Violent imagery and enlightenment

[Asha]

If one is practicing a spiritual technique, it may be said that they are working to purify the mind (a description that is used frequently in vipassana centres). I was wondering what people think about the exposure to violent imagery, like horror or Tarantino style fight scenes, but also any violence really as it so readily fills our screens? Is the enjoyment of such forms of entertainment inherently hedonistic and egoic? Does the exposure to violence proliferate impurities of the mind as also suggested in Conversations with God? Or is there value in it, as a part of the whole? 
 

I have recently had some breakthroughs that have allowed me to question parts of my identity that I have very carefully protected for years. I see that I am quite biased on this topic and want to believe in a higher meaning to horror entertainment, but would love any and all perspectives on the matter. I am also aware that with proper practice, these contemplations will sort themselves out within me without me having to think about them, so I know that this forum is the not the answer! Thank you to anyone who so kindly takes the time to read and reply x 

[Loba]

Notes on my journal on destruction and how to implement this sort of imagery into your practice, what it means and so forth, hope it helps! ^

[Oeaohoo]

Many religions knew of a different path towards God: the “left hand path” or vāmāchāra as it was known in Hindu and Buddhist Tantra. This path includes those things which would usually have been excluded from spiritual practice: sex, intoxicants (Leo’s psychedelic path would probably be included here), meats (priests were generally vegetarian) and in extreme cases even things like necromancy and the consumption of bodily fluids such as semen or menstrual fluid. Adepts of this path would often live in “spooky” places such as graveyards because such a location served as an effective reminder of the mortality and futility of all things that are conditioned by time and space. Obviously many of these things are tropes of the horror genre.

As far as violence is concerned, it was often involved even in the standard warrior path for a man. This can be seen not only in the Abrahamic tradition of Holy War but in ancient Persian and Nordic traditions. For example, in Nordic religion, the Valkyries (war goddesses) selected those of the warrior caste who fought and died with the greatest valour, heroism and self-sacrifice to abide eternally in Valhalla. However, violence in modern entertainment tends (with admitted exceptions) to be very crass and gratuitous, thus more or less excluding any transcendent element.

In any case, the “left hand path” was known as being particularly swift but also very dangerous, and so was generally frowned upon. It is very easily to delude oneself and think that in indulging one’s lower nature one is attaining to spiritual heights, if not to be overwhelmed and even destroyed by destructive and potentially infernal influences that have been naively aroused. However, given the state of dissolution in the present age of Kali (or Iron Age as the Greeks new it), the texts of Tantra state that the left-hand path is probably the one that is most effective today, so long as you have what it takes.