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camisoledadparis · 11 days ago

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THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … December 17

Paul Cadmus - portrait by Luigi Lucioni

1904 – Paul Cadmus (d.1999), American painter, is best known for the satiric innocence of his frequently censored paintings of burly men in skin-tight clothes and curvaceous women in provocative poses, but he also created works that celebrate same-sex domesticity.

Born in New York City on December 17, 1904 into a family of commercial artists, Cadmus studied at the National Academy of Design and the Arts Students League. He lived in Europe from 1931 to 1933, where he traveled with artist Jared French and where he produced his first mature canvases.

In the 1930s, Cadmus became the center of a circle of gay men who were prominent within the arts in New York City. This circle included his brother-in-law, Lincoln Kirstein, who helped found the American School of Ballet, and the photographer George Platt Lynes, for whom Cadmus frequently modeled.

In the 1930s, Cadmus used caricature, satire, and innuendo to veil the homoeroticism of his subjects, which radically pushed at the boundaries of acceptability. Cadmus's 1933 painting The Fleet's In! was selected for inclusion in a show at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, and in 1934 it placed him at the center of a public controversy.

The Fleet's In

Like many of his early works, the painting is ostensibly heterosexual in its depiction of sailors flirting with young women, who may be prostitutes, but it nevertheless manages to suggest a homosexual exchange between a well-dressed civilian, who sports a red tie, a widely recognized signal of homosexuality from the turn of the twentieth century, and a sailor to whom he offers a cigarette.

The painting's homoerotic subtext led to its removal after the opening of the exhibition. Frequently cited as one of the earliest incidents of government censorship, the removal of the painting was almost certainly motivated by homophobia.

Cadmus's painting Coney Island (1935) also became the subject of controversy. Its portrayal of local residents engaged in provocative (heterosexual) antics enraged Brooklyn realtors, who threatened to file a civil suit against the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Similarly, his commission for the Port Washington post office was also scandalous and was cancelled: the mural he produced, Pocahontas and John Smith (1938), so emphasizes the buttocks and genitals of the Native Americans that it obscures the subject, which is the rescue of John Smith.As a result of Cadmus's notoriety, his 1937 exhibition at Midtown Galleries in New York attracted more than 7,000 visitors.

Other early works of particular interest for their homoeroticism are YMCA Locker Room (1933), Shore Leave (1933), and Greenwich Village Cafeteria (1934). Like The Fleet's In!, these works also document homosexual cruising and seduction.

In Cadmus's paintings, significant exchanges of glances signal sexual longing and availability, often in the very midst of mundane activities. His work documents the surreptitious cruising rituals of an urban, gay male subculture in the 1930s.

Cadmus's painting What I Believe (1947-1948) was inspired by E.M. Forster's essay of the same name, in which the novelist expresses his faith in personal relations and his concept of a spiritual aristocracy "of the sensitive, the considerate, and the plucky. Its members are to be found in all nations and classes, and all through the ages, and there is a secret understanding between them when they meet. They represent the true human condition, the one permanent victory of our queer race over cruelty and chaos."

What I Believe

Cadmus's allegorical painting, which depicts such figures as Forster and Christopher Isherwood in Socratic poses, makes clear his intellectual allegiance to the humanism that Forster depicted as gravely threatened by fascism.

In still other later works, such as The Bath (1951) and The Haircut (1986), Cadmus explores the joys of his long-term relationship with his partner and model, Jon Andersson. These paintings are particularly touching in their illustration of an entirely ordinary but rarely depicted subject: the domesticity of a same-sex couple.

Although he stopped painting towards the end of his life, Cadmus continued to draw at his home in Weston, Connecticut, particularly portraits and figure studies of Andersson, his favorite model and companion of 35 years.

Cadmus died on December 12, 1999, five days shy of his 95th birthday.

Tony Tavarossi and bike

1933 – Homo-masculine proto-leatherman Tony Tavarossi (d.1981) was a native San Franciscan who was as important to gay liberation history in San Francisco as his contemporary, the drag-queen politician José Sarria.

He came out at the age of twelve under the tables (literally) in the curtained booths of the South China Café at l8th and Castro streets. He nick-named himself "Tony"; his birth name was Elloyd Tavarossi.

He was a “walking oral historian” who in his own personal history set in motion a “domino effect” in gay liberation history:

Tony Tavarossi founded San Francisco’s first bike bar or leather bar, the Why Not? (1960), where he was himself arrested for propositioning an undercover cop, thus closing the Why Not? in a raid that was a rehearsal for the police raid on the Tay-Bush lnn (1961) which emboldened Chuck Arnett to hire Tony in opening the legendary Tool Box bar (1961) which, as a symbol of masculine mutiny, fortified the gay resolve to found the Tavern Guild (1962) to protect gay citizens from harassment by the San Francisco Police Department.

Tony Tavarossi said later that the gay bar scene in 1966 was a riot led by a mixed crowd of Levis-wearing leathermen, straight-trade hustlers (many of them ex-Gls from World War II and Korea), and tough drag queens.

He died of AIDS ]u1y 12, 1981, two days after the epic fire that destroyed the Barracks baths on Folsom Street, putting an end to the turbulent 1970s.

1939 – James Booker was a New Orleans rhythm and blues keyboardist born in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. Booker's unique style combined rhythm and blues with jazz standards. Musician Dr. John described Booker as "the best black, gay, one-eyed junkie piano genius New Orleans has ever produced." Flamboyant in personality, he was known as "the Black Liberace."

Booker was the son and grandson of Baptist ministers, both of whom played the piano. He spent most of his childhood on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, where his father was a church pastor. Booker received a saxophone as a gift from his mother, but he was more interested in the keyboard. He played the organ in his father's churches.

After returning to New Orleans in his early adolescence, Booker attended the Xavier Academy Preparatory School. He learned some elements of his keyboard style from Tuts Washington and Edward Frank. Booker was highly skilled in classical music and played music by Bach and Chopin, among other composers. He also mastered and memorized solos by Erroll Garner and Liberace. His performances combined elements of stride, blues, gospel and Latin piano styles.

Booker made his recording debut in 1954 on the Imperial Records label, with "Doin' the Hambone" and "Thinkin' 'Bout My Baby", produced by Dave Bartholomew. This led to some session work with Fats Domino, Smiley Lewis, and Lloyd Price.

In 1958, Arthur Rubinstein performed a concert in New Orleans. Afterwards, eighteen-year-old Booker was introduced to the concert pianist and played several tunes for him. Rubinstein was astonished, saying "I could never play that ... never at that tempo" During this period, Booker also became known for his flamboyant personality among his peers.

After recording a few other singles, he enrolled as an undergraduate in Southern University's music department. In 1960, Booker's "Gonzo" reached number 43 on the United States (U.S.) record chart of Billboard magazine and number 3 on the R&B record chart. Following "Gonzo", Booker released some moderately successful singles. In the 1960s, he started using illicit drugs, and in 1970 served a brief sentence in Angola Prison for drug possession. At the time, Professor Longhair and Ray Charles were among his important musical influences.

As Booker became more familiar to law enforcement in New Orleans due to his illicit drug use, he formed a relationship with District Attorney Harry Connick Sr., who was occasionally Booker's legal counsel. Connick would discuss law with Booker during his visits to the Connick home and made an arrangement with the musician whereby a prison sentence would be nullified in exchange for piano lessons for Connick Sr.'s son Harry Connick Jr.Booker recorded a number of albums while touring Europe in 1977, including New Orleans Piano Wizard: Live!, which was recorded at his performance at the "Boogie Woogie and Ragtime Piano Contest" in Zurich, Switzerland – the album won the Grand Prix du Disque. He also played at the Nice and Montreux Jazz Festivals in 1978 and recorded a session for the BBC during this time. Fourteen years later, a recording entitled Let's Make A Better World! –made in Leipzig during this period– became the last record to be produced in the former East Germany.

In a 2013 interview, filmmaker Lily Keber, who directed a documentary on Booker, provided her perspective on Booker's warm reception in European nations such as Germany and France:

Well, the racism wasn't there, the homophobia wasn't there –as much. Even the drug use was a little more tolerated. But really I think that Booker felt he was being taken seriously in Europe, and it made him think of himself differently and improved the quality of his music. He needed the energy of the audience to feed off.

Booker died aged 43 on November 8, 1983, while seated in a wheelchair in the emergency room at New Orleans' Charity Hospital, waiting to receive medical attention. The cause of death, as cited in the Orleans Parish Coroner's Death Certificate, was renal failure related to chronic abuse of heroin and alcohol.

Cashman with Paul Cottingham

1950 – Michael Cashman, born in London, is a British former actor, and a Labour politician. He has been a Member of the European Parliament for the West Midlands constituency since 1999.

As a child actor he was cast in the role of Oliver Twist in the original run of Lionel Bart's musical Oliver!, but he is possibly best known for his role as Colin Russell in BBC TV's EastEnders - a character remembered for being a participant in the first gay kiss in a British soap opera. He also appeared in the ITV drama serial The Sandbaggers and the Doctor Who story "Time-Flight".

Cashman was a founder of Stonewall, an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society and a Patron of The Food Chain, a London-based HIV charity.He is a trenchant critic of discrimination against minorities within the European Union. He is leading a cross-party coalition to tackle the rise in homophobia throughout Europe. He has in the past supported the gay pride march in Warsaw, which he attended. He is also the President of the European Parliament's Intergroup on gay and lesbian issues.

In 2007 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Staffordshire for his human rights work.

In line with current guidelines the European Parliament paid his domestic partner, Paul Cottingham, £30,000 per annum for his work as Cashman's "Accounts Manager, Personnel Manager and Payroll Administrator". Cashman registered a civil partnership with Paul Cottingham, his partner for 31 years, on 11 March 2006.

In March 2011 Cottingham was diagnosed with a very rare cancer, angiosarcoma, and he died on 23 October 2014 in the Royal Marsden Hospital, London. He was cremated in a humanist service at the City of London Cemetery on 7 November 2014.

Cashman was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2013 New Year Honours for public and political service.

On 23 September 2014 he was created a Life Peer taking the title Baron Cashman, of Limehouse in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, which is also his birthplace.

1959 – Gregg Araki is an American independent filmmaker. He is involved in New Queer Cinema.

Araki made his directorial debut in 1987 with Three Bewildered People in the Night. With a budget of only $5,000 and using a stationary camera, he told the story of a romance between a video artist, her sweet-heart and her gay friend.

Two years later, Araki made a name for himself on the festival circuit with The Long Weekend (O' Despair). Produced, directed, written, photographed and edited by Araki (for his own Desperate Pictures Company), this very small-scale Big Chill derivation involved a group of recent college graduates brooding over their futures during one woozy, boozy evening.

He followed this up in 1992 with The Living End, a road movie about two HIV-positive men whose paths cross one fateful day and the tumultuous relationship which ensues. Premiering at the Sundance Film Festival, the film was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize.

Araki's next three films comprised his "Teenage Apocalypse Trilogy."

Totally Fucked Up (1993) (Totally F***ed Up in publicity) chronicled the dysfunctional lives of six gay adolescent people who have formed a family unit and struggle to get along with each other and with life in the face of various major obstacles.

The Doom Generation (1995) was a black comedy brimming with graphic violence, cultural symbolism and relentless eroticism. While largely trashed by critics, the piece won a measure of respect in a number of circles and is available on DVD and VHS in both rated and unrated versions due to several sex scenes as well as the violent climax.

Araki's next venture was the ill-fated MTV series This Is How the World Ends (2000), which was meant to have a budget of $1.5 million. The network only gave him $700,000 and hoped to find partners to finance the difference. Araki offered to make the pilot episode for $700,000, and MTV took him up on it, but after the pilot was shot it was not picked up for broadcast.

Nowhere (1997) was described by its director as "A Beverly Hills, 90210 episode on acid". It centered around a group of bored, alienated adolescent people in Los Angeles during a typical day of kinky sex, drugs, and the requisite wild party.

Following a short hiatus, Araki returned with the critically acclaimed Mysterious Skin (2004) based on a novel by Scott Heim, which tells the story of a teenage hustler and a withdrawn young man obsessed with alien abductions, and how they both deal with the sexual abuse they suffered from their Little League coach when they were children.

Araki self-identified as gay until 1997, when he entered a relationship with actress Kathleen Robertson, whom he directed in Nowhere. The relationship ended in 1999. Araki has since mainly dated men. He now identifies as bisexual.

1968 – Fabrice Neaud, born in La Rochelle, France, is a French comics artist. He got his baccalaureate in literature (option graphic arts) in 1986. He studied philosophy during two years. Then he entered an art school and studied there four years. In 1991 he quit the school. For four years he had been looking for a job, making a living on various works.

He is a co-founder of the Ego comme X association. In 1994, the first number of the Ego comme X magazine was released. In it, Fabrice Neaud published his first works. It was the beginning of his Journal (which is a diary in comics), an ambitious autobiographical project. The first volume of the Journal was released in 1996. It got a prize Alph'art (best work by a young artist) in Angoulême in 1997.

From an entry in his Journal

Fabrice Neaud keeps on drawing his Journal. Three more volumes have been published between 1998 and 2002. He published also many short stories in Ego comme X, Bananas and other magazines. Some of his works have been translated into Italian and Spanish. A reviewer notes, "But Neaud isn't a simple diarist: he's also an artist concerned with various problems of our society, including homophobia and gay life in small towns." His works have been the subject of academic papers.

2007 The Parliament of Hungary gives the same rights to registered partners as to spouses with some exceptions: adoption, IVF access, surrogacy, and taking a surname.

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todaysdocument · 1 year ago

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Proclamation to the People of New Orleans

Record Group 233: Records of the U.S. House of RepresentativesSeries: Presidential MessagesFile Unit: President's Messages from the 8th Congress

PROCLAMATION. By his Excellency William C.C. Claiborne, Governor of the Missisippi Territory, exercising the powers of Governor General and Intendant of the Province of Louisiana. WHEREAS, by stipulations between the governments of France and Spain, the latter ceded to the former the Colony and Province of Louisiana, With the same extent which it had the date of the above mentioned treaty in the hands of Spain, and that it had when France possessed it, and such as it ought to be after the treaties subsequently entered into between spain and other states; and whereas the government of France has ceded the same to the United states by a treaty duly ratified, and bearing date the 30 of April in the present year, and the possession of said Colony and Province is now in the United States according to the tenor of the last mentioned treaty; and whereas the Congress of the United States, on the 31st day of Oct. in the present year, did enact that until the expiration of the session of Congress then sitting, (unless provisions for the temporary government of the said territories be sooner made by Congress,) all the military, civil and judicial powers exercised by the then existing government of the same, shall be vested in such person or persons, and shall be exercised in such manner as the President of the United states shall direct, for the maintaining and protecting the inhabitants of Louisiana, in the free enjoyment of their liberty, property and religion; and the President of the United states, has by his commission, bearing date the same 31st day of October, invested me with all the powers, and charged me with the several duties heretofore held and exercised by the Governor General and Intendant of the Province: I HAVE therefore thought fit to issue this my PROCLAMATION making known the premises, and to declare that the government heretofore exercised over the said Province of Louisiana, as well under the authority of Spain as of the French republic, has ceased, and that of the United states of America is established over the same; that the inhabitants thereof will be incorporated in the union of the United states, and admitted as soon as possible, according to the principles of the Federal Constitution, to the enjoyment of all the rights, advantages and immunities of citizens of the United states; that in the mean time they shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty, property, and the religion which they profess; that all laws and municipal regulations which Were in existence at the cessation of the late government, remain in full force, and all civil officers charged with their execution, except those whose powers have been specially vested in me, and except also such officers as have been entrusted with the collection of the revenue are continued in their functions during the pleasure of the governor for the time be ing, or until provision shall otherwise be made. And I do hereby exhort and enjoin all the inhabitants and other persons within the said Province, to be faithful and true in their allegiance to the United states, and obedient to the laws and authorities of the same, under full assurance that their just rights will be under the guardianship of the United states, and will be maintained from all force or violence from without or within. In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand. [Indented more toward the right than previous sections] Given at the City of New-Orleans the 20th day of December 1803, and of the Independence of the United states of America the 28th. William C. C. Claiborne. [full transcription at link]

#archivesgov #December 20 #1803 #louisiana purchase #louisiana #new orleans #nola #19th century

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lepartidelamort · 2 months ago

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Trump Appoints “The White Nikki Haley” as UN Ambassador (Obsessed with Jews, The Ukraine, All of It).

Called it.

Trump announced over the weekend that Nikki Haley and Mike Pompeo would not be included in his administration. The people hoping against all reason that “this time will be different” claimed that this was evidence that this time will be different.

Writing on this, I said that whoever he did pick would be just as bad or worse. And I was right, of course (as usual).

His first cabinet pick is Congressman Elise Stefanik as Ambassador to the UN.

Stefanik, who is fat, became famous last year when she went on an unhinged rampage against universities for not cracking down harder on students who protest Israel.

This was a big deal, a viral moment posted all over the internet to show how totally diabolical the American government is with their devotion to Israel and Jews.

She believes that it should be illegal to criticize Israel.

This bitch has been doing daily updates on the suffering of the Jews since October 7th, 2023.

Before the announcement, she was framing Trump’s election as being about Israel.

She goes to Israel regularly and pledges allegiance to them.

This is heinous.

Her Twitter account is like parody. She tweets several times a day, virtually only about Israel. She’s of course promoting war with Iran.

As far as I can tell, she isn’t even Jewish herself.

Jews are celebrating everywhere.

All their dreams are coming true.

But it’s not just Israel she supports. She supports every Jew war.

She’s all-in for the Ukraine, and in 2022, went so far as to claim that Russia is committing “genocide” in the Ukraine.

This is ultra hardline. While the entire Western elite supports the war against Russia, virtually no one claims they’re doing “genocide.” You only see that among the most irate tranny Ukraine-stander-withers.

It’s possible Stefanik is a tranny.

Maybe to soften the blow to the people who actually understand what someone like Stefanik represents about his plans, Trump also announced the non-cabinet position of “border czar” for his former ICE director, Tom Homan. You’ll remember that when Homan was the head of ICE, no one was rounded up and deported.

People are saying “well, maybe Trump will do a bunch of wars but he’ll also do things for America.”

Maybe he will do something for America?

I doubt it, but who knows.

There certainly isn’t any reason to believe he will beyond faith alone.

Andrew Anglin for the DailyStormer

#dailystormer #u.s.a #oy vey !

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thecreaturecodex · 1 year ago

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Protean, Cthilpuk

"Naga Rei" © Fur Affinity user TrinityLight, accessed at their gallery here

[Posting this has been a fucking chore, believe me. The hidden character limit for tumblr counts HTML tags, whether you put them in yourself or copy them over from another document. And although it used to be able to break up the text into different blocks internally for its coding purposes, it no longer can with the new draft saving program. Which means that the formatting is going to be slightly different from now on, with more spaces within each stat block. I'm still going on hiatus; I'm traveling this week. But normal service should resume next week, rather than me having to find a new hosting service. Fingers crossed.

So the monster in question. The mesmerist is one of my favorite classes in PF1e, because it's so versatile. You can use it for everything from a sinister manipulator to a wacky stage magician, a faith healer to The Shadow. I wanted the cthilpuk to be similarly versatile. I intend these to be able to be allies to some parties, enemies to others, and even change allegiance over the course of the game.

A few miscellaneous notes. The anagrams I'm using for protean names are getting weirder and more obscure; I'm going to post a list of all of them when this project is over. The art itself is not NSFW, but the gallery page is in its description of this character; be prepared. And there's a teaser of one of the other proteans I have yet to stat up but have planned.]

Protean, Cthilpuk CR 14 CN Outsider (extraplanar) This blue-scaled serpentine creature has a humanoid torso with four clawed arms. Its head has a cobra-like hood, and both its hood and its eyes swirl with mesmerizing colors.

Cthilpuks are proteans that represent one of the most changeable of things; the emotions of sapient creatures. A cthilpuk can be a counselor, a rabble-rouser or a terrorist, depending on its mood. They are comfortable in urban spaces, and often live in mortal or planar cities in disguise for months or years. Undercover, they are often very friendly, going out of their way to talk to people and then using the information they gather to adjust the person’s moods and behavior. Cthilpuks are strong believers in self-actualization for chaotic individuals, but enjoy driving lawful people into spirals of doubt and despair.

A cthilpuk would usually prefer to avoid combat, instead using its hypnotic stare and psychic magic to influence a creature’s mood, and then talk them into doing something that the protean wants them to do. Still, sometimes violence is the appropriate solution to their problems. The bite of a cthilpuk locks the mind into an emotional pattern, typically a self-destructive one. In a fight, most cthilpuks try to bite as many creatures as possible with different decoctions of emotional venom, cast a spell or two into the fray, and then sit back to watch the chaos. In their natural form, they can even split their hypnotic gaze, working their will through the stare of both their real eyes and the eyespots in their hood.

Although a cthilpuk will gladly toy with the emotions of everyday people, they do most of their work in places of high tension and chaotic potential, always to instigate further changes rather than to uphold the status quo. They are often beloved of revolutionaries and despised by governments, although they do not particularly care about the moral status of either revolutionaries or governments they interfere with. In this role, they often work as underlings for heputwisa proteans. They are patient in their work of manipulating emotions; they appreciate a sudden shock as much as any protean, but know that the most useful minds are ones that have convinced themselves of their course of action, rather than having it forced on them from outside.

Cthilpuk CR 14 XP 38,400 CN Large outsider (chaos, extraplanar, protean) Init +4; Senses darkvision 60 ft., detect chaos, detect law, Perception +22, thoughtsense 60 ft.

Defense AC 29, touch 13, flat-footed 25 (-1 size, +4 Dex, +16 natural); +2 vs. lawful targets hp 195 (17d10+102) Fort +11, Ref +14, Will +16; +2 vs. lawful targets DR 15/lawful; Immune acid, emotion effects; Resist electricity 10, sonic 10; SR 25 Defensive Abilities amorphous anatomy, freedom of movement

Offense Speed 30 ft., fly 60 ft. (perfect) Melee bite +22 (2d6+6 plus emotional venom), 4 claws +22 (1d4+6), tail slap +17 (2d8+3 plus grab) Space 10 ft.; Reach 10 ft. Psychic Magic CL 14th, concentration +20 (+24 casting defensively) 30 PE—calm emotions (2 PE, DC 18), crushing despair (4 PE, DC 20), emotive block (3 PE, DC 19), euphoric tranquility (6 PE, DC 22), fear (4 PE, DC 22), good hope (3 PE), overwhelming grief (4 PE, DC 20), rage (3 PE, DC 19), reckless infatuation (3 PE, DC 19), smug narcissism (5 PE, DC 21), serenity (6 PE, DC 22) unadulterated loathing (3 PE, DC 19), unshakeable zeal (6 PE, DC 22) Special Attacks bold stare (allure, sapped magic, susceptibility, timidity), hypnotic stare (-3), split stare Spell-like Abilities CL 14th, concentration +20 (+24 casting defensively) Constant—detect chaos, detect law, protection from law (DC 17) 3/day—empowered chaos hammer (DC 20), confusion (DC 20), greater dispel magic 1/day—greater teleport, word of chaos (DC 22)

Statistics Str 23, Dex 19, Con 23, Int 18, Wis 22, Cha 22 Base Atk +17; CMB +24 (+26 disarm, +28 grappling); CMD 38 (40 vs. disarm) Feats Combat Casting, Combat Expertise, Combat Reflexes, Empower SLA (chaos hammer), Improved Disarm, Intimidating Glance, Psychic Virtuoso, Quicken Spell, Self-Sufficient Skills Appraise +16, Bluff +21, Diplomacy +21, Fly +22, Heal +25, Intimidate +21, Knowledge (arcana, history) +16, Knowledge (local, planes) +19, Perception +22, Sense Motive +22, Spellcraft +16, Survival +22 Languages Abyssal, Common, Protean, Undercommon, telepathy 100 ft. SQ change shape (greater polymorph), undersized weapons

Ecology Environment any land or urban (Maelstrom) Organization solitary, pair or council (3-6) Treasure standard

Special Abilities Emotional Venom (Su) The bite of a cthilpuk injects emotions, not traditional venom. A creature bitten by a cthilpuk must succeed a DC 24 Will save or be affected by one of the following emotional states. This lasts for 1 minute. A creature so affected can attempt to control its emotions by making another DC 24 Will save as a move action; if it succeeds, it dispels this effect, and gains a +4 bonus on all future saves against that cthilpuk’s emotional venom for the next 24 hours. A creature may only suffer the effects of one type of emotional venom at a time Anger: A creature under the effects of anger emotional venom must make an attack of opportunity against its allies whenever its allies take actions that would provoke an attack of opportunity from that creature. These attacks count against the affected creature’s attacks of opportunity in a round. Dedication: A creature under the effects of dedication emotional venom cannot move away from an adjacent opponent unless it succeeds a DC 24 Will save. Success on this save allows the creature to move, but does not end the effect. Despair: A creature under the effects of despair emotional venom suffers a -4 morale penalty on attack rolls and damage rolls. Fear: A creature under the effects of fear emotional venom is shaken. Hatred: A creature under the effects of hatred emotional venom takes a -4 penalty to AC, but gains a +1 morale bonus to attack and damage rolls. Jealousy: A creature under the effects of jealousy emotional venom must attempt to make saving throws against all spells, including harmless and beneficial spells. Zeal: A creature under the effects of zeal emotional venom must succeed a DC 24 Will save each round or be compelled to take the same action as it took last turn. If unable to do so (such as casting a spell that has been expended), it must mimic those actions as closely as possible (i.e. cast another spell on the same target). Succeeding this Will save allows the creature to choose a new action, but does not break the effect of the venom. This is a mind-influencing emotion effect, and the save DC is Charisma based. Hypnotic Stare (Su) A cthilpuk has the hypnotic stare and bold stare class abilities of a mesmerist with a class level equal to its racial HD. Mesmerist levels stack with cthilpuk Hit Dice for the purposes of the stare class feature, but not other class features, such as spellcasting or mesmerist tricks. Split Stare (Su) A cthilpuk may use its hypnotic stare on two opponents at once. When it does so, it inflicts a -2 penalty to one target, and a -1 penalty to the other. Using its split stare is mentally taxing—a cthilpuk suffers a -4 penalty to Concentration checks while using this ability. A cthilpuk can only use this ability in its natural form.

#protean #cthilpuk #pathfinder 1e #welcome to tumblr #housekeeping

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mandalorianchronicles · 2 years ago

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Thoughts on "The Convert"

Spoilers below the cut

Well, that was...different. I'll admit, it was probably the first time I was actually a bit disappointed by an episode of The Mandalorian. It wasn't that Dr. Pershing's story was badly written (though it could have been pared down), but I just didn't care to spend so much time setting up the next plot element when we were right in the middle of resolving the first one. I would have been okay with him getting his own bottle episode, rather than sandwiching it in between Din and Bo's moments. It was very jarring as a viewer, but I suppose that was the intent of the writers in the first place. Din and Cara had both commented that they didn't have much faith in the New Republic and now we see why. There is still a massive disconnect between the citizens of the core worlds and the Outer Rim, and it doesn't really matter who's in power, there always will be.

Concerning Pershing's plotline - I would be interested to know what he was working on specifically with Grogu and how it ties into Palatine's comeback. Between this episode and The Bad Batch, there is a LOT of focus on the Empire's cloning experiments, but I feel like we just keep scratching the surface without ever getting any real answers. But I'll be patient. This chapter seemed to be focusing on the fact that the Rebels defeated the Empire and established the New Republic, and it took all of 5-10 years for it become nearly as corrupt as the Empire. Okay, that's an exaggeration. The people on Coruscant looked happy and free (which is different from the mood in the capital planet in Andor). But there's a lot to be desired with this new government. No wonder Leia didn't last long as a Senator again, she'd have no patience for the BS. I liked how they casually mentioned in this episode how they had so many resources tied up in mothballing their fleet. And now you know how The First Order rose up less than 30 years later (if you didn't read the books).

I believe the "convert" is actually Pershing, not Bo-Katan. He genuinely wanted to help the people of the New Republic. It could also be referring to Elia Kane, but she wasn't really a convert, she was just making it look like she was so she could feed information back to Gideon or the Emperor, or whoever she is actually working for, because it clearly isn't the New Republic. I wonder if we'll ever see Pershing again after he got mind flayed (Count Rugen: NOT TO 50!). And yes, sweetie, it *was* a trap, baited with Star Wars Biscoff cookies. I can't believe that worked. Honestly, after he hijacked 40 minutes of this episode, they better be setting up a continuation of this story.

Which leads me to...the 20 minutes of this episode featuring people I actually care about.

First question: *who* sent those TIE interceptors? Is Moff Gideon pulling strings from prison? Or is this someone else? Bo said that was a lot of ships for an Imperial warlord and I'm inclined to agree. Gideon didn't seem to have anywhere near that kind of firepower. My guess is this is Thrawn. Why would Thrawn bomb Bo's castle on Kalevala, you ask? I assume that Sabine and Ashoka are putting pressure on him, and he's trying to draw them out by targeting someone with strong ties to both of them. Ahsoka has been all over the galaxy hunting for Thrawn, but Bo knew exactly where to send Din to go find her. Which means they are still in contact. Sabine gave her the Darksaber and endorsed her as Mand'alor, pledging allegiance to her. Assuming she's still with Ahsoka looking for Ezra, she also has maintained ties. Thrawn won't like being hunted, he'll want to meet them on his terms when he's ready. If those were his ships, I'd say he's ready.

I recently re-watched the Rebels episodes with Bo-Katan just to refresh myself on the tone and dialogue of those scenes. In summary, After Sabine found the Darksaber in Maul's lair and trainied herself to use it, she entrusted it to her mother to help mend their broken family, who in turn gave it to Gar Saxon as a bribe to keep her family safe. Gar claimed the Darksaber as his own, and interestingly enough, had no issues wielding it immediately. But Ezra gave Sabine his lightsaber and she defeated Saxon, earning the Darksaber by creed, which her mother and others from Clan Wren witnessed. In 4.1 and 4.2, we see Sabine wielding the saber to save her father from the Empire, and Bo-Katan gives aide at Ursa Wren's request. Sabine immediately offers the Darksaber to Bo-Katan, but she refuses, saying she had her chance to lead and failed, referring to immediately after the Siege of Mandalore when the Republic made her regent. When the Empire. took over, she refused to bend the knee and was betrayed by the Saxon clan. "I am not my sister," she told Sabine, the pain of that loss brought the surface by the weapon that murdered her. Obviously, Bo's feelings for her sister had changed drastically. Later, when Sabine is torturing Tiber Saxon, Bo stops her and says "this is not our way". After that battle, Sabine once more asks Bo-Katan to take the Darksaber, and though she is reluctant, she accepts it with the support of clans Kryze, Rook, Eldar, Vizsla, and Wren and the Protectors. Contrary to the Armorer's very skewed narrative, Bo did not take the Darksaber because she believed it was her family's right to rule. She took it, because the most powerful clans on Mandalore were begging her to lead them against the Empire. They had already gathered to follow her before she even accepted the Darksaber. It was a symbol, nothing more. It was her actions and her steadfast devotion to her people that earned their loyalty, not the heirloom of House Vizsla.

History recap concluded, my next question is this: Did the Children of the Watch refuse to join Bo-Katan and the other clans in their fight against Empire because she didn't win the Darksaber in ritual combat with Sabine...or simply because they had another reason not to like her? The Darksaber was passed down through the Vizsla family line for years. Pre Vizsla didn't kill Tor Vizsla for it. It doesn't have to be won to change owners. That particular tradition only applied if the current Mand'alor was wielding it. When we see Bo and Din approaching the covert, Paz comes out to meet them. He's immediately surly toward Din (big surprise) and he doesn't believe him when he says he bathed in the waters. When Bo-Katan says she witnessed it, he replies with "Who are you, Nite Owl?" Are we really to believe he knows who the Nite Owls are but he can't recognize their leader? He knew damn well who she was. If Paz is closely related to Pre (and I believe he is, given the writer's choice to have Favreau voice him), might he be harboring lingering feelings of jealousy or resentment of Pre's former right hand woman? The Armorer certainly knew her on sight. We know she had no love for Bo when last she spoke to Din. And yet, she welcomed her with open arms.

Hence, question three: What does The Way actually mean to the Covert? Heretofore, I had assumed that the Mandalorians from Din's tribe were deeply religious and held a deep-seated faith in their doctrines. But even when Bo flat out tells them she does not follow The Way (not to be confused with the Mandalorian creed, which Bo-Katan has sworn herself to), The Armorer only cares about two things: which are actually one thing...the helmet.

Did you baptize yourself in the Living Waters to redeem yourself for not wearing the helmet? Yes? Okay. Have you removed your helmet since? No? Okay, you're in.

That's it. It doesn't matter if Bo-Katan actually follows The Way or has any faith in whatever else it teaches...the one (1) factor that determines if you are in or out is whether you cover your face at all times. Does anyone else find that incredibly odd? The Armorer never even asked Din why or for whom he removed his helmet when he admitted that he had done so. The circumstances and the who are apparently irrelevant. If you follow The Way, you can't even remove your helmet before your own clanmate, your own family. Ever.

I really hope that in the next episode, Bo-Katan starts asking these important questions. When it was known that Din removed his helmet, he was ostracized and shunned. No one touched him. No one acknowledged him. The Armorer didn't even thank him for saving them all from that giant croc - she just told him he wasn't welcome. But as soon as he was ritually cleansed of that most dire of infractions, everyone reaffirming him and welcoming him with physical touch and kind gestures. The contrasting behavior gave me whiplash. But seeing them touch Din and Bo's shoulders and being so welcoming is so psychologically powerful, it almost had me second guessing my reservations about the Covert. But then I had to remind myself, wait...real family doesn't shun their own loved ones for giving into the very basic human need to see and be seen by someone you love. The mandate to always keep their face covered is pure psychological abuse. It reminded me of that recent episode of The Bad Batch, "The Retrieval", when the corrupt mine owner had all those kids convinced he was being good to them, when really he was manipulating them with food and praise.

Question four: Did Bo-Katan just join a cult? This one we can answer, and it's most definitely not. It may not matter to the Armorer what Bo believes, but it matters to us. She is not a follower of the way, but so long as keeping her helmet on provides her with food, shelter, and some much needed companionship, she will cooperate...at least until it gets to be too much for her. I suspect she'll find ways around the rules before too long. But what of the Mythosaur? Does she now believe the legend? Right now, Bo-Katan isn't even sure she actually saw the Mythosaur. Katee's interview confirmed as much, addressing the concerns of fans that she was hiding it for nefarious purposes. Honestly, I thought it was obvious that she was uncertain - that's why she asked Din twice. She is second-guessing what she saw, and who wouldn't? I mentioned this in another post, but imagine if you were snorkeling at night and dove down in murky waters and thought you saw a plesiosaur...a creature thought to be extinct for millennia. Would you be telling everyone right away or would you second guess yourself? She was in a very dark place mentally, she had just visited her ruined home planet for the first time in years, she was remembering her dead father, and she had just read the plaque talking about how legend told that the mines were once the lair of the Mythosaur...she probably figured that all these things together might have triggered a hallucination. She doesn't know what to believe. And this sets her up for some amazing character development over the rest of the season.

There was a lot to unpack in this episode, and I am so very excited for whatever comes next.

#the mandalorian #the mandalorian episode 3 #the convert #bo-katan kryze #din djarin #dr pershing #the armorer #paz vizsla

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racefortheironthrone · 2 years ago

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Dear Master Steven,

I'm intrigued. What do you think would have happened if the Wade Davis bill had passed? Also, weren't some states majority black? Couldn't they have rejoined the Union automatically, on the basis that freedmen living there who formed the majority of the population opposed the Confederacy?

Thank you in advance

If the Wade-Davis Bill had passed, it would have slowed down the process of Southern states being readmitted to the Union under Presidential Recontruction, since it's a lot easier to find 10% of a Southern white male population who can swear an oath of future allegiance than 50% of the same population who can swear an oath of past and future loyalty.

Moreover, the use of the Ironclad Oath was highly significant. Emerging out of the shock that had been the revelation during the secession crisis that prominent members of the Buchanan Administration were Confederate sympathizers, the Ironclad Oath was initially imposed on the Federal government itself as a bid to purge it of Confederate sympathizers and potential spies during the war.

Its extension to Southern states had a two-fold purpose: first, it was intended to ensure that ex-Confederates were excluded from the political system, as part of a broader process that today we might think of as de-Confederization of the South. Second, Congressional Republicans were under no illusions that it was highly unlikely that a majority of the white male population could swear the Ironclad Oath in good faith when it came to non-office-holding related rebellious activities like fighting in the army or providing the army with supplies. However, they thought that either they could begin to spread a kind of revisionist historical memory in which all "good" white Southerners had only supported the Confederacy because of forced conscription and requisition, or they could hold the possibility of perjury investigations over the heads of white Southern men as a kind of enforced pledge of good conduct. As for black majorities, yes it is true that a few Southern states were majority black - Mississippi and South Carolina - and some other states (Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, Florida) they came quite close. However, in most Southern states they were in the minority. Moreover, at the time of the passage of the Wade-Davis Bill in 1864, even Radical Republicans had not yet come around to support black suffrage.

#history #u.s history #wade-davis bill #civil war #reconstruction

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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 2 years ago

Text

By: Matt Johnson

Summary

Christopher Hitchens was for many years considered one of the fiercest and most eloquent left-wing polemicists in the world. But on much of today’s left, he’s remembered as a defector, a warmonger, and a sellout-a supporter of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq who traded his left-wing principles for neo-conservatism after the September 11 attacks. In How Hitchens Can Save the Left, Matt Johnson argues that this easy narrative gets Hitchens exactly wrong. Hitchens was a lifelong champion of free inquiry, humanism, and universal liberal values. He was an internationalist who believed all people should have the liberty to speak and write openly, to be free of authoritarian domination, and to escape the arbitrary constraints of tribe, faith, and nation. He was a figure of the Enlightenment and a man of the left until the very end, and his example has never been more important. Over the past several years, the liberal foundations of democratic societies have been showing signs of structural decay. On the right, nationalism and authoritarianism have been revived on both sides of the Atlantic. On the left, many activists and intellectuals have become obsessed with a reductive and censorious brand of identity politics, as well as the conviction that their own liberal democratic societies are institutionally racist, exploitative, and imperialistic. Across the democratic world, free speech, individual rights, and other basic liberal values are losing their power to inspire. Hitchens’s case for universal Enlightenment principles won’t just help genuine liberals mount a resistance to the emerging illiberal orthodoxies on the left and the right. It will also remind us how to think and speak fearlessly in defense of those principles.

Introduction

First Principles

In the introduction to his 1993 collection of essays For the Sake of Argument, Christopher Hitchens affirmed his commitment to the left: “Everyone has to descend or degenerate from some species of tradition,” he wrote, “and this is mine.” Hitchens’s political trajectory is often presented as a story of left-wing degeneration. His career was “something unique in natural history,” as former Labour MP George Galloway put it: “The first ever metamorphosis from a butterfly back into a slug.” After Hitchens abandoned socialism and all other formal political allegiances, his critics say he became a fulminating reactionary, a neocon warmonger, and a dreary cliché: the defector, the sellout, the predictable left-wing apostate.

The standard left-wing narrative about Hitchens is that he exchanged his socialism for some species of neoconservatism. After many years as a left-wing dissident in Washington, DC, he took the side of the U.S. government when it launched the most maligned war since Vietnam. Sure, he said a few sensible things about the excesses and contradictions of capitalism in his days as a Marxist, established himself as the most lacerating critic of U.S. foreign policy in the American media, and did more to put an asterisk next to Henry Kissinger’s reputation than just about any other writer. But this long radical resume is now just a footnote in what many on the left view as a chronicle of moral and political derangement—the once-great left-wing polemicist becoming an apologist for the American empire. On this view, if the left has anything to learn from Hitchens, it’s strictly cautionary.

From socialist to neocon. It was an irresistible headline because it’s a story that has been told over and over again—according to many authorities on the left, butterflies have been morphing back into slugs since the dawn of natural history. The novelist Julian Barnes called this phenomenon the “ritual shuffle to the right.” Richard Seymour, who wrote a book-length attack on Hitchens, says his subject belongs to a “recognisable type: a left-wing defector with a soft spot for empire.” Irving Kristol’s famous description of a neoconservative is a liberal who has been “mugged by reality,” which implies a reluctant and grudging transition from idealism to safe and boring pragmatism. By presenting Hitchens as a tedious archetype, hobbling away from radicalism and toward some inevitable reactionary terminus, his opponents didn’t have to contend with his arguments or confront the potentially destabilizing fact that some of his principles called their own into question.

Hitchens didn’t make it easy on the apostate hunters. To many, he was a “coarser version of Norman Podhoretz” when he talked about Iraq and a radical humanist truth-teller when he went on Fox News to lambaste the Christian right: “If you gave Falwell an enema,” he told Sean Hannity the day after Jerry Falwell’s death, “he could be buried in a matchbox.” Then he gave Islam the same treatment, and he was suddenly a drooling neocon again. He called for the removal of Saddam Hussein and the arrest of Kissinger at the same time. He endorsed the War on Terror but condemned waterboarding9 and signed his name to an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) lawsuit against the National Security Agency (NSA) for warrantless wiretapping. He defied easy categorization: a socialist who spurned ideology, an internationalist who became a patriot, a man of the left who was reviled by the left.

The left isn’t a single amorphous entity—it’s a vast constellation of (often conflicting) ideas and principles. Hitchens’s style of left-wing radicalism is now out of fashion, but it has a long and venerable history: George Orwell’s unwavering opposition to totalitarianism and censorship, Bayard Rustin’s advocacy for universal civil rights without appealing to tribalism and identity politics, the post-communist anti-totalitarianism that emerged on the European left in the second half of the twentieth century. Hitchens described himself as a “First Amendment absolutist,” an echo of historic left-wing struggles for free expression—from Eugene V. Debs’s assertion of his right to dissent during World War I to the Berkeley Free Speech Movement. Hitchens argued that unfettered free speech and inquiry would always make civil society stronger. When he wrote the introduction to For the Sake of Argument in 1993, he had a specific left-wing tradition in mind: the left of Orwell and Victor Serge and C.L.R. James, which simultaneously opposed Stalinism, fascism, and imperialism in the twentieth century, and which stood for “individual and collective emancipation, self-determination and internationalism.”

Hitchens believed “politics is division by definition,” but his most fundamental political and moral conviction was universalism. He loathed nationalism and argued that the international system should be built around a “common standard for justice and ethics”—a standard that should apply to Kissinger just as it should apply to Slobodan Milošević and Saddam Hussein. He believed in the concept of global citizenship, which is why he firmly supported international institutions like the European Union. He didn’t just despise religion because he regarded it as a form of totalitarianism—he also recognized that it’s an infinitely replenishable wellspring of tribal hatred. He opposed identity politics because he didn’t think our social and civic lives should be reduced to rigid categories based on melanin, X chromosomes, and sexuality. He recognized that the Enlightenment values of individual rights, freedom of expression and conscience, humanism, pluralism, and democracy are universal—they provide the most stable, just, and rational foundation for any civil society, whether they’re observed in America or Europe or Iraq. And yes, he argued that these values are for export.

Hitchens believed in universal human rights. This is why, at a time when his comrades were still manning the barricades against the “imperial” West after the Cold War, he argued that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization should intervene to stop a genocidal assault on Bosnia. It’s why he argued that American power could be used to defend human rights and promote democracy. As many on the Western left built their politics around incessant condemnations of their own societies as racist, exploitative, oligarchic, and imperialistic, Hitchens recognized the difference between self-criticism and self-flagellation.

One of the reasons Orwell accumulated many left-wing enemies was the fact that his criticisms of his own “side” were grounded in authentic left-wing principles. When he argued that many socialists had no connection to or understanding of the actual working class in Britain, the observation stung because it was true. Orwell’s arguments continue to sting today. In his 1945 essay “Notes on Nationalism,” Orwell criticized the left-wing intellectuals who enjoy “seeing their own country humiliated” and “follow the principle that any faction backed by Britain must be in the wrong.” Among some of these intellectuals, Orwell wrote: “One finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States. Moreover they do not as a rule condemn violence as such, but only violence used in defence of the western countries.”

Hitchens observed that many on today’s left are motivated by the same principle: “Nothing will make us fight against an evil if that fight forces us to go to the same corner as our own government.” This is a predictable manifestation of what the American political theorist Michael Walzer calls the “default position” of the left: a purportedly “anti-imperialist and anti-militarist” position inclined toward the view that “everything that goes wrong in the world is America’s fault.” As we’ll see throughout this book, the tendency to ignore and rationalize even the most egregious violence and authoritarianism abroad in favor of an obsessive emphasis on the crimes and blunders of Western governments has become a reflex on the left.

Much of the left has been captured by a strange mix of sectarian and authoritarian impulses: a myopic emphasis on identitarianism and group rights over the individual; an orientation toward subjectivity and tribalism over objectivity and universalism; and demands for political orthodoxy enforced by repressive tactics like the suppression of speech. These left-wing pathologies are particularly corrosive today because they give right-wing nationalists and populists on both sides of the Atlantic—whose rise over the past several years has been characterized by hostility to democratic norms and institutions, rampant xenophobia, and other forms of illiberalism—an opportunity to claim that those who oppose them are the true authoritarians.

Hitchens was prescient about the ascendance of right-wing populism in the West, from the emergence of demagogues who exploit cultural grievances and racial resentments to the bitter parochialism of “America First” nationalism. And he understood that the left could only defeat these noxious political forces by rediscovering its best traditions: support for free expression, pluralism, and universalism—the values of the Enlightenment.

The final two decades of Hitchens’s career are regarded as a gross aberration by many of his former political allies—a perception he did little to correct as he became increasingly averse to the direction of the left. He no longer cared what his left-wing contemporaries thought of him or what superficial labels they used to describe his politics. Hitchens closes Why Orwell Matters with the following observation: “What he [Orwell] illustrates, by his commitment to language as the partner of truth, is that ‘views’ do not really count; that it matters not what you think, but how you think; and that politics are relatively unimportant, while principles have a way of enduring, as do the few irreducible individuals who maintain allegiance to them.” This is a book about how Hitchens thought—and what today’s left can learn from him.

It's still worth saving.

#Christopher Hitchens #Matt Johnson #How Hitchens Can Save the Left #identity politics #populism #left wing identity politics #right wing populism #liberalism #universal liberalism #universalism #Enlightenment #Enlightenment values #universal human rights #tribalism #tribeless #politically homeless #political tribalism #religion is a mental illness

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atrayo · 1 year ago

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Channeled Angelic Wisdom of the Jewels of Truth Series on Broken Faith & Divine Rights

Happy All Hallow's Eve Everyone!

For those that celebrate Halloween and for those that don't. Don't be a spook!

Today's Jewels of Truth channeled angelic wisdom statements will be a duo this time around. The topics will be on a Broken Faith and on your Divine Rights as a Child entity emanation from God's Image and Likeness. You have inalienable celestial rights in the heavens as an eternal entity aka ghost. Not unlike having limited rights on a conditional basis from your host nation of birth or residency. Unlike those citizen rights as a human, these Divine Rights are everlasting and unconditional upon your flavors of a metaphysical Utopia.

The statement on a Broken Faith is self-explanatory for the most part. As always these statements are sourced via psychic automatic writing in an Inspirational fashion as a writing technique by longhand originally. I have 28 years plus experience as an automatic writer channeling the heavenly host. (Be they angels, ancestors, fairies, nature spirits, lesser deities, and certainly God(dess).)

Atrayo's Oracle Blog Site is your online resource for FREE for the latest Jewels of Truth series of statements. Aside from Volumes One, Two, and Three of the Jewels of Truth series sold online at Amazon in paperback and Kindle editions.

These two most recent statements were channeled less than ten days ago as fresh off the pearly gates. :o)

May you find them intriguing whether you accept them or not. As long as they expand your blessed horizons of the Infinite Divinity within us all. Amen.

Broken Faith:

3269) Sometimes in life very bad things will happen to good people who were already struggling with other hardships outright. Often this signifies a hurling even further backwards personally akin to an insult to injury. From the Big Picture angelic Heavenly perspective in a detached compassionate manner, it is another opportunity to reset your dilemmas in the world.

What appears as personally disastrous at first glance is the heavenly expression of Tough Love to steer you around so as to orient you onto a stronger pathway of redemptions. What was once before a dead-end cycle of turmoil leading you in a circle around a self-created abyss of your own annihilation. With a renewed long-distance Hope you have a 2nd chance to heal your psyche, living conditions, and a potential righteous outcome, if you have sufficient courage to claim such soulful treasures of God.

What was once a prior perpetual state of despair has you boomer ranged onto another loop that has a chance of success versus a dead-end street just before of wretched agony. We the heavenly host often sling-shot mortals through Tough Love in order to catapult them away from pre-existing miseries of all consecrated kinds.

When your faith is in another person versus a set of circumstances of your own dysfunctional making as flawed coping mechanisms socially speaking in the world. You have linked hearts to another spiritually speaking whether they are a fine suitor or a wretched behemoth of foul relations. Be this with unspoken allegiances to individuals as relatives, friends, and perhaps strangers verily unto other impersonal organizations such as to a government or a corporation.

Many an idealist that swears fealty towards an organization by a declared oath of principles. Only to realize years to decades later such people run Institutional entities are flawed. Much remorse with disgruntled recriminations occurs needing heartfelt healing of such feelings of betrayals to be allievated. No one can deny there is goodness and even greatness of the people nameless and perhaps even recognized in such human-led Institutions of all kinds on earth. However, there are also backstabbing politics of usurpers and deceivers as snakes in the grassy knolls best avoided at all costs.

When a Loved one breaks your heart and mind not just once but repeatedly over the years. What sort of resolve do you have? Often the best recourse after breaking your selfless soul as a compassionate spirit to their parasitic tendencies is to simply let them go. Take your own medicine of courage led by faith and trust in God and save yourself unless you martyr yourself to a miscreant dearly loved.

Walk away, nah crawl away if you must slowly psychologically as contemplations before the eventual day you actually leave such an aggrieved abuser. Be this a spouse that has self-destructed or a relative perhaps a young adult addicted to opioids. You can not save them if you have personally self-destructed first morally and certainly spiritually by living in a self-created Hell on Earth.

Seek help from social welfare and religious organizations aside from having confidants be they therapists to other relatives and friends that can be trusted. Do not be selfish with your hardships for spiritually they belong to the world whether they are acknowledged or not. What must bear fruit takes many such seasons to grow unfettered without interference lest a healthy pruning from time to time.

Only those individuals that make a clear and lasting break away from the pandemonia at the home or office workplace front. Can find the moments between moments in utter silence to listen to the Intuitive stillness of God and the angelic powers that be for guidance. Yours isn't a unique tragedy although it feels horribly as such. To have your holy rightful redemption you must develop personal courage even if you must crawl like a newborn child emotionally and mentally to achieve it.

Your masochism at the hands of an abuser isn't noble anymore. Their frigid demeanor must be surrendered to a higher authority even if you must metaphorically walk on your knees out of such a hell hole. The scars can heal if you are dedicated once you are outside such a killing field of angst. Those that harbor monsters either die a slow cowardly death morally and spiritually. Or become just like their abuser as tormentors of another demented sort as the once abused is now a victimizer of another generation of hapless victims.

Be the Difference to experience a positive change start small and tiny with moral choices that are anonymous without advertising to anyone your progress. Seek resources locally and online to overcome your hardships whatever they may be in fact. Your facts can change if you start now and continue even if you have fits and starts over a period of months and years. You aren't completely lost to us in the heavens, pray without ceasing and give thanks even for the slightest foolishness to God. That is only redemptive by his Glory alone.

Yours can be the path well-lived even after years of tragedies and internalized abuses. Forgive yourself, forgive your tormentors silently, and even Forgive God if you must for feelings of abandonment. The path to success in life is for all who claim such bold glory. Even if you fail along the way a modest success is nothing to surrender easily. Your dearest eyes tell sagas to us the heavenly angelic host of the saints and sinners alike.

Be on your guard for the greatest threat comes from within humanity before even the impersonal natural disasters lays claim to your souls on Earth due to climate tragedies. Situational awareness is a must not with paranoia but with Pronoia realizing your divinity is the sacred pathway of overcoming this world slowly and deliberately.

Whatever faith or a dear sacred trust becomes broken in the world. It takes triple the effort to restore it over time in a sincere often selfless resolve to heal what was once scarred. It takes a whole regime of personal self-development to release the dysfunctional old patterns by finding renewed hope to reinvigorate a psyche and a human body away from maladies that once before injured it. Whichever path you choose may it be the right one for you even if mistakes are encountered along the way. They aid you such mistakes to realize what isn't for you.

Go with internalized humble confidence away from your pain into your strengths instead. Those will be the laurels gained and cherished over time that lead you away from misery unto your own slot of peace on earth. Amen. ---Ivan Pozo-Illas / Atrayo.

Divine Rights:

3270) For all concerned souls on this version of the earth beyond your humane arts and sciences that endeavor to reveal the glories of the world at every unforeseeable turn of events. Yours is a glory already forgotten long ago in terms of the metaphysical wonders in your common ancient midsts. Every creature whether as a human person or known to you as wildlife primitive in its ways. Along with the spirits of a place be it urban, suburban, and certainly a wild ecological sphere of an untamed environment.

All these entities spiritually have a right to exist and thrive by their own solemn divine accord as Willed by God(dess). Every entity spiritually as a spirit and by hierarchical connections of the soul body of God have inalienable Divine Rights to flourish upon Creation. We the angelic host as minor deities move the cosmos to make this ultimate desire of God the Lord of Majesties Eternal to bring this Immaculate Truth to bear as realities without end or beginning.

Every entity has a responsibility to grow, mature, and serve one another with dignity. Be this on the physical interactions and certainly with the spectral ethereal environs by worshipping God, however, you define him, her, or it.

We denote that there are universal tenets known to many of you as the virtues, norms, ethics, and rules of sound judgment coupled with benevolence that make such a noble difference to exist into perpetuity. Such a godly essence is perfect in terms of retrofactions to curve the bend of realities back onto itself so this Creation may exist forever. A loop of another order of magnitudes that permits the divine to intercede on behalf of the living by the flesh or other energetic transfers of being alive.

A macro totality of souls of what you term as the afterlife embodies all the values of the just and of the wicked known and unknown unto all Creations alike. Those who herald eventually back to the Heavenly hereafter are afforded esteemed privileges and rights garnered by how their reincarnation has lived rightly. Most of these basic rights are gifted as Promises Everlasting by God itself and all the rest as privileges are earned on a case-by-case eternal basis on the soul level over eternities of collective efforts of all your rebirths.

Such ones that are called Old Souls are the juveniles of eternity having gamed the celestial system as the ringers. Reborn to serve and cause mischief out of delight to enjoy this side of the universe with grace and ease well deserved by the angelic gods indeed. These are the awards of past, present as concurrent, and forelong future reincarnations co-existing with you. What was once garnered is now redeemed to be cherished once more with greater factors of privileges by the fates in question for any entity that has earned or been gifted them to live by the grace of God indeed.

The unfair advantages a person, circumstance, or a force of nature may have in the world. These are heralded from far away remembered eternally and cherished by God as the ultimate supreme guarantor.

Your free will is indicative of not just the number of choices you exercise but the prestige of your divinity on earth to be living to the fullest expression of the Glories of God everlasting. Many variables and attributes have been predestined as baked into your reincarnations right now as reborn heavenly young angelic spirits. Those who live in accordance with their highest and purest truths experience such heavenly privileges foremost before all others in slumber within a lifetime of denial.

The karma available to each of you is sacred and neutral. What you make of it is yours alone although you can carry the karma of others as a selfless sacrifice of your own noble choice. Those with boarder shoulders spiritually speaking get the best whistles and toys as blessings within a lifetime. What they utilize isn't for selfish use alone. Many are constant givers to the point of self-destructive ruin as martyrs. Not all martyrs are wise and not all martyrs are destined to rise to the occasion. Some are merely victims caught up in the fervor of another miscreant's slaughter.

Each of you are solemn ghosts with physical bodies that you deem as human and as such mortal for a finite era of time on earth and no more. This can not be further from the metaphysical truth eternal as it is glorious to recall your divinity is a life within a human lifetime. Each of you has more than a single lifetime simultaneously ongoing in a multi-dimensional constant. What is deemed as your Over-Soul is a constellation of all your reincarnations happening Right Now! Be this ten thousand years ago as a Neanderthal hominid, five hundred years ago in the European Ressainance, and One Thousand years from now on a human colony barely surviving on another planet.

The turnstile of portals of the ages is always happening metaphysically Now, not later or then. Your face is but a finite echo of something far greater looming forever and it won't stop just because you're agnostic or an atheist filled with unresolved dramatic confusion. All are welcome to cherish their divinity and to safeguard the foreigner's divinity without condemnation and certainly without discriminatory persecutions based upon cultural creeds.

You each are inches from self-realizations of astounding gobsmacking wonders of the glory of God(dess). Claim them if you are so bold as to remember what it means to be an angelic spirit living as someone else perceiving itself as divorced from the cosmos. Rekindle what is yours to achieve within a lifetime shared by the goodwill of others that accept your artistry and magnetic resolve to carry on by chance and destiny alike. Amen. ---Ivan Pozo-Illas / Atrayo.

Ivan "Atrayo" Pozo-Illas, has devoted 28 plus years of his life to the pursuit of clairaudient-inspired automatic writing channeling the Angelic Heavenly host. Ivan is the author of the spiritual wisdom series "Jewels of Truth" consisting of 3 volumes published to date. He also utilizes a unique channeled angelic divination method called the Multi-Deck Divination System. Numerous examples of his work are available at "Atrayo's Oracle" blog site of 18 years plus online. You're welcome to visit his website "Jewelsoftruth.us" for further information or to contact Atrayo directly.

#ivan pozo-illas #jewels of truth #atrayo's oracle #spiritual wisdom #automatic writing #angels #god #spiritual teacher #spirit guide #metaphysics #spirituality #Broken Faith #Divine Rights #Psychic #mysticism #Spiritual Wisdom

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romancatholichistory · 1 year ago

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Understanding the Term "Roman Catholic" | Origin, Usage, and Criticisms

Roman Catholic

The term "Roman Catholic" is often used in official documents to describe members of the Catholic Church, as a way of recognizing those who reject the authority of the Church. Some Anglicans view the Catholic Church as consisting of three main branches: Roman, Anglo, and Greek. However, this view has been shown to be incorrect. For more information on the term "Catholic", please refer to the articles on "church" and "Catholic".

Definition

The "Oxford English Dictionary" defines "Roman Catholic" as follows.

“The use of this composite term in place of the simple Roman, Romanist, or Romish; which had acquired an invidious sense, appears to have arisen in the early years of the seventeenth century. For conciliatory reasons it was employed in the negotiations connected with the Spanish Match (1618-1624) and appears in formal documents relating to this printed by Rushworth (I, 85-89). After that date it was generally adopted as a non-controversial term and has long been the recognized legal and official designation, though in ordinary use Catholic alone is very frequently employed. (New Oxford Dict., VIII, 766)”

Illustrative quotations follow. The earliest is from Edwin Sandys' "Europae Speculum" of 1605: "Some Roman Catholics won't say grace when a Protestant is present." Day's "Festivals" of 1615 contrasts "Roman Catholics" with "good, true Catholics.”

Origin of the Term

The Oxford Dictionary's account of the origin of the term "Roman Catholic" is not entirely satisfactory. The term is actually much older than believed, dating back to the 16th century when English Catholics under persecution defended the lawfulness of attending Protestant services. In response, Protestant divines, such as Father Persons and Robert Crowley, used the term "Roman Catholic" or "Romish Catholic" in their writings. They resented the Roman Catholic Church's claim to the term "Catholic" and insisted that the Reformers were the true Catholic Church. The term "Roman Catholic" originated from this Protestant view, and was used to qualify the term "Catholic" when referring to their opponents. Crowley even referred to his opponents as "Protestant Catholics.”

On the other hand the evidence seems to show that the Catholics of the reign of Elizabeth and James I were by no means willing to admit any other designation for themselves than the unqualified name Catholic. Father Southwell's "Humble Supplication to her Majesty" (1591), though criticized by some as over-adulatory in tone, always uses the simple word. What is more surprising, the same may be said of various addresses to the Crown drafted under the inspiration of the "Appellant" clergy, who were suspected by their opponents of subservience to the government and of minimizing in matters of dogma. This feature is very conspicuous, to take a single example, in "the Protestation of allegiance" drawn up by thirteen missioners, 31 Jan., 1603, in which they renounce all thought of "restoring the Catholic religion by the sword", profess their willingness "to persuade all Catholics to do the same" and conclude by declaring themselves ready on the one hand "to spend their blood in the defence of her Majesty" but on the other "rather to lose their lives than infringe the lawful authority of Christ's Catholic Church" (Tierney-Dodd, III, p. cxc). We find similar language used in Ireland in the negotiations carried on by Tyrone in behalf of his Catholic countrymen. Certain apparent exceptions to this uniformity of practice can be readily explained. To begin with we do find that Catholics not unfrequently use the inverted form of the name "Roman Catholic" and speak of the "Catholic Roman faith" or religion. An early example is to be found in a little controversial tract of 1575 called "a Notable Discourse" where we read for example that the heretics of old "preached that the Pope was Antichriste, shewing themselves verye eloquent in detracting and rayling against the Catholique Romane Church" (p. 64). But this was simply a translation of the phraseology common both in Latin and in the Romance languages "Ecclesia Catholica Romana," or in French "l'Église catholique romaine". It was felt that this inverted form contained no hint of the Protestant contention that the old religion was a spurious variety of true Catholicism or at best the Roman species of a wider genus. Again, when we find Father Persons (e.g. in his "Three Conversions," III, 408) using the term "Roman Catholic", the context shows that he is only adopting the name for the moment as conveniently embodying the contention of his adversaries.

Usage

In a passage from an examination in 1591 (see Cal. State Papers, Dom. Eliz., add., vol. XXXII, p. 322), a deponent was "persuaded to conform to the Roman Catholic faith." However, it's unclear if these are the exact words of the person in question or if they were said to please the examiners. The "Oxford Dictionary" suggests that "Roman Catholic" became the official label for English Papacy supporters during negotiations for the Spanish Match from 1618-24. The religion of the Spanish princess was often referred to as "Roman Catholic" in the various treaties and proposals for this match. Before this period, Catholics were commonly referred to as Papists or Recusants, and their religion was described as popish, Romanish, or Romanist in Acts of Parliament and proclamations. Even after "Roman Catholic" became the official term, it was still used condescendingly. Catholics began to use the term themselves to encourage a friendlier relationship with the authorities, as seen in the "Humble Remonstrance, Acknowledgement, Protestation and Petition of the Roman Catholic Clergy of Ireland" in 1661. The same practice was observed in Maryland. The wish to appease hostile opinions grew greater as Catholic Emancipation became a practical political issue, and by then, Catholics used the qualified term even in their domestic discussions. In 1794, the "Roman Catholic Meeting" was formed to counteract the unorthodox tendencies of the Cisalpine Club, with the approval of the vicars Apostolic. The Irish bishops referred to members of their own communion as "Roman Catholics" during a meeting in 1821. Even Charles Butler, a representative Catholic, used the term "roman-catholic" in his "Historical Memoirs.”

In the mid-19th century, a strong revival of Catholicism led many converts to insist that the name "Catholic" be used without qualification. However, the government refused to allow any changes to the official designation, and even on public occasions, addresses presented to the Sovereign had to use the term "Roman Catholic Archbishop and Bishops in England". Despite attempts to use alternative phrasing, such as "the Cardinal Archbishop and Bishops of the Catholic and Roman Church in England", these were not approved. In 1901, the requirements of the Home Secretary were complied with when the Catholic episcopate presented addresses using the term "Roman Catholics". Cardinal Vaughan explained that this term had two meanings: one that was repudiated and another that was accepted. The term "Roman" is not meant to restrict the Church to a particular species or section, but rather to emphasize its unity and its connection to the Roman See of St. Peter.

Criticisms

Representative Anglican Bishop Andrewes ridiculed the phrase "Ecclesia Catholica Romana" as a contradiction in terms. Catholics make no compromise in the matter of their name as it is the traditional name handed down to them from the time of St. Augustine. Anglicans' dog-in-the-manger policy is brought out in a correspondence on this subject in the London "Saturday Review" (Dec., 1908 to March, 1909).

Source

Catholic Encyclopedia (https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13121a.htm)

#catholic #religion #roman catholic #roman catholic history #christianity

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renaissanceclassics · 2 years ago

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The Pilgrim’s Progress: Part 5

Listen to: The 4th Stage, at Renaissance Classics Podcast.

Then he began to go forward; but Discretion, Piety, Charity, and Prudence would accompany him down to the foot of the hill. So they went on together, reiterating their former discourses, till they came to go down the hill. Then said Christian, As it was difficult coming up, so, so far as I can see, it is dangerous going down. Yes, said Prudence, so it is, for it is a hard matter for a man to go down into the Valley of Humiliation, as thou art now, and to catch no slip by the way; therefore, said they, are we come out to accompany thee down the hill. So he began to go down, but very warily; yet he caught a slip or two.

Then I saw in my dream that these good companions, when Christian was gone to the bottom of the hill, gave him a loaf of bread, a bottle of wine, and a cluster of raisins; and then he went on his way.

But now, in this Valley of Humiliation, poor Christian was hard put to it; for he had gone but a little way, before he espied a foul fiend coming over the field to meet him; his name is Apollyon. Then did Christian begin to be afraid, and to cast in his mind whether to go back or to stand his ground. But he considered again that he had no armour for his back; and therefore thought that to turn the back to him might give him the greater advantage with ease to pierce him with his darts.

Christian's resolution at the approach of Apollyon

Therefore he resolved to venture and stand his ground; for, thought he, had I no more in mine eye than the saving of my life, it would be the best way to stand.

So he went on, and Apollyon met him. Now the monster was hideous to behold; he was clothed with scales, like a fish, (and they are his pride,) he had wings like a dragon, feet like a bear, and out of his belly came fire and smoke, and his mouth was as the mouth of a lion. When he was come up to Christian, he beheld him with a disdainful countenance, and thus began to question with him.

APOLLYON: Whence come you? and whither are you bound?

Christian: I am come from the City of Destruction, which is the place of all evil, and am going to the City of Zion.

APOLLYON: By this I perceive thou art one of my subjects, for all that country is mine, and I am the prince and god of it. How is it, then, that thou hast run away from thy king? Were it not that I hope thou mayest do me more service, I would strike thee now, at one blow, to the ground.

Christian: I was born, indeed, in your dominions, but your service was hard, and your wages such as a man could not live on, "for the wages of sin is death" [Rom 6:23]; therefore, when I was come to years, I did, as other considerate persons do, look out, if, perhaps, I might mend myself.

Apollyon's flattery

APOLLYON: There is no prince that will thus lightly lose his subjects, neither will I as yet lose thee; but since thou complainest of thy service and wages, be content to go back: what our country will afford, I do here promise to give thee.

Christian: But I have let myself to another, even to the King of princes; and how can I, with fairness, go back with thee?

APOLLYON: Thou hast done in this, according to the proverb, "Changed a bad for a worse"; but it is ordinary for those that have professed themselves his servants, after a while to give him the slip, and return again to me. Do thou so too, and all shall be well.

Christian: I have given him my faith, and sworn my allegiance to him; how, then, can I go back from this, and not be hanged as a traitor?

APOLLYON: Thou didst the same to me, and yet I am willing to pass by all, if now thou wilt yet turn again and go back.

Christian: What I promised thee was in my nonage; and, besides, I count the Prince under whose banner now I stand is able to absolve me; yea, and to pardon also what I did as to my compliance with thee; and besides, O thou destroying Apollyon! to speak truth, I like his service, his wages, his servants, his government, his company, and country, better than thine; and, therefore, leave off to persuade me further; I am his servant, and I will follow him.

APOLLYON: Consider, again, when thou art in cool blood, what thou art like to meet with in the way that thou goest. Thou knowest that, for the most part, his servants come to an ill end, because they are transgressors against me and my ways. How many of them have been put to shameful deaths! and, besides, thou countest his service better than mine, whereas he never came yet from the place where he is to deliver any that served him out of their hands; but as for me, how many times, as all the world very well knows, have I delivered, either by power, or fraud, those that have faithfully served me, from him and his, though taken by them; and so I will deliver thee.

Christian: His forbearing at present to deliver them is on purpose to try their love, whether they will cleave to him to the end; and as for the ill end thou sayest they come to, that is most glorious in their account; for, for present deliverance, they do not much expect it, for they stay for their glory, and then they shall have it when their Prince comes in his and the glory of the angels.

APOLLYON: Thou hast already been unfaithful in thy service to him; and how dost thou think to receive wages of him?

Christian: Wherein, O Apollyon! have I been unfaithful to him?

APOLLYON: Thou didst faint at first setting out, when thou wast almost choked in the Gulf of Despond; thou didst attempt wrong ways to be rid of thy burden, whereas thou shouldst have stayed till thy Prince had taken it off; thou didst sinfully sleep and lose thy choice thing; thou wast, also, almost persuaded to go back at the sight of the lions; and when thou talkest of thy journey, and of what thou hast heard and seen, thou art inwardly desirous of vain-glory in all that thou sayest or doest.

Christian: All this is true, and much more which thou hast left out; but the Prince whom I serve and honour is merciful, and ready to forgive; but, besides, these infirmities possessed me in thy country, for there I sucked them in; and I have groaned under them, been sorry for them, and have obtained pardon of my Prince.

APOLLYON: Then Apollyon broke out into a grievous rage, saying, I am an enemy to this Prince; I hate his person, his laws, and people; I am come out on purpose to withstand thee.

Christian: Apollyon, beware what you do; for I am in the King's highway, the way of holiness; therefore take heed to yourself.

APOLLYON: Then Apollyon straddled quite over the whole breadth of the way, and said, I am void of fear in this matter: prepare thyself to die; for I swear by my infernal den, that thou shalt go no further; here will I spill thy soul.

And with that he threw a flaming dart at his breast; but Christian had a shield in his hand, with which he caught it, and so prevented the danger of that.

Then did Christian draw, for he saw it was time to bestir him; and Apollyon as fast made at him, throwing darts as thick as hail; by the which, notwithstanding all that Christian could do to avoid it, Apollyon wounded him in his head, his hand, and foot. This made Christian give a little back; Apollyon, therefore, followed his work amain, and Christian again took courage, and resisted as manfully as he could. This sore combat lasted for above half a day, even till Christian was almost quite spent; for you must know that Christian, by reason of his wounds, must needs grow weaker and weaker.

Then Apollyon, espying his opportunity, began to gather up close to Christian, and wrestling with him, gave him a dreadful fall; and with that Christian's sword flew out of his hand. Then said Apollyon, I am sure of thee now. And with that he had almost pressed him to death, so that Christian began to despair of life; but as God would have it, while Apollyon was fetching of his last blow, thereby to make a full end of this good man, Christian nimbly stretched out his hand for his sword, and caught it, saying, "Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy; when I fall I shall arise" [Micah 7:8];

Christian's victory over Apollyon

and with that gave him a deadly thrust, which made him give back, as one that had received his mortal wound. Christian perceiving that, made at him again, saying, "Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us". [Rom. 8:37] And with that Apollyon spread forth his dragon's wings, and sped him away, that Christian for a season saw him no more. [James 4:7]

In this combat no man can imagine, unless he had seen and heard as I did, what yelling and hideous roaring Apollyon made all the time of the fight he spake like a dragon; and, on the other side, what sighs and groans burst from Christian's heart. I never saw him all the while give so much as one pleasant look, till he perceived he had wounded Apollyon with his two-edged sword; then, indeed, he did smile, and look upward; but it was the dreadfullest sight that ever I saw.

A more unequal match can hardly be, CHRISTIAN must fight an Angel; but you see,

The valiant man by handling Sword and Shield, Doth make him, tho' a Dragon, quit the field.

So when the battle was over, Christian said, "I will here give thanks to him that delivered me out of the mouth of the lion, to him that did help me against Apollyon." And so he did, saying

Great Beelzebub, the captain of this fiend, Design'd my ruin; therefore to this end He sent him harness'd out: and he with rage That hellish was, did fiercely me engage. But blessed Michael helped me, and I, By dint of sword, did quickly make him fly. Therefore to him let me give lasting praise, And thank and bless his holy name always.

Then there came to him a hand, with some of the leaves of the tree of life, the which Christian took, and applied to the wounds that he had received in the battle, and was healed immediately. He also sat down in that place to eat bread, and to drink of the bottle that was given him a little before; so, being refreshed, he addressed himself to his journey, with his sword drawn in his hand; for he said, I know not but some other enemy may be at hand. But he met with no other affront from Apollyon quite through this valley.

Now, at the end of this valley was another, called the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and Christian must needs go through it, because the way to the Celestial City lay through the midst of it. Now, this valley is a very solitary place. The prophet Jeremiah thus describes it: "A wilderness, a land of deserts and of pits, a land of drought, and of the shadow of death, a land that no man" (but a Christian) "passed through, and where no man dwelt." [Jer. 2:6]

Now here Christian was worse put to it than in his fight with Apollyon, as by the sequel you shall see.

I saw then in my dream, that when Christian was got to the borders of the Shadow of Death, there met him two men, children of them that brought up an evil report of the good land [Num. 13], making haste to go back; to whom Christian spake as follows:

Christian: Whither are you going?

MEN. They said, Back! back! and we would have you to do so too, if either life or peace is prized by you.

Christian: Why, what's the matter? said Christian.

MEN. Matter! said they; we were going that way as you are going, and went as far as we durst; and indeed we were almost past coming back; for had we gone a little further, we had not been here to bring the news to thee.

Christian: But what have you met with? said Christian.

MEN. Why, we were almost in the Valley of the Shadow of Death; but that, by good hap, we looked before us, and saw the danger before we came to it. [Ps. 44:19; 107:10]

Christian: But what have you seen? said Christian.

MEN. Seen! Why, the Valley itself, which is as dark as pitch; we also saw there the hobgoblins, satyrs, and dragons of the pit; we heard also in that Valley a continual howling and yelling, as of a people under unutterable misery, who there sat bound in affliction and irons; and over that Valley hangs the discouraging clouds of confusion. Death also doth always spread his wings over it. In a word, it is every whit dreadful, being utterly without order. [Job 3:5; 10:22]

Christian: Then, said Christian, I perceive not yet, by what you have said, but that this is my way to the desired haven. [Jer. 2:6]

MEN. Be it thy way; we will not choose it for ours. So, they parted, and Christian went on his way, but still with his sword drawn in his hand, for fear lest he should be assaulted.

I saw then in my dream, so far as this valley reached, there was on the right hand a very deep ditch; that ditch is it into which the blind have led the blind in all ages, and have both there miserably perished. [Ps. 69:14,15] Again, behold, on the left hand, there was a very dangerous quag, into which, if even a good man falls, he can find no bottom for his foot to stand on. Into that quag King David once did fall, and had no doubt therein been smothered, had not HE that is able plucked him out.

The pathway was here also exceeding narrow, and therefore good Christian was the more put to it; for when he sought, in the dark, to shun the ditch on the one hand, he was ready to tip over into the mire on the other; also when he sought to escape the mire, without great carefulness he would be ready to fall into the ditch. Thus he went on, and I heard him here sigh bitterly; for, besides the dangers mentioned above, the pathway was here so dark, and ofttimes, when he lift up his foot to set forward, he knew not where or upon what he should set it next.

Poor man! where art thou now? thy day is night. Good man, be not cast down, thou yet art right, Thy way to heaven lies by the gates of Hell; Cheer up, hold out, with thee it shall go well.

About the midst of this valley, I perceived the mouth of hell to be, and it stood also hard by the wayside. Now, thought Christian, what shall I do? And ever and anon the flame and smoke would come out in such abundance, with sparks and hideous noises, (things that cared not for Christian's sword, as did Apollyon before), that he was forced to put up his sword, and betake himself to another weapon called All-prayer. [Eph. 6:18] So he cried in my hearing, "O Lord, I beseech thee, deliver my soul!" [Ps. 116:4] Thus he went on a great while, yet still the flames would be reaching towards him. Also he heard doleful voices, and rushings to and fro, so that sometimes he thought he should be torn in pieces, or trodden down like mire in the streets. This frightful sight was seen, and these dreadful noises were heard by him for several miles together; and, coming to a place where he thought he heard a company of fiends coming forward to meet him, he stopped, and began to muse what he had best to do. Sometimes he had half a thought to go back; then again he thought he might be half way through the valley; he remembered also how he had already vanquished many a danger, and that the danger of going back might be much more than for to go forward; so he resolved to go on. Yet the fiends seemed to come nearer and nearer; but when they were come even almost at him, he cried out with a most vehement voice, "I will walk in the strength of the Lord God!" so they gave back, and came no further.

One thing I would not let slip. I took notice that now poor Christian was so confounded, that he did not know his own voice; and thus I perceived it. Just when he was come over against the mouth of the burning pit, one of the wicked ones got behind him, and stepped up softly to him, and whisperingly suggested many grievous blasphemies to him, which he verily thought had proceeded from his own mind. This put Christian more to it than anything that he met with before, even to think that he should now blaspheme him that he loved so much before; yet, if he could have helped it, he would not have done it; but he had not the discretion either to stop his ears, or to know from whence these blasphemies came.

When Christian had travelled in this disconsolate condition some considerable time, he thought he heard the voice of a man, as going before him, saying, "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me." [Ps. 23:4]

Then he was glad, and that for these reasons:

First, Because he gathered from thence, that some who feared God were in this valley as well as himself.

Secondly, For that he perceived God was with them, though in that dark and dismal state; and why not, thought he, with me? though, by reason of the impediment that attends this place, I cannot perceive it. [Job 9:11]

Thirdly, For that he hoped, could he overtake them, to have company by and by. So he went on, and called to him that was before; but he knew not what to answer; for that he also thought to be alone. And by and by the day broke; then said Christian, He hath turned "the shadow of death into the morning". [Amos 5:8]

Now morning being come, he looked back, not out of desire to return, but to see, by the light of the day, what hazards he had gone through in the dark. So he saw more perfectly the ditch that was on the one hand, and the mire that was on the other; also how narrow the way was which led betwixt them both; also now he saw the hobgoblins, and satyrs, and dragons of the pit, but all afar off, (for after break of day, they came not nigh;) yet they were discovered to him, according to that which is written, "He discovereth deep things out of darkness, and bringeth out to light the shadow of death." [Job 12:22]

Now was Christian much affected with his deliverance from all the dangers of his solitary way; which dangers, though he feared them more before, yet he saw them more clearly now, because the light of the day made them conspicuous to him. And about this time the sun was rising, and this was another mercy to Christian; for you must note, that though the first part of the Valley of the Shadow of Death was dangerous, yet this second part which he was yet to go, was, if possible, far more dangerous; for from the place where he now stood, even to the end of the valley, the way was all along set so full of snares, traps, gins, and nets here, and so full of pits, pitfalls, deep holes, and shelvings down there, that, had it now been dark, as it was when he came the first part of the way, had he had a thousand souls, they had in reason been cast away; but, as I said just now, the sun was rising. Then said he, "His candle shineth upon my head, and by his light I walk through darkness." [Job 29:3]

In this light, therefore, he came to the end of the valley. Now I saw in my dream, that at the end of this valley lay blood, bones, ashes, and mangled bodies of men, even of pilgrims that had gone this way formerly; and while I was musing what should be the reason, I espied a little before me a cave, where two giants, POPE and PAGAN, dwelt in old time; by whose power and tyranny the men whose bones, blood, and ashes, &c., lay there, were cruelly put to death. But by this place Christian went without much danger, whereat I somewhat wondered; but I have learnt since, that PAGAN has been dead many a day; and as for the other, though he be yet alive, he is, by reason of age, and also of the many shrewd brushes that he met with in his younger days, grown so crazy and stiff in his joints, that he can now do little more than sit in his cave's mouth, grinning at pilgrims as they go by, and biting his nails because he cannot come at them.

So I saw that Christian went on his way; yet, at the sight of the Old Man that sat in the mouth of the cave, he could not tell what to think, especially because he spake to him, though he could not go after him, saying, "You will never mend till more of you be burned." But he held his peace, and set a good face on it, and so went by and catched no hurt. Then sang Christian:

O world of wonders! (I can say no less), That I should be preserved in that distress That I have met with here! O blessed be That hand that from it hath deliver'd me! Dangers in darkness, devils, hell, and sin Did compass me, while I this vale was in: Yea, snares, and pits, and traps, and nets, did lie My path about, that worthless, silly I Might have been catch'd, entangled, and cast down; But since I live, let JESUS wear the crown.

#podcast #audio #story #pilgrim's progress #john bunyan #christian #fiction #renaissance #awakening #allegory #heaven

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