teophan

[teophan]

How did magicians back in the day make seals? Was there a science behind it or was it intuitive?

That's a really good question! The answer is extremely complicated!

When most people these days think of seals they think of goetic seals. But the terminology of "seals" actually comes from the idea of sealing a letter. Specifically, it refers to one of the many apocryphal versions of the story of Solomon and Ashmedai, in which king Solomon uses a signet ring with a special magical symbol on it to command demons.

Now, this is one of those biblical stories that people went absolutely nuts for. Jews, Christians, Muslims, damn near every abrahamic faith has their own take on the story, because let's be honest here it's cool as fuck.

But! The original story from the Tanakh doesn't refer to the seal at all, and focuses much more on controlling the sheyd with manacles inscribed with a secret name of God. The inherent magical power of names of God is a common trope in Jewish literature, but later versions of the tale also include greco-egyptian ideas about the inherent magical properties of language, forms, and mathematics.

So when we look at a contemporary English version of a goetic seal, we are looking at something with literally thousands of years of compiled knowledge behind it. I wouldn't necessarily call it science, or intuition, I would describe it as systematic, and narrative. Closer to how campfire stories are improved over generations as people tell and retell them.

Look at this seal of Belial:

The idea of the seal itself? That goes back to Babylonian Jewish ideas about written text having power to control supernatural entities. (Google Babylonian curse bowls if you haven't already.)

See how the letters are spaced? That's important. That goes back to neopythagorean ideas about regular polygons being fundamental building blocks of the universe.

The little crosses? Those are probably cruciforms! That's how you can tell Christians were involved at some point.

See how some of the lines of the seal end in little loops? That goes back to ptolmaic Egyptian ideas about magic. If the crosses are cruciforms, these are probably ankh-forms! You see shapes like that all over magical texts from the 2nd-6th century Mediterranean!

These symbols are the result of dozens of cultures and people and languages collectively yes-anding each other for literally thousands of years. They are DENSE with meaning.

[teophan]

Ghazzah was once a thriving sea port, a center of medical knowledge, well-known for its textiles and beautiful patterns. It was a culinary wonder, and the food was well-known for the people's use of chili peppers in most of their dishes. Ghazzah was always special, not just within Palestine but within the broader region it existed at nearly the center of.

Ghazzah has since become a graveyard for children, through occupation, through Western imperialism, through their genocide of us. Through hatred and propaganda it was justified, by all of Western media, and the occupation's 'Hasbara' propaganda machine.

The people of Ghazzah and the city and its culture and its history have always been exceptional, that scared them; it scared them that they couldn't steal that from us. So they tried to tear it down. The circumstances imposed on us are not who we are.

[teophan]

Aging is hot. Gray hairs are hot. Smile lines are hot. Get with it.

#i went on a whole rant about this the other day #if you can’t find even the ‘ugly’ parts of aging attractive in others you’re going to fear them in yourself #like you don’t even have to be Into them just acknowledge the beauty in them #i see a little hint of silver in the hair and i am gnawing the bars of my fucking cage #i am kissing the cellulose dimples and varicose veins all over those thighs #and the more i celebrate them in others the more eager i am to see how they manifest in myself! #cultivate your Type™️ such that it can feasibly include yourself #you don’t have to in order to live a happy and fulfilling life but it’s certainly helped set my mindset on track to getting there

[teophan]

we talk a lot about ohhhh what if my calling is to be the greatest mammoth hunter ever and I'm wasting my talents in the modern era but we never think about what if Thog from 30,000 BCE was the only person ever born who could get a sub-7min Donkey Kong Country any%, and he never got the chance. what about thog

[teophan]

the student encampments being cleared on the grounds of anti homeless laws it’s all so blatant and brazen and interconnected

[teophan]

#mostly it’s really fucking funny #because i go by teo #and i generally pronounce it ‘tea-oh’ #but i work with a lot of latines and spanish speakers (or at least ppl familiar w spanish) #so if they see it written down first they say it ‘tay-oh’ like in mateo #but if they HEAR it first it ends up getting spelled tío #which is hilarious bc i describe my preferred fashion sense as ‘gay old uncle playing dominoes at a jimmy buffett themed bbq’ #so like. i’m definitely not complaining #i am in fact an uncle after all!

[teophan]

what does it mean if people keep tagging my personal posts harry dubois

[teophan]

Technophobes need to apologise for "just put it in plain English you stupid machine!" because, well for one the decline in accurate error messages in favour of simplicity has contributed to the rise of tech illiteracy, but also because now whenever an "app" has a net connection error it will pop up a box saying something like "oo ooopsie! Your super duper feed went poo poo. We'll try again soon!" which having said to me by a corporation is about 8 million times worse than having to hear the word "network".

[teophan]

hilarious drama going on on reddit, the least respectable social media site i use. someone goes to r/legaladvice with a question about a shitty interaction with a cop. pretty normal post.

some users replied with regular advice, but one r/legaladvice moderator came in saying it was OP's fault, defending the cop. when OP requested they "please read the post", they equipped their next reply with their little mod hat and told them that showing attitude would result in a ban.

after receiving hundreds of downvotes (and many replies, all of which were removed and banned), the r/legaladvice mod nuked the thread in a fit of anger.

so you'd think it'd stop there, right? well, that's where you're wrong.

there's another subreddit called r/bestoflegaladvice, where the more interesting r/legaladvice threads are reposted for audiences to take the piss out of. and of course, a mod throwing a tantrum and nuking a thread because they were asked to read would make that cut. so it was reposted! and of course, everyone started rightfully calling the mod a bootlicker.

people then started pointing out that the r/legaladvice mod team has cops on it, at which point, part two of the drama starts: some people are mods of both r/legaladvice AND r/bestoflegaladvice, and they get really mad when you call them cops (derogatory).

so of course, they take the best course of action, which is to angrily reply to comments calling them cops and then use mod powers to delete the comments they don't like, insisting that only ONE r/legaladvice mod is a cop, so it's totally fine!

the r/bestoflegaladvice thread was then deleted and locked by mods, presumably for "republicizing deleted comments".

the same thread was then reposted to r/bestoflegaladvice. again, the thread fills with people calling the r/legaladvice mods cops.

this thread was also deleted and locked by r/bestoflegaladvice mods.

but it doesn't end there! because there's ANOTHER subreddit called r/subredditdrama, where the juiciest drama from all manner of subreddits gets reposted. and you'll never believe what's gone on long enough to count as drama.

here, free from the shackles of reddit's legaladvice world, users were free to dunk on the mods as much as they want.

the r/subredditdrama thread was eventually deleted as well (but not locked) just because they don't accept links to nuked threads since the original can't be read, but thankfully, everything had been archived by that point.

and just because the streisand effect should never go unrealized, i'm reposting it here, to tumblr. who knows, maybe someone will bother to screencap this and put it on r/curatedtumblr, and it will eventually live on in reddit again.

as for OP, they reposted their situation to r/nostupidquestions and later posted this update:

moral of the story: never go to reddit for legal advice, because the legal advice subreddit is run by ONE cop.

[teophan]

smartphone storage plateauing in favor of just storing everything in the cloud is such dogshit. i should be able to have like a fucking terabyte of data on my phone at this point. i hate the fucking cloud

[teophan]

Hey, don't cry. A single thread in a tapestry, though its color brightly shines, can never see its purpose in the pattern of the grand design, ok?

[teophan]

I cant believe this tweet is how I find out

[teophan]

[teophan]

Barney keeps showing Gordon big bang theory bc he thinks he's gonna like the nerd jokes but he doesn't. He really doesn't

#briefly misread that as ‘barney and groudon’ #and i gotta tell you #i can’t say that mental image was an improvement #though barney the dino being friends with groudon the legendary sculptor of the land #is a notion i can get behind in this scenario

[teophan]

My colleague @ismail_gh2 and his team were kidnapped by Israeli occupation forces during their coverage of the Alshifa hospital attack. They were held for 10 hours and subjected to intense interrogation and dehumanization by the Israeli occupation forces. 40 days have passed, and not a single Western media outlet or journalists' advocacy agency has made any effort to reach out to him.

Palestinian journalists continue to face disrespect and dehumanization every single day.

[teophan]

two sheep. standing still

[teophan]

never let being a girl stop you from being a boy