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Mississippi site block, plus a small restriction on Tennessee new accounts
A reminder to everyone that starting tomorrow, we are being forced to block access to any IP address that geolocates to the state of Mississippi for legal reasons while we and Netchoice continue fighting the law in court. People whose IP addresses geolocate to Mississippi will only be able to access a page that explains the issue and lets them know that we'll be back to offer them service as soon as the legal risk to us is less existential.
The block page will include the apology but I'll repeat it here: we don't do geolocation ourselves, so we're limited to the geolocation ability of our network provider. Our anti-spam geolocation blocks have shown us that their geolocation database has a number of mistakes in it. If one of your friends who doesn't live in Mississippi gets the block message, there is nothing we can do on our end to adjust the block, because we don't control it. The only way to fix a mistaken block is to change your IP address to one that doesn't register as being in Mississippi, either by disconnecting your internet connection and reconnecting it (if you don't have a static IP address) or using a VPN.
In related news, the judge in our challenge to Tennessee's social media age verification, parental consent, and parental surveillance law (which we are also part of the fight against!) ruled last month that we had not met the threshold for a temporary injunction preventing the state from enforcing the law while the court case proceeds.
The Tennesee law is less onerous than the Mississippi law and the fines for violating it are slightly less ruinous (slightly), but it's still a risk to us. While the fight goes on, we've decided to prevent any new account signups from anyone under 18 in Tennessee to protect ourselves against risk. We do not need to block access from the whole state: this only applies to new account creation.
Because we don't do any geolocation on our users and our network provider's geolocation services only apply to blocking access to the site entirely, the way we're implementing this is a new mandatory question on the account creation form asking if you live in Tennessee. If you do, you'll be unable to register an account if you're under 18, not just the under 13 restriction mandated by COPPA. Like the restrictions on the state of Mississippi, we absolutely hate having to do this, we're sorry, and we hope we'll be able to undo it as soon as possible.
Finally, I'd like to thank every one of you who's commented with a message of support for this fight or who's bought paid time to help keep us running. The fact we're entirely user-supported and you all genuinely understand why this fight is so important for everyone is a huge part of why we can continue to do this work. I've also sent a lot of your comments to the lawyers who are fighting the actual battles in court, and they find your wholehearted support just as encouraging and motivating as I do. Thank you all once again for being the best users any social media site could ever hope for. You make me proud and even more determined to yell at state attorneys general on your behalf.
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Potential gig for competent internet person

Nonetheless he's interested in building a web presence for his firm and its products. The firm already has a more or less functional (if minimal) website, but he's looking at a blog, Patreon and SubscribeStar accounts, and whatever else might help his firm make the transition to the internet age. This is a part time paying gig; he asked me for help finding someone competent to handle this, and so I figured the first thing to do was to ask my commentariat, so that one of my readers can benefit from the opportunity.
My friend needs someone with experience setting up websites, who can build the sites and then run them. If you're interested, you'll need to be able to show me sites you've set up and managed. Please either post something here or send me a private message; I'll screen inquiries and then forward the ones that seem serious to my friend, who will make the decision. Let's make this happen.
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Ogham Readings on Saturdays

I am happy to read your Ogham free of charge -- that's how I hone my divination skills. Please limit your reading request to four or fewer Ogham cards: though this can take many forms, here are some common ones (all of them are basically combos of 4 cards):
-a one card reading to answer a specific question and a three card for a more nuanced question
-Two separate readings, two cards a piece exploring the positives and negatives of two different choices
I am happy to do Ogham readings confidentially via email -- just email me at k steele studio at gmail during the allotted time/before deadline. I cannot answer health questions. If you have a question about health or another sensitive, private matter, provide a bunch of non-identifying information and the Ogham will be able to figure it out even if I don't. I'm serious... the Ogham actually tend to "know" things without me being privy to what is going on.
My next planned break is from October 23 - November 6.
For a more in depth look into how I read and interpret the Ogham's symbols, please visit my website druidogham.wordpress.com.
I am currently trying to minimize my use of PayPal. If you'd like to make a donation, I would be grateful if you did it here:
http://buymeacoffee.com/kimberlysteele
Your prayers of blessing to the deity/deities of your choice are welcome whether or not you can donate.
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To the Ecosophian Community
Hear the words of Athene:
ἀλλά μοι ἀμφ’ Ὀδυσῆι δαΐφρονι δαίεται ἦτορ,
δυσμόρῳ, ὃς δὴ δηθὰ φίλων ἄπο πήματα πάσχει
νήσῳ ἐν ἀμφιρύτῃ, ὅθι τ’ ὀμφαλός ἐστι θαλάσσης.
νῆσος δενδρήεσσα, θεὰ δ’ ἐν δώματα ναίει,
Ἄτλαντος θυγάτηρ ὀλοόφρονος, ὅς τε θαλάσσης
πάσης βένθεα οἶδεν, ἔχει δέ τε κίονας αὐτὸς
μακράς, αἳ γαῖάν τε καὶ οὐρανὸν ἀμφὶς ἔχουσιν.
τοῦ θυγάτηρ δύστηνον ὀδυρόμενον κατερύκει,
αἰεὶ δὲ μαλακοῖσι καὶ αἱμυλίοισι λόγοισιν
θέλγει, ὅπως Ἰθάκης ἐπιλήσεται: αὐτὰρ Ὀδυσσεύς,
ἱέμενος καὶ καπνὸν ἀποθρῴσκοντα νοῆσαι
ἧς γαίης, θανέειν ἱμείρεται. [...]But my heart is torn for wise Odusseus, that hapless one, who far from his friends this long while suffers affliction in a seagirt isle, where is the navel of the sea, a woodland isle, and therein a goddess has her habitation, the daughter of the mischievous Atlas, who knows the depths of every sea, and himself upholds the tall pillars which keep earth and sky apart. His daughter it is that holds the hapless man in sorrow: and ever with soft and guileful tales she is wooing him to forgetfulness of Ithake. But Odusseus—yearning to see even the smoke leaping upwards from his own land—has a desire to die.
(Homer, Odusseia I 45–59A, as translated by S. H. Butcher and A. Lang, with minor edits by yours truly.)
If you, Ecosophians, are content to wed Kalupso and so obtain immortality—no mean thing, to be sure!—then so be it! But please, do not begrudge those who sit on the shore, gaze longingly for a wisp of smoke, and wish for death; for Zeus Mekhaneus does not forget such and contrives a way home for them...
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Frugal Friday

Rule #1: this is a place for polite, friendly conversations about how to save money in difficult times. It's not a place to post news, views, rants, or emotional outbursts about the reasons why the times are difficult and saving money is necessary. Nor is it a place to use a money saving tip to smuggle in news, views, etc. I have a delete button and I'm not afraid to use it.
Rule #2: this is not a place for you to sell goods or services, period. Here again, I have a delete button and I'm not afraid to use it.
Rule #3: please give your tip a heading that explains briefly what it's about. Homemade Chicken Soup, Garden Containers, Cheap Attic Insulation, and Vinegar Cleans Windows are good examples of headings. That way people can find the things that are relevant for them. If you don't put a heading on your tip it will be deleted.
Rule #4: don't post anything that would amount to advocating criminal activity. Any such suggestions will not be put through.
Rule #5: don't post LLM ("AI") generated content, and don't bring up the subject unless you're running a homemade LLM program on your own homebuilt, steam-powered server farm.
With that said, have at it!
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Yet another Howtown video I should blog about
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High Tide of Normies: Another One of the Paths Before Us
The New Normal, ever the same as the Old Normal
To be a normie is to take the path of least resistance. Sometimes the path of least resistance is wise. On various occasions, there is no choice. For instance, if you live in North Korea, you are regularly limited to the choices of a North Korean. Though it is often argued that driving a car is an choice in suburban America, I would dare anyone with friends, relatives, and a job that provides necessary income to try it for a year. Sometimes you have to go with the flow. The MRNA vaccines were an attempt to force a Satanic communion rite upon the last few holdouts like myself who had to make bleak decisions such as “Am I willing to literally die over this?” I was and we were... are. I was willing to go berserk. I was and am willing to go full Asami Yamasaki on the biohazard-suited goon who somehow topples my last barrier, finds me in my remote hidey hole, and comes at me with a syringe. I won’t harm a hair on their heads unless they back me into a corner, but if and when they are foolish enough to bring vaccine rape to me personally, the consequences they reap for themselves will be a gory and festive homecoming. At least one of them will deeply, bitterly regret it.
Normies are zombies. Just as perfectly kind grandmas and innocent children can be made into ravening, black-mouthed brain-eaters, normies can turn into armies of monsters when the stimuli and circumstances are right. It is easy to become a Nazi, a Stalinist, or a Maoist if everybody is doing it. When we look at how force collects and flows on the astral plane or the plane of images that is both shared and individual, certain sets of images become prominent. For instance, the image of SAFETY became a collective obsession. Those infected with SAFETY in the form of a comfortable, remote work, salary class, Door Dash-ordering, isolated but not lonely, status signaling heaven could not understand why anyone would desire to live outside that image for any reason. They clung to SAFETY even though there was a tiny, niggling, mostly-unheard voice screaming from the oubliette of conscience warning that SAFETY is not free. SAFETY, as wonderful and heavenly as it was and as virtuous as it felt, carried a steep price.
Before I go any further, let me say for the umpteen-millionth time that I could be wrong. I am a rando on the internet. I am a crackpot occultist who was atheist ten short years ago. My only redeeming quality is that I never claim my truths are infallible. So do not come at me. I am only speculating here.Hell is not eternal. Hell is not even warm. Hell is Hel, a temporary bus depot between incarnations where you sort out your crap and ready yourself for another round. And before someone says “Prison planet! Archons!” Let me say you retarded gnostics ought to give beings who are smarter and better than you a chance — not every entity is trying to cockblock you from your warped materialist vision of eternal bliss. But I digress. Hel is a place for normies. As I mentioned in my previous article in this series, heroes go to Valhalla.
Imagine a shallow ocean made of liquified clouds. The ocean rushes towards a great cliff. The liquified clouds rush towards the cliff edge and tumble off, creating a waterfall that becomes a deluge. Now imagine that you are a patch of cloud within that shallow ocean. The more one you are with the clouds, the more likely you are to flow off the edge of the cliff with your brethren. If you are amorphous like the other clouds, you will have no choice but to be dragged along to the abyss yawning beneath the cliff. The abyss is Hel.
Apocalypse anxiety
The human race has always been obsessed with apocalypse myths and has indulged in them since God was a boy. I think the reason for this is because Normies know they must rush off the edge of the astral cliff in a great hurry and spend quality time in the abyss before re-emerging in a mountain spring or at the bottom of the ocean once again. In the case of the Covid vaccines, it felt like a huge test and a great divider of souls. Souls that chose to melt into the crowd and go the path of least resistance were marked, not just physically via their Meatworld bodies but via their eternal selves. I think they knew, deep, deep down, and that is why they were so crazy dissonant about those who chose not to vaccinate. If they were damned, then all should be damned. If everybody chose to flunk, then perhaps the test itself would be scrapped, or at least not graded on a curve.
I believe one of the possibilities for the vaccinated is that they are sequestered for a time or given no choice but to reincarnate as animals as the current extinction wraps. Of course I could be wrong. Despite being unvaccinated, I wholly believe I could go back to being incarnated as an animal. I believe I was a series of geese and cats before making the jump to human thousands of years ago. I have no problem with going back to animal incarnation. There are wonderful things about being an animal just as there are wonderful things about being human. If I do go back to being a bird, I hope I get to finally do a turn as a hawk or some other cool bird of prey.
I don’t think reincarnation as an animal is anything to be worried about. (Many of us could be reincarnated dinosaurs, and perhaps this could explain almost every child’s fascination with dinosaurs? I dunno.) It’s Hel normies should be worried about, because this iteration of Hel resembles an apocalypse, with an extraordinary number of souls falling prey to it. The trouble with this version of Hel is that as always, Hel reflects the consciousness of those destined to go there via their lack of resistance. Our era has been materialistic to the extreme. Our ideals have been mired in stuff, stuff, and more stuff. We have people who claim to be holy men who live in mansions. The Dalai Lama, a man whom I firmly believe will go to Hel, is a child molester who enjoys foie gras. Men who regularly quote the Bible believe they need to become crypto millionaires to measure up. Yet Jesus said:
Matthew 7:13-14 (NIV)
There are three aspects of spiritual work regardless of religion or lack thereof that are a Get Out of Hel card. They are differentiation, diligence, and humility. I will be discussing all three in future essays.
Differentiation is the process of extracting ourselves from the ocean that cannot resist compelling forces. In short, we must learn to think for ourselves and go against the grain when necessary. That is why I don’t believe Luigi Mangione or killers like him will go to Hel or hell. Luigi Mangione is not a Normie, at any rate. To differentiate is to see when the crowd is and to stand against it at great personal risk, including risk of death. Differentiation requires courage, and like a fruit that is carried far from the tree, it can culminate in a dead end or a new beginning.
Diligence is the daily, hourly, and often minutely commitment to our own convictions. We cannot just believe in our differentiation, we must constantly prove it by remaining true to it in our daily actions and thoughts. I believe everything is sentient, so I clean my floor and toilet everyday because spaces and things have consciousness and can talk. They enjoy being kept clean and and in ship shape. It is not enough for me to write a book called Sacred Homemaking, I must live as a sacred homemaker. A follower of Jesus is not worth his weight in poop unless he lives like Jesus — poor, generous, and forgiving.
Humility is the admittance we are not gods or demigods. When we think we are the smartest ones in the room, we quickly become insufferable. Gods are patient and they give us all the rope we need to hang ourselves, plus multiple lives so we can do it again and again. Humility is ironically a shortcut to the Divine, because by admitting we are not gods, we take the first steps towards improvement.
Anyone can choose to differentiate and follow up with diligence and humility. Vaccination status is irrelevant to this. Hidden choices abound, even in North Korea. In my next article in this series, I will be talking about a road not frequently taken. This road is the one I consider to be the best of the three. I call it the Alternative.
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(But Mr. Ed Means "Wealth")
Okay, okay, while I think that names matter, they don't all matter. Akhilleus's two divine horses were named Ξάνθος "Goldie" and Βαλίος "Spotty."
(Other horses in the Iliad include Πήδασος "Jumper," Ἀρείων "Better," Αἴθη "Blaze," and Πόδαργος "Swiftfoot.")
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Unused video for Randy Rainbow post
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Open (More or Less) Post on Covid 210

So it's time for another open post. The rules have been slightly expanded due to a recent discussion here:
1. If you plan on parroting the party line of the medical industry and its paid shills, please go away. This is a place for people to talk openly, honestly, and freely about their concerns that the party line in question is dangerously flawed and that actions being pushed by the medical industry and its government enablers are causing injury and death on a massive scale. It is not a place for you to dismiss those concerns. Anyone who wants to hear the official story and the arguments in favor of it can find those on hundreds of thousands of websites.
2. If you plan on insisting that the current situation is the result of a deliberate plot by some villainous group of people or other, please go away. There are tens of thousands of websites currently rehashing various conspiracy theories about the Covid-19 outbreak and the vaccines. This is not one of them. What we're exploring is the likelihood that what's going on is the product of the same arrogance, incompetence, and corruption that the medical industry and its wholly owned politicians have displayed so abundantly in recent decades. That possibility deserves a space of its own for discussion, and that's what we're doing here.
3. If you plan on using rent-a-troll derailing or disruption tactics, please go away. I'm quite familiar with the standard tactics used by troll farms to disrupt online forums, and am ready, willing, and able -- and in fact quite eager -- to ban people permanently for engaging in them here. Oh, and I also lurk on other Covid-19 vaccine skeptic blogs, so I'm likely to notice when the same posts are showing up on more than one venue.
4. If you plan on making off topic comments, please go away. This is an open post for discussion of the Covid epidemic, the vaccines, drugs, policies, and other measures that supposedly treat it, and other topics directly relevant to those things. It is not a place for general discussion of unrelated topics. Nor is it a place to ask for medical advice; giving such advice, unless you're a licensed health care provider, legally counts as practicing medicine without a license and is a crime in the US. Don't even go there.
5. If you don't believe in treating people with common courtesy, please go away. I have, and enforce, a strict courtesy policy on my blogs and online forums, and this is no exception. The sort of schoolyard bullying that takes place on so many other internet forums will get you deleted and banned here. Also, please don't drag in current quarrels about sex, race, religions, etc. No, I don't care if you disagree with that: my journal, my rules.
6. Please don't just post bare links without explanation. A sentence or two telling readers what's on the other side of the link is a reasonable courtesy, and if you don't include it, your attempted post will be deleted.
7. Please don't post LLM ("AI") generated text. This is a place for human beings to talk to other human beings, not for the regurgitation of machine-generated text. Also, please don't discuss large language models (the technology popularly and inaccurately called "artificial intelligence" these days) except as they bear directly on the Covid phenomenon. Here again, my finger is hovering over the delete button.
Please also note that nothing posted here should be construed as medical advice, which neither I nor the commentariat (excepting those who are licensed medical providers) are qualified to give. Please take your medical questions to the licensed professional provider of your choice.
With that said, the floor is open for discussion.
Mississippi legal challenge: beginning 1 September, we will need to geoblock Mississippi IPs
I'll start with the tl;dr summary to make sure everyone sees it and then explain further: As of September 1, we will temporarily be forced to block access to Dreamwidth from all IP addresses that geolocate to Mississippi for legal reasons. This block will need to continue until we either win the legal case entirely, or the district court issues another injunction preventing Mississippi from enforcing their social media age verification and parental consent law against us.
Mississippi residents, we are so, so sorry. We really don't want to do this, but the legal fight we and Netchoice have been fighting for you had a temporary setback last week. We genuinely and honestly believe that we're going to win it in the end, but the Fifth Circuit appellate court said that the district judge was wrong to issue the preliminary injunction back in June that would have maintained the status quo and prevented the state from enforcing the law requiring any social media website (which is very broadly defined, and which we definitely qualify as) to deanonymize and age-verify all users and obtain parental permission from the parent of anyone under 18 who wants to open an account.
Netchoice took that appellate ruling up to the Supreme Court, who declined to overrule the Fifth Circuit with no explanation -- except for Justice Kavanaugh agreeing that we are likely to win the fight in the end, but saying that it's no big deal to let the state enforce the law in the meantime.
Needless to say, it's a big deal to let the state enforce the law in the meantime. The Mississippi law is a breathtaking state overreach: it forces us to verify the identity and age of every person who accesses Dreamwidth from the state of Mississippi and determine who's under the age of 18 by collecting identity documents, to save that highly personal and sensitive information, and then to obtain a permission slip from those users' parents to allow them to finish creating an account. It also forces us to change our moderation policies and stop anyone under 18 from accessing a wide variety of legal and beneficial speech because the state of Mississippi doesn't like it -- which, given the way Dreamwidth works, would mean blocking people from talking about those things at all. (And if you think you know exactly what kind of content the state of Mississippi doesn't like, you're absolutely right.)
Needless to say, we don't want to do that, either. Even if we wanted to, though, we can't: the resources it would take for us to build the systems that would let us do it are well beyond our capacity. You can read the sworn declaration I provided to the court for some examples of how unworkable these requirements are in practice. (That isn't even everything! The lawyers gave me a page limit!)
Unfortunately, the penalties for failing to comply with the Mississippi law are incredibly steep: fines of $10,000 per user from Mississippi who we don't have identity documents verifying age for, per incident -- which means every time someone from Mississippi loaded Dreamwidth, we'd potentially owe Mississippi $10,000. Even a single $10,000 fine would be rough for us, but the per-user, per-incident nature of the actual fine structure is an existential threat. And because we're part of the organization suing Mississippi over it, and were explicitly named in the now-overturned preliminary injunction, we think the risk of the state deciding to engage in retaliatory prosecution while the full legal challenge continues to work its way through the courts is a lot higher than we're comfortable with. Mississippi has been itching to issue those fines for a while, and while normally we wouldn't worry much because we're a small and obscure site, the fact that we've been yelling at them in court about the law being unconstitutional means the chance of them lumping us in with the big social media giants and trying to fine us is just too high for us to want to risk it. (The excellent lawyers we've been working with are Netchoice's lawyers, not ours!)
All of this means we've made the extremely painful decision that our only possible option for the time being is to block Mississippi IP addresses from accessing Dreamwidth, until we win the case. (And I repeat: I am absolutely incredibly confident we'll win the case. And apparently Justice Kavanaugh agrees!) I repeat: I am so, so sorry. This is the last thing we wanted to do, and I've been fighting my ass off for the last three years to prevent it. But, as everyone who follows the legal system knows, the Fifth Circuit is gonna do what it's gonna do, whether or not what they want to do has any relationship to the actual law.
We don't collect geolocation information ourselves, and we have no idea which of our users are residents of Mississippi. (We also don't want to know that, unless you choose to tell us.) Because of that, and because access to highly accurate geolocation databases is extremely expensive, our only option is to use our network provider's geolocation-based blocking to prevent connections from IP addresses they identify as being from Mississippi from even reaching Dreamwidth in the first place. I have no idea how accurate their geolocation is, and it's possible that some people not in Mississippi might also be affected by this block. (The inaccuracy of geolocation is only, like, the 27th most important reason on the list of "why this law is practically impossible for any site to comply with, much less a tiny site like us".)
If your IP address is identified as coming from Mississippi, beginning on September 1, you'll see a shorter, simpler version of this message and be unable to proceed to the site itself. If you would otherwise be affected, but you have a VPN or proxy service that masks your IP address and changes where your connection appears to come from, you won't get the block message, and you can keep using Dreamwidth the way you usually would.
On a completely unrelated note while I have you all here, have I mentioned lately that I really like ProtonVPN's service, privacy practices, and pricing? They also have a free tier available that, although limited to one device, has no ads or data caps and doesn't log your activity, unlike most of the free VPN services out there. VPNs are an excellent privacy and security tool that every user of the internet should be familiar with! We aren't affiliated with Proton and we don't get any kickbacks if you sign up with them, but I'm a satisfied customer and I wanted to take this chance to let you know that.
Again, we're so incredibly sorry to have to make this announcement, and I personally promise you that I will continue to fight this law, and all of the others like it that various states are passing, with every inch of the New Jersey-bred stubborn fightiness you've come to know and love over the last 16 years. The instant we think it's less legally risky for us to allow connections from Mississippi IP addresses, we'll undo the block and let you know.
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Unused image for animation winners post

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Magic Monday

Also: I will not be putting through or answering any more questions about practicing magic around children. I've answered those in simple declarative sentences in the FAQ. If you read the FAQ and don't think your question has been answered, read it again. If that doesn't help, consider remedial reading classes; yes, it really is as simple and straightforward as the FAQ says. And further: I've decided that questions about getting goodies from spirits are also permanently off topic here. The point of occultism is to develop your own capacities, not to try to bully or wheedle other beings into doing things for you. I've discussed this in a post on my blog.
(The image? I've finished the sequence of my published books; while I decide what I want to do next, I have some memes to share.)
Buy Me A Coffee
Ko-Fi
I've had several people ask about tipping me for answers here, and though I certainly don't require that I won't turn it down. You can use either of the links above to access my online tip jar; Buymeacoffee is good for small tips, Ko-Fi is better for larger ones. (I used to use PayPal but they developed an allergy to free speech, so I've developed an allergy to them.) If you're interested in political and economic astrology, or simply prefer to use a subscription service to support your favorite authors, you can find my Patreon page here and my SubscribeStar page here.

And don't forget to look up your Pangalactic New Age Soul Signature at CosmicOom.com.
***This Magic Monday is now closed, and new comments will not be put through. See you next week!***
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Against Hyperborea
So, Tacitus says something odd about the Suebi, a Germanic tribe living in what is now Eastern Germany:
Some of the Suebi sacrifice also to Isis. I cannot determine the reason and origin of the foreign cult, but her emblem, fashioned in the form of a Liburnian ship, proves that her worship comes from abroad.
(Tacitus, Germania IX, as translated by J. B. Rives.)
Possibly this is simply interpretatio romana, and this is what most scholars seem to assume as a matter of course. But let's suppose it isn't? Diodoros claims, after all, that Leto (= Isis) and her children came to Greece from Hyperborea, so perhaps Isis really is from the north and it shouldn't be surprising to see her in Germany?
But I realized something just now. I have said that the Isis myth is astrological, and is written in the constellations; we even see the various parts of the myth in the rising and setting of these constellations. But the ship of Isis, which we call Argo Navis, is too far south to be seen even from Greece. (I've lived on the same latitude as Cythera, and only the very, very tip of the nose of the ship is visible from there!) I suppose that this is why the Greeks, when they imported the Isis-Horos myth as Danae-Perseus, found new constellations for it in the northern sky.
But Germany is much further north even than that, and Hyperborea further still. So if the myth originated in the north, why are the constellations for it found in the south?
So while none of this is conclusive, it's another datapoint in favor of, no, Leto being Egyptian after all.
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