Taken to the Extreme

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 31 May 2003, and now archived in the Forum Library.

Draconian Angel	31 May 2003
http://www.crossroad.to/ Has anyone visited this site? Personally, I tensely disagree with Ms. Kjos' articles in the Entertainment section. Especially the ones on anime and Harry Potter. But I suppose that's biased, as I'm an avid anime lover, and Harry Potter fan. But she has a really negetive (narrow even) view on the Tarot, Witchcraft and Paganism alike, and manages to connect them negetively with the latest pop culture. She goes even far with the Teletubbies! Also, look out for the Comment section - especially the latest comment by one person in the Sailor Moon section: Quote: From Monique Desir: I love your website and thank God for you and the wickedness that you are exposing in our childrens' shows and adult ones as well (or what are thought to be children shows and even adult shows! Next, I would like to tell you some things about Sailor Moon. I am ashamed to say that I used to watch it a lot a few years ago before I realized how warped and disgusting it was. First of all, the Japanese and English versions are kind of different. (WELL THAT MIGHT BE AN UNDERSTATEMENT!) In the Japanese version there is a lot of homosexuality going on as well as bisexuality that parents might not understand. For example, there is a couple who work for Queen Beryl: Zoycite (an effete/effeminate) and Malachite are both male characters in the original Japanese version, but Zoycite who is more feminine looking than Malachite was dubbed a female in the American version! They are gay! Homosexual! And I wonder if parents here in America knew if they would have been angry or just go with the flow?! Another homosexual couple, two women called Sailor Neptune and Uranus, have a daughter in the Japanese version. However, one day when I was watching it on the cartoon network, there was an episode with both Sailor Senshi or soldiers/scouts in USA version. Sailor Uranus is the more boyish of the couple with her short, blond hair and taller, slender looks. In this episode she was dressed in a suit like a young man. AT first I thought that it was a BOY and so did they other Sailor scouts who were drooling with hearts and teardrops forming around their heads! If I noticed this blatant, in your face homosexuality -- who else did? Well, someone must have because I haven't seen the show on television since. Good. Some have said that Sailor Neptune and Uranus' relationship is a "parody of heterosexual relationships" because Uranus who is more male than all of the Sailor Scouts and Sailor Neptune who is more female are reflecting a warped version of family life, due to the fact that they are both women. For instance, their daughter calls them "mama" and "papa". The male pair are a couple of the villains in the first season and the latter female pair are the good guys in the later series. There is also a great deal of -- I am not sure if I want to use this word -- pedophilia in the show. Young girls as young as 12 or 13 (8th graders mind you) are falling head over heels in love with older, wicked men. One example is the relationship between Neflite, a soldier for the Negaverse and Molly, an ordinary and virginal human girl. No wonder that girls age 12 are dating men as young as 28! There is a lot of occult or alchemic talk in the show: quest for crystals, moon prisms, which are worn as brooches for extra power. But where are they drawing this power from? The Negaverse has power like that too. I think that it is like the idea of White and Black Magic: though both won't admit it they are tapping their power from the same source: Satan. In the Japanese version, Sabrina's name is Usagi or Bunny because of her hairstyle. Tuxedo Mask is really Tuxedo Kamen and his princely name is Mamoru. To me there is a lot of "goddess" worship in the show, like what you would find from the ancient religions of Greece and the Mystery religions of Rome. A lot of Sailor Moon fans deny the witchcraft element. WELL, how come Luna, the black cat can turn into a human?! It's true! In the manga (comic) series Luna and her consort, Artemis and Diane (a kitten, their daughter) transform into their human forms in the final battle to help Sailor moon destroy an "evil" foe! In the movie version "Sailor S or Heart of Ice", Luna falls in love with a human. She is transformed into a human by Super Sailor Moon, who uses "the power of the chalice" to grant Luna's wish and to make Kakeru's (her love interest) dreams come true: She takes him on a trip to the Moon in the personage of a Princess he loves named Kaguya! Afterwards, she transforms back into a cat. The weird thing about it is that the cats are guardians of Sailor Moon, her husband or prince, Prince Darien and their daughter Rini (American version name). Artemis, the white cat who belongs to Sailor Venus, is an exception. There is also slight nudity during the transformation scenes when the Sailor scouts change their into their hero clothing. Some have said that this is not for sexual stimulation, which is a lie because most Japanese business men would get their "kicks" at these scenes. They also have some disgusting fetish for schoolgirl panties! They buy them from vending machines or from the girls themselves. White ones are preferred and there is a lot of that flashing on the show. I am not lying! I was shocked when I found it on a website about a year ago. I hope that this will help you guys out! Please tell me what you think of this site - I'm appalled how this site nit-picks with today's pop culture, and not with a very opened mind, IMO. I'm glad that there are Christians who are not like this...

HudsonGray	31 May 2003
Man, that's pathetic. They completely miss the fact that most of those are portraying metaphor. They've got articles analysing the use of a sun figure in ads & book covers assuming the author of the book the pictures are on had a choice in picking them (the editor & publisher picked them, not the author). Overanalysis seems to be the word of the day there. And the fact they don't think anyone can think things through on their own. It reminds me of that guy back in the 1960's who took comic books apart panel by panel looking for angles representing groins & sexuality in every picture (no lie, any 3 lines coming together represented the female 'muff', even if it was only showing an underarm in the picture...can we say McCarthyism?). Garbage like that isn't worth reading. But I suspect the ones who go to that site are already hard core Christians only looking for justification to keep their kids safe from movies, books, tv, and school. They'd prefer to be raised in a vacuum & away from all sin. No wonder they have such trouble with the world in general-- I saw a bumper sticker that would cover this: Those who live in the dark are afraid of the world.

gypsy_morrigan	01 Jun 2003
Wow. I had to laugh when the author of the site actually attacked Tolkien and C.S. Lewis as being secretly un-Christian. Even though I don't always agree with their views, I think they are very good interpreters of the Christian faith and probably had thought about it a lot more than this person has!

Sulis	01 Jun 2003
Considering that this woman you quoted dissapproves of this show so much she certainly seems to have watched a lot of it. I think HudsonGray`s got it exactly right, overanalysis definately is the name of the game. Crystalmynx xx

Kiama	01 Jun 2003
I gave up reading that site after I read one and a half articles... I've heard it all before, and it's all been dismissed with facts rather than fiction before... If these people spent as much time trying to improve the planet, or trying to make their religion more accessible to young people, maybe there would be some very positive changes. Bt as such, they choose to complain and moan about things that aren't true, and don't bother trying to do anything positive to make a difference. It's quite sad and pathetic. (In my opinion) Kiama

anjocoxo	01 Jun 2003
This would actually made me laugh if it wasn't for the scary thought that there are really dozens of people thinking the way this guy does, and they have no problems in arrassing other people because they are different... I thought Jesus had told "love thy neighbour"... ...and not "love thy neighbour, but if he's a muslim, a wicca, a tarot reader, a buddhist or, even worse, the truly wicked teletubbies and sailormoon watchers (those are the worse, stay away from them!), if your neighbour is one of these, you better run away...." anjo

allibee	01 Jun 2003
Thanks Draconian Angel...I haven't had such a good laugh in ages! I will say however, that as I do believe that God always finds a way, I'm sure the proof will be in the pudding, and one side of the argument or the other will choke on it. Don't worry peoples, I'm pretty certain it won't be us.... or the teletubbies..... A.

Emily	02 Jun 2003
I've just gone to that site to have a look around - didn't get any further than the front page - Its been a while since I've been to a site that made my flesh crawl but that one just did, felt like I'd been hit in the stomach - bad vibes :(

Sobeknofret	02 Jun 2003
Holy cow! The baby faced sun on Teletubbies is actually a pagan sun-god designed to lead our children away from THE ONE TRUE GOD to paganism! Who knew? Betcha the producers and writers don't... What a site. What scares me is that there are tons of people out there who believe this garbage. Gods prevent that I run into one-- burned at the stake doesn't have such an appeal for me.

allibee	02 Jun 2003
I think you'll find, due to the enormity of this cyber spirit that we are all a part of, that there are a lot more of us than there are of them! A.

Kiama	02 Jun 2003
I am reading the new article about the Matrix... And the more I read, the more I realise that these people don't really know what they're talking about at all. They keep on saying things as though they are fact, when it has been proven time and time again that it is not. Take this for instance: "1. Blood, brutality, violence and destruction. An abundance of studies show that visual or imagined violence can lead to actual violence. People cannot fill their minds with wanton brutality without mental and moral consequences. One of those consequences is an insatiable lust for an ever-growing intensity of thrills. As the virtual violence of the past becomes boring, only a higher level of shock and brutality can satisfy the craving." That's rubbish. I studied Media Studies for 2 years, and I actually learned something from it: There are a million cases of aversion to violence after seeing violent films, for every one case where somebody copies a violent film. The authors of the article give three cases earlier on in the article, where the Matrix has been linked to gun crime. But the links are tenuous, and for those 3 cases (if they are truly caused by the Matrix which I doubt they are) there are hundreds where people have not killed their landlady/parents/teacher. The article also calls the Matrix itself (The human farms where machines rule) 'occult'... When was the last time these people read a dictionary? Seems to me, they are just attaching scare-words to everything to make it seem worse than it really is. Then they go on about the fatalism in the film, and fail to understand the essential philosophy behind the Matrix films. Oh, but Crowley would be pleased with the article, I am sure... }) They give a wonderful and fitting tribute to the sacred prostitute Babylon, whom we see in the Thoth deck's Strength/Lust card: "The Biblical description of Mystery Babylon shows how the evils of the ancient Babylonian civilization would be multiplied in end times. Notice "the mother of harlots" riding on the beast who will return from some kind of death to rule the world as the Antichrist." He he. Crowley would've liked that.... }) The rest of the article is assumptive, making sweeping statements all over the place, and dismissing all other walks of life/beliefs/religions as wrong. I was expecting it, but not to such an extent that they would even dismiss something so close to Christianity as Gnosticism. Don't they realise that without Gnosticism and Platonic thought, Christianity would not be as it is today, and probably wouldn't have existed? I feel sorry for poor Harry Potter, George Lucas, and Tolkien... They do take a bashing from this site. I am wondering... What's the big deal they have with white magic and black magic? They complain that both are as bad as each other, but fail to see that the white magic in all these stories is representative of ethical actions. It's simply good versus evil, and it doesn't matter how that battle takes place. Another thing I'm lost on. They say we are to recognise and resist: "Confidence in the natural goodness, connectedness, and sacredness of all life." But what on earth happened to the Biblical statement that God created the heavens and the earth, and everything in the Universe? Surely then, if God created it, it is all sacred and naturally good? But then again, these people also call us to recognise and resist: "Trust in Self, inner wisdom" "Evolving spiritually by growing in consciousness & connectedness." And there was me thinking that that's what was the basis behind all religions. Silly me... I'm gonna read this site some more. It's funny. I'm in the mood for a good critique.... }) Kiama

The Taken to the Extreme thread was originally posted on 31 May 2003 in the Spirituality board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Spirituality, or read more archived threads.