In the improv comedy tradition of "Yes and..." I submit that Mystery Babylon is also in some sense the modern Western internet before it is turned totally into an Ahrimanic prison*. And in some sense, the United States, or Lady Liberty--the spirit of the US as a nation, whether conceived of as an emergent phenomenon or as a "principalities and thrones" type spirit. There are images of Columbia, as a drunken goddess on an animal's back, that are semi-officially identified with the Statue of (Lady) Liberty.
*The lady currently rides on and depends for power on, the more beastly, openly dictatorial, worker-exploitative, nations of the earth. When the beast turns on her, and strips her of power, mid-Apocalypse, it is the trap of Ahriman discarding with the bait of Lucifer. This may happen suddenly, and may happen to the prevailing spirit or religion you describe Gryphon, while simultaneously befalling the Western internet that houses its mind, and the nation of the US which houses the bulk of its material base and the bulk of its adherents.
There may be something to that. The Statue of Liberty is also made of copper. There was an interesting symbolic fact that I latched onto a few years ago regarding "www" which if rendered in Hebrew (vav/waw) is equivalent to "6-6-6." And as I understand it, pornography (which literally means "images of whores") played an instrumental role is hastening the development of internet infrastructure. There you have the whore riding the Beast.
Based on that my prediction is that if we are about to move into an openly dictatorial direction, one of the first signs of that will be a tightening of internet obscenity laws. That would of course be a good thing, but it would also be a clear crossing of the Rubicon.
That's a fine hypothesis, a good rabbit snare to set up. Maybe another, in parallel: a loss of online privacy and anonymity, justified as necessary Ahrimanic remedy to escalating abuses of ai forgery, identity theft, wire fraud, and yes online obscenity. Freedom was abused, so we must take away freedom. And away Lady Liberty goes, as Zappa predicted:
"The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater."
I already posted this as a note, but I'll share it here like I originally intended. On the colors red and blue:
If we look at the Orthodox iconography of the Virgin Mary and of Christ, we can see that Christ is dressed in red underneath and draped with a blue garment over top while Mary is dressed in blue underneath with a red garment over top. This is because that the blue represents human nature and the red represents divine nature: Christ is a divine being clothed in human nature while the Mother of God is a human being clothed in divine nature.
These colors may seem like arbitrary symbols, but we can relate them to fire and water. Fire is the element of which the heavenly stars above us are made from, while water falls down towards the earth. Fire is associated with the Sun, which is constant and unchanging, water is associated with the Moon, which is constantly in flux. Fire and the Sun have always been considered masculine, while water and the Moon have always been considered feminine.
I'd also like to point out that there are more than a few parallels between Mary and Venus. Obviously both feminine divine icons, both associated with the sea and the five pointed star (see stella maris). Roses are also traditionally associated with both of these figures. Devotion to Mary includes praying the Rosary. The Rosary as an object itself shares the same image as the symbol of Venus - circular with a descending line and cross at the bottom.. I feel like there is likely another connection here with the Labyrinth itself (which is distinct from a maze) especially in the context of church cathedrals and pilgrimages. I've heard it said before that beauty can be a bridge to experience the divine, with Mary as the temple veil and Venus as the goddess of beauty, I definitely feel some resonance here. Mary especially is often depicted in a mandorla which is no doubt a feminine symbol, and a symbol of light especially the revelation/bringing forth of light.
I've always thought that the pink cloth surrounding God the Father as depicted in the Sistine Chapel, especially in the Creation of Adam piece, makes him look like he's inside of a brain. As if the message of the work is that "God is a figment of your imagination." I intuited this when young, and it unnerved me. Now, around Christmas time my family got a large jigsaw puzzle of the Sistine Chapel ceiling, so we all got very familiar with these images, and my brother said the same thing while working on it. Rather, he asserted that it was true, that "Michelangelo didn't believe in God, so he hid this symbol in there to make God look like he's in a brain." Now I can't find any evidence that this is actually true. But that's two points in favor of a brain! What seems to be more dangerous than simply meaningless or shallow "mere-depiction" images are those with bad programming hidden in there, intentionally or not (and if unintentionally, then still possibly intentionally).
I can tell that the Bible and the Gnostic texts are not using the word "Wisdom" in exactly the same way and I can't quite reconcile the two, but the Gnostic Sophia seems to have more pull these days and she's the one I really understand. Based on my understanding of Matthieu Pageau, the meaning of "Wisdom" and "Understanding" in the Bible is pretty consistent with their meaning in Jewish Kabbalah.
In the improv comedy tradition of "Yes and..." I submit that Mystery Babylon is also in some sense the modern Western internet before it is turned totally into an Ahrimanic prison*. And in some sense, the United States, or Lady Liberty--the spirit of the US as a nation, whether conceived of as an emergent phenomenon or as a "principalities and thrones" type spirit. There are images of Columbia, as a drunken goddess on an animal's back, that are semi-officially identified with the Statue of (Lady) Liberty.
*The lady currently rides on and depends for power on, the more beastly, openly dictatorial, worker-exploitative, nations of the earth. When the beast turns on her, and strips her of power, mid-Apocalypse, it is the trap of Ahriman discarding with the bait of Lucifer. This may happen suddenly, and may happen to the prevailing spirit or religion you describe Gryphon, while simultaneously befalling the Western internet that houses its mind, and the nation of the US which houses the bulk of its material base and the bulk of its adherents.
There may be something to that. The Statue of Liberty is also made of copper. There was an interesting symbolic fact that I latched onto a few years ago regarding "www" which if rendered in Hebrew (vav/waw) is equivalent to "6-6-6." And as I understand it, pornography (which literally means "images of whores") played an instrumental role is hastening the development of internet infrastructure. There you have the whore riding the Beast.
Based on that my prediction is that if we are about to move into an openly dictatorial direction, one of the first signs of that will be a tightening of internet obscenity laws. That would of course be a good thing, but it would also be a clear crossing of the Rubicon.
That's a fine hypothesis, a good rabbit snare to set up. Maybe another, in parallel: a loss of online privacy and anonymity, justified as necessary Ahrimanic remedy to escalating abuses of ai forgery, identity theft, wire fraud, and yes online obscenity. Freedom was abused, so we must take away freedom. And away Lady Liberty goes, as Zappa predicted:
"The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater."
Yes, definitely. The drunkenness of the whore is related to the flood which is also related to ambiguity.
I already posted this as a note, but I'll share it here like I originally intended. On the colors red and blue:
If we look at the Orthodox iconography of the Virgin Mary and of Christ, we can see that Christ is dressed in red underneath and draped with a blue garment over top while Mary is dressed in blue underneath with a red garment over top. This is because that the blue represents human nature and the red represents divine nature: Christ is a divine being clothed in human nature while the Mother of God is a human being clothed in divine nature.
These colors may seem like arbitrary symbols, but we can relate them to fire and water. Fire is the element of which the heavenly stars above us are made from, while water falls down towards the earth. Fire is associated with the Sun, which is constant and unchanging, water is associated with the Moon, which is constantly in flux. Fire and the Sun have always been considered masculine, while water and the Moon have always been considered feminine.
I'd also like to point out that there are more than a few parallels between Mary and Venus. Obviously both feminine divine icons, both associated with the sea and the five pointed star (see stella maris). Roses are also traditionally associated with both of these figures. Devotion to Mary includes praying the Rosary. The Rosary as an object itself shares the same image as the symbol of Venus - circular with a descending line and cross at the bottom.. I feel like there is likely another connection here with the Labyrinth itself (which is distinct from a maze) especially in the context of church cathedrals and pilgrimages. I've heard it said before that beauty can be a bridge to experience the divine, with Mary as the temple veil and Venus as the goddess of beauty, I definitely feel some resonance here. Mary especially is often depicted in a mandorla which is no doubt a feminine symbol, and a symbol of light especially the revelation/bringing forth of light.
I've always thought that the pink cloth surrounding God the Father as depicted in the Sistine Chapel, especially in the Creation of Adam piece, makes him look like he's inside of a brain. As if the message of the work is that "God is a figment of your imagination." I intuited this when young, and it unnerved me. Now, around Christmas time my family got a large jigsaw puzzle of the Sistine Chapel ceiling, so we all got very familiar with these images, and my brother said the same thing while working on it. Rather, he asserted that it was true, that "Michelangelo didn't believe in God, so he hid this symbol in there to make God look like he's in a brain." Now I can't find any evidence that this is actually true. But that's two points in favor of a brain! What seems to be more dangerous than simply meaningless or shallow "mere-depiction" images are those with bad programming hidden in there, intentionally or not (and if unintentionally, then still possibly intentionally).
Noticed a few writers in orthodoxy tend to directly identify Sophia with Christ (Wisdom with Logos), this is a refreshing and nuanced take.
I can tell that the Bible and the Gnostic texts are not using the word "Wisdom" in exactly the same way and I can't quite reconcile the two, but the Gnostic Sophia seems to have more pull these days and she's the one I really understand. Based on my understanding of Matthieu Pageau, the meaning of "Wisdom" and "Understanding" in the Bible is pretty consistent with their meaning in Jewish Kabbalah.
Kabbalistically, the sin of pride is Venus'.
Not lust.
Seems to line up
Really? I didn't know that. Do you have the correspondences by chance?
I'll get back with a satisfying source if I can find it.
It's the archdemons associated with the qlippoths spheres
I don't know how much faith to have in this. It's a little unintuitive.
More weird ones:
Sun: Sloth (belphagor)
Mars: Lust (asmodeus)
Saturn: Wrath (satan)
I kind of like the Saturn Wrath connection.
Saturn being associated with the demiurge, and Old Testament "God's Wrath" is a major criticism held to Christianity.