Labor Day is coming up – not a bad time to muse about Mawaru Penguindrum, John Lennon’s “Imagine,” and the Garden of Eden?
2DT ends his series of posts on Tokidoki Balloon with an essay about the soul of anime, using some occult and Gnostic practices to illustrate.
Japanese missionary Kermit Bayless reflects on Obon, Japanese spirituality, and spiritual discernment.
Episode 07 of Dantalian no Shoka brings to mind the Book of Ecclesiastes, The Book of Thomas, Welsh mythology, Hinduism, and demonology.
Johnny at How I Met Your Otaku elegantly discusses the positives of Kamisama Dolls, including the Shintoist themes running through it.
A Filipino priest encourages use of technology in education, including an anime bible that he helped create.
Manga Hero’s release about Pope Benedict XVI, Habemus Papam!, is now available to read online for free.
And finally, a little Engrish spirituality for your pleasure.
In the occult scene, the “gnostic state” means something a little different from what you might expect as a man of the cloth. Whereas traditional magicians might think of magic as using the right symbols to appease spirits or secret laws, magicians of Thelema or the postmodern Chaos school (for example) believe in magic as a primarily internal practice, a matter of bringing one’s soul to the correct state to change the universe. That’s gnosis.
I have a better, more focused entry on mysticism and anime coming up in the near future, so please look forward to it. But I’m glad you got something useful out of the literary freefall that was Tokidoki Balloon. 😉
Thanks for the explanation – I did a little Wikipedia searchin’ after reading your post, but I have so little knowledge about this subject that I was still lost.
Oh, and actually, after reading your entries, I’m now a little eager to watch Tokidoki Balloon! I’d never heard of the series before reading your blog.
That’s because Tokidoki Balloon isn’t real. Notice how I never replied to any comments on those entries? How Digitalboy was evidently losing his mind on my comments page?
Yeah… It’s a long story.
Wow…okay. I have a habit of leaving comments and never looking back, so I think I’ll need to revisit now that you’ve filled me in. I did think it was strange that when I googled “Tokidoki Balloon” upon reading your first post, not much came up.
Now I’m really interesting in finding out the why!
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