User:Jitrack

Jitrack

Birth and evolution of Jitrack

Jitrack has it’s origin in early Indo-European history. A combination of the Sanskrit word “jit” meaning conquering or victory and “rack” (see variations of ME rakke, rekke (n.) MD rac, rec, recke; cf. MLG reck, G Reck) meaning stretching (both in the sense of strain and in the sense of positive expansion)[1]. The result is a concept with extraordinary depth and richness of connotation that, over the ages, has continued to develop.

Greek and Roman uses of the term were confined mainly to certain of the more esoteric mystery cults of the eastern Mediterranean. To achieve a state of Jitrack or, more precisely, to become a Jitrack, required a long apprenticeship to a priestess. Through the rites of Jitrack, which were always kept hidden, the devotee could aspire to an exalted spiritual and physical state, a state of both pain and enlightenment.[2]

The destruction of the Roman Empire in the West and the ascendancy of Christianity almost completely obliterated the practice of jitrack. It survived in tiny communities primarily in Anatolia and in isolated valleys of the Caucus mountains. In the early Middle Ages, jitrack or jitrackism was bitterly attacked by Church fathers who deemed its emphasis on the mysterious and the personal as a threat to piety and ecclesiastical authority. As a result, jitrack faced systematic distortion and vigorous persecution for centuries.

Despite this pressure, jitrack survived and today is attracting new disciples. As its etymology implies Jitrack signifies both a noun and a verb, both a state of being and a process. Jitrack does not fit easily into pre-conceived dualistic notions of good/bad; it is a yeaning towards, even to the point of suffering, achievement; it is action taken beyond our limits in order to attain victory or achieve surpassing goals. It is both the journey and the destination. It is this straining for the highest and noblest which epitomizes contemporary practice of the art of jitrack. Herein resides the ancient power of jitrack; and a warning that jitrack is not for the feeble of heart or the slack of will.