multidenominational witchcraft thread: drake's chart mid may - uranus will be on his MC

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > multidenominational witchcraft thread: drake's chart mid may - uranus will be on his MC

Charlatan Eschaton: Feb 23, 2018

sounds sorta like the mes, activities that are aspects of the gods also have representations as physical objects

https://z-library.se/book/24179574/8ac536/enheduana-the-complete-poems-of-the-worlds-first-author.html posted:

One example of a Sumerian word that is central to Enheduana�s poems but is still poorly understood is me, traditionally pronounced with a long, open vowel, so as to rhyme with Spanish que.
...
As noted in the Introduction, a central term in Enheduana�s treatment of power is the me, a concept that continues to puzzle Sumerologists.13 The word literally means �to be� or �to exist,� but it is used as a noun. It is clear from literary and religious texts that the me were seen as the province of the gods: they would hold the me in their hands and derive their power from them. In Inana�s Descent to the Underworld, Inana is tricked by her sister Ereshkigal into leaving behind the me that adorn her body at the entrance to the underworld. Without the me, Inana is stripped of her powers, leaving her defenseless against Ereshkigal�s attacks: it is by wielding the me that Inana can impose her awe-inspiring terror. It would seem, then, that me refers to the fundamental elements of existence��that which is��and that the gods controlled the cosmos by exerting power over these elements.

But the me is an even trickier concept than that. When the Babylonian scholars translated the word into Akkadian, they rendered it as parṣu, �ritual.� This is not necessarily to be understood as a religious ritual of the kind performed in the temples. In this context, parṣu may refer more generally to something that was done again and again to sustain human society: institutions such as kingship, agriculture, metalworking, craftmanship, and sex, which were all seen as me. These me were not just cosmological elements that merely existed, like hydrogen or gravity, but activities that had to be performed repeatedly for civilization to survive�in other words, a kind of ritual on a culture-wide level. Sometimes individual objects are said to have their own me, in which case the me should probably be thought of as the destiny or cosmic role of that object. As the philologist Gertrude Farber concludes in her study of the me: �All spheres of civilization and culture�be it the institutions of state or religion, spiritual or emotional values, social conditions, professions, offices, or any object or tool�are permeated by the �divine powers� [the me], which are designed and executed by the gods.�14
Inana and Enki tells of how Inana stole a trove of me from the trickster god Enki by drinking him into a stupor and loading his me onto her boat.15 The me that Inana absconds with include, among many others, joy and justice, honesty and lies, rebellion, kindness, awe and reverent silence, wisdom, the scribal arts, shepherdship, leadership, leathercraft and metalwork, the kindling and dousing of fire, the making of families, strife and triumph, old age, weapons, various priestly offices, sex, singing and musical instruments. All these were me�that is, practices which formed the fabric of the human world. Note especially how the me are treated in the story: as physical objects that Inana can load onto her boat while Enki sleeps, almost like shipping crates. The me themselves seem to be silent and inert, but owning them bestows cosmic power.16 That is what makes them so odd. They are both objects and rituals, powers and practices, elements and destinies.

In Inana and Enki, Inana does not necessarily get away with all the me that exist. Notably absent from the list are aspects of life such as medicine and disease, which were controlled by other gods. The list we find in this text is probably not a comprehensive enumeration of all the me, but only a catalogue of those that Inana stole from Enki. This is what makes the claim we find in the Exaltation, that Inana controls every me�that she is nin me �ara, �queen of all the me��so startling. It amounts to saying that every aspect of existence, every part and province of the human world, belongs to Inana, and that all the other gods had their domains delegated to them by Inana. In the Introduction, I noted that Enheduana does not merely assume Inana�s cosmic supremacy; she seeks to bring it about through the poem. She explicitly states that Inana was born as a �second-rate ruler� (l. 114), and that the goddess can now claim universal rulership by stepping into the power vacuum left by Nanna�s silence. The idea that Inana was in need of empowerment does not reflect historical fact: it should be seen as a poetic device in which Enheduana claims that Inana was not held in high enough regard, and therefore she could take it upon herself to do the exalting.17 The narrative does not just praise Inana�s power; it actively seeks to make her the �queen of all the me.�

# ¿ Jan 2, 2024 05:41

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# ¿ May 13, 2024 22:38

Charlatan Eschaton: Feb 23, 2018

LITERALLY A BIRD posted:

hey wait a minute let's go back to this for a sec because this blurb doesn't point out the way Inanna is stealing the mes from her older more powerful friend/kinsman/mentor/father figure because she wants to give them to humanity, because we need them

Tell me that's not infinitely more badass and worth writing a bunch of poems about than stealing them "just because"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRaMatWRK50

Always got enough love in her heart

also, lol. The longer one-sentence explanation of that card is "a sense of loss over what you don't have, despite what you do have." Tracks.

theres a bit about how they are being swiped to be redistributed

quote:

In the final section of the Hymn, beginning with line 254, the text begins to repeat the syllable nam with striking insistence. The syllable appears fifteen times in twenty lines. In Sumerian, nam is used to build abstract nouns, so, for example, lugal means �king� and nam-lugal means �kingship.� The repetition of nam at the conclusion of the Hymn marks a shift in the kind of power that is attributed to Inana. Now we see that she rules over the underlying patterns of existence as well as individual persons and events. She controls not just kings and gods but royalty and divinity; she is not just great, she holds the concept of greatness within her. This repetition of nam reaches a climax in the line �You, who are fit to rule, fix the fates of queens and ladies,� which in a phonemic transcription would read, innin nin-ene nam nammatare nam- nina tuma (l. 267).18 The significance of the line is that Inana herself rules as queen, nin, and in turn gives �queenship,� nam-nina, to other women, thus ruling the very abstraction of rulership.

its a good book but pretty academic brained, more about historical context stuff. like the time of writing being when enheduannas nephew naram-sin was unpopularly overexpanding the akkadian empire causing revolts. and how exaltation was used for tablet writing practice in schools so there were lots of copies around to survive buried in the sand.

but then he leaves out the one where inanna destroys the mountain because it might not have been written by enheduanna i guess? lazy! i also didn't agree with some of the words this guy used in his translating, but he does give explanations so you can try to figure out the intended meanings and compare to other translations on your own. the website version is actually better to read than in the book because it has the cuneiform and transliteration along w each line.

# ¿ Jan 4, 2024 20:57

Charlatan Eschaton: Feb 23, 2018

is sailor moon a witch

# ¿ Jan 5, 2024 03:49

Charlatan Eschaton: Feb 23, 2018

Squizzle posted:

sailor moon is a god

🙏 usagi radiant in good vibes

# ¿ Jan 5, 2024 05:57

Charlatan Eschaton: Feb 23, 2018

LITERALLY A BIRD posted:

As for mageia, it derives from the Old Persian magu, which seems to have referred to a sacrificial priest or a similar functionary. Having been imported into Greek no later than the sixth century BCE, a positive understanding of mageia as "worship of the gods" (Plato Alcibiades 1.122A) survived at least as late as Apuleius in the second century CE and was revived during the Renaissance (De Jong 1997: 387-394; Otto 2011: 143-272).

had to look up magu and check this out :weed:

https://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends-asia/magu-hemp-goddess-who-healed-ancient-asia-008709 posted:

A prominent religion that valued cannabis was Taoism (or, Daoism) in ancient China. The Chinese even had a caretaker for this herb; her name is Magu. Considered in ancient East Asia to be equivalent to the divine ambrosia of the Greek gods, hemp has long been named an "elixir of life". The goddess Magu's association with cannabis primarily lies in its use as a healing plant - as the majority of Magu's mythological stories revolve around the ways in which she aided the poor and the sick either as a goddess outright, or as a priestess of an unnamed healing deity. Magu takes on a more definitively divine role in the ancient literature of Korea, however the core of her person remains relatively the same.

Throughout China, Japan, and Korea, Magu (or Ma Gu MaKu, Mako) is depicted as a beautiful young woman, no older than 18 or 19 (in human years). Her youth and beauty are symbols of the health and healing of the universe she is believed to protect. She is a guardian of vitality throughout East Asia, not only in the world of mortals but also the cycles of the earth. Magu is regularly considered to cast aside the winter in favor of flora and fauna. In Korea, Magu's role is elevated from goddess to Creator god, akin to the�Japanese Shinto goddess Amaterasu, and her abilities extended to incorporate the creation of the world and humanity.

Chinese writers appear to have been the most determined in preserving her mythology. Magu is more prominently displayed in the art of China as well, allowing one to understand her Chinese persona and thus compare her to her other forms. Though Korea considered her a creator deity, Chinese Taoists believed Magu had a mortal upbringing. The most cohesive version of this tale states that Magu lived a poor life in the war-torn 5th and 6th centuries AD, working as a seamstress. There is no mention of her mother, but her father was a horse breeder and he and Magu worked together to make ends meet. One day, Magu was given a peach by one of her clients, but instead of sharing it with her father, she passed it along to an even poorer elderly woman in the street. Magu then made the woman some porridge out of her own cupboard.

Unfortunately, Magu was unable to deliver the porridge in a timely fashion as her father arrived home and locked her in her room. When she finally managed to escape to see the old woman, the woman was gone - a peach stone was all that remained in her place. Magu planted the stone and cared for it as it grew into a vibrant peach tree, and later gave away the fruits freely to those in need. Before long, Magu's peaches were said to be healing, and Magu was immortalized as a goddess possessing the elixir of life.

Though this tale is only one of many relating Magu's existence, it reveals the primary emphases of her worship: namely, caring for the sick and poor and cultivating the natural world. Here, Chinese writers depicted her "elixir of life" as peaches, evidenced further by early Magu's symbols in early Chinese art, but cannabis has also been intricately tied to her healing abilities - though on a spiritual rather than physical level. Records of Taoist practices have listed the consumption of hemp seeds as protecting against demonic possession and increasing the "Second Sight", while burning the seeds was pertinent in purification rituals. Often, it was Magu who was invoked during these times, and she came to be associated with the Taoist landmark Mount Tai for its heavy growth of the plant.

Having a goddess whose healing abilities are specifically tied to cannabis is not as unusual as it may sound to westerners. The likelihood that cannabis was first farmed in ancient China is strong due to the earliest discovered historical references from the region. In fact, in the world of Classical Greece, early China was occasionally referred to as "The Land of Mulberry and Hemp." This also likely influenced the naming of Magu�or perhaps the naming of the plant, depending on the answer to "which came first: the goddess or the plant?"�as her name has often been translated as "hemp." Magu's name does have other connotations, such as "maiden" and "aunt", but these also align with her youthful and naturally protective capabilities. Further, that hemp appeared to grow so plentifully on Mount Tai, it may have even seemed that the gods were handing the plant directly to the priests and priestesses of the Taoist religion.

lold at (in human years)

# ¿ Jan 21, 2024 17:18

Charlatan Eschaton: Feb 23, 2018

LITERALLY A BIRD posted:

love this, thank you

Interestingly this bit

reflects some thoughts I have been having on the roles of creator deities, in pantheons. In modern process theism we see ideas about the way entities co-Create with God/the Divine/the Source of reality. In process theism of course we are talking about humans but in mythological narrative we can instead be talking about Gods, plural, the Deities, who in the human-like structure of their parables also perform acts of Creation with "God." The title of Supreme Creator then, in the context of polytheism, is debatably similar to a title of Head Architect; at a given point in time, various Deities having individually taken turn at performing the role of Supreme Creator, the "Head Creative," makes complete sense from the mytho-theological perspective.

For you, specifically, I posit this relates to why Inana is perceived as a God of so many important multi-faceted things that She maintains a position as one of the supreme Deities for hundreds and hundreds of years; but is never (I don't think?) elevated to position of an actual "Creator" God. It's a specific job description and she don't fit it

Inana's self employed :hellyeah:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3yHbf7XEXU

i usually take the knot of reeds symbol to mean agriculture but it could be about any sort of collecting and summarizing information like baking recipies (mmm bretzels), weaving fabric, language, song or i guess any of the Mes really. if you're inventing big stuff like forms of communication why worry about yr job title

read this the other day and thought the term "le genie�de la langue" was cool

https://aeon.co/essays/does-language-mirror-the-mind-an-intellectual-history posted:

The roots of our present ideas about linguistic relativity extend at least as far back as the Enlightenment of the late 17th to the�18th century.�Enlightenment discussions were often couched in terms of the �genius� of a language, an expression first coined in French as�le g�nie�de la langue. The term was used in a wide variety of senses, to the point where it was often not clear what precisely was meant. One contemporary commentator remarked: �[W]e often ask what is the genius of a language, and it is difficult to say.� What we�can�say is that the genius of a language was understood as representing its distinct character, the�je ne�sais quoi�that constitutes the idiomatic in each idiom. This unique character was frequently taken to embody something of the national mentality of the speakers of a language.
A classic � and highly influential � formulation came in 1772 with the�Treatise on the Origin of Language�by the German philosopher and poet Johann Gottfried von Herder (1744-1803). In opposition to contemporaries who saw the ultimate origins of human language in animal cries, Herder insisted that there is a difference in kind between human and animal communication. Human language, so Herder argued, rests on the irreducible human capacity for �reflection� (Besonnenheit), our ability to recognise and think about our own thoughts. In coining our words, we reflect on the properties of the things they name, and choose the most salient of these. Different peoples will have focused on different properties, with the result that each language with its characteristic forms will encapsulate a slightly different perspective on the world. As languages are passed on from generation to generation, the differences between them accumulate, making the languages and the worldviews they contain more and more distinct. In order to understand the unique perspective of each language, we must trace the forms of words back to their etymological origins.
The Herderian thread was picked up in the early�19th century�and woven most expertly into a broader account of language and literature by Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1835). Humboldt endorsed an element of linguistic determinism � that is, that language not only reflects a particular worldview but is actively involved in shaping it: �Language,� he wrote , �is the forming organ of thought.� The relationship he envisaged, however, was not one-way but dialectic. Between language and thought there inheres an endless feedback loop: our thoughts shape our words, and our words shape our thoughts. His account was not restricted to individual words � more important were the grammatical structures exhibited in the languages of the world. But even the study of grammar was only a preliminary to the real task, according to Humboldt. Grammar and vocabulary merely represent the �dead skeleton� of a language. To capture its character, to see its �living structure�, we must appreciate its literature, the use made of the language by its most eloquent speakers and writers.

~language is magic~

also to take it to egypt for a sec i liked hearing some pronunciations (one thing you miss out on in just reading words vs hearing stuff spoken) of thoth and realizing it's p much just a recreation of the sound that ibis make when they're talking to each other. learning from animal friends :cheersbird:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIWq_k2tiYg&t=306s
timestamp 5:06 :love:

esoterica

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJVWPG4FxNM

wish i knew more about ancient music history i think a lot of early writing is supposed to be songs too as another way of remembering information.

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KElPnD-dbkk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tx6v0t5I5SM

e: i/you

Charlatan Eschaton has issued a correction as of 23:28 on Jan 21, 2024

# ¿ Jan 21, 2024 20:55

Charlatan Eschaton: Feb 23, 2018

Colonel Cancer posted:

Im casting spells

ordering pizza what toppings

# ¿ Jan 21, 2024 23:33

Charlatan Eschaton: Feb 23, 2018

LITERALLY A BIRD posted:

you've seen that magio-rhetoric paper right? I feel like you must have. I can link it again if not.

think so but i usually have to read things like three times to be able to recall anything specific so link it anyways thanks! im sure others will appreciate it too

LITERALLY A BIRD posted:

omg that's perfect. I have never cared for the Grecian take on his name, ~Thoth~ sounds so limp compared to nice emphatic Djehuty.

unfortunately due to imprinting on a playstation game ~twenty years ago i default to thinking of a very goofy giant robot when i hear the word jehuty lol. probably gonna have to stick w thoth on that one. djehuty does seem like another sound a bird would say though like maybe a powerful owl

# ¿ Jan 22, 2024 04:48

Charlatan Eschaton: Feb 23, 2018

LITERALLY A BIRD posted:

You got it it's this one: Thought, Utterance, Power

ty that academic writing just slides off my brain, of course those school professor type guys love talking about maat god of order and laws lol.

quote:

Unlike the later Greek, the Egyptian had not yet developed the intellectual ability to think in abstract terms.

this is that bicameral mind crap, and then he namedrops frankfort but with some weirdly dismissive lame quotes yeesh

Henri, H.A. Frankfort's "Before Philosophy/The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man"(1946) establishes a thing called mythopoeic thought using the words it/thou about modern western brains using words to define their world (objects/events/gods) as separate categorizable things "it" and earlier cultures using animals and images to describe them as a continuum of living animate characters, "thou."

https://z-library.se/book/21801868/435b75/before-philosophy-the-intellectual-adventure-of-ancient-man.html p.21 posted:

The ancients expressed their �emotional thought� (as we might call it) in terms of cause and effect; they explained phenomena in terms of time and space and number. The form of their reasoning is far less alien to ours than is often believed. They could reason logically; but they did not often care to do it. For the detachment which a purely intellectual attitude implies is hardly compatible with their most significant experience of reality. Scholars who have proved at length that primitive man has a �prelogical� mode of thinking are likely to refer to magic or religious practice, thus forgetting that they apply the Kantian categories, not to pure reasoning, but to highly emotional acts.

We shall find that if we attempt to define the structure of mythopoeic thought and compare it with that of modern (that is, scientific) thought, the differences will prove to be due rather to emotional attitude and intention than to a so-called prelogical mentality. The basic distinction of modern thought is that between subjective and objective. On this distinction scientific thought has based a critical and analytical procedure by which it progressively reduces the individual phenomena to typical events subject to universal laws. Thus it creates an increasingly wide gulf between our perception of the phenomena and the conceptions by which we make them comprehensible. We see the sun rise and set, but we think of the earth as moving round the sun. We see colours, but we describe them as wave-lengths. We dream of a dead relative, but we think of that distinct vision as a product of our own subconscious minds. Even if we individually are unable to prove these almost unbelievable scientific views to be true, we accept them, because we know that they can be proved to possess a greater degree of objectivity than our sense-impressions. In the immediacy of primitive experience, however, there is no room for such a critical resolution of perceptions. Primitive man cannot withdraw from the presence of the phenomena because they reveal themselves to him in the manner we have described. Hence the distinction between subjective and objective knowledge is meaningless to him.

Meaningless, also, is our contrast between reality and appearance. Whatever is capable of affecting mind, feeling, or will has thereby established its undoubted reality. There is, for instance, no reason why dreams should be considered less real than impressions received while one is awake. On the contrary, dreams often affect one so much more than the hum-drum events of daily life that they appear to be more, and not less, significant than the usual perceptions. The Babylonians, like the Greeks, sought divine guidance by passing the night in a sacred place hoping for a revelation in dreams. And pharaohs, too, have recorded that dreams induced them to undertake certain works. Hallucinations, too, are real. We find in the official annals of Assarhaddon of Assyria a record of fabulous monsters � two-headed serpents and green, winged creatures � which the exhausted troops had seen in the most trying section of their march, the arid Sinai Desert. We may recall that the Greeks saw the Spirit of the Plain of Marathon arisen in the fateful battle against the Persians. As to monsters, the Egyptians of the Middle Kingdom, as much horrified by the desert as are their modern descendants, depicted dragons, griffins, and chimeras among gazelles, foxes, and other desert game, on a footing of perfect equality.

the book presents things pretty respectfully (the word savages is used :whitewater:

but thankfully only once, much better than some history books) converting the idea of gods/godly powers to english language but only does the "thou" thing for like table salt, flint and reeds (p. 142-147.) mostly covers Enki and Ninhursag, there's a little about Inanna but doesn't connect it with En-ship or the Mes which would have been cool. Frankfort died in 1954 and the first english stuff about Mes was by Samuel Noah Kramer in "The Sumerians"(1963).

"thou" is such a snooty european sounding word but sorta appropriate here because english language do be like that. though i like to take it as an abbreviation of thought or maybe even thoth :getin:

. but then in 1976 some guy wrote a book "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" and it got real racist with that distinction like everybody before greeks/romans were dummies incapable of self reflection and lol gently caress that. any cave painting of a human shape proves that artist was aware of their own form. written words are so overprioritized now vs symbols and spoken/musical language. indian historical texts are divided into shruti/smriti for information that is either heard from gods or remembered by human tradition. orally communicated stories from australia are extremely old incredibly detailed and emotional personal retellings of environmental observations.

seems like intellectuals love copying each others homework repeating the same interpretations and doing gross comparisons of cultures biased toward greeks/romans like those fuckos didn't just steal all their ideas from africa and asia, remove any respect for plants and animals and make every god white as hell. hieroglyphics and cuneiform are visual language just tell me some guesses of what the shapes mean and show pictures of the old stuff for other people to interpret you suit wearing nerds.

the more detailed translations of gilgamesh (Andrew George 1999, 2003 critical) explain what parts of the story were found in different places and have illustrations of the tablets showing what is there and what's gone from them. and there is still a lot missing those things get cracked and broken over the years after falling out of favor and being buried in sand. so much of history is just piecing together scraps of what was trash then because all the fancy stuff got destroyed or stolen and hidden in private collections. there were thousands of mummified humans and animals taken from tombs and just sold on the street for goobers to buy and keep as toys or grind them up and smoke them or whatever other disrespectful crap people did. like fossil fuels being commodified into only an energy source to be burned and not, yknow, a record of the planet's life history that should be protected. its important to look at ancient artifacts and the big monuments to see where the damage is. why did certain figures get their faces and hands chiseled away and others left intact. what context can you still get from the parts that were eroded only by wind and time and what could still be buried and unseen somewhere else. for a long time the great sphinx was just a head in the sand and people speculated on what the rest of it looked like. you know a bunch of excavators were hype to see some monumental titties

what a rad suprise it must have been to scoop out all that sand and find a big ol cat body down there lol pranked from 4000 years ago.

seems to have lost a lot of detail in the lips and eyes since old photographs were taken

e: remembered i first heard of frankfort in this david graeber / david wengrow talk that covers some of what i just said but smarter, graeber disses the bicameral mind guy early on and wengrow mentions frankfort towards the end. the last thing they mention about french enlightenment stuff being stolen from native american traditions is cool

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvUzdJSK4x8

Charlatan Eschaton has issued a correction as of 18:49 on Jan 25, 2024

# ¿ Jan 25, 2024 18:41

Charlatan Eschaton: Feb 23, 2018

no worries that took me a long time to make semi coherent and wasnt sure if it was any good. seeing that cool aztec post got me to go ahead and hit send

will have to do some more learning about ma'at. have fun w the bird friends!

# ¿ Jan 25, 2024 20:15

Charlatan Eschaton: Feb 23, 2018

LITERALLY A BIRD posted:

Oh boy I'm gonna read the poo poo out of this book, thank you. I have a copy of Frankfort's "Egyptian Religion" and I was so impressed by the respect he had for the materials he was studying, he wasn't perfect certainly but you can tell he was trying to really understand the beliefs as they were understood, instead of the way everyone was seeing them at the time.

yeah its so much better reading someone who goes into historical topics trying to learn from them and explain their interpretations and not just do comparisons to modern stuff. i got a copy of "myths from mesopotamia" and the introduction was so fuckin condescending i didn't even want to read their translations

LITERALLY A BIRD posted:

I feel like you might like Music, Language and Literature, which is open access and seems to allege music is a much more metaphysically significant language than the written variety, thank you very much

oh this looks excellent thank you!

e: well that immediately went way over my head with philosopher and classical music composer names im not familiar with lol, will have to try again later

Charlatan Eschaton has issued a correction as of 04:54 on Jan 26, 2024

# ¿ Jan 26, 2024 04:08

Charlatan Eschaton: Feb 23, 2018

very good vibes in that quote, so glad you like the book. paper was cool just wished it had links to the songs they were talkin about, the rare thing that would have been better as a podcast. i appreciate it, reading stuff that's too complicated the best way to learn
metaphysical girl probably just didn't think you were looking for guidance, should have offered to do one for her too

dual readings to compare

got a new book, some cool stuff some things missing imo. trying to put together a small review/comparison to other books it references

# ¿ Jan 28, 2024 00:26

Charlatan Eschaton: Feb 23, 2018

i live in a boxthorn under the sea

# ¿ Jan 28, 2024 23:00

Charlatan Eschaton: Feb 23, 2018

*every deity from every tablet, cylinder seal, and book reality comes in for a HUGE party* :bahgawd:

# ¿ Feb 3, 2024 14:44

Charlatan Eschaton: Feb 23, 2018

what was so magical about the magi? dudes see a starry sign lit up, drop off some treats for j-man then hit the bricks. could have just been a few polite truck drivers passing through that needed a place to stop for the night

# ¿ Apr 17, 2024 14:06

Charlatan Eschaton: Feb 23, 2018

sounds like the magi were sort of an outline of the older eastern religions? long distance travel, celestial navigation, plant medicines, mineral refinement and respectful sharing of ritual offerings. multiple gods of earth resources sort of passing the torch and being merged into this other belief system of just one main guy and his mom.

LITERALLY A BIRD posted:

Shalim

interesting that they thought of evening star and morning star phases of venus as twin gods instead of one that disappears for a while and comes back on the other side like inanna.

i've heard mary translated as maryam 'star of the sea' for the north star? venus/aphrodite came from the sea but the "of the sea" part reminds me of early ocean gods nammu birthing enki or naunet mothering atum/ra.

# ¿ Apr 18, 2024 13:43

Charlatan Eschaton: Feb 23, 2018

radishes are good but i don't think i've ever had a turnip i'll have to buy some, never have luck with root vegetables growing. i'm trying lots of basils and tiny tomatoes this year they're doing okay.

been trying to spend as much time working in gardens as possible before it gets too hot outside but i think i have adapted to move on plant time now my thoughts are moving slower than ever lol. trying to label stuff better cause i always start like ten different varieties of plants and the forget what type they are if/once they start sprouting. i'm using an old vertical blinds to make little tags for seedlings and can fit 5 or so names on a section before cutting it up. so writing the name down 5 times in a row feels like a chant or a spell to summon the plants spirit in addition to helping me remember what they're called later. good handwriting practice too cause you want it to be readable later after it's been exposed to the elements for a while. also noticed when sweeping it sounds nicer to have a little rhythm of like 3 or 4 small sweeps to collect dust into a pile and then a big sweep to brush it away. swept up an area around a fire pit like that and got sort of a witchy vibe.

visiting family the other day they were doing a crossword puzzle and the clue was female demon and the answer was lamia? i don't pay attention to greek/roman stuff so hadn't heard of that i guess its some greek thing a half serpent lady that smells bad and eats children? imagine..

the description has some similarities to lilith but also the name sounds like lama/lamassu a bit too. if lamassu are protective gods this sounds like they were trying to scare ppl away from individual god/desses to their comic book rear end buff dude pantheon.

The Babylonians: An Introduction - Gwendolyn Leick posted:

Of course the prebend system allowed at least some members of the public to participate to a greater or smaller extent in liturgical ceremonies at the temple but ordinary citizens did not need to get involved since their devotions seem to have been primarily addressed to their �personal gods� (ilum but also referred to as lamassu or ˇsedu) in a private setting. In Old Babylonian Ur houses Leonard Woolley discovered niches and similar arrangements which he identified as private altars, as well as figurines which possibly represented deities.39 Literary prayers from this period also stress the attachment to �one�s (own) god� (ilum). The personal god was not one of the great gods of the Babylonian pantheon, not even the god invoked in one�s personal name, but a protective supernatural guiding spirit who like a guardian angel (the customary translation of lamassu) guided his prot�g� through life, protected him (or her) from harm and interceded for him with the celestial deities. Since one�s �own god� was thought to be intimately associated with the person, any illness or misfortune he experienced as the result of malevolent influences or of �sin� also affected his god.40 In order to re-establish the vitality of both god and human being, a ritual known as �Mouth Washing� could be performed.41 This consisted of two parts: first, the revitalisation of the personal god who was reborn through the symbolic enactment of a birth-process; and thereafter that of the human subject who was placed in a sort of magical cage indicated by lines drawn with flour and washed with various substances. A portable stove was also used into which the officiant threw seven images. Incantations are spoken throughout, and the afflicted had to be �judged� before he was free to leave the cage, cleansed with incense, and waved over with a flaming torch. In this manner the proper relationship between the person and the god was re-established. What is not made explicit in this text, and indeed in many similar ritual instructions, is where this ritual was to take place, whether it had to be performed in a temple or a private house for instance.

reenactment of birth processes, or morning routine of putting some items on the stove for breakfast and hopping in the cleanliness cage (shower) to smell nice and dry off before going to work. you be the judge!

# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 00:33

Charlatan Eschaton: Feb 23, 2018

LITERALLY A BIRD posted:

You are channeling new life!

I would be interested in any other mentions of personal Gods in the book you're reading, if you don't mind sharing them. I do believe in a person having a patron Deity or Deities, but since it's an idea much more relevant in explicitly polytheistic ontology than in philosophy or monotheistic theology it's one of the things I don't always encounter in my reading material. I feel like Tillich gestures quite frequently to the fact there is an ontological concept of a personal God, which is different from the Ultimate God, especially when he starts calling the latter things like "God above the God of theism" in his later work; in Christianity of course the Logos as the Christ taking on the role of every Christian's personal God; but I am not wholly certain this is valid and/or counts

i think the personal gods can be messengers between you and the other gods so that seems like a valid reading but idk!

here's a link to that full chapter from that babylonians book it's pretty short
https://books.google.com/books?id=9BPh8lh1fFEC&lpg=PR4&pg=PA113#v=onepage&q&f=false

kramer also mentions the "man and his god"/"i will praise the lord of wisdom" tablets and their similarities to the book of job as examples of personal god stuff in "the sumerians" 1963
https://isac.uchicago.edu/research/publications/misc/sumerians-their-history-culture-and-character

and this is a neat reddit post about the akkadian ilū rē�i "gods of the head" a pair of personal gods each person has assigned at their birth, and the lamassu protective winged bulls that represent constellations and are placed at the entrances to buildings to protect life within. it's pretty confusing and searching for ilū rē�i / ilū rēshi dosen't get many results so i'm not sure how to find out more about this but seems like some early astrology ideas.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Sumer/comments/e8zcnk/shedu_lamassu/ posted:

As guardians, the bull-colossi and lion-sphinxes are subservient to the�Anunnakkū�and�Igigū�Mesopotamia�s premier deities�and surviving textual references from the Ur-III period indicate that the goddess Inana possessed a special 𒈨 [ME = me: cosmic ordinance] for assigning them.
...
If I had to guess, the reason that some humans have a�lamassu�is because of Inana. As the giver of�lamassu, and the namesake of the personal goddess,�i�taru, it's possible both concepts became conflated, leading scribes to think that the�lamassu�Inana bestowed were the same as the personal goddesses assigned to them at birth.

# ¿ Apr 30, 2024 04:55

Charlatan Eschaton: Feb 23, 2018

lol those are good, nice to see some positive vibes from reddit

i wonder if the part of your brain that lets you have imaginary friends as a kid is the same part where your religious stuff goes and as you get older it just gets diverted to like remembering people you watched on survivor on tv or how to do your taxes instead of cool nature spirit guardians.

# ¿ May 1, 2024 13:57

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# ¿ May 13, 2024 22:38

Charlatan Eschaton: Feb 23, 2018

anty bravely helped ferry the kids across the yard with offerings of oatmeal cookie bits

# ¿ May 9, 2024 03:39

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > multidenominational witchcraft thread: drake's chart mid may - uranus will be on his MC