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.
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Before we go on, I’m delighted to report that my book The Secret of the Temple: Earth Energies, Sacred Geometry, and the Lost Keys of Freemasonry is on its way back into print in a new and noticeably improved edition from Aeon Books. Here’s the blurb:
“Unlock the hidden sacred temple science of the ancient world, that has informed Freemasonry and the Grail Tradition
John Michael Greer unlocks the secrets of ancient temples in this pioneering discussion of their sacred geometry, that gave rise to the world’s most awe-inspiring cathedrals, and the cryptic ceremonies of modern-day Freemasons.
Thousands of years ago, people began to notice that certain structures had beneficial effects on the crops that sustained their lives. The Temple of Solomon was one of many of these ancient structures that drew on the temple tradition, and its secrets and traditions were passed along by way of the Knights Templar to the Freemasons.
Within these pages, Greer expertly unpicks the mysterious history of Freemasonry, tracing the ancient secrets of the temple in different religions and geographies, from Mesopotamia, to China, to Japan, to Africa. The book also explores the place of the temple in Christianity, as well as the Grail tradition. In the final two sections of the book, Greer reveals how the sacred geometry, and the technology of the temple, were used to yield significant benefits to local agricultural fertility, revealing how these secrets can be used again today.
The Secret of the Temple rebuilds this lost body of knowledge that has been used to accumulate and direct energy throughout history, and is essential reading for anyone wishing to discover the secrets of freemasonry, sacred geometry, and the Grail tradition.”
The new edition will be available on March of next year, but the publisher’s taking preorders now, with a 20% discount; the code to use at checkout is TST20. The websites to use? This one in the New World and this one in the Old.
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With that said, have at it!
John–
In magical/psychic work, where one employs symbols heavily and also interacts with divinity, how does one effectively develop, for example, active imagination and the symbology involved therein while interacting with one’s deity and yet not reduce that deity to the status of an abstract symbol (that is, respect the personhood of said deity)?
Could you fairly say, that Elitism is a kind of Marxism in reverse? That the revolution lead by the elite, will save us all (except for those they kill, accidentally or not, as they wade through slaughter and mayhem to the throne), and is thoroughly justified, indeed long overdue? Wouldn’t this be the de facto justification for most of the regimes in American history, whether the Plantation aristos, the Gilded Age plutocrats, the New Deal progressive managers, or the up and coming Elon Musk innovators? I wonder if Elitism-Marxism are kind of a binary tidal lock between two bad ideas. If that’s true, the “Elite” are basically Lumpen-Proletariat, who don’t know it. And the lumpen proletariat would then, a species of aristos. Entitlement would be the common spiritual denominator, joining the two groups. Not that they have a monopoly, of course. But it would certainly explain the Victim Special Olympics we find everywhere today.
When someone is inhabited by the shadow archetype are their factors other than cognitive dissonance that make it difficult to shake it off? Does the archetype actively resist being cast off? I’m wondering if that’s why so many people seem to double down on their perceptions even in the face of significant evidence that ‘we are the baddies,’ i.e., the horrid reactions from some quarters regarding the Kirk assassination.
Also, it seems like some of the most bloodthirsty reactions are coming from women. is their unfamiliarity with violence on a personal level contributing to this? Or is it just LARPing that would quickly disappear if violence started to touch them or their extended circle if acquaintances?
Dear JMG,
In the 2020 Grand Mutation chart reading, you mentioned countries (Russia, Arabia Saudi, Germany,…) that have Aquarius as their sign would experience strong turmoils, especially in the 20 following years. Could you explain how a sign is attributed to a given country? And can you recommend a list including every country’s signs.
Might I also ask which subject would be discussed next week ?
Thank you,
Hello JMG!
I am a man born and raised in Rhode Island. About 2014, I had an experience with a friend of mine. We were in his back yard debating the existence of God/Gods and UFO’s/Non Human Intelligence. It just so happened, that right on the middle our debate, two bright orbs of light passed by each other in front of the moon. Promptly after, two more (or the same ones) did the same. Shortly after 5 or 7 (I don’t recall directly) then just appeared around the moon in full circle. They didn’t move to that location, they just appeared there suddenly. They did somewhat of a dance, just a slight circle or a shimmer around the moon, then simply vanished. We were both stunned. We were sober, clear minded, and in disbelief. Me, being an atheist at the time, instantly thought we just witnessed the elusive UFO. My point of past sightings of angels really being misinterpreted UFOs seemed to be proven right in front of our very eyes. My friend stated “well I guess you were right”. After years of research into the vast phenomena that is UFO/UAP, it has become apparent that there is a connection with consciousness/spiritualism/symbolism. It lead me down a road to hermetic philosophy, alchemical studies, various dabbling in religious studies and eventually making me open my eyes to God, or the Great Craftsman or whatever else people want to call it. Whatever that is, I’m on the search for it. I would have never discovered my spirituality if i never had my UFO sighting which created a context for spiritual/hermetic/and alchemical languages to take root; allowing my strictly secular mind to comprehend the non secular reality we truly live in. Almost as if my sighting was more of symbolism than anything, a wake up call to find my true self. Now I am looking for a place to learn more and with others. I understand the importance of the symbolic nature of magic and what imprinting images into the unconscious does. Therefore I would like to take place in symbolic rituals with people I can genuinely learn from and that can guide me through initiation to further transmute my soul to a higher understanding of consciousness. If there is anywhere you can refer me to, or any form of guidance or words of wisdom for my journey. It would be greatly appreciated to receive such generosity from a learned one like yourself. Thank you for all that you do!
Howdy all,
First off, to share: What was meant to be a short, quick supplement to the “how to learn” material I’ve posted on my site Rhetoric for the Renaissance Man turned out to be a tale that grew in the telling, so if you want to check out a monster post on how to start using the quirky analog note-taking method known as Zettelkasten, you can find that here: https://rhetoricfortherenaissanceman.com/2025/10/22/learning-add-on-the-zettelkasten/
Secondly, to ask: Whew, this is a big one for me. Here and over on the dreamwidth, I’ve alluded to the last year or two being tough, but I’ve been cagey about why. Well, the short version is that my now ex-wife filed for divorce in the spring of last year, and due to various circumstances, that wasn’t finalized until the spring of this year. My spiritual work has done a lot to get me through that, but in terms of bringing some aspects of that into the material plane, I could use some advice.
I’m getting to the point where I’m ready to start thinking about dating, but as a 40-year-old with kids who hasn’t been on the market for over 15 years, I’m facing a very unfamiliar world compared to what I knew last time I gave that a shot. Divination, prayer, and my own sentiments are pretty strongly against dating apps for all the usual “digital technology is bad for human relationships” reasons discussed around here. As such, I’d like to ask our host and anyone else willing to comment: what advice do you have for meeting people with a goal of a romantic relationship (in my case, women)? Most of my friends are married and most of their friends are married, there aren’t really options at my workplace, and it’s been hard to find groups or activities at all, much less ones likely to have women who might be interested, so I’m not exactly sure where or how to look.
I’m doing what I can to follow our host’s advice to focus on “being more lovable if I want to find love,” and I’m certainly praying for help and considering a magical working to open my eyes and heart to opportunities and to make myself as ready to take advantage of them as possible, but as I said, when it comes to the hands-on steps to take to supplement all that, I’m coming up somewhat short.
Any thoughts are most welcome, and my blessings to all who welcome them,
Jeff
I find it fascinating and also horrifying that state and local governments in blue states that are ready and willing to mandate battery cars place of petroleum cars, or phase out natural gas in homes or any dozens of schemes to pretend that they are solving climate change are jumping in with both feet to approve and encourage power sucking data centers.
Changing from fossil fuels to cars that are charged with electricity, mostly generated by fossil fuels, is of dubious climate change benefit. But building huge empty warehouses filled with servers that gobble and water and power for little or no societal benefit seems insane if you buy in to the Climate Change Story. It seems that the cognitive dissonance in this would drive most people insane if they were not already insane.
Hello Mr. Greer,
I remember in the comments sections on your blog in early September that you had mentioned certain fears about civil war in the U.S. You even mentioned a plan to leave should that unfortunate possibility manifest. Well, a lot has changed since then from Charlie Kirk’s assignation, the shutdown, the no kings rally going the way it did, and we made it through stock market crash season without a glitch. So, where do you think things stand now? Is the possibility of civil war in America mostly behind us?
Hi JMG,
What’s your take on Trump’s recent video where he flies a fighter jet over a No Kings protest and dumps a load of poo on them? I know you don’t do videos, but suspect you’ve heard of it. It made me recall your numerous comments on how people, especially on the progressive end of things, desperately want to express all the negative emotions not associated with “nice”, while still identifying as nice. My take is Trump is rubbing their faces in it, in a manner of speaking. I wonder if this may be a new escalation in the crisis that is the time we live in. The veneer of civility is wearing dangerously thin. Although, I will confess I found that video hilarious.
OtterGirl
Hi JMG, wanted to share the below with you and the commentariat.
https://www.patreon.com/cw/JeffVelazquez
I had only used Patreon to follow your astrological readings but when I found myself in the ranks of the newly unemployed, I thought it could be a useful place to showcase work/ideas. I was content to keep my art in obscurity but events are compelling me to put it, and my name, out in the world. I’m quite found of the animated gif, and applying it to journals has been a pleasant diversion in otherwise stressful times. This leads me to my only question for you [and everyone else], what are your thoughts on selling old journals? I saw a similar question, I can’t remember if here or on Dreamwidth, about what to do with old journals, especially when they pile up after years of daily entries. Monetize seemed more appealing than recycle, but they are very personal artifacts.
I have been re-reading your previous posts about alchemy. In them, you’ve mentioned an alchemical method. What exactly is this method and how does it differ from the scientific method?
Greetings John, last week you commented on some of the methods that you used to reorder your thinking and habits, such as affirmations, meditation etc. Do you have opinions or any experiences with Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and its usefulness, or any dangers? It seems to have been assigned the snarlword of being a “psuedoscience”, as I’m sure many of the things you find useful have been. Your perspective on the potential usefulness of it would be appreciated.
I probably have an inaccurate idea of the spirit in the afterlife, but I was wondering why spirits/ghosts of someone who was murdered couldn’t/wouldn’t lead investigators and authorities to the killer.
Thanks.
You’ve introduced me to the concept of deindustrialization. I am personally interested in the steam punk future when the energy cost of extracting natural gas exceeds the energy produced and the end of coal as a viable resource. An estimated 80 year period. I am also interested in the long term effects of what Bruce H. Lipton called pseudo-hormones in his “Biology of Belief”. Do you know of any stories that address the interaction of these two?
Good afternoon. Do not attempt to adjust your internet setting, there is nothing wrong with your beloved internet. We have taken control of the internet to bring you this special message from our grooving sponsors, Republica Services Waste Collection.
In the interest of culture spamming, I’d like to alert dedicated readers to a new proposal for the beautification of America: garbage processing facilities in place of parks. If we get the garbage processed after all, if can transform it into alchemical gold, then we will be able to park ourselves in the park. It is only because everything is so ugly that we need the respite of the park in the first place. Remember, pollution, on all levels, psychic, etheric, astral, material, is in fashion today. This pollution will dominate us until we all become garbage men.
Perhaps we see it the most online. Some things its just being OCD, but really it is culture spamming on the highest level. The fact that you can walk outside and see litter on the street just confirms the very nature of the spectacle itself. It also heralds a time when capitalism will, like the Mona Lisa, cease to function as a work of art.
In this moment when the AI bubble will surely be unplugged from the butt sore techbros of silicon valley, we should all be able to predict, with mathematical certainty, just how much we stand to gain by processing the garbage produced by their processors now. This is where the automatic degrowth of alienated labor is taking us: we will have to sort the shale together one way or another, because the the rapid degradation of the very conditions of survival, in both the most general and the most trivial senses of the term, insure that there will be a lot of garbage to deal with.
Backward-looking gas-bags continue to waffle about (against) the culture spamming of garbage all day every day. They think that the suburbs are somehow safe and beautiful, when they too will become heaps of wasted plastic amidst the wreckage of everyday life once the fourth removed simulation is turned for good. These ‘realists’ solemnly observe that their place within the waning middle class, holding the have nots from the have alls.
In point of fact, the rapid increase in the chemical pollution of the breathable atmosphere, as of rivers, streams and, already, oceans; the irreversible accumulation of radioactive waste attending the development of nuclear power for so-called peaceful purposes; the effects of noise; the pervasion of space by plastic junk that threatens to tum it into an everlasting refuse dump; birth rates wildly falling because people aren’t fracking; the demented vitiation of foodstuffs; the urban sprawl everywhere overrunning what was once town and countryside; and, likewise, the spread of mental illness-including the neurotic fears and hallucinations that are bound to proliferate in response to pollution itself, the alarming features of which are placarded everywhere-and of suicide, whose rate of increase precisely parallels the accelerating construction of this environment (not to mention the effects of nuclear or bacteriological warfare, the wherewithal for which is already to hand, hanging over us like the sword of Damocles, even though it is, of course, avoidable).
In short, life in the suburban hellscape of the long now.
The only way to get better is to go through it. We cannot escape the garbage. So must embrace this pollution on all levels and become culture spammers. The highly inebriated suburban mammal has at last demonstrated, by virtue of its own cluelessness, that it can no longer sit on its rear rumpkin and do nothing. The so called leisure society has only produced a landfill full of action figures who take no action.
For the true suburbanite however, garbage has not really yet been thought of as an actual resource to use. We have not thought of how we ourselves could become plastivores. Our thoughts are already plastic, molded into the shape of advertising patterns.
The masters of suburbia are now obliged to speak of the fact that their own excremental development is encroaching on the place where they themselves eat and drink. A sense of new reformism is in the air. Along with ozempic and elective surgeries designed to make diabetes tolerable, there are new surgeries and biomedical implant chips coming online that will make a big juicy bowl of garbage seem tasty. And you’ll want to eat it too!
In times such as these, the old fuddy duds harping on about beauty and form, and the soul of aesthetics can best be ignored. The rate of production of garbage has risen continually on its linear and cumulative course; a final threshold having just been passed in this progression, peak-garbage, has now been reached, and it is time we wade through the sewers of our minds to find out just what we must do!
Throughout a world professional managerial cheesemongers continually bloat and pass gas over their turgid technnology, real needs are able to be satisfied by going underground, sinking below the radar, becoming part of the garbage eating counter-culture.
When the pitiful masters of a society whose wretched destiny is now discernible are obliged to admit that our social issues have become an environment, that the management of everything has become mired in misery, it is obvious that the old specialized politics must perforce declare itself utterly bankrupt. Along with the rest of the destitute country.
Bankrupt, indeed. But we will be buttressed by the plastic soup of the past.
As for the suburbanite, the choice will not be between gladiator-at-law colleseums or retrosuburban utopias, but between garbage man, or park manager. For as those who have misgivings about betas, alphas and sigmas of every stripe, and their ability to influence herd behavior (or not) they might as well pick themselves a tombstone, for, as Joseph Dejacque put it, ‘We have seen Authority at work, and its work condemns it utterly.’
The slogan ‘Garbage or Death!’ is no longer the lyrical expression of suburbanites in therapy. Rather, it applies to the perils facing the entire suburbanite species and their inability to belong in any meaningful sense of the word.
The spring of tomorrow has vouchsafed us a clear sky, albeit when twirling with climate change induced tornadoes and hurricanes, but clear never the less, because the oil will have run out. When it rains, when there are clouds of smog over no-longer-fly-over country, let us never forget we have made the garbage ourselves and it is ours alone to process. Alienated suburban living makes the rain. Being a garbage man makes the sunshine.
MORE GARBAGE, FEWER SUBURBAN YUPPIES!
Thirty feet in a thousand years, or 9 mm per year, and the corals failed to go extinct.
Between 8,000 and 9,000 years ago, retreating North American ice sheets alone caused more than 30 feet (about 10 meters) of global sea-level rise. For years, scientists assumed Antarctica was a more important contributor during this period, but the new study shows the opposite: Antarctica’s role was comparatively small, while North America’s ice masses were the dominant driver.
https://phys.org/news/2025-10-north-american-ice-sheets-drove.html
The corals are much tougher than a LLM,
“Anthropic researchers, working with the UK AI Security Institute, found that poisoning a large language model can be alarmingly easy. All it takes is just 250 malicious training documents (a mere 0.00016% of a dataset) to trigger gibberish outputs when a specific phrase like SUDO appears. The study shows even massive models like GPT-3.5 and Llama 3.1 are vulnerable.”
Prince Andrew has been de-duked, or is it un-duked? That also un-dutchessed Fergie who apparently wrote Epstein a letter once.
My first experiment in hard cider is almost ready for bottling. I used champaign yeast so it might have quite the kick. Or it might be apple cider vinegar. I’ll have to see.
Hello JMG and commentariat:
A new (open) post is here now, but by now I won’t comment nothing new for you’ll, because in this moment I don’t have any doubt or hot question for you.
However, I’d like to comment two things. First, I want to ask John if he’s keeping on having problems with the “abject german moron” who has been bombing him with spam messages in this blog. I hope this cybernetic nightmare had finished today for you, John…
Second, congratulations to JMG for your book publication, which you’ve written about ancient temples secrets. I think it’s a very suggestive topic to read it, maybe I’d buy it from the Old World here.
JMG,
I am wondering about your current views on decline. I am living in he arctic in a quite remote area on the outskirts of the American empire, the desperation of the rulers and the hopeless attempts at countering the effects of dwindling fosdil fuels are very visible here. I am, of course, talking about the green industries that are anything but green. Here it seems as though there cant be too many mines, wind mill parks or other hugely destructive projects painted in bright green colors. The area I am born and raised in, is often referred to as Europe’s last wilderness, and for good reason. There are many areas here on the UN’s world heritage list, but this does not seem to matter one iota as long as there is some reckless foreign company with an insane “green” project that they want to launch and squander untold millions of government subsidies on. If you have never seen an open pit mine or an endless wind mill park up close, its hard to even begin to describe the utter desolation and environmental mayhem that it brings. It is quite shocking to see how pristine untouched wilderness is turned into a wasteland in front of your eyes, and all for profit. It is greenwashed of course, and anyone raising concerns “doesnt care about the climate”. I am not a big believer in man made climate change, but I am an environmentalist and a huge believer in conservation and living within your means. I basically think the whole climate business is a huge financial bubble and a way to justify gigantic environmental destruction. It is quite disgusting and deeply concerning. Of course it goes without saying that all of these green projects are carried out with diesel and gas powered vehicles… So, I find myself almost longing for at least a partial collapse that would make projects like these not just unsustainable (as they already are) but impossible. So what do you think, when will insane projects like these start to seriously wind down? Do we have any hope of that in the near to midterm future?And, would you rewrite anything in The Long Descent or does it still holf mostly true?
Public Service Announcement – Easy Mead Recipe
BASIC MEAD RECIPE
Materials
1 gallon glass fermenting jug
Fermenting lock
The above is available as a kit on Amazon
Thermometer
Tubing to siphon out mead
Funnel
Bowl or pot big enough to mix up initial mixture in
8 16 oz amber bottles with resealable caps, also found on Amazon, though I bet you could make do with mason jars with classic canning lids
Ingredients
3 pounds of raw honey, Water, dechlorinated
12 raisins
French champagne yeast, the Lalvin EC-1118 one commonly used for mead (again Amazon, Bezos rules!, unfortunately), it is a tough one that can outcompete wild yeasts, can go up to 18% alcohol and has a wide temperature range from 65-95 degrees Fahrenheit Was the best yeast in a contest among three different yeasts
Juice from one lemon or orange for acidity
One black tea bag to make 8 ounces of steeped tea for tannins
Procedure
Heat around a half gallon of water up to 110 degrees to dissolve the honey easier, not too hot to preserve the rawness. Pour honey into water, put some warm water into honey container and shake it to get the leftovers out into bowl, add citrus juice and tea, when 80 degrees or below, add yeast packet, stir .Using funnel pour into fermenting jug, add raisins and enough water to fill, leaving about an inch space at the top. Cap jug (cap came with my kit), turn over a few times to mix. Take cap off, put fermenting lock on, should start bubbling quite nicely within 24 hours. Lower temperature fermenting is supposed to be the best, but the yeast is supposed to handle up to 95 degrees, so regular household temperatures are fine. I just kept mine on the kitchen counter.
The Wait
Over two months. The bubbling slows then stops. Be sure it stops as continued fermentation can blow up glass bottles and jars. Time to bottle. You can also stop fermentation after a couple of months by adding a good quality vodka or rum.
Bottling
Siphon out mead into another container. Using funnel pour into bottles. An inch layer of mead will be left on top of the yeast. If well sealed it can age in a closet. It is immediately drinkable, but I have read it improves with age. As regards the half inch on the yeast dregs, pour into a jar, not minding the inevitable minor admixture of yeast, chill let the yeast settle,drink! Toss the yeast. If you chill the siphoned off mead in the fridge before bottling it’s supposed to clarify it.
Variations
The above is the lazy man basics. You can be a clean freak and use sterilizing methods to minimize wild yeast contamination. There are tools and methods to measure chemical characteristics and concentrations. All this info is on the internet for your edification. You can also use more or less than 3 lbs of honey for a sweeter or dryer result. Plus variations in what yeast you use.
Actually I went creative with my first batch. I added about ¾ cup of a clear spirit in which I had soaked a couple of tablespoons of angelica root and about the same amount of Drambuie a 80 proof liqueur made from scotch, honey and various herbs. I siphoned off some mead at about the six week mark to make room for this. So I guess it became a fortified honey wine.
There is a whole world of additives, fruit juices, spice, herbs, even flowers. Again, the internet. I did get a fun book entitled Make Mead Like a Viking, which discusses a plethora of variations. As you can see you can geek out with mead.
Have fun!
@ Jeff #6
My condolences for the situation. I, too, recently went through a divorce (my second, unfortunately). In my case, having suffered two failed marriages (of ~15 years each), I decided that I was just done with it all and was trying to work out exactly how I would be finishing out my days (I’m in my early fifties) as a celibate. The hut-in-woods options was looking pretty good, quite frankly. God, on the other hand, had other ideas and placed a wonderful woman in my path. (I quite literally raised my face to the heavens and asked, “Really?”) My advice, for what it is worth, would be to focus on your inner work but be open to possibilities that arise.
Gollios #3 says: “it seems like some of the most bloodthirsty reactions are coming from women.”
Kipling had something to say about that: https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poem/poems_female.htm. This poem could be criticized as sexist and sweeping, and it is, but there’s a kernel of truth in it (and I say this as a female)! I will say that I’ve known several excellent female bosses and leaders, but I think they had made a conscious effort to tone down the traits that Kipling describes in the poem.
Jeff,
I’m in a similar situation, as a 40-year old whose wife left just over a year ago and who has no idea how to get back into dating. I share your aversion to apps, and don’t own a smartphone anyway so there’s no temptation. I wish I could offer you help rather than commiseration, but maybe that helps to a degree. The way I used to meet women in my 20’s, the last time I was single, was usually through friends, at parties, bars, etc. I don’t drink very much anymore and hate the idea of cruising bars, and like your friends, mine have settled down or flown away, so this is a question I’ve often asked myself.
My choice for now has been to leave it to serendipity. My marriage certainly felt like a karmically-determined relationship, with an unlikely meeting and a strange persistence that would not let us ignore one another despite an initial mutual effort. So if there’s another round in the chamber, I guess it will happen. If nothing is fated for me, then I can learn to accept that whether I find a relationship is basically my choice and it won’t be tremendously important either way.
That said, even serendipity requires action. I have been working hard on what you mentioned, improving those aspects of myself that require it. I have also made it a project to learn to be equally happy without a partner, so that if someone comes along, I can make a choice instead of feeling like this is the only option. The choice is between the very attractive prospect of continuing to be with myself, independent and happy, or with this person. Part of treating myself right is that I’ve identified places, events, etc. that I would enjoy, then I make myself go. A music show is an example, but it could be any quirky thing, not necessarily a place for meeting people. So far I haven’t met anyone, but I have had some good times on my own.
Being the type who tends to please others and neglect myself, this has been a rewarding experience. I think of “taking myself on a date” as lame as that sounds. Even just going to a food truck for a meal, or a brewery for a drink, or ice cream, or a walk on the beach. The more I do it, the easier it becomes to enjoy my own company without feeling that someone is missing.
Another notion I’ve settled on is that the big problem for me is periodic loneliness. I do fine with lots of me-time, but I don’t want it to be ALL of my time. I’ve considered the possibility that, given what I know about the realities of marriage (not the Disney version I was fed growing up), maybe I can satisfy that need in other ways. I might share out my time between several friends, for example, instead of one partner filling the bulk of the role.
I’m shotgunning here, but another useful exercise for me was to spend a lot of time thinking about what love actually is. My conclusions would take a long essay for me to explain, but they put a lot of things into perspective, and make me less eager to dive back in. If I do, it will be with a much clearer idea of what I’m doing, what I’ll put up with, and critically to my conclusions about love, what my obligations are in the strict sense of the word.
An affirmation I have been telling myself when I think self-defeating thoughts is: “I have love to give. Let me see who needs it. ”
That means it may be a woman, my parents, a friend, a teammate at my gym, a stranger, an enemy, a child, or no one at all. What I have to offer doesn’t fit everyone, or even many people. My intention has been to find who it does fit, or accept with equanimity that no one needs my exact brand and enjoy living my life how I choose without the difficult obligations that come with a love well-lived.
David, if there’s a neatly defined way to do that I don’t know of it. In my experience it’s a learning process of constantly renewed adjustment and readjustment, in which the deity takes as much of an active role as the worshipper.
Celadon, Marxism is itself just another kind of elitism. Marxists love to talk about the proletariat, but there has never been a Marxist revolution led by the proletariat, nor has the proletariat ever benefited much from a Marxist regime. It’s a scheme by which one elite group supplants another. Each of the American regimes you name, in exactly the same way, took power from a previous elite regime, using a barrage of slogans to camouflage the simple reality of lust for power and wealth. The Oppression Olympics, though, and the pursuit of moral superiority through victimhood, is something rather different. If you want to manipulate a group of people, convincing them that (a) they’re victims, (b) they’re entitled because they’re victims, and (c) they’re dependent on you to get the goodies to which they’re entitled, is a very efficient way to do it.
Gollios, remember that archetypes distort perception. To a person who’s caught up in a serious case of shadow projection, it’s absurd to suggest that they themselves are the source of the evil that obsesses them — it’s so obviously true that it’s those bad people doing bad things over there! It’s not something you can just shrug off; it requires a sustained and painful effort of self-inquiry, and usually results in a shattering crisis of faith in oneself. As for women, there’s nothing new about that. Many Native American tribes used to have the women take the job of torturing enemies, because they were so much more cruel than the men.
Foxhands, there are traditional tables which you can find in most books on mundane astrology. I don’t use them at this point — I haven’t found them to be accurate, which is why my recent predictions don’t mention them. As for next week’s post, tsk tsk tsk! You’ll have to wait and see with everyone else. 😉
T401, that’s a very challenging question. Rhode Island has very little in the way of an esoteric scene these days. There are correspondence schools, but those won’t give you the kind of personal guidance you’re looking for — and of course there’s a vast supply of scam artists out there preying on people like you. My usual advice is to encourage you to look over the many books available on esoteric spiritual training, choose one that suits you, and work your way through the training course on your own; that’ll take you a certain part of the distance, and it will also give you a foundation in practical work that will help you differentiate between bogus schools and the few genuine ones.
Jeff R, please accept my condolences! That’s always a miserable thing to go through. I wish I had any advice for you; unfortunately I’m only just getting back into the dating scene myself after more than 40 years away from it, and so my knowledge base on the subject is far more outdated than yours! (At least you don’t live in Rhode Island; I’ve been told that it’s legendarily hard for guys to find dates in this state.) Thus I’ll be listening to the advice you get at least as keenly as you will.
Clay, it’s some consolation to me to remember that after all, humans just plain aren’t very smart.
Stephen, the short term risk has dropped sharply. The fact that the No Kings rallies turned out to be not much more than a collection of spoiled and pouting princesses strikes me as a very good sign. I’m still very concerned about the market — the LLM (“AI”) bubble has inflated to absurd heights, and there’s only one way that so giddily delusional a speculative bubble can end — but at least for now, civil war seems to be one of the less likely outcomes.
OtterGirl, yes, I’ve heard of it. Trump has realized that it’s far more effective to mock his enemies than to argue with them, and has teams of meme artists going at it hammer and tongs. His goal, I think, is to crack the facade of mandatory niceness that so many people on the left cultivate so assiduously, knowing that once it breaks and everything they’ve been repressing comes spilling out, they’ll alienate voters the way Biden did with his famous Reichstag speech:
The reaction to Kirk’s murder is a good example of what he’s trying to goad them to do, and they’re falling into his trap with embarrassing ease.
Jeff B, thanks for this. As for old journals, the question is whether anyone else would want to read them. If so, you can always edit out anything too personal.
Nephite, er, that would be a good topic for a series of posts! The very short form is that the alchemical method is solve et coagula — separate the materia into its components, refine them individually, and then recombine them to make a more perfect whole.
Selkirk, I’ve avoided NLP, because it has a weird habit of turning people into arrogant jerks. That’s been my experience, at least! Your mileage may of course vary.
James, most souls in the afterlife are in something very much like a dream state and have very little capacity to take conscious action. It does sometimes happen that a soul retains more consciousness — and if you look into it, you’ll find that there are cases on record where an apparent ghost has helped bring clues to light that have solved his own murder.
Moonwolf8, I’m sorry to say I don’t — but then I mostly read books by dead people.
Cato, you need to record that as a rap number over a fast drumbeat and some random electric guitar chords.
Siliconguy, as I’ve noted before, climate change is real but climate apocalypticism is manipulative garbage.
Here’s an easy one: what has your experience of Amtrak’s northeast corridor routes been like? On time? Safe and comfy? How are the stations? Have you ridden Acela?
I’ve heard that before. If it comes out on an album, I might call the whole thing “A Situationist Eisteddfod” ; )
(I hope this isn’t too rambling. This is just how it came out of my head.)
I’ve been thinking about the Bureaucrat as an archetype and what it’s related archetypes would be. Its Anima/Animus is pretty simple: the Celebrity. The Bureaucrat doesn’t get to be a real person with an identity that matters, so he or she is endlessly fascinated by those whose whole life and career is wrapped up in their own individuality. Think of how many works of fiction are about the dull office-worker who ends up with the attractive pop-star. In a darker form, this explains the PMC’s decades-long fascination with serial killers.
The Shadow is more interesting, because on the one one they’ve been screaming about it for the past decade and on the other hand they still haven’t come to terms with what it really is. The bureaucracy might see itself as existing to prevent another Man in the Mustache, but a much better exemplar of bureaucracy’s eternal enemy is the Man Who Makes the Trains Run on Time: the guy who does what it takes to get results instead of being satisfied with the dysfunctional proceduralism of the bureaucracy.
But now we have to dig deeper to see what it is in the Bureacrat itself that they’re projecting as the Shadow, and here it’s helpful to remember that the modern bureaucracy is in a lot of ways the creation of FDR, and the ideological difference between FDR and Mussolini is much thinner than most Americans are comfortable thinking about. The Bureaucrat wants nothing more than to follow procedure and so render themselves blameless for the results, but who sets what the procedure is? And here we connect with ancient China, because the Bureaucrat’s Shadow is the Bureaucrat’s boss: the Emperor, the hated enforcer of consequences and dictator of rules, who alone can subject the bureaucracy to the sort of pitiless treatment it metes out to the common folk every day.
So no wonder they’re having a melt down about the King in Orange. The bureaucracy has been allowed to govern itself for generations, and now someone is saying, “I’m the boss around here, and I expect actual results or else.”
The phrase “solve et coagula” sounds like a good topic for meditation. Thanks John. I’ll be happy to read a series of posts on the alchemical method if you ever get around to it.
Hi JMG-
One of the things that I’ve realized is that excessive and unreasonable amount of fear is the primary motivator behind many negative emotions such as anxiety, depression, and anger. What would be the appropriate virtue to cultivate as an antidote to Fear?
Thanks!
Hi Jeff @ #6,
I’ve been there. Turns out that the secret might be giving up the quest. After my wife ended our 20 year marriage in 2019, my life fell apart in a way that presaged the entirety of American society falling apart in 2020. Interestingly, though, and per the many lessons learned on this block about thrustblocks and resistance, it also toughened me up for the plandemic.
I tried dating apps, dating coworkers, and eventually gave up on dating altogether, and decided to focus on myself, my spiritual life, my local Masonic lodge, gardens, pets, and my widowed mother. I journaled a LOT.
For Lent this year, I decided to give up alcohol, and on Ash Wednesday, as I was getting ashes applied to my forehead for the first time in my life, I asked God if he would send me a companion. As I took a break from lawn work one Saturday in early April, my phone had this big message on it: “Facebook Dating has found a PERFECT MATCH for you.” So I looked at it, decided to respond, and fell into what has turned out to be the love of my life. Our first date was on Good Friday, and I broke my fast with her on Easter Sunday.
It has also turned out to be an amazing challenge, overturning all of my assumptions about what romantic relationships can and should be. I will warn you that the algorithm giveth and it also taketh away; if it helps connect you to someone, you can expect it will then begin sharing you details about that person that might challenge you to your core. But maybe that’s really what a relationship is about too — loving challenge, complementarity and resistance.
Giving up seems to have power. And you can’t trick yourself or the universe into believing you’ve given up. You really have to give up.
Best of luck friend!
Golios–re women and violence. I have noticed a suddenly popular video genre is of women initiating a physical encounter by hitting or slapping a man (occasionally another woman) and then being quickly punched or otherwise knocked down. Sometimes the comments run along the lines of “My dad told me never to hit a lady, but this woman is not a lady.” It seems possible that this genre is a response to the last five or more years of videos of “Karens”–usually mid 30s to older white, middle class appearing women–being aggressively rude and entitled in interactions with service workers, younger people, police, neighbors, or persons of other races. Is this the public subconscious saying, “Enough of a certain type of women acting as though they are untouchable because they are women.”
In a similar vein there is, at least in my news feed, an increase in conservative blacks berating members of their own race for uncivilized behavior usually in a stich of a video displaying such behavior as gangs robbing stores or people being loud and obnoxious in a restaurant or mall. Also, an increase in conservative gay people renouncing gender ideology and “grooming” of children.
Otter Girl–have you seen the video JD Vance posted of Trump being crowned, robed and given a sword while a group bows down to him?
To Kyle @ #22
Spot on, my friend. Self-dating seems lame and yet is absolutely necessary. I have enjoyed a lot of local stuff I would have missed had I not decided to take myself out for a treat.
Hello JMG,
I’ve been healing from my childhood for a long long time – over 7 years of intensive work. I recently processed a lot of rage and now I seem to have stumbled across the grief under the rage. Am I almost there? Is grief usually the core enotion or can I expect to find something under that?
@JMG: When can we expect the 4th Ariel Moravec novel to come out?
Language: I ran across an interesting cognate in my casual reading the other day: A Cantonese speaker used the term “Gangin” and translated it as “Foreign Devils.” Which went into the Japanese vocabulary as Gaijin? Of course, not only is China very close to Japan, wasn’t it under Chinese rule for a while?
About the “No Kings” march – USA Today reported attendance at, again IIRC, “7 Million” altogether. .
T 401 # 5:
You’ve told us a good example of serendipity or “causality”, and indeed it’s very impressive how this providential event has influenced in your life, like yourself have said. Thank you for telling here what you witnessed.
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Jeff Russell # 6:
Your comment has reached to my heart. Well, I shouldn’t give you advices about how dating nowadays, because I’ve never been married, I have no children, and until
my last relationship I’ve only met awful
women in my life. However, I could tell you internet dating works…sometimes. My personal experiences in internet dating have been cough cough…sad and frustrants. Internet dating is overrated IMHO, because you can date in a lot of real places yet nowadays. I date my actual girlfriend, for example, in a group of people in my town who started going for walks across my town surroundings. I din’t seek that relationship, it appeared friendship first and then we have been starting to be in love each other.
I suggest you (if you don’t mind it) to go to collective hobbies which you like, you’ll feel there confortable since the first moments and maybe you’ll be lucky and will find some woman in these groups of common hobbies. I see you’re interested in occultism, the spiriritual world or whatever we want to name it. Well, you could engage in social activities like yoga, tai chi or simillar ones. It’s not rare they’re women in those activities, I’ve seen it at least in my personal experience. Good luck and don’t be obssessed with this topic! I bet you’ll have more opportunities to find love again…
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Cato P-Funk # 15:
It’s OK your comment about garbage. In spite of seeming to me too long (I’m reading John blog from a crappy smartphone again these days!), I feel your extended comment is smart. Maybe the black gold in near future is garbage! Thank you for your writing.
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Fredrik # 18:
It’s very sad and upsetting seeing the greenwashing of pharaonic projects like you’ve described in your comment. It’s the same s**t in my country now, and everywhere in the world. Huge projects to boost “green” energies are the poster children of fake ecologism. There have been made some demonstrations in
my town against these kind of Big Projects, lead by ecologists and rural people alike, but there isn’t unfortunately a big contestation against them.
The last elephant in the room is the data center madness (shared by both wings politicians at national and regional levels in my country). They seem the new miracle related with internet and of course AI, but its (a)social and anti-ecological effects are very clear for…a few people. For example its energy hunger it’s going to be very high…And where to find more and more energy? In “green” energies and nukes… There’s going to be a demonstration against data centers in my town, I’d like it would be crowded, but I’m afraid most people is slept yet.
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JMG # 23:
I wish you good luck in dating, so you can find a good woman to love. OK, I’ve written some ideas for dating (outside the ominous virtual world), so I hope you can profit them in your life. Please John, take note of my advices and the other people advices like I hope Jeff R. is going to do.
Has anyone had any experience with the “Institute for Local Self-Reliance” ? They encourage local actions to support better local food, small business and more. They describe ways to adapt to our interesting times, and also meet others interested. Nate Hagans recently interviewed Stacy Mitchell about it, with constructive suggestions. It is nice to hear bipartisan involvement with action more than finger pointing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ohwaf1N94sM
Patricia Matthews # 33:
For your information, 7 millions is the number of people in the “No Kings” demonstrations across the US, according my country MSM, which they’re usually very eager to dismiss Trump and praise the “Democrats”, like other propaganda…ahem, media in EU. So I could say this crowd of 7 millions could be right in general terms.
I think 7 millions of demonstrators it’s a heck of people but…oh wait! How many potential voters are in the USA? and how many real votes have been tabulated in last elections for Trump?(Cough cough…)
JMG,
In the past I seem to remember when you were discussing publishing of an authors book that you remarked that the self publishing route via Amazon was not advised but I don’t remember why. I know you are an advocate ( from long experience) of small content specific publishing houses, but I don’t remember what your experience and advise on self publishing was?
I am working on a non- fiction book , but like all new authors I am struggling with the publishing route.
Hey JMG
Have you heard that the Louvre has just had a heist committed in it, the latest since that painting was stolen in 1998? It appears that some professional thieves stole jewellery owned by Napoleon’s wife, and accidentally broke a crown on the way out.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/19/louvre-closed-after-robbery-french-culture-minister-says
Chuaquin, yes, der deutsche Volltrottel is still spamming away, trying to sell SEO services. I’ve had about seventy things from him in my spam filter so far today.
Fredrik, my condolences! What a ghastly thing to have to go through. Yes, I’ve seen open pit mines and wind farms up close, and I also know just how ecologically harmful and generally ghastly all these fake green projects are — like the rest of the corporate faux-green agenda. I’m sorry to say that it’ll continue until enough governments stop forking over the money, and that won’t happen until people force it to stop.
BeardTree, thanks for this.
Phutatorius, it’s gone downhill over the two decades since I first started taking trains on that corridor, but it’s still the only civilized method of transport we’ve got left. My recent trips were all pleasant — quiet (I always get a seat in the quiet car), relaxing, and within a few minutes of the scheduled time. The stations are entirely functional — comparable to the better grade of airport. As for Acela, yes, but I don’t usually take it. It’s not that much faster, and much more expensive.
Cato, I’d buy a copy!
Slithy, that’s not rambling at all — it’s cogent and fascinating. Hmm!
Nephite, so noted.
Waffles, you can’t counter fear by cultivating a virtue. Most of the time, excessive fear is a matter of unresolved childhood trauma, and that has to be brought back into consciousness and dealt with before it can be resolved. The exercises of the Order of Spiritual Alchemy are one way to begin that process.
Sam, grief is a primary emotion, so it’s quite likely that you’re close to the end of the tunnel.
Patricia M, I wish I knew. My fiction is with a new label, a joint venture in which Aeon is only one part of the picture, and things are coming together but it’s a bit slow. I’m hoping to see it out before the end of the year. The fifth novel in the series is finished in draft, btw. As for gaijin, that’s a slang contraction of gaikokujin, “person from a foreign country;” there’s no “devil” in there. (“Devil” in Japanese is oni.)
Chuaquin, thanks for this. The main challenge I face is simply that being a geek myself, I’m looking for a woman roughly as geeky as I am — geeks should always pair up with geeks; that way lies happiness — and most female geeks (geekesses? geekettes?) have faced so much shunning and misery in the dating scene that they aren’t looking. Doubtless I’ll work a way past that, via synchronicity or the like.
Gardener, no, I don’t think I’ve heard of them before. Glad to hear there’s such an organization, though.
Clay, self-publishing via Amazon is a great way to sell six copies. They do no marketing, and there are so many books being churned out there that it’s almost impossible to become visibile. I’m delighted to hear that you’ve got a manuscript under way; as you write it, look for books on similar subjects and see which publishers release them. Look up those publishers online, and once you have your manuscript finished, contact them one at a time, following the submissions requirements on their website to the letter. (Most publishers automatically reject manuscripts that don’t follow their requirements, as that’s a good way to filter out problem authors.) You’ll very likely be able to place your book that way; it’s certainly what has always worked for me.
J.L.Mc12, yes, I heard about that. It’s an odd case, as the items can’t be sold — they’re far too identifiable.
#29 Just Another Green Rage Monster
I’ve suspected that giving up might be where the power lies. Like you said, you can’t just pretend you’ve done it, and I’m a very stubborn person who has a hard time giving up on anything. But taking care of myself is a start that I hope will end up becomin a genuine decommitment from caring what my relationship status is. That word “status,” I think, has more to do with why we seek relationships than we care to admit.
“separate the materia into its components, refine them individually, and then recombine them to make a more perfect whole”
Can we separate the ego into its components, refine them individually, and then recombine them to make a more perfect ego?
Just in case anybody else is interested, I have been re-reading Boëthius’ Consolation of Philosophy. For the prose sections, and for a free interpretation of the poems, I bought David Slavitt’s translation, which sparkles with wit and freshness. Reading the philosophical discussions in crisp and modern English makes it much easier to follow the overall argument.
For appreciating the poems, I found the absolutely astounding Master’s Dissertation BOETHIUS THE DEMIURGE:
TIMAEAN DOUBLE-CIRCLE SPIRAL STRUCTURE IN THE CONSOLATIOby Cristalle N. Watson extremely helpful. She studied music before moving to Classical studies, and it shows. I have shaken off a bit more of my prejudice against a 6th century author and have started to appreciate and learn by heart some of the poems.
Her greatest insight, as far as I am concerned, is that the reader is not meant to take the poem’s condemnation of Orpheus turning back to Eurydice (book III, poem 12) at face value. Books IV and V go on to show that turning back to the human condition is both possible and necessary for redemption.
Hey JMG
Apparently, according to this article, it’s likely that the thieves will dismantle and melt down the jewellery to sell the gems and gold or silver for its material value. Another odd thing this article says, is that it is likely that the Louvre was targeted because its security is inferior to most standard jewellery stores due to budget cuts. Very interesting if true. But I wonder if the thieves will try to ransom the jewellery instead, as that seems more appropriate than stealing something so valuable, just to melt it down and sell the components to a scrap dealer.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/20/louvre-heist-puts-spotlight-on-museum-security
Re: dating.
I strongly recommend getting into female-dominated hobbies and groups. Crafting, music, dance, church – most of these groups skew heavily female. Even if they’re older women, they’ll know younger women who are looking, and may recommend you. However, they are generally opinionated and have a low tolerance for male bullying. You may be permitted to swagger and show off, if you’re polite about it. 🙂
JMG #39:
Oops! It’s a pity the german spam nightmare goes and goes on sending tirelessly more and more spam to your blog. Well, I’d reccommend you patience, but I know by the writings of you which I’ve read, you’re indeed a patient man. May the german spammer will be fed up in a time…
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You’re right, if you’re a geek, you’d need a date with a female geek…OK, then you should seek obviously geek hobbies, but I also know “group hobbies” and “geeks” don’t rhyme. In addition to this, you’re also right: geek woman often have suffered too much in date scene to dare trying it again. I’m not exactly a geek, but I understand your circunstances. Well, I only can write I wish you good luck again, John.
@Green Rage Monster #31
“Self-dating”? I’ve always just called that “doing things.”
Admittedly this might be a generational thing. My Boomer uncle is also extremely hesitant to do things without someone by his side.