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"Pranksters" at CERN perform mock human sacrifice in front of Shiva

User14

Member

Does this bother anyone else?

There's a lot to discuss here. Whether it really was just a prank, or whether it was an authentic ritual. Whether it has any ties to similar rituals done by a number of secret societies in the West. Whether CERN is more than just a scientific facility, and whether it has a political and cultural agenda. Whether Shiva himself is central to the supposed ritual, or whether they just preformed it in front of him because he is centrally located on the campus. Why there is a Nataraja statue at CERN in the first place (I understand that it was a gift from India and is supposed to link the discoveries of quantum physics to the concept of the cosmic dance- but I wonder if there is anything else to it).

But the thing that bothers me the most is that it appears to be yet another example of self-described "esoterics" and liberals in the West appropriating Hindu symbols for their own purposes. They're not truly interested in authentic Indian religion; they just like it to the extent that they can pervert it into a kind of New Age cult of individualism with which to scare/challenge Christians.
 

fantome profane

Anti-Woke = Anti-Justice
Premium Member
I suspect it is a group of amateur filmmakers making one of those "found footage" style horror movies (i.e. "the blair witch project"). If so I think it is understandable that as a Hindu you would be offended by their use of the Shiva statue. But I suspect they are just a bunch of idiots trying to make a scary video.
 

User14

Member
I suspect it is a group of amateur filmmakers making one of those "found footage" style horror movies (i.e. "the blair witch project"). If so I think it is understandable that as a Hindu you would be offended by their use of the Shiva statue. But I suspect they are just a bunch of idiots trying to make a scary video.
I hope you're right, but I'm not so sure. There seems to be some weird stuff going on with European elites at CERN and in Switzerland in general...


This is the kind of stuff that kept me away from Indian religion for so long. Depraved Westerners perverting it to advance their worldview. It still makes me feel less comfortable following Indian religion every time I see it. I wish they'd just cut it out.
 

Aupmanyav

Be your own guru
Silly Yerepians, do not know where the profane ends and the sacred begins. I will take it in my stride.
A gift must have been proposed and accepted. Once accepted, it is CERNS responsibility to see that it is honored. It is a gift that seeks new knowledge, a gift from 1/6 of mankind, 1276 million or 1336 million people to the rest of 6.25 billion (approximately). :) I get two different figures from a google search. I think the first is closer to truth, or may be (the second is true :)).
 
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User14

Member
Fake 'n cheesy. And how could you have a "satanic sacrifice" in Hinduism when Satan isn't even a recognized figure in Hinduism?
I think the "satanic" label is a word that the media is using when reporting this story. I don't know if the participants were actually trying to involve Satan.

But regardless, liberal Western syncretics often worship Satan alongside mockeries of deities from many different traditions, including Hinduism but also Greek, Egyptian, Babylonian, Celtic and Germanic polytheism, etc. To the extent that it can even be called a spirituality, it's a spirituality of opposition. The singular question on their minds always seems to be, "What will challenge Christian norms the most?" I can't help but resent Hindu deities being used for such purposes.
 

Nyingjé Tso

Dharma not drama
Vanakkam

I think you are clouding your mind for nothing
While your concerns are légitimate and understandable, it is not necessary to choke on it. Many Hindus hère are also westerners, many non hindu but awesome people hère are westerners, I don't think your bordering insulting generalisations about westerners help getting your point of view welcomed and understood.

It is obviously fake and the CERN has no agenda. Spent a great afternoon with two scientists working hère, it was very interesting to heat them explain their work and the actual stage of the research, but there is no secret whatever plan for whatever reason.

Don't drink your own poison, if you want these stupidities to stop, just bringing it to the general knowledge to educate people is ok. There are associations fighting the wrong use of hindu religious objects and pictures too, if you want to act.

As for Mahadev, last I heard He keeps dancing

Aum Namah Shivaya
 

SomeRandom

Still learning to be wise
Staff member
Premium Member
I think the "satanic" label is a word that the media is using when reporting this story. I don't know if the participants were actually trying to involve Satan.

But regardless, liberal Western syncretics often worship Satan alongside mockeries of deities from many different traditions, including Hinduism but also Greek, Egyptian, Babylonian, Celtic and Germanic polytheism, etc. To the extent that it can even be called a spirituality, it's a spirituality of opposition. The singular question on their minds always seems to be, "What will challenge Christian norms the most?" I can't help but resent Hindu deities being used for such purposes.

Why? Are the deities yours specifically? Do you own them?

It's important to remember how we approach god as well. No one really dismisses another Hindu for being "not Hindu" if their beliefs differ. Even if they're not traditional views. Tempted though some are. This is because we do not generally go out of our way to care how someone else approaches God/Goddess/whatever even if it's the same one we follow. We cannot tell other people how to view god, that's simply not the Hindu way, we can tell them about how our specific paradigm defines said deity, what rituals are okayed by the priests etc. But that's really as far as we take it.
 

Aupmanyav

Be your own guru
Oh, we can have a laugh with them without being irreverent. Perhaps they will understand. As a pagan I love all polythiest mythologies, whether Greek, Egyptian, Babylonian, Celtic and Germanic. Some of them are connected to me because of being Indo-European. And as @Father Heathen said, Hinduism does not even have a Satan. We only have people having various grades of knowledge, from 'jnanis' (who have knowledge) to 'ajnanis' (who don't have it).
 
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Spirit_Warrior

Active Member
Does this bother anyone else?

Nah. You cannot prevent an individual or a group of individuals from interpreting a Hindu god in any way that they want. You are bothered here by a mock human sacrifice done in front of the Shiva statue at CERN, but what about the real human sacrifices done by some Tantra cultists in India to Shiva? Sure, you yourself may not interpret Shiva as being hungry for human sacrifices, but somebody else maybe. The freedom in Hinduism allows for a diversity of interpretations and practices, and this why it can be both sublime and profane at the same time.

In all likeliness, however, this is just as others have also said, just a bunch of idiots making a prank you-tube video to get some hits on their channel, who probably do not even believe in Shiva or anything esoteric.

Edit: Just to add, now that Hinduism is no longer just an Indian religion, but a global religion, and a new Western religion, new interpretations will indeed emerge, just as they did in every part of India. I also think you need to become comfortable with the fact that Western Hindus do indeed exist, and not look at them as any lesser than Indian Hindus.
 
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User14

Member
Many Hindus hère are also westerners, many non hindu but awesome people hère are westerners, I don't think your bordering insulting generalisations about westerners help getting your point of view welcomed and understood.

I also think you need to become comfortable with the fact that Western Hindus do indeed exist, and not look at them as any lesser than Indian Hindus.

I should clarify- I'm Western myself. I'm not at all uncomfortable with Western Hindus; I'm inspired by them and I long to meet as many of them as I possibly can.

What I'm talking about is the hijacking of Eastern religion—not just Hinduism but also Buddhism, Taoism, etc.—in the West. Not by sincere Western adherents to these faiths, but by people whose primary goals are, in my view, political and cultural. I'm talking about the New Age movement and "alternative" spirituality (not alternative spirituality in general but those who go out of their way to express themselves as alternative).

I'm not denying that there might be many genuine seekers in these movements, but so much of it appears to me to just be modern Western values of radical individualism, sexual libertinism, and even secularism, cloaked with a thin veneer of superficial spirituality. The goal for many within these movements seems to me to be to create a sort of anti-Christianity, and since Eastern religion is exotic and unfamiliar to the average Westerner, Eastern religious symbols, practices and even deities are cherrypicked and used in completely different contexts and for completely different purposes than they are in the East.

I know I'm not the only one who feels this way because I've read a number of people, including Western followers of Eastern religion, write about this phenomenon.

I should also explain that I'm the kind of person who is constantly forming mental associations. For better or for worse, my initial experience with a thing can color my perception of it for years to come, even if I come to learn intellectually that my initial experience was not representative of the whole. For me, these associations occur below the rational parts of my brain, and they've proven very difficult to change.

I flirted with leftism as a teenager, but for most of my adult life I've been socially and culturally conservative. My worldview is very much at odds with those of most Western New Agers. Now New Agers are certainly not the only Westerners who are interested in Eastern religious concepts, but they are definitely the loudest and most "in your face" about it (again, I believe it very often is about challenging traditional and Christian norms).

So I came to roll my eyes at and ignore any Westerner expressing anything about Eastern religion. I came to associate Eastern religion with values I very much disagreed with and wanted little to do with. I'm quite sure I missed out on hearing a lot of wisdom due to this ignorant attitude. When I finally started to learn about, admire, and eventually find true faith in more authentic and traditional forms of Eastern religion—particularly within Hinduism—I was upset that my negative associations had caused me to avoid Eastern religion for so long. And still now, though I intellectually understand these concepts much better, and rationally realize that those Western examples of Eastern religion that I view as negative are not at all representative of the whole, when I see New Age interpretations of things like yoga, tantra, goddess worship, etc., they often weaken my interest in even the more traditional forms of these practices. Because of those mental associations which are so deeply ingrained in my mind. Not negative associations with Western Hindus, but with those who seek to divorce these concepts from their Hindu context and use them for something entirely different.

A similar process occurred with me and Christianity. I was raised Catholic, and like many, I fell away from the Church due to negative associations I made with the religion when I was young. As I grew older I came to learn more about, understand, respect, sympathize with, and deeply admire the Church. But when I made a concerted effort to return to the Church, not just intellectually but in terms of actual practice, I found it extremely difficult. I had a handful of disagreements with the theology, but the main blockage came from those negative mental associations.

but what about the real human sacrifices done by some Tantra cultists in India to Shiva?
They absolutely bother me and create negative mental associations for me, as do the stories of Thugs who killed for Kali. I struggle a lot with these as well.
 

Vinayaka

devotee
Premium Member
This was last August ... old news. Silly people will be silly people. Meanwhile, Nataraja dances on.
 

Spirit_Warrior

Active Member
So I came to roll my eyes at and ignore any Westerner expressing anything about Eastern religion. I came to associate Eastern religion with values I very much disagreed with and wanted little to do with. I'm quite sure I missed out on hearing a lot of wisdom due to this ignorant attitude. When I finally started to learn about, admire, and eventually find true faith in more authentic and traditional forms of Eastern religion—particularly within Hinduism—I was upset that my negative associations had caused me to avoid Eastern religion for so long. And still now, though I intellectually understand these concepts much better, and rationally realize that those Western examples of Eastern religion that I view as negative are not at all representative of the whole, when I see New Age interpretations of things like yoga, tantra, goddess worship, etc., they often weaken my interest in even the more traditional forms of these practices. Because of those mental associations which are so deeply ingrained in my mind. Not negative associations with Western Hindus, but with those who seek to divorce these concepts from their Hindu context and use them for something entirely different.

Thank you for explaining at such great length your problem with new-age appropriation of Hinduism, and I completely agree with you it is a problem that has been noted by many scholars. You could say it is Hinduism for dummies, really watered down and stripped out of its context -- you could perhaps trace this rot back to the 19th century with the rise of Theosophy, founded by madame Blavatsky, Leadbeater etc and later spawned golden dawn, anthrosophy and Alister Crowley. However, this could not have been prevented, anymore than the protestant reform within Christianity or the Gnostic movement and the splintering of Christianity into thousands of sects, because you cannot stop people from interpreting based on their own cultural and individual sensibilities. Hinduism moving to the West, means that it will be interpreted according to Western cultural and individual sensibilities, and that is what has happened. Is it a problem? Yes, but it can also act as a springboard into Hinduism. Many seekers who start with new-age cults, eventually realise its Hindu roots, and then seek out Hinduism.

They absolutely bother me and create negative mental associations for me, as do the stories of Thugs who killed for Kali. I struggle a lot with these as well.

If you consider that Hinduism is about 10,000 years old and has no central organzation or overarching authority, but is in fact rather anarchist, allows everybody to interpret as they like, and across the vast Indian subcontient traditionally made up of many different republics, each with their own sensibilities and the melting pot of various various, including invaders who have entered India, you will understand why there is such a diversity of interpretations, traditions, sects and schools of philosophy in Hinduism. The sublime exists side by side with the profane. You are free to join any of the traditions(samapradayas) that agree with your sensibility, or mix and match to form your own path, while recognising that other paths exist that you may not agree with.

I would not follow any path that involves animal or human sacrifice and most Hindus would not either. The tantriks on these paths do these practices to gain siddhis, by using the astral energy derived from the animal or the human to gain benefits for themselves. But scripture do not endorse these practices. The tantricks that practice cannibalism and human sacrifice are extremely rare and are not respected by a vast majority of Hindus, in fact in popular culture they are demonised.
 
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DeviChaaya

Jai Ambe Gauri
Premium Member
They really chose the wrong form of Shiva to perform a human sacrifice to, didn't they? Nataraja is not an Ugra form and I highly doubt He would accept such sacrifices in that form. Perhaps Bhairava would have been a better choice?

As for actual human sacrifice; if everyone (including the sacrificee) is consenting to such a thing I do not see it as atrocious. I know I am probably alone in this.
 

Aupmanyav

Be your own guru
I came to associate Eastern religion with values I very much disagreed with and wanted little to do with. I'm quite sure I missed out on hearing a lot of wisdom due to this ignorant attitude. When I finally started to learn about, admire, and eventually ..

They absolutely bother me and create negative mental associations for me, as do the stories of Thugs who killed for Kali. I struggle a lot with these as well.
Yes, I did not eat jack fruit preparations in the family for nearly whole my life, but when I finally tasted them, I found they were real good.

Kindly pity the thugs. They were engaged in evil deeds, they were troubled in their minds. Kali worship was their way to lessen their internal suffering.
 
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