(i ripped this off wikipedia real fast so sorry if it’s lib)

In October 1776, the Public Universal Friend contracted an epidemic disease and was bedridden and near death with a high fever. Their family summoned a doctor from Attleboro, six miles away, and neighbors kept up a death-watch at night. The fever broke after several days. The Friend later reported that [deadname redacted] had died, receiving revelations from God through two archangels who proclaimed there was “Room, Room, Room, in the many Mansions of eternal glory for Thee and for everyone”. The Friend further said that [deadname redacted]'s soul had ascended to heaven and the body had been reanimated with a new spirit charged by God with preaching his word, that of the “Publick Universal Friend”, describing that name in the words of Isaiah 62:2 as “a new name which the mouth of the Lord hath named”.

From that time on, the Friend refused to answer to their deadname, ignoring or chastising those who insisted on using it. When visitors asked if it was the name of the person they were addressing, the Friend simply quoted Luke 23:3 (“thou sayest it”).  Identifying as neither male nor female, the Friend asked not to be referred to with gendered pronouns. Followers respected these wishes; they referred only to “the Public Universal Friend” or short forms such as “the Friend” or “P.U.F.”, and many avoided gender-specific pronouns even in private diaries. When someone asked if the Friend was male or female, the preacher replied “I am that I am”, saying the same thing to a man who criticized the Friend’s manner of dress (adding, in the latter case, “there is nothing indecent or improper in my dress or appearance; I am not accountable to mortals”).

editorial note: I think this is a very cool story and I really love hearing it. We’ve been around forever and we’ve been doing variations of this forever. It’s really beautiful


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  • DeathToBritain [she/her, they/them]@hexbear.net
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    20 days ago

    just remembered this time when I was 14, when my English teacher spent an entire lesson, out of nowhere, telling us all her new age spiritual beliefs like indigo children, and higher spiritual states and shit. I loved it, because I didn’t have to do shit for an hour

    • MusicOwl [comrade/them, sie/hir]@hexbear.net
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      20 days ago

      One of my favorite English teacher moments was in high school. We were studying Macbeth, and a question on a quiz was “where do the events of Macbeth take place?”

      My friend answered correctly, “scotland.” She marked it as wrong and wrote in “Scott Land.” biblically-accurate-kitty

      On the next quiz she asked the same question. My friend said fuck it and wrote “Scott Land.” She marked it wrong and wrote “Scotland.” monkey-typewriter

      Still one of the most utterly absurd things I have beholden in education that wasn’t just lib shit.

    • TerminalEncounter [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      20 days ago

      Some people in my family and family friends were into the same thing. Their indigo kids turned out to be autistic or otherwise neurodivergent and the crystals didn’t do anything lol

      • GenderIsOpSec [she/her]@hexbear.net
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        20 days ago

        I had a crackpot history teacher in high school. With small prompting he would go on 30min asides where he talked about his experiences in the air forces (not USA, not even in NATO). He also had this wild way of acting out the history he was talking about. Real shame he was a pretty normal lib and thus communism is when you have 2 cows and the state steals them both etc. etc.

    • Anvil_Lavigne [she/her, they/them]@hexbear.net
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      20 days ago

      I loved it, because I didn’t have to do shit for an hour

      had a teacher who’d put the same films on for us over & over. it was sweet as hell for a good while, until our resident tryhard turbonerd started screaming about how they wanna be learning things agony-turbo the teacher genuinely kept forgetting we’d seen the stuff already, so his reaction to this news was more shocked than angry.