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Banning thread: Epop

 
  

Page: 1 ... 23456(7)89

 
 
Quantum
00:18 / 10.04.07
Witch hunt.

Ban.
 
 
Epop Bastart the Justified, I
00:18 / 10.04.07
Hm. Flyboy, with all due respect, the vast majority of people who haven't been raped don't have the guts to sit and deal with people who have been.

Never mind people who got mangled when they were children, or by their parents. I've faced all of that dealing with people.

Not that often, but often enough.

You can change a person's life by not flinching away from their pain, but just being present with it.

I've seen people with their nephesh actively trying to suicide because the psychic contamination was so bad walk out of my living room smiling because I took the toxins absorbed in their rape out of them and burn them.

So, you know, you're welcome to your opinion, mate, but results count a lot more than your ideas or preconceptions.

Feel free to head on over to the local rape crisis center and help out for a while.
 
 
Quantum
00:19 / 10.04.07
"with all due respect, the vast majority of people who haven't been raped don't have the guts to sit and deal with people who have been."

That's total bullshit.
 
 
Quantum
00:22 / 10.04.07
epop, it's a shame you're sound in real life, because here you're not really coming across that way. It was the same with my friend Leap, lovely bloke, didn't really get Barbelith.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
00:22 / 10.04.07
Well, if I did, and specified that the manner in which I intended to help out was to remove people's pyshic nepheth toxins and burn them, I can only hope I'd be politely discouraged.

And if I persevered, and then tried to use my work there as fucking currency and a source of fucking authority when my wacked out fucking ideas about gender and many other things didn't get the rapturous uncritical reception I thought they deserved - because I was such a saint, such a better human being than most on this rock - what would that make me?

A wanker, that's what.

Which is what you are. Fuck off.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
00:23 / 10.04.07
Flybers, you may be right but you also need to go to bed.

Fluid. Then bed. That's my plan.
 
 
Quantum
00:24 / 10.04.07
Good plan.
 
 
*
00:26 / 10.04.07
Epop, can you help me out? I'm having a hard time telling your current stance from the classic bullying tactic of "run roughshod over people until enough of them start to fight back, then play the victim." Of all the people who have argued against you, Mordant is not the one to single out and call nasty asterisks. And this martyr thing you've got going right now is also not the point, and a classic bullying tactic. So I'm having a hard time telling the difference between what could be perfectly legitimate, if unhealthy, defense mechanisms we all triggered when you perceived yourself as attacked by us, and the fairly standard ploy that allows bullies to stay in positions where they can continue to exert their dominance over people when confronted by resistance. Either way, it has the same end effect—some people will feel sympathy for you or just not have the stomach to keep trying to get at the real heart of the issue, and eventually you'll do the same damn things again that led to all this mess, namely:

* discount other people's experiences
* claim that evolutionary psychology programs certain people in ways that do not square with their experiences
* make assertions about rape that are insensitive to other people who have been raped who might be reading the thread
* get defensive and shoutymcshoutypants when people challenge you to unpack and/or better support things that you claim


So without some kind of process for getting you out of this stance and into a meaningful engagement with most of the rest of the board, I can't say that my initial, hasty, impulse towards banning will change.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
00:26 / 10.04.07
Bed will fix everything.

It's that whole waking up part I find myself increasingly reluctant to face.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
00:27 / 10.04.07
Okay, I've moved to have my previous post deleted. Whatever. At this point further discussion seems somewhat pointless.
 
 
Epop Bastart the Justified, I
00:27 / 10.04.07
Is that so, Quantum.

Is that so.

When I was young, it was so bad I burned out four or five therapists in a year once. I didn't die because I was too fucking angry to go down, but it hurt pretty bad.

Most of the therapists that people I've helped out have seen are willing to hold their hands and tell them it'll be alright.

They're not willing to deal with a woman who's idea of healing is to pour gasoline on her brother's bed with him in it and set him fire, and have to be talked down from there into the lying in a heap screaming for hours phase.

Few people are willing to sit there through that kind of stuff without armoring to it so that they can't effectively hold space.

I saw my fair share of therapists. I only saw *one* in all that time who could remotely deal and had not been raped or abused. Other people I've talked to have very similar experiences.

Folks in the therapy business are usually very, very interested in rebuilding the nice stuff, putting the drapes back in the once-broken windows.

But they're not willing to get down into the basement and clean out the monsters and the garbage.

I dunno how much experience you have in this terrain, but that's how it's looked for me.
 
 
Blake Head
00:31 / 10.04.07
The basic tone of the passage you have quoted from Mordant was, Epop, if anything, one of sympathy, rather than revulsion, and it’s unlikely that you will be able to remain a member if you descend to the level of targeting individuals worthy to receive insults.

A lot of you are very, very sure of yourselves with much less foundation.

Do you understand why making assumptions about other board members like this is not perceived as a good thing on Barbelith? Do you feel it’s productive?

a degree of damage that I *sincerely* doubt anybody on this board can comprehend

Again, do you understand why making assumptions about the capabilities of your fellow members is in any way helpful, or in anyway facilitates communication and understanding between you and other members on the board? Do you understand the importance of not seeking to justify your comments by reference to special qualities that set you above others and instead to providing substantial evidence to your claims and perhaps even more importantly finding a way to communicate that doesn’t alienate others from your viewpoint even more than the ways you have chosen have done already?
 
 
Quantum
00:35 / 10.04.07
Ooh, I should go to bed...

Dude, your experience is certainly valid but not everyone is the same, you know? Not only therapists help survivors, friends and family and lovers provide as much healing and support as a therapist if not more so. I've known quite a few survivors whom I've been happy to support. I've found that many people will rally round and help willingly despite the difficulties inherent in getting to the root of issues, the bad behaviour and catharsis. You seem to imply only survivors can possibly understand, or offer proper support and therapy, and that ain't so.
 
 
Epop Bastart the Justified, I
00:36 / 10.04.07
many ravishing idperfections

I think this is pretty simple, really. I am pretty sure that I have a better handle on what's going on here than most of you. I base that opinion on having rather a lot of success getting geopolitical change in the world - towards a green, egalitarian, happy planet - based on my spiritual life and to some degree my magical practice.

Results. Proof of the pudding: you walk the path, you get to be able to participate in the healing of the world in a pretty serious way. That stuff is quite real, and if you do the grunt work right, I believe it can be for any human being to do.

So I've seen rather a lot of lecturing from people who don't actually know very much while they proclaim, very loudly and very often, that I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about.

One resource - the Evolution's Rainbow - looks like it's got significant new stuff in it. Other than that it's been the same tired old drivel that I've been fighting off for years: political correctness, and shallow awareness of the body and how gender works at a magical level.

Y'all can continue to believe that you are, in some sense of the word, magicians.

I don't see it. I see a bunch of whiny, overly-intellectual acolytes bitching about the state of their lives and the state of the world and doing nothing.

So that leaves people like me - the producers, the people who are actually committed enough to make a difference in this world - burning out right left and center because you guys are useless.

And I mean that most sincerely. This whole storm in a teacup is pathetic and shows no signs - no *clues* - of valid insight past what I could legitimately expect of a decent Theoricus.

At that point, if this is it, quit magic and become academics. You don't know what the fuck you are doing and it's very, very clear from the way you react to genuinely new models, information and energies.

Godspeed.
 
 
Quantum
00:37 / 10.04.07
Do you understand why making assumptions about other board members like this is not perceived as a good thing on Barbelith?

Thank you, blake head. That's what I should've said.

Bed now. Bed.
 
 
Quantum
00:38 / 10.04.07
I am pretty sure that I have a better handle on what's going on here than most of you

See that assumptions thing again?
 
 
Quantum
00:39 / 10.04.07
the same tired old drivel that I've been fighting off for years: political correctness,

Christ. I'm going to bed.
 
 
*
01:02 / 10.04.07
When I was young, it was so bad I burned out four or five therapists in a year once. I didn't die because I was too fucking angry to go down, but it hurt pretty bad.

Yes, it did. I have read that entire post with great care, and acknowledge every single item within it, and with great respect to you for overcoming your trials to get where you are today, I still don't understand WHAT RELEVANCE you think this has to whether or not you should remain on this board.

Do you want:

* authority above other posters here because of what you've been able to overcome?
* extra consideration for your outbursts because of trauma you've suffered?
* a free pass to say things about women that no one would let pass unchallenged from anyone else, because you've "been there" and done things for individual women that all women should be grateful for, and that should cancel out any harm or discomfort you bring on others by your words?
* something else entirely?

Just what are you getting at here?

I think this is pretty simple, really. I am pretty sure that I have a better handle on what's going on here than most of you. I base that opinion on having rather a lot of success getting geopolitical change in the world - towards a green, egalitarian, happy planet - based on my spiritual life and to some degree my magical practice.

Wonderful! I am so glad that you have. However, it is perfectly possible to be very successful at accomplishing geopolitical change and still not be able to tell when your failure to interact with other human beings like a fellow human being is causing harm. Can you see where that harm has come from and cease to cause it so you can remain here? That's the question we have next to answer.

Other than that it's been the same tired old drivel that I've been fighting off for years: political correctness, and shallow awareness of the body and how gender works at a magical level.

Calling something "political correctness" is a defense used by oppressors who want to continue in their habits of oppression without being asked to think about or change them by people they consider their inferiors. I don't know why you are replicating that mechanism here. Maybe you can tell me, but either way, stop doing it, because it turns my stomach and makes me instantly inclined to chalk everything you say up to habitual bullying.

Please also stop resorting to the tones of magical authority. Many of us here have never claimed to be magicians, so your sweeping judgment that we are all false adepts or bumbling novices just looks silly.

I'm entirely disregarding, for the moment, your claims of knowing more than all the rest of us about gender and the body in terms of magic. That's not terribly relevant to me at this time; you could be spot on and that still wouldn't change the fact that the way you're treating everyone else here is irresponsible.

It happens that I'm on the other side of the world, though, so in respect to other people's ability to follow the conversation, I'll shut up. I've already engaged far more with this than I had originally intended to.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
01:09 / 10.04.07
Actually, this is rather pointing out that you don't know what Barbelith is, Epop. Most of us aren't magicians. This may explain, incidentally, why your Abyss-crossing narrative has been in some quarters received as the fantasies of a bumgunger, rather than the revealed truth of one of the most useful people on this rock.

As such, I fear we must be lamentably ignorant of how gender works on a magical level. However, we may be able to supplement that magical understanding with some idea of how gender works for those with some grasp on reality, or experience of relationships with women not based on the role of saviour.

Despite claiming to have changeed the world as an engineer or scientist, you appear to have no accredited scientific or engineering education, and no real concept of how the scientific method works. Faced with people who see your self-aggrandisement as precisely that - and remember that we still have absolutely no evidence, beyond the endorsement of a personal friend, who himself refused to get involved with your gender oddity or actually say that these world-changing solutions were actually changing the world (the best he could manage was that he hoped that they would be taken up by others, I believe), that any of your claims are in any way relatable to improving the world in a sense of "improve" comprehensible to we non-magical types - you have little recourse but to ever greater levels of bombast. You try to bait women with little-boy nonsense about "chicks", and then complain of political correctness - which, as has been mentioned, is Barbelith talk for "I have no real understanding of how the world works".

If you are actually doing some good in the world, then that is lovely, and if you have grown from traumatic experiences to be somebody who can contribute something of worth to the world, that is terrific. Well done you. However, I have gone over the course of this thread from thinking that it was an unnecessary and hasty action to thinking that we need to change the name of the board, so that people stop thinking that it will provide a custom-built fan club, and then getting upset and weird when it does not, leading to these deeply depressing and upsetting experiences.

The stresses of being the subject of a banning thread may provide some explanation of the specific turns this has taken, but, really, if this is your idea of interacting with other people then I fear the grand projects are unlikely to reach the papers, and you are unlikely to be treated as anything other than a reactionary and obstructive fantasist on Barbelith. Given the very many attempts to reach out to you in this thread, which have been systematically ignored, rejected or used as the springboard for another peroration on how great you are, I am wondering if you have any means of bringing value to Barbelith, or Barbelith any means of bringing value to you.

So, if you have decided that we are pathetic, politically correct and just not up to speed on the latest magical innovations in gender, I can only sympathise with your misunderstanding of what this place is. This was not the Magickal School of Grant Morrison, and is not in need of a new saviour now that he has started working with Geoff Johns.

On preview: What id said.
 
 
Epop Bastart the Justified, I
01:12 / 10.04.07
ah.

well, look, you have a nice little scene here, but the magic is gone gone gone.

Wrap it up, go back to your appointed stations, however you want to put it. Stop with the sigils and the tarots and the rest of that low level shit: it's made for learning and if you don't outgrow it fairly quickly it deforms you because you get what you want and not what you need, and there's nobody you can trust enough to hold you hand if you're going to go down into the pits of hell to get the rest of your stuff back (which is a phase we find in all traditions.)

Magic is not safe, it is not fun, and it is not for feathing your little nests. It is the great responsibility of shielding humanity from the morbid futures and ushering in what progresses can be made, and it implies taking responsibility not just for yourselves but for the whole human race.

Grant got that one right. The metaphor he chose - a war, with leaders on your own side who cannot be trusted - has done irreparable harm both here and elsewhere, and I'm very sorry nobody came to correct him when he taught you all these basic models.

(yeah, yeah, objection objection. I'm not interested.)

If you're not willing to step up to place, get the hell off the launch pad or you are going to get burned.

Mordant - you've got a lot going on, try and struggle through it. Rest of you: quit fucking around with magic you have neither the control, the insight nor the humanity.

In the name of what watches over us when we stray, I close the connectors which grant foolishly left open when he first left this place. He should have swept it up after him when he quit teaching.

Exit his mandala, and get on with your lives.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
01:14 / 10.04.07
Grant Morrison was never a regular member of the board. He did not set it up. It was created by Jay Babcock and then handed on to Tom Coates.

Is any of this getting through?
 
 
Glenn Close But No Cigar
01:38 / 10.04.07
Personally, I think Grant Morrison should change the name of his long-awaited how-to book to 'EPOPMAGIC!'. Seems only fair given that Epop's better at the abracadabra stuff than Grant, PLUS he's exposed us to many An Inconvenient Truth about rape induced orgasm, and closed down the connectors that Grant so foolishly left open.

Honestly, that's the problem with Grant these days - always leaving things undone. Closing the connectors, The Authority 2... Tcch. Next thing we know, we'll be up to our arses in unprocessed metaphor, and then where will we be?
 
 
Epop Bastart the Justified, I
01:46 / 10.04.07
Right where you are now, mate.

I don't see a way of deleting my own account, so do please take care of that for me.
 
 
Glenn Close But No Cigar
01:50 / 10.04.07
Type a bunch of random letters / numbers into the password box on your profile. Press update, delete cookies, and you're done.

I'd still prefer it if you took some time out to think about why you and the board haven't rubbed along that well before you burn your suit, but it's up to you.
 
 
Saint Keggers
01:57 / 10.04.07
Or you could just...stop posting.
 
 
This Sunday
02:31 / 10.04.07
All that stuff I posted the other day about 'working it through' and dialogues and perspectives? I'm standing by it, not because I think we learned Epop has suffered more than anyone else in the world and is now superior to everyone who hasn't suffered as much - because I don't think suffering ever makes you a better person - but, because I've realized how actually quite excellent virtually everyone else on this board is.

I was letting several minor disagreements or differences in communications-styles get to me more than was productive or necessary.

Really, y'all are ace, top of the line, and otherwise damned alright.
 
 
penitentvandal
06:33 / 10.04.07
In the name of what watches over us when we stray, I close the connectors which grant foolishly left open when he first left this place. He should have swept it up after him when he quit teaching.

Exit his mandala, and get on with your lives.


Y'know, forget it. Forget it. I tried. But y'know what? It didn't take. I thought we could get you to talk about the evidence, Epop. And there was some little glimmer of that, for a bit. But then we get torrents of bumgunge about political correctness and then a fucking cataract of bullshit about how you're a better magician than us, and how we are a disgrace to Grant's dojo and should give it up. Yawn.

Barbelith is not the mandala of Grunt Monsoon. Never is, never was. Many of us are getting on with our own magickal lives, and have worked our way out of a strict Morrisonian framework. Barbelith actually has a healthily critical attitude to the Master Morrison, to be honest, the only person I see still worshipping him is you.

Your ideas about using a magical perspective to help rape victims are interesting (though I'm not clear on the terminology - the nepesh is the body? The reptile brain? Would it kill you to map these ideas onto concepts the non-magi on here can get), especially as I myself have done a little work using magic to help people get over trauma (I'll reiterate, though - I helped, they were the ones who got over it: I am not, nor have I ever been, a superhero, your honour), but then you come out with stuff about women becoming more sexually promiscuous after rape as if that's what all of them do. Would it tweak the nipples of the Christ-child if you occassionally used the words 'some but not all'? Hmmm?

But then what do we know, we're just the Special Class, and we should just give up and get used to the fact that we'll never be big shiny X-Men like you. How dare we even question your effectiveness as a magus of the new Aeon?

Give me a B, give me an A, give me an N. What does that spell?
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
07:21 / 10.04.07
I can't believe you. I really, really cannot believe you. You are hurting the people here and you don't care.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
07:31 / 10.04.07
Well, either you don't care or you're actively enjoying inflicting pain and misery. Not sure which.
 
 
Evil Scientist
10:25 / 10.04.07
I'm a little late to the dance. But, in the event that Epop hasn't scrambled his account, I would suggest that his behaviour within this thread more than justifies him being banned from the board. His utter lack of respect for any other posters (and the f-i posters in particular) leads me to believe that if he is allowed to remain on the site we are simply going to have to end up having a conversation similar to this further down the road.

I don't care who Epop is in the real world. I don't believe his claims to be any kind of magician are valid. His extremely poor science, and refusal to back up his claims with evidence, would make any argument he's put forward within this thread laughable if they weren't about such a serious topic. I have found his constant use of his victim status (whether true or not) to "back up" his position to be sickening.

Should Epop actually remain on the site then my personal feeling is that all Moderators be alerted to the ficsuit and monitor their forums for his presence. If he stays, and I do not believe he should, then he should be watched, closely.
 
 
Alex's Grandma
11:39 / 10.04.07
I'm just a bit gutted that I didn't ask him for Grant's phone number in time.
 
 
Ticker
13:20 / 10.04.07
Epop,

I've tried to treat you with respect during this entire exchange. I'm hoping that in recognition of this effort you might consider these words which started as a PM but I believe in enough to make public. They are sincere, heartfelt and offered in friendship.

After reading the last few pages of this thread I am filled with the a crystal clear stunning piece of knowledge.

If we were sitting in the same room I would probably enjoy talking to you. In fact I'm pretty sure we would be friends.

What you seem to not be understanding is we are not sitting in the same room and I cannot hear your tonality, see the expressions on your face, the small gestures of your body. I only have the words you elect to fill into this wee box and hit 'post' to plaster up. Devoid of all of those other layers of communication I am left without the compassionate human who has suffered and survived and in his place I have a monotone voice using words untempered by any nuance.

Maybe it was your post on the magical workings around rape but for a minute I believe I heard your voice and what I can say is it is not translating well in this medium.

Were we to sit down, have a conversation, and create a transcript of that dialogue my words and my experience might very well sound much like yours on this board. However I have learned how to modify my use of language to compensate for a medium devoid of nuance and you have not. I am a storyteller and I know what can be spoken simply and what cannot be communicated by the printed word.

A core truth in magic is be adaptable, to learn when we must change our manifestation to resonate more clearly with our intent.

You need to tune to us and our frequency here just as I needed to tune to you. Not everyone here can do this and it may read as arrogant for me to state it like that. Again it's a failure of the form, and a danger inherent in the process.

Can you acknowledge the limitations of this medium and the resulting communication problem we are experiencing?

I'm offering you a set of tools because I value what you have to talk *with* me about.
We have dealt with harder and more complex issues this is just about compromising language choices not the ideals or concepts we hold dear.

-XK
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
13:59 / 10.04.07
I'm not saying anything about Epop's behaviour elsewhere, really, because id's said everything I would, only better.

In this thread alone, however, he's been abusive to other posters (Mordant in particular, and yes, while she is a highly-respected poster, that's not really the point- Epop was just bloody rude, this isn't some "leaping to the defence of Barberoyalty" thing, it would have been rude no matter who is was addressed to), be generally abusive to the rest of the board, in particular the Temple posters, been pretty fucking rude to the rest of humanity (of all genders) and managed to drag poor old BiaS (whose IRL good guy-ness I will personally vouch for) into a horrible fucking mess.

APART from anything else, above and beyond misogyny or political fucking correctness or ANY of that, he's basically just been a wanker to the other people on Barbelith.

I was starting to rethink my initial enthusiasm for banning, but unless Epop actually has, as Flyboy so eloquently put it, "just fuck(ed) off", then I've stopped my rethinking.
 
 
Quantum
14:18 / 10.04.07
Like the Stoat says. Also, I agree with XK on the IRL/Board schism, as I said a few posts ago epop, it's a shame you're sound in real life, because here you're not really coming across that way. It was the same with my friend Leap, lovely bloke, didn't really get Barbelith.
I now am less sure he's sound in real life, although I trust BiaS' judgement, because he's been such an asshat here.The stuff about his magical practice blistering the paint off nearby buildings had me particularly annoyed because he obviously hasn't quite managed a) successful communication (that's Mercury or Hod btw) or b) Humility (some say The Hanged Man, trump 12). Those are basic tenets of a successful practice IMHO which he doesn't seem to have mastered.
 
 
Glenn Close But No Cigar
14:22 / 10.04.07
If we were sitting in the same room I would probably enjoy talking to you. In fact I'm pretty sure we would be friends.

I feel something similar. I'm sure that had all of this gone down in a pub, Epop might have found it easier to deal with challenges to his thought, might have found the physical presence of female interlocuters and their male allies tempered his sexist pronouncements somewhat, and might even have been much less likely to go with the 'I'm Alan Moore / Al Gore' guff, if only because he'd look a bit silly when someone asked him to perform an Expectro Patronum, or asked him just why Tipper fails to orgasm when he emotionally coerces her into sex. Plus, he wouldn't have text messaged his mate to verify his wonderfulness if he found himself in a sticky conversational spot.

Equally, I doubt that the idea of banning him from the pub would have come up at all, especially when the pub's punters knew that the landlord probably wouldn't be sticking his head round the door for a good while yet, and that the bouncers weren't empowered to boot Epop out. In the end, Epop would have either found common ground with the rest of the punters through enquiry, light teasing, and friendly conversation, or left 'cause he wasn't having much fun, and there are plenty of other pubs anyway, and after all Gryffindor Mudbloodson doesn't drink at the Barbelith Arms anymore, and was never a regular anyway, so what's the point?

But then again, Barbelith is not the Barbelith Arms. And, in a sense, thank Grantness for that. Can you imagine the customers the name would attract? Can you imagine just how un-fun a pub populated by Chaos Magickians, Meme Terrorists, and Danny the Street Otakin might be? You wouldn't be in the door five minutes before someone was showing you the Tarot pack they'd devised, based entirely on camera phone photographs of Banksy grafitti and upskirt shots of Lindsay Lohan.

*Ahem* Back on-topic. Possibly a good guy. Certainly a rubbish poster on recent evidence. If Epop's not burnt his suit when he closed the connectors, perhaps he'll come back with an apology, a promise not to pull this shit again, and something useful to contribute to the site. Here's hoping.
 
  

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