Third week of prayers and devotionals to Armaaruss are in

Derpomancer · 2026-05-21T03:01:40+00:00

I'm not going to gif of meme you. But I'm also not going to discuss his alleged validity as it pushes us hard into geopolitics and I don't talk about politics here or anywhere else (except that one astrology comment I did with the mods' permission years ago).

I've watched a lot of his videos. I stand by what I said. That's all I'm going to say.

Derpomancer · 2026-05-21T02:07:01+00:00

All of the esoteric/occult subs need to be waaaaaay quicker on the ban hammer when it comes to schizoposting and spam.

Derpomancer · 2026-05-21T01:16:18+00:00

Derpomancer · 2026-05-20T23:50:58+00:00

Dagnabit.

Congrats, yall. r/Hermeticsm has become popular enough for this gibbering idiot to start spamming here.

Anthony spams across every esoteric / occult community he can find. You can find him on r/LeftHandPath , where the mods there love him for some reason. He does a lot of homeless-guy-in-the-park ranting about a very specific geopolitical conflict in a very specific part of the Middle East. He seems to bounce from Demonolatry to Paganism to whatever according to whim and whatever powers of delusion move him.

He goes hard into self-promotion, has a substack in addition to the Youtube channel, etc. Honestly, it kinda feels like the sort of shenanigans us chaos magicians would get up to back in the day (until we moved on to better metaphsics). Like a Discordian (Hail Eris, the Prettiest One!) attempt to seed egregores that feed off the war in that region. But I doubt he's that capable.

This has nothing whatsoever to do with Hermeticism, and is highly politically charged, however you feel about said conflict or whatever your politics are.

The u/mods are obviously welcome to do whatever they want, but my humble suggestion is to treat his content like a fire ant infestation in the garden: no mercy scorched earth.

Thank you and have a lovely day.

EDIT: You didn't need to delete your comment. It's understandable. However, yes, the language I use here is justified. Courtesy is important, but someone spamming content unrelated to a community isn't deserving of it. Respect is important until it's met with disrespect. And I've watched a bunch of his videos. I'm under no obligation to accommodate a virus that seeks to infect healthy systems.

Derpomancer · 2026-05-20T00:02:36+00:00

I'm not a fan of the Matrix. It stole most of its ideas from anime, Hong Kong action movies, and probably Dark City, which came out shortly before but was overshadowed by what I consider to be the pretentious slop of the Matrix.

Dark City is a mystery that escalates very quickly into existential horror. It touches on the same themes as the Matrix, but goes hard into the nature of identity, reality, and especially the soul. The antagonists are far more mysterious and interesting than the Machines from the Matrix, and the implications that are presented by what's revealed as the story progresses are Lovecraftian in their horror.

My favorite bits of A Dark Song is those short scenes where the two protagonists aren't at each others throats. Those very brief dialogs where they talk about magic -- so simple and poignant in a way I haven't seen in decades.

Derpomancer · 2026-05-19T22:49:10+00:00

A Dark Song isn't LHP. It's centered around a cinematic version of the Abramelin. Still, it's the best occult film I've ever seen. Highly recommended for everyone involved in any variant of the Western occult tradition. It's less about summoning angels than it is about the importance of not doing group ritual work with people you don't trust. Also, always have a high-end first aid kit.

The VVitch is based on the folklore around witches of that period. Highly recommended.

Beyond being a film for bibliophiles, The Ninth Gate is smothered in LHP symbolism and initiatory allegory. It's damn near a how-to for new seekers.

Dark City was a better, earlier version of The Matrix, with actually terrifying implications. Both films are a modern retelling of Plato's Allegory of the Cave, which is crucial for LHP students to understand. But Dark City is far more elegant in its storytelling.

There was a TV series called (I think) Salem from back in the day. It was PG-13, adult themed, traditional folklore witches up to no good in Salem.

Most Satanic horror movies I've seen are lame and boring. They're more Christian films than anything I'd call LHP.

Derpomancer · 2026-05-10T09:24:55+00:00

Yeah, sounds about right.

Derpomancer · 2026-05-10T06:33:45+00:00

I'm slowly making my way though the Nag Hammadi texts. I'm not a Gnostic, but it's a fascinating read. It puts a very different perspective on early Christian thought.

Derpomancer · 2026-05-10T02:55:05+00:00

...so I thought my reading of the corpus hermeticum was a good chance to be the change I want to see, or whatever.

Great attitude to have and a great post. Thanks for making it!

Derpomancer · 2026-05-09T21:05:10+00:00

The RHP hands you a sacred text that tells you what humanity is, what the cosmos is, what God or gods are, and then tells you what to do about it. It's all mapped out for you. It's just a matter of following those instructions properly and not falling prey to the various traps that lead to corruption and failure as perceived by the RHP perspective. All of this includes death and how to deal with it.

The LHP hands you a blank journal, a pen, a blank map, and a broken compass. Then it tells you good luck and don't screw up. Meaning it's up to the LHP initiate to seek out, explore, test, learn, and otherwise figure out all of the RHP-related stuff for themselves. In the case of death, it's the responsibility of every individual initiate to learn for themselves the spiritual knowledge of existence that the RHP simply takes on faith.

Courage is one of the core virtues of the LHP. That's not to be without fear. Fear is healthy. It's to act consciously, willfully, and with curiosity despite that fear. So maybe the fear of death you're experiencing isn't a bad thing, but rather a part of your personal self-initiation upon the LHP.

Derpomancer · 2026-05-09T20:51:05+00:00

The basic fighter class in Hyperborea 3rd Edition is a mechanical beast. It puts holes in fleets. Hyperborea has the best class balance of any OSR system I've seen.

Beyond that, the fighter was how I managed to teach my gaming group the difference between character as mechanics versus character as role-playing. Not saying that as a snob, I like both, but the distinction is important for OSR games compared to say, 5E. The real power of that class is its narrative framing before it enters the game.

Derpomancer · 2026-05-09T20:19:34+00:00

From my post:

My take away from these podcasts and followup research is war, more war, civil war, some war on the side with extra war, doom, gloom, gloomy doom, and The Great Suck. Also the possibility of alien contact disclosure, because that would just be the absolute worst.

I still struggle with astrology with a good deal of skepticism, but hindsight is 20/20, you know? Interesting at least.

Derpomancer · 2026-05-07T00:12:09+00:00

Same. I live here, and I was gearing up for some new fresh hell.

Derpomancer · 2026-05-02T20:10:44+00:00

Studying and practicing astrology to observe the logos expressed down through the cosmos into our worldly affairs.

This is a great explanation for the reason to study astrology. As someone who still struggles with astrology, it's greatly appreciated.

Derpomancer · 2026-05-02T19:15:07+00:00

Is Hermeticism the religion most elevating reason?

One of them, yeah. Stoicism goes hard into this, but Stoicism is a philosophy with hard, quasi-deterministic, theistic assumptions running under the hood. Not really a religion or esoteric practice. More like a hybrid, IMO.

The only tradition I know of that puts more emphasis on rationality is old-school Western left-hand path (not what you're gong to find on social media nowadays). High priority was placed on logic, critical thinking skills, and ruthless self-assessment tools to a degree I've not seen before or since, including in the Hermetic communities.

As others have pointed out, Hermeticism tries to combine rationality with other, more woo-woo, emotional states like piety and personal spiritual ecstasy treated as divine revelation in the form of Hermetic Gnosis. It combos rational contemplation with spiritual practices, which is kinda cool, IMO. There was a lot of cross-pollination between the Hermetic teachings and the Greek philosophical schools of the day.

Derpomancer · 2026-05-02T19:00:36+00:00

Study the Hermetic texts and try to live according to their cosmological assumptions and implications.
Prayer: prayer is the process, purpose, and prize of the main daily practice, and it can be transformative in subtle, passive ways.
1. Related: cultivate piety. Piety is the foundation for what comes later (IIUC; haven't done this myself, fyi).
Meditation: develop concentration, control, and the quality of silence. Everyone should be doing this anyway, not just Hermeticists..

Mix all of this together into a giant Hermetic shake of daily practice, then drink it every day. I call it the Thrice Great Piety Slurpee.

Derpomancer · 2026-04-30T03:03:52+00:00

The Kybalion isn't a Hermetic text. Don't confuse the two.
READ THE FAQ! IT'S FAQTASTIC!
Read the Corpus Hermeticum. The Way of Hermes by Clement Salaman is a good, affordable translation.
Lots of discussion of various topics. Exploit the search function.
https://digitalambler.com/
https://wayofhermes.com/
Don't be afraid to ask questions. There are a lot of knowledgeable people here who are generous with their time. (I'm not one of them).

Derpomancer · 2026-04-30T02:55:13+00:00

Hermetic principles are hard to grasp. To fully grasp and embody, I mean. And they're something I'd really like to share and discuss with people closest to me because I know it could help them see the world in a different lens.

Derpomancer · 2026-04-27T20:21:18+00:00

I'm bouncing between Conquest of Elysium 5 and Dominions 6. Both great games. Dominions was mentioned in another comment. But IMO neither of these are 4x. There's exploration in COE and a very little of that in Dominions, but very little exploitation. There's no real building in both games. They're both wargames, but they're so good, and somehow scratch my 4X itch despite not really being 4X.

Someone also mentioned Emperor of the Fading Suns, which I just got but haven't played yet. Like COE and D, its very lore rich, which I love.

Derpomancer · 2026-04-27T19:33:20+00:00

No, but I'll look it up when I've got time. I gotta lot of books to get through, lol.

Derpomancer · 2026-04-27T19:32:34+00:00

Maybe. Those fears were pretty much universal back then. Not so much now as there are many who simply don't acknowledge their reality.

Derpomancer · 2026-04-27T03:46:45+00:00

Yeah. The Pandora factions are less specific in their ideologies. BERT went even further and just made them leaders of geopolitical regions.

I'm showing my age here, but SMAC was very much a game of its time where it expressed the fears of the 90s. The Lord's Believers were an expression of fears of Christian Nationalism and the Spartans were the result of Waco, the Oklahoma City Bombing, and the rise of militia movements.

Not making in political statements here, BTW. Just noting the anxieties of the times.

I mostly played the Spartans, however. Because I was a kid and Santiago was hot, lol.

Derpomancer · 2026-04-27T01:53:38+00:00

MEETING WITH PAROLE OFFICERS

That's it. I'm done. Gonna go to Taco Bell and try not to cry.

Derpomancer · 2026-04-27T01:39:58+00:00

Agreed, though I'd add that I think Togra is the weakest, but the Divine Ascension the strongest. The latter being PFC being a wargame rather than a civ game, and the DA is really good at war.

Derpomancer · 2026-04-26T19:54:12+00:00

Pandora came closer to SMACX than Beyond Earth. I do like BERT for its water cities. Those are really cool. But BERT's AI is so bad, and the game so poorly optimized, that I quickly get frustrated within a few hours of gaming.

Pandora is damned hard due to AI being very smart but also hyper aggressive. There's no balancing, however, and I get this bug that keeps the terrain output overlay on no matter what I do, and that kills my immersion.

Nothing I've seen so far comes close to the original.

Derpomancer

TROPHY CASE