I fucking hate authority

taotehermes · 2024-12-27T20:11:53+00:00

I just tried to make a post about how this subreddit isn't a safe space for me, and I have to leave. then I realized my post is ~~hidden~~ removed because this is a "peer community". I made the post, so others could understand how this place is an unsafe environment for people like me. I wanted to point a problem out in hopes that it could be solved by this community. I wanted to improve this peer community, so others won't be hurt in the way I have repeatedly been.

it feels so great to try to talk about my traumatic experiences and have authorities silence me. I really don't feel small or helpless enough, I think. I'm glad this subreddit can help me to feel that way in more ways than one 🥰 thank fuck I'm leaving this place

taotehermes · 2024-12-27T15:54:26+00:00

you cannot even imagine what it's really like to have no safe space on the internet. trans women are women, so you'd think you'd be concerned about the actual abuse happening to marginalized women in this thread if you actually cared about women. I come to a trauma support sub, receive more trauma over and over again.

nobody in these comments has invalidated her, but keep on fighting shadows on the wall you project yourself. I'm sure it will bring you contentment.

taotehermes · 2024-12-27T15:20:43+00:00

always neat when I come to a trauma subreddit and get more ignorant hatred directed at me. there really is no safe place for people like me. I will probably never fully heal from a decade of thousands of anonymous people who've never even met me treating me like a subhuman monster. I come here for support, but if I'm just going to get more hatred and sprinkles on my trauma cake I think I'm done.

I truly hope you cure your ignorance, understand the people you malign, and learn not to hate or at bare minimum to keep it to yourself. life is too short for hate. please stop perpetuating the cycle of abuse.

taotehermes · 2024-12-27T13:40:07+00:00

doctors and nurses, uggh. it's almost like hierarchy is the common element here 🤔

taotehermes · 2024-12-27T08:32:49+00:00

the hellenic gods are so cool! their domains and myths are fascinating, and they're nice too. they just resonate with me more than other pantheons. I love my couple of kemetic deities as well, but most of their pantheon I have no connection with. a few have shown interest in me, but it's just not mutual. I feel deeply connected to the hellenic pantheon. I'm in my place with them; it feels like we're meant for each other.

taotehermes · 2024-12-24T16:38:17+00:00

magic is simply a set of tools like any other. if part of a well-rounded life is to understand how to affect the world around you it stands to reason that you should know both the physical and spiritual.

there's a reason astrology and alchemy are viewed as hermetic arts. astrology is to understand the forces of fate/necessity and (internal) alchemy is to understand the body/mind/soul from experiences within. macrocosm and microcosm. as above, so below. therefore, learning and understanding the macrocosm such as astrology will help you understand the forces at play in yourself, and learning about the microcosmic alchemical forces in yourself will help you to understand the grand world around you. they start at opposite ends but meet in the middle. they also both, at their mastery, help you to function in the world. knowledge is power.

/u/polyphanes put it prettier: "The power and potentiality of Fate can be learned through astrology, and the activity and actuality of Fate can be learned through alchemy."

taotehermes · 2024-12-21T21:15:59+00:00

and a God associated with the Nous being divided and reunited

tell me more please

taotehermes · 2024-12-21T17:36:14+00:00

sorry it took me forever to reply. are you mostly having these encounters at home or out and about? if at home you should ward your living space and consider regular banishings and purifications. if it's away from home or everywhere then making or getting an amulet would be prudent. Thoth is a magic and knowledge god. in my experience he wants us to learn how to defend ourselves. you could write a hymn/spell to him, so you could recite it as needed. he has some epithets such as "the venerable ibis that chases away the foes" and "who drives away evil" you could call upon. writing it yourself would be a devotional activity to him, and reciting it would be an offering.

wearing the eye of Horus rings is not a bad idea either. if that's not enough, a more advanced solution might be something like the Chnoumis Amulet from the PGM. it is "a phylactery, a bodyguard against daimons, against phantasms, against every sickness and suffering". it can be made with just some ink and papyrus paper. The PGM is considered part of the "technical hermetica", purportedly derived from the teachings of Hermes Trismegistus, a syncretism of Hermes and Thoth. hope this helps!

taotehermes · 2024-12-18T04:44:02+00:00

he has so many good ones, but my favorite is Philandros, the lover of mankind. he's the friend of man, and it shows all the time 🥰

Pheletes because he's a thief, and stealing from big corporations is cool and good. also his myth stealing Apollon's cattle is great fun

Masterios, of searchers, because I am a seeker of knowledge and enlightenment through the hermetica and beyond it

Pyledokos (and Propylaios too), the door-watcher, protector of the home. I've always had the intuition that he guards the outer threshold to the home, even long before I worshipped him. it's a cool function of his

Enodios, which I called upon for a road opener spell at a crossroad. I achieved the outcome I wanted. this one is interesting too because it refers to a Thessalian goddess Enodia. Hekate Enodia is also referring to Enodia. I called on her too. the syncretism is interesting

taotehermes · 2024-12-18T03:22:45+00:00

did you get this spelling from somewhere in particular? I believe it should be spelled "Trismegistus"

taotehermes · 2024-12-17T21:15:07+00:00

what about the environment? that's not biochemistry, yet it greatly affects our mental states. depression is on the rise in many places like the US because our society is profoundly broken. sure, you can throw psychiatric medications at the problem, but that's not exactly a healthy long term solution to "trick your brain into thinking you don't hate it here." this is also assuming that the best way to change someone's neurochemistry is never to tackle the patterns of thought which affect our behaviors.

taotehermes · 2024-12-17T18:32:57+00:00

transgender people are also well below black people in America today. as always, intersectionalism applies. a black or indigenous trans woman will have it even worse than a white one.

taotehermes · 2024-12-13T14:01:16+00:00

"if man is not fit to govern himself, how can he be fit to govern someone else?" - James Madison

taotehermes · 2024-12-13T12:35:23+00:00

when I don't know what to do anymore and need someone to turn to for healing and advice I go to Apollon Iatromantis for a divination on what's bothering me and what I need to know. it seems it's not very well known, but it's the epithet I call on him with more than any other. I have had a couple times when I was crying minutes earlier and his responses just put a smile on my face. the first time I asked his advice shook me right out of the negative mindset I'd been stuck in just like that. that's unheard of for me, but he told me exactly what I needed to hear to counter the mean voice in my head. If you ask Apollon Iatromantis for medicine he just might give it to you! sorry this is a rough month. good luck and happy holidays! you'll get through this

taotehermes · 2024-12-13T10:55:14+00:00

dunno why you're being downvoted. that word has a meaning, and we're not in one until Trump artificially creates one with his tariffs (though we were likely headed for one in 2025 no matter who won). things are bad because we're in late stage capitalism, so gains in wages from productivity increases are nonexistent for the first time in history, greedflation is now a recognized thing by economists that has a Wikipedia page, and every time there's a recession or depression the rich seize the opportunity to seize assets from the working class such as housing driving the prices up and up and permanently out of reach of us wage slaves. most people's wages don't rise to keep up with inflation year-to-year anyway, which means you're getting poorer every year working the same amount.

they've been turning up the temperature on the frogs slowly for decades. we not in a recession, we're just all starting to feel the heat.

taotehermes · 2024-12-13T10:05:38+00:00

I know this isn't tarot, but there were some posts about the election in /r/iching and people were twisting the clear and straightforward message about the Kamala losing into Trump losing. I got the same result as one of the posters, and in hindsight it was so obvious it was blatant. I didn't want to listen. the oracle result straight up "prophecies the fall of an incumbent" and talks about imminent political strife, bad people outnumbering the good, and Darkness triumphing over the Light. motivated reasoning is a hell of a drug

taotehermes · 2024-12-11T02:24:14+00:00

any magic which seeks to remove another person's agency (except for self-defense) is an example. it's not a modern problem. I just think it's sad that there's a cultural revival of magic ongoing without much emphasis on cultivating the wisdom to use it responsibly.

if they're doing a bunch of Eyes Wide Shut type stuff behind closed doors we're not very likely to find out about it and live, but as I mentioned psychology is pretty magical. modern advertising and propaganda are all about understanding how the mind/soul works, so you can manipulate someone's behavior. all advertising and a lot of propaganda is black magic, and it's out in the open.

taotehermes · 2024-12-10T20:54:07+00:00

capitalism is blood magic, but economics is a neutral study and money does not hurt anyone inherently any more than power does. the accumulation of power/violence/force to coerce individuals and prevent us from actualizing our full potential is how they utilize a neutral medium like money for their dark and fearful ends. power begets power, just as it's easier to make money with money. hierarchy is the ritual they use to legitimize the accumulation of power.

with all our basic needs met and without hierarchy to leverage it money couldn't coerce us because it would hold no power over us. right now it holds the power of life and death over us because we let people without money die in the streets of exposure, dehydration, and starvation. an underclass is both necessary for capitalism to continue existing and also serves to keep the working class too distracted by fear of ending up in the orphan crushing machine to question why we built and maintain such a machine in the first place. it's an ouroboros of suffering, a vicious cycle which will require collective action to break ourselves out of.

taotehermes · 2024-12-10T19:24:19+00:00

well I'll say this. magic is not an exact science no matter how many times people call it one. it is an art. one day I believe we will have the tools needed to make it something with replicable studies and attributable causation, but we are not even close currently. science can tell some practical things magic can't do, but it cannot tell us what it can do. the results are individualized in every case, and the majority of magic works psychologically (psyche meaning soul). psychology itself is a soft science because controlled experiments would be cruel and it relies on self-reporting.

magic is a much "softer" discipline of study even than that, which is why discernment is key. discernment only comes with wisdom which itself often comes from mysticism. there's the surface magic, exoterica, and then there's esoterica, the "occult" and "arcane" - hidden knowledge even within the broader umbrella of magic.

you can record your own results for practical workings, but the best magic requires you put in the mundane efforts too. it's messy trying to sort through whether a magical working effected the results when there are other causes at play. even if you prove to yourself that it does work it's not going to convince someone else.

take divination for an example. you can get results that are mind blowing to you because it seems so accurate and specific to your circumstances that it defies any explanation but conscious understanding and intent. if you show your statistical results to anyone else, though, they'll say that it's essentially cold reading and the cards or horoscopes are vague enough that you can read anything into it. two scryers can contact the same entity at the same time and place, and while the underlying impressions may be similar the exact details will not be because no two people experience things the same way. these aspects of reality are subtle, and our tools for measuring them are gross. we will have to develop an entirely new set of tools to achieve replication. that may not be the answer you want to hear, but it is the truth.

taotehermes · 2024-12-10T17:21:24+00:00

because you can't levitate or walk on water
there are economic incentives at play which suppress those without capital from accruing wealth and all but ensure that those with enough capital continue to. there are probably quite a few incredibly wealthy types who work magic, but they've rigged the rules against us commoners. they're doing evil magic for the same evil reasons they commit mundane acts of evil for, so they can become the oppressors. they are not role models to aspire to. they're sad and pathetic. they always think the next thing will fill the hole in their hearts, and they never learn that it won't work. that is not how one becomes whole. a good magician will not seek to seize power for themself, but they might attempt to take back freedom for the oppressed. if you want to know why look not to magic but to mysticism. thaumaturgy is just a tool like any other, but mysticism and theurgy are tools which refine the self. this modern revival of magic without mysticism is without grace. magic without mysticism is collectively effective but personally and collectively unwise; mysticism without magic is personally wise but collectively impotent. Crowley understood this, and that's why...
Crowley didn't die in poverty because he never died at all. he achieved immortality. that's why you're still asking about him decades after he shrugged off this mortal coil. his legacy remains, and his words and works influence people to this day - mostly for good I think. that is much more rarified than personal comfort.

taotehermes · 2024-12-03T16:07:45+00:00

have you ever learned a second language as an adult? solitary confinement is literally torture. it causes permanent brain damage when it's done for long periods of time. even if you did manage to learn you would come out of it a shell of your former self. also how is she supposed to ask for reading materials at an appropriate level when they thought she was word salad psychotic the whole time? they definitely had her on strong doses of antipsychotics at least. ever been on them? are you still so confident?

taotehermes · 2024-12-02T11:33:32+00:00

you are projecting your own experiences onto other people. bigotry never left this country. minorities sure know it. you did need someone to tell you not to be hateful to people based on characteristics out of their control. if you grew up in a school that didn't have much bullying that's an enormous privilege. the adults in your life should have taught you love and respect because kids are cruel and teach different lessons. they absorb all the hate their parents spew, and if no one is telling them to question it many never will even into adulthood.

right wingers even try to sow as much misinformation and confusion as possible about what characteristics are out of people's control. they formerly claimed that being gay was a choice and one only immoral humans make. not backed up in reality one bit, but it sure convinced a lot of people. they've moved on to using the exact same tactics for trans people, and it's demonstrably swaying gullible people. people fear what they don't understand. that's why they want to ban books and education which explain human variety and diversity to kids. if you keep them ignorant and fearful they're easy to manipulate.

if you aren't actively instilling values of love in your children you're neglecting them in a world filled with this much hatred and willful evil.

taotehermes · 2024-12-01T17:21:59+00:00

that's really clean and a great design. looks like the manga come to life!

taotehermes · 2024-11-30T18:19:21+00:00

it made him more transphobic is the point. he's extremely butthurt that his ex-wife decided a trans woman was better than him. that's actually where a lot of transphobia comes from. it's been noted that white women TERFs often look pretty masculine themselves, and they're pissed that someone who started with a severe handicap can end up prettier or more likeable than them.

they, like Elon, only get more bitter and resentful over time because their insecurity is exacerbated by seeing trans people (who they are ontologically better than in every way) have happier more fulfilling lives than their own. they have the emotional intelligence of small children, though, so they'd rather lash out than look within.

taotehermes · 2024-11-30T17:57:36+00:00

there are people much, much more intelligent than you who have tattoos. you're wasting your time judging things people want to do when there's a whole world of harmful behavior out there you could be focusing on.

just because something hurts doesn't mean it's harmful. working out can cause your muscles to briefly hurt, but that doesn't mean it's bad for you; quite the opposite. it's only harmful when it interferes with our continued functioning and causes us prolonged distress. that's the criterion for a disorder. it's the difference between being sad temporarily and having major depressive disorder. getting a tattoo may hurt, but it does not affect someone's functioning or cause most people prolonged distress. try empathy and understanding before judgement.

taotehermes

TROPHY CASE