#haunted by the metaphysical/ma

[sublime-msc-duo]

"Jesus christ i just realised something"

"Wh-"

"I DONT KNOW WHERE MINUS CITY I-"

"New york"

"Oh"

[sublime-msc-duo]

"I'm fine. I'm fine"

MA your eye-

UH

Just

YEETS PROTO AND MA AT U

@sublime-msc-duo

Black drops his knife and bag of Carrots and catches the two

[vizthedatum]

As I look around my apartment with all my Kali decorations, I think my prayers to Kali Ma are so desperate, while all she asks of me is to surrender and let bygones be bygones.

Downwards triangles haunt me now - they haunt me because they symbolize the power of receiving after you surrender to life. They symbolize strength. And while some Hindus and spiritualists say they symbolize "the feminine," I look down at my prescription of vaginal estrogen and look up at the wood carving of the testosterone molecule on my door... and I know gender has nothing to do with it. It never has.

I argue with her all the time. I protest.

How can I just let it go??????

And she's always, in her metaphysical and unknowable way, giving me the vibe of rolling her eyes. Like it's so silly, but she gets it - like, of course, I'm not going to "let it go" in the form of forgetting.

She says that I'm still me but different - like a new iteration.

Everyday is a simulation of me trying to do life, and sometimes I change big things, sometimes I change small things, and sometimes I change nothing.

And surrendering doesn't mean "doing nothing" - maybe it means that I release the control of how things should be or how things should feel.

I have so much anxiety about that.

Won't my life collapse?

She doesn't tell me to stop working or stop doing all the things I've been doing (even the absolutely stupid stuff I do sometimes).

She asks me to stop running away from what's going on inside of me - she tells me to figure out a way to meditate and figure out what's going on.

It reminds me of an old statistics professor I had who would always tell me I knew the answer even when I couldn't answer his questions.

It's so unhelpful, I thought at the time.

I am often frustrated at my altar when I pray to her. I cry loudly and yell softly.

The thing is... listening to what you know inside IS NOT EASY - it sounds easy and people write it off, you know? People write it off because, on its face, it's hokey advice.

What do you mean, "I know." - I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING

But I think there is real wisdom in the process of "the knowing of what you know."

And I get it, piece by piece.

I think it's hard to go on this journey of "surrender" because you have to confront many hard things about yourself. You have to see yourself for all your coping mechanisms, your limiting beliefs, your misdeeds, your toxicities, etc.

I mean, you see the good stuff, too.

The act of knowing yourself is the act of unconditionally loving yourself, including all of the parts you run away from.

It is so incredibly hard when you don't really do that.

And then it's hard when you see people do that, and you judge them for it - because "how dare they?!" (but I'm jealous they've figured out something I'm only beginning to grasp - the jealousy is something I must love too - the jealousy is also a part of me I need to befriend).

People go round and round in circles telling others to love themselves.

Words can't do this process justice.

It is mind-meltingly, life-ruiningly hard... and then it becomes life-fulfilling, mind-freeingly easy.

And I guess that's where I'm at right now... looking at the destruction of my life and what I've done... and looking at what can replace all of it if I let it.

[eventseeker789]

Carnivals, Parties and Festivals in Salem, MA

Festival of the Dead

The Festival in Salem, Massachusetts is an extraordinary celebration that beckons spirits of the past into the present, creating a unique and enchanting experience for both locals and visitors. This vibrant gathering embraces the mystique of Salem's rich history, going beyond the mundane and delving into the magical.

One of the Festival hallmark events is the Annual Psychic Fair and Witchcraft Expo, where tarot card readers, mediums, and spiritual experts converge to offer insight into the ethereal world. It's not merely a display of mystical talents but a captivating journey that explores the boundary between the physical and metaphysical realms.

The seance experiences at the Festival are renowned, bringing participants closer to the veil that separates the living from the departed. Through a blend of storytelling, music, and ancient rituals, these seances offer a profound and captivating connection to those who've moved on.

This mystical celebration goes far beyond its name. It's an homage to the spiritual practices and folklore of Salem, where witches, spirits, and the unknown converge. The annual Witches' Ball, a centerpiece of the festival, is an extravagant night of enchanting music, magical costumes, and dancing under the moonlight.

Visitors can also partake in historical and paranormal tours of Salem, where they'll uncover secrets of the city's bewitching past. The Festival serves as a gateway into Salem's mysterious and alluring world, promising an enchanting experience that leaves you spellbound.

To partake in the celebrations, head over to Downtown Salem between October 13 to October 31, 2023 and enjoy the Festival in all its pomp and splendor.

Halloween Party in Salem

When the winds grow colder and the leaves rustle with an eerie whisper, Salem, Massachusetts, awakens in all its otherworldly glory. It's a place where Halloween isn't just a holiday; it's an entire season of enchantment and celebration. Salem's Halloween parties are legendary, summoning spirits from the past and celebrating all things mysterious and macabre.

The city's bewitching festivities are more than just costumes and candy; they are an immersive journey into Salem's mystical history. At the heart of it all lies the Grand Halloween Ball, a dazzling spectacle where guests don their most enchanting attire. It's a night where historical splendor meets supernatural elegance, echoing centuries of both glamour and witchcraft.

But the revelry doesn't stop there. Salem's bewitching history takes center stage with ghost tours and paranormal investigations. Walk the hallowed streets and haunted alleys to discover the lingering spirits of the past. The air is thick with tales of restless souls, and in Salem, the line between the living and the dead blurs with every step.

As you wander through the city, you'll encounter psychic fairs, mystical expos, and live seances, drawing you into the realm of the unknown. It's a place where the supernatural isn't just folklore; it's an integral part of the culture.

Halloween will be taking place on October 31, 2023 in Salem. Keep an eye out for all the events mentioned above if you want to partake in the celebrations.

Author Name Barkat Dhanji

[welcometomyweird]

My Favorite Ghost Stories

“If we go by mere testimony and experience, more people have seen a ghost than have seen a kangaroo… yet we firmly believe in kangaroos.” – Dr. Alan McMichael (deleted scene from “Crimson Peak”)

Ghosts! Let’s talk about them! Whether you believe in ghosts or not, there’s no denying that ghost stories are a perennial favorite when we are looking for entertainment. We tell them around campfires and at slumber parties. Halloween is prime “spooky” time and, at one point, even Christmas was big for telling ghost stories by the hearth or by candlelight. (Charles Dickens wasn’t the only game in town. Look up M.R. James.)

The best ghost stories are the true ones. The ones that individuals have actually experienced. One of the very first books I ordered from the Scholastic catalog was a book called “Phone Call from a Ghost”. It was a YA collection of true ghost stories and I loved it. I read that book so many times that it fell apart. Why? Because it was validation that my experiences were not unique.

I live in Massachusetts. I don’t just live in Massachusetts. I live in Essex County. I live in witch hysteria central. The Salem Witch Trials are so named only because that’s where the actual trials were held. The accused and the accusers came from all over the county. The main cemetery in my town was once the farm of an accused (but not convicted) witch. While there may not have been anything metaphysical about her, she was kind of a 17th century Ma Barker. I don’t know if it’s because of that activity during her life, the property is still extremely active.

And that’s pretty much life here. You can’t throw a stone and not hit someplace haunted, whether it’s known to be or not. The three experiences I’m about to share are the most interesting because they all happened in daylight and one them was a shared experience with a friend. So, if you’re a non-believer, you probably should have checked out when you saw the title of the post. Now would be a good time to dip if this isn’t your kind of thing.

Saturday in the Park with Ghosts

Anyone who knows anything about Essex County knows that… there’s not much to do up here. And if you don’t know, now you do. Yeah, there’s Salem, but you can pretty do everything there in about 2 or 3 hours. When I need culture or good people watching, I go to Boston. For a number of years, I had a standing “date” with a friend of mine where we would meet up and just go adventuring in Boston.

In Boston, there are a few great spots that kind of serve as a nice respite from the noise and chaos of the city. The Christian Science campus is one of those places. (Ironic, I know, as both my friend and I are practicing witches.) There’s just a strong sense of calm and peace around the property and the architecture is absolutely gorgeous.

Well, on one very sunny summer Saturday, my friend and I were walking across the campus to the benches by the Mary Baker Eddy Library. The way the benches were set up at the time, there were two sets of two benches, each set having one bench facing Massachusetts Avenue (Mass Ave) and one bench facing the church. I didn’t say anything at the time to my friend, but I very clearly saw two men on the Mass Ave facing bench, engrossed in conversation. Consequently, I passed up that bench and went to the church facing bench. He didn’t say a word to me, but my friend also instinctively chose the church facing bench.

When we sat down, we both glanced over to the Mass Ave facing bench. Both of us being inclined toward men, it was going to be a casual look, you know. A quick little check out. Simultaneously, we both said “Huh, that’s weird” because when we looked at the bench… it was empty. My friend asked me what I thought was weird and I told him that I had seen two men on that bench. He told me he had also seen two men there. I described one man, he described the other and we had seen the exact same people. We looked around and there was no sign of them. They had completely vanished.

Revolutionary Spirit

This one also takes place in Boston. I was in the city by myself this time and I was heading to the Borders that had once resided near Downtown Crossing. I am a creature of habit and tend follow familiar routes when getting from point A to point B. The reason for this is that I kind of like to shut off the conscious mind and just run on autopilot while I’m trying work stuff out in my head. This was a retail therapy day and that was the mode I was in.

I was crossing a street and a corner I had crossed hundreds of times. This was the corner outside the old customs house. As I crossed the corner, I heard what sounded like a gunshot and smelled gun powder. At the same time, I felt someone grab me around the waist and pull me back and away from the building. I spun around to confront my assailant and there was no one there. Not a soul… on a Tuesday, at midday, in Boston. This was weird enough, but the phantom grabber set me on edge.

Hours later, I’m heading back the same way to get to the train station. This time, I just happened to look down and I see a memorial inlaid into the place where I had been grabbed and heard the gunshot. That corner was marked as the spot where the Boston Massacre occurred. The Boston Massacre happened on March 5th. The date that this experience happened was March 5th.

Dead President

This one is my favorite ghost story and probably my very first. This incident happened at a local beach in the summer of 1989 and, despite happening in broad daylight on a crowded beach, no one but me knew what had happened. You might want to buckle up for this one.

I have never learned to swim. I’m not as embarrassed about it as an adult as I was when I was a kid. When you’re a kid, you want to be included, so you won’t admit to some things because you don’t want to be left out. I was no different. I was spending the weekend with a friend and her family and they decided they wanted to have beach day. I never told my friend or her parents that I couldn’t swim. The only one in her family who knew was her then 16 year-old brother (about whom I was crazy) and he wasn’t with us that afternoon.

My friend and her younger brothers kept egging me on to get out into the ocean and I was feeling like a loser just sitting on the beach making sand castles. Thinking I was doing something smart, I found an old stone boat launch and I thought that if I kept the boat launch under my feet, I would be fine. And I was for a while. I kept going out a little farther. First to my waist, then to my chest. When I got to where the water was up to my chin, I slipped on some seaweed or got caught under a wave or something and I went under and immediately started panicking.

As I was flailing helplessly in the water, someone jumped into action to help. I very clearly remember an older, heavyset man with sandy hair and a thick mustache helping me up and out of the water. He was wearing what looked like red swim trunks and a striped tank top. There was nothing otherwise remarkable about him. He looked like any middle-aged dad you’d see with his kids at the beach.

Once I finished coughing up salt water and could finally see straight again, I looked around to see where he went because I wanted to thank him. He was nowhere to be seen. I spent nearly an hour scouring the beach and the park trying to find this guy and I couldn’t find him. I even described him to people and no one had seen him. I was 8 years-old, almost 9. I wasn’t automatically thinking “ghost”. I just thought it was odd that he didn’t stick around to make sure I was okay.

Fast forward 17 years and I walk into my U.S. Government class at the local high school. My seat faced a poster of all the of the presidents from Washington to then president Clinton. My eyes were kind of absently scanning the poster when they stopped on a familiar face. I got up and walked over to the poster to get a closer look and make sure I was seeing who I thought I was seeing.

My teacher looked at me like I had three heads and asked what was wrong with me. I asked him what connection (if any) did William Howard Taft have to our town. He said he didn’t know off the top of his head. I spent the evening at the library going through records. That’s where I found it. Where the park is now had been Taft’s summer residence when he was president of the United States. That boat launch I was on had been his boat launch. His carriage house is still on the property. So, nearly 60 years after his own death, he stood in the breach between me and mine.

Those are just a few of my experiences. Gods know I have so many more, but I picked these because I feel like most ghost stories seem to happen after dark and most of mine haven’t. Mine almost always happen in daylight hours. Even in my apartment! One day, I was turning to walk out of my pantry and I saw the faint image of a man in the doorway. I said “excuse me” and he stepped aside. I don’t know who he is, but I’ve seen him a few times. At least he’s polite.

If the non-believers managed to get this far, bravo. I’m sure you haven’t changed your minds and that’s fine. I just hope that when it’s your turn and it’s your story, you have a more open mind.

[can-of-w0rmz]

Genuinely idrk how people expected him to “handle” it? From the minute he actually reanimates the creature, the story is a tragedy where he has very little control over what happens next, and the ghosts of his irreversible mistake haunt him forever. I think there’s a lot of different ways to read the downfall of the Frankenstein family, but if you think about it, Victor’s parents met over a corpse. Death has followed the Frankensteins since before he was born, and after other works of Shelley’s like The Last Man and Matilda, and her general beliefs about marriage, I do kinda strain to believe that there wasn’t intentionally creepy subtext written in about Victor’s mother betrothing him to his cousin/him kissing Elizabeth and her turning into the corpse of his ma in his dreams, even if it was potentially subconscious during her first novel? I really hate these arguments because I do think that the original act of Victor reanimating the creature was, narratively, his sin, and it was the fucked up thing he did, but I see so much shit about him abandoning the creature, and

1) Narratively, the downfall of the Frankenstein family was inevitable one way or another and no action anyone could’ve taken could have prevented it, eventually someone would’ve gone too far and some tragedy would’ve happened.

2) Even in like logistics of Victor’s character, he’s the teenage son of a rich political figure. He wasn’t going to be capable of disappearing off of the face of the planet to raise his corpse son, or even smuggling a corpse son with him for that far. Someone would’ve found him eventually, and even in terms of like, being psychologically capable of that, he’s a mentally ill 19 year old, not an eccentric 30-something, where you’d have completely different criticisms. I think too many people are viewing it through this strict “fatherhood” lense, which is fair enough given Shelley’s relationship with her own father and how that likely bled into the text, but Victor isn’t just an absent father. He sewed together corpses and then reanimated them. The creature SHOULD NOT, on any metaphysical or intellectual level, exist, and it’s torture for the creature and an irreversible mistake and disrespect to God and nature itself for Victor. The implications of the reanimation are WAY more than “absent dad Victor”, it’s a psychological horror tragedy where the horror comes from all the terrible things that can bleed from one man’s mistake, and how they can ruin so many lives.

Listen as much as I fucking love Lisa Frankenstein, Victor isn’t going to be dad-version Lisa Swallows-ing this bitch ok he was doomed from the minute he brought the creature to life 😭

[fatehbaz]

In the Anthropocene, necropolitics operates under the sign of metaphysical indeterminancy rather than certainty, unintended consequences rather than control. As it so happens, spirits exist under the same conditions of uncertainty and possibility. Spirits are never just “there”. Spirits thrive, as a result, in conditions of doubt rather than belief. “I do not believe in ghosts, but ...” is, after all, the conventional start to accounts of experiences with ghosts and spirits. How striking [...], that the Anthropocene is so clearly associated with spirits. Take the figure of Gaia, the self-regulating sympoetic superorganism of earth’s biosphere named [...] by climate scientist James Lovelock and biologist Lyn Margulis. Or take Donna Haraway’s chthulus, those earthly “myriad intra-active entities-in-assemblages” that inhabit the Anthropocene. [...]

Like Fukushima, Bhopal, Chernobyl, and other contemporary disasters where the forces of nature and human politics act to exacerbate each other, Lusi is the name for a monstrous geography haunted by the natural as well as the unnatural. [...]

-------

The Lusi mud volcano is a geological event with two histories. [...] Part one, the “unnatural history” of the volcano, as it were, begins in 2006. In the early hours of the morning on May 29, the mud volcano erupted, shortly after the oil company PT Lapindo Brantas Incorporation had begun exploratory drilling for gas [...]. The second part of the story begins in the early morning of May 27, 2006, roughly forty-eight hours before the eruption [...], when a massive earthquake measuring 6.3 [...] shook the ground near Yogyakarta, killing 5,749 people [...]. [T]he anthropogenic origin of Lusi seemed secure. Until recently, that is, when independent, computer-based studies showed that the curved underground rock formation in the area could have focused the seismic waves of the Yogyakarta earthquake to produce enough seismic stress on the fault line to trigger the eruption [...]. In its wak, uncertainty rules more than ever. As one geologist concludes, “we may never know what the final trigger was, whether it would have happened anyway [...].” When it comes to Lusi, geology [...] is haunted by unpredictability. This epistemological undecidability is couple with high political stakes: the oil company wants the eruption to be a natural disaster to escape liability, while victims want it to be [seen as] an industrial disaster [...] The question essentially is whether Lusi is a political event with a geothermal afterlife or a geothermal event with a political afterlife. At the moment, it is both. [...] [A] time of undecidability but also a time of spirits and ghosts.

-------

On quiet afternoons, you are likely to see people scour the Lusi mudflats. Once in a while, they will stoop to pick up a pebble and inspect it closely before either dropping it again or putting it in a fanny pack around their waist. People say the stones are just trinkets, children’s marbles. And yet, they keep collecting them, carefully polishing them [...] in an evident labor of love [...]. Some stones come to assume the shape of a dolphin, others a human face. [...] Mas Hadi is one of the people collecting stones. He is [...] a diviner (waskito) with “spirit eyes” that see into the otherworld (mata batin). [...] One day [...] a tukang ojek, a driver of a motorbike taxi, dropped by with an object he had found on the mudflat. It looked like a fossilized shark tooth [...], [possibly] from a mako shark (L. Isurus oxyrinchus), probably one who lived and died around 2 million years ago to become part of the Pleistocene stratum from where most of the volcanic mud originates. To Mas Hadi, however, it was something else. [...] What the ojek driver had inadvertently stumbled upon was a double kris, a dagger associated with royalty and a powerful magical object. “Take it, and keep it safe [...].” Searching for spirit shapes in the stones on the mudflats is one among a panoply of means through which you may acquire good fortune [...] in Java. Spiritual anxiety has been the constant companion of dreams of good fortune at Lusi since its eruption in 2006. [...]

Mas Hadi’s story is a common one. The victims’ struggle to receive compensation for their lost livelihoods has been long and frustrated. In response to the mudflow, a presidential decree from 2007 [...] required the Lapindo oil company to pay 3.8 trillion rupiah (US$338 million) in compensation to people who used to live inside the so-called affected area [...]. Despite the generous political deal, Lapindo sought through a variety of political, legal, and strong-arm tactics to defer payment of the government-ordered compensation to the victims. [...] In 2009, the regional p0lice in East Java gave up its criminal investigation against Lapindo, a decision that was widely suspected of being made under pressure and influenced by oil company bribes. [...]

-------

Deprived of adequate compensation, the victims now make a living and seek good fortune on top of the toxic mud that covers what used to be their villages. In their struggle for compensation, mud has become a frequent symbol of political protest, and demonstrators regularly smear their bodies in mud as a sign of protest against a cynical oil company and a corrupt government. [...]

Lusi’s muddy landscape is haunted. Her “cursed mud” (kualat lumpur) is the mark of a necropolis, and people see it as an explicit contrast to the metropolis of Kuala Lumpur, a betrayal of people’s dream of modernity. In this ruined landscape, destroyed by a heady mix of greedy industry, corrupt politics, tectonic forces, and chthonic spirits, body politics fuse with geopolitics: protesters smear their bodies in mud, while a murdered labor unionist turns into a muddy avenging ghost; and employer goes mad when his factory drowns in mud [...]. The strange life of stones and mud speaks to a spectral moment in Indonesia in which geology is political, politics is corrupt, and corruption is haunted by spirits.

-------

Nils Bubandt. “Haunted Geologies: Spirits, Stones, and the Necropolitics of the Anthropocene.” 2017.

[splintersfeelings]

Carefully step over the gap of my open heart and show me where I came from / 擔心，小心，開心

Family trees are defined by absences.

--

My father and I were talking as he drove. He wondered aloud if he was like his own father, my Ye Ye. My paternal grandfather passed away when my dad was still a teenager.

"I'm surprised you notice and remember all the stories I tell you," he says to me, when I write about them. I always remember. How could I forget? I'm haunted by the stories. I burn them into my memory in the only way that I can to light up the dark spaces in my consciousness that are haunted by ghosts.

--

My dad doesn't speak much to his family anymore.

His mom, my Maa Maa, tried to control my father's life and groom him to become an eldest son who could serve as the head of the household, where he was needed to fill the vacancy left behind by my grandfather’s death when my father was a teenager. It was a burden that no one that young should have to bear.

My father's younger brother, my Suk Suk, told me about the Wong progenitor 7 generations before me (my father's grandfather's grandfather's grandfather).

This Wong left his Guangdong hometown to come to the United States and make his fortune. He returned home with the fruits of his labor only to be warned of an assassination plot waiting for him. So instead of returning to his home village, he took a detour to Macau to retire with his Gold Mountain windfall. He eventually accumulated 4 wives (including an American wife) and left behind many descendants in the Macau/Hong Kong area. This story was authored by at least 4 or 5 people, stories relayed across generations, until my Suk Suk was able to compile them all and then convey it to me.

Does this make the story less true? Or does it make it more true, the accumulated sweat and tears of generations distilled into a single, elegant fairy tale, an origin story of a man heading east on his Journey to the West?

This was it's own kind of pilgrimage.

--

There's a difference in how Eastern and Western cultures view justice, and it's a complicated question that I'm bound to oversimplify here, but I think the idea is visible in the difference between Buddhism and the Abrahamic (Judeo-Christian and Islamic) traditions.

In the Abrahamic, justice is something that happens in the afterlife. Justice is the promise of reward and punishment for mortal sins. Life is allowed to be just, because God will ensure that sinners pay the price and that the good are granted the salvation they deserve.

In Buddhism, there's no punishment and reward in the afterlife. Life itself is the system of punishment and reward for past lives. It has a retroactive temporal orientation towards justice instead of the future orientation of the Abrahamic. In Buddhism, heaven and hell would be confusing, because the goal of religious practice is to escape from life and reincarnation, not to live a post-mortem afterlife.  For the Buddhist, everyone always deserves what they get, what goes around comes around. Somewhere out there is a cosmic Karmic ledger that balances the accounts. Justice is built into the present instead of constantly deferred.

The Abrahamic fears oblivion, fears the unknown, fears the cessation of the senses. Buddhism, by forgoing the afterlife, embracing oblivion and does something different.

I'm neither a Buddhist or a Christian. I don’t self-identify as an atheist or an agnostic. In my own words, I would prefer to say that I think metaphysical statements have no truth values. But this is all neither here nor there.

In Hong Kong there was only one real god.

Its name was money.

--

Getting up at night to use the restroom, I trip over a pile of books I had forgotten. "Pukgaai…" I mutter to myself as I nearly fall, stumbling for my phone. Groping through the darkness with my cold hands, searching for familiar shapes and sensations to remind me who I am.

--

In Cantonese (and in Mandarin), "he," "she," and "it" all correspond to the same spoken word. Gender is only marked in the written form. My sister and I used to make fun of our parents for always slipping up on pronouns, calling he's she's and she's he's. I realize now how special it is to not have gender linguistically and ontologically bound into our consciousness, instantly and immediately assigned to bodies. Of course, Chinese culture still contains uncomfortable Confucian attitudes toward gender, sex, reproduction. But there's something remarkably progressive and profound about not needing to assign gendered pronouns to people. Romance and Germanic languages are so strongly gendered. Who felt like they needed to assign gender to chairs, stars, doors, cups, hats, and boats, anyways? Why should a feminine verb, a neuter verb, and a masculine verb be linguistically differentiated?

--

Trauma is a form of omission.

--

My maternal grandfather, Gung Gung, was a gambling addict. But I wouldn't say he was addicted to chance. He was a surprisingly risk-averse man in other aspects of his life. He turned down a job offer from his family because he didn't want to move away from the racetrack in Happy Valley, where he'd calculate the optimal horse to bet on, studying and researching all the details that might distinguish him from the crowd. He was a man who found comfort in games, the consistency and dependability, the clear and precise conditions of defeat and victory that are absent from the tedium of everyday life. In games there is nothing left but expression of skill. The chess pieces don't care who you are, where you were born, or how much money you make. There is only the elegant simplicity of victory or defeat and whether or not you’re willing to pick yourself up afterwards from the burning wreckage to try your hand again.

Gung Gung was a chain smoker, such an addict that long flights from Hong Kong to the United States were troublesome for him. He passed away watching a game of chess under a bridge on Hong Kong island. But just months before he passed away he visited Seattle to see my sister and I. My sister was less than a year old and I was only a toddler.

I wonder if Gung Gung would have appreciated my childhood chess tournament trophies and my passion for real-time strategy games. I wonder if he would have taught me to flank using chariots, pin down with cannons, connect my elephants.

I was too young to remember him, so I can't say that I really met him. But I'm glad that he got to meet me before he died.

--

The single greatest gift that Cantonese has given me is a slur for white people. If I didn't have it, I would only ever think of myself as a failed national subject. Because of just one word, a word that now comes easily and quickly to my mind, I know otherwise. I was robbed of something, long ago, before I was even born, and every time I say "gweilo" I reclaim just a little bit of that history back.

Peace by piece. Plowshares for swords. An eye for a tongue.

--

Complicity is the price of silence.

--

To this day, the sound of Cantonese music puts me at ease. I barely understand the language. But hearing the rising and falling tones of the prestige Yue dialect, the language of Guangdong, always brings close a warm part of my childhood.

When I young, not yet in grade school, I had a hard time falling asleep by myself. My parents recognized I was a creature of ritual. My dad would sit close and would play Cantopop as I fell asleep.

One day, he turned on some music to listen to during the day, just for himself, and I complained to him that I wasn't ready to sleep yet.

--

Assimilation is death.

--

"Transgenerational trauma," my professor said during our seminar. We were discussing Lacanian psychoanalysis, and the displacement of trauma through unspoken linguistic signs. The idea is that trauma is displaced along generations by overdetermining the language that the parent uses to talk to the child, and the child to grandchild, and so on. And thus, a life time of scars is tucked into the limits of our speech. A child can choose to become like their parents or become unlike their parents. But the shadow of the parent is still there either way.

What an abyss then it must be for a grandparent and a grandchild to not even share a common language. What kind of trauma is belied by the fact that everything goes unspoken?

I grew up reading through my Ye Ye's comic books. Wong Si Ma was a famous cartoonist in Hong Kong when he was alive, and his characters are still remembered fondly. The first time I read them, they gripped my imagination. Over time, I realized that my love for those cartoons was bound into the fact that my father had taught me the same sense of humor as these comics, the same love for puns and physical comedy and light-hearted pranks.

Wong Si Ma had time for everyone in his life, but not enough time for his family before he passed away.

--

Even though I'm not religious, Hong Kong for me is a site of pilgrimage. And that saddens me, because I know that the Hong Kong that I want and need will never exist ever again. Hong Kong’s place in the world changed. Hong Kong has been transferred back to China, and Cantonese language and politics and culture will have to be fought for to be preserved.

I feel regret, as if I have failed in a duty, by not properly learning the language. But now is as good a time as any to start.

--

Whenever I commute around Seattle or Irvine, I think back to riding the MTR in Hong Kong and the sonorous British-inflected English voice warning me: "Careful, please mind the gap." In Cantonese, to be careful is "siusum," literally translated as "small heart." To step with caution. I try my best to step with caution, remembering all the sacrifices people have made to put me here walking these grounds and living this life. I don't think I can be grateful for receiving something I never asked for.

But I keep trying to dream for the two grandfathers I never really met, who persisted as a memory of a memory, ghosts who guide my heavy heart, as I sleep and slowly learn how…

--

…to open my heart and be happy.

[sublime-msc-duo]

These two i cant

[blahrblahr]

My ranking so far (best to worst): 

1. Christian Mingle: The Movie

- The thing that is so genius about this is that it’s a gender reversal of the “Born Sexy Yesterday” trope. The woman is pretty average but the guy is so simple and child-like that he thinks everything she says is THE FUNNIEST THING EVER (he also calls his parents “ma” and “pa” reflexively and only eats chili cheese dogs). He is described as “quirky” often by the lead and other characters. Yet he possesses a profound relationship with Jesus and an innate wisdom that provides the catalyst for the main character to find meaning in her life. Lacey Chabert’s eyes are exceptionally watery. I dunno, this one was an unexpected heart-melter for me. 

2. The Spirit of Christmas

- The woman is a cold-hearted big city real estate agent (I think???) who needs to sell an old countryside inn that winds up being haunted by a sexy ghost, but only for 12 days a year between Christmas and New Years...or something. Thomas Beaudoin is smokin’ hot and they don’t even bother hiding the fact that this woman’s pants are ON FIRE...she really wants to bang this ghost. He’s mean and mysoginistic in an old-timey way. We don’t want to love it but we do. The metaphysical laws of the afterlife are unclear. Would make a good porn. 

3. A Holiday Engagement

- I was honestly barely paying attention. An out-of-work journalist hires a man she meets online to pretend to be her fiance when she goes home for the holidays. The people in this were not as attractive. But it was kind of funny I think. 

4. Merry Kissmas

- The people are attractive...but in a kind of human labrador retriever way. She is in a codependent relationship with her fiance who is some sort of big time choreographer. He treats her like shit: she is essentially both his maid and manager. Brant Daugherty is a bashful baker who is VERY INCREDIBLY unlucky in love. They have a good kiss in an elevator under some mistletoe (after an uncomfortable scene where he is assaulted by his elderly neighbor in the same elevator). Something about nutcrackers and pursuing your dreams. As in all of the movies there is an engagement at the end, when Kay Jewelers drops a very obvious product placement. This movie has a lot of holiday tropes -- mistletoe, gingerbead, they buy a puppy, whatever, but it just wasn’t steamy enough for me. This one goes below A Holiday Engagement because of Kay Jewelery. 

5. Back to Christmas

- Hmmmm what to say about this one. A sad big city career woman is visited by her quirky fairy godmother at a diner, and gets to travel back in time to last Christmas so that she can try get her douchey boyfriend not to break up with her. What’s interesting about this is that the time travel metaphysics are such that nothing happens in exactly the same way, thus revealing a different side of the douchey bf and leading the woman to reconsider a romance with a childhood friend who still pines for her. This was similar to Christian Mingle in some ways because the lead had to cast off the shackles of a controlling parent in order to find herself and her true love. The people in this were not very attractive. 

6. A Christmas Prince

- ACTIVELY DISLIKE. The leading man’s face looked like a butt. Very creepy father-daughter chemistry, fake accents etc. I do admit that my heart was melted by the prince’s charming disabled sister. Make the movie about her next time. 

7. Christmas in the Smokies

- A woman and her family are struggling to support themselves with the income with their berry farm, when her high school boyfriend -- now a famous country star -- returns to town for the holidays. The man tries to make amends for leaving her heartbroken with no explanation at the age of 17 and weasel his way back into her heart. This woman bears the mantle of victim-hood in a truly insufferable way. 

The defining scene of the movie is when the man asks her why she is so mad, and she explains how it was difficult when he abandoned her as a teen, describing “crying at home, alone and scared.” She says, “I would explain it to you more, I really would, but I just don’t think that dog’ll hunt.” Many other characters in the movie are perplexed as to why this woman is holding on to pain from her shitty high school romance. Apparently the writers think that the women watching this movie have martyrdom fantasies iN ADDITION to the usual holiday fantasies. And they are right about that. But I SEE WHAT THEY ARE TRYING TO DO and therefore this was unsatisfying for me. If you love Taylor Swift this is probably the movie for you. 

The people are attractive, and actually the landscape add something to this. Another great line, “You always were all hat and no cattle, so whatever flips your pancake.” 

[theron-darksunder]

Leave a “Haunt Me” in my ask, and I’ll write a drabble about my character watching over yours[ as a ghost, watching from a distance, or otherwise, feel free to specify.] 

[Disclaimer! This is not a canon story. Merely a drabble prompt that went overboard. Many triggers of blood/mutilation/death.  This is the first of three. ]

But no one ever talked in the darkness 

No voice ever added fuel to the fire No light ever shone in the doorway Deep in the hollow of earthly desires But if in some dream there was brightness If in some memory some sort of sigh And flesh be revived in the shadows Blessed our bodies would lay so entwined And I will oh I will not forget you Nor will I ever let you go I will oh I will not forget you

-Sarah McLachlan “I Will Not Forget You”

There would be no heroic end to his unnaturally long life.  Nothing would mark him as a saviour nor did he go down as a villain.  Somehow, he had known this from the beginning but he had not expected his death to come by blade once more.  Twice in a lifetime.  Was it a well skilled assassin, a lurker of the shadows like so many he was close to?  Had it been one that he had called a friend?  A friend that knew him well; was aware of his skills and weaknesses and thereby used their knowledge to have such an appropriate edge over him? Or had it been such a worthy adversary that had studied him long enough to know when his guard would be down and the time would be perfect? 

He had been so careful since death had first touched him in the Silithus Desert.  The memory of the soft press of steel against his neck would forever be ingrained as an unpleasant memory in his mind.  He would forever remember the sharp blade against his skin, the threat of the softest of force able to give way to the artery below.  It was her eyes that returned to his memory every time he thought upon his death.  They had haunted him when he was left alone to dwell upon the darkest places in his mind.  It was Centori’s eyes that floated to the surface upon remembering that day, not the fact that the blade had sank deep. He somehow believed her when she had said that she regretted the events of that day.

This attack had not been so overt. The rope had come out of nowhere, a perfect and rather fortunate placing making it so that when he passed through it, it caught him right at the line of his shoulders.  The fast momentum from his mount made the rope slip upwards towards his neck for a very effective clothes-line maneuver.  He was yanked off Jasmine’s saddle until he was airborne and painfully flat on his back.  All air was knocked out of him as he stared up at the night sky, shock and pain rippling through him at the sudden jolting from his mount.  The night was quiet save for the sounds of the forest.  Vaguely, he wondered how he had missed that particularly low branch until a vicious roar thundered through the night. The urgency of the shadowcat’s cry made him come to his senses and called him to action.

The second blow came just as quick, squarely at his solar plexus but he only managed to catch sight of the shadow before he was on his back again. His hands came forward to defend himself, shadowfire beginning to lick at his fingers but strong hands grabbed a hold of one wrist and then the other, twisting them painfully behind his back. It was the sharp pain at his chest that made him look down to see that it had not been a dagger plunged into him. A cylindrical object stuck out of his chest, still clinging on to him.  Vaguely, he wondered what it was before a figure garbed from head to toe came forth and kneeled before him.

The figure balanced a small package on their upturned knee, withdrawing a syringe and vial.  The liquid was a soft iridescent gold, swirling out of its own volition as it was prepped.  Theron’s face showed no surprise but he had already figured out a way to get out of their grip.  The shift into his raven form was taking place already; shadows began to lick at his form before the two that were holding his arms behind his back pulled them up so harshly that the dislocation of his shoulders wrenched a soft cry of pain out of him.

“There will be no flying out of here, little raven.” The voice of the one that held the syringe had taken the opportunity of his struggle to get closer and was now face to face with him.  Their free hand had come up to his crimson hair and pulled his head back painfully so that he was staring up the line of their body.  Female.  She leaned down and Theron’s dark violet eyes locked with eyes the color of spring grass.  He knew she was smiling even if a majority of her face was covered; years of studying human facial features had taught him at least that much.  “If we break your arms, you cannot fly.”  She tsked and Theron felt the sting of the syringe slipping into the artery of his neck but he said nothing, allowing the flare of anger to dance over his features.

“I thought we were hunting wolves not birds” A non-descript voice asked, masculine this time.  The female leaned forward then, studying the anger that was boiling in Theron’s eyes.  With her hand still in Theron’s hair, she dropped the now empty syringe and rolled up part of her mask to reveal supple lips.  Those lips were pressed tightly against his, so harsh and sudden that the taste of his blood suddenly invaded his mouth as she pulled away with a self-satisfied smile.

“He is one of hers.  Kael’deryn Ravensdawn, also known as Theron Darksunder.  Twin to Delryssa Ravensdawn.  Both are heirs to some decrepit Mansion and the Ravensdawn legacy, whatever that means.  Married. One child.”  She was watching the unease form on Theron’s face with amusement.  Leaning down, she gathered her syringe and waved at her company off-handedly.  “Check him.  He should have some kind of snowflake mark on him.”

Roughly, Theron’s foxtail was yanked harshly to the side, gloved fingers coming to check behind each ear for some kind of mark.  The two that painfully held his arms twisted behind his back also held him still with hands on his shoulders, keeping him from moving too much. A sound of disgust could be heard when the brand was found behind his left ear. Once more, Theron took the opportunity to struggle though an odd weakness began to work through his body. With growing panic, he realized that his time was even more limited now.  They had drugged him and he knew not the effects.  Shadowfire flickered on his fingers, blazed for a second before it sputtered out as if it were normal flame doused by water.  It left his head spinning, suddenly nauseous.

“Keep struggling.  It will work faster.”  The voice sliced through his thoughts. Another of them chuckled, followed by one of Jasmine’s roars though it was relatively weaker this time around. Two shadows that Theron had not noticed suddenly darted off in the direction of his shadowcat’s stressed cries.

~Ma louve~ The thought escaped him and instantly he regretted it.  It had been a fleeting thought that should have never been formed.  It lingered for only a second before he broadcast his location to his allies.  Northeast Ghostlands.  Five known assailants.  More presumably out in the forest.  Traps set. Beware darts and drugs.

“Get on with it.” Another murmured and Theron felt the grip on his shoulders loosen but the world spun at the same time.  Once more, he tried to summon his spell magic and when that did not flicker to life; he tried to call upon the voidling creatures he could set upon them.  There was silence, no sense of magic within him. He was paralyzed and fairly alarmed at whatever cocktail they had injected into him.  Dragged to a fallen tree, both his arms were pulled forward, a flare of pain blinding him even as a hand in his hair forced him to look forward to his own arms and not those that held him captive.

“Hurry it up. The longer we linger, the more we risk more coming.  Do it now.” But Theron realized what they meant to do and his heart gave a jolt.  Cowards.  He shut himself tightly behind whatever little metaphysical walls they had left him.  The pain of the axe came forth swiftly, a soft whistle of the blade as it swept down upon his right wrist. Sinew, skin, and bone gave way under the force; a sickening crack and an ominous thud were heard.  The pain did not even register as the right hand was also taken, the world a haze.  He felt so distant from his physical form but he knew less people were around him now.

Still on his knees, he reeled as strong fingers pulled back upon crimson locks to make his neck one lone line of perfectly stretched skin ready to be marred.  He felt sluggish both from the trauma and the chemicals in his system to the point that nausea threatened low in his stomach.  Someone pressed their body tightly behind him, slid the flat of a silver blade over his neck.  The tip of the blade found two fang marks on his neck and traced them lightly with the point of the dagger. Her contralto purr suddenly came forth so close to his ear. The voice was soft, seductive even behind a mask.  She nuzzled her hidden cheek against his naked one.  

“Call out to her.  Make her come save one of her mangy mutts.  We will wait for her just as we waited for you.  We are patient and her reign will come to an end.  She will kneel, broken and defeated as you have. One by one, we will deprive her of what she values, of what she loves.  He will dismantle her wolves, we will take her lovers.  Are you one of her lovers?” She nuzzled against his cheek. “Nah … too pretty.  A winged wolf.”  She kiss his cheek almost lovingly.  His eyes closed, awaiting the inevitable lick of the blade over his neck.  Already he had withdrawn from those he was bound to for at least he could do this little thing in these last moments.  If he could spare them this, he would.  

“You are the first strike in many to come.  Call it a small cleansing.  A shame that you had to be so beautiful.  I fought to keep you prisoner, you know, but he wanted a message sent.”  The blade was suddenly turned onto his skin, a slight pressure given as it slowly moved from one edge of his jaw line to the other.  It bit deep, past skin and down to the trachea.  The crimson flow suddenly spilled forth, a wide arc pumping out with each desperate beat of his heart to keep it flowing within his body.  The irony was not lost on him as his heart tried to continue with less and less.  The sense of suffocation overcame the panic, no breath could fill his lungs anymore and his body jerked with the struggle.  Fingers still remained locked around his hair, a voice purring so softly against his ear.

“Call out to her, make her come.”  She urged of him again. He watched as the edges of his vision suddenly grew dark and hazy but he did not call out to her. He shielded them from the trauma of his death and hoped that they only felt the light tug of hair upon their crowns.

“The storm will destroy you.”  It was a strained raspy rattle of a sentence but he was struggling to draw breath for oxygen that would never supplement his dying body. He struggled to taunt his killer but no more words could be forced out from between his lips.  Unceremoniously, his body was allowed to fall but the ground felt like it took an eternity to reach.  The scent of blood lingered but none of that mattered anymore.

“You know. I do not think he called out to her.” The voice faded into nothing.

His lips formed one word as the precious vitae of his blood continue to empty itself on the grass: Celestine.

More to come ...

[ @wolf-queen ]

[ and ty @telidraedarkbane / @handmaidenoftheempress for helping edit ]

[noordinarytravel]

2018 Paracons in the US and beyond.....

2017 has been a year of great paranormal adventure for me......and I hope it was for you too!  In case you are looking for even more adventure for 2018 (I know I am!), below you will find a list of paracons in the United States.  If you want something a little further away from home, you will find some international paracons and events at the very bottom.  

Not only do I travel for fun, I also try to learn something about the people and the culture.   Part of that is learning about burial practices, myths and superstitions about ghosts, and religious beliefs surrounding death and life on the other side.  I have found that no two countries or cultures are exactly alike.  Nevertheless, I get a lot of enjoyment out of my research and travels.

Please keep in mind that I am not getting paid to mention these events, have not attended in the past (but I plan to!), and I do not intend for this to be an endorsement.  I am providing this information based off of my own research for your convenience.  If you have any questions regarding these events, please click on the links provided to contact the appropriate people.

If you are aware of a paracon that is not on the list, or if you are having a paracon/special event you would like me to add to the list, please contact me via email.  I will happily add your event.    

 United States:

Twinsburg Paranormal Conference; Twinsburg, OH; 02/17/18

Dead Guy Festival; Rockford, IL; 02/24/18

SWFL UFO & Paranormal Conference; Fort Meyers, FL; 02/24/18  

Hayward Paranormal Conference; Hayward, CA; 03/16/18 – 03/17/18; 

7th Annual Texas Metaphysical & Paranormal Unity Fest; Glenrose, TX; 03/17/18 

Midwest Parafest; Toledo, OH; 04/07/18 

Mass Ghost Hunters Paranormal Society; Salem, MA; 04/13/18 – 04/14/18 

Tyler Horror & Paranormal Conference & Psychic Fair; Tyler, TX; 04/20/18 – 04/21/18  

Iowa Supercon; Scotch Grove, IA; 05/04/18 – 05/06/18 

Virginia City Paracon; Virginia City, NV, 05/04/18 – 05/06/18 

Paranormal Supernatural Conference; Denver, CO; 05/05/18 – 05/06/18  

New Jersey Paraunity Expo; Woodbridge, NJ; 05/19/18 

Midwest Haunters Convention; Columbus, OH; 05/23/18 – 05/27/18

Utah Paranormal Gathering; Eureka, UT; 05/26/18 

Haunted America Conference,  Alton, IL; 06/22/18 – 06/23/18  

Fort Mifflin Paranormal Expo; Philadelphia, PA; 06/23/18  

Hawaii Paracon,  Honolulu, HI; 07/13/18 – 07/15/18 

Moundsville Paracon; Moundsville, WV; 07/21/18 

2018 Michigan Paracon; Sault Ste. Marie, MI; 08/23/18 – 08/25/18  

·Scarefest; Lexington, KY; 09/14/18 – 09/16/18  

Farnsworth House Paracon; Gettysburg, PA; 09/22/18

East Coast Paracon; Scranton, PA; 10/06/18  

Arkansas Paranormal Expo; Little Rock, AR; 10/06/18 – 10/07/18 

Ghostacular Paracon; Burlington, VT; 10/14/18  

 International Conferences & Events:

Sage Paranormal Cruise; departing Venice 05/16/18 – 05/26/18    

HorrorCon UK; 05/19/18 – 05/20/18  

Paracon Australia 2018; 06/16/18 

Scottish UFO & Paranormal Conference; UK; 07/28/18 

Sage Paracon UK; 11/08/18 – 11/11/18  

 Have fun and stay safe in 2018!

[sublime-msc-duo]

"am I going crazy or are we not in arizona"

"hi!"

Oh a car

Neat

Oh there's people in car.

Cool

@sublime-msc-duo

“Okay, how the heck did this car get here?”

“Helloooo? Who’s in there?”

[margien2083092-blog]

A Father's Response To His Quite Younger Gay Kid.

This is certainly not something I presumed I would certainly be writing therefore soon (OK, in all honesty, I never believed I would certainly be actually writing a blog site on an around the globe known updates web site). Though this Xmas found isn't everything unique, it creates a definitely wonderful addition to any kind of X-mas task you are actually focusing on. This is actually an easy Christmas current digi stamp that you could become a definitely fantastic seal for your job.

I made use of ahead onto your blog web page 2 years back and also being actually transsexual myself I found the website extremely supportive even though i performed the opposite from the coin so to speak, given that your website was actually offering me an insight to the technique my youngsters might be taking care of the scenario from possessing a TS Dad. She expects the day when, finally, they may participate in sincere as well as free connection with the Daddy concept, thus regarding unload on their own from the caught areas and also damaging patterns that obstruct additional progression right into true emotional-spiritual maturity. Algarveview, I shed my When I was 6, papa in an incident. Our family pet had been actually overruned and eliminated simply a few months earlier, as well as her death had Portal4you-Diets.Pt actually reached me hard, thus when I was actually informed my father remained in heaven, I recognized instantly exactly what they were actually really mentioning, and also it carried out certainly not soften the impact in all. Port Isaac in contemporary opportunities is actually an aesthetic surprise along with all the important additionals: a lovely welcoming pub pistol over the harbour wall, fresh sea food at every turn and also delightfully beautiful strolls swelling away from the village grabbing the popular Coastal Road. Being readied to provide your father from the groom pep talk will certainly aid you talk that your son, the groom, will definitely take pride in. This is actually an important celebration as well as a little bit of effort on your component are going to assist ensure that you prosper in delivering your speech.

Father brown Billy additionally calls church ministers and also metaphysical communities to provide his solutions of delivery, exorcism, purifying, blessing and de-haunting from houses, since a priest contacted us to demonic warfare is usually tough to find. It is highly recommended that the dad of the new bride delivers his pep talk in an interesting method, sometimes by being non-insolently ironical or by being cheerful as well as aggravating at the same time that makes the speech capable of snatching attention and avoid monotony.

[childrenofrlyeh]

Anti-Aristotelianism The claim in biology that there is no essential characteristic of a species. The denial of the proposition that motion is intrinsically motivated by matter (A brick falls because it wants to be at the lowest point.) Knowledge obtained from practical experience over that learned from authorities. The skeptic claim that we cannot know what the truth is. Knowledge is dependent upon mechanical principles. Natural phenomena is explained in terms of the local motion of material parts. Epistemological and methodological change. Motion does not have a conjoined moving cause. Anti-Aristotelianism can be abstractly described as a paradigm shift in the belief about how nature works, what we can know about nature, and how we can go about obtaining knowledge. Aristotelian metaphysics holds that matter moves by virtue of intrinsic conjoined motivation (a moving cause) that comes with any piece of matter, that the world of matter is imperfect "copies" of pure essences, and that our senses give us the ability to perfectly "know" true knowledge. By contrast, the anti-Aristotelian perspective, which began many centuries ago, denied that the world is divided into the perfect essences and imperfect physical copies, or that we can know with any perfection about the world. We must learn about the world by experiment - empirically testing our theories (maps). There are no "essences", and motion is the result of outside forces acting on bodies. The following quotations from various sources show the anti-Aristotelian perspective. It primarily represents the beginnings of modern, empirical, science and philosophy. While the ancient Greeks understood both the inability to know the absolute truth as well as the need for theories to agree with experience, this knowledge was essentially lost to civilization during the dark ages. The roots of anti-Aristotelianism as the foundation of modern science can be found as early as the 13th century. Review the following quotations: "In search of origins, Duhem became convinced that the source of the flourishing of anti-Aristotelian science was the decision in March 1277 by Etienne Tempier, bishop of Paris, to condemn as heretical 219 propositions. Duhem claimed that Tempier’s action freed natural philosophers from the straight-jacket of Aristotelian science and encouraged them to examine ways of understanding the world which Aristotle would reject. Duhem thought that the work of Jean Buridan on projectile motion was one of the key developments in the 14th century which entitles Buridan to be called a precursor of Galileo. Buridan’s theory of impetus, and its relation to the principle of inertia, will be the subject of my next lecture; here I only want to mention that, according to Duhem, as a result of the rejection of the authority of Aristotle, scholars such as Buridan were able to consider new ways of explaining the phenomena of nature. Freed from the shackles of the Aristotelian principle that all motion requires a conjoined moving cause, Buridan and others, according to Duhem, lay the foundations of modern mechanics." ( Condemnations of Paris 1277 and the Birth of Modern Science - Carroll) (Posted by Colin G. Hughes on September 09, 19100 at 07:17:34:) IV. THE ANTI-ARISTOTELIAN PREMISE: ... In contradiction of Aristotle’s theory of species, evolutionary biology maintains that for (just about) any given intrinsic characteristic T that some present day humans possess, it is possible for some past, present, or future human to lack T. A species is a mutually interacting group of individuals, and though there are forces that push the group towards uniformity, there are also forces that mitigate in favour of heterogeneity, or at least don’t interfere with it. Thus, even if it so happens that every member of a species possesses a certain trait, it is still possible that there have been or will be members of that species which lack that trait. This is why no intrinsic trait is essential to species-membership; species have no intrinsic characteristics as essence. Let’s call this the Anti-Aristotelian Premise. Origins are not Essences in Evolutionary Systematics Burnet had stressed continuing change and decay, against the Aristotelian notion of an eternal universe. (Nathanael Carpenter had introduced this "entropy" argument early in the seventeenth century-what is now called an appeal to the Second Law of Thermodynamics-as Suzanne Kelly noted, in Schneer, Cecil J. (ed.), 1969. Toward a History of Geology (Cambridge, MA: M. IT. Press), 1969, pp. 223, 224.) Methodology: Hermetism: Anti-Aristotelian Sentiment: Invective by men like Peter Ramus who felt that Aristotelian methodology was totally sterile--attempts to devise new and better methodologies. This sort of attitude was reflected in alchemists like Agrippa and Paracelsus who extolled practical experience over book-learning. Francis Bacon: Spokesman and symbol for Experimentation (inductive)--probable roots in the Natural Magic tradition. Utilitarianism: Science must be beneficial to society--ideal of progress. Thus Bacon's methodology, though simple, was conceived to be totally new and anti-Aristotelian. (The Scientific Revolution) But not all philosophers were willing to overthrow Aristotelianism. Kenelm Digby (1603-65) attempted to conserve many of the Aristotelian doctrines, and to make aspects of the mechanical science compatible with these doctrines. And there were many camps of anti-Aristotelian naturalists who rejected the picture of nature as a grand machine, and who endorsed various "vitalist" views of corporeal nature as self-moving, living, and knowing. Among these thinkers were the physicians and chemists, for example, Johannes Baptista Van Helmont (1579-1644), who followed in the tradition of the vitalist naturalist Paracelsus (1493-1541); while others included practitioners of natural magic, for example, Robert Fludd (1574-1637), who were part of the hermetic and occult traditions. Finally, Joseph Glanvill (1636-80), who despaired of producing the true system of nature, and who fully endorsed neither Aristotle nor the mechanists, rehabilitated arguments from the ancient [skeptics]. (Cavendish) Hobbes' emphasis of the dependence of knowledge upon mechanical principle, when logically extended, produces a worldview in which nothing incorporeal can be said to be truly known, only "believed", and that for generally less than adequate reasons. For this and similar reasons the appellation "Hobbs the atheist" would thereafter haunt him following the publication of Leviathan (1651). Locke, while echoing much of Hobbes' mechanical and anti-Aristotelian theory, would later soften several of Hobbes' conclusions by attempting to incorporate an effective and meaningful idea of God into an otherwise empirical framework. In other words, Locke proposes an empirical system which is not exclusively materialist. Locke's attempt however ultimately failed at sufficiently grounding the role of God within an empirical epistemology, and related philosophical inquiry soon dropped any meaningful notion of God from its endeavor. (The Physical Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes) However, [Jesuit commentators] still ascribe final causation to physical things even though physical things lack cognition. The seventeenth century anti-Aristotelian [philosopher] Sebastian Basso attacks this teleological view of nature via his critique of the Jesuit view of God's concurrence. According to the Jesuits, created things act toward a goal by their own powers, but they do so simultaneously and by the same action as God. Basso argues that for this to be the case all created things must possess cognition so that they can anticipate God's goals and match their causal action to his. Since physical things lack cognition, Basso concludes that they only act insofar as they are moved by God as his instruments. Basso's attack on the Jesuit view of causation supports his anti-Aristotelian view of nature which does away with substantial forms and active powers in matter. For Basso, matter consists in particles that are moved externally by the physical ether. Basso's causal explanations have much in common with René Descartes'. Both philosophers explain natural phenomena in terms of the local motion of material parts. However, while Basso locates the source of motion in the world soul which pervades nature, Descartes [locates] it in God. Furthermore, Descartes draws on the Jesuit view of concurrence to distinguish between the first cause of motion and the second causes. Descartes' distinctly modern view of causation thus contains both Aristotelian and anti-Aristotelian elements. ("From Teleology to Mechanism: The Jesuits, Basso, and Descartes on Natural Causation") Galileo was very much a man of the Renaissance. He was, like that portentous era, a watershed in which the streams of past and present, coming from heterogeneous sources, mixed and mingled. The current that emerged had certain clearly discernible characteristics that made of Galileo a man much more of the future than of the medieval past. Because of this, he is a symbol of the new age of modern science in a fuller sense than Descartes or Bacon. Descartes' impact was mainly epistemological, and that of Bacon methodological. In Galileo, the epistemological and the methodological are certainly present, but they are submerged in a powerful force of rhetorical persuasion, a literary gift put to the service of a passion for convincing the world that he was right about the new anti-Aristotelian descriptions of motion and about the Copernican astronomy. (GALILEO'S EMPIRICISM -- AND BEYOND) What the kamikaze crafts of Cartesian Doubt and Rationalism hit were the "twin towers" of the Aristotelian philosophical system, 1) our trust that the ideas in our minds are simply perfect reflections of the perceived object in the natural world and 2) the understanding that the five senses provide us with a real and exact knowledge of the natures of things in the material world. These two attacks were definitely part of a philosophical jihad on Aristotle and his explanation of nature and the human mind and person. To forget this overarching anti-Aristotelian aim, would be to overlook the heart of the matter. (The Cogito and Philosophical Modernism) A new form of "anti-Aristotelianism" is developing in the general semantics community. See Non-Aristotelian Rather than Anti-Aristotelian in Alfred Korzybski and the Problem of Causation. Many general semanticists rail against any use of logic which is based on the two values of true and false, forgetting that this logic is the foundation of the very mathematics that brought us to our current understanding of the world - the very mathematics and logic that Korzybski strongly advocates that we apply in our daily lives. - We should learn and use the methods of modern science in our everyday evaluations. Korzybski cautioned against adopting a two-valued orientation that responds to our world with evaluations in terms of "either/or" propositions. We must remember that our evaluations of situations is a classification process into a verbal and cognitive map, a map which is not the real thing. If we say that something either "is" A, or it "is not" A, we are performing such a classification. However, this classification simply is not the territory being abstracted from. Annotated bibliography of general semantics papers.

[sublime-msc-duo]

"the name's proto! Bythorne county's resident ghost hunting ghost! Nice to meetcha LB!"

"sup"

Ah yes, a car just randomly pulled up

"....this..... Is also not arizona.... MA please stop taking d-tours"

@sublime-msc-duo

"Uh, hello?"