Gnosticism - Tumblr Posts
The Game
“Spiritual existence is fundamentally the only real form of existence. The world is in fact an illusion.
This implies that the resurrection is thought of not just as the return to and the restoration of an original spiritual existence, but also as an act of knowledge in which one realizes that spiritual essence is something that one already has, hidden within oneself as one’s true self.
Salvation is no longer primarily seen as the liberation from the body and the attainment of spiritual existence in the sense of a redemptive event taking place in time and space. Rather, resurrection in this case means the realization that spiritual existence is something one already possesses and that time and space as such are illusions.”
From “The Nag Hammadi Scriptures”.
If we are living in an illusion then the best way of interacting with it may be as a form of play or “Lila”, a game of the Eternal Youth.
Me: This is archangel Raphael Reader: Ok :) Me: He has sassy sense of humour Reader: Nice :) Me: He is dysgraphic Reader: Great :) Me: He is gay and dating an masc presenting non-binary person Reader: Super :) Me: He has PTSD Reader: Oh Me: He is working against his Father (God) because because of Him his son was murdered Reader: What– Me: He is manipulative Reader: Wait– Me: He is addicted to weed and feeling weak because he can't get over his addiction Reader: Please stop Me: He is still grieving his son's and his nation's deaths Reader: WHAT ARE YOU DOING, PLEASE STOP Me: He tried to commit a suicide Reader: * sobbing* Me: :)
am I the only one who couldn’t view Henry as being a catholic? The twins and Francis maybe, as well as Bunny in some aspects as he was raised in the suburbs and had a typical American childhood, but definitely not Henry. I thought of him as more of some esoteric gnostic that believed in the secrets of the Vatican (something Bunny mentioned in the book just to annoy them) rather than believing in an abrahamic religion, but ig just my interpretation of him
Relevant websites regarding spirituality and other useful information:
gnosis.com
ascensionglossary.com
energeticsynthesis.com
Was Mythicism or Historicism More Dominant In the Early History and Development of the Christian Church?
By Goodreads Author Eli Kittim
——-
Preface
There are certain things in the Bible that we all take for granted today, such as the historicity of Jesus, his execution by Pontius Pilate, and the like. We think that these “facts” were written in stone and have been known since Christianity’s inception. How can anyone seriously challenge them?
——-
Christian Origins
But early Christianity was not monolithic. It was diverse. There were many different sects that held very different views both about Jesus and the interpretation of the New Testament. Orthodoxy eventually won the day but that doesn’t mean that they necessarily represented the sect that held the hermeneutically-correct and valid Bible interpretations or that they had the correct view about Jesus. Far from it. There were, in fact, diametrically opposed views that ranged from one extreme to another, from a completely human Jesus to a phantom or a ghost that never really existed. But, as we will see, there is a middle ground where mythicism and historicism meet.
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Gnosticism
The New Testament is a literary creation. So it’s difficult to probe its historical antecedents. What were some of the opposing views to “Orthodoxy”? One of the most vocal of these Christian sects was centred in Alexandria, Egypt: the Gnostics. They were the first advocates of the “you-don’t-need-religion, you-need-a-relationship-with-Jesus” pitch. Although there were many splinter groups, they all emphasised a personal “gnosis” (knowledge) and acquaintance with spiritual realities rather than a preoccupation with dry religious discourses and traditions. They originated in the first century C.E. and flourished until the second century, during which the Patristic Fathers denounced them as heretics. But were they? According to Bart Ehrman and Elaine Pagels, they were the genuine Christians of that early period whom the Orthodox Church tried to suppress!
——-
To be sure, their theology was influenced by Greek thought, but the focal point of their doctrine and practice was not based on rhetoric or dogma but rather on personal existential experience. And based on their own inimitable style, one can infer that they had better insights into the divine than their orthodox counterparts who did little more than debate the issues.
——-
Docetism
Then there were the Docetists, who held the “heterodox” (i.e. “at variance with orthodoxy”) doctrine that what appeared to be a historical Jesus was nothing more than an apparition or a phantom, and that his phenomenological bodily existence was not real. This is actually more in line with Scripture, which repeatedly talks of visions and apparitions in one form or another (cf. Lk 24.23–24; Gal. 1.11-12). These are the first mythicists who believed that Jesus never existed! There’s a great deal of Biblical evidence that supports this view. This early Christian view called “Docetism” (derived from the Greek term “Dokesis,” meaning “to seem”)——which held that Christ did not really exist in human form, an idea that was later picked up by Islam——attracted some of the greatest Biblical thinkers of Antiquity:
“According to Photius [a 9th century Byzantine Patriarch], Clement of Alexandria held at least a quasi-docetic belief regarding the nature of Christ, namely that the Word/Logos did not became flesh, but only ‘appeared to be in flesh,’ an interpretation which directly denied the reality of the incarnation” (Ashwin-Siejkowski, Piotr. “Clement of Alexandria on Trial: The Evidence of ‘Heresy’ from Photius’ Bibliotheca.” [Leiden: Brill, 2010], p. 95).
As would be expected, Docetism was eventually rejected as a heretical doctrine at the First Council of Nicaea in 325 C.E. But this verdict was issued in the 4th century. And there is a very good reason why mythicism had thitherto been on the upswing. In fact, despite this setback, the hermeneutical doctrine that gave rise to Docetism continued to hold sway over most of the church until the Reformation.
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The Monophysite Christian church
According to tradition, the Coptic Church of Egypt was founded by Mark the evangelist in the first century CE. Due to a Christological dispute, this “Monophysite” Christian church was condemned as heretical by the Council of Chalcedon in 451 CE. Instead of accepting the doctrine that Christ was fully human and fully divine, the Coptic church asserted that Christ had only one nature, and that nature was divine. In other words, just like the Docetists they denied the incarnation and therefore they can be technically defined as mythicists! A similar monophysite explanation of how the divine and human relate within the person of Jesus is Eutychianism. Eutychians were often classified as Phantasiasts by their opponents because they reduced Jesus’ incarnation to a phantasm or an illusion of some kind. Their Christology was along the lines of Docetism in that they, too, denied the full reality of Jesus’ humanity. Thus, we find that there were quite a number of sects that denied the historicity of Jesus during the early period of the church. Things started to change with the onset of the first ecumenical councils!
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The Alexandrian School
The early Christian church held to an allegorical (theological) Interpretation of the Bible, not a historical one. Philo’s essential approach to Biblical interpretation influenced the Christian School of hermeneutics, which also developed in the city of Alexandria, Egypt. One of its principal leaders was the Great Bible scholar, Clement of Alexandria (150-215 CE), who while acknowledging that the Bible contained various levels of meaning also realized that the non-literal (i.e. the allegorical/mystical) interpretations contained the ideal spiritual insights. Alexandrian hermeneutics were so popular that they eventually became the dominant force in Biblical interpretation up until the time of the Protestant Reformation. So, the allegorical/theological Biblical interpretation that gave rise to such views as Docetism was the mainstay of early Biblical scholarship. This method was obviously more inclined towards the spiritual, the metaphorical, and the metaphysical, dare I say the Gnostic!
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The School of Antioch
Sometime towards the end of the 3rd century CE, the School of Antioch was founded. It was the first Seminary, so to speak, founded in Syria that overemphasized the literal interpretation of the Bible and the humanity of Christ. This so-called “exegetical school” interpreted Scripture primarily according to its historical and grammatical sense. In an attempt to offset the earlier excesses of Biblical interpretation that could lead to various questionable doctrines, such as those of Docetism, the Antioch school became increasingly dogmatic and heavily involved in overemphasizing the literal interpretation of the Bible and the full humanity of Jesus. This led to the so-called “Nestorian Heresy,” namely that Jesus possessed two hypostases, one human and one divine! As a result of the condemnation of Nestorius (386 – 450 CE) at the First Council of Ephesus in 431, the Antioch school’s influence declined considerably and never really recovered. Many followers abandoned the school and it eventually moved to another location further East in Persia. Even though the Antiochian school’s tenets had lost traction, they were eventually taken up again by Martin Luther and John Calvin, who restored them to their former glory.
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Conclusion
So, the earlier Alexandrian School of allegorical interpretation at least allowed the possibility of mythicism to be considered as a viable option, whereas the later Antiochian school of literal interpretation——which influenced not only “the dogma of Christ” in the early ecumenical councils, but also modern Bible scholarship——eventually became the dominant school of hermeneutics that held to a rigid form of literalism and overemphasized the historicity of Jesus. In other words, the early church was not as adamant about the historicity of Jesus as the later Church! Thus, up until the end of the third century (the Ante-Nicene Era), and just prior to the onset of the first ecumenical council, the allegorical/metaphorical Jesus dominated the Biblical landscape. It was not until much later that the literal, historical interpretation of Jesus became the prevalent view that it is today!
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Is the Old Testament Inspired?: The Case Against Marcion
By Award-Winning Author Eli Kittim
——-
Is the Old Testament Uninspired Because it Doesn’t Mention Jesus?
Marcion of Sinope (ca. 85 – 160 CE) preached that Jesus’ teachings, especially those on love, were completely at odds with the Old Testament (OT) revelations regarding the God of the Jews, whom he saw as legalistic and punitive, with no connection at all to the essential message of the New Testament (NT). One key Marcionite objection to the authority of the Jewish Bible is that the name of Jesus is never once mentioned there. However, the exclusivity of Jesus in the NT does not preclude the inspiration of the Hebrew Bible. The notion that the father cannot be known apart from Jesus has absolutely nothing to do with the question of the OT’s canonicity. For example, Acts 4.12 says:
Salvation is found in no one else, for there is
no other name under heaven given to
mankind by which we must be saved.
The fact that the name of Jesus is not found in the OT has no bearing on whether this collection of ancient Hebrew writings is inspired or not. After all, the name of Jesus (Ιησοῦς) is found in the Septuagint’s Book of Joshua, an early Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible: https://www.academic-bible.com/en/online-bibles/septuagint-lxx/read-the-bible-text/bibel/text/lesen/?tx_buhbibelmodul_bibletext%5Bscripture%5D=Joshua+4
At any rate, these are two fundamentally different questions. The former has to do with Christology (i.e. the study of Christ), whereas the latter has to do with Biblical theology (i.e. the study of the Bible)!
The former has to to do with “Theology proper,” that is to say, with the exclusivity of Jesus as the unique preexistent Word of God (the Logos) through whom “All things came into being” (John 1.1-4), or as the “only begotten Son” (1 John 4.9) who prior to his incarnation “was in the form of God” (Phil. 2.6). Marcionites will therefore argue that Christ is the *only one* who is capable of revealing the Father, given that “He is the image of the invisible God” (Col 1.15) “through whom he [the Father] also created the worlds” (Heb. 1.1-2). For example, John 14.6 reads:
Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth
and the life. No one comes to the Father
except through me.’
But this declaration is not a proof-text demonstrating that the OT is not authoritative simply because it doesn’t mention Jesus’ divinity. That has to do with progressive revelation, the idea that revelation is given a little at a time.
Holding to a high Christology has little to do with whether or not the Hebrew Bible is inspired. That’s an entirely different issue involving Biblical theology, Pneumatology, and the like. So, the fact that Jesus is not mentioned by name in the Hebrew Bible is not a sufficient reason to dismiss this collection of Books as uninspired.
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Is the OT Uncanonical?
If the OT is not authoritative, as some Marcionites have argued, then why would the NT writers quote extensively from an “uninspired” book? And what would be the purpose of the standard *Biblical canon* if the NT authors extensively quoted from so-called “uninspired” books? In other words, if the OT is not authoritative, it would *contradict* the “canon of scripture” principle in which only Biblically-inspired books are accepted into the canon. Not to mention that the OT is widely viewed as authoritative by the NT precisely because it is included as a source of prophetic predictions in many different places, notably in Matthew 24, and especially in the Book of Revelation!
As a matter of fact, the NT authors insist that the OT is inspired! For example, at the time of the composition of the second letter to Timothy, there was no NT Scripture as yet. So, when the Biblical writers referred to Scripture, with the exception of two instances——namely, 2 Pet. 3.16, wherein Paul’s letters are referred to as “Scripture,” and 1 Tim. 5.18, in which Luke’s gospel is referred to as “Scripture”——they always meant the Hebrew Bible. The proof that they considered the Hebrew Bible to be *inspired* is in Second Timothy 3.16, which reads:
All scripture is inspired [πᾶσα γραφὴ
Θεόπνευστος] by God and is useful for
teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for
training in righteousness.
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Does Intertextuality Prove that the OT is Inspired?
All the books of the NT are constantly borrowing and quoting extensively from the OT, a “Book” without which the NT would be lacking a foundation. If we were to remove all those OT quotations, the NT would be insupportable, not to mention incomprehensible!
So, whoever thinks that the OT is uncanonical and uninspired is clearly not familiar with the heavy literary dependence of the NT on the OT (i.e. a process known as “intertextuality”). If you were to open up a critical edition of the NT, you’d be astounded by how much of the OT is actually quoted in the NT. Prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Zechariah, and Daniel abound all over the place. The Book of Revelation, in particular, is mostly based on a reorganization of OT prophetic material from Zechariah, Joel, Amos, Daniel, and many others. A brief look at a *Chain-Reference-Bible* would quickly illustrate this fact: https://archive.org/details/ThompsonChainReferenceBible/page/n47/mode/2up
So, the proposal to remove this material——-suggested by Marcion of Sinope and, to a lesser extent, by some modern day preachers and closet Marcionites, such as Andy Stanley——is rather absurd as the NT would be without any foundation or justification concerning messianic, eschatological, or prophetic terminology. For example, various questions would inevitably arise: Where did the NT get the idea of the day of the Lord? Or the idea of the resurrection of the dead? Or that of the great tribulation? Or the concept of the Antichrist? Or the notion of the Messiah? All these concepts are deeply rooted in the Hebrew Bible!
If the OT is not authoritative, then the verbal agreements between the OT and the NT would equally disqualify those same statements as inauthentic NT references. For example, Paul quotes Isaiah verbatim. Many of the Jesus sayings are from the OT. If, say, a Marcionite were to claim that the OT is not inspired, then he would have to concede that some of Paul’s and Jesus’ sayings are equally uninspired, since they are derived from the OT. In other words, unbeknownst to the Marcionites, in rejecting the OT, they would also be rejecting the NT as well!
For example, most of the Matthew-24 prophetic material is based on the OT: from the abomination of desolation (Mt. 24.15; cf. Dan. 9.27) to the time when “the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light” (Mt.24.29; cf. Joel 3:15). If these OT prophecies were not inspired or authoritative, then they would certainly not have been used in the NT prophetic literature!
The explicit approval of OT passages as authoritative by the NT writers, and especially by Paul and Jesus——as well as the explicit message that “All scripture is inspired by God” (2 Tim. 3.16), which obviously includes the OT, given that It has been heavily employed in the NT——argues for the inspiration of the OT!
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As for Marcionism, it really involves a syncretism of Christianity and Gnosticism, with all the extra-biblical distortions that this fusion entails, such as the assumed existence of two deities (a lesser and a higher one), and the evil inherent in the material world. These are two diametrically opposed belief-systems between the monotheism of the NT and the polytheism of the Gnostics!
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Conclusion
Thus, Marcion, who was an anti-Semite, not only rejected Yahweh as a lesser, evil god, but he went on to dismiss the entire OT as if it were completely uninspired. He felt that it lacked the extravagant love story of the NT, which was ultimately derived from the Supreme God and father of Jesus Christ. He thought that these two testaments pertained to two fundamentally different gods. And so he urged Christians to steer clear of the OT because he considered it to be the product of an inferior deity. However, this is not the view of the NT authors, nor is it part of mainstream NT theology, soteriology, ecclesiology, or eschatology.
What is more, Marcion obviously did not critically assess both testaments to fully explore the extent to which *intertextuality* was involved within these manuscripts (i.e. the literary dependence of one testament on the other) and how inextricably linked they really were! Therefore, a rejection of the entire OT is simultaneously a rejection of many portions of the NT, including many of Jesus’ sayings. Such a separation would render the NT completely useless both theologically and Christologically, if not also eschatologically. Marcion’s claims would therefore undermine Christianity’s overall integrity, and this is probably why Marcion was denounced as a heretic and was excommunicated by the church of Rome ca. 144 CE.
To be fair, Marcion had the right idea, but the wrong approach. It’s true that there’s a radical shift in the NT from an active obedience to the 10-commandments to a passive acceptance of God’s Grace; from an external circumcision of the flesh to an internal circumcision of the heart (and the consequent indwelling of the Holy Spirit). Contrary to the Aleph and Tav in the Hebrew Scriptures, we are suddenly introduced to the NT revelation of God in Jesus Christ as the Alpha and Omega (using the first and last letters of the Greek rather than the Hebrew alphabet). After all, the NT is written exclusively in Greek, by Greeks, and written predominantly to Greek communities within the Roman empire. Paul himself maintains that we are “justified by faith in Christ, and not by doing the works of the law” (e.g. Gal. 2.16). So, there is very little here that is Jewish!
But although the NT is a uniquely Greek “Book,” in which the name of Yahweh is never once mentioned, nevertheless the Hebrew Bible is still its foundation, without which the former would lose not only its historical lineage and theological context but also its reliability, validity, and, ultimately, its credibility!
The Quran’s Alternative Christianity
By Goodreads Author Eli Kittim
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Christianity’s Influence on the Quran
Although polytheism was the dominant form of religion in pre-Islamic Arabia, the Quran was diametrically opposed to this view and superseded it with its own brand of monotheism. The unknown author(s) of the Quran was obviously influenced by the Gnostic religion of the Mandaeans, who are sometimes called "Christians of Saint John," and by that of the Sabians or Manichaeans, who revered certain prophets, such as Zoroaster and Jesus. Despite these strong surrounding influences, however, the author(s) of the Quran seems to gravitate towards the Judeo-Christian Bible, paying special attention to the Jesus story and accepting even some of its more miraculous or fantastic elements, such as the virgin birth and the 2nd coming. That’s a clue that Christianity made a greater impact on the author(s) of the Quran than, say, Mithraism, Zoroastrianism, or Mazdakism! If, on the other hand, the author(s) of the Quran had used Judaism as a prototype of his new religion, then, in principle, he would never have accepted the Christian claims. Besides, Islam doesn’t show strict adherence to circumcision or the Law. And even though Moses and Abraham are mentioned more times than Jesus in the Quran, it’s rather obvious that Christianity had made a deeper impact on the author(s) than any other religion! And just as Christianity accepted the Hebrew Bible, so did the Quran.
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A Christian Revolt
Do you really know what the Quran is? Answer: the product of a late *Gnostic Christian revolt* against Byzantine Orthodoxy. No wonder its adherents hated Constantinople so vigorously that they finally sacked it in 1453 ce. What I am proposing is that the *Gnostic-Christian Sects* that were marginalized by Byzantine Orthodoxy from the fourth century onwards didn’t go away quietly but seemingly conspired against the Church during the early part of the dark ages! The result of those efforts eventuated in the Book we now call the Quran. The syncretistic-gnostic elements present in the Quran suggest that it was in fact an amalgamation of heresies that characterized many different Gnostic Christian sects.
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The Apocryphal Reformation
After the 4th-Century Church solidified itself theologically and otherwise within the Roman Empire and began to accept certain “canonical” texts while excluding others, those communities that held to the *rejected* gnostic and so-called “apocryphal” works eventually united to form their own Bible. The result was the Quran, which was mostly based on a variety of Jewish and Christian apocryphal and Gnostic texts!
Over time, Islam gradually lost it’s connection to Christianity (much like Christianity did when it broke away from Judaism) and became an independent religion in its own right. It may have been more Christ-centered at the beginning. But in order to distinguish itself from its rival Christian counterparts it would have had to significantly deemphasize its central Christian tenets. So, the first communities that gave rise to the Quran most probably comprised Gnostic Christians. Thus, the author of the Quran may have been seeking to take revenge on his Orthodox superiors, much like what a disgruntled Christian priest would do at a local church. Martin Luther immediately comes to mind and, with him, the Protestant Reformation!
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The Beginning of Islam as a Christian Minority Religion
No wonder the Quran reveres the Christian dogmas of the virgin birth and the second coming of Jesus, while putting less emphasis on the historical Jesus, his atonement, and his divinity! And the Islamic traditions begin to make more sense from this perspective, as, for example, when the Nestorian monk Bahira in Bosra foretold to the adolescent Muhammad his future prophetic career. And just as Orthodoxy condemned the Gnostic Christian texts as *heretical* and *uninspired*, Islam must have fired back at them alleging that the so-called “canonical Christian texts” themselves were *corrupt*. It seems, then, that Islam itself came out of these early Gnostic-Nestorian Christian roots! In other words, even though it now openly competes with Christianity for converts, originally, Islam must have been a Christian minority religion on the fringes of the Eastern Roman Empire that was well-aware of all the debates that were raging all around them.
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The New Testament Epistles Concur with the Apocryphal Texts that Undergird the Quran
As an offshoot of Christian Gnosticism, with an emphasis on personal existential experience rather than reason or doctrine, the Quran was, perhaps, closer to the truth than the pontifical, dogmatic Christianity of the Roman Empire. Gnosis, after all, was all about knowing rather than believing. And just because the Gnostic Christian texts were rejected by the church does not necessarily mean that they were wholly uninspired. For example, the Second Treatise of the Great Seth and the Gnostic Apocalypse of Peter, as attested in the Quran (Sura 4:157-158), doubt the established Crucifixion story and, by implication, perhaps even Jesus’ historicity. In other words, the Quran picked up Docetic thoughts and Gnostic ideas and asserted that all the acts and sufferings of Jesus’ life, including the crucifixion, were mere appearances. This is a noteworthy observation because, unlike the theological gospels, the New Testament epistles also suggest that Christ did not die in antiquity. Rather, they claim that he will be revealed “at the final point of time” (1 Pet. 1.20 NJB) and will die “once in the end of the world” (Heb. 9.26b). This idea of an earthly, eschatological messiah is also echoed in the pseudepigraphical Jewish-Christian texts, The Ascension of Isaiah and the Testament of Solomon. But it had been subsequently suppressed by Orthodox Christianity, which confused theology with history, and turned prophecy into biography. So, in this sense, Islam was correct in maintaining that the New Testament had been corrupted: not the text itself, but rather it’s interpretation.
However, as time passed, and as Islam separated itself more and more from Christianity, it, too, began to lose touch with the central tenet of Christ’s divinity, while its adherents took too many liberties with the original doctrines and became less and less “Christian”! To the extent that Islam gravitated away from Christ as the focal point of its doctrines, it, too, became corrupt, so much so that the deity of Christ was completely ignored or denied. Eventually, the religion’s deity became more identified with the monotheistic God of the Jews than with that of the Christians. That was the beginning of something new: the birth of a new religion!
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Family Feud Among the Abrahamic Religions
To sum up, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are all part of the family of Abraham. Hence why they are called Abrahamic religions. Christianity, which grew out of Judaism, in turn, gave birth to Islam! But in the end, it’s like a dysfunctional family where the grandfather, father, and son can’t get along with each other.
——-
Mihoyo make Fontaine now
Journals, articles, books & texts, on folklore, mythology, occult, and related -to- general anthropology, history, archaeology.
Some good and/or interesting (or hokey) ‘examples’ included for most resources. tryin to organize & share stuff that was floating around onenote.
Journals (open access) – Folklore, Occult, etc
Culutural Analysis - folklore, popular culture, anthropology – The Mythical Ghoul in Arabic Culture
Folklore - folklore, anthropology, archaeology – The Making of a Bewitchment Narrative, Grecian Riddle Jokes
Incantatio - journal on charms, charmers, and charming – Verbal Charms from a 17th Century Manuscript
Oral Tradition – Jewish Folk Literature, Noises of Battle in Old English Poetry
Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics – Nani Fairtyales about the Cruel Bride, Energy as the Mediator between Natural and Supernatural Realms
International Journal of Intangible Heritage
Studia Mythologica Slavica (many articles not English) – Dragon and Hero, Fertility Rites in the Raining Cave, The Grateful Wolf and Venetic Horses in Strabo’s Geography
Folklorica - Slavic & Eastern European folklore association – Ritual: The Role of Plant Characteristics in Slavic Folk Medicine, Animal Magic
Esoterica - The Journal of Esoteric Studies – The Curious Case of Hermetic Graffiti in Valladolid Cathedral
The Esoteric Quarterly
Mythological Studies Journal
Luvah - Journal of the Creative Imagination – A More Poetical Character Than Satan
Transpersonal Studies – Shamanic Cosmology as an Evolutionary Neurocognitive Epistemology, Dreamscapes
Beyond Borderlands – tumblr
Paranthropology
GOLEM - Journal of Religion and Monsters – The Religious Functions of Pokemon, Anti-Semitism and Vampires in British Popular Culture 1875-1914
Correspondences - Online Journal for the Academic Study of Western Esotericism – Kriegsmann’s Philological Quest for Ancient Wisdom
– History, Archaeology
Adoranten - pre-historic rock art
Chitrolekha - India art & design history – Gomira Dance Mask
Silk Road – Centaurs on the Silk Road: Hellenistic Textiles in Western China
Sino-Platonic - East Asian languages and civilizations – Discursive Weaving Women in Chinese and Greek Traditions
MELA Notes - Middle East Librarians Association
Didaskalia - Journal for Ancient Performance
Ancient Narrative - Greek, Roman, Jewish novelistic traditions – The Construction of the Real and the Ideal in the Ancient Novel
Akroterion - Greek, Roman – The Deer Hunter: A Portrait of Aeneas
Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies – Erotic and Separation Spells, The Ancients’ One-Horned Ass
Roman Legal Tradition - medieval civil law – Between Slavery and Freedom
Phronimon - South African society for Greek Philosophy and the Humanities – Special Issue vol. 13 #2, Greek philosophy in dialogue with African+ philosophy
The Heroic Age - Early medieval Northwestern Europe – Icelandic Sword in the Stone
Peregrinations - Medieval Art and Architecture – Special Issue vol. 4 #1, Mappings
Tiresas - Medieval and Classical – Sexuality in the Natural and Demonic Magic of the Middle Ages
Essays in Medieval Studies – The Female Spell-caster in Middle English Romances, The Sweet Song of Satan
Hortulus - Medieval studies – Courtliness & the Deployment of Sodomy in 12th-Century Histories of Britain, Monsters & Monstrosities issue, Magic & Witchcraft issue
Annual of Medieval Studies at CEU
Medieval Archaeology – Divided and Galleried Hall-Houses, The Hall of the Knights Templar at Temple Balsall
Medieval Feminist Forum – multiculturalism issue; Gender, Skin Color and the Power of Place … Romance of Moriaen, Writing Novels About Medieval Women for Modern Readers, Amazons & Guerilleres
Quidditas - medieval and renaissance
Medieval Warfare
The Viking Society - ridiculous amount of articles from 1895-2011
Journals (limited free/sub/institution access)
Al-Masaq - Journal of the Medieval Mediterranean – Piracy as Statecraft: The Policies of Taifa of Denia, free issue
Mythical Creatures of Europe - article + map
Folklore - limited free access – Volume 122 #3, On the Ambiguity of Elves
Digital Philology - a journal of medieval cultures – Saracens & Race in Roman de la Rose Iconography
Pomegranate - International Journal for Pagan Studies
Transcultural Psychiatry
European Journal of English Studies – Myths East of Venice issue, Esotericism issue
Books, Texts, Images etc. – Folklore, Occult etc.
Magical Gem Database - Greek/Egyptian gems & talismans [x] [x]
Biblioteca Aracana - (mostly) Greek pagan history, rituals, poetry etc. – Greater Tool Consecration, The Yew-Demon
Curse Tablets from Roman Britain - [x]
The Gnostic Society Library – The Corpus Hermeticum, Hymn of the Robe of Glory
Grimoar - vast occult text library – Grimoires, Greek & Roman Necromancy, Queer Theology, Ancient Christian Magic
Internet Sacred Text Archive - religion, occult, folklore, etc. ancient texts
Verse and Transmutation - A Corpus of Middle English Alchemical Poetry
– History
The Internet Classics Archive - mainly Greco-Roman, some Persian & Chinese translated texts
Bodleian Oriental Manuscript Collection - [x] [x] [x]
Virtual Magic Bowl Archive - Jewish-Aramaic incantation bowl text and images [x] [x]
Vindolanda Tablets - images and translations of tablets from 1st & 2nd c. [x]
Corsair - online catalog of the Piedmont Morgan library (manuscripts) [x] [x]
Beinecke rare book & manuscripts – Wagstaff miscellany, al-Qur'ān–1813
LUNA - tonnes from Byzantine manuscripts to Arabic cartography
Maps on the web - Oxford Library [x] [x] [x]
Bodleian Library manuscripts - photographs of 11th-17th c. manuscripts – Treatises on Heraldry, The Worcester Fragments (polyphonic music), 12 c. misc medical and herbal texts
Early Manuscripts at Oxford U - very high quality photographs – (view through bottom left) Military texts by Athenaeus Mechanicus 16th c. [x] [x], MS Douce 195 Roman de la Rose [x] [x]
Trinity College digital manuscript library – Mathematica Medica, 15th c.
eTOME - primary sources about Celtic peoples
Websites, Blogs – Folklore, Occult etc.
Demonthings - Ancient Egyptian Demonology Project
Invocatio - (mostly) western esotericism
Heterodoxology - history, esotericism, science – Religion in the Age of Cyborgs
The Recipes Project - food, magic, science, medicine – The Medieval Invisible Man (invisibility recipes)
Morbid Anatomy - museum/library in Brooklyn
– History
Islamic Philosophy Online - tonnes of texts, articles, links, utilities, this belongs in every section; mostly English
Medicina Antiqua - Graeco-Roman medicine
History of the Ancient World - news and resources – The So-called Galatae, Gauls, Celts in Early Hellenistic Balkans; Maidens, Matrons Magicians: Women & Personal Ritual Power in Late Antique Egypt
Διοτίμα - Women & Gender in Antiquity
Bodleian Library Exhibitions Online – Khusraw & Shirin, Hebrew Manuscripts as a Meeting-Place of Cultures
Medievalists – folk studies, witchcraft, mythology, science tags
Atlas Obscura – Bats and Vampiric Lore of Pére Lachaise Cemetery
I wanna play this game so badly. It looks so cool...
Kinda funny when snobs consider your work or what you enjoy a bad because its only enjoyed by a smaller audience which then they pride themselves on they liking something thats enjoyed by the masses "it speaks to the human condition"
Then if you like something thats resonates by a larger audience, they flip it to "enjoyed by the unwashed masses" which then these prigs boast like something thats niche its because "we enlightened few understand something deeper and higher."
When it was the reverse logic 5 minutes ago
Cliche, niche, broad, what makes money, and tampering around with concepts in dissent and distaste is "bad" unless "the right people" like it and get what *they* want
These people resort to nothing buttery and labeling to stuff they dislike and we gotta take their word for it
While the likes of us gotta justify what we like and want by bending over backwards, jump through hoops, and do jumping jacks and somersaults
And they might dismiss it anyway as “subjective feelings” and “unsubstantial” which once again, they don’t elaborate and we just gotta take their word, and we’re supposed to abide to their nebulous measures of what is “objectively well written”
Reminds me how Jesus describes the Pharisees in Matthew 23: 4
“They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.”
This is why I'm so skeptical of people who talk about being "objective" when it comes to these things, because their logic is fluid and conforms to whatever make their way right and everyone else's wrong. Even when they end up contradicting themselves.
Like Andrew Ketterley from The Magician’s Nephew, they’re a bunch of peddling magicians who think because they themselves are "objective" by default because they "know objective things" they don't need to follow the rules like everyone else because everything they do is “perfectly rooted in objective reality”, they alone are “objective” and everyone else is “subjective” and therefor “subject(ed)” to their “objective” will
When “Objective” mean things that apply to *everybody*
Its like Gnosticism,
They (G)now, with a “G” and you don’t, so its different when its them
Fandom and Literary Woes: The Arrogance of The Information Age and Literary Intellectuals
One thing I've noticed with the RWBY fandom and pretty much modern pop-culture and literary intellectuals is this nasty habit of locking concepts and tropes down into theories and formulas and try to completely rationalize what is "interesting" and what's "boring" and ruling everything else as corruptions or worthless little parasites upon what's the supposed "objective reality" and the end-all-be-all of a concept.
My first experience with this was with the "literary experts" coming out to rule out what's the end-all-be-all of concepts like Jaune and Pyrrha and Arkos in epic fantasy/sci-fi after the RWBY Volume 3 Finale
Baically
"Arkos ended tragically worked, ergo all couples and characters in epic stories like Jaune and Pyrrha(the dork knight and the warrior woman isolated by society) especially if they are directly inspired by them must also end that way to raise steaks and consequences, and they only way they can have a happy ending is in a sitcom/romcom. Doesn't matter what the epic story is about, what happens, their roles, or why, or why it makes audiences happy, if they don't end up dead in an epic, it means nothing."
Any anyone who actively disagreed either was exiled to RWBY Chibi, or been implied
"Okay, do your thing(AU/OG Work), but keep in mind, it ultimately means nothing, it contributes nothing, its nothing but a worthless little parasite upon the glorious meaningful tragedy that is Arkos and same can be said what you plan to do with the rest of RWBY.
You have no objectively good reason what makes you happy unlike us who have every objectively good reason in the cosmos for our satisfaction and contentment."
with and underlying gnostic attitude of
"Because we, the experts, know what things truly are, what they can ever be, and in what specific ways and genres and you don't."
and much like Andrew Ketterley, they are often arrogant and hypocritical and are not bound by the rules of logic like everyone else.
"Men like me, who possess hidden wisdom, are freed from common rules just as we are cut off from common pleasures. Ours, my boy, is a high and lonely destiny.”-Andrew Ketterley, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Magician's Nephew
When snobs consider your work or what you enjoy a bad because its only enjoyed by a smaller audience which then they pride themselves on they liking something thats enjoyed by the masses "it speaks to the human condition"
Then if you like something thats resonates by a larger audience, they flip it to "enjoyed by the unwashed masses" which then these prigs boast like something thats niche its because "we enlightened few understand something deeper and higher."
When it was the reverse logic 5 minutes ago
Cliche, niche, broad, what makes money, and tampering around with concepts in dissent and distaste is "bad" unless "the right people" like it and get what they want
Because they alone are the alchemists who can turn lead in to gold
Which is why they say its "interesting" to make evil superman out spite for superheroes like that in The Boys but a sexy magical girl Captain Marvel with her own set os sailor scouts like in Kamen America, especially made out of dissatisfaction and distaste how the inspiration was handled is "derivative" because the "experts" supposedly know what's the objective end-all-be-all reality of a concept and we don't.
They know, with a capital "G" and we don't.
And because they have "The Gnosis" and perfectly rooted in "objective reality" logic is fluid to whatever makes their way right.
They hav exclusive dominion over these concepts and tropes
Because again, they have "The Gnosis" and we don't.
Because it’s the Information Age and we have so much info, those who are oh-so objective and intelligent can use said information to find what’s the apex of a concept or a trope rule out everything else.
All as they judge, shame, and lecture us peons high up in their ivory towers hundreds of yards away on social media now to supposedly stay “objective” and not catch the disease of “subjective feelings” which they never elaborate
And like RetroBlasting said in his doing nothing video it’s no longer the analogue world and they know better than anyone else so they see our stuff on their feed and stop and jump in and lecture us
And and the critics often the resort to greedy reductionism(aka “Nothing Buttery”) to reduce our stuff to whatever makes it sound stupid/immoral which then they proceed to gloss over, ignore, and label the details