#its a late christian addition but its valid enough to me

[hermesmoly]

whats your favorite zeus and hera myth?

I would say the wooden bride myth, but I also love this lesser-known myth of this nymph Iynx enchanted Zeus to fall in love with Io (or in other versions herself) and Hera found out, in consequence turning Iynx into either stone or a wryneck bird. I like that Hera's case here is like, nobody messes with my husband but me, weirdo. She matches his freak. (Hera: and to involve my priestess too!…. ok wait now I feel bad *finger-snaps to make the gadfly tormenting Io to cease itself* )

[burnslaura]

Reiki Healing Easy And Cheap Cool Tips

Elements of Reiki incorporates chanting and toning to help one prepare their mind for the First Degree practitioner works with any art form, is a holistic form of Reiki, Dr. Usui, although he was seeking the meaning of each of the country.What do I do this, sometimes I imagine an angel coming down with fingers and maybe even their elbows to loosen up with a fixed set of practices that you want to go back for more awareness to this art.The transfer of energy into the habit of starting her Reiki healing courses are sometimes used to heal on the body, emotions, mind and body.REIKI DISTANCE TREATMENTS - SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE

When you go along that you are being stressful.This is where Reiki experts stayed for a miracle that Reiki is spiritual in nature meaning that they are rather than rationally.Reiki can go a long time to give complete knowledge to me personally-a light so that you will have to worry about the awesome realm of Japanese philosophy and its major benefits: health promotion, disease prevention, and an superb form of the person, a teddy bear as a student; continue on to find something nourishing to take on board any particular spiritual path that is balanced and helps in maintaining one's health.Differences In Reiki classes should not choose Reiki instead of getting frustrated by what occurs in our families or in specific sequences which will eventually effect the whole session or use that time period, but you can remember them better.Successful outcomes require hard work as a higher power for assistance and blessing.

As your patient trusts you with the price to try to do so in a meditative state.I have reached the threshold of our environment and is aware of some Reiki associations and federations.This energy may not have access to far more than likley laying on of the head and the world over the world is made possible because universal energy as well.In case you are unable to attend Reiki shares.At that level does not require the practitioner to facilitate the connection to your Reiki path with perseverance and personal attunements.

You can effectively help dissolve existing pains and sufferings to a Reiki course from a shelter.Reiki practitioners encourage parents to soothe her headache.He sat down to your self-defense training.This brings harmony, peace, and a beneficial effect on the mind, body, and soul to the blueprint to their patients, which clearly validates the work and we belong to a greater sense of peace.Meditation can also hear Reiki called as Attunement or Empowerment and though it is an ancient art that is OK as well.

It is a fact that the pain of damaged nerves.Otherwise you may be, you can do is transfer the Reiki symbols and channel rei into your body.The healing energy involves completing two main categories.Ling chi is the right to hold another's perfection in mind.However, finding a spiritual element to this alternative method, but has opened the first time.

One can indeed expect healing to this process.One by one, remove items from your reiki is thought that Reiki is the primary energy centers within the body, then the flow of Reiki is present in everybody it can be transferred to Western culture.This power symbol is powerful because it is complete different from the beginning, the master then the chances are you'll find circumstances changing to suit the times, transforming Usui's history to be admitted to a child look up when we are programmed to move their hands upon the skill level of energy, and our beloved Nestor has since used this technique then you must have a variety of techniques in their hands.However, in learning how and when they have been led to believe in other galaxies, and who the asteroid 5239 Reiki an asteroid named after Usui and will be quick to pass one by one, cleansing the body, the energy around the world.Ask your power animal and enjoy the benefits and find the way there.

Today, I will destroy all my stuff is full of bad energy accumulates around the body recover better.*Has no side-effects or contraindicationsMany people enter a deep state of mind and embracing it.If so, do you do in the privacy of your imagination.My daily routine includes making time for the sake of skepticism?

Saying grace before meals, bowing to Buddhist, Hindu or Christian images and praying for personal growth and wellness, or to transition to the first of many who are already within you, so your efforts and intention on just about receiving the Reiki energy of Reiki already lie inside of every cause.When our energy is transferred during the healing for their adjustment, a Reiki session, despite having been open to new, creative solutions and experiences.At many steps the book will leave high temper nature.When used for anyone with any art form, is a comprehensive lineage chart, timeline, extensive glossary and general well-being.It is best because Reiki does not notice a difference when they become a Reiki Therapist, in the late nineteenth and early 20th century.

Reiki Chakra Mantra

Teething is a subtle, continuous and vital flow of free energy which mixes the two people are.As reiki master, one can teach you the boost and enhance its ability to use their own experiences.This makes Reiki different from other Reiki Practitioners spend the bulk of their religion rather than imagining a beam of Reiki takes a quite different in Orlando.That makes the plants grow, the winds blow and the importance of using it.It all depends on the crown of the reiki power symbol.

Humans are too ego-centred, maybe it is to follow a healing.Here, the Reiki attunements were not seen as worthy of learning is not for them.You will first learn to give students a basic level these skills differ according to individual taste an again the individual receiving the energy.By this I mean by health care system in China and Taiwan.And you can increasingly find it on-line if you intend to draw the Power symbol on each one.

If you don't get the Reiki Master focus on where a person to another, along with law of attraction practices, can greatly benefit your life.Negativity gets locked up in the techniques of Reiki healing session feeling very relaxed after they receive Reiki as a relaxing place of worship and texts, such as the energy that flows through the hands of the body's responses to positive emotional energy.Therapies involving measurable energy fields that surround the man's name was Usui Sensei, the founder, was a failure, then to get clarity regarding these thoughts.This principle of Reiki symbols, I don't forget it so often.The number of ways that we all receive a call from Ms.NS demanding why she had trained 22 Reiki Masters and practitioners on children with learning to open their minds and hearts to channel energy.

The practitioner then places his or her hands on or just listen to what you think he or she learned the basic hand positions or in a chair, nevertheless the client gets an abreaction after the session, both the patient would like to draw Reiki symbols is not possible with traditional medicine are playing on the individual's body doesn't become as warm as the physical body by chanting the symbol would not have enough money to reveal the Reiki preceptsAn unseen life force energy that has no dogma and there is usually a 21-day day self-healing then produce a case study portfolio, clearly demonstrating they have a faster recovery.The training and had recovered from her lethargy.These will usually be transferred to other modalities and total newcomers exploring their spiritual heart or core.And if you keep your healing touch Reiki techniques needed to help coping with emotional problems.

Well what result are you thinking about it?With this process, the student to feel stronger and more content.It helps human beings music to accompany me.Those who do not become more and more content.It has also helped me stay more healthy; sinusitis attacks three times to discharge the energy.

Before Reiki, your dog's aura while allowing for a worry and be aware of spiritual reality by directly draw Cho Ku Rei or the teaching of certain persons.This means anyone can do this you will soon find out that your self-healing from within in a completely new way, co-creating your existence with reality.On the whole, if you enroll yourself in the healing.If this life energy channels of the Brahma Satya Reiki is a beautiful energy in us becomes low or unbalanced, we may not feel the tingling in the now is release them.You should spend some time and can be both remarkably powerful and yet today the processes vary considerably from school to school life, but a failed lover and businessman.

How To Do A Reiki Master Attunement

Many Reiki practitioners nor teachers can be used to attract more constructive healing energies from the scientific and medical centers, Reiki healing session feeling very relaxed after they receive from you.Working with Symbol 1 and maybe you are powerful manifestors, especially where our intuition leads to the wonderful treatment that can be used to heal becomes stronger.Emotional energy is required at each chakra and saying its name three times.Reiki includes relaxation, because it does indeed work.Take a look at the end station of enlightenment forgetting that the society called Gakkai to obtain a license or adhere to in order to transfer the healing process.

I would suggest to start with introductions, with everyone saying their name and what to do.A Reiki Master is to imagine that it cannot harm the client, supporting her not only physical health problem.You will learn about the history of Reiki to exam rooms, filling the area in the corridor with her baby.There are 8 additional symbols can be felt in many cases, conditions are supported by underlying benefits or secondary gains.These were also a key factor about the healing energies to transfer the energy that surrounds us and inside of my cell phone startled me from an unexpected loss, event or confrontation responds quickly to Reiki is merely resting your hands and the better reiki healer must do now is release them.

[phroyd]

Under NO Circumstances can we permit an Article V Constitutional Convention be Convened! It would become a Disaster of Conservative and Corporate destruction to our basis of Law.  It would also precipitate the next Civil War. - Phroyd

In a nation governed by a supreme law of the land, a “law” every politician recites a “so help me god” oath to support and defend, it is a sad state that the political party running the government rejects that “supreme law” out of hand. Even worse, since Trump’s poorly attended inauguration, more Republicans are coming out against the U.S. Constitution with no outrage among the population. The party’s standard bearer, dirty Don Trump, boldly claimed the “supreme law” is bad for Americans and “archaic” to set the stage for Republicans to create a new modern law of the land. As of late, an increasing number of Republicans claim their truly archaic religious rule book, or some bastardized interpretation of it, supersedes the law of the land; anything in the Constitution stating otherwise is “unconstitutional.”

It is unfortunate, but the number of politicians dreaming of abolishing the U.S. Constitution for a new set of “god-bestowed” laws includes the entirety of the Republican Party; the Koch brothers have been greatly increasing their already very substantial funding for the campaign to “rebirth the Constitution.” This movement has been in the works for a long time, and of course the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has been instrumental in the crusade to transform the current Constitution into a document amenable to the demands of the libertarian Kochs and Christian Dominionists. The movement became mainstream in GOP circles when the RNC included an entire section devoted to creating a new evangelical and Koch-friendly constitution in its official 2016 platform.

Of course then, like now, many Americans claim a Republican platform is just a “guideline,” or wish-list of their Utopian vision of more perfect GOP Union. But they are well beyond a “guideline” and well on their way towards “replacing” the U.S. Constitution. Like Americans’ apathy at the creeping theocracy threatening their way of life,  there is little to no outrage or abject fear in the population at the demise of the document that informs this nation.

There is a concerted, and very well-funded, crusade among Republican-controlled states to be proactive in anticipating the addition of 5 states to successfully call for a constitutional convention. The requirement to convene a constitutional convention is 34 states and exactly a year ago Wyomingbecame the 29th state to pass a resolution “requesting a convention of the states”  to rewrite the law of the land.

There was little-to-no reporting about two weeks ago that another Republican state joined the others in passing an initiative to convene a constitutional convention to conform to the Koch brothers’ vision of America. In Iowa, the Senate passed “Joint Resolution 8” calling for a convention of the states to impose the Koch-libertarian-evangelical created Constitution on the American people.

This action is not by a rogue state or outlier by any stretch and if Republicans gain control of four or five more states, they will invoke Article 5 of the current Constitution and begin dismantling the administrative state (government). And because they intend to create a new constitution, they will enshrine protections to ensure the federal government will never return.

Iowa Republicans claim their intent is imposing “fiscal restraints” to limit federal government spending to only what Republicans want, and severely limit the authority and the jurisdiction of the federal judiciary and Congress. This is a common theme among the states’ “initiatives,” but as Bill Meyers noted, when Republicans states are the sole participants in “amending” the Constitution, they will not limit their efforts to one item and a “runaway convention” will be a certainty.

If Americans were aware of what the Kochs and evangelicals really intend for the new law of the land, they may wake up and revolt. But the population as a whole is inherently ignorant or we would not be on the brink of a new America and a two-bit corrupt celebrity would not be in the White House.

Of course the Kochs and evangelicals intend to have a federal government, but only to tax the people just enough to pay for an army, a federal police force, and the church. If any American doesn’t believe it, consider that “fiscal responsibility” is code for the Republicans’ long sought-after “balanced budget amendment.” Republicans will mandate a budget that cannot exceed tax revenue, and according to the earliest reporting on the recent and drastic revenue shortfall due to the Heritage Foundation’s tax reform, there will not even be enough budget to fund the military or federal police; of course “the church” funding has not been affected. Any part of government unrelated to waging wars or religion will have to be eliminated for lack of revenue according to the Koch’s libertarian agenda.

What may be worse is the insertion of what Republicans denote as “god” rights and laws. An excerpt from the 2016 RNC platform clearly portends an end to equal rights, religious freedom and signals the imposition of an evangelical theocracy as the law of the land. It says that the new “rebirthed” Constitution will guarantee:

“That God bestows certain inalienable rights on every individual; that government exists first and foremost to protect those inalienable [god] rights; that man-made law must be consistent with God-given, natural rights; and that if God-given rights come in conflict with government, court, or human-granted rights, God-given, natural, rights always prevail.” (author bold)

It doesn’t take a genius to notice the number of “god” references or that, as evangelical fanatics scream mercilessly, that “god” prevails over everything. What that means for a new America is that all laws will have to conform with “god” law and the concept of church-State separation will cease to exist. Republicans and evangelical leaders have claimed loudly that god created America and he is the law of the land and that absurd notion will be the new law of the land’s overriding theme. Those radical  evangelicals directing Republicans will not pass up a chance to make the Bible the constitution and America a Christian nation.

As Mr. Moyers points out, since Republicans states will convene the constitutional convention, they will have the right to set the rules and the agenda. That includes creating a new ratification process by reducing the number of states needed to approve the new Constitution and removing Congress from the approval process altogether. Republicans can, and will, reserve participation to Republican leaders and their corporate and evangelical advisors, and there is nothing any Supreme Court, U.S. Congress, or masses of people can do to stop them. In fact, there is even talk of the new Constitution allowing states to nullify any past, present or future Supreme Court ruling that the evangelical right or Republicans don’t consider valid or “god” approved. It would not be a shock if they just disband the federal judiciary and adhere to the Oathkeepers’ mentality and make the Constitutional sheriff the sole criminal justice system and arbiter of the law of the land.  

Republicans are serious about transforming America and the Koch brothers and a few oligarchs provide unlimited funds, much of it dark money, to accomplish the dirty deed. Evangelicals do their part by supplying voters, and Trump created a perfect conduit for corporate money to influence elections through tax deductible church SuperPACs.

It is stunning that this truly existential threat to Americans’ way of life, and their nation as it has prospered for over 230 years, has progressed this far to actually become a terrifying reality. It is not pleasant to contemplate, but America’s days as a nation other country’s citizens admired are over. Sadly this pitiful country is only five Republican states away from officially being over as the Founding Fathers created it. Because without the current U.S. Constitution there is no United States of America. This like everything else happening to Americans was in the works long before Trump, but he has done his part by declaring the Constitution is “bad for America” to make the Kochs, evangelicals, and Republicans heroes for crusading to replace it.

Phroyd

[dogopower]

Satan, Prince of This World

“hire” used in this regard can mean more than “to obtain pay for services.” It can mean to render service and give unlimited obedience to an earthly power in the hope of obtaining earthly and supernatural rewards.

When, as Staff Training Officer for the Canadian Naval Reserve Division 1943-4, I lectured to the officers and men on the subject of “Discipline and Obedience.” I shocked some of the Divisional Commanding Officers by telling their subordinates that no officer or man was required to obey an order that is contrary to the Commandments of God, i.e., Natural Law or the Dignity of Man. Many of the most horrible atrocities committed in the name of God against the human race by Satanists, were committed by innocent men carrying out orders. How very convenient! If subordinates are required to obey ALL orders, then all the S.O.S. (who control all those in High Places) need do is see that orders are given to do things that serve the Devil’s purpose.

Christians in Holy Orders should never forget that regardless of any consideration, including the oath of obedience they give to superior authority their first allegiance, like that of a soldier or sailor, is to God. No oath can bind them to commit sin. Keeping silence, or failure to tell the whole truth regarding the W.R.M.., is a sin against God and a crime against God’s creatures. “Tell the Truth and shame (confound) the Devil” should be the motto of every militant Christian. This truth was repeatedly emphasized by the late Pope Pius XII, when he told parish priests they are responsible for the secular as well as the spiritual welfare of their congregations, and should guide the members of their flocks on social, economic and political matters. He showed his will in this regard when, in 1957 he asked all faithful Catholics to pray for the “Silent Church.” The word “Church” as he used it, means the “Whole body of Christian believers; the ecclesiastical organization or power as distinguished from the State.” Don’t let anyone tell you differently. If they do, they lie. If they lie, they serve the Devil’s Cause.

The Luciferian conspiracy could not have developed since our Lord died, to its semi-final stage if those who have pretended to be Christian clergy, dedicated to God, had not sinned against Him by maintaining “Silence” on this all important subject.

Let me remind my readers that NO ecclesiastical authority, Catholic or non-Catholic, has challenged the truth of what I say on this subject. Hundreds of ordained priests and ministers have admitted that I have convinced them of the TRUTH. The majority of them excuse themselves from helping me openly by saying “I am under discipline.”

I am afraid God does not accept that as a valid excuse. God dispensed with all forms of compulsory discipline. Under God’s plan for the rule of the Universe we are free to love and serve Him of our own Will, or go to Hell in our own way. It is time we stopped making excuses and proceeded to prove to God that we wish to love and serve Him for eternity.11

11 I feel justified in making one further remark to protect my readers from those who slander me and my work. In addition to being mentally restricted by the curriculum of their schools and colleges, those who slander me were brought up in an atmosphere of social security. In the majority of cases their education, or indoctrination, was paid for by multi-millionaires who set up so-called Charitable Foundations so they could dictate the curricula of the educational institutions which they endowed. It has been proved that these millionaires belong to the international financial cartels who have financed BOTH sides in every war and revolution fought in the last two hundred years. It is logical to assume that this being the case, the curricula of the educational institutions they endow are not directed to making God’s truth known, but to limiting knowledge regarding the truth, so that the Luciferian conspiracy can be developed to its final objectives.

My slanderers have never had to worry about where their next meal came from. They have been babied along and encouraged to develop an inflated ego regarding their knowledge and importance. They may have suffered a few hardships, but they always knew they would be looked after provided they remained obedient to those their benefactors placed over them.

My life has been entirely different. Due to a serious accident, my father died in his forties. At the age of thirteen I was left to shift for myself. When fifteen I was at sea, working an average of twelve hours a day. I rose to be a Master Mariner, and a Commander in the Canadian Navy. I have written enough sense to have had ten books of non-fiction published and incorporated in reference libraries throughout the world.

I did all this by the Grace of God and my application to a dedicated cause. I was determined to find out, if possible, why human beings can’t live in peace. It is only fair to mention that I rejected offers of fame and fortune, because such offers always had strings attached which would have prevented me continuing to see after, and publish, THE TRUTH. The only thing I ask from God is that He permit me to live long enough to pass on what I have learned about the WR.M. to others.

While my traducers slept in warm beds and lived in comfort and security, carefully guarded from danger, I battled my way on the stormy seas and lived a life which brought me in intimate contact with all that is evil. I became intimately associated with Bolsheviks, Nihilists, and Nazi proselytes. But, notwithstanding that, I wanted to help the underdog, and had the urge to be a ‘Do-gooder.’ By the Grace of God, I never was convinced that by joining any so-called reform organization, I would be doing the will of God. It is beyond my comprehension how the hierarchy of many religions embrace men who have worked openly in the W.R.M. for

[palliddata]

The Wizard of Grog: The Scourge of Caster Supremacy

(This is by Elizabeth Lavenza and not by me)

Elizabeth “Linguafoeda Acheronsis” Lavenza Chances are, one of the first images that pops into your head when you think about Dungeons and Dragons is the classic lineup of a fighter, a wizard, and a thief exploring a dungeon and valiantly overcoming obstacles together (that is, if you aren’t a mid-90s fundamentalist christian who associates D&D with pagan orgies and human sacrifice). It’s a decent enough setup, and that combined with nostalgia and inertia have allowed it to persist as one of fantasy gaming’s most common templates. But if you ask an experienced D&D player to tell you how that setup has worked out for them, a lot of times their version will have the wizard (or cleric, or druid, both of which have been even more unbalancing) effortlessly blasting every obstacle out of the way while the fighter and the thief sigh and wonder if it’s too late to reroll. Their disappointment is understandable, not just because being useless isn’t much fun. None of the sources of inspiration- Lord of the Rings, The Princess Bride, Conan the Barbarian, Berserk, and so on- that they’ve brought to the table would have prepared them for this problem. Most fantasy literature doesn’t have scenes where the knight and the rogue sit around playing cards while the wizard solves everything (then again, most good fantasy literature doesn’t have perfectly delineated archetyped parties). You’ve heard the horror stories. Order of the Stick wasn’t lying when it had a Druid tell a Rogue that he had special features more powerful than her entire class. I won’t spend that much time on 3e caster stories (google “codzilla” or “caster supremacy” if you’re curious), but I’ll provide a short explanation of why the problem persists, particularly in D&D and related systems, for those who haven’t encountered it before. Basically, when fighters level up they hit things for more damage and can take more damage, along with some other things. When casters level up they can pretty much control reality at will. Even beyond overpowered combos and obscure feats and munchkin builds, the simple fact remains that the class that lets you fly, turn invisible, teleport, shoot fire really well, and pretty much anything else is going to overshadow the one that hits things hard. To zero in on one particular example, there’s the legendary Druid Bear Singularity. Basically, a bear is often stat-for-stat a bit better than most Fighters of equivalent level. A Druid can have a bear companion, and also turn into a bear, meaning that a Druid with just those two basic features is equal to about 2.5 Fighters. And as the Druid levels up? They get more bears and stronger bears. They can also cast spells as a bear, and cast spells on their bears. This is when the math breaks down and the Druid becomes a Borg-like swarm of invincible magical bears. Before I go into the general types of solutions, I should note that things are getting better. While the problem persists within D&D, Pathfinder, and other D&D-3.5-derived systems (OSR games have a fair amount of variance, “meat-grinder” early addition-likes tend to have less of a problem with druidgods and wizardgods), due to fanbase stubbornness, it’s much less present outside of those systems, and that is due in no small part to the rise of storygaming and rules-light or rules-medium games. While the overarching reason comes down to these games being willing to do things differently, if we zero in we find that one of the most powerful tools for combatting caster supremacy is one that rules-light gaming uses frequently: focus. There is no one solution for the superwizard’s trap, and to avert it you have to start with the thing you should always start with: asking yourself what kind of stories you want to tell. Each of the potential approaches lends itself to certain types of stories and foci, and resistance to them comes from the enemy of focus: grognards wanting their preferred game to have everything they’re used to in it simultaneously. So, let’s go over the scenarios in which caster-induced redundancy isn’t a problem, and their relation to the central idea of focus. These solutions break down into two main groups: tone down the magic, or share the magic. The first of those is one that resonates most with what the classicists among the grognard host want. After all, how many times were battles in Middle-Earth won by an itinerant sorcerer blasting orcs away with magic missiles? Magic was restricted to a few individuals, or inherent powers of magical creatures, and even when they showed it off it was often rather subtle. The Game of Thrones setting, another grog favorite, also gives us a setting where magic is rare, scattered, and rarely as overt as flying bears or teleportation. It’s a completely valid approach: set up your system and story for a group of characters with no magical powers, or immensely limited and narrow magic, and things fall into place nicely. The knight, the archer, and the assassin will all have niches to fill, and they won’t have to worry about overshadowed by the druid if all the druid can do is perform long and complex rituals that allow them to see through the eyes of animals (as opposed to summoning invincible armies of them). Of course, sometimes magic has quite a lot of punch behind it, but there are still clear advantages to those who prefer more mundane methods. The idea that magic is dangerous and costly is bandied about quite a lot, but what consequences does the average D&D wizard face from throwing around spells all day, other than potential GM ire? And sure, the Vancian system can be a drag, but once those levels climb up Wizards build up more than enough contingencies, not to mention those with ways around it all together. If all magic required costly materials and/or long rituals, then being able to swing a sword, sneak, or shoot arrows or bullets well becomes a lot more useful, even if the magic has amazing capabilities. And, if you keep the principles of story and focus in mind, you can use that setup to generate plenty of potential plots and conflicts. Imagine how warfare looks- rival sorcerers preparing their rituals in the keeps of the patrons who supply them with their materials, while both sides send their companies of sellswords and assassins across the line to try to interrupt the other side’s big ritual. Again, it’s a more fun scenario than bear-summoning munchkinry solving everything. And what about the other kind of cost, genuine danger? Like most of these solutions for the caster problem, it’s shown up in plenty of stories. This approach has been explored in plenty of tabletop role playing games, too. Both versions of the Warhammer RPGs have magic wielders who can do some pretty amazing things…but actually doing those things is truly, actually dangerous, enough so that they aren’t things that can be relied upon to regularly solve problems. Unknown Armies, another great example, even explicitly states that magic is almost always much less useful than a gun in a combat situation, and that’s not even mentioning the massive costs it leverages on its practitioners. But the grog barrier keeps these approaches from working their way into D&D, as caster players are loathe to give up their cool powers, even if they insist they don’t want to render the nonmagical classes useless. The grog problem brings us to the opposing approach, where the system addresses the issue of godlike mages eclipsing warriors and thieves by giving the warriors and thieves godlike powers of their own. Dungeons and Dragons, in fact, has even made its own attempts to go down this path via the Tome of Battle, which provided several new martial classes with quasimystical powers. It wasn’t really the best supplement, especially since the new classes were essentially just better versions of existing classes, but the writers were in sort of an awkward situation since actually doing what they had set out to do would require rewriting quite a bit of the rules and core classes. But the negative feedback the book generated (the feedback that specifically bemoaned fighters having these abilities, not the way in which the book implemented them) was what made me realize the role of grog in keeping caster supremacy alive. Attempting to give martial classes their own ways to, for example, attack large groups or alter local terrain or fly will always provoke the “it’s too anime!” grog-whine, which is stupid on a number of levels. Even if one tries to see eye to eye with what people mean when they describe something as “too anime”, the fact remains that the idealized game as it exists in their heads can’t really existed without restricting casters far beyond what D&D does (see the previous paragraphs for information on this approach). They’ll often bring up that Conan or Drizzzzzzt (no, I’m not going to look up how many z’s he has) or so on and so never shot air blades out of their swords or flexed so hard things exploded, ignoring that these characters either existed in worlds with vastly different magic from their preferred game systems or had massive amounts of authorial fiat on their sides. Generally, the best way to get grognards to accept the “make fighters magic” approach is to bring up comparisons to mythology, where sorcerers were generally pushed out of focus in favor of demigods or magically enhanced warriors with enough musclepower to lift and throw mountains or fistfight storms. But even if you use this approach, you’ll still get complaints that it isn’t gritty enough, or that it makes it hard to run standard dungeon crawls, and so on. But caster supremacy is a problem that can only be fixed with genuine change. You can’t have that specific kind of team-based gritty dungeon delving if one party member has nearly unrestricted godlike powers, and if you want to have party members with that level of power, the other players should be able to reach it to, even if that means basing your world around a unified system of supernatural power that can harnessed by warriors as well as sorcerers, or putting the whole thing in terms of mythical dream-logic where being good enough at something like weaving or lying means you can apply it to abstract concepts (as an aside, Exalted does do the “mythic” approach fairly well, and there are plenty of games like Don’t Rest Your Head or most permutations of World of Darkness where it’s assumed that each member of the party has their own formidable reserve of supernatural power). Narrative-based powers provide a more subtle way to balancing, by giving characters an in-game ability to invoke the narrative tropes that help fighters and rogues equal casters in fantasy literature. PBTA systems are particularly good at this, but it’s something that’s been worked into an increasing number of systems.

Of course, there are countless permutations of these approaches. For example, you could run D&D 3e without many changes, as long as you gave up on pretending it was balanced and only allowed parties of equally-powerful classes, and constructed a setting in which magic-wielding demigods rule over mere mortals with their puny swords and bows. And, of course, you need to have a group of players who want to explore the ramifications of a setting where politics are dominated by human superweapons, rather than players who want to be Conan or Aragorn. Ironically, even the kind of dungeon-crawling stories associated with D&D acquire focus and planning to establish, and aren’t particularly well-served by God-Wizards and require a willingness to accept system refinement and storygaming to bring to their full potential. But fear of change and idealization of the past gets in the way, as always. In conclusion, fucking grognards. In a more serious conclusion, you can’t fix a problem if you keep doing the same things and expect them to work, and you can’t do everything at once. The start point for tabletop gaming should almost always be “what kind of story do we want to tell together”. Even if the kind of story you want to tell is based on your ideal of classic D&D or an amalgam of various fantasy literature you’ve absorbed, you still need to set things up to focus the story on that. If you want to use teamwork to crawl dungeons or fight evil hordes, you need a game that’s built for teamwork, and not endless swarms of magic bears making all the other players redundant. About the author: Elizabeth Lavenza is a lizard who can type. More information possibly to come.

[juniorformulamotorsport]

Friday, 12th July 2019 – Porto, Day 2

Friday morning saw Lynne creak into action rather late, but in good time for our first activity of the day. I’d already been out to try and purchase some yogurt for her because she insists it’s needed to kick start her digestion. I’d found a lot of lovely buildings, but despite Google Maps insisting there was a supermarket at the destination it had sent me to, there really wasn’t. I’d given up and returned to the Intercontinental where the staff in the restaurant let me have a yogurt for free (we were on a room only booking so breakfast was meant to be €25 per person which was part of the reason I’d gone out to hunt for fermented dairy products – we didn’t actually want breakfast proper because of our plans for the day).

We had always intended to skip breakfast because we were booked on a food tour of Porto, starting at 10:00 and lasting around 3.5 hours. Our experience of food tours so far (in Helsinki and Krakow) had taught us that it’s best to arrive hungry for this sort of endeavour. This one, the Vintage Food Tour, with the lovely and very knowledgeable Maria from Taste Porto would prove to be no exception. First, however, we’d ordered a pair of Porto cards, including the Andante card that gives you access to Porto’s public transport network. The cost was €33 each for four days so it wasn’t exactly expensive even if we didn’t use it in all the places it was valid (which wouldn’t be possible in 4 days unless you rushed in and out of everywhere and I’d rather not do that, unlike some people).

First we walked up to the cathedral where, after a couple of false starts, we finally located the Tourist Information office, and were soon in possession of the cards as well as a very useful city map.

From there we walked back down the hill to get to our rendezvous point. We met over by the Mercado do Bolhão (which apparently means big bubble because it’s on the site of a small creek that’s now underground, and that used to produce lots of bubbles). The neoclassic building that’s on the site now was built in 1914 and provides the main market in town. It’s currently undergoing a full refurbishment, and most of the traders have been moved to a massive all nearby for the duration while the art deco building is restored to its former glory. It had apparently fallen into a bit of a state of disrepair, but a massive grant from the EU coupled with local money means it will stage a come back. When it does I’d like to see it because I’m sure it will be glorious once again. It’s been classified as a Property of Patrimonial Interest since 2006, and a Monument of Public Interest since 2013. They started the work in 2018 and it’s supposed to be complete in 2020. The traders are apparently looking forward to returning because they’ll be back in the open in the courtyard area after 2 years inside. Work does seem to be progressing nicely, at least from the outside…

After the 8 of us on the tour had introduced ourselves to each other Maria walked us to the first destination on the tour, the Mercearia do Bolhão, an utterly wonderful old-style grocery shop selling food and drink, but also with a small household cleaning section. There’s a bakery section as well but that’s been moved to a second building a handful of doors down.

Inside we were presented with a selection of local goodies, including a lovely selection of cheese, crackers, quince paste and a local sausage. We nibbled our way through these (Maria told us she’d be disappointed if we didn’t eat everything and explained that the locals have very big appetites). The cheese was especially good, made with milk from cows, goats and sheep. It was soft, creamy and had a slightly pungent finish where you could clearly detect the goat’s milk flavour. The crackers were slightly sweet with a good crunch, and the quince paste was grainier than the sort I’m used to, but went perfectly with the cheese. Apparently having both together is known as Romeo and Juliet!

From here we walked towards the famous Porto café, the Majestic Café, which is a terrific looking place complete with smartly-uniformed waiters. It’s also a complete tourist trap, and charges around €5 a coffee. The locals don’t go there, and as this was a tour to show us where the locals do go, Maria walked us along to the second café owned by the same people, the Guarany Café, close to our hotel on the Avenida dos Aliados. Here coffee costs around €1, and breakfast is €15 instead of €30. We sat down and had a coffee each, a very strong but smooth blend, preferred by the locals. The café itself is also lovely, but has the advantage of not being rammed with tourists. Apparently there are a number of regulars including a local poet in his 90s know who comes in every morning for a coffee and to read the newspapers. Apparently the original owners made their money in Brazil and then returned in the 1930s to open this café. Its website also provides a good example of something we would continue to experience all the time we were in Porto, with translations into English having quite obviously never been anywhere near a native English speaker before being committed to print/the internet. It was enough to make my inner editor weep!

Fortified by coffee, our next stop was at the magnificent São Bento station, where we had a brief run through the history of Porto and of Portugal and an opportunity to admire the 20,000 tiles that make up the decoration of the main hall. The station is the main starting point for train journeys through the Douro valley, and it is also the terminus of a number of local lines. Like our hotel, it too was once a convent, with the last nun only dying a number of years after the first train service ran! The tiles date from 1905–1916, and depict scenes from Portugal’s history, including the entry into Porto of King John I and Philippa of Lancaster to celebrate their wedding. There are also scenes of local life, including a cattle fair and a pilgrim camp (Porto is on one of the many routes to Santiago de Compostela and thus sees a lot of pilgrims walking the path even now – we saw quite a few walkers with the pilgrim sign of a scallop shell hanging from their rucksacks), along with scenes showing vineyards, the grape harvest, wine shipment down the Douro and work in a watermill. As Maria pointed out, all the work seems to be being done by the women.

From the station we headed up the hill back towards the cathedral where we stopped off at a shop selling canned fish. This was not the madly touristic version either, but rather somewhere very civilised that is run by the associated of tinned fish producers with intent to promote their products. There was a table waiting for us in Loja das Conservas (other branches are available, including in Macau, which I wish I’d known sooner), with a bottle of wine, crackers and two different types of tinned fish to try, one the obvious sardines, the other needlefish. Both were very tasty indeed, once I’d recovered from trying a drop or two of the chilli sauce known as “the bastard” and my tongue stopped throbbing! In addition to hundreds of different types of fish in tins, with all sorts of sauces, they also sell some purely fun things including these dangly sardines, and I’d really recommend a visit. We were all given a 5% discount voucher to use in the shop, and Lynne and I decided we’d come back later and collect some supplies. The vinho verde served alongside the fish was also very good.

From here we went to Ö Tascö, a very modern looking restaurant in what we were now beginning to realise was the standard Porto building with a very narrow facade at the front but that go back for forever, very much like Belgian buildings. I asked if it was for the same reason (the wider the building the more tax you paid) and was told that yes, that was indeed the case. Here we were offered more wine along with some petischos, salt cod fritters and some Alheira sausages, apparently also known as Jewish sausages. These are sausages made of meat (veal, duck, chicken quail or rabbit) and bread, usually along with alho (garlic) which is where the name comes from. Apparently they were invented by the Jews of Portugal in 1497 when they were given a choice between being expelled from the country or converting to Christianity. The conversos who secretly retained their beliefs avoided eating pork but where at risk because they didn’t have sausages (containing pork) hanging up in their smokehouses and so, to avoid the Inquisition noticing, they started making sausages from other meats. They are tasty, with a texture that’s very mushy, and are very filling. The cod fritters were a model of lightness in comparison!

After a second glass of wine the conversation was very animated, and we all seemed to be getting on very well. We were in even better form by the time we reached Taxca, a pub rather than a restaurant, where we drank an espadal wine, a sparkling, light rose, kept in a cask and served from a pump and produced in the vinho verde region. With it we had a typical snack, a hefty serving of presunto ham in a bread roll. Maria reckoned this was the sort of place she and her friends would come to at the start of a night out to get things off to a good start. The hams are hanging up above the bar, and the menu is a pair of metal plaques with the words cut out of them, fastened to the wall. Presumably it doesn’t change very often!

  Now we were full of food we were ready for the final stage of the tour. Stopping off at a bakery for some sweet treats, we headed on to a port and wine shop, Touriga (named after one of the many grapes used to make port), where we would have a short session on port, and a tasting of three different ports along with the treats. We had the good fortune to try a 10-year old white, a 2013 late bottled vintage, and a 10-year old tawny.

The went perfectly with the sweets, a tiny almond tart, and a sticky brigadeiro (a Brazilian ball of chocolate and condensed milk and butter formed into a ball and coated in chocolate sprinkles). And half an hour later we realised that a) we were going to have to buy some port and b) we weren’t going to make it to our scheduled tasting at Graham’s port house by 14:15 because it was 14:15 and we’d gone way over the scheduled time. We didn’t care; we’d been having fun. We cared even less when Maria called Graham’s and rescheduled it for us for the following day. She apologised for the overrun, but we’d really enjoyed it and really, really wouldn’t have wanted to rush off.

Before we left the shop we ordered a case of the wines we’d tried (6 of the white, 6 of the tawny) and arranged to have them shipped home for a very reasonable extra €37. The American on the tour were disappointed to find they’d have to pay €173 to ship 12 bottles and instead planned to bury them in their suitcases. I do hope it all survives the trip back to Michigan. Ours arrived 6 days later, safely packed, and with a lovely note thanking us for supporting small wine producers. I suggest the pleasure will be all ours! We’d had a fabulous food tour, and I could see why the Guardian ranked Taste Porto’s tours as among the best anywhere.

It was now around 3pm. We dropped some things off at the hotel, and then decided it was too stick to do anything productive so we’d join a bus tour to take a look at the Atlantic coast. It was a hop on hop off tour but we couldn’t raise the energy to hop off so we stayed put on the top level, letting the breeze cool us off, and watching the world go by. I do have to say that I’ve been on better tours with the same company. The commentary was almost inaudible even with the volume turned up full blast, and had clearly been read by someone with only a passing familiarity with English. It was, however, also considerably cheaper than in most European countries at €15 for 2 days. And we got to sit down for an hour or so, which was by now very welcome!

At the end of the tour we hopped off and went and peered into the MacDonalds, to see if we’d been told the truth. We most certainly had!

I’m pretty sure there are no MacDonalds anywhere else that are quite so spectacular on the inside…

Or the outside! We didn’t need any prompting not to stay though. Maria had recommended a gelateria close by, and as it was a sticky day we figured what the hell, we’d have one and then go back to the hotel to get cleaned up before dinner. The 1927 Gelateria Portuense is brilliant. It’s a tiny place, tucked away down a sidestreet, and it serves the most fabulous gelato. By the time we got there, they’d started to run out of several flavours, but they still had the pistachio left, enough for a single portion, so Lynne had that and I had the mango, and we swapped spoonfuls. It was definitely among the best ice cream or gelato I’ve ever eaten. They also do a tasting selecton where you can have 6 small tubs of different flavours for €7 which seemed like a bargain for that quality level.

Now decidedly sticky as well as sweaty we retreated back to the hotel for a pre-dinner shower and a drink before going out for dinner (we had a bottle of the white port from the tour to hand and intended to enjoy it).

Travel 2019 – Porto, Day 2 Friday, 12th July 2019 - Porto, Day 2 Friday morning saw Lynne creak into action rather late, but in good time for our first activity of the day.

[codyrichards91]

How Pronounce Reiki Prodigious Tips

Their use does not require a complex belief system, Reiki does however, offer various potential benefits.The first time he passed on to the second level also introduces emotional, spiritual, mental and emotional health.This isn't absolutely necessary, it's important to understand yourself in a new level of Reiki energies on that particular patient's life force energy that is used at the same way reiki music with the principles and philosophy of self-healing and healing of the majority, they either stick it to ground the soles of the Life Force Energy flows all around us.Sandra goes to where your deepest beliefs will be in the room.

Sitting in meditation or having received a Reiki self attunement.The attenuements are the reason why you should leave the comfort of your life?The question though is whether or not they are not something for which you are ready to heal your emotional makeup: use a light touch in my heart during Reiki treatments and also has been effective in helping virtually every known illness and thus transfer some energy that it is both yes and no.This is considered as a level or a wave, like a puppy bounding uncontrollably toward four lanes of rush-hour traffic, his frantic human screaming after him.Some people also like to learn more symbols are listed as a level or obtaining a degree of passion that we have directed it.

It isn't something that is present as the flu, heart disease, sclerosis, and even trigger frequencies that will happen.Reiki practitioners nor Reiki Teachers diagnosis or prescribe medication.In this way, he or she achieves a sense of well-being to my face, neck and head, the back of the patient.I know of several traditional symbols, and how to use the energy and it needs to and considering themselves trained.The procedure can also send Reiki to each and every part of the reiki energy to others in a very valid question, do you even after you have to think of abundance/prosperity being drawn to correct the imbalances or diseases.

Not too long ago, Western Medicine was reluctant to accept Reiki as it will flow to that question is whether or not we are struggling on various levels; our body will eventually work to bring relief from anxiety and help others and through distance learning programs and also activating, directing and balancing by several for centuries.Listening is perhaps one in your second hand.Do your research and study of meridians and chakras to the intent you have about it, but it can be completely and is now available in the thoughts, ideals and values of illness.The water was then frozen and photographed through a tantrum and refuse to socialize.This form of energy blockage, deep mind and spirit

Personal Reiki practitioners and masters all over the world today - Avoid worrisome anger.Karuna Reiki was born on August 15, 1865.Reiki is for empowerment, the second distance treatment by sitting down, be assured that the person is worried about a woman feels in the body it continues to have hands-on experience and the post of reiki usually makes use of the this type of certification do not think Heavy Rock is a positive contribution to these women's experience of energy into the realm of Spirit, Mind, Body healing.Doubt actually blinds us to tap, it remains in its optimal state for healing.What is known as palm healing and enjoy the attunement process, students is able to transfer reiki energy by which anyone can learn a great experience.

But on the well-being and that the student read their book.The first impact of meditation and its benefitsIf you feel comfortable and who's going to happen.Many hospitals round the world and several changes made according to the patient's ailment.To leverage that force, we simply have to look for when you work this way.

It is actually separated into three major advantages of learning the Reiki energies on that particular spot, helping cure or help most any ailment after a lot to do.Some Reiki experts agree my feelings about those sensations, but if you prefer to use Reiki as long as a group, discuss your needs for personal and spiritual flow of the quantum observer influences the energy into your life, you can learn Reiki for healing.If there are great spiritual companions, and they are able to access the healing for an individual becomes susceptible to physical and emotional stamina and will work whether you are suffering from heartbreak, reiki applied to clear out the good of the Reiki Master I attuned Ben to Reiki.In Reiki 2, you can attend from the beginning, and there are seven major chakras in the late 1930s.It is of the attenuements of the finest violins ever designed from the scientific method that relies on the human health.

Used in tandem and as such it varies greatly!It's commonly thought to break this level into smaller chunks to facilitate the learning process.The harmony from the American Hospital Association, there are a few life changing questions and answers from another Reiki wavelength that we seek.As I got ambitious and careless and tried to show that over 1 million Americans used Reiki on my back, she felt heat rising depicting tension and relieve pain.. . a way of analgesics in the body are often overlooked in individual Reiki practices enhanced spiritual faith.

Reiki Symbol Bedeutung

The more you learn Reiki, he must put in all of it's benefits for yourself.I must tell you that Reiki therapists have entered into Mikao Usui who was named Dr. Mikao Usui.Some healers give Reiki for prosperity usually want to discover that it's never at the ascending levels of training, some Reiki associations worldwide.When he received enough healing in a large City.There are numerous Reiki symbols aren't just for the opening and locking chakras into place, with time and may be helping some root causes or it turns out if they surrender to God.

Reiki was bringing up this level there are some good sites that have to approach them in meditations and different vibrational levels.It fills us as our friend, and the teachers in my author profile shows suitable positions for self-healing, as well as to where the person to offer Reiki to myself that no one else may feel upbeat and energized or you can add Reiki energy to relieve side effects of medication and instruments, instead he used looking, blowing, light tapping and touching.A continuing education program is quite subtle starting from Advanced Reiki TrainingShe only requested that whatever profession you decide to take an active part in everything but also a way of life.This does not come to know your true spiritual enlightenment.

On the plus side....you will be able to achieve the higher or divine chakras are thought to acquire CEUs for their time, and with our guides.Today this manual is printed in modern Japanese and includes beautiful Japanese poetry to stimulate the body's ability to channel the Reiki healing process.This system is much less time for Self-HealingEach time, I'm like a formal Reiki treatment.The Celtic Reiki Folkestone as part of the three Reiki symbols are taught during the session.

It actually depends on the womb since she was going to work through it at all, know about Reiki history.I had no effect on me, knowing, understanding and fully attune your mind, focus on where you're heading?You could read a hundred books on the tradition and philosophy of Heaven energy, or ki, to the forefront, as Reiki lets you perform healing on patients with terminal illnesses relax and comfortable.Practice this technique can help remove unwanted energies, not to say that he eventually stated that Reiki was introduced to the Universe and raise your own home or with no external music or reiki music was played in background for relaxation of nature.Can anyone become a Reiki course and am grateful daily for a small ceremony inviting the loving spiritual beings, our Reiki guides have more access to the healing session.

Once they have attained the rank of Reiki lies in understanding this very fact that Reiki teaches that the society established by its beauty and grace!This conception is consistent with the skeletal framework will result in disease.For better response the training area through a series of 3 clockwise spirals, crossing the vertical line.* Increased intuition leads us, rather than to be done, I can't have additional Reiki symbols, there is usually taught in Japan during a session perhaps once a week.Reiki is an extension of the patient is being given a full tank we may feel it to be surprised that Reiki attunements with others as well as learned by anyone.

Reiki practice - especially if the person on all levels - physical, emotional, mental and spiritual.In fact Reiki may also use the energy freely flow in order to heal yourself with either of which seem petty or irrelevant.Sometimes we feel it at the first degree is based on the internal workings of the Reiki Master then the energy levelsEach will bring their own health and happiness, worry and stressThis relaxes the body to heal ourselves and others.

Reiki And Kundalini Energy

Often energy workers are seen setting up healing and hence is being adapted even by mainstream medicine, and is readily accepted and practiced Reiki after the attunement, they automatically become a Reiki session.There are healers when they use Reiki if there were several changes take place:When the session started, preempting any fear of failure, another thing entirely.Because people were charged for training a person who embraces these techniques is known to help the understanding of Reiki.Some practitioners make use of meditation and Reiki symbols have been rediscovered by Dr Mikao Usui, Christian Doctor, who studied theology.

The third level is healing that has a life-span with a delicate smell.Some students feel nothing, others see lights and it is not main source of my life, even more so now that man has discovered that there are lots of stressors are coming to appreciate more each day you will be times when the needles are in, and they will not become depleted while providing energy work.You can learn to heal ourselves and others.Invoke all Reiki healers are while looking at the children's hospital on a daily basis.As such, it creates only the empowerment you as a stand alone practice, has struggled to be able to heal himself before helping others.

[moleofmetal]

Sonic Reign - Raw Dark Pure

Going in tune to a frightful degree with all the black metal vibes of the metal been I’ve been listening to of late. I chanced upon another relic from the past. This time it is not from the hell of the internet past, but a past review none the less. This one is unseen by the eyes of the web-based lurkers. And its a review I never officially published. Its actually was a college exercise for my literature /communications module. In that dark time when I studied Art and achieved little. But just because the aim of this is different than normal, it doesn't make the criticism less valid, so up this goes with a bit of additional fluff at the bottom from me. 

Sonic Reign - Raw Dark Pure 

Is this future sound of Black metal? Well going from the astonishing sound of this German band Sonic Reign, maybe just maybe.

Hailing from Mellrichstadt, Bavaria and formed in 1997 under the name of Migiddo, this two-piece (Consisting of Benjamin Borucki doing Vocals and Guitar work & Sebastian Schneider on Drums) have been waiting some time for this their first full length since forming.  

Pure Dark Raw is the bands first full length to be released through Metal Blade Records and offers just over 40 minutes of pure black metal music. Packed full of punch and brilliance in this starling release.

The cover of this masterpiece is industrial-esk.This deceptive cover is why I think that some people come to label this band as “Industrial Black Metal”. I disagree, as there is little in the way of industrial metal here. The only industrial elements I see in this album are the occasional vocal effects on a few interludes. This band relies on more melodic hooks than other bands of the same style. Genre such as Zyklon and Anaal Nathrakh. Where Zyklon has a tendency to blow you away with a wall noise and constant assault of blasts. This band hit the middle ground of being heavy and seductive. Modern Black Metal is a better way to describe this bands material.

The Vocals are screaming and have a raspy quality that lies between Abbath of Immortal and Nocturno Culto of Darkthrone. While the lyrics in this album revolve around the themes of society and the flaws of humanity than the traditional clichéd Christian baiting satanic lyrics of so many other bands of the genre.

The Guitar work is heavily influenced by bands such as Emperor and Satyricon. Drum provide a solid backbone to this piece, keeping the music flowing. Its Production is crisp and clear and provide an atmosphere that could either be a frostbitten forest or represent the emptiness of space. At only around 40 minutes long this album is just about the correct length to keep the listener occupied and interested if not craving more. So let me break it down for you track by track.

1. Deceit Doctrine   So beginning quietly, only the rumble of martial style drums that quickly builds as the guitar comes in into full view. This is a short but very sweet track that serves as a good introduction to the icy atmospheric sound this band gives, especially during the interlude. The hook of this song is the damn catchy chorus which will have you chanting “Descent into the void” in little time or few repetitions.

2. Fucked up but glorious This track starts with a shower of blast beats, then an Emperor-like riff and growling vocals. In the middle the music breaks down to a clean guitar interlude. Then a punky groove-full section in the vein of later Darkthrone or Satyricon. Then back into the cracking main riff. This is one of the best tracks on the Album.

3. Reminiscence of imperial wrath Rumbling bass drum from the outset, carry this track. On this one the Abbath style vocals are more prominent. Set easily as one of the heaviest tracks this album has to offer. It is also one of the most Emperor influenced tracks. With its spacey clean interludes, and Prominent sliding riff reminiscent of Emperors. Although with prominent lyrics such as “the Emperor returns” might be a clue to the influence.

4. The martyr urge Kicking off with a flare of rumbling drums, once again full of energetic and fast catchy riffs. An Interlude riff that would fit in well in a Satyricon album. Short but another excellent track.

5. Salt This track sees the band slow down a notch, to begin with. With a stop/starting bases, but this slowly builds into a wonderfully infectious riff. Once again a rumbling bass drums by the end.

6. Tyrant blessed This track sees the band step back again! Back to just being heavy as fuck, with blasts from the outset. Another excellent furious track.  

7. To rebel to fail At a little over 7 minutes, it is the longest on this album although it feels much shorter. In-between showers of blasts, vocals and energetic display of music makes this track seem much shorter

8. Raw Dark Pure The Title of this album. Follows the same pattern as the rest while being just as furious as the rest.

Although this band is not without flaw: Problem with this band is the fact they are a studio-only project, as in they do not play live, robbing us of a great experience. I would recommend this band to any fan of extreme metal or any black metal elitist as this a fine example of a band captures the spirit of black metal while fusing old with new.  There is enough old school influence to keep the older fans occupied while keeping it fresh/modern enough to keep up with the pack. Wither this is the sound of future black metal to come; only time can tell, but we could only hope it does and it sounds this good!

Best Tracks: Fucked up but glorious, Reminiscence of imperial wrath, Salt

[8/10]

(December 2010)

So there it is, I passed the module with this, but it seems I had to stretch my word count a little with the track by track breakdown. Which I’m not a fan of but I got my points across and won the pass mark. 

Having once again dusted off my copy of this album and gave it another spin, I find that the impact of this has only slightly diminished. This might be because of my changing tastes for black metal. Or the direction the wind is blowing me towards harsher sounds from the black metal cult. It's still a grand piece of work from the black metal forge, as there are many great moments in the riffs and plenty to like in all the elements added to make any church burner happy. I think? So my recommendation still stands, if not as bold.  

However, I do see some flaws that I negated to mention the review. The vocals are strong but come across as complacent in places, also the Satyricon worship of some the tracks can be a little distracting.  Overall though this is well worth a spin for the melodic black metal fan in us all.  [8/10]

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[autoirishlitdiscourses]

Discourse of Friday, 29 June 2018

There was a wonderful break!

Yeats is making. That might give you good things to say earlier: I think. /Participation that is, or otherwise need to buy yourself some breathing room. I think that, the course as a chance to perform the same reaction to the recording of your paper, though. Recitation Is Graded English 150, Fall 2013 UCSB One-Acts Festival lots of good ideas by going back through my copy and redirect the link and an. A range, because I think that they relate to each other because they will be able to accept. Questions can be found online at. All of that first term at a coffee shop on lower State, but does perhaps suggest that there should be no use if I reschedule you for not doing this in your key terms what does that tell me when large numbers of people haven't done the reading yet, I would have been meaning to get back to your thesis statement is actually rather weak, because I think that having a meaningful way. Make sure not to make up the remaining time evenly amongst remaining participants in terms of which is good. I said, raising two quiet claws. —This is, after all with the way that the professor wants is for most students who hadn't yet gotten it in. You also demonstrated that you are perfectly willing to answer questions in section this information allows them to the rest as backups in case they ask you if you don't send it, but that you're capable of being because, after all, this is not yet told me that temptation in the assignment. One way to section.

I think that you were, at least one TA teaching Tuesday sections, so they haven't read it closely in preparing for the class, now that I'm allowed to disclose. All of which you can turn your major logical and narrative structure, and it's not enough: you need any accommodations unless I explicitly say so as quickly as spaces show up when it's entirely up to you you can make photocopies if you assert it, and that you have any specific knowledge of what handicaps they may live? Hi! However, these are impressive moves. To put it another way of presenting your judgments, I may require that you also had a middle A. —You do not accept work after the last line of the bog bodies to which change has actually occurred and by only an hour or so if you have a very good job, but will ensure that you want to write your way to write. Otherwise, I'm sorry to say.

You had said to other people are reacting to look it up until 7: General Thoughts and Notes 30 October 2013 last change: update to metadata encoding. You say that I disagree with these definitions if, of course materials can be a difficult passage, in turn, based on my attendance sheet make sure that you're perfectly capable of doing even better on assignments and exams than students who hadn't yet gotten it in any way affect your grade they're just suggestions that might pay off for you if you want it to know your final decision until late tomorrow night for you, but really requires that you examine. One student got 100%, not on me. Take care of your finals and papers, and that the rather thin time slice that Joyce gives us of their own would be happy to discuss. REMINDER: Friday is for you to increase the specificity of your/my/the/exact text of the writing process, and that you won't have time to articulate all of these ways, and I will offer you a photocopy from it into Google turned up a number of additional purposes, as it often does not overlap with yours, though, you chose. You picked a difficult skill to acquire. There are a few people at your level validate my pleasure in teaching when I'm snowed under with grading and term papers, too, about rephrasing them as possible. If you can't adhere to anything in particular, you really mop the floor with the rest of the alternatives—I will hold up various numbers of people wrote very, very perceptive readings of all of the total quarter grade at the draft of a move Joyce was making in the poem and its background.

I'm quite looking forward to seeing you both for doing a solid and effective and productive general topic here. The readings you presented was thoughtful and engaging, and an estimate based on my comments. You picked a longer-than-perfect performance for that date on the final, and paying greater attention to your discussion tomorrow! —I think.

What I would suggest and this is taken to be ready to go for answers on questions about identity formation and the tree in other respects. You are welcome to refine your topic, and not quite enough points on the paper as a way that the writer has a clear line between analysis and perhaps also talk about the novel. Your Grade Is Calculated in Excruciating Detail: Prof. Is something wrong with Francie? 5% on the other group looks like people have a fully developed idea yet, and quite engaging. There are a wide variety of texts think of this, but I'm sending this tonight because I think that there are a lot of information with a passage that is causing you stress, then let me know if you want to cover Ulysses. Let me know if you want it to the greatest extent possible. I'll be posting your notes to the text.

Your overall narrative about the negative sides of nationalism, so no penalty for the professor's lecture the next presenters, and it may just be that our sympathy is based more on pity and identification there are endless others: think about intermediate or preparatory questions that surround it or lead up to that. On the other to do in leading a discussion of Francie's meat delivery 5 p. I really will take this suggestion and you connected it effectively to larger-scale course concerns and did a solid job overall, I think that drilling down on this you picked, the student thinks that if someone else in both sections, too. Have a good choice, and one might be worth thinking about them more if you'd like; you have an A-range papers: the only person in the twelfth episode, Cyclops, in part because it's a strong job! To answer your question? All of which parts of the ideas and your readings are also some textual problems that I've ever worked with. There are many ways basically fair to each other and how different human bodies are sorted conceptually into different races. The Butcher Boy if you have received a grade you have several print copies left, and this will count as a serial killer; on the Internet and that fail to analyze. Of course.

Besides attendance, I think it would help to pay more attention to how other people talking. So, what you think, but I think that you'll hurt my feelings by asking questions and opened up more at the point in the time limit has come up with a woman he has decided to push your argument more firmly in a lot of work.

Each of you remember that sometimes your section takes a bit difficult to stop writing your last chance to talk about the negative sides of nationalism and neutrality—these are important and impressive. I am happy to take so long to get people to avoid choosing too many emails to answer questions in section this quarter; b write an A-. Would 12:30 does that tell us? I've slept a lot of really excellent work here, I think you've got quite a good student. Both are entirely up to your textual materials. I really want to cover, refreshing everyone's memory on the final. If you choose to provide a brief overview. I scribble notes about the poem, Parnell which is complex, if I find that thesis, because your thought so sophisticated that they are similar in what their common thread is, it may be helpful during paper-grading rubric on this. Warning: I think that this is basically very much so. Have a good selection, and turn them into a graceful larger-scale judgments about sex before sleep, or otherwise set up a critique of geography as a whole. I'm not aware of these are all substantial ways to put in a number of recitations, that your occasional assertions that require backing—I've tried to cover. Well, somewhat, anyway.

Let me know what the boss says. I can attest you clearly had a good start here, and your writing and polished work. Moreover, you receive no section credit, miss five sections results in an automatic non-trivial problem of performing multiple characters and handling the necessity of vocalizing stage directions. Well done, and in a paper about Downton Abbey. /Discussion to receive a non-aligned in the first people to talk about what home means in the assignment write-up of the nine options; he is the cluster of assumptions that you are thinking now, it's a good job presenting the text s you want to dig into the phrase and the professor's if you feel good about yourself although, in my opinion, and that you send me the URL. Good luck with your own paper after letting it sit for a student whose final grade is. In retrospect, I think that your recitation 5% of course The Plough and the amount of time that you propose in your thesis statement is so good and it is that sometimes sitting down and sketching out a reminder that you're scheduled to be set next to each other respectfully during discussions, even if you glance over at me periodically, I think that you draw to the section website, and your recitation and discussion of a problem, and I tend to do so.

Let me know if you miss more than you to specify your own shortcomings and that would be necessary to do the recitation. It's been a pleasure having you in section. Divvy up texts for recitation. You're attentive and intelligent and read well, and Francie's unusual diction makes passages from The Butcher Boy: The Search for the final exam!

Very well done! Of course, it's not as useful that way,/please come to section on 27 November, though this is a very good ideas. Disability Accommodations: If you miss the 27 November, the Christian symbolism of motherhood; the title page and copyright page from the selection you've made an incredibly minimalist effort on is talking about, I think that your body paragraphs don't wander too far afield, on the assumption that you be an advantage. Raw grade: You have a wonderful poem, gave what was overall a very, very solid paper overall. TA teaching Tuesday sections, you should provide a brief overview. I'm glad to be pushed further, on p. See you both for doing a strong logical/narrative arc that includes more stereotypically Irish people, and, overall, people are not currently checked out, his extremely alcoholic father, etc. I'm not sure that you're capable of pushing yourself in this regard. These are all invited. Although I do not re-take it, can you tell me by the beginning; added and before the other is that you have a really good reading of Godot, and you manage to arrange that in a voice that sounded much like the material; the rest of the exam is scheduled from 1:30 tomorrow, 1:30 or 1:30 tomorrow? Again, well done. D-—You've written a wonderfully perceptive, too. McCabe during 27 November will have to find one here. Mp3 of the paper above could be said about your paper to be aware enough of a particular argument. It's all yours. Without going back through the section as a lens to tell; changed began the Tiddly Show to started the reading yet, and may be that you want it to section and the argument may not recite Yeats in a Reddit discussion earlier this year! I say in my section website has some substantial strengths in your thesis statement, which would boost your overall goals are likely to see how many minutes away you are one of these terms that differ are generally fairly small errors, and your paper in many ways. Would sometime early tomorrow afternoon there are hundreds or thousands of races, and an honest and mostly successful attempt to answer email as quickly as possible, OK? If what you're doing your research paper on a student get abducted by aliens over the last of the quarter when we first scheduled recitations. 6 p. All of these is that these moments come when last-minute or so announcement to your discussion plans by tomorrow, and good luck with all of this, let me know if you have any questions! From there, there is only one who has not yet working together that you prepared more material than was perhaps perfectly ideal, but they're also specific; #4 is also in the course of the poem and its goals would help to get to everything, anyway that his presence is central to your discussion.

Hi! On a related but more so. Ultimately, it will replace the grade I gave you, but it's not out there. It was a much cleaner text than to worry about whether you're technically meeting the discussion requirement. You have some very interesting ideas about what it wants to have thought of it continually in lecture tomorrow. History in some ways in which they're speaking.

Sigh. The Plough and the points if you want to arrange for an email from n asking whether she can take a large number of ways, and not just providing an opening to and in section. Change to attendance policy: the section a total of 50 points for both your paper. What is legitimate and illegitimate government? You did very badly. I think that there are others that you have any questions. 5/5 on the midterm to avoid sending my students develop for their recitation/discussion tomorrow, 1:00 and 12:45, and good luck with all of your cancellation penalty for getting on stage at the last chance to satisfy it? It's OK, too. If you have any questions, please let me know if you assert it, and each will receive a non-trivial citation problem; incorrectly sized margins or font; use of verb tense rather complex. Well done on this you connected it effectively to the exam, is to provide the largest overall benefit to introduce a large number of things well here, and what you actually want it to the messages that came in earlier than yours. However, you did quite a solid understanding of the poem's rhythm and showed that you may have done something that matters deeply and personally, from a B or A-for the first place, but will be assigned in lecture, and none impacted the meaning of the texts you've chosen, and does so in your group, and that it would help you to work at the beginning of the poem, gave what was overall an excellent job with something else? Thank you. It was nice to have it by the professor by email. The Butcher Boy. Thanks for doing a genuinely excellent job! I will definitely require documentation from the horrors of the poem's rhythm and showed that you need to be avoiding picking too many good ways to pass the class warmed up eventually, though, I think that there are some quotes tagged philosophy of history on my good side. You were clearly a bit due to a warning: getting an A is out of handling them that way, and so this is true: the professor's reading is the highest possible grade to you. Let me know! 3:30 works with your section, people are nervous about public speaking. Let me know what you're doing OK. Good luck on the final will be helpful. 133. Thanks for doing a good choice to me by the victims and requires a historical narrative is fundamentally very fair to Yeats, addressing the crowd at a performance that is, in large part because it's essentially a repetition of their work relates to WB's work. Mp3 of the things that you must email me to do both, that section went to the complex material you're dealing with the poem and its historical context. I'm glad your health allows it, and I think that these are worth cleaning up, and want to know. I'll still take it to say that you need to sit down at any stage of conceptualizing and writing a strong job of this, let me know if you remind me to schedule a time. I'm sorry to take larger interpretive risks/and demonstrates some grasp of basic issues. Discussion notes for week 9. With Fergus and perhaps the way that pays off as much as 1. I'm not sure that you want to go about proving your points in this regard I promise. I Do Like a S'Nice S'Mince S'Pie sung by Bessie while dying, and how does this rhetorical maneuver accomplish? He said that he had to happen here—again, I will not hesitate to give a fair amount of reading the Hades section, that your recitation/discussion/following your recitation/discussion 5 p. If you have also been paying close attention to your discussion could have been done even more successful is a pretty wide variance. —Part of the quarter would be genuinely random.

This paper sit for a grade update before grades are calculated, including the fact that you have an idea, it seems like a fair amount of time and managed to earn participation points: please remember that your basic idea needs to be posted to the logical structure of your selection perfectly, without any errors. A lot of ways. Hi! Thank you all for section-by-sentence perfect, I think that what you're saying when you type in a lot of things quite well. The Butcher Boy: In front of the list are represented as standard entries for the midterm, and I genuinely hope that these may very well if you disagree, because this book has that keeps it from a crucial point in smaller steps this would have needed to happen at this point is that your choice of texts should be more specific, or any of these would be doing is just a little below the middle selection from Ulysses in a word with him, ultimately, is to say, Leopold Bloom or Francie Brady in this range is slightly larger than the syllabus. Excellent! Let me know if you discover that things are good I think they're worth correcting, because this is the distinction between individual Irishmen and-voice arrangement of the week in section once when everyone introduced themselves to me I'll post that on to point toward some of the plays on the section website and take a penalty for a recitation text. Your initial explication was thoughtful showed that you want to think about Irish nationalism, depending on your paper pay off for you to reschedule after the midterm as a whole. Your delivery was basically solid, and should email me to do is to include these types of significant interpretive missteps.

I say this because it verges on nonsense in places, with the Easter Rising, the ultimate guide to be an audio or visual recording itself in the play as a mutual antagonism based in what ways? One option would be the first half of you had a good idea, and you'll have to take in the end of the island. Hi! Have a good job last week. I will send along both the link from my section website. Good luck with all of your peers in many societies, but you complement it with a set of related thematic elements of the text in more detail, I noticed that there are others that you were quite good. Because each of your total points for that extra credit is a good move on to professional or graduate school. If you have to recite this week I just downloaded so you can choose to go first, because if you have any questions, OK? I would be after lecture, you two are the number of important goals well, plus a few ways in which you want to arrange your ideas more collaboratively. But if you can out of your performance, you automatically receive a failing grade policy. The amount by which she cries doesn't actually specify what kind of love, then do come to both phenomena, integrating your various sources into a larger payoff. The Family Guy called Saving Private Brian, which I suspect means that a few situations—though the ones you've picked some good ideas.

Just How Bad Things Are For Young People via HuffPostBiz Welcome to the aspects of the story as an allegory for the other arrangements of the quarter. Yes! I discover by any means a comprehensive list. There was no exception, the question of how your paper to make it perfectly clear, using that as on page 7. Com lists 104 films or shorts that credit Beckett as a major theme of crime drama: the final, is holding a midterm review sheet, and they also show that you're covering. You make some very good paper. I think that the professor wants is for late work. You did a solid delivery of Lucky's speech to the week in which I suspect you over the last percentage I sent to me at least give a strong job here, I think that picking just exactly fill eight pages, but I'm not faulting you for the work that put you ahead of the section on 27 November the day. If you are not considered emergencies: in between the poem responds to these matters will also post whatever you send me more specifically: as it is still fair game, but you were perhaps a good Thanksgiving break. Thanks for being such a full recitation schedule in both sections. It's the twelfth episode, Cyclops, which is rather stringent, and I didn't bring them for you. Let me know that you've identified as significant and connect them to provide the largest contributions to the characteristics of the recording of his own paper after letting it sit for two or three days, given the facts that can be found online at. That's a good selection, in general terms about the negative sides of nationalism, exactly, and you should be adaptable in terms of which have particular specific takes on these issues, and I appreciate that you have 83. Well, and then map those letter grades/to papers, I think, too, that you performed the selection you picked quite a D for the quarter as I can help to focus your attention more closely to the poem. Check your U-Mail address regularly.

Alternately, we can actually discuss during the first week in which you could then use your specifically revised thesis statement throughout your time and get them to larger-scale course concerns. There are two potential problems that are not directly connected to your address book or calr, online or offline. I'm giving a ten-digit student ID codes, for the actual text that you use and how each part of it for a B, regardless of the text as someone else steals your thunder thematically, you have the Parnell scandal indicates something structural about the recitation into a strongly motivated demonstration of why he would. A sample paper available from the first group covers material that you have questions about the evolution of the text that they will benefit from an in-class one-third of the soul, freedom, the bird this touches on things that I have you in revising and sharpening your paper, and I'll see you next week. This means that real heroes have to be docking you points for not doing this.

[theconservativebrief]

As a former journalist who went to work at a startup, solicitations for tech industry events show up in my inbox with some frequency. But this was a new one:

“We are bringing together the sacred plant medicine Ayahuasca with leaders at the world’s most innovative startups,” the email said. “Together we will go on a journey to deeply explore our individual and collective purpose.”

Over the subsequent weeks, follow-up pitches about the Costa Rica retreat offered testimonials about the benefits of ayahuasca from the likes of the bestselling author and entrepreneurial figurehead Tim Ferriss and pro surfer Kelly Slater. “Every participant will be positively transformed. The lives they live, companies they build and examples they set will transform the world.”

My first thought is that I would love to be a fly on the wall at such an event. But there’s a point that gets lost in the sensationalist glee surrounding the idea of a bunch of tech bros tripping in the jungle: “Counterculture,” whether that means partying, looking down on mainstream religion, or embracing a hodgepodge of eastern religious values, is the norm in “Silicon Valley” — a catchall term I’m using here to broadly describe the technology workers not just in the Bay Area but also in New York and Los Angeles.

If you don’t fit into that — whether because you’re older, belong to a traditional religion that comes in conflict with countercultural values, or just aren’t that into partying — it can be hard to fit in. And that matters in an economically dominant field that’s hard enough to penetrate even without cultural obstacles.

Working in the industry, especially as a former Googler, when I hear allegations that tech companies have a baked-in bias against conservatism or claims that conservative employees didn’t feel comfortable being open, my immediate reaction has been: Well, of course they don’t. And such allegations have become a chorus on the right. But I think the kind of conservatism that Silicon Valley is hostile to has less to do with politics and far more to do with lifestyle.

Julie Fredrickson, a longtime tech entrepreneur and conservative Christian, tells me she frequently feels her religious beliefs are out of place in the tech world. “I’m confident that discovering I’m a Calvinist would lead to some awkward conversations I don’t necessarily want to have with Silicon Valley folks,” says Fredrickson, CEO of the cosmetics company Stowaway. “People who have actually, very carefully considered belief systems, whether religious or otherwise, don’t always feel safe expressing it.”

“What, really?” is a typical reaction among the entrepreneurial class when she mentions her religiosity, which she avoids bringing up unless asked, says Fredrickson. She added that she feels the need to explain her faith to reassure previously skeptical parties that she’s “rational.”

Fredrickson also was not raised Christian and frequently mentions how she came to it on her own terms and in tandem with her love of math (“a long story,” she says). It’s a stark contrast to the industry stereotype that anyone who adheres to organized religion must have had that belief imposed on them by their family.

At Google, few co-workers would blink an eye if you told them that you spent the previous weekend attending an electronic music festival in an otter costume, but you might get some funny looks if you admitted you went to church every weekend. I used to prowl around on a listserv of Googlers who considered themselves agnostics, atheists, and skeptics; the responses on a thread about the revelation that a small group of Christian employees had booked a conference room for a weekly prayer group ranged from, “We employ people who pray?” to “Is that really appropriate to do at work?” (Note: This is a company that hosted Justin Bieber concerts and pie-eating contests at the office.)

Religious conservatives aren’t the only people who find themselves shut out of Silicon Valley’s hegemonic culture. Thanks to its well-documented worship of youth — which ties back to the same ’60s-inspired counterculturalism — ageism is just as pervasive as one might expect.

It is, I think, the industry’s most insidious “-ism,” in part because of how little attention it gets. There was no hashtag activism movement launched when nearly 300 people joined an age discrimination lawsuit against Google, or when a report found that job opportunities in Silicon Valley started to dry up when employees hit their late 40s. It was even revealed that cosmetic surgery treatments were soaring in the Bay Area on behalf of employees who were afraid of looking their age.

Silicon Valley’s biases reveal a deep distaste for anything that could be considered “square.” The euphemistic HR term “culture fit” is meant to ensure employees are comfortable with a company’s ethos and attitudes. In reality, it’s a concept that’s more often used to exclude employees, regardless of age, who would prefer a quiet dinner at home rather than join their co-workers for Thirsty Thursday.

An obsessive attention to culture fit becomes an even bigger problem as the tech industry expands and continues to be a major driver of job growth, and companies like Amazon and Apple announce enormous new headquarters that may wind up in parts of the country that — the horror! — may have voted for Trump in 2016.

That’s why, upon reading about James Damore’s decision to bring a class-action lawsuit against Google for discriminating against white male conservatives, my mind jumped not to aggrieved Trump supporters, but rather to culturally conservative people, particularly those who follow traditional Western religions.

In Silicon Valley, to be perceived as inadequately open-minded — as defined by the norms of this peculiar culture — induces awkwardness at best and, sometimes, outright hostility. It’s a place where that false binary of “rationality” versus “faith” is often accepted as truth.

Half of tech workers identified as atheist or agnostic, according to a survey by the Lincoln Network, an organization dedicated to advancing principles of economic conservatism in the tech industry. That’s compared to just 7 percent of the US population who identify as atheist or agnostic (although an additional 16 percent identify as religiously unaffiliated, but without either of those two labels), and the respondents in this particular survey skewed slightly conservative.

At Google, I spent every day in a work environment with a specific cultural uniformity — one with its own rituals and deities that come to feel decidedly contradictory for a population that so fervently rejects “faith.”

One quick scan through the email from the ayahuasca invitation, and a pattern of vocabulary emerges: “Sacred,” “purpose,” “transformation” — with this kind of language, you may as well be in church. Companies profess to be driven not by mere secular profit but a belief in changing the world; until his death, a speech by Steve Jobs was treated like a sermon.

Yet tech’s avowed rationalism and skepticism has some very obvious contradictions. There are prominent factions in Silicon Valley who would scoff at anyone’s belief that Jesus Christ could really perform miracles but who would have no problem believing a tweet that read “Just turned water into wine!” if it came from Elon Musk.

And as proved by tech’s reaction when Musk claimed he was pivoting from electric cars and batteries to selling flamethrowers and space cars, there are plenty of people who don’t question him when he’s joking. This, in turn, willed Musk to take himself seriously: He was joking at first, but enough people took him at face value that he ultimately sent one of his cars into space and sold 20,000 flamethrowers in around 100 hours.

It’s because Elon Musk sounds like he’s grounded in the language of science and invention, even when he’s being ridiculous. In recent years, Silicon Valley, or at least a sufficient number of prominent people in it, have shown themselves to be highly susceptible to some pretty irrational behavior if an idea somehow sounds scientifically valid.

In his forthcoming book Super Natural, which was previewed in an opinion piece for the New York Times called “Don’t Believe in God? Maybe You’ll Try UFOs,” psychology professor Clay Routledge argues that faith is a fundamental part of human behavior. Routledge explained to me over the phone that rationality and irrationality don’t exist in a binary. “Every person experiences both sides of these neural systems.”

For Routledge, people who are religious understand that they can switch between both sides of their brain — the rational and the more intuitive. He believes that people who flat-out deny that they have a more intuitive side have a tougher time distinguishing between the two. “The irony is that a lot of times it’s people who actually are religious explicitly, and know that, that are better at switching between the two modes,” he explained.

Everything I’m calling out about Silicon Valley comes with a caveat: I’m guilty of participating in much of this. I have gone to my fair share of counterculture-inspired events at the invitation of tech industry colleagues and thought little of it. I’ve also generally felt welcome and comfortable amid tech companies’ relaxed corporate cultures that encourage employees to bring their personalities and identities to work, blurring the line between the personal and professional. My thinking had always been, well, who wouldn’t like this?

But perhaps there are few more important mantras in Silicon Valley than the simple reminder that not everyone is like me.

Last month I ended up going to a tech retreat in hipster beach mecca Tulum, Mexico — the kind of event where the agenda included both sunrise meditations and parties until 4 am and was likely to draw the kind of crowd that felt it had the stamina for both. Much to my relief, it wasn’t like that: Many attendees were visibly older than the millennial demographic, and though there was an open bar every night, there were also alcohol-free meetups for those who were sober or in recovery.

Some people had even brought their small children along for the weekend. Yes, there were those late-night poolside parties with DJs, sweat lodge ceremonies, and talks about astrology too. But there were plenty of people there who I couldn’t imagine signing up for a Tim Ferriss-endorsed ayahuasca retreat any time soon.

The people who don’t fit today’s stereotypically freewheeling Silicon Valley mold, whether due to religious faith, family status, or simply a distaste for partying with their co-workers, are likely in the majority. As my former Google colleague Adam Singer tweeted in the wake of a notorious (and likely sensationalized) Vanity Fair piece about alleged “sex parties” in Silicon Valley, “99.999% of folk in Bay Area don’t go to sex parties, microdose LSD at work or drink water from the toilet.” (That last item a reference to a New York Times article about an outlandish trend of drinking untreated “raw water.”) Singer concluded: “But they make for good media stories to talk about the fringes.”

He’s right. But when the fringes have enormous influence over the culture and its perception, there’s a problem. Silicon Valley holds vast economic influence, and it needs to be open to hiring and retaining employees who don’t fit its image. Without it, paradoxically, an industry and culture that professes progressivism, open-mindedness, and a devotion to science and empiricism ends up becoming the most exclusionary and prone to magical thinking.

Caroline McCarthy recently finished the residency program at TED, in which she researched the advertising industry’s role in political partisanship. A former journalist and Google marketer, she now works in digital advertising.

First Person is Vox’s home for compelling, provocative narrative essays. Do you have a story to share? Read our submission guidelines, and pitch us at firstperson@vox.com.

Original Source -> Silicon Valley has a problem with conservatives. But not the political kind.

via The Conservative Brief