Subtitled "God was on shrooms, not me." This article features two of my favorite things: ancient religion and psychedelic mushrooms.
SCP-2517 / Discussion
Forum
» Per Page Discussions / Per page discussions
» SCP-2517
This is the discussion related to the wiki page SCP-2517.
I have to be honest, I still haven't really wrapped my mind around what Fifthism is supposed to be. Even after reading the hub, all I walk away with is "groups involving weird stuff and the number 5." There's solid articles and scips based on it (including this one, +1) but I never get a sense of what the greater Canon is all about. The southern Fifthists are totally inscrutable, and Constellation Starfish is metaphorical by nature.
Can anyone elucidate, or point me in the right direction?
As someone who's deeply familiar with early heretical Christianity, a lot of the very subtle details are exactly right. Particularly: the Theodosian focus on rectifying the emerging split between Greek and Latin-rite Christianity, and cleaning up heresies and pagans in the aftermath of Julian the Apostate; the survival of Zoroastrian-influenced dualist Gnostics in Armenia (the Paulicians and related sects) and Georgia (the long-term presence of Yezidis in Georgia and their pre-Christian adherence to a weird, mutant form of Zoroastrianism); and the description of very plausible doctrines belonging to rural, ecstatic Gnostic sects.
The only thing that's even slightly weird is a heresiologist from Syracuse with a Latin version of a Greek name name, though of course it would make a lot of sense if he was primarily known in Latin translation. Or, in other words, exactly the same degree of weirdness you'd expect to see in the actual historical record.
Very good work. Very good indeed.
Extremely good work.
extradimensional meme-based organism
I can't not smile when I read that.
On a more useful note,
Falsified memories of individuals at this stage will frequently be very broad, At every stage of habitual use, the effects of
When I read this, it feels like the second half of a sentence got snipped out and the second sentence (beginning at 'At') was spliced in. Is that intentional?
It's not obviously anomalous, although it manages to be just weird enough to take me out of my comfort zone. What really makes this is the impressive depth and quality of the backstory. Well done on that one.
+1 for Fifthist shroom cult
My only quibble with this is that visual hallucinations have generally been the least prominent aspect of any shroom trip I've taken. Still, good stuff.
Out of curiosity, have you read Faith of Our Fathers by PKD?
That's actually part of why i added the extra-special psychedelic cocktail—I've also never really had more than mild visual hallucinations on mushrooms. (The article is partly based on the one time I did have some pretty prominent visuals & saw the fnords in my bedroom ceiling.) And I've never read Faith of Our Fathers, but I have read a whole lot of other PKD.
I wish there was more detail given to what the social web of the 2517 users looks like, since that seemed like it was going to be the meat of the article until you get to the log, but I still enjoyed what was here. If you added some detail to that effect the horror would probably be amped up tremendously. +1
Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you!
I assume the mushroom provides protection against the otherwise universally deadly effects of 2358?
Damn, though, as far as anti-memetic researchers are concerned, this thing is Thaumiel. Lets you escape notice of the eldritch god that's wiped out literally every antimemetics division to ever exist? It's a wonder that this hasn't been used…
Imagine a woman, call her Martha Watkins, showing up one day with full Foundation credentials and command of the Extracognitive Division, which no one has ever heard of. She claims it's because they've been erased from reality, and while her credentials are consistent with Foundation issue, she shows severe symptoms of 2517 infection. She has a set of blueprints with her, which she claims are the only way to combat SCP-3125, something that she refuses to describe but certainly doesn't match the documentation in the database…
Does the Foundation listen to her, or do they dose her with amnestics and consign reality to an incursion no one knows is happening…
Just a tale idea.
I like the references to other scips, but I don't think the foundation wouldn't instantly make the link and (for example) know what seeing translucent blue trees in urban areas was. Great article though, I love scips where you arent sure whether what people experience is real or not.
I feel like there should be a direct crosslink to 2358, since it's pretty blatant that that's what is being referenced by that part with the second footnote.
Beyond that, though, the reference to Yaldabaoth…the same Yaldabaoth mentioned in 2510? Is that suggesting that Fifthism and Sarkicism are related? Aside from being religious movements, they don't seem very linked to each other…
/forum/t-1977800/scp-2517#post-
page revision: 2, last edited: 15 Jan 2023 15:06
