This analysis also comes from Cults and Nonconventional Religious Groups: A Collection of Outstanding Dissertations and Monographs, "Shakubuku: A Study of the Nichiren Shoshu Buddhist Movement in America, 1960-1975", David A. Snow, 1993, pp. 175-177 - it's a section within the analysis here about how the SGI's "discussion meetings" were carefully planned and choreographed sales pitch performances aimed at convincing any "guests" to convert. I thought this part about the carefully structured "experiences" deserved its own post:

In addition to the general supportive role, members are provided with instructions regarding the more specific role activity. That is, they are coached as to how to give explanations of what NSA [former name of SGI-USA] is all about, to lead songs, and to give testimonies. Regarding the latter, for example, members are reminded to respond to the emcee's request for experiences with great alacrity and enthusiasm by thrusting their hands in the air in a vigorous manner and yelling out "hi."

Actually, it's "Hai!", which means "Yes/Okay/I'll do it" in Japanese.

And if called upon, they are reminded to attend to the five major points or the "five S's" of giving a good experience.

That "coaching" is done before the live performance at the "discussion meeting", of course, not reminded within that performance context. That would break the illusion, as you can imagine.

The first point is Shakubuku. Remember, the guests have absolutely no understanding of this practice or any NSA terminology. Always talk to the guests and not to the members. The sole purpose of an experience is to make the guests curious enough to join ... Don't use Buddhist terms and names the guests won't understand...
Point number two is story. Make sure an experience is just that - something which happened to you and which you either changed into a benefit or changed an aspect of your life-condition through chanting. Basically , an experience should be structured as
(a) I had a problem or I was satisfied [sic] with my life and

That's obviously a typo; it should be either "I wasn't satisfied with my life" or "I was dissatisfied with my life", as confirmed by part (b):

(b) then I chanted, solved the problem or changed that aspect of my life which I wasn't satisfied with...
Make sure that you stress that chanting was the ingredient which changed those aspects of your life. Otherwise, the guests won't be able to connect just how chanting and a person's problems relate.
The third point to keep in mind is simplicity. Make each point of the story simple and to the point. Don't clutter the issue with unnecessary details. Try to be as brief as possible.
The fourth point is that of a seeking mind. What this means is that the person giving an experience should try to find out what type of experience the leader wants to have conveyed to the guests that will most benefit them.

Clearly, this is all about crafting the most persuasive sales pitch, not about honestly and authentically communicating anything real.

We're not saying that there is a "one" type of experience that is sought, but experiences have to be geared to the guests at the meeting. A middle-aged person is definitely going to have hard time relating to the change in values of a college student... The point is, make sure you are perceptive enough to give the type of experience which the guests at the meeting can relate to best.

Keeping in mind that no one knows for certain WHO these "guests" will be - this sort of "adjustment" in the details has to be made on the fly, which demonstrates the inauthenticity of the "experience" performance. But the culties are supposed to make it appear "authentic":

The final point is one of the most important - sincerity ... Even if your experience isn't that spectacular or full of content, the guests can relate to a person' [sic] sincere way of giving the experience...

The "5 S's" section is footnoted as coming from:

"The Five S's of Giving a Good Experience," World Tribune (September 11, 1974). Also, see the NSA Quarterly (Winter, 1975), p. 13; and the World Tribune (October 25, 1974).

It was obviously a structured thing that was explicitly taught (indoctrinated).

These five pointers on how to construct and give a "good" experience are mentioned repeatedly in the movement's literature and by its leaders. Furthermore, members can learn how to construct testimonies in accordance with these instructions by simply watching and listening to other members, and especially core converts, when giving their respective experiences.

You can probably surmise that after a while, these "experiences" will all start to show the same standardized structure; this will be accepted within the cult (because that's the goal), but the guests won't realize just how structured it is - and the focus on making it as manipulative as possible.

Indeed, rank-and-file members and new converts are often told to watch and listen to how so-and-so gives an experience.

That's true - I remember that.

It should thus come as no surprise that the testimonies given at these meetings, or wherever, are usually structured in accordance with the above pointers or instructions. And when they are not, the violators are usually pulled aside after the meeting and provided with corrective suggestions. At the end of several meetings, for example, I overheard the district chief reprimanding and re-instructing members regarding the unsuitable testimonies they had given earlier in the evening. This sanctioning and corrective work occurs not only when unsatisfactory testimonies are given but whenever meeting or movement-related roles are performed in an unsatisfactory manner and whenever members visibly engage in conduct that is inappropriate from the standpoint of NSA. During the San Diego Convention weekend, for example, I observed on several occasions members who were being brought back into line for engaging in unbecoming conduct, such as smoking grass on the bus while en route to the convention. That members who conduct themselves and perform their roles in an unsuitable and unconvincing manner are frequently pulled aside and provided with corrective guidance thus suggests a third consideration pointing to the highly orchestrated and theatrical character of discussion meetings in particular and of NSA in general.

Everyone must be "on" at all times; they must at all times display the SGI-defined image that SGI believes will impress the public and be most appealing to draw in potential new members.
While these specific "five S's" aren't around any more, there are still guidelines for how to give an "experience":

How do I write an experience for SGI budhist meeting?
State the difficulty you faced.
State how long you have been struggling with it, and how it affected you.
State what you did to resolve it, and how much you chanted.
State the resolution, and what that means to you.
Keep it to under 3.5 minutes.
Before you give your experience, read it to someone who cares about you, someone you know, and ask for an honest opinion on how your delivery is. from 7 years ago

REHEARSE it, in other words. These "experiences" are NOT spontaneous!

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This analysis comes from Cults and Nonconventional Religious Groups: A Collection of Outstanding Dissertations and Monographs, "Shakubuku: A Study of the Nichiren Shoshu Buddhist Movement in America, 1960-1975", David A. Snow, 1993, pp. 171-179.
I'll try to shave it down, because it's a long section, but he masterfully dissects the manipulation and artifice involved in the "discussion meetings" of then-NSA (now SGI-USA). You'll recognize the fakery he identifies - this is the nature of the Dead-Ikeda-cult SGI, a completely dishonest and exploitative cult.

It is at these discussion meetings, then, that NSA gets on with the real work of promoting and securing nominal conversion, of attempting to get recruits to take the first major step toward conversion by agreeing to receive a Gohonzon and to give chanting a try.

In those days, the nohonzon was issued up front (for a fee, of course - cash on the barrelhead).

And since gaining converts is, in large part, what this movement is all about, "nothing is more basic to the activities of NSA," as noted in the Winter edition of the 1975 NSA Quarterly, "than the discussion meeting." Or, as one district leader emphasized when discussing the importance of these meetings: "Discussion meetings are indispensable to the spread of the practice and the attainment of Kosen-rufu."

If you've ever felt confused at how sitting around someone's living room with the same bunch of losers month after month is doing anything toward the SGI's supposed goals of "world peace" or anything at all, actually, besides wasting the participants' time, I think what's described here will make it clearer what the original intent and purpose of these "discussion meetings" was, AND how far from that the current SGI "activities" have fallen.

The Character and Organization of These Meetings from a Sociological Standpoint
Given the purpose and importance of these discussion meetings, the question arises as to how they are organized and brought off in a strategic manner. In other words, what is the underlying strategy guiding this work of securing nominal conversion, and what are the kinds of tactical adjustments made at the line of scrimmage when the plan of attack does not appear to be advancing the group toward its goal of getting guests to agree to give chanting a try.

It's not enough that the "guests" say they'll try it; by the end of this ordeal, they'll say absolutely anything to get themselves to the other side of that door! What they really want is enough interest and desire on the part of those "guests" that they'll come back - and ideally become regularly attending members (as described in this indoctrinational creative writing fiction where a career Catholic priest is so entranced with the fictional (non)discussion meetings that he JOINS the SGI!! You'll notice that there is never any room within SGI to even mention one of THEIR SGI leaders who joins a Baptist church, for example, much less to celebrate such a stepping-out-of-line. But it's always FINE for other religions' leaders to see the obvious superiority of the SGI, knowmsayin?

In order to answer these question [sic] in a sociological manner, let us step out of the shoes of a guest and into those of a sociological [sic] with insiders' knowledge.
The Strategy of Theatrical Persuasion. Although members and the movement's literature like to characterize these meetings as being forums for free and open discussion and the spontaneous expression and flow of happiness and excitement, they are a far cry from gatherings characterized by spontaneity and unstructured discussion and interaction. Rather, they are meticulously planned and highly orchestrated meetings that can be best conceptualized, from a dramaturgical perspective, as theatrical-like presentations staged and conducted by a set of individuals (NSA members) who not only work together as a team but whose intimate cooperation is expected and required in order to foster and sustain a convincing impression or definition of the situation in the eyes of the audience (the recruits or guests).
Although the staged character of these meetings is seldom readily discernible to the unsuspecting guest, the appropriateness of conceptualizing these meetings in this way is suggested by the following considerations. First, the purpose of the meeting, as already indicated, is to sell guests on the idea of chanting, to so impress them that they feel compelled to give this practice call [sic] chanting a try.
Secondly, there is a division of labor such that all members have one or more roles to play. These various roles include the leadership role, the role of emcee, a general, overarching supportive role, and several more specific supportive roles, such as the role of giving an explanation of what NSA is all about, the role of a song leader, and the role of giving testimony. And even more significantly, members are provided with fairly detailed instructions, or, in the language of the theater, with scripts indicating what each role involves and how best to perform or play it.

There's a list of these roles. At the discussion meeting planning meeting, the attendees go down the list and simply plug different members' names into the worksheet.

The main leadership role, assumed by the district chief or, in his absence, the assistant district chief, includes, for example, the tasks of leading the chanting in a vigorous manner, conducting the question-and-answer session, meeting with each of the guests, and providing an inspirational role model for the other members. In performing these tasks, the leader is reminded that rather than putting on the air of a great sage, he should make a point of displaying great vitality, warmth, and compassion. Furthermore, he is expected "to be able to give clear explanations of the philosophy and practice," and is instructed to "always tailor his answers and encouragement to the audience."

Answers should always be tailored to the audience. If the guests are young, then the answers should include examples they can relate to. If the questions are too mystical or one-sided, the leader must have the wisdom to change the subject or break off the question-and-answer period diplomatically.

Blanche described how in her first district, the WD District leader instructed everyone that, if someone in the meeting was going on too long or rambling or whatever, that they should just start clapping wildly and shouting, "Congratulations!!" and then the MC would just move on to the next topic on the agenda. Reeeeal "spontaneous" there...

The emcee role is also regarded as particularly important, so much so that "the success of the meeting" is said to be contingent on how well it is performed. In fact, "so much depends on the emcee" that the discussion meeting is described for him as "a battleground in which he must struggle to bring victory to the members."

Barf. How far SGI has fallen! Now the goal is to see if there's some young teen in an SGI member's family who can be press-ganged to show up and read the agenda - their youth in and of itself is supposed to "encourage" everyone! Forget about all that "struggle" nonsense - they aren't gonna. This illustrates the SGI's current "form over function" approach, in which they just identify someone and pressure that person to do it, rather than the ideal candidate volunteering from a spirit of...oh, whatever - see above paragraph 🙄 Ideally, there would be SEVERAL young people positively brimming with passion and youthful energy who would be vying to be chosen: "Me! Let ME do it this time!" "No! ME!" "Choose ME!!" Instead, now it's just some tired old fart who agrees to do it, just to get this over with and there's no one else.

Specific responsibilities include setting "the gears fo the meeting in motion" and keeping the meeting going in a rhythmical and orderly manner.

You have to wonder just how crazy they envision these (non)discussion meetings might go - will a spontaneous rave break out if it isn't carefully controlled? An unpermitted parade? A frenzy of liturgical dance?? WHAT might happen??? Enquiring minds want to know!!

The emcee must develop the ability to keep the rhythm of the meeting going by making sure that there are no pauses or interruptions. If someone is causing a disorder, he should quiet the person in a polite manner. If a baby starts crying, he should see to it that either the mother or one of the young women at the meeting takes the child to another room to calm it down.

Gendered. Misogynist.

The emcee is also charged with being "the eyes and ears of the person leading the meeting."

Before and during the meeting, he should watch guests, be on the lookout for disruptions, and in general, be aware of everything that's happening. He should inform the person leading the meeting how many guests are present and whether they are young or old, so the leader can set the rhythm of the meeting accordingly.

Yeah. NO 😄 WOW but it's been a LONG TIME since any SGI sales pitch-based recruiting session - I mean discussion meeting - had any characteristics that would fit the above instructions. Just no way. Not now. Now, it's the same old handful of longhaulers dragging themselves in to go through the motions - as usual. By rote.

In addition, the emcee is expected to talk, act, and appear in a manner that displays or exudes strength, confidence, vitality and neatness.

The emcee must speak in a vigorous, strong and clear voice, but not screaming. The way he sits, stands up and moves the table must display confidence.

This was when a small table would be moved in in front of the person who led gongyo, who would turn around to face the group. This is of course a Japanese norm, completely foreign to Westerners. How many people outside of Japan even have a low table like that, designed for someone who's sitting on the floor??

In fact, he should stand up smartly whenever he is talking. As for appearance, he should reflect the image of NSA - clean and neat clothes and personal grooming.

It has been a LOOOOOOOONG time since ANY SGI district could insist on these requirements! Now they're just lucky if they can get anyone younger than retirement age to read the agenda off, and the agenda is often handed to them right there at the meeting itself - fuhgeddabout all this "advance preparation" nonsense. Nothing happens at the SGI discussion meetings, so nobody's going to go to this much trouble just because.

And finally, the emcee is instructed to have the details of the meeting worked out and the setting in order before the meeting begins.

...as opposed to showing up and being handed a printed agenda to read off as SGI does it now.

The emcee must have a plan for the meeting. He should write up a schedule showing who will give the explanation, what songs will be sung, who will give experiences and so on, and present it to the leader at least two days prior to the meeting. The emcee must prepare for the meeting. He should check to see if the meeting place is clean and neat, that all lights work and there is an appropriate meeting table. Most of all, he should do Shakubuku for the success of the meeting.

Oh, like any of that's gonna happen! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Yes, things were VERY different back in the late 1960s-early 1970s, when the SGI organization in the US was still growing. As you can see, all this has been tossed right out the window.
A couple of items:

• "the leader" - this was when the leader of the local district organizational unit (typically the MEN's leader) would assume the leadership role for the "discussion meeting". This was replaced with a "central figure", an invited "SENIOR leader" who would agree to attend and serve this "leader" function. The invited SENIOR leader would typically lead gongyo and preside over the proceedings - that's more how these meetings are arranged now.
  
• that "Shakubuku" in the last sentence? It strikes me wrong somehow. Sure, that'd be great and all for EVERYONE to bring a "guest" (#SGIGOALZ of course) but I think that having the person CHANT for the success of the meeting would be a more reasonable assignment. Also, how could the MC properly shepherd their "guest" and STILL do all that MC stuff single-mindedly??
  

In fact, you can see a newly promoted leader doing exactly that, "chanting for the success of the meeting", here, from this same time period (early 1970s).
It's been a LONG time since any of this was happening, and you can clearly see in today's (non)discussion meetings how far things have deteriorated - and that's JUST the MC part! There's a bit about the demands on the members of the group - I'll skip to just this part:

As one district chief explained during a planning meeting for senior and junior leaders within the district and which I was invited to by one of my key informants:

Make sure to tell your members to chant in rhythm with the leaders. There shouldn't be any more than one rhythm. Everyone should be together so that there is unity. And remember to have them support the leader in whatever he says; the guests won't know whether he is right or wrong. So even if you don't agree with what is being said, act as if you do. this [sic] way there is unity at the meeting and the guests will be more impressed.

Wow, huh? It's completely dishonest and oriented entirely at flimflamming and bamboozling the "guests"!
Next there's a big section on "experiences", but I'm going to give that its own post because it's a WHOLE topic on its own. Hopefully today! But Ima skip ahead a bit, to p. 177:

A fourth indication of the staged character of discussion meetings is provided by the fact that planning meetings are held at both the district and chapter level for the purpose of discussing how to improve discussion meetings and make them more successful. Although rank-and-file members (those who have not attained that status of a junior or senior leader) are not normally invited to these planning meetings, I was able to attend several of them at the invitation of both my district chief and a junior leader who was one of my key informants.

SKULLDUGGERY!! 💀

It was during these planning meetings that I became deeply sensitized to the highly orchestrated and dramaturgical character of not only the discussion meetings but of NSA's overall operation.

At this point it's important to remember that "dramaturgical" means "relating to the art or the theory of writing and putting on plays, especially for the theater" - it's all putting on a show to manipulate the unwitting guests in order to trick them into transforming into new recruits. It's ALL fake - just a façade to fool the uninformed.

A fifth consideration suggesting that staged character of discussion meetings is the fact that much of what members do and say, both verbally and nonverbally, during the course of a meeting is to appear natural and spontaneous rather than artificial and contrived.

They try. Unconvincingly.

In other words, these meetings are not to appear as staged performances or as the product of dramaturgical cooperation. This concern is evidenced by the emphasis placed on exuding sincerity and responding to calls from the emcee and to what the leader says and does with alacrity and enthusiasm. It is also suggested by some of the rituals engaged in by the emcee, as when he scans the gathering after he has called for an experience so as to foster the impression that whom he calls is a spontaneous decision rather than one that has been pre-arranged, as indicated by the fact that those called on are already listed on his meeting agenda and by the fact that members frequently know beforehand whether they will be giving an experience.

This fakery apparently was dropped decades ago; in current SGI (non)discussion meetings, not only is the person acknowledged by name as delivering/"sharing" an "experience", but the person often has it written out on a piece of paper they semi-read off.

But none of this is evident to the guest.

Rather, what transpires - who gives the explanation, who gives testimonies, and so on - is staged in such a way that it all appears as if it is spontaneous and independent of prior planning, negotiation, and decision-making among the members. As a consequence, it seems reasonable to suggest that NSA in general and the district members in particular have something of the character of a secret society.

Only without any special perks or sexiness.

This is not particularly surprising, however, when considering the nature of theatrical-like teamwork. As Erving Goffman noted in his seminal discussion of this kind of work:

... if a performance is to be effective it will be likely that the extent of cooperation that makes this possible will be concealed and kept secret... The audience may appreciate, of course, that all members of the team are held together by a bond that no member of the audience shares ... But (the members of the team) form a secret society ... insofar as a secret is kept as to how they are cooperating together to maintain a particular definition of the situation.

This will all be very familiar to the people trying to recruit new suckers into MLM schemes/scams, too.

The sixth and final consideration suggesting the appropriateness of viewing these meetings from a dramaturgical perspective is the fact that they do not "go on" unless there is an audience, that is unless guests are in attendance.

Before Ikeda was excommunicated by Nichiren Shoshu and transformed the SGI into his own personal worship society, there was a certain "rhythm" to the year. February and August were "Shakubuku Months", and there was an "introductory meeting" scheduled every week. If it came to meeting start time and there was no "guest", the meeting was halted and everybody was sent out to try and find something with a pulse to drag in, at which point the meeting would proceed:

When I first discovered this I was somewhat startled, for I had assumed that these meetings were conducted in their entirety regardless of the presence or absence of a new face. But as I learned one evening, this is not the case. Following the chanting session on this particular evening, the leader emphasized that since these meetings were for guests and none were present, we would have to go out and round up one or two. So the members in attendance were divided into Shakubuku teams and sent out in search of prospects. Although three of the four teams returned empty-handed, one had managed to corral a single guest. But one is all that is needed; and so the formal meeting began as usual.

For "formal meeting" read "sales pitch". By the late-1980s, perhaps earlier, instead of being every discussion meeting, this format was restricted to the "introductory meetings" during the Shakubuku Months. However, he's describing something that happened every single time. No meeting unless a "guest" was present.

During my tenure as a member I saw this particular scenario re-enacted on four different occasions, and on one occasion we were sent back into the streets three times in succession. Around 8:30 p.m., after the third try and with one guest in hand, the show finally got on the road.

The author describes himself as "an active participant observer for nearly a year and a half".

Perhaps even more illustrative of the theatrical character of these meetings and the fact that they are staged for guests is the following course of events that transpired one evening during a meeting I attended:

Although no guests were present when the chanting began, a young couple came in toward the end of the chanting session and situated themselves on the floor at the back of the room. But apparently the emcee didn't notice them; for upon completion of the chanting session he didn't jump up and yell out: 'Welcome to a vigorous and happy meeting of the [name here] District of NSA!' But the district leader, who had apparently seen this couple come in, punched the emcee in the ribs and whispered that some guests were present. And so this member immediately assumed his role of the emcee and proceeded as usual by springing to his feet, putting on a big smile, and blurting out, 'Welcome to a vigorous and happy meeting of the [name here] District of NSA!'

"Vigorous and happy" 🤣

In light of the foregoing considerations and observations, there seems to be little question about the appropriateness of conceptualizing NSA discussion meetings as "shows" or presentations staged by the members, who constitute a performance team, before an audience composed of recruits or "guests".

This was what was going on BEFORE Dickeda swanned into the US in 1990 and "changed our direction" - because of what Sensei did, the bottom fell out of the discussion meetings. Instead of weekly meetings, Dickeata dictated that these meetings would only happen monthly from now on - and of COURSE Die-Sucky Scamsei's word is LAW in his own cult of personality, where the membership follows a PERSON instead of any "law". Post-excommunication, at the (non)discussion meetings I attended, there was at least one guest every single time, but they never came back. The ONLY person I saw join post-excommunication was a formerly homeless woman with two small children who had moved in with an SGI member (who had unethically selected her at the abused-women's shelter she was living at, where he volunteered computer classes for the residents). She was able to see it didn't work; she ended up quitting.
Now what SGI-USA is left with is an ever-shrinking membership of mostly Baby-Boom generation and older individuals who mostly joined during the time period described in this study. SGI has completely lost what vitality it once had; now it's simply waiting around for the grave - and oblivion.

July aitee
July ai tee
July ai ChatGPTee
Tees are used in golf for green golf courses. ChatGPT's logo is green. ChatGPT's logo even looks like a crop circle.
On July 18, 2021 a crop circle appeared that consisted of three arcs. The arcs can primarily be interpreted as spanning 20 degrees, 230 degrees, and 110 degrees or the number of gates/doors/portals they cover, in which case you get 1, 8, and 4 doors. That's to say we have [2 23 11] and [1 8 4].
ChatGPT was launched November 30, 2022 which is 11/30/22. If we flip that and drop the zero we get 22311 or 2 23 11 just like the crop circle numbers.
Furthermore, if we convert "AITEE" to digits we get 1, 9, 20, 5, and 5, forming 192055. As a stardate (https://www.hillschmidt.de/gbsternenzeit.htm), 192055 has a time of 1h 48m, matching [1 8 4].
Throawaylien was also born in 1975 (1987 - 12). The gematria for "ChatGPT" is 75.
P.S. I believe Throawaylien left us with two potential dates for alien contact.
July aitee -> July 192055 -> July 19, 2055
Alternatively 2055 can be interpreted as 2000 + 5² or 2025. That gives us another goalpost of July 19, 2025.
Golf is played with 9 or 18 holes. The middle of the crop circle had a "9 + 9 = 18 zig-zag motifs in the fallen lay of wheat".
Edit:
What I shared is quite convoluted. I’m operating under the assumption that Throawaylien wasn’t a hoax and aliens making themselves know on July 18 was a misdirection and there were other purposes and easter eggs to their comments/posts!

https://oac.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/kt8h4nf4bb/?order=2&brand=oac4
Besides the Free Church --considered a social gospel oriented ministry supported by mainline churches-- there were other street ministries on Telegraph Avenue. The Christian World Liberation Front (CWLF), founded in 1969 by Jack Sparks and others from the Campus Crusade for Christ, were among the best organized. Disagreeing with the need for headquarters approval of any published material, they became an independent entity. One of the points in their platform was that Jesus "will create a soulful Christianity in Berkeley." Their paper, "Right On" is one of the first Jesus People underground newspapers and among the most respected. The CWLF actively sought converts while providing crash pads, help for drug users and free food. They provided street theater and encouraged radicals to convert. This flier was distributed to over 10,000 students during one weekend in 1969. The CWLF disbanded over questions of authority in 1975. One of the splinter groups founded the Spiritual Counterfeits Project, a Christian anti-cult group. The Jesus People Movement (Jesus Freaks) traces its origins across the Bay to the Haight, where Ted and Liz Wise founded the "Living Room" in 1967.

1970 Camaro 1975 VW Scirocco junk
1980 Nissan 200SX +
1990 Isuzu Rodeo 4x4 •
2001 Ford F150 Off-road 4x4 • George Bush asked Americans to buy an American car or truck after 9/11
1995 Land Rover Discovery AWD junk
2005 Mini Cooper (convertible) •
2003 Toyota Tacoma off-road 4x4
2001 Porsche Boxster •
current driver 48,000 miles
2003 Land Rover Discovery II AWD junk
2015 Toyota Tacoma TRD off-road 4x4 (current driver)

• Favorites, most reliable, and/or dependable. Highly recommended
  
• • stolen twice

With these funky new kickoff rules, word is that Micah Parsons is trying to convince the Cowboys to let him get a few returns in and that the Steelers have considered putting Justin Fields back deep as well. Parsons was an awesome skill position player in high school, as were a lot of guys who play non-skill positions now, and Fields is at the point where he needs to prove his value, and that got me thinking about what the history of guys that the NFL tried to use as a returner in that vein. And because I know nobody wants to read about a bunch of old farts from the Antediluvian age who played "quarterback" back when quarterbacks actually played offensive line or whatever the fuck happened back then, I'm narrowing my field to only include the Super Bowl era.
We will be talking about players who intentionally were used as return men and who were listed at positions besides running back, wide receiver, cornerback or safety (though this can be hard to tell without access to all of the game footage, so I'm having to confirm these with secondhand accounts I can find online). So that means no Devin Hester, no Cordarrelle Patterson, no Patrick Peterson and, unfortunately, no Dan Connolly. If I break these rules to talk about something cool when I’m further along writing this, I apologize. Not.

QUARTERBACK

Starting things off strong, I want to immediately cheat the prompt by talking about Brad Smith who was listed as a quarterback but also was listed as a wide receiver but more than anything else was a freak gadgety wildcat-running type of guy (you'll notice that's a pretty common theme in this category). Brad was one of college football history's most productive rushing QBs while he was at Missouri, and he carved out a solid little niche for himself as a decently effective oddity and as a kick returner, averaging a seriously, actually good 25.7 yards per return on 112 career kick returns as well as three career return TDs.
Joe Webb was in a similar vein, a college QB at *UAB who had an NFL career as a wildcat-doer-guy-thing/kind of a wide receiveactual NFL quarterback who sucked balls in a playoff game. Webb had a solid returning career, fielding 18 career returns for an average of 22.3 yards per return.
Everyone's favorite kind of infuriatingly overpaid but also admittedly very efficient swiss army knife Taysom Hill has had his fair share of kick return opportunities. Among being a quarterback, running back, tight end, fullback, wide receiver and core special teamer, he has 19 career returns for a 23.5 career return average.
Vince Evans, who started multiple seasons of Walter Payton's prime as the Bears' quarterback and went negative in TD/INT ratio in both seasons, got a few shots as a kick returner. In 1977, the season most well-known for being Walter Payton's best year as a pro, Evans fielded 8 kicks for an average of 19.5 yards per return.
In terms of punt returners, football's most notorious leg-breaker Joe Theismann actually began his career as a punt returner, and weirdly enough, that is not a joke. Seems weird to me, to be honest. But he wasn't bad at it at all, averaging 10.5 yards per return on 15 returns as a rookie in 1974.
Former Appalachian State superstar and future CFL decent second receiving option Armanti Edwards got a decent shot at the Panthers' punt return job, fielding 40 punts for an average of 7 yards per return. In the NFL, he really did nothing more than run a few wildcat plays and mostly not be very good at doing so.
XFL legend BJ Daniels also got a few shots with the Texans and Seahawks in his one season as an active roster member, averaging just five yards per return on five attempts.
I feel like Brian Mitchell probably deserves a shoutout here, or something, maybe? He had 18 career pass attempts, a bunch of random assorted rushes and receptions, but more than anything he, like Josh Cribbs or Brad Smith or Joe Webb after him, was a college quarterback, a square peg in a round hole. An incredible athlete with great skill who never found a home anywhere but as a returner.

TIGHT END

St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Famer Jackie Smith was the backup for basically every position on the offense and special teams. He was one of the best receiving tight ends in the NFL (his 1967 season is still one of the best era-adjusted tight end seasons ever), he was a phenomenal blocker, he compiled over 320 career rushing yards, he had three career pass attempts, he had 127 career punts, and was used as an emergency kick returner with a respectable career average of 20.6 yards per attempt. Low key, one of the most versatile players in NFL history.
Probably the most famous tight end to moonlight as a kick returner was Hall of Famer John Mackey, who was used sparingly in very strategic moments but averaged a (in that era, and frankly in any era) pretty remarkable 30.1 yards per return in his career.
Hall of Famer Ozzie Newsome had two punt returns in his career, averaging 14.5 yards per return.
Delanie Walker is the University of Central Missouri's all-time kick return touchdown leader, and he got a shot as a young pup with the 49ers. He wasn't particularly great at this, in 2008 where he got a serious share of the returns and he averaged under 20 yards per return on 13 attempts. But honestly, not too bad.
Niles Paul was a somewhat promising young tight end before injuries stole his career away, the hybrid receiver-tight end had 41 career returns for an average of 19.9 yards per return.
Don Bass had a solid career as a tight end for the Bengals, with over 1580 career receiving yards in a three-year span. He got seven returns in 1978, for an average of 19.7 yards per attempt.
Journeyman tight end from the 70s Jim Thaxton got a shot to return kicks in 1976, doing a solid job and averaging 24.1 yards per return.
Roland Moss had a short three year NFL career across four different teams from 1969-1971, but in 1970 the Bills and Chargers tried to get the big athlete on the field on special teams, letting him take 7 kick returns for an 18.7 yard average.
Nate Turner was a weird fullback, tight end, wide receiver, running back returner guy who got a bit of a shot with the Bills in 1993, averaged 17 yards per attempts at a whopping 255 pounds.
Gotta mention Brian Kozlowski, a career special teamer who racked up 29 career kick returns despite never actually being used as a dedicated returner.

LINEBACKER

Good news for Micah Parsons, the Cowboys have a history of letting their uber-athlete linebackers return kicks. Thomas "Hollywood" Henderson was a notorious pretty boy and total physical marvel who could run like a receiver, he had four returns in 1975 including a goddamn 97-YARD TOUCHDOWN RETURN. Badass!
Steelers Hall of Famer Andy Russell was a phenomenal all-around athlete, 7x Pro Bowler, made an extra point attempt in 1966, and got a chance in 1967 to return some kicks, collecting 97 yards on 6 returns.
John Henry Mills was a strange little chimera of a player, he was officially listed as a linebacker but basically never played there, and only had a few offensive snaps to his name. He was more or less a career kick coverage guy, making a Pro Bowl as a special teamer in 1996 with the Oilers. in 1993 and 1994 he combined for 26 returns for an average of 19.7 yards.
Avon Riley was a starting linebacker for the Oilers in the mid-80's, he got some opportunities as an emergency returner, averaging 24.2 yards across five attempts.
Jonas Lewis, honestly hard to get a lot of information about him. Listed as a linebacker at 5'9, 210 pounds but collected a total of 17 career tackles for the 49ers from 2000-2001. Mostly used as a kick returner, with 11 career returns for 18.9 yards per return.
Obligatory Bobby Bell reference, Hall of Famer for the Chiefs. Former college quarterback, and ran back an onside for a 53-yard touchdown in the Chiefs' first Super Bowl season in 1969.

FULLBACK

Gonna try not to include too many of the old school guys, but I'm gonna cheat real quick...
Cullen Bryant is the obvious answer here as he was somewhere between the role of being the driver of offense that the position was in the 60s and the sixth offensive linemen it would become in the 90s. He had 69 kick returns for 1813 yards and three touchdowns and 71 punt returns for 707 yards, as the 234-pounder was a primary kick returner for six years as well as being the Rams' starting fullback.
Michael Robinson, another college quarterback convert, is probably best known for developing into a really formidable lead blocker for Marshawn Lynch but actually began his career as a running back and kick returner for the 49ers, 31 career returns for 21.8 yards per return.
Rock Cartwright had a fascinating little career for the Redskins, mostly used as a reserve fullback but also got some time as a running back and mostly was used as a returner. And he was damn good at it, too! 231 career returns for an average of 23.6 yards per return in an era where that was really, really solid.
One of the most prolific weapons of the modern era from the fullback position, Larry Centers, was used as a returner from time to time. As a kick returner, he had 33 career returns for an average of 18.7 yards per return and as a punt returner he had five returns for an average of 6.0 yards per return.
The Great White Hope himself, Peyton Hillis, was in a weird spot with the Broncos early in his career. Before he became the Madden cover athlete sensation that he was with the Browns, he was a fullback and emergency running back who also was used as a kick returner, with 10 returns over a two years span for an average of 19.9 yards per return.
Harold Morrow was a fullback for the Vikings in the late 90's, had 19 total kick returns for an average of 19.1 yards per return.

That's all, folks!

This was fun! Learned a lot of stuff I never would have otherwise. Here's to Fields, Parsons, and a bunch of other bizarre return prospects getting some opportunities in this strange new return meta of the NFL.
It's the dead period now, so I'll probably post some more dumbass shit in the coming months.
Until then, so long.

This is from a book review of a book analyzing the Soka Gakkai presence in the USA between 1960 and 1975 - I've ordered a copy and should be able to post some more in-depth analysis when it gets here. For clarity, here is the reviewer's explanation of what "NSA" stands for:

At various stages in the organization’s history, the acronym NSA has stood for Nichiren Shoshu of America, Nichiren Shoshu Academy, and Nichiren-shoshu Soka-gakkai of America. The acronym SGI-USA (for Soka Gakkai International, USA) was adopted in 1991. This review will use “NSA” except when referring only to the organization at present. (Footnote, p. 352)

Only "adopted in 1991" AFTER Ikeda's humiliating excommunication. I'm sure he was notified that if NSA didn't change its name forthwith, his organization was going to be sued. The reviewer is a former higher-up in NSA (now SGI-USA), one of the PAID editors of its monthly magazine Seikyo Times, now renamed Living Buddhism (so a real inner-circle insider). She rarely strays into territory that could be identified as criticism of her former cult besties.
Starting on p. 353:

The performance of shakubuku—proselytizing—is accordingly seen as both a powerful cause for transforming one’s own karma and a compassionate action leading to the happiness of all. Snow suggests that the sense of personal mission, responsibility, and special status acquired through internalizing this vision motivates NSA members every bit as much as the promise of material and spiritual benefits to be gained from chanting. NSA’s goal

is not—as it might appear at first glance to the casual observer—the development of a cult of selfish, egoistic, happy chanters, unmindful of the problems and conditions of the rest of the world. Rather, it is the realization of something far more ambitious and global—the construction of...a civilization that not only transcends the limitations of the major philosophies and international powers in the world today, but one in which peace, prosperity, happiness, and creative spontaneity are enjoyed by all. (pp. 63-64)

Except that the rank selfishness and self-centeredness of SGI-USA members has been abundantly documented, of course...

In analyzing NSA as a proselytizing movement, Snow asks: How are potential recruits initially contacted and their nominal conversion secured? While NSA makes use of publications, large-scale cultural events, and college seminars to reach out to potential converts, Snow finds that recruitment is done chiefly through members’ existing family and social networks. He sees this as a function of NSA being a non-communal, “open” movement that does not demand the severing of extra-movement ties; in contrast, groups that are communal and relatively “closed” (such as the Krishna movement or the Unification Church) must make greater efforts to win recruits from among strangers. Of 330 people in Snow’s statistical sampling who joined NSA between 1966 and 1974, only 18% were recruited by strangers. This comes as a surprise, in that the popular perception of NSA during the 1970s was shaped by members’ assertive “street shakubuku”—going to sidewalks, parking lots, shopping malls, or other public places to invite passersby to introductory discussion meetings. Snow argues, however, that the value to NSA of street shakubuku lies chiefly in its function as a “commitment-building mechanism that serves to strengthen members’ identification with the organization, rather than in the numbers of converts it produces.

THIS, in other words.

The local NSA discussion meeting itself, typically held in members’ homes, constitutes the chief forum for introducing newcomers to the practice and winning nominal conversions of guests. Shakubuku closely examines the dynamics and strategies of such meetings.
In discussing “who joined and why,” Snow argues that “structural strain” explanations attributing the rise of new religious movements to deprivation, inequity, or other stresses in the social order do not fully explain why some individuals join such movements while others do not. He suggests that the dramatic growth of NSA—and of other movements—was fueled by the emergence in the late 60s and 70s of a large demographic constituency of young, single adults, many of whom were students or people lacking permanent positions of employment.

That was the Baby Boom generation. Note that in the USA, the Christian proselytizing religious movement "Jesus People" (aka "Jesus Freaks") was WAY bigger than any silly little weirdo Japanese cult could ever hope to be here in the US - estimates of the "Jesus Movement" membership ranged from 30,000 to 300,000 to 20 million! The SGI-USA's claimed membership remains officially at upwards of 300,000 while the estimates of active membership are between 3,000 and 30,000 (a generous upper limit).

As further “microdeterminants” of who joined NSA, Snow found the most important factors to be the possession of preexisting ties with NSA members, ample discretionary time, and absence of strong, countervailing commitments.

As described here as well:

In other words, they were not greatly encumbered by work, marital, or kinship ties. While we have only the 'ever-divorced' comparison with the general population, it seems safe to say that converts were in a good position to take on new religious commitments because they were structurally free of many social ties.

That's a really nice way of saying "lacking social connections and a social circle." It also explains nicely why those who join SGI-USA would be so susceptible to the cultish "love bombing" - INSTANT FRIENDS! INSTANT COMMUNITY!! I FINALLY BELONG!!! Source

When a family moves to a new town, one of the first things they do to set up a new set of social connections is to join a religious organization, typically the neighborhood church. We're social animals; having a community is important to us.

Snow is also critical of theories that seek to explain why people join new religious movements in terms of mental predispositions such as alienation, search for meaning, personal crisis, or hunger for community. Strong affective bonds with someone inside the movement and intense interaction with the group are presented as more important factors. Moreover, as Snow acutely observes,

psychological/motivational theories of conversion face a serious methodological difficulty in that they rely on members’ testimonials, which may well reflect the individual's unconscious restructuring of his or her past history in light of a newly acquired worldview.

And we've ALL seen how SGI leaders routinely change SGI members' "experiences" to punch up the drama (to the point of coaching the SGI member on how to appear more sincere - "You should cry as you tell it to make it more emotional"), or to make sure they include enough Ikeda Sensei worshipfulness, or adequately reflect whatever "campaign" the current SGI "rhythm" is emphasizing. Remember, an "experience" is a form of indoctrination, so it had better have all the indoctrination elements, right?
This is really important:

Members' own accounts of “why I joined” may thus be artifacts of the conversion process as much as they are explanations of why the conversion took place. Snow suggests that movements such as NSA serve not only to express preexisting needs and stresses but as “important agitational, problem-defining, need-arousal, and motive-producing agencies” and that “the latter function may oftentimes have primacy over the former” (p. 237). His discussion of “the convert as social type” suggests that conversion not be defined in terms of subjective personal transformation, which is hard to assess, but of outwardly identifiable changes in the members’ universe of discourse. Such changes include reconstruction of autobiography in line with a newly adopted worldview, and embracement of a “master attribution scheme" or unitary explanation of why things are as they are, such as NSA’s attribution of suffering to individual karma.

"Mappo, the Eeeeevil Latter Day of the Law!" "Fundamental darkness!" "EVERYBODY needs to 'do human revolution' because they're inherently flawed, hopeless, sinful, and LOST!" "EVERYBODY NEEDS A 'MENTOR'!!!!!" I'm sure you can think of other excuses for causes of suffering that SGI members randomly spurt out in fits of arrogance and pompousness.

Here's some of my candidates:
-1951 Hudson Custom Commodore Eight -1957 Dodge Custom Royal Lancer -1959 Buick Electra 225 -1962 Plymouth Sport Fury -1967 Chevrolet Corvair Monza Sport Sedan -1969 Imperial Le Baron -1970 Cadillac Fleetwood Eldorado -1975 Buick Riviera S/R -1976 Chevrolet Caprice Sport Sedan
What are your thoughts on some of the cars in my roster? What cars would you suggest/recommend?

Verification and writing sample: https://imgur.com/a/5yVQ1jo
For sale: Pilot Custom K-500RS cartridge/converter pen with fine 18k nib and black body.
This is a pen that does not seem to turn up very often on pen_swap, but it's a good one.
The Custom K-500RS is the younger and more accessible of Pilot’s Custom K-500 series. Instead of metal, the pen is made of simple black resin (hence the “R” in its model number), but like it’s fancier, wood and metal siblings, it has a large and beautiful semi-integrated nib, and an “arrow P” cap finial design. It will take Pilot cartridges or a Pilot CON-20 or CON-40 converter.
The 18k fine nib produces a fine, smooth, wet line and there is a bit of bounce; a really pleasant experience. The nib code of H1274 dates the nib to December of 1974, and the body code of PM20 dates the pen to January 20, 1975. The friction-fit cap has a “goldilocks” kind of action, sealing well without being too tight or too loose, and its finial is clear. The body finial has a bit of scratching, but no brassing. The clip has some non-trivial brassing on its very end. The cap ring with its inscription is in very good condition. I rate this not quite 50-year-old pen a solid C or C+.
The pen will ship with a Pilot ink cartridge.
SOLD for $70.00 Asking for $75.00 shipped to CONUS only. All sub rules apply. Please comment publicly first.

http://www.oac.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/kt809nf77z/?order=2&brand=oac4
Description: Besides the Free Church --considered a social gospel oriented ministry supported by mainline churches-- there were other street ministries on Telegraph Avenue. The Christian World Liberation Front (CWLF), founded in 1969 by Jack Sparks and others from the Campus Crusade for Christ, were among the best organized. Disagreeing with the need for headquarters approval of any published material, they became an independent entity. One of the points in their platform was that Jesus "will create a soulful Christianity in Berkeley." Their paper, "Right On" is one of the first Jesus People underground newspapers and among the most respected. The CWLF actively sought converts while providing crash pads, help for drug users and free food. They provided street theater and encouraged radicals to convert. This flier was distributed to over 10,000 students during one weekend in 1969. The CWLF disbanded over questions of authority in 1975. One of the splinter groups founded the Spiritual Counterfeits Project, a Christian anti-cult group. The Jesus People Movement (Jesus Freaks) traces its origins across the Bay to the Haight, where Ted and Liz Wise founded the "Living Room" in 1967. Publisher: Graduate Theological Union; Contributor: York, Richard L.; Date: 1969 1969

Verification
For sale are three gold nib Pilot fountain pens. The pens do not come with a converter, but they take modern Pilot converters (including the Con-70 for the Custom 74) and cartridges. All pens will be flushed and shipped/insured USPS. International shipping is additional.
SOLD First is a 14k Pilot Custom 74. The pens do not come with a converter, but it takes all Pilot converters (including the Con-70) and modern cartridges. The nib writes slightly soft and with a fine Pilot line. The pen is in very good shape and does not exhibit and wear to the blind eye. B+ condition. $90 CONUS shipped/insured.
SOLD Next is a snap cap Pilot Elabo with a 14k nib. This is not the metal version of the Elabo. The unique nib design allows for some line variation as it flexes. The body is numbered 045636. Very good condition, B+ rating. $100 CONUS shipped/insured.
SOLD Finally, a Pilot Elite with an 18k nib. This pen has a manufacturing date of H478/OC10, making it from April 1978/March 10, 1975. It's the precursor the the contemporary E95s, but in 18k. The pen is a wet, fine writer and is also in very good B+ condition. $75 CONUS insurance/shipping included.
Please ask questions! Thanks for looking!

I have just recently purchased a 1975 Chevy c20 single cab long bed Scottsdale. Is there a way to convert the lug pattern from an 8x6.5 to just a C10 6 lug pattern?

NON, VIII. APRILIS. CERIALIA, HON. PROSERPINA LIBERA FILIA.

Well, if Ethnos has its limits so does Logos – right? It is interesting to correlate ‘crazy religion’ as being a response toward straight Logos (i.e. a full assessment of reality as it is) as being something that is considered to be politically insurmountable; as if the weaker mind begins to fathom material reality and simply goes insane – or rather that that is the perception that people with weaker minds have when considering demographic questions of “how shall we ever convince all these people” followed by a collapse into full-on absurdism where truth and reason is no longer even attempted.
The blurring or subsuming of Logos with the character of Jesus by the later Christians is something I have wanted to examine more closely in this context; again see: previous entries under this category as to fathom how the notion first arrived amongst the Jews that “Jesus was representative ‘of’ Logos (i.e. his actions resembled Logos vs Ethnos in a Patrician manner ‘talking sense to savages’)” as I think that is the most reasonable beginning for the idea or (not inaccurate) conflation in the first place, but if that is 100AD era Christianity comprised of Jews fleeing Judaism then that cannot be said to be the Christianity of the Gentiles as a political movement which had actually emerged by, say, 300AD and left the realms of idle feast table comedies (read: Lucien’s Peregrinus) and entered the realms of serious political concern (read: Maximinius and Diocletian) that could no longer be laughed off,

"may those [former-christians] who, after being freed from [the self-defeating errors of] those by-ways [which had led them to nothing but enmity toward their fellow-man], rejoice [at having been] snatched from a grave illness!"

Galerius Valerius Maximinus ‘Daza’, 308AD, from a defaced inscription

On the other hand we still ‘may’ be dealing with a Jewish revolutionary movement (i.e. led by Jews, majority Jewish membership) which had “beguiled old Women and beggars in the street – being ignored by anybody of sense”, as was always said of those Christians, - indeed we ‘may’ be but I do not need to make that case here as it is by 300AD that the thing can be said to be no longer Jewish: having soaked up enough non-Jews so as to by that point resemble that familiar mixture that we (and they at the time) observe of the Christians, that is: a bunch of half-cracked non-Jews who have turned away from all sense and who believe themselves to be the scions of the Ethnic Religion of the Jews, and who pray every day for the world to burn and who are greatly despised by the general population - and it must be said at that point in time despised for quite real reasons because they opposed things like public feasts, i.e. successful measures to feed the poor and keep communities in contact with widows and so on, which constitutes much of the social glue and this under the flimsy pretext that the meat was impure if it was donated by a Pagan as it always was, e.g. as that meat could not be said to be Kosher, which it never would be – and notice even there that that ‘decree’, which came from Paul and was said to the Jews who followed him, is obviously a Jewish custom and so it makes sense to a Jew and is actionable for a Jew living in a Jewish town but makes absolutely no sense and is completely inactionable for a Roman or an Egyptian, but that by 300AD that was the demographic composition of Christianity, i.e. the natural physical body of, say, a Gallo-Roman from Gaul and the alien programming of something completely incompatible knocking around in the head.
As I said I wished to explore the ‘absurdism’ of this in its political context, that is: the abandonment of Reason altogether, and this is quite difficult to reconstruct – not least of all because the Christian sources simply cannot be trusted (see: Atrocity Propaganda) and because in greater part ‘the masses’ did not appear to have liked Christianity or converted to it in any serious numbers except that the government itself had, by only as far forward as 370AD, been taken over by Christians so that Quintus Aurelius Symmachus ‘the Last Pagan Senator’ (Gov. Africa Proconsularis) was a lone figure in the courts of Theodosius, Stilicho and Honorius. There is however still a lot to be said for the accuracy of that claim “he was the Last Pagan Senator”, since we rely on Christian sources; and remembering also that Emperor Julian (of whose Life & Times I am coming dangerously close to beginning to write here) possessed whole Legions of tens of thousands of Pagans (i.e. the overwhelming majority of the Roman military; the overwhelming majority of the officer corps, etc.) only eight years earlier in 363AD which had itself followed from a purge of criminal bureaucrat Christians from the government (e.g., see: Paul Catena), but if we go with the Christians on this occasion; with the claim that Symmachus truly was the last Pagan Senator, then we find that republican democracy has vanished from the Roman Empire almost overnight, that is: the multitudes of peoples across the Empire cannot hold political office due to this ideological barrier imposed against them – even though they are still compelled to join the army which formerly would guarantee the rights of citizenship and political office – and so there is no representation; the head is severed from the body, i.e. government is severed from state, and so neither can function.
To my mind this is a curious and strangely little-discussed aspect of human political history which essentially can be described of various times and places when a ruling class seems to go crazy and isolate themselves from the state with some outlandish ideological absurdism; it has been my contention that such things, always being so crazy, are ‘intended’ to fill that role of disconnection to cut off the government from the people so that the government is no longer representing the state and the people and can be utilized for private interests in absence of a constitutional imperative, and that the ‘mindless platitudes’ which comprise the lip-service paid to the outlandish ideology are merely demonstrations of submission or subservience to the ruler which constitute the cauterization of the severance of the professor of absurdism (i mean, the person who professes nonsense) in that the first step is to cut the would-be political appointee off from the people and then seal the cut by performing a verbal action which makes the appointee look like a blithering moron in the eyes of anybody with a brain and thusly drives away whatever public support that appointee may otherwise have possessed so that the appointee is completely beholden to the ruler, is ridiculed and hated by the public and thenceforth becomes a well-greased instrument in the business of ill-rule, oppression and liquidation of public assets and all criminal activities directed ‘against’ rather than ‘in service to’ the people and the state.
Now, again, we are talking about the Christianity of the 300AD’s where these cases of ‘obvious’ criminals ‘feigning religion’ for personal political power can be demonstrated time and time again. Perhaps they did not visualize entirely the manner by which they were themselves operating, and indeed in criminal situations a highly stupid person will make a more reliable operative if they are too stupid to even understand how what they are doing is a crime, for instance. Certainly this is not the Christianity of the 100AD’s; which we can easily identify as being something else (i.e. Jews fleeing Judaism), but what I mean to highlight here is that with a foundation which is ‘out-of-sync’ to material reality; that every step undertaken under erroneous unfalsifiable belief will be a further step away from anything good or beneficial since each step is a step ‘away’ from reality where logical proofs can be weighted and into delusion in the human mind where no proofs can be applied; and the proof there is how readily such ‘ideology’ provided (and provides) a cloak to the worst criminal actors – even from the very beginning with Pauls own followers. I do not mean to suggest either that this is an exclusively Abramic pattern rather that Abramic ideology is an expression of this same pattern of ‘absurdism’, again: if not consciously in instruction then in form in practise it cannot be anything else (read: Voltaire’s absurdism in belief, atrocity in action).
I think, however, we touch at another proof of the hellish nature of this ‘absurdity cult’ in the fathoming of the Ecclesia ‘as’ the Church:
The reader may be familiar, through my own reading recommendations on Henry VIII if having arrived at it from nowhere else, with William Tyndale and his martyrdom at the hands of the Dutch for having translated the bible into legible English; something which the Catholics were eager to prevent. The first question then is ‘why’ were they willing to kill Men and Women for bringing the word of Jesus to the public in order that the public may begin to comprehend in an intelligible language the lessons and stories of the Religion that they claimed to believe and of which without knowing a damn thing about and hearing sermons in an unintelligible language obviously could know or believe nothing of; Greek Christianity or Islam did not gave this problem neither did the early Christians who were reading and writing in intelligible languages. Obviously I think Men such as Tyndale were sincere in their aims and truly believed in what they were doing, but the reality was that the Catholic Church already knew that translating the holy books so that ordinary people could read and hear and learn about the religion would bring to light many of the problems inherent in that religion and especially in the practice of the institutional Western so-called Roman so-called Catholic so-called Church.
Now I do not wish to delve here into a legal and historical account of “all of that” but it suffices, in the context of this text and subject, to identify two main points; one of which we have just made, 1) that an ideology of absurdism operates upon ignorance and the acquiesce or subservience of the ignorant to ‘concealed knowledge’ which takes the form of concealing knowledge in the first place so as to keep the public ignorant (e.g. in a court scenario: one cannot follow the law if the law is not known, therefore if one seeks to abuse the law as a tool of oppression then one will hide the law so that nobody can follow it and everybody can be declared a criminal as desired), and 2) of Tyndales translation directly, which cost him his life, that the original word for ‘Church’ was ‘Ecclesia’ which, to the Ancient Greeks and Romans was the word for ‘Town Hall’ or ‘Political Assembly; the place to vote, the place to bring matters to the government’, or Forum to the Romans of which both held certain legalities.
So, of the second point, when we identify the origin of the Church as being that municipal Ecclesia then we are forced to the conclusion that the despised minority of the Christians had in the very first instance of their writing begun to utilize and operate along the already established political framework of the Greeks and Romans; and this being as early as the 100AD’s – at least as early as the earliest possible dates for the writing of many books of the New Testament of Paul (e.g. Matthew, Titus, etc.).
Again: this is understandable in our 100AD context whereupon communities of Jewish expatriates who had turned away from their Synagogue or despised Judaism and wished to enshrine their reformations ‘of’ Judaism under a legal framework recognizable to the Roman authorities would have established an Ecclesia of their own, as like an Ethnarchy or a so-called ‘Quarter’ in a city.
However it is precisely there that we run into trouble in that very instance; plainly: if those Christian-Jews were Roman-friendly and sought to ban circumcision, as they did, so as to properly assimilate to the Res Publica like any Gaul or Celt or Thracian then they would not ‘need’ a unique ecclesia since like anybody else if they sought to address the government they would go to the forum and do so, as there would be no point standing around in a building waiting for Consul who was holding court somewhere else. What this means, I think most plainly, is that the desire to establish an Ecclesia reveals a conscious political intent (again: from the earliest possible date of those books in New Testament) to build a political powerbase comprised of Christian-Jews and non-Jewish supporters who would all eventually become The Christians, and perhaps the simplest and fairest way to describe this is that by creating its own Ecclesia it could then declare a political representative to have been ‘lawfully elected’ by that Ecclesia who would then ‘nominally’ (i.e. in name only) claim equal ranking with an elected Tribune or Consul who had ‘actually’ been lawfully elected and represented tens of thousands of people and commanded hundreds of industries rather than two or three guys and an Episkopos; lit. Overseer, i.e. a Bishop, who represented nothing.
I mean, this is kind of a joke – right? No Imperial Consul of Hadrians day would take them seriously, but between 100AD and 300AD this is precisely how Christianity is evidenced to have spread, eventually reaching the point where it displaced, subsumed or anyway rivaled the legitimate Ecclesiastics of one township or one province to the next; I mean that only Christians occupied Roman government by the middle-to-late 300AD’s so as to discern that the Forums of the Republic no longer operated and that Christians were advancing themselves into high office via this new Ecclesia of which they alone were the exclusive members. It is almost unfathomable how such a thing could have occurred and to even attempt to document how it did would be a Mammoth task which I have no time here to undertake, however, there is the beginning and two-hundred years later there is the end; we are not even reaching the point in time of Constantine and the Edict of Tolerance which formalized Christian admission into government office, as Constantine would not have bothered if there was not an already existing power base.
What we are dealing with here, I think, as to loop back to the title of this text, is that of the politics of full-on absurdism; that is: the manner by which the idle masses of a place are drawn to the most insane of ideologies in a state of desperation and poverty precisely as a mental escapism from the bother of dealing with reality; that is to desire to die in order to avoid really doing anything:
The Christian Rhetoric, as an expression of absurdism which retreats from reality as like a group exercise in verbal proclamation of ‘belief’ in ‘belief’, is entirely that as like a denialism of material reality and an affirmation of the ego delusion.
I do not mean here the weak sophistry of the likes of the apologists with philosophical or political pretensions (though of politics one ought always assume the worst by the nature of demagoguery alone), that is I mean instead: the political employ of the Rhetoric of Christianity to the ‘gentile’ masses to hook and manipulate them by their Pathos, to dissuade them from forward-thinking; to dissuade them from discerning true causes for their misery, to declare that every day is the end of the world with some new outrage, to declare that good actions do not matter; to dissuade them from discernment of what is good and what is evil, to bilk them of whatever small coin they may possess and ultimately to send them to their deaths to relish and bask in having created saintly martyrs for their political ideology.
Christianity claims victim status since the very beginning, and since the very beginning (at least anyway with Paul) it has always been the oppressor claiming to be a victim when the true victims catch up with them to “stuff a radish up their arse” in retribution. We in the West inherit this to an incredible extent whereupon atrocity propaganda and false claims of oppression or abuse are the heaviest currency that is sought out by the lowliest of actors. Insofar as we must examine Christianity when looking to document the full scope of absurdist ideology and atrocity propaganda we are, I must insist, looking at something which is not altogether ‘religious’ in origin (even if, for instance, they proclaim a God is telling them to do Evil things) nor is it, in origin, ‘political’ either; since politics follows the cultural caprices (i.e. the impulses and the weaknesses) of a peoples who are in turn subject to their own biochemisty as like wooden puppets, but is instead identifiable as a failing of the human intellectual faculty; the word ‘Pathos’ seems to be the best word for this failure when we take these dynamics out of a mythological or ideological context and realize that, again mythology aside, that this character or that character if they really existed must have been manic depressive or full-blown psychotic with this being lauded as some kind divine thing so as to decontextualize events after the facts.
And from there also, and I think: in no manner otherwise, we can begin to make sense of this ‘social impulse’ comprised of the Pathos of Men and Women which is called The Demos; something which, of course, the later Christians knew the language of very well and sought to make-pretend that they were in opposition toward; as if like eating a piece of fruit bestows the technical knowledge of how to build and maintain a ship as like to say that getting dunked in water cures a person of their inability to control the instability of their emotions, where in such examples ‘belief’ is shown to be of null-effect and where knowledge and the practice of self-command is shown to markedly superior.

NON, VIII. APRILIS. CERIALIA, HON. PROSERPINA LIBERA FILIA.

PREVIOUS: THOUGHTS ON THE 'UNDUE CONCRETENESS' WHICH WE PROJECT ONTO THE CULTURE IN THE WORLD AROUND US, OR ETHNOS VS THE CHILD IN FOSTERING A DISPOSITION ANTITHETICAL TO REALIZING THE LOGOS OF THE MATERIAL WORLD AND ATTUNING TO IT LOGOS VS ETHNOS (3)
ABSURDISM: ON ATELLAN FARCE AND MENIPPEAN SATIRE IN ANCIENT ROME AS A "MCLUHAN MEDIUM" SHAPING A CULTURE THE EXTRICATION FROM PATHOS
CRIMINALITY: ON INSENSIBILITY AND LOW INTELLIGENCE, OR ON INERTIA AND “ESCAPISM FROM THE SUPERFICIAL SELF” HAVELOCK ELLIS’S ‘THE CRIMINAL’ (1890)