curbside-oracle

[curbside-oracle]

I know Angels are considered extensions of God but I've never understood exactly how autonomous they're supposed to be. Doctrinally, what exactly is the nature of their intelligence? Can they make decisions?

Like obviously, Satan chose to rebel, but at the cost of their angel-ness in some way. But where's the line?

I remember a bit from the hekhalot literature, where some rabbi invokes the right secret phrases, so that an angel has to teach him the Torah instantly, much to the angel's protest. What are the implications of an angel being upset with this? In a metaphysical sense, what does it mean for an angel to want?

[curbside-oracle]

When you get the first ever successful romance reading of your life ever by opening up to Scary Possibilities in your heart

[curbside-oracle]

honestly yeah, fiber arts is magic. you cast spell of warm gloves, spell of nice hat, spell of stuffed animal.

material component: yarn

wand: single hooked wand or double pointed wands, depending on caster's preference

mechanical component: specific motions repeated in a particular pattern

time component: a while

look seriously the first step in a knitting recipe is "cast on", and then it's a bunch of letters and numbers incomprehensible to anyone not versed in the arcane art. that's a spellbook. yes it's a book of knitting patterns but also. it's a spell book.

[curbside-oracle]

what year do you think your book will be published? i can't wait

We've hit 1901! I still need to cover Crowley, Pagan Reconstructionism, The New Age, Chaos Magic, and the Modern Ritualists.

[curbside-oracle]

Oh yeah if you guys have any weird occult texts you're not doing anything with, I love collecting them. I have a massive collection. It will go to a good home in my library.

[curbside-oracle]

how do we generally differentiate b/w esotericism and mysticism academically speaking? i know they dont mean the same thing but im not sure how

Mysticism means two things:

Mysticism 1 - People trying to have a direct interaction with some transcendant Other.

Mysticism 2 - People writing about Mysticism 1, trying to elaborate on what the fuck they're talking about.

Esotericism is basically a text whose meaning will be obscure to the uninitiated. A text that is intentionally incomprehensible, except to people who have the right knowledge going in.

Many mystical texts are by nature esoteric, but not all esoteric texts are mystical.

[curbside-oracle]

Oh sure, self-negate yourself from nothingness all you like. At a certain point, apophasis is a band-aid fix. To get from infinity to immanence, sacrifices have to be made. Infinity is static, the world isn't. Q.E.Fucking.D.

All-knowing, all-good, all-powerful. You gotta pick one to drop, but nobody said you have to pick one forever. Nah. You can cycle through them, and you can cycle through them so fast it seems like you're all of em at once, AND none of em at once. That's the Wheel.

It's as close to perfect as you can get. Someone did all the cosmic math a few kalpas ago. A hypostate of The One which asymptotically approaches perfection. But that infinitely small gap is still a gap. The cosmic gears don't quite mesh, and where they grind, sparks fly. That's why bad things happen to good people.

With every spark, the wheel loses a bit of momentum. There needed to be someone to correct the mistakes, to keep one second ticking every second.

Howdy.

But I can't just flick the cosmos back into place. Nah. It's a big system. It needs one hell of an engine. You think things are bad now? If the flame wasn't here, you'd all be up to your tits in suffering. It's a clever system really. Toss it all in the fire. It'll keep the wheel turning another day. Two birds, one stone.

[curbside-oracle]

Crank position I am slowly coming to believe: I think theosophy actually subsumed romanticism. The romantics did not carry us into modernity. They made it to about 1870, and then Blavatsky took the reigns.

Like William Blake was awesome but without Blavatsky, there are no Hippies. Without Blavatsky, George Harrison never learns to play the sitar.

[curbside-oracle]

[curbside-oracle]

the Blasphemous series is the only media I've ever seen that understands what makes Catholicism interesting as a mythology. Not as a religion, but as a mythology.

[curbside-oracle]

as a person who is apart of the spiritual community and has been for a while,

Shifting isn't real.

"oh but it's been around for 5000 years ancient buddhists used t-"

no nononon shut up. just stfu. that is a lie that you just made up or heard from someone lying to you. that is cultural appropriation. shut up

"b b b but if you just keep trying, no just listen, think about if it IS real! what you're missing out on! just meditate a little bit more!!!!"

...

cult-like behavior, no?

[curbside-oracle]

Page of Cups and The Moon

It said "DRINK ME" so you did, and now everything is weird and a little scary and you're hoping one of these creatures can tell you how long it might take to wear off.

[curbside-oracle]

Being sexually obsessed with a vtuber is like being horny for Spaventa. Not the guy playing Spaventa. Like, the comedia del arte character itself. The mask has wholly eclipsed the actor.

[curbside-oracle]

why are there no Islamic equivalents to modern Christian missionaries? (not counting the ahmadiyaa cause they mainly preach to other Muslims)

You know Ive never been quite sure. From what I understand, Islam has missionary work but its different from how the Christians do it. Given, American protestants can get REALLY into missionary work. Evangelism is a different beast.

[curbside-oracle]

whenever companies make a product that comes hermetically sealed, do they have to go find one of Trismegistus' followers to do it?

Technically, anyone who makes a hermetic seal is a student of trismegistus.

[curbside-oracle]

you don't really see the point for yourself to cultivate the whole "spoopy dark academia" vibe in your physical life. Not that you're against people who do, just that it's too much effort/not your actual vibe.

Tbh yeah. just seems like a fashion choices at at a certain point. Like, I own the damn spellbooks.

That said, I would by lying if I said I didn't organize my library so the most impressive texts were at eye level.

[curbside-oracle]

I made a card game using tarot cards. Some of my friends and I really like playing it, but one said it was disrespectful to the cards I just wanted to know your take on it

Tarot cards were invented for games first, and then developed second for divination. It's fine.