This is going to be a short post, but there are a couple of things that I want to point toward. This is mostly a look at cool things happening on the internet, but they form part of the seedbed that I may want to revisit.

First up, I wanted to point to Simon’s post on Da’at and speech. It is a good post, but I want to draw your attention to the comments, too. There is a great discussion going on there between Simon and Fernando that illuminates some deep issues about how to read the source material of Kabbalism. Essentials in a big way.

Second, I want to point out a recent documentary called The Nightmare which explores several people’s very personal experiences with sleep paralysis. It takes a phenomenological approach, exploring the experience from the inside and includes extended reenactments of the subjects’ reports.

It ends up being very Fortean, setting out a puzzle of related but not identical experiences which don’t quite come together, where the ‘not coming together’ seems to be integral to the phenomenon itself. There are a few points where it seems like this might be entrez into a discussion of different species of spiritual beings, while being just slippery enough to make one hesitate at the presumption. Fun!