Random Thought of the Day

[Nyctophilia]

tiktok is such an awful app, it's almost designed to feed you misinformation and expose you to insane discourse. unlike beloved tumblr, the app that feeds me misinformation and exposes me to insane discourse

No, no, no, you see on tiktok an algorithm feeds you misinformation. On Tumblr I feed myself misinformation from my charcuterie board of hand-selected unhinged mutuals.

None of that mass market junk. Only artisanal, small batch, sustainably cultivated, fair trade horseshit.

It really is like night and day. Well I don't use tiktok but I have a vague idea of it from stuff posted elsewhere etc and twitter is either worse or the same kind of thing so I can imagine regardless. I feel tiktok is a bit more surreal (I need to stop using that word,) whereas twitter (outside of specific bubbles or if you get lucky,) is just deeply unpleasant people fighting and a lot of far right stuff. Also a very tribal site. But everything is just fear and anger it's ultimately the emotional thing and personality traits that are always attacking you. I think it was really twitter that made me think 'oh no we have to be seperated into our own bubbles like in real life. We can't all be together.'

So in a way tiktok probably is more interesting I imagine. Because I do think there's more kooky spiritual and creative type stuff happening.

Twitter can be quite addictive but terrible like the heroine nicotine of social media. Like if someone mixed the two together. All the nothing of nicotine with all the addictiveness and destruction of heroine. Maybe even meth and there's a cocaine element to the site too maybe the ruthless capitalistic vibes and all the cryptobros who hang there. Whereas without using tiktok I feel it's more like it would be more speed mixed with lsd - and in that case that's a statement of the overall vibe. Definitely amphetamines.



And Tumblr is definitely the lsd of websites. I guess maybe weed because of that weed smoking girlfriends meme lol. They're all drugs though.



But outside of the mass dissociative element I think it's very cosy. People just have really idiosyncratic interests that they'll post about.

And there's something about twitter which has always made me think of an airport or shopping mall where as Tumblr is more like a cafe or something I guess. In spite of the fact it's a social media website. Maybe it's more like a market. Yeah like an outdoor market with a bunch of little shops around. Literally in a sense lol people are sometimes linking to their etsy stores.

There is annoying stuff happening on Tumblr too though just harder to stumble on it. It really is the bridge between the old and new internet.

Like imagine any of the reactions happening below on twitter. Maybe in a small bubble of small follower accounts but rarely. This is a massively popular tumblr post:

sorry i cant hang out i forgot how to mimic human like behaviour

I mean if you wanna just loom in the corner like some kinda creature that's cool, we just don't want you getting left out

Hang out anyway. You can be whatever exotic xenohuman you are without masking. Provided we can occasionally share atmospheric vibrations communicating trust and presence, I don't mind even if you just do your own thing in the space. Your presence, humanlike or otherwise is appreciated and enjoyed.

how's everyone doin' in the corner, you good (-_-)b ?

some days I do feel like a phyrexian archivist

Posts that hit harder as an alterbeing

My high [BEEP] thought they were talking about a wool loom. They be making blankets and such in the corner from scratch NOT by candle light. The corner has to be dark

I need to find me friends who would let me loom in the corner and occasionally join the conversation

I want to meet Orin's parents

They're probably as normal as April's parents. LOL

You assume Orin has human parents

In real life people like April and Orin generally don't have 'normal' parents or healthy family dynamics. I say this because I relate to them somewhat and so know my own family. Plus personality is genetic + environmental.

#voidpunk

lol I forgot about that.

Voidpunk is a subculture within the LGBT community, specifically among certain dehumanized or marginalized groups, who feel rejected from society's standards for humanity, and aim to reclaim their dehumanization. The embrace of one's non-human identity is at the center here, and there is a strong link to resistance against oppressors.

This isn't accurate (seems to be highly listed google result.) This is the actual defintion:

Voidpunk is a subculture for those who have been dehumanized to reclaim their dehumanization. Many are told that all humans experience romantic and/or sexual attraction, are binary cisgender, are neurotypical, are white etc. This subculture is for those who don't match that criteria of humanity and don't want to match it.

There's some overlap but it's not really part of it and definitely not the core part since the groups they emphasise are peripheral to the core of the LGBT+ community in the first place.

Alex Jones dehumanises people all the time because of his conspiratorial beliefs. But also to some extent everyone does in subtle ways all the time. He just takes it further with literally talking about aliens and all kinds of [BEEP] lol. He's probably mentally ill too (it's hard to say if he is or if he's just marketing to schizophrenic people.) This still goes hard though:



There's a weird pipeline between bigotry and psychosis that I don't think is probably that common or integral necessarily but you see it a lot online because pathology is very visible online. As is bigotry.

You see a lot of mild psychotic and dissociative stuff online in general I guess but it's a very fear driven kind of thing instead of being playful.

A lot of what he says sounds like people who have taken dmt too (or similar drugs):



Edit: Oh yeah I didn't watch this the whole way through lol. I've seen clips of him talking to Joe Rogan before but couldn't remember if he actually brought that up but he brings up hallcinogens in the video.

The 'elves' he's talking about are typically described as being neutral by people. I think the idea of that archetype being seen as evil is inherently tied to the Abrahamic religions. They demonise all related archetypes unfortunately.

I mean if you read some accounts:

Met what seemed like an entity to show me its 'machine'. The machine looked like an egg with a weird lantern on it, like those deep sea fish have. It made zipper noises. The entity was conveying child-like pride and wonder over its creation, but I can't exactly remember what that entity looked like. Just that it was there with me.

Well I got in contact with some elves/pixies/faeries/spirits (hard to say what they were exactly) in my 2nd ceremony. They seemed to be 2D light creatures with robotic body parts, some had vehicles for bodies. They were very friendly at first, they were making objects out of ideas/language/light and they wanted me to give them something. I didn?t know what they wanted and they started to get annoyed. Eventually, I understood they wanted me to show them what I know. So I gave them philosophical ideas that I had read but then they eventually wanted me to give them something original, one of my ideas and I had no ideas of my own or at least that?s what I had thought and communicated with them. They became angry and went inside my body and eventually came out with this object and told me ?this, this is your inner wisdom, your original work? They gave me back this object but took everything else.

I was very confused by the situation, I thought I was just mugged and had lost something really important.

I later understood how necessary this step was in my journey. I could no longer lean on the words, opinions, ideas of other people. There is infinitely more value in understanding than there is in memorizing other people?s work.

During my first Ayahuasca trip last night, I encountered something akin to the infamous "machine elves" at two distinct points. The first appearance was when the trip first really began and they were very confrontational and antagonistic. The visuals that came with them were a classic machine elf visual, with little entities that were shifting in form looking inside some sort of contraption pulling out folders, that were almost like the "files" of all the darkest and most ignored parts of my psyche. They gave me pointed and jestful criticism, making a total mockery of me and my ego.

Their second appearance was far more friendly, but also jestful. They were explaining to me that the universe was a perpetual energy system that will never stop, and that there is no heaven or hell. That instead I'll be repeatedly reborn to overcome adversity and learn lessons about existence until eventually I will integrate with the universe of pure love and light and happiness. They came across as jolly yet mischievous pranksters content on running the inner mechanisms of the universe like cosmic train conductors happily shoveling coal into the engine of existence perpetually and contently. They liked their job, and their glee in it showed. But they did have a mischievous side, as I saw in the beginning where they tried to shred my ego and point out all my flaws.

I've yet to try DMT but I'm going to in the future. I'm really curious and have been reading trip reports in all kinds of places. Something I found fascinating was the entities which people encountered often became less friendly as time went on. And become outright hostile when talking about God and Jesus. Now. I'm not really religious. And I'm not sure if these things aren't just inventions of the mind. But I'm curious if anyone has asked these machine elves whether they are in fact demons or asked about God and got a different, non-negative response.

I'm going to ask them this stuff should I encounter them

If true I don't blame them.

Yes 1000% they are demons/archons. They are meant to lead you away from Christ. Ask them what they think of 'Jesus Christ of Nazareth' and their true colors will come out

I don't believe they are, I've never really asked them about God or Jesus. They did seem to get aggressive when I asked if they are any correct religions to follow. What I got from it was to not focus so much on certain belief group, the ones who think they are right are actually wrong. Love is the only religion humans should follow. It was definitely a different interaction, I normally see Jesters instead of the elves. Jester's definitely treat you a bit more roughly but then help you laugh it off at the end of their message. These are my experiences though, it's different with for everyone yet similar at the same time.

The dmt jesters are such a strange phenomena. I can?t help but wonder what the hell those things are? they sure appear sentiment and rather intelligent.

Demons often were compared to jesters/clowns a long time ago. Infact, jesters/clowns are inspired by demons. The funny hairstyle of a clown, or the silly jester hat mimics the shape of a demon skull/horns. The silly big clown smile made with makeup mimicks the wide grin of the demon. Even the silly patterns on clown costumes, spots and stripes etc is inspired by the fractal nature of these entities people see on DMT. There is a reason many people find clowns creepy af

They don't like Christianity much but if you start telling them about the Greek/Roman or Egyptian Gods they'll get friendlier and may bestow gifts if you prove you are willing to delve deeper in connecting with these Gods.

What's the reason they like those more

Because they are demons and hate Jesus

Yes. The Egyptian gods are just demon worship in disguise. As is every other old world religion. They've duped the world since the start. And hate that the creator came to do away with their illusions through Jesus. It makes sense that they would get friendlier when speaking on Egyptian religion and meaner when Christianity is mentioned..

Lol.

I have no idea.

I had my second one and I met the DMT machine elves during part of my trip. There were multiple Figures but two of them stuck out to me most. One was feminine and the other was a masculine but young energy. If anyone?s met the elves. If you remember their names can you please comment them ? I want to run a mini social experiment

Side question - when you meet the entities in your DMT trips are they masculine or feminine?

I only met one in mine and she was feminine but she inferred there were others that were male or genderless; there was also an element of their gender not really mattering or meaning the same things as it does out here.

Both. The only time I tried it i heard two voices in sync with one another female and male. The female voice was dominant though

lol a bit like brassica prime =D



I like stuff like that a lot too:

I personally believe this is true. I can't speak for DMT, but I did a peyote ceremony with the Navajo in 2014. Just like McKenna says about DMT, i literally felt like I was pushed through a membrane of sorts into a rave like dimension. A machine elf greeted me singing and welcoming me exactly as people describe them. Everything felt right, so I thought in my head what's your name not knowing this thing could read my mind and it said "Baphomet". At first the phrase meant nothing to me, but a soon as I realized what was said I very quickly thought of Christ and was launched violently Into an infinite black ocean of some kind. I was drowning in a pitch black ocean with no sky above the surface?only unspeakable lengths of what looked like ropes with bugs crawling on them in the air. This was a devastating experience

Now I really want someone to try this but like think about Jesus/Satan fanfiction instead and also some other apocryphal stuff. I've never done drugs I don't know how much control people have lol.

Interdimensional marriage counselling =D

*gets booted into the black lake*

What! I heard you were looking for ideas.

They don?t like it when we get greedy for information we are not ready or, perhaps, destined for. They seem to shun me and call time whenever that happens. I've stopped trying to take, only receive.

But, you are gonna have such a wild experience first time, you won't remember yourself let alone a question

Darn. I have a long list of questions.

Everything is created through perception, asking another entity to influence your perception and beliefs can be seen as ignorant. You're basically asking them to place limits in front of you and you're showing that you already limit yourself. They would rather just ignore it, and they may get irritated or angry if you continue to push or force narrow views in their presence.

I think they might want to encourage creativity. When people do hallucinogens some research suggests it makes them more open (the personality trait,) but this works better for people who are already fairly open from what I remember... I don't think I can be bothered to dig that up now. I think it was also lsd I was reading about a few years ago.

I think this is probably true as well:

They are a projections. If you fear / hate you will see demons if you show courage and love you will see angel's.

I'm saying they but I believe this is psychological this is just more fun.

I've wondered if Jagex were inspired by Terence McKenna's writing before actually because of how they created their elves in Runescape:

Crystal singing is a method of shaping elven crystal, a substance given to the elves by the goddess Seren. The shaping can be undone with the Ritual of Reversion. After completing the quest The Eyes of Glouphrie, players are able to sing crystal into weapons, armour and tools by using the singing bowl in the Ithell Clan district in Prifddinas.

What they're doing is making objects with their voices, singing structures into existence. They offer things to you, saying "Look at this! Look at this!" and as your attention goes towards these objects you realise that what you're being shown is impossible. It's not simply intricate, beautiful and hard to manufacture, it's impossible to make these things. The nearest analogy would be the Faberg? eggs, but these things are like the toys that are scattered around the nursery inside a U.F.O., celestial toys, and the toys themselves appear to be somehow alive and can sing other objects into existence, so what's happening is this proliferation of elf gifts, which are moving around singing, and they are saying "Do what we are doing" and they are very insistent, and they say "Do it! Do it! Do it!" and you feel like a bubble inside your body beginning to move up toward your mouth, and when it comes out it isn't sound, it's vision. You discover that you can pump "stuff" out of your mouth by singing, and they're urging you to do this. They say "That's it! That's it! Keep doing it!". We're now at minute 4.5 [of the trip] and you speak in a kind of glossolalia. There is a spontaneous outpouring of syntax unaccompanied by what is normally called "meaning". After a minute or so of this the whole thing begins to collapse in on itself and they begin to physically move away from you. Usually their final shot is that they wave goodbye and say "Deja vu! Deja vu!".

Apparently he talked about syneasthesia too which is funny because I was just going to bring up Tori Amos:

She has described seeing music as structures of light since early childhood, an experience consistent with chromesthesia:

The song appears as light filament once I've cracked it. As long as I've been doing this, which is more than thirty-five years, I've never seen the same light creature in my life. Obviously similar chord progressions follow similar light patterns, but try to imagine the best kaleidoscope ever--after the initial excitement, you start to focus on each element's stunning original detail. For instance, the sound of the words with the sound of the chord progression combined with the rhythm manifests itself in a unique expression of the architecture of color-and-light. ... I started visiting this world when I was three, listening to a piece by Bela Bartok; I visited a configuration that day that wasn't on this earth. ... It was euphoric.[17]

Amos, the daughter of a Methodist minister, offended some religious circles with her "blasphemous" lyrics. She told Hollywood Report in 1992: "I've been in the alternative stations because they won't play my lyrics. The whole Bible-belt banned me for 'Crucify' because they thought I was being sacrilegious. They felt that it was detrimental material for their children and that it was blasphemous. So 'Crucify' was banned and 'Silent All These Years' with the 'anti-Christ'... I'd do better using four-letter words."

"Crucify" is about Tori Amos's struggle to overcome self-hatred, and by extension, to help any listeners overcome their own self-hatreds. Although often accused of being sacreligious, the song's message and metaphor are actually consistent with mainstream Christianity. Tori's father is a liberal Christian minister, so it's not too surprising that Tori picked up some skill in delivering a challenging sermon.

Tori explained how she created the song:

Bells started going off every time I wouldn?t stick up for myself. I accepted Quasimodo was a squatter in my cerebral area. A rhythmic pattern kept chasing me around. I dug out the drum machine and put the pattern down. I would leave that pattern on for hours while I just sat and argued with myself about stuff. The first music to get put to the pattern was the 'B' section, 'I've been looking for a saviour'? a door opened and the demons started to show up.

-Little Earthquakes songbook

Can see why it might annoy 'them.'

Also I just discovered this song:

I mean, her voice and range is excellent, and I like her music, but it is rather niche and nonsensical.

No again like with that film I don't think it's nonsensical (not really niche either lol.) Actually in this case you could just google some of the lyrics to understand some of the points. Beyond that it's obviously open to interpretation as with most lyrics you can read different things into it if the musician hasn't clarified. That's the whole point lol I mean.

[Chorus]
Building (Inanna)
Tumbling down (Inanna)
Didn't know our love was so small (Inanna)
Couldn't stand it all (Bring your son)
Mr. St. John just bring your son

Inanna is a Mesopotamian goddess of love, war etc.

I think a bunch of her lyrics and thinking probably laments the absense of goddess figures culturally. Also Pretty Hate Machine is most likely a reference to Trent Reznor but probably meant to have multiple meanings again and I think it's likely that the rest of the lyrics have multiple meanings too. Also there's a bunch of Christian imagery in this song and a bunch of her songs.

Caught a lite sneeze, dreamed a little dream
Made my own pretty hate machine
Boys on my left side, boys on my right side
Boys in the middle and you're not here
Boys in their dresses and you're not here

Here are some lyrics on another song on the same album:

Muhammad, my friend, it's time to tell the world
We both know it was a girl back in Bethlehem
And on that fateful day when she was crucified
She wore Shiseido Red and we drank tea by her side


So she's talked about this:

"I sat there and started to think, 'Alright, I've heard all this backwards and forwards from every angle, and fine, I'm into this love your neighbor as yourself, that's great, but where does all this fear come from about dancing the primitive dance, the concept of woman, their sensuality, their connection with all aspects of the self? I read a bit of mythology, with Isis, etcetera, and said, OK, where did all of this go? Where's the balance? Where's the female aspect of God? The fragmentation of the feminine is something that really started to perk my interest. That's what 'Muhammad My Friend' is about, trying to find the female part of God that's been circumcised." [The Shepherd Express - June 6, 1996]

Not very hidden.

It's something that irritates me about Christianity but I wouldn't see Inanna as being purely feminine personally. (That's a different song though and she didn't talk about the meaning behind that one afaik.) In fact to the extent that Aphrodite was based on her she was actually feminised later.

Early artistic and literary portrayals of Aphrodite are extremely similar to Inanna/Ishtar.[354][355] Aphrodite was also a warrior goddess;[354][351][359] the second-century AD Greek geographer Pausanias records that, in Sparta, Aphrodite was worshipped as Aphrodite Areia, which means "warlike".[360][361] He also mentions that Aphrodite's most ancient cult statues in Sparta and on Cythera showed her bearing arms.[362] Modern scholars note that Aphrodite's warrior-goddess aspects appear in the oldest strata of her worship[363] and see it as an indication of her Near Eastern origins.[363][359] Aphrodite also absorbed Ishtar's association with doves,[86][359] which were sacrificed to her alone.[359] The Greek word for "dove" was peristera,[86][87] which may be derived from the Semitic phrase peraḥ Istar, meaning "bird of Ishtar".[87] The myth of Aphrodite and Adonis is derived from the story of Inanna and Dumuzid.[357][358]

Aphrodite Areia (Ancient Greek: Ἀφροδίτη Ἀρεία) or "Aphrodite the Warlike" was a cult epithet of the Greek goddess Aphrodite, in which she was depicted in full armor like the war god Ares.[1] This representation was found in Sparta and Taras (modern Taranto). There were other, similarly martial interpretations of the goddess, such as at her Sanctuary at Kythira, where she was worshiped under the epithet Aphrodite Urania, who was also represented as being armed. The epithet "Areia", meaning "warlike", was applied to other gods in addition to Aphrodite, such as Athena, Zeus, and possibly Hermes.[1]

The association with warfare contradicts Aphrodite's more popularly known role as the goddess of desire, fertility, and beauty. In the Iliad, Aphrodite is portrayed as incompetent in battle, being wounded in the wrist by Diomedes under the guidance of Athena, and she is reminded of her role as a love goddess rather than a war goddess like Athena by Zeus.[2] It is possible, however, that this representation was deliberate to assert the Ionian interpretation of Aphrodite, which did not portray the goddess with warlike aspects, as the "correct" version.[3]

Maybe related symbolism:

Cronus castrated Uranus and threw his father's testicles into the sea. They caused the sea to foam and out of that white foam rose Aphrodite

Although Inanna/Istar is the goddess par excellence, the beautiful maiden full of sex-appeal, she is also depicted as an androgyne, having masculine features, e.g., a beard. In the Old Babylonian sources, Istar was given "masculinity" (nam-gurus) by her father An.

19-31Inana was entrusted by Enlil and Ninlil with the capacity to gladden the heart of those who revere her in their established residences, but not to soothe the mood of those who do not revere her in their well-built houses; to turn a man into a woman and a woman into a man, to change one into the other, to make young women dress as men on their right side, to make young men dress as women on their left side, to put spindles into the hands of men ......, and to give weapons to the women; to see that women amuse themselves by using children's language, to see that children amuse themselves by using women's language, to ...... skill, to ....... They built a palace, her house of ladyship, for the mistress of An, and invested it with fearsome radiance. They made it into the neck-stock of all the foreign countries, and imbued it with awe-inspiring, terrifying splendour.

I'm kind of biased and not really a fan of purely masculine or feminine characters in general (yeah that's not true depending on interpretation. Eg: I like Ron Swanson as a character I just find figures like Ares and Zeus and Khorne and Yahweh etc boring. Khorne is more fun I guess because he's not considered the one true God (tm) and Slaanesh and several other characters get to [BEEP] with him so he's kind of needed for the polarity. There are way less purely feminine characters around but I probably care less. Unsurprisingly I don't connect with mother goddesses though,) but I think I particuarly dislike Aphrodite for this reason - the castration element (though technically it's not her fault,) And also for larping purposes because at one point I had the usename Persephone before I really knew anything about Persephone or anything I'm writing about in this post I just thought it was an edgy username and I liked some art work I'd found around the time. They were in a love triangle with Adonis lol.

I think a lot of people ask about where the female aspect of the Abrahamic God is. Christianity has Mary and compared to most religions, especially older religions, this is actually quite feminine. But what Christianity does is it emphasises gender roles, radical seperation of gendered traits, and patriarchy and that isn't particuarly comfortable for a lot of people. It's definitely not my cup of tea but I can tell it appeals to people who enjoy those things.

I also don't love that if I search Isis the Islamist group comes up as basically every result unless you specify you're talking about the Egyptian goddess.

[Nyctophilia]

"I sat there and started to think, 'Alright, I've heard all this backwards and forwards from every angle, and fine, I'm into this love your neighbor as yourself, that's great, but where does all this fear come from about dancing the primitive dance, the concept of woman, their sensuality, their connection with all aspects of the self? I read a bit of mythology, with Isis, etcetera, and said, OK, where did all of this go? Where's the balance? Where's the female aspect of God? The fragmentation of the feminine is something that really started to perk my interest. That's what 'Muhammad My Friend' is about, trying to find the female part of God that's been circumcised." [The Shepherd Express - June 6, 1996]

I find her use of the word circumcision here kind of interesting. I don't think there really is a symbolic way to describe defeminisation in a single word. Castration doesn't work imo because it's so connected to the idea of masculinity and virility.

She also wrote a song about about female circumcision (I think it's probably her most popular song):

The inspiration for "Cornflake Girl" came from a conversation Tori Amos was having with a longtime friend about female genital mutilation in Africa, specifically how a close female family member would betray the victim by performing the procedure. Amos has said that growing up, the name they gave to girls who would hurt you despite close friendship was cornflake girls.

Although in the west circumcision is illegal for female infants but not male. In the UK it's mostly just a religious thing I think or in some cases happens for medical reasons and the rate is about 15% (lower I think in younger generations, this is based on 2000 research but I've seen people claim its as low as 9% in 2012) instead of 80% in the US.

I think it's not often considered to be so evocative. Defeminisation. That's why it's a very rare kink for example as fetishes are often based on fears and taboo.

But I think Shakespeare's scene with Lady Macbeth was pretty compelling:

The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements. Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full
Of direst cruelty! Make thick my blood,
Stop up th' access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murd'ring ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry "Hold, hold!"

And she wrote a song from that point of view too lol:

"Professional Widow" is rumored to be about the American songwriter Courtney Love, the widow of the Nirvana songwriter Kurt Cobain.[2] Love said she had never determined if she was the "professional widow" of the title.[2] In 1996, Amos said she had never met Love and that the song was about her own experience and "the part of myself that's Lady Macbeth". In a 2003 television interview, when the host said the song was inspired by Love, Amos interrupted with "allegedly" and smiled.[2]

Some people interpret it to be about Courtney Love instead though. I'm going to imagine it's about Lady Macbeth because that's more interesting. That's what she said anyway. Stylistically it is similar a bit to some Nine Inch Nails music:



Yeah it reminds me of Somewhat Damaged a bit:



They also collaborated a few times before whatever did or didn't happen that everyone has been talking about for decades now. She apparently covered one of Nine Inch Nails songs live in 2014 Something I can Never Have so I don't think it could be that dramatic really.

Trent Reznor and Amos originally met in mutual admiration for each other's respective debut albums, sometime in the early nineties. They recognized similar approaches in emotional expression, despite vastly different musical styles. Both artists influenced the other's work in some way; Reznor even admitted that he would listen to Little Earthquakes every day while recording The Downward Spiral. [2] [3] From there a collaboration formed: Reznor contributed vocals to Amos's single "Past The Mission" for her 1994 album Under The Pink. His vocals on the track were uncharacteristically, and somewhat unrecognizably, soft and pleasant, low in the mix of the song's choruses. The song was about finding hope in a relationship after trauma, as well as the supposed relationship between Mary Magdalene and Jesus.

Amos has also performed the first two lines of "Hurt" in concert--mainly between 1994 and 1999--and has made allusions to Nine Inch Nails in her solo work, most notably in "Precious Things" from Little Earthquakes and "Caught a Lite Sneeze" from Boys for Pele. In a 1994 issue of Vox Magazine, she listed The Downward Spiral as one of her top 10 favorite albums.[4] She also did a live cover of "Something I Can Never Have" in 2014.

Give me peace, love, peace, love
Give me peace, love and a hard cock

Lol.

People talk about how Lady Macbeth is willing to give up her Humanity to obtain power because she wants to be queen. The exact wording 'unsex me' is talking about a process of losing your sex though (there's some debate about how literal that is obviously there are references to actual sex traits in that scene,) which many treat as being Human. To quote from Cliffnotes:

Macbeth's wife is one of the most powerful female characters in literature. Unlike her husband, she lacks all humanity, as we see well in her opening scene, where she calls upon the "Spirits that tend on mortal thoughts" to deprive her of her feminine instinct to care.

I think that would probably be Hecate in this play.

O well done! I commend your pains;
And every one shall share i' the gains;
And now about the cauldron sing,
Live elves and fairies in a ring,
Enchanting all that you put in.

Macbeth and Lady Macbeth kind of just switch roles throughout the play.

This is incredibly interesting to me:

Lady Macbeth asks for her menstrual cycle to stop. By having her menstrual cycle stop, Lady Macbeth hopes to stop any feelings of sensitivity and caring that is associated with females. She hopes to become like a man to stop any sense of remorse for the regicide. La Belle furthers her argument by connecting the stopping of the menstrual cycle with the persistent infanticide motifs in the play.

Your body is ruthlessly shedding stuff monthly. You don't get your period while you're pregnant so it's a reminder that you're not which is in a way a form of protest. There's blood. Periods make many people very uncomfortable and there have been many cultural taboos surrounding them. There's a certain irony in saying all that but then ultimately just turning your husband into a murderous tyrant. She didn't directly kill anyone.

I felt a lot of shame though about starting my period as a teenager. I didn't want to start it either and denied I even did to start with. It was annoying in some sense too because when I first started it I was supposed to go swiming. Even later when some girl asked me I denied and one of them was like 'you should go to the doctors' because I was like 16 then. But I started my period at 13 and a 1/2.

I always felt that there was something submissive about guys who had a period kink but it's not clear why. Well partly it's because I once read a blog by one guy which described his fascination dating back to childhood and the way it was worded came across that way. It was kind of cute. And when you read about cultures a lot of what gets talked about is like women are seen as unclean, and it's seen as bad, and it's pushing victimhood narratives for women and so on. But!

Cultural norms and religious taboos on menstruation are often compounded by traditional associations with evil spirits, shame and embarrassment surrounding sexual reproduction.[2] In some cultures, women bury their cloths used during menstruation to prevent them being used by evil spirits.[8] In Surinam, menstrual blood is believed to be dangerous, and a malevolent person can do harm to a menstruating woman or girl by using black magic ("wisi"). It is also believed that a woman can use her menstrual blood to impose her will on a man.[1,6] Interestingly, in Asia including India, such beliefs are still practiced.[4] However, there seems to be no logical or scientific explanation for this.

Sadism finds a way.

😏

See Lady Macbeth just didn't 'get it.' You've underestimated how easily spooked people can be.

I'm reading this wikipedia page now (I haven't read it before lol) this is fun:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_and_menstruation

Menstrual blood is viewed as especially dangerous to men's power.[26] In Africa, menstrual blood is used in the most powerful magic charms in order to both purify and destroy.[27] Mayan mythology explains the origin of menstruation as a punishment for violating the social rules governing marital alliance. The menstrual blood turns into snakes and insects used in black sorcery, before the Maya moon goddess is reborn from it.[28]

There's a whole LGBT+ section which is unfortunatly not very inspiring:

Recent scholarship has argued that menstruation, although a strictly biological function, has been imbued with gender/sex identity.[180] Thus, as advocacy for, and awareness of transgender and non-binary individuals increases across the globe, menstrual activism is evolving as well. Effects of the gendered perceptions of menstruation on the LGBTQIA+ community differ, but current debates about the issue focus primarily on two key topics, transfeminine and transmasculine menstrual pain.[180]

Transmasculine menstrual pain, like transfeminine, includes both physical and mental components. As trans men and non-binary individuals may still menstruate, they often experience the same negative side-effects of menstruation, like cramping.[181] Similarly some argue that the negative effects it may have on mental health have been underexplored.[180] As menstruating conflicts with conventional ideas about masculinity,[179] activists are concerned about the dysphoric gender identity that can arise from menstruating, after someone has chosen to transition or adopt a gender identity not linked to their sex at birth.[180] Some AFAB individuals (assigned female at birth) and non-binary individuals have expressed concern about the tension between menstruating and affirming their chosen gender identity.[181] Scholars have begun arguing for a non-gendered conception of menstruation in both social and medical settings, in an attempt to alleviate the discomfort AFAB and non-binary individuals feel during menstruation.[181] Examples of this can include but are not limited to: using clinical, non-gendered language to describe menstruation, saying 'cycle' rather than 'period', or 'menstrual products' rather than 'feminine hygiene products'.[181] Finally, researchers have also noted that many AFAB and non-binary individuals who menstruate encounter barriers in public restrooms, as men's restrooms do not have sanitary disposal bins in the stalls, and there are often few cubicles in comparison to urinals. This results in AFAB and non-binary individuals having to wait for access to stalls, and dispose of their menstrual products in the public waste bin.[181] Thus, advocacy for gender-neutral bathrooms has become a more recent part of Menstruation Activism.[180][181]

How is 'cycle' supposed to be better than period? Period doesn't really make me think of anything 'cycle' is clearly tied to reproduction. Are they joking lol?

There's a practical concern regarding trans men or non-binary people who use the male toilets but still have periods. Personally I don't since I have long hair and pass as female. There's also a social component which can't be so easily addressed with clinical narratives. For that if you're not going to get surgery or if testosterone doesn't remove this entirely you're going to have to figure out another way to frame things. I wouldn't say that wikipedia section is all that inspiring. Personally I clearly enjoy "this is actually a weapon and I'm communing with demonic powers/forces." But it's also easier to work with if you don't care about being 100% masculine, if you don't consider yourself categorically the same as hegemonic/patriarchal cis men, and if you're instead androgynous I think.

The opposite of being pregnant is also having a period so there's that.

There was that trans guy who recorded a song with a ukulele about periods right? I didn't really pay attention I just vaguely recall.

Did I imagine that? The period prince? Was it that guy? Oh no there was a song. I can't find it on YouTube damn.

"This video has been removed for violating YouTube's terms of service"

LOL OK. I think cause he was clearly bleeding in the video maybe.

Anyway it's called: 'Let Us Bleed" Ft. The Period Prince' it seems to still be on Facebook. Also he's non-binary and trans masc I think.

Ukulele's are also very powerful although sometimes used for evil like in ukulele apology videos.

But monsters in this way are often androgynous in some sense or have gone through some transformation to remove certain gendered traits. You see androgyny in the horror genre a lot though of course it tends to be androgynous men atm given our current culture.

Hence the appeal of voidpunk.

I talked about this before a while back but I find Amanda Palmer's previous take on Tori's work based on her musical style and expression pretty funny.

And now, I must now delve into the uncomfortable subject of Tori Amos.
She?s been haunting me for years and it?s time the story was told.

^ This part especially 'she's been haunting me for years.

No mittens and snowflakes! Evil! No butterflies, no goddesses, this is wrong wrong wrong! But the songs that were good rooted and stuck. They were few, but I was fucked. I had to admit that I liked them. After that I sort of forgot about her.

Then, recently, I got to the point where I could really afford to get CDs that I might not like. So I bought a bunch of her stuff. I considered this part of my job, research. I would even defend myself at the local record store, embarassed as if I were a guy buying tampons. "Heh heh. These are for my Wife." "Heh heh. This is research for my band. Really." I knew she was coming to town, I got tickets. I decided to delve headfirst and figure this out, and put it to bed if possible. Brian and I had gotten a DVD of hers and watched it several months ago and shut it off halfway through, bored. I had heard that she was a real fireball of a performer, and I was really disappointed by the blandness of it. I also cound't tell if I wanted to like it or wanted to hate it. I couldn't tell if I was jealous or looking for a role model. Some strange combo of all of these things, I think.

"AARARRRGGHGGHGg. She's talking about the goddesses and butterflies again and refferring to a song as 'she'. Am I evil for hating this so much?"

But I was fucked again. Buried in all of the Corn-Mother, Butterfly-worshipping New Age LaLa there was a woman living my lifestyle.

She changed her mind later obviously. She also went on tour with Nine Inch Nails with the Dresden Dolls which the Tori blog was also about. In 2005.

Tori Amos and Trent Reznor report admiring one other's music long before meeting. This is a little weird, considering Tori Amos is a progressive pop singer a la Kate Bush, and Trent Reznor is a screaming nutjob a la the Butthole Surfers (real band NIN toured with), but it's true. There are some shared themes between them though: both are unreservedly confessional lyricists, and they both really like pretending to be Jesus. Apparently, Trent Reznor reached out to say he loved "Little Earthquakes," and a friendship was born.

Again I don't think it's weird at all really. He once wrote a song about the novel The Torture Garden - Happiness in Slavery.

Her work is really not as light and flowery as some people assume. She's also lived through something very messed up which influenced some of her lyrics.

Grimes has a song called Butterfly too which is actually from the pov of a butterfly in the Amazon as people are cutting down trees. Also not that light. The use of butterflies is often not light.

Actually I remember reading about butterflies being drawn to blood and some people are actually scared of butterflies. I find this juxtaposition kind of interesting myself. Also there's kind of a trope of serial killers collecting butterflies at this point possibly comes from the book The Collector. Steven Wilson wrote a song about that too:



But in this case:



Hey General, need a little love in that hole of yours
One ways, now, and Saturdays and our kittens all wrapped in cement
From cradle to gundrops
Got me running girl fast as I can
And is it right Butterfly they like you better framed and dried

I like the play on 'gumdrops' with 'gundrops'

I think Amanda was quite wrapped up in surface details. 'Oh she's talking about kittens and butterflies.'

Daddy dear if I can kill one man why not two
Well, nurses smile when you got iron veins
You can't stain their pretty shoes and pom poms and cherry blondes
And their kittens still wrapped in cement
From God's saviors to gundrops
Got me running girl as fast as I can
And is it right Butterfly they like you better framed and dried

Got a pretty pretty garden pretty garden yes
Got me a pretty pretty garden a pretty garden yes
Got me a pretty pretty garden a pretty garden

There are many ways these lyrics could be interpreted and I very much doubt my own interpretation would match what she intended.

This is a funny question too:

Tori: Another movie that touched me deeply was The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, Her Lover.
HUMO: Why? That's a very negative, violent movie full of people humiliating each other psychologically...
Tori: [sighs] Exactly. That's the victim in me... don't forget I... Well, you know what happened... [...] At any rate, I felt very related to the thief's wife, the woman who was humiliated most... It's connected to the drama, the trauma in my life... If you have witnessed abuse of power nearby, and men's blind lust, and psychological mind games, you see that movie from a different angle... For years I've been a willing victim myself, I had something in me... I conciously wanted to surrender myself to the mercy of the men in my life; I wanted... to be dominated. Why?... I'm still asking myself that question.

I think the victim's pov can be interesting as in The Lovely Bones but I guess I'm also much more intrigued by female sadism and aggression creatively because I think in some ways that's quite repressed in our current culture. Like you can find it everywhere but there's a desperate and constant urge to disown that. At the same time I have very complicated feelings about Monseiur Venus from the part where she had to get a guy to commit certain acts, to the general defeatism of the entire text. I also like female hero narratives but I find that a lot of ideas are sort of non existent outside certain porn genres. At least in a way that works. That's interesting too.

Oh! This is very interesting (spoilers I guess for the film Tori brought up I started reading the wikipedia page lol):

English gangster Albert Spica has taken over the high-class Le Hollandais restaurant, which is managed by French chef Richard Boarst. Spica makes nightly appearances at the restaurant with his retinue of thugs. His oafish behavior causes frequent confrontations with the staff and his own customers, whose patronage he loses but whose money he seems not to miss.

Forced to accompany Spica is his reluctant yet elegant wife, Georgina, who soon catches the eye of a quiet regular at the restaurant: bookshop owner Michael. Spoiler: Under her husband's nose, with the help of the restaurant staff, Georgina carries on an affair with Michael. Ultimately, Spica learns of the affair, forcing Georgina to hide out at Michael's book depository. Boarst sends food to Georgina through his young employee Pup, a boy soprano who sings while working. Spica tortures the boy before finding the bookstore's location written in a book the boy is carrying. Spica's men storm Michael's bookshop while Georgina is visiting the boy in hospital. They torture Michael to death by force-feeding him pages from his books. Georgina discovers his body when she returns.

This is already graphic enough so I wont write the last paragraph of what happens after this. Since I don't really watch films there are so many interesting films I've just never seen that have ideas that resonate with me that I didn't even know exist lol. Also other stuff besides films. I don't know if I'd want to watch it but I like the story.

It doesn't sound like that's what's resonating with her though. That's interesting too. I think the bookshop guy trope is kind of like the flowershop guy trope. They always have Spoiler: tragic ends I say this like I just assume this is a thing lol. I mean it is in my mind. I think it kind of is.

A lot of my aggression these days is directed at this hypothetical guy (like Spica.) I don't remember when that started. Elements of that have popped up in my writing and daydreams though over the years even as a teenager. It's kind of a game because I don't think people are generally this black/white. I don't think I've come across someone who really embodies that either. Maybe it's spread out across people and tied to power. Like what Putin and Winnie the Pooh are doing (I don't remember his name so this really works thanks China. Actually I feel like it's an insult to Winnie the Pooh. He didn't do anything to deserve this and it doesn't work at all because he's so supportive of Piglet.)

I had daydreams about something related before in my mid 20s... Of course the other character in that was really not the bookshop (tm) type. More of a Slaanesh character so all the tropes were kind of off. It seemed to fuse two ideas together one: the war between an androgynous incubus elf sex demon type figure who is at war with a violent hyper masculine war demon figure (there were a lot of characters like this in my writing earlier too who were androgynous but not specifically demons usually just elves and plant people elves and they were very playful but also very promiscuous leading to angst when other character's got cheated on etc,) and 2: the idea of someone who is not physically capable themselves of being in a relationship with someone less physically capable than some antagonist and has to go along with various things to protect the other person from being killed or well since they were demons in this case destroyed. Also the incubus character could read people's minds or emotions or something so the other character had to wear some kind of ring to stop that. So the incubus character is led to assume they are not attracted to them until they figure it out. I like angst a lot but I also like happy endings lol. Kind of boring that way probably.

Last year I quickly wrote some scenes involving a guy who was in another guy's harem and cheating with a female knight. There was a library scene too because of course. She runs into them multiple times having sex which inspires envy and with the added component of her being hired to work as this guy's body guard. The other guy (who is totally not based on 1970s Geddy Lee,) tells her later in the library that he was imagining that she stole some other guy's body and then threw the other guy off him and then kept that guy's dick to have sex with him. I was quite immersed in a lot of it so it just flowed naturally but that shapeshifting aspect felt a bit too clunky especially the part where I tried to maintain the character's body while also having a dick, which I think is why people don't attempt to write what I'm trying and failing to write in the first place. Of course you can just have a dick but that's not the point either. I feel like it can fall into a category of a kind of classic femdom niche, and although the character was female they're also not. It's just very difficult to have sex and also to integrate femininity and masculinity in a way that works. Sometimes it feels too masculine or vice versa.

I know I've posted about these things before. I guess it will be another 5-10 years before I come up with something new randomly and have something new to talk about because that seems about right. Kind of lame.

Also regarding The Collector I see this sentiment often where you should transcend violence and murderous intent in extreme situations or you're lowering yourself to someone else's level. This is not something Tori has expressed in regards to her experience which I've just been reading about (like literally reading about now there's a lot I didn't know about her before writing this post. I like several songs of hers for many years but haven't listened to most of her music lol. I'm learning things about her very gradually.) She said at one point she wouldn't kill him because murder would make it too easy.

I had this mentality once as a kind of personal value to try and transcend that up to the point where there was one time (I can't remember how old I was but either a teenager or young adult,) where I was discussing this and my dad was pushing me on the limits of this and he was very offended that I wouldn't kill to defend my family. I don't think this is a position I'd take now I also don't think it was one I had on a very deep level, and I think quite a bit of my thoughts about this had to do with my dislike of a kind of nationalistic sentiment where your nation is superior, and your family is superior and so on.

This is a big part of the left/right divide in politics too and the culture war and people on the right like Edward Dutton even view this as a form of genetic mutation or otherwise ideological deviation from a patriarchal European norm where people who don't have a bias are mutants. Taken to an extreme I guess you have the potential for someone to view all life as equal. I think some people try to live by that value but don't feel it emotionally as well. I don't imagine most people are capable of feeling that way deep down because I don't think we evolved to.

So yeah I was very irritated by my dad's nationalistic tribalism. I would sit with him as a teenager as he'd constantly rant about immigrants and such.

Then when I was in my early 20s (I've spoken about this before,) I was in a pub with my family in Brussels and my dad mentioned that when my mum was a young adult with a group of younger women they walked through an underpass and kind of graphic: Spoiler: some guy flashed them so she put out her cigarette on his dick my reaction to this at the time was quite interesting which I've also spoken about before because I just got really emotional about this so I actually had to leave and go into the bathroom.

I wasn't even entirely sure why I was so emotional. In the end I concluded that it was because I felt like my mum was like my dad and I'd wanted her to be different. My dad has never committed any violent acts that I know of, he's never spoken about that off the top of my head, but he's inhibitively aggressive. So at the drop of a hat he'll discuss wanting to do violent things to people who annoy him. Up to nuking entire countries. I always found this very unpleasant although I've threatened people myself on a small number of occasions online because well I get the reactive aggression from both my parents.

I got so bizarrely upset by this that I couldn't hide it and so I was trying to process this weird emotional thing in real time and explain why I was feeling the way I was but really we come up with all these narratives to explain emotions that who knows if it was the real reason. So I was explaining to my dad about how that element of his personality type bothers me and he was trying to reassure me lol like 'When I say these things I won't actually do these things.'

I've said before but this entire episode is why I think I might have undiagnosed autism. Not just this episode but yeah. I take things incredibly literally sometimes like the time where I was 7/8 and an actor said the ship I was on was on fire and I was the only person in my class who reacted. It should have been very obvious that this was part of the performance because they were all acting like they were in the middle ages, but they had to explain to me that I didn't need to leave the ship because it wasn't on fire.

Also my mum really isn't lacking in aggression in general there are other anecdotes involving verbal aggression etc. My dad told me recently about some time they were playing some game at the seaside when they were younger (before me or my brother was born,) and some guy was bugging her and she yelled at him to '[BEEP] off you bastard.' He won't talk about my mum that much and he never wanted to get married so when he does it's interesting to note what kind of anecdotes appeal to him. Also reminds me of when I was a kid and my brother was interrupting me from playing some video game and so I kicked him hard in the back. Then my dad got furiously angry because I could have injured his kidneys.

So I went through this transformation after this I think where I decided revenge for certain things was fine and also knowing that there's a part of me that can get revenge and can also choose not to is quite important I think.

Also the author of The Lovely Bones I recently learnt (like within the last week or so I read this while looking up clips of Susan Sarandon lol,) sent the wrong man to prison decades ago (I am trying to be as vague as possible in this post, probably not doing a great job, but it's hard,) and the entire case seemed very incompetently handled really. That was kind of insane. You can read about it on wikipedia.

I like the song Winter a lot:



I run off where the drifts get deeper
Sleeping Beauty trips me with a frown
I hear a voice, "You must learn to stand up
For yourself 'cause I can't always be around"

He says, when you gonna make up your mind?
When you gonna love you as much as I do?
When you gonna make up your mind?
'Cause things are gonna change so fast
All the white horses are still in bed
I tell you that I'll always want you near
You say that things change, my dear

She also wrote a song called Mother which I hadn't listened to:

I knew that "Winter" needed to be written, which represented not just the father, but the grandfather - Poppa, my mother's father. So the positive male energies in my life, and also moments with men, with their disappointment in themselves and how that plays out. I wanted - I needed - the polar opposite, so I felt like this needed to go beyond the human mother. This needed to go back to ideas of Creatrix and that God is not just male, but of the Creator being female and male. So this is the feminine story coming down to earth, leaving this soul space and saying goodbye to Mother Creator as I go to Mother Earth. And the last thing is somebody leaves the light on.'

For some reason there's something about ix and ex suffixes that feel androgynous to me. I think it's just because of the x element. Like Mx is a gender neutral title in the UK, x is used as a gender neutral market on passports, Runescape recently added a title 'dux' as an alternative to duke and duchess during this one gameplay thing but it sounds like ducks haha. Trix is actually a feminine suffix though. To me ess sounds much more feminine. Princess, actress or as I said dutchess etc. Ix is very similar and seems to be associated with scientific and technical words too and other types of words that seem detatched from gender entirely. Like some examples I found on google:

fix, phoenix, matrix, mix, mirepoix, helix, unfix, admix, affix, and transfix.

Matrix does mean mother or womb though and phoenix's are associated with transformation. Mix is also literally the word for combing things:

combine or put together to form one substance or mass.

I always liked x's. In spite of whatever Elon's ironically doing. There are a lot in my artwork and also as a kid walked past this building but I talked about all this before.

Someone described The song mother like this:

https://medium.com/@froghawk/tori-am...2-66a16b428f72

The 7-minute long late-album track 'Mother' is a bit more unnerving. It's the album's only true solo piano/vocal track (it was wise that no arranging was done on this one, because it truly doesn't need it), and it features a long piano intro. She perfectly captures the conflict of feeling suffocated by your mother while also feeling terrified to go out into the world without her, while even throwing in a pre-chorus about periods. The tone of the song and lyrics allows all of this to be expressed in a way that feels more heartwrenching than defensive, and the feelings it captures are so complex and multifaceted that they defy attempts at articulation.

Go, go, go, go, now
Out of the nest, it's time
Go, go, go, now
Circus girl without a safety net
Here, here, now, don't cry
You raised your hand for the assignment
Tuck those ribbons under
Your helmet, be a good soldier

The combination of feminine elements with war symbolism. It sort of is channeling Inanna I think 🙂

"Dripping with blood
And with time and your advice
Poison me against the moon"

[Nyctophilia]

Yes 1000% they are demons/archons. They are meant to lead you away from Christ. Ask them what they think of 'Jesus Christ of Nazareth' and their true colors will come out

They don't like Christianity much but if you start telling them about the Greek/Roman or Egyptian Gods they'll get friendlier and may bestow gifts if you prove you are willing to delve deeper in connecting with these Gods.

Now I really want someone to try this but like think about Jesus/Satan fanfiction instead and also some other apocryphal stuff. I've never done drugs I don't know how much control people have lol.

Interdimensional marriage counselling =D

*gets booted into the black lake*

What! I heard you were looking for ideas.

What they were saying about the 'machine elves' being archons. The archons come from Gnosticism and are the builders of the physical universe:

According to a Gnostic text called the Reality of the Rulers, the archons "have bodies that are both female and male, and faces that are the faces of beasts."[2] Thus, they're not truly male nor female, nor human nor animal. The ancients found this kind of boundary-crossing to be deeply threatening, and this description of the archons implied that they were forces of chaos, so "mixed up" as to be "the farthest that a created being could be from God."[3]

Peter Gabriel is kind of chanelling this with the dress + fox mask lol. Not on purpose afaik:



Some suggestion this was influenced by Egyptian Gods:

The imagery of Zoe breathing a fiery angel and sending Yaldabaoth to Tartarus may have been inspired by Egyptian coffin texts, such as Spell 575 and 937.[86] The language Norea uses when speaking to the archons also recalls magic spells from Egyptian sources.[87] Adam's words to Eve are reminiscent of aretologies around Isis.[88][89] The archons have animal heads, similar to Egyptian deities.[15]

You get the dehumanisation and then you get the 'this is evil' thing. Obviously for the most part this only explains bigotry that stems from common theology though and tbh I think it's likely that the theology is used to justify the bigotry in many cases too.

In spite of all this the Gnostic creator Goddess Barbelo is also described in a similarly androgynous way:

Barbelo (Greek: Βαρβηλώ)[1] refers to the first emanation of God in several forms of Gnostic cosmogony. Barbelo is often depicted as a supreme female principle, the single passive antecedent of creation in its manifold. This figure is also variously referred to as 'Mother-Father' (hinting at her apparent androgyny), 'The Triple Androgynous Name', or 'Eternal Aeon'. So prominent was her place amongst some Gnostics that some schools were designated as Barbeliotae, Barbelo worshippers or Barbelo gnostics.

Part of the story involves 'Sophia' falling and inventing the demiurge and archons:

In various Gnostic Christian myths, Sophia was the catalyst who gave rise to creation and the material realm. Sophia, the timeless being, or Aeon, who existed in the realm of perfection (Pleroma) as the archetype of Wisdom, felt inclined to manifest a creation of her own. But because she lacked the proper toolset or polarity, her creation was imperfect, and this imperfection caused an eruption in the Pleroma.

Sophia created Yaldabaoth (aka Saklas, Samael), an ignorant being hell-bent on crafting his own collection of inferior beings. This gave rise to the creation of the material realm, along with several (7, 12, or 365) princes (archons) who would subsequently rule this new realm. These ruling archons had heads of animals, and were often associated with fallen angels.

It's a bit of a weird belief system. It adopted the same idea of good and evil but decided to make Yahweh the bad guy instead but some instead claimed the demiurge was just ignorant:

In Gnosticism, the biblical serpent in the Garden of Eden was praised and thanked for bringing knowledge (gnosis) to Adam and Eve and thereby freeing them from the malevolent Demiurge's control.[38] Gnostic Christian doctrines rely on a dualistic cosmology that implies the eternal conflict between good and evil, and a conception of the serpent as the liberating savior and bestower of knowledge to humankind opposed to the Demiurge or creator god, identified with the Yahweh from the Hebrew Bible.[38][35]

However, not all Gnostic movements regarded the creator of the material universe as inherently evil or malevolent.[39][40] For instance, Valentinians believed that the Demiurge is merely an ignorant and incompetent creator, trying to fashion the world as well as he can, but lacking the proper power to maintain its goodness.[39][40] They were regarded as heretics by the proto-orthodox Early Church Fathers.[38][35][41]

This is why I was joking about 'interdimensional marriage counselling' btw:

In Gnosticism, Sophia is a feminine figure, analogous to the human soul but also simultaneously one of the feminine aspects of God. Gnostics held that she was the syzygy, or female twin, of Jesus, i.e. the Bride of Christ, and the Holy Spirit of the Trinity.

I noticed a few years ago there were some overlaps between Sophia and Lucifer.

Also just found some guy ranting about an instagram post where someone seems to have fused gnosticism with Christianity:

https://thesacredfaith.co.uk/home/pe...nd-sophia.html

I saw a post on my Instagram feed the other day that just got me a little riled up. I'll admit it, I can be a little short-tempered at times, especially around the subject of Jesus and seeing him/the Christian faith misrepresented to such a degree that it could mislead others down the wrong path. I don't normally write responses to things like this, but I felt this one deserved it, mainly just to add some clarity to a somewhat confusing topic, and so there's a place I (or you, if you fancy sharing my posts!) can point people to if this type of ideology is going to spread.

A lot of the comments under that post seemed to find it quite affirming in some ways, others were confused as they'd never heard this before (and rightly so) but were keen to look into it. There were also a lot of references to a single author, and book, called, She Who Is, by Elizabeth A. Johnson, where this idea seemed to have originated in some form. In fact, the majority of the comments were wanting to explore this idea in more depth. So, I think maybe there's something to be said there for the lack of female representation in the Church if it garnered this type of response, but I also thought if people are this taken by the idea, I wanted to write something to offer some Biblical and historical views on this "Sophia", as she isn't a new concept at all. The caption under the Instagram post sounds nice, but it's ever so slightly off-kilter that it misrepresents everything.

No, no. I for one support Jesus's new lesbian mums.

Jesus had two moms.
Their names are
Mary and Sophia.
You've heard about Mary, but do you know about Sophia?
Sophia is the Greek word for God's Wisdom.
And God's Wisdom is a Woman. Her name is Sophia.
Sophia was there at the beginning of creation. She birthed the world into existence.
Deuteronomy 32 says that God gave birth to the people. That was Sophia.
Christians began to associate Sophia with the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is Sophia. She is the divine feminine who is the Third Person of the Trinity.
Sophia is our divine Mother.
God is She who loves you.

Christians began to associate Sophia with the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is Sophia. She is the divine feminine who is the Third Person of the Trinity.

Here the 'insta-theology' comes to a head, and triumphantly announces Sophia?s true identity, the Holy Spirit! But is this accurate, though? Are Sophia and the Holy Spirit one and the same? Did Christians associate the two? Well? yes. Sort of. But only two in antiquity that I could find, and, interestingly, they both wrote around the same time period of AD 180: Theophilus and Irenaeus. Maybe more modern Christians relate Sophia with the Holy Spirit, but that would be a drastic break from the historical understanding, and would make for a complicated Christology when examining the ?Wisdom? Scriptures closer.

Other than those two previously mentioned, the interpretation and understanding was pretty unanimous for the first few centuries: "Sophia" is Jesus.

I hope you can see now that this isn't a novel idea, nor a modern feminist conception (though it has undoubtedly been picked up by feminists in more recent times). The idea that Jesus, the Word of God, is Sophia the Wisdom of God, is ancient. The connections are throughout the New Testament if we are looking carefully.

It's interesting to consider why people see these similar archetypes on hallucinogenic drugs - there's also the snakes and cats etc of course that often pop up and other reptiles and dragons. I think the reptile thing is kind of very imprinted in Human psychology why cats are so important I don't know. Toxoplasmosis maybe lol:

What's up with cats?

They know

They literally do be knowing

'there's also snakes and cats etc' Or why not both:

I had a weird experience about cats on DMT. I blasted off and found myself in a weird jungle, made up of vertical tentacles. All undulating and wavy. This long, completely white snake type creature, with no features, was slithering through it. I remember thinking how adapted it was to its environment, and as soon as I thought that I thought it was somehow feline. It came right up to me, reared its featureless head and spoke into my thoughts. It asked me curiously, ?what are you?? And I could almost feel the mrrrr sound a cat would make, like a quizzical chirp?

It was the weirdest thing, it was like some weird cat snake entity.

I'm assuming some amount of the overlap in experiences are either because some of these religions were inspired by people on hallucinogens in the first place in ancient cultures (which is quite likely,) or simply influenced by stories of other people talking about the same thing before doing these drugs or some combination of both. Also very curious about what people in cultures untouched by the Abrahamic religions would see (there aren't many though now unfortunately.) But Humans tend to think in similar ways so there's always going to be similar stuff happening I imagine.

"Encounters are really common," he tells IFLScience, adding that "you get them more often than not with a high dose of DMT." Regarding the nature of these entities, Luke explains that "there is a wide degree of diversity but there are also some recurrent themes that tend to pop up more than would seem purely random. Among the most common are 'little people', be they elves, dwarves or pixies."

That's not to say that everyone gets to meet these diminutive creatures when they smoke the drug. Also included in the cast of characters summoned by DMT are "giant praying mantises" that are typically experienced "leaning over you and doing some weird operation on your brain"

"The praying mantises are nearly always devoid of any emotion, and sometimes people feel like they're being farmed for their emotions by them," says Luke.

Lol I have managed to find a reddit post:

Has anyone else encountered a Praying Mantis type entity? Specifically doing surgery?

During one of my trips I saw a Praying Mantis doing surgery on me. I was wondering if anyone else has experiences with Praying Mantises, surgery, or both.

I had one eat my legs once. When I started to get upset he looked up at me and "told me" (in the weird non verbal sort of way they always communicate with me) that I should relax, legs were useless here anyway. And that seemed pretty legit. So I let him go about his business

Yes? But not specifically a mantis. It had a praying mantis body shape but like an anteater face? And I was on some kind of space station thing strapped down and he was jabbing we with some machine arm thing (implants? Surgery? Something medical..). Didn't scare me though, actually felt he was helping somehow.

Forgot to mention, the only time I had a surgery like experience, my body, which I could see in the realm, was laying down. The huge Mantis above me took "hand" or whatever you would call it and stabbed me in the stomach. I could see black liquid coming from me and filling up the Mantis arm.... I asked in my thoughts what was happening, nervous... I was made aware/to feel that they were just sucking the toxins/bad from me

This experience shook me to my core for days lol

I never had the praying mantis being do "surgery" on me. But I've encountered other sorts of multidimensional beings doing surgery on me or just looking over me as I'm laying down.

There seems to be an entire subreddit devoted to the mantis experiences lol:

A place to share experiences and discuss descriptions of encounters with mantis beings through meditation, astral projection, psychedelics, dreams, abductions and more.

Woman taken into a craft, questioned by a Mantid to "tell me what you know" she was pierced in her spine with a needle, ostensibly to get the requested information

^ Some seem to be looking for information as well like the machine elves although I guess they're more likely to want to show people stuff as well. I like how the responses to this are 'that's not how mantids work'

They don't need to ask they can read your mind

I agree. Maybe she is wrong on that detail, or maybe her esoteric studies gave her some resistance to the Mantids influence. Who knows

A bunch of people have described some kind of Mars-like homeworld that the mantid's appear on and that they're very logical. It seems like a fushion between aliens and insects so pretty common ideas that most people would have in mind. But also clicking sounds like dolphins:

The Dolphin sound with clicking is the exact wording I used to describe their sounds, as well. Plus the telepathy.

Tumblr loves all these things I think (elves, cats, reptiles, mantises, aliens etc.) I guess I wasn't joking when I said it was the lsd of websites. (Although most of these people discussing this are talking about dmt, and ayahuasca,)

"male mantises are such bimbos I saw this guy miss a bee, then very confidently take a bite of the goldenrod buds he caught instead" - a Tumblr post I just found.