This week’s Ecosophian offering is the monthly open post to field questions and encourage discussion among my readers. All the standard rules apply (no profanity, no sales pitches, no trolling, no rudeness, no paid propagandizing, no long screeds proclaiming the infallible truth of fill in the blank, no endless rehashes of questions I’ve already answered) but since there’s no topic, nothing is off topic — with two exceptions.
First, there’s a dedicated (more or less) open post on my Dreamwidth journal on the ongoing virus panic and related issues, so anything Covid-themed should go there instead.
Second, I’ve had various people try to launch discussions about AIs — that is to say, large language models (LLMs) and the utilities they power — on this and my other forums. The initial statements and their follow-up comments always end up reading as though they were written by LLMs — that is, long strings of words superficially resembling meaningful sentences but not actually communicating anything. That’s neither useful nor entertaining. Thus I’ve decided to ban further discussion of this latest wet dream of the lumpen-internetariat here, and have extended that ban to LLM-generated content of all kinds.
With that said, have at it!
I am a close reader of the New Testament and when I look at the actual spiritual practice and dynamics portrayed in it and in my own life, it involves a active personal sky god – the Father, a relationship with Jesus that is similar to the one a Dakota indigenous has with his totemic spirit animal he met in a vision quest and encounters with the inward action and outward manifestation of the Holy Spirit analogous to what can happen among Voodoo practitioner when a deity of that tradition “rides” or fills them in a group setting or alone as an individual – I have at times Pentecostal/charismatic manifestations – speaking in tongues, dreams, visions, knowings.
This primal “primitive” “paganish” stuff can be and has been tempered, replaced or perhaps censored out by sacramentalism, and philosophical, scripture and theological head trips, institutionalization, hierarchy, reserved to special monastic or saint types – though in the New Testament it is found among the ordinary Christian. Yet this primal approach keeps bubbling up among Christians through history. I know deep and wise and good people who move in this primality.
Continuing thoughts on cognitive collapse…
Re Bacon’s comment at the end of last post on the coffin business physical weakness:
https://www.ecosophia.net/cognitive-collapse-a-first-reconnaissance/#comment-150913
We seem to be seeing a whole cascade of ‘systems failures’ – Societal and environmental systems, physical capacity, cognitive collapse
Things move in cycles and is it too much of a stretch to wonder that the big alignment you mentioned for February 2026 might mean while we have yet to hit bottom, and that while the light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming express train, and this has years to play out, the heavens are indicating an inflexion point?
Also, does anyone know if this thing in February has generated any good woo-woo space-cadet stories? e.g. Anybody expecting to get raptured (again!)?
Hello JMG and commentariat:
First, and according to today and tomorrow day, I’d like to wish you all a Merry Christmas. Although I know John and some commentarists who usually write in this blog aren’t christians, I think it’s always a polite wish.
Now, I’m thinking some topics to comment you in this Open Post.
For example, some comments in the last post before this one were written about D. Lynch fondness for meditation. In addition to this, I’ve heard he even became a buddhist some years before his death. This spirituality has been under the radar between some cinema critics, maybe because of ignorance, maybe at their will (irreligious critics may see controversial wether a film director who’s their “enfant terrible” has religious beliefs). However, it isn’t a coincidence that Lynchian personal world was always full of mysteries and sobrenatural beings, often evil. Another director whose movies are influenced by spirituality was Andrei Tarkovsky. Who nominally was a product of USSR “scientific atheism”, but was indeed a poet who worked with images, me think.
**************
Another topic I’d like to write, I thought about it after having seen a movie recently. Well, a few days ago I broke my apathic lazyness and lack of interest in movies (especially American mainstream movies) and I went to my town theater to see “Nuremberg”. It seemed me well done but not a master work. There were moments I liked more than anothers. However, I don’t want to tell you about that movie in itself (spoilers are innecesaries because you know how ended Nuremberg trials); but about what I thought later, caused by these trials, with their lights and shadows. I’ve been thinking those trials (with their evident part of winners rettaliation after the war), were indeed the first serious attempt to implement some punishment to war crimes thanks to international collaboration. Nowadays, we can see this “International Rule of Law” in the International Penal Law, which allows to judge governments leaders who allegedly have commited war crimes.
However, before starting with the proggressive mantra about how civilized we have become, I want to remember Milan Kundera personal idea of “kitsch”: in his own words, kitsch is to deny the s**t in everything we live.
Well, I won’t fall in the international relations kitsch, so I can’t deny the International Penal Court works sometimes well, but not always. For example, both Putin and Netanyahu have been accused for supposed (or not so supposed) war crimes; though international judges and lawyers have hurried up more in the Putin case than in Netanyahu accusation, according what I’ve read online and by MSM. I’m not a laws expert, but I wonder if the difference status of two the accused politicians can make the kitsch…the quid of the question. Indeed, Netanyahu rules a country which buys and sells a lot of weapons from/to NATO countries, but Putin is a clear enemy of NATO/EU interests in Eastern Europe. In addition to this, the International Court hystory isn’t very bright: its trials have been aimed to despicable leaders from small and/or poor countries which opportunely weren’t good friends of western goverments. Well, maybe it’s again the international laws kitsch.
Dear and Wise friends, in the past open post, I asked a question that remained unanswered. I understand that this was due to my inability to articulate coherent questions in English and make myself understood.
I will ask that question again and try to give more context, but first I want to ask two other questions that I personally find more important.
Due to the acceleration of the collapse in Spain, I am very concerned about my family.
I have people who depend on me and who will not be able to be independent for at least 20 years.
I am terrified by the possibility of dying before or during the collapse and not being able to help. In addition, there are also adults who depend on me financially, and I don’t know if they would be able to cope without me.
What can I do? Am I worrying too much about something that will be very gradual? Is there anything I could do to help?
On the other hand, I have spent my whole life dealing with the fear of death and with enormous sadness and melancholy every time a cycle ends (small deaths, perhaps?).
Prayer has helped me a lot, but I am still a recovering ex-materialist with the consequent relapses. Any advice?
Finally, I will rephrase the question from the previous open post:
In recent times, I have observed that certain cracks are beginning to appear in the materialistic philosophy underlying modern science (for example, we now have the Essentia Foundation and a lot of cases of doctors with books on NDEs ).
I don have any porblem with that but im very suspicious person, and I wonder if behind all this there aren’t certain interests seeking to take control of the narrative, just as they replaced religion with science (see Earthly Powers by Michael Burleigh), and now they’re going to replace materialistic science with something else to fill that void and continue manipulating our minds.
Opinions?
T
Hi John,
What are your latest thoughts on the general state of play regarding the LTG model and the collapse of our globalised system around 2030 or so.
Are we tracking that? My personal view is yes we are.
@jmg — hope all is going well!
back in the day, I used to read tom murphy (do the math). I kind of quit during covid when he had an article going over how he was explaining the shots to someone “less” educated. I think I came to your blog whilst reading his stuff back in the early teens.
In any event, he popped up on the radar and I saw this article (https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2025/11/space-case/) . He, of course, thinks space is a fantasy — but got into a discussion with a prominent “astrophysicist”.
It is the end of 2025 — it is pretty clear we aren’t going — I am just amazed at this conversation. I know you’ve covered this topic plenty, but my reaction to this article was just “WOW”.
I assume you’ve had similar conversations as well?
thx
Jerry
Hi JMG and all. The Rob Reiner murder case has taken over the internet. People seem to be of the opinion that Nick Reiner’s demons got the better of him. I think Nick was a demon. Have any of you seen the many Reiner family photos that Nick is in, and seen the bizarre expressions on his face? What say you, JMG and Ecosophians? Maybe the real Nick “died” during one of his drug trips and was replaced by an evil spirit.
What is your take on the hypothesis that the collapse of Earth’s magnetic field will allow solar radiation to completely knock out the electricity grids on the planet, leaving us pretty helpless, within the next decade or so, based on historical patterns? (a Carrington event scaled up to our total dependence on the grid)
Wishing all my friends a wonder-full 2026 from rainy SoCal and hope to rendezvous in person with some of you in NYC late spring!
Warm wishes
Yogaandthetarot
Continuing the food production discussion from yesterday that is a good paper on the difficulties of defining the terms.
https://www.etcgroup.org/content/backgrounder-small-scale-farmers-and-peasants-still-feed-world
However it does not address that these small scale farmers are not making Washington State minimum wage of $16.66 ( about to increase to $17.13]. That is per hour. If you are content with the World Banks view, “The update results in a new international poverty line of $3.00 per person per day,” then there is considerable scope for negotiation.
https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/factsheet/2025/06/05/june-2025-update-to-global-poverty-lines
Also the paper asserts that “further 20% of nutrition is sourced from these other aspects of the peasant food web (artisanal fisheries, hunting and gathering, urban production). ”
Does anyone here get 20% of your food from non-commercial fishing, hunting, gathering, or your garden?
Dad had a 200 acre farm, which is 81 hectares, the paper calls small scale 2 hectares. The old homesteading laws that settled the Midwest US set the standard at 160 acres, a quarter section where a section is one square mile which is extremely evident from the air. None of those farms count as small scale by the paper’s standard.
This all leads to a coming crunch, “Today, 55% of the world’s population lives in urban areas, a proportion that is expected to increase to 68% by 2050. Projections show that urbanization, the gradual shift in residence of the human population from rural to urban areas, combined with the overall growth of the world’s population could add another 2.5 billion people to urban areas by 2050, with close to 90% of this increase taking place in Asia and Africa, according to a new United Nations data set launched today.”
https://www.un.org/uk/desa/68-world-population-projected-live-urban-areas-2050-says-un#:~:text=Today%2C%2055%25%20of%20the%20world's,increase%20to%2068%25%20by%202050.
So who is going to be left to feed the cities the cheap food they demand? For a couple centuries now people have left the farms because the work was easier and paid better in town. This includes my father. None of his siblings stayed on a farm. Only one of mother’s siblings stayed on a farm. Same reason.
This is where you can insert vague arm waving about AI and robotics.
Since I notice that a lot of people here on this blog look at the long historical game I will give it a shot:
I subscribe to the Idea of morphology as in morphic fields of Sheldrake.
But also in morphology in time as in Toynbee/Spengler form of empires/civilizations.
But also of morphodynamics as in morphic patterns in time/space/mind as in Ioan Petru Culianu, but also to an extent Philip K. Dick, even if the morphodynamics I think belongs to Culianu.
Philip K Dick thought he was in 70. AD.
Based on that PKD experience, I made this timeline, US Empire lives 3 times faster than the Roman empire:
https://i.imgur.com/tVLK4sw.png
We are now in the equivalent of second half 227AD in Roman Empire
Since model collapse is a thing I wanted to put this model outhere to get come constructive/destructive criticism.
[I use this model since 2018, and it predicted a few things for me, the rize and fizzle out of LGBT influence (Ellegabalus reign), the war with Iran/Russia and the increasing power of Iran/Russia, it predicted for me that the Trump reform will not succeed but it will be seen looking back as the last stable president as Alexander Severus emperor is seen, this is not a 1:1 correspondece between Roman and American Empire]
Based on my experience in the Communist Block I added a Soviet Timeline, I am starting to see these parallels a lot in Romanian current events compare to 35 years ago, Romanian as a vassal, we even had a contested unellected president on 22 december 2024 and we were in the same situation on 22 december 1989. I caught both times, the COVID19 repression fel to me exactly like the repression in communist Ceaușescu’s Romania in 1985-1987 when I was a child. I also compare Chernobyl disaster with the 2021 clot shot mandates.
https://i.imgur.com/r7vq5wm.png
[There is a backstory of how I got an inkling of these timelines, but unfortunately is in Romanian, if you know one of those modern translators that is pretty decent, you can give it a shot to try and read it:
https://revistavatra.org/2025/04/03/ghicit-in-philip-k-dick-dan-sociu-in-dialog-cu-eduard-florinescu/%5D
Serendipity strikes, I archived this article a couple weeks ago just to post it here, it is on affordability and discusses food prices.
“Green’s analysis centers on the poverty line, which was established in the early 1960s by Mollie Orshansky. The original formula she developed was simple: take the cost of a basic basket of food for a family, multiply it by three (on the assumption that food accounted for about one-third of a household’s budget), and use that as the poverty threshold.”
Actual date was 1963.
https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/affordability-crisis-challenging-poverty-line
So there’s yet another person suggesting we channel the demons of the Goetia, this time in order to meet the needs of our inner children. Sephirah Shamanism is offering Zoom calls at 250 pounds per hour, online “shamanic” training courses, et m. Le sigh. In the video linked below, he focuses upon Volak, a demon whose main attributes are finding hidden treasure (which he interprets as unlocking the occulted secrets within, which to my mind is not problematic) and commanding household spirits. The commanding household spirits part is where I take umbrage, because as someone who works with household spirits, I can confidently say it is insulting and stupid to try to command them to do your bidding, especially with help from a Goetic demon. Why are these people so reluctant to work with gods? Are the gods ignoring them?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXVv6jAxiuU
@ Siliconguy #9
Well, I’m game… 🙂
Firstly, there is no doubt that the “coming crunch” you speak of, reducing availability of cheap food to dwellers of cities is already here. Foodbanks are very busy stepping up, but the crunch is real, and deepening.
However, when you speak of a poverty line which is measured in money, then I think you have not (yet) broadened your mind to a consideration of true the meaning of wealth, which is measured in many things for which money is really not a very good proxy. For example, sufficiency – which is the capacity to “stand upon” one’s resources and live from, and in relationship with, them – is a faculty which industrial society tries to steal from people, offering mere money in exchange. For many people this exchange continues to be an exceedingly poor exchange, mainly because having to rely on money to meet one’s needs is the same as having to become dependent, and having to learn to accept helplessness.
When you ask: “Does anyone here get 20% of your food from non-commercial fishing, hunting, gathering, or your garden?” I will answer – “Yes!”.
Most, but not all of that 20-30% comes from my own gardening, gathering. Some of it comes via community exchange, by means of which much in the way of food arrives at my house with no money being involved. In the past year I have received gifts of lobsters, prawns, free range eggs, beef, venison. Much of it is offered as a tribute to basic friendship (on the model where one “stores” one’s surpluses in one’s friends)… or in gratitude for treatments, which I offer at rates that even the poorest can afford. *** I, too, have gifted potatoes, onions, tinctured herbal remedies, and other goods to neighbours and friends. None of these transactions involved money. All of them contributed to our mutual capacity to subsist, reducing dependency and learned helplessness. Ultimately, these are the kinds of exchanges that will endure. And these kinds of exchanges are definitely part of the blog’s perennial advice to “collapse now, and avoid the rush”.
Perhaps, one can also say that “subsistence is resistence.”
*** In this I have been guided by JMG’s statement many years ago, to the effect that if your products and services are accessible even to poor people, you will never run out of customers. I have tested this statement of his, and found it to be true. 🙂
BeardTree, if Christianity were to evolve in that direction I think it would be a very good thing. The one additional hope I would have is that Christians would recognize that their sky god, personal totem, and indwelling spirit are not the only options. I quite understand that Christians may feel that theirs is the best option, but the equally primal spiritual sense expressed in Judges 11:24 — “Wilt not thou possess that which Chemosh thy god giveth thee to possess? So whomsoever the LORD our God shall drive out from before us, them will we possess.” — would spare the future a lot of useless bitterness and confusion.
Earthworm, I’m sorry to say I don’t have any space cadet stories. On the other hand, I’ve finally gotten enough details to calculate an accurate chart for the last Saturn-Neptune conjunction at the beginning of Aries — March 11 (NS), 594 BC, at 4:19 pm Greenwich time — and have been harvesting historical details from what happened immediately afterwards, so I’ll be leading off with a retrospective analysis of that conjunction and then following with a prospective analysis of the one to come.
Chuaquin, and a blessed Solstice season to you too! Here in the US, a biblical animated epic called “David” from a non-Hollywood film company has just horrified the critics by becoming a box office success despite limited access to theaters and dead silence from the corporate media, so I think the critics’ hatred of religion is becoming a liability to them and the big Hollywood firms that listen to them, not to producers with religious beliefs. As for the International Criminal Court, it’s a propaganda venue run mostly by the EU for its own benefit. Kitsch? Yeah, basically.
Achille, I disagree with the underlying assumption that a culture’s beliefs are determined by elite manipulations. Those have a part to play, but people aren’t simply puppets in the hands of elites — if they were, Hillary Clinton would have stepped down from her second term as US president early this year. I don’t doubt that various elite factions will find ways to exploit the resurgence in religion, but others are fighting it tooth and nail — and they’ll fail. As Spengler pointed out, a resurgence in religious beliefs is a normal process in declining civilizations like ours.
Forecasting, sigh. No, the LTG standard run does not forecast “the collapse of our globalised system around 2030 or so.” It forecasts significant declines along a lot of metrics that reach their steepest slope in that period. “Collapse” is an overstatement. Is it going to be a rough time? Sure, but — well, Theodore Sturgeon put it best in “The Hurkle is a Happy Beast”:
“In times of such huge confusion, the little things go on. During the ‘Ten Days that Shook the World’ the cafes and theaters of Moscow and Petrograd remained open, people fell in love, sued each other, died, shed sweat and tears; and some of these were tears of laughter. So on Lirht, while the decisions on the fate of the miserable Hvov were being formulated, gwik still fardled, funted, and fupped.”
Jerry D, thank you for asking! Yes, things are going fairly well; I’ve been taking a lot of private time over the holidays to sort out what I’m going to do with the next stage of my life, now that I’ve more or less finished sorting out the aftermath of Sara’s death. (You never really stop grieving, but life goes on.) As for the astrophysicist, good gods, yes — that sort of blind faith in space travel as a technologically mediated version of the Rapture is embarrassingly common these days.
Dana, I have no idea; I don’t follow Hollywood scandals, not least because they are so many of them and they’re replaced with new ones so often.
Jerry S, scenarios in which sudden cataclysm overwhelms everything all at once have been wildly fashionable since before the Dead Sea Scrolls were written; the one thing they have in common is that they’re inevitably wrong. The evidence for past geomagnetic reversals doesn’t allow us to say how fast the decline will be, nor what its precise effect on current electronics will be — and the revival of interest in tube-based electronics (which are resistant to EMP effects) means that as the effects start to come into play, if they turn out to be serious, a Y2K-style mass replacement of vulnerable technologies is very much an option. (I may go long on vacuum tube futures, with this in mind.)
Jill, thank you!
Siliconguy, have they factored in the fact that human reproduction has dropped below replacement levels on every continent but Africa, and even there it’s falling fast?
Archivist, good — you’ve made firm predictions, which shows more courage than most. Now we’ll see what happens.
Kimberly, working with gods requires you to admit that your ego isn’t the biggest and most important thing in the cosmos. That’s an admission that a lot of people aren’t willing to make just now. The obsession with goetic magic sickens me — a lot of people are likely to be sucked into it, to their lasting misfortune.
Scotlyn (if I may), “subsistence is resistance” is a keeper!
I would like to wish everyone a wonderful holiday season this year, to all my fellow Christians here a very Merry Christmas, to all our pagan friends a blessed just past Solstice, and Happy Holidays to everyone else.
I was wondering if any one here has been following the Comet 3I/atlas? It is an interstellar comet that is passing through our solar system at the moment and it has a whole list of very strange characteristics. It seems NASA may have some very high resolutions photos of this object from when it passed Mars but they have not released them. Just seeing what folks are thinking about this.
Thanks
I recently discovered that the dismissal of the aether may have been premature.
To make this as short as possible: the Michelson-Morley experiment found a difference in the speed of light along the path of Earth’s motion vs. perpendicular to it of only 8 km/s instead of the expected 30 km/s. A second attempt at the experiment by Morley and Dayton Miller found a similar result. This was considered small enough to be within the margin of error, and some later experiments found much smaller values.
But this is where things get weird: in 1954. Maurice Allais found his Foucault pendulum behaved anomalously during a total solar eclipse. This is known as the Allais Effect, and while its reality is disputed, other researchers have replicated it, including as recently as 2016: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/771/1/012001
Allais himself believed the effect was due to an “aether wind” which he calculated to be about 8 km/s, right around what Michelson, Morley, and Miller found. It’s worth noting that this should, if I’ve understand it correctly, be fully compatible with the Lorentz transformations that produces most of special relativity’s predictions: interestingly those transformations were originally conceived of as an effect of the aether and borrowed by Einstein for special relativity.
One possible problem is I’m not sure how nicely this would all play with general relativity. Considering satellites have to take GR’s time dilation effects from gravity into account, we can’t afford to lose GR’s predictions at least.
Here’s an article from Substack author Moriarty, who most often publishes deeply scientific pieces about Covid. Instead this article warns of the impact of the AI boom on the price and availability of consumer electronics. While many folks here may celebrate the demise of cheap gadgets to consume precious attention, others rely on laptops etc for their livelihood. I sit squarely in the middle of that camp. Here’s the link:
https://hiddencomplexity.substack.com/p/the-coming-consumer-eletronics-crash
From the article:
“DDR5 [a type of DRAM] is experiencing the fastest and steepest increase in price in its history. High-end DDR5 kits that cost $200-250 in August are now selling for $500-600, higher-end (more GB per stick) are priced even higher, while server-grade RAM has seen comparable spikes that cascade directly into AI rack costs. A high-end consumer PC is now roughly $800-1,500 more expensive than it was in early October, with memory and storage accounting for the vast majority of that jump. Both laptops and smartphones will now be shipped with lower RAM.”
Dear Achille #4,
In answer to your first question, adjust how you are training people to rely on you. If you have responsibility for someone who can never be self-reliant, then of course you must have a plan for who to take over when and if you cannot. It is not given to any of us to know if we shall have even another day.
If you have children (as your twenty years statement might indicate), raise them to be adults. Challenge them. If they want things, let them find ways to earn money, to scramble, to get those things. I almost never buy my children treats at the store, for example, and by five or so they consistantly found ways to earn enough to buy candy or chips on occasion. Neighbors will pay by the task: my now eleven year old youngest child has a good gig where she cleans dog poops up. Same cost to the neighbor if she spends three hours playing with the dog while she works or does the clean-up in ten minutes.
Adults who rely on you financially, how did you get to this situation? What do you gain from having them need you this way? Are they unable by age or disability to support themselves? Could they support themselves at a lower standard on their own resources? How can you decrease the support in a way that leaves them able to manage on their own?
Or is it a more symbiotic relationship, where you benefit from something they do for you, and which they would replace with other activities in the event of your loss, and you recompense them financially by gifts rather than taxable wages?
To the general group, I put in a not for posting last week, having lost track of the schedule, because I thought our good host would be interested: one of the conservative alt-media ran an article in praise of global warming and all the benefits of increased CO2. Never a quibble about if it was happening or a word as to why. I was amused at the flip from “Of course it isn’t happening and if it is humans didn’t do it” to “Of course it’s happening and it’s great.”
I didn’t save the link: I saw it on ZeroHedge, as a mirrored article from American Greatness, if you care to track it down and read it yourself.
Hello JMG,
I dunno one thing with Holocaust I find odd that no one calls Holocaust a Christian genocide of the Jews like they have made Nazi which is a political affiliation into some religious identity and conveniently forget/hide the fact that Adolf Hitler was a Roman Catholic and Germany at that time was heavily Christian country. To whitewash their sins and Christian guilt made them create the Nation State of Israel in 1948 which displayed Palestinians and now what has now become a forever war which means that it is a fight to the death.
Do you think that for the past 2000 years the way Abrahamic religions Islam and Christianity basically conquered the world destroying all pagan civilizations expect one. Now that they have conquered everything but the DNA is still the same so the purity spiraling is happening within their own countries. In Islamic Countries one can see that it quite direct but in the Christian West like all the isms which is all washed up secularized Christianity like in West too their is a ritual sacrifice happening.
Like now I am like all the homogenization of the world makes sense to me because according to their own books there can only be One God,One Religion,One Law(Magna Carter),One Science(Only one of discovery),One Constitution(Only one of governance),Universalism and White Man Burden converted into Human Rights.
Do you think it will ever end?? Or do you think the 3 desert cults will always be at each other’s throat till only one survives.
@ Achille,
I have similar underlying concerns about the future. I have a large family and my children are all too small to really make it on their own. Part of my own thoughts on being a parent and raising children in this incredibly unpredictable and unanchored future is that I need to accept first, the fact that I am going to die, second, that the world that my children inhabit will likely be a harsher, rougher, and generally more challenging world than I have inhabited and finally, The best that I can do to prepare them is provide them with the knowledge and tools to manage a wide range of situations. Will I be able to equip with with the knowledge and skills to deal with everything? No. But the resulting struggle is what will help define them as people. Or it will break them. In the end, I accept responsibility for building them up individually and as the nucleus of a future clan while also accepting that their fate and circumstance (as well as mine) is not completely within my control. We try to remember that we are NOT raising children. We are raising future adults and adults need to be able to deal with the world on their own terms.
So, I suppose what I’m saying is that you shouldn’t waste too much time today thinking about the future, make sure you’re doing your best to pass on the knowledge, skills, social connections etc that you can now and accept the fact that sooner or later everyone who depends upon you is going to be thrown on their own merits. The most powerful thing that you can do is give them your energy and effort now in life to prepare them for that now.
@ Siliconguy
I missed the prior discussion but I had to laugh a little when I saw this. I happen to be, I suppose, a small farmer on less than two hectares in Washington. Our family of six definitely gets more than %20 of our food from non-commercial household food activities. I would swag it at about 30% from our own personal efforts and small farm and another 40% that is sourced from local small scale (but not less than two hectares) other producers. We do sell some of our excess in the form of beef, which is definitely not “cheap” but if you worked out the actual dollar value of our hourly farm labor., I’d swag that somewhere in the neighborhood of less than half of minimum wage and only having reached that point of great efficiency via years of skill and infrastructure building.
I don’t see the world population increasing much, if at all, from where it is now. But I also expect that a good deal of the coming sharp drop in population across our species will be driven by the massively falling production rates temporarily driven so high by the green revolution and that famine may be a common element of the global future until we’ve shaved off 95% or so of the populace. I also expect that at some points in this future their will be multiple hard switches during more local and regional destabilization that will push people into small scale agriculture. I expect that the learning curve is going to get STEEP. This learning curve at different points may well end up being the proximate driver of some more local/regional population bottlenecks. I think a lot of it will depend on how slowly or quickly the rising tide of the green revolution recedes.
Collapse now and avoid the rush!
HV
From the last post…
“I’ve begun considering a future book on how alternative spirituality can be used by writers (since I’ve been doing that for years, of course), and Lynch might be worth including.”
If you do, check out his book “Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness and Creativity” … very good. It’s something I come back to.
You mentioned in your last post leaving the tunnels for the field… this is something I had a dream about a few months back, a book of my writings called “Fieldifications” … Lynch talks about the creative field of consciousness and tapping into the field for ideas, and that things that might not seem connected can be connected through the field (as in his most mind boggling feature film, Inland Empire). The post-Chaos mage Aidan Wachter uses the metaphor of the field in his writings on magic that I recently read…
Also, since you don’t watch the films, he worked with novelist Barry Gifford on two of his movies. “Wild at Heart” Lynch adapted from the short novel of the same name. Gifford wrote a bunch of them with those charachters, compiled in the Sailor & Lula anthology. It’s really good, as far as my tastes go. It’s like a surrealist take on Southern Gothic literature, with a bit of Santeria thrown in to one of them for good measure. Gifford also co-wrote “Lost Highway.” –Gifford’s fiction, I like rather much.
Here is my fave Gifford quote from the books used slightly differently in the film.
“Lula always used to say the world is wild at heart and weird on top, and sometimes its tough stayin’ out of the weirdness. Kinda like a tornado, you never know where it’ll set down or what’ll be left in place after it blows through.”
As for your proposed book, please do. I’ve printed out for my own use, various bits of writing advice you’ve given over the years. Thank you for all of it… it has been a lot more helpful to me actually getting published and things finished than most of the writing advice books I’ve looked through from the library.
Another thing that Lynch had in common with the surrealists: he used a lot of imagery directly from his dreams. This is something I do as well, and a good habit I think for creative people of any stripe. Sometimes really good stuff comes through.
@Phutatorius: Angelo Badalamenti made Twin Peaks come alive with his soundtracks and work throughout. Love the show, of course. The world of Twin Peaks is a dark world, but its one I feel drawn back to again and again, because it is so mysterious and alluring.
Merry Christmas and a joyful New Year to everyone!
Kimberly, I notice that he has a video titled “The Hidden Dangers of Banishing: when magick [sic] suppresses emotion.” So, he identifies goetic demons with the Shadow, teaches integration of said Shadow, and warns people not to banish. That should end well…
I didn’t see this particular post (at the European Conservative) until it was too late to add it to last week’s discussion of Cognitive Collapse.
Talk about feminists completely missing the point! Saying that we shouldn’t stigmatize female genital mutilation because it’s correct for those cultures? Little girls who get no say in what’s done to them. It’s quite awful.
Anyway, here’s the link if you want to read further: https://europeanconservative.com/articles/commentary/the-moral-cowardice-of-defending-female-genital-mutilation/
JMG, re the new movie “David”, I found this review hilarious and extremely telling, especially the hysterical insistence that the movie is “an evil, manipulative piece of media that manages to alienate every demographic…Angel Studios has produced a genuinely evil film”:
https://fandomwire.com/david-review-angel-studios/
Merry Christmas to the Ecosophia commentariat! In the spirit of the season (and with a nod to Dickens), I’ve written a 3 part Canadian twist on A Christmas Carol called “A Carbon Carol: The Ghost of Energy Past”—a satirical look at the energy extraction empire and its ghosts. If you’re in the mood for some holiday reading with peak oil vibes, check it out here: https://thegreatcanadianreset.substack.com/p/a-carbon-carol-the-ghost-of-energy
Hope it amuses!
I don’t have much to say this week, but I wanted to contribute a data point that came up last night.
My brother told me that lately, he and his friends have been lamenting the rising cost of fast food, as we were discussing the topic of food affordability. In this area, McDonalds charges roughly $10 for two burgers, and a plain bean burrito at Taco Bell is about $4. When he and my mom went out shopping last night, they encountered a Mexican woman selling tamales out of the back of her van, 6 for $10, cash only of course. Those tamales were on the dinner table in front of us.
I’m taking this as evidence that the business model for fast food, with its dependence on global supply chains, is starting to seriously collapse, and soon it simply won’t make financial sense for most people to eat at these places anymore. Along with the food truck business model which has been picking up steam for a while, we may see a resurgence of small businesses in the food industry in the coming years, which is encouraging to me.
This is, of course, just an anecdote. If others have contradictory data to share, I would be just as interested to hear about it 🙂
JMG and Jerry S @ 15 & 8, I like to watch you tube presentations about geology, science for lay persons but not too dumbed down. A favorite presenter is one Dr. Shawn Willsey, geology prof at an Idaho State U. When discussing magnetic pole reversals he said these seemed to happen fairly quickly, “a matter of a few thousand years”, which is quick in terms of geologic time, if slow when compared to flood and lava flow events. We do know that the magnetic north pole has been not stationary lately, so we may be at the beginning of a several thousand year reversal. Not going to happen in our lifetimes and no earlier one was responsible for Noah’s flood.
Dana @ 7, please allow me gently to suggest that it is not usually a good idea to be making accusations about demonic possession and the like. Some deluded person might well up and decide that you or me or anyone of us here are demons in disguise–I just know. It’s obvious, Can’t you tell? Which in turn opens the door for nefarious persons to be able to take out their real or perceived enemies with accusations of unseen wickedness.
I also think that such accusations are being resorted to be people who are heavily invested, both emotionally and financially, in the present state of affairs, and who won’t or can’t admit that institutions and activities which they themselves promoted are in fact causing the derangement, not to mention immiseration, of many of their fellows.
Beardtree # 1:
There aren’t hard evidences of what I’m going to write now, but it seems according which is known now by historical science, that early christianism was thriving with a lot of mystic and theological tendences. At least until it became the Roman Empire official religion; which implied more power centralization, the emperors “protection” and, of course, an orthodoxy which was created in the Concils (and the consequent fighting against “heresies”). Maybe some beliefs and practices could have arrived to our time, assuming they were labelled like non heretics, so “politically correct” for the orthodoxies wards. However, I’m only a “dilettante” in History of Religions, but I wish those minoritarian trends within christianism would thrive again during the Second Religiosity which awaits in the future.
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Achille # 4:
Well, I think you’ve opened a can of worms asking those problematic questions. It’s a pity they were under my radar and I didn’t ask them before.
You’ll know I’m living in Spain like you, so I’m seeing the same scenary but maybe my interpretation of “signs of times” vary from you. I can point political tension and demagogy are hotter and hotter nowadays in this country, but I can also see every end of governments cycle in Spain have been ugly and full of tension since the “happy” ‘90s (and a heck of Spectacle in the worst Debordian way). It’s true the old bipartidism is declining, so governments will be weaker and unstable, so I see problems in near future (depending of secessionist/populist parties doesn’t secure strong governments). By the way, political tension is widespread in EU countries, by disgrace. This will worsen as the real economy declines in the whole EU. I also see a steady but non stop growth in poverty and middle class decline, and more social tension thanks to reckless massive imports of migrants.
However, I think more in slow decline terms than in a fast collapse. We’ll see…
Your personal and family situation isn’t ideal, but well mine isn’t it neither. I can teach you honestly a good strategy to cope with it, I’m also trying to find one…
You’ve asked about the supposed decline of materialistic hegemony in conventional wisdom, because you’ve seen something more apparently spiritual is “invading” slowly the social tendences, even within hard scientists. Well, it could be true in near future, let’s wait to see it, because it’s not very clear IMHO. If it’s the Second Religiosity, it could gain speed in the future. It could be partly a spontaneous social tide caused by decline events, partly a social engineered move, who knows it.
To cope with desperation and fear, I think it’s useful to meditate and body activity mixed, IMHO. At least, it’s worked for me.
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The arkane # 11:
Historical analogies can help to grasp the pace of current decline, but I wouldn’t dare to make very accurate predictions of it comparing current events with older ones. Situations and circumstances are simillar but non equal. For example: nowadays technology, will accelerate or slow the decline?(history doesn’t repeat but it rhymes).
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JMG # 15:
You’re welcome too (and happy solstice in return to you and other pagans between commentariat).
I haven’t noticed that sucessful biblical animated story (“David”) because I suppose it hasn’t been released in theaters here yet, but I think as soon as it arrives to Spain it would be rutinarily despised/ignored by the usual wokeized critics. Well, John, like it usually happens in every industrialized western country, culture industry and social tendenced are dominated by leftist middle class pundits, while economy strategic zones are right wing feuds. What predictable!
***********
Sorry, I’ve written incorrectly the name of “International Criminal Court”, but you’ve guessed what I was refering with my wrong name. Well, your opinion about it is hard, but I see isn’t contrafactual: ICC legal fightings are clearly biased against non EU friendly countries. So history won’t be friendly with this institution (I guess wether future history great academics will live in China or India in the long term).
JMG, do you have any thoughts to offer toward a ‘report card’ for the first year of Trump’s second term? Is he living up to your hopes, dashing your expectations, running madly off in unexpected directions?
JMG: “a retrospective analysis of that conjunction and then following with a prospective analysis of the one to come”
594BC… Quite a while then. Very much looking forward to those!
Re cognitive collapse did you see this one: https://postimg.cc/Vr51GGm9
Siliconguy, re: who feeds the world:
Limiting it to two hectares excludes almost all the small farmers I know, including me. And the ones it doesn’t exclude are located in or near cities/towns and produce primarily specialty crops of high monetary value but relatively negligible caloric value (salad greens, gourmet mushrooms, etc). Seems silly. Well, actually, seems like the authors of the critiqued papers have an agenda. Quelle surprise. I don’t doubt that the situation regarding farm size is different in historically more populous countries with a peasant class, but still.
As (I think) Joel Salatin once said, they used to say, “I’ll believe it when I see it” about successful small and ecological farmers, but now they ought to be saying “I’ll see it once I believe it.” If I had a dollar for every time an “expert” told me that I can’t do what I am doing and that it doesn’t produce what it does produce, I could buy another farm. That’s not to say I couldn’t make more in the city–I have college classmates making a literal order of magnitude more than what I make here–but I wouldn’t trade lives with them for an order of magnitude more than that. I also wouldn’t trade lives with a Tyson chicken farmer for the same amount, though!
Also, we do easily get more than 20% of food (by calorie and weight) from non-commercial food activities such as hunting, fishing, gathering, and gardening, although these activities do benefit from crossover with our commercial growing in ways that are hard to fully separate out.
JMG and commentariat: I’d just like to take the opportunity this Christmas Eve open post to say thank you.
Almost everywhere else that I interact, even as a silent observer, online these days is increasingly hostile and quite frankly insane. I have very little use for the modern “left” but I do like a couple of their (former) positions, but where can I say such a thing without getting pigpiled? Well, here. And as for the “right” these days – the increase in open so-called Christian Nationalism and related sentiments has become very concerning, to say nothing stronger.
But here, there are pleasant conversations, even about unpleasant topics. There are smart people exchanging ideas and sometimes very good information. Y’all have made me a better gardener, among other things! It’s hard to overstate how great it is these days to have such a place. (Though I may be getting close to bloviation at this point.)
So JMG, many thanks for providing and moderating this place. You provide an example I will follow if and when I get my Dreamwidth journal going. And you do indeed have the best commentariat on the Net.
Merry Christmas to all who celebrate it, and Happy New Year.
A normally pretty establishment but informative about obscure subjects commentator appears to have gotten a clue about what’s happening with Gen Z and the conservatism seen there, and why Trump etc is actually happening. Or his screenwriter did, but an interesting development for sure:
For those who watch videos – but it’s mostly talking head so can be listened to just fine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBQWJtuzx5o
Check out my interview with John Michael Greer, where we discussed various aspects of culture through the unfolding decline of industrial civilisation.
The show interviews green wizard amateur plant breeders, cultural experimenters and deep thinkers on the challenge of our time so sign up for future episodes or check out the back catalog from the previous year of interviews.
https://youtu.be/6JRtXRV9kVI?si=DurG3kPVS9LAl519
https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/recombination-nation/id1777033551?i=1000739527141
https://open.spotify.com/episode/2Ipkig3QECI6wgSjRBAEbL?si=7a5f286933fa4955
NOT FOR POSTING
unless you’re sure it meets fair use or out of copyright standards.
And trim as you see fit.
AFAIK it IS out of copyright published 1920; Cupid in Africa by P C Wren.
I got a tech savvy friend to find a pdf and down load this masterly page.
Hi JMG,
Some years ago you bemoaned the lack of creative invective and the glut of dreary four letter insults, and invited the commentariat to try their hand. IIRC no-one tree (certainly I didn’t) so when I recently found this.
May all enjoy some Christmas cheer
From Cupid in Africa by P C Wren
P C Wren was a writer of adventure fiction , mostly about improbably noble white aristocrats sweating in hot colonial misery surrounded by the nonwhite, ignoble and plebeian for impossibly noble reasons
The scene; a dockside Naval store in an African port (WW1)
The Captain comes in demands to know if the car has been telephoned for; “No, Sir” replies the Petty Officer.
then ….
“You blundering bullock,” quoth he; “you whimpering weasel; you bleating blup; you miserable dog-potter; you horny-eyed, bleary-nosed, bat-eared, lop-sided, longshore loafer; you perishing shrimp-peddler; you Young Helper; you Mother’s Little Pet; you dear Ministering Child; you blistering bug-house body-snatcher; you bloated bumboat-woman; you hopping hermaphrodite—what d’ye mean by it? Eh? . . . What d’ye mean by it, you anæmic Aggie; you ape-faced anthropoid; you adenoid; you blood-stained buzzard; you abject abortion; you abstainer; you sickly, one-lunged, half-baked, under-fed alligator; you scrofulous scorbutic; you peripatetic pimple; you perambulating pimp-faced poodle; what about it? Eh? What about it?”
Mr. William Hankey stood silent and motionless, but in his face was the expression of one who, with critical approval, listens and enjoys. Such a look may be seen upon the face of a musician the while he listens to the performance of a greater musician.
Having taken breath, the Captain continued: “What have you got to say for yourself, you frig-faced farthing freak, you? Nothing! You purple poultice-puncher; you hopeless, helpless, herring-gutted hound; you dropsical drink-water; you drunken, drivelling dope-dodger; you mouldy, mossy-toothed, mealy-mouthed maggot; you squinny-faced, squittering, squint-eyed squab, you—what have you got to say for yourself? Eh? . . . Answer me, you mole; you mump; you measle; you knob; you nit; you noun; you part; you piece; you portion; you bald-headed, slab-sided, jelly-bellied jumble; you mistake; you accident; you imperial stinker; you poor, pale pudding; you populous, pork-faced parrot—why don’t you speak, you doddering, dumb-eared, deaf-mouthed dust-hole; you jabbering, jawing, jumping Jezebel, why don’t you answer me? Eh? D’ye hear me, you fighting gold-fish; you whistling water-rat; you Leaning Tower of Pisa-pudding; you beer-belching ration-robber; you pink-eyed, perishing pension-cheater; you flat-footed, frog-faced fragment; you trumpeting tripe-hound? Hold your tongue and listen to me, you barge-bottom barnacle; you nestling gin-lapper; you barmaid-biting bun-bolter; you tuberculous tub; you mouldy manure-merchant; you moulting mop-chewer; you kagging, corybantic cockroach; you lollipop-looting lighterman; you naval know-all. Why didn’t you telephone for the car?”
“’Cos it were ’ere all the time, sir,” replied Mr. William Hankey, perceiving that his superior officer had run down and required rest.
“That’s all right, then,” replied Captain Sir Thaddeus Bellingham ffinch Beffroye pleasantly, and strode to the door. There he turned, and again addressed Mr. Hankey.
“Why couldn’t you say so, instead of chattering and jabbering and mouthing and mopping and mowing and yapping and yiyiking for an hour, Mr. Woozy, Woolly-witted, Wandering William Hankey?” he enquired.
The large red man looked penitent.
“Hankey,” the officer added, “you are a land-lubber. You are a pier-head yachtsman. You are a beach pleasure-boat pilot. You are a canal bargee.”
Mr. Hankey looked hurt, touché, broken.
“Oh, sir!” said he, stricken at last.
“William Hankey, you are a volunteer,” continued his remorseless judge.
Mr. Hankey fell heavily into his chair, and fetched a deep groan.
“William Hankey-Pankey—you are a conscientious objector,” said the Captain in a quiet, cold and cruel voice.
A little gasping cry escaped Mr. Hankey. He closed his eyes, swayed a moment, and then dropped fainting on the table, the which his large red head smote with a dull and heavy thud, as the heartless officer strode away.
@BeardTree,
Chrisitanity is at heart a relationship between humans and God. On both collective and individual levels. There needs to be that personal aspect. It’s vital. Without that, there isn’t much point in all the singing, and ritual, and buildings and the like.
In terms of ‘religious experiences and manifestations’, I haven’t experienced speaking in tongues, but I have heard a voice, and seen things that weren’t literally there. More often than internal sight or hearing its a feeling of presence and emotion. And conversations between different parts of myself/imaginary/non-imaginary conversations? I’m not 100% sure what’s going on. But something is.
John, looking with a malevolous view how Putin case was processed so fast for his supposed Russian war crimes, I could guess if ICC and UE/NATO wanted to repeat the WW2 narrative, identifying Putin and the other Russians with Hitler and Nazis. This rehashed narrative would end eventually in Putin processing as war criminal (with ICC like modern Nuremberg court). The problem is Putin hasn’t been defeated yet, and he’s not as stupid as to travel to western countries or their de facto protectorates.
By the way, the epic WW2 narrative has to ignore the authoritarian tendence in Kiev (even allowing openly Nazis groups in the Ukrainian army cough cough).
Glad Yule, blessed Alban Arthuan, and Merry Christmas to all who are marking the season!
@ Kimberly:
It tickles me that the title of that guy’s video is “Healing the Inner Child with Demonic Power.” Seriously? Healing the inner child? Brother, if you’re dumb enough to play around with goetia, at the very least try and do something vaguely cool and dark-lord-ish, like total world domination or something that a well-trained psychotherapist probably can’t help you achieve.
Also, regarding the poverty line article, the “basic” budget in that article seems ludicrously expensive to me.
Quote:
“I wanted to see what would happen if I ignored the official stats and simply calculated the cost of existing. I built a Basic Needs budget for a family of four (two earners, two kids). No vacations, no Netflix, no luxury. Just the “Participation Tickets” required to hold a job and raise kids in 2024.
Using conservative, national-average data:
Childcare: $32,773
Housing: $23,267
Food: $14,717
Transportation: $14,828
Healthcare: $10,567
Other essentials: $21,857
Required net income: $118,009
Add federal, state, and FICA taxes of roughly $18,500, and you arrive at a required gross income of $136,500.”
Are people really spending this? More than a thousand dollars a month on transportation? Nearly as much on healthcare? Almost an entire median household income in our county on childcare? Does this sound right to y’all? We are a family of four, and these numbers seem insane to me.
@Siliconguy,
I’m not at 20%, nowhere near, but I might be 8% in a good year, 2% in a bad one. And I’m a renter gardening in her landlady’s backyard and wildcrafting some berries who won’t be showing up in anybody’s small farmer statistics.
I’m also doing a lot of cooking from scratch with cheap ingredients, which combined with a bit of growing my own means I have a food bill a fraction of the average in my country.
Yeats and the occult are in the zeitgeist
https://daily.jstor.org/yeats-and-the-occult-imagination/
Boysmom # 19:
I’ve read with quite interest your answer to Achille questions, but I’ve found more interesting too your own questions to him (and myself and maybe others here). Living with elders and disabled people during the Long Descent won’t be easy, but at least is a LONG Descent, so it wouldn’t be such traumatic as a fast collapse.
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Arnav J. # 20:
Hitler was (nominally) a Catholic, yes. He was also a vegetarian and he liked dogs. So vegans/vegetarians and pet lovers could be responsible for Holocaust, too. Bright…
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Teresa P. # 25:
Some postmodern feminists don’t get angry about female genital mutilation because it’s an atrocity not commited in the hated western culture, so it should be respected.
By the way, no feminist from every tendence worries about male (babies and children) genital mutilation, because the circumcidated victims are always boys…
Will, since I lack a large telescope and so can’t check for myself, I’ve turned an occasional glance on the internet gabblefest but have drawn no conclusions.
Slithy, it would be just too funny if physics was driven back to the aether. I wonder if aetheric effects could account for the appearance of time dilation.
Angelica, fascinating. Thanks for this! When the LLM bubble pops, in turn, RAM will likely be insanely cheap for a while.
Arnav, Hitler was raised Roman Catholic but left the church in early adulthood; his writings show that he was an Ariosophical occultist — part of a central European offshoot of Theosophy that blended their occult teachings with racism and antisemitism. When you reference “all Pagan civilizations except one,” are you referring to Japan? It’s the only polytheist society I know of that wasn’t conquered at some point by Europeans — despite which, there are quite a few thriving polytheist faiths in various parts of the world. That is to say, generally speaking, you’re presenting a very one-sided picture of the last two thousand years of religious history, and that doesn’t seem helpful to me.
Justin, thanks for the book recommendations. Synchronistically enough, one of my recent thrift store runs netted me a book on using the Cabala for writing.
Teresa, and a blessed solstice season to you and yours!
Sister Crow (if I may), of course he does. Demonolaters hate banishing rituals almost as much as demons do.
Teresa, I’ve been saying for a long time that a significant number of radical woke feminists are going to end up converting to some conservative sect of Islam. This is a big step in that direction.
Sister Crow, too funny. Somehow “alienat(ing) every demographic” isn’t keeping David from raking in serious bucks at the box office.
Ludovic, thanks for this! I’ve bookmarked it for reading this evening, as Santa (that transparent metaphor for the hallucinogenic Amanita muscaria mushroom) takes his annual trip through the skies.
Untitled-1, thanks for this! Yeah, food trucks and other little independent venues are the wave of the future, once it stops being viable to support legions of corporate flacks in office buildings on the proceeds of (formerly) cheap lunches.
Mary, thanks for this. The north magnetic pole has never been stationary, but it’s certainly starting to wobble more than usua, and there are weird magnetic anomalies popping up, most famously in the south Atlantic. Yeah, we could be in for it over the next two thousand years or so. 😉
Chuaquin, it’s the same here, of course, but the pundits are increasingly being ignored by most of the population.
Dylan, he’s behaved about the way I expected, maintaining a rough balance between those elements of the existing elite he has to placate and his followers, who are by and large much more radical than he is. He’s done more than I expected in some fields — laying off around 10% of the federal bureaucracy is a real achievement — and less in some others, but all in all, it’s about as expected.
Earthworm, ha! That’s a keeper:
Jeff, you’re welcome and thank you!
Pygmycory, well, that’s definitely a step in the right direction.
Mark, as far as I can tell it’s wholly out of copyright, and this quote is arguably fair use anyway. Thank you!
Chuaquin, the problem with our current ruling classes is that they’re under the delusion that once they decide what narrative they want to playact, the rest of the universe has to conform to it. It never entered their heads that to 130 million Russians, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin among them, the World War II narrative runs the other way, NATO is the Nazis, and they are the gallant Soviet heroes destined to steamroller their way, slowly but remorselessly, right into Berlin. (Or Kiev, as the case may be.)
Jennifer, like so much of what comes out of the media on this subject nowadays, they’re trying to pretend that the average person is a member of the upper middle classes. Balderdash, of course, but common or garden variety balderdash.
Joel, delighted to see it. Thanks for this!
Re: David: I read a synopsis on the film and it apparently covers the material of First Samuel, which has some of the most entertaining* stories of the Bible (though I think David becomes more sympathetic in 2 Samuel dealing with betrayal from his allies and even family.
*However, I think the historical David was a traitor who served King Achish of Gath to seize Saul’s throne and the narrative is largely royal apologetics to whitewash him.
So I am starting, very rudimentary steps, (yes, I know, probably problematic…timing late), of planning escape from the bowl of death (unsustainable). I don’t know when my obligation here will come to an end, but I’m seeing it on the horizon (still years). My thinking is semi-rural US or semi-rural western Europe. I’m interested not necessarily real suggestions but instead you’re thinking in general since. I am disabled, an academic, MS Env. Studies, former EMT, ex- military, retirement age (early 60s) I am a caretaker, and work in education. I’m looking to retire. I should note here I have read Dark age America, the eco-technic future, and decline and fall. Any thoughts? :/
JMG,
I don’t often read mainstream media, and almost never about other people’s budgets, so those numbers took me by surprise! I do wonder how much of the rained-on feeling I note amongst younger generations (I am an “elder millennial” apparently) comes from being fed such lies about what is needed merely to subsist. They have gotten a genuinely raw deal in some regards, I acknowledge, but I often encounter what seems like outrageous entitlement, not merely to the necessities of life, or even “bread and roses,” but to ridiculously high standards of living without having to do anything particularly difficult or unpleasant to achieve them. Often accompanied by vaguely socialist sentiments about how awful and exploitative it is that their bosses or the government refuse to keep them in the manner to which they’d like to become accustomed. I have no love of the government nor of soul-killing jobs, but I have been somewhat baffled by the lack of acknowledgement that people do have to actually work reasonably hard to create things worth having, combined with the conviction that it’s insulting to expect them to subsist on a mere $80,000-$115,000 per year. But of course if they think that is merely scraping by and everyone else has had it easier, they’d likely feel resentful.
Re: the David review: I just read it and was slightly boggled by how hysterical it sounded. Also by the fact that it couldn’t find a single thing to say that wasn’t ‘BAD BAD BAD EVIL BAD!!!’ about any aspect of the film. So one-sided it’s completely unbelievable and rather funny in a ‘this is a parody of a biased review’ sort of way , and makes me wonder what the film in question is actually like.
I’ve not seen it, nor heard of it before it was mentioned on this site. Has anyone here seen it, and what is it actually like, beyond being able to make that reviewer start frothing at the mouth level hysterical? Any good?
For the other Canadians here: I keep hearing about this religious revival elsewhere. Are any of you seeing it locally? I’m really not. I don’t think it’s gone back up even to prepandemic levels in my area.
@untitled #28: We rarely buy ready-made food, but I have noticed a similar trend when buying ingredients. Produce at the local supermarket is both expensive and not very fresh – not too surprising, since three chains have an oligopoly on local supermarkets in Quebec. I had resigned myself to this state of affairs, but we moved to a neighborhood with many Iranian, Korean and North African families, and so I have started buying at their grocery stores. Salad at the Korean store is almost half the price and usually much fresher than in the standard Canadian supermarket. Similar (if not quite as extreme) for other vegetables, fruit and meat.
To me, this indicates that the economy of scale in the big chains doesn’t compensate anymore for their bloated administrative structures. A store run by a family can get rid of most of the administrative overhead. Probably some of the taxable job benefits, too… I would prefer to buy at a place with good worker benefits and little bloat, but that option is not available here.
@JPM: I liked season 1 of Twin Peaks. I just tolerated the abortive season 2. (I only watched these on DVD long after they played on TV and long after they were “a phenomena.”) The 25 year thing between season 2 and season 3 is downright uncanny. I read a few reviews of season 3 and have not been able to decide whether I want to subject myself to it. It looks like it’s available on DVD at the river. Long ago, in the 1970s, I subjected myself to some material that I’m sorry I watched; certain images stay with you for a long time. One review on “the river” says season 3 is sure to give you bad dreams. I don’t doubt it. There was another writer, Mark Frost, who co-wrote Twin Peaks. We talk a lot about Lynch and his creative methods, but not much about Mark Frost. I’m curious. Blue Velvet was way over the top; I had trouble getting through it, but after I managed to watch it all the way through I began to appreciated — until it became one of my all time favorites. “Mulholland Drive” made sense once I read some useful interpretations, that are no doubt very near the mark. Angelo Badalamente’s musical scores are a big plus, and his cameo roll in Muholland Drive was highly amusing. The perfect espresso is soooo hard to find. 🙂
Might you consider finding inspiration as a topic for a post or several? A few years back, my failed attempt to write a module for your RPG begat several deindustrial short stories, two of which sold. (The module refuses to be written, btw. Every time I try, it runs over to my setting where the only enemy met is ourselves.) Unfortunately, my setting was based on the sum of my experiences in the Rust Belt and the logical extension of FDR’s regime into an urban / rural sitzkrieg, resource depletion and continuations of current weather and climate trends. And just when I was finally drawing the blueprints for a novel… the US got a new regime… leaving me with just another YA detective story set in the past’s future.
And, no, I don’t expect the new regime to “fail” in the manner of either leftist daydreams or doomer fever dreams. The glut of YA climate change sci-fi is instructive, I think. Is there any chance of a lecture for Ecosophians on how to survey the ever-shifting landscape of the political economy?
Speaking of the future – Out here in Flyover Country, the second religiosity is most definitely moving and showing signs of increasing speed. Yard displays and store offerings suggest a loss of interest in Greedmas, while Solstice stargazing parties are becoming a popular family activity. On the other hand, I work for a company where having a freak flag to fly is convenient, so I’m out as a Druid. This year, I’m finally getting traction as a clergybeing. I’ve gotten requests for thoughts and prayers, gifts of clothing and even one of those sausage and cheese sampler boxes with the words, “for Solstice.” Similar reports from other Druids are trickling in. Given our past role of warlords’ wizards and troubleshooters for the peasants, how do we find and define our new role between and among the new laptop class and the everybody else class? (Boy Scout leader was the first idea on my list, btw.)
Hello JMG,
When I say expect one I am talking about India/Bharat/Hindustan yes they carved out Pakistan and Bangladesh but still 80% of India is still Hindu which is like there are full efforts being made to convert us. And about Hitler and Nazi Germany like yes the Aryan pure race stuff was the main motivating factor but again didn’t Christians conduct pogroms against Jews for 1000 years before Holocaust. Japan has Zen Buddhism which they inherited from China and Buddhism was adopted from India. My main point before was that will this ever end the constant fight between the three as per their own books??
I want to join in and wish each of the commentariat a Blessed Solstice Season, Happy Holidays, and a Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it. I am glad to still be around, to share this little hub of sanity with all of you, and to partake in the community. And to our host, JMG, may you be blessed and receive joy and success, for you have been a voice for Good in all these years!
Hi JMG,
Thanks for another year of hosting this blog, which is an island of sanity in an increasingly crazy world. Your writings and the many excellent comments from all the commentariat have been very helpful to me. Thank you!
I listened to the audiobook version of the Ceremony of the Grail recently, and the narrator was terrific. Loved it. The commentary on Well at the Worlds End set up a very hard-hitting take on Frodo as the Fisher King. Wham!
I haven’t had a chance to comment for a few weeks, so I also wanted to say thanks for the discussion of Gregory Bateson recently. I had been struggling with an aspect of my personal life that I thought was entirely my fault and I suddenly realized the key to the whole problem was a double bind-type interaction with a family member. It was a relief to sort that out.
Also, I suspect the following is due to the meditation and spiritual practice I have been doing, but I am having trouble finding fiction that holds my attention. The science fiction and fantasy I used to love doesn’t work any more. I’m hungry for stories of individuation but can’t seem to find them. The Razor’s Edge and the Herman Hesse novels scratch the itch. I would be grateful for any suggestions by you or any other readers here.
Best wishes to you and all for a healthy, happy, and prosperous 2026!
This is the fixed version of my earlier comment.
Ice-age and mesolithic archaeology has fascinated me since I first heard of Göbekli Tepe. It is plausible that most human traces older than about 8000 years are now submerged under the rising seas, but underwater archaeology has been slow to catch up with terrestrial excavations. Very recently, a fascinating discovery from Bretagne was published (open access here). Walls too long, too high, too strong and too complex to be fish weirs were built between 5800 and 5300 BCE bridging a bay in the coastline as it existed at the time. They are so well built that they are still mostly intact in about 9 m depth, in spite of the immense local tidal currents. The authors cautiously suggest these were “protective structures”. I take that to mean that the mesolithic inhabitants of the coast constructed a harbour to protect their ships from that frightful tides. Of course, nothing at all excludes the possibility that structures just as or even more complex lie at much deeper ancient coastlines (at the Last Glacial Maximum it lay > 100 m lower, too deep for the LIDAR scans that identified these walls).
This prompted me to investigate a bit more, and I found a study from 2015 about a 12 m long monolith lying on a shallow bank between Sicily and Africa. The authors conclude it was constructed at the latest ~7350 BCE, when this was the coastline, and speak of “mesolithic activity”, but what they leave implicit is that it could have been constructed at any prior point in time, contemporaneous to or earlier than Göbekli Tepe.
Here’s to hoping that more such finds will be made before the funds for archaeology run out (and the sea level rises further).
@ JMG and Jennifer K
With regards to Michael Green’s viral article on substack. Before just reading a news clip about it or knee-jerk writing it off as the powers-that-be throwing senseless numbers around, I’d gently suggest you give his original article a read. It is on his substack and paywalled but you can read through most of the article without paying.
The link is: https://www.yesigiveafig.com/p/part-1-my-life-is-a-lie
Green was arguing about how ridiculously out of touch the “poverty line” is as a metric and he started digging at the metric a bit and breaking down it’s pedigree and what it would mean to calculate it today in its original terms. Along with this he was emphasizing the very real; “valley of death” as he referred to it, basically the benefits cliff experienced by lower middle class earners that punishes their abilities to improve their lot.
Really, he was just pointing out that the middle class life of the 1950s is completely out of reach for on one income for that vast majority of people and perhaps suggesting that gaslighting them about it while telling them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps might not be the solution.
The number that he arrived at was based off of a fairly expensive county in New Jersey. His choice of this county wasn’t arbitrary, it was because he was using it for prior article and went with that data. In his follow up article where he discusses his surprise at it going viral he states that he wasn’t trying to define a new American poverty line but to make a point. He recalculated it based off of the median American county and it came out to something like $90k/yr.
Jennifer, with regards to my personal experience of that budget, I have to say it has very little similarity to our budget of a year ago when I was still employed full time with two adults, one and a half incomes, and four young kids. I live in what is likely a well above median cost county in a rural area (the boomer retirees are gentrifying everything except wages). Our childcare cost was $0 but then, childcare was almost solely the responsibility of myself and my wife which is overwhelming when you also are both working and homeschooling and maintaining a home farm. Our housing cost, if we include our mortgage, utility bills, taxes etc exceeded the cost in that estimate and that is considering that we got what is an absolutely screaming deal on our property. Our neighbors, two adults, two kids, average working family next door to us, pay right around $33600 for rent alone on their house plus electricity and garbage. Their house is a decent 90s era maybe 1600 sq ft. We produce a significant amount of our food, including almost all our meat, ourselves and get a lot of the rest of it locally, some through trade. We do spend on better quality stuff though in terms of things we buy. To balance that though, we don’t eat out pretty much ever. Our food costs are probably somewhere in line with what is there solely because we produce a lot of it ourselves and don’t eat out. Our transportation costs probably run around $6k a year but our vehicles are all old. Our costs are fuel, maintenance (significant), and all the various fees associated from the state. As for healthcare, our spending was probably around $1500/yr paid out of pocket although that balloons with each childbirth. Our last one cost us around $6k for a homebirth with almost none of the pregnancy related doctor visits etc. the lion’s share went to the midwife.
I will point out that I left my job and am no longer bothering to work since that time. Our income has dropped a good bit but also, the benefits thing was completely true for us. I don’t have much interest in collecting government benefits but I now have health insurance.. Damn good health insurance too. Now, I don’t go to the doctor or really have anything to do with the established medical community and health insurance won’t change that, but it does provide me with protection from medical bankruptcy if end up run over by a truck or something. This is the first time in many years that I have had health insurance. What changed? I’m no longer a member of the “gainfully employed”. That is exactly the valley of death that Michael Green is talking about.
The county I live in is probably closer to that NJ county that he used in the original article. Are people here who make less than $136k living in poverty? Maybe not quite, but I can say that my wife and I together were making nigh on $100k a year and we live (and have lived) for years in a house with no flooring. We walk around on the sub-floor. I even have all the tools and technical knowledge to put flooring into our house. We can’t afford to. Are we in poverty? I don’t think the question really matters much at this point because measuring everything in income rather than quality of life is becoming far less meaningful, at least for me.
HV
Patrick, no doubt there’s a lot of spin doctoring in the Bible. It’s intriguing to compare the situation of the early kingdom of Israel with that of Celtic kingdoms in northwestern Europe, which had similarly tangled relationships with their French and Anglo-Norman neighbors.
Alatar, since you’re disabled, you’ll want to make sure you’re in a community large enough that you can exchange the work you can do for the services you need. There are plenty of small cities and large towns in the US tht might be very well suited to that. I’d be wary of Europe unless you’re happy with the prospect of war.
Jennifer, I know. The corporate media has labored long and hard to encourage that state of entitlement. It’ll be interesting to see how well it survives the next serious recession.
Rhydlyd, I’ll consider it. As for being “out” as a Druid, it’s remarkable how readily Druidry is accepted by everyone except (a) the really extreme Christian dogmatists and (b) the really extreme scientific materalists. Being Druids, no two of us will define ourselves in exactly the same way, but being ourselves — with all the freakish eccentricity that typically involves — is normally the best bet.
Arnav, I see you’ve never heard of Shinto, Japan’s indigenous polytheist religion, which most Japanese practice. A little more research into such things might be wise before you start making sweeping historical assumptions.
CR, thank you!
Samurai_47, thank you also. I know what you mean about fiction — most current novels bore the bejesus out of me. Books by dead people generally help — recently I’ve been enjoying Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past, which ought to keep me busy for a while.
Aldarion, fascinating. I’ve been hearing murmurs for a while now about ruins found well below the ocean in various parts of the world. We may be nearing a major inflection point in our understanding of the past.
Hi John Michael,
A happy solstice season to you, and that despite your quiet sorrow, you can find the time to enjoy a good book and a dark ale. What are you reading at the moment?
My brain has been a touch over stimulated during the past six months to a year, with all sorts of strange turn of events, and can only hope that next year is smoother, maybe. One can hope anyway. Oh, stop digressing and get to the point. For comfort, I’m reading the Jack Vance book: Clarges. A very thoughtful tale upon a once vibrant, but under pressure, civilisation in terminal decline. Fun fact: It was originally titled: To Live Forever. As a personal note, I’d not want to aim for that goal on the basis that it wouldn’t take too many decades to become stale. 🙂
Out of sheer curiosity, and I realise that you’re not interested in vehicles, yet I note that there are moves from your leader to introduce the concept of smaller vehicles for US roads, but I’m kind of flabbergasted by the behemoths manufactured in your country, so was wondering whether you’re seeing any signs of increased prices for energy in your country? Certainly they’re on the up here, and I’ve a love of the Kei car concept (and own Suzuki’s for that reason. Cheap to buy, run and maintain.
PS: From all that you’ve said over the years, it’s probably good for the rest of us if you avoid getting behind the wheel.
PPS: I’m reminded of the old dad joke, it being the silly season: Imagine a person in a job interview who’s asked if they can perform ‘under pressure’. The answer is: ‘No, but I can do a pretty decent Bohemian Rhapsody!’… I now retire from the field and hope the groaner produced a smile!
Cheers
Chris
Regarding last weeks topic, cognitive collapse:
Michael Nehls have written a book about what he believes is the reason for this, called The indoctrinated brain. The very short of it is that people are being indoctrinated by keeping them in a permanent state of emergency, amongst other things by propaganda. Also the gene-therapy is mentioned.
There is a review of his book on his substack https://michaelnehls.substack.com/p/a-great-mental-reset
He also has done interesting work on alzheimers, which can also be found on his substack.
@JMG
Re: Demonlatrists
So does a demonlatrist who attempts the SoP or LBRP feel some discomfort, despite their banishing ritual probably being fairly weak compared to the experienced practictioner’s?
@ Teresa P #25
“…we shouldn’t stigmatize [male] genital mutilation because it’s correct for [Abrahamic] cultures [and religions]? Little [boys] who get no say in what’s done to them. It’s quite awful…”
I couldn’t agree with you more!
…of course, there is the matter of comparing “motes” to “planks” and all that… 🙂
PS – of course I do agree absolutely about female genital mutilation… but, if we are to be consistent, it would be good to support the idea of every child getting to keep all the bits God has given them, at least until they reach the age of majority, at which point they will be capable of consenting to their removal, should they wish.
I just wanted to vent briefly on a major annoyance I just ran into today.
After several years of not gardening much, I’m ready to try an actual garden this year. I went to request the usual catalogs I like. Out of ten catalogs, five don’t do paper catalogs any more! Some of my very favorite suppliers are now online only, like Raintree Nursery.
I detest, completely detest, online catalogs- endlessly clicking in and out of things just to read a description, and our internet here absolutely sucks (we might as well be on 28k dial up, you can imagine how well that works with modern websites).
Of the five who still do paper catalogs, two the online order form was flat out not working, one requires an email to request the catalog, and one charges $$ for the catalog. So out of ten desired catalogs, only two requests were successfully submitted. Those may end up being the only two I order from.
If they all end up going online only, our crappy internet will for all practical purposes cut us off from access to garden seed suppliers. Then my only source will be the low quality stuff that shows up at local stores. No more rare heirloom varieties for me. 🙁
Samurai_47: I second JMG’s recommendation about reading books by dead people! Here’s a good starting list: https://seascs.net/documents/2017/10/John%20Senior%20The%20Thousand%20Good%20Books%20List.pdf
If by “individuation,” you mean novels where the main character learns about himself and others and grows as a human being, that describes a lot of the books on that list. Two “books by dead people” that I’ve read recently that met that criteria were Jack London’s “The Sea Wolf” and Charles Dickens’s “Great Expectations.”
“Herr Winter
Herr Winter stammt vom Kaukasus.
Er ist ein alter Mann,
hat einen Wickel um die Brust
und sieben Mäntel an.
Er hat seit tausend Jahren schon
die Gicht im linken Bein.
Drum webte man in seinen Thron
zehn Katzenfelle ein.
Zieht euch warm an.
Zieht euch warm an.
Wenn es Winter wird,
zieht euch warm an.
Sein dicker Schal aus Wolle
ist geschlungen um den Hals.
Der Nordwind ist sein Leibgardist,
der Westwind ebenfalls.
Als starke Wachen schützen ihn
der Raureif und der Frost.
Auch machte er zum Paladin
den strengen Wind aus Ost.
Zieht euch warm an…
Herr Winter ist ein armer Mann;
denn springt im warmen März
der kecke junge Lenz heran,
schleicht Angst ihm in das Herz.
Ja, die Tyrannen sind nicht froh.
Tyrannen sind verbittert.
Sie selber zittern ebenso,
wie man vor ihnen zittert.
Zieht euch warm an…”
Since winter has just started and turns out to be pretty cold in some parts of the world, I thought it would be appropriate to share the above poem and song written by the late poet and writer James Krüss. There are two versions of the song, I can highly recommend. The first is a very nice and rather slow accoustic interpretation, but if that’s to slow for you, the second is by the faux-medieval rock band “In Extremo” (both no video, just one/a few stills). My children love this powerful winter song and sing it quite often, no matter if it’s summer or winter…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPZNboEgXnQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aU_kUQOL23I
Despite not being a Christian myself, the “days between the years” (don’t know if you call them like that in English) are always something special for me. A blessed Christmas to all who celebrate it and generally a blessed time to everybody!
Cheers,
Nachtgurke
HippieViking,
Alas, I cannot read the original article because I have Substack blocked. Left to my natural inclinations, I will all too readily spend all my time getting involved in long intellectual conversations and arguing with strangers on the internet rather than farming, with notably poor results, so I only allow myself access to a limited number of websites three days per week.
Thank you for contextualizing the article and for the data points regarding your budget! In my area, I’d say the $30k poverty line is about right; it’s hard to live a stable life for much less than that if you’re operating primarily in the money economy and haven’t gotten lucky by, say, inheriting a house or having grandma around for childcare. At $50k you can be quite comfortable, and at $80-120k you’ve really “made it” even with a fairly large family of 4 or 5 children.
The “valley of death” is a real thing, for sure. We are honestly frustrated that there seems to be a concerted effort to force us onto government benefits that we do not want. I had good, fairly cheap private health insurance before Obamacare, then was forced onto the (inaptly named) Marketplace at greatly increased cost when all the private health insurance vanished, then forced onto an HMO when the PPOs vanished, and then went without for years until we started trying to get pregnant (although getting insurance turned out to be pointless since we too used midwives and it covered nothing), and now they keep trying to force us to apply for Medicaid whenever we apply for Marketplace coverage (although then they inevitably deny us after a long delay and make us reapply to the Marketplace, ensuring that we have no coverage for a number of months). Ugh! If someone would just sell me a private insurance plan, I would be delighted, but the only option is now the Marketplace or a standard job with benefits.
Just wanted to express some thanks for small the lecture on Celtic languages you gave to me on Magic Monday! It’s somehow fascinating to me that Breton and Cornish are closely related to each other, but not so much to the Celtic languages of Ireland, Scotland and Wales. So far, I have been to Brittany, Cornwall, Wales and Ireland – Brittany feels like my second home and when I first came to Cornwall I instantly thought “Oh my god, this feels just like Brittany”. Ireland, despite all its beauty, felt much more distant to me – it was like visiting a very ancient great-grand parent I had never seen before, speaking a different language. Wales had an old, but much younger vibe than Ireland – but here I felt truly like an alien and strangely uncomfortable.
Cheers,
Nachtgurke
Jennifer,
Good on you for staying off the internet! Time spent on the home economy is time better spent. And if you’re anything like us as soon as you strike down one homestead project two more arise in its place.
Your numbers sound believable to me. A few years back I was in central Louisiana for work. In chatting with some of the locals they told me what half a million dollars could get me in terms of a house and land there, something like a decent mid-century house on 10-15 acres. I told them that half a million where I was from could get them a double wide mobile on a postage stamp.
Another point to the cost of living, we have some relatives also living in Washington. They are a family of three, two adults and one young child. One income. I know their income is right in the neighborhood of $180k a year, maybe a little more. They are trying to keep up with Joneses, fancy vacations, nice schools, new clothes, eating out etc. They also get quite a lot of help from both sides of their family financially and otherwise. They are absolutely swimming in credit card debt and pretty much live paycheck to paycheck. A few months ago at a get together the husband told me he couldn’t wait to be done with his current contractual work obligations to he could start, “making real money”. I’d say the lifestyle that couple is living is something comparable to that upper middle class lifestyle and over $180k a year is not enough to make it happen.
I’ll keep my life, thanks!
HV
Jennifer Kobernik,
The article you’re referencing is based on estimated costs in Essex County, NJ, an area the author admits is an expensive county. His figure for Lynchburg, VA, was a little over 94,000 for the same basket of expenses. Also, as the part you quote states, it’s not so much a “poverty line” as it is the amount needed to pay the cost of existing for a family of four with two earners needing two cars and two kids in childcare without help from government subsidies for food, housing, healthcare, or childcare.
With regard to the specific figures, childcare in many places is very expensive. I don’t live in Essex County, but I do live in an expensive county and my wife and I paid $14,000 (toddler) to $18,000 (infant) per year for one child at a Bright Horizons between 2007 and 2011. Even at those prices we had difficulty finding a spot for our son. I don’t know what the cost is now, but it’s probably higher with the recent inflation. As for the transportation expenses, the IRS allowance for 2025 is 70 cents per mile, which is not meant to be a figure generous to taxpayers. Transportation expenses of $14,828 equate to a little over 21,000 miles or less than 11,000 miles per car. Whether the amount is reasonable depends largely on how much the parents drive to get to work. With respect to healthcare, an unsubsidized 60/40 bronze ACA plan with a $12,200 deductible in our area costs almost $2,000 per month for two people. A two earner couple will likely have employer provided insurance, so the cost depends on the deductible and the employee’s monthly responsibility for family coverage. My experience doesn’t indicate that $10,567 annually out of pocket for a family of 4 is unreasonable even with employer provided coverage. Of course people can skip care to save money and I’m sure many people do. As for housing, I still live near the complex (nice, but by no means high-end) where I rented a one bedroom apartment in 1999 for $1,095 per month, now the same apartment rents for $2,750 per month. A 772 square foot one bedroom is tight for a family of four. There are cheaper complexes near us, but I haven’t seen anything under $2,300 per month and a two bedroom will cost significantly more. Incomes have not kept pace with the increase in rents since 1999. Overall, I think the cost of living today is absurd, and it makes it very difficult for people living in expensive areas, even with seemingly high incomes. I think these issues are a factor in the declining birthrate and were certainly a reason my wife and I had only one child.
As far as I can tell, the dogmatic religious-ists and dogmatic materialists are suffering from the same neurosis, projected shadows and massive insecurities. Calling out either group for being inattentive to their own religions (pointing out their heresies works pretty well) tends to make them at least avoid me. On the other hand, serious people take me seriously as soon as they notice I’m serious and extend the same treatment to them – a practice that took me far too long to develop, but one I wholeheartedly recommend.
Chris, thank you and likewise! My reading material right now is a series of books by American Rosicrucian mystic Corinne Heline for study, and Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past for relaxation. I’ve heard some of the chatter about small cars, and about time, but gasoline prices are apparently down quite sharply here these days, though electricity is more costly in a lot of markets as the LLM fad gobbles up power. The groaner did indeed induce a smile, btw.
Chaga, thanks for this. I’ll give it a look.
Patrick, good question — you’d have to ask one.
Mother B, I concur. I’ve gotten fairly good at using internet catalogs but I don’t like them. It’s practically a ritual to spend a couple of nights in January paging through paper seed catalogs and dreaming of the summer and fall garden.
Nachtgurke, that’s really lovely! Thank you. As for Celtic languages, glad it was helpful. The Celtic languages fascinate me; I’ve dabbled in Welsh and Cornish, enough that I can pick my way through sentences with a little help.
Rhydlyd, very glad to hear this.
Hey everyone,
having just returned from a month-long trip to my native Germany (I left 3 years ago), I thought I’d share the fresh impressions: The mood is foul. A friend who lives in Berlin told me three independent stories of immigrants that he knows who have decided to return to their homeland – his Polish parents after some 40 years, an Australian neighbor after 15, and a (white) South African after about a decade or so. Most people I talked to are aware that things are bad, among the complaints are inflation (still high); a collapse in meaningful business leadership; violent youth gangs in small towns, along with a police force that doesn’t; Overall crime on the rise; fear and suspicion of the political opposite (establishment left and populist right, respectively); an absolutely universal bewilderment about the current chancellor and his government; some fear of war with Russia, although it seems the uneasiness about the governments talk re: military service is more widespread. Russophobia is common, but only reaches acute fear among the most devout newspaper readers. A noticeable proportion of society is entirely turning away from the news.
Oh, and the trains are slightly less late and disorganized than the last time I was there, but it’s still a disaster.
I’m glad I left when I did and am happy to see things unfold from a safe distance. It’s not the degree of change or the concrete situation of Germans (the economy is still much better than here in Portugal), it is the German habit that things have to be the way they’re supposed to be, and the German people’s inability to improvise in the face of bad circumstances that gives the situation its threatening undertones.
I have mentioned this before, but with the mood in Germany fresh in my mind, and as you, JMG, have just linked to your article on war in Europe, I’d like to repeat my prediction that the need to distract the populace with war, the understanding that Europe won’t stand a chance against Russia, and the built-up hype for war (in minds and factories alike) will coalesce into war between European countries.
I just heard Alexander Mercouris describe the bitterness that is arising between European leaders who try to pin the blame for the outcome of the Ukraine story on each other, and it feels to me as if all it will take is the exit of one EU member state, or the political turning of one of the bigger ones towards national self-interest, and the whole house of cards comes crashing down and we’re back to visiting each other with tanks.
The other direction the war fever might go is against the population itself, but I have my doubts that the personnel of the military would be up for that.
I’d like to hear the opinion of other European readers, on this or both of the topics I mentioned. How is the mood in your place, and what are your thoughts on war between western European countries? I know it sounds unlikely now, but we do live in interesting times.
Oh, and on an entirely unrelated note, I have made the decision to try and turn my life-long hobby into a profession and have thus launched a website for my paintings. As the topics discussed here inform a lot of my outlook and thinking, I wouldn’t be surprised if they resonated with some of you. Go have a look at Eikebraselmann.com
Happy holidays!
I had a thought tonight that helps me understand the particular fallacy where someone thinks explaining something (ex: collapse) is the same as wanting that thing to happen. It comes down to how pervasive tribal my-side-vs-your-side thinking is, possibly as a result of a century of trying to repress that urge.
The thought is this: suppose you complain about someone who annoys, and I tell you, “Well, you have to understand that…” and give a list of reasons why that person’s behaviors are at least somewhat reasonable under the circumstances. Now suppose you complain about someone else who annoys you, and I readily agree. Finally, suppose that when you annoy me, I complain just like you have been. (Yes, this is based on things I’ve dealt with, and honestly I’m pretty sure I’ve been on both sides of this.)
I suspect you’d begin to get the sense that my insistence on understanding in the first case was rooted not in a general belief in the importance charity but because I’m taking the other person’s side over yours. However I presented and rationalized it, at bottom the whole thing was an exercise in orangutan social politics.
I suspect generations of trying to suppress these instincts had resulted in them quietly metastasizing to all aspects of our thinking. Tribalism is the new sex.
@JMG: If I may ask, where are you now in Proust? Are you reading it in English translation? I preferred the outer novels, numbers 1, 2, & 7. The inner novels were the most, uh, uh, sluggish. I slogged through them; especially the seemingly endless rehashes of the Dreyfus affair, which I’ve harped on here before. “The Captive” was probably the most difficult for me of them all. “How to torture yourself” might be a good alternate title.
To all:
Merry Christmas, or whatever holy days all keep, and a happy New Year for all. And remember those loved ones who have passed on before us, and be thankful for their time with us.
Cugel
Happy ROC Constitution Day! Or, for the Commies among you who don’t celebrate it, the ROC Constitution Day *Season*!
(Pity the poor Baha’is–a dozen holidays, and none of them in December!)
JMG (no. 45) ” Santa (that transparent metaphor for the hallucinogenic Amanita muscaria mushroom)”
Same as John Allegro’s Jesus, then?
Hmm–a dark-horse indy movie, outperforms the Hollywood giants. If only there were some handy religious metaphor for this…
On “Healing the Inner Child with Demonic Power,” I’m pretty sure my inner child doesn’t have any demonic power (picturing Damian Thorne here), so this wouldn’t apply to me.
JMG (no. 15) “gwik still fardled, funted, and fupped.”
Mark Mordin (no. 37) “You blundering bullock…you whimpering weasel; you bleating blup; you miserable dog-potter…”
I have always striven to avoid UN-Druidly language, but today, I finally understand what *Druidly* language sounds like.
JMG (no. 72) ” Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past for relaxation”
SPOIL:ERS! He eats a Little Debbie or something.
Hello,
Whenever I start a serious magic practice my marriage starts imploding. The first time round my husband had an emotional affair (during the height of COVID lockdowns). The second time round he has decided that our marriage is simply not a priority to him at this stage in his life and he is choosing to spend every spare second with his mum and dad (he is carrying a lot of grief about them ageing). To be fair he has never really prioritised our marriage and its always been on me to organise our entire social calendar, all celebrations etc etc.
I am not willing to let my marriage implode for the sake of our children and my vows. Is there a possibility that this is actually due to my occult practice or simply timing? If, so, what could that mean or be caused by?
Eike, thank you for this. I share your concern about Europe, of course; I can only gauge by what I see from across the ocean, but the situation looks very grim from here. I’ve bookmarked your painting site!
Slithy, you may well be right.
Phutatorius, I’m in the second part of Book 2, “Within a Budding Grove;” we’re in Mme de Villeparisis’s carriage. Yes, I’m reading it in English translation; my French is probably up to Proust but I don’t read fast enough in any language but English to get through it in this lifetime.
Cugel, thank you for this. Yes, that’s very much on my mind just now.
Ambrose, wasn’t Allegro’s Jesus a different species of mushroom? Yes, I thought that the synchronicity of David slaying the giant Hollywood was unusually good. As for Druidly language, yep. Irish bards were reputed to be able to rhyme rats to death with their scathing satires; I’m sorry to say we’re not quite up to that these days, but calling someone “you poor, pale pudding; you populous, pork-faced parrot,” et al., has its charms. I’ll have you know, by the way, that the first time I started into Proust I made a point of buying some madeleines and some linden tea bags, and began the experience the proper way!
Sam, it’s possible that your husband is uncomfortable with your practices and is punishing you for doing them; that’s unpleasantly common, albeit tacky. Does he tend to be passive-aggressive?
Chris @60, et al
Kind of like the old one where one one guy tells the other “Do you know you’re an a…. hole”, and the other replies ” No, but if you hum the tune, I’ll try to remember the words”
JMG., are you reading NABI? To your knowledge, what new elements does Heline bring to the tradition of Heindel, Steiner, and Blavatsky?
“wasn’t Allegro’s Jesus a different species of mushroom?”
Nope, same one.
JMG,
I would like to bring up a question I first brought up two or three weeks ago, unfortunately near the very end of another weekly comment thread:
What, in your opinion, is the broader social and political significance of the ongoing meteoric rise to prominence of the far-right podcaster Nick Fuentes, along with the ferocious struggle to suppress him and his influence that this has elicited among prominent figures in the more “mainstream” portion of the rightward political spectrum?
Does this social phenomenon represent the incipient rise of a Hitler-like figure, and a Nazi-like movement, in the United States, as some in the more “mainstream” portions of the political right fear?
I also welcome comments by others on these matters as well.
Re: Proust
I read the Montcrieff-Enright translation about 20 years ago (mostly on the train to and from work), and loved it. A particular line in I think the last or penultimate volume really stuck with me and seemed to sum up the entire work. I won’t share it here, lest it spoil its impact, but the full work is well worth reading for what it says about life.
This is a pretty trivial question in the grand scheme of things, but I am curious if anybody has opinions to share about Orson Scott Card’s writing? I personally really liked most of his earlier books, but got increasingly annoyed with his later outright preaching and (honestly) increasingly bored with his rehash of “same characters with different names” through his different series. The characters were compelling the first few times, but there are only so many “choose your own adventure” iterations of them that are worth reading. Do writers really “run out” of ideas?
That aside, what really got me to pose this question is that I have been reading (and occasionally hearing) more about his work, and it seems that people increasingly don’t like Card’s writing because of his political and religious views (which they clearly disagree with). I find it bizarre that people can’t separate the two–or, apparently, even separate the *quality* of someone’s writing with *attitude* of person writing it. It seems eerily reminiscent of Nazi Germany arguing against relativity on the ground that it was “Jewish math” (sorry for the standard Nazi reference–the relativity part jumped to my mind because of some work I am doing at the moment).
Anyway, thoughts? Opinions? (both on Card’s writing and on the way it is being judged)?
Beyond that, i
Hello John Michael,
I hope you and all the readers have had the best possible Solstice, Christmas, and everything celebrated this week.
Live from Pelican Place,
Christine Clifford
Christmas Day at 1:00am Central Time
I am writing notes.
Dana #7
> I think Nick was a demon.
If you think Nick Reiner is a demon, he probably is. Go with your intuition.
I think demons exist. Here on this blog I have gone into quite a bit of detail (what dates, I could’t say) about two significant encounters I had with a demon, one in 1990, the other in 2023.
😈In 1990, a demon entered me. It was my own massive anger and frustration that let it into me. I think it came from a house we were renting but I was susceptible. I struggled with the demon for a couple years, and finally expelled it.
😈In 2023, my mother-in-law (born 1939) came to live with my husband, “Jethro” and I, from her home in Arizona. We invited her. Big mistake. I nicknamed her “Komodo dragon” because that is how she behaved. On UTub, watch videos of Komodo dragons chasing goats, deer, or people. THAT was HER.
“Komoda” was totally different than all my experiences of her prior to her move here.
Jethro and I should have gotten a professional evaluation, ahead of time, of her physical state, but most importantly, an overview of her mental, emotional, and psychic state. The closest I can say is that something akin to the spirit of a Komodo dragon/“demon” entered her sometime between 2015 and 2023 in Arizona. She was never an “aware” person to begin with. Her inner “terribles” came out full force for seven months in close quarters. I had to dig down deep into my inner self to come out alive in any sense of the word, plus I felt I had to protect Jethro’s soul because she gunned for him most of all; because she knew him so well, he was hugely vulnerable. Our “ejection” of her was not pretty but, as far as I can tell, Jethro and I came out of the ordeal alright. It took a few months to recover any semblance of safety. Harrowing is a word for the entire episode.
So I have two sets of experience dealing with demons.
There aren’t a whole lot of books on the subject of demons that I could find. What is it even called? Demonology? I hope libraries have more and better sources than were/are available to me online.
I advise anyone with an interest in demons to read as much as one can. Research demons. Study demons. Get to know demons’ characteristics from the viewpoints of different religious traditions.
Become familiar with the sorts of things that bring a demon near one. Actually, at this point, I believe demons are all around every one of us, generally invisible. I will go as far to say “demons stalk.” They hover invisibly. Getting to know about demons makes them more visible in one’s awareness, and therefore, one is better armed at dealing with them. They are here. I feel them.
Demons wait. They have infinite time. They wait for a soul’s weakness. They wait for a time when a person is in bad shape.
Any kind of gestures or prayers of protection are definitely warranted.
I am secular. I think demons relish secular people because secular people pooh-pooh the existence of demons, which demons love. Secular people are complete suckers, being unprotected because of denial.
Another thing is to find some kind of helper to aid in the experience of a demon. It is not something to undertake alone.
Both episodes were frightening. Who, and where, does one turn to? A local religious or holy person? Does my town have a shaman? If so, I have seen no classified advertisement saying, “Are you up against a demon? I am the new professional shaman in town. Call (—-) ———-.”
These personal experiences are part of the reason why I feel VERY strongly that “love-and-light” (and its variations) is 110% cr_p. Love-and-light “mood-making” does not keep demons at bay. Love-and-light against a demon is like Tinkerbell against Godzilla.
I shall end here.
Wishing you well,
💨🤷🏼♀️💨Northwind Grandma
Dane County, Wisconsin, USA
70-something
@Eike, my prediction is that the next inter-European war will be between Poland and Germany. Anti-German sentiment has been whipped up in Poland over the past few years, and right now, they’d have a good chance of winning. Alternatively, after Ukraine has been reduced by the Russian peace treaty, they might want to return the western parts of it to the homeland. In any case, I’d watch the Polish; right now, they are undecided whether to hate us or the Russians more, and are armed to the teeth.
JMG # 45:
When I’ve read your prediction about woke feminists converting into conservative Islam in the future, I’ve thought: “Oops! It doesn’t sound very strange for me…” Endophobia ironically can make a convergence between two ideologies with not much self criticism alike…
*********^**
I agree. “Our” western narrative is “our” Spectacle, rehashing the weared WW2 stereotyped against the Russians, but of course Putin and his supporters have their own narrative, which can be easily developped thanks to the Kiev regime fondness to allow Nazi symbols and attitudes within some Ukrainian Army units. So the Russian Spectacle has some real base to be held…
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Phutatorius # 52:
I also liked the Mulholland Drive scene in which appears the own Badalamenti: yes, the perfect coffee, ha ha…
–>AT THIS LINK<– is the FULL list of all of the requests for prayer that have recently appeared at ecosophia.net and ecosophia.dreamwidth.org, as well as in the comments of the prayer list posts (printable version here, current to 12/22). Please feel free to add any or all of the requests to your own prayers.
If I missed anybody, or if you would like to add a prayer request for yourself or anyone who has given you consent (or for whom a relevant person holds power of consent) to the list, please feel free to leave a comment below.
* * *
This week I would like to bring special attention to the following prayer requests, selected from the fuller list.
May Bob Ralston (aka Rasty Bob), who is in hospice care in Buckeye AZ, and who just lost his wife Leslie Fish, be blessed and find relief from his pain and discomfort; may Bob’s heart remain strong.
May Leslie Fish, wife of Bob Ralston, who passed away in early December, be blessed and make a peaceful transition to her next existence.
May Angelica, who has reason to believe she and her property are under physical threat, remain safe and protected, and her property unbothered.
May Corey Benton, who passed away on 12/10, be blessed and make a peaceful transition to his next destination.
May Satoko L in Kyoto, who is recovering at home after weeks of hospitalization for Acute Hepatitis while in a state of immunodeficiency, continue to heal quickly and safely, and return to full vitality.
May 5 year old Max be blessed and protected during his parents’ contentious divorce; may events work out in a manner most conducive to Max’s healthy development over the long term.
May Lydia G. of Geauga County, Ohio heal and recover from prolonged health issues.
May John N. receive positive energy toward getting through a temporary but irritating health issue.
May Patrick’s mother Christine‘s vital energy be strengthened so she can continue healing at home without need for more surgical operations.
May both Monika and the child she is pregnant with both be blessed with good health and a safe delivery.
May Mary’s sister have her auto-immune conditions sent into remission, may her eyes remain healthy, and may she heal in body, mind, and spirit.
May Marko have the awareness and strength to constructively deal with the situation.
May the abcess in JRuss’s left armpit heal quickly.
May Brother Kornhoer’s son Travis’s left ureter be restored to full function, may his body have the strength to fight off infections, may his kidneys strengthen, and may his empty nose syndrome abate, so that he may have a full and healthy life ahead of him.
May HippieVikings’s baby HV, who was born safely but has had some breathing concerns, be filled with good health and strength.
May Trubujah’s best friend Pat’s teenage daughter Devin, who has a mysterious condition which doctors are so far baffled by necessitating that she remain in a wheelchair, be healed of her condition; may the underlying cause come to light so that treatment may begin.
May J Guadalupe Villarruel Zúñiga, father of CRPatiño’s friend Jair, who suffers from terminal kidney and liver damage, continue to respond favorably to treatment; may he also remain in as good health as possible, beat doctors’ prognosis, and enjoy with his wife and children plenty of love, good times and a future full of blessings.
May Kevin’s sister Cynthia be cured of the hallucinations and delusions that have afflicted her, and freed from emotional distress. May she be safely healed of the physical condition that has provoked her emotions; and may she be healed of the spiritual condition that brings her to be so unsettled by it. May she come to feel calm and secure in her physical body, regardless of its level of health.
May Frank R. Hartman, who lost his house in the Altadena fire, and all who have been affected by the larger conflagration be blessed and healed.
* * *
Guidelines for how long prayer requests stay on the list, how to word requests, how to be added to the weekly email list, how to improve the chances of your prayer being answered, and several other common questions and issues, are to be found at the Ecosophia Prayer List FAQ.
If there are any among you who might wish to join me in a bit of astrological timing, I pray each week for the health of all those with health problems on the list on the astrological hour of the Sun on Sundays, bearing in mind the Sun’s rulerships of heart, brain, and vital energies. If this appeals to you, I invite you to join me.
Aldarion # 57:
Thanks for your comment. I had no idea of those very ancient walls in Bretagne. Our image of our “primitive” is usually biased by our modern Progress mythology, but our ancestors were wiser and more skilled than we would like to imagine.
Merry Christmas Day or happy vacations to your all!
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Scotlyn # 63:
The “little” problem with male genital mutulation (also known as circuncision) is that their victims can’t opine about it, and they usually lack will and reasoning to think about it. Oh, it’s a very easy operation, but when it’s perpetred outside an hospital can be dangerous (some times ago, the son of an African couple of migrants died after being mutilated at home, cough cough in my country). Female mutilation usually is more aggresive than male one, but circuncision isn’t free of risk. Of course, liberals won’t point this practice indeed is dangerous and against the Human Rights, because it’s not woke to be blamed as Antisemitic/Islamophobic alike. A big can of worms could be opened! In addition to this, even some pundits say circumcision is good for health, if you believe a United Nations informs. By the way, Arab kingdoms rich in oil (until today) have gently financed a good part of UN expensive meetings and bureaucracy. I’m sorry if I’ve been too much politically incorrect.
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Some commenters have written about the cost of life nowadays. Well, I would like to say only that there may be a correlation between expensive and increasing cost of live (especially flats thanks to the house financing bubble) and collapse of birth rate; at least in my country. It’s also interesting our beloved migrants, when they have been living here a certain time, let their own birth rate falling like the native Spaniards (in spite the far right Spectacle about high birth rate between migrants cough cough).
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Eike # 73:
I don’t hear the war drums yet, here in Spain. Our political leaders and the “opposition” are engaged in the own ugly Spectacle to keep/reach the power, without worrying about everyday people problems. Economy officially works well, but inflation (cough cough) especially in food, cannot be hided by cooked statistics. Oh, and we also have an evident finance bubble in housing: get a house in propiety or rented is near impossible for young people. I think we’re going to worse times, but the decline by definition is a slow thing, so unless EU morons decide to go to the war against Russia directly, there eon’t be a fast collapse.
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Achille#
I am a country fellow of you and , equality, I feel that we are in the acelerating phase of a new and more acute phase of a the catabolic collapse in wich is involved all the world , but wich I fear that It will be more harsh in our country.
Yesterday I watched the TV series Chernobyl, about the nuclear catastrophe that schocked all Western Europe in 1986, and I found too much paralelisms between the soviet society of these times and the present spanish society because the criminal incompetence and malignity of the political élites and equality because the generosity , nobilty and courage of the Russian and Ucranian people. This find added with the inexplicable delay in the helping to the víctims of the last year’s flooding in Valencia (DANA) lead to me to fear that we must be prepared for an unbeliavle assortment of disgraces. And the need of to store in our houses wáter, food, candles , torch batteries , means for cooking , etc. for more than ten days.
About your worry about death, I think that we should think that each day that we enjoy will be the last and, about our sons, we should encourage them for the adquisition of the skills required for Jobs like plumbers, Carpenters, eléctricians, etc. According with the advices of our admired Archdruid “Collapse now and avoid the rush”.
Please , understand my words not for to induce you a feel of shelf defeating but , metaphorically, the caution of a guerrillero wich needs to survive for to wait the oportune moment for fight.
If I may, a wee question about the cover of your recent book – “Revisioning the Tree of Life”. I do realise that cover art is not your department, but still, I wonder if you (or any of the commenters here), know the identity of, or anything about, the medieval looking manuscript which appears, as if with torn off edges, on this cover?
Thank you for the book. Sitting my way through the 8th sphere in an absolutely first pass that has taken me 3 months or so…
Re Eike #73,
Here in the Netherlands it’s difficult to get a good idea of what people really think, as there is a lot of self-censorship. I do know there is something of a split in society, which, I think, is not really a left / right thing, although both sides frame the other side in that way: you are either woke or a fascist, that’s the idea..
(Both sides don’t talk to ‘the enemy’ and when you don’t immediately and fully agree with them, they assume you are with the bad guys and treat you as such. I know of small villages that are split in two, like this…)
As for Europe as a whole, I don’t see a war coming (or at least not soon), but I expect some color revolutions, here and there (France, Germany) and maybe some countries that leave the EU (Hungary), which will destroy the EU.
What happens after that is anybody’s guess, but I assume that here in the Netherlands we will first hang on to the globalist / EU story for as long as is profitable for us, and then switch over to the idea that Russia and China are our best friends, and that they have always been our best friends.
–bk
Good day all. Thank goodness that Ezra Klein, the chatteringest of the chattering classes has written a book on POLICY (imagine that, an intellectual lecturing people on the policy of the government that will be good for them) for a future that grows the economy and protects the environment. How generous of our smart leaders to tell us to just move to a walkable city, don’t eat meat or drive anywhere and we can grow the economy and still have half the world left over to be a nature preserve.
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/472664/decoupling-abundance-growth-meat-cars
This article literally says that agriculture is not that important to an economy.
The other topic that I’m noticing lately is the rise of “clutter-clearing” or “Boomer hoarders” or something along those lines. As I get less and less satisfaction out of having “nice” things I’ve started to see, especially senior citizens’, excessive possessions as a burden to deal with and not a source of stability or satisfaction. I’m even looking around at my stuff, which is not much more than I need, and am looking for things to sell. Multiple online sources are talking about people clearing clutter and just “stuff” often finding that there are no buyers and perfectly useful things are often just thrown away or given to charity. This tends to be the adult children of 70+ aged people who are dealing with a parent’s death or move to an elder care facility. Add to this, and at least in the rural areas, I’m starting to see a “flea market culture” emerge. People just have crap they want to get rid of, then they can post their “finds” on Facebook. It’s this weird paradoxical thing that we have so much cheap stuff, we don’t really need it, there doesn’t seem to be a market for it, yet everything is too expensive. While I am still a consumer and live partly in that world, I just wonder when it’s going to stop. Comments? Anyone else notice this?
John and other people have written about the movie “David” and its friendly” critics by the usual wokeized pundits. I want to say it isn’t the only religious activity to be opportunely silenced/hypercriticised by woke “soft” censorship. Well, I define myself as Christian, but though I’ve been raised in Catholicism, I don’t identify myself necessarily with every Roman dogma. Indeed, I don’t like certain catholic ideas and attitudes. However, a catholic idea has made me to pay attention to the catholic activism, in which I see something positive in it. If you didn’t know it yet, a candle light with fire from Bethelem (from the supposed place were Jesus was born) has travelled across all Europe to arrive to my neighbourhood catholic main church. Well, I haven’t been active in this campaign with my candle, but I think in addition to the pious tribute to Jesus birthday, indirectly this action supports at least the Christian minority in Palestine, which has suffered equally like their Muslim brothers and sisters.
Oh I wouldn’t surprise you when I’ve checked none of MSM here has paid attention to this campaign, but they’re eager to publish every supposed catholic sexual scandal as soon as possible. Of course, pro-Palestinian leftist activism has said no word about this, neither. It’s sadly interesting to see christian Palestinians have been ignored by anti-zionist left and pro-Israeli right alike (at least in my country).
By the way, I tell you I’ve got sympathy for the Palestinian people and I condemn the Netanyahu government war crimes against them, but I’m puzzled and even angry with the willing leftist blindness about who are Hamas and what are behaving with, (cough cough) the Palestinian women (which, according their ideology/religion, it isn’t a surprise). Of course, woke people (between them the feminists), shuts up because this uncomfortable truth doesn’t match with their particular Spectacle…
>Oh, and the trains are slightly less late and disorganized than the last time I was there, but it’s still a disaster.
You know things are getting bad when the *Germans* can’t keep the trains running on time.
>I’m glad I left when I did and am happy to see things unfold from a safe distance.
A hurricane is fascinating – from 1600km away. Well, I suppose it is fascinating from 30m away, but also terrifying.
>distract the populace with war
The problem with that right now, is they’ve been kicking those stray dogs, I mean, young men, they want to fight this war with for the past 10-15 years. They will get something from those young men. It will not be what they want.
In reponse to Eikes report of her impressions of Germany I can concur that the mood in Germany is rather gloomy. The Christmas market in the city where I live has seen a more modest amount of visitors than in some years past. The cultural life has a rather stagnant feel to it, a bit in the vein of endlessly rehashing the same things. There is a malaise and people don’t seem to have much of any other idea than muddling through as best as they can. I’ve read that German ecomissts (called Wirtschaftsweise, economy-wise people) warned that the German ecomony is in free-fall. This isn’t particularly visible publicly, but it promises a frightening spectrum of consequences.
Since the Second Religiosity was mentioned, I can add my impression, and it is that religion-wise, things in Germany seem to be as usual, so no big changes.
@nachtgurke #66
Machen Sie jeden Weihnacht ein deutschen Weihnacht! Jetzt! Schnell!
Und hier ist etwas Weihnachtslieder! Du musst einhoeren!
https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=zE-xk_pUK54
re: the moron meme
You might like to stash this one away too.
https://imgur.com/a/O18u6pr
>its always been on me to organise our entire social calendar, all celebrations etc etc.
Yes, dear.
>I am not willing to let my marriage implode for the sake of our children and my vows.
Can you think of ways to entice him to be around you more? To be more carrot and less stick?
Chuaquin: “By the way, no feminist from every tendence worries about male (babies and children) genital mutilation, because the circumcised victims are always boys…”
In Denmark, the campaigners against female genital mutilation also oppose circumcision. Part of that is because, circumcision there is quite rare among ethnic Danes and is found primarily among Muslim immigrants.
While surfing the TikTok dumpster fire, I saw a video of two bratty, young kids who had taken the liberty of opening all of their presents that were designated for Christmas morning. The wreckage was strewn around the Christmas tree and the children were not sorry. I sincerely hope the scene was AI, but I highly doubt it was. I chose not to become a parent a long time ago, so my question is for those who are parents or were parents of young children, what would you do in this case?
@ Shane Simonsen #36
I listened to the podcast with JMG that you linked to… and I noted with interest your mention of Eugene McCarthy, the scientist carrying out “dam*ed” research (in the fortean sense) into the subject of hybridisation (including as a potential account for human origins).
I’d like to point you both to his most recent (2025) publications:
“Telenothians: An Inquiry into the Limits of Hybridization”, a work in three volumes.
And a link to the goodreads post on volume 1 – https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/234482278-telenothians-an-inquiry-into-the-limits-of-hybridization
This will be going on my “to read” list… 🙂
@JMG on Proust: I started “Swan’s Way” in the old Scott Moncrieff translation: But by the time I got around to reading the whole cycle the Enright revision of the Moncrieff translation had appeared in nice Modern Library hardcovers. I thought the Enright revision was a big improvement. Some of the “preciousness” was gone. I also have “Swan’s Way” in a French edition, but I didn’t have the patience to get through more than a few pages. Anyway, enjoy it.
On the RAM price hikes: The RAM that goes into “AI” computers is not the same as RAM that ends up in computers and smartphones. In consumer devices, the RAM is packaged into chips which are then soldered onto a circuit board. In the high performance computers used for “AI”, the RAM gets packaged together with the processors on a silicon interposer, which is basically just a very high performance circuit board. The RAM cannot be repurposed at this stage. So there will be no glut of RAM when the AI bubble pops, at least not in forms that are useful for laptops or smartphones. The reason why consumer RAM is affected by this is that the same equipment and raw materials can be used to make both types of RAM, and currently the high performance compute RAM is much more profitable to manufacture than consumer RAM.
I will note that gasoline prices where I am are only 7% higher than they were fifteen years ago. I find this remarkable considering the decline in the value of the Canadian dollar over the same time period.
Merry Christmas to all who celebrate.
@Nachtgurke, “days between the years” is not a phrase I’ve ever heard in English – but what a wonderful way to describe the last few days of December.
JMG,
Here is a big picture question I have been thinking about lately.
What would things in the US be like today if those in charge had chosen to no longer pursue the dark and often covert manipulation of other governments and people for economic ideological or economic purposes.
Lets say we choose the point in time where The Shah was installed in Iran, and go from there. No Vietnam War, No Pinocet in Chile, no Iran Contras, No operation Condor, No arming Islamic militias to fight the Russians, etc.
I realize that these things have been part and parcel of empire, but what would things in America be like without them. Would the empire have collapsed long ago as those in power at the CIA probably believe? Or would things be better?
@Phutatorius, et al: I didnt watch the show when it aired originally either. I got started with Fire Walk With Me, which I saw in 1998 while having a summer fling in Tennessee with a girl I had met after one of my friends moved there with his girlfriend. It was the same summer I went with her and my cousin and a yoga teacher to the Espanola mountain area in NM and did a week of kundalini yoga and “White Tantric Yoga” with the Sikhs under the late Yogi Bhajan. I was 18 and the movie seared my memory like other events of the summer, including a week at the annual Rainbow Gathering in AZ that year.
A number of years later I got into watching Lynch’s other films. The first time I saw Mullholland Drive it baffled me… but later it became, perhaps, my favorite of his films. The Elephant Man is a beautiful straight forward film, and you realize Lynch’s humanity in seeing that. Its not all huge weirdness. His movie The Straight Story is very good too, based on the true tale of a brother who drove his tractor mower 240 miles across Wisconsin and Iowa to visit his dying brother. Very heartland.
My old boss at work, who also shares my love of Tiny Tim, loaned me his VHS tapes of the show and that is how I first watched the show. I think the library also had a VHS tape of the pilot, the Euro version which was edited into a movie with different footage at the end: all the stuff about the boiler room at the end, which ties in with stuff that came up in The Return.
I hear what you are saying about the images. I started watching horror films when I was just a kid, at another kids house. Some stuff I saw there I wish I had never seen.
You are right about Mark Frost. I note that he wrote two mainstream occult detective thrillers in the 90s. I read the TP tie in novel he wrote when The Return came out. Also read Lynch’s daughters Laura Palmer Diaries. So yeah, I am into all this stuff.
The way he used sound in Eraserhead and other films is another aspect. All those industrial sounds… he was industrial music adjacent. He left behind a very rich body of work.
@Sister Crow: re: David movie review: 😀 that is the funniest hit piece I’ve encountered in ages. I can’t tell if it’s deliberate parody or accidental parody. Basically amounts to: “your religious stories are offensive to non-religious people: and your animation stinks too”. Somehow I think the reviewer is not the target audience 😉 On suspects the only way to make that reviewer happy would be to tell… a completely different story.
To all them that celebrate it: Blessed Nativity!
‘Tis the season for making predictions about next year, and since this is an open post I figured I would provide mine at the risk of being pilloried as a buffoon come next December:
– Open war between the US and Venezuela (although it may not officially be called war); open conflict of some kind in Eastern Europe (probably in the Baltics). Basis: To a certain extent this has already kind of broken out, but in the Aries ingress, Mars is in Pisces in the 10th house (US/Venezuela) or the 7th (Eastern Europe). Since Neptune is in Aries, Mars in Pisces has mutual reception and acts as if also in Aries.
– Beijing will attempt to retake Taiwan THIS year rather than next as the pundits predict. Basis: Mars in the 4th for both Beijing and Taipei’s Aries ingress charts. From China’s perspective this is a domestic matter.
– The Democrats retake the House but not the Senate, and in any case Congress is hampered in its ability to tackle issues (Basis: The Libra ingress is the salient one for the election. Cancer rules the 4th and Capricorn the 10th. Saturn is cadent, retrograde, and in fall. The Moon is succedent and peregrine. The Sun rules the 5th and is cadent; Uranus rules the 11th and is succedent, peregrine, and retrograde.
– Despite this, “woke” does not make as strong a comeback as some might fear. Basis: The past 50 years have seen the outer planets Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune often in the more humanistic final triad of the zodiac. Untii about 2035 all three are in the primal first triad. This prediction COULD be wrong. The extended Neptune-in-Pisces period (which included much of Neptune in Aquarius because of mutual reception between it and Uranus in Pisces) also had a great deal to do with this.
– US stock markets will likely peak in Q1, be more or less steady in Q2, but fall in Q3. Basis; Rulerships of the 2nd, 3rd, and 5th houses – the 3rd house because so much of the stock market at the moment is tied to the well-being of the tech sector.
@Jennifer, Siliconguy:
“are y’all really spending this much?” (paraphrase)
Haha, no.
I am tearing my hair out in frustration because we’re still stuck renting, which sharply limits our ability to, say, grow food and set up household workspaces of the type that would either save us money (lots of clotheslines), or allow for smallscale manufacturing for sale and trade.
And still, we are living on slightly more than *half* what these doofuses writing such articles define as “the new poverty line”. Nobody’s going hungry, we still eat meat, everybody has enough clothing and shoes, and we’re a family of five. And we’re not in debt. I’d hardly define that as dire poverty. Just not affluent.
I mean, perhaps it’s accurate if you live in a very expensive urb, or somewhere like Vermont where it’s apparently impossible to find a house if you didn’t inherit one. But we don’t live in a rural area either– my spouse’s job depends on us living in commuting distance of one or more decent-sized hospitals.
Which is not to say that there aren’t problems with living on a median income these days, and yeah it’s definitely worse now than trying to live on a median income a few decades ago: we are over forty and staring down the barrel of old age with some anxiety: we’ll never be able to retire, and unless the RE market does an impressive collapse (we’re hoping!), may never be able to escape rental serfdom. At the same time… we’re able to live on one income and homeschool our kids (local schools are garbage: this is the only way they’d get an OK education), and for now at least, we have everything we need. A lot comes down to how you define poverty.
I just finished reading “God is Red” by Vine DeLoria, Jr. and was surprised that he seemed to be a fan of Immanuel Velikovsky. Do you have an opinion on Velikovsky’s work?
Thanks.
@Eike, I‘m in Germany at the moment and tend to agree that the mood is pretty grim. That the German trains are now among the worst in Europe is generally felt (by passengers I’ve listened to) as confirmation that the country is going down the drain. The Government, and Friedrich Merz in particular, are considered (by most of the people I’ve spoken to) to have failed dismally.
However, there doesn’t seem to be any consensus on what to do about it. Germany seems to be divided into two camps: on the one hand those who think our problems are caused by ongoing opposition to liberalism, and who thus think the way forward is to turn liberalism up to 11 and purge all the non-believers. And on the other hand are those who think liberalism/globalism is the cause of our problems, and should be abandoned. Both sides seem to be beyond the point of compromise, are are drifting further and further away from each other.
Germany has always been a country of extremists, both positive and negative. I hope we can sort ourselves out before someone else does it for us.
Having said all that, the mood today at the Christmas choir service at the cathedral here was very positive, so there’s still hope 🙂
@Kimberly: we’ve been doing Christmas with kids for thirteen years now, and they’ve never done any such thing. Wouldn’t even occur to them, I think.
@WatchFlinger: decluttering: if you donate or sell useful things, they’re not wasted! Families like ours completely depend on the secondhand market to furnish and equip our homes: I cannot remember the last time I bought a kitchen implement or piece of furniture new. I get that stuff at a tiny fraction of retail price (new would be prohibitively expensive!) generally in thrift stores or at estate sales. So yeah: we benefit from the excess of boomer clutter.
The useful stuff at least. We note that the same electric cork-pulling device, new in box, has been at the thrift shop unsold for months. They will probably throw that thing out, eventually. There’s not much overlap, IMO between folks who shop for secondhand plates and mixing bowls, and people who throw wine parties 😉
Merry KRAMPUS to All, and to All a Good Fright! … especially as it pertains (with a few exceptions) to the various eurotard, um, so-called ‘leadership’! ‘;] I’ll even toss the neocon establishment on both sides of the Pond ..for bad measure, tho they be often one and the same..
Speaking of catalogs, I received a 2026 BakerCreek cat. in the post recently. Not as extensive as last year’s tome that I purchased at the local bookstore. Sorry to hear that Raintree’s gone totally digital. Used to buy fruit trees, assorted berries, and such through them, which were established throughout the house lot .. back when I OWNED a house, pre-divorce. Argh!
I’ seriously thinking of ordering some film treasure DVDs through Criterion/Janus .. while they still have that medium on offer, while it lasts.
@House of Card: re: Orson Scott Card: I understand he had a stroke somewhere in there. Never dived in to figure out which books were before and after the stroke, but did sort of assume that was the reason the later ones didn’t quite… work. Perhaps it was his health. There’s also the possibility that, like many very driven authors, he spent a few good books hashing out some pretty deep personal griefs and conflicts, but there’s only so many times you can go to that same well before the themes get stale. Maybe something brilliant might’ve followed, if he’d ever truly transcended his personal hangups. But he’s only human.
Ambrose, it’s on order. I’m currently halfway through Star Gates, which I read many decades ago. I’m not yet sure how much of her material is original to her and how much is from Heindel’s private lessons, but she’s certainly working with the same ideas taught by George Winslow Plummer and the early Manly P. Hall; what I’ve read so far of her work takes those ideas, popularizes them somewhat, and blends them with an angel-centric spirituality that draws its symbolism but not its theology from Christianity.
Denizen, I haven’t really followed the squabbles over Fuentes. The internet is constantly churning with figures who rise briefly to prominence and then sink back down again, and it’s far from clear at this point whether Fuentes is anything different. The possibility of a Nazi-equivalent movement in the United States, however, is a real one, as I’ve been pointing out since 2014 —
https://thearchdruidreport-archive.200605.xyz/2014/02/fascism-and-future-part-three-weimar.html
— but it’s not antisemitism that drives it. It’s the consistent failure of the political classes to address the needs and concerns of ordinary Americans, which leaves the field wide open for a plausible tyrant.
KAN, that’s the translation I’m reading, too. So far it’s very pleasant, if slow going.
House, I read a few of Card’s earlier works back in the day and found them mildly dull, but not otherwise objectionable. Writers can certainly run out of ideas, especially if they’ve got a narrow set of images that obsess them; the later novels of Robert A. Heinlein are poster children here, for example. (Must we get yet another pregnant redhead?) As for the dismissal of writers on ideological grounds, yeah, that’s become pervasive of late; it’s very clear that a lot of people are so insecure in their political beliefs that they can’t stand anything that doesn’t kowtow to every last detail of those beliefs. Fortunately this is having an unexpected blowback, which I’ll be discussing in an upcoming post.
Christine, thank you and likewise.
Chuaquin, yeah, that’s the perennial problem with “magician states” — the sorcerers become the victims of their own illusions.
Quin, thanks for this as always.
Scotlyn, I have no idea. You’d want to drop a note to the publisher and ask them. I’m glad to hear you’re finding the book useful!
WatchFlinger, that is to say, Klein is pushing the same set of failed ideas that people of his class have been pushing for the last thirty years or so. I hope he enjoys the warm rush of self-righteousness he must have felt when he sent the manuscript to the publisher, because that bit of intellectual onanism is the only result that book is going to get. As for clutter-clearing, that’s fascinating — and for me, timely; I plan on relocating early in the new year and so have been assessing a decade’s worth of clutter and deciding what goes.
Chuaquin, literally the only other people I’ve heard talking about the oppression of Palestinian Christians by the dominant cultures in that part of the world are some Christian members of the populist right. It’s a good indication of the extent to which the world’s complex narratives are being flattened out into cheap morality plays by most groups in Western society.
Other Owen, got it and thank you.
Scotlyn, thanks for the heads up. I’ll consider getting the trilogy as well, as I’ve been a fan of McCarthy’s theory since I first encountered it. If he’s right, and human beings really are descended from a hybridization of bonobos and swine, it would explain so much!
Phutatorius, I’ve got the Enright revision in three fat volumes.
Clay, the empire would have collapsed and all of us in the US would be a lot poorer. On the other hand, we wouldn’t be facing the traumatic collapse of empire that’s bearing down on us right now.
Brendhelm, duly noted!
Pam, Deloria was interested in alternative views, and Velikovsky’s theories seem very plausible if you don’t have a background in physics. Velikovsky was certainly correct that major catastrophes play a much larger role in human history than it was fashionable to suggest in the 1950s, though he was wrong about their source.
Oh, and speaking of that supposedly ‘horrendous’ film ‘DAVID’ .. some of the good folks at NERDOTIC* were/are looking forward into viewing that flick, last time I watched their podcast. They, the Nerdrotic Crew .. as a general rule, totally Excoriate much of what the Corpesrate Movie/Film industry is/has been spewing out these decade(s) long years of Wokian Hell. They Absolutely take No Studio/Actor/Tinseltown Gliterati-Reviewers prisoners! Good on them I say. And to Mr. Greer – they’ve about had it, regarding all the crapification done to the ever cringe worthy attempts at changing the whole ‘Superhero genre’ into pushing the ‘gurrrl boss’ narritive, at the expense of .. you guessed it .. traditional, white, straight, male attendees.
*not suitable for the faint of art .. or at times, the ears…
@ JPM and other fans of “Mulholland Drive”: There are so many scenes that were spooky or scary on first viewing that became hilariously funny upon repeated viewing. The scene at “the corral” with “the Cowboy” was one of these. I let my brother watch the movie on DVD at my house. He remarked after that scene that it was absolutely the weirdest/oddest thing he’d ever seen. After it was over, I went to bed but my brother stayed up and watched the whole movie again.
Denizen of Hillsdale # 83:
I’m not an expert in US sociopolitical situation, I’m only a “dilettante” with a broad interests spectrum…but in none of them a pundit. So it’s not strange I didn’t know that rising far right man name. What I can tell you from my European view is we must have caution before to point there’s a new Hitler at home. The fallacy “reductio ad Hitlerum” is dangerous: if everybody can be a Nazi, then nothing is really Nazi (because we’ve degraded the term “fascism” by over-use). I’m interested in radical speechers from far left/right because they rarely say truths under the radar of sociopolitical consensus (or “conventional wisdom”); though I’m also concerned by what would it happen if these extremists tiny Spectacle would gain momentum within the whole society: maybe nothing good. I’d like to finish my comment about far right radicalism remembering a good moment IMHO in the movie “Nuremberg”, when the main character says Nazis aren’t really different from us in their mind. They have certain tendences which share with some of our nowadays citizens, so…it’s not impossible fascism would revive some day, but in which way?(not in the stereotypical german way).
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House of Card # 85:
I’ve read Orson Scott Card “Ender Game” books, translated to spanish, and they looked like good IMHO, not for Nobel Prize but good. By the way, I suppose you all know Card is a Mormon (a fact which doesn’t mean nothing to praise nor to despise this author, me thinks). It’s sad wether he’s judged by his idyosincratic beliefs. I’m not a Mormon but liked his Ender saga.
I haven’t read more recent novels by this writer, so I don’t have a full and definitive opinion about his most recent books.
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Northwind Grandma # 87:
Some years ago a spanish catholic priest (José Antonio Fortea) wrote several books about Demonology and had his 10 minutes of fame in MSM. Of course, he’s a very controverted man, but his bosses in Rome didn’t punish nor criticised him never. Orthodox churches and some Protestant churches have their own exorcists/exorcisms; and I bet some Pagans (like our dear John has said a time ago, me thinks) believe in demons existence too.
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Athaia # 88:
I don’t know surely wether Germans and Polish will be at war soon, but I know it’s said Poles have hated and hate the Russians today. Is it a national stereotype or a real hatred which goes on thanks to xenophobe local Spectacle? Maybe real thing is mixed. I know Polish people usually is conservative and in every election far right harvests a heck of votes: so, Russophobia indeed exists there until some degree I’m unable to measure.
@Scottlyn: In the trilogy, does McCarthy discuss his “hybrid hypothesis” at any length? Or is it mainly about his other work on hybrids in general? Either way it looks intriguing.
First off, a happy Yuletide to JMG & the whole commentariat – may you all enjoy whichever holy days you celebrate at this time of Winter!
Second, does anyone know if New Maps is still being published? I know that Nathanael Bonnell published it quarterly when it was new, but it seems to have slowed down of late and no new issues have dropped in the last seven months. I’d like to know if any more are planned as I have a deindustrial story I’m looking for a publisher for.
@House of Card,
I do have a similar opinion about Orson Scott Card – he was my favorite author when I was a child, but as I got older I realized that he wrote all his really good works at the beginning of his career (Treason, Worthing Chronicle, Ender’s Game, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, etc. ) and that everything he’s written since the mid-1990s is increasingly bad pulp fiction… albeit pulp fiction that’s clearly written by a Mormon with all the peculiarities that implies. (Let’s be honest – the atheist-materialism of the majority of sci-fi writers these days is boring; even schlocky stuff written by religious people is less boring.) But oh well… most authors don’t have the ability to produce even one book on the level of <Ender's Game or the Worthing Chronicle, so I won’t hold all the pulp against him.
@85 House of Cards
I’ve read Ender’s Game, Speaker For The Dead, Xenocide, Children of the Mind, Ender’s Shadow, Shadow of the Hegemon, & Shadow Puppets.
The first five books are decent to great, IMO. Shadow of the Hegemon was bad. Shadow Puppets was way too preachy* (Children of the Mind was too preachy but the plot was good) and low quality. I read Wikipedia synopses of the rest of the Shadow spinoff series, and in the fifth book of that series he again rehashes the characters of Ender, Peter, & Valentine in Bean’s children. And Ender was deceived all along and the Buggers were evil, which trashes the message of the original sequels to Ender’s Game.
*I would have rather have Card make the gay character a horrible person rather than turn him into a mouthpiece for Card’s own views on homosexuality.
There is something which I forgot to add to my earlier comment: according to recent experiences, German bureaucracy has become quite dysfunctional.
@Chuaquin, Phutatorius:
It would be neat to grab an espresso with you cats!
Lynch on the art life
“You drink coffee, you smoke cigarettes, and you paint, and that’s it.”
“Cuan an Cheoil Clár 10: Caoimhe Ní Fhlatharta agus Séamus Ó Flatharta”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TurIKn3qkY4
I don’t know if you like this – the Video isn’t necessary if you don’t want to watch the musicians playing, although the setting is pleasant enough. It can be heard just as “radio” with a lot of beautiful music and talking in Gaelic (ok, now I’m rather sure it’s Gaelic 😉 ). I don’t understand a word, but I really like it.
Cheers,
Nachtgurke
@Owen #99 – I’m not really sure what you want to tell me… But if I remember correctly, my parents owned the CD and I had to listen to it from time to time. Not sure, if I liked it back then.
Cheers,
Nachtgurke
I have enjoyed some of Brandon Sanderson’s writing – the Mistborn cavalcade of books. The influence of his Mormon theology at least from my probably partial knowledge of it is apparent. As regards Mormons you are welcome to think their religion is stupid, but from my own experience of Mormons if you think Mormons are stupid you are the fool.
Anselmo # 92:
Hello! It’s ironic we’ve met at least 3 spanish citizens in such as Anglophone blog. Well, it’s maybe a sign of the times…
You’ve started writing about catabolic collapse. It’s not an absurd concept, and may work better than other faster and more sudden collapse models; because by I’ve read about that model, collapse would arrive with unstability, but then it would “die” by itself to find a new provisional and temporary equilibrium. In a rough analogy, we’re going to go down in a long ladder.
I’m not happy with Spain current context, neither.
I’ve also seen the Chernobyl series like you, and I agree. It’s a “dejà vu” feeling to notice near the same attitude in our reckless and incompetent elites. However, I’m skeptical about a fast fall into the next step down the catabollic collapse stairs. Well, maybe I’m wrong, but unless we would be dragged by the EU bureaucrats/politicians to directly defy Russia, I cannot see big disruption signs. Of course, signs of sociopolitical, spiritual and economic decline are everywhere, but I think they only suggest a slow way down.
Thanks for your advices to Achille, which myself could apply in my own everyday life and in worse times. Though I’ve made since some years ago a “survival kit” in my storage room, for example. Gracias!
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BK # 94:
It’s sad to me when I find the same or simillar self destructive tendences across different EU countries: polarization, political tension and echo chambers everywhere. Well, there are national “local color” in depictions but trends are converging me thinks.
So in your depiction of Netherlands today I see reflected some Spain problems too. Elites are reckless and out of reality, for example.
I share your thought when you say you don’t see a big European war soon, but more probably color revolutions and some runaways out of EU.
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Booklover # 98:
Your reference to German Christmas market has reminded me I was a bit puzzled when I went to my town own Christmas market (yes, there are some spanish imitations of them here) and I saw a lot of people, but few buyers there. However, this Cristhmad Eve the few bars opened in my town were full of drinkers. Though under one of my town main bridges, at less than 100 m from the crowded bars, there’s a small tent and cardboard town, full of homeless African migrants. I think you can choose what you want to see according your own Spectacle, but IMHO the differences are painful.
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Jessica # 102:
Congrstulations to the Danish because you’ve got such as responsible and coherent feminism. I’m afraid I can’t say the same thing about spanish feminism/leftism. Unless a few fringe groups, critics against compulsory babies/boys “cultural” circuncision have been a few far right groups, some of them connected with the “man-o-sphere”(which is the simetrical mirror game to feminist excesses and victimism made up by certain men). Here the Antisemitism and Islanophobia bogey men are rutinarily used as thoughtstoppers when the topic is rarely seen. MSM and lobbies make near impossible this topic appears into the Overton window here…
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(To be continued…)
“So there will be no glut of RAM when the AI bubble pops, at least not in forms that are useful for laptops or smartphones.”
True. The sort of soldering skills and equipment needed to deal with those chips are watchable on YouTube by a guy called dosdude1. Here is one example.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Xrg7nPG6_UU&pp=ygUIRG9zZHVkZTHYBgk%3D
As to the poverty level debate, back when Elizabeth Warren was sane she did a Ted talk (or some other lecture) on how bringing women into the workforce did not improve the finances due to the extra childcare, transportation costs, and taxes consuming her new income. Of course GDP went up as all that unmonetized labor was now “properly” accounted for. GDP is the greatest good, just ask Paul Krugman. (Insert sarcasm tag here)
And to go way back, a Carrington event could be a mess. The good news is this has been considered. The longer the powerlines the bigger the problem. Local power distribution should not be affected. The solar observatories will see the flare coming and give enough warning so the long distance interconnects can be shutdown. At worst they can shutdown the whole grid for a couple of days. Better that than risk blowing out transformers that take two years to build.
The Federal Emergency Management Administration recommends being able to get by for three days on your own. If you can manage that you can ride out a Carrington event.
Also, a Carrington event is not the same as a nuclear weapon induced EMP. Different physics involved, different mitigations needed.
@ Phutatorius #121 – I cannot tell you that, since I have not gotten my hands on the books yet. 🙂
I will reveal that my first review of McCarthy’s website was way back years ago when JMG dropped a passing reference to it somewhere in an Archdruid Report post. My own interest in fortean research means that it proved to be an irresistable, and delightful, rabbit hole that I myself spent a few weeks going down… then…
The recent refresher in the conversation between Simon and JMG prompted me to go over to his website again, and despite the old-fashioned “feel” of his website, he has kept it up to date, and is apparently still active there. He mentions his recent publication in the “about me” section here: https://www.macroevolution.net/about-me.html
What he says about the books is that they go deeply into the question of how wide can the distance between species be before they can no longer hybridise.
🙂
Kimberly Steele @103
When my daughter was a child, we gave her a few good quality things that we knew she would like and use, and she was great with it. Her one cousin used to receive a lot of stuff, much from his grandmother. It was a disgusting sight to watch him. As in your video, he would tear the package open,throw it aside and go on to the next one. By the end of the day much of it was broken.
Stephen
@Denizen #83 As regards a effective fascist style movement in the USA I think the signal would a smart, crafty, charismatic figure leader with a broad appeal (not Trump, he is aging out) and certainly not Nick Fuentes. I don’t know if J.D. Vance or Marco Rubio could pull it off or some other current member of the Trump administration. I think a successful movement unlike the more imperialistic regimes of Italy, Germany, and Japan would be America First as a giant Switzerland with a Monroe Doctrine style keeping of outside influences away from Latin America and Canada. A localized imperialism so to speak.
Antisemitism wouldn’t be a feature, but perhaps Israel would be left to stand on its own. And future Muslim immigration to the USA would be stifled and there would be no tolerance for Muslim extremism, or Woke/Antifa rioting. Act like the Sikhs who have their culture but are peaceful citizens and would happily put down Muslim shenanigans. And from my own experience of the conservative tendencies of Mexicans and many Afro-Americans and a number of gays a clever “fascist” leader could create a big tent they would be happy to join and the Sikhs and Indian immigrants. Yep, a moderate fascism I could get into, but a horror to the woke types.
@Chuaquin
I was aghast at Israel’s Western backers allowing the state to destroy historical Christian churches, and I saw that as evidence that the common leftist claim that Israel is a puppet of the USA and not the other way around is false.
Denizen of Hillsdale, Michigan #83
I am a fan of Nick Fuentes. He tells the truth. I have really liked him since I saw an interview he did with Tuckr Carlsun (subscription). If one ACTUALLY listens to him firsthand, he says nothing objectionable. If one takes others’ word for what he say, well, that is when trouble comes. He has been libeled and slandered. I started reading what he actually wrote, seen what he actually said, and have come to my own conclusions. I studied him. The guy is terrific.
“Telling the truth” is more than enough why powers want to silence him.
Nick Fuentes is not anti-semite. He is not FAR-right. He is on the right, foremost in his mind is “America First.” When the American taxpayer pays taxes, he wants to see that money get applied to Americans, including White Americans. He wants to see the USA not in serial foreign wars. He wants to see illegal immigration stop. He wants to see illegal immigrants ejected from US soil. He feels “White lives matter.”
Nick Fuentes wants to see a fedral govmint be FOR native Americans (the ones who have heritage here). No more bringing in hundreds of thousand of Somalians, paying for their passage, food, shelter, clothes, transportation, schooling,—things that heritage-Americans have been denied for decades, BECAUSE they are White. Not only that but govmint officials state out loud, on film, that they insist that Americans support Somalians IN SOMALI. No more foreign wars, spending taxpayer dollars they never gave permission to embark on.
Fuentes expounds returning to wholesome days. If I picked an American decade he would most want to see return, it would be the 1930s: men given respect, given back their masculinity (after having been shorn of it since); strong nuclear families; decent jobs akin to JMG’s long list of trades. Etc.
One needs to read, hear, and watch firsthand Nick Fuentes — don’t believe a thing others say or write about him. Writers have been lying through their teeth, and are highly prejudice and closed-minded. People put words in Fuentes’ mouth; we need to see past others’ misjudgments of him.
In my book, Nick Fuentes is a folk hero🎖️.
💨💨🙉📔🏆Northwind Grandma
Dane County, Wisconsin, USA
JPM @ 125: You’d be disappointed. I’m just an old flatus who listens to Brahms’ “German Requiem” repeatedly.
My comment earlier about the scene with “The Cowboy” in “Mulholland Drive” got me thinking more about it. (Or maybe it’s that second cup of coffee I just treated myself to, since it’s Christmas.) If The movie had become the pilot of a TV series, as apparently Lynch had hoped, I wonder if “The Cowboy” would have developed as a demonic figure. Here are the three uncanny things about him:
1. He appears out of nowhere, like he just stepped out of another dimension.
2. He clearly doesn’t know how to dress.
3. His idea of a “conversation” does not adhere to normal human conventions.
Other than that, he’s just like any other guy you’d meet late at night in an empty corral at the end of a canyon. 🙂
Polecat, if I liked movies I’d doubtless check out Nerdrotic, then.
Thrown Sandwiches, I haven’t heard from him in quite some time.
Nachtgurke, oh, that’s definitely Gaelic. No other Celtic languages throws around the letter H with such wild abandon. 😉
BeardTree, I tried to read the Mistborn books but bogged down early in the first book. It was painfully clear that Sanderson has no idea what’s involved in staging a revolution, and even the most ninth-rate tyrant would have had everybody in the plot rounded up by the time whatsisname finished putting the second point on his whiteboard. (I mean, seriously, you don’t lay out the plan in front of everyone. No matter how careful you are, at least one member of your inner circle will be a secret police infiltrator. Successful revolutions compartmentalize information.) It didn’t help that the part of the first book I read revolved around yet another plucky female character from a disadvantaged background who of course had the superpowers that alone could overthrow Blorg the Bad, Evil Lord of Evilness. Still, I know people who enjoyed those books.
I normally never, ever, post anything on Christmas Day: but I just spotted an email from Hermitix about your episode chatting with James about WB Yeats and Magic, and I want to say to you both – you guys are the greatest; thank you, and I sincerely hope you can have a happy or at least peaceful Christmastime, and I mean that in the most gregarious and friendly way. A previous year, after the day was done, and all through the house, not a child or dog was stirring (but maybe a mouse): I was settling into my old slippers and relaxing with leftovers, and lo and behold a Hermitix episode popped up with yourself and James discussing the end of industrial civilisation and – this may be a sign of my perverse humour – I thought: this can’t possibly get more cosy. You’ve done it again. Thanks a million. Take care.
House of card, et al
I enjoyed Ender’s Game and the first few after that, as my daughter and her friends in their teens. He does tend to drag a series out for too long, though I suppose he was making money from it. My favorite of his books, which I never hear mentioned is Past Watch The Redemption of Christopher Columbus. It is an alternate history of first contact in the Americas, though it appears now that there had already been plenty of contact.
Stephen
Nortwind Grandma
Are you sure you, or he mean the 1930s? That was the heart of the great depression with 30 0/0 unemployment.
Stephen
Merry Christmas to all who celebrate it.
JMG You may enjoy the Wax and Wayne sequel set 300 years later, not featuring a plucky girlboss. I found it better than the first books. Gives a picture of marriage I enjoyed with imperfect people working things out.
Mr. Greer .. oh of course, I wasn’t inferring that you stream over, ha!, and peruse the site; I know 9f your aversion to squiggly pixelated photons .. just my way of implying just how bad things have uh, ‘unevolved’ as it were. As for old books by dead people, there’s an antique mall downtown, a history booth of which has a rather thick encylcopedic book on all things antiquity .. complete with numerous explanatory illustrations, NOT photos. I found it quite fascinating, and am tempted to purchase it, if it is still there. Tis so large, I might have to find a book stand to accompany the thing.
JM Greer @Boysmon @HippieViking @Chuaquin
Thank you for your responses.
It’s true that I seem to speak in riddles.
I am extremely paranoid and distrustful, and I find it difficult to open up even through this anonymous medium.
Indeed, when I talk about 20 years, I am referring to kids.
Regarding the adults who depend on me financially, I have certainly exaggerated. Perhaps my wife could look for a job i. In fact, if the government continues to provide services and pay benefits, there would be no major problem (perhaps a small adjustment to a more frugal lifestyle). The point is that there may come a time when the government does not pay benefits such as retirement or widowhood, or when these benefits decrease in amount while inflation rises. This would make things even more difficult because both my parents and my mother-in-law are retired and depend on government pensions.
My father has a wealth of knowledge about agriculture, practical horticulture, and livestock farming, as well as spirit that I envy. But his body no longer responds to him.
My mother and mother-in-law are city dwellers, perhaps in slightly better physical health, but psychologically, both have many problems. As young women, they were very determined and hard-working, but I suppose the weight of life has taken its toll on them emotionally and mentally.
Regarding the situation in Spain, I would like to clarify how I see it.
In addition to political tensions, Spain has many other problems.
To begin with, it is a country that lives off tourism, which makes it extremely fragile during an economic crisis, as the first thing people cut back on is foreign travel.
Furthermore, even with fairly massive immigration (which also brings its own problems), I am beginning to see the writing on the wall in terms of demographic decline.
As if this were not enough, we have a hellish bureaucracy that hinders everything, destroys what little agriculture and livestock farming remains, and seems to aim to turn all citizens into puppets.
Finally, I believe we have lost everything that once allowed people to survive in this country.
Family and community ties are broken, the wisdom of the old ways has been lost under modernity, we have destroyed the best farmland, we have forgotten our cultures to embrace an empty pseudo-culture…
Kimberly Steele,
My kids are quite young, so if they did that I would be less appalled than if, say, kids over age 4 or 5 did it, but the freshly-three-year-old is definitely old enough to know better. Whenever she is disobedient or destructive with a toy, it immediately goes away for a period of time (usually at least several days, if not weeks or months if she’s demonstrated she’s not ready for it). In the case you describe, especially since they were exulting in their poor behavior rather than showing remorse, we would give the toys away to someone else and they’d have to live without more stuff for Christmas. If they were genuinely sorry or seemed to lack understanding of what they really did wrong, I might let them keep a toy or two or put the toys away to be doled out later, but they need to lose something (either some of the toys themselves or more time to wait before getting them) or you’re just rewarding them for misbehavior. For what it’s worth, we got our two daughters one nice joint toy for this year’s holiday, so we are on the minimal side anyway.
Siliconguy,
Is the nuclear EMP thing legit? Would it be doomsday bad? My knowledge of this subject is based entirely on poorly-written prepper fiction, heh.
Seasons greetings to our host, and to the best commentariat community on the internet.
Just read Stars Reach for the 4th time this year. I am such a fan of that book I bought the Merigan Tales anthology as well. The world portrayed there is comforting in it’s own way, it illustrates the adaptability of people to circumstances, and there is an honesty that underpins everything, even the people who are lying (Jennel Cobey)
I love this book. Several of the descriptors have wandered into my vocabulary (Mam Gaia, reborn, Old Believers) much to the puzzlement of those around me.
Thank you for writing it, John Michael. It is a complex and important book, and if any of you haven’t read it, I heartily recommend it.
Chuaquin, Northwind Grandma: I know of two polytheist exorcists, one Heathen and the other Graeco-Roman. From the little they say about it, they are busy and demonic activity is increasing.
Since the subject of collapse and reduced living standards has come up, I am back in the village in Mexico where I live half the year and have noticed the decreased number of visitors, both Mexican and foreign.
It is not necessarily a huge decline, but noticeable. Some businesses are noticing it and starting to freak out a bit.By the end of next week one will have a clearer idea of the number of Mexican visitors, and by the middle or end of Jan of foreigners.. A lot of people are just considerably poorer than they were, especially older people on fixed incomes. On the other hand the business people’s expenses have gone up too, and they still can’t quite believe the boom may be coming to an end. I have one friend who has had her house on the market for a year with no offers. Some of the houses that are on the market for US$300,000 might sell for 200 or less. Also,some of the houses were built way up the hill on multi levels by people in their 50s and 60s as their dream retirement house. Now that they are in their 70s and 80s they can’t access the house or deal with the stairs:another form of collapse they didn’t want to think about at the time, as well as shoddy construction. Interesting times. I fear there will be tears before bedtime.
Another thing one notices when one doesn’t see older people for 6 or 9 months is their level of physical and cognitive collapse. And lest one might think I haven’t noticed: yes it does serve as a dark mirror.
Stephen
Imperium Press’s blog has been putting out some interesting ideas that are pushing the edges. The latest post (I have only read the non-paid part but that is worthwhile reading – especially the discussion of historical Egypt and China) talks about the framework they are using (https://imperiumpress.substack.com/p/the-death-of-literacy-and-the-archaic) (and the article is the second time in recent days that I have encountered discussions of orality vs literacy).
Excerpt:
“We here at Imperium Press have developed a conceptual framework through which we can make sense of what otherwise seems like magic—the return of folkishness in the 21st century. One of the key concepts in that framework is the Archaic Revival, the literal return of pre-classical modes of human life and understanding. Environmentalism is a re-skinning of the archaic idea of cosmic maintenance, where the king would have to perform certain rites to prevent the world from ending; identitarianism is a re-skinning of the archaic idea of ancestor worship, where the highest good, and the source of all imperatives, is the blood—there are probably about half a dozen such symptoms of this revival, and the re-oralization of Western culture is one.”
JMG, in the past I took you up on your enthusiasm about vacuum tubes and decided to set out and repair a radio described to me as in working order and sold for 20€. It wasn’t even in working condition so I had more to repair. I found that vacuum tubes can be built by hobbyists even with a glass blowing workshop and a high vacuum pump when watching glasslingers YouTube channel. The parts for it may be a little bit hard to obtain as there are specialized metals and or chemicals for wires and getters required. Then which is the more important part you need 60-80W of electricity to power the thing the most of which is just heating your room. Also the enclosed volume is easily more than a bread box. Given that the great achievement of modern electronics is miniaturization which lead to far lower resource use per device, I have doubts that a resource poor future will reduce the pressure to miniaturize. The possibility of an emp that destroys a battery powered transistor radio may exist but I have doubts that you can’t protect one sufficiently to survive such a brief event. Fortunately there are hobbyists that build transistors now, so I suspect electronics will be available if the remainder of society still works. Overall the repair skills improved my electrical engineering knowledge so this was a great exercise.
did my comment just disappear?
Clay Dennis # 107:
I’m not obviously JMG, but I can tell you I find your question fascinating. It would be a fine exercise of “alternative history”(or “uchronia” to try the way the USA could have been in the recent past without those geopolitical intrigues (cough…). And it could be even more interesting to think what would look like the USA nowadays without those dirty operations. Who knows? Unluckily, I’m not a skilled and licensed historicist, only a “dilettante”, so I won’t write more about this (sub)topic.
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Justin P. # 108:
I watched “Twin Peaks” at the beginning of ‘90s when it arrived to my country recent opened private TV Channels. I was a teenager then: it’s rained a lot since then. I think it’s the best ever made TV series of history. I’ve also seen every Lynch movie…So what I could say to praise now one of my favourite artists?
TV series, like mainstream cinema, have been getting worse and worse in contents and artistic sense, since then, me think. It’s painful and makes me upset. I’ve thought sometimes I’m biased by youth nostalgia, but often I’ve found online nowadays teens and young adults who love “Twin Peaks” and other old series and movies…and despise the today garbage!
Nowadays, the only series I watch is “Stranger Things”, which I know it isn’t so good as “Twin Peaks” was in its time. Times have changed too to watch TV (which I rarely watch today). However, I can appreciate some virtues in “Stranger Things” which make it better than average actual series. First, its calculated blend of sci-fi/teens/fantasy/horror elements. And second, its realistic depiction of ‘80s lifestyle and culture. Well, IMHO this is the secret of this series success in and outside the USA: everybody who remembers the ‘80s know, consciously or not, that comparation with nowadays everyday life and culture shows there’s been a complete crappification of everything since that old times. Even the digitalization frenzy is only a “fig leaf” which doesn’t fool us anymore. With the evident slight differences between local culture and US “native” one, of course; though pop culture was globalizing yet since the ‘80s. By the way, I was a happy child during the ‘80s…
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Brendhelm # 110:
Be careful! I’m taking note of your forecasts for 2026. Although don’t worry: they look like to me unfortunately possible, except the Chinese attempt to retake Taiwan. I doubt China regime would be so stupid to do it and put in risk their economic power too soon before to have full geopolitic muscle. We’ll see these predictions…
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Pam # 112:
You’ve remembered old Velikovsky in your comment, which leads me to remember Robert Anton Wilson, who was positive about Velikovsky works (if I remember him well). This scientist was educated in a materialist philosophy and worked within it (if I’m not wrong), but his mortal sin to the scientists orthodoxy of his time (until our time) was pointing hypothesis apparently too bizarre for boring official science, me think.
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Methylethyl # 116:
I didn’t know Mr. Card had suffered a stroke. It could be that health problem
had affected his writing…or not, in the case of his full recuperation. Of course, I don’t know what’s his real health level now.
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JMG # 117:
At least in the USA, there are some right populist people worried with Christian Palestinians predicament; while my country right and right wing politicians are full pro-Israeli politics, so they shut up about this uncomfortable thing (in spite of being very proud to be Christians, at least nominally).
By the way, who cares nowadays in the West about Christian minories in Syria? Since the “democratic” Spectacle was perpetred there, with a “mild” islamist government after Assad fall, I guess life won’t be easy for non muslims there (though in general terms it won’t be easy for woman and gays neither).
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Booklover # 124:
Germans: you aren’t alone in EU with your dysfunctional bureaucracy. You shouldn’t want to know spanish bureaucracies…I say them in plural because complexity levels here in the public “business” are huge. Even a writer called Sara Mesa has written about this topic eventually in her novel “Oposición”(a story about a new bureaucratic worker who starts to live inside this Kafkian world from the other side of the counter, different but not better than bureaucracy users). I don’t know wether is translated to English or German yet.
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Justin P. # 125:
Ah, ha ha ha…Thank you for your short but expressive comment! A good Lynchian quite too.
BeardTree, I’ll consider that. As for plucky girlbosses, I wonder how many of my readers realize that a good many of the female protagonists in my novels are deliberate attempts to deconstruct that hackneyed stereotype…
Polecat, excellent. I get a remarkable fraction of my reading material from antique malls, too.
John Paul, thank you! I’m delighted to hear this, of course — not least because that was the project that convinced me that there really was a point to writing fiction. I owe my commentariat for that, big time, since they applauded my first attempts to tiptoe back into fiction so generously, and then joined me in the years-long fiction-blog journey that gave rise to Star’s Reach. So thank you again, and may you have the best dreams tonight that anybody ever had. 😉
Stephen, thanks for these data points. I wonder how much of it is broad economic decline and how much is the steep decline in ready cash among the laptop class now that government-funded grifts of the USAID variety are being chopped here in the EE.UU.
KAN, “pushing the edges” indeed! I wonder if it’s occurred to them that the preclassical is also the postclassical — those things also returned in post-Roman Europe, for example.
KTi, I’m delighted to hear this. Sure, you can protect transistorized gear if you have advanced warning — a well-grounded Faraday cage will do the trick, for example. I’m delighted to hear, too, that homebrewed transistors are becoming fashionable. The important thing is that individual craftspeople can make electronic components themselves — so long as that’s the case, basic radio technology will remain viable straight through the coming deindustrial dark ages, with immense benefit to all.
Stephen, no, for some reason it got flagged as spam by my spam filter. I rescued it from durance vile, as you see.
Chuaquin, oh, the populist right here has its own downsides. I’ve seen Christian shaleposters suggesting that the best solution for the Israel-Palestine squabble is to replace both with a revived Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem —
— which may be one of the most harebrained notions yet.
Blue Velvet .. Now THAT was some flick. Denis Hopper fully creeped me out in that ‘iconic’ role. One of the beggining scenes – of that bloodied severed ear nestled in the grass, with the chirpings of crickets with that pensive sound tract – was so lynchian .. never quite thought of crickets in the same ol’ way ever since. ‘OH Mama, huff .. huff, OHMAMA!’
@ Kimberly Steele
As someone with four kids, I can tell you that I wouldn’t need to do anything. It wouldn’t happen. I have a great relationship with all of my children. Last night we were stomping around our den in some sort of imitation of an Indian war dance shaking the house and yelling instead of going to bed, which is what they were supposed to be doing. I started that, my wife just laughed. The kids had a blast and couldn’t stop giggling between their war whoops.
Why can I have both kids that would never do something like you describe but also that I can play with and bend the rules with? Because I’ve spent their whole lives teaching them where the boundaries are and that, while there is a lot of latitude between those boundaries where they can do as they please, if they cross the line they can expect repercussions. Knowing where the line is makes them feel secure and allows me to be able to relax and be playful and fun.
@ Achille
I live on the Olympic Peninsula about eight or nine thousand kilometers from you. Allow me to describe the situation here:
In addition to political tensions, the Olympic Peninsula has many other problems.
To begin with, it is a remote area that lives off tourism and retiree pensions, which makes it extremely fragile during an economic crisis, as the first thing people cut back on is foreign travel and the funding behind the retiree pensions is probably mostly smoke and mirrors in a major economic crisis.
Furthermore, even with fairly massive immigration (which also brings its own mix of extra old people and imported drug addicts that support the local organized crime business model), I am beginning to see the writing on the wall in terms of demographic decline.
As if this were not enough, we have a hellish state level bureaucracy that hinders everything, especially small business and home economies. The local government makes concerted efforts to destroy what little agriculture and livestock farming remains in order to pave the land over for more suburban development or to cordon everything productive off for the aforementioned organized crime group, and both our state and federal government seem to endlessly dream about recreating a techno-surveillance state.
Finally, I believe we have lost everything that once allowed people to survive in this country.
Family and community ties are broken, the wisdom of the old ways has been lost under modernity, we have destroyed the best farmland, we have forgotten our cultures to embrace an empty pseudo-culture…
Don’t take this the wrong way, I don’t mean to make fun of you. The frustration is real. I think the situation you’re describing applies far more widely than you might think. The hour is late, you might say. Nonetheless, sitting around wringing your hands and stressing will do nothing. Pick something to do, I can heartily suggest investing time in the next generation’s knowledge and skills as I mentioned earlier, and get to work. Stop worrying about the Byzantinely complex government regulations. Start asking yourself, “what is the risk of me getting caught?” If it is little to none, then who gives a shale what the government thinks. If you worry about a lack of family ties, start building them with your children now. Time spent teaching them valuable skills will build your knowledge, their knowledge and familial ties that just don’t come about any other way.
If you worry about dying and leaving everyone to their own devices then take do something about it. Strong people are harder to kill and more useful in general. Get stronger and involve your kids in doing so.
If you worry about your kids being capable then teach them something useful. It doesn’t matter what. Get a piece of flint and a steel. Make some char cloth and go practice building fires with them. If you don’t know how to do that, learn and involve them in the process.
Start cooking food from scratch, if you don’t now, Involve your kids. Go buy a live chicken and kill it clean it and eat it. Involve your kids.
Maybe none of these suggestions work for you but there are an endless number of things you can come up with to do. Just do it. And involve your kids. Forget about comparing you or your kids to anybody else, just make yourself and them better today than you were yesterday and have fun doing it. If you’re worried about the breakdown in social ties then you can appreciate the fact that you are building the nucleus of a little clan that, if done well, will long outlast you.
HV
Re: older folks clearing clutter, I can’t speak for my whole generation but I am in the process of sorting through my possessions, pulling out the ones I am unlikely to use again, and hauling them to the nearest secular thrift store. My reason is that the rent on my storage unit, which was iirc $79/month when I first started renting it, has been steadily rising over the last couple of years to the point where it’s now more than twice that. If I can get about 2/3 of the contents off my hands, I can move the rest to a smaller unit in the same building, which will cut the monthly rent down to a more manageable number.
More generally I’m guessing that rising real estate costs (to rent or buy or even just pay the taxes on) is combining with decreasing able-bodied-ness, plus the memory of the Herculean task of settling the estates of our Depression-kid parents who were often relentless pack-rats. My mom managed to avoid the need for probate, but it still took me six months to dispose of all her stuff. I don’t want my nephews to have to deal with anything like that after I go.
Beardtree # 133:
I’ve written before I don’t live in US so I can’t help much in prospecting a hypothetical American style fascism. However, I could agree with your thoughts about it. Of course, I can say an American fascism would be different of European style possible new fascism. For example, I see American political spectrum doesn’t have far right parties which here exist, because of your hard bipartisanship every right people votes Republican, even the hardest guys. What I can see from my country is nowadays far right black beast is the Islam (what a surprise!). Other cultures migrants are despised too, but a heck less than for example Moroccans. A real fascist party in a grim near future (at least in Spain) would be anti-muslims filling the forgotten anti-semitism, and ironically pro-Israeli (extremisms usually touch each others). This half-religious hatred would be the travel fellow of a mixed totalitarian politics/conservative catholicism (like Franco did during his dictatorship). Maybe new fascists leaders could be able to fool not only native Spaniards, but Romanians, South Americans and even Gypsies too. It’s not very absurd to think it, because those migrant and ethnic minories aren’t islamic, so they would be considered as “honorary spaniards” adding them to their participation in a future hypothetical “crussade”.
What I think could be common between American and European wannabees fascists could be (in adittion to open violence) the inclusion of growth limits and global warming in their ideary, to justify their incoming atrocities. That would make them
more dangerous than nowadays far right denialists, because they would succeed in fooling former woke/leftists/radical ecologists to be recruited by their Sturmtruppen. Indeed, in the past there were German Nazis who were former Commies, and even Nazi-Bolsheviks…
Well, I wish these predictions never become real…
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Patrick # 134:
Thank you to make remember me that ominous hard fact. Israeli destruction of ancient churches in Palestinian zones can’t be explained well, unless we point that indeed, Israel has its own agenda (so it isn’t one more of usual US “colonies”). Churches destruction by Israelis nominally Jews,
while USA keeps being a mainly christian country is a bloody contradiction. I think Israel has parasitized the USA since Israeli US lobby was met first time. Maybe it’s too simplistic to say USA is an Israeli puppet: I’d like to tell you that Zionism and US foreign politics are an “emporium” of shared interests which converge apparently until today. So Israel is the poster boy for American politicians in both parties, maybe it can be seen as an equal partner, a “convenience marriage” where both members are at the same level (over the EU serfdoms for example). What I see as clearly as you is that leftist pro-Palestinian Spectacle misses this point and eventually fails to explain the Zionist/American relationship beyond its usual propaganda…
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Northwind Grandma # 135:
Indeed, that man in my country would be labelled fastly as far right extremist, because at least in his ideas in common with populist spanish party (“Vox”), he shares a heck of them. Some of his ideas seem reasonable, but others seem too bizarre IMHO (I save for myself which I think are reasonable and which ones are not).
By the way, I think there’s a big and growing trench between US and Europe sight of political spectrum(Right/far right difference between countries).
However, I think some things never change in every country of the world. I’d like to tell you to be careful in the apparent true truth finding. Especially in politics, there isn’t an only truth.
Oops!
I finally find curious his last name doesn’t sound very American-English origined. Although I guess he looks at himself as a white man.
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Phutatorius # 136:
Indeed, the Cowboy who appears in “Mulholland Drive” is a heck of strangeness. I think he could be an archetype of American culture, or maybe “only” a character who ran away a dream. Who knows? You can let free your imagination to think what the frack’s that mysterious cowboy…
First off, I’d like to join the chorus wishing everyone a happy holiday season of whatever stripe you celebrate, as well as a happy New Year. I’ll also join the other commenters in saying “thank you” to JMG for hosting this delightful little corner of the internet, and for another year’s worth of thought-provoking writing. It was also a privilege to be able to meet our host and many of the commentariat in Glastonbury this June.
@JMG
Sometimes people post little “progress updates” here in terms of their spiritual practices, and I figured I’d do the same here at the end of the year, since it seems like you appreciate hearing how readers have benefited from your teaching. Now, admittedly I’ve been working with Isaac Hill’s Heathen GD, but it was inspired by your work, and I’d never have found myself on this path without your influence.
Anyway, without turning this into my personal blog, I will say I’ve had some interesting TSW-type experiences this year. Nothing that couldn’t be explained away as coincidence by a materialist, but like you said in a recent Magic Monday, that doesn’t mean they’re right. 🙂 For one simple example, I tried the “cut and clear” spell a while back and found it remarkably effective. On a more substantial note, I’ve made some choices and done some things I never would have seen myself doing a few years back, and all this seems like it might just let me break out of the rut I’ve been in and finally realize some long-held aspirations. This has also involved some tests of will I don’t think I’d have passed before I started serious spiritual work. Along the way I’ve also had some very interesting synchronicities, some involving the names of Heathen gods in unrelated contexts, which especially made me pay attention. Some of my Rune divinations about the events of this fall turned out uncannily accurate in retrospect too.. So to sum up, a few weeks after I got back from Glastonbury I did the Thrall grade initiation, and if these are the results I’m certainly pleased to see some pay-off to the practices.
@Untitled-1 #28
As it happens, I have a similar anecote, even if I’m in northern Europe and not the US. I’ve long wondered how McDonalds can offer burgers at such ridiculously cheap prices, especially here in Norway with our high costs. When this came up in a conversation with an old friend who still occasionally eats there, he said their dubious offerings have gotten so expensive lately it’s become hard for him to justify. There was also a headline in the MSM here explaining why so many of the second-tier American fast food chains don’t open franchises here, apparently because they can’t afford it with our price level. So yes, another data point in favor of your theory.
@Eike with an “i” #73
“I’d like to hear the opinion of other European readers, on this or both of the topics I mentioned. How is the mood in your place, and what are your thoughts on war between western European countries?”
Up here in Norway, things still seem relatively fine from my perspective. I’ll admit I’m often a bit out of touch with the mainstream, though. That said, from what I can see there’s still enough residual wealth to keep the bread and circuses going for now, and we’re still well-fed enough to be squabbling over petty trifles and expecting all the lines to grow into the sky forever. Ie., of course everyone will always have more purchasing power every year, it’s only a matter of how much. Or as seen in the recent national budget: the question is how much revenue from the sovereign wealth fund we can responsibly use, not whether we have funds or not. Cheap electricity is basically a human right, etc etc. On a more positive note, I’d say we’re also in better shape than some other places because there’s still a partially intact national culture, social cohesion and trust that forty years of neoliberalism hasn’t quite managed to choke out. Of course being a small country of five million helps here too.
So for the time being business continues more or less as usual, as seen in the grotesque yearly orgy of consumption at Chrismas. Still, in spite of all this, there is a quiet but discernible sour note in the background. There’s a palpable sense that things aren’t quite as rosy as back in 2015, that many things have gotten more expensive for many people, and that the endless wealth might not flow quite as easily anymore. Plus a certain baseline level of angst around immigration and the aging population. We also have a looming crisis with a lot of municipalities being effectively bankrupt, while being saddled with ever more expensive obligations. I think there might be a half-articulated sense in, as JMG might call it, “the crawspaces of the national imagination”, that we have a lot of lose and probably shouldn’t be as smug about living in the best of all possible worlds as we’ve tended to be for the last fifty-odd years. For now, though, the illusion holds and the mood is reasonably calm and contented overall.
Hello Mr Greer and the commentariat!
I have been interested in discursive meditation ever since I have learned about it on this site. I am finally in circumstances where I can commit to daily practice for a while, so I am now going through preparatory exercises described on Ecosophia Dreamwidth. I am currently at the fourfold breath stage, and in a few days it will be time to move on to the full practice. I would therefore like to use this opportunity to ask about something that seems like a potential stumbling block.
The practice of discursive meditation consists of some relaxation, 5 minutes of fourfold breathing, 10 minutes of discursive meditation proper and a few more cycles of fourfold breath. Now, during the preparatory exercises, I have realised that my perception of time flow is rather inaccurate, and that I would need a clock to switch between the different phases. Currently I set an alarm to notify me when the time allocated to the practice has passed. However, since the full practice includes several transitions, I would need to stop the alarm once I have finished 5 minutes of fourfold breathing, then set it to ring again after 10 minutes, stop it once more once I have finished 10 minutes of reflection on a theme, and then proceed to several cycles of fourfold breath. Would this be acceptable, or would the mini-breaks for fiddling with the alarm be too disruptive?
Alternatively, I could have a clock in front of me the whole time. This might also be disruptive though – I would either have my eyes on the clock throughout the practice, making it a sort of focus, or have it outside my direct sight, which means I would have to interrupt my stillness in order to check the time.
Since discursive meditation had been developed before clock has been invented, I suppose accurate timekeeping is not a core element of the practice. So how to use a clock/alarm in a helpful way, and are they to be discarded eventually? Any suggestions welcome.
Many greetings!
Hi John Michael,
Corinne Heline was a very interesting person indeed, I can appreciate your curiosity as to the words and world-view. Out of sheer curiosity, was the lady forthright in the presentation of her views? I detected a certain understated righteousness, but may be off track there, or it may well be a whiff of the puritanical carried forward – we’re all something of a mish-mash of past relics. Dunno. Proust, I doff my hat to you, and wonder whether you’re delving into the French edition? Alas, I’ve no gift for other human languages.
Cheers
Chris
Data points from Christmas at my daughter’s house: among the gifts were “Boetheus: The Consolation of Philosophy” to me from my youngest grandson Caden – who was given “Marcus Aurelius: Meditations” by, I didn’t notice who. ( They are a high-energy and noisy family, especially when festive.) Three cheers!
They also got shoes, and Carol got wading boots;; I got some very practical clothing and cotton slipper-scuffs with good, solid soles. And Carol was folding up the tissue paper and whatever wrapping paper was more or less intact; gift bags abounded, including some very pretty cloth ones. And the house thermometer read the same (68 degrees) as the outside temperature – she was NOT trying to heat the whole outdoors! Methinks they have finally gotten a clue, consciously or not, and I am so proud of her.
@Chuaquin: I was a 90s teen too. I have to agree about your assessment of the standard of living sinxe then, and quality of life for teens and young people as depicted in Stranger Things. For sure, that has been a big part of its appeal, and 80s nostalgia in general.
@ Jennifer basic budget
Merry Christmas and greeting from a stormy Holiday, Toasty fire in the woodstove and batteries powering the internet modem 36 hours in….
For this area of the USA I would say that the housing number is way too low at 2,000/month as that will rent you a room in a shared house. Childcare is… well, they dont say age of 2 children. If that is after school and summer care, then maybe so, that is too low for infant/preschoool full time care of course as that is 4-6 children per adult, and so then you are expecting another adult to run their household on 64,000 to 96,000 a year ? But, that would not be provider take home as at a center as there is rent, management employee healthcare etc…out of that gross income before pay to provider of then only 45,000-70,000 a year or less. Although if you live in a area where you have a 3 bedroom house for 2,000 a month, then you might have childcare that low. This is why in addition to what is best for the baby/toddler, a parent or grandparent needs to take care of them.
The grocery number seems ok, you could eat for less, but a bit over 250/month per person is a fine budget for houeholds these days. Healthcare premiums are that high for famiies. Of course this is all not sustainable and many live on less by not having childcare,not paying for healcare premium, and cooking simply and driving one used car
The European right-wing is definitely going into the anti-Islam direction. As evident up in Britain, you can be whatever race or ethnic origin you want, Nigerian, Jamaican, Indian, Jewish, whatever, and so long as you declare yourself anti-Islam and pro-Israel the likes of Tommy Robinson etc will welcome you into their coalition.
JMG-#154
As for plucky girlbosses, I wonder how many of my readers realize that a good many of the female protagonists in my novels are deliberate attempts to deconstruct that hackneyed stereotype…
Oh, I noticed. You are an adept dismantler of hackneyed ideas of all kinds. That is why you command respect.
JOAN #157
More generally I’m guessing that rising real estate costs (to rent or buy or even just pay the taxes on) is combining with decreasing able-bodied-ness, plus the memory of the Herculean task of settling the estates of our Depression-kid parents who were often relentless pack-rats.
Same. I have an enormous record collection, which I am reducing in size since my ejection from the record store I used to work at. I still love physical media, and a well curated collection is something my son has expressed interest inheriting.
One of the greatest gifts we ever received from our father was, after my mother died, he liquidated his possesions, and when he died he had a truck with a camper, a Camry he towed behind it, and a storage space that had some tools, but was mostly my sisters shale. She will leave a mess.
Chuaquin #158
I’d like to tell you that Zionism and US foreign politics are an “emporium” of shared interests which converge apparently until today. So Israel is the poster boy for American politicians in both parties, maybe it can be seen as an equal partner, a “convenience marriage” where both members are at the same level
In my opinion, Israel is the 51st state. But, that is a complex region, of secret shifting alliances, of things not being what they appear to be on the surface. Little is revealed. Unless it serves another purpose. Human beings, man. Not that simple. Our host illustrated that well in Twilights Last Gleaming, which had a very plausible story line surrounding that part of the world.
@ Silicon Guy food production poverty line
What is meant by 20% ? 20% of calories ? 20% of money spent on food if it were to be all store bought ? Either way,, if a family has the space, it is not hard and doesnt take much time to provide 20% of food by either metric. But why would I do extra and send to a city ? It seems to me we are importing more and more vegetables and fruits, which is going backwards, why are there Canadian hothouse grown tomatoes in California in a top agriculture region of the state ? This implies way too much large scale specialization with us trading berries for winter tomatoes ? Crazy. Personally, I provide alot of my vegetable and all fruits. The region is going backwards as a whole
This is intertwined with the poverty line percentages as we are NOT paying enough for our food as a percentage of our monthly costs. This is why it is so hard on getting local foods. And in being a small or medium scale producer. Milk is especially underpriced vs historically which puts alot of pressure on that industry and the animals and precludes smaller production. The on the ground reality of what low income outlay is in this region is 50-80% outlay on shelter ( rent, heat,electric,water) over 50% just on housing easily all the time, much more the lower income. This is why I would say that most on foodstamps in the county is hiding income, or technically homeless ( could be couch surfing, staying with family or freinds or renting a room) as Federal guidelines assumes 1/3 of income is available for purchasing food. On a national level, this makes sense, it is a pressure to say, you cant afford to live in that region, move ! There are alot of free food distributions to make up the difference of course. But, food is not seen as the greatest need of the monthly money, the money is all going to rent and energy of one form or another ( transportation, heat, etc..) Then, as the article you linked says in the later part, the guy is making an argument for middle class status which is different than poverty. And I say federal level poverty is based on the whole country, and of course cant and shouldnt be based on SF bay area median expenses, could be that being on a retirement or disability income payment means that people should move, or at least could. States can make up their own metric and fund their own solutions if they want ( and they do, although I notice the states fund basic direct food giveaways of staple foods and then complain if the Feds want to do the same ( box of food aid or cut out junk food vs current food stamps. California has an extremely high percentage they charge the feds for administering Food stamps and direct aid USDA food distributions, more than one would think even given the higher cost of living. I amiagine we will rightly be getting federal pressure, and ocud be the stuff we saw last month and will again is the circus but is part of the showing the waste and pushing for reform, even as it stresses and hurts the poor temporarily. How does one get the state of California to employ less PMC to “administer” every Fed dollar ? . ))
I used to be a firm supporter of Israel, but now I think its creation was a mistake going back to the 1917 Balfour Declaration of the British government that supported a national homeland for the Jews. Between that and the creation of an independent Israel in 1948 for the purpose of creating “ a safe homeland” for Jews. Well, that didn’t work out as planned and now we are stuck with a perpetual bad situation with no seeable solution. There are over 7,000,000 Jews in Israel. The Biden administration had more than that enter the USA as undocumented immigrants so let’s have them come here with their skills and education. That’s my certainly
not going to happen solution..
I found the image below in 2016 but don’t know its provenance.
Is it just me or is there more going on in this than just an optical illusion?
https://postimg.cc/HVsfgBhZ
Might we end up in a situation where the American and European right-wing hate each other because in the future the American right-wing is anti-Semitic and would rather ally with Muslims, while the European right-wing is anti-Islamic and would rather ally with Jews?
@northwind grandma #135
>I am a fan of Nick Fuentes.
They call the people who follow him, Groypers. You are probably the strangest groyper I’ve seen yet. They have a stereotype. I won’t elaborate on it. Not important anyway.
I’m probably as far as you can get from being a screaming blue hair. Well, maybe if I listened to country music and wore cowboy boots, I could extend my distance a bit more. But when it comes to Fuentes, I’d keep my distance from him. I’m not sure which details to go into about him, you could write an Erika class wall of text about all the drama that he’s involved with. I’ll quote Joshua Moon who basically said “Fuentes only cares about Fuentes and nobody else” and I’ll point out nobody gets a thread about them on Kiwifarms to over 1000 pages without something serious being wrong with them. Guaranteed.
A lesson I had to learn a decade ago, just because someone is saying stuff you like to hear, does not make them your friend. In fact you need to be extra cautious with the ones who are saying the things you want to hear. And he is very very good at that. Not so good at other things though. Terrible at other things.
House of Card (no. 85), my experience was similar to yours. Ender’s Game, Speaker for the Dead, and the Alvin Maker books were all thoughtful classics of their genres, and I remember liking his short story “America” too (which seemed to use his time as a missionary as the jumping-off point). I lost interest in all the Ender sequels, though. His two “Ultimate Iron Man” comic-book miniseries (each 5 issues, 2006 and 2008) try to fix key problems with the Iron Man concept (e.g. how does he survive acceleration?)., but fan response was poor. Sure, a lot of that was due to the gay controversy / people just not liking Mormons, but the story was generally received as strange and not really what people wanted from Iron Man.
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Northwind Grandma (no. 87), yes “demonology” is a term in use, but primarily as a very niche subdivision of Catholic theology, (You can major in this at the Pontifical University, if you want to be an exorcist. God knows what kind of mail they get.) For a popular historical introduction to the devil / Satan / demons, etc., see Jeffrey Burton Russell’s four-volume series (The Devil, Satan, Lucifer, Mephistopheles), or their one-volume abridgment (The Prince of Darkness). Cross-culturally, demons behave a lot like the hungry ghosts of Chinese culture, or the witches of Africa, and must play social roles in addition to the narrative ones arising from the need for drama. They’re not always irredeemably bad; Padmasambhava is known for converting malevolent spirits to Buddhism, turning them into dharma protectors; while some Islamic traditions see Satan as the ultimate monotheist and lover of God, who is ultimatelly reconciled with him.
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Kimberly Steele (no. 103)
Maybe take away their presents until Armenian New Year? Something along those lines.
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JMG (no. 117), I didn’t realize she had a Plummer connection. Is there much difference between Plummer’s and Heindel’s theology? Interesting too about the angel emphasis. (Steiner had the Michael thing, of course.)
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Northwind Grandma (no. 135) Fuentes, on what to do with some black guy he saw littering:
“I’m supposed to be mad at Hitler? I’m supposed to be cross with Hitler? I want this guy dead. And I wish Hitler would kill him. I wish Hitler would have killed him, you know? … That guy should be KILLED! That guy should be killed for that. That guy should be dragged from his car and beaten to death by the public. … If I was in a room with Hitler and that guy, me and Hitler would team up and f*** that guy up! We would kill that guy! … And we’d high-five at the end.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/16-heinous-quotes-anti-lgbtq-120003531.html
Anything to pwn the libs, right?
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Sister Crow (no. 148), I’ve watched Daoist exorcists in action. It’s nothing very spectacular–they just wave incense on people.
– A place to check out classic out of copyright poems, https://openpoet.org/ now at over 97,600 poems free, legal, searchable….. Including Yeats. This is the project of a person I know who is a big poetry enthusiast, done as a labor of love to spread good poetry He is excitedly planning on ways to scan, convert and put up more next year as more goes out of copyright as we go into a new year. And, he does buy old hardcover print editions as he showed me two recent purchases, one from 1860’s the other 1912 , while there is nothing quite as good as the old leather bound book in hand, who has room for all 97,600 ones in print in ones living room ?
Come swish around, my pretty punk,
And keep me dancing still
That I may stay a sober man
Although I drink my fill.
– My Holiday musing include: shrinkflation in the size of oysters on Christmas Eve; Why is what is thought of as the worse road of three up the mountain the one least likely to have a downed tree on it ? (A leading theory is maybe the people driving that one are more likely to carry chainsaws and get out and apply them ) ; While a limited data set, all the cars that blew past us, ignoring our quickly multiply flashed headlights at them ( the universal sign for there is a problem ahead) were 2 Teslas, the other cars stopped and verified that yeah, they needed to turn around. Leading to the thought that are Tesla owners the new BMW owners of the era ? Leading to fellow car occupant asking me ” what is the difference between a BMW and a porcupine ? ( answer below) Who has the jokes for Tesla drivers ? I did hear someone went off the road after we were there warning, have not heard if it was one of the Teslas trying to turn around where there was no room to do so; My 1974 yellow kitchen wall phone is still making calls, I do have a tube radio on top of the fridge, it does use more power than a transister radio, but the sound is great and it somehow receives a station or two out here with no antenna connected, maybe it uses the power cord for that….; Someone found and gave me a made in USA wooden handled pie server for Christmas, others a warm sweater, a handthrown pottery tea mug a set of beaswax tapers and some fat wood fire starters. I made 3 wooden garden hods and home canned apple products.
The answer is BMWs have their pricks on the inside
Denizen @ 83, Have you considered that there might be less than meets the eye with respect to Fuentes? I can’t really say, because I don’t follow lefty or righty celebs, life being short and all, but could this person be yet another grifter who found a profitable niche? I hasten to add, such grifters are to be found in every possible ideological niche.
JMG @154
In this case, I think most of the problem is with the cost of things rising much faster than anyone’s income/assets,whatever. Most of the foreigners I am thinking of are retired, and most Canadian, some American and others. The loss of disposable wealth of the American laptop class may well affect some resorts for younger people and shorter stays, but most of the people here are retirees on limited incomes. The Mexican tourists are mostly middle class families from Guadalajara for shorter stays. I can’t think of anyone I know whose expenses haven’t risen much more than their incomes pretty much worldwide. The decline is really very widespread. Food, heating, car expenses, housing are amongst the main issues mentioned.
Stephen
Kimberly Steele @ 103, about the opened presents, etc., I call that poor planning and negligent parenting. Presents are best opened on Christmas Eve when there are small children. The kids have something new to play with; that plus the excitement knocks them out and they don’t awaken till mid-morning the next day. If guests are expected for the big Christmas dinner, the cook has leisure to be cooking. If parents want to do the opening on Christmas morning, they need to be up and about before the kids get up.
In the situation described, presents would be all put away and there would be a general clean-up. I would neither demand nor be much impressed by ritualized expressions of remorse.
Borealbear, you’re welcome, and thank you for contributing to the community. Delighted to hear that the magical work is going well.
Soko, just have a clock somewhere in a place where you can see it easily. It’ll distract you a little at first, but after a while you’ll be able to take a brief glance at it now and then without interrupting the practice.
Chris, she was a Southern belle of the old school, the product of a very rich family, and I don’t think she shed all of the downsides of that heritage — a bit of self-righteousness, a bit of the puritanical spirit as impressed on an officially designated Flower of Southern Womanhood™, that sort of thing. None of us ever really gets out from under what we are! As for Proust, no, I’m sticking to the English translation for this one.
Patricia M, very glad to hear about those books.
John, okay, good. By the time I started my tentacle novels I’d developed quite the antipathy to plucky characters of all sorts, and decided the best way to express that was to have characters with, you know, ordinary human vulnerabilities and (in most cases) normal human abilities.
BeardTree, at this point it’s a predicament, rather than a problem; there will be no solution, just more rounds of pointless violence, quite possibly accelerating until mass death on all sides settles things temporarily.
Earthworm, I’m not sure what you’re suggesting.
Jack, I’ve encountered very little sympathy for Muslims on the American right — quite the contrary. It’s worth noting that Jews and Arabs are both technically Semites, and American antisemitism seems to be perfectly willing to include both.
Ambrose, not worth noting. Plummer’s theology also draws directly from Steiner, but by and large it’s a slight variation on Heindel’s.
Atmospheric, thanks for this!
Stephen, thanks for this. A useful data point.
How would a druid handle a demon?
💨💨📘Northwind Grandma
Dane County, Wisconsin, USA
Hippie Viking @ 156 I wonder if you could elaborate on your comment:
“The local government makes concerted efforts to destroy what little agriculture and livestock farming remains in order to pave the land over for more suburban development or to cordon everything productive off for the aforementioned organized crime group, and both our state and federal government seem to endlessly dream about recreating a techno-surveillance state.
The part about development is depressingly familiar. RE interests all but own local governments all across the western states. What I would like to read more about is cordoning off of everything productive for a organized crime group. Do you have perhaps a link?
I have really enjoyed reading your article over the past couple of years. You take esoteric topics that would normally be difficult to understand and come as close as possible into putting them into layman’s language. As a youth, I was fascinated by astrology, out of body experiences, premonitions, coincidences that were too odd to be believed — all of which I had experienced at different stages of life (I swear I had out of body experiences as an infant, but now I wonder if it was sleep lock or misunderstanding of dreams). Then I “grew out” of such interests. Now approaching 60, I feel a need to be reconnected non-religiously to those instincts and interests. That’s where you have helped.
My question is about magic. Some of your articles on the topic I have read more than once. It’s a bit much to take in, but meaningful and worth absorbing. What I conclude from your writings, though, is that perhaps there is no difference between magic, hypnosis, advertising, social media influence, and media outlet owners manufacturing opinion through bias. Do you make any distinctions?
By the way, when I said “infant” I meant around age 4 or 5. I guess that’s toddler? I didn’t mean as a baby, which I obviously wouldn’t remember.
>On the RAM price hikes: The RAM that goes into “AI” computers is not the same as RAM that ends up in computers and smartphones.
Most of the equipment that is needed for this AI or Crypto is not much useful for anything else, the GPUs and TPUs are expensive and not that useful for normal tasks.
Most of the technologies adopted during perestroika and glasnost in 1985, 1986 did little to stall the collapse of the soviet union quite the contrary, all the reforms were made to copy the US power, computers, press, music and other tech actually accelarated the collapse. And during the collapse the specialist were vaccumed by US.
One would argue that US is in a sort of perestroika with AI to imitate China, if history is any guide, the imitator loses without a clear strategy. If the shale hits the fan, most of the AI scientists will be vacummed by China and Russia, leaving US with a gapping wound, from all these data centers and squandered energy.
@northwind grandma #135
>I am a fan of Nick Fuentes.
This Nick is the most obvious control opposition I ever seen in US. As JMG once said when someone is calling for illegal things is either undercover or a fool.
I’m nearly through Brian C. Muraresku’s book “The Immortality Key – The secret history of the religion with no name.” The author shows links between the ancient religion of Gobekli tepe, the Elysian Mysteries, details about Elysian-like religions brought to Spain by Greek emigre’s; How the Gospel of John was targeted to the local members of the Cult of Dionysius; And that the original Christian communion wine might have contained hallucinogens and been similar or identical to the ‘kukeon’ drink consumed at the Elysian Mysteries.
It’s a wild, mind-blowing ride, and seems to be based on archaeological research.
The author has so far not given an opinion about whether hallucinogens are helpful to a person’s spiritual life–seems more interested in documenting the links. As is, it’s given me a lot to think about, and I’d recommend it.
Anyone else seen this one? I’m sure someone here mentioned it in a previous blog post– Many thanks for that!
Just want to add more clarification to my previous comment.
Perestroika & Glasnost (1985-86) were accelerated by fax, VCR, PC, photocopiers, and satellite TV. These technologies broke the soviet information stranglehold.
AI is supposed to help with more control and social score but it is already starting to backfire the other way.
@110 Brendhelm – 2026 predictions
Hi Brendhelm, I’ll join you on the predictions mockery bench for Dec 2026–
My first impression of 2026 was the phrase “2026, year of clay.” No, I don’t understand what that could mean. Also, a stock market crash in Oct 2026. That’s all I’ve got so far. Anyone else?
A Scale of Sharklets.
In last weeks post Northwind Grandma mentioned the horror B-Movie “The Six-Sided Shark”, with a hydra-like shark-monster. JMG suggested, that the finally blown up shark pieces could transmute into Sharklets.
OK, Sharklets still fascinate me. So I made make a sharklet scale. Imagine there would be a follow-up movie: sharklet attack, and our hero+heroine pair manages to throw the sharklets into a mill, and grind them to dust. What could happen?
– micrometer scale: size of bacteria. You get SHARKMOEBA. It eats killer bacteria for breakfast.
– nanometer scale: you get SHARKNITES. You don’t want to get this stuff into your bloodstream, or liver, or brain.
– sub-nanometer scale: now we arrive to the size of an atom. Can Sharklets exist on a sub-nanometer scale? I suppose now, but wait, maybe we get something new: SHARKONIUM atoms! Not much is known about this nasty stuff. But we can assume, it is capable of biting and breaking all bonds in every molecules.
And now i will do some useful work, for example make a scale of electricity consumption or a list of abundant materials (the anti-rare-earth-list).
blessed solstice and christmas time,
parttimedruid
Last week, I mentioned a book written by AI that I had stumbled upon. I had actually been looking for a book about the Great Depression that had been mentioned several times around here (because of its usefulness for the coming Great And Interesting Times). There’s an abundance of books with those words in the title, though, so hopefully someone can remind me what the exact title (and maybe even the author) of that book was?
Stephen P. # 140:
Well, your sharp comment reminds me again Kundera view of the “kitsch” (to deny the s**t of things). Indeed, to have nostalgia for a not lived times have its own kitsch…By the way, everybody can be kitsch, even me when I was remembering my childhood during the 80s, now I can remind the heroin addicts lying in public parks, cough cough…everything has a dark side we sometimes don’t want to see.
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Achille # 144:
You’re welcome!
I think your personal and family situation isn’t very good yo cope with the next step down in the catabolic “collapse”(decline), but you aren’t too bad, too. My situation isn’t much better. I partly depend of government subsidies thanks to personal problems, so a decline in the dying “welfare” state would affect me. My family and friends are usually people who are middle class (or they pretend they’re yet). I have a certain social network around me, but I wonder how many of this friendships would survive the hard times ahead us. Well, we’ll see it. I think we’re towards a relatively slow decline, so if we start to be prepared now, maybe it won’t be such as dramatic as we fear it. Finally, you’re right when you say the end of massive tourism would mean the Spain economy ruin. However, I think in the lo g term every resources dedicated to tourism would be redirected to another activities. For example, empty touristic flats could be reformed to local people (so the housing problem would stop).
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Sister Crow # 148:
Indeed a sign of the times, how busy are now those politheistic exorcists…
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JMG # 154:
That right wing idea is very bizarre. Nostalgia for crussaders kingdom has made me to remember that some pro-Palestinian activists see the modern Israel state like a secularized version of Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, then they blame it as prototypical and first example of every colonialism. Last and anachronic specimen of colonialism would be the Zionism, with its Israel state. Well, it’s a good movie but historically I don’t think it’s very serious. You can see, John, there are bizarre thoughts in every side of political trenches…
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Boreal Bear # 159:
I’m glad there’s a live national/local culture there in Norway. Not every European country could be proud of it!
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Justin P. # 163:
Yes, so I’m not the only one here who has good memories of ‘80s and ‘90s times. However, not only who were young in these times are fans of “Stranger Things”. Indeed, there’s a lot of teens and young adults who like to watch a series which happens in an era which they didn’t live. I think they unconsciously notice there were different times, and until some extent, better times than today. Of course, we can notice too we must see the kitsch side too (there’s always a dark side in everything).
@ Hippie Viking #156
Hear! Hear!
I try always to remember that at the same time as external circumstances deteriorate, that – looked at from the “wrong” end up, as it were – they ALSO expand the scope and range and variety of simple things that we (each) CAN do to obtain and accomplish the kinds of marginal gains that improve quality of life for ourselves and for all those who are within the reach of our small, but real, powers.
And, therefore, I thank you, also, for the timely reminder. May your goings and doings be blessed!
@ Jack #170 –
Do you mean as a political alliance? (In which case, WHICH Muslims and/or WHICH Jews would find such an alliance with a western style right wing movement on political grounds attractive, since neither set of people could be described as forming a politically unified monolith, or even of sharing any coherent political programme)…
Or, as a tribal alliance? (In which case, how would this alliance work – by each “right” emphasising and embracing the aspects of Christianity which meld best with either Judaism and/or Islam, according to preference?)
Or, as some other kind of alliance not yet mentioned?
You’ve asked an interesting question, and I’m curious how you see it?
@ The Other Owen #171
“A lesson I had to learn a decade ago, just because someone is saying stuff you like to hear, does not make them your friend. In fact you need to be extra cautious with the ones who are saying the things you want to hear.”
A very useful lesson indeed, whether you are being “courted” by a political movement, by a marketing campaign, or by a goLLuM… 😉
Anonymous # 165:
Indeed Islam is the favourite bogey man for the far right wing everywhere in Europe. It’s part of its Spectacle, but anti-islamic propaganda has unluckily a real basis to work. Conservative muslim migrants (when not openly Islamists) have offered themselves as black beasts for native frustrations, for example, rejecting stupidly “de facto” to integrate in western culture. North Africans and Pakistani women with their ubiquous hijab on their head, walking in EU streets, show their stubborn dependence on their ethnic/religious origin, but they attract fatally the hatred of local extremists with their self margination. This suicidal attitude can’t be fully blamed to muslim
migrants, but also to the woke leftists who encouraged migrants to behave in such s way (“we must respect every customs they have and blah blah blah”).
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John O. # 166:
I agree. We don’t know exactly what happens in high spheres of foreign and domestic US/Israel politics. We only can grasp there are favors in both countries which sooner or later, must be compensated with another favors, and so on.
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Beardtree # 168:
Zionist dream to return “its” land became a nowadays nightmare. Zionism ideologues thought (or fooled themselves) the Holy Land was an empty territory with only a few scattered nomad Arabs, when in the real world Palestine before Zionist invasion thrived with towns and villages full of muslim population. Some Arab peasants were taking care of olives with more than 1000 years old. Of course, they were a conservative islamic society, but this fact didn’t give the Zionist jews the right to take away their land and destroy their culture. Palestinians have their own kitsch, but Israeli ideology has a heck of kitsch too…
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Jack # 170:
Thanks to this JMG blog I’ve noticed there’s a growing gap between American and European mind, but I don’t know by sure wether your division is going to be part of this growing trench. We’ll see.
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The Other Owen 171:
I agree. Indeed, I think Northwind Granma has falled in love with Mr. Fuentes! OK when you fall in love with someone, you can’t see his/her flaws during the first times of relation…so I return to my dear Kundera idea of Kitsch, and I can say it’s dangerous and blind to deny the s**t and see only the good side of people and ideologies (also called “Spectacles”).
By the way, I don’t like people who tell us they know all the truth. Another example of dogmatism which I can remember is Greta Thunberg (cough cough), in the opposite side of Fuentes ideological spectrum.
> We note that the same electric cork-pulling device, new in box, has been at the thrift shop unsold for months. — methylethyl #114
An electric cork-pulling device… who dreams up these things? And invests money into manufacturing and selling them? They live in a different world to me.
I wonder if there’s a dental attachment so you can use it for pulling teeth? “No home dentist should be without it.” Although, joking aside, I had a dentist who sold his practice and retired in his 40s because he went lame in one arm and no longer had the strength to do extractions.
Speaking of cork pulling devices, my dad had a cork pushing device. It was an air pump with a needle attached. You stuck the needle through the cork, pumped, and air pressure pushed the cork out.
I used it until the day I tried opening a wine bottle while a bit drunk by holding it round the neck and pumping the device vigorously. Too vigorously. I pulled the needle out of the cork on the upstroke and stuck it into my finger and pumped on the downstroke. The last two sections of my finger inflated. Gordon Highlanders. I was terrified of getting an air bubble in my bloodstream, which I understood could be fatal, so I grabbed my finger and sneezed and worked little bubbles of air out of the wound until my finger was back to normal. Lesson learned. Stick to the good old mechanical corkscrew.
Soko, I’m not sure if JMG would approve if this, but I have an app on my phone called “Mindfulness Bell”. You can set it to issue a gentle “gong” sound at an interval of your choosing.
Hey JMG
I recently finished reading “The Richest man in Babylon” by George Clason, a personal finance classic. I found it to be a fairly good read, quite interesting to see how Clason uses stories about Babylonians to explain how to increase one’s wealth. I wonder if you ever read it as well, or if you had your own favourite book on personal finance?
JMG “Earthworm, I’m not sure what you’re suggesting.”
Your response there sums things up quite nicely. Thank you. With the majority of what I think or write, I too, am not sure if I understand what I’m on about either; so, I shall be satisfied that at least I seem to be in good company on that matter 😉
To be a little less concise – periodically I look at that image and appreciate the effort that has gone into it. Obviously I was not referring to the ‘in one’s face chalice/goblet/grail’ but I suddenly wondered if the two younger characters were ‘inside’ representations of the old man and old woman – capturing time, change and ‘higher/deep emotion’ [for want of a term] in a still image.
Of course it could just be my imagination in overdrive, but there seems to be scope for symbolism of interest, an obvious one being the faint outline of structures within the old man’s head that ‘almost’ look like they could correspond to glands of interest in what looks like a tower-like structure.
The shading of the faces of the younger woman and man has been done in such a way to give form to eyes/eyelids of the old man and woman – not an idle piece of work and maybe worth considering more. Switching focus between the young, the old, and the vessel is an interesting process.
I don’t know tarot, but quietly looking at the image it reminded me of symbology seen in such things – the platter at the base of the chalice and ‘fruit’ or whatever (maybe lime to go with the cerveza!?) and the woman who forms the old man’s ear being in mid step out of the archway. Things like that… hidden meaning in plain sight?
The juxtaposition of two images from years apart representing two people with the third ‘overlay’ of a grail-like vessel made me wonder several things, including:
1. Does anyone else see any symbolism?
2. Does anyone recognise the style or know the source?
3. Does anyone know of any similar images to share?
Anyway – no worries, but if anyone knows of any similar older images created by the work of a human or humans, I’d be very grateful for the pointer.
I’ve got a doubt. Which one term should depict better the growing xenophobic (fsr right xenophobia against muslim migrants? Islamophobia or Arabophobia? Most of muslim migrants in my country are North Africans, so not Arabs “strictu sensu”, but indeed Islamic. However, in Middle East there are small but not to despise them, Arab-Christian minories…
Whatever name we label in this anti-Islamic hate feeling, I think (like I’ve written before) it’s partly caused by the own migrants attitudes and behavior. Women with hijab are only the iceberg peak. Often muslim migrants tend to live in ghetto-like communities in our towns. Well, this tendence to live with their compatriots, but when it lasts long time leads to self margination towards main native society. Even worse, sometimes I feel these migrants want to build a society within our society, with separate non written rules, according their origin countries customs. This attitude leads to the self accomplishing prophecy: muslim migrants don’t integrate in western countries, so…(xenophobia, racism, and so on). I’ll tell you not very time ago, some North African men (and women) asked a town local spanish authorities for allowing muslim woman to use the public swimming pool dressed or with “burkini”. Oh, and they wanted to bath there segregated from men, like they do in their country. There was a legal and media controversy, but finally the town major denied these bad ideas (hearing voice of reason…and state constitutional laicity). You can bet this cultural clash was cannon fodder to far right champions of “christian civilization” to blame every muslim migrant by this stupid iniciative.
I think these muslim migrant unconsciously are putting themselves a target in themselves with these self segregating attitudes.
Of course, not every muslim migrant behaves in this endogamic and “suicide” way of life. For example, I met some years ago a woman, who first I mistakedly thought she was Latin. However she told me a day she was from Morocco. She didn’t wear a hijab in her head and she worked cleaning stores. She was very integrated in our society, participating in social and cultural neighbourhood activities, but she said she was muslim in her own way. Unsurprisingly, she told me she hadn’t had near no problem with xenophobics here. Well, it always will be xenophobic and racist attitudes in societies, but migrants can trigger them with their behavior too, me think.
This was maybe not quite about cognitive collapse, so I saved it for this week, but in my mind, although possibly only there, there is a connection between cognitive collapse and the very large number of cars with only one front headlamp working (cyclops cars) that both I and my boyfriend are noticing out in Seattle exurbs these days. I used to see maybe one cyclops car a month. Now it is at least a few every day. If nothing else, one-eyed cars are a good symbol of cognitive collapse.
Not for everyone , but two books by an Italian Alpha Marxist (lifelong communist party activist) that cover topics our host has discussed in recent weeks, but from an Alpha Marxist standpoint.
The book “Western Marxism How it was Born” by Domenico Losurdo explores the rise of beta Marxism and gives details about the role of US government agencies in promoting it. (His “Western Marxism” is JMG’s beta Marxism.)
Losurdo’s “Stalin History and Critique of a Black Legend” must sound singularly uninviting but much of the first half portrays the struggle between utopianism and practicality within the Soviet government in its first decades. In Losurdo’s take, Lenin and Stalin were the practical force . When there was a conflict among the communists, the weaker faction would invariably take a utopian stance, comparing what its opponents were accomplishing or attempting to against some utopian perfection. This take is hard to argue against when it comes to the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty* but weaker in other areas. Still interesting.
(*The highly unequal peace treaty in early 1918 in which the new Bolshevik government capitulated to Germany, which would not lose the war in the West until the end of the year. As unfair as the Treaty of Versailles, it also sowed many seeds that helped cause WW2)
According to Losurdo, not only the Tsarist state but also society in the countryside had disintegrated. The Bolsheviks, for all their utopian plans for the withering of the state, found themselves not actually taking over the state, but having to build a new one in the feral rubble of the old one. This and the fact that peasant rebellions tend toward the utopian and millenarian means that the conflict between practicality and utopianism was more intense and perhaps more illuminating.
Nick Fuentes, Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Keith Woods, Nick Griffin (of British National Party fame), Ron Unz, etc are all right wingers who would rather ally with the Muslims rather than the Jews over the Israel issue, which has become the biggest dividing line in the right in 2025 that is splitting apart the MAGA coalition.
When I’ve remembered the probable not easy situation of Christians and other “target” groups (women and gays) under the “democratic” and “mild” Islamic government in today Syria, I’ve forgotten to write about not Sunni muslims minories in that country. Their real situation may not cause envy, though the suspicious western media blackout about Syria real situation makes difficult to know what’s really happening there.
Hi JMG,
Can I ask you for some advice?
I have a lot of topics that I’m interested in and do research on as an amateur. Among other things: reconsidering the Labour Theory of Value and how self-proclaimed Georgists should not adopt a blanket dismissal of it based on “marginal utility”; the DNA links between the Xiong-nu, Huns, the early Shang and Confucius; the diffusion of bronze age metallurgy along the river and forest region in north Eurasia; why Singapore should not be a role model, and more.
I post about these topics once in a while on random places online. Sometimes here, sometimes Reddit. Otherwise I talk to my wife in bed about these as she and the baby fall asleep while listening to me.
My wife tells me I should start writing about all these things online somewhere, on Substack maybe, instead of doing this crazy, grey market side business I’m thinking of. I have actually thought about this before, but I feel like my range of interests are too broad to build an audience. Someone who e.g. might be interested in how the early Shang seems to have a strong East Eurasian steppe component, might not necessarily be interested in Georgism or Singapore or the LTV.
Do you think this is a justified worry or I should just write and not care about the audience? The main reason I haven’t done this is that I don’t think it will make money vs my other ideas..
Thanks
Following up on the discussion of the sequel to The Brothers Karamazov last week, there are contending versions. One that I cannot find the link to again has Alyosha falling from grace, but eventually returning to the monastery and living happily and constructively ever after. The other version, which many established Dostoevsky scholars reject and dislike intensely is:
From:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/370370194_Dostoevsky's_Sequel_to_The_Brothers_Karamazov_Tsareubiistvo_Revisited/link/644c7f22809a535021366d32/download?_tp=eyJjb250ZXh0Ijp7ImZpcnN0UGFnZSI6InB1YmxpY2F0aW9uIiwicGFnZSI6InB1YmxpY2F0aW9uIn19
“Alesha will leave the monastery, become a socialist, and end his life in front of a firing squad for attempting to assassinate the Tsar (tsareubiistvo) – this according to A.S. Suvorin, a journalist friend, writer and publisher who tells
of a conversation between himself and Dostoevsky in February 1880 about Alesha’s “political crime” in a sequel; and the anonymous “Z”, who, in the Odessa Novorossiiskii Telegraf (May 1880), reported talk in “Petersburg literary
circles” of a tsareubiistvo ending [J: Tsar murder] after attending readings of the first Karamazov volume by Dostoevsky in April of the same year.
A month after Dostoevsky died, the tsar really was assassinated.
But it gets better. 6 years later a real life Alex was executed for trying to assassinate the next tsar. That Alex had a younger brother, which makes that brother the fifth Karamazov brother.
That real-life brother did what many brothers in his situation would do, he vowed revenge. Few brothers succeed in a task when their target is such a powerful figure. However, this brother, the fifth Karamazov, was named Vladimir, Vladimir Ulyanov, better known as Vladimir Lenin.
I think that part of what fascinates me about Dostoevsky is that he never resolved his internal war between the good conservative tsarist loyalist and the revolutionary he was nearly executed for starting to think about becoming. (Dostoevsky’s canceled execution and his real imprisonment and exile were for thought crime.) This conflict also reflects the conflict in Russia then between the Slavophiles and the Westernizers. If he succeeded in coming down completely on one side or the other, even if he had come up with some kind of compromise, he would have been a less interesting author. But he didn’t.
I am also interested to see conflicting currents in US conservatism that have some similarity to the Slavophile vs. Westernizers debate that runs through so much Russian/Soviet history, even to this day. One place this is showing up is in debate between those for whom there is an actual American culture to which immigrants should be assimilated (Americanophiles) and those for whom America is a set of principles that different cultures can exist within (Globalizers).
If America falls undeniably far behind China, a Chinasizer element may emerge, although at least at first, it would have to veil itself in anti-China-ism. (”We’re only copying Chinese style industrialization through technology acquisition in order to get strong so we can defeat China”.) Something along these lines already occurred in post-WW2 Western spirituality.
I have a question for out host and the commentariat. How or do you at all distinguish between responsible shopping and virtue signalling?
I am all for local shopping, but I need to see some local hiring as well.
I mostly buy 2nd hand, or make do without, or make myself (food, clothing). When I do have to purchase something new, I would rather not contribute my mite to the accelerated melting of Greenland, or the heartless exploitation of young women in sweatshops. And, I simply don’t like the feeling of being surrounded by plastic crap. I avoid shopping malls for that reason.
I would assert that there is nothing wrong with supporting good people, such as your local organic farmer, doing good work.
>This Nick is the most obvious control opposition I ever seen in US
I was once in that camp too. I’ve received info that may not be true. I know, surprised me greatly when I heard it. Takes a lot to surprise me these days. Nevertheless, he is a world-class f**kup, to put it mildly. Meow. And even if he isn’t taking orders from someone with an E-numbered paycheck and a pension plan, there are suspicious gassing and botting activity to boost his posts. His rise isn’t exactly organic, there are booster rockets on him. Someone wants you to pay attention to him, someone who probably hates you.
I think the best response to him is to keep your distance and warn others to do the same (which I’m doing now). Listen to him if you want but don’t get close to him. He’s in the same category as that Baked Alaska guy – if you see him in a crowd, get to the edge of it and run as fast as you can away from the crowd. I’m not talking about ideology here, I’m talking about survival.
Greetings all
At Beardtree # 168 amd JMG # 177,
With due respect to all, I have a slightly different view of the Israelo-Arab predicament.
It is clear that the establishment of Israel in 1948 was not only a mistake, but a grave injustice carried out against the natives with the full support of the west and interestingly enough of the USSR under Stalin.
The situation has now degraded till a point of no-return. But escalation may not happen at all, for a number of reasons:
(1) Israel is a nuclear armed country gone crazy enough to use them in west asia. Arab countries, Iran, Pakistan, China and Russia are very aware of that. They will do anything possible to avoid that, hence the intense diplomatic activities across the region.
(2) Israel is totally dependent on US power and money to exist at all. Israel is the proxy of the US in west asia. With US power on the decline the position of Israel weakens and becomes untenable.
(3) Israel has lost considerable prestige in the US due to its own stupidity in razing Gazah. Israel loses support in the US
(4) Due to a number of factors Israel has begun a process of internal collapse and emigration accelerates
(5) As soon as Nethanyahoo leaves office, the next Israeli Gov will have little choice but to reconsider its options
(6) Hamas remains in Gazah, international forces move in.
(7) West Bank becomes more ungovernable than usual. Settlers more violent but with less state support.
(8) Withdrawal of Israel out of west bank now on the horizon due to loss of western support and rising financial costs
(9) Israel now recognises Palestine to avoid complete loss of international support and under intense Chinese and Russian pressure.
(10) Israel agrees to pay compensation to Palestine.
(11) Conflict appeases for another 10 to 20 years.
(12) Israel loses the demographic battle due to higher birthrates of Arabs
(13) The 2 state solution becomes the one state solution called Palestine
(14) Jews either leave for good or accept to live in an Arab country.
As JMG says, I have made my predictions and we’ll see in due time what unfolds.
@peter #201
And I’ll leave this meme here. You don’t have to pick a side, especially if there are no heroes in the story.
https://imgur.com/a/jCv334a
Northwind, I’d banish it so fast its hooves would leave skid marks on the astral plane. Demons have their normal and natural place in the cosmos, but that place is not here on the plane that humans inhabit, so sending them back where they belong is a beneficial deed; that’s why a line from an old Druid ritual reads, “let darkness be gathered to its proper place.”
Michael, those are different things but they related to the same broad class of human experiences. Advertising is a debased form of manipulative and usually evil magic; social media influence and manufactured opinion sometimes involve magical actions, usually (again) of the debased, manipulative, and evil variety; hypnosis is a technique for trance induction that some people use for magical purposes. Magic is the art and science of causing changes in consciousness in accordance with will; while it includes the others, it also embraces much more. Out-of-body experiences in childhood are quite common, btw.
Emmanuel, hmm. I’ll take a look at it at some point, but so far everything I’ve read from that point of view has been unconvincing. So many books along those lines read as if a bunch of stoners were sitting around passing a joint from hand to hand, and somebody said, “Wow, man, what if those ancient Greek dudes in the mysteries ‘n’ s*** were just getting high?” — and one of the others stumbled over to a keyboard and started typing.
Parttimedruid, “sharkonium” is a keeper. If you take it even smaller, would quarks become sharks? Or sharqs? Or that mysterious subatomic particle, the sharkon?
Athaia, the book I always recommend is The Great Crash 1929 by John Kenneth Galbraith.
Chuaquin, as I said, it may be the most batshale notion yet — but of course weirder things have happened.
J.L.Mc12, the closest things I have to a favorite book on personal finance, are, on the one hand, The Great Crash 1929 by John Kenneth Galbraith, which has saved me more money than anything else in print — learn to recognize speculative bubbles and you’ll avoid the most common cause of mass bankruptcy — and on the other, the Essene lessons of Burks Hamner, which are the best version I’ve yet found of the saner end of New Thought, and completely changed my attitude toward my career and financial matters in general when I studied it in 2007-2009.
Earthworm, fair enough. No, nothing really comes to mind.
Chuaquin, I personally dislike the use of “-phobia” terms as a label for prejudice. Bigotry is not the same thing as panic. The phrase “anti-Muslim prejudice” works just as well, to my mind.
Jessica, hmm! The data point and the book are both interesting.
Alvin, your range of interests is just about broad enough to build an audience. Consider this blog, which ranges from peak oil to occultism to US and global politics to whatever wild hare gets into my mind next week. Your wife is correct; give it a try. Just remember to post regularly, stay weird, and engage with your audience as that builds.
Mary, ask yourself this. Do you care what other people think about the purchase? If not, it’s probably not virtue signaling.
Karim, that’s not impossible; I’d consider it a best case scenario, and somewhat unlikely for that reason, but I’d be willing to be pleasantly surprised. I didn’t think the Boer ascendancy in South Africa would end peacefully, either.
Ironically, multiculturalism has been harmful in the long term to “native” and imported ethnic and religious minories. If the impossibility of criticising anything from other cultures leads to western self censorship by woke “clergy” in MSM and Academia, then its consequence is the lack of communication and debate between cultures. Which lead to mutual isolation, and the non western cultures idealization (correlative to self hatred agains European culture, which indeed can and must be attacked in its dark side according wokesters dogma). It’s the “multiculti” kitsch: it’s denied the s**t of non western cultures, with the correlative censorship and cancelation to preserve idealized groups against unpleasant dirty and ugly side of them. The multiculturalist/woke long term failure has provoked the new European supremacism revival by the usual (far) right side of political spectrum: sometimes with the MacGuffin of supporting state laicism (like it happens in France); sometimes bluntly defending a conservative Christianism (this last happens in spanish Right wing).
Meanwhile, some leftists have noticed multiculturalism has failed, so they propose the Interculturalism: a way to communicate different cultures towards hybridation, though accepting every culture has its dark side which cannot be praised anymore. I think this term could be more constructive than multiculturalist kitsch, but unluckily it arrives too late. There’s an international tide in the western countries toward the far right side of cultural wars trenches.”Vae victis!”
>Also, a stock market crash in Oct 2026. That’s all I’ve got so far. Anyone else?
I can hardly see all these loose ends make it past spring. I am thinking a market crash may 2026.
@Chuaquin, people are pretty tolerant of burqas. It’s the stabbing and raping of indigenous Germans, and the driving of cars into crowds that sours people on the Muslim immigrants here. The deafening silence from the Muslim community after such atrocities on the one hand, while whining about islamophobia on the other, isn’t exactly helping things, either.
Arcane # 183:
A very smart comment about Mr. Fuentes case. I wonder how I wouldn’t realize it before…He could be the far right version
of the fake radical opposition in the left by Chomsky, for example.
————————————
Jessica # 199:
“Cyclops” cars may be explained by cognitive collapse, but also by its owners mere lazyness or lack of money to repair those cars. Who knows?
———————————
Jessica # 200:
Losurdo explanation of Beta Marxists origin is indeed a conspiracy theory me think. Well, these theories are usually perpetred by far right people, so I’m glad I’ve found a leftist exception…
I think some Beta Marxism could have been pushed with some “help” from outside the marxist Spectacle, but the fast and many changes in sociopolitical and economical senses, in western countries, during last century, can explain better that ideological mutation.
—————————
Karim # 207:
I thank your apportation to the Middle East wasp nest. I think your ideas about Israel/Palestine can be plausible, but I don’t share your idea of Israel as a simple US proxy in the area. The whole Middle East mess is a predicament (a situation with no evident nor easy solution), not a simple problem to be fixed. I think Israel has its own agenda which opportunely matches with USA agenda until today. Israel isn’t a proxy like other puppet countries, but the first place between US allies. We’ll see…
———————-
JMG # 209:
“Anti-Muslim Prejudice” fits as a correct definition of those attitudes, but I’m afraid it’s too long…However, I agree the “-phobia” terms aren’t fitted enough to describe a prejudice.
Browser went ‘bibbeldy’ – trying again
“Earthworm, fair enough. No, nothing really comes to mind.”
Ha! Found it… Salvador Dali ‘Old Couple or Musician’ from 1930
https://www.chilloutpoint.com/art_and_design/illusions-through-the-paintings-of-salvador-dali.html
And for new year smiles – The importance of listening to intuition:
https://ifunny.co/picture/off-the-mark-com-by-mark-parisi-i-can-t-UJyiVpD8C
@JMG and John Paul ONeil #147
Ah, that reminds me I was going to say I also reread Star’s Reach this year, for the first time since it was new. I agree with you, John Paul, in that it’s still a delightful book that has that great “adventure” feel, of settling into a colorful voyage through a very different world. That’s something I’ve been missing in a lot of modern fantasy and adventure stories too. Like JMG, I often find them boring and formulaic, but sometimes it’s hard to put my finger on what exactly they’re missing. So Star’s Reach certainly has that, but at the same time, it also felt very American in a way, as a plausible successor culture to the modern US. Also makes sense that there was a Star’s Reach RPG project at one point (I think?), since the main characters did give me a bit of an “RPG party” feel.
There are two scenes in that book that really stand out to me. The first is when Trey looks out at the ruins from the top of Troy Tower. I think that part more than any other really drove home the feeling of being in a new world after the end of industrial civilization, and showed in a visceral way how both vast and vulnerable our civilization is. My clear favorite part, though, is the bit where (light spoilers ahead) Trey sits down in that chair at the coast and visits Drowned Dee’Cee. It’s a very clear break with the rest of the book, which is so grounded in tone, but in a way that feels like an effective contrast rather than being jarring. I also love the mildly surreal, otherworldly atmosphere, and how the story teases us with whether anything supernatural happened or not. And of course, treating Washington DC as Atlantis is such a JMG thing to do. 🙂 This whole part feels like it could have been a stand-alone short story, but of course it also works well as it is.
@Chuaquin #189
Yes, I think we’re lucky in that regard, and Norway is probably a bit like Japan there. We have our problems, and there’s a growing divide between the upper and lower classes here too, but on the whole I do think we’ve managed to keep some of that social trust and cohesion that’s been eroded in many other places. If that’s going to last when the wealth runs out is a different question, of course.
@soko, @meditation timing
One way to approach this is to use the timing chore as an intuition exercise. While the conscious mind is clueless, in my experience the subconscious is capable of extremely accurate time-keeping. So when I start a phase of meditation, I make a mental note of the desired time and then forget about it, move on to the task at hand.
At some point, a feeling will surface: ‘times up’, at which point I check myself with the clock. I’m not always completely accurate but I can usually predict (before looking at the clock) how accurate I’ll be, entirely based on the strength of the feeling. I can often get accuracy within a few seconds of the desired time.
Dear John and commentariat: Do you know who is Col. Pedro Baños? He’s a very interesting geopolitical spanish thinker. It’s worth to read and hear him for what he says…and what he doesn’t say. He’s towards the right side of political spectrum, so his books and TV/online interviews are followed mainly by conservative people. So he has quite influence over this ideology.
First of all, I find provocative and bright his idea of “GeoHispanidad”, which is also a book. He starts pointing tacitly EU is in decline, within a “sandwich” between USA and China/Russia blocks. So he proposes not a full rupture with the rest of Western Europe, but slowly to weaken our dependence to Brussels. At the sane time, Spain future governments must reinforce cultural, economic and political bonds with South America, with every country where spanish language is spoken.
Well, this idea isn’t mainstream between the spanish right: both conservatives and far right populists share until
today their fondness for keeping being part of western block: Brussels, Washington…and Tel Aviv. However Mr. Baños new view towards Latin America is gaining slowly momentum.
In my next comment I’ll write what I think personally about this author ideas on a future possible spanish geopolitics.
(To be continued)
Arena #
The nazism was not only a political ideology more , but a religion ( positive christianim ) oposed to christianism and based in the effort for the purification of the germanic with the goal of obtain the aryan race.
The genocide of jews and gypsies was aimed by the pagan religious fanatism of the nazis and this presented certain similarities with the luteranism extended in Germany, but not with the catolicism., wich is opposed to the racial distintions and is focused in the good works and the sins of some one.
Emmanuel Goldstein @ 184 Just off the top of my head:
We do not and cannot know what rites would have been practiced at neolithic sites nor what beliefs accompanied those rites. We can take note of what flora and fauna were carved, an activity needing significant time and energy, but even when those same motifs reappear in other Mediterranean sites centuries or millennia later, it is almost certain that the rituals and symbolic meanings would have altered. A scholar can view a statue of Athena and understand this particular person or deity was of importance, but in the absence of written records, not know she was a virgin goddess–an extremely rare phenomenon worldwide–or that she was born, fully armed, from her father’s head.
Greek settlement in Iberia was confined to a handful of small city states along the northwestern coast, established by Phocaea and later by its’ colony, Massillia. I think it fair to suppose that the reasons for these foundations were, first, trade, and second, to watch the sea-lines leading to Massillia. That formidable city state is known to have successfully fought off two, IIRC, Carthaginian attacks and to have established its’ own zone of influence north of the Balearic Islands. I doubt they were foolish enough to tamper with local religions, and I rather think Carthaginian influence would have been much stronger in Iberia than Greek.
There were what we now call “mystery” cults all across the Greek world, all or most of which do seem to have kept their secrets. Why cite the Eleusinian, in which Phocaeans and their daughter cities are not known to have participated, in particular? It is of some interest to note that the Romans of the late Republic and early Principate as well–I hope I have that right–outlawed and suppressed Dionysiac worship.
Christians were by no means the first cult to receive unfriendly attention from Roman authorities.
Adulterants in communion wine wouldn’t surprise me, and has probably been done many times, if only to stretch a scarce supply.
In general, I can’t help wondering if Mararesku hasn’t muddled both geography and chronology. One example, there does happen to have been a well known mystery cult which took place on the island of Samothrace, right off the Anatolian coast, no more than a day’s sail from Phocaea. Granted the Eleusinian rites were to become more famous, but not at the time when the far sailing Phocaeans were founding their northwestern Med. colonies.
JMG, I don’t much care what anyone thinks of whatever I might do. If it ain’t illegal, go for it. I can take your point about environmentalists’ lavish lifestyles. Nevertheless, wholesale accusations of virtue signalling strike me as the whining of persons whose sit on my rump while other people work enterprises are losing money.
Untitled-1#28
We are wich we aeat. Our healthy depends absolutely of this, so the some one diet should be not only an economical question.
@Mary Bennet 179
What I am referring to is a very local scale group and my experience of that is as an actual local. There aren’t any written exposés or anything. The label of organized crime is mine. The group operates legal businesses, enjoys widespread public favor from the retirees that flood the area which it buys via civic projects and such, and exerts strong influence over local politics by throwing its substantial financial assets into backing various local political and judicial candidates. It is centrally controlled and operates without significant legal scrutiny due to its special status in the law. Upon closer inspection many of its businesses operate on legal but ethically objectionable bases. Its motives which at first appear altruistic or charitable once the patina has been scratched off are self-serving and destructive. Whenever a candidate for some political office or judicial position appears vocally speaking out against this group they almost always seem to drop out just ahead of the election citing “health” or “personal emergencies” etc. Actual local politicians and judicial officials are quick to always back them up or give them credit. When issues arise for the group with local ordinances, zoning etc they seem to just nicely disappear in short order and never be mentioned again. When this group takes issue with anybody else they can count on the opposite. I could go on but I’m not going to.
So when I say organized crime, I’m not talking about cartels. Think more a homegrown variety of the mob.
I’m not particularly worried about them. They would be an absolutely classic example of a group that builds itself up by breaking everyone else down, with exactly what that course eventually entails.
HV
Anonimus #165
There is a nazi intellectual , called Jaume Farrerons, who states that the anti-islamism of the right wing groups is because they are controlled by the zionists.
Anselme, was not the Spanish Inquisition directly aimed at conversos? Probably because they may have been thought to be in cahoots with Islam, the Sublime Porte and the North African sultanates being clear and present dangers to Spain. And because Ferdinand and Isabella, autocrats in their own way, may have thought they needed an enemy.
I wonder if it might not be time for us to request from our esteemed host a deep dive into the phenomenon of controlled opposition. Who resorts to this technique, what is it expected to accomplish, and how can we recognize it? I will say that the swift rise in publicity of Mr. Fuentes is very suspicious.
Chuaquin, “multiculturalism” was never more than a stalking horse pushing the supremacy of the managerial class, which has its own transnational culture and defends that with a great deal of nastiness and bigotry. As the blowback against the managerial class accelerates, and the rising entrepreneurial class moves to supplant it, yeah, various other views (laïcité in France, Catholic traditionalism in Spain, evangelical Protestantism in the US) are becoming the banners of the revolt. As for “anti-Muslim prejudice,” it’s only one syllable longer than “Islamophobia”!
Earthworm, funny. Thanks for both.
BorealBear, thanks for this. I considered doing a Star’s Reach RPG but sales of the Weird of Hali RPG have been so lackluster that I couldn’t justify the time it would require. I’m glad, btw, you caught the American quality of the Star’s Reach world. I’ve gotten very tired of the way that a sort of faux-European pastiche dominates so much of modern imaginative fiction, and wanted to do something rooted in the experience of this continent.
Chuaquin, no, I wasn’t familiar with Col. Baños. His ideas seem very sensible to me — those linguistic and historical connections are a potential source of considerable strength, and a way out of a rapidly failing European system.
Mary, in that case, you’re immune from the temptation of virtue signaling. If you really don’t care what other people think of your purchases, go ye forth and purchase, and let the whiners whine. As for controlled opposition, hmm. I’ll consider that, but it’ll take some research time on my part.
Anselmo, I have seen similar speculation which claims that Islam is, in effect, the armed wing of Judaism. No, I don’t believe it, nor the theory you referenced. It is certainly true that Jews facilitated some of the early Moslem conquests, in Spain, for example, because their communities received better treatment under the Caliphs than in Christendom. It is also true that Jewish money persons, along with many others who have more wealth than is good for them, do like to meddle in politics. I never heard that the Koch bros were Zionists. They merely wanted to own whatever their eyes could see.
Hippie Viking, thank you for the most interesting explanation. I greatly fear we will see many more local cartels such as you have described as decline progresses. I think it is high time the rest of us figured out ways to cope with such cartels, maybe how to recognise them in the early stages and at least limit their influence.
“Greek settlement in Iberia was confined to a handful of small city states along the northwestern coast”
Northwestern Mediterranean coast = Southeastern Iberian coast?
Chuaquin #218
Something like Beta Marxism was going to arise eventually for exactly the reasons you mentioned. I doubt Losurdo would have disputed that.
People in power do do things that they don’t publicize or that are the opposite of what they claim.
That US government agencies were involved in cultural promotion (and selection) during the Cold War has long been widely documented. Leading feminist Gloria Steinem’s connection with the CIA is just one better-known example.
I think that Losurdo is making the specific case he does because he wants to excommunicate the heretics and restore what he sees as true Marxism, namely a means for replacing capitalism with a better social system. To put it simply, there are DINOs (Democrats in name only) RINOs (their republican counterparts) and, for Losurdo, MINOs (Marxists in name only). Good names for sub-atomic particles too.
Okay… just a quick scan and that bloke Dali was one seriously strange character, and that is for sure!
“Salvador Dalí’s tarot deck, Dalí. Tarot , is a captivating fusion of his surrealist artistry and the mysticism of tarot. Commissioned in 1971 for the James Bond film *Live and Let Die*, though ultimately not used in the movie, the deck was completed in 1984 and remains one of Dalí’s most intriguing projects.”
“Dalí’s fascination with tarot wasn’t just a professional endeavor; it was deeply personal, shared with his wife and muse, Gala. Both Dalí and Gala were known to be intrigued by the occult and mysticism, with Gala, in particular, having a keen interest in tarot and astrology. She often consulted tarot cards for guidance and inspiration, influencing Dalí to explore the mystical world in his art. The creation of this deck was a way for Dalí to merge his artistic genius with the esoteric traditions that he and Gala found so captivating.”
https://www.crystalking.com/dali
JMG you said:
“the psychotic end of New Thought has been absorbed hook, line and sinker by elite culture. I’ll be discussing that when we get to that post — New Thought was one of the three winning topics this month.”
Sounds like he was pretty weird as a kid from the start (throwing himself downstairs for attention) – I’ve seen you mention Crowley (1875-1947) but don’t recall this bloke Dali (1904-1989) coming up – are we looking at a poster boy for the psychotic end of New Thought’ or something else altogether!?
Yeats and Dali each had a muse… but dear gods: “As you can see, Dalí added images of himself and Gala into the deck. ” what a narcissist!
Have you ever looked at his tarot deck? I get the impression his imagery strikes a deeply discordant note with some people.
Perhaps a rabbit hole to step quietly around?
Not sure if you’ll want to post this, but images from the deck:
https://www.crystalking.com/hs-fs/hubfs/dali%20tarot2.png?width=1344&height=600&name=dali%20tarot2.png
It strikes me that a lot of the arguing about female genital mutilation is caused by placing a number of very different practices in the same bucket and trying to treat them all the same.
Some things called FGM are considerably less invasive than circumcision, while others involve amputating the clitoris of preteen and early teenage girls without anaesthetic or their consent, with the direct aim of preventing orgasm. That’s if everything goes right – the conditions under which it is often done and the invasiveness of the surgery I understand is substantially more likely to result in infections which can lead to infertility and even death. Which is way more intense than circumcision, and results in numbers of women who remember what happened to them and are really angry about the continuing negative impacts on their lives.
I reckon a lot of people would be willing to leave the mild forms alone, and ban amputating the clitoris. You could make the cutoff ‘somewhat more invasive than male circumcision’, and then you wouldn’t have that problem either.
@222 Anselmo
Europe is facing mass immigration from Muslim countries, not of Jews from Israel or the USA, so right-wingers would likely be anti-Islam even without Zionist influence.
“Europe is facing mass immigration from Muslim countries, not of Jews from Israel or the USA, so right-wingers would likely be anti-Islam even without Zionist influence.”
And that’s the big difference between Europe and America: In America the big boogeymen enemies are going to be blacks and Jews, not Muslims, because America doesn’t have very many Muslims, but has a tense history with its black minority population and a currently rising anti-Semitism. After America leaves the Middle East it won’t care about Muslims anymore. In Europe, blacks (who are usually Christian) and Jews are going to be religious allies with Europeans against the sizable Muslim minority in the upcoming religious wars.
Jessica @ 226 northeastern Iberian coast. Roughly, the coast of what is now Catalonia. It is surprising to learn how many well known cities along the coasts of Catalonia, Gulf of Lions and eastwards to about Liguria began as Phocaean or Massillian foundations, Mersailles itself, Antibes, Nice, Ampurias in Spain among others.
Just a curious question to other members of the commentariat: Have you noticed a marked change in the attitudes surrounding climate change in your interactions of late? My personal anecdote would be my holiday conversations with my more mainstream “normie” relatives this year re: climate change and the need for renewable energy. The change in attitudes, reflecting the new narritives in the MSM, are an abrupt change from previously passionately held views. Of course the reality that AI datacenters have a 0% chance of running on renewable energy are at the root of this change in narritive. Maybe I’m just naive, but it astonishes me to watch people’s world view get steered in a new direction so abruptly, it’s rather disquieting!