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nursingwriter · 3 months ago

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Life before Tylenol and Prozac: A History of Folk Medicine Brief Course Description This course will provide an overview of the history of folk medicine from the earliest civilizations to modern times. Topics covered will include: Religious aspects of folk medicine; 'witch doctors' and 'medicine men'; Plants and herbal medicine; Animal parts for human healing; Modern natural remedies and What physicians and clinicians have to say about the validity of folk medicine. Five Essential Questions What are the earliest examples of the use of folk medicine? This question is important because it will show the students what a long and rich history folk medicine has, dating back thousands of years before Christ. Question #2: What part does religion play in folk medicine? An essential part of understanding the history of folk medicine is understanding the religious rites, rituals and beliefs that tend to accompany it. Answering this question will provide insight into both the religious and the cultural factors that have contributed to various folk medicine practices throughout history. Question #3: What types of ingredients have been used in folk medicine? The importance of this question lies in its ability to provide a deeper understanding of the various (often bizarre) ingredients that comprise different folk medicines, and how they were expected to function as instruments of healing. Question #4: What is the place of folk medicine in modern times? Many people think of folk medicine is being relegated to the distant pass or remote tribal cultures. However answering this question will show students that many folk medicine practices, such as herbal healing and aromatherapy, are still very much alive and well today, even in the United States. Question #5: What do modern physicians and scientists have to say about folk medicine? This question lends itself to a level of critical thinking for the students as they will not only be learning what professionals' expert opinions are, but will also be asked to either agree or disagree with them and explain why. Why This Course Is Important To Me I have dual interest in history and medicine, as well as a fascination with the strange and bizarre. This course will allow me to combine these passions, while at the same time, imparting knowledge and wonderment upon people who had no idea that hyena dung was once used to treat a sore throat or that ancient Egyptians put bat blood in their eyes to prevent blindness. I feel that this course will be both informative and a lot of fun, which to me, provides the most winning combination for effective learning. In terms of dimensions of freedom, this course is aligned with both my professional and personal goals to promote free thinking, and the creative expression of ideas. Source List Books Book #1: Jarvis, D.C. Folk Medicine. Edison, NJ: BBS Publishing Corporation, 1996. ISBN-10: 0883659409, ISBN-13: 978-0883659403 This book is like the modern folk medicine "bible." It relays Dr. D.C. Jarvis' extensive research into folk medicine in the Green Mountains of Vermont. I plan to use this book to demonstrate that folk medicine is still a very common practice today in America (not to mention around the world). Book #2: Black, William George. Folk-medicine: A Chapter in the History of Culture. Bel Air, CA: BiblioBazaar, 2009. ISBN-10: 1110353928, ISBN-13: 978-1110353927. The value of this book for this course lies in its extensive coverage of ancient tribal medicinal practices, with a strong focus on religion, spirituality and astrology. It also addresses the important place that folk medicine holds in the study of civilizations. Book #3: Porter, Roy. The Popularization of Medicine (Wellcome Institute Series in the History of Medicine). London, Routledge, 1992. ISBN-10: 0415072174, ISBN-13: 978-0415072175 This book will provide both sides of the medical professionals' and scientists' point-of-view. It includes historical texts written by physicians that promote particular folk healing practices, as well as commentary by modern clinicians who call these techniques "quackery." The students will get to see both viewpoints and make their own decisions accordingly. Book #4: Rosenberg, Charles E. Right Living: An Anglo-American Tradition of Self-Help Medicine and Hygiene. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD, 2003. ISBN-10: 0801871891, ISBN-13: 978-0801871894. The focus of this book is on American folk medicine in the 18th and early 19th centuries. It is a compilation of articles written by scholars in history, medicine and pharmacology. This will provide students with a multitude of perspectives and experiences related to this era of folk medicine. Book #5: Imperato, Pascal James. African Folk Medicine: Practices and Beliefs of the Bambara and Other Peoples. New York, York Press.ISBN-10: 0912752084, ISBN-13: 978-0912752082. This insightful book provides a niche view of folk medicine focusing almost entirely on the people of is West Africa. It provides great detail about the medicinal practices and how they interrelate with the cultural traditions of the people. Articles Article #1: Selberg, Torunn. "Faith Healing and Miracles: Narratives About Folk Medicine." Journal of Folklore Research. 32.1. (1995): 35-47. This article combines research from folklore studies, medicine, anthropology and other related disciplines. This is important to the course because it will provide the students the ability to examine the topic from a variety of perspectives. Article #2: Hodes, Meyer B. "Folk Medicine Deserves Our Respect." Medical Economics. 77.5: (March 6, 2000): 119-121. The value of this article is that provides a pro-folk medicine stance from a modern medical doctor who has witnessed the value of so-called alternative medicines on numerous occasions. Since the majority of doctors and scientists do not believe in folk healing methods, this article will make a good source for the students to see that not all medical professionals are convinced that modern medicine is the only viable option. Article #3: Applewhite, Steven Lozano. "Curanderismo: Demystifying the Health Beliefs and Practices of Elderly Mexican-Americans." Health & Social Work, 20.4 (1995): 247-253. This article discusses how folk medicine derived from early Aztec and pre-Columbian civilizations is still practiced today by elderly Mexicans. The aim of the article is to demystify these traditions, which will present a view to the students that is based on a higher purpose. Article #4: Voeks, Robert. "African Medicine and Magic in the Americas." The Geographical Review. 83.1. (1993): 66-78. This article's contribution to the course is its focus on the historical and spiritual aspects of African folk medicine. The article also addresses cultural diffusion which is another important topic to this course. Article #5: Pigg, Stacy Leigh. The Social Symbolism of Healing in Nepal. Ethnology. 34.1 (1995): 957-965 This article goes beyond the technical and explores the philosophical aspects of folk healing. The article focuses specifically on an incident in Nepal, which has the benefit of providing the students with a micro- rather than a macro-perspective. Additional Sources Additional Source #1: New Mexico State University. "Ancient Roots, Modern Medicine - Borderlands" Video Documentary. Available online http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=bOIfCGf3VO8&feature=PlayList&p=BC563A276CA474F9&playnext_from=PL This is a three part series from New Mexico State University that focuses on herbal remedies from Mexico and Southwestern United States. It will be valuable to the course because it provides an entertaining video/audio venue for learning. Additional Source #2: Hatfield, Gabrielle. Encyclopedia of Folk Medicine: Old World and New World Traditions. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio, 2004. ISBN 1-57607-874-4. This encyclopedia on folk medicine will provide a valuable resource for the students seeking to understand certain terminologies and references. Additional Source #3: UCLA's Online Archive of American Folk Medicine. Web. http://www.folkmed.ucla.edu/ This online searchable database will provides students with access to thousands of articles and texts related to the course topic. Two Guest Speakers Guest speaker #1: D.C. Jarvis, author of the book Folk Medicine. Having him as a guest speaker would be an excellent supplement to the book. It would also allow students to ask questions related to his book. Guest speaker #2: Dr. James Gordon of the National Institutes of Health Office of Alternative Medicine. This speaker could provide additional insight into the manners in which modern alternative medicines have been derived from ancient traditions. He could also speak to the validity of different remedies. Field Trip A fantastic field trip for this class would be a trip through Jaithai Adventures, where the students and I could "meet and talk with traditional Lanna, Buddhist monk, and ethnic Hilltribe healers in Northern Thailand." We would be able to "learn about 700-year-old healing remedies and rituals, as well as how to experience and help sustain an endangered way of living and 'being'." For more information, visit http://realadventures.com/listings/1023919_Jaithai-Adventures Reflection Sheet How did you arrive at writing this piece? I have always been interested in folk medicine and I think it would make an intriguing prospect for an independent study class. Name at least 2-3 creative or analytical choices you made and explain your rational behind these choices. Choice # 1: I chose to focus on all aspects of folk medicine instead of narrowing it down to a particular country or time period. I made this decision because I believe it is important to view this topic as a whole in order to get the 'big picture' of how cultures and time periods have intermingled to create what is known as folk medicine today. Choice # 2: I also made the decision to make critical thinking a part of this course, instead of merely focusing on the history or technical aspects. I want students to be able to form their own opinions about folk medicine based on what they have learned. Name and describe one of your projects strengths. One of the main strengths of this project is that it combines fun with fact. In other words, it is not just a dry look at the history of folk medicine, but it will include interesting anecdotes and some bizarre and funny rituals and practices as well. I went this direction because I want to keep things interesting and keep the students engaged. Name and describe one of my projects weaknesses. The main weakness of this project is that it may be difficult to include all of the many aspects of folk medicine in detail because there are such a wide variety of subjects to cover. However, I am hopeful that I will be able to weed out the most relevant and important topics. Anything else you'd like me to know about your project? I had a lot of fun completing this project. Read the full article

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crackspinewornpages · 2 years ago

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Rage 23/35 -Stephen King

Sylvia broke the silence by laughing, when this is all over she wants to get in detective magazine, maybe she’ll get Charlie to write it. More troopers arrive, Charlie turns on the intercom for Mr. Grace he says he’s tried to get him help, this is an antisocial act by society’s standards, (standards change) will he let them help him, only he can save his own soul now. Charlie didn’t like that and asked if Denver told the police what he said, have they figured out how to handle him yet, Mr. Grace doesn’t know but wants to know how Charlie is going to handle himself. They were evaluating him, and he accuses them all of being the same, it would be tougher to strip Mr. Grace, shrinks are mind fuckers, and he doesn’t want to help Mr. Grace do that and warns if he asks another question, he’ll shoot somebody. He’s playing his game now, statements only, does he think he’ll keep his job, Mr. Grace begs Charlie to save himself. Mr. Grace wants to sign off, but Charlie says he’ll do it when he says, or he’ll shoot someone, he can't cop out, does he understand. Outside Denver and Johnson were waiting for Mr. Grace’s return, it was his turn to get it on. (was this a saying in the 70s)

Charlie questions him, his military obligation was fulfilled as a doctor, he’s practiced psychiatry for five years. He refuses to answer if he goes down on his wife, Charlie threatens to shoot, no. Psychiatry fulfills him as a person, his wife never cheated, he’s never cheated on an exam, then how can he say his wife never gave him anal. He completed training at Fort Benning in 56, after military obligation fulfilled in 60, he was in the Guard. His mother’s maiden name was Gavin and he’s thrown off and when asked again says he completed basic training in 57 and Charlie threatens to shoot someone. Father's middle name is John, he’s a Methodist, he went to Sunday school, bible questions and when he did Charlie tricks him into quoting a question. (ok so he pulled a psychology trick to throw someone off rapid fire questions that seem inane but your chipping down their guard to reveal what you want police interrogators use it all the time)

Mr. Grace was crying on the intercom; Denver held the cops back; he used Mr. Grace’s own tools on him. (like I just explained) “I had taken off his witch doctor’s mask and made him human. But I didn’t hold it against him. To err is only human, but it’s divine to forgive. I believe that sincerely.”p.59 Mr. Grace says he’s leaving, Charlie tells him no one’s dead, Charlie has Ted assure him he’s not lying. Mr. Grace cries again for a long time before going outside, he walked like an old man and Charlie liked seeing it.

“I told you about the roulette ball, didn’t I? Sure I did. In some ways-in a lot of ways-it was still in spin. Craziness is only a matter of degree, and there are lots of people besides me who have the urge to roll heads.”p.61 (this is what kinda takes me out of it Charlie is supposed to either be deranged or a kid that just had enough and snapped but he’s weirdly philosophical for a seventeen year old) Irma snaps at Grace Stenner, they should shoot her like Charlie, kill all sluts and their daughters and chants whore’s daughter. (ok the fuck is your problem Irma) Grace is about to claw Irma’s eyes out when Charlie tells her to stop it, Irma continues that Grace’s mother has an open house every night. Charlie has Irma look at him, they have to keep order here. “Without order, what do you have? The jungle. And the best way to keep order is to settle our difficulties in a civilized way.”p.63 (the meaning of civilize is relevant)

He draws a circle on the floor and has the girls stand in it or death, he’ll be the judge, when he drops his bandanna they can go at it. (duke out your problems how my mom raised me and my sister probably not healthy) Ted tells him to stop it, but Sylvia says if someone called her mother a whore, she’d claw their eyes out. Ted shouts they could stop him, but he had no supporters and shut up. Charlie dropped the bandanna, and the girls went at it with smack talk and slaps until Irma cries to be let out. Grace says to take back what she said, Irma insults her more and Grace lets her have it until she breaks down into sobs saying she can't apologize until Grace slaps her again and Irma screams she’s sorry. Grace turns to the class, “My mother fucks,’ she said ‘and I love her.”p.66 (parents what they do to their children and how their children see them is a theme) They all except for Ted and Susan applaud her.

Charlie tells Irma to stand up, she’s always been sorry, that’s why it’s hard to say it, Grace forgives her. Charlie asks Irma if she has anything to say, Tanis tells her she’ll feel better if she does. Irma says what Grace said is true, she’s not pretty, never had a date or friends, Tanis tells her she could clean up and shave, Irma shouts she doesn’t know how. The girls are now sympathetic, Tanis will help her and the girls start talking. The class bell made everyone jump, it was now 9:50, the squirrel, Denver and Underwood were gone and Charlie decided he was gone too.

There are more police cars and a growing crowd, the class looks to see what's in it, a news van pulled up and started unloading and the class turned to the radio reporting Charlie going berserk. Grace called Mr. Grace’s report of being forced to leave at the threat of the students a lie. (how adults in power act is also a theme) The news called Charlie a schizophrenic past rationality, (he’s not I’m not sure what he is he’s not a psychopath either I think he’s just a kid who was chipped away until he exploded like a dam the wrong set of circumstances aligned and this was the opportunity he took) Sylvia calls it a crock of shit and Pig Pen in incensed at being called children. Charlie has the radio turned off and asks him what’s on his mind and he starts complaining about his mother buying cheap pencils and shitty frozen suppers, her thing is to enter contests and drowned his sister’s kitten saying it’s too worthless to drive to the vet’s. (she drowned a kitten to save four bucks that's 20.27 today...oh look at that have needed a nail bat in a while) She’s too cheap to buy him better shirts (he wears cheap dingy shirts is that why everyone calls him Pig Pen) and wouldn't let him get a paper job because of loose women at home. She sucks up to everybody and when his sister got pregnant, (wouldn’t let her keep the baby either) she sold his car so he wouldn’t go get a girl pregnant. She grinds you until you give, he thinks if he had a gun like Charlie, he’d kill her. (and I’d have no sympathy for her)

Ted says they’re all going crazy like Charlie, Carol turned on him, usually she was on Ted’s side like Eisenhower, Ted had followers that liked him. “you had to like him, that style, that grin, that record, these good intentions, but there was something exasperating and a tiny bit slimy about him.”p.72 (is Ted a mirror of Charlie he also has a rough home life) Charlie was fixated on Ted something happened that morning and Ted was the center of it. Ted says they’ll find they’re all nut cases, they’ll drag them off and grind them down, (you’ll see Ted’s not playing along with the game antagonizing Charlie and berating his fellow students we’ll see where this goes) Charlie filled the magazine again, Susan starts to cry and they looked at him. “I had taken a life, I had snuffed her, put a bullet in her head and spilled out algebra.”p.72

A trooper called for Charlie to come out and he felt like dry heaving, he’s always had a weak stomach and once puked on his date’s leg. Charlie yells at the trooper to shut up, they can’t hear him, Ted starts goading Charlie and the others start talking over each other. Charlie fires out the window four times and people scatter, and he aimed it at Ted who was out of his seat and orders him to sit down, he was in control again. The police told the crowd to disperse, Sandra told Charlie to tell something else, (yes distract him so he won’t have a breakdown he wants to use this class as an unwilling group therapy session let him) it was 10:20.

At twelve his father gave up on him, he was his mother's responsibility, his mother tried to force him to wear a corduroy suit (it’s an ugly textured brown fabric) to a birthday party. You don’t cross her, or she’ll dig in her heels and he was crossing her. She won't hear any arguments, to shut up or he won't go anywhere to anything, she held grudges. He had a crush on Carol, and when he saw his friend Joe, he felt stupid in the suit, Joe didn’t mind his weird mannerisms, (no he’s not autistic) Charlie had brains, Joe had friends, since people liked Joe, they had to tolerate him. Nobody else was dressed up at the party and he wanted to leave before she saw him, but her mother spotted him, other kids asked him who died but Carol didn’t notice him.

He didn’t participate in the fun, Joe found him on the porch watching the others play, Carol wants him to come, and not wanting Joe to hate him let him go. “After a while, being somebody’s responsibility makes them hate you, and I was scared that Joe might hate me someday. I didn’t know all that then, not at twelve, but I sensed some of it.”p.80 On his way home Dicky noticed him and feeling ugly, Charlie snapped at him to get out of his way, he felt someone else was in control for the first time. Dicky swung at him, Charlie shoved him and they fought. Dicky rips off his coat and slams his head on the ground until Joe dragged him off, the other children were either staring or looking away. Charlie cried, crawling on the lawn for his scattered buttons, yelled at Carol’s mother and ran away. He hid at an empty house, not caring about his ruined suit or his mother, he could see her complaining to Dicky’s mother and his father asking how the other kid looked and his lie. He planned to hitchhike out of town but went home.

More cops and news crews showed up, Carol remembers that party, she was just a kid, Charlie says she didn’t look it. (dude she was twelve) Her crush on Dicky was worse after that day, (you saw a kid beat the crap out of someone and still had a crush on them I know you were a young teen but come on) she went on a school picnic with him, she let him get fresh. Dick Keene said he’s now in Placerville Cemetery. He got his license and went wild so much almost no one would ride with him, he built up that Pontiac himself, he rode with him once made him pull over and walked home, a few months later he hit a delivery truck. Randy Milliken was with him, Dicky wasn’t impaired, it was the truck driver’s fault he said. Carol was pale and Charlie asks her if her mother was mad he called her an old bag, yes and she thought the fight was his fault too. Carol confesses though, their mothers were friends, but she didn’t care for Charlie’s mother, Charlie bets the suit was her idea of match making and Carol laughed. It almost seemed disrespectful to the dead, but Charlie let it pass, though Underwood wasn’t far from his mind, he was practically standing on her. (remember there’s been a dead body in this room the entire time)

Frank Philbrick, Ted’s father’s friend, went into the school and went on the intercom saying they don’t like the idea of shooting him, Charlie advises not to, Frank asks his price, what price. Anything to let them go, how about a deal, tell him how many out there think he’ll just kill them. Some people think that yes, Charlie tells him to come down unarmed and he’ll let everyone go, Frank refuses to since he’ll just shoot him and keep the hostages, (you’re a shitty negotiator) but he’ll come down to talk. Charlie warns if he signs off and doesn’t leave he’ll kill someone, he won't get out alive, no one thinks they’ll get out alive, not even his old man, he won't come out. Frank asks to talk to Ted, everyone is fine, and Charlie tells Frank his heavy breathing is a gross, shitty habit, fix it, he could save a life.

Twelve seconds later Frank left the school, and they had another conference. Carol asks if he had a bad experience with sex, he’ll share if she does, she refuses since they’ll all tell and Charlie drops it. But Carol will tell something, she’s a virgin and she doesn’t think it’s a bad thing, it’s not about not getting pregnant. “People tear you down, that’s it. They grind you down if you let them, just like Pig Pen said. They all want to pull you down to their level and make you dirty. Look at what they are doing to you, Charlie.”p.89 She was Christmas shopping with Dianne Taylor in Portland, when someone drove by and called her a cunt and her good mood was spoiled. It was like that was all there was to a person like being bright a hole to fill up. (that’s it some stranger called you a cunt and now you’re hung up on sex)

Sandra says she feels funny, either or, not much for anything else, Carol asks, and Sandra says she sometimes feels empty, that everything else seems dull and there aren't many minorities here to fight for, (I know it’s the seventies but find some other hobbies) so she let Ted do it to her. Charlie stared at Ted blankly, like he was glowing in clotted darkness and Sandra said she doesn’t know what all the fuss is about. Charlie aimed at Ted, “I was going to shoot him, but they shot me first.”p.90

#rage #stephen king #books book summaries #horror fiction #psychological thriller

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biblenewsprophecy · 2 years ago

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#witch doctors #spells #deuteronomy 18:10-12 #doctrines of demons #palm readers #witches #what does the bible say about witch doctors?

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normal-with-adhd-is-a-joke · 2 years ago

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well it's immediately clear at the first hurdle that you don't know what you're talking about. First of all, translations are always imperfect. No, they're not a game of telephone, but they're also not word-for-word. There are entire intellectual professions devoted to interpreting and translating the Bible to the best of our abilities and the people doing that are in constant discourse about Biblical translation and interpretation. For instance, there's a great debate on what "witch" actually means in the Bible, as most instances of "witch" are translated from "ΦΑΡΜΑΚΕΙΑ" which means anything from "poisoner" to "person who delivers medicine", or are in reference specifically to the act of divination. In this case, we would have to use our prior knowledge of God to say "God would not want us to harm others intentionally. He encourages us to forgive and encourage others to forgive as well." Some people take an even more radical, literal approach and use the interchangeability of "doctor" and "witch" to try to "prove" that God doesn't want His people to seek medical treatment at all. While there are cases of people using a practice almost identical to divination to determine God's will (Judges 6:37-39) and God agreeing to show Himself in that way, God also designed us to have free will and revealing His will in an obvious way would remove that free will. For instance, if you ask God a question on an Ouiji board, you're probably not going to get a straight answer because that would be against his desire for us to make our own decisions. Some people take a very literal approach to this and believe that God doesn't speak to modern people at all, and that asking for a word from Him is sinful. Every Christian makes these interpretation choices daily, most just don't realize it.

Second of all, the New Testament was not written entirely by Jesus' disciples. Paul wrote the majority of the New Testament and he, as far as we know, never met Jesus. He certainly wasn't a fan of him if he did meet him before his conversion. That out of the way, I automatically include justice in unity. God's commitment to justice is what led me to doubt and ultimately reject the popular Christian view on homosexuality. I know from my research that being gay is not a choice, nor is it able to be changed. If it was, almost no one would choose to be gay and it would be a non-issue. Being gay also causes no harm to others, and no harm to self. It became clear that a just God would not afflict someone from birth with a condition that has no cure, has no treatment, does not harm self or anyone else, and is not to be followed through on.

I am not in between, nor am I lacking faith in God. I lack faith in Christians. Over the years I have seen Christianity weaponized to justify everything from homophobia to slavery. It became abundantly clear that most interpretations of the Bible stemmed from justifying one's own atrocious actions under the guise of "God's will". Some of the most emphasized points in the Bible are about love and charity, but you'll be pressed to find a Christian who has an abundance of either. The modern church is pure hypocrisy and a lot will have to change before I willingly take any mainstream Christian's interpretations of the Bible.

Questioning someone's faith is a weak argument. Doing research on and rejecting parts of the popular Christian belief system has made me a better Christian and a better person. I grew up in a church that rejected any questioning of the Bible, church leaders, etc. and it deeply harmed my relationship with God. Being able to spend time actually doing research on what I had believed for years without feeling guilt set me free.

I'm going to leave you with this: forcing people who are on the fence to choose a side is a bad idea. A pastor I had as a teenager pulled that "you're in or you're out, it's bad to be unsure or questioning" mentality on a bunch of kids, including brand new guests to the church and it caused a lot of people, myself included, to leave. Lukewarm Christians are not what's killing the modern church. Way-too-into-it Christians forcing themselves on others and driving away people who are shaky in their faith are.

I'm tired of giving long-winded explanations for both of these so I made a meme about both it

[image ID: the shaking hands meme. The hand on the left says "christian witches" and the hand on the right says "christian queer people". Where they meet in the middle it says "the Bible is the word of God but it was written down and translated by flawed and biased humans so it's our right and responsibility to spend time with God and discern what we believe His will to be".]

#if anyone was wondering why I have "dni if you're going to talk to be about Christianity'' in my carrd while being a Christian #this is why #anyway the whole ''you're in or out'' thing is evidently a trigger for me in addition to being a stupid thing to say #the pastor who said it to me last was not a good person #so I think I'm going to not continue this conversation #christianity tw #religion tw

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hail-dondus · 5 years ago

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His Dark Materials - Season 2 Episode 5 (rambles)

I only realized last week, there’s only 7 episodes this series because the eighth would have been the Asriel centric one. So only two left now after tonight! :(

Also I finished the book during the last week so I am so READY

Ahh gotta love that London traffic!

I don’t know why but the Golden Monkey wearing a seatbelt SENT ME

Mrs Coulter is watching the mother and baby :(

Boreal saying that our world is barbaric and our world is corrupt is so accurate tbh I’m not even mad

Will literally just threw the knife into the wall omfg watch it!

Red PAN-da is becoming a permanent fixture in this show apparently

Lyra’s hair was so pretty this episode? Her costume too obviously but her hair had me in awe

The theme music to this show gives me literal chills

Boreal is evil but his house is A-fucking-plus

Okay but how does Ruth Wilson always look so gorgeous and fluid in this show?!?

Her faking nearly dropping one of Boreal’s precious collection pieces and him panicking 😅

Mrs Coulter’s little “hmm” and smile... we love a Queen

“Why are we whispering?” “I don’t know” - LMFAO

“Will, you left the window open” - LMAO and also please don’t do that, that’s like one of the BIG rules about the knife!

“He’s getting good at this” “he is” - we love a supportive feral wild girl and her dæmon

Mrs Coulter looking bored as fuck as Boreal plays his music is such a damn mood

“You’d like it here too” - Umm NO STOP PLEASE SHE DOESNT WANT IT

“Carlo, can you make that stop?” - OMG 🤣

“You’re far too conspicuous like that” - but she’s not??? She just looks like a posh well dressed woman, maybe that’s not common in this world but she looks fine??

Boreal picking out clothes he’s obviously got just for her is... eww. Just ewww.

Her reaction to the jeans/clothes though XD

“Would you mind?” - YEAH BOREAL STOP CREEPING AND FUCK OFF PLEASE

“Maybe it’s time we issue a firm denial of the tear in the sky” BRO IT’S LITERALLY HUGE AND RIGHT THERE YOU CAN’T PRETEND IT AIN’T

Oh shit the Magisterium know about that witches going to the new world + the massacre

MacPhail literally imprisoned Father Graves and for WHAT?! I think the power’s getting to him (which I know it the point but still!)

MRS COULTER SHUT THE DOOR ON HER DÆMON I’M-

Okay so I know it’s been implied/said that Mrs Coulter can go far away from the monkey already, and that they maybe have been through some kind of process that’s made that a thing, but like DAMN.

“I’m sure you’ve encountered witches in your travels” - if I hadn’t already read the books, I would be asking if she IS a witch tbh like omg

This is probably one of the few times I’ll say this but... I feel so sorry for the monkey?? Just him watching her as she leaves from the window... like that’s so sad. I get why she couldn’t exactly walk around with a monkey but urgh

“I apologize if she was a nuisance” “She wasn’t a nuisance!” - Oof you tell her, Mary

“You must be so proud.” “... I am.” - OOF

Mary showing that she’s better fit to be a parent to Lyra than Lyra’s real mother tbh

Damn Marisa disappeared FAST

Mary really googled Mrs Coulter I’m-

“You must play the serpent” “hornbeam” “save the girl and the boy” - IT’S HAPPENING IM GOING TO CRY IM SO EXCITED

The computer turning completely off and the room going dark before going red OH MY GOD

“Oh shut it, Pan” - LMAO

OH NO OH NO ANGELICA FOUND TULLIO AND SHE IS PISSED D:

A+ acting from Bella Ramsay by the way

“We WILL get you” - OH SHIT

The fact that Will feels guilty over fighting and inadvertently getting Tullio attacked by spectres because he has the knife :’(

It’s so sweet to see Lyra and Pan comforting him though

“I’m not judging” - Mary’s sister says while totally judging her for reading the Holy Bible. She probably thinks she’s about to rejoin the convent!

I find the relationship between Marisa and the monkey so interesting?? I’m so intrigued by it

“Do they drink in this world?” “That, they do well.” - LMFAO ACCURATE THOUGH

“I found her arrogant, like many women in this world.” - umm, FUCK you, Boreal you misogynistic sexist piece of shit

So Mrs Coulter was denied a doctorate despite being the best in her class because she’s a woman, and they would only have published her papers if they were by a man. I’m starting to see why she got upset when she met Mary, who’s got her own office and a doctorate and is head of the department/project

“Who I could have been in this world” - oh shIT

The way she started talking about how she felt after the whole affair/baby ordeal, followed by “we’re not talking about Asriel, we’re talking about ME” - FUCK. I love Ruth Wilson’s portrayal, I love it

“You’ve spent your time trading trinkets” - lmfao you tell him ma’am

“Were you hoping to add me to your little collection?” “I was hoping this would be a life for you here” - oh god I hate it, fuck right off Carlo

“If you got me, you wouldn’t even begin to know what to do with me” - oh SHIT :O

Lyra turning up to distract them so Will could have the chance to cut a window and steal the Alethiometer had me on the edge of my seat

Let’s be real right now, the whole last 15 minutes? THE MOST TENSE AND INCREDIBLE PIECE OF TELEVISION ASDFGHJKL

Mrs Coulter’s face when she saw Lyra at the door :’(

Also she nearly saw Will and I was sitting there praying she wouldn’t find him, I was so worried even though I’ve literally just reread the book

So um THE FUCKING MONKEY BASTARD JUMPSCARED ME AND I AUDIBLY YELLED SO LOUDLY HOLY HECK

The way that Lyra saw her mum and immediately tried to run away though, she just keeps trying to yeet herself away from her parents and I honestly don’t blame her at all

Boreal was being truly extra in the way he dropped his snake dæmon out of his sleeve like that whilst advancing on Will

“Why would I trust you?” TRUTH

Coulter saying for Lyra to stay away from Will and getting super teary eyed makes me think she’s worried Lyra will suffer like she did? Like she’s worried that Lyra will suffer at the hands of men and be in the same situation she was I think? And that’s so sad but nuanced

“I am NOTHING like you.”

So Lyra did this little head move like Marisa did in 1x02, when she made the monkey attack Pan to subdue Lyra - AND THEN PAN ATTACKED THE MONKEY JUST LIKE THAT, LITERALLY EXACTLY THE SAME, AND MRS COULTER FALLING TO THE FLOOR AND CLUTCHING THE SOFA LIKE LYRA DID?? AND LYRA WATCHING WITH THIS COLD LOOK ON HER FACE?!

SOMEONE PLEASE MAKE A COMPARISON GIFSET BECAUSE IM CRYING

I love Will getting mad at Boreal taunting him over his mum, and immediately starting to punch him

HE SMASHED THAT COLLECTION PIECE ON BOREAL’S HEAD FUCK YEAH WILL 👏🏻

That was a DAMN close escape, holy fuck, but she’s got the Alethiometer back!

“The man who hurt you, I wanted to kill him” - same Lyra

I was so emotional when she was talking about how Marisa used her dæmon to hurt her and Pan, and Will saying that he’s never worried about his mum hurting him... the comparison is so sad

“I hope I’m not like either of my parents” - I mean I don’t blame her tbh

SHE CONSIDERED MA COSTA AND LEE SCORESBY TO BE BETTER PARENT FIGURES TO BE LIKE I’M CRYING

So Mrs Coulter is definitely planning some shit, like she didn’t seem that concerned when Boreal was talking about the Spectres, and like obviously I know what happens but I’ve always been intrigued as to why the Spectres listen to her instead of just attacking her. Also is it something to do with her dæmon? Like if they ARE separated in some way, maybe the Spectres don’t feed on her because it’s Dust or something? (Idk if that makes any sense)

“Deceive the guardian... okay... okay...” honestly same XD

Mary pretending to be Mrs Coulter to get past the guard is such a brilliant idea, like she just ran with it immediately, we have to stan a Queen who keeps a calm head

SHE WENT THROUGH THE WINDOW AND INTO THE CITY AAAAHHHH

The angels said they’d protect her, right? So she doesn’t need to fear the Spectres I’m assuming (I need to assume or I’ll worry)

The promo for next week was literally half what we saw THIS week and half Lee/John Parry footage I’m assuming is next week... ?

The fact there’s only two episodes left makes me so sad :( I have no idea what I’ll do waiting for the final series - and I’m assuming it’ll be delayed maybe because of Covid. Plus I’m hoping we get the extra episode NEXT series, the one that was Asriel-centred and supposed to be in this one but wasn’t filmed because of Coronavirus, so fingers crossed! 🤞

#his dark materials #hdm #lyra belacqua #marisa coulter #will parry #pantalaimon #lord boreal #charles latrom #the golden monkey #golden monkey #philip pullman #the subtle knife #dafne keen #ruth wilson #amir wilson

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katharkness · 2 years ago

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The Bible says demons exist. I believe that in the present day they are involved in some, but not all mental illnesses. There was an attempt once to treat two women who requested exorcisms but were diagnosed with mental health conditions with a combination of talk therapy and prayer therapy (supervised by doctors, it was all safe), and they actually had a 50% long-term success rate. But as far as I know there’s not been any further research, probably because it’s not exactly accepted by the medical establishment and the priest/mental health professional (he is fully qualified as both, but I forget which exact type of mental health professional) has some rather heretical views on the nature of sin, so the Catholic Church isn’t too keen on him. In addition, I saw this rather interesting documentary by a chap called Gary Bates called Alien Intrusion, which theorised that people who experience “alien abduction” actually suffer a demonic visitation. It was rather well thought-out, had plenty of testimonials, acknowledged that “abductees” do indeed show signs of suffering a traumatic experience, even had a few accounts of people who’d warded off “aliens” with Jesus’ name. The reasoning is, demons appear in a form the victim can rationalise. No-one really believes in demons these days, but aliens? That makes more sense to today’s society.

So I believe demons exist, and most if not all accounts of alien encounters are actually demons.

The Bible recounts how Saul sought out a witch to call up the ghost of Samuel; it worked, but Samuel was right cross with Saul for is. So ghosts exist in some form or other, but we humans should absolutely not be mucking around with them.

Cryptids? I dunno. I believe it’s certainly possible there’s creatures out there that for one reason or another we just haven’t found. I believe it’s entirely plausible the Loch Ness Monster was around until maybe as late as the end of the 1st millennium - there’s an account in the life of Columba (late 6th century) that *may* indicate he was encountered and banished it. I believe the last dinosaurs may have died out in only the last thousand years, and all those legends of people fighting dragons are based on real events. I don’t think there still are dinosaurs - Creation Ministries studied the issue for quite some time and concluded that with how well mapped the Earth is by now it’s very unlikely there’s still dinos waiting to be discovered, and I’d tend to agree with them. But I’m not *sure*. The one line I would draw is that any cryptids - dino or otherwise - would be non-sentient, non-sapient, whichever you prefer. The soul is what makes us the image of God; we are unique in that sense.

Aliens. I don’t believe they’re visiting us - see above about demons. I don’t believe they seeded Earth with life - that’s a direct contradiction of Genesis. I don’t believe they built ancient monuments - that’s a lazy, borderline racist theory for people who don’t want to acknowledge that our ancestors were just as smart and capable as us, just in different ways. In fact, I don’t believe there are any sentient/sapient aliens - as above, we humans are the image-bearers of God. I do, however, believe that it is entirely possible that somewhere out there in the vast universe there may be life, maybe even what we’d recognise as animal life.

To summarise: the Bible says supernatural things happen, and I believe the Bible. The Bible says there are demons, so I believe in demons. The Bible says ghosts can be summoned but we really shouldn’t do it, so I believe that. The Bible does not affirm or exclude cryptids and aliens, so I believe in the possibility of them, within the bounds of what is most rational. However, as the Bible says that we humans are the image bearers of God, I do not believe any cryptid or alien could be sentient/sapient.

Remaking this poll because I accidentally screwed up my results.

Making this because I'm genuinely curious.

Feel free to tag with any elaboration in the tags.

EDIT: I meant to say "more than one of the above" as the fourth option *facepalm* Oh well. I am not remaking it for a third time.

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awkenorslumped · 4 years ago

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who lied to you ?

Importance of the Spiritual Journey, universal signs and the unexpected!

As Summer Walker once said The spiritual journey isn’t about the astethic of crystals or the ideal that people have created to make it a fetish on social media. The true meaning of the spiritual journey as Summer Walker said its about the ability to take accountability for the choices one makes that affect their lives . Its about accepting who you truly are inside to show on the outside, Literally living in your true form not caring for the validation of others.

Many think the Spirituality is about the crystals or the “witching”, the burning of sage and manifestation. Take in mind that manifestation does play a part into it but there is much more depth. On your journey the importance is acknowledging that its about connecting deep to your inner self. The path is for you to really get to know yourself the true depth of who you are. Connecting to yourself through meditation means having a place where you feel safe and serene to focus your mind on yourself to analyze stuff within you that you can’t make a connection to why things happen to you in life. Connecting the subconscious to the conscious to make yourself whole.

I believe that before we’re born into the human realm we live in our spiritual homes before we’re meant to save those who we feel need help remembering who they truly are. I feel when we dream we are actually transporting back to our TRUE homes and forms. Scientist and the government are aware but they fear that when we realize it they can’t control it. They do research to figure out how to weaponize the ability and for complete control. Starseeds, Ascendants , Reiki Masters, The spiritually attuned etc are the people who are reincarnated to help break the cycle of control. The attuned don’t live for materialistic things they admire it but its never a true need, they don’t hold true value to the soul.

The journey is complex because you have to really really focus on yourself the past, the trauma , the fear and self doubt. Once you’ve overcome or can accept those your eyes will be open to the propaganda and the actual things happening in the world. Nothing will surprise you.

All those horror movies , sci fy movies where do you think the ideas come from ? Its not a coincidence its stuff that has happened before. They are signs and information in plain sight its for you to see the true info over what they put into distract you. The government has the goal to control the world for greed and power, while possibly some higher beings want to test us or sort us out from the true of heart to the wicked of heart. There is no good without a little bad, no light without dark and that goes for ourselves , the government and the higher beings some of us haven’t met yet.

We’re able to tell when we encounter others like us , we connect with them instantly they match our full energy potential without of dimming it. The goosebumps you get when you feel an eerie presence or feel your in the wrong place. That gut feeling that something is wrong is your subconscious telling you that a higher being that is most likely malicious or want to control you for a pet for their own amusement. The higher beings that observe us as entertainment are the ones who are in contact and work with the government for their desire of entertainment. The higher beings have been around longer than we have and seen many things also are more advance, they could give us the tools for world peace but they don’t instead they feed us info for world domination and destruction for pure laughter. The reptilians enjoy destruction because they feel they are superior to the pure of heart . To be fair there is a balance so what makes people think the universe wouldn’t have a balance between alien races ?

Lets bring you back to earth for a second, we humans HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA OF ALL THE CREATURES THAT LIVE HERE ! We’ve barely made a dent in prehistoric creatures. But lets take a dive down this bunny whole, If the earth we live on has been around for billions of years and has all these layers why the fuck would we assume we would know all the creatures and beings that have lived here before us ? Mythical creatures were & are real. Sea beings and creatures are real. Why is it hard to accept that there are legitimate things we know nothing us. But instead we humans want to prove we’re smarter beings? The joke is on everyone that believes that with their entire being. Honestly you have to be narcissitic to find that to be a true statement. How can we humans know everything about something that’s been around longer than us just because we dug through a small layer and found some bones. WE CAN’T EVEN GO TO THE TRUE DEPTH OF THE OCEAN SO HOW WOULD WE KNOW ALL THE SPECIES AND HUMANOIDS THAT CALL THE OCEAN HOME?? MAKE THAT MAKE SENSE! Scientist believe because they have a phd or doctorate that they are geniuses and make minor discoveries ? Its not a major discovery when most people are like we knew that already because we know there are other beings and species out there. You can’t fool the awaken ok, we have woken up because we were meant to. Shifts are happening and whatever deal was made could be coming to and end soon because the government is fucking up. Or hear me out the true form of the deal is coming where the humans who aren’t awake will never awake and will be under the control of the reptilians and the people in the government who work with them . But little do they know that the reptilians will in fact double cross them. Why, you ask? Simply the reptilians are smart, mischievous and clever but not too smart that they can’t be overcame. Typing this up I feel goosebumps why cause im aware im being watched I’ve acknowledged things im not meant to be aware of . Also because im writing this with all intentions of exposing what needs to be brought to light. Religion is a TOOL USED TO HAVE ALL OUR MINDS FOCUS ON ONE BEING THEY TOLD US WAS ALL MIGHTY BUT IN REALITY ITS THE REPTILIANS WHO CAME WITH THAT PLOT. BY BELIEVING IN ONE MIGHTY BEING YOU WILL BELIEVE EVERYTHING THAT POWER SAYS AND WILL NOT SECOND GUESS THEM. HELLO THE CONSTITUTION HAS THE SAME STRUCTURE HAS THE 10 COMMANDMENTS IN THE BIBLE. WHY??!? WHY HAVE LAWS THAT YOU HAVE TO FOLLOW UNQUESTIONED JUST LIKE THE 10 COMMANDMENTS YOUR EXPECTED TO FOLLOW IF YOU WANT TO LIVE WITH JESUS IN HEAVEN. Riddle me this why would Jesus who is suppose to be forgiving and loving turn his back on you for not following rules he made? He gave us free will so why would he forsake us if we don’t follow his rules. ALSO WHY WOULD HE ASK A FOLLOWER TO KILL HIS ONLY SON?!?! That there gave it away that religion as made as a secondary form of government to make people obedient and further help the reptilians plot for control of humans. Have the humans do your dirty work while you give them information or false information to complete your task while you sit back relax watch and wait until its almost completed and they come to take reign .ONCE you realize what done and try to rebel you get wiped out and they try again. Many planets many chances to complete a goal. ALSO all those people who’ve exposed the truth were killed because the people who don’t want the revolution are instructed to keep the secret by any means necessary. How come the Egyptians, the mayan , aztecs, Atlantans had contact with humanoids that helped them advance their ENTIRE civilizations, yet the government has know about “aliens” been in contact with them yet our civilization hasn’t advance . Shouldn’t that there tell you the humanoids they are in contact with aren’t here to actually help us. The world needs to open their eyes and see the truth.

If you think I’m crazy then explain why they haven’t found a single bone from the mayan civilization of the people who lived there, why can’t we explain atlantis, why is it that all these advance civilizations just go missing , not as though their city was rampaged but left in tact in one piece but the people left. NO THEY WERE SAVED BY THEIR ANCESTORS OF THE TRUE OF HEART BEFORE THE REPTILIANS TRIED TO DESTROY THEM.

WAKE UP, OPEN YOUR EYES, CONNECT YOUR MIND AND SOUL. SAVE YOURSELF BEFORE YOU MISS THE SAVING SHIP.

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script-a-world · 5 years ago

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hello. i want to write a story set in a very religious place. like fanatic level of religious. in my mind, this place is ruled by what the church says but has a "cover" figure to "connect" with the people. the people of this place are devoted to their religion, meaning they know passages, go to mass, and shun those who don't support it. here is my question: how does one go about creating a religion that feels real? what do i need to take into consideration (i'm not religious myself).

Mod Miri Note: At the same time this came in we also received from the google form the question “How do I world build a religion?” I can’t confirm they’re the same anon, but we’re combining them for the answer.

Brainstormed: You seem to have a very… narrow perception of religion? If you aren’t religious yourself and you’re (presumably) from a Western culture, it makes sense that the Christian church and more specifically Catholicism are your go-to images of hyperreligion. Saying “mass” and “church” and “passages” kind of gives away the fact that you’re trying to base your religion off of at least your idea of an Abrahamic religion, but I’d ask you to reconsider. Right now it sounds like you’re trying to create a negative critique of these religions, and even if that is what you’re going for, you need to do a lot of research on their theology, history, and practices before you can do so with any competence.

I’d suggest doing some basic research on types of religions, like animism, pantheism, polytheism, general superstition, etc. There are plenty of spiritual worldviews that you might consider way over the top, but whose believers find it more bizarre when people don’t follow their teachings. Fanatics are never fanatics in their own mind, and especially among their own people, but also… fanatic might be a relative term. If you’re approaching this from a nonreligious background, then you might consider X-amount of religion in one’s lifestyle to be fanatic-level. Whereas a person who actively practices religion would consider X-amount to be perfectly normal, and only folks who take it to XX-amount plus some shadier practices are the true fanatics.

Remember, religions start because people want to make sense of the world. There is a deeper feeling of wonder and personhood and power, both within a human being and in the whole world around us, that drives spirituality and generates superstition. Religion, at least to start, is beneficial to people, otherwise no one but sadists would follow its teachings. Now, like anything else, religion can devolve into a means of power hoarding and control of a populace, but only because of the people in charge getting greedy. The vast majority of religions I’ve studied have had radical, freeing, empowering teachings applicable to everybody when they first sprang up, and only later did adherents twist those teachings into societal oppression. If there is no satisfaction or benefit in your religion, there won’t exactly be any incentive for people to follow it so closely, aside from whatever negative consequences occur for those who fall away. And negative consequences aren’t often enough to keep people in a religion. If following religion is more painful than the consequences of leaving it, plenty of people will jump ship.

Religion can also show up in every single part of life. According to Wikipedia:

A religious experience (sometimes known as a spiritual experience, sacred experience, or mystical experience) is a subjective experience which is interpreted within a religious framework. The concept originated in the 19th century, as a defense against the growing rationalism of Western society. William James popularised the concept.

You look up and see a cloud, a spiritual person sees a portent, or a spirit, or a castle where the gods live. You take a break from work for a minute, a spiritual person now has time to mutter a prayer, or observe the mood of the world, or dedicate their work to their god. A person doesn’t have to be anywhere near a fanatic to have their religion be in every part of their life. Especially if they adhere to a more lax spirituality or superstitious worldview instead of an organized religion, the central spiritual experience of religious belief alters the perception of self and surroundings. It isn’t only a set of rules to follow.

It can even help areas of society that modern Western society considers nonreligious! Historically, medicine has always come under religion. Witch doctors, medicine men, witchcraft, even the hygiene laws laid out in the Christian Bible. Physical health has often been considered a reflection of spiritual health, which, in a way, is true! The placebo effect means tending to one’s mental and emotional health with the reassurance of religion will improve one’s physical health as well. Not only that, but the power of a “spiritual experience”, regardless of if you believe the supernatural is real, can cause religious ecstacy, something you might perceive as a serious psychological problem but those who experience it consider to be a deep form of spiritual expression to be treasured and sought after. The spread and preservation of information is also often aided by religion, even though that can change should those in power want to change history or obscure truth for their own reasons. Just look at the history of the printing press and how that was driven by the need for Bibles. Many cultures, most famously Australian Aboriginal peoples, have oral histories thousands of years long that tie in closely to their spirituality.

You also might be confusing religion with cults. If you think all religion is predatory, playing on people’s weaknesses and fears in order to coerce them into a miserable lifestyle of following strict laws and living under control of those in power, you definitely have conflated “religion” and “cult”. If you’d like to worldbuild a cult, go ahead! It’s likely to be smaller and less acceptable than an established organized religion, not very transparent to the outside world nor its members, and have a spirituality that is in fact just a veneer over gaining power, instead of genuine belief and devotion, and may in fact require people to murder or commit suicide. Just look at Scientology, or these, or even Jared Leto, and a more in-depth look from this organization covering many different kinds of cults.

On a more worldbuildy note, are those who practice this religion correct? Does their god(s) exist? Is the supernatural real? If yes, then are they really fanatics if they’ve been right all along? Even if they’re incorrect, the dedication and deep-held beliefs of religious people shouldn’t be mocked wholesale, in my opinion. Make sure to keep some genuine three-dimensional development for characters who are part of this religion, or include other religions with different practices, or the only thing you’ll accomplish is “waaaa religion bad believers dumb”. And if that is the story you want to write, feel free, but I can’t help you there.

Feral: What makes a religion feel real? Sincere faith.

Specifically among the leaders. I mean, sure, those lemming-like peasants who actually believe that superstitious nonsense will have sincere faith, but honestly? There is going to be a higher percentage of people faking it among the masses than among the clergy. Clergy members are generally required to go through rigorous studies and often take vows that can cause great discomfort. I am sure there are those who did it for the power - there are in atheist organizations as well, humans can be crap - but if you actually read the writings of important Church leaders of the past, not to mention rabbis, imams & mullahs, and archakas, you’re going to find that they have sincere faith.

Something you should always keep in mind when developing pre-modern religion in a Western context is that before the advent of modern scholarship, which starts to become a thing in the West during the Renaissance, all the important scholars were clergy. And again, those learned people either had to be really, really dedicated to their power-hungry ambitions or had to have sincere faith.

That does not make religions perfect by any means nor does it mean that the god they have sincere faith in is omnibenevolent (though the qualities of an omnibenevolent god will be strongly dependent on the culture that worships it). And religious leaders are absolutely capable of doing terrible, terrible things even if they profess to worship an omnibenevolent god, and politicians can definitely twist things around to suit their needs (again, this is not exclusive to religiosity). But your ask has this weird given that a major religion (on par with Catholicism/Christianity) in your world is a scam, and while yes, that happens in cults and alternative religions and in splinter groups*, as Brainstormed pointed out that’s just not how, at least, the four major religions of our world got started.

Yes, it’s true that bureaucracies of a certain size and age will inevitably begin to change focus to protecting its own existence. And yes, it’s true that ambitious sociopaths will be drawn to places of authority even if they are difficult to achieve. And yes, it’s true that an individual entering a toxic environment is more likely to be changed by the environment than to change the environment. But guess what! That has nothing to do with whether the organization is religious or not.

Why does a religion exist in the first place? It explains the universe in a pre-modern world; it provides organization and structure for community focus - in other words, many social programs have historically been run through religious organizations and leadership. And it provides hope and comfort in a very scary world.

Some clergy might be able to fake all of that for a little while, but a large bureaucracy with many clerics who are all in on the fake? No. Allow me to rephrase: hell no. People are not dumb. Maybe you believe that of all religious people, but you are wrong and they are not. The people in your world, if they’re anything like the people in our world, are gonna sniff out the bullshit if none of their religious leaders believe what they’re selling. There is a reason Scientology has to keep blackmail files on all its adherents, and I promise you, the Catholic Church does not do that.

*A note on cults, alternative religions, and splinter groups: Cults and alternative religions (their PR friendly name) are “religions” that are scammy and/or actively dangerous to the participants or others: People’s Temple, Branch Davidian, etc. Splinter groups are congregations that start as normal members of a large religion or denomination but its insular culture creates a divide that just takes things a little too far even for the most fanatical of the main sect (think terrorist groups that link themselves to religions). These types of religions might be what you are actually asking about. Groups like these can be highly, highly influential but in a very contained area. What cults often do is the leader settles in an area and buys property and builds a church and maybe a school and then encourages the members to all move either onto the plot of land if it’s large enough or to buy up surrounding land and homes and push out all the non-believers. That area can then be fortified or just have a de facto boundary with the rest of the world. Sometimes a group like this can become large enough to constitute an entire town, but rarely a city - groups that large will more often have centralized compounds but with the members living scattered among non-believers, as Scientology does. Obviously a group concentrated like that will have an impact on local politics, if they are allowed to participate, but it’s not going to go farther than the county line, so to speak. As we all know from the news, splinter groups like ISIS can become very large and globe spanning, but those types of groups have within them splinter groups and factions, and I don’t think that’s what you’re asking about anyway, so I’m just going to leave it there.

But frankly, your ask reads to me as “how do I create a fantasy!Catholic that is secretly evil and will show the audience how evil religion is in the real world? Opiate of the masses!” And my advice is… don’t. Because it lacks compassionate understanding of people of faith (many faiths), it lacks a factual understanding of how world religions differ and function, it totally lacks nuance, and finally, because it is absolutely, monumentally, extremely, really, very cliche.

Maybe the way your ask is coming across to me is totally not how you intended it. Maybe you only used the jargon you used because you assumed we wouldn’t know any other terms and maybe your understanding of world religions is actually quite sophisticated. Maybe you really do have this insanely clever way to spin a tired cliche into some new and original. In these cases, we strongly encourage you to come right back with as jargon-full and specific an ask as you can write, use our submission google form to do it. Otherwise, give our responses some thought and if after you’ve developed your religion, you want to come back with a specific ask other than “how do I world build a religion?” (which is a little too broad), please feel free.

#pylons #religion #Anonymous

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drunklander · 5 years ago

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Drunj!Der Yells About Outlander

Thoughts on Ep. 505

ADSOOO!!! AND CLAIRE!!! AND ADSOOOOO!!!

My floofer was not amused when I woke her up to show her the cat on the teevee. Bqhatevwr, boo boo, you’re stuck with me. #TeamSocialDistancing

Oh, I guess the voice overs are back in a big way. Super...

And also like, this whole running bit about God and stuff would work so much better if they’d included Jamie and Claire’s faith a bit more throughout the show. *cough Jamie’s prayer cough*

Do we have to pour one out for science!jizz? This is the book bit where the science!jizz happened, but maybe they’ll do it later? Probs not. Le sigh.

Marsali being all excited with Claire and Claire being all fuck yeah I found it gives me the warm fuzzies. I LOVE THE TWO OF THEM A LOT OK.

This montage makes me dizzy. Not a fan, tbh.

Oh hey, the old Hancock building! With a park that looks nothing like Boston, haha. But I appreciate the effort lol, my main office is like a block from the old Hancock building. Not that I’ll be seeing it any time soon. Living that work from home life until the plague times are over.

But for real, social distance. No joke. Stay the fuck home.

I love 60s Claire if only because damn girl, look at dem legsss.

Hi, I’m Der and I’m very shallow sometimes.

But Claire has objectively great legs.

Omfg, Roger, stop being a butthurt whiner. You suck at being a soldier. You know you suck at being a soldier. And instead of being like yeah, let me learn and get better, you just bitch about it.

Sam is gonna kick his horse in the head at some point. Why the fuck does he dismount like that. It’s literally bugged me since season one.

So they’re pardoning everyone. Probs not Murtz though. Cool that instead of doing a continuous ramp up to the inevitable confrontation, they’re going the book route of lol, jk, all this was kind of a waste of time for now...

Really, Knox, you did something excessive? Cool way to say murdered a dude.

Ok well if Knox is getting the Ardsmuir roll, then he’s def gonna die, right?

Jamie’s 100% gonna intentionally miss Murtz’s face.

Boom, called it.

I do not like spiders. Please move this VO along, Claire.

I’m fucking glad we finally get Doctor!Claire. We should have gotten more Doctor!Claire in season three. Jamie got to have all aspects of his 20 years examined but fucking Claire’s side was literally just about Fred and how shitty he is.

Fuck you, season three. Fuck yeah, Doctor!Claire!

“It’s my married name.” Lulz. And not the married name she wants...

GRAHAM SAYS THE THING JAMIE SAID WHEN CLAIRE WAS STITCHING HIM UP IN SEASON ONE AND I HAVE FEELINGS ABOUT IT OK.

Graham makes me miss when the show was in Scotland like whoa. I miss the Squad. There are so many characters now that are like kind of always around but they’re not part of the Squad. And the main Squad is always separated. So like there’s barely any big group adventures anymore where we actually give a shit about everyone involved.

I JUST WANT THE FOLKS I CARE ABOUT TO HANG OUT MORE, OK!

Needle!jizz 2.0 is gonna be the closest we get to science!jizz, isn’t it. Whomps.

Can the show please just be a period procedural with Claire and Marsali being badass doctors? Thx.

Because for real though, Marsali being like “scalpel” is my favorite thing ever.

I feel you, Jemmy, I’d cry if I were stuck hanging out with Roger too.

I DO NOT LIKE SPIDERS, CLAIRE.

“My lass is more concerned wi’ words and deeds.” Which is why it baffles me that she’s still with you, bro, because your words and deeds fucking suck.

How Bonnet doesn’t accidentally swallow the diamond is beyond me.

Ok so if your wife was violently raped and you know she’s had some PTSD about it, because you’ve seen the drawings and stuff, you should maybe act completely the opposite way from how Roger is acting.

“And you kept it? A gift...from Bonnet.” Yes, you giant fuckwit, your traumatized wife went to hang with her rapist for shits and giggles and accepted a present because she really wants a memento to remember him by. They’re on such good terms and all. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?! HOW IS HE SUCH A DOUCHECANOE?!

You do not get to judge or question how someone processes their trauma you raging asshat.

He is such a fucking Fred.

Do I think what Bree did was smart? Or a good decision? Hard no. But it’s what she thought she needed to do to move forward with her life. And so she can do whatever the fuck she wants. Yeah, words have consequences and it was a stupid move, but Roger needs to step all the fucking way off.

“You’ve never said as much to me.” “I didn’t think I needed to.” I HATE ROGER SO MUCH. I HATE HIM WITH THE PASSION OF A THOUSAND FIERY SUNS. HOW DO THE WRITERS NOT REALIZE THAT THEY’RE MAKING THE CHARACTER WHO’S SUPPOSED TO BE THE SECOND ROMANTIC MALE LEAD AN IRREDEEMABLE PIECE OF SHIT. OH WAIT BECAUSE THEY HAVE LOTS OF PRACTICE FROM FRED 1.0 THAT FRED 2.0 IS JUST A NATURAL PROGRESSION.

Lol at this “Boston” priest sounding vaguely southern. Is he one of the pedos the archdioceses just kept shuffling around?

(I’m not a fan of organized religion and being forced to grow up Catholic sucked a lot for me. I did some therapy about it.)

Ok so is Claire’s knife on her belt the hand job antler knife? I mean, Jamie doesn’t give it to her until Echo, but I’m gonna pretend like it’s the hand job antler knife. Also, some witches use a white handled knife called a boline to cut herbs and stuff so it’s fitting that Claire constantly-being-witchy-to-her-own-detriment Beauchamp has a white handled knife for collecting herbs.

“Yeah, Frank and I... no, we had a very complicated marriage.” Well that’s one way to put it. *keeps rage bottled up on the inside*

“Frank and I, we still managed to make it work, for Bree’s sake.” Except it didn’t fucking work. He was terrible to you. You basically put up with 20 years of emotional abuse for the sake of your kid and then he used her as a weapon against you. Because he is garbage. Much like Roger.

Claire is always the bigger person. She was with Fred and now with Roger. Like, I’m still pissed that she never got to let out her side of things. She just keeps framing it through rose colored glasses, never speaking ill of Fred when he didn’t do that for her.

WE DO NOT DESERVE CLAIRE BEAUCHAMP AND NEITHER DO MOST OF THE MEN ON THIS SHOW.

Fergus deserves milady.

They’re really going hard with the Roger, Bree and Jemmy have to go back stuff. Are they gonna bump them going back up to the season finale this year? They bring it up basically every fucking episode. I’d be down with moving that along tbh. Except then we’d have to have just the two of them as their own story line and I hate that part from the books.

“We are but humble servants to the law.” Really, Javert Knox. Would you say your duty’s to the law?

“Those who follow the path of the righteous shall have their reward.” Yes, bible and shit, but also a veRY FAMOUS LINE FROM A VERY FAMOUS SONG FROM A VERY FAMOUS MUSICAL.

“Scotland, eh? I never stopped missing it.” HARD SAME, GRAHAM. HARD SAME.

Pledged their oaths to the militia. Not the governor. Miiiinor detail, haha.

“It is a relief, to finally put down the sword and pistol and pick up the axe and shovel.” So, Jamie, you’re saying you’re gonna walk behind the plough-share, you will put away the sword?

Oh hey, it’s Joe! Another person we should have spent more time with in season three.

“Something about Graham Menzies...” Maybe the fact that he could easily have been part of the OG Squad?

I MISS THE OG SQUAD.

“Principally that men like Fitzgibbons never change.” Really, Knox, men like [him] can never change? A man, such as [him]?

“OUR DUTY IS TO THE LAW. WE WILL SEE JUSTICE DONE.” OK BUT THEY’RE LIKE LITERALLY TRYING TO SHOEHORN IN ALL THE LES MIS LYRICS THEY CAN LIKE THE TIME I DID THAT WITH I’M ON A BOAT IN THAT ONE RECAP...

“What kind of deceitful devil wears the guise of honor and talks of justice and mercy?” Valjean Fraser, at last we see each other plain...

“Believe of me what you will,” there’s a duty that he’s sworn to do. Protect his Murtz.

“As god is my witness, I will do what must be done.” You never shall yield? ‘Til you come face to face?

“Damned if I’ll be in league with a traitor.” Would you rather live in the debt of a thief?

“But I will not stand by and watch my kin hunted like a dog.” Like a dog on the run, Jamie?

Called it! Broski needed to die. You’re not gonna make sure the letters are burned all the way, Jamie? Like didn’t that dude who brought in the letters see you there? This seems like it’s gonna backfire *rull* quick.

Also, speaking of dead bodies, is Rando McWhatshisface still in the basement?

Is Adso Gavroche in this scenario?

Jamie Fraser, murder to kitten snuggles in 0.3 seconds.

IF YOU HURT ONE HAIR ON MY LITTLE BEBE’S HEAD, I WILL END YOU, JAMIE.

Slash finally, I thought this episode was turning into Waiting for Gadsot...

(I made myself chuckle a little too hard at that one, tbh.)

“I found him in an alley, couldn’t leave him behind.” AKA how Jamie Fraser adopts all of his children, haha.

“How would you feel about taking a trip to London with me? Your father wanted to bring you there before he died.” You mean, when he threatened to steal your kid from you? It fucking speaks so highly of Claire that she won’t ruin Bree’s impression of Fred. Even though Bree knows by now that he was a terrible person.

“Thank you for my gift.” YOUR GIFT LOVES YOU TOO, CLAIRE!

(And I’m still a sucker for the Claire calling Jamie “soldier” bit.)

#*#outlander starz #outlander 5x05 #drunj!der yells about outlander #and yes i am still using bqhatevwr #seven year old memes from politicians who elizabeth warren crushed are my fave

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aizenat · 2 years ago

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Like, and I’m not being snarky when I say this (I have to preface this a lot thanks to how volatile the internet is now no one believes I’m asking a question in earnest and it’s annoying), did you watch the original castlevania series? Because Lisa “I went banging on Dracula’s door despite all the skeletons on spikes outside his castle because I want to learn science and medicine so I can help people who don’t have real doctors to help them” Tepes was literally in hell. In season 3, the Prior of the town Trevor and Sypha go to says that Lisa was sent to hell and that Dracula went to join her. Indicating that Lisa was in hell long before Dracula was finally killed and sent there. We literally see her and Dracula embracing in hell.

She was a good person, and yet she was in hell. According to Christian doctrine, being a good person doesn’t save you from hell. Only being saved and living a “good Christian life” will save you. Edouar was likely not a Christian and he consorted with “witches” who do magic. From a Christian perspective of course he’d be in hell.

I’m still making my way through rewatching the original series, so idk if it was confirmed, but I felt it was sort of implied that god doesn’t exist but hell does in this world. I could be wrong, but that seems consistent with the story. The night creature that was able to go into the church to kill the bishop in season 1 says to the bishop when he asks how he was able to enter the house of god that “god is not here.”

Also, and I will admit this is a little snarky, have you read the Bible? According to it, God absolutely is a-okay with slavery and absolutely does hate the gays. There’s a reason I’ve renounced my faith lol. Like I’m trusting the white mans god with my spiritual wellbeing. No ma’am.

But I don’t really think that’s a plot hole. Emmanuel isn’t a forgemaster. Rather he got a machine from hell to do it for him. That makes sense to me why 1) the original souls of the corpses seem to return and eventually even regain the memories of their lives since he’s not a forgemaster so of course things will be off and 2) why he’s also super slow at creating night creatures. I think the show created a very sufficient in universe explanation for everything you’re claiming are plot holes.

Also, like, this was the first season and the crew failed to send the machine back to hell. Meaning we’re going to get more about this machine and how it works and this new breed of night creatures in the future. I just don’t understand this desire to over analyze an obviously unfinished story. Let it play out. A plot hole is what happens when a story is competed but there was something major that was never addressed or never made sense. The plot of the night creatures rebelling is obviously going to be addressed later on, and one of the questions will be why they’re turning against their master (they’re not supposed to be able to do that; they’re supposed to be loyal to who created them). So we’ll get more into that later. This was the first season and so they were establishing things for later seasons to get more into. Let’s let the story play out a bit before the nitpicking.

Alright so last time I checked, to make a night creature in Castlevania, you need to be a forgemaster. Forgmasters can only call fourth souls from hell to reanimate the bodies of the living in any form the forgemaster chooses.

The important thing here is that only souls that went to hell after dying can be called into a corpse by a forgemaster. This, then, raises the question as to why the fuck Edouar is a night creature now on Nocturne?

Either the writers forgot/ignored some key lore because they wanted this character arc, or Edouar actually went to hell, and that was an intentional choice on the writers part. This then raises the question, why did Edouar go to hell!?

Did he go to hell for killing vampires? Did he go to hell for killing human slave masters? Did he go to hell for being gay!? I honestly can't think of any good reason Edouar should be in hell other than:

1. God likes slavery,

2. God hates gays,

3. God as we understand him in our world, doesn't exist, and everyone goes to hell when they die.

4. God as we know him is real, but has a different morality system than what we were taught and ppl can get sent to hell for reasons unknown.

In either case, this is my biggest criticism of the show. One of the major plot threads is only possible due to a major narrative inconsistency and the implications for its reasoning are fucked.

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dontbesoevil · 6 years ago

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So you want to improve your French and like to learn about things?

Good news for you, French Youtube has a very large number of really good channels of what we call “vulgarisation” (popularisation in English, but it isn’t used as much as the French word really).

I’ll divide them in broad categories and there are more.

Science:

So you like medicine, but also History? Well I have the perfect channel for you. Asclépios is a real life doctor who also likes to do videos about the history of medicine. You can start by this video on the Radium girls for example. Note that most, but not all of his videos have French subs.

There was a channel called “La statistique expliquée à mon chat”, but following disagreement (like big ones) between the illustrator/animator and the statistician doing them it stopped producing content. The statistician, one of the few Belgians on this list, started his own channel. Some of the old videos have been reuploaded and then he also produces other videos which obviously don’t look as good because he is no artist, but still interesting videos about statistics applied to every day situations and the world around us on Chat sceptique.

One of the big French Youtube channel is Dirty Biology. He does, as the title says, mainly biology-related stuff (he did study it and started and stopped a phD in it). His videos are really well-done and thought provoking and I cannot recommend them enough. The videos used to be 5 to 10 min, now it’s more 10 to 20 minutes. He did a recent video in Svalbard about climate change, but also a video about scientific publishing, or the fact that we all have royal blood. Seriously watch it. Most if not all videos have subs in French and Spanish. Some have subs in English, but it’s a hit and miss.

Asking any French person about their favourite science show as a kid and they will answer C’est pas socier. The US have Bill Nye, we have Fred et Jamy. Fred decided with a team a couple of years ago to start a website (with the associated YT channel) to do an updated version of C’est pas sorcier called l’Esprit Sorcier. You can show this to your kids, show this in class. It is well-made and interesting, and really made to be easy to understand. Each show lasts for 25 min and has a YT version and a website interactive version (with the videos shorter). I have linked their show on quantum computers for example. There are sadly no subs.

So I talk about it below, but my favourite channel ever is Arte and they produce a lot of very good cultural and documentary-style. But more recently, they have started a Youtube channel with French Youtubers to talk about interesting topics, called Le Vortex. They do it by season and in season 1, they have among other Dirty Biology (see above), Scilabus and Passé Sauvage (see below) and Pause Process. They talked on agriculture and its development from an archaeological, anthropological, and scientific point of view, but also internet from a more scientific point of view, and also transhumanism because why not, you know. I highly recommend checking all of their videos and apart from the live, they almost all have French subs. The second season has been filmed, but hasn’t been posted yet.

So as mentioned above, Scilabus is part of le Vortex, but she also has her own channel. She is French, but lives in Canada, in Québec where she is a researcher. She takes questions you might ask yourself like Why is there so much air in your crisps packet? or Why does cardboard have undulations? or Is marathon that hard? and just answers them. Some videos have subs, not all, but all are interesting.

And the final science channel is Zeste de Science, ZdS is a channel powered by the CNRS (Conseil National de Recherche Scientifique), basically the body that funds scientific research in France. It is quite neat and they have a couple of different series. The main one is videos of around 5 min where they present a topic like how to model crowds or how to make a little thing of plastic dance disco. It’s entirely based on research produced by CNRS researchers, but in an easy to understand format. They have recently started a series where they present current research projects as if they were action films and it’s very funny. The videos have subs, but not all of them.

History:

French Youtube has a lot of history channel, the biggest of which is Nota Bene. He does a lot of videos with a preference for stories on the WW, medieval kings and leaders around the world and their stupid or epic deaths, but also more recently partnerships with French regions to promote French heritage. He has a lot of videos and several series you can start by (like recently a series on the historical inspirations in Game of Thrones). Just go and have a look to what interests you, there is a lot. Some have subs in several languages, some only in French, it depends. He has also done a series with Arte (keur keur, i love them) on history and video games which I highly recommend. The series is also available in German and with English, Polish, and Spanish subs because Arte. His wife and him have organised a summer festival with Youtubers (both those doing history, and others doing completely different topics) to come and do presentations about historical topics. They are all filmed and posted on his bonus channel. Note that they don’t have subs and the quality differs with some being really good and some I stopped after a few minutes.

Do you like Goodnight stories for Rebel Girls? Well AudeGG a French comedian has a channel where she presents the life of famous women past and present in Virago. The videos are 2-3 minutes long generally and from all around the globe. You can start by the first one on famous French revolutionary Olympe de Gouges. (She has also recently done a partnership with the French tv archives on the history important laws for the rights of women that is also super interesting.) They all have French subs.

Another one of the big History channel is C’est une autre histoire. Manon started her videos when she was still a phD student, she is now Doctor in History (contemporary and ancient, she looked at the representation of Athena in the 19th century if I remember correctly, super interesting stuff). She has videos where she talks about a mythological character and how we represent them (les relookings mythologiques), where she takes a painting and explains what it represents in mythology (or the Bible for a few of them) so that when you see three ladies with an apple each, you know it’s the Three Graces (Tu vois le tableau), where she visits cities and presents nice less known places (Les villes aux détails most of them with Eng subs as well / inspired by Axolot, see below). She recently started short animated videos. Most of her videos have subs in French and in other languages. She also did a vlog during her last year of phD so if you’re thinking of doing a phD, that’s a good series to watch where she talks about the process and all.

We move to the other side of the Atlantic to visit our cousins, the Québecois with history lecturer, Laurent Turcot and his L’Histoire nous le dira. There are lot of videos about European medieval history as well as more modern Canadian and Quebec history. It’s really interesting. There are also a few videos about sex and gender throughout history (the most recent ones were on witches and vaginal art e.g.). He also has a series of videos on the French Revolution (with subs in Portuguese because why not. Sadly no French subs ). In terms of subs, it varies, some have them, some don’t.

To present the next one, I have to plug another one first. This is the Youtube channel for a tv show by the best tv broadcaster in the world (no I do not take criticisms), Arte. Arte is a French-German public broadcaster that has the best programmes and among those, a show that has made a lot of people including myself want to study politics and international relations, Le Dessous des Cartes. The show are only 12 min long and will present a country or an issue using a map. There are only two shows available on the channel at the moment, but type any geopolitical topic or country or area + Le dessous des cartes and you’ll find a show uploaded on Youtube (like “arctique + dessous des cartes” or “religion + dessous des cartes” or “chine + dessous des cartes”). This is a must see.

Anyway so inspired by this, the small channel, L’Histoire par les cartes was created and it does what it says. There are not a lot of videos, they don’t have subs, they are 5-10 min long, but if you’re like me and enjoy a good map, this is neat little channel.

See Le Vortex above, highly recommend, they have both history and science videos.

I mentioned Passé Sauvage above because she was part of Le Vortex, but she also has a channel where she talks about archaeology (her degrees are in it), anthropology, and history. Her videos are of differing quality technically, but the content is always really interesting. For example, that one on Is democracy the best system? She is developing a new project for 2020 called Odyssée sauvage which I’m really excited about and in which she will travel to Greece to compare archaeological vestiges to Greek mythology. Some vids have subs, the majority don’t sadly.

Social Sciences/Humanities:

Manon Bril (from C’est une autre histoire, see above) has a channel with her former university where she presents, one video per month, the conclusion of a peer-reviewed journal articles in social sciences and humanities in an easy to digest format. It’s more serious than some of the others, but really interesting. It’s on Mondes Sociaux.

Do you like linguistics? I love linguistics personally and this channel is the best. It’s called Linguisticae and Monté explains topics as diverse as what was the first language spoken on Earth, why do we say maman and papa in every language, or why the Académie Française is bad. The videos go from 5 min (the mum/dad one), to 20 min (the first language on earth), to 1h30 for the one l’Académie Française). He also did a really good 50 min documentary on the history and the language of Esperanto which I highly recommend (I linked the part 1 because the doc cut in parts as subs in several languages (except English), but there is also a 50 min version, but it’s only available with subs in Esperanto). Or two long videos on Tolkien’s elf languages and GoT’s languages. He has a lot of videos so I’d advise going through and see what interests you.

That one is about economics because we think we know, but we don’t. In Stupid Economics, they take topics that are in the news and explain how the economics behind it works. They recently did a video on the fine the EU gave to Google and even had a follow-up with someone from the Commission to answer people’s questions. They have videos on the economy of attention, Bitcoin, or CETA. The length varies from 3 to 15 min depending on the type of videos. They are all very well-explained and relevant to the world around us. They tend to have subs, but it depends. The older videos have subs, it depends.

Art/Music:

That first channel is more a “check those two videos” because that’s the only thing posted on this channel, but Louvre Ravioli has posted two interesting videos, each on one painting with detailed explanations on what is represented.

NART is channel on art (chocking I know) where she has several series of videos. The first one is called “3 coups de pinceaux” in which she presents a painter in around 4 min so that you know about their style, story and all and you can recognise them. At the end of each episode she does a quiz where you have to recognise which of the four paintings is by the painter of the day. The latest one was on Schiele for exemple. She has a lot of videos on Art + something. Like Art and Manga or is make-up art. She also has a few videos presenting art exhibitions. She studied contemporary art and started her channel by a 3-part series on contemporary art for those of us who need an explanation which I remember finding really interesting. Some vids have subs (even sometimes Eng subs, but not French), but not all.

There are a few music channels on French vulgarisateurs side. You can find them here on the Mediapason channel. The only one I follow is the very neat channel called Scherzando which talks about medieval music. But also how it still is relevant today. Like the Beatles and the Renaissance or how Georges Brassens was maybe a troubadour. The content of the channel is diverse and it’s all very interesting! Some videos have subs, but not all.

Other:

One of the most famous French Youtuber of that category (although he does other things) is Axolot. Patrick Baud loves the strange and the weird. He has series on people or stories that have a strange atmosphere surrounding them for 6-10 min. He has one of the best voices around. Seriously, you will want to listen to it for hours. He also has a series called “étranges escales” where he goes to a city and shows you a different side to it and other places to visit (15-20 min). He published recently a really interesting video on people who “hunt” for planets and how we discover(ed) exoplanets and it’s just so good, highly recommend (30 min).

That isn’t so much about explaining stuff, but I feel like I should still mention it. Le J-Terre is a monthly news live show and debate about climate issues. It is a group effort by the whole French-speaking European community (so French peeps, but also Swiss and Belgian) to really talk about climate change. There are no subs, but it is really interesting. If those topics interest you, everyone involved in this has their channel plugged so you can find them and their all really interesting (Partager, c’est sympa did a series of videos at the COP24 that I highly recommend with French and English subs).

One of the participants to the J-Terre is Professeur Feuillage, made by married couple Mathieu Duméry (a journalist) and Lénie Cherino (a comedian) where they play a professor and his assistant and present (with a lock of dick jokes, innuendoes, and dildos so careful who you share it with) issues related to climate change like Internet pollution, deforestation, or cute things that are actually destroying the environment. Lénie is actually going to take a bigger part in the channel and it will change a bit, but it’s the very beginning of that, so not sure what it’ll look like. The older videos have subs, not the newest ones sadly.

That one isn’t really popularisation per se, but I want to include it here. Vivre Avec is Margot’s channel where they talk about their life with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome. Recently it has turned a bit more to their plants and their rabbits, but the core of the channel is centred around disability. What is EDS?, what are certain things that people say that really they shouldn’t (the latest video is about people being like “Your life is horrible, it really puts things in perspective” :////). They are videos about symptoms, mobility aids, etc. as well as talking to medicine and nursing students about how to treat patients. All of their videos have French subs.

There are obviously more channels, but those are the ones I follow. If you check the “Channels” tab of most of them, they all have other great recommendations if that isn’t enough for you. Please feel free to add more if you want and come and talk to me about them because I love channels where I can learn stuff.

#langblr #french #français #i'm particularly searching for such channels in swedish and german #frenchblr #please come and talk to me #i have to work on my thesis and i have just spent more than 2h doing this #woops #i hope there aren't any typo because i can't be asked to proofread #you: write your thesis me: okay but what if i wrote nearly 3000 words on youtube channels instead

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addlxl · 6 years ago

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𝓌𝒾𝓉𝒸𝒽 𝒶𝓅𝓅 ( jodie whittaker. female, she/her, dream + bishop briggs ) i heard ADELINE LAWTON singing the other night, though it didn’t sound like english… it’s so admirable that someone who’s only THIRTY-EIGHT can sing latin so fluently! heard they hang out with those TACITUM CIRCLE, that must be because they’re a ER DOCTOR at NEW YORK PRESBYTERIAN HOSPITAL . i always see them going home to MANHATTAN by CAR OR BICYCLE under the moonlit night.

Adeline was one of a set of twins born to a teenage mother who had quickly decided that a set of twins was too much for her to handle. In most instances, a situation like this would be quite dire for the twins. Yet, lucky for the them a pastor and his wife were looking to do some good. That good turned into adopting the twins.

Unfortunately, neither parent really knew what they were getting into. There was no law saying you had write down the species your children were.

On the outside, Adeline was the perfect blonde little girl, the complete opposite of her brother. She got the top grades, didn’t go out late at night (primarily because she didn’t have very many friends to do that with) and had practically memorised the bible

Unfortunately, Adeline was smart to a point that wasn’t quite normal for kids her age. Many would have called her a genius if she didn’t spend her childhood and teenage years hiding those brains of hers. It was something that could make her stand even more then her eccentric personality did. She’d no longer be the perfect blonde haired daughter her parents had gotten.

It was when she hit nineteen, soon after her brother had been kicked out and she was in her first year at med school that she realised two things (well three if you want to look at technically). One, she wasn’t straight. Not in the slightest. It was something she had always kind of known, but had always denied. After all, she was raised by a pastor, it wasn’t allowed. Her asexuality wasn’t necessarily not allowed, it was just something she didn’t understand, something she believed to be wrong with her.

Now the second thing. It took some research and a recognition that the things that were happening around her had once happened around Noel, were happening around her. Maybe they always had, but with Noel around she had always thought it was him. Eventually, she stopped denying that she too was a witch.

While she got her PhD in Medicine, she simultaneously did some study of her own into witchcraft and by the time she was done, she was as a good a witch as she was a doctor. In other words, she was really fucking good. Adeline had long ago stopped holding herself back with such things.

It had taken her only six years to get her PhD (genius over here) and from there, she went into a field practically no one expected her too. She became a combat medic for the US Army. It’s hard for her to explain why she did it. But not once has she regretted it.

She spent the next thirteen years as a combat medic, doing four tours ranging from six months to two years. A year ago, she was honourably discharged.

From there, she became an ER doctor at one of the biggest hospitals back home in Pennsylvania. It wasn’t Noel turned up suddenly at home during one of her sleepless nights that things once again shifted.

After mending the relationship, Adeline decided to follow her brother to New York. She arrived about a week ago and is currently still staying with her brother. Due to her high reputation, she was able to transfer to New York Presbyterian Hospital as an ER Doctor. Her choice to join the Tacitum Circle came from her experiences while on her tours. She is a firm believer in the use of both dark and light magic as she’s seen far too much to believe that only the light can do any good.

EXTRAS

Adeline is eccentric to say the least has a constant stream of words leaving her mouth. Her time (when she’s not working) is spent tinkering with bits and pieces or fiddling with her rubix cube.

While she doesn’t like admitting it, she is suffering from PTSD. She was officially diagnosed back home and has yet to put anything in place for herself here.

This witch is what you call smart. Her IQ is high enough for her to be considered a genius and her photographic memory really does help out with the whole learning thing

If you had to pick a deadly sin for Adeline, it would be pride. She’s aware of how intelligent she is and sometimes that can feed into her having a bit of an ego. Her pride gets in the way of much and is one of the worse parts of her.

Don’t be worried though, she really is just a sweetheart who has spent her whole adult life wanting to save people. She genuinely likes people even if she isn’t always the greatest at understanding others sometimes.

#nightsbound:intro

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fear-god-shun-evil · 7 years ago

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I Understood We Shouldn’t Believe in God Only to Gain Grace

By Amelie, France

Recently, I read an article about prayer on the internet, which caused me to recollect my former attitude toward prayer. When I was 9, I turned to the Lord, for I saw the manifestation of the Lord’s power in my mother. Having suffered many diseases for many years, thanks to the Lord, my mother got up from the sickbed. From then on, she has had good health, and is even capable of working for 10 hours every day, which can be witnessed by all those who know my mother.

When I was learning the Bible, I saw the Lord’s words: “Come to me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). In addition, the preachers often said, “The Lord came not to enjoy man’s service, but to serve man,” “Everything we pray for to the Lord will be heard.” I was influenced unconsciously. I was further convinced that the Lord Jesus was a God who would bestow upon all of us believers grace and blessings, a God who would resolve all of our difficulties, and a God who would heal us of all of our diseases, and that He would answer all our prayers. Just as David said, “Yes, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for you are with me; your rod and your staff they comfort me” (Psalms 23:4). So, before I went to bed, went out, attended an examination, began school…, I always prayed to the Lord and asked Him to protect me, and bestow upon me grace and blessings. The Lord Jesus became the Lord of my family, and moreover, He became my crutch, my doctor, and my teacher …

I took it for granted that believers in God should enjoy His grace, and I had never found any error about such an opinion until I was ill. I prayed to God for my illness, but He didn’t heal me. Then I complained against Him. Through Sister Su’s fellowship, I realized that my perspective of belief in God was improper.

It was a winter’s day, and I got the flu. I had a fever, a runny nose, a cough, and a headache. Slowly, I lost my appetite, my entire body felt weak, and I had no way to go on working. Although I prayed to the Lord every day, begging Him to heal me, and I also told my mother to pray for me, never did I expect that my illness wouldn’t improve at all. Lying in bed, I was very weak in my heart. I thought: Did the Lord not know my suffering these days? Why did He not heal me even if I prayed to Him for this every day?

Just when I was losing faith in the Lord, I thought of the miracle the Lord Jesus performed, which was recorded in Mark 2:11-12: “I say to you, Arise, and take up your bed, and go your way into your house. And immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went forth before them all; so that they were all amazed, and glorified God, saying, We never saw it on this fashion.” Indeed, the Lord can make the lame walk, the blind see, and even the dead resurrect; the Lord’s grace is ample. I shouldn’t lose my faith. So I continued to pray to the Lord. However, my illness still didn’t improve. I lost all my faith. I didn’t have the heart to attend gatherings, and was not willing to read the Scriptures or pray to the Lord, for I thought it was no use believing in the Lord as I couldn’t gain His grace.

One day, Sister Su invited me to gather at Brother Wang’s house. I hesitated for a minute, but then grudgingly agreed.

When I arrived at Brother Wang’s house, I was half an hour late, and Aunt Li and Brother Wang’s sister were also there. When they saw me, they thoughtfully asked how my situation was during that time period. I derived some comfort from their care. Seeing their sincere eyes, I felt the Lord’s love didn’t leave me completely. So I told them about my experience that I became passive and weak when I prayed to God for my illness but was not cured. Sister Su looked at me and said sincerely, “Do we believe in God only to gain more grace and blessings from Him? Do we pray to God just for the peace and His care? If the Lord doesn’t answer our prayers or doesn’t satisfy our desires and demands, then won’t we believe in Him? What should we do to be true believers in God? And how should we pray to be after God’s heart?”

For a moment, I was at a loss how to answer, because I had never thought about this. I said to myself, “Will I not believe in God because He doesn’t answer my prayers?”

Sister Su said, “There are two passages of God’s words which clearly explain these questions. Let me read them. God says: ‘My deeds are greater in number than the grains of sand on the beaches, and My wisdom greater than that of all those sons of Solomon, yet men merely think of Me as a physician of little account and an unknown teacher of man! How many believe in Me only so I would heal them? How many believe in Me only so I would use My powers to drive unclean spirits out of their bodies? And how many believe in Me simply to receive peace and joy from Me? How many believe in Me only to demand from Me more material wealth, and how many believe in Me just to spend this life in safety and to be safe and sound in the world to come? How many believe in Me only to avoid the suffering of hell and to receive the blessings of heaven? How many believe in Me only for temporary comfort but do not seek to gain anything in the world to come? When I brought down My fury upon man and seized all the joy and peace he originally possessed, man became doubtful. When I gave unto man the suffering of hell and reclaimed the blessings of heaven, man’s shame turned into anger. When man asked Me to heal him, yet I acknowledged him not and felt abhorrence for him, man went far away from Me and sought the way of witch doctors and sorcery. When I took away all that man had demanded from Me, then all disappeared without a trace. … Man only has such manner of faith in Me, and fools Me in this way. How can man bear Me witness when he holds such views of Me?’

‘What I seek is your loyalty and obedience now, your love and testimony now. Even if you do not know at this moment what testimony is or what love is, you should bring to Me your all, and turn over to Me the only treasures you have: your loyalty and obedience. You should know, the testament to My defeat of Satan lies within the loyalty and obedience of man, as does the testament to My complete conquest of man. The duty of your faith in Me is to bear witness for Me, to be loyal to Me and none other, and to be obedient to the end. … My work is not so simple as you think, nor is it as worthless or meaningless as you may believe. Therefore, I tell you as before: You ought to give your life to My work, and moreover, you ought to devote yourself to My glory. Further, your bearing Me witness is that which I have long awaited, and even more so have I yearned for you to spread My gospel. You ought to understand what is in My heart.’”

Then, Sister Su fellowshiped, “God has revealed our incorrect perspectives of faith in God that we are merely satisfied with gaining the grace and blessings. We pray to God, making blind demands of Him for everything, and we turn our back on God and even depart from Him when our prayers are not answered. It shows that our perspectives on belief in God are incorrect and that we don’t treat Him as God. In reality, God is the Creator, while we are nothing but created beings. We ought to worship God and submit to His sovereignty and arrangements, having no requests or demands of Him, regardless of whether He bestows grace upon us, regardless of whether He gives to us or takes away from us. This is the correct viewpoint of faith in God. Take Job for instance: When robbers robbed him of his great wealth, he didn’t complain that God hadn’t helped him keep his fortune, nor did he pray for God to give more faith or strength to him in order that he could get his fortune back. Rather, he prayed to God, ‘The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.’ We can see from his words that Job believed in God sincerely and had true faith. Regardless of whether God gave or took away, he worshiped and obeyed God as always. In the end, he gained more blessings from God because of his fearing God and shunning evil. We ought to follow the example of Job’s faith and obedience. In this way our perspectives of faith in God will be correct. When we have set our intentions right and truly borne witnesses, God’s grace will be accompanying with us, even if we don’t beg Him for it. At that time, we will be much purer and more grateful to God in our hearts when we enjoy His grace and blessings, and we won’t take belief in God to enjoy His grace for granted any longer.”

Hearing that, I suddenly came to my senses. I couldn’t agree more with what Sister Su fellowshiped. Meanwhile, I felt both ashamed and humiliated, truly wishing to find a hole in the ground to hide in. Not only did I not have the dignity to face my brothers and sisters, but I was unworthy of God. I had made so many demands of God and I had been regarding Him as a God who granted all pleas. As a result, I was happy and delighted when God answered my prayers, and when He didn’t, I was passive and weak, and unwilling to attend meetings. I even lost enthusiasm in singing hymns and prayer. I cannot compare with Job in the slightest, for I simply didn’t treat God as God, but rather, I regarded God as a debtor and a tool. God created me and bestowed life upon me; it is heaven’s law and earth’s principle for me to submit to God unconditionally and follow the example of Job’s faith to worship God, which is the sense that a created being should possess.

We talked a lot that day. Although I was red-faced and humiliated because of my incorrect perspective of belief in God as well as my inferior sense and conscience, the enlightenment and illumination of the words of God, and the fellowship and assistance of my brothers and sisters enabled me to establish a proper perspective on faith in God and bid farewell to the beggarly life of believing in God, which was God’s true love for me.

Afterward, I no longer considered God to be my crutch, doctor, and teacher; instead, I was somewhat obedient to Him in my heart. As a result, my cold was cured before I realized it. When I was in trouble once more, I didn’t pray to God with my demands of Him, not begging Him to help me out of the trouble as soon as possible. Rather, I prayed for God to give me strength so that I could practice His words and become stronger in adversities and hardships. When the tribulation wasn’t removed, I learned obedience to God instead of opposing Him negatively. I believed I would gain more faith after undergoing the tribulation. When I was sick again, I prayed to God to examine myself, and realized that I still had many sins to put away in such circumstances. … Nowadays, I don’t pray for God to give me grace anymore, for I have gained a slight understanding of Him and established a correct perspective of faith in God. Thanks be to God!

#grace #Lord #God #Gospel

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kamatael · 4 years ago

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day, February 9, 2019

JOHN RAMIREZ

EX SATAN WORSHIPPER ESCAPE FROM HELL

This testimony deals with the reality of witchcraft and Satanism as told from the perspective of a man with personal experience.

Our goal here is to: "Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them." Ephesians 5:11

(Pointing at statues of Mary, angels, and saints at a Catholic bookstore display window)

Look what they got - the Virgin Mary and supposedly Mother of God. But those are idols. And this is supposed to be Michael the guardian angel. What is this? It's not even Michael. And look Santeria all the witchcraft. And this is the stuff I had, Caldero. This is Caldero. Remember the Tabernacle? Where people met Jesus, they have to meet Jesus? This is the tabernacle of the Devil.

I grew up in a neighborhood that, first of all, the first killing that I experienced was feet away from me when I went to go in and get a gallon of milk. Was only 10 feet away from me, they shot a guy, like, 7 times. They shot him 7 times, it was a young boy. I've seen killings after killings after killings. In order to survive in the streets of the South Bronx you had to be a killer, you have to be a murderer, you have to be smart, you have to be slick. On my father's side, it was all witches and warlocks. We lived on witchcraft, we had a contract right with the devil himself. I remember when I was younger, 8 or 9 years old, I have seen him going through the room to worship the devil. I could see the presence of the devil come into that room. And my father was worshipping, speak in demonic tongues and worship and put flowers and put candles and put water out. 7:00 at night until 5:00 in the morning. I was already going to demonic church, I was going to witchcraft church. I was being trained to be a warlock, I was being trained with witches in the religion for 30 years, 40 years, 50 years. It was training me to know how to speak to principalities, spirits in the ground, the devil himself. You couldn't speak to the devil right away, you had to earn your right to speak to the devil.

In the first mass killing that they did in my neighborhood was at this house right here. The husband stabbed a lady 52 times and cut her ears off - here. And then me, my brothers would hang out with their daughter and we came to the house to walk them back home, to go hang out with the daughters right here and the daughters found their mother cut up to pieces here, in this house.

I was in a schoolyard playing with some friends in a schoolyard. A pastor came and they had this band came in, they were singing songs and people started to gather in the schoolyard. It was an amazing atmosphere, you know. Amazing joy in the schoolyard. I came from a broken home. This pastor's up on stage and he's talking about some Bible story and some Bible book and he's talking about how God loves everybody, ya know, this other stuff. And for the first time, I'm getting kind of captivated. "Wow, maybe God does love me. Maybe God does want me. Maybe God wants my family. Maybe God wants to touch me and my family. Maybe He wants to change my family around." I said, "Wow, I can get some of that, I can get some of that. 'Cause He's coming my way." And for the first time ever I felt an incredible love that was indescribable. There are pastors coming off the stage, praying for people, touching people. So I said, "Now, it's my turn. Now he's gonna touch me." Ya know? Now Jesus is gonna accept me, Jesus is gonna show me what love is about. And this pastor passed me by. Never touched me, never laid his hands on me. He went down the line, and when he came up to me, he passed me by, he touched the other person. And I said, "Jesus doesn't love me, either. My dad doesn't love me, Jesus doesn't love me." I come from a broken home. Jesus - He likes the fact that my mother gets beat up. He likes the fact that I go to bed hungry. He likes the fact that you know, there's no heat in my apartment. He likes the fact that when we go to school, we're rejects, we're misfits in school.

So, this Jesus guy - He's just like my father. He's no different. He's just like my dad.

So, I went home, broken. I went home sad. I remember a week later, a couple of weeks later - two weeks later, I went to the schoolyard, hanging out, playing with a friend of mine. I heard something fell and hit the ground. It was a voodoo necklace. So, I took the voodoo necklace - it had many colors - I took it, I put it on and the necklace was my first contract with the devil.

We went to a Tarot card reading, and when I went to a Tarot card reading, I was a little boy, I was 10 years old - we went in. The lady doing the Tarot card reading, called the witch lady, doing the Tarot card reading she was fascinated - had her eyes fixed on me. And she said, "This boy's got, this boy - we want him. We want him, we want him. The Santeria want him."

Santeria is Spanish, they call it the worship of the saints, but it's not worship of the saints, it's worship of demons.

"We want him. And if you don't give him to us, he's going to lose his eyesight in 30 days."

So, my mother was so desperate as a mother, my mother sold her furniture. My mother sold her bedroom set to get $250 to do my first ceremony, because this lady put so much fear in us, so much fear in my mother that my mother had to sleep on the floor, because there was no bedroom for her to sleep on, because she didn't want me to lose my eyesight.

So, they initiated me to the dark side. I was 8 to 10 years old. Their first love, the first contact I had, as a 10-year-old boy, the devil showed up and took the offering of giving my life to him. And they put five beads around my neck. The five worst demons of principalities that are under Satan. They put them right around my neck, which is Santeria. They put them right around my neck and they said, "These are your spiritual guides. These are going to be your guardian angels, and they are going to take care of your life from now on."

(driving downtown)

This is the building, this corner building here? Used to be almost abandoned, this building here - it's in the book. It used to be so broken down, my brother used to get the water from the pump - the pump (fire hydrant) right there. The apartment was all empty, all the apartments were abandoned, Only me and my family lived here. My whole childhood was stolen, my whole childhood was worshipping the devil, going to demon church. I would go to demon church from 7:00 in the evening to 5:00 in the morning, being trained by witches and warlocks, powers, principals, rites - who owned this region, who's in this region, who are running this principality, what principality name is this? I knew how to channel powers. By the age of 13 years old, I was astral-projecting - I would leave my body at home and go to regions, in through the spirit and curse regions, curse a neighborhood, put the spirit of prostitution, the spirit of drugs onto the neighborhood. Homosexuality spirits here, demonic spirits here, a spirit of murder, spirit of suicide. I knew how to channel all these spirits into a neighborhood. At the age of 15, 16 years old, I was going into hospitals and putting death in the ICU, death in one room so this person could die, because I wanted to be promoted with the devil. To move up the ranks, to be the biggest devil worshipper in New York City. The devil became my daddy. He replaced my dad because I prayed - I said, "You kill my dad..." At the age of 33 years old my dad got shot in a nightclub, in the face, by a woman that wasn't even his, when he had a good woman at home - the devil took him out. The devil said, "I replaced the old to keep the new." And the devil became my daddy. There was a club here, and my father died there. 33 years old.

And we lived over there. And then, when I was 11 years old little boy, there was a store right here on the corner and a guy got shot in the street right there, right there - on the little corner here? Guy got killed there when I went to get the gallon of milk.

And I moved up the ranks, through devil worshipping, I moved up the ranks - I moved up through principalities and demons to the point that I was able to just sit with the devil like I'm sitting with you today. And the devil would manifest himself in human form, his presence would come into the room. And I would speak to the devil all night long. He would give me assignments. I would go to five clubs, five lounges a night, to look for people to recruit for the dark side. I would tell people their fortune. I would tell people their lives, tell people the things that they did, things that were going to happen to them. Then they had no clue who I was, they didn't know who I was, I just had the demonic powers. I had a taste for blood. I would kill animals and drink their blood every week. If I didn't have money, didn't had time to buy an animal, I would cut myself and drink my own blood. The ring of the people that I was with, there was this demonic world: doctors, lawyers, principals, judges, police officers - they were all into witchcraft. Even singers today that are very well known. I would move principalities on that region to control demons on the ground, operate to cut down the church, to cut down the growth of the church. To cut down the opportunity for people to get saved. I would be drunk, I'd come out of a club, half demon possessed, drunk. I was standing in the middle of the street and say to God, "Come down. Do you want some of this? You want me to slap you in Your face? You want me to spit in Your face? You come and mess with me."

I got married on Halloween. I had a demonic wedding on Halloween. I got married on Halloween. All the demons and principalities from different regions around the work came to my wedding. No human beings came to my wedding, they were afraid to come to my wedding. So, I had crazy...I sent out invitations, no one showed up. There were no wedding gifts. But demons came to my wedding, they baptized(?) my wedding. So my wife was a witch, I was a witch and then my daughter was born and I was training her to be a witch, too.

I remember the first time that I was going to sacrifice my first human being. The devil was sitting on the passenger side of my car when I parked. He said, "You love me?" I said, "Of course I love you, Dad." He said, "The guy on the rooftop, he's trying to...he's going to try to take you and hurt you and take your money. You'll kill him if you love me." So when I went up there to the rooftop, I lived on the 12th floor, I remember that. When I went up to the rooftop, I remember the part that he was hiding behind. He was hiding behind the stairway. This guy was 6'5", 250 pounds. I was half demon possessed. I felt that the demon went into me, it wasn't me anymore. So I was going to drag him into my apartment and stab him in the neck, 'cause I had a huge pot - it weighed about a hundred pounds plus, plus I had 9 machetes in it, it had knives in it that I slaughter the roosters with. But when I went to grab this guy, I wanted to bring him to my apartment, he got off my hands and just disappeared. He went down the stories - I mean this guy was like an Olympic athlete, he just - woosh - gone, he just disappeared. And I couldn't grab him and kill him. I was very disappointed that I couldn't kill my first human being.

(walking down a street, pointing to the side of a building)

People wrote graffiti over it - this is a demon right here. Look at the demon that runs the gates of Hell. This is the one I was telling you about that is in my book on Santeria, right here. This little demon. This is the demon that runs Haiti. The principality over Haiti. The one that's over there is the principality over Islam. Look at this. To trap the people. The Truth. The Truth will set you free. They put that up there so that people can think they're part of this. (the cross.)

What is this place?

This a place where everyone in the park comes here to in witchcraft to hurt people, kill people. This is the place. We can go inside. Come on.

If I tell you I was going to kill you in 30 days, you prepare for your funeral, you were going to die in 30 days. I don't care who you were, I don't care who you knew, I don't care what religion you call yourself - you say you were Catholic, you were Christian, you say you were a believer - I was going to kill you. UNLESS you had a real relationship with Jesus Christ.

The lady that lived downstairs, she came up, she told me her husband was cheating. "I want you to kill the woman he's cheating with, put a witchcraft spell on her and kill her. How much do you charge me?"

I said, "Look. Come back, I'm going to speak to the devil, my Daddy, for a time. Come back and I'll let you know in a couple days." The lady came back, the devil told me what to buy, he said to buy a coffin box, buy 21 black candles. Buy an image of the lady, put in the box, you know, to do the witchcraft to kill this lady. So we were going to do her for 21 days, she was going to die. After 21 days we were going to do her funeral. So the lady came to my house, we were going to charge her $10,000 dollars, I told her, to kill the lady.

I said "Sure. I tell you what - I know you, you have been good to me, everybody else pays $10,000 but for you, you can give me $7,000. I give you 30% off."

I said, "I'll kill her. Give me - I'll take 30% off the 10, give me $7,000."

So, when the lady was going to leave my house, she said, "By the way, the lady's a Christian. The lady's a Christian."

I said, "I'll kill her for free." I said, "I don't need the money. I'll kill her for free. I'm going to teach these Christians a lesson they're gonna learn. I'll kill her for free." I told her, "I don't want your money - I'll kill her for free."

So I did the voodoo thing, I did the witchcraft thing and 21 days went by and the lady didn't die. A month went by, the lady didn't die. And I was like, wow - what's going on? I mean, my reputation's on the line. So I called the devil, I called the demons that were assigned - I increased the witchcraft. I increased the witchcraft, I doubled the witchcraft on her, so she could die, like, overnight. Nothing was going on, nothing was going on.

I was home at night and the devil shows up, the presence of the devil comes into my house. He tells me, "We have to abort the plan on the lady you want to kill."

And I said, "Why would we want to abort the plan? My reputation is on the line. I'm a witch, I'm a warlock. If I don't kill the lady, people won't think that I have any powers."

The devil says, "You don't understand. The God that she serves said to leave her alone. Don't touch her."

And I said, "Who's this God?"

He said, "The God that she serves."

I was so angry, I said, "No, give it one more week, but let's kill her."

He said, "No. The God that she serves said to leave her alone."

From the witchcraft that I did on the lady, she should have been dead in less than 21 days.

(In a store)

This is Jezebel. This is Jezebel in their religion. This is how it works. See these statues here, they mean nothing, but it's the demon behind it. So in order for me to identify with this, this has to be created, because I can't identify to a spirit. I can't identify to the spirit, we have nothing in common. I'm human, a spirit is immortality. A spirit is a spirit demon. I can't relate to it, so in order for me to relate to it, you have to put this guy (statue) in the middle so I can relate to it because he's human form. He looks like a human being. There's a story behind this guy so you and I can relate to him. so the demon operates through him. Understand? Same thing with these guys. And then they give themselves names and days and birthdays.

The American Indians can get caught up with demonic forces, they can get caught up into the occult. These are the entrapment of the Native American Indians. But those are statues that the people use in demonic ways, in demonic religion. There's nothing in here that is holy, there's nothing...the only thing holy here is us standing here.

What happens in this place?

This here in the back, they do witchcraft in the back, they do voodoo, they do with spells in the back, they do cleansings in the back. All these demons they want you to buy a new statue so you can take a demon home. See, selected prayers. They make you believe that you're praying to God. Look. I used to use this book, selected prayers. They make you think that you're praying to God, but these prayers are not Godly prayers. Nothing in the Bible here, says nothing about the Bible, the crucifixion.

We had a book in New York City, in American. I was the third person to get this book that had symbols in the book of different demons, different principalities, of different ways of killing people with the witchcraft. I mean this book was so exclusive, no one had a copy of this book. You couldn't have a copy of this book unless the devil signed off on you. And I was the third person to receive that book. And I would take symbols in that book and do witchcraft to people, put people...make people lose their mind. I put witchcraft on people, make people get diseases out of nowhere. I put witchcraft on people, make people get leprosy. I put witchcraft on people, make people get cancer. I mean, I gave witchcraft to people, I gave people miscarriages, I gave people abortions, I put people in hospitals for surgeries, that didn't even have to go for surgeries. I did witchcraft so people would lose their minds. I put spirits of bi-polar, of schizophrenia, spirits of disease on people. I put suicide spirits on people. I'd be up all night long, praying and talking to the devil - when Christians can't even go to church for one hour. When Christians can't even pray for one hour.

The spirit realm is more real than the natural realm. And we fail to see that. In whatever's not covered with Jesus Christ is an easy target to bring down. Like, an atheist - I could kill him easily. They are easy to kill. The Jehovah Witness was easy to destroy. The Mormon was easy to destroy. The people that walk around and say, "We don't believe in the devil." they were easy to destroy because they didn't know how to seek any spiritual help.

I remember a time when a Nicky Cruz group came into my neighborhood and they were called TRUCE. They would come and do drive-bys in my neighborhood. They would do, like, worship and then they would preach a word and then go to another corner and do the same thing. And I came after these groups to try to put, to try to bring them down, this group. And they were young kids, they were like 18, 17, 16, 20 - I mean. So I said how do they dare to place this junk, this filthy music in my neighborhood - see, they would call worship. This filthy music in my neighborhood, I would go after them. I would destroy these kids. So when I went up to where they were at, there was a wall of fire around them. I couldn't penetrate against them. And there was something that pushed me back, every time I try to throw demonic forces against them, something there would just push me back and I was never able to touch these kids. And I said, there was something here. It's not right. Something is not falling into place. So I walked away, I left them alone. I didn't want to deal with them, I said, okay - they won this first round.

(back in a store) So, it's obvious there are spirits here watching us.

Oh yeah, of course, they're watching us. Yeah, and so we're all protected, we're all...

Yeah, we're protected. We're under the Blood, brother. There ain't nothing like the Blood of Jesus. Amen? There's nothing that can touch us. We got a hedge of protection around us and we can walk into this place, we can chase demons out of here, we can curse the place to the ground, in Jesus' name and there's nothing that the devil can do.

I mean, I had so much money. Beautiful cars, beautiful woman, I had it all. I lived in a world that people...my neighborhood, my neighbors were terrified of who I was. They said, "You mess with that guy, your family will die. You mess with that guy, he gonna get a gun, he'll kill you in your sleep. My daddy was awesome, my daddy gave me powers beyond what I could imagine. He gave me powers that people have fear of me, police have fear of me, the securities in my neighborhood fear me. People that knew that I was a devil - they would call me the devil's son. I brought Christians to their knees, not to pray because they had no power. It wasn't because their God wasn't all powerful, don't get me wrong. Their God is all-powerful but the vessels were weak. The vessels had no prayer life, they had no fasting life. And they had no relationship with God. There was a form of godliness in the person, but no power. The person was weak, the person had nothing going. He had a Bible, he had the right suit on, she had the right dress on - but there was no connection with Jesus Christ. Because they were out of His will, they were out of His promises and they were out of His divine purpose, and I had you. I owned you. I had you as a slave, I broke you, I put witchcraft on you. I kept doing that to Christian after Christian after Christian after families after churches. I'd chase everything down that represented the Cross of Jesus Christ.

(driving) Very demonic place.

So that place has an effect on the whole neighborhood, is what you're saying?

Oh yeah, of course. Oh yeah. This whole region unlocked that. That's the devil's throne, we just went into the devil's throne. (referring to the store they had been in)

That throne has been there since the '80s. And then they go spend $100, $200 buying these things, and then they broke, they on welfare, public assistance. But they got money to buy all this junk because they think their life is going to get better, they think that their life is going to improve, they gonna make progress in life, they think that they're going break generational curses. They think they're going break vex, spells, voodoo - they think they're gonna break all that, and basically, God says "Come to Me. I'll do that for you for free."

He says, "Give your life to Me, and I'll set you free." But they don't want that, that's too difficult for them. That's too complicated for them. But they can walk into a place like this and drop $200 and think that their life is gonna be free. And they're gonna live a life of abundance. I had contact with the principality that runs Haiti. His name is Condero (?).

I had contact with demons in Miami. I had contact with demons in Africa. I had contact with demons in New York City, principalities that run crossroads of the world. He owns 42nd street. Okay? There's a different principality that runs crossroads of the world here on 42nd street than the one that tries to run this neighborhood.

I didn't have a conscience. I remember I did witchcraft to my brother, I put him in jail for 5 years. Witchcraft - to my own brother, my own flesh and blood. I did witchcraft and put him in jail for 5 years. My other brother was a warlock. He came into my house one time with an attitude and the demon jumped on him. He ran out of the house, he couldn't hold the pain in his stomach. My mother can bear witness to that. I did so many ceremonies in my body. I did so many ceremonies in my body, the last ceremony I did - I not only sold myself to the devil, I did a ceremony where I had to swallow animal blood and gunpowder. It was called (?) This is a ceremony of Haitian and French. If you do this ceremony with a demon - so when I go to people's houses and eat, they can't put witchcraft on the food. I did all the ceremonies you can do.

I would go to demon church. Every year, we would have a meeting, a secret meeting. All the high witches and warlocks would have this meeting to find out what principality was gonna usher out and bring in to run the region. We were more organized than the church itself. The kingdom of darkness was more organized than the church of Jesus Christ. We knew how to do ceremonies, we knew how to do things before the year was over to prepare ourselves for the next year. When Christians couldn't go to church and pray for one hour. When Christians couldn't go to church and have a consistent relationship with God.

I even took a sabbatical from witchcraft and the devil punished me - took my eyesight for one year. I was completely blind for one year. Was registered with the Commissioner for the Blind. I was completely blind. They were training me to use a Seeing Eye dog, they were training me to use one of these sticks that you use to walk the streets. My mother took care of me for one year. My eyes went black. And a mist of gray went over my eyes. I was completely blind. And when I gave my life back to the devil, after 7 surgeries, the devil gave me back my eyesight. And I see again. And that was my punishment for taking one year off, I wanted to take off. The devil said you want one year off? I give it to you. He took my eyesight.

And that's the world I lived in. If you mess with the devil, he'll kill you, he'll kill your family. It was a fear that was great beyond measure, that you could not leave this religion. You could not leave Santeria, you could not leave Satanism, you could not leave spiritualism. The doctors could not explain how I lost my eyesight. Meanwhile, Christians - and would say, what Christians do bad, Christians sometimes missed the mark, and the only thing that shows up in their house is grace and mercy. When you're short with the devil, you do something the devil doesn't like - he kills someone. He kills your family member. I remember the devil warned this lady, he said you can't be with that person anymore and she didn't care, 'cause she was in love with the person - the devil demon possessed a homeless guy in the street. He took a hammer and hit her 17 times on her head, killed her.

One day, I was sitting at home. It was amazing. I came from a nightclub the night before. I was sitting home watching a show called Jerry Springer, a crazy show - people beating each other up. I got joy outta that, I was getting joy outta that, laughing. For the first time, I heard a voice say to me, "Son. I am coming soon. What are you going to do with your life?" An audible voice, shouting from across the room. And I thought it was the TV talking to me. But then I saw it can't be the TV, these people were beating each other up. This voice... I knew the voice of the devil, I would sit with the devil like I'm sitting with you today. He would come into human form, he would come in the room, he would come in sometime, the presence comes into the room. The atmosphere changes and I know he was there for me, and he was talking to my conscience. I would talk back and we would talk all night long. I knew that, too. I knew him like you knew the back of your hand. I knew every demon, every principality that ran the region, that ran everything in America. Everything in Canada. Everything that ran - I know every principality that ran every occult, Wicca, New Age, Buddhism, Islam, Andria witchcraft, spiritualism - I knew every principality that ran. I had a contract with every principality with them, I had straight A marks with every principality, with every demon in the ground, the devil, Jezebel. I knew demons that I couldn't even tell you names, because you wouldn't know who they are. I knew them all by name. And this voice was very different than any other voice. When I heard that voice come out of nowhere - it came out of the air.

The Voice.

I went into shock. And then I saw a vision from the other side of the apartment like the sky was on fire, and people underneath - I saw people running for cover but there was no cover, nowhere to hide. And I think, why did I see that vision? So I shook it off. But I remember I went to sleep, like a deep sleep, like someone put on anesthesia and I went to sleep. I ended up on a train full of people. I couldn't believe I was on a train full of people. And this train was going faster than you could ever imagine. I'd never been on something this fast on Earth. And it went into hell. And Jesus Christ took me to hell. And when I got to hell, the doors opened. I mean, there was a slam in the doors, there was an unspeakable echo that struck all the doors open and there was the heat that came out of nowhere. It felt like you were gonna suffocate, the heat that came out. I ran, I got out the train and the people on the train, they had no faces. But you could see the fear on the people on the train. You could feel the fear, the impact of the fear that they were going to a place that they were never going to return. And the place was packed.

And then, I tried, I said, "I can't die here. I can't die here. This is not for me. I wasn't born to be in this place." I was saying this to myself, I was not born to be here. So I tried to find like a tunnel, a tunnel in hell. I was walking, trying to run through the tunnels in hell, trying to find a door. Maybe a window. Maybe there was a gap somewhere that I can come out and come back to reality. But there was no gap. I remember as I...the more I went into the tunnels, the more the fear gripped me, the more the suffering. I heard suffering, just draped over you. This fear drapes over you like you're wearing a garment. This fear drapes over you, something you can't even control. You have no control over. Something like it grabs you. It won't let you go. I couldn't see the hand in front of my face. But I hear the wailing - I hear wailing. Like, you ever hear like a kid wail, an animal wail at the same time. It's like, they're kinda wailing, it's indescribable. And there was heat and a smell that was like...like if you was in the sewers or the gutters in New York City. I mean, but crazier than that.

As I came to a part of the tunnel, the devil showed up. He said, "I was your Daddy. I gave you everything you needed. I took care of you. I blessed you. I protected you. I killed people for you. I gave you powers, I gave you a name in the darkness, the kingdom of darkness. I gave you a name. When people came against you I destroyed them, because I knew you were going to be the vessel I was going to use to move my kingdom on the Earth. And now you want to leave me? Now you want to betray me?"

In demonic tongues, and I'm talking back to him in demonic tongues and telling him no, I'm not leaving, I'm just confused. I don't know what's going on.

And he said, "No. I know what you're going to do. You're going to leave me and you're going to expose my religion. You're going to expose who I am and how I operate in the realm, in the spirit realm. Because I taught you things that I never taught anyone else. I showed you. I trusted you with the things that I needed you to know so you can further my kingdom. Because I wanted to use you in a greater measure way."

And in the confusion, he went to grab me. He went to grab and destroy me and the Cross of Jesus appeared. I didn't understand how a cross, a three-foot cross appeared in hell when I was wearing blue shorts and a T-shirt. And I put it on him. And when I put it on him, the devil melted like he was an infant, like an infant he melted and fell on the floor. Like, no powers.

So I took that opportunity and I ran deeper into the gates, I ran deeper into the tunnels of hell, hoping that there was a door. I had...my hope was being...there was no hope in the hope at all. There was no place saying I'm coming out of here! This was it, this was the end. I had a fear that gripped me that was indescribable - I never felt fear like that, ever felt despair - it was the opposite of what Heaven is, opposite of Joy, opposite of gladness, opposite of Peace. It was the opposite of light and darkness. It was a place of torment, a place of...if I'm here, my family won't know I'm here. My daughter won't know I'm here. How would they find me? How would they look for me?

As I went deeper into the tunnel of hell, hoping that there was a door, a window, a crack somewhere that I can get out, the devil showed up again. "So now, we'll destroy you,"

I told him in the demonic language, "I've got these marks, these are my contracts to protect me, to destroy you."

He said, "Fool! I gave you those marks. Those are my marks that I OWN you. I OWN YOU. No one owns you, I do. And you're gonna live for me or you die." And he went to grab me a second time around.

I said, "This is it." He went to grab me a second time around - the Cross of Jesus Christ appeared in hell. There's no greater love than the Cross that would come for a sinner like me, in hell. So when David says, "If I make my bed in hell, behold, Thou art there."(Psalm 139:8)

Grace and Mercy showed up in hell. Grace and Mercy knew my address. Grace and Mercy have a plan for my life. To my unspeakable, demonic, selfish ways. Arrogant, self-centered ways in hell, when I was down for the count. Jesus Christ loved the misfit. And He said, "I have a plan for you. I love you more than you can ever imagine." And He showed up in hell. And when I woke up, my spirit came back into my body. I woke up and I bend my knee to Jesus Christ.

I had $100,000 of witchcraft in my house. I threw witchcraft away, I threw religion away. I threw everything that had to do with darkness away. The people from Haiti, the people from Cuba, the people from Miami and New York said, "We have to kill him because he knows too much. We have to destroy him. We have to kill him because he knows too much. He's not one of us anymore."

And they came for the kill. They did their best, they came for the kill. I was asleep in the day. It was day and night when the demons showed up and tormented me 30 days. They tormented me for 30 days. They would grab me by my throat, pick me up off my bed. The room grew cold, I would lay in my bed. I'd feel another person lying next to me, ice cold, another person. I would look like this, and feel the presence. The presence was the devil himself, laying in my bed for 30 days. On and off, on and off trying to torture, trying to steal my mind, trying to rip my soul out of my body, trying to rip my spirit out of my body. I would tremble at night like I never trembled before. 30 days. And I would cry out, I didn't know how to pray? I said, "Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!" I didn't know how to pray. I say, my sister prays - I heard her in church, she pray this way. I heard that person pray this way - I would bring all these prayers together, to try to pull them together like a puzzle, trying to fight for my life.

One day, I was in church worshipping. And I asked the Lord, "Lord, why are You letting this happen to me?" And one day I heard the voice of God again. He said, "I want to see how much you love Me. I want to see how much you trust Me." And never again, I was tormented by the devil. And I became an evangelist for Jesus Christ. Fourteen years serving the Lord and I would never trade it for anything in the world. Over on Hallelujah Boulevard, there's a mansion for John Ramirez. And one day says, Welcome Home, well done faithful servant. And I tell you, there's nothing - I'm not talking about Christianity - I'm talking about a relationship with Jesus Christ. He is my Lord. He is my beginning and end. No weapon formed against me will ever prosper. I die when Jesus say I go Home. Not because of a witch. Not because of a person. Not because hex, voodoo, incantation - none of that can separate me from the love of God.

$100,000 of witchcraft, selling my soul, marks here, marks here, marks here (all on his body) But the biggest mark is here (his heart), it is the love I have for the Cross. Ain't nothing like the Cross of Jesus Christ. And I tell you this, and I'll end with this. I was cursed, I became blessed because the One that was blessed became cursed for me. And Jesus is my daddy. And my Daddy sits on the universe. He loved me beyond what I could imagine.

And that love now I can give to my daughter. And my daughter today, she's a born again Christian, graduated from college, a psychology major and I know that God's gonna use her in a greater way. Because the baton that I had I would pass to her, the RIGHT baton this time. And I know she's going to do greater exploits than her daddy. And before I leave the Earth, people will know that John Ramirez was here, 'cause he served a mighty God. Amen?

#christianity #religion #nature #sports #spirituality

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thespnfriends · 4 years ago

Text

When A Monster Strikes-Chapter Six

*Disclaimer: We don’t own Supernatural, it belongs to it’s respective creators.* -TheSPNFriends

Monsters are Real

(Rachel’s POV)

As soon as Jessica left the house for work, Rachel threw back the covers hiding her. Of course, she hadn't wanted to lie to her best friend but Rachel knew that Jessica just wouldn't understand, not about this at least. Rachel crossed the room for her window to let the nice summer breeze in and sighed in contentment.

She knew Jessica would try to convince her not to meet with Nick and give up the search but she couldn't, she had to see it through. Rachel knew that Jessica didn't care for Nick as she didn't like most guys but given her past, Rachel understood why. After she had a bowl of lucky charms, MLP edition, she was almost ready to meet up with Nick. He said he would get her around eight so she busied herself by brushing her hair again and waiting for him.

Maybe she should leave a note for Jess, it wouldn't hurt. She grabbed for a sticky note when she heard a knock on the window frame. She twirled around to see Nick's face peeking through her curtains.

"Hey, Rachel... Ready to go?" Nick asked with a goofy smile on his face.

"Yeah," She laughed at the boy, "uh Nick why are you at my window. I have a front door." She gestured behind her.

"Uh, I thought it was cooler this way." He said and shrugged.

"Okay then you goofball, where are we headed?" Rachel said as she grabbed her camera and her bag.

"Just a place I know."

Rachel followed Nick blindly out the window and off they went.

• • • • • •

(Present Day- Jess's POV)

"So get this!"

Jessica turned around on one of the beds to look at Sam who was sat back at the little motel table hunched over his computer. It looked as if he were sitting at a child's play table because he was so tall and it almost made her laugh. Dean had made some excuse and then left but Jess got the feeling that he didn't like research as much as Sam did.

"What is it?" She had been stuffing her face with a bag of chips worrying about Rachel ever since they got back to the motel and couldn't do much else.

"Uh, I was looking online for an explanation on all the crop failures..."

"Well, that's because it hasn't rained in like months! Which is strange because it's spring and it always rains here in the spring... I've always liked the rain so, I've found it quite annoying actually."

Sam nodded and looked back at his laptop before continuing.

"Yeah, also I've been comparing that to anything in the lore in relation to horses."

"Horses?" Jessica asked scrunching up her nose in confusion, "You think that Rachel's obsession with My Little Pony is connected to her disappearance?"

"Well, you did say this Jones guy was dressed as a pony."

"Yeah, but he was cosplaying as Doctor Whooves. Rachel was Roseluck; it parodies Doctor Who. It was just for fun so what does that have to do with her kidnapping? They are just fictional ponies."

"We have to cover all our options even if it sounds strange. You'd be surprised at how many times we've hunted strange creatures."

"Like what?" Jess asked.

"Well...all kinds of things...witches, werewolves, ghosts...creepy backwoods monsters that...um you know what? That's a story for another time. I know it's a lot to take in but monsters are real, and, well, Dean and I stop them." He mumbled near the end.

"Right, of course." She said in disbelief.

"I mean, you've met Cas, so," Sam said with a shrug.

"Yeah but I went to church as a kid, believing that is easier than things that go bump in the night," Jess said as she sat down beside Sam at the table. "But come to think of it, there was this one time, a few years ago, right as Rachel and I were graduating college one of our professors was possessed by something nasty...almost died too if it hadn't had been for this rando guy that showed up."

"So you've met other hunters before then? What was his name?"

"Hunters?" She asked and Sam nodded at her. "I didn't get to meet him but Rachel said he went on and on about this gate to hell that had been opened and that Dr. Livingstone, our French professor wasn't actually our professor. It was pretty scary but she told me he saved him so, I guess that's all that matters. Rachel never said his name."

"Oh so this was after...sorry I just, uh nevermind," Sam said with a hint of sadness in his voice. Jess could see the metaphorical cogs running through his eyes and she wondered if Sam knew the hunter she had spoken about?

Jessica watched him for a moment, "Are you alright?"

"Yeah uh-"

"Sam?" Jess asked. She knew there was a story there somewhere. He cleared his throat and continued on.

"Anyway, I think the pony con thing may have a connection." He said opting to shut her out which was fine...they didn't owe her anything. She had just met them, didn't seem like the best time for a heart to heart.

She took a breath and continued to hypothesize with him. "Okay, just theorizing here but what if it was all a rouse. They met online, that has to be how he gets to know and charm his intended victims."

"You could be right," Sam said and started to pace the room. A lightbulb turned on in Jessica's head.

"Rachel wouldn't stop talking about how charming he was and kept gushing over everything he said and did... maybe that's why she went with him. Do you think he could've coerced her into coming with him?"

"What like hypnosis?" Sam asked as he moved to the window to peer outside. Jessica watched Sam watch the horizon slowly sinking past the tree line. Rachel had been missing for a whole two days now.

"What if Rachel just followed him willingly? If he promised her anything that she wanted then..." Sam trailed off and turned around with a grimace. She didn't want to think of the idea but the inner detective in Jessica knew it could be a possibility as it usually was the case in these instances.

"So you think Nick didn't kidnap her, she... went with him on her own?" Jessica asked with a hint of disgust in her voice as it all started to come together and make some sense. Not answering her phone was the give away there as much as Jessica didn't want to believe it. Sam nodded and Jess stood up from the table and paced the room with him.

"If she went with him, she doesn't realize that he could be dangerous. She thinks he's just a guy who loves the ponies but in reality, he could be the serial kidnapper I've been listening about on the news." She said aloud but the words were mostly for her to wrap her head around it all. It was idiotic to think this was happening but Jess knew if something bad was going to happen, of course, it would happen to her.

Jess made her way back to the table and sat her bag of chips down, not hungry anymore as they stared at Sam's computer, "But what about the horseman Pestilence? Where does he come into all of this?" Jess asked. They had filled her on basically the apocalypse as they've driven back to the motel earlier so she was caught up on it. She hadn't really known what was going on in the world and didn't understand how she could've missed it. Like the apocalypse. It was crazy. Of course there were natural disasters, murders, and the like every day but Jess just figured it was the way the world was.

"See that's what we have to figure out...could you pass me that Bible?" He asked and pointed toward the bedside table. Time for even more research, Jess thought.

• • • • • •

(Nick's POV)

"Rise and Shine!" Nick enunciated through the motel door. He had previously seen the other girl, Jessica at the diner with two men who had been around telling everyone they were FBI agents. Nick knew better...he could smell hunters from a mile away. He wasn't scared of two good for nothing numbskulls getting in his way. He already had Rachel and he was well on his way to making his dreams come true, this time.

"Nick, what time is it?" Rachel questioned with a groggy voice when she finally opened the door. Nick could tell she had just woken up.

"Time to get going silly we're almost to the place I saw them." He said as he leaned against the doorframe. He had to keep baiting the girl into coming with him, it was the only way his plans would actually work.

"Are you sure the horses are gonna be there? I mean American Cream horses are super rare!" She said as she pulled on her shoes and grabbed her bag.

He could feel her reluctance and sure he felt kind of bad he was lying about the horses but he had plans, plans he couldn't just throw away. He wouldn't let anything stand in his way. Not those hunters or that girl or even Rachel from taking what he wanted.

"Rachel you trust me right?" The girl in question shuffled her feet but she sheepishly smiled and nodded.

"Sure, Nick."

"Great then let's go!" Nick said as a flood of relief washed over him. For some reason Rachel was much more understanding than the others and didn't question everything he said and did, maybe it would work this time. Maybe Rachel would be the one for him.

Previous:Chapter Five Next: Chapter Seven

#SPNfic #spn #when a monster strikes #TheSPNFriends #supernatural #spn fanfic series #fic #dean #sam #winchester #jessica coleman #rachel ashford #CAS #ao3 #wattpad

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