#is nightmare moon considered satan in this universe?

[thekittyfox2999]

nightmare moon

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

The Lunacy of Rev Moon, or Why I Am Not A Unificationist

June 14, 2014

I’ve been a Unificationist since childhood. From then, until I was around 19, I had to eat all of the sadomasochism fed by Rev. Moon. My new Father. My new Messiah. I’ll take some time to go through them, but please be patient. I had been told that God was some sort of compulsive crybaby whose universe was forever torn asunder because two naked teenagers had pre-maritial sex in a garden. A step up from the apple and snake, I admit, but the Garden of Eden is still a myth no matter how you spin it.

Anyways, I was also told that human history was a convenient series of failures on behalf of the human race to understand the infinite sorrows of God. The Church painted said God, interestingly enough, as quite impotent. He was a servant to some pseudo-scientific law, called the Divine Principle: a lugubrious, confusing, absurd, and comical attempt to plaster Moon’s idiotic theology onto human history. Neon Genesis Evangelion’s myths made more sense.

I’m not quite sure if the Divine Principle was supposed to be a moral law or not, but I certainly was given that impression. I would be horrified and disgusted if the Principle was by any stretch of the imagination considered moral. This so-called morality dictated that again, because two naked teenagers had pre-marital sex in a garden, the Biblical wars against various tribes, the Crucifixion of Jesus, the Fall of Rome, both World Wars, the Holocaust, the Korean War, and numerous other tragedies, in the Bible and in history, were ordained by the Divine Principle to occur as payment for indemnity, or global karma. The Principle has weird ideas on proportionality. I don’t think that even Zeus, at the height of his maliciousness, would have approved of such a doctrine, so it would be doubly discouraging if a loving and compassionate God did. Why then does Moon praise the Principle with such fervor? Even it was true, it should have been condemned and resisted, even if the effort was futile. Of course, there’s always the idea that the Principle is brutally objective, but then, I don’t recall Newton’s Three Laws of Motion or the Pythagorean Theorem bluntly putting persons into sides of God or Satan.

Again, I swallowed this nonsense in my elementary years – I didn’t know any better. I think that I was still watching Power Rangers. So all of this made me very terrified of sex. Moon had a cute obsession with sex. If you don’t believe me, just look up the instructions for the 3-day ceremony. It’s quite revealing. He also said that if a pretty woman attempts to touch your penis, you should kick her 1,000 miles and God will praise you for it, but I’ll touch on his sexism later.

He just could not stop going on about the sexual organs and how they were at the center of the universe, or something like that. Easy enough to pledge abstinence when you’re young, but after puberty, I felt like I was walking in a nightmare. No sex until after I married, and Lord knew when that was going to happen. No choking the chicken, either, but when I did get the occasional slip of the wrist, so-to-speak, my whole being filled with guilt, as if I had committed a crime against God and joined the ranks of Satan.

I realize that abstinence is quite common among many Christians and even Muslims in this country, but at least they are allowed to date! Yes, because God certainly doesn’t want His Children engaging in the evil of DATING. Okay, so women were off limits until I married. At least I got to choose my wife. Oh, what’s that? My wife could be chosen for me? We might barely know each other before getting married? She might not even speak English? There could be a waiting period before having SEX? You know, there’s a word for people who have a peculiar interest in other people’s sex lives, they’re called perverts, and Rev Moon was certainly among them. Lord knows the countless unintentional pregnancies, STI infections, and abortions his teachings may have prevented had he taught instead about the options of masturbation and birth control.

Speaking of sexuality, Rev Moon was diseased with homophobia. I am sorry to say that I caught this disease as well. Moon referred to homosexuals once as dung-eating dogs and homosexuality as an activity that attracts Satan. He also said that those who love dung eating dogs, ergo people who support gay rights, will produce that quality of life. I’ve heard some homophobic statements from Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, but Moon’s hate speech sounds like something you’d hear from Neo-Nazis. Yeah, I went there, but Moon’s words were straight up dehumanizing and condemnable. NO group of people deserve to be described in that fashion. Also, Moon himself said that Hitler and Stalin were reborn as new beings, and they declared him the messiah. So he seems to think quite a bit of their opinions.

In any case, many religions still have trouble with treating homosexuals as equals, and that’s a shame. I repeat, a shame. Moon could have learned a thing from Desmond Tutu. Even the 14th Dalai Lama supports gay marriage and Pope Francis, who does not like homosexuality, says that the Church has no right to interfere with the spiritual lives of gays and that he has no authority to judge gay Catholics. I grew out of homophobia after I grew out of Moon.

Then there’s this whole damned idea of Rev Moon being the Messiah. Hell, anyone can claim that. Just ask Father Divine, Marshall Applewhite, Elijah Muhammad, Jim Jones, or L. Ron Hubbard. We all know the story. Jesus asked Moon to take up the cross and suffer for humanity as the first True Parent. The whole idea being that Jesus was supposed to get married as opposed to being crucified. Now I wouldn’t force crucifixion on my worst enemy, but marriage on the other hand, should be a choice, not a requirement for joining heaven, as Moon teaches. I think that most people are comfortable with the parents that they already have, and don’t need fanatical ones from Korea.

What makes Moon so special that he should be the Messiah, anyways? It’s his word against mine. Surely, Jesus didn’t expect Moon to convince people on word alone. Except that he apparently did. To be honest, I believed that Moon was the Messiah out of pity. He does deserve some. His home country was torn apart before his eyes, and he had to suffer atrocious accommodations in a North Korean prison camp [in 1948 for bigamy – marrying a married woman who had three children]. No one should have to go through that. The pressure was all around me to convert. Certainly I wouldn’t turn against a man who suffered so much. Before I knew it, I was bowing before photographs and reading books I could hardly understand at six in the morning. For those who want a better idea of what I am talking about, check out the film, “Ticket To Heaven.” Moon, however, had a habit of romanticizing Korea as the center of the world. I don’t hate Korea. It’s a fine nation, but not a holy one. Since Moon cast North Korea as Satan and South Korea as God, he probably forgot to mention that “God’s” nation had brutal dictators like Park Chung-hee.

I could also go on about how, in face of separation of church and state, Moon crowned himself like a king in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, how he implored Americans to forgive Nixon who sabotaged the Vietnam Peace Talks in 1968, how he founded the Washington Times which spews climate change denial, and how he had at least one affair [in 1965] while dictating other people’s sex lives, but I think I’ve made my point. Moon’s no more of a messiah than my dead goldfish. If you still want a Korean to admire, try Kim Dae Jung.

In closing, you may wonder what exactly liberated me from my slave-masters? It was a woman named Nansook Hong, whose book, In the Shadow of the Moons, I would implore all of you to read. She was married, at 15, to Moon’s first son, Hyo Jin, and suffered unspeakable abuse, both mental and physical. When Moon was told of these things, he blamed her for not being a good wife. This is the sexism I was referring to earlier. Moon was more concerned about his magnanimous legacy than about the domestic abuse of his daughter-in-law. As I read her testimony and followed her journey, I found myself going through a similar one. By the last page, I left the church and freed myself from the depressing theology of Rev Moon. I live a happy life now. I’m not very religious, but I don’t hate religion. Moon didn’t learn a lot from them. Many Jewish scholars see the Old Testament stories as metaphors to learn from, not literal historical events representing the Cain and Abel dichotomy. If Moon really understood Jesus, he would have lived more like Gandhi, Tolstoy, or even Shaliene Woodley, as opposed to Donald Trump [in 2014] or John D. Rockefeller. The Qur’an opposes collective punishment for crimes done by others and would be disgusted with ideas like indemnity. While both Buddhism and Hinduism see atheism or agnosticism as acceptable spiritual paths, Buddhism more so, while Moon denounced godlessness as Satanic.

I would like to thank HWDYKYM for giving me a healthy space to express these thoughts. As you can see by the length of this, they’ve been bubbling beneath the surface for some time now. I know that I may not have not have gotten everything right as far as Moon’s doctrine is concerned. I simply speak from my own experience – what I was taught, what I had believed. I hold no ill will towards current members, by the way. Many of them are still beloved members of my friends and family, just don’t expect me to go to workshops.

____________________________________

The Tragedy of the Six Marys website

Nansook Hong, transcripts of three interviews, including ‘60 Minutes’

Nansook Hong interviewed by Herbert Rosedale

Nansook Hong: “I snatched my children from Sun Myung Moon”

Nansook Hong In The Shadow Of The Moons

Sam Park, Moon’s secret son, reveals hidden history (2014)

Transcripción del video de Sam Park 2014 en español

Nansook Hong entrevistada en español

‘A la Sombra de los Moon’ por Nansook Hong

Moonwebs by Josh Freed (the book was made into the movie Ticket to Heaven)

[nalufever]

do you have any more nalu fic recs?

Sorry, not sorry - you’ve unleashed more than you could’ve guessed. ^^ Always happy to Recommend a List of Fics ~ And thank you for asking! Admittedly there’s a few Recs that aren’t Nalu - I got excited to share my favs. ;)

A Girl Worth Fighting For: Natsu navigates unspeakable horrors to win Lucy’s love or Natsu goes shopping, looking for the perfect white day gift. 

A Lesson: Natsu and Lucy can’t keep themselves from expressing their passions - and the results are bed breaking. Short but smutty - smexy in fact. ;P 

A Solidly Constructed Kiss: Erza strong-arms Lucy and Natsu into working the Kissing Booth to raise funds for a school trip. Lucy’s never been kissed and Natsu acts like he’s never entertained even the idea of kissing another person. Things naturally come to a head when Lucy and Natsu are given the task to build the actual booth; will they fight over construction or build themselves some kind of relationship? 

Fairy Tail Week: A collection of drabbles from tumblr prompts to celebrate Fairy Tail. Fairy, Ladies, Lads, Magic, Guild, Ultimate Team, Stronger, Mashima, Tail. Only rated teen to err on the side of caution, family friendly content featuring most of the Fairy Tail Guild! 

Feathers and Scales: Angel/Demon AU. Devils are more than they seem and Angels no less. Pitted against each other in a never-ending battle for souls, a single Angel and Devil trade mercies and fall in love. Warning: major character death(s). 

Full Moon Secret: Natsu had wanted to tell Lucy his secrets, to share his family history with the fey…it had just never been the right time. Tonight the truth was going to be revealed, one way or another. 

Okay, I could just keep hyping all of my own fics individually - but I won’t - other than to just put in a link to ALL OF THEM. ;) Fair warning, I have a few other fandoms works in all the Fairy Tail stories - from Brooklyn 99 to The Flash, Snow White with the Red Hair, RWBY, Blue Exorcist, Teen Titans and some Hakuouki. Yes, I’m a shameless self-promoter. Speaking of that - one more I need to rec!  Natsu’s Stars in Lucy’s Sky. I swear Imma finish this. 

I also have more than a few favourite authors who write for Fairy Tail (and other fandoms) ~ some have not contributed lately to Fairy Tail or chosen to concentrate on other fandoms - but I like them and their excellent writing. 

ObsessedwithNalu: One of my first fandom friends and pretty much any of her FT stories is gold. @obsessedwithnalu  

Christmas Treats: Admittedly a gift to me and very cherished for that fact - and - it’s frigging awesome. Lucy does a little holiday baking at home before Fairy Tail’s Christmas party. Natsu, as always, is there. One thing leads to another… 

Thanks, Krov: When Krov decided to relax at his favorite bar after work, he never imagined that he’d be seeing some of his old guild members, especially since he thought they had died long ago. Nalu fluff. 

Edo-Nalu love fest: Submissions for the Nalu love fest week of 2014. But instead of regular Nalu, these ones feature Edo-Nalu. Smut-tastic and delightfully mature. 

ImpracticalDemon: Another early fandom friend who’s still writing this, that and the other thing - and she’s just GREAT. Again, a link to all her works and a few that are special to me follow. XOXOX @impracticaldemon  

May the Best Man Survive: “Gray would never have in a million years thought he’d host Natsu’s bachelor party (Nalu pairing). Why is it his job to herd the bunch of rowdy mages from bar to bar, ending up at the guild where the real surprise party is? Oh yeah, the idiot had asked him to be the best man at his wedding. Hijinks, chaos and hilarity ensue.” ^^ A prompt supplied by me and I’m smirking so wide because the fic Imp came up with delivered more awesomeness than I could have hoped for! 

A Star At His Side: “Accidentally Fall Asleep Together” for Endragoneel on tumblr. Natsu and Lucy spend the day together at a festival in Magnolia. Natsu ends up watching more than just the stars when the festival is over… 

Christmas Gifts: When Erza walks Wendy home from the Guild’s Christmas Party, Wendy realizes how alone her friend and mentor is feeling. She sets out to recruit Lucy, Natsu and the rest to break Jellal out of prison for just one night, as a Christmas gift for Erza. Meanwhile, Natsu has accidentally burned some of Lucy’s writing. Will she forgive him? 

Dark Shining Light: One of the best and most welcoming writers I have ever interacted with! I’m still gobsmacked she’s a friend! She’s a legend and I don’t know what else I could add to any discourse about her writing - but the classics are classic for a reason, yeah? Here’s a few of my personal favourites of her works and just know there’s too many to list them all! AKA @ff-darkshininglight 

Mischievous Cat: Let’s just say there have been a few incidents where Happy has come in at a bad time. 

What Belongs to a Demon: Everyone knew she belonged to the great demon lord and she would prove that she deserved to stand by his side. 

The Truth Revealing Cards: Lucy should have known if there was a card that would reveal her secrets, Natsu would want it. 

Eliz1369: Got introduced to her for her Hakuoki fics but she’d dipped her toes into FT as well ~ and this is a great fic. ^^ @eliz1369 

The Light of Fairy Tail: The members of Fairy Tail may be their own brand of crazy, but their hearts are always in the right place. 

rougescribe: Shame on me for not reading more of this author’s works! @rougescribe  

Fire Sprite No 5: For him, Heaven wasn’t a place or a single moment in time. It was a feeling built on memories upon memories, past and present and a hope for future ones all tied down together. All sharing one common denominator: Her. Nalu. Tumblr Valentine’s Event. 

Fallen Ark Angel: Admittedly I only have interacted from afar with this writer. I mainly read Nalu fics but I love her take on Mira and Laxus and her next gen offspring characters. She’s got a lot to offer and it’s all superb. @fallen029

Loving Satan: Loving Satan is never easy. But when she loves you back, its twice as bad. 

Madartiste: Another one-sided love affair with someone else’s writing. And her stories are all wonderful and prolly appear on hundreds of Fic Rec Lists - but here’s one of my Favs! @madartiste  

Hoarding: Getting interrupted gets old fast. 

UranoMetria: I added her to my stable of fav authors 05-03-2014. Wow. Eons ago and even if I’m not sure she’s still active in the fandom, I salute her. Kudos. 

The Goddess Gate: With six years of partnership, Natsu and Lucy are torn apart by a mysterious visit from a secret magic council. Lucy is kidnapped and her memories suppressed. She fights her way back home to regain her life - with a startling secret revealed as she begins to remember. The lives of all Earthland hang in the balance. **Okay, this is a wicked old fic - but amazingly written and fuelled my own desires for writing. Last updated in 2018 but who knows? Some current attention may slay any demons on her back in regards to writing - and even if not - the hours of enjoyment reading this is worth giving a comment just to say, ‘thank you for writing.‘ 

Wild Rhov: Do I even need to say anything about this author? Famous, famous, famous. Excellent. Writes a lot of pairings and fleshes every relationship into something REAL. I Can’t Even. @wildrhov  

Beastly Possession: Something is murdering people in Magnolia. When Lucy is attacked, Natsu goes on a rampage to find the culprit, and everyone in Fairy Tail wants revenge. But could this bloodthirsty attacker be someone they know? Warning: High octane nightmare fuel! Do not read while eating, and beware of red eyes in the dark! 

Shell1331: Introduced via Imp. This writer is in a few fandoms and is worth reading. @shell-senji  

Juicy: Impulsivity and poorly chosen words get Natsu into more trouble than he’d expected, which is saying something for him. 

AbsentAngel: Everyone should know this writer. Been stalking her since 2014 so that says something. Tho, it’s prolly just that I’m creepy. ;) My suggested fic here is being re-written/has been? into something original and worth being purchased when it becomes available and re-read over and over. No, I am not being paid to shill but I am open to having senpai notice me. @absent-angel  

To the Flame: She stares, transfixed, as the blood runs down his fingers and begins to pool in his palm. He holds his hand up to her lips in offering, and she tears her eyes away from the blood to study his face. He is smiling softly. “Go on Luce, I didn’t cut them for nothing.” [Vamp AU] 

HawkofNavarre: Loved for awesome and delightful Gruvia content. Looks like there’s a tumblr but I can’t manage to link it. :(

You Stole the Rain: He just wanted to be friends; fine, she just needed to change his mind. Gray x Juvia 

Ricardian Scholar Clark-Weasley: Not sure I spelled that right even after checking three times! I usually short hand that to RS-CW in my head. And she’s prolific - has a tonne of fandoms and is a tower of talent. Is anyone reading all my fangirl gushing? 'Cause she follows one of my fics and comments (sorry I haven’t updated that fic in a while) and it’s a source of happiness that someone who writes so well happens to enjoy some of my content. Okay, bragging over - back to the Recs! 

Tales of Fairies: A collection of oneshots exploring different friendships, ideas, sad themes, comical scenarios, and lots and lots of pairings…but mainly Nalu. 

snogfairy: Another giant in the FT fandom. Impressive talent. @lineffability  

naughty nalus: smutty nalu oneshots B) ***Mature content!*** 

Rivendell101: Another giant in FT and other fandoms. This author would be considered required reading if I ran a fandom course in a University setting. Just sayin’ @rivendell101  

Crave: /krāv/ Verb. To feel a powerful desire for (something). They crave each other. And satiation doesn’t come easily. He growls against her again. “Beg for it,” he demands, lips ghosting against her. 

Lakerae aka @hidetheremote : Did you think I’d forgotten you? Ha! Gotcha good! You’re an inspiration to me because you’re working so hard to publish your children’s books. Kudos to you li'l sis! You’re busy but still make it a point to talk to me and I love you for that and everything.

The Gift of the Magi: A Gajevy Twist: A retelling of the classic Christmas story “The Gift of the Magi,” with your favorite Fairy Tail couple Gajeel and Levy! It’s Christmas time and Gajeel and Levy exchange gifts. They both are surprised what they receive and learn a lesson of the true meaning of Christmas. 

I could add more and more as I search my saved favs on FF.net ~ and I’m sorry to not include all of them - but this is crazy long as it is. If you read and like any of the recommended fics, please be sure to let the author know. To the authors of these and all fanfics, Thanks for everything.

[charlemange1]

Ask of the Lesser (Frankenstein/Lovecraft Works): 5 What the Moon Brings

“What exactly is that?”

“A dress for Mama! She will need clothes when we revive her, Mr. Curwen,” I chirped, caressing the white silk. “Mama looked so beautiful in the dresses she used to wear. When I was a boy, she would always take William and I’s hands and race up the hills near our villa to watch the sun rise over the mountains. You should have seen her! When we went after a rain shower, the droplets on Mama’s dress would sparkle in the rising light! She was such an angel,” I wiped away fond tears. “William always tried capturing those shining droplets in his little hands, his expression was so precious when the liquid ran down his fingers instead! I cannot wait to relive those happy times. See here,” I hopped over to my assortment of dresses and toys and snatched up a carved spinning top to show Curwen. “I have been spending some of the allowance you give me on little trinkets I know will make them smile!”

Curwen moved aside a carved ducky with his shoe, unimpressed. “Pace yourself. We must resurrect Victor before we can even consider the rest of your family.”

“I know,” I sighed, returning the spinning top to the couch that doubled as my bed. Curwen had drug it and other abandoned furniture into a cleared corner of the kitchen for my sleeping quarters. I had hoped the move would cure the nightmares that plagued me in the library, but the devouring mass of tentacles and eyes followed me wherever I rested my head. Traumatizing though the visions were, I internalized my horrific dreams to save Curwen the trouble of mocking my senseless agitation. He was going to such great lengths for my sake and I dared not inconvenience him with petty complaints.

“I have also made you dinner,” I smiled, pointing to the readied fish platter on the table beside a smaller plate containing my own. “I spent the entirety of my allowance this week on some rare spices for us!”

“We agreed that you would leave all food outside my lab, nowhere else,” Curwen’s voice dripped with disapproval and my eyes fell back on the dress. “Do you honestly believe I have the time to waste eating out here with lesser minds such as yours?”

“Of course not, sir! But surely you cannot usurp the laws of nature on an empty stomach?” I pleaded. Try as I might to prove myself, so set was Curwen’s sights on high aspirations that he never glanced down to consider fellowship with little men like me. “Sir, you always eat alone in your lab, and since you are too busy for evening walks together, I thought this would be the best way to show my appreciation for everything you do for me…”

“That can be achieved by picking up my equipment from the docks every fortnight and minding my personal space,” Curwen muttered, though he placed his coat over the chair and settled down. I scampered over to the seat across from him as Curwen took his first bite and grimaced.

“This is far too plain, Ernest. You cannot expect me to finish.”

I slid the readied jar of salt his way. Curwen groaned and sprinkled it sparingly.

“You have your brother’s determination,” he shook his head with the first smile I had seen in weeks. “Nothing deterred Victor once his mind was set—for better or worse.”

My finger’s tightened around Mama’s dress at Victor’s mentioning, though I dared not speak out and ruin the first conversation I had had with Curwen, or anyone, in days. The gesture was not lost on my host.

“You should not hate him, Ernest.”

“You expect me to forgive that man?” I folded the white dress. It was the color of good, not like my brother. How beautiful Mama had appeared when the morning light lit her smiling face! “Those bright souls are extinguished because Victor could not let the dead lie!”

“Just as you are doing now?”

Ingolstadt’s unnatural silence filled the room.

“No. I am undoing his destruction,” I corrected.

“Two wrongs do not make a right,” Curwen’s white teeth flashed in the torchlight.

“Unless said wrong is for the greater good,” I retorted. The greater good. That was what I told myself the noises from Curwen’s locked laboratory that woke me in the dead of night were.

“Your brother said the same,” Curwen said.

“I thought you said he kept his life private?” I challenged, though Curwen’s glare silenced me, reminding me how much I owed this man.

“I did,” Curwen frowned. “But with time, it is easy to see into the hearts of the company you keep. Victor arrived at Ingolstadt broken enough to seek out the unorthodox. Your mother’s death crushed him. He cared deeply for those he left in Geneva.”

“Not enough to write,” my default complaint faltered on my tongue.

“You can hardly blame one for being swept up in their work,” Curwen idly brushed some blueish powder off his shirt.

“Do you ever write to your family in America?” I asked, hoping to steer the conversation into calmer waters.

“Having moved among far more potent entities, what use have I for the likes of them?” Curwen laughed sardonically. “Why go back on nearly nine years of blissful silence?”

“Nine years?” I gagged.

“Salem is trapped between woodlands and ocean, there is little opportunity for fine education in America,” Curwen sniffed, banging his fist on the table. “Europe is far richer in its secrets. Secrets my weak-minded kin lack the constitution to grasp.”

“Indeed,” I said slowly, thinking of that lonely letter. Someone had wanted to block Victor from reaching out to us. Someone who cared little for family relations. “It is dusk. I should start for the docks if I hope to receive the next shipment.”

**

My second horse resided in an abandoned barn a great distance from the frightening presence of the university. Curwen had made a habit of seeing me off and waiting for my return to help pull the wagon the rest of the way. Tonight was no different, and I settled into my routine as I rode to the secluded waterfront where the old captain waited with his hat hiding his eyes. Neither he nor the sailors mocked me as I paid up, a change I was to grateful to question until the masks were flung aside and a dozen muskets forced me to the ground. The ‘captain’ stepped into the torchlight, boasting a far more menacing figure than the shriveled man I had grown accustomed too. Beneath the familiar coat stretched over wide shoulders, I glimpsed a shirt buttoned unevenly. It was Button Boy from the tavern, and he had acquired several new friends.

“Beautiful night for a stroll, eh Monsieur Frankenstein?” he sneered.

“It was. The pitchforks and muskets ruined the mood, I fear,” I muttered as two men held me down in the dirt.

“Tell me, Ernest, what business do you have wandering out after dark? Your clattering wagon could wake the dead.” Not expecting a response, Button Boy turned to another ‘sailor’ with glasses halfway down his crooked nose. “See your honor, I told you we could mimic those outlaws and he would be too foolish to know the difference!”

I was just happy they were not laughing at me!

“Where is the captain?” I croaked, looking around the silent bank.

“Where all the killers go,” Button Boy traced an imaginary line across his throat.

“Killers?”

“Feinting ignorance will not save you,” Button Boy snarled. The captain’s coat slumped to the ground as he knelt beside me. “Everyone in Ingolstadt knows what you Frankenstein’s are about,” his palm opened to show the jewelry I had paid him earlier. “You conspire with the Deep Ones for earthly riches! Unhallowed servant of Satan, you will bring the devil’s work to our city no more!” He called to a man beside my wagon, “Split the crate! Show him how much we know.”

The man threw one of my crates to the ground and a group of three smashed the wood with the ends of their muskets. I held back a cry at the splintering wood, for each crack widened the gap in my heart that whispered I would never see Mama or any of my family ever again. My agony turned to confusion as what rested in the crate was not mushrooms at all, but more sealed vases. An angry kick shattered one and a dark red spilled out. After years of walking through former battlefields, I recognized the familiar scent of blood!

The captain’s remark floated to the surface of my skull and popped with a ferocity that rattled me—that is the finest chemical France has to offer! Only thing those hounds are good for.

“Paying outlaws to gather your wicked supplies?” Button Boy hissed. His face was redder than the blood spreading toward us. “Who were they? Fleeing refugees no one would miss? I doubt the specifics would keep a monster like you from sleeping at night. Rest assured; we will make this the last night you live.”

“Lock him up,” the man beside Button Boy tinkered with his thick glasses. “We have the evidence to execute him on the morrow.”

Button Boy nodded. “We will make an example of you, Frankenstein. Of what happens to those who play god.”

“You are mistaken,” I protested. My head throbbed from illness and shock as I fought to act on these dreadful revelations. “I would never stand for such heinous dealings!”

But Curwen?

The surrounding faces were contorted in a mixture of terror and rage. Not even Button Boy had a trace of trickery in those blue eyes. These men were homesteaders protecting their loved ones from villains. Villains like me, I realized with a shudder, as the spreading blood left its sickly trail of red on the stones. Even as they led me away, I knew I had to remain their only target. Maybe it was from shock or disbelief, but I could not expose Curwen to these men. His success was wrapped up with my family, and amidst all the lies and chaos, the image of Mama holding me in her white dress was all I had to cling too.

[madscientistjournal]

An Interview with George Salis

Today, we’re chatting with MSJ alum George Salis, who has a new novel, Sea Above, Sun Below coming out from River Boat Books.

Upside-down lightning, a group of uncouth skydivers, resurrections, a mother’s body overtaken by a garden, aquatic telepathy, a peeling snake-priest, and more. Sea Above, Sun Below is influenced by Western myths, some Greek, some with biblical overtones, resulting in a fusion of fantastic dreams, bizarre yet beautiful nightmares, and multiple narrative threads that form a tapestry which depicts the fragility of characters teetering on the brink of madness.

DV: Tell us a little about yourself and your writing background.

George Salis: I’m a Swiss-Greek-American bibliophile and, by natural extension, a linguaphile who has just come out with his first novel, Sea Above, Sun Below.

I first started writing with any serious literary intent about halfway through college. Also, I started reading novels seriously around that time, after having ditched fantasy and other genre work in high school in order to read science-popularizing books. My nascent ambition was simply to write a story and then another and another. Of course, as momentum built, I became distracted by the external concerns of the writing world, wanting to be published in popular journals, obtain awards and residencies and an MFA, etc. Thankfully, these distractions did not last too long, and I soon realized how circumstantial if not totally meaningless most of them are.

My focus came back totally to the words themselves when I discovered the vast world of buried books and neglected authors. I learned that the work of these writers is usually much better than what people are told to read by The New York Times and other mainstream echo-chambers. It’s often the case that these neglected authors write works that are entirely devoid of the distractions named above and more, thus they are pure and fresh and stimulating. And so, in communion with writers such as Rikki Ducornet, Joseph McElroy, Wendy Walker, João Ubaldo Ribeiro, and many others, I write with freedom of intellect and imagination. Words are now my world.

DV: What was the inspiration for your novel?

GS: There was a kaleidoscope of inspirations, both before I wrote the novel and during, so it’s difficult to pinpoint one. I could potentially break it down into two chief mandalas, as it were: Icarus and Adam/Eve. In a way, my novel is a roundabout interpretation of those myths. But myths by nature do not exist in vacuums. The fall of Icarus echoes the fall of Satan which echoes the fall of Man which echoes the fall of Finnegan which echoes the recurrent falls of the skydivers in my novel. Most of these connections and more can be found within or between the stories that make up Sea Above, Sun Below.

DV: Your novel pulls together a lot of disparate elements. What do you consider the glue that binds them all together?

GS: I believe everything is connected. Considering everything is made of atoms, this is a scientific fact. But there are also more esoteric connections between things. Phenomena that might put the chaos into chaos theory. With this in mind, the structure of Sea Above, Sun Below features stories within stories, but even more than that, stories beside stories, connected on a thematic and genetic level, the science of aviation and ancestry, the science of nature. There are three main parts, but depending on how you count, there are about ten tales that weave into each other to form a tapestry. My inspiration for the structure can be traced to The Thousand and One Nights and Cloud Atlas, to name a couple of examples.

From an interpretative standpoint, a lot more connections can be projected by each unique reader.

DV: What is the coolest thing about being an author?

GS: I love to write because I love living in a world of words and the act of writing itself almost regularly brings epiphanies both large and small—revelations related to words, story, coincidence, and more. It feels great to exorcise my mind of obsessions and dreams, to literally have a hand in their birth, raising them into something beyond the nascent mental form they once existed as. This is the almost solipsistic joy that comes from writing, although I’d like to think that such joy is manifest on the page and can be shared with readers.

And speaking of readers, it’s also wonderful to see how they are responding to my novel on Goodreads (see here). Some people compare my writing to Borges or Ballard or Rushdie while others say I shirk all influences. I love seeing how readers interpret the prose and the work as a whole in their own unique and overlapping ways.

DV: What are you working on next?

GS: I’m over 130,000 words into an encyclopedic novel titled Morphological Echoes. I’ve been working on it for about three years and I have a few more years of work ahead of me. It’s a book that contains a universe of stories, connected across time and space by the rearrangement of schizoid atoms, the transmutation of the laws of physics. It’s a polyphonic, multilinear, omni-temporal epic with thematic and syntactic echoes, taking place in 1940s Japan, 9/11 New York, medieval France, ancient Egypt, Neolithic prehistory, and more, with a broken family at its kaleidoscopic core. The novel begins with a myth, a truth: the moon gives birth to a boy, and when he grows weary of life on the landscape of his mother, he yearns for a strange planet called Earth. After quarreling with his mother over the course of years, she eventually concedes with sadness, and she breathes in with the elasticity of a balloon, causing the moon boy to sink with her surface, and she breathes out, a supernal sigh that sends him on a trajectory straight toward the Earth….

An Interview with George Salis was originally published on Mad Scientist Journal

[greetingsfromthebottomofthewell]

THE GALLERY OF HENRI BEAUCHAMP

[source] [triggers]

before doing a bit of research before posting it, i had no idea that a “green fairy” had anything to do with alcohol. i just thought that was interesting.

If you go into this one tiny, dingy one-story bar in Paris, and the right bartender is behind the counter that night, you might be able to see a very exclusive gallery show of the lost works of one Henri Beauchamp. But, to get in, you have to prove you're a devotee of the artist.

You'll be asked, in clear and perfect English, "What would like to partake of this glorious night?" Answer "absinthe", no matter what. Any other drink, from whiskey to water, will kill you as you sleep.

The next question will regard the type, and you MUST answer one of two things: "The stuff that Man himself could not bear to take," or, "The good stuff. The best stuff." If you ask for any other absinthe, in any other way, you will be plagued by nightmares for 13 days. Each night's dream will be more horrible than the last, until, upon the thirteenth dream, your nightmare will follow you, every moment of your waking and sleeping life.

Don't try and cheat the barkeep: the door locked behind you. You have to drink what he gives you, doom or not. That such a powerful man granted you audience should be enough. Besides, I've heard that the dying complimented his drinks in their death throes.

If you make it that far before sealing your fate, the bartender will say, "Be sure you handle this with care; this is the finest I have." From here, you may do one of two things: Say, word for word, "I overestimated my fortitude, and I bid you good eve." If the barkeep nods, you may leave the door you entered, unharmed and with nothing gained and nothing lost (except the time spent inside).

Or you can go on.

You will be given a glass with a seven-sided rim, with each side twisting ever so delicately around the basin until forming a sleek and simple handle. You will also receive a very, very, very special absinthe spoon, in the shape of a key; the holes at the key's top serve as the draining point for the alcohol to pour over the sugar cube. And, of course, an unmarked bottle, stripped long ago of its label, scraps of paper sticking to its sides, covered in the rot of the decades past.

The spoon is completely flat, but has two distinct sides: one with a groove along the shaft of the key, and one without. Turn the shaft down, so its groove will be face down. If you attempt this face up, your absinthe will taste foul, your nose will burn, and your eyes will shrivel in their sockets with unspeakable horrors not of this world.

Now, if your spoon is the right way up, begin preparing the absinthe as one would (put the sugar on the spoon, and pour the alcohol over so it gains its color and "special qualities").

Say "cheers" to your friend, the barkeep, and bottoms up. If you don't, the absinthe will burn every innard it touches with the power and pain of sulfuric acid.

If you've done it right, the already dim lights will go off, and darkness will consume the bar. Don't be afraid; the darkness is the cue that you've been approved for the exhibit. Wait out the darkness, and keep silent as the dead, lest the bartender decide to make you so.

Eventually (not too long, two to three minutes), a green floodlight will shine brightly on a door on the far wall of the bar. The bar will be bathed in green, and not just from the floodlight. Little luminescent spheres will gently drift through the room, and the barkeep will no longer be there...nor any other unassuming patron inside before.

There's no danger by this point...consider it a safe point. If you didn't finish the absinthe, you don't have to, but you might need the alcohol. Either way, take the spoon and put it in the keyhole of the green-lit portal's doorknob. It will fit perfectly, and reach the end of the keyhole with a resounding click.

Inside is a small elevator, with the most beautiful woman any mortal eyes can imagine, bathed in the green glow in just such an angle that the light refracts beyond her into the shape of wings.

The Green Fairy herself will ask you, "Going up?”, and considering all the trouble you went through, it would only make sense to say yes.

Now, you have one more hurdle to clear. She will ask you, as you cross the line from the bar to the compartment, "How would you compare Beauchamp's surrealism to that of, say, René Magritte?" For your reply, you must say, "I've come to see more than art tonight."

If you don't, the green floodlight will blow out, the doors will slam shut, and the elevator will plummet through a seemingly infinite blackness before a red light grows brighter as the elevator nears the very depths of Hell.

Now, if your elevator begins to go up, the green light will also fade, but in its place will be the cool glow of the moon. But, before you even recognize it, the elevator will reach the top of its...well, let's call it a shaft to not get too intricate.

Now, I'm not as sure about this as the rest, but I've heard that, if the Green Fairy kisses you on the cheek as she leaves the elevator, you will always be blessed with a creative inspiration: a permanent, ever-changing muse. You can't ask her, you can't kiss her; she has to do it of her own volition. If not...well, nothing, but no reason to do it anyway and anger the woman who is responsible for keeping the Beauchamp paintings safe for so many years.

You will enter, from the elevator, a turn-of-the-century parlor, with a large poster of Henri Beauchamp on the left side of the opposite wall; on the right is a door.

Taking the time to read the poster is a fairly good idea, as it explains the very significance of Monsieur Beauchamp. You see, he was a struggling surrealist in the 1920's, always making art to try to be free of all premeditation, and managed to do so. You see, after one night in a tiny, dingy one-story bar in Paris, he began to paint...patterns.

First it was geometric patterns. Then complete fractals. Then images that would be in the newspaper the next day. Then next week. Then from fifty years ago. One hundred years in the future, two hundred years in the past...

Then, on his last night of life, he kidnapped three young girls from their homes at night, murdered them, and painted his finest masterpieces in reds and yellows with the blood and bile of virgins.

He committed suicide immediately after painting exactly 13 of these.

These are behind the door.

The first six, from the left, show, from left to right: the genesis of the universe, the only true visage of God as viewable to the eyes of man, the true image of Jesus Christ, the sprawling clouds of Heaven, every Pope from the first to faces not yet recognizable, and a portrait of Jesus' appearance in his Second Coming.

The other six, on the right, show, from right to left: the cataclysm of the universe, the only true visage of Satan as viewable to the eyes of man, the true image of Judas, the sprawling flames of Hell, every human-embodied demon from the first to faces not yet recognizable, and a portrait of the Antichrist in his Second Coming.

Now, six and six makes twelve. But what of the thirteenth?

This thirteenth painting is turned around on its wall pin, the image facing the wall. The space around it is roped up at a very wide diameter, and under the flipped image is a sign, in three languages. The top is in the scriptures of the Seraphim, the bottom in the runes of the highest demonic orders, and in the middle, in Roman letters.

DO

NOT

TOUCH

Now, like the kiss, I can't say this part with as much certainty, but all the same...I heard that, somehow, as he died, Beauchamp flayed his skin, his organs, his very soul, into some sort of collage. How he took his dead body and created such a horrific masterpiece, I could never say, nor would I ever dare to.

So...if you make it, maybe you can flip the canvas over and tell me sometime? You can tell me about it over a drink.

[gothic-fiction-in-space]

~ THE ROOTS OF HORROR SCI-FI: FRANKEINSTEIN ~

Mary Shelley’s “FRANKEINSTEIN” (at the beginning called also “The Modern PROMETHEUS”) is considered the first science fiction (an horror sci-fi, a gothic fiction). The first Alien movie was an horror science fiction too, and this prequel saga seems to bring us back in time, at the time of the Frankeinstein’s monster. That’s not a new topic in sci-fi movies, not a new topic for Ridley Scott himself: Blade Runner (for example), already has some references to Mary Shelley’s novel. What connections can we find between the story that unfolds in Prometheus and Alien Covenant and the story of Frankeinstein? The novel is about a young university student, Victor Frankeinstein, that has always wanted to discover “how nature works”. He’s no “mad scientist”, he’s no mad man. He’s so brilliant and passionate in his studies, that suddenly finds himself with an incredible power in his hands: the power to create life from death (David is pretty obsessed with the connection life-death, destruction-creation too, and he creates the fagehuggers with Elizabeth’s dead body). Frankeinstein decides to use his power to accomplish the most difficult and glorious goal, building a man (not a more simple animal). Frankeinstein is moved by scientific curiosity, by the desire to solve the problems that afflicts mankind (death, illness… ) and by the desire to make creatures that would have rejoiced him as their creator, a good creator. That makes us think a bit about Weyland, because he solved lots of the problems of mankind and because he built a man (David) that could call him his creator. That makes us think a bit about David too: David created the Xenomorph because he wanted to give life to some creatures that would have considered him their “father”. We already have two “scientists” in this story. But David is also Weyland’s monster. In Mary Shelley’s novel, all the problems begin because Victor, soon after he has given life to his creature, rejects him because he’s an hideous wretch. The story is the tragedy of the monster who is so ugly that all men fear him and force him into solitude. The monster is forced to learn how to live by himself, because his father abandoned him. The monster then turns his creator life’s into a nightmare, killing all his beloved ones for revenge. Weyland knows the story of Frankenstein. Weyland thinks to be far better than Victor: he didn’t created a monster, he created David, a very handsome android, and he gave him all the gifts he could (David doesn’t age, he can’t die, he can’t “feel the heat of the stars or the cold of the moon”). Weyland is a creator who did all he could do for his creature. Weyland is a “winner”, he built “better worlds”, so, he also creates “better men”. But that doesn’t change the crucial problem of the “monster”: Weyland doesn’t love David. He wants to be called “father”, he says that David is the most similar thing to a son to him, but yet, David feels, right from the start, that he’s no really a “son” to him, as a son should be, as a son generally is.

David: “Am I?” Weyland: “Perfect?” David: “Your son”

As soon as David is “born”, Weyland is satisfied to see that he’s perfect, his “living” Michelangelo’s David statue is no Frankeinstein’s monster. But David is interested in something else: he wants to know if he’s really a son to him. He soon realizes that he’s not. He’s not loved. David is the symbol of Weyland’s godly status, he’s the piece of finest art that makes Weyland a creator, that makes him worthy to “enters to Walhalla”.

Weyland (to the Engineer, in a deleted scene of Prometheus): “Do you see this man? My company built him from nothing. I made him, and I made him in my own image, so he would be perfect, so he would never fail. I deserve this, ‘cause you and I… we are superior… we are creators… we are Gods. And Gods never die”

The most important question of humanity: where did we came from? It’s the question that permeates all Prometheus movie and that opens Alien Covenant. Weyland asks that question when David is born. David makes that question himself, inside of him. But David finds the answer in few minutes. David has his creator in front of him. “Where did I came from”, “who I am”, “where am I going” are the questions that give meaning to human life; mankind looks for an answer to these questions. In Mary Shelley’s novel, the monster asks these questions to himself a lot of times, because at the beginning he doesn’t know who he is or who created him. He really wants to know. The novel shows us that the question “where did I came from” is connected to another extremely important question that is basically the other face of the medal: “WAS I LOVED?” Weyland explains David that without an answer to the question “where did I came from” life is meaningless, all the works of art are meaningless. Unfortunately, David already has the answer: he comes from Weyland. And here’s the next question connected to the first one: “was I loved?” No. David is not loved by the man who brought him to life. All the answers David gets are extremely disappointing. David’s life is meaningless. Few minutes after his birth, David learns that he’s born to serve Weyland. He’s Weyland’s work of art and his key to find his creators, and no more. During his life, David see how humans have no kindness towards him, because he’s a robot, a machine in human shape. David is no “monster”, he’s handsome, but people are scared by him because his humanity is unnatural. He’s like the David of Michelangelo “so human but not really human”. He’s too similar to them. They find that resemblance creepy. That’s a huge frustration: what’s the purpose to be so handsome and clever if David can’t be treated by humans as an equal? But David is disillusioned. He knows the truth right from the start.

Frankeinstein’s monster: “You, my creator, abhor me; what hope can I gather from your fellow-creatures, who owe me nothing?”

The monster has been rejected by the one who created him, he wasn’t loved by him, so, he can’t hope to be loved by people not related to him. That’s also David’s situation. That’s the problem of Prometheus movie: humans look for their creators, for different reasons, the creators can make them happy, that’s what they hope. When Holloway starts to fear that he will never manage to talk to the Engineers, he gets drunk. Holloway wats to ask to the Engineers why they created mankind. David already has the answer in the answer his creators gave him: “we made you because we could”. Stop. No love. No meaning of life (Alien universe is a very dark and sad universe). Victor Frankeinstein made his creature for the same reason too: he finds the power to do it, he does it, without a second thought. David hates both humans and Engineers because they both create with irresponsibility. The monster of Frankeinstein decided to identifies himself with Satan against his God (Victor), even if he should have been his Adam. David identifies with Satan too in Alien Covenant. They both red Paradise Lost and got inspired by that poem. They both are lonely, even if Milton’s Satan has his fellows devils. So, David is a true mix of Lucifer and Frankeinstein’s monster, because he’s really evil deep inside him, but at the same time, he truly feel the need to be loved, (even if maybe he can’t fully acknowledge that, always for pride. Frankeinstein’s monster is ready to leave all his evil thoughts in exchange of love, but I think David isn’t interested in accepting love alone, at all, it seems to me that David wants to go on on his way no matter what). This Alien prequel saga is FULL OF FRANKEINSTEIN’S MONSTERS: David is Weyland’s monster, but humans are the monsters created by the Engineers: mankind too looks for the creators but he’s sadly rejected by them. Weyland searches immortality as a gift from his creators, Elizabeth searches answers.

Elizabeth: “I need to know why!”

That’s something that Frankeinstein’s monster too could have said.

What David choses to do in this situation?? His life has no meaning, and he’s superior to every other creature in the galaxy. When Weyland dies, David decides to become an “artist”, and to fill the void of his existence becoming a creator himself. A better creator, a better father than the previous ones. To create is a way to say to the universe you truly existed. David is built fearless. David can’t get tired. David has all the time he needs to try to accomplish his goals. David decides to basically START ALL OVER AGAIN. David decides to reset the entire universe and write something new… also because “nothing is written”, not “for some men”, the ones who are “the dreamers of the day”, that are “dangerous men” (David doesn’t sleep and ends up believing to be able to dream, to metaphorically dream, so, he literally dreams with his eyes open… ) At first, he decides to do that with the “cooperation” and the company of Elizabeth (Elizabeth is also the name of Victor Frankeinstein’s girlfriend, and she’s killed by the monster), the only human that showed him kindness, the woman he truly loves in his amoral and flawed way, but she refuses to be part of David’s “second Eden” and David ends up killing her to prevent her leaving him (one of the crucial problem of Frankeinstein’s monster was finding a way to have a female companion). David “moves forward”, David decides to become “the new Engineer” and to erase the previous “dying species” to substitutes them with his creations. His sons. The ones who “trust him”. The alien monsters who will never suffer because they are ready to survive no matter what (a bit like David himself), monsters that maybe are “perfect” because they don’t ask fundamental questions anymore, because they are “unclouded by conscience, remorse or delusion of morality”.

(Sorry for the long post ☺️)

(Table of Contents:

https://gothic-fiction-in-space.tumblr.com/post/164533391538/table-of-contents-1-the-romanticism-of-alien

)

[mst3kproject]

1003: Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders – Part I

Before I sought it out to do this review, I had never seen Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders in any format but the MST3K episode, and even that I'd only seen once.  At some point in the planning stages of this blog I realized I was going to have to review it, and it actually gave me pause.  I seriously considered scuppering the whole project because I didn't want to watch this movie a second time.  In fact, I still haven't watched it again.  I'm writing this intro paragraph as a way of putting off watching the movie for a few minutes longer.

Why is a little hard to explain.  I don't hate this movie, but I sure as hell don't like it.  Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders isn't offensively bad like Attack of the The Eye Creatures, or even just plain offensive like Project Moon Base.  It is, however, intensely uncomfortable in its combination of cheery childlike imagery with what the Brains used to call 'good old-fashioned nightmare fuel', and something about it utterly repels me so deep in my gut it feels like appendicitis.  I use random.org to decide which movie I'm gonna watch next, and this one's number just came up... so after putting it off for a couple of weeks (thank heaven I have a buffer), I've decided the thing to do is just put on my Big Kid Pants and get it the hell over with so I never, ever have to watch it again.

Merlin the magician has used his powers to time-travel to modern California so that he can teach people to believe in magic again.  Among the first visitors to his Shop of Mystical Wonders are Madeline, a woman who can't have children, and her husband Jonathan, who announces his intention to give Merlin a bad review on Yelp or something.  At the urging of his own wife Zurella, Merlin gives Jonathan a book of magic to try to change his mind, and Jonathan tries it out that night in his basement.  Sure enough, the spells work, but after summoning Satan and breathing fire on his cat, Jonathan has expended so much of his life force that he has aged about forty years!  He tries to reverse the process but turns himself into a really ugly baby, granting Madeline's wish for a child to raise.

Now, this is all presented as if it's supposed to be very whimsical.  The interior of Merlin's shop looks like a cross between Galadriel's Glade in Lothlorien and the inside of a Rainforest Cafe.  Merlin himself is a Value Village Dumbledore and Zurella wears a brightly-coloured Renaissance-inspired outfit and gives out wishing stones.  This really ought to be a cheerful family film with a musical number sung by gnomes or something.  Instead, almost everything we see is straight out of a nightmare.  In fact, there is so much nightmare fuel in this movie that I quickly realized it wasn't all going to fit in a single review of my normal length.  That's why I've split both my summary and my analysis in two: if you want to hear about demonic cymbal monkeys, you're going to have to wait a bit.  For this session, let's stick to Jonathan's mercifully brief foray into wizardry.

Jonathan himself comes across as a person who should definitely not be given magical powers.  He mocks everything he sees in grating narration and laughs at the idea of driving small businesses into bankruptcy.  I think we all have a co-worker like him: one of those people who think everything they have to say is so very interesting, and cannot seem to take the hint that we want them to shut up and go away.  That person we would punch in the face if it weren't for the fact that everybody else would have to listen to him talking about it later.  He's a nightmare in himself, and his attitude, demanding that Merlin placate him or suffer the consequences, tells us that the power he wields through his newspaper column is already more than he can handle.

Sure enough, when Jonathan begins playing with Merlin's spellbook he doesn't even try to resist the corruption that this new form of power offers him.  He breathes fire, tortures his cat, and when a demon appears in his mirror it never seems to occur to him that Satan probably doesn't give very good advice.  By the time he finds the youth potion, he's gone all maniacal-eyed as he literally drinks his wife's blood.  The audience can only imagine that if he'd managed to master the powers of the book he would have become a modern-day Dark Lord and we'd all be forced to worship at his feet, as Mike and Crow kneel at Tom Servo's hoverskirt in the opening sketch.

Then there's the ending.  The idea of a man turning into a baby so that his child-less wife can raise him is a deeply uncomfortable one. Part of this is because the story never bothers to ask whether baby-Jonathan retains adult-Jonathan's mind.  Is he a blank slate for Madeline to mold into a less-offensive adult?  Or is he fully aware that he once had sex with the woman who is now changing his diaper?  What about Madeline herself?  She must know who the baby crawing out of her husband's clothing is.  Will she be able to be a good mother to him, or will her parenting always be coloured by remembering how Jonathan used to treat her?  And that's not even going into how twenty seconds of film here contains more Oedipal subtext than the entirety of Quest for the Mighty Sword. Just thinking about it makes me want a shower.

Also, that really is an ugly baby, and this is coming from somebody who's normally a big fan of babies.  Objectively I know that babies are nothing but immobile little loaf-shaped people with flailing limbs and no bowel control, and I don't want to have to change diapers or wipe snotty noses or listen to crying in the middle of the night – but when I see a baby, something in my hindbrain takes over and says adorable, must cuddle.  Big babies, small babies, fat babies, scrawny babies, bald babies, babies with hair... I love babies!  Except this one.  I find myself wondering if they did some makeup or something to try to make the kid look more like Jonathan... if they did, it didn't work.  If they didn't... then ew. That is one ugly baby.

Was this story meant to be nightmarish and uncomfortable?  The title Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders certainly doesn't sound like it belongs to a horror story.  The shop itself is whimsical enough, and there's sort of a happy ending in which I guess Madeline got what she wanted and Jonathan learned his lesson... kinda.  Some of the magical effects Jonathan produces, like the repelling spell, the diamonds, and the levitation, are treated as jokes.  But I think even if the TV show that this is so obviously a pilot for was meant to be relatively light-hearted, at least this episode was supposed to be a horror story.  The reason why has a lot to do with what Jonathan tries to do to his cat.

The narrator explains to us that the potion force-fed to the cat will turn it into a familiar – a helper animal so utterly loyal as to be willing to die for its master.  The audience will immediately notice that this description is diametrically opposed to the very nature of cats as we popularly percieve them.  Cats are thought of as aloof and self-serving creatures, with no interest in coming when they're called, never mind in doing what they're told. (People who own cats know, of course, that cats are actually clingy dumbasses who only like to pretend they think they're better than you – and contrary to popular belief, they're quite capable of learning to obey commands and even do tricks.  It's just that training isn't thought of as essential to the human-pet relationship like it is with dogs, and so most people don't bother.)

So here's Jonathan, trying to turn his cat into the opposite of what cats are 'supposed' to be, completely nullifying the animal's own will and personality.  That's a horrifying concept.  There also seems to be an element of spite in it, as Jonathan mockingly tells the cat, “you're about to learn the true meaning of obedience!” When Jonathan doesn't like a shop, he destroys its reputation.  When he doesn't like an animal, he destroys its mind.  If he'd managed to master the spells and make himself ruler of the universe or whatever, what does all this suggest he would have done to people? Then, when he is unable to enslave the cat (I think we’re meant to believe it attacks him because he got the potion wrong... but trying to rip its owner’s face off is the perfectly normal reaction of a cat having anything forced down its throat), he literally kills it with fire.  That's the kind of thing Nero did to the Christians!  So yeah, this much at least is supposed to give us nightmares.

At the end of this part of the story, I suppose Merlin has at least succeeded in getting Jonathan and Madeline to believe in magic, which he did say was his goal.  Maybe Jonathan will grow up again to understand that magic is not a power to mock or take lightly – and neither, I suppose, are shop reviews.  Maybe Madeline will be able to find hope knowing that miracles can happen as long as you don't get picky about how they happen.  Maybe magic is something we're supposed to believe in the way we believe in... oh, say, safe driving.  Those in command of something that could cause death or property damage need to learn to wield it with respect for it and for everybody around them.  That actually seems like a fairly plausible lesson for this part of the movie.

But then there's the 'evil monkey' sequence, which is actually a whole different movie.  See you next week. Fuck, I'm gonna have to watch this stupid movie again after all!

[pigeonacademic]

pipermccloud So far, i've made other alien species for the gems to interact with; some they've fought, some they're neutral with, others they've aided (or been aided by) and some they've opened trade with

thegemnants that's cool! i think it's really neat for the gems to actually be involved in intergalatic affairs with other species. considering how much of the universe they must've combed through, it would make sense for them to have at least met ONE species as powerful as them.

pipermccloud Yep! Could also be a reason why they need a lot of planets and why they had to quickly churn out half-baked gems for the war

pipermccloud Because resources were low by fighting an even bigger war

thegemnants in my fic, red diamond once commit genocide against an entire species which the gems were allied with, and because of that, the gems were ex communicated from the Union... which is one of the reasons why red diamond is so awful and yeah, if there were other aliens, it would make sense why the gems need more resources

pipermccloud The Union? I haven't heard much of REd Diamond Are you going to make a post on it? I need to go downstairs to check on my sisters real quick

thegemnants The Union is just a generic term I'm using to refer to the alignment between the other aliens :P and i do think you've seen red diamond, i'm probably going to draw some more intimidating pix of her

pipermccloud ! ^-^ I've seen her before, and she does look like she'll crush you if you so much aas look at her funny

thegemnants yep! because she did that horrible atrocity to the alien species, gemkinds reputation tarnished. but it doesn't end there, because red diamond was also exiled from the gempire as a whole. not just because she commit that genocide, but because of how she did it-- forcing fusion with the other 4 Diamonds.

pipermccloud BIG YIPES

thegemnants So, Red Diamond was cast out, and took her Court with her, vanishing to create her own empire. And she was gone for millions of years before returning, stronger than ever. There's more to it than that, but yeeeeah, that's red diamond's story :'D

pipermccloud DAMN SHE'S HORRIFYING Suggested nickname for her: The Red Death

thegemnants absolutely! :D Sometimes I wanna call her Blood Diamond, which is an actual term! but, you knooooow gems dont have blood :'D

pipermccloud Pfffft! True So, how is her empire like? I bet she was real rough on them now that she was on her ow n

thegemnants it's a dystopian hellscape where gems are shattered for showing the slightest bit of disrespect or noncomfority. yellow wishes she had the heart to be this intense. the only gems free from red diamond's wrath are her pearl and her zirconia, because they've been so brainwashed that they would never even THINK of doing something that would upset their diamond.

pipermccloud sent a GIF

holy cow- So, she's a dictator basically, a warmonger?

thegemnants HellllLLLL YEAH!

thegemnants and the thing is, she and her court live entirely on ships she leaves nothing left of the planets she harvests Gems from

pipermccloud OOH o-o She makes them go ka-boom. Out of not wanting to leave a trace, leave any resources for the others or just because of sadism?

thegemnants mostly just wanting to be undetectable now, what if i told you, that in my fic, there's someone worse than red diamond :'D

pipermccloud Okay, how can anyone other than Space Satan herself be more terrifying- I'm curious how o_o

thegemnants So, you may be wondering this, not just in fic sense but just in SU canon general.

thegemnants Where did the Diamonds come from? Well, a long time ago, a burst of magic born of the gap between universe brought life to a planet of carbon. Not of carbon-based minerals or carbon-based organisms, but purely of the element Carbon. "I want friends, I want friends," she cried, this living Carbon.

pipermccloud O-O

thegemnants So, from her body, she created 5 children: the Diamonds. Red, Pink, Blue, Yellow, and White. "But it's not enough" So, after a while, Carbon sent her children out to make "more friends" Thus, the first Gem Colony was created "But it's not enough, it will never be enough"

thegemnants So, the Diamonds continued to spread out, taking planet after planet, creating Gem after Gem

pipermccloud O_O

thegemnants However, after a supernova, the Diamonds were seperated from Carbon. Even though she no longer had her grasp on them, the Diamonds were still terrified of what would happen if they didn't please her. So they kept grabbing planets and making Gems.

pipermccloud holy cow

thegemnants But then, guess what? When Red Diamond was banished, she went to the other side of the universe

pipermccloud what

thegemnants AND GUESS WHO SHE FOUND AND BROUGHT BACK TO HOMEWORLD

pipermccloud CARBON

thegemnants AND GUESS WHAT CARBON DID WHEN SHE GOT TO HOMEWORLD TO PUNISH THE CHILDREN WHO WERE SO CRUEL TO HER SISTER AND SO RUDE TO HAVE NEVER LOOKED FOR HER

thegemnants SHE TOOK A BIG BITE OUT OF IT AND ABSORBED BILLIONS OF GEMS INTO HER BODY and when i say absorbed, i mean they are digesting forever inside of her while being completely concious and part of a hivemind so yeah, carbon is the "final boss" of the fic

pipermccloud I cannot find a gif for the life of me to express how horrific that is So, Cluster but over 90000 holy shit

thegemnants Yep! And that's the entire reason why Yellow wants the Cluster. What better to take out a planet-sized monster than a planet-sized monster?

thegemnants It probably would've only served as a distraction, though.

pipermccloud How many gems know of Carbon's existence? For the newer ones, is she regarded as a myth?

pipermccloud Also, what does Carbon look like?

thegemnants oooh, carbon being a scary myth that agates used to scare new recruits is actually a really good idea!

pipermccloud :D

thegemnants originally i was gonna go with a 'just diamonds know', but very, VERY old gems probably know, too and carbon is like a giant, black planet, slightly larger than earth, with a face a fucked-up nightmare face and she reflects no light have you heard of hellstar remina? that's what i'm envisioning carbon to look like, but all dark and stuff

pipermccloud I haven't actually, but holy-cow, imagine her eclipsing Homeworld..a dark shadow falls across the gempire, and wait-does it have TEETH AND EYES-

heres a picture of remina from hellstar remina basically something like this mixed with the face of an elderly woman

pipermccloud !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! pipermccloud sent a GIF

You got an eye for nightmare fuel

thegemnants awww thank you ;w;

pipermccloud She's VERY terrifying, both in personality AND appearance Red Diamond is practically Mother Thersa compared to her, isn't she?

thegemnants pretty much! :'D even red is terrified of her at first red wanted to pull a "mommy, my siblings were mean to me! aren't you going to punish them?" but when carbon took that nice, juicy bite out of homeworld she immediately went to "WTF MOM THIS ISNT WHAT I MEANT!"

pipermccloud Classic mom, always misunderstanding and doing things her own way-

pipermccloud Is it likely she'll take a bite out of her own kids too?

thegemnants they'd have to do something reeeeeally bad for that to happen, so while possible, not likely not that it's much of a solace, considering she'll still breath down your neck and cause constant anxiety with her moon-sized eyes staring down at you

pipermccloud eugg I feel so sorry for all the Diamonds even Red And this also just gave me an idea for art! How many Diamonds did Carbon have again-

thegemnants 5, but she could probably make more if she wanted. she just chooses not to :D

pipermccloud "Okay, five's enough for me, this bunch is getting out of hand."

thegemnants not to mention, since she literally turns parts of her body into the diamonds, it would probably hurt a lot huhuhu

pipermccloud Ooh, planet-version of labor pain I'm going out on a limb here and guessing she likes Red better than the others? thegemnants Well, in her eyes, Red DID come and find her, even if it wasn't actually intended. So, she probably liked Red the best. Speaking of RD's dystopian style gempire, how much does it differ from Homeworld?

thegemnants i guess it's just really... tight. homeworld as we see it in the show seems pretty bland and generic as far as alien empires go, but in my fic, i want it to be like a mirror of earth where some things are similar but the things that are different are so vastly different that its hard to wrap your head around it. (not saying that my version is better, im just not a fan of the way this show is handling its mythology)

thegemnants Whereas Red Diamond is just a complete warrior culture where none of the members have any free time at all (except for RD's Pearl and Zirconia)They're always training, training, training, working, working, working. Ship builders and engineers and mechanics have to be constantly on their toes, since the Court lives solely on ships Soldiers have to be constantly sparring one another until exhaustion cycles into movation Sapphires have to novelize any and all visions Mages have to work on spells, Tourmalines have to work on maps, Agates have to constantly supervise, etc etc etc There is literally no room for anything else

Architect wise, how do the ships look inside and out?

thegemnants big enough to be cities, but inside, it's mostly just angular and grey monotonousness. but the gems in RD's court are just so used to it that they can tell the slightest differences in these highly-similar locations to find their way around and yes, shattering always is a fear sans those higher-up, who are the only ones allowed to show any sign of slack Do they have a uniform or is it a variety, as long as it allows them to function?

thegemnants it's all uniform per gem race, although, i suppose somewhat thankfully, red diamond does like to get fancy with it thegemnants I feel like she'd prefer to stay sedentary unless she has a reason to move. Although I also think she has a room where she goes when she's upset where she just fucking beats up statues to get her stress out.  @ufolotus

[ofroyalmajesty]

Important Notes// An FYI

Here are some important Notes I need to add to my ABOUT MY LUNA page to avoid future confusion with people.

My Nightmare Moon is canon-divergent (AU), looks slightly different from the one in the show and is more concerned with shedding the “truth” onto Equestria than just ruling it. She is a Lucifer/Satan-like figure in the vein of Milton’s character from the poem “Paradise Lost” (you should def. read it if you haven’t. It’s long-winded but beautiful).

My Luna has D.I.D. that is the cause of her NMM dilemma and NMM occurs because of suppressed inner power from parental and family abuse that convinced her psychologically that she was the weakest alicorn in the family.

My Luna is a cambion. (I will explain what that is if you ask me, which also explains the “nightmare” curse.)

My Celestia is also canon-divergent/AU.

This is NOT Gamer Luna. She doesn’t play video games. That is a Fanon idea. I reject it.

I am not the same mod/mun of delightfullyevil. That mod/mun has their own wonderful interpretation of Nightmare Moon, distinct to my own.

This is not Queen Moon. Again, that is another interpretation of Nightmare Moon. Do not force those headcanons on my Luna or Moon.

Both of the above blogs are great. You should follow them. I’m not knocking them. I just don’t want their headcanons to be forced on me. My Moon is different from theirs.

Moon did NOT have the “Lunar Republic” during her rebellion. The “Lunar Republic” and “Solar Empire” are both fanon ideas and I choose not to use them. Instead I’ve chosen to just think of them as factions that have arrived AFTER Luna’s return from the moon and neither Princess supports them. Furthermore the name “Lunar Republic” makes little since for a monarch and whoever thought of it didn’t seem to consider that? 

Luna and Celestia have SISTERS somewhere in the universe. 

Luna and Celestia’s mother and father were basically gods.

There was frickin’ nobody named “Faust” in their family.

TL;DR: I have my own headcanons. Do not assume I take in fanon headcanons or other sites’ headcanons. It is best to read my headcanons first or simply ask me. At this point my Luna has an extensive headcanon list. Same goes for my Celestia (Complextia). Someone said “People can only assume” the other day and that is incredibly discouraging. I won’t be answering questions for someone else’s Luna. This isn’t Gamer Luna or Queen Moon or anyone else’s interpretation. It is my own and it’s incredibly insulting when people don’t even read my rules. 

[pretentious-synecdochically]

H.P. Lovecraft’s Dagon

One of H.P. Lovecraft’s most well known works of fiction is Dagon, in which the narrator is a suicidal man addicted to morphine. The story starts off with his final testament about what has happened to him throughout his life that lead him to this point of desperation.

The story is set during World War one, and although we do not know the narrator’s name (For simplicity’s sake, we shall refer to him as ‘N’), we do know his story starts as his cargo ship is captured by a German raider in the pacific, we do not know the contents of the ship or where it was headed to either.

N manages to escape the siege of his ship on a life boat and begins to drift and paddle with no clear direction in mind-- as he doesn’t know exactly where he is within the Pacific ocean. He goes roughly south of the equator. He drifts for endless days with no land insight, wih only the food and water he took from the cargo ship to sustain him (this is why we can assume his recount of the future events was not due to starvation or dehydration). Until one day he falls asleep. While he sleeps horrific nightmares plague him and his boat drifts towards land at last.

When he awakens he discovers “... Myself half sucked into a slimy expanse of hellish black mire which extended about me in monotonous undulations as far as I could see, and in which my boat lay grounded some distance away...” [Source] He has managed to wash up and be thrown from his boat and into a swamp on the shores of some unknown land, as he says the swamp is dark and black and extends as far as his vision allows him to see. 

Despite how fortunate his discovery of land might be viewed, instead of wonderment N is struck by horror at the sight of it all. He finds the scenery sinister from the described ‘rotting soil’ and the air. Dead and decaying fish (along with other creatures) litter the mire. He seems unable to describe the creatures that he sees along side the fish, giving the presumption that these are creatures he has never seen before and are too horrific to convey the appearance of. Typical of the creatures Lovecraft tends to write. He says nothing of trees during this time and so it can be assumed that the land, thus far, is barren of them and the mire he has landed himself in is a particularly soggy plain of land. Black slime coats the area, he is nauseated with his fear. 

Curiously he also describes the sky as black, or dark in colour, as well despite the sun that appears in the cloudless sky. 

As he crawls towards his boat, he begins to theorise as to why the new land he has come upon looks the way he does, and he puts it down to volcanic activity throwing some of the ocean floor onto the surface. though he could not hear anything from the ocean, or spy any sea-birds to prey upon the easy, though rotting, food on the beach.

After three days, unwilling to move far from his boat, he packs some supplies for a trip overland to find the mysteriously absent ocean and for possible civilisation or chance of a rescue.

He travels as far as he can following in the direction of a large mound in the distance, unsure as to what it was among the rather even or flat plains. It takes him four days to reach the base of he mound, which seems to be far higher and larger than he originally expected, as it stands within a large valley. He sleeps by the hill and has dream and nightmare after dream and nightmare-- though he doesn’t know why, it is easy to guess it is due to his close proximity to this large figure. 

There is a reference to Paradise Lost within the text, the originator of the “Sexy Satan” trope, which can be summarised over here: [Link]

He begins to climb down the slope of the valley, though he knows not why he does so. His attention gets captured by the sight of the moon and a large piece of stone. While he is comforted by the fact it merely seems to be stone, he describes it as being “ I was conscious of a distinct impression that its contour and position were not altogether the work of Nature. A closer scrutiny filled me with sensations I cannot express; for despite its enormous magnitude, and its position in an abyss which had yawned at the bottom of the sea since the world was young, I perceived beyond a doubt that the strange object was a well-shaped monolith whose massive bulk had known the workmanship and perhaps the worship of living and thinking creatures.”

Although he is frightened, he considers himself curious and examines the area around him. The moon appears to inhabit the sky in a different manner than it normally would, but true to Lovecraft’s style he does not specify how. He looks again at the monolith and sees that there are runes carved into it, and that the writing was more like a hieroglyphs than it was individual letters forming words. While there were creatures he recognised, there were others that did not have a place in that world or age. Among the carvings were images he believed to have of supposed to depict human beings, or at least some similar humanoid creatures. Once again, Lovecraft declines to describe these creatures in great detail and only mentions that there were some form of grotesque mixture of both humanoid features and those of marine life. He also believes them to be proportioned, for he does not think that one of these creatures could be as large as a whale it is depicted hunting.

Until, of course, he sees one of these creatures and proceeds to go insane. “Of my frantic ascent of the slope and cliff, and of my delirious journey back to the stranded boat, I remember little. I believe I sang a great deal, and laughed oddly when I was unable to sing. I have indistinct recollections of a great storm some time after I reached the boat; at any rate, I know that I heard peals of thunder and other tones which Nature utters only in her wildest moods.”

The next thing he knows he has been brought to a hospital in San Francisco. He apparently had spoken of his experiences but no one had believed him, so he did not insist upon the existence of the things he had seen. He consults an ethnologist about his ordeals and the monolith, but finds nothing he wanted to search for.

He ceases to speak of his past ordeals and talks of his morphine addiction again, and how it is to cope with the things he had seen and his temporary-- or permanent-- madness. He believes he sees the creature from before during the night, it having of hunted it down and is now haunting him.

The story ends with him committing suicide, unwilling to let the creature get to him first.

When it comes to Dagon, the product of an unreliable narrator can make all the difference as to how believable this story is. Especially when considering this as merely a standalone narrative, rather than a product of Lovecraft’s larger universe.

Whether or not one can believe the things that N has described can be put down to potentially three theories.

Theory number one, would be that he is telling the entire truth and all these things did happen. Despite there being no other witnesses, it is unknown by anyone else where N was or what happened to him during the time he was lost at sea. It wouldn’t be unusual for Lovecraft to have a narrator who was not believed about things that were true and thus had the story kept to themselves and their sanity questioned. Lovecraft’s tendency to link his stories together can also play a part, and it is known within his stories that unusual and supernatural things can happen. Such as in The Cats of Ulthar [Link]. 

However, if that is unsatisfactory to the reader, then the next two theories may be more applicable.

N has described himself as having gone mad, singing songs and laughing. Say that the ocean, for a time, had disappeared (Often actually a sign of a tsunami), then the constant sun and lack of provisions may have of driven him to madness or given him hallucinations. These hallucinations may explain why he was unable to describe so much of the story, having of found it too hard or painful to recall. Because he hallucinated it and it never occurred in the first place. Due to this madness, starvation, and sun poisoning, he was hallucinated the experience with the monolith and any events previous and after.

Alternatively: It was the morphine.  N had an addiction to morphine that he claims came from the ordeals he experienced. However, the only times we can confirm his experiences are true is when he is with other people. We can confirm the experience on his ship, for other people were present, and we can confirm him being in the hospital. But anything in between has no other witnesses.  As he is given morphine when rescued in the hospital, it is possible that before he woke up he hallucinated his experiences due to the morphine he was given, and afterwards continued to take morphine to deal with the trauma his mind created to explain the lack of memories between the pirates and the hospital.

His continued use of morphine, and hence hallucinations, may also explain the end of the story. Which says: “The end is near. I hear a noise at the door, as of some immense slippery body lumbering against it. It shall not find me. God, that hand! The window! The window!” He claims to hear something at the door, as he is a morphine addict, and it is known for drugs of a recreational use to activate Schizophrenia if one has the gene, then his auditory and visual hallucinations are easily explained by the drug having of caused him to believe that unnatural beings were coming to potentially end his life.

Of course, We can never know for sure.

[chickenarmageddons]

allll the spooky asks!

Thank you sm ;-; tbh whoever you are, ur an angel and I luv u

Answers under a read more because I went full ramble on one lol

ghost: have you ever seen a psychic?Nah. I did Tarot cards with a friend once, but never a psychic lolwitch: do you believe in heaven?Yes and no. I believe that an afterlife would be based on what the individual believes in themself (ex. an atheist does not have one, a Christian finds Heaven/Hell, etc, etc.)black cat: favorite urban legend?I really love cryptids in general, but I don’t know if those count as urban legends. I really like the BEN Drowned urban legend (staying away from the creepypasta fandom) because I grew up with Zelda lolbats: are you superstitious? I have never not been superstitious, I think.coffin: have you ever had a paranormal experience?My sister and I had to live with a poltergeist in our closet for years upon years before we grew old enough to learn what it was. I put up sigils in the closet (it’s just my room now) and it hasn’t bothered me sincecauldron: strangest dream (or nightmare) you’ve had?Hooooo boy here we go. So I have really weird dreams sometimes. One dream, I attempted to choke Taylor Swift with a balloon, which failed. In another dream, I walked down a never-ending hallway, high-fiving a group of people in masks that just kept appearing. In the most disturbing dream, I was at my old elementary school. I don’t know why, but I was just stopping by before my classes when I realized that I was late. As in a few hours late. So I accuse the elementary snake of molesting me before I lose all control of my bodily movement for a few minutes before I am physically able to control myself in the dream. I hide from teachers around a corner when my sixth grade homeroom teacher comes and gets a pot of rice and vegetables from a locker. I’m talking an uncovered spaghetti pot, and she doesn’t seem at all concerned that I’m there. So I decide it’s safe and go to walk out of the school. The lobby is slightly different than what I remember, and a college acquaintance gives me a strange look for being there, but I pay no mind and go out of the doors. The outside is a mess of paths. I can see where I’m supposed to be though, so I take a path that looks like it might take me there. It goes to a pool with a raised room with a second pool and surrounding windows. The bottom pool’s walls are clear and there’s a back wall of dark wood. There’s a couple of guys there, and one of them has a girlfriend in the upper pool, which they keep yelling at and insulting. I’m just trying to get through, but the boyfriend asks me specifically if the girl looks like a sl*t, wh*re, etc. She’s actually really pretty, and her swimsuit looks like stained glass, and I just go by. I have to get to a door at the back of the pool, so I start wading through. The girl ends up in the bottom pool, and the boyfriend is pulling her hair. I can hear her screaming, and out of the corner of my eye I can see that he’s pulling hard enough that her scalp is ripping off and she’s bleeding. I’m too terrified to do a confrontation, so I try to ignore the screams and go through the door. I end up on a random street, and by that time it’s late so I say fuck it and go in the hopeful direction of home. I def forgot a few things and there were other dreams that connected to it but whatever.wizard: do you believe in aliens?It would be egotistical to not believe in aliens. Science suggests that the universe is infinite, which means that somewhere, there are even aliens that are just like us, and aliens that are so abstract that the human mind could not create themenchanted: what fictional character scares you most?Right now, It. I had an incident with a clown recently, which combined with my usual fear of killer clowns is aaaaaaaAAAAAHHHHHhaunt: do you believe in haunted objects?Anything can be haunted. A n y t h i n gspells: do you believe in magic?Oh h e l l yeahgraveyard: do you believe any conspiracy theories? if so, which ones?I read all about conspiracy theories and cryptids. However, I don’t believe in anything because nothing is real lolpotion: favorite horror movie?I would have one if I waS ALLOWED TO WATCH HORROR MOVIES (I’m not allowed to watch them because my parents are afraid I’ll end up messed up, but they watch Dexter while I’m in the room and let me watch Criminal Minds and listen to Satanic music, so pARENTS WHATS GOOD)

full moon: do you believe in reincarnation? I have the same answer to this as the question about heaven. If someone believes truly in reincarnation, they will be reincarnated.vampire: are you afraid of death?I sucked death’s d I’m a Gen Z kid what do you thinkpumpkin: do you believe in ghosts?Considering I’ve had encounters with some…midnight: last horror move that you’ve watched?Gremlins. When my mom and sister would go out (which doesn’t happen anymore), my dad and I would watch old horror moviesskeleton: what is your biggest fear?Bees. and spiders. But mostly bees. TheY CAN CATCH THESE HADNScrystal ball: when is a time you got caught?Caught what? I mean, I almost got caught dancing in cosplay once, but I mean??? I’m careful when it comes to things I could get caught with bc of my parentsmagic: have you had any near-death experiences?Nah. I’ve felt like death a couple of times, but never a full NDEraven: favorite fairytale?I’m not really that into fairytales, but hOLY SHIT Fair Folk folklore and Mythology??? Sign me the fUck uPouija: have you ever played with a ouija board?Nope. My parents are weird about that stuff, and I don’t want to be communicating with that thing in my room. Literally once I touched a ouija board wallet at hot topic and my mom yelled at me lolfangs: favorite poem?okaY I really love People You May Know by Kevin Kantor but I also liek by homeboy Edgar Allan Poe so y’know

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

Sun Myung Moon visits Hearst Street, Berkeley, Jan 1, 1976

extract from:

Crazy for God: The nightmare of cult life by Christopher Edwards

Every year, on January 1, the Family celebrated God’s Day. As December drew to a close. Family members whispered and giggled at the expectation of dressing up like adults. Perhaps Omma [Onni Durst] would even let us sleep a few extra hours that night.

I was living full-time in Oakland now with the deli crew, a Family sister named Jennifer, and Dr. Durst’s kids, whom I tutored and fathered when not working on the school project or at the deli. Since Dr. Durst and Omma were the True Parents for all us needy adults in the group, they did not have time to see their own children by Dr. Durst’s previous marriage. In fact, Omma considered these kids so fallen and satanic that she showed disgust when forced to touch them.

On the eve of God’s Day, I zoomed up into the parking lot at Hearst Street—as the lot filled with white vans unloading their troopers.

…

At a nudge by Omma, Oppa exclaimed:

“We have a special surprise for you. We have just received word that Father has flown into Berkeley to visit us on this most special occasion. For the next few hours you must fall into your work crews. Center men will receive instructions from me. Now, everybody lock arms and let’s have a big choo-choo!”

Four hundred voices resounded through the crowded house: “CHOO-CHOO-CHOO, CHOO-CHOO-CHOO, CHOO-CHOO-CHOO. YAY, YAY—POW!”

The morning of Father’s arrival dawned bright and beautiful. San Francisco Bay sparkled in the distance. Mail trucks rattled through the empty Berkeley streets, picking up their bundles at the blue sidewalk boxes. We heavenly children were exhausted. After polishing doorknobs, hanging new curtains, moving Father’s ornate furniture from storage into the living room, we were allowed to nap briefly, then awakened to prepare for the arrival of the Master. Despite my excitement at the chance to see Father in the flesh, I desperately hoped that some way, somehow, I could get another few minutes of sleep.

At the sound of the whistle, everyone jumped with a start. A watchful brother guarding the door popped his head into the hallway, shouting, “Father’s here! Father’s here!”

Omma and Oppa descended from their private bedroom to welcome the glorious Messiah and his retinue. Christine blew the whistle again, and brothers and sisters assembled in rows and columns. Christine started the chant to summon the spirit world. “Glory to Heaven, Peace on Earth, Glory to Heaven, Peace on Earth, Glory to Heaven, Peace on Earth…” The bells in the nearby church tolled six o’clock as two immense limousines pulled up to the entrance of the mansion. Guards in black suits jumped out of the vehicles, speedily opening back doors. Out of the first limousine stepped a short, squat Korean with sparse black strands of hair fringing his smooth, round head. The guards immediately bowed and shut the doors. Several other distinguished-looking Orientals climbed out of the remaining cars.

The man we called our Father marched briskly up the stairs and through the doorway. He rushed down the hall, passing me and the others in line, and burst into the living room as though he owned the entire world. Thirty paces behind him followed his sad-eyed fragile wife. They sat down together at Father’s Table, magnificently laid with silver goblets, Lenox china, and the finest Waterford crystal, which gleamed in the morning sunlight.

The atmosphere was electric. I had never seen Father before, but he seemed much smaller and much harder-looking than I had ever imagined. I marveled at my great fortune. Here I was living at the most crucial moment in history, in the center of the richest, most progressive nation on earth, face to face with the most important man in the history of the universe. As the Family stood at attention, the Messiah sipped silently from his glass, surveying the crowd with indifference.

The room was circled by guards, huge Asians and Europeans in black suits, well drilled in the martial arts. The doors were locked, the windows tightly shut. Christine shouted, “Bow!” and we complied, all four hundred of us simultaneously inclining from the waist for Father. Christine shouted, “Down!” and we immediately sank to our knees, dropping our heads three times for the Master.

The Messiah continued to sip his drink as his faithful translator. Colonel Pak, a former Korean military leader who carried himself like a polished diplomat, stepped up to the microphone. He addressed us softly, saying something like this:

“How fortunate you are that Father has agreed to talk to you today. He wants to tell you he loves you in spite of your fallen nature and even Heavenly Father loves you because you work so hard for him. And now, Master speaks!”

Reverend Moon pushed back his chair and stepped up to the microphone beside his translator. The crowd, sitting in rows, applauded wildly, and everybody rose on their knees to get a better look at their Messiah. The chunky Korean began to scream at the top of his lungs, pausing intermittently for his translator to interpret. I looked on in wonder as Father danced across the room, ranting and yelling. Colonel Pak spoke, and I remember hearing:

“Father asks you what you expect to see in the Messiah. Father wants you to know that he is human, too. Father wants you to know that even he goes to the bathroom. Have you ever thought that the Messiah is that human?”

The crowd cheered and laughed wildly.

“Father says you can be sure that he’s the Messiah because God made him the handsomest man on earth.” The children chuckled. Moon beamed.…

“Now, Father is very tired. He has been praying all night for you, so he has decided he will not speak to you today. You don’t mind, do you?” Pak asked mischievously.

“No, no, let him speak!” we shouted in unison. “We love Father, we love Father… !”

Moon clasped his hands and shouted something in Korean, smiling at us all the while. Colonel Pak translated: “Father loves you so much that he feels he must speak to you. He is willing to sacrifice his meal and sleep for you. God will surely judge you for this, so stay awake and listen to his word. If sleep spirits attack you, you must fight them off.”

Colonel Pak paused, and Father continued to speak, chopping the air with violent strokes, slashing at spirits, wrestling with invisible demons, throwing out kung-fu punches. We watched him with awe and delight. He suddenly twisted around, pulled Pak’s lapels, shook him, pretended to punch the colonel in the abdomen, then pushed his faithful translator away. Pak smoothed his hair and pushed at the bridge of his black-frame glasses, addressing the crowd in broken English.

“Father says that this room is filled with demons. Because his spiritual eyes are open to spirit world, he can see Jesus, Moses, Buddha, and all the sages of East and West struggling, fighting evil spirits trying to gain access to this room. Father explains that this is why he ordered the doors and windows shut. Higher spirits can penetrate windows and walls, but lower spirits cannot. Father tells us that we must keep fighting, for Satan himself is in this room, directing all the evil spirits of the universe.”

Colonel Pak raised his arms and shouted, “Repeat after me: SMASH OUT SATAN! SMASH OUT SATAN! We must drive the demons away.” The crowd screamed their response.

The Messiah leaped into the air, then barreled across the room, waving his arms, shouting in Korean, socking at evil spirits. Once again Colonel Pak translated the Master’s words as I sat spellbound. The words went something like this:

“Tonight I have important news for you. Because of my struggles in spirit world and the success of the Unification Church, a new dimension of spirit world has opened up for us. Good spirits have won many battles against evil spirits. As a result Heavenly Father has cleared a path for more good spirits to act on the physical plane, especially in the political sphere. We call this spiritual path the Principality of Air. Now more than ever, good spirits can work through you in flower-selling and witnessing, in fact in all your spiritual work. You will be successful, thanks to me, Father, and of course, Heavenly Father. Of all the saints and prophets sent by God, I am the most successful.”

The Messiah continued speaking, praising himself and repeating the standard gospel of the Divine Principle, which I had heard from Durst so often, pausing only for Colonel Pak’s translation. Two hours into the lecture I began to feel dizzy, drugged. My stomach was churning and I wondered how much longer I could last. My face burned with heat, and I was suddenly drowsy. Satan must be attacking me! Sleep spirits were attacking me! I must fight them off, for they want to prevent me from hearing the Messiah. My eyes started drooping until the lids finally shut. If only I had a safety pin like other Family members … then I could jab myself to stay awake and really show that snake, Satan!

The Messiah’s face swam before me as I fought my exhaustion. Was this really happening to me? I suddenly wondered. Was this really God’s special agent, my newfound spiritual father, the Lord of Creation and the center of the universe?

How could I love a man I didn’t even know? I asked myself dizzily. I was constantly being told about all he had done for me, but what had that actually been? Who was this man who claimed to be the Messiah, whose mind was one with God’s, this man who wanted to rule the world? Oh, my God. Of course! Satan was attacking me. He was planting evil doubts in my mind. He was destroying my faith. …

As the Master talked on and on, Oppa shifted nervously in his seat, clearly uncomfortable in this panel of holy ones. He nodded from time to time as though he could understand the prophet based on his sparse knowledge of Korean, the Mother Tongue of the Universe. I wondered what his colleagues in the English Department would think if they could see him now. Did they know that the most important American in our history was the same man who taught remedial spelling to their struggling freshmen?

I turned my attention back to Father, as Pak translated. Father was saying something about how he was planting spies in the Soviet Union, how we are steeped in world war, and how it is time for us to build the final phase of the material foundation. I heard him unveil his world plan, frightening us by telling us that God had given him only five more years to win the war. Five more years! If America did not accept the Unification Church, if everybody did not follow Father, God would then leave America once and for all.

I sat dumbfounded. God would leave America and never return? I recalled all the hushed conversations Family members had had with me over the past six months, these prophets telling me that men would crawl like animals over the earth for a thousand years as Satan’s slaves if Father didn’t win. I remembered discussing with older brothers our fantasies about fighting and dying for God, my dream of climbing into a cockpit, decked out in Unification Church army uniform, waving good-bye to my sisters of the Church as I left. Tears came to my eyes as I thought about how many times I had failed God, thinking of sleep in my exhaustion, looking at food during my three-day fasts—oh, my selfishness!

As Father told of his political plans for this country, I was ashamed of how I had doubted former President Nixon as Father came to his aid during Watergate, placing ads in major newspapers for Nixon, sending hundreds of Moonies to fast on the Capitol steps for three days and march with “God Loves Nixon” signs. I thought of how we Americans had persecuted this man even after Father declared him to be God’s choice for America. I thought of Father’s plans to take over New York City, as an older brother had told me once, and I thought of all my tired friends who had been promised they would become senators after only a few more years of grueling flower-selling. I thought of all the political work my brothers and sisters were doing in Washington, Christine and Omma’s secret missions to the Orient, lavish lunches with political power brokers in the Bay Area, rumors of Joey’s plans to run for mayor of Oakland—even talk that God would appoint Dr. Durst as the next President.

And suddenly it was all so clear. God did have a plan and only Father knew it. All we had to do was follow Father— that was it—that was all! The world was turning to Father for help and all the seeds that had been planted would soon be ready. We were buying up land, we were growing, one worldwide Family, and we were already millions strong— millions strong! Father had a timetable for everything, and if we worked, if we worked just a little bit harder … “Push us. Father,” I whispered. “Push us…”

Father began to scream, blood pumping madly through his swollen cheeks. Colonel Pak shouted:

“Heavenly Father will win! Heavenly Father will win! Heavenly Father will win! Repeat it after me!”

“Heavenly Father will win! Heavenly Father will win! Heavenly Father will win!” brothers and sisters shouted in unison. Father stepped back and sat down on the sofa. As he dabbed at his shiny forehead. Colonel Pak spoke once more: “Father is very tired. He has talked for four hours without stopping, showing you his love and heavenly determination. But Father remembers that you love him, too, and Father will show his father’s love now. He has promised to sing you a song, a heavenly song.”

We screamed with joy, jumping up and down with excitement. Father gulped from a glass, then returned to the microphone, slicking back his sparse threads of hair. His fatherly smile melted my doubtful heart. He really loved me. That’s why he was here; that’s why he had spoken. I had been yearning for this fatherly love for so many years.

Father began a simple Korean folk tune. The audience listened breathlessly, young women swooning and sighing. We softly rocked back and forth on our knees in time to the song, our faces beaming, each of us hoping to catch Father’s eye. At the end of the final verse. Father reached toward the sky with his massive hands and gave a shrill Korean yodel. He then sank back in his chair, smiling benignly at his children.

The crowd went wild, whistling, screaming, shouting, waving arms. Tears of joy streamed down our faces as we prayed to Heavenly Father in gratitude. Every heart in the room was touched with Father’s love. Imagine, the Messiah serving me by singing a song just for me! How unworthy I felt of this grace, this blessing from God.

The Master rose, approached the microphone, and shouted a Korean prayer through the crackling, electric air. At the end of each phrase, he paused, and the audience screamed fervently. “Yes, Father,” or “Yes, Heavenly Father.” After about ten minutes of prayer, the Master fell silent. We rubbed our aching necks and looked up at him. Father turned on his heel and headed full speed toward the front door, flanked by his bodyguards and followed by his entourage.

While younger brothers and sisters stood around in the main hall, overwhelmed by the Master’s performance, the older leaders ran out the door and jumped down the steps as the Korean Messiah entered his limo.

“Father, Father, Father, come back! We love you, Father,” we shouted like six-year-olds saying good-bye to their traveling dad after a weekend of ice cream and baseball games, hide-and-seek and hot dogs.

The gleaming cars proceeded down Hearst Street toward the airport, as Father headed off for a secret destination to rest and recover.

We pressed our faces against the front window, crying that our Messiah had left us and hoping that God would bless him on this, the world’s most important mission.

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The full story:

Crazy for God: The nightmare of cult life by Christopher Edwards

Building the “material foundation” for Sun Myung Moon

Boonville’s Japanese origins

Moonwebs by Josh Freed

Life Among the Moonies by Deanna Durham

Mitchell was lucky – he got away from the Unification Church

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

Building the “material foundation” for Sun Myung Moon

Chris Edwards had been recruited at Boonville in the California Bay Area a few months earlier, in the spring of 1975. This was to be his first day fundraising solo.

“We soon piled into the van and headed for another town on the outskirts of the Bay Area after a few more minutes of desperate sleep. It was 6:15 a.m. and we were all terribly tired. I felt drugged. I was exhausted, my hands infected in a dozen places where rose thorns had pierced my fingers. For the past six days I had survived on burger rolls and chocolate milk, cookies and doughnut donations. Suddenly I couldn’t stand it anymore. The exhaustion, the suffering, were unbearable. My feet were covered with red sores from running. My shirt clung to me, glued to my skin from layers of dried sweat. I dropped off to sleep, dreaming of vast baskets of flowers. “Get up, child! Get up! It’s exercise time!”

I began a desperate prayer … to Heavenly Father, begging for forgiveness, thanking him for rescuing me from Satan’s world:

“Heavenly Father, I pray for guidance in this dark hour. Help me to understand why I came this way, what is Your true nature. Give me the knowledge of the Divine Principle, help me to gain this understanding for all phases of my activity in this earthly life. I depend upon You and this Family of Yours. Especially inform and inspire me on these, my first days of flower-selling alone. In our Master’s name I pray. Amen.” …

“Okay, everybody. No spacing out. Get centered and get back into the van. We have to clean up this town the Heavenly way today. Okay. You’ve got five minutes to think and pray for your goals. We’ll pick up our flowers at the train station, then we’ll do it!”

“Do it!�� we shouted, now tucked away in the back of the van. Keith poured the chocolate milk, our breakfast, as the group slumped into more silent prayer.

“Who’s got goals?” Carl cried. “Any volunteers?”

“Me! Me!” we replied like first-graders with big answers. Carl called on Keith:

“My goal for the day is to get to know Heavenly Father’s heart better. I’ll chant, pray, and run, and I’ll work to leave everybody with a smile, no matter how negative they are toward me. … Finally, and most important to Heavenly Father, I’m setting my material goal for today at a hundred fifty dollars!”

Everybody patter-clapped, screamed, and shouted. Carl and Keith slammed their hands against the thin metal roof with a crashing sound as the group slapped Keith on the back and shouted, “I’m in-spired!” and “Great—just great!”

Recharged by this mass vitality, I couldn’t wait for my turn.

“Okay, Chris, let’s hear your goals.”

“Well, first I’ll chant, pray, and run. I’ll pray to Heavenly Father before each sale, and I’ll chant especially for spirit world to work through me today. I’ll address the spirit of each buyer directly, chanting to him, ‘Buy these flowers for the Messiah’. This should summon all his ancestors to work through him to make his spirit man buy these roses for Father, Master of the spirit world. As I sell each flower, I will consider it a precious blessing from the Messiah. I promise to use Heavenly Deception to encourage people to buy these blessings no matter how my fallen mind bothers me. I’ll pray to Heavenly Father to repent for my small-mindedness in not deceiving people for Heaven’s good. I will turn Satan against himself!”

The crowd cheered as the van careened around a curve, sending heavenly children flying in a welter of arms and legs. I continued, “Last of all, my material goal for my first solo day is seventy-five dollars.”

The crowd clapped, but I sensed a definite air of disappointment and disapproval. Carl said firmly:

“That’s all great, but I think your material goal is small-minded. You underestimate the power of Heavenly Father, Chris. Shoot for the stars and work like mad, and Heavenly Father will help you succeed. Remember what Father tells us. If you dedicate yourself absolutely, if you think nothing of yourself or your selfish desire, if you forget everything you ever learned and concentrate on God, then not only will Heavenly Father help you. Father’s spirit will be there to bless you and help you work in spirit world. Pay heed to Father. Only he understands the truth. Okay. Get your flowers together, and bring plenty of string and paper to tie and wrap the bunches. At the count of three, out you go. One, two, three!”

Two brothers ripped open the side doors of the van, and a third brother pitched me out. Stunned, standing on the sidewalk, I watched the van fly by. Keith stuck his head out the side window and shouted, “Father be with you!”

“Father be with you,” I murmured. I pricked my finger on a thorn as I shuffled the two large bunches wrapped in newspapers under my arms. Red, white, yellow roses, American beauties, miniatures, babies. All imbued with the magical blessing of our Master, all specially sprinkled with Holy Salt, the same salt blessed by Reverend Moon at his own wedding—the Marriage of the Lamb, when the True Father and the True Mother of the Universe were married in 1960 to fulfill biblical prophecy.

I walked down the street and into a small alleyway, carefully placed my flowers on the ground, and said a special prayer. Then I gathered my flowers together, arranging them so that the most beautiful blooms stood out clearly and the dead ones were carefully hidden, as I had been taught. Pulling myself erect, I straightened my skinny tie and raked through my hair with my fingers.

I ran past the Burger Kings, used-car lots, hardware stores, and the local A&P. I chanted away as I crossed the street, hurrying toward my destination, an industrial park. “Big Boy Metal Works.” Below the sign posted a warning: “Positively No Soliciting!” That meant I’d have to play smart. “Become a Heavenly Guerrilla. We’re carrying our war to the streets,” as Keith had told me so many times. He described these places as “kick-outs.” You had to use your Heavenly Determination to get past the managers and guards. You had to sell as much as possible before the police caught you. There was big money to be made in the factories, according to Family veterans.

Could I do it? If I only had faith…

…

Keith was reading about how we must give up everything to become members of the Family. Listening to him, I realized that everything Reverend Moon decreed was being smoothly accomplished, unbeknownst to countless millions of Americans. He was laying the “material foundation,” gathering up millions of dollars, quietly buying real estate and corporations, lobbying for his various front groups in Washington while converting thousands of young people, young people who were completely dedicated to correcting the world’s ills. Either this was wonderful or it was madness—divine, frightening madness.

I remembered how people in the Family joked about how crazy everybody would think they were if they only knew what Family members actually thought and did with their lives. Think of the words the group used: No More Concepts, You Think Too Much, Your Mind Is Fallen, Heavenly Thinking, The Heavenly Way, Follow Center, and the other slogans that saturated my brain!

I remembered what one Family member once told me about Reverend Moon’s theme several years ago.

“We must become crazy for God.” Yes, that’s what he’d said.

Crazy for God. Father said so, so we must become crazy for God. Crazy. God. God-Crazy. And we are, I thought. We are. And soon the Victory will be won. We—are—becoming—crazy for God. We are becoming—Crazy for God. We are becoming Crazy for God. Yes—that’s it. And no one will understand us—until they become crazy for God, too—

The van whipped around the corner, right rear wheels flying over the sidewalk and down, scattering heavenly children and bundles of paper bags filled with dollar bills neatly banded in hundred-dollar stacks. Soon we were traveling down a long stretch of California highway, facing a glorious sunset which shot red flames across the azure sky. Somebody shouted, “Lookit the sunset!”

“That’s Heavenly Father’s way of thanking us for all the good we’ve done today for Him,” Keith exclaimed. “Thank you, Heavenly Father.”

“Thank you, Heavenly Father,” we echoed.”

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extract from: Crazy for God – The nightmare of cult life by ex-Moon disciple Christopher Edwards

Full story HERE

______________________________________

Sun Myung Moon visits Hearst Street, Berkeley, Jan 1, 1976

Boonville’s Japanese origins

Moonwebs by Josh Freed

Life Among the Moonies by Deanna Durham

Mitchell was lucky – he got away from the Unification Church

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

Why I Am Not A Unificationist

I’ve been a Unificationist since childhood. From then, until I was around 19, I had to eat all of the sadomasochism fed by Rev. Moon. My new Father. My new Messiah. I’ll take some time to go through them, but please be patient. I had been told that God was some sort of compulsive crybaby whose universe was forever torn asunder because two naked teenagers had pre-maritial sex in a garden. A step up from the apple and snake, I admit, but the Garden of Eden is still a myth no matter how you spin it.

Anyways, I was also told that human history was a convenient series of failures on behalf of the human race to understand the infinite sorrows of God. The Church painted said God, interestingly enough, as quite impotent. He was a servant to some pseudo-scientific law, called the Divine Principle: a lugubrious, confusing, absurd, and comical attempt to plaster Moon’s idiotic theology onto human history. Neon Genesis Evangelion’s myths made more sense.

I’m not quite sure if the Divine Principle was supposed to be a moral law or not, but I certainly was given that impression. I would be horrified and disgusted if the Principle was by any stretch of the imagination considered moral. This so-called morality dictated that again, because two naked teenagers had pre-marital sex in a garden, the Biblical wars against various tribes, the Crucifixion of Jesus, the Fall of Rome, both World Wars, the Holocaust, the Korean War, and numerous other tragedies, in the Bible and in history, were ordained by the Divine Principle to occur as payment for indemnity, or global karma. The Principle has weird ideas on proportionality. I don’t think that even Zeus, at the height of his maliciousness, would have approved of such a doctrine, so it would be doubly discouraging if a loving and compassionate God did. 

Why then does Moon praise the Principle with such fervor? Even it was true, it should have been condemned and resisted, even if the effort was futile. Of course, there’s always the idea that the Principle is brutally objective, but then, I don’t recall Newton’s Three Laws of Motion or the Pythagorean Theorem bluntly putting persons into sides of God or Satan.

Again, I swallowed this nonsense in my elementary years – I didn’t know any better. I think that I was still watching Power Rangers. So all of this made me very terrified of sex. Moon had a cute obsession with sex. If you don’t believe me, just look up the instructions for the 3-day ceremony. It’s quite revealing. He also said that if a pretty woman attempts to touch your penis, you should kick her 1,000 miles and God will praise you for it, but I’ll touch on his sexism later.

He just could not stop going on about the sexual organs and how they were at the center of the universe, or something like that. Easy enough to pledge abstinence when you’re young, but after puberty, I felt like I was walking in a nightmare. No sex until after I married, and Lord knew when that was going to happen. No choking the chicken, either, but when I did get the occasional slip of the wrist, so-to-speak, my whole being filled with guilt, as if I had committed a crime against God and joined the ranks of Satan.

I realize that abstinence is quite common among many Christians and even Muslims in this country, but at least they are allowed to date! Yes, because God certainly doesn’t want His Children engaging in the evil of DATING. Okay, so women were off limits until I married. At least I got to choose my wife. Oh, what’s that? My wife could be chosen for me? We might barely know each other before getting married? She might not even speak English? There could be a waiting period before having SEX? You know, there’s a word for people who have a peculiar interest in other people’s sex lives, they’re called perverts, and Rev Moon was certainly among them. Lord knows the countless unintentional pregnancies, STI infections, and abortions his teachings may have prevented had he taught instead about the options of masturbation and birth control.

Speaking of sexuality, Rev Moon was diseased with homophobia. I am sorry to say that I caught this disease as well. Moon referred to homosexuals once as dung-eating dogs and homosexuality as an activity that attracts Satan. He also said that those who love dung eating dogs, ergo people who support gay rights, will produce that quality of life. I’ve heard some homophobic statements from Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, but Moon’s hate speech sounds like something you’d hear from Neo-Nazis. Yeah, I went there, but Moon’s words were straight up dehumanizing and condemnable. NO group of people deserve to be described in that fashion. Also, Moon himself said that Hitler and Stalin were reborn as new beings, and they declared him the messiah. So he seems to think quite a bit of their opinions.

In any case, many religions still have trouble with treating homosexuals as equals, and that’s a shame. I repeat, a shame. Moon could have learned a thing from Desmond Tutu. Even the 14th Dalai Lama supports gay marriage and Pope Francis, who does not like homosexuality, says that the Church has no right to interfere with the spiritual lives of gays and that he has no authority to judge gay Catholics. I grew out of homophobia after I grew out of Moon.

Then there’s this whole damned idea of Rev Moon being the Messiah. Hell, anyone can claim that. Just ask Father Divine, Marshall Applewhite, Elijah Muhammad, Jim Jones, or L. Ron Hubbard. We all know the story. Jesus asked Moon to take up the cross and suffer for humanity as the first True Parent. The whole idea being that Jesus was supposed to get married as opposed to being crucified. Now I wouldn’t force crucifixion on my worst enemy, but marriage on the other hand, should be a choice, not a requirement for joining heaven, as Moon teaches. I think that most people are comfortable with the parents that they already have, and don’t need fanatical ones from Korea.

What makes Moon so special that he should be the Messiah, anyways? It’s his word against mine. Surely, Jesus didn’t expect Moon to convince people on word alone. Except that he apparently did. To be honest, I believed that Moon was the Messiah out of pity. He does deserve some. His home country was torn apart before his eyes, and he had to suffer atrocious accommodations in a North Korean prison camp. No one should have to go through that. The pressure was all around me to convert. Certainly I wouldn’t turn against a man who suffered so much. Before I knew it, I was bowing before photographs and reading books I could hardly understand at six in the morning. For those who want a better idea of what I am talking about, check out the film, “Ticket To Heaven.” Moon, however, had a habit of romanticizing Korea as the center of the world. I don’t hate Korea. It’s a fine nation, but not a holy one. Since Moon cast North Korea as Satan and South Korea as God, he probably forgot to mention that “God’s” nation had brutal dictators like Park Chung-hee.

I could also go on about how, in face of separation of church and state, Moon crowned himself like a king in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, how he implored Americans to forgive Nixon who sabotaged the Vietnam Peace Talks in 1968, how he founded the Washington Times which spews climate change denial, and how he had at least one affair while dictating other people’s sex lives, but I think I’ve made my point. Moon is no more of a messiah than my dead goldfish. If you still want a Korean to admire, try Kim Dae-Jung.

In closing, you may wonder what exactly liberated me from my slave-masters? It was a woman named Nansook Hong, whose book I would implore all of you to read. She married Moon’s first son, Hyo Jin, and suffered unspeakable abuse, both mental and physical. When Moon was told of these things, he blamed her for not being a good wife. This is the sexism I was referring to earlier. Moon was more concerned about his magnanimous legacy than about the domestic abuse of his daughter-in-law. As I read her testimony and followed her journey, I found myself going through a similar one. By the last page, I left the church and freed myself from the depressing theology of Rev Moon. I live a happy life now. I’m not very religious, but I don’t hate religion. 

Moon didn’t learn a lot from religion. Many Jewish scholars see the Old Testament stories as metaphors to learn from, not literal historical events representing the Cain and Abel dichotomy. If Moon really understood Jesus, he would have lived more like Gandhi, Tolstoy, or even Shaliene Woodley, as opposed to Donald Trump or John D. Rockefeller. The Qur’an opposes collective punishment for crimes done by others and would be disgusted with ideas like indemnity. While both Buddhism and Hinduism see atheism or agnosticism as acceptable spiritual paths, Buddhism more so. Moon denounced godlessness as Satanic.

I would like to thank HWDYKYM for giving me a healthy space to express these thoughts. As you can see by the length of this, they’ve been bubbling beneath the surface for some time now. I know that I may not have not have gotten everything right as far as Moon’s doctrine is concerned. I simply speak from my own experience – what I was taught, what I had believed. I hold no ill will towards current members, by the way. Many of them are still beloved members of my friends and family, just don’t expect me to go to workshops.

Sun Myung Moon’s theology used to control members

Divine Principle – Parallels of History

Sun Myung Moon  – Restoration through Incest

Moon’s Theology of the Fall, Tamar, Jesus and Mary

Nansook Hong, transcripts of three interviews

Nansook Hong In The Shadow Of The Moons, part 1