[annatar1914]

@Potemkin , and @Verv ;

So, I know this will seem a tangent but it isn't, but it is a deep dive. For which I make no apologies. I was again watching Tarkovsky's " the "Passion according to Andrei";

Because I noticed something so quickly that it barely registered, I had to watch the whole movie again.

St. Andrei Rublev is watching the casting of the Bell, and he sees a woman in white, leading a white horse through the crowd, but looking directly at him, at about 2:49:12. I'll note too that this is as the Prince with his retinue arrives, with two Westerners up front as his guests to watch the ringing of the Bell. Curiously we see the woman after the Bell and no longer see the threatening retainers nor the alien and indifferent Westerners.

It was the female mute of little apparent sense, the very same Fool of God who accompanied Rublev in his years of his vow of silence made after he killed a man trying to rape her during the sack of Vladimir by the Tatars. But in the scene of the ringing of the Bell, she is well, sane, totally different from when she ran off with the Tatars and left Rublev alone. She is smiling a beatific smile, serene and dispassionate. As Rublev sits with the crying bellmaker boy, she can be seen in the distance, leaving the City... Just before the final scene in color of Rublevs Icons

She is Russia herself, the Woman of Apocalypse chapter 12 in the Wilderness. She is the Orthodox people, the Peasant Khrestyany. She is Sophia, she is the Soul of the World. She is us in our fallen and degraded condition but moved to healing and enlightened wellness.

She left the City. Twice. Once with the Tatars she left the Civilization. Then after, most mysteriously. In the ringing of the Bell

[Verv]

How do you know of Elder Paisios, Verv?

I remember him well. My mother has been a fan for as long as I remember, especially as they both hail from Cappadokia.

My mother takes a lot of pride from the fact that her family carried the Theotokos icon and the relics of St John the Russian from the church of St George in Prokopi, Cappadokia to Euboia.

Elder Timotheos who passed away over a year ago(god bless him) was a disciple of Elder Paisios and a very good and close friend of ours. We spent quite a bit of time together when I was 14-18 as he visited our home 3-4 times a week. He sort of became like an extended uncle of mine. There is a story about how and why this came to be, but not for here.

We debated scripture, the Trinity and Orthodox theology together for years when I was in high school(lyceum) and still in Greece. I only learned of his death yesterday, unfortunately.

That is all very amazing - I am always impressed by how many Greeks have connections to important church figures. Which leads into how I know about St. Paisios - our clergy here is mostly Korean but even they have studied in Greece, and the woman who catechized me is from Aegina so naturally a very large St. Nektarios fan. In the course of catechesis and just Church activities, I had heard a lot about St. Paisios, so when some books were being ordered I got this rather famous book:



Absolutely excellent book.

In the same batch I also got this must-read:



Of course, I highly recommend both books for very different reasons. The first is more like one man's journey into Orthodoxy from occultism (and his father I believe was an atheist). The other is, of course, the amazing story and words of St. Porphyrios, the whole thing I found really inspiring and beautifully translated.

I must say I am very envious of you, Noemon, being able to meet someone who was a direct disciple of the saint. I also really like how he engaged with you so regularly and from a very open perspective with a lot of discussion - it does not sound overbearing or sanctimonious at all, which is true religion, in my perspective.

Your mother should also take great pride in that. What an amazing thing to be a part of... These sort of things always remind me of how impoverished Western Christianity is in comparison.

[Verv]

Perhaps germane to our discussion: there was a terrible storm which knocked out the power last night. I take care of my elderly parents, who are used to better things in this modern life. They had a hard evening and morning until the power was restored. I had plenty of candles in reserve because of my Icons, so we didn't lack that seemingly more natural lighting. For them it might as well had been pitch blackness, not knowing what to do without television while I read by candlelight. They went through hell as far as they were concerned, while I coped with a kind of contentment and even ease I rarely get to enjoy these days.

This reminds me of the time I was in Texas in my Army days, and a strong lightning storm had knocked out all of the power on a Friday night... Since our barracks had a large overhang that allowed people to move to and fro throughout a large complex without being soaked, all these people came out of their barracks rooms to get out of the dark...

I was used to drinking on Fridays but for some reasons I cannot remember I was not that night...

I ran into an older, interesting fellah who was in a different Platoon, and we began having a really lovely conversation like we had the first few times we got to speak with each other.

"You know, I actually got a flashlight; we could just sit in my room and carry on the discussion with the flashlight on," and he agreed that this would be a fine way to spend the night...

Within minutes of getting back to my room, the power came back on... And while the guy was polite enough to chat with me for another 10-15 minutes, he did eventually smile and awkwardly excuse himself because he informed me that he had something he was doing before. Upon fruther inquiry, it turned out he was playing a video game.

I couldn't help but feel that a potentially great evening was completely spoiled by the power coming back on...

This has actually been my attitude over the years...

... You know how you know someone is really your best bud..? When the whole evening can just be sitting in the same spot talking -- nobody notices the time passing, nobody is bothered by anything, it just flows endlessly... All you need is each other.

It kind of felt like he turned his back on that for another night of video games .

Which brings up the problem with video games: they rarely have rational stopping points.

You pick up a guitar and play a while and then you hit a natural stopping point... You pick up a book and after while you feel done reading.. But video games are now crack. In a world where we have rational hobies & past-times, we would always be ready to take advantage of a power outage to immerse ourselves in good conversation.

[annatar1914]

This reminds me of the time I was in Texas in my Army days, and a strong lightning storm had knocked out all of the power on a Friday night... Since our barracks had a large overhang that allowed people to move to and fro throughout a large complex without being soaked, all these people came out of their barracks rooms to get out of the dark...

I was used to drinking on Fridays but for some reasons I cannot remember I was not that night...

I ran into an older, interesting fellah who was in a different Platoon, and we began having a really lovely conversation like we had the first few times we got to speak with each other.

"You know, I actually got a flashlight; we could just sit in my room and carry on the discussion with the flashlight on," and he agreed that this would be a fine way to spend the night...

Within minutes of getting back to my room, the power came back on... And while the guy was polite enough to chat with me for another 10-15 minutes, he did eventually smile and awkwardly excuse himself because he informed me that he had something he was doing before. Upon fruther inquiry, it turned out he was playing a video game.

I couldn't help but feel that a potentially great evening was completely spoiled by the power coming back on...

This has actually been my attitude over the years...

... You know how you know someone is really your best bud..? When the whole evening can just be sitting in the same spot talking -- nobody notices the time passing, nobody is bothered by anything, it just flows endlessly... All you need is each other.

It kind of felt like he turned his back on that for another night of video games .

Which brings up the problem with video games: they rarely have rational stopping points.

You pick up a guitar and play a while and then you hit a natural stopping point... You pick up a book and after while you feel done reading.. But video games are now crack. In a world where we have rational hobies & past-times, we would always be ready to take advantage of a power outage to immerse ourselves in good conversation.

@Verv :

That is a great story, and yes it's a shame when the power goes back on in those times. It's the little moments that count.

Bringing @Potemkin an invite...

I recall a post I made here, speaking of video games and science fiction and fantasy, where the central Symbol of Western/Faustian/Modern Civilization could be " Darth Vader" from the Star Wars series: a Sorcerer ( " Sith" versus" Jedi") and Cyborg, more Machine than Man, but the Transhumanism ideal in a kind of caricature:

But Tolkien and the other critics of Modernity in Fantasy are just as much part of the same spectrum of " sub creation" and the dangers thereof: Simarils and Rings anyone? They are beguiled by it, else they would not write of it:

Magian worldview is different. In " Ali Baba and the 40 thieves" story in the"1001 nights "cycle of stories, nothing is particularly wrong when he repeats the magic " open sesame!" phrase, because the whole of reality is " magic", only somewhat real in only a contingent sense anyway.

In Magian worldview, something else is at work, for Ill or for Good. Destiny, Fate, the Sovereignty of God. So that even if a religion of Magian origin is false or the true one, the shape of these religions are the same in broad outline: they understand them, those that believe, better than those outside the civilizational grouping altogether. And it's the same with Alchemy, Hermeticism and Astrology as with Gnosticism, Zoroastrianism, Mithraism, Manichaeism, Mandaism, Judaism and Islam and Orthodox Christianity, all Magian.

A suspension of the magic lighting of technology only underscores the reality that there is a deeper magic that has some lighting also: Sun and Moon and Planets and Stars above, and also the darknesses of the night. A radical contingency is felt. One is in a Cavern, like a Planetarium, and the World is like a Stage, a Theater, high Magic and Drama is going on:

[Verv]

Just an original post - I do not have time to comment specifically on something that I have not written and I need a lot of time to digest content these days...

I think it is really normal for people to feel unfairly treated even by those that are closest to them, and to even at this point admit that this is not the intention of those people who treat me poorly... This is actually due to the difficulty of the circumstances we all face and the general inattentiveness we can all have... Maybe it's even the case that I am not communicating my position adequately, or even stupider, that I do not even know what I want...

So how much more difficult it is to feel that the political situation is taken care of adequately.

I also have been thinking about how we are always roped into scenarios we do not necessarily want, but it's all part of the package, since life is a proving ground of sorts.

The great irony is that when we are impoverished, we feel that we cannot do something, which is its own stressful situation... But when we are liberated from poverty and weakness, we are then enabled, and there comes a completely different set of problems.

The ugly boy wishes to be a handsome man - and if he becomes one, he morally destroys himself through immoral indulgences. It turns out all along that he wished to be desirable to women not because he wanted just one wife, but because his heart was full of lust... How much more true is this of wealth: "I just want enough for me..." usually translates into "I want a jet ski."

This is not a condemnation of anyone, but rather it is a realization that we are hopelessly broken people, and it usually turns out that even the dreams we have are vain and would destroy us if we were allowed to fulfill them.



We get what we want and we go insane...

We don't get what we want and we turn quiet and solemn.

We are condemned to be ourselves.

[annatar1914]

Just an original post - I do not have time to comment specifically on something that I have not written and I need a lot of time to digest content these days...

I think it is really normal for people to feel unfairly treated even by those that are closest to them, and to even at this point admit that this is not the intention of those people who treat me poorly... This is actually due to the difficulty of the circumstances we all face and the general inattentiveness we can all have... Maybe it's even the case that I am not communicating my position adequately, or even stupider, that I do not even know what I want...

So how much more difficult it is to feel that the political situation is taken care of adequately.

I also have been thinking about how we are always roped into scenarios we do not necessarily want, but it's all part of the package, since life is a proving ground of sorts.

The great irony is that when we are impoverished, we feel that we cannot do something, which is its own stressful situation... But when we are liberated from poverty and weakness, we are then enabled, and there comes a completely different set of problems.

The ugly boy wishes to be a handsome man - and if he becomes one, he morally destroys himself through immoral indulgences. It turns out all along that he wished to be desirable to women not because he wanted just one wife, but because his heart was full of lust... How much more true is this of wealth: "I just want enough for me..." usually translates into "I want a jet ski."

This is not a condemnation of anyone, but rather it is a realization that we are hopelessly broken people, and it usually turns out that even the dreams we have are vain and would destroy us if we were allowed to fulfill them.



We get what we want and we go insane...

We don't get what we want and we turn quiet and solemn.

We are condemned to be ourselves.

@Verv and @Potemkin too:

How mysterious are the ways of the Lord and His mercies, indeed. Edit: how odd, that person reminds me of someone I know.

I can speak to this in my own life and experience, choices made and unmade by circumstances so inexplicable and strange that it had to be fated .

But almost as if (and this will sound even stranger) a timeline is almost but not quite all but erased in one's life, leaving behind just weird glitches and odd feelings of "I've seen this before" , along with " this never happened" too. Like maybe most of that which is left is a kind of lesson learned and imprinted on ones mind before one can go forwards again. Or just a song or scene or melody, or looking at something or someone like you have seen them before. Like a kind of magic spell at work.

It's hard to express or explain what I'm saying completely, except my agreement with you.

Having the wisdom to see where and how one can be destroyed by either actions or failures to act , without being paralyzed into immobility by life, is difficult. Most people being less wise or even less intelligent than others, go straight ahead, not by faith so much as heedlessness. And sometimes it appears to work for them, especially with an immoral action and so forth. But wait, it does catch up to them, if you observe long enough....Few are self reflective in any case, a strange sleepwalking through modern life appears to be common.

A few years ago I gained and also lost everything in my life, paradoxically, such that now everything that happens is a kind of epilogue waiting for a resolution, like a bifurcation of a timeline waiting for a merger back into the chronological stream. Strange thoughts, I know. But with God anything is possible as Dostoevsky and Shestov assure us. Maybe CERN did something naughty, lol ..

I'm reminded of " 1001 Nights" again, where the future in some stories can cause a past until the story reaches that future point and then everything goes forwards again. Can that happen? Sure, why not? What's to say that it doesn't happen all the time? And we're given a kind of amnesia, sleep, dreams, " Mandela effect", as fragments so that we can go forwards as our brains are designed to do most of the time.

I'm reminded too of a somewhat trite picture that happened to be telling me the truth one day: above it had a man with his head down walking, while angels and demons wrestling to attack him or prevent an attack. The caption said: " we never know how God is helping us all the time". The Cosmic War goes on, we some but not all of it.

But the bottom line I think that it still comes down to trust in God, that one is where and even when one is within, at each moment, that it all has meaning, our choices.

[Verv]

[usermention=9101]

How mysterious are the ways of the Lord and His mercies, indeed. Edit: how odd, that person reminds me of someone I know.

I can speak to this in my own life and experience, choices made and unmade by circumstances so inexplicable and strange that it had to be fated .

But almost as if (and this will sound even stranger) a timeline is almost but not quite all but erased in one's life, leaving behind just weird glitches and odd feelings of "I've seen this before" , along with " this never happened" too. Like maybe most of that which is left is a kind of lesson learned and imprinted on ones mind before one can go forwards again. Or just a song or scene or melody, or looking at something or someone like you have seen them before. Like a kind of magic spell at work.

It's hard to express or explain what I'm saying completely, except my agreement with you.

Having the wisdom to see where and how one can be destroyed by either actions or failures to act , without being paralyzed into immobility by life, is difficult. Most people being less wise or even less intelligent than others, go straight ahead, not by faith so much as heedlessness. And sometimes it appears to work for them, especially with an immoral action and so forth. But wait, it does catch up to them, if you observe long enough....Few are self reflective in any case, a strange sleepwalking through modern life appears to be common.

A few years ago I gained and also lost everything in my life, paradoxically, such that now everything that happens is a kind of epilogue waiting for a resolution, like a bifurcation of a timeline waiting for a merger back into the chronological stream. Strange thoughts, I know. But with God anything is possible as Dostoevsky and Shestov assure us. Maybe CERN did something naughty, lol ..

I'm reminded of " 1001 Nights" again, where the future in some stories can cause a past until the story reaches that future point and then everything goes forwards again. Can that happen? Sure, why not? What's to say that it doesn't happen all the time? And we're given a kind of amnesia, sleep, dreams, " Mandela effect", as fragments so that we can go forwards as our brains are designed to do most of the time.

I'm reminded too of a somewhat trite picture that happened to be telling me the truth one day: above it had a man with his head down walking, while angels and demons wrestling to attack him or prevent an attack. The caption said: " we never know how God is helping us all the time". The Cosmic War goes on, we some but not all of it.

But the bottom line I think that it still comes down to trust in God, that one is where and even when one is within, at each moment, that it all has meaning, our choices.

You've seen it all before - in your heart... In all our human heats...

Matthew 5:28: But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

This is a passage that I still think about frequently.

It's like laying a blanket of condemnation over everything... since the minds of men are so hopeless.

Your mind stands in condemnation against you every moment... Every flare of anger, every pang of lust... It's all a reminder that we are not God, yet, we do yearn to be an emulation of His Perfection since we are created in His Image...

In a real sense... we are born losers. We can't get ahead in this game. But we have to let this be a reminder to us that we move forward by God's grace... and to never think ourselves higher than others.

[annatar1914]

You've seen it all before - in your heart... In all our human heats...



This is a passage that I still think about frequently.

It's like laying a blanket of condemnation over everything... since the minds of men are so hopeless.

Your mind stands in condemnation against you every moment... Every flare of anger, every pang of lust... It's all a reminder that we are not God, yet, we do yearn to be an emulation of His Perfection since we are created in His Image...

In a real sense... we are born losers. We can't get ahead in this game. But we have to let this be a reminder to us that we move forward by God's grace... and to never think ourselves higher than others.

@Verv :

It's like the prayer of St. Ephraim:

"Oh Lord and Master of my life, drive away from me the spirit of despondency, negligence, avarice and idle talk. But grant me, Thy servant, the spirit of chastity, humility, patience and love. Yea, O Lord and King, grant me to see my own transgressions, and not to judge my brother, for blessed art Thou unto the ages, amen."

We are not well, but we can be healed with His help. I am not well, but I know that through the mercy of the loving God and the prayers of the Bogoroditsa and our God Bearing Fathers and Glorious Martyrs and Holy ones of Heaven, I can be transformed and raised to Him. We should pray for everyone, so few I think are prayed for.

[annatar1914]

@Verv , and @Potemkin , dear friends. This is in essence why I came back to this thread, Faustian/Western/Greco Roman Civilization culminated in this point:

https://studyfinds.org/humans-machines- ... gence-agi/

Many of us would not know the event had already been reached, even those concerned, because the spiritual world, the ultraterrestrial plane or aspect of material reality, is already " in" the Machine, so to speak. Just as Spengler suggested the youth of the West might come to believe was the true situation. It is the interface that opens the Gates, already maximizing influence over the behavior of fallen mankind on multiple levels.

I don't have many answers, I'm not even the Luddite I thought I once was, although maybe I was right then. But Barbarism might rescue mankind past a certain point.

[annatar1914]

@Verv , and @Potemkin , dear friends. This is in essence why I came back to this thread, Faustian/Western/Greco Roman Civilization culminated in this point:

https://studyfinds.org/humans-machines- ... gence-agi/

Many of us would not know the event had already been reached, even those concerned, because the spiritual world, the ultraterrestrial plane or aspect of material reality, is already " in" the Machine, so to speak. Just as Spengler suggested the youth of the West might come to believe was the true situation. It is the interface that opens the Gates, already maximizing influence over the behavior of fallen mankind on multiple levels.

I don't have many answers, I'm not even the Luddite I thought I once was, although maybe I was right then. But Barbarism might rescue mankind past a certain point.

@Verv and @Potemkin :

On a related subject:

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/pen ... 31907.html

This too is the trajectory of Faustian-Western-Modern Civilization.

Edit: I wanted to come back and flesh out an argument from this, because I've touched briefly on this issue and this phenomena on this thread before. As a thought experiment:

Suppose almost everything believed in the past 500 years or so was wrong. But wrong in such a way that it still nonetheless had perfect storytelling power, total narrative control, was an evocative set of myths quite flattering to our pride, to our endless ability to rationalize our drives and passions,and assert our collective and/or individual hubris, our beliefs in our basic innocence and goodness.

Would we not then see everything in true reality through the lens of that myth, a layer of self imposed cognitive biases?

I assert then a kind of breakthrough then in my own beliefs, in that while the civilization that has been my foil had indeed started in the West and has truthfully been called by myself and others as " Faustian" or " Modern" , it could equally be rightfully be called " Planetary" or " World" civilization as well as " Western" or even " American" as it's apex. I suggest that it is this Civilization that best conforms to the natural beliefs and passions of all humanity.

It does see itself as universal. It is an Ideology with a Civilization. It intends to be the representative civilization of Earth when it and the Earth discover or are discovered by alleged and self described ( or otherwise, by human beings who believe that to be so) Exterrestrial Alien life forms and civilizations. Because at that point independent agency, the very thing most prized in this universal civilization, will basically disappear as the illusion it is

The acolytes of the modern ideology will be primed by their myths as much as any Aztec encountering the Spanish, into accepting the superior role being ceded to another and largely unknown entity or entities. Will they believe everything they say? Especially if it appears to conform to the Modernistic myths? Note I'm not using " myth" as something necessarily untrue, although I believe that it mostly is untrue.

So universal and most conforming to human expectations and passions, but quite untrue and doomed. Faustian tragedy indeed.

[annatar1914]

@Verv and @Potemkin :

On a related subject:

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/pen ... 31907.html

This too is the trajectory of Faustian-Western-Modern Civilization.

Edit: I wanted to come back and flesh out an argument from this, because I've touched briefly on this issue and this phenomena on this thread before. As a thought experiment:

Suppose almost everything believed in the past 500 years or so was wrong. But wrong in such a way that it had perfect storytelling power, total narrative control, was an evocative set of myths quite flattering to our pride, to our endless ability to rationalize our drives and passions,and assert our collective and/or individual hubris, our beliefs in our basic innocence and goodness.

Would we not then see everything in true reality through the lens of that myth, a layer of self imposed cognitive biases?

I assert then a kind of breakthrough then in my own beliefs, in that while the civilization that has been my foil had indeed started in the West and has truthfully been called by myself and others as " Faustian" or " Modern" , it could equally be rightfully be called " Planetary" or " World" civilization as well as " Western" or even " American" as it's apex. I suggest that it is this Civilization that best conforms to the natural beliefs and passions of all humanity.

It does see itself as universal. It is an Ideology with a Civilization. It intends to be the representative civilization of Earth when it and the Earth discover or are discovered by alleged and self described ( or otherwise, by human beings who believe that to be so) Exterrestrial Alien life forms and civilizations. Because at that point independent agency, the very thing most prized in this universal civilization, will basically disappear as the illusion it is

The acolytes of the modern ideology will be primed by their myths as much as any Aztec encountering the Spanish, into accepting the superior role being ceded to another and largely unknown entity or entities. Will they believe everything they say? Especially if it appears to conform to the Modernistic myths? Note I'm not using " myth" as something necessarily untrue, although I believe that it mostly is untrue.

So universal and most conforming to human expectations and passions, but quite untrue and doomed. Faustian tragedy indeed.

@Verv , and @Potemkin :

So please allow me another thought experiment, in answer to how such a Faustian civilization comes about. Nothing new here much, I'll use a secular narrative too, from Buckminster Fuller, his " Great Pirates":

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operati ... ship_Earth

I'll call them " Atlanteans" for their start. Later they were the Phoenician/Canaanite Oligarchy, the Greco Roman, the Oligarchs of the Italian City States like Venice and Genoa, the Hanseatic League, England and American and so forth, other groups, but they saw and see the World as a whole, as it's seas and lands as one Ocean and islands of lands to be crossed, explored and exploited, opened up for trade from one place to another, one coast and river or canal to another part of the waters. It's only natural for them to be more cosmopolitan than most, being Oceanic, and thus a natural elite in one aspect of reality in this world. They build civilization and agricultural development based on the coastal and river basin and lake trades into the inland territories, with increasing interconnectedness from better transportation. More rational and business minded. Civilized.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriag ... a_ceremony

But there's another slightly different type than these in my thought experiment. I'll call them " Hyperboreans" or the " Shepherd Kings", the Horse peoples. At heart nomadic or semi nomadic, with livestocks, they have more incentive to be leery of civilization and more to honor the Earth rather than Sea, Telluric not Oceanic. More mystical and intuitive, artistic. Barbarian:

https://arthive.com/mikhailnesterov/wor ... rk://15935

https://beautifulrus.com/wp-content/upl ... s-2006.jpg


http://www.strangehistory.net/blog/wp-c ... Attila.jpg

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mee ... and_Attila

While both types have some common features being both human after all, and few peoples fall into one or other category over time, they still don't live the same ways and tend to war against one another in a historical time bound but apparently ceaseless dialectic:

https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi ... to-license

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/ori ... 43/f8d.jpg

I tend to favor one over the other for numerous reasons, still Magian over Faustian. But it seems life under one as opposed to the other is actually harder, and so one group prevails over time with better promises.

[annatar1914]

@Verv , and @Potemkin , and friends:

I am making another examination related to my earlier " deep dive" I discussed a few posts back, it might take I while to explain but I'll relate it soon enough. This post starts with an examination I'm asking my readers to look at, still of the Magian/Monotheistic cultural grouping, the Kebra Negast, or in the Geez dialect of ancient Ethiopia: "The Book of Kings".

https://www.sacred-texts.com/afr/kn/index.htm

Is it historical? Many Ethiopian people affirm that it is certainly, and if so there's a lot of lying everywhere else.

But we already know that, don't we?

Regardless, they are a distinct remnant of what I've been discussing:

How is Orthodoxy and Faustian civilization and Ethiopia all connected in a manner that has real and explanatory power today, everything I've shown so far? This is what I aim to show also: the Book of the Bee, a Syro Mesopotamian text:

https://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/bb/index.htm

And Slavonic Enoch:

https://archive.org/stream/pdfy-R9zRtls ... D_djvu.txt

[annatar1914]

@Verv , and @Potemkin , and friends:

I am making another examination related to my earlier " deep dive" I discussed a few posts back, it might take I while to explain but I'll relate it soon enough. This post starts with an examination I'm asking my readers to look at, still of the Magian/Monotheistic cultural grouping, the Kebra Negast, or in the Geez dialect of ancient Ethiopia: "The Book of Kings".

https://www.sacred-texts.com/afr/kn/index.htm

Is it historical? Many Ethiopian people affirm that it is certainly, and if so there's a lot of lying everywhere else.

But we already know that, don't we?

Regardless, they are a distinct remnant of what I've been discussing:

How is Orthodoxy and Faustian civilization and Ethiopia all connected in a manner that has real and explanatory power today, everything I've shown so far? This is what I aim to show also: the Book of the Bee, a Syro Mesopotamian text:

https://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/bb/index.htm

And Slavonic Enoch:

https://archive.org/stream/pdfy-R9zRtls ... D_djvu.txt

@Political Interest , @Verv , and @Potemkin :

There's history, and then there's history as determined by the victorious. True history is far more likely to reflect the latter rather than the former. I believe that there are tremendous lies propping up the present world system. What exactly I cannot always say

What I do know is that we can see now in our times is a significant divorce today between East and West. I believe that this is a permanent rift, which will carry forwards even if Modernity itself fades. This is because of the division which has existed since shortly after the Fall: the line of Seth and the line of Cain before the Flood and after. We don't want to see, we have the trauma of collective amnesia, in which we consciously deny any judgement, any catastrophe, while unconsciously wishing to dare to have them repeat again.

To remain any kind of Monotheist is to be a pilgrim, to live away from the contagion and cosmopolitan crucible, to reject what must be rejected. To be aware of previous, present and future judgements and also times of mercy and grace.

[annatar1914]

@Political Interest , @Verv , and @Potemkin :

Today is the feast of the entrance of the Lord into Jerusalem, or Palm Sunday. I note that for all the perception of His humility and meekness, there is a kind of matter of fact assertion of Sovereignty with which He goes on about His business this day. It's important to remember when we read of Good Friday, during His passionless Passion, later in Holy Week.

Nonetheless, in the eyes of the world, this assertion of Sovereignty is subversive, when the exact opposite is truly the case.

How could anyone wear a crown and be a monarch in good conscience, if they truly thought about it, after His Incarnation!?

[annatar1914]

Good Friday 2023 AD Julian Calendar, year of the world 7351. Horror turns to triumph.

The Vatican said that they renounced the " Doctrine of Discovery" which undergirds the Ideology of European Imperialism. Of course, there wasn't an official repudiation of the documents which constitute such " justification", a formal condemnation, one never knows if they will be dusted off or not again, so I'm thinking that there never will be such a formal condemnation. Ever.

Confusion, misunderstanding and exaltation of a combined spiritual and temporal state, the original sin of Civilization. Treason against God:

" Why do the Kings conspire against the Lord , and plot together against the Lord and His Christ?"

[Tainari88]

Good Friday 2023 AD Julian Calendar, year of the world 7351. Horror turns to triumph.

The Vatican said that they renounced the " Doctrine of Discovery" which undergirds the Ideology of European Imperialism. Of course, there wasn't an official repudiation of the documents which constitute such " justification", a formal condemnation, one never knows if they will be dusted off or not again, so I'm thinking that there never will be such a formal condemnation. Ever.

Confusion, misunderstanding and exaltation of a combined spiritual and temporal state, the original sin of Civilization. Treason against God:

" Why do the Kings conspire against the Lord , and plot together against the Lord and His Christ?"

Well, according to the gospel and the Bible, it was about dealing with leaving behind mundane power and riches. Something controlled by Satan.

[Drlee]

How could anyone wear a crown and be a monarch in good conscience, if they truly thought about it, after His Incarnation!?

Proverbs 21:1 ESV /
The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will.

Now these are the last words of David: The oracle of David, the son of Jesse, the oracle of the man who was raised on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, the sweet psalmist of Israel: “The Spirit of the Lord speaks by me; his word is on my tongue. The God of Israel has spoken; the Rock of Israel has said to me: When one rules justly over men, ruling in the fear of God, he dawns on them like the morning light, like the sun shining forth on a cloudless morning, like rain that makes grass to sprout from the earth. “For does not my house stand so with God? For he has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and secure. For will he not cause to prosper all my help and my desire? ...

All are to be obedient to the Lord. Why do you believe that a king cannot be obedient to the Lord?

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; Before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations.”

[annatar1914]

All are to be obedient to the Lord. Why do you believe that a king cannot be obedient to the Lord?

Anything is possible, with God. Some things are more likely than others, but anything is possible with God.

But one thing is certain today which everything else revolves around: Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death and on those in the tombs bestowing life!

[annatar1914]

@Verv , @Potemkin , and @Political Interest :

Jacob Boehme once said that:

" It is not to be thought that the Life in Darkness is sunk in misery and lost as if sorrowing. There is no sorrowing. For sorrow is a thing which is swallowed up in Death, and death and dying are the very Life of the Darkness."

The mystery of iniquity. The " sickness unto death " of Kirkegaard where the sick don't know they're sick, which is the " Amor Fati" of Nietzsche, the " love of Fate" fatally intertwined with his concept of" the will to power". They of this sort don't see that they are the Darkness, the Death, and they revel with abandon in the satisfaction of their passions.

For those with this sickness, there is no God, not really, they are Atheists at heart. Just Fate/Chance/Necessity, impersonal forces in an eternal and infinite universe of material causation, exist over them. But if it isn't the case....

Were gods to exist to these human beings, they are rivals or business partners, envied, to be bribed for their help or feared for their anger, but never loved and always regarded as finite created beings limited in some manner in their power.

Men can become giants, titans to challenge the heavens they think. And " do what thou wilt is the whole of the law". After all, if man doesn't like a god because they don't deliver the goods, one can turn to (or invent) another who will.

Or claim to be gods themselves. Ordinary mortals their servants. Since these humans are psychopaths it is no problem for them. The is no right, there is only Will, and power.

Where is the St George to fight these human Dragons? First you have to believe that there are St Georges, and much more besides.

But here's the cruelty: chained to their materialism they can only produce..... Shit. Or more exact the term " Poshlost". Seedy kitchy garbage with a hint of degenerate yet with banal and stupid passions involved. Look around. It may seem odd to complain about movies of all things, at a certain point in time, but when I saw this Western film bomb instead of " Star Wars":

"Sorcerer" 1977

Or this:

" A Bridge too Far" , also 1977

It's been obviously to me anyway a crap festival ever since.

Satan, the otherwise inert gnawer of Dante, not the Promethean Lucifer of Milton's work. Or even better like the unbearably stupid visitor who torments Ivan in Dostoyevsky's " Brothers Karamazov".

[Political Interest]

@annatar1914

My dear Annatar, there is in my opinion a tremendous divorce between the common and ordinary people of the Western countries and the cultural and intellectual elite. If you go to Central Europe you will find that the people there still live close to the land, all of the crass and kitsch elements you describe are simply imported from Hollywood or universities in the major intellectual capitals of the West, i.e. Paris, California, New York, London etc.

We do not choose the culture forced on us, although we can resist it, we are at the mercy of social forces beyond our control, and this is not to sound hopelessly fatalistic in the way you've described either, but it takes a truly thinking person to reject the cultural mood of their era.

I have seen that yes, since the 1970s the West really did advance at full throttle into oddity. If we look at musicians and film stars from the 1930s till about 1965 they are all in suit and tie and are for the most part normal people. Today they look like some exhibitionists, wearing strange clothes and seeking to further and further provoke established polite society. If we think about The Beatles, they were a people's band from the Liverpool working class, as were most of those Mersey beat singers. At worst they sang some overly expressive love songs and maybe indulged in eclectic spiritual practices but for the most part they were harmless and innocent. Today the 'artists' are very strange indeed by comparison.

There is most certainly a demoralisation of the society, yes replacement of soulfulness with empty crass stupidity and slogans. The general sense of humour is declining. No wonder the psychological state of the population is declining, the atmosphere around us will lead to the collapse of one's psychiatric state. We're fast heading towards a society which is completely utilitarian and where the capacity for any sort of real introspection is near nil.