I hate how a lot of cultural appropriation discourse has forgotten the reason why it started appearing. It wasn’t meant to punish white people for being ignorant and ban them from partaking in other cultures.
It was a discussion meant to draw attention that people of colour were constantly being overlooked or punished for the exact same things that white people were celebrated for. It was meant to elevate people of colour to an understanding and respect that white people had been afforded for years, often unearned.
So seeing people go “white people don’t partake in anything that isn’t white” misses a lot of nuance in the discussion, because a lot of different cultures ARE willing to share and allow people into their culture on their own terms and in a respectful matter.
There’s a massive difference between a white person going “I just invented the BEST version of this” where everything had been watered down and stripped away versus one going “I try out this thing to appreciate cultures and viewpoints that aren’t my own”.
As a first generation Asian Australian whose own cultural identity is a massive clusterfuck I do think we need to remember that cultural exchange and sharing is incredibly important for an ever changing and global culture.
I don’t care how much you think Sitting Bull was a hero, I don’t care how much you admire and look up to him, dressing your dog up as a Native American, no matter how awesome he/she/they/zhe/zir/plir was, is absolutely cultural appropriation, no matter what your intentions are, and I hope your racist arse kills itself to better the world.
Witchcraft PSA: The Chakras & Cultural Appropriation ❌
Warning: This is probably the longest post I’ve written so far, so be prepared for a VERY long read.
Disclaimer: I do not claim to be an expert, a historian, or a theologist. I am simply a witch, a student, and a POC living in the United States where many aspects of pagan spirituality are often appropriated from other cultures and perpetuated through simple ignorance. I’m sure this post will generate some type of controversy, but I do not mean to attack anyone or their beliefs with this post.
So. Here’s the big one, guys. The post I’ve been dreading making but have really wanted to write for a while.
Cultural appropriation is one of the hottest topics in the modern witchcraft community, and the discourse about it on tumblr is far-reaching and incendiary at best. The problem: Where should witches draw a line between explorational spirituality and cultural appropriation?
I’m not here to lay down laws of morality. I’m not the cultural police. But I DID have a very eye-opening experience recently that led me to create this post.
I’m a white-passing minority, and I won’t pretend that this doesn’t lend me a degree of privilege in America. Especially as a witch, many doors are open to me. Just within the witchcraft community, I look white enough to be welcomed whole-heartedly into most neopagan circles. That’s not to say that blatant racism is abundant within the pagan community, but we can’t deny that many non-white cultural practices are heavily stigmatized. For instance, as SOON as any of my “light worker” friends hears that I have a family background in Santeria and Brujeria, the FIRST thing I hear is, “Oh, I don’t mess with that dark stuff,” or “Well, I don’t like the idea of hurting animals and other people.” And don’t get me started on the ignorant conversations one of my dark-skinned, Vodou-practicing friends has had to sit through before.
Like,what?
Because of this, I’m often the first person within my social circles to stand up for cultural barriers and denounce cultural stigma. Above all else, I try to respect the hell out of closed cultures and educate myself about cultural appropriation.
So, it was much to my dismay when I discovered that I have been culturally appropriating the chakra system for the last 11 years of my witchcraft practice.
The chakra system and its use in western occultism is one of the most heavily debated topics in the witchblr community. A simple search will yield dozens upon dozens of posts, each filled with witches claiming that usage of the chakra system either IS or IS NOT appropriation. For the most part, I’ve tried to stay out of this debate. I’ve incorporated the chakras into my practice since I began, but I thought my oriental heritage and my “thorough” understanding of the chakras made this okay. But, lo and behold, I was sorely mistaken.
So, after some deep research into this topic, and after talking to several Hindus and Buddhists, here’s my attempt to shed some light on this issue.
What are the chakras (according to Western occultism)?
As a brief overview, the chakras are believed to be spiraling energy centers that exist within the subtle body. There are seven of them, and they lie along the spine in places where large amounts of nerves and vital organs exist. Similar to the way our brain is a large compilation of nerves, these chakras are believed to be the intersection points of energy currents within our spirit.
Each chakra rules over a particular psychological, physical, and spiritual state of being, and disruptions within the chakras are believed to lead to different types of mental, emotional, and physical illnesses.
These chakras are depicted as lotus flowers with varying numbers of petals, and each is represented by its own color. Each one also corresponds to a Sankskrit syllable mantra which is believed to activate the chakra when spoken aloud.
In order, they are:
❤Muladhara - The Root Chakra - Connection to the Earth and the Self - Located at the base of the spine - Depicted as a red lotus with 4 petals - Mantra: LAM
Swadhisthana- The Sacral Chakra - Connection to sexuality and instinct - Located near the sexual organs - Depicted as an orange lotus with 6 petals - Mantra: VAM
Manipura- The Solar Chakra - Connection to will and identity - Located in the Solar Plexus - Depicted as a yellow lotus with 10 petals - Mantra: RAM
Anahata- The Heart Chakra - Connection to love and relationships - Located in the heart - Depicted as a green lotus with 12 petals - Mantra: YAM
Vishuddha- The Throat Chakra - Connection to voice and communication - Located in the heart - Depicted as a blue lotus with 16 petals - Mantra: HAM
Ajna- The Third Eye Chakra - Connection to spiritual awareness - Located above and between the eyes - Depicted as a purple lotus with 2 petals - Mantra: OM
Sahastrara- The Crown Chakra - Connection to Source/the Universe - Located at the top of the head - Depicted as either a purple, rainbow, or white lotus with 144,000 petals - Mantra: Silence
Along with these associations, each chakra is often associated with various crystals, herbs, and spirits.
What are the chakras within their original cultural context?
The concept of ‘chakras’ arose from a practice known as Tantric Yoga. This was a spiritual system that began to gain popularity in India and other eastern cultures between 600-1300 CE. Up until this point (and concurrently as well), most types of spirituality in these cultures was very transcendental - that is, they had a fundamental belief that the Divine was transcendent and inherently 'above’ the natural world. Therefore, in order to commune with the divine, it was believed that the material world had to be renounced and denied, and higher states of consciousness had to be achieved in order to commune with divinity.
Tantric spirituality flipped the script. It adopted the idea that divinity was an inherent quality of the natural world, and that a person could freely commune with the divine by opening themselves up to the world around them through mindfulness and all-embracing compassion.
The philosophies and teachings of tantric yoga (loosely known as ’tantras’) became extremely widespread throughout this period and dramatically shaped many emerging sects of Hinduism and Buddhism. As this philosophy spread, many different types of specific spiritual practices arose, many of which can be recognized in our Western ideas of holistic meditation - such as mantras, mudras, mandalas, and even modern Western yoga.
One such concept that gained popularity was the idea of chakras - focal points of spiritual energy in the body. However, these chakras were very different than what Westerners think of today.
There were a LOT of different traditions that arose from Tantric teachings, and each one had its own unique belief about chakras. The most obvious difference between these chakra traditions was that each one believed in a different number of chakras. Some systems had three, others had six, others had seven, others had nine, others had 10, others had 21, etc.
Each one approached the chakras a bit differently, and so each one believed in a different number of chakra centers.
What are some of the primary differences between Western Chakras and Tantric Chakras?
The most eye-opening difference for me was that Tantric chakras have none of the associations that Westerners believe in today. Original practitioners of Tantric spirituality did not associate specific colors with each chakra, they did not associate physical or psychological states with them, they did not associate any herbs or crystals or planets with them, and they did not even associate Sanskrit syllables with them. What’s more, they didn’t even believe they were located in fixed points on the body.
Loosely, they believed that the chakras - like all things spiritual - were very fluid. They could often be accessed through general areas of the body, but they definitely were not stagnant, fixed points. This also accounts for the varying number of chakras, because it was believed that the chakras would manifest in different ways depending on what traditional practice you used to approach them.
Many traditions did believe that these chakras could be depicted as lotus flowers with various petals, but these were not meant to inherently describe the individual chakra. Rather, these depictions were meant to serve as a visualization for a person to meditate on when trying to access a specific chakra.
Along with this, these traditions did not assign specific names or syllables to these chakras - at least not the ones we use today. Rather, it was believed that Sanskrit syllables carried an inherent magic or divine energy within them (similar to Kabbalistic views of the Hebrew language), and they assigned various letters and syllables to the petals of each lotus flower, which corresponded to various energies in nature.
The symbols, names, and Sanskrit syllables popularized in the West today don’t even correspond to any kind of Tantric chakras. They actually correspond to the elements within certain traditions of eastern spirituality. They also are not meant to be uniquely associated with any individual chakra. Rather, these syllables were used in meditation to invoke specific elemental energies into different chakras depending on the situation.
If your tradition believed that the heart chakra could affect the relationships in your life, and your personal relationships happened to be very stagnant, you could vibrate the syllable for the Wind element and invoke that energy into your heart chakra to help your personal relationships become more dynamic. Etc.
This brings me to the final thing I’d like to talk about: Westerners are NOT using the chakras for their original purpose.
The only concrete associations that tantric traditions had for the chakras were deities. These traditions believed that each of their chakras was associated with a specific Hindu deity (though the specific order or deities listed varies between tradition and time period).
The original purpose of 'working with chakras’ was to eventually invoke the energy of these specific deities into a person’s chakras in order to become closer to these gods and goddesses and emulate their behavior and teachings in daily life.
How did the original concept of chakras get misconstrued in Western culture?
Oh, boy. This is a tough answer that’s soaked in 1000 years of colonialism, racism, cultural and linguistic barriers, and simple misunderstandings.
But, simply put, the appropriation of tantric chakras can be narrowed down to four specific individuals.
In 1577, a spiritual teacher and academic named Purnananda Yati wrote a treatise of tantric teachings called the Shatchakra Nirupana, or roughly 'An Explanation of the Six Chakras’.
In this treatise, Purnananda lays out the modern framework we see today - six chakra centers within the human spirit, with an additional seventh chakra above the head that connects the spirit to the divine source. He based this concept off of an earlier writing from the 13th century, which also details this framework but openly acknowledges that this is just ONE tradition, and that many other traditions also exist.
In 1918, a British scholar named John Woodroffe translated Purnananda’s treatise from Sanskrit into English, and unfortunately, there were many mistranslations in Woodroffe’s version. This translation was what eventually gained extreme popularity throughout academic and occult circles in the West.
Throughout the 1930’s, 40’s, and 50’s, the renowned European psychologist, Carl Jung (who you might recognize from your Psych 101 class), became fascinated with the idea of chakras and their relation to consciousness. Throughout this time period, Jung wrote extensively about potential connections between the seven chakra centers and various psychological states. This is where the chakras became associated with different states of being, such as instinct, will, and sexuality.
Finally, in 1987, an American occultist and spiritualist named Anodea Judith published a book entitled Wheels of Life. In this book, Judith talks extensively about the seven chakras, and even lists correspondences between the chakras and various herbs, crystals, elements, planets, tarot cards, deities, and archangels.
Her book became wildly popular within holistic and spiritual circles, and set in stone the way that modern neo-pagans view the chakras in the West.
So, are chakras part of a closed culture?
Yes and no.
Chakras as we view them in the West are, at best, a distorted and bastardized version of a beautiful, ancient belief. They were studied and theorized by many traditions for over a thousand years, and many of these traditions still exist today. Most commonly, they are still used in Shaivism, which is one of the most prevalent forms of Hinduism in the East.
Many of these living traditions ARE, in fact, closed. But more than that, to perpetuate (and worse, claim spirituality from) a distorted, white-washed version of an Eastern religious belief is just plain disrespectful and potentially racist at its worst.
That being said, though, there are certain living traditions which ARE NOT closed, such as the exceedingly popular Tibetan Buddhism. These traditions recognize many of the same teachings and are freely shared with people of any nationality or background - as long as you put in the work to learn about them.
The Main Takeaway
The chakras, as viewed in the West, are incorrect. This is not to disclaim any type of spiritual experience Westerners may have had by utilizing chakras in their practice, but I’m of the opinion that Westerners should recognize that the “chakras” they believe in don’t actually have any basis in ancient spirituality.
That being said, the concept of a subtle body and energy centers within the human spirit is not unique to the Far East.
The concept of currents and centers of energy within the body can be found in cultures the world over, from India to Japan to Korea to Africa to the Middle East, and even among the Native Americans who never came into contact with these other cultures (as far as we know).
The human soul, the subtle body, and spiritual energy are concepts that supercede cultural boundaries, and if studying and utilizing them is an integral part of your craft, then I encourage you to follow your personal path and find connection with the Universe in whatever way you feel called to.
But. Perhaps developing your own unique system and beliefs about the energy centers within the body is the best course of action for us Westerners. Until we ourselves make the effort to go join one of those (open) traditions, subscribing to the modern Western system of “chakras” is, in my opinion, cultural appropriation.
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How do you expect them to reasonably keep up with every new flag random teenagers on the internet invent for every feeling they have?
I was interested in seeing if the Ancient Greeks had a system of chakras, I’ll refer to them as centers throughout the rest of this post, similar to the Hindus and Buddhists. I found this interesting essay by John Opsopaus, The Parts of The Soul: A Greek System of Chakras, and how in Plato’s Timaeus, he notes the existence of various energy points in the body, although he did not name them outright. I think it is interesting enough, so I’d like to bring this to a wider audience.
Plato’s Theory of the Soul
Before we get talking about the various centers, we must first talk about Plato’s theory of the soul. He believes the soul is made of the logos(logic, the mind, and reason), thymos(emotion, passion, and aggression), and epithymia(appetite, sexual desire, and desire). Logos resides in the head, thymos resides in the chest, and the epithymia is located in the stomach.
Koruphe
The first center, koruphe, relates to the crown of the head, governs the connection to the divine, and is also the first part of the soul dedicated to the logos. Plato believed that humans stood upright because the koruphe gravitates towards the heavens. It was also believed that one who had great intellect, a nimbus (a halo of flames) would form around their head. Thus, this is associated with the Sahasrara.
Enkephalos
The second center, enkephalos, relates to the brain, the psyche, and is the second part of the soul dedicated to the logos. As the hair is believed to emanate from the psyche, it makes sense why the enkephalos resides in the brain. It also controls rational thought, and is believed that the enkephalos governs and controls all the lower centers. Thus, this is associated with the Ajna.
Trachelos
The third center, trachelos, relates to the neck, communication and purity, and is the first part of the soul dedicated to the thymos. It acts as a bridge between the logos (the immortal soul) and the thymos (the mortal soul). The trachelos allows communication between the logos and the other two parts of the soul, but also acts as a purifier between the logos and the others, as to prevent them from polluting the logos. Thus, this is associated with the Visuddha.
Phrenes
The fourth center, phrenes, relates to the heart, the seat of the thymos, and is the second part of the soul dedicated to the thymos. As the thymos is especially related to the heart and the lungs (the pnuema, or the Spirit), it is no wonder the phrenes is located here. Emotions and feelings are generated here, but especially anger. The feeling mind is located here, thus it is the opposite of the enkephalos. Thus, this is associated with the Anahata.
Under the phrenes is the midriff partition, which separates the two parts of the Mortal Soul, as the lower three centers relates to the body and desire.
Gaster
The fifth center, gaster, relates to the stomach, the Fire element, and is the first part of the soul dedicated to the epithymia. We share this center and the lower two with animals, relating to the more primal and body needs. The gaster is also known as the Appetitive Soul, as this is where all appetite and desire (both nutritional and sexual) comes from. The Fire element resides here also, allowing digestion in the process of pepsis(which I might cover in a later post). Thus, this is associated with the Manipura.
Gonades
The sixth center, gonades, relates to the genitalia, life, and is the second part of the soul dedicated to the epithymia. This center is considered where the Soul meets the Body. This is where the desire for life and procreation comes from, and where life is formed. The Ancient Greeks also believed that semen was a spiritual essence brought from the enkephalos to create new life. Thus, this is associated with the Svadhisthana.
Hieron Osteon
The seventh and final center, hieron osteon, relates to the base of the spine, survival instincts, and is the third part of the soul dedicated to the epithymia. This is where all of our primal survival instincts come from. It’s where we cling on to life and resort to when we are close to death. Thus, this is associated with the Muladhara.
Other Centers
While not major centers, it is believed that there was a higher concentration of the spiritual sap at the hands, knees, thighs, and chest.
What to Take From This
I think this can be very helpful in trying to avoid cultural appropriation of closed off cultures and religions. Plus, I’d like to see more development in the Hellenic centers, as there isn’t any correspondences for each center, besides the organ its associated with. (Plato did not go into depth on any of them, and only had minor notes of each one.) This can also be used in Ancient Greek medicine, which I also plan to go more in-depth.
I’m very interested in seeing what y’all will use with this!
Let me be very clear here. This is still very much cultural appropriation.
I’m fully going to get into why, but one of the biggest issues here is that this is not good research. Just looking at the sources here, one is by John Opsopaus who proposes this idea of “Greek Chakras” (that phrase right there should be a red flag on its own); the second is Greek philosopher Plato, and the third is an article on “Greek Chakras” written by someone else based on Opsopaus’ initial writing. That’s a huge red flag. The source diversity here isn’t great, and when you have two people just agreeing with one another without properly supporting their findings, that’s a pretty good sign that your claims are weak at best.
But hold on, let’s look at the guy who started this whole thing, John Opsopaus.
Let’s check out his bio:
“John Opsopaus, PhD, (Tennessee) has practiced magic and divination since the 1960s and his fiction and nonfiction have been published in various magical and Neopagan magazines (over 30 publications). He designed the Pythagorean Tarot and wrote the comprehensive Guide to the Pythagorean Tarot (Llewellyn, 2001). He frequently presents workshops on Hellenic magic and Neopaganism, Pythagorean theurgy and spiritual practices, divination, and related topics. Opsopaus was a Third Circle member of the Church of All Worlds, past coordinator of the Scholars Guild for CAW, and past Arkhon of the Hellenic Kin of ADF (A Druid Fellowship). He is also a university professor with more than twenty-five years of experience reading ancient Greek and Latin.”
Red Flags:
He states that he has a PhD, but does not say in what or where he earned the from. To me, this makes his PhD irrelevant. It doesn’t matter if he has a PhD if it is not in a field related to the work we’re looking at right now.
He states that he was a university professor with twenty-five years of experience reading Greek and Latin, but again he does not say what he teaches. This is a really big red flag to me because at a glance, the sentence implies that he has twenty-five years of experience in Greek and Latin (related to his Hellenic spiritual work) in a University setting, but these are two separate statements crammed together.
Notice that he bookends his bio with his academic “credentials” to create a false sense of legitimacy by making it seem as though he is mainly a scholar and not mostly a figure in various religious groups.
These things, along with the fact that it is verydifficult to find much more information on him than this, make it hard for me to consider him a credible source pretty much immediately.
But hold on, people from all backgrounds can do good research and make solid connections. Let’s look at his sources for the essay.
Campbell, Joseph. (1990). Transformations of Myth Through Time. New York: Harper & Row.
Eliade, Mircea. (1969). Yoga: Immortality and Freedom, tr. Willard R. Trask. Bollingen Series LVI. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Mead, G. R. S. (1967). The Doctrine of the Subtle Body in Western Tradition. Theosophical Publishing House.
Murphy, Michael. (1992). The Future of the Body: Explorations Into the Further Evolution of Human Nature. New York: Jeremy Tarcher/Putnam.
Onians, Richard Broxton. (1951). The Origins of European Thought About the Body, the Mind, the Soul, the World, Time, and Fate. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Poortman, J. J. (1978). Vehicles of Consciousness: The Concept of Hylic Pluralism. Vols. 1-4. Theosophical Publishing House.
A lot of the essay leans on a section of Plato’s Timaeusin which Timaeus outlines the creation and breakdown of the human soul and the locations and functions of those parts in the body. Notice that Timaeusisn’t actually on his source list. Instead, he references Onians a few times which I assume explores Plato to some degree.
Of the other sources, we can note a couple academic texts in Campbell and Murphy. The Poortman and Mead sources from his list are not cited within the essay, so if he did use them, we can’t track that. The only source left is a book on yoga by historian Mircea Eliade. So, bonus points to Opsopaus for academic research, but let’s look at in the context of the essay.
The essay is about “A Greek System of Chakras” which he claims to have discovered in Plato’s soul parts. But, if you read Timaeus(and I did for this), Plato does not talk about “energy centers” or “chakras.” He explores the parts of the soul, their creation, location, and their relationships with organs and the elements, and aside from starting in the head and move downward in their placement through the body, they are not terribly similar to the chakras outlined in the Hindu Vedas. They are pretty similar to the seven Westernized chakras popularized in the 1920s, however.
So, we know that Opsopaus has referenced a book on Yoga, and he knows that Plato outlined soul parts that exist linearly in the body. The first sentence of this essay is “This essay resulted from an attempt to find a Greek system of "energy centers” corresponding to the chakras of Eastern philosophy.“ He went looking for a Greek equivalent to chakras. That doesn’t mean one exists. Correlation does not equal causation. Both smudging and seining use smoke in a type of cleansing practice. That doesn’t mean the names or practices are interchangeable, and the same is true for Plato’s soul parts and chakras.
I’m not going to give a crash course in chakras here, but even at its most fundamental, these two concepts do not serve the same purpose. Plato is discussing the body from a philosophical perspective. The souls are used to explain the functions of organs and the reasons for certain formations of the body (like the existence of the "sovereign” soul part in the head making the head important and raising it up). It is also worth pointing out that while Opsopaus comes up with 7 “Greek Chakras” in the style of Western chakras, Plato writes that there are 3 soul parts, the immortal located in the head and the mortal which is divided into two pieces that exist “midway between the midriff and the neck” and “between the midriff and the boundary of the navel.”
Hindu chakras are also connected to the gods, not just the body. The soul parts are created by the gods, but are not used to connect with or communicate with them. Plato also does not discuss the alignment of the soul parts which plays a role in Buddhist Tantra.
All that said, if you Google “Greek chakras” or “Green energy centers,” the links that come up are Tumblr posts, a Pinterest post, Opsopaus, and his friend from GreekMedicine.net. This is not proven. It is a huge reach, and it’s really sad that it seems to have gotten as much traction as it has. Please, double-check the things you see on Tumblr before embracing them as fact or including them in your practice. I took the time to thoroughly research, but even just doing some simple credibility checking would quickly make it obvious that this isn’t right.
tl;dr
John Opsopaus has no real verifiable credibility for analyzing historical sources. He bases this largely on Plato’s “soul parts” in Timaeus but does not include that text in his sources. Opsopaus’s understanding of Chakras aligns with the appropriated Western system created in the 1920s. He connected them purely based on the fact that they both exist linearly in the body. Renaming is still appropriation. There isn’t any backing here for “energy centers” or “Greek Chakras.” Soul parts are pretty cool, though. Please do your research.
If you also want to read Plato’s Timaeus, I highly recommend it.
This slogan is sometimes attributed to Marx. In fact he’s not the author, and warns about misusing it.
Pro-capitalist commentators abuse this phrase, claiming a socialist state would seize all property and redistribute it according to perceived need.
In socialism, workers collectively decide what to produce and how. They democratically decide what to do with the products. This leads to more equitable distribution of the wealth they produce.
A “socialist state” does not alienate workers from the fruits of their labour. On the contrary. It exists to stop wealth being taken from those who produce it.
Only in a state of superabundance, where co-operative labour has provided allworkers with more than they need or want, might society voluntarilychoose to distribute on the basis of need.
“In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life’s prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly – only then then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!” - Marx, ‘Critique of the Gotha Programme’
Illegal Pete’s is a restaurant with establishments in Boulder and Denver for over a decade, has come under fire from members of the Ft. Collins community recently for the use of the word “illegal” in their name. This has created somewhat of a PR shit-storm of back and forth debates and discussions between Pete (the owner) and people opposing the use of the name, both online and in public forums.
Note: This you may want to check out last week’s post on appropriation of “booty,” which this post will somewhat be a continuation of.
On the lead in to Halloween, college campus student organizations and social media outlets of more liberal minded folk attempt to raise as much awareness as they can about the racism behind dressing up as another culture as a Halloween costume. This usually…
Not sure how I missed this, but back in May, Joshua Cohen had a fantastic little review of the posthumous collection of W.G. Sebald’s early literary criticism, A Place in the Country, in the Times. Aside from being whip smart, Cohen’s piece mentions a few features about Sebald’s “novels” that I hadn’t realized:
All four of his novels bear the marks of these influences, in images and even lines lifted verbatim: parts of Stifter’s story “Der Condor” appear in “The Rings of Saturn,” and of Walser’s short story “Kleist in Thun” in “Vertigo,” unacknowledged. But then Sebald also borrowed from the living, especially from the biographies of émigrés: the poet and translator Michael Hamburger has a cameo in “The Rings of Saturn.”
None of this was plagiarism, or even allusion. This was Sebald proposing a self whose only homeland was the page: Existence beyond the bindings was too compromising. This principle corresponds to the photographs Sebald included in his novels, black-and-white portraits he’d purchased from antique markets; in “Austerlitz,” that boy in the cape holding the plumed tricorn is not Jacques Austerlitz — it can’t be: Jacques Austerlitz is fictional — and yet it is more Jacques Austerlitz than the boy it actually depicts, who remains unknown to the reader (and who remained unknown even to Sebald, who, according to James Wood, paid 30 pence for the photo).
The page is the new horizon at the same time that it’s the old one. All words and works, bound together and repeated and rephrased and reused–mine and yours and Walser’s and Sebald’s and Cohen’s–forever and ever. Of course, Sebald and Cohen say it better than any of us can.
ALT
Illegal Pete’s is a restaurant with establishments in Boulder and Denver for over a decade, has come under fire from members of the Ft. Collins community recently for the use of the word “illegal” in their name. This has created somewhat of a PR shit-storm of back and forth debates and discussions between Pete (the owner) and people opposing the use of the name, both online and in public forums.
Note: This you may want to check out last week’s post on appropriation of “booty,” which this post will somewhat be a continuation of.
