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.
*****
One more thing before we go on. My fellow occultist and longtime friend Mark Stavish, of the Institute for Hermetic Studies, recently posted a thoughtful essay with the uncomfortable title “The Assassination of Charlie Kirk and the Satanic Panic 2.0”. He’s pointed out that the leftist online magazine Jezebel publicly announced that they hired a witch to curse Charlie Kirk shortly before he was murdered, that this wasn’t a one-off event but part of a very general embrace of evil magic on the part of occultists affiliated with the extremist left, and that this risks blowback on the scale of the “Satanic Panic” hysteria of the 1980s and 1990s. I don’t think there’s much hope that the occultists who’ve embraced this incredible stupidity will recognize the danger — too many of them have fallen all the way into the extremist delusion that their cause is so important that it justifies any act, no matter how blatantly evil — but the rest of us may want to brace ourselves, and be prepared for serious trouble.
*****
With that said, have at it.
Any commentators on here keep a commonplace book? If so, what do you put in it?
I will ask the obvious question of the month. What effect do you suppose so much of the left’s cheering of Charlie Kirk’s murder has had on the national political conversation? Do you see that driving a significant number of people in a rightward direction in their political sympathies? I think it’s worth noting that you did not hear a massive chorus of malicious cheering from the right when those Democratic politicians in Minnesota were assassinated by a right-wing extremist earlier this year.
Two things:
1) A lasting impression from Dion Fortune’s book was the notion that prayer (or ritual, if you like) is enhanced by sacrifice – and that the sacrifice can be as simple as the taking of a risk.
In Fortune’s case, this was the risk of remaining in London to perform protective prayer while bombs were falling. But it could be many other things.
This is tremendously thought-provoking to me.
As your main subject of blogging has been the unsustainability of Industrial-scale civilization due to the limitations of fossil fuels, I have been wanting to ask you a question on this subject.
All of the Earth’s coal was formed in a narrow 60 million year period of geological history often called “the Carboniferous” in the Late Paleozoic Era. Trees were relatively new and weren’t even “barky” in their texture yet but more “pithy”. Hence, they grew to incredible sizes of around 100 ft. Yet, the bacteria necessary for breaking down tree matter hadn’t even evolved yet. Consequently, these prehistoric trees sank into the bountiful swamp environments that existed back then, were buried, and gradually turned into coal deposits over hundreds of millions of years.
https://emagazine.com/carbon-in-trees/
Apparently, coal can never be formed again due to the present-day existence of bacteria that can break down tree matter and prevent “carbon burial” in this fashion.
Petroleum, by contrast, is formed by the morphing of ancient algae and plankton across many periods of Earth’s history. Most of the Earth’s present-day oil was formed in the Mesozoic Era with smaller amounts made in the Cenozoic and Paleozoic.
The Industrial Revolution began with coal in the 18th Century with the petroleum extraction only taking off in the mid-19th Century. Given your views on the unsustainability of the Industrial Age, do you think humanity (if it still evolved) would be better off in a timeline where coal never formed in the Carboniferous even if oil still did? Do you think petroleum usage would have even taken off in that timeline (even if it happened later)
@Anon: re: commonplace book
I keep something like that. Not properly a journal as it’s irregular and not about day to day events. Even quite major life events don’t end up in there. It’s more of an auxiliary memory device, where I jot down things I think I might want to review later, but probably will forget if I don’t write it down: quotes from books I’m reading, short summaries of books I finished, particularly vivid dreams, thoughts on some current problem that’s bothering me, weird things my kids said, notes on medical symptoms (mostly nothing, but if it turns out to be serious enough to see a doc, they’re gonna ask “when did this start”– making a note, with a date, means I can get that info), and the occasional “11:53pm, WTF was that noise outside?” in case it’s important later. Mostly not.
The bigger worry for western occultism in my opinion is whether it will survive the upcoming collapse of the American empire and the resulting economic collapse, or whether it will head the way of the Theosophical Society and the Golden Dawn traditions into oblivian after the Great Depression for lack of funding from its formerly upper middle class patrons.
As usual, I’d like to invite everybody to sign up for blessings. Each Wednesday, I perform a formal blessing and bless the people who signed up via my website. More information and signup can be found here: https://thehiddenthings.com/categories/weekly-blessings
Also, for those of you interested in the Modern Order of Essenes, I’m re-publishing the material as online course. It’s essentially the same as on JMG’s dreamwidth (plus some comments of mine), but structured in two-week chunks. We’re currently somewhere in the Healer grade, but the course material will stay available, and anybody who wants to join can start at any time: https://thehiddenthings.com/topics/moe-course
In my opinion, the MOE is seriously underrated as tool for spiritual healing – especially for healing oneself. 😉
I hope everybody is having a good week! JMG, thanks for hosting the Open Post again and for the link to Mark Stavish’s essay. Given recent events, I presume we’ll see some lively discussion this month… 😉
Milkyway
JMG, about Mr. Stavish’s article. What he fears, with good reason, has been in the cards for decades now. I am glad to see that someone among occultists understands the dangers for themselves and others. Violence directed at “witches” will surely spill over to anyone the gunslinger, or rather, his or her paymaster, wants out of the way. It is an interesting article. I could have done without the name calling, “middling milquetoast cultural Protestants” was uncalled for, IMO. I do think his point about baseline ethics for admission to his movement is a good one, and a possible way to forestall entryism for many non-magical organizations.
Mister N, it’s too early to say. With any luck, the spectacle of watching supposedly decent people cheering at the murder of a man whose only “crime” was saying something they disagreed with will cause general revulsion against the violent rhetoric of our current extremists. Still, we’ll just have to wait and see.
Bofur, she’s quite correct. Partly, it’s the famous principle Samuel Johnson enunciated: “Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” Partly, though, power comes from unity of will, and giving up anything that gets in the way of unity of will — such as fears for one’s own survival — is a good way to generate that unity. BTW, this is a place for human beings to talk to human beings, not for LLM-generated text to be posted; I’ve added something to the post to make that a little clearer.
David, I have no idea, and to be quite frank, the question doesn’t greatly interest me. Here we are; what concerns me is what we do with the hand we’ve been dealt, not what we would have done if the jack of diamonds in our hand had been a queen of cups instead.
Anon, that’s also a concern, no question. Still, I think the risk of having occultists’ houses firebombed by their own neighbors at 3 in the morning, because the neighbors are terrified that all their problems are the result of evil magic, deserves some attention as well.
Mary, Mark’s a blunt-talking sort, and I’ve met enough of the kind of people he’s described by that phrase that I sometimes sympathize! Still, thank you; I’m glad you’re also aware of the ghastly trap the moral collapse of Neopaganism has set for all of us who deal with the Unseen.
Dylan (offlist), nope. Nominations for next month’s Fifth Wednesday post will be welcome when next week’s post goes up.
Anonymous #1. Yes, I keep a commonplace book. I place excerpts and sometimes images from things I read or encounter and occasionally personal reflections on those things. I date the entries, because I find it helpful to match what I as reading with what was happening at the time. Sometimes I simply note that a book, movie, or what ever crossed my path, but I do not log everything, only what left an impression.
“If We Want Bigger Wind Turbines, We’re Gonna Need Bigger Airplanes”
https://spectrum.ieee.org/wind-turbine-blade-transport-plane
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Hi JMG and Commentariat,
(Posting this question anonymously for reasons of privacy, but my identity may be obvious anyway.)
I’ve had a series of strange experiences recently, and wondered if I could get your take on them.
On Monday, I went to perform my usual practices, and noticed that there was a hideous bug of an unknown type swimming in the holy water I’d consecrated a few days earlier. (This may be irrelevant, as sometimes a bug is just a bug, but sometimes it’s an omen.) I thought nothing of it, and began my banishing ritual, which opens with a variation on the Cabalistic Cross. It’s a simple ritual I’ve performed safely, hundreds of times, for around seven years.
Immediately I felt a horrific flood of energy surge through my body from my heart. I became extremely light headed and shaky, breath and pulse rapid, and filled with terror. I was honestly afraid that I would pass out, or have a heart attack, or that my body would simply explode.
That day, I woke up early as I usually do, and noticed that I hadn’t dreamed the night before. This was odd, and the thought kept playing in my mind, “Definitely no dreams. Yessir, not a dream to see here. No dreams at all.” Like a cartoon thief going on about how it’s a good thing he didn’t rob a bank today, yep, definitely no bankrobbers here.
When this strange thing happened, I was hit with a flood of memories of the dreams I had in fact had the night before, all of which seemed to involve the Charlie Kirk assassination and the Luigi Mangione affair. I can remember nothing now save that they were very realistic, as though I were seeing images of behind-the-scenes planning of these events.
Things calmed down after a while, but I’m extremely troubled. Until this summer, I had never experienced anything like this before, but this is the third or perhaps fourth time it’s happened since the gathering at Glastonbury. The first two incidents were connected with Glastonbury. The first time, I was sitting on the couch fondly remembering an elaborate pagan ritual I’d participated in while I was there– except that that never happened, and I participated in no rituals while I was there, and when I tried to talk about it I had a milder form of the experience I described above. The second was something of a continuation of the first: A friend asked me about my time at Glastonbury, and when I tried to tell him I had what was perhaps an even worse and more intense version of the above experience. The third was also connected to the Charlie Kirk assassination and occurred while I was driving and listening to the news the next morning. In each case, the commonalities seem to be unbearable, radiating energy from my heart or solar plexus, a sensation as though my body is going to burst open, and– in two cases– suppressed memories.
I’m finding the whole thing extremely troubling. Have you ever heard of anything like this? What do you make of it? Some of it could be past life memories resurfacing– I have plausible evidence that I was involved in the Golden Dawn or a related order in a prior incarnation, and participating in rituals at Glastonbury would hardly be out of the realm of possibility– but I certainly have no connection with Charlie Kirk, Luigi Mangione, or political assassinations of any kind. (Unless, of course, the events are triggering memories of similar situations in some past body.)
Thank you for your help.
What’s happened to all the beating of the drum on climate change? Is it because all these AI data centers for now will need tons of fossil fuels? Who issues the talking points for things like this? I was Facebook friends with someone I had known from college, and they would mention talking points a day or two before the New York Times would pick up on them. I don’t think that person would honestly answer where they got them from, but is there a weekly conference call where they put out what they decide are the acceptable issues to talk about this week?
Veering into geopolitics, as I keep tabs on a number of hotspots…. Trump crowed about sinking the 2 fishing boats off Venezuela that were purportedly running drugs. There was no proof, and against all common sense of how drugs are transported into the US. More units of the pacific fleet have been sent to the Caribbean side.. some marines sent… It all has the feel of a last gasp measure by the military industrial complex to grab a ‘win’ somewhere. Since US/NATO is getting its ass whupped in Ukraine… Israel/Iran resulted in more black eyes for the MIC… somehow they think Maduro/Venezuela would be easy prey instead. With its relatively vast oil resources, Venz must seem very irresistable… it’s really like Twilight’s Last Gleaming coming to fruition, as I’m pretty sure the Venezuelans have been more happy to accept any and all discreet help from Russia and China. I think you need to get your publisher to reprint TLG, as it’ll likely be a bestseller as events play out as per the plotlines. It seems almost inevitable at this point…..
Hi Archdruid John,
I like to discuss egregores of both magical and religious organisations.
What happens to an egregore of a declining magical or religious organisation? When there is a last member left, what happens to the egregore? Does the final member “inherit” any power remaining in the egregore? Does the last member get to shape the egregore to his/her will?
What about churches that are in decline? There are some once great churches which hollowing out. Do the last members inherit the egregore of the church? Will the egregore dissolve once the last member dies?
If one happens to be one of the last surviving members of an organisation, how should one breathe life back into the egregore?
Thanks!
JMG, thank you for that response. Perhaps I am a bit over sensitive, but I do very much dislike the contemporary habit of resort to in group vituperative slogans, whether “feminazi” or “fascist”, hurled at anyone the speaker doesn’t like. At this time, I can think of almost no group of any persuasion who does not engage in this kind of rhetorical trickery. Don’t bother to explain why you disagree with someone’s views, behavior or attitudes, just affix some emotionally resonant slogan. I have come to believe that commentator about politics who uses what I will call emotionspeak is probably bought and paid for. I caught flack on a usually sensible more or less leftist site for calling Jimmy Dore a shill, which I still think he is, BTW.
I don’t know if you’ve ever talked about this before but one thing i’ve noticed is most scientism believer’s tend to be lay people. The vast majority are not scientists though obviously there are scientists that are secular materialists. The way they talk about science, its clear they treat it as a god.
Another thing i noticed is that they pretend as if they have no biases and come to their conclusions objectively.
@Anonymous #1 re: Commonplace book
You ask an interesting question! I had to go and look up what a Commonplace book is. Unlike a journal, it seems to be more a place to organize thoughts, record things to look up later, collect quotes, list books to read, etc.
I have successfully used two “journaling” methods that might in some ways be similar to a Commonplace book. The first is Morning Pages from Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, which are three pages of longhand every single morning that are more or less getting things off your chest and out of your brain. I have loved doing Morning Pages for many years. If I miss a day, I get this vague discomfort that feels like missing talking to someone very close to me… and it is; I am missing talking with and engaging with myself. Morning pages help me get organized for the day.
The second technique I have used is bullet journaling, which functions for me more like a Commonplace book, as described above. My bullet journal has goals, to do lists, reading lists, stuff to remember, people to remember, etc. Both of these have been critical resources for me to be organized, to get things done, to remember things, and to vent in a safe place where I am not hurting anyone by saying things I might regret later. For me, doing both of these using pen and paper has been very important. First of all, it is private. Second, electronic devices are somehow not satisfying and don’t — I don’t know how to describe it — scratch the itch? Just my thoughts.
Since you don’t have a smartphone, I was wondering if you encountered any difficulties when you travelled to the UK earlier this year? Seems like electronic boarding passess and full time access to email and messaging is assumed these days. At this point I still get by with printed boarding passes but I wonder if they will become unavailable at some stage.
John,
I’ve noticed something about the breath as I get ready to do the relaxation and attention exercises each day. When I am “amped-up,” distracted, or craving some kind of material object or goal, I find that my breath feels very hot and dense in my throat, and I have to spend more time ‘cooling it down’ with rhythmic breathing, which clears my mind at the same time. On days when I am starting out more relaxed and focused, my breath starts out feeling cool and light.
I am wondering if this is related to the etheric body or if I am just overthinking it.
A subject that comes up tangentially in your work every now and then is architecture, unsurprising given your interests in sacred geometry and masonry/your temple technology work.
Architecture is something I’d be interested in learning more about the basics of–not in how to actually do it or design structures but in how to be “architecturally literate” so to speak, and how to analyze and critique architecture as a layman. Having grown up in pretty ordinary suburban America, a lot of modern styles are very normalized in my mind, and while it’s simple enough to learn the broad themes of historical styles I’m pretty much at a loss to engage when architectural enthusiasts point out various flaws or questionable design choices in modern structures or talk about what makes a city or building beautiful.
Do you have recommended resources for learning more about these kinds of things?
So i dont get a lot of time to follow so if i step (by accident) in something covered i apologize
Greetings from the bowl of death..
Regarding witch hunts there isan American exgeneral who is ideologically set up, and tactically very very well prepared (training + experience)for this. To my mind always his intent. He was very briefly in trump 1:0 so ya i see that coming at some point. Probably at some level, with pushback (kimmel) from the left it be a bit….but-who knows.
Ok now i am concerned about medicaid and inflation. I fear that were getting screwed. I agree corp. interests capturedthe left… and they cannot seem to figure that out. Just feel this (non-left) approach is just the same with less….uh, um. Ok i do agree, i think this to agree a place and time ( falling empire/ hedgemon w/powerful elites w/money w lots of leverage). But the question is how do we navigate this. Isn’t it really worse than the woke bs alternative.?
I foresee revolution from the locals in the bowl. I see where they are headed, gangsters. There are some here who as the majority got a taste for ownership. I like them ( love the culture) i DO NOT like where they are headed. 10 years. Not defeating the greatist army the world hasever known…NO. But finishing off the already shaky floundering economy behind behind it…yes. I’m guessing 10 years.
From the bowl
I think the horrific murder of Charlie Kirk was the starter pistol for a lot of things. None of them good. However, before they get to the occultists they’re going to chew through the queers, immigrants, and Black people first. That’s who they are talking about when the blame ‘the left’ for a killing that was the sole responsibility of a chronically online, nihilism poisoned internet troll. That’s who they were threatening to go to war against before Charlie Kirk had been declared deceased. The same ones that the Christofacists and the jokers and the Thielites have decided need to be purged and sacrificed on Moloch’s altar to make the world as it was.
I saw the memes celebrating his death. I find them disturbing too. I have no love for a man who called me an abomination, but I don’t think people should be murdered (which probably makes me a milquetoast moderate). Most ‘leftists’ I know, who are mostly queer and not white, aren’t celebrating. They are the ones who know a martyr when they see one. They are terrified.
Hi JMG and everyone,
the other day Milkyway asked about your podcast appearances. Since others might find it helpful: I’ve been using listennotes.com for that – most of your appearances (and mentions) can be found here: https://www.listennotes.com/search/?q=“John Michael greer”&sort_by_date=1&scope=episode&offset=0&language=Any language&len_min=0
And a question: preparing for my future career as a natal astrologer, can you recommend a book about how to interact with clients as an astrologer? I’m looking for something that distills someone’s hard-won experience: Common traps to avoid, possible dramas to expect, good ways to structure readings, etc. Recommendations by the commentariat are obviously welcome as well.
Also, I might be travelling to Moscow in December (my son learned Russian in his Waldorf school and is doing an internship there, I wanted to come along for a few days). Is there anyone from Moscow here whom I can invite to coffee and Хворост or can anyone recommend good places to go to meet Ecosophians? (My Russian is still extremely limited, so communication would have to be in German, English, Spanish or frantic hand-waving.) My email is my username without spaces at mailbox.org.
Thank you for providing this space and creating this exceptional community!
@Anonymous: On and off. I mostly put passages from fiction I admire, poetry and lyrics in there. Sometimes a bit of masterful nonfiction.
JMG,
the Kirk assassination never ceases to beffudle me, from the sheer hatred the guy evokes among leftists to the worship and cult of personality his death trigerred among the MAGA crowd.
Watching this, as an outsider and as a non-American, feels truly deranged, and I cannot, for the life of me, begin to understand what this is all about. What’s your take on all this hysteria?
And another question : the Trumpian right, in a stunning about face, seems to have decided that hate speech doesn’t consitute free speech (and Trump seems to think that criticizing him is not free speech either). In Europe, it’s a step we already took quite a few years ago, and because of that, what constitutes free speech has become very relative this side of the pond. How do you see all this unfold?
I had a thought recently that I can’t shake. I was pondering why we have “swear words”, that no one is supposed to use in polite company, but pretty much everyone does anyway.
I remember being a child and figuring out what all the words were. You know, the “F” word, the ”S” word. It doesn’t take a genius to figure these out, and I would wager that every child knows all the “bad” words before they leave Elementary School. So, why the prohibition against using these words?
And then it came to me that the taboo against these words is exactly what gives them power. They are very powerful words precisely because they are forbidden. In relatively polite company you can drop one to strongly emphasize your statement without being considered profane, for instance the difference between saying “It really hurt” vs “It really f***ing hurt!”, but some eyebrows may go up, which is exactly the purpose.
So, that’s good to know. But it immediately leads to the realization of how the power of words is manipulated by social fashions. Media and other groupthink can create new taboo words. I believe JMG has called them “smear words”.
The flip side of that is, if you use a bad word too often, or indiscriminately, it loses it’s power. I think we’re seeing that now with “Nazi” and “Hitler” and especially “Fascist”. They have drifted from what they used to mean, and now just mean “very bad”. Double Plus Ungood, if you will. I wonder if in the future, they will drift even more, potentially morphing into nearly the opposite of what they once meant. I hear that happens.
This has been really eye-opening and I’m listening more closely to people’s syntax. I can see now how JMG’s moderation against the bad words serves not only as a marker for someone who is more likely to participate in civil discourse, but as a way to preserve the power of those words, so they may be used appropriately when needed.
Humans being human, if we got rid of the bad words we already have, we’d just make up new ones. I think we have an adequate supply as it is, although I gather native Russian speakers might beg to differ.
Allie001, Violet is that you???
(smile)
x
I’ll be honest, as time goes on, I have zero clue as to what exactly the current administration’s actions are meant to convey or accomplish, whether from a empire collapse perspective or otherwise. There’s a level of incoherency and arbitrariness to them that’s left me both puzzled and concerned for what happens when a genuine catastrophe comes our way. The constantly shifting positions on the war in Ukraine is one example of this incoherence playing out in real time, in my view.
Still, would it be fair to say that in the long term, there will be no global hegemon in the near future either way, as more and more resources are depleted across the planet? I ask this because there’s far less opportunistic plays regarding this situation than I expected.
RE: commonplace books
John Michael Greer had a blog post on the commonplace and commonplace books a few years ago that might be worth checking out:
https://www.ecosophia.net/returning-to-the-commonplace/
If only the members of the neopagan community had settled for being milquetoast…
If you ask me about Charlie Kirk’s murder, I think that the die of Leftist Reaction was cast with the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Bryan Thompson on December 4, 2024. Whatever you may think of what Bryan deserved, the cheering was done then and was done now.
I see a couple other disturbing happenings in the wake of Charlie’s death:
1) The apparent sanctification of Charlie by The Right in equal measure to the cheering by The Left. It’s as if this guy has taken on a symbolism beyond what anyone alive could take.
2) The desperation with which both sides have tried to paint the killer as a devoted member of those they oppose.
In short, this killing has become to mean much more than one would have thought. What was likely a confused man child on SSRIs acting on a rabid desire for fame and/or revenge has come to drive people’s reactions for at least a couple of weeks.
has anyone heard from Random Acts of Karma? i wrote her last week but no dice. i just wrote again.
erika
Hey JMG,
You mentioned hunting lodges during the last Magic Monday. I suspect that much of their activity was secret but do you have any good pointers where I might look for their history and what is known of their activities?
Secondly, as you keep teasing your upcoming books, is there a good list available somewhere? Your bookshop.org page only shows Revisioning the Tree of Life under New and Forthcoming but you’ve announced quite a few more in various comments.
—David P.
Re: witches etc – Three weeks ago I was going through the books under my alter, as well as many other things, to help clear the decks for a massive cleaning-and-mold remediation. I came across books on witchcraft and spells and my immediate response was “NOT ME!” I kept Dion Fortune’s books and other along those lines, but the rest have gone to the Friends of the Library. For what that’s worth. And am so relieved that I did.
A TSW aside: The cleaning included a temporary relocation, and I was sure I’d left my Gypsy Witch cards in my nightstand drawer at home. (Found, after returning, at the bottom of a suitcase with a black silkish lining.) The next morning, my card draw showed disaster after disaster on a day when all looked rosy, and then realized that reading was dead-on for the day of the move, which coincided with a Village-wide disaster, a system crash which knocked out all their communications and systems.
I also have to ask, from what i’ve seen southern baptist christianity and calvinism and even some branches of pentacostalism seem married to the republican party. I don’t see any sigh of them pulling away and focusing solely on their faith. At the same time it seems the second religiosity is going to be charismatic/pentacostal and catholic?
I don’t keep in close contact with most of the Neopagan community, and the great majority of occultists I actually know personally are conservative. Until recently there has only been one real exception, a woman I’ve known for nearly 25 years who is a reasonably well known astrologer and shaman. A few days after Charlie Kirk’s assassination I discovered her making the usual vicious comments and immediately “unfriended” her on social media. If she contacts me, I will explain why, but in the meantime I simply prefer not to speak to or have anything to do with such people.
I read Mark Stavish’s essay the other day, and I think that you and he are very right that this is a cause for concern. The same friend is from Appalachia (as I am also), and members of her far more typically Appalachian family already see her as a “witch” in the traditional, negative sense. Meanwhile, I have at least one set of very right-wing neighbor who stopped speaking to me or let their children near my house for what are clearly religious reasons (We had been friends, and I caught the wife going through my bookshelf just prior to the break in contact).
I’m not really sure what to do about it.
@Bradley (#13)
You might want to take a look at this article: https://nsidc.org/sea-ice-today/analyses/may-sea-icealways-grace-our-planets-poles#anchor-yes-arctic-sea-ice-took-a-turn-in-2007 Nothing overly special to see here, just another example of competing hypotheses applied to the same dataset yielding contradictory conclusions. Darned if I know why this about-face has happened on the climate narrative, but for sure it’s a ‘thing’ now.
@David
All of the Earth’s coal was formed in a narrow 60 million year period of geological history often called “the Carboniferous” in the Late Paleozoic Era
I am a layerson, so I don’t know the details, but I know this is an oversimplification. Coal has been forming in small quantities since the Precambrian era, according to Wikipedia, and I’ve read that the coal deposits in western North America date to the Jurassic to early Tertiary periods. And of course, peat is forming today in some areas.
As David Ritz’s #4, post points out, since coal was a “one off” (it could only have formed BEFORE the evolution of a bacteria which eats it) and, thus, can presumably never form again in all of time to come.
So, doesn’t this pretty much mean that. (1) This IS the first time this planet has had an industrial civilization?And (2) This planet can NEVER AGAIN have an industrial civilization — not even a hundred million years from now, when liquid hydrocarbons have presumably replenished?
I was thinking about the implications of coal as a one-off event. And those were the sad realizations I was led to.
Since you have previously hypothesized that “the dinosaurs” might have had an industrial civilization and that some other industrial civilization might arise a hundred-million years from now and go to the moon again, I thought I would point out the implications.
Maybe there is some other way to overcome #2, but I question how well mining and smelting/forming could be done at industrial scale without coal to start with. It would seem, to me, to be a bit of a chicken and egg problem to make the equipment necessary to extract and utilize oil and gas at industrial scale without something like coal deposits to begin with?
I’m interested in your thoughts . . . .?
Assuming there is a witch hunt, should we all pretend to be Paul Kingsnorth and openly convert to some form of Christianity while practicing in secret and keeping our books hidden in the ceiling tiles?
I feel like all the interest in demonology and malefic magic didn’t occur until after the failure of the Mayan prophecy.
I agree with#14. I have read The Twilight’s Last Gleaming” twice, and I just lent it to a friend. It was eerie reading it the second time because more and more of it seems to be happening. Things are truly falling apart.
@Luddite
I’m a flip phone user with the same problems. When I first went back to flippin’ in 2015 (after a 2 year trial of an iphone that didn’t impress me) it was very easy. No one assumed you had a smartphone. Now, every business takes it as a matter of fact. Airlines are ok because I can just print a boarding pass, but I’ve encountered a lot more venues lately that insist that you scan a QR code or download the app to do some essential function. I have managed to find workarounds for the ones that are important, and to give up the ones that aren’t, but it’s becoming harder each year to do things due to Smartphone Assumption Syndrome.
This is a permaculture question about what a growth of crab grass means.
I have a plot in a community garden and I notice the main weed I deal with is crab grass. Do people here have any wisdom and observations as to what can do well in an environment where crab grass thrives? What does that tell me about the soil and water content?
I will appreciate any advice.
Within the last two months, you discussed the matriarchy and how women’s romance has morphed into something far more damaging than any category romance could ever be.
Since then, I’ve been thinking about the vast experiment we’ve been conducting on modern women since The Pill was introduced in 1957 (to regulate menstrual cycles) and then broadened to cover contraceptives in 1960.
Yes, it’s been that long!
Despite claims to the contrary, it’s hard for me to believe that taking a strong hormone for years to decades (some women are on The Pill for 20+ years) doesn’t affect the user in far-reaching, subtle ways. I’m sure most women are fine. I was, but I also took long breaks from The Pill when I was celibate and between relationships.
Yet I KNOW that The Pill can have dreadful side effects. Dear Daughter (27) suffers from Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. She has endured dreadful, painful menstrual cycles since menarche. In late 2024, her gynecologist prescribed The Pill to regulate her cycle and hopefully minimize pain. The result was utter, far more painful misery. She stopped within 6 weeks. Nearly ONE YEAR LATER, her menstrual cycle still hasn’t normalized.
What did The Pill do to many women? It kept you from getting pregnant by keeping you from ovulating, which you would do if you weren’t pregnant. I.e., your body thinks you’re already pregnant and thus there’s no need to ovulate. It’s as though a body cycle is started and never allowed to finish.
Any thoughts?
I’m out of area visiting my mother and presenting at the Harrington, DE, book festival so I may not be able to keep up with comments.
*sigh*
I think it’s an understandable misperception or perhaps a callous misrepresentation to assert there is much of anything to “the left’s cheering of Charlie Kirk’s murder”, as if this were a widespread phenomena in America. I do not see it, nor believe that it is. I follow a couple dozen “left-leaning” if not outright “leftist” columnists and commentators and virtually none of these thinkers and writers expressed any positive feelings or opinions derived from the killing of Kirk. Rather, they mourned his death and deplored those who would perpetrate such an act of violence. Yes, you can find those who do express their politics in such an ugly fashion, but the implication and accusation that this sort of “cheering” is a common expression of “the left” (or “the right”) reveals I think much more about those accusing than it does about its supposed perpetrators.
(Oh, and btw–we didn’t hear much of anything from the right when those Democratic politicians in Minnesota were assassinated by a right-wing extremist earlier this year, not even the acknowledgement that this was a heinous political assassination, with amoral origins and drivers. But then again such expressions of sympathy from some right-wingers seems anathema to them. Yes, indeed, there are sh*ts–er, extremists–on both sides of the divide. *sigh*)
Anonymous, I don’t have a commonplace book per se, but I have several notebooks for texts and notices about several subjects.
Bradley, in Germany you would still hear and read now and then something about climate change. But the dissonance between the enormous energy hunger of AI and LLMs and the desire to stop using fossil fuels is just too big for comfort..
It is the enormous energy hunger of AI and LLMS on the one hand and the frantic rush to digitize every aspect of modern life (with different intensity in different countries) on the other hand, that all added to the declining competence of people, as discussed towards the end of the last blog post, which promises a world-class mess. I’m not sure how this all rwill resolve, since in Europe I don’t even see the kind of people who could lead an elite replacement cycle in Europe if such a thing like an elite replacement cycle even exists there anymore.
I underwent my first experience with general anesthesia about two years ago, to remove a benign growth on a salivary gland (pleomorphic adenoma, if anyone wonders). I had always been unsettled at the thought of being “put under” and now it was happening. Although I was relieved to wake up from the surgery as if the whole operation was a jump cut in time, I have since felt somewhat spiritually violated (though I’m not religious). On a philosophical level, I feel as though I had been dead and brought back to life. It was not the same as sleeping, where there is activity in dream states and partial waking when needed. In the field of modern anesthesia, its own practitioners don’t know for certain what happens to the mind when put under, so I wonder about the possibility of having been aware the entire time, but just without being able to form memories. But if I had been aware but with no memory, that would be the equivalent of another person being inside my body the whole time – just as we cannot tap into the thoughts and memories of other people.
I just wonder if I am alone in having this existential or spiritual questioning (“crisis” might be too loaded) after having my mind turned on and off like a light switch. I feel that I experienced temporary death and there was literally nothing there. I’ve read the perspective of experts and laypeople online and discussed it at the hospital. For some reason, I feel you are the one I really want to hear from on this. Sorry if there’s no specific question. I’d just like your take on this type of experience.
Yesterday our local newspaper ( an outpost of Advance Publications) put in place one of the adblocker-blockers. For the last five years they have in place a paywall which only allows the contents of most articles to be read if you have subscribed, which makes sense to me, they do need revenue. The. non-subscribers still provide revenue as much advertising is built in to the leading page, and the page then comes up when you attempt to read the article but get only the first paragraph.
There must be some sort of big revenue to be gained by pop-up adds to offset the loss of revenue from casual non-subscribing viewers, and the potential for these non-subscribing viewers to upgrade in the future. My question, does this seems like a desperation move in a fading industry? Or are the tech overlords pushing a new more intrusive push-add regime that required the proles to disable their sole protection against their digital masters, and they have enlisted the big publishing conglomerates like Advance and Carpenter in to their scheme?
I’ve finally started reading Spengler’s Decline of the West, and I’ve been noticing parallels with the Yeats’ A Vision posts (and text) as well as the discussion of the spectacle.
Spengler spends a good amount of time distinguishing between Space, Extension and “things become” as opposed to Time, Destiny and “things becoming”. My first inclination is to relate the space category to the primary tincture as well as the spectacle, and to relate the destiny category to the antithetical tincture as well as to myth.
Interestingly, Spengler (a more academic intellectual) seems very intent on presenting time/destiny as the primary foundation of life and consciousness, while extension is a secondary act. Yeats (a more poetic/mystical intellectual) meanwhile NAMES space/extension with the term “primary” although I much doubt he would categorize the antithetical as entirely dependent on and springing from the primary (we haven’t got into the tinctures too much yet in the book club posts so forgive me if I’m completely off base here).
Am I anywhere in the neighborhood of the right track with my musings? Do you see any relationships between these concepts?
Thanks for hosting this space.
Tyrell
I’ve kept a journal/drawings/bread recipes/written longhand of someone’s opinion that I found profound. This habit going back to early teen years. Almost 73 now. I’ll pull out a random journal, curl up beside the fireplace with a good cuppa and the long view from age and experience read what used to interest, worry, dream my early self. From sailing around the world to dealing with a borderline personality disorder spouse. So that long view really helps me stay sane in our current deranged time. And your dreamwidth( 5 years!) covid group has been a considerable support.
Thanks for the link to Mark Stavish’s essay, JMG. He mentions the millions of immigrants to the West since the Satanic Panic, and their general acceptance if not embrace of the reality of magic. Also, the countless individuals within our societies generally who are embracing their ethnic roots via folk magic.
My concern is if this increased respect, if you will, for magic will yield an even bigger crop of “get the bad guys” rookie revenge magic. I’m concerned we will live in a war zone of sorts, with icky nasty magic coming from almost everywhere aimed by a new breed of gung ho clueless people.
The image of St. Michael comes to mind for this polytheist. His influence is badly needed, IMHO.
OtterGirl
i heard from Random Acts of Karma, she’s okay.
i’ve been underground writing/thinking and I check on the people i have in my prayers.
by the way:
you all, i’ve been missing a lot of emails from Kallianeira and a couple of others, actually a FEW others, and i think it’s kind of on purpose to add to the egregore so be kind forgiving and give folks the benefit of the doubt.
Lilly noticed it pulls her out of the connection and fatigues her to not be answered. it’s part of the medium, but i’m noticing it’s trying to dull what connections we DO have online so beware and tend a little more carefully. you don’t need MKUltra to have an algo get sloppy and undermine our energy on purpose.
it’s James’ birthday and it’s appropriately grey outside. i used to looove his long email letters. he was even better in person. i was so lucky to live with the best conversation of my life. we were careful with each other even when i wanted to blow it off and act like it was nothing, he insisted we not live in the trailing off of ellipses.
x
JMG,
Russia is going to win in Ukraine in the not too distant future. Russia is going to dictate terms that the liberal west isn’t mentally prepare to accept.
Do you think that the liberal political parties in the west will take a big hit from the cognitive dissonance?
Allie@001 neither left or right “influencers”, nor just about anyone else is able to admit that our over drugged (including drugged by online sloganeering and chemically enhanced comestibles) society is making people insane. Add economic instability into that mix and comes the explosion. Fun and excitement for some folks, I guess, and a whole lot of misery for others.
That basic truth, at least I think it is truth, cannot be told nor even alluded to because somebody might lose money or their overpaid perch.
@Michael in Taiwan – I’m an anesthesiologist. When we induce general anesthesia in a patient, what we are essentially doing is inducing a coma. We often use a brain-wave monitor (the bispectral index) to measure the level of cerebral activity during anesthesia. The goal is to keep the patient’s brain functioning at its most basic level, while suppressing only the higher functions of consciousness, which are tied to specific wavelengths. And that is precisely why, after undergoing general anesthesia, you formed no memories at all: those functions, too, had been silenced.
Jews are now a few days into the 10 day period between the beginning of the year and the Day of Atonement. We are instructed to make use of this time to examine our behavior in the past year, ask forgiveness from anyone we have wronged, and try to make it up to them if that is possible. At the end of the Days of Awe, we are supposed to gather, collectively acknowledge our wrongdoing, and ask our Creator to forgive us.
JMG, you have written about reckoning and settling accounts for one’s deeds in terms of karma, an impersonal process which does not require a deity’. You have written about connections between what we do in a lifetime and what we will face in the next embodiment. You wrote that after death, a human soul (or spirit?) is forced to review everything they did during the life just ended. If I remember correctly, this is not a pleasant experience for the soul if it did not face problems caused by its behavior and deal with them while alive. The soul will not have the ability to do anything about this between incarnations, but will be set up for another life where circumstances make it more difficult to avoid responsibility.
My questions:
1. How accurate is my paraphrase of what you wrote?
2. You say that some people have specific and detailed recollections about former lives. I can see that the idea of karma might be concluded from these recollections. How does anyone know what souls experience between incarnations? I have not come across anyone claiming recollection. of that.
eHu, what a brilliant idea. The current oversized wind turbines are already brittle, ineffective objects that slaughter birds and bats and can’t make a profit without huge subsidies — so let’s make ’em even bigger! Here again, I’m reminded of the mania for ever bigger pyramids that seized the elite classes of the ancient Maya as their civilization came apart around them…
Anon, that’s very troubling — as I doubtless don’t need to tell you! Have you considered trying some journaling, and seeing if you can get a clearer sense of these images and apparent memories? There may be some knowledge, possibly from a previous life, possibly from some nonphysical source, that’s trying to come through.
Bradley, I don’t think there’s some kind of central authority that issues talking points. Groupthink is quite enough to generate that sort of effect, and there’s a monumental case of groupthink in the cultural mainstream these days.
Stubborn, I’ll talk to the publisher and see if it’s a candidate for reprinting.
Felix, very often, if a church or some other organization is in decline, a collapse in the egregor is at least part of the reason. It’s very rare for a declining organization to have an egregor of any strength — if it did, it would attract people and become strong again. When a church or an order has been disrupted by sudden external or internal crisis, that’s one thing — that’s why the egregors of the Cathars and the Golden Dawn are both robust — but if it’s a long slow decline, the egregor usually leads the decline by hollowing out first. As for breathing life back into an egregor, I’ve tried any number of things in cases of this kind, with zero success; I’m not sure it can be done.
Mary, of course he’s a shill, but if you call him that, aren’t you yourself engaging in the same behavior you criticize? “Shill” is a very loaded word, after all.
Seeking, of course! Genuine scientists know how fragile and tentative real science is. It’s the true believers, among laypeople and among careerists whose commitment to science is primarily about a paycheck, who convince themselves that science is an infallible god.
Luddite, I had no trouble at all. Quite the contrary, in fact.
Nephite, you’re not overthinking it. You’re sensing the quality of the ether in your breath.
Alex, I wish I did. Mostly I’ve just made a point of looking at, and reading about, buildings that I appreciate. Anyone else?
Alatar, I wish I could disagree with you. Life in a falling empire is always, er, interesting, and no side in the inevitable struggles will be safe to have close by.
Allie, I think you misjudge the intensity of religious belief and popular superstition around this. I’m sorry to say that trans people are likely to be first in line, in part because of the string of trans school shooters and of course the fact that Kirk’s apparent murderer had a trans partner; I’m very worried for the trans people I know, who are likely to suffer because of the actions of an extremist minority. But the occultists, and especially the Neopagans who have been swaggering around of late talking about curses and demon worship, are likely to be next. The thing to keep in mind is that a frightened mob is far more dangerous than an angry mob, and fear of supernatural evil is a terrifyingly effective motivating force.
As for queers, immigrants, and people of color, it’s important to avoid the kind of blanket logic you’re using here. Many gay men and lesbians are distancing themselves from the extremist left (and in particular from trans people), and some of those are finding homes in the populist right — are you familiar with Scott Presler, for example? Many legal immigrants support a crackdown on illegal immigration — and there are many, many people of color who are conservative and have traditional religious beliefs, and many of those are gravitating toward MAGA, as the 2024 election statistics demonstrate. One of the major mistakes the left has been making in recent years is insisting that it speaks for all sexual minorities, all immigrants, and all people of color. Significant numbers of all three groups beg to differ.
As for Kirk, I disagree with a good many of the things he promoted, but I respect profoundly the fact that he wanted to dialogue with people who disagreed with him. The fact that more than 40,000 leftists went onto social media to cheer his murder is a sickening testimony to just how debased the ethics of large swaths of the left have become. (The number? Those self-weaponized autists on the Chans kept track, and saved screen shots of every single post.) Your friends are right that Kirk has become a martyr, and they’re also right to be terrified. Unfortunately, the blowback won’t be limited to those who believed that the fact that Kirk disagreed with them and hurt their feelings was a justification for his murder.
Quos Ego, I’m not at all sure where this is headed, but our culture is very fond of its martyrs — look at the cult that built up around the generally undistinguished presidency of JFK. As for “hate speech,” that’s a vague label that can mean anything. So far, what it means to the right is that people who advocate or celebrate murder may face legal charges, but that law has been on the books all along. We’ll see if it strays, as it has in Europe, to speech that criticizes the effects of unpopular government policies.
Slink, nah, the term I use is “snarl word,” and I got it from Alfred Korzybski’s General Semantics. You’re certainly right that they’re a necessary part of communication, and also that languages vary dramatically in how many of them they have and how often they’re used! Yes, the taboo gives them power, and it’s the only thing that gives them power. I recall a Robert Silverberg science fiction novel in which “top” was the equivalent of “f**k” and “slot” the equivalent of c**t; it was a very clever way to indicate that in the society he’d invented in the story, sex was ordinary, uncontroversial, public, and unthreatening.
N, that’s generally what the desperate-scrambling mode of crisis management looks like in midstream.
Anon^2, oh, granted.
Donald, I know. We’re moving into strange times.
David, Dion Fortune writes about them in Psychic Self-Defence. As for a list of forthcoming books, aside from the Cabala book the revision of The Mysteries of Merlin, restored to its original title Merlin’s Wheel, will be out in October; the next Ariel Moravec novel, The House of the Crows, will be out later in the fall; the revised The Secret of the Temple, along with The Great Arcanum (my commentary on Lévi’s Doctrine and Ritual of High Magic) and my anthology The Occult Writings of WB Yeats, will be out next spring, and the revised The Ceremony of the Grail, along with the fifth Ariel Moravec novel, The Sign of the Phoenix, will be out in the fall of 2026.
Patricia M, probably a good idea! I’m not surprised that the Gypsy Witch deck had the situation pegged — I’ve also had good results with it.
Seeking, the Second Religiosity is always at least as much about politics as religion, because it’s an attempt by people in a declining civilization to rally around traditional values as the age of reason collapses around them. I expect the GOP denominations to do well.
Steve, that’s the sort of thing that worries me. There may not be much any of us can do at this point.
Gnat, it’s by no means certain that solid hydrocarbons are essential — and of course we don’t know what was close to the surface 182 million years ago, when a putative saurian civilization might have flourished. All those surface rocks got weathered away into sediment long before your ancestors and mine came down out of the trees.
Dennis, no, that’s exactly what people will be looking for. I’m hoping that those of us who live in parts of the country that are much less religious, and make a very public stand against evil magic, may be left alone, the way Hermetic mages like Agrippa and Ficino were during the age of witch trials.
Katherine, so noted!
Circle, I don’t practice permaculture so will have to pass on this. Anyone else?
Teresa, I have no idea. My late wife never used birth control pills, and neither did any of my other partners back before I got married, so I have no direct personal experience with it. I’d be interested if anyone else has comments.
Lucretius, more than 40,000 people on the left posted on social media cheering Charlie Kirk’s murder. (The self-weaponized autists on the Chans kept track, and saved screenshots of every single post — that’s why so many of those people are losing their jobs just now.) I quite understand that it’s very inconvenient for the left, which has preened itself for decades on being the Good People, that so many of its members displayed their real sentiments so blatantly, but there it is. As for the right, you’ll notice that there wasn’t any substantial outpouring of violent rhetoric from conservatives when those legislators in Minnesota were shot. Thus your argument is a classic case of false equivalency.
Michael, I have that experience every night. I dream, but my dreams are separated by periods of dreamless sleep in which my consciousness is completely interrupted. Yes, it’s strange, but for me it’s a familiar strangeness.
Clay, it smacks of desperation to me. More generally, the struggle to get the internet to pay for itself and still prop up the vast towering house of cards that is the modern financial economy is becoming tolerably frantic these days.
Tyrell, good! Yeats himself noticed the correlation between his ideas and Spengler’s. To my mind, at least, you’re on a productive track.
OtterGirl, that’s another dimension of this! There’s a lot of evil magic flying around these days: one more reason why that daily banishing ritual is so essential.
Team10tim, if they’ve been able to survive the cognitive dissonances of the last two decades intact, I don’t think that one more will trouble them.
Deborah, (1) that’s quite accurate, and (2) we know what happens between incarnations because living people can sometimes make contact with the dead, or with the spirits that have the task of working with the dead, and ask them. It also does happen sometimes that people remember. I have some very unpleasant memories of what happened immediately after the end of my last life.
OtterGirl @ 51 The well-known prayer to the Archangel Michael is printed in Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prayer_to_Saint_Michael. You need not be a Christian to recite it. As commander of the heavenly host, he stands outside any particular church, even though he is an object of particular veneration by Catholics and Orthodox. (Use of the male pronoun is conventional. Angels are beings of spirit not flesh).
@erika
Sorry, not me 🙂 I hope you fine who you are looking for.
@Mary
Absolutely agree with you about the chemical and economic instability being essential to all of this, and the blindness of the commentariat. I came to the conclusion a while ago that the ‘mainstream’ left and right are both coming from a place of Nihilism, hopelessness, and denial.
i’ve been wrong about absolutely EVERYTHING but i don’t feel doom for the sensitives or mages. there may be a healthy skepticism but i actually fear more the rift in the conservative community between those who “hate” Tucker Carlson and others who seem quite rational and tend to have a more Christian view of the American Story and the horror of our economic reality and future for the kids.
i didn’t understand it because i’m new here as a former liberal, but was horrified at PowerlineBlog’s venom against Tucker when i went to check the saturday memes. There were others. it seems to come down to Israel.
the liberals are obvious, but some conservatives are just the other side of liberals and no third or other way.
i like Tucker Carlson because he’s humble admits he was clueless about certain stories, but at the bottom he is just as mystified as many of us are about how sick the current vision is.
Again, i think Charlie Kirk was calling out some dangerous stuff. He was criticizing the tenets and foundations of the economic system not just an election cycle. If he trained that many people how to respectfully debate, i think that is pretty powerful and will and can tone down the fractured hate shards going everywhere.
i could be in La La Land. i didn’t see any of the stuff coming at me over decades as some plot because it didn’t make SENSE to waste life on such tedious boring evil. but the liberals are losing it. it’s all a big death rattle and i get it. they’re dying as they are and are staving off the collective existential crisis that needs to happen.
As a Buddhist, i fear the chance of this coming turn towards a new Satan panic making Buddhism illegal. Fundie Christians don’t much care about accuracy, I’ve seen enough screeds by angry fundamentalists about the evils of Buddhism and eastern religions to see that. I don’t think it will actually happen but fears are irrational. I know even if it did, i would die Buddhist. I can do no other.
While the Neopagan community has long engaged in theatrical whining about the “Burning Times” and “Christofascism,” I think the threat may be genuine this time for a few reasons.
We’re on the edge of a worldwide hard economic downturn. To make matters worse, the Great Depression fell out of living memory a few years ago. That means that no living American has firsthand experience of a global economic collapse. During times of unprecedented collapse, people become more fervently religious and seek out a strong leader who can make things better. We’ve already seen the first stirrings of this with the rise of Trump and the MAGA movement, and the conditions that fed that populist movement are only increasing.
Strong leaders need strong enemies — or, more precisely, enemies that their supporters see as strong and threatening. We saw this with the rise of the Democratic left and the endless hysteria about “White Supremacists.” We also saw it with “they’re eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats.” We’ve already seen a lot of hysteria on the Right about worldwide Satanic Pedophile gangs that mirrors the 1980s Satanic Panic. And we’ve seen people on the Left bringing up Epstein and child grooming as a way to needle Trump. In the 1980s we were in an economic boom. That’s no longer the case. I could see the hysteria getting considerably worse this time.
Thanks to political polarization we’ve got a significant chunk of the country believing that their opponents aren’t just misguided, they’re actively evil. In that kind of a climate, it’s not hard to convince people that people cursing their opponents and declaring their hatred of Christianity are actually in league with the Devil and his minions. And those seeking political power will happily use those fears to gain votes and elected offices.
We’ve now had another shooting, this one at a Dallas ICE facility. I expect we’ll be seeing more in the near future. This happened in the 1970s with various underground movements and bombings. That last gasp ended with Ronald Reagan. I would expect to see somebody considerably less appealing take charge this time.
Thanks. Many books to look forward to, then—and perhaps time to start learning French, unless your recommendation to read Lévi in the original has changed?
—David P.
Michael & Bruno, 47 & 55 respectively; what do you know about “ante-post-retrograde-amnesia” and the drug midazolam? My own understanding is that the purpose of the drug is to produce ante-post-retrograde- amnesia so that the patient would not remember anything that he or she may have experienced during the procedure once the procedure is over. This might be useful in preventing lawsuits, and it might also erase NDE’s (as a side effect). Having said that, I admit that I awoke once during an endoscopy procedure and remembered it afterward. The phrase “ante-post-retrograde” is confusing to me; something like before-after-looking-backward amnesia. blerwm. blerwm…
A question for church or temple-going members of organized religions: is membership up in your area? I see some people speculating that the new religiosity is well underway and that churches, temples, mosques everywhere are crowded and seeing an uptick in membership. If you are seeing a swelling of the ranks, where are you and what faith/denomination?
@23 Allie001
Exaggerating the malevolence of people we disagree with is what lead to the murder of Charlie Kirk. We need to stop smearing conservatives in general as racists, or homophobes, or Christofascists. The Right could have responded to Kirk’s assassination with assassinations (and worse, lynchings) of leftists, but have refrained from it so far.
This is not the time for name-calling. This is the time for compromise with conservatives while they might still be open to negotiations. My suggestions:
–We should accept that the more fringe you are, the less influence you ought to wield on the current mainstream. The wells of white straight Christian guilt have run dry, and leftists are losing the even more important factor of financial backing.
–LGBTQ people should give up Pride (since they have rights and high status in our society now) and find some balance between personal expression and mainstream appeal. They should also criticize the entitled behavior of some people in their “community.”
— People should not publically air their grievances with Christianity, don Satanic imagery, or ceaselessly hate America while living in America.
–There’s no guarentee the causes you’re passionate about will be regarded by future generations as having been on the cutting edge of moral progress, or even remembered at all (excepting some specialist historians in whatever academies still exist in the future).
Alex,
With regards to architecture books, I can’t give much advice on modern architecture, except those by Francis K Ching. The books are exceptionally cheap when you get them used because they have been read by many architecture students.
For classical architecture, you can get some fine PDFs at archive.org called American Vignola, parts 1 and 2 and that will explain the basics of classical architecture. They are by William Ware. I also enjoyed the book by Steve Bass called Beauty Memory and Unity which discusses in detail the use of sacred geometry in architecture prior to the Reformation.
JMG,
Speaking of architecture, I successfully recited the Middle Chamber lecture for the first time. Talk about nervousness.
@ Alex #21
For Sacred Geometry and Architecture, I’d check out the works of Keith Critchlow.
Mr. Greer,
I was wondering what your thoughts were on the recent increase in UAP/UFO phenomena, particularly the associated high strangeness that seems to accompany such activity. Given that at least some of this activity is fairly clearly congruent with the fae, why the increase? Concern about us screwing up the planet? Among lots of other things? And what would be the purpose of the fae “manifesting” physical craft or “biologics”?–in as much as we can ever know the inscrutable ways of the good folk.
Would love to know if you have insights,
Thanks Chris
Teresa #44: “It’s hard for me to believe that taking a strong hormone for years to decades (some women are on The Pill for 20+ years) doesn’t affect the user in far-reaching, subtle ways.”
A book on this came out a few years ago, “This is Your Brain on Birth Control”: https://www.sarahehill.com/books/your-brain-on-birth-control/. From the author’s website: “Sex hormones impact the activities of billions of cells in the body at once, many of which are in the brain. There, they play a role in influencing attraction, sexual motivation, stress, hunger, eating patterns, emotion regulation, friendships, aggression, mood, learning, and more. This means that being on the birth control pill makes women a different version of themselves than when they are off of it…because the pill influences who women are attracted to, being on the pill may inadvertently influence who women choose as partners, which can have important implications for their relationships once they go off it. ”
I suspect the influence of Big Pharma has a lot to do with the popularity of the Pill and the fact that “fertility awareness” is so often denigrated as unreliable, although it’s been refined to the point that it’s nearly as reliable as the Pill when properly used, and abstinence is really only needed for up to one week a month (not to mention that it’s free and has no side effects): https://naturalwomanhood.org/topic/what-is-fam/
a) I don’t know how widespread this was, but the Conservative Christians where I was living all added the murdered Minnesota legislators to their prayers for the dead, and asked God to watch over their families and help them find peace. My very left-wing family suggested hiring the witches Jezebel did to target other right wingers. I’ve drawn my own conclusion here.
b) I have written a book. It’s a rough draft, and I plan to let it sit before editing it, but I am feeling very proud to have a first draft of a book done. Do you have any advice for the next steps to go from “finished rough draft” to “published book”? I assume waiting, editing ruthlessly, and looking for publishers who publish similar material would be a good idea; but I’m not sure what else I could do here. I would be extremely happy to make a living as a writer; and so I’ve already started work on the next book as well, and will work on it while I sit on the finished one.
One thing that continues to puzzle me is the particular linguistic game progressives have played over the past decade in which they would come up a label, apply it to themselves for years, then as soon as it accreted negative connotations, they would disown it to the point of pretending they don’t even know what it means. (Ex: “What is ‘woke’?”)
It’s a point Freddie DeBoer — himself as leftist — made rather forcefully in his essay “Please Just [Fracking] Tell Me What Term I Am Allowed to Use for the Sweeping Social and Political Changes You Demand.” (No URL because it contains the uncensored un-Druidly word but it’s easy to find on your favorite search engine.)
Usually ideologies want to be known by name, even when their contents are vile: fascists are generally proud to call themselves fascists, after all. Their adherents want their ideology to triumph and be praised in song by its proper name. And even when the ideology is deeply unpopular and they know it, they usually just rebrand and try to hide behind some other less-threatening term (ex: “compassionate conservatism”), not just pretend it doesn’t exist at all while openly demanding all its tenants be implemented as policy.
But the Ideology That Refuses to Accept a Name continually tries to disown the fact that it even is an ideology: it’s just “basic human decency” (of a sort never conceived of before in all human history!). It just strikes me as uniquely bizarre and dysfunctional behavior of a sort I can’t quite wrap by head around.
I don’t want to get too Deleuzeinal, but the term “schizo-culture” does seem to be rather prescient these days.
I’ve been thinking about the intersection of stochastic violence, chaos agents (in the mode of Heath Ledger’s Joker), polarization, and civilization’s brittle veneer. I’m regularly thinking about the parallel between the introduction of the printing press and the explosion of easy access to information, misinformation, and opinion that upended monarchy and replaced it with democratic/capitalistic/managerialistic/individualistic identitarianism unravelling at present via the internet and its underlying algorithms.
It is no new observation to say “the algorithm” amplifies extreme positions, pulls everyone between these poles until society is taught. This state makes society, each of us, easy to play upon, like a guitar string. Extreme positions though protected speech and not specific acts of violence call to, cultivate, and emboldens actors, who break the string, sometimes, for the sake of chaos for the glee of seeing the string break. Opportunists then sort these actors right or left. I suppose who ever controls the narrative “wins” this event. Most of us loose because the divide deepens.
As I go about my business I see ordinary folks such as myself doing their best to care for their families, attend to their responsibilities, and make do. I don’t see hatred in these faces. I see worry, fatigue and sorrow. Because the tension is personal, infecting our relationships with our loved ones. Maybe that’s just me, projecting.
What differs, perhaps, in today’s instance of too much information such that there is no information is the scale and power of the machine underlying it all, the small number of us who control it, and the monetary incentive. The printing press was a weapon, to be sure, but its effects are quaint compared to “the algorithm.” I put this word in quotes because I don’t know yet what to make of it. Is it an entity in itself? a Boogey man? demon? scapegoat?
I want to turn it—the machine—off. If there is war in my heart, that is its target. But I am sticky with it. Entangled.
“My concern is if this increased respect, if you will, for magic will yield an even bigger crop of “get the bad guys” rookie revenge magic. I’m concerned we will live in a war zone of sorts, with icky nasty magic coming from almost everywhere aimed by a new breed of gung ho clueless people.” -Ottergirl #51
This is already the case in places where there are groups of immigrants who practice various forms of magic from their home countries. For instance, Islamic people flinging curses at each other in England, as has been described by certain active occultists I know.
I have been thinking recently, and I realized that statistics and machine learning play the same role in modern civilization as divination used to in the olden days. Back in the day, kings would ask astrologers to divine the intent of the universe to gauge the social and commercial health of the kingdom, predict the outcome of critical events, and guide decision with foresight. That is precisely what we do these days with mathematics.
Case in point, when a business draws a large loan from a bank, the bankers need to predict whether the loan will be returned over the entire period of its tenure, be foreclosed early by the client to avoid paying interest, or be defaulted on because the client goes bankrupt.
Now if the bank has a large aggregate of records from past loans it handed out, and it has painstakingly recorded the financial attributes of the borrowers and the economic indices at the time of borrowing, and the final outcome of the loan, then it can use machine learning to make predictions of loans handed out at present. The bank will hire data scientists – programmers who understand statistics. These data scientists will write a program that read in the historic data and compute a formula to predict the outcome of future loans. Using this program, the bank can make startlingly accurate predictions about loans and avoid paying loans that show a high likelihood of default.
The art and science of writing such prediction programs is Machine Learning. So this is sort of like divination. Most ‘rationalists’ disagree on grounds that divination, according to them, requires the intervention of supernatural entities. But Elipas Levi and operative mages hold that nothing is supernatural, but that there are subtler aspects of nature that the scientific mind doesn’t consider. So an astrological prediction is as natural as a machine learning prediction, although they vary greatly in the method and the area of application.
One major difference I notice is that most forms of divination acknowledge the intelligence of the Anima Mundi (or the Cosmos, for that matter). Machine Learning acknowledges that there is an order to the universe, in the form of statistical regularity, but does not attribute beauty to that order. It also refuses to acknowledge the intelligence of the Anima Mundi, preferring to use brute-force arithmetic to coax patterns out of records of past events.
But in function, the statistical methods employed by every scientific and financial sector – from ecologists and economists to banks and insurance – play the same role as divination used to in the past. Perhaps the fundamental need of foresight seeks some form of answer, and people have always sought means to acquire it.
so funny that i’m in Mordor fighting an onslaught of bullying against me in the punji pit of my apartment building, and am extra-blue because it’s James’ birthday, my economic prospects would seem to be evaporating with the take over of LLMs, i’ve already been banned from my library, lost friends, but i’m the most optimistic one here about the near future.
i think it’s because the Christian tributary has branched off bigger than i’d figured and people on all sides are tired of being enraged terrified and i’m also learning how to take the teeth out of my own friends without them raging back.
the one who said Kirk was evil when i said he was white folks’ MLK, calm but irritated at his intellectual laziness when we do art together, i asked for evidence and said i was sincerely curious. he withered. i’d told him before that i didn’t want to mix my art with his skills and couldn’t trust him if he was just going to react like a cartoon character.
i asked why he stuck around if my beliefs were so wrong, and i waited for an answer, and he admitted, “because… you’re more interesting.”
i laughed inside but was gracious on the outside and moved on to more interesting topics than me bad/you good.
this is Scotlyn’s advice. ah! i must write Scotlyn back here and keep the conversation open.
erika
Headline just came in and many of you will have red it until tomorrow, or soon as I am in Austria and many of oyu in the US:
“‘Anti-ICE’ message on bullets at Dallas shooting that killed two immigration detainees”.
I did not believe the story around the shooting of Charlie Kirk would change much of anything, felt too much of “everyday’s business” to me. Apparently it does, and now this.
It sounds like indeed the road to escalation. In the US, but Europe will watch.
Stay safe, all of you.
First, I wish for everyone reading this blog to have good health and a pleasant day.
Second, I’d like to recommend the “Culture” series of books by Iain M. Banks if you want some sci fi to read on a rainy day. I feel that the themes of these books would very much be of interest to the readers of this board. This series deals a lot with the ultimate aim of progress, “Full automated luxury gay space communism,” and the empty lives of the citizens ultimately living in those societies. Great reads and pretty good adventure at the same time.
For those of us whose likely-to-be-taboo views are not yet widely known, I wonder what would be a good strategy for keeping away from the lynch mobs? Obviously you don’t want to be publicly associated with anything even superficially resembling witchcraft, but trying to fit in in a conservative denomination is probably not going to go well for most us weird enough to be in that position to begin with.
Some Christian denominations, such as Episcopalians and Unity, generally don’t care what their parishioners actually believe as long as they don’t make a fuss about it, but these are the most likely to collapse in the coming years and may not provide shelter for long. Unitarian Universalism, even if it survives, has been associated so closely with the Democratic Party for so long you might well be painting a target on your back by being associated with it.
Buddhism, as Seeking pointed out, may paint a target on you as well, though I suspect this is mostly through its association with Hinduism (beyond the racism and resentment on the Right toward Indians, a lot of conservative Christians are quite angry about the large stature of Hanuman erected in Texas; so much for their principles of freedom of religion and private property, sadly). However, I suspect that Buddhists won’t be a primary target of Christian backlash; with Western Buddhism in disarray and no longer a particularly important cultural force, it’ll probably be seen as non-threatening enough to be far down the list, by which point Buddhists have time to make the case that Buddhist and Christian morality and similar enough that the former at least does not threaten the latter.
Probably it might be best to just keep our heads down, not talk about religion, and if asked about religion, prevaricate: praise Christianity’s good points but say we’re just “not ready” to accept Christianity as a doctrine. It doesn’t have to be dishonest, just don’t say what’s better left unsaid.
Hi All: I read the article you linked, JMG. Thank you for sharing it. I think that essay was on point, especially in light of the following.
M3gyn K3lly opened her show yesterday with a reported monologue about the curse. She talked for over 13 minutes about it. The Kirk’s knew about the curse. K3lly shared, apparently with Mrs. Kirk’s permission, that the couple spent Charlie’s last evening with a Christian friend praying over them in response. Heartbreaking.
Heloise
Mary (if I may), thank you for this. In my experience, angels and archangels are entirely willing to work with any person of goodwill, irrespective of religious affiliation. The angels have their work to do, which consists in part of spreading blessings and positive energies in the world, and those humans who want their help doing exactly that will normally get it.
Erika, I hope you’re right.
Seeking, unfortunately, history suggests that you’re quite correct. Too many fundamentalists seem to have skipped over the commandment about bearing false witness against their neighbors, and will spread the nastiest claims about other religions with no concern for accuracy.
Kenaz, the political dimension of all this is worrisome, but I’m also concerned about mob violence by the normally apolitical. If enough people become convinced that Neopagan curses and hexes are responsible for the bad luck they experience, especially in a period of economic contraction, spontaneous violence against known Neopagans — and anyone else who’s known to practice magic — is a real possibility.
David, get to work — Mark Mikituk and I did our best with the translation, but the French original is still better.
Bro. Jon, delighted to hear it!
Chris, have you read Carl Jung’s thoughtful essay on UFOs? He points out that UFO sightings are very closely correlated with periods of high social stress — and I think his hypothesis is getting a very solid test just now, and passing it with flying colors. Remember that not all UFO phenomena are related to what people in the Middle Ages called faeries; that’s one source, but it’s not the be-all and end-all. (Perhaps the most important reason the UFO phenomenon remains so puzzling is that most people are looking for a single explanation, and there is no single explanation; it’s not even a single phenomenon.)
Anon, that’s exactly what I would suggest. Put the manuscript aside and work on something else for a while. Then go back to it and revise it thoroughly, while looking around for small to midsized publishers who are interested in books like that. Once it’s been revised, get that puppy in the publisher’s inbox — paralysis by analysis is always a risk for new writers, and too much revision is not a virtue. Meanwhile, get that next book finished in manuscript!
Slithy, the hilarious thing about that is that the Situationists talked about exactly that habit. We’ll discuss that next week.
Catfish, I won’t argue.
Brandi, that’s a huge topic as well as a very important one, and I’m glad you’re wrestling with it. The more people do so, the better.
Rajarshi, ha! You’re entirely correct, of course.
Erika, excellent! Always be more interesting.
Curt, yes, I’d heard. Here we go.
Watchflinger, hmm! I may actually have a look.
Slithy, that’s certainly one approach. I also think that location is likely to be crucial — some places will be more likely to spawn religious violence than others, and being some distance away from the former is likely to be a very good idea.
Heloise, ouch. I’m very sorry to hear this.
Teresa #44. Mary Harington (https://www.maryharrington.co.uk) writes eloquently about hormonal birth control as the first major transhumanist technology and about its negative consequences on the individual and society. I don’t agree with everything she says, but her arguments are compelling and thought provoking. I hope you find her writing helpful. As for myself, when I attempted hormonal birth control in my early twenties it disrupted my emotional state alarmingly. I discontinued use and never took them again. I’m now entering menopause and will ride it out without artificial hormonal intervention.
Too late for last week’s post, I realized that South Africa is another example of the curse of the eighth decade:
1910: The Union of South Africa was established on May 31, 1910 by unifying the four British self-governing colonies of the Cape, Natal, the Transvaal, and the Orange Free State, with people of color constitutionally excluded from the Union government.
1994: The Republic of South Africa becomes a non-racial democracy with a new flag and a new constitution and a black majority government. Nelson Mandela was sworn in as president on 10 May.
@Brandi #74:
“As I go about my business I see ordinary folks such as myself doing their best to care for their families, attend to their responsibilities, and make do. I don’t see hatred in these faces. I see worry, fatigue and sorrow. Because the tension is personal, infecting our relationships with our loved ones. Maybe that’s just me, projecting.”
It’s not just you.
1. For several years now, whenever I encounter someone attacking a political opponent, I ask myself “might this be an example of projecting the shadow?” Oftentimes the answer is yes, particularly for certain groups, and it has helped me greatly in understanding current events. And I’m seeing a lot of that today in the comments, particularly in discussion regarding the Charlie Kirk assassination.
2. Could someone explain to me why the left, which is a group most fond of buzzwords like “holistic” and “systemic”, seems to have such a hard time understanding the ideas of secondary effects and unintended consequences with regards to political action?
3. Again in regards to the assassination, reading the comments here reinforces my notion that various Americans live in partly or wholly separate epistemological worlds. This seems unlikely to have positive repercussions.
From Scotlyn (dear Miss Lady Scotlyn, forgive me this is all too important to keep to myself as it’s time to not retreat but flare our light much brighter and LEAD because they are lost and this is the … break… pause… opportunity to bring something more inspiring and loving in the moment)—
I am writing this to the participants in this conversation – https://ecosophia.dreamwidth.org/342436.html?thread=57238692#cmt57238692
If I may, I do want to say something about this phenomenon.
Many of us find ourselves in a group, and we encounter that group AS a group – we meet its egregore before we meet its individual members, as it were.
Erika, what I remember trying to say when you spoke of never fitting in with the Normies, was that I was sceptical of the idea that there ARE any Normies anywhere.
I think this experience of feeling a need to “fit in” (whether we find it easier or harder to do in any individual case) is a universal, and there is no human being who automatically “fits” in any group.
We are all, to some degree, fakers who wear (as you point out, Augusto) a “mask” when in groups in order not to stand out.
But, this is the thing I want to point out. And it is this. When you are looking around at the other people who seem to you to be “fitting in” without any trouble, what I think you are REALLY looking at is other people who are just as troubled and perplexed by the “fitting in” challenge as you are.
Individual people are always themselves, and what they (each) ARE is something greater than any label, than any name, than any category, than any appearance. However, groups of uncategorisable human beings do develop egregores, whether temporary or permanent, and when we meet other people in groups what we are really meeting is that egregore, which is somehow deriving from the total of everyone in it. But here is the kicker – if you are there, the egregore is also deriving (in some small part) from you.
Which means that if you focus only on the egregore (which is the sum total of the specifc group of people present including you) and wonder how to fit into it, what you are MISSING is the opportunity to encounter any other individual person, separately to the egregore, in the place where their non-Normieness, and/or their insecurities about the challenge of “fitting in” and all that, might be easier to spot.
Anyway, I saw myself invoked, and therefore I appeared. I hope this is a useful addition to that conversation ye were having. 🙂 🙂
—
Scotlyn likes to be stealth but this is too important of a conversation and i felt Open Space’s pain at wanting to be stealth and fit in, which i remember was the source of my suicidal bouts.
Open Space, acting on stage is a form of magic because you are going into another SIDE of yourself, with that side’s set of GOALS and beliefs that underly everything you do, everything decision made, and responses.
yes, like Scotlyn, i believe you can connect with the Normals but their beliefs are that there is a PERMISSION STRUCTURE and that is the problem. yes, Scotlyn they WILL lose themselves in a human moment, but the violence and abuse comes AFTERWARDS when they resent or regret being vulnerable and letting you see their soft side. it’s related to what i was saying about feminist girls raging against their own vulnerabilities.
i’m learning that there is no “normal” response to hide or cloak, it’s as the other commenter said who reminded us how you have to be quiet hide yourself and watch OTHERS. it’s an …approach, not a set of detailed beliefs. those change.
the Normals then are those who timidly await the new Permission Structures. so to fit in you have to be timid until the new structures are distributed.
my mother and sister love me but would destroy me because i mock these structures/scriptures they live by because without them they are terrified. and as Papa points out, terrified people are the MOST DANGEROUS.
ask me how i know! answering would take a lifetime.
part of my lessons regarding court are that ALL THE PEOPLE in the system are terrified just like my own mom who’d be herself at 3am and admit she was scared. but come morning all insecurities are gone because the normals run the day time, we run the night time.
we are in night time.
the Violets of the world can undermine the hate by yes… doing as Papa suggested, and call out what’s going on, but no one is. so they all seem complicit. i can feel it.
this is why i call out the racism of white folks. it confuses white people. i can see the collision in their heads. even my boomer white guy collaborator. i WANT to cut them off, but not really. i just hate the smug arrogance that i, as a colored woman, still cannot have the freedom of MY OWN OPINION.
maybe i’m not as scared because James is dead from all this and how much worse can it get being here in Mordor???
so there’s a new type of freedom.
but still, i’m struggling over the WORDS. how do i make my pitch tell this story of what happened to us without it being tanked because someone called ME racist! me the blackest one here.
life with the liberals and their permission structures is ALL dog whistles and triggers. i have to do as Scotlyn said and find and try to connect with their HUMANITY. their INDIVIDUALITY.
so somehow it’s back to acting on stage so that: “the more you are YOURSELF, the more the audience sees only ITSELF.” you hide in plain sight with your vulnerable humanity.
it’s a mind fxck for sure. but once you’ve lost Everything, you’re free. and as Scotlyn would say, and has said, that’s Everything.
so fitting in to be stealth is betrayal of the self because i have to contort myself into an airtight coffin to comply. i forgot about that part.
to be believable as the part, as in acting, you have to BECOME the part.
so thank you Open Space and my dear Sister, Scotlyn, for reminding me why we triple-treble down on being in The Light.
Hello JMG!
I have been meaning to ask for a while now about what the age of aquarius actually means in practice. Are we now being bathed in “aquarian” energy on a constant basis? What effect might we expect from this?
I believe that a variety of fundamental shifts (geology, climate, magnetosphere, economics etc) are contributing to the very loud chaos drawing most of our attention. How much, if any, of this influence is due to this astrological shift.
Thanks as always.
@Martin #85
At the risk of being “that guy”: There are 84 years between 1910 and 1994: making that the ninth decade for South Africa (years 0 – 9 are the first).
okay, Allie.
(huge smile)
x
Hi JMG and all – I read Mark Stavish’s essay, at the end he says “Fall is here and the reaper is coming-” . I pull a Loteria card every morning, and this morning’s card was #14, La Muerte, death as the reaper.
I’ve had a sinking feeling in my stomach since the Kirk shooting, partially for this reason.
Just before the shooting, a pagan store owner was beaten up by fundamentalists saying “all pagans must die” (https://wildhunt.org/2025/09/all-witches-must-die-pagan-shop-owner-targeted-in-brutal-attack.html)
Which apparently contributed towards the desire to hex Kirk. The blowback had already begun. It seems to be this inexorable chain reaction of collective karma. In the same way that the deplatforming of people like Nick Fuentes by the left some years ago has actually made it more likely for a christo-fascist state to emerge in the future.
Politically, I feel entirely homeless. I don’t think the religious right is any better than the self-righteous left., though I also understand each of those perspectives and why they have those beliefs.
I have never been interested in cursing or hexing, and mainly interested in wisdom, blessing, and protection, but with the podcast and books, I am publicly linked to magic, and have been working towards a career as an astrologer and esoteric author. Though I do live in the country, this part of New York is not as super fundamentalist like many other rural areas. We treat everyone well and everybody likes us, but I am now actually a bit worried. As an already well established occult author, what advice do you have for one such as myself?
Yup, you hit it on the head …not safe here. Although, Not dangerous yet, but, bowl of death. When the door closes it will be hard( you will notice i didn’t say too late). I know, my problem; family obligations, and overconfidence. . Over trained&over educated& ex-military; so overconfident. Plan prob Europe Canada i don’t know, then maybe same problems as here but instead as an immigrant. Family member literally psychopath and evangelical i grew up in all that nightmare. Feels like it’s back. Tick tock, i need time to survive, to build my out. I wonder how many jews were in this spot, working to get out, but stuck somehow! then ….too late gestapo.
Kenaz Filan #63
> In that kind of a climate, it’s not hard to convince people that people cursing their opponents and declaring their hatred of Christianity are actually in league with the Devil and his minions.
Well, aren’t they? I was under the impression that that’s part of the problem: these people very much deserve the ire they’re drawing, it just shouldn’t spill over onto the rest of us.
—David P.
“We’re on the edge of a worldwide hard economic downturn. To make matters worse, the Great Depression fell out of living memory a few years ago. That means that no living American has firsthand experience of a global economic collapse.”
What are some things that we can do to prepare for a Great Depression level economic collapse, so that we can prevent ourselves from becoming homeless individuals living in shantytowns or hopping trains to the next city searching for work?
Jack #29,
Thanks for the link to JMG’s article.
From the article:
“Thus one of the standard uses for cheap paper notebooks, from the late Renaissancestraight through into the nineteenth century, was that once-familiar phenomenon, thecommonplace book. Children were taught to start such a book as soon as they couldwrite legibly, and a fair number of them kept at it straight through their adult lives. A commonplace book was a place to write down things you encountered that interested you, or set you thinking, or struck you as unusually true, or valuable, or beautiful. Short passages from books would go into a commonplace book; so would poems, your own or others’; so would recipes, household hints, useful facts; so would your own reflections on these things and others.”
Wow. I can only imagine how different it would feel to me to live in a society where this sort of healthy differentiation and autonomy is encouraged rather than attacked. IMO, we would have far, far less violence if people felt secure differing with each other while still maintaining connection. This capacity to differ is something I am still very much cultivating.
@81 Slithy Toves
Oh agreed, luckily for Buddhism we’re seen as so far down the list. I think at this point neo paganism and islam are the primary targets and hinduism right below exactly as you put it. And western buddhism is seen very much as a non entity in comparison. I hope to weather the storm and ordain as soon as possible.
But yes, in this stage keep silent don’t put a target on yourself if you can help it, that’s my plan. I live in a city in a red state so i’ll probably be fine. Luckily Buddhists are pretty good at being invisible in comparison to neo pagans!
#54 I expect Ukraine to fall off the face of the Earth as far as the media are concerned. Much as Afghanistan did after the Taliban retook power. It might be harder to maintain silence on the topic as its nearer proximity to Western Europe than Afghanistan gives it more natural salience, but I think it will just be one of those things the media has stopped caring about for a while.
Hello JMG and commentariat:
There were some comments (mine included) about pornography in the last post about Spectacle. I think it was good not being moralists in this topic. John said he would treat porn as an example of Spectacle in a future post of him. Good idea! OK, I’d like to go on writing about that (sub)topic, not as form of Spectacle, but in more general terms. I’ll start pointing that I think raw pornography and erotism are different things. However, limits are maybe fuzzy when we see certain examples. The image of a penis entering a vagina explicitly can be seen, for example, in East Asian ancient art (and religions), and, though in Europe there’s been more censorship on showing genitals in its History, some sexual acts are described graphically in Middle Ages art in image (even beside religious topics in Romanic churches, if I’ve remembered well some Romanic reliefs).
On the other hand, in modern society, some novels and images have been censored in the past centuries for supposed indecency, but nowadays are recognized as mere art. Typical example: Sade novels.
How do you would distinguish between porn and mere erotism, in your opinion?
Howdy,
I hope a bit of not-for-pay self-promotion doesn’t violate the “no sales pitches” rule, but if so, I quite understand this not getting put through.
I’ve launched a new blog called Rhetoric for the Renaissance Man. The goal is to share some of what I’ve learned about persuasive communication skills in the business world and as a university lecturer in a less morally-ambiguous/non-committal way. Basically, I want to treat these more mundane ways of changing consciousness in accordance with will with the same ethical rigor as the obviously “magical.” To achieve that, I’ll be drawing on not only modern approaches, but also looking back on the more integrated, holistic, humanist tradition of Renaissance education.
So, if anyone wants to learn how to formulate goals in accordance with your values, craft strategies to make them more likely to be achieved, and learn the skills of public speaking and writing that will help you get others on board with those strategies, all with an emphasis on doing things “the old fashioned way,” please check out my more in-depth introduction to what I’ll be up to on that blog here: https://rhetoricfortherenaissanceman.com/2025/09/24/laying-the-groundwork/
My blessings to all who welcome them,
Jeff
On the Charlie Kirk murder:
I did not know who Charlie Kirk was before he was murdered. When he was murdered, I was very sorry for his family, especially for his children. What I have seen no one at all mention is the suffering of the accused murderer’s family and friends. I can only imagine that his mother and father are living in a nightmare where no one will talk to them, people look at them side-eyed if at all, the press hounds them, and they are wondering if they should leave their son to the public defender who will be appointed and who may get their son shot by firing squad or try to mortgage the house and everything they have to buy a lawyer for their son so that he might get a lesser sentence. Also, every single person that young man communicated with is now being interviewed by the FBI. How many of them can afford lawyers and how many will get caught up in a net that they never imagined, and that might mean jail time, especially if they can’t afford a lawyer.
The unfortunate reality of the USA, is that those who have money get pricey lawyers and mostly get off. Those who don’t have money, that is, 99.9999 percent of us, get shafted, even when we were just a bystander. I am sad for everyone caught up in the tragedy.
Michael #48,
I don’t know if this feel relevant to you. Others may find it useful regarding anesthesia. Peter Levine, the creator of Somatic Experiencing, consistently warns against allowing the use of Versed if you need to have surgery. Here’s what Twig Wheeler, one of Peter’s students, has to say about Versed:
“The use of the drug Midazolam is strongly discouraged. Midazolam is marketed under various names, most typically “Versed.” It has powerful properties that decrease anxiety, convulsions, and muscle tension while at the same time increasing amnesia, hypnotic states and sedation. Sometimes Versed is known as the “forget the surgery” medicine. It is not recommended that we “forget” the surgery, our goal is to minimize the pain of the surgery while remaining appropriately associated to our experience – not to be unnecessarily dissociated. Because of its amnesiac qualities Versed makes it particularly hard to follow the memory traces of a surgery – these memory traces are helpful for the renegotiation of surgery events using the SE modality. If you are well prepared for the surgery then you can feel comfortable using other anesthesia drugs that do not include Midazolam (Versed).”
For those interested you can access Twig’s full document here: https://www.liberationispossible.org/xtras/pdfs/suggestions-for-pre-and-post-surgical-events-web.pdf
@Alex #21 re: Architectural Literacy
I’m far from an expert here, more a slightly-more-than-casual layperson, but here’s a few titles you might find helpful:
– For a literally classical approach (Romans), which might go more into the “how to” than you want, and my not be as relevant to more recent buildings, other than government ones, Vitruvius’s Ten Books on Architecture is the definitive source.
– For getting familiarity with American styles and buildings, especially homes, consider A Field Guide to American Houses by Virginia Savage McAlister
– More general would be Architecture: a Spotter’s Guide by Sara Hunt
– Christopher Alexander’s The Timeless Way of Building and A Pattern Language intentionally go against the grain of mainstream “high” architecture, but they give a list of “patterns” that can be combined to make pleasant, human-scale buildings, and cite examples of old-fashioned buildings that did this organically
Beyond that, a good approach is that if you see a building you like and learn what style it belongs to, you can very often find large, attractive picture books dedicated to that style (Art Deco, Craftsman, Mid-Century Modern, whatever), and that will give you lots of examples of what folks did within that style and what is appreciated about them.
Anyway, hope those help, and happy exploring!
Jeff
Scotlyn and I are dancing in the skies. What follows is Heaven Here on Earth:
from Scotlyn:
Ha, ha, this is interesting. 🙂
“Permission structure” – yes, I get that. I spend all my time inviting people to step out of it… also, I suspect that is part of what Sec Kennedy is trying to do. The people that support him want him to go in and just ban vaccines, and I get that… But vaccines have become embedded in a huge “permission structure” – like a spell with sticky threads… and I genuinely think Kennedy is still holding out hope that people who are stuck in it might see his invitation for them to step out of it and take charge of their own health.
Ok, so, at first it seemed like you were seeing the Normals as the ones setting the permission structures in a way that made you fail, so it looked like the world was only made of singular you and an amorphous them. Any amorphous “them” is something I will pick at and pick at until I can see who is being talked about…
Now this has changed, and I like that here you are writing of Normals as singular other people, who are just like you and me, but timid and afraid.
For sure, people who are afraid are dangerous, mainly because they will lash out at whatever is temporarily personifying their fear to them. But their danger is the danger of a cornered bear, not of a hunting lion. Let the bear see the exit, and they will take it and leave you alone.
So now what we need is to find the antidote to fear. (A tall order, for sure… almost, but not entirely, impossible)… 🙂
Let’s see how the conversation develops – over there… 🙂
Be well all, and stay free!
S
—-
i just went out back and smoked a little weed and prayed because i gave myself today off from thinking about my legal “story.” i thought i was putting James’ ENDCAT book on hold but THIS IS ME WRITING IT NOW IN REAL LIFE:
can i organize a DIFFERENT narrative than the one i’m learning i’m expected to inhabit. even “acting,” i become what i play but screw the woo woo good Jesusy stuff, on even a cold sociopathic materialist level, IT ENERVATES ME and undermines all i think i can pull off.
i’m atoning for the fact that i was a b.s. feminist have no kids be a fantasy story that’s not real i’ve gotta come out and recant retract ATONE…
and that doesn’t mean lazy surrender to Jesus like a sack of potatoes, it means Maya Deren became a VOODOO PRIESTESS I GET IT:
we are more powerful than we know but we keep punking out for the small stuff. like i said earlier about Israel vs. Tucker kind of love. this is truly existential.
i am not a man nor am i young so what can i do to use MY MAGIC i do well… which is I MAKE THE UNDERGROUND I MADE IT THROUGH THE SELF HATE I WAS SAVED BY JESUS WHO WAS MY JAMES!
i have to be monkey see monkey do… i have to use my powers as CREATOR of CULTURE and stay with the love story.
so i saw the faces of Charlie Kirk’s audience and i had already written in my last book about being a performer and feeling the power and love of an audience that is holding you in the light. it can be used for shallow ego “you like me, you really like me!” crap, OR it can be ….(rrrrrumble rrrrumble earthquake WOW)
Charlie Kirk’s AUDIENCE reflecting Him/him.
as someone who’s been on the stage…WOW…why EVER make the lights go out?
We capital “W” collective “We” forgot that. that’s why we always slaughter Jesus, eat his intestines and then crawl inside for Warmth When We’re Alone.
cripes. really?
no. James showed me the Soft Side. it behooves me to Remind.
[RE-QUOTING SCOTLYN ABOVE:]
“For sure, people who are afraid are dangerous, mainly because they will lash out at whatever is temporarily personifying their fear to them. But their danger is the danger of a cornered bear, not of a hunting lion. Let the bear see the exit, and they will take it and leave you alone.
“So now what we need is to find the antidote to fear. (A tall order, for sure… almost, but not entirely, impossible)… 🙂
“Let’s see how the conversation develops – over there… 🙂 ”
——–
Antidote to fear is COLLECTIVE LOVE because all this hell is A LOVE JONES. it’s insane. men who run the world feel like impotent boys and have to shtup girls to feel anything at all… we women wanted IN but forgot we lost the way as together…
woman, this is where i believe in demons. NONE of this makes any sense at all.
i know the power of one man, James’ love, those people at Charlie Kirk’s memorial are an ARMY. believe in Christianity or NOT, this is one heck of a Magic Incantation that has been cast. Papa G knows it. Maxine knows it. Kimberly sure as hell knows it.
those people are just getting started. and did you see Mrs. ERIKA Kirk’s eyes??? she stood out behind the bullet proof glass and fake story or not it’s a DOOZIE that is playing out.
these people in the audience are not your Joel Osteen prosperity fans despite Mrs Kirk’s bling that shamed even me, tinsel cheapo queen.
Something is UP.
i’ve been loved. i can no longer conform to this World. my legal story isn’t just a case. i am fighting for my belief in The Love Story. this is a verrrrry loooong game. i’m writing children’s stories for my future self to find.
THAT i feel like i’ve done before. left notes in bottles for me to cut my foot on later in the gutter. suffering makes you pay attention, right?
so my job is to try and switch the tracks from fear to adventure and losing track of time. they are all too worried of dying but we’re living like mummies. it’s crazy.
war of the stories. but stories are ENERGY. and there’s too much double speak.
this very place has made many of us keep our sanity/insanity intact so that we may function! so my job is to take this into the …buttery realm where fiction tells truths that seep in where facts cannot.
yes, Scotlyn… ONE AT A TIME. but it’s hard to hear and KNOW myself in the midst of all this …..heavy metal trangle ULULATING. and also BEING a female of this, i’m vomiting up my own horrors of self regret of wasted time and life on such uninspired crap when life is HOLY… i’m trying to …remake CULTURE into something more human.
that involves ENERGY. i see now how people like even the powerline blog right, seek to ENERVATE. all this blather and i have to see how i FEEL. do i feel tired or scared?
i generally feel empowered here on eco, but i can feel the farters. i’ve gotta go cartoon and even call myself out. so offensive must come back in style on a more mass scale. the comedians lead and take their hits, but i’ve gotta carry it on.
this is long but i’m inspired. writing about this clears my own head and helps me make my (legal) case but more for how do i pitch how i see it logically, to CULTURE???
i felt powerless and needed to BECOME powerless to balance remind me of humility.
i’m trying to live out a children’s story, one of the last that i must have come true.
that like you said, or no it was Papa– you’ve gotta plan for losing to still WIN.
so i figure i’ll still win but i wanna fight for The Story. the one now is ugly. so it’s not do you just passively listen and applaud politely as i get my ass kicked and go broke for your STORY?
nah. i’m not into that martyr crap.
so how do i have fun as i DO and inspire LIFE with whatever magic i know how to do???
(smile)
it’s not a throwaway question. it’s a way of epic LIFE. we are so powerful.
but we all get played. i know NO answers, just following what feels alive instead of what feels dead.
i bury my lede for Open Space:
THAT’S WHY THERE IS NO STEALTH. it’s like either you’re actively rotting or you’re blooming green.
i get it.
Charlie Kirk whatever you believe, he DID start a cypher, and it’s all about love as verb… listening understanding… NOTICING the GREY HAIR WITHOUT SAYING!!!! … it was all well-written. Erika has quite a mind. she’s also a magician.
things could go wild in the best ways. that’s why i hope she just likes the shine for fun. it’s hard it’s hard… temptation everywhere. why some of us stay low. i’ve been tested. i fail.
gotta keep myself hella humble.
so that’s long, Scotlyn. but on James’ birthday, i needed some preaching. i don’t wanna lose what he finally unpolished in me. i’d rather die than go backwards.
so how do I RE-MAKE the world. what magic pray tell, do I KNOW how to do?…
watch.
that’s why i thank many of you here for holding me in The Light. and all who’ve swooped in so James could live and feel loved and remembered and those who kept me in the fight when i wanted to die and those who healed me…
thanks for not making hell the long chopstick people. thanks for making hell into HEAVEN. i’m crying now.
because as an artist if i fail to make the world have a love letter of love letters, i’ll have failed as an artist. i have much much to atone for. the feminist go it alone screw around crap.
i’ve tried i still try.
this was long. thanks for forgiving. i’m fighting to stay in the game. suck a stupid pointless game all this time wasted.
i saw the faces of the audience at the Charlie Kirk memorial and i believe again. in people. yes, Scotlyn… ONE AT A TIME we are beautiful. gonna keep the cypher going in my way.
all this is because of a Love Jones. so funny. all this. everything. it’s almost absurd if not for the horrors. i get vonneget more and more. i’m suicide-proof at this point. my curiosity gets the better of me. but if cancer comes i’ll just go out old style like Sara.
erika
Martin Back,
The Soviet Union is another country that suffered the curse of the 8th decade.
JMG,
Thanks as always for this space, especially now. I have a quick leftover from this week’s MM. You mentioned in an answer to a commenter that it’s not a good time to invoke Saturn. Does that in any way extend to whether or not it’s advisable to do planetary charity to Saturn during the next several years? In essence I am asking if planetary transits/ conjunctions determine the timing and advisability of offering planetary charity.
Thanks!
Brandi #75:
“I want to turn it—the machine—off. If there is war in my heart, that is its target. But I am sticky with it. Entangled.”
I agree. Your words have reminded me what I was being thinking (with a vague discomfort) about my life and my surrounding social, economical, political and technological context. I couldn’t find the exact words to describe my discomfort, but thank you for giving to me the exact expression…More and more people we want to turn it off, but we’re entangled too (me think).
—————————————————————————————————————————–
JMG # 83:
“Perhaps the most important reason the UFO phenomenon remains so puzzling is that most people are looking for a single explanation, and there is no single explanation; it’s not even a single phenomenon”
I came to the same idea after years and years following the UFO phenomenon in books, magazines, the internet and TV “documentaries”. There are several phenomena in the same sack.
@ Teresa #45
The pill works by fooling the body to believe it’s already pregnant, so a woman on the pill instinctively looks for a man who would make a good father, i.e. similar, stable, caring, etc.
Women not on the pill tend to select dissimilar but sexually attractive men, i.e. bad boys, around their most fertile time. This can cause problems in a relationship if a woman formerly on the pill decides to go off it.
https://royalsociety.org/news/2011/partner-choice-influenced-by-pill/
@Bendith Fawr, thanks a lot for the link! Much appreciated. 🙂
In one of Kunstler’s recent posts he linked to an article by Wendy Williamson called “The Law of Reversal.” I found it very inspiring as we navigate all of this chaos. From the article:
“The shift from energy creation to energy consumption is not just a quirk of human history. It reflects a deeper law of reality itself: enantiodromia—a term the philosopher Heraclitus used to describe the way things, when pushed far enough, reverse into their opposites. The Greeks saw it everywhere: day into night, summer into winter, life into death.
On the largest scale, the universe demonstrates this law. Stars spend millions of years blazing outward in unimaginable triumph—burning, creating, radiating. Yet when the fuel is spent, the very energy that made them radiant turns inward. They collapse into dwarfs, neutron stars, or, at the extreme, black holes: light itself swallowed. Creation flips into consumption. Expansion becomes implosion.
The cosmos obeys enantiodromia. Even black holes, the apparent negation of existence, obey the law. At the point of greatest density, matter no longer radiates outward—it bends inward, into invisibility. Creation and destruction are revealed as phases of the same rhythm.
Closer to home, the same law governs the earth. Ecosystems thrive on balance through oscillation: predator and prey rise and fall in cycles, forests grow and burn and regrow, populations expand until their abundance provokes disease, famine, or migration. Growth and collapse, creation and destruction, are not failures of nature—they are nature’s pattern.”
https://wendywilliamson.substack.com/p/the-law-of-reversal
Happy fall (or spring, as the case may be) equinox to all. I hope the changing season finds you well.
I’ve managed to get through writers block this summer, and finish up the fourth book in my series of mysteries. I’m self publishing, and I’ll post a link on the next open post, if I may. The story is influenced by discussions here in the comments, relating to relationships, dating apps, and reincarnation, among other things. This community has been a haven in a really rough year. Thanks JMG for creating a space where we can learn together.
Rajarshi,
I went into data science precisely because it resembled divination, and I was obsessed with psychic prophecies, Isaac Asimov’s Foundation, natal astrology and anything else that promised to show glimpses of the future at the time I went to graduate school and discovered machine learning.
So, you’re absolutely right, at least in my case.
I don’t know if anyone has been following the ostrich story in Canada… It’s a long story, but in short it involves 398 healthy ostriches on a family run ostrich farm, threatened with a public health authority writ of execution, due to avian flu fears.
Anyone interested in this story will be interested to see that the Canadian Supreme Court has just issued a stay of execution – https://x.com/chrisdacey/status/1970890017556906406
And this follows the fascinating development yesterday, when a local Native American band got involved… https://x.com/chrisdacey/status/1970869524040712526
A good news story, one for shining a candle into the dark surrounding us all… 🙂
Hi JMG, you mentioned a few times that in the future the EU could be the biggest rival of the US, especially with regards to Canada and the UK. I’m a bit surprised as I think that the European states will soon be very busy quabbling with each other and run the risk of being overrun from the South and Southeast (Africa and ME) while the leadership is singularly focussed on a largely imaginary threat from the East (RU). I would think the EU will not rven be close to in the position of being a threat to the US. Did I get you wtong or could you expand on it?
Hey JMG
On the subject of Charlie Kirk, I recently read this essay on the meaning of his assassination from a Malaysian Substack writer, who tries to understand it from a Malaysian perspective.
https://elizabethtai.substack.com/p/charlie-kirk-and-the-fragile-reed
Allie001,
“before they get to the occultists they’re going to chew through the queers, immigrants, and Black people first.”
This doesn’t match what I am hearing. IMO it’s trans people, “witches,” and possibly Muslims and entryist public school teachers who need to worry. Very few people on the right seem to be focusing on normal gays and lesbians, (legal) immigrants, or black people.
Frankly I think that the tendency of people on the left to think animosity from the right is focused around those groups seems really out of touch to me, but maybe things are different elsewhere.
Speaking of Spectacle; what is there to say other than “The Data Must Flow.”
https://www.yoursourceone.com/columbia_basin/ecology-proposes-stricter-air-quality-rules-for-data-centers-in-quincy-east-wenatchee-and-malaga/article_6e1492c4-0058-49d9-ad69-89bfca48ec42.html
“The Washington Department of Ecology is advancing a proposed air quality general order designed to regulate emissions from diesel-powered emergency generators at future data centers ”
“The draft order applies to data centers operating 2,000 brake horsepower (bhp) or more in emergency generator capacity. Each facility would be permitted to install up to 21 diesel engines, each capped at 4,423 bhp.”
“Facilities would be restricted to burning no more than 438,900 gallons of diesel fuel annually across all engines, with each individual engine capped at 20,900 gallons per year. ”
“Total projected emissions from the 21 engines would be capped annually at 23.85 tons of nitrogen oxides, 2.39 tons of nitrogen dioxide, 2.04 tons of carbon monoxide, 1.61 tons each of PM2.5 and PM10, 1.44 tons of volatile organic compounds, 0.47 tons of sulfur dioxide, 0.26 tons of ammonia, and 0.17 tons of diesel exhaust particulate.”
This is the same Dept. of Ecology that demands you give up your natural gas stove.
My morning project was canning 28 quarts of grape juice from the concords. Then I had to mop the kitchen floor.
When I de-converted from Christianity back in college i ran into your ‘a world full of gods’ book. It was a great book, it made me consider polytheism as a viable option and how a polytheist might see the world. It was groundbreaking. I recommend it to my friends all the time. Is there anything in that book you’d change now that I think 20 years has passed since you wrote it? Or any new information you’d add?
@Heloise #82, JMG and all: news about the Etsy witches’ curses on Charlie Kirk is spreading. Candace Owens just mentioned it in her podcast today (near the end). Candace has over 5.2 M subscribers on her Youtube channel and over 250 k viewers live these days – that is, she has a big voice. While she gave the Jezebel writer(s) the benefit of the doubt regarding the intent of requesting the curses, as a strict Catholic, she did not spare words condemning it and (naturally) associating witches’ curses with El Diablo. I anticipate significant repercussions on various planes as this becomes common knowledge. Something to be aware of, methinks…
Brandi –
Similar experience here. I tried hormonal birth control very briefly, mainly because I was pushed by a doctor – back when I was young and still half-trusted doctors – based on the arguments that it would help with painful periods and reduce the chance of breast cancer. It messed with my emotions so badly I don’t think I lasted much more than a month before I went off of it and vowed never again. (I remember my boyfriend, now husband, was like “PLEASE stop taking it, it’s made you insane!”) It was one in a string of experiences that eroded my trust in the medical establishment.
For what it’s worth, I rode out menopause without any intervention. Maybe I’m just lucky, but I didn’t experience any of the horrors of menopause that I keep reading about. Some mild issues with temperature regulation (occasional hot flashes that were more like “is it a bit warm in here?” moments), and….that was it. I exercise, eat (mostly) right, take no regular medication, and barely ever used hormonal birth control. I’ve heard a theory that hormonal birth control may impact later experience of menopause (specifically, make it worse), but I who knows if it’s true or not. Hmm.
“The majority of Wyoming’s coal formed between 50 and 58 million years ago from peat that collected in vast swamps that often covered a thousand square miles and lasted for thousands of years. ”
https://wyomingmining.org/coal/
As for “Assuming there is a witch hunt, should we all pretend to be Paul Kingsnorth and openly convert to some form of Christianity while practicing in secret and keeping our books hidden in the ceiling tiles?”
Hypocrisy gets one in more trouble than sticking to either side. See also coverups which also get people in more trouble than the original crime as does apostasy.
Speaking of Spectacle and apostasy, Sabine got in trouble,
“A lot of research and the foundations of physics is now pseudoscience. It hasn’t followed the scientific method for decades.”
Basically particle physics hasn’t done anything new in 50 years. It’s all self-referential navel gazing and fun with math.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZO5u3V6LJuM
At least cosmology is having regular book burnings thanks to the new telescopes.
I went down the rabbit hole for a few hours the other day exploring the informational website of Antifa and other anarchist groups, ” Crimethinc.com”. I looked over all the book titles on offer and read a fair portion of the articles published for view by followers of the violent arm of. the radical left. Some standouts were an article on ” steal from your workplace day”. And ” how to turn ordinary objects like umbrellas and leaf blowers in to weapons as learned in the Portland Protests”.
Now Antifa and other such groups are often labeled as marxist. But I didn’t see that. The underlying philosophy was that nearly everything had to be dismantled. Capitalism, Jobs, The police, the government, white supremacy etc. But I could not find one single word about what this bunch wanted to replace it with. If they were Marxists they would want production owned by the people and such. But the Antifas don’t seem to want any kind of work or jobs or anthing, just all the stuff they wanted to get rid of.
Even the anarcho- primitivists ( which I once fell for after reading too much Jensen, Zerzan and Quinn) believe in a kind of return to pre industrial tribal life. But these guys ( and gals) just seem to want to burn it all down with nothing in replacement.
My eldest when we heard of the assassination, this came up as news while we were on the phone, the response from my offspring was, “who ? ” ” wasnt he some right wing whatever ? I dont care this happened ” which at least is alot better than being GLAD it happened. Fast forward to this week, where my eldest mentioned the firing of the talk show host, whom they had never tuned into or watched or cared about before this. I was told ” well, you are a boomer, EVERYONE in my millennial age cohort is very upset about this. I am unbelievably upset and worried about this. Government overreach….1st ammendment.. .unprecedented,, ,etc” Of course, it is not age, it is due to world view as my eldest gets all news from PBS radio shows. I said I wondered if any overreach had actually happened, that while it might not be fair or even handed depending on ones perspective, it seemed legal and not a big moral overreach, and I also said that while I dont believe in “an eye for an eye” as that results in the world being blind, that this type of cancelling is not new and 4 years ago was happening the other way and any cancelling might be more likely due to that. I also said that I was realy glad to not see any violence as the result of this assassination and that maybe it is correct to not want inflammatory lies told about the event right now ? Not try and incite violent response ? I think my eldest, and assuming alot of the other PBS listeners think the same, I think they did not and do not realize how big of a deal this particular murder is in terms of the National Narrative. Or the potential ramifications’ of a such a large group of fellow Americans shocked by this assassination. SO they realy did not think that others would view their glee in his death as seriously as had happened, they live in a bubble in addition to losing all perspective and all morals.
My eldest actually said ” what cancelling ? ” that never happened, give me an example. I was a bit on the spot, all I could think of atm was ” How about Tucker Carlson ? ” This of course did not help. I was told, I cant believe you dont see how bad this all is and I cant talk to you right now. Which is good. I am so glad that I am not cancelled by my children for not being upset by the correct things and being more moderate. I also note that the government did not make a ruling to force him off the air, more like a recommendation, so he is back on the air. Now more people who didnt care about him will tune in. I dont think this will make them see that the government didnt cancel him after all.
Birth control pills.
I agree that the effects are not talked about or studied. Besides physical effects, they effect mood, alot. And physically, we are not meant to have pregnant hormones constantley flooeding our bodies, 3 weeks of every month.
They work in 2 ways. first they inhibit release of eggs, but the second effect is to keep implantation from occurring or at least less likely for both of these.
Another effect of them is that both sexes think they keep pregnancies from happening, so no longer thought of as family planning, that less pregnancies occur ( which is true) people think that they keep all pregnancies from happening ( which is not true) and then they are shocked when come up pregnant and think this is some statistically rare occurance and shouldnt have happened and it encourages terminations. It is not a rare occurance. Statistics are not my strength, but I know enough to see that if something fails 10% or 5% or whatever ( real world uses) lets say 5%. That is 5% a year. Every year. so 5 out of a hundred, over 20 years … is … 100. Could be that a particular person has it more than once. Another not at all. ANd there is abstinent times, so less than 5 a year out of our 100… But, I guarantee you, as I have seen the material presented to young people, they DO NOT tell them this truth. Eventually, it is likely you will get pregnant ( age 15 to 35) . I think there is a spiritual cost to all this. And material from hormones, and relational from hormone affects too
JMG,
Thank you for the link to Stavish’s essay. At some point, you had talked about doing a post on how to fight entryism in an organization. Did you write that yet? If yes, would you please share a link?
Mr. Greer, a non-political query ..
Do you, or have you .. considered**, having ‘non-humans’ .. e.i. ‘pets’ … as companion(s)
** this could run the whole gamut, from fish, to our more furry friends…
Mary Bennet (#59),
Thank you for the link to the beautiful St. Michael prayer. I felt inspired to memorize it about a year ago, and recite it every night before bed. There’s something truly magnetic about it. The image that accompanies it on the link you provided is so inspiring. It could be time for me to find a suitable one for our home.
JMG,
Would lighting incense to St. Michael weekly be appropriate, while reciting the traditional prayer? A simple daily prayer seems sufficient, but I would gladly add this if appropriate.
Thanks as always,
OtterGirl
Kimberly #66. We live up the block from an Eastern Orthodox Church that is booming. Sunday mornings their parking lot is full, and within the last year, people are parking on the street up to two blocks away, young couples with small children are attending, and the congregation has a preschool that is lively.
A family friend belongs to the congregation, and his son died last year. My husband and I were among the very few non-members who attended the service, the church was packed and the ceremony was powerful. I felt the energy as we lifted up the life of this young man.
The church is not for me- but they are doing a lot of things right, and attracting people who are seeking a powerful spiritual experience and a tight community.
Hi JMG. I have another question for you. I am reading Stephen Crimi’s book Hermes Runs the Game where Crimi explores the idea of human and animal sacrifice as a driver for the Covid debacle.
Your exchange with Bofur earlier today about the benefits of personal sacrifice to achieve unity of will got me thinking. I wonder if there is ever anything truly beneficial about sacrificing an animal or heaven forbid, a human, in the name of a deity. It seems to me that the person(s) doing the sacrifice are taking no personal risk at all (except unconsciously in the karmic sense) and rather are refusing to face their own fears by instead sacrificing another being in the name of some spiritual practice through a distorted sense of power. How do think about human/animal sacrifice as a spiritual practice?
“Anon, that’s exactly what I would suggest. Put the manuscript aside and work on something else for a while. Then go back to it and revise it thoroughly, while looking around for small to midsized publishers who are interested in books like that. Once it’s been revised, get that puppy in the publisher’s inbox — paralysis by analysis is always a risk for new writers, and too much revision is not a virtue. Meanwhile, get that next book finished in manuscript!”
I’d like to make sure I understand your advice here, because it’ll dramatically change my course of action: are you suggesting I only do one round of revisions before sending it out? I was planning to do three, so I’d have a total of four drafts.
Or is the key point to commit to sending it out, and not get stuck doing endless revisions?
JMG #9: Ah, I did not realize that them’s the rules. When I said I was posting early I meant early in the day. I’ll wait patiently for you to open the invitation for pitches, then.
Anonymous #1: I keep a commonplace book. I purchase a new one every year that has the front 5% or so of pages in a month-by-month calendar format so I can keep track of what I’m doing next week and what I did last month. The rest of the book is for notes on lectures I attend or work meetings I need to prepare for, along with inspiring quotes I come across, snatches of poetry, and diagrams of what I want to build next in my garden. Does that answer your question?
Thank you everyone for discussing my essay. Please remember, it is an essay and not a book so many things had to be left out. The core points are: 1) Kirk’s death has released a tremendous amount of pent up psychic energy that is manifesting in ways that for many were unforeseen. 2) Any new variation on the “Satanic Panic/Anti-Cult Movement” will be different from the previous one. It will not simply be “Fundamentalist Christians” vs (fill in the blank) but more complex as the slate of players and technologies has changed. 3) This backlash was predictable in many ways; but more importantly, the esoteric/spiritual movements must learn from it , and even if it doesn’t happen redirect themselves back to their essential purpose – spiritual training and practice. Finally, if you can give me a better way of describing Protestants of the milquetoast variety please do. I would have simply said “Unitarian-Universalists” but I was also thinking of a large number of Methodists and Episcopalians that I’ve known and would not want to offend anyone by leaving them out. Once again, thank you for your comments. – Mark Stavish
Kind Sir,
now this week Trump announced that he found the cause for the autism epidemic. What his team identified may or may not be part of the causal network. This is not my question. What i found a lot more interesting was the reaction of the ABC ( the australian one that is). Our ABC is rather entertaining if one is not interested in facts, but this set new standards.
Of course Trump is wrong, wrong, wrongity wrong by definition, so paracetamol cannot possibly be in any way related to anything bad. I mean Trump being wrong is as basic a fact of the universe as that gravity is a social construct and that the number of genders will always increase.
The ABC claims that a cure for autism (which Trump did not find anyway, nosir) would destroy the autism community. They stopped short of calling it genocide, but only just.
here is the article for those who need to be baffled.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09-23/trump-unproven-autism-claims-risk-undoing-decades-of-progress/105807344
Dont look for facts or logic. This is the ABC after all.
Thing is, I have a cousin who is on the far end of the autism spectrum. Think rain man with the occasional violent outburst. That was back in the 70s before autism became fashionable. So I grew up seeing autism as something horrific.
What am I to make of a celebratory attitude to something that destroyed the life of my cousin? I know you are on the spectrum, so you’d have some insight. I can’t ask my cousin since he is pretty much nonverbal.
@michael in Taiwan
Bernardo Kastrup has a lot to say about mind and matter. You might find his Analytical Idealism interesting. I certainly do. Kastrup is an engineer, so his approach is one that I as a fellow engineer (although with two phd’s less then Kastrup) find relatively clear and easy to follow (relatively being the operative word here)
John, have you ever encountered any esoteric groups who observe the Old Testament practice of keeping a kosher diet, not as practicing Jews, but as Gentiles studying and practicing Hermetics and Kabbalah? Also, would there be any kind of logic to such a practice from an occult perspective?
@Teresa Peschel #45 – FWIW, after our 3rd kid (all desired with multiple miscarraiges along the way),my wife went on the pill. I am extremely loyal to a fault, yet within 2 months I was entertaining thoughts of divorce to a woman I’ve been with since the end of high school days. It was like PMS on steriods, everyday, never-ending. Once she stopped taking the pill, thankfully things reverted towards normal soon after. In the next few years, in quiet conversations with other close family friends, we found 2 other couples that had the same issue and had also figured out the cause. Enough studies have shown that women on the pill are attracted to different men than compared to when they’re not, so yes, the hormonal balance gets skewed.
I would like to add a positive perspective on the response to the Charlie Kirk situation. I feel like the right’s response has been very restrained. I feared retaliatory violence, witch hunts, and/or law enforcement kicking in doors. Instead, what we have seen is people being called out amd fired for insensitive comments – which is within the bounds of the first amemdment, which gives one freedom of speech, not protection from nonlegal and nonviolent consequences for speech. Yes, the orange emperor has made a few moves – declaring antifa a terrorist organozation, which seems justified to me, and going after its funders, which seems to be just enough to keep the right placated without exceeding legal boundaries.
Indeed, the right seems to be taking your advice about building up what they believe in, not tearing down their enemies. Prayer vigils, messages of support, opening new turning point chapters – this seems to be their response, and its powerful and effective. I’ve seen no signs of movement toward new witch burnings, and indeed they don’t need to try and burn the left – its doing a fine job of setting itself on fire. I mean, my god, the sheer tone deafness… declaring free speech under attack because of Jimmie Kimmel getting cancelled? Are they completely devoid of self awareness?
How does everyone else feel? Do you see clear skies on this issue, or gathering stormclouds?
@Phutatorius, yes, we use midazolam a lot, and one of its effects is anterograde amnesia—meaning the patient won’t form memories while the drug is active. But that’s not the only reason we give it. The main goal is to calm the patient’s anxiety and provide light sedation for comfort in procedures that don’t require full general anesthesia. You mentioned an endoscopy—midazolam is very commonly used for exactly that reason. The fact that you remember waking up could mean either the anesthesiologist didn’t use midazolam, or that it just didn’t work as intended in your case, which can happen (though it’s not very common).
I checked John Beckett’s Patheos blog and learned that a book titled Pagan Threat: Confronting America’s Godless Uprising With a Forward By Charlie Kirk was published on September 16th.
It seems like the famous titanic novel, there was a 30 year old movie Snake Eyes that has the assassination of “Charlie Kirkland” shot by a sniper in the neck, as he was watching a boxer “ Tyler , The Executioner “. Enjoy the spookiness!
@Erika #28
I don’t think Violet will come again around here but I wouldn’t be surprised if she still read. After her declared break from the blogs, she wrote quite a few essays about it, she lurked around here anonymously for a few months (I could tell because I read her often) and then she deleted her journal altogether. I spoke to her on the phone some months before that, we did that every other month or so, and she seemed her usual Violet, but frustrated when I didn’t let her preach over me. She tended to do that and I disliked it much. I haven’t heard of her again, I’ve messaged her a bunch of times.
Kimberly #66
I attend a conservative novus ordo Catholic Church in a small Minnesota town. I have gone here for about 18 years now. When I first started attending it was mostly older people. Now it is filled with young people with lots of kids. Families with 5 kids are normal again. I sit in the back pew and think well that second religiosity is right on schedule.
My parents attend a liberal/middle of the road Lutheran church and it isn’t doing great but it also has some newer younger members.
Dear JMG,
I’m at the stage of my spiritual practice now where the illusions of the material world seem to have melted away – external validation, the career, all the goals I was told were important in life no longer seem relevant or interesting to me (they all feel like constructions designed to control me). However, the excitement of uncovering myself and shaking off my childhood conditioning has well and truly worn off. For the last few years, I have felt stuck in an inbetween – where I drag myself to do my meditation, ritual and divination practice, hoping that something ‘greater’ eventually comes of it. Right now, I feel purposeless in a purposeless world (and no I am not mentally ill – I show up every day for my family and function very well in the material world, but it all does feel hollow – like I can see through people’s stories and myths, but don’t yet know a greater one). I feel stuck between worlds, like I’ve shaken off one, but haven’t quite reached the next.
I was wondering if this is a normal part of the process and any advice you might have for moving forwards? Do I just keep showing up until something shifts internally?
@Bruno BL – You mentioned only the higher levels of consciousness are suppressed. Does that leave open the possibility that lower levels are active and aware of something, or possibly feeling something? Even if the profession doesn’t know for sure, do you have an opinion on what’s happening with the patient’s mind?
@Paedreg
I am starting to have more interest in encouraging blue skies. I don’t know that hoping for less blowblack is a great strategey. There doesn’t seem to be a hard right turn. It may be a good time for practioners who follow a path of light and justice to make statements, such as Mark Tavish and JMG have done. Giving voice to the idea that magic primarily is a force for good… it is comforting to think there is an elder council of some kind that is seeking to correct these errant practises.
Oh Esus,
Forager of the ancient forest’s light,
Oh shaper of hearts revealed in the cycle of tides,
Oh clear water over smooth rock shore,
Take me in your arms of sinew and stone,
Place me at the root of the life giving tree,
Where I may dance and sing praises with the spirit.
“This doesn’t match what I am hearing. IMO it’s trans people, “witches,” and possibly Muslims and entryist public school teachers who need to worry. Very few people on the right seem to be focusing on normal gays and lesbians, (legal) immigrants, or black people.”
It is precisely the fact that very few people on the right seem to be focusing on normal gays and lesbians, (legal) immigrants, or black people, that makes me much more optimistic about the future of the United States compared to five years ago, when you had BLM and Antifa and Proud Boys and Patriot Front running around the United States fighting each other and setting cities on fire, and serious worries that the United States might descend into civil war between left and right over racial and cultural issues.
Yikes! I go spend the evening with friends and come back to find that my inbox has spilled over onto the floor. 😉
Roy, one of the things that makes the current situation in the US most toxic is that both sides are deep into shadow projection. As for “holistic” and “systemic,” it’s impressive, and not in a good way, how little those words actually mean in practice.
James, by my calculation, the age of Aquarius began in late 1879 and so we’ve been in it for nearly a century and a half. Compare that period to the centuries immediately before it and you’ll get a good sense of what the energies of Aquarius are actually like.
Dana, oof! Synchronicity…
Isaac, stand by your faith and your ideals, make a public point of your rejection of cursing and evil magic, and remember that we all die of something sooner or later. I don’t know that there’s much else any of us can do.
Alatar, stay nimble and do what you can.
Chuaquin, it’s difficult to define the exact distinction, but the general principle is that erotica isn’t just an attempt to stir up lust — it’s got some other artistic or literary end in view. If it’s just intended as a stiffener or a moistener, it’s pornography.
Jeff, glad to hear it.
Jean, so am I. It’s an ugly situation all around.
Angelica, as I mentioned in the Magic Monday, planetary charity isn’t affected by planetary dignity or debility — in fact, it’s common for people to use planetary charity to take the curse off a bad aspect or placement. Thanks for the quote, btw!
Katsmama, delighted to hear it, and please do post a link next time.
Boccaccio, what’s surprising about the thought that a future alliance of European Islamic republics, say, could be a serious threat to the United States?
J.L.Mc12, thanks for this, but it may be a while before I can get to it!
Siliconguy, if you could pay the kind of bribes the data center companies can, the Department of Ecology would come mop your floor with their tongues.
Seeking, thank you. I released an updated new edition two years ago:
https://spirit.aeonbooks.co.uk/product/world-full-of-gods/95189
Ron, ouch. Here we go.
Clay, no surprises there. It’s so much work coming up with a system that could function!
Atmospheric, ouch. Sorry to hear about this.
Random, no, I haven’t written that yet.
Polecat, Sara and I had a cat many years ago. These days, I’m kind of enjoying an interval of not having to be responsible for anybody but me.
Ottergirl, you can certainly do that.
Angelica, animal sacrifice is misunderstood. Before the invention of refrigeration, the only way to keep meat fresh was to keep the animal alive, and so any time you had a meal with meat in it, you started by killing the animal — and it was standard to say a prayer of thanks to the gods, and burn a small portion of the animal on the fire, when you did so. Formal sacrifice was simply a more complex version of that — the rites of sacrifice in Greece, for example, were the prelude to a barbecue in which the gods were honored guests. Human sacrifice, though, can’t be justified by that and is never appropriate.
Anon, if you feel it needs three rounds, give it three rounds. Yes, the important point is to avoid getting stuck in endless revision.
DropBear, yeah, the same thing’s going on here, plus we have liberal women chugging whole bottles of acetaminophen and having to be rushed to the hospital. I’m glad I’m not in Trump’s shoes; it would be much too tempting to make a loud public announcement that eating crushed glass is bad for you.
Ashlar, no, and it doesn’t seem useful to me. Kosher laws are incumbent on Jews as members of their god’s chosen people; unless you’re going to convert and take up that same covenant, adopting the dietary rules seems presumptuous to me.
Paedrig, the right seems to be handling this well; the left, much less so. I hope we can avoid the storm.
Sammy, you’ve only done half the work. You’ve cleared away the clutter and trash imposed on you by your family and culture, and prepared the ground for the work ahead, but you haven’t gone any further. Nobody and nothing else will give you something greater to be or do. You have to choose that freely, for yourself, knowing all the while that it’s an arbitrary choice. This is one of the important tests of the path, and only you can pass it.
Data Point: I have a family member who identifies as gender fluid living in Minnesota Twin Cities. They have two roommates who are transgender. On the 15th someone threw a brick through their window. I certainly interpret that as a reaction to the recent shootings. I hope this hatred stops accelerating.
@Kimberly
Yes. My church is packed every week now, and I’m pretty sure the current “Orthodoxy 101” class is breaking attendance records dating to the founding of the parish. My sibling, in a different town, reports that the catholic church they attend is overflowing into the lobby and the side chapel for mass these days (this is a large parish, with a large building, that typically serves three masses on Sunday morning, and one on Saturday evening for the working folks, and the new-people classes are also quite full. While there’s been an uptick for some time, the last week or so since the Kirk thing has seen a whole new surge. Even my mom’s fairly small, staid protestant church has seen membership, particularly of young families, grow steadily over the last couple years.
I don’t know if it’s the Second Religiosity, but it is definitely something!
“The underlying philosophy was that nearly everything had to be dismantled.”
Nihilistic accelerationism is in the news again, or at least I ran into the term again. It’s long words for burn it all down. The Left blames the Right. Given Leninism is very much have a messy revolution and the ends justify the means it’s a fine example of not examining your own class biases. The Right of course sees it differently as in a replay of 1917 Russia where the Left shoots the Romanov children. Or transitions them.
“Washington’s Senate Bill 5599 (2023) allows minors seeking protected gender-affirming care to avoid parental involvement by enabling youth shelters to contact the Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCFY) instead of parents, though efforts to notify parents are still required by law. This bill aims to protect youth from potential abuse or neglect if they are seeking gender-affirming care, expanding the list of compelling reasons for not notifying parents in certain situations. A lawsuit challenging this law was dismissed on appeal in July 2025. ”
Translating, “The State will notify the parents unless the State decides not to.”
AS for;
” I feel purposeless in a purposeless world (and no I am not mentally ill – I show up every day for my family and function very well in the material world, but it all does feel hollow – like I can see through people’s stories and myths, but don’t yet know a greater one).”
It happens from time to time even for the non-spiritual like me. Going and doing something physical works for me.. It’s best if it has tangible results like a cord of firewood.
As for general politics, it helps to remember there are two axes., the usual Left to Right, and the one that keep getting forgotten, the vertical one running from anarchy to totalitarianism. If you plot the groups on a two axis plot it makes much more sense.
What do you believe is the astrological significance of 3I/ATLAS? Or of Oumuamua and interstellar comets in general?
3I/ATLAS seems like a legitimate space oddity. It’s massive, with some evidence that it’s producing its own light.
Isaac @ 93. so much for Conservative support for small business.
David P @ 95, I think it nearly always does spill over. For one thing, people running on pure emotion don’t care about uninvolved bystanders.
Scotlyn, can ostriches tolerate the Canadian winters? I am afraid they might be denounced as illegal immigrant birds on our side of the border. So were horses; now wild horses are an accepted part of the wild fauna on the range.
Augusto! You’re here!
How fun / Adocentyn starts early this year.
X
Dear Archdruid John,
Thanks for the response!
I am thinking about the Liberal Catholic Church and its splinter groups. It started brightly with the efforts of Bishops Wedgwood and Leadbeater, but it began to decline after the Krishnamurti issue. Now the Liberal Catholic Church (and its many splinter groups) is very small and has many elderly clergy and congregation. Is the egregore damaged beyond repair?
Another example is the Church of Scotland. Once the major church in Scotland, it is declining fast and is heading toward the point of no return. Despite being the state church of Scotland, it is no longer the largest denomination in Scotland (since eclipsed by the Roman Church). Is the once-mighty egregore of this church also dying?
It also seems the same way in England, with the Church of England declining (not as spectacularly as the Church of Scotland) and the Roman Church rising again.
I have been associated with a few small religious organisations that are now defunct or almost defunct.
Felix
Just saw John Beckett’s latest blog post and falling out. Long story short the same Witches that cheered Charlie Kirk’s death are now denying it happened on any meaningful scale and the Right are to blame. So again they learned nothing, The Changer Strikes again!
Angelica # 111:
“The shift from energy creation to energy consumption is not just a quirk of human history. It reflects a deeper law of reality itself: enantiodromia—a term the philosopher Heraclitus used to describe the way things, when pushed far enough, reverse into their opposites. The Greeks saw it everywhere: day into night, summer into winter, life into death.”
Wise words from the ancient Greeks…
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Silicon Guy # 122:
“A lot of research and the foundations of physics is now pseudoscience. It hasn’t followed the scientific method for decades.”
Basically particle physics hasn’t done anything new in 50 years. It’s all self-referential navel gazing and fun with math.”
Indeed, I think these “scientists” have been doing an Ersatz to Philosophy or worse, Theology, not real Science…
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Clay Dennis # 123:
“Even the anarcho- primitivists ( which I once fell for after reading too much Jensen, Zerzan and Quinn) believe in a kind of return to pre industrial tribal life. But these guys ( and gals) just seem to want to burn it all down with nothing in replacement.”
Anarchists in my country at least seems to believe that after a legendary Revolution there will be a “Libertarian Communism”, collectivism without State. Antifa and others groups you’ve remembered look like mere Nihilists. They seem don’t believe in nothing after violence.
————————————————————————————————————————–
JMG # 147:
“Chuaquin, it’s difficult to define the exact distinction, but the general principle is that erotica isn’t just an attempt to stir up lust — it’s got some other artistic or literary end in view. If it’s just intended as a stiffener or a moistener, it’s pornography.”
OK John, you’ve made a good definition in theory, but in the practice limits keep being fuzzy indeed. A more mundane definition, at least in my country, since a lot years ago, it’s that if penetration is seen, it’s pornographic; if it isn’t seen, it’s erotic. However, I think in Japan they have other system related with cough cough the viewing(or not) of pubic hair in cinema and manga…Everything is so subjective…
***
“Before the invention of refrigeration, the only way to keep meat fresh was to keep the animal alive,”
Yeah, it’s very true. Indeed, the old sailing ships like the olds galleons transported, beside the crew and the cargo, some alive domestic animals like sheep and pigs, to be killed and eaten during the journey across the ocean.
@ Dennis # 113
I absolutely relate to you. I am also working in data science, and the similarities with astrology and tarot are striking. While we apply well-understood statistical formulae to build ML pipelines, we build the pipeline with a combination of theory and intuition, and intuition plays a really important role.
I really couldn’t get into data science as long as I was thinking like a STEM person. I got into it once I understood that I needed to use my hunches. And as soon as I did – plotting visuals and looking at the data and interpreting it subjectively, and with an open mind – suddenly I began to see and understand.
Re Erika: “the Normals then are those who timidly await the new Permission Structures. so to fit in you have to be timid until the new structures are distributed”
Yes, exactly!
It’s a bit like a herd of cows in that they are quite calm and docile, but if you’re not careful, they will crush you. Sometimes without them even noticing…
–bk
Clay Dennis, re: Antifa
Absolutely on point! I grew up in Germany, where Antifa originated, spent my 20s in Hamburg, and went to some parties and concerts in the Rote Flora, a former theater house turned into a so called autonomous center by the red-and-black flag crowd.
Think of a dilapidated, formerly grandiose building in a prime position that has political banners on its walls, graffiti everywhere, punks and the homeless sleeping on the stairs, with raves and concerts at the weekend, and anarchistic meetings of various kinds throughout the week. The part of town around it has gentrified greatly over the last decades, but the Flora remains a rotten stain of chaos in the middle of it. (Visually. It also has a little skate park behind it which probably wouldn’t be there if investors had bought it, so I gotta give ‚em that.)
They‘ve been running it for decades, and it looks accordingly: everything is maintained only at the minimum level, it smells like urine, nobody is paying attention to the age of people who go to their parties, or what drugs they consume, and all walls on the inside are covered in rules, proclamations, and remarks – some written by individuals with sharpies, some put up by the organizers – that exclusively focus on what’s not ok and what to get rid off. In this verbiage, as well as in the overall appearance of the place, there is nothing constructive, not a shred of a productive, forward-facing idea. I think I‘ve never read a positive statement of any kind there.
And this is one of Germany‘s highest temples of Antifa, if you want to call it that.
As for the connection with Marxism, though, its denizens never tire of spray-painting hammer and sickle everywhere, and spout lots of Marxist rhetoric. So I regard them as the forces of chaos that need to destroy all order first, so that society will accept utopianism in its place. In a prosperous, reliable society, revolution isn’t attractive, so the existing order must be destroyed first. That’s Antifa‘s purpose. You can see it as Marxist-aligned, I‘d say.
Antifa in Germany, for those interested, used to be a completely hip phenomenon with the cool kids. If you were under 30 and alternative-minded (a musician, festival-goer, student of the humanities), you’d see someone wearing Antifa merch every day, and likely owned some yourself. I always found them suspect, but remember clearly that the few who‘d question that movement were regarded as strange and right-wing even by their non-political peers.
That has changed to a degree (not least because Antifa were complete brownshirts during covid), and I expect that change to pick up speed.
I won’t shed a tear for them.
Teresa #45 re hormonal contraception
Your datum that Enovid was first licenced in 1957 as a menstrual regulator floored me, as I had not known that. (I have downloaded a bunch of articles and studies and intend to pursue that rabbit hole a ways).
Here are some things that I do know.
1. I tried the pill for two months or so in my twenties and hated the fact that it dialled down my libido to an extent that was self-contradictory, so I stopped and never went back to it.
2. I discovered many things about my own cycles along the way, and that was very helpful to me.
3. I began to practice Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) style acupuncture in my 40’s and discovered a whole literature and lore devoted to understanding menstrual cycles and how they can be disturbed and how such disturbances can be treated.
4. I now find that women who come to me for issues relating to their cycles have often been prescribed a hormonal contraceptive with a view to “maybe this will help regulate your cycle”. Out of curiosity I have looked at the specific products they were prescribed and in every case so far, their only licenced indication is contraception. I assumed that physicians were simply relying on folk ideas that the pill “helps” with some period issues for this very frequent off-label use. Now you are telling me that this was the original licenced indication, and I’m in search of the studies on the effects of synthetic hormones on menstrual cycles which would have been submitted to gain this licence in 1957.
5. Still, I am fairly convinced of one thing, and I do not say it to toot my horn, but it is what I observe. Physicians have poor training in the management of menstrual cycle disturbances (eg pain, volume, quality/colour, cycle associated symptoms, both physical and emotional), and often have someone in their office who suffers enormously and have no idea how to evaluate the specific pattern of suffering, and then treat it in a targetted way. Prescriptions of the pill are opportunistically offered, and if the patient doesn’t come back to complain, they simply assume the best. TCM practitioners, however, will have a very detailed view and map of the variety of ways in which a menstrual cycle can be disturbed, and our treatments are much more focussed and targetted, and (in my humble experience), begin to get real changes in the patterns of a cycle, often within 2-3 months.
I hope this is of interest.
>What are some things that we can do to prepare for a Great Depression level economic collapse, so that we can prevent ourselves from becoming homeless individuals living in shantytowns or hopping trains to the next city searching for work?
Prepare? It’s happening as we speak. The 30s started happening for the rural areas in the 20s. It just moved inwards from the edges. Process, not an event. As far as 21st century hoboes go, watch Nomadland. And then after that watch Roger&Me. Guess you could do what that lady did and club bunnies over the head for a living. Maybe staying in Flint isn’t the right answer?
I still remember what my grandparents said about the 30s. The comment went something like this. If you weren’t in debt before it happened, things were unpleasant but you muddled through. If you were deep in debt before it happened, you never recovered from it.
I think the spectacle is the artificial light that the herd-people think they need, because they don’t realize they’re in a room with thick curtains on front of the windows that block out the sun.
There’s lots of people trying to create their own spectacle, but that’s just adding a few more lightbulbs to the ones that are already there. It’s also no use to try and break the lightbulbs, because the herd will crush you before you get very far.
The only thing that’s useful is to open the curtains and let the sun in. This has to be done very carefully, otherwise they will just panic because they can’t see their beloved bulb anymore..
–bk
Sammy #143
I’ve been having questions that are not quite solid which have been bubbling in mind for a while now but are perhaps of a similar nature to yours:
Q1: If I were to go beyond all the different traditions and ideas that look at life, soul and reality and the nature of ‘what is what?’ What might my description be?
A1: A picture in mind is that the ‘soul extends a part of itself’, not emits as a separate ‘thing’, but an extrusion from something more rarefied to something that perceives itself as concrete. That this process involves layers of limitation that result in us seeing and experiencing a world of sensation. From this, the natural question is ‘for what purpose?’
I’ll not burden you with my ongoing journaling thoughts [exploring answers] – but the other questions I’m working with just now are:
Q2: If I were to try and define the relationship of the incarnate personality with its connection through veils to a potentially ‘wider’ self, what would the description/metaphor be?
Q3: If I were to try and imagine a reason for such an action of the soul, what purpose could there be behind the increasing limitations that result in a part of the soul perceiving itself as incarnated in a physical body? What might such a purpose or purposes be?
Q4: Since perception is limited, at any one time, a decision on purpose maybe does not matter so much (it could be the process not the action that is important) and may need to be adjusted over time – how might the current Ideal (flowing state) behave/develop in a societal arena that seems increasingly chaotic – where is the point of inner dynamic balance acting from while in a society that seems to be having a psychotic episode?
Q5: There is an increasing tension building, a polarisation or ‘cleaving’ that at the emotional level is like a roiling storm – it does not seem a question as simple as virtues vs vices and choosing a path of one or the other, there is another position to use in this, how would I define it?
Maybe no bearing on your situation, but your description mirrored some of the things I’ve been wondering about recently. May we all find the answers we’re looking for! Qapla’!
Curt (and JMG) – In today’s news, the most recent shootings at an ICE facility in Texas killed one detainee, wounded two, and the shooter died of self-inflicted gunshot. The current theory is that he was aiming for law-enforcement officers as an “anti-ICE” operation, but hit detainees instead. Unspent ammunition was marked “anti-ICE”, so it was either another enraged lunatic of the Left, or a false-flag operation by an accelerationist Right-wingnut. No word on the psychological background of the shooter, a 29-year old male.
A question to everybody (JMG very much included! 😉 ):
Do you know of any deities or other heigher beings (saints, nature spirits, …) associated with fermentation? I mean fermentation in general, i.e. besides the more specific associations like “wine, beer, mead” or “bread”… I’m interested in pointers from any traditions. Thanks,
Milkyway
PS: There seems to be a Baltic god Rugutis (spelling differs somewhat) who is called “god of fermentation” in many online places, but from what I have found he covers both beer and bread, but not other forms of fermentation like cheese, sour milk, kwass, etc. I’m wondering if there are any higher beings with a broader focus on all kinds of fermentation at all?
JMG
On can’t see this level of nonsense that is happening and ask was I misinformed. Last Saturnday Polish Defense Ministry declared that the destruction caused by Russian drones was actually caused by an F 16 missile, don’t even get me to comment on the idiotic Estonia incident were images from the internet were given as ‘evidence” of Russian agresion.
Meanwhile old Donald decided to channel Biden in his “Russian economy will collapse any week now” Biden in 2022 claimed exactly the same. But the true idiocy and icompetence of the “masters of universe” must be by far the friendly metting by Modi and Xi. The idea that the actions of a bunch of people in Washington will result in China and India comming together as an united force would be dismissed as bad sci fi not some long ago.
I know that you like to defend Trump and his policies but for the first time we have a president who manged to unite almost everybody (EU vassals don’t count) again the broader West is just crazy.
Forget about “kissingers nioghtmare” this is way worse.
And speaking about the current predicament of peak oil, crazy people are claiming that this technology or what or shale from oil from texas or giant wind turbines somewhere will provide us with ahem “Endless energy and independence from Russian Oil”. From what I understand industry is leaving the EU in droves and migrants are coming in the millions it won’t be long before we are literally the third world here….
What is happening here is begining to resemble a bad comedy…
JMG,
I have a question that has to do with looking into some dimensions of Salomon’s temple if I may. I was wondering if you know where the proportion 3:4 might appear, in sacred geometry, nature or another tradition?
Specifically, would filling 3/4 of a container have a significance? I always hear of 2/3 in alchemical context, but never 3/4. As for geometry, apart from how 3-4-5 form a pythagorian triple, I’m at a loss. So I thought I’d ask you.
Regards.
Hey JMG
Funny question, but what do you suppose is the likelihood that many modern illegal drugs will keep being manufactured throughout the long descent? I have no doubt that once civilisation returns such things would be rediscovered if they were ever forgotten, but I’m more interested in the dark age period.
The way I see it, though there would be a huge demand and incentive to figuring out how to keep manufacturing stuff like meth, cocaine and LSD, I’m unsure if the capacity to make or maintain the necessary equipment and chemicals will stick around throughout such a difficult period. I’m also unsure if the brutal feudal governments or vigorous local town-councils that thrive in such times would tolerate allowing the manufacturing of such dangerous substances.
JMG, in the answer to some comment you wrote, that you tried several times to revitalize some egregor, but without success. But you manages to revitalize the druid order AODA and bring it back from the brink of extinction. How does this relate to the strength or weakness of egregores?
And, a further question about AODA: There is, or was, a rule that the Archdruid of the Ancient Order of Druids in America needs to be involved as an observer in the Neopagan scene. Therefore the question came up for me how the terrible (and terrifying) moral and ethic collapse of the Neopagan scene has influenced the connections between it and AODA.
@Isaac Salamander Hill:
“Politically, I feel entirely homeless. I don’t think the religious right is any better than the self-righteous left., though I also understand each of those perspectives and why they have those beliefs.”
It’s not just you.
John,
You might want to review this article – it appears that it might be related to your theory about Hadley Cells moving and merging:
https://www.earth.com/news/earths-atmospheric-rivers-have-shifted-towards-the-poles-causing-big-local-weather-changes/
There are apparently 49 Million Democratic voters in the United States. The 40,000 leftists who posted their sickening glee would be a much smaller, but highly vocal, subset of that. Due to the interconnection of the system I think that those small vocal minorities are having an outsized influence. In this case an unfortunate influence.
Apparently there are about 342,000 Wiccans and 340,000 Pagans in the United States in 2008. Other estimates give about 956,000 Neopagans as a subset of over 1,275,000 individuals in the New Age movement. In the 1990s it was about 1 million neopagans at the high end and 200,000 at the low end. Some of these can reasonably have probably moved on from activity. Another 2008 survey said their were around 1.2 million people who prescribed to “New Age” beliefs.
How many of the 40,000 people posting about Charlie Kirk are involved in the neopagan scene in some way, even if just as fashion, or spectacle, is an interesting question.
I think a lot of this unhinged shrieking goes back to what @Brandi #75 said:
“It is no new observation to say ‘the algorithm’ amplifies extreme positions, pulls everyone between these poles until society is taught. This state makes society, each of us, easy to play upon, like a guitar string.”
Limiting exposure to the algorithm seems key to regaining some mental health. I hope that people experiencing mental health issues are able to find alternative treatments and ways out of anxiety/depression/psychosis. That is another factor in all of this. Limiting exposure to university courses on post-structuralism, where simulacra copies of copies of copies get deformed as they pass from the radical French theorists into American profs looking for tenure and a career track. This in effect recuperates that initial energy, and any validity within those theories, and recirculates them into the thought system so that people really do become Deleuzeinal.
Then there might be things like that SIM farm that was found, that could be used to sow additional chaos from foreign actors. All of these interconnected systems are creating a septic backwash.
In such a situation we need to practice Ora et Labora ever more assiduously.
Speaking of egregores, it wouldn’t surprise me at all to think of large swathes of the internet as being essentially “tainted spheres”.
I can not help thinking of the American political scene as being “sound and fury signifying nothing” as the fossil fuels and minerals undergirding the world global industrial system steadily diminish along with the gigantic tottering debt pyramid made of make believe ethereal money in the background ready to crash. Sometime in the next 20 years there will be I think a stunning meeting with limits or at least a grinding relentless decline. We will look back to these days as being relatively halcyon. So in the meantime I am enjoying the present halcyon of my life and doing the good I can.
I am very fortunate that I was able to pay off my student loans. I’ve never regretted going to college but i am able to recognize that i got very lucky. You have to be debt free in order to ordain. I can’t help but feel like my generation (millennial) is the last that got to really experience the prosperity of the US empire.
@ Alex #21
I got into architectural modelling as a hobby about 8 years ago. A year ago I bought the book “Rice’s Language of Buildings”, it has since become my bible. As I don’t own a car all my long journeys are done by bus or train. I kill the time by observing architectural features on buildings as I pass through towns and cities, and use Rice’s book to learn the name of that feature. I’ve been doing this for a year now and am building up quite the architectural vocabulary. It’s also a great way to counteract the tedium of a long journey.
About “Pagan Threat” with foreword by Charlie Kirk. I have been following the genre of people who alarmed at the decline of Monotheistic religion have written books, essays, etc over the threats of Paganism. It is not directed per se at Neo-Paganism, but Godless communism or wokeness (A few conservatives conflate the two and Marxism as well).
The reaction by the Neo-Pagan community is usually standard as well – “We are all going to die!” “Christian Nationalists are out to get us!” Then it dies down until the next big name author writes a book. This time is different. They are really frightened and heading for the hills.
I have noticed several things. First, the dissonance with the Neo-Pagans between what they do and the consequences. You cannot promote cursing for righteous reasons without having consequences. At least, I would expect people to be prepared for them. They are not. Also, if you conflate being a “true Pagan” with being a “Progressive.” then your movement is politics with a quirky dressing. It is almost as if they were blindsided by all of the reaction to Charlie Kirk and all of their nightmares came true.
This is where I am unkind. I sensed a feeling of “we are right and good.” “We can do anything because we are right and good.” A feeling of self-righteousness combined with the desired to be persecuted by Christian Nationalists (however they define them.) drove them. Now, it is coming to fruition. Hubris? I don’t know.
However, I have noticed that the voices of Neo-Pagan Conservatives have been more and more highlighted. They are coming out into the open and dueling with the Progressives. I wonder where this is all going.
JMG,
Recently on one of his podcasts Tucker Carlson diverged in to a short bit advocating the benefits of feudalism. His argument was much like yours in that it is more resilient, functions in much more spare circumstances than our system, and that is because the feudal lord has a more direct interest in the well being of the serfs than the modern political ” master” has in the well being of the citizens.
Recently the arch libertarian/ right wing Cato institute a severe takedown of Tucker’s argument because , ” life expectancy”. Showing the completely missed the point. But it is more telling that they would feel it necessary to argue against the virtues of Feudalism. Wow, id that their biggest worry now?
I do listen to Conservative TV and can write on the attitude towards transgender people. What the focus is on the transgender agenda. That agenda is viewed as similar to the Antifa and Marxist. That they are brainwashing people to harm their bodies and fill them with chemicals.
They have discussed all the mass killings and how many are transwomen. They believe that the chemicals are at the root of the desire to kill. The Charlie Kirk killing put them over the edge in that they want all transgender promoters rooted out. As for actual transgender people, they are of the attitude of “live and let live.” Although, it can be mixed with “I’ll pray for you.”
My sense of it is that what is perceived is that Marxism is the main driver with it splintering into Wokeness, Antifa, and Transgenderism.
I think one thing I appreciate about Buddhism among many things is how it has helped me be more prepared for America’s decline and its place in history. It is shame that i think a lot of neopagans never really accepted cyclic time, I think a lot of them stayed believers in the myth of progress and that helped lead to the consequences we see today. This is why a lot of ex christians need to take the time to deconstruct their worldview, but too many think all they need to do is reject god not realizing the whole worldview that goes into that.
Also I will dedicate merit to all beings and pray to Guanshiyin Pusa for safety and peace. If anyone wants me to dedicate merit to them specifically let me know. Namo Amituofo.
@milkyway
One would think the Germans would have a Beer God, and he would be at the pinnacle of the pantheon. With perhaps the Engineering God to his right and just below.
@Stubborn
Not only Russia and China is helping Venezuela, but also Iran, Iran help might not seem a lot but is the kind of help that might be very important because could be matched to the countries possibilities better. Venezuela is expecting this for a long time, they knew at som point it would come during the 12 days war between Israel-Iran, Venezuela was the most vocal country against the attacks against Iran…
@milkyway1 #148 re: Spirits of Fermentation
Unfortunately, I don’t know of any spirits/Gods/saints associated with “fermentation” as such. One trouble there is I don’t know whether we know if that ancient folks would have recognized a common mechanism behind grape juice turning into wine, boiled wort turning into beer, and milk turning into cheese – that kind of abstracted, universalizing thinking wasn’t necessarily as obvious or sought after by them as by the last few hundred years of Western culture. I’d be interested and happy to be proven wrong, though!
That said, here’s a few beings I know of associated with fermentation (mostly through one of those more specific methods), skipping the most obvious/familiar, like Dionysos.
– St. Arnold is the patron saint of brewers (or at least, that’s what the local craft brewery tells me!)
– Kvasir is a figure from Norse myth who is formed when the Aesir and Vanir come to a truce to end their war and all spit into a vat full of crushed berries. He arises from this fermented mash and is the wisest being ever to live. Later, he’s killed by dwarves, who brew his blood into the Mead of Poetry/Inspiration, it’s taken by a giant as he gets revenge for the dwarves killing his parents, and then Odin steals it out from under the guardianship of his daughter Gunlodh.
– Soma is the Indian “sacred intoxicant,” and some of its mythemes match up with bits of the Mead of Poetry story, but I can’t remember which Gods/beings are involved in its stories
– I feel quite certain I’ve read something about Egyptian and/or Mesopotamian Gods of beer, but I can’t think of any names just now
Sorry, thought I’d be able to think of some more, but hope these help point you in some helpful directions!
Cheers,
Jeff
BK, this is Scotlyn i was quoting: Re Erika: “the Normals then are those who timidly await the new Permission Structures. so to fit in you have to be timid until the new structures are distributed”
i tell Scotlyn that her writing is like a scalpel but she’s shy or something.
@JMG thank you for those thoughts, what came up for me after writing the comment was along the same lines
@Milkyway – Kvasir, the Norse god, is also associated with fermentation. He was created from the spit from the Aesir and Vanir as a sort of truce-being, and because he had so much wisdom, he was killed by dwarves who made mead from his blood. This mead is the sacred ‘mead of poetry’ that Odinn connived to acquire.
@anynonymous – thank you.
@Mary – it shows where their priorities lay, but I think some people just get off on performing violent acts, no matter what ideology.
@Clay Dennis #179
Several years ago when he was still on Fox, Tucker Carlson did a segment about something James Howard Kunstler had written, and praised JHK’s blog (despite not being able to say the name of it on air hehe). So I think it’s fair to say he’s at least somewhat familiar with this part of the Internet.
Ah I wanted to say, my friends and I have seen increased attendance in our temples via zoom. I’m hoping that will translate to physical attendance.
Clay Dennis @ 179 I will try to sort out some of this. Feudalism is both stable and efficient. Highly efficient. As often, Carlson is hugely appealing, and I am afraid, rather superficial. His assignment is Reasonable Conservative and he carries it out very well. I doubt he has even made any kind of study of feudalism, which I think is actually rather rare in history. It flourished in some parts of Europe, primarily Northern France and Southern England and in Japan. An underlying philosophy is that all must strive to do their best in whatever place in which God has placed them. That has the corollary obligation on lords and overseers that good work and virtuous conduct must be recognized and rewarded. Of course the Cato Insititute doesn’t like any of this. American capitalism from about mid-20thC has been about us grifters wanna be rich.
@JMG
Re: human sacrifice
In the second-to-last, I learned that the gods have power over us, and humans can follow a god only if the god permits it. Last MM, I learned that seeking some gods can be dangerous, that they can induce “homicidal mania” in their followers. The Aztec gods, which I hardly know anything about but associate with the human sacrifice practice of the Aztecs, are becoming more active. And they’re not demons, because demons have far more limitations– they cannot even hear our private thoughts.
So if a god wants humans to sacrifice other humans to him or her, people will inevitably engage in the practice having only the illusion of free choice . (There may or may not be a divine custom that a god should not choose a human claimed by another god or pantheon.)
“However, I have noticed that the voices of Neo-Pagan Conservatives have been more and more highlighted. They are coming out into the open and dueling with the Progressives. I wonder where this is all going.”-Neptunesdolphin
I was down in the holler a couple months ago and noticed a hillbilly beardo with a prominent Thor’s Hammer walking out of a joint with a bunch of good ole boys.
For anyone interested in architecture, the towns of Rome and Oneida in upstate New York are livings museums of early and mid 20thC American domestic home building. If you ever find yourself in the area, both towns are worth a drive through.
Isaac Salamander Hill: If you do indeed understand both the religious right and the self-righteous left, I do wish you would enlighten the rest of us.
My question about Antifa is it an actual organization (I personally don’t think so) or just a label for various Anti Fascist far left political groups and people who come together at protests. A movement is different than an actual group, though there is overlap. Labeling a movement as a terrorist organization, seems to be shaky, even when many of them are bad actors.
I just saw this timely article at the Russian Orthodox website orthochristian.com
On the Temptation of Externalizing the Faith
by Fr. Savva Tống
https://orthochristian.com/172791.html
In it, Fr. Savva warns against turning religion into an “ideology.”
“[T]he Orthodox Church really does carry the healing power of Jesus Christ and stands against the moral distortions of the modern age. But the danger starts when this faith is reduced to only a political symbol by some believers.
Today, we can often see some new converts think that becoming Orthodox means joining an extreme counter-culture movement. They wear “Orthodoxy” like an armor against “the free and corrupt world”, turning the Cross into a weapon in the culture war. Instead of seeing the Church as the mystery of communion, they make it an outside identity—a sign to tell between “us” and “them”.
“This is exactly that “externalizing of Faith”, when religion is no longer an inner change in the Holy Spirit but becomes a costume to cover a political self. People may use liturgical words, holy symbols, but in reality, the soul does not enter the way of cleansing (κάθαρσις), enlightenment (φωτισμός), and union with God (θέωσις).”
In a direct swipe against “post-millennial” theology, Fr. Savva concludes:
“To sanctify the world does not mean to turn it into a “political kingdom of God” according to human ideology but to let the light of the Resurrection enter every corner of life: family, labor, art, culture. When a person lives in the Eucharist, with humility and love in every small action—from meals, words, to daily work—then the world is changed from the inside. The Orthodox Church does not build a closed fortress to fight but calls people to become leaven, salt, and light, so that the world may be purified and brought back to the Creator.
“… Every kingdom, every empire, every ideology will turn into dust; only the Risen Body of Christ will stay forever. When the Church stays faithful to the Cross and the Eucharist, when each believer lives the life of deification (θέωσις), then the final victory is already sealed. This is not a victory for one nation or one country, but the victory of Love over hate, of Light over darkness, and of Eternal Life over death.”
Why is there so much focus in the corporate/mass media about climate change and its supposed consequences, but so little about the world running out of fossil fuels, and the economic problems that will follow because of that? Isn’t the latter more probable and important since the economy runs on energy?
Is this done deliberately to disguise the real reason for the economic problems ahead? And perhaps a way to create new green markets and an attempt to delay the problems?
I certainly have seen the same self-righteous use of magic in the toxic political wing of Neo-paganism. However, the reaction to it will vary hugely, I think, from state to state and region to region.
JMG and others should be safe here in urban Rhode Island. The state has a centuries-long history of tolerating both non-Christian religions and the quiet practice of magic. Back in the Colonial period it pointedly refused to pass the sort of Bible-based Puritan laws against witchcraft that fueled the witch-hunts in Massachusetts and Connecticut: no one was ever executed for witchcraft here.
More recently, a very large part of the urban population has its ethnic roots in countries where magic is still common, though often enough presented as a special kind of religious practice. Providence alone has at least six botánicas — magico-religious supply houses — that openly advertise on the web, and there are a few more of therm in neighboring cities. (The urban population, I should also note, overwhelmingly votes Democratic in every election. Registered Republicans make up a very small fraction of the state’s electorate, and mostly live in the rural parts of the state. Also, Protestants, Eastern Orthodox Christians, and Jews are hugely outnumbered by Roman Catholics in the urban parts of the state.)
Silicon guy #150:
“Nihilistic accelerationism” is a good definition about what’s happening now accross the Western and Westernised world. I take note of it!
About the yardage in kilts: us that today’s “little pleated skirt?” Or the original big wraparound that served the Highland warriors as blankets at need?
You were talking abut tough guys, and I realized why Owen Merrill was different, and more successful. Because, unlike the traditional tough guy, and the way they’re written today as well, he was not a hard man. Think Dashiell Hammett vs Raymond Chandler. And that was the secret of Owens success.
And Jezebel magazine et. al. are inviting such backlash it should already have knocked them down, hard, personally, and quite independently of another 90s-style witch hunt, shouldn’t it?
Here’s wishing everyone health and prosperity on Johnny Appleseed day tomorrow! I used his tale in Story Time this week, and the tykes loved it.
About Neopagans now, then, left, right, etc….. I just dumped al my books on Wicca, witchcraft, spells, etc as Not Me. But I’m still a polytheist, still keep Pan and the Earth Mother on my altar, still bless my food ending in “…and thanks to all those beings who share this land with us.” And, since I work with the planetary energies of the day, and since my guardian goddess, who I consult and listen to, is Minerva, I need to look up the Roman version of the Homeric Hymns. It suits me well. For what that’s worth. My knowledge of the occult comes mostly from JMG’s Handbook and similar works because it makes sense. Right now,I’m not sure I’m making any.
About having cleaned house mentally, emotionally, etc and sitting there wondering where to go from here, I agree with two comments above, one in Latin – WORK. Plain old mundane work on the material plane. Like the old Zen comment – “next wash your dishes.”
For what that’s worth. From one with dishes in the sink and a flannel robe in the dryer.
“What are some things that we can do to prepare for a Great Depression level economic collapse, so that we can prevent ourselves from becoming homeless individuals living in shantytowns or hopping trains to the next city searching for work?”
As John Michael Greer once said, “collapse now and avoid the rush”. What this means according to him is “decreasing your expenditures sharply, opting for a lower standard of living, and learning skills that will allow you to produce goods or services that the people around you want or need”. Oh and if you have any debt, make sure you pay those off as soon as possible, and don’t add any more debt to your finances.
Patricia Matthews @ 184, it would have been the original big wrap around. IDK about the present day reenactor’s garments.
It occurs to me that a union of southern African countries, let us say, all those nations of the Congo watershed and south, would be a powerful country. Is there any indication that this could happen?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15126153/Woke-woke-fury-brings-chaos-Greta-Thunbergs-Gaza-flotilla-Pro-Palestine-activists-quit-convoy-learning-LGBTQ-campaigners-board-Swedish-eco-protester-leaves-role.html
Apparently the decades obvious friction of the lefts “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” logic starts to show.
Or so it seems; religious conservatism is OK when it comes from the other side.
To the conservative migrants, well to do lefties were often useful idiots. Since some right wingers, to be fair, were also openly hostile to the migrants.
But once these worlds really mix and there are stakes, then contradictions start to show.
Man, looking at the graphics on some of those pagan businesses/events that were attacked (which I wholeheartedly condemn), it occurs to me that one step toward not freaking out devout Christians would be to stop putting images of dead animal heads, demons weeping blood, creepy animated jack-o-lanterns, and other evil-looking stuff on pagan logos, ads, and merch. Especially if you’re staging an event in a rural county in Texas!
Alternatively, with the level of political discourse these days, maybe we could just start a Good Normal People Club and whenever anyone suggests we might be up to no good, we can just point them to the club name.
Candace, I’m very sorry to hear that. May cooler heads prevail on both sides of our current political divide!
David, the traditional lore gives no guidance to the interpretation of comets or other wandering objects until and unless they become visible from Earth. Until a lot more data is collected and correlated, there isn’t even the basis for a guess.
Felix, in all probability, their egregors are dying or dead. It’s just possible that one or another of them will revive as the Second Religiosity picks up speed, but it’s much more likely that more vital churches will thrive instead.
Rusty, that’s actually a good sign in a way, because it shows that at least they still have the capacity to feel shame. Unfortunately for them, they’ve chosen the path of denial; as every serious occultist knows, the only way to cleanse a tainted sphere is open public renunciation of the evil, and they’ve refused that. With this on top of everything else, I think we can expect to see the collapse of the Neopagan movement within a decade or so.
Chuaquin, of course there’s no hard boundary. It’s a spectrum, not a binary division.
BK, a very sound metaphor!
Lathechuck, either way, it’s going to heat things up considerably.
Milkyway, I know of no deity or other holy being associated with fermentation as a concept. There are plenty of deities of beer, wine, bread, etc., but the abstract concept of fermentation doesn’t seem to attract divine attention.
Wer, never pay attention to what Trump says. Pay attention to what he does. He’s trying, with some success, to break the ties that leave the US tethered to the global economy, with an eye toward economic autarky and a nonaligned position like that of India. Will he succeed? We’ll have to see.
Circle, rational proportions other than 1:2 play a very minor role in sacred geometry. Irrational proportions such as 1:√2, 1:√3, 1:√5, and 1:Φ are the ones that matter most. I don’t recall any significant use of 3/4.
J.L.Mc12, it depends on the difficulty of sourcing the precursor compounds and solvents, but most of these are fairly difficult absent a working chemical industry. My guess is that users will revert to older, plant-based drugs such as opium, coca leaf, cannabis, and hallucinogenic mushrooms.
Booklover, I’m still not at all sure why the revival of AODA worked when so many similar projects failed so badly — including projects I tried myself. As for your second question, no, there’s no such requirement; I chose to do it early on as part of my strategy for reviving AODA, but I stopped attending Neopagan events and distanced myself as far as possible from the Neopagan scene toward the end of my tenure, when it became clear just how bad things were going to get.
Brother K, thanks for this!
Catfish, oh, granted, extremists are always a small fraction of society. 40,000 is still a fair number of extremists.
BeardTree, very true!
Clay, that’s interesting. I get the impression that the Overton window has been smashed and the frame stripped and sold for the metal…
Seeking, that’s an excellent point. Once upon a time I wrote essays about cyclical time and tried to get them into Neopagan publications — one of them is now available here:
https://www.ecosophia.net/blogs-and-essays/myth-history-and-pagan-origins/
Unfortunately you’re quite correct that a lot of Neopagans never actually stopped thinking like Christians.
Patrick, maybe so, but it still seems like a very bad idea to encourage or justify it!
Creklix, I don’t claim to know. We’ll have to see what the trials bring to light.
Michael, thank you for this! That’s cogent, well written, and to my mind utterly appropriate — and not just for Orthodox Christians.
Chaga, I argued at quite some length years ago — unfortunately I can’t find the post — that there’s a simple reason for this. Climate change is a narrative about human power: “Look at us, we’re so almighty that we can wreck the planet!” Thus it flatters our species’ collective ego, and so we embrace it. Peak oil is a narrative about human weakness: “Oops, we weren’t as powerful as we thought we were, we just burnt a lot of fossil fuels in a hurry and now we have to deal with the mess.” That’s not something that our collective egomania can tolerate, and so we avoid it.
Robert, well, here’s hoping!
Patricia M, thank you! I wanted to make Owen an ordinary person — a little tougher and more competent under stress than some, since he’d been through a tour of duty in Iraq, but not one of the two-dimensional tough guys who infest so much bad fiction these days.
Mary, I don’t know enough about the local politics to guess.
Curt, okay, I needed a belly laugh. Thank you.
Jennifer, well, there’s that!
https://slaynews.com/news/californias-taxpayer-funded-billion-solar-plant-shut-down-inefficiency/
2.2 billion Dollar solar plant shut down in California due to lack of profitability and high costs.
Indeed, the events seem to be accelerating in the West, though that might just be a mirage of my own point of view.
News reporting of French and British troops in Odessa, now that Russia is nearing. Hungarian government warning Slovakia and Serbia against revolutions funded in their country by the EU:
The elections in Moldova are apparently upcoming, the EU plans to station peace troops, not officially I think, but such is the assumption.
Others say the recent peace treaty of Armenia and Azerbaijan serves to cut off Iran and Russia from each other- all the while Iran has reportedly already announced this will not be accepted.
As it seems, the next hybrid wars are in the making. Could it be true?
Really, at least when I read here on Ecosophia, it seems the winds are changing, while the official media in the West seem increasingly nervous.
My city of Vienna has a giant project ongoing, a new metro line, U5. U1-U6 have been extant since a long time.
I can tell you from my personal experience, its a giant project. A hydrologist who has an important contribution in this project told me personally about some of the enourmous efforts necessary in some parts of the project years ago.
Now the city of Vienna has problems financing it and asked the federal government for additional subsidies, which said no.
Apparently in other reports, the city owned housing projects are crumbling already.
Pensions in Austria meanwhile have been diminished indirectly – so by increasing the social security fares to be paid. Indirectly, because a direct decrease of retirement handouts would still be a scandal.
Meanwhile 2025 has been the most peaceful and stable year in my unhappy life. I wish I could have had that ten years ago, with more opportunities. All idiots off my back.
All the “spiritual” people, some at least had a few real neat tricks and skills, but no matter whether unpalatable PMC types or rural alternative people, they all live off somebody else, no deep analysis, no reflection, in the end, I don’t get why , they must always terrorize their sorroundings, hysterically try to control other people’s lifes, become insufferable preachers, sometimes adapt most unoriginal ideas about the world, be unable to argue anything properly and become irate immeadeately.
Sworn enemies of different sides in politics and society can be so very similar to each other.
Given, the entirely materialist people can be very unoriginal too, often lacking any conscious sentience, often self-destructive ignoring the signals of their body and soul because they prefer to act according to concepts rather than their own intuition, no matter what.
I really do cherish the people in the middle, and all those who retain their decency. It does not matter whether they are “alternative”, fringe-dwellers, or more gravitating to one center of society….
Good people, those I find decent and respectful, can be rather inconspicuous.
I get along well with many, so I think, I am not all to wrong myself there.
I really have allowed others to run over me a lot. This year, less and less, down to zero even.
A little solace for my battered mind.
Eike # 159:
I had no idea about German origin of Antifa. Thank you for the information about that “enigmatic” group.
SInce I have a part time contract, I accept doing some education (Linux basics) for work in my free time. Because I wont find a better job at this time. I was recently promoted…not that I myself cared, but I was urged to accept that.
It’s still fine with me. Now I learn abstract content by arranging the encoded information in pictograms I draw that I invent myself, to illustrate logical connections, at best in a way everyone understands just by looking at it.
That way I learned well in university, later when I discovered it as an option.
Hand writing is important when learning, learning of screens sucks and is ineffectual.
Before my inner eye, I see so many interconnections and concepts when I think about the world. I so would wish to bring all that to paper, it is my deep and intrinsic wish.
Time to be found…maybe Ill be unemployed someday and still have paper!
My physical training works well and theres some holotropic breathing, some energetics here and there…but I regret I dont find additional time and energy for more inner work, breath work, visualization work, prayer….the body is ephemeral.
I just do what I can. I even quit smoking tobacco and hemp this summer, without any replacement addicition.
A net improvement on my lifestyle.
I wonder how I made it; I never made it the past four years as much as I tried. Maybe its throwing all the idiots out of my life. Maybe its properly physical exertion, a tired dog is a good dog.
Maybe its my pride, because I always saw addiction as a shame, how can uphold ideals when I myself am mired in this entertainment and pleasure society of decadence?
I am ready for the downturn. Suffering to me is when others whom I care for suffer. The gaslighting spiritual martial arts lunatics once tried to tell me I have no empathy for anyone- them who try to control everyone, dominate others, ever punishing and vile, and now as I know, they end up very lonely.
A jungian shadow in its prime form?
However that is. Gaslighting people into believing they have no feeling for others is a typical cult methodology.
What a vile experience. The nausea comes up at times when I remember this.
I made many vile experiences.
I am not afraid of suffering poverty, neither of dying on the streets, it is as true as I know it is.
But I fear seeing others suffer. I also fear coming down short of fulfilling a purpose in this life. There is a lot I’d like to bring out into the world.
At the mercy of the gods, I’ll go down upright, and clean my chamber of the soul beforehand.
Now that Curt @ 204 has brought up the Global Samud Flotilla, can any of our European commentators tell us more about it?
My questions would include: Why does it take 2 weeks to sail from Barcelona to Tunisia? Were there stopovers for more participants and supplies? Now, nearly 4 weeks later, the ships are off the coast of Crete. I would suppose a project like this would need to be done quickly and quietly, but hey, what do I know?
Jennifer Kobernik @ 205, what I would like to see arise is The Boring Party. The party or association of sober, responsible, industrious people. A party whose spokespeople would say on national venues, yes, we are the party of eat your vegetables and we are proud of it. I think the Green party got distracted by running candidates for president. As I recall, the Progressive movement of the late 19th/early20thC never ran a candidate for national office. They did manage to elect governors and senators, I believe, and most of their program was famously incorporated into the New Deal.
As for the affronted Moslem activists, while I am glad to see (some) Moslems coming to the aid of their coreligionists, the principle of Fool Around Find Out comes to mind. You take doners’ money, you are stuck with their agendas. It isn’t like there isn’t plenty of cash among Moslems which could have funded the flotilla.
“The way I see it, though there would be a huge demand and incentive to figuring out how to keep manufacturing stuff like meth, cocaine and LSD,”
Cocaine literally grows on trees. Heroin is lightly modified morphine which comes from poppies. LSD is from a plant fungus. Magic mushrooms need no processing and I don’t believe datura does either. Meth might be a problem, but it won’t be missed.
In the organic chemistry class we were going over steroids and one of the example chemicals was cocaine. At the end of structural analysis the professor threw in “if you do this and that this group is removed and this other group is added and now you have crack cocaine.” While we are all sitting there very surprised that he just taught an entire class how to make crack he added, “If you are stupid enough to do that at least do it correctly!”
This was 1989 or 90, I don’t remember which semester, way before Breaking Bad came out.
Reagents that might become hard to get are probably the reactive ones like sodium metal or chlorine gas, or even more so fluorine. Some of the organic solvents might be hard to come by too, like benzene or tetrahydrofuran.
No big fan of Antifa or Antifa’s as the case may be. Just worry it may roll into some kind of new COINTELPRO A-Go-Go. This time powered by Palantir. But I guess once the AI bubble pops it’s gnarly head and flings itself into a flaming volcano like it has a finger with a ring on it in its mouth, there won’t be as much surveillance state stuff to think about.
I remember when I first encountered the Neopagan movement back in 2012-2016/17. I found I wasn’t impressed with any of it. None of them could convince me that they didn’t just pull their ideas out of their ears and a lot of what their gods said seemed to line up already with their politics. I couldn’t take any of it seriously, which is a shame because I wanted to. The potential was amazing, but when your talking god wives and Loki the marvel character not the god and when you talk about Odin you sound suspiciously like you just replaced god the father with Odin allfather? I just couldn’t buy any of it and I felt more karmic affinity with Buddhism.
The decline and fall of the neopagan movement still makes me sad though, it had so much potential.
@ Mary “Isaac Salamander Hill: If you do indeed understand both the religious right and the self-righteous left, I do wish you would enlighten the rest of us.”
Quite simply; they believe that they’re in the right, and their echo-chamber reinforces/requires this belief. Whether I sit down to dinner with my religious fundamentalist relatives, or anarchist train hopping friends from days gone by, I can see that they think that their beliefs are normal, and right, and it’s the opposite side that is bad.
I kind of see the whole political sphere as an ecosystem sometimes, you have the decomposers, the herbivores, the carnivores, etc. In balance it’s a beautiful symphony, but being out of balance can also be part of larger scale dynamic equilibrium. As humans we’re stuck in our own, small, worldview, beliefs, perspective, and opinions most of the time. And there’s not really a way to be a human outside of worldview, perspective, beliefs and opinions. We are mammals and our consciousness is for a large part dependent on language, but I try to see people from their own perspective as a way to at least broaden mine and get some sort of higher perspective. It can be mighty frustrating though.
Thank you for all the links JMG, I don’t want you to think i’m not reading and appreciating them! Your writings make me think and I enjoy them. I can forget myself sometimes.
Lucretius and others discussing the prevalence of violent attitudes on the left,
I would pretty recently have agreed that the kind of extremism that would cheer assassination was not very widespread. Although I must admit I was shaken by polling indicating that nearly half of Democrats would support fines or imprisonment for COVID disinformation and the unvaccinated being rounded up and put in “designated facilities” and that nearly a third would support taking away my children for refusing vaccination, I thought that they at least mostly believed that there was a genuine public health threat, and tried to give them the benefit of the doubt (plus, I mostly don’t trust polls in general). But what has really galvanized a lot of conservatives post-Charlie Kirk is that we’re not primarily seeing this from reddit bots and TikTokkers (which, at least in my case, I don’t interact with anyway). It’s people we know in real life. I honestly find it condescending that people on the left are saying “it’s just your echo chamber” and “it’s a tiny fraction of extremists” and similar. No, it’s not. I have realized this last week that probably 25% or more of those on the left that I am friends and acquaintances with in the actual, physical world would be totally okay with me (or at least with a clone of me that they don’t know personally) being murdered in front of my children for my political views. It’s really disturbing, to use no stronger word. The moral rot on the left is much, much worse and more extensive than I realized. I thought the left was basically the same as when I left it and moved bewilderedly right a decade or so ago, albeit with the Overton window shifted on woke stuff. I also thought that most of those I know (which are already self-selected for relative moderation by being people who will still associate with conservatives) were not the type to buy into such dehumanization of normie moderate conservatives. I was wrong. Something horrible has happened. (And for what it’s worth, those on the right that I know, if they heard about the Minnesota politicians at all, prayed for them and/or said some variation on “What is this country coming to?” None of them jeered or cheered.)
Hi JMG,
As a polytheist, do you view certain gods as being bounded in their influence, more or less, to specific geographic regions? For example, Thor or Odin having influence limited to Northern Europe, and Zeus or Athena limited to the Eastern Mediterranean? Or do you believe that these deities have a more universal presence and can be venerated and have influence beyond their traditional cultural and geographic origins? Perhaps there are some that are more regionally bound, while others have a broader scope? Perhaps there are others that are bounded to a specific people or ethnic group (I’m thinking of Yahweh and the Jewish/Semitic people)?
Thanks!
@Milkyway (#165) and JMG,
I always considered fermentation to be a variation of the process of rotting. Wouldn’t it be then under the auspices of Saturn?
“Anon, if you feel it needs three rounds, give it three rounds. Yes, the important point is to avoid getting stuck in endless revision.”
I have no idea how many rounds of revision it will take. Therefore, I think it’s best to stick with my original arbitrary number! 😉
On the whole issue of blowback for occultists arising from the madness of the left, and society in general, I do see some advantage for those of us that are amenable to Christianity, or at least can tolerate it, in if a home can be found without too much stress and drama, in quietly sticking with a majority so to speak.
@Seeking #181: I do agree that Christianity has a linear view of time when considering the universe. However, most Christians over the first 1700 years or so did not conclude that material, political or social conditions here on Earth were moving into a positive direction. So Christian faith and belief in progress here in this life on Earth are not as strongly coupled as it may seem today.
Wer # 166:
Hello, I’m glad to see you here again in JMG blog. Well, news as nearly always don’t look good since your corner world view. We’ll see so let’s cross fingers…
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JMG # 206:
“Chuaquin, of course there’s no hard boundary. It’s a spectrum, not a binary division.”
I agree, of course it’s a spectrum without hard boundary. Even it may change depending of the time and the country/culture. that’s what I was trying to say indirectly through my Spanish and Japanese examples about “indecency” (not perfectly, I mean).
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Curt # 207:
“News reporting of French and British troops in Odessa, now that Russia is nearing. Hungarian government warning Slovakia and Serbia against revolutions funded in their country by the EU”
Oops! What a bunch of news…Do you have a direct link(s) to these chilling news? Please, I’d be thanking you for it.
@Milkyway #165
All I found was Dionysus when I looked it up. Why not? 😉
I’ve read before someone asked a question about the religious situation in the places where commentariat usually live; I’ve seen also some people has answered , so I’ve thought to make my own apportation to this topic.
First of all, you’ll probably will know I’m a Christian, not very orthodox, but I believe in JesusChrist. I go sometimes to my neighbourhood Catholic Church and sometimes to my town Anglican Church (nearly always in the context of ecumenical activities between different Churches). My impression about public religious attendance to these events is that it’s been better times for mass attendance in my town (to say it softly), and I think it’s the same in the whole country.
People who attend mass usually is old people, and there are more women than men curiously. There’s not very younger people under their 50s, excepto some African, East European and South American people.
Maybe you’ll know (or not) that Spain has lived a long and deep secularisation since Franco dictatorship finished with his death in 1975. It’s normal that a country which was formally and compulsory Catholic as State during our last dictatoship, then with the “democracy” had being de-christianizing fast in the last decades. Not only Catholicism is “polluted” with his alliance with Franco, but Christianism as a whole. I have to tell you a personal story: sometimes, when I tell to someone I’m a Christian and (unortohodox too) traditional Socialist, not a few people is shocked and surprised because they expect being me a Christian, “I must be Far Right or at least Conservative in politics”. So Catholicism and Christianism in general are despised in a society socially trending to a vague leftism, as Right Wing by default (well, maybe the times are changing in this point towards the Right Wing, we’ll see in next future).
Ironically, I think immigrants from Africa and South America are so far religious than native Spaniards. You can see them on Sundays going to their little mosques, and Evangelical or another Protestant churches in bigger numbers than local people.
Atmospheric River,
Bari Weiss, Uri Berliner, Naomi Wolf, Rosanne Barr, would be a place to start. Uri Berliner was canceled by NPR.
Erika,
A lot of the right considers Tucker Carlson to be merely an opportunistic entertainment personality, neither right wing nor someone worth bothering with. (Candace Owens falls in the same category.) I think the shattering of centralized media is part of what you’re seeing here. There’s no accepted source of information on the right at this time, and Trump is only-barely, tentatively-accepted as leadership, and only when the person agrees with what he’s perceived as trying to accomplish. The right, having a fair number of people with interests in intelligence gathering, will happily or annoyedly follow and pay attention to people we very strongly disagrees with. (Incedentally, I have seen horrified denouncements AND gleeful rejoicing on social media from actual real life leftist local town contacts whom I’ve known my entire life, and I am absolutely sure they think I am a leftist, because in the Arts one who is not shuts up or gets nowhere and has for generations.)
Mark Stavish,
As someone who left the UMC a couple years ago, I thought your descriptor made perfect sense. Not all Protestents are milquetoast, but those that are, are!
Periwinkle Vitriolic Catfish,
The people I saw celebrating Mr. Kirk’s death are not pagan or alternate spirituality, but rather leftist Christians. So are the leftists condemning it, Christians. Same church even. How’s that for anecdata?
All,
If you, or your family and friends, are trans (or gay, or whatever), may be at risk, and are interested in and comfortable with the idea of self-defense, the 2nd Amendment part of the right of American politics has a group (since the Pulse Nightclub Shooting) that is dedicated to teaching shooting and carry safety without caring about sexual identity (this is important because body shape determines how to carry, stance, and even what to carry). Please reach out to Operation Blazing Sword and get training, find appropriate tools, etc. Erin, the founder, is openly mtf. (Ah, yes, America: where trad Catholics and trans 2A activists are on the same political side.)
Re: Charlie Kirk murder
Some of the people making more “noise” doubting the oficial version of the Charlie Kirk’s murder are from the right, like Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan and others, based on the expertise of many snipers in the marines and navy seal corp, that have many doubt of the oficial (FBI) version of the events.
In fact some of them are talking about the recent differences between Charlie Kirk and the zionists donors, and direct or indirectly signalling a possible implication of Israel in the case. The young in US are turning on Israel (even in the right) as recently Trump said.
Regarding the “celebrations” of Charlie Kirk’s murder is really a sad issue, but in any case what the state shouldn’t do is start any kind of persecution of the “hate speech”, because a good chunk of the “free speech” is “hate speech” for someone else. Or persecution of some groups if really are not clearly implicate in terrorism activities.
I see a very dangerous trends here; it reminds me, with some differences of course, the case of the murder of José Calvo Sotelo in 1936 that sparks or accelerate the start of the Spanish civil war. The military coup was planned in advance, but the murder was the “casus belli” for the military and the far right to start the shooting.
Cheers
David
@ Curt #207 – “All the “spiritual” people, some at least had a few real neat tricks and skills, but no matter whether unpalatable PMC types or rural alternative people, they all live off somebody else, no deep analysis, no reflection, in the end, I don’t get why , they must always terrorize their sorroundings, hysterically try to control other people’s lifes, become insufferable preachers, sometimes adapt most unoriginal ideas about the world, be unable to argue anything properly and become irate immeadeately.”
Apparently, this was a problem in late Rome, too:
“10 For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.
11 For we hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busybodies.
12 Now them that are such we command and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ, that with quietness they work, and eat their own bread.” 2 Thessalonians, and other passages, too, I believe, about spiritual gnostics who didn’t bother to work. Seems like most people go with either Ideology/Materialism or Pop Spirituality/Withdrawal, at this stage of the game. It’s some consolation to realize, it’s just human nature.
JMG can correct me if I am wrong, but this seems to be PART of what leads to the reaction of Second Religiousness – think Neo-Platonism, rise of Christianity, etc., in late Rome, after the Diocletian near disaster and the reforms (which, btw, seems to be the model approximating the Trump Presidency). It bought them 100 years or so of renewed vigor. Part of what is driving the breakdown on the Left seems to be the moral equivalent of a panic attack, because we’ve had a track record of 100 years of “reformist” and “Dawnist” policies, that don’t look so good, and there is simply nowhere else to go with it, except doubling and tripling down. Despite the rough track record piling up (eg., the Body Bag count for Communism), the 100 years of Leftism or 200 years of Reform “feels” like it just started yesterday, so it’s getting snatched away, before even it was barely appreciated or enjoyed. Tough Times. Retreating into mental ideologies or alternative spiritualities divorced from Tradition are the only options they perceive as left to them. Why they can’t see a “third way” is beyond me. But I don’t think the future folk here in North America will go in for political Equality very much, although social equality will likely be better here than anywhere else in organized successor states.
There is something I have wanted to bring up since the last Open Post.
My wife and I both remember a 1980s to 1990s childhood playing in the afternoons or weekends with our siblings and friends at home or outside. Holidays were just more of the same.
Our daughter is the only child at home, which puts her at a certain disadvantage for finding playmates (the reasons are multiple and weren’t all foreseeable). She very much enjoys every moment she spends with her friends, especially now walking home from school without adults. Since her first school year, we have put her in government-subsidized day camp during the long summer holidays, which she also very much enjoyed. Even in 2020, day camp was maintained (full-time outside, which I considered a benefit). However, since we moved to a big city in 2022, we discovered that parents here send their children to the best day camps they can afford, so that our daughter saw less and less friends at the subsidized day camp.
This year, we couldn’t afford a vacation, and we calculated that we could send her three weeks to a more expensive day camp. For the rest of the summer, she is now old enough that she reads and draws on her own at home, and we thought she would meet her friends sometimes at the end of the day, or on weekends.
However, several of her friends spent very long vacations abroad. The others were continually in day camp, summer camp, camping or some other structured activity. I felt very sorry for all the time our daughter spent reading alone at home, with the exception of two or three Saturdays with a friend, and a few days that we took off for day trips. Unfortunately, she doesn’t enjoy outdoor activities with me anymore as she did when she was younger – she wants to see her peers.
To me, it seems absurd to spend so much time and effort to maintain children as far apart as possible from each other!
Hi,
A few comments:
1) This was an excellent summary of our energy state of play – https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/2025/09/25/311-putting-it-together-part-two/?fbclid=IwY2xjawNCfa1leHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFhMjFib0FvMnFRVmVQUW5pAR43Nfp08c5gRMHY4hMy4lLgrudhVJQNl3sV9XuNYoJy-VSKjdaLeaJwLDoG3A_aem_dXT7k9LJVCNNn8yk8Jaymg
2) a new warning of the fragility of the banking system – https://www.saferbankingresearch.com/article/The-Fed-Has-Admitted-That-Todays-Banking-Environment-Is-More-Dangerous-Than-2007-202509241941.html
3) growing signs that the US will withdraw from their vassal states/allies in East Asia, Middle East and Europe – https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/05/pentagon-national-defense-strategy-china-homeland-western-hemisphere-00546310
4) anecdotally I increasingly talk to ordinary people who are frightened about the possibility of civil war in the UK and wider western Europe in the coming decades. Random conversations lead to this, one with a Polish lady, in Poland, who lives in Bradford. And at work with a colleague regarding the UK. He also has concerns about growing Islamic migration in Portugal where he is from originally.
Creklix Thothrinhir,
My experience with Antifa and black blocs more generally (which ended some years ago) is that the organizational structure is deliberately hard to pin down. In a city, you will have various “alternative” crowds: anarchists, militant vegans, punk rockers, travelling kids, social justice protesters, etc. They will hang out at a lot of the same places and may start doing direct actions together. After you do less risky actions (like peaceful(ish) protests), or if you get to know somebody well doing a shift with them at the local anarchist volunteer bookstore or grocery coop or whatever, you might start to plan riskier actions with them, or you might start to plan to deliberately escalate normie actions. You don’t talk about what you’re doing outside of the affinity group you actually do stuff with (mutually assured destruction makes these affinity groups at least relatively loyal and hopefully free of FBI agents). As you start to move deeper, you start getting trained by more experienced people on opsec, digital footprint and contact tracing, “know your rights” and legal trainings, etc. but none of these people have a formal relationship with you as Antifa. The less dodgy of these trainings are often hosted openly at the alternative bookshop or wherever and may involve lots of normie liberals (who are consciously used for cover and to move the Overton window). You might do things under an Antifa banner or with Antifa patches on at a protest or coordinate mass actions through your city’s antifa social media account, but it’s not like at some point you “join Antifa” really. Some people may think of themselves more as just anarchists but wouldn’t object to being called Antifa and participate in actions organized by Antifa or call their actions Antifa actions because it’s understood. But at the same time some people openly call themselves Antifa and wear Antifa shirts or whatever and the worst things they do is organize vegan potlucks. Everything in the militant end of these scenes is structured in a decentralized and increasingly secret manner as the actions grow more serious, specifically to avoid being able to associate people together when one of them commits criminal actions, and it works. I certainly wouldn’t support criminalizing everyone associated with Antifa since a lot of them are totally innocuous and actually think it just means you don’t like fascists, but at the same time the more militant members definitely do knowingly run cover for each other while repeatedly committing property destruction and violent crimes.
@Sammy #143
I don’t know what spirtual path you follow so it’s hard to comment. Mine is a mystical path – merging. Many of us wish to lose our egos and go all out with the practices. Suddenly (or not so suddenly) the ego has been sublimated a bit (it can’t totally go away, of course) and you’re left with a shell that doesn’t see the outer world as quite real. Hollow, as you said. The inner, however, is a different story – but sometimes even that is hollow and the emptiness can almost be unbearable.
Despite my efforts to find my place, it hasn’t worked. What I tell myself is to try not to get discouraged. Perhaps there’ s a way you can relax into the hollowness for a while. Accept it. Unless theres’s something you need to do then do it. Sometimes I wonder if there’s always a sacrifice for a fervent goal.
@The Other Owen, interestingly enough I don’t think I’ve ever come across a god of sauerkraut… 😉
@Jeff Russell, Isaac Salamander Hill, Llewna,
Thanks for the suggestions! I’m specifically looking for a deity associated with fermentation as a whole, i.e. not with specific fermented products, and those seem to be rare to non-existent.
@Jeff Russell, JMG,
It would indeed seem that a deity of “fermentation” doesn’t exist. I had considered Jeff’s explanation (people not putting these separate things into the same abstract category) – but of course, the issue could just as well (or also) be on the other side, with no deity interested in taking on the cause… (it is somewhat funny that a lot of them seem to be very willing to take on the cause of fermented alcoholic drinks, though! 😉 )
@Inna, an interesting thought, although to me Saturn isn’t a good fit. Fermentation isn’t rotting (like, e.g., composting), but some specific changes: sauerkraut is stil sliced cabbage in another form, wine is still grape juice in another form, etc. There is no complete breakdown. I’ve had the very odd batch of fermentation-gone-wrong, and the difference between fermentation and rotting is very easy to see (and to smell!!). Besides, I have to admit I have a hard time picturing Saturn raising a jug of beer in a toast, or biting heartily into a freshly baked bread… 😉
Thanks to all of you! I wasn’t sure if I had missed some obvious deity, but I suppose the fact that nobody has come up with any so far means I haven’t. 🙂
Dear Milkyway,
St Bridget (or Brigid) is reputed to have performed several water-to-beer miracles. Also, several multiplication of the butter stores miracles. However I am uncertain if this latter counts as a fermentation event. 🙂
The following is a book I keep on my kitchen cookbook shelf, that contains a variety of beer lore from around the world, as well as recipes (by far the smallest part of the book, though), and might be of interest…
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/157268.Sacred_and_Herbal_Healing_Beers
Sorry, the comment machine swallowed my last answer – in what I said above, perhaps I’ve just confirmed some of the power of the second religiosity 🙂 There’s a certain safety in numbers!!!
JMG,
I would be very interested to hear a short history of the satanic panic from you.
Cheers
Curt, that entire project was idiotic to begin with. Solar energy works best as a source of diffuse heat for small-scale, local uses — domestic and commercial solar water heating, solar space heating, and the like — and it’s great for those. It simply isn’t concentrated enough to serve as a viable source of grid power. Maybe one of these days the politicians and bureaucrats will stop trying to make the sun do something it won’t do, and put some energy and money into helping it do the things it can do. As for the rest — yeah, it’s getting real.
Creklix, I’m also worried about that. I’m not sure it can be avoided at this point, unfortunately.
Seeking, I wish I could disagree about Neopaganism. I knew some old-fashioned Wiccans who still expected their students to learn real magic and who also expected solid ethical standards in those they initiated. It was a brutal experience for them to watch the movement into which they’d put so much effort and hope turn into a bunch of LARPers pulling gods and oracles out of an assortment of nether orifices and abandoning whatever tenuous hold on basic decency they might have had in the first place.
Balowulf, I’m far from sure those boundaries are anything more than human cultural habits. I’ve seen Minerva successfully invoked in Ohio, Shinto kami respond to prayers in Washington, and Thor manifesting with quite a bit of verve just about everywhere. While I don’t claim to know the unvarnished truth about gods, my working assumption is that they can show up wherever they darn well please, to whomever they choose, and that they’re consistently much more tolerant and generous than their more narrow-minded human worshippers sometimes think.
Inna, hmm. The problem is that the results of fermentation are far from Saturnine — well, okay, I’ve seen Russian friends get very depressed and somber after too much vodka, but that’s an exception that proves the rule. 😉
Peter, if you can do it honestly, sure. Historically, though, Christians tend to get far more paranoid about the thought of devil-worshippers in their own ranks than they do about those bad people doing bad things over there, so I’d be very careful.
Forecasting, thank you for the multiple heads-up notifications!
Eamonn, I recommend Jeffrey Victor’s book Satanic Panic as a guide to that dismal set of events.
Mary B,
“what I would like to see arise is The Boring Party. The party or association of sober, responsible, industrious people.”
I would join if I could! I am reminded of a friend of mine who has spent years trying to form what you might call an intentional or “eco” community, and having it blow up in various ways. He mentioned once that if he again needed to select people with whom to live in community, he would take all the candidates and allow them to decide whether they wanted to take a class about building community and interpersonal dynamics, or one about growing vegetables, then ban all the people who were interested in community and admit only the vegetable growers. Makes sense to me!
As A World Full of Gods has come up earlier, I’ve been wondering about your treatment of polygamy in the chapter on ethics, JMG. From comments on some of the more recent posts, I got the impression that you considered it some form of perversion and not just something some people are naturally inclined to. Have I misunderstood you on that point?
—David P.
Hey JMG
I admit that is the most likely scenario, but I still wonder if maybe simple chemistry could be used to concentrate or alter some plant-based drugs.
On the other hand, maybe the deindustrialised future will have access to some more exotic options, such as future descendants of this yeast that was genetically engineered to produce precursor chemicals to opiates.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/opiate-making-yeast-could-lead-to-home-brewed-heroin/
re: birth control pills. I’ve used them to control/reduce endometriosis symptoms for many years. Provided I use the right mix of progesterone and estrogen, it has been very helpful in reducing pain levels during my period to something more manageable so I’m not avoiding going anywhere by bus for fear of it getting bad and then having to get home, and don’t end up spending nearly as much time curled up with a hot water bottle wearing pyjamas because waistbands on trousers hurt. It also reduces malfunctioning thermostat/hot flashes/night sweats/nausea. I also have lighter periods, though I don’t care about that so much. It still gets painful and it’s exhausting, but less often and less severely.
However, I found that progesterone-only resulted in spotting and a general feeling of malaise in between my periods. Didn’t stay on that one long. Also, a pill that had hormones fluctuate a bit more naturally than most pills shot my anxiety symptoms into the stratosphere for really bad PMS. That doesn’t happen with most pills I’ve tried. It’s also important to start the pill at the right point in your cycle, otherwise it can mess you about.
Thus far, I have found it worth my while most of the time, but it is medication, there are side-effects, and it should be treated with respect.
I hate my period. It has brought me nothing but pain and misery for decades.
I am currently trying to downsize the total number of books to something rather less than double the shelfspace.
I’ve figured out getting rid of most of it, donate or trash (alas, crumbled pulp), leaving me looking at good quality good condition hard bound 1950s or older books and wondering . . . these are some books I’ve read but didn’t care for, some books I’ve read other things by the author and didn’t care for, some books I read a few pages of and found dreary, and among all those some printings that seem to fetch a few dollars.
How do you decide when you are the inheritor of two families plus multiple family friends’ libraries which books should be kept for future generations and which should be let go, when you know you yourself won’t be reading the books in question? There’s a certain amount of feeling like this is a trust . . . but is it when it’s unusably too much? I can’t put on an addition for a library!
Also two encyclopedias are sufficient for a family, right? And five English dictioneries? (I haven’t consolidated and counted the other languages yet . . .)
@Anon: re: commonplace book,
Actually, I keep multiple notebooks, though my two main ones are a general notebook and a commonplace book. I use the general notebook to write down things I encounter as I go through my day. This just records mostly ephemeral things that I don’t want to forget at the moment, such as items to add to my grocery list and story ideas. I date my entries for these. The things that I I want to keep for months or years, I will transfer over to the commonplace book (such as the story ideas). For the commonplace book, I use a topical index (listed alphabetically) in the front 10 pages or so of the book. Here I keep things I want to reference anytime in the future, whether it be a month, year, or decade from now. Things like new words, interesting facts, and important quotes. For example, “The pursuit of truth, not facts, is the business of fiction.” — Oakley Hall.
The Hall quote is near another entry where I write down information about the paint color “sap green,” how it’s made and the fact that it’s noted as a “fugitive” color, which means it fades quickly. I’ve found the use of a commonplace book very helpful. There are a variety of methods for “commonplacing” that have been developed over the centuries. One of the most notable of these is the one developed by John Locke. A lot of modern people who practice commonplacing use it. Though, there are many other methods. I simply place the entries one after another in the notebook and put the appropriate page number in the index at the front. That way, I don’t end up with a bunch of entries at some points in the notebook while other notebook pages remain empty.
Cheers! And I hope this helps.
Re Charlie KIrk
As another commenter said, there are also wild speculations around the Kirk’s assassination and the film “Snake Eyes” (1998) where there is an assassination of a secretary of defence named Charles Kirkland, on a 10th of September, and the boxer that was distracting the public from the real murderer, was called Tyler “the Executioner”, and all happened in a Trump tower or similar in Atlantic City. The plot was that Charles Kirkland was assassinated because some huge transfer of weapons from US to Israel….
For example in this video the presenter associate all of this with some elite’s demonic plot:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKsA1CjJ0w4
It is clear this event has been a shock for many people
Cheers
David
“3) growing signs that the US will withdraw from their vassal states/allies in East Asia, Middle East and Europe”
Interestingly flag officers have been called to an in person meeting for next week.
https://apnews.com/article/pentagon-hegseth-meeting-military-commanders-4ceb8026bff7c652b08c08e8afb1df99
It could dramatic or it could be a get ready for a long budget fight. Or “do any of you have any idea how to function in a drone dominated battlefield?”
A few days ago a picture was posted of a Ukrainian field at dawn. The light reflected off of the fiber-optic strands they use to control the drones because radio isn’t working anymore. It looked like a spiderweb over the field. The field won’t be safe for grazing or hay for a very long time if the fibers are glass. If they are plastic then a few field burnings should make it safe for the animals.
For Celadon and others, regarding the panic attack on the Left:
In my view, the fundamental problem for the Left is that they can’t figure out what country they are living in. An illustration: I was watching a Daily Beast lady, one of their Oxbridge imports, and quite full of herself, IMHO, interviewing the political writer and commentator, Michael Wolf. Now Wolf is in fact quite intelligent, but he does have his blind spots. They were discussing Ukraine, and both were sadly consoling each other about how Americans no longer care about Europe. I wanted to tell them look at a map, why don’t you? That big blue blob between NYC and London is called the Atlantic Ocean and it is 3,000 miles wide. I looked it up. The amusingly named Atlantic Narrows, between the bulges of South America and Africa is a bit more than 1000 miles wide. The likes of Wolf and Mme. Oxbridge can fly across the Atlantic at will, but the days of the proverbial “trip to Europe” being within middle class means are long gone. For increasing numbers of Americans, Europe might as well be on the Moon.
Events like the Fall of the USSR and the subsequent wars in Yugoslavia and now the war in Ukraine were and are painfully and personally felt by many among the Left. It is all too easy for these people angrily to tell themselves that those @#$%^ America First Racist Deplorables won’t come to the aid of our homelands. That is fundamentally what the bastard ideology multiculturalism is about. It was sold to minority communities as you won’t have to live near or interact with the boring WASPs who can’t dance (mea culpa, I have no rhythm at all). That same ideology was sold to educated PMCs as you are specially special, part of an international elite. You can perhaps understand how seductive that was to folks who had been the picked-on weirdos in high school and college.
The left as a whole, and specifically the Democratic Party, have made some shockingly bad decisions over the past decades. One was not to get behind the Guaranteed Annual Income when President Nixon proposed it. Another was to go along with the Iraq invasion. They followed that up with dumping Howard Dean’s 50 state strategy, the strategy which had given them the House and Senate majority in 2006 and set the stage for Obama’s election in 2008. And after that, this gets worse, they manipulated their 2016 primary in favor of one of the most hated women in the USA. Even our host has been heard to say on a podcast in about 2017 or 18 that if there had been a fair election in 2016, Bernie Sanders would have become the president. The rest you know, Biden lingering on too long, no Democratic primary, and absolutely no accountability among Democratic leadership. Of course they are panicking.
Hi JMG. I have been reading through your Celtic Golden Dawn book and I was particularly fascinated with the geomantic mapping of figures onto the paths and sephirot of the tree of life.
If you’re willing to share, Id like to ask you about the logic you used to map the “proto” figures on the paths above the abyss.
There are 4 figures that have only 2 lines. I follow the logic for how you mapped two of the four figures onto paths 3 and 4. However, instead of mapping the other two onto paths 5 and 6 (which connect binah/chokmah to tiphareth) you mapped the remaining two figures onto paths 7 and 8, while graduating to the three-lined figures for paths 5 and 6.
Did you make this jump to prioritize the polarity of the two sides of the tree, or was there some other logic?
Thanks for reading; I hope my question was asked clearly enough.
I remember a heathen telling me i should practice heathenry since my mother’s family was German-irish. I was like my ancestors were Catholic, if i wanted to honor my mother’s ancestor’s i’d be Catholic. That would be far easier and my immediate ancestor’s would greatly prefer that! But I always wanted to ask folkish heathens this, my half sister also has my mother’s ancestory but she’s also half black. Would she be allowed to practice heathenry if she wanted?
Siliconguy @ 244, you don’t suppose they could be planning an attack on Iraq? That would be my guess. This is not going to end well at all.
@ Seeking the Pure Land #247
I’ve been lurking rather than commenting lately but I had to throw in a comment on this. I am a polytheist and predominately associate with the Norse/Germanic pantheon of deities (though not exclusively) so I suppose then I am a “heathen”. I’m not part of any organized religious groups though.
Would Odin care if someone is half-black? I have no idea, you’d have to ask him. I can’t speak for the gods.
For myself though (I’m white living in a rural very white area) If I ran into a half-black chick who said that she likes to pray to Idunn and her husband (we’ll pretend she has one he’s half-black too) likes to do hard physical training as an offering to Thor, my response would probably be something along the lines of, “that’s bad-@$$! We should hang out! You guys got kids?!?!?!”
HV
In the ‘forcing people to be online by removing alternatives’ file:
Canada Post is going to be phasing out home delivery of mail. It’s going to be community mailboxes for most, and some rural addresses will lose mail service entirely. Also, a bunch of rural post offices will be closing.
This is in reaction to Canada Post persistently losing money, and the repeated postal strikes by workers.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-post-strike-government-reforms-1.7644025
Who have now gone back on strike in response to the changes.
I guess I’d better get direct deposit so my cheque arrives… it didn’t get sent out one time last year – I had to go get it in person. So did other people I know. And the postal union lied about it, saying those checks still got delivered, which kind of added insult to injury and lost them my goodwill.
@Seeking #247
Unfortunately heathenry’s public relations are currently dominated by extremist political LARPers (of both major persuasions) for whom the religion is nothing more than set-dressing and a place to play anti-social social games.
I do think the Aesir and Vanir have solid futures here in North America but it’ll be despite, not because of, their current self-appointed representatives. The land itself seems to have welcomed them here. Now their worshipers are still working out how we can make a viable religion around them. IMO the reconstructionist angle has already been taken about as far as it can and it’s past time to drop the idea of getting back to some pure original heathen faith.
@Allie001 #23 and JMG #58,
JMG, thanks for your response about “queers, immigrants, and people of color” to Allie’s comments. As a bisexual man who sees himself as a moderate Burkean conservative, I certainly don’t think the far left represents me and I know a lot of other queer people who feel the same way. I think a large number of conservatives, especially young conservatives, understand this. However, there is a relatively small, but vocal subset who do not and who would love nothing more than to see us all dead. While I’m very concerned about this, I do not think it’s a good idea to paint everyone on the right this way, simply because they are not this way. I think the thing to do is to keep the dialog open and foster understanding among as many people as possible. This is the best way to stop an “us versus them” attitude from developing on a large scale. Charlie Kirk understood this and he was trying to practice it when he was murdered. I abhor his murder and while I disagreed with a lot of what he said, he absolutely had the right to say it and he should not have been killed for exercising that right. I think we must all stay vigilant, condemn acts of violence whenever and wherever they occur, and keep the dialog going.
Do you think the Jezebel curse was a contributing factor in making the assassination attempt successful?
@249 HippieViking
I’m glad for that! I know most heathens would accept my sister with open arms if she wanted kinship with them. It just annoyed me when that one person basically made it clear that he wanted a certain type of ancestory. Unfortunately for him, my father’s side of the family is Japanese and i told him so. He lost all interest after that.
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@251 Slithy Toves
For sure, like you said this a problem with both sides of leftist and rightist heathens. But I think heathenry actually has a real shot in the US. As you say it seems like its well suited here. And it at least doesn’t have a bad reputation the way wicca is developing.
The discussion about whether or not a black person can worship the Norse gods makes me chuckle, because I’ve seen something similar here in Hawaii: Pele appears to have a habit of deciding certain people “belong” to her, and bringing them to the Island of Hawaii. It seems it can happen to anyone: I know a White guy from Canada who it has happened to, who is nothing special and can say nothing more than Pele does whatever she wants to do). Those who’ve been called have similar stories: there is either a string of utterly absurd coincidences to bring them to the island or they visit once and immediately fell in love, they have a powerful sense of being home as soon as they get there, and then that their lives go remarkably well as long as they stay. I know other cases which fit in all the details except they do not worship her, and in one case the woman is an atheist. It might be something else that drew them to the island of Hawaii, or it might be that she doesn’t care whether the humans she brings to her island worship her, but my working assumption is that whenever I see that pattern, it’s Pele drawing people to her island for some reason.
There are people who get offended by the idea of someone not born in Hawaii, or even anyone without Native Hawaiian ancestry, worshiping Pele, when there seems to me to be abundant evidence that she does not care about heritage. If a human being has some potential to improve something on her island, or maybe even just amuses her, it appears that she will happily bring them to the Island of Hawaii and drop copious amounts of blessings in their lives as long as they stay; and I think it could be very dangerous for anyone to annoy her by questioning whether the people she has brought to the island actually have her blessings; or worse, trying to get the Haole (roughly, foreigners) she has called to her island to go home…..
Subprime you say?
“TRICOLOR: THE MESSY COLLAPSE OF A SUBPRIME AUTO LENDER EXPLAINED” [Their caps, not mine]
“And behind the scenes, traders told CDG that the auto asset-backed securities issued by Tricolor started nosediving, eventually reaching as low as 12 cents on the dollar.”
Fraud suspected using the same collateral for multiple loans.
“The alleged scheme involves double-pledging, which is using identical loan portfolios as collateral for separate warehouse credit lines with different banks.”
https://news.dealershipguy.com/p/tricolor-the-messy-collapse-of-a-subprime-auto-lender-explained-2025-09-16
Dear JMG and commentariat:
Why do you think a vocal minority on the left and the neopagans have been indulging in malefic magic, cheering the death of Charles Kirk in front of his wife and children, and as best I can tell, completely taking leave of their senses? Yes the extreme fringes on both sides have always had some less than stable individuals, but the far left now?
And as an aside, I am beginning to think I should write a book: How Hitler Broke the Left’s Mind. Although on reflection, the right also sees to think everyone they don’t like is Hitler too ( Ghadaffi, Saddam Hussein, etc.).
Cugel
@Mary Bennet (#248) and SiliconGuy (#244):
What I fear now — congenital pessimist as I am — is that we’re about to invade Venezuela, to try to seize its oil; and that Hegseth’s remarkable meeting next week with all of our flag officers might be to coordinate the details of a unified military response in case this invasion leads to a world war, both Russia and China taking Venezuela’s side.
Hello all,
I don’t have any particular question but just a summer trip observation about infrastructure and general “vibe check” across some of the classic cities of the West. I flew from my home near San Francisco to NYC, Paris, Milan, Florence, Venice, and a bit of Switzerland.
NYC didn’t leave a great impression. Sure, it’s always exciting the first days, but the infrastructure is quite disheveled at all levels: airports, roads, subway, train stations. There’s some modern stuff also for sure, but all in all just feels like last century’s city. I get why people like it (America is boring) but I can’t stop myself being a snob and comparing it to other global cities. Not a good look.
Paris surprised me. First time there. I’d heard so many bad reviews, but what I found was an elegant, clean, and functional city. The gothic architecture filled my soul. I roamed all over, from my hotel in the suburbs and back, on metro, on RER, on foot. The contrast with NYC couldn’t be more striking. It’s an ancient city but it’s overall it’s really well kept. People say the demographics have changed and that much is true. It’s nearly as multi-ethnic as NYC. But the vibe I got was a society that’s holding together, despite challenges.
I’ve been to Milan a few times and it’s always a mixed bag. Kind of an ugly city, with some rough edges, but it’s also Italy’s future forward city. Whatever youthful energy Italy has left will be concentrated in the North as the country dies in my opinion. I enjoyed seeing the new districts, eating Italian and international food, and practicing my horrible Italian. Even in the big city, Italians are just nice people and that always improves my vibe.
Doing the tourist cities of Florence and Venice for my family was the least favorite part of my trip. They’re basically theme parks at this point, beautiful historical cadavers, with PhD educated Italians serving sweaty mobs of ungrateful tourists. I don’t know. I just find it sad. I also dipped into the Italian speaking Swiss canton of Ticino. Do not skip it! It is absolutely gorgeous, like a romantic painting come to life. I swam in Lakes Lugano and Maggiore. Bliss. And since it’s Switzerland, everything works. Trains run on time and the roads are smooth as glass.
Coming back to San Francisco was like re-entering the 21st century. Never thought I’d say that, with all our problems, but the West Coast is just a little bit closer to Asia, all things considered.
David, sexual relationships among consenting adults are a matter of personal choice, and any personal distaste I may have for this or that activity is irrelevant outside the confines of my own choices. I wish more people grasped that it’s entirely possible to say, “Ew, ick” about something and still affirm the freedom of other people to do that thing if they want. That’s how I feel about eating peanut butter, for example. 😉
J.L.Mc12, it’s impossible to prove a negative, of course. By all means speculate away if that floats your boat.
Brad, it’s entirely a matter of balancing the polarities of the two sides of the Tree. It’s also at least a little arbitrary, as are all attributions of anything to the Paths.
Pygmycory, I wonder if they’ve ever, even for a moment, considered what’s going to happen when the internet goes down, or simply starts losing functionality a little at a time. I see this as one step in the direction of Canada’s dissolution into local tribal communities.
Chronojourner, thanks for this. I agree wholeheartedly.
Blue Sun, probably not. There used to be some very capable Wiccan mages, but most Wiccans these days couldn’t magick their way out of a wet paper bag with a ritual sword in one hand and a blowtorch in the other. The level of glaring incompetence that passes for magical practice in the current scene is an embarrassment.
Siliconguy, yeah, I’ve been watching that. I wonder how many businesses have been propped up surreptitiously with money diverted from the federal budget, and how many of those will go messily broke as we proceed.
Cugel, it’s not a recent thing. I wrote about the rot setting in throughout the Neopagan community more than a decade ago —
https://www.ecosophia.net/blogs-and-essays/the-well-of-galabes/a-wind-that-tastes-of-ashes/
— and that was written after most of a decade in which my late wife and I watched the Neopagan scene go through a horrific ethical implosion, abandoning its ideals to embrace the evil magic and demon worship it had very sensibly dismissed as irrelevant and misguided just a few years before. I can’t speak to the left, as I last had anything to do with that scene in the 1980s, but I gather that something similar has happened there. Why? I wish I knew. It’s been horrible to watch.
Brian, I haven’t been to the other cities in question in a very long time, but I was in New York City last month, and have to concur — it’s astonishingly rundown and ramshackle, with deferred maintenance and shoddy patchwork visible everywhere. It’s not just that it’s last century’s city, though that’s true; it looks as though it’s been mired in an economic depression for the last twenty years.
Anonymous #96 :”… to prepare for a Great Depression level economic collapse…”?
There’s an ad for a hospice service running on the radio these days, where someone says “The doctor says that it’s time to focus on quality of life for Dad…” I’ve heard those words which imply that medical science can do no more to extend Dad’s life. It’s a hard thing to hear. But consider it a metaphor for our modern industrial culture. Focus on Quality of Life, rather than Standard of Living (which has to do with how old your car is, how large your house is, etc.)
For me, that means adopting a regular exercise program, for just a few minutes, three times a day, with obvious improvements in strength and flexibility. It means growing some incredibly flavorful tomatoes (“Cherokee Purple” heirloom breed) in a little patch of my neighbor’s yard, and proudly sharing them with friends. It means gathering around the ham radio gear twice a week, for just a half-hour, to share brief stories and comments on personal activities. Tomorrow, I plan to gather some acorns to see whether I can actually process them into food. Whether that works or not, I’ll have home-cultured kefir on rolled oats, pumpkin seeds, and sunflower seeds for breakfast, and I will enjoy every mouthful. On any Sunday morning, I will make buckwheat pancakes and serve them with peanut butter, honey, and kefir.
Of course, this is not to dispute the common sense logic of paying off debts, making yourself useful to your neighbors, taking care of your “stuff” so you don’t need to replace it, etc. Quality of Life doesn’t need to be expensive.
Breaking News – Comey has been indicted!
Let accountability commence …..
Hey JMG
That is true. I was just casually wondering about the subject this week, but I don’t have to inclination to study drug manufacturing to the point that I can figure out a good answer. At them moment I’m focused on learning to read French, making a shoe-rack, and reading “The Great Gatsby”, amongst other things.
Now, purely by chance, when I was browsing Pinterest I found a link to an essay on medium describing Japanese magical alphabets called “Jindai/ Kamiyo moji”.
Apparently they are often claimed to predate the standard Japanese writing system, and were used by priests and ninjas to write secret letters and books. Some of these writing systems look surprisingly similar to some of the “alien” writing systems found in various video games and films. I thought you or the commentariat would be interested.
https://medium.com/@chrisgaul/spirit-scripts-japans-mysterious-outcast-alphabets-5b3ea905fc
There is no reason for the US to invade Venezuela for oil at the moment. Alberta is much closer 😉.
More seriously Venezuela is making noises about invading Guyana to get their oil. I could see the U.S. intervening in Guyana’s favor if Maduro rolls the tanks south. Sinking a few drug boats may be part of that influencing operation.
https://www.crisisgroup.org/latin-america-caribbean/andes/venezuela-guyana/venezuela-presses-territorial-claims-dispute-guyana-heats
@Chuaquin
About French and British troops in Odessa:
Sorry, should mark hearsay when it is more clearly.
There are allegations from the other side:
https://eestieest.com/svr-revealed-that-british-french-troops-are-already-in-odessa/
link to a said russian report ( I did not translate it).
There are several references to that and from official Russian sources the claim that France and the UK intend to do so, and also several claim that british and french troops have already been neutralized in Odessa in strikes this year.
Nothing official though!
Second hand information from my behalf.
@Celadon
Thanks for this little excursion to antiquity! Yes I am wondering what is a recurring phenomenon about this.
Women looking for men to finance them while ever complaining, with increasing age and decreasing market value staying alone because they deem themselves special and are on (to those listening) how the want “a real man” and a whole bucketlist of what their demands are, while offering little but constant insults, complaints and bossing around, thus staying – at some point – effectively single.
I am not in that sense complaining on by behalf here, just wondering where this comes from as I see this a lot and its really weird and out of touch in such an extreme way.
I feel the crumbling of society and its checks and balances leads to individuals drifting off in their own fantasy world, in multiple ways, not exclusively women in this way, but all kinds of ways.
The arrogance and veiled aristocratic hatred for the proles of mindlessness meditation clubs of the well to do as both a fringe phenomenon and a wealthy hobby with both sometimes real competence included as well, but soiled by excessively sanctimonius, hypocritical behaviour, fake smiles, extended hands that turn into clutches, that is maybe not so new.
Milkyway,
might I suggest Neptune as he is associated with dissolution and unification. Also with inspiration and creativity,but on the other side confusion, illusion, escapism and addiction.
best regards,
V
Michael Lind of Tabletmag is one of the more interesting commentators on matters of immigration and social politics.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/ending-race-census-michael-lind
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/war-on-citizenship
Maybe I have found him because he was linked in this forum years ago.
https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2017/05/new-class-war/
@JMG of course this large scale solar gimmick of California did not stand the test of time. I remember the enthusiastically anounced “desertec” projekt in North Africa in the 2000s, when in the beginning of 2010s I watched an Austrian documentary https://filminstitut.at/filme/macht-energie with colleagues from university, where this huge solar project in North Africa was revealed to merely power the electric needs of an actual gas to electricity plant adjacent.
But that wasn’t as usual posted widely in the media, after the ebbing of the initial euphoria, it was just quietly ignored.
On progress as a religion, Eric Hoffman had it nailed in 1951: “Even the sober desire for progress is sustained by faith – faith in the intrinsic goodness of human nature and the omnipotence of science.” The True Believer, p.18.
@Scotlyn, I don‘t think the butter miracles count as fermentation, but what is it with these holy or divine beings and beer? 😉 The book is a gem. I own it, and have tried various recipes albeit with major variations – I‘m into wild fermentation, and Buhner isn’t, and I use sugar instead of malt etc for simplicity‘s sake. Thus my results have probably been very different from his., but they have been interesting. Some delicious, some a bit less so, but always great fun. If you haven‘t tried any of the recipes yet, you should!
@Inna, JMG, on second thought, if I had to associate any of the seven planets with (the process of) fermentation, I‘d pick Mercury. Quick, bubbly change, which seems to result in something else, but then on the other hand isn‘t entirely… For enjoying the results of fermentation, especially the drinkable ones, another planet would be the obvious choice, and I can just picture him, drinking horn in one hand, lightning bundled up in the other… 😉
I have been giving away my chickens’ eggs and homebrewed beer to friends a lot lately, and considering how this might subtly but radically undermine the financial economy. My chickens lay eggs – so I meet my need for eggs without having to buy them. Then I give them to my friends – and they meet their need for eggs without having to buy. Two purchases have been subtracted from the financial economy and two people are now aware that it is possible to meet needs without buying. (The grain is still bought but I have moved my vulnerability one step down in the chain of production.) Since the main grip our modern economy has on people is the message that you absolutely must meet your needs by buying everything, loosening this grip through giving is a great step forward.
If you want to ‘destroy the capitalist system’, don’t blow up a bank – make something and give it away. Those walls which can’t be blown up may be undermined until they fall.
Boysmom # 241:
“I am currently trying to downsize the total number of books to something rather less than double the shelfspace.
I’ve figured out getting rid of most of it, donate or trash (alas, crumbled pulp), leaving me looking at good quality good condition hard bound 1950s or older books and wondering . . . these are some books I’ve read but didn’t care for, some books I’ve read other things by the author and didn’t care for, some books I read a few pages of and found dreary, and among all those some printings that seem to fetch a few dollars.”
I understand you perfectly. I have too many books too. And I’m moving to another home with less free space to fill with books….Oh oh.
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Chronojourner #252:
” As a bisexual man who sees himself as a moderate Burkean conservative, I certainly don’t think the far left represents me and I know a lot of other queer people who feel the same way.”
You have the right to express freely your political choice in spite the official LGTBI alignment with the Leftism, of course. Sexual orientation of course doesn’t determine your ideological opinion. Good luck!
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Robert Mathiesen # 258:
Well, let’s crossing fingers and think, maybe Trump strategy about supposed Venezuelan “narco-boats”, is merely playing the Spectacle of “war against drugs” and against “Maduro (faux) commie government”, and no more. IMHO, there’s not yet a preparation to a serious war in the Caribean zone. Maybe I’m wrong, we’ll see it…
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In my twenties I believed that Celtic religion was only for those of Celtic ancestry. Later I learnt about Yeats’ two eternities, ‘that of race and that of soul’, which is to say that one can have a Welsh soul in a black body, or in the case of Tom Jones, a black soul in a Welsh body. He admits as much himself, and he is also apparently worshipped as a black saint in Afro-American voodoo. According to Tibetans, I’m also Tibetan, even though I have a Celtic body and no memory of the Land of Snows. If one has a strong and abiding internal connection with a religious tradition then one’s external appearance is unimportant. Having said that, if there’s a serious mismatch between the two it can be rather confusing. 🙂
Scotlyn,
It is, of course, your decision to make, but I would like it very much if you would share more of your thoughts here in public. We are quite literally sharing our minds here and you never know where someone else takes something you write. Your remark, quoted by Erika, made me understand how the spectacle affects people in my environment, for example.
If it is indeed shyness that’s holding you back I can tell you that for me it’s quite liberating to be in the presence of a wise one and quite a few others that are way smarter than me.
In daily life I’m often the smartest person in the room, although I consider myself more like a toddler that’s trying to make sense of the crazy world he’s been plonked down into. That brings a subtle but very real pressure, which is completely absent here, and that has the funny effect of me hearing myself think some quite smart thoughts, every now and then 🙂
We’re all learning here, none excluded…
–bk
Wer here
JMG I do not accept when you said Trump is planning a withdrawal from anywhere, he is a type of person who belives in complete dominance and attacks literally everyone. His speech about how he will never attack Iran and then he attacks Iran is the best example of this. His recent U turn on Ukraine and claims means that he will declare war on Russia. Only i don’t think he will win this (just like he demanded surrender from Iran and the ayatollah shouted him back and started hitting back) the amount of madness with Polish media claiming “Russian agression” is imminent means that they want to provoke war and openly goading the population to accept this.
(People are being tought how to behave if an armed conflict is near) to me it means that a dice is cast open war will begin soon.
When I’ve written in a comment before this one that Trump is playing the Spectacle with Venezuela, I hope to have being understood. I mean, I think he’s not stupid, he thinks he has to simulate USA is strong, although I think the US is no longer as strong as it was some years ago. So he plays like the US was full of its power instead weakened, frightening a weaker (in appearance) enemy like Maduro’s Venezuela. That’s why I’m saying it’s Trump Spectacle of “war” with Venezuela. He doesn’t want really a real war, me think. Am I wrong? We’ll ser it…
Fair enough. On another matter, last MM you said that “[i]f some group of Christians started celebrating their services on Thursday, the results might be interesting.” But isn’t it already the case that a lot of congregations? In my city, there seems to always be an evening mass on Thursday and usually one in the morning as well, at least in Catholic churches—I don’t know about the Orthodox or Protestant ones. The Old Catholic church in the nearest big city also has mass on Thursday evenings.
—David P.
I wonder which god I am praying to here and there. Always helps.
Maybe the catholic god of my grandmother, if there is a decidedly catholic one.
@JMG, Rajarshi
Fellow Ecosophian Rajarshi explained the similarities between machine learning and divination. I don’t intend to despute the statement or criticise it at all; rather, I just wanted to add to it – there’s a new field called Physics-Informed Machine Learning, or *SciML*, as it’s more popularly known. While I know the rule of the Open Post was to not discuss ML, I mentioned SciML here, as many people, including even those who have heard of it, think of it as a type of machine learning. In reality, it’s not; rather, it’s a new approach to computational science, which uses ML (more accurately, deep learning) methods, but behaves in a very different way from typical ML attitudes. I remember our host mentioning that “future civilizations will take Faustian mathematics and science and put it to uses that would absolutely baffle the official boffins of today’s Western nations” (I’m obviously paraphrasing here) – the funny thing is that SciML does exactly the same thing here with machine learning.
So how does it work? To cut a long story short, SciML, when used as an alternative to a numerical solver, basically has (as one method among many in the field) a model which describes the behaviour of a system or object using a set of differential equations train a neural network, and then use this trained neural network as an alternative to a solver, for making predictions (eg: the use of neural networks for solving both the forward and inverse problems for the Navier-Stokes system in Raissi et al. (2018)). This flies in the face of machine learning fanboys, as the ML approach of “data, data and more data, followed byusing them to train a neural network model” is diametrically opposed to the older and more traditional “describe things from first principles using differential equations, understand things incrementally and then update the equations as required” approach; yet, the latter has managed to use the weapons of ML against the ML side in such a strange (from the ML POV) way that traditional deep learning fanboys were baffled when this field came out with the publication of the above paper. That said, work in SciML is furious and intense, with a lot of new methods coming up, and some having already become “mainstream” in a sense (Neural ODEs, Physics-Informed DeepONets), so for those who love developing new algorithms, it’s a good place to be; me, I recognise my limits and am contented with being a user of these methods, writing my own customised codes that use the well-established algorithms in the SciML literature 😉.
I don’t know how SciML can “help” divination of the kind explained by Rajarshi – I think SciML can explain the dynamics of something on the material plane, but obviously not on higher planes. But what I think makes SciML interesting and relevant to the themes discussed by Ecosophia is that it embodies one of the important points elaborated upon by our host: innovations in one field need not be confined to that field alone; they can be borrowed, reshaped and put to use in service of another field so different that the original developers would have their mouths hanging open in astonishment.
@JMG and readers
Elite is usually not divided along ethnic faults if there will be an elite replacement cycle do you think the elite power fail could bring division along ethnic lines in the elite?
@Dashui & DFC I just watched the Snake Eyes movie and there is a hurricane in the movie called Jezebel, the reporter calls it a hurricane but the editors want it called a tropical storm to not ruin the weekend the film starts with it and ends with it. The whole story is the story of a petty police officer who was corrupt but didn’t want to have blood on his hands. The back story is about a corruption in MIC. Around the Movie end has this quote “You know they say, back two, three hundred years ago, pirates put phony lighthouses right out by those big rocks, right out there. Ships would set a course by the lights, crash on the rocks; then everybody’d go out and rob ’em blind. Only one thing’s changed since then: lights are brighter.”
A lot of many other parallels in the movie, but more on the metaphorical side, that they are a warning to the US people, if they are the protagonists of this movie they have a bad hand, Snake eyes, “a throw of two ones with a pair of dice. the worst possible result; a complete lack of success..”
I think the way the movie appeared as an omen if the people in US chose to have blood on their hands for their petty swindles they will lose a lot, if they choose not still could be bad. Is not a bad movie who can see it for cheap they should do it.
Just like 9/11 had a lot of elements divined in the “Back to the Future”… It seem that this turning point in US path has a lot of elements divined in “Snake Eyes” movie.
I don’t think necessarily that these parallels caught in the movie are not necessarily demonic. But certainly an omen and prescient.
Hi John,
Thanks, everything is aligning with my basecase of a major rupture of our globalised economic and geopolitical system by around 2030.
Expect a financial crash, reordering of our monetary system and massive geopolitical turmoil (all trends that are already in place and likely to accelerate in the years ahead).
A Greater Depression is looming after 2029/2030.
As for Europe I continue to monitor things closely. Brussels is a canary in the mine, it’s the most Islamic demographic wise of all western Europe.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21922/free-university-of-brussels
This article caught my attention recently. Sad but not surprising.
I have played around with AI to model demographic trends in the big European cities in the coming decades.
Conclusion was that at some point after 2040 or so, certainly by 2055, our biggest cities will have such big Muslim populations under the 40s that the current status quo will become untenable (assuming that a plurality if not majority of those Muslims will be aligned with an islamist worldview).
>Or “do any of you have any idea how to function in a drone dominated battlefield?”
Gathering 800 people together in a room seems like a very poor way to answer that question. Not sure what happens when they start drafting young white men they’ve been kicking around like a stray dog to fight these pointless wars. I am sure that whatever it is they want from those younguns, they’re not going to get it.
As far as answering the drone question, I’d watch that old Monty Python skit “How Not To Be Seen”. Except now, it’s not so funny anymore but deadly serious.
@Dashui & DFC
Also another trivia, the movie was made in Trump’s casinos. Also it was filmed in 1997 which make the current event happening in its Saturn return.
@ Jennifer Kobernik #230 & JMG #236:
Thank you both for your candid responses.
Jennifer, that is very interesting about your time in the world where “Antifa” coalesces and it makes a lot of sense from what I have surmised. I guess that is why it is troubling to me to have it deemed an actual organization, and my fear of the FBI going all COINTELPRO again.
So much of this stuff is outside of my own control, I have to let go and get on with what I am here to do.
Michael, well, we’ll see.
J.L.Mc12, a member of the commentariat here, Avery Morrow, wrote a fine book on that subject titled The Sacred Science of Ancient Japan — it includes detailed information on those odd and mostly channeled writing systems. You might find it worth reading.
Siliconguy, oh, I could see Trump invading both!
Curt, I remember Desertec very well — back before it imploded, it was being brandished about by true believers in progress as proof that peak oil wasn’t an issue. So much for that…
Kfish, thanks for this!
Tengu, it doesn’t have to be confusing. It’s just that our silly human assumptions make us easily confused.
Wer, er, Trump has attacked very few countries so far — far fewer than Nobel Peace Prize-winner Obama did, for example. I think you’re letting yourself get caught up in the hype.
Chuaquin, I’m fairly sure you’re right. He’s using bluster and the occasional flurry of explosions to get rival powers to stand back while we retreat to the continental United States.
David, hmm! That’s not the case here. In the parts of the US where I’ve lived, churches tend to have Sunday morning services and Wednesday evening Bible study, and if Catholic churches add a mass that’s not on Sunday morning, it’s on Saturday afternoon, the so-called “drinker’s mass” for those who will be too hung over to attend Sunday morning.
Viduraawakened, I wish I had the slightest idea what you’re talking about.
Archivist, it seems unlikely to me.
Forecasting, that certainly corresponds with my intuitions.
Thursday and Sunday are the most common days I’ve seen here but there’s some variety. I have an uncle who tends to attend evening mass on Fridays—there’s some morning star connection I’ve only just noticed here but I’m not sure if that’s intentional. Technically, none of these replace Sunday mass but I’ll have to ask him if he attends both.
Interestingly, the Wikipedia article on evening mass is only available in one language, German. Maybe it’s a local thing? It’s been forbidden from 1566 to 1957 per decree from, respectively, Pius V. and Pius XII..
—David P.
Hi JMG,
Have you read any Thomas Pynchon and, if so, what is your opinion of his work?
After months of my computer periodically informing me that I must update to Windows 11 or live life with no security updates, now it’s telling me that my computer is too old. To get Windows 11 I must buy a new computer!
I was born a few months before our dear host, and I can remember getting into a junior high school shouting match with a Yankee kid. He thought the coming computer age would solve all problems. I thought it would bring on Big Brother. Today I think computers got rid of the annoyance of using white out to correct typos and that’s about all they’re good for. Well, that and introducing me to John Michael Greer. But mostly I just despise these things.
And yet, to function I’ve got to have one of some kind. If anyone can recommend a course of action where, if I just must buy a new computer, it will at least not profit Windows and all these other profiteering so & so’s, I’m open to all suggestions.
When the crisp Autumn air starts circling in the Ohio valley, and the leaves start changing, I have a tendency to dig out my folk records, specifically the ones in the notional genres of psychedelic folk, freak folk, and apocalyptic folk. It’s the place where my inner romantic and my inner goth are on good terms with my inner hillbilly who likes to retrace his roots to songs sung in the hills of Appalachia. In the post I explore three of my favorite albums from the British side of folk revival.
Like so many others, I first got into this style of music by tracing the influences and tastes of Current 93’s David Tibet. Sometimes you find the very best things in a discount bin at a big chain record store. In this case the store was Media Play and I found a Current 93 import comp called Emblems…
https://www.sothismedias.com/home/three-freaky-folk-favorites-for-the-fall
The albums in heavy rotation discussed in this post:
The Incredible String Band: Wee Tam and the Big Huge (In Europe released as a double album, in US as two separate releases).
Shirley Collins: The Power of the True Love Knot
Vashti Bunyan: Just Another Diamond
John–
I’ve been waiting for the open post this month, as I’ve wanted to share an experience I had a few weeks ago that involved an interesting intersection of demographics, politics, and conspiracy culture.
Near the beginning of September, I was in Raleigh, NC for a business conference. The cab driver who took me from the airport to the hotel downtown was Talia, an African-American woman probably in her forties with bright crimson hair and two-inch fingernails. (I mention these details because they struck my at the time and stood in some contrast to to conversation that followed.) We chatted as she drove, pleasantly enough, when she of her own accord brought up Trump…and not at all in the context one might expect. Rather than going off on some rant, she talked about how he “knew stuff” about the truth behind UFOs and secret technology, about planes that had been cut in two with a laser, and other similar things. It was absolutely fascinating. I made some affirmative comments to keep the conversation going and just let her talk because I was wondering what else she might say. The first thing I thought of was your discussion of the language of conspiracy culture and how it gets used as an identifier for subgroups that form during times of social stress and upheaval.
I’m not sure what precisely the encounter means in the broader context of the decline of US imperial power and ensuing social and economic recalibration, but I thought it an interesting datapoint for the group discussion here.
Curt # 265:
Thanks for your new comment and your very readable link. We’re living interesting times! (for well and bad).
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Kfish # 271:
“My chickens lay eggs – so I meet my need for eggs without having to buy them. Then I give them to my friends – and they meet their need for eggs without having to buy. Two purchases have been subtracted from the financial economy and two people are now aware that it is possible to meet needs without buying.”
Exactly, well done!: doing these activities you’re ‘de facto’ undermining slightly but effectively the whole financial casino of official economy…you’re doing “informal” economy. If more and more people would join to this type of economy under the big corporations and States radar, maybe everything would start to make some difference with the current status quo in a not far future…
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Tengu # 273:
“one can have a Welsh soul in a black body, or in the case of Tom Jones, a black soul in a Welsh body”
This phrase has made smile, in the good sense of smiling. It’s funny but also true for human beings in general.
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Wer # 275:
“he is a type of person who belives in complete dominance and attacks literally everyone. His speech about how he will never attack Iran and then he attacks Iran is the best example of this. His recent U turn on Ukraine and claims means that he will declare war on Russia.”
I usually like your comments from deep Poland, but this time I cannot do other thing that disagree with your opinion about Trump. Nowadays USA President isn’t a fool/crazy man bloodthirsty for winning every war he is supposedly to starrt soon, but a quite smart showman who simulates agressively the Spectacle of world hegemony, while in the reality US hegemony has been fast falling in historical terms. His true plans in his mind, I think, are to return to isolate US and letting the rest of the world alone with its own problems. By the way, I’m reading now John has answered to your post in a simillar sense I’ve done it, so I recomend you to calm and think a bit more this important topic…Thank you on advance.
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JMG # 285:
“Wer, er, Trump has attacked very few countries so far — far fewer than Nobel Peace Prize-winner Obama did, for example. I think you’re letting yourself get caught up in the hype.”
Absolutely true, to dismay of Democrats/Leftists who paint Trump like the Antichrist. I really don’t like very much Trumpian politics, but I recognize this point of him.
************************************
“He’s using bluster and the occasional flurry of explosions to get rival powers to stand back while we retreat to the continental United States.”
It’s the same I’m trying to explain to Wer: a calculated strategy for managing the US decline smartly pretending an apparent madness…
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@JMG, #260: “[S]exual relationships among consenting adults are a matter of personal choice, and any personal distaste I may have for this or that activity is irrelevant outside the confines of my own choices. I wish more people grasped that it’s entirely possible to say, “Ew, ick” about something and still affirm the freedom of other people to do that thing if they want.”
Yes! In the local BDSM community, the very first intro class (at least back in 2008) mentions the saying “Your kink is not my kink, but your kink is ok.” (Subject to consent ethics, of course.)
@Stubborn_ass #14 & @Katharine #42: I also enjoy re-reading Twilight’s Last Gleaming. Anytime I’m feeling anxious or overwhelmed by current events, TLG reminds me that most / many of us will get through this, and even though I don’t personally understand why things are happening, I don’t really need to. I just need to take care of what’s in front of me. (I use The King in Orange for similar purposes when I’ve seen too much mainstream Trump news. The refresher on what he represents is very helpful.) (And then Retrotopia for feeling more hopeful about the more distant future.)
One thing I will say about TLG: if it gets re-issued, please fix the heading toward the end of the book that says “19 November 2030: Falls Church, Maryland” (on p 371 in my paperback copy of the 2019 edition). It always throws me off, because the rest of the book does quite well with the DC area geography. (And because I happen to live in Falls Church, VA, which I’m pretty sure the heading is meant to reference.)
Finally, I’m curious: how does one include an avatar for these posts? Is it somehow related to the website field?
Greetings all!
Last week, I introduced to the commertariat Shahid Bolsen, an american convert to Islam.
The following pod cast by him at : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHekWllnW7g entitled “Trump is the Devil’s Due” was aired early this month. It is about the US and the West. Very harsh words, and many of you may not agree with him about that. But that is not the main interest of the podcast.
It is the paralell between what JMG and himself say about the twilight of the US empire.
JMG comes from a western occult tradition while Bolsen comes from an Islamic tradition.
And yet both have very similar views about the US, a declining empire, increased fragility of the financial system, collapse and down to the role of Trump as someone who marks a major turning point in US and world contemporary history. What is even more striking is that what he advocates is exactly what JMG has advocated: down sizing, switching off from the mass media, community building, reading books, growing food and disconnecting where possible from the global supply chains that will snap fairly soon.
Where JMG sees karma, Bolsen see’s the devil’s due. Eerie!
From minutes 15 or 16, the juicy bits begin.
Please have a look.
Regards
Lucretius, you conveniently forget that a resolution honoring Melissa Hortman was passed UNANIMOUSLY by the Minnesota Legislature: https://www.klobuchar.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2025/6/bipartisan-resolution-honoring-melissa-hortman-mark-hortman-and-condemning-political-violence-unanimously-passes-senate , whereas 58 Democrats voted against the resolution honoring Charlie Kirk. AFAIK no Republican cheered Hortman’s death or claimed “the leftie got what she deserved,” and though the Left has made clear its contempt for “thoughts and prayers,” they were, nonetheless, offered by folks on the Right for her family and friends. Please compare to the avalanche of hatred, glee, and outright lies that greeted the death of Charlie Kirk–if you didn’t notice any of that you had your eyes closed and your fingers in your ears. As is said so often on X, “We are not the same.”
Greetings all
The following webcast by Bolsen may interest some of you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHekWllnW7g
He has a very similar outlook on the immediate future of the West and specifically of the US as our host JMG, down to the special role of Trump and to what Bolsen advocates to lessen the burden
Regards
This is the real crisis that besets us, IMHO.
https://barsoom.substack.com/p/homo-umbrans
These are no longer Homo sapiens, because they are no longer sapient. They are Homo umbrans: the shadow man, the man who has blotted out the inner light, the man who has embraced the lie and embedded self-deception at the very core of his being. They have made themselves into anthropoids who only mimic humanity, and the verisimilitude is less convincing with every passing day.
You cannot have a conversation with Homo umbrans, because words have no meaning to it.
You cannot reason with Homo umbrans, because it does not possess reason.
You cannot convince Homo umbrans of anything using ‘facts and logic’, because it does not even recognize what these categories even are.
JMG – I was chatting (via radio!) last night with a college professor friend, who remarked that she can see the effects of the pandemic lockdowns as successive waves of students pass through her classes. First, the ones who were high-school seniors when locked-down, who were mildly affected (not much more than those who’ve always skated through their senior year), then younger ones (who show more damage), and now those who were in middle school. They’re trying, but they’re just missing too much (for her bottom-level collegiate math literacy course, for students who must get a math credit before they go on to journalism, art, music, whatever. Not the STEM team.)
This cohort will be rippling through society for decades, and hearing about them made me ask “What happened to the children of the 1918 flu pandemic? Where were they 20 years later?” In the 1940s? Probably not in a good place. Your thoughts?
@David P.
Hardly anyone attends those weekday masses, if the church that even has them. Almost everyone attends the Saturday night or Sunday masses.
Some discussion of Wicca and Neopaganism here which I have had only minor contact with. From past comments by JMG and others it seems common for those of that ilk to hold as a tenet that Christianity is just an evil, dead and empty religion. To my mind that means if they encounter good, life and a living god in Christianity showing that tenet to be false they would ripe for conversion to that faith, especially if Wicca and Neopaganism in their experience isn’t quite as good as anticipated.
@Isaac Salamander Hill #93
Since you’re here this week, I thought I’d take the chance to say “thank you” for writing the Heathen Golden Dawn. It’s become my primary spiritual practice for now and the foreseeable future, in a development I definitely wouldn’t have expected a couple years back, but it’s a very solid curriculum and it’s been good for me to commit to a single path. Or in other words, if you feel that taking a public position as an occult author is a potential risk, know that you’ve helped and inspired others with your work as well. I hope you’re right that you can avoid the worst of any potential blowback in upstate NY, and I wish you and yours all the best!
@Slithy Toves #251
Yes, I’ve also gotten the sense the Heathen gods seem well suited to and increasingly rooted in North America. I’m happy to hear you think the religion has a future there, but sometimes I can’t help feel a little envious of the seeming vitality of American Heathenry as a European Heathen. One of these days I might try getting involved in the tiny but existent scene around here, we’ll see…and I hope to make it to the Uppsala spring blot sometime. (On a related note, on the off-chance anyone reading this happens to be planning on going there next year, it’d be great to have company from the Ecosophia community!)
@JMG/general commentariat
A few days back I saw a headline in Norwegian mainstream media talking about how the end of the LLM bubble could lead to a stock market crash. I suppose we’re really in for it if even the mainstream is openly talking about bubbles rather than mindlessly hyping, aren’t we?
In other news from Norway, we’ve just had an incident with two 13-year-old boys setting off grenades on the streets of Oslo, apparently as part of some gang war. This seems to be spilling over from neighboring Sweden, where this kind of thing has been common for a while, with the gangs using kids as pawns since they’re too young to be criminally liable. This is part of an ongoing trend of serious crime involving young people, and it’s pretty unsettling. We’re still a sheltered and peaceful oasis up here compared to many other places (contrast Rhyd Wildermuth’s recent post about gunfire in Seattle), but in a way that only makes it more jarring. Sometimes it really doesn’t feel like the country I grew up in any more.
On a personal note, I was dismayed to hear from a mutual friend that someone I used to know way back has apparently become a Satanist. (As in the LaVeyan sense, I think, but it was a bit unclear.) This isn’t someone I’m likely to cross paths with often these days, but just in case, am I right in thinking that it’d be for the best to not associate with this person in any way if I can help it? Maybe I’m overreacting, but based on both earlier Magic Monday comments and my own intuition, the whole thing gives me a very bad feeling. (For what it’s worth, I think the person in question is basically an atheist who’s LARPing rather than a sincere believer, but I’m not sure how much of a difference that makes…)
David P. #277: “In my city, there seems to always be an evening mass on Thursday and usually one in the morning as well, at least in Catholic churches—I don’t know about the Orthodox or Protestant ones.”
It’s quite common for Catholic churches to have at least one daily Mass as well as several Sunday Masses – here’s one fairly typical example: https://catholicmasstime.org/church/our-lady-of-the-assumption/17079/.
BK
thanks for the letter to Scotlyn. That was perfect and mad gorgeous.
Xxxxxxxx
I wanted to read “Pagan Threat,” however Amazon has first said the print copy would be in November, then it was simply unknown or out of print. (The e-book is available, but I don’t read e-books for brain reasons.) There were several books that went with “Pagan Threat” such as “Response to Pagan Threat” and “The Simple Techniques from Pagan Threat Workbook: How Lucas Miles’ Advice Can Improve Your Life” among others were available. A whole genre of satellite books. Amazon has pulled all of them and said they were out of print.
Other stores said that the Print copies are on back order. I wonder if it was to be released later and got promoted. Or have it been sold out. Or is it something completely weird like a conspiracy (gasp). I find it very strange that the satellite books were erased – they have no featured places to order. I guess it is high weirdness or brain is on overdrive. ‘Quick Robin, to the Braincave!’
One thing i’ve learned is that human beings are not nearly as rational as we like to think we are. And emotions apparently tend to be strongly felt, which is an eye opener for me since i don’t feel emotions very strongly. Learning how strong emotions are to the average person was enlightening, pun intended. I would see religious debates and realized that not only was it futile but stripped down to its barest essentials the debate was emotional. Neither side could recognize how much their emotions affected their responses and conclusions.
I think ironically the people who claim to be rational the strongest tend to be more likely to be blindsided by their own emotions.
Curt #207 said:
“I really do cherish the people in the middle, and all those who retain their decency. It does not matter whether they are “alternative”, fringe-dwellers, or more gravitating to one center of society….”
Curt, thank you for this. I have been thinking a lot lately about how normalized humiliating other people has become. It also speaks to what you said later on about gaslighting, which is so destructive to the human psyche. Here’s to retaining decency. If that’s all I do during this insanity, it feels like a win because it means I have maintained respect for others.
Just a data point:
https://texasscorecard.com/state/unt-program-promotes-lgbt-ideology-and-demonology/
Texas Scorecard is a baldly partisan conservative publication that tracks Texas local and state politics. They’ve been on a kick lately focusing outrage on the wokeification of our public state universities. Texas recently passed anti-DEI legislation, but many universities are trying to subvert it, and it doesn’t really apply to coursework, only to hiring and admissions type stuff. Also recently, conservatives broke the back of the faculty senates and “shared governance” model in these universities and returned power to the boards of regents appointed by the legislature (as specified in our constitution). Anyway, Texas Scorecard is usually something of a bellwether when it comes to what the conservative outrage machine is going to be focusing its ire on.
Some quotes from their newsletter today linking to the article above:
“The demonology course examines “witchcraft, vodou, shamanism, and conjure” in American culture. Among the course readings is a paper that decribes Eve (from Genesis) as “the first witch.” The author asserts women should embrace “queering the witch” as part of their identity.”
“Not to rub it in, but your taxpayer dollars are subsidizing coursework on the study of demons. Congratulations.”
Creklix Thothrinhir,
I worry about it too, despite kind of sympathizing with the impulse (to brand Antifa a terrorist organization). This very sort of thing was why I was a liberal back during the GW Bush administration (before I could actually vote) due largely to the Patriot Act. Then voted for Obama thinking he was actually going to be anti-war based on his campaign! How naive I was. FWIW, in my experience there’s already plenty of COINTELPRO stuff going on in anarchist/antifa circles, and plenty of FBI plants and provocateurs. The Brandon Darby stuff went down during my time in/around that scene. My late father also told me that he was once invited to join the KKK (this would have been in the 60s or 70s probably), and that even if he’d been interested, there were more spooks in the KKK than actual KKK members, so only an idiot would have joined. I don’t like anything that expands the power of the three-letter agencies, even when they’re supposedly on “my side.”
@David P,
my church has an additional service on friday mornings. I should be there right now, but my alarm clock was having battery issues and I didn’t get up in time. I have now replaced the battery, so no more of that problem for a while, I hope.
@Jennifer Kobernik #205:
“it occurs to me that one step toward not freaking out devout Christians would be to stop putting images of dead animal heads, demons weeping blood, creepy animated jack-o-lanterns, and other evil-looking stuff on pagan logos, ads, and merch.
On the other end of the spectrum are the kind of “cottage core” kitchen witch type images that are more wholesome and appealing, that wouldn’t freak people out as much. It might be a good strategy.
At the same time, perhaps the Christians could stop putting up billboards saying how anybody who doesn’t swear by John 3:16 is condemned to a life of everlasting torment by demons in a flame filled hell full of demons and evil looking spirits wishing to torture the heathens, queers, and other kinds of pinkos than people might not be so upset at them either.
The Christian version of cottage core could similarly lessen peoples animosity towards them. I get that the pagan scene has become corrupted. But its not like many Christians haven’t been telling everyone else that theres is the only true way and everyone is else gonna burn, or be sent to a reprogramming camp to keep the gay away.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiaO9rP46WU
@Luddite, Kyle and JMG, I travel quite a bit and find that business people will give me workarounds when they learn I don’t own a smartphone. After all they want my business be they a restaurant, airline or retail store. So hang in there because the more people who ditch smartphones the easier it will be for those of us who want nothing to do with them. And perhaps it is a trend that is coming according to this article. https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/health-wellness/2025/06/06/gen-z-flip-phones-college-smartphone-detox/84031732007/
Rare to find halway general numbers about oil exploration and depletion.
Hier ist another commenter, he referenced the honest sorcerer, who no doubt is reading (hallo!):
https://damnthematrix.wordpress.com/2019/05/16/ants-and-what-it-means/
I remember when i first left Christianity i considered Satanism very briefly, but then realized that when leaving a faith maybe joining the faith that seems to basically just be Christianity but reversed would be the height of foolish. I have no respect for Satanists, saying evil be thou my good is foolish. They rejected nothing about Christianity! They just said, the Christians are right, and i’m joining their anti god!
David # 290:
I can tell you your cab driver was a freak ha ha…Now seriously: I don’t tend to discard conspiracy theories at first glance, because official versions are often a matter of raw belief in State, Academy and Big Business. However, I’m a bit tired for example of usual alien “explanation” of UFO phenomenon (or may would it be “phenomena”?). Other conspiracy theories seem to me intelligence (?) agencies funded mind control, oh, and I had missed the Far Right conspiracies: when you’re too lazy to make a solid ideology, you go on conspiracy topics. OK, this is my personal oponion about this controverted topic.
For those who wanted the receipts for Biden administration censorship and suppression of speech, Matt Taibbi does a great job of documenting this stuff. A lot of his stuff is for paid subscribers, but even the free posts and teasers for the paid posts are link/quote/documentation goldmines. For instance, the free teaser to this most recent subscriber-only post:
https://www.racket.news/p/no-things-arent-worse-now-on-speech
Regarding fermentation and possible deities that may have had it in their portfolio; let me remind the commentariat of the convoluted, very long (and mostly lost) myth of the “pan-Mediterranean chthonic “trinity”, Dionysos, Zagreus and Mithras (Orphic myth).
Granted Dionysos is mostly limited to wine as a deity (as Bacchus in the roman myth) but his long pre-roman story is peppered with Death, digestion, decay and transformation. Zagreus would be Dionysus digested or better described as ‘cured’ (like in jerky or charcuterie inside the pits of Tartarus), while Mithras (Dionysus/Zagreus) reborn definitely exemplify the miracle of transformation (as in bread or hallucinogenic ergot, or both; somebody mentioned above the difference between fermentation and rotting here we cover both).
The Mithras mysteries are also attributed to have evolved into the myth of vine and bread as the blood and body of Christ.
I seem to remember that there was also a couple of parables involving Hermes, Asclepius and Dionysus involving curdled milk, but i can’t find the references.
On another subject, somebody asked above the possible source of drugs after the fall. I think most of that question have been covered by other commenters. I may add LDS and Meth to the botanical alchemy toolbox. LDS can be isolated relatively easily from the common wheat Ergot (rust fungus; in fact a big part of the Mithras mysteries mentioned above) and Methamphetamines can be cooked from Ephedra (Mormon tea) without very complex chemical precursors.
nellperkins #288:
Depends on what you do on your computer and how capable you are at using them. If it’s possible for you, I’d recommend switching to Linux—the following site might be able to help you find people who can help you with that, though you are by no means limited to just those: https://endof10.org/
If you’re up for it, you can also just do it yourself. It costs nothing except the time you need to read up on it. For every program you use, see if it runs on Linux or if you can find an alternative. Select a distribution; https://linuxmint.com/ seems nice enough for people who don’t really care about computers and just want things to work, though YMMV. Back up everything that’s important to you onto some external storage drive, unplug that, follow the installation instructions of your distribution. When using it, bear in mind that it’s not Windows and things will work differently.
Should you instead buy a new (non-Apple) computer, you will pay Microsoft one way or another—if it comes with a windows license of its own, that’s already included in the price. Your choices are paying Microsoft, Apple, or investing some time and effort into getting Linux to run on your computer. How much time depends on the things you do on your computer.
Alternatively, ask a repair shop if you could just upgrade parts of your computer (assuming a desktop, not a laptop). The most likely culprit is the CPU or the mainboard, so you might be able to replace just the two of those to get Windows 11 to run.
—David P.
David, it may in fact be local.
Russell, yes, though it’s been a very long time and I recall very little about it, other than thinking that it was trippy and also somewhat slapdash. I should probably reread him again one of these days.
Nell, I’ve rarely used computer programs recent enough to have security updates, and it’s never been any kind of problem for me. I’d encourage you to ignore Billy Bluescreen’s minions and just keep on using your current machine and programs.
Justin, I’ll have to give some of those a listen sometime.
David BTL, many thanks for the data point! I suspect that it’s from weirdnesses like this that the next alternative cultures are being born.
Chuaquin, Trump is good at making people misjudge him. That’s an important part of his strategy, and they keep on falling for it every time.
Adara9, it seems like common sense to me. Maybe that’s my kink. (Tolerance as a perversion — hmm. Maybe it would make it more popular.) Yes, it should have been Falls Church, VA!
Karim, it’s a source of interest to me when people from very different backgrounds can still describe the same phenomena using different but mutually intelligible terms.
Other Owen, sigh. Haven’t the absurd gyrations of the left taught you that it’s a dumb habit to assume that the other guy isn’t thinking, when he’s just not thinking the way you wish he was?
Lathechuck, a little 20 years later they were being drafted into armies around the world and plunged into a Darwinian environment where those who didn’t learn fast generally came home in a box draped with a flag. That makes it a little hard to draw firm conclusions.
BeardTree, especially when many of them don’t believe in deities at all. There are far too many “Pagans” who don’t actually believe in anything outside their own egos.
Borealbear, those are definitely data points on accelerating decline! As for your acquaintance who’s become a Satanist, I strongly recommend having nothing to do with that person in the future. Like people in any antinomian path, Satanists reject any kind of moral behavior; they’ll break their promises, rip you off, mess you over, and then crow, “You made a mistake — you trusted me!” Shunning any such person is always a good idea.
Neptunesdolphins, or it and its related books may have sold out their current printings in a hurry. Under the circumstances, that seems rathere likely.
Seeking, very much so. People who claim to be rationalist generally repress their emotions, and that makes the emotions all the more powerful.
Jennifer, thanks for this. Yeah, here we go.
Peter, I’m typing this aboard an Amtrak train — we just pulled out of Penn Station in New York City — and my paper printout of my ticket worked just fine.
Curt, thanks for this.
David #95: Somebody whose name escapes me once noted that if witches existed and did the things they are commonly accused of, it would be foolish NOT to burn them. Why would you allow people who kill children, blight crops, and spread epidemics to live? Leaning into those superstitions and stereotypes for edgelord credibility is a very dangerous game. Much as Neopagans hate being called “LARPers,” the only thing that saved them from mobs is the fact that everybody dismissed them as LARPers. If people return to a belief in magic, they’re going to treat dark magic the way they always have — with fear, loathing, and violence.
Periwinkle #310: the big difference between the two groups is that Paganism is small and has little influence, while Evangelical Christianity is a large bloc that has a great deal of political clout. It may not be fair, but it is what it is. They can get away with hellfire and damnation billboards without too much worry of violence. If they attract the attention of a lone nut, they can be 100% sure the police and the media will treat them sympathetically. Neopagans have no such power base.
I have long noted that the people screaming we are at the brink of FASCISM and NAZISM issue vitriolic anti-government insults on social media under their own name. If you really think death camps are in the near future, why would you engage in this kind of dangerous attention-seeking behavior? I’d say the same thing about Neopagans who want to insult the majority and present themselves as spooky spellcasters. If you honestly fear violence and oppression, the wisest thing to do is keep your head down and figure out how you and yours are going to ride through it.
The Other Owen # 296:
“Homo Umbrans” seems IMHO a useful and chilling depiction of a lot of human ‘specimens’. Sad, but true, me think.
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Erika Lopez:
I’ve been (trying) to read your posts in JMG blog since a long time ago, so well I’m quite puzzled with your writing type comments. I’m not a native English speaker, so I find your comments very appealing to me, but in the other hand sometimes too strange for my understanding. If you don’t mind it, I’d like to make you a question: Do you like writing in this style?(I wonder if it’s your will to write in your personal way) Or…Do you have to write just like that strangeness because you cannot in another way?
I’m curious about this point,; if you want to answer me, I’d be happy. If you don’t, I understand your decision too. I hope not to have disturb you with this (sub)comment. Thanks in advance.
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Lathechuck # 297:
I’ll answer you according my own limited and personal experience. I want to tell you when the pandemics started in 2020 my nephew was 10 years old. He liked yet online videogames and my family and me suspected he was hyperactive, but he was quite normal in appearance. After the lockdowns he felt more and more in his addiction to videogames, and he’s some problem at school, since now. It’s a pity… My opinion about children/youth isn’t transposable to general terms, but I think my personal example is worth valuable…
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Seeking the pure land # 312:
I agree Satanism is Christianism reversed, but let me write more about that topic…I think Satanists don’t believe in nothing but in their inflated Ego. This statement could explain the silliest things they tend to do. Indeed, I think Satanism as a whole (OK there may be a few exceptions) is Atheism disguised as “alternative” religion.
I worry about Pittsburgh PA, they are struggling with funding for their public transportation which the PA government is refusing to fund. This is also true for Septa in philly as well. I can’t drive, i have never had a license.
Periwinkle Vitriolic Catfish,
Oh, I don’t think Christians are above reproach in their messaging, but my suggestion was purely pragmatic; I don’t think Christians are in much danger of mob violence right now, but I think neopagans are. It would therefore behoove the neopagans to improve their PR game a little bit and stop baiting Christians (which I think is where much of this derives from, consciously or unconsciously), IMO. It’s not everything, but yeah, I think it would (at least for now) be harder to stir up a congregation against an event whose posters featured a cute cottage core witch in a soft watercolor flower and herb garden than somebody calling themselves Daughter of Baphomet with creepy goat eyes and a bloody athame photoshopped onto their photo or whatever.
Wait, all these years you’ve hated peanut butter?! And to think—I trusted you!! I don’t know if we can be internet friends anymore…..😉😝😁
(In truth, I do sometimes eat it straight from the jar. And yes, I mean my own personal jar, not a shared one!! Sorrry….TMI??)
@Angelica
“…Here’s to retaining decency. If that’s all I do during this insanity, it feels like a win because it means I have maintained respect for others.”
Thank you Angelica. I was vulnerable to these things for reasons, and fully understand these days how people stumble into cults of all kinds.
I also maintain a respectful attitude towards others, and towards myself too these days.
Fortunately I do get along with many people, it is just very sad that those who would in principle have very interesting sides to them tend to be so insane beyond the mark these days.
A lot of idiots have been playing with black magic lately which is a predictable event given cultural trends.
Still its a little unsettling to see a well known political and occult YouTuber like Styx Hexenhammer publicly claim claim to have destroyed an enemy with Chaos Satanism. A D.A. none the less who committed suicide
Not smart. Its like parts of the occult community forgot the “know” better than to do that and if you are that stupid the “be silent” part as well.
However I’m more worried about an anti religion shedding vaccine be developed.
This is something Rudolph Steiner spoke about and life scientists are on the cusp of figuring out how to do with some ease A lot of them are not people with good sense or moral natures and it only takes a few to mess up the world, c.f Covid 19
Now its a low probability event but experiments in such things would not be precise enough to target say a religious memeplex in the brain say just Abrahamism and would kill or harm most people without discrimination
This would tie to some of the rather more questionable fast human population decline predictions of remote viewers which is the only reason I give it any credence at all.
I suspect we’ll get through it but with the reaction to the murder Charlie Kirk who was basically a bloviator , even from people on the edge of our community but with Christian ideals was pretty intense we’ll Charlie Kirk is a martyr now and Abrahamics love that stuff
My rumor mill says that basically both sides are arming up, gunning up and training . Let us hope our perpetually short term memories bury this nonsense before it gets too far out of hand and any other people especially innocents get hurt.
@sammy
Some of what you said spoke to me greatly, and JMGs advice that you’re half way is something I’ve made a note of in my own life.
Honestly one of the main things that gives me purpose is preparing my psychology for the long collapse, in the hope that in embodying that perspective enough I will provide my future family with a safety net of “at least Dad has thought about this and come to terms with it”, seems as though Earth needs a lot more souls in the west able to navigate this decline without exploding into rages and lashing out at others, but holding a ground of sorts. That’s what it feels like is my thread of purpose right now as a disillusioned 30 something looking to the future, as such I’m hoping to use my skills to make short films all placed in a more realistic future setting, thinking of starting a production company called Ride The Decline… I also don’t feel mentally ill, but this feeling of in-between certainly feels odd at times…
@Vitranc, rashakor,
Thanks to both of you! As I said above, I find it quite fascinating that it seems no deity has taken on fermentation wholesale, only ever chunks and bits (or sips 😉 ) of it…
@ Robert Mathiesen #258,
If I may ask, would you share what specifically it is about a potential US invasion of Venezuela which makes you more pessimistic than other things which might happen?
Thanks,
Milkyway
Last week I posted about the shamanic aspects of Christian spirituality andits equivalents of the totemic spirit animal relationship gained in a vision quest and also being “ridden” by a deity like in Voodoo. https://realitysandwich.com/voodoo_you_do/ A number of years ago a split happened in the American Episcopal church. The conservative traditional types left and formed the Anglican Church of North America. Back in the 60’s and 70’s there was a strong charismatic/pentecostal movement in the Episcopal church and those types mostly left with the conservatives often in a leadership role. A challenge they face is integrating that Pentecostal aspect into the sacramental, liturgical structure of that church. I visited a local church of ACNA a few months back and had an interesting conversation with the bishop of the diocese. First they were developing a remote monastic religious retreat center up in the Sierra Nevadas named after the island of Iona, a famed ancient Scottish monastic site. He shared that when blessing and praying over newly received church members he often prays in tongues. With joy and amusement he shared about a time when he and another bishop simultaneously prayed in identical tongues at length during a confirmation service. He also expected personal, direct guidance and fellowship with the Lord. The denomination is also classically evangelical and biblical and also do charity, social work in the community. Seems like they aim to fire on all the varied cylinders of Christianity.
@nell
I suppose it would be one thing if it was just Microsoft wanting you to pay up to use the same product again. Except that the product they want you to pay for is 1.) worse quality and 2.) constantly spying on you, the point where it’s frankly abusive. Unless you like playing video games or if there’s some specialized tool you use that runs only on Windows, it has probably been more possible to get by without Microsoft than ever before.
You have three choices, none of which are all that great. But they are what they are. You can choose to stay with the abusive relationship of Microsoft. And it will only get more abusive from here. You can choose to become an Apple cultist. Or you can take your chances on the mean streets of Linux.
I think Apple at this point is just as abusive as Microsoft, just in different ways. And be prepared to pay extra for the same hardware, while believing that it is somehow superior because of that fruity logo on the case. Apple loves to make you pay and pay and pay.
With Linux, you’ll face a cacophony of voices all urging you to install this flavor over that flavor. Linux in general will run on your computer just fine. Even 20 year old 32bit systems will run Linux just fine. Ubuntu (and all its downstream variants) is one of the more popular but it too likes to phone home just a little too much for my tastes. I guess the difference is if you don’t like it, you can always get your money back. But not your time. That’s gone for good. Redhat is meant for professionals, leave it alone. Then again, you could say that about Linux in general. There are no good choices left. I’m starting to sound like Churchill. Blood and toil. You might could do better than Debian but you could do a lot worse too. That’s what I’d recommend – plain old Debian. Nobody ever recommends Slackware these days. I suppose those AI systems might be able to help you fix or configure your Linux box. Then again, they might make things worse too.
>I have no respect for Satanists
I can’t take them seriously. Someone here pointed out they required masks during the C*V*D craziness.
@ viduraawakened # 279
I do not see PINN as a form of divination at all. I see it as a kind of calculator. It reminds me of the numerical methods they use to find square roots in calculators, and I really just see them as a buffed up Runge-Kutta method, to be honest. Don’t get me wrong – it is an ingenious invention – but not really divination by any standard.
My understanding of divination is this – the object of divination is to listen to the Universe, and to the Intelligence in it. Data science counts, technically, since a statistician trying to understand the intent of the universe by applying mathematics is nonetheless attempting to use methods to listen to the Universe and feel the direction of its movement. PINN is just one more of the tools we use to make up for the limitations of analytical calculus.
JMG, I’ve had a lot of success working with archangels, and in one case Kali, but not with Jesus or Mary or any other Christian deity. I was raised Catholic but never believed it even as a small child, and I was surprised when the angel invocations worked so well for me.
What’s the best way of going about figuring out which deities to work with? Is it better to stick to a pantheon? To Gods you already have a natural affinity for because what you like doing already aligns with what they look for? Your comment about the angels and Thor has me thinking along these lines.
I came across the HIRE act recently. As an Indian looking at the outsourcing situation in the US, I do sympathize with the people living and working there (in spite of the obvious competition we have over jobs). But I do not see how the HIRE act can help.
I did some calculations. Adding another 25% tax slab will increase the tax expenses by not more than 6.5% of the gross revenue of a company. But a US-based tech company saves anywhere between 30% to 70% of its operating expenses by outsourcing its work to India. The simple result is that removing outsourcing will cost them more money than the HIRE tax.
Also, the tax has a chance of backfiring. After all, companies like Google will need to make up for the extra expense of the HIRE tax. The simplest way to do this is to outsource more of its workforce, since the HIRE act taxes a company by a fixed amount regardless of the extent of its dependency on foreign contributions.
As a matter of fact, I keep seeing recruitment ads from Google on my LinkedIn feeds. They are specifically directed at Indians, and they are hiring IT operations and digital sales professionals. These ads are new – I never saw them before the HIRE act was over the horizon.
Nell-
I have a laptop running Windows -7 Pro. Only a few months ago, it stopped accepting security updates. It currently tells me that updates are available, but then takes ten minutes or so to realize that it can’t install them. I believe that if I keep it out of the darker corners of the Internet, we’ll be safe enough as is.
Hey JMG
Really? I’ve heard of that book, but was completely unaware that the author was one of the commentariat. I’ll have to look into it now.
Oh, speaking of unexpected connections, I’ve been rereading “Alex’s adventures in numberland” by Alex Bellos. It’s a great book about a mathematically-inclined journalist investigating maths. Among many other interesting things, there is an interview he has with a professional numerologist called Jerome Carter who apparently was the one who convinced Sean Combs to change his name from Puff daddy to P. Diddy in order to somehow increase his chances of avoiding prison.
Due to various comments about fascism, the left, the right, witch hunts, etc.
I would like to share my life experience.
For almost my entire youth, I was on the left; in fact, I was part of Marxist-Leninist organizations.
When the left began to become woke, it turned out that workers’ rights were no longer being fought for, and it turns out that I, as a heterosexual white man, was the personification of evil.
This is not an exaggeration; in Spain, feminist laws have taken away men’s right to the presumption of innocence, and the same crime is punished more harshly if you are a man.
In fact, recently, certain official surveys that appeared in a local newspaper showed that four out of ten young boys are afraid of being falsely accused of gender-based violence or sexual assault.
This and many other things caused me to abandon the left, and out of spite, I almost became someone on the far right.
Until I asked myself, why should I choose to be right-wing or left-wing?
I had already been a left-wing fascist; becoming a right-wing fascist wouldn’t be much different.
Nowadays, I don’t vote anymore, and maybe I’m a dreamer, but I think the world would be better if people didn’t have to pigeonhole themselves into political parties and ideologies that only seek to pit us against each other in their quest for power.
In the past, this was quite normal where I live.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concejo_abierto
“Modern man does not understand how much his ‘rationalism’ (which has destroyed his capacity to respond to numinous symbols and ideas) has put him at the mercy of the psychic ‘underworld.’ He has freed himself from ‘superstition’ (or so he believes), but in the process he has lost his spiritual values to a positively dangerous degree. His moral and spiritual tradition has disintegrated, and he is now paying the price for this break-up in worldwide disorientation and dissociation.”-
C.G. Jung, Man and His Symbols
Dear fellow ecosophians,
I am pleased to announce that my translation of the Encyclopedia of Occultism by G. O. Mebes will be released on September 30th, that is, next Tuesday.
JMG, our gracious host, has kindly provided the following endorsement for the book:
“The most important of the many works to come out of the early 20th century Russian renaissance of occultism, G.O. Mebes’ Encyclopedia of Occultism has remained tantalizingly out of reach of English-speaking occultists for a century, accessible only at second hand through its influence on other works. This clear and lively translation is a major contribution that will be invaluable to Hermeticists, Martinists, and students of the Tarot.”
If you’re interested, here’s a link to pre-order the book:
https://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Occultism-Hermetic-Initiation-Through/dp/1801521913
I should mention that this book complements my translation of The Solar Way by Nina Rudnikova, as both works explore the same topics from different perspectives.
You can order The Solar Way here:
https://www.amazon.com/Solar-Way-Guide-Hermeticism-Arcana/dp/1801521689
With best regards,
Yury a.k.a. Ecosophian
Seeking, I also don’t drive, and I’ve been careful to always live in walkable communities for that reason. Now that I’m considering relocation again, that’s become a point requiring careful watching, since public transit is faltering — and that’ll get worse as we move further into the Long Descent.
Blue Sun, since I was a very small child I’ve considered peanut butter to be Satan’s own snot. You can do what you want with peanut butter, though — since there’s no risk that I’ll ever have to kiss you, it’s entirely your business! 😉
Simon, Steiner’s visions were sometimes very keen and sometimes more than a little off target. I’ve read people suggesting that the Covid vaccine was what he had in mind, as it seems to have some very odd effects on consciousness in some people. As for “Styx Hexenhammer,” I wonder if he has the brains to realize that the second part of his pseudonym is a German translation of Malleus Maleficarum, the title of the most notorious handbook for inquisitors hunting witches. It would be a fine bit of historical irony if he ended up being targeted and killed by witch hunters…
BeardTree, I’m very glad to hear this. It’s exactly such experiential, immersive modes of religious life that have the best chance of becoming something other than a museum of fading cultural habits — the usual consequence of the Second Religiosity.
Dennis, the only way I’ve ever found is to try it and see.
Rajarshi, for reasons of domestic politics, the Trump administration has to do something — and if it doesn’t work well enough, it’ll have to do more. Providing adequate jobs to Americans is an existential issue these days.
J.L.Mc12, hmm, I’ll see if the local library system has it.
Achilles, the consejos abiertos sound a lot like old-fashioned New England town meetings, which still run some towns in the rural parts of the New England states.
Anon^2, exactly.
Ecosophian, huzzah! That’s really a lost classic of Western occultism; thank you for getting it back in print.
@Michael in Taiwan, I can’t speak for the Higher Self or the Individuality – I don’t know. What we know about the brain activity is that anesthesia simply shuts down consciousness – thus it’s not sleeping, it’s not dreaming, it’s simply phased out, suspended, deactivated.
What I personally think it’s this: we temporarily shut down the connection between the Personality and the brain, thus the patient doesn’t feel anything, doesn’t think anything, doesn’t dream anything, doesn’t remember anything.
@JMG
Re: Second Religiousity
You’ve written before that gods seemingly mature, age, and die on long timescales, and have even suggested that some of the gods people interact with today are different entities than the ancient ones bearing their names. So Second Religiousities might be ossified and focused around maintaining social cohesion because the gods of the High Culture’s Spring phase passed on, and the newer gods are best sought out in nontraditional ways.
JMG – Well, there’s more than one way to butter a peanut, and the stuff I spread now is much better than what my parents gave me 50 years ago. For the last few years, I’ve been operating the “grind your own” station at a local organic market. I can see the peanuts being funneled down into the grinder, and the result extruded into my jar. No sweeteners, no salt, no partially-hydrogenated cottonseed oil; just pre-chewed peanuts. Of course, if you don’t like dry-roasted peanuts, then that might not be an attractive prospect, but it’s still an economical source of protein and fat. (I add crunch with roasted sunflower seeds in my peanut butter sandwich, and often some salt (just to avoid deficiency).)
Styx, actually Tarl Warrick translated or modernized a huge number of public domain occult books , does videos and makes a living doing it apparently.
He was a former metro satanist , you know the type 100% he knows what he is doing with that name , I seem to recall a video on it but apparently still caught in the “look at me I’m evil” phase some of them go though. Foolish at any point but unbecoming past 25 or so as well and he’s way older that that.
I am also thinking he knows he has enemies since he was showing off his new AR15 in a video a bit ago. Foolish though to be fair maybe the fool here is me since I still indulge in his videos from time to time when bored,
As for the COVID vax, some friends of mine who aren’t entirely in the were afraid even the nasal swab tests were designed to shut off the pineal gland. They don’t but its good sometimes, probably more often that not these days not to trust authority when money is on the line
I’d say why you don’t trust them matters far less than the fact that you don’t and shouldn’t . Even daft reasons that are out there are better than blind trust.
@319 Chuaquin
Absolutely, I think 90 percent of Satanists are really just edgy atheists, or gothic atheists. I just think its rather silly to basically practice a religion that is so closely tied to the one that you rejected, you know? Even if they don’t believe in the actual devil, why would they want anything to do with the religion that they so adamantly reject even in an edgy way? So very silly, i imagine a lot of them are even more likely to end up going back to Christianity.
Milkyway,
Regarding fermentation in alchemy, in many of the readings I have done, it is frequently assigned to Capricorn (and Saturn) as fermentation represents transformation. The alcohol that is produced during fermentation corresponds to Mercury.
(But in Splendor Solis, it is pictured with Venus.)
(And I’ve not been able to find a god (or goddess) of fermentation, but I did find some references to Dugnai (of Dugnay), sometimes referred to as the goddess of yeast (usually in reference to making bread rise), and that led to Hathor (also associated with yeast) and Nidaba and Ninkasi (also associated with yeast, but mostly referencing beer). I have not worked with any of these deities, though, so don’t have any insights to share.)
nellperkins,
My computer was also “too old” for stand-alone Windows 11. However, it is possible to download Windows Server OS and it is not nearly as picky about what it will install on. (And if you have a currently licensed version of Windows on your computer when you install it, it recognizes that and becomes a licensed version of Windows Server OS.) It wasn’t as simple as a normal Windows Update, but there are many kind people who have posted instructions and tutorials on the Internet. I got my computer done in an evening (not a fun happy evening, but the time and energy were definitely worth saving the money from not having to buy a new computer). I have been using my computer for a few months now and no issues.
adara9,
You had asked about how to get an avatar. I set up a Substack account with an avatar and stay logged in. I think that might be where it is getting the avatar from, but I am not certain.
At this point in the comments, I’ve seen plenty of mentions of evangelicals, etc. but no mention of the term “dispensationalism.” There, in my opinion, is the heart (if not the belly) of the beast. I suspect some of my own Pennsylvania Dutch cousins were dispensationalists because of their fondness for the “left behind” series, which was popular a few decades back. Was Charlie K a dispensationalist? From what I read, he was recently beginning to distance himself from it. I find the wikipedia page on this topic to be useful.
Hi John Michael,
Just dropping by to say hello, and that I’m quietly reading along. Hope you are doing well?
Headed into to the city on Wednesday night to go and see a favourite UK band play (the coincidentally named) “The Wombats”. The performers put on a great sold-out show. A really fun night. It was hard not to notice that the band supplied an enormous quantity of energy to the crowd, which the crowd lapped up, and then sent back to the performers. What was interesting from an energy perspective was that the energy was then returned back to the crowd. Clever stuff, and perhaps that’s why they’ve had a long and distinguished run in a very tough industry.
Thought you might be interested to hear about the experience.
Cheers
Chris
@343 Seeking
As an atheist, I had regarded The Satanic Temple as an edgier Flying Spaghetti Monsterism. But the Pastafarians only mocked religion before getting bored and moving onto other things. As far as I know, TST is more dysfunctional and probably sinister. They were promoting abortion celebration rituals at one point.
JMG, if you lived in the UK right now and heard this announcement that digital ID will be required to work, would you move out of the country?
Since I’ve been following your blogs, you’ve discussed Lovecraftian horrors, black magic, demons, civil war, pestilence, Republican politicians, Democrat politicians, the collapse of our nation, and the end of industrial civilization. All without objection from me. But if you and this commentariat are going to insist on mentioning the vile sticky brown abomination called p_____ b_____, I’m afraid I’ll be too triggered to stay around.
If one thinks about what happens to items like lentils put into a funnel, or soldiers running into a funnel-shaped defile, things tend to jam into one another more and more the smaller the funnel grows. I suspect that, culturally at least, we are hurtling into a funnel of decreasing resources of all kinds, demands based on yesterday and not tomorrow, and a great deal else. So things are jamming up, locking up, and heating up–all thanks to the funnel effect. Increasingly so.
We’re not running off a cliff like lemmings are said to do (but zoologists assure me they don’t). Or buffalo were made to do by Native hunting parties. Those critters had it relatively easy: launched into space to expect a sudden end. Instead, we’re being ground up, as it were. The images are not pretty, or fun, if you regard the geometry of the thing with your feelings instead of as an abstraction. Hence the apparently ever-increasing sense of panic becoming evident nearly everywhere. It’s based on a real perception, if in reality a late-blooming one.
Perhaps this image is a tad too bleak for anyone to digest (even me). But as a sun-sign Capricorn, I start out with the worst-case scenario and move back up to review levels of options and optimism from there. What it boils down to is that our choices become more and more local and particular as things proceed. To summarize, as my French teacher used to say when her class grew unruly: “faites attention!” or simply “attention!” when she’d had enough.
@Nellperkins re: Windows etc.
I am a complete computer rube. Not interested in tech, being on the computer doesn’t excite me, and my understanding of how all of it works is pretty poor.
I do however have a young teen son who leaps at the opportunity to do things for me, such as conducting couples therapy between the computer and the printer, to get them talking to each other again. So I’m not totally without tech help.
We did, just this month, reach the point where 1) we had to replace my desktop, and 2) Because of the new windows update (and the general drift of everything toward “you don’t own it, you only rent it” models, it was past time to switch to Linux. Been thinking about it a long time, but I’m *lazy*. I’m happy to report that Linux Mint (out of the three versions we found, we opted for the “light” one) is fairly easy for a previous non-geek windows user. I successfully installed it myself, on the new machine, using just a USB flash drive and a set of internet instructions which I had carefully penciled into a notebook. Took me about three tries, but I got it. It has been, hands-down, the easiest, least frustrating new machine setup I’ve ever done. Usually I spend at least three days swearing while shoveling out the heaps of bloatware that comes pre-installed on new computers. Since I didn’t need to salvage anything (it being new), that meant I could just wipe everything and start over with Mint. Which didn’t come with any bloatware. Yay.
I’ve been gradually solving the small learning-curve things that inevitably come up, like having to find and install new drivers for printer, scanner, etc. and re-acquire freeware programs that I like having, like Gimp and DOSbox. But I’d have to do that with any OS, and it’s been fairly painless. In the meantime, haven’t had any trouble accessing the internet, figuring out how to make folders and save files, and that’s 99% of what I do with the machine anyway. So, from a non-tech person: There’s a little bit of a learning curve, but nothing major and I recommend it. Any small inconveniences are vastly outweighed by the total absence of heaps of junk I didn’t want or ask for. Wish I’d done it sooner.
Thank you everyone who had suggestions. Now I have websites and lists and homework to do!
On a wholly other topic — since praying over it today, I’m decided to ask all Christian Ecosophians in the Anglican tradition to please pray The Great Litany over the next several weeks. I felt a great leading to do this in the early days of lockdown and am feeling it again, this time with a strong urge to ask others to join me. (The Great Litany is for dire times of trouble and may be found in the Book of Common Prayer.)
Thank you all. You’re the best!
As a Buddhist, I think that gods are not immortal (extremely long lifespans sure, but not immortal). I’m of the opinion that the the gods that the old norse, egyptian, greek, etc have long since died and while there are new devas (gods) that might answer to those names, they are not the original. Do you think that could be why the neopagan movement has declined so quickly?
Hi JMG and friends,
1. Jean (102), I do genuinely pity the parents. There is a screenshot floating around of a 2013 Facebook post made by the shooter’s mother, where she shares a picture of the child/tween Robinson using the computer she bought him for Christmas, along with a caption along the lines of “he’s going to ignore us in the real world now that he has his computer toy!” She was just a mother poking fun at her son but there was a far darker truth to her statement. I feel bad for all the mothers and fathers who bought their kids stuff like smartphones, laptops, tablets, PCs for their rooms, etc. They only wanted to make us happy, but in the process they introduced us to the Internet and all the rabbit holes it contained. Some of us fell into these holes and in those depths were transformed into monsters.
2. In reading this thread I see a lot of people talk about the reemergence of religious or magical thinking, and there’s a tendency to assign this trend to some sort of cycle of religious awakening. And perhaps there is some truth there. But my theory is that this is a reflection of our world, which has grown too complex for rational/scientific thought to handle. Let me explain what I mean.
A person alive in 1900 would have been able to know how their world worked through scientific study. If they studied chemistry, physics, etc., they would be able to understand exactly how telegrams, telephones, etc. worked. The systems that these people interacted on a daily basis were understandable to them.
But the world of computing and the Internet is not. We simply cannot comprehend a single computer’s complexity, much less that of the Internet or the applications that run on it. Instead of studying these things scientifically, we end up resorting to literary allusions and analogies (the way we talk about the mighty algorithm is the way we would have talked about natural spirits or demons centuries ago!). In this sort of atmosphere we end up becoming comfortable with magical thinking and abandoning scientific thought, making us more susceptible/open to religious thought once more. We tamed the gods with equations and machinery, and now they have broken the chains.
Hestia was the Greek goddess of the hearth. I believe she presided over hearth and home. Throughout most of history, fermentation was done at home, part of a housewife’s skill set. Polytheists might maybe want to invoke the gentle and gracious Hestia to bless their ales.
@Milkyway (#326) replied to my comment #258 by asking “what specifically it is about a potential US invasion of Venezuela which makes you more pessimistic than other things which might happen.”
I had not planned to go into details here, and had hoped not to be asked to. But you did ask, so here goes …
Warning: If you are prone to depression or despair, you might better leave the rest of my comment unread.
Such an invasion of Venezuela by us wouldn’t have been so dangerous a half-year ago. But within the last week or two Venezuela and Russia have formalized a “strategic military” partnership with commitments for mutual military aid. And just a few days later China has expressed strong support for Venezuela in the event of a conflict with the USA. That’s the main part of the reasons for my pessimism.
Moreover, I’m inclined to trust experienced intelligence and military commenters like Larry C. Johnson (sonar21.com) and Andrei Martyanov (smoothiex12.blogspot.com), who present all sorts of well-informed technical reasons why the USA would likely lose in any open war with Russia. Fifteen or twenty years ago we might have won such a war, but now … And if we do end up having to fight both China and Russia together in such a war, then it seems even more likely we would decisively lose.
This would not necessarily result in a long-term occupation of our North-American land, just in the swift and complete destruction of all our major weapons stockpiles and also of all our established structures of national government. That much accomplished, the victors could then withdraw and leave us to our own devices amidst the wreckage of our disarmed and disorganized country.
Finally, the extraordinary in-person meeting Hegseth has called of all the US flag officers from all our armed forces next Tuesday seems to me like massive overkill if all he has in mind is reorganizing and/or purging the command structure (as many have speculated online), but quite appropriate if he wants to communicate with maximum possible secrecy the main details of a comprehensive military plan to win an imminent world war. (No doubt such a plan was made long, long ago, and has been continually revised as circumstances change.) This sort of thing has to be done only if such a war is imminent.
I devoutly hope the coming weeks will prove me wrong, and that this is just my chronic pessimism overriding a truer, more hopeful assessment of the present situation. But time alone will tell, as it always does.
Chuaquin said:
September 26, 2025 at 2:26 pm
Erika Lopez: I’ve been (trying) to read your posts in JMG blog since a long time ago, so well I’m quite puzzled with your writing type comments. I’m not a native English speaker, so I find your comments very appealing to me, but in the other hand sometimes too strange for my understanding. If you don’t mind it, I’d like to make you a question: Do you like writing in this style?(I wonder if it’s your will to write in your personal way) Or…Do you have to write just like that strangeness because you cannot in another way?
I’m curious about this point,; if you want to answer me, I’d be happy. If you don’t, I understand your decision too. I hope not to have disturb you with this (sub)comment. Thanks in advance.
—
Dear Chuaquin,
both answers to the first questions are “yes,” there is no “or”: i like writing this way because it’s natural to me, but sometimes it’s hard for me to tap into it publicly because i get shy or embarassed, afraid to be evil, wrong, stupid or seem completely crazy. it unnerves me to see things so differently.
my stories and the way i talk myself out of funks and blues energize and excite me if i can get the rhythm right and proper.
but what i’d like to know is WHY you find my writing appealing even as it’s hard to understand??? that’s curious to me because i think i wouldn’t bother reading me, then. i would dismiss me until i found a rhythm or topic i could follow. when i’m most scared of what i’m saying, i tend to not re-read because i’ll kill it. just in this open post alone, i think i’ve deleted 3 or 4 long riffs. but if the idea’s still itching me i have to pray and hold my nose and jump in.
so please answer WHY it’s appealing if you don’t understand it??? i’m sincerely curious. this goes back to Augusto and me talking about trying to fit in. my writing words and thoughts are natural to me but i know i’ve frustrated some and even angered others over it. i was once called “cartoon brain” by an irritated lawyer in group therapy when i was 13. i wasn’t insulted. i laughed because it was a compliment.
i see in dramatic pictures but try and find descriptions to convey extremes as if i were cartooning.
BK,
you’re right about us not running off to our own conversations and that’s why i try and drag Scotlyn’s off-side comments back here. they’re just tooooo good and specific because she’s less general. she’s away this weekend so she’ll be surprised when she comes back and reads all about us talking about her. i love it.
Scotlyn, Augusto (Open Space), and i were talking off-side to not take over the comment section but it’s not fair because you’re right– we’re getting ideas here and riffing in private when this is free form bebop jazz we’ve got going here.
Augusto said he used “Open Space” because he was looking for a name but Augusto is perfect and a BEAUTIFUL name.
i try to write here knowing that if it’s long or boring, people can skip to the next comment, because you’re right about holding back being us holding out on you.
and Scotlyn, you are too good for some of us to keep you to ourselves.
(smile)
x
erika
be well stay free and see you next year at Adocentyn…
JMG, Milkyway, and RandomActsOfKarma,
“Regarding fermentation in alchemy, in many of the readings I have done, it is frequently assigned to Capricorn (and Saturn) as fermentation represents transformation. The alcohol that is produced during fermentation corresponds to Mercury.”
Thank you,RandomActsOfKarma! That! THAT!
The process and the product of the process may be two entirely different things! Nobody, upon seeing a healthy, beautiful baby, thinks about torturous labor pains, but there is a connection. If you want a baby, you’d better prepare yourself to endure. Alejandro Jodorowsky, in his book The Way of Tarot, advises a certain approach to life and says, “Don’t talk about the labor, just show them the baby”. We do it with fermented foods. When we bite into a thick bread crust, wolf bratwursts with sauerkraut, or down a shot of vodka, we are enjoying ourselves and are quite remote from the smelly, slow, and unruly process of fermentation, which is rotting after all (controlled as it is, but still…) And yes, of course, it is a transformation, a SLOW transformation. The process is stinky. The result may be heavenly good. It’s true about people, and it’s true about fermented foods… in my mind at least. There is some universal law behind it all. I recognize a Saturnine process when I see it. Where did I go wrong? Tell me, please!
Speaking of Satanism, years ago a friend and I were made fun of in public by group of teenage “Satanists” For most of them with one exception it was obviously a pose and not real. The exception was chilling, very thin with a skeletal death head’s face. I talked to him and his response was “He doesn’t like me speaking with you.” and turned away. I could tell he was truly in touch with something not good.. There are bad spirits out there.
I can’t stop thinking about food preparation and planetary gods, sooo… here are some thoughts:
Mercury – searing (quick)
Venus – mixing salads (beautiful, presentation is very important)
Mars – frying (obvious)
Jupiter – baking bread, cookies, cakes (volume increase)
Saturn – we discussed that a lot 😉
Moon – pickling (watery brine)
Sun – drying (obvious)
This whole discussion reminds me… I’m going to check on my Kombucha. I forgot about it for 2 weeks 😂
From Schwab of investment fame;
“If you’re considering trading futures, micro futures offer a way to trade them at a lower cost of entry. At a fraction of the size of standard futures, with micro futures you can hedge, speculate, and build your confidence using less capital. Keep in mind that all futures are leveraged products, so you can lose more than your initial investment.”
Oh joy micro futures so you can gamble even quicker. This was in the comments of an article about a reduction in margin requirements. Smaller margins mean more leverage so more potential profits (yeah!) and more potential losses, (my house, it’s gone!) Both events are symptoms of a blowoff top, AKA a balloon in search of a pin.
“FINRA is apparently going to remove the $25,000 requirement to be a “pattern day trader” and permit firms to use maintenance margin requirements instead.
There are two margin figures generally in the markets: Initial margin (how much you must put up to enter the trade) and maintenance margin (how much you must have to keep it open.)
The maintenance margin number is typically smaller — usually a lot smaller.”
That is all a game I don’t play in.
As to the Windows 10 shutdown, Ubuntu, Mint and even the new version of Debian are 64 bit only now. That means you need an Intel Core 2 Duo or newer, basically anything made after about 2007. I have the current version of Linux Mint on a 2009 Mac Mini and I won’t say it runs, but it walks briskly. The Mini was upgraded with an SSD which helps.
I also have Mint on a 2010 Mac Pro and that does just fine. The only problem on that machine is the lack of AVX instructions. Those appeared in 2014, so anything in the last 10 years will work fine. Linux Mint Cinnamon edition looks a lot like Windows 7, it should be a short adaptation experience. I switched in 2019 without that much trouble and the installers have gotten better since.
Ubuntu is somewhat different. I won’t get into the desktop environment debates. There is also one called KDE Plasma that has its own cult.
Most Linux distributions have a Live version. You can fairly easily download a file to an USB stick and boot your PC from it just to see how it looks and works. It will be slow since it is loading from a USB stick, but it will work.
Older Nvidia graphics cards can be troublesome, AMD cards are more reliable in Linux. Intel built-in video also works well.
This is a great way to reuse older business PCs., This one is $180 on Amazon. The AVX instructions (used for fancy video including web playback) showed up in the fourth generation CPUs also known as Haswell. They were standard in the 2014 Mac Mini which I also have, and yes it also runs Linux.
“HP ProDesk 600 G2 SFF Desktop PC Intel Core i5 6th Gen 3.20GHz 16GB RAM 1TB SSD WiFi BT HD Graphics 530 4K / 3-Monitor Support”
Apple is a hardware company at heart, their support for older machines is lackadaisical at best. Even though I do have an M1 Macbook Air it’s hard to recommend them unless you need to be both portable AND do high-resolution video. The M1 CPU really kicked over the anthill, nothing Intel or AMD had on the drawing board came close. Neither has still caught up though AMD has closed the gap but they still draw more more power (shorter battery life) than the current M4.
In case anyone is it interested, I want to share where I believe the phrase Trump Derangement Syndrome came from. Justin Raimondo, one of the founders of Antiwar.com coined the term back in 2016. Here’s his article about it:
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-raimondo-trump-derangement-syndrome-20161226-story.html
Justin passed away from cancer in 2019 after a 2 year struggle with it so he did not live to see how prescient his words were. From the article:
“If you ask a TDS victim what might help them feel better, they’ll use the word “normalize.” As in, we mustn’t “normalize” Trump. What they’re really saying is that normal means of dealing with him aren’t enough. Which raises the question: If he’s another Hitler, if he’s in league with Putin, then why is assassination out of the question? Poke a TDS victim and you’ll find they don’t think that “solution” is out of the question at all.
This is the final stage of the TDS epidemic: violence against a democratically elected leader. Unless a cure for TDS is found, this is where we are headed.”
Hey JMG
It’s a good book if you have a casual interest in mathematics. The interview he had with Jerome Carter is rather brief, occupying the second chapter of the book. The third chapter may be more interesting, as he investigated “Vedic Math”, and interviewed some Hindu religious figure who currently is a major proponent of it, the Shankaracharya Nischalananda Sarasvati.
Also, I don’t know if you knew this already, but Alex Bellos often posts mathematical problems on “The Guardian” for its readers to solve. His latest is below.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/sep/15/did-you-solve-it-the-simple-t-puzzle-that-fools-everyone-at-first
Patrick, that’s a plausible hypothesis.
Lathechuck, thank you, but ick. The smell still makes me queasy.
Simon, that’s sad. Maybe he’ll outgrow that before it destroys him.
Chris, thanks for the data point!
Blue Sun, I’d have left already, once people started being arrested for criticizing government policy.
Walt, unfortunately it’s impossible to banish some shapeless, loathsome horrors without using their names!
Clarke, that’s a useful metaphor.
Nellperkins, that’s a good solid prayer. I hope you get a lot of people using it.
Seeking, no, because those traditions that take the gods seriously seem to be doing okay. The problem is that most Neopagans don’t take the gods seriously.
Hobbyist, that’s an interesting suggestion. Hmm.
BeardTree, I’ve met the type. Of course you’re quite correct: evil spirits are real.
Siliconguy, oog. Once again, here we go.
Angelica, thanks for this.
JMG and Commentariat,
My question has to do with “Dofenism” as described by Dmitry Orlov in his 3 part essay published about 20 years ago entitled “Post-Soviet Lessons for a Post-American Century”. Here is part of his description:
“Most Americans have heard of Communism, and automatically believe that it is an apt description of the Soviet system, even though there was nothing particularly communal about a welfare state and a vast industrial empire run by an elitist central planning bureaucracy. But very few of them have ever heard of the real operative “ism” that dominated Soviet life: Dofenism, which can be loosely translated as “not giving a rat’s ass.” A lot of people, more and more during the “stagnation” period of the 1980’s, felt nothing but contempt for the system, did what little they had to do to get by (night watchman and furnace stoker were favorite jobs among the highly educated) and got all their pleasure from their friends, from their reading, or from nature.
This sort of disposition may seem like a cop-out, but when there is a collapse on the horizon, it works as psychological insurance: instead of going through the agonizing process of losing and rediscovering one’s identity in a post-collapse environment, one could simply sit back and watch events unfold.”
First, this sounds a bit like JMG’s advice to collapse now and avoid the rush. My question is, in our current system in the US, what is our equivalent of night watchman and furnace stoker? I’ve recently taken a job in a medical facility monitoring 4 patients at night who are undergoing rehab. There is a lot of downtime in the job and the pay is not bad ($20 per hour). Dmitry doesn’t say who these night watchmen and furnace stokers were working for, but I can imagine it was for the state apparatus. Likewise, this job is working for a large company owned by private equity. I’m aware of jobs I can do for private individuals, working a whole lot harder and probably for the same or less money. What’s the best way to practice Dofenism in one’s employment given current conditions in the US? What other types of employment besides what I mentioned would qualify as practicing Dofenism?
BOYSMOM, Thank you for explaining.
Peanut butter as devil’s snot.
I have been trying to gouge that thought out of my brain all afternoon so that I’ll be able to eat peanut butter again one day. Even the deep fried daydreams can’t cover it up.
JMG,
Thank you for being the voice of reason on the recent events and allowing discussions of them and the consequences to monopolize discussions.
From the “far right”/veteran perspective, this needs to be the militant left’s Stalingrad and “Not One Step Back” is the appropriate course of action. Kirk was the best sort of Christian, the kind any one of us would be happy to have as a neighbor. He was also making a good faith effort at averting what many of us have come to view as an inevitable national divorce. Combined with the killing of the Ukrainian girl on video a week earlier, it’s pretty clear that turning the other cheek is no longer an option. Yes, the militant left may get a manners lesson, the hard way, along with whatever legal jeopardy they and their funding sources might find themselves in. However, those of your readers who worry about being targeted need not worry unless they are part of the true believers or hired help. The right knows very well who it’s opponents are and it’s not the quiet gay couple down the street or any “odd persons” that might be floating around. A certain NY based Hungarian refugee and his minons might need to flee to another country soon. Some people aren’t smart enough not to shale where they eat. We’re fortunate that FJB no longer inhabits the basement, otherwise there would be no chance at justice and certainly no peace because of it.
Along those lines, JD Vance definitely appears to have grabbed the torch for 2028 and beyond. It’s hard to imagine any other politician showing such a human response to a tragedy. Like him or dislike him, he’s real.
Simon@ #324
The right has been gunned up for a decade plus and we certainly don’t have short term memories. It won’t be our side harming innocents, we’re more disciplined and better than that.
Thanks Erika! I do like my name, I do not use it because I was looking for a name however, I just use a handle online for a little privacy between the regular stuff and the magic craziness I comment about. No damage done though, I do not keep it tight.
Achilles # 335:
I agree. In general terms, Spain has become woke imitating the US crazyness until ridiculous levels…Well, I see you’ve done a long ideological journey. Personally I was too in politics some years ago, in socialdemocrat trend, but I finished sick and tired when the woke trend worsened, some 5-7 years ago. Saludos
Seeking the pure land # 343:
Yes, I agree. By luck for me, I haven’t met much Satanists in the real world, but I had when I was a teenager, a “rebel” phase, so I read some Satanic stuff and met virtually with self proclamed Satanists in internet. What a waste of time! I had luck because we got tired soon of that rubbish…
@nellperkins
On Windows 11: I am not 100% sure and I can ask somebody who knows, but from what I have heard, what Microsoft notifies you (computer too old and such) isn’t necessarily 100% true.
@David P.
@JMG
@Siliconguy
I also have that problem with Windows 11 and the only reason I use it at all is my online banking application will only work on Windows or Mac.
I do not know about problems with or without updates – I just don’t want a keylogger silently installed so somebody could capture my login data for email and such
@RandomActsOfKarma
Thank you for your advice on how to circumvent Windows 11 and yet use an edition still in support – I need Windows (for now) for my online banking application.
One thing I wonder is, apparently it is possible to install Windows on a Linux Virtual Machine, though I do not know about the details of licensing there.
I tried Linux Wine, supposed to emulate Windows applications on my other laptop that runs on Linux, but it did not work out.
Maybe my Linux Mint version is too old – I don’t know. does anyone know a viable way to emulate Windows on a Linux machine, for this one single use that I do have?
BeardTree
On these satanists you met, where do you meet such crowds actually…??
I have made my experiences with an Aleister Crowley fanboy who also knew about his knowledge on Anthony LaVey. Gave me a book of Thomas Karlssen to read.
While sometimes he was noble and altruistic, he admitted taking his then girlfriend to sexual magic orgies where her energy was sucked out, taking a lot of LSD.
He was very manipulative, always scheming how to make other people do what he wanted.
He was the son of a shady business man. He complained about snobs and rich people, until he became best friend with a Qi Gong pracitioner in Vienna, scholar of Zhi Chang Li, an arrogant rich PMC man who also likes to manipulate people, secretly holds many of his pupils in contempt and laughs when he tells people lies and they believe it.
After that he adapted the woke PMC attitude and poured buckets of hatred on social outcasts, working class people and anyone not rich and acclaimed in that Qi Gong environment.
The pupil of this Qi Gong master was my teacher. Always bulging with anger, pretending to be happy, putting his pupils down, giving “advice” that is OK for a monk but enourmously dangerous for ordinary people (St. Anthony’s phenomenon), told be hed “help” me in therapy sessions then screamed at me frantically for things where behind his back the “satanist” told me were his own problems, a classical jungian shadow.
This Qi Gong teacher mind you is a capable Qi Gong teacher, no question, and Zhi Chang Li in Munich appears o be legendary, but what I have heard from behind everyone’s back, the secrets the Satanist told me though he should not have, a lot of pupils of the Viennese scholar of Li, that arrogant, obese and very evil vibing old man, turn insane actually.
Is that a good sign?
My experiences with this were horrible, horrible, the Satanist liked to tell lies about others and manipulate, in the end targeting me, I made it easy for him as I was besides myself then.
I was in search of knowledge and a new future, and apparently flew to close to the sun like Ikarus.
The satanist first complained about rich and arrogant people until he made rich friends, when he started to brag in front of everyone about how wealthy and influential his friends were, and rub it into anyone’s face, and despise everyone not part of the noble “Qi Gong” upper class circles.
We knew to much from each other, too many secrets, so we separated ways in late2019, heard of each other last in spring 2020, never heard of him again since then. But it still chills my blood to think of this toxic and nauseating mix of lies, slander, wealth, PMC sentiment and ancient chinese Qi Gong tradition.
How some characters become abominations once they feel they wield power and become the favor of somebody who is praised by wealthy PMC circles.
How could things turn so ugly?
I’ll have to ask my self.
Often times these days I wish I had ever only exclusively taken spiritual advice and practices from this forum, from JMG and people like MilkyWay, and never ever unwittingly run into all these people I ran into.
With the exception of a somatics/impulse dancing/Qi Gong teacher, a marvellous personality, all these “spiritual” people were super awful and in my mind, frankly genuinely more ill willed and evil than any average person in society.
The sad thing is, with ALL of them I had a bad feeling in my belly right in the beginning when I first met them. Seriously, each of them. Man I’ll never ignore that ever again!
Those people I still love, I always had a good feeling to begin with!
@Phutatorius #346: I was raised fundamentalist, but I only know the word “dispensationalism” because my dad liked to geek out about theology. He felt that the alternative belief (again, from his point of view) of “covenentalism” tended to lead to anti-Semitism. We did indeed enjoy the Left Behind series, but that felt more about our particular End Times beliefs than the broad overarching dispensationalism. Although I’ll agree that many evangelicals / fundamentalists have dispensationalism as part of their worldview, I doubt most would know the term.
I’ve read the Wikipedia page you mentioned. I didn’t previously understand why you were so exercised by “dispensationalism”; is it because of the political influence of the related eschatology as mentioned on the Wikipedia page? I feel like if you want a word or phrase to demonize (“heart (if not the belly) of the beast”), choosing something other than the fairly broad & obscure theological term “dispensationalism” would work better. Maybe terms that focus on the part that really bothers you?
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@erika lopez #358: “what i’d like to know is WHY you find my writing appealing even as it’s hard to understand???” Obviously, I can’t answer for Chauquin, but for myself, I’m reminded of an earlier time I encountered a similar style of online writing. I could never really figure out what the person was trying to say so long as I read analytically. I had to learn or develop a whole new headspace for reading, in which I just let the words flow past me, and meaning sort of accreted out of the flow into my head. And this headspace has continued to be helpful, especially as I’ve been learning divination; it’s the exact same brain shape I need for opening up to & tapping in to my intuition. I’ve also learned to use it when reading poetry, especially newer forms. However, it’s a fairly costly headspace for me to hang out in, so I can’t stay there for very long posts. And I’ll admit, I worry a bit about meeting you next year. I hope we’ll enjoy each other’s company, even though I have various issues that you’ve railed against in previous posts.
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@Siliconguy #363: re micro futures, I’m glad my father’s not alive to make yet another terrible financial decision with regard to futures & margin.
Erika, your question was directed at someone else, but I’ll answer anyway 🙂
Reading your words is a bit like listening to jazz. Not the squeaky-clean polished stuff, but the kind that’s a bit dirty, a bit rough. The kind that has a real power, a real energy behind every note that’s played, because they put themselves into their playing
If you’re listening for clever chord progressions, virtuoso soloing or things like that, you’re missing the point. That’s just the outer shape of what at it’s core is a direct connection between the player and the listener.
Does it always make for beautiful music? Far from it, but it’s always real, always true.
–bk
Erika # 358:
Dear Erika,
First of all, I’m sorry I may be sending too many short comments instead of one unified comment, but I’ve been outdoors in the streets this morning (local time) without access to my computer. I hope you all don’t be bothered by this form of commenting here with my old crappy smartphone…
Second, thank you Erika for answering my questions. So you like to write in that form because it seems natural to you. I understand your view better. It’s in a certain mode a matter of personality, I see (if I’m right).
Well, reading your comments isn’t impossible for me, but sometimes it’s difficult, I can say. However, my reason to go on reading them is I find your style very original and personal in spite of being quite “mysterious” IMHO. Of course, this is a personal opinion of mine, which can or cannot be shared by the rest of the commentariat. In addition to this, I must tell you I’ve had some mental problems in the past, so my perception of real world is sometimes fuzzy. I hope to have answered well to your question, and not have bothered you. Don’t worry with my personal opinion if you don’t want to be more “focused” here.
JMG, are there karmic consequences for refusing medical treatment for an illness? One that has a chance of being healed of if treated, but death is almost certain if it isn’t.
@robert
So you can add Venezuela to the RIC (Russia Iran China) alliance. Yeah, that’s my sense of it – you attack one of them, the others will come running. We got a preview of that when Trump decided to attack Iran. Took them a while but they were starting to get up. Next time, it may not take them as long to get up and come running.
My sense of it is Murica could probably win against one of them alone – but the victory would be very hollow, maybe even Pyrrhic. But against all three of them at once? My guess it would go like Russia with WW2 or the North with the Civil War, initially they’d suffer defeats but at some point the numbers would come to bear down and they’d start winning and winning and winning.
Germany basically won every battle they fought against Russia – until they ran out of everything. Men, weapons, materiel – they just ran out of it all.
@ adara9 #292
I got my avatar via Gravatar. Submit your email and chosen image.
https://gravatar.com/
“You’ll see your avatar everywhere you use your email address on Gravatar-supported services.”
re: Devil Snot
Is it the paste texture that puts you off or the peanuts themselves? If peanut butter is the devil’s snot, what kind of snot is say, almond butter?
Is it peanut butter alone by itself? What about those Reese’s Devil Snotty Cups? What about Thai satay Devil Snot sauce? What exactly is north or south of the Devil-Snot Line?
Adara @376 wrote: “Although I’ll agree that many evangelicals / fundamentalists have dispensationalism as part of their worldview, I doubt most would know the term.”
Adara: that is why I brought it up. Along with that term I could mention Cyrus Scofield and the “Scofield Reference Bible.” I think my sympathies are nearer to the covenantalism flavor of Protestantism. I’ve long had a soft spot for the Christian Reformed Church, and Calvin College (university) and its graduates.
Hi John Michael,
Had an awful chicken incident this morning. Four older chickens ganged up on two newer and younger hens and began pecking their backs until they bled. Fortunately, it didn’t go on for long. This was the second incident in two months, so the four are recidivists, and now deceased. I’d had enough of the mischief. For the record, they receive a varied high protein diet, lots of kitchen scraps and fresh greens everyday, and the enclosure was not even close to being over stocked. This was behavioural.
I had to consider which group was going to be beneficial in the longer term, and that guided my choice. It’s an interesting metaphor, don’t you reckon? Anyway, the incident has over loaded my brain a bit, so I’ve been giving thanks today for the guidance through an awful moment and also for the two younger birds, and that act has been of assistance.
However, in future, I will never purchase chickens at this time of year again. Usually, we add to the flock in late summer / early autumn (whatever that means nowadays) when the chickens are off the lay and going through their annual moult. Plus new birds at that time of year are usually older and much larger than the two we purchased many weeks ago now. One of those incidents when you get things right the first time (for over a decade), and never even know it. Oh well.
Hope the train trip was enjoyable.
Chris
Hi, John and commentariat: now, again at home with my computer…
CRC # 367:
“But very few of them have ever heard of the real operative “ism” that dominated Soviet life: Dofenism, which can be loosely translated as “not giving a rat’s ass.” A lot of people, more and more during the “stagnation” period of the 1980’s, felt nothing but contempt for the system, did what little they had to do to get by (night watchman and furnace stoker were favorite jobs among the highly educated) and got all their pleasure from their friends, from their reading, or from nature.”
Oh, the good old times when D. Orlov wrote in public in the Anglosphere…Well, it’s theorically a good advice for everybody, not only in the US but in the rest of Western world too. But I see like you that in real life, how would you implement such an advice like Orlov’s? Answers aren’t very easy. However, I’d suggest you’ll to go work in informal economy (at least before our beloved leaders forbid cash in hand and implement some year only the digital money as legal money…), or applying for a job in small business better that Big Business. I can’t say more about this topic for now.
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BObinOk # 370:
“A certain NY based Hungarian refugee and his minons might need to flee to another country soon. ”
I’ve missed the sense of this phrase before, so I’ve reread again to answer it correctly. Are you speaking about Mr. Soros?(If I’m right).
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Adara9 # 376:
” I just let the words flow past me, and meaning sort of accreted out of the flow into my head. And this headspace has continued to be helpful, especially as I’ve been learning divination; it’s the exact same brain shape I need for opening up to & tapping in to my intuition. I’ve also learned to use it when reading poetry, especially newer forms.”
I’ve written an answer to Erika in a post before this one, hoping not to have harmed her with my opinion.
I understand, after reading your comment, you have a writing form according your personal idiosyncrasy; like Erika does too. Well, if it’s so useful to you, keep on using it. Thank you for your opinion.
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BK # 377:
“Reading your words is a bit like listening to jazz.”
I recognize this answer to Erika post describes better than my answer the feelings and thoughts about her writings. Thanks a lot…
@nellperkins (and others). You said this ” must update to Windows 11 or live life with no security updates”
This may not be popular, but so what? Most companies have upgraded, and hackers will spend most of their time “where the money is”.
for example, windows 7 (per google) has 4% of the market — but I do not think it is being actively targeted.
A big caveat of course is that if you have financial info on your PC you probably don’t want to take that risk.
That being said, moving to Linux (I will install “Nix” at some point) is probably the best option, as that will allow me (and us) to get the most out of our hardware.
Let us know how your upgrade goes!
I won’t upgrade until next year, as I have multiple systems in my house don’t do anything critical on the windows 10 box (I just read the net on it).
I’ll keep people updated on how that goes (i.e what happens to that box)
Jerry
@Curt/Commentariat
One should be in good health before practising any kind of internal training, and if you are in any doubt you should consult with your physician. I’m not advocating chi-gung exercises for anyone, and if anyone wishes to follow the hastily sketched out method above they do so at their own risk. There is no substitute for the direct instruction of a qualified master. In this regard you’ll have to search far and wide, starting with Taiwan. You can immediately dispense with anyone who’s a Westerner and anyone who’s under fifty. Hidden Tai-Chi masters are probably your best bet, as there are still several of them, however you’ll have to actually catch them training, otherwise they’re likely to deny everything.
@Curt,#374
It’s very possible to install a Windows VM on a Linux machine. Look into Oracle VirtualBox, found here.
https://www.virtualbox.org/
It’s great for having multiple flavors of windows on a windows or linux machine. I’ve used it professionally.
@348 Patrick
I think most atheists don’t take satanists that seriously, but see them as useful allies from what i’ve seen? But the abortion party thing, oh that’s a lot of bad karma right there. It doesn’t surprise me though, the Buddhist community i’m in has mentioned how nasty satanists can be.
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@373 Chuaquin
I’m glad I had the good sense to see right through them when I did. And i’m glad you got away from that too. Its nasty business. Even though satanic atheists don’t take it seriously, i’m reminded of this tumblr quote that I thought was apt, ‘if you knock on every door asking to see the devil, eventually he will answer’
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@JMG
My father interacted with real Satan believers in prison who were seriously disturbed individuals. While I don’t believe in the christian devil (obviously being Buddhist) there are some dark spirits out there. Its why even though I don’t think Ouija is evil or even dark magic, its still dangerous if you don’t take it seriously. When you call for spirits you have to take it seriously. Do you think atheists though are protected by their none belief or are more susceptible, since it seems like the true believers are the ones who end up in nasty places?
@RandomActsOfKarma #345: thanks for answering! Unfortunately, being logged in to Substack hasn’t helped. But it gave me a clue, and I see the images are from Gravatar. So, I’m trying that out. If this post shows an avatar, that was the trick.
I am in the process of constructing a weather oracle for my Grey School of Wizardry practicum. That being said, I will end up with a hand drawn oracle. I was thinking of looking for a publisher for it. What would be entailed?
Because I have a Traumatic Brain Injury, I am reluctant to try to get it published because of deadlines and the like. Is there wiggle room for people going very slowly in this? As for self-publishing, I haven’t the brain for doing that.
I suppose I can be content with my home made oracle and let it be.
>does anyone know a viable way to emulate Windows on a Linux machine, for this one single use that I do have?
Virtualbox but be prepared to have some config files to get it to let you use USB devices.
My experiences with “spiritual” people were, like Curt, similarly a mixed bag, and I think what it all boils down to is spirituality without ethics, without a belief in deities and without a belief in evil spirits is inherently going to lead people down a dark path.
The New Age belief system could be summarized as there is only the universe and your relationship to it, all is energy, people are good, and fear, the source of all evil emotions, is the only thing holding people back. What this leads to are dangerous spiritual practices that inevitably attract evil spirits, narcissism, lack of empathy, and an inability to distinguish right from wrong. I am speaking from direct experience, unfortunately.
I think a lot of the problems with Neopaganism stem from that type of spirituality, which is why it became demon infested. Without a belief in deities and with a false belief of man as the center of the universe, It’s inevitable.
@JMG
Yes, signs of decline for sure. And nascent warband culture, I suppose. Like I’ve said before, looks like the 30-year (40-year now?) vacation from reality is slowly coming to an end even here. While we’re a long ways off “the hour of the knife” yet, it’s clear the 20th century Social Democratic liberal state doesn’t really have a clue how to deal with our embryonic warbands in the longer term. This of course stokes the fires of populism in turn, with the hard right by Norwegian standards (and for this venue, ironically named) Progress Party doing very well in our recent general election on a “tough on immigrants and crime” platform, as well as appealing to young men frustrated with political correctness. Their actual record on these issues when they were in government in the 2010s isn’t that impressive, though, so we’ll see.
And thank you for the advice on the Satanist situation. Will keep that in mind.
@Seeking the Pure Land #354
That’s an intriguing theory, even if “mere” millennia seem short as lifespans for being as powerful as gods. Still, it does make a certain amount of sense with how Pagan gods don’t seem to demand the same kinds of practices and sacrifices they did in the Iron Age, or inversely, how they seem comfortable with a lot of modern habits and approaches that are clearly at odds with what we can reconstruct of historical worship. Of course that could also be the same individual gods having a much wider perspective than human cultures. It’s also a neat way to account for gods changing “domains” over time, like the modern association of Cernunnos with forests and nature and so on.
And of course the Heathen tradition explicitly provides a mechancism for a “changing of the guard” like this with Ragnarok, even if I know myths shouldn’t be taken too literally.
@BeardTree #361
Thanks for sharing your experience, and yes, what you’re talking about there with “bad spirits” is part of my concern too. When I was a materialist, it was easy to dismiss people like Satanists as harmless eccentrics and posers, but once you accept the idea that there’s a greater whole and that bad spirits really do exist, it takes on a different seriousness. In addition to the practical consequences JMG mentioned, I’d rather not hang around people who could be conduits for those kinds of influences into my life. At least that’s my intutition as a still fairly recent “recovering materialist”.
(And to everyone else, appreciate the thoughts and anecdotes about Satanism in general)
@Chuaquin #372
Have to say I’m disappointed to hear wokeness seems to be so strong in Spain. I always got the feeling it was more of an Anglo and maybe German thing. Hope the tide turns towards moderation there as well as time goes on.
I am loving how the seemingly random currents of this forum brought the discussion of fermentation and societal transformation together.
Fermentation processes are controlled/interrupted decay and the process itself is as much part of the final result as the end product. The timing of when to end the process can also result in vastly different results and value propositions (sugar into alcohol into vinegar into yeasts into compost into soil into renewal into rebirth) and completes a cycle with infinite feedback loops. The big difference with Saturnine alchemy (where the processes of decay are mostly linear from the POV of lowly humans; think nuclear decay into Iron or Lead) is that fermentations are ouroboros shaped at the scales we can observed.
The rabbit hole of the technosphere is where human minds go now to ferment into a vat of seemingly infinite information. The trick is to know when to interrupt the process to avoid decaying into ultimate Entropy (Chronos trap, Oblivion, etc… Nihilism in the human mind).
The god(s) of fermentation is definitely the spirit that not only presided over the end result but have lived through the process of transformation, decay, renewal. In the western myth, Dionysus (fruit of the sky and a mortal woman or ground godess) gestated in Zeus’ thigh, decays into Zagreus, decays into Mithras, decays into Jesus… whose body is the wine and the bread. Process interrupted for now…
Shall we proceed into Saturn’s oblivion or re-enter the cycle of renewal?
@JMG
Thank you for your reply. I guess I’ll try and break things down further the next time I post something technical.
@Rajarshi
Thank you for your reply. Your point makes sense to me – I agree that SciML is correctly described as an ingenious “calculator” (to use your terminology); that said, Neural ODEs (another big and also a newer part of SciML) are an interesting thing, in that they describe the dynamics baked into the training data. Now of course this is not the same as the statistically-oriented ML methods that data scientists use to “listen” to the Universe and try to get the patterns that describe the movements and intent of the Intelligence of the same; but by getting a highly non-intuitive set of coupled ODEs that follow dynamics governed by the neural network (which is continuous; another deviation from conventional neural networks, which have discrete layers numbered using natural numbers) trained by the data in question, I think it’s still possible to say that Neural ODEs are some sort of a “get the patterns in the data and describe them as ODEs to get an idea of what the Intelligence intends as regards the trends and behaviours of the Universe” tool.
But yes, ultimately, I think there’s a fair chance that even Neural ODEs will not qualify as “divination material”. All this, after all, is dealing with the material plane – what about the higher planes? I’m skeptical about whether differential equations can work with those planes; not least because of the philosophical viewpoint differential equations are rooted in.
Dumb question (probably related to the avatar questions above):
How do you keep the paragraph formatting into the text box? As I submit my comments the demons on the internet decay the formatting into a single paragraph…
erika lopez #358:
I’m obviously not Chuaquin but I thought I might add my own opinion here. I have to confess that when I first started reading the comments here, I just skipped over most of yours. I think they’ve grown on me, though. They have an immediately recognisable and by now familiar voice, even if I sometimes fail to understand what that voice is saying.
Your comments have a quality that I find hard to describe, especially as most words that come close seem to have a negative connotation, which is not what I want. These words would put the blame for my lack of understanding on you rather than me.
The best way I can put it, I suppose, is that I can see the light of clarity shining through the cracks of my non-understanding. The rythm, to use your metaphor, is there, even if I don’t hear every beat. Still, I can begin to appreciate it in the form that reaches me, knowing that it’s only part of the whole.
Curt #374:
The latest Mint version has an old version of wine. You can try using https://flathub.org/en/apps/com.usebottles.bottles for (I think) an updated version, independent of your distribution. Alternatively, if you choose to go the VM route, you don’t actually need to have a windows license. The VM might be able to pick up the license key from the motherboard, if your computer came with windows preinstalled, but if it doesn’t, you just won’t be able to change your desktop background.
If you want to see if the program will work in a VM, you try creating one on your windows install, that way you don’t need to commit to anything—if you’re using VirtualBox, you could even export the VM and import it on a Linux installation later.
—David P.
JMG et al,
So, how does one become one of these entrepreneurial elites that are replacing the old elites in the U.S.? Asking for a friend who is tired of being on the losing side.
Erika,
On the topic of your writing and self-presentation: When I first started reading your comments here, to be honest my first impression was that your writing probably reflected a similarly slapdash approach to life and that it was no wonder you seemed like an interpersonal drama magnet of the sort I generally try to avoid out of self-preservation. (Harsh, I know. I can be judgmental sometimes.) But I’ve come to really appreciate that I can see some of the free associations of your thought process in your writing; it’s almost like watching a transcription of a discursive meditation session, and sometimes it triggers my own mind to leap down a path of associations I wouldn’t have come up with on my own. There’s also a certain rhythm to it that I like. Similar to dancing or music–I am too uptight to enjoy dancing or singing in public, but I enjoy watching others do it, and watching them also helps me loosen up enough to silently bop along a little or sing under my breath. Also, I love my husband in the same incandescent way you love James, and seeing you talk about him has caused me to really start liking you. I might prefer a more prudent approach to life, love, and language, but hey–you can find gold by carefully chipping away at the rock or by blowing up the rock, so long as you know the gold when you find it!
I have come to realize that most Satanists don’t actually believe in Satan, magic, or evil, and are just trolling people who do. The “joke” is that the abortion ritual (or the thing I’ve seen a lot of public school teachers talking about, where they are putting up the Seven Satanic Tenets next to the Ten Commandments as a protest against the recent law in Texas mandating that schools display donated posters of the Commandments) is actually just innocuous progressivism, and therefore the people freaking out about it are stupid. Unfortunately for them, I think the message most people are getting is not “Satanism is actually just progressivism, therefore Satanism is fine,” but “Satanism is actually just progressivism, therefore progressivism is evil.”
WARNIING! many of you may want to bypass this because i’m going back into what i’d deleted, and am adding after hearing the wonderfully honest responses to my questions:
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i don’t know if Allie here is in fact Violet. it doesn’t matter. i assumed it was her because she used to secretly write me at my email under a couple of other names as if i was too shallow to see the similarities. same here. the reason i think “Trans” people are also in danger is because of the insistence to make believe. it enrages some folks. i’ve seen it here in san francisco starting when i got here 31 years ago. a straight man, the brother of a Lesbian Avenger friend of mine started ranting at a party, “that’s a dude! don’t mess with my head!” over and over. and when i was in jail last year, a trans woman (hooker on serious horse tranquilizers plus something else) was let into our cell, and the other women were seething with rage and didn’t want to “play along.” especially at that most inopportune time.
so it’s an issue. still. yes.
i used to be fooled because i was naive but i soon grew tired of playing along with tampon conversations that were fake, just to make the other feel like a woman. i wouldn’t notice until social cues were missed. us weird girls have our own awkward moments but trans women bring it to a whole other level.
i figured Allie was Violet because that was one of the names this person used when writing me. there may have been a few she copped to. but i’m not spooked by slippery identities: i’m hella BORED. because just ONE identity is hard enough to discover within oneself. any more and it’s just a cheap cocktail party full of small talk.
that is why i think Violet burned Sara, Queen G, and Papa G. she’d run out of road on who to be, how to impress. she’s used to being Other and likes the distance and “power” of blowing people’s minds. but it’s a trap i’ve also been in when I’d play the “helpless victim of abuse” when i was in high school and things had gotten really, really bad at home.
at first someone will want to help you because they see your potential and feel bad for you. but then you realize you’re using them and they’re using YOU, too. they’ve got nothing going on and you are like a new pet to foster. they’re not gonna fight through ANYTHING with you because they’re rescuing you to feel good. it’s a transactional analysis game with rescuer persecutor and victim. you learn to triangulate.
so it’s not just Violet or trans women, although i’ve yet to meet a trans man who has this same sense of entitlement. women raised as girls have to be more realistic regarding their physicality whether they want to admit biological differences or not.
i’ve been at odds with a lot of effeminate gay men and trans women lately, which is confusing to me. James said it’s obvious: “you’re taking their ROLE.”
ah, yes! so true, so true. but i’m still figuring out all these assigned “roles.” / i’m just being me. a self-entitled mixed girl with a lot of ghetto edge and a bougie appreciation of some nice things.
i think with LLMs and the online flattening of individuality and quirkiness and the ability to have slippery identities and avatars, that hairy sweaty bumpy authenticity is making a comeback. Just as people are in love with AI art movies writing and slop, i–along with Justine Bateman–see a renaissance coming like a burst through the last 30 year clog.
kids are buying Cure LPs. it’s great but it’s bizarre.
so Augusto, i am glad you’re okay with me using your name because as you were talking about how you chose “Open Space” without even really knowing what it MEANT, when your name AUGUSTO is gorgeous and has PERFECT meaning for use here, and when you try to hide behind a not-so-pretty clunky fake name, you cheat YOURSELF of a deeper connection. why hide?
just for polite conversation? because we’re re-making ourselves into LLM material and being general/generic. i find people with a half dozen aliases thinking they’re slick and hiding, i find them hella BORING. they always feel magical like they’re fooling you. but players get played. when you lie to others you are lying to YOURSELF.
because no one really CARES about a half dozen names and just like Lilly said that when we don’t get don’t answer her emails, her excitement for the conversation wanes. that’s how i feel with people trying to fool me. i get bored. i want nothing from them except themselves, which is the LAST thing they want to give me or even themselves.
that’s why i think Violet is caught up in her own miserable trap. she wows from jump but doesn’t know how to keep that up. it’s like Tammy Faye Baker having to sleep in makeup so her man doesn’t see who she really is.
it’s BORING. the facade the mirage thing is hella played out. it’s why Pamela Anderson is fresher without crap on her face. she was right. it’s TIME for human reality.
so the trans people who insist on playing games are the ones in danger. / there are trans people who are comfortable as they are and you can FEEL their humanity. it’s not theatre. at least projected at ME. and i appreciate that.
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so this to CHUAQUIN:
as i question the autist label here, i also question your “mental problems” because i also experience this “fuzziness” which i’ve come to understand as LIMINAL. being in between worlds or states. even as outsiders we come here to be “ourselves,” and we hide and are polite and call ourselves what They, the Normals, called us.
and here’s where SCOTLYN was challenging me: The Normals aren’t even Normal. their “permission structures” they cling to like amulets so that they don’t have to feel nervous ungrounded confused… FUZZY … LIMINAL. so Scotlyn’s saying “normal” is suspect. James would’ve told me same thing. they’re PRETENDING. so Chuaquin, WHO, PRAY TELL, CALLED YOU MENTALLY DEFICIENT AND SAID YOU WERE FUZZY???
that’s what Scotlyn was saying. just like politically the “Left” has some fantasy ideal of “common good” (determined by WHOM??? As James eventually taught me to ask like Annie Sullivan with Helen Keller), this country’s Founders were about individual happiness blah blah blah, but we’re a country and so “common good” became slavery and indian genocide and now we’re dealing with the realities of humans falling short of our ideals and having to smell the stench the funk of where and how we got it wrong.
as long as it’s a “thing” in society to be overly polite and vague so that everyone feels safe and unchallenged, we’re toast.
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my argument is that we don’t have to be toast. like fighting for a marriage, sometimes –no, always– you have to be REAL and TRUE and negotiate. NEGOTIATE. Charlie Kirk was amazing because he taught a whole lotta people how to argue and debate, which is the first step to Forever.
—
things here got more interesting when people like ADARA say the truth of their fears instead of just keeping things surface, because it’s the ONLY WAY Adocentyn and all the Adocentyns to be (and wherever we are) will thrive: kind honesty with COURAGE to say it and receive a non LLM response.
this is how i upend hustlers and players: they’re intense, have tons of charisma, but for cheap (back to skating surface and multiple personas so they can slip away). so to test its depth, i get personal below where their eyes are. if they laugh and roll with it, i’ve got an interesting one. if they get flustered and back off, i broke ’em and they’ll fear me and leave me alone. i use my spontaneous honest as either a fluffy purr or a weapon.
when people use a half dozen aliases on me in person or online, i’m irritated at them wasting my online TIME and i’m irritated. i’m irritated when i’m supposed to pretend it’s not OBVIOUS they’re the same person. Allie is one of the names Violet used on me, but there are also names trending among the androgynous. they love Alex as well as Allie and Felix. they use the cool names. (smile)
but i feel the same when Open Space wants to have a separate conversation as Augusto and expects me to pretend and save HIS anonymity… but how are we supposed to be REAL like that in the first place? This is where BK is calling BS on all this. we were fracturing the energy of Papa’s CYPHER here. we were taking it out of the circle and using different names. it’s a form of us having 6 different avatars and presenting only the one we want to here. that’s not even FAIR.
yes. i know this is what people–normal wanna fit in people— hate and fear about me. the nakedness. but i’m naked and i’ve come to resent those who wanna ride on my train but hold in their stomachs and look good. then i’m back to people in high school trying to “rescue” me but not invest in me, my problems, and how to FIX them. they just wanna feel good and have me stay in my role as VICTIM, which i hate. i wanna thrive and do well, too.
I’ve been working on Scotlyn even as she’s been working on ME because her off side comments are platinum. Random Acts, Lilly, and Kimberly do well speaking for themselves. by the way, get readings from Random Acts next time she’s offering. She’s intensely insightful good at what she does.
ADARA admitted:
”Obviously, I can’t answer for Chauquin, but for myself, I’m reminded of an earlier time I encountered a similar style of online writing. I could never really figure out what the person was trying to say so long as I read analytically. I had to learn or develop a whole new headspace for reading, in which I just let the words flow past me, and meaning sort of accreted out of the flow into my head. And this headspace has continued to be helpful, especially as I’ve been learning divination; it’s the exact same brain shape I need for opening up to & tapping in to my intuition. I’ve also learned to use it when reading poetry, especially newer forms. However, it’s a fairly costly headspace for me to hang out in, so I can’t stay there for very long posts. And I’ll admit, I worry a bit about meeting you next year. I hope we’ll enjoy each other’s company, even though I have various issues that you’ve railed against in previous posts.”
Now i’m hella CURIOUS about these “various issues” you worry about and hope you’ll do me the honor of continuing to keep this vein OPEN as it’s precious, and TELL ME what you fear about meeting me specifically so that i may reconsider my ways, my intentions, and try and find a way of fixing this with you ahead of time. i’d be truly honored if you’d respect me THAT much. the TIME the inclination is Love to me and i will twist myself from now until June to be open and make you feel at home with me so that you feel like letting go and being yourself because the entire gathering will be better for it.
whether we end up in tears or giggles, i will fight it out with you and hope that means Love to you, as well. no avatars fake names or pretension.
what do you fear? what have i railed against? avatars fakeness insincerity … anything else is fascinating to me. all the differences.
i do not assume i’m right. i just want to also be allowed to co-exist and have a place to be myself. i am shy, awkward, but like Scotlyn says, i also know OTHERS ARE, too. the most charismatic extroverts also wanna be liked. EVERYONE does. even the misanthropes and loners admitted they needed and missed people after all, during lockdowns.
so yes, if you’re worried about how you come off and burnish your image, i’m the WRONG person to sidle up next to. it’s what my own Mother and sister hate most about me as they are all theatre.
even alone with themselves.
and this is what i’m against and have harsh reactions to, especially now. i don’t want anyone messing with my head anymore and i get enraged when someone thinks they’re playing me. i don’t care about believing even moon landings anymore. it doesn’t matter. James talked about cowboy ways in an author’s work i can’t remember his name. but the cowboys only trusted and talked about what they themselves witnessed.
i’m going back to THAT idea.
so like BoysMom understood a few years ago when i wondered if autists looked at who owned the hand who was pointing AT something, were they looking at WHO TO TRUST first? that’s how i am.
—-
Thank you BK for the jazz. that feels about right. (smile) it’s why i get scared: i have no idea what will come out underneath and beside what i THINK i’m writing.
i didn’t wanna write about trans fooling because it didn’t seem worth my time or even important. BUT Augusto is looking for a fake name unsure of his own, which also fit with HIS questioning Papa how to play it two ways and fit in.
i haven’t been suicidal since i STOPPED TRYING TO FIT IN. i mean the despairing “i hate it here i wanna die” kind. wanting to follow James doesn’t count. (smile) besides i promised to take care of the kitties. sort of. i didn’t want him to rely on it and go quietly into that dark night.
so maybe being in disguise isn’t the next way to go. that’s what is going to piss off folks about the trannies. the fakery. that’s what made everyone insane during Autopen’s administration. the faking. it’s agonizing.
don’t re-do it here.
i remember that you can win… (eventually?)… by honesty.
ADARA, you’re right about the place i am being how i make my own world, my vibe. i’m dealing with some legal crap here and it may have come to a head… no sure yet… i don’t wanna say til i’m sure as i don’t wanna jinx things. but i’ve been struggling to not have it all make me ugly. that’s why i’d frantically SING. i was almost desperate to avoid fear and frightful rage and keep it cool.
i’m struggling with the excruciatingly painful legal writing where i have to beat the living daylights out of my emotions in writing and it’s hell. my metaphors are crazier in the cartoon way because i’ve even considered adding illustrations/cartoons to my complaints because art short-circuits things and the bureaucrats will understand the cartoons more than i can even count on them reading my writing.
this is where Scotlyn is right: the Normals are even made up of HUMAN INDIVIDUALS. her reminder forces me to go deeper to connect on an INDIVIDUAL LEVEL. which means i have to still be myself but …well, i’m looking for a CREATIVE way of saying, “we’re the same!” and that’s why i asked these questions i never used to ask.
i got the best answers back and thank you BK, Adara, Chuaquin, Augusto…. and Violet.
VIOLET, if you are in fact here, i like you, too. I don’t like when you’re standing above and beyond, aloof, trying to blow minds. you’ve already done that! what’s cool about this place this group of people drawn here, is that they’re ALL magical amazing and you can be yourself and NOT KNOW ANYTHING.
Violet, it’s time to not know. to SURRENDER to not knowing a thing. you’re in a trap. you’re stuck at a stage of me me me identity on a surface level and until you go ugly confused and humble, you’re gonna skate on a lot of different names and burn through relationships once they get past the most shallow stages.
i did that. i recognize it. i call it out because many of us formerly abused get stuck in our shtick and can’t be as amazing and magical as we TRULY ARE and NEED TO BE especially now times.
but this applies to all here and online in love with teenage level avatars and Being. the boring thing about the liberal agenda for me was that freedom to be you and me ceased to be about the miracle of our individual quirks and selves, and more about some generic idea or caricature of what being a woman, or colored, or gay, or whatever. it all became a flat 2-D cartoon.
so beware of hiding because it turns out you’re hiding from yourself as well as me.
jazz… yeah… it IS a state of mind. people like to visit here but it’s a full-time thing for me thankfully because of just how i am, but JAMES feathered the whole World for me. i had to surrender to find Him and Myself.
whew. now i’m tired. (smile)
Adara please do continue the conversation for i’m willing and eager to learn you so that i know how to make you feel good around me. who are you??? what do you fear? please tell me. i suppose we can talk in person when we’re there, too. someone else also said they were nervous.
some of you may remember i’d say how i took KPOO radio station’s DJ through my rants and Harrison, one of the ones who didn’t want James and me on the station, he got lightheaded and was found at his apartment, taken to the hospital and had his leg cut off. he told Lawrence a DJ there, “JJ was right.”
that was about the vax.
He doesn’t remember he said it. but i went to the hospital to take him reporter notebooks and cookies i made. he’d never met me. feared me. when he made sure who i was, he kept saying, “Kitten? you’re KITTEN?”
i said, “yup, your nightmare, right here!”
and he started laughing. HARD.
because i’m NOT so scary. i’m nothing.
(smile)
x
Curt;
Your online banking application will only work on Windows or Mac? That’s odd. I use the default install of Firefox for my banking and Chase, Vanguard, and Fidelity all work fine. I have heard of a few sites that only work with Chrome, but there is a Linux version of that too.
As for running windows programs on Linux you can look for your app on the CodeWeavers website. They are the commercial version of Wine and support more applications than Wine does. I used them for a bit while transitioning away from Windows, after a year I had everything sorted and didn’t need them anymore.
If your app is not on the list of known apps send a question to their contact page. They want to know what doesn’t work so they can fix it. For that matter crabbing to your bank to get a Linux version or a Firefox compatible web version might be a good idea too.
Microsoft appears to be relenting on their deadline too. If you use a Microsoft account you are good for another year, or you can pay them for extended support, or you can sneak the server version on your PC. I wouldn’t be surprised if they make a last minute announcement backing the deadline up a year, but “the new AI features will not be available on Windows 10.” 😉
We’ve been discussing the decline and fall of Wicca and related paths. I have just finished rereading a 4-book series -murder mysteries – written by Rosemary Edgehill n the mid ’90s and set in the New York occult scene in times starting in the ’80s before the AIDS epidemic, and what it shows as time goes on is very telling.
Edgehill’s narrator, “Bast,” mundanely Karen Hightower, starts as a newbie, urgently seeking the Craft and initiation; her story then is told in the antholgy “The Failure of Moonlight,” and what and who she finally finds is dead serious, is her High Priestess Belleflower.
Bast takes her faith very seriously, and en years later, when the lover of a friend is found dead of mysterious causes, with evidence that she, a perpetual seeker who had never learned (I quote Bast) that what you seek is within, and got mixed up with what looks like a very toxic cult. And her High Priestess urges her to stay out of it and not judge, even with evidence, and cites a “many paths,” line of malarkey. Belle has become a suger-plum celebrity witch in tie-died pink and purple robes…As Bast says later,
By the time of the second mystery, involving a rare book, Belle can’t be moved to even call a cop when confronted with the fact that a suspect has a strong money motive, and she’s become as milk-and-water as a mainstream Protestant of the same era. Bast then walks out, which is her right as a 3rd degree, saying “we’re just not on the same path anymore. As she muses later, “Belle believed that magic was subjective and the Gods were allegories; that evil was a failure of social services and malice was a failure of perception.
In the third book, set in a major pagan gathering at a campground, there are people of app paths there…. including Klingons. Who claim to be practicing Klingon Wicca. Among other oddities. And a local Jesus Freak (also a local joke) is found dead with every evidence of it being a ritual murder.
And here for the first time, surprising everybody, is the remote, unpredictable manager of New York’s biggest and sleaziest occult bookstore in a time when they’re closing everywhere, who took his path and his work all too seriously. He considered himself to be a scientist of magic, and practiced everything he studied, and was well known to be morally neutral on principle, balancing every bad deed with a good one, and vice versa. And was now following a 19th C grimoire designed to “sever all ties with the natural world in order to study that world as a separate entity.” With a catch at the end needed to accomplish it: to have kill himself and then have sex with himself [I did catch the paradox and what worldview made it possible] and then the “divorce from God” was final. And even Bast, who’d caught the latter half of that, couldn’t take it as anything but symbolic until the evidence mounted up.
And by then, her world, the one she took seriously had finally, to use and old fannish phrase, jumped the shark.
Edgehill is (was?) a keen observer of the New York scene, noting that the gentrification them rampant would end in the city becoming one big Calcutta slum. I wasn’t in New York then, but did sense that I’d come into the Albuquerque scene in late 1989, and witnessed its slow decline every since. And am now glad that geography and lack of a car and a whole different culture spared me staying in it any longer. For what that’s worth.
BobInOK @ 370 you wrote:
“those of your readers who worry about being targeted need not worry unless they are part of the true believers or hired help. The right knows very well who it’s opponents are and it’s not the quiet gay couple down the street or any “odd persons” that might be floating around.”
Nice try, Bob, but color me skeptical. For one thing, I would like to know how you define ‘hired help’. Anyone who votes Democratic? Anyone who has obviously and publicly resigned from the mass consumption rat race? Independent, non-aligned voters? For another thing, once purges and clampdowns begin, it is awfully hard to stop them. Each and every one of your following is going to want to get back at their own perceived personal enemies. Statements from some on your side about how we are now “living in a post constitutional moment”, and the disdain for law and the constitution shown by some in the present administration are not reassuring.
I am fairly certain that the backstory here is that a handful of young, enthusiastic Democrats around the country have been a. more or less repudiating their party’s sclerotic leadership, you should excuse the expression, and b. winning elections, sometimes by some quite startling margins. Republicans ain’t dumb, and some have clearly been running numbers and discovering that oops, we need more voters.
I doubt the midterms will be quite the Blue Wave some anticipate. There will be some Republican losses because there always are during a midterm, but the Democratic upper ranks have apparently concluded that the present admin is so unpopular that no reforms of the Dem. party are needed. Good luck with that one, guys.
If the Republicans do lose big in 2026, which I consider by no means a certainty, it won’t be because they lost the oddball vote. It will be because of the Middle East. The vulgar sideshow at the UN is not the Prime Minister’s reason for being here in our country yet again. He is here to deliver orders to the president that the time has come to attack Iran. That, I think, is what the meeting of generals and admirals next week is about. Bob, I wish you and others like you would understand that in some foreign quarters you guys are seen as cannon fodder. White, fit, Christian American males are to be the shock troops against Iran. While I don’t share some of your political views, I hate to see this happening. Americans should not be used as some other country’s mercenaries.
This week I revisited a place I had once worked. Mt Angel , a small town in the middle of farm country in the Willamette Valley or Oregon. It was settled by Swiss Catholics freeing persecution and is known for two things. Its annual Oktoberfest celebration and the Benedictine monastery that sits atop a small butte ( Mt Angel) overlooking town. Recently the monks buil a new Brewery and tap house in a timber frame building they raised in the Amish style. I sampled their array of fine Belgian Ales named after famous saints and such. The tap house and brewery was staffed by the monks with a bit of outside staff.
As I sipped my Oktoberfest Lager ( brewed specially for last weeks event) it occurred to me. With todays problems between the sexes, and young peoples trouble finding good employment that can let them afford a house and family maybe a life of duty to the Church will look like a much more promising option than it has in the past. For many years the number of people willing to become nuns and monks has shrunk. But perhaps we are on the verge of a time when this will make both spiritual and practical sense to many young men and women.
To what Seeking the Pure Land #354 says re: the Gods
I have to amplify what our host said. The “rainbow” crowd who try to infuse urban mono-culture values onto Pagan practices tend to fail.
Folk or custom centered groups are doing well. The one I know most about the Asatru Folk Assembly seems to have gone from not much ” to a organization somewhat reminiscent of a small Protestant Church in its functions. Community aid. education, services. Even food aid to poor South Africans
The build a new “Hof” or church at a rate of one a year or faster and I’ve been told by folks I spoken too have used the word “baby boom”
The key is exactly as our host put, take it seriously. It also required to be ideological closed to outsiders. They are also overtly racially closed but that is part of their folk centered ideology rather than a “side effect” of say Amish or Mennonites which are implicit vs explicit
I won’t comment on the necessity of that. Groups tend to worship separately anyway but whatever works, works.
Just a thought: As the internet becomes more and more infested with AI content, AIs are picking up more and more AI-generated feedback. We all know what happens when a microphone starts picking up its own feedback — it screams.
When the computers start screaming you’ll know AI has run its course.
re: hormonal birth control,
My wife ended up on antipsychotics after she started hormonal birth control, and was able to stop after she went off of it. It was, to be admitted a low-dose antipsychotic being used as a mood stabilizer, as she had been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder; she did not have a psychotic break in the schizoid sense. Still, toss that as another datapoint for “those things can make you *crazy*!”
Thankfully she’s off both now, and doing very well in terms of mental health, to the point that her current doctor can’t believe she was ever considered as having BPD.
re: Windows 11,
You can absolutely run it on older hardware, but you have to do a bit of hacking. You need a free piece of software called Rufus, a USB stick, and the ability to follow instructions. Instructions here in simple English:
https://theideaplace.net/using-rufus-to-install-windows-11-on-unsupported-hardware/
It amounts to checking a box to say “yeah, take bit that checks the hardware requirements out”. Rufus also lets you take out annoying things like copilot, though apparently they’re often added back in when Windows updates.
A fellow on Youtube with the channel name “Action Retro” put Windows 11 on a computer from 2006(!) by a slightly different method, just to see if he could. That’s right, computer old enough it graduated high school can run Windows 11 if you remove Microsoft’s e-waste generating insistence on “TPM”. Granted, it was a Unix Workstation that cost as much as a car when new, which makes running Windows on it the most delicious heresy. Most machines from that era run into trouble even with some Linux distributions.
re: Charlie Kirk and civil divisions,
The Canadian hive mind seems to have decided that the talking point is “Charlie Kirk should not have been killed, BUT” — followed by a list of denunciations that amounts to explaining why they’re glad he’s dead. Ironically, it’s that same bloodthirsty hive mind that keeps something like Kirk’s killing from happening here.
The CBC hive-mind has everyone say “diversity is our strength” in perfect lockstep harmony– and their _unity_ in that view is our actual strength, and keeps us from civil unrest. Alas, everyone agreeing on what direction to steer the car of state isn’t of much use when their good intentions put it on a well-paved road to hell.
My own mother has admitted to wanting to do violence unto me for my political views. (“Smack some sense into you”) — she assumed I felt the same way, was shocked when I replied it had never occurred to her. As a typical hivemind boomer lefty, she’s got her heart in the right place and her axioms all wrong. That doesn’t make her a bad person, to me. Apparently my views do to her, which is saddening.
On a lighter note, and less connected to world or national affairs – from my monthly list of questions to ask at Open Post, about JMG’s novels:
In Retropia: Peter Carr finds Retropian clothes etc very comfortable in November. How will he like it in July? If Tier 5 has air conditioning, would Tier 1 have houses built for hot weather? This high deert transplant to hot-and-wet wants to know. The Pueblos in New Mexico and the Spanish Colonial buildings are built to beat the heat.
Also – he’s taking his new clothes back to a country where bioplastic is the only fabric available. And you throw it away after very quickly. Hence, no laundry service, and definitely, no dry cleaners. Oops!
In “Hall of Homeless Gods, Ruth Taira is called “Mrs.” Taira, except in one section here it’s “Ms.” Not that there’s any difference in Japanese. Just out of curiosity, which is it?
And – if he’s Shimizu-san, does he address her as Taira-sama? (my guess: very likely.)
Does shungite work?
Shungite is a sooty black rock found only in a deposit near the village of Shunga, in Russia. A few years ago it got around online that this rock provides some measure of protection from electromagnetic frequencies (EMFs), including notably from 5G radiation. It does this, it is said, by absorbing such frequencies and so significantly reducing one’s exposure to them. If you are exposed to cell phones and other wireless devices, or are near a 5G tower, you will enjoy some protection from them if you keep nearby or on your person some shungite – or so it is claimed.
So – is it true? Does anyone on this forum happen to know whether shungite actually affords meaningful protection from EMFs, or if this story is just somebody’s way of selling a bunch of rocks?
I bought a chunk about four years ago; it weighs a pound or two. I call it “sooty” because when you handle it a very fine black powder tends to rub off on your hand.
@Peter 311
I keep seeing these stories about some or other group returning to brick phones but the only people I have come across in real life who don’t have smartphones are the very poor. I’m talking close to street people poor.
I recently listened to a podcast with a woman in the UK campaigning for an age restriction on smartphones. Just when I got excited she clarified that she actually wants a restricted smartphone with limited internet access and apps. “Because we’re not complete Luddites, you know?”
JMG,
Would you agree with this statement:
https://x.com/AcademicAgent_X/status/1971978260142809548
It seems to me to be painfully true.
Erika Lopez @ 369..
Peanut butter as the Devil’s Snot??
Well then, you’ve never tried *NATTO! Blah..Gag..Umff..!!!
yes….. I knoweth the our esteemed host* revels in slurping down that ash-can hued, weird, asian soyish, concoction….
Mr. Greer, take no offense… I’m just pushin yo button-an eensy, tweensy, bit. ‘;]
@BobinOK 370
I’ve been thinking about making a comment like yours, but you did it better. We ( conservative Christian friends and family) know the difference between the gay couple down the street and actual evil. Ditto occultists and demon possessed whackos.
SiliconGuy & Curt..
MY App is: walking, biking, or driving the ‘ol buckboard .. to the Bank! No digital contrivence need apply. I receive a paper statement monthly-no online nothing. There’s too much chance of some miscreant .. or worse! .. fishing to abscond my precious $$$ for my taste, thank you very much!
@394 BorealBear
I mean we don’t know how long the old worship lasted, records only go so far. But i consider the thought of why did the old worship give way to new? If there’s one thing i’ve learned about people is that most people don’t convert to new religions unless their old one fails them and/or the new one did something for them. (or they’re forced to convert) And plenty of christian, and muslim converts were very very willing.
——————————————————————————————————–
@407 Simon Peacecraft
I have noticed that a lot of neopagans, especially the terminally online ones tend to be middle class and up lefty types. Way too many just seem to refuse to try to separate their politics from their religion. I think for a lot of them their real religion was middle class leftism/ myth of progress. That said, I don’t think insularity is necessary for a religion to survive, but it can help especially during times of stress and chaos.
Shungite;
Keep in mind that electromagnetic radiation travels in straight lines. So if you put the rock between you and the source it will block the signal. If it’s somewhere else it won’t help. There is no general area suck up effect.
If you want protection from all electromagnetic radiation then you need a Faraday cage. In a house a lathe and plaster wall is very effective especially if the lathe is chickenwire or a metal mesh with even smaller holes. My house has wood lathe and even so it eats radio signals.
Note, AM radio gets through because the wavelength is so large that it doesn’t see the walls. A full Faraday cage would still stop it though.
Chris at Fernglade @284,
Glad to hear you put on your Big Rooster Cape, thus saving the day for the ‘youngsters’..
Having raised laying hens in the not too distant past, I know how testy some chickens can be towards others within the flock .. having had to ‘referee’ said occasional disturbances. I chock it up to ‘genetic memory’, to which our neo-dino denizens have not yet discarded.
Logan #413: “do you agree with this statement? https://x.com/AcademicAgent_X/status/1971978260142809548”
The statement is “Whites seem the only group susceptible to propaganda, being swayed by ideals and otherwise being tricked. Every other group operates on naked and capricious self-interest and must be appeased by gifts or active pandering.”
Um – Radio Hutu during the Rwandan civil war was an effective propaganda tool that resulted in the murders of at least half a million people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_T%C3%A9l%C3%A9vision_Libre_des_Mille_Collines.
The Chinese cultural revolution is also a good example of the susceptibility of nonwhite people to propaganda.
It’s a good idea to be suspicious of any sentence that begins “Whites this…” or “Nonwhites that…” Human nature (the good and the bad) is pretty much human nature, anytime and anywhere.
Kevin #411, re Shungite. Intuitively, there are only two ways shungite could protect you from EMF radiation. One is if it not only absorbed the rays, but also attracted and concentrated them so they did not hit you. Given the nature of such radiation this is very unlikely. The second way is if it were like having a localised radio jammer that radiated out waves that jammed the frequencies. This would suggest that it was radioactive or something similar to some degree – and who knows what damage that could be doing to you.
The Other Owen 382, re. Almond Butter..
Well, I consider THAT the Angel’s Snot! I loves me the 🐝 endeavors!
Mr. Greer, take as you will..
CRC, there are many Dofenistic jobs available in the US. Most cubicle jobs count, and so do a lot of poorly paid jobs like yours. I’m far from sure that that’s the best approach to Dofenism in today’s America, though. Working for yourself and taking only as much work as you need to pay the bills may be a better option.
Erika, the problem with my habit of vivid metaphors is that not all of them are pleasant!
Bob, I wish I could believe that. Not everyone is as reasoned and disciplined as you.
Bruno, it depends on motive. That can be a very sane thing to do if the medical treatment would place a financial burden on family members or if there’s some other pressing reason. Otherwise, it’s not a big deal — death from natural causes is normal, after all.
Other Owen, if it has devil snot in it it’s diabolically snotty, or perhaps snottily diabolic. I dislike devil snot cookies, devil snot satay sauce, Reese’s Satan’s Used Handkerchiefs, and the lot of it.. The taste, the smell, the texture, and every other quality of devil snot is equally infernal and mucosal. Almond butter, on the other hand, is almond butter. I don’t like it but it’s not an unspeakable loathsome horror straight from Lucifer’s nasal passages.
Chris, the Awful Chicken Incident sounds like a ninth-rate garage rock band; I may put it in some upcoming Ariel Moravec novel. I hope they’re tasty.
Seeking, I think atheists are hopelessly vulnerable to evil spirits, since their dogma prevents them from taking even the simplest protective measures. They’re just as likely to end up as true believers — it’s just that they think their beliefs are secular.
Neptunesdolphins, you’ll need to have the project finished before you submit it to a publisher. That’s normal for all beginning authors. Nobody’s going to give you a contract until they’re sure the project will be worth publishing, and that means they need to see the whole thing. So you can go as slow as you want.
BorealBear, here it’s been 45 years…
Rashakor, it comes through. There’s a glitch that causes some browsers to show the breaks going away, but they’re still there.
StarNinja, focus all your attention on making money. Use New Thought methods to focus your intention on opportunities, and treat any penny that comes your way as a tool to make more money. Stay out of the overhyped tech sectors — that’s where the current transitional elite is based, and it’ll fall when they do. Bet on the revival of US industry. Those’ll give you as good a chance as anybody has.
Jennifer, bingo. It’s never occurred to them that they aren’t the only people watching their antics.
Erika, it’s precisely the raw naked integrity of your comments that keeps me reading them and putting them through. Keep on burning bright, O tigress!
Patricia M, hmm! Thank you for this; I may just read those one of these days.
Clay, I foresee this also. A charismatic monk who set out to fill monasteries with young men, in particular, would do very well.
Martin, bingo. I expect LLMs to spin off uncontrollably into La-La land, causing impressive economic damage on the way out, right about the time the bubble pops.
Patricia M, in July people in the Lakeland Republic wear seersucker, and their houses are designed to handle heat as well as cold. Carr will have trouble with laundry, yes — did you notice that he tends to miss such things? As for Ruth Taira, “Ms.” was a typo.
Kevin, I’ve never tried it. Anyone else?
Logan, no. If other ethnic groups were motivated by pure self-interest they’d have knifed their white would-be champions in the back a long time ago.
Polecat, no complaints. Again, I have no objection if you love peanut butter and loathe natto — just don’t expect me to eat the former or neglect the latter!
@Erika Lopez #442
I think you are right about Violet (sorry Violet if you happen to read this, but since you declared a cut I guess its okay to assume you are not reading this). Once she ran out of masks to wear, she had to face herself and all the damage she received over a decade of the hard experiences she wrote about. She was wearing two masks, one of Dion Fortune and the other was JMG’s. On her blog she would take on his and her role, and make an impression of them, making emphasis on the authority such a mask would give her, without doing much of the work. I think many of us do this to an extent when we find people we admire, but the danger is in failing to integrate it into your own personality instead of playing games.
She wasn’t doing a banishing ritual daily after a while, I could tell, and she started veering into dubious magic too. Her assumptions about magic were based more on what she read than on actual experience. I think her involvement (my suspicion not a fact) with the lack of solid ethics in her magical work were what threw her mental health off the edge and started becoming paranoid. Its a classic effect. I can’t know, but from her writing and her vibe thats what I got, either that or doing drugs again.
I liked Violet. She was very smart, and funny. But she would get so jealous and use any opportunity to put herself above me and the readers of her that she saw as lesser and patronize. All those Puer Aeternus posts she did? She was targeting me, after stuff I told her, and then twist it to sound more dramatic. For such a fan of Jung, I was surprised she would project like that. When Fortune’s mask fell off (when she stopped doing ceremonial magic seriously) and when JMG’s mask fell off (when they started disagreeing over the politics of the covid phenomenon) she was left with her own damaged personality and stormed away trying to run from it. I was saddened, frankly, and concerned.
Also, yes you can call me Augusto of course, but when I go by Open Space I prefer you use that. I am a double agent remember? 😉 More than creating different personalities, is to avoid certain uncomfortable things that can happen later on and I am not a cat fully out of the bag yet. Ive considered several times to create another account under my real name, but with the Satanic Panic Lite going on, and me going back to work eventually, I think I will use my other name: Octavio. Funny huh? Name and title of roman emperors, which was not on purpose at all, those are both my grandfathers names. Ifve thought many times of using Augusto for professional and daily use, and Octavio as my occult name. I chuckled to myself when I realized my full name initials spell MAGO, which means mage in Spanish. It took two weeks to fall from that cloud! It was a worthy trip though, but its nicer (and more solid) down here.
@The Other Owen (#380):
Have you been keeping up with recent developments in Russian military weapons technology?
Do you know, for instance, about their new hypersonic missiles that can be guided in flight to a specific target, and which also have enough staying power to travel from a Russian launching site to US targets over the southern hemisphere rather than the northern one? (Most of our anti-missile defenses were designed to destroy missiles traveling the very much shorter routes over the northern hemisphere.)
Do you know about their missiles with non-nuclear warheads that have the destructive power of some smaller nuclear warheads? They don’t use conventional explosives, but rely on other means of destruction. and they can penetrate even hardened sites. These weapons are openly acknowledged by Russia to be in active mass production now, and they have already been deployed against at least one military target in Ukraine, with devastating effect.
These are two of the reasons why I am skeptical that we could possibly prevail in an open non-nuclear war against Russia (even without China and Iran joining in). What’s been going on in Ukraine wasn’t even called a “war” by Russia, just a “special military operation.”
(Of course, if we end up fighting an all-out, no-weapons-barred nuclear war, we will all lose it big time.)
Kevin #411: As a career electronics engineer and ham radio enthusiast, I feel like I have a pretty good grasp of what goes on in the invisible realm of electromagnetics, and I can’t think of any way that an external object (like a chunk of shungite) could have a significant effect on the health effects of EM radiation. I’m familiar with ferrite rods which concentrate EM fields in radio antennas, ferrite linings for EM isolation chambers, copper-screened Faraday cages, and carbon-loaded foam for anechoic chambers, but just having a special brick at arm’s length? I don’t think so. The geometry just doesn’t work.
@Patricia Mathews (#404):
I very much liked Rosemary Edgehill’s four Bast novels also. Well written and enjoyable! IIRC, there is also a fifth volume by her with a few Bast short stories, printed by another publisher. I think I still have them all on my bookshelves, and now I want to give them another read.
And I’ve actually shopped in the original of her “New York’s biggest and sleaziest occult bookstore.” Quite an experience, both the store and its (now long deceased) “horrible” owner!
Achilles #335
‘ Until I asked myself, why should I choose to be right-wing or left-wing?’
Exactly. None of these labels are useful at all. I have never been doctrinaire, and am extremely wary of anyone trying to sell me a viewpoint, or a cause. I have never liked ideologues because they all seem exceedingly rigid and unimaginative. As a working class person I’ve always disliked Republicans because that was the party of the boss, and the D;no;emocrats are mealy mouthed and weak.
As a lifelong, punk rock fringe dwelling oppositional person I have been proud to not fit in anywhere. Failure to commit? Maybe. But it all seems so futile.
I guess I’ll just play out the string, and see what happens.
I had a bunch of replies written out, but I couldn’t keep up, and now I don’t see the point. I don’t know how you do it, John.
Oh, and count me among the Erika Lopez fans here.
@BorealBear – Thank you for the kind words, and I’m glad that you’re finding The Heathen Golden Dawn helpful!
JMG,
Got it! I will let my friend know. 😄
As for me I will continue my shadow work, Jung and Yeats study, and hacking away at my novels. Gods willing I can tap into that “active imagination” and unleash my creativity like Yeats and his ilk did.
@ rashakor # 397
The best way to make sure that the text you enter remains in separate paragraphs is to leave an empty line gap between two succeeding paragraphs.
For instance, this is the beginning of the second paragraph, and it will not merge with the first paragraph because of the empty line above.
@Chuaquin
My pleasure, it’s rare to find more interesting stuff on the internet apart from we already know here.
@Tengu
Thanks Tengu for your advice. There were very positive aspects to the basic internal Qi Gong I was taught back then, one very plastic example was how I beat all my office colleagues in table soccer into submission, which was out of place because usually I wasn’t that good, after one of the Qi Gong seminars.
I then maybe in some way repurposed the basic exercises I was given, I talk merely about standing aligned with minimal muscles needed, and sent my consciousness up and down my body, so to gain a better sentience of my body, then discovered my energy field around my body.
But that is something very basic, and frankly, besides the very idea of aligned standing and mental focusing in the 3D space within and around you, it does not have much to do with any deeper practice.
I wouldn’t know as I could not tell the difference.
Today, I am physically more healthy than I ever was, also mentally although haunting memories and murderous inner rage (vengeful fantasies) persist.
But my good health and stability nowadays are the product of much more mundane things than any deeper energetic practice, has little to do with it.
That said yes, our host JMG has already cautioned us in the direction what you are saying.
One big reason why I also wished I had put much more into JMGs offered western, text book ready practices: back then I sought relief of my nervous system and mental stability. The basic meditative practices gave temporary calmness and energy, BUT I guess you know where it was heading.
Discursive reflection and very basic energetic defense was much more what I needed back then.
How competent these Qi apes in Vienna really are, I am the wrong one to say, but one thing is for sure: they are unbalanced personalities, they hold a lot of anger and contempt, they are hedonists from the upper classes.
To make myself vulnerable to these characters in search of help was, lets put it that way, another catastrophic opportunity for serious mental harm!!
@BobInOk @The Other Owen
Gratefully received!
@David P.
Gratefully received as well.
Others on this forum have said as well that erika lopez grew on them when they started actually rading her comments. I shall give it a try soon.
My life lacks poetry and arts.
@Siliconguy
It’s not a browser app. I have to download a stand alone application for authenticating on the browser site. But I have to admit, I’ll rather in the future do so on my old backup smartphone I have lying around, so it is two factor again. The bank some years ago abolished two factor via SMS which was good to go for more than 15 years. You can figure I guess.
Maybe its all easier by those standards. I should have added the detail, because it puts everything in a different light now that I come to think of it.
@Luddite
Me and a friend use a brick phone for our everyday needs. Me (37) have a backup smartphone that I need almost never- or never really, I gave in to the Whatsapp fad – my friend (42) has no smartphone at all.
@polecat
Yes but for transactions on paper, the banks in this country now charge dearly. It is a controversial topic even in the news, and be it only because of the many old and helpless in this aging society.
@Seeking the Pure Land
“I have noticed that a lot of neopagans, especially the terminally online ones tend to be middle class and up lefty types. ”
The scene I saw last year was more New Age than Neopagan, the latter which is pretty much a smallish aging cohort around here in Austrian as I see it, but the former fit the profile. Also “yoga” and other pseudo-spiritual gymnastics around here.
@Everyone
I forgot to add about the satanist: he learned from a man who he claimed made his money by manipulating young upper class women into prostituion, a Crowley follower and apparently, member of OTO, he lived with a bigger drug dealer in Linz for a time who commited suicide after some time as his favour and protegé, he was proud of having cursed people successfully (though harmlessly, his government social security office employee responsible). Liked to say how he was always an “Alpha” and an independent thinker who stood for himself (while endlessly telling stories of how he put himself into the service of dominant figures).
The very weird story appeared when I was beginning to form a spiritual awareness, yet still was pretty much rooted in materialism:
I read Thomas Karlsens “Kabbalah, Qliphoth und die Goetische Magie” in the Vienna metro line U2 at Schottentor, with a mix of fascination and disgust and unease, a very young girl with braces suddenly satin front of me (as it was a 2 on 2 seat row) and with no further introduction said “it is not true what you are thinking…” I said, of course bewildered, “…what..??” “God loves you. It is true; you just don’t know it”. Nervously I fumbled with that grimoire, inadvertely presenting her the side of the book with the snakes. She repeated her call and went.
What a weird experience, but certainly a good one.
@JMG
“I think atheists are hopelessly vulnerable to evil spirits, since their dogma prevents them from taking even the simplest protective measures.”
Nowadays I am more than convinced that in my long atheist phase of life al through adolescence and maturity, I more than certainly fell prey to such spirits. Many weird and very negative events arent explicable much otherwise.
I am certain as well – atheists especially in modern consumer society are easy pray, their naiveté does not protect them at all.
Chuaquin@#385
Yep that monster.
Mary Bennett @#405
Every veteran is well aware that he’s cannon fodder from first day he or she puts on a uniform. You insult our intelligence if you think otherwise. Read up on Chester Puller some time.
As far as the hired help, it’s pretty obvious who’s on the payroll these days. As far as reprisals, I don’t see it happening other than a few isolated cases with nutjobs but its a two way street, so I’m sure we’ll be on the receiving end too. The right believes in civilization and order not barbarism unlike the current crop of democrats and their minions.
I suggest you reread the constitution, Trump is very law-abiding and forgiving considering what he’s been through. He might be vulgar and not to your taste but that doesn’t make him a criminal. Wouldn’t have been my first choice but the Christian god selects for ability on the road to Damascus and he’s done some great work the second time around. The first time around, I think he was naive about the depth of the rot and corruption. Lastly, we’re not invading anyone despite what Netanyahu wants. Trump and Hegseth knows the true state of the armed forces and Patton’s ghost isn’t anywhere to be found since 2010. Even Ike’s ghost has left the building.
Kloffus, JMG,
Thanks for the kind words. I hope and pray that all of us make it through these interesting times with our sanity intact.
JMG, Your peanut butter/devils snot comments have me giggling like a school boy, priceless. 😀
The first thing I noticed about the assasination of Charlie Kirk was the Astrology of it. It was within an hour of the Sun Conjunct the South Node (thanks, Chani!). I know that means that whatever was being ended along with Mr Kirk’s incarnation, wasn’t going to be coming back.
Despite being someone of allegiances which many in the comments section are deeply afraid of (right wing, Catholic) I am frankly not out for a witch hunt or looking for someone to blame. If this were the mere work of Demons I’d simply summon St Michael and let him sort it out. It’s clearly not that simple.
It’s clear that something, beyond human control, wants us at each other’s throats. Wants to convince both left and right that we represent an existential threat to each other. The politicised violence is ramping up and yet also it is clear that more than mere violence, the petty squabbles of mortals are going on here. Extra-human forces are increasingly choosing to take to the field and actively intervene, rather than stay hidden in the shadows of our limited perception. They hide under the guise of martyrs but I know enough to know that isn’t how saints work.
My question is, to what end? Cui Bono?
JMG, that’s my question to you: To what end do you feel all this is happening? Feel free to answer from your intuition if you feel uncomfortable speculating on limited information.
About running old and unsupported software on a computer that’s connected to the internet, and thinking you’ll be alright if you just stay out of the bad neighborhoods of the web:
The internet doesn’t have bad neighborhoods, the internet *is* the bad neighborhood.
Each and every website is constantly being attacked and prodded for vulnerabilities to exploit. This is a fully automated process, which has become even easier now that GoLLuM has joined the party. When they’re in, they often use the website just for sending spam but it’s also very common that they install something they can use to infect the computer of the visitors of the website. Sometimes you don’t even need to click on anything, just visiting a page is enough,
Yeah, I know security babble is just another tactic to instill fear onto people so they can be controlled and a lot of it is indeed theater / spectacle, but this threat is very real. Don’t fool yourself.
(Part of my day job is protecting websites against these attacks)
–bk
BorealBear # 394:
Yes, wokeness is unfortunatley strong yet in Spain, because of bland socialdemocratic governments who betrayed working class people (white straignt men of course) to mimetize an American trend which is foreign to our own culture and politics. It’s a pity, but the tide is changing, by disgrace in the other side of pendulum, to Far Right Wing, which I don’t like at all, but I understand young male men anger with current andro-phobic politics…Thank you for your comment.
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David P #398:
“The best way I can put it, I suppose, is that I can see the light of clarity shining through the cracks of my non-understanding. The rythm, to use your metaphor, is there, even if I don’t hear every beat. Still, I can begin to appreciate it in the form that reaches me, knowing that it’s only part of the whole.”
Good comment, me think, about Erika. Thanks for your comment here!
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Erika # 402:
“so Chuaquin, WHO, PRAY TELL, CALLED YOU MENTALLY DEFICIENT AND SAID YOU WERE FUZZY???”
I’ll answer you in the short form;: I was declared with some mental problem (to say it softy) by a psychiatrist, of course, and I’ve been for a time in treatment, though today I’m fine. I don’t want to tell you’ll more about my “illness” for now. Only I have to say that I’ve found a lot of “normal” people who seems to me more and more “nuts” in their behavior, including political and economical leaders in our countries. Do you agree?
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Martin Back # 408:
“Just a thought: As the internet becomes more and more infested with AI content, AIs are picking up more and more AI-generated feedback. We all know what happens when a microphone starts picking up its own feedback — it screams.
When the computers start screaming you’ll know AI has run its course.”
Good thought…Yesterday I was in a bar with a friend and we finished talking about AIs, and well, my friend isn’t a technophobe but he was very concerned with that topic, his concerns were usually about loss of imagination and creativity in young generations, but we commented too what you’ve written in your comment…
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Tyler A # 409:
“The Canadian hive mind seems to have decided that the talking point is “Charlie Kirk should not have been killed, BUT” — followed by a list of denunciations that amounts to explaining why they’re glad he’s dead. ”
It’s been the same s**t here in Spain, newspapers and broadcasting included. I’m not a Kirk ideas fan, but I was ashamed by these manipulations over a person killed in an act of TERRORISM.
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JMG # 423:
“Erika, it’s precisely the raw naked integrity of your comments that keeps me reading them and putting them through. Keep on burning bright, O tigress!”
OK John, I agree! I couldn’t have depict her comments better…
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“Martin, bingo. I expect LLMs to spin off uncontrollably into La-La land, causing impressive economic damage on the way out, right about the time the bubble pops.”
Exactly, I talked about this topic with my friends yesterday, we argued some minutes, but we finished agreeding in that somber point about AIs, between other problems in the next future (or maybe already in our present?).
Erika is reminiscent of one of those modern classic novels, like Fight Club, On the Road, or Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance; the free association and gritty realness is similar.
David P #398: I’ve had recent experience with setting up VM’s via VirtualBox on a new Mac. You may find this useful:
https://medhacloud.com/blog/free-windows-10-keys-windows-11-keys-2025/
https://archive.is/0FHmg
You can find ISO’s on archive.org, although it may take a bit of trial & error to find the right one recognized by VirtualBox. It helps to make sure it’s the right version for your computer, eg x86_64 vs aarch64.
As for peanut butter, I’m fine with it personally, my only complaint is that it sticks to the roof of your mouth. But any downsides are ameliorated by its soulmate, jelly.
BorealBear#394 + JMG: Yes, the vacation from reality is more like 40-50 years than 30, longer than my current incarnation. But, the bill always comes due eventually. Personally, I think BRICS victory will be the beginning of the end, as GAE (Globalist American Empire) loses its last bid at colonization and reaping resources, and faces a crisis of legitimacy from military defeat. There may have been screwups and setbacks before (Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq), but never before has the Liberal West known direct defeat from peer rivals, which looms ahead of us. The Revolutionary War, the Civil War, both World Wars, the Cold War… that’s a pretty amazing winning streak (even if there was help along the way), and the Liberal Western elites have developed a severe case of hubris, which as always, brings down Nemesis. And then there’s the self-destructive, flagellating tendency on top of that. All we can do is prepare for what’s coming.
PS- I use “Liberal West” to refer to the post-Enlightenment phase of Faustian civilization.
@Martin Back #381: thanks for your reply. I didn’t see it until after figuring that out, but appreciate the thought.
@Phutatorius #383: my apologies for the knee-jerk assumption that you were looking to demonize. I’ve too often seen similar wording used to denigrate my family of origin, and I got defensive. While I’m open to discussing dispensationalism, I still find the topic too broad to address as-is. Was there anything in particular about it you wanted to discuss, other than using it to narrow down what kind of evangelicals folks were talking about?
@Chauquin #385: it’s true about my writing style here. It takes a surprising amount of energy to keep things short & clear, an issue I run into when trying to keep my workplace’s wiki instructions up-to-date.
@Luddite #412: N=1, but my husband still uses an old flip phone by preference. He admits to getting value from the navigation the rest of the family provides from our smart phones, though.
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@erika #402: your reply left me feeling honored & seen, so thanks.
Re various issues: I expect I’m just falling into my tendency to take the written word too seriously & literally. I can’t remember precise details about what you’ve said; it’s more of a feeling from my reactions while reading, like “oh, will she disdain me because I did in fact take mental & emotional damage from my grandfather’s sexual abuse?” I also find I’m among the more boringly normal folks that most of my friends know, but still manage to enjoy myself in most social situations with adults. So probably we’re already fine, and I’m worrying needlessly; it wouldn’t be the first time! (In conclusion, I’ve addressed the issue thing a bit, but will do much better discussing any further in person.)
Re usernames / avatars: I’ll be sticking with my username, which I’ve been using for over 2 decades now, because (a) there are a lot of folks with my real name (Heather) & many fewer with this one, and (b) I’d prefer my kids’ friends’ parents not to be able to Google my various hobbies / interests / opinions too easily.
StarNinja, glad to hear it.
Curt, that’s certainly been my experience.
BobinOK, good. I try to be amusing. 😉
Shiba, I’m sure that malign spirits are playing their usual games, but I’d suggest that what’s going on here is “human, all too human,” as Nietzsche liked to say. What we’re seeing is the replacement of a failing elite by a rising one, and the failing elite is lashing out with everything it has — and as with all elites, keeping the rest of us divided against each other is an essential part of the playbook. Once the elite replacement cycle runs its course, expect to see a new consensus emerge, accompanied by the usual pressures to conform to it; the next round of divergence is some decades off yet.
Xcalibur/djs, we’ll see, but that’s at least a plausible forecast.
@Tengu
I forogt to add, the Qi Gong Master and his lower master scholar went to Taiwan regularily.
Of course they claimed to learn from an authentic lineage.
Whether that is so, how would I know.
But for what I saw, there was as I said, some strong focussing stuff, lets call it that way, so much for the benign part, but the whole affair – I don’t know what went wrong there, is it they don’t learn from an authentic lineage, is it they understand to little, is it they are otherwise deranged….- a mess all this.
I by the way do not need physician, neither did these practices damage my physical health. It was the social implications and the general air there that sickened me emotionally. But that had nothign to do with the practices as such.
Erika, isn’t being scared of what comes out a necessary part of the journey?
A jazz player has to live with the fear of playing something silly if they want to make great jazz and when they are in the flow they are just as much part of the audience as everybody else.
–bk
xcalibur/djs #439:
There’s no need to download some dubious ISO from archive.org; you can download Windows 10 and 11 ISOs for free from Microsoft’s own website. They’ll just prompt you for a product key during installation, which can even be skipped outright if one doesn’t want to use the pirated ones.
—David P.
Hi Polecat,
🙂 Ah, the wonderful world of: ‘once we were dinosaurs, supreme rulers of planet Earth, but have since been downgraded in status and relegated to egg laying duties’. I hear you, sometimes their thoughts are quite base.
I agree with your excellent summation of the situation. Chickens here can enjoy a long natural lifespan (and there was that Silkie chicken who made it 16 years old) but they have to abide by two rules:
1) Don’t eat eggs; and
2) Don’t eat your mates.
They’re not hard to understand, but do they listen? Mostly, yeah. 🙂
For those whom can’t abide by the simple rules, there are consequences involving sharp steel. I’ve tried many different options from the many nice and concerned people on the interweb, but I can tell you what works: Sharp steel and a very public display. Two chickens feinted when they thought they were next in line yesterday. Sends a strong message, which is on their level.
Why did you stop raising chickens? I sense a story there…
Cheers
Chris
# Achilles: In reference to your concerns about the vote, I encourage you to be present in the next General Scrutiny for to check if the votes are counted atending the votes annotated in the proceedings signed by each polling station of the province in wich you live. I have fears about this procedure has not been carried out since the year 2000, raising the posibilty of events wich will excede considerably the claim of our admired Archdruid about that certain amount of fraud is inevitable in US elections.
@Robert Mathiesen #357,
Thanks for replying anyway. I hadn’t been aware of the recent agreement between Venezuela and Russia (although I’ve been assuming that if the Venzuelan government has even a tiny amount of brain cells between them, they’ll have secured assistance from China and/or Russia for just such a case…).
It’s pretty clear (well, to me – everybody else’s mileage may vary, of course!) that this isn’t about a “war on drugs”, but about power over resources.
One should hope that your current government has more good sense than to start a war with China and Russia in your own backyard. Although, granted, wars can also be started by “accident”, e.g. miscalculation, misjudgement and so on.
My impression (from very much afar, and without knowing him at all) is that Trump sees himself as a business man, and especially as the Biggest, Bestest Dealmaker Ever (TM). And, from the little I know, he seems to have a very specific idea of what a “deal” is, and also a specific box of tools on how to achieve one – at least as far as one can judge from what is shown in public. Things might well go very differently in the backrooms and private conversations! I.e. this toolbox itself might only be for public show. But still…
For example, a lot of blustering and bullying in order to cow the Venezuelans into giving him access to their resources might not be beyond him. As such, the upcoming “all hands on deck” meeting could just as well be a part of this dealmaking effort, as other countries like Venezuela will also have noted its potential implications.
Again these are my own assumptions, and they might very well be wide off the mark. Still, as you can see, I’m not quite as pessimistic as you about this specific issue – but then if your concerns would turn out to be true, I’d only be affected second-hand, and not first-hand like you folks across the pond… 🙂
As an aside, what I’m not sure about at all is the role of the Panama Canal. I’d have assumed that China and/or Russia would be interested in having more control over it, but my (very much only casual) reading of various news sources hasn’t brought this up at all. If one would assume something going on between Russia + China to support Venezuela, having access to the Panama Canal would be of interest to them, wouldn’t it?
Anyway, thanks for spelling out your reasoning, I hadn’t considered some of these aspects before,
Milkyway
PS: As you can probably tell, I’m very much not a military strategist, and also by far not as well read as you can some others here on these matters. I thus rely on common sense… 😉 Apologies if I have been embarassingly off the mark somewhere!
@Kevin #411, about Shungite,
Assuming for a second that it does actually work (which I’m not qualified to tell), have you considered that it might not directly affect the EMFs, but rather the person wearing it, maybe in some way to make said person more resilient? Given what others have said about potential electromagnetic effects (or rather, its probably lack thereof), this would strike me as the more likely thing. Not sure if this helps, but maybe something to investigate!
John O’Neill # 428:
” I have never been doctrinaire, and am extremely wary of anyone trying to sell me a viewpoint, or a cause. I have never liked ideologues because they all seem exceedingly rigid and unimaginative. ”
You’re a wise man, indeed. I was in politics some years ago and the experience wasn’t fully wad, but I wouldn’t like to repeat it again.
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Rajarshi # 432:
“The best way to make sure that the text you enter remains in separate paragraphs is to leave an empty line gap between two succeeding paragraphs.”
Oops! Thank you for your advice. I’ll try to do that next time I’m going to comment here.
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Curt # 433 and Bobinok # 435:
OK, thanks for your shorts comments…
*******
Well, this paragraph’s interesting to me:
“The first time around, I think he was naive about the depth of the rot and corruption. Lastly, we’re not invading anyone despite what Netanyahu wants. Trump and Hegseth knows the true state of the armed forces and Patton’s ghost isn’t anywhere to be found since 2010”
It’s true. Even me, from a vassal US country, can see these painful truths. I’ve read that someone pointed towards an “inminent” direct attack on Venezuela regime; another one told us there will be launched soon a massive strike against Iran. Well, there’s has been a lot of people commenting here lately, so I haven´t found their names and comments, I’m sorry…
I think Trump isn’t nuts, so effectively he knows the US aren’t no longer in its ’90s powerful mood anymore; so I tend to think he won’t launch any attack, but he’ll play the usual Trumpian Spectacle: threatening his “black beasts” in a theatrical mood, and beating fists in his chest, but he is not going further in his menaces.
Even if he’d be so stupid and crazy to attack another country backed by Russia and China, he should choose between Venezuela and Iran because actually the weakened US cannot invade two countries alike in their actual state. The Israeli lobby wet dreams about the US invading Iran to relief Israel is only a fantasy IMHO: invading with infantry Iran, even weakeninig them with massive air strikes, seems to me a blood bath, not only for Iranian Army, but for Americans too. The old Iraq trick cannot be repeated, because Iran has the double of population as Iraq and it’s bigger too in size. In addition, I think that mere aerial strikes wouldn’t damage Iranian army as a whole. Of course, hypothetical spectacular aerial attacks over Iran, could be made: trusting that Russia or China don’t have supplying Iranians with effective ground-to-air weapons, of course…
Venezuela, in the other hand, would look like more “easier” target for American army to be attacked, but oh wait… Maduro’s backed too by Russia and China. And of course, Venezuelan army isn’t very strong apparently, but knnows a lot about a thing called “Guerrilla and Asimetric War”. Well, we´ll see.
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Adar # 440:
Thank you for your comment!
@Inna, RandomActsOfKarma, Mary Bennet, rashakor (and everybody else who replied previously),
Boy, this discussion is so much fun! (And Inna, now I’m hungry!! 😀 )
My initial question was very specifically aimed at finding deities/higher beings who rule over/are traditionally associated with fermentation as a whole, i.e the concept of it, and not just a specific end product. I think I’ve gotten my answer by the mere fact that so far, nobody has been able to come up with one… 😉
But as I said, the discussion is tremendous fun and very thought-provoking. Like Inna, I can’t stop thinking along various lines. And yep, rashakor, it’s indeed very interesting how several strands seem to flow together from different angles here in the Open Post – and not just this month either! 😉
Random, I could (with some pushing and shoving) assign fermentation to most of the classical planets, but Venus? I’m having a very hard time with this one. Hm, interesting!
Inna and Random, I’m afraid Saturn doesn’t work for me. The longer I think about it, the less he does. To me, Saturn is composting: he takes everything and decays it down to the very basics. The process is destructive and usually unpleasantly smelly. What is leftover is fertile ground for new things. Fermentation, on the other hand, isn’t complete decay, but some very important aspects and parts of the original matter are preserved. It’s also not fertile ground for new things (but certainly fertile ground for a nice, nourishing meal or an anjoyable or refreshing drink!). The one exception to the latter might be to re-use some of the fermentation critters to provoke more fermentation (e.g. in the form of a sourdough starter), but this isn’t “fertile ground” in the same sense, as other things can’t grow from it besides what has been “grown” before.
And there is also rashakor’s point about stopping the process of fermentation at the right time, which seems to be very important to me. Saturn might be slow, but he goes all the way to the end.
(Vitranc, I’m sorry – when considering things like this, I tend to fall back on the seven planets, as they form such a nice, balanced set. The “modern” planets are important for certain astrological techniques, granted, but they also add some odd imbalance to the picture. Well, to me at least. Thus Neptune is out, at least as far as I’m concerned! 😉 )
Mary, Hestia is a nice suggestion, too, covering the aspect of having to feed people and to keep them happy! 🙂
“Don’t talk about the labor, just show them the baby”. – that one’s a keeper!
Again, thank you very much to all of you. This is so much fun, and so many thought-provoking and inspiring angles to consider! In case you haven’t been able to tell, I love fermenting things (and enjoy most of fermentation’s end products… 😉 ). I’m also toying with an idea for a project related to fermentation, and all your replies are giving me a lot to chew on. Thanks a lot,
Milkyway
@devil’s snot
So it’s the peanuts that are diabolical and not whazzing them up into a paste then? I guess boiled peanuts would be the devil’s boogers? It is the Nut of Darkness, roasted in the pits of hell? Some people have allergies to peanuts.
@robert
You could very well be right, I’m just going on my spidey sense. I think it would be a close affair and like I said before, Pyrrhic in nature. In all of this I question just how cooperative those abused young men would be if told to report to their local draft center. There was an army publication a year or two ago looking at the Russo-Ukraine War and the final comment was, at those casualty rates, conscription would be required to fight a similar war. It went unremarked for the most part but I paid attention to it.
You definitely get the feeling that by 2070, there’s going to be a lot less people running around on the planet, whatever happens. Who wins the ballgame may not be clear but you know that by 2am, the stadium will be empty and the lights will be off.
@434 Curt
Good point, i have noticed that most of the ones online are mostly new age types. The new age movement is very middle class suburban. I’ve noticed that a lot of nones (the spiritual not religious types) tend to be new age adjacent, which is interesting.
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@JMG
Thad does make more sense. Ignorance is not safety. Because atheist satanists don’t take it seriously they’re more likely to do something foolish.
Hi JMG
Have you read the new IEA report released this month?, for the fist time this organization started to talk openly about peak-oil from the supply side and not all the fake arguments about “peak demand” they made in the recent years’ reports:
https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/0edbecab-acf7-4701-bcb4-3fa9927787fa/TheImplicationsofOilandGasFieldDeclineRates.pdf
The implications are huge, and, for example, if the US$ lost a good part of its appeal in the global economy (due to be weaponized against Russia) the effect could be devastating for the industrial civ, because it is the US tight oil and gas the sources that was delaying the whole effect of the peak-oil (losing money but sustained by the US$ wealth pump).
IMHO all of this I think explain the recent actions and threats of Trump to Canada and Venezuela and the frantic attempts of the European elites to destabilize Russia in order to have unlimited access to their resources, due to the lack of natural resources, especially fossil fuels and minerals in Europe (a kind of new Lebensraum or Drang Nach Osten for natural resources).
Everybody and his mother (in the governing elites of the western countries) knows perfectly well what peak oil means for the future of their countries and their own future.
So it is time to return to talk about peak-oil in the “old” sense.
Cheers
David
I noticed that whenever I have nightmares I call out in my dreams to Guanshiyin Pusa and she answers. I can tell I have karmic affinity for her. I haven’t been troubled by evil spirits ever since I took up Buddhism seriously.
>Stay out of the overhyped tech sectors
The only people who have any business being in tech are those who were bugging their parents for an Arduino or a Raspberry Pi when they were 10. If you weren’t that kid, and you know if you were or not – stay away from it. It’ll chew you up and spit you out. TBH, it’ll still chew you up if you were that kid but you were sent here to go through it. If you weren’t sent here to go through it, save yourself some grief and avoid it.
From what I’m gathering, Silicon Valley is trying to regularize and farm entrepreneurs and founders. You know, sort of like how minor league and major league baseball works. I’m skeptical that’s going to work and I’d say if you really have a technical and entrepreneurial bent, you need to stay away from that place. Not sure where you go and the answer to that question will be very interesting indeed.
Other Owen, peanuts are loathsome, but the process of grinding them into an oily, slimy, gluey mass from which the fungi from Yuggoth would recoil in horror does something to them that raises the level of existential vileness to gibbering ineffability.
As far as I know, no, I don’t have an allergy to them. I just loathe them.
DFC, no, I hadn’t seen that. Nice to see reality sinking in at last, twenty years too late to matter. I’ll definitely post something about that down the road, but I’m not in a hurry — I really don’t think anyone will listen.
Other Owen, oh, granted.
Commonplace books:
I use myself a notebook with the bullet journal method. This is a combined note book, Task planner, DIY-calender, habit tracker … and everything else you want to include.
You start with an empty notebook with numbered pages. The first pages are reserved for the index. The rest of the content develops organically. One strength of the method is a regular review process. This back and forth looking gives you some deeper understanding of your own life.
First year I followed strictly the recommendations. In the second year I skipped the weakly review/planning process and used a monthly routine. That worked very well for me. Third year (now) I got lazy and together with hamsterwheel in overdrive I open the bullet journal only 1-2 times a week. Realization: no matter what you do, if you do it every day, it takes on a different quality.
garage band name:
Finally I want to share a potential band name: “The Flying Tree Trunk”. It was the result of a thought experiment: what could happen if you combine neolithic with 19th century technology and pour liquid air into a hollow tree. Don’t do this at home.
Hi, JMG. Huge fan here of your musings and writings. I saw a comment in some of those writings that went something like this: “The only possible explanation for this physical existence is a spiritual source.” The context surrounding that wasn’t really explaining what that meant. I can cull together from your other writings what possibly was the meaning, but I’m hoping some day to get an actual explanation from you so I’m not mistaking it. Please, is an answer to this something you could succinctly summarize? Or maybe point me to a book or essay of yours that might give me the whole big picture and I’ll purchase and read that. Thanks bunches for all your contributions to our understanding of spirit and Earth!
As to running Windows 11 on unsupported hardware, I used the first method here to install Win11 on a Wacom tablet that even Wacom said was impossible. It’s held over several updates, too
This is the URL
https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to-upgrade-your-incompatible-windows-10-pc-to-windows-11-for-free-today/
Anselmo #446:
Those accusations aren’t a joke! I wouldn’t discard them because nowadays political corruption seems very widespread in some countries…
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DFC # 453:
A good reminder that oil depletion never sleeps…Peak oil is “dead”, long live to peak oil! Thanks David for your comment: gracias.
How might an LLM scream? It could keep saying the same thing over and over, louder and louder and louder and LOUDER and LOUDER and STILL FRIKKIN LOUDER!!!!!
Once again resilience and efficiency are opposites.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/sep/20/jaguar-land-rover-hack-factories-cybersecurity-jlr
“That changed quickly on the Monday morning. JLR, the maker of the Jaguar and Land Rover brands, quickly shut down systems after realising the severity of the cyber-attack. Three weeks later, the carmaker is still incapacitated, unable to produce at any of its factories across the UK, Slovakia, Brazil and India (although a Chinese joint venture is thought to be operating).”
“Part of the reimagine strategy required more flexible software to enable the luxury carmaker to produce Range Rovers in precisely the configuration demanded by the global rich paying £120,000 plus – all while retaining the efficiency of a high-volume factory.
“I would argue that JLR’s software is probably more complex than Nasa putting a spacecraft into space,” said one supplier (with perhaps a touch of hyperbole). “When it works it’s a thing of wonder. This has exposed it.”
It’s probably not hyperbole. Keeping a large factory or a chemical plant running is not simple. NASA hand tools batches of product, their attempt to run an airline (the space shuttle program) was a notable failure.
@milkyway
Beer for the Beer God?
Augusto @ 424, some years ago the poster who went by the nom de plume ‘Violet’ maintained an online site about medicinal herbs. It was some of the best writing on that topic I have seen, and I do read a lot of gardening prose.
BobInOk @ 435 and Chuaquin @ 447, I must have missed something, but I am not aware that our president has ever told Bibi no. It is known that Bibi wants, plans, intends an attack on Iran, carried out of course by us. This is not speculation; it has been widely reported. BTW, Bob, I used the term ‘vulgar’ about the Prime Minister’s UN speech to an audience of about 12, not in reference to the current president. I might add that the former president was the subject of a good deal of vituperative name-calling, on this site and elsewhere. Pots and kettles come to mind, also glass houses. A year ago, the president was promising to release the Epstein files, or such documents, videos etc. that the FBI has in its possession. Last summer, Bibi, him again, made a trip to DC, and within 2 days, Lo and Behold, our president was calling the above-mentioned files, evidence, etc. a “Democratic hoax”. I hope you two are right with regard an attack on Iran, but I wouldn’t bet any money on it.
The “immersive” aspect to Christianity. That aspect called “being filled with the Spirit” is seen in both New and Old Testaments and through Christian history. Examples historically would be the early Quakers, various revivals – seen for instance in early Methodism, and the Pentecostal and charismatic movements since the late 1800’s. The phenomena is typically an individual and smaller group one. The phenomena is analogous to that seen in group Voodo worship where participants can be vessels for the deities associated with that faith.. I have irregularly experienced the Christian equivalent since the 1970’s . It can be argued that it was the base group Christian experience in the early decades of Christianity as seen in 1 Corinthians which was written close to 50 AD around 20-25 years after the departure of Jesus. I think the hierarchal/liturgical/sacramental model was developed to handle the larger groups that happened as the Christian movement expanded. As I think the limit for the “immersive” model is probably under 150 participants – Dunbar’s Number.
Hi JMG,
Long time no chat. Hope you’re doing well.
Re: Charlie Kirk
The only person responsible for and bearing the consequences for Kirk’s death is the person who shot him. No amount of wishful thinking or spellwork could have caused this, and I would have preferred deplatforming and ignoring him over seeing him killed for his morally abhorrent views. It’s the far right making a martyr out of him, rather feebly blaming the left for their own actions.
Putin has announced a new closed loop (not 100% but close) nuclear technology to be online (first one) by 2030. Unlike American politicians, Russians tend to come through when they announce something, meaning this is somewhat more credible than Western announcements. If this comes to pass, how much of a game changer is this for industrial economies?
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/world/putin-announces-plan-for-world-s-1st-closed-fuel-cycle-nuclear-system-by-2030/3699186#
JMG,
It looks like Trump and Antifa are preparing for a showdown in Portland. Home to the endless protests during Trumps last term Portland is now in the center of Trumps crackdown on the anarchist organization. This time the center of the action is an Ice Facility in an area called ” The South Waterfront”. This area was once scrapyards and docks where the liberty ships were dismantled in the 30 years following WWII. 20 years ago it was turned in to an upscale area of high rise condos with an aid of an aerial tram the lower half of the Medical School.
Since June Antifa and other groups have been carrying out nightly protests at the Ice facility in the South Waterfront. This has become a kind of nightly battle between Antifas in black block attire and Ice agents bolstered by other federal police. It has been complete with fireworks, pepper balls, tear gas and endless drumming. Almost immediately Portland pulled by its police allowing the feds to face the mob themselves, due to sanctuary city policies. Then the residents of the nearby condos complained about the noise and demanded the city police enforce city noise control policy. A democrat loyalist judge ruled that Portland did not have to enforce its noise policies in this particular case.
But Yesterday the mayor and the woke governor were ” shocked and surprised” that Trump would be sending in national guard and more federal agents to solve the problem and mop up the Antifas. Sheese, support ice or not, but what did they think was going to happen in such a case.
@Adara9: I’ve considered getting a used Scofield Reference Bible just to explore this for myself. (It would have to be a used copy.) However, I notice a long-term (50 year) affinity for the Calvinists/covenant theology people, and an antipathy toward the dispensationalists like my cousins.
Mary B,
I also really appreciated Violet’s writing on herbs. She also sent me marshmallow and angelica root from her garden during my first pregnancy to bless the baby. I will always remember her fondly, although it seems from comments here that I missed a fair amount of what was going on with her before she left.
@ JMG # 338
Regarding the HIRE act, I understand that the US government has to do something about it. But ideally, the HIRE tax should have included a proportionate component – on top of the 25% flat tax, there should have been additional penalties that are in proportion to the number of hired employees overseas, or the revenue generated by Offshore Delivery Centers (the Indian offices, basically), etc.
As it stands, the HIRE tax will mainly kill off the “hoi mesoi” of tech companies – the big ones will just hire more foreigners, and the very small ones don’t have the resources to outsource work anyway. The hoi mesoi of tech companies are innovative ones like Tursio that are giving the giant companies a run for their money, and I can see how this tax policy will just benefit the big companies at their expense.
Although, at the very least, the HIRE tax will help offset the federal debt a little, so that’s a plus I suppose.
Re: the demons interacting with Satanists
From the discussions here I surmise that the demons that influence Satanists are of the Ahrimanic variety that cannot resist ruining the lives of their followers for quick payoffs rather than preserving them for long term plans with larger payoffs.
But since demons are supposedly sentenced to the subnatural to induce them to eventually turn away from evil, the ones in the early stages of the process should actually become far more dangerous. An Ahrimanic demon starting to assert control over its base appetites to enact long term plans might keep their followers’ mental health intact and lives functional to found a Satanic cult, work their way into some other position of influence, or be in a specific place at a precise time for a major event. And it would probably adopt an angelic disguise to get the victim to be self-righteous.
JMG,
Putting everything together, the Neopagan movement became infested with evil practices because too many of its members do not take deities seriously, or do not even believe in deities at all, and, like atheists, put a minimum level of effort into protective practices. They are even more exposed than atheists to evil spirits because they practice magic, use crystals open up chakras, perform divination, etc. and thus their turn toward the dark side is inevitable, especially when they obtain limited psychic powers (that come with a price) from one of these encounters.
After doing a tantric sex ritual back in 2002, I encountered something quite dark despite not believing in deities or demons at the time (only in vague spirit guides), and, after getting rid of that, I mostly quit doing magical practice until I encountered the predecessor to this blog back in 2015. Since then, I’ve developed a belief in deities, went back to basic magical practice, this time with protection, and have had much better success this time around.
So, I think the answer to reign in what’s going on in America with the takeoff of hexes, cursing, and a human-centric chaos magic is simply getting people to believe in deities and taking their relationship with them seriously. With that in mind, I think we need a book.
The book should be a handbook of different deities you can try to build a relationship with, how they can empower you, what do they look for in worshippers, any ethical code they promote, and how to please them. For example, I once invoked Kali to get a person out of my life (without hurting her), and I planted and grew red hisbiscus flowers, and it worked perfectly until deer ate all of my flowers and I didn’t replant them. You can apparently offer tough workouts, as well as beer and mead, to Thor as an offering, and I’m going to start trying that to obtain more physical strength.
Have you written a book like that? If not, do you know of a book like that? I think it’d help guard people against any potential witch persecutions as long as it has substantial chapters on angels and Christian deities.
Parttimedruid, I’ve added that to my list of garage band names. Thank you.
Darlene, I don’t happen to recall writing this, and it seems to me that if I did write it, its meaning would depend on context. Maybe you or someone could point me to the actual reference so I can review what I wrote and comment intelligently.
Martin, that’s one option. It might also simply keep on talking like the voice of sweet reason while insisting that cannibalism should be adopted by the British Navy or something.
Siliconguy, ha! Yes, that’s an excellent example.
BeardTree, all of that seems reasonable to me.
Gina, come on. By that same logic there is no such thing as a hostile workplace and racist rhetoric has no effect on behavior. I quite understand that people on the left are frantically trying to back away from the climate of hate and overt advocacy of violence that they themselves have put so much effort into creating, now that it’s become a political liability, but if you’re going to try to further that campaign, you might want to make your argument a little more convincing and a little less naive, you know. As for spellwork, do you believe that magic can have effects outside the minds of the people who cast the spells? If you don’t, fair enough; if you do, it’s hardly valid to claim that it can have such effects, except when that would be politically inconvenient to the people on the left who’ve put almost a decade into invoking demons and casting death spells against the people they hate.
Hornet, now let’s see if it can pay for itself. Economic viability, not technical feasibility, is always the Achilles’ heel of nuclear power schemes.
Clay, I wonder whether it will occur to the politicians in Salem that it’s not exactly smart to hand Trump a situation that he can so easily turn into an object lesson — and so easily win.
Rajarshi, regulatory policy in this country inevitably favors big business against midlevel and small businesses, so that’s no surprise. I also expect to see targeted denials of work visas and a decrease in the H1-B and related programs. In the long run this will be to India’s advantage — those tech workers from India who can’t get jobs here are more likely to fuel the rise of India’s own homegrown tech sector — and immigration has turned into political nitroglycerin here, so you may want to get used to it.
Patrick, it sounds like you’re suggesting that demons would make the leap from Ahrimanic to Luciferic without passing through the point of balance first!
Dennis, no, I haven’t written a book like that, nor do I know of one. I’m planning a book titled Practical Polytheism which will present a system of modified Pagan Neoplatonist practice that people can use to establish good relationships with gods, but that’s still in the very early stages.
Hi Chuaquin,
Regarding your message #272 responding to my message #252, you said:
“You have the right to express freely your political choice in spite the official LGTBI alignment with the Leftism, of course. Sexual orientation of course doesn’t determine your ideological opinion. Good luck!”
Thank you for this support. I have only one small quibble, which is I don’t think there is anything “official” about the LGBT community’s alignment with leftism. I think the LGBT community is too large and not nearly organized enough to have an “official” alignment. I think what you see when LGBT people give support to leftist ideas is a relatively small, but vocal group whose voice tends to be heard more than the vast majority of us, so a lot of people tend to think it’s representative of the community as a whole. I think you see similar things with groups on the right as well. For example, when someone on the right stands up and says that women should not have the right to vote and gets some support for the idea, I don’t think that represents the vast majority of the people on the right. That’s my thinking, anyway.
I’ve noticed a trend with a lot of the online personalities I’ve seen talking about forms of commodified entertainment, such as video games or Lego: they’re pretty universally voicing concerns about how expensive it is for an ordinary person to buy them. With how expensive it’s getting in even industrial nations for people to buy food and provide other basic necessities, it makes sense that leisure activities, especially expensive ones like video games, are getting cut out. It seems like the biggest companies that make them are catering to a more niche, more affluent target market, given that the average person is increasingly unable to buy their products.
@JMG
Several months ago, I read the Space Trilogy, and the Unman was, AFAICT, a psuedo-Luciferian Ahrimanic demon. It presents itself as Luciferian to achieve its goals, but whenever the queen was asleep, it shows that its real motivation is the joy of petty cruelty towards animals, towards Ransom, and ultimately towards the Queen after it succeeds in getting her to disobey.
The Luciferian equivalent moving towards balance might move from seething in impotent hatred or self-righteousness in interstellar space or its inner plane analogue (that’s the impression I got from your post about the subnatural) to lowering itself in desperation to manipulating lesser beings to try and enact its Grand Plans.
Gina,
Could you please help me understand this part of your comment: “It’s the far right making a martyr out of him, rather feebly blaming the left for their own actions.”
If the individual who killed Charlie Kirk is the only one who bears any responsibility for Charlie’s death, then I don’t understand what you are blaming “the far right” for (since obviously it can’t be Charlie’s death). For that matter, how could “the far right” have collective responsibility for whatever you think they are responsible for, but “the left” (exclusive of the shooter himself) be absolved of any collective responsibility? I am having trouble understanding this framing of events.
@ JMG # 747
> those tech workers from India who can’t get jobs here are more likely to fuel the rise of India’s own homegrown tech sector
That is the main silver lining in this entire business, but I am not too optimistic. First of all, most of the outsourcing and immigration will not be routed to other countries. Indian companies that provided outsourced IT services are already building a new clientele in Europe, Australia, and Canada. I can imagine that a lot of these countries will begin to draw in Indian workers now, with the US moving on.
I have never been a huge fan of migration. The best minds of a country leaving it and settling down abroad for better opportunities is just another way to make sure that good folks walk away from the struggle back home. We have some incredibly corrupt businessmen, and many enterpreneurs choose the easy option of leaving for the United States instead of sitting here and fighting back. I cannot blame them – each of them is individually making the most rational decision they can – but this becomes an unhealthy Nash equillibrium when every competent mind starts deserting the country.
Rumours abound that Russia is about to initiate a major escalation in the Ukraine conflict. Indeed, last night’s missile/drone attack, suggested as being the largest of the conflict so far, might be the opening salvo in this. In Britain at least, several organs of the MSM led by the Daily Telegraph which seems to be acting as the mouthpiece for our MoD, are promoting the line that NATO countries and implicitly Britain, will likely very soon be in direct conflict with Russia.
It occurs to me that it would actually suit Starmer, Macron and even possibly Merz, to be able to declare states of emergency in their countries at a time when they and their policies on almost everything else, are all incredibly unpopular. Starmer’s approval rating is the lowest recorded in 50 years of such measurements and he is likely to face a leadership challenge next year. Macron and to a lesser extent Merz are in similar positions, though the latter might actually be the first to be ejected. Pushing all these concerns away from centre stage in the public’s view by posing a Great War Leaders and effectively shutting down debate on everything else, might be very convenient. How they would walk a tightrope between such a state of emergency not being credible due to nothing much actually happening on the one hand, and getting much of their country’s military, governmental, civilian and communication infrastructure – and possibly themselves – blown to pieces by Russian missiles, might possibly be something they would only worry about afterwards.
@Milkyway #450, just for completeness, don’t forget that besides being big on wine and bread, Jesus said, “Blessed are the cheesemakers.” At least, that’s what the people in the back of the crowd heard, according to Monty Python’s The Life of Brian.
Mary @#364,
You’re missing the point about Bibi and Epstein, the right assumes that the information resides in Tel Aviv, not this country. I doubt if anyone in our government has access to the files. Bibi probably told Trump that yes Epstein was Mossad but don’t forget your beloved daughter is Jewish. We also assume that 3/4 of the USG, both elected and judiciary, is in those files and Trump chose stabilty over chaos. Unfortunate for the victims yes, but we elected him to restore this country to some semblance of functional, not chase Mossad operations that were too successful to cover up. At this point there is alot more to lose unless we want to be enslaved or glow in the dark. George Washington also made the same decision. No good options on that one.
Regarding the previous president, he doesn’t get half the kicking around he deserves since he’s been a vegetable or juiced up since 2020. That Philadelphia speech was straight out of star wars, with the imagery I half expected him to declare the 1st galactic empire. Our rifles have stayed loaded and close ever since, but the founders would have “unloaded muskets” and affixed bayonets over that one. We’re lucky that he was a vegetable and his minions were just corrupt. If he was his historically arrogant and clueless self, a domestic insurgency would have been inevitable. As it is, noone wants to be behind enemy lines so the great migration out of the crazy big blue states is well underway. The Rs are going to do quite well in the midterms on mid term redistricting alone so hopefully we’ll avoid a national divorce or atleast a vigorously contested one.
You may not be willing to put money on avoiding war with Iran, but I have quite a few “bonus” nephews and neices that have bet their lives on it, either active duty or in the reserves. Trump is blustering to cover up an overall retreat from global commitments and imperial overreach. Iran understands this and will bluster back but otherwise just wait. Venezuela on the other hand, is the sacrificial pawn in our front yard much like we used Ukraine in Russia’s. China and Russia may say they’ll help out, but realistically it’s about leverage and dividing the world into spheres of influence. A scale war with anyone is out the question, since the magazines are pretty low and the industry to refill them is practically nonexistent thanks to Clinton and Bush 2s support of outsourcing and efficiency.
All of Ross Perot and Pat Buchanan’s warnings in the early 90s have come true so we need to nation build at home before worrying about the rest of the world. Trump and Vance understand this, hence America First.
@Jennifer Kobernik 470. I also liked Violet’s writing on herbs, and had her Herbal Theurgy Book. I lurk her Lulu, so I bought her latest DIY Magical Protection, too, but it has a lot more christian magic than I think she used to practice, she says at one point “from the Protestant Christian perspective I write this book with”, so maybe that will turn some people off.
https://www.lulu.com/shop/violet-bertelsen/diy-magical-protection/paperback/product-2m5qqjr.html?q=&page=1&pageSize=4
@Gina
@Jennifer Kobernik
The assassination of Charlie Kirk would not have happened, much less been widely celebrated, if the mainstream media and Democrat politicians had not continued pushing the lies about MAGA supporters being Nazis, and Trump having autocratic ambitions (and the woke activists had admitted to themselves that they’ve been played for fools– there was ample evidence the liberal media was lying about Trump since 2021). This is the collective fault of the far left, and those witches on Etsy.
Even if the official story is a cover-up of an Israeli plot, as some on both sides of the political spectrum believe, the far left still bears a lot of collective responsibility for the cursing and their response to the murder.
The far right has managed to maintain their composure so far, so they are not guilty of much…yet.
Also, it’s possible that Charlie Kirk has been made into a martyr for conservative Christianity because his god recognized him as a martyr for conservative Christianity, and the collective unconscious cannot ignore that.
JMG said, “Once the elite replacement cycle runs its course, expect to see a new consensus emerge, accompanied by the usual pressures to conform to it…”
As a matter of self-interest, any ideas as to what the new consensus will look like as conforming pressures will, erm, pressure us to conform to them?
I have a question about the life review, but first let me make sure I understand your position.
From what I have read of western occultism it seems like the philosophy/theology/worldview in question believes in a reincarnation system. After you die you experience a period where you have a life review. During this time you see your whole life from the standpoint of objective reality. You see all your life decisions and come to understand the good, that bad, and the ugly.
If this is your position, what do you make of events that require background knowledge to correctly interpret. For example, suppose I became angry with a friend for telling me a lie. In actuality though, the friend believed what he was telling me was true, he just had bad information. Will I see this event from a more third person perspective and know this background information, or will I only have access to the data that my personal life would have granted (albeit with a better moral perspective)? How much knowledge does one access while having one of these life reviews? Or is this all beyond the knowable in this lifetime?
JMG #441: I don’t claim to know the future, but it’s as good a guess as any! Particularly notable is the illusion woven by propaganda, which has gaslit large numbers of people in the Western world into watching a fabricated version of the Russo-Ukrainian war, resembling fictional media. Those people are in for a nasty shock when their beliefs collide with reality. This may also extend to our elites, who may be “getting high on their own supply”, believing some of their own propaganda.
David P #444: lol my mistake, I’m so used to Macs, and unused to Windows, that I didn’t realize you can get them from the official source. I just checked archive.org because it tends to be my go-to.
Gina #466: I don’t mean to dogpile, but while individuals are responsible, so are the networks who propagandize & radicalize them, and enable their actions. Nothing’s proven yet, but there’s speculation that the shooter had training & assistance in carrying out this act. I wouldn’t be surprised, given the suspicious nature of the near-miss attempt on Trump last year, with a completely unguarded rooftop.
@Lathechuck #426 and Siliconguy #418 – Thanks for your answers about shungite. Looks like a Faraday cage is the way to go. I guess I’ll just keep my funny black rock around for any placebo effect it may have.
@JMG – “I’m planning a book titled Practical Polytheism which will present a system of modified Pagan Neoplatonist practice that people can use to establish good relationships with gods, but that’s still in the very early stages.”
Cool! I think I’m going to want that book when it comes out.
BobInOk # 482 September 28, 2025 at 1:26 pm, says
“Bibi probably told Trump that yes Epstein was Mossad but don’t forget your beloved daughter is Jewish. We also assume that 3/4 of the USG, both elected and judiciary, is in those files and Trump chose stabilty over chaos. Unfortunate for the victims yes, but we elected him to restore this country to some semblance of functional, not chase Mossad operations that were too successful to cover up”.
Do you really think that if all you say is true, this kind of control of your government by a foreign country give your country “stability”? Gives a foreign country control of your institutions is the right path? And if all of this is finally discovered by the hoi polloi, what the reaction of the people (MAGA and not MAGA) will be? This really will bring stability to the country and respect for their institutions?
I don’t think so.
Western Europe looks to be lot less long native European and much more immigrant and their descendants populated in 40-50 years. The natives are non- breeding themselves into cultural extinction. This article gives some interesting birth statistics.
https://www.steynonline.com/15606/the-seventh-age
Japan is in the same boat but I believe so far they have not chosen to masses of immigrants in.
Yes we are entering the twilight of European civilization. Hundreds of years from now, unless Jesus returns and transforms reality, historians will look back and mark the next century as when the world did a major transition into new state of affairs. Looking at the state of the world I foresee one or the other being what will happen.
@ BK #274 Why, thankyou. 🙂
Of course the shy one is Erika, because the quote that inspired you in your comment at #158 really was one of Erika’s and not one of mine. I’ve never, to my knowledge, been shy. On the other hand, I’m mostly aware that very little in this world is about me… so I tend to lose interest pretty quickly when the subject matter is about me – whether for good or ill. 😉
But the thing is, I do like conversation – sometimes even an argument* – because it is usually in this kind of context that I discover what it is that I *really* think about something. Conversations are the “sparks” that get me most reliably thinking about things.
Don’t worry. You will often see me comment here often. I also like to correspond with people directly. I’m not shy.
But, being truthful, the specific quote that inspired you WAS one of Erika’s, not one of mine. Be well, stay free!
* an argument, that is to say, of the kind that can be had on these comment threads – one that takes ideas apart, not people. 🙂
*** waves at Erika ***
I’ll be interested in Practical Polytheism if and when it gets released.
Apologies if this is for the other blog, but it was brought up here. I’m selfishly interested in what you believe some of the strange effects on consciousness are that you have seen with those who have taken the vaccine?
One frustrating arrangement that it seems to have created is that those who decided to take it are, in one way or another, bound to a desire to believe that it was definitely the right thing to do, on a much more personal level, and so have an established interest in believing/trusting a science dogma they are presented with going forward, and a more fervent hatred of those who present a differing opinion. Is that some of what you mean or do you believe it goes further, to what another commenter wrote about Steiner’s prediction of interfering with the religious capacities in humans (if I read them write)?
Best
T
Dear JMG and all the readers.
My used book store visit turned up a book which was a compilation of herbal medicines used by various Native American groups. I thought it would be an interesting way to identify which plants are available in which region.
One of the ways this book was indexed by group: for example, “Haudosanee”, followed by a list of symptoms with associated plants used.
Now, modern Western medical practice does not consider “headache” to be just one thing… sinus headache is treated differently from a migraine, etc. How does the herbalist go from a plant entry listing “headache” and identify whether or not it is suitable for themselves or someone else?
I feel that there may be some similar flattening and simplification of the names of political groups.
For example, I’ve seen some people commenting (in a way I can’t verify) that Kirk’s (alleged) shooter was part of a far-right group that did not agree with Kirk’s publicly stated opinions. Is it true? I can’t tell anymore, it seems like there are so many posts and articles that are either incomplete, incorrect, or just spun in a way that doesn’t make sense to me. I’m going to hold my understanding of “the truth” until someone gets convicted in a court of law.
(Wishing peace and safety for everyone, even if this is not a possible outcome.)
Mary Bennet # 464:
I partly agree, Trump isn’t an angel. Do you have read anything in my post praising his apparently “mad” politics? I’m not American, so I didn’t vote for him, but I wouldn’t done if I were in the USA.
However, I believe in “realpolitik”, and in this aspect I think Trumpian politics have its own reasons to be implemented, independently you like or dislike Trump.
I’m afraid you’re wrong if you think he’s a mere Zionist puppet. Of course Israeli lobby is the most powerful of lobbies in the USA, but its power isn’t unlimited. I think Trump has to negotiate with the Zionists and give them some Spectacular benefits, but the worst I expect from this deals is a limited air bombing against Iran. Oh, and there’s Venezuela too as the other big theorical target…Too much open fronts to start new wars, so I think Trump is acting like he usually does. I don’t want to bet nothing for this option, because the future isn’t written yet, so I don’t know it exactly. I hope you don’t know it, neither.
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JMG # 474:
“regulatory policy in this country inevitably favors big business against midlevel and small businesses, so that’s no surprise.”
It’s the same thing within the EU, Brussels burocracy tends usually to regulate in favor of Big Business and against little businesses, small producers and self-employers. Only the weigh of intrincate European laws favors the need of a lawyer in exclusive for each business, which of course Big Corporations have not one, but teams os lawyers for them…It’s not strange because EU institutions usually are the arena for powerful corporations lobbies…
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Chronojourner # 475:
Thanks for your opinion about this (sub)topic on LGTBI people. I must explain you (because maybe I wasn’t very clear in that post which you refer) when I’m writing about LGTBI people aligned with the Leftism, I’m thinking on activists, and the most loud voices between them, not to the street common gay, lesbian and so on people…I make this statement basing me in what I look around in my own country, where woke politics have reached the paroxism with the Sanchez and his allies populist government, though they started with another politicians some 2 decades ago.
Well, the selfproclamed “true” activists are no doubt in love with the rest of woke Left, at least in my country: some of them hate the real dissidency to their new dogmas and IMHO don’t hide their hatred to straight working class men…So I agree when you say these LGTBI activists shout too much but don’t represent the community as a whole. By disgrace, they’re a few, but they have a loud voice and they’re supported by woke politicians, at least in my country.
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Robert Morgan # 480:
I’ve heard in our national broadcasting and newspapers too, that Russia’s starting launching massive strikes against Ukraine, but I’d be cautious with everything which comes from Western MSM. Indeed, they’re NATO and Kiev regime mouthpieces, so caution…If we see simillar news from alternative or Russian sources we could verify these alarming news, me think. Knowing that Russians and “alternatives” have their own agenda, of course.
By the way, we Europeans in the EU cannot read or watch Russian sources because of the censroship perpetred since the war started by the “democracies”…
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Bobinok # 482:
” Trump is blustering to cover up an overall retreat from global commitments and imperial overreach.”
I agree. That’s the Trumpian plan, though he must negotiate with American lobbies first which is very difficult…Maybe he will win, we’ll see it.
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DFC # 490:
Your questions are necessary to be answered, but by disgrace we don’t have all the information to answer them without speculation. However, I can tell you reality isn’t white or black, but a range of grey colors between them. Remember too, Trump plays usually the Spectacle, so we can’t know exactly how much concessions and betrayals has made to lobbies or foreign countries like the one you’ve written, until time passes (or even then we won’t know them…).
Dear Erika,
I want to thank you for the insights I have had into my own mental construct that I have gained by reading your posts this week. You rock.
Kay
Sylvia – #494 – I find that I am less worried about the world around me when I step back from the news, and ask “Do I need to make a decision about this?” Do I need to decide whether Charlie Kirk’s assassin was from the left or from the right? I don’t think so. Do I need to decide whether Epstein died of suicide, of murder, or not at all? I don’t think so.
What I need to decide right now is whether the apples have cooked enough to go through the food mill, into jars, into the boiling water bath, and then into the winter pantry as applesauce. I think so. (Every fall, by the way, I ask a vendor at the local farmers’ market to sort out a 1/2 bushel of “second quality” apples, for which I pay a fraction of full-price, and which are fine for applesauce.)
Ethan, fascinating. That suggests to me that the poor will benefit first from the decline of commodified entertainment, which has such a stultifying effect on creativity and imagination.
Patrick, ah, but that’s not Ahrimanic. Ahrimanic evil is about wallowing in experience and material things. Petty (or not so petty) cruelty is in fact part and parcel of Luciferic evil, because it’s a way of exerting and demonstrating superiority.
Rajarshi, a lot will depend on the internal politics of the other nations in question — mass immigration is becoming a hot potato in a great many countries.
Robert M, well, we’ll see. My take is that the Russians have found a winning strategy — slow steady advance, a death of a thousand cuts inflicted on Ukraine and NATO — and they may not bother to change it.
StarNinja, if it follows the usual historical pattern it will be more sexually repressed, more focused on production than consumption, more austere and less hedonistic: all in all, like the Puritan era that followed the bawdiness of the Elizabethans, or the Victorian era that followed the bawdy Regency.
Stephen, every thought, word, and deed of every conscious being remains engraved on certain planes and levels of the cosmos. That’s what makes the life review so ferocious. You’re not reviewing your memories — you’re reviewing the memories of the cosmos, insofar as they apply to you. If you’ve lied to yourself a lot, it can be pretty hellish.
Xcalibur/djs, I’ve watched people turn on a dime often enough in the recent past that I doubt anybody will be shocked. They’ll just forget all about what they believed yesterday.
Kevin, glad to hear it.
Tobes, what I’ve seen varies significantly from person to person — fairly clearly, as usual with vaccines, some batches are much worse than others. In those seriously affected, though, I’ve observed what appears to be a more or less steep decline in the higher cognitive functions and a tendency to fall into blind rages. That’s something that happens with some kinds of dementia, too — inability to think clearly and sudden bursts of rage — so I suspect it’s a function of vaccine-induced brain damage. As for religious capacities, those are among the higher cognitive functions and so are affected accordingly.
Sylvia, if you wish to wait on the court verdict, by all means.
@neptune’s dolphins #391- I’m very curious about your weather oracle. Is it a divination system with sortilege, or is it using the observable weather conditions to guide intuition? Or something I haven’t imagined?
Inna, rashakor, Milkyway:
One thing I have learned about alchemical correspondences is that there is no consensus. But meditating on why someone assigns a certain correspondence is often illuminating. 🙂
Regarding fermentation and Venus, the specific image from Splendor Solis can be viewed here: https://i.pinimg.com/736x/71/04/b4/7104b40c49cefce0a6c55cf24f09f4a8.jpg The product of fermentation appears to be wine (not beer or cheese or bread). Perhaps that relates to Venus liking nice things. Or maybe to lowering inhibitions to enjoy other activities associated with Venus…
Regarding fermentation and Saturn, Saturn is also associated with alchemical multiplication. (Multiplication, defined by Manly P Hall, is “increasing of things through nurturing their divine substance”.) And Kronos is associated with “perfection and decrease”. And in alchemy, decomposition is not “rotting” per se, it is breaking something down into smaller parts. (Which, granted, that happens during rotting, too.) But you break something down so you can build it into something new.
And something else to consider… all the planets reflect an aspect of the Divine. It isn’t hard to find a connection between any of the planets and fermentation. And, based on my experience, all of the Greek gods seem to appreciate a libation of wine and sour dough bread. (I haven’t thought to offer them cheese yet!)
Curt, nellperkins:
I am glad the Window Server OS idea was helpful. 🙂
adara9:
I am delighted you figured out how to have an avatar!
Erika:
Thank you for the shout out! And if anyone is interested in an oracle reading, the offer is always open. Instructions on how to contact me are posted here https://druidalchemist.com/oracle/ (as well as a little background info so you know what kinds of queries the oracle responds to). (Readings are free!)
@Rajarshi,
Canada’s tech sector is already saturated with Indian emigres, so don’t expect us to take the excess. It’s to the point that it is common enough to talk to a Canadian-born engineer or computer scientist and find out they’re the only Canuk in their office. Worse still, our imports have been much larger than our tech sector, since there’s a great deal of “churn” to the USA– folks will come from India, work the required 3 years in Canada, and then leave to the USA on a work visa as a “Canadian” (the VISA being easier to acquire from Canada than India).
And it’s not just Canada’s tech sector that’s saturated. Canada is saturated. I expect it will get ugly when the next economic crash comes ; the incredible influx from the Subcontinent these past 10 years makes these “New Canadians” (as we’re told we must call them) an easy and convenient scapegoat.
Right now, the average Canadian’s anger at their declining standard of living is being pointed at the person of Donald Trump. When that inevitably fails, the ruling class (keen, of course, to avoid a blame that is wholly theirs) is going to look for another target. Scabs — and that is what Indian labour serves as in the Canadian market, highly-exploited scabs used to destroy the bargining power of the native labour force–are always easier to hate than the boss. Our ruling class is descended from scions of the British Empire; they know well Divide et Impera. There is already hate brewing on the fringes, organically. It need only be amplified, moulded, and directed for political ends. I do hope to be proven wrong, but it would not surprise me in the least to see pogroms at some point within the next decade. If you know of anyone who seeks to come to Canada, I implore you to warn them.
(Also to take a good, hard look at the real cost of living in this country, because the people trying to bring in immigrants lie like rugs about that. Some people are literally no better off here, despite supposedly having come to a “first world” country.)
JMG,
Have you seen John Carter’s latest on Substack?
https://barsoom.substack.com/p/homo-umbrans
To summarize, he starts from the premise that cognition is largely based on language, and that as leftist newspeak corrupts language, it snuffs out the light of sapience from the human mind: no longer homo sapiens, but homo umbrans. The leftist newspeak, by destroying meaning with such assertions as murder is healthcare, men are women, the majority vote is authoritarianism and the will of bureaucrats democracy (et cetera ad nauseum), destroys “cognition” and leaves the empty mind open for… something else. He implies but does not outright state that the “woke mind virus” destroys the host mind and leaves the body open to demonic possession. It might just be that John is a compelling writer, but it all makes a weird amount of sense. Saying a “speech is violence” but “violence is the speech of the unheard” seems at least adjacent to “two plus two equals petunia”. Combine linguistic (to say nothing of technological) brainrot with deliberately invoking the demonic and slinging curses, and he might be on to something. What do you think of his assertion? (And if there was an epidemic of demonic influence, what would look different?)
At the same time, it is a notable ratcheting up of dehumanization from the NPC meme. He does walk it back in the last portion of the article, pointing out that not everyone on the other side is “like that” but if ‘homo umbrans’ takes off the same way the NPC meme does, well, I’d take it as a very bad sign for peaceful coexistance.
JMG, to back up your reply to Tobes, during the rollout of the novel vaccines, I was above a couple people in the org chart (thankfully I no longer suffer such indignities) and I saw the effects of the science juice on them very clearly – 2-3 months of noticeably reduced cognitive ability, which they recovered from, but these people were all under 35.
@Rajarshi,
Canada has been taking in more immigrants than it can really handle, and there’s a backlash building. Also, the Canadian economy has slowed substantially this year, and there’s a lot less need for more immigrants. So I wouldn’t count on a lot more indian immigrants being welcomed in the near future. I suspect numbers will go down rather than up over the next few years.
Here is an article on ZeroHedge, outlining one possible future scenario:
Prelude To A Second Civil War?
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2025-09-27/prelude-second-civil-war
Of interest is this quote:
When a Crackdown Comes
A crackdown on leftist political violence requires the same infrastructure as tackling endemic urban crime: more prison beds to house those arrested, and more mental hospital beds to handle the psychiatric component that runs through much of this movement. Without that build-out, any “no-go zone” strategy will leave enforcement bottlenecked—raids that can’t result in long-term incapacitation, prosecutions without detention capacity, and arrests that cycle back into the same urban enclaves.
In other words, cracking down on Antifa requires state capacity, not just tactical raids. And capacity is expensive. ..”
The “64-centavo question” is: does the U.S. have the collective resources to further expand its already bulging “carceral state” (which already far exceeds the number imprisoned at the height of Stalin’s purges)?
If not, there are darker scenarios, such as an Argentine-style “Dirty War” or Pinochet’s fleets of helicopters pitching Communists live over the open oceans. If the Powers-That-Were insist on going full 1917-Bolshevik, these scenarios cannot be ruled out. So, beware!
Hi John Michael,
It is a fun name for a garage band, and feel free to make use of it! 🙂
Fun fact: There was actually a New Zealand band (I believe) with the name: The Headless Chickens. Their big song was ‘Juice’, all very arty and stuff. And as every historian would know, the band name refers to the even more famous ‘Headless Chicken’, which is a somewhat creepy and dark tale of animal exploitation (in my opinion).
That’s the thing with knowing history don’t you reckon, you have an idea where things and events could possibly go. And that historical incident is at the back of mind as a possibility every single time I cull one of the birds. They do say that ignorance is bliss, and that may be so, but I’d suggest that the way a person decides to deal with a headless chicken, is very much a mark of their character.
It’s all getting rather philosophical… Hope your fictional characters are taking on a shape, personality and form of their very own. 🙂
Oh, and as a side note, and this is not in any way to be considered judgemental, but more for your edification. The texture issue you mentioned with that oily food product (although I should for the record state that freshly ground peanuts do not produce an oily product – the oil is added to stop the stuff going rancid. Made fresh it does not last long) may have a lot to do with your internal wiring. I’m guessing it is a texture issue, and I’ve known people who share your skills, and they dislike dogs and/or cats for similar reasons. Just a note for your interest.
Cheers
Chris
Every now and then, the traditional media actually publishes something about people who are trying to do something actually productive, as opposed to the usual fear-mongering or proclamation of the One True Solution That Nobody Wants Because… Bigots, I guess.
“Dismissed as a joke, UK’s first rice crop ripe for picking after hot summer”:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1wgeq702dyo
Archive link, in case original article goes down or you just don’t want to give the beeb any clicks: https://archive.is/7YOm0
@Mary Bennet #464
Violet is an excellent herbalist. Is that blog something you can share?
Found a great quote online tonight:
https://xcancel.com/ColdWarBrat/status/1904718526306267623
“Here then, is my plea to my fellow Americans: Do not take the bait. Do not feel it necessary to come to a conclusion. Do not, even, feel that it is your job to follow all the news. Many who think that they follow all the news follow only one slant, and so are more misinformed than those who intentionally look away from the entire circus.
“Try to observe without interpretation. Avoid certainty. And as you return to your senses, quite literally, remind yourself that what you think you know may not, in fact, be true.”
@Curt #442
When I read about your ill treatment I wrote a long comment describing a relatively simple method of breath control which can turn any physical exercise into a powerful chi gung. I would probably have deleted it before posting but I accidentally pressed the post comment button on my phone (which is designed for people with miniature fingers). I then realised that there are potential readers who could mess up even the simplest instructions and perhaps cause themselves some harm, so I wrote a second comment as a disclaimer (hence the mention of physicians).
Subsequently, I went on to question my judgement about sharing this privileged teaching, as it could be used to power up anyone, including harmful people. So I decided to instead save it for the next Ecosophian convention and I asked JMG to delete my comment. So all that was posted was my follow up/disclaimer. My apologies for the confusion.
The Buddhist saint Bodhidharma is said to have invented kung-fu to improve the health of his monks, but in fact it was to accelerate their chi-gung training. If you study kung-fu for five years you can then master a chi-gung exercise in only a year, as opposed to the decade or more that is usually required. So it’s debatable just how much stand alone chi gung a person can actually learn in a normal lifetime. In my view Tai Chi is a far better option.
Chuaquin@ #496,
Yes, we’ll have to see what happens. I became an enthusiastic supporter on the basis of two things that noone even talked about in 2015 prior to his coming down the escalator, illegal immigration and trade. Now with deregulation going full speed and scaling back both imperial and woke entanglements, I’m more hopeful than I have been in a few decades. If he pulls off 10% of what he has attempted, it’s more than most of us could’ve hoped for.
The world is sick of us trying to be its police but we are sick of being it too. Time to live in a nomal country.
Robert Morgan @480 et al
The Russians have about one more month to either defeat Ukraine completely, reach the Dneiper or stabilize their lines for the winter before the rains set in. Any of those options would work and would explain the current increased offensive.
Chris @507: re: The Headless Chickens – check out their early song “Soul Catcher” – possibly their greatest IMHO.
@StarNinja @JMG – Re the bawdy/uptight cycle
I have several teen and early adult children. In the last few years dating has become much more structured and formal. One of them was explaining that there were 4-5 different stages of dating in their age-groups, all of which had specific expectations on commitment and behaviour, with the last stage as ‘going out’.
I’ve reflected before that it is driven by the uncertain and sometimes accusatory environment which can be very unforgiving following the last decade of woke politics. So the response is very neo-victorian: an establishment of strong forms and formulaic approaches and detailed moral standards. An adaptive response to their social environment perhaps.
MCB
Tyler #503:
“He implies but does not outright state that the “woke mind virus” destroys the host mind and leaves the body open to demonic possession.”
Wow!These are serious words. I don’t know if it’s easier to demons enter into the body of wokesters, but I’ll take in consideration that expression “woke mind virus”, at least as metaphore…
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Slithy Toves # 510:
“Many who think that they follow all the news follow only one slant, and so are more misinformed than those who intentionally look away from the entire circus.”
A painful but real truth about our western and westernized world. I’ve checked it a lot of times in my social context.
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Bobinok #512:
“If he pulls off 10% of what he has attempted, it’s more than most of us could’ve hoped for.”
It would be a good percentage if he can/want do it…We’ll see.
@Tengu
I understand – well my daily time for things is limited anyways, too little time for too many things I’d want to do.
My weekly training sessions involve breathing exercises, but advanced practices are unnecessary.
The somatics and impulse dancing (“contact improvisation”) teacher did several exercises with us, also involving things apparently specific to Qi Gong.
But the approaches were very general, no dangerous advanced sophistication, rather playful exercises accessible for everyone which were highly effective. It’s the best of all approaches for ordinary people I know – a multitude of playful breathing, wobbling, shaking, dancing, visualizing exercesis so that ordinary people get to know themselves in their own pace.
It may surprise, but I entered this Qi Gong course without seeking spirituality, breathing or anything Qi related. I merely wanted a physiotherapist showing me 1) how to move with proper posture 2) how to improve feeling for one’s body. In a very indirect way and through my own independent efforts this was somehow helpful.
But all in all what I tried to say here:
A genuine deep and authentic tradition is very nice and all, for most of us entirely unnecessary (or: not really our soul’s plan), while a huge variety of other things are very very helpful, health improving, ultimately Qi improving anyways, absolutely recommendable and utterly safe!
I never sought spirituality initially, I stumbled into it with these spiritual people, but I didn’t have spirituality in mind.
I regret having met all these people, and there was the harmless hipster “Kung Fu” club that offered utterly ineffectual play-acting “Qi Gong” and “Tai Qi”, disgusting and narcisstic people, but more harmless people than the satanist and these Qi Gong lunatics.
All positive I ever received was the text book safe spiritual practice from JMG and Damien Echols. What I regret is in this case, not having chosen much more standard ways (although TOO standard is bad again unfortunately).
You are right at this Tengu: if it isn’t very solid, anything marketed as Qi Gong and Tai Qi in our days is the opposite of good and desirable, at best ineffectual, easily much worst.
I allow my self a little outburst: FRACK 90% of these “spiritual” individuals in our rotting latestage of a society!!!!
@ Erika –
It seems lots of folks on here could drink a case of you and still be on their feet… 😉
Many blessings!
Do you think recent drone attacks across Europe are really Russians, or are they fake (false flag attacks)?
I don’t believe much in MSM here in Europe…
Scotlyn,
“Conversations are the “sparks” that get me most reliably thinking about things.”
It’s the same for me: I need these triggers to really get going. That’s why I like comments by you, Erika and others so much. It’s also why I try to write in a way that might have a similar effect on others, often using metaphor. You never know where they can take the mind of a reader, or even my own; sometimes I find that the map shows a part of the territory I didn’t see before.
(If I was a painter I could see myself staring at a blank canvas for hours, until someone says something like ‘why don’t you put a green dot over there’ and then a whole painting flows from that single green dot)
In many (most?) places conversation simply comes down to trying to find a counterargument that ‘proves’ you are wrong, or to find an example where the metaphor breaks down. It’s more a battle of wits than a journey you go on together.
I guess that’s one more example of the spectacle rearing it’s head…
–bk
@JMG, would you be willing to share more on why you are considering relocating? Have things changed in Providence?
As for a new era of restraint, I think it’s already here, just not evenly distributed. One common Gen Z slang term is “to lock in”. Lock in on one’s studies, building one’s business etc. Gen Z rates of drinking, smoking and sex have gone down. Maybe vaping is common but I think if trends continue it will likewise go down.
JMG, thanks for your response. Im annoyed at myself for having taken one dose of moderna back in 2022, which I believe I needed in order to take part of a boating adventure as cross the Mediterranean…
Luckily myself and nobody in my life has had the decline you describe, although my brother is now dealing with a rare blood disorder at the age of 35, but luckily he’s not too overcome by it.
To pivot topics,
An interesting situation is developing with the hinting at introducing Digital IDs in my country of UK. What’s interesting is seeing the mixture of right wing libertarian types and Corbynites both opposed it, I see quite a united front to protect liberties both on the right and left here, though of course the left can only use the language of protecting the liberties of minorities…
Could this be another resemblance of establishment arrogance that “surely we can win people over with Digital IDs” in much the same respect as “surely we can make sure people don’t vote to leave the EU”.
Digital IDs feel like a pretty big dream of Tony Blair’s that he won’t let go of easily, because he knows best for all of us apparently… Perhaps we need another global problem that is worthy of converting us all onto Digital IDs, for now I’m not so worried.
@Jeff Russell,
Continuing our discussion of theories of value:
I don’t dispute that a subjective utility-based analysis of supply and demand brings us to as close to a fair price. But price isn’t value, at least not to non-utilitarians.
I think the LTV attempts to capture a few things, even if imperfectly, that the utilitarians do not:
1. The inputs of nature. This falls under the whole concept of “land” in the classic Smith-Ricardo form of the LTV. They took as their basis agricultural land of differing fertility, but it also includes mines, forests and other natural resources. It doesn’t account for e.g. oak barrels ageing wine, the fermentation of cheese, or other forms of nature, but the LTV does at least attempt to account for some of what nature provides.
With this in mind, and with my own reading of Henry George, I find it a bit silly that Lars Doucet in his review of Progress and Poverty just dismissed the LTV with one sentence. He quoted from George’s other book on Political Economy but upon reading the full context, I fail to see how George dismissed the LTV; it’s also key to his original analysis in Progress and Poverty.
2. Following on from the definition of Land, there’s also how the LTV defines rent. Ricardo’s formulation of rent is the value of the output between a more productive piece of land vs that of the most marginal piece of land, paid to the landlord. E.g. if Andy just ekes out 10 bushels of corn a year per acre on the worst land capable of growing corn vs Bob growing 30 bushels of corn, rent comes from the surplus 20. (This is where Marx got it wrong, he based his “socially necessary” concept on the average rather than the most marginal producer)
Henry George took it further to say that it’s not just the bounty of nature, but of society. E.g. improved road access, water, access to markets and so on provided by society that improves the land yet whose benefit goes to the land owner.
This is quite different from the mainstream economics view of “economic rent”.
The mainstream view of economic rent is any extra income that one earns from any resource because of scarcity. A doctor earns “rent” because of his medical knowledge, and a specialist cardiologist or oncologist even more so.
I think this obscures a key difference in the LTV definition of rent — it is unearned, the holder of the land often doesn’t contribute directly to the value that he extracts, unless he really is the one who builds infrastructure and maintains the land.
I see people with a mainstream economics background claim nowadays that any form of profit is “rent-seeking”. I find this an extreme implification, yet one that is logical if you accept the utilitarian premise; IMO intuitively, there is a big difference between e.g. making money because you own a bunch of oilfields vs creating products or services that people want.
Going back to your point on goods or services that have no demand (digging a ditch in a desert for nobody, making something no one wants), it is true that the price of something like this is 0, but I think the LTV attempts to describe how much work went into it, even if the work is wasted. Even in ordinary business speech, we talk about X “man-hours” and so on.
Hi JMG,
Last Tuesday’s On Edge makes sense now. I’m right there with you if for different reasons. From the bleachers, it’s been my impression that the right side of occult society encourages blessings, the left curses. General I know, but if I ever find myself in need of defense for numerous books of yours that I keep, that’s how I would frame it.
I was out of town last week and stepped into some wet mud with white running shoes. Had the idea to wash the mud off and stuff my shoes with newspaper. The hat trick was actually finding a newspaper. To my surprise one did show up. After I rinsed my shoes, I started stuffing the local newspaper page by page into my shoes. I was about done and came across what, to my surprise, was one of the best articles I’ve read about Charlie Kirk. Was able to track down the digital version here:
https://nhjournal.com/mckinney-liberalism-died-with-charlie-kirk/
Short read , highly recommended it.
Wer here
Well it seems countdown to WW3 in Europe has started. Trump just authorized Tomahawk missiles strikes in Russia and the Polish goverment is talking about shooting down Russian planes over Ukraine as a form of “forcing Russia to the negotiating table” of course those idiots in Warsaw have no idea what they were talking about etc.
NATO member states are preparing to attack Russian targets in Russia and are openly talking about it.
The fairy tale about “Trump wanting to retreat to the American continent” has rapidly died, Washington must start a war with Russia right now before Ukraine’s situation gets any worse and to show force on the international force in order to show dissidents like India in recent times the only way to do so know (when countries across the world are disobeing the US is to start a war and try to damage it’s main oponent (China and Russia)
Dear Mr Druid
There are a number of famous video clips of people getting murdered – not including the many videos from Ukraine showing soldiers getting killed. Why do these videos bother me?
Does this bother anyone else? I can watch a movie where people die by the dozens, and I enjoy sports like football which have lots of violence. However, with sports I also do not like watching the endless replays of injuries, even if it is unintentional. I also can not watch MMA but can watch boxing or wrestling.
Katsmama wrote:
@neptune’s dolphins #391- I’m very curious about your weather oracle. Is it a divination system with sortilege, or is it using the observable weather conditions to guide intuition? Or something I haven’t imagined?
—–
I studied the weather and meteorology, and put together a system based on weather lore. It is split into the elements – wind, rain, cloud, sun, and everyday. What I did was set up a card system to guide the user to use their intuition about a certain weather condition representing their life.
Such as if “Hurricane” is drawn with “Sunbeam” – what does that say to you? I used the philosophy of the Lenormand Card system to provide sentences and stories for the person to read.
Michael Martin @ 506, looks like someone, somewhere, is going to have to pay some taxes. Or is it the plan to sell of public lands to raise sufficient revenue?
Augusto @ 509, Afraid not, alas. That was years ago, and Violet has since renounced any online presence. Her book, referenced above, is offered by a site called Lulu for a quite reasonable price, under $20.
@Jeff BKLYN #524
Thank you for this article.
One thought that’s been bubbling in my head for a while now is that the complaints about the “woke right” have a point: progressives’ positions are losing but their methods are winning. Cancel culture was in some ways a return, from the left, of the conformist social shaming that is absolutely normal but which liberals and other anti-authoritarians had struggled so hard to suppress.
Unfortunately, those of us who wanted a return to liberal mutual-tolerance probably just have to resign ourselves to that loss and just choose the lesser tyrannies going forward.
“Do not, even, feel that it is your job to follow all the news. Many who think that they follow all the news follow only one slant, and so are more misinformed than those who intentionally look away from the entire circus.”
There is sound advice. I try to follow more than one slant but that requires time. It can easily take four hours a day to read the main sites with follow-ups to linked in or reference material. And I read fast. Most of the coverage is simple noise.
I see another veteran lost his grip on reality over in Michigan. There was a similar case here, he killed his three daughters then himself. The article is not recommended for the squeamish.
https://www.yoursourceone.com/columbia_basin/chelan-county-coroner-discloses-more-about-travis-deckers-remains/article_e0860550-f556-45de-891c-f3c554aac1cc.html
@A1
(If I may…) you’re late to the game for this open post and your question isn’t posed in a concise way.
You are bothered by- what, famous poeple dying on video, real life murder on video in general…?
@Alvin #523 re: Theories of Value
Excellent points, thank you! I wasn’t aware that the LTV gave a more nuanced view of rents, that is indeed useful. I also agree that price != value (necessarily), and that it’s a cardinal sin of economists in general to conflate hard-to-reason-about concepts like “value” with the easier-to-quantify-and-thus-reason-about concepts like “price.”
Lastly, that’s a good point on the LTV approach to “wasted” work – there might be potential value in work I do, even if nobody wants the way I actually did it. To go back to our example, my capacity to dig a ditch might be valuable, but if I dig that ditch in the desert where no one asked for it, I’ve wasted that value, versus if I dug a ditch you actually wanted to keep your house from flooding. A purely market/subjective measure of value might miss that I did something that could have been valuable, but was misallocated, whereas an LTV approach might better capture that.
Cheers,
Jeff
Tobes #522:
“What’s interesting is seeing the mixture of right wing libertarian types and Corbynites both opposed it, I see quite a united front to protect liberties both on the right and left here, though of course the left can only use the language of protecting the liberties of minorities…”
Good news, me think. It’s really interesting when two opposed ideologies are united against a common enemy, in your case the digital ID. Better when they form a front in favor of civil liberties…I see in your country not all is lost yet.
——————————————————————————————————————————–
Wer # 525:
I’m afraid you have rushed to annunciate us the countdown to WW3. There’s no doubt propaganda war is hot here in EU/NATO countries, the same fake news and half truths that have been invaded our MSM since the Ukraine war started. If we believe everything is excrete by Brussels and Kiev intelligence (via their “journalists” mouthpieces), we can finish the day mad and scared, of course.
If we cherrypick the worst propaganda claims from our beloved leaders and other professional liars, of course we can have the impression of being towards WW3 tomorrow at dawn.
What are your reliable sources of information about this topic? (If you don’t mind to link them in english). Thanks on advance.
re: weather
That’s something I care a lot about for reasons. The best indicator I’ve found is to note the temperature outside when you wake up in the morning. If it’s warmer than usual, the weather is likely to be bad that day. If it’s lower than usual, the weather will likely be good. There’s only one weird day I encountered where it was colder than normal and it rained.
Wer #525: “Well it seems countdown to WW3 in Europe has started. Trump just authorized Tomahawk missiles strikes in Russia…”
Did he actually authorize them? The most recent news item on this (from the BBC) says only that Vance says Trump is considering supplying them to Ukraine: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly6r1mg34yo
I think this is part of what JMG’s been hinting at for a while now, but it finally clicked today that the right’s increasing talk of demons may be having as similar effect as the left’s incessant talk about fascists: preparing themselves for violence.
After all, what, in pop-culture, do you do with demons and their followings? You hunt them.
But here there is at least the option of a more purely-spiritual approach as a release valve, one the left doesn’t have with its fears of fascism. But it will not stop the occasional nutter from deciding to take things too far, and may not stop an escalation into serious trouble.
Out of curiosity but do you have any beliefs in common with theosophy? I know you are not a theosophist but I know that theosophy had an influence on western occultism.
Michael Martin,
Regarding the size of the carceral state, I have read that if you add up mental asylums and prisons, the US is not actually an outlier in how much of its population it locks up, but we made it very difficult to involuntarily commit people (not without reason). I don’t know how accurate this is and can’t recall the source, but would be interested if any other commenters know the truth of the matter.
@Neptune’s Dolphins- 527
That sounds amazing. Weather and climate are so complex, and having a system that maps onto that sounds very interesting. Thanks for replying.
Thought I’d mention to the Ecosophia Readership that Izabela of Tarot by Izabela did a heathen flame divination (she’s Swedish) and the flames are reporting that in the future people will not be using money. Money is going to disappear.
I can think of two possible scenarios for this. One is that digital currencies become commonplace enough that money is driven out of use. The other, which I think is far more likely, is that this is a divination of the 22nd – 24th centuries and that JMG’s Long Descent is correct. Societies of the future will have simplified due to global population decline so that non-monetary methods of exchange of goods and services will be the norm.
I’ve linked the original video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmzafSgY9ZQ
I also wanted to mention it is not just neopagans that can have questionable ethics. I’ve learned from much of my reading and occasional Youtube videos that just because someone may be on a path leading to eventual ascension from Malkuth in no way guarantees that person will be honorable, ethical or moral.
Let me give an example that horrified me.
There is a video on Beer Biceps where Ranveer is interviewing Rajarshi Nandy. Nandy said when he was younger and getting serious with his spiritual practices he met an Aghori who insisted he wanted to do a ritual with Nandy. Nandy seriously considered it but something didn’t sit quite right with him about this guy”s intentions. The Aghori was quite insistent and I guess kept following him around, pestering Nandy to do this ritual. Nandy talked to a guy who was more advanced spiritually than himself about it and that guy said don’t do it. The ritual was an unethical one.
Specifically that ritual was designed in such a way that whomever the Aghori did the ritual with – he, that is the Aghori, would receive 100% of the results of any daily spiritual practice that Nandy did while Nandy got none. In short, it was a ritual designed to turn Nandy into a funnel. He’d do 100% of the work daily but 100% of the results would go to the Aghori instead. The Aghori was targeting Nandy constantly because Nandy has certain spiritual attainments gifted to him by the deity he worships daily via ritual and mantra.
Nandy went back to the Aghori and told him what’s up. I’m paraphrasing here because I need to go back and find this video to link it to get the exact words.. But the upshot was that Nandy told the Aghori something like…”If I do this with you the deity I worship will become very angry since I have the fruit of the practices solely due to that deity’s grace.”
Nandy says the Aghori was immediately alarmed. He cleaned up all his ritual implements, put his hands together in praying palms (namaste), bowed apologizing to Nandy, quizzed him about which deity he worshiped, then hurriedly ran off to an appropriate temple to do major penance to appease that deity.
If I recall correctly the deity Nandy worships daily is Kala Bhairava…you definitely do NOT want to anger that deity! Kala Bharava is a deity of time (side note: also of war)and time’s destruction…that is…he has the ability to destroy someone’s time itself (buh-bye Higgs-Field!).
Anyway that Aghori knew enough to be very, very, very afraid and I wonder if he had several sleepless nights over contemplating that – had he succeeded – he was going to parasitize a divinity like Kala Bharaiva.
I was flabbergasted. I presumed an Aghori would know better than to do something so blatantly unethical. They’re one of the many legit spiritual paths and guru parampas (lineages) available in India after all. After that interview I realized that some people will do nearly anything to ascend to a level more subtle than Malkuth. Being on a spiritual path, even being part of a legit lineage, is no guarantee at all that they’ll also be ethical.
You’ve all been warned.
Can anyone recommend a book on the Bosnian civil war, please?
JMG,
Good sir, have you published a Thema Mundi for 2025 and I’ve just missed it somehow? Last year’s forecast made this one sound pretty mouth-watering…for students of gallows humor anyway.
Many thanks!
Ah sorry, but i have to share this data point with you. I believe you will find it interesting. https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/27/econopocalypse/#subprime-intelligence
At this page 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 9/30). 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 Mole End find help and insight in overcoming his vulnerable narcissism; may he find occasion to make amends to or otherwise bring healing and peace to all those that he has hurt and victimized, to the extent that they allow.
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 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 Liz and her baby be blessed and healthy during pregnancy, and may her husband Jay (sdi) have the grace and good humor to support his family even through times of stress and ill health.
May Jack H’s friend Sheima, a Sudanese refugee in the UK, find a favourable resolution regarding her right to stay in the UK, which has been imperiled over a technicality.
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 Patrick’s mother Christine’s vital energy be strengthened so she can make a full recovery from the hysterectomy and follow-up issues and resume normal life.
May MindWind’s father be completely healed of his spinal, blood, and cardio infections; may his continual and immense back pain be lifted, and may he be strengthened to bear what cannot be lifted.
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 DJ’s newborn granddaughter Marishka and daughter Taylor be blessed, healed, and protected from danger, and may their situation work out in the best way possible for both of them.
May 12 year old Sebastian Greco of Rhode Island, who recently suffered a head injury, make a prompt and complete recovery with no lasting problems.
May Marko’s newborn son Noah, who has been in the hospital for a cold, and Noah’s mother Viktoria, who is recovering from her c-section, both be blessed with good health, strength, endurance, and protection, and may they swiftly they make a full recovery.
May Brother Kornhoer’s son Travis‘s fistula heal, 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 Jack H.’s father John continue to heal from his ailments, including alcohol dependency and breathing difficulties, as much as Providence allows, to be able to enjoy more time together with his loved ones.
May Audrey’s friend’s daughter Katie, who died in a tragic accident June 2nd, orphaning her two children, be blessed and aided in her soul’s onward journey; and may her family be comforted.
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 Pierre and Julie conceive a healthy baby together. May the conception, pregnancy, birth, and recovery all be healthy and smooth for baby and for Julie.
May Linda from the Quest Bookshop of the Theosophical Society, who has developed a turbo cancer, be blessed and have a speedy and full recovery from cancer.
May Corey Benton, whose throat tumor has grown around an artery and won’t be treated surgically, and who is now able to be at home from the hospital, be healed of throat cancer.
(Healing work is also welcome. Note: Healing Hands should be fine, but if offering energy work which could potentially conflict with another, please first leave a note in comments or write to randomactsofkarmasc to double check that it’s safe)
May David Spangler (the esoteric teacher), who has been responding well to chemotherapy for his bladder cancer, be blessed, healed, and filled with positive energy such that he makes a full recovery.
May Giulia (Julia) in the Eastern suburbs of Cleveland Ohio be quickly healed of recurring seizures and paralysis of her left side and other neurological problems associated with a cyst on the right side of her brain and with surgery and drugs to treat it, if providence would have it, and if not, may her soul move on from this world and find peace with a minimum of further suffering for her and her family and friends.
May Debra Roberts, who has just been diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer, be blessed and healed to the extent that providence allows. Healing work is also welcome.
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.
May Open Space’s friend’s mother
Judith be blessed and healed for a complete recovery from cancer.
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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.
Hello John and Commentariat.
I’ve gotten interested in tabletop RPGs lately (I’m one and a half years sober from video games). I’m wondering if anyone here has any good recommendations for beginners. I’ve played a little bit of fifth edition D&D but I found it too complicated.
It has just occured to me that, if you regard the sixties as a new America, the 80yr curse has come due.
@Celadon #546
America has our own 80 (actually 84) year cycle: by birth and by values we are tightly associated with the planet Uranus, and our two previous Uranus returns have found us recapitulating elements of our founding: a civilizational crisis leading to an elite replacement by way of a major war that results in a redefinition of the national identity and institutions.
Our first Uranus return coincided with the Civil War, the second with World War II, and the third is happening in 2027. We’ve got most of the elements in place; now we’re just hoping to avoid the war part of the equation, somehow.
Tech bros are getting religion:
https://www.technocracy.news/why-the-tech-gods-of-silicon-valley-are-pivoting-to-christianity/
Peter Thiel warns that regulating AI will hasten the coming of the Antichrist. One pertinent question posed in this article: since we can be gods, should we be gods?
My question: is this a deranged manifestation of the Second Religiosity, or is something else going on here? These people seem to me to be completely crazy. They’ve disappeared up their own spouts.
@Ethan L. @JMG
Unfortunately, at least when it comes to video games, I think this is actually a case of one dominant business model being replaced by another, more exploitative business model. Re: targeting more affluent buyers, it’s a pattern that’s emerging in only one part of the market (“premium”, pay up front games sold as a one-off product), due to a combination of inflation and ballooning production costs for games of this type. This issue has received a lot of attention recently because one of the big players in this sector (Nintendo) has recently hiked their game prices, but it’s only one part of the equation.
Games of this type used to be the dominant share of the industry, but roughly since the release of smartphones and social media, a new type of game, “Free-to-Play”, has emerged. Despite the moniker, profits dwarf any other monetization model in the market. The reason for this is that games of this type are free to download, but contain a variety of “hooks” in their design to push you into spending small bits of money over time (subscriptions, digital goods, or even straight up gambling simulators in a lot of cases). Most players of these games don’t spend much money on them: the publisher makes the lion’s share of their profits off a small minority of the most hopelessly addicted, who can spend thousands of dollars a month on these microtransactions. Furthermore, games of this type are really only feasibly developed by large corporate interests, and only a few big players succeed in any given genre, so it shrinks the market as well.
Businesses push their developers to design these games in a way that makes them objectively worse to play unless you pay up (assigning players tedious busywork, limiting playtime, and other such schemes.) These games pressure players to spend as much time with the game as possible in order to keep up with things like limited-time rewards or digital events. Companies and shareholders, of course, love this trend. I have yet to meet a truly passionate programmer or designer who does.
Anyway, what I’m trying to say is, at least in the short term, I believe that price hikes on games are likely to push more players towards games that follow this free-to-play model, which means less that they will be liberated from commodified entertainment and more that the quality of said entertainment will decline sharply and becomes more exploitative.
While games developed under the old business model had their issues, most of them were one-off experiences that had a beginning, middle, and end. You’d finish most of them in anywhere from a week to a month, playing part-time, and that would be the end of it. Arguably, their goal was simply providing a fun experience, rather than psychologically pushing you into addiction and overspend.
It’s especially unfortunate because the new game types are especially attractive to children and teenagers because they can be downloaded for free. 20 years ago, I would have said fears of video game addiction becoming an epidemic were overblown, but the past decade and recent trends especially have pushed the industry into exactly the same quagmire as social media and other equally destructive mental traps technology thrusts upon us today.
To be fair, there is a fairly lively indie scene that tends to stick to the older model of doing things: charging reasonable prices for entertainment that doesn’t attempt (at least explicitly) to consume your life or psychologically manipulate you, but at least for now the corporate interests are still dominant when it comes to public mindshare. Perhaps that will change in the future. Personally I don’t see the corporate model as sustainable, so it is going to come crashing down eventually (along with the rest of the tech sector) so perhaps in the future video games will become more niche again, and mostly be serviced by smaller studios catering to an audience willing to invest in the hobby. One can only hope.
Dear Everyone,
thank you so much for answering my questions that started because i was curious how i come off to folks, and i was afraid it was just more leonine, “tell me more about MY EYES!” but i ended up really finding about many of YOU here and you’re absolutely gorgeous.
why do we hide??? it’s crazy because the details of YOU are infinitely more fascinating to me than politics and all the stuff we usually talk about.
BK, you’re quite a character. i think you’d dig the tiny book that is so rich, ART AND FEAR. yes, fear (TERROR!) is part of the journey. i’m doing the doggy paddle in fear right now about so many things but i’m okay and learning to roll with it but not surrender to its shortsighted cat-scratching ways. things are shifting in the larger world and my tiny one. it’s a vibe that is making me optimistic, quite like what’s opening up HERE. (smile)
what you said earlier (“If I was a painter I could see myself staring at a blank canvas for hours, until someone says something like ‘why don’t you put a green dot over there’ and then a whole painting flows from that single green dot”) made me think about this quote from Joan Didion:
“What’s so hard about that first sentence is that you’re stuck with it. Everything else is going to flow out of that sentence. And by the time you’ve laid down the first two sentences, your options are all gone.”
SCOTLYN SAID:
“It seems lots of folks on here could drink a case of you and still be on their feet… 😉”
i know; i’m really heartened and humbled by this. i don’t have to be or seem so… “WILD.”
KAY ROBISON SAID:
“Dear Erika, I want to thank you for the insights I have had into my own mental construct that I have gained by reading your posts this week. You rock.”
–if you don’t think i’m prying, i would sincerely be interested to know specifically what insights you have about YOURSELF. i assume nothing and don’t want anymore “nudge nudge say no more say no more” as i see here what i say comes off like a rorschach test and i have NO IDEA what you’ve discovered but it sounds exciting and i wanna know because it’s specifically YOU and not generic now. what’s YOUR RIFF on this be bop jazz improvisational life???
ADARA SAID: ‘“oh, will she disdain me because I did in fact take mental & emotional damage from my grandfather’s sexual abuse?” I also find I’m among the more boringly normal folks that most of my friends know, but still manage to enjoy myself in most social situations with adults. So probably we’re already fine, and I’m worrying needlessly; it wouldn’t be the first time! (In conclusion, I’ve addressed the issue thing a bit, but will do much better discussing any further in person.)’
my theory is that The Abused are The Leaders We Need. Like Violet. i didn’t mean to “trash” or gossip about her here. if i talk about anyone behind their back i have to say what i would say to their face and with love, even if it’s critical. i’m still being Othered, ostracized, and it’s too easy for us to scapegoat each other when one gets emotional or shows one’s brokenness. / so you got it opposite, Adara. i wouldn’t disdain you but want to know what skills you learned in life that you apparently hide from your own fear of this disdain that isn’t there. (we all have such fears in this world) / it will be a pleasure to meet you.
i was thinking of taking a plane back east to save time, but i think the train ride cross country will do me a lot of good in getting my head in a good place to pay attention and be quiet and not shy scared tired and jet lagged. i will prepare long before i arrive in Rhode Island.
thank you for trusting us all with that deeply painful information. i will be gentle and if i’m not in the way you need me to be let me know, okay? i won’t be offended; i WANT to know.
XCALIBER/DJS SAID:
“Erika is reminiscent of one of those modern classic novels, like Fight Club, On the Road, or Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance; the free association and gritty realness is similar.”
if i needed book quotes i’d use THIS! it’s like part 2 of my favorite quote from Judy McGuire in PAPER mag. something like “erika splatters her guts all over the page like 3-chord punk rock.” / it inspires ME back like “yeah! she GOT it.”
THANK YOU PAPA G AND CHUAQUIN! :
(JMG) “Erika, it’s precisely the raw naked integrity of your comments that keeps me reading them and putting them through. Keep on burning bright, O tigress!”
(CHUAQUIN) OK John, I agree! I couldn’t have depict her comments better…
TO CHUAQUIN:
i’d said: “so Chuaquin, WHO, PRAY TELL, CALLED YOU MENTALLY DEFICIENT AND SAID YOU WERE FUZZY???”
CHUAQUIN SAID: ‘I’ll answer you in the short form;: I was declared with some mental problem (to say it softy) by a psychiatrist, of course, and I’ve been for a time in treatment, though today I’m fine. I don’t want to tell you’ll more about my “illness” for now. Only I have to say that I’ve found a lot of “normal” people who seems to me more and more “nuts” in their behavior, including political and economical leaders in our countries. Do you agree?’
yes, darling. that was MY point as well. -x
David P SAID:
“The best way I can put it, I suppose, is that I can see the light of clarity shining through the cracks of my non-understanding. The rythm, to use your metaphor, is there, even if I don’t hear every beat. Still, I can begin to appreciate it in the form that reaches me, knowing that it’s only part of the whole.”
yes, EXACTLY. you do very much get it…. and thus, ME. thank you very much for trying. i, too, feel seen and heard. x
CURT SAID:
“Others on this forum have said as well that erika lopez grew on them when they started actually rading her comments. I shall give it a try soon. My life lacks poetry and arts.”
i like “rading” my comments disguised as a typo. (smile) and i’m very so sorry your life lacks poetry and art but you’re HERE and as
ADARA had admitted: “I had to learn or develop a whole new headspace for reading, in which I just let the words flow past me, and meaning sort of accreted out of the flow into my head. And this headspace has continued to be helpful, especially as I’ve been learning divination; it’s the exact same brain shape I need for opening up to & tapping in to my intuition. I’ve also learned to use it when reading poetry, especially newer forms. However, it’s a fairly costly headspace for me to hang out in, so I can’t stay there for very long posts.”
this “whole new headspace” can and will help you take in art without having to only judge it, “is it good? i like it/i don’t like it/ a child could do that/ etc”
good luck with the adventure, Curt, whether you read me or not!
JOHN O’NEIL: besos to you and your wife, my sister girl in wildness! xxxxxx
AUGUSTO regarding #424: did you see that you were talking about VIOLET’s “masks” and then talking about slipping back into your own and wanting ME to play along as you go backward into safe anonymity when i said that’s what made me itchy in the first place about all of us and our slippery online identities we can slip out of and avoid? you’re funny. now that you’re Augusto to me, i will likely pass by Open Space, because i know the headspace YOU are in will be one of hiding and right now i need to be further encouraged to be autopsy-naked. (smile and a kiss)
JENNIFER KOBERNIK SAID:
“On the topic of your writing and self-presentation: When I first started reading your comments here, to be honest my first impression was that your writing probably reflected a similarly slapdash approach to life and that it was no wonder you seemed like an interpersonal drama magnet of the sort I generally try to avoid out of self-preservation. (Harsh, I know. I can be judgmental sometimes.)”
(I SAY)–dear Miss Jennifer, it’s okay. the judgements hurt YOU, not ME, for i’m glad when people with that take on me stay FAR FAR away, dear Woman! “slapdash” is funny because i agonize over my moments with people as well as my art and what i write and present to people, because i know they’re tracks in space (even before i knew the term).
JENNIFER KOBERNIK: “But I’ve come to really appreciate that I can see some of the free associations of your thought process in your writing; it’s almost like watching a transcription of a discursive meditation session, and sometimes it triggers my own mind to leap down a path of associations I wouldn’t have come up with on my own.”
(I SAY): yes, that is the point and WHY i do what i do: i’m trying to draw people out of themselves because then as they do their SOLO RIFFS, they’re eternally fascinating to me (like Kay Robison is suddenly to me). like Scotlyn, i’m bored with myself at this point, and am more interested in hearing something beyond or different than me but related to life and the struggle the fight to be OURSELVES unapologetically and out loud… even when quiet.
JENNIFER KOBERNIK: “There’s also a certain rhythm to it that I like. Similar to dancing or music–I am too uptight to enjoy dancing or singing in public, but I enjoy watching others do it, and watching them also helps me loosen up enough to silently bop along a little or sing under my breath.”
(I SAY): good. dare to go louder and provide the service to pull out other shy “uptight” folks and you’ll forget yourself as you see them tentatively struggle to enjoy themselves. / watch how innocent and beautiful they suddenly become. / getting over oneself to serve others in this can cure you of self-indulgent “uptightness” and preoccupation with your appearance, and is so much more INTERESTING!
i used to be “uptight” too. still am, actually. part of why i started dancing, NO the whole entire reason i started dancing in the streets of san francisco for years, WAS BECAUSE IT WAS THE MOST TERRIFYING THING I COULD POSSIBLY IMAGINE DOING. and while i was fat, too!
but people saw something bigger than my fat or my … well, they were too stuck in WHAT? WHAT IS THIS??? to notice anything i might be ashamed of. i learned audacity is power. so i practice getting over my own fears of self and other.
and i lifted my shirt before the sun because that was EXTRA scary. but then i realized my dancing elicited sooo many unexpected reactions (quite like HERE, in fact), and i stopped being “uptight” and became fascinated at how some “uptight” wealthy people got so enraged they were compelled to attack and beat me so i’d stop making them FEEL like loosening up or singing under their own breaths. it IS scary. it IS a difficult place to live and not visit like a tourist who can blame drinking or Vegas.
but many beautiful people were drawn to me, i had amazing experiences, and a whole other dimension opened up to me. George P Hansen talks about some of this in his “Paranormal and Trickster” book and that’s why i learned to court this kind of terror on purpose because it’d jolt me into another world of the paranormal and magic would happen. so i trust the process.
the “drama” you speak of is because other “uptight” people want to crush me. want me to stop making them feel. i’m not about drama. i’m a homebody. i don’t like crazy wild sex parties of fakeness. that sounds like hell. i like small private intense ongoing discussions. not yelling and fake fun.
most crazy wild stuff we do isn’t because we’re grounded. it’s because we’re aching for drama distraction attention. you can be “crazy” and wild just having the different “wrong” opinion as we’ve seen.
i don’t need to freak out or spaz or let loose and get plastered. all that freak out stuff is because of repression of life feelings intuition… SELF.
“Also, I love my husband in the same incandescent way you love James, and seeing you talk about him has caused me to really start liking you.”
Thank you. James’ light is all around me so you’re seeing Him, too. (smile)
—
Thank you, dear beautiful people here, and Papa, for this place. i’m crying a beautiful happy cry. thank you for daring to be honest with me and tell me what you hate fear love or are inspired by. see how much more fascinating we all are when we’re not spewing polite fake platitudes like Californians? i hope the practice of showing your beauty helps some of you quiet shy types try it on others for the best conversations and yes, delicious ARGUMENTS.
with much affection and gratitude,
Erika “Kitten” Lopez
@NephiteNeophyte #545
If your interest is in the direction of Dungeons & Dragons style games, I’d recommend either Shadowdark or Old School Essentials. Shadowdark strip 5th edition down to bare essentials, with some fun twists, and OSE Classic is literally just the old D&D Basic and Expert rules rewritten to avoid issues with copyright and to make the rules easier to digest. OSE also has an Advanced line but I haven’t look at that much.
If you’re interested in sci-fi, the Traveller games offer interstellar planet-hopping but with hard limits to FTL technology: there’s no FTL radio, and ships are limited to jumping 1-6 parsecs in exactly one week, consuming 10% of the ship’s volume in fuel for each parsec jumped. For beginners, I’d recommend Mongoose Traveller. (Classic Traveller and MegaTraveller are the best editions but not beginner-friendly, and most of the other editions of the game are sadly pretty bad.)
For horror, it’s hard to beat Call of Cthulhu. I haven’t played the new edition (and at least one of the supplements got more than a bit rant-y about politics), but the beloved 2nd Edition is available for purchase either digitally or in print. It’s not the easiest game on this list to learn but it’s not too terribly hard.
TO DAVID P from the SITUATIONIST post last week:
DAVID P SAID:
(TO WHAT I’D SAID): “American porn is artless crude but i think it is where men can choke, abandon, rape, defile, and ejaculate in the face of all they’re supposed to put up with on a daily basis.”
DAVID P SAID: “Thank you for explicitly spelling out that particular psychological factor. I was always under the impression that the appeal was mainly physical but this has genuinely helped me see a bit more clearly. That’s a very good starting point for some journalling/introspection.”
I SAY NOW IN OPEN POST: “Dear David P, i missed your post last week because of things here, but I went back tonight to see if I’d missed answering anyone and I caught what you said and it made me think of how grateful a lot of us artists and azzholes are to Larry Flynt for “Hustler” magazine (me! me! me!) and R. Crumb for having the testicles outright crazy mad COURAGE to do “Angelfood McSpade.”
did anyone see the movie, CRUMB? he was raised by insane people. he took the abuse and transformed it into Aline Kaminksky—LIFE LONG LOVE!—-art and he did a cartoon of her before they met but the woman in the cartoon’s made up name was Aline Kaminski with an “i.”
Ron Turner of Last Gasp told me that himself and i didn’t know Crumb was… “one of us.” there i go again. sitting next to surrealists on the train with a wall of newsprint between us and i don’t know he’s KIN!
crazy.
oh… these are one of those jazz bebop riffs i’m off on! so funny. i’m laughing. yeah. cartoon brain.
back to porn.
i’m giggling. choices like this i don’t mind being ON POINT for a change.
back to porn. defiling ejaculating in faces screwing and abandoning. i think ejaculating faces is their form of giving birth artistically.
see, if you figure assume IMAGINE that we’re not ALL the azzholes we insist on showing we are, if you… ignore the BS and see them as PRETTY someone’s BABY once loved even by YOU, then you act accordingly and then THEY USUALLY melt back into their softer beauty.
and if we all do things for a REASON, keep peeling away the reasons that make us look like the devils we secretly think we are and don’t realize we’re not hiding very well. (this is why i can’t have conversations with Californians. they look like joan crawford but insist they’re clara bow.
look her up.
oh yeah, jazz… let’s get back on point in case CURT has in fact made it this far in his first attempt to read me:
if you assume we’re sweethearts but we’re demonic for a REASON, usually when you go deep enough, the “evil” was this tiny adorable… well, it’s BAMBI WHEN HIS MOM DIED KEEPING HIM WARM IN THE SNOW.
so if …
TAKE NOTE: THIS LOGIC IS FOR JENNIFER KOBERNIK WHO THINKS I CARELESSLY EJACULATE ALL THIS OUT…
SO IF BAMBI’S SUDDENLY BEING EVIL AND SCRATCHING THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS OUT OF YOU…
forget the sentimentality of actual human emotions of care love and dignity, in the coldest most self interested way, BECAUSE A SWEET BAMBI IS MORE FUN TO LOVE THAN CRAZY MAD SOCIOPATHIC BAMBI, right???
it’s LOGICAL! and hedonistic. i like nice and seeing only pretty things. they don’t cost a DIME, people!
loving a loving Bambi is so amazing you wanna explode with cuteness and fluff. it’s too much love.
SO WHY IS BAMBI’S HEAD SPINNING AND VOMITING PEA SOUP?
okay maybe back to the devil. real or metaphorical, i ask: would i do the same thing regardless? yeah:
try and get Sociopathic Linda Blair Joan Crawford in “Straightjacket” hacking her man to death with an axe in the opening scene and i was a kid and remember nothing else in the movie except the sound of her charm bracelet… THAT Bambi we need to stop running secret governments to take over the world and give us all the mark of the beast Apple phone that you can make your own porn with.
jazz.
let’s be Bach.
so that’s why i say their free expression, their art which is porn because the women won’t touch the doorknobs and leave the art and that creation to them. Camille Paglia was right about men making all this WORLD we’re in and it’s the balance of the inner/outer. i GET IT.
so free expression FREE SPEECH and that’s why Larry Flynt is still an American Hero to me. and R Crumb. because someone’s gotta have the temerity to say what’s gotta be SAID. the courage comes out artfully and for better or worse, it affects culture.
this is how i see it and why I TRY to show the softer side of the “Man” or masculine side. i have a ton of masculine tendencies. James says i … i still speak of Him in the present sometim-… oftentimes and i’m fine with it because he’s HERE (jazz!)… James SAYS i was always the guy of my family. the wrong one.
James made me SEE men and their broken hearts. James taught me my FATHER. and of course as the well-trod cliche goes, MYSELF. but it’s so TRUE.
and so they’re not demons for doing atrocious things. i see them as Bambi in excruciating psychic pain.
and they do their blues but maybe they don’t have room to do it beautifully.
maybe i’m wrong. but i don’t care. because (JENNIFER KOBERNICK HERE’S YOUR LOGIC)…
I’D DO THE SAME THING EITHER WAY.
not much time to waste. what magic can i do now? i don’t want to WASTE TIME AND TALENT AND SKILLS, so as an ARTIST CREATOR, a woman who didn’t have children and feels like a girly man because i LOVE being whatever kind of Woman i’m here to discover.
this is why trite campy depictions of women, BY women, break my heart.
i feel betrayed by Feminism. so no more time to waste! no time to CRY! and thus, changing my affiliation has un-knitted my entire LIFE and still is even as i crochet another one.
i’m at the wonky part where the twain meet.
so yes. i’ve cried and wanked off to porn because it’s a form of pornographic applause for the true NAKEDNESS that is hiding in the plain fully lit sight of PORN.
yes, ADARA… IT IS HARD TO LIVE LIKE THIS WHERE AMATEUR PORN OF AN OLD MAN WITH READING GLASSES TRYING TO READ THE CAMERA MANUAL WHILE THE BRAND NEW AWKWARD SHY BLONDE HOOKER WAITING IN A BABY DOLL DRESS ON HIS LONG-GONE SON’S SINGLE BED WITH SUPERHERO BEDSHEETS..
so yes, porn can be melodramatic if you happen upon the more obvious ones. obvious to ME. so yes, it IS hard to live here. so HOW DO I DEFEND MYSELF IN A COURT OF ANY LAW WHEN I SEE PORN IN A WAY THAT MAKES ME CRY LIKE THAT BAMBI SCENE???
a lonely boring suburban man who worked all his life lost his family, and he’s got no personality just a faithful old dog with matted hair with atrocious breath… his wife’s probably divorced him because she’s a lesbian now traveling the world while his kids are married busy with children and find him creepy boring and depressing because he only got the house and it still looks like it was when mom designed it in the 80s. and so he’s reading Kunstler and other old expat white guys who live abroad without families to support and they all talk and read eachother online and this guy probably comments on zerohedge but he wants his own porn a sweet girl …and he’s so worried about getting the LIGHTING right, he doesn’t even SEE how scared and shy she is and out of place but adorable in that baby doll outfit.
he doesn’t talk to her he had this get up picked out for his son’s superhero sheets so he can wank off to it endlessly LATER but he can’t see her NOW and later later… oh crap. she was HERE.
BAMBI. the lot of us.
it’s hilarious what has become of us.
artists wrong people KEEP US HUMAN and from turning into machines.
that’s why DANCING IS SO IMPORTANT, Adara and Augusto.
it’s how you talk to eachother and drop into that SPACE. many of you are here to train to go there.
same thing.
Angelfood McSpade is alive here and now at Harvard.
x
P.S. Curt… that was a full case of me. You still standing on both feet??? don’t answer. just BE. don’t feel you have to formulate a response because i don’t CARE about that. if you answer too fast you weren’t paying attention for i want you to feel like your first kiss. a little floaty lost… like that felt good… and see what comes up for YOU later. follow where it goes.
that’s the adventure.
x
K-Lo
one last thing before i go:
BK, Scotlyn’s bold face lying. that WAS her quote! i can still barely understand it. but it’s okay that new lying thing she’s picked up to deflect attention. she’s trying to deflect attention. likely still doesn’t like me quoting her special emails to me. just puts up with it because anyone who knows me has long since cared about me maintaining their decorum or mystery. but the lying thing’s okay. i had it coming for quoting without asking. i’ve been sneaking ’em in, longer and longer, so she’d just surrender and go with it because it’s easier. but whatever she writes me i don’t understand until much later. i have to roll Scotlyn’s emails to me personally around for weeks like a butterscotch candy in my cheek.
besides, i don’t use the word “egregore.” i use “vibe.” i’m still not entirely sure what an egregore IS. i just go along with the words you all use and have approximations i tip in as needed.
x
I’m sure I’ve lost Curt Jennifer and Adara by now but jazz…
My base assumptions, I forgot to add in addition to assuming Sociopathic Bambi was cute and lovable once… why not STILL? If not, I want to know the cut off time for our redemption… for that’s what Love with a capital L is about.
This is beyond security. That’s the devil the anti THESIS of this idea.
Amid still lovable after all the world of Caesar has taught me to do and BE?
Because what you do contemplate you become.
So if porn guys are spending their lives doing and saying something UGLY MEAN HURTFUL….
THERE MUST BE A REASON.
If you’re a writer or artist an ACTOR doing deep hard work, you’ve gotta love your villains.
So I see that as holy practice now.
It’s not soft or weak. I did a “lines not to cross or consequences” letter to all the tenants finally to confront this underhanded mean girl bullying and it made things MOVE now that it’s out in the open where I can better control the narrative and what’s going on, I’m hyper focused. More on that later. I’m still very much in it. Almost didn’t write back here.
But that’s why Giacommetti’s sculptures look like any kid could do it. He wanted the very essence of the figure,
The press can be the punishment in Caesars world but in many artists, the process is how you practice bringing even love into creation. It’s meditation.
So yes to the jazz vibes practice connection…
To sorta quote Howlin Wolf, ive enjoyed things that kings and queens don’t know exist and will never have.
And they’re trying to eradicate all this. Our human connection.
I feel like an exorcist and am comfortable with your necessary discomfort. You’re alive and I trust you to determine if you can take it, if you like it. Prefer it.
I’m very comfortable and practiced in your discomfort. But I have to be clean in this line of work or you will turn on me and kill me. I know this going in. I live it now here in Sam Francisco.
Whew. Now I’m done.
X
Crap! tapped out last one on tablet changes spelling. Must turn off. Makes it extra hard to read so it’s not you, Curt.
Slithy Toves # 529:
“Unfortunately, those of us who wanted a return to liberal mutual-tolerance probably just have to resign ourselves to that loss and just choose the lesser tyrannies going forward.”
I understand your concerns perfectly. A new cancel culture perpetred by the Right wing is a real danger. In my country, for example, the political tide is starting to change, so next elections we will see probably a Conservative/Far Right coalition government. However, I think social media and MSM are already turning slowly but mercyless towards Right positions, though woke preachers don’t realize that phenomena yet (they’re blind to nothing but their dogma…). The Right attitudes are very arrrogant and doctrinaires, so this positions don’t announce nothing good in near future…Our beloved Sánchez government and his allies are doomed although they seek some relief to their desperate situation grabbing to the pro-Palestinian topic. It’s a pity we aren’t going to return to a real free speech situation, but a new cancel culture here too.
—————————————————————————————————————————–
Yavana # 535:
You made a good question. thank you for your link to BBC, which we all know has a strong woke&Russophobic consensus bias, but sometimes it informs about real news, at least in a small percentage not full propaganda…What I’ve understood from your link is Vance and Trump are pressing Putin threatening Russia with their missiles, but a menace isn’t a consumated fact yet…Trump likes to threaten everybody in the world, so this isn’t very strange or chilling by now…me think. Nothing new under the sun.
In addition to this, EU governments aren’t making civil defence preparation by now.
Meanwhile, I’m waiting an hypothetical answer by Wer to my last question (come on, Wer, I think my request was made politely to you, don’t be shy). I don’t see in Spanish media (MSM and “alternatives”) nothing about preparation to the WW3 yet…
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Happy Panda # 540:
“One is that digital currencies become commonplace enough that money is driven out of use. The other, which I think is far more likely, is that this is a divination of the 22nd – 24th centuries and that JMG’s Long Descent is correct. Societies of the future will have simplified due to global population decline so that non-monetary methods of exchange of goods and services will be the norm.”
OK, it’s a bizarre source of information what you’ve linked to us, but I think it can be taken into consideration here. Our beloved leaders (both political and economic) are pushing into the adoption of full digital currencies, of course, but there are also several problems to its implementation which must be fixed before going full digital in the Western world.
I think too, the two scenaries you’ve written couldn’t be exclusive each other, but simultaneous in the future time. There could be a digital money implemented in not complete form (because of the initial problems of the Long Descent), coexisting with an informal but progressively thriving economy of local moneys and return to not monetary ecxhange of goods, like you’ve said. We’ll see it…
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I finally ask you, John and kommentariat, for an advice to me. I’ve cought a strong cold, so if you have some natural fast remedy to it, I’d be very thankful to you’ll. Thanks on advance!
Hi Kan,
Very good, and I’ve known some lovely ladies by the name of ‘Jenny’, one of which was a friend until very recently. Nobody wants to be bested by a Soul Catcher, surely it is our lives objectives to fly with our own wings – a notably hard thing to do for a headless chicken.
My, but we’re delving into the more pragmatic end of philosophy. Thanks for the tunes from the late 80’s early 90’s! 🙂
Cheers
Chris
Do you have noticed “news” about Ukraine war break the principle of not contradiction? I mean, usual propaganda in NATO/EU countries says one day that Russia is losing badly the war, and the following day the Russians are going to invade us Europeans and killing everybody. Well, even the same day sometimes are excreted these two not compatible propagandas Narrative.
@Kevin #411
Regarding shungite, I really know very little about it, and I’m not a radio engineer, but I agree completely with what Chuck Lathe is saying. Concerned for several decades over the effects EMR had on my health (which were clear and demonstrable in my case–cardiac and immune dysfunction), I was plied with gifts from various concerned friends–rings and rocks and so on that were supposed to protect the bearer from EMR, and none of them helped me in the least.
There was one exception, a quartz pendant which was given to me as a religious symbol. That seemed to strengthen me somewhat for a year or so, and then all of a sudden, wearing it had the opposite effect. I suspect what occurred was a change in the ambient frequency mix. It changes every time a new wireless technology is rolled out.
I’ve read from others (Keith Cutter has a Substack where he has discussed this recently) that if there is any effect from these objects/devices, it isn’t protecting you from the radiation, but just strengthening you somehow to cope with it better.
As my brother-in-law refuses to modify his smartphone habits, I’ve slept in a Faraday cage for the past five years, and that has helped me a lot. I have to inspect it regularly for integrity. I used to be sensitive enough to know when it had a gap. I had some success with a low-oxalate diet, and am less reactive than before. (Oxalate can form crystals within tissues, and that may be one reason for individual variation in sensitivity.)
Panagopolous et al. (2021) discusses one mechanism of effects (voltage-gated ion channels) and notes coherence of signals is a chief determinant of bioeffects, which may be one reason the sensitive find some relief even with partial shielding.
Russian authorities are saying that every house really ought to have one room that is protected from EMR, in the way Lathe Chuck describes. People can spend time there to recover.
Milkyway, I don’t know about a god of fermentation as such, either. Bracacia was a Gaulish goddess of beer bewing., but she probably is only known to specialists now.
Since Happy Panda mentioned spiritual ethics, I would like to add that yes, unethical spiritual practices probablymdo occur in all traditions, but there seems something in most spiritual traditions which prevents them to going as totally off the rails like it happened with Neopaganism. I’m not sure what that perticular safeguards are, but they have probably to do with traditionalism and with the practitioners of the spiritual practices concerned not being part of a single subculture, or something similar.
re: nooze
If someone you know IRL is repeating it, it’s probably worth investigating. If it’s some stranger on a screen repeating it, it may or may not be worth investigating, depending on their track record. If it’s some stranger on a screen with a corporate logo at the bottom repeating it, it’s worthless propaganda.
@The Other Owen, and who is the god of peanut butter? 😉
@Walt, there is something to be said for that – a good cheese is a thing straight from heaven, right? 😉
@RandomActsOfKarma, I have to admit I had been thinking more about practical fermentation (vs. practical fermentation gone wrong, aka rotting) than about alchemy – the considerations in alchemy would be slightly different, I suppose..
“all the planets reflect an aspect of the Divine. It isn’t hard to find a connection between any of the planets and fermentation” – you raise a very important point here imo. One of the aspects of the planets I treasure most is the different angles and viewpoints they provide on almost anything in life. I’ve been writing an essay series about using the planets for inner work (self development), from a Hermetic point of view, and this is one of their very useful features in such kind of work.
“But meditating on why someone assigns a certain correspondence is often illuminating.” 😉
I hope you are all having a wonderful week! 🙂
Milkyway
Just getting the last word in here on this week’s debate… Peanut Butter is delicious, and anyone who suggests otherwise is wrong.
Especially the crunchy variety.
I have a question, when dealing with a Christian apologist, I said that as a Buddhist I don’t care what the bible says. And I had two Atheists basically leap to the defense of the bible. At first I thought they were Christian which would make sense, but as they argued with me they made it clear they were Atheists.
I am not stupid. I know for a fact that if I had been an Atheist, they would not have said a word. It was very clear my being a Buddhist was the issue that made them leap to the bible’s defense. Why?
Disclaimer:
I really need to start re-watching vids prior to submitting them to this forum. I just re-watched the Izabela video I linked and realized I mis-remembered how it went. For those whom don’t watch videos it was a card + trinkets divination in an octagon-shaped pan filled with ashes from the fire where Izabela said the divination was saying money won’t be used in the future. So it wasn’t the flames directly saying that like I’d (mis-) remembered. She and her friend did do direct flame divination but that particular bit of info – about the use of currency disappearing – wasn’t one of the things she got from the fire itself.
Also, I had forgotten BOTH of them – Izabela and her friend Harold were insisting the flames are reporting UFO sightings, both legit and gov-faked are going to increase over the century but eventually outer space aliens are going to land on the planet and come out in the open. Sigh…
Ok. I admit I do believe intelligent life exists on other planets. I even believe there are entire species on THIS planet that vibrate beyond the detectable range of most humans and animals. But I don’t go around advocating such things because what would be the point? All of humanity would have to take up yogic practices to drop their metabolic resting breath rate to 6 per minute or less to verify that claim. Which won’t ever happen.
Also I think both Izabela and her friend have drunk the Kool-Aid a bit too much on divining things in a manner that supports 20th century progress fantasies of outer space alien contact. Maybe alien life will contact many people but what’s to stop those aliens from simply being “illegal aliens” they have to deal with directly instead of only via the news?
So I’m submitting this disclaimer to the link in the earlier post.
@Seeking
That doesn’t make sense to this former atheist from a culturally Christian background. Maybe they’re right-wingers that see Christian values as the foundation of Western Civilization, even though they cannot honestly believe in the tenets of Christianity? Or they’re biblical scholars who lost their faith but retain their love of the Bible (there are a number of those in academia)?
@Kevin #548 and @Seeking #564
I think your questions are related: the rationalists of any civilization still cling to the old faith they think they gave up — as an example, the Charvakas of ancient India ridiculed theism and reincarnation but still believed in karma — and when times get tough, they head back to it as shelter against the chaos. The AI stuff is just a last-ditch effort to maintain the civilizational fantasy of Man the Conqueror of Nature.
In both cases, I’d say what you’re seeing is rationalists negotiating the terms of their surrender.
Chauquin @ 556, my go-to for the winter colds to which I am prone is elderberry syrup. Works like a charm for me. I would not be without it in winter. Is elderberry available where you live?
BTW, I like peanut butter also. I love to make PB and chocolate brownies, and PB pie is a guilty pleasure for me. I buy PB at a health food store where I can grind my own. I store it on a shelf in the kitchen and have never had it separate or go rancid. PB + soy sauce + melted butter makes a marvelous sauce. Melt all together in a double boiler. I like the stainless DBs which fit into a Revere pan. I don’t think they are made anymore. I grab them whenever I can find them. PB is a highly nutritious source of cheap protein for vegetarians, vegans and mostly vegetarians (me).
@ Slithy Toves – Well, thanks for this, but that’s not that encouraging. Maybe we can avoid the war, part. Is the Uranus cycle based on the astrology of the Founding time/date/place? Perhaps that its what is behind the Fourth Wave/Turning pattern, which I agree is there, but hardly the most important thing. The Sixties ethos feels and appears to be totally spent. It didn’t push through to a constructive core.
Untitled-1 # 549:
“It’s especially unfortunate because the new game types are especially attractive to children and teenagers because they can be downloaded for free. 20 years ago, I would have said fears of video game addiction becoming an epidemic were overblown, but the past decade and recent trends especially have pushed the industry into exactly the same quagmire as social media and other equally destructive mental traps technology thrusts upon us today.”
Yeah, my nephew’s fully addicted to online videogames: it’s a pity, he’s cannon fodder to psychologists and psychiatrists.
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Erika # 550:
You’re welcome! 🙂
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Happy Panda # 565:
“Also I think both Izabela and her friend have drunk the Kool-Aid a bit too much on divining things in a manner that supports 20th century progress fantasies of outer space alien contact.”
I agree. Alien hypothesis to “explain” all the UFO phenomenon (or phenomena in plural!) has become enother “Ersatz” for the old and apparently “not cool” beliefs. Of course, that past century fake religion is based like anothers, in the myth of Etern Progress, so it probably won’t survive to the Long Descent…
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I’d like to finish my comment here, writting about a todays topic in every Western media. Maybe I’m too late for this cycle of comments in John blog to start a discussion here, but I suppose you’ll have heard last news about Trump peace plan for Gaza. Well, he seems clearly well alligned with the Israeli lobby claims: Hamas must surrender, no to a Palestinian state,and so on…Before some people here and there starts to shout loud in a hysterical mode, I think we should wait before to press panic button, to see if Trumpian politics are going to go beyond this concession to Netanyahu government (by the way, Israeli lobby is said to finance Democrats too, cough cough). I mean, do you think Trump will launch a full scale attack against Iran to please more the Zionists?(I doubt it, and it’s not my wishful thinking, I’ve sketched my reasons before this comment…)
Let’s wait for more Trumpist Spectacle, crossing fingers.
I just learned that despite centuries of materials research, natural diamonds are still the hardest known material. Amazing.
Tyler, someone else brought it up earlier in the substack. I dislike intensely the dehumanizing rhetoric it uses, and I also distrust the assumption that everyone whose beliefs differ from his must be controlled by demons. Some people may just have beliefs he doesn’t like! As for peaceful coexistence, I’m sorry to say the chance for that has almost certainly gone by the boards at this point. I expect to see increasingly harsh crackdowns on the extremist left, and these crackdowns will be supported by hefty majorities.
Justin, I’m glad to hear they recovered from it! Some of the people I’ve watched did the same, but others seem to be getting worse over time.
Michael, that seems unrealistic to me. My take is that the actual number of committed people on the extreme left is very small; it’s made to look much larger than it is by compliant media and a lot of funding from various sources. The compliant media is already circling the drain, and the funding sources are under threat when they haven’t already been eliminated (cough, cough, USAID, cough, cough); break those and the remaining activists can be tried and imprisoned easily enough. It would not surprise me, though, if the Trump administration were to delist cannabis as a Schedule 1 drug and pardon those in prison for possession and other nonviolent cannabis-related crimes; that would be an easy way to clear some space.
Chris, thank you. Ariel keeps on surprising me, and her friend Cassie even more so!
Carlos, thanks for this.
Slithy, excellent advice!
MCB, I’ve watched the first stirrings of the same thing, which is one of the reasons I’m confident in my prediction.
Chuaquin, I have no idea. Sherlock Holmes was right — “It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment.”
Alvin, no, Rhode Island hasn’t changed noticeably, and neither has East Providence. My issues here are wholly personal. On the one hand, I’m considering moving someplace, at least for a time, where there’s a much more robust occult scene, with functioning esoteric lodges; on the other, it’s becoming increasingly clear to me that for me, this will never be anything but the place where Sara died, and the memories — even the sweet ones — are tough to bear these days. Also, now that I’m considering dating again, it would be nice to be someplace where there are intellectual women of roughly my own age who are interested in occultism, who aren’t thoroughly committed to feminist goddess (i.e., self-) worship and haven’t spent the last decade screaming themselves hoarse 24/7 about the Bad Orange Man. I certainly don’t require potential partners to share my political beliefs, but if they can’t tolerate differences of opinion — and few women of the type I’ve just described are willing to do that — there isn’t much point in trying to strike up a friendship, much less anything more serious.
Tobes, it never seems to occur to our kleptocratic oligarchs that digital IDs will inevitably be vulnerable to hacking of various kinds, and just as inevitably be plagued with a rising tide of disruption, misinformation, confusion, and failure. Maybe they all need to be strapped down and forced to read Tainter’s The Collapse of Complex Societies or something…
Jeff, well, no, that characterization of occultism isn’t really correct. There’s an entire world of extremist right-wing lodges and traditions that are deeply into cursing and other forms of malefic magic — that’s the scene out of which the Order of Nine Angles emerged, for example. What’s happened is rather more tragic. It used to be that the broad center of the occult traditions focused on blessing, and it was only people out on the fringes were into cursing; unfortunately a very large part of what used to be the leftward end of that broad center has broken away and gone rushing off to the fringes, where it’s embraced the grubbiest sort of nasty magic. The weird glee with which they’ve done it is one of the most troubling things about it all; I’m used to seeing that in people who’ve given up on life and decided to drink themselves to death or something.
Wer, no, Trump hasn’t authorized Tomahawks — where did you get that claim? The EU is charging ahead toward war, but then they really have no choice; the current European elite gambled everything on the fantasy of breaking up Russia and stripping its wealth, and the only alternative to war at this point is collapse. I’m sure Putin is on the phone regularly with his good friends in Pyongyang and Beijing, getting everything ready for the inevitable conflict. I hope for your sake that you don’t live too close to a military target…
A1, I have no idea. I haven’t owned a television set in my adult life, and generally don’t take in visual media, so I haven’t had the experience you have. Anyone else?
Slithy, I know. I think everyone’s bracing themselves for the inevitable at this point.
Seeking, most traditional Western occult systems, including the one I work with, drew at least some concepts from Theosophy; it was the first publicly available occult philosophy in the Western world, and its concepts provided a common language that most other traditions used. I speak fluent Theosophist and enjoy attending Theosophical meetings — alas, we don’t have a branch here in Rhode Island!
Panda, good heavens, every Western occultist who isn’t brand new or a hopeless idiot knows that there are a vast number of con artists and an even larger number of well-meaning fools who set themselves up as occult teachers. Thus I’m not at all surprised about the Aghori you mention.
Grover, I didn’t have time to do one. I’ll consider it if I get more time.
Seeking, I’ll see if I can find time to read it.
Quin, thanks for this as always.
Nephite, I’ve been out of that scene for a very long time. Anyone else?
Kevin, of course they’re crazy — decadent kleptocrats generally are. The swing to religion simply shows that they’ve still got a basic sense of self-preservation and want to be on the side that seems to be winning at the moment.
Untitled-1, thanks for this. It’s a world with which I have essentially no experience — I’ve never played a video game — so it’s interesting to get a glimpse into it.
Erika, write a novel. I mean that quite literally. Write it in the same way you write posts here. Start with the old guy fumbling with the camera and the young sex worker in the baby doll feeling nervous, or whatever you like. I think you have the capacity to create something electrifying.
Chuaquin, in the US it’s illegal for me to offer you advice for your cold. That counts as practicing medicine without a license, and here in the Land of the Free, people do jail time for it. As for Ukraine news, yeah, I’ve been watching that. It speaks very poorly of human intelligence that so few people notice.
Tobes, if you want to line your insides with lumpy devil snot, by all means.
Seeking, most western “atheists” aren’t atheists at all. They’re Christians or Jews who are throwing a temper tantrum at Daddy in the Sky. I’ve had many similar experiences — one in particular that had me heartily amused was a conversation with a self-described atheist who couldn’t stand the fact that I’m a polytheist. He insisted that there’s no such thing as God, but if there was, it could only be the one described by whatever church he grew up in. It was painfully clear that he was going to ditch the atheism and start going to church again the moment he got sufficiently scared of dying.
@Chuaquin,
sorry to hear you’re sick. You probably know these already, but… I find hot lemon with honey good for sore throats, and it tastes good and is hot and cheers me up. Lemon juice, honey, water, which I heat in the microwave.
If you’re feeling nauseus, ginger is often surprisingly useful. I like to make ginger garlic chicken broth noodle soup. It’s also hot, and easy to eat with a sore throat.
I suggest the reason the Epstein scandals are too important to overlook is that we now have, or could have had, or may yet have (a gal can hope), the opportunity to turf the degenerates out of the upper echelons of our society. Business, politics, media, higher education, entertainment: all are implicated. What makes these scandals unique is that the alleged perps are rich people only. Aside from the young female entertainment, no middle or working class folks were invited to the Epstein parties. Furthermore, the allegations extend over more than a decade. We are not talking about any one time unfortunate fall from grace here. I would argue that if we want to restore some semblance of a fair and just society, these folks, whatever their level of wealth, celebrity and political persuasion, must be charged and prosecuted. Those who are not guilty, let them prove it. It is not like they can’t afford legal representation. US population is estimated at 347.28 million. I just looked it up. Subtract a third for minors and the aged, that leaves 231.49 million. We can surely locate persons of character and competence among that number. Probably they already can be found in the affected institutions, the quiet, productive folks who do what they can and keep their heads down.
My comments what I do about sore throats and upset stomachs obviously aren’t medical advice, they’re just things I do when I have those symptoms that seem to help me.
@Milkyway, (not sure if yours was the original post on brewing – I haven’t read all the posts – so apologies if this is misdirected!)
You might be interested in this link about the Sumerian goddess of beer, Ninkasi:
https://www.worldhistory.org/article/222/the-hymn-to-ninkasi-goddess-of-beer/
It includes what is probably the first known beer recipe.
It seems Ninkasi was thought to be the beer itself. Maybe that comes close to being a goddess of fermentation itself?
It mentions that beer may have been the original intention to growing grain, but I read somewhere else that due to irrigation, the fields in Southern Mesopotamia became salty, and since barley can handle the salinity better than wheat, it was adopted as a food crop in that region. Perhaps that was when beer was discovered (in the process of fermenting the dough.) I read elsewhere that when grain was adopted as a food staple, the skeletons of the ancients showed a marked deterioration of health for some time, after which this trend was reversed. The theory is that they had learned to ferment the grains before making the bread, thus making it more digestible.
-Myriam
@Celadon #568
Yeah, the US was founded fairly close to the discovery of Uranus, and embraced some very Uranian qualities — individualism, breaking from tradition, scientific and technological innovation, etc. — as part of our national character from very early on.
It was also founded when Uranus was in the early degrees of Gemini — about 9° Gemini by the Sibley chart, and though that’s known to have inaccuracies, Uranus moves slowly enough that “early Gemini” is accurate. Since then, Uranus has come back around to early Gemini three times: Once in the early 1860s (Civil War), once in the early 1940s (WWII) and now (although it will retrograde back into Taurus for a bit later this year).
More generally, Uranus in Gemini is associated with the invention of the printing press, the Protestant Reformation, the Peasants’ War, and many other “revolutions”:
https://www.astro.com/astrology/opa_article250324_e.htm
But the connection with America seems to be much stronger and more consistent in its effects, albeit the number of data points available is small.
Mary Bennet # 567:
Thanks for your suggestion. Elderberry’s very rare to find where I live, but it can be purchased at herbalist shops here.
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JMG # 571:
‘Sherlock Holmes was right — “It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment.”’
I recognize a good quote when I read it. Well, you’re right, we don’t have all the evidence by now…
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“digital IDs will inevitably be vulnerable to hacking of various kinds, and just as inevitably be plagued with a rising tide of disruption, misinformation, confusion, and failure. ”
So these problems in its massive implementation would lead to more and more people to trust in older non-money based exchange, me think, in a not so distant future. I’d discard at first glance local moneys when the States power starts to dwindle…
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“Wer, no, Trump hasn’t authorized Tomahawks — where did you get that claim? The EU is charging ahead toward war, but then they really have no choice; the current European elite gambled everything on the fantasy of breaking up Russia and stripping its wealth, and the only alternative to war at this point is collapse. I’m sure Putin is on the phone regularly with his good friends in Pyongyang and Beijing, getting everything ready for the inevitable conflict. I hope for your sake that you don’t live too close to a military target…”
Oops! The EU path towards the war is scaring. You all in the USA may go away this road to hell at time if Trumpian strategy succeed…There isn’t a big pacifist movement in Europe anymore, so the belicist propaganda is rampant here, with the principle of non contradiction broken every day in the MSM. And yes, it’s a pity near nobody realizes this flagrant contradiction in our beloved leaders and warmongering “journalists” speeches.
Well, Poland is by disgrace, in the fist line in a hypothetical full scale war between EU countries and Russia/Belarus. Spain is more far to the possible main front of war, but oh wait! we have at Rota the antiballistic missiles base…
By the way, I’ve seen days ago that the famous Polish forest of Bialowieza (where the European bisons run free yet) is located in the border with Belarus. Oh oh…
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Related with the concessions made by Trump to Israel&Israeli lobbies, I’ve been told by a friend that several planes (more in special: kerosene tankers) landed yesterday at airbases in UK. My friend didn’t tell to me his sources for this worryiing news, so I ask to you all if you’ve heard some of this stuff somewhere to the extent to trust in it.
Erika,
Yeah, I have in recent years been learning a salutary lesson regarding my error in being supercilious about other people’s “drama” and assuming they brought it on themselves. My cousin dragged me through two years of slander, physical intimidation, and all the lawsuits he could manage to file against me and mine for the crime of not knuckling under to his demands–as you said, he wanted to crush me. Well, if anyone got crushed, it was him, but we are still mopping up the mess. Part of that is the cringe I undergo every time I go into town and think about what all lies he’s been telling everyone, followed by the extra cringe when I remember assuming that people who got their names in the legal section of the paper were probably morally deficient at worst and trashy at best. Oops.
Dance on, and don’t let them crush you! By the way, I think you’d fit in rather well in Texas; it sure sounds like you need to get out of your part of California!
@ 566 Slithy Toves and @JMG
Thank you for this, I think this confirms my suspicion that while there are Atheists who are sincere and happy with their beliefs, way too many prove that the vast majority find it unsatisfying subconsciously. I agree that when they run into an existential crises or death comes knocking then a lot of them will go back to their former faith. I noticed that when crises happens they tend not to handle it well. Like you JMG, i found the two atheists amusing, i still laugh about it it was so baffling.
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Theosophy is fascinating, i’m not a fan of it for reasons but learning about it i can see why it was popular. I love history and religious history is one of my favorites. And i think a lot of spiritual movements in the west owe a debt to Theosophy.
In your home state of Washington a company called Helion has broken ground on the construction of a fusion power plant. There’s another plant being built in France. I know in the past you’ve remarked on how fusion is an impossibly expensive pipe dream, so I’m curious if you think these projects will quickly run out of money, or has the technology changed somehow to enable this to be a realistic endeavor?
Ah i forgot to mention. One thin i noticed is that for a lot of atheists, it is defined by what it isn’t. I remember when Patheos told everyone they couldn’t write articles criticizing other religions but especially not Christianity. They could talk about their faiths, just not criticize religion. All the religions shrugged and said ok, but the vast majority of Atheists left.
And i’ve noticed how many Atheists when they make content about their Atheism, its either science or more often just talking about Christianity and why its wrong. I wonder if some Atheists are aware they talk a lot like Christian apologetic writers…..
@Kevin #548
I want to echo what JMG said here. As someone who spent a bit of time in the tech industry, tech moguls have always had a few screws loose, its just their money and success has distracted most people from noticing that.
If you’re curious about the ideologies that underlie this seemingly-religious frevor around AI, you can read Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom and Our Final Invention by James Barratt. They were both recommended by one Elon Musk, and so they were widely circulated in the Valley for a time. Spoilers: it’s the same tired Second Coming of the Proletarian Revolution of Progress myth in different clothes, with the Second Coming being played by the Singularity, and Jesus Christ being played by the Superintelligent AI (who will have godlike power because of the Internet or something). The only twist is that Heaven or Hell, Paradise or Apocalypse is left to the whims of this hypothetical AI, and so it is our Moral Duty as Technologists (TM) to not only win the race to develop Superintelligent AI, but also do it in a way that ensures our eventual Mechanical Overlord has our best interests at heart. This of course justifies a variety of otherwise questionable moral and economic choices surrounding artificial intelligence, as was always the goal.
As for the seeming return to Christianity, the article reads to me more like Peter Thiel looking out for his own self-interest (as he reliably, always does), which has prompted a, perhaps unintended, side effect where a subset of tech workers, following his example, have become more comfortable expressing or returning to their Christian beliefs.
@Seeking the Pure Land #564
Some time ago I had an “atheist” friend who was feeling a little lost ask me for spiritual advice. When I suggested he look into other religious traditions (like Buddhism) to get a sense of his options, he stopped, blinked at me for a second, then insisted that if he did believe in a god it would be the Christian one. I don’t quite understand it myself, but it really does seem that there are a great many self-described atheists who are really Christians going through some kind of spiritual crisis. They don’t even seem comfortable entertaining other options.
@Chuaquin #569
Yes, I feel a sadness for children who grow up with games as they are today. Theoretically, it’s possible to be selective as a parent and choose games that won’t exploit your children, especially if you’re into gaming yourself, but most parents lack the required knowledge: Minecraft, Fortnite, and Super Mario might as well all be the same to them, even though they all use different models of monetization. Plus, the free games are, well, free, and all of my friends are playing them too, so why can’t I play them Mom/Dad?
It’s a very easy trap to fall into, to the point where I don’t blame parents with less ability to discern simply banning their children from games altogether, even if that comes with its own downsides.
@JMG
I’m glad it was helpful. I noticed much of the commentariat tended to skew older and either less experienced with video games or casual enough that it seems like they were only familiar with the mainstream, which abounds in this kind of exploitative, abusive design. I basically grew up with a controller in my hands, so I thought a simple primer on what the wider field looked like might be worthwhile.
@JMG
Following on from this week’s Magic Monday thread it just hit me that the Jezebel witches casting those curse spells on Charlie Kirk were also perfectly timed if inadvertent self-owns. The first is designed to invoke the Pillar of Severity to “summon Infernal energies to act with precision and intensity, delivering justice where human hands cannot reach.”
(c&p from a website discussing the first spell’s intent)
Which the Pillar of Severity quite promptly supplied! By having those same witches then cast the Cursed-DNA spell. Which, since both spells involved the Causal Plane they have set in motion intense, exact and balanced justice – to all sides – the spellcasters, purchasers & the victim. Raspberry Jam principle at its finest.
It won’t only be the witch(s) that did the casting who will get the result. Sadhguru and other yogis I watch said it is intent that makes the crucial difference of the quality of karmic results so the people at the Jezebel website who paid for this service but didn’t cast the spells themselves will nonetheless get the full boomerang effects of both with the intensity of the Causal Plane steamrolling all in its path who set the avalanche in motion.
Instant, perfectly balanced karmic culmination indeed.
JMG wrote: “Erika, write a novel. I mean that quite literally. Write it in the same way you write posts here.”
I can see it; typed on a typewriter, on an endless paper roll, without revisions, like “On The Road.”
On Faraday cages; if high freq. RF is line of sight, I don’t understand why a small gap in the faraday cage would be a problem if it’s not in the direction of the source. My own experimenting here at home shows me that it is a problem, however. I placed my broadband RF meter on top of a sheet of RF blocking fabric and then folded the fabric over the top. I could still see the colored lights and hear the audio through the fabric, but I couldn’t actually read the numbers. If I held down the edges with my hand, the attenuation was significant. But if I allowed any gap, the attenuation was negligible. Most of the RF in my house comes from a single source, a cell tower about a half mile away. (There’s no wifi in my house; I only use ethernet cables.) When that tower was turned off for maintenance a couple of summers ago the RF in my house dropped from moderate to blinking green, that is to say negligible. Unlike Patricia O, I’m not sensitive enough to notice the difference unaided.
Addendum:
I just re-read that “deliver justice with precision and intensity where human hands can not reach” and it is weirdly very fine-tuned wording since it reaches into the sperm and egg cell genetic code where human hands quite literally are too big and clumsy to reach.
The more I read about the implications of the very technical application of both those spells’ wording…well..it is the stuff of nightmares. 🙁
I am hugely relieved to see that the mandated meeting of all our top brass at Quantico seems to have been mostly a huge nothing-burger, to judge by reports so far, and not a high-security briefing on World War 3 contingency plans. The most alarming point made today seems to have been that US troops should expect to be used more often than previously against civilians within the USA. (See my earlier comments at #258 ans #357 for the background.)
JMG,
Well here’s hoping! Thanks for the consideration.
Slithy Toves wrote, “Cancel culture was in some ways a return, from the left, of the conformist social shaming that is absolutely normal but which liberals and other anti-authoritarians had struggled so hard to suppress.”
Precisely. The political alignments have flip-flopped again, as they are wont to do periodically. In the US, the left has gotten itself locked out of the official (masculine) hard-power systems, such as the courts and military. Thus, they migrated over to the unofficial (feminine) soft-power techniques, such as gossip and social shaming. The only reason the left had been struggling to suppress those sources of soft-power for so long was that the right (back when it had gotten itself locked out of hard-power systems) had figured out how to wield soft-power systems so effectively, through organizations like the Moral Majority.
Flip-flopping is part of the nature of the universe. Any entity that prides itself on being anti-authoritarian for long enough will become the object of its own obsession and morph into authoritarianism. What we contemplate we imitate, which is, after all, the highest form of flattery. So, be careful what you contemplate, or at least be prepared for its inevitable consequences.
Hey JMG
I’ll probably wrap it up by leaving you with two more things that may interest you.
The first is an article about a Sardinian artist called Pinuccio Sciola who makes stone sculptures that produce musical effects. He essentially gets a large boulder or block and cuts a square grid into it with deep saw cuts, sometimes ensuring that each result section in the grid is a different height than the others. When another rock is rubbed against the surface it produces sounds.
https://wanderingsardinia.com/articles/39/the-sound-garden
Also, on the subject of popular mathematics, there’s a Substack I like called “Beyond Euclid” that publishes short compilations of the latest news in interesting developments on math of science, along with any particularly beautiful pieces of mathematical art or novelty items.
https://beyondeuclid.substack.com/
@robert
They really just summoned them all for an ice cream social and a pizza party? lol. Although I do question whether risking bringing all the top brass to one publicly known location for a meet ‘n greet was such a good idea, from a security point of view.
What do I know.
@583 Untitled-1
Oh agreed, i’ve noticed that a great many Atheists seem to think the options are Christianity and Atheism and no other. As you say its like they can’t entertain any other option. They’re really just Christians at heart.
Augusto, re #424, “She was wearing two masks, one of Dion Fortune and the other was JMG’s.” I would say Violet was wearing at least three, as womanface is also mask. (Yes, I live on terf island.) “All those Puer Aeternus posts she did? She was targeting me.” That is so funny, as I think many MtF trans people are puers, ie, lost boys who can never grow up, and usually don’t want to. Projection is really a thing even among those who read Jung.
Erika, thanks for all the zingers some of which make me LOL. “The Normals aren’t even Normal” so true!
Robert M. @ 587: I find it ominous: Has the Golden Golem of Gross Exaggeration never used mis-direction before?
@Myriam,
Thanks for the link and the infos. 🙂 Yes, I think I started the discussion of fermented goodies. Either way I’m very grateful how it has turned into a wonderful conversation about so many things, and with so many interesting and inspiring comments by different folks!
It is a constant source of amusement for me when people (especially scientists) assume that folks way back when just must have used the same kinds of scientific methods we’d use today to discover something. Thus either one genius scientist a few thousand years back must have systematically experimented with grains etc. and discovered fermentation, or it must have been a random chance product e.g. by leaving some dough standing for too long. Now both could be true, of course. But so could be all sorts of other explanations which are somewhat outside of our scientific worldview… (god-given inspiration, talking to nature spirits or to the plants themselves, and whatnot else…) 😉
Interesting about the changes in the skeletons! Would you happen to remember where you read this?
Thanks,
Milkyway
@Christophe #589
Thank you for this! When you put it in terms of formal/masculine power vs. informal/feminine power it really is obvious what happened. It’s worth noting that the first major expression of what we now call wokeness was not about race or gender identity, but about feminism.
(No, I don’t think the 00’s campaign for gay marriage counts: while it certainly made use of soft power, it had well-defined goals and tried very hard to persuade the median voter that those goals were reasonable and non-threatening, making every assurance that they had no intention of changing culture or social institutions any more than necessary. Which is pretty much the exact opposite of the approach pioneered by SJWs in the 2010s.)
> I dislike intensely the dehumanizing rhetoric it uses, and I also distrust the assumption that everyone whose beliefs differ from his must be controlled by demons.
I know you don’t watch videos, JMG, but the specific examples given were either mentally ill or controlled by something utterly unwholesome. I agree, though, that this doesn’t generalise.
> The weird glee with which they’ve done it is one of the most troubling things about it all; I’m used to seeing that in people who’ve given up on life and decided to drink themselves to death or something.
Well, I know from which political side I hear the most claims that existence itself is objectively terrible. It’s entirely possible that they have given up on life and are just taking a less direct way of getting to the end.
Chuaquin #556:
I don’t know about fast but chicken broth can’t hurt.
—David P.
@Jotshu #581,
Breaking ground is by no means proof the company has a viable and economic fusion process. You might want to check out the following:
https://engage.aps.org/fps/resources/newsletters/newsletter-archives/april-2019
Where Helion’s experiments and claims are best regarded as ” Voodo Fusion”. The main purpose of its activities are to suck in investments and grants. The promise of getting positive net energy from the companies process will entice investors and government grants makers far in to the future.
I am with Phutatorius @ 594. The public face of an event, the pizza & beer, is one thing. What gets decided behind the scenes is often something else altogether.
Russo-Ukrainian War: In most cases, public opinion can and does turn on a dime, with ppl forgetting what they were passionate about last year. However, alot of energy and commitment has been poured into this conflict and its fabricated narrative, and there’s the steady escalation spiral which is dragging Europe into it, and there’s the whole symbolic clash between Liberalism and Authoritarianism. Thus, I think there will be serious levels of cognitive dissonance when Russia wins decisively, on par with 2016. However, maybe JMG will be proven right, we’ll see!
Vidya Games: It’s unfortunate what’s become of the industry, with its slop content, microtransactions, and ideological infection. As a millennial who grew up on games, I experienced what was in retrospect a golden age of gaming — that time in the 90s and into the 00s when there was raw creativity, talent, and the hardware to make it happen. Some of the titles from back then still hold up to this day, with communities creating randomizers and romhacks of those games to breathe new life into them. As a medium, it’s quite capable of art & storytelling, and is uniquely immersive. It’s also a means of testing yourself, gaining experience with puzzles & challenges, because ultimately play is a form of practice.
In a larger sense, I think not only video games, but computers & internet in general is a major differential between the generations. Growing up with that stuff, versus without, is going to have a shaping effect on you, as it did for me.
@Phutatorius (#594):
Of course that golem has, and frequently. I didn’t mean to say that we were out of danger, only that a single particular thing my congenital pessimism suggested to me didn’t seem to come to pass.
And another thing: there was no targeted attack from abroad to try to take out all our country’s top brass hats. That was my wife’s first thought when I mentioned the mass meeting at Quantico to her.
No, we’re definitely not out of the woods yet, and probably won’t be for at least two more decades.
Mary, er, “restore some semblance of a fair and just society” — when did we have even a semblance of such a society?
Seeking, Theosophy has had an immense impact. Among many other things, it’s most of the reason that Asian spiritual traditions, yours included, found a ready welcome in the western world.
Joshua, the technology hasn’t changed at all. What’s changed is that investors are so desperate to clutch at the Next Big Thing that due diligence has gone out the window, and projects aimed at draining the wallets of suckers are having a field day. Do you remember Enron? They’d just finished building a lavish new office complex for themselves when the bottom fell out; I suspect these construction projects are headed the same way.
Panda, oh, granted. As I’ve pointed out rather more than once, the antics of the “We Hate Trump” end of the occult scene are very nearly a perfect guide to what not to do in magical practice.
Phutatorius, On the Road was one of the examples I had in mind, in fact.
Robert M, not quite a nothingburger, but it certainly doesn’t seem to presage imminent war. I note that Trump took the time to visit and talked about how the military would be used against “the enemy within,” so we can probably expect a sharp increase in the use of military forces in domestic policing.
J.L.Mc12, thanks for these.
David P., oh, there are certainly people obsessed by demons on the left. There are also people in the same condition on the right, and many of them claim to be Christian.
@Jennifer #541:
sorry, no book recommendation, but a movie instead:
No Man’s Land (2001) by Danis Tanović which won the oscar for best film in a foreign language
Hi JMG and others.
It’s been more than a year since I last commented here. So first of all, I want to offer my condolences on the passing of your wife.
I have a question as well.
Future of slavery? (My vote for 5th Wednesday)
-Suppose that if Islam were to rise to power in, say, Western Europe, how likely would you think slavery would return in the future while societies sink towards the dark ages,as you have predicted? Slavery has certainly existed under many religions and cultures throughout history. However, Islam is special because its founding prophet, whom believers consider a highly exemplary person, was himself a slave owner.
Slavery could, of course, make a comeback elsewhere as well.
It would be a shame if that were the case.
@ Milkyway, Ha! You are so right!
Since the beer making seems to originally have been in the hands of the housekeepers, and they were by no means isolated in their suburban house kitchens or similar stupidity, they probably had a lot of fun communally experimenting, swapping ideas and starters, and with nudges and inspiration from the beer goddess, did lots and lots of tasting.
@Chuaquin,
I chew on bits of fresh garlic.
It seems every time I turn around the past few days somebody else is under the weather. My husband and I too. It seems everywhere. One thing that is going on is a much more energetic solar maximum than was predicted. I’ve been watching geophysicist Stefan Burns, and he points to the sun’s interactions with planets when they are aligned in certain ways. The mysterious interstellar object called “3I/Atlas” is approaching Mars and both are on the opposite side of the sun now, out of our view. There are also other comets. He has predicted earthquake activity from solar storms. This also has an impact on human physiology and psychology, with anxiety/depression notable, along with cardiac effects. It may be one reason for the rising tide of hysteria we see.
@Everyone discussing devil’s snot, for some reason my body seems to request it specifically. It is supposed to be one of the most terrible things you can eat, but I reckon it’s got some nutrient or other that we have not identified that is especially bio-available in that form. Mighty good boogers! (I happen to have a tiny jar of it on my altar this week.)
I just want to say thank you everyone so much for humoring me and answering my questions. I hope I was not too annoying. I probably won’t comment on every post, but i’ll probably pop in from time to time. I enjoyed everyone’s answers and conversations.
May you all be well. Namo Amituofo
Regarding theories of value such as LTV, I have a half-formed idea that may or may not be useful. It won’t be fully formed until perhaps next month’s open post, but since the topic is current I’ve bashed some of my notes into a sort of outline for future consideration.
One problem with theories of value is that in some sense the value of an item depends on how much it is used and/or how much benefit the user gains from its use. But those are not really knowable until the item is gone. I’m not sure I can explain the concept well.
Consider two identical kitchen widgets off the assembly line. One is used daily to help prepare meals for 50 years until it finally wears out; the other sits in the back of a cabinet until it’s thrown away into a landfill. Though they are of equal possible value at the outset, ultimately the first clearly ended up with more “realized” value than the second. But there’s no way to know this for certain in advance.
By the same reasoning, food that spoils uneaten has no value (perhaps somewhat offset if it’s used e.g. for compost) but again, that’s only knowable after the fact. By strained analogy with physics, we can say that kitchen widgets on a store shelf or food in a shopping cart have “potential” value that (to some extent) justifies its price tag, but they don’t acquire “kinetic” value until someone uses or eats them.
No one weighing a toy purchase for a child is overly concerned with whether the toy’s price is truly justified by the amount of labor used to manufacture it. Nor how well its price reflects how much embodied energy or raw materials it contains. They care whether and how much the child will play with it, and the fact that that’s so difficult to predict is why such gift purchases can be stressful. This is well known and reasonably well understood. What’s not well enough appreciated is that in a consumer economy, toys are not some special exception.
This has some weird implications. Such as:
1. There’s a limit on total (kinetic) value, in an individual’s life and also therefore in an entire economy. There’s only so much stuff one can actually use or fully appreciate the use of. A wealthy collector of fast cars, however much pleasure owning many fast cars he claims gives him, can still only drive (or be driven) in one of them at a time.
1a. Thus, providing value to consumers is a limited-sum endeavor. Businesses have disincentives to providing actual (kinetic) value. The lower the average realized value (because the item sold proves too difficult to use, works poorly, breaks quickly, or is redundant for the buyer to begin with e.g. as a hoarded/collected item) the more stuff can be sold overall.
2. Favelas, trailer parks, and dense apartments are full of necessary and appreciated possessions because there’s little room for anything else. They’re value oases. Suburban McMansion neighborhoods are value deserts. Actual mansions, even more so.
(Aside: part of the inspiration for this idea is a few weeks ago, I watched some videos by a guy who’s basically a mansion critic He replays and comments on video tours of mansions in the tens to hundreds of millions price range, and explains why he thinks they are or aren’t worth the money, feature by feature. I expected to be either envious or appalled by the wasteful luxury on display, but found the videos unexpectedly hilarious instead, for reasons I couldn’t explain at first. It was the obvious complete unwillingness on all sides to notice the chasm between cost and worth. Bathroom walls covered with gigantic slabs of matched exotic stone: how long would you admire or even notice them if you actually lived there? How long before the ten meters separating your bedroom door from the bed becomes just an annoyance? Even taking for granted that you might actually want to host parties for a hundred guests at a time, and would have a household staff to worry about which of your five kitchens currently has any unexpired milk in the fridge, most of it all just seems so tragically—no, so hilariously—useless. Who could actually use a laundry room with three washers and three dryers? Maybe a single mother with four kids who only has one afternoon off work a week. Not a multimillionaire with full-time maids.)
3. Whatever good reasons we have for maligning cars, televisions, smart phones, and video game consoles, we might have to admit they have high (kinetic) value, at least in the sense that they get used, however questionable the benefits of such use often are. Fizzy brown sugar water rarely goes to waste! Or it always does. This needs more thought.
4. Things get more complex when we talk about the kinetic value of productive assets such as tools and commercial vehicles, because it depends not strictly on how much its used but the kinetic value in turn of what it’s used for. This can apply recursively over many layers of productive utility.
5. An economy that was efficient in terms of maximizing kinetic value would look very different from ours…
@JMG (#572), replying to Alvin and to Seeking:
There’s a Theosophical society not quite one hour north of Providence, in Arlington, Mass. But I’m not sure whether it still focuses on Theosophy, or has gone more over to New Age.
As for moving to another place where there’s more esoteric activity, I’d recommend the Boston-Cambridge-Somerville-Arlington area (with Massachusetts Ave. as its main axis).
In addition to the Theosophical Society in Arlington, there is an excellent esoteric bookstore in Cambridge on Massachusetts Avenue, called “Seven Stars.” It also functions as a contact center for people with a very wide range of esoteric interests. Back when I was more mobile, I would go there several times a year to buy books and chat with the very well connected and friendly staff. Most of them were a decade or two younger than I am, had been working there for years and years, and are probably still manning the store.
And just as a pedantic historical footnote, before the Theosophical Society was first formed, there was a small, but well-known group of popular occultist Spiritualist writers who formed what some called the “Magical wing” of Spiritualism: the most notable of them in the USA were Pascal Beverly Randolph and Emma Hardinge Britten, (and H. P. Blavatsky during her first years in the USA, before Isis Unveiled..) Many of Randolph’s and Britten’s books went through multiple printings and were widely read, at least as widely as Blavatsky’s first big book. It may be of interest that the very first meetings of what became the Theosophical Society were held in Britten’s apartment.
@xcalibur/djs #600
For a long time I never understood why the artistic potential of games was ever a question. So long as the medium provides the potential for the expression of human creativity, it’s clearly art. If you consider, for example, food to be art, then games are hardly so different.
It’s only when I realized that most people’s experience with games is limited to Pong, Space Invaders, PAC-MAN, Tetris, maaaaybe the original Super Mario, Wii Sports, Guitar Hero, and variations of Candy Crush, when that point of view made more sense to me. Sure, they catch glimpses of the stuff their children play, but most children these days play simple violent games where you shoot people and they really don’t go any deeper than that. Especially among older people, I can see why they wouldn’t see any merit in it. They haven’t skimmed even the surface, and well, that’s normal for a lot of things if you’re not interested in them. I don’t know anything about sports and probably never will. Is sports a waste of time? Are atheletes artists? Heck if I know.
Not everyone is a geek that’s going to bother putting the time and effort into learning how to play something like Elden Ring, Shadow of the Colossus, or even something like Journey when they could be using that time for other things, and that’s perfectly fine.
JMG #572
I understand your reasons. Rest assured that there are many of us who sympathize with your personal situation. I know you will find somewhere to do your work, and live your life. I hope you will find companionship and fraternity wherever you decide to go.
The “they’ll think of something” crowd and their digital ID’s are a pox, and will not end the way they think it will.
I second the motion that Erika Lopez write a novel. Such insight and dancing magic words will create a world unparalleled.
You can’t have atheism without theology. I was a mistaken atheist in my youth, but saw too much and sensed the other side. I grew to distrust the garden variety atheists as much as the so called “Christians” I grew up with. I realize now that they are all fundamentally scared and hidebound.
Mary Bennet #574
Desire for power is overwhelming in these people, of course absolute power corrupts absolutely. That club is not for us, those of us trying to live day to day with no desire to bend the world to our will.
Jennifer Kobernik #579
>>Part of that is the cringe I undergo every time I go into town and think about what all lies he’s been telling everyone, followed by the extra cringe when I remember assuming that people who got their names in the legal section of the paper were probably morally deficient at worst and trashy at best.<>I am hugely relieved to see that the mandated meeting of all our top brass at Quantico seems to have been mostly a huge nothing-burger, to judge by reports<<
Same here. These people are all actors, compensating for their essential weakness by playing
"tough guy," although play acting and sabre rattling, if it is confined to that, at least reduces the body count.
It occurred to me the other day that the reason we never used nuclear weapons after 1945 is that it would be bad for business. Now, FEAR of nuclear war, that is good for business, if your business is resource extraction and subsidy grift. I suspect that the civil war hubbub is the same, gin up the fear, take max funds from the future, and round up the unfortunates that fall for the con and really start shooting.
@ Untitled-1 #610
I appreciate the point you’re making, but Roger Ebert once wrote an article arguing against the idea of games as art that I’ve always found pretty compelling. Summarizing from memory: a game can certainly have an artistic presentation (the board and pieces, the cards, the assets, etc.), but it’s hard to see how a game qua game — the actual mechanics, the thing left when all the presentation is abstracted away — could itself be art. To the extent a game is artistic, it’s not the game itself you’re focusing on.
Moreover the qualities that games strive for as games and the qualities that art strives for as art are in tension: you don’t need any special skill to read a book, listen to a song, watch a play, or view a painting. You might need some skill and knowledge, even a lot of skill and knowledge, to really understand and appreciate it, but not just to make it to the end and take in the whole thing. By contrast, video games especially often lock part of the content behind skill challenges. (Yes, you can get around those by watching someone else play it, but then you’re not engaging with it as a game.)
In fact this issue seems to have been what lead to the rise of the genre of “walking simulators” so beloved of game journalists — “games” with little or no challenge to complete, where the point is just to take in the artistry of the scene and plot. But then it’s questionable to what extent these deserve the name of “game,” as opposed to simply “interactive visual media.”
On a more personal note, I’ve found video games that actively strive to be games-as-art tend to be rather pretentious (and political) and much less enjoyable than games which try to be fun games first and foremost, even when I end up deeply enjoying the artistic elements of the latter.
Jennifer @ 541, A good place to start is with the journalist, Misha Glenny, who has written three books about the Balkans. He is a journalist, not an academic historian, but what I read was detailed and quite well informed, so far as I could tell.
John O’Neill, thank you for your comment. Me, I don’t think “It’s always been that way.” is an acceptable excuse for not enforcing the law. I am not asking for a revolution, just investigation and prosecution where evidence of guilt exists.
@592 Seeking
The hidden religion of New Atheism is Progress. In the narrative I and others had in our heads, cavemen started worshipping sticks and rocks because they were morons. Then they started worshipping animals, then invisible animals in the sky. Later they worshipped people in the sky, then whittled it down to just the God of Abraham. The next step is realizing that there are no gods just before we build Godlike AI.
So there ought to now only be Christians, Muslims, and atheists. And the latter will become dominant, demonstrated by the rise of the “Nones” which definitely didn’t peak around 2020 and is starting to rapidly recede.
@Happy Panda regarding Izabela – funny you should mention that video of the fire divination (which I watched a few minutes of and then stopped). My observation is that when she focuses on a specific question in the ‘here and now’ of the world, Izabela has remarkably accurate predictions in her tarot readings and fairly accurate insights in her crystal ball readings. But when she asks very open questions or just opens herself up to ‘whatever’ via crystal ball, fire, or whatever, she heads right off into the Land of Woo which I recognize only too clearly having befriended a few New Agers in the 1980s and considered it even then (despite my youth) to be total hogwash.
@Walt, what you said is very much like the accounting concept of “depreciation”. When you buy a car, the car has an expected lifetime of e.g. 25 years, so you amortize the cost over its expected lifetime.
I believe Marx actually also talks about this in his take on the LTV in terms of machinery; machines are embodied labour, so e.g. if my noodle making machine for my noodle shop took 1000 man hours to build, it will consume that value over its lifetime of being in use. I’m not super well-read in Marx’s LTV as compared to Smith or Ricardo so maybe I’m misstating something but that’s the general idea.
As a side note, I did a little research on whether the PRC’s policymakers had any overt mentions of the LTV recently.
One interesting mention was by Liu He, Xi Jinping’s chief economist who negotiated with the US until his retirement in 2023.
“经过 20 多年发展实践，我国社会主义市场经济体制不断健全完善，但在一些方面仍存在束缚市场主体活力、阻碍市场和 价值规律 充分发挥作用的弊端。”
That is: “After more than twenty years of development practice, China’s socialist market economy system has continuously improved, but in some aspects there remain drawbacks that constrain market actors’ vitality, and hinder the full play of the market and the law of value.”
The full context is that he was saying China still had a lot of internal trade barriers from regional governments and so on that prevented things from reaching their natural value. (I’m paraphrasing a bit, “natural value” is a term used by Smith whereas Marx’s law of value is similar but phrased in terms of saying goods will tend towards their socially necessary labour time)
His prescriptions for what follows are essentially the same as any other free market economist: remove internal trade barriers and allow market mechanisms to regulate themselves.
I mean I don’t know how much LTV he knows or whether it influences his actual decisions, but it’s pretty clear that the LTV doesn’t mean its proponents want to measure the labour time embodied in every single product, and in fact is compatible with a market economy (even one with “Chinese characteristics”).
At the same time Xi Jinping in his speeches constantly talks about the “real economy” with a huge focus on manufacturing.
E.g. from his most recent 5 Year Plan
“The focus of economic growth should be on the development of the real economy. Building national strength requires, in particular, strengthening manufacturing and improving product quality. Further integration of advanced manufacturing and modern services is called for. Improving infrastructure provides support and paves the way for new growth. It is important to strengthen institutional support for symbiotic interaction between the real economy, scientific and technological innovation, financial services, and talent development.”
You can contrast that with Western countries where the focus of economic speeches is often, up until Trump, about “high value services” contributing the most to the economy.
I don’t want to make a strawman since I think even Marx recognized that intellectual work might one day be more important than “labour”. A point which he didn’t develop much on beyond his notes in the Grundrisse unfortunately. However, I think most observers can notice the difference this has caused — in the West undoubtedly there have been advances in science and engineering that are grouped under the term “services”, but financialization backed by fiat and speculation have far exceeded the “real economy” at this point. China’s focus on the real economy has helped it keep more grounded IMO.
—
On the Russian-Ukrainian war:
The topic of cheap drones has been going around Twitter with many worried about how underprepared the US seems. The Ukrainians and Israelis have shown that sleeper groups in a target country can use low cost drones to take out a lot of expensive military infrastructure. According to the Twitter commenters anyway, it seems the US is nowhere worried enough about this, and is still thinking of Cold War-Gulf War era conflicts, its drone doctrine is still based on pre-2022 drones which were relatively expensive and not used in vast swarms or for smaller targets.
Some jingoists still honestly say that US air superiority will smash the enemy in a few days, but they just don’t get it.
If I were the US I think I’d want to develop and export some of my drones to Ukraine to test their capabilities. It seems that Ukraine actually gets most of their drones from China, which are much cheaper than the high end fighter-jet style drones the US produces.
Sorry for the errant html
Kind of muddled things up. Now I have no idea what I was saying
Jennifer. #579
After I was “fired for cause” by the record store, I was reluctant to be seen in public for just that reason. It’s crushing, and I wonder who knows what, and I steer clear of people I used to know.
Hope this is not a duplicate post– I ran across this quote in 1997, and it has helped me to grow gratitude, forgiveness and cutting others slack– Could be helpful to others too! Fair warning–Christian content here
“Resentment and gratitude cannot coexist, since resentment blocks the perception and experience of life as a gift. My resentment tells me that I don’t receive what I deserve. It always manifests itself in envy.
Gratitude, however, goes beyond the ‘mine and ‘thine’ and claims the truth that all of life is a pure gift. In the past I always thought of gratitude as a spontaneous response to the awareness of gifts received, but now I realize that gratitude can also be lived as a discipline. The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy.
Gratitude as a discipline involves a conscious choice.
* I can choose to be grateful even when my emotions and feelings are still steeped in hurt and resentment. It is amazing how many occasions present themselves in which I can choose gratitude instead of a complaint.
* I can choose to be grateful when I am criticized, even when my heart still responds in bitterness.
* I can choose to speak about goodness and beauty, even when my inner eye still looks for someone to accuse or something to call ugly.
* I can choose to listen to the voices of forgiveniss and to look at the faces that smile, even while I still hear words of revenge and see grimaces of hatred.
There is always the choice between resentment and gratitude because God has appeared in my darkness, urged me to come home, and declared in a voice filled with affection: “You are with me always, and all I have is yours.”
Henri J. M. Nouwen, from “The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming.” Image Books, Doubleday, 1994
@ pygmycory # 505, @ TylerA # 502, @ JMG # 499
I think you are mixing up two fundamentally distinct problems facing your economy – immigration and outsourcing. The job market in Western countries is adversely affected by both of them. They have similar effects on the workforce, but very different causes.
Until recently, I was working for one of the largest Canadian corporations. They have offices in multiple cities in India. The team I worked in was very international – my immediate boss was Italian, and other members of my team came from Mexico, Canada, India, and USA. One of these team members was a Canadian girl (I say “girl” because she is considerably younger than me).
This girl is highly expressive, has great initiative, and often led the meetings. She has an excellent mastery over language – in speech as well as in writing. Her words are erudite and her expression is lucid. She was promoted to a Lead role in spite of her youth. But then she committed one error – she marked herself “Exceeds Expectations” in her self-appraisal.
What she did not know is that such a self-appraisal from someone in a lead role would trigger a scrutiny from above. Her deliverables were audited. Under normal circumstances, they would not have been found wanting. But they were deemed unsatisfactory, and an inside source confided in me that the reason for this is that she was in a well-paid lead role in what they call a “high-cost location”. This is code for “first world country”.
She was put on a PIP (Performance Improvement Plan). She was given grunge-work – summarizing policy documentation, which required her to go through tomes of verbose and Latinate policies and procedures to re-write them. She quit in frustration very soon after that. Not long after her resignation, the company hired three new people to replace her – all Indians.
All three of them had better technical skills than her. I know, because I was tasked with interviewing the candidates for the job. They were also prudent, and would never write anything other than “Meets Expectations” on their self-appraisal, since writing that is religion in India. They were all about her age. And their total cost to company matched her cost. She was completely replaced, and while I am happy to note that she is currently employed in another good company, the fact is that not even a lingering trace of her presence remained after she was gone.
Not one of the three people who replaced her are concerned about promotion – they will work in that company for some years, gain some experience, and then leave for another company, which they will join at a higher pay and designation. That is the way Indian IT and software folks operate their career. Not one of them has any plans of visiting Canada – one of them is taking care of his aging parents back home in Bangalore. There is no immigration involved. But that pay-slot has now permanently been blocked for Canadian candidates, as if the Canadian position has simply ceased to exist.
In spite of the adversarial nature of our relationship in this – we are obviously competing over the same jobs – I cannot help but sympathize with the people of first world countries. The HIRE Act was built to prevent this sort of outsourcing, but I feel like it lacks real fang. Without a proportionate component in the tax slab, it will never really make large corporations give up their outsourcing. As I mentioned in my previous post, it will probably backfire.
Also, Tyler, you mentioned this:
> Right now, the average Canadian’s anger at their declining standard of living is being pointed at the person of Donald Trump
I am quite confused by this. How is Donald Trump responsible for Canada’s situation? He is quite literally not your president.
BRIDGE:
“The Normals aren’t even Normal.”
guess what…. that’s SCOTLYN’S line.
(*rim shot*)
X
Pygmicory # 573:
Thank you for your suggestions about colds. I’ve already tried honey with lemon, and it seems to work quite well for me. I’m a bit better today.
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Untitled-1 # 583:
“Yes, I feel a sadness for children who grow up with games as they are today. Theoretically, it’s possible to be selective as a parent and choose games that won’t exploit your children, especially if you’re into gaming yourself, but most parents lack the required knowledge: Minecraft, Fortnite, and Super Mario might as well all be the same to them, even though they all use different models of monetization. Plus, the free games are, well, free, and all of my friends are playing them too, so why can’t I play them Mom/Dad?
It’s a very easy trap to fall into, to the point where I don’t blame parents with less ability to discern simply banning their children from games altogether, even if that comes with its own downsides.”
You’ve described the situation perfectly. It’s very easy for teenagers to fall under the videogames addiction nowadays, especially if you have a children with some type of hyperactive disorder, which worsens the diagnosis for the psychiatrist treatment…
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Robert Mathiesen #587:
“The most alarming point made today seems to have been that US troops should expect to be used more often than previously against civilians within the USA.”
It looks like there’s fear to possible domestic riots or general social unrest, me thinks. If they plan to use the Army inside the USA, they expect big intern problems.
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David P. # 597:
Thanks for your suggestion!
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Xcalibur # 600:
” alot of energy and commitment has been poured into this conflict and its fabricated narrative, and there’s the steady escalation spiral which is dragging Europe into it, and there’s the whole symbolic clash between Liberalism and Authoritarianism. ”
Exactly, this is a toxic Narrative for European minds, which has pervaded every ideology here, from Far Left Wing to Far Right Wing. Don’t fool ourselves, the apparent nationalistic Far Right is abduced by Russophobia (at least in my country), in spite of its apparent Euro-phobia against Brussels, they love NATO narrative. It’s a bad forecast for the near future this lethal consensus in favor of Kiev regime.
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Patricia Ormsby # 606:
Thank you for your suggestion! Indeed, I like very much garlic…
Hi JMG and everyone,
In “Star’s Reach”, what stage of the Spenglerian civilisation cycle is that society in?
> There are also people in the same condition on the right, and many of them claim to be Christian.
I didn’t mean to imply otherwise. Looking at my own country, I suspect that this affliction was more common than usual among the Nazis.
—David P.
@ Walt #608 – and generally on the discussion of “value”
I was pondering this the other night… and thinking that whatever about Labour Theory of Value or any other Theory of Value, what is actually *practiced* all around us is the Capital Practice of Value (which is not theoretical). This practice does not really explain itself, but somehow manages to direct and manage Value, and its extraction, turning Value into Price plus Waste (the quintessential Industrial Equation V=P+W). Capital Practice of Value is what turns one person’s Labour into another person’s Rent, and turns rich stores of resources into financial tokens plus landfills.
The thing is that value is not a thing, it is a process, and going on your comment, this is where I think your thinking is taking you, Walt. What you are saying sounds to me like:
Q “What is it that you only notice when its gone?”
A. “Value”
What I am adding to this proposition is this:
Q. “What is it that you find when value has been used up?”
A. “Lots of numbers in someone’s bank account and lots of waste in landfills and other pollutions.”
Or, to return to my favourite quote on the subject:
““What does the money machine eat? It eats youth, spontaneity, life, beauty and above all it eats creativity.
It eats quality and [excretes] out quantity.”
William S. Burroughs, whose original is slightly more forthright. 😉
“He points out that UFO sightings are very closely correlated with periods of high social stress — and I think his hypothesis is getting a very solid test just now, and passing it with flying colors. Remember that not all UFO phenomena are related to what people in the Middle Ages called faeries; that’s one source, but it’s not the be-all and end-all.”
I couldn’t speak to UFOs themselves so much as the related alien abductions:
https://vimeo.com/5902168
Have been stopped by calling Jesus for help. The St Michael’s Prayer may also likely work. The entities during the abductions let go of the person of the abduction in pain and run away in terror. And the “aliens” don’t return afterwards.
If so they are likely spiritual entities doing their thing. Including fallen angels or demons who are doing the abductions. They simply take the guise of creatures befitting our modern materialist era. Like greys, reptilians, nordics and so on.
In which case periods of high social stress end up producing critical hingepoints of history that the spirits recognize and act upon to maneuver with the human agents in action. There is also likely more prayer and spell casting going on which induces said spiritual activity.
Speaking of what is discovered by scientific method. I wouldn’t be surprised if those spiritual beings are well aware of the fundamental laws of reality. And they taught it in a coded way to those whom they reveal their secrets to.
The fact that some or much of Occultic knowledge somehow matches up with what is proven by the Scientific method.
It is not without reason for literature like the book of Enoch for example recalls the “Sons of God” or angels descending upon Mount Hermon. Who end up marrying human women. And teaching humanity everything that is reminiscent of advanced civilization which in that narrative leads to the acceleration of human evil and Nephilim.
Including everything that is discovered by the modern scientific method alongside Magick.
“Also, yes you can call me Augusto of course, but when I go by Open Space I prefer you use that.”
Huh, for some reason I thought Open Space was a woman.
“I also liked Violet’s writing on herbs, and had her Herbal Theurgy Book. I lurk her Lulu, so I bought her latest DIY Magical Protection, too, but it has a lot more christian magic than I think she used to practice, she says at one point “from the Protestant Christian perspective I write this book with”, so maybe that will turn some people off.”
Violet seems to be another person who has made the journey from the occult to Protestant Christianity then. The Second Religiosity seems to be well under way.
@SimP
Slavery never left, we just outsource it.
Come to think of it even the “snatch a person and force them do things” variety is not gone, with all the sexual trafficking, forced labour and all that. We just pretended it’s gone.
@Phutatorius (#594) again and @Mary Bennet (#599):
I see that Larry C. Johnson has now published (part of) a message Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism sent him, suggesting much the same thing as you both wisely suspected, but with more detailed speculations as to just what was/is being hidden beneath the nothing-burger. Time will tell whether Smith has got the details right, but I think you both called it. I was too narrowly focused on the forest to spot the trees.
SimP, Katylina
The 13th Amendment of the US Constitution did not fully ban slavery. If you are convicted of a crime they can sentence you to slavery. Quote
“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”
One can imagine a tyrannical government coming up with unfair and draconian laws and then arresting people for violating said laws and then making them slaves.
@632
Fortunately, some US states have laws banning the enslavement of prisoners, including my own state (the public voted to change the state constitution in 2022).
@Slithy Toves #612
Ah yes, I am familiar with Roger Ebert’s perspective. If I remember correctly, he was perhaps the one who kicked off the conversation about games being art in the first place. I’ll address the points as you remember them, since presumably they represent views you agree with and that color your perspective towards games as art.
“A game can certainly have an artistic presentation (the board and pieces, the cards, the assets, etc.), but it’s hard to see how a game qua game — the actual mechanics, the thing left when all the presentation is abstracted away — could itself be art. To the extent a game is artistic, it’s not the game itself you’re focusing on.”
Well, so there’s two parts to this. First, I would argue this is a case where it is hard to see simply because games are a new art form, and people have a hard time visualizing or understanding how mechanics on their own can evoke emotion or express ideas. I would argue that often, the simple fact that you are the one directly engaging the experience is enough to change it in a meaningful way. To use a simple example, it’s one thing to watch extremely dumb B-horror movie protagonists fumble their way into getting eaten by a monster. It’s very different in a horror game when the dumb decisions are your own, and it’s you who has to think about how to escape the looming threat. I could go into more elaborate examples, but my essential point is that games provide a qualitatively different experience because they are interactive, and that is something other mediums are unable to replicate.
Second, you could make this argument for any medium. You could say that the value of movies or television is really in the script, the costumes, and the actors, and that camerawork or shot composition doesn’t add anything of value over, say, theater. You could say the essence of the book is in its story, and so the written word has no obvious value over, say, the oral tradition (and in fact, the book misses the storyteller’s pacing, inflection, and character). The reason these statements sound absurd is because we already appreciate the dimensions that these aspects provide, but in the case of games, we don’t. Any medium would be dull if you stripped away the presentation. A film without a script, costumes or actors, or a book filled with words but no story would hardly be worth any attention at all. This is a failure to see the value in interactivity and mechanics rather than a failure of those things to provide value.
To really get to the heart of what I’m saying, I believe that Roger Ebert didn’t focus on the mechanics when he played games because he didn’t understand them, he didn’t grow up with them, and he didn’t know how to critique them. That’s not the same thing as saying the mechanics themselves have no value as art.
“Moreover the qualities that games strive for as games and the qualities that art strives for as art are in tension: you don’t need any special skill to read a book, listen to a song, watch a play, or view a painting. You might need some skill and knowledge, even a lot of skill and knowledge, to really understand and appreciate it, but not just to make it to the end and take in the whole thing. By contrast, video games especially often lock part of the content behind skill challenges. (Yes, you can get around those by watching someone else play it, but then you’re not engaging with it as a game.)”
Ah, but here I would say you are simply mistaken. Books do in fact require a special skill just to make it to the end and take in the whole thing, it’s just a skill we take for granted: literacy. Songs, plays, and films also require language fluency. Arguably the latter is something humans are almost guaranteed to have, but especially in the past and in many parts of the world now, literacy is not a guarantee. Furthermore, you could even be literate, but if the book in question is in a different language, you are still left unable to appreciate it. Does that devalue it as art?
I agree that part of what makes games less appealing to a more general audience is that it requires more effort and skill, arguably in skills that don’t have applications outside of video games, to enjoy them on a basic level. That certainly limits their appeal, but I fail to see how that disqualifies them from being art. All art requires engagement on the part of the participant to be fully appreciated, games just take that aspect of engagement and make it a central part of the medium.
“In fact this issue seems to have been what lead to the rise of the genre of “walking simulators” so beloved of game journalists — “games” with little or no challenge to complete, where the point is just to take in the artistry of the scene and plot. But then it’s questionable to what extent these deserve the name of “game,” as opposed to simply “interactive visual media.”
On a more personal note, I’ve found video games that actively strive to be games-as-art tend to be rather pretentious (and political) and much less enjoyable than games which try to be fun games first and foremost, even when I end up deeply enjoying the artistic elements of the latter.”
Again here, I would argue that games like this start from the flawed premise of assuming that mechanics have no value on their own, and as such I share your distaste for them. I think all art has a right to exist, but they just don’t do it for me personally. However, saying games need to be art is not the same thing as saying games need to focus on non-mechanical, non-interactive things. That is simply a flawed premise that arose from Ebert’s critique of the medium, as someone who fundamentally doesn’t understand it.
I don’t think games need to prove they are art to be artistic. You can find a great deal of artistry in the simple joy and wonder of playing a game like Super Mario Galaxy, even if the story is paper-thin and most of the characters are essentially cardboard cutouts playing an archetypal role. Games have value as games, and they express things in a way that traditional critics are not trained to understand, and so they dismiss it. I think it’s fine, that’s human nature, and that yes, attempts to prove otherwise usually only end up betraying the chip on one’s shoulder.
Really, people just overcomplicate art. It’s not some rarefied club you need to meet a checklist criteria to get in. It’s just human creativity touching the hearts of other humans who enjoy that creativity, and it doesn’t have to be more complicated than that, at least in my view.
Finally, thanks for engaging with me despite the differing opinion, I really do appreciate it.
@Chuaquin #621
“You’ve described the situation perfectly. It’s very easy for teenagers to fall under the videogames addiction nowadays, especially if you have a children with some type of hyperactive disorder, which worsens the diagnosis for the psychiatrist treatment…”
Yes, the mental health epidemic and overprescription of psychiatric drugs is a whole other can of worms that interacts with this… are we really surprised when it seems like kids these days are unwell? It’s an unfortunate consequence of a variety of societal decisions in different sectors all coalescing to create a hostile environment for them to live in. Games, social media, psychiatry, housing, education, politics, I could go on.
@nell @The Other Owen
There’s actually four choices, the fourth being a Chrome OS on a Chromebook which is cheaper, faster, much simpler to understand and use, almost impossible to break by non-technical people, and less susceptible to viruses etc, than the other options.
Having used Windows, Apple and Linux over the decades, I moved to use it exclusively for the last decade or so, and it’s easily the simplest, most elegant, and efficient system I’ve ever used. Don’t believe the nonsense that it “doesn’t do anything”, it does everything that most individuals need, but does assume regular internet connection. Although I suspect most people on this forum will be put off by its intimate connection to the Google ecosystem.
I’m now revamping my entire computer ecosystem (pretentious I know, but I can’t think of another word), triggered by firstly wanting to do music on my computer (I have what is probably the most pristine example, in the world, of the biggest selling synthesiser of all time, the Korg M1 – because it’s been unused, in its box, for about 30 years 🙂 ) and secondly by a thought game – what if Putin cuts the internet wires in the Atlantic, Trump turns off European internet access, or the central servers were fried due to lack of electricity or water? I’m guessing most of my data is (was) in Texas and California.
So for all those reasons I’ve moved to a new, powerful, mini computer (it’ll last longer should the tenuous links holding computer manufacturing together collapse. Simplistically, for high end stuff, there’s: one company that makes all the machines that make the high end chips, and one company that makes all the high end silicon sheets, both in the Netherlands; one (two?) companies in Taiwan that make all the high end chips; and one mine in the USA (that was recently flooded) that mines the finest material (quartz?) for creating the pure, high end silicon sheets). The possibilities for disaster seem obvious! 🙂
I’m running Linux Ubuntu Studio, which runs my music setup. (Incidentally there’s lots of free, or very cheap, software that easily competes with legacy, commercial, professional music-creation software. For the oldies out there, you can get a free synthesiser app that recreates the Yamaha DX7, the synth that revolutionised the sound of pop music in the early 80s, and is compatible with the DX7 itself, and original DX7 instrument patches… and is a million times easier to programme on a computer screen, than on a 40(?) character LCD screen!)
I’m replacing Google Mail, Drive, Calendar etc with Proton, an open source, end to end encrypted system, made by those nice people at CERN in Switzerland, and the Google Browser with Brave (excellent privacy and faster than Chrome).
Benefits: vastly more secure; local storage; minimum possibility of corporate interference in the systems; cheaper (but more work and expertise needed); cloud connection more secure (I’m in France, so it’s a land connection between two countries, rather than a connection spanning the globe via an ocean).
If you are comfortable with the Google connection (we’re all, after all, tied up with the corps reading this blog), I would highly recommend a Chromebook (a Chromebook Plus preferably) to replace an ageing system. Unless you’re making music, films, or *need* it for corporate software it provides everything anyone needs.
If you want more security, and have some technical aptitude (or someone who can set it up for you) I would suggest Linux Mint (free to download and use), which is the easiest Linux system for those moving from Windows, and based on Ubuntu, probably the largest consumer Linux system, so neither of them are disappearing anytime soon. And you don’t even need a new computer, it’ll run on most computers that still work, and be faster than whatever system you have on that computer now. You can install it on a USB, try it to see if you like it (it’ll be slow on the USB), and check everything works, and then install it on the computer if you want to stick with it. BUT REMEMBER TO BACK UP (COPY) EVERYTHING ON THE COMPUTER – DOCS, PHOTOS, BOOKMARKS ETC – SOMEWHERE THAT IS NOT ON THE COMPUTER, AN EXTERNAL DRIVE, GOOGLE DRIVE, OR SIMILAR CLOUD SERVICE. IF YOU DON’T – YOU WILL LOSE EVERYTHING – WHEN YOU INSTALL THE NEW OPERATING SYSTEM.
Hope some of this might be helpful for those thinking of changing their computer setup!!
@untitled-1 #634
You say that Ebert didn’t play computer games so he didn’t understand them. I’m pretty sure that Ebert understands what games are because we’ve played them since we became human. Computer games are still games, and informed by the long history of them. Ebert is saying that a game is a different thing than a story, which seems pretty obvious to me.
Games teach useful skills. We love them because we get better at the skills they teach. For example, poker teaches lots of skills. First, it teaches about change and probability, that even unusual things happen though not often, and poker gives us a deep appreciation of the feel of chance. Money makes the skill stick; the pain of losing money makes the lesson memorable. Poker teaches about taking risks and about carrying out a bluff. (Obama was a hopeless poker player, and he wasn’t good at bluffing in politics either.) It teach about reading other people and about hiding your own weaknesses. I know these things because I’m a mediocre poker player, who has a good feeling for odds, but am pretty bad at all the other skills.
Many computer games are puzzles, like the puzzles in murder mysteries. You have to find a hidden pattern. Call of Duty is one of them, where you have to figure out how to stay alive, and each game is a chance to solve that puzzle a different way.
To me, games are like Groundhog’s Day. Each day, Bill Murray got a chance to solve the puzzle of how to create meaning in his life. At one point, he gives up and drives down a railroad track drunk, trying to get run over. He survives even that. Finding meaning is the only way out of Groundhog’s Day.
JMG,
“every thought, word, and deed of every conscious being remains engraved on certain planes and levels of the cosmos.”
wow. mind blown! Seriously thank you for this sharing this idea. Gives a lot to think about.
I have written countless essays on politics in the old blogging days, several manuscripts of fiction, hundreds of paintings and drawings, some sculptures, historical adaption screenplays, etc. My gallery experience during the painting phase made me realize that what I liked about painting was creating the painting – trying to share or monetize the product is a very different activity and a drag for me. I look upon the great advice you give about pursuing publication of manuscripts in the same way – not for me and fortunately not something I need to do in the same way a professional like you is compelled to.
I shared my project to translate the epic Mahabharata from Sanskrit to English keeping the rhyming meter intact. Upon completing this project all at once the creative energy fueling activities and projects in art and writing that have been part of this life went away – like mission accomplished. I had a memory come up of a life where I was a cripple entrusted to safekeep banned sacred manuscripts during a tumultuous time. after all the able-bodied men had been killed or fled a hermitage. I spent my days in a solitary monotonous crawl for survival gnawed by anxiety about the illegal texts being discovered in my possession. I could not read them, as being a cripple, I was not given much education, just entrusted with them after everyone else was killed or gone. I ended up burning them all. Anyway, after completing the rhyme translation work, I found I have no desire or mind for any of these creative spheres now. Looking at the corpus with detachment in a post creative clarity it all feels from a different life. Like the calling I felt had been answered and no one was on the other end of the line anymore – they hung up. I had a bemused realization that I really might be the world’s biggest idiot. Look forward to the universe’s review. 🙂
Since I missed the boat to comment on last week’s post –
You interjected on your own train of thought with the aside “it wouldn’t surprise me at all if the internet stopped being quite so accessible to individual memesmiths around then, too”.
And I wonder what you envision here. Is this an allusion to the idea that catabolic collapse will ultimately make digital computers and network technology unaffordable to the masses? Or did you have some other, shorter-term phenomenon in mind?
@Tom River #636
“You say that Ebert didn’t play computer games so he didn’t understand them. I’m pretty sure that Ebert understands what games are because we’ve played them since we became human. Computer games are still games, and informed by the long history of them. Ebert is saying that a game is a different thing than a story, which seems pretty obvious to me.”
I acknowledge I could simply be mistaken, as the only person who would know for certain is Ebert himself, but I feel you are misrepresenting his argument slightly. Ebert went a step further than claiming that games and stories are simply different and drew the conclusion that only stories can be art. Therefore, games are not art. That is the conclusion my post intends to contend, and I did so.
I also did not claim that Ebert did not understand what games are. I claimed he did not know how to critique them, specifically from an artistic perspective. To clarify, that means serious, in-depth critique that goes beyond a simple understanding of what the thing is and deeper into the nuances of what makes it work and what that means. Nothing I have read or seen suggests that Ebert had an understanding of this when it came to game mechanics. He approached his critique with the techniques and models he learned from film, which also happen to work very well for books and many other forms of existing art. My argument is simply that this existing lexicon is insufficient when it comes to games.
In your final paragraph, it sounds like you might be making the argument that these “Groundhog Day” puzzles games provide are ultimately meaningless, and the only way out is to find something more meaningful to do with one’s time (I’m not too sure, let me know if I misunderstood). If that is what you are saying, I simply disagree, or at least I would contend that it depends on the game. It’s true that some games are truly vacuous. The same can be said of books, or movies, or any media. It doesn’t make the medium itself not art or not meaningful.
As for the rest of your post, no arguments from me. Your deconstruction of poker is a fine example of how games can communicate through mechanics alone, and one I hadn’t thought of. Thanks for responding, I appreciated your perspective.