regurgitated worm food

he/him queer gay trans, Autistic, DID, into stuff

[gohstlikeblue]

about

Autistic trans guy anarchist punk with DID. our body is, like, mid-30s. I'm younger i like old cemeteries and critical theory and playin guitar and Go, the board game from ancient China i dunno, follow me if you want. Send me a message. or don't. please don't be mean to me

[gohstlikeblue]

Arcanum XI isn’t “control over others” or even simply “control over instinct.” It’s the capacity to remain sovereign over one’s own threshold: what enters, what is believed, what is absorbed, what is allowed to shape the self.

In that frame, the lion’s mouth matters. The figure is not strangling the lion or conquering it. S/he is holding the place where force becomes intake, voice, bite, appetite, speech. That is a boundary image. The mouth is an opening, but also a danger point.

So paired with the panopticon and the “thought-diffusion” passage, Arcanum XI becomes less “here is the mechanism of ideological domination” and more:

How do I keep my own aperture?

How do I encounter collective affect, propaganda, doctrine, charisma, surveillance, and social pressure without letting them silently install themselves as my conscience?

That makes the card a counter-panoptic image.

The panopticon says:

“You never know when you are watched, so you become the watcher of yourself.”

Thought-diffusion says:

“You may not know when an emotional doctrine has entered you, so you become a carrier of its force.”

But Arcanum XI says:

“I can meet force at the threshold. I can touch the lion’s mouth without being devoured. I can decide what passes.”

[gohstlikeblue]

Arcanum XV is also the star of religion inverted: Rev. 8:10; “And a third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.” That is, the emotions of men became corroded by selfishness.

Rev. 9:1; “And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth; and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.” Thus is described in accurate symbolism the slums and hells of the astral region, and the works that emanate from these regions.

Some maintain that the inversive brethren can have no organization, but they are certainly misinformed. These entities are, in truth, the racketeers and gangsters of the life after death. Even on earth bandits and gangs have their organizations and their leaders. And such parasites on society when they pass to the other side retain all their evil propensities and their cunning. They are human beasts of prey, that hunt down and try to destroy the defenseless.

Their chief method of getting victims is through having ideas widely accepted that are untrue and which place people in their power. To get these ideas thus widely accepted they have recourse to thought dissemination, to the suggestive power of repetition, to insinuations, to platitudes, and to inversions.

Inversion is a method of presenting some idea in a manner that the lie is deeply and inconspicuously concealed amid much truth. The more real the facts, and the more widely they are recognized as facts, the better they afford cover for some cunning lie. The inversive twist, by which the whole matter is made to appear to have a meaning exactly the opposite of its true purport, is made to occupy so small a portion of the whole presentation, and is so cunningly concealed by sophistical handling, that it escapes the notice of all but the most acute. And this inversive twist—the misinformation or misinterpretation—is so worded as to be subject to no direct and simple test of accuracy. It is left as full of loopholes as possible, so that when one presentation of the matter is proved to be a lie, it can be said that, after all, something else was meant.

These inversions, having their origin in the astral hells by those who would prey upon the credulity of the human race, are well symbolized by smoke arising from the pit to darken the sun and air. And St. Paul recognized this invisible influence when he says, Eph. 6:12; “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”

Christianity at start boldly set out to renounce the sword, and to be purely socialistic in its regard for money and property. But as soon as it gained sufficient following those came into control who made it a religion whose followers are noted for seeking power and worldly goods, and who carried, by means of torch and sword, their religion into every land. With rifle bullets to back them they thrust the Christian religion down the throats of weaker and less organized people the world over, and made them trade for their merchandise, greatly to Christian profit. The missionaries have been pioneers of trade, backed by soldiers, and later have been instruments for keeping the doors of trade open.

The bloody crusades were for the purpose of establishing the religion of peace and good will by means of the sword. And Christianity, as witnessed by the world wars, continues to tolerate the murder of one nation by another. I am not commenting on whether war is necessary, or whether the preachers did right in praying that God would help their soldiers kill the enemy. I am merely pointing out, that right or wrong, the original teachings of Christianity, as soon as the religion grew strong, were twisted to mean just the opposite of their original intent.

Excerpt From

CS06 The Sacred Tarot: The Art of Card Reading and the Underlying Spiritual Science (Brotherhood of Light Lessons)

C. C. Zain

“But truth brought names into existence in the world for our sakes, because it is not possible to learn it (truth) without these names. Truth is one single thing; it is many things and for our sakes to teach about this one thing in love through many things. The rulers wanted to deceive man, since they saw that he had a kinship with those that are truly good. They took the name of those that are good and gave it to those that are not good, so that through the names they might deceive him and bind them to those that are not good. And afterward, what a favor they do for them! They make them be removed from those that are not good and place them among those that are good. These things they knew, for they wanted to take the free man and make him a slave to them forever.”

Isenberg, Wesley W., translator. “The Gospel of Philip.” The Nag Hammadi Library, The Gnostic Society Library, www.gnosis.org/naghamm/gop.html.

[starweaverblog]

Yes Ariadne sleeps in the t-rex hand position trust the vision 🙂‍↕️

[the-hearth-and-the-wild]

“Mythos, in Greek,” said Borges, “is not a story that is false. It is a story that is more than true. Myth is a tear in the fabric of reality, and immense energies pour through these holy fissures. Our stories, our poems, are rips in this fabric as well, however slight.”

Jorge Luis Borges, quoted by Jay Parini in Borges and Me

[gohstlikeblue]

Millington, Alexander T. War and the Warrior: Functions of Ares in Literature and Cult. 2013. University College London, PhD dissertation. UCL Discovery, https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1427880/

Holy shit. No wonder she slept with Ares. This is sexual abuse.

Hephaestus was fucken vile.

And it’s so gross how this is framed as Ares “seducing” her. Like, sorry that consent is more “seductive” than patriarchal subjugation???

Where does Aphrodite’s autonomy factor into the telling of this story?

We see the same framing in contemporary trans discourse, where girls are as seen as uniquely naive and susceptible to “trans ideology”. They don’t make decisions about their bodies—they are “seduced”.

Asimov:

Read through a consent/body-autonomy lens, the story is horrifying.

The key thing is: Hephaestus does not just “catch cheating.” He engineers a public sexual humiliation. He binds two naked people in bed and calls spectators. That is a violation. It turns Aphrodite’s body into evidence, spectacle, and property-dispute.

So yes, if Aphrodite was forced into marriage with Hephaestus — which is common in later mythic framing, though the Odyssey song itself mostly assumes the marriage rather than narrating its origin — then her sleeping with Ares can look less like “immoral adultery” and more like an attempt to choose desire outside a coercive marital arrangement.

The old comic version tends to frame it as:

ugly husband is wronged by beautiful wife and virile lover; everyone laughs; compensation restores order.

But a sharper reading is:

Aphrodite is trapped inside patriarchal marriage/property logic; Ares is the lover she actually desires; Hephaestus responds not by releasing her but by making her body a public courtroom.

That is why “financial recompense from Ares” is so gross. It makes the harm legible as a debt between men, not as Aphrodite’s autonomy. Poseidon’s mediation restores male honor/economic balance; it does not center Aphrodite’s consent.

And honestly, this makes Ares/Aphrodite much more intelligible. Their bond is not just “war and sex lol.” It can be read as force and desire escaping the disciplinary household: Aphrodite refusing to be reduced to marital property; Ares refusing the polite order that says violence is only bad when it disrupts ownership rather than when ownership itself is violent.

[entheosareian]

Ares Epithets

I have a list of all the epithets I’ve found so I thought I’d share.

Specific

Ares Aphneios

This epithet means “bringer of food and plenty” or provider, primarily worshipped on Mount Cnesius. It is associated with the myth about Ares’ son, Aerropus.

Ares Enya’lius

Ares Enya’lius is the most commonly known epithet of Ares’ meaning “warlike”. It was acknowledged in the Illiad.

Ares Gynacothoenas

This epithet means “the god feasted by women” and was worshipped in Tegea, after a battle was won by the women of Tegea, so they excluded men from the victory celebration.

Ares Stra’tius

Another epithet meaning “warlike” but also a surname of Zeus.

Ares Thero

Ares Thero is derived from the nurse of Ares but I couldn’t find much information on this epithet.

General

Ares Theritas

Beastly or Brutish

Ares Hippius

Of the Horses

Ares Laossous

Rallies Men

Ares Brotoloegus

Man Slaughtering

Ares Andreïphontes

Destroyer of Men

Ares Chalceus

Brazen

Ares Chalcocorustes

Armed with Bronze

Ares Teichesipletes

Stormer of Cities

Ares Aatus Polemoeo

Insatiate of Fighting

Ares Enchespalus

Spear- Brandishing

Ares Rhinotorus

Shield or Flesh Piercing

Ares Oxys

Sharp

Ares Polemistes Talaurinus

He Who Fights Under the Shields Guard

Ares Thoös

Swift

Ares Thurus

Violent

Ares Obrimus

Strong

Ares Dinus

Terrible or Fearsome

Ares Chrysopelex

Of the Golden Helm

[stillnaomi]

using violence to liberate people from sweatshops, unsafe mines, and grinding poverty isn't the same as using violence to impose those things on people. the idea that violence is morally repugnant regardless of context is a belief that every oppressor throughout history would love for the oppressed to hold

[coconutpeopewe]

Quick sketch 🥺

[gohstlikeblue]

This is so awkwardly written and Pausanias is the only source and I love it.

[gohstlikeblue]

[gohstlikeblue]

There’s a pretty coherent throughline running across all of these posts, even though they come from different people and aesthetic subcultures.

The center of gravity seems to be:

* bodily autonomy * anti-authoritarianism * a search for non-dominating forms of masculinity * anger reframed as protective rather than hierarchical * and a desire to reclaim agency without reproducing fascist/patriarchal masculinity The Sophie Strand quote is probably the clearest articulation of the underlying logic. The “cultural gut” metaphor reframes toxic masculinity not as an innate essence of men, but as an ecological monoculture problem: healthier masculine possibilities were suppressed, leaving reactionary figures with uncontested symbolic territory. That’s why she talks about “crowding them into a very small corner” rather than “killing them off.” It’s a cultural-ecological argument instead of a purification argument.

And honestly, that connects very directly to why contemporary queer/pagan/trans spaces are rediscovering or reinventing figures like Ares in radically different ways than modern mainstream culture tends to imagine him.

A lot of modern people inherit:

* “war god = macho violence” * “masculinity = domination” * “strength = emotional deadness”

But many queer reinterpretations of Ares are trying to recover something else:

* righteous anger * defense of the vulnerable * rebellion against tyranny * embodied courage * survival * passion without hierarchy * conflict in service of protection rather than conquest That’s why the “Ares, god of rebellion” post sits naturally beside:

* trans bodily autonomy * anti-fascism * critiques of patriarchy * emotional honesty * reclaiming anger * butchness/transmasculinity * mutual defense The “subtle ways to honor Ares” list is especially interesting because it blends:

* anti-oppression politics * bodily cultivation * emotional integration * anti-propaganda literacy * care for the self and others * and preparedness/self-defense

Which is a very different symbolic masculinity than the hyper-dominating patriarchal one Strand critiques. There are tensions in it, though.

For example:

* “learn to use a firearm” * “watch war films” * “learn about war” * “respect active military”

can potentially slide back into romanticized militarism if detached from the anti-authoritarian ethics surrounding them.

But the list repeatedly reins itself back by pairing those with:

* anti-nationalism * support for oppressed peoples * emotional balance * embracing femininity/femme identity * rejecting tyranny * bodily autonomy

So the symbolic frame becomes less “warrior as conqueror” and more:

warrior as protector, dissenter, survivor, witness, or guardian. The trans autonomy posts fit into the same broader framework:

* autonomy precedes justification * rights should not depend on proving pathology * bodies are not state property * legitimacy should not hinge on medical gatekeeping

That’s a fundamentally anti-authoritarian framing of gender. And honestly, across all of these screenshots, I think what you’re drawn to is not simply “masculinity,” but the attempt to imagine:

* force without domination * anger without cruelty * protection without ownership * embodiment without essentialism * masculinity without patriarchy * and conflict that remains accountable to relational ethics

[gohstlikeblue]

About my recent fixation with Ares, god of war

so I was on another platform mindin my business, tryin to build community and share stuff that’s important to me, when a mutual posts that I need to block someone cause they’re an abuser.

The folks making the accusation (one of them was called Mars) were commenting on my friend’s post sayin This person trafficked us they’re dangerous everyone should block them.

I thought That’s horrible, nobody should endure human trafficking, and I didn’t block anyone, but I followed Mars and their partner’s pages to show solidarity.

Then I find, at the top a Mars’s page, there’s a pinned post about how they were sex-trafficked.

By a minor.

And they said Ask me anything. So I asked. And the story didn’t really add up, cause I live in a reality where the social power asymmetry between adults and children doesn’t really flow in both directions, and adults having sex with with children constitutes a form of sexual abuse.

I know not everybody feels that way. Mars insisted that they never had any power in the situation. A grown ass adult.

They met this kid online. Flirted with her. Then took a plane halfway across the country to have sex with her. More than once.

In my reality, that’s called grooming. In Mars’s reality, Mars was the real victim, because they were using cocaine at the time and therefore had no personal agency in the situation. 🤔

I was like, it is structurally not possible for a child to abuse an adult in a romantic/sexual relationship.

And Mars was like, “You’re acting like the months when she was a minor negated the years of abuse”.

And yeah, I was acting like that, fair point, because that’s the reality I occupy, so I was like, The relationship structure didn’t suddenly become lateral because she had a birthday.

And Mars goes, unironically, “It was never lateral to begin with. I was never in any situation where I held any power in any dynamic.”

Verbatim.

Mars told me I was disregarding the abuse that they suffered because the child had assaulted them while they were driving. I come to find out later that the kid had hit them because she’d asked to be taken home and Mars refused.

In my reality, that’s called kidnapping, but in Mars’s reality, which they try to impose on everyone else to varying degrees of success, they were the victim of an egregious, life-threatening assault by the child they were being coerced into . . . willingly entering a sexual relationship with. I dunno.

Keep in mind Mars is a large, masc-presenting, amab person with a beard and a ‘who’s your daddy’ profile pic.

So I go to their partner’s page, and they’re talkin about how they had to give their trans child, who had extended family who wanted to care for them, up to the state, because their child, ten years old—get this—was abusing them.

And I was just floored.

Mars’s partner bragged about how they had bullied Mars’s kid victim off of the platform bc “she ran her mouth” (read: spoke up about the abuse).

And I realized then how few people understand that abuse is not just harm, but harm plus power asymmetry. It’s dangerous not to know this because

If you believe that any harm constitutes abuse, you can argue that

a 10yo abused their mother,

a 17yo trafficked a full grown adult who chose to have sex with them,

or that mutual abuse is somehow a real thing that, when invoked, reduces all exploitation to “just conflict” / “just misunderstanding”,

and that erases the need for meaningful accountability or repair.

Repair wasn’t even in question.

Mars and their wife just skipped the denial and went straight to attack and reverse victim and offender. Publicly. In full view of the whole internet. And people actively supported them. I lost a friend over sayin somethin. Which, I mean, good riddance.

Anyway the kid, now grown, reached out to me to thank me for believing her. Which, no woman should ever have to thank someone for.

So I decided I needed to express my anger. I was gonna curse these child abusers. You know, like a hex.

I never cursed anyone before. My magic is mostly focused on healing. But somebody had to do something. Some part of me needed to see that action would be taken. The bad guys don’t get away with it this time.

My internal sister (alter) and I were gonna cultivate our anger and hate till it reached a crescendo and hurl it at Mars’s fucken throat chakra like a spear.

I don’t really advise this method — it wrecked our nervous system for days.

But we’re workin ourselves up I’m readin about Mars, the Roman god of imperial expansionist war, and my boyfriend/2 spirit partner chimes in

“Ares was a defender of women, and beloved of the Amazon tribes.

And I was like,

“How can you be a god of war and a defender of women?

War can’t exist without patriarchy”

Which should be obvious—read Gerda Lerner.

And my boyfriend says

“Uhm.

Do you even know the Amazonians?”

Which, yeah, okay, I’ve watched Xena: Warrior Princess — that’s where I was introduced to Ares, but like I’ve never known an Amazon, personally,

and he infodumps in the chat,

“In Greek mythology, the Amazons were a legendary, all-female tribe of warriors and hunters known for their prowess in combat, archery, and riding. Often portrayed as opponents to Greek heroes, they resided near the Black Sea, operated outside male-dominated society, and were associated with deities like Ares and Artemis.

Surumatian Women: Archaeological findings in the 1990s in present-day Kazakhstan found 150 graves of Ancient Surumatian women buried with weapons, indicating the existence of real-life armed nomadic women that likely inspired the legend.”

And I was like

“So Ares would fucken murder Mars.

Maybe we’ll appeal to him too”

And we did.

I didn’t know then he was represented by the spear.

“It is clear that in the Iliad the epithet ὀξύς does not carry the meaning of swift or quick that it later developed. Rather, it has a meaning which incorporates the ideas of sharpness, keenness, and, most of all, clarity. Pains, hearing, eyesight, shouts, and the rays of the sun can all be ὀξύς. Weapons, too, can be ὀξύς: axes, and missiles, and spears, which may be reduced to the catch-all word ‘bronze’, χαλκός, in a way that is analogous to the English use of ‘steel’, whether cold or otherwise. This last seems most appropriate to Ares. Just as a spear is bronze, so Ares is χάλκεος, brazen. Just as a spear is sharp, so Ares is ὀξύς. The same epithets expressing weight and might, πελώριος and ὄβριμος, are used both for Ares, and also for spears. That Ares is described on one occasion as ῥινοτόρος, shield-piercing, also suggests some form of identification between Ares and spears. (52)

Millington, Alexander T. War and the Warrior: Functions of Ares in Literature and Cult. 2013. University College London, PhD dissertation. UCL Discovery, https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1427880/.

So after I somewhat recovered, I approached him with respect. I mean, well I told him how pointless and egoistic and unnecessary I think his whole province is. But also, when I needed someone to believe and protect women and children, when I needed to see someone fight for survivors, he was there. When no one else was. At least not in a way that registered to me as support.

Jesus knew that war would only result in the slaughter of his people by the Roman demiurge. So he focused his ministry, his life’s work, on the positive aspect of revolution—buildin dual power through community. Transformative justice. Mutual aid.

But that doesn’t protect a community from predators—it doesn’t reconstruct minoritized bodies as unrapeable, unenslaveable, unkillable—in the here and now.

Ares does.

He listened to me like my thoughts and feelings mattered. Because they do. He challenged my understanding of war, but not meanly or aggressively. And he didn’t apologize for the ugliness of it. He expressed empathy and care.

Turns out a nearly 3000yo god of war knows a thing or two about ptsd. Go figure.

The funny thing is I’m a Christian. Jesus never asked for anyone’s worship, and I don’t worship any god. I approached Ares as an equal. Not in size or strength or victim count. Not in the sense that our respective experiences are equivalent, but as an epistemic peer, equal in intrinsic worth, as all living beings indisputably are.

I don’t wash my face or paws before I reach out. War is already a miasma, and I don’t worry about contamination cause I don’t believe in fixed, self-contained essences. I have my critical wards in place, and I’m protected.

Ares demands nothing of me. War is sacrifice enough already.

He doesn’t require my belief. His impact is undeniable.

He doesn’t mask or disguise himself as peace while unilaterally waging war on abstract concepts reified as human beings.

I offer my presence. He offers his.

To know Ares is to be transformed.

[gohstlikeblue]

[differenteyessedifferantthings]

You can whisper to him, tell him about all your problems and worries, he'll listen.

He'll be angry for you.

You can scream at him, yell about how much you hate this place, he'll scream with you.

He may not be as beautiful, cheerful or soft spoken as his lover but he's there, protective and grounding.

He is the feeling of your dog sleeping next to you at night.

He is the rage you feel for others.

He is the feeling of accomplishment when you've stood up for yourself.

He is bravery,

He is protectiveness,

He is Ares.

[creekfiend]

ohhh my god "hermeneutical injustice" thats just The Thing I Am Alwyas Thinking About But Dudnt Have Words For which is SO IRONIC

also remember when i was trying ti describe something a few weeks ago and i said "I'm sure if i knew more about philosophy i would be able to seat these thoughts somewhere legible"

(shaking fist) PHILOSOPHYYYYY

[thewayforward]

Okay, looks like I will be going down this rabbit hole tonight.

Just finished Wikipedia's epistemic injustice page (wherein/under which hermeneutical injustice is housed) and holy shit. BARS!

"The term was coined by British philosopher Miranda Fricker in 1998.[1] In her book Epistemic Injustice: Power & the Ethics of Knowing[2], Fricker explains how socially privileged groups are given an “excess of credibility”, meaning they are treated as the authority on their own experiences, but also those of others different from them. Conversely, oppressed groups experience a “credibility deficit”, where they are regarded as unqualified to describe even their own experiences. The assignment of this credibility or lack thereof is often a result of existing systemic hierarchies and normative standards, both of which are often so deeply ingrained within societies that even members of marginalized groups may become convinced of its truth."

[creekfiend]

👏👏👏👏👏

[glitchlight]

The Nasdaq were a collection of economic spirits venerated the middle to end United States imperial wealth cults. Economic spirits, referred to as "stocks" (/stɑks/) in the obscure dialect of French spoken in the United States, were categorized into one of several "exchanges" ( /ɛksˈt͡ʃeɪnd͡ʒ/) based upon perceived impact and power. The Nasdaq are believed to have been held in higher esteem than other contemporaneously worshipped exchanges in the Dao and the Nysse. Shamans of the imperial wealth cults ("brokers" /ˈbɹoʊkɚ/) were known to sacrifice offerings ("layoffs") to the Nasdaq in hopes of receiving material and spiritual rewards from the supreme deity of the United States, The Free Market. Brokers were often known to interpret omens of the day by questioning the effect of such omens on the stocks.