The Cauldron: A Pagan Forum Backup

I have been told I have a 'gift' of fore-sight, I know there are others out there.  I have had some lucid dreams of things approaching and i am curious if anyone else has been experiencing simular 'visions' or if seemingly predicatble pattern is drawing nigh....thanks for any participation.  Many Blessings.  Jadedvon Wolfhaven

I'm sorry, I don't understand how this and the poll go together.  Are you asking specifically about foresight related to rising gas prices?  (I also am not entirely sure what you're asking with the poll or what the options are supposed to indicate.   ???  )

Sorry, I'm terrible about explainations.  I am asking if other people, who are aware or may not be aware of the gift of fore-sight, have been having the same 'visions' that I have.  I have dreamt of some SERIOUS change coming, especially in my neck of the woods, I see great struggle on everyone behalf but I am unsure of my visions and I am asking if others are 'seeing' what I'm 'seeing' or if my 'visions' have become influenced by my bad mood.

That much I got, but I'm trying to understand how the gas hike comes into it.

oh, sorry, um well, when Bush invaded Afganistan like 5-6 years ago, I knew gas was going to be the catalyst for major change...I've 'seen' it for quite sometime.  It's actually causing the whole world to change, with some economic nations falling and others rising I'm guess I'm focusing on the change in gas being the prompt, My whole life gas was afforable it was easy to travel. Now that it's not (affordable) and we've past recession I've been disturbed by what I see, and I really am hoping I am misinterpreting my own visions

I know what you are talking about. Last spring, I was taking an advanced class with my psy teacher, and one of the exercises was forecasting. Of the six people in the class, 4 of us saw some major shifts in American culture, in part due to the changes that need to be made in our mobile lifestyles. I didn't see it as a major catastrophe, b/c most of the world has been living with very high fuel prices (or little or no access to gas-powered vehicles at all) for a very long time. But yes, it will be a big change for us, especially those who live in areas where a car is essential, or at least an essential part of personal identity (sorry Texans and my fellow Californians!)

I think we might be on the way to another depression but that has nothing to do with being psychic.  It's about seeing what the situation is now and picking what a likely outcome would be.  If gas keeps going up, everything will be more expensive due to the cost of transporting them.  If people spend most of their money on gas, food, bills and possibly clothing there wouldn't be much left for luxuries like eating out, the movies, vacations, etc. and many businesses would go under.

If you're talking about the four horsemen of conquest, war, famine and death, then yea I think they're here. 

My hope is that the gas prices will force some of the "green" advances that have been held under by oil companies to come to the forefront, but my fear is that it's too late.  At the very least, we will hit an economic recession, if not a depression, because even if cars started rolling off the production line tomorrow fully equipped with completely renewable fuel sources, auto-makers would charge more for them and the trade-in value of a traditional gasoline-powered car would plummet even more.  This, however, is based not on psychic ability at all, but rather on a simple survey of the market.  It will be interesting to see how much this recession/depression harms the companies responsible for laying its groundwork.

I hate to say this, but I could see this and I'm not psychic at all.

Yeah, I can see why you would say that-don't have to be weatherman to know which way the wind blows and all like that :)
The specific question to us, as a class, was "what changes do you see in 20 years". What I saw were a lot of people my age (in 20 years, when I'll be 65) living very close to the earth, ie in caves, treehouses, cabins and the like-including me. Some folks were living communally, or semi-communally and some were not. Of course, some people have been living this way for a while now, but it looked like there were going to be more than just a few, in my age group. I did some research about this, afterwards, and found that this is now starting to happen. There are these guys http://reclaimingcommunity.org/ and there are several other folks I found out about, synchronistically, that have been getting ready for about 15 yrs now, up in Shasta Co.

As for everyone turning green, it may be a passing fashion.  It's like history is repeating itself all over again. The U.S. already went through a gas shortage back in the '70s. Everyone traded in their big gas guzzling muscle cars for little Ford Fiestas and Gremlins. Eventually, the gas prices dropped and cars started getting bigger and bigger again year after year until they ballooned into Humvees.

And conservation wasn't just about gas then either, green ideas started trickling through into other areas of peoples lives as well, but it didn't last. Vegetarianism was a brief trend for some because beef prices soared and people  became aware of mercury in tuna  (there was even talk of putting warning lables on the tuna cans).

Yes, crime did rise (it always does in hard times). There were beef truck hijackings and even a cow snatching or two. Gas siphoning was a big issue (so locks were installed on car gas tanks).

The U.S. was involved in a unpopular war with no way out.

So, how do I see the future?...the same. All this will eventually end and people will forget all about it, or be too young to even remember. When my kid's children are grown and complaining about fuel, wars and food issues, my kids will tell them about how they survived the war, high gas prices, and tainted food back in '08.

No devination necessary.

I would point out, though, that we didn't have the pressure on the gas supply in the 70's coming from China and India that we have today, the total world population was "only" in the four billions (http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/idb/worldpop.html), and there was more gas in existence then than there is now.  As population surges and resource use goes up around the world, there's less stuff for more people, and it will eventually all come to a head; it has to.  What's to say this isn't the time? 

There's only so much oil, it will eventually run out even if we suck the Earth dry of every last drop, so if there's not an alternative, there'll be a population crash.

The surging population, food and resource shortages, the extreme wealth gap all combine to make me think of David Gerrold's Chtorr (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_Against_the_Chtorr) and Dingilliad (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dingilliad) series.

Plus, was religious and ideological fundamentalism exploding worldwide in the 70's?  I really have no idea, but fundamentalist lunacy seems to be part of the current zeitgeist, and adding that to any equation just makes it that much more unstable.

Only so much oil...that could be a direct quote from the '70s. There was a commercial running then with a dinosaur going extinct that said the same thing. Everyone was looking for alternative fuel sources and cutting back oil consumption. Then, oil was found in Saudi, end of crisis....only it shouldn't have been. Just because we didn't have to worry right at that moment about any shortages it was still eventually going to run out. 
You misread my post a bit - I didn't say future fuel was gasoline. It's just that whatever is it is, I guarantee it won't be worry free.

Actually, these are only aliases. Their real names are Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley and Layden.

So in essence this is a case of never learning from the last time something like this happened?  And now we're paying for it.

Where is an emoticon that says I'm disgusted that I find this slightly amusing?

That's the Four Horsemen of Notre Dame. :o

I thought it was War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death.

Absent

And here I didn't think anybody'd get it!

Something that I've always found funny, the four horsemen sort of (loosely) correlate to the youngest four male deities in the major Greek pantheon.

Think about it…

War = Ares (No brainer right?)
Pestilence/Disease = Apollo (Raining plagues on the Greeks at Troy, etc…)
Famine = Dionysus (He’s typically a God of Plenty, but I’m willing to bet when all the food was drying up they started praying to him a bit harder.)
Death = Hermes (The god who escorts people to the underworld. Again, no brainer…)

I know it’s VERY loose, but I think it’s interesting…

By 'pantheon' you did mean 'Olympians' right?  Because children and grandchildren of those four are also apart of the Pantheon ;)

It's interesting, though, but I normally associate famine with Demeter.  Dionysus maybe if it involves grape vines or possibly fruit trees but I think the staple food crops fell under her domain.  Plus, there is a record in myth of her causing famines.

The other three are spot-on though.

ETA: And what about Hephaestus?  I always thought he is younger than Ares.

I love you, but refuse to have this argument. You know who I meant. Major (top), general (everybody else)...


This is true, I suppose that's one that depends on the individual, and one's own upg. To me Demeter's seems softer, and more kind and nurturing. While Dionysus leaves no doubt in my mind that he would dry up crops in an effort to rid himself of some of his least favorite people...


Again individual views I guess, I've always seen Hephaestus as much more grown-up, for lack of a better term, than the other four, including Ares. He was actually settled in mythology, not just whoring and running around causing mayhem. ( <= I'll probably be in trouble for that, but ah well, they'll forgive me or kill me...)

ETA: My previous edit only changed the word ground to crops... Nothing major...

Alright, here’s my doomsday prophecy. The world will continue its long and rather tragic pattern of eventually crippling and obliterating successful empires and individuals.

They come, They grow, and They die…

The Divine Life Force kicks our asses once again…

Just like every other society’s time in power this one too shall pass. Nothing on this earth is permanent and any Country, or Religion, in Question, is no exception.

I hold no stock in attempting to predict the future ills or fortunes which may befall you, or society, in the future, I’ve done it. There is nothing on this earth which could convince me it’s a worth while pursuit for anyone less than the stark, raving mad, or attention hungry. It will only frustrate any attempts at one’s own abilities to enjoy what time we do have upon this planet.  It was at one point, until very recently, it was a major part of my life.

And you know what? I wasn’t especially happy, I was constantly worried about anything and everything that may, or may not happen. Now I do very little divination, and you know what it doesn’t bother me.

I now LIVE my life without trying to look into the future every 15 minutes; I still dabble, occasionally I’ll ask about something personal if I have a hunch, but my days of trying to divine the world’s worries are over. I’m nobody’s prophet or savior, least of all my own, and, honestly, I kind of like it…

ETA: Odd Phrasing in 5th paragraph...

I think it was fairly obvious who you meant, but the terminology was incorrect, hence the correction.  This is SOP for this forum, which you've been here long enough to be well aware of.  Correct terminology matters to a lot of our membership.  It's not about an "argument", it's about everyone understanding the conversation and the way words are being used within the conversation.


If you're talking about who is younger vs. older in terms of who was born first, I wouldn't think it's so much up to individual views.  I'd think the mythology would have something to say about it.  (To say nothing of younger vs. older in the sense of who shows up in mythology earliest, which of course is a question of historical fact.)  I don't know what that something is, but I don't think this is a question to be solved by UPG alone.  Who has younger vs. older attitudes or personalities, or who "feels" younger or older, might be another question, of course.

I suspect you could loosely link the four horseman to many pantheons.

And a point to Randall.

Continuing with the Greek Pantheon you have:

War=Athena
Famine=Demeter
Pestilence=Artemis
Death=Persephone, maybe Artemis as well.

I don't know enough about other pantheons to draw examples from, but in the Egyptian, deities such as Set and Sekhmet probably could represent multiple spots.

This may be true, but I only have a really in depth understanding of the greeks, so that's who I noticed...

War in the "Four Horseman of the Apocalypse" sense would probably be Ares rather than Athena. Ares loved the destruction and chaos of war, after all.

I understand that, but it is an argument I've had before on and off this forum. I've been told they're supposed to be called the Major Greek Pantheon or the Olympians, and I've gotten very tired of worrying about it, and especially of arguing about it.

Are they usually called the Olympians here? I've not really had a lot of conversation about them here.

And I'm very sorry if it came across as rude, it was late and I was tired. I'm sorry if it came across as harsh, sorry, Melamphoros.

ETC: OF TO OFF

*facepalm*

Just goes to show my grasp of the NT.  So I think it would be appropriate to sub Eris or Enyo for Athena in my previous post.

I never heard the term "Major Greek Pantheon" before so that could explain why I thought you got the wrong term.  I heard of the term "Major Greek Gods" but that category could include deities not normally listed as Olympians such as Rhea or Persephone.


You're right in that there hasn't been much discussion here (that I know of) but I can remember at least one conversation where Olympians were used.


I know, I was there, remember ;)  You didn't seem too rude.

And I wasn't looking for an argument and for future reference I normally don't :)

if you are trying to control the future by just seeing it, yes, that's a very frustrating and silly pastime. When I do divination, the future presents to me as a set of possibilities, none of them are absolutes. There are many threads, many tributaries, that all lead to whatever it is that you are trying to see, and my or other people's choices almost always screw things up, or at any rate change them some. I always think of looking at the future, particularly the deep future, as trying to use field glasses to look around the bend in a river-sometimes you can see a part of something that you need to know about, but until you get closer you it's hard to tell if it's a boulder in the middle of the stream, or the edge of  a waterfall. You can make some very good guesses, you can inform your choices by getting an understanding of what's ahead, but ultimately you can only act in the moment you're in as best you can. But that hardly makes divination a worthless pursuit. It's an excellent tool for choice making, and self-analysis, and yes, future prediction.

I was mainly focusing on trying to predict major events as the OP had begun this thread with.

As I stated before I still do use divination occasionally, when I already have a good hunch and want to verify something I may have been mulling over. (Read: I have too many Tarot Cards/Pendelums/Runes/Dice... to let them sit completely unused.)  ;D  I do however have a serious problem with trying to plot your whole life according to the cards, I think instead of acting as a guide, and starting point for other aspects of spirituality and self-awareness they can easily become a crutch, which allows for little to no spiritual growth.

I do strongly believe that divination into current events, family issues, finacial problems, and internal moral/personal issues, is a very powerful tool, which can be extremely beneficial. But, in my experience, using it to try and plot a course for your life is frustrating and typically results in deconstructive behavior over time.

I think this would be a very interesting thread on it's own, spin-off anyone?


Probably means we should discuss it...
Is it just me, or do the hellenics tend to be a little quieter about personal beliefs here on TC?

I think it would probably best to save the discussion for the main board when it gets back up.  Besides you and I there are only three Hellenics active on the back up board and one of them doesn't normally participate in religious discussions.

As for Hellenics being a little quieter, I can only guess.  I think that compared to the rest of the forum, Hellenics are a small percentage and of those about half are probably regular posters.  And you've got to figure that some people are just a bit private when it comes to their practices.  AFAIK, you're the one who discusses their personal practices the most.

And of those who are active, several are staff, which doesn't mean we don't participate in religious discussions, but it does mean that we've got to spread our time here out over more things and thus maybe don't focus on our particular religion as much as we otherwise would.  (And while this is a possibility with any staff member, I suspect it's particularly true of Randall, Lyric and myself, all of whom happen to be Hellenic.)

On a related note, I think several of us who are active are also long-time members who just don't have many ideas for new discussions about Hellenic religion.  We've been around for a while, here or elsewhere, and it seems like everything we think of has already been done.  If anyone's feeling the lack of Hellenic threads, I strongly suggest starting discussions when the board comes back up.  I suspect there would be interest, it's just that some of us aren't coming up with ideas for that kind of thread.


That too.  I tend to be pretty private with mine just out of insecurity over my own newbieness.  I've been doing this for a few years now, but I admit I'm still sort of afraid that if I speak up too definitively on something, it'll turn out I've gotten some crackheaded notion stuck in my head and I'll wind up horribly embarrassed to have said something so stupid.  ;D  (I'm silly that way.)  So I tend more toward the "listen and learn from others' conversations" end of things on Hellenic topics than the "actual discussion" end of it, because I'm all too aware of how little I know.

...Usually.  :)

I agree...


That honestly doesn’t surprise me, I’m a loud mouth, even in real life. Though because of where I live, South Texas (Or HELL whatever you want to call it…), I have to keep a pretty tight lip about my spiritual life. So TC is my only real outlet, besides a step mother who lives on the other side of the country.

I have a lot of my life invested in my spirituality, so that’s most of what I have to talk about, except for lousy teachers and my horses. I could have a whole book on my horses...  ;D

I'm finding the Google ads amusing, btw.  In this thread, I keep getting a "Looking for single Greeks?" ad (complete with photo of ample, bikini-clad bosom).  ;D  As the text ads go, I'm somewhat bemused by the lineup I've got right now:  Three spell ads and one "Jesus Loves You".

I've been the same way, and have come to the brilliant conclusion that if I never speak up and find out if I'm wrong, I'll be wrong forever...

I've always been very scared of doing anything wrong, because some one might get mad at me.

And I'm well aware that I'm wrong alot, ALOT. But you know what, everyone's wrong at some point and if they tell you they're not, they're wrong.

I've got the Jesus one too, I think we should pay for an ad to circulate on Christian forums. I bet they'd get their panties in a wad over that, though maybe if we bitched more we could get their ads off of here.  ;) Or they'd just burn us at the stake...

Why bother?

I just find it funny.  And, hell, if they want to waste their money advertising God (Because, y'know, a text ad on an internet forum is REALLY going to be what converts me), that's their time and money.

As far as conversion attempts go, it's pretty passive and non-irritating.  IMO.

For some reason a google ad for TC on a Christian website sounds funny.  I haven't gotten the Jesus one yet but I have pulled up the afore mentioned "Greek Single" as well as spell and game ads a number of times.

Is it weird that I may miss them once TC is back?  Oh well, one of the other message boards I visit off and on has google ads.  I never paid attention to them, but given the nature of that forum they should be interesting.

P.S. Has anyone got the one for gay dating or does google somehow know that I'm gay and single?

Completely forgot this from earlier...

I have never seen any real evidence of either one being older, but I'm not really as thorough about that kind of stuff as I should be.

And I'm sorry I didn't specify that I was basing who was younger on my personal views and feelings toward them, but that's what I was using to come to the conclusion that Ares was the younger of the two brothers.


Beause I deal with christians who are ignorant of their own religion every day, and I  appreciate having a chance to irritate the hell out of them any chance I get...

Plus it was mostly in jest... I'm running on too little sleep, so my sense of humor is a little off right now...

TO ALL:

   I'm off to find heat and caffeine, and work on my book review. Will probably swing back by later after I wrestle with the horses, 9-10pm...

Google knows everything...  8)

Okay, I'm really leaving know...

I don't think I've seen that one, but I'll certainly be on the lookout for it now.  LOL

I thought I read somewhere that Ares was Zeus and Hera's first child (or first son at least) but I can't seem to find a source.  I thought it could be on theoi.com but sadly it makes no mention.  In fact, the quotes cited doesn't make any mention of both of them.  Even on Hera's page Ares and Hephaestus were mentioned separately (although that's not surprising seeing as how it's a popular view that Hera conceived Heph without a father).

All I can tell when it comes to the four that sparked this discussion is that Apollo is older than Hermes who's older than Dionysus (i.e. the ones that mythology supports).  I think both Ares and Heph may be older than those three (they're certainly older than Dionysus as they are involved with stories of his grandparents).

*looks at Theoi again*

Yep, there is a story that Hera sent Ares to help torment Leto.  So he's older than Apollo.  Then again the myths contradict themselves so there well may be one that contradicts this.


That's okay, no one is holding it against you :)

That's sadly true for me. If I posted in Hellenic threads in the detail I would like to, I would not have time to participate elsewhere. :(