I was known before I retired from tthatt board a while back as that orthodox repper, in years past I named myself briefly in a certain phrasing as the chief coordinating officer of AGP. Stay strong if you being persecuted, know you are not alone in that other men are undergoing similar, and even if that isn't true God is always present sustaining you during every agony and affliction, in such instances Jesus Christ abides within you. "Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Even those who I only know of para-socially; I especially feel bad for the polish 'truth about agp' tranny who I never got his real name, he asked me on that board if I knew it and I responded with his pseudonyms. Truly I wanted to pray for him for years but I threw away the opportunity to. I suspect he is dead due to despair and if so there is nothing I can do even spiritually at this point, only those that know his name can help him. Hopefully this person alive and well, he or she. Also that little anime philosopher dude who I watched for a couple years, it is amazing he is doing as well as he is, dealing with all that chaos would crush most anyone else. If I ever become a monk I will pray for anyone in these circles that asks every day for the rest of my life, I'll respect your freedom of conscience, only wishing you peace and strength in enduring the hardships of life. The below was meant for a certian website that administrator banned my account (not unlike agprick) within a few minutes of posting the below, I know this place isn't my blog but this is the best place I can think to put this, although it is dramatic and sarcastic, the text below is based on a true story although any resemblance to individuals and events in real life are merely coincidental.
No, I'm not part of the club but I want to be - Blocked indefinitely by the rector for being too honest
A while back I stirred much controversy with the prelates of a certain branch of orthodoxy for my candor which they mistook for peevishness. Their understandable disgust at my wretchedness urged me to uphold my honor, which although a vain pursuit, nevertheless ended in true repentance. My spiritual physician, clad with the armor of considerable esteem bestowed upon him by the circles of orthobros, provided me with much needed medicine of advising me to avoid social media altogether, and if it is used, to never use anonymity and using one's legal name. In strict adherence heeding his recommendation, I found that the veneer of social interaction afforded through the internet was just a trickle compared to the depth of soul gathered by growing my real life social circle. This served me well, bringing me from the most pathetic vegetative state to a work-ethic typical of the average college student. To my dismay, I saw quite the opposite occur to the very healer God appointed for my correction.
In his hubris, he thought himself a prophet, in that his musings could steer the vehicle of the 'orthosphere' namely by capturing the precise character of the worst of the orthobros who: are lacking in self-awareness, not so secretly believe in works-only salvation, overlook the simple for the complex out of arrogance, use orthodoxy namely as window dressings to bring to life a now over century-old unamerican pipedream that is the 'social concept' manifesto, use social media to whitewash and revise the true orthodoxy.
If I were to claim that I was the only single male convert under him in real life, that would mean I would have used this priest in a quite literal sense as a propagator of my genes. His observations published over the course of over two years would paint the epitome of the insufferable terminally-online young male converts as someone eerily reminiscent of my character, in effect making me the true prophet if you can really say that of anyone.
When first encountering him, he was your typical well-adjusted orthodox priest, perhaps a little unhealthily obsessed with ritual and routine than most. But my dealings with him as his online ministry blossomed, pushed him into choosing to become more stringent and reactionary. Being ashamed of myself for faking schizophrenia to collect a pittance and nursing a shameful vice best described as classical narcissism proved a tricky situation to navigate, as admitting to all that isn't really easy for anyone. With much free time on my hands, and nothing to do except read theology, listen to chants on the internet, and perhaps do some house chores. I was in despair that he said I could never undertake the monastic vocation. With hesitancy I accepted his judgement, but deep down felt it quite superficial, as if it were calculated on a spreadsheet based on a conditional formula from a decades' old tax code.
As I learned better to malinger schizophrenia, I, like the fallen Eve, proceeded to fan his hubris, while I mediated on his posting patterns to better predict his mental state so that any hypnotic suggestion employed would be as effective as possible. Throughout the first year of knowing him, I was able to tune myself to his mind, and encapsulate it as a musician his instrument.
All well and good, like a virgin queen bee, I started to make myself at home in the corner of this section of a hive that is part of orthodoxy, in hopes to secure a livelihood as an ambitious yet workshy catechumen. Unfortunately, I could not evade the sense organs of the established queen of the hive, which I lack. Most sane persons would call these individuals bishops. Their workers carried my pheromones to them which prompted a solicitation to me for a weekend of meetings. Well, it turns out that they do what I was trying to do but they are better at it; They somehow knew I was viper more than I did. So, they proceeded to psychologically violate me as per holy tradition, apparently. All this induced a over year's long painful episode of lunacy, or in modern language, narcissistic mortification. I felt as if my soul were clubbed to within an inch of death.
In vain, I tried everything to reinstate myself as actually schizophrenic, and not some deranged psychopathic masochist in the eyes of the synod of this jurisdiction. Upping my game, I read lightly into jewish mysticism, and looked upon all the other religions of the world to inspire my methodology in sorcery. I honed in on talismans, with custom symbols and designs intended to stun the victim psychologically so that upon my meditation on these symbols I could noetically pull them back into submission. A good metaphor is to capture and constrain a demon to take a form of a spider so that it can weave a pattern to which only I fully understand into the victim's mind. For other methods, like using a philosopher's gemstone to interpret lisp scripts with gemetria and a special recursive combinator to siphon and destroy demons polluting my lower soul: all this done within the gemstone's lattice, albeit in vain for cases like me. For the easiest yet riskiest tactic in practical essence magic is giving so called 'prophecy' which can serve to give one's words weight. One must be careful as a grammatical mistake can, in the worst cases, serve to hurt them thus ruining their reputation forever.
My second most effective deployment of black magic used all the above, and as true monk wearing his sins on his sleeve, I did a all-night fast and vigil and made sure to be very clean shaven before I performed a reverse-exorcism on this poor clergy member, in retrospect all this was a very strange cry for help from a more knowledgeable sage. After bragging about all this to the rector during coffee hour, I was first blocked. He bid me not to come back for a few weeks until I was to take antipsychotic medications. He thought I couldn't understand this stipulation, but I was amused then that he didn't understand I was fully self-aware from the beginning. It was working, until I boasted in earshot of all that I was proud of my witchcraft.
Despite my megalomania, all that magic seemed to at first do the trick. His musings become very poignant in rebuking the orthobros with their various perceived shortcomings, as their replies thanked him for the privilege of receiving said rebukes. Also, he sometimes made reference to letters I sent him, and replies from secret admirers of mine implied that they were in the know. You see, before that particular instance of witchcraft, I did what he asked of me: to write about orthodoxy. Well I did, and used it as an opportunity to show my personality, and really to confess my sins in writing because for someone like me that is probably necessary. He did not respond, and this angered me. The embarrassment which proceeded after I could not deny that I actually sent it drove me mad enough to decide to perform the aforementioned reverse-exorcism. As you see, under great need I must write this, not only to heal my shame, but because his online ministry and hosting affluent inquirers of the local aristocracy takes priority over ministering to me. It took him months to admit he read it the first message, the suffering for this morsel of appreciation is beyond pathetic as you will see.
I was not done with my antics, I needed to know what he thought about my letter. Alas, he was preoccupied with more important affairs, like his online ministry or discussing crucial matters with vagabond clergy with funny accents during coffee hour. Well my time to shine was approaching, it was a month out from pascha and the coming total solar eclipse provided me the proper liturgical days and major astrological events that I needed to start a movement or cult to spite the synod for humiliating me so ruthlessly. With two month old beard, a flip-phone, a 30 year old laptop, many books and wikipedia prints, as well as my mysticool orthogear toolkit: the prayer rope, many layers of heavy jackets and clothing, a print out of the ladder of ascent with the sins I struggle with highlighted, and a super special icon inside my nametag lanyard to absolve myself of karmic debt as the vipers do since 'it protects us'? I was ready to win the programming competition, spiritually seize a parish during the eclipse's totality, and afterwards to start a tech company with my followers as employees or something. Believe it or not, it took over a day and a half of all this fake-saint nonsense until I was involuntarily hospitalized.
In the beginning, everyone seemed to gravitate around me, like I was some type of famous programmer or hacker, and they thought I was cool because I was very religious but not that annoying, smoked, and knew just enough C to not need stack overflow. You may wonder what was my downfall. While intoxicated, I broke my covenant with God as I was trying to navigate the impoverished outskirts of Appalachia to search for a lighter for my unopened pack of premium long filter cigarettes. You see, I ingested synthetic cannabis in hopes to stay awake for yet another day so I could submit something to the judges. Unfortunately such substances in combination with energy drinks can lead to an increase in the evil inclination which in an area of impurity becomes ever more impossible to resist.
Walking into the event area, I sneered at and tried to hip-check a participant who was an underage smoker. I retorted with crossed arms, barking cruelly, "You shouldn't!", then rolling my eyes contemptuously. In effect, this act exported my trauma caused by a similar event to someone else, which in turn healed me of it. To again make good of what was foolishly given to the evil one, I instructed an attendee with low self-confidence that everyone is a poser and is doing something different, because perfectionism seemed to stop him from enjoying this hobby. I hope I helped him. After that, I was embarrassed about my recent fall and the gravity of it hit me. Like the prodigal coming to himself after grasping at husks unfit even for swine, I admitted to the event supervisor that I was full of it and a scoundrel, my actions being a cry for help in that I am so deluded to think I have a calling for monasticism.
I explained to him my jewish background and how orthodox christianity and judaism are very similar especially in ethical and mystical teachings; my vulnerability earned his trust. After an embrace, I shamefully walked to the elevator where some of the older attendants severely chastised me to instruct others through my abasement in good morals, but somehow the insults just rolled right off of me. Needless to say, the paramedics took me, the criminally insane little viper, to the psych unit. After viewing the eclipse from the window of the unit, I soon told the rector I was a psychopath over the phone claiming, "It is harder for some of us," he didn't understand at the time that I was dead serious. Other than that the only other interesting occurrence there was this guy with multiple personalities that kept telling me that he read an interesting book that implied that john the baptist was evil. By some miracle of God after only a three day stay I was discharged. I evaded the forensic psychiatrist, this time. Walking to my car, I just so happened run into the same event supervisor strolling with hunched posture among a group of middle aged females in the opposite direction. He offered me a sullen glance, perhaps my disgrace made him look at the world in a different way. I hope he is doing well.
Finally after all this suffering I managed, with a handshake, to schedule a twenty minute sit-down with the rector. Upon arriving in the nave he gave me the floor. Soon enough selective hearing kicked in so he just heard the key phrases of: hugging a man, cannabis, psych ward, smoking, staying up all night, programming competition. So he reasoned, with a mind which is better suited to design fairly complex accounting spreadsheets, that I must suffer from a terminal case of homosexuality. He rebuked me as soon as I tried to explain how sick I am to him, and that given the context that this was good for me in the end however he didn't see it that way. Admonishing me, he shamed me into stopping smoking again and getting a job again, which is fair advice I painfully must admit.
All I said fell on deaf ears as his fellow orthobros have made him much more reactionary, ironically going in the direction he helped me grow out of. For example, the only acknowledgement from him of my message was that it contained a blasphemous theological error. It was my first very angst-laden facetious polemical work, keep in mind I am not even baptized yet. I sent him another message a month after our last meeting but of course no response; I've had better luck with sending such letters to monasteries. Out of embarrassment, and to try to not obsess over all this, I got rid of the accounts I sent them from, which wasn't the wisest move looking back since I poured my soul into those emails. Despite our inability to understand each other, the rector never has given me poor advice in the three years I've known him. Well, actually once, he told me to pray the small compline which takes over 20 minutes a day. Maybe he felt I was demanding too much time from him as a poor steward only contributing $20 a month, and if I included the food and candles my net contribution was probably negative.
Gauging from what I've heard and experienced, many understand all the grief the petty yet blood-boiling dramas within orthodoxy which the internet has exposed the world to. This reflection is not meant to persuade or demean anyone. Instead, I hope it can serve as the first of several pieces chronicling my experience with orthodoxy, from one who is still is perplexed at half-wittingly becoming wedged seemingly in the center of all the tropes I've read on here.
I sincerely hope to be baptized soon and perhaps this post can be considered a portion of my life confession. It saddens me to hear how awful some convert priests can be, I never meet any of these types yet probably because in my hometown orthodoxy has been around for a century, so it is not any more exotic of a religion than any other christian denomination.
No, I'm not part of the club but I want to be - Blocked indefinitely by the rector for being too honest
A while back I stirred much controversy with the prelates of a certain branch of orthodoxy for my candor which they mistook for peevishness. Their understandable disgust at my wretchedness urged me to uphold my honor, which although a vain pursuit, nevertheless ended in true repentance. My spiritual physician, clad with the armor of considerable esteem bestowed upon him by the circles of orthobros, provided me with much needed medicine of advising me to avoid social media altogether, and if it is used, to never use anonymity and using one's legal name. In strict adherence heeding his recommendation, I found that the veneer of social interaction afforded through the internet was just a trickle compared to the depth of soul gathered by growing my real life social circle. This served me well, bringing me from the most pathetic vegetative state to a work-ethic typical of the average college student. To my dismay, I saw quite the opposite occur to the very healer God appointed for my correction.
In his hubris, he thought himself a prophet, in that his musings could steer the vehicle of the 'orthosphere' namely by capturing the precise character of the worst of the orthobros who: are lacking in self-awareness, not so secretly believe in works-only salvation, overlook the simple for the complex out of arrogance, use orthodoxy namely as window dressings to bring to life a now over century-old unamerican pipedream that is the 'social concept' manifesto, use social media to whitewash and revise the true orthodoxy.
If I were to claim that I was the only single male convert under him in real life, that would mean I would have used this priest in a quite literal sense as a propagator of my genes. His observations published over the course of over two years would paint the epitome of the insufferable terminally-online young male converts as someone eerily reminiscent of my character, in effect making me the true prophet if you can really say that of anyone.
When first encountering him, he was your typical well-adjusted orthodox priest, perhaps a little unhealthily obsessed with ritual and routine than most. But my dealings with him as his online ministry blossomed, pushed him into choosing to become more stringent and reactionary. Being ashamed of myself for faking schizophrenia to collect a pittance and nursing a shameful vice best described as classical narcissism proved a tricky situation to navigate, as admitting to all that isn't really easy for anyone. With much free time on my hands, and nothing to do except read theology, listen to chants on the internet, and perhaps do some house chores. I was in despair that he said I could never undertake the monastic vocation. With hesitancy I accepted his judgement, but deep down felt it quite superficial, as if it were calculated on a spreadsheet based on a conditional formula from a decades' old tax code.
As I learned better to malinger schizophrenia, I, like the fallen Eve, proceeded to fan his hubris, while I mediated on his posting patterns to better predict his mental state so that any hypnotic suggestion employed would be as effective as possible. Throughout the first year of knowing him, I was able to tune myself to his mind, and encapsulate it as a musician his instrument.
All well and good, like a virgin queen bee, I started to make myself at home in the corner of this section of a hive that is part of orthodoxy, in hopes to secure a livelihood as an ambitious yet workshy catechumen. Unfortunately, I could not evade the sense organs of the established queen of the hive, which I lack. Most sane persons would call these individuals bishops. Their workers carried my pheromones to them which prompted a solicitation to me for a weekend of meetings. Well, it turns out that they do what I was trying to do but they are better at it; They somehow knew I was viper more than I did. So, they proceeded to psychologically violate me as per holy tradition, apparently. All this induced a over year's long painful episode of lunacy, or in modern language, narcissistic mortification. I felt as if my soul were clubbed to within an inch of death.
In vain, I tried everything to reinstate myself as actually schizophrenic, and not some deranged psychopathic masochist in the eyes of the synod of this jurisdiction. Upping my game, I read lightly into jewish mysticism, and looked upon all the other religions of the world to inspire my methodology in sorcery. I honed in on talismans, with custom symbols and designs intended to stun the victim psychologically so that upon my meditation on these symbols I could noetically pull them back into submission. A good metaphor is to capture and constrain a demon to take a form of a spider so that it can weave a pattern to which only I fully understand into the victim's mind. For other methods, like using a philosopher's gemstone to interpret lisp scripts with gemetria and a special recursive combinator to siphon and destroy demons polluting my lower soul: all this done within the gemstone's lattice, albeit in vain for cases like me. For the easiest yet riskiest tactic in practical essence magic is giving so called 'prophecy' which can serve to give one's words weight. One must be careful as a grammatical mistake can, in the worst cases, serve to hurt them thus ruining their reputation forever.
My second most effective deployment of black magic used all the above, and as true monk wearing his sins on his sleeve, I did a all-night fast and vigil and made sure to be very clean shaven before I performed a reverse-exorcism on this poor clergy member, in retrospect all this was a very strange cry for help from a more knowledgeable sage. After bragging about all this to the rector during coffee hour, I was first blocked. He bid me not to come back for a few weeks until I was to take antipsychotic medications. He thought I couldn't understand this stipulation, but I was amused then that he didn't understand I was fully self-aware from the beginning. It was working, until I boasted in earshot of all that I was proud of my witchcraft.
Despite my megalomania, all that magic seemed to at first do the trick. His musings become very poignant in rebuking the orthobros with their various perceived shortcomings, as their replies thanked him for the privilege of receiving said rebukes. Also, he sometimes made reference to letters I sent him, and replies from secret admirers of mine implied that they were in the know. You see, before that particular instance of witchcraft, I did what he asked of me: to write about orthodoxy. Well I did, and used it as an opportunity to show my personality, and really to confess my sins in writing because for someone like me that is probably necessary. He did not respond, and this angered me. The embarrassment which proceeded after I could not deny that I actually sent it drove me mad enough to decide to perform the aforementioned reverse-exorcism. As you see, under great need I must write this, not only to heal my shame, but because his online ministry and hosting affluent inquirers of the local aristocracy takes priority over ministering to me. It took him months to admit he read it the first message, the suffering for this morsel of appreciation is beyond pathetic as you will see.
I was not done with my antics, I needed to know what he thought about my letter. Alas, he was preoccupied with more important affairs, like his online ministry or discussing crucial matters with vagabond clergy with funny accents during coffee hour. Well my time to shine was approaching, it was a month out from pascha and the coming total solar eclipse provided me the proper liturgical days and major astrological events that I needed to start a movement or cult to spite the synod for humiliating me so ruthlessly. With two month old beard, a flip-phone, a 30 year old laptop, many books and wikipedia prints, as well as my mysticool orthogear toolkit: the prayer rope, many layers of heavy jackets and clothing, a print out of the ladder of ascent with the sins I struggle with highlighted, and a super special icon inside my nametag lanyard to absolve myself of karmic debt as the vipers do since 'it protects us'? I was ready to win the programming competition, spiritually seize a parish during the eclipse's totality, and afterwards to start a tech company with my followers as employees or something. Believe it or not, it took over a day and a half of all this fake-saint nonsense until I was involuntarily hospitalized.
In the beginning, everyone seemed to gravitate around me, like I was some type of famous programmer or hacker, and they thought I was cool because I was very religious but not that annoying, smoked, and knew just enough C to not need stack overflow. You may wonder what was my downfall. While intoxicated, I broke my covenant with God as I was trying to navigate the impoverished outskirts of Appalachia to search for a lighter for my unopened pack of premium long filter cigarettes. You see, I ingested synthetic cannabis in hopes to stay awake for yet another day so I could submit something to the judges. Unfortunately such substances in combination with energy drinks can lead to an increase in the evil inclination which in an area of impurity becomes ever more impossible to resist.
Walking into the event area, I sneered at and tried to hip-check a participant who was an underage smoker. I retorted with crossed arms, barking cruelly, "You shouldn't!", then rolling my eyes contemptuously. In effect, this act exported my trauma caused by a similar event to someone else, which in turn healed me of it. To again make good of what was foolishly given to the evil one, I instructed an attendee with low self-confidence that everyone is a poser and is doing something different, because perfectionism seemed to stop him from enjoying this hobby. I hope I helped him. After that, I was embarrassed about my recent fall and the gravity of it hit me. Like the prodigal coming to himself after grasping at husks unfit even for swine, I admitted to the event supervisor that I was full of it and a scoundrel, my actions being a cry for help in that I am so deluded to think I have a calling for monasticism.
I explained to him my jewish background and how orthodox christianity and judaism are very similar especially in ethical and mystical teachings; my vulnerability earned his trust. After an embrace, I shamefully walked to the elevator where some of the older attendants severely chastised me to instruct others through my abasement in good morals, but somehow the insults just rolled right off of me. Needless to say, the paramedics took me, the criminally insane little viper, to the psych unit. After viewing the eclipse from the window of the unit, I soon told the rector I was a psychopath over the phone claiming, "It is harder for some of us," he didn't understand at the time that I was dead serious. Other than that the only other interesting occurrence there was this guy with multiple personalities that kept telling me that he read an interesting book that implied that john the baptist was evil. By some miracle of God after only a three day stay I was discharged. I evaded the forensic psychiatrist, this time. Walking to my car, I just so happened run into the same event supervisor strolling with hunched posture among a group of middle aged females in the opposite direction. He offered me a sullen glance, perhaps my disgrace made him look at the world in a different way. I hope he is doing well.
Finally after all this suffering I managed, with a handshake, to schedule a twenty minute sit-down with the rector. Upon arriving in the nave he gave me the floor. Soon enough selective hearing kicked in so he just heard the key phrases of: hugging a man, cannabis, psych ward, smoking, staying up all night, programming competition. So he reasoned, with a mind which is better suited to design fairly complex accounting spreadsheets, that I must suffer from a terminal case of homosexuality. He rebuked me as soon as I tried to explain how sick I am to him, and that given the context that this was good for me in the end however he didn't see it that way. Admonishing me, he shamed me into stopping smoking again and getting a job again, which is fair advice I painfully must admit.
All I said fell on deaf ears as his fellow orthobros have made him much more reactionary, ironically going in the direction he helped me grow out of. For example, the only acknowledgement from him of my message was that it contained a blasphemous theological error. It was my first very angst-laden facetious polemical work, keep in mind I am not even baptized yet. I sent him another message a month after our last meeting but of course no response; I've had better luck with sending such letters to monasteries. Out of embarrassment, and to try to not obsess over all this, I got rid of the accounts I sent them from, which wasn't the wisest move looking back since I poured my soul into those emails. Despite our inability to understand each other, the rector never has given me poor advice in the three years I've known him. Well, actually once, he told me to pray the small compline which takes over 20 minutes a day. Maybe he felt I was demanding too much time from him as a poor steward only contributing $20 a month, and if I included the food and candles my net contribution was probably negative.
Gauging from what I've heard and experienced, many understand all the grief the petty yet blood-boiling dramas within orthodoxy which the internet has exposed the world to. This reflection is not meant to persuade or demean anyone. Instead, I hope it can serve as the first of several pieces chronicling my experience with orthodoxy, from one who is still is perplexed at half-wittingly becoming wedged seemingly in the center of all the tropes I've read on here.
I sincerely hope to be baptized soon and perhaps this post can be considered a portion of my life confession. It saddens me to hear how awful some convert priests can be, I never meet any of these types yet probably because in my hometown orthodoxy has been around for a century, so it is not any more exotic of a religion than any other christian denomination.