#Christian Seance

[thedepartmentofdiscoveries]

I think this is from that one crazy Christian comic where a woman is also tempted by Satan as in below lol. The artwork is great though you have to admit.

[tabithatwo]

I personally love how laura lee and jackie died and a big general consensus was “omg sweet angel babies they never could’ve done what the others did” bc like. Laura lee MADE lottie the way she is lmao and the seance was jackie’s idea so they sort of did kick that shit off in a very “oops! contributed to mass psychosis!” way. And like. Laura lee would be the fucking scary pope or some shit (my Christianity awareness is low to moderate but you get what I mean). And Jackie could absolutely hands down no doubt in my mind kill anyone and anything for shauna. Plus she’s got a lot of very repressed anger and pain idk I think if that got forcibly unleashed once who knows what she’d turn into from there!! But it’s so them. It’s so perfectly them to die early and be categorically misunderstood. To haunt the narrative and be pervasively present but never really known.

[marzipanandminutiae]

Something I've wondered about 19th century spiritualism and seances, how did that overlap with the various denominations of christianity in that era? Were seances and spiritualism not seen as inherently satanic back then?

Some people may have felt that they were satanic, but Spiritualism had a massively Christian bent. Seances often involved the singing of hymns or other overtly Christian practices.

Which makes sense, because the majority of the practitioners were Christian, as were the audiences true believer and scam artist alike sought to attract. If you really believe, you're hardly going to want to go against your own religion- if you're just looking to draw crowds, you shouldn't seem to go against theirs. (There were pagan revival movements in the late 19th century US and UK specifically, but as I understand it, they didn't have much overlap with mainstream Spiritualism of the sort we generally imagine.)

Keep in mind also that this was a time of increasing public trust in science and secular authority- most of them were less concerned about the devil, when they heard claims of spectral communication, and more about being conned. Despite, again, being majority-Christian.

Interestingly, folk magic with a Christian bent goes back much further than the 19th century, with certain prayers or invocations of Jesus, saints, etc. that involve so much ritual as to basically be spells. Looking into the practices of cunning-folk in medieval and early modern England will shed a bit more light on that, if you're interested. We are the daughters of the people who were arguably closer to actual witches but accused innocents to deflect suspicion from themselves and therefore didn't get burned.

[goetiae]

The Ouija board is a spiritual and magical tool from the 1890s with a long and complicated history. It has long since been treated as one of the most popular and most commercialized methods of communication with the dead, though this is not the only means of its usage: throughout its time of existence, the Ouija board has been used to solve mysteries and justify committing crimes.

The first commercial advertisements for the Ouija board appeared in the beginning of the 1890s: in 1891, a Pittsburgh toy and novelty shop published an advertisement about the board. The publication stated that the Ouija board answered questions "about the past, present and future with marvelous accuracy", could be used by those of any social class, and provided connection "between the known and unknown, the material and immaterial."

However, the Ouija board goes back to an earlier time period. It can be traced back to the Spiritualist movement that reached America in the middle of the 19th century, following a trend set by Europeans a long while prior. In 1848, the Fox sisters made an appearance, claiming that they received messages from the dead. As the board did not exist yet, the spirits still used a technique called rapping - they would allegedly tap on the walls to answer questions of the mediums.

Spiritualism in America quickly grew, aided by numerous spiritualists coming forth to the national press to share their experiences; the second half of the 19th century became the peak of it. Its popularity was not affected by the prominent religiousness of the population. One could be a spiritualist and a Christian at the same time. It was also rather selective in its adepts as claims were often spread about particular temperaments being more suited for spiritualist seances; alongside specific atmospheric, mental, and physical conditions. There was much basis for criticism and much unknown. The movement offered solace to those who lost the loved ones due to disease or wars of the difficult century. It reached as high as the White House with Mary Todd Lincoln practicing seances to contact her son.

With the growth of the spiritualist movement came the need for better, faster methods of communication; rapping was becoming obsolete. The Kennard Novelty Company from Chestertown, Maryland, was the first to respond to the popular demand and set up a manufactured production of the Ouija board in 1886.

Initially recorded in Ohio by the Associated Press, the talking board quickly fell into Charles Kennard's focus of attention. He and other investors set up a company in 1890 to produce and market the new talking boards. None of them were spiritualists, merely keen businessmen.

The name "Ouija" was not invented yet at the time. Despite common misconception, it is not a combination of the French and German words for yes. Robert Murch, a Ouija historian, considers Helen Bond, sister of one of the company's investors Elijah Bond, to be the source of the name. It is claimed that "Ouija" was a name given by the board during one of the seances when asked what they should call it. It is alleged that in order to receive a patent for the production of the talking board, Bond had to demonstrate its abilities. A patent officer requested that his name is to be spelled, accurately, with the help of the board; when that was granted, Bond and Co were permitted a patent to their "toy or game" - it happened in the year 1891.

In 1892, the company was renamed into the Ouija Novelty Company with its former employee William Fuld in control. Him and his brother Isaac initially worked together, but in 1901 Isaac Fuld & Brother's agreement was void and William received exclusive rights to produce the Ouija. Legal feuds led to the two brothers bringing the issue to court where William Fuld Manufacturing Company received an injunction against Isaac, prohibiting him from manufacturing the boards. Interestingly, and eerily enough, he never claimed to have ties with the invention of the board - and died from a fall off the roof of the very same company the board "told him" to build (1919 Baltimore Sun).

The Ouija board was met with enthusiasm by the general public. The murder of Joseph Burton Elwell, a well-known NYC gambler, attracted spiritualists in 1920s who attempted to solve it with the help of the board. In 1921, a Chicago woman was attributed to a psychiatric hospital: she was claiming that "the spirits" told her to leave her deceased mother's body in the living room for two weeks before burying her in the backyard. In 1930, two women in Buffalo, New York, murdered another woman, supposedly encouraged by the talking board. In 1958, a will of a deceased Mrs. Helen Dow Peck made the news as she left an insane $152,000 to a bodiless spirit she encountered through the Ouija.

One of the most popular cases regarding the use of the Ouija board refers to a housewife named Mrs. Curran, from St. Louis, who claimed to be speaking with a spirit of a 17th century lady called Patience Worth that passed down messages to her. It was published about in the New York Tribune in 1919. The case was taken in with much critical acclaim, the psychologists working with Mrs. Curran claiming that the spirit must have never been a real person; but the apparent difference in its intelligence as compared to Mrs. Curran must denote a degree of "subconscious" thinking.

Objects of similar properties to the Ouija board have been present in different cultures since long ago. In China, for example, there were fuji (扶乩/扶箕) boards for planchette writing that are most commonly cited to be one of the inspirations for the modern day talking boards.

After the invention of the talking board, many others followed. in 1900, George Foster Pearson invented the Cablegraph, a horseshoe magnet for spirit communication - but it was made out of wood and the creator still claimed it to attract spiritual activity. This board and earlier homemade inventions of a similar kind were titled dial boards and were practically rotating discs manipulated by the medium or the spirit.

The mysterious Spirit Planchette rose to popularity fast and steadily: it was spoken of in the press and in multitudes of books released in the 20th century. One of such books, Looking Into The Future by Will Goldston (1906), speaks of "the planchette" with much enthusiasm. It is interestingly marked that it isn't for everyone that the Planchette would write or even move - a convenient notion indeed.

The Cablegraph, or Wander Board, was said to be used at, ideally, evening hours with the person sitting down in front of it and using their fingers, which are to be "magnetized" through the help of another or without it. Then, using one's judgement of the spirit's intention, they are to rotate the disc. The concept relied on the idea of "magnetism" inherent to some humans - and, of course, possessed different degrees of reliability.

Another invention to resemble the Ouija board came forth at around the same time: created by Hudson Tuttle, it was a circle on a cardboard base with a dial attached to it so it would rotate to spell out messages. The invention was meant to be a cheap alternative for those who could not affort a proper spiritual tool from one of the bigger manufacturers. The tool was called the Psychograph by the creator himself, though, unfortunately, not many survived to our day.

Prior to the invention of the Psychograph and other similar boards, a table was a common tool used for spirit communication. Participants of seances were seated around the table, which, once the spirit was called upon, tilted in order to rap the leg against the floor. The number of taps means yes, no, or doubtful. An alphabet held up over the board could be used for more complicated questions. In 1853, a Spiritual Telegraph was invented: a round dial with a needle to point between letters.

Robert Hare, a chemistry professor, initially wished to expose table-tipping seances as a fraud but fell a believer into spiritualism himself. In 1885, he released a book Experimental Investigation of the Spirit Manifestations in which he detailed on the methods he used to prevent mediums from tricking participants of seances. Those included obstructing the mediums' line of sight, adding weights to the spiritual tools, and more. After those tests, Hare invented a Spiritoscope and presented it as a new tool to contact the spirits of the dead. Due to his obvious acceptance of the spiritualist movement, he was refused by the academia but readily welcomed into the spiritual circles: his tools flourished.

In Europe, similar devices to Hare's Spiritoscope were created in 1860s. Allan Kardec, the father of French Spiritism, invented Pytho or the Thought Reader - a variation of a dial pointer board. Little is known about the history behind similar objects in England but early patents for "spirit boards" survive. The popularity of a dial planchette never rose up to that of the Ouija board, but there are some similar devices scattered across the ages: Leonardi Studios' 1966 Phantom Wheel, Milton Bradley's 1895 Genii, Telepathic Spirit Communicator from Britain, and more.

[theblissfulstars]

The historical Spiritualism vs Modern New Ageism

The word “Spiritualist” is thrown around quite frequently on the Internet as a catch-all term for Pagans,Occultists and Folk practitioners. However, the term is not an umbrella term at all, and actually originates from the Spiritualist movement of the 1800s.

The Spiritualist movement is said to have been deeply inspired by the Theologian Emanuel Swedenborg who wrote "The Heavenly Doctrine", after supposedly receiving a vision from Jesus Christ himself, illustrating the nature of the afterlife, and that all good souls live together regardless of Faith. This universalist perspective was widely rejected by the majority of Christendom but gained traction with various groups such as the Quakers and Shakers and created the foundation of radical acceptance that spiritualism would be known for.

The Spiritualist movement can be accredited to the Fox sisters in the mid-late 1840s, a group of sisters who claimed mediumistic abilities who had physical evidence that they could communicate with spirits on the other side. In fact, the day I am writing this, is considered the day Spiritualism really emerged. March 31st 1848 Hydesville New York, the three sisters established a channel with the dead, with a spirit that communicated through “rapping” or tapping on wood rhythmically and systemically.

This religious movement would grow because of the radical foundation of equality, abolitionism, and a feminism so profound, suffragettes even found them intolerable.

Catching the eyes of disenfranchised Quakers early on who felt their church had not done enough in the way of women's rights, abolitionism and genuine community care, many Quakers were smitten with the structure, ideologies and practices of the movement. Women at the time we're not permitted to speak in public, let alone lead a religious service or be spiritual community leaders of any kind, In the spiritualist church, the majority of trance speakers (working class young girls who would do public speaking on various topics possessed by the spirits of the dead), mediums and faith healers were all female.

Along with female spiritual leaders, the worship style of the Spiritualist tradition was loose, and they organized in learning circles known as Lyceums. Some Spiritualists did create active Ministry, with full churches, holidays, and baptisms and you can even find old hymnals from the churches online.

This egalitarian attitude towards women, a genuine and consistent track record with the pursuit of equality in gender relations garnered a poor reputation among the greater population.

Along with its incredibly abolitionist narrative, and an earnest pinning for racial equality and the end of slavery in the US. Spiritualism was one of the first religious institutions in the Americas to seek to make the conditions of Indigenous Americans better. Spiritualists claimed to see native American spirits at their seances who were embittered and distraught with their displacement and the poor treatment of their ancestors. The spiritualist church sought to rectify this.

Characterized by the belief in the ability to communicate with the dead, and radical equality, You can see why the religion did not take off.

The doctrine of spiritualism was formed largely through mediumship and the interrogation of various spirits and entities from the other side as the "ministry of angels" was paramount to its development. Ideas such as reincarnation, faith healing and the ability to see the future became integral aspects of the Religion.

Offshoots of the religion continue to exist to this day particularly through Spiritism or Kardecism, a branch of spiritualism that sought out to reconcile Christian dogma and belief with a spiritualist conception of reality. This form of spiritualism became especially prominent in the Caribbean and Latin America and is known as Espiritismo. Spiritualist doctrine found itself quite amenable to Latin American and Black Diasporic beliefs and was easily folded into religions and beliefs already centered in the veneration of the dead and those who came before.

Spiritualism in layman's terms is a coming home to the plurality of the divine.

Spiritualism was despised by the likes of the Theosophical Society and Hermetic order of the Golden Dawn. Helena Blavatsky in particular, a co-founder of the Theosophical Society disliked it in particular and spoke strongly against the religion.

Interestingly, the modern-day New age movement, while borrowing to a degree from spiritualism regarding especially terms such as Spirit Guide and Spirit Team, takes very little from actual Spiritualist or Spiritist dogma and lends itself more to Theosophy which is about the reappropriation of Eastern philosophy and mysticism through a western lens and New Thought Christianity.

This movement wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for the Reformation taking place at the time which is where a schism between the social attitudes of culture and society were at odds with what the church could deliver at the time.

As stated earlier, remnants of the church do remain despite the brevity of practice such as the National Spiritualist Association, International Spiritualist Federation, Spiritualist National Union and Metropolitan Spiritual Churches of Christ.

So I ask again, are you really a Spiritualist?

[d-criss-news]

mgrahamsmith: Halloween memories: I dressed up as Willy Wonka and Darren Criss dressed as a dandy, and I directed dandy Darren, Christian Cagigal, Keiko Carreiro and Josh Matthews in a Zombie Seance written by Josh Conkel; 🧟‍♂️🧟‍♀️🧟

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"Spiritualism was not popular in all BC towns, but when Emily Carr attended her seance, it had won a significant following in Victoria. Spiritualist associations were founded in Victoria and Nanaimo during the late 1880s, and they remained vibrant well into the twentieth century. Victoria gained an ordained spiritualist minister in 1915 and Nanaimo in 1926. In 1901, forty-three Victorians defined themselves as spiritualists, and many more attended their meetings. In the Nanaimo area, with its smaller population, eighty people told the census-taker that they were spiritualists. ...Nanaimoites typically opted for some level of fuzzy fidelity, with nominal adherence to mainstream Christian denominations. Nonetheless, the eighty spiritualists outnumbered the irreligious in Nanaimo by about two to one, as only forty-four residents defined themselves as atheists or of “no religion” in 1901. This ratio is atypical, as the irreligious in other BC towns significantly outnumbered the adherents of metaphysical religions in both 1901 and 1911.

Many Nanaimo spiritualists were miners or members of a mining family. Of the twenty-six spiritualist Nanaimo men who listed occupations on the census, twenty, or 77 percent, were miners. Perhaps the high number of fatal accidents in the mines led at least some colliers and their wives to spiritualism, which offered the hope of reconnecting with a loved one. An address of appreciation from George Campbell, chair of the Nanaimo Spiritualist Association, to visiting medium George P. Colby stressed the importance of this. Campbell thanked Colby for his work in the community as “Test Medium and Inspirational Lecturer,” noting that the association felt

grateful for the privilege we have had of communing with those of our loved ones who have joined the greatest throng of immortals in the summerland beyond – for the words of sympathy that have comforted bruised hearts bringing to them a realization of the presence of their supposed dead and a knowledge of the measureless possibilities of life.

Although spiritualism was popular among many people who sought connection with lost loved ones, it was far from popular with certain segments of BC society. Protestant church leaders attacked it as occultism and rank heresy. Such criticism was not new at the turn of the century. In 1870, Edward Cridge, dean of Victoria’s Christ Church Cathedral and soon to become the first bishop of the Carr family’s Reformed Episcopal Church, published a sermon titled “Spiritualism:” or Modern Necromancy, in which he denounced spiritualism as “divining or soothsaying by means of the dead.” He warned readers that it was

a very ancient wickedness. Its various forms are enumerated and condemned in the Book of Deuteronomy ... The Christian who meddles with spiritualism stands on the verge of an abyss.

Cridge clearly knew that at least some of his flock had experimented with spiritualism because he acknowledged that curiosity or a desire to commune with departed loved ones could tempt people to try it. However, he proclaimed firmly that

this practice is denounced in Holy Scripture under the severest penalties ... That which is hateful to God, and punishable by his law with death, cannot be a thing for a Christian to touch, but to shun with abhorrence.

Other Protestant ministers were also strongly opposed to spiritualism, and the Catholic Church declared that spiritualists were trafficking with demons and evil spirits.

Both church leaders and people of a more secular and scientific bent enjoyed unmasking visiting mediums as frauds. For example, in July 1900, a lengthy Vancouver Province article titled “Some Shady Shades” attacked a recent visiting medium as a charlatan and provided a more detailed critique of a “Professor Raymond” – a dubious traveller “in the path of easy money” – who was then in town. It described a Raymond seance, complete with several female “victims” of the deception and typical spiritualist manifestations, such as rapping and the playing of musical instruments by unseen hands in the dark. The reporter clearly believed that Raymond himself was the source of all these phenomena, and he commented snidely that

the guitar banging shade was careless, for not only did it drop the guitar, but it most reprehensibly jabbed an elbow into the eye of the little girl.

For their part, spiritualists recognized that some mediums were frauds, but they strongly defended the authenticity of most mediums and of spiritualism as a legitimate religious alternative. In late-nineteenth-century Ontario, the criminal courts did not always agree. In 1899, some Toronto mediums were charged under the witchcraft section of the Vagrancy Act for telling fortunes or conjuring spirits. The BC courts seemed less concerned with this issue, and at least some BC authorities were willing to grant legitimacy to spiritualist organizations. For example, spiritualists petitioned Nanaimo City Council in 1897, protesting a bylaw that forced local mediums and seers to pay a fifty-dollar licence fee every six months, lumping them in with fortune tellers and other occultists. They insisted that spiritualism be treated like any other church, and council complied with their wishes. The words “medium” and “seer” were removed from the bylaw, though fortune tellers still had to pay the fee. The fact that a year afterward, a leading Nanaimo spiritualist was elected mayor reinforces the acceptability of this alternative movement in the community.

Whereas orthodox Christian ministers condemned spiritualist beliefs, some spiritualists claimed that their movement could bolster Christian faith, as it proved the existence of life after death and therefore negated the arguments of atheists and other “infidels.” For example, George Colby, who gave a talk in Nanaimo titled “What Good Has Spiritualism Done,” argued that

with the advance of material science, the people became more materialistic in their opinions and boldly denied the immortality of the soul. What theology failed to prove, Spiritualism, with its phenomena practically and in a scientific manner demonstrated the truth that we continue to live after the dissolution of the body.

As Timothy Noddings notes, mainstream Christians, unbelievers, and adherents of metaphysical religions all employed the rhetorical weapons of science, rationality, and modernity in their debates with each other, with each side labelling the other as irrational and unscientific.

Although these groups often painted themselves as antithetical to the others, scholars have demonstrated that like Emily Carr, many spiritualists in the United States and Central Canada, particularly many middle-class spiritualists, saw nothing incompatible with practising spiritualism, especially in the privacy of their homes, while remaining members of Protestant churches. Some clergy dabbled in spiritualism themselves, but the Canadian Protestant churches had limited tolerance for such behaviour, as Stan McMullin reveals in chronicling the expulsion of Reverend B.F. Austin from the Methodist ministry for heresy in 1899. Robert Lowery, the infidel newspaperman of the Kootenays, certainly felt that Christianity and spiritualism had much in common, none of it good. As he explained in an article:

You are not expected to examine the Bible; neither are you permitted to investigate the seance. How like as two peas are twin sisters of superstition.

...

...prominent spiritualists also spurned the churches, despite the contrary opinions of family members. The death of a former mayor of Victoria, James Fell, revealed the complex relationship that could exist between secularism, spiritualism, and mainstream Christianity. In 1890, the Anglican bishop Hills noted in his diary that Fell had just passed away and had

left directions no other Service should be said over his body but the form used by the Odd Fellows. Poor man he held spiritualist opinions in which he persevered to the last. He used occasionally to come to the Cathedral where he had a pew. His family are much vexed at the directions left.

Fell’s son asked Hills for permission to have his father buried in the Church of England section of the cemetery, despite the lack of an Anglican burial service. Hills agreed, apparently because

Fell had many excellent qualities was benevolent and never minded what trouble he took for the poor and the sick. Under these circumstances I consented to the request and indeed felt it to be a relief that the service of the Church was not required.

...

As several scholars have noted, women were much more attracted to spiritualism than to irreligion. Owen speculates that many who turned to the alternative religions in Britain may have been alienated by the cold scientific rationalism of unbelief, as it left no room for a spiritual dimension. Women may have been drawn to spiritualism because their natures were assumed to be more spiritual than those of men. The gender ideology of the time, which defined women as sensitive and passive, made them especially suited as mediums, and many took on this role. As well, infant mortality rates in the nineteenth century were much higher than they are today. Although both fathers and mothers mourned dead children, and both sought reconnection through spiritualism, this option appears to have appealed chiefly to women, who had generally had close ties to their children. The fact that the census lists so few unmarried spiritualists may indicate that a number of wives brought their husband to spiritualism, as many did to the Christian churches. For example, the 1881 census records Mary Ann Hardy of Nanaimo as a spiritualist, whereas her miner husband, Thomas, is enumerated as a Unitarian. In the 1891 census, both Mary Ann and Thomas defined themselves as spiritualists, as they also did in 1901. A few husbands identified themselves as spiritualists, whereas their wives remained orthodox Christians (at least officially), but these cases were the exception, unlike those involving unbelieving husbands and Christian wives. Some married women differed from their husbands in defining themselves as spiritualists, as was true of well-known Victoria photographer Hannah Maynard. She and her husband were both Anglicans in 1881, but after her youngest daughter died of typhoid in 1883, she began to attend seances, incorporating ghostly figures into some of her photographic work. Her desire to reconnect with lost family members was intensified by the deaths of another daughter and a daughter-in-law within the next ten years. In 1891, the census identified her as a spiritualist, whereas her husband’s religion was “not given.”

...

An 1894 petition to the Legislative Assembly allows us to look more deeply at potential interest in and support for spiritualists on Vancouver Island. The petition, a first effort to eliminate the licence fee for clairvoyants, who were lumped in with astrologers, seers, and fortune tellers under the Municipal Act, was signed by 186 people, 58 from Victoria and the rest from Nanaimo. This is significantly more than the 123 Victorians and Nanaimoites who were listed on the 1901 census as spiritualists (a large minority of whom were children, who do not sign petitions). The petitioners stated that they were “Spiritualists, and profess that form of religious belief commonly known as Spiritualism, and others are their friends.” Many could not be linked to either the 1891 or the 1901 census, but of the Victoria petitioners who could be traced, five were spiritualists and five were infidels or freethinkers, pointing once again to the connection between the two. Ten belonged to mainstream denominations. The latter pattern was even clearer among the Nanaimo petitioners, most of whom identified with orthodox denominations, primarily as Methodists, Anglicans, or Presbyterians. Seven Nanaimo petitioners were listed as spiritualists in the census, one was an atheist, and over thirty were officially Christian (including a Quaker and a Unitarian). Perhaps the Methodist, Anglican, and Presbyterian signatories were simply friends of spiritualists, but it seems much more likely that most would have had at least some level of interest in the alternative religion, perhaps attending an occasional seance or other spiritualist event, and revealing once again that the census omitted many people who had a significant interest in this form of spirituality.

The Sivertz family, which emigrated from Iceland to British Columbia in 1888, is a case in point. Bent Sivertz wrote a detailed account of his parents’ working-class lives in Victoria and Vancouver before the First World War, and his parents, Elinborg and Christian, can also be found on the Victoria census of 1911, which lists them as Lutherans. Bent, however, tells a different and more complex story. Although his mother was raised a Lutheran, she had left the church well before 1911, disenchanted by its hellfire-and-damnation preaching. She spent some years with a Baptist church but had become much more interested in spiritualism by 1910, perhaps influenced by a female friend who had joined the faith. She “gradually over half a dozen years, left off attendance at the Baptist Church in favour of séances.” This did not deter her from praying for her children as they grew up or from attending at least one revival meeting at the Metropolitan Methodist Church. Like many other people, Elinborg created a lived religion that worked for her but did not necessarily correspond to the clear divisions preferred by theologians. Although she had a close relationship with her husband, she did not have his support in her spiritual explorations, as he “preferred not to go to church” and practised what his son termed a “kindly agnosticism.” Whereas the majority of Victoria’s married spiritualists shared their belief in the supernatural with their spouse, the Sivertzes reflect a not uncommon BC pattern of fluidity between alternative and mainstream religions, and a familiar gendered pattern of an agnostic husband and a believing wife. But this configuration was invisible to the census-taker, as either he or the Sivertzes themselves conflated their ethnic and religious identities – in Iceland, where they grew up, the Lutheran Church was the official denomination. Or perhaps, even in the religiously open climate of British Columbia, these working-class immigrants simply felt safer in naming a relatively mainstream denomination than in telling the enumerator that they were an unbeliever and a spiritualist.

The Sivertzes also reflect links between unbelief, alternative religions, and political activism that were not uncommon in British Columbia and Canada more generally. A labour leader, Christian Sivertz was president of the B.C. Federation of Labour by 1912. He was no socialist, though, and he opposed radicalism in the labour revolt of 1919. Unbelief was typically linked to the more radical BC socialists, but Christian demonstrates that it had a broader reach among at least some less radical BC labour leaders. Elinborg was involved in the major suffrage organization in Victoria, the Political Equality League, and in other social reform endeavours. Although BC suffragists tended to be Christians, some were not. Scholars have noted the link between alternative religions, such as spiritualism, and social activism, including the struggle for women’s rights, a connection that certainly applied in Elinborg’s case."

- Lynne Marks, Infidels and the Damn Churches: Irreligion and Religion in Settler British Columbia. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2017. p. 190-197.

[greenpanda-basicfakewitch]

Divination | Ouija

[Or as I keep calling it and being teased for it Luigi board] [Source] [Take this with a grain of salt- Ouija isn't my thing]

A controversial tool, a flat board with letters/alphabet along with the words yes or no alongside a planchette, heart shaped with an eye in the centre.. Quoted as “A board that is both pure and evil.” Created several lawsuits by the Library of Congress. A supernatural tool to commune with the dead.

[Personally the board gives me the wiggies, I know people think a pendulum is the same thing. But I just think requesting the help of a friend or some spirit is different than going knees deep into dead spirits and other things. Idk I just think its different]

So. give respect. Never ask how they died. Always say goodbye. NEVER finish until they say Goodbye [although its said its leaving it open, and some say it's to be polite and close the connection its okay if they don't say goodbye…I’d rather be safe than sorry]

 If the Planchette leaves the board? Burn the board. Never leave the Planchette on the board keeping the connection open for the possible spirit to leave the board.

Watch out for zozo. Or creating a figure eight. Treat it as a board game and keep calm dont bring in anxiety, or any depressive energy or thoughts.

Seven Subtitues For a Ouija Board [Source]

As a substitue You can use a Coin. A washer coin. A poker Chip. Upside down shotglass. [More info Below] Make a wood plachette etc. More info in the Link Above.

[Personally I do respect the craft/believe in ghosts and spirits a little. But sometimes its weird that ALL ghost story/sightings happen in America and possessions specifically happen in spain/mexico. Given that other countries dont have footage like in the UK for ghost sightings [we have OLD as fuck buildings older than america at least] so yeah sometimes it feels a bit huey.]

So the dangers of Ouji board?

This is the recent article for 2023. “28 girls hospitalised with anxiety. All fainted after a ouija board had gone wrong.” Posted March 7. 2023. [Source]

But luckily an exorcist police officer CLAIMS girls opened a Doorway to- […A police officer just HAPPENS to be an exorcist? What are the odds thank god an exorcist who happens to be an OFFICER was THERE at the same time! wow thank god *sarcasm*]

“One mother complained: “I work here in a hospital kiosk and every day I see three or four children arrive after fainting.”

So kids fainting is a regular thing? Is there some health/environmental issues and they're using an occult board to cover it up. Sounds like confirmation bias and fear mongering for christian loving cultists to prove that wiccan/occult are devil worshipping sinners oh joy. Or Group psychosis, look I love Wicca but I don’t believe in that supernatural shit, I honestly doubt it was a wooden board that caused that and instead was teens being dramatic or the school has some issues and want to hide the responsibility. Oh 36 now [Source]

_____________________________________________________________

Seance

[Source Image: The Dreaming Queeniechan Manga]

A Cup Seance. A meeting. Typically with a medium or other spiritualists in which people intend to communicate with the dead.

The rituals of the seance and the medium are opening up insights into the mind, shedding light on the power of suggestion and even questioning the nature of free will.

How to perform a Seance

 A ceremony to contact the dead.

 To perform this ritual you will need six candles, white and purple in colour and a white cloth. In Addition you will need to sweeten the air by burning cinnamon frankincense and sandals wood. As the fire burns, concentrate on contacting the spirit and chant the spell that follows. If you know the mortal name of the deceased, adjust the chant accordingly. 

 Beloved unknown spirit, we seek your guidance. We ask that you commune with us and move along us. 

[Humanity has been attempting to commune with the dead since ancient times. As far back as Leviticus, the Old Testament God actively forbade people to seek out mediums. Interest peaked in the 19th century, a time when religion and rationality were clashing like never before. In an era of unprecedented scientific discovery, some churchgoers began to seek evidence for their beliefs.

 [Source]

Table Tipping

 Table tipping, or turning has gone out of fashion but is easy to replicate for four or more people, a small table. Or aka Ouji Boards Big Brother.

 dim lights and a relaxed atmosphere. The group places hands on the table and wait. After 40 minutes or so the table should start to move. It soon appears to have a mind of its own, sliding, swaying and even pinning people to the walls.

The reason why household furniture can appear to be possessed was exposed more than 160 years ago by Michael Faraday, the discoverer of the link between magnetism and electricity. In 1852 Faraday was fascinated by the new craze of table tipping – and whether people or spirits were responsible. So he took bundles of cardboard roughly the size of a table top and glued them weakly together. Each sheet got progressively smaller from top to bottom, allowing Faraday to mark their original positions on the card above with a pencil. He then placed the cards on a table and asked volunteers to put their hands on the cards and let the spirits move the table to the left.

If it was spirits, the table top would slide out the cards from the bottom up. But if the participants were doing it, the top cards would be the first to move. By examining the position of the pencil marks Faraday showed that people, not spirits, moved the table. 

A youtuber created a video on how to summon a Spirit into a bottle:

[Source]

[deadendtracks]

Anonymous asked: hi, firstly, i’m currently rewatching PB and i just wanted to sincerely thank you so much for all your thoughts and metas. PB is one of those shows that will send me into Deep Thoughts and i’ve not seen many people discussing it as thoughtfully as you have on tumblr, so thank you! secondly, i’m curious if you have thoughts on the use of religion in PB. i had a lot of thoughts watching s6 about how we went from so many of the important scenes in s1 being set in church, to s3 having both the priest as a villain, but also the infamous quote of “religion is a foolish answer to a foolish question,” to tommy (seemingly - i have my doubts) believing in curses in s6. the show is obviously very heavily influenced by christian morals (particularly catholicism) and this idea that seems almost engrained in tommy psyche that he must “atone” for his sins. (i don’t think he sees it as religious himself, but it definitely is.) and, in contrast, there’s also this recurring theme (polly/their mum and the seances, arthur and linda/the quakers) that religion is “irrational” and that’s how you lose your mind (or your “true” self, in the case of arthur). obviously, that culminates with tommy in s6. he (arguably, like polly and his mum before him) goes mad looking for a curse to explain the unexplainable (his child having a medical condition he can’t control), with the unanswered question as to whether the curse he does find is even real - or if esmee is just making it up to get revenge. there’s also - i think - a fascinating intersection of religion and money where tommy seems to believe he can “pay” his way out of curses and sins (the sapphire to the lees, the massive grave he wants to buy for the families buried in that graveyard), which is also something (strangely, given this is all “[Romani] magic”) very catholic. especially interesting because jack nelson calls them both “catholic boys” - in church, at that. anyway, i obviously have a lot of thoughts, and was wondering what yours were. thanks again for everything you post! oh and religion anon again (forgot a thought, sorry!) there’s also obviously the question of grief and religion and the afterlife. the way tommy says in s4 that john and grace are just “gone” (like there’s no hell not heaven) but also he seems to genuinely (maybe?) believe in polly’s “gift” and the “spirits”? so many thoughts! thanks again!

Hi Anon, sorry I've been sitting on your ask so long, I was struggling with how to answer it.

First, thank you! I appreciate you letting me know that you've enjoyed my tumblr meta posts.

This ask is in itself basically a meta already, so I'm not sure what I have to add to it. I'd definitely encourage you to post your own meta so that you can get the credit for it!

Your ask covers a really wide range of topics around religion and I think it would take a long response to really get into everything you bring up, but I guess my most basic response would be that even if Tommy is an atheist now, he grew up within the Catholic church and his own culture and still carries those beliefs if only in a subconscious way, so I think that explains some of what you're talking about re: atonement, etc.

People are complex when it comes to the beliefs of their childhood and how those impact them as adults, and I do think that's what we see going on with Tommy in the series. He goes back and forth between talking about the dead as if they are present (referring to Grace in s3 as being by his side, talking to him; talking to Polly in s6) and talking about the dead as if they're just 'gone' (to Arthur about Grace and John in s4). I think the difference between these two instances is time and distance from the respective traumas of their deaths, as well as his general sense of mental well-being.

I also think belief in God and belief in spirits can be two very different things that aren't contradictory; that said, I'm not sure we're meant to view Tommy's talk of spirits in s6 as a sign of what he might believe if he weren't in significant mental duress. There's a lot of intentional paralleling of Tommy and his mother going on in s5-6. The things people say and believe in their lowest moments aren't always the things they would profess to believe normally; "bargaining" is one of the stages of grief for a reason, and Tommy's talk of paying his way out of his sins (to Esme, etc) is a good example of that "bargaining" stage. His daughter is dying, he's desperate and already pushed beyond extremity by Polly's murder.

That said, I think I've written before about cultural beliefs and "irrationality/rationality" in this context. I do think you have to be a bit careful about talking about all beliefs in religion and the supernatural etc as 'irrational.' I think it's probably better to talk about Tommy falling into beliefs he himself would normally claim not to have or see as irrational as reverting to what he grew up with in moments of stress, and there's not really any value judgment in that one way or the other. His actions (murdering people in revenge for a curse) are a different matter. But the 'bargaining' behavior itself up to that point isn't particularly harmful to anyone, and whether or not you view it as rational or irrational might be very cultural-specific. If that makes sense.

there’s also this recurring theme (polly/their mum and the seances, arthur and linda/the quakers) that religion is “irrational” and that’s how you lose your mind (or your “true” self, in the case of arthur).

I think this bit is definitely all about Tommy's individual POV within the show: I'm not really sure the show itself is calling religion irrational and how you lose your mind. It's how Tommy very specifically looks at the world and the people around him. That might be splitting hairs but I do think it's an important distinction.

There's also the question of how the show presents Romani culture and spirituality; my assumption is they fuck up a lot but I don't know enough to make specific critiques other than I'm sure there are serious ones.

Anyway I don't know how satisfactory this response is, I'm probably not the best person to talk about religion in meta, it's not one of my areas of interest! So again I'd really encourage you to post your own thoughts, I think you have probably thought more about it than I have.

[vampyr-game]

by the way i loooove usher talltree 🥰✨

DONTNOD made him the hint-dispenser with a silly off-brand tarot deck and yes i take that personally. i love a good application of tarot and this one is weak. BUT then again, the Rider-Waite tarot deck wasn't released until 1909 so I GUESS it's possible that usher's is from an older, non-standardized deck. tarot used to be done with just playing cards, after all. so perhaps he received his specific deck as a gift, or he acquired it as a novelty during his travels?

occultism grew popular among the bored upper class during the Victorian era; palm readings and seances and tarot readings in the parlor were common, and since the Brotherhood feels so well-established and socially exclusive in this way, it's possible Usher picked tarot up from his peers? maybe people asked HIM often enough that he was like "ok lol if u want ur silly cards so much here they are!"

there's ALSO a possibility it's an expression of his own beliefs. because without going into too much detail, some Sikhs do keep daily practices which resemble bibliomancy (flipping to a random page of a book as a form of divination); imagine a Christian flipping to a random page of the bible in search of daily guidance, or a solution to a problem they're facing. it's kind of like that, but a bit more formalized within the practice of Sikhism. from what I've read, a tarot deck would not be an inappropriate substitute for this practice. it would also be more portable, and more comprehensible to an outsider more familiar with tarot than Sikhism (such as Jonathan, who looks an awful lot like a bored Victorian upperclassman lol).

Usher's character model sports all the visual hallmarks of a practicing Sikh man: his skin tone and features seem to point toward Punjabi descent, and he wears a bracelet on his right hand, a brightly-colored turban on his head, and a dagger on his belt. yet his name is Usher Talltree, when Sikh men who come of age mostly take the surname 'Singh'. so is this only the Anglicized name he offers to Englishmen who he doesn't trust to pronounce his 'real' name? is this his one and only name? or does he simply have several (I personally go by several different names depending on who I'm speaking to, so I don't find this especially unusual)?

and also like, WHAT does this name mean? 'Talltree' feels fairly obvious; does this mean he sees himself as, hah, a pillar of the community? a source of stability and support for scholars of vampirism? and/or vampires themselves? looking at his letters, he DOES seem to view the Brotherhood's primary role and responsibility to be the custodianship of vampires who can't control their bloodlust.

also, The Fall of the House of Usher was published in America in 1839, so I mean. maybe he read that and chose that for his name, because the story touches on the undead? or maybe it is only DONTNOD making the E.A. Poe reference, and his name is not intended to be read as something HE chose. though I think either interpretation is perfectly defensible.

ok this post got long but suffice to say I love usher talltree. I think he and edgar take tea together during the day (and that's how usher heard about jonathan...) and that's SO cute of them... edgar calls himself the black sheep of the brotherhood for wanting to BEFRIEND vampires instead of merely study them... but usher still makes time for him and takes an interest in his research...! perhaps they are transforming the brotherhood together... i love them 🥺💓

[hexjulia]

huh came across a possibly interesting/fun writer when i googled the name Ardath because i wondered where it was from

"Ardath: The Story of a Dead Self - Marie Corelli

Mary Mackay was a British novelist who began her career as a musician, adopting the name Marie Corelli for her billing. She gave up music, turning to writing instead and in 1886 published her first novel, A Romance of Two Worlds. In her time, she was the most widely read author of fiction but came under harsh criticism from many of the literary elite for her overly melodramatic and emotional writing."

ok so far-- whatever. but the reviews make me curious!

"This book is like every crazy late-nineteenth-century symbolist trope thrown into a blender and set on high. It's WILD. It's essentially a high-concept Orientalist fantasy smothered in the author's own blend of artist-as-priest Christian mysticism. AND it's free on kindle and Project Gutenberg, WHAT A BARGAIN What to expect: -Ridiculously florid writing -Long descriptions of how beautiful everyone is -TONS of weird religious posturing." + "Theos Alwyn, poet and lost man, travels to an isolated monastery searching for a man who can take away his soul. He finds him in Heliobas, a seer who gave up drawing room seances for the isolation and worship of god. A night of reflection and talk leads to Alwyn free writing an epic poem that he packs up and sends off to his publisher. He also meets an angel named Edris who tells him to search for Ardath. In the morning he heads off to the possible location of the fields of Ardath. He finds it and then seems to transport back to a previous time, where he can speak the language, understands what people say to him, and is the double of the local famous poet, Sah-Luma who clearly loves himself."

[siren-melodies]

Hiii, so idk who else to tell this too but backstory my family has never been religious but lately they have an some points they be making does make sense but some are like I have my own opinion of it

But what has gotten to me is that manifesting is a sin and that we should believe in God and God only and rn idk what to do because I don't want to sin but I also want to manifest my dream life just how I want to live it. The thing is I'm not educated enough in manifesting/loa/non duality even thought I been in this community for almost a year now, to actually tell them about it.

So now I'm stuck.

Religion is a trap, a bubble designed to keep you ignorant. It was created so that you look elsewhere for God when in truth it was you all along. Why would God make the Earth and then not partake of it? There is no other power but you as awareness. Nothing is outside of your control. Religion is full of fuck ass limiting beliefs to make you feel small and incapable. Society is crafted the way it is so that you never awaken to your true identity. It is full of distractions and unnecessary rules and whatnot.. constantly telling you bullshit like you have to work your whole life and slave away, life isn't fair, I'll believe it when I see it, daydreaming is a waste of time, glorified hustle,, superpowers are fantasy and the likes of such. All of this is fantasy to awareness. It is all imagination, a dream. And when you remember who you are, you consciously control the dream. Awareness is in a human body literally just for the experience, to be entertained by it all. You don't need to be educated because there is nothing to learn, just unlearn. This is your rebirth. Start from scratch. In the very first chapter of Genesis in the Bible, God created heaven and earth of of nothing. The world was void and out of nothing, came everything( this is the void y'all) literally mentioned in the very beginning of the holy book. Look it up for yourself. This is why religion and society have done their best best brainwash by the multitude. If people awoke to their true selves, where would there power and authority go? Surely they can't oppress a self-aware God. Lol and a bunch of teenage girls on tumblr fucking know this out of everyone in the world to exist at any point in time. Honestly, it's not even just about manifesting and stuff. That is what ego desires. You are pure awareness experiencing the human body and mind in a dream world. Nothing really matters, never has. You are always awareness. You were before you took on an ego and incarnated, you are during and will be after the character dies. This is a game and it's supposed to be fun! I'm really glad you asked ME this question because I feel I am perfectly qualified to answer. I come from a deeply spiritual family. Starting with my great-great-great grandmother, black magic was heavily practiced in the family, men and women. Seances and speaking to the dead, letting the dead possess your body and speaking through you type of shit. I've always seen and felt dark entities (was attacked a couple times but not anymore bc I'm above those shits) Anywayyyyss, point being that my family went crazy and it passed from generation to generation. Suicides, Drugs, Mental and physical disease, Severe abuse.. until my grandmother decided enough and looked towards Christianity. Now she is a FANATIC. Absolutely ludicrous! It's so amusing hearing her speak about Jesus and crap because in my head I'm going "if only you knew God was right here." She is also one of the dumbest women I know. She believes you shouldn't ask questions about the afterlife and stuff because that is doubting God. And she thinks Saturday is a holy day and you shouldn't even buy anything on that day because it's a sin. She forbids anyone to listen to music and thinks if a woman was raped she has to marry her rapist because sex is holy and the woman is impure... She became a Christian at 19 and now she is pushing 60 with nothing to show for it. She has nothing! Her faith in " God", who is supposed to be a man that lives in the sky, had gotten her absolutely nothing and it is because she is worshipping a false God instead of herself. I don't care if it sounds narcissistic.. Worship Yourself! The moment you want something, give it to yourself. You are not a pathetic little human with it's pathetic little problems. You are sooo much more than this. You are above everything. You are truly privileged to know the truth out of everyone. Everyone else is suffering and going through their own shit, and would kill to know what we know. Don't let this life on Earth go to waste when you can heaven right now! Feel free to DM me for anything

Xoxo,

Jezebel 💜

[maypoleman1]

27th February

The Ghost of Marie Lairre

Marie Lairre by Aiko Takada. Source: Deviant Art

Marie Lairre was a French nun who walled up in Borley in Essex after an illicit affair with a monk. The hideous nature of the young woman’s death seemed to lead to a frenetic and generations-long period of haunting. Marie was frequently seen on the streets of Borley village over the centuries until 1863, when the Reverend HD Bull built Borley Rectory and she transferred her place of residence there. She took to gazing at the vicar through an open window and Bull responded by bricking it up. This kept Marie quiet until the Rectory passed to the Reverend Bull’s son Harry, which provoked a major upping of the supernatural ante with ghostly coaches hurtling through the house and Marie herself frequently spotted replete with mournful, gaping-mouthed expression. She also became more violent, hurling a candlestick at a new rector in 1929, forcing him to flee the building.

On this day in 1939, a blaze took hold of the rectory, burning it to the ground. As the building burned, the ghostly figure of Marie could be seen at a first floor window, gazing out impassively as the flames danced around her. As revealed at a seance the previous year, the wreckage of the house enabled the discovery of Marie’s bones, which were promptly given a Christian burial. Unfortunately this did not placate wandering Marie who continues to roam the roads of Borley to this day.

[papirouge]

in an unfortunate turn of event (me visiting my sister who scheduled a movie seance for my niece), I went to see The Little Mermaid🥴

Cliffs **spoilers** :

- Halle is breathtakingly beautiful... Like- it was lowkey distracting lol. She was perfect for that role. She has those outlandish features that are perfect to pull off the look of a mythical creature such as a mermaid (I feel the same for Michaela Coel). Something tells me the fact she's so pretty and Black AND paired with a White man is one of the reason White Conservative/ANTI/NLOG pickmes seethed particularly hard at that casting🥴

- it's obvious that the story is based in the Caribbeans so Ariel being Black is totally coherent. There's absolutely no "Black in the middle of the snow" syndrome since the cast is extremely diverse and multiracial (Creole type of demographic). The (White) Prince is an adoptee of the Black queen, and most islanders look mixed to some degree. And it's echoing what's happening in the sea kindgom since Ariel and her sisters are supposed to represent the 7 seas (2 mermaids are Black, 2 are White, 1 Arabic, 1 East Asian, 1 Indian) so screaming about White erasure is stupid lol

Oh, And let's not forget King Triton who's Latino LMAO (Javier Bardem)

In the end of the day, directors are entitled to make remake through their own perspective and a Creole Little Mermaid was an interesting and convincing move considering how well put together and highlighted this culture is throughout the entire movie (and let's no forget that even in the OG Little Mermaid Sebastian already had a Creole accent so the call was from inside the building at this point). In retrospective, the whole outrage surrounding this movie lookw even more embarrassing & stupid...

- kinda off that Ariel is 15 years old while the Prince is 21...🥴

- the songs are good - there are 3 additional songs - of which one sang by the Prince (which is okay but still a bit awkward lol). "Under the Sea" SLAPS and is visually marvelous. Scuffle ragga song is funny idc lol

- the CGI looks better in motion (especially Sebastian), but the realism kinda kills the mood. Although I suspect they made this choice so that the animals aren't too much out of place when interacting with humans (which happens A LOT in the movie). It's not like Finding Nemo where humans were only a tiny fraction of screen time.

- the building up of the romance is surprisingly cute. The chemistry between the 2 actors is very convincing. The Creole dancing scene is absolutely lovely. Their bonding around their curiosity for the world and exploration is very credible and fleshes out their romance beyond the 'Prince fell in love with mute unknown girl'/'mermaid falls in love at first sight' thing. I like how they added in the scenario that Ariel forgot that she had to kiss the prince to remain human forever (it was a ruse from Ursula to prevent Ariel of reaching that goal, but also a scenaristic ploy to avoid Ariel rushing to kiss the Prince who quickly felt in love with her) so their romance looked more genuine.

- the Prince is pretty handsome 👀 that's a first for a live action Disney movie imo I also think we dodged a bullet concerning the rumors of Harry Styles being initially casted for the role

- the final fight with (giant) Ursula is kinda underwhelming

- from a Christian perspective: this movie is a total rehabilitation of mermaids. At some point, when Ariel reverts to a mermaid right before the prince and his mom, the Queen says (talking to the prince) "I told you the creatures from the kingdom of sea were DEMONIC" ....and the thing is.... she's supposed to be the evil one for rejecting the mermaids. There's an obvious satanic demon acceptance agenda so don't get it twisted to the purpose of that movie.. it's Disney after all....

[brw]

and BenReed while we're at it actually

Which one is more fond of scary movies: Ben probably, Reed absolutely hates them for all reasons he airs as being more moral or ethical (ableism, racism, Christianity as being most pure, etc) but secretly it's because he's absolutely terrified of them and can't get over it and it really pisses him off.

Which one gets the most excited about Halloween: Obligatory "only time of year Ben doesn't feel like a monster so much" answer but I do think he enjoys seeing all the kids dressed up and stuff. Reed also likes spending time with the family but doesn't feel majorly strongly about it, but he will make himself feel sick eating too many leftover sweets in the days after

Which one would be more likely to survive the apocalypse: like physically Reed but similar to my Hank answer I'd imagine he'd ultimately last longer staying in his lab and trying to think up a solution, however Ben is very sturdy and unless Reed was the cause of the apocalypse would not leave Reed alone.

Which one would literally kill for the other: Absolutely Ben he has a much quicker temper and is more physically capable, almost Bones-Spock esque gets angry every time someone badmouths the guy only he's allowed to badmouth. Reed is very willing to do so also if they seriously hurt Ben and would do it in a much more torturous manner I think.

Which one likes to scare or startle the other: Ben I think, because I have such a strong vision of Reed just melting or exploding into Silly Goo in fear when startled and Ben thinks it's so funny

Which one is more likely to need comforting when they get spooked: Like honestly Ben because so little scares him these days so when something does it really emotionally impacts him and he needs a moment, while I think Reed is better at pushing his emotions to the side and carrying on.

Which one always puts on a brave face: Both of them in equal measure in different ways.

Which one would be more dangerous if they suddenly became violent: In terms of actual destruction Ben, but I do think a seriously destructive, violent Reed would get real evil with it real quick and would be absolutely terrifying, using science in cruel and unusual ways to cause Pain

Which one would be more likely to commit a crime: Both of them but Ben is like accidentally stepping on a post box. Reed is actively breaking the Geneva Convention.

Which one believes in ghosts: Ben but Reed is more scared by ghostly activity.

Which one likes to watch spooky show on television: Ben :)

Which one would propose the idea of holding a seance: Ben again, Reed thinks it's absolutely ridiculous and hates the whole thing but goes along with it bc Ben asked.

Which one has nightmares more often: Both of them they refuse to go to therapy or talk about their feelings memory and it shows up in the same nightmare of the cosmic rays

Which one would want to explore a real haunted house: Honestly if they came across one I think Reed would be more interested in exploring while Ben is very 😬😬😬 cause the vibes are OFF but as like something you pay to go for definitely Ben.

Scary OTP Meme

[antlerqueer]

I could talk Yellowjackets FOREVER (but if it's too much you can ask me to stop and I will) There are so many theories (like who is Pit Girl? What is the fate of Shauna's baby? What happened to Javi? Who is the Antler Queen? So many questions and theories) And yes I too suffered through PLL so I know your pain. Also I hope that it stays in the "human" world and it doesn't go "supernatural" (the seance scene for example the character is a schizophrenic or so I read and that could explain a lot)

We waited seven years for an absolute sham. Marlene King owes us dues.

Yellowjackets longposting under the cut!

cw for discussions of mental health re: Lottie, just the first paragraph

One thing I'll disagree on is Lottie, I think she's psychic or at least has some sort of premonition and that's been demonized by her father. In many cultures, there are people like her that aren't considered supernatural. I mentioned this in a server I'm in but it's really possible that Lottie's (white, rich) father simply wouldn't believe in anything he couldn't personally explain, where her mother was saying that Lottie could be having psychic visions. Obviously her father is rich and powerful so anything he wants she gets, which very well could include a high dosage anti-psychotic for a daughter who doesn't meet the criteria for schizophrenia. According to my (admittedly bare) research, most women are diagnosed as adults in their later twenties, cases are very rare for 12-18, and in general it's incredibly rare for kids under 12 to be diagnosed - and Lottie looked like 9 or 10 in the car scene imo.

I think, by now, I'm sold on Lottie being the antler queen, I don't think it'll be a rotating title like -A was.

I really fell for the Adam is Javi hints hook line and sinker. Once I read that the writers weren't sure if Adam was gonna be Javi I felt better about seeing it, but whew I was kinda like... WOW he's just some guy, isn't he? But I can't wait for his torso to be discovered and then confirmed to be Adam's torso because of the tattoo. That'll be fun, and I can see it happening specifically because Misty said the torso is not identifiable but he has a back tattoo.

As for Pit Girl, I truly don't have any solid theories! My only vague thought is it could be Mari, but honestly that's just because she's the only one we've seen with straight, dark hair that hasn't been confirmed alive. There are people who think it's Callie and it was a modern day hunt, which is wild to me just because like... c'mon Callie deserves life, or they think it's Shauna's baby grown up.

Speaking of Shauna's baby, she's going to have the baby, but... yeah. I don't know what's going to happen, but I do think the cult is gonna love that baby. The way I've described Lottie's power ascent was Laura Lee dying was the catalyst and Doomcoming was her coronation; her visions were confirmed before but not everyone knew about them (the red water, the sick deer, Laura Lee's death), but at Doomcoming she said "we will eat soon" and then the bear came the next morning, and someone even pointed that out. Van also said she's predicted multiple things at school, like prom queen. So then will the baby become a fixation as the rebirth of Jackie and Laura Lee? I don't know much about Jesus, tbh, but I know rebirth is a thing Christians talk about. The second-coming. Will the baby be considered the second-coming? Will Shauna only be protected because of her pregnancy, and will her giving birth put her in danger with the cult? I have more questions than answers, truly, because there are no hints (that I've uncovered!) about the baby's fate.

Unfortunately I think Javi dies. I think one of the reasons Travis was so anti-cult is because they want to eat Javi's corpse and he won't let them, maybe? Or maybe the cult hunts Javi and killing Travis completes their ritual! Most of my theories are basically out of thin air when it comes to Javi, but there is one thing I think I know for sure: if Javi were alive, he'd have been Adam. (I don't know that for sure.) His death, if it occurs this season, will definitely be a huge thing that divides Travis and Natalie further apart from the cult.