With this post we have left behind the halfway mark on our journey around the Great Wheel of the lunar phases, the primary symbol of Yeats’s symbolic system. The soul making this journey—your soul, dear reader, and mine, and everyone else’s, in the cosmology of A Vision—has completed the long journey from a purely collective consciousness to the attainment of a uniquely personal vision of meaning, value, and beauty. Now comes the equal and opposite journey, out of the isolated subjectivity where that vision can be perceived, so that the vision and its possibilities can be shared with the world.
Readers of J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasies may be thinking of the phrase “there and back again,” the subtitle of The Hobbit, and it’s not an inappropriate metaphor. Joseph Campbell tried to turn that same pattern into the template of all myth, though like all efforts to shoehorn myth into some rigid formula it fell short of his goal. What sets Yeats’s system apart from these is that to him, the journey is always a cycle, and always contains a double dynamic: there’s the movement from the collective to the individual vision and back again, and there’s the movement from pure vision down into the world of objective reality and back again.
Both those have to be kept in mind in exploring A Vision. It’s as though, in Tolkien’s story, Bilbo Baggins the plump and comfortable hobbit made his way from the prosaic landscape of Hobbiton to the Lonely Mountain in the eldritch terrain of Wilderland, and there met some magical elfin creature, who accompanied him on the road back home. There, after dealing with such strange customs and challenges as afternoon tea and sleeping indoors—the very idea!—the magical creature took Bilbo back to its own home in Wilderland. Then the cycle continued, bringing increased wisdom and power to both Bilbo and his elfin companion, until finally they journeyed together to a place (Valinor, perhaps) where all opposites are resolved into unity.
In terms of this extended metaphor, then, at the stage of the cycle we are discussing now, we have left the Lonely Mountain and its glittering treasures behind, and are on our way back to Hobbiton. The soul, in Yeats’s terms, has gazed upon its vision of beauty and truth, and it has also experienced its own unique vision of evil. It now knows what it longs for, and also what it must reject. Now, as it passes from the symbolic full moon to the waning half moon, it must find ways to communicate these visions to the world. This is the work of the 16th through the 22nd phases, the third quarter of the lunar cycle.
This quarter is assigned to the element of air, and in it the intellectual powers are at their height. Those powers, however, have to be tempered to the demands of ordinary experience and collective consciousness, and this is not a fast process. The seven stages through which the soul passes as it moves through this quarter are best understood, in some ways, by tracking the influence of the Body of Fate, the most challenging and intransigent of the four faculties of the soul. From Phase 16 through 22 inclusive, these are: “Enforced illusion,” “Enforced loss,” “Enforced disillusionment,” “Enforced failure of action,” “Enforced success of action,” “Enforced triumph of achievement,” and “Temptation through strength.” We’ll see how this works as we take the phases one at a time.
Phase 16: The Positive Man
In this phase the soul has just emerged from the disembodied life of Phase 15 and is still dazzled by the vision of beauty it has perceived. It is so deep in a purely subjective existence, and its Will and Creative Mind are so close together, that it cannot perceive the world around it except through a filter imposed by its own overwhelming inner life. It has no ability to confront facts as they are, or even to sort out the difference between facts and the passionate energies that motivate it. Thus people of this phase spend their entire lives in imaginary worlds they create out of their own thoughts and feelings, and “Enforced illusion” is accordingly this phase’s Body of Fate. William Blake’s wife once said of him, “I have very little of Mr. Blake’s company. He is always in Paradise with the angels.” Something similar could be said of any person of this phase.
As with every station of the Wheel, of course, it is possible to be in phase or out of phase, and the difference lies in the choice of a primary or antithetical approach. Phase 16 is still deep in the antithetical half of the Wheel, and so the easiest way to fall out of phase is to insist that the bright visions of the inner life are not subjective at all, but objective realities to which the rest of the world must be forced to conform. This is where “Illusion,” the true Mask of the phase, gives way to “Delusion,” the false Mask, driven by the false Creative Mind of “Opinionated will.” Many of us, I think, have encountered people of this type, who waste their lives trying to batter the world into obedience to some wholly personal and subjective vision of reality.
The true Mask can flourish only when these subjective realities are recognized as a personal vision and expressed in some appropriate way, whether through the creative arts or more simply through a mode of living that follows the call of the inner life and ignores the pressures of collective existence as far as possible. In phase, people of this phase may be supremely capable in detail—Blake, again, was exquisitely precise with the tools of artistic creation—but no one would ever call them reasonable or practical. The true Creative Mind, “Vehemence,” gives them the passionate enthusiasm they need to push past a world of facts they can never really grasp, and create a life or an art that will win them the enthusiasm, support, and forbearance of others.
Phase 17: The Daimonic Man
Another turn of the wheel brings the world of fact a little closer and makes the power of subjective vision a little less overwhelming. This phase is termed daimonic because unity of being, and therefore the manifestation of the daimon or immortal counterpart of the soul, is easier here than in any other phase. This doesn’t make life easy for people of this phase—quite the contrary, in fact; the tremendous visionary force of the 15th phase is still very close, and while the ability to perceive the world of fact has begun to dawn, that simply points up the bitter gap between the world as it is and the world that the soul wishes it could be.
In consequence, the Body of Fate in this phase is “Enforced loss.” Over and over again, the soul imagines that it has found some part of its dream made manifest in the world, and then the dream goes tumbling away again. If it is true to phase, the soul gives up the hopeless quest to find the dream in primary reality and turns toward the true Mask, “Simplification through intensity,” recognizing its passions as so many tools for its own internal transformation. Some form of creative activity is almost always involved in this, since the true Creative Mind, “Creative imagination through antithetical emotion,” gives considerable talent in at least one of the arts.
If the soul fails to stay true to phase, it keeps chasing the phantom of its vain dreams, trying to find in primary reality what can only exist in the antithetical realm within the self. The result is the false Mask, “Dispersal,” a flailing around in one direction after another after something that can be found in none of them. The false Creative Mind, in turn, is “Enforced self-realization,” for every experience of loss, every wasted effort and abandoned outpouring of energy, forces the soul closer to a confrontation with itself.
Yeats believed, and with good reason, that he was of this phase. The first half of his life saw him fling his energy in countless directions, wasting much of it in the fruitless pursuit of Maud Gonne, the woman of his unfulfilled dreams, onto whom he projected his passionate fantasies of romantic love. His description of Phase 17 out of phase is as much autobiography as anything else. Later in life, however, the enforced self-realization of his early years drove him into phase, his personality and his writing both gained from simplification through intensity, and his creative imagination—pervaded as it was by emotions antithetical, in every sense, to the collective consciousness of his time—gave rise to some of the very best poetry in the English language.
Phase 18: The Emotional Man
In this phase the world has come a little closer and the blazing glory of subjective vision has moved a little further off. People of this phase have begun to deal with facts as facts, to take them into account and to pursue actions that affect them. They are not yet practical or reasonable, or capable of becoming so, but thoughts of practicality and reason, of finding ways and means to bring dream and reality into some kind of rapprochement, have become thinkable.
The life of illusion that set in with Phase 16 is breaking apart, and so “Enforced disillusionment” is the Body of Fate of this phase. Inevitably, in this life, the soul projects its vision on something, realizes the mismatch, and comes to term with the reality. Where people of the 17th Phase are in love with love, projecting dreams of romance onto another person as though onto a blank screen, people of the 18th phase can pass from this state to genuine love of others as they actually are. The illusion comes first, but only so that the experience of awakening can follow it.
All this concerns the true Mask, which is “Intensity through emotions,” and the true Creative Mind, “Emotional philosophy.” As these terms and the title of the phase suggest, the life of the emotions is the focus of this phase, everything in life must be related to feeling, and feeling itself must be brought into conscious awareness and distinguished from the things that give rise to it. Failing that, the person of this phase flees from disillusionment into an even more frantic dispersal of energies than the previous phase. “Curiosity,” the false Mask, takes the place of the emotional commitment that can alone bring wisdom in this phase, and the false Creative Mind, “Enforced lure,” draws the person out of phase further and further away from the engagement with his own feelings that can alone bring fulfillment.
Phase 19: The Assertive Man
Another step away from antithetical vision brings the soul to a new crisis. The closing of the tinctures in this and the previous phase deprives the soul of the capacity for self-knowledge, while the capacity to know the world as it is will not arrive until the tinctures open again in the 25th and 26th phases. For the time being, the soul is left to its own devices, to construct an individual existence out of the raw material of its experience. This is the same condition it faced in the phases of the late first and early second quarters, framing the terrible 8th phase of desperate flailing. Still, it comes to that condition in a wholly different state, having passed through all the phases in between and unfolded its potentials for emotion and intellect.
For all that, the outcome of this phase has more than a little in common with the total failure of Phase 8. “Enforced failure of action” is the Body of Fate of this phase, for the world of facts is still too strong and too poorly understood to allow any other outcome. Lacking self-knowledge, people of this phase have only their beliefs to guide them, and “Conviction” is therefore the true Mask of this phase. Its true Creative Mind is “Emotional intellect;” thought and feeling flow together in some potent set of beliefs, brought into being through some crisis in personal life and used thereafter as a source of guidance, as though sailing by a single compass bearing through a night in which all stars are hidden.
That conviction gives considerable power over others, since most people lack strong belief and so are swayed by those who have it. The trap this sets for people of this phase is that they may come to value conviction not for itself, but for the control it gives them over others. This is the the false Mask, “Domination,” and it calls up the false Creative Mind, called “The Unfaithful,” which picks up and puts down seeming convictions the way an actor in some traditional forms of drama picks up and puts down masks, caring for nothing except the effect on the audience.
Phase 20: The Concrete Man
In the usual way of A Vision, the failures of one phase are the necessary foundation for success in another. Here the contrast is especially stark, for here the Body of Fate is “Enforced success of action.” The intellect, kindled to life and strength by the transforming vision of the 15th phase, can now comprehend and master the world of fact. Here we begin to encounter those individuals who stand head and shoulders above their contemporaries and give their names to great spans of politics and culture. Nobody has to wonder why “Napoleonic” and “Shakespearian” found their way into common use in our language!
People of this phase are carried along by collective energies; their success, to them, seems an act of fate, and therefore “Fatalism” is the true Mask of this phase. The true Creative Mind is “Dramatization of Mask;” having recognized the trajectory they see as their fate, those of this phase must act it out as vividly and powerfully as they can, either in life or in some form of creative art. Napoleon acted out his own sense of fate across Europe, Shakespeare did the same thing on the narrower stage of a London theater, but they both did it so splendidly that Napoleon made of himself, and Shakespeare made of his most famous characters, images of human life that remain burnt into collective imagination to this day.
The trap the person of the 20th phase must avoid is that of taking any of this personally. That way lies the false Mask, “Superstition”—the mistaken belief that destiny depends on this or that little action made by oneself or others—and the false Creative Mind, “Self-desecration,” for those who refuse to rise to their destiny reliably get crushed when it rolls over them.
Phase 21: The Acquisitive Man
In this phase the triumph of the intellect is complete. The earlier phases of this quarter have taught the soul how to deal with the world of fact, and now that world is at the soul’s disposal. The Body of Fate of this phase is therefore “Enforced triumph of achievement.” People of this phase take some field of endeavor, however grand or humble, and master it completely, producing a body of work that is unrivaled because unique. The person himself or herself is equally unique. Nobody even bothers to try to imitate these figures, the effort is so obviously a waste of time, for they have reached the zenith of intellectual complexity and no one else can begin to find the way through the labyrinth of their thought and work.
A soul in this phase must master its environment and, in the process, come to terms with its own terrible complexity. For this reason the true Mask is “Self-analysis” and the true Creative Mind “Domination of the intellect.” Failure in this phase lies in submitting to environment rather than dominating it; the false Mask is “Self-adaptation” and the false Creative Mind “Distortion.” In the next phase this will have changed utterly, and what was success will become failure; only when the soul has learned to master the world completely can it set aside that mastery and begin the quest for self-surrender that defines the fourth quarter of the Great Wheel.
Phase 22: Balance between ambition and comtemplation
At Phase 8, at the opposite point on the Wheel from Phase 22, the soul achieves strength through striving to cope with total failure. Here the soul achieves surrender through an equal striving to cope with total success. Complex, confident, dominating, the soul at Phase 22 has taken success so far that it becomes a dead end, and must discover that the only way to go further is to let go, to surrender to the very circumstances it has mastered and to let go the quest to impose the Mask on the world and overcome the Body of Fate. Instead, it must embrace the Body of Fate, the world as it is, in place of the Mask, the world as the fading dream of Phase 15 suggests it could be.
It’s absolutely typical of Yeats’s thought that this essential step can only be achieved by accepting what the previous phase rejects, and has to reject. The true Mask in this phase is “Self-immolation,” the sacrifice of everything the self has valued along the whole journey from Phase 15, and the false Mask is precisely that “Self-assurance” that is the most obvious and necessary characteristic of Phase 21. At the moment of triumph the self must sacrifice what it desired most. In place of the domination of circumstances that provided the previous phase with its Creative Mind, the true Creative Mind of this phase is “Amalgamation,” the construction of a structure of facts that for once has no trace of the Will in it, while the false Creative Mind is “Despair,” the shattering realization that there is no way forward so long as “forward” still means the pursuit of the Mask by the Will.
It can take, according to our text, up to four incarnations for a soul to complete this phase and cope with its Body of Fate, “Temptation through strength.” Only when the surrender is complete and the soul has accepted its destiny can it proceed to the final quarter of the Wheel, where it comes closest to the Thirteenth Cone, that realm beyond the Wheel where all antinomies and contradictions are resolved at last.
*****
Next month’s book club post will take the Great Wheel through the fourth quarter and complete the cycle. Over the month ahead, read the sections of A Vision that cover phases 23 through 1. If these remind you of the world we live in, that’s no accident: in the historical Wheel, according to Yeats, we’re closing in on the end of the cycle right now and the fourth quarter therefore defines our historical experience. More on this as we proceed!
Good day JMG,
I have been taking notes for a writing project, working again through Yeats’ phase descriptions, and Christopher Warnock’s description of the Arab mansions of the moon. I am finding some parallels, and some phase/mansions which seem wholly unrelated.
Have you discussed this anywhere, I might have missed?
What a splendid outlook. I’m not sure I fully grasp it at first reading, being new to your work. A refreshing change from equating vision to madness, which is often typical. I apologise that I have little more creative, constructive criticism to give. But it’s been a long, short week.
Cheers!
On second thought, I might actually be out of phase in phase 17. “Enforced loss”, “Dispersal”, and “Enforced self-realization” sound a lot like my own life the past few years. I also shared with Yeats the fruitless pursuit of women upon which I projected a lot of my own ideals of perfection.
I definitely think I’m phase 18 now. Disillusionment has been a major theme in my life. Plus, my whole basic sense of okayness (or higher or lower ends of that spectrum) comes from how my emotions and subtle energy (which are inextricably interwined) are doing moment to moment. Occult practice has made this a “psychedelic” experience. And yeah, learning to distinguish the emotions from the world out there is an ongoing task.
That phase 17 repeated disillusionment and betrayal by everything you try to put faith is very relatable. It hasn’t been quite everything for me, at least not yet, but nearly so. I lack the artistic chops to justify it, however!
Phase 20 seems strange to me to include on a universal pattern of humanity. The number of such exceptional individuals is so vanishingly small that I have a hard time seeing it as a phase that every soul could successfully reach.
If all of us go through these phases, then it seems to me that at least some of the people whose overall life fits with Phase 20 can be more average than Napoleon or Shakespeare were. I think I’m Phase 20, for instance; I’ve had a lot of luck, or at least it feels to me like luck, in terms of being successful at most things I’ve tried, and I have avoided the enforced losses that seem to be characteristic of the earlier Phases of this quarter. Not saying that I haven’t worked for the successes I’ve had, but I seem to have a way of moving up in organizations that feels fated, in Yeats’ sense – more than just the work that I put in, more like being in the right place at the right time. I don’t try to advance, it just happens.
I figured I would find the closest match to my “phase” in this quadrant of the wheel. I assumed, upon first reading, that it would be Phase 18; this may still be true. But reading your description of Phase 21 felt like an electric shock went through my body. The work I feel called to do – the artistic work – feels very, *very* much like the description. It’s good, in a technical sense at least, but **weird**. It probably won’t have an audience, I know that it won’t be fully understood, and could never be imitated. (And who would want to?! ‘Too labyrinthine to follow’ is right on the money!) I’ve thought about transitioning into more conventional works of fiction afterwards but… if it isn’t a deeply complex and borderline uncomfortable view on human nature and the difficulty and necessity of change, I’m just not interested. Happiness would be to write dozens of works on that theme, read by only a few, but loved by those few, for reasons they may not be able to define.
I’ve always been someone who loved thinking for the sake of thinking; who obsesses over what is “closest to the right answer” and will go the extra mile to discover it, no matter who or what I disprove in doing so; who defied categorization and has achieved community only through forcing myself to fit into one box or another – always with interest in what I can learn in doing so, but never comfortably, and never for long. The moment I can ethically allow myself to, I already know I will withdraw into a hermitage of some type and devote myself to my craft. I think that, per my own judgement, I will succeed at it. Though I have had a very good life I am deeply grateful for, I don’t know whether I am built to succeed at anything else. Anyway – whether I am correct in assigning myself to this phase or not – the way Yeats describes the False Mask is something I will need to meditate on. What an interesting system the man (and his wife) laid forth for us to contemplate!
Seems like I guessed my phase wrong, if confidence and success happen in Phase 22, not only will-exhausting abstract synthesis-building. However, it’s possible that I am on Phase 18.
“Phase 20 seems strange to me to include on a universal pattern of humanity. The number of such exceptional individuals is so vanishingly small that I have a hard time seeing it as a phase that every soul could successfully reach.”
Most souls in phase 20 are going to be out of phase so they will experience failure and not end up as an exceptional individual.
William, I haven’t discussed this. Yeats himself insisted that there was no connection between the phases of his system and astrology, which makes the partial parallels all the more curious.
Paul, thank you, but it’s Yeats’s work, not mine — I’m just commenting on it!
Mark, that sounds like Phase 17, yeah.
Luke, I know the feeling. 18’s my phase, as it happens.
Sirustalcelion, nah, not all people in Phase 20 are globally visible. I’ve known people who I’m quite sure were local-champ Phase 20s: sometime in youth they figure out what they want to do, and do it, with considerable success on whatever scale fits their ambitions. What really defines them is how individual they are. Nobody even tries to imitate them; they’re one of a kind, even if that means being one of a kind short order cooks, or camp counselors, or church ladies, or what have you.
SLClaire, and nobody ever even thinks of imitating you, right?
Shinjuki, if that’s your path, follow it!
Patrick, it’s worth spending a while thinking about each phase that seems to fit. Live with it, and see what it says to you over time.
Hello, JMG and commentariat:
Here I go again, reading John essay about Yeats Great Wheel. Like in another posts about the same topic, it’s a real challenge for me to grasp and even more understand well such a high and deep philosophy. However, I can point some phrases and ideas:
“William Blake’s wife once said of him, “I have very little of Mr. Blake’s company. He is always in Paradise with the angels.” Something similar could be said of any person of this phase.”
I think W. Blake was a very good example of a person with a colossal inner life…and a poor relation with the world outside his mind. Thanks for your example, John.
*******************
Yeats himself in Phase 17 (Daimonic):
According what you’ve remembered about his life, splitted in two different attitudes and behaviors, and what I’ve read about this writer, I agree.
*************************
“Inevitably, in this life, the soul projects its vision on something, realizes the mismatch, and comes to term with the reality.”
Well, it’s better to notice mismatches late instead of never…If I’ve understood in the right sense this life you briefly depict.
************************
“That conviction gives considerable power over others, since most people lack strong belief and so are swayed by those who have it. The trap this sets for people of this phase is that they may come to value conviction not for itself, but for the control it gives them over others.”
This depiction of people in this phase sounds to me like a tyrant description. Can I bet a lot of dictators have been in this phase during their lives? or…Am I guessing too many (wrong) things about what you wanted to say in these phrases?
****************************************
” Here we begin to encounter those individuals who stand head and shoulders above their contemporaries and give their names to great spans of politics and culture. Nobody has to wonder why “Napoleonic” and “Shakespearian” found their way into common use in our language!”
OK, so you’re writing about the “Great Men” in historical terms, in this phase…It’s interesting to point Napoleon wasn’t an usual tyrant/autocrat like much others in the world during his times. He was a kind of “catalyzer” to push and accelerate their times changes in every aspecto of life (politics, economy, laws, even fashion).
*******************************************
“People of this phase take some field of endeavor, however grand or humble, and master it completely, producing a body of work that is unrivaled because unique. The person himself or herself is equally unique.”
I bet you’re speaking about geniuses, bigger and smaller…
************************************
“Only when the surrender is complete and the soul has accepted its destiny can it proceed to the final quarter of the Wheel, where it comes closest to the Thirteenth Cone, that realm beyond the Wheel where all antinomies and contradictions are resolved at last.”
These phrases about that Phase seems IMHO a challenging situation and a very exciting one alike, quite frightening and hopeful alike for that person , too.
Oh gods. Imagine a phase 17 on a dating app. They’d get caught in an infinite loop of swiping. Phase 18s are more likely to log in every 6 months, realize “this is a waste of time” after 15 minutes, and delete it, only to come back in 6 months for another round.
If I’m following correctly, the first triad of this quarter (16-17-18) is about the clash between ideals and their implementation in the real world. Like the young adult who’s finished with travelling the world or trying out new jobs every few years and is attempting to settle into a committed career that just keeps throwing up unexpected obstacles and disappointments.
The second triad (19-20-21) is about the scale of values tipping (ever so slightly at first, but decisively) from idealism toward realism. The vision of what the world *could* be and the insight into how to make it so is still within sight, but the priorities have shifted. This is the phase of an individual life when the pressures of finances or raising young kids push people toward deciding to give up on their dreams of a career in the arts. They might sell out and go corporate, or they might decide to radically simplify so that only the essential commitments remain (family, mortgage, community), and the passion of art or hobbies or activism become the leaven of a stable and productive life rather than the fumes they’re trying to run on. After this Phase 19 crisis point is passed and the impossible dreams, having failed, are no longer being clutched at, real career and artistic success suddenly and paradoxically come within reach, because the hands are open once again.
20 through 22 represent the successful middle-aged person whose career has finally taken off and brought them to the top of their field. It’s only by winning the big salary and the expensive home and car that they can finally recognize that these things don’t ultimately satisfy, and that their aging bodies or rebellious coming-of-age offspring are presenting them with challenges they can’t overcome through effort of will. At that point the values shift again, and the fact that life is obviously more than halfway through force a reordering of priorities toward the things that money can’t buy. That’s why old age (the fourth quarter) *can* be a more peaceful time of life than the third.
Now, if we view these phases as characterizing entire incarnations, then Phase 16 is the Bohemian. I know many of them! Always dreaming aloud of starting rural communes but utterly naive to the practicalities involved, and seemingly content to live in run-down urban communal houses making art and music and love. They can be a lot of fun to hang out with, unless they take a turn toward the social-justice-hippy type, who are at best annoying and at worst nasty to be around.
My first thought upon first reading about the 17th Phase was ‘I can handle that,’ and my second thought, with a little shiver running through me, was ‘I can work with that’. Enforced loss has indeed been a large factor in my life, but so has enforced disillusionment, and reviewing the events surrounding the great parting of ways during the covid mandate era, it can be hard (for me) to tell the difference. Developing emotional intelligence through struggle has also been a keynote for me, as per Phase 18. I know I’m an antithetical, intellectual type, more practical than my Bohemian contemporaries but less so than my PMC contemporaries. I know that I’m more focused on my inner life than the assertive Phase 19 or the dominating Phase 20. Do you have any tips on how to distinguish between phases 17 and 18?
In response to Sirustalcelion’s comment about the incarnational Phase 20, I think that any talented politician or entertainer or businessperson can embody this, at any scale of fame. The key traits are sensitivity to the zeitgeist of the age and the boldness to embody them without getting tripped up by self-consciousness (in the negative sense of the word). Taylor Swift comes to mind here, as does the current resident of the White House. The shameless self-promotion of these types is tempered with a keen awareness of and a nimble responsiveness to the pulse of the times. They really do perceive and reflect the dreams of their followers, which is what makes them great leaders, able to turn with the wheel of fate rather than thrash against it ineffectively, as other phases do.
Hi JMG,
I haven’t been twisting my mind into a pretzel for nothing – currently living through an aha moment. I’m definitely phase 17. Somehow, the “lawfulness” and inevitability of it all make it easier to accept “Enforced loss” and find meaning in it. Thank you for writing this commentary!
JMG – no, nobody thinks to imitate me. I have learned how to live an unconventional life, one that no one else seems to want or even think is possible. But I do get respect, and I work to earn it. Your way of explaining the true Creative Mind helps, because that seems to be what I do.
Both Yeats’ description and your description of Phase 19 ring a bell with me, so my working hypothesis going forward is that I am of that phase.
“and there met some magical elfin creature, who accompanied him on the road back home”
Now here’s a small detail that makes a great deal of difference, and I didn’t pick it up at all from the text itself – at least not the parts that I’ve read. It strikes me that this is a profound difference from Eastern mysticism, which argues that you have to chuck the whole kit and caboodle overboard to attain enlightenment.
But that raises a question: If the ‘elfin creature,’ so to speak, is accompanying us back to Phase 1, what precisely is it that we’re giving up in Phase 22? The memory and the drive needed to attain the vision of Phase 15?
Hi John Michael,
Exactly, one benefit of the ageing process is the accumulation of wisdom and the foreknowledge which comes from experience.
However, the journey from phase 16 to 22 sort of scarily reads like an escalation of hubris. If I may add, the counter spell for that ungodly path is a deep sense of humility, and what an antidote it is. Pride they say, is the devil for good reasons.
The past three weeks I’ve been going head to head with the mice (as occurred in the past with the rats and also with the red deer), and they’re fierce and take advantage of any ‘inability to act’! 😉 There is a deeper lesson in there for our society as a whole. Hmm. But also the experience is a salient reminder that when a person believes that they’re at the top, there’s only one way to go! I must add, that General Patton’s quote (which may or may not have been) “Rommel, you magnificent bastard, I read your book!” has been bouncing around my mind. And the challenging critters can easily read the room just as I can test my wits against their efforts. Fun stuff. Have you had such moments where your wits and skills have been tested, and you came out on top, but with a deeper respect for your opponent?
Hey, when are we getting to apply Mr Yeats system to the larger civilisation?
Cheers
Chris
For a representative of Phase 21, I would nominate Hildegard of Bingen. Assertive and confident, an intellectual and artistic polymath, she also enjoyed worldly success as an abbess. Yet history books, when they mention her, don’t describe her as either ’emblematic of her time’ or ‘ahead of her time’, because her writings and creations don’t seem to fit into any ongoing artistic or theological or scientific stream of development. Is that because she was a woman in a man’s world, or because she was just too much an individual? I tend to think the latter: she was a brilliant outlier.
I find the depiction of Darwin for Phase 22 touching, because (at least in popular imagination), he was a man whose successful intellectual pursuit of Nature (the Primary) led him to realizations that he could not square with his prior religious convictions (the Antithetical), and he had too much scientific integrity to force his own desires upon the evidence. That resignation before the face of unwelcome but undeniable fact is a good illustration of the task for this incarnation, “to use the Body of Fate to deliver the Creative Mind from the Mask.” That is, to let the events of life reveal exactly and painfully where one’s desires are at odds with reality, and to desist from those desires rather than continue the quest for greater mastery of the world.
That’s also partly an answer to Cliff #16: the turning point of Phase 22 is a giving up of willing our vision of the world upon the world, and beginning to turn instead toward acceptance of the world as it is.
@17 Chris
the journey from phase 16 to 22 sort of scarily reads like an escalation of hubris. If I may add, the counter spell for that ungodly path is a deep sense of humility, and what an antidote it is. Pride they say, is the devil for good reasons.
To me, this is like attacking the quality of a child’s essays, reports, and artistic endevours. They’re nowhere near the level of the average adult, much less the level of the famous artists, statesmen, scientists, and philosophers (inhabitants of higher planes) so it’s terrible.
Discouraged, the child fails to develop their creative and intellectual talents, and amounts to little in adulthood (the thirteenth cone).
Similarly, the Faustian civilization needed to be prideful and overly confident to explore and exhaust the potentials of its foundational intuition. Philosophy, science, art, technology, religion, and alternative spirituality could not have achieved the things they did if they had stayed in their lanes out of humility.
@Mark #3 re: Phase 17
If it’s any consolation, I’ve been coming to the uncomfortable conclusion that I’m also a not-so-in-phase 17. Seemingly coasting for the first ~20-25 years of my life followed by a lot of uncomfortable losses from age ~30-40, and now I’m wondering what “simplification through intensity” might mean for me. I’ve long recognized my tendency to “Dispersal,” and have been looking at ways to focus, but I wish I had more tips for success to report. If you have any, some of us would certainly be glad to hear them.
In any case, good luck!
Jeff
@JMG re: Phase 17
I know I asked in a Magic Monday a while back and your answer was basically “figuring it out for yourself is kind of the whole point,” but if you have any tips on how someone who suspects being out-of-phase in Phase 17 can work on the “Simplification by Intensity,” I’d certainly look forward to any help. The best I’ve been able to arrive at is that I need to settle on an intellectual/creative project guided by my own lights and stick with it until I start seeing some results. I suspect that a lot of meditation ought to help here, but again, if you have any tips, they’d be most welcome.
Cheers,
Jeff
I’m fairly sure I’m a daimonic man after all. Oh well.
The other day I said to a client of mine, who had recently relocated to another country, that the soul reincarnates many times over the course of a given life, weaving, in effect, a new body for itself any time it changes its surroundings.
Thinking about this, it isn’t quite accurate. If the body is the possession of the soul, the surroundings and physical belongings are the possessions of the body. During a major life change, the body’s possessions are altered. The body, then, may “reincarnate” many times in a given lifetime, changing its surroundings, belongings, social companions, even the molecules that compose its form. The soul, on the other hand, must wait for death to reincarnate, weaving a new body, which may then go through its incarnations.
But what about that of which the soul is a possession? That, I suppose, must be the nous, the intellectual body or “mental sheath.” If a soul has to wait for death to reincarnate, what must the nous wait for? And this, I think, is what Yeats is pointing to with this whole cycle: When it ends and the soul returns to the beginning, it will then begin a new cycle. In effect, the end of the 28th cycle would be to the soul what death is to the body. And as the soul, incarnating a new body, carries with it an echo of the experiences of the previous body as it continues to evolve, so, too, the developing mental sheath will grow and expand into a true mental body through the process of continual psychic cycles.
I wonder if the drastic changes which the gods worshiped by human beings undergo from one age to another point to similar cycles of incarnation by divine forms on the intellectual plane. Or, rather, if the end of one age and the beginning of the next is to the intellectual body of a god what the death of one body and the birth of the next is to the soul of a human being.
I figured myself for a 17 after reading Yeats’ description, but his mentions of gregariousness and a political interest didn’t hit for me. I wonder if those are more a confusion with his autobiographical details. After reading your description, it’s pretty clear I’m in phase 17.
That’s a bummer, as I was always hoping the next thing I set my sights on would be the one I got, instead of another enforced loss, but it looks like that was the false mask of dispersal chasing glimmers of sunlight on the wall the way my cat does. The consolation I’ll have to take is that I have a chance to get as close to my higher self as I ever will until I leave the cycle of incarnation.
Reading these phase descriptions really does help me to have compassion for the many kinds of critters I meet out there, and to put my own trajectory into perspective.
Luke, out of phase, yes. In phase, someone of Phase 17 eventually accepts his losses and leaves the dating site, while someone of Phase 18 comes to terms with the fact that the site’s just another form of entertainment and finds romance somewhere else — it’s in this phase that genuine love of another human being becomes possible.
Dylan, that analysis fits Yeats’s scheme well, and he says in so many words that each incarnation goes through all the phases in miniature, so I think you’re definitely on to something.
Inna, glad to hear it. I well recall the moment when I realized my own phase — it definitely helped me sort things out.
SLClaire, well, there you are. Enjoy your triumph!
Cliff, what we’re giving up at Phase 22 is the quest to make the world conform to the vision of Phase 15. We’ve gone as far down that road as is useful, and in the fourth quarter, having been transformed by the experience, we turn to the world as it is with new eyes. At each of the halfway points, 8th and 22nd, the soul finishes one cycle of experience, gives up that which was central to that cycle, and goes on to new things.
Chris, hubris is certainly part of the third quarter, but keep in mind that the soul going through those phases really does achieve a genuine triumph, and what follows is not nemesis but willing self-sacrifice. We’ll get to the cycle of civilizations after we’ve finished the wheel, discussed the Principles (the aspects of the higher self), and seen what Yeats has to say about the process of reincarnation; that’s the order of topics in the book.
Dylan, Hildegarde’s an excellent example! As for Darwin, yes, exactly. In his own way, he’s a perfect model of that moment of self-sacrifice.
Jeff, that’s exactly it — and your failures, and of course there will be failures, to manage that creative focus will provide you with the experiences that will bring you into phase.
Steve, a fine meditation! We’ll talk about a good bit of this later on.
Kyle, good. That’s exactly what it should do.
I think I’m in the same position as Shinjuki, figuring myself for an 18 until I read 21 and in particular its descriptions about the Masks.. I like to figure out how I tick, have elaborate mental constructs barely understood even by me, and have a tendency for self-adaptation when the world tries to exert itself on me.
When, I wonder, was Faustian civilization in phases 18 and 21? I’m wondering if I perhaps have an affinity for those time periods,…
Hi everyone ,
This is off topic, but I just thought some people may want to know this.
I just saw a YouTube post from Dan Waite, saying that Gordon White has passed away while in Peru.
I don’t know what from, but for me it was always very clear that despite his outer confidence he was obviously internally really struggling.
Prayers and well wishes to his partner and family.
A very sad situation.
Regards.
Helen in Oz
Dylan # 13:
“Always dreaming aloud of starting rural communes but utterly naive to the practicalities involved, and seemingly content to live in run-down urban communal houses making art and music and love.”
Your phrase about people in that phase reminds me the “old good days”, when some people thought there was something like an online “peak oil community”. In those times, there were some attempts to build “transtition towns” and “transition communities”. These last (if you don’t remember them) were a mix between prepper ideas and hippy communities, everything mixed in the usual incoming (?) fast collapse doomerism. Of course, few of those naive communities were made in the real world, and those few which were tried, failed soon…(ahem). Oh, I’m afraid I’ve gone “slightly” off topic.
——————————-
# 18:
Yes, Hildegard of Bingen was a fascinating woman, too difficult to label by Middle Ages and modern standards. Even some nowadays feminists who have tried to put her in his collection of usual female “beings of light” models for women, have had “little” problems to fit her in their usual “Procustus bed”. To say she was more advanced than her time is a very poor depiction of her wisedom and personality, methink. A French writer named Huysmans, in his book “En camino” (“On the way”) remembers her in a paragraph, saying she was like a man in a woman body. Well, Huysmans was a very mysoginist XIXth century Catholic man, so his rough short depiction of Hildegard is really a bizarre and blunt praise of her, methink…
Hi Patrick,
Thank you for the many observations.
Really though? Modesty is uncelebrated in our civilisation, which is a shame. I travel my own path, and what everyone does, or wants to do is cool. In many ways I deliberately make the journey unappealing, but it is a personal quirk to physically and mentally work hard. The sensitive person may suggest that at the core of that response is a heavy karmic load. Hmm.
Wasn’t Faust toying with the Devil and all the many ways to fall? Yours was a sweeping generalisation, but I’d suggest that excellence is also to be found in the quiet spaces where the tallest of waves can be set on its course by the merest of pushes. Long ago it was suggested that ‘Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.’ Never a sound place to find oneself on a soapbox.
And then my friend, you may find that you have to work, you know, hard. 😉
Cheers
Chris
I suspected I was in phase 17, but the last paragraph about phase 18 and a re-read of Yeats’ descriptions of those two phases make me more convinced I’m phase 18. Or maybe phase 17.5! 🙂 But the theme of untangling, understanding, and actually feeling emotions as opposed to the thoughts these emotions create seems to be a core theme for me, and a natal reading by an astrologer backs this up. I relate a lot to both false masks in these phases, both are close enough that it’s hard for me to distinguish between them, but curiosity has been both a boon and a bane to me. Indeed the curiosity has been a way to avoid those emotions. Enforced disillusionment makes sense too, I definitely have felt dearly-held illusions fade and been forced to accept what’s actually left when they are gone.
In Yeats’ description, the true Creative Mind is ’emotional philosophy’. What might be an example of that? Might he mean forms of philosophy which are linked in with psychology (i.e. occultism, Jung, etc)?
Also, in your description of phase 19, you write that the soul is deprived of the capacity for self-knowledge. Does this mean that the person is then incapable of reflective awareness of their actions, motivations, behavior, and so on?
Fascinating… pretty sure I am phase 17. Enforced Loss… I experienced this at age 15 when I fell madly in love. I was a freshman in high school. She was a freshman at our local arts college and several years older than me. I saw her several times in passing around the city: here from a bus, there as a friend drove us down the strip of “Short Vine” where all the skaters, punkers and weirdos hung out. There again… then I finally met her through another “chance” encounter. Only it wasn’t chance, it was fate and destiny.
As it happens, she got pregnant during the time she was my girlfriend, and without going into all the details of how the decision was made, we ended up placing my daughter for adoption. It’s an open adoption, and I know my daughter to this day. Apparently, according to some social workers I later talked to, its one of the most open of open adoptions they ever heard of, but its never been a typical father-daughter relationship, and the emotional challenges involved, especially when I was teenager and in my twenties were a lot to go through.
That said, one of the highlights of my life was officiating her marriage ceremony last year. But the way everything shook out when I was a teenager by meeting my first love, the journey through her pregnancy, the immediate aftermath as that relationship fell apart, and the experience of being a birth father has been one of the most defining features of my entire life.
The dispersal has been there as well, and it’s only as I continually refocus my energies that I achieve the things I’ve wanted to do since I was in grade school: namely the path of the writer. I really wanted to be an artist then too. I remember working on some visual art around that time, and telling my mom I wanted to be/was going to be an artist… the whole area of life that fits under that broad umbrella, well, its never stopped being important to me.
I also seem to have attracted a number of people who seem to be phase 16 into my life. Mostly these were older men who wanted to be my mentor in various ways. One of those friendships ended badly. Another ended naturally with the person at the end of their life. Another is ongoing, and the person helped me through a difficult phase, for which I am grateful, but I am not interested in adopting their interpretation of reality. I might be wrong in thinking they are all phase 16, but they all share the attribute of wanting me to conform to their way of thinking and looking at the world and belief. The one often berated me for my activity in the world of the occult and kept trying to get me to just do Qi Gong and read the Book of Urantia, whose vision of Jesus they adored. There was some of form of Jesus or other in the others too. I would think maybe they would be 19 from the domination aspect, but none of them ever really wavered in what they believed, and used that lens as the sole interpretation of their existence. There was some others.
Thanks again for this discussion, and I feel like I am starting to be able to pick out where others might be on the wheel. But I like to be poetic about it and not think of it in terms of some strict dogma that must be adhered too. For that reason I could be wrong about my own phase too… but strongly suspect 17.
Yesterday I had to attend a very tragic funeral, someone very young. I won’t go into the details now. I was also sad to learn yesterday that Gordon White passed away. While I did not adhere to his same style of magic, I sometimes enjoyed listening to the people he interviewed, and I enjoyed a number of his articles over the years.
It put a certain poignancy on reading about The Wheel yesterday evening.
While not necessarily on this week’s topic, an essay came my way on a social network and it reminded me of your points regarding falling empires and how the process is perceived by the people contemporary with the events. The author makes a point of the fact that most people do not realize the historical significance of what happens around them. It seems to me that regular folks are starting to be more receptive to the shifts in power and order.
It brought back memories from the time I first read your essays on the matter.
Link is below:
https://x.com/george__mack/status/2054660133582676055
Interesting that so many of your commenters on this blog find themselves in phase 17.
Hi JMG,
This note is chronologically imminent but off-topic. In that you don’t watch TV, you may not have heard about it. Feel free to not publish it.
For a year, I have looked forward to the date Thursday, 21 May 2026 (in one week). That day is significant because it will be the last episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. I view this as culturally significant (in the USA) to the Long Descent.
Colbert used to be funny. He had been at the top of the list for the most consistently clever and intellectual jokes for twenty years or so (including his earlier shows).
For the last four years, he hasn’t been funny. Instead, he became an avid spokesperson non-stoppedly denouncing Danald Tramp,— or Make America Great Again (MAGA),— or anything remotely conservative, traditional, or life-affirming. Every joke has involved insulting Tramp, or MAGA, or some MAGA-affiliate, or some bastion of conservatism like the nuclear family thought of as male-husband+female-wife. Colbert has been using his TV show as mouthpiece for over-the-top obsessive hatred of Tramp and against all things “normal,” “time-honored,” and “old-fashioned.”
When all is said and done, Colbert’s hounding of Tramp will all have been in vain. Anyone who didn’t approve of Colbert’s Tramp-diatribes had sorted themselves out; they had exited.
What Colbert did do was expose himself as a person who, in all seriousness, has had early dementia to where now it is full-blown dementia. The network (that his show is on) went along with Colbert’s dementia, for reasons we know-not. The network refuses to fess up that they in fact have invited Colbert’s dementia be broadcast to the whole world for years.
MAYBE a long time ago (years), Colbert and his TV network had signed an ironclad contract stipulating that the network had to force themselves to keep on Colbert as late-night talkshow host EVEN IF COLBERT BECAME MENTALLY ILL, AND/OR IN ANY WAY INCAPACITATED, INCLUDING COGNITIVE IMPAIRMENT, INCLUDING DEMENTIA AND SENILITY.
I stopped watching Colbert three-four years ago; for that matter, I ceased watching his entire network. Any network that puts Colbert’s audience as dead-last-priority does not deserve my attention at all, from now on, ever.
I voted for Tramp. Everyone knows by now that Tramp is the same as any other politician in many ways. But one thing Tramp does have going for him is the ability to get Demoncrats to obsess about the-man-Tramp-himself, thereby Demoncrats have neglected focusing on things that put the well-being of American citizens first. Demoncrats (with Colbert as talking-head) have spoken of nothing except Tramp. Tramp is expert at dangling shiny trinkets in front of people, hypnotizing them, where they cannot help but follow. Where Tramp, the pied-piper, led, spellbound Demoncrats followed. Tramp has had half the American populace transfixed on himself while he does his mischief elsewhere, likely emptying the U.S. Treasury into his own bank accounts—these days, like all politicians.
The other three talkshow hosts are equally boring for the same reason: Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, and John Oliver. Those three must have spent too much time partying with Colbert because they have caught the Colbert-dementia-virus. None of these are funny anymore; they harp on Tramp or pound into the ground network-approved liberal agendas. They are talking only to themselves.
I look forward to when their three shows get cancelled as well.
Jimmy Fallon hasn’t been as bad in the dementia department as the other three. At least Fallon is still half-funny instead of 100% not funny.
I haven’t decided yet whether to make a batch of popcorn to watch Colbert’s last episode. I think I may, because I envision him breaking down sobbing as will the entire studio audience. Or do an onstage konga-dance-of-blubbering. No matter what, I sense they will pile it on thick, and to miss the last show would be criminal.
Boo-hoo🤣. Death of an icon🗣️.
💨📺📣🗣️😭👋🏼🤣💨Northwind Grandma
Dane County, Wisconsin, USA
Nobody has posted this here yet, but I thought somebody should. It’s perhaps not on theme, but the Gordon White, of Rune Soup, has passed. He was one of the most brilliant public magicians in the world, and stood up for his values when most people caved to egregores and corporate propaganda. To tie it in, he was perhaps a phase 20 man, one of “those individuals who stand head and shoulders above their contemporaries and give their names to great spans of politics and culture. ” He was very young, and this was unexpected and tragic, though he did have some health issues and was traveling in Peru. Hail the Traveler.
Brendhelm, according to Yeats’s chart, Faustian civilization entered phase 18 around 1600 and phase 21 around 1800 — he doesn’t give exact dates for most individual phases, just for three-phase groups.
Helen, thanks for this. Yes, I heard yesterday; I was shocked and saddened. We had one very lively and pleasant podcast conversation, and I’m sorry that’ll be our only interaction.
Jbucks, what Yeats means by “emotional philosophy” is a belief system that’s held together more by emotional force than by intellectual consistency. Many forms of occult philosophy qualify — mine among them! — but the example most people know are the beliefs of the sort of energetic idealist who goes out there to Make The World Better, and whose actions are more strongly shaped by that emotional quality than by any more rational consistency. Disillusionment is a common experience for such people! As for the closing of the tincture in Phase 19, no, such a person is very much able to compare beliefs, thoughts, and actions with one another, root out inconsistencies, and so on; between Phases 19 and 25, when the tinctures remain closed, you very often get people who are almost terrifying in their capacity to analyze themselves on this level. What they no longer perceive is the deeper dimensions of themselves, and the motivations that arise from those levels. They know their thoughts and beliefs and actions, but not the inward forces that predispose them to those thought and beliefs and actions.
Justin, good heavens. Thank you for this. You might be interested to know that it’s very common for people to get into relationships, romantic and otherwise, with people one phase removed from them — for example, a Phase 17 person would be drawn into interactions with people of Phase 16 and Phase 18. (Yeats, for example, was 17, Maude Gonne was 16, and Georgie was 18. Equally, I’m an 18 and Sara was a 19.)
Dan, that’s utterly brilliant. I tried to make the same point several times in old Archdruid Report posts, but Mack did it better.
Anon, well, I’m Phase 18, and people tend to be drawn to people of phases next to theirs. So I’d also expect to see some Phase 19 people — though, given their different personalities, they may not be as likely to comment.
Northwind, duly noted. I’ve never watched Colbert, and only have a dim notion of who he is because so many memesters on the other side of things have made fun of him.
Isaac, yeah, I heard about it yesterday. I’m shocked and saddened, since he was still so young.
Dearest Fellow 17-ers, 😍
I’m mulling over our predicament. 😊 Here are a few half-formed thoughts on the process of sorting things out:
1. Take the blow. Your worst fears are correct. Live with it. You have Dante and Yeats for a company.
2. Give up all hope. To paraphrase the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld, “No love for you!” Stop being in love with love. It gets old and boring.
3. Zero in on pursuits that do not depend on any one person. What can you do regardless…?
4. Walk forward, one foot ahead of the other. There is a chunk of life ahead of you. Give it your best try. It beats sitting in gods’ waiting room.
What do you think?
Well said about Gordon, Isaac.
I think my mask is phase 17, which means I’d better study up on phase 3. I met my first love as a freshman at college. She was also a freshman, good at math and a violinist. I was afraid to touch her, even though she indicated that it might be okay if I did. I did not do well in college, at least not on that attempt. “Young Werther” comes to mind.
I think my Yeats phase could be 8 (but probably not the first life on 8 in this cycle, as I’m not completely powerless and/or addicted), 11, 18, or perhaps even 26.
I disagree with some features of Christian and even Christ’s moral teachings, and now I am rejecting the civil religion of progress. And if I was charismatic, I probably would have tried to persuade people to do what I want by appealing to moral principles I don’t believe in. Hence I could be an 11.
Disillusionment with my dreams and adopted ideals has been an important part of my adult life, and is emphasized in my natal chart with Saturn squaring Capricorn Neptune and a ninth house Chiron. I think I value emotional intensity and definitely make decisions based on feelings not reason. So I could be an 18.
I spent some time glorifying my own nastiness, before trying out spirituality, but I couldn’t succeed because I am naturally naive and give strangers the benefit of the doubt, so I am probably not of Phase 26.
Wow, JMG, this post was like looking into a mirror. Just a little bit scary!
I can certainly identify with the Positive Man of Phase 16, as it is my natural tendency to join William Blake in dwelling primarily in Paradise. And I’d say that probably my entire youth was spent in Phase 17 – such ecstatically beautiful visions within, and much time and effort spent in searching for and seemingly find echoes of such visions out there in the “real world” but almost as soon as I grasp it, it dissolves in my hands like dry sand slipping through my fingers. So supremely frustrating!
I’d say that I nearly got permanently lost in Phase 17 by seriously considering a life in the ivory academic tower of Shakespeare and Renaissance Humanities (my nickname in college was “Renaissance Man” – gee, I wonder how I got that name?). But my conscience chafed against it and said to me, “no, you need to do something more gritty and interactive with the world” – and so, I did, as difficult a task as it was. So, I managed to spend most of my adult life in Phase 18, trying my best to fit in with the world, interact with it, and be a contributing member to it. I’d say that I succeeded, because I was able to make myself a valuable member of a small company that was able to tolerate my quirky detachment and by bringing a huge pile of money into the company for three decades, and was able to be the economic backbone for my family in a middle-class lifestyle. But, to be honest, it was an effort every day. Now that I am of about retirement age, I feel more confident in finding ways of sharing what I consider to be my “true gifts” to society, whether it makes me money or not (most of the time, it is “not”; so be it). Not the most pleasant of paths, to be sure, but it is the path that I have tread in this life. And I have no regrets.
I doubt that I will end up being the Assertive Man of Phase 19 in the next life, as I have found Phase 18 so challenging in this life, feeling as I do as an “outsider” looking “in.” I guess I just have to keep plodding on, holding fast to my inner vision but trying to effectively harmonizing it with the “here and now” of this weird and wonderful world that we live in.
@28 Chris
I was not providing universal moral advice. For the vast majority of people, pride (beyond modest to moderate amounts) is bad, but pride and even hubris serve a minority of people well, or pushes them to make importantcontributions to civilization while wrecking their own lives. Think of Galileo, Wagner, or that guy who recently scaled Taipei 101. Even J.S. Bach had to have a generous amount of pride to compose a 105 minute long full Catholic Mass or The Art of the Fugue. And of course, our civilization’s pride is also accelerating our decline. It has mixed effects.
Chuaquin #27: I remember being excited about Transition Towns back in the day. I was of the right stage of life to get a ‘Phase 16 glow’ about the movement, but for me it was mostly a sense of urgent practical desire to get ready for what is coming. As for Hildegard, maybe her soul had had more practice being a man in recent incarnations than being a woman!
Inna #37: This sounds to me like good advice. But I don’t think 17ers are doomed to lovelessness, since Yeats seems to have done just fine once he figured out that George was more than ready to meet him halfway. I think the cavernous sense of romantic loss and yearning should be reinterpreted not as something to be filled, but as the marvelous underground vault of echoes which alone is the true auditorium for the soul’s music. Annie Dillard writes, in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, “I had been my whole life a bell, and never knew it until at that moment I was lifted and struck.” Ponder these words, all ye of the seventeenth phase, and consider well what hand it is that does the striking.
Ron M #41: You seem to be suggesting something that has been in my mind: perhaps the Wheel is more fluid than it appears according to the descriptions, and one can pass through multiple full or partial phases in one lifetime. Yeats himself seems to have moved from a poetic, romantic early life to a later life consisting of ’emotional philosophy’ (a fairly concise description of A Vision). If we can spend multiple lifetimes repeating one phase, why not also move through two or even three in a single lifetime? Kind of like a growth spurt for the soul.
One of my guiding rubrics through this discussion has been the characters of Arthurian legend, and this post has caused me to alter some of my earlier guesses.
I think now that Arthur himself would be of the 20th phase, a man in many ways less talented than those he surrounds himself with, but whose genius is to recognize, accept, and forcefully embody the ideals of an age which would come to be known as ‘Arthurian’. Within Arthur’s fictional world, he is not portrayed by the medieval writers as the inventor of those ideals (modern interpretations often cast him as a hero of moral Progress) but as the living paragon of the chivalric zeitgeist into which he was born.
Palomydes might fit the 19th phase, since as the sole Saracen in a Christian land he operates by his own convictions against the grain and without outer guidance, but fails to achieve the Questing Beast, the love of Isolde, or the defeat of Tristram.
Tristram is of the 14th, so entranced by his visions of beauty that masterful musicality comes to him effortlessly, and his responsibilities to king and court are as effortlessly set aside when the vision of Isolde comes upon him. His Mask is the Fool, and his downfall is in playing the fool rather than wising up to the complexity of his romantic and political entanglements.
Lancelot embodies the 13th phase, a man of great sensuality and inner tension who turns outward to the world in order to stamp his own impression on it. His Body of Fate is, of course, ‘Enforced Love of Another’, and his Mask is the Saint, embodied to his dismay in his own son Galahad, who can effortlessly perform what Lancelot spends his whole life yearning to achieve: a miracle.
Gawaine is of the 9th phase, able to perceive dimly the ideal vision of chivalry and begin to pursue it, but occupied with mastering his own passions and appetites. Many of the minor knights, Sir Balin and others, are in the first quarter, veering through the world on their own violent yet somehow innocent trajectories, mouthing the morals of Arthur’s court but in no way really understanding them.
Finally, the great Arthurian author, Sir Thomas Malory, had his world snatched away from him following his capture and imprisonment during the War of the Roses. Being locked up in prison with little to occupy him but the labyrinthine French cycles of Arthurian legend was the ‘simplification through intensity’ that he needed to produce his masterwork: the first birth-to-death account in English of the deeds of King Arthur, ‘Le Morte Darthur’. Ergo, Malory was a man of Phase 17.
I’m late to the book club, but catching up as I can. The cycles described are intriguing.
A quick question – reading the true mask and false mask descriptions, I’m very much reminded of your sacred geometry oracle. Were the cycles of A Vision influential on that work of yours?
A longer query… I resonate with many of the phases and can see where in each incarnation we likely experience a mesocosm of the cycles. In trying to tease out whether one is in the true mask of one phase or the similar false of a neighboring phase, I’d guess that success and comfort would be indicative of the true mask whereas difficulty and discomfort would indicate false mask… though for some of the phases it seems that even being in harmony and experiencing the true mask might be perceived as uncomfortable if not unsuccessful.. I’d welcome some guidance on discernment along these lines.
I wonder if that similarity would be at play in people being drawn to those one phase away. You could feel better about your false mask because it reflects their true mask and vice versa. I wonder, do you know if there is traditionally also some potential repulsion from those who share your phase? When wearing their true mask and being successful they would likely cause feelings of desire but also envy; and when wearing their false mask, there would likely be a projected revulsion to what you are working against in yourself. Though I could see where this might also be phase dependent, as a group of curious people would likely resonate. Thoughts?
“1. Take the blow. Your worst fears are correct. Live with it. You have Dante and Yeats for a company.
2. Give up all hope. To paraphrase the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld, “No love for you!” Stop being in love with love. It gets old and boring.”
Yeah, probably one of the biggest things I had to do was to give up all hope that this American democracy may be saved. That happened recently when somebody linked in the comment section of the previous post last week an old Archdruid Report article that explained why American democracy won’t ever allow Americans to take an 80% cut in their wages, salaries, and lifestyle, which is necessary if America ever wants to gracefully decline like the British empire did a century ago. So American democracy will likely be destroyed when the American empire collapses, so that Americans are forced to take an 80% cut in their wages, salaries, and lifestyle, because Americans won’t willingly do it. Perhaps a lot of it comes from me projecting my love of (my idealistic vision of) American democracy onto reality.
Hi John Michael,
Perhaps my views on deeper time have been formed by Ozymandias (or as some cheeky scamps have warped: Aussiemandias!), but for me contentment comes from achievement. Maybe my wiring is not suited to triumph, for it appears in my world view as fleeting, at best. When a person is at the top, there is only one way to go.
To head off and do something different, requires self sacrifice. Yup.
There’s something odd about the wheel which bothers me, and I hope is addressed in Mr Yeats perspective on reincarnation, but why the necessity to go around and around the wheel multiple times? Is the world really big enough to cope with heaps of people in the final quarter phases? It’d be a strange environment, to put it mildly. The reset to Phase 1 appears to me a perverse disincentive at the core of that journey which I’m struggling to comprehend. Dunno. A mystery!
Thanks and I look forward to learning the next sections.
Cheers
Chris
Given that there are a few consecutive success phases, and phases can repeat could some of the golden eras of art and intellectual history be from the same brilliant souls over a few lifetimes, and end when those souls pass into the 15th or 23/24th phases?
I don’t know biographies well enough to investigate this possibility myself.
Northwind Grandma:
At the risk of going way off topic (JMG, feel free to ditch this if you think its too far off)!
i saw Steven Colbert live many years back; it was during the writers strike. they had a “picket line” outside, and i was muttering statements in support. My wife whispered to me to “shut up or we will not get in!” It occurred to me – when did the Democrats decide that a union position was bad? But, I shut up.
WE went in (there was quite a line outside) and sat down. A flunky (i have no better term, a young man, possibly an intern) cane out and was exhorting the audience to cheer wildly when he came onstage. Bizarre.
The show was good, in my opinion, but the above things left, as best I can describe, an odd taste in my mouth.
I don’t watch these shows, as I watch next to no TV, and I am believing their position, knowledge, and everything else less and less (from a very low start).
And seeing election campaigning, if Trump died, the Democrats would be at such a loss, i do not know what they would do or what their platform would be!
Cugel
Doing a lot of reflecting today. I seem to have recapitulated a number phases in my life..maybe as far back as 14. I would say again I’m almost certainly 18 now and for the last number of years, and after reading 19 multiple times, I don’t think there’s anyway I’m going to move into that one in this life. I think Dylan proposed recapitulating phases at one point…seems valid to me.
Dylan, I did see you just posted about moving through multiple phases in a life, while I think in a prior post you suggested recapitulation. Like I said, I like recapitulation better.
Justin P. # 30:
I think you’ve been very honest when you’ve told us your teen love personal story (happy and sad alike) and its consequences (Thank you).
———————————————————————————–
N .G. # 34:
I’m not surprised by your depiction of that showman leading an unending anti-Trump campaign. You know or you can easily know in every western countries, within our posmodern “advanced” societies, the cultural world is always under the “progressive” tendences, in ideological terms. It’s the same thing here in my country. Pedantic and cultural people tend everywhere to be stridently leftist, or at least they pretend being it…though economics politics are always under Conservative hands.
————————————————————————————-
I didn’t know who was Gordon White. Rest in peace…
——————————————————————————————-
Dylan # 43:
I can remember the Transition thing in a very ironic mood now. Your feelings about it when you were engaged in that “urgentist” peakoil activism matches with my views of main “transitioners”. They were in a hurry because they believed the world was going to end soon, but I can say (ahem) they usually were very wrong and arrogant against “mild doomers” like me, who didn’t see any fast collapse ahead in near future. Well, who were right and who weren’t? Indeed, I can say I forgive but I don’t forget. However, I understand you embraced that doomerist view then. No argument here…
This is a challenging conundrum.
All I will say, as I puzzle my way through, is that “enforced success” seems to be an apt description of my Body of Fate. Especially in the “enforced” sense, since much of good has come to me, throughout my life, with seemingly little or no effort on my part. And although I have been to many places, and done many things, I have never experienced failure, in the sense being described here. Rather, my “success” appears to be a quirky sense of satisfaction with how things are, and with what I am doing.
And if that is the case, it certainly holds its own counter-intuitive challenges. Where, for example, is the spur to apply extra effort, to undertake any disciplined approach? It is only rather late in my life that I have discovered either that I CAN or that I WANT TO devote effort and apply discipline. Only late in my life have I discovered that these contain their own reward.
@ Dylan #43
“…the marvelous underground vault of echoes which alone is the true auditorium for the soul’s music…”
A most wonderful image! Thank you!
It’s interesting that you have to learn all the lessons in the right order with no shortcuts. Phase 21 learning humility too early would mean they get stuck indefinitely.
Any general thoughts on helping someone who is out of phase in Phase 16 move towards “a personal vision … expressed in some appropriate way, whether through the creative arts or more simply through a mode of living that follows the call of the inner life and ignores the pressures of collective existence as far as possible. “?
That is, if they are seeking help …
I see this has happened for one of the phase 16 people I am close to. He is an accomplished ham radio operator, woodworker and photographer. Also good at writing articles about his hobbies for various publications. Circumstances caused him to move further away into a rural area and he pursues his life. He seems to be in phase.
For me though, simplification through intensity really resonates.
@Chauquin: Thank you so much. It means a lot to me. I have more stories to share, and some personal essays I’ve written. I’ve thought of cloaking some of into fiction. IDK. Certain things I want to share, but sharing the really personal stuff can be difficult, especially when we’ve already been hurt.
Scotlyn #52, I can relate! While I had no idea that my life would turn out as it has, I’m really pleased with it and with what I have accomplished. Riding the currents of fate as they’ve impressed themselves on me, I have also aligned myself with those currents and worked to attain the goals that chose me and I chose at the same time.
The out-of-phase Creative Mind of Phase 20 has also been part of my life, as an inner sense that there is something “wrong” with me. I felt it much more powerfully when I was young, though it lingered until I completed the Dolmen Arch course – one of the benefits I’ve experienced from that course.
@ SLClaire #57
The other thing that strikes me about Phase 20 (which I’m not at all sure about, but nothing else is ringing any bells at all) is the “closed tincture” situation, the soul being “left to its own devices”…
I have developed a religious practice (not the one I grew up with) with an emphasis upon aligning myself with currents that seem to be of a “higher” nature that call to me – with the work of healing and blessing in particular. However there is a persistent sense of having no natural direct access to knowledge of these currents, or knowledge of what my soul is saying. My psychic senses are only of the very dimmest, and the descriptor “concrete thinker” definitely resonates with me. I am operating on a matter of trust that there are larger and higher currents of healing and blessing with which to align, because that is what I am now offering my meagre resources to do, regardless.
In a way, it is reassuring to know that these more direct types of knowledge simply belong to different phases of the work, and to be content with doing what I am doing, without necessarily being able to “hear much” outside of myself. This may help explain why I do seek out conversations (including of the argumentative kind) in order to gain perspectives external to myself, and not be stuck in an entirely solipsistic loop.
@Dylan #43
“I think the cavernous sense of romantic loss and yearning should be reinterpreted not as something to be filled, but as the marvelous underground vault of echoes which alone is the true auditorium for the soul’s music.” sounds like a great medicine, which I’m happy to try. Also pondering on who strikes the bell is a promising meditation. Thank you!
@Mark #46
Your experience is fascinating to me because it’s so different from mine. My losses are very personal in nature. It would never occur to me to pin my hopes on American democracy, as I always knew that democracy is just a short phase in any society. My errors of judgment that brought “Enforced loss” were completely different. Thanks for sharing your experience!
My earliest memory was my parents waking me up so that I could watch the Moon landing.
And I was such a science nerd growing up. Made my mom buy Tang so I could be like the astronauts. I wanted to be Mr Spock, the cool, calm guy who used Science to solve problems and save the day.
But two things from my childhood sowed some doubt. The first was the Zoo, I love animals but I started to realize all the animals were endangered. The second came from being a space nerd. The space nerds ( think Gerard K O’Neil space colonies) introduced me to the Limits to growth debate ( with space as the answer!!!!).
But as my life has progressed my view of science has changed. I don’t see it as the path to Truth anymore, I see it as useful for solving some types of problems
Weirdly enough, my birth chart has everything clustered around 12 or 6 o’clock, like I am stretched between opposites.
So I think that puts me in the 17th phase
“In consequence, the Body of Fate in this phase is “Enforced loss.” Over and over again, the soul imagines that it has found some part of its dream made manifest in the world, and then the dream goes tumbling away again.”
Scotlyn #58, again we have similarities. I’m not psychic either. In my case, I can observe and align with the energies of the natural world easily, which has led to success in gardening. But scrying is very difficult for me. When I worked on the first level of the Golden Section Fellowship I scryed the required three cards of the Sacred Geometry Oracle and later scryed another 7 or 8 of them, but I didn’t get much more from doing so than I obtained through discursive meditation on the symbols. “Concrete thinker” definitely applies to me.
Off topic to this post but on topic to the blog: a company called Stardust is planning to inject aerosolized bits of silica into the upper atmosphere to counteract global warming. For profit, of course. See https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/a-closely-guarded-plan-to-cool-earth-is-revealed-130000281.html What could go wrong?
Justim P. # 56:
You’re welcome! OK, I understand your view of your personal experience you wanted to share with us (no argument here). In spite of our cultural and personal evident differences, I think I’ve been able to make an effort to see your point of view. Indeed, I’ve never had any children due to my personal problems (I’m sad and happy alike for this personal fact), but I’ve lived some catastrophic relationships with not very good women until yesterday (to say it softly), so to some extent, I’ve got some empathy with you, methink. Human lives are human lives, so they don’t exactly repeat, but rhyme.
——————————————————————————————————————-
Maybe I’m going to ask you (dear John and commentariat) a silly question, due to my personal limits to understand perfectly Yeats philosophy. Well, you’ve written the Great Wheel works not only during different supposed lives beyond our current incarnation, but also during a whole individual life. According what I’ve understood, do you can live different phases during your current incarnation life? (please, confirm it to me). And if I’m not too “brave” to suggest it: Can you tell me wether there’s possible a phase change (or several phases change) during lesser time periods or not?(like a year, a month or even an only day). I mean, I can think in a metaphorical sense, the morning awakening is like when you’re born, and night sleep would be like a death…maybe I’m guessing too many things here, I’m sorry if I’m thinking in a void…
————————————————-
An “slightly” off topic comment:
John and some of you have written about Spengler “Second Religiosity”. It seems in my country there’s something of it, methink. Some months ago, a Spanish singer, a young woman named Rosalía showed us a conceptual musical disc whose main topic was…ahem..the Christian God. I don’t know wether she believes really in Jesus or she’s pretending to earn money, but… It’s interesting to say that not only the cultural spanish world saw her “occurrence” in a hatred way, but also the far right Catholics too (oops!), they agreed this show-woman was pretending she had “become” a Catholic. When I heard some song of her, although I don’t like especially her music, I thought: “Here it comes the Second Religiosity”. Even if sh’es pretending being a Catholic woman, he maybe knows there’s a market for her new music, so…do the math. By the way, according last statistics serious data, there are more Christian and religious people in general in Spain, especially within the youngest adults. A fast fashion or a general long time tendence? Well, we’ll see…
“Your experience is fascinating to me because it’s so different from mine. My losses are very personal in nature. It would never occur to me to pin my hopes on American democracy, as I always knew that democracy is just a short phase in any society. My errors of judgment that brought “Enforced loss” were completely different. Thanks for sharing your experience!”
Even worse, the last woman I fell in love in I wanted her to save all of American democracy for me so that I may be saved from the horrible changes that are coming our way. She told me that she can’t do that but I didn’t want to believe that.
@61 SLClaire
We have been putting aerosols in the upper atmosphere for many decades. They only provide short term cooling since those particles only remain in the atmosphere for months or years. I think the decline in industrial output over the coming years and decades (see the BAU Limits to Growth graph) will more than counterbalance crude intentional geoenginnering projects, even if they inject aerosols at a high enough rate to change the climate and are not just small scale projects to make members of the company and its investors feel like they’re saving the planet, while assuring public that we’re Doing Something about global warming.
And because they divert resources that could be used for industrial production, they’ll probably get canned as the economy shrinks.
Hi John Michael,
Sorry for the loss of your friend. The losses stack up, and we who remain shoulder the memories.
Ook! Off topic, and sorry for the digression. But is it just me, or is Peak Oil making a come back from the unfashionable corner to which it was relegated? You know what man, the weird thing about it all, is that we’ll run short long before civilisation ever runs out, but it’s the economic impacts which will destroy demand for the stuff. So strange, and look at the cost of money these days! And it’s going up as goobermints can’t seem to take their foot off the accelerator pedal. I can well comprehend why your biggest chief is rapidly scaling things down – there was little choice in the matter.
Crazy days, huh?
Cheers
Chris
At this page is the full list of all of the non-faith-specific 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 5/8). 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 William B find wise guidance in his quest to establish a new life in a new land far away and free from certain toxic individuals in his former country.
May Matthew U. from Marion, Indiana’s dog of 14 years, Holly, who is dying of cancer, be blessed and comforted; may she pass on peacefully and without pain, ideally in her sleep, while knowing she is most loved. May the two of them reunite happily in the next life or incarnation.
May cabaiste22’s relative Megan, who had a sudden surgery due to a lump on her ovaries, heal quickly and without incident; may she be blessed and healed of any problems related to both the surgery and the lump.
May Lisa C be blessed and healed for a complete recovery from breast cancer.
May 6 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 Luke Dodson’s beloved uncle-in-law David C be blessed and make a peaceful transition to his next destination.
May a safe and happy home environment be enjoyed by Laurelmirror, her daughter, and her mother, as well as protection from evil influences. May their family situation be resolved in such a way that Laurelmirror’s mother will get a chance to recover physically and mentally from the stresses it has caused; may mother be blessed and invigorated.
May Bob W of Lake County, Ohio’s treatment for cancer go well so that he may heal and recover as quickly as possible.
May Open Space be filled with the strength he needs to heal quickly from his current bout of Chicken Pox; may his will remain strong, that he does not scratch; may he be healed completely, and suffer no scarring in its wake.
May Bob Ralston (aka Rasty Bob), who is in hospice care in Buckeye AZ, and who just lost his wife Leslie Fish, be blessed and find relief from his pain and discomfort; may Bob’s heart remain strong.
May Princess Cutekitten, who has made no comments on any of the Ecosophia blogs for a year now, and hasn’t responded to attempts at contact, be blessed wherever she is and in whatever form she may exist.
May Cathy N. of St. Marys, Ohio heal and recover from injuries caused by a fall.
May Dustin, a relative of Brenainn, be healed of a recently discovered heart condition.
May 1Wanderers’s partner Cathy, whose cancer has returned, be given the physical and mental strength to fight it, and tolerate the treatment, and may she enjoy a full and permanent recovery.
May Jule from Iserlohn, Germany, who is experiencing complications in her pregnancy due to an influenza infection, recover and have a pleasant pregnancy and birth.
May Larry Mulford, who has entered hospice after a year battling with pancreatic cancer, pass in the smoothest possible manner, and may his wife be enveloped in our love.
May Marko have the strength to seize the opportunities.
May Pierre’s young daughter, Athena, be healed from her fatigue and its root causes in ways that are easy, natural, and as holistic as possible.
May Lydia G. of Geauga County, Ohio heal and recover from prolonged health issues.
May both Monika and the child she is pregnant with both be blessed with good health and a safe delivery.
May Mary’s sister have her auto-immune conditions sent into remission, may her eyes remain healthy, and may she heal in body, mind, and spirit.
May 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 Kevin’s sister Cynthia be cured of the hallucinations and delusions that have afflicted her, and freed from emotional distress. May she be safely healed of the physical condition that has provoked her emotions; and may she be healed of the spiritual condition that brings her to be so unsettled by it. May she come to feel calm and secure in her physical body, regardless of its level of health.
May Frank R. Hartman, who lost his house in the Altadena fire, and all who have been affected by the larger conflagration be blessed and healed.
* * *
Guidelines for how long prayer requests stay on the list, how to word requests, how to be added to the weekly email list, how to improve the chances of your prayer being answered, and several other common questions and issues, are to be found at the Ecosophia Prayer List FAQ.
If there are any among you who might wish to join me in a bit of astrological timing, I pray each week for the health of all those with health problems on the list on the astrological hour of the Sun on Sundays, bearing in mind the Sun’s rulerships of heart, brain, and vital energies. If this appeals to you, I invite you to join me.
Luke Z #50: I lean toward the recapitulation model myself. It would seem to bend the system too far if one could recapitulate all the phases in a single lifetime AND move the soul one lifetime-phase forward without being reborn. And by the way, I got a good chuckle out of your dating app comment. I have a good friend who lived for a long while in the infinite swiping loop, and seemed to enjoy the drama of finding and losing even more than the women he met. I tried the online dating thing for a few months, then concluded, ‘if our civilization cannot perform such a truly most basic function as mating and reproduction without high-tech gamified intervention, then we have already collapsed, and I don’t want to wallow in the ignominy of it all.’ So I am app-free, and single, and trusting that there is a divine timing to finding love, when the soul has readied itself.
Chuaquin #51: I was briefly of the doomer mindset, but the Archdruid Report adjusted me toward a longer timeline. That didn’t really change my sense of urgency, because judging by how unsustainable everything around me seemed (and still seems) I felt (and feel) that in order to provide the next generation with a good life, the people in my community needed to get started yesterday on a long descent plan. It was a harder lesson to learn that if I wanted to collapse early, I’d have to do it alone, since genuine Transitioners in my part of the world are few and far between.
Scotlyn #43 and Inna #59: You’re welcome! There are many images worth meditating on, along this theme: a reed flute, an ocean shell, a drum… I think Phase 17 is a specific, human illustration of a general law, which is that music of any kind depends on two things: something that vibrates and some kind of resonant chamber within which that thing vibrates. That is, the existence of music is dependent upon some form of emptiness. The harmonic proportions of that which vibrates in relation to its resonating chamber, its ‘tuning’ or ‘in-phase-ness’, is what focuses dissipated, dispersed noise into the richness of musical sound. That is the consolation and the wild beauty within Phase 17, for me.
A thought has occurred to me: the soul of Yeats, having been so fervently consumed by this material in its previous lifetime, would inevitably be drawn to reading ‘A Vision’ at some point in its subsequent incarnation. Which means that he or she could be reading the book right now, or even following along with this sequence of blog posts. And given how accomplished an occultist Yeats was, that presently living soul will at some point wake up to its earlier incarnations and, while reading A Vision, have the electrifying realization, ‘Holy crap, I wrote this!’ And then perhaps that living soul will (or already has) translated the daimonical inspiration of A Vision into some kind of contagious emotional philosophy for the twenty-first century.
This almost sounds like the beginning of a game. Anybody up for playing ‘Where in the World is W. B. Yeats?’
Dylan, I share your approach to dating these days. I have faith that if it’s meant to happen it will. Although I do have a plan (that is in action) to invoke Venus with progressively powerful techniques. I did get an overwhelmingly positive answer in divination, several years ago, to the question of “will I ever get married” so that bolsters my faith. BTW, your comment on Yeats being incarnate is pretty fun to think about. There is some chance that he has moved on from material incarnation though.
When John Michael said he was 18 I looked back thinking, ‘ that must be the one with the solitary star because there was so much true emotional image in the description. “some potent set of beliefs, brought into being through some crisis in personal life and used thereafter as a source of guidance, as though sailing by a single compass bearing through a night in which all stars are hidden.” But then that is sarah19. Meanwhile I share w others quickened attention to @ Dylan #43
“…the marvelous underground vault of echoes which alone is the true auditorium for the soul’s music…” for 17s…. Seems like people have a tender elegance describing their own phase and phases close to their own, the neighboring phases from which come loved ones more often than not.
Also seems like this quarter holds more of the readers of this blog than others which kind of makes sense, through the first piece of self-development and shifting back into engaging with the facts of the world but with experience under the belt. Both Dylan #13 and Ron #41 get at ways that the experiences of this quarter progress in ways that feel accessible within a lifetime, the way that whoever taught in a Waldorf school did so helpfully with the first quarter comparing to child development . Wheels within wheels, thanks for that! I’m going to have to sit with each of these a bit. Reconsider if it’s my will or my creative mind that has the perspective of post self-building/discovery reengagement with the world. Is that a useful/accurate-to-this-framework way to frame the question?
Dylan # 67:
I can understand your point of view. To some extent, the vision of a Long Descent instead of a fast collapse doesn’t better much the future, if we don’t do anything to prepare us for tomorrow starting now (or even “yesterday”. I think in theory we can begin to adapt us for harder times ahead us with a relative calm, but oh wait! I can also see every decision made by usual conventional “wisdom” from our crazy elites, lead our societies far and far from a real sustainable world. The last elephant in the room; the nowadays AI frenzy, So I can agree with you to some extent. First, we must begin to give up paying attention to MSM b**t, then we must start to find new/old solutions for the incoming troubles.
———————————————-
(Slightly off topic too)
Dating:
I’ve been a quite “lucky” man during my life, because I’ ve never needed to date by myself; because I didn’t approach to women, they approached me…However, some of my relationships have been catastrophic, due to my blindness to realize not every people (some women included in it) are good for me…My actual situation is good, but it’s interesting to point she proposed me to have a deeper realtionship, not me. It’s a strange tendence: some women like me, although I haven’t got an apparent special sex appeal. So I can’t give you advices for dating, due to my personal life.
I’m not sure if anyone who has not experienced phase 17 needs any further images to communicate the enforced loss of daimonic man, but two come to my mind. One – in faery lore, a common theme involves the situation where the person who visits the land of faery is given gold or some treasure of inestimable value and, thrilled with this acquisition, takes it home, only to find that when back in “this” world, all he has in his hands is a pile of dead leaves. Two – for those who are familiar with Led Zeppelin, the song “The Battle of Evermore” ends with the words, “bring it back.” I can’t tell how many hundreds of times I listened to this song in my youth; it is still my second-favourite Led Zeppelin song of all time (second to “Stairway to Heaven” of course!).
I didn’t realise earlier that each of the quartets has an associated element. I am guessing that the Earth is the element of the first quartet (owing to its phases being grounded in concrete reality), and Fire is the element of the second (since its phases reflect the transformative uses of freedom). Am I right in this?
I’ve been living apart from my family for twenty years and only recently understood why. They are narcissists who are incapable of love, I’m the scapegoat, and there is no healthy way for me to interact with them. Since coming to the painful realization that three of the most important people in my life are effectively dead to me I’ve been on a mission to discover who I really am and reverse the physical and mental degeneration from all the ptsd. What phase does this sound like?
Ron M #71,
I must say that your illustrations capture the experience of enforced loss really well. When you end up with a pile of dead leaves, your best answer is “dance in the dark of night”. (I do it literally).
I had a sequence of two dreams alongside the monthly Vision post. I just woke up at3am and decided to research and hit on a doozy. Seems to me the blend of collapse aware and magic aware… There’s nowhere better for me to share this, maybe another human here will find the next action step worthwhile.
On the morning of 5/14 I woke from a dream with very clearly the numbers ‘1403 or 1404’. Unusual. I drew Justice card. On the morning of 5/16 woke from another unusual for me dream I would call ‘low gravity floating, scale buildings, also retrieve books’ dream. also sense of ‘god provides for the sparrow,’ drew ‘Sun’ in the morning.
Just now I searched 1403 and 1404. Guess what. This was published in the Federal register for public comment on 5/13 before I went to sleep.
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/05/13/2026-09527/information-collection-preaward-survey-forms-standard-forms-1403-1404-1405-1406-1407-and-1408
D. Annual Burden
General Services Administration
Respondents: 239.
Total Annual Responses: 239.
Total Burden Hours: 5,736.
Obtaining Copies:
Requesters may obtain a copy of the information collection documents from the GSA Regulatory Secretariat Division, by calling 202-501-4755 or emailing
GSARegSec@gsa.gov.
Please cite OMB Control No. 9000-0011, Preaward Survey Forms (Standard Forms 1403, 1404, 1405, 1406, 1407, and 1408).
Janet Fry,
Director, Federal Acquisition Policy Division, Office of Governmentwide Acquisition Policy, Office of Acquisition Policy, Office of Governmentwide Policy.
..,..
The intention I guess is to do away with the forms which document competence of contractors for DOD and NASA in the preaward phase cause … Who needs that when you need to move billions of dollars right? Def going to request info and comment. Any space contractor guys here want to give me some tips, please?
KVD # 74:
I can’t say you in which phase you can be now, but I can write something about your decision of stopping the interaction with your family since that time ago. It’s a hard decision. I mourn your family situation; to live with a bunch of narcissists must be very stressing and dangerous for everybody in spite of being family. I pity you, but I can also write you were cautious and clever enough to reject that toxic family of you. My family is quite nice, but it isn’t perfect. However, I can understand your personal experience because around me I’ve met a few people who were raised in awful families: As soon as they grew to their adult age, they usually cut the most possible their relation with their toxic families, too.
@Inna #75: Brilliant reply – and good on you! By the way, right now I am looking at a huge pile of dead leaves (along with other organic debris) in my backyard as I type these words. I even steal bags of dead leaves from neighbours’ front lawns (a rather clumsy-looking “dance in the dark of night” :)) in the autumn in order to produce “black gold” (composted humus) for my organic garden, and then in the summer I share the produce of my garden with those whose leaves I have stolen (gotta keep that wheel of karma turning!).
Myself, I’m not yet sure to which phase I belong; but somewhere in the third quarter seems plausible to me; phase 17 might be a possibility, but I’m not sold on it. When I first read “A Vision”, it bacame clear to me that I probably don’t belong to any of the earlier phases, that much was then already clear to me. If I’m in phase 17, then I would belong to the typical audience of this blog. The difficulty is to differentiate the phase of a whole incarnation from the phase of a an age inside one and the same incarnation.
I find I am loosely identifying with aspects of each phase up in meditation. I recognize I have idealized conditions of ‘being’ from earlier phases, in terms of yearning for a simple and clearly practical life that likely wouldn’t be attainable (in phase) without a few Rounds Around The Wheel anyway. Walt Whitman’s life and works, as presented in Phase 6, particularly represents a painful idealization of what a life could be. A man with his personal strength, understanding and vision of the world, unpolluted with, self-analysis and inner turmoil, is difficult to believe in. The spectacle of his life seems too authentic, too unbelievable. If I was to adhere to working within this paradigm I guess I’d say I’ve Been Around The block once, and am sitting somewhere in phase 19, though I’m not certain.
Patrick, more meditation and reflection might be useful to sort this out.
Dylan, interesting! This strikes me as a useful approach.
Elliot, not consciously, no — I suspect Yeats and I were both influenced by traditional ways of reading tarot cards when they’re upside down. As for the masks, no, the true mask doesn’t feel comfortable! It’s always the hardest thing that’s not actually impossible for the soul. It can feel right, but it never feels comfortable.
Chris, we’ll get to that, but generally speaking Yeats seems to think that it takes 12 times around the cycle to really master each of the phases. As for those late phases, we’ll get there shortly and things should be clearer then.
Patrick, that seems entirely plausible to me, though it would probably also involve those gifted souls being in the same phases as the society that’s in its golden age.
Scotlyn, a fascinating question that Yeats doesn’t address. The one thing I can think of that might be applicable is simply that the true mask always involves effort; do you feel that your later-in-life discovery of the importance of effort has any relation to the true mask or true creative mind of your phase?
Ahem, it is indeed interesting, and central to Yeats’s ideas.
Justin, it’s crucial in all these third quarter phases to become aware of the distinction between the personal dream and the real world, and then to try to find some way to enact the former (for example, in art, or in an eccentric life) without expecting the world to cooperate. Keeping that in mind seems to help most of us.
Dobbs, does the change in your attitude toward science feel like a loss to you — something that makes you grieve? Or does it feel like a disillusionment — something that feels like a painful waking up to reality?
SLClaire, climate chaos, here we come!
Chuaquin, every life has a single phase, but every life also goes through the whole cycle of phases.
Chris, I have high hopes for a revival of peak oil, and will be posting on it later this year to try to give that revival a good hard push.
Ecoprayer, thanks for this.
Dylan, hmm! An interesting idea. It certainly isn’t me, if that’s what you’re thinking; I recall two previous lives overlapping with Yeats’s, and neither of them were him.
AliceEm, it’s a very good way to frame the questioin. As for the readership of this blog, well, the third quarter is the intellectual quarter, so the maunderings of an eccentric intellectual like me would be likely to attract such people.
Ron, good heavens. That’s also one of my faves from the Led Zep oeuvre, and I hadn’t previously met anyone who liked it.
Rajarshi, you’re half right. The first quarter is earth, the second water, the third air, and the fourth fire.
KVD, it could be any number of phases. How do these events relate to your mask, creative mind, and body of fate?
AliceEm, good heavens. How interesting.
@WHD#1 & JMG #10
“William, I haven’t discussed this. Yeats himself insisted that there was no connection between the phases of his system and astrology, which makes the partial parallels all the more curious.”
Nice question, good response. Thanks for this! Now I’m going to have to drag out the Mansions of the Moon book. I wonder what kind of off/on analogy that would be, and what the connection is…certainly “there” in some way. I’d probably start with looking for a number pattern. Failing that, maybe it’s a partial match because of the integration into the soul life, and follows an active vs passive exclusion or inclusion of the primary astrological pattern. Dunno. Heck of a question. though. There’s also the possibility that the Arabic moon system is just too different, a partical match, and that Yeats was pioneering a more accurate “mansions of the moon”, so the soul life would rewrite the fragmented Western astrological mansions?
Today is May 19th, and my access to this blog seems to have stopped at May 13th – which says there are 81 comments, but only 80 are visible. Is this something that’s happening in my computer? Or is something else going on?
(Slightly off topic, or maybe not).
I see Yeats Great Wheel shows different phases, in general terms related with different lives; so it’s based in reincarnation. Well, as a Christian I shouldn’t believe in it, but I’ve lived some interesting situations during my life which can make me to think there are strange coincidences, maybe well explained by the reincarnation thing. In addition to some bizarre experiences in different years during my recent past (having two mysterious talks with two children within my near family), I can say I cannot explain well how some women have been attracted by me, a not very handsome average man, during my life. I’m not kidding. It’s interesting many of these women only wanted be my friends (without sex), though a few of them wanted a deeper relationship with me. This advantage for me sometimes has sometimes become a nightmare, because until recent times, I haven’t been very good in choosing good people and rejecting the bad one. However, I can also say I’ve got some good female friends, so I witness there’s possible that a man and a woman can be friends without sexual love…If you didn’t believe it seriously.
Well, a time ago I met a person quite influenced by New Age ideas. I told her my strange not voluntary “sex appeal”(or asexual appeal, it depends) for some women, and this person asked me, that I had been a woman in my last life; so that was the reason to attract those woman, due to my “female smell”, I mean, my supposed unconscious female memories. OK, it’s a good work hypothesis. I don’t know what do you think about this idea. I see myself like a reasonable male straight man, but it’s also said every man has a female side inside him. By the way, I remember John wrote some time ago he was convinced to have lived his last incarnation before his current life as a woman.
Thank you.
Well, JMG, all I have to say is that you have exceptionally good taste in music! 😉
Ron M. #86 re: Led Zeppelin
I always appreciated any songs with an avowed Tolkien influence, but I’ve got to say that, other than “Stairway to Heaven,” of course, my tastes run to “When The Levy Breaks,” and “Immigrant Song.” “MIsty Mountain Hop,” and “Ramble On,” of course are also classics, but it’s hard to go wrong with Zep.
In the interest of sharing something new, “The Sword,” out of Austin is one of my favorite bands. They have a nice blend of Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath in their influences, but a bit “harder.” Adding to the appeal (for me, anyway), many of their songs are explicitly influenced by Age-of-Pulp Sword and Sorcery – “Dying Earth” by Jack Vance and “The Frost Giant’s Daughter” by Howard, for example. “Fire Lances of the Ancient Hyper-Zephyrians” or “Maiden, Mother, and Crone” are good starting points if you want to get a sample.
Cheers,
Jeff
Patricia Mathew #83,
It’s not just you. I repeatedly have exactly the same experience. It started with the new host company.
JMG # 81:
Thank you, I’ve understand how the Great Wheel works in a life and within a life. So I could say the Wheel is, at least to some extent, a fractal system…in which a part repeats the complete cycle.
——————————————————————
Oh, in my last comment (# 84) I wrote “and this person asked me”, near the end of my comment, I wanted to write “and this person answered me” (oops!), I hope you can understand well my phrase. I beg your pardon for my mistaken word…
“It’s crucial in all these third quarter phases to become aware of the distinction between the personal dream and the real world, and then to try to find some way to enact the former (for example, in art, or in an eccentric life) without expecting the world to cooperate. Keeping that in mind seems to help most of us.”
Thank you for that John. I certainly have had to come to terms with that tension between the real world and the dream, and I can see how it applies in different ways to the different phases now that you mention it as an overall third quarter thing. I can also see how it can help me harmonize with the people in my life who are phase 16. I had some good insights about these things last Friday and over the week end.
I appreciate it, and all the conversations here.
Oh, OT, but a reader just sent me this picture of billboards popping up across the nation:
https://imgur.com/a/WYoXRAf
Celadon, here again, Yeats insisted that the sequence of phases in our text had nothing to do with astrology — and he and George were both expert astrologers, so I think their testimony on the subject is probably worth keeping in mind.
Patricia M, can you read this comment of mine, and if so, what’s the date posted on it?
Chuaquin, plenty of Christians believe in reincarnation, though the big churches don’t. As for me, well, if my past life memories are anything to go by, I’ve alternated gender fairly regularly in recent lives; yes, the last one was female, the one before that male, and so on. That’s apparently quite common.
Ron, or exceptionally weird taste, as the case may be!
Justin, glad to hear it. As for the billboard, oof.
@82 Celadon
My natal Moon is in the second lunar mansion (Yeats Phase 2 doesn’t fit me at all), and others were born during a new or full moon and would be Phase 1 or 15, and Yeats says souls of these phases are not incarnate on the physical plane.
Correction: I assumed the lunar mansions are determined by the position of the Moon relative to the Sun. I checked AstroSeek and they are actually divisions of the ecliptic starting at Aries. So my waxing crescent Moon is actually in the 21st lunar mansion.
My favorite song with Tolkien references is from the Incredible String Band, “Ducks on a Pond”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-s_HA9y_Uk&list=RDH-s_HA9y_Uk&start_radio=1
Yeah, its slight, but it does mention the misty mountains.
Robert Plant has done some really good covers of one of my favorite bands, Low.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfcRe8NyFjE
original:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oz90blDSAA&list=RD1oz90blDSAA&start_radio=1
All great music made by real human artisans!
OT again… but just thought you might be interested in this John:
https://romanticon.substack.com/p/burning-cellophane-at-the-gates-of
It’s an article about the Mormon use of the Coelbren alphabet, along with some stuff about Prince Madoc. Apparently these Mormons read Iolo Morganwg, took that alphabet, made their own thing, and used that to write down some Hopi words… pretty fascinating mashup of ideas and cultures.
Just reading it now, or I would have put this into Magic Monday yesterday.
@JMG – Comment #92 is dated May 19th, 12:11 pm. I also got your earlier message, comment #81, May 17th; my comment about not seeing anything past May 13th hit the blog as Comment #83. Inna thinks it’s the host company’s problem. Anyway, I’m glad it’s working now.
Thanks
Led Zeppelin topic:
I can say that rock band isn’t my favorite, but I accept they played good rock songs, like (of course) “Stairway to Heaven”. It’s interesting to see how this song lyrics seems very influenced by the Celtic-Pagan tendences in those times, and the epic fantasy books, at least according some serious people. So the “Christian” conspiracy theories against this legendary song, about its satanic messages (apparent or subliminal) only show a deep ignorance and malevolence by their supporters, against L.Z.
—————————————————————————————————-
JMG # 92:
First, thank you for confirming you wrote your last life before this current life you were a woman. Well, I don’t discard the reincarnation explanation to some puzzling events I’ve lived during my current life, as I’ve written before; at least as work hypothesis. Remember I’m a fringe Christian, so I’ve got a quite open mind, methink. I perfectly know what big churches officially think about this topic, apparently “anti-Christian”; which is contradicted by the belief in reincarnation by not a few average Christians, like you’ve written in your comment.
I’d like to tell you that, some days ago, I went to a conference about new tendences in religion and spirituality here. Its main topic was how to understand recent tendences toward a religious/spiritual revival in Spain, especially within young people. Even “old fashioned and decadent” Catholicism seems to be growing again in number of believers, according some serious statistics. Some people there said it was a fashion, a “social hangover” against choking woke cultural hegemony during last times; some another people said it was a long time tendence (History is never really linear, but cyclical). When I heard that talk, of course I thought in the Spenglerian idea: “Second Religiosity”. A lot of topics were discussed by religious and secular people during that conference, but it’s interesting to point a data which was commented with some dismay, to some extent, by the Catholic priests there. According those same statistics which showed religion(s) and spirituality were recovering in Spain after a long time secularization tendence, more or less 48% of self-named as Catholic believers believed in reincarnation. So John, I’m not very surprised by your comment about Christians and reincarnation belief.
Note: This stuff could lead to a new theory of outsider art.
All of duality is the division of an unbearable reality into two in an attempt to survive it; that’s how I contemplate the mask: a division between present moment reality and the mind.
Which connects me to another post of yours.
https://ecosophia.net/a-few-notes-on-matriarchy/
In this comment, you talk about soft power and power-over.
And you go on to talk about how we can’t know how things were in the past.
But if we assume systems based on power-over started around ~10,000 years ago after severe climate trauma, pushing people outside their true, embodied selves and into splitting, hierarchies of power-over, and zero-sum games, we can make a clear picture of it.
If we define patriarchy as a disembodied gender system (power-over/power-under, shame/pride, blame, prescriptive/proscriptive roles, competition…), then its opposite would be (mutualistic, graceful, embodied, with descriptive roles, based on cooperation…).
Which is what you’d see in contemporary non-patriarchal societies.
Almost like non-patriarchal societies don’t have women holding power-over and men having “soft power”. Instead, everyone has “soft power” to put it somehow, but in a way that is not transactional and punitive.
Like a matristic heterarchy.
I myself usually use “matristic heterarchy” now for this very reason. You know, like pre-colonial/pre-Christian/pre-Islamic/pre-Roman/pre-etc. Igbo, Diné, Amazigh, Basque, Sardinians, Kuna (Guna), Garo, Kihnu, Bribri, Tairona, Trobriand Islanders, Mosuo, etc. Etc.
Only when we are free and safe can we be fully connected to our senses.
And when we are, things just are, regardless of the why.
What-is is what-is.
And you are you; someone, not something.
And every other label is a prescription nobody asked for.
Note these are gamma waves, not gamma rays or gamma radiation.
https://spacedaily.com/j-there-is-a-moment-near-death-documented-in-eeg-recordings-of-dying-patients-when-the-brain-produces-a-coordinated-burst-of-gamma-wave-activity-more-intense-than-anything-measured-in-waking-life-and/
It doesn’t always happen, so what’s going on is unclear. It does make me think of the book Passage by Connie Willis.
“Dobbs, does the change in your attitude toward science feel like a loss to you — something that makes you grieve? Or does it feel like a disillusionment — something that feels like a painful waking up to reality?”
I had a similar experience in the past few years both with regards to science and with regards to Christian orthodoxy (especially w/regards to the problem of evil and the problem of hell), and in both cases it felt a lot more like a loss to me.
I have had the insight “I am not an ideal, can’t be an ideal, and won’t be an ideal” saturating through me the last few days. I’m trying to figure it out still…like how much striving towards goals should be done..hmm.
Justin, okay, this is a nice weird synchronicity. One of the current students for the Universal Gnostic Church ministry has been searching the history of the church, and it turns out we also have a Mormon lineage through a dissident elder, William C. Conway, who — wait for it — blended his Mormon faith with Druidry, and who passed on his lineage to one of the figures in our ecclesiastical upline. I had no idea there was a Druidic-Celtic current in the Mormon tradition, and it’s intriguing to see you bringing up another connection along the same lines.
Patricia, fair enough. Let me know if it happens again.
Chuaquin, it’s far and away the most common belief about the afterlife in historical terms, and unlike most of the others it’s got some evidence backing it, so this doesn’t surprise me.
Justin, I’m less interested in the theory than I am in whether it encourages practice. We need much, much more outsider art! I recently learned that James Hampton’s “Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations’ Millennium General Assembly,” that fantastic outsider creation made from street junk, is on permanent display here in DC —
— and I’ll be making a pilgrimage sometime soon.
B., did you even read that post? It shows fairly clearly that the whole matriarchy vs. patriarchy gimmick was manufactured in Victorian times and has zero relevance to the prehistoric past. The habit of projecting some personal vision onto the blank screen of the world and claiming that it’s an objective reality, instead of accepting it as an ideal and trying to express it in contrast to actual conditions, is what causes people in the third quarter of the wheel to fall out of phase and make a mess of their lives and those of others. It’s a common mode of failure more generally — sum up everything you don’t like about the world under some arbitrary label (such as “patriarchy”), insist that all of history revolves around the abstraction you’ve created, and proclaim that it’s going to go away sometime and give you the world you think you want. Do that, and you’ve done exactly the thing that’s caused so many movements for constructive change to trip over their own feet and fail catastrophically. It would be great if someday somebody learned from all those failures and stopped doing that particular self-defeating trick, but I ain’t holding my breath.
Siliconguy, yep. Did they mention the 19th century experiments that showed that at the moment of death, bodies lose a very small amout of weight which can’t be accounted for by any material change? It’s taken researchers a lot of effort to keep ignoring all the evidence for a more traditional understanding of death.
Mark, if you’ve experienced that same sense of loss in other parts of your life, that may be a hint about your phase.
Luke, delighted to hear it. Recognizing the difference between abstract ideals and concrete reality is an important step toward maturity, and one not many people these days take.
Justin P. # 96:
An amazing fact I didn’t know, thanks. It’s interesting to see that Mormon idea isn’t really a plagiarism, because they’ve mixed different cultural influences in it, combining them in a new way. Of course, I bet usual boring and zealot wokesters have pointed this idea as “cultural appropiation”, unless it was under their radar until today…
———————————————————————————————————-
B. # 100:
I think things aren’t as easy to differentiate in such a binary way as you’ve depicted them. Yes, there’s an interesting difference between societies where there’s a tendence to the “raw power”,and cultures where there’s fondness to “soft power”. However, I’d like to point we shouldn’t idealize soft power societies (matriarcal?) nor deeply demonize the “patriarcal” ones. An example I can think about it: centralized urban societies with towns where there are a lot of anonymous people, need police to keep the order. The good side of it: everybody knows what they can do and what they mustn’t (written laws); the bad side: professional police often abuse of its power…On the other hand, tribal/rural societies don’t need a police, because everybody looks with a sharp eye to everybody. This situation has a good side (they don’t need a strong police under government laws), but it isn’t utopian neither (rural and tribal societies often are too “endogamic” and oppresive for the individuals who don’t fit into the group…). Look: My family comes from a rural society (my mother and father ancestors), and I’ve lived for a while in a village, so I know they are (or they were until not much time ago), patriarcal societies under a heavy Christian influence: socially Conservative people. However, rural people (at least in this part of Spain) historically has some tendence to distrust in government and official police, and they like to fix their problems directly between them. Oh, and there’s a soft power there, because neighbours take care/spy each other (you can see there’s a good side and a bad side of soft power). It’s funny and sad alike to see most of that soft power is used by old women (gossips), more than by men (he he). Even in a TV channel here, some years ago, there was a funny sketch about an old woman who spied her “redneck” neighbours. I mean, rural Spaniards are patriarcal and “tribal” alike, to some extent, mixed without any serious contradiction. And according conventional History, we come from Indoeuropean ancestors in this area of the country. So do the math.
Finally, I’ve read some writings about the Basque culture before Indoeuropean people waves arrived to the Iberian Peninsula, but honestly, it’s difficult to know exactly how much happy/unhappy that people was before written History began; only looking at a few archeological data. In addition to this, I suspect most studies about ancient Basque people are “polluted” (in a more or less sense) by strong nationalist biases. I guess secessionist Basque nationalists tend to idealize his ancestors times in favor of their actual political agenda, and Spanish “unionist” nationalists run fast to deny or despise the idea that old times Basque people lived in a happy Arcadia…
————————————————————————
JMG # 104:
Well, it’s a strange blend when you mix Mormon beliefs with Celtic-Druid ideas, I had no idea of this bizarre tendence. Of course, in a democratic country you can believe and worship whatever you like, and I also think when different ideas are mixed in a wise way, some interesting cultural and spiritual things can happen…
************************************
Reincarnation and Christianism:
Yes, it’s a hard fact, in a sociologic and hystory of religions sense alike, that reincarnation is a very common belief in time and space. I also want to tell you about these puzzling statistics (48% of self named as Catholics believing in it here), the Catholic priest who pointed this data seemed to tell it to his audience with some dismay, and the another people in the debate (Catholic and secular) seemed to be near doing a “facepalm”, because I saw their faces were showing surprise and an uneasy look…
***********************
Oh, I see you’ve answered B. comment. I’ve just answered him/her too, in my way. I can say I agree. I don’t use the same words as you’ve written, but yes, in a similar point of view, I think, like you, that strict binary thinking and idealization/demonization of past and present societies doesn’t help to understand the past nor the present, and it doesn’t favor to improve our future, neither. Patriarchy label has poisoned (during last times, thanks to woke ideology) the historical and political debate to not sustainable levels.
So cool about the synchronicity! It’s a really strange spiritual scene here in America, that’s for sure… I am glad you found that useful. The guy who wrote that piece has a book coming out on the topic. It also led me to this outsider artist who I am now trying to find out more about:
https://www.slugmag.com/slugmag/bob-moss-1953-2011/
He was a visual artist and banjo player. Made some really wacky music and used the Deseret alphabet in his visual art. This song is about another bonafide American weirdo and film maker Al Adamson (Psycho A-Go-Go, Fiend with the Electronic Brain, Blood of Ghastly Horror, and other psychotronic and exploitation flicks!) Moss apparently lived in a small office storage facility space and made his work on the cheap, like so many other outsiders…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xbq-5BjR-RY&list=RDXbq-5BjR-RY&start_radio=1
I agree about practice over theory. That’s what I’d like to encourage as well. But since I am writing about these people, it was another revelation…
Fantastic about you being able to go see James Hampton’s work in person. I’d like to make a pilgrimage to Edward Leedskanin’s Corral Castle sometime, among other places.
Looking forward to todays post.
Gamma wave activity at death: in the RCC it’s called Fervor Caritatis, and the “energy” released can be quite strong. A priest friend of mine was present at the poet Kenneth Rexroth’s passing, he had just anointed him with the Last Rites, Rexroth passed and short-circuited/ blew out the heart monitor to which he was attached.