I have been a fan of the band Rammstein for while now. The band is controversial, and a lot of Germans don’t affiliate with them because of the lyrical content that the stigma brings. Maybe something like Marilyn Manson in America.
I’m a sociology graduate and believe in some form of spiritualism. I saw a Rammstein video recently, Alter mann live, 1997:
I get a kind of presence from Till Lindemann, the front man, at 0:16 in when he ambles into the stage. It feels like something is guiding him, and he is at total ease, like a presence that comes from stillness itself. Almost discomforting depending on who you are.
And then at 2:08, at the end of the chorus, the same presence.
Flake, the keyboarder, looks at him, at 2:11, like, “What the phuck is going on?”
What do you think about presence?
What happens when someone lets go completely?
What do you make of Till Lindemann in the above video?
He does seem a little possessed. He could have just been very inspired in that performance, in the zone, as it were. Could be drugs. Could be demonic possession. Maybe not even Lindemann knows what was going on.
I think that kind of presence can be awesome. When someone lets go completely for a moment, as Lindemann seemed to, perhaps they perform to the best of their ability as they have total focus on what they are doing and what they are expressing.
It was a pretty good performance, too. No idea what he said. That look from the keyboardist was priceless.
The water shall be your mirror now,
when it is like glass you will see
how many fairy tales are still left for you,
and then you will plead for redemption.
It requires super-sensible knowledge. If you’ve never experienced it, then I wouldn’t expect you to understand presence in the same way I do.
I understand. He’s just standing there. But there’s more, and it’s nestled in the dim feelings.
K: so he just stands there and we get possible demonic possessions and otherworldly actions,
maybe god or some other metaphysical action. And we have the basic idea of metaphysical action,
if it seems to be different or out of the ordinary. Great, I had a metaphysical action today because
I felt something out of the ordinary. Took two Gas-X and the feeling passed.
Can’t say that I do. Not even sure what the term means.
Can you say that you know that Till is experiencing presence, or are you just speculating because he has the same look as others, or yourself, in the experience of presence?
Sure, it’s speculation. What about the part (3:30) where he raises his arms up and then puts his hands over his face for a good ten seconds? Just theatrics? Or something else?
It’s an interesting performance and I can understand how it inspired this thread.
I don’t know enough about this “presence” thing that xhightension is talking about, so I can’t say–but my own take is that, yes, it is theatrics, but that’s a lot more than just “acting”. I think these rock artists definitely feel the emotions they’re conveying in their performances, and they get swept up and taken into a trans–though I think they exaggerate it so as to give the audience a good show. But exaggerating is different from faking.
I don’t see why anything supernatural has to be brought into it to explain what’s going on, but maybe xhightension knows something I don’t.
The OP is pretty open and asks what you make of it. How do you interpret presence anyway? I get the sense Lindemann was really in his own world, barely taking notice of anyone else in the room. It felt very genuine. I don’t know the band that well and I don’t know how normal or abnormal that kind of performance is for them, so I can’t be that sure. But maybe that night was one where Lindemann was totally inspired or taken by something and had no need for acting or exaggeration.
That’s always possible. But exaggeration isn’t anything out of the ordinary. It’s how we present ourselves to people we want to impress. Think about how you speak in a job interview. Or how you write here at ILP. Take any one of your posts here at ILP and ask yourself: is this how I talk to a normal person in a face-to-face conversation? We take time and effort to make sure we’re putting our words together as clearly and eloquently as possible. It’s not an unnatural thing.
I don’t even know what “presence” is, but the OP makes it sound like something supernatural or spiritual. I don’t think we have to go that far.
Yep, and I myself don’t go that far, though I do think the performance had a special quality to it. My notion of spirituality is not dependent on supernatural underpinnings, but anyhow, whether or not the experience was spiritual I think is for Lindemann to judge and for us to speculate.
That perception is not right. Spirituality is not about emotions.
The actual spirituality starts from where the emotions end. Spirituality is about understanding how things works in this world, but not by physical means. It relies on the hidden powers of the mind to explore the truth.
This amalgamation of spirituality with emotions is postulated by such persons, who tend to believe that there is something beyond normal physical reach but hesitate to look towards religions as that will put them into the league of backward people.
This is nothing but an escape route.
If you ever ask these new-age spiritualists, what they precisely mean by spirituality, they will give such a answer that no one in this world would be able to draw anything from it, including themselves.
I am in the league of the most backward peoples, then. If I have affinity for any class of religions it is for the pagan world or even animism.
Spirituality is more than just emotions, but they are one important part.
I’m not sure if I am an old old age spiritualist or what. Can you draw anything from this?? viewtopic.php?f=10&t=176684
Yes, it certainly depends. It also depends on how much one is able to understand about religions.
That definition is not precise. If we go by that, what would be the difference in simple religiosity and spirituality?
Fuse, that is the precise point i am making. If you ask any new-age spiritualist, he would say though i am spiritualist but not religious traditionally. But, he will never able to tell what exactly he is leaving or adopting from the religions. And, the reason is that he never understood religions completely, in the first place.
Fuse, this is not spirituality. This is just the feeling of being relaxed and thrilled/joyed by the beauty and power of the nature. This is the point where one gets the feeling that there is something in the nature that he does not know precisely but it effects him.
I can very well understand how you would have been felt being there in the clouds. But, the same one can feel during music or dance too, when one’s mind is filled with overwhelmness and joy. And, i am not saying that it is a bad thing either. It is good to be in such state but it is not spirituality.
Spirituality is the mean to form an ontology of existence, the empirical part of the religions.
It certainly does, Sanjay. It also depend on how much one understands about human beings.
There is no point to a religion without values. It is our passions that drive us to value some things over others. Since we are not insects, emotions play a role in our religious/spiritual life. We can then clarify what exactly that role is.
I can’t accept that generalization. What do you base that opinion on?
I don’t know if you read through all my posts in the Storm Clouds thread. It was/is not a simple feeling of pleasure I experience(d). Some of what I stated later on is part of my developing ontology of existence. Having said that, one does not need to know for certain the nature of the world, or to write a treatise on the universe, to have a spiritual life.
Can you show me an example of what you consider to be spirituality?
What is quality knowledge? I can say scientifically that I do not know, or by use of empirical lens, but through pointing the gaze inwards, I can know. Sometimes knowledge goes without saying.
The experience of presence is an individual experience. I posted the video to show that experience. WIth enough empathy of this experience of presence, you too can learn have your own experience.
