Did the notorious 19th Century, savage, New York City Irish-American gang, The Dead Rabbits actually exist? What about other questionable groups that may or may not have existed in history?
Did the notorious 19th Century, savage, New York City Irish-American gang, The Dead Rabbits actually exist? What about other questionable groups that may or may not have existed in history?
Of side note: Kali Ma was the sect you were talking about in relation to the "supposed" Thugee. The Goddess Kali has many aspects and each has a sect of devotees with different rituals and worldview. Kali Ma worship was a thing but a very small group. They were also politically active, playing more along the line of the Chinese Falun Gong. The sect is definitely more political/anti-imperial than religious and their worldview was less Hindu than Christian. Newspapers of the day show photos of mass suicides by hanging attributed to Thugees. Not my idea or sustainable civil disobedience.
However a few responses along the lines of the kind I would have received in graduate school if I had made these statements. (After all, one purpose of this project is to let me put my fancy degree to use and share the knowledge and skills that I developed in all those fancy history classes and seminars.
1. What is your source for any and all of these statements? You give none.
2. Define and give examples of being "politically active."
3. You make an analogy to Falun Gong, but do not explain it and then do it again by saing their world view was "less Hindu than Christian." What exactly do you mean? In what way? What kind of "Christian worldview"? Christianity is not a single world view but contains many.
4. You ascribed anti-Colonialist motivations, something that I belive develped much later, to an early 19th C religious cult in India, an anachronism I believe, again with out citing a source.
5. You say photos were made of thuggees. Again no source, no examples. I doubt very much if this is correct. Again the British campaign against the group started in the very early 19th C long before the invention of photography.
My knowledge of the group is cursory. I have read three books on them. Two were terrible books, one being a book by Haha Lung that simply used references to the group to share detailed descriptions of how to kill people. (I hope to write more about Haha Lung here as time goes on. He wrote several historically unsound books on how to kill people, several claiming to be on ninja techniques.) The best I read was from 1968 and was George Bruce's "The Stranglers." It was aimed at a popular audience and I doubt very much of any academic would cite it as a serious source today.
My suspicion is that you stumbled across an English language article on them written by a left wing political source that assumed the existence of the group and then ascribed the motivations of the author to a group that had very different motivations indeed. This is called "presentism" and is a common mistake among left wing idealists when they talk about history. (Not saying the right wing is any more accurate when they write on history, but . . .) But I look forward to further elaboration and explanation.
Of side note: Kali Ma was the sect you were talking about in relation to the "supposed" Thugee. The Goddess Kali has many aspects and each has a sect of devotees with different rituals and worldview. Kali Ma worship was a thing but a very small group. They were also politically active, playing more along the line of the Chinese Falun Gong. The sect is definitely more political/anti-imperial than religious and their worldview was less Hindu than Christian. Newspapers of the day show photos of mass suicides by hanging attributed to Thugees. Not my idea or sustainable civil disobedience.
Tim, thanks for your thoughts.
However a few responses along the lines of the kind I would have received in graduate school if I had made these statements. (After all, one purpose of this project is to let me put my fancy degree to use and share the knowledge and skills that I developed in all those fancy history classes and seminars.
1. What is your source for any and all of these statements? You give none.
2. Define and give examples of being "politically active."
3. You make an analogy to Falun Gong, but do not explain it and then do it again by saing their world view was "less Hindu than Christian." What exactly do you mean? In what way? What kind of "Christian worldview"? Christianity is not a single world view but contains many.
4. You ascribed anti-Colonialist motivations, something that I belive develped much later, to an early 19th C religious cult in India, an anachronism I believe, again with out citing a source.
5. You say photos were made of thuggees. Again no source, no examples. I doubt very much if this is correct. Again the British campaign against the group started in the very early 19th C long before the invention of photography.
My knowledge of the group is cursory. I have read three books on them. Two were terrible books, one being a book by Haha Lung that simply used references to the group to share detailed descriptions of how to kill people. (I hope to write more about Haha Lung here as time goes on. He wrote several historically unsound books on how to kill people, several claiming to be on ninja techniques.) The best I read was from 1968 and was George Bruce's "The Stranglers." It was aimed at a popular audience and I doubt very much of any academic would cite it as a serious source today.
My suspicion is that you stumbled across an English language article on them written by a left wing political source that assumed the existence of the group and then ascribed the motivations of the author to a group that had very different motivations indeed. This is called "presentism" and is a common mistake among left wing idealists when they talk about history. (Not saying the right wing is any more accurate when they write on history, but . . .) But I look forward to further elaboration and explanation.