I don't really feel like discussing specific things from the reading- especially since I only got about half-way through it. So I decided to google something: "Jerusalem complicated." I'm not sure exactly what I thought I was going to get out of this, but you never know. The first result was an article from al-Monitor about the complication of electricity in Jerusalem. Haha. Naw, not really what I had in mind. But the second entry! Chuh-ching! A wikipedia entry on "Jerusalem Syndrome." Any of you ever heard of this!? Check it out now! Apparently it's a mental condition that strikes some Jewish, Muslim, and Christian visitors to Jerusalem. It puts them in a delusional state for a small period of time, which regresses (in most cases) after a couple of days or a week. In some extreme cases, people believe they are divine or that they themselves are prophets. There are some who even believe this could be a security issue. Michael Moore did a little piece about it. The Simpsons even did a show on it. Many books have been written on it. It's very interesting - not because it's necessarily "true" in a medical sense (there are many people who think it's not), but because it shows clearly the spiritual and religious power that has accumulated over millenia in Jerusalem. Regardless of what people are labeling it, these religious reactions are devotions of faith. And, as is clear from Armstrong's book, there is no doubt that this sort of devotion is not a new phenomena. I am very tempted to do a project on this!
That's incredibly interesting about how some people have felt they were prophets when they visited Jerusalem. However, your first Google result of electricity is also interesting. As a government nerd, I would be interested in learning more about the public services in Jerusalem. I mean, it's a disputed and conflicted city -- but it still a city. I would be interested in learning more about waste removal, water filtration, and electricity. I was playing around the other day on Google street view on some of the streets in Jerusalem, and what I saw wasn't pretty. There was trash everywhere and electrical cords just dangling in the streets. These problems might seem small compared to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but I would argue that these are equally important. It is still a living community with people who need clean water, sanitation, etc..
ReplyDeleteThis is so interesting! It's funny you wrote about this phenomenon because while reading the chapters for this week, I was actually wondering if there have been any modern claims of people receiving "prophecies" or believe themselves to be prophets. Obviously this was quite common (according to Judaism and Islam, especially) hundreds and hundreds of years ago, so that made me wonder, why don't we hear about any claims of this now? This would definitely be a good subject to research more in depth.
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