Rebekah Berndt

RN, recovering activist, spiritual director, Episcopalian. Post-evangelical, post-identitarian left. I write about history, religion/spirituality, and culture.

[Rebekah Berndt @raberndt]

Do you not have hospitality in England? Americans know what to do with it, lol. Invite your friends over.

[Mary Harrington @moveincircles]

The guy in front of me at the butcher at lunchtime buying £100s of barbecue meat must be wondering what to do now

[Rebekah Berndt @raberndt]

This is true of any subtle energy work.

[John Michael Greer @JMGreerWriter]

There are people who are not cut out for ceremonial magic. The first stages of magical practice are always slow going, because you have to develop the capacity to perceive things that you've been taught all your life not to perceive.

When I was first doing this work it took more than a year before I got the first clear sense that I wasn't just wasting my time. No, that wasn't half-goat critters materializing out of thin air, or anything else you'd find in tacky Hollywood pseudomagic; it was a slight but noticeable sense of clearing, as though a half-seen fog had gone away.

[Rebekah Berndt @raberndt]

@SashaLPC Enlightened was another brilliant show by him. Never really caught on, but one of the most psychologically astute portrayals of personality disorder I’ve ever seen, with a few episodes that are absolutely emotionally devastating. It’s so honest about the ways we bs ourselves.

[Rebekah Berndt @raberndt]

@ChrisPalmerMD After my Dad was hospitalized for stroke, Medicare paid for home meal delivery. It was processed tv dinners with the only claim to health being low fat/salt and bottles of Ensure full of sugar and canola oil.

Hospital meals are, for the most part, pretty much the same.

[Rebekah Berndt @raberndt]

Really, @NewYorker, cache? I think you mean cachet. Where are your famous copy editors?

[Rebekah Berndt @raberndt]

@MatAuryn There’s a TikTok account purporting to be you. Got a weird DM today that seemed very spammy:

[Rebekah Berndt @raberndt]

If they aren't, they should be. I have to drive my 80 y/o father around a lot, and our tastes in media are very different (if it were up to him it would be all Fox News), but @TheRestHistory is one thing we can both agree on. It's become a father-daughter bonding thing.

[Dr Francis Young @DrFrancisYoung]

Slightly worrying that I’ve started assuming everyone I talk to listens to @TheRestHistory, in the way people used to assume everyone watched teatime TV in the 1970s

[Rebekah Berndt @raberndt]

This quote has always helped me feel better about my book hoarding. If only I had a fancy library so they weren't falling off the shelves.

[Dr Peter Caddick-Adams #StandwithUkraine @militaryhistori]

Umberto Eco, who owned 50,000 books, had this to say about home libraries: "It is foolish to think that you have to read all the books you buy, as it is foolish to criticize those who buy more books than they will ever be able to read. It would be like saying that you should use all the cutlery or glasses or screwdrivers or drill bits you bought before buying new ones.
There are things in life that we need to always have plenty of supplies, even if we will only use a small portion. If, for example, we consider books as medicine, we understand that it is good to have many at home rather than a few: when you want to feel better, then you go to the 'medicine closet' and choose a book. Not a random one, but the right book for that moment. That's why you should always have a nutrition choice!
Those who buy only one book, read only that one and then get rid of it. They simply apply the consumer mentality to books, that is, they consider them a consumer product, a good. Those who love books know that a book is anything but a commodity."
@Pergament_F @normaegraham1 @fugitiveink @AliceB01973554 @robert_lyman @prof_warfield @GilesMacDonogh @GilesMilton1 @guywalters @ABRGLL @April_1970s @LL_running_girl

[Rebekah Berndt @raberndt]

@ESOldfield In fact, I remember having this very conversation with a therapist 10 years ago. A lot of us have long presumed a connection.

[Rebekah Berndt @raberndt]

@ESOldfield As a medical professional, former charismatic, and contemplative practitioner, my assumption has always been yes.

[Rebekah Berndt @raberndt]

@AliceFromQueens @stanfordNYC @dwpasulka But agree they don’t require extraterrestrial explanations. That doesn’t mean they don’t require an ontological reconfiguring, much like Copernicus initiated a revision of the solar system. @jdmadden’s latest book is great for this.

[Rebekah Berndt @raberndt]

@AliceFromQueens @stanfordNYC @dwpasulka Diana documents physical effects on people and artifacts that don’t appear consistent with any known human technology. She documents extensive belief in *something* artifacts and experiences by scientists who have participated in the space program or tested the artifacts

[Rebekah Berndt @raberndt]

@AliceFromQueens @stanfordNYC @dwpasulka I think what you’re saying is that this is all fantasy and delusion. But what they are saying is that there are real phenomena, with physical manifestations, that do not fit any of our ontological frameworks but cannot be explained away with derision and handwaving.

[Rebekah Berndt @raberndt]

@AliceFromQueens @stanfordNYC @dwpasulka That’s not what either of them say. What they do say is that there is evidence of anomalous phenomena that get interpreted in different ways based on cultural and perceptual filters-for some, it’s UFOs and for others, it’s the Virgin Mary.

[Rebekah Berndt @raberndt]

@AliceFromQueens @stanfordNYC Girl, read Jacques Vallée or @dwpasulka. It’s not like smart, scholarly people aren’t talking about this stuff.

[Rebekah Berndt @raberndt]

I wrote something on Magic and re-animating Christianity:

[Rebekah Berndt @raberndt]

@DrFrancisYoung My dad said his grandfather always referred to himself and fellow German people as “Dutchmen.” This was in Wisconsin in the 1950’s.

[Rebekah Berndt @raberndt]

@JeffFalzone Yeah, but it might not be up for non-subscribers yet.

[Rebekah Berndt @raberndt]

I listened to the latest episode of @TheBARPod with @AnaKasparian and it really got to me. There's a moment where Ana gets very honest and vulnerable about letting go of her rigidly ideological worldview and how painful it is to realize you've been, to some extent, the asshole.

[Rebekah Berndt @raberndt]

@AnaKasparian Absolutely, although I had the luxury of not being in the public eye.

[Rebekah Berndt @raberndt]

...and the second time as an equally (and reactively) fundamentalist social justice leftist—it's helpful to see public figures getting real about this. And I look forward to seeing what kind of work Ana puts out in the future.

[Rebekah Berndt @raberndt]

And there's a nice moment when @KatieHerzog also gives her some very good and honest advice. As someone who's done the ideological deconstruction thing twice— once as a fundamentalist evangelical Christian,