Anyway, her thing is that she remembers being, not an elf, but a non-human supernatural being as part of a strictly heirarchical organisation which fed on fear.

Sound familiar? She says she hasn’t read anything about gnosticism until now. What if THAT was true?

http://www.higherd.org/
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2002/007/11.19.html

Heheh. “Oral” Roberts. That never ceases to crack me up.

Heretics
The story of Reverend Carlton Pearson (pictured), an evangelical pastor in Tulsa, Oklahoma. His church, Higher Dimensions, was once one of the biggest in the city, drawing crowds of 5,000 people every Sunday. But several years ago, scandal engulfed the Reverend, he was denounced by almost all his former supporters, and today his congregation is just a few hundred people. He didn’t have an affair. He didn’t embezzle lots of money. His sin was something that to a lot of people is far worse … he stopped believing in hell.

Video of Carlton Pearson and other ministers (including Bishop Yvette Flunder, who he talks about in his story) at a Harvard Divinity School conference last spring, talking about new directions in Pentecostalism.

Man, it was fascinating, the guy’s church went from 2000 people to 200 almost overnight, had to foreclose on his home, friends wouldn’t return his calls, Roberts disowned him, etc.

OTOH now he lets gays come to his services which he didn’t used to when he was still a celebrity. Real innaressin’.

that silly ‘neo’ dude who did that dealey plaza thingie and gets all upset if you don’t read his five zillion words on the subject probably already fits the bill a little

Yeah, I thought of that as well, and am planning a post on it - without tooting his horn too much.

1. Do you have any ancestors from Northern France?

2. Do you ever feel pain in your palms, feet, side and forehead?

3. Are you keen on redheads?

4. Are you particularly bouyant?

5. Are you inexplicably fascinated with cups or chalices?

6. Are you frequently invited to weddings and asked to bring the booze?

7. Have you ever been betrayed by a good friend?

If you answered yes to one or more of these questions, YOU MIGHT BE RELATED TO JESUS CHRIST!

FYI - I wuz Xmas shopping this weekend and saw, no lie, “Gnosticism for Dummies”.

I think you remembering “The complete idiots guide to the gnostic gospels”. I gave into temptation and bought it a while back. Here’s the crazy thing, I actually thought it was among the better books on Gnosticism I’ve seen. I think it might be the only one out there aimed at the public which looks at any of the Nag Hammadi texts other than the Gospel of thomas or mary. The only real downside is that I got a definite vibe that the author was trying to save women who came to it from the Da Vinci Code from converting. Any negitive thing about Gnostic groups treatment of women seemed to get ten times stronger while the positive was buried, with the opposite true for his descriptions of women in the mainstream church. Still, with that one aside, I was really shocked by how good the book is.

On the otherkin thing: those “Encyclopaedia Dramatica” links on skullfood made me laugh for like 10 minutes straight. They were BRUTAL! In the best way possible. If you’re going to be cruel you might as well be hilariously cruel.

My gf told me a story of how she was reading Brown University’s Daily Jolt website in a thread about housing for trannies. And someone posted, “Well if trannies should get special tranny housing, then otherkin should get special otherkin housing.” Of course people responded with, “WTF is otherkin?” I’m told the conversation that ensued was interesting, to say the least.