#hebrews 6 interpretation

[trashcanlore]

Kabbalah in the Worldbuilding of Genshin Impact; Part 1: The Tree of Life, the Universe, and Everything

Edited for clarity, 12/6/23

Written by Schwan (@abyssalschwan on twitter) and Sabre (trashcanlore, @paimoff on twitter)

During the Sumeru Archon Quests, we learned that the Irminsul is a (real! (ish)) tree that grows upside down, seemingly underground, and that the roots of the tree are the Ley Lines, which extend throughout Teyvat and the Abyss. Irminsul stores all knowledge and memories in the world, and the Ley Lines are the mechanism by which the tree acquires this information. Ley Lines move elemental energy through Teyvat, and this energy acts as both a storage medium for information but also a resource that can be utilized for combat, alchemy, an energy source (Azosite), etc. 

The origin of the name Irminsul (unique to the Western localizations) in combination with the many names from Norse mythology associated with Khaenri'ah, suggest that the inspiration for Irminsul is Yggdrasil, the world tree and central axis of the cosmos in Norse mythology. Here we propose an additional inspiration for Irminsul and the associated worldbuilding and elemental system of Teyvat: The Kabbalistic Tree of Life. In this model, Teyvat’s elemental energy is comparable to the creative energy described by Kabbalah as the foundation for the creation of reality and the spiritual world. Specific attributes of elemental energy can be channeled by unique individuals in Teyvat and these attributes manifest as distinct elements, which can be directly compared to the 10 sefirot, or emanations, described in Kabbalistic literature.

What is Kabbalah?

Kabbalah (lit. received, tradition) is a school of thought originating in Jewish mysticism. In general, Kabbalah focuses on the relationship between the infinite (God) and the finite universe and how it was created. The goal of studying this mysticism can vary depending on the school of thought and their motivations. Many of the esoteric and religious influences on Genshin lore and worldbuilding were influenced by Kabbalah, or vice versa. These include Gnosticism, Hermeticism, alchemy, Freemasonry, the occultist branches of Theosophy and Thelema (Golden Dawn), astrology, symbolic interpretation of the tarot (also specific to the Golden Dawn) and more [2]. In short, Kabbalah is everywhere. Additionally, its concepts are used as symbolism in several pieces of media that directly or indirectly inspired Genshin and other games in the Hoyoverse.

If you have frequented Genshin lore topics, you might have heard that one of the main sources of inspiration for its worldbuilding is Gnosticism. The problem is, Gnosticism is a bit vague or contradictory when it comes to how the world was created and how the whole existence thing works. At this current moment in the storyline of Genshin, we have very little information on the very beginning of existence in Teyvat. This information seems to be a crucial part of the “truth of the world” and appears to be purposefully hidden by powerful factions like Celestia. This entire theory was born out of trying to make sense of what little we know about the creation of Teyvat and comparing it to esoteric commentaries on the well known creation myth of the Torah (Old Testament). The “Biblical world structure” interpretation of Teyvat has been around since the early days of Genshin lore and with good reason; there are frequent mentions of the firmament, as well as the name Teyvat sounding very similar to the Biblical Hebrew word for ‘ark’ (although the grammar is a bit mangled). There are also several references to stories from the Bible in in-game texts, including Before Sun and Moon.  

Kabbalah literature spends a lot of time trying to understand and describe the process of how the world was created and the underlying principles of reality, as well as how spiritual practice can change that reality (either metaphorically or literally). Kabbalah intends to describe the “true nature of God,” which is equal to the entirety of existence, as something very vast and completely impossible to grasp. This incomprehensible infinity emits an “limitless light” that is the origin of all creation. Elemental energy (the ubiquitous source of everything in Teyvat) is often found compared to light, something we’ll discuss in more detail later. The “limitless light” of Kabbalah is way too powerful for existence to bear, much like how elemental energy is to normal, non-Vision having humans. That’s why this light needed to be “filtered” down. This happens through the process of creation, which passes the light through the spiritual attributes that form the Tree of Life, which is like a sort of diagram for how the universe came into being [3].

The Tree of Life

The tree of life and its 10+ nodes, known as sefirot, is one of the most well-known concepts from Kabbalah to make its way into popular culture. As mentioned previously, the tree has been used as rule-of-cool symbolism in anime such as Neon Genesis Evangelion and Fullmetal Alchemist, two pieces of media that likely are significant influences on Genshin (If you doubt that HYV loves NGE, play some Honkai). The sefirot are also depicted on the floor of the Schicksal HQ map in Honkai Impact 3rd, for some reason.

The sefirot and their organization and interactions with each other can be found depicted in many ways, such as the tree format that is the most popular, or a spiraling nested scheme that is really cool, or even very stylized, like the work of Robert Fludd.

Sefirot

Sefirot comes from the root word in Hebrew meaning “to count,” but you can also find it translated as “sphere” in some texts. The term originated in a book on Jewish mysticism called the Sefer Yetzirah, or “Book of Formation/Creation.” which describes the combination of the “sefirot of nothingness” and the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet as the foundation of reality (remember the hypostasis codenames?). 

The Sefer HaBahir (lit. the book of brightness, 13th century France) introduces the idea that the sefirot are emanations of the divine. Interestingly, this book refers to the sefirot as ma’amarot (sayings), which builds on an important concept in classical Jewish philosophy – the idea that God spoke the world into existence. [We’ll get back to the Sefer Yetzirah and the role of language in creating the world in a subsequent part of this theory]. Fontaine 4.2 era edit: HELL YEAH stay tuned for more about Oceanids!!

Historically, Kabbalah might have taken this rough concept from a very different school of thought: Pythagoreans or neo-Platonists. Briefly, the connection between the Pythagoreans and the Kabbalistic sefirot is that both groups considered the world as being made of numbers. This ties back into Genshin worldbuilding because of how much Platonism is related to Gnosticism. Something else to keep in mind is that Pythagoreans (who had a cool history that connected Egypt and Greece to the magic of ✨math✨ but also hey Genshin lore hello Deshret) were known to use lyres as their instrument of choice while making mathematical studies of music. More sus Venti lore for the collection? This is also interesting to consider in the context of Nahida, who is deeply connected to the Irminsul, and has animations that are reminiscent of computers.

Later in the 13th century, the Kabbalist Isaac the Blind would 'canonize' the list of sefirot (there’s still some variation to this day) and organize them into a sequence that would become the basis for the famous Tree of Life structure. His writings described the sefirot as attributes of the divine and their role in the creation of the world. In his model, the sefirot originated from lights that emerged from a primordial soup of potential, and these sefirot/lights would then ‘flow’ and emanate into each other. His student, Azriel of Gerona, expanded on this with a neo-Platonic lens and introduced the concept of the Ein Sof, the infinite nothingness that cannot be comprehended and is the origin of everything. In this model, being flows from an infinite resource of potential, which the divine can utilize through the framework of the sefirot, eventually creating the world [4]. In simple terms, the Ein Sof, which contains everything, emits a primordial light that then differentiates into the sefirot. In our Genshin analogy, this primordial light would be like extremely pure elemental energy that differentiates into elements, like light passing through a prism.

Moses Cordovero, an important figure in the development of Kabbalah, described the process of the sefirot differentiating with the analogy of light shining through a stained glass window: 

Imagine a ray of sunlight shining through a stained-glass window of ten different colors. The sunlight possesses no color at all but appears to change hue as it passes through the window. The light has not essentially changed though it seems so to the viewer. Just so with the sephirot. The light that clothes itself in the vessels of the sephirot is the essence, like the ray of sunlight. That essence does not change color at all, neither judgment nor compassion, neither right nor left. Yet by emanating through the sephirot -- the variegated stained glass -- judgment or compassion prevails. (Pardes Rimmonim by Moses Cordovero, translated in Essential Kabbalah by Daniel Matt)

Cordovero considered the sefirot to be completely independent of each other, but the later Lurianic school of Kabbalah (we’ll get into them more in later parts) considered the sefirot to be constantly dynamically interacting with each other and also assigned them personas. 

Achievement grinders amongst us may recall the descriptions of the namecards you get upon completing the Elemental Specialist achievement series:

Achievement: Colors of the Rainbow: Light can refract into countless colors, but people stop at seven because they're too lazy to count. Perhaps the elements are like that, too. Achievement: Seven Lights: Anyone can play a tune that belongs just to them, and like the dew under grass, can reflect the seven lights of heaven. 

Another example of the elements being compared to light is the Latin text found on the magic circles on the door of Mona’s future house in Mondstadt and generated by the hypostases during their missile attacks. The text reads:

Ex culmine lucis in magno elementorum, which translates to "From the peak of light, to greatness of the elements."

It’s interesting to see this text appearing in association with the hypostases since they are described as “life forms which have completely abandoned their former appearance and biological structure, making them able to reach the highest level of elemental purity. They are ultra-compact structures with a high mass, and are the highest forms of elemental structures.” The hypostasis code names are also all Hebrew letters, as mentioned earlier.

Mona’s astrolabe during the Unreconciled Stars event features a similar text:

Ex culmine locis in magno elementorum; Lux se effundat in mentes dei, which translates to "From the peak of light, to the greatness of the elements; May light pour out, into the minds of god."

The Abyss Lector catalysts contain a text that mirrors these two examples:

Ex culmine lucis in mango obscuritas. Lux se effundat in mentes abysso, or “From the peak of light, to the greatness of darkness. May light pour out into the minds of the abyss.”  

The Genshin elements are also described as flowing. For example, a loading screen tip specifically describes the Ley Lines as “A mysterious network that links the whole world together, within which flow the elements.”  The Silver Twig description states: "All knowledge, memory, and experience flow through this giant tree, just like a stream flows into a river, the river joins a sea, the sea turns into clouds, and the clouds rain onto the ground — just like life itself."

Sefirot and the Genshin Elemental System

The 10 (sometimes 11) sefirot are: 

Keter: Crown (this one is even more symbolic that the rest, is described as “the most hidden of all hidden things" in the Zohar, represent things that are above the mind’s comprehension and the very beginning of the process of turning potential into reality)

Chokhmah: Wisdom

Binah: Understanding/Reasoning

(Da’at: Knowledge, as a fusion of Chokhmah and Binah)

Chesed: Loving Kindness or Mercy

Gevurah: Strength/Severity, (sometimes Din, Judgement, or Pachad, Fear)

Tiferet: Beauty/Harmony, is associated with balance of the Tree of Life

Netzach: Eternity/Endurance

Hod: Splendor/Glory

Yesod: Foundation (as in, foundation of reality)

Malkhut: Kingdom/Sovereignty

You’ve probably noticed by now that while we are claiming that the concept of the sefirot applies to the elemental system in Genshin, there are 10 sefirot and only 7 elements (for now). Fortunately for us, the Kabbalists love metaphors and categories. In addition to the sefirot representing the procedure used to ‘emanate’ and create the world, there are other methods of interpretation that further subdivide and rank the sefirot. For example, one metaphorical interpretation of the Tree of Life assigns each of the sefirot to a part of the human body.

In some Kabbalistic traditions of interpreting the tree, the 10 sefirot are divided into two categories: Intellect (Keter, Binah, Chokhmah) and Emotions (they’re actually more like character traits), which contains the remaining seven. These categories are meant to parallel how the soul is also divided into the intellect and emotional components. The first three sefirot are also referred to as the “three mothers,” because they are the source of the lower seven [5].

Having a group of seven sefirot is very convenient for comparing their traits to the elements and their ideals, but what about the role of the higher three in Genshin worldbuilding? This next section requires a bit more conjecture than some other comparisons here.

The source of all elemental energy in Teyvat, whatever that actually is, could be compared to Keter (crown), the most hidden and incomprehensible of the sefirot. (Big stretch, but think of the crowns over the Irminsul trees in domains.)

Next, we have the Ley Lines, which contain dreams and memories (these are basically the same in Teyvat, see Dream Solvent description), and these can be compared to Binah (understanding/reasoning) and Chokhmah (wisdom). During the Sumeru Archon Quest, Rukkhadevata says that dreams are the source of the wisdom she upheld as her ideal. Memories play an important role in discerning the truth of the world, as the traveler has now found themselves to be the only person to remember certain people/events, and has been told to trust their memories rather than what they can see.

Comparison of the 'Lower' Sefirot to the Genshin Elements and Their Ideals

Chesed (loving-kindness); Cryo (unknown, theorized to be love)

The Cryo Archon’s ideal is theorized to be love, as it’s the only characteristic mentioned in relation to her in the Travail trailer. Wanderer’s voiceline about her directly mentions love and describes her as being kind and benevolent, while Childe describes her as extremely gentle. These are the characteristics of Chesed, which represents the trait of completely selfless love: the all forgiving, all giving love of a god towards their creations. When it comes to the Cryo element itself, two things are worth mentioning: one is the way that all of Snezhnaya is perpetually covered in snow, as if this were the (ironic) physical expression of the Tsaritsa’s love blanketing them. The second is the promise of a world-encompassing snowstorm that will envelop everything as the Fatui advance on their war against Celestia. Although it’s hard to find one absolute constant in Vision granting stories, it’s notable that most Cryo users got their Vision at a moment when they had to selflessly be there for others (Diona, Chongyun, Mika), or after a decisive moment where they put aside their personal comfort for an ideal that would result in benefit for others (Kaeya, Eula, Layla).

Gevurah (Severity); Hydro (Justice)

Gevurah is associated with divine judgment, the kind that punishes humanity and causes world-altering catastrophes like the flood or the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. The Hydro Archon organizing her nation around a Court that attempts to judge both deities and humans parallels this. In a more positive sense, Gevurah is also related to moral judgment that allows one to tell good from evil. Likewise, Hydro in-game is often associated with purity and separation of clean and unclean matter. When it comes to Hydro Vision wielders, one common characteristic is that they all live by a personal ethical code, and their commitment to it is what granted them their Vision.

Tiferet (Beauty/Harmony); Anemo (Freedom)

Tiferet balances the other sefirot on the tree and has direct connections to almost all of them (except for Malkut). Similarly, Anemo can facilitate many elemental reactions via its Swirl reaction. In our opinion, something almost all the Anemo characters share is that their moment of receiving a Vision coincides with a moment of balance and harmony with themselves or their environment. See Jean and Kazuha’s Vision stories and the cutscene where Scaramouche/Wanderer gets his Vision. As an aside, comparing harmony to Anemo is funny because Venti is a bard and harmony is also a musical term: in music theory, harmony is the way we analyze the interactions between different voices that can be heard at the same time.  

Netzach (Eternity); Electro (Eternity)

The quality of “Eternity” in Netzach is related to victory against enemies, referring to eternity as being the most powerful combatant remaining among defeated adversaries. Likewise, in Genshin the story of the Electro Archon features many battles during the Archon War where Ei and Makoto ended up victorious. As for Electro users tend to have their Vision granted at a moment when their ambition “defeated” the obstacles of reality, as was the case with Fischl, Kuki and Lisa. Cyno’s Vision story makes sense when you compare it to the illumination of Buddha during meditation, and how this was victory over the temptation of the demon Mara.

Hod (Glory); Pyro (War)

Natlan and its Pyro Archon are possibly the most mysterious of all the regions, so we can only speculate. We know that the Pyro Archon is called the God of War, and that the Pyro Gemstone mentions battles, pilgrimages and truth. The sefira of Hod, translated as Glory or Splendor, is linked to being able to connect with God and therefore also associated with prophecy (as in the way a human can carry a message from God). In the Travail trailer, the Pyro Archon tells the traveler that “the rules of war are woven in the womb.” It's also theorized Natlan will be based on Mexica culture (where sacrifice of both enemies and self sacrifice was a way to connect with the gods) and via Iansan's name, the Caribbean diaspora version of Yoruba religion (where many rites involve the gods making themselves present in the material world). 

Yesod (Foundation); Dendro (Wisdom)

Back when we started to think about this theory during version 2.8, we decided on Yesod largely via process of elimination. One piece of our rationale was that in the Jewish tradition, each of the lower seven sefirot are used to represent a primary personality trait of seven archetypal figures in the Torah. The person related to Yesod is Joseph, who is well known for his prophetic dreams, and because of the events of the Golden Apple Archipelago, we decided that was close enough. However, the 3.x version confirmed that a) Irminsul did actually exist, b) Dendro as an element has a deep relationship with the tree, with the Dendro Archon acting as its avatar, c) the ideal of wisdom as both Dendro Archons interpreted it has a lot to do with dreams, and d) Irminsul and the Ley Lines act as the foundation for how reality is perceived in Teyvat. Yesod is also associated with biological life, as it represents the reproductive organs in the human body scheme of the sefirot.

Malkut (Kingship); Geo (Contracts)

Malkut is associated with the connection between the spiritual "above" of the Tree of Life and the concepts it contains, and the "below" of the material world, where these concepts manifest into material reality. For this reason, Malkut is associated with the earth [6]. In many Geo item descriptions, like the Geo Hypostasis drop or Albedo's elemental skill, the motif of geo trying to reach the sky is a constant. From a religious POV, the relationship between the divine and humans living in the material world has also been one of "covenants," or "pacts", in a similar way to how the Geo Archon is the God of Contracts. Furthermore, contracts are the basis to have a working state (government), and a kingdom is one of the first forms of a state. Malkut also being related to earth and everything material parallels how Geo is an element that works in making constructs. Geo Vision users are likewise involved in making or maintaining structures, like the Knights of Favonius is for Noelle, or the tradition of alchemy is to Albedo, as well as opera to Yunjin and in a way, even the Oni identity for Itto.

The Origin of Evil and Why Irminsul is Upside Down

Tighnari tells us that Irminsul is a tree that “grows downward rather than upwards,” or in other words, it’s upside down. This isn’t the only time that we’ve encountered things in Teyvat being described as upside-down or mirrored, and as it turns out, there is a similar scenario described in Kabbalah. Throughout Kabbalistic discussions on the origin of evil in the world (both material and spiritual), a central idea developed is the existence of a mirrored or inverse Tree of Life that forms the demonic realm of evil. The Zohar, a foundational work of Kabbalistic literature, spends a considerable time discussing the origins of evil - there are more than 5 creation myths for the concept of evil! Two of these myths describe the formation of an inverse Tree of Life, called the Sitra Achra (literally “other side”). This tree is constructed out of corrupted fragments of divinity that did not make it through the creation process, and therefore became evil forces [7]. Evil is typically represented as either a shard (like of broken pottery) or as a husk/shell (Qlippoth in Hebrew). Sound familiar? We actually have an enemy with this name in-game; the "shadowy husks" (the CN name for these enemies literally translates to "empty shell"). 

Unlike the very well defined 10 sefirot of the Tree of Life, Kabbalists don't agree about the identities or number of the demons that form the Sitra Achra. Some names for these demons are consistent; such as  Lilith, Samael, and Asmodeus, who make a sort of "mother, father, son" trio. As for the rest, scholars generally agree that Kabbalists blended traditions from nearby cultures depending on where they lived, leading to Arabic, Spanish and Germanic legends mixing into the Jewish tradition [8]. There's a strong possibility Hoyoverse did something similar and filled in the missing names with the names of the demons of the Ars Goetia, creating a system where the mirrored sefirot are “ruled” by demon gods, aka, the Archons. This implies that the reason Teyvat is upside down is because it is actually on the “other side.”

Neuvillette, About Us: Witness: Since you hail from beyond the stars, I invite you to be my witness as I judge this upended world…”Though we live in a world of disarray, I shall undertake to restore all that has been broken”. 

[Fun Fact: The Zohar describes the construction of the Sitra Achra as a series of knots that arrange the demonic equivalent of sefirot, called either crowns or “breaths,” into a mirrored Tree of Life configuration [7]. ]

The primary goal of the Sitra Achra is to steal and absorb the divine energy of the Tree of Life to maintain its existence, in the hopes of gaining enough energy to destabilize the system [9]. The way Genshin's Archons use their Gnoses is similar to this system. In the Flower of Paradise Lost artifact lore, the Goddess of Flowers explains to Deshret and Rukkhadevata that when the Seelie race was disgraced, they lost their connection to Heaven and their power of "enlightenment". Later, Celestia would facilitate the Archon War with the promise that each winning god would be granted a Gnosis that would give them exceptional power. Both Nahida and Venti have described the Gnoses as being a very advanced tool that concentrates elemental energy. So far, Archons have had inherent elemental powers related to their nature, but when it comes to using large amounts of elemental energy through their Gnoses, they aren't creators but channelers of it, just at a much larger scale than humans who have Visions. Edit: and yes, there is the most recent revelation about the origin of the Gnoses that is extremely relevant to this comparison, but deserves its own space to be properly expanded on.

However, this doesn't mean Teyvat is condemned. Just as the Traveler has slowly been setting the chaos of elemental energy back into order (by, for example, returning the elemental Oculi to the Statue of the Seven, among many other things), so too is there a concept in Kabbalah describing the importance of righting the wrongs of the universe so that the sefirot are stable and creation is in harmony with the divine. This is called Tikkun Olam, or the repairing of the world.

Stay tuned for part 2 where we go into wayyyyy more detail about what this means for the Traveler's journey through Teyvat! 4.2 Edit: and of course will we will be talking about the most recent Gnosis revelation, as well as the Narzissenkreuz Ordo antics :D

References:

https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/170308/jewish/What-is-Kabbalah.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermetic_Qabalah

Kabbalah - Origins of the Sefirot and Tree of Life - Isaac the Blind Saggi Nehor & Azriel of Gerona

Mystical Concepts in Chassidism - Schochct, Jacob Immanuel, chapter 2

  Mystical Concepts in Chassidism - Schochct, Jacob Immanuel pg 66-67, Tanya ch. 3

Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, Likutey Moharan I, 12:1 via Wikipedia

The Origins of the Klippot / Qliphoth & Sitra Achra in the Zohar - Kabbalah on the Problem of Evil

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/demons-and-demonology

9. Evil in Early Kabbalah - Emanations of the Left Hand Side - Origins of the Qliphoth / Klippot

[yellow-yarrow]

did you know that the Insulandian Phasmid quotes from the bible? I got curious if looking at the context of the bible quote would add anything to the interpretation of this scene, and maybe there are some parallels. Meeting the phasmid is like a revelation, just like how in that part of the bible god talks to Isaiah. (I can't belive im reading the bible out of all things for a video game lmao. god damn it.) yeah yeah maybe it's not supposed to mean anything other than the phasmid loves this world but it can be fun to look into it. maybe it is that deep

think of this as more of a web weaving post

You - I exist too. Insulindian Phasmid - Tell me what it's like for you. You - It's *wunderbar*. Insulindian Phasmid - Yes, holy is the lord of hosts. And all the Earth is filled with his glory.

Isaiah 6 BSB

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted; and the train of His robea filled the temple.

Encyclopedia - (..)An Innocence is a continuous, compressed event, a sacred human being. It is an honour and a glory to live when one is in office. You - Is one in office now? Encyclopedia - No. We are alone.

Insulindian Phasmid - You are a violent and irrepressible miracle. The vacuum of cosmos and the stars burning in it are afraid of you. Given enough time you would wipe us all out and replace us with nothing -- just by accident. (...) You - Have I always thought this way? Insulindian Phasmid - No -- you're only thinking it *now*. This is a revelation.

Above Him stood seraphim, each having six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling out to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of Hosts; all the earth is full of His glory.” At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook, and the temple was filled with smoke.

In Hebrew, the word saraph means "burning"

Insulindian Phasmid - Tell me what it's like for you. You - Fire, burning.

Insulindian Phasmid - You were right. Little bubbles form on the mouthparts of the creature -- on its segmented lower lip. It looks to be foaming, slowly. The foam is white, then yellowish... Perception (Smell) - The faintest smell, like you've never felt before. Like burnt roses.

Insulindian Phasmid - The foam slowly turns a darker shade, like burnt caramel -- as the insect moves its mouthparts, masticating. The little bubbles begin to burst, one by one... Perception (Smell) - Letting out that same smell, like summer burning.

Then I said: “Woe is me, for I am ruined, because I am a man of unclean lips dwelling among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of Hosts.” (..)

The Deserter - "I've seen the *real world*. In '06. The flags unfolding. Young people marching, being kind to each other. They dreamt of a million years in the stars. This here..." He looks down at the ashes. "Is pale in waiting."

The Deserter - "Straight to Yekokataa for this old revisionist." He gives you a little nod. "At last -- atonement for my sins: revisionism, reactionary ideation, desertion..."

The Deserter - "The material base for an uprising has eroded." He nods and blinks his black eyes. "The working class has betrayed mankind and themselves..."

(? maybe? idk.)

Then one of the seraphim flew to me, and in his hand was a glowing coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And with it he touched my mouth and said: “Now that this has touched your lips, your iniquity is removed and your sin is atoned for.”

maybe this one is a stretch (like the others too lol)

You - Lick your finger. Interfacing - It tastes like... sugar. Very faint. The arthropod towers above you, tufts of reeds pointing from limb and head alike. Perception (Taste) - Odourless, mostly comprised of water.

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying: “Whom shall I send? Who will go for Us?” And I said: “Here am I. Send me!” And He replied: “Go and tell this people, ‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’ Make the hearts of this people calloused; deafen their ears and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.” Then I asked: “How long, O Lord?” And He replied: “Until the cities lie ruined and without inhabitant, until the houses are left unoccupied and the land is desolate and ravaged, until the LORD has driven men far away and the land is utterly forsaken. And though a tenth remains in the land, it will be burned again. As the terebinth and oak leave stumps when felled, so the holy seed will be a stump in the land.”

Insulindian Phasmid - Everything your eyes touch goes back there -- behind the nerve mirror. What if you blink? Are we still here? (Please don't blink). What if you misplace us all one day -- or just forget? You - Have I always thought this way? Insulindian Phasmid - No -- you're only thinking it *now*. This is a revelation. You - This is the Gloaming I've been waiting for. Ever since I woke up in the hotel room.

Man with Sunglasses - "About *what?* You don't look like a cop..." He inspects you. "You know what you look like?" You - "Like a prophet?" Man with Sunglasses - "Not the prophet shit again..." He looks away.

Evrart Claire - "It says..." He looks in the folder. "Oh yes... very interesting. It says you're more like a mad prophet than a cop. Always rambling about the end of the world... I'm sure these stories are exaggerated."

Cop of the apocalypse (early version from the game files):

or perhaps

Rhetoric - You -- against the atom, the charm and the spin. Where the whole world failed -- matter failed to bend to human will; human will failed to get out of bed and tie its laces -- you alone, single-handedly, will rebuild the dreams of the working class. You are The Last Communist.

well regardless, the quote is another instance of christian symbolism in elysium

[talonabraxas]

Kabbalah - Tree of Life

Kabbalah (Hebrew קַבָּלָה “reception”, Standard Hebrew Qabbala, Tiberian Hebrew Qabbālāh; also written variously as Cabala, Cabalah, Cabbala, Cabbalah, Kabala, Kabalah, Kabbala, Qabala, Qabalah, Kaballah) is an interpretation (exegesis, hermeneutic) key, “soul” of the Torah (Hebrew Bible), or the religious mystical system of Judaism claiming an insight into divine nature.

Kabbalah became a reference to doctrines of esoteric knowledge concerning God, God’s creation of the universe and the laws of nature, and the path by which adult religious Jews can learn these secrets. Originally, however, the term Kabbalah was used in Talmudic texts, among the Geonim, and by early Rishonim as a reference to the full body of publicly available Jewish teaching. In this sense Kabbalah was used in referring to all of known Oral Law.

Kabbalah, according to the more recent use of the word, stresses the reasons and understanding of the commandments in the Torah, and the cause of events described in the Torah. Kabbalah includes the understanding of the spiritual spheres of creation, and the ways by which God administers the existence of the universe.

According to Jewish tradition dating from the 13th century, this knowledge has come down as a revelation to elect saints from a remote past, and preserved only by a privileged few. It is considered part of the Jewish Oral Law by the majority of religious Jews in modern times, although this was not agreed upon by many medieval Talmudic scholars, as well as a minority of current Orthodox rabbis.

Origin of Jewish Mysticism

According to adherents of Kabbalah, the origin of Kabbalah begins with the Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible). According to Midrash, God created the universe with “Ten utterances” or “Ten qualities.” When read by later generations of Kabbalists, the Torah’s description of the creation in the Book of Genesis reveals mysteries about the godhead itself, the true nature of Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life, as well as the interaction of these supernal entities with the Serpent which leads to disaster when they eat the forbidden fruit, as recorded in Genesis 2.

The Bible provides ample additional material for mythic and mystical speculation. The prophet Ezekiel’s visions in particular attracted much speculation, as did Isaiah’s Temple vision (Chapter 6). Jacob’s vision of the ladder to heaven is another text providing an example of a mystical experience. Moses’ experience with the Burning bush and his encounters with God on Mount Sinai, are all evidence of mystical events in the Tanakh, and form the origin of Jewish mystical beliefs.

Jewish mystical traditions always appeal to an argument of authority based on antiquity. As a result, virtually all works claim or are ascribed ancient authorship. For example, Sefer Raziel HaMalach, an astro-magical text partly based on a magical manual of late antiquity, Sefer ha-Razim, was, according to the kabbalists, transmitted to Adam (after being evicted) by the angel Raziel. Another famous work, the Sefer Yetzirah, supposedly dates back to the patriarch Abraham. According to Apocalyptic literature, esoteric knowledge, such as magic, divination, and astrology, was transmitted to humans in the mythic past by the two angels, Aza and Azaz’el (in other places, Azaz’el and Uzaz’el) who ‘fell’ from heaven (see Genesis 6:4).

This appeal to antiquity has also shaped modern theories of influence in reconstructing the history of Jewish mysticism. The oldest versions of the Jewish mysticism have been theorized to extend from Assyrian theology and mysticism. Dr. Simo Parpola, a researcher at the University of Helsinki, has made some suggestive findings on the matter, particularly concerning an analysis of the Sefirot. Noting the general similarity between the Sefirot of the Kabbalah and the Tree of Life of Assyria, he reconstructed what an Assyrian antecendent to the Sepiroth would look like.[2] He matched the characteristics of En Sof on the nodes of the Sepiroth to the gods of Assyria, and was able to even find textual parallels between these Assyrian gods and the characteristics of god. The Assyrians assigned specific numbers to their gods, similar to how the Sepiroth assigns numbers to its nodes. However, the Assyrians use a sexagesimal number system, whereas the Sepiroth is decimal. With the Assyrian numbers, additional layers of meaning and mystical relevance appear in the Sepiroth. Normally, floating above the Assyrian Tree of Life was the god Assur, this corresponds to En Sof, which is also, via a series of transformations, derived from the Assyrian word Assur.

Furthermore, Dr. Paropla re-interpreted various Assyrian tablets in the terms of this primitive Sefirot, such as the Epic Of Gilgamesh, and in doing so was able to reveal that the scribes themselves had been writing philosophical-mystical tracts, rather than mere adventure stories. Traces of this Assyrian mode of thought and philosophy eventually makes reappearances in Greek Philosophy and the Kabbalah.

Skeptics would point out that the doctrine of the Sefirot only saw serious development starting in the 12th Century CE with the publication of the Bahir. To argue that the concept of the sefirot existed in an occult and undocumented form within Judaism from the time of the Assyrian empire (which fell from cultural hegemony in the 7th Cent. BCE) until it “surfaced” 17-18 centuries later strikes some scholars as far-fetched. A plausible alternative, based in the research of Gershom Scholem, the pre-eminent scholar of Kabbalah in the 20th Century, is to see the sefirot as a theosophical doctrine that emerges out of Jewish late antiquity word-mythology (as exemplified in Sefer Yetzirah) and the angelic-palace mysticism found in Hekalot literature being fused to the Neo-Platonic notion of creation through progressive divine emanations.

[merymoonbeam]

Truth

just a compilation of quotes and some information. (Hofas spoilers but I cant add read more so just ignore the post if you want idk)

Mor quote from Acomaf:

She lifted the orb from its velvet nest. It was no larger than a ripe apple, and fit within her cupped palms as if her entire body, her entire being, had been molded for it. “Truth is deadly. Truth is freedom. Truth can break and mend and bind. The Veritas holds in it the truth of the world. I am the Morrigan,” she said, her eyes not wholly of this earth. The hair on my arms rose. “You know I speak truth.”

Acomaf Book Of Breathings

Unmade and Made; Made and Unmade—that is the cycle. Like calls to like.

Acomaf Book Of Breathings Prophecy

Life and death and rebirth

Sun and moon and dark

Rot and bloom and bones

Hello, sweet thing. Hello, lady of night, princess of decay. Hello, fanged beast and trembling fawn. Love me, touch me, sing me.

Acowar Elriel TT scene:

Elain looked up at Azriel, their eyes meeting, his hand still lingering on the hilt of the blade. I saw the painting in my mind: the lovely fawn, blooming spring vibrant behind her.Standing before Death, shadows and terrors lurking over his shoulder. Light and dark, the space between their bodies a blend of the two. The only bridge of connection … that knife.(acowar)

Crescent City2 TT and Gwydion:

The male drew it, and Bryce flinched. Flinched, but—“What the fuck?” The knife could have been the twin of the Starsword: black hilted and bladed. It was its twin. The Starsword began to hum within its sheath, glittering white light leaking from where leather met the dark hilt. The dagger—.The male dropped the dagger to the plush carpet. All of them retreated as it flared with dark light, as if in answer. Alpha and Omega. “Gwydion,” the dark-haired female whispered, indicating the Starsword.(hosab)

Alpha and Omega meaning:

Alpha (Α) and omega (Ω) are the first and last letters, respectively, of the classical (Ionic) Greek alphabet. Thus, the phrase “I am the alpha and the omega” is further clarified with the additional phrase, “the beginning and the end” in Revelation 21:6, 22:13. The first and last letters of the Greek alphabet were used because the book of Revelation is in the New Testament, which was originally written in Greek.This phrase is interpreted by many Christians to mean that Jesus has existed for all eternity or that God is eternal. 

In Hebrew, the word emet (אמת, meaning “truth”), is referred to as the “Seal of God.”[8][9][10] [Cf. Isaiah 44:6[11]] The word is composed of the first, middle, and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The midrash explains that emet is made up of the first, middle, and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet (aleph, mem, and tav: אמת). Sheqer (שקר, falsehood), on the other hand, is made up of the 19th, 20th, and 21st (and penultimate) letters. Thus, truth is all-encompassing, while falsehood is narrow and deceiving.

Hofas Gwydion and Truth-Teller information

“The Starsword is Made, as you called it.” He waved an idle hand, sparks at his fingertips. “The knife can Unmake things. Made and Unmade. Matter and antimatter. With the right influx of power—a command from the one destined to wield them—they can be merged. And they can create a place where no life, no light exists. A place that is nothing. Nowhere.”

Hofas Gwydion and TT singing

Because the sword and dagger weren’t merely tugging now. They were singing, and all she had to do was reach out for them—

[windvexer]

Deck Review: Under the Oak Tarot by Ofride and StregaDelleMele

This is a borderless deck featuring a sometimes-sightless girl named Anima as she traverses a fantastical otherworld.

Physical Concerns

Overall: 10/10, so far very satisfied (especially for the price), would buy again if I lost it

RWS Clone? No, but RWS symbolism is obvious in a handful of cards, notably the High Priestess and many Major Arcana cards. Other cards are completely unique.

Cost: 10/10 for quality. As of this review, $26 without shipping

Card stock: 10/10, the card stock has a nice texture and feel sturdy. But it isn't the super thick stock that's stiff and difficult to bend. It doesn't feel cheap and it's nice to shuffle. Also, gilded edges, which we love. It's a standard size deck.

Box: The box is nice and relatively sturdy. It's not a huge box (like we see with Woodland Tarot or Animal Totem Tarot) which I like, because my storage isn't unlimited. The box has an unattached lid and you can dump the cards out for easy access. The LWB fits in the box. Sometimes I struggle with hand pain and it feels like an easy access box.

Little White Book (LWB): It's a 128 page book with translations for English, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. It includes meanings for each card, and three spreads with very little explanation. More about LWB meanings and card interpretations below.

Deck Theme and Symbolism

Per the introduction in the LWB, this deck follows the journey of Anima, a visually impaired child who travels through a fantastical otherworld and learns to develop a second sight.

While many of the cards that feature Anima show her being blindfolded, the deck clearly uses sightedness as a metaphor for spiritual enlightenment or "second sight." All of the 10s cards and The World XX show Anima as seeing clearly without her blindfold, and some other cards show partial sightedness as well.

Beyond that, this is an eclectic deck, no two ways about it. This is primarily present in the court cards and some of the Major Arcana cards.

The Pentacles cards feature Basque mythology; Wands are Welsh and Celtic, Swords are Norse, and Cups are Greek. There's also Hebrew symbolism (notably the High Priestess II), and probably other stuff I haven't picked up on because I'm not the most well versed in mythology.

A lot of the cards feature mythical beings, but there are also statues and woodland creatures.

Sorry for photo quality, I don't have a great camera.

I think the symbolism is nice. Sometimes the cards are more heavily re-imagined (like the Star XVII and Moon XVIII), while some of them are more or less exactly what you'd expect from RWS symbolism (Devil XV).

The Minor Arcana takes more symbolism liberties, and some of the cards are very different from RWS.

Overall, I really enjoy how it reads. I love a good borderless card, and this deck is A) fun and B) really pretty to look at. It's got enough familiar symbolism to ground me, but a lot of the cards are very different and with enough wiggle room to explore my own interpretations.

Card Interpretations

The LWB interpretations are all about a spiritual journey, healing, and transformation. So if you're looking for a spiritual journey deck, this one might be for you.

At the same time, there's enough going on with the cards that I didn't find it to be difficult to link the meanings to a wide variety of topics.

The one thing I've got no idea about is the runes, which feature heavily in the Swords suit (which is also the suit where all the court cards are Norse entities). I don't know if the runes are thematically relevant to the card at hand or not. Hopefully they are, because I can imagine how irritating that would be if you read runes and it doesn't match.

Here are a few Minor Arcana honorable mentions. Note the familiar symbolism of the 6 of Pentacles (bottom row, second from left), but the unique symbolism of the 5 of Swords (bottom row, far right).

Overall I found the cards to be evocative and easy to connect to, with enough symbolism in each image to facilitate intuitive reading.

[al-zel]

Explaining every H:SR characters name, Part 1-- The Astral Express Crew!

I’ll put a symbol →(!!!) on every section that has a potential spoiler.

Stelle: A shortened version of the French name Estelle, meaning “star”. This name was derived from the Latin word “stella”. As for how it applies to the character, I’m sure it’s meant to show that the trailblazers true place is among the astral express exploring the cosmos. It might also be a reference to the Stellarons appearance.

Caelus: Derived from the Latin word “caelum”, Caelus is a name that means “sky” or “the heavens”. This name also belonged to the Roman god of the sky. It’s a little more convoluted than Stelle’s more straightforward name, but I think it holds the same narrative meaning as Caelus (the god) has heavy ties to the planet Jupiter, fitting the space theme. It's also the most yellow planet aside from Venus, (which is more associated with the color green due to how it appears in the sky anyway).

March 7th, DH, WY, and Himeko under cut!!

(!!!!) March 7th: It is the day March was found, but the specific date can bring some symbolism to mind. The month of march signals the beginning of of spring, a season full of new growth and revival from the stasis that winter brings. This fits into March’s character arc in her companion quest, as the garden of recollection locks away her past, essentially saying that It’s not something March should be remembering or looking for, implying something awful or traumatizing has happened to her. This shows that without those memories, March may have turned from a cold, "icy" character into a warmer, healthier one. 7 is also a lucky number, as it was very lucky that March has survived so long drifting in space and frozen, even if it was in 6 phase ice.

(!!!) Dan Heng: The character 丹 (Dān) simply means red, although it can also be pellet, powder, or cinnabar. I think this is mainly to tie in with Dan Heng’s maple leaf theme. The character 恒 (Heng) means “constant” or “persistent”, a nod to Dan Heng’s collected and steady nature compared to his eccentric companions. It may also be a reference to Dan Heng’s rebirths as a Vidyadhara or the number of years he spent inside of the Shackling Prison as Dan Feng.

Welt Yang: “Welt” is said to be the “name of the world”, but it’s really just the German word for world. “Yang” (杨) is Welt’s mother’s surname, meaning willow, poplar, or aspen, all three of them different trees. I don’t think that either of these names imply anything about Welt’s story, aside from the mantle of "welt" given to him by Welt Joyce, whoch is another post altogether. I think they highlight his responsible, powerful, and thoughtful character, as well as his sentimentality.

(!!!) (Welt Yang) Joachim Nokianvirtanen: Joachim is an abridged or contracted form of the biblical name Jehoiachin or Jehoiakim. They mean "Yaweh will establish" and "raised by Yaweh" respectively. Yaweh is a name of the Hebrew god, with possible roots to the old Semitic root הוה (hawah), meaning "to be" or "to become." This name is a probable reference to Welt inheriting his mentors Herrscher core and becoming the second Herrscher of Reason. His surname, Nokianvirtanen, is not an actual last name, but a mix of two names. The first part, Nokian, is a town in Finland. The second, Virtanen, is a common surname in finland derived from the word "virta", meaning "stream." I don't interpret this surname to have any meaning aside from establishing that Welt is (not confirmed outright, but heavily implied to be) ethnically half Finnish and half Chinese.

(!!!) Himeko Murata (無量塔姫子): Her first name is comprised of the characters 姫 (hime), meaning princess, and 子 (ko), meaning child. Put the whole thing together and it means "princess child", though I'm sure I didn't have to tell you that! I think it's less about her personality and story (especially in regards to Honkai Impact 3rd), but I think it represents her parents live for her, particularly her father's, as he's the one we know most about. The characters for her last name are-- 無 (Mu; nothing/nothingness), 量 (Ra(?); measurement, but with two connotations. First, it can mean a measurement, like weight or quantity, or it can mean "to measure" by estimate or actual documentation, or "to consider."), and 塔 (Ta; pagoda, tower, steeple). I think the most important part of her name is that last part-- in both universes, Himeko acts as a rock or mentor figure to many characters, being a motherly/older sister type towards the young trio of the express, and a teacher and squad leader toward Kiana, Mei, and Bronya, going as far as to strap a bomb to Mei's heart to keep her powers in check (with Mei's consent) should she lose control. 

And that's the Astral Express crew! I'm going by groups of characters divided into: Stellaron Hunters, Herta's Space Station, Belobog, The Xianzhou Loufu, and Penacony! (Characters are ordered by introduction. Characters will be put where they were first shown, despite their relevance in other places. Dr. Ratio, for example, will be put with the HSS characters instead of the Penacony category.)

[nastasya--filippovna]

WHO IS CROWLEY AFTER THE FALL (PART2)

Here it is finally.

So what is the Leviathan.

In mythology and theology the Leviathan is a sea-serpent and is mentioned in several books of the Hebrew Bible such as the Book of Job and Book Isaiah and Book of Enoch. The Leviathan of the Book of Job is a reflection of the older Canaanite Lotan, a primeval monster defeated by the god Baal Hadad. Parallels to the role of Mesopotamian Tiamat defeated by Marduk have long been drawn in comparative mythology, as have been wider comparisons to dragon and world serpent narratives such as Indra slaying Vrtra or Thor slaying Jörmungandr.

Once again we see the pattern of Biblical creatures being “inspired” from pagan ones.

Thomas Aquinas described Leviathan as the demon of envy, first in punishing the corresponding sinners. Peter Binsfeld likewise classified Leviathan as the demon of envy, as one of the seven Princes of Hell corresponding to the seven deadly sins. Leviathan became associated with, and may originally have been referred to by, the visual motif of the Hellmouth, a monstrous animal into whose mouth the damned disappear at the Last Judgment, found in Anglo-Saxon art from about 800, and later all over Europe.

In the Book of Enoch, The Leviathan is a female giant chaos serpent that lives deep in the ocean, while her mate, Behemoth, is a male giant chaos beast (based off of a hippopotamus or water-ox) who lives in the mythical desert of Duidain, East of Eden.

Ring any bells. Chaos mongering (fomenting), ox, eastern gate of eden…. 

The Hebrew word that translates to Leviathan (Livyatan) appears six times in the Old Testament. One of them is in Job 41. The word is derived from the root Iwy or ‘ twist, coil’ and means ‘the sinuous one.’ So I think we can establish that this creature is at least indicated to be snake-like. Scholars trace the etymology of whale and crocodile 

In the Book of Isaiah it is mentioned that the beast will rise from the water and will be defeated by God on the Last Day. However, quite interestingly nowhere in the Old Testament is the Leviathan written as evil. Only later scholars have equated it with the devil so that the battle between God and Chaos can be interpreted as the battle between God and the Devil.

Now let’s make this more interesting: The Gnostic sect venerate the biblical serpent of the Garden of Eden as a symbol of wisdom, which the malevolent Demiurge tried to hide from Adam and Eve. They identify the Leviathan as the serpent of Eden and in this belief system the Leviathan appears as an Ouroboros, separating the divine realm from humanity by enveloping or permeating the material world.

I mean I don’t even need to say anything further.  

And he does show up in GO Season 2. The matchbox.

Here 

When did this happen, I wonder……hmmmmmm

Oh YES!

Crowley wearing Aziraphale’s face

     

Here’s the rest of the passage from Job

1 Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook? or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down?

2 Canst thou put an hook into his nose? or bore his jaw through with a thorn?

3 Will he make many supplications unto thee? will he speak soft words unto thee?

4 Will he make a covenant with thee? wilt thou take him for a servant for ever?

5 Wilt thou play with him as with a bird? or wilt thou bind him for thy maidens?

6 Shall the companions make a banquet of him? shall they part him among the merchants?

7 Canst thou fill his skin with barbed irons? or his head with fish spears?

8 Lay thine hand upon him, remember the battle, do no more.

9 Behold, the hope of him is in vain: shall not one be cast down even at the sight of him?

10 None is so fierce that dare stir him up: who then is able to stand before me?

11 Who hath prevented me, that I should repay him? whatsoever is under the whole heaven is mine.

12 I will not conceal his parts, nor his power, nor his comely proportion.

13 Who can discover the face of his garment? (penetrate his coat of armor)  or who can come to him with his double bridle?

14 Who can open the doors of his face? his teeth are terrible round about.

15 His scales are his pride, shut up together as with a close seal.

16 One is so near to another, that no air can come between them.

17 They are joined one to another, they stick together, that they cannot be sundered.

18 By his neesings a light doth shine, and his eyes are like the eyelids of the morning.

19 Out of his mouth go burning lamps, and sparks of fire leap out.

20 Out of his nostrils goeth smoke, as out of a seething pot or caldron.

21 His breath kindleth coals, and a flame goeth out of his mouth.

22 In his neck remaineth strength, and sorrow is turned into joy before him.

23 The flakes of his flesh are joined together: they are firm in themselves; they cannot be moved.

24 His heart is as firm as a stone; yea, as hard as a piece of the nether millstone.

25 When he raiseth up himself, the mighty are afraid: by reason of breakings they purify themselves.

26 The sword of him that layeth at him cannot hold: the spear, the dart, nor the habergeon.

27 He esteemeth iron as straw, and brass as rotten wood.

28 The arrow cannot make him flee: slingstones are turned with him into stubble.

29 Darts are counted as stubble: he laugheth at the shaking of a spear.

30 Sharp stones are under him: he spreadeth sharp pointed things upon the mire.

31 He maketh the deep to boil like a pot: he maketh the sea like a pot of ointment.

32 He maketh a path to shine after him; one would think the deep to be hoary.

33 Upon earth there is not his like, who is made without fear.

34 He beholdeth all high things: he is a king over all the children of pride.

The Leviathan is a magnificent creature. And the very fact that God goes to so much trouble to describe the magnanimity of this creature is to show what God has created and hence Her magnanimity must be even greater in comparison for the Creator is always superior to the Creation. And if God can so easily abuse and humiliate this beautiful monster, then God must be worshipped and feared.

Though to the unsuspecting eye these passages may ring no familiar bells, a closer look makes you realize how Crowley-coded they are. And to think that in a story where Neil has never witten or shown anything that wasn’t woven in finely with the characters, I alwsy wondered why he chose the Book of Job for the minisode when he could have included any other one.  

But it reminded me that Crowleys character is truly unrelenting. He’s a nether millstone. He won’t give up that easily. He absolutely won’t submit to anyone, and he’s shown time and time again that his vociferous litanies about running away disappear as soon as someone or something he cares about is in danger (i.e. Aziraphale). And the second coming will also threaten his creation (the universe). His refusal to submit to authority, the refusal to be subjugated is the reason he fell in the first place. And quite interestingly he doesn’t own Hell either. He resists that too. For him it’s not Heaven or Hell that matters but the resistance to Power.  

I also think it’s also fitting that the Leviathan is perceived to be a monster that must be slain or enslaved but in reality is another of God’s creations just like the sun and the stars and the rivers and the mountains.  

And it makes me think of how Crowley has always been labeled as evil because he fell. I think of how, at heart, he is truly gentle and kind, he’s a starmaker. But his fall, his appearance, his desire to be autonomous and his grey moral campus make him feared and a target. And that has made him the embodiment of chaos. His refusal to submit himself to the uniformity of both worlds, to the rules and guidelines that create this illusion of order sets him apart from them. He embraces the chaos that grayness offers, that being ‘human’ brings. And hence the final battle will be between God and chaos with God justifies as being the battle between good and evil because, well, he’s a demon.    

The Leviathan being historically associated with the sin of envy is again I think written into the plot very carefully. He is envious of humanity’s ability to question God, to have choices to not be doomed to heaven or hell for all eternity. He is envious of what Maggie and Nina have. He’s envious of what Beelz and Gabe have.

“I mean if Gabriel and Beelzebub can go off together…..”

And then him rejecting Azirapahle’s offer— he has spent his life (a long, long life) rejecting power and authority. In his relationship with Aziraphale he found his sanctuary, a relation clean of power dynamics. Up till now they were both equal. But this new offer jeopardizes that.

And I love how his ego and pride come to play here. He would never accept being “second in command to anyone”. And his envy of how God’s mercy is free for some but wholly denied to him.

[mintmillipede]

things i noticed in the good omens 2 opening title sequence part 1

i watched this frame by frame and have had many thoughts. i'll put things which are interpretation or my perspective in purple. feel free to watch along whilst you read if you haven't seen it yet.

also couple of disclaimers which u may feel free to skip: i grew up with chrisitan iconography but am not christian but because of that i know more about that perspective of abrahamic texts so keep that in mind! i'm using guy as a vibe more than a gender but am happy to take criticism on that bc i'm not sure myself yet. also i haven't looked at any other analyses because i want this to be like a fun little puzzle so apologies for overlap/missing things/being wrong. ok enjoy!

ok, scene 1. mountain range, not sure which one but it could be a biblical reference? so possibly judaean mountains but that is a big stretch. aziraphale is coming down from the heavens whilst crowley emerges from a glowing orange crater, which looks a lot like hell especially with the context later in the intro.

they emerge behind a rock into scene 2 into a tunnel and crowley lights a match with his hell powers? this actually interests me because why use a match if you have fire powers? perhaps he's conserving miracles.

scene 3: we don't actually see them emerge from the tunnel, they're seen up ahead later. we start with an animal's skull in the foreground, and i think it's a ram. there's other ram skeletal remains later and there are various rams eating on the hills. from stage right enters: a delivery guy. they've got a delicate package. it's giving me like holy land vibes? idk i grew up christian and it's like christian movie landscape to me.

anyway the delivery guy is trailing behind a figure all in black who is almost camouflaged in the murky landscape. there's also a tree by them which i think is a mustard seed tree!!! there's a parable about it and it's the vibe of starting from small beginnings like the small little mustard seed grows into a tree which birds chill on.

the figure in black is following a couple of steps behind aziraphale and crowley, and they pass a little ram on a rock which has a fleece which reddens. rams were often used as sacrifices in the old testament and probably in other abrahamic texts. not a good omen.

a raven is on a cart with bags which look like they are full of coin. they are having a little snack. this may be about matthew 6:26 where jesus basically says don't worry so much about money look god's feeding the ravens (sometimes translated as birds in general) and they suck (bc they are seen as unclean maybe because they eat carcasses) and you're better than them. it's like god cares for fucking ravens so he's gonna care for you sinners. also they're omens of death. this will be important very shortly.

there's also some real funky looking birds with four legs on the mountain and those were not in the bible (/j idk if they are or not but i couldn't remember them and i feel like i would have). and the paths on the mountains are scrolls, suggesting maybe that the world around them is literally made of scripture.

crowley sets fire to a little bb ram and now they're all on fire it's very mean of him. no i am not colouring that in purple. i think in this context it might be to cleanse the sins of humanity?

scene 4! finally ok immediately wtf aziraphale why are you secretly a lamp??? my bf thinks this is a supernatural show so i looked it up to spite him and there's a bunch of references to lamps in the torah and talmud but bc english-speaking christians can't be bothered to learn hebrew or greek the bible has the most direct reference i could find: 'the spirit of man is the lamp of the lord'

also crowley is a vibe! not sure what gender she's presenting as here but i'm hazarding a guess as femme. blue has a bunch of meanings but none i was sure about, but i saw a bunch of references to the sky. the funky guy behind him does have a human face with a helmet of black hair i think and is carrying something big that i cannot make out. the person in front of them is giving zombie and they are in a graveyard and there's more context later imo for that being accurate.

going stage left, we have another aziraphale and crowley, not in disguise. if i had to guess, these would be muriel and another new ally who are disguised as them to take the heat off of them. i think.

everyday on a gravestone? could be a reference to the song everyday by buddy holly which has been used in promo so far. it's a song about working up the courage to ask someone out... which could signify a development in aziraphale and crowley's relationship but also could signify something coming in the plot relating to heaven/hell. on a gravestone, the song could reference the fast approach of death. could be a combo of these things too. or could be none! i am no oracle. or am i...

at the back, a bucket of pickled herring is being transported by a skrungly little guy. pickled herring does have links to jewish culture but we know there's a pickled herring scene in edinburgh which maybe more suggests scottish fishing culture (not that the two are mutually exclusive of course). the guy travelling alongside the cart with a goth vibe has a shovel suggesting he's a gravedigger.

jane austen! suggests some of her themes popping up in the show but also suggests they're around winchester cathedral, and it does look like they're going into a building but it looks more like a crypt/mausoleum to me. i tried to find more information about a building like this in winchester but i was looking on ecosia and thus found nothing.

here lies the former shell of beelzebub is a canon reason for the change of actors, but here lies adam?!?!??! i know time could have just passed, but it's still mean!!!!! maybe it's a different adam?

scene 5! i think they've entered down a secret passageway in the crypt - you can see some coffins there and i think the masonry fits well enough. we've got some more people following behind the ones who are dressed like azi and crowley. it's a bit too blurry but i've spotted a few who could be aziraphale in disguise as the odd lantern is gone - i think though he is dressed as the gravedigger now as the original gravedigger seems to have changed their garb. a few more could be crowley although crowley's original form with the blue headscarf is still there. the figure in white near the front gives me undead vibes. helmet hair guy is more visible now. we've got someone holding a lantern near the back who is a vibe (could be religious or in some way guiding the souls of the dead). they're followed by a real funky looking guy who i think is wearing a mask??? hard to tell

ok so so so there is so much around them. skeletons and gravestones suggest we're still in a cemetery. if you look on the left, it's the box the delivery guy from the beginning had!!! so many thoughts about this. mentions of a delivery are everywhere. this box is in the recent prime insta post with angel and demon feathers emerging from it. basically this is very very important, so how did it end up here? was the delivery guy buried with this on his body?

we see a web. we'll come back to that!

little feature i like the skull we see has a backbone and a ribcage which is a vibe

scene 6! a lot of ppl too many to talk about in full but def some skeletons. i think religious figures. there's a cool looking punk? too many things so many stimuli. anyway i think this is a crowd of undead people being led into hell to assist on a mission. why just the undead?

they're exiting something that looks like the crypt they came in from, suggesting it's a secret entrance to hell. might this be where hastur met crowley in season 1?

we've got a big wheel which looks like it's used for some kind of pulley contraption imo, but i don't think it would be for the guillotine unless they wanted to adapt the guillotine somehow, perhaps automate it? big stretch

we've got the pyres of files and computers and office chairs. this is a metaphor for capitalism sucking balls.

web! like before. ok so theories perhaps it's a metaphor showing the web of all of the connecting entrances. perhaps it's a big magic hell thing drawing power from everywhere to its centre. perhaps hell listens to people from webs. maybe demons can travel through webs? idk maybe one of these is 25% right. also later we see a spooder so maybe she has laid eggs?

oooh mysterious fire cave. mayb that's where satan is chilling. the inverted pentacle's outside of it. could also be the government of sorts. my boyf thinks it looks like a skeletal face in a witch hat and i think he is festering with lies.

leetle dragon gargoyle!!!! i love her she can do no wrong

i like to think we see the different stages of their headquarters. the castle was the first, the grey building is the current/s1 one, and the blueish lighting is coming from what they're upgrading to. this may also be why there's the pyres of stuff: they're doing a little clear out!

also the crushed metally thing in the foreground... i don't want to say it's the bentley.............. so i will not i refuse to be devastated before the show has even begun

scene 7: we come out of the stairs leading up to the public loos by liberty's london which is right next to soho, the implication being that that's another entrance to hell which is in fact true irl. the old-timey underground logo (probs oxford circus) suggests we're not in present day (so maybe adam is fine! or maybe they're time travelling?) which suggests we're in the blitz (ww2) because of the barrage balloon and the aircrafts. this is also suggested by the old routemaster bus.

ok we're up to 0:33! coffee break meet back in like a day i did not expect this trailer ok i have things to pretend to do

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

Joseph Interprets Two Dreams

1 And it came to pass after these things, that the butler of the king of Egypt and his baker had offended their lord the king of Egypt.

2 And Pharaoh was wroth against two of his officers, against the chief of the butlers, and against the chief of the bakers.

3 And he put them in ward in the house of the captain of the guard, into the prison, the place where Joseph was bound.

4 And the captain of the guard charged Joseph with them, and he served them: and they continued a season in ward.

5 And they dreamed a dream both of them, each man his dream in one night, each man according to the interpretation of his dream, the butler and the baker of the king of Egypt, which were bound in the prison.

6 And Joseph came in unto them in the morning, and looked upon them, and, behold, they were sad.

7 And he asked Pharaoh's officers that were with him in the ward of his lord's house, saying, Wherefore look ye so sadly to day?

8 And they said unto him, We have dreamed a dream, and there is no interpreter of it. And Joseph said unto them, Do not interpretations belong to God? tell me them, I pray you.

9 And the chief butler told his dream to Joseph, and said to him, In my dream, behold, a vine was before me;

10 And in the vine were three branches: and it was as though it budded, and her blossoms shot forth; and the clusters thereof brought forth ripe grapes:

11 And Pharaoh's cup was in my hand: and I took the grapes, and pressed them into Pharaoh's cup, and I gave the cup into Pharaoh's hand.

12 And Joseph said unto him, This is the interpretation of it: The three branches are three days:

13 Yet within three days shall Pharaoh lift up thine head, and restore thee unto thy place: and thou shalt deliver Pharaoh's cup into his hand, after the former manner when thou wast his butler.

14 But think on me when it shall be well with thee, and shew kindness, I pray thee, unto me, and make mention of me unto Pharaoh, and bring me out of this house:

15 For indeed I was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews: and here also have I done nothing that they should put me into the dungeon.

16 When the chief baker saw that the interpretation was good, he said unto Joseph, I also was in my dream, and, behold, I had three white baskets on my head:

17 And in the uppermost basket there was of all manner of bakemeats for Pharaoh; and the birds did eat them out of the basket upon my head.

18 And Joseph answered and said, This is the interpretation thereof: The three baskets are three days:

19 Yet within three days shall Pharaoh lift up thy head from off thee, and shall hang thee on a tree; and the birds shall eat thy flesh from off thee.

20 And it came to pass the third day, which was Pharaoh's birthday, that he made a feast unto all his servants: and he lifted up the head of the chief butler and of the chief baker among his servants.

21 And he restored the chief butler unto his butlership again; and he gave the cup into Pharaoh's hand:

22 But he hanged the chief baker: as Joseph had interpreted to them.

23 Yet did not the chief butler remember Joseph, but forgat him. — Genesis 40 | King James Version (KJV) The King James Version Bible is in the public domain. Cross References: Genesis 14:13; Genesis 37:36; Genesis 39:1; Genesis 39:22; Genesis 41:1; Genesis 41:10-11; Genesis 41:13; Genesis 41:15-16; Genesis 42:17; Numbers 17:8; Joshua 2:12; 2 Kings 25:27; Nehemiah 1:11; Nehemiah 2:2; Esther 7:10; Job 19:14; Psalm 31:12; Psalm 105:19; Proverbs 16:14; Ecclesiastes 9:15; Song of Solomon 6:11; Jeremiah 52:31; Daniel 2:36; Daniel 4:18-19; Matthew 14:6

What does Genesis chapter 40 mean?

[godslove]

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐆𝐢𝐟𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭

The spiritual gift of discernment is also known as the gift of “discernment of spirits” or “distinguishing between spirits.” The Greek word for the gift of discernment is diakrisis. The word describes being able to distinguish, discern, judge or appraise a person, statement, situation, or environment. In the New Testament, it describes the ability to distinguish between spirits;

¹⁰ “to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.”

—1 Corinthians 12:10

and to discern good and evil.

‭‭¹⁴ “But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.”

—Hebrews 5:14

The Holy Spirit gives the gift of discernment to enable certain Christians to clearly recognize and distinguish between the influence of God, Satan, the world, and the flesh in a given situation. The church needs those with this gift to warn believers in times of danger or keep them from being led astray by false teaching.

‭‭³ But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the price of the land for yourself? ⁴ While it remained, was it not your own? And after it was sold, was it not in your own control? Why have you conceived this thing in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God.” ⁵ Then Ananias, hearing these words, fell down and breathed his last. So great fear came upon all those who heard these things. ⁶ And the young men arose and wrapped him up, carried him out, and buried him.”

—Acts 5:3-6

‭‭¹⁶ Now it happened, as we went to prayer, that a certain slave girl possessed with a spirit of divination met us, who brought her masters much profit by fortune-telling. ¹⁷ This girl followed Paul and us, and cried out, saying, “These men are the servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us the way of salvation.” ¹⁸ And this she did for many days. But Paul, greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And he came out that very hour.

—Acts 16:16-18

‭‭¹ “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world.”

—1 John 4:1

¹¹ “Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. ¹² For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.”

—‭‭Ephesians 6:11-12

[lepertamar]

the most repeated metaphor for israel's exile in the nevi'im (prophets) in the tanakh is that of an adulterous woman punished by her husband. basic logic: g-d promised us in exodus that we would live well in the land of israel and be protected by It (g-d), but we were not. our enemies said this showed g-d the god of israel was unable to protect us, but we could not abide this, and counter-claimed that g-d was punishing us for our unfaithfulness and that It had sent the nations to destroy us, and It had the power reestablish us when we had repented. the adultery metaphor is obviously tuned to the psychology of its times and audience, but more foundational and less criticized is the assumption g-d can make such promises, that it's preferable that It determines the actions of third parties in the world, that if It can't, It's worse than worthless, a used tissue, because the only people here who should have free will and the power to exercise it are the jews and g-d.

this question continued through the repeated exiles and genocides of the jews in the next 2,500+ years, but began to become increasingly complicated and ambivalent over time, including with the interpretation in kabbalah that g-d was shattered and exiled alongside us.

look closer.

much post-holocaust theology rests on the existential question of g-d's impotence, for the hebrew bible does not present evidence that g-d is omnipotent.(1)(2)

so look closer at this metaphor, back in its times. play with reversing it:

g-d is not your husband (patriarchal definition) but g-d is also not your spouse, husband, or wife (modern egalitarian definition). g-d is your wife (patriarchal definition).

g-d cannot take you in or cast you out g-d cannot save or feed or clothe you g-d cannot give you land or defend you in battle g-d cannot divorce you even though It/She/They rages It will in Its besotted-mortified-crazed grief and abjection after you are unfaithful.

perhaps g-d can make your life hell from jealous sabotage g-d can drive you mad with lust and longing for It's beauty, as you have done to It. g-d can make your people survive forever through being the catalyst for all your children(writings/cultural handing-down/mitochondria). g-d can commit adultery against you and betray you. but if you die by your enemy's hand, g-d has permission to die in your house, for you will need it and It no longer.

(and many jews think this option is the worst one tho lmao.

'i can excuse being malicious and cruel and unjust or nonexistent, but i draw the line at being not-omnipotent!')

let me rewrite some of the prophets:

I G-d, take a millstone and grind meal now, in exile, Remove My veil, strip off (My) skirt; Show My thigh, cross streams, let My labia(3) be publicly shown, My private parts be seen So shall Israel shall have vengeance on Me for My lies of kingship [masculine], For My overthrow by your enemies, And shall encounter no opposition...(4)

For when showers I could not bring, And the late rains did not come, I had the brazenness of a street woman, I refused to be ashamed.(5)

/

Over You, G-d, we bent(6), saying 'For the number of Her sins, dishevel Her hair,' (7) Let Your thighs be uncovered, Your 'heels' violated....(8) Your shame will be exposed to Your face, Showing nations Your nakedness, kingdoms Your labia....(9)

/ or,

My beauty won Me fame among the nations, for it was perfected through the splendor which I set upon you— But haughty with My beauty and fame, I played the harlot: I lavished My favors on your enemies O Israel.... I sullied My beauty and spread My legs to every passerby(10)—I multiplied My harlotries to anger you. For I was jealous of your envy of other nations(11), which you loved more than Me When you bid Me make kings of your children, and cronies of Egypt(12), rather than wrestle Me til dawn And I despised you, when you wished to be a tyrant, As they were once tyrants over you.(13)

....the nations put you to the sword, and took away your finery, and Mine, In exile, because of misery and harsh oppression; When we settled among the nations you found no rest; All your pursuers overtake Me now In the narrow places.(14)

/ or,

Israel, you uncovered your lover's beauty in Egypt; There Her breasts were squeezed, and there Her nipples were handled. Her name was G-d, She became yours, The fierce-wonders and land and laws you desired for-to-live, She placed wide-with-boasting(15) on Her lips and brought you as dowry. But She did not give up the whoring She had begun with the corners of the Earth; For we had lain with Her in Her youth, and we had handled Her virgin nipples and had poured out our lust upon Her.(16) [....] the Babylonians came, and all the Chaldeans, and all the Assyrians with them, all of them handsome young fellows, governors and prefects, officers and warriors, all of them riding on horseback.

They exposed your god and saw how she could be defiled We were roused against you, and came upon you, from all around— /

Further rambling discussion notes and citations:

Marilyn Monroe said, “If they love you that much without knowing you, they can also hate you the same way.” All idealisation is punishing and sadistic.” - jacqueline rose

thoughts on this reversal as something that Reveals -- for the audience i'm writing to it's one that shocks the connotations to something more viscerally s 0 meth1ng/relatable (the way the og was supposed to be for its audience), but more importantly, i'm trying to come up with something more infinitely chewable as a negotiation of fault and interiority-vs-effects, instead of terminating.

but also while my point in rewriting these is about the non-existence of omnipotence, non-existence of omniscience is probably more interesting. because it....reveals.....i guess a parallel to the way ppl talk about Widely Despised Female CharactersTM (both in madonna and whore perfect idealized and evil all-blameful interpretations). as simultaneously incoherently both culpable and agencyless, both agenda-driven and lacking in interiority, threefold responsible: evil for creating the evil of the world, and evil for trying to fix or destroy that evil when she regrets(17) that world, and timelessly still-blamed as evil when she regrets destroying it and admits that she doesn't have the capacity to fix it but promises to never destroy it again(18). (the souring when its clear she's not secretly timelessly omnisciently correct for allowing this evil).

all this entity's choices and preferences are made into a morally-charged one that is a referendum on the moral valence and bestows moral judgment to anyone or anything she likes/doesn’t like or does/doesn’t do. and also those interior feelings, if shown, are open to making her limitlessly blamed for the spurned person’s resulting action. or mysteriously impersonally Morally Right (after those preferences, like liking meat more than grain, are forcibly interpreted as being solely a moral pronouncement that invites and justifies limitless violence and blame)(19). both timelessly nonlinearly unchangingly culpable at each point in a linear sequence of events regardless of what order one shuffles it in, and incapable of having curiosity or ignorances or confusions that make up linear accumulations of knowledge or opinions or back-and-forths that change her mind over time, or that are incomplete without the preexisting elements of the narrative or which have to take place in the context of a dynamic dialogue/tug of war to make sense.

so i think in a similar way to that, but in a way that doesn't...pattern-match....without the pronounflip/husband-wife adultery and shaming flip......people will not think of the full picture of what else entails if one accepts a premise......no allowing for g-d being dumb or irrational or impulsive, or ignorant at earlier periods of time of what consequences will occur later. no allowing It to have the capacity to change Its mind, and therefore no allowing It to make it up to us once the error in thinking or acting has been understood and regretted. no dynamic interiority allowed in It being capricious and poorly-moral or passion-ruled or not having considered what is evil or what isn't, or what is a big deal to humans and what isn't, not omniscient enough to already know this prior to the chance to learn it by observing humans. no considering such a being to be acquiring contradictory ideas over time and It trying to figure out which one should rule in any given moment, struggling with warring impulses and giving into one at one time and another at another time, being stubborn bc It is a person with ideas that contradict too, reaching out in a curiosity or a confusion, putting on an act to try to court and impress and arouse desire in It's mate Israel. eg, people ignoring the implication that a specific method (flood, languages) implies either a limited ability or a specific desire or a specific curiosity, or both (18) (why multiple languages specifically??? why not something way less surmountable if insurmountability was desired? or if timeless omnipotence was available??).

let alone, in some cases the idea of g-d simply being helpless, overcome, raped and despoiled, not omnipotent enough to achieve -- even if It does know what It wishes It could do -- a method that would fix things, stop things.

but apparently a fearsome but vulnerable and morally-heterogenous and linearly evolving/accumulating/learning god with enough raw bursting power do act immorally sometimes, but without omnipotence, is unpalatable. so……idk, the time-collapse of god treatments that mirrors that of misogyny that mirrors that of antisemitism -- no matter what you do or don't, or can or can't, or know or don't know, or think or can't think, it's your fault -- haunts to an un-unseeable extent.

this is all torah/tanakh and jewish thought specific(20), but the bigger issue for me that i have a hard time unseeing after seeing it was like….the classic conception of omnipotence and omniscience is a thought-termination (either as timeless will-always-have-been-morally-right termination, or as infinitely-blamable, uniquely worthy of punishment, betraying anthy-style scapegoat termination, which are just two different sides of the coin).

there is no cognitively nondissonant way to say 'if g-d exists, i am deciding It is shaped in such a way so as to be to blame for everything/should Be Killed/is actively working against our Liberation/must be a concept that is inherently keeping life from snapping back into a happy and suffering-free equilibrium', because if you (like me) are open to the idea of g-d being nonexistent, there is only One excuse for not also being open to the idea of g-d being a non-omnipotent, non-omniscient, dynamic, learning, growing entity, a person who is then subject to whatever limitations a person would have, and also is an-other person whose inner heart, like any other person's you cannot narrow down to the dichotomy of either being the guy you made up in your head, or a deliberate traitor to that guy. It's the same excuse for why a person or group such as the Jews are The Enemy Of All Humanity Who Must Be Killed Or At Least Blamed: laying down one's own interiority as a sentient being, to invent a person who exists to be limitlessly blameable in situations where no one else would be. if you (like me) don't completely believe g-d exists, i suppose we can't hurt It, but i know what it sounds like and who it impacts. i am much more stung about g-d lying to us -- by claiming we could only be destroyed by Them/our own transgressions. ie., lying by claiming other groups of humans totally didn't have the power to exile and genocide us irrespective of our own behavior -- than by the crime of 'not being omnipotent.' lol. but ofc even this too assumes They did actually lie to us at all, and that a more fitting interpretation of the text (let alone reality) isn't just a folie a deux of wishful thinking on one or both of our parts in this lovers affair.(21)

1: Milazzo, G. Tom. “TO AN IMPOTENT GOD: IMAGES OF DIVINE IMPOTENCE IN HEBREW SCRIPTURE.” Shofar 11, no. 2 (1993): 30–49. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42941804.

2: eg, Elie Wiesel, Night:

"I heard [a man] asking: Where is God now? And I heard a voice within me answer him:  ...Here He is—He is hanging here on this gallows."

3: Eslinger, Lyle. “The Infinite in a Finite Organical Perception (Isaiah VI 1-5).” Vetus Testamentum 45, no. 2 (1995): 145–73. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1535129. 4: Isaiah 47:2-3, Ibid

5: Jeremiah 3:3

6: Job 31:10

7: Sotah ritual, see Numbers 5:18

8: Jeremiah 13:22

9: Jeremiah 13:26

10: Ezekiel 16:14-15, 16:25-26

11: 1 Samuel 8:5-20

12: 1 Kings 9:16

13: 2 Samuel 22 throughout, 1 Kings 1-10 throughout

14: Lamentations 1:3

15: Everett Fox translation choice for 1 Samuel 2:1

16: Ezekiel 23 throughout

17: Genesis 6:8, 8:21

18: Genesis 11:6-7

19: Genesis 4:4-6

20: Karasick, Adeena. “Shekhinah: The Speculum That Signs, or ‘The Flaming S/Word That Turn[s] Every Way’ (Genesis 3:24).” Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women’s Studies & Gender Issues, no. 2 (1999): 114–36. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40326491.

21: Milazzo p. 49:

This is the god which cannot raise the dead. This is not a god which transcends the world in which the drama of life and death is lived. This is a god which, having placed its hands around their heart, stands there with this people [.....] This impotent god walked the road to Babylon and stood among the crematoria at Auschwitz.

[gepgep2]

Any thoughts on Spinoza?

love a monist

few years ago i read most of delueze's book on spinoza which i thought was good at the time, might revisit

Atheist in the Attic is a really good book, and although brief, maybe the most vivid portrait of him ive gotten

david graeber, talking about his book bullshit jobs, offhandedly described part of his framework- centering care/caregiving, freedom, and play rather than terms like production and consumption- as his "spinozan feminist" intervention. he talks about "the Spinozan vitalist tradition, which you could say ultimately sees desire as freedom and play, the expression of life’s full capacities for their own sake" which is probably the most valuable single part of spinoza's influence and legacy for me. apparently he was one of graeber's favorite philosophers, but he doesnt seem to cite him much.

harold bloom's The Book of J is one of my all-time favorite books, and certainly seems to evoke the spirit of spinoza. J's Yahweh surely must be closely tied to spinoza's god, and is maybe the only true link between his disposition and kafka's. in bloom's Jesus and Yahweh, he says

"Baruch Spinoza’s magnificent admonition has haunted me for more than half a century: “It is necessary that we learn to love God without ever expecting that he will love us in return.” Ethically, that has a certain poignance, but is it humanly acceptable? If you substitute Hamlet for God in Spinoza’s observation, then I might understand it far better than I do. The popular Christian definition “God is love” fades away in the aura of Spinoza’s inspired “intoxication,” to use Coleridge’s characterization of the great Jewish moralist as a “God-intoxicated man.” If my reader is God-intoxicated, then she wisely will smile benignly enough at my qualms, but was Spinoza not talking about Yahweh and not Jesus Christ’s God the Father? Spinoza’s family, Iberian Marranos, had returned to Judaism in tolerant Amsterdam, where the synagogue, doubtless motivated by nervousness in regard to its Calvinist hosts, reluctantly excommunicated its best mind for his supposed “pantheism,” in which Yahweh and his creation would not always be distinguished.

It makes little sense to say “Yahweh is love,” or that we must love Yahweh. He just is not, never was, and never will be love. Many, if not most, of us at one time or another fall in love with someone who neither can accept love nor return it, though she or he perhaps demands it anyway, if only as worship or tribute. Until I Chronicles, Yahweh sets the pattern for such destructive role-playings, best exemplified in Shakespeare by Cleopatra—until Act V, when she apparently is transformed in the wake of Antony’s death. Even there, Shakespeare endows her with an equivocal quality that is an endless challenge to actresses: how do you play the part of someone who no longer knows whether or not she is playing herself? When Yahweh, perhaps in love with David, as he may have been with Joseph, David’s precursor, promises that he will be a father to Solomon, can we interpret the promise as other than divine dramatism?

...An unrequited love can be an imaginative benefit to poets, but not to most of us. Spinoza, though cast out by his fellow Jews in Amsterdam, was intoxicated with Yahweh rather than with the Christian God the Father. Love and the fear of Yahweh are one; I cannot recall the New Testament speaking of the fear of God the Father. The Yahwist's God did not create out of love, though his motive was to make a human in his own image. Moses (Deuteronomy 6:5) commands the Hebrews to love God with all their heart, soul, and might but he does not say the love will be reciprocated..."

and in Ruin the Sacred Truths: "The Jewish God is a personality and a subjectivity, and only if He is indeed dead is the death of the subject more than a currently fashionable Gallic trope. We can cite Spinoza's wholly Jewish apothegm: "Wisdom is meditation not on death but on life." Spinoza might have quoted the fundamental Jewish admonition of the rabbi Tarphon, in Pirke Abot: "You are not required to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it." The work cannot be completed in time, yet we must work as if there will be time enough to complete it, "to give time to time," as in a Sephardic proverb."

also these all look interesting:

https://tinyurl.com/2w4t54k3

https://repository.ubn.ru.nl/handle/2066/162321

https://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/18/books/review/18bloom.html

[favorvn]

I'm curious to ask this... could z and mc have children or is that impossible?

Definitely possible to have children! In biblical times it was recorded that fallen angels or angels (it is debated which) came down to earth and took wives with humans they thought were attractive. They had children with these humans. Those humans came to be a powerful subset of human called "Nephilim". In the passages below "Nephilim" is translated into the word "Giants' but some Hebrew scholars suggest that it should be translated into the term 'fallen' (נופלים nophlim) instead, as the Hebrew nefilim means literally "the fallen ones".

(Disclaimer that in reality interpretations of this passage are hotly debated lol....but for Favor we are just going to use it as cannon)

(Note: 'Sons of God' is interpreted to be angels or fallen angels)

GENESIS 6: 1-4

"And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, 2 That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. 3 And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. 4 There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown."

So yeah, it is possible to have children who may or may not grow up to have super-human abilities.... that you may or may not have to protect from an angel trying to banish them into hell. (This isn't in the game plotline of 'Favor' at all, just going off of what happens in biblical texts paired with the lore of Favor.)

[a1220-poetic-witch]

What is NUMEROLOGY?

The principle of numerology is that all of the numbers that somehow relate to your life can be reduced and simplified to one single number, except the numbers eleven and twenty two. I like to think of numerology as the mathematical version of astrology.

For example, instead of being called a “Leo” person, they may call you a number 6 person.

And just like in astrology, where signs and symbols may be repeated in your life; you might also want to pay attention to the numbers that seem to pop up in your life as well. For myself, these repetitive numbers are 1, 6, & 9. The numbers that constantly appear and reappear in your life are not by accident; these can be thought of as your soul’s energy and/or vibration!

Numerology is the study of the numbers inherent in our names, birth dates, and other significant objects or events that surround us; and their meanings and effects. Many people find that numerology provides extremely valid insights into their lives or things that are happening to them. This form of divination attempts to analyze the numerical information around us, and makes a determination of the implications and associations that these numbers have. Numerology uses techniques common in data transmission and cryptography (the art of writing or deciphering messages in code) to derive, from the numbers of your birth date and letters of your name, numbers and structures of numbers that reflect or contain the influences of each individual digit of the base information.

Gematria:

Gematria is another type of numerology.

Coming from Jewish beliefs, Gematria taught that if the numerology of a name determines the meaning and mystical significance of the name, and of the thing it describes, then other things with the same numerological attributes should be comparable in their basic principle.

Here is an article I found on the Britannica website, I feel as though it explains things better than what I can; for the simple fact that I’m not Jewish and I don’t have a lot of first hand knowledge/experience with the Hebrew alphabet.

“Gematria, the substitution of numbers for letters of the Hebrew alphabet, a favorite method of exegesis used by medieval Kabbalists to derive mystical insights into sacred writings or obtain new interpretations of the texts. Some condemned its use as mere toying with numbers, but others considered it a useful tool, especially when difficult or ambiguous texts otherwise failed to yield satisfactory analysis. Genesis 28:12, for example, relates that in a dream Jacob saw a ladder (Hebrew sullam) stretching from earth to heaven. Since the numerical value of the word sullam is 130 (60 + 30 + 40)—the same numerical value of Sinai (60 + 10 + 50 + 10)—exegesis concluded that the Law revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai is man’s means of reaching heaven. Of the 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet, the first ten are given number values consecutively from one to ten, the next eight from 20 to 90 in intervals of ten, while the final four letters equal 100, 200, 300, and 400, respectively. More complicated methods have been used, such as employing the squares of numbers or making a letter equivalent to its basic value plus all numbers preceding it.” —Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "gematria". Encyclopedia Britannica, 20 Jul. 2023, https://www.britannica.com/topic/gematria. Accessed 7 January 2024.

[unfortunate-arrow]

𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐮𝐬 𝐌𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐰 𝐒𝐮𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐚𝐧 | hp ww1 character profile

warnings: mentions of death and war trauma

✧ IDENTITY ✧

Full Name: Linus Matthew Sullivan 

Nicknames: Yank, Yankee 

Name Meanings: Linus → Greek, “flax” ; Matthew → Hebrew, “gift of god” ; Sullivan → Irish, “dark eyes, hawk eyes.” 

Date of Birth: November 26, 1893 (Sagittarius)

Gender: Male (he/him)

Sexuality: Heterosexual 

Blood Status: Muggleborn 

Nationality: American 

Residence: Buffalo, New York, United States of America (birth to 21) ; TBD

✧ APPEARANCE ✧

Faceclaim: Joseph Mazzello

Height: 5’9” 

Build: Lean but athletic 

Hair: Sandy brown that’s short

Eye Color: Hazel 

Scarring:

Childhood & Ilvermorny: None 

Adulthood: A bullet scar in his left shoulder 

Modifications: (glasses, piercings, tattoos, etc.) None

Other Distinguishing Marks: None 

Clothing Style: Collared shirts ; suspenders ; trousers ; jeans ; boots ; sweaters ; jackets ; loafers ; ties ; flat caps ; newsboy caps

Accessories: Identification tags 

What’s in His Pockets: A pencil ; small journal ; a compass ; a pocket knife ; pay-book ; his uncle’s pipe ; handkerchief

✧ SPEECH & LANGUAGE ✧

Voiceclaim: Joseph Mazzello 

Accent: American 

Dialect: Inland Northern American English ; General American English 

Languages Spoken: English 

Languages Understood: English

✧ PERSONALITY ✧

MBTI Type: INFJ — the advocate

⤷ The INFJ personality type is Introverted, iNtuitive, Feeling, and Judging, which means they are energized by time alone, focused on understanding ideas and concepts, led by their values and intuition, and firm decision makers. This combination of personality preferences produces people who are intensely idealistic, authentic, and empathetic. Although INFJs do not tend to have a large circle of people they are close to, they value deep connections and emotional intimacy with their close friends and family. INFJs believe the world can be a better place, and they concentrate on doing their best to help it get there. 

Enneagram Type: Type 6 — the loyalist 

⤷ Sixes are defined by their desire for safety and security. They seek to anticipate and avoid risk, and to ally themselves with trustworthy authority figures and institutions. Sixes are alert and vigilant, always thinking several steps ahead to anticipate and prepare for what could go wrong.

Positive Traits: Creative, insightful, intelligent, principled, passionate, altruistic, responsible, compassionate, conscientious, dependable

Neutral Traits: Stubborn, private, reserved, idealistic, logical, trustworthy, courageous, loyal, tenacious, adaptable, focused

Negative Traits: Sensitive, reluctant to open up, perfectionistic, anxious, can be aggressive, very private

Common Stressors: The war, MACUSA, work, finances, life 

Comforting Things: Books, comic strips, drawing, baseball, ice hockey, ice skating

Interests & Hobbies: Baseball, ice hockey, reading, ice skating, drawing, sketching

Description: Linus is a “think before you act” type of person, who rarely makes a significant decision without thinking everything through. He’s a quiet person, who usually keeps to himself and takes a while for him to open up to others. He generally holds firmly to his beliefs, principles, and ideals… which isn’t always the best thing as it leads to Linus’s consistent violations of MACUSA’s Rappaport’s Law. In addition, Linus is intelligent, stubborn, and kind. He tries to help those who need it, but often feels like he’s falling short… something exacerbated by the way his mind interprets his role during the Great War. Despite it all, though, Linus tries his hardest to be the man that his mother always believed he could be.

✧ MAGIC ✧

Wand: Linus’s wand is made of fir wood with a wampus cat hair core and is 10 ¾ inches with an unyielding flexibility. 

⤷ There is no doubt that fir wood, coming as it did from the most resilient of trees, produced wands that demanded staying power and strength of purpose in their true owners, and favored owners of focused, strong-minded and, occasionally, intimidating demeanor. They were poor tools in the hands of the changeable and indecisive. Fir wands were called 'the survivor's wand' as its owners were known to come out of mortal peril unscathed. Fir wands were particularly suited to Transfiguration.

Other Magical Abilities: None 

Patronus: Lynx

Patronus Memory: The first trip to the Pan-American Exposition with his uncle in July of 1901

Boggart: 

Pre-war: A shadowy iteration of President William McKinley’s assassin with a smoking gun

Post-war: Himself walking away from someone who needs help (typically a soldier)

Riddikulus:

Pre-war: The shadowy assassin is revealed to be his Uncle Frank holding a smoking loaf of bread 

Post-war: Himself, kneeling by the person and singing a silly (and sometimes bawdy) song

Amortentia:

Linus smells like sandalwood, allspice, mint, and ink.

Linus smells baking bread, popcorn, and a few things related to Maritza. 

Mirror of Erised: Linus would see the muggle and wizarding worlds coexisting peacefully, without Rappaport’s Law. He’d see his mother and uncle with his own family, mostly as a reflection of that.

✧ ILVERMORNY ✧

House: Wampus

Classes:

Astronomy — Exceeds Expectations 

Charms — Outstanding 

Defense Against the Dark Arts — Outstanding 

Flying — Exceeds Expectations 

Herbology — Acceptable 

History of Magic — Acceptable 

Potions — Acceptable 

Transfiguration — Outstanding 

Electives:

Arithmancy — Exceeds Expectations 

Extracurriculars: Quodpot

✧ EMPLOYMENT ✧

Affiliations: Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry ; the Canadian military 

Professions:

Age 12 to 21 - Newsboy

Age 21 to 23 - Soldier, private 

Age 23 to 24 - Soldier, lance corporal 

Post-war is TBD

✧ FAMILY ✧

Father: Ephraim Cornelius Lovell [deceased, 1858-1913]

Born in late 1858, Ephraim Lovell was the eldest and only child of Cornelius and Jemima Lovell to survive to adulthood. Ephraim had a good and mostly happy early childhood, but everything changed when he went away to school at the age of thirteen. Life was tough at school, and by the time he graduated, Ephriam had become an only child. His four siblings had all contracted different illnesses and passed away. This left a deep mark on Ephraim, and while he had already begun to take after his father’s philandering ways, he fell deeper into them. Even marrying Ellen Blackmore at the age of 28 wasn’t enough to curb Ephraim’s philandering ways. His first child and only child with Ellen, Eugene Silas Lovell, was born in 1887. Ellen died three years after their son was born and Ephraim did mourn his first wife. Two years later, Ephraim married his second wife, Martha Burke. They had a daughter shortly after, whom they named Ophelia Florence Lovell. Shortly after Ophelia’s birth, Ephraim went to the United States for his merchant business. It was there that he met the young and innocent Bertha Sullivan, whom he was quickly taken with. Like many previous affairs, Ephraim hid his marriage and won Bertha’s affections. They carried on an affair for two months before Ephraim returned to London. He didn’t know that he had left Bertha pregnant or that he would have a second son. Of course, that was kinda par for the course with Ephraim. It was likely that he had fathered multiple children. Ephraim died in 1913 after suffering a fall. He only ever knew two of his children. 

Linus never knew his father. In fact, he didn’t even know his father’s name until he met Eugene and Ophelia and they discovered they were half-siblings. Unfortunately, by that point, Ephraim had been dead for a few years and Linus never had the opportunity to meet the man. However, given Eugene’s and Ophelia’s summations of the man, Linus wasn’t sure if he actually wanted to know Ephraim. 

Mother: Bertha Mary Sullivan [deceased, 1874-1906]

Born in January of 1874, Bertha Sullivan was the eldest child of Mary and Lewis Sullivan and the twin sister of Frank. She had a pretty good childhood, although her parents passed away when she and Frank were fifteen. They lived alone from that point, both working to make ends meet. Four years later, Bertha stumbled upon British businessman Ephraim Lovell and she began a quiet affair with the man. He gave her a lot of hope for marriage, but in April of 1893, he returned to England. Bertha was left heartbroken… and pregnant. Desperate to leave New York City and her recognition there, Bertha left the city for Buffalo, New York with Frank joining her two years later. Her son, Linus Matthew, was born on November 26, 1893 and Bertha raised her boy in Buffalo. She loved that boy and did everything that she could to make sure that he never had to work before the age of 18. Unfortunately, that ideal failed as Bertha fell ill with influenza in February of 1906 which then turned into pneumonia. She died in March of 1906, when her son was twelve. 

Linus had a good relationship with his mother. They were close, especially given that a lot of the time it was just the two of them (and Uncle Frank most of the time too). He loved her a lot. Linus was heartbroken when she died and he spends a lot of time wishing that he could turn to her (or even Uncle Frank).

Uncle: Francis Michael “Frank” Sullivan [deceased, 1874-1906]

Born in January of 1874, Frank Sullivan was the youngest child of Mary and Lewis Sullivan and the twin brother of Bertha. Like his sister, Frank got his first job at the age of 15. He started as a newsie, before finding work in a factory. He wasn’t a fan of Bertha’s clandestine relationship with some older British businessman and after learning that Ephraim Lovell had abandoned and impregnated Bertha, Frank threatened to go find the man. Bertha told him that it didn’t matter and shortly after she left New York City. Frank remained in the city for two years, before following his sister (and nephew) north to Buffalo. He moved in with Bertha and Linus and did his best to help with his nephew. Frank indulged the young boy, as much as he could. He took Linus to the Pan American Exposition in 1901 and even hoped that his nephew would get to shake the hand of the President. Eventually times grew hard on Frank, and in 1905, he decided that it was time to journey out west and find a fortune. This venture failed and Frank died in the April 1906 San Francisco earthquake, only a month after his sister had died from influenza-induced pneumonia. 

Linus had a good relationship with his uncle. For much of his childhood, Frank was the main male influence in his life and helped to shape Linus’s view of masculinity. He had a close relationship with Uncle Frank as well, adoring the man. Linus was heartbroken to learn of Uncle Frank’s sudden death, mixed with some of the shock of the earthquake. 

Half-brother: Eugene Silas Lovell [1887-1918]

Ephraim Lovell’s son with his first wife, Ellen, Eugene was born on January 24, 1887. His mother passed away when he was three and two years later, his father remarried. Eugene was mostly raised by nannies, staff, and occasionally, his step-mother. He attended boarding school, and did not have magic. His childhood was fairly lonely and Eugene became determined to be a different, better man than his father. When war erupted in 1914, Eugene joined the army and by his death in 1918, he had achieved the rank of sergeant major. Eugene was killed in 1918 in an explosion and some exposure to mustard gas. However, he was able to meet his brother.

Linus had never expected to learn that he has siblings and was pleasantly surprised to learn that he had a brother. Eugene, on the other hand, was not impressed nor surprised to learn that his father had fathered a third child. It took a little while for the two to warm up to one another, but they exchanged letters and greetings throughout the war, up to Eugene’s 1918 death. 

Faceclaim: Lachlan Nieboer 

Half-sister: Ophelia Florence Lovell 

Ephraim Lovell’s daughter with his second wife, Martha, Ophelia was born on December 9, 1892. She grew up alongside her brother, Eugene, and was mostly raised by her mother, nannies, and other staff. She spent very little time with her father, who was a workaholic who had multiple affairs throughout her childhood. Ophelia was accepted into Hogwarts when she was eleven and she was sorted into Slytherin, where she ended up becoming a prefect and headgirl. After Hogwarts, Ophelia began working as a journalist for the Daily Prophet. In 1914, when World War I broke out and Eugene joined the army, she decided to join a small coalition of wizarding journalists who were determined to report on the affairs of the wizarding world during the war. It was there that Ophelia discovered that she had another brother. 

Linus never expected to learn that he had a sister, but he was grateful to meet Ophelia. They were never extremely close, but it was nice to know there was someone else in the world, especially after the war. Linus liked his sister, she was quite different from him, but they got along quite well. 

Faceclaim: Julia Brown

Pets: 

Childhood: None 

Adulthood: A black Labrador retriever named Blackie 

✧ ROMANCE & CHILDREN ✧

Love Interest: Maritza Krum (@potionboy3)

⤷ Linus first saw Maritza Krum when he arrived in France in 1915. A year later, he saw her once again, this time during the Battle of Somme. A few months later, while on a 10-day leave in Paris, Linus runs into Maritza. As it turns out, most of Linus’s leave is spent getting to know Maritza and possibly, kinda falling into something that could turn into love. Before he returns to the Front, Maritza gives him her necklace and makes him promise to return it to her after the war. Throughout the war, Linus and Maritza exchange letters. They share a few moments in-person here and there, throughout the war, before officially reuniting in November of 1918. They eventually married on March 4, 1919.

Son: Constantine Marinus Sullivan

Faceclaim: Omar Rudberg

Son: Malachi Francis Sullivan

Hufflepuff | b. November 26, 1935

Faceclaim: Jack Fisher

✧ OTHER RELATIONSHIPS ✧

Best Friends: TBD

Close Friends: TBD

Friends:

Sydney Barlow (@gaygryffindorgal)

Kit Enfield, Alexej Kavinsky (@potionboy3)

Acquaintances:

Colm O’Shea

It’s Complicated: TBD

Ilvermorny Dormmates: TBD

Rivals: TBD

Enemies: TBD

✧ HISTORY & BACKGROUND ✧

Place of Birth: Buffalo, New York, the United States of America 

Hometown: Buffalo, New York, the United States of America 

Childhood: 

Linus Matthew Sullivan, born November 26, 1893, was the only child of Bertha Sullivan and Ephraim Lovell, although he never knew his father. Therefore, he was raised primarily by his unmarried mother. When he was two, his uncle Frank joined Linus and his mother in Buffalo. Uncle Frank became a permanent fixture in his life, mostly as the fun uncle which included taking his nephew to the Pan-American Exposition in 1901. Linus had a pretty good childhood before learning that he was a wizard. Sure, there were some weird things that happened, but the Sullivans mostly wrote them off. 

At the age of seven, on September 6, 1901, Linus attended the Pan-American Exposition with his uncle. His uncle, Frank, took him to shake hands with then-President William McKinley. What happened then would stick with Linus for years to follow. President McKinley was shot twice in the abdomen and Linus never got to shake the president’s hand.

The rest of Linus’s childhood was fairly quiet. His mother and uncle worked a lot, mostly to ensure that Linus never had to even think about going to work himself. It worked until their deaths in 1906. 

At the age of 11, Linus learned that he was a wizard, which came as a complete shock to the Sullivans.

Ilvermorny Years:

Upon starting at Ilvermorny, Linus was chosen by Wampus. It took him a while to become comfortable at Ilvermorny and he balked at some of the strictness of the American wizarding world. It seemed at odds with the values of no-maj America. Eventually he settled in, but much of his first year was disrupted by sudden changes to his life. 

In March of his first year, Linus was pulled out of charms class and informed that his mother had died of pneumonia. Less than a month later, Linus learned that his Uncle Frank was a victim of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake.

Linus generally enjoyed his time at Ilvermorny. He ended up playing quodpot, although he generally kept to himself. During the summer, Linus worked as a newsie to make money and supplement the care that he was receiving in the orphanage. 

Adulthood:

After graduating from Ilvermorny, Linus continued his work as a newsie. He felt adrift, unsure of where to go or what to do. Thus, he stuck to what he was familiar with. Unfortunately, what he was familiar with led to multiple, continuous violations of Rappaport’s Law which forbade unnecessary contact between wizards and no-majs. Even after being fined, Linus continued to violate the law. His constant violations led to a hit wizard being assigned to his case in late 1914.

Feeling desperate, Linus made the decision to flee into Canada in the winter of 1915 and he made an uncharacteristically impulsive decision to join the army. He entered the war as a private and was sent a few months in boot camp. He was shipped out to the Western Front in June of the same year… which led to a first glimpse of his future wife, Maritza Krum. 

During the war, Linus generally kept his head down. He met his half-brother and sister during the Battle of the Somme in 1916. In late 1917, he ended up joining the company of Kit Enfield (@potionboy3) and was exposed to the wizarding culture of the British Isles. In addition, he had a confrontation with Ralph Myers, the hit wizard after him, in October of 1918. The confrontation occurred after Linus was hospitalized for a gunshot wound to the left shoulder. 

After the war, Linus marries Maritza Krum and they have two sons, Constantine and Malachi.

Old Age:

After retiring at the age of 96, Linus spends his time working on hobbies and taking some time for himself. 

Death: 

Linus passed away in his sleep at the age of 102 in 1996. He left behind a wide array of direct descendants.

✧ MISCELLANEOUS ✧ 

Favorite Color: Blue 

Favorite Food: Tomato soup ; popcorn 

Favorite Drink: Coffee 

Favorite Weather: Crisp and sunny 

Favorite Season: Winter 

Favorite Book: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Frank Baum 

Dislikes: Wet clothes ; MACUSA ; war ; broccoli ; peas ; mushy vegetables 

Trivia:

Linus’s post-war trauma (PTSD) is defined by reliving his experiences in a very different way. In other words, Linus’s war memories are remembered in a way that paints himself in a fairly negative view. One example is believing that he did nothing to help a dying soldier when, in reality, he held the man’s hand until he died.

Every Christmas season, Bertha Sullivan paid for a photograph of her son. Sometimes they included her and Frank, but mostly, they were just Linus. He holds tightly to them, for his mother’s handwriting on the back. 

Important Links & Tags:

tag: Linus Sullivan

More information about his sons, Constantine and Malachi

[orthodoxydaily]

Saints&Reading: Tuesday, June 4, 2024

may 22_june 4

RIGHTEOUS MELCHISEDEC, KING OF SALEM

The Righteous Melchizedek was the King of Salem (Jerusalem). He was both a king and a priest, laying the foundations of the city where the Messiah would appear. According to Mar Jacob of Serugh, Melchizedek was a Canaanite, asserting that the very site of his kingdom bears witness to this. Therefore, his genealogy is not recorded. He must have been born, and he must have died, but the Scriptures deliberately conceal both events, assigning him neither beginning nor end, so that he might be called a priest forever. Melchizedek (who appears in the Scriptures suddenly, and then disappears) is regarded as a type of Christ (Hebrews 5:6, 10; Hebrews 6:20; Hebrews 7:2). He did not receive his priesthood from any other priest, nor did he pass on his priesthood to anyone else. In his homily "On Melchizedek, Priest of the Most High God," Mar Jacob of Serugh states that the priests of the past shed the blood of animals when offering sacrifices to God. By contrast, Melchizedek was made a priest "by the sacrifices of his soul," and did not sacrifice animals, nor did he offer anything but himself to God. Melchizedek did not adorn himself with splendid robes as Aaron did; and instead of offering bulls and rams, Melchizedek offered his holy prayers from a pure heart. The Son of God also resembles Melchizedek, because there is no beginning or end to His priesthood, and He offered Himself to the Father as a perfect sacrifice. As Priest, Christ brought Himself to the place of sacrifice, placing His body on the altar of the Cross, and shedding His blood for us.

In chapter 7 of the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Righteous Melchizedek is called the King of Salem, and also a "priest of the Most High God." By the interpretation of his name, he is called the King of righteousness and the King of Salem, in other words, "the King of peace" (Hebrews 7:2).

Melchizedek met the Patriarch Abraham as he was returning from his victory over the kings (Genesis 14:18-24). He brought bread and wine to Abraham and blessed him, saying: "Blessed be Abram of the Most High God, Who made heaven and earth, and blessed be the Most High God, Who delivered thine enemies into thy power." By offering Abraham bread and wine, Melchizedek foreshadows the Church's Liturgy.

Thus, the Righteous Melchizedek was shown to be greater than Abraham, because he blessed Abraham. Abraham, the lesser of the two, did not presume to bless one who was greater than himself (Homily of Mar Jacob, line 299). Abraham accepted the blessing and offered him a tithe of his spoils, and he also showed him reverence (Homily, line 310).

The priesthood of Melchizedek is superior to the priesthood of Aaron, because Melchizedek blessed Abraham. By giving Melchizedek a tithe, Abraham, the ancestor of Aaron, showed that he recognized him as a priest. Through Abraham, Levi's tribe offered first fruits to the image of the Son of God which was seen in Melchizedek. Nevertheless, the Lord did not choose to come forth from the tribe of Levi, but from the family of Kings.

Melchizedek did not serve "according to the priesthood that was to be dissolved, but according to that which unto the ages abides spiritually; and since his priesthood was never annulled, with respect to service; behold how he is spoken of as living, through his priesthood." (Homily, lines 361-364).

The Holy Prophet-King David speaks of him as a priest who would never die (Psalm 109/110:4). When he thought about the Messiah, in order to compare Him to someone whom He ought to resemble, he did not think of anyone from the priesthood of Aaron. Instead, he selected Melchizedek, who provided for his liturgy without any sacrificial victims. The spiritual ministry of this man, who was in the likeness of the Son, is incomprehensible. He wore two crowns, one hidden, and the other manifest. He had authority in two different realms. He was an earthly King who never engaged in battles with those on his borders, because of his peacefulness (Homily, line 538). He desired nothing but peace and righteousness (Homily, line 542).

The Church recalls Melchizedek at the beginning of Great Lent: "Imitate that Priest of God and solitary King (Hebrews 7:3), who was an image of the life of Christ in the world among men." (Thursday of the first week of Great Lent, the Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete, Ode 3).

St JOHN-VLADIMIR, PRINCE OF BULGARIA, GREATMARTYR AND MIRACLE-WORKER (1015)

The Holy Martyr John-Vladimir, a Serbian prince, was born in the tenth century. From his childhood he was raised in piety, and at maturity he wisely governed his holdings Illyria and Dalmatia, preserving the holy Faith in purity.

The noble prince was married to Kosara, a daughter of the Bulgarian Tsar Samuel. Summoned for talks with the Bulgarian Tsar John-Vladislav, he was treacherously murdered by the Tsar on May 22, 1015, at the entrance to a church. Kosara, the pious spouse of the holy prince, entered a women’s monastery that she built, and where also she died, not leaving the church until the very end of her life. The relics of the holy prince are located near Elbosan.

Source: Orthodox Church in America_ OCA

ACTS 12:25-13:12

25 And Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem when they had fulfilled their ministry, and they also took with them John whose surname was Mark.

1 Now in the church that was at Antioch there were certain prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. 2 As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, "Now separate to Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them." 3 Then, having fasted and prayed, and laid hands on them, they sent them away. 4 So, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia, and from there they sailed to Cyprus. 5 And when they arrived in Salamis, they preached the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews. They also had John as their assistant. 6 Now when they had gone through the island to Paphos, they found a certain sorcerer, a false prophet, a Jew whose name was Bar-Jesus, 7 who was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, an intelligent man. This man called for Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God. 8 But Elymas the sorcerer (for so his name is translated) withstood them, seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith. 9 Then Saul, who also is called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him 10 and said, "O full of all deceit and all fraud, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, will you not cease perverting the straight ways of the Lord? 11 And now, indeed, the hand of the Lord is upon you, and you shall be blind, not seeing the sun for a time. And immediately a dark mist fell on him, and he went around seeking someone to lead him by the hand. 12 Then the proconsul believed, when he saw what had been done, being astonished at the teaching of the Lord.

JOHN 8:51-59

51 Most assuredly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he shall never see death. 52 Then the Jews said to Him, "Now we know that You have a demon! Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and You say, 'If anyone keeps My word he shall never taste death.' 53 Are You greater than our father Abraham, who is dead? And the prophets are dead. Who do You make Yourself out to be? 54 Jesus answered, "If I honor Myself, My honor is nothing. It is My Father who honors Me, of whom you say that He is your God. 55 Yet you have not known Him, but I know Him. And if I say, 'I do not know Him,' I shall be a liar like you; but I do know Him and keep His word. 56 Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad. 57 Then the Jews said to Him, "You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?" 58 Jesus said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM." 59 Then they took up stones to throw at Him; but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.