Whitneyed

The domain of relatable human psychological experience is vast and deep. The domain of standard psychiatric discourse is not commensurate with the territory which it attempts to navigate. That is a problem insofar as it leads to needless suffering on the part of patients.

@annielcrawford Lachman also wrote Politics and the Occult. This is a centuries old phenomenon. Knights Templar, French Revolution, etc. I don’t feel safe studying it too closely. Charles Williams could do it. But I’m no Charles Williams.

@Whitneyed2 He's not the first.

"Man with the possible perversity of his warped imagination is far more dangerous than the devil and his legions. For man is not bound by the convention concluded between heaven and hell; "He can go beyond the limits of the law and engender arbitrarily malicious forces whose nature and action are beyond the framework of the law… such being the Molochs and other “gods” of Canaa, Phoenecia, Carthage, ancient Mexico and other lands, which exacted human sacrifice... "These are egregores, engendered by collective perversity, just as there exist the “demons” or “evil spirits” engendered by individuals." Anonymous. Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism.

@annielcrawford Office. That’s what the Evangelical Christians are missing, as are their critics. All the current talk about his blasphemy overlooks the dark influences behind Trump and MAGA.

@annielcrawford influences on his character. The idea that thoughts are causative (think Norman Vincent Peale and The Power of Positive Thinking) is central to New Thought, and explains why Trump expects events in the Middle East to be shaped by his own mind. An occultist sits in the Oval

@rabbriansamuel darkness after dying in the gas chambers. They didn't believe in Jesus, so they died in their sins; that was the idea. A very good antidote to that is the writings of Eitan Bar, a Jewish believer who is a native of Jerusalem and shows that Messianic Judaism is not Calvinism.

@rabbriansamuel Maybe there has been a shift in Messianic Judaism in the past 45 years. In 1979, a man named Art Katz made many cassette tapes; his voice was full of passion and kept me listening. He spoke about Elijah, and implied that the Jews who died at Auschwitz had descended into eternal

Messianic Judaism and its tenets on Israel and the Jewishness of Jesus used to be fringe. Now it's viral in Christian dialog. I'm so grateful to be alive to see this.

@DeanAbbott The patriotic response is to sound the alarm that the nation is being governed by a man who cannot govern himself.

The most Christian response to that "blasphemous" post by Trump is not to "call it out", not to complain or to pontificate about it. The most Christian response is to forget it, to regard it as another trivial bit of effluvia in the long stream of human hubris and foolishness and to set your mind on things above.

@Romello4x4 And with good reason.

@pjgurry This from the guy who thinks he’s the smartest person in the room

What does DBH think “fundamentalists” believe? nytimes.com/2026/04/12/opi…

@BigBrainPhiloso "The use-mention distinction" isn't "a useful concept in linguistics." Our culture has no clue about it. That is why literature professors cannot safely assign their students to read Flannery O'Connor's great story, "The Artificial N-Word" in class.

Daniel Dennett on "deepities" the profound-sounding claims that are secretly empty Philosopher Daniel Dennett has a name for a type of statement that sounds wise but actually says nothing: a deepity. He explains it this way: "A deepity is an apparently profound observation that is ambiguous. It has two readings. On one reading it's obviously false, but if it were true it would be very important. And on the other it's trivially true." The trick is in the ambiguity. When you hear a deepity, part of your brain registers the trivially true reading and thinks yes, that's correct. But another part is reaching for the dramatic, important-sounding reading and that's where the illusion of profundity comes from. Dennett's favourite example, which he uses when teaching the concept to students: "Love is just a word." It sounds deep. Think about it for a moment and it feels like it's gesturing at something real. That love is intangible, constructed, perhaps even illusory. But Dennett dismantles it immediately: "Whatever love is, it isn't a word. You can't find love in the dictionary." That's the "use-mention error" confusing the word love with the thing love refers to. Once you put quotation marks around it properly, the statement collapses into something utterly banal: "love" is just a word. Well, yes. So is "cheeseburger." So is "word." The deepity survives only because we don't slow down enough to ask which reading we're actually accepting. Once you have the word "deepity," you start seeing them everywhere: in self-help, in politics, in philosophy.

@RadioFreeTom Might it be premature to conclude that the war is a failure? Is it plausible that a naval blockade will so constrict Iran's economy that it will have to cave in? We are only on the second day today.

Something that is taught at war colleges, as it turns out

@paul_jkrause I loved Paradise Lost in college in 1969, and I want to read it again, but, not having a seminar for discussion, I am looking for a good book to help me read and appreciate it. Already read C.S. Lewis' Preface, and am looking for a book-by-book commentary. Suggestions? Thanks.

Satan gets all the great and passionate lines in Paradise Lost as a warning to readers not to get seduced by the power of the negative passions. But his lines, especially in Book 4, are glorious... "Sight hateful, sight tormenting..."

@manwitheyesopen @Thomasdelvasto_ I’m watching a long video with him and a couple of other guys and I like what he’s saying. It’s mostly about schizophrenia, not about mania (I didn’t really hear voices the way that happens in schizophrenia). But I want to contact him. Do you know how?

@Whitneyed2 @Thomasdelvasto_ Have you heard of a psychiatrist called Jerry Marzinsky? If not, you should watch some interviews with him.

a haunting story from a nurse friend: "I once had a patient who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia at some point, and he would strike “holy” attitudes while he in bed, like the attitudes of Christ, with the arms spread slightly apart, in a gesture of giving, or of embrace, and the hands open, the legs crossed with the feet overlapping, and the head slightly turned down, a subtle, kind of bemused smile on the lips. He seemed like a very sweet man and he was actually really coherent. I never heard any word salad out of him, though he was fixated on demons and evil spirits torturing him; the way he spoke about his “spiritual battles” was easy to follow, and he didn't seem particularly agitated or paranoid while I had him at least, though I could tell his “spiritual battles” colored the way he interpreted TV and movies, for example. He was soft spoken and seemed very kind. He was a great artist and could churn out incredible, detailed portraits of people from his past in just a few hours, some of the portraits he couldn't tell me who they were supposed to be or why he drew them though, and he would sometimes grope for explanations of them and who they were supposed to represent. It didn't matter though, he drew them and they were good. He would talk about how important it was to capture the soul of a person in the drawing, so he focused on the eyes and other inexplicable little details that made the drawing feel like a presence. Some of the nurse-aides said they would come in and hear him talking to himself, stuff about trying to prove his innocence, I guess, and once or twice I heard him mumbling things and he would look preoccupied, like he was in conversation. He said he'd started seeing and hearing from spirits after his wife died, angels and demons would appear to him and speak with him. He was often reading the Bible when I was in his room, and sometimes I asked him about it. He was discharged, and I don't know if the doctors tried to get him back on antipsychotics or not (he wasn't on any when I had him as a patient); he seemed like a good guy. He had such a sensitivity to him. This is just kind of what the world does to you."

@MNPatriot1775 Child? I’ll have you know, madam, that LuxyLips97 LIKED one of my comments. She was voted Best Body at the Beach in 2023, and she wants to have fun with me. I think she has the hots for me. So there!

@Whitneyed2 @seanfeucht Ok child

This should be deleted immediately. There’s no context where this is acceptable.

@Cmmnsens2020 What is called for here is a quality of character that the Romans called gravitas. A president who has fun trolling his enemies on X and who talks about “ratings” as if they had substance defines the opposite of gravitas. Never Trump was always a conservative position, you know.

@Cmmnsens2020 But he left him and his Ba’ath party in power. To effect regime change took boots on the ground. We have replaced an 86 year old hard line Mullah with a 56 year old hardline Mullah. The regime has not changed. We are not being leveled with by this administration. That is bad.

I choose my words intentionally. I detest hyperbole. And I believe I am a reasonable voice who presents facts in a measured, responsible, and level-headed manner. To say what I am about to say weighs heavily and is not said lightly or with partisan bias. It is time for the 25th Amendment to be exercised and Donald Trump removed from office. He is destroying our country and has destabilized the entire world. His actions are reckless and are directly endangering the lives, prosperity, and security of Americans. This cannot continue and is unsustainable in the current global environment. In addition to his erratic behavior, I believe he is suffering from dementia and is unable to carry out the Constitutional duties required of the President of the United States of America. I call upon Congress and the President’s cabinet to stop this madness now, before it is too late. (This is my personal opinion and does not necessarily reflect that of my employer, DoD, or any organization I am associated with.)

@ChrisjamesCincy @WalshFreedom Gloating feels even better. Look at Hungary. Trump and Vance went all out to support Orban, but he lost and lost badly. That’s what November will look like for MAGA. Then it will be your turn to cry. People are tired of MAGA style politics.

@Whitneyed2 @WalshFreedom That's it, cry a little more, you will feel better 😂😂

What a man without a soul looks like.👇

@ChrisjamesCincy @WalshFreedom Well, Trump took down the post after a barrage of criticism from Christians. When it got hot, he got out of the kitchen. TACO. Trump always chickens out.

@WalshFreedom Maybe you should try crying harder, that might help 😂😂

@MNPatriot1775 @seanfeucht Guess not. When an intense barrage of criticism poured into the White House from Christians all over the country, he took down the post. When it gets hot, he gets out of the kitchen. TACO=Trump Always Chickens Out.

@Whitneyed2 @seanfeucht He's not going anywhere