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Anyone have any involvement with the IOOF? Any thoughts on similarities/differences? It's been on my radar for a while, and I'm thinking about visiting them while I'm taking a break from Masonic lodge duties.
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Apr 29, 2019 20:48
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Cholmondeley posted:
And it is killing slowly killing them. With the demit system in the US being a short term thing, unlike how it works in the UK, Canada, and other places, I ended up just letting myself be dropped for NPD. Luckily, having been highly active in online masonry (95-2000 or so), I was (and still am) familiar with a lot of masons from across the world that I trust who let me know it wasn't that way everywhere, which preserved my good opinions of masonry as a whole. But on a regional level, having been raised in Louisiana, being told of the evils of the darkies moving across the railroad tracks into the good parts of town, and many other such things, by a PGM who was teaching me my work...... led me to decide that masonry in the south, and least what I'd seen of it anyway, just wasn't for me. Looking back, I should have petitioned the UGLE's Internet Lodge.... but I didn't. Now in Georgia, which seems to be (or not long ago) having issues of its own along racial lines.... I just can't see myself getting involved again at this time. And the aforementioned PGM is now (and has been for about 20 years or so) the secretary of my mother lodge. I would have a hard time sending him a letter seeking to be reinstated. Love me some masonry..... just not here in the south.
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Apr 30, 2019 02:05
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Will my credits and Degree in the Ordo Templi Orientis transfer over? It's the most current modern successor to the Mason's, so I'd imagine they should.
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Apr 30, 2019 02:23
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lol
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Apr 30, 2019 02:27
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Robotnik Nudes posted:Will my credits and Degree in the Ordo Templi Orientis transfer over? It's the most current modern successor to the Mason's, so I'd imagine they should. The short answer is no. Without going into it, most lodges I know of would consider OTO membership disqualifying for joining Freemasonry. Edit for clarity: I would personally blackball a guy petitioning if I knew him to be an OTO member.
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Apr 30, 2019 15:40
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I wouldn't blackball an OTO member but OTO rituals haven't corresponded to Masonry in a long time. The UGLE told Crowley he had to change his first three degrees like forever ago.
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Apr 30, 2019 16:59
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Paramemetic posted:I wouldn't blackball an OTO member but OTO rituals haven't corresponded to Masonry in a long time. The UGLE told Crowley he had to change his first three degrees like forever ago. The initiatic degree in OTO contains an explicit rejection/inversion of its corresponding scene in the EA, which I consider disqualifying. But it's also something not set in stone as such, so I think it would depend on the lodge applied to.
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Apr 30, 2019 17:03
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I have a feeling that was a troll question but assuming it's not... Even if you got voted in, some zealous brother would probably try to bring you up on Masonic charges at some point.
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Apr 30, 2019 17:15
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The Thelemite can be a respectable person of good character, and certainly believes in God, and the OTO no longer misappropriate and misuse our rituals (no more, anyway, than the Mormons - and we allow them to join too). I see no reason accordingly not to embrace them in brotherhood if they petition the Lodge, provided they've paid sufficient attention to the concept of agape and recognize that the entreaty to do as thou wilt is not a license to the mindless hedonism of the libertine nor to callous greed and disregard for the brotherhood of man, but rather requires an earnest devotion to the divine law in the purification of the self. Of course, I'm a very odd mason so I probably speak only for a minority here.
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May 1, 2019 09:44
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What is the OTO and why is it held under such suspicion? I don't think it has a presence in Finland an I know it was founded/ran by Crowley, but that's about it. Do they pretend they are masons or something?
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May 1, 2019 11:44
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Ataxerxes posted:What is the OTO and why is it held under such suspicion? I don't think it has a presence in Finland an I know it was founded/ran by Crowley, but that's about it. Do they pretend they are masons or something? They formerly used a lot of Masonic content, but that was stripped out. Beyond that, there's a tension between some interpretations of Thelemic teaching and some of the OTO's ritual and the tenets of Masonry, but usually they aren't too difficult to reconcile once you look beyond the surface meanings. The major reasons people usually cite to exclude them, other than the quasi-Masonic aspect, are the sex magick and the radical freedom endorsed by the texts, which many (including quite a lot of Thelemites, unfortunately) people wind up misinterpreting as a license to just do whatever you want, rather than pursuing the great work of purification and service to the Will, which is our singular true and guiding intellect and purpose rather than just 'hey, I'd like to gently caress my wife's sister, that'll be fun'. Thelema, in a sense, is an acid test of a man or woman's true sense of self governing morality and self-knowledge: Do they, given a philosophy, religion, and science that promises them the freedom to do anything and everything, recognize that within this context the willful, knowing, and deliberate forebearance from certain conduct is the genuine path of purification, or do they allow themselves to descend into the habits of the wanton libertine we are cautioned against?
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May 1, 2019 11:55
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To add a little bit more historical blah blah to that, Crowley was a Mason of questionable regularity, having been made a Mason in Mexico. He was at least considered regular enough to sit in Lodge in India, and he writes about it rather casually in his autobiography in the chapters related to his attempts to climb K2, if I recall correctly. In structuring the OTO, he wanted initiatic rituals. He himself had gone through the Golden Dawn rituals, which are markedly similar to the first three Masonic degrees already. When I was in Ireland I was able to effortlessly read W.B. Yeat's Golden Dawn cipher, between he Masonic degree work and just a little bit of knowledge to fill in the gaps. So Crowley wanted to be distinct from Golden Dawn, but not so distinct as to have to come up with something entirely new. He chose to go the Mormon route and basically use the first three degrees of Masonry as the basis on which OTO degrees would be built. I want to say he also attributed this use to Ascended Masters and that the basic idea, which likely would've been popular enough at the time, was that the Masonic degrees had Ascended Master provenance and represented actual things practiced at the building of the Temple. In any case, UGLE basically found out that he was conferring the first three Masonic degrees without a charter and C&D'd him. He edited the rituals substantially, if I recall correctly claiming this was out of brotherly obligation, though realistically because he would gain no favors being excommunicated, as many of his friends and associates would have been Masons as well.
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May 1, 2019 13:48
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It was a good question, but you guys are so informative and helpful I feel like a dick now. But the OTO legal squabbling and slap fights are pretty funny to read about. But just to be sure, all your cool symbols and degrees aren’t just about buttsex and cum are they?
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May 2, 2019 00:38
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Not JUST about, no.
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May 2, 2019 01:13
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Robotnik Nudes posted:It was a good question, but you guys are so informative and helpful I feel like a dick now. Only one way to find out, bud!
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May 2, 2019 01:27
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Oh hey, what a page of things relevant to me, a Mason, Oddfellow, and former member of a Golden Dawn order.COOL CORN posted:Anyone have any involvement with the IOOF? Any thoughts on similarities/differences? It's been on my radar for a while, and I'm thinking about visiting them while I'm taking a break from Masonic lodge duties. It's cool they accept women as full members, though. After not being involved for a long time, in my new state of NC I knew the national headquarters was in Winston Salem, but I could never manage to get in contact with anyone there or the Greensboro lodge, and all the Masons I asked about it mostly said they thought there was on but didn't know anyone involved, which was different because in Ohio there was a huge overlap in membership. Paramemetic posted:I wouldn't blackball an OTO member but OTO rituals haven't corresponded to Masonry in a long time. The UGLE told Crowley he had to change his first three degrees like forever ago. I think it would largely be a question of what state you are in if it would be a problem, and there are very notable Thelemic Masons such as Lon Milo Duquette. Paramemetic posted:To add a little bit more historical blah blah to that, Crowley was a Mason of questionable regularity, having been made a Mason in Mexico. He was at least considered regular enough to sit in Lodge in India, and he writes about it rather casually in his autobiography in the chapters related to his attempts to climb K2, if I recall correctly. Crowley claimed the authorship of his Book of the Law was dictated by a non-physical entity called Aiwass, but not any of the OTO or A.'.A.'. ritual work. Robotnik Nudes posted:It was a good question, but you guys are so informative and helpful I feel like a dick now. I would also add that Crowley got kicked out of the Golden Dawn for immoral activities, meaning he really was the 'hey, I'd like to gently caress my wife's sister, that'll be fun' type. Or wife's brother. Not that I think it was just homosexual activities that got him kicked out, but "allow themselves to descend into the habits of the wanton libertine" is a pretty apt desciption of the ole chap.
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May 2, 2019 01:35
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Can someone pm me what the OTO inversion is?
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May 2, 2019 02:41
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Sub Rosa posted:I would also add that Crowley got kicked out of the Golden Dawn for immoral activities, meaning he really was the 'hey, I'd like to gently caress my wife's sister, that'll be fun' type. Or wife's brother. Not that I think it was just homosexual activities that got him kicked out, but "allow themselves to descend into the habits of the wanton libertine" is a pretty apt desciption of the ole chap. Yep. Brilliant as he was in many ways, I can't help but feel ol' Uncle Al failed the acid test himself, and elements of his legacy - his sexual obsessions and hangups and the way they coloured his views on magical practice, for instance - remain an unfortunate toxic element in the occult world.
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May 2, 2019 03:44
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I recently read something by someone who had read all 900+ pages of Crowley's Confessions, and he noted that there wasn't a confession to be found. Even though almost everyone who ever came into contact with him ended up the worst for it, Crowley never shows an ounce of regret for anything, never accepts any blame for his own actions, always depicts himself as a flawed genius surrounded by mortal idiots, has contempt for his own followers, and anything that ever went wrong was clearly to blame on anyone and everyone else. He was a first class narcissist so blind to his own flaws he believed he had none. I can't say I would automatically black ball someone I knew was in the OTO, but I'd certainly give anyone enamored with Crowley a lot of extra scrutiny.
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May 2, 2019 04:25
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Curiously enough, Uncle Al's deranged narcissism and declining years fit almost perfectly with the model of the Black Brother, being one who attempts to cross the Abyss and seemingly succeeds but fails to surrender their own personage into unity with the Divine and thus remains ruled by their own bad habits, desires, prejudices and hangups, calcifying around them in a detrimental and harmful form that ultimately destroys them. Not only is there very good practical reason to take his work with a healthy grain of salt (dude was an edgelord for his time), but esoterically, he showed every mark of being a peddler of bad knowledge who failed the acid test of Thelema generally and of the Abyss specifically and whose subsequent teachings and writings are thus highly suspect, and whose prior teachings must also be considered not as the works of a perfect master but a very capable but ultimately mistaken adept. Despite saying this, I still find the basic principles of Thelema and even the OTO rituals I have knowledge of not incompatible with my conception of the basic principles and tenets of our Order, provided the practitioner thereof knows the genuine meaning and interaction of agape and thelema.
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May 2, 2019 14:28
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Don't know how active any of you are in Capitular masonry, but last night I got to perform the journey for the first time in the RA degree. The guy who normally does it for us has been doing it for like 15 years, so I think he's probably pretty relieved someone else wanted to do it.
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May 3, 2019 16:45
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Oh hello, I’m new to the forum, but I’m also a newish OTO member. Almost all the men who are active at my OTO lodge are also active masons some with a lot of experience with both organizations. It’s to the point I’m somewhat interested in pursuing masonic activities just to see what the fuss is about, and to better understand Masonic side conversations, but I don’t know anyone involved with Masonic options for women and have no idea about the local culture in these types of orgs. My grandmother was eastern star and that doesn’t particularly attract me to it. I am a somewhat committed occultist though and I’m happy to see people at least acknowledging the topic on SA.  if there are any more specifically dedicated posts I’d be happy to hear since I’m still finding my bearings.
Lestamore fucked around with this message at 20:31 on May 12, 2019 |
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May 12, 2019 20:21
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Generally speaking, the appendent bodies to Masonry, like Eastern Star, that allow women also require that woman to have a spouse or family member who is a Mason. Since your Grandmother was Eastern Star, you should be eligible, but I don't know how much paperwork would be involved or needed in verifying that. I've never been involved, but Eastern Star mostly seemed focused towards wives of Masons more than anything. It probably isn't particularly relevant to OTO, it's more the Blue Lodge stuff that would be, so in terms of being able to follow the side chat your options are to find a group of Co-Masons, who aren't recognized by regular Masonry, or just do your own research as much less is secret than people think (Freemason's For Dummies is much better than you would expect for being in that series), and for those few secrets, well, you have internet access. Your mileage may vary in how your Masonic brethren may react to you doing either, so asking them their thoughts instead of asking Goons is probably also the best suggestion.
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May 13, 2019 05:48
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Any advice for a newly installed Master, thread?
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May 13, 2019 13:08
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Loomer posted:Any advice for a newly installed Master, thread? Anytime you start stressing about it, remember that you're doing way better at it than you think you are.
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May 13, 2019 13:59
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I’ve been thinking about becoming a mason. I’d posted about it itt before I think but now that I am a bit more grown as a human being I would like to join a fraternal organisation and finally do some good in this planet for once. Any insight into how to get in touch with the UGLE? Protocols, invite required, etc?
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May 13, 2019 22:31
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2B1ASK1
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May 13, 2019 22:42
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The UGLE? Not sure on that one. If you mean getting in contact with your local lodge, though, my process was pretty simple. I knew no other masons, so I just looked up nearby lodges on Google Maps, compared the few within a comfortable range, then sent them an email (found on their website). The email went to the secretary of the lodge who invited me to meet everyone before their next meeting. I wandered inside this building I had never seen before and was warmly greeted and had all my questions answered, with a small tour. Eventually I was given a petition to fill out, some guys gave me their recommendation, and that was it. Knowing what I know now, I probably would have visited a couple of lodges. I have visited some other lodges in the area now and although it is all technically the same, the mood was different between lodges, and of course the lodge itself differed. Some were more comfortable, some were more formal, etc. I would also note how many guys you see at each visit, assuming each time you visit you see an average turnout (which may not be the case). I am lucky - if I saw all the nearby lodges beforehand I still would have picked the one I'm at now. Of course, nothing is really stopping you from going wherever you want once you're a member (sort of), but I think your home lodge is important.
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May 14, 2019 03:54
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Exact same thing happened with me - emailed the closest lodge, etc. Turned out to be a great fit, wouldn't dream of joining another lodge. Had I lived five miles east of here I'd have wound up mailing one that does every meeting in tuxedos so I dodged a bullet there. I highly recommend you "shop around" a bit since you may wind up spending the next 50 years with some of these people.
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May 14, 2019 12:59
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Alright, that all seems reasonable. I’ll take a look at what’s around and just be nice and hope the feeling’s mutual. Thanks, thread!
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May 14, 2019 22:24
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Hi all, just found the thread so am starting to read through. I wanted to ask about bags: I travel direct from work to lodge and am sick of commuting with both my big boy regalia briefcase and stinky gym bag. Can anyone recommend something practical that could hygienically store the lot? I'm guessing a large laptop bag that I could double wrap socks etc in would be the closest? ^^ when I joined it was through the provincial network and they worked with me to suggest a good match Chubby Henparty fucked around with this message at 15:18 on May 16, 2019 |
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May 16, 2019 15:14
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installation day wooooiii
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May 19, 2019 02:24
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I've been thinking about joining the shrine (many reasons, all of which are too boring for here). I've heard a good bit that the ceremony sounds kind of more like your traditional paddles and embarrassment college fraternity type deal. Is there still some seriousness in it? I don't need specifics, I just would like to know what to expect in terms of meaningful lessons conveyed.
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May 20, 2019 18:45
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"Crossing the hot sands," as it's known, seems to have been forcefully removed from almost all Shrine bodies in the US. People I've talked to in the Shrine mention that there's still some good natured ribbing involved, but it's nothing close to the hazing that you hear about from the 50s etc. I'm not in it myself but the guys I know who are make it basically their entire Masonic life, so that says enough about it
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May 20, 2019 20:26
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COOL CORN posted:"Crossing the hot sands," as it's known, seems to have been forcefully removed from almost all Shrine bodies in the US. People I've talked to in the Shrine mention that there's still some good natured ribbing involved, but it's nothing close to the hazing that you hear about from the 50s etc. Thanks. Without getting into the details of it, I've gotten the impression that there's a short of expectation from another group I'm in that I will join it. To be clear, I wouldn't mind if it did involve that, I just want to know what kind of headspace I should be in when I go through the door.
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May 20, 2019 20:33
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Our Grand Lodge(WA State) charges $28 per year dues, what do other jurisdictions charge? Follow up to that is what are you expectations from your grand line. Do you want them to travel and be possible influencers in the Grand Master lineups or should they stay at home and keep costs as low as possible?
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Jun 19, 2019 00:42
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Maksimus54 posted:Our Grand Lodge(WA State) charges $28 per year dues, what do other jurisdictions charge? Depends on the lodge in NC, but $28 is wildly low. My home lodge is $130 a year, and another lodge I was a charter member of was $365 a year.
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Jun 19, 2019 01:55
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My lodge is $75 per year, was $50 when I joined. But you are asking what the Grand Lodge charges. I'm not sure how much of that has to be forwarded to Grand Lodge.
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Jun 19, 2019 04:46
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COOL CORN posted:Depends on the lodge in NC, but $28 is wildly low. My lodge dues are $50 a year but 99.9% of members are life members. Do you know what the Grand Lodge assessment part of those dues are? What is your opinion of your Grand Line and their duties? I just got back from our annual communication so I'm curious how other jurisdictions work/think.
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Jun 19, 2019 16:48
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Any Northern Ireland/Belfast Masons here? If so, I'm looking to travel there later this year and would like to connect with somebody there.
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Jun 24, 2019 02:09
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