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Post by Admin on Jul 19, 2020 14:32:13 GMT
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principia_DiscordiaThe Principia Discordia is a Discordian religious text written by Greg Hill (Malaclypse the Younger) with Kerry Wendell Thornley (Lord Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst). The first edition was printed using Jim Garrison's Xerox printer in 1963.[1] The second edition was published under the title Principia Discordia or How The West Was Lost in a limited edition of five copies in 1965. The phrase Principia Discordia, reminiscent of Newton's Principia Mathematica, is presumably intended to mean Discordant Principles, or Principles of Discordance. The Principia describes the Discordian Society and its Goddess Eris, as well as the basics of the POEE denomination of Discordianism. It features typewritten and handwritten text intermixed with clip art, stamps, and seals appropriated from other sources. While the Principia is full of literal contradictions and unusual humor, it contains several passages which propose that there is serious intent behind the work, for example a message scrawled on page 00075: "If you think the PRINCIPIA is just a ha-ha, then go read it again." The Principia is quoted extensively in and shares many themes with the satirical science fiction book The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson. Wilson was not directly involved in writing the Principia. Golden Apple, symbol of Eris, Our Lady of Discord Notable symbols in the book include the Apple of Discord, the pentagon, and the "Sacred Chao", which resembles the Taijitu of Taoism, but the two principles depicted are "Hodge" and "Podge" rather than yin and yang, and they are represented by the apple and the pentagon, and not by dots. Saints identified include Emperor Norton, Yossarian, Don Quixote, and Bokonon. The Principia also introduces the mysterious word "fnord", later popularized in The Illuminatus! Trilogy; the trilogy itself is mentioned in the afterword to the Loompanics edition, and in the various introductions to the fifth editions.
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Post by Admin on Jul 19, 2020 14:39:16 GMT
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Post by Admin on Aug 1, 2020 3:04:27 GMT
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Post by Admin on Dec 12, 2020 18:59:20 GMT
Chaos Magicken.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_magicChaos magic, also spelled chaos magick, is a contemporary magical practice. It was initially developed in England in the 1970s, drawing heavily from the philosophy of artist and occultist Austin Osman Spare.[1] Sometimes referred to as "success magic" or "results-based magic", chaos magic claims to emphasize the attainment of specific results over the symbolic, ritualistic, theological or otherwise ornamental aspects of other occult traditions.[2] Chaos magic has been described as a union of traditional occult techniques and applied postmodernism[3] – particularly a postmodernist skepticism concerning the existence or knowability of objective truth.[4] Chaos magicians subsequently treat belief as a tool, often creating their own idiosyncratic magical systems and frequently borrowing from other magical traditions, religious movements, popular culture and various strands of philosophy.[3] Early leading figures include Peter J. Carroll and Ray Sherwin.[2] Concept and terminology Chaos magic differs from other occult traditions such as Thelema or Wicca in that it rejects the existence of absolute truth, and views all occult systems as arbitrary symbol-systems that are only effective because of the belief of the practitioner.[4][5] Chaos magic thus takes an explicitly agnostic position on whether or not magic exists as a supernatural force, with many chaos magicians expressing their acceptance of a psychological model as one possible explanation.[5][6] It is unknown when the term "chaos magic" first emerged, with the earliest texts on the subject referring only to "magic" or "the magical art" in general. Furthermore, they often claimed to state principles universal to magic, as opposed to a new specific style or tradition, describing their innovations as efforts to rid magic of superstitious and religious ideas.[5][page needed] [7] The word chaos was first used in connection with magic by Peter J. Carroll in Liber Null & Psychonaut (1978), where it is described as "the 'thing' responsible for the origin and continued action of events."[5] Carroll goes on to say that "It could as well be called 'God' or 'Tao', but the name 'Chaos' is virtually meaningless and free from the anthropomorphic ideas of religion."[5]
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Post by Admin on Jan 1, 2021 21:00:08 GMT
Masters of Atlantis Is Essential Reading for the QAnon AgeCharles Portis’ book about a fictional cult has amassed a devoted following of its own, with Michael Cera, Bill Hader, and The Office creator Greg Daniels among its fans. By BRIAN BOYLE DEC 31, 20205:50 AM slate.com/culture/2020/12/masters-of-atlantis-qanon-conspiracy-theories-comedians.htmlAlmost every day I read a new story, listen to a new podcast, or encounter a new thread of tweets chronicling the cancerous spread of internet cults and unfounded conspiracy theories. And, almost every day, I can’t help but think of a sparsely read novel written by a dude in the back office of an Arkansas dive bar in 1985. Though you’ve likely never heard of Charles Portis’ Masters of Atlantis, it’s revered among a certain circle of comedians. Parks and Recreation co-creator Michael Schur calls it a “masterpiece”; he read it at the suggestion of The Office co-creator Greg Daniels. Bill Hader, Michael Cera, and Conan O’Brien also count themselves among its fans. “It’s recommended and passed around more than any fiction book I know of, outside maybe Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” said David Cross, who has the novel’s original cover art tattooed on his arm. Portis, who died in February, is best known as the guy who wrote True Grit, but he also penned four other novels, each funnier and more extraordinary than his most famous work. Masters of Atlantis, his comic magnum opus, turned 35 years old this October, but its message has never been more relevant. It’s the perfect novel to explain QAnon, to explain Trump, to explain organized religion—hell, to explain America itself. The story chronicles the life of a Lamar Jimmerson, a charming simpleton who stumbles into leading a cult known as the Gnomon Society. In the opening pages, Jimmerson is milling around post-WWI Europe, looking for work and fun before headed back home stateside. Portis wastes not two sentences before introducing the inciting action: Jimmerson bumps into a homeless man who offers to trade a small book in exchange for cigarettes. The homeless man introduces himself as Nick, an Albanian refugee from Turkey. The two eat dinner together, and Nick reveals he’s actually Mike, a Greek from Alexandria in Egypt. A page after that: Mike reveals his true identity to be Jack, an Armenian from Damascus. And that book he traded for smokes? Worthless. But he has another, far superior book to trade Lamar: the Codex Pappus, a collection of secret symbols and equations that proves the existence of Atlantis and provides the basis for the ancient, all-knowing Gnomon Society. And, oh yeah, his name isn’t actually Jack, but Robert. Through all of this, Jimmerson doesn’t even bat an eye. He’s hooked. Obsessed. He has to know more. It’s the literary equivalent of falling down an internet rabbit hole. Jimmerson is sold a copy of the supposedly sacred, all-revealing Codex Pappus and shares his newfound knowledge with his equally naïve pal, Sydney Hen, as well as the duplicitous (but equally dimwitted) Austin Popper. Together, the trio become unlikely apostles for a brand-new religion. On the spectrum of conspiracy theories, Gnomonry is closer to the relatively benign flat-earthers and moon-landing deniers than the horrific black hole of QAnon. Though the infamously press-shy Portis never stated on the record any precise targets for his farcical sendup, astute readers seeking to uncover the real-world roots of Gnomonry will likely find it a vague mishmash of ideologies, mixing bits and pieces from Freemasonry and Scientology with allusions to the famed lost city under the sea. “[Portis] is probably one of the widest readers I’ve ever known,” said writer Jay Jennings, a friend of the author and editor of Escape Velocity: A Charles Portis Miscellany. “When he gets into a subject like, in this case, secret societies and their strangeness, he’s really omnivorous in his reading. It may just be a little three-word phrase that tells you all of that preparational reading went into one line.” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masters_of_Atlantis
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Post by Admin on Mar 13, 2021 15:42:29 GMT
No Escape From DiscordianismChristopher James Stone He has no explanation for why the world is as it is. www.splicetoday.com/politics-and-media/no-escape-from-discordianismI’ve just watched the Adam Curtis documentary series Can’t Get You Out Of My Head on the BBC. Six episodes in all, it comes in at just under eight hours long. Curtis is a BBC documentary filmmaker with a very distinctive style. His films are first-person lectures on a variety of subjects, held together by a collage of archive film and music. The combination of historic footage with an often-emotional soundtrack gives a dream-like quality to the narrative. You could say that he uses this technique in order to smuggle radical ideas into the viewers’ heads, but I suspect it’s the other way around. He uses radical film techniques in order to smuggle entirely conventional ideas into the viewers’ head, while feigning a radical agenda. He certainly likes to talk in revolutionary terms. One of the films is called Shooting and Fucking are the Same Thing. The phrase comes from the Baader-Meinhof group when they were training with the Palestinians in the 1960s. The story goes that the Palestinians were offended at the sight of the German women sunbathing naked and asked them to put clothes on, to which Andreas Baader replied, “Sexual revolution and anti-imperialism go together. Fucking and shooting are the same thing.” The whole episode is lifted from a 2008 German drama film directed by Uli Edel, called The Baader Meinhof Complex. This is typical of Curtis’ method. He likes to reference obscure material without necessarily acknowledging where it comes from. This particular episode also highlights another of his approaches. While talking about revolutionary politics Curtis will often pick marginal figures, which he then holds up as examples of the failure of the left. The Red Army Faction is one example. Another is Michael X, who also appears in this film. Michael X—proper name Michael de Freitas—was a racketeer and enforcer of the slum landlord Peter Rachman who operated out of Notting Hill in the 1950s. He became a revolutionary and an icon of the left in the 60s, before murdering one of his followers in Trinidad. He was hanged in 1975. Of course Michael X took his name from Malcolm X. The story was that when Malcolm came to Britain a desk clerk mistook the two for brothers as they were travelling together. That may or may not be true, but what’s obvious is that the adoption of the surname lent kudos to Michael’s revolutionary persona. Malcolm X was a powerful and charismatic figure with a genuine radical agenda. Michael X was a gangster, a violent extortionist and a murderer. You wonder why Curtis takes him as his focus. Another example of this kind of substitution is his references to Greg Hill and Kerry Thornley, the creators of Discordianism. We’re treated to long passages about the origins of the pseudo-religion, about Operation Mindfuck and Kerry Thornley’s relationship with Lee Harvey Oswald, about Thornley’s descent into madness and paranoia and Greg Hill’s alcoholism. What we never hear mentioned is the name Robert Anton Wilson, arguably the man responsible for the popularization of Discordianism, through the Illuminatus! Trilogy, which he wrote with Robert Shea, and his Cosmic Trigger trilogy. He’s mentioned in passing, but without naming him, as a Discordian working for Playboy magazine. That’s it. We are left with the impression of this weird historical and philosophical sideline, told as an adjunct of the story of our times, as if Wilson never existed and the inevitable end of the Discordian project is drunkenness and insanity. You could say that this is fair enough. Perhaps we already know who Wilson and Malcolm X are, so it’s pointless repeating these stories. Maybe it’s interesting to wander down these cul-de-sacs of history, like psycho-geographical explorers of the Western mind, but that’s not how Curtis presents them. Rather he suggests that these stories are essential to an understanding of where we are now. As he says in his introduction: “We are living through strange days. Across Britain, Europe and America, societies have become split and polarised, not just in politics but across the whole culture. There is anger at the inequality and at the ever growing corruption and a wide spread distrust of the elites. But at the same time there is a paralysis, a sense that no one knows how to escape from this.” The entire series is then presented as an explanation for how we got to this point. In pursuit of this we’re taken on a dizzying journey across the entire globe, from the UK to the United States, from Russia to China, from the post-war period to the present day.We hear the story of Jiang Qing, Madame Mao, and of her rise to power with the Gang of Four in China. It’s a fascinating story and worthy of our attention. If Curtis had given us the story in isolation, as an example of the vicissitudes of power, we would’vethanked him. He loves using clips of her romantic operas, with stylized Red Guards in heavy makeup doing ballet moves with Kalashnikovs, but as an explanation for the world we live in now it’s remarkably off-beat. Madame Mao lost. Another faction took over in China, and they run the Chinese project now, whatever you might think of that. It’s a pointless excursion into the nether-regions of the world-soul which doesn’t really shed light on our current dilemma. What’s notable as well is what he misses. There’s very little about Thatcherism or Reaganomics, the shift in wealth away from the population as a whole into the hands of the elites, the trickle-down theory and the financialization of the economy. Little about the control of the narrative by media companies in hock to the elites, little about the part the BBC, as the sponsor of this film, plays in it all. Adam Curtis is a creature of the Beeb. He obviously spends a lot of time in the archives, rooting round to find us his quirky treasures. But there’s a sort of faux radicalism about it, a showy emptiness, full of grand theorizing, without any real substance. He loves the word “dark” as in “dark paranoia,” a word he repeats throughout the series. Another word he likes is “ghosts.” Were this delivered as a lecture, most of us would’ve walked out within the first hour. It’s a nonsensical argument displaying an essential nihilism. He has no explanation for why the world is as it is. He’s simply juxtaposing multiple storylines in a series of overlapping narratives that have no connection beyond the fact that Curtis has researched them. On the other hand, it is precisely the juxtaposition of images and sounds that keeps us watching. Every so often he’ll pause in his story and allow a moving image accompanied by a resonant soundtrack to occupy our attention. The result is often fascinating and strangely compelling, like looking in on someone’s unconscious processes. One example, in the first program, after seeing an interview with Kerry Thornley, we’re led into an aerial sequence skimming over shimmering mudflats towards a shipwreck, accompanied by the Incredible String Band playing “Air.” The single word “England” comes up on the screen. This is followed by a shot of terraced streets leading to a waterfront where crowds are assembled, followed by scenes from a traditional English folk festival with a hobby horse, scenes of a listening station across a moorland landscape, then scenes of Africans in a concentration camp being numbered by British officers, which leads to Curtis talking about the collapse of the British Empire. There may be some rational intention behind the juxtaposition of these images with this song, but it’s not clear what it is. The Incredible String Band are Scottish, not English, and the words, though beautiful, have nothing to do with what’s on screen. It’smore like a music video than a documentary and whatever its intention might be, the result is to create an impressionistic image of Englishness as something quirky, sinister and racist all at the same time. Maybe that’s the purpose, in which case Curtis, as the quintessential Englishman, is as guilty as anyone else. It’s his plummy accent—sardonic, all-knowing, detached—that guides us through the multiple stories, linking them together. But he’s an unreliable narrator and often claims an insight that he doesn’t have. He’s constantly telling us what is going on inside other people’s heads, as if he can hear their thoughts. An example: “In the 1950s, as the British Empire was falling apart, there was a growing sense that something was badly wrong under the surface.” But is that really the case? What is the “surface” under which he looks? Where does the “growing sense” take place? He’s referring to the mind, obviously. He’s claiming an omniscient view of the collective consciousness of the British people in this period, when he himself was still a child. You can’t fault his taste in music. There were a number of times I was stopped short by a song, wondering what it was and wanting to hear it again, and there are some stunning sequences where a piece of music and a set of images gel into dream-like passages of lucid clarity, like being asleep and awake at the same time. It’s the end to which he puts this audio-visual feast that worries me. As I said earlier, it’s nihilistic. He has nothing to offer. No solutions, no identifiable way out of the dilemma, no future, nothing to aim for: just this modern machine dystopia with its violence and corruption, its endless redistribution of wealth from the less well off to the obscenely wealthy. It’s interesting that he starts with a quote by David Graeber: “The ultimate hidden truth of the world is that it is something we make and could just as easily make differently.” Graeber died last year, but his was one of the most insistent voices in support of Jeremy Corbyn. The BBC, meanwhile, did everything it could to undermine the leader of the opposition and to paint him as an anti-Semite. By doing so it managed to destroy the only plausible alternative to Adam Curtis’ nightmare vision: the prospect of a social democratic party in power in the UK, returning us to the values and priorities of the post-war era.
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Post by Admin on Apr 15, 2022 16:12:19 GMT
Discordian Magic: Paganism, the Chaos Paradigm and the Power of Parody www.academia.edu/738529/Discordian_Magic_Paganism_the_Chaos_Paradigm_and_the_Power_of_ParodyDiscordianism, founded in 1957 and generally regarded as a “parody religion,” has only recently received scholarly consideration as a valid religious expression within modern Paganism (Cusack 2010). Yet ritual practice within Discordianism remains largely unexamined; Hugh Urban’s brief discussion of Discordian magical workings as a sub-category of Chaos Magic is the extent of academic discussion of the subject to date (Urban 2006). This article elaborates on Urban’s tantalising classification of Discordian magic. A brief history of Discordianism is sketched; then ritual and magic in the Discordian tradition is explored through an examination of key texts, including Malaclypse the Younger’s Principia Discordia (1965), and Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson’s Illuminatus! Trilogy (1975). Similarities between Chaos Magic and Discordianism are noted, and an analysis of Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth (TOPY), a magical order founded by British performance artist Genesis P-Orridge and others in 1981, elucidates the relationship between Chaos Magic and Discordian magic. It is argued that the essentially unorganised nature of Chaos Magic and Discordianism, and the trenchant resistance of both to any form of “orthodoxy,” justifies classifying Discordian magic as a form of Chaos Magic. Chaos magicians and Discordians both have a deconstructive and monistic worldview, in which binary oppositions collapse into undifferentiated oneness, and neither conformity of belief nor unity of practice is required to be an “authentic” Discordian or Chaote.
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Post by Admin on May 8, 2022 10:05:52 GMT
High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the Seventies Erik Davis (Author, Narrator), Tantor Audio (Publisher)
An exploration of the emergence of a new psychedelic spirituality in the work of Philip K. Dick, Terence McKenna, and Robert Anton Wilson.
A study of the spiritual provocations to be found in the work of Philip K. Dick, Terence McKenna, and Robert Anton Wilson, High Weirdness charts the emergence of a new psychedelic spirituality that arose from the American counterculture of the 1970s. These three authors changed the way millions of readers thought, dreamed, and experienced reality - but how did their writings reflect, as well as shape, the seismic cultural shifts taking place in America?
In High Weirdness, Erik Davis - America's leading scholar of high strangeness - examines the published and unpublished writings of these vital, iconoclastic thinkers, as well as their own life-changing mystical experiences. Davis explores the complex lattice of the strange that flowed through America's West Coast at a time of radical technological, political, and social upheaval to present a new theory of the weird as a viable mode for a renewed engagement with reality.
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Post by Admin on May 30, 2022 16:59:26 GMT
Church of the SubGenius en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_SubGeniusThe Church of the SubGenius is a parody religion[1] that satirizes better-known belief systems. It teaches a complex philosophy that focuses on J. R. "Bob" Dobbs, purportedly a salesman from the 1950s, who is revered as a prophet by the Church. SubGenius leaders have developed detailed narratives about Dobbs and his relationship to various gods and conspiracies. Their central deity, Jehovah 1, is accompanied by other gods drawn from ancient myth and popular fiction. SubGenius literature describes a grand conspiracy that seeks to brainwash the world and oppress Dobbs's followers. In its narratives, the Church presents a blend of cultural references in an elaborate remix of the sources. Ivan Stang, who co-founded the Church in the 1970s, serves as its leader and publicist. He has imitated actions of other religious leaders, using the tactic of culture jamming in an attempt to parody better-known faiths. Church leaders instruct their followers to avoid mainstream commercialism and the belief in absolute truths. The group holds that the quality of "Slack" is of utmost importance, but it is never clearly defined. The number of followers is unknown, although the Church's message has been welcomed by college students and artists in the United States. The group is often compared to Discordianism. Journalists often consider the Church an elaborate joke, but some academics have defended it as a real system of deeply held beliefs.[2][3]
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Post by Admin on May 30, 2022 18:04:46 GMT
Cat's Cradle en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat%27s_CradleCat's Cradle is a satirical postmodern novel, with science fiction elements, by American writer Kurt Vonnegut. Vonnegut's fourth novel, it was first published in 1963, exploring and satirizing issues of science, technology, the purpose of religion, and the arms race, often through the use of black humor. After turning down his original thesis in 1947, the University of Chicago awarded Vonnegut his master's degree in anthropology in 1971 for Cat's Cradle.[1][2]
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Post by Admin on Sept 9, 2022 0:32:12 GMT
23 enigma en.wikipedia.org/wiki/23_enigmaRobert Anton Wilson cites William S. Burroughs as the first person to believe in the 23 enigma.[2] Wilson, in an article in Fortean Times, related the following anecdote: I first heard of the 23 enigma from William S Burroughs, author of Naked Lunch, Nova Express, etc. According to Burroughs, he had known a certain Captain Clark, around 1960 in Tangier, who once bragged that he had been sailing 23 years without an accident. That very day, Clark’s ship had an accident that killed him and everybody else aboard. Furthermore, while Burroughs was thinking about this crude example of the irony of the gods that evening, a bulletin on the radio announced the crash of an airliner in Florida, USA. The pilot was another Captain Clark and the flight was Flight 23.[3]
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Post by Admin on Nov 17, 2022 0:17:26 GMT
Revelation Revisited: Thelema, Robert Anton Wilson & Timothy Leary www.academia.edu/38116425/Revelation_Revisited_Thelema_Robert_Anton_Wilson_and_Timothy_LearyNotes on Matt Cardin, “In Search of Higher Intelligence: The Daemonic Muse(s) of Crowley, Leary, & Robert Anton Wilson,” in Angela Voss & William Rowlandson (eds.), Daimonic Imagination: Uncanny Intelligence, Cambridge Scholars, Newcastle, 2013, pp. 266-281. Most musicians, artists, poets, adepts and shamans collaborate with the Muse. The Hindu knew the phenomenon as apauruseya, śruti, and ākāśavāni. We discuss it as prophecy, Dionysian ecstasy, Bacchus, the Jungian collective unconscious, race consciousness, and the Akashic Record. The metaphysics of the multiverses demand that we understand the Muse as an autonomous projection of human consciousness.
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Post by Admin on Nov 25, 2022 21:45:12 GMT
Discordian Magic: Paganism, the Chaos Paradigm and the Power of Parody www.academia.edu/738529/Discordian_Magic_Paganism_the_Chaos_Paradigm_and_the_Power_of_ParodyDiscordianism, founded in 1957 and generally regarded as a “parody religion,” has only recently received scholarly consideration as a valid religious expression within modern Paganism (Cusack 2010). Yet ritual practice within Discordianism remains largely unexamined; Hugh Urban’s brief discussion of Discordian magical workings as a sub-category of Chaos Magic is the extent of academic discussion of the subject to date (Urban 2006). This article elaborates on Urban’s tantalising classification of Discordian magic. A brief history of Discordianism is sketched; then ritual and magic in the Discordian tradition is explored through an examination of key texts, including Malaclypse the Younger’s Principia Discordia (1965), and Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson’s Illuminatus! Trilogy (1975). Similarities between Chaos Magic and Discordianism are noted, and an analysis of Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth (TOPY), a magical order founded by British performance artist Genesis P-Orridge and others in 1981, elucidates the relationship between Chaos Magic and Discordian magic. It is argued that the essentially unorganised nature of Chaos Magic and Discordianism, and the trenchant resistance of both to any form of “orthodoxy,” justifies classifying Discordian magic as a form of Chaos Magic. Chaos magicians and Discordians both have a deconstructive and monistic worldview, in which binary oppositions collapse into undifferentiated oneness, and neither conformity of belief nor unity of practice is required to be an “authentic” Discordian or Chaote.
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Post by Admin on Aug 15, 2023 7:41:25 GMT
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Post by Admin on Aug 15, 2023 7:46:45 GMT
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