#cultic: chapter one

[bangpuddingmuffin]

CULTIC: Chapter One

Cultic is fantastic. The guns feel great, with all of them feeling like worthwhile additions to your arsenal. The level design was top notch and, despite the general zone theming being similar, it managed to have each level have a completely different texture. Most shooters tend to get tedious in later areas, with them trying to ramp up the difficulty by putting bullet sponges everywhere. Cultic didn't do that.

The only miss for me was the chapel level, but ultimately that wasn't a bad level, just not as enjoyable as the other ones.

I am very happy I decided to give Cultic another shot. It hit with me in a great way. I'm looking forward to whenever chapter two drops.

Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMOeTsMoezKaMSZOaL3BuHkuhyexAB5_Q

[blueiscoool]

Rare Ancient Stamps Found in Denmark

In the center of Falster, southeast of Denmark, a man with a metal detector has made an important discovery. The discovery is so important that it could help write a few chapters for Danish history or at least the local history of Falster.

While Lennart Larsen was out on a rainy day and searching for anything of historical value, he suddenly heard a faint beep in his equipment, and when he checked the ground, he discovered small, interesting objects, unlike anything he had seen before.

A faint beep has indeed revealed a special stamp in the ground – a so-called Patrice – that was used to make gold images, which are believed to be gifted to the gods.

The Museum Lolland-Falster has been informed. The only two-centimeter-long object in Falster’s soil may be a trace of a former royal power on Falster, the museum said.

“This indicates that we are standing in a place that has meant some trade and probably also had some form of cultic activity. And although it’s a bit wild to say, it could also indicate that it was once a center of power on Falster,” museum inspector and archaeologist Marie Brinch from the Lolland-Falster Museum said.

She emphasizes that the discovery was made in an area with names dating back to the Viking Age or even earlier and that the marshland was discovered in an area that had been sacrificed to the gods in the century preceding the stamp’s creation.

Archaeologists have before come across several signs of activity from the Iron Age and the Viking Age have been found, including an enormous shipyard and a large castle from the Viking Age at Falster. However, only a small number of discoveries have been made that can demonstrate where the island’s wealthy elite resided in the years prior to the beginning of the Viking Age. The new find may help to shed light on that.

Researchers have determined the tiny objects are stamps from the era just before the Viking Age. They were created between the years 500 and 700.

According to Margrethe Watt of the National Museum, who collects and researches ancient gold coins and stamps, these are extremely rare. There have only been 28 stamps discovered in the entire Nordic region, including the one from Falster, and it is a very unique stamp. South of the Baltic Sea, no stamps or gold coins have been discovered.

“The stamps are all very special. We only find them in the most important places of residence – those that we call the central places in the technical language. These are the places that we associate with the greatest magnates or kings. That’s the league we’re in here. And this stamp is at the same time very much for itself in its style,” she says.

“On the stamp from Falster, you can see a person in fine clothes, standing with their hands at a very special angle. The hands are down, and the palms are visible. It is something that we know in both Christian and pre-Christian cultures as either a sign of submission or a revelation. It is also a symbol that we see in many churches today, Watt explains.

Neither the god nor the king were shown as weak or flawed in any way. And you don��t see that on the stamp from Falster either. “This means that it is either a royal figure who submits to a god – or that it is a god who reveals himself to a human being,” she says.

“It is actually difficult to see if it is a man or a woman who is depicted. You would see that by the fact that there is a tuft of hair on the back of the piston. But it may well appear that there is, she says, and emphasizes that it requires further investigations to determine whether this is the case.

As there may be more finds in the ground at the site, Museum Lolland-Falster does not yet want to publish where the find was made – but states that it was made in central Falster.

By Leman Altuntaş.

[eleemosynecdoche]

Hecatia and the Lunarians

Blame/credit @sukimas for expressing interest in this...

Okay, so, Hecatia gets to talk for a few paragraphs in Alternative Facts in Eastern Utopia about Hell's history, and by implication, her own. Eirin and Toyohime each get a full chapter in Cage in Lunatic Runagate and they convey quite a lot of things about the Lunarian mindset and worldview. One thing that's struck me recently is that, although Hecatia is explicitly anti-Lunarian on a far deeper level than any other character who's gotten dialogue (Yukari's probably equally anti-Lunarian but she's less talkative about why), Hecatia is also positioned as a similar kind of entity to the Lunarians.

Firstly, they both tell origin myths about their associated locations which are straightforwardly contrary to both the familiar mythology and a more secular historical analysis. Hecatia talks about Hell originating not as a place of punishment and rehabilitation, but as a construct by powerful people who were uninterested in living according to conventional virtues.

What Hecatia probably means by Hell here is the Greek Tartaros (or Tartarus), which undergoes a historical transformation from an abyssal realm where defeated godlike powers are imprisoned indefinitely (eg in Hesiod) to a place where mortals and some minor immortals who transgressed against the gods were condemned to ironic torments in the more Classical Greek mythological writings.

But Tartaros is just a primordial place in Greek myths at every point. Like Kaos, or Gaea, or Aether, or Ouranos, it's both a deity and a space, part of the early structure of the universe before there are really personalities. Nobody built it.

Similarly, Toyohime tells a story about how the Lunar Capital was created by the great sage Tsukuyomi and their* desire to avoid the spread of impurity and death, and also tells a story identifying the Lunar Capital with the undersea Dragon Palace of Japanese folklore. And this is, in its way, consistent both with the textual tradition in which Tsukuyomi is the killer of the food goddess Ukemochi out of disgust with how she vomits food out, and also the fact that Tsukuyomi is a god without much cultic presence, a figure mostly in primordial mythology, unlike their very active siblings Amaterasu and Susanoo. (There are a couple shrines to them, especially as subordinate parts of large Amaterasu shrine complexes. But not many.)

But it's also not really derived from the mythology directly, and it's not quite drawing upon a clear historical transformation- Tsukuyomi-no-Mikoto seems to have always been primarily a literary figure, distant from practical religion.

Now, the Lunarians reject divinity, in the sense of rejecting the obligation to humans that being a kami in a shrine requires, the interactions and subordination to ritual. Hecatia also describes her original Hell as a place where people reject rules they don't like. So we also have this interesting convergence- these two sets of figures who assert a separate history of their own existence, disconnected from what ordinary humans thought then or now, also share in this kind of symbolic disconnect.

So one way of looking at their alternate histories is to treat them as assertions about the world and the universe more than statements of plain fact, which is definitely workable within the fictional context as well- Hecatia is manipulating Aya in her interview, Toyohime doesn't know the full details of the "history of the moon" and is to an extent repeating what she's been told. There's been quite a lot of good meta about those worldviews you can go read.

But another similarity that falls out of this analysis is that both sides of this pair exist in a state of relative freedom within Touhou cosmology, because the Lunarians are figures of literary myths who don't have to be reconciled with their behavior at the shrine, and Hekate is a famously confusing and difficult figure within the Greek and later Greco-Roman mythological complex- Hesiod presents her as a kind of universal helpful figure, as does the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, but other sources from early periods present her as sketchy or hellish. Still later, she would become treated as a nearly-omnipotent goddess in some of the Greek Magical Papyri- but what we know about her cult and position today is limited and even contemporary writers seem confused.

Hecatia is thus free in the cracks, because human imagination and human history have left her with great latitude, just like the objects of her distaste, the Lunarians. I suppose in a way it's the contempt bred of familiarity- you have all this freedom and this is how you use it? etc.

*Tsukuyomi's gender is unclear, according to Wikipedia in English, even given early poetic sources that refer to them in masculine terms. So I suspect there's some real uncertainty going on in the scholarship too.

[thorraborinn]

Hey, do you know of any paper or something examining the Baldr myth critically besides Anatoly Liberman's paper? Also, what do you think about Dr. Crawford's Loki misconceptions video or his collab video with ReligionForBreakfast?. I know you said in one of your posts that the question to whether or not Loki was worshiped historically has not been argued successfully either way, so that's why I'm asking if you've seen it since in one of them and others he says Loki wasn't worshiped bc no place names. Sorry if this is too hard of an ask. I decided to ask you since you're the only person who I know won't make up bullshit/give moral reasons to questions about Loki historically/mythically.

A lot of scholars have written about the myth, though not necessarily in the granular detail or from the same angle that Liberman did. I think that more has been written about Loki which touches on the Baldr myth than works which are specifically about the Baldr myth. Here are some that come to mind, and they all have references to others.

John Lindow has written a lot about it, including a book, Murder and Vengeance among the Gods: Baldr in Scandinavian Mythology (which I haven't read). His article "The Tears of the Gods: A Note on the Death of Baldr in Scandinavian Mythology" can be read for free on JSTOR, which is valuable if for no other reason than his very quick rapid-fire summary of the main threads in the history of research up to that point, which also constitutes a good reading list for exactly this question. Lindow also contributed the "Baldr" chapter to Brepols' The Pre-Christian Religions of the North series (which I have also not read).

Jens Peter Schjødt mentions it throughout his book Initiation Between Worlds: Structure and Symbolism in Pre-Christian Scandinavian Religion. He's mostly concerned with looking at the relationship between the world of the living and the world of the dead, so those are the aspects of the myth he focuses on. Schjødt has more experience writing about Loki than about Baldr, but of course you can't write about one without the other.

Kevin Wanner, best known for writing Snorri Sturluson and the Edda: The Conversion of Cultural Capital in Medieval Scandinavia, wrote an article called "Cunning Intelligence in Norse Myth: Loki, Óðinn, and the Limits of Sovereignty," which is mostly about the relationship between Óðinn and Loki (including the Baldr story), and the relationship of the pair to human people, especially poets. It takes a little while to get to the point, but I think it's worth it.

Though it hardly even mentions Baldr, one of the most influential recent works on Loki is "Loki, the Vätte, and the Ash Lad: A Study Combining Old Scandinavian and Late Material�� by Eldar Heide. I'm going to bring this up again soon.

Anyway, to the second part of the question, I'd rather get kicked in the solar plexus by a mule than watch a YouTube video so I'm not going to comment on what Crawford says there specifically, but the "Loki doesn't have any place-names" argument is old and usually comes in two varieties. If Crawford came up with a third, then I apologize for the oversight, but I imagine it's one of these:

(the good one): We know from the sagas that naming places for gods was a common way to show devotion, and from archaeology that many places named for gods were important ritual centers; furthermore places named for gods tend to concentrate near centers of social and political power. Therefore, if we're able to demonstrate that place-name evidence was passed down reliably from medieval or earlier times, it can be one of the strongest indicators available to us of cultic activity directed toward specific named gods and its presence allows us to make much more confident statements about worship than we can make in their absence. While this is inherently limited, because it necessarily privileges the beliefs of the people who had the social position to declare names of places and to direct the construction of ritual sites, it's one of the best pieces of evidence available to us.

(the bad one): oh yeah, no, if they don't have any places named for them they weren't worshiped. Yeah, they definitely would have named a place after him and it definitely would have been unchanged until modern times. No, there were no other forms of devotion, just naming stuff.

I don't recognize the statement "the evidence does not permit us to say that there was a cult of Loki" as equivalent to saying "we can say definitively that there was not a cult of Loki."

Moreover, I think it's a failure of imagination to think that all devotion would take the same form. I don't imagine that Loki's idol was ever on the highest platform in a major ritual site like Thor's was at Uppsala but that's also not a useful standard, and it seems to me that it's the standard that the place-name argument holds him to. If we look at the Baltic peoples for comparison, they had very different forms of worship for different gods, so the absence of evidence for worship of Žemyna in a context appropriate for the worship of Perkūnas does not mean that Žemyna was not worshiped.

Anyway these days everyone seems to be on the "Loki was just a regular house spirit for many generations before being assimilated into the gods" bandwagon, one that I have disagreements with, but one which is compatible with "Loki was worshiped but not in a way that would result in place-names." Liberman made a case for Loki being a very, very ancient god; and Riccardo Ginevra's etymology of Sígyn requires that Loki's wife already be thousands of years old by the Viking age. There's lots and lots and lots of ways to argue in favor of him having been worshiped, all of which require modification of the word "worship" from the one the place-name-arguers use, so that eventually everyone is talking past each other. At the end of the day, "We don't know" is the actual answer to most of our questions.

[te001e]

cultic: chapter one

[hellsite-yano]

Every game I finished this year btw:

Evo\Wave SOMA There Is No Game: Jam Edition 2015 Leaf Blower Revolution - Idle Game Milk outside a bag of milk outside a bag of milk Super Mombo Quest AUGER;ZENITH (DOOM) Foursite (DOOM) Love 2: kuso Swallow the Sea My Hole is a Mouth of Dirt Ann Mutabor (DOOM) Pink Hour Pink Heaven Super 3-D Noah's Ark A Dream in Hell PowerSlave Exhumed The Zium Gallery Sonic Robo Blast 2 Gorogoa Ad Mortem (DOOM) Outdoor Adventures With Marisa Kirisame Iron Lung TUNIC Jenesis (DOOM) Moncage Lost Civilizaton (DOOM) Speed of Doom (DOOM) Going Down (DOOM) Nightmare Reaper Haiku, the Robot 1994 Tune-up Community Project (DOOM) UAC Ultra (DOOM) Strange Aeons (DOOM) No one lives under the lighthouse Director's cut Cave Crawler Lily's Well You Will (Not) Remain 400 Minutes of /vr/ (DOOM) Slaughterfest 2012 (DOOM) Scythe 2 (DOOM) Chainworm Kommando (DOOM) Kemono Friends Cellien May Cry There is No Game: Wrong Dimension Call of the Sea Transiruby Shadow Complex Remastered Momodora II NEEDY STREAMER OVERLOAD Paradise Killer POSTAL: Brain Damaged How Fish Is Made The Looker Logicality Forgive Me Father Sewer Rave Mysteries Under Lake Ophelia UDONGEIN X Ears of the Killer Fishing Vacation Fallow Marie's Room What Never Was Neon White KUNAI 8Doors: Arum's Afterlife Adventure sunny-place missed messages. Cruelty Squad TASOMACHI - Behind the Twilight ElecHead Do You See the Waving Cape He Fucked the Girl Out of Me Froggy Pot Fashion Police Squad L.Depth Space Funeral 3 Proving Path Toilet Chronicles Islets HunterX Little Noah: Scion of Paradise Resonance of the Ocean Wife Quest Nightmare of Decay I Am Sakuya: Touhou FPS Game In 60 Seconds Hell Pie Prodeus Zelle Chasm: The Rift A.W.O.L Doom 2 in Spain Only (DOOM) Ad Mortem Phase 2 (DOOM) 10x10 (DOOM) Kingdom of the Dead Cultic: Chapter One Legacy of the Elder Star Atuel Lost in Vivo Lifeslide Loplight Ghost Song Ato Fatum Betula Chop Goblins Struggle - Antaresian Legacy (DOOM) GUN GODZ ARKOS

[trendymorgue]

tl;dr play cultic you won't regret it, $10

On a lighter note I present to you my absolute game of the year 2022. Irregardless of how some may feel about a game built in the Build engine (think og Duke Nukem) I consider this a enormous exception. This is the whole embodiement of a modern FPS tucked neatly and comfortably into the Build Engine. I desperately implore you to seek the means of playing this very low spec "runs on a potato" masterpiece. It is only 3-4 hours at most but I wholly consider those hours well spent due to the satisfying gameplay. Headshots have never been more gratifying. The tone and stage that this game presents itself as is one of the things that every fps enthusiast seeks but cannot find. Throughout the 5 chapter episode the pacing and intrigue introduced to you is truly enthralling. I found myself feeling the giddy feeling I once had in spades during the mid to late 2000s (Half life 2 and Bioshock come to mind). Tense horror elements sprinkle themselves throughout. The animations for bullets whizzing by are something to behold. Might I add the entire game was created by one person? One Jason Smith handcrafted every speck of detail in this game, sprites, level design, enemy AI, even the goddamn music. I just feel like at this point we can't consider Cultic as game, this is something like expeierencing the blood sweat and tears of an individuals life work, and it shows.

Please play this game. It costs $10, that's less than the price of a meal. Don't second guess yourself just click add to cart and enjoy.

[aik-membrane]

OOC: Heart-Aik: Aik Membrane's Prequel

Chapter Twenty-Six /tw, blood

Ft mentions of @ambassador-d1b

<March 2nd, 2010 continued>

It was completely dark outside. Aik hadn't thought to get cleaned up, but he had the envelope of evidence for Kayla. He knew the best way to get to her house without being spotted, so he was there within minutes. He bit the envelope in his teeth and climbed up the vines on the side of the house to get to Kayla's room. The room was dark, but he knew Kayla would be awake.

Aik knocked gently on the window. A few seconds later, Kayla opened the window and poked her head out.

"Hey- SHANK!" Kayla nearly screamed at the sight of Aik dripping in blood, but clapped her hands over her mouth before she woke her parents.

Aik took the envelope out of his mouth. "Shank isn't my name…"

Kayla nodded stiffly.

"This… This is for you." Aik offered her the envelope.

Kayla took the envelope tentatively.

"It's evidence. You, your family, the whole cult are free now. I… I killed Percy."

Kayla grew pale.

"You can tell the cops I did it. I'm leaving, so they can't catch me," Aik sighed.

"You… want me to call the cops?"

"In the morning. Please?"

Kayla nodded.

"Sorry to drop this on you…" Aik muttered.

"What… should I call you?"

"Uh. I don't know." Aik still didn't want his real name used.

"How about. Red?" Kayla gestured to Percy's blood soaked through Aik's clothes and hair.

"Ehh, sure. Red is fine. You and your family take care, maybe I'll see you again."

Kayla nodded.

Aik nodded too and started to climb back down.

"Red!" Kayla called softly.

Aik glanced up at her.

"Get a shower," Kayla said, making a disgusted face.

Oh right, the blood. Aik looked at himself. "Yeah, on it." He jumped down from the vines and darted back to Percy's house, avoiding the scene of the killing to get to his room.

In only twenty minutes, he had showered, changed into fresh clothes, and packed. He was a little shaky from tension, but he had shut down most of his brain. He had a plan, a plan he's had for years. It was going to work, he was going to get out.

With his bag of necessities slung over his shoulder, he left the house. Don't run, it would attract attention from dogs and neighbors.

Only Kayla knew it was him. He trusted her to take care of it. But the other cult members? Nope.

It felt like it took way too long to get out of the neighborhood. But Aik forced himself to keep a steady and calm pace, despite racing with adrenaline. Eventually, the cultic neighborhood was gone and Aik was approaching a bank. He had devices planted in the ATM, and it didn't take him long at all to activate them with his own tool, transferring all of Percy's funds stored in the bank into Aik's account. It was rightfully his anyway. And it would just look like Percy withdrew the money when the cops came to inspect. Percy had so much untraceable cash at the house, it would likely be assumed that was the money from Percy's account.

And then to the bus stop. The adrenaline hadn't worn off, he had to get as close to Dib as possible before it did.

When he eventually got to the bus stop, he was annoyed to learn there wasn't a bus going where he wanted to go. Oh well. He knew where he was going, he packed a map after all. He was anxious to move while he had the energy.

So that's exactly what he did. He climbed up the closest building tall enough and started a long trek to the city, jumping between buildings.

Eventually, Aik reached an overpass going over the highway. Cars zoomed under the bridge, only a cable fence protecting pedestrians from falling.

Aik made sure no one was watching and climbed the fence.

The height didn't bother him at all, Aik had pulled a maneuver like this while waiting for his leg to heal. He used a knife from his bag to cut off a line of cable from the fence, his arm knife wasn't sharp enough for that.

Aik wrapped the cable tightly around his robotic arm, just in case he missed the jump, waited, and then leapt from the bridge.

Aik landed perfectly on a passing semi, his arm puncturing a hole in the top to hold him steady as he let the cable go.

Aik rested for a bit on the back of the truck, which took him almost the rest of the way. When it took the wrong exit off the highway, Aik climbed down and jumped into a huge overgrown section of grass.

Aik laid there for a moment to make sure the truck driver hadn't spotted him, then got up and continued walking. As soon as the buildings were tall enough, he climbed up one and began to jump between them. He could feel his energy running out.

He rested once near Membrane Labs, then continued to his destination. An old fight ring building that he wasn't really used anymore. Last he heard, anyway. He easily climbed into the abandoned and very dusty attic.

He made it. He was safe. There was some decent furniture in the attic. It was usable, just old and dirty. Aik heard that this used to be a bed and breakfast before the neighborhood was overrun.

Aik sat on a dusty mattress just as the adrenaline wore off. He was done, he had no energy left. He was safe and he was exhausted. He flopped onto the bed and slept deeply for the rest of the night and into the morning.

[ao3feed--kylux]

CVLTIC

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/VNceQiC

by gingerwren

DEPROGRAMMING |

That was usually what desperate, frightened families searched for when a lost loved one finally found their way back home.

Armitage Hux, a Licensed Professional Counselor specializing in cultic group dynamics, could overlook the misnomer. It brought in steady business, after all.

He was good at his job- one of the best, he’d been told time and time again at conferences. Really though, what else were his colleagues supposed to say to him? He tried his best not to overthink it, and not to feel bad about the hollow accolades.

Then one day a frantic phone call turned his world on its head and made him rethink everything.

 Mind the tags. See the end of work for more notes if you'd like more information on a specific tag.

Words: 14890, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Categories: M/M

Characters: Phasma (Star Wars), Leia Organa, Han Solo, Enric Pryde, Knights of Ren

Relationships: Armitage Hux/Kylo Ren, Armitage Hux/Ben Solo

Additional Tags: Bad Therapy, Unethical like WOAH, Missing persons case, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Attempted Sexual Assault (Past), Past Character Death, dubcon, Mind Control, Dark Romance, Cults, Mystery, Psychological Horror

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/VNceQiC

[tenjin-no-shinja]

Chapter 2: Kami Shrines, Myths, and Rituals in Premodern Times

Early Shrine Cults

The notion of “heavenly and earthly deities” (Ch. shenqi, Jpn. jingi) reflected an ancient Chinese categorization… this foreign notion became the central concept around which the court organized its priestly power… by incorporating local cults in the emperor’s universal worship of the “deities of heaven and earth.”… this meant that the most important kami were integrated in a new court narrative, a “mytho-history” that established the origins of the Japanese state… implied that the court assumed the authority to make “heavenly” offerings to deities across the land… this narrative and ritual practice constituted a new cultic system that we shall call the jingi cult.

Almost all information that we have about shrines in ancient Japan derives from records composed by the court in the context of this jingi cult… Yet they reveal almost nothing about the way sin which these shrines functioned. The jingi cult subjected a number of these shrines to nominal court control, while at the same time priestly lineages from these shrines used the jingi cult to enhance their influence at court. Most shrine sites, however, were not included in this court cult, and about these we know next to nothing…

—Page 27

Jingi Myth

Jingi Ritual

Mytho-history was one of the pillars on which the jingi cult rested… the function… to represent the present as rooted in a divine past… legitimate it and render it unchangeable… allowed the court to give its own narrative of origins a new form of permanency and canonized authority…

Kojiki is a treasure trove of mythological motifs, names, unexpected references, and dead ends. Numerous deities make brief appearances in the tale, never to be mentioned again. Clearly, the work presents a small portion from a much larger body of material, which has been compressed into a narrative with a single overarching plot: the establishment of a heavenly dynasty in Japan.

Nihon shoki conveys the same message, but differs radically… in three aspects. First… follows the model of Chinese dynastic histories much more faithfully… in its language and its format… Secondly… lists many different versions of the various episodes of the story, presenting first one main version, and then quote “other texts” with slightly different accounts… gives us some idea of the breadth in the production of mytho-history in the decades… Thirdly… significant differences in the mythological plot. The most conspicuous difference…omits nearly the entire tale of Ōkuninushi. Nihon shoki appears less interested in giving credit to the earthly deities than Kojiki and focuses even more narrowly on the heavenly dynasty of the Yamato emperors… tones down the solar imagery… it is Takamimusubi alone who orders the pacification of the land and grants rule over the Japanese islands to Ninigi. This text never refers to Amaterasu as the ancestor of the imperial lineage; it even appears to avoid the character for “sun” ⑤…

The mytho-histories were, of course not widely read, and their message was conveyed much more effectively by ritual means. The court invested heavily in ritual performances… In the palace, court priests performed a range of kami rituals that combined older rites with new procedures imported from Korea and Tang China. These rituals, too, stressed the hierarchy between the heavenly and earthly shrines and kami… An imperial sun cult was established at Ise… As the shrine of Amaterasu, Ise served as a center of kami ritual second only to the palace itself.

The shrines that entered the court cult were divided into “heavenly” and “earthly” shrines during the reign of Emperor Tenmu (r. 672-86) or that of his widow, Empress Jitō (r. 686-90).

—Pages 28-32

⑤ From the Endnotes: “See Mizubayashi 2002. Where Kojiki writes the frequent name elements hiko and hime with the characters 日子 and 日女 (meaning “son of the sun” and “daughter of the sun”), Nihon shoki prefers 彦 and 姫 (“prince” and “princess”). Even in the name of Takamimusubi himself, Nihon shoki writes the final syllable with the character 霊 “spirit,” while Kojiki uses the character 日 “sun.”

[pocketbelt]

CULTIC (PC/Steam Deck)

A Christmas gift from my friend Hammer

CULTIC is basically Resident Evil 4 by way of Blood; it's a boomer shooter made in Unity but designed to emulate the look of the old 3D Realms Build engine so immaculately it's surreal. It does not shy from its influences, and I would argue it actually flat-out surpasses Blood from what I remember (though it's been a while; I need to try out the NightDive remaster of it) pretty easily. You start out in a (mass) grave, you kill cultists and demons to get revenge, etc. The cultists, their 'god' and creations all carry the RE4 flavour of parasites and such, and there's quite a few homages to it in particular, including one spectacular level entirely.

It controls real well, the guns feel super good and sound great, everything explodes into tasty gore with enough force, enemy heads pop open and gib everywhere, the maps are sprawling and you have to root around for keys and such to advance. It's an enthralling time, what few issues that did crop up (mostly little glitches like the health and armour bars seemingly swapping which value they were mapped to, though the values themselves were always accurate, or collected items not vanishing, some items not triggering, etc) didn't pull me out of it.

I played on the Steam Deck mostly, and while it does run mostly well and is marked Verified, it is hit with slowdown in places where effects must pile up or something, even if it's not always actually on-screen. I don't know how many of the little bugs I hit were Steam Deck-specific either, though I may well find out as it's perfect for replays like all good boomer shooters and I may as well do it on the main machine.

About the only issue I have with it is, by nature, CULTIC has a horror game vein in it and the way this mainly manifests is a lot of really dark areas. Combine that with an aggravating tendency to stick a hit-scanner that makes the whole screen shake and go red continuously on line-of-sight, and I very quickly ended up cranking the brightness to max to get through. If you want a dark scary section in your game, for the love of shit at least don't combine it with flying hit-scan enemies. Though honestly, if you intend for your game's action to matter, I'd prefer if you just avoided total darkness as much as possible, nothing frustrates more. Maybe it was worse on the Steam Deck screen, I dunno.

CULTIC is real good and an easy recommend; the base game comes with an extra DLC level called Interlude, leading up to a paid DLC "Chapter 2" (hence the "Chapter 1" on its Steam page and such), and I look forward to that eagerly.

[argyrocratie]

JUBILEE.

(...)

"The jubilee story begins in the 13th century B.C. when, supposedly, Moses led the slaves out of Egypt. Three hundred years later Solomon and Saul formed the Israeli monarchy. Four hundred years after that, in 587, Jerusalem was destroyed and the Jews entered the Babylonian captivity. They returned at the end of the 6th century which commences the period of the postexile when the priests tried to put the pieces together again by collecting, editing, and copying various songs, laws, cultic practises, traditions, and oral memories. The Torah, or "Law of Moses," the first five books of the Old Testament, was the result.

They merged several authorial traditions ("J," "E," "D," and "P"). Jose Miranda distinguishes two political tendencies within these traditions: the exodic, libertarian or Kadesh tendency, and the legal, covenantal, or Sinaitic tendency. The former refers to the revolutionary time; the latter refers to the sociopolitical counter-revolution under the monarchy. As part of "P" or the Priestly Code, Leviticus was written during the postexilic age when Israel was under Persian domination. Leviticus stresses the uniqueness and antiquity of Israelic regulations and customs, and falls generally under the Sinaitic tendency. In 1877 Klostermann identified a separate "Holiness Code" (H) within "P." It begins with chapter 25, and it is part of the Kadesh tendency. The 25th chapter represents a memory not of the period of the monarchy but of the prior revolutionary period. Thus, Leviticus 25 is the condensed displacement into a law code of an egalitarian experience of five hundred years earlier. It may usefully be compared to the Bill of Rights which salvaged a little from the revolutionary times that otherwise were so completely extinguished by the U.S. Constitution of landlords, merchants, and slavocrats.

Under the Monarchy class differentiation took place. This was the period of prophetic denunciation, the wrath of Isaiah, the lamentations of Jeremiah, the scorn of Ezekiel. During this period the jubilee is expressed as part of a visionary poetics of denunciation when the prophets attempted to awaken the people from their numbness to the pride and idolatry of their rulers. Their denunciations were written in the eighth century, two or three centuries earlier than Leviticus, and therefore closer to the experience of the liberation of the 13th century. Isaiah denounces landlords and the agribusiness men who depopulate the land:

Shame on you! you who add house to house and joining field to field until not an acre remains, and you are left to dwell alone in the land. (5:8)

Michah identifies with the landless and he refers to an assembly of land distribution:

Shame on those who lie in bed planning evil and wicked deeds and rise at daybreak to do them, knowing that they have the power! They covet land and take it by force; if they want a house they seize it; They rob a man of his house and steal every man's inheritance. (2:1-2) We are utterly despoiled: the land of the Lord's people changes hands. How shall a man have power to restore our fields, now parcelled out? Therefore there shall be no one to assign to you and portion by lot in the Lord's assembly. (2:4-5)

How did a visionary poetics become a legislative code? A class deal of some sort was made, that is, a weakening of the class of priests and landlords relative to the dispossessed, the debtors, and the slaves whose cooperation against Persian domination was purchased by the acceptance of the practical possibility of jubilee, at least by the priests and scribes who would have put the Bible together.

What was the earlier period like? It is important that we not think of it in ethnic terms; this is a salient and indubitable contribution of recent scholarhsip. The term "Hebrew" derives from 'apiru of the Egyptian language; it is a pejorative epithet for an outlaw, insubordinate, and opponent of Egyptian imperialism. The people survived by rain agriculture (grain, oil, wine) and a pastoral economy (bovine herds, sheep and goats). Iron implements in the highlands of Canaan, rock terracing, and slaked lime plaster for water cisterns were technological changes of the late 14th century which disturbed the social structures and land allotment systems. The productivity of the earth and preservation of the surplus permitted the indigenous development of classes and the formation of small city-states.

Scholars have proposed three models for the settlement of Canaan: 1) the invasion model which is the oldest and most familiar, 2) the model of immigration and infiltration which Alt suggested in 1925, and 3) the internal revolt model first proposed by Mendenhall in 1962. Norman Gottwald writes, "early Israel was an eclectic formation of marginal and depressed Canaanite people including `feudalized' peasants, 'apiru mercenaries and adventurers, transhumant pastoralists, tribally organized farmers and pastoral nomads, and probably also itinerant craftsmen and disaffected priests." The usual suspects in other words. He concludes, "A class in itself, hitherto a congeries of separately struggling segments of the populace, has become a class far itself' — Israel. The early literature of Israel, therefore, gives voice to the revolutionary consciousness of the Canaanite underclasses. Indeed, the earliest literature of Israel was a "low" literature both in its origins and in its subject matter."

-Peter Linebaugh, "Jubilating; or, How the Atlantic Working Class Used the Biblical Jubilee Against Capitalism, With Some Success" (1990)

[rainbowriderjt]

Or NO Religion! Remember, Morals & Moral Laws Were Around Long Before The Big 3 Religions!

Sumerians 21st century BC) The Code of Ur-Nammu created by Ur-Nammu of Ur (21s century BC) is the oldest known code of law which is only partly preserved. The laws were inscribed on a clay tablet in Sumerian language and arranged in casuistic form, a pattern in which a crime is followed by punishment which was also the basis of nearly all later codes of law including the Code of Hammurabi. Code of Ur-Nammu is also notable for instituting monetary compensations for inflicting bodily injuries which is considered very advanced for the oldest known code of law.

Code of Hammurabi from the 18th century BC) bases on principle “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” (lex talionis). One of the most famous ancient codes contains 282 judgements of civil and criminal law. The penalties vary from crime to crime as well as on the social status of the offender although even slaves had some rights. Hittite cuneiform tablets from the 14th century BC) found at Hattusa also include number of Hittite laws which foresee less severe penalties than the Babylonian code of laws. Penalties were in some cases were even reduced at least twice. Hittite laws also reveal a tension to more systematical arrangement from the most serious to minor violations.

With rise of Assyria 12th to the 9th century BC) also occurred changes in penal laws which were severer and more brutal. Death penalty and corporal penalties such as flogging and cutting of ears and noses were very common, while forced labour was the most common punishment for less sever violations. Besides severer penalties the Assyrian law also reflects great change of social position of women. Women in Babylon and Hittite Empire were practically equal to men and were even allowed to divorce, while a man in Assyria was allowed to kill his wife if she committed adultery and to send his wife away without divorce money.

Book of the Dead Egypt 6th century B.C.) Chapter 125 of the Book of the Dead deals with the judgment before the god of the underworld, Osiris. It is very useful to our understanding of what was and what was not acceptable behavior. The text includes two declarations of innocence in which the deceased denies having committed various crimes. These include some very generalized statements, such as "I have done no injustice to people, nor have I maltreated an animal" or "I have done no wrong (isfet)", but it also records some very specific faults:

Crimes of a cultic nature: blasphemy, stealing from temple offerings or offerings to the dead, defiling the purity of a sacred place Crimes of an economic nature: tampering with the grain measure, the boundaries of fields, or the plummet of the balance Criminal acts: theft and murder

Exploitation of the weak and causing injury: depriving orphans of their property, causing pain or grief, doing injury, causing hunger Moral and social failings: lying, committing adultery, ignoring the truth, slandering servants before their master, being aggressive, eavesdropping, losing one's temper, speaking without thinking.

Code of Urukagina (2,380-2,360 BC) Cuneiform law (2,350-1,400 BC) Code of Ur-Nammu, king of Ur (c. 2050 BC) Laws of Eshnunna (c. 1930 BC)[1] Codex of Lipit-Ishtar of Isin (c. 1870 BC)[2] Babylonian laws / Code of Hammurabi (c. 1790 BC) Hittite laws (c. 1650–1100 BC) Code of the Nesilim (c. 1650-1500 BC) Law of Moses / Torah (10th-6th century BC) Assyrian laws / Code of the Assura (c. 1075 BC) Draconian constitution (7th century BC) Gortyn code (5th century BC) Twelve Tables of Roman Law (451 BC) Edicts of Ashoka of Buddhist Law (269-236 BC) Law of Manu (c. 200 BC)

[gmlocg]

3,424.) Cultic: Chapter One

Release: October 13th, 2022 | GGF: FPS, Horror | Developer(s): Jasozz Games | Publisher(s): 3D Realms | Platform(s): Windows (2022)

[dfroza]

A second covenant

(the “rebirth” of a dream of being reconciled to Love)

becoming the Temple of the Spirit

Today’s reading of the Scriptures from the New Testament is the 8th chapter of the book of Hebrews:

So let me sum up what we’ve covered so far, for there is much we have said: we have a High Priest, a perfect Priest who sits in the place of honor in the highest heavens, at the right hand of the throne of the Majestic One, a Minister within the heavenly sanctuary set up by the Lord, not by human hands.

As I have said, it is the role of every high priest to offer gifts and sacrifices to God, so clearly this Priest of ours must have something to offer as well. If He were on earth, then He would not be a priest at all because there are already priests who can offer gifts according to the law of Moses in a sanctuary that is only a copy and shadow of the heavenly sanctuary. We know this because God admonished Moses as he set up the tent for the Lord’s sanctuary: “Be sure that you make everything according to the pattern I showed you on the mountain.” But now Jesus has taken on a new and improved priestly ministry; and in that respect, He has been made the Mediator of a better covenant established on better promises. Remember, if the first covenant had been able to reconcile everyone to God, there would be no reason for a second covenant. God found fault with the priests when He said through the prophet Jeremiah,

“Look! The time is coming,” the Eternal Lord says,

“when I will bring about a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah.

It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors

when I took them by the hand

and led them out of slavery in the land of Egypt.

They did not remain faithful to that covenant,

so,” the Eternal One says, “I turned away from them.

But when those days are over,” the Eternal One says, “I will make

this kind of covenant with the people of Israel:

I will put My laws on their minds

and write them upon their hearts.

I will be their God,

and they will be My people.

In those days, they won’t need to teach each other My ways

or to say to each other, ‘Know the Eternal.’

In those days, all will know Me,

from the least to the greatest.

I will be merciful when they fail,

and I will erase their sins and wicked acts out of My memory

as though they had never existed.”

With the words “a new covenant,” God made the first covenant old, and what is old and no longer effective will soon fade away completely.

The Book of Hebrews, Chapter 8 (The Voice)

Today’s paired chapter of the Testaments is the 17th chapter of the book of 2nd Chronicles abut King Jehoshaphat: who was faithful to God:

Jehoshaphat, Asa’s son, became king and demonstrated his authority over the Southern Kingdom of Israel by strengthening Judah’s defenses. He stationed forces in all the fortified cities of Judah and built barracks throughout the territory of Judah and the cities of Ephraim, which his father Asa had conquered. The Eternal was with Jehoshaphat because he ruled as David had throughout his reign and as his father Asa had at the beginning of his reign. Jehoshaphat did not seek the lords of foreign religions; instead, he looked for the True God of his father as Azariah told Asa to do, followed His commands, and was faithful to God, unlike the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Because of his virtues, the Eternal gave control of the kingdom to Jehoshaphat. The people living throughout Judah brought gifts to their new king, Jehoshaphat, and he had abundant riches and honor. Jehoshaphat prided himself on supporting the ways of the Eternal by cleansing Judah of foreign cultic symbols: high places and Asherah figures.

In his third year, Jehoshaphat sent his most worthy officials (Ben-hail, Obadiah, Zechariah, Nethanel, and Micaiah), some of the Levites (Shemaiah, Nethaniah, Zebadiah, Asahel, Shemiramoth, Jehonathan, Adonijah, Tobijah, and Tobadonijah), and some of the priests (Elishama and Jehoram) to all the people in Judah to teach them from the Eternal’s laws.

All the kingdoms and lands surrounding Judah feared the Eternal, so they would not attack Jehoshaphat. Some of the Philistines even brought gifts and silver as tribute to Jehoshaphat, and Arabians brought him flocks: 7,700 rams and 7,700 male goats.

Jehoshaphat grew stronger at home and abroad, he built fortresses and store cities with great supplies in Judah, and he stationed his heroic men in Jerusalem according to their families: From Judah, the commanders of their divisions were Adnah, the commander of 300,000 heroic men; then Johanan, the commander of 280,000; then Amasiah (son of Zichri who volunteered to serve the Eternal), and with him 200,000 heroic men. From Benjamin, Eliada, a valiant warrior, and with him 200,000 archers and those carrying shields; then Jehozabad, and with him 180,000 equipped for war. These men served the king in Jerusalem, and others served him in other fortified cities throughout Judah.

The Book of 2nd Chronicles, Chapter 17 (The Voice)

A note from The Voice translation:

Jehoshaphat is the first king to command such foreign respect since Solomon, four generations earlier.

Asa began reforms by destroying cults, and Jehoshaphat continues the reforms by building the true religion. His focus is not just on ridding the nation of improper worship; he intends to teach everyone about proper worship. Therefore, Jehoshaphat embarks on a massive project of sending his best officials throughout the nation to teach the people.

A link to my personal reading of the Scriptures for Saturday, march 4 of 2023 with a paired chapter from each Testament of the Bible along with Today’s Proverbs and Psalms

A post by John Parsons about heavenly “peace”:

The ultimate question is whether you feel “safe” with the truth of who you really are... When you are all alone, in a moment of still silence, when the entire world is asleep and suspended, what is the message of your heart’s cry? Are you okay? Do you trust who you are or what is happening to you, or do you experience anxiety, a sense of lostness, inner pain?

Comfort is found in God’s grace. His promise is given to the sick at heart, to those who understand their need for a physician (Matt. 9:12). Since there is nothing about you to commend before God, you are made free to abandon yourself to the divine love. This is the “Name of the LORD,” after all, and your heart’s cry for love is a “prayer” uttered in that Name.

Your heavenly Father sees in secret (Matt. 6:6). Consider the birds of the air; they are unreflective, alive in the atmosphere of God’s care. What a great blessing to let go of your fear; what sweet relief! Surrender to the truth of your helplessness; rejoice that you are “poor in spirit,” and discover that yours is the Kingdom of Heaven (Matt. 5:3).

So don’t give up your faith, my friend. The Lord will give strength to his people; the Lord will bless his people with peace. There is hope for your future. God has promised to be with you to the end, leading you to the place where your heart will forever be satisfied in his love.

[ Hebrew for Christians ]

========

Psalm 29:11 Hebrew reading:

https://hebrew4christians.com/Blessings/Blessing_Cards/psalm29-11-jjp.mp3

Hebrew page download:

https://hebrew4christians.com/Blessings/Blessing_Cards/psalm29-11-lesson.pdf

3.3.23 • Facebook

Today’s message (Days of Praise) from the Institute for Creation Research

March 4, 2023

Grace, Mercy, and Peace

“Paul...To Timothy, my dearly beloved son: Grace, mercy, and peace, from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.” (2 Timothy 1:1-2)

Of the 13 letters written by the apostle Paul, only the three to Timothy and Titus use this threefold greeting: “Grace, mercy, and peace.” The other 10 letters use the more common “grace and peace.” Why the distinction? The Holy Spirit is never whimsical or capricious. Perhaps, since these three letters were the only ones addressed to pastors that Paul had trained, there was a more poignant emphasis intended.

Grace (charis) is the foundational core of God’s gift of salvation to those who trust Him (Ephesians 2:8). It is also the essence of the “gifts” that we received from the Holy Spirit to minister to each other (1 Corinthians 15:10). The charis is the basis for charisma that we receive. Those who have been entrusted with leadership responsibilities are reminded that the measure of those gifts is still God’s charis (Romans 12:3, 6).

Mercy is often understood through God’s forgiveness both in justice delayed and sentence nullified through Christ. It is also what the sovereign Godhead responds with when we ask for His help. “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).

Peace is much more than mere lack of anxiety. It is “not as the world giveth” (John 14:27) but rather a supernatural, noncircumstantial contentment that is only given to the Lord’s twice-born. This peace is “the peace of God, which passeth all understanding” and is specifically designed to “keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:7).

May this grace, mercy, and peace be a regular portion of your walk in the Kingdom as you serve the Lord Jesus. HMM III

[mykplazegaymz23]

Cultic Chapter One

PC 2003

Developed by Jassoz Games

9/10

Played 10 February