I grew up in a Christian family, but never really believed—hell, I identified as not so much an atheist, but agnostic. Something created this. My views have changed in the past couple of years, but not because I found Jesus or anything to that effect.
This sub stack is called the Devotion Lifting Club because devotion—as a concept—is powerful. Many of you treat activities like fitness and nutrition as hobbies that you kind of follow and that’s fine. But for me, the act of training itself is devotion, devotion to your highest self.
Maybe it’s age, maybe it the chaos that’s this degenerate age, but devotion is something this world very much needs. Most people worship science just as dogmatically as any Christian or Muslim. The problem is these worshippers of scientist are spiritually bankrupt because they look at the men and religions of the past as backwards and bigoted. These people will look at say America a couple hundred years ago and only see slavery, not the grit they had to survive on the frontier.
Devotion is not optional, but required if you want to be anyone of worth. The new age we’re living in is like a greasy used car salesman. The mainstream culture wants you to believe in unnatural ideologies like egalitarianism and globalism. What they don’t understand or realize as that there’s a reason why our ancestors acted as they did and it’s not because they weren’t college educated.
The new age and the degenerate culture that runs it wants you to believe it’s ok—no, it’s the ideal—to be fat, to be ugly, to be weak, to make up your own gender and you shouldn’t have to deal with any of the negative connotations to those characteristics. They want you to have the free reign of mediocrity. Eat what you want, don’t worry about your health or how you look—real men don’t care about how they look. Just make sure you go to college, vote democrat, and stick it to the evil bible thumping republicans.
There are always consequences.
There are always consequences to the actions you take. You spend much of your life being fat, you’re going to be vulnerable to a renegade Chinese virus. The older I get, the more I see the importance of religion and being a man of devotion. You can approach your life with the consumerist mindset of degenerate culture, hell, you can even have some productive hobbies like lifting and martial arts. You can get obsessed with self-creation, but devotion—devotion is another level entirely.
Choosing to live like the consequences don’t matter lead down a dark, ugly road that no one wants. Even the zealots and fanatics of degenerate culture don’t want it. They’ve either given up or haven’t found a way out. If you choose ugly, you will become ugly.
Give people the easy the path and they’ll choose it nine times out of ten. It’s the devoted man that will choose the hard road because he sees beyond the first order consequences of his actions. This man of principle will endure hardship to obtain greatness. The degenerate man will choose easiness to obtain temporary comfort. He doesn’t see past his immediate desires. This is the reason I’ve become religious in my advanced age.
Let to their own devices, men become retarded. Just look at 2020 America. 330 million people doing what they want, living the consumerist lifestyle while leading the world in obesity and compromised immune systems. If that wasn’t enough, you have a people who think there are more than two genders and to be an inclusive society you must open borders, lower standards so women and minorities can qualify, while telling men they’re toxic for...being men.
I’m certain the majority who read this won’t find any fault with those ideologies and absurdities. They’ll take great offense to me. Know that if you choose to be a fat slob, you’ll be fragile like a fat slob. This is why men need religion. They must feel a deep devotion to an idea, a goal, a great work.
My Pagan Devotion
I can’t follow Christianity. The religion has been coopted by the progressive virus. Beyond that, I can’t bring myself to worship a weak god. Sorry to the Christians reading this. I don’t consider you on the wrong path, it’s just not the path for me. I’m more of a pagan. I don’t believe so much in the existence of the gods, but rather the wisdom of their mythology.
The gods, as well as great men, should be held to the highest regard and inspiration. I’ll touch on two gods that inspire me today. In Ancient Rome, the Romans built statues of great men and gods to be inspired. Through that inspiration, you saw a Roman Republic that was powerful because it’s people believed that the demonstration of will through labor was high virtue. And laziness was cowardice.
The Romans also believed in the redemption of lost honor unlike modern cancel culture where you say the wrong thing and you’re ruined. To them, reclaiming your honor was how we as Americans love to see the underdog overcome and win. The Roman legion who defeated Hannibal in Africa were the survivors of the massacre at Cannae. They chose to redeem their honor by serving under Scipio Africanus with no pay. That’s how important their honor was to them. The Romans are good examples for pagans.
Hercules is another. Many know his disneyfied story, but not the actual tale. Hercules to the Greeks was the hero who made the world safe for travel by slaying monsters and mapping sea routes. There’s no telling how many women he conquered, but his descendants called the Dorians eventually set up many city-states, the most famous one we know as Sparta.
His 12 Labors were originally 10, but his nemesis King Eurystheus claimed he cheated on two of them and refused to count them. Hercules devoted ten years to completing them, all to seek redemption from the gods for his drunken/poisoned-crazed killing of his wife and children.
Hercules was far from the boring, good guy hero we’re told he is. He killed, he fucked, he conquered. You know about his famous labors—slaying the Nemean Lion, defeating the Hydra, or wrestling Cerberus, but my favorite labor is Cerynitian hind. It is during this labor that he’s confronted by the gods for wounding the sacred hind and he does what most, if not all of us, would not: he refused to return the hind. He pleaded necessity and told them if they wanted to blame anyone, blame Eurystheus for ordering the labor. Tell me, would you have the courage to stand against the gods?
During his journeys, Hercules shows he’s not just a boring hero like Superman. He is forced to show his wits and devotion to his cause. Strong as he may be, his resilience is stronger. Hercules was a man who understood what it meant to become a great man. His labors were his great work and he shall always be remembered because of them.
Thor is the other god Devotion Lifting holds in high honor.
Thor represents the warrior archetype. He’s represents brute manliness and unlike the Christian god, you can’t pray to him—you can only join his gang. Thor is the red blood pulsing through your veins when you’re defending the perimeter of your tribe, pushing a heavy weight over your head, or practicing a marital art.
Where Hercules for us represents strength and he is the patron of gymnasiums, Thor is the red blood of combat. He exists to protect mankind. While Hercules seeks out greatness and power, Thor is in the fray, defending mankind from chaos. Both of these gods must be channeled into the man of devotion.
Ours is the way of power, winning, and freedom.