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How did you get here?

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Elijah, Freelance Rabbi

19:44 / 23.07.02

so, with talk of never coming back, how did you first arrive.

Me, i had just read the 1st 2 trades available at the time, and was in a painfully easy computer sci class that required me to make a powerpoint presentation. So there i was, looking up art and char bios for the Invisible presentation i was creating, and found the bomb, and there was a link called Nexus.
I speant the bulk of my early days lurking like mad, since i had literally never posted on an internet group before.
I like it here, i remember going home mid day at college because the board was down when i checked for new posts in between classes.
Thanks tom, for monthes while on the board i didnt know who you were, but i'm glad you were around to create, allowing me to live in your space for a post at a time.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

20:14 / 23.07.02

Just searched for Invisibles-related stuff on first getting net access, really... after a couple of hours, realised that the majority of it was naught but fanboy wankery, and I'd be better off just reading the comics again and forming my own opinions... then I stumbled across this place.
And woah, am I glad I did.
This place rocks. Has rocked. And, I hope to God, will continue to rock.
Either way, rocking is what is does.

20:15 / 23.07.02

Via The Bomb, way back when.

The Apple-Picker

20:16 / 23.07.02

I was a member of the Special Board (also known as the Benevolent Order of Chuckleheads, also known as Fade to Black). Apparently, a portal was opened between this world and that. I didn't know about the link, though, seeing as I was not really the most regular of posters. I was (and am) a friend of BitchieKittie's, though. And she casually mentioned that I should come by. I didn't. She casually mentioned it again once or twice. Finally I typed the magic word into my location bar.

20:21 / 23.07.02

I had gone through google looking up "chaos magick", since I had read through everything on The Chaos Matrix and I was wanting something new. I stumbled upon disinfo.com's interview with some guy called Grant Morrison. This guy was going on about sigils and all that. If I remember correctly, there was a link to this place called "Barbelith Underground". I scrolled down the forum titles and here was one that looked interesting. It said "Magick". I clicked and wonder of wonders, this wasn't a dead board. There was actual discussion about magick going on. This was about October of 2000. I lurked for awhile, not knowing how the place would welcome newbies. When I saw the warm welcome Lothar Tuppan received I thought, "Maybe I should join". Around July of 2001, I registered with the name "Bandito Bob". Heh. I'm not sure why. I went lickity-split to the magick forum, posted a silly question and then disappeared back into the woodwork for awhile, until I made a thread asking how well everybody thought Enterprise would do.

After that, I disappeared for awhile. Mostly because of school. When I came back to log on in October of 2001, I couldn't remember the password for old Bob. Seeing as how I thought it was a silly persona anyway, I shrugged it off and hit the registration screen again. But, what would I call myself. I wanted something original. I slapped my hands down on the keyboard in frustration and got "trjhaos", I thought that looked neat, so I put an "i" in it and Trijhaos has born.

Oh wait. Pretty much only that first little bit has anything to do with how I found this wonderful, magickal place. But, you know what? It doesn't matter and let's just toss a little something extra in here. The proper way to pronounce "Trijhaos" is try-jay-us.

Sorry. got a little long-winded there.

Murray Hamhandler

20:34 / 23.07.02

Fan of The Invisibles, me, coming as it did at precisely the time in my young life when I needed Something New And Different. Looked madly 'cross the Net for more info on the deluge of ideas presented to me therein. Stumbled 'pon Babcock's The Bomb (which certainly was as advertised) and hovered about that site 'til there was squawking about a mailing list in the works. Joined up there on the first day (like Our Tom, if I do remember correctly). And 'midst the list, there came a trumpeting about a new place. I poked my nose in a few times to The Nexus, but was far too invested in the Invisi-list to put much of my time into yet another site. Then the series ended and I dropped off of the list for some time. About a year ago, I was poking around and came across ol' Barbelith and thought: "Why not? Let's give it a go and see what happens." And here we are. A heady brew of high and low, frustration and joy... If this place goes, I'll not be holding my breath to find another site as worthwhile. 'Lith, I hardly knew ye.

21:08 / 23.07.02

Goofing at work, half looking for leads, half reading up on gnosticism, transhumanism, chaos magick & barbelith, came upon Babcock's site, followed link to Bomb & to Nexus, and it reminded me of old BBSes I used to hang out at. Only with people who were into gnosticism, transhumanism, chaos magick & comic books.

21:15 / 23.07.02

Can't remember precise details, but found The Bomb first, which then led me to the Nexus and Tom's old Barbelith weblog. Lurked a little. Then came the crash. It was a while before I 'found' the Underground; a couple of the links on Barbelith didn't work and I could never remember which ones did. Became hooked after reading posts by Rosa, Kali, grant, Ganesh, Jack Fear, Bizunth and Riz (amongst others) and pretty much falling in love with the place and the people.

21:30 / 23.07.02

Stumbled across the place one night on acid and realised I was virtually home.

22:17 / 23.07.02

I, being interested in magick and such for quite a while now, happened to pick up a copy of Christopher Penczak's book City Magick about 8 months ago. In it, he mentioned The Invisibles as having been one of the inspirations for the book and gives just the tiniest bit of a synopsis of the very beginning of the story, Jack and Tom O'Bedlam wandering into the magickal version of London, etc.

So, I wandered by the local comic book store and pick up the first trade paperback volume, and rapidly became hooked. At some point, I thought to have a look around to see if anyone was doing anything at "barbelith.com".

And someone was!

22:21 / 23.07.02

honestly? Okay the full story.

About 2 or so years ago I went back into a comic book shop for the first time in over 5 years. I picked up this niffty comic called Planetary. The dude in the shop said, look if you like the look of Planetary, I think you'd really like the Authority. And thus my love of comics and superheroes was reborn.

This eventually lead me to the Morrison's JLA which I loved. I wanted more Morrison, and this lead me to the Invisibles. In the Invisible I discovered the comic I didn't think could be written. A proper acid comic. Then, in the back of issue 1 Barbelith.com was mentioned. I went and had a look.

At first I didn't think much of the nexus. I posted a couple of things about liquid LSD and then got bored. However I developed a massive crush of Tom, and became an obsessive reader of his pre-plasticbag blog. Spending all day trying to think of witty things to email him.

This went on for a while, probably a little too long. I think I got a bit embarrasing. So I headed back to the Underground, probably thinking 'if I become a popular poster, maybe Tom will notice me?'. Yes, a bit pathetic (completely pathetic really). And completely unrealistic. But there you go.

Once I wandered around the underground for a while, I found I really loved the place. I'd found a place where I could have intricate discussions about philosophy, metaphysics and religion. As well as comics and music. A whole section dedicated to creation. It was everything I could have hoped for, all in one place.

So I hung around and here we are...

22:41 / 23.07.02

Kicking around the net and came across plasticbag...then united with a curious Ice Honkey (good friend) to see that he was perusing this place. Liked lab and occasional design discussion. Lurked a bit and then found a voice when I got myself up on the web. Typed in a ficsuit identical to my online presence and went to it.

22:48 / 23.07.02

exactly the same way as Deric describes above. Funny, that's the second time recently that he's invalidated a potential post of mine by writing almost exactly what i intended to say. Can't remember what the first one was offhand, but it was uncanny.

Are you actually "The lentil who is always stuck ten minutes into the future"?

ONLY NICE THINGS

23:09 / 23.07.02

Went to a film with Nick, who was at the time seeing a friend of mine. Bonding over coffee in Camden Town afterwards, he invited me to check it out. I suspect he may regret it.

23:42 / 23.07.02

I don't remember when I first found this place, but I didn't stay for long. I had a user name, so when the board crashed, I got an e-mail about it. I was getting tired of the WEF, so I decided to look around here. I noticed that I coud start discussions here that would actually get responses.

Or maybe I got a link to barbelith when someone on the WEF mentioned it.

I really appreciated Tannhauser's contribution to the forum. Xe helped give it a nice first impression for me. Haus was posting especially heavily in the Head Shop (or equivalent) at the time.

Murray Hamhandler

23:55 / 23.07.02

Lentil: Am not at liberty to divulge such information at the risk of creating unforseen time/space paradoxes. I'm sure you understand, as I know that I did ten minutes ago.

The Return Of Rothkoid

00:33 / 24.07.02

Met Tom, a couple of years ago. Lurked but didn't speak up for quite a time. (Adjusts old-timey long johns.)

01:37 / 24.07.02

Used to read the Wall Street Journal every morning. One morning, an article on blogging --usr/bin/girl mentioned. From usr/bin/girl to plasticbag.org, from there to Barbelith.

Boy in a Suitcase

02:13 / 24.07.02

I came here around 1998, when it was called The Nexus–right around the time that Jay Babcock's Barbelith site shut down. Mostly what I remember from back then was annotating the issues and working through all the references. Never lurked but always been a light poster. A wonderful place. We were the revolution, we were the cultural current, we were the punks of 77 and the ravers of 88–we just partied over our phone and DSL lines. We were IT.

02:30 / 24.07.02

I'm another one who followed the trail of crumbs and shiny things from the disinfo interview with Morrison. I got sucked in by the Magick forum and some of the discussions in Conversation, and now I'm hooked, completely trapped. This place is more sticky than flypaper!

03:52 / 24.07.02

I was here back in the days of the nexus under a different name. (Which was stolen when it became the undergound) It was this and playing Death Rally. Oh its the small steps that lead you to a longer road.

05:06 / 24.07.02

My parents got randy at Christmas.

07:28 / 24.07.02

From the bomb and surfing the net in college.
Spent most of my time here back then...just reading and soaking in the luxuriant personalities and conversations.
Still miss barbelith orange from the weblog and the guy in the "Dare" t-shirt who was in the corner back when it was the nexus.

07:33 / 24.07.02

Read the Invisibles, searched for stuff on t'internet. Found the Bomb, but didn't realise about the message board - not very well up on t'internet at the time. Eventually drifted into the Nexus, and quivered in fear at the mighty intellects of the likes of Nick, grant, Jack Fear, Look!NickWaddam and Ganesha for some time, before hazarding a post or two. Never been part of another web community, and doubtless won't in the future if the Lith goes. In fact, will probably trash my computer and stop bemusing my real life friends with what this strange group of people in t'internet thinks about stuff.

07:36 / 24.07.02

Saw a really cool cover in the comic shop "Brit pop is dead" (Invisibles 2.17 I think).
Bought comic.
Read it.
Loved it.
Didn't understand any of it.
Searched on the net, found the Bomb and The Nexus and a "Is Kevin Smith Invisible?" thread.
Decided to stay.

(I miss that Dice Man game on the old weblog!)

Who remembers when Barbelith went all brown/ swampy for a day or two?

08:27 / 24.07.02

Went nuts for The Invisibles. Almost literally. Used college computers to obsessively read all the annotations on Jay Babcock's site, and subsequently on the Bomb. Joined the Nexus as soon as I acquired my own email address, assumed I'd just post a bit of nonsense under a silly name and forget about it. But I was bored that week so I kept going back. I've now posted a quite herculeon amount of nonsense several silly names.

08:45 / 24.07.02

While studying an ancient, forbidden grimoire near the top of the crumbling stone tower I call home I recieved a note by homing pigeon, gilt edged writing on the most delicate papyrus. It was a personal invitation to join something called a 'Nexus' and enlighten all those therein.
Or I stumbled across it in a university computer lab while procrastinating about an essay. Whichever one seems most interesting.

The Natural Way

08:57 / 24.07.02

Standard checknet for Invissy stuff story: found bomb. Nexus came online a few days after that. Happy. Mmmm.

09:21 / 24.07.02

Adam Swish talked. I thought the first rule was; 'you don't talk about barbelith' but I still thought I'd sneak in.
I too quivered in the face of mighty intellects who could use words like 'lavatory' and 'Australia' but then I got the hang of things and just wandered round in the conversation making crap jokes. I occasionally make a nuisance of myself elsewhere though.

09:36 / 24.07.02

Snogging. Had fling with Barbelither, so here I am...

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

09:39 / 24.07.02

Sax: "Never been part of another web community, and doubtless won't in the future if the Lith goes. In fact, will probably trash my computer and stop bemusing my real life friends with what this strange group of people in t'internet thinks about stuff."

Ah. So it's not just me then.

The Natural Way

09:46 / 24.07.02

It's true: Barbelith is just about the only interthingy I dally for any time w/. Wondering if that's a good or a bad thing....

yawn - thing's buddy

11:26 / 24.07.02

babcock>bomb>nexus>rory:glassact:yawn

11:33 / 24.07.02

Haus told me to come here.

11:37 / 24.07.02

I woke up one morning and I was here and I've never been able to find the door...

Actually the magick section was recommended...

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