ice and silence and dark skies, as we go 'round another year

[Looking For Group] Apocolyth: so if u could please blame the sh_t hgeads who were designingnthen game that got the funding kut ohhh and the marketing was carp too biut oh well

Please, please please, Apocolyth--you're entitled to your opinion, but for the love of all gods, spell-check exists for a reason.

[Looking For Group] Apocolyth: ok guild wars 2 here i come lol cya chumps

Let me get this straight: not only can you not manage to spell even simple words correctly--single-syllable words like "crap", "but", "cut", and the immortal "you"--but you're also upset with the development team behind City of Heroes, and not NCSoft themselves--the ones who actually cancelled the game. Moreover, you're jumping to Guild Wars 2, which is again owned outright by NCSoft.

Have you lost your tiny little mind?

[Looking For Group] Novamaiden: (there goes a really good reason not to try guild wars 2)
[Looking For Group] Eddie Warren: concurs

I third that conclusion.

[Looking For Group] Particle Force: ((Doubt we would run into him. Takes brains to download the client.))

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA...

[Looking For Group] Sizzlestick: I just got a warm fuzzy feeling by the way nobody responded to Apocalyth's trolling =)

Yeah, even I only responded here, not in chat. We must be growing up, or something.

[Looking For Group] Apocolyth: yea the devs totllu screwd up this game

Oh, you're making my fingers twitch with the urge to viciously spell-check you.

So, just to graze on this again...I'm back to watching the "compileTRUTH" analysis videos, one of the ones currently concerning a blogger known only as "M" (and his blog, The Tutorial).

(from the Slender album, because I'm likely going to need one)

Let's talk about that. For those who don't know, a "tulpa" is a created thoughtform that can then act independently of the user's will. While the creation of a tulpa (in Sanskrit, "nirmāṇa" or "nirmita") is considered the act of a sufficiently advanced, and spiritually purified, being, the reality is that anyone who concentrates hard enough on it, with enough fervency and drive, might create one:

"Once the tulpa is endowed with enough vitality to be capable of playing the part of a real being, it tends to free itself from its maker¹s control. This, say Tibetan occultists, happens nearly mechanically, just as the child, when his body is completed and able to live apart, leaves its mother¹s womb. Sometimes the phantom becomes a rebellious son and one hears of uncanny struggles that have taken place between magicians and their creatures, the former being severely hurt or even killed by the latter."
     --Alexandra David-Neel, from 'Magic and Mystery in Tibet', published by University Books Inc., in 1965

That's a quoted extract from a longer work used in support of an experiment conducted by two artists in Los Angeles, on the validity of created thoughtforms. Which is all well and good if you're planning on "creating" a mischievous invisible rabbit, or a housekeeping brownie...but what if what you're concentrating on is dangerous?

What if what you're concentrating on has aspects that can rearrange memories; has the ability to appear and disappear from photographs and film; has not only the will but the ability to injure, terrify, and destroy?

This may be the territory we find ourselves in now. We as humans are incredibly gullible, overall--we believe fervently without rational proof needed. We are loyal because we liked the color tones of something, or the name, or connect that product with a friend or a love. We get confused in virtual worlds because we can see ourselves taking certain actions, and we think we, ourselves, have taken those same actions.

I've already discussed placebo effects on the blog; and in a sense, this is sort of a psychological placebo effect. Enough people believe at least partially in the Slender Man to, perhaps, bring him to some form of reality--even if it's only a reality that's visible in that affected person's head.

I don't believe--as M clearly seems to--that Slender Man is a virus. (Though, there are similar aspects, and as Laurie Anderson said, language is a virus when analyzed with the right tools.) I don't believe he's "catching", I don't believe I can get "infected" just from reading about him, seeing images of him.

But I do think the potential aspects--of Slender Man as a created thoughtform, as a tulpa--bear further exploration.

Finally, I believe courtesy of Mr. Drinkwater, this excellent selection of librarian tattoos (and as a reverse of the images, a gathering of tattooed librarians). I'm all for either. Because librarians are cool.