#Two Treatises of Government

[beljar]

Books seem to me to be pestilent things, and infect all that trade in them… with something very perverse and brutal. Printers, binders, sellers, and others that make a trade and gain out of them have universally so odd a turn and corruption of mind, that they have a way of dealing peculiar to themselves, and not conformed to the good of society, and that general fairness that cements mankind.

John Locke, Two Treatises of Government, 1689

[publicatiosui]

The greatest part of things really useful to the life of man, and such as the necessity of subsisting made the first commoners of the world look after, as it doth the Americans now, are generally things of short duration; such as, if they are not consumed by use, will decay and perish of themselves: gold, silver, and diamonds, are things that fancy or agreement hath put the value on, more than real use, and the necessary support of life.

-- Locke, Two Treatises on Government

[yamayuandadu]

Shikigami and onmyōdō through history: truth, fiction and everything in between

Abe no Seimei exorcising disease spirits (疫病神, yakubyōgami), as depicted in the Fudō Riyaku Engi Emaki. Two creatures who might be shikigami are visible in the bottom right corner (wikimedia commons; identification following Bernard Faure’s Rage and Ravage, pp. 57-58)

In popular culture, shikigami are basically synonymous with onmyōdō. Was this always the case, though? And what is a shikigami, anyway? These questions are surprisingly difficult to answer. I’ve been meaning to attempt to do so for a longer while, but other projects kept getting in the way. Under the cut, you will finally be able to learn all about this matter. 

This isn’t just a shikigami article, though. Since historical context is a must, I also provide a brief history of onmyōdō and some of its luminaries. You will also learn if there were female onmyōji, when stars and time periods turn into deities, what onmyōdō has to do with a tale in which Zhong Kui became a king of a certain city in India - and more!

The early days of onmyōdō In order to at least attempt to explain what the term shikigami might have originally entailed, I first need to briefly summarize the history of onmyōdō (陰陽道). This term can be translated as “way of yin and yang”, and at the core it was a Japanese adaptation of the concepts of, well, yin and yang, as well as the five elements. They reached Japan through Daoist and Buddhist sources. Daoism itself never really became a distinct religion in Japan, but onmyōdō is arguably among the most widespread adaptations of its principles in Japanese context.

Kibi no Makibi, as depicted by Yoshitoshi Tsukioka (wikimedia commons)

It’s not possible to speak of a singular founder of onmyōdō comparable to the patriarchs of Buddhist schools. Bernard Faure notes that in legends the role is sometimes assigned to Kibi no Makibi, an eighth century official who spent around 20 years in China. While he did bring many astronomical treatises with him when he returned, this is ultimately just a legend which developed long after he passed away.

In reality onmyōdō developed gradually starting with the sixth century, when Chinese methods of divination and treatises dealing with these topics first reached Japan. Early on Buddhist monks from the Korean kingdom of Baekje were the main sources of this knowledge. We know for example that the Soga clan employed such a specialist, a certain Gwalleuk (観勒; alternatively known under the Japanese reading of his name, Kanroku).

Obviously, divination was viewed as a very serious affair, so the imperial court aimed to regulate the continental techniques in some way. This was accomplished by emperor Tenmu with the formation of the onmyōryō (陰陽寮), “bureau of yin and yang” as a part of the ritsuryō system of governance. Much like in China, the need to control divination was driven by the fears that otherwise it would be used to legitimize courtly intrigues against the emperor, rebellions and other disturbances.  Officials taught and employed by onmyōryō were referred to as onmyōji (陰陽師). This term can be literally translated as  “yin-yang master”. In the Nara period, they were understood essentially as a class of public servants. Their position didn’t substantially differ from that of other specialists from the onmyōryō: calendar makers, officials responsible for proper measurement of time and astrologers. The topics they dealt with evidently weren’t well known among commoners, and they were simply typical members of the literate administrative elite of their times.

Onmyōdō in the Heian period: magic, charisma and nobility

The role of onmyōji changed in the Heian period. They retained the position of official bureaucratic diviners in employ of the court, but they also acquired new duties. The distinction between them and other onmyōryō officials became blurred. Additionally their activity extended to what was collectively referred to as jujutsu (呪術), something like “magic” though this does not fully reflect the nuances of this term. They presided over rainmaking rituals, purification ceremonies, so-called “earth quelling”, and establishing complex networks of temporal and directional taboos.

A Muromachi period depiction of Abe no Seimei (wikimedia commons)

The most famous historical onmyōji like Kamo no Yasunori and his student Abe no Seimei were active at a time when this version of onmyōdō was a fully formed - though obviously still evolving - set of practices and beliefs. In a way they represented a new approach, though - one in which personal charisma seemed to matter just as much, if not more, than official position. This change was recognized as a breakthrough by at least some of their contemporaries. For example, according to the diary of Minamoto no Tsuneyori, the Sakeiki (左經記), “in Japan, the foundations of onmyōdō were laid by Yasunori”.

The changes in part reflected the fact that onmyōji started to be privately contracted for various reasons by aristocrats, in addition to serving the state. Shin’ichi Shigeta notes that it essentially turned them from civil servants into tradespeople. However, he stresses they cannot be considered clergymen: their position was more comparable to that of physicians, and there is no indication they viewed their activities as a distinct religion. Indeed, we know of multiple Heian onmyōji, like Koremune no Fumitaka or Kamo no Ieyoshi, who by their own admission were devout Buddhists who just happened to work as professional diviners.

Shin’ichi Shigeta notes is evidence that in addition to the official, state-sanctioned onmyōji, “unlicensed” onmyōji who acted and dressed like Buddhist clergy, hōshi onmyōji (法師陰陽師) existed. The best known example is Ashiya Dōman, a mainstay of Seimei legends, but others are mentioned in diaries, including the famous Pillow Book. It seems nobles particularly commonly employed them to curse rivals. This was a sphere official onmyōji abstained from due to legal regulations. Curses were effectively considered crimes, and government officials only performed apotropaic rituals meant to protect from them. The Heian period version of onmyōdō captivated the imagination of writers and artists, and its slightly exaggerated version present in classic literature like Konjaku Monogatari is essentially what modern portrayals in fiction tend to go back to.

Medieval onmyōdō: from abstract concepts to deities

Gozu Tennō (wikimedia commons)

Further important developments occurred between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries. This period was the beginning of the Japanese “middle ages” which lasted all the way up to the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate. The focus in onmyōdō in part shifted towards new, or at least reinvented, deities, such as calendarical spirits like Daishōgun (大将軍) and Ten’ichijin (天一神), personifications of astral bodies and concepts already crucial in earlier ceremonies. There was also an increased interest in Chinese cosmological figures like Pangu, reimagined in Japan as “king Banko”. However, the most famous example is arguably Gozu Tennō, who you might remember from my Susanoo article. 

The changes in medieval onmyōdō can be described as a process of convergence with esoteric Buddhism. The points of connection were rituals focused on astral and underworld deities, such as Taizan Fukun or Shimei (Chinese Siming). Parallels can be drawn between this phenomenon and the intersection between esoteric Buddhism and some Daoist schools in Tang China. Early signs of the development of a direct connection between onmyōdō and Buddhism can already be found in sources from the Heian period, for example Kamo no Yasunori remarked that he and other onmyōji depend on the same sources to gain proper understanding of ceremonies focused on the Big Dipper as Shingon monks do. 

Much of the information pertaining to the medieval form of onmyōdō is preserved in Hoki Naiden (ほき内伝; “Inner Tradition of the Square and the Round Offering Vessels”), a text which is part divination manual and part a collection of myths. According to tradition it was compiled by Abe no Seimei, though researchers generally date it to the fourteenth century. For what it’s worth, it does seem likely its author was a descendant of Seimei, though. Outside of specialized scholarship Hoki Naiden is fairly obscure today, but it’s worth noting that it was a major part of the popular perception of onmyōdō in the Edo period. A novel whose influence is still visible in the modern image of Seimei, Abe no Seimei Monogatari (安部晴明物語), essentially revolves around it, for instance.

Onmyōdō in the Edo period: occupational licensing

Novels aside, the first post-medieval major turning point for the history of onmyōdō was the recognition of the Tsuchimikado family as its official overseers in 1683. They were by no means new to the scene - onmyōji from this family already served the Ashikaga shoguns over 250 years earlier. On top of that, they were descendants of the earlier Abe family, the onmyōji par excellence. The change was not quite the Tsuchimikado’s rise, but rather the fact the government entrusted them with essentially regulating occupational licensing for all onmyōji, even those who in earlier periods existed outside of official administration.

As a result of the new policies, various freelance practitioners could, at least in theory, obtain a permit to perform the duties of an onmyōji. However, as the influence of the Tsuchimikado expanded, they also sought to oblige various specialists who would not be considered onmyōji otherwise to purchase licenses from them. Their aim was to essentially bring all forms of divination under their control. This extended to clergy like Buddhist monks, shugenja and shrine priests on one hand, and to various performers like members of kagura troupes on the other. 

Makoto Hayashi points out that while throughout history onmyōji has conventionally been considered a male occupation, it was possible for women to obtain licenses from the Tsuchimikado. Furthermore, there was no distinct term for female onmyōji, in contrast with how female counterparts of Buddhist monks, shrine priests and shugenja were referred to with different terms and had distinct roles defined by their gender. As far as I know there’s no earlier evidence for female onmyōji, though, so it’s safe to say their emergence had a lot to do with the specifics of the new system. It seems the poems of the daughter of Kamo no Yasunori (her own name is unknown) indicate she was familiar with yin-yang theory or at least more broadly with Chinese philosophy, but that’s a topic for a separate article (stay tuned), and it's not quite the same, obviously.

The Tsuchimikado didn’t aim to create a specific ideology or systems of beliefs. Therefore, individual onmyōji - or, to be more accurate, individual people with onmyōji licenses - in theory could pursue new ideas. This in some cases lead to controversies: for instance, some of the people involved in the (in)famous 1827 Osaka trial of alleged Christians (whether this label really is applicable is a matter of heated debate) were officially licensed onmyōji. Some of them did indeed possess translated books written by Portuguese missionaries, which obviously reflected Catholic outlook. However, Bernard Faure suggests that some of the Edo period onmyōji might have pursued Portuguese sources not strictly because of an interest in Catholicism but simply to obtain another source of astronomical knowledge. 

The legacy of onmyōdō 

In the Meiji period, onmyōdō was banned alongside shugendō. While the latter tradition experienced a revival in the second half of the twentieth century, the former for the most part didn’t. However, that doesn’t mean the history of onmyōdō ends once and for all in the second half of the nineteenth century. 

Even today in some parts of Japan there are local religious traditions which, while not identical with historical onmyōdō, retain a considerable degree of influence from it. An example often cited in scholarship is Izanagi-ryū (いざなぎ流) from the rural Monobe area in the Kōchi Prefecture. Mitsuki Ueno stresses that the occasional references to Izanagi-ryū as “modern onmyōdō” in literature from the 1990s and early 2000s are inaccurate, though. He points out they downplay the unique character of this tradition, and that it shows a variety of influences. Similar arguments have also been made regarding local traditions from the Chūgoku region.

Until relatively recently, in scholarship onmyōdō was basically ignored as superstition unworthy of serious inquiries. This changed in the final decades of the twentieth century, with growing focus on the Japanese middle ages among researchers. The first monographs on onmyōdō were published in the 1980s. While it’s not equally popular as a subject of research as esoteric Buddhism and shugendō, formerly neglected for similar reasons, it has nonetheless managed to become a mainstay of inquiries pertaining to the history of religion in Japan.

Yoshitaka Amano's illustration of Baku Yumemakura's fictionalized portrayal of Abe no Seimei (right) and other characters from his novels (reproduced here for educational purposes only)

Of course, it’s also impossible to talk about onmyōdō without mentioning the modern “onmyōdō boom”. Starting with the 1980s, onmyōdō once again became a relatively popular topic among writers. Novel series such as Baku Yumemakura’s Onmyōji, Hiroshi Aramata’s Teito Monogatari or Natsuhiko Kyōgoku’s Kyōgōkudō and their adaptations in other media once again popularized it among general audiences. Of course, since these are fantasy or mystery novels, their historical accuracy tends to vary (Yumemakura in particular is reasonably faithful to historical literature, though). Still, they have a lasting impact which would be impossible to accomplish with scholarship alone.

Shikigami: historical truth, historical fiction, or both?

You might have noticed that despite promising a history of shikigami, I haven’t used this term even once through the entire crash course in history of onmyōdō. This was a conscious choice. Shikigami do not appear in any onmyōdō texts, even though they are a mainstay of texts about onmyōdō, and especially of modern literature involving onmyōji.

It would be unfair to say shikigami and their prominence are merely a modern misconception, though. Virtually all of the famous legends about onmyōji feature shikigami, starting with the earliest examples from the eleventh century. Based on Konjaku Monogatari, there evidently was a fascination with shikigami at the time of its compilation. Fujiwara no Akihira in the Shinsarugakuki treats the control of shikigami as an essential skill of an onmyōji, alongside the abilities to “freely summon the twelve guardian deities, call thirty-six types of wild birds (...), create spells and talismans, open and close the eyes of kijin (鬼神; “demon gods”), and manipulate human souls”. 

It is generally agreed that such accounts, even though they belong to the realm of literary fiction, can shed light on the nature and importance of shikigami. They ultimately reflect their historical context to some degree. Furthermore, it is not impossible that popular understanding of shikigami based on literary texts influenced genuine onmyōdō tradition. It’s worth pointing out that today legends about Abe no Seimei involving them are disseminated by two contemporary shrines dedicated to him, the Seimei Shrine (晴明神社) in Kyoto and the Abe no Seimei Shrine (安倍晴明神社) in Osaka. Interconnected networks of exchange between literature and religious practice are hardly a unique or modern phenomenon. 

However, even with possible evidence from historical literature taken into account, it is not easy to define shikigami. The word itself can be written in three different ways: 式神 (or just 式), 識神 and 職神, with the first being the default option. The descriptions are even more varied, which understandably lead to the rise of numerous interpretations in modern scholarship. Carolyn Pang in her recent treatments of shikigami, which you can find in the bibliography, has recently divided them into five categories. I will follow her classification below.

Shikigami take 1: rikujin-shikisen

An example of shikiban, the divination board used in rikujin-shikisen (Museum of Kyoto, via onmarkproductions.com; reproduced here for educational purposes only)

A common view is that shikigami originate as a symbolic representation of the power of shikisen (式占) or more specifically rikujin-shikisen (六壬式占), the most common form of divination in onmyōdō. It developed from Chinese divination methods in the Nara period, and remained in the vogue all the way up to the sixteenth century, when it was replaced by ekisen (易占), a method derived from the Chinese Book of Changes.

Shikisen required a special divination board known as shikiban (式盤), which consists of a square base, the “earth panel” (地盤, jiban), and a rotating circle placed on top of it, the “heaven panel” (天盤, tenban). The former was marked with twelve points representing the signs of the zodiac and the latter with representations of the “twelve guardians of the months” (十二月将, jūni-gatsushō; their identity is not well defined). The heaven panel had to be rotated, and the diviner had to interpret what the resulting combination of symbols represents. Most commonly, it was treated as an indication whether an unusual phenomenon (怪/恠, ke) had positive or negative implications. It’s worth pointing out that in the middle ages the shikiban also came to be used in some esoteric Buddhist rituals, chiefly these focused on Dakiniten, Shōten and Nyoirin Kannon. However, they were only performed between the late Heian and Muromachi periods, and relatively little is known about them. In most cases the divination board was most likely modified to reference the appropriate esoteric deities.

Shikigami take 2: cognitive abilities

While the view that shikigami represented shikisen is strengthened by the fact both terms share the kanji 式, a variant writing, 識神, lead to the development of another proposal. Since the basic meaning of 識 is “consciousness”, it is sometimes argued that shikigami were originally an “anthropomorphic realization of the active psychological or mental state”, as Caroline Pang put it - essentially, a representation of the will of an onmyōji. Most of the potential evidence in this case comes from Buddhist texts, such as Bosatsushotaikyō (菩薩処胎経). 

However, Bernard Faure assumes that the writing 識神 was a secondary reinterpretation, basically a wordplay based on homonymy. He points out the Buddhist sources treat this writing of shikigami as a synonym of kushōjin (倶生神). This term can be literally translated as “deities born at the same time”. Most commonly it designates a pair of minor deities who, as their name indicates, come into existence when a person is born, and then records their deeds through their entire life. Once the time for Enma’s judgment after death comes, they present him with their compiled records. It has been argued that they essentially function like a personification of conscience. 

Shikigami take 3: energy

A further speculative interpretation of shikigami in scholarship is that this term was understood as a type of energy present in objects or living beings which onmyōji were believed to be capable of drawing out and harnessing to their ends. This could be an adaptation of the Daoist notion of qi (氣). If this definition is correct, pieces of paper or wooden instruments used in purification ceremonies might be examples of objects utilized to channel shikigami. 

The interpretation of shikigami as a form of energy is possibly reflected in Konjaku Monogatari in the tale The Tutelage of Abe no Seimei under Tadayuki. It revolves around Abe no Seimei’s visit to the house of the Buddhist monk Kuwanten from Hirosawa. Another of his guests asks Seimei if he is capable of killing a person with his powers, and if he possesses shikigami. He affirms that this is possible, but makes it clear that it is not an easy task. Since the guests keep urging him to demonstrate nonetheless, he promptly demonstrates it using a blade of grass. Once it falls on a frog, the animal is instantly crushed to death. From the same tale we learn that Seimei’s control over shikigami also let him remotely close the doors and shutters in his house while nobody was inside.

Shikigami take 4: curse As I already mentioned, arts which can be broadly described as magic - like the already mentioned jujutsu or juhō (呪法, “magic rituals”) - were regarded as a core part of onmyōji’s repertoire from the Heian period onward. On top of that, the unlicensed onmyōji were almost exclusively associated with curses. Therefore, it probably won’t surprise you to learn that yet another theory suggests shikigami is simply a term for spells, curses or both. A possible example can be found in Konjaku Monogatari, in the tale Seimei sealing the young Archivist Minor Captains curse - the eponymous curse, which Seimei overcomes with protective rituals, is described as a shikigami.

Kunisuda Utagawa's illustration of an actor portraying Dōman in a kabuki play (wikimedia commons)

Similarities between certain descriptions of shikigami and practices such as  fuko (巫蠱) and goraihō (五雷法) have been pointed out. Both of these originate in China. Fuko is the use of poisonous, venomous or otherwise negatively perceived animals to create curses, typically by putting them in jars, while goraihō is the Japanese version of Daoist spells meant to control supernatural beings, typically ghosts or foxes. It’s worth noting that a legend according to which Dōman cursed Fujiwara no Michinaga on behalf of lord Horikawa (Fujiwara no Akimitsu) involves him placing the curse - which is itself not described in detail -  inside a jar.

Mitsuki Ueno notes that in the Kōchi Prefecture the phrase shiki wo utsu, “to strike with a shiki”, is still used to refer to cursing someone. However, shiki does not necessarily refer to shikigami in this context, but rather to a related but distinct concept - more on that later.

Shikigami take 5: supernatural being

While all four definitions I went through have their proponents, yet another option is by far the most common - the notion of shikigami being supernatural beings controlled by an onmyōji. This is essentially the standard understanding of the term today among general audiences. Sometimes attempts are made to identify it with a specific category of supernatural beings, like spirits (精霊, seirei), kijin or lesser deities (下級神, kakyū shin). However, none of these gained universal support. Generally speaking, there is no strong indication that shikigami were necessarily imagined as individualized beings with distinct traits.

The notion of shikigami being supernatural beings is not just a modern interpretation, though, for the sake of clarity. An early example where the term is unambiguously used this way is a tale from Ōkagami in which Seimei sends a nondescript shikigami to gather information. The entity, who is not described in detail, possesses supernatural skills, but simultaneously still needs to open doors and physically travel. 

An illustration from Nakifudō Engi Emaki (wikimedia commons)

In Genpei Jōsuiki there is a reference to Seimei’s shikigami having a terrifying appearance which unnerved his wife so much he had to order the entities to hide under a bride instead of residing in his house. Carolyn Pang suggests that this reflects the demon-like depictions from works such as Abe no Seimei-kō Gazō (安倍晴明公画像; you can see it in the Heian section), Fudōriyaku Engi Emaki and Nakifudō Engi Emaki.

Shikigami and related concepts

A gohō dōji, as depicted in the Shigisan Engi Emaki (wikimedia commons)

The understanding of shikigami as a “spirit servant” of sorts can be compared with the Buddhist concept of minor protective deities, gohō dōji (護法童子;  literally “dharma-protecting lads”). These in turn were just one example of the broad category of gohō (護法), which could be applied to virtually any deity with protective qualities, like the historical Buddha’s defender Vajrapāṇi or the Four Heavenly Kings. A notable difference between shikigami and gohō is the fact that the former generally required active summoning - through chanting spells and using mudras - while the latter manifested on their own in order to protect the pious. Granted, there are exceptions. There is a well attested legend according to which Abe no Seimei’s shikigami continued to protect his residence on own accord even after he passed away. Shikigami acting on their own are also mentioned in Zoku Kojidan (続古事談). It attributes the political downfall of Minamoto no Takaakira (源高明; 914–98) to his encounter with two shikigami who were left behind after the onmyōji who originally summoned them forgot about them.

A degree of overlap between various classes of supernatural helpers is evident in texts which refer to specific Buddhist figures as shikigami. I already brought up the case of the kushōjin earlier. Another good example is the Tendai monk Kōshū’s (光宗; 1276–1350) description of Oto Gohō (乙護法). He is “a shikigami that follows us like the shadow follows the body. Day or night, he never withdraws; he is the shikigami that protects us” (translation by Bernard Faure). This description is essentially a reversal of the relatively common title “demon who constantly follow beings” (常随魔, jōzuima). It was applied to figures such as Kōjin, Shōten or Matarajin, who were constantly waiting for a chance to obstruct rebirth in a pure land if not placated properly.

The Twelve Heavenly Generals (Tokyo National Museum, via wikimedia commons)

A well attested group of gohō, the Twelve Heavenly Generals (十二神将, jūni shinshō), and especially their leader Konpira (who you might remember from my previous article), could be labeled as shikigami. However, Fujiwara no Akihira’s description of onmyōji skills evidently presents them as two distinct classes of beings.

A kuda-gitsune, as depicted in Shōzan Chomon Kishū by Miyoshi Shōzan (Waseda University History Museum; reproduced here for educational purposes only)

Granted, Akihira also makes it clear that controlling shikigami and animals are two separate skills. Meanwhile, there is evidence that in some cases animal familiars, especially kuda-gitsune used by iizuna (a term referring to shugenja associated with the cult of, nomen omen, Iizuna Gongen, though more broadly also something along the lines of “sorcerer”), were perceived as shikigami.

Beliefs pertaining to gohō dōji and shikigami seemingly merged in Izanagi-ryū, which lead to the rise of the notion of shikiōji (式王子; ōji, literally “prince”, can be another term for gohō dōji). This term refers to supernatural beings summoned by a ritual specialist (祈祷師, kitōshi) using a special formula from doctrinal texts (法文, hōmon). They can fulfill various functions, though most commonly they are invoked to protect a person, to remove supernatural sources of diseases, to counter the influence of another shikiōji or in relation to curses.

Tenkeisei, the god of shikigami

Tenkeisei (wikimedia commons)

The final matter which warrants some discussion is the unusual tradition regarding the origin of shikigami which revolves around a deity associated with this concept. 

In the middle ages, a belief that there were exactly eighty four thousand shikigami developed. Their source was the god Tenkeisei (天刑星; also known as Tengyōshō). His name is the Japanese reading of Chinese Tianxingxing. It can be translated as “star of heavenly punishment”. This name fairly accurately explains his character. He was regarded as one of the so-called “baleful stars” (凶星, xiong xing) capable of controlling destiny. The “punishment” his name refers to is his treatment of disease demons (疫鬼, ekiki). However, he could punish humans too if not worshiped properly.

Today Tenkeisei is best known as one of the deities depicted in a series of paintings known as Extermination of Evil, dated to the end of the twelfth century. He has the appearance of a fairly standard multi-armed Buddhist deity. The anonymous painter added a darkly humorous touch by depicting him right as he dips one of the defeated demons in vinegar before eating him. Curiously, his adversaries are said to be Gozu Tennō and his retinue in the accompanying text. This, as you will quickly learn, is a rather unusual portrayal of the relationship between these two deities.

I’m actually not aware of any other depictions of Tenkeisei than the painting you can see above. Katja Triplett notes that onmyōdō rituals associated with him were likely surrounded by an aura of secrecy, and as a result most depictions of him were likely lost or destroyed. At the same time, it seems Tenkeisei enjoyed considerable popularity through the Kamakura period. This is not actually paradoxical when you take the historical context into account: as I outlined in my recent Amaterasu article, certain categories of knowledge were labeled as secret not to make their dissemination forbidden, but to imbue them with more meaning and value.

Numerous talismans inscribed with Tenkeisei’s name are known. Furthermore, manuals of rituals focused on him have been discovered. The best known of them, Tenkeisei-hō (天刑星法; “Tenkeisei rituals”), focuses on an abisha (阿尾捨, from Sanskrit āveśa), a ritual involving possession by the invoked deity. According to a legend was transmitted by Kibi no Makibi and Kamo no Yasunori. The historicity of this claim is doubtful, though: the legend has Kamo no Yasunori visit China, which he never did. Most likely mentioning him and Makibi was just a way to provide the text with additional legitimacy.

Other examples of similar Tenkeisei manuals include Tenkeisei Gyōhō (天刑星行法; “Methods of Tenkeisei Practice”) and Tenkeisei Gyōhō Shidai (天刑星行法次第; “Methods of Procedure for the Tenkeisei Practice”). Copies of these texts have been preserved in the Shingon temple Kōzan-ji.

The Hoki Naiden also mentions Tenkeisei. It equates him with Gozu Tennō, and explains both of these names refer to the same deity, Shōki (商貴), respectively in heaven and on earth. While Shōki is an adaptation of the famous Zhong Kui, it needs to be pointed out that here he is described not as a Tang period physician but as an ancient king of Rajgir in India. Furthermore, he is a yaksha, not a human. This fairly unique reinterpretation is also known from the historical treatise Genkō Shakusho. Post scriptum The goal of this article was never to define shikigami. In the light of modern scholarship, it’s basically impossible to provide a single definition in the first place. My aim was different: to illustrate that context is vital when it comes to understanding obscure historical terms. Through history, shikigami evidently meant slightly different things to different people, as reflected in literature. However, this meaning was nonetheless consistently rooted in the evolving perception of onmyōdō - and its internal changes. In other words, it reflected a world which was fundamentally alive. The popular image of Japanese culture and religion is often that of an artificial, unchanging landscape straight from the “age of the gods”, largely invented in the nineteenth century or later to further less than noble goals. The case of shikigami proves it doesn’t need to be, though. The malleable, ever-changing image of shikigami, which remained a subject of popular speculation for centuries before reemerging in a similar role in modern times, proves that the more complex reality isn’t necessarily any less interesting to new audiences.

Bibliography

Bernard Faure, A Religion in Search of a Founder?

Idem, Rage and Ravage (Gods of Medieval Japan vol. 3)

Makoto Hayashi, The Female Christian Yin-Yang Master

Jun’ichi Koike, Onmyōdō and Folkloric Culture: Three Perspectives for the Development of Research

Irene H. Lin, Child Guardian Spirits (Gohō Dōji) in the Medieval Japanese Imaginaire

Yoshifumi Nishioka, Aspects of Shikiban-Based Mikkyō Rituals

Herman Ooms, Yin-Yang's Changing Clientele, 600-800 (note there is n apparent mistake in one of the footnotes, I'm pretty sure the author wanted to write Mesopotamian astronomy originated 4000 years ago, not 4 millenia BCE as he did; the latter date makes little sense)

Carolyn Pang, Spirit Servant: Narratives of Shikigami and Onmyōdō Developments

Idem, Uncovering Shikigami. The Search for the Spirit Servant of Onmyōdō

Shin’ichi Shigeta, Onmyōdō and the Aristocratic Culture of Everyday Life in Heian Japan

Idem, A Portrait of Abe no Seimei

Katja Triplett, Putting a Face on the Pathogen and Its Nemesis. Images of Tenkeisei and Gozutennō, Epidemic-Related Demons and Gods in Medieval Japan

Mitsuki Umeno, The Origins of the Izanagi-ryū Ritual Techniques: On the Basis of the Izanagi saimon

Katsuaki Yamashita, The Characteristics of On'yōdō and Related Texts

[pub-lius]

do you know how hamilton felt about the madison-hamilton fallout? just realized everything i know about it is from madison’s perspective

oho boy do i

This has actually been a subject of interest of mine since I read The Three Lives of James Madison by Noah Feldman (great book, highly recommend). In the study of Alexander Hamilton, this is a crucial event that would define his proceeding political actions.

For some background for those who may not know what anon is referencing, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison were colleagues and "friends" (if you could call it that) from their time in the Confederation Congress until Hamilton submitted his financial plan to Congress, which was all in all about a decade. In that time, they lobbied for a convention to revise the Articles of Confederation, worked together in the Constitutional Convention, and wrote The Federalist papers together in defense of strong federal government together. The Federalist was like the manifesto of the Federalist party, which placed Hamilton at the head of that party, and, arguably, James Madison as well, until he switched to the Democratic Republican party.

Hamilton's experience was far different from Madison's, just in general, but especially when it came to close friendships between men. The closest relationship he had before James Madison was with John Laurens, who we know died tragically in 1782. Although we are all aware of my feelings on rat bastard Ron Chernow, I thought that this excerpt of his biography of Hamilton described this point very well.

"[Laurens'] death deprived Hamilton of the political peer, the steadfast colleague, that he was to need in his tempestuous battles to consolidate the union. He would enjoy a brief collaboration with James Madison... But he was more of a solitary crusader without Laurens, lacking an intimate lifelong ally such as Madison and Jefferson found in each other," (Alexander Hamilton, Chernow 172-73)

As Chernow mentioned, James Madison was already closely associated with Thomas Jefferson, who he kept well appraised of the circumstances in America while Jefferson was serving a diplomatic position in France. In my personal opinion, I think it was largely due to this that Madison began to attack Hamilton later on, since as soon as Jefferson arrived back from Paris, Madison suddenly had severe moral oppositions to Hamilton's plan, rather than just rational apprehension.

I also want to touch on Hamilton's perspective in their friendship, along with their fallout, specifically when it comes to The Federalist. Hamilton put such a high value on his work, and he held himself to a very high standard. There are a couple instances of him outsourcing his work to other men he admired, such as his last political stance, that the truth of an accusation can be used in libel cases. He asked several men to help him in writing a larger treatise on the matter than what he was able to make (due to yk the bullet that got put in his diaphragm), but these weren't just his friends. These men were very crucial figures in American law, which shows that, unlike men like Jefferson, he was very selective in who he chose to associate with when it came to his work.

This wasn't any different in 1787. When he chose John Jay and James Madison to assist in writing The Federalist, his reasons for both had nothing to do with their personal relationships. Jay was one of the most successful legal minds of the new country, and James Madison, was not only a Virginian, but was an absolute genius and fucking workhorse. If you like him or not, or if you like the Constitution or not, its undeniable that the Virginia Plan was absolute fucking genius, and Hamilton knew that.

This also shows a great amount of trust in Madison. Hamilton was an incredibly untrusting dude. He kept most of his emotions and personality away from work, and really the only people who knew who he was entirely were close family, one or two family friends included. They were the only people who knew his background, which is directly tied into his work, which was the most important thing to him. Without his work, in his eyes, he would have nothing. So for him to trust Madison with something he and the world viewed as one of his most important contributions to American history, that was incredibly significant.

Also I should mention that Hamilton definitely knew how important The Federalist would be, and this is clear in his introductory essay, which is confirmed that he himself wrote.

One thing that any Hamilton historians will agree on is that he was so set in his ways. If there was a moral or philosophical question before him, he would think about it constantly, consult his books and his peers, and once he decided on his stance, there was little to no chance of changing that. The Federalist are, if not anything else, the basis of Hamilton's political thinking. Hamilton, being the arrogant bitch that he was, assumed that every other genius would be equally steadfast in their beliefs.

But James Madison was different in that regard. He was also very tied in with his state's interest, as well as that of the planter class. Hamilton also had a strong bias towards his state and class, but not with the same attitude as someone who was born into it.

Therefore, when Madison openly opposed his Report on Public Credit with a speech in the House of Representatives, Hamilton viewed it as a deep betrayal of his trust, his work, and his principles. Hamilton saw this as a devastating insult to everything he stood for by someone he thought he could completely rely on. This was the 18th century burn book.

That speech immediately kicked off Hamilton lobbying to oppose Madison's counter-proposal, which he won because, frankly, Madison hadn't been expecting Hamilton to immediately come at him with the full arsenal, but Hamilton didn't half-arsenal anything. It was after that that Hamilton was able to process what had happened. According to one of Hamilton's allies, Manasseh Cutler, Hamilton saw Madison's opposition as "a perfidious desertion of the principles which [Madison] was solemnly pledged to defend." Ouch.

The final break between them was on the subject of the National Bank aspect of Hamilton's plan. This is when Madison redefined himself as a Democratic-Republican with a firm belief in strict construction of the Constitution, giving Hamilton free reign to take out his hurt feelings on him through the art of pussy politics* and this entirely dissolved the friendship that had once been there.

*pussy politics (noun): a form of politics in which grown men act like pussies by only supporting the governmental actions that benefit their families/wealth/land/class/etc. and it is very embarrassing and frustrating to sit through

Hamilton would spend a large part of his career battling Madison, and talking a lot of shit about him, which is what has allowed me to paint this stupid ass picture of two grown men fighting over banks. The personal language that he uses in regards to Madison is very different to the accusatory tone he took with his other enemies, and that in it of itself says a lot, but I hope this was able to shed some light on why Hamilton felt the way he did and what exactly he felt. Again, I love talking about this, so feel free to ask follow up questions!

[thisis-an-original-name]

Here is where I stand with the Global Conflict this week (no one asked lmao)

1. The top priority for me is stopping the genocide in Gaza, and, immediately after that, establishing a Palestinian state/two state solution.

2. Hamas isn’t going to peddle any kind of solution/compromise. Hamas essentially took their “We want to kill Jews” treatise and replaced “Jews” with “Zionists” but nothing has changed. If you can’t see that, you’re dangerous and probably stupid.

3. The hostages need to be freed (if they’re still alive, which let’s be realistic, they probably aren’t.) If Netanyahu actually cared about freeing the hostages, he would have done it by now, and a large number of Israelis recognize that.

4. Recognition of the hostages/ October 7th and recognition of the genocide/ deeply awful conduct of Israel can and SHOULD coexist.

5. Joe Biden is a useless little bitch. Having him as President again would still be better than four more years of Trump.

6. The Met Gala was not orchestrated by Big Zionism to distract from the invasion of Rafah and saying that it was is just blatant antisemitism. That being said, the Israeli military does frequently carry out large strikes on nights like the Met Gala and the Super Bowl when they know that the American news cycle will be focused on something else. Both things can be true. Also, the Met Gala is inherently a stupid thing to get excited about I’m sorry.

7. Student protestors do often fall into traps of antisemitism and say shit that could potentially harm Jews. What else is going to happen, when you gather a bunch of 19 year olds and tell them to yell as loud as humanly possible? That being said, I do have to believe that a vast majority of college protestors have good intentions AND, most of all, even if they don’t, censoring them and spraying pepper spray in their eyes is draconian behavior that the history books will not look kindly upon.

8. I’m so on the fence about boycotts, especially Eurovision. Because on one hand, banning Palestinian flags and keffiyeh’s from the performance is wrong. And I don’t think that Israel should be allowed to compete considering everything that the government is doing, like Russia was banned in 2021. That being said, it does make me sad that this 19 year old girl wrote a song about losing friends and family on October 7th and in response, she’s been booed and told to stay in her hotel room lest the angry mob tears her apart.

9. I do think that celebrities have some level of responsibility to use their platforms for good. That being said, this is such a complex issue that I almost don’t fault some people for not making a 250 character Twitter statement. I don’t think the dying children of Gaza care much if you block Zendaya or Olivia Rodrigo on Instagram. It also gets ridiculous when you go in the comments section of creators with like 100k followers and you see people posting Palestinian flags like yeah I’m sorry that blorbo from my shows isn’t personally flying to Gaza to punch Netanyahu in the face.

10. If you punctuate every single acknowledgement of the genocide with “but what about the hostages!!” or GOD FORBID “it’s sad that Hamas made Netanyahu do this” you have been propagandized by your local Hillel. No one made Netanyahu do this except Netanyahu. There’s no way you don’t know that by now. Wiping out Hamas: another thing that Netanyahu probably would have done by now if he genuinely wanted to.

11. Whenever I see lists of “here are the celebrities/professors/writers/guy on the street to block and throw rocks at because he’s a Mean Scary Zionist” I am reminded of the lists of synagogue goers that Nazis used to track down Jews and their families during the Holocaust. Seriously if you’re peddling lists of “Zionists” ripe for demonization you might want to ask yourself what you’re REALLY doing, and why.

12. Fun fact about me: I actually consider myself a Zionist. I do think, historically speaking, that Jews do need a safe place and a homeland to prevent us from being killed again like we seem to be every few centuries or so. I just don’t think that place has to be Israel, and I DEFINITELY don’t think Palestine should be subjugated for it to happen. But whenever I hear “Zionism = BAD” I just cringe a bit because… you keep using that word. I don’t think it means what you think it means

[unfortunatetheorist]

Is Klaus' legal logic of The Bad Beginning sensible?

* Joint Theory: @unfortunatetheorist with @snicketstrange *

Klaus's speech to the audience during the events of The Bad Beginning had a carefully thought-out structure, anchored in deeply rooted legal, but more so ethical, principles. In defence of his sister, who was forced into a marriage, Klaus appears to have adopted a multifaceted approach to challenge the marriage's validity.

Firstly, John Locke.

John Locke was one of the first people to suggest that humans have natural rights. He also wrote a book about this called the 'Two Treatises of Government'.

Klaus likely invoked John Locke's arguments on natural rights to contend that the marriage was not consensual and, therefore, violated his sister's fundamental rights to life and liberty. The idea that the bride must sign "with her own hand" is interpreted here not literally, but as an indicator of action "of her own free will," supported by Locke's principles.

Secondly, Thurgood Marshall.

Thurgood Marshall was the first black Supreme Court Justice of the USA, who fought for the rights of black citizens against Jim Crow's extremely racist ideologies.

His defence of the 14th Amendment may have been used by Klaus to argue that, in cases of ambiguity or doubt, the judge's decision should lean towards protecting the more vulnerable party. This point strengthens the point that, if there is doubt about the how valid Violet's consent is, the legal and ethical obligation is to invalidate the marriage. The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution is crucial for establishing constitutional rights and consists of various clauses. The most relevant for Klaus's case is probably the Equal Protection Clause, which states that no state may "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." Klaus may have leaned especially on this clause to argue that, in situations of uncertainty, i.e. his sister's forced marriage, the interpretation/application of the law should be done in a manner that protects (in this case) Violet. This would align with the principles of the 14th Amendment, using it for equal protection under the law to invalidate the marriage and protect his sister's rights.

Third, Ida B. Wells.

Ida B. Wells was, similar to Thurgood Marshall, an early civil rights campaigner, who campaigned for anti-lynching (a word which here means, opposing the brutally violent act known as lynching).

Klaus likely drew inspiration from Ida B. Wells to assert that everyone has the right to be heard and protected by authorities, regardless of their age or origin. This argument would serve to legitimize his own standing as his sister's defender in court, neutralizing any potential prejudice against him for being a child or, perhaps, belonging to a minority (he and his sisters are Jewish).

Moreover, the presence of a judge at the ceremony should not be viewed as merely a formality, but a control mechanism to ensure mutual consent, something that resonates strongly with Locke and Marshall's ideals about the role of government and law. Thus, if either of the spouses gave any evidence to the judge that the marriage was conducted under duress, the judge would be obligated to invalidate the marriage. Violet's chosen signal was to sign the document with her left hand instead of her right hand. As the judge explained, the marriage could be invalidated due to this discreet yet appropriate signal.

Lastly, the word "apocryphal" that Lemony uses to describe Klaus's argument suggests a non-conventional but insightful interpretation of the law, something that seems to echo Marshall's "doubtful insights" and Wells' "moral conviction." Instead of resorting to literalism ('literally' - with her own hand, i.e. Violet's dominant hand), Klaus's argument was much deeper and grounded, touching on the very essence of what legislation and the role of judges are. That's why Justice Strauss was so fascinated by the young boy's speech.

In summary, the historical references evidence that Klaus wove these diverse elements into a cohesive and compelling argument, utilising the legacy of these thinkers to question and, ideally, invalidate his sister Violet's forced marriage.

¬ Th3r3534rch1ngr4ph & @snicketstrange,

Unfortunate Theorists/Snicketologists

[pampushky]

Creature (Both Haunted & Holy)

Vinsmoke Sanji/Reader - Chapter 11 - 4.5k

You enter your cycle for the first time since you were taken.

ao3 | series masterlist | masterlist | next part

Notes on Selkenfolk, from the Journal of Dr. Crocus of the Roger's Pirates Selkenfolk, due to how closely related they are to seals, are quite powerful creatures. They are, undoubtedly, one of the major reasons that slavery has been abolished, with many selkenfolk who wind up under the thumb of celestial dragons often escape. The treatises between the various colonies of selkenfolk and the Celestial Dragons and World Government are quite extensive. Pell is not shy about his pride when it comes to this, especially considering he has been one of the main thorns in the World Government's side, with devil fruits made essentially useless when it comes to any battle, so long as a selkie has access to the sea and their pelt. Even then, Coth and Pell have both admitted they have two main weaknesses, their own main concern being the cycle. The cycle is essentially that of a selkie's breeding season, to put it rather crudely. They need their pods or mates during these times, often to simply care for them. It can vary on the selkie, for the symptoms they show, but they can vary from more... intimate needs, to simply being around their podmates.

Your head pounds when you wake up in your bed. You’re unsure of what exactly is wrong, but Nami nearly immediately notices when you grumble, trudging your way into the galley with your pelt wrapped around you tightly, and a pair of sweatpants hanging off your hips as you curl up on the couch. Everything aches, and you feel as though you’re on fire and frozen at the same time. Sanji looks over from where he’s cooking, calling for Nami. And you can’t help but agree, you want your pod, even if you’ve been scenting the ship and your crew. 

Pod pod pod, your mind corrects happily, and you resent that. They are not your pod, even if you are fiercely loyal to them. 

“You look… tired,” Nami tries, walking up beside you, laying a hand on your shoulder as you groan, looking at her with a miserable glare. “Okay, yeah, yeah, not a joking time,” She sits down beside you, pulling you into a hug which you respond to with a warble, setting your face on her shoulder. “Oh, honey… what’s happening?”

“I don’t know,” you groan, letting her place a blanket around you. “My head hurts, and everything is sluggish.”

Nami hums, running her hands through your hair, listening to you trill when she does, nuzzling closer, frowning as she feels how damp your hair is from sweat. 

“Have you eaten yet today?” Sanji crouches in front of you, frowning. “Let me check your temperature.”

You whine when he presses the back of his hand to your forehead. You know something’s wrong the moment that he frowns, looking at Nami with an expression you can’t quite read. Worry spills off of your podmate, and you shy away from the cook's touch, trying your best to surround yourself with Nami’s scent while choking on how heavy your own is around you.

“You’re burning up,” Sanji stands, and you hear his footsteps walking away, and the sink turning on and off. “I’ll make some soup, you should stay there, it’ll be easier for you on the couch, especially if we can limit you from overexerting yourself.”

“I don’t overexert myself,” you mumble, whining when Nami’s hand leaves your scalp, trying to follow her. “Where'ya goin?”

“Just to get you a cool cloth,” Nami soothes, and you let out a whine at this. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

You sit with your knees tucked into your chest, fighting the urge to nod off, despite how comfortable the couch is. Nami hadn’t come back yet, you had to wait for your podmate to come back. You let out a rumble, a low and lonely cry of podmate, return, need podmate, which catches Sanji’s attention. You look utterly pitiful, curled up like that, continually warbling and rumbling for Nami, her name being the next most common thing you whimper in the passing minutes. Whatever was wrong, the heavy scent of pine and cinnamon wasn’t helping– had someone lit a candle? Surely that's not good for you in your current state. He'll lecture them later.

“Do you want some water? A blanket?” He walks from around the island, grimacing when you flinch at his voice. The smell is even heavier around you, and he can detect notes of seawater. “Sorry, did I startle you?”

You only grumble, finally laying down, letting out another rumble, and looking at him expectantly. Sanji falters. You had said that those noises were a sort of language when you were out with Luffy and himself on the deck, the other day. Sanji tries to make a rumbling noise, which you tilt your head at, thoroughly confused, before repeating yourself. Almost scared.

Maybe… both? Sanji thinks to himself, watching how you go quiet, eyes closed. Nami finally reenters, holding a bowl with a blanket tucked under her arm as well. You let out another rumble, this one quieter as Nami places the towel on your head. She hums in response and you look over at Sanji, almost unsure that you’re sharing the space with him. It’s almost adorable, seeing how you’re tucked into a blanket and practically cuddling into the ginger.

Now, Sanji will admit that he is... slightly weak when it comes to denying a woman anything. Especially his two crewmates, Nami, of course figuring out how to get him to practically do anything for her, and you, managing to embed yourself in his mind with a single smile. But this? This is the next level, dare he suggest cruelty, as Nami lets you snuggle into her, using her like a pillow, and you let out a huffing noise at him.

“Don’t tease Sanji,” Nami squeezes your nose and you let out a protesting warble, frowning when she gets up. “He’s helping you, don’t be a brat.”

Your face flushes, and you rumble, as if you’re pouting, before muttering out a very slurred ‘Sorry’ as if you’re drunk. This makes Nami stiffen, looking closely at you, and you try to snuggle deeper into her side, something akin to recognition in her eyes.

“Oh gods, are you in your cycle?” 

This seems to strike something within you, and you let out a loud, terrified warble, staring at Nami before you croak out a sentence. “I— Oh Sea Mother— “ as you hold yourself tightly, going completely silent, before stumbling out of the galley, Nami hot on your heels. 

She finds you puking over the side of the ship, panting as you pull yourself back up, staring at her with wide eyes.

“It— It can’t be my cycle,” you wipe at your mouth, starting to pace. “It’s— it’s been two weeks since we’ve set out. That’s way too soon for everything to reset—”

“Hey, you’re safe here,” Nami holds you, and you shake. “You’re not there, it’s okay. Let’s— we’ll get you a nest built, and you can stay in our room, I’ll tell the crew.”

You shake your head, hands gripping your scalp as you let out a pathetic warble, completely shutting down as Nami guides you down to your shared room. Almost immediately, you flop on your bed, curling tightly into the fetal position. Nami sighs and brings a blanket over, lays next to you, and comforts you as you start to cry. 

“Try to sleep,” Nami whispers, “I’ll go get more pillows and blankets. You’re gonna be okay, it’s just the first day.” You only warble, and she holds you tighter, kissing your hair as you finally give in to the comfort of your podmate and her smell enveloping you.

It’s cold. And damp. It doesn’t help how your body aches, or how empty you feel without your pelt, your warbles for your pod going unanswered. All you wanted was your mothers, and your siblings, all curled around you, keeping you warm, keeping you safe, just like your last cycle. But Arlong had thrown you into a cell, as punishment for when you bit him two nights ago. You hadn’t seen another living creature since, but you heard them. Heard how they laughed, ate, and drank. 

Your tongue is dry as you lick your lips, and your stomach growls for food. A selkie is meant to be well-fed and cared for during the cycle, making a nest of the softest materials, not left to rot in a cell. Especially not one who hasn’t had a true cycle yet, is too young to be properly mated, still a pup. This is what your grandfather had told you, Sion’s gentle father when you first turned sixteen. That true cycles would not start until you were around a suitable mate.

You can hear footsteps approaching, and your stomach rolls as the scent of your captor comes closer. You let out another warble of fear, trying to curl even tighter into yourself as Arlong stops at the door, looking in at you, and laughing. He sniffs the air, and a hungry growl echoes off the brick walls. You choke back a sob when he opens the door with a loud clang, dragging you up by your neck, and tossing you over his shoulder. You’re too weak from hunger, thirst, and exhaustion to fight back, only able to warble uselessly for your pod as the fishman carries you to his room. 

“I smell a little selkie,” Arlong licks his lips as he tosses you on his bed, laughing as you try to crawl away, pulling you back to him by your ankle, “…who went into heat like some common stray bitch.”

You wail when he rips the loose shirt from your body, and try to push him away when he presses himself against you, clothed bulge evident.

You awaken with a warble, too feverish and achy to move already. Nami’s scent is strong but old. And something new is near you, tobacco and sugar. You don’t know who it is, but it’s gentle, and you can hear a soft voice, singing words you don’t know as a cool cloth is pressed to your head. Another scent, like fine cloth and wood, also sits nearby. You let out another warble, and the singing stops, a warm hand suddenly holding your own. Fine cloth and wood get stronger.

You manage to crack open your eyes to see Usopp sitting on the floor beside you, holding one of your hands, looking at you nervously. You blink, and your vision becomes clearer. Sanji stands behind Usopp, back turned as he works with something on the counter across the room. 

“Hey,” Usopp’s voice cracks, and you can smell how nervous he is, anxiety crackling off him with the smell of sulfur and blood. “You scared me, for a second.”

You rumble out what you hope sounds like an apology because you’re not sure you can speak, the dream still too fresh in your mind. But this is Usopp. Cowardly, yet forever loyal Usopp who played cards with you and listened when you spoke about your family. Your podmate, you realize, Usopp. Part of you, the logical side hates how you’ve bent to the will of your instincts, your hindbrain taking over while you hate how pathetic you feel and present as.

“It’s okay, I just don’t like when people are sick, y’know?” He swallows thickly, closing his eyes for a second before opening them. “But! You’re gonna be fine. Nami… she kinda explained things to us. You’re safe,” he squeezes your hand and your heart melts a bit, “And we can play cards when you feel a bit better.”

The door opens, and Nami’s citrus and vanilla scent makes you whine.

“She’s up,” Usopp rises, squeezing your hand one last time, before letting go. You miss his touch already, trying to reach for him. He notices, tilting his head as you reach for him. Nami lets out a coo and settles by your side. You can feel how the bed dips.

“You’re part of the pod,” Nami laughs, when Usopp finally gives you his hand, and you cling to it, letting out a happy purr, instincts fully winning the battle with your mind. “Congrats on the promotion.”

Usopp only squeezes your hand and sits on the bed beside you. Your instincts coo happily, Pod, together. So, so warm. You close your eyes, a contented rumble rising from the back of your throat as the cloth on your forehead slips a bit. The other scent in the room shifts, and it comes nearer. But your pod is there, they will keep you safe, so this is a trusted person, if they’re allowed so close. A gentle hand brushes over your forehead. 

“Fever’s gone down a bit, though I still don’t like how high it is,” The singing voice says again, and you put a sound to the smell. Nami lets out a hum. 

“It’s probably because this is the first one in a year and a half,” she squeezes your hand, and you feel the bed dip further, as she pulls you into her lap. “It’s gonna be more like a bad flu than any cycle.” All you want to do is build a nest for yourself, Nami, and Usopp to curl up in. The voice makes a noise again as if the person behind it is thinking. 

“Is that normal?”

“Well, we’d have to ask,” Nami sighs, “I’ll be honest, I only know so much about selkie stuff, I didn’t know they were even a thing before I met her.” 

You let out a little rumble at that, cracking your eyes open again, and pushing yourself up into a sitting position. Your hindbrain wails at this, but you push it down, fighting your instincts to curl into your pillows. Sanji raises an eyebrow as you do this, watching as you get out of bed. 

“Is that really the best idea?” He folds his arms, leaning back against the counter. “You look terrible.”

You glare at him, for that, and he backs down. 

“You’re just sick,” he walks up beside you, “You should be resting, being easy on yourself during this time, it’s not healthy–”

“Don’t try to tell me what’s healthy for me,” You point your finger at him, going to push into his face when your hand passes through it fully, and your jaw drops, looking at your hand as Sanji disappears, standing at your side. Nami and Usopp look a bit more concerned now, as your vision blurs, seeing double of Sanji again. “That’s, huh, that’s…were you always standing there?”

Gently, Sanji holds your shoulders, which makes you whine loudly, keening at his touch as he pushes you back into your bed. Usopp pats the pillows next to him, and you’re so tempted to give in to your instincts, even with Sanji looming above you, a frown deep on his face as he looks down at you. You growl, baring your teeth at him, and he sighs, taking a step back to give you more space. Nami, however, flicks the back of your head.

“Don’t be mean,” She looks at you sternly, and you crumble, hindbrain fully taking over again and you whimper, laying back in the nest. “He’s trying to help. Let him.”

You whimper again, upset at being lectured, and Nami covers you in your quilt, making Usopp laugh a bit at how quickly you snuggle into the softness. 

“It’s okay,” Sanji holds his face, turning away at how you look to be near tears, with how Nami still looks annoyed with you. He has to hide his blush at how adorable your pout looks, and how attractive he finds Nami’s attitude. He fails when he hazards a look at Usopp, who is smirking at him. “It’s a biological thing, right? Can’t fight it.”

“That’s the issue,” Nami sighs, and seemingly forgives you, stroking your hair out of your face, and you trill at her touch, pressing your face into her hands as she sighs your name. “She actively fights it, stubborn little shit.” Had you not been so content to simply have your two podmates beside you, you would definitely be protesting this right now, insisting you were fine. 

“I’ll leave you be then,” Sanji can’t help but feel another tug at his heart at how you snuggle into Nami and Usopp, but your eyes follow him right up until he leaves, the heavy scent of pine, cinnamon, and seawater clinging to him until he showers. He misses it and hates how clean he smells after.

You wake up, unsure of what time it is, and groan at how your head still pounds. Your bed, however comfy, is cramped, with Usopp starfishing over your legs and torso, and Nami has her arms looped around your waist, drooling on your shirt, still dead asleep. 

The first thing your sleep-addled brain remembers is how you had bit and growled at Sanji, and how your resolve had completely crumbled the moment Nami had so much as glanced at you sternly, sinking deep into your hindbrain and letting your instincts wash over you. A few, more hazy memories surface, of the past three days, with nesting and sticking by your podmates' sides. Quietly, you manage to worm your way out of the bed, hugging your pelt close, and sneaking up onto the deck of the ship.

It’s late, with the stars out above you. It’s the first time you’ve breathed fresh air in nearly four days. But it’s not the way it was when you were forced to stay inside by Arlong. It had been comforting, dare you say pleasant, surrounded by those you loved. 

But it’s nice, to see the sky again, the moon in a waxing crescent as you make your way past the galley. All of the lights are off, and you look over the railings. The crew had docked somewhere, a small island, by the looks of the marina around you, and the small village just a few meters from the shore, houses on stilts to stand on the dunes. 

Something above you in the crow’s nest rattles, and you look up, vision quickly focusing in the darkness. You hate to admit it, but the dark is better for your vision, able to see everything clear as crystal the moment the sun goes down. You can see the short, cropped-green hair, just barely peeking out from the short railing. The rope ladder swings in the breeze as you watch. Zoro doesn’t move, and you creep forward, standing on your tip-toes, climbing silently up the ladder. 

The moment you climb into the crow's nest, Zoro has a blade against your throat. In turn, you let out a growl. You can see perfectly clearly in the night, and the swordsman is squinting for a moment before he recognizes you. 

“Oh, it’s just you, seal,” Zoro takes the blade away, and watches as you settle across from him. “Aren’t you supposed to be asleep, sick, or something?”

“I got better,” you lie. Your head still hurts, but you can manage. You need to, you have to protect your crew. “Why are we docked?”

“Because you’re sick,” Zoro folds his arms and leans against the railing, “We need our helmsman and boatswain to be able-bodied in order to go through Reverse Mountain.”

You sigh, and Zoro shifts again, getting a bit closer. “It’s not your fault.”

“I can still feel guilty,” You let out an angry chuff, and Zoro laughs. “What’s so funny?”

“You’re ridiculous,” Zoro ruffles your hair and you growl again. “Nami said it’s like a period, you idiot. You can’t stop that shit.”

“I can take drugs that can,” Your eyes fall onto the few lights of the village, perhaps there’s a pharmacy. Sanji would be willing to help, surely– 

“Not happening,” Zoro gives you a stern look, even if he can’t see as well as you can. “You’re already a wreck from the shit Arlong did, seal.”

Concern rolls off of Zoro. It’s minty, with recently passed rainfall and fresh-cut grass. Your instincts whisper in your ears to listen to him, that he truly cares, and that he is worried for you. But you, with all of the terrible things that have happened to you, argue back and shove your hindbrain down. Concern can be falsified, and you were tricked, countless times, by a fishman pretending to want to listen, only to have you tossed back to Arlong, hissing and screaming about your treachery, and your weakness. 

“Don’t remind me how weak I am.” 

“You’re not,” Zoro softens. “You care for this crew. And we’re allowed to care about you. As your friend, I’m allowed to care about you.” He holds out his pinky, the way you had for him.

You whine a bit, despite yourself, and Zoro opens his arms for you to get closer to him. The hindbrain keens, and urges you forward, yet you hold still, straining against yourself. 

“Seal,” he sets his arms down, and slowly inches himself a bit closer until you can feel one of his hands along your face. Your eyes are squeezed shut, and you can’t stop shaking. “We’re not part of your family yet, that’s okay, but you are a part of ours, you’re a part of mine,” He hugs you, very gently, and awkwardly. “You’re gonna be okay here.”

You fall asleep in his lap. And Zoro adds himself to your pod accidentally, curling up awkwardly with Nami, Usopp, and yourself when you move your nest up to the anchor deck, much to Sanji’s chagrin as he moans to Luffy about how jealous he is that you are so willing to open yourself up to the swordsman. 

The next morning, you’re lucid enough to start doing your duties again, however much your body aches as you lift things. Luffy walks in on this, as you lean over a barrel, sweating and cursing the bags of grains that had been bought in the local village, and the amount of dry goods that the crew can go through in a week while docked.

It makes him laugh at first, the way you glare at him, before he helps, lifting up everything without you even needing to ask before he asks if he can sleep in a pile like Usopp and Nami, and before you know it, Luffy is arguing with Usopp about who took who’s pillow, just like your little brothers had, and falls asleep, one arm wrapped multiple times around your right ankle, dead to the world, drooling on his pillow.

Sanji knows he will be the last to join your pod, and he feels so awkward about it. It’s not that you’re mean to him– quite the opposite– you’re as witty and helpful as ever. But, he isn’t entirely oblivious. You still spend time with him, but it’s never alone. It’s always with one of the other crew members, Luffy leaning over you dramatically as you try to discuss with him how much money he should be given for the month before you let out a bark at him, and he sulks in the corner until you’re done talking to Sanji. 

It’s the worst when Nami is with you because he’s already so flustered with you around. She will actively make sure her shirt slips a bit lower, while you tell him about what kind of food is best for your diet, to rebuild muscle, making him go dry in the mouth as he tries to focus on what you’re saying. And she giggles when you ask her to stop distracting him because you’re both active distractions in his book.

But it’s comical, how you will reach over without looking, and pull her shirt up until it’s nearly at her nose while keeping Sanji’s gaze, and so sweetly talking about how well he cooked the previous dinner you had. He swears, however, that you smell nicer than normal, scent lingering around the kitchen, even hours after you leave. It does make him smile, because you’ve seemed to become more comfortable around him, brushing against him when you see him in the common area. 

But he can’t help but feel a bit lonely when he walks into the storage room to find Zoro leaning over you, chin on the top of your head as you check things off a list, more annoyed that he purposefully put things higher than you instructed so you couldn’t reach them. 

Sanji isn’t jealous, no. But he wishes that you wouldn’t look so confused when he shies away from you, thinking he’s respecting your wishes. 

It takes another day for him to realize he’s a part of your pod when you ask why he didn’t join the rest of the crew that noon in the anchor deck, shy and nervous, thinking he’s rejecting your claim.

“N-no! No, I–” Sanji blushes, “I thought, uh, you didn’t want me there…”

You blink, and then your mouth forms an ‘o’ shape as if you’d just made the connections in your mind, cheeks darkening. 

“I forgot humans can’t smell as well,” You look up at him, “I’ve been– well, it’s called scenting, it’s a thing we do when we have a pod.” 

Sanji suddenly thinks back to how the mystery scent lingered around him. How it always followed you, and how it made him weak in the knees.

“I can stop if you’d like–” You raise your hands, thoroughly embarrassed, and the smell starts to fade. It makes him panic, his only constant reminder of you, fading away, so he yelps, grabbing your hands.

“No, no, it’s okay!” Sanji swears his heart is going to explode with how you look up at him. “I’d be honored to be a part of your pod.”

He coughs when you wrap him in a hug, a deep rumble shaking him to his core as he hugs you back, suddenly incredibly content with all in his life. As you drag him to where the rest of the crew is, up top near the steering wheel, sitting in or simply near a pile of cushions and blankets, arranging for him to sit near you as Zoro groans about Sanji being there. Nami laughs as she gets the ship moving, and Luffy clambers out of the nest to watch the sea.

That same smell that has been driving him insane, because he didn’t know what it was, your scent, of pine, cinnamon, and seawater, washes over him when you let out a chuff, planting your foot in Zoro’s chest and pushing him backward, a very, very dangerous thought crosses his mind, as you settle down, head against his chest. It makes his mind go fuzzy, the way you relax, how soothing it is to finally put a source to the smell, and how it tickles his nose and makes him weak at the very thought of being wrapped in it forever. 

He could get used to you being in his life, melting at the idea of you preserving him in a casket of seawater, with sticks of cinnamon and pine boughs in his cold, dead hands for a bouquet, as long as you’re the one to lay him to rest. Sanji realizes that he needs you in his life, in some way or form. And that scares him, as the Straw Hats finally make their way to Reverse Mountain.

[upennmanuscripts]

Manuscript Monday: LJS 405 - Kitāb al-Siyāsah al-sharʻīyah al-musammá tasʹhīl … (Video Orientation)

Dot Porter, Curator, Digital Research Services at the University of Pennsylvania Library, presents a video orientation to LJS 405, a treatise in two chapters, one on the qualities of a good ruler and the other on the art of good government. Partial loss of seal impressions and marginal notes due to trimming. LJS 405 is undated, likely copied in Egypt between the mid-13th and mid-14th…

[une-sanz-pluis]

Apart from the chronicles of events in North Wales, this article cites nine accounts of Bolingbroke’s oath-taking and perjury that can claim to be primary sources. Nine would usually be conclusive. However, they are not altogether independent: thus the Martyrium (3), the Percy articles of 1406 (4), and Gascoigne’s Notes (5) all state in the same words that Bolingbroke swore on the mass in the presence of Archbishop Arundel at Chester that ‘he would not rebel nor consent to depose King Richard’ (rebelleret nec deponi consenteret). In 1406, Northumberland refers to oaths at Chester and at Knaresborough, yet in 1403, according to Hardyng, he referred to neither, but only to Doncaster. He never referred to Bridlington. Hardyng’s three accounts may all derive from the Percy manifesto of 1403. Our earliest explicit source speaks of Bridlington, which was also mentioned on Bolingbroke’s itinerary by the abbey chronicles of the two northern houses of Whalley and Kirkstall. At least there seems to be confusion, if not disinformation, here. The sources do not agree, as Bean observed, which discredited them for him. That may be too drastic a conclusion: at least three distinct traditions refer to Bridlington, Knaresborough and Doncaster, all in Yorkshire. Perhaps Bolingbroke did not have to visit Bridlington to swear on the relics: possibly (as Bennett suggests) they were brought to him, to commit him to more limited actions on oath. It is conceivable also that Bolingbroke travelled from Ravenspur to Beverley, then thirty miles north to Bridlington and the Duchy of Lancaster castle of Pickering, which he certainly visited, then south-westwards to another Lancaster castle at Knaresborough (as the chronicle of Kirkstall Abbey also reports), and thence to Doncaster, as Bennett also suggests, and finally (after Bristol) to Chester and Flint, swearing oaths in each location. If Bolingbroke swore numerous oaths, the apparent confusion between them is more easily understandable. It is striking how many of these sources are in Latin. This was the natural language of the Dieulacres Chronicle and for hagiography that were intended for monastic or at least clerical readers, but not for the Ricardian Articles, Northumberland’s Letter, or the Percy Manifesto. Latin betrays clerical authorship, as expected, but surely it almost confines these propaganda pieces to a clerical audience. The populace and very few noblemen or gentry could have understood them unaided. Later Yorkist propaganda, Hardyng’s verse and prose and the Brief Treatise, were in English and appear to have circulated more widely. More thought is needed on what the target and hence purpose of such propaganda was. Almost all were hostile to Henry IV, concerned to prove that Bolingbroke had sworn not to depose Richard II and perjured himself. Seven (2–7, 9) explicitly said so, among them three (3–5) which cited witnesses. Yet two did not. The Dieulacres Chronicle, in a famously obscure passage, seems to contradict itself. It states first that Henry did not seek the crown, but then reported that he would cede his rights if a better candidate appeared. Perhaps this means that Richard was to be deposed, but that Henry was not committed to succeed him. The Percy Manifesto, in contrast, states that Richard would continue to rule ‘governed by good counsel of the lords spiritual and temporal’. ‘He swore also the kyng to be put in governaunce’, Hardyng rhymed. Do these statements imply that Richard could remain King, but under restraint, presumably by Henry himself, perhaps as the Lords Appellant had ruled in 1388–89 and as Richard, Duke of York was to do as Lord Protector twice in 1454–56? There is a hint therefore, unsurprisingly, that the choice was less stark than either the Duchy of Lancaster or the crown. Additionally, Henry had always intended reform of the government and restraint of the vengeful Richard II. It is unfortunate that not even one of his letters or manifestos still survives.

Michael Hicks, "The Yorkshire Perjuries of Henry Bolingbroke in 1399 Revisited", Northern History, XLVI: 1, March 2009

[dailyanarchistposts]

Chapter I. Of the Economic Science.

1. — Opposition between FACT and RIGHT in social economy.

I AFFIRM the REALITY of an economic science.

This proposition, which few economists now dare to question, is the boldest, perhaps, that a philosopher ever maintained; and the inquiries to follow will prove, I hope, that its demonstration will one day be deemed the greatest effort of the human mind.

I affirm, on the other hand, the absolute certainty as well as the progressive nature of economic science, of all the sciences in my opinion the most comprehensive, the purest, the best supported by facts: a new proposition, which alters this science into logic or metaphysics in concreto, and radically changes the basis of ancient philosophy. In other words, economic science is to me the objective form and realization of metaphysics; it is metaphysics in action, metaphysics projected on the vanishing plane of time; and whoever studies the laws of labor and exchange is truly and specially a metaphysician.

After what I have said in the introduction, there is nothing in this which should surprise any one. The labor of man continues the work of God, who, in creating all beings, did but externally realize the eternal laws of reason. Economic science is, then, necessarily and at once a theory of ideas, a natural theology, and a psychology. This general outline alone would have sufficed to explain why, having to treat of economic matters, I was obliged previously to suppose the existence of God, and by what title I, a simple economist, aspire to solve the problem of certainty.

But I hasten to say that I do not regard as a science the incoherent ensemble of theories to which the name political economy has been officially given for almost a hundred years, and which, in spite of the etymology of the name, is after ail but the code, or immemorial routine, of property. These theories offer us only the rudiments, or first section, of economic science; and that is why, like property, they are all contradictory of each other, and half the time inapplicable. The proof of this assertion, which is, in one sense, a denial of political economy as handed down to us by Adam Smith, Ricardo, Malthus, and J. B. Say, and as we have known it for half a century, will be especially developed in this treatise.

The inadequacy of political economy has at all times impressed thoughtful minds, who, too fond of their dreams for practical investigation, and confining themselves to the estimation of apparent results, have constituted from the beginning a party of opposition to the statu quo, and have devoted themselves to persevering, and systematic ridicule of civilization and its customs. Property, on the other hand, the basis of all social institutions, has never lacked zealous defenders, who, proud to be called practical, have exchanged blow for blow with the traducers of political economy, and have labored with a courageous and often skilful hand to strengthen the edifice which general prejudice and individual liberty have erected in concert. The controversy between conservatives and reformers, still pending, finds its counterpart, in the history of philosophy, in the quarrel between realists and nominalists; it is almost useless to add that, on both sides, right and wrong are equal, and that the rivalry, narrowness, and intolerance of opinions have been the sole cause of the misunderstanding.

Thus two powers are contending for the government of the world, and cursing each other with the fervor of two hostile religions: political economy, or tradition; and socialism, or utopia.

What is, then, in more explicit terms, political economy? What is socialism?

Political economy is a collection of the observations thus far made in regard to the phenomena of the production and distribution of wealth; that is, in regard to the most common, most spontaneous, and therefore most genuine, forms of labor and exchange.

The economists have classified these observations as far as they were able; they have described the phenomena, and ascertained their contingencies and relations; they have observed in them, in many cases, a quality of necessity which has given them the name of laws; and this ensemble of information, gathered from the simplest manifestations of society, constitutes political economy.

Political economy is, therefore, the natural history of the most apparent and most universally accredited customs, traditions, practices, and methods of humanity in all that concerns the production and distribution of wealth. By this title, political economy considers itself legitimate in fact and in right: in fact, because the phenomena which it studies are constant, spontaneous, and universal; in right, because these phenomena rest on the authority of the human race, the strongest authority possible. Consequently, political economy calls itself a science; that is, a rational and systematic knowledge of regular and necessary facts.

Socialism, which, like the god Vishnu, ever dying and ever returning to life, has experienced within a score of years its ten-thousandth incarnation in the persons of five or six revelators, — socialism affirms the irregularity of the present constitution of society, and, consequently, of all its previous forms. It asserts, and proves, that the order of civilization is artificial, contradictory, inadequate; that it engenders oppression, misery, and crime; it denounces, not to say calumniates, the whole past of social life, and pushes on with all its might to a reformation of morals and institutions.

Socialism concludes by declaring political economy a false and sophistical hypothesis, devised to enable the few to exploit the many; and applying the maxim A fructibus cognoscetis, it ends with a demonstration of the impotence and emptiness of political economy by the list of human calamities for which it makes it responsible.

But if political economy is false, jurisprudence, which in all countries is the science of law and custom, is false also; since, founded on the distinction of thine and mine, it supposes the legitimacy of the facts described and classified by political economy. The theories of public and international law, with all the varieties of representative government, are also false, since they rest on the principle of individual appropriation and the absolute sovereignty of wills.

All these consequences socialism accepts. To it, political economy, regarded by many as the physiology of wealth, is but the organization of robbery and poverty; just as jurisprudence, honored by legists with the name of written reason, is, in its eyes, but a compilation of the rubrics of legal and official spoliation, — in a word, of property. Considered in their relations, these two pretended sciences, political economy and law, form, in the opinion of socialism, the complete theory of iniquity and discord. Passing then from negation to affirmation, socialism opposes the principle of property with that of association, and makes vigorous efforts to reconstruct social economy from top to bottom; that is, to establish a new code, a new political system, with institutions and morals diametrically opposed to the ancient forms.

Thus the line of demarcation between socialism and political economy is fixed, and the hostility flagrant.

Political economy tends toward the glorification of selfishness; socialism favors the exaltation of communism.

The economists, saving a few violations of their principles, for which they deem it their duty to blame governments, are optimists with regard to accomplished facts; the socialists, with regard to facts to be accomplished.

The first affirm that that which ought to be is; the second, that that which ought to be is not. Consequently, while the first are defenders of religion, authority, and the other principles contemporary with, and conservative of, property, — although their criticism, based solely on reason, deals frequent blows at their own prejudices, — the second reject authority and faith, and appeal exclusively to science, — although a certain religiosity, utterly illiberal, and an unscientific disdain for facts, are always the most obvious characteristics of their doctrines.

For the rest, neither party ever ceases to accuse the other of incapacity and sterility.

The socialists ask their opponents to account for the inequality of conditions, for those commercial debaucheries in which monopoly and competition, in monstrous union, perpetually give birth to luxury and misery; they reproach economic theories, always modeled after the past, with leaving the future hopeless; in short, they point to the regime of property as a horrible hallucination, against which humanity has protested and struggled for four thousand years.

The economists, on their side, defy socialists to produce a system in which property, competition, and political organization can be dispensed with; they prove, with documents in hand, that all reformatory projects have ever been nothing but rhapsodies of fragments borrowed from the very system that socialism sneers at, — plagiarisms, in a word, of political economy, outside of which socialism is incapable of conceiving and formulating an idea.

Every day sees the proofs in this grave suit accumulating, and the question becoming confused.

While society has traveled and stumbled, suffered and thrived, in pursuing the economic routine, the socialists, since Pythagoras, Orpheus, and the unfathomable Hermes, have labored to establish their dogma in opposition to political economy. A few attempts at association in accordance with their views have even been made here and there: but as yet these exceptional undertakings, lost in the ocean of property, have been without result; and, as if destiny had resolved to exhaust the economic hypothesis before attacking the socialistic utopia, the reformatory party is obliged to content itself with pocketing the sarcasms of its adversaries while waiting for its own turn to come.

This, then, is the state of the cause: socialism incessantly denounces the crimes of civilization, verifies daily the powerlessness of political economy to satisfy the harmonic attractions of man, and presents petition after petition; political economy fills its brief with socialistic systems, all of which, one after another, pass away and die, despised by common sense. The persistence of evil nourishes the complaint of the one, while the constant succession of reformatory checks feeds the malicious irony of the other. When will judgment be given? The tribunal is deserted; meanwhile, political economy improves its opportunities, and, without furnishing bail, continues to lord it over the world; possideo quia possideo.

If we descend from the sphere of ideas to the realities of the world, the antagonism will appear still more grave and threatening.

When, in these recent years, socialism, instigated by prolonged convulsions, made its fantastic appearance in our midst, men whom all controversy had found until then indifferent and lukewarm went back in fright to monarchical and religious ideas; democracy, which was charged with being developed at last to its ultimate, was cursed and driven back. This accusation of the conservatives against the democrats was a libel. Democracy is by nature as hostile to the socialistic idea as incapable of filling the place of royalty, against which it is its destiny endlessly to conspire. This soon became evident, and we are witnesses of it daily in the professions of Christian and proprietary faith by democratic publicists, whose abandonment by the people began at that moment.

On the other hand, philosophy proves no less distinct from socialism, no less hostile to it, than politics and religion.

For just as in politics the principle of democracy is the sovereignty of numbers, and that of monarchy the sovereignty of the prince; just as likewise in affairs of conscience religion is nothing but submission to a mystical being, called God, and to the priests who represent him; just as finally in the economic world property — that is, exclusive control by the individual of the instruments of labor — is the point of departure of every theory, — so philosophy, in basing itself upon the a priori assumptions of reason, is inevitably led to attribute to the me alone the generation and autocracy of ideas, and to deny the metaphysical value of experience; that is, universally to substitute, for the objective law, absolutism, despotism.

Now, a doctrine which, springing up suddenly in the heart of society, without antecedents and without ancestors, rejected from every department of conscience and society the arbitrary principle, in order to substitute as sole truth the relation of facts; which broke with tradition, and consented to make use of the past only as a point from which to launch forth into the future, — such a doctrine could not fail to stir up against it the established AUTHORITIES; and we can see today how, in spite of their internal discords, the said AUTHORITIES, which are but one, combine to fight the monster that is ready to swallow them.

To the workingmen who complain of the insufficiency of wages and the uncertainty of labor, political economy opposes the liberty of commerce; to the citizens who are seeking for the conditions of liberty and order, the ideologists respond with representative systems; to the tender souls who, having lost their ancient faith, ask the reason and end of their existence, religion proposes the unfathomable secrets of Providence, and philosophy holds doubt in reserve. Subterfuges always; complete ideas, in which heart and mind find rest, never! Socialism cries that it is time to set sail for the mainland, and to enter port: but, say the antisocialists, there is no port; humanity sails onward in God’s care, under the command of priests, philosophers, orators, economists, and our circumnavigation is eternal.

Thus society finds itself, at its origin, divided into two great parties: the one traditional and essentially hierarchical, which, according to the object it is considering, calls itself by turns royalty or democracy, philosophy or religion, in short, property; the other socialism, which, coming to life at every crisis of civilization, proclaims itself preeminently anarchical and atheistic; that is, rebellious against all authority, human and divine.

Now, modern civilization has demonstrated that in a conflict of this nature the truth is found, not in the exclusion of one of the opposites, but wholly and solely in the reconciliation of the two; it is, I say, a fact of science that every antagonism, whether in Nature or in ideas, is resolvable in a more general fact or in a complex formula, which harmonizes the opposing factors by absorbing them, so to speak, in each other. Can we not, then, men of common sense, while awaiting the solution which the future will undoubtedly bring forth, prepare ourselves for this great transition by an analysis of the struggling powers, as well as their positive and negative qualities? Such a work, performed with accuracy and conscientiousness, even though it should not lead us directly to the solution, would have at least the inestimable advantage of revealing to us the conditions of the problem, and thereby putting us on our guard against every form of utopia.

What is there, then, in political economy that is necessary and true; whither does it tend; what are its powers; what are its wishes? It is this which I propose to determine in this work. What is the value of socialism? The same investigation will answer this question also.

For since, after all, socialism and political economy pursue the same end, — namely, liberty, order, and well-being among men, — it is evident that the conditions to be fulfilled — in other words, the difficulties to be overcome — to attain this end, are also the same for both, and that it remains only to examine the methods attempted or proposed by either party. But since, moreover, it has been given thus far to political economy alone to translate its ideas into acts, while socialism has scarcely done more than indulge in perpetual satire, it is no less clear that, in judging the works of economy according to their merit, we at the same time shall reduce to its just value the invective of the socialists: so that our criticism, though apparently special, will lead to absolute and definitive conclusions.

This it is necessary to make clearer by a few examples, before entering fully upon the examination of political economy.

[lullabyes22-blog]

Mal de Mer - Swoony Swashbucklers

Mel's girlhood reading choices are sus...

Mal de Mer on AO3

She's about to backtrack, when Silco says, "In time."

"In time?"

"When the moment's right." He tucks her curls, damp and dripping, over her shoulder. "When you're less inclined to envision my younger self as vermin scuttling from a pile of refuse."

"That's not—"

"No? How, then, would you picture me?" A wryness creeps into his voice. "Be honest."

"Well," Mel hedges, "I know you were a smuggler. You ran the Black Lanes, with Vander. The two of you were a bit of a legend belowground. I've seen photographs of you in archived newsprints. Mugshots, too." A tiny grin flickers. "You looked quite the chancer. All hooded eyes and sharp cheekbones. But also a bit... boyish. It was the hair." Idly, she tugs a damp, dark strand. "Quite long."

"Like a drowned rat."

"Like a merman. Or a pirate." She bites her lip. "I've always been fond of pirates."

"Have you, now?"

"Oh, you should've seen me as a girl. I had an entire shelf devoted to piratical romances. The swoonier, the better." A soft laugh, and a shake of her head. "My favorite was called 'The Devil and the Sea Witch'. It was a series of swashbuckling adventures. I'd smuggle each volume out from under the Grand Matron's nose. Read it under my bed, with a lantern, until my toes went numb."

"What was it about?"

"A roguish sea captain. A smuggler, like you. Lean as a knife, and as deadly. He had a wicked right hook, a price on his head, and a penchant for seducing noblewomen. But the twist was, he was no scoundrel. Not really. He was a castaway, and the victim of a great, unspeakable tragedy. The only thing he had left was his ship, and the seas."

"And the women?"

"An escape, from the solitude." Mel's grin turns a bit rueful. "Then, of course, he meets his match."

"Melusine, the sea queen?"

"Not a queen. Just a girl who'd lost her whole family to a terrible storm. She'd washed up on the shore, the sole survivor of the shipwreck. The magistrate, a lustful beast, falsely accused her of witchcraft. He sentenced her to hang unless she yielded to his advances. She fled the gallows, and stowed aboard the Devil's ship." The grin deepens. "Naturally, they hate each other. But the more they fight, the more the attraction flares. The Captain tries his hardest to resist. He is an inveterate rogue. Master of the high seas. He has no business with a soft little chit from the gentry. But, alas, he succumbs to her charms."

"Her perky arse?" Silco guesses.

"Her spirit. Her fire. She challenges him at every turn. Never gives him a moment's rest." Mel's sigh is a playful flutter. "They are so much alike, the pair of them. Two kindred spirits, bound by circumstance. And the sea."

"So, of course, he falls in love."

"He does."

"With her perky arse."

"With everything." Her lips, curving, find his shoulder. "The story ends with a grand battle. The crew of the Devil's ship, outgunned and outmanned, is besieged by an armada from the merchant navy. But our heroine saves the day, with a potion in a bottle. Proof, that there is a bit of a witch to her, after all. The Devil declares his undying love, and they sail off to a new horizon. The rest, well... I won't spoil the ending."

"I don't need it spoiled. It's all written on your face."

"Is it?"

"Happily Ever After."

"I wouldn't know." Her lightness fades. "When Mother found my books, she ordered them burnt. It was her way. No frivolity; only cold pragmatism. I watched as, one by one, the stories went up in smoke. I stood, and I said nothing.  I was twelve years old. But I'd no tears left." Mel's throat works. "The rest of my years were spent in service to her ideals. Treatises on war. Texts on governance.  Blood, and coin, and conquest on every page. I read, and I learned, and I grew up."

"Grew up. Or gave in?"

"I couldn't give in. If I did, she'd win. And if she won, it meant the life she'd forged for me was all there was. So I learned to keep the rest—the things that brought me joy—locked up tight." She twists to meet his eyes. "Until, one day, I met a real Devil. And he opened a door. Then, another. And another. Each one, leading somewhere strange. Somewhere... I'd been before. Or maybe only dreamed about."

 His good eye, on hers, is a steady blue horizon. "So the story, in the end, was rewritten."

"Only if I write it for myself."  She lifts a quivering hand up to thread through his wet hair. "Only if I get to choose."

[scotianostra]

Patrick Colquhoun was born born in Dumbarton, on March 14th 1745.

Colquhoun was sent to the new world and served an apprenticeship as a sixteen-year-old in Virginia in North America. Likely working in a tobacco store.during the American Revolution he was part of the Government militia, in what was a Glasgow regiment to contribute to the government’s war effort. This part of history is being explored at the moment in the hit show Outlander.

On his return to Glasgow he became one of the city’s famous/imfamous ‘Tobacco Lords’. He had multiple commercial interests and was also a co-partner in the Glasgow-West India firm, Colquhoun & Ritchie, that traded with Jamaica and Antigua. As such, his wealth was derived from transatlantic slavery and its commerce, perhaps this is why he is not as well known in his native Scotland, we have a habit of brushing over the shame in the abhorrent trade of human beings.

In 1782 he built Kelvingrove House - in what is now Kelvingrove Park - as his residence. Colquhoun was Lord Provost of Glasgow, 1782-1784 and founder and the first Chairman of Britain’s oldest Chamber of Commerce in Glasgow in 1783. He was an honorary graduate of the University and the Colquhoun Lectureship in Business History is named for him. He moved to London in 1789 where he became a magistrate and published pamphlets on policing and other social issues of the day.

It is due to his work in London and those writings on policing he is credited with being the founder of the first regular investigative police force in England, The Thames Valley Police the first regular professional police force in London. Organised to reduce the thefts that plagued the world’s largest port and financed by merchants, the force was directed by Patrick Colquhoun and consisted of a permanent staff of 80 men and an on-call staff of more than 1,000. Two features of the marine police were unique. First, it used visible, preventive patrols; second, officers were salaried rather than stipendiary, and they were prohibited from taking fees. The venture was a complete success, and reports of crimes dropped appreciably. (In 1800 the government passed a bill making the marine police a publicly financed organisation.) This was a decades before Robert Peel established the Metropolitan Police, and it has to also be noted around the turn of the 18th City of Glasgow Police was established.

Colquhoun’s treatises on police also inspired the foundation of police in Dublin (Ireland), Sydney (Australia), and New York (USA).

Colquhoun’ has also been criticised for his violent oppression “wholly in the service of an industrialist and property-holding class in the earliest incarnation of socio-economic warfare in the Atlantic economy.” He “organised political surveillance by spies and snitches of those opposing slavery. In addition to his Virginia cotton interests he owned shares in Jamaican sugar plantations.” So by many accounts a nasty piece of work.

Colquhoun has been called ‘the Father of Glasgow’ because of his role in promoting Glasgow’s trade and manufacturing during the late 1700s. In fact, he referred to himself in this way when drawing up his will in 1817. We have a name for such people in Scotland, and it really fits this guy- Baw Heid.

[docpiplup]

Third part of the bookscans of Al Andalus. Historical Figures, here's the previous part

Abd al-Aziz: a good governor with an unfortunate fate

When leaving for the East, Musa ben Nusayr left his son as his liutenant in Spania. Not only he had to conclude the conquest, but had to pacify those regions that, although they had already submitted to Islam, housed groups of resisters who could put in danger what has been achieved so far.

We have much less news about Abd al-Aziz than about his father, perhaps because he ruled the Peninsula for a short time, just two years before being murdered, but they all agree that he was a magnificent warrior and a skilled negotiator who preferred pact to armed struggle.

In the short period of time of his government it is almost certain that he carried out a victorious expedition in Portuguese lands, which earned him the conquest of Évora, Santarém and Coimbra, and following the instructions that his father left him, his generals continued with the conquest of Pamplona, and in the east, they occupied Tarragona, Barcelona, Girona and Narbonne. Abd al-Aziz took upon himself the responsibility of pacifying

some rebellious areas of eastern Andalusia and the Levant. He owes himself the conquest of Málaga and Elvira and the advance on lands of Murcia, at that time in the hands of a Visigoth nobleman, Teodomiro, vassal of the kingdom of Toledo, who ruled the region as a practically independent prince. And here we can see the negotiating spirit of Abd al-Aziz, who knew take good advantage of the pact he established with Teodomiro, Tudmir in Arabic, and the name by which it will henceforth be known the Murcian region.

The Christian count and the Muslim governor engaged conversations in which the second offered the first the maintenance of all his prerogatives, as count and as Christian, as well as total respect for his subjects, in exchange for the recognition of vassalage, the payment of an annual tribute and the delivery of seven strongholds, a delivery that would be carried out immediately.

Teodomiro, or Tudmir, must have weighed the pros and cons. The Christian kingdom of Toledo no longer existed, and it made no difference to be a vassal of the Goths as well as the Muslims. Without a doubt, too paid tributes to Rodrigo's monarchy and those that now Abd al-Aziz imposed were not too onerous... There was the matter of the seven strogholds, but it was better to give in on something that lose everything. The document signed between Teodomiro and the Muslim leader, one of the few treatises of this type that have come down to us, and it specifies that everyone, the count and his vassals, will preserve their religion and their churches, will maintain their rights of sovereignty and will not be bothered at any time, neither in their lives, nor in their estates,

as long as they comply with what is stipulated. And what was stipulated was the delivery of Orihuela, Baltana, Alacant, Mula, Villena, Lorca and Ello. The annual tribute consisted of one dinar in cash, four bushels of wheat and four of barley, four measures of new wine, four of vinegar, two of honey and two of oil. This tax was reduced by half for the slaves.

If we have detailed the characteristics of this treaty, it is because of its rarity. and because, according to Levy Provençal, it is the first document diplomat of Muslim Spain.

Abd al-Aziz married the widow of King Don Rodrigo, at least that is what several historians say. It seems that they met after the fall of Mérida, when the royal widow left the city with another group of captives. Some consider this wedding as a real love story, at least on the part of Abd al-Aziz, since it seems that he did not take another wife. The Arab chroniclers call her Ailo and the Christians Egilona. Some say that her husband allowed her to keep her religion, gesture that was very well received among the Mozarabs, and others say that converted to Islam and was renamed Umm'Asim, “the mother of Asim", as soon as the only son she had with Abd al-Aziz was born.

The couple lived almost always in Seville, where it is still preserved, in the gardens of the Alcázar, a white tower of typical African construction, known as "the Tower of Abd al-Aziz". However, if they were happy, their happiness must have lasted little, because at the same time Seville, an envoy of the Caliph Sulayman, Ziyad ben Udhara, assassinated him in the church of Santa Rufina, converted into a mosque, while Abd al-

Aziz performed the pious duties of prayer. The charge against him, according to the caliph, was abuse of power. He was beheaded and his head was sent to Damascus.

A confusing time passed in Muslim Spain that was left without a governor. The Spanish Arabs decided that the son of a sister of Musa ben Nusayr would occupy the position until the one appointed by the caliph arrived.

The oddyssey of Prince Abd al-Rahman the Immigrant

After the violent death of Abd al-Aziz, the governors of the Muslims succeeded one another in Spain at an astonishing speed. Some barely held office for six months and It seems that only one of them lasted for about five years. They were difficult times in Muslim Spain. Had have deepen the conquest, quell the possible rebellions that could arise among groups of defeated and, also, and not less important was to make peace between the different Muslim factions, without dismissing the possibility of carrying out raids over lands of Gaul.

In the East, in turn, there was a complicated situation, such as result of the dissent of various religious groups that put the unity of Islam is endangered. Jarichis and Shiites conspired, already openly, against the Umayyad dynasty that reigned in those moments, without the caliphs having the strength or intelligence enough to face that situation that, each time, became more dangerous for them.

The flag of rebellion against the Umayyads was raised everywhere in the Muslim empire, awaiting the arrival of the "imam hidden" that was going to restore to Islam all the purity of its faith and all the splendor of its early days. The black flags, symbol of a new dynasty, the Abasid, were already flying in the Furasan and in the large Iraqi city of Cuta. Abu-l-Abbas Abd Allah proclaimed himself caliph, as a descendant of a first cousin of Muhammad and his son-in-law Ali. According to him, he was the imam that everyone expected and fought Marwan II, the last Umayyad caliph who would die with weapons in hand on July 7, 750.

The new Abbasid caliph, even before the death of Marwan, had already began the extermination of all the Umayyad princes who were left. They were persecuted to death, without mercy, and their bodies, as the maximum punishment, were left unburied. And for what no one would escape from that carnage that would cost its executioner the nickname "the bloodshed", resorted to a cruel stratagem. He proclaimed a false amnesty in which they trusted the relatives of the last caliph, which allowed, in one fell swoop, end the lives of about eighty people belonging to the Umayyad royal family, at Abu Futrus, near Jaffa, Palestine.

Only two Umayyads, grandsons of Caliph Abd al-Malik ben Marwan, distrusting the amnesty proclaimed by their enemy, managed escape from that horrible massacre. It was about the brothers Yahya ben Muawiya and Abd al-Rahman.

Everything we have seen so far is a necessary background to understand why Abd al-Rahman was called to become the first independent emir of al-Andalus.

The life of Abd al-Rahman seems like a real adventure novel, in which there is no shortage of persecutions, harassment, trips to unknown lands, the material needs, the struggles, the uncertainty...The prince would manage to save himself from the harassment of his pursuers? He would see his integrity rewarded or, on the contrary, would he end up as another victim of the Abbasids? That odyssey that would the last of the Umayyads undertake have a happy ending? From all of this We will talk next.

At the time of the great Umayyad extermination, Abd al-Rah-man had about twenty years. He was born in the year 731 in a town near Damascus, son of a Berber captive named Rah, who belonged to the Nafza tribe, which would explain the tendency of the Umayyad prince to head towards North Africa.

He hid, along with his brother Yahya, but they would soon be discovered and Yahya was captured and killed. His only chance to survive was to flee, and so he did with one of his younger brothers, his two sisters and his son Sulayman, who was barely four years old. They took refuge in a lost village, next to the Euphrates River, thinking about cross to Asia when the slightest opportunity presented itself. But the long arm of the Abbasids also reached there and his young brother died at the hands of the soldiers sent to pursue them. It seemed that there was no escape for

the Umayyad prince, when he saved himself by swimming across the Euphrates River.

But Abd al-Rahman was assigned a glorious destiny and protection of Allah he placed at his side the freedman Bard, a servant and counselor, who will accompany him throughout his life, even in the most difficult and who will maintain unlimited loyalty towards his lord, so unfortunate at that time. Bard managed to collect some wealth belonging to Abd al-Rahman and join him in Palestine. They undertook a long and dangerous journey across the Isthmus of Suez, trying to go unnoticed and rushing long and exhausting days, they arrived without problems at Ifriqiya.

This region was ruled by a Fhirid Arab who aspired to be appointed governor of Spain. He was a close relative of the Walí of al-Andalus. Some supporters of the Umayyads were refugees in Ifriqiya and, although the governor said he was opposed to the Abbasids, he thought that the change of dynasty would benefit him to make his territory an independent principality. Under this premise it is logical that Abd al-Rahman's arrival did not please him at all. Some friends warned the Umayyad prince of this situation and it was better not to trust the governor, so he decided to move away and try to enlist the support of the Berber tribes, to which his mother belonged, if they agreed to receive him. Everything was uncertainty and danger for the young prince.

Four years passed on these trips, always in search of support, of tranquility, of survival, while

The fate of the future emnir was as indecisive as it was miserable. But the prediction of an astrologer, to whom the Muslims were so fans, had told him that he was destined for the throne and Abd al-Rahman clung, with all his strength, to that horoscope when everything seemed to be going wrong and all the doors were closing before him. Only the faithful Bard kept his spirits and sustained the fallen spirit of the Umayyad.

It seems that he lived in various places in North Africa, always between the distrust of the people who feared Abbasid revenge when they knew that he was an Umayyad prince, until he landed, in this wandering life, among the Nafza, his mother's tribe, who occupied the shores of the Mediterranean Maghreb.

It is possible that Abd al-Rahman did not think of going to Spain, but settle in African lands, but time passed and no achieved nothing in particular. That's when he thought about moving on to al-Andalus, knowing that there were a important number of supporters of the Umayyads. In Muslim Spain, the panorama was also mixed. In Jaén and Elvira they were installed Syrians who had arrived from Ceuta brought by the general Balch, addicted to the Umayyads and among whom the first polls on whether Prince Abd al-Rahman would be good received and accepted.

Of course, it was the freedman Bard who was in charge of these negotiations, crossing the strait in June 754. He carried a message from his lord, and managed to meet with the Syrian leaders. Everyone was willing to accept Abd al-Rahman, but decided to consult with a very important person

which was the most considered in al-Andalus. It was about the Qaysi chief, al-Sumayl, at that time governor of Zaragoza, who was defending the stroghold from the Berber siege and Kalbi Arabs. Once this coalition was defeated, al-Sumayl listened to the proposals of Bard and his companions and took his time to think about it.

Many months passed before receiving a reply, which was positive, but in the end, fearing the Abbasid reaction or fearing that an Umayyad restoration would take away freedom from the Arabs of al-Andalus, he withdrew his support for the project. What to do? Request Abd al-Rahman to desist from setting foot in Spain or request help from other groups such as the Yemenis who had been cruelly crushed in the battle of Secunda? They decided for this last option and, from this moment, with his help, the panorama was cleared for the Umayyad prince.

A boat was chartered and a financial contribution was made so that Abd al-Rahman had some money and could pay his ransom to the Berbers who held him.

Finally, after countless waits, after long trips, after untold deprivations, August 14, 755, Abd al-Rahman set foot on Hispanic soil in the port of Almuñécar. Now a new stage began, not exempt from problems and battles to fight.

The governor of al-Andalus was, at that time, Yusuf al-Fihrí, busy suppressing a rebellion by the Basques. He decided go to Córdoba leaving his son in charge of Zaragoza and the defense of Pamplona. However, he soon learned of defeat of his hosts and the arrival of the Uma-

[hieromonkcharbel]

Can the Ladder, a work written by a hermit monk who lived 1,400 years ago, say something to us today? Can the existential journey of a man who lived his entire life on Mount Sinai in such a distant time be relevant to us?

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

After 20 Catecheses dedicated to the Apostle Paul, today I would like to return to presenting the great writers of the Church of the East and of the West in the Middle Ages. And I am proposing the figure of John known as Climacus, a Latin transliteration of the Greek term klimakos, which means of the ladder (klimax). This is the title of his most important work in which he describes the ladder of human life ascending towards God. He was born in about 575 a.d. He lived, therefore, during the years in which Byzantium, the capital of the Roman Empire of the East, experienced the greatest crisis in its history. The geographical situation of the Empire suddenly changed and the torrent of barbarian invasions swept away all its structures. Only the structure of the Church withstood them, continuing in these difficult times to carry out her missionary, human, social and cultural action, especially through the network of monasteries in which great religious figures such as, precisely, John Climacus were active.

John lived and told of his spiritual experiences in the Mountains of Sinai, where Moses encountered God and Elijah heard his voice. Information on him has been preserved in a brief Life (PG 88, 596-608), written by a monk, Daniel of Raithu. At the age of 16, John, who had become a monk on Mount Sinai, made himself a disciple of Abba Martyr, an "elder", that is, a "wise man". At about 20 years of age, he chose to live as a hermit in a grotto at the foot of the mountain in the locality of Tola, eight kilometres from the present-day St Catherine's Monastery. Solitude, however, did not prevent him from meeting people eager for spiritual direction, or from paying visits to several monasteries near Alexandria. In fact, far from being an escape from the world and human reality, his eremitical retreat led to ardent love for others (Life, 5) and for God (ibid., 7). After 40 years of life as a hermit, lived in love for God and for neighbour years in which he wept, prayed and fought with demons he was appointed hegumen of the large monastery on Mount Sinai and thus returned to cenobitic life in a monastery. However, several years before his death, nostalgic for the eremitical life, he handed over the government of the community to his brother, a monk in the same monastery.

John died after the year 650. He lived his life between two mountains, Sinai and Tabor and one can truly say that he radiated the light which Moses saw on Sinai and which was contemplated by the three Apostles on Mount Tabor!

He became famous, as I have already said, through his work, entitled The Climax, in the West known as the Ladder of Divine Ascent (PG 88, 632-1164). Composed at the insistent request of the hegumen of the neighbouring Monastery of Raithu in Sinai, the Ladder is a complete treatise of spiritual life in which John describes the monk's journey from renunciation of the world to the perfection of love. This journey according to his book covers 30 steps, each one of which is linked to the next. The journey may be summarized in three consecutive stages: the first is expressed in renunciation of the world in order to return to a state of evangelical childhood. Thus, the essential is not the renunciation but rather the connection with what Jesus said, that is, the return to true childhood in the spiritual sense, becoming like children. John comments: "A good foundation of three layers and three pillars is: innocence, fasting and temperance. Let all babes in Christ (cf. 1 Cor 3: 1) begin with these virtues, taking as their model the natural babes" (1, 20; 636). Voluntary detachment from beloved people and places permits the soul to enter into deeper communion with God. This renunciation leads to obedience which is the way to humility through humiliations which will never be absent on the part of the brethren. John comments: "Blessed is he who has mortified his will to the very end and has entrusted the care of himself to his teacher in the Lord: indeed he will be placed on the right hand of the Crucified One!" (4, 37; 704).

The second stage of the journey consists in spiritual combat against the passions. Every step of the ladder is linked to a principal passion that is defined and diagnosed, with an indication of the treatment and a proposal of the corresponding virtue. All together, these steps of the ladder undoubtedly constitute the most important treatise of spiritual strategy that we possess. The struggle against the passions, however, is steeped in the positive it does not remain as something negative thanks to the image of the "fire" of the Holy Spirit: that "all those who enter upon the good fight (cf. 1 Tm 6: 12), which is hard and narrow,... may realize that they must leap into the fire, if they really expect the celestial fire to dwell in them" (1,18; 636). The fire of the Holy Spirit is the fire of love and truth. The power of the Holy Spirit alone guarantees victory. However, according to John Climacus it is important to be aware that the passions are not evil in themselves; they become so through human freedom's wrong use of them. If they are purified, the passions reveal to man the path towards God with energy unified by ascesis and grace and, "if they have received from the Creator an order and a beginning..., the limit of virtue is boundless" (26/2, 37; 1068).

The last stage of the journey is Christian perfection that is developed in the last seven steps of the Ladder. These are the highest stages of spiritual life, which can be experienced by the "Hesychasts": the solitaries, those who have attained quiet and inner peace; but these stages are also accessible to the more fervent cenobites. Of the first three simplicity, humility and discernment John, in line with the Desert Fathers, considered the ability to discern, the most important. Every type of behaviour must be subject to discernment; everything, in fact, depends on one's deepest motivations, which need to be closely examined. Here one enters into the soul of the person and it is a question of reawakening in the hermit, in the Christian, spiritual sensitivity and a "feeling heart", which are gifts from God: "After God, we ought to follow our conscience as a rule and guide in everything," (26/1,5; 1013). In this way one reaches tranquillity of soul, hesychia, by means of which the soul may gaze upon the abyss of the divine mysteries.

The state of quiet, of inner peace, prepares the Hesychast for prayer which in John is twofold: "corporeal prayer" and "prayer of the heart". The former is proper to those who need the help of bodily movement: stretching out the hands, uttering groans, beating the breast, etc. (15, 26; 900). The latter is spontaneous, because it is an effect of the reawakening of spiritual sensitivity, a gift of God to those who devote themselves to corporeal prayer. In John this takes the name "Jesus prayer" (Iesou euche), and is constituted in the invocation of solely Jesus' name, an invocation that is continuous like breathing: "May your remembrance of Jesus become one with your breathing, and you will then know the usefulness of hesychia", inner peace (27/2, 26; 1112). At the end the prayer becomes very simple: the word "Jesus" simply becomes one with the breath.

The last step of the ladder (30), suffused with "the sober inebriation of the spirit", is dedicated to the supreme "trinity of virtues": faith, hope and above all charity. John also speaks of charity as eros (human love), a symbol of the matrimonial union of the soul with God, and once again chooses the image of fire to express the fervour, light and purification of love for God. The power of human love can be reoriented to God, just as a cultivated olive may be grafted on to a wild olive tree (cf. Rm 11: 24) (cf. 15, 66; 893). John is convinced that an intense experience of this eros will help the soul to advance far more than the harsh struggle against the passions, because of its great power. Thus, in our journey, the positive aspect prevails. Yet charity is also seen in close relation to hope: "Hope is the power that drives love. Thanks to hope, we can look forward to the reward of charity.... Hope is the doorway of love.... The absence of hope destroys charity: our efforts are bound to it, our labours are sustained by it, and through it we are enveloped by the mercy of God" (30, 16; 1157). The conclusion of the Ladder contains the synthesis of the work in words that the author has God himself utter: "May this ladder teach you the spiritual disposition of the virtues. I am at the summit of the ladder, and as my great initiate (St Paul) said: "So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love' (1 Cor 13: 13)!" (30, 18; 1160).

At this point, a last question must be asked: can the Ladder, a work written by a hermit monk who lived 1,400 years ago, say something to us today? Can the existential journey of a man who lived his entire life on Mount Sinai in such a distant time be relevant to us? At first glance it would seem that the answer must be "no", because John Climacus is too remote from us. But if we look a little closer, we see that the monastic life is only a great symbol of baptismal life, of Christian life. It shows, so to speak, in capital letters what we write day after day in small letters. It is a prophetic symbol that reveals what the life of the baptized person is, in communion with Christ, with his death and Resurrection. The fact that the top of the "ladder", the final steps, are at the same time the fundamental, initial and most simple virtues is particularly important to me: faith, hope and charity. These are not virtues accessible only to moral heroes; rather they are gifts of God to all the baptized: in them our life develops too. The beginning is also the end, the starting point is also the point of arrival: the whole journey towards an ever more radical realization of faith, hope and charity. The whole ascent is present in these virtues. Faith is fundamental, because this virtue implies that I renounce my arrogance, my thought, and the claim to judge by myself without entrusting myself to others. This journey towards humility, towards spiritual childhood is essential. It is necessary to overcome the attitude of arrogance that makes one say: I know better, in this my time of the 21st century, than what people could have known then. Instead, it is necessary to entrust oneself to Sacred Scripture alone, to the word of the Lord, to look out on the horizon of faith with humility, in order to enter into the enormous immensity of the universal world, of the world of God. In this way our soul grows, the sensitivity of the heart grows toward God. Rightly, John Climacus says that hope alone renders us capable of living charity; hope in which we transcend the things of every day, we do not expect success in our earthly days but we look forward to the revelation of God himself at last. It is only in this extension of our soul, in this self-transcendence, that our life becomes great and that we are able to bear the effort and disappointments of every day, that we can be kind to others without expecting any reward. Only if there is God, this great hope to which I aspire, can I take the small steps of my life and thus learn charity. The mystery of prayer, of the personal knowledge of Jesus, is concealed in charity: simple prayer that strives only to move the divine Teacher's heart. So it is that one's own heart opens, one learns from him his own kindness, his love. Let us therefore use this "ascent" of faith, hope and charity. In this way we will arrive at true life.

Vatican, Feb. 11, 2009

[timetraveltasting]

TEMPLAR BOAR WITH CAMELINE SAUCE (14th c.)

This past Thursday, the Corpus Christi public holiday in my part of Germany, known here as Fronleichnam, gave me a little extra time to make another Tasting History dish: Templar Boar with Cameline Sauce. The diet, eating habits, and table manners of the Templars were governed by strict rules, including only eating meat three times a week (two meat meals on Sundays). This dish was one of those they would have eaten for one of their meat meals during the 14th century. The spices present in the sauce would have been accessible to them during the crusades, but Cameline Sauce did become a popular dish in much of medieval Europe eventually. This dish is based on two 14th century primary sources: Le Viandier de Taillevent by Guillaume Tirel and Le Ménagier de Paris, a treatise written by an older man (as yet unnamed) to teach his 15-year-old bride how to run his household and please him, in every way (...yikes). The sauce, Cameline, is named as such due to the rich brown colour, which looks like the wool of a camel, also known as cameline. I chose to make this recipe next because I haven't made boar before, and the rich, silky, brown colour of the sauce made it look really tasty. See Max’s video on how to make it here or see the ingredients and process at the end of this post, sourced from his website.

My experience making it:

I made a couple changes to the modern recipe below. I used boar goulash pieces instead of tenderloin, because it was the only form of boar I could find at my grocery store. The white wine I used (and drank with dinner) was a dry Riesling from the Mosel Valley in Germany. The red wine was a Bordeaux Merlot. I used saffron powder instead of threads, and I did opt to add the optional tablespoon of red wine vinegar. the white bread I used was a classic French baguette.

I also made a couple changes to the method. Because I used French baguette, which has quite small slices, I hollowed out about half the baguette (since baguettes are mostly crust). I also simmered the sauce for much longer than Max says to, because it wasn't quite the thickness I was looking for. Otherwise, I followed Max's recipe exactly, probably to the detriment of my boar. Because I had used goulash pieces instead of tenderloin, I probably should have adjusted how I cooked the boar to accommodate these smaller pieces. Unfortunately, I didn't, and as a result, I was left with very chewy, dry boar. Basically, the sauce was the saving grace of the boar! I served the boar and Cameline sauce with some green peas, garlic bread, and a glass of the dry Riesling wine.

My experience tasting it:

I already knew I had ruined the texture of the boar, but I hoped that the sauce would help. I warned my husband. Luckily, the Cameline sauce did a lot of heavy-lifting to bring some moisture back to the board. The sauce turned out wonderfully - a beautiful, silky brown. Flavour-wise, it reminded me of a jus, but more heavily-spiced. I was worried the Cameline sauce would end up tasting sweet due to the brown sugar and several spices that are more often used in baking, but in fact, the spices were well balanced by the taste of the wine and vinegar. The sauce also went really nicely with the peas, and I imagine would also have tasted good with potatoes or other red meats. My husband and I dipped the garlic bread in it as well, which was really tasty. It went alright with the dry boar, but I would like to use the sauce with another, more tenderly-cooked meat. We had leftover Cameline sauce, so we will probably try that again tonight. If you end up making it, if you liked it, or if you changed anything from the original recipe, do let me know!

Links to harder-to-find ingredients:

Saffron

Templar Boar with Cameline Sauce original recipes (14th c.)

Sourced from Le Viandier de Taillevent by Guillaume Tirel and Le Ménagier de Paris respectively.

“Sanglier: Fresh Wild Boar Venison. Cooked in wine and water and boiled again; eaten with Cameline Sauce.”

— Le Viandier de Taillevent, 14th century

“Cameline. Note that in Tournai, to make cameline they grind ginger, cinnamon, saffron, and half a nutmeg, moistened with wine then taken out of the mortar. Then grind in a mortar untoasted white breadcrumbs that have been soaked in cold water, moisten with wine and strain. Then boil everything and finish with brown sugar, and that makes winter cameline. In the summer, they do the same but it is not boiled at all. ”

— Le Ménagier de Paris, 14th century

Modern Recipe

Based on Le Viandier de Taillevent by Guillaume Tirel, Le Ménagier de Paris, and Max Miller’s version in his Tasting History video.

Ingredients:

Boar tenderloin

Olive oil for searing

Equal parts wine and water for boiling

1 thick slice of white artisanal bread without crust

1 ¼ cups white wine

¼ cup red wine

1 tsp ginger

2 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp nutmeg

Pinch of saffron threads

2 tbsp brown sugar

Pinch of salt

1 tbsp red wine vinegar (optional)

Method:

De-crust the bread and break it into small pieces. Soak the bread in water for a few hours, then pour in the red wine for the sauce.

Heat olive oil in a pot then sear the boar on all sides.

Remove it from the pot and boil equal parts wine and water, then add the boar back in and boil, covered, for 10-15 minutes or until fully cooked. Then let it rest.

To make the sauce, mix the spices and white wine. Strain the bread/wine mixture from earlier into a saucepan, then press the bread through the strainer.

Add the spiced wine mixture and bring to a simmer. Let simmer for 15 minutes, or until half reduced, then add the sugar and salt, and if you want, a tablespoon of red wine vinegar. Simmer until thickened.

Slice the boar and pour the sauce over it. Optionally, serve with roasted chestnuts and wine.

[craftercat]

Excerpt From WS111, Treatise on Criminal Punishment

(Zhaocheng, Daowu, Mingyuan and Taiwu's attitude towards laws and law enforcement. Was paraphrased by Sima Guang in ZZTJ volume 122. Zhaocheng had a clear legal code, Daowu started out lenient but ended in lawlessness, Mingyuan relieved and cared for the people but had strict standards with the officials, and while Taiwu successfully revised the laws, his decree to have the people report illegal activities of the officials backfired spectacularly)

In Zhaocheng [1]'s second year of Jianguo [Establishing the Nation]: For those who died, allow their family to offer gold and horses to redeem; for those who committed the crime of great rebellion, male and female relatives regardless of young and old are all beheaded; male and female who do not use propriety in sexual relations [2] both die; for those people who kill one another, allow forty-nine horses and ox to be sent to help the deceased's family as burial items to pacify them; those who are not interrogated but implicated in arrest are tried; those who rob public items, [for each] one prepares five, private [items] prepares ten. The law was clear and the people were peaceful.

昭成建國二年：當死者，聽其家獻金馬以贖；犯大逆者，親族男女無少長皆斬；男女不以禮交皆死；民相殺者，聽與死家馬牛四十九頭，及送葬器物以平之；無繫訊連逮之坐；盜官物，一備五，私則備十。法令明白，百姓晏然。

Taizu [3] when young met difficulties [4], his preparation was dangerous and difficult, possessed understanding of the people's feelings and falsehoods. In his rule, his undertakings were benevolent and generous, and harmonised the common people. [When he] calmed Zhongshan [5], was troubled by the stern and confidential laws of previous generations, so ordered [one of] the Three Excellencies, Wang De, to remove the cruelties in their laws to the citizens, agreed in judging decrees to greatly honour simplicity.

太祖幼遭艱難，備嘗險阻，具知民之情偽。及在位，躬行仁厚，協和民庶。既定中原，患前代刑網峻密，乃命三公郎王德除其法之酷切於民者，約定科令，大崇簡易。

At this time, the people Under Heaven had long suffered the chaos of war, and feared the laws in peace. The emperor knew of the people's suffering in this way, thus pacified this with subtlety and silence, punishments would be lenient in sentencing, and the people were loaded with happiness.

是時，天下民久苦兵亂，畏法樂安。帝知其若此，乃鎮之以玄默，罰必從輕，兆庶欣戴焉。

Yet to the ministers did not let go in enforcing the laws. In the final years disaster was frequently seen, Taizu was not content [6], the law was dismissed and damaged, and punishments were very much excessively cruel because of this.

然於大臣持法不捨。季年災異屢見，太祖不豫，綱紀褫頓，刑罰頗為濫酷。

Taizong [7] ascended the throne, repaired abandoned offices, relieved the people's suffering, and ordered the Duke of Nanping, Zhangsun [8] Song and the Marquis of Beixin, An Tong, to correct and manage the disputes of the people, and common governance was again expressed. The emperor was proficient in the various affairs, and those who served as officials gradually because they were well versed in refined writings avoided errors [9].

太宗即位，修廢官，恤民隱，命南平公長孫嵩、北新侯安同對理民訟，庶政復有敍焉。帝既練精庶事，為吏者浸以深文避罪。

Shizu [10] ascended the throne, because he attached importance to laws in Shenjia [Divine Stag], decreed the Minister of Education, Cui Hao, to establish the laws. Removed five and four year sentences, added one year sentences. Divided the death penalty into two categories, death by beheading and hanging. Those who engaged in big rebellion with no morality would be chopped in half at the waist, their fellows executed and confiscated, those fourteen [11] and under castrated, women confiscated to the county officials [as servants]. Those who killed their relatives would be torn between chariots.

世祖即位，以刑禁重，神䴥中，詔司徒崔浩定律令。除五歲四歲刑，增一年刑。分大辟為二科死，斬死，入絞。大逆不道腰斬，誅其同籍，年十四已下腐刑，女子沒縣官。害其親者轘之.

For those who poisoned, their males and females were all executed, and their house burned. For those who engaged in witchcraft, would be submerged in deep water carrying a black ram and holding a dog in arms. For those serving punishment who would redeem [with money], the deficient would then whip them two hundred times. The weathy in the capital would manufacture charcoal in the mountains, and the poor would serve them in dirty rooms, women drafted to pound grain; they safeguarded rapidly and were not caught by others, watching over parks.

為蠱毒者，男女皆斬，而焚其家。巫蠱者，負羖羊抱犬沉諸淵。當刑者贖，貧則加鞭二百。畿內民富者燒炭於山，貧者役於圊溷，女子入舂槀；其固疾不逮于人，守苑囿。

Princes and officials of the nine ranks were able to change their official rank as punishment [by reducing it]. Women who were to be punished yet were pregnant would one hundred days after birth have be executed. For those fourteen and under, would degrade their punishment by half, for those eighty to ninety, unless they killed people would not be tried. Beating in interrogations could not exceed forty-nine strokes. For those who discussed punishment, the leader of the ministry would attest, the public vehicle would interrogate and inform, and the three would all decide.

王官階九品，得以官爵除刑。婦人當刑而孕，產後百日乃決。年十四已下，降刑之半，八十及九歲，非殺人不坐。拷訊不踰四十九。論刑者，部主具狀，公車鞫辭，而三都決之

For the dead, the category of the case would be presented and heard. If according to the death could not be reincarnated, and in threatening the supervising officials could not pacify, the prison would establish and in each case submit, the emperor would in person hear, if it amounted to words of complaint would be refused. For the executions in various provinces, would all first be decided and informed and then carried out. The left of watchtowers would suspend admonishment drums, if the people had an extreme injustice would beat the drum, and the public vehicle would present a memorial.

當死者，部案奏聞。以死不可復生，懼監官不能平，獄成皆呈，帝親臨問，無異辭怨言乃絕之。諸州國之大辟，皆先讞報乃施行。闕左懸登聞鼓，人有窮冤則撾鼓，公車上奏其表

After this the people and officials sought wealth, the emperor thought of putting this in order. In the third year of Taiyan [Great Extending], decreed the officials and people Under Heaven to obtain and report the illegal actions of ruling governors. Thereupon the common people would be vicious and contrary, monopolised and looked for the losses of ruling ministers, coerced those in rule, and seized the luxurious within the villages. Thus the chief officials all lowered their expectations in treating them, carelessly exempted so as to have no disgrace, and were greedy for violence yet still composed.

是後民官瀆貨，帝思有以肅之。太延三年，詔天下吏民，得舉告牧守之不法。於是凡庶之凶悖者，專求牧宰之失，迫脅在位，取豪於閭閻。而長吏咸降心以待之，苟免而不耻，貪暴猶自若也。

1 Tuoba Shiyijian, the final Prince of Dai before Dai's conquest by Former Qin, later honoured as Emperor Zhaocheng. The Weishu describes him as being a benevolent ruler, but he is mostly known for his relation to Tuoba Gui.

2. Could this refers to a woman having an affair outside of marriage, perhaps? I'm not sure what exactly this refers to.

3. Tuoba Gui, Emperor Daowu of Northern Wei. First emperor of the Northern Wei dynasty. Restored the fallen state of Dai, had great military prowess, a great administrator early in his reign, but became increasingly cruel and paranoid in his later years.

4. This refers to Tuoba Gui's early years. Dai fell when he was six years old, and he lived under the rule of Former Qin's Liu Kuren. In the chaos after Fei River, Liu Kuren was assassinated, and eventually his relative Liu Xian wanted to assassinate Tuoba Gui.

5. Refers to Tuoba Gui's campaigns against the Murongs of Later Yan, in which he seized much of Later Yan territory.

6. Refers to his growing cruelty and paranoia later in his reign, which his biography attributes to his taking of Cold Food Powder, a popular drugs amongst the elite of the era. More details are in Tuoba Gui's biography of the Weishu.

7. Tuoba Si, Emperor Mingyuan of Northern Wei. Though militarily weaker than his father or son, used a more relaxed and lenient style of governance to stabilise Northern Wei's position. However, he could be strict in his enforcement of laws with officials.

8. Should be Baba, as the Baba clan changed their clan name to Zhangsun under the reforms of Emperor Xiaowen.

9. The Zizhi Tongjian paraphrases this part as "季年疾病，刑法濫酷；太宗承之，吏文亦深" "[Taizu] in his later years was ill, and punishments were excessively cruel; Taizong succeeded him, and the officials in refined writings were also well-versed." In this case, 承之 should have a similar meaning to 承业.

10. Tuoba Dao, Emperor Taiwu of Northern Wei. Known for his reunification of the north, and also had great administrative abilities in addition to his military prowess. Unfortunately, his late reign was marred by cruelty and political intrigue, leading to his assassination.

11. By East Asian age reckoning, by Western age reckoning, it would be aged 13 and under.