Posted by Mitch on December 14, 2001, at 0:45:19
In reply to Re: Cutting as a religion. , posted by Simcha on December 13, 2001, at 12:30:34
Simcha,
I have never engaged in this, but I have a couple of family members that have and for some strange reason I think my *boss* does! I never pressed them about why they did it or not. It wasn't major, but they did seem to make a *point* about allowing me to be aware of it. I mentioned above about the religious cult in Russia (19th C) that practiced self-mutilation as a ritual of sorts. I don't know if Dostoevsky was trying to portray Christ's crucifixion as a form of self-inflicted injury as a *release* or *rite-of-passage* or not. It just seems to chime with a lot of the themes about cutting that have been posted in an absurd-strange way.
Mitch
> I'm not trying to knock this for other people yet perhaps I just don't see the value in it. I see it as harming oneself. That is my opinion as someone who does not like pain, or to bleed.
>
> If this is part of your traditional or religious practice then by all means, continue. Don't let my prejudices get in your way. Yet, if you live in 21st century America, this practice might not be a healthy thing, unless of course you descend from a tribe where this is the practice of course.
>
> OK, basically all I'm saying is I DUNNO!
>
> I can't imagine doing it to myself and yet there are many things that others do that I won't do...
>
> > > it may not be a healthy activity, but i dont think that it is detrimental to self preservation, the act of cutting is a pill, a poultice if you will to an intense ailment, it is a silencer to a great and imense feeling of anxiety, the anxiety becomes void because we focus on the cut... the cut overwhelms us and we are at peace for a little while, we have our wounds to tend, our battle scars...
> > >
> >
> > To people who believe in black magic and joojoo or voodoo, they may account for this by saying that you are letting the bad spirits our of your body. That you are possessed and the act of cutting releases it. Sort of like what they did a long time ago by bloodletting to try to cure diseases. Get the bad blood out. Get the bad spirits out.
poster:Mitch
thread:15308
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20011207/msgs/15506.html