19 ms·

Per my anecdotal surveys, many who have done LSD, many of whom otherwise are atheists, believe that demons are totally real.

chefandy 2y ago
I, personally, have spawned and killed many daemons.
- gostsamo 2y ago
  Linux made us all occultists.
  - lukan 2y ago
    I think developing and debugging complex systems, where most is a black box, does that in general https://www.xkcd.com/2259/ https://www.xkcd.com/2259/ Trying out the right magic invocation until something starts working again.
    - bigstrat2003 2y ago
      Yep, sometimes we are basically techpriests. Apply the sacred unguents and pray that the machine spirit calms down, cause that's all you can do.
      - lukan 2y ago
        It is going to be even more fun, once LLMs or alike are embedded in the pipelines by default ..
        chefandy 2y ago
        ‘Have you had “the talk” with your llm daemons yet about peer-to-peer pressure?’
  - noelwelsh 2y ago
    The DnD -> Linux -> Occultist pipeline. The moral panic in the 1980s was actually right.
    - chefandy 2y ago
      Just sort of mix them all together. ::fails the attack roll:: 'Ok, sudo attack the beast with my mace.'
  - chefandy 2y ago
    Back when Linux (et al) was a bit more novel in enterprise environments, I certainly heard MCSEs and such refer to Linux administration black magic.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
MrMcCall 2y ago
In the Golden State Killer's confession, he explained how a force would enter him and make him commit his brutally horrific crimes. He said that he later got stronger and was able to keep it out. (IIRC) The best help one can get requires that we pray to God with all our heart to guide us to the help we need. It requires clairity and humility and an honest seeking that will result in our finding the path that both makes us happier and reduces the unhappiness we cause others. Such negative forces in the universe actively work in opposition to all happiness, both ours and those around us, but we are completely free to remain ignorant of their existence and Wisdom's teachings about human nature and our role as the moral agents of this world, with the requisite abilities and responsibilities it entails. "The Way goes in." --Rumi Look at Gukesh's face, his happiness and success, and know there is a direct correlation. This is because our life is a series of causes whose effects result according to a logic beyond what is currently accepted as present. "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled is to convince the world he didn't exist." --from The Usual Suspects Its effects on our minds (reasons, faulty data, and ill-logic) and hearts (selfish desires, ideals, attitudes, and behaviors) are the reason so much of the world is filled with misery, strife, and oppression. We must rise above our animal selfishness and will to competition, and embrace humanity and humanitarianism. In other words, we must resist our common enemy, who works on all our beings, and it has obviously been very successful. Note that most people can't be occupied like the GSK was, although he probably didn't care for a long while thus refusing to fight it. The vast majority of us just have to contend with its suggested thoughts and feelings. It is almost always (IIUC) within our capability to resist sefishly ignorant possibilities. Note that we are all presented with suicide; it's part of its m.o., and we all must contend with that common tactic. We love you. May peace be with us all as the selfish do their worst. The more of us that choose compassion, the sooner and more quickly this world will improve.
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
  I hope you vote for love and peace, too many Christians don't
  - MrMcCall 2y ago
    What you say is also true of the majority of all people (thus far) of all forms of religion, as well as the atheists and agnostics. This is a human tendency; engaging in religiosity is not the purpose of religion; self-evolving (with the help of our Creator and Its universe) one's heart and mind is. A religion without a compassionate basis has entirely lost its way, and that compassion must be for one and all people, not just their own kind/culture/society/whatever. No! That's the way of mammals; we must use our extraordinary human gifts choose to be much, much more, working beyond our tribes because we are one single human race, and we must expand our consciousness and ideals to embrace that essential fact. Individual peace is the result of choosing service-oriented, active compassion/love. There is no other way, otherwise the inner tension pesists, including the results of willful ignorance to our need to self-evolve. We must choose to try to help those around us, after we have stopped cruelly ignoring their unhappiness and/or, worst of all, willfully causing their misery. This also requires our refusing to coldly accept the oppression of the innocent. Our love for them must be of a different character and verve than our love for the oppressors.
karolist 2y ago
Crowley saw demons as manifestations of the mind's architecture - real in their effects, but originating from within rather than existing as independent external entities. To that effect, they are very real, in the same way that the color green is real - subjectively experienced by humans with normal color vision, yet meaningless to a being with a different sensory architecture.
- onemoresoop 2y ago
  I too think demons exist but metaphorically only, in terms subconscious desires of the mind and how they manifest. For bad demons for example serial killers often report they feel possesed by demons. Demons and God(s) are deep irrational projections of the human mind. Power and greed could also be viewed throw this prism.
- MrMcCall 2y ago
  Crowley was not a truthful person. He was a bringer of darkness, not of light. Of selfish ignorance, not compassionate service. No one can serve two masters.
  - SketchySeaBeast 2y ago
    Ok, so two is out, how about three? Like, some sort of trinity?
    - MrMcCall 2y ago
      The Creator is a singleton, the Prime Mover, the Ultimate Loner, Unfathomable and Timeless beyond our comprehension. We are one human race, each of us with both positive and negative potentials, as well as the ability to wallow in ignorance or choose to become either more selfish or more compassionate. Those are the three possible paths a human can traverse. There is no fourth path. There is one foundation of all forms of religion, regardless of customs or culture, and is always to become consumed by compassion for all human beings, in service to the Divine Will. There is no -- and must not be any human-dictated -- compulsion in religion. "The greatest among you will be the servant of all." There are many triples in this universe, including: the relationship between (1) our Creator, (2) Its servants, and (3) the Holy Spirit that facilitates our self-evolving towards becoming consumed by love, irrespective of form of religion. This concept is not unlike an RDF triple. Only the One Creator may be worshipped, but the human servants of God are sent here to teach us how to live in harmony with the Earth for universal peace and the happiness of all human beings, including the belligerently selfish that choose to make mischief. The servants of God always suggest that their contemporaries choose to connect with our Creator, never to worship themselves. They are here to help us see the Way, the direction towards It, how to create happiness. Such a one is always humble; if they're not, then they're a faker, a liar, a hypocrite, a manipulator, or merely deluded into believing the lies of our horrible enemy, the deceiver of mankind, who ever works on our hearts and minds to distract us from the caring compassion we could be choosing. "The Way goes in." --Rumi
Natsu 2y ago
That reminds me of this account from 1692 of someone who reported themselves to the priest. ==== Johannes Nider (1692, Liber II, Cap. 41) gives this account: I shall ... show how so many people are deceived in their sleep, that upon wakening they altogether believe that they have actually seen what has happened only in the inner part of the mind. I heard my teacher give this account: a certain priest of our order entered a village where he came upon a woman so out of her senses that she believed herself to be transported through the air during the night with Diana and other women. When he attempted to remove this heresy from her by means of wholesome discourse she steadfastly maintained her belief. The priest then asked her: "Allow me to be present when you depart on the next occasion." She answered: "I agree to it and you will observe my departure in the presence (if you wish) of suitable witnesses." Therefore when the day for the departure arrived, which the old woman had previously determined, the priest showed up and with trustworthy townsmen to convince this fanatic of her madness. the woman, having placed a large bowl, which was used for kneading dough, on top of a stool, stepped into the bowl and sat herself down. Then, rubbing ointment on herself to the accompaniment of magic incantations she lay her head back and immediately fell asleep. With the labor of the devil she dreamed of Mistress Venus and other superstitions so vividly that, crying out with a shout and striking her hands about, she jarred the bowl in which she was sitting and, falling down from the stool seriously injured herself about the head. As she lay there awakened, the priest cried out to her that she had not moved: "For Heaven's sake, where are you? You were not with Diana and as will be attested by these present, you never left this bowl." Thus, by this act and by thoughtful exhortations he drew out this belief from her abominable soul.
- MrMcCall 2y ago
  A Sufi Murshid lived in the same village his entire, long life. The village had one intersection with only the masjid at the center, but not many buildings in either direction along the road. Because he was conscious the entire time his soul traveled during sleep, and because it travels at the speed of thought, he said, "I know the stars of the Milky Way better than the two roads in my village." Castaneda's Don Juan speaks that our discounting the journeys of the soul as not happening in merely a different dimension of reality is not the proper perspective. That said, many/most/? of our dreams are occuring in our mind's imagination, not the external multi-dimensional universe. Our soul is "magnetically" confined to our physical body while we remain conscious. Its journeys have been called "astral travel" and most people are not conscious during them because so very few of us live intensional, conscientious waking lives.
graemep 2y ago
"Otherwise atheist" and believe "demons are totally real" is a very odd combination. They believe in the supernatural, but only the evil supernatural? They believe in demons, presumably because of their experiences, but completely discount all religious experience? That sounds to me as simply reflecting the effects of having done (a lot of?) LSD.

chefandy 2y ago

I, personally, have spawned and killed many daemons.

gostsamo 2y ago
Linux made us all occultists.
- lukan 2y ago
  I think developing and debugging complex systems, where most is a black box, does that in general https://www.xkcd.com/2259/ https://www.xkcd.com/2259/ Trying out the right magic invocation until something starts working again.
  - bigstrat2003 2y ago
    Yep, sometimes we are basically techpriests. Apply the sacred unguents and pray that the machine spirit calms down, cause that's all you can do.
    - lukan 2y ago
      It is going to be even more fun, once LLMs or alike are embedded in the pipelines by default ..
      - chefandy 2y ago
        ‘Have you had “the talk” with your llm daemons yet about peer-to-peer pressure?’
- noelwelsh 2y ago
  The DnD -> Linux -> Occultist pipeline. The moral panic in the 1980s was actually right.
  - chefandy 2y ago
    Just sort of mix them all together. ::fails the attack roll:: 'Ok, sudo attack the beast with my mace.'
- chefandy 2y ago
  Back when Linux (et al) was a bit more novel in enterprise environments, I certainly heard MCSEs and such refer to Linux administration black magic.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

MrMcCall 2y ago

In the Golden State Killer's confession, he explained how a force would enter him and make him commit his brutally horrific crimes. He said that he later got stronger and was able to keep it out. (IIRC) The best help one can get requires that we pray to God with all our heart to guide us to the help we need. It requires clairity and humility and an honest seeking that will result in our finding the path that both makes us happier and reduces the unhappiness we cause others. Such negative forces in the universe actively work in opposition to all happiness, both ours and those around us, but we are completely free to remain ignorant of their existence and Wisdom's teachings about human nature and our role as the moral agents of this world, with the requisite abilities and responsibilities it entails. "The Way goes in." --Rumi Look at Gukesh's face, his happiness and success, and know there is a direct correlation. This is because our life is a series of causes whose effects result according to a logic beyond what is currently accepted as present. "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled is to convince the world he didn't exist." --from The Usual Suspects Its effects on our minds (reasons, faulty data, and ill-logic) and hearts (selfish desires, ideals, attitudes, and behaviors) are the reason so much of the world is filled with misery, strife, and oppression. We must rise above our animal selfishness and will to competition, and embrace humanity and humanitarianism. In other words, we must resist our common enemy, who works on all our beings, and it has obviously been very successful. Note that most people can't be occupied like the GSK was, although he probably didn't care for a long while thus refusing to fight it. The vast majority of us just have to contend with its suggested thoughts and feelings. It is almost always (IIUC) within our capability to resist sefishly ignorant possibilities. Note that we are all presented with suicide; it's part of its m.o., and we all must contend with that common tactic. We love you. May peace be with us all as the selfish do their worst. The more of us that choose compassion, the sooner and more quickly this world will improve.

01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
I hope you vote for love and peace, too many Christians don't
- MrMcCall 2y ago
  What you say is also true of the majority of all people (thus far) of all forms of religion, as well as the atheists and agnostics. This is a human tendency; engaging in religiosity is not the purpose of religion; self-evolving (with the help of our Creator and Its universe) one's heart and mind is. A religion without a compassionate basis has entirely lost its way, and that compassion must be for one and all people, not just their own kind/culture/society/whatever. No! That's the way of mammals; we must use our extraordinary human gifts choose to be much, much more, working beyond our tribes because we are one single human race, and we must expand our consciousness and ideals to embrace that essential fact. Individual peace is the result of choosing service-oriented, active compassion/love. There is no other way, otherwise the inner tension pesists, including the results of willful ignorance to our need to self-evolve. We must choose to try to help those around us, after we have stopped cruelly ignoring their unhappiness and/or, worst of all, willfully causing their misery. This also requires our refusing to coldly accept the oppression of the innocent. Our love for them must be of a different character and verve than our love for the oppressors.

karolist 2y ago

Crowley saw demons as manifestations of the mind's architecture - real in their effects, but originating from within rather than existing as independent external entities. To that effect, they are very real, in the same way that the color green is real - subjectively experienced by humans with normal color vision, yet meaningless to a being with a different sensory architecture.

onemoresoop 2y ago
I too think demons exist but metaphorically only, in terms subconscious desires of the mind and how they manifest. For bad demons for example serial killers often report they feel possesed by demons. Demons and God(s) are deep irrational projections of the human mind. Power and greed could also be viewed throw this prism.
MrMcCall 2y ago
Crowley was not a truthful person. He was a bringer of darkness, not of light. Of selfish ignorance, not compassionate service. No one can serve two masters.
- SketchySeaBeast 2y ago
  Ok, so two is out, how about three? Like, some sort of trinity?
  - MrMcCall 2y ago
    The Creator is a singleton, the Prime Mover, the Ultimate Loner, Unfathomable and Timeless beyond our comprehension. We are one human race, each of us with both positive and negative potentials, as well as the ability to wallow in ignorance or choose to become either more selfish or more compassionate. Those are the three possible paths a human can traverse. There is no fourth path. There is one foundation of all forms of religion, regardless of customs or culture, and is always to become consumed by compassion for all human beings, in service to the Divine Will. There is no -- and must not be any human-dictated -- compulsion in religion. "The greatest among you will be the servant of all." There are many triples in this universe, including: the relationship between (1) our Creator, (2) Its servants, and (3) the Holy Spirit that facilitates our self-evolving towards becoming consumed by love, irrespective of form of religion. This concept is not unlike an RDF triple. Only the One Creator may be worshipped, but the human servants of God are sent here to teach us how to live in harmony with the Earth for universal peace and the happiness of all human beings, including the belligerently selfish that choose to make mischief. The servants of God always suggest that their contemporaries choose to connect with our Creator, never to worship themselves. They are here to help us see the Way, the direction towards It, how to create happiness. Such a one is always humble; if they're not, then they're a faker, a liar, a hypocrite, a manipulator, or merely deluded into believing the lies of our horrible enemy, the deceiver of mankind, who ever works on our hearts and minds to distract us from the caring compassion we could be choosing. "The Way goes in." --Rumi

Natsu 2y ago

That reminds me of this account from 1692 of someone who reported themselves to the priest. ==== Johannes Nider (1692, Liber II, Cap. 41) gives this account: I shall ... show how so many people are deceived in their sleep, that upon wakening they altogether believe that they have actually seen what has happened only in the inner part of the mind. I heard my teacher give this account: a certain priest of our order entered a village where he came upon a woman so out of her senses that she believed herself to be transported through the air during the night with Diana and other women. When he attempted to remove this heresy from her by means of wholesome discourse she steadfastly maintained her belief. The priest then asked her: "Allow me to be present when you depart on the next occasion." She answered: "I agree to it and you will observe my departure in the presence (if you wish) of suitable witnesses." Therefore when the day for the departure arrived, which the old woman had previously determined, the priest showed up and with trustworthy townsmen to convince this fanatic of her madness. the woman, having placed a large bowl, which was used for kneading dough, on top of a stool, stepped into the bowl and sat herself down. Then, rubbing ointment on herself to the accompaniment of magic incantations she lay her head back and immediately fell asleep. With the labor of the devil she dreamed of Mistress Venus and other superstitions so vividly that, crying out with a shout and striking her hands about, she jarred the bowl in which she was sitting and, falling down from the stool seriously injured herself about the head. As she lay there awakened, the priest cried out to her that she had not moved: "For Heaven's sake, where are you? You were not with Diana and as will be attested by these present, you never left this bowl." Thus, by this act and by thoughtful exhortations he drew out this belief from her abominable soul.

MrMcCall 2y ago
A Sufi Murshid lived in the same village his entire, long life. The village had one intersection with only the masjid at the center, but not many buildings in either direction along the road. Because he was conscious the entire time his soul traveled during sleep, and because it travels at the speed of thought, he said, "I know the stars of the Milky Way better than the two roads in my village." Castaneda's Don Juan speaks that our discounting the journeys of the soul as not happening in merely a different dimension of reality is not the proper perspective. That said, many/most/? of our dreams are occuring in our mind's imagination, not the external multi-dimensional universe. Our soul is "magnetically" confined to our physical body while we remain conscious. Its journeys have been called "astral travel" and most people are not conscious during them because so very few of us live intensional, conscientious waking lives.

graemep 2y ago

"Otherwise atheist" and believe "demons are totally real" is a very odd combination. They believe in the supernatural, but only the evil supernatural? They believe in demons, presumably because of their experiences, but completely discount all religious experience? That sounds to me as simply reflecting the effects of having done (a lot of?) LSD.