“I like when someone knows how to appreciate my presence without losing me first.”
—
also yeah these are about the BEST I could do without posting pictures that blatantly go against the tos of gfm (and also tumblr) I really just wanted pictures that scream “Please help me, my tits are eating the rest of my body”
I’m saying this from a place of genuine care: if you are seeing ghosts or shadows or having nightmares… and sageing, eggshells, Crystal’s, and psychics arent cutting it..
Please.. please… check for things like gas leaks, water damage, vermin. I’m not saying your house isnt haunted, I’m just saying that carbon monoxide poisoning looks a LOT like being haunted.
I know that, you know that, but when it looks like supernatural things you look to supernatural solutions and you might not be thinking clearly.
I’m having a conversation with a pagan mom right now who thinks that dark forces are after her, so she’s tried all the things that she knows… which apparently is not checking the hvac system for leaks.
Shes mad at me because I suggested getting an inspection because shes lived in the house for 14 years and she’s always seen things like this and it’s just gotten worse since she took over the house. Shes seeing entities, things are moving on their own, doors open and close on their own, people are being touched and scratched. ‘Mold and gas dont do that!’
Drafty house. Uneven floors. Pressure changes.
Toxic mold syndrome can mimic depression and anxiety, cause listlessness. Guess what extreme anxiety can do. It can mess with your head. It can mess with your memory.
If you have scratches on you and you dont know where they came from, see a doctor. See a doctor. I dont know why you wont see a doctor. They can tell you if it comes from an animal. They can tell you if you’re suffering from a mold allergy. They can tell you if you’re experiencing side effects of gas exposure.
I wholeheartedly believe in ghosts. Absolutley not debating that ghosts and spirits and whatever you think you’re seeing. I am posting this in a pagan facebook group. I 100% believe in ghosts.
I also believe in carbon monoxide.
Please check for gas leaks in your home. Please check for mold. Please check for critters. Like girl I believe you but please check these things.
She… got mad and deleted the post.
This is why we need to stress, and I mean really stress, that mundane explanations are just as important as superstitious ones, and why I genuinely worry about our echo chambers.
Yes, I know we all want to believe that the feelings of dread may be coming from an evil presence in the room, but also certain hvac systems hum at a frequency that causes confusion and anxiety.
Yes it seems reasonable that your doors open and close on their own because granmas ghost is still hanging around. But please consider that the foundation of your house might be shifting.
Yes, you might feel a sense that something bad is going to happen, but that can also be generalized anxiety or obsessive compulsive disorder.
And being in a circle that refuses to accept that mundane explanations for supernatural problems feeds and triggers delusions. The pagan/witchcraft community is extremely neuro diverse, and these delusions can trigger spirals and put people in very… very bad places.
Please accept mundane explanations.
You are not ‘crazy’ for seeing ghosts and your house is not dirty for needing an inspection.
If you get an inspection and it comes back clean, you can feel smug about being right. If you dont get an inspection and you’re wrong you and your children could get sick and die.
Y'all I’m tired.
This is relevant to something else I saw online today from Greg from How to Drink:
With a lot of things in the brain, we don’t have another person’s perspectives to know what’s usually experienced- this is why I know a lot of us have had the, “Wait, that’s an ADHD symptom?” moment. It’s never bad to check out your experiences with a doctor.
as a person with fucked up funny visual/neurological stuff like visual snow and palinopsia (I probably need to get it checked out) yeah this stuff is not normal. Kid me thought my vision was so good that I could see individual molecules but naaaah it’s astigmatism and difficult to diagnose/mostly inconsequential funny stuff with my brain
Additionally: physical conditions can also cause emotional responses. One of the most common but least talked about symptoms of severe illnesses (including anaphylaxis and conditions affecting your heart and blood) is a sense of impending doom.
That’s something I see people describe feeling in a lot of spaces, both religious spaces and ones dedicated to neurodivergency, and it can absolutely be a sign that you’re experiencing allergic reactions or that you have a serious condition that your body is desperately trying to warn you about.
Science and supernatural forces are not incompatible with each other. Believing in supernatural forces does not mean you should reject science.
There is a very famous Reddit post that illustrates this perfectly, although the supernatural was never suspected:
A reply:
This post is basically in the Reddit hall of fame now. Always check for mundane explanations. Always.
(knew somebody who insisted their house was haunted and refused to do anything “normal” about the clearly dangerous moldy spot in their bathroom. I finally suggested- “How do you know that isn’t just the way an evil ghost is messing with you? How do you know it isn’t literally causing the mold to grow, as a way to cause you harm in the living world?” so they finally called somebody, who took care of the evil ghost mold, and their breathing improved. even if you 100% believe in something spiritual or supernatural, sometimes you need to deal with the problem in a mundane way that genuinely works)
In the Wayback I recall a website made by a psychiatrist who had been dealing with people who believed they’d been abducted by aliens. The site was designed written in the same style as a believer site, but it suggested going to the doctor to have alien implants or government trackers removed, or to a therapist, etc, basically on the angle of getting documentation and proof of your abduction or alien interference. Of course this also gets you in front of a doctor who can see if there are more mundane explanations for it and hopefully get you help if something really did happen. Sometimes you have to approach people on their level with compassion and understanding.
Many of us still operate under the belief that was have conscious control of our minds and thoughts all the time, we don’t realize how easily outside forces like chemicals, molds, gasses, etc or internal forces like brain injury, hormones, or undiagnosed disorders can affect us. Accepting we can lose control of our minds for reasons we can’t control is a good step toward accepting help.
went to miami to recover father sotirios. and made some new friends.
these animals... they are wise. I recruited them to avenge my dear brother. I was then escorted out of the sea world.
Better than the 1596 Marseille dolphin exorcism I suppose.
In 1596 dolphins were infesting the port of Marseille. Back in those days, y’see, dolphins didn’t have the cuddly image they enjoy today. They were pests and were causing damage.
So the cardinal of Avignon sent the bishop of Cavaillon to do something about them. In front of a huge crowd, the bishop sprinkled some holy water into the waters of the port and told the dolphins to begone. Whereupon the dolphins indeed turned tail in terror and fled, and were never seen again.
Still not as dramatic as Saint Bernard excommunicating the flies though.
What happened to the flies?
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux built a monastery in 1124, but it was plagued by flies. So the good saint promptly excommunicated them. By the next day the flied had died in such quantities that they had to be shoveled out.
Still not as nutty as the Basel rooster trial though.
*everyone in unison* um what rooster trial?
In 1474, a rooster in Basel did the heinous and unspeakable act of laying an egg. As everyone knows, an egg laid by a rooster will hatch into a basilisk (or cockatrice).
So to avoid the creation of a cockatrice (or basilisk), the rooster was tried, found guilty, and burned at the stake along with its egg. A huge crowd was present.
The “rooster” in this case was likely a hen that had developed male characteristics (it happens).
Still not as properly legal as the Savigny pig trial though.
Ok, clearly you want an excuse to talk about the pig thing, and I now DESPERATELY want to hear about the pig thing, so PLEASE tell us about the Pig Thing.
In 1457 a sow killed Jehan Martin, a five-year-old boy in Savigny. For that crime she was put on trial and judged guilty, and sentenced to be hanged from a tree.
Her piglets, however, were judged to have been innocent of the murder, and so were returned to the owner, with the caveat that he had to surrender them to the law if they were later found to have eaten any of the boy.
Not to be confused with a whole bunch of other, similar porcine trials.
I won’t mention the 1454 excommunication of eels in Lake Geneva then.
OK what did the eels do, and more pressingly why were they in communion with the church in the first place
Animals are expected to be part of the Church by default, that’s why they take excommunication so badly.
Felix Hemmerlin’s treatise on exorcism, cited by e.g. Wagner’s Historia Naturalis Helvetiae (1680), informs us that around 1221-1229, eels once infested Lake Geneva in huge numbers. So Saint William, bishop of Lausanne, excommunicated them and banned them from the lake, forcing them to live in only one part of it.
Plot twist: as far as we know, Saint William was never bishop of Lausanne.
There’s no way you have historical Christianity nonsense more silly than this to share
I’ve been trying to stay on brand and talk about animals only, but sure, few intersections of Christianity and the legal system get sillier than…
… the Cadaver Synod.
Pope Formosus (“Good-looking”) was pope from 891 to 896, and apparently accumulated a few enemies. After his successor Boniface VI enjoyed all of a 15-day papacy, the next pope elected was Stephen VI.
And he hated Formosus.
How much? He had the corpse of Formosus exhumed, dressed up in papal vestments, and put on trial for his failings as a pope.
End result? Formosus was found guilty of papal fail. The corpse was stripped of its clothes, three fingers on its right hand were severed (no blessings for u), and it was tied to weights and dumped in the Tiber.
Needless to say Stephen VI came to a sticky end. An angry mob deposed him, he was strangled in prison, and Formosus’s corpse was fished up and reburied with honors. And the later popes passed edicts ensuring this kind of silliness would not happen again.
Tune in next time when I tell you about how a lawyer defended a city’s entire rat population.
Please, the rats, give us the rats, i beg....
The story of the rats of Autun is also the story of Barthelémy de Chasseneuz (or Chassenée, etc.), a highly original and highly talented defense lawyer. That’s him here.
When the town of Autun was infested by rats in the early 1500s, they were accused of eating the province’s barley crop and were duly summoned to be judged in an ecclesiastical court of law. Chasseneuz was the defense attorney.
How do you defend an entire swarm of rats? You don’t, is the answer. You delay. Chasseneuz’s original defense was “my clients live all over the place, one summons won’t be enough”. So he got a court summons to be posted in all the infested parishes.
When the rats didn’t show up after the elapsed time delay, Chasseneuz proceeded to explain at length why. The rats didn’t come to court, he said, because of their enemies the cats, which are everywhere and always vigilant and hungry. “You cannot expect my clients to undertake a journey which would put them in mortal danger”, he argued in complete seriousness. “Thus they have the legal right to turn down a summons that endangers them”.
As far as we know, the rats never did appear in court, and remained unprosecuted.
Chasseneuz went on to have a distinguished career as a lawyer and was allegedly killed by a poisoned bouquet of flowers.
I scrolled for 15 minutes to find this so yall better reblog this version of this post
ouughghh sliver of light
You have such a perfect face… gosh.
Common Grackles have arrived to start courting & nesting in Brooklyn Bridge Park!
Things Musicians do When They Play a Wrong Note
A bit of music humour for those of us who have played instruments or sang in a choral ensemble. I assure readers that all of these are accurate, having spent the last 17+ years of my life around these people. :)
First Violins: Screw up your face and pluck your strings as if making sure they are in tune.
Second Violins: What wrong note?
Violists: Adjust the placement of the viola on your shoulder, or else completely retune your instrument, no matter how bad the timing is.
Cellists: Make a big show of tightening/loosening your bow hair, or stop playing entirely. Ask the conductor to retune your instrument.
Bassists: Oh, what, were we supposed to play there?
Clarinetists/saxophonists: Check the placement of your keys; when further wrong notes are played (or if discovered that all keys are present), make a show of checking your reed for cracks or fiddling around with the ligature.
Oboists/Bassoonists/English Hornists: Take your reed off, take your reed knife out, and “trim” your reed.
Trumpeters: What do you mean, “wrong note?” We were right - the rest of the orchestra was playing the wrong notes.
Trombonists: Don’t notice the wrong notes - there’s too many of them to choose from.
French Hornists: Adjust your mouthpiece and 37 different pieces of your instrument.
Tuba Players: Play even louder in hopes that will make up for the wrong note, therefore drowning out the rest of the orchestra.
Euphonium/Baritone Players: Oh, well, life goes on.
All Brass Players: Blow through your instrument, making sure it didn’t get too cold during the 3 beats of rest; always good is taking out your cleaning cloth and pulling all the nasty stuff out of your instrument and dumping it on the floor. The audience is now too grossed out to notice the wrong notes.
Flautists: Stare blankly at your flute for a moment, then pull out a bit. If still wrong, pull out even more and hope that did the trick.
Percussionists: Giggle and joke about it with the rest of your section; miss your next cue and giggle again, causing the conductor to stop the entire rest of the orchestra.
Guitarists: Hey, man, I $%#&ed up…let’s go back to the beginning (even if 2 lines from the end of the piece, as you have no clue where you were in the first place).
Accordionists: Who cares? The rest of the people vacated the room long before the wrong note.
Sopranos: Fake a coughing fit or give a dirty look to the soprano next to you.
Altos: (grumbling) Why fix it? Nobody will notice anyways, right?
Tenors: Crack a joke, apologise to the conductor, and get on with your life.
Basses: You’re singing so low that they’ll all swoon even if the note is wrong
I am astounded by the accuracy
oi-watch-it-sweetie
Pianists: Take hands off piano keys, rub them and make exaggerate facial expressions of pain and/or laugh at yourself and play again.
Funny reaction gifs created by Guerrilla for the Horizon Forbidden West release. I can't pick a favorite, they're all too good 😅
colinforreal-deactivated2019031
Lol, mine is apparently, Maximum Risk (1996) “Welcome to the other side of safe.”
https://playback.fm/birthday-movie - #1 movie on your bday
“Get ready to root for the bad guy” - Payback (1999)
Yes… yeah. I concede defeat that is true
“Justice is always darkest before dawn.”
“are you okay” no bro i constantly feel like i am too much but simultaneously not enough
What makes it additionally worst is the red banner says “German style”
…and isn’t that the flag of Spain?
This is a triumph of globalism.
elotonvarvas
man ive always wanted to taste the english french toast in american flavor thats made in german style with the spanish flag on it thats made in china. such a local delicacy
Earth food
Don’t forget the pizza
I’m pretty sure someof those characters are also Japanese
Oh they are that is definitely katakana. I’m losing my mind at everything about this product.