty gross, and obviously a product of primitive superstition and savage times.

[Inland]

18. Of course. God would always use the most compelling themes.

It's part of the divine plan. All those primitive themes having resonance, picks them up and incorporates them into reality after cleaning them up some (no actual cannibalism, leave the poor goats out of the sacrifice) so that they are attractive to humans at the most elemental level.

Pretty smart, that God.