Born of the blood of angels and the ashes of dragons, Yultanotepp breathes new life into declining souls and Pit Bull puppies. This god frowns upon the brandishing of weapons. Battle should be avoided unless it becomes a necessity for survival and freedom of expression. 

You can't have her. She only exists to her creator. Build your own religious architecture. 

DIY Religion

Hiatus & Pilgrimage

The journey is long and fraught with obstacles, revelations, and chance encounters with Bugbears. There is much work to be done. In the meantime, Andrew Crevier would like you to find out what all this face eating zombie nonsense is all about. Don't smoke the Purple Crack!

http://grindpulppress.blogspot.com/

DIY Religion is still in the works! 

Raymond Followed - Sarah Sinned

Raymond walked up to Sarah and asked, “Hey, did you have a chance to think about the conversation we had last week?” He smiled wryly.

“Um, no. I’ve been crazy busy the past few days. I don’t want to dwell on the whole subject anyway. I’m thinking we’ll never agree with each other on all things religion,” she lied about not wanting to dwell on her spirituality, but not about the fact that they would never agree with each other. She couldn’t even stand being near the self-righteous jerk, let alone being embroiled in a one-way conversation.

“I’m not convinced that any one truth exists anyway,” she said, mentally stuffing her foot into her mouth. She knew before he let fly his zealot maw that she’d just opened a can of worms.

“But if the truth is what’s real, anything besides it is a lie right? I mean, some people may go along with something that is illusion, but that illusion is a lie. The reality is, some folks just can’t handle the truth. Is it so hard to believe? No, but when you consider the path that everybody needs to be on…well, I think you know why people find it easier to shove the good news asid—“

“Listen! I don’t want to hear anything about your good news or your goddamned flying light of a god. All right? I’d rather just learn things on my own and figure out my own truth.”

“But what if that truth is wrong?”

“Who gives a damn?!”

He seemed shocked. The pompous look on his face turned dumb. He deserved it, she thought. Always going on and on as if the airwaves and television transmissions espousing the ‘great glory’ weren’t enough. It made her sick. It was times like these she thought about the book she had hidden in her closet. She wondered how evil it could be. She watched as he tried to regain composure. She watched him open his mouth once again.

“So like, what are you – a Christian or something?

She couldn’t help herself. She reeled back and punched him in the eye before he ever knew what hit him. How ignorant. To insinuate she was somehow evil just because she didn’t believe along with the rest of them. She thought about the book again and the gold leaf words on the front that read, Holy Bible. Though it scared her, the danger of it was intriguing. She would open it tonight.

DIY RELIGION

DIY RELIGION

DIY RELIGION

AMEN

The Dark Side

Cthulhu For President! …but, how about as your personal god-friend?

Hail Arwaaasaasawsawasaass! While being a mindless, slithering, mass of oblivion and destruction may feel like a breath of fresh air in the arena of world politics, the same cannot be said for the candidate you choose as a god for your personal religion. Peace and relief from stress for constituents are not on the agenda bullet points for politicians, but consider these essential components to a religion in which you are the sole constituent.

Insanity & Slavery

Dealing with Great Older Ones such as Nyarlathotep and Cthulhu will likely generate stressors that push you well beyond the brink of sanity. On the other hand, Politicians will leave you penniless and in the gutter, but at least you’ll still have your wits about you. Sure you may be a battery, generating energy and consuming products, but your capacity to suffer will remain intact. Your ability to fight back, break free from, and alter ‘business as usual’ also will remain intact.

The construction of your spiritual reality can have an impact on your approach to dealing with situations in which you find yourself. A god who will leave you a blathering, nonsensical idiot whose skin turns pale as the moon and who craves human flesh will not help in these matters.

Seeking Spiritual Comfort

Finding a god you can grow and enjoy your life with is recommended. This can help you cope, in some ways, with everyday life and the rules and regulations in which you find yourself imprisoned. One smiling politico may happily issue sustenance cards you can use to purchase your government approved allocation of fat, carbohydrate, and protein grams. Her colleague across the aisle will free you of this, stripping away regulations so that vast amounts of chemicals and sewage may spew, without restraint, into your immediate environment. Either way, they are merely representatives of the people. They do not posses the god-powers of your deity.

Halleluiah!

Engineering Religion Pt. 1

The building was tall and squared at all angles and corners. Its smooth stone exterior was painted in a metallic black color that shifted in the light. A white tile roof hosted no steeple or cross or religious symbol of any sort. The only exterior feature was a weather vane in the front garden.

            A narrow path of seven-inch-thick aluminum slabs jutted out from the front of the building, as if floating. There were ten of these. They served as a stairway leading to a naturally raw plastic door. A keypad granted access upon entering the code: HUMAN. The door slid upward into a seamless frame. Entering meant giving up everything. Inside, god was nothing.

             Tall, pillared shelves rose up to a distant ceiling. These housed contraptions, inventions, and books of human knowledge. There was a sewing machine, a glass case that displayed arrowheads and spear tips; under a light, the microscope. A Jackson Pollack work could be seen on the ground level, a Rembrandt as well. The walls were stuffed nearly to overcapacity. Stairs wrapped around the walls, ascending upward until they could no longer be seen. Directly across from the entry, an elevator beckoned.

Archived items of varying kinds were all accounted for and could be accessed. Seventeen underground levels were stocked and expansion was never ending. The librarians kept things organized. All who came were students; none were spiritualists, monks, witches or priests. Bibles of any sort were forbidden within these perfectly engineered walls.

In a corner room, three floors below ground level, a young boy met a strange creature that nobody else could see. Over time they became friends. They played games together when other people weren’t around. Dice, hopscotch, and marbles were fun. Its name was Baphomet, and it came from the earth.

Religious Violence

How often is religious violence committed with an absolute god / human connection of understanding and a weird idea of unconditional love? Many of the massacres we generally attribute to religion are actually not religiously based at all. Because a group of Knights Templar pillaged a city of godless savages and stole all items of value does not necessarily mean the action was an act of religious violence. Powerful personalities jockey for wealth, control, and further power. They use soldiers and political backing to attain these. Some soldiers involved in the aggression are aware of the circumstances, but some are not. Some may hold their holy book or symbol to their heart and follow orders they believe are somehow ordained by their god. There are suicide bombers and abortion clinic shooters that actually believe. They commit true acts of religiously motivated violence, but larger ‘holy wars’ are for territory, resources, power, and etc. It’s those smaller acts, the ones committed by the true believers, that belong in the category of religious violence. So if you could target one potential suicide bomber, or even a rabid evangelicalican, and gift them with the book, DIY Religion: constructing your own personal religion from the ground up—consider the cost worth it. Once they learn they no longer need to serve as slaves to gods that demand blood and guts strewn across the battlefield, they will stand in triumph over a universe ready to align with them entirely.

Ritual and ATV Meditation

Stress can bog you down and put you on edge. A sick nervous feeling can fester in your chest. It comes both when you least expect it, and it sometimes builds gradually. The burden lingers. Your focus blurs, you feel lost.           

An ability to quiet the mind, breathe, and escape the maelstrom is a powerful skill that many of us never practice. Meditation can take place anywhere. Many consider trying to take a quiet moment to clear the air and get a breather, but most don't. For the inexperienced, the stress returns. Honing and regularly practicing meditation skills can greatly increase your ability to overcome great hardship.

            A portion of your religion’s development should include practiced meditation rituals. Incorporate these into the religion. Meditation at home or in special locations, such as beneath the last set of steps at the bottom of a stairwell, can include various paraphernalia or garb you feel enhance the experience, but train your skill to meditate anywhere – with only your breathing. There is a time and place for the purple hat with a golden triangle you had in mind. Focused breathing needs it not. Become an All Terrain Vehicle of meditation. Sharpen your ability to control the senses.

            Yoga can broaden your skill. Consider adopting and adapting it to your religion. If it sounds like something you’d like to redefine, feel free to do so. There’s nothing to stop you from calling it Tet-Sumashti, Underdrownding, or Yogurt. 

 DIY Religion