Iran and The Dark Arts - It's Magic!

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Iran and The Dark Arts - It's Magic!

I just came across this story.

Un-frigging-believable.

Leave it to Iran to show just how far idiocy and savagery can be promoted in a modern dictatorship.

Ahmadinejad allies charged with sorcery

Iranian power struggle between president and supreme leader sees arrests and claims of undue influence of chief of staff

by Saeed Kamali Dehghan

5 May 2011

guardian.co.uk

From the article:

Close allies of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have been accused of using supernatural powers to further his policies amid an increasingly bitter power struggle between him and the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Several people said to be close to the president and his chief of staff, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, have been arrested in recent days and charged with being "magicians" and invoking djinns (spirits).

Ayandeh, an Iranian news website, described one of the arrested men, Abbas Ghaffari, as "a man with special skills in metaphysics and connections with the unknown worlds".

. . .

On Sunday, Ahmadinejad returned to his office after an 11-day walkout in an apparent protest over Khamenei's reinstatement of the intelligence minister, who the president had initiallyasked to resign.

. . .

But the feud has taken a metaphysical turn following the release of an Iranian documentary alleging the imminent return of the Hidden Imam Mahdi – the revered saviour of Shia Islam, whose reappearance is anticipated by believers in a manner comparable to that with which Christian fundamentalists anticipate the second coming of Jesus.

Conservative clerics, who say that the Mahdi's return cannot be predicted, have accused a "deviant current" within the president's inner circle, including Mashaei, of being responsible for the film.

Ahmadinejad's obsession with the hidden imam is well known. He often refers to him in his speeches and in 2009 said that he had documentary evidence that the US was trying to prevent Mahdi's return.

Since Ahmadinejad's return this week, at least 25 people, who are believed to be close to Mashaei, have been arrested. Among them is Abbas Amirifar, head of the government's cultural committee and some journalists of Mashaei's recently launched newspaper, Haft-e-Sobh.

I'm just as glad to see Ahmadinejad's power weakening as anyone, but there is something really creepy about this news story. Enforcing religious compliance under the law is backward, but nowhere near the return to the barbarian level of formally prosecuting a witch or sorcerer for practicing The Dark Arts.

This reminds me or a quote from Ayn Rand (From "The Left: Old and New" in The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution, now called The Return of the Primitive):

Would you find it amusing if you saw the same Attila balancing a nuclear bomb in the palm of his hand and consulting the astrologer on whether to toss it'?

The story above looks exactly like what we are seeing, but with a magic lantern instead of a horoscope.

Michael

[Greybird]

[...] Enforcing religious compliance under the law is backward, but nowhere near the return to the barbarian level of formally prosecuting a witch or sorcerer for practicing The Dark Arts.

We Norteamericanos shouldn't be so proud of avoiding "barbarian level" treatments in this respect. Some state-level statutes punishing witchcraft were on the books, at least formally, until the mid-19th Century.

And of course, with extra-judicial assassinations and approbation of torture, we're returning to the very actions used against those nonconformists in Salem nearly four centuries ago. Arthur Miller, with "The Crucible," was as prescient (and frightening) as was Orwell.

[...] This reminds me of a quote from Ayn Rand (from "The Left: Old and New" in The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution, now called The Return of the Primitive) [...]

Not on my library shelf, for one, it's not! I've never shelled out for the insipid reworking of that anthology (and its title) by the sniveling, parasitical nitwittery of Peter Schwartz, and I never will. Rand's own original — complete with the letter to her that inspired it, by user Jerry Biggers of this site — is still more than good enough.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Steve,

I agree about Schwartz's hapless intervention into Rand's work. I merely gave the information just in case a reader wants to read the entire essay. Many new readers have The Return of the Primitive, imagining it to be Rand's original, and have no idea of the sheer Gus Webb-like second-handedness of what Schwartz did.

Michael

[9thdoctor]

Rand's own original — complete with the letter to her that inspired it, by user Jerry Biggers of this site — is still more than good enough.

The Amazon preview includes Rand's introduction with the letter from a student, identified as G.M.B. from Northern Illinois. That's our Harry Lime lookalike Jerry Biggers? I have the original New Left as a paperback (white cover), but I'm not going to dig it out right now. Did they change the intro? Redact the full name? Or take out any of the original articles? I thought they just changed the title, added some Schwartz, and gave it a new cover.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0452011841/ref=sib_dp_ptu#reader-link

[Richard Wiig]

Belief in djinns is widespread throughout the Islamic world. To people who believe in these things, there's nothing odd in it. The trouble with many people in the West is that they think the Islamic mentality is just like the Western mentality. It isn't, not by a long shot.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Many people in the West believe in angels that protect you and demons that need to be cast out of a person.

This is really widespread here in the USA

Michael

[bmacwilliam]

Many people in the West believe in angels that protect you and demons that need to be cast out of a person.

This is really widespread here in the USA

Michael

Nice equivocation. When was the last time the US President or his "Allies" had a power struggle with the Chief Cleric over supernatural powers involving charges of sorcery?

[9thdoctor]

Many people in the West believe in angels that protect you and demons that need to be cast out of a person.

This is really widespread here in the USA

Michael

Nice equivocation. When was the last time the US President or his "Allies" had a power struggle with the Chief Cleric over supernatural powers involving charges of sorcery?

We did have Nancy Reagan and her astrologer advising on the president’s schedule in the 80's. It’s not quite the same, no one was arrested, but we have freedom of religion so that wouldn’t have happened even if there were goings on that would have resulted in a burning back in the 1600’s.

[Greybird]

[...] Rand's own original — complete with the letter to her that inspired it, by user Jerry Biggers of this site — is still more than good enough.

The Amazon preview includes Rand's introduction with the letter from a student, identified as G.M.B. from Northern Illinois. That's our Harry Lime lookalike Jerry Biggers?

Jerry (Gerald) confirmed this to me in person in 1978. I had thought the original introduction was omitted or redacted, but I was mistaken.

I have the original New Left as a paperback (white cover), but I'm not going to dig it out right now. Did they change the intro? Redact the full name? Or take out any of the original articles? I thought they just changed the title, added some Schwartz, and gave it a new cover.

Schwartz renamed the book, added an introduction and three articles of his own, rearranged the order of Rand's ten pieces to suit his polemical tastes, and included two more Rand essays, without offering any real logical justification: "Racism," originally in The Virtue of Selfishness, and "Global Balkanization," a Ford Hall Forum speech printed in The Voice of Reason (itself polluted by Schwartz's libelous screeching about libertarians).

Perhaps it made for a more salable package in the '90s. If Schwartz's turgid analyses didn't put potential or actual buyers to sleep, that is. Yet he pretended it was still her anthology, and treated the order she chose as being unimportant. Which it is not, as she drew broader conclusions and made more fundamental analyses as the essays progressed, showing how political actions depended on broader issues of ethics and epistemology. Rand's own secondary emphasis, in selection and polemical aim, on the gutting of education is also diminished.

Hijacking it (and the posthumous anthology) to print Schwartz's own material, and decoupling her title's linkage of politics and environmentalism — a partly inaccurate one in the essays' details, I contend, but it's what she wrote — is still parasitical.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Nice equivocation. When was the last time the US President or his "Allies" had a power struggle with the Chief Cleric over supernatural powers involving charges of sorcery?

Bob,

Heh.

Anything to argue and anything to misrepresent.

I'm the guy who started the thread, remember?

Maybe you forgot to look. And, if so, you might even try reading my comments to see if I equivocate in the manner you say (i.e., ignoring the government). You will find I do not.

Just in case my message was not clear, though, let me try to dumb it down a little and put it on an "us against them" basis. This is especially pertinent to Richard's comment: "To people who believe in these things, there's nothing odd in it."

I don't think for a minute that this has validity as a scientific--or even logical--way of looking at things, but I'm trying to communicate in a manner of doing it even though it leaves big honking gaping holes. But at least by doing this, I will have done my share in trying to make it so that nobody gets left behind.

So here goes.

They believe in spooks.

We believe in spooks.

That's a fundamental part of the syllogism, i.e., the "people who believe in these things." (Granted, I'm filing all the different kinds of spook under the blanket term "spooks" since I don't see any metaphysical difference between them--they all come from The Great Beyond.) Let's look at the entire syllogism:

PREMISE: Believing in spooks is backward.

PREMISE: They believe in spooks and we believe in spooks.

THEREFORE: They are backward and we are not.

Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz... that does not compute...

See? It's stupid to say that the way they think is backward and the way we do is not because they believe in spooks. That's a logical fallacy.

You need different stuff to validate the conclusion.

You have to get more specific, both in ideas and in who you are talking about--that is if making sense is a value. If just hating Islam at all costs is the core value instead of logic, I suppose a humming bird crapping on an ice cream cone would work just as well.

Michael

[Richard Wiig]

Many people in the West believe in angels that protect you and demons that need to be cast out of a person.

This is really widespread here in the USA

Michael

Yes, but that is tempered much more in the West by the prevalence of more rational thought, even with the people who believe in angels.

[Brant Gaede]

Many people in the West believe in angels that protect you and demons that need to be cast out of a person.

This is really widespread here in the USA

Michael

Actually, I've been informed it is mostly confined to West Virginia and Arkansas. Something to do with genetics, the water or some kind of combination. Really weird folks. Never go down a dirt road without an invitation and a guide.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

Whatever Schwartz did it was with the sanction of Leonard Peikoff throwing his dog a bone. Of course, LP's Introduction to Atlas Shrugged learned Rand a thing or two. They had to go rebury her she had rolled around so much, disturbing the ground and tranquility of Valhalla, NY's Kensico cemetery, popping out of her grave. She almost made it to an airplane to LA, but was stopped by the TSA. No photo ID. The agent recognized her, but rules are rules. He did get her autograph and tried to sell it on eBay.

--Brant

Edited May 6, 2011 by Brant Gaede

[bmacwilliam]

They believe in spooks.

We believe in spooks.

That's a fundamental part of the syllogism, i.e., the "people who believe in these things." (Granted, I'm filing all the different kinds of spook under the blanket term "spooks" since I don't see any metaphysical difference between them--they all come from The Great Beyond.) Let's look at the entire syllogism:

PREMISE: Believing in spooks is backward.

PREMISE: They believe in spooks and we believe in spooks.

THEREFORE: They are backward and we are not.

Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz... that does not compute...

See? It's stupid to say that the way they think is backward and the way we do is not because they believe in spooks. That's a logical fallacy.

The law in the West is written, enforced, and administered assuming the "spooks" do not exist. It is YOU who misrepresent when you assert that we have the same belief (" really widespread here in the USA ") when any action based on this belief has no legal standing.

One thing that is a hugely valuable notion is Austrian Economics is that belief and preference are determined by action. You cannot prefer or say you prefer Coke to Pepsi if you choose the opposite when given the chance.

One of the things we do as nations is make laws. By theses actions, we (the West) do NOT believe in spooks. By the same measure, Iran DOES believe. Again, it is you who misrepresent because as national entities we are UNbelievers as determined by our actions.

We have people here that believe in spooks, so do they. That much is true. "We" do NOT have, nor have had in a very long time, a power struggle at the highest level of the nation centering directly upon these aforementioned spooks. In fact, we recognize it as a problem (wrt to power/authority), and actively guard against it. Again, this is why it is you who misrepresent.

This was Infidel's (Richard's?) point (at least that's what I thought it was)

The trouble with many people in the West is that they think the Islamic mentality is just like the Western mentality. It isn't, not by a long shot.

Correct. Church/state separation is simply not part of mainstream Islamic jurisprudence or culture, perhaps with a notable exception here and there.

but that is tempered much more in the West by the prevalence of more rational thought, even with the people who believe in angels.

Correct. Or at the very least the effect of "spooks" is muted if not completely neutered wrt official/national institutions and law.

Bob

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

The law in the West is written, enforced, and administered assuming the "spooks" do not exist. It is YOU who misrepresent when you assert that we have the same belief (" really widespread here in the USA ") when any action based on this belief has no legal standing.

Bob,

You keep making the same error.

I will defend my words, not the words you wish I said.

You are arguing against something in your own head, not against something I wrote.

I write what I mean, not what you imagine I mean--and I am clear enough about it for easy understanding by most people.

Why do you do that?

Why do you say I wrote something I did not write, never meant, and--specifically in this case--have written to the contrary on this very thread?

Do you need to win some kind of imagined verbal contest so badly you need to cheat?

Michael

[bmacwilliam]

I write what I mean, not what you imagine I mean--and I am clear enough about it for easy understanding by most people.

Why do you do that?

You accuse Richard of making this argument:

_______________________________________________

PREMISE: Believing in spooks is backward.

PREMISE: They believe in spooks and we believe in spooks.

THEREFORE: They are backward and we are not.

Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz... that does not compute...

See? It's stupid to say that the way they think is backward and the way we do is not because they believe in spooks. That's a logical fallacy.

________________________________________________

But YOU accuse ME of imagining things???

Hmmm.......

Bob

Edited May 9, 2011 by Bob_Mac

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

But YOU accuse ME of imagining things???

Bob,

If you argue that syllogism in the manner Richard did (in different words, of course), yes I would say you are imagining things.

But I never said you are imagining things in the sense of seeing ghosts (which is what you insinuated here). I said you misrepresented what I wrote--using your opinions for fact--imagining things in that sense. I.e., making a strawman argument. I would think you did that on purpose, but you got the imagining/misrepresenting thing wrong here just now, too.

So all right. You are a very sloppy reader, or are very sloppy in understanding concepts. That's a little better than doing bait-and-switch on purpose, but I wonder. Do I need to make a side-by-side comparison for you to be able to correctly read what I wrote?

More importantly for me, is it worth the effort when someone is not committed to cognitive precision?

Michael