This January has five Wednesdays, and in the usual way of this blog, the fifth Wednesday gets an essay on whatever topic the readers select by vote. As usual, it was a lively contest, but this time one of the perennial underdogs—warfare in the deindustrial age—came out on top. That didn’t surprise me greatly. The…
Month: January 2024
January 2024 Open Post
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 — but since there’s no topic, nothing…
An Anthropocene Worth Having
For more than two years now I’ve been trying to figure out how to introduce a way of thinking about humanity’s relationship to nature that cuts straight across nearly all of the conventional thinking on that subject. It’s been a challenge. I’m glad to say, though, that a project now being lauded by the corporate-enabler…
The Ritual of High Magic: Chapter 9
With this post we continue a monthly chapter-by-chapter discussion of The Doctrine and Ritual of High Magic by Eliphas Lévi, the book that launched the modern magical revival. Here and in the months ahead we’re plunging into the white-hot fires of creation where modern magic was born. If you’re just joining us now, I recommend…
The Three Stigmata of J.R.R. Tolkien
Understand the thoughts that a person or a nation won’t allow itself to think and you grasp something crucial about that person or nation. Find the source of the barrier that keeps either one from entertaining those forbidden thoughts and you know something even more important. As America stumbles blindly forward into an unwelcome future,…