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basicsofislam · 4 years ago

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ISLAM 101: Muslim Culture and Character: IDEAL GENERATIONS

On the eve of the beautiful days of the future, days whose dawns are breathing festivities, it is clear that we face crises that seem insurmountable. Like social troubles, national problems, and natural disasters, the crises that besiege a society cannot be overcome or resolved by mundane measures. Solutions for such crises depend on insight, knowledge, and wisdom becoming widespread. It is of no use—indeed, it is a mere waste of time—to try to solve such crises with aimless, limited, unpromising policies that are like mundane political maneuvers. From the past to the present, people of spirit, essence, and insight have resolved the commonest and most widespread depressions and crises with their immense horizons and zeal with unimaginable ease by using and activating the present day sources of power for the future. Some laypeople suppose that their own ingenious measures are superhuman and have admired and marveled at them as such. However, all they are doing, like all other successful people, is to use fully and efficiently the capacity, talents, and opportunities granted them by Almighty God.

People of discernment are always, in all their acts and manners, busy and preoccupied with plans and projects for today and tomorrow; they use all they have and all possibilities and opportunities as material to build the bridge to cross over to the future; and they always feel the pain and distress of carrying today onto tomorrow; to resolve the problems depends, to a certain extent, on overcoming or passing over the present time, and in fact being beyond time. That is, being able to see, foresee, and evaluate today and tomorrow in the same way. You can call such scope of thought, which entails embracing tomorrow from today and comprehending the future’s spirit and essence and content, an “ideal,” if you so wish. One who does not have such a horizon can neither overcome a multitude of problems nor promise anything for tomorrow. Even though some simple people have assumed great proportions like these, the pomp, circumstance, and magnificence of the Pharaohs, Nimrods, Caesars, and Napoleons, their noisy and hectic lives, which bedazzled so many, never became, and can never become, promising for the future in any way. For those people were the poor, the wretched, who subjugated truth to the command of might, who always sought social ties and congruity around self-interest and profit, and who lived their lives as slaves, never accepting freedom from spite, selfishness, and sensuality.

In contrast, first the Four Rightly-Guided Caliphs and later the Ottomans presented such great works, whose consequences exceed this world and reach to the next, that these works are in essence able to compete with the centuries; of course, only for those who are not beguiled by temporary eclipses. Although they lived their lives and duties fully and passed away, they will always be remembered, talked of, and find a place in our hearts as the good and the admirable. In every corner of our country, the spirit and essence of such people as Alparslan, Meliksah, Osman Gazi, Fatih, and many others, waft like the scent of incense, and hopes and glad tidings flow into our spirits from their vision.

Caesar trampled down the ideal of Rome with his whims and desires; Napoleon imprisoned and killed the ideal of Great France in the net of his greed and ambitions; and Hitler consumed the aim of Great Germany with his rash madness. On the other hand, the ideal, which is open to continuity, of our people, whose heroism expresses integrity and continuousness, has always been held high and above all meanness or vulgarity, whether in victory or defeat; it is held dear, beloved, sacred, and highly esteemed, like a banner for whose sake lives are given. Under such a banner, Fatih walked through Constantinople, Süleyman the Magnificent advanced in the West, and our people during the First World War and the National War, for another time, maintained their loyalty and gave their lives for the understanding that the banner must wave so forever.

An ideal in the hands of an ideal man reaches the most elevated values and turns into the charm of victory and accomplishment. If the people who represent such an ideal are not the correct people for the task, then that banner or standard turns into a pennant under which common low whims and ambitions are expressed. Although such a pennant is able to bring together the children in the street, driving them to strike the targets, as if in a game, it is not capable of realizing the emotions and aspirations that reside in the depths of the souls of our people.

A person of ideals is, first of all, a hero of love, who loves God, the Almighty Creator devotedly and feels a deep interest in the whole of creation under the wings of that love, who embraces everything and everybody with compassion, filled with an attachment to the country and people; they care for children as the buds of the future, they advise the young to become people of ideals, giving them high aims and targets, who honors the old with wholehearted regard and esteem, who develops bridges over the abysses to connect and unite the different sections of society, and who exerts all their efforts to polish thoroughly whatever may already exist of harmony between people.

A true person of ideals is also a person of wisdom. While observing everything from the comprehensive realm of reason, they also assess everything with the measures of their appreciative heart, testing them through the criteria of self-criticism and self-supervision, kneading and forming them in the crucible of reason, and always trying to possess and take further the radiance of the mind and the light of the heart in equal harness.

A person of ideals is a true example of responsibility to the society in which they live. To reach their targets, the first of which is, of course, the pleasure of their Creator, they sacrifice everything that God has bestowed on them, without giving the matter a second thought; they have no fear or concern for anything worldly, their heart is captivated by nothing other than God; they have neither ambition for individual happiness nor worry about unhappiness; they are a savior, a hero of the spirit, they do not mind being in hellfire, so long as their ideals and their country are everlastingly firm, stable, and permanent.

A person of ideals and high standing feels respect for the values they are attached to with profound self-supervision, performing their duties in the exhilaration of worship, and living as a hero of love and enthusiasm. Agreeing with and abiding by the truth with minutely meticulous sensitivity they always exercise their preference for sublime ideals. They are always in a struggle in the depths of their heart, a struggle to be the master of their self at all times; they have been sentenced to being a slave to the truth, they are disinterested and indifferent to positions and titles, and they see fame, covetousness, and fondness of comfort and ease as a fatal poison. That is why such people always win where they have an opportunity to win and turn unfavorable circumstances to their advantage.

Walking on this path along with the glorious spirits, such a person is so sincerely devoted to the Will of God that the storms of ambitions which hit them intensify and consolidate their sense of right, justice, and right-mindedness; floods of hatred, grudge, and malice enthuse the springs of love and compassion in their soul; they ignore and tread upon the gifts and blessings that ordinary people are caught up with and they oppose retaliation. If we are to think of such heroes of ideals at their true horizon, a place which perplexes the mind, then we are able to picture a person with an almost prophet-like resoluteness; superhuman pictures flow into our feelings from the doors which have been opened by these associations, and our house of imagination overflows with historical examples of heroism. Thus, are we enthralled by the loyalty and sincerity of Uqba ibn Nafi in the African deserts, enraptured by the bravery and intrepidity of Tariq ibn Ziyad after crossing Gibraltar, lost in admiration of Fatih (Mehmed II) and his resolution, entranced by Gazi Osman Pasha in Plevne, and we salute with reverence the lions of Gallipoli on whose heads bombs and shells were showered and who faced onslaught with a smile on their face.

We do not need anything else but exemplary people of high character and ideals. These exalted souls of the highest ideals will realize the re-establishment of our nation in the coming years. These heroic people, the yeast of whose existence is faith, love, wisdom, and insight, have not yielded to or been shaken by the numerous attacks that came from within and without over almost ten centuries. Perhaps they have shrunk a bit and become a little smaller. However, by acquiring some strength and firmness, they have come to a level where they can settle their accounts with the future, and have observed the age and bided their time to take over the duty with an extraordinary power of spirit.

It is a fact that over the last few ages, love, wisdom, insight, and the consciousness of responsibility have shrunk and simple daily matters have replaced the great ideals. Of course, it is not possible to say that we have done nothing in the name of reform within that period. However, the things put forward remain nothing more than low mimicry and sound effects. Such blind imitation, as a disguise for the introduction of vice and immorality into the thought of the nation, and as a means that leads to the destruction of its spirit, has brought about more harm than good. When the nation was bleeding from the injuries inflicted, one after another, on community’s stamina, the real problem was not diagnosed, the way to cure and treat it was not known or defined, and incorrect treatment and meddling caused the masses to be paralyzed. The effects of the crises of the last few ages are still making themselves felt today in flares, eruptions, and centrifugal outbursts of rage.

Therefore, just like before, if we do not deal with the true causes of the problems, if we do not approach and treat individual, familial, and social problems with the ability, sensitivity, and skill of surgeons, if we are not saved from the swamp of vice, immorality, and filthy affairs and dealings from which we have been struggling to extricate ourselves for the last few ages, we will run into errors, one after the other, while looking for remedies; our crises will get much worse and deepen, and we will never be relieved from the vicious circle of crises and depressions.

It doesn’t matter if those who hold the reins continue in their age-old obstinacy. We have deep absolute trust in the ideal generations whose thoughts, feelings, and actions turn to the future, who are attached and devoted to their country, people, and ideals, who are focused to serve and contribute to people, indeed to all of humanity, who are taut and ready to be released, like the string of a bow, to serve all with the understanding and consciousness of responsibility. We trust that they will tackle and overcome all negativity and make the newest developments come true. One day, their strong desires and wishes, their love and longing to serve people will penetrate into all sections of society and will turn into seeds that flourish wherever they fall. This approach, which will eradicate the so-called realities of materialism and corporeality, will certainly embroider once more the canvas of its spirit with its own worldview and plan of action.

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stillellensibley · 6 years ago

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Becoming Machine: Surrealist Automatism and Some Contemporary Instances

Involuntary Drawing

DAVID LOMAS

Examining the idea of being ‘machine-like’ and its impact on the practice of automatic writing, this article charts a history of automatism from the late nineteenth century to the present day, exploring the intersections between physiology, psychology, poetry and art.

Philippe Parreno’s The Writer 2007 (fig.1) is a video, played on a screen the size of a painted miniature, of the famous eighteenth-century Jaquet-Droz automaton recorded in the act of writing with a goose quill pen. Zooming in on the automaton’s hand and face, Parreno contrives to produce a sense of uncertainty as to the human or robotic nature of the doll. It is an example of a contemporary fascination with cyborgs and with the increasingly blurred dividing line between machine and organism. In a manner worthy of surrealist artist René Magritte, Parreno plays on the viewer’s sense of astonishment. As the camera rolls, the android deliberates before slowly writing: ‘What do you believe, your eyes or my words?’ The ‘Écrivain’ is one of the most celebrated automata that enjoyed a huge vogue in Enlightenment Europe. In a lavish two-volume book, Le Monde des automates (1928), Edouard Gélis and Alfred Chapuis define the android as ‘an automaton with a human face’.1 A chapter of this book, which supplied the illustrations for an article in the surrealist journal Minotaure, is devoted to drawing and writing automata.2 The oldest example Gélis and Chapuis cite was fabricated by the German inventor Friedrich von Knauss whom, they state, laboured at the problem of ‘automatic writing’ for twenty years before presenting his first apparatus in 1753.3

Fig.1 Philippe Parreno The Writer 2007 Photographic still from DVD 3:58 minutes Courtesy the artist and Haunch of Venison, London © Philippe Parreno

The graphic trace

From the mid-nineteenth century onwards, recording instruments became vital tools in the production of scientific knowledge in a range of disciplines that were of direct relevance to surrealism. Such mechanical apparatuses, synonymous with the values of precision and objectivity, quickly became the benchmark of an experimental method. The inexorable rise of the graphic method has been intensively studied by historians of science and visual culture, but surrealism has not yet been considered as partaking of this transformation in the field of visual representation. In what follows, recording instruments are shown to have helped to underwrite surrealism’s scientific aspects and bolster its credentials as an experimental avant-garde.

The graphic method inaugurated a novel paradigm of visual representation, one geared towards capturing dynamic phenomena in their essence. It was the product of a radically new scientific conception of the physical universe in terms of dynamic forces, a world view that is doubtless at some level a naturalisation of the energies, both destructive and creative, unleashed by industrial capitalism.5The proliferation of mechanical inscription devices in the life sciences coincided with the displacement of anatomy, as a static principle of localisation, by physiology, which analysed and studied forces and functions. Étienne-Jules Marey, known today as an inventor of chronophotography, was one of the main exponents of the graphic method in France, and he personally devised a number of instruments whose aid, he wrote, made it possible to ‘penetrate the intimate functions of organs where life seems to translate itself by an incessant mobility’.6 As an apparatus for visualisation, the graphic method carries implications for how to construe figures of the visible and invisible. It was not simply a technology for making visible something that lay beneath the human perceptual threshold (like a microscope), but rather a technology for producing a visual analogue – a translation – of forces and phenomena that do not themselves belong to a visual order of things.7

At its simplest, a frog’s leg muscle is hooked directly to a pointed stylus that rests on a drum whose surface is blackened with particles of soot from a candle flame (fig.2). An electrical stimulus causes the muscle to contract, deflecting the stylus and thus producing on the revolving drum a typical white on black curvilinear trace. Fatigue of the muscle produces an increased duration and diminished amplitude of successive contractions, as shown in the figure at the bottom. A more sophisticated device pictured by Marey consisted of a flexible diaphragm, a sort of primitive transducer, connected by a hollow rubber tube to a stylus, which inscribed onto a continuous strip of paper. At the heart of the graphic method is the production of a visible trace.8 A stylus roving back and forth on a rotating cylinder or a moving band of paper translates forces into a universal script that Marey regarded as ‘the language of the phenomena themselves’ and which he proclaimed is superior to the written word.9 In an era where quantitative data gradually became the common currency of scientific discourse, Marey considered written language, ‘born before science and not being made for it’, as inadequate to express ‘exact measures and well-defined relations’.10 The incorporation of a time axis owing to the continuous regular movement of the drum lends a distinctive property to the graphic trace. The historian Robert Brain remarks that ‘the graphic representation is not an object or field like that of linear perspective, but a spatial product of a temporal process, whose order is serial or syntagmatic’.11 Units of time are marked off at the bottom of the myographic trace as regular blips on a horizontal axis; additionally, the passage of time is registered in the palimpsest-like layering of successive traces.12

Fig.2 Simple myograph (top) and trace of repeated muscular contractions (bottom) From Etienne-Jules Marey, La Méthode graphique dans les sciences expérimentales et principalement en physiologie et en médecine, Paris 1875, p.194

From its initial applications in physiology, the graphic method soon made inroads into areas such as medicine and psychology, eager to prove their scientific legitimacy. The familiar chart of a patient’s temperature, pulse, and respiration had become standard fare in hospital wards by the mid-nineteenth century.13 Marey went so far as to predict that the visual tableau comprised of such ‘medical curves’ would replace altogether the written record. The growth of medical specialties saw doctors attempting to justify their status and claims to authoritative knowledge by adopting the tools-in-trade of an experimental science. The Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris, under neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot, was at the forefront of these developments, and graphic traces are liberally interspersed among the better-known photographs, engravings, and fine art reproductions of Charcot’s book Iconographie de la Salpêtrière (1878). Employed first for the investigation of muscular and nervous disorders, the myograph was subsequently applied by Charcot to the study of hysteria. By enabling the hysterical attack to be objectively recorded in the form of a linear visual narrative, the graphic trace performed an invaluable service in conferring a semblance of reality upon a condition that was widely dismissed as mere playacting or simulation (fig.3).

Fig.3 Epileptic phase of an hysterical attack From Paul Richer, Études cliniques sur l’hystéro-épilepsie ou grande hystérie, Paris 1885, p.40.

Nearer in time to the surrealists, the hysteria problem was revived with particular urgency in the guise of shellshock, and there again physicians placed their faith in the graphic method as a means of reliably excluding simulation where clinical observation alone was of no avail. Evidence of the surrealist André Breton’s first-hand acquaintance with such devices is not hard to find. Soon after his arrival at the neuro-psychiatric centre at St Dizier in August 1916 he writes excitedly to Théodore Fraenkel, a fellow medical student, saying that all his time is devoted to examining patients. He details his technique for interrogating his charges and in the same breath adds ‘and I manipulate the sphygmometric oscillometer’.14 The instrument to which Breton refers gives a measure of the peripheral pulses and would have been used by him to detect an exaggerated vascular response to cold that was held to be a diagnostic feature of reflex nervous disorders. There is a reasonable likelihood that Breton also came in contact with the use of a myograph for the same purpose, either at St Dizier or the following year when he was attached as a trainee to neurologist Joseph Babinski’s unit at the Pitié Hospital in Paris. Breton possessed a copy, with a personal dedication from the authors, of Babinski and Jules Froment’s Hystérie-pithiatisme et troubles nerveux d’ordre réflexe en neurologie de guerre (1917), a textbook profusely illustrated with myographic traces.

As a newly formed discipline, psychology was also quick to integrate the paraphernalia of experimental physiology.15 Alfred Binet, one of the pioneers of psychology in France, employed the graphic trace as an instrument more sensitive in his opinion than automatic writing for revealing a dissociation of the personality in cases of hysteria. ‘In following our study of the methods that enable us to reveal this hidden personality’, Binet writes, ‘we are now to have recourse to the so-called graphic method, the employment of which, at first restricted to the work-rooms of physiology, seems, at the present time, destined to find its way into the current practice of medicine’.16 The definition of psychology as experimental is seen to be closely tied with the use of a measuring instrument. Binet’s goal appears to be an almost paradoxical exclusion of the subject, with its nigh infinite capacity for dissimulation, from the scientific investigation of that subject’s own subjectivity. Coinciding with the introduction of quantitative forms of measurement, introspection rapidly fell into disrepute as a method of inquiry. Robert Brain’s observation that in the field of psychology ‘the graphic method served both as a research tool and a source of analogies for investigating mental activities’ is certainly to be borne in mind with regard to surrealism.17

Alongside mainstream science, recording devices also made incursions into psychical research. The use of such apparatuses to restrict the latitude for fraud contributed to the general air of scientific enquiry. The historian Richard Noakes has shown that the intractable problems of researching mediums, their notoriously capricious and untrustworthy nature, led some experimenters to suggest that sensitive instruments alone could replace the human subject as a means of accessing the spirit world.18 In the 1870s, William Crookes, a respected chemist and a pioneer in the application of measuring instruments to spiritualist research, devised an apparatus for recording emanations from the body of the medium Daniel Dunglas Home, as a result of which he claimed to have discovered a mysterious new form of energy, which he termed ‘Psychic Force’ (fig.4).19 A Marey drum was used to make physiological recordings of the medium Eusapia Palladino, who had been often exposed for cheating in the past, during a highly publicised series of séances conducted under controlled experimental conditions at the laboratories of the Institut général de psychologie in Paris.20

Fig.4 Apparatus for recording the emanation of psychic force from a medium. From William Crookes, Researches in the Phenomena of Spiritualism, London 1874.

Modest recording instruments

It would appear that surrealism was not indifferent to the lure of the graphic method. The particular aspect to foreground here is the promise of objectivity. The graphic method offered the prospect of bypassing altogether the human observer who was increasingly liable to be viewed as a source of error in scientific experiment. With precision and objectivity the yardsticks of science by the latter part of the nineteenth century, the historian Peter Galison remarks that ‘the machine as a neutral and transparent operator … would serve as instrument of registration without intervention and as an ideal for the moral discipline of the scientists themselves’.21 Addressing the graphic trace in these terms, Marey strikingly adumbrates the language of surrealism in remarking that ‘one endeavoured to write automatically certain phenomena’.22 The surrealists spoke of their art and literary productions as objective documents and advocated an objective stance that sidelines the authorial subject who was meant to be as near as possible a passive onlooker at the birth of the work. Or, in Breton’s words, a modest recording device: ‘we, who have made no effort whatsoever to filter, who in our works have made ourselves into simple receptacles of so many echoes, modest recording instruments not mesmerised by the drawings we are making.’23 Closely allied with this imperative to become akin to a machine is a metaphorics of the trace and tracing: ‘here again it is not a matter of drawing, but simply of tracing’, Breton insisted in the 1924 ‘Manifesto of Surrealism’.24

The accent on objectivity is consonant with surrealism’s avant-gardist ethos of experiment, stemming ultimately from science. In fact, Breton contended that by the time the manifesto had been published, five years of uninterrupted experimental activity already lay behind it.25 Around the time of the manifesto, the surrealists set about creating a research centre of sorts, the short-lived Bureau of Surrealist Research, testifying to the earnestness of their experimental impulse. However, it was no ordinary laboratory that opened to the public at 15 Rue de Grenelle, Paris, in October 1924. The surrealist playwright and poet Antonin Artaud recalls that a mannequin hung from the ceiling and, reputedly, copies of the crime fiction volume Fantômas and Sigmund Freud’s The Interpretations of Dreams framed with spoons were enthroned on a makeshift altarpiece. The second issue of the house journal La Révolution surréaliste, the cover of which was modeled on the popular science magazine La Nature, carried an announcement of its purpose:

The Bureau of Surrealist Research is applying itself to collecting by all appropriate means communications concerning the diverse forms taken by the mind’s unconscious activity. No specific field has been defined for this project and surrealism plans to assemble as much experimental data as possible, without knowing yet what the end result might be.26

Asserting a parallel with science, as Breton was fond of doing, was a way of implying that surrealism was dedicated to finding practical solutions to vital problems of human existence, and of distancing it as far as possible from a posture of aesthetic detachment. The statement above identifies the unconscious as the privileged object of surrealist research. Automatism, from this point of view, could be understood as a research method, a set of investigative procedures that organise and govern practice but do not determine outcomes. The openness of scientific inquiry is something that may have been especially attractive to surrealism; the final clause above insists upon their refusal to define goals – a programme – which would have run the risks of a reductive instrumentalism or empty utopianism. At the same time, however, bearing in mind the extreme animosity towards positivism that Breton notoriously gives vent to in the 1924 manifesto, the dangers for surrealism of too close a proximity to science should not be overlooked. Perhaps for this reason, Artaud, in a report on the bureau carried in the third issue of the journal, argues warily for the necessity of a certain surrealist mysticism. A survey of the terms ‘research’ and ‘experiment’ in the period would reveal that much the same vocabulary was utilised in the marginal, pseudo-scientific world of spiritualism and parapsychology as by mainstream science, and it is notable that surrealist experimentation happily straddles these seemingly contradictory currents. The hypnotic trance sessions, one of the main experimental activities engaged in by the nascent surrealist group, are illustrative of this cross-over between science and the occult. 543 pages of notes and drawings obsessively documenting the sessions, which took place nightly between September and October 1922, were preserved by Breton and included among a list of artworks, books and other objects housed in the bureau.

While Salvador Dalí did not partake of the ‘birth pangs’ of surrealism, as Breton ruefully observed, his overheated imagination provides a vivid if fanciful evocation of this first phase of surrealist experiment. In an essay written in 1932, Dalí conjures up an improbable scenario of hypnotic subjects wired to recording devices like the unfortunate frog in Marey’s illustration, though in this case it is the trace of poetic inspiration that is expectantly awaited:

All night long a few surrealists would gather round the big table used for experiments, their eyes protected and masked by thin though opaque mechanical slats on which the blinding curve of the convulsive graphs would appear intermittently in fleeting luminous signals, a delicate nickel apparatus like an astrolabe being fixed to their necks and fitted with animal membranes to record by interpenetration the apparition of each fresh poetic streak, their bodies being bound to their chairs by an ingenious system of straps, so that they could only move a hand in a certain way and the sinuous line was allowed to inscribe the appropriate white cylinders. Meanwhile their friends, holding their breath and biting their lower lips in concentrated attention, would lean over the recording apparatus and with dilated pupils await the expected but unknown movement, sentence, or image.27

Dalí clearly took to heart Breton’s exhortation to his fellow surrealists that they should make themselves into ‘modest recording instruments’. Inspired by extant photographs that afford a rare glimpse of the legendary bureau, Dalí conjures up a fantastical laboratory with pliant subjects hooked to a plethora of arcane recording devices.

Beyond a serviceable metaphor employed by Breton, what evidence is there for the graphic method as having any bearing on the actual practice of automatic drawing? While scattered instances of direct citation of graphic traces can be demonstrated, what is more significant is that this novel regime of visuality, beginning as a style of scientific imaging and becoming by the time of surrealism a widely circulated and understood visual idiom, was a necessary historical antecedent in order that the automatist line might be imbued with meaning as the authentic trace of unconscious instinctual forces and energies (in its absence, they would have been literally unreadable in these terms). With the precedent of the graphic trace available to them, it was possible for surrealist artists to imagine how they might square the circle by integrating temporal duration within a static visual medium.

‘Could it be that Marcel Duchamp reaches the critical point of ideas faster than anyone else?’, wondered Breton. It is a question that can profitably be asked in examining the impact on avant-garde artists of an avowedly scientific visual idiom. Duchamp, and his artistic collaborator Francis Picabia, around 1912 to 1913 rejected traditional painterly techniques, along with extreme subjectivism that had reached a zenith in the neo-symbolist circles both artists had been involved with up until that point, and turned instead to technical drawing and scientific illustrations as alternative, non-artistic sources of inspiration. Duchamp’s 3 Standard Stoppages 1913–14 (fig.5) is evidence of his search for what art historian Linda Dalrymple Henderson calls ‘the beauty of indifference, the counterpart to his painting of precision’.28 For this work, one-metre lengths of thread were allowed to fall from a height of one metre, and the random configurations formed as they came to rest on the ground were fixed and recorded. Displaying the resultant shapes as curved white lines on a long horizontal black strip of canvas would have rung bells with viewers familiar with the then standard repertoire of scientific imaging practices. The typical format of the graphic trace served as a convenient shorthand by means of which Duchamp encoded the desired values of precise measurement and objectivity. Not for the first (or last) time did Duchamp appeal to forms of visual competency that had begun to creep into the common culture, as art historian Molly Nesbitt’s pioneering study relating his use of technical drawing to reforms in the French school curriculum shows.29 The creation of wooden templates or stencils based on the resultant curves is also significant: these were utilised to transfer the curves to other works, notably Network of Stoppages 1914 (Museum of Modern Art, New York) and the capillary tubes in the Large Glass 1915–23 (Tate T02011), but in addition they provide a measure of the area beneath the curve which, as every student of basic calculus knows, is equal to the integral of the curve.

Marcel Duchamp 3 stoppages étalon (3 Standard Stoppages) 1913–14, replica 1964 Tate © Succession Marcel Duchamp/ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2018

Of the surrealist artists, links between art and science run deepest in the work of Max Ernst, who attended lecture courses on psychology while he was a student at university in Bonn.30 Scientific illustrations and tables are frequent source materials for Ernst’s collage, among which are examples of graphic traces, most notably the illustrations to the book Les Malheurs des immortels (1922), a collection of collages and automatic poems produced collaboratively with the surrealist poet Paul Éluard. Between the Two Poles of Politeness is one of at least two collages in the book to utilise a graphic trace, which functions as a ground for the image and a springboard for the artist’s imagination. The typical white-on-black format is exploited by Ernst to evoke a night sky against which the solid white line of the trace stands out starkly. He embellishes the horizontal x-axis marked on the graph by a dotted line with a distant polar landscape that appears to echo the peaks and troughs of the graphic trace. At the left-hand edge of the image, the lines of the graph are extended so they appear to converge towards a vanishing point; the net effect of these hand-drawn additions is to produce incongruities of scale as well as an ambiguous play between the flat space of the diagram and an illusory perspectival space. Accentuating the horizon serves to foreground the idea of a horizon of vision, beyond which normally one cannot see, and thus implies the existence of an invisible realm to which surrealism affords access.

From 1919 through to the manifesto of 1924 – a period of intense experiment with automatic writing and other means for penetrating the unconscious, including hypnosis – Breton’s poetry is replete with imagery of electric currents and magnetic fields, to which the title of Ernst’s collage may allude. Ernst’s deployment of a graphic trace in the context of this book can be seen as mounting a polemic in favour of collage as an equivalent to automatic writing. Breton, who the following year in his poem ‘Sunflower’ penned the exquisitely apposite phrase, ‘the white curve on a black ground that we call thought’, would have understood that the graphic trace in Ernst’s collage offers itself to be read as an indexical equivalent to thought, in no ways inferior in this respect to the automatic text on the facing page.31Ernst’s painting North Pole 1922 is contemporaneous with the collage and closely related to it.32 A distinctive fine wavy pattern across the upper half of the canvas, the result of dragging a fine comb or something similar across the black oil paint so as to expose the white support, is highly suggestive of a seismographic or magnetic trace. There is a direct connection between this work and Ernst’s use of frottage and other automatic procedures in the 1920s. Between 1927 and 1928 Yves Tanguy produced a number of quite distinctive automatist paintings in which undulating lines are scratched into a black ground. Of even greater significance than such isolated examples of the direct citation of graphic traces, however, is to recognise that the novel regime of visuality it inaugurated made possible a mindset that saw the automatist line as an authentic trace of unconscious instinctual forces and energies. In its absence, they would have been literally unreadable in these terms. The surrealists were not alone in choosing to regard the unconscious as a repository of imperceptible, yet powerfully active forces. Sigmund Freud commonly spoke of the unconscious in terms of an energetics of instinctual cathexes and circuits.33 But what has been lost sight of is that these were never any more than metaphorical descriptions or analogies, a way of talking. The mistake is to think that the wavy lines in an Ernst painting are actually a trace of anything, least of all Ernst’s unconscious, rather than a polemical mobilisation of the idea (or metaphor) of the indexical trace.

Re-inscriptions of automatism

It comes as a surprise to learn that, notwithstanding the seemingly intractable difficulties posed by the Bretonian concept of ‘pure psychic automatism’, a considerable number of more recent artists and poets have not been deterred from taking up such practices, often in the context of an overt re-engagement with the historical avant-garde.

In the main, the aleatory and automatic practices to be surveyed here no longer purport to be indexical traces or expressions of the unconscious. These recent examples prompt the question afresh: is surrealist automatism expressive, and if so what is it expressive of? This question is inseparable from another concerning the status of chance in surrealism.34 Here, it is necessary to make a distinction between Breton’s objective chance (‘hasard objectif’) and true randomness.35 Freud maintained that seemingly chance events, slips of the tongue and so forth, are actually governed by a strict order of psychic determinism: nothing in the mind, he believed, is arbitrary or undetermined.36 This alone is what assures the validity of dream interpretation. Without the supposition of unconscious causation, the whole hermeneutic project of psychoanalysis would be pointless. Automatism, from this angle, registers an unconscious level of determination, that is to say, of meaning. But what if it turned out that surrealist automatism had been all along simply a method for generating randomness?

Between October 2003 and June 2005 the musician and composer Jeremy ‘Jem’ Finer was artist in residence in the astrophysics department at OxfordUniversity, where Roger Penrose, nephew of the surrealist artist Roland Penrose, had conducted pioneering work in theoretical physics on black holes and the early conditions of the universe. Finer’s Everywhere, All the Time 2005 (fig.6) comprised part of a larger sculptural project arising from the residency. As Finer explains:

A chart recorder is transformed into an automatic drawing machine, its source the electrical fluctuations of a detuned radio. The universe is permeated by radiation, the Cosmic Microwave Background, which contemporary cosmology concludes is the cooled remnant of the Big Bang. Everywhere, all the time, it’s visible in the snow between channels on a television, the hiss of static on a radio, the rattling pen of the chart recorder, like a spirit hand.37

Fig.6 Jem Finer Everywhere, All the Time 2005 Chart recorder, transistor radio and paper Courtesy the artist Photograph © Jem Finer

The automatic messages that are of concern to Finer – ‘an unreadable communication with its own inner sense’ – are of an impersonal, non-human nature (fig.7). Rendering literal the Bretonian metaphor of a simple recording instrument, Finer bypasses altogether the artist as expressive origin of the message: ‘Endless gyres, overwriting, obliterating, annihilating any pretence of analysis, the chart recorder is transformed into an automatic drawing machine, the universe the invisible hand.’38

Fig.7 Jem Finer Everywhere, All the Time 2005 Graphic trace from chart recorder Courtesy the artist Photograph © Jem Finer

It is fruitful to think about Finer’s practice in terms of a tension between noise and message as theorised by communication theory. Random noise can be understood as interference within a system of meaning production. In this respect, it might be understood to be quite similar to a Freudian slip, which manifests as an interruption or distortion of the intended message. However, the apparently chance or accidental nature of the latter turns out to be illusory and the lapsus is, in fact, subject to a strict psychic determinism. True randomness, which is the arena of contemporary practitioners’ interest, implies a breach in causality and hence ought not to be confused with the surrealist notion of objective chance, though it is compatible with the surrealists’ interrogation of the author function. The ratcheting-up of randomness undercuts the expressive paradigm of a subject who is the putative origin of a message.

Finer’s reference to a spirit hand resonates with surrealist automatism, whose derivation from mediumistic writing and drawing Breton acknowledged in his essay ‘The Automatic Message’ (1933). It also recalls a passage from the philosopher Roland Barthes’s famous text ‘The Death of the Author’ (1967) that implicitly appeals to the precedent of automatic writing: ‘the hand, cut off from any voice, borne by a pure gesture of inscription (and not of expression), traces a field without origin.’39 Barthes conceives of the writer not as expressive origin but rather as a kind of radio antenna picking up and remixing messages randomly absorbed. Tuning in to white noise instead of the overt communicative content of their chosen medium, postmodern artists perpetuate as well as update the historical avant-garde’s engagements with chance. In an essay on Cy Twombly, Barthes made an explicit analogy to white noise, writing of the picture Panorama 1955 (private collection) that: ‘The whole space is crackling in the manner of a television screen before any image appears on it.’40 Twombly reinterpreted an automatist practice in a manner contrary to the expressive paradigm that had dominated in the previous generation of artists. It is thus comparable to other gestures of cancellation, such as his friend Robert Rauschenberg’s Erased De Kooning Drawing 1953 (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art). The artist in the abstract expressionist mould was not only masculine, he was also stridently hetero-normative, a factor that art historian Jonathan Katz has argued lay behind the next generation of artists’ wish to distance themselves.41 Barthes refers to a new technological analogy for an automatist procedure in the television set, which, by the mid-1950s, had become nigh ubiquitous in American households. The origins of information theory in the immediate post-war period narrowly preceded the arrival of this new medium of mass communication. The white on black of Twombly’s Panorama evidently reminded Barthes of the cathode ray screen.

The experimental filmmaker Peter Rose explains that his sixteen minute film Secondary Currents 1982 is about the relationships between the mind and language: ‘A kind of comic opera, the film is a dark metaphor for the order and entropy of language.’42 In the course of the film, words – white on a black ground – gradually decompose into constituent letters that jostle in a random, Brownian motion, such that the screen becomes an almost literal representation of white noise (fig.8). Rose’s work relates to concrete poetry but also draws upon his mathematical training. In communication theory, the concept of entropy is closely related to randomness. As expounded by engineer John R. Pierce in his book Symbols, Signals and Noise (1961): ‘entropy increases as the number of messages among which the source may choose increases. It also increases as the freedom of choice (or the uncertainty to the recipient) increases and decreases as the freedom of choice and the uncertainty are restricted.’43

Fig.8 Peter Rose Secondary Currents 1982 Still from film 16 minutes, 16 mm, black and white, sound Courtesy the artist Photograph © Peter Rose

Might it be possible to consider Rose’s language experiments as offering a route in to the final automatic text of Breton and Éluard’s ‘The Possessions’, the ‘attempt at simulating schizophrenia’ (‘démence précoce’), which plots a similar stepwise dissolution of language and sense? Under the guise of emulating the language of the insane, Breton and Éluard can be understood as exploring in an intuitive vein the relationship between a poetic or creative use of language and entropy. The act of collaboration seems to have been one means for interrupting the smooth flow of logical sense, an express aim of automatic writing being to divert language from its communicative function. In a manner not dissimilar to Rose, the schizophrenic treats words as things; their language was described in the kinds of manuals to which Breton and Éluard had access as propagating on the basis of chance associations or incidental resemblances between words. One can point to numerous examples of this in Breton and Éluard’s text. Within certain limits, an increase in randomness is experienced as poetic indeterminacy. However, the final paragraph of their exercise in simulation presses way beyond this threshold:

Fils de Judas rondève, qu’A Linné pasteur hippomythe U vraïli ouabi bencirog plaïol fernaca gla …lanco. U quaïon purlo ouam gacirog olaïama oual, u feaïva zuaïailo, gaci zulo. Gaci zulo plef. U feaïva oradarfonsedarca nic olp figilê. U elaïaïpi mouco drer hôdarca hualica-siptur. Oradargacirog vraïlim…u feaïva drer kurmaca ribag nic javli.44

Extraordinarily, this was among the texts that Samuel Beckett chose to translate.

The fact that The Magnetic Fields (1920), the true ur-texts of surrealist automatic writing, were composed jointly by Breton and Philippe Soupault (most obviously the texts called ‘Barrières’ (Barriers) which take the form of a dialogue or conversation) demonstrates that believing automatic writing to be the outpouring of a single unconscious is a misconception. In these texts, the writing subject makes use of an interlocutor in order to interrupt the flow and continuity of his discourse; a systematic interference with communicative language is thus built in to the procedure. It is a device that maximises incongruities. This can also be seen in the long distance collaboration of Ernst and Éluard in Les Malheurs des immortels. In his later comments on The Magnetic Fields, Breton placed great value on the speed of execution as the guarantor of the authenticity of a message that was to be as far as possible an uncorrupted record of unconscious thought. It is necessary to consider that the factor that comes increasingly into play as the speed of writing increases is not the unconscious but sheer randomness, which beyond a certain point manifests as a lexical decomposition.

Inspired by Marcel Duchamp’s 3 Standard Stoppages, and other artworks utilising chance, the New York conceptual artist William Anastasi began creating Pocket Drawings on folded sheets of paper while he was at the cinema in the 1960s. These led on to Subway Drawings that started as he was travelling to and from daily chess games with his friend, the composer John Cage, and which he has continued to produce (fig.9). Sitting with a pencil in each hand and a drawing board on his lap, his elbows at an angle of 90 degrees, his shoulders away from the backrest, Anastasi surrenders to a random process. His body operates likes a seismograph, allowing the rhythm of the moving train – its starts, stops and turns, accelerations and decelerations – to be transmitted onto the sheet of paper. In a 1990 interview, Cage talked about Anastasi’s modus operandi vis-à-vis surrealist automatism, insisting that: ‘It’s not psychological; it’s physical.’45

Fig.9 William Anastasi Subway Drawing Courtesy Gering & Lopez Gallery, New York

It is instructive to compare Anastasi’s Subway Drawings with another work that references the movement of a train and its effects on the human body, Marcel Duchamp’s Nude (Study), Sad Young Man on a Train 1911–12 (The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation,Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice).46 For Anastasi and the other artists in Cage’s circle, Duchamp was a cardinal reference point. The picture depicts the pipe-smoking artist on a train journey between Paris and Rouen. It is, Duchamp explained, a painting of ‘two parallel movements corresponding to each other’, that is to say, the forward velocity of the train together with the sideways rocking motion of the man standing in the crowded carriage.47 The passivity of a body acted upon by external mechanical forces is certainly akin to Anastasi’s Subway Drawings. The painting’s multiple registrations of a single figure, comparable to the more famous Nude Descending a Staircase 1912 (Philadelphia Museum of Art), reflects Duchamp’s preoccupation with Marey’s chronophotography. Moreover, the picture might be said to represent a quirky response to the futurist cult of machines and the dynamism of speed. Slightly perplexing is the undress of the solitary figure, who, it has been suggested, is depicted in a state of sexual arousal. What the picture represents, then, is a bachelor machine: the kinetic energy of the train transformed via the onanistic rhythms of a swaying body into libidinal energy. A helpful commentary on this state of affairs comes from faraway Vienna. Asserting that ‘mechanical agitation must be recognised as one of the sources of sexual excitation’, Freud, in Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905), specifically relates the pleasurable effects of this mechanical stimulus to train travel:

The shaking produced by driving in carriages and later by railway travel exercises such a fascinating effect upon older children that every boy, at any rate, has at one time or other in his life wanted to be an engine driver or a coachman. It is a puzzling fact that boys take such an extraordinarily intense interest in things connected with railways, and, at an age at which the production of phantasies is most active (shortly before puberty), use those things as the nucleus of a symbolism that is peculiarly sexual. A compulsive link of this kind between railway travel and sexuality is clearly derived from the pleasurable character of the sensation of movement.48

Freud contends that any physical stimulus to the body releases a quota of energy and this release of (libidinal) energy is felt as pleasurable. He instances the rocking of a child in order to put it to sleep. Duchamp wrote enigmatically of the period immediately preceding the First World War: ‘The machine, motion and eros were things which touched me in a poetic way. They were in the air and I felt I could use them for my art.’

Anastasi is well aware that his drawing could be seen as a displacement of a forbidden act. He says as much when he explains that he began making the Subway Drawings instead of the Pocket Drawingsbecause he was concerned about what fellow passengers might think he was doing with his hands in his pockets. The drawing is done on a sheet of paper that rests directly on the artist’s lap. For a near equivalent, one must look to surrealism’s disreputable left field, to the sole example of what Salvador Dalí dubbed ‘espasmo-graphisme’. An inscription on the etching, purpose-made as a frontispiece to a collection of poems by Georges Hugnet titled Onan (1934), forthrightly confesses: ‘“ESPASMO-GRAPHISME” OBTAINED WITH THE LEFT HAND WHILE MASTURBATING WITH THE RIGHT HAND UNTIL BLOODUNTIL BONE UNTIL SCAR!’ The image harks back stylistically to some tentative experiments by Dalí with an automatic technique in the late 1920s, quickly abandoned as he evolved his more characteristic illusionism. The jagged, staccato rhythms of the compulsively repeated doodles mime the action believed to have been carried out with the artist’s other hand. There is a crucial distinction to be drawn between illustrating the act of masturbation, which Dalí plainly was not reluctant to do, and producing a non-representational, so to speak, automatic trace of the activity, as he does here. Using his left hand to engrave the plate – Dalí was right-handed – eliminates at one stroke any semblance of manual skill or virtuosity. One is reminded that for Freud the solitary vice of masturbation was a frequent cause of neurosis. If this opinion, oddly indebted to Victorian prudery, is accepted for a moment, then Dalí chooses the shortest possible route between the supposed forbidden activity and its unfettered, automatic expression.49 But in doing so, it seems that he short-circuits the whole Freudian apparatus of the unconscious and repression. An area of staining across the centre of the sheet raises other questions for the inquisitive critic: does it merely simulate what it purports to be, or is it the forensic evidence one is searching for, the veridical trace that authenticates the automatic message? Granted, the work is parodic in intent, tossed off in a matter of minutes, but it is nonetheless a wry, amusing commentary on the discourse and practice of surrealist automatism.

Rebecca Horn Pencil Mask 1972 Tate © DACS, 2018

Finally, Rebecca Horn’s Pencil Mask 1972 (fig.10) is a sort of mechanical prosthesis that transforms the artist into a drawing machine. It is a sinister and disturbing piece, more autistic than artistic. Horn describes its operation thus: ‘All the pencils are about two inches long and produce the profile of my face in three dimensions … I move my body rhythmically from left to right in front of the white wall. The pencils make marks on the wall the image of which corresponds to the rhythm of my movements.’50Strapped around her face, the harness turns the wearer into a blind automatic drawing instrument. There is not space here to do justice to this arresting work, nor to tease out its relation, on the one hand, to her robotic painting machines or the pseudo-expressivity of her later Artaud-like drawings.51 The key point, however, is the way it encircles the artist’s head, interposing a physical barrier between the artist and the sheet of paper. The ‘unconscious’ is simply bracketed off from whatever is going on. Horn and the other contemporary artists discussed here point to ways of understanding surrealist automatism beyond the impasses of the assumption that such works are, or ever were, the expression of such a thing.

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Breaking Down Every Sword Color

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This article contains spoilers for Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba season 1.

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba is one of the biggest anime series of the past few years and with a feature film and second season on the way that’s not likely to change anytime soon. The thrilling action anime series depicts the journey of Tanjiro Kamado, a budding Demon Slayer who’s recently become orphaned by monsters and had his sister transformed into one of their own kind.

There are no shortage of anime series where underdog protagonists with some variety of supernatural powers hunt deadly monsters, but the way in which Demon Slayer differentiates itself is through the powerful blades that the characters wield. These swords are often the last thing that demons will ever see, but there’s a lot more to understand about these weapons beyond the fact that they’re pretty darn sharp.

What Are The Swords Made From And What Is Their Purpose?

The blades that Tanjiro and his demon slaying friends wield all look very impressive and that’s because they’re not just ordinary blades that have had something special done to them. In fact, these “Nichirin Blades” are constructed through special circumstances right from the very first stage. Nichirin blades can only be forged from scarlet crimson ore and scarlet crimson iron sand, two rare minerals that can only be found in mountains with incredibly high altitudes that allow them to be consistently bathed in light year-round.

These conditions allow the ore to be infused with sunlight, which is the only significant weakness that demons face. It’s a rite of passage and part of a Demon Slayer’s training to acquire the ore that’s used to construct their weapon. Once forged, these Nichirin blade swords constantly absorb sunlight, which allows them to be essentially the only tool that’s practically able to kill demons. Nichirin blades are therefore the primary weapon of the Demon Slayer Corps and an essential tool.

Additionally, an even stronger version of this weapon, Crimson Red Nichirin blades, can be achieved by raising the sword’s temperature to extreme levels, striking two Nichirin blades together in the right manner, or the application of the right form of intense Blood Demon Art. A Crimson Red Nichirin sword is even more efficient because the heat allows demons to be destroyed on a molecular level, which means that amputations or wounds from this blade won’t heal like the standard kind.

Why Do The Swords Take On Different Colors?

Nichirin blades are also referred to as “Color Changing Swords” and the reason for this is that the blades adopt a distinct color when they’re first drawn by their Demon Slayer owner. Granted, this color transformation isn’t mandatory and the Demon Slayer needs to already be at a certain level of skill to trigger the process in the first place. This makes the act even more special and an easy marker for when a Demon Slayer begins to increase in strength.

In terms of the colorful transformation itself, it’s supposed to be emblematic of the personality, technique, and general energy that lies within each Demon Slayer. For instance, someone with a fiery and aggressive resolve would likely see their sword turn orange or red, whereas a Demon Slayer that’s full of love might receive a pink blade. These unique colors make the swords operate as an extension of the Demon Slayer and their values.

Another aspect of individuality that’s present with each sword is the unique handguard that protects the wielder from its blade. These handguards don’t possess any special powers and are more in the control of the sword’s owner, but they’re still a fun element that translates to the Demon Slayer equivalent of flair. Tanjiro’s handguard is a subtle black ring with a wheel aesthetic, but others like Shinobu and Mitsuri’s flower and clover-shaped handguards are much more creative and reflect their respective Hashira arts.

Are Any Colors More Important Than Others?

The only sword color that’s considered to be problematic, or at the least a mysterious and unlucky omen, is black. The reason that a black Nichirin blade has such an infamous reputation is that previous Demon Slayers with a black sword have all met premature deaths, which also means that not much is known about the blade itself.

Yoriichi Tsugikuni is the previous Demon Slayer that received this bad fate, but as luck would have it, Tanjiro also draws a black sword, which immediately puts a mark on his head and urgency to his mission. It’s unclear exactly why Tanjiro’s essence leads to a black blade, but it’s likely that it’s connected to his Sun breathing style, Dance of the Fire God, which is an equally rare technique.

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It’s also worth mentioning that Zenitsu Agatsuma’s yellow blade is colored through a lightning motif that runs down the sword, rather than the solid color design that’s present with every other blade. This simply highlights that there are no absolutes here and that new discoveries behind Demon Slayer swords continue to happen.

Have All Of The Sword Colors Been Discovered?

As it stands, over a dozen different Nichirin blade colors have appeared or been referenced throughout Demon Slayer’s manga, but that’s far from all of the possible outcomes. In theory, there should be a largely infinite amount of varieties here as long as Demon Slayers present slightly unique attitudes. The series has already shown minor deviations in color such as gray versus indigo-gray, pink and light pink, or amber and yellow. However, considering that most of the major blade colors have been discovered, it will likely be some time or a significant situation when a new color does present itself.

What Does Each Sword Color Mean And Who Possesses Which?

There are ten major sword colors that have been explored in Demon Slayer, all of which have a pretty clear correlation to each pillar of the Demon Slayer Corps:

As initially stated, Tanjiro faces the double-edged sword territory that accompanies a black Nichirin blade. A black sword is considered to be a death sentence, but there’s also so little known about it that it’s likely that Tanjiro will redefine what a black blade means. There’s a lot of speculation over how a black sword connects with Tanjiro’s Sun breathing style since black is the color that has the greater capacity to absorb sunlight. There’s definitely more about the black sword to come in Demon Slayer’s future.

Zenitsu Agatsuma, a vital member in Tanjiro’s clique, possesses the yellow sword, which connects with his Breath of the Thunder style and the explosive, unpredictable nature that defines him. Zenitsu has already improved a lot since the start of the series and it’s possible that his blade and technique will only continue to mature and change.

The other major demon slaying member of Tanjiro’s party is Inosuke Hashibara, who’s definitely the most reckless and roughest around the edges of the group. Inosuke operates with two blades that are a cool indigo-grey in color, in response to Inosuke’s beastly nature. Breath of the Beast is certainly appropriate for Inosuke and it meshes with the sleek nature of indigo-grey.

Kyojuro Rengoku is an important member of the Demon Slayer Corps that plays a vital role in the upcoming Demon Slayer Corps movie, Mugen Train. Ryojuro represents the Fire breathing style and he has a gung-ho enthusiastic energy that makes a red sword make a lot of sense for the Flame Pillar. It’s exceptionally powerful and he has the ability to conjure a rain of fire through the immense energy that he channels into the weapon.

Kanae Kocho and her sister, Kanao, become important characters during Demon Slayer’s first season when they allow Tanjiro and company to recuperate. Collectively, the two Flower Pillar sisters have light pink blades and their Breath of Flowers technique gives them a serious advantage that compliments their excellent reflexes. It’s very fitting for these two.

Light pink correlates to the Flower Pillar Demon Slayer, but a richer shade of the color is reserved for the Corps’ Pillar of Love. Mitsuri Kanroji’s pink sword works together with her Love breathing style, which is full of emotion and empathy. It’s an impressive way to weaponize Mitsuri’s delicate and tender feelings through her weapon.

Blue is typically associated with water and Demon Slayer doesn’t mess with this formula when it comes to its Demon Slayer weaponry. The Water Pillar, Giyu Tomioka, controls a blue sword that’s just as powerful and uncontrollable as water itself. Every occasion when he brandishes the blade yields huge results.

A green Nichirin blade may seem like it’d be associated with jealousy or envy, but in Demon Slayer it’s representative of the wind, perhaps through a connection to nature. The wind can be volatile and destructive, which is also true about Sanemi Shinazugawa, the Wind Pillar, and one of the Demon Slayer Corps’ more unrepentant Hashira.

Gyomei Himejima is a Demon Slayer Corps member that hasn’t gotten much of a chance to shine outside of the manga at this point, but he wields one of the most creative Demon Slayer tools. Gyomei’s blade is grey, which makes sense since he’s the Corps’ Stone Pillar representative and stoic and relaxed in nature. However, rather than a conventional sword, Gyomei’s weapon is a hand ax with a dangerous spiked attachment. It certainly adds some variety to the swords and hopefully it will get more attention in the future.

The white blade belongs to Muichiro Tokito, the Demon Slayer Corps’ Mist Pillar who exercises the Breath of Mist breathing style. Muichiro operates like a blank slate who is completely empty of thoughts, which the white mist aesthetic compliments.

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The first season of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba is available to stream on Netflix, HBO Max, Funimation, Crunchyroll, and Hulu.

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keshetchai · 7 years ago

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I know in judaism there's only one deity but under what role do spirits fall? (like duendes or house sprites or haunters) can you leave them offerings or is that also considered worshiping false idols/other gods?

Ooooh, that’s a fascinating question! It might partially depend on what you mean by “offerings” especially since shedim are known to just take what they want anyways. My best suggestion is to ask several rabbis, because this is something I wouldn’t have a hard and fast answer to.

That said, I feel like duendes are relatively similar (or the same as) shedim in Judaism. (Or mazikim.)

I don’t know that one typically leaves offerings for shedim, mostly because most of the stories I can recall are like about telling shedim to stop taking things left out, haha.

Here’s some related things:

https://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/79050/checking-for-sheidim/79053

https://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/sheidim-demons?page=3&sort=newest&pagesize=15

Some people are careful to spill off a little bit of water (and other liquids?) before drinking, a practice explained in the Gemara (Chullin 105b, bottom) as due to concern that a shed may have drunk from it. However, most people don’t worry about it.

https://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/68180/protection-from-mazikim

The Gemara in Megillah 3a; When discussing that someone feels frightened for no obvious reason, it is because their mazel (according to Rashi- a ministering angel) sees something to be afraid of.

The Gemara asks ‘what is the fix? To recite krias shema.’ In a place of filth that you can’t distance yourself from, say 'there are fatter goats in the slaughter house than me.’

Sforno on Leviticus 17:7 writes at length on household spirits actually, so maybe the answer would start from here:

חקת עולם תהיה זאת, not to offer sacrifices to the demons even though they were not being equated with deities in any manner, but were considered only as creatures that could be employed by their human masters. They even used to employ such demons for errands to distant countries. We have documented proof of this in the case of Joseph Shida [the demon named Joseph] and about the demon who was prominent in the household of Rav bar Rav Ashi (Chulin 105). Had such demons been considered deities it is inconceivable that people of Rav Ashi’s stature or Rav Pappa’s stature would have had any track with them whatsoever.It is reported in the Talmud that whereas little is known about the manner of these demons’ creation, they are known to eat and drink just as human beings. It is further worthy of mention that the sages, collectively, referred to the phenomenon of the demons as מזיקים, destructive, harmful phenomena. They multiply in a manner similar to humans and they die a regular death. They see without being seen themselves.Apparently, although they are composed of composite material, their bones are extremely thin and transparent. The author speculates that just as ordinary human beings in common with the animals possess a נפש חיוני “intangible life-force” which, seeing that it dies with the body it inhabits, as distinct from the human נשמה which is an intangible spirit emanating in the celestial regions, is basically terrestrial in nature, these demons are “powered” by such a life-force. The reason we find that “life-force” referred to on occasion as נפש is the fact that it cannot exist without its tangible partner, the one which feeds on food and drink secured from what is available in our terrestrial universe.Consider the very fact that the Torah describes “blood as the life-force” (Deuteronomy 12,23). If someone were to sacrifice blood to such a creature, especially, seeing that it is powerful enough to sustain the life of such creatures, the blood sacrificed to such creatures would be equivalent to keeping these demons alive. (compare Maimonides, Moreh Nevuchim,3,46 on the subject).This would be a violation of the statement in Chulin 105 כל מידי דצייר וחתים וכייל ומני לית לן רשותא למשקל מינעה. This is a conversation between the “owner” of a demon, Mar bar Rav Ashi, according to which the demon who had not paid back a loan on time to the “owner” claimed that his power to collect objects in this world did not include objects which were clearly defined and visible. From this Tossaphot Taanit 8 divrey hamatchil אלא בדבר concludes that if clearly defined and visible phenomena in this world were out of bounds to the demons unless they were definitely ownerless, phenomena which are not visible to us humans belonged to the category of phenomena over which such demons did have control.At any rate, when a situation exists when many people find such demons useful and pliable to their wishes, people indulged in offering them blood so as to endear themselves to these creatures and to get them to perform their wishes. The people offering these gifts of blood used to eat it themselves also, in order to share more common ground with these creatures. Some people even made a point of consuming the blood of such “gifts” to the demons in the vicinity of the Temple. They were under the impression that these demons were performing their dances in that vicinity. They hoped to ingratiate themselves with these creatures by showing them this kind of “respect.”When G’d decided to sanctify us and He separated His people from dependence on such demons and taught us not to pursue such ultimately useless phenomena and put our trust in them, seeing that contrary to a superficial perception they are really mazikim, destructive forces, as our sages correctly described them, He levied a severe penalty on people who continue such relationships as they used to entertain with demons. The penalty of karet means severance from one’s own people’s eternal future. (verse 10)G’d levied a similar penalty on eating blood and offering gifts to these demons as He had levied at the time in Gan Eden when he forbade eating from the tree of knowledge on pain of man becoming mortal, i.e. losing an aspect of his infinity on this earth. (Genesis 2,17). The Torah rationalized its prohibition and the severity of the penalty by stating: “for the soul (intangible life-force) of the flesh is in the blood.” This is the Torah’s way of referring to the almost invisible essence of these creatures. On the one hand, this essence is called nefesh “life-force,” on the other hand it is referred to as blood, as once the blood stops coursing through the veins of the body it feeds it is the end of the existence of both the body and life force of such creatures. G’d added (verse 11) ואני נתתיו לכם על המזבח לכפר, “I have given you an opportunity to present this blood on My altar in order to facilitate your atonement for your life-force.The point G’d is making is that as opposed to these demons for whom such blood is an essential part of their nutrients, enabling them to stay alive, I, the Lord, do not need anything like this for Myself; on the contrary, I have provided you My people with an opportunity to remain alive yourselves by achieving atonement for your sins by means of sacrifices involving the life blood of the animal you are offering.Sacrifices, offerings, in order to be meaningful as expiation, must be in a certain reciprocal relationship to the donor. If the donor had been guilty of forfeiting his life, only someone else’s life, in this instance the blood of the sacrificial animal, can possibly achieve this kind of atonement in lieu of the sinner’s lifeblood himself. Other parts of the sacrificial animal being burned up on the altar, similarly, correspond to the parts of the body of the donor which had been guilty of committing the sin for which the donor hopes to atone. (compare author on Leviticus 1,2)

So things we know we cannot do for shedim or house-spirits (duendes):

1. Make offerings of our own blood 2. Make a burnt offering (I think usually of the fat of the sacrificed animal?) to them3. Make a sacrifice of an animal to them

This is Leviticus 17:1-12

1 The LORD spoke to Moses, saying: 2 Speak to Aaron and his sons and to all the Israelite people and say to them: This is what the LORD has commanded:3 if anyone of the house of Israel slaughters an ox or sheep or goat in the camp, or does so outside the camp,4 and does not bring it to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting to present it as an offering to the LORD, before the LORD’s Tabernacle, bloodguilt shall be imputed to that man: he has shed blood; that man shall be cut off from among his people.5 This is in order that the Israelites may bring the sacrifices which they have been making in the open—that they may bring them before the LORD, to the priest, at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, and offer them as sacrifices of well-being to the LORD;6 that the priest may dash the blood against the altar of the LORD at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, and turn the fat into smoke as a pleasing odor to the LORD;7 and that they may offer their sacrifices no more to the goat-demons after whom they stray. This shall be to them a law for all time, throughout the ages.8 Say to them further: If anyone of the house of Israel or of the strangers who reside among them offers a burnt offering or a sacrifice,9 and does not bring it to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting to offer it to the LORD, that person shall be cut off from his people.10 And if anyone of the house of Israel or of the strangers who reside among them partakes of any blood, I will set My face against the person who partakes of the blood, and I will cut him off from among his kin.11 For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have assigned it to you for making expiation for your lives upon the altar; it is the blood, as life, that effects expiation.12 Therefore I say to the Israelite people: No person among you shall partake of blood, nor shall the stranger who resides among you partake of blood.

So definitely no feeding them blood, no sacrificing animals to them…although one may assume that as shedim do eat, then they are inclined to eat of your food whether or not you necessarily invited them to do so.

Chillun 105b (bottom) is the section which discusses shedim simply drinking when they feel like it. It also has one of my favorite exorcism stories where the Rabbi blasts some trumpets and then tells off a demon by asking it “What business do you have being in public???”:

Abaye also said: At first I thought the reason why one does not sit under a drain pipe was that there was waste water there, but my Master has told me. It is because demons are to be found there. Certain carriers were once carrying a barrel of wine. Wishing to take a rest they put it down under a drain pipe, whereupon the barrel burst, so they came to Mar son of R. Ashi. He brought forth trumpets and exorcised the demon who now stood before him. Said he to the devil, 'Why did you do such a thing?’ He replied. 'What else could I do, seeing that they put it down on my ear’? The other [Mar son Of R. Ashi] retorted: 'What business had you in a public place? It is you that are in the wrong, you must therefore pay for the damage’. Said the devil, 'Will the Master give me a time wherein to pay’? A date was fixed. When the day arrived he defaulted. He came to court and [Mar b. R. Ashi] said to him, 'Why did you not keep your time?’ He replied. 'We have no right to take away anything that is tied up sealed, measured or counted; but only if we find something that has been abandoned’.

Abaye also said: At first I thought the reason why one pours off [a little water] from the mouth of the jug [before drinking therefrom] was the fear of scraps [that may be on the surface], but now my Master has told me: It is because of evil waters.12 A shedim in the service of R. Papa once went to fetch water from the river but was away a long time. When he returned he was asked. 'Why were you so long?’ He replied. ’[I waited] until the evil waters had all gone’. In the meantime he saw them pouring off [a little water] from the mouth of the jug; he exclaimed. 'Had I known that you were in the habit of doing this I would not have been away so long’.

I would definitely as a rabbi, but my understanding is that shedim will eat what they will regardless of offerings. You definitely can’t give them blood, smoke of burned fats, or make an sacrifice an animal to them (even though they aren’t deities), but I don’t know if making sure your local house spirits are welcomed and comfortable in the shared home is quite the same thing?

Neat question though! If I remember, I’ll ask my Rabbis. I know we have some upcoming adult education lectures on Judaism and spirits/shedim.

#judaism #jumblr

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rama-baktha · 5 years ago

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The Atman (Soul)

The Atman (Soul) is the living one. More specifically, it is the Inner Self or the Everlasting Self that, according to the Vedas, is present in all things, from the greatest to the lowest. The Upanishads define Atman as immortal, blissful, transcendental, indestructible, spiritual, pure, limitless, wise. It is also the real self but is susceptible to the impurities and alterations of Existence. Because of them, people can not know their own Selves and stay deluded and unaware. Atman is the heart or the nature of everything. Ego is the exterior case or cover from which creatures establish their personality and distinguishing features. According to the Vedas, understanding the inner self is the highest aim of human existence, which contributes to freedom from the process of creation and death. The following essays shed considerable light on the fundamental essence and meaning of Atman and why it is vital to meditate on the Self in order to calm the mind and become lost in the Body. Get the Law Of Attraction - 20 eBooks Package

The Concept of the Atman

The Atman (Soul) is the divine component of our physical life, the real self, which is concealed in every entity of development, including the human being. It is the microcosm that reflects the macrocosm in each one of us, imparting to us spiritual virtues and opportunities, and granting us awareness and purpose to live and feel the pains and pleasures of earthly existence. Atman is Brahman Himself, the very Being that descends through the elements of Nature by being-projection or representation and engages individually in the game of self-induced delusion and utter joy. But bound by the senses and constrained by the ego, connection, duality, and perceptual intelligence, we, the jivas, do not perceive the reality. We go out, get interested, and overlook who we are in the end. It's like a human who journeys to distant lands under a spell and forgets his origins, his heritage and his homeland.

Atman is the invisible companion

You never peek in as you glance about. When you are actively interested in the environment, you lack self-awareness and get lost in the job at hand. It's how Nature has built your mind and body to hold you attached. "The non-existent Lord invaded the senses to make them transform outward. Therefore, we gaze to the outside universe and see not the Non with us." The Soul is the invisible companion of all our actions and encounters, the creator and the indweller of all the incarnated creatures. The essence can not be properly clarified or represented in human language, since it is outside the senses and the mind. "There the eyes can not travel, nor speech, nor mind. Nor do we know how to explain it to the disciples. It is different from the known and beyond the unknown." It can only be experienced when all sensory activity ceases to have an impact on the mind, when the mind itself is freed from the movement of thought and sense objects, and from the torment of desires, which are the primary cause of all human beings. The awareness of the Self emerges, "When the consciousness and the five senses are still and the brain is still they claim that Yoga is the total stillness in which one reaches the condition of Oneness."

Atman has no physical or mental dimension

While represented as a light, the size of the thumb, which is supposed to occur physically between the eyes, or psychically in the centre, its exact position is unknown. It has no physical or mental dimension as well but as a pure representation or understanding of the mind's intellect. But unquestionably He remains, and He alone is real. Anything else is fake, or an idea that withers away, crushed by the weight of sins, the deterioration of the earth, and the burden of time. We are instructed, "The Adorable One resides in the heart and governs the air of creation. Even the senses pay respect to Him. If He steps out of the body in liberation from the chains of the flesh, what else remains? This Being is Supreme." We are often instructed, "The soul is beyond the senses, the brain above the spirit, the conscience beyond the conscience, and the unmanifested cause above the Brahman. Whereas the basis of Atman is truth, permanence, and happiness, the essence of the ego is delusion, impermanence, and pain. The conscience of a human entity is forever saturated in despair and misery, and the indwelling Atman wants to be saved from everlasting destruction and damnation. The ego is a distorted representation of this. Katha Upanishad describes the relative position of the two selfs in this manner, "There are two selfs, the independent ego and the indivisible Atman. As one grows above me, me and mine, Atman shows Himself as the true Self."

Atman described in the Mundaka & Kena Upanishad

The Mundaka Upanishad is more explicit and poetic, "Like two birds perched on the same tree, intimate friends, the ego and the self, dwell in the same body. The former eats the sweet and sour fruits of life, while the latter looks with detachment." This symbolism is further extended in this verse of the Katha Upanishad, "Know the Self as the Lord of the Chariot, the body as the chariot itself, the budding bud. "Here, no eye can penetrate, no speech, no spirit. Neither do we know whether to grasp or preach it." Throughout the Kena Upanishad, the instructor describes the challenge of understanding the Self to the students in the following terms, "If you believe you know the Self you don't know." And the student says, "I don't think I know the Self, nor can I claim I don't recognize Him." The problem is further explained in the Kena Upanishad, and the way to reach the Atman (Soul) is also suggested, "The ignorant one thinks that the intellect can know the Self, but the enlightened one knows that He is beyond the duality of the knower and the known." Thus, intelligence can give you wisdom and discernment and pave the way, but it can not give you the experience of the pure Self. The concept that is inferred or indicated in the Upanishads is that Atman can not be understood by ordinary consciousness, when the senses are involved, and when the mind is dysfunctional, and buddhi, intellect, is under the control of impulses, delusions, and duality, which interfere with the cycle of understanding and discerning the reality and the correct wisdom. There can be no knowledge of the Atman (Soul) while there is a gap of "knowing" between the knower and the learned. He who knows it (as an object) doesn't really know it. Mind and the senses The mind and the senses are between the two polarities of the knower and the understood, or the subject and the object. We keep the being from recognizing and understanding Atman as his own Self. The subconscious is an incomplete device with the intrinsic failure of Atman to grasp and distinguish. "The essence of the Self can not come to him, who has not recognized that he is the Self. His intellect can not disclose the Self to him, outside his duality of subject and object." How can one know the Atman (Soul)? Which is the answer or the mechanism that renders Atman self-evident? The Upanishads are rather simple.

The self

"The self can not be identified to a person who does not refrain himself from wrong ways, who does not regulate his senses and holds his mind, and who does not practice meditation or abstinence," Yama describes to Nachiketa in Katha Upanishad. He also says, "This enlightenment that you have learned may not come from rationality and education, but from near interaction with a recognized instructor." Nevertheless, a pure connection with a spiritual leader will not be quite beneficial when there is an inner and profound devotion and desire to learn the transcendental Self, the Atman (Soul). "The Self can not be understood through the analysis of the Bible, not by intelligence, nor by educated discourses. Only those who desire the Self will obtain the Self. However, the Self shows itself to them." Establishing a relation between the outer and the inner realms is neither simple nor clear and straightforward. One must progress through several intermediate phases and levels, conquer several barriers, eliminate many impurities, mute many noises of mind and body, eradicate unfavorable attributes and destructive behaviors to achieve the final target. The Self is immune to the perception of conditions in the physical realm. The Mandukya Upanishad teaches us that the soul is fourfold: the waking Vaishwanara, the Supreme Male (the ego), the sleeping Taijasa, the enjoyer of the intangible artifacts and the God of the luminous spirit, (the astral), the enigmatic Prajna, the one who resides in deep sleep and who is the God of Knowledge Atman, the infinite, the incommunicable, the origin of the world, and really Brahman hisse. Universal realities and planes of awareness We travel through these four states every day, so we don't realize who we truly are, even like we confuse the ego for the Self. Our minds have little integrity or power to learn transcendental realities or the fundamental realities of our own life outside our empirical knowledge. The inner path is challenging and enigmatic, and we are insufficiently prepared to distinguish the existence of the Spirit inside us or its limitless realities. There may also be other universal realities and planes of awareness between our waking and deep sleeping states, which we will never learn. But nothing can be done regarding the true understanding of self-knowledge? What's going to happen when a seeker gets there? No one appears to recognize or explain explicitly what occurs when an individual falls into union with the Self or Brahman. By the knowledge of many, we realize that the state of self-realization is outside the capacities of the human mind and can not be adequately converted into any human language, because terms that belong to the realm of the conditioned mind do not hold the force or the luminosity of transcendental realities. Mysticism itself is a vague area, and mystical encounters are much more vague. Around the same moment, we realize that deep in the recesses of our own minds there is a tangible mystery. We realize it's there because we can sense its existence in a deep moment. We realize that we are different because we are quiet and profoundly contemplative. And for all the obstacles that the universe provides, the joy of the Self can not be kept indefinitely in the hidden caves of the head. In the vast phases of the spirit, in the sumptuous phases and sublime moments where you feel linked to the universe or Existence, and in times of immense distress where you feel lonely or powerless, the happiness and passion of the soul flood through your waking consciousness like the thundering sounds of a wild river and awaken you to the reality of the Self. Discover The Secret To Increased Productivity And Happiness - Endless Energy Soul who is the everlasting witness Therefore, the Atman (Soul) who is the everlasting witness does not fully forsake you. If you excel in reflecting the best of human existence if you have kindness, affection, empathy and equanimity, and if you conquer the forces of your own subconscious, you can gradually feel linked to him and see the universe through his eyes. You will still require the help of God in the path towards self-knowledge. In Isa Upanishad, we see an ambiguous reference to it when the seeker prays to Brahman in the following terms, indicating the value of devotion. "The face of reality is concealed behind the golden cover, O Pusan, may you lift the lid so that I may see the golden Reality!" As the appeal is rendered and the Truth that he was searching reveals itself, he draws an undisputed conclusion in a state of ecstasy and exclaims, "In fact I am He." Self is the greatest mystery of human existence. Understanding this is the ultimate aim that a human may be expected to accomplish after multiple births by gaining great merit. In him, the process of life completes its full circle as it finds the Reality that is concealed behind the golden shield. Although people suffer and fail in the mortal universe with abstract yearnings and unfulfilled wishes, a handful manages to create the nearly unlikely vision of realizing who they are. And the planet is worshipping them. Useful blogs to read: Bramha SutraVedic View Of The Universe Disclosure: “Bear in mind that some of the links in this post are affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission. Purchasing via an affiliate link does not cost you any extra, and I only recommend products and services I trust. It helps me support the blog/channel/group to make quality content and recommend products for you." Read the full article

#hinduism #soul #vedas #Yoga

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mayarosa47 · 5 years ago

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Criminal Lawyer West Jordan Utah

A citizen can knowingly expose something to the public in many ways. Fourth Amendment protection does not apply when a citizen makes inculpatory statements to an undercover police officer during conversations that were memorized, recorded, or simultaneously conveyed to the police, because the citizen assumed the risk that his message would be conveyed to the police. Likewise, the Supreme Court has held that a citizen has no legitimate expectation of privacy in dialed telephone numbers, because the dialed telephone numbers are knowingly exposed to the telephone company. And, when a citizen places garbage in opaque plastic bags on a public street for trash collection, the citizen assumes the risk that members of the public may gain access to its contents. Therefore, the citizen has no reasonable expectation of privacy in inculpatory items discarded in this way. The Supreme Court has concluded that a canine-sniff does not constitute a search because a canine-sniff is: (1) less intrusive than a typical search, (2) sui generis, and (3) so limited both in the manner in which the information is obtained and the content of the information revealed that it could not offend a reasonable privacy expectation. At the same time, the Court implied that the Fourth Amendment was not implicated when a canine-sniff disclosed only the presence or absence of a contraband item (narcotics). According to this latter interpretation, the Fourth Amendment does not protect a citizen from such a disclosure of contraband (illegal) items.

The Fourth Amendment is implicated when a search or seizure occurs. The Supreme Court has struggled to define a search, particularly when it had to evaluate the impact of a sense-enhancing device. For example, the Court has held that the government’s use of a sense-enhancing device is not a search where the government conducted a warrantless (1) canine-sniff of (a) luggage briefly detained at an airport; or (b) a car lawfully stopped, and (2) aerial surveillance of a chemical manufacturing plant with a precision aerial mapping camera. If you have been arrested following a search or seizure, speak to an experienced West Jordan Utah criminal defense lawyer. You have certain rights and the lawyer will ensure that your rights are protected.

The general definition for probable cause when based on an officer’s own observations is: if the facts and circumstances before the officer are such as to warrant a man of prudence and caution believing that the offense has been committed, it is sufficient. In other words, what did the officer know? And, when did he know it?

To obtain a search warrant from the court, a police officer must be able to detail, in writing, the person, place, or things to be searched. The officer’s request to a judge – usually a signed “affidavit” – must be based on probable cause that the item to be searched for is where the officer says it is.

The Supreme Court has held that a warrant was void if the affiant-government agent made assertions in the affidavit (supporting the warrant request) that contained no facts upon which to base a finding of probable cause. Assertions in an affidavit that merely affirms a belief or a suspicion are insufficient to support probable cause to search a private dwelling. Not only has the Court prohibited the affiant-government agent from using mere assertions of belief or suspicion to establish probable cause, but her third-party informant is similarly restricted. To establish probable cause based on an informant’s tip, the informer’s report must show (1) he is a reliable or truthful informant, (2) that his report is based on sufficient facts (basis in knowledge), or that his report has been sufficiently corroborated; or (3) specifically detailed (suggesting that it was reliably received), or (4) the rest of the affidavit shows that something alleged permits the suspicion engendered by the informant’s report to ripen into probable cause.

Probable Cause

From the beginning the Supreme Court has condemned writs of assistance and general warrants as violations of the Fourth Amendment’s particularity requirement. The Court has held that this particularity requirement applies to persons as well as to places.

Search warrants are often employed early in an investigation, sometimes before the identity of any likely criminal is known. Indeed, these warrants may be used to search the property of purportedly blameless persons. On the other hand, where the material seized falls within First Amendment protection, a search warrant may not be sufficient to protect a citizen’s Fourth Amendment right. For example, the Court has held that the particularity requirement must be more strictly adhered to when a First Amendment right is involved.

The Supreme Court has held that the Fourth Amendment’s second clause contains four requirements: (1) probable cause, (2) supported by oath or affirmation, particularly describing (3) the place to be searched; and (4) the things to be seized.

A search conducted pursuant to a warrant that fails to conform to the particularity requirement of the Fourth Amendment is unconstitutional. Moreover, the Court has claimed that the particularity requirement prevents general searches and assures individuals that an officer executing a search warrant has the lawful power to search, and that there are limits on that power.

A warrant that satisfies some but not all of the four requirements is facially deficient and therefore unconstitutional. However, a court may determine that a facially invalid warrant is constitutional where the warrant’s specific language makes reference to a supporting application or affidavit. So, if the warrant uses appropriate words of incorporation, and if the supporting document accompanying the warrant supports probable cause, the warrant is constitutional.

Warrants to search or seize must set forth probable cause supported by oath or affirmation. The Supreme Court has emphatically determined that this sworn statement of probable cause must be independently sufficient to inform the judge that probable cause exists.

The Supreme Court has consistently maintained that the constitutional requirement that a warrant must particularly describe the things to be seized is to be accorded the most scrupulous exactitude when the things are books, and the basis for their seizure are the ideas that they contain. First Amendment cases are treated differently from other search and seizure cases. When First Amendment rights are not involved, the particularity requirement is more flexible. The Court has recognized a police officer’s good faith reliance on a search warrant authorizing the search of a suspect’s third-floor apartment even when the officer did not learn that the third floor contained two apartments, one not belonging to the suspect, until the police executed the search warrant.

Neutral Magistrate

Unlike the Fourth Amendment warrant requirements of probable cause, oath or affirmation, and particularity as to search of a place and the seizure of things, there is no specific language about a neutral and detached magistrate. Instead the Supreme Court has adopted this requirement based on a number of precedents. In essence this requirement provides that inferences necessary for determining whether a warrant is valid should be drawn by a neutral and detached magistrate instead of being judged by the officer engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime. Consequently, warrants are unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment when issued by a state agent who is not neutral or detached. A state agent is not rendered neutral and detached merely by having authority to issue warrants. Also, the issuing magistrate need not be a lawyer or a judge. As a consequence, a municipal court clerk can be a neutral and detached magistrate, but if the clerk is paid only if arrest warrants are issued, then the clerk is neither neutral nor detached.

Knock and Announce

Generally, a search or seizure conducted without a warrant is presumptively unreasonable. However, even where the police possess a warrant to search and seize in a citizen’s home the search or seizure may be unreasonable where the manner of entry. was unreasonable. The reasonableness of a search of a dwelling may depend in part on whether law enforcement officers announced their presence and authority prior to entering. Even under these circumstances, the Court has acknowledged that there is nothing specific about the formalities or the manner of conducting a search or seizure. Moreover, the Court has eschewed the use of categories or protocols when determining the reasonable execution of a warrant.

Instead of categories, the Court examines the totality of the circumstances in each case in order to determine whether the manner of entry was reasonable. As a result, the Court has identified factual considerations of unusual, albeit not dispositive, significance. For example, generally, the Court requires the police to announce their intent to enter before entering closed premises. However, the police may make an unannounced entry where they have reason to believe that evidence would likely be destroyed if advance notice were given.

To justify a no-knock entry the police must possess a reasonable belief or suspicion that the knock will cause the citizen to harm the policeman or destroy evidence. When determining whether the police had reasonable suspicion that announcing their presence might be dangerous to themselves or others, the Court has decided that the existence of reasonable suspicion does not depend on whether the police must destroy property to enter the closed premises. The Court has noted that excessive or unnecessary destruction of property in the course of a search may violate the Fourth Amendment, even though the entry itself is otherwise lawful and the fruits of the search not subject to suppression.

Although the police may persuade a judge prior to entry that reasonable suspicion exists to justify a no-knock entry, sometimes an exigency may arise after the police have knocked and announced. After they have done so, the issue becomes: How long must they wait before entering the premises? According to the Court, the facts known to the police are used in judging a reasonable waiting time. Then, a judge must examine the disposal time of the particular evidence involved in order to determine whether the officer’s claim of exigent need was reasonable. Where evidence is not readily destructible, police should wait longer before entering after knocking and announcing. Obviously, each case must be determined on its own facts.

So, even where the police enter closed premises with a warrant, the reasonableness inquiry under the Fourth Amendment has not ended. Next, a trial judge may be required to determine if the manner of entry was reasonable. Such a determination may depend on whether the police (1) knocked and announced; (2) waited for a reasonable period of time (after knocking and announcing), or recognized an exigency after knocking and announcing; or (3) destroyed property before, after, or without knocking and announcing. At one time, the presumption was that where the manner of entry was unreasonable (failing to knock and announce) then any fruits discovered upon entry would be excluded pursuant to the exclusionary rule. This presumption is no longer valid when the police enter pursuant to a search warrant.

The police are required to have prior justification for their presence in order for the plain-view doctrine to apply. Prior justification has included (1) searching for other objects pursuant to a warrant, (2) hot pursuit, (3) search incident to a lawful arrest, and (4) presence of an officer for some other legitimate reason unconnected with the search directed against the accused, which permits the warrantless seizure. However, the evidence must be immediately apparent to the seizing officer.

If you have been charged with a crime, contact an experienced West Jordan Utah criminal defense lawyer. Your liberty is at stake. If convicted, you may be sent to jail. Never assume that you can fight a criminal charge without the assistance of an experienced West Jordan Utah criminal defense lawyer. Criminal law is complex. A conviction can remain on your records and you will find it difficult to rent a house or get a job because of your conviction. If you are subsequently charged for another offense, the judge will consider your previous conviction when sentencing you and you are likely to receive a harsher sentence.

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Criminal Lawyer West Jordan Utah

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Probable Cause

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Criminal Defense Lawyer West Jordan Utah Free Consultation

When you need legal help with criminal defense in West Jordan Utah, please call Ascent Law LLC (801) 676-5506 for your Free Consultation. We want to help you.

Ascent Law LLC 8833 S. Redwood Road, Suite C West Jordan, Utah 84088 United States Telephone: (801) 676-5506

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asafeatherwould · 5 years ago

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Criminal Lawyer West Jordan Utah

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Probable Cause

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Knock and Announce

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Criminal Defense Lawyer West Jordan Utah Free Consultation

When you need legal help with criminal defense in West Jordan Utah, please call Ascent Law LLC (801) 676-5506 for your Free Consultation. We want to help you.

Ascent Law LLC 8833 S. Redwood Road, Suite C West Jordan, Utah 84088 United States Telephone: (801) 676-5506

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How Do You Find Out If An Estate Has Been Probated?

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melissawalker01 · 5 years ago

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Criminal Lawyer West Jordan Utah

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Probable Cause

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Knock and Announce

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Criminal Defense Lawyer West Jordan Utah Free Consultation

When you need legal help with criminal defense in West Jordan Utah, please call Ascent Law LLC (801) 676-5506 for your Free Consultation. We want to help you.

Ascent Law LLC 8833 S. Redwood Road, Suite C West Jordan, Utah 84088 United States Telephone: (801) 676-5506

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4.9 stars – based on 67 reviews

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Criminal Lawyer West Jordan Utah

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Probable Cause

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Criminal Defense Lawyer West Jordan Utah Free Consultation

When you need legal help with criminal defense in West Jordan Utah, please call Ascent Law LLC (801) 676-5506 for your Free Consultation. We want to help you.

Ascent Law LLC 8833 S. Redwood Road, Suite C West Jordan, Utah 84088 United States Telephone: (801) 676-5506

Ascent Law LLC

4.9 stars – based on 67 reviews

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from Michael Anderson https://www.ascentlawfirm.com/criminal-lawyer-west-jordan-utah/

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aretia · 5 years ago

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Criminal Lawyer West Jordan Utah

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Probable Cause

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Neutral Magistrate

Knock and Announce

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Criminal Defense Lawyer West Jordan Utah Free Consultation

When you need legal help with criminal defense in West Jordan Utah, please call Ascent Law LLC (801) 676-5506 for your Free Consultation. We want to help you.

Ascent Law LLC 8833 S. Redwood Road, Suite C West Jordan, Utah 84088 United States Telephone: (801) 676-5506

Ascent Law LLC

4.9 stars – based on 67 reviews

Recent Posts

How Do You Find Out If An Estate Has Been Probated?

Securities Lawyer Salt Lake City

Contract Litigation

Family Lawyer

Medical And Professional Malpractice Defense

Catastrophic Tort Claims Lawsuits

Source: https://www.ascentlawfirm.com/criminal-lawyer-west-jordan-utah/

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coming-from-hell · 5 years ago

Text

Criminal Lawyer West Jordan Utah

youtube

Probable Cause

youtube

Neutral Magistrate

Knock and Announce

youtube

Criminal Defense Lawyer West Jordan Utah Free Consultation

When you need legal help with criminal defense in West Jordan Utah, please call Ascent Law LLC (801) 676-5506 for your Free Consultation. We want to help you.

Ascent Law LLC 8833 S. Redwood Road, Suite C West Jordan, Utah 84088 United States Telephone: (801) 676-5506

Ascent Law LLC

4.9 stars – based on 67 reviews

Recent Posts

How Do You Find Out If An Estate Has Been Probated?

Securities Lawyer Salt Lake City

Contract Litigation

Family Lawyer

Medical And Professional Malpractice Defense

Catastrophic Tort Claims Lawsuits

Source: https://www.ascentlawfirm.com/criminal-lawyer-west-jordan-utah/

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michaeljames1221 · 5 years ago

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Criminal Lawyer West Jordan Utah

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Probable Cause

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A warrant that satisfies some but not all of the four requirements is facially deficient and therefore unconstitutional. However, a court may determine that a facially invalid warrant is constitutional where the warrant��s specific language makes reference to a supporting application or affidavit. So, if the warrant uses appropriate words of incorporation, and if the supporting document accompanying the warrant supports probable cause, the warrant is constitutional.

Neutral Magistrate

Knock and Announce

youtube

Criminal Defense Lawyer West Jordan Utah Free Consultation

When you need legal help with criminal defense in West Jordan Utah, please call Ascent Law LLC (801) 676-5506 for your Free Consultation. We want to help you.

Ascent Law LLC 8833 S. Redwood Road, Suite C West Jordan, Utah 84088 United States Telephone: (801) 676-5506

Ascent Law LLC

4.9 stars – based on 67 reviews

Recent Posts

How Do You Find Out If An Estate Has Been Probated?

Securities Lawyer Salt Lake City

Contract Litigation

Family Lawyer

Medical And Professional Malpractice Defense

Catastrophic Tort Claims Lawsuits

from Michael Anderson https://www.ascentlawfirm.com/criminal-lawyer-west-jordan-utah/

from Criminal Defense Lawyer West Jordan Utah https://criminaldefenselawyerwestjordanutah.wordpress.com/2020/03/21/criminal-lawyer-west-jordan-utah/

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