When I was growing up you never saw a book by Hegel or any of the German idealists around in libraries of in bookstores. Never. In my high school library I recall there was some side writings by Kant but not any of the three Critiques.

But lots of the post modern garbage was out there. Lots.

Thinking back to it I think people were blaming Kant and Hegel  for WWI and WWII.

Why I mention this is that even though Hegel has problems still I think that McTaggart deals with a lot of them very well. And as for Kant I think that there also are plenty of problems but I think Leonard Nelson and the Friesian School of Kelley Ross deals with them very well.

Possession by the dark side from a biological perspective

The problem of possession by the Dark Side is not something that people think much about nowadays. And even when Rav Nahman from Breslov mentions the problem with religious leaders as being in general possessed by the Dark Side, few people really connect the dots.

I also would not think much about it except I saw recently a book by Daniel Defoe that goes into this problem and as I was thinking about it I was reminded about Howard Bloom's The Lucifer Principle.
And then it occurred to me the whole thing about toxo-Plasmosis.That even in the physical realm there is such a thing.If I would have a computer and be able to blog I might have written about this but now since I can's I simply am recommending that people pay a bit more attention to what Rav Nahman [Breslov and Uman] was saying because it has a strong basis in evidence and also makes sense beyond what it seems like at first.

To see the idea of possession by the dark side from a biological perspective see the lectures of Sapolsky at Stanford.

Howard Bloom approaches the subject from a different angle--that of the super-organism.
In the Middle Ages this was also a large subject. Even in Rouen where the trial of Joan [Jeene] of Arc was there were multiple trials on the issue at the same time. How can you tell if someone's visions are from the realm of hiliness or not?

I feel that sometimes you see in  life that everything is going well for a good long time and then everything falls apart. You can see this with Joan of Arc who had astounding success --for a while. A 17 year old girl declared war on the one of the  powerful Empires in the world and won. She said she would raise raise the seige of Orleans--and did so. She said she would have Charles VII crowned King in Reims and led him through enemy territory and had him crowned King of all France. And then she was captured and burnt at the stake. But somehow even in her fall there was something astounding. The trial was recorded almost word for word. Without that all there would be today would be an unconfirmed legend.

Now I do not think that I or anyone else can compare ourselves to Joan of Arc but still there is a lesson to learn from all that--that things can go great for sometime and then suddenly stop. But even in that time of fall there is still the compassion of God and helps in hidden ways.

an idea from the Ramban [Rav Moshe ben Nachman]

I hope that someone that has learn authentic Torah will start a blog. I am clocking out of blogging out of force of circumstances.I have no computer is it is only on rare occasions I can borrow from a friend.

Even if the police decide to give me back my computer, that does not mean I will be able to go back to writing music or ideas in Torah like I used to do in Uman. I realized even before I got to Israel that it was likely that things would be hard here. But to have my own daughter making false allegations against me was not expected.

In any case since I have a few minutes here I would like to take the opportunity to write an idea from the Ramban and a question I have about his idea.

In Bava Metzia there is a case of a person that loses an object and before he gives up on it someone else picks it up with intent to keep it. That is he decides to steal it. But then later after the owner has given up on it he decides to give it back to the owner. The Gemara says at that pointy he is simply giving back a present-. not fixing the original sin of theft.
The Baal HaMeor asks on this that the Torah holds there is a way to fix theft -and that is to give backthe object. השב תשיבם לאחיך.
The Ramban answers that that is only on regular theft. But here it is a case of an object that has been lost and then taken in theft. The difference is that theft is not owned by the thief if the owner gives up on it. But my question is that I am not sure why that makes a difference.[ The Ramban is saying the fixing of theft by giving it back is only as long the act is continued. But here the act is over so the is no correction.]

Dr Michael Hueemer has a tremendous amount of great ideas non his site. However I have not been able to see his point about no state having any authority.  A British philosopher Danny Frederick also has criticized this idea of Dr Huemer. The idea of government being a contract also has brought both of their critiques. But looking at the war between Sparta and Athens I can see that contract theory  and agreement to follow a certain form of government makes a big difference.  

Shulchan Aruch of Rav Joseph Karo. I can see why my learning partner did not think to learn it unless one knows the Gemara. [It was written to be a review of the Tur and Beit Yoseph which brings the Gemara and Rishonim.]

I have been seeing interesting things in the Shulchan Aruch of Rav Joseph Karo recently. I can see why my learning partner did not think to learn it unless one knows the Gemara but I have been seeing that there is a lot of interesting things there even when one has not leaned the Gemara. For example a few days ago I noticed the question is there is such a thing as giving up an obligation like a loan? This is brought in Choshen Mishpat 164 in the Taz and the Ketzot HaChoshen that are arguing about the law that the Rema brings there that there is such a thing as giving up on a loan--not forgiving it but giving up. The Rema brings a case that a Jewish town made a loan to the prince and the prince promised to reduce the taxes in return. In the end he did not reduce the taxes and the town gave up on the loan. Then the prince much later died and his son paid back the loan. I was not going to write about this but the subject is certainly interesting but also complicated and I have no had time to delve into it. 

If one has crops that he has not taken any tithe from and he puts let's say wine in a jar and closes it and calls it maasar sheni [the second maasar] then the jar itself becomes maasar sheni. [Tractate maasar sheni 3. mishna 12]

Both the Mishna Rishona [a commentary by a person named Ephraim Isaac] and the Tiferet Israel ask on this from tracatate Msaasar sheni 1 mishna 4 and 5. There it says if you buy a closed jar of wine of maasar sheni in Jerusalem the jar goes out from the category of the second maasar to become secular.

To me it seems there is a difference between calling a name of maasar sheni to crops that have not been tithed yet and buying something with maasar Sheni. So I do not see any question in the first place.

The Tiferet Israel answers this question from the mishna in which one sells closed jars in a place where one usually buys open jars, but that answer depends on there being some connection between calling a name and buying.
 

[The problem that the Tiferet Israel deals with is why are the jars not consecrated? But to me it seems the reason is the same that when buys a animal with the money of the second tithe that the leather is not consecrated.]