I have a lifetime of experience with Christian prayers and I never once heard seven-fold rays.
I'm sure that the "Freeborn" thing isn't what pissed off Q, but that's extremely strange.
I'm guessing the emphasis on "all of them". Because of fallen angels and lucifer in particular?
Is "Freeborn" one of those sovereign citizen things and they and Q people are at odds? Why on Earth do we indulge these idiots? Oh, right, the guns.
It's really anti-Christian because our birth is in original sin and needs fixed with baptism.
I wonder if this is why Tucker Carlson seems to be vouching for Flynn. he has an interview with him that is airing tonight.
[Flynn]"knows what he's talking about. He's a reliable guy."
My guess: The issue is the antecedent for the possessive pronouns -- "your instrument" and "your will" and "your legions." Could it be ... SATAN?
It is interesting* that so many prominent standard issue conservatives have become infected with right-wing brain rot. Some much more than others--Flynn is way out there. But folks like Barr and Alito and many of the Fed Society** guys are nearly all in on the crazy. Some like Barr stop short of the actual throw over of elections but even he did a lot to enable the attempt.
*Interesting as in terrifying and distressing.
**Anyone still in the Fed Society needs to be treated like they were in the KKK. I will give folks a chance to a complete repudiation like Robert Byrd, but otherwise fuck 'em. No redeeming the organization at this point. The ongoing existence of chapters at nearly every Law School will be viewed at some point in the future as a massive disgrace. You know some time way in the future when the pseudo-democracy they are helping to usher in morphs into something else.
Seven-fold rays are rays where you fold them once on Monday, once more on Tuesday, and so on, and by Sunday they reach to the moon. It sounds crazy, but most Americans lack a solid understanding of exponential growth.
"My name is Legion,* is a demonic thing: https://biblehub.com/mark/5-9.htm. "We shall remain freeborn, and we shall not be enslaved," sounds very Paradise Lost to me but it ought to appeal to right-wing nuts.
Are we avoiding spoilers? Because having peeked I'm still very confused about what the phrase in 9 means about God or the Devil.
"Unfortunately, I have to say it because people are asking me," Lahmeyer wrote in a Facebook post. "I'm in no way involved in Child Sex Trafficking, pedophilia or devil worship."
Cue "My "Not involved in human trafficking" T-shirt has people asking a lot of questions already answered by my shirt." tweet here.
Anyone still in the Fed Society needs to be treated like they were in the KKK.
You know this already, but the root of the Federalist Society was always indifference to the law or to factuality. It was never about anything but imposing the will of oligarchs/authoritarians. The more extreme QAnon types are, at worst, fellow travelers.
The question of whether rightwingers "believe" something isn't meaningful to them the way it is to you. From their point of view, belief is a matter of expediency. What belief -- what sincerely held belief -- gets them where they want to go? That's how they decide what to believe. It's all Orwell, all the way down.
Orwell, some turtles, then more Orwell.
Agree with 10, "legion" is an extremely weird word to be using in this context, and immediately gives me demonic vibes.
Nothing else jumps out to me. I don't recognize "sevenfold rays" or "freeborn", which both seem like weird choices to me, but not obviously satanism. But either seems easy to twist into something demonic once you've already got the "legion" part.
Ah, is it that "sevenfold" refers to committing the seven deadly sins?
My grandmother was in the Legion of Mary. The word is used in other ways.
18: Just more proof that Mary-worship is itself Satanism, as every good evangelical already knows.
"Sevenfold Ray" sounds like the stage name of a Christian conman touting the returns that will accrue to investors in his Ponzi scheme.
I assume if it doesn't make sense, it's white nationalist dog whistling.
Seven-fold is mentioned in the Cain and Abel story in Genesis, but I remember that mostly because there's a metal band called Avenged Sevenfold. And it doesn't have anything to do with rays.
...that I recall, anyhow. Was there a third brother named Ray?
I mean basically everything in the bible is multiplied by 7, because it's the "perfect number." But that doesn't help me in figuring out why it's 7-fold "rays."
Ray got only six Oscar nominations, but it was at the 77th Oscars, so something something Hunter Biden something.
"You can call me Ray. You can call me Jay. You can call me Ray Jay."
Eating their own: you love to see it.
What is "I am Legion" in the original Greek? Is it the same word as a Roman legion, or if not where did that reading come in? It feels more mystical than a lot of the NT.
33.2: Λεγιων. Presumably a loanword from Latin.
As you can see from that concordance site, its only occurrence in the NT is in this episode (the Gerasene demoniac). It's very weird to see it in a purportedly Christian prayer.
I would not describe how Roman legions came to Geeece as a 'loan' even though the Romans did get them back.
Nothing looks as rented as a rented legion.
Easy to translate as long as it's to a language and epoch in which the word "legion" retains its cultural connotations, I guess.
"My name is Brigade, for we are many" doesn't have quite the same ring.
37 many were rented. Few were paid.
The fun-fact derivation of the word "salary" led me to believe otherwise.
The standard theory about Mark is that it's written during the First Jewish-Roman War, after it's clear that Rome is invading but before the destruction of the temple. (Most notably, this explains why it has Jesus prophesying that the Romans will set up a temple for Roman gods inside the Temple in Jerusalem immediately before Jesus returns in power, instead of prophesying that the temple will be destroyed as you'd expect if it were written after that'd happened.) In that context the Legion story seems like it's intended as a prediction that Jesus will kick the invading Roman Legions out, but in coded language to avoid the ire of said Romans.
My guess is "sevenfold rays" (because it sounds weird and pagan) and "legion" (because it sounds demonic).
*All* your archangels might be taken to include the fallen ones, is one guess. Also, definitely "legion". So "Your name and the name of your legions" would not be Jesus's name ... It's all perfectly clear now.
Now I'm going to cheat.
And, having clicked through, I am delighted to see that the Daily Beast, after boosting this and another story mocking the gullibility of Trump-voting apocalyptic rubes, plugs another story: The Most Monstrous Comet Ever Known Is Headed Our Way
What are we meant to do? Duck?
Honestly, sending Ben Affleck into space couldn't hurt.
Surely "legion," because that was the name of the demon that possessed the Gadarene swine. I guess also the sevenfold rays? I don't know what that means, except that anyone who harms Cain is avenged sevenfold, right? I have no idea what Michael Flynn could be talking about here, so I guess it may as well be Satanism.
I mean, there is no innocent explanation for what Michael Flynn meant to say with this prayer. He must be a Satanist.
I like the premise of this game, which is that we pretend not to know he's objectively Satanist anyway.
49: It sounds cool, in the same declamatory style Qberts like to use, and he doesn't know the Bible?
49: It sounds cool, in the same declamatory style Qberts like to use, and he doesn't know the Bible?
Having clicked through, I feel very sorry for all those poor people who were tricked into praying to Satan! Now they've all lost their souls and are doomed to hell for all eternity.
Flynn definitely got the prayer from the doomsday cult. The wording is virtually identical with just a few minor changes. (Who's the Bad Apocalypse Friend?) I haven't seen anything explaining what the backstory might be or if there's any other evidence of his ties to the cult.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_rays
seems to be a thing, although I'm not sure if it's the same as sevenfold rays, or not?
That reminds me, there's a restaurant near Malibu called Inn of the Seventh Ray. It's this nice rich hippie place. My friends got married there. It didn't occur to me that Michael Flynn would be channeling that kind of energy, but maybe!
55: The cult was influenced by Theosophy, so that probably is it, yeah.
Wait, so the whole thing isn't actually a conspiracy? He is just straightforwardly making cult-affiliated prayers? (Which is just the normal meaning of "satanic" among evangelicals.)
It's not a problem that he's promoting a cult. It's just that it's the wrong cult.
58: Apparently? It's confusing. Many layers of weirdness with this guy.
Whatever is going on with him and whatever he meant by it, he really did do the thing they're accusing him of doing. A significant departure from how QAnon beliefs usually develop.
I'm not sure it's wise to dismiss out of hand the idea that Flynn is literally a Satanist. They do exist, after all.
OT: this story is extraordinary and very hard reading.
https://www.propublica.org/article/black-children-were-jailed-for-a-crime-that-doesnt-exist
It is remarkable how many people are convinced that what the world needs is for them to be cruel to those weaker than themselves.
64: "they're strict with their kids and so they're well behaved!" we say admiringly, but more often it isn't strictness but cruelty.
Firefox pocket suggested that very article to me! I had it on hand to post on a slow day.
In the John Carter of Mars books there's an eighth and ninth ray, because Edgar Rice Burroughs was a super-Satanist.
Jesus Christ the story in 63 is awful.
Re: FedSoc, it doesn't matter all that much, but having known a bunch of them in my misspent youth, including one who's now probably the leading originalist law professor, I just don't think it's true that they don't have genuine commitments and beliefs and so on. They are often deeply misguided beliefs, but they have them, and they are often very smart people, so they are good at rationalizing in the service of those commitments. But a commitment to democracy-as-political-equality is certainly not one of those beliefs, and sincere FedSoc types are often appointed to positions of power by Republicans with no beliefs or commitments at all.
I don't know if I've ever mentioned this before, but my brother is a law-school classmate of Barrett.