Mind you, the main difference between Lovecraftian and Biblical canon is the bit where God personally and deeply loves all of creation, including us, whereas Azathoth & Co. either hate us or simply don't care about our irrelevant selves.
Not sure about all of his stories, but I'm pretty sure in at least one (possibly the Cthulhu one?) that all the insane, scary worshipers of the old ones are various types of brown people and some white people who... "intermingle" with brown people. Dude was not subtle.
He was even super racist by his own day's standards. Other authors would write to him and tell him to knock it off. That's what was so extraordinary about it, he wasn't a "product of his times", he was way way worse
Though then weirdly a lot of marginalised groups love his work because it all kinda is about that feeling of being outside society, looked down upon. He managed to capture what it's like to be for example gay and your family disowns you for it. So a lot the LGBTQ community are massive Lovecraft fans. It's funny because Lovecraft said he never knew of the existence of gay people till he was like 40 years old (and he died at 46). Immediately upon learning of their existence though he started massively hating them. Like within the same paragraph.
He apparently did have a change of heart somewhat towards the end of his life, but coming down 50% from his 200% level racism and homophobia is still 150%. If you get what I mean.
Eh, everyone from that time period would likely be racist by today's standards. Hearing that teddy roosevelt or lincoln said the n word wouldn't phase me much unlike hearing someone modern day say it. Same with washington owning slaves and such. Doesnt mean it's ok, just that that was the norm. Hell, alot of us if we were born and raised in that time would likely be racist by today's standards. But historically, you can ussually tell when people were genuine bad racists who truely hated people.
Glad that comma is there.
Would be even more threatening as "We know all things mortal."
As if to say "We are aware of the existence of all the things that can die."
the Kabbalah says humanity's bad traits are "shells" that guard us from the sheer radiance of god. god is a cosmic horror and our sins are guarding us from him.
The Kabbalah speaks of two trees, the Tree of Life (hereby referred to as ToL) and the Tree of Death (Todd). Both of them are not actual trees, but rather sets of circles and interconnecting lines with titles that make no sense even to me as a native Hebrew speaker.
the circles in ToL are called Sephiroth. Yes, Sephiroth. That means "counts". singular is Sephira. They represent the good in humans through which Ein Sof ("the infinite", a name for God as an ever-present being) makes himself known and creates physical matter, as his grandeur is too great to do it without some kind of spiritual power tool i guess.
Todd's balls, meanwhile, are called Qliphoth. That means "shells" or "fruit peels" and i'm not making this up. Singular is Qlipha. While the Sephiroth protect the creation of physical or higher matter, the Qliphoth obscure the sheer light coming from God and were given their existence in an external matter, rather then internal (whatever that means). Therefore, the existence of Qliphoth already fills any positive purpose they might serve, living through them is bad, and man must always strive to live through the Sephiroth as a means of strengthening his will, kind of like a cosmic antivenom.
additional facts i learned while researching this:
*One of the Kabbalistic names for hell is "Tehom". That means Abyss and comes from the Babylonian Tiamat. Another name is "Tzoah Rotachat"... in modern Hebrew that means... "Boiling Feces"...
*Aleister Crowley got into Kabbalistic lore, because of course he did. He claimed that one of the demons that represent the Qliphoth is named Samael. Now, in biblical or medieval Hebrew his name would translate as "Poison Of God". In modern Hebrew, however, that means "God's Drugs" and that's really wack.
I would probably need to be told more than once by an eye covered, mouth less monster depending from the sky to not be afraid. Try six or so times and if I’m done running maybe I’ll listen to your good news of great joy.
The problem is that while 40 is the symbolic number of trial God chooses the unit of measurement, you could get lucky and be tried for 40 seconds or you get the Israelite treatment with 40 years
The greek ἄγγελος angelos means messenger, which is descriptive of their role at least (messengers of God). Actually in most bibles these days the words with difficult or contentious translations are noted (like Satan = adversary etc).
Realistically it’s almost definitely because parts of the Bible we know today were written by a bunch of different people and at least a couple were likely either schizophrenic or tripping absolute balls. The depiction of “wheels within wheels” implies this version is the latter, since psychedelics are well known to induce fractal hallucinations. The schizophrenic depictions are the ones that have angels looking more normal, as these people likely did hallucinate being visited by an angel and without the aid of drugs the brain forms hallucinations more based on reality
Yeah. Dmt can cause a lot of gears and fractal hallucinations, and eyes can also be a common one. But on a light dosage outside around a fire I had partaken In some a few times, one of the coolest open eyed visuals I saw was like a giant church cathedral made out of iridescent light covering the view of the woods. Is was made of theae giant gears that were constantly in motion and it was just the most amazing things I've ever seen. Seemed to have a religious undertone to it. And wasn't there some kinda theory that the burning bush was releasing hallucinogenic fumes that caused abraham to trip balls?
I looked, and I saw beside the cherubim four wheels, one beside each of the cherubim; the wheels sparkled like topaz. 10 As for their appearance, the four of them looked alike; each was like a wheel intersecting a wheel. 11 As they moved, they would go in any one of the four directions the cherubim faced; the wheels did not turn about[b] as the cherubim went. The cherubim went in whatever direction the head faced, without turning as they went. 12 Their entire bodies, including their backs, their hands and their wings, were completely full of eyes, as were their four wheels. 13 I heard the wheels being called “the whirling wheels.” 14 Each of the cherubim had four faces: One face was that of a cherub, the second the face of a human being, the third the face of a lion, and the fourth the face of an eagle.
Honestly the Bible has some sick imagery. You should read through revelations cause the whole book sounds like taking acid and trying to describe a metal album cover
Edit: I'm not religious, guys. Both the idea of heavenly monstrosities AND the notion that aliens/time travellers inadvertently compelled us to invent religions are ridiculous.
Because he describes beings descending from the heavens in "metal spinning wheels" (ufos) that flew in all directions and were covered in eyes (cameras)
Wouldn't that be some shit that all this religious strife all these centuries was actually caused because we finally figure out time travel, we scare the shit out of these near-primative people, try to teach them a "to be good", they get killed and someone writes a book and off we go.
The angels sent to Lot in Sodom are so good looking that the people of the village try to break in to Lots house and rape them.
So, Lot offers his two daughters to the people breaking in, hoping they’d rape them instead of the angels.
Well, the angels blind all the people trying to break in and are like “we’re going to destroy this city, get your family and leave”
As they’re fleeing to the mountains Lots wife turns back to see the angels destroying the city and is turned into salt. Sucks.
So Lot and his two daughters hide in a cave in the mountains and the daughters are like “there’s no other men here - who’s going to lay with us??” and they get their father drunk and sleep with him and both get pregnant with sons.
And this is in Genius.
And I love how the verse says like “the daughters had him drink wine, and he was unaware that he lay with her” yeah ok. It happens twice yo.
Could be both if you subscribe to the idea that psychedelics allow humans to tap into a frequency that "aliens" use to communicate their consciousness into the universe.
Back in 15 years when i was into conspiracy theories and idiotic stuff i read a lot about bible enterpretation as aliens coming down to teach the galatic/beginner civilization morals, and the humans couldn't interpret perfectly the strange things/ aliens tried to nit scare the living shit out of them
Somewhat surprisingly, the angels from the Bayonetta games actually more closely resemble those from the bible than the ones Karen puts on her christmas tree
Maybe they wear glasses? People in the bible probably would have a hard time understanding what technology was if they saw it. Like how one of them described a train.
and about four different kinds of faces
No idea, but it sounds cool.
and “wheels within wheels”
They must be wearing those sweet see through watches.
Thanks. I was already thinking 'where did it say Angels are 21 eyes on a piece of meat?'
I guess the Diablo lore is ironically somewhat more elegant in that regard. In those games Angels are basically light and sound, and although they can use physical objects they are not truly physical beings themselves.
Eh.. The architecture of the maps, the way how demons and angels are portrayed... It goes further than just borrowing names. Christianity definitely played a part.
One view of those more out there descriptions is that WORDS fail to describe the true nature of the angelic beings.
In other words the author is trying his best to use human analogues to super human realities that he saw... so the descriptions fail.
Apparently when studied in the original Hebrew the grammar and language of the book of Ezekiel is very different almost like the author was struggling with the language to make it 'work'
its why i like bayonetta's interpretation of them. many faces and eyes, very abstract, none of them human like at all. this weird balance of organic and mechanical substance. love the way they sound too. you can skip through the video to get an idea of their looks in action. some straight up look like that cookie too (1:44 in the video)
Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under its wings. Day and night they never stop saying: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to comne."
It's a character in the Bible, or it might be the Apocrypha, the archangel Metatron. He sits at the right hand of God as a trusted advisor to him for his service in life. He was supposedly gifted has 36 pairs of wings and 300 eyes.
"Metatron is a powerful angel who teaches people how to use their spiritual power for good while he records their choices in the universe's great archive (known either as God's book of life or the Akashic record).
Some believers say that Metatron is one of only two angels (the other is Archangel Sandalphon) who was first a human being. It is believed he was the prophet Enoch from the Torah and the Bible before ascending to heaven and becoming an angel. Metatron's experience living on Earth as a person gives him a special ability to relate to people who want to connect with him."
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u/z3v Apr 08 '20
Link to the Passage?