Sasha Skelobich

These narratives and engagement with have sought to illuminate the Desert Fathers’ religious relationship between food and desire to body, and the balance between asceticism and moderation.  This work has been done in an attempt to show the importance of the network of relationships both material and immaterial surrounding material notions but which  aided in the  constructed the early monastic tradition and reveals the processes by which they were able to engage and fortify in a communal Christian tradition of discernment in an incredibly inhospitable and isolated area.  The relationship between the Elders and the young monks was always that of the latter seeking guidance from those who had been forged in the fires of their experience and who had also sought the guidance of the tradition while performing necessary acts and practices to help illuminate the appropriate path. They stood atop the shoulders of giants and found the view clearer than when they stood alone.

This paper will explore the intersection between contemporary eastern (Hindu) traditions and their interaction with subtle body models.  In exploring Pattabhi Jois’s system of ashtanga yoga and determining the lineage through which subtle body models find their textual authority from ancient to modern representations/understandings may provide a useful scholarly framework from which to navigate different essential concepts of this Hindu tradition.  The concept of spiritual heat (known as tapas) and its relationship with the nectar of immortality (deemed amṛta), display itself through the understanding and manipulation of both the gross and subtle body.  This overview will provide an interpretive framework of what Pattabhi Jois is doing in terms of subtle body and techniques, but will focus more on the techniques and historical sources from which Ashtanga draws from.  While a narrow understanding of tantra will play its part in this paper it will not be heavily focused on so much as to show how Modern ashtanga yoga has been informed by tantric ideology.  Smith informs us that Pattabhi Jois’s philosophies come out of medieval hatha yoga, and the focal point here will be on the capability of ascetic ardor and spiritual energy to transform an individual and their life an immortal.  Playing up against these notions is a deep undercurrent of yoga’s alchemical properties.  However without the self, there would be no object for transformation and yoga thus practiced in this way makes itself out to be a self-transformative process.  In some ways yoga has the physical property of installing longevity to the gross body, but this is described in relation to transformations happening in the subtle body.  Longevity installed in this way is focused on modifying a body such that one could achieve enlightenment/liberation in this lifetime As such is the case a very  minor exploration of how subtle body is understood will occur to provide the widest scope of this as I can, all to describe in detail the process of “Detoxification” and “spiritual and bodily transformation” taking place in the generation of tapas.  Hopefully this will also shed light on the mantle of “The Guru” in a way that shows them to be skirting the thin line between innovation and tradition.

We can ascertain that animals have some sort of ability to love and that humans have the capability to love, so could something that was created by humans love?  Hooman Samani has answered that question not only by investing himself in 11 research papers on the subject but also by creating the first iteration of robots comprised of lovotics.  In the realm of artificial intelligence, this is a multidisciplinary research coalition that attempts to initialize affectionate human-robot relationships. in the realm of artificial intelligence attempting to create the platform for human-robot affective relationships.  This paper will explore and attempt to be a membrane between traditional ideas of love paired with modern research to help show love as a transcendent and evolutionary force with the possibility to bridge the gap and innovate already running supersystem processes.  The answer to this question will help us understand the realm of computational intelligence and also provide insight on human love.

We find throughout the sagas and other Viking literary sources mentions of Berserkers, “ferocious warriors who were able to fall into a battle frenzy in which they fought without regard for their own safety and reputedly, could not be harmed by weapons.” Somehow the warriors were capable of generating a sort of altered state known as berserkergang.  According to the sources, while in this state berserker warriors were able to achieve the unimaginable in battle, such as shrugging off wounds that would fell lesser men, shapeshifting, and doling out tremendous amounts of damage to anyone or anything in reach.

This paper is an exploration of the berserker phenomenon and of the possible ritual and religious notions that underlie the generation of berserkergang.  While exact information about  how the berserkers reached this altered state  is somewhat limited, one can find typical symptomatic precursors to this state of rage throughout various sources both historical and mythological.  While theories have been put forward in an attempt to define the character and state of the berserker, these propositions have their own weaknesses. This paper will be dedicated to critiquing these proposed explanations of the berserkergang.  I then will propose another theory to explain the state of the berserkergang.