Jünger
Ostrich
I had an employer who spent lots of money buying that stuff. Absolutely destructive, encouraging the traits that had already made a mess of her life.
Demons And The City
- Thread starter Roosh
- Start date
Your sister needs an Orthodox priest, she doesn't have schizophrenia.
Imagine the conversations on that balcony. EwwwOriginally posted on RooshV.com
The typical Western city of today is the most effective environment to encourage sin. It is able to generate immoral behaviors so effectively that the task of corrupting your soul becomes one of demonic auto-pilot.
If the opportunity to commit evil is all around you, and you have already chosen for that evil, why do demons need to get involved? Demons must labor to influence you to choose wrong, but if you voluntarily place yourself in an evil environment with the purpose of satisfying a wish list of sinful desires, you make their job effortless. A good example is someone who moves from a small, traditional town to a city like New York or Los Angeles. A man or woman uprooted themselves and went to the big city because they desire to gorge themselves on money, sex, and fame. When a hungry child is in a candy store, do you need to convince him to eat candy? He simply dives in until he gets sick, and during that time of eating, he needs no convincing from a being or external force to keep going until his belly is full of sugar and high fructose corn syrup.
I suspect that there are not many demons residing in the major cities. The evil you may feel while in one may not come from the presence of demons but the mass quantity of people who have chosen evil. The city is actually a platform for evil, one that Satan has constructed and optimized over hundreds of years to lower the barrier for you to commit severe sins. To engage in pride or fornication within a modern city involves no debate or consternation—they’re so normalized that you are looked at as an oddball if you decide against them. You don’t have Instagram? You’re anti-social. You don’t want to hook up after a night of drinking? You’re sexually inadequate. Your friends and acquaintances play the role of the demons by tempting you to sin, and they do that work for free. Surely the demons swing by on weekend nights to appreciate their handy work, especially in the month of June when the sodomites take over much of the Western urban world, but do they need to persuade a homosexual to attend a gay pride parade? Do they need to urge him to wave dildos and other sexual paraphernalia in public?
If the demons are not in the city then where are they? On assignment corrupting souls that have chosen for Christ. Demons venture out of the city, away from the nightlife and gay pride parades, and into the suburbs to cause strife in families. They separate man and wife and put rebellious ideas in the minds of children. They’re in the countryside, introducing subtle traps to those who want to worship God through the natural world. And they’re in the monasteries, attacking men who are on their way to receiving a hundredfold blessing from God.
The demons only care about you when you care about your salvation. The ancient Desert Fathers remarked on the pattern: the instant you choose to pick up your cross and walk with Christ, the demons climb on your back and won’t leave until God has deemed their attacks sufficient for the building of your virtue. When I went into the mountains for two months to live in what I later found out was a former crack house, a den of exceeding vice, I was tormented by sexual dreams and nightmares involving actual demons burning my flesh. Relief only came when I slept beside a wooden cross. While the nightmares were frightening at the time, I must take it as a compliment that the demons cared enough to single me out.
In my old life in the city, when I chased women for casual sex, Satan left me alone as I destroyed myself, and I can’t recall having even a single nightmare from the time I was behaving at my worst. From this point on, if Satan wants my soul, he’s going to have to devote all his resources to the task, whether I live in a city or not, because I certainly won’t give it to him without a fight.
Read Next: I Lived Most Of My Life Under Demonic Influence
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That's the thing - 1. It's a lot easier (and more profitable) for an art school to pump out students who are another Pollock or Warhol, than it is to create the next Mucha or Lawrence Alma-Tadema and 2. It's also a lot quicker (and, once again, more profitable) for the art world to regularly and consistently churn out trashed beds, glasses of water on shelves that are "conceptually" "oak trees," and "figurative paintings" that look like they were executed by a 5 year old on a sugar high, than it is to patiently wait for the oil painting and the Bernini-esque sculpture masterpieces of old, that would take literal years to complete.
Don't get me started on Rothko's glorified first year art student color swatch exercises blown up to be the size of walls. One of the most laughably cringey moments I remember, is when I saw part of this documentary on Rothko (been so many years I forget the name and channel.) The camera was zooming in slowly on one of his two color swatch works, while playing ominous ambient music (think the psychedelic light tunnel scene from near the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey) and intercutting with flashes of scenes from World War II, the Civil Rights Movement, and other clichéd "dramatic moments in history." The producers/editors were blatantly trying to manipulate the viewer into thinking that two gigantic color swatches could evoke all these "deep" and "complex" emotions.
I can't comment on any particular demonic experiences in the art school I went to. Most of my time there I was an apostate, and did not return to Christianity until around my final year or two there, give or take. Nevertheless, I do have my fair share of horror stories about students and teachers being clearly unhinged and disturbed, along with unpleasant encounters with those who took issue with my conservative stance. Conflict would also arise from my merely politely but firmly disagreeing with something completely apolitical, or simply "offended" their liberal sensibilities without even trying.
I remember, in particular, being in a critique in which we were showing the progress of our thematic series assignments. In one of my pieces in progress, I had drawn a nude woman as a placeholder. Just a normal nude woman standing: no provocative lust inspiring pose or anything tasteless whatsoever. I explained to the teacher my reasoning, and she laughed and rejected my explaination in a smug and condescending manner. She then went up close to it and said, to the best of my recollection: "You know, when I'm in a gallery, I don't have to look at the label next to a painting for the artist's name to tell if it was done by a guy or not." She then turned to me and furiously began raising her voice to almost yelling levels while screeching "This looks like it was done BY A GUUUUY!!!!!!" The look on her face was as if I had raped her daughter by drawing that female nude.
In a similar vein, during my last semester, my teacher at the time took issue with a classy nude piece I did due to supposedly a male drawing a nude female in the "MeToo" era. Meanwhile, a female student in my graduating class had an exhibit inundated with blatantly objectifying and pornographic imagery (including literal bondage porn) without a peep of protest. I fought tooth and nail to get my piece into my senior show, and said teacher proceeded to try to gaslight and passive-aggressively sabotage me. Still got in, still graduated and got out with my sanity intact (barely.)
I could go on about both student and teacher behavior. The bottom line is that if there was demonic influence in that art school, I would not be surprised (the front entrance had a bunch of propaganda for a new gay pride center on the walls for awhile.)
Have not heard of him. Will have to do research.
A man of taste I see!
^^^^A thousand times this. It's a tricky balance I have yet to master.
I can tell right away your penchant for naturalist painting (as opposed to sacred art like iconography) is bit more on the romantic side than mine—Mucha and Alma-Tadema being more “art nouveau” than my own interests from that same period, which would probably put me in the semi-journalistic “Ashcan School” of painters. John Singer Sargent and those who came a bit later (but in the same vein).
Thing is, what really I dreamt about doing as an artist way back in high school was being something like Boris Vallejo—I loved that comic-book “reflected light” he’d put on his photorealistic figures, and I figured if I could get done just one painting like that to my name then my years suffering through high school scholastics (which I stunk at, and only bothered with to get into art school) would have been worthwhile.
Only it seems I then did something a little unpopular, art school wise, the year before I enrolled. Namely, I joined the Marines and became a reservist.
I did it partly for the GI Bill, partly to get out of my parents’ basement—partly because I was a skinny teen who wanted to bulk-out like Sly Stallone. I had also gotten dumped by my first real girlfriend during my senior year of high school, and so I was fighting a depression on top of everything else.
Nobody at art school cared about that. I was now an “imperialist”.
And I could not get a date at that place to save my life—not with any of the girls I actually wanted dates with. Instead, I got dates with fat chicks who shaved the sides of their head and insisted “makeup’s bad because it’s tested on animals” (platonic dates—I wasn’t interested in getting whatever their other boyfriends had—just someone to see a movie with).
But it was still the 1980’s. So I had a pretty good photorealism paint class, and another pretty good life drawing class—learned about Theodore Gericault and Diego Velazquez.
But then came that “modern art history” class. What a 4-month long stint in a sewer—and taught by a boomer Jew who had spent his own youth in Greenwich Village, so he know all the cultural marxist lingo that supposedly proves Mark Rothko was God’s gift to 20th century art—and the expectation was all his students would then speak that way.
I got through with a “C”. I had stopped him in the middle of his diatribe on day and said, “For the life of me I can’t see how ‘cubism’ had any effect whatsoever on movies, advertising, design, or anything equally memorable in 20th century visual art—how it was anything more than a gimmick that lived only in galleries, and once the fad died nobody went back to it.” His response was, “You know what your problem is? You’re too detached”—and then he just kept on talking.
Well, when I got through with a year at that place I was psychologically messed-up. Badly. I wound up returning to my high school job, which was a “chicken cook” for Roy Roger’s restaurants. About 2 years later I enrolled in the local state university hoping to finish up there—and I did finally meet normal heterosexual college kids who, however liberal, would at least marry each other and have kids—but internally I was a wreck, and so I just dropped out again without graduating.
Tried seeing a shrink. Another fine specimen of the kosher variety. Didn’t work. Stelazine did nothing for me. I told the guy straight out, “This is like taking 2 shots of whiskey each day—I can do that on my own.” He then informed me it was my body and I could do “whatever the hell I want with it”.
After that you get into my lengthy personal history where me and my bipolar agnostic father don’t see eye-to-eye, and I wind kicked out of the house and doing more Roy Rogers level jobs to survive. And I can’t blame art school for that, as it’s just the family I was born into.
On the upside, I did wind up doing some illustrations for my father, as he then started doing things online that merited artworks—this is now early and mid 1990s stuff. Then later wound-up caring for both my parents until they died—father from emphysema, mother from Alzheimer’s.
And so now it feels very much as though I’m right back in that former period of my life—late 1980’s, early 1990’s. Granted, I’m not in the Marines anymore, not having nightmares each night and considering putting an M-16 in my mouth, but as far as where I’m at with my art, yes, it is as though I’m waking up after a 30-year coma and like, “Looks like it’s time to paint once again.”
And I have no idea what’s it’s going to feel like if I put my paintings up for consignment in any of the local galleries around here. I think they’re just about all run by liberal women, and they all have the “WE STAND WITH BLACK LIVES MATTER” signs in the windows.
Thing is, if they’re actually trying to sell artworks, then I think I can make a case for what I’m doing. Namely, people will pay me for my realistic portraits and other imageries. There’s no BS’ing anyone—no need to talk someone’s ear off about how my “dada installation” is going to save the environment and fight racism.
The rest of it feels like I’m in a science fiction story. Our culture’s basically falling apart in big chunks, yet here I am in my 50’s trying to keep a refined art form alive.
It was something I saw my mother do when I was a boy. I was about 7, and she took this nighttime painting class where she had to do one “oil painting still life” for homework. And so in our kitchen she set up this bowl of wax fruit on a red and white striped tablecloth, and over the course of about 3 months she painted it—almost getting the perspective right.
That’s over 40 years ago, and I’m still using her easel.
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My wife had been an atheist her entire life, mainly due to her being raised by her rabid communist grandparents. Well, for some strange reason we both invited God into our lives about a year ago, although for me it was more of a return to the faith I had been raised with as a child.
Now get this. The other day my wife comes to me and tells me that she has had recurring nightmares recently about the devil and that she could literally feel his presence during her dreams, which made her wake up in fear.
I told her to not be afraid and trust that the Lord will protect her from evil. But I would be open to suggestions as to how to help her through what obviously is Satan's attempt to throw her off the right path.
Now get this. The other day my wife comes to me and tells me that she has had recurring nightmares recently about the devil and that she could literally feel his presence during her dreams, which made her wake up in fear.
I told her to not be afraid and trust that the Lord will protect her from evil. But I would be open to suggestions as to how to help her through what obviously is Satan's attempt to throw her off the right path.
The Jesus Prayer helps, or sleeping with an icon or a wooden cross in your hand.
Psalm 4:8
This prayer may help before bed.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, grant me quietness of mind and body while I sleep. Let me remember that You do not sleep, but keep watch over me day and night. Help me lie down in peace, and always remember that You alone make me dwell in safety. AMEN.
And this one:
O Christ our God, please grant me peaceful and undisturbed sleep. Let me fill my mind with your holiness by day, that I may dwell on Your goodness by night. Protect my mind from every evil thought, memory, or attack of the evil one. For You alone are holy, now and ever and unto the ages of ages.AMEN.
Advice from Saint Paisios:
When you have a bad dream,never examine what you saw,how you saw it, or whether you're guilty or how much you may be at fault.The evil one,having failed to tempt you during the daytime,comes to you at night.Sometimes God permits the devil to tempt us in our sleep,so that we may see that the old self has not entirely died.Other times,the enemy approaches a person in his sleep and presents various dreams in order to upset him when he awakes.This is why you shouldn't pay any attention to them.Cross yourself and the pillow,place a cross and an icon on your pillow,and say the Jesus Prayer until you fall asleep.The more importance you attach to such dreams,the more the enemy will come to disturb you.This is something that happens to children,too, even though they are little angels.The enemy comes and scares them in their sleep,and they wake up frightened,running into their mother's arms.Often times,they are approached by Angels who make them smile in their sleep out of joy,or they may wake up from their great joy.As such,dreams brought about by temptations are an external influence of the enemy upon man while he's asleep.
Pray for her. This story will be very informative for you:
My Experiences With Sleep Paralysis Demonic Attacks And The Spiritual War We Are All In
What is Sleep Paralysis? Many of you reading this probably have experienced it at least once in your lifetime or know someone who has experienced it. You wake up suddenly from sleep and you try to …
jesustruthdeliverance.com
I had a similar thing happen to me at once as I had a nightmare that was demonic or felt demonic. But what I did is that I immediately called upon Jesus Christ to help me and the dream stopped.
Pray with your wife that God and ask him to dispatch Angels to guard her and her dreams. Ask that the LORD send some of the Host of Heaven to encamp around your wife.
My apologies for taking so long to get back to you. Things have been a bit weird for the past month and a half or so.
Yep. Once it became known that I was a conservative who voted for Trump, obnoxious behavior followed very quickly. A still life that I set up for a watercolor assignment became "rearranged" while I was gone. This was accompanied with the most laughable excuse and fake apology (not to mention the perpetrator underestimated how loud her whispering under her breath sounded.) Fellow students who I once viewed as friends, or at least friendly acquaintances, had things to say about me behind my back and under their breath. Girls who I had no interest in launched these weird plots to get me to like them and then break my heart. Didn't like them that way, so didn't take the bait, but they seemed to think they got one over on me when I was merely civilly socializing with them like a normal human being. Guess it must be an insecurity thing with some women. Also got some art magazines stolen that I brought to class out of good will. Found them and bought them again online, but the trust firmly broken hurt a lot more. Just a lot of passive-aggressive petty mean girl garbage (from boy and girl alike.)
Trust me. You dodged a bullet. Blessing in disguise.
Ironic, considering the original Cubists where literally an insular elitist club of individuals detached from society and proudly viewed their chaotic hogwash as a special insider visual language that only other insiders could "get."
Had a similar experience with an art history professor. Was surprisingly a mixed bag. On the positive side, it was in that class that I learned that Europeans art's movement into conveying three dimensional space was a product of the Christian worldview. On the other hand, he loooooooved him some Dadaism. When I was one of the few to raise my hand when he asked "Who here doesn't like Dadaist art?" He then asked me "But have you seen all Dadaist art?" Naive and young me fell for it and just said "No." Still want to kick myself for that one sometimes. I don't have to have seen every single Hallmark Channel original movie ever made to know that I don't like them. He also (along with Studio Art students) had that archetypical holier-than-thou snobby attitude towards commercial artists, like Graphic Designers and Illustrators, like myself. Nevermind that some of the greatest visual artists of all time (i.e. the Leonardos, Michelangelos, etc.) would be classified as Illustrators by modern standards, in terms of artists who do work for clients/patrons on commission; with Studio/Gallery artists who do their own thing being a uniquely 20th century phenomenon for reasons I outlined earlier.
They can help, but be weary. Make sure you're right with God. Try to get a shrink who has a Christian worldview as well too. If you and the shrink don't have rapport and trust, and their "therapy" is all talk talk talk without structure and a plan, run. They're gonna take you for a ride, and you may feel good while you're talking to them, but as soon as the talking stops, you find yourself right back where you were. Nothing healed. Nothing really changed. Modern anti-depressants can be good, but are too often passed out like candy on Halloween. Zoloft did wonders for my Dad. He was a Vietnam vet in the Marines who suffered from PTSD all his life until he was put on Zoloft. It was like witnessing an exorcism. My Mom noted that those three years were the best years of their marriage. I know people have mixed feelings about them; some have had good, and others bad, experiences. It may not be right for you, but don't rule them out.
Cared for my Dad too while he went through vascular dementia in his later years before his heart gave out. Currently caring for my Mom who has gone through a lot since two strokes.
Praise God you got past that stage in your life. I honestly don't know what to say; I can't possibly know how you felt. I do relate with trying to come out of an art coma. Been in a bit of a funk, art-wise, possibly due to some left over bitterness and cynicism from art school. I also learned from lightly keeping up with some people, when I had a Facebook account, that post art school burnout is scarily common, even amongst the most promising and talented ones. Yet another reason to avoid art schools (outside of ateliers.)
As for local galleries, honestly, unless there's an x-factor that swings things in your favor, I'd personally steer clear. From what you described, getting wrapped up in the galleries sounds like an invitation to have a run-in with cancel culture if they find out where you really stand. I'd try to cut out the middle man as much as possible and try to get something going online if you have the gumption and skills to do so, or team up with someone who can help you in this.
Ain't it the truth. All you can do is keep your eyes on God, and while certainly keeping your finger on the pulse of the times, don't get to wrapped up in politics, lest it drive you mad.
Not only is that beautiful, but further reinforces that if you can get up with an atelier type school in your area in some fashion, do it. You would fit right in and make connections to make a living with the kind of art you want to do. Like I said earlier, online selling might be your best option, but if there is an atelier close enough to where you are, do it:
www.artrenewal.org
Yep. Once it became known that I was a conservative who voted for Trump, obnoxious behavior followed very quickly. A still life that I set up for a watercolor assignment became "rearranged" while I was gone. This was accompanied with the most laughable excuse and fake apology (not to mention the perpetrator underestimated how loud her whispering under her breath sounded.) Fellow students who I once viewed as friends, or at least friendly acquaintances, had things to say about me behind my back and under their breath. Girls who I had no interest in launched these weird plots to get me to like them and then break my heart. Didn't like them that way, so didn't take the bait, but they seemed to think they got one over on me when I was merely civilly socializing with them like a normal human being. Guess it must be an insecurity thing with some women. Also got some art magazines stolen that I brought to class out of good will. Found them and bought them again online, but the trust firmly broken hurt a lot more. Just a lot of passive-aggressive petty mean girl garbage (from boy and girl alike.)
Trust me. You dodged a bullet. Blessing in disguise.
Ironic, considering the original Cubists where literally an insular elitist club of individuals detached from society and proudly viewed their chaotic hogwash as a special insider visual language that only other insiders could "get."
Had a similar experience with an art history professor. Was surprisingly a mixed bag. On the positive side, it was in that class that I learned that Europeans art's movement into conveying three dimensional space was a product of the Christian worldview. On the other hand, he loooooooved him some Dadaism. When I was one of the few to raise my hand when he asked "Who here doesn't like Dadaist art?" He then asked me "But have you seen all Dadaist art?" Naive and young me fell for it and just said "No." Still want to kick myself for that one sometimes. I don't have to have seen every single Hallmark Channel original movie ever made to know that I don't like them. He also (along with Studio Art students) had that archetypical holier-than-thou snobby attitude towards commercial artists, like Graphic Designers and Illustrators, like myself. Nevermind that some of the greatest visual artists of all time (i.e. the Leonardos, Michelangelos, etc.) would be classified as Illustrators by modern standards, in terms of artists who do work for clients/patrons on commission; with Studio/Gallery artists who do their own thing being a uniquely 20th century phenomenon for reasons I outlined earlier.
They can help, but be weary. Make sure you're right with God. Try to get a shrink who has a Christian worldview as well too. If you and the shrink don't have rapport and trust, and their "therapy" is all talk talk talk without structure and a plan, run. They're gonna take you for a ride, and you may feel good while you're talking to them, but as soon as the talking stops, you find yourself right back where you were. Nothing healed. Nothing really changed. Modern anti-depressants can be good, but are too often passed out like candy on Halloween. Zoloft did wonders for my Dad. He was a Vietnam vet in the Marines who suffered from PTSD all his life until he was put on Zoloft. It was like witnessing an exorcism. My Mom noted that those three years were the best years of their marriage. I know people have mixed feelings about them; some have had good, and others bad, experiences. It may not be right for you, but don't rule them out.
Cared for my Dad too while he went through vascular dementia in his later years before his heart gave out. Currently caring for my Mom who has gone through a lot since two strokes.
Praise God you got past that stage in your life. I honestly don't know what to say; I can't possibly know how you felt. I do relate with trying to come out of an art coma. Been in a bit of a funk, art-wise, possibly due to some left over bitterness and cynicism from art school. I also learned from lightly keeping up with some people, when I had a Facebook account, that post art school burnout is scarily common, even amongst the most promising and talented ones. Yet another reason to avoid art schools (outside of ateliers.)
As for local galleries, honestly, unless there's an x-factor that swings things in your favor, I'd personally steer clear. From what you described, getting wrapped up in the galleries sounds like an invitation to have a run-in with cancel culture if they find out where you really stand. I'd try to cut out the middle man as much as possible and try to get something going online if you have the gumption and skills to do so, or team up with someone who can help you in this.
Ain't it the truth. All you can do is keep your eyes on God, and while certainly keeping your finger on the pulse of the times, don't get to wrapped up in politics, lest it drive you mad.
Not only is that beautiful, but further reinforces that if you can get up with an atelier type school in your area in some fashion, do it. You would fit right in and make connections to make a living with the kind of art you want to do. Like I said earlier, online selling might be your best option, but if there is an atelier close enough to where you are, do it:
Search ateliers and master classes - Art Renewal Center
Looks like I may be investigating an atelier in Buck’s County, PA. “Bucks County Classical Arts Center”.My apologies for taking so long to get back to you. Things have been a bit weird for the past month and a half or so.
Yep. Once it became known that I was a conservative who voted for Trump, obnoxious behavior followed very quickly. A still life that I set up for a watercolor assignment became "rearranged" while I was gone. This was accompanied with the most laughable excuse and fake apology (not to mention the perpetrator underestimated how loud her whispering under her breath sounded.) Fellow students who I once viewed as friends, or at least friendly acquaintances, had things to say about me behind my back and under their breath. Girls who I had no interest in launched these weird plots to get me to like them and then break my heart. Didn't like them that way, so didn't take the bait, but they seemed to think they got one over on me when I was merely civilly socializing with them like a normal human being. Guess it must be an insecurity thing with some women. Also got some art magazines stolen that I brought to class out of good will. Found them and bought them again online, but the trust firmly broken hurt a lot more. Just a lot of passive-aggressive petty mean girl garbage (from boy and girl alike.)
Trust me. You dodged a bullet. Blessing in disguise.
Ironic, considering the original Cubists where literally an insular elitist club of individuals detached from society and proudly viewed their chaotic hogwash as a special insider visual language that only other insiders could "get."
Had a similar experience with an art history professor. Was surprisingly a mixed bag. On the positive side, it was in that class that I learned that Europeans art's movement into conveying three dimensional space was a product of the Christian worldview. On the other hand, he loooooooved him some Dadaism. When I was one of the few to raise my hand when he asked "Who here doesn't like Dadaist art?" He then asked me "But have you seen all Dadaist art?" Naive and young me fell for it and just said "No." Still want to kick myself for that one sometimes. I don't have to have seen every single Hallmark Channel original movie ever made to know that I don't like them. He also (along with Studio Art students) had that archetypical holier-than-thou snobby attitude towards commercial artists, like Graphic Designers and Illustrators, like myself. Nevermind that some of the greatest visual artists of all time (i.e. the Leonardos, Michelangelos, etc.) would be classified as Illustrators by modern standards, in terms of artists who do work for clients/patrons on commission; with Studio/Gallery artists who do their own thing being a uniquely 20th century phenomenon for reasons I outlined earlier.
They can help, but be weary. Make sure you're right with God. Try to get a shrink who has a Christian worldview as well too. If you and the shrink don't have rapport and trust, and their "therapy" is all talk talk talk without structure and a plan, run. They're gonna take you for a ride, and you may feel good while you're talking to them, but as soon as the talking stops, you find yourself right back where you were. Nothing healed. Nothing really changed. Modern anti-depressants can be good, but are too often passed out like candy on Halloween. Zoloft did wonders for my Dad. He was a Vietnam vet in the Marines who suffered from PTSD all his life until he was put on Zoloft. It was like witnessing an exorcism. My Mom noted that those three years were the best years of their marriage. I know people have mixed feelings about them; some have had good, and others bad, experiences. It may not be right for you, but don't rule them out.
Cared for my Dad too while he went through vascular dementia in his later years before his heart gave out. Currently caring for my Mom who has gone through a lot since two strokes.
Praise God you got past that stage in your life. I honestly don't know what to say; I can't possibly know how you felt. I do relate with trying to come out of an art coma. Been in a bit of a funk, art-wise, possibly due to some left over bitterness and cynicism from art school. I also learned from lightly keeping up with some people, when I had a Facebook account, that post art school burnout is scarily common, even amongst the most promising and talented ones. Yet another reason to avoid art schools (outside of ateliers.)
As for local galleries, honestly, unless there's an x-factor that swings things in your favor, I'd personally steer clear. From what you described, getting wrapped up in the galleries sounds like an invitation to have a run-in with cancel culture if they find out where you really stand. I'd try to cut out the middle man as much as possible and try to get something going online if you have the gumption and skills to do so, or team up with someone who can help you in this.
Ain't it the truth. All you can do is keep your eyes on God, and while certainly keeping your finger on the pulse of the times, don't get to wrapped up in politics, lest it drive you mad.
Not only is that beautiful, but further reinforces that if you can get up with an atelier type school in your area in some fashion, do it. You would fit right in and make connections to make a living with the kind of art you want to do. Like I said earlier, online selling might be your best option, but if there is an atelier close enough to where you are, do it:
Search ateliers and master classes - Art Renewal Center
I also enjoy my political paintings. I’ve got 3 I’m working on. Suffice to to say, I’m anti-Zionist and anti-LGBTQ. Nowadays, that gets interpreted as anti-Jew—and to a degree I am contemptuous of persons who insult Christ, but I’m not obsessed about Jews. Not part of any “hate group”. Haven’t done any artwork praising nazism. Rather, I just like being able to paint what’s going through my head.
And so I’ve got one painting I’m working on of a well-dressed couple holding hands. It’s a man and woman. The man is wearing the uniform young US Navy officer. In the distance waves the American flag. Behind them, in a wire trashcan, sits the rainbow flag, and next to it, the flag of Israel.
I’ve yet to give it a name, but now that I think about it, “Moving Forward” seems apropos.
Suffice it say, I won’t ever be able to show this on DeviantArt!!
Amuses me. I’m going to have to get my own website using a server out of Iceland, as Iceland’s opposed to ideological censorship. And my website’s probably going to have to be anonymous. I can still collect donations on Gumroad, but I shouldn’t disclose my real name or the Pennsylvania town I now live in.
And could I do art praising nazism?
Honestly, that isn’t me. It doesn’t mean I’d look down on any artist who does WWII Nazi work, but rather, I’m a lot more of a conservative Christian than I am a “Nordic identitarian”. I live in a mixed-race town and get along with everyone.
I also have a serious painting I’m working on—Virgin Mary holding the infant Christ. I spent $700 on Michael Harding paints just to get the colors bold enough in her garments. That, and Hardings are also good for a field of Easter lilies I’m painting next to her.
So it’s not like I just do political comedy art.
But yeah, I will do a lot of political comedy art.
Everything else I do is very standard portrait stuff. Stuff I could teach people to do.
And I’ll say this, too: for the most part, I love what I’m doing. “Academic oil painting” is something I was just barely starting to master back in 1988, then had to stop for 32 years.
Girlfriend-wise, I just don’t care anymore.
There are single women living around me who are my age and younger, and have an awful lot of money—and I’m quite certain that once I start making a name for myself as “local artist”, I’ll have their attention. Doesn’t mean anything. Rather, what I do on a piece of canvas or piece of linen means everything.
Sorry to hear about your watercolor still life getting maliciously rearranged!
Although this much is hard to believe: when I was in art school, my ambition to become rich & famous as an artist really was a sort of Great Gatsby dream of “winning back” the girl who dumped me in high school.
Different universe. And different era, too. Saner era, for the most part—although my inner world at that time was insane.
This song was still somewhat popular back then:
I've been meaning to post in this thread that I had my own visits from the demons recently. About 6 weeks ago, I watched the viral Altiyan Childs video about the Freemasons/Luciferians, and all the puzzle pieces started falling into place for me. I started praying more, stepped up my purification efforts. Right away, dark entities began haunting me in my dreams. They weren't trying to tempt me - they were trying to scare me. It was certainly scary. But it only made the truth clearer, strengthened my conviction. I thought... they can scare me, but they'll never get me.
Small towns aren't much better in the digital age. My husband's family is from a small town and half the people he knew growing up are homosexual. All of them support homosexuality ardently. His cousin is a tranny who did the surgery and everything, and his whole family supports her decision. The only way to get away from globohomo is to live among people who don't consume Western media (internet included).
Cities are vectors of corruption. And the modern age ensures that small towns are more well connected to the City.
Sodom and Gommorah corrupted all the towns it touched. Hence a whole series of settlements in the plain were overthrown by Fire and Sulfur in addition to those 2 cities.
All humanity is corruptible because they are already corrupted by the impact of the fall of Man.
In the modern age its important to request God's intervention to ensure their conversion and to drive out those demons that cause this.
This is true. I noticed this exactly to be the case for me. The very instant I pick up the cross, I am assailed with various demonic torments. And the moment I am overcome by temptation and return to a life of sin, that burden and torment ceases.Originally posted on RooshV.com
The typical Western city of today is the most effective environment to encourage sin. It is able to generate immoral behaviors so effectively that the task of corrupting your soul becomes one of demonic auto-pilot.
If the opportunity to commit evil is all around you, and you have already chosen for that evil, why do demons need to get involved? Demons must labor to influence you to choose wrong, but if you voluntarily place yourself in an evil environment with the purpose of satisfying a wish list of sinful desires, you make their job effortless. A good example is someone who moves from a small, traditional town to a city like New York or Los Angeles. A man or woman uprooted themselves and went to the big city because they desire to gorge themselves on money, sex, and fame. When a hungry child is in a candy store, do you need to convince him to eat candy? He simply dives in until he gets sick, and during that time of eating, he needs no convincing from a being or external force to keep going until his belly is full of sugar and high fructose corn syrup.
I suspect that there are not many demons residing in the major cities. The evil you may feel while in one may not come from the presence of demons but the mass quantity of people who have chosen evil. The city is actually a platform for evil, one that Satan has constructed and optimized over hundreds of years to lower the barrier for you to commit severe sins. To engage in pride or fornication within a modern city involves no debate or consternation—they’re so normalized that you are looked at as an oddball if you decide against them. You don’t have Instagram? You’re anti-social. You don’t want to hook up after a night of drinking? You’re sexually inadequate. Your friends and acquaintances play the role of the demons by tempting you to sin, and they do that work for free. Surely the demons swing by on weekend nights to appreciate their handy work, especially in the month of June when the sodomites take over much of the Western urban world, but do they need to persuade a homosexual to attend a gay pride parade? Do they need to urge him to wave dildos and other sexual paraphernalia in public?
If the demons are not in the city then where are they? On assignment corrupting souls that have chosen for Christ. Demons venture out of the city, away from the nightlife and gay pride parades, and into the suburbs to cause strife in families. They separate man and wife and put rebellious ideas in the minds of children. They’re in the countryside, introducing subtle traps to those who want to worship God through the natural world. And they’re in the monasteries, attacking men who are on their way to receiving a hundredfold blessing from God.
The demons only care about you when you care about your salvation. The ancient Desert Fathers remarked on the pattern: the instant you choose to pick up your cross and walk with Christ, the demons climb on your back and won’t leave until God has deemed their attacks sufficient for the building of your virtue. When I went into the mountains for two months to live in what I later found out was a former crack house, a den of exceeding vice, I was tormented by sexual dreams and nightmares involving actual demons burning my flesh. Relief only came when I slept beside a wooden cross. While the nightmares were frightening at the time, I must take it as a compliment that the demons cared enough to single me out.
In my old life in the city, when I chased women for casual sex, Satan left me alone as I destroyed myself, and I can’t recall having even a single nightmare from the time I was behaving at my worst. From this point on, if Satan wants my soul, he’s going to have to devote all his resources to the task, whether I live in a city or not, because I certainly won’t give it to him without a fight.
Read Next: I Lived Most Of My Life Under Demonic Influence
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When we practice Christianity, the soul is tearing away from the world, and the pain that one feels is a slight and minor pain in comparison to what one will experience upon death. Therefore, our task is to suffer many "mini-deaths" in this life in preparation for our actual death, which hopefully will bring us to eternal life.
Hey Guys not sure if this belongs in this thread or another. I got a prayer book recently and have been doing morning and nightly prayers. Keep having demonic nightmares now where I wake up at 430 yelling let me go and its difficult to go to sleep afterwards. The nightmares consits of this girl I dated about 10 years ago I havent thought of her since and I wasnt attached to her or cared much for her. I always sensed something is off with her though and not sure why now as I am getting closer to God she has been appearing in my nightmares where she is the deamon. Her eyes are white with no pupils and we appear in her house where she is just chasing me around and there is no escaping her. She levitates up the stairs and I would run out of the house and get in my car and she would just transport and appear in the car seat. I have not thought of her once in last decade.
I heard people starting to have demonic nightmares when they start getting closer to God. Just kind of stunned that she is the deamon in my nightmares. The only thing I can think of is I knew something was off with her and that her purity and soul was not in tact. Like she got molested as a child or something and had this dark force ever since. Still not sure though why she is now popping in my nightmares. Maybe this was the first demonic force that I was able to escape without even knowing it at the time and now the deamon is back.
I heard people starting to have demonic nightmares when they start getting closer to God. Just kind of stunned that she is the deamon in my nightmares. The only thing I can think of is I knew something was off with her and that her purity and soul was not in tact. Like she got molested as a child or something and had this dark force ever since. Still not sure though why she is now popping in my nightmares. Maybe this was the first demonic force that I was able to escape without even knowing it at the time and now the deamon is back.
Has the prayers worked? We are willing to pray for you too. Since you are Orthodox you can ask your Spiritual Father or other Orthodox Priests about this too.
You don't need to do this alone.
I'll try to give my take...
Yes, drawing closer to God upsets these things. I've had some very weird nightmares when I first started praying and I still do, albeit rarely.
They're just making noise, trying to scare you.
I don't think it has anything to do with the girl herself and her spiritual state. Maybe you're right thinking she was off, maybe not, but I think that's irrelevant. It's more probable their file on you (so to speak) shows her as your ex girlfriend and, taking advantage of unconfessed (??) sins with her, they use her face because they misjudged her importance to you.
Maybe I'm way off here, but if you haven't done it already, you should confess your fornication with her (and any other girls) to a priest and ask him for more specific advice.
P.S. One specific nightmare I remember was a shape-shifting demon made of smoke entering into a small chapel from the dome and after chasing him away he entered another chapel 30 yards ahead mocking me.
Read the Lorica of St. Patrick.
You most definitely should not do this alone.