The Chaos Kitchen

Occupying the precise intersection of kitchen witch and chaos magician. A grubby Pratchett-influenced eclectic occultist.

[iscariotapologist]

my results on the which medieval theologian are you quiz btw. gang's all here

[ohholydyke]

Oh this gave me so much joy going through and was actually really enlightening as a semi systemic way of going through different aspects of my thought

And then I got MY BABYGIRLS

[iustuspeccator]

Jan Hus let's gooo!! Thought for sure I'd get Luther but they must be considered him Renaissance

[many-sparrows]

[chatwiththeclouds]

[ukfrislandembassy]

Eh, I'll take Bernard, an even more awkward fit than Cranmer but not terrible.

[earlgraytay]

Ohhhh I got the answer I wanted most without knowing it. ;~;

[thechaoskitchen]

[at0ms8]

i love you hagstone

[cryptotheism]

Sophia, Aeon of Wisdom, always attempts to do something ambitious. The nature of her great mistake has several interpretations. She tries to comprehend the Chaos beyond the Pleroma, or attempts to produce her own microcosm just like her bosses in the Ogdoad, or attempts to take actions without the collaboration of the male half of her syzygy. Regardless, the result is cataclysmic. She produces a malformed, abortive, pseudo-Aeon called Ialdabaoth. The exact meaning and origin of this word is hotly debated. Much like Gnosticism itself, it bares linguistic footprints of Hebrew, Greek, Latin, but the most common interpretation is “Child of Chaos.”

The Gnostic Microforms, Today on Patreon

[thechaoskitchen]

Sophia pushes to Main on a Friday afternoon without going through code review.

[fruityyamenrunner]

something charmingly twentieth century about this

[cryptotheism]

This counts as a spell

[demilypyro]

Placeable AOE effect

[spacemancharisma]

hey uhhh but fr the concept of fallen angels existing but risen demons being an impossibility is kind of a great summary of sin in christianity

[ashelyskies-deactivated20241121]

holy shit

[spacemancharisma]

no, no, come back here and tell me how stupid it is to talk about how the power dynamics inherent to christianity are built upon the rhetoric that failure is unavoidable and there is never enough you can do to make up for it

[thechaoskitchen]

Every so often someone reinvents Origen of Alexandria (blorbo from my early Christian heresies):

Origen - Wikipedia

[littlewildmother]

Studies show that engaging in ritualized behavior significantly improves outcomes on measures of grief and feelings of control, even when the person participating in the ritual has little or no belief in the ritual’s power. Just a reminder for no one in particular.

[littlewildmother]

Research has revealed that, while rituals are universal across human cultures, the content and actions of those rituals vary widely even when they have the same intended purpose. This suggests that it is not the actions that matter, but that you are taking any action at all and naming it ritual. It can be an elaborate ritual with dozens of moving parts and participants, or it can be as simple as lighting a candle alone with the intent to remember someone.

The healing is in the doing.

[swimmingblue]

and this is a large part of why religion is important to people. Doesn't matter if they actually believe in it, it's about giving people a shape and form for this sort of thing.

[tuulikki]

Plugging Ritual and its Consequences: An Essay on the Limits of Sincerity for any who are interested

[nephritebabie]

pick your poison LMAOOO

[tiny-bansheee]

🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡

[cipheramnesia]

If I was a wasp, I'd sting you. If I was a venomous snake, I'd bite you. If I was a lion, I'd maul you. If I was a swamp, I'd poison you. If I was a mountain, I'd fall and crush you. If I was the ocean, I'd drown you. If I was a cat, I'd never let you touch me. If I was a dog, I'd run away. If I was a horse, I'd never let you break me. If I was a farm, I wouldn't grow for you. If I was a fire, I'd burn out without warming you. If I was a home, I would fall apart around you.

If I was harmless and small, and easy to hold, you would love me. If I was a worm you could put me in the soft earth and I would be helpless in your care. Of course you could love me, but could you love me if I stung you, bit you, pulled against you, hid and didn't understand you but wasn't harmless or helpless at all?

Could you love something for what it is, when that means you can't touch it or show kindness, maybe even never be near it, and it might never, ever love you back? Is it okay to exist and not belong to anyone, to not be useful to anyone, to be dangerous or poisonous or a failure but a part of the world all the same?

[gallusrostromegalus]

I know this is a metaphor, but if you take it kind of literally, there is an answer to this.

We build wildlife preserves. Often explicitly for the protection of animals and ecosystems that can and have killed humans.

Whenever a whale gets stranded on a beach, CROWDS show up ad risk getting bludgeoned to death trying to get it back into the water.

Every Zoo has a reptile house full of venomous snakes and a team of humans dedicated to giving them the best quality of life possible.

There are volunteer beekeepers who will travel for miles and miles and hours and hours to relocate an entire hive.

There are people who rehabilitate dangerous dogs and horses

There are people who restore structurally unsound houses

There are people who study the way that fire burns so it can rejoin the ecosystem and not be smothered on sight.

Every day, millions of people get up and devote themselves to things that can and will kill them by their nature. Things they can't touch or show kindness to. Things they can't go near. Things that are wholly incapable of loving them back.

And they do it because they love them.

Everything dangerous, everything poisonous, everything 'useless'- absolutely everything has someone, often many thousands of people, who loves them exactly as they are, without expectation that their affection will be returned.

It is alright for anything, even you, to not belong to anyone, to not be useful, to be frightening and dangerous and not adhere to any standard of success. It's all alright. You are loved. You are loved. You are loved.

[gaytanic-panic]

@cryptotheism

[cryptotheism]

This type of self-deification is a huge element of a lot of 20th century occult practices, especially in regards to Thelema. Which was itself a reaction to the most conservative and fundamentalist expressions of American protestantism. Crowley's parents were members of a very fundamentalist Prot sect. Much of his theology is a response to that cultural milieu.

Like this is part of what Crowley meant by "every man and every woman is a star". It's genuinely interesting to see the charismatic elements of modern evangelical protestantism evolve a similar structure.

Also you could absolutely make an argument that the new age was in part inspired by the 1970s revival of early 20th century occultism, the core of which was Crowley / Blavatsky's writing. These new age elements definitely influenced the more woo-y ideological currents in modern Christianity. So what I'm saying is you might be able to draw a direct theological line from Crowley to Paula White-Cain. Like this could literally be a christianized thelemic practice unknowingly laundered through the New Age. Idk how you'd prove or disprove that though.

[cryptotheism]

This is just my personal experience but it has been a long time since I met a neopagan who sincerely believed they were participating in a continuous ancient religion. Like most people I interact with who identify as neopagans are like, fully aware that they are participating in a reconstructionist project that has no continuity with the historical religion.

[weepingveil]

[cryptotheism]

Who would you say is the most chuuni occultist?

A lesser occultist would say Crowley. But I don't think this is true. There is a sense of youthful exuberance and sincerity to Chuuni that Crowley lacks. He is a powerfully self-aware man. He did and said Chuuni things, but the core of him is not Chuuni.

I think if we bend the definition a bit to include mystics, I think a good answer is actually Joan of Arc. She was literally a 19 year old girl with visions of God. One of the most Chuuni things you can possibly be.

If we want to keep our definition strict, I think it's Giordano Bruno. I think Chuuni is defined by a righteous yet adolescent rage at the injustices of the world. Giordano was a brilliant man that had absolutely no sense of political subtlety. He like, wrote plays about how smart he was and how shitty the church was, and they just set him on fire.

[frislander-deactivated20220305]

@mysticismmess @hymnsofheresy this is us right here, isn’t it?

[mysticismmess]

I only spread minor trinitarian heresies 💅🏻💅🏻💅🏻

[hymnsofheresy]

I mean…….those plot points aren’t even THAT heretical fjsbsbdhdhxhxj.

[wtffundiefamilies]

This Catholic approves.

[long-ago-1234567890]

this is the most jewish thing ive ever seen

[tuulikki]

The Gospel of Judas is such an awesome Gnostic gospel. The whole notion that Judas is the best disciple because his actions will allow Jesus to transcend his mortal flesh is wild. You can read transcripts of it for free online, if anyone’s curious!

(Also I identify with OP so much. My teenaged self made my Deviant Art account username “ThirteenthxSpirit” because ”thirteenth spirit” is what Jesus refers to Judas as in the Gospel of Judas.)

[transmechanicus]

SILENCE TRANSPHOBE

[arcsigils2]

SILENCE TRANSPHOBE

[thechaoskitchen]

Can I offer you a nice sigil in these troubled times?

[comparativetarot]

Page of Cups. Art by Adam Oehlers, from The Winding Tarot.

[unhelpfultarot]

The World and The High Priestess

You don't know all the secrets of the universe yet, but you're working on it.

[cryptotheism]

How might someone who is... let's say skeptical to be nice approach occultism? My SI is philosophy, and the occult has/has had a profound impact on the discipline, so I have an interest in the esoteric & a desire to, if possible, integrate it into my larger system. That said, much of time I find myself either handwaving things away as nonsense, or stumbling into weird racist/nationalist fuckery. (Sometimes both when I encounter Jung who dipped a toe in both ends of that pool)

Normal philosophy also has nonsense and wierd racism.

Honestly just approach it like you would "mundane" philosophy and theology. The esoteric mode is primarily exegetical and non-rational. But for a philosophy student looking to approach the occult, here's a few pointers.

The esoteric mode is primarily exegetical and non-rational. It is exegetical, meaning it is concerned with the interpretation of other works. Damn near every influential occult text is collating and interpretating other work with an Esoteric toolkit.

It is non-rational. Not irrational, but non-rational. Its hermeneutics do not follow formal reasoning. Textual authority is derived from a combination of direct mystical experience, and esoteric interpretation. This gives it an artistic quality, one that functions on allusions, similarities, and correspondences.

Remember: occultists bullshit, but they wrote that shit for a reason.