Mental Discipline in the WW: A Comparison (long) (was:Snape the Zen Master...)

[nrenka]

No: HPFGUIDX 130296

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "horridporrid03" 
<horridporrid03 at y...> wrote:

> Yes, there is no single focus-word for Occlumency (I think that's
> part of what makes it such advanced magic) but the call for mental
> focus and discipline are relatively the same. There *are*
> differences, but I wouldn't catagorize them as massive.

I'd say that the differences are still profound because it's state 
vs. action.  With the Patronus, Harry has to get into the state which 
will enable him to commit a single act of intention--the casting of 
the spell--to summon the beastie.  With Occlumency, Harry is 
attempting to get into a state and maintain it.  The Patronus may be 
complex, but it's still really just a Charm.


> But Lupin doesn't give Harry any direction as what *type* of happy 
> memory to go for. Just as Snape doesn't give Harry directions on 
> how exactly to focus.

Perhaps because any strong happy memory will work?  "Happy memory" is 
already a fairly concrete category of thing, as opposed to "focus".  
In fact, thinking about being happy is one way to get little aikido 
students to relax and be able to focus. :)

> Because Harry *never* has a strong enough happy thought. Not in
> PoA, anyway. Even the thought of going to live with Sirius produces
> a mere mist. Nothing is pulled from Harry. Even with the
> incantation he was very nearly food for the dementors. It was only
> the paradox of time travel that caused the Patronus to form (the
> happiness of knowing he could do it, I guess, or maybe that *he* was
> his father).

This is rather contradictory; let's play a logic game.  Harry must 
have a very happy memory in mind to summon a Patronus.  Harry summons 
a Patronus.  Ergo, Harry must have called forth a very happy memory--
or at least a state of such.  Of course for plot and personal reasons 
he can't do it until the very end, but I really don't see what your 
point is here.

> No exercises? Nora, Snape assigns Harry nightly exercises. That
> Harry chooses not to do them is not really Snape's fault. I think
> you're still looking at this as a muggle discipline, and it's not.

"Clear your mind", vague as it is, is not an exercise but rather (so 
we are told) the goal that Snape is trying to get Harry to.  
Visualizations are games and exercises that get one to clear the 
mind.  Practicing the charm itself beforehand is an exercise.

>> -Nora is admittedly biased, but does know at least a something
about clearing one's mind and how to teach it<

> Not to wizards and witches, you don't. Unless you've been holding
> back on us and are actually a member of the WW. :)

I don't buy your exceptionalism argument.

We are all human, wizards and Muggles, and therefore these basic 
fundamental ideas about mind/body relationships and such should
apply.  A stiff muscle is always weaker than a relaxed one; a tense 
and nervous mind is always less functionally alert than a relaxed and 
aware on.

Now, if you want to toss out these ideas about subtle psychological 
functioning, then you should also toss out all your Muggle ideas 
about the psychology of the characters in other areas.  No more 
arguments about Draco and his daddy, or how Draco really just wants 
to be friends with Harry, since that's obviously Muggle thinking.  
We're happy to think about characters psychologically in broad 
strokes--why not think about the lower levels too?

Magic is, in many forms, intention made manifest--and there are all 
kinds of ways that we poor non-magical folk have to study the 
relationships between intention and action, and how to get from one 
to the other.  (Try Pilates.  You'll learn a lot about how your mind 
and actions work that way.)  I think I've demonstrated in the past 
how some of the language and ideas line up very neatly, while keeping 
meaningful distinctions between state and action.

I don't see any reason to assume that wizards are so unlike us; JKR is
certainly not writing the kind of mystical and numinous fantasy world 
where this might really apply.  Now, if JKR were playing in the kinds 
of things that A. S. Byatt complained that she doesn't, I'd be 
happier to play with that argument.  But in many ways the HP series 
is very mundane fantasy (that's a thread in and of itself), and the 
whole point of the thing on one level is a kind of meta-critique of 
current 'Muggle' society.  Hence why I don't want to be so choosily 
exceptional without overt reasons, and I don't think those have been 
demonstrated.

-Nora notes that WW exceptionalism is a very, very well greased slope