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A tale of demonic possession predicted the decline of an early medieval empire
- pnutjam 2y agounresolved coup leading to another coup; then civil war... A tale as old as time.
- devops99 2y ago[flagged]
- blame-troi 2y agoWe should be so lucky
- IAmGraydon 2y agoJudging by posts like yours, where we are in the US right now is deep in delusion. To compare the current situation in the US even remotely to the fall of the Carolingian dynasty shows severe lack of historical knowledge and perspective.
- bamboozled 2y agoWhy do you say that? The US situation looks pretty precarious right now.
- bigstrat2003 2y agoFor one thing, there has been nothing that can reasonably be described as a coup. Coups involve serious violence (generally from the military), and we haven't had that. For another, we aren't at the point of civil war. Honestly, by far the biggest threat to the stability of the country is the meme that the country is unstable. That sort of idea pushes people into taking drastic actions because they have to "save" things. But things are working ok (not perfectly), and if people start taking drastic action it will certainly hurt rather than help.
- devops99 2y agoIf you believe the dumbest propaganda the CIA and Mockingbird media could come up with, you could have that perspective and think you're reasonable. But yeah, you sound vaccinated.
- devops99 2y agoPer my anecdotal surveys, many who have done LSD, many of whom otherwise are atheists, believe that demons are totally real.
- chefandy 2y agoI, personally, have spawned and killed many daemons.
- gostsamo 2y agoLinux made us all occultists.
- lukan 2y agoI think developing and debugging complex systems, where most is a black box, does that in general https://www.xkcd.com/2259/ https://www.xkcd.com/2259/ Trying out the right magic invocation until something starts working again.
- bigstrat2003 2y agoYep, sometimes we are basically techpriests. Apply the sacred unguents and pray that the machine spirit calms down, cause that's all you can do.
- noelwelsh 2y ago
- skybrian 2y agoThis bit about the pope "crowning Charlemagne the Roman emperor" was a sort of propaganda move, since the Roman empire still existed (in Constantinople), and the Franks were not Roman. The actual Romans weren't too happy about it.
- graemep 2y agoIts arguable. Charlemagne controlled Rome, so he had a vague claim to be a rule of the largest successor state. The Eastern Roman empire did have political continuity but was not all the Roman - it was culturally and linguistically Greek, and did not control Rome itself.
- bigstrat2003 2y agoYeah, I don't think one has much of a claim to be Roman emperor if they aren't, you know, in possession of Rome. The Taiwanese government considers themselves to be the legitimate Chinese government, but as they aren't in possession of China nobody really agrees with that claim. IDK why people treat Byzantium's claim of being Roman any differently.
- ithkuil 2y agoWell technically a Roman emperor moved the capital there while it was still a Roman empire. It's a little bit more complicated than a clear cut "Rome or not not Rome". Rome started as a city and a specific people but after many many centuries it became a much more abstract thing
- idontwantthis 2y agoBecause it was different. There’s a lot of history involved which is easy to read. I’d also recommend Dan Carlin’s series Thor’s Angels which lays it out pretty clearly.
- skybrian 2y agoTwentieth century Chinese history isn't a good comparison. The Roman empire sometimes had multiple emperors and multiple capital cities, and this complicated situation lasted for hundreds of years. Despite being called the Roman empire, the capital's location was no longer essential.
- _7acn 2y agoI am a traditional Catholic, and I can say that for us, such stories are not mere fairy tales. The spiritual world is something entirely normal for a Catholic. We are convinced that demonic possessions do happen (at the invitation of the person themselves), although many cases are simply mental illnesses. Traditional Catholics, however, should not be particularly interested in this, let alone listen to any messages from the devil. One does not negotiate with the devil :-)
- emilamlom 2y agoNo matter your beliefs on the supernatural, it should be clear that the story of Wiggo was an actual "fairy tale" made up by Einhard as a proxy for airing his disdain for the current state of the empire.
- MrMcCall 2y agoThe trick is to discern which input stream is of which source. We have positive thoughts/feelings, negative thoughts/feelings, and our own thoughts/feelings. "Know thyself." and "Know your enemy." are two good quotes related to this most important fight of all our lives. The key to the 1st Beatitude ("Blessed are the poor in Spirit, for theirs shall be the Kingdom of Heaven.") is to enter the Path of Love by wishing for our Creator to take Its Spirit (our Conscience) back into Itself so that we can cleanse and purify our soul of our selfish vice-eous tendencies. After making that wish/prayer and then doing much work using "Hallowed be Thy Name" (repeating a two-syllable Name of God, such as Yah-weh, Al-lah, Di-os, De-us, Nn-guy, Brah-man, ...) one's soul's heart is enlightened whereby the vices are replaced by their corresponding virtue. There are 19 such pairs. If one sees the path through to the end, one fully enlightens one's soul's heart and, a short time later, fulfills the 5th Beatitude: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." Once one performs the wish/prayer as mentioned in my 3rd paragraph, one's discernment improves and we gain strength in fighting the enemy of man, that selfish enemy of man, the deceiver or man, and bane of mankind since time immemorial. "On Earth as it is in Heaven." That is what we are capable of choosing, but we must embrace God's compassionate service to achieve it. And we must all choose it, in unity of the human race, unity of our Creator, and unity of Love as the foundation of all religion. "To love God with all one's being, and to love one's neighbor as oneself." --The Great(est) Command(ment)